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"You're going to want a different pair of shoes," said Dale, then paused and questioned himself, as he did every time he said something similar to Denise. Would he have said that if he'd always known Denise as a woman? Would he have said that if he still saw Denise as Dennis? Yes. Yes he would have. The woods were no place for a nice pair of pumps, no matter how shapely they made her legs.
"Are you leading me off into a swamp, Coop?"
"Just a patch of local scenery that'll take your breath away," he said. A man had to take his moments where he found them, and in the midst of all the complications of his sojourn in Twin Peaks, Dale made time. "There may be mud."
"You sure know how to show a girl a good time."
"Just wait," said Dale. "It'll be worth it. Just us and the trees and the pine siskin."
"The what?"
"And the owls. Always the owls."
"Just you and me and the menagerie," said Denise. Cooper was pleased to see she had a pair of sensible sneakers that she put on right over her stockings.
"If they run, they run," she said, watching him look. "I'm heading back into the city tomorrow. I'll pick up a new pair."
"I'm sure there are many fine stores in Twin Peaks that also stock hosiery," said Dale.
"Would that I could," she said, "but I've picked up a new case. Once I check in at the office and feed my fish I'm off to sunny Chicago."
"Well, that's unfortunate," said Dale. "All work and no play."
"Make Denise a dull but continually employed girl," said Denise. "You know me. What would I do if I wasn't on the job? All right. How do I look?"
She did a little turn for him, even though all she'd done was put her shoes on and her hair up.
"You look perfectly outfitted for the occasion," said Dale. "Shame no one gets to see it but me. Maybe we should exit through the dining room."
"Maybe you should start showing me the way to this spot of wonder of yours and skip the pageantry," said Denise. "Will I need my keys?"
"No, it's a short walk from here," said Dale. "You can leave your purse behind."
"A lady never leaves her purse behind," she said, with a certain extra coyness in her voice. "You never known when you're going to need your lipstick, or a tissue."
Cooper took that at face value for only a moment. "Come to think of it, I don't think I've ever seen you carry a purse."
"I'm a creature of habit," she said, lightly once again. "Pockets do me just fine, unless they ruin the line of my outfit."
"Well, there's certainly nothing ruining the line of what you're wearing right now." And she wasn't such a creature of habit that she hadn't jumped in with both feet when she discovered the way she wanted to live her life was very different from the way she had been.
Denise gave him a little smile over her shoulder before sliding on her coat, letting it drape just so.
He led them out the side exit, past the laundry and near the woodpile, to a little path he'd discovered on one of his early morning meanders. The ground was uneven, and crossed occasionally by dry pine boughs, but the wind had died down and there hadn't been any rain for a few days so the ground was mostly firm with the occasional patch of decaying leaves and needles. Denise didn't make a word of complaint, but then she'd been through a lot worse on the job, some of it even with Dale, back when she'd still been Dennis.
"Remember Maine?" he said, without preamble, following his idle thoughts where they lead.
"That back alley behind the Italian restaurant?" she said with a chuckle. "I had to throw that suit away. Not even my favorite dry cleaner could get that smell out after our little dumpster dive."
"I would have been more comfortable with my own sacrifice if it hadn't been a fruitless search," said Dale. "That was when I knew you were a man of convictions. Leave no stone unturned."
"Just someone trying to do their job to the best of their ability," said Denise. "I've wised up since then. Always call in local rookie law enforcement to do the heavy lifting."
"Everyone's got to pay their dues somewhere," agreed Dale. "Watch your step there, Denise, the root looks just about ready to rise up and take someone by the ankle."
"I knew this hike seemed more like a scene out of a horror movie than a romantic comedy," she said. Dale would have classed it as neither of those things, but then the impulse to come out here with her had taken him suddenly and without explaining itself. "I'm as ready for a hike in the woods as the next girl, but I believe you said this was a short walk?"
"That I did," said Dale, "and what we're looking for is just over this hill."
The path opened up there into a clearing, small but with a fallen pine as a nice perch, and above it a window right up to the stars. They were out in abundance tonight, as if the heavens were trying to make up for in beauty what Windom Earle was bringing to the town in ugliness.
"I thought you were overselling," she said, "but this is a sight to see."
"I have no doubt I'm not the first to discover it," said Dale. The patch of cigarette butts alone was testament to that. "But I've always found a comfortable solitude here. A place I can gather my thoughts."
"And just what thoughts are you gathering now?"
"Nothing fit for discussion in polite company," he said, "and I'd hate to spoil a beautiful night."
"Since when have I ever been polite company?" said Denise. "I've seen the same darkness you have, Dale. I've confronted the same monsters. Our line of work has never been a comfortable one."
"I truly hope you have not seen the same darkness," said Dale. "There is real evil in the world, Denise."
"Yes," she said. Simple. Understanding. "There is." Cooper was still standing there, head tilted up to the stars, but out of the corner of his eye he watched Denise sit down on the log, knees together and pressing her hands over her skirt to smooth it over her legs. "Come. Join me."
She patted the log next to her, where a well worn spot awaited him. Cooper could see no reason to refuse.
"I'm sure things will shake out all right for you," she said. "I've done everything I can. It's in the FBI's hands now."
"I will accept their judgment of my actions, whatever it might be," said Dale. "I knowingly exceeded the boundaries of my position, and I would do it again." But not the criminal actions he had been accused of; now that those were cleared, Dale would content himself with whatever decision was made. "I may find myself making a more permanent home here."
"The Bureau would be crazy to let you go," she said, "but if it comes to it, I can always put in a good word for you at the DEA. My reputation might've taken a bit of a blow this past year, but my recommendation still carries weight."
"I'll keep that in mind," he said, but the deputy's badge was resting pretty comfortably on him at the moment, and the change might do him good. "You haven't talked much about how all this has gone down in the workplace." He gestured up and down her body, at the this he was referring to, in case it wasn't clear.
"Well, I've changed partners a few more times than necessary," she said, "but as long as the work remains exemplary, there's been no official consequences. If you ask me, my work's improved."
"Well, there's nothing like getting in touch with one's self to make everything else fall into place," said Dale. "Though I must admit, I've never taken it to quite these extremes."
"We don't choose the self we find inside," said Denise, which seemed to Dale to be a very healthy perspective on it all.
"You are quite extraordinary," he said, and rested his hand on Denise's shoulder and looked at her, with the moon shining down on her face. He didn't move any closer than that, but she didn't move away either.
"Well, this is...complicated," said Denise.
"Is it?"
"Unless I'm misreading you, which I don't think I am."
"You seldom do," said Dale, "and my intentions here, while not entirely clear even to myself, are also not entirely opaque."
"Not everything about me has changed, Coop. The clothes don't make the man."
"Man?"
Denise shrugged. "It's complicated," she said.
The clothes might not have made the man, but Dennis identified as Denise now, at work and at play, and Dale didn't think that was entirely a cosmetic decision.
"You don't need to put a name to it just for me," said Dale, lifting his hand to trace her jawline when it seemed to be welcome.
"No," she said, "but I'm not sure you finding me attractive in a dress is enough to go on here, Coop. For either of us."
"You also look fine in a suit," said Dale, "but I didn't bring you out here to make you uncomfortable."
"Just to show me the stars?"
"Just to get away from it all, for a little while. For all its many dark sides, Twin Peaks is a magnificent place to enjoy the great outdoors and forget the troubles of the rest of the world, including your own."
"I don't have any troubles," said Denise, shaking her head. Dale let his hand drop back into his lap again, but he didn't stop looking at her and she didn't stop looking at him. "I've never dated a man, Coop."
He had suspected as much, and rolled with it. "Out of lack of interest, or lack of opportunity?"
"A little of this, a little of that," she said, tilting her head to one side, then the other, her hair swaying as she did. "I've tried to be a lot more open to the possibilities lately."
And because she was still sitting close and he was still sitting close and there hadn't been any stop signals, and because he was certain she would do so if she didn't want anything, especially since she could probably toss him right over the log without breaking a sweat, that was when Dale leaned in and kissed her. It was dry and warm and softer than he was expecting, and Denise let out a pleased hum against his mouth before he pulled away.
For just a moment, before she blinked them open again, he saw that her eyes had been closed.
"In the interest of full disclosure, I've never dated a man either."
"Coop," she said, and she finally looked away, down at her hands and her long fingers twining with one another. "I leave in the morning. I have no idea when I'll be back this way again."
"Our paths seldom cross," he acknowledged. And though seldom was not never, they were both the sort of people who needed more than that. "Still, I'd like to take you out for dinner next time they do."
And just like that, the uneasy tension went out of her shoulders and she looked up at him and smiled. "You took the words right out of my mouth," she said. "And I was serious about hooking you up with the DEA. You'd make a great addition to the team, Coop."
"I'll just have to see how things shake out here first," he said. And finish the case currently hanging over his head, the one he hadn't found here but had followed him for too long now. "In the meantime, enjoy the stars."
"I think I will," said Denise, and leaned back on her hands and looked up at the sky.
Dale was still looking at her, following the line of her throat through the arc under her chin and over her Adam's apple and plunging down into her blouse where there was no doubt a complicated architecture of undergarments.
The stars weren't the only beautiful thing out here tonight, he thought. And maybe, eventually, they would find sometimes to be enough.