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*
Late March in the Pacific Northwest is generally warm and rainy - except this morning, a cool, clean light brightens the land. An almost delicate light, like those first tentative days of spring, when one never knows if a storm will blow in again.
Harry watches beadlets of last night's rain inch their way up the windshield. He stepped into the bright but damp morning about an hour ago, the heavy scent of rain still on the air and thin water streams running down his sleeve as he clunked open the door handle of his ‘87 Bronco, rain droplets still clinging to the chrome.
“Couldn't ask for a better day.” Cooper stood opposite at the hood of the pickup, gazing off towards the forest as he often does - as though seeing beyond the trees. He turned to Harry suddenly, with a spreading grin. “A fine day to get us some trout.”
“Steelies won't know what hit ‘em,” Harry rejoined, ducking into the driver's seat.
So now Harry drives, wheels spitting gravel on the forest service road. They pass through the dark overhang of conifers, heavy with water droplets that catch the light like so many gems. Cooper's silent for the moment, taking a draught from a massive thermos heavy enough to kill someone, then watching dreamlike through the window as the world passes by.
Harry's grateful for the quiet truthfully, what with the all too consuming noise trapped within his mind. They've said everything they needed to say about the previous few days in any case.
In all honesty, it had been hard getting out of bed for a day of fishing. But to see someone - a friend - off without sharing the wonders of steelhead season would be gravely wrong. Cooper's job here is done, Harry muses again with a strange sense of heaviness. Despite his impending return to Philly he looks more than ever like he's been cut from the fabric of Twin Peaks, all in flannel and worn pants and wading boots.
As Harry thinks of that past Tuesday in the office, wrapping up paperwork - names and faces and lives abstracted into a mere stack of files - when Cooper had approached him and asked “How bout that fishing trip?” he knows it was less about Cooper's itch for a round of fly fishing. There'd been that knowing look in his eye as he'd studied the weariness Harry couldn't quite hide.
A sudden movement catches Harry's eye, and he brakes slightly hard to let the gray doe amble past, tail flicking nervously. A second follows moments behind.
Cooper gives a subtle shake of his head, in understated awe of the wonders of nature. “Just beautiful,” he remarks simply, and takes another sip of coffee.
Harry's seen white-tailed deer all his life; they seem as common as mosquitoes here. He finds himself envying that genuine sense of wonder.
*
Crystal Creek is a little known tributary of the Snoqualmie, a mostly secret treasure trove passed down from Harry's grandfather, who told him shhh! - never tell anyone! And Harry's honored that promise through all the years.
Till now. But somehow, he doesn't feel like he's breaking a promise by letting Coop in on the secret. He supposes the agent won't be returning often anyway.
The early spring waters are ice cold and rapid with snow melt. They park along the graveled side of the road, hopping out to grab their gear and get into their waders, somewhat awkwardly ambling to the shore in heavy rubber and neoprene.
Cooper pauses at the shore, seeming to regard the glimmering waters with a reverence that Harry feels every time he sets foot upon the riverbank. Facing north, he can see the great mountain peaks he's come to know as well as the back of his hand, old friends to him though they stand utterly indifferent to the beings that have greeted them for eons.
He feels Cooper's eyes upon him, and turns.
Cooper's hazel eyes are glimmering in the soft sunlight. “So, ya ready to introduce me?”
They set up their poles, Harry giving quick instruction on attaching the tippet with a blood knot, and wade into the cold stream.
For a long while, it's quiet as the two of them separate to find a preferred spot (Harry recommending an area for Cooper that's been particularly successful in past years), and they set to casting. Cooper says nothing, either intent on casting or on the breathtaking beauty of the mountains and crystal clear water before him, but Harry can't help but watch from the corner of his eye. After some initial, somewhat stiff casts bourne of careful technique, Cooper loosens up a bit, but becomes sloppier.
“Hey, Coop.” Harry sloshes towards him, unsure if he can actually hear over the rapids. He touches Cooper lightly on the bicep, checkered flannel soft beneath his fingers. “Mind if I give you a hand?”
Cooper turns to him with a slow, wide smile that sends the faintest flutter through Harry’s stomach, and he’s stilled for just a moment, not knowing why.
“Sure thing.”
“Right.” Harry attempts a lopsided grin, then recovers. “So you wanna remember – and I’m sure you’ve heard this before – ten o’clock, two o’ clock. Like this.” He swishes his own pole in demonstration, eyes on a bright pool a few yards ahead.
“And the line…give it just this much slack, and don’t pull back on it too much – let your arm move naturally….”
He’s speaking almost as though to himself, eyes focused, then he lets the line fly and land delicately upon the water’s surface, where it slowly drifts.
“Right-o, Harry.” Cooper tries again, slowly, but Harry recognizes the nearly imperceptible stiffness within his arm. The tippet doesn’t fly far enough, and drops into a messy coil.
Harry can feel his heart starting to thud more rapidly as he watches Coop attempt another cast.
“Here.” He finally breaks and moves closer. He hesitates and doesn’t know why - just helping him get the feel for it, after all – but then asks: “You mind if I – guide you?”
“Not at all,” Cooper replies brightly, and, trying to ignore the strange way his heart thuds even harder, Harry approaches behind him and gently grasps his forearm.
“Like this – just relax your arm.” Harry guides his movement, up and back – ten o’ clock, two o’ clock, ten o’clock, two o’clock… just as he was taught all those years ago, the movement that’s become as natural as breathing. “Relax…just let it flow. Don’t throw the line too much, let it flow with your arm movement…”
He feels Cooper slowly relax under him, and with Harry’s hand still on his forearm, guiding him, he casts – and the line flows in a beautiful arc, glinting in the sun, stretching full length and landing delicate as a damselfly.
“You got it.” Harry’s voice is oddly breathy, and in the moment he comes back to reality a sudden heat floods him. Face burning, he backs away, turning so Cooper can’t see the flush surely reddening his cheeks.
“I tell ya what, I think I’m getting it.” Harry turns back cautiously, completing missing the next apparently good cast. Cooper turns around and flashes him that smile again. “Thank you, Harry.”
“Yeah – anytime.” Harry tries not to let his eyes linger too long. “How ‘bout we catch some steelies, eh?”
His heart still races, but as they settle into their respective places and cast into the stream, he slowly relaxes. He forces himself to empty his mind, let the flow of the water and soft, understated winter birdsong fill his ears, and the darkness within his mind finally begins to ease.
Somewhat.
Looking towards the mountains, into the dark surrounding trees – he can’t fight the heavy ache that fills his chest, the sense that the old, comforting forest he thought he knew could harbor such heinous evil.
He’s not sure what he believes anymore.
Sneaking a glance at Cooper, however, clearly transported with delight and reverence though Harry can’t see his face – he can still see a glimmer within the darkness, simultaneously delicate and powerful as the sunlight broken upon the rushing waters.
*
They return to shore a little after noon, empty handed. As the old folks from Harry’s childhood always used to joke, “Ya don’t go fly fishing if you wanna catch anything!”
They sit upon a wide log on shore, silently eating lunch, Cooper seeming perfectly in his element, as ever - and Harry wishing he could absorb some of his friend’s zen.
But no matter how hard he’s tried, he can’t force away Leland’s face, blood running in a thin stream from his forehead as he recounts his unspeakable crimes in agony, Cooper ushering him into the light…into the light, Leland…
Harry listens to the rush of water before them, but can only hear the hiss of overhead sprinklers in his ears.
He watches the forest, ill at ease, wondering if the moving shadows are a trick of his imagination.
“Something on your mind, Harry?”
He can feel Cooper’s eyes on him and winces internally – the FBI agent’s ability to read his mood simultaneously unnerving and comforting.
Harry suppresses a bitter laugh – where to start? How to contend with witnessing the wreckage of a man he thought he knew, with the town he thought he knew - his stomach twisting at the memory of Laura’s cold blue death mask, her body washed up on the shore of Black Lake. The agony of what she’d endured for years – the agony of what Maddy endured just nights ago – and he never saw it, no one in their entire broken town ever allowed themselves to see the truth –
“How?” The question slips out before he can stop himself. He feels his hands shaking, tries to force them steady. He turns to look at Cooper. “How do you – keep seeing the best in everything?”
Harry’s not naïve, he’s had to sink into the dark underbelly of the town long before Cooper set foot here, but this – Twin Peaks is more rotten to its core than he truly realized, everyone willfully blind, including himself…
He knows he'll never forgive himself.
Cooper’s looking at him with a gentleness in his expression that’s almost more than Harry can stand, that he in no way deserves.
“I’d go mad if I didn’t,” he says simply.
It’s not particularly comforting – though as Harry catches his eye, he notices a darkness he’s never seen before, and finds himself fearful speculating what Cooper’s endured in his past.
“Even after – everything,” Harry finds himself saying, self-disgust lacing his voice. “you still love this town?”
Coop smiles gently, a glimmer in his eye. “Look where we are, Harry.” His eyes rove the stream, the deep conifer woods. All Harry can think about is whether BOB is still out there somewhere, creeping within the shadows.
“There’s darkness everywhere,” Cooper remarks distantly, as though to himself. “We must stare it in the face, absolutely. But never let it consume us.”
“But – “ Harry grits his teeth, frustrated. “We were blind to it. For far too long.
“We failed her, Coop. For years. And we failed Maddy, too.”
For once, Cooper doesn’t seem to know what to say. Or realizes that anything he could say will ring hollow.
And Harry knows, below the surface, he’s tearing himself apart too.
Presently, he feels a warm hand on his shoulder, turns to see Cooper shift closer, and neither say anything. Harry’s eyes burn.
His heart starts to race again. Dammit if he breaks down right now…
He feels warm arms encircling him, pulling him close before he can think, before he can resist – and conversely, feels himself unwinding, pressing against the wall of flannel and neoprene…Cooper’s clean scent nearly intoxicating, seeming to soothe him like nothing has for weeks. Years, perhaps, if he’s being honest with himself…
He feels like he’s burning again. His throat aches, but he doesn’t break down.
But his eyes are shining as he pulls back, and Cooper’s looking at him like that day he gifted him the green butt skunk, his most treasured lure, and he’s still not entirely sure why it felt a little uncomfortably personal yet so right but…
There’s one light he can focus on, and it’s within Cooper’s darkening eyes.
He doesn’t know what he’s doing. He doesn’t know why he’s doing it, why he’s leaning in closer, why he’s sliding fingers into Cooper’s sleek hair and gently tilting his head upwards ever so slightly...
…why he’s kissing him…
It’s quick, chaste…but he feels Cooper's lips meet his, and when they separate he feels both utterly confused but like this makes more sense than anything has in a long time.
He doesn’t know why he did it. Some desperation for connection when his whole world feels shattered? Something he’s long sought from Josie that she’s no longer been able to give him, mired within her own darkness? Some cosmic forces bringing them together in ways that can never be understood, but he’s seen so much in the past weeks, it’s easy to believe anything?
He doesn’t know.
And, strangely, finds he doesn’t care.
He’s almost afraid to meet Cooper’s eyes – but when he does, he sees them dazzling – and it suddenly becomes more apparent why the man is so reluctant to leave.
Harry feels a fluttering within his stomach again.
“I um –“ He’s not sure what to say.
Cooper pats his shoulder softly, hand trailing lightly to his upper arm. He’s got that wide smile again. “There’s a lot to love about this town.”
Then he stands, leaving Harry at a loss for words.
“Well, better get going again while the sun’s still up. Whaddya say to another couple hours, then early dinner at the Double R?”
“Yeah – sounds great,” Harry replies distractedly, still in a haze. But his heart feels lighter than it has in a long time.
He’s sure it’ll be a long road ahead, that he’ll have plenty of sleepless nights lying restless, wondering. Regretting.
But for a moment, he feels a little less lonely.
Like something new and beautiful lies on the horizon, even.
Wordlessly, they enter the stream again, content in each other’s presence as the sun deepens to gold around them, then the last vestiges of light begin to fade from the sky. Then together they ride, truck wheels crunching on a gravel road, into the arms of their northern town.
*