route_1065 | Leave my door open just a crack, 'cause I feel like such an insomniac

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Current Location: Ecruteak City Inn

Entry tags:

Leave my door open just a crack, 'cause I feel like such an insomniac

Who: Dale Cooper and Heather Mason
Where: the Ecruteak City Inn
When: Wednesday night, 2:33 AM
Summary: Losing beloved friends and gaining unwanted reminders of the past in payment... none of that makes for a peaceful night's sleep, not even in peaceful little Ecruteak City. Some people think that the best cure for a churning, restless mind on bad-dream-filled nights is to indulge the sweet tooth a bit. Which is why Heather is slipping down to the (closed) inn kitchen in search of some ice cream, when she encounters the only thing worse than being forced to remedy a lack of ice cream by 'borrowing' some: getting busted by a cop for doing just that.
.... Except that it turns out he's down there for the exact same reason she is!

...

... She won't tell if he won't.
Rating: G
Log:
For anyone who's grown accustomed to spending time in the cities where the population's collective bedtime seems not to roll entirely around until at least three in the morning, it's surprisingly jarring to suddenly find oneself in a town where it's the exact opposite.

The town of Ecruteak sat in the middle of a blanket of forest sort of like an elderly cat-- sleepy and quiet, save for the quiet purr of the wind through the trees and shingled rooftops. Far from the busybodies of places like Goldenrod, the population of Ecruteak was old and happy, and therefore on principal, virtually all activity in the city seemed to die out entirely by the time the clocks hit 1:00 AM.

Peaceful was a good word to describe the place. No far-off music (apart from the everlasting 8-bit soundtrack, of course), no voices filtering in through the windows as groups of nightlife-enjoyers walked past down the street, no clunky footsteps of people going up and down the stairs of the inns at all hours of the night. Nothing to keep your average weary traveler from their beauty sleep, not even on a warm night like this one.

... Unfortunately, for one Heather Mason, the it was that very silence itself that was keeping her awake.

And-- after a whole hour of tossing and turning after startling awake in a cold sweat around one-thirty, she knew that even if sleep were eventually to come, it wouldn't be a sleep she wanted to slip into, nor would it mute all the noise in her own head.

Which was why, a quietly-shut door and a few creaky wooden steps later, she was standing in the dark Employees-Only kitchen of the Ecruteak City inn in a tank-top and boxer shorts, scratching the back of her ankle absentmindedly with one bare foot as she tried to work out which stainless-steel fridge door was the one that led to the freezer component, and whether or not it would make much noise if she just... opened it and took a look at what was inside.

If there had been room service available at all hours like there had been in the big Goldenrod Hotel, she'd have done the nice, legal thing and ordered something like a responsible human being. But THIS place practically shut down at midnight (what the hell?!), so she couldn't. Really, there was just no alternative.

Besides, they wouldn't miss a little bit of ice cream, right?

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"Go on," he says, voice quiet, tone kind. He's listening.

It's probably not surprising that these past few months, he's started to genuinely care about her. He didn't really, at first - had just written her off as any other teenager. And even though Cooper's not sure when he started getting curious about her past (that was probably due to a number of little things), it's not exactly difficult to understand why learning about it has him feeling all kinds of sympathy for her.

And not only that - on some level he's a little frustrated that he can't help, somehow. Because that's what he does, has always done: try to set things right. Try to help. Do the Right Thing.

But there's nothing he can do about anything in Johto and it's left him without the feeling of purpose that accompanied his job. He stopped introducing himself with his title many months ago, but somehow it still feels ... almost empty, not having that anymore.

But he can still listen. He's always been good at that. He uncrosses his legs and shifts a little, hands gripping the edges of the table almost as if bracing himself for what Heather might tell him.

Someone worse, huh?

In the almost-a-year since she had spoken to Cooper for the very first time, it's fair to say that not once has Heather ever been completely open with him. And to be even more fair, she probably still won't be completely open with him, on account of the fact that the number of people she's completely open with usually hovers around a steady '0'. But... it's equally fair to say that, after the way she'd spent months dodging each and every question aimed her way like they were punches (as opposed to the polite taps on the shoulder they had been), and the wary reluctance of even her willing confessions about the cult later on, this is the most open she's ever been around the FBI agent.

Patience and a kind tone really do work wonders, given time.

She still doesn't look at him, but the way she sighs makes it obvious that an answer is coming.

"... The woman who killed my father. She's here in Johto."

... The words sound like they're angry. Should be angry. And there is anger-- a little shudder originating deep down in her chest. But it's not there as much as it should be.

No, Heather sounds... tired. And a little confused.

And lost.

Oh, man.

His mind comes to a complete stop for a moment. He'd figured it might have been an Order member, but that it would be that particular one ... that's more than you could ask anyone to handle.

There are a lot of ways he could answer that. That must be hard for you - how are you feeling - does your father know ...

"Claudia?" is what wins though, after another little pause, and he's still quiet.

At first she looks up at him, and her expression makes it obvious that she hadn't been expecting him to put two and two together that quickly.

But then her face darkens again and she looks away, tightening her arms around herself.

"You talked to her. Did she tell you?"

"No."

She hadn't really told him anything.

"She talked about God and this being paradise."

"... Pfheh. Yeah."

The sour note in Heather's voice indicates what she thinks of THAT.

She's at least relieved that Claudia hadn't like... told Cooper that Heather was the one responsible for them all being here or something. That's actually something she's been a little worried about happening.

"Well, she did it. She killed my dad."

Not with her own bare hands... but she'd been just as responsible for it as if she'd raised the blade herself, as far as Heather was concerned... besides, she had proven herself capable of killing in the end, anyway...

"And now she's here and everything's so complicated and I just don't know what to do."

Those last words all came out in a rush, and her frustration is completely transparent. ... But man, 'complicated'? Wouldn't your father's MURDERER showing up be the most awful but LEAST complicated thing ever?

It would be ... unless she knew the murderer before the murder took place.

That's what he thinks, anyway, as he picks up on that particular word. It's what he'd felt after Windom murdered Caroline, even if he hadn't quite put it into words at the time. Windom had been his best friend and partner - and he'd very nearly killed him alongside his wife. I took the boy right to the edge that time.

Cooper still has some unresolved feelings towards that. And while he definitely doesn't linger on that thought right now, it crosses his mind as he looks at her.

(It bothers him that he can so easily draw that kind of parallell between them.)

He sighs. And isn't sure whether he should ask or not, but in the end decides to - treading as lightly as he can.

"Did you know her before?"

This time, Heather doesn't look up in surprise at his correct conclusion. He's proven himself to be quite a sharp individual and let's face it, Heather wears her heart on her sleeve when she's really upset. She does, however, cringe slightly. It's not quite a wince... more just an uncomfortable shift in position and her brows crease upwards, the frustration mingling with plain old upset.

When she eventually speaks, it's with a small, slightly-cracked voice that sounds as guilty as it does angry.

Angry because no matter how much time had passed, the bloodthirsty, white-hot rage for her father's murderer that had filled Heather from head to toe like molten lava had never been sated.

Guilty because no matter how angry she was, deep down she knew that Claudia couldn't help what she had grown up into any more than Heather could help having her own roots in that town, and even worse, because she'd gotten her second chance and left her little sister behind.

And small because apart from her own father... this is the first time she's told anyone that Claudia was more than just the killer.

"... She was my best friend."

... Which might sound a little odd, since Claudia is so much older than the tousled girl sitting there and very much looking her young age right now.

Edited 2011-10-04 05:57 (UTC)

That's not the first thing he picks up on, though, in her statement. He takes it at face value, nods and looks away, and for just a second is seemingly lost in thought.

That ... is quite the betrayal. And he knows that kind of hurt as well. Touching a hand to his face when he looks back at her, he hesitates - because again, there are a lot of things he could say, and he's not sure if either one of them is right.

And that's when he does note that there would have been quite an age difference. Not that that observation does anything but add to his uncertainty in how to handle the information he's been given.

He winds up not saying anything - not really. A simple "Yeah?" wins out in the end and it's more a breath than a word, but he IS giving her his full attention.

Unfortunately, around here is where Heather's ability to vocalize her issues just sort of... fails. Storming, raging emotions aren't exactly uncommon for people Heather's age, but ones like this...

She wasn't lying at all when she said it was complicated.

Even she doesn't know how to word all that pent-up feeling inside her.

"... I just don't know what to do. She ruined my life. I ... I want to kill her. I just wanna feel her NECK snap in my hands. But at the same time, I... I just... I remember, and she remembers, and I don't-- ... I can't change the way things ARE and I'm just--!"

Her voice had risen a little but, in a rare display of self-consciousness over her own anger, she quiets down towards the end and lapses back into silence, raising a hand to her face.

And that's where Cooper will hop down from the table. The floor is still chilly and the renewed contact with it makes him shiver a little but it's easy to ignore for the few steps it takes to walk over to her.

He remains standing for a small moment, then crouches down across from her. He balances surprisingly well on the balls of his feet. There's a polite distance between them, but should he want to, he's close enough to reach out to her - right now though, that's not what he's doing.

He recalls others he's tried to comfort lately -- Harry (not her father, of course, but the Sheriff), France. Appejack. He doesn't think he's ever been particularly good at it - though sincere, he tends to be blunt. Sometimes bordering on inconsiderate, even if that's far from what he aims for.

He'll just take a chance.

"Helpless?"

She doesn't mind the bluntness. In all honesty, most of the time, she actually appreciates that sort of thing. Especially after her father's death... she'd gotten so sick of the adults in her life, whether it was at school or the counseling Douglas had nudged her into signing up for, tip-toeing around her like she was a bomb about to go off, spouting out saccharinely-sweet comforts and naiively-optimistic bits of self-help advice that could have come out of a vending machine of Standard Comforting Responses for a quarter as far as Heather was concerned.

Blunt was honest.

Heather likes it when people respect her enough to be honest with her.

Because she's had it up to HERE with getting verbally patted on the head by well-meaning but clueless people.

So when Cooper sums it all up in one word, at first she cringes, because god dammit... she hates that word. She hates how true it is. But, because she's an honest person at heart under all the artful dodging, she nods.

"Yeah."

"What is it that you remember?"

No, that didn't slip past him. Few things do.

He's not a fan of psychiatrists, either. He stays away from them these days but if there's one thing the ones he saw back then all agreed on, it's to talk and keep talking. He thinks there's merit to that.

There's some curiosity at work as well, sure. It's old and deeply ingrained, his curiosity and will - almost need, really - to get to the bottom of things. But right now the whole thing is less to do with what he wants to know and more about trying to help and understand the teenager that's so obviously been through a lot.

A few months ago, she'd have evaded her way around that question. But he's really got her talking now, and to be honest, she's a little sick of keeping it all bottled up. Not that she's gonna go spilling her guts or anything, but... he already knew that Claudia had once been her friend. The rest of it wasn't really much of a secret with that out in the open.

Looking away from him again (although she doesn't mind the fact that he's in a closer proximity now), she lifts a hand to rub at her nose a little bit, distractedly.

"... Just... how things were. Back when we were kids. ... I looked out for her, taught her how to do things..."

Claudia had been Alessa's little white-haired shadow, back then. Scared of everything and sensitive to the point of ridiculousness sometimes, but so sweet. As the memory hits her, a bittersweet smile actually tugs across Heather's face and she swipes her hand over her nose again, sniffing.

"I used to let her win at Go Fish 'cause she'd cry when she lost... n'we'd color pictures together. I used to draw funny faces with buck teeth and googly eyes 'cause they made her laugh. We didn't get to do a whole lotta laughing."

Then the smile disappears as she shakes her head, looking straight down at her knees and hunching her shoulders.

"N'look what we are now."

But she's ... so much older than her.

It doesn't take long before his mind flashes back to her explanation of how she'd died though. Like a phoenix - and phoenixes are reborn. He thinks about that, how it would make sense, despite how incredible it sounds, when he looks at her and silently changes position, once again sitting cross-legged, but this time against the counter behind him.

He's not going to ask about that. Not yet. And he's not going to ask about Cheryl yet, either: what's making its way to the forefront of his mind is perhaps more simple.

"Why did she kill him?"

If they were so close, that's the one thing that's not clear to him. (Unless she's been missing for a few days and came back wrong. But he hopes that isn't it.)

Bulls-eye, Coop.

Everything is complicated when past lives are involved... although in Heather's case, each of her lives have been so pitifully short (Alessa was fourteen when she'd handed her reborn self to Harry and then perished alone in Nowhere, for chrissakes) that now, with Alessa's memories added to her own, remembering that childhood hardly even felt like a different life. Which was part of what made this so hard...

The question makes Heather let out a gusty sigh.

She wishes she was wearing pants. Fiddling with all the tangles of thread sprouting from the busted knees is something she frequently does when she has to talk about these things, and bare skin just ain't the same.

".... I was supposed to do something. For the cult. Something ... that was terrible, but we were told it'd be good for us... for the whole world." Even if Dahlia had been under no such illusions... she'd had no qualms about filling the cult's childrens' heads with lies. Lies that had gone on to set the tone for the second generation ... less dog-eat-dog (at least on the surface, Heather was positive that it hadn't TRULY died), and more genuinely-fanatical.

She shakes her head a little bit, still looking down.

"Dad... took me away from them. Stopped them from... Christ, Claudia couldn'tve been more than thirteen when he rescued me..."

When Alessa had died, and seized her second chance at life as Heather.

Claudia hadn't gotten a second chance.

Heather's fist clenches around this point, making the scars on her knuckles stand out vividly.

"She and the rest of them grew up being told that Harry Mason was the monster who stole their salvation. Like if somebody had shown up and plucked Jesus off the cross and run off with him before he could save everybody. ... They didn't-- ... she-- ... I wasn't there to keep her safe anymore..."

He listens with a sort of ... increasing alarm.

"She fell victim to the brainwashing?"

It's the most reasonable conclusion. And the G-man in him probably shows up in the tone, but moreso his distaste for the whole thing, when he bites the words off.

He was around to see the news on Jonestown. On Charles Manson. And though not many, he's seen his share of brainwashings personally. To say he doesn't like it is to put it mildly.

But still, that edge doesn't completely betray the mildness he normally reserves for close friends, victims or people close to a victim.

Heather fits two out of three.

Oh, it just gets worse from here, Coop. It just gets worse.

The full story probably won't (probably can't) come out tonight, though. It's hard enough to talk about bits and pieces of the patchwork quilt of WTF that makes up Heather's past, much less confess more than a little in one sitting.

Hell, just remembering those childhood days, even if it was the few happy memories from that time that she had...

Happy or no, they'd been stained with blood by what had happened on that night two years ago.

She tries to laugh bitterly, but it comes out sounding more like a noise of disgust.

"Hook, line, and sinker."

He combs his hair back with a his fingers, not really used to having it fall forward like that ... but at the moment, it's more an expression of resignation, perhaps even indecisiveness, rather than a compulsion.

It had been easy (well, in a manner of speaking), had he been back on his own turf. Call Cole. Investigate. Make arrests. Pursue the happy ending.

Johto ... Johto complicates things. And he can't even imagine how much it must complicate things for her.

For the past minutes every word out of his mouth had resulted in a question, but he doesn't think he needs to ask anymore. Not right now, in any case. Or at least, not about that.

"My father told me once that the only way love ever affects death is in making it more painful." It's a fact that's more or less obvious, sure, but he quotes it word-for-word as he sends her a quick not-really smile. And he puts a hand on her shoulder, too. Not a squeeze or a pat, just a little weight. Something like emphasis, really.

Because: "Guess that rings extra true for you."

Although she doesn't look up at the weight of his hand on her shoulder, the fact that she doesn't shrug it off immediately shows that she appreciates it. Sometimes with Heather, it was all about what she DIDN'T say rather than what she did.

She continues to stare down at her knees as he speaks, sort of nodding a little. It's more to show that she's listening than it is in agreement, though, because when he finishes, she lets out a sort of teary laugh (her eyes are dry, but the tone is unmistakeable) and reaches up to brush some of her hair behind one ear.

"Sometimes... sometimes love's what causes it."

Well, that's a cryptic statement...

... and he can agree with it fully. It's really not all that cryptic. It's just another fact of life.

"Yes. It is."

Spoken softly, almost tenderly, really, there's not much else he wants to add, and while his gaze drifts for a moment it returns to her shortly. With awareness. Again. Like she might tell her something more.

His hand returned and lies now with the other folded in his lap, his posture a little subdued.

She does look back up at him when his hand withdraws... because there is something she should add.

It's true, that IS a fact of life... although in Heather's case, it's a little more literal...

"... Revenge was... only one of the reasons she killed him."

She inhales deeply for a moment-- there's a shudder in her breath as she does so, and she squeezes her arms around her knees a little more tightly.

"... The other was... what she was doing, the thing she was... trying to complete... part of it needed me to be in... to be in as much pain as possible. For my heart to be filled with hatred."

... And here, at long last, her face starts to crumple a little bit.

"... He died because she knew it would hurt me."

"You can't fault yourself for loving your father."

What else can he say? It's earnest, and that's all he can give her.

"I know... I know, and I don't. Honest. I'm not the kind of person who... y'know, blames themselves for all kinds of stupid shit like that."

And she doesn't. As much as she's got the usual package of survivor's guilt and 'If I only ...', she knows it's not her fault.

"... But it still happened 'cause Dad saved me. Took me in. I just..."

And then she sighs deeply and brings a hand to her head, not sure where she's even going with this anymore.

"Whatever, it's... it's past, right? And I'm HERE and Dad's here, and Claudia's not gonna hurt us... I know she's not gonna hurt us because here, she has no reason to, even if she still hates him... she wouldn't. I know she wouldn't. ... So why do I still feel so fucked-up?"

"I don't know. The past has a funny way of sticking with us."

She knows what he means, he's sure. And he can vouch for what he's saying as well. Shifting a little, he continues,

"You've been through a lot, Heather. You'll probably feel that way for a while."

Initially, it might not even be up to her. What is up to her, though, is how she decides to deal with it, and he thinks she can do that just fine.

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