Work Text:
There is a door; it will not open.
There is a door; it is a vibrant bloody red, alluring like a fatal car wreck. It is not a morbid curiosity as much as a burning need to know.
Sometimes, Caroline looks away. Even when she doesn’t remember wrenching and wedging her fingers in the seams until her arms ache and her fingers bleed. She does not think she is that sort of person, but isn’t everyone? At least sometimes?
There is a door. It is red. It will not open. It is always there. Even when Caroline does not remember.
What Caroline remembers of her first summer in Philadelphia is the heat. Endless and sticky, rising from the pavement. She misses the glow of light through trees, the cool of shady damp earth. Soon she will buy herself a car, but now, she must make do with the park.
She watches the retirees at the chess tables until her attention catches on a besuited man. There is something shiny and red inside him. She moves towards him without choosing to do so, like a dream.
“Do you play?” he asks.
“No,” she says, “but I’m good at games. I’ll learn.”
Windom Earle does not teach her chess. He beats her over and over, relentless and merciless until all of her free time is consumed with strategy books.
Windom Earle says that life’s patterns are played out on the chess board. Caroline laughs at him, but she sees the pattern and makes the move. The defense’s argument crumples. Another abusive man behind bars puts Caroline one step closer to partner.
Her eyes are bright and her cheeks flush pink. Her parents are thrilled for her. A career and a man. She paints her nails a vibrant red to mask the blood.
It is a crisp autumn day when they marry in a church with a red door. Caroline stumbles when it opens at a gentle touch. Windom catches her. There is something dark yawning behind his eyes but she does not look away.
When they make love for the first time as husband and wife, she feels like she could reach out and open something deep within him and she could know. But to do so would leave her exposed.
For every trick she learns, Windom has another up his sleeve. They are evenly matched, but he had a head start.
Dale Cooper, for all his precision and well worn habits, defies patterns. She is drawn to his mystery before they even meet. When they finally do, in a carefully orchestrated faux coincidence, she can feel Windom’s eyes on the back of her neck: watching her watch Dale watch her.
When the couple invite Dale to a quiet dinner party, Caroline watches him lose a game of chess so decisively it almost looks like ritual humiliation. Dale is reactive, doesn’t see the patterns. But she watches his eyes catch on a splinter in her nail bed. She barely feels them anymore.
In Pittsburgh, Caroline loses the game, the one she was never certain they were playing. But here, with Dale’s shiny red blood on her fingers where she couldn’t help but reach out and touch, she knows Windom can see the door.
There is a door. It is red. This time, she can open it but Windom, still, cannot. Maybe she’s won.
On the other side is a parquet floor. The black and white reminds Caroline of a chess board though the shape is wrong. Different patterns, but she is good at games. She will learn to play this one too.