Topic: Road Trip

Magenta · Date: 2012-01-25 17:29 EST

The great car hugged the twisting dirt roads, as if its weight and that of the earth were French kissing each other, its mighty V8 wound up to a moaning foghorn bellow, Little Richard shouting counterpoint on the radio. Behind it, a grey-brown tornado of dust rose, coating the lower branches of the Douglas firs that loomed on both sides.

Magenta drove, snugged into an iron-grey skirted power suit with padded shoulders, matching heels. She wore a scarf on her head and oversized Audrey Hepburn sunglasses. Audrey looked tiny on the bench front seat beside her, dozing, perhaps, or lost in thought. The back seat and trunk were Tetris-packed with luggage; including shoeboxes, hatboxes, and a timeworn leather portmanteau containing legal and illegal pharmaceuticals in a volume and variety that might have intimidated even the legendary Dr. of Journalism Raoul Duke.

A 1953 Caddy (Magenta liked to call it a L'Esprit de L'Escalier, after one of her bride's favorite phrases), the convertible was long and low, all black and chrome, resplendent on its whitewall tires. The women had made good time, making a last stop at the Lamplighter Inn, on Highway Two near Lewis Fork, to top up the hungry Caddy and indulge in ceremonial slices of cherry pie.

The blonde scanned the scenery with a mixture of curiosity and her usual ferocious protectiveness. The mountains and evergreens, rivers and ferns were strange to her, an old and vibrant life that nagged at her like a fled memory. As they rounded a corner she saw the sign ahead, quaint, hand-painted. Magenta tapped the brake and turned the wheel hard, sending the big car into a powerslide that ended only feet from the billboard. Road dust settled soft around them like an ugly snow. She turned to Audrey, lifted her sunglasses atop her scarf.

"Ta da." She said.

"Welcome to Twin Peaks," the sign read

Audrey Horne · Date: 2012-01-26 03:10 EST

Audrey may as well have been asleep. The world was one slow motion blur after the other; the only solace found revolving around the large blonde sitting next to her. She kept her mouth shut though, spoke only when spoken to and kept her eyes glued to the fast moving landscape on the other side of the window.

Good Golly Miss Molly and wouldn't you know that the pie was the cure. Sugar high and coasting, she chirped about anything and everything that popped into her head and pointed out trees and animals and faded roadside show signs that held almost no significance to anyone but her. It was all a rush of words that ended in one very thought out, childishly nervous question.

"We can do three days, right Magenta" We can do that standing on our heads!"

But moods, like seasons, change and Audrey went from cheerful to sullen in the blink of an eye. When the car had finished its squirreling, Audrey rolled down the window and poked her head out for a better view of the sign. Something twisted inside of her. Beneath the welcome announcement, stenciled in crisp white paint were the numbers 51,201; a typo from over twenty years before.

"5,120." She muttered.

The scarf she wore was ripped free and wrapped around her head, her own sunglasses unfolded and slipped into.

"Gosh! It's so nice," she grunted and wriggled from her skirt, "that the universe saw fit to spit us out twenty years ago."

She sniffed and paused in the midst of pulling on a pair of black yoga pants; something to throw off anyone looking for plaid and pencil skirts.

"We need to find a place to stay."

And later on she would kick herself, give her brain a really good mental scowling for feeling as shocked as she had when the Caddy pulled into that parking lot. Pine planks and logs and waterfalls providing backdrop. Audrey dropped down into her seat and stared at the building from between splayed fingers.

The Great Northern.

Why the hell not"

Magenta · Date: 2012-01-27 18:11 EST

The building loomed, more threat than invitation, as the Caddy's whitewalls crunched to a stop in front of the entrance. A liveried bellboy, who could well have been the offspring of one of Audrey's classmates, straightened a little as the black beast pinged and cooled in front of him. Magenta stole a glance at her bride, looking for any sign of recognition, as she unfolded herself from her seat, stalked around to the passenger side to help her darling out of the car.

Noting that the youth's attention was firmly fixed on the thrust of bust beneath her suit jacket, the big blonde distracted him with tossed keys, which the started bellboy juggled once before catching.

"Bring the luggage into the lobby once you've parked her, a there'll be a twenty in it for you, my good man," she intoned, all arch and magesterial, before adding in a wicked little whisper. "Ding the finish even slightly, and you'll wish your scrotum had never dropped."

Retrieving the portmanteau from the trunk first (some things are not to be trusted to the help, after all), she favored Audrey with a victorious smile and led the girl into the lobby. The great hotel had been meticulously maintained, but that could not keep the shellac that sealed the towering burls and knotty boards of the interior from yellowing with age, and giving the Great Northern's lobby something of the feel of a sepiaptoned photograph.

Another young person, a woman this time, perhaps in her thirties, perched behind the registration desk. She was a pretty, nervous little thing, brown hair vaguely unkempt and eyes exaggerated by the frames of the glasses she wore. Magenta accosted her as their luggage began to pile up behind them.

"I believe we have reservations for the Lumber Baron Suite, dear?" The blonde slipped a credit card and driver's licence through the registration window. It will be in the names of Magenta and Mae Grail, myself and my wife. We'll need two keys." She slipped her sunglasses down, her pale eyes daring any expression of confusion or, more dangerous still, distaste.

But money speaks loudly enough to silence morality, and the keys were passed to the bellboy with nervous efficiency.

"Very well," Magenta went on. "We'll want dinner reservations for 7:00, and two breakfasts delivered to our room at 9:00 tomorrow morning. Eggs and bacon, rye toast, orange juice, and of course a pot of your storied coffee."

The bellboy needed three trips to bring all of their luggage up, and spent too long drawing the drapes, demonstrating the television, and indicating the hot tub with a desperately maintained lack of erotic speculation. True to her word, Magenta rewarded him with a twenty, new and crisp and never before folded, and locked the door behind him when he bowed gratefully out.

She threw herself on the king-sized bed, kicking off her heels in one motion, and dissolved into giggles.

"I do believe they like us here, ladylove. Let's rest up and clean up and then we can do the town...." And here her attention was caught by a telephone directory on the bedsite table, a little thing, slight as a fashion magazine. She offerred it to Audrey with a coy little grin. "Or maybe first you might want to see who's who around here these days?"

Audrey Horne · Date: 2012-01-28 03:38 EST

With Magenta as a crutch, the little brunette moved from the car with all of the uncertainty of a foal just realizing what its legs were for. She couldn't take her eyes off of the building. It hovered there in all of its resplendent wooden glory like a phantom from her past. Audrey didn't allow her gaze to linger on anyone or anything for too long after that and she kept her demeanor purposefully tepid. She smiled only when the snow blonde looked her way and even managed a few genuine little laughs at her wife's antics. They were impressive, after all.

Once inside, Audrey briefly studied the distracted receptionist, confusion hidden behind the dark, bug eyed lenses of her own sunglasses. She recognized the woman. It wasn't until they were on their way to the room, out of earshot and away from the prying eyes of everyone but the bellboy, that Audrey leaned against Magenta and whispered conspiratorially.

"The girl back there" I think I knew her mom. She was the old concierge."

Julie. That was it. Poor long suffering Julie. Audrey hadn't exactly made her job easy way back when.

With everything settled and the bellboy finally gone -a twenty in his pocket and a head full of fantasies- Audrey climbed into bed next to her lover. Her snow boots joined the pumps on the floor and her own laughter filled the air, nervous and defensive.

"They like us" Well with the way you're throwing money around I don't doubt it."

But it was the mention of rest that brightened her eyes. She didn't even want to think about going out there, but part of her wanted to show the blonde anything and everything; mouth watering pies to secret passageways. Silently settling on the latter, Audrey curled around her wife's long body. Even with unborn Susie putting some distance between them, she reveled in the closeness; in the warmth and familiar scents that mixed with the smell of aged pine and the lingering fog of old memories. Snatching the directory from the woman's hand, she forced a grin.

"We could do that. I made a promise to someone right around the time we started dating."

Flipping through the pages, Audrey was delighted to find that she didn't have to go any further than the B's. There it was in black and white. She fished her cellphone from her pocket and thumbed in the phone number. A smile was flashed at Magenta, cool and calm to hide how very terrified she was. When someone picked up, a man from the muffled sounds of it, Audrey's face grew liquid paper white.

"Bobby' This is Audrey. Yeah. Yeah. Yes, I'm still alive." She rolled her eyes. "Uh huh. I told ya I'd be back some day. Yeah, I brought her. Why wouldn't I" Five o'clock tomorrow" Double R. Okay, sounds good. Yes Bobby. Bye Bobby."

Audrey smashed the end button and with one hand perched on a hip she stared up at Magenta with alacrity.

"Are you happy now, Blondish' He thinks I'm as ancient as he is and he has to be pushing forty."

Magenta · Date: 2012-01-29 17:20 EST

The dinner was, well, "damn fine."

There were steaks, thick, and tender enough to cut with a tableknife; bloody in the center and just slightly burned at the edges, the fat yellow and crisped by the flames so it burst upon the palate like a strange and savory fruit. And mounds of mashed potatoes, too, whipped with buttermilk and as creamy and insubstantial as meringue. Magenta even finished her broccoli, lightly steamed so it still broke against the teeth (but she did bathe it with a substantial pat of butter first,) and she tucked another twenty under her plate when they'd finished.

Replete with good food, and pleased they had found enough self control to resist a second piece of pie, the brides returned to their suite, managed a little silly, splashing play in the hot tub, and crawled into the king-sized bed to sleep, if not the sleep of rightious, at least the sleep of the rightiously well cared for.

Breakfast was another celebration; the bacon crisp, eggs perfectly sunny-side with yolks to slip onto rye toast and crush with a fork, pulpy-thick orange juice and, oh, that so welcomed coffee.

They drove around town for the best part of the day, Audrey pointing out landmarks and telling the tales that they dragged forth, Magenta (perhaps a little nervous) peppering her bride with questions about the man they would meet later, about the boy that he had once been.

Twin Peaks was a cathedral of green, veined with silver river and waterfall, miraculously sunny. Magenta had gone local for the event, snug jeans and rodeo shirt (black with mother of pearl buttons and embroidered roses), and black lizardskin Tony Lamas polished fit to blind. They rolled into the Double R's parking lot with a sinister crunch of gravel at 4:30, the blonde deciding it would be best to control the ground before the subject of their meeting arrived.

"Doesn't look like much, lovergirl," she commented as the dust raised by the car's arrival settled, dulling the luster of its finish. "Your ground, your lead, babes. I promise to be as good as ever I can. Right up to the point where i can't anymore."

Audrey Horne · Date: 2012-01-30 03:22 EST

Audrey loved Magenta, of course she did, but she had to worry about her own nerves. So as they drove through town, Audrey filled every empty moment with chatter. She talked about the lack of fast food franchises in Twin Peaks twenty years ago, about how a large sapling covered spot of land had once been the sight of a large sawmill. She even showed her old high school to Magenta, and look! The Sheriff's station. How very special.

The strangest thing of all was how at ease Audrey felt when she showed her wife those things. It was a town of contradictions; not much had changed but there wasn't much left that had stayed the same.

When they pulled into the Double R's parking lot, the little brunette found herself relieved to see it still standing there. It was 50's postcard perfect but if any lick of offense had been taken from Magenta's words then Audrey certainly didn't seem to care.

Once the dust had settled completely, she rolled down a window and sucked in a breath of air so deep that it might have looked like she was saving it. The gorgeous cowgirl behind the wheel was shot a hesitant look, peppered with an odd brand of girlish excitement. It was a sentiment echoed by the baby's steady kicks.

"Let's get this show on the road, Blondish."

The little bell over the door jingled when she opened it and stopped long before the two had entered. A handful of wait staff zoomed from table to table, lingering only long enough to refill coffee cups or deliver orders to the sparse scattering of hungry patrons.

A pretty little thing approached the booth that Audrey had chosen for them and she couldn't help but wonder if the girl was a relation to someone she had known. A pretty twenty something with dishwater blonde hair pulled into a pony tail and a smile that showed off the twinkle of her braces. Two slices of pie- cherry, as if there was any other kind- were ordered up for starters, along with another cup of coffee for her tall, evil twin and an orange juice for herself. If the waitress had questions or objections then she was certainly smart enough to hold her tongue.

That annoying little bell with its obnoxious "look at who's here!" jingle chorused the entrance of their dinner guest. She flipped a gaze in that direction and gently elbowed the blonde in the side. The man who approached them looked nothing like the boy she had described from memory to Magenta.

Creeping up on middle age and at least twenty pounds overweight, he looked like a caricature of the quick tempered hooligan that she had once known. Time had taken its toll on what had once been a mop of dark brown hair; turned it gray and thinned it out though the passing years couldn't be blamed for the bad comb over.

On the flip side, if Audrey looked as if she was seeing a ghost then Bobby was looking at the whole damned haunted house.

He didn't know who to look at first and uncertainty translated into a confused expression, something that made wide eyes even bigger. Even after he had slid into the seat across from them that startled goat look didn't change.

"Mags?" Audrey blurted out and tried her damndest to keep her voice from trembling. "This is Bobby Briggs. He's an old classmate of mine."

"You're her girlfriend then?" He asked Magenta, his voice too anxious, too impatient.

Too Bobby, thought Audrey.

"She's my wife," said the little brunette with a nervous smile. Maybe that was what set him off.

"Yeah"! That's great, Audrey! H-how is this happening" You fake your death and what? Get plastic surgery' And that?"

He pointed to her swollen stomach and stabbed the same finger towards Magenta a moment later, unaware of whatever warnings flashed behind Audrey's eyes. She couldn't help but think that he was going to go hysterical if he didn't get a grip.

"That cannot come from *THAT*!"

To keep check on her own sanity, Audrey delved deep inside of herself and found a few crumbs of patience to throw Bobby's way. An apologetic roll of her eyes to Magenta, a warm smile for the former high school football star and she kept her voice so leveled that even she wasn't aware of the tremble.

"It's nice to see you again, Bobby."

The man cradled his face in his hands and stared hard at the table. He had at least calmed down, so that was something, right"

"Yeah, it's nice to see you again too. And Mags, right' Nice to meet you and sorry about that." He paused, took a deep breath and then continued. "Are you aware that your girl here is pregnant?"

A glance made it as far as Magenta's chest and any admiration was cut short by a well placed kick beneath the table; right on his bad knee too, dammit it all. He kept his head lowered but his fingers were fanned out at the sides of his skull in frustration.

"What, Audrey' Maybe she didn't notice. How should I know?"

Magenta · Date: 2012-01-30 17:43 EST

Magenta knew middle aged men. From her time spent as a rentboy on the streets of Vienna to her years in Alma Stuart's entourage, she had learned how to please them, how to fleece them, and, yes, how to discipline them when the occasion warranted.

These were the formulae she used to analyse Bobby as he approached. She shifted her shoulders just a fraction to sway unlikely breasts beneath the rose embroidery of her cowgirl shirt, saw them catch his eyes and his concerted effort to pull them away. She knew they'd be back.

Still it was, as she had said, Audrey's ground, Audrey's movie, so she allowed little more than a frown as the conversation began, as the man's impulsiveness walked him close to the cliff edge of danger and as her bride's skillful guidance walked him back.

Which is not to say that she didn't examine the table with a tactitian's eye. The silverware was heavy and servicable; the sugar dispenser, old fashioned, glass, and two-thirds full, a functional bludgeon; even the pieplates, some heavy stepchild of Stonewear, not to be discounted.

After Bobby had blundered through his initial confusion, after his eyes had returned as she knew they would (and after his wince betrayed Audrey's own discipline administered beneath the table), she offered a few words in her honey-and-ground-glass purr before lifting a dainty forkfull of pie and handing the conversation back to her darling.

"I've been called worse than 'that,' Bobby, though it would probably be best if you didn't go for the record there. And yeah, I know Audrey is preggers. It's our baby." The use of the joint possessive did not brook any argument. "Biology is an amazing science. Breakthroughs all over the place. So I'm not surprised that you've been way too busy with other things to keep up."

Audrey Horne · Date: 2012-01-31 07:00 EST

Magenta's sudden awareness of every item lying nearby wasn't missed by Audrey. She knew that look like she knew the back of her hand. That was the look of a woman who could- and would- MacGyver a person's stomach out through their bellybutton with a crazy straw. That was why she played the part of the Bobby Whisperer.

Confident in her abilities to ruin the man's knees, she focused on her own piece of pie with marked concentration. Bobby fell back into an arrogant lean in his seat and crossed his arms limply over his chest, the tip of his tongue pushing against the inside of a cheek; A delinquent attitude that spoke volumes about how unaware he was of the big blonde's many, many talents.

"Busy' Yeah, I've been busy but I get it. Don't ask don't tell, right' It's none of my business. Pardon a man for being curious."

Audrey dabbed at the corners of mouth with a napkin and smiled wryly at the man across from them. "Bobby' How's Shelly?"

"Shelly," he spat the name out like a curse but his eyes reflected something of the hurt little boy in him, "moved east. She said something about needing space, like I don't know what that means."

"I'm sorry to hear about that."

Something was lost in translation and every scrap of sincerity bounced off of Bobby. He pried his eyes from Magenta's chest and flipped a baleful glance to her face.

"Audrey ever told you about Agent Cooper?"

Audrey sat bolt upright beside of her wife, her eyes reflecting a warning as clearly as an oncoming storm. "Bobby."

But Bobby Briggs wasn't finished. Whatever he had been, whatever friendship they had once had, had weakened with time. He clucked his tongue against the back of his teeth and studied the both of them before continuing.

"No, no Audrey. I think we could all use a good story. You like stories, right Magenta" Way back in the day, your wife here had the hots for a Fed who was in town for the murder of my girlfriend. Of course the good man didn't want to throw the bone to a girl in high school which prompted Little Audrey to run off to help with the investigation."

It had been what Audrey was afraid of. Bobby was poking at all of the chinks in her armor and she tried her best to look as interested as possible in that pie. The only thing that gave it away, set the building blocks holding her nerves together tumbling, was a sniffle. Of course, Bobby didn't know of the all of the details- there was no way he could have- but Twin Peaks was a little town and word traveled. Still, all that he knew was the beginning and the end. He had no clue about the meat of it all.

"So when they found her over the border at a brothel, she was almost dead and had enough heroin in her system to drop a bull rhino."

"Magenta" Can we go?" she growled, fingers wrapped tightly around her fork.

It wasn't even what he was saying that got to her; spewing her business about like it was some big joke. It had everything to do with him having the audacity to think that she hadn't shared all of this with her wife. Her account, by far, had been much more colorful.

"It was nice seeing you, Bobby. Maybe we can do this again in twenty years?"

"Yeah, well," he snorted, still smarting from some invisible hurt, "you guys have a great stay." An exclamation point came in the way of a smack against the top of the table, hard enough and loud enough to turn the heads of the other patrons. Bobby didn't linger at the table for any longer than it took to get to his feet and he cut a path for the door.

Magenta · Date: 2012-01-31 17:35 EST

She had him at "stay."

In an almost languid move, the blonde stood, slid her chair to one side with the toe of a boot, and followed. She caught Bobby before he reached the door, grabbed the back of his belt with one hand and a fistful of shirt with the other.

He managed a bleated "Whaaaa?" before Magenta began bum-rushing him toward the entrance, any further words of his cut off by his captor's voice; soft it was, almost gentle, and more frightening for its understatement.

"The girls who work here work hard, Bobby, they'll work hard all they lives, and some of them will even get as bitter as you are, but for now they have dreams, and they don't need to have those dreams tainted by your puny, weak-mouthed nastiness."

Pushing him forward, Magenta knocked the door open with Bobby's head, and then hurried him down the stairs and into a sprawl on the parking lot gravel with a swift kick to his backside. He tried to scramble to his feet, but she was too fast for him. Another kick (one that the varsity footballer in him ought to have appreciated, really), put him down in a meaty tangle of limbs.

The blonde loomed over him, whispering.

"Now I'm just gonna stand here for a moment to make sure you've gotten all of the butthole out of your system that you need to, Bobby. 'Cause I promise you I've got butt kicking left to spare if you need it."

He made it to his feet this time, and, limping painfully, scuttled away, eyes wide with hurt and surprise and self pity, but seemingly at a loss for words. When Magenta turned back toward the RR she saw their waitress framed in the window, and for a moment she felt a flush of shame that she'd embarassed her bride in front of the locals. But then the girl grinned and flashed her a thumbs-up.

Back inside, Magenta offered Audrey a hand and slipped a fifty under her pie plate. The waitress was still grinning, and clearly not about the exorbitant tip. Mags tossed the girl a wink as she took her lover's elbow and led her out to where the Caddy lurked like some prehistoric beast reborn.

"Nice little town you've got here, lovergirl," the blonde said.

And she meant it.

Audrey Horne · Date: 2012-02-01 04:57 EST

There wasn't much that Audrey could do but sit there and watch all of it unfold. Bobby had deserved it, she couldn't argue with that, but she still couldn't shake the sentimental sprung pity she felt for him. Audrey filed past the barstools and the booths, head bowed to shield her face from patrons stirred by the ruckus. She made it as far as the door, arms akimbo and watched poor Bobby eat dirt.

When it was all said and done and the ghost of what Bobby had once been limped off to lick his wounds and salvage his pride, Audrey wasn't embarrassed or ashamed at her wife's behavior, but indecisive. She took Magenta's hand and didn't look back at the diner until they were already in the car, a flick of the key drawing a long slow purr from the engine.

"You think so, Blondish?"

It's not my town, she thought, forehead pressed against the cool glass of the window. It was never my town.

The ride back to the hotel skidded across the edge of her consciousness, the landscape of her childhood nothing more than a black speck on her periphery. She answered questions when they were asked, automatically chipper and to the point. Erroneously, she had convinced herself that home would always be there; twenty years or two, Twin Peaks would remain. When the car's engine was killed, Audrey seemed to come back to something like life. She stared at the building and spoke in a soft, slow pour.

"Magenta" I think I'm going to go take a nap. I'll leave the keys with you since you're doing such a great job at this whole driving thing. I've got my cell phone and you've got yours, so I can give you a call when I wake up."

She dodged greetings and the curious glances of old timers and kept by her wife's side until they had reached the room. She shed her coat and her boots and crawled into bed with the rest of her kit still on, black sweater dress and identically colored cotton tights, and curled into an Audrey shaped ball. The pillow was pleasantly cool against a flushed cheek but even comfort couldn't dull the sharp stab of guilt she felt. Audrey had not asked for Magenta's opinion but had merely informed her of her decision. Without warning, the girl rolled onto her back and propped herself up on her elbows, apologies written all over her baby doll face.

"Mags? You can lie down too if you want. It's not right of me to keep you locked away in the room because Susie has me all tired. Maybe by then I'll think of something we can do. We could even hunt my uncle down or I could show you all of the places where I used to hide."

Magenta · Date: 2012-02-01 17:36 EST

Despite her hair-trigger temper and her ferocious protectiveness, the blonde is, at heart, more Magenta the loving wife than Magenta the action figure. Heel against ankle, she strips off the Toni Lamas like a snake shedding skin and slides onto the bedspread, pulling the little black-clad ball of Audrey close to her.

"I'm no big Thomas Wolfe fan, lovergirl, but he wasn't a total idiot. Have you read his novel, You Can't Go Home Again?"

Audrey's reply, muffled against the bed, isn't clearly either positive or negative, only miserable. The blonde pushes her mouth into brown hair, kisses the scalp beneath, and continues gently, her tone as comforting as the soft stroke of fingertips on temple.

"Where the title comes from, I guess the theme of the book, shows up at the end. He wrote it like this:

"'"You can't go back home to your family, back home to your childhood ....back home to a young man's dreams of glory and of fame ....back home to places in the country, back home to the old forms and systems of things which once seemed everlasting but which are changing all the time " back home to the escapes of Time and Memory.'

"I think it means that Twin Peaks will always be a part of who Audrey Horne is, but not the biggest part, and that 'was home' isn't the same as 'is home.' I guess we can't expect the past to still fit us like an old prom dress. Your home is with me and Susie now. That doesn't mean there's not something here for you, or that I can't take you and Suze to London after she pops, just that the things we've leave behind don't necessarily save the same role for us that we used to play.

"Like Bobby. You remembered him one way, but he's had twenty years of disappointment and compromise and lost dreams since then. The past is kind of like a quart of milk left out on the counter. You can open it and sniff it and make faces at its stink, but that doesn't mean you have to drink it."

She strokes Audrey's hair, a little smile playing on the too-ripe plum of her mouth.

"So you can still show me what you want, and you can be pleased where it's the same and amused, or horrified, at how it's changed. The thing is to do it together, lovergirl, and then when we go home...." She kisses her bride on the nose for emphasis. "When we go HOME, Twin Peaks will be a part of both of our pasts, and maybe make us both a little smarter about making our future together."

Audrey Horne · Date: 2012-02-02 03:15 EST

The presence of Magenta's body so close to her own loosened up Audrey's bundled nerves little by little. Her gravid form melded as flush as possible with that of her wife's taut body and she found herself relaxing, tumbling into something like comfort. Magenta's words drifted into Audrey's ears and saturated her consciousness. She never would have thought that such a revelation could be found purred from the lips of the woman who shared her name and owned her heart.

There were no words captured by the pillow, but keening noises that ceased with the brush of lips against her skull, the soft kiss of warm breath on her hair. She listened intently, her eyes fluttering open and lips parting in a way that painted her face in an almost cherubic light. Soon the only sound coming from her was the soft inhale and exhale of steady breathing. It all seemed so simple and yet so simultaneously complicated. Magenta was right. Home wasn't Twin Peaks anymore and time tore down walls built up in earlier times. It turned people mean just as surely as it softened them.

Preening like an affection overdosed cat, she pressed her head up into Magenta's hand, lips twitching and twisting into a sleepy smile. Smiles and revelations were a lot alike. Both could be found in the strangest of places. The kiss had her crossing her sleepy eyes and she snared one of the blonde's hands and brought it to her mouth to bestow each knuckle with a butterfly light touch of her lips. A way of saying "thank you? while she searched around for the right words to say. Finally, she whispered in a voice so soft that she worried that it wouldn't be heard.

"Blondish' I'd really be lost without you. Don't ever forget that, okay' You just did something for me that I will never, ever be able to repay. Now let's take a nap, okay' We need to be rested up before we find my sister. Two hours, okay' If you wake up before I do, look for a Donna Hayward in the phone book."

Her uncle could wait for the next time they visited and that spoke volumes about how her wife's speech had affected her. She nuzzled her head beneath the blonde's chin; her face nestled against the hollow of her throat and gave sleep a worthy battle before it pulled her under.

Magenta · Date: 2012-02-02 14:29 EST

Satisfied that she had done all she could, the blonde shucked off her jeans (a process that involved much lifting of her hips and peeling the snug demin from each leg), and shrugged out of her embroidered shirt. Then, clad only in panties, she spooned against Audrey again.

"You and me, ladylove," she purred, thoaty and pleased, "the need goes both ways and ties us up as snug as a moth in a spider's web."

With her growing competence at dealing with the tools of the world they'd travelled to, she half-rolled to confront the clock radio, played with buttons and knobs until she was reasonably sure that the two hour nap would be terminated by something soft that would ease them out of thier sleep rather than wake them to a raucous startle. That done, she flipped through the phone book and earmarked the page that would lead them to their next adventure.

The sounds of traffic, even the heavy trucks that still trundled logs out of the surrounding forest, were distant and muted by space and shut windows, providing only a grumbled background to Audrey's breathing as it slowed towards sleep. Magenta wriggled against the sleeping girl again, played over the day's events in her mind, repeating them like a chorus she could ride to her own rest.

"We got this, lovergirl, we could do this standing on our heads," she murmured. "You just remember, no matter how far above the ground you think you are, no matter how uncertain your perch seems to be. I've got you. I'm gonna catch you.

"And I always will."

The hot tub burbled, and the mini-fridge whispered secrets. Like guardian angels, they wove their mechanical magic, spells to protect the sleepers until they awakened again to take on the challenges of this world.

Audrey Horne · Date: 2012-02-03 03:52 EST

Five o"clock on the dot and the instrumental roll of Sleepwalk gently coasted a groggy Audrey from her nap. She untangled her arms and legs from around the still sleeping blonde and pressed a gentle kiss against her lips before retreating to the bathroom. She brushed her teeth, brushed her hair and examined her belly in the mirror, her hands traversing the strange, firm swell of it.

It ended in an experimental attempt to push her belly button back in, which failed miserably. Pregnancy sure was weird. She could hear her wife stirring in the other room and went to join her, grabbing the directory as she walked past the little end table by the bed. As Magenta got ready, Audrey thumbed through the book and endeavored to at least skim each page until she reached the H's.

She didn't feel that same nervous horror that had accompanied her visit to Bobby. Nothing about that place scared her much now and the anxiety she had felt mere hours before didn't seem all that important anymore. Apparently it *was* about the company you kept.

"I'm ready when you are, Blondish."

And Audrey found that 'ready when you are" translated into "let's get the hell out of dodge." If people had more or less ignored their presence earlier then the duo would be quick to find such pleasantries were no longer afforded to them. The blended buzz of mundane conversations turned to hush whispers between patrons and staff a like and even Julie's daughter, the pretty little receptionist, was openly staring.

She waited until they were hidden behind the safety of the Caddy's heavily tinted windows to confide in the beautiful creature climbing into the driver's seat, a bright and downright cheeky grin creeping across her lips; a testament to her newfound confidence.

"I think you were right, Blondish. I think they like us."

And then they were off to the address scribbled on the inside of Audrey's palm in thick, black marker. 2027 Alpine Lane.

Magenta · Date: 2012-02-03 16:51 EST

Even with their hurried departure, Magenta found time to change into something "a little less threatening," as she put it. If the town associated cowgirls with kicking ass, she'd give them a ruddy cheeked, child-of-nature backpaker. So, as the mighty Caddy wove its way through town, the locals might have found it incongrously piloted (were the top down, were the windows not so imperviously tinted), by a blonde with a thick French braid, clad in skimpy hiking shorts, heavy waffle-soled boots, woolen knee socks; and a short-sleeved khaki shirt (worn a size too small, of course), rich with superfluous pockets.

Magenta had driven around Twin Peaks enough to have a feel for the layout of the town, and The Great Northern had provided a children's cartoon of a map of sorts, though the latter would be more useful in getting guests from the hotel to various attractions and amenities where they could spend their money than for any complex navigation. Still Alpine Way proved a challenge. It was not, as the blonde had first guessed, among the neatly labeled streets near Donna's chilhood home, but rather in more precarious territory, where houses modest and fine had been built to take advantage of the level meadows and benches that interrupted the climb of the slopes surrounding the town.

"I just seem to make friends wherever I go, ladylove," she answered Audrey once they were well enough underway for the brunette to relax into speech. Still, she wondered what lay ahead. In the many tales of Twin Peaks that her bride had told her, Donna was certainly not so dark a presence as Bobby, but a more complex one, and clearly brighter.

"She doesn't even know you're alive, right' So at least we'll have surprise on our side, and I'm guessing (was that hope in her voice or disappointment") that we're not gonna need any of the old ultraviolence?"

The big blonde manuvered the huge black car with a lighthanded expertise as they climbed out of town, drifting it around the tightest of the switchbacks. If that caused troubles for anyone coming the other way, well, Magenta firmly believed that those going uphill had the right of way.

Unless she happened to be going down.

She almost missed the street sign, obscured as it was by the relenless growth of trees and shrubs where the road let in light that the older Douglas firs had long denied the forest duff beneath their spread and interlocked branches. Magenta slid the car at the last moment, dropped one wheel into the soft suck beyond the hardpack of the road, and squirted the throttle once to drag them free.

The house was a modest A-frame, meticulously kept, surrounded by a shrunken basketball court of a lawn which kept uneasy vigilance against the forest and rock beyond. For once she didn't slide to a halt, but braked them to a polite stop.

"You gonna want me with you or are you going solo, lovergirl." The intonation made it clear which anwser the blonde hoped for.

Audrey Horne · Date: 2012-02-04 04:55 EST

Twin Peaks was peppered with places that Audrey didn't recognize, but such was progress. She couldn't, wouldn't, let halfhearted attempts at urban sprawl bother her now. Houses and businesses darted in and out of view, replaced by forests so dark and deep that they stirred the baby fine hairs on the back of Audrey's neck; a cat spooked by something that human eyes could not see. When she felt the fear rise up and threaten her fledgling resolve, she had only to look at the gray eyed beauty in the driver's seat and everything was alright again.

"She doesn't know, no. Like I said, people think I faked my death. I can't say how Donna will react. It wasn't like we were close. I didn't find out she was my half sister until it was too late, ya know?"

There was warning in her voice -as sharp as any hiss or growl- that hopefully tempered any violent thoughts swimming through Magenta's pretty skull.

When the Cadillac, a distinguished old broad if every there was one, pulled onto Alpine Way, Audrey had already settled into the anticipation of the visit. She had so many things that she wanted to tell Donna and her hands were shaking from the heels of her palms to the neatly painted red tips of her fingers with a mixture of worry and excitement. Even the thump like kicks of little Susie Q added fuel to what Audrey was feeling.

"Magenta, you have to go," she cried. "Geez, you can't back out now! We're in this together, remember?"

Audrey rolled the window down, the glass and the parts that she couldn't see squeaking and groaning out their frustrations. The house was pretty in a simple way; all neat corners and homey. She regarded it with wide eyed awe, as if it weren't just some bungalow tucked away in the middle of nowhere, but some sort of castle. Each breath that rolled from her lungs and over her lips painted her view with panoramic fog.

Her preoccupation with the place didn't end even as she stumbled from the car and into an ungraceful lean against her door; "I meant to do that' painted loud and clear with a smug, secretly embarrassed smirk.

The path that led to the door was lined with circular stepping stones; little more than cement decorated with bits of multicolored river glass. Audrey waited- for half of her life had been spent waiting on one thing or another- until she heard her lover close the car door before traversing the hazards of concrete and sand smoothed bottle shards. At least her nerves had the good decency to wait until she was at the door before acting up. She shot the blonde a look over her shoulder, words rolling out on plumes of steamy breath.

"Maybe I should have called first, Mags. I mean, showing up out of the blue is sort of rude, right' What with me being dead and all."

But it was too late to back out. Someone- or something, Audrey mused- stirred behind the door, perhaps disturbed by that damned Caddy, and opened it just enough to cast a sliver of lamplight down the middle of the brunette's face.

"Hello?"

Only the clackity clack of unbolted locks offered up any sort of reply. Audrey stood frozen in her snow boots, hands curled into white knuckled fists at her sides. She turned, intent on leaving, and walked smack dab into Magenta. Stunned and reeling, one hand pressed against the side of her head, she stiffed legged it back around to the door. The same old door, but only now it was wide open and a woman stood in the threshold, ringed fingers clasping her hips.

Age had been much kinder to Donna than it had been to Bobby. If forty was pushing at her than she was certainly pushing back. Standing a few inches taller than Audrey and a few decades older, her features were somehow sharper than Audrey's baby doll mug.

The barest hint of crow's feet framed the corners of pale blue eyes and a spattering of light freckles painted the apples of her cheeks. Long, chestnut colored hair had been pulled back into a severe ponytail. None of those things detracted from her looks, but added to them in a way that age helped to improve really good wine.

Time sort of crawled by for Audrey and the stranger in front of her was studied from head to toe, everything from black house slippers to blue jeans to the fit of a black button up shirt taken in and committed to memory. For five minutes, all that either sister seemed to be capable of doing was staring at one another.

"Audrey?"

The surprised catch in Donna's voice caught Audrey unawares for whatever reason and she quickly favored Magenta with a gobsmacked look over her shoulder. Donna wedged her foot between the door and the jamb before stepping onto the suddenly unfamiliar territory of her own damned stoop. Magenta would soon find herself the recipient of not one, but two pale stares, one imploring and the other merely confused.

Donna wasn't exactly sure what she was seeing, had mistaken the presence of the presumably late Audrey (ready to pop, she'd noticed) and the tall blonde (what on Earth had they fed that woman") with some strange hallucination. Maybe the carbon monoxide tester was on the fritz again. And what right, really, did Audrey have looking at her like *she* was the ghost' She wasn't the one that exploded!

Suddenly she was back in high school, swapping cigarettes with the oh so weird Horne girl behind sun faded bleachers and her expression turned from curious confusion to resignation. If she truly was having a nervous breakdown then maybe it was worth riding it out to its conclusion.

"Audrey Horne, Audrey Horne. " Donna then beckoned Magenta closer with a flick of her wrist, heavy beaded bracelets clacking against one another. "And who are you?"

"Magenta," blurted the little brunette before the tall woman could answer. There was a nervous tilt to her voice. "That's Magenta. She's my wife. We're married."

Audrey found the lack of surprise in Donna's expression more than a little bit disappointing.

"Magenta," Donna tried the name on for size and smiled the smile of the recently brain screwed. "Why don't we take this little party inside" It's just a little bit too cold to be standing out here all night.?

And with that, Donna turned and walked back into her house, leaving the door wide open in her wake.

Magenta · Date: 2012-02-04 22:52 EST

Magneta had never intended to let Audrey go through that doorway alone (after all, witches were famously known to favor gingerbread castles); she had,in fact several carefully constructed rationales at the ready should the little brunette surprise her, but still the firmness of Audrey's refusal warmed her heart. As the couple negotated the cast-concrete "stones," the big blonde groomed herself casually, wetting her rotten-ripe-plum mouth and stroking the heavy snake of her French Braid to that it fell over one shoulder, accentuating the push of breast beneath her khaki shirt.

She had ample time to study Donna as the woman and her bride stared at each other in mutual amazement. The older woman glowed with the special beauty of a person who has grown into herself. Although she'd been burdened with the same weight of years that had all but ruined Bobby, and though Magenta would have made book that the challenges Donna had faced over those two decades were more ferocious and painful than any of the petty disapointments and thwarted selfishnesses that had so embittered the man, the years had refined her rather than worn her down.

The same resiliency, apparently, convinced Donna to roll with what must have felt like taking a 2 X 4 lenght of madness to the side of the head. As she ushered them in, Magenta allowed her glance to stray enough to take a quick inventory. A lack of ashtrays and a pair of worn trainers sitting tangle-laced next to the doorway hinted that running had perhaps come to provide a core that Donna could rely on. A lack of photos suggested the absence of children or, indeed, a current significant other. Magenta waited until her bride had seated herself, admiring not the first time the languid grace which the brunette had built around her thickening body, and then perched on the arm of Audrey's overstuffed chair, crossing her hiding boots at the ankle.

"I'm amazed and grateful that you invited us in, Donna," her cougar purr was all sunshine and brambles. "It had be be the equivalent opening your door to a Sasquatch selling tickets to the next alien probe session. As Audrey said, I'm her wife, Magenta. It'd please me if you'd just call me Mags. Our baby will borne sometime in April, best as we can figure, and we're gonna name her Susie. You and Audrey have a lot to catch up on, so I just want to reassure you that we're not a hallucination, and that we'll be happy to explain what we can. Before you start with the questions, though, is there a chance you have a cold beer around somewhere, an maybe a fruit juice of some kind for Audrey?

"Confronting the past, or the future, can be thirsty work, as I'm sure you're beginning to discover!"

Audrey Horne · Date: 2012-02-05 19:59 EST

Donna humored every word with a smile and a nod as she disappeared down a dark hallway that, presumably, led to the kitchen. One could not blame her for feeling so overwhelmed. Her old classmate/half sister back from the dead, expecting and not looking a day older than when she left and then there was the wife. The wife. She had never known that human beings could look like that; beautiful in that 'strap you down and backhand you for being a bad puppy' sort of way.

Audrey looked around the room and honed in on the tic, tic, tock of a nearby grandfather clock. "Magenta?" she whispered, careful to keep her voice just low enough for the blonde to hear, "I think we might have broken her."

It was a thought that fizzled out when Donna walked back into the room, two beer bottles- some locally made, overly priced brew- caught in a death grip between two fingers. In her other hand was a small plastic bottle of orange juice. A beer was passed to Blondie, the juice to Audrey and then the woman slipped into the squeaky, worn comfort of an old blue recliner.

"There's this part of me that says that I should be surprised by all of this, Magenta. I'm still not exactly sure what?s going on, but for some reason it doesn't seem that strange. Maybe I'm just in shock, or maybe you guys really are hallucinations, but weirder things have happened around here. Who knows" I might wake up in the morning and smack myself for not taking advantage of this."

Donna smiled around the mouth of her beer bottle, but as unsure as it was, there was still traces of happiness in her eyes. Relief, maybe. "And in my experience, hallucinations can and do lie."

Audrey popped the bottle's cap into her mouth and eyed Donna carefully.

"So," but it was slurred around the lid into a 'slorh." She spit the cap out, wiped it on against her sweater and screwed it back onto her drink before continuing, albeit a little more sheepishly. "What do you wanna talk about, Donna?"

Audrey was quick to find that there were tons of topics to choose from. They spoke of the long ago death of a homecoming queen and every minute measured out by that one event, of how the town was divided about Audrey's 'death? (Some said she couldn't have survived an explosion like that, while others said she simply used it as a chance to run away.) They talked about Donna's father- the man who raised her and not the one they shared- and they talked about old Ben Horne, dead some eighteen years now. Donna answered every question tossed her way, the back and forth becoming a sort of complicated game. But Donna respectfully skirted around the topic of Agent Cooper and when the man was brought up, she quickly changed the subject. Still, Audrey learned more about Donna Hayward in that small span of time than she had ever thought possible.

Donna had been married, but her husband had died in a car accident not long after her twenty first birthday. She traveled around the world after that to try to stay one step ahead of her grief. That was when she discovered her love for running- literally and figuratively. But soon it became evident that the past was something neither Audrey nor Donna really embraced with open arms and her attention turned to Magenta.

"So, Magenta, how did you and Audrey meet' Where are you from?"

Who's the kid's father?

Unlike Bobby, however, Donna was much too polite to voice such an inquiry out loud.

Audrey, for her part, had run the gauntlet from apprehensive to right at home in the span of an hour and a half. She listened to Magenta's answer, her cheeks flush with the arm of the chair, and realized with a sudden wave of sadness that it was almost time to go.

Magenta · Date: 2012-02-05 21:33 EST

The blonde had grown so accustomed to the ping-pong match of question and answer between Audrey and Donna that the query caught her by surprise. She delayed her reply with an apologetic raise of one hand and a long pull at her beer before leaping in.

"Wow. Simple questions, complicated answers. Kind of like everything else you two have been batting around. I'm originally from England (and here she lets the tortured vowels of her public school training sneak in to further inform her reply). Long time since I've been there, though. More recently, I lived in Vienna, and worked for a woman named Alma Stuart there. Alma was, well, big in the entertainment industry, and through that kept both hands busy in European politics.

"I met Audrey in a place called RhyDin..." Here she glances at her bride and rolls her eyes helplessly before jumping in. "RhyDin is, well, it's kind of a place between places" Things that get lost end up there. I still suspect that there's a big room somewhere there where all the universe's mismatched socks wait patiently for thier mates.

"We met each other about a year ago I guess, and we started living together pretty quiclky. We were married last October, and our daughter, Susie, is due sometime in April."

The blonde turned to Audrey again, obviously conflicted. It's clear that she likes this woman and wants to give her the courtesy of an honest answer. it's clear, too, that to do so would violate her own sense of caution, and might open doors that the brides have been loathe to open.

"Susie is ours, Donna. And even though you're too polite to ask 'how"' I know it must be bugging you. For now can I get away with just saying that things aren't often what they look like on the surface, and that biology is as much religion as science, and as prone as the latter is to schisms and fundamentalists?"

The blonde sighs, punctuating it with another sip of her beer.

"I have to thank you again for opening up to us like you have. It means a lot to me to get these glimpses into my darling's life pre-Magenta, so to speak. I hope to take her and Suze to London once the little one is big enough to travel for the same reasons, to kind of make our separate pasts shared as much as anyone can do that sort of thing.

She tosses a glance at Audrey, apolgizing in advance for her presumption.

"Anyway, I know we've just met but I feel like we could be friends if we had the chance, so unless Audrey kicks me here, maybe you'd like to visit us sometime"

"Like I said, RhyDin is pretty strange, but somehow I have the feeling that a girl who grew up in Twin Peaks could handle it on roller skates."

Audrey Horne · Date: 2012-02-05 22:25 EST

Donna noticed the sour scowl that twisted Audrey's face and thought it slightly interesting that the expression only appeared when the name Alma was mentioned. The girl almost looked constipated, but Donna kept that opinion to herself and listened to Magenta in silent observation; peppered with the occasional nip from her own bottle.

Rhy'din. The universe's lost and found box. Donna tipped a secret smile at such a description and looked from the blonde to the brunette and back again. It made all the sense in the world. The creatures in front of her struck her as being just like those socks; longing and unraveling until the day came when luck paired them together and tossed them into God's underwear drawer.

"You met me two years ago this June, Magenta," corrected the little brunette with a smile. It was such a sappy thing that Donna couldn't help but find herself smiling at the both of them. But she noticed a change when Magenta stopped talking, something desperate there perhaps. A small hand was lifted from her swollen belly and Audrey rested it atop Magenta's knee in encouragement.

"Whatever you're comfortable with," that look seemed to say. "It'll be alright."

The truth was, Donna hadn't expected an answer to a question that she hadn't asked and regarded the blonde with a quirked browed, slack jawed stare of confusion. It had nothing to do with the answer and everything to do with the almost audacious insight displayed by Magenta.

Still, she couldn't help but stare at Audrey's stomach; impolite and unapologetic for it. When all of that had filtered through one ear and out of the other, leaving the bits and pieces she found important behind, Donna fixed the couple with another smile, the words that poured from her mouth slow and considerate.

"It was really a pleasure to meet you, Magenta," she leaned forward and motioned to Audrey's belly with a tip of her now empty bottle. "You too, Susie. Audrey' It's nice to see that you're not," and she paused, all of the sugary sweet sentiments boiling down to one baffled answer, 'dead. I hope you'll both pardon me for being so disconnected, but this is really *a lot* to process. When I wake up tomorrow and realize that you're both not figments of my imagination, then I'll give you a call. I could probably use a vacation from this place."

It was her roundabout way of saying the things that had built up in her head, kept at bay by so many emotions that no one would be blamed for thinking her disconnected. After sharing a round of awkward hugs, Audrey struggled to her feet and led the blonde out of the door, her soul somewhat lighter for the visit. The Caddy became a rolling confessional of sorts and once Alpine Way was little more than a spot in the rearview mirror, Audrey looked up to her wife with a bright smile.

"That went well, I think. I hope she'll visit. Do you think she will?"

She stared off into the dark that stretched before them, more foreboding somehow than the pitch black that Rhy'din had to offer.

"We should get some sleep. We've gotta check out at around five tomorrow, and we still have to make a stop by the Sheriff's station.?

Magenta · Date: 2012-02-06 21:10 EST

One finger hooked over the steering wheel, free hand on the gearshift and feet tap dancing from throttle to brake to clutch, Magenta plays the big Caddy like a keyboard. Sliding switchbacks, whitewalls sometimes flirting with oblivion, she uses every inch of the road. After all, the driver descending has the right of way, doesn't she"

"It was fascinating, lovergirl," she answers, shifting in her seat as if her bodyweight could counterbalance the slalom of the big car. "I found myself impressed by how well she handled, well"us. I don't know if she'll actually visit, but I hope she does. She's family after a fashion, right' That seems more and more important these days."

Off the hill now, the Cadillac, bulls its way into the existing traffic on the main road, regal and impervious to the blare of horns.

"Yeah, I thought we'd get a little room service dinner and then a nap before the next adventure" I'm pretty sure I have everything we'll need and then some. I packed full-on Beagle Boys burglar suits for us, right down to the Halloween masks and watch caps. We've got cordless drills, power saws, wire clippers, lock picks, cutting torches, and" " The blonde pauses to glance at Audrey, blushing. "I even brought along some C4, but that's probably on the overkill side, huh?"

If food alone could make up for all of the sins committed in The Great Northern, the place might have a chance at salvation. The cheeseburgers are meaty and medium rare, cheddar still bubbling when they arrive at the room, with crisp white onion slices and generous slabs of kosher dill. The fries are steak-cut, thick, and even the catsup has a little spicy bite that wraps the meal up as prettily as any preadolescent memory. The blonde is still licking her fingers as she turns to Audrey.

"So what?s the plan, ladylove, I'm guessing we're not likely to find anybody in the office when we go in, and that we probably want to stash the Caddy somewhere out of sight. Otherwise, I am totally in your capable hands."

Audrey Horne · Date: 2012-02-07 06:42 EST

"It was a little strange, wasn't it' I guess I underestimated just how much off the wall the people in this town can handle."

About two days before, Audrey had stopped fearing Magenta's driving; a decision based solely on the fact that the big blonde had yet to kill them while behind the wheel. She bobbed and swayed in her seat, the skidding of tires and the honks of angry drivers creating something that might have been musical had it been better coordinated.

Hell. Even Magenta's horrifyingly organized supply list rang about like gospel but Audrey had only one suggestion.

"Just..try not to blow anything up. Not only do they frown upon explosions around here but I'm not the biggest fan of them myself."

For obvious reasons, of course.

Later on, when their chances of becoming roadkill had greatly decreased and they were pigging out in her childhood home, Audrey found that she missed Le grande route symphony.

Questions and their answers were put on hold until after she had eaten. Caution and manners were thrown to the wind and the little brunette piled fries onto her burger and tore through the sandwich so quick that one would be forgiven for wondering if she had even tasted it. Ketchup dotting one corner of her mouth, a remnant of her 'kill', she turned her head to her wife and threw what little knowledge she had of the plans out into the open.

"We'll swing by when we get ready to leave, Mags." It took a lot to keep the distraction from her voice and somehow she managed a smile. "It'll be dark when we check out anyway. I think it closes at eight but I could be wrong. It's been twenty years, ya know?"

Resignation was quickly becoming a good friend of Audrey's and deep down inside, her inner delinquent was reeling. Fight the man! Down with Big Daddy Time! She tossed a glance to the clock, surprised to see that it was already creeping up on midnight.

"Looks like our nap isn't really gonna be a nap at all, Blondish. We wake up, we check out and you get us there. It's as simple as pie."

But what they didn't tell you was that nothing was ever 'as simple as pie'. Hell, even *pie* wasn't as simple as pie. Audrey peeled her sweater dress off with a few frustrating tugs and shuffled into a black t shirt that had been huge once upon a time, but the baby bump and the few added cup sizes made it almost snug. Creep crawling into bed, she cocooned herself in the covers until only her face was visible.

"Magenta, Magenta. How do you say goodnight?"

Perhaps it had been the beginning of a poem, but poor little Audrey. She was too sleepy to finish it.

She had just rested her eyes, really she had but when she opened them, it was four o'clock in the afternoon. Her heart racing, she shook the blonde and pointed to the blinking red lights of the alarm clock.

"Ma-a-ags, wake up! The alarm didn't go off."

They had exactly thirty minutes to get ready, get packed and get going.

She disappeared beneath the comforters and sheets and pawed through discarded clothing until she found her shirt. Further down the bed was her bra, somehow tangled up in her panties. She could try to figure that one out later. A woman on a mission, she quickly showered and slipped into some clean clothes before zooming about the room like a small, pregnant comet.

After Audrey had brushed her teeth, poked her belly button for the millionth time, combed her hair, packed up everything (including but not limited to all of the clothes, the alarm clock, what had to have been a half gallon bucket of coffee, and three bottles of pilfered bourbon courtesy of her uncle's liquor cabinet), she snagged a few strawberries from the yet to be claimed breakfast cart and headed out of the door sans blonde.

She was halfway down the hallway when she realized her mistake and, flushed from embarrassment, she drug herself and the luggage back to the room and sat down on the edge of the bed.

"...sorry, Blondish."

Magenta · Date: 2012-02-07 21:28 EST

Magenta hadn't been fully asleep as Audrey scrambled about in preparation for checkout; rather, she's been that luxurious state of almost-awake when one rolls from one pillow to another, darting among dreams as effortlessly as a bright fish negotiating a coral reef; and when the usually well-patrolled border between states of consciousness is a fluid and forgiving thing. So she wasn't exactly startled as the brunette shook her awake and sputtered out their situation.

In fact, she blinked twice and stretched luxuriously. Whereas Audrey had burst from sleep into a Tasmanian-devil spin of activity, Magenta seemed to rub and nuzzle herself awake like a big cat. With every second's tick seeming to push the brunette to a new level of worry, the blonde scratched herself, decided that a shower was a luxury for later, and dug into one of the hastily packed bags for a turtleneck and tights.

With a final glance around, and tucking two twenties under a bedside table glass for the maid (as any former sex-worker knows, it always pays to treat the housekeeping staff well), Magenta allowed Audrey to hurry her out the door. Fortunately, bedroom hair looked entirely too good on her (as did bedroom eyes, and the slightly smeared of lipstick on her bright mouth), and they reached the checkout counter with a whole fat minute to spare.

If rumors had spread about them during their short stay, so had tales of their generous tipping, and so it was with apparent regret, and fuller pockets, that the concierge and bellman watched the Caddy's door clunk closed and the big car prowl off into the late afternoon.

"Hurry up and wait, huh lovergirl?" Magenta grinned, having entirely too good a time. "If the cop shop closes down at 8:00, we've got a little time to kill."

A final visit to the RR proved to be just the thing, particularly since Audrey had barely managed to choke down a few strawberries before leaving The Great Northern and Mags had eaten nothing at all. The blonde quickly remedied that abstinence with a chicken-fried steak dinner (mashed potatoes and green beans included). While they ate she unfolded a map on the table and, pencil in hand, explained the evening's situation to her bride.

"The nearest Nexus will move from here to here," she mumbled around a mouthful, drawing parallel lines, " between 9:00 and 10:00 before it disappears. It travels at about five miles an hour, and we have to hit it at as close to 90-degrees as we can to make it though. We miss this one and we'll be stuck around here till I can figure the whole thing out again."

They reached the Sheriff's office shortly before the last patrol car pulled away, leaving the building dark and apparently deserted. Stashing the Caddy nearby, the two women (all in black, like some cartoon burglars), snuck up to the building prepared for some serious breaking and entering.

Fortunately for them, as Albert Rosenfield (never a polite man, perhaps, but astute) had once remarked, "I have seen some slipshod backwater burgs, but this place takes the cake."

The pastry, in this instance, came in the form of a key placed under a ceramic owl by the back door. As easy as that they were in. Inside they were confronted with surveillance cameras, motion sensitive but positioned to cover only the broadest swath of room and hallway. Magenta merely crept up on each, putting their eyes out with judiciously applied squares of duct tape. When enough of these were done to clear the way for Audrey's souvenir hunting, she left the girl to her work and followed the narrow beam of her flashlight into the conference room.

The camera there was centrally located as well, perhaps doubling on video conferencing duties. Before dealing with it the blonde opened the refrigerator and, as she suspected, found two boxes of donuts ready for the next morning's meeting. Taking a bite out of a particularly tempting powdered sugar and jelly confection, she placed a square of tape over the camera's lens and set to work.

Audrey and Magenta had already decided which message to leave as their farewell to Twin Peaks, and the blonde carefully arranged broken and whole donuts and crullers to spell it out across the conference table:

"Guess Hooo?"

She was still smiling at the owl reference when she noticed a movement from the corner of her eye and turned to watch the square of duct tape flutter to the floor, its adhesive defeated by powdered-sugared fingers.

Seconds later the alarm went off.

Magenta chased the flashlight beam through the station until she located Audrey, grabbed the girl by the arm, and fairly dragged her out into the night.

"The map's on the seat, lovergirl. I hope you can find us that Nexus quick, 'cause I think our wake-up call just came in."

Audrey Horne · Date: 2012-02-07 22:37 EST

"Alright, maybe I was a little bit overzealous."

Audrey wasn't the least bit humbled by admitting such a SNAFU on her part. Sometime between the ride to the RR and that last bite of dinner, she reverted back to something more lazy house cat than teenager. The vein like lines of the map were studied sideways, her head tilted against the dead end wall of the booth. Had she not been preoccupied with the way her wife's tongue moved around her mouth when she talked, then she might have found herself disturbed by all of the detail put into their heist.

Apparently she was more seat-of-her pants while the blonde was more"army general.

"We just have to speed. I think you have that down to a *science*. I have complete faith in you, Magenta."

She stretched her arms and legs out straight, joints cracking and popping, and after a soft lion's roar of yawn, she looked back to the woman. The sudden wave of lackadaisical amusement that washed over her hid her fear quite well. Stuck in Twin Peaks for what..a week" A year" That would *not* do.

"If they awarded medals in chicanery, I bet you'd get the gold."

The Sheriff's station hadn't really changed at all, which was both a blessing and a curse.

Once both women were inside, Audrey sucked in a deep breath of air as if she could actually save it that way. With the cameras indisposed, the little brunette crept along the linoleum lined halls so silently that were there any ghosts about, they would have gasped in awe. She kept on her tiptoes, trailed her fingertips along every surface that she could reach. Memories, memories, memories.

Even the filing cabinet tucked away in the corner of the sheriff's office seemed surprised by how quiet she was. So shocked in fact that its wheels and metal ditches hadn't the time to squeal when she pulled a drawer open.

Then the alarm went off.

Her heart was pounding with each artificial squall and Audrey barely had time to tug her manilla colored trophies free before being rushed off to the Caddy. Equal parts scared and exhilarated, Audrey tossed the folders into the backseat and snapped the map open. On the very edge of her periphery, she could make out the flash of red and blue lights somewhere behind them. She couldn't think about that now. There was this little pencil lined dot on that map that was waiting to be found.

"Glastonbury Grove," she chirped proudly and stabbed a hole into the paper with her fingertip.

So what if it was the threshold to motor oil smelling hell" Audrey was much too excited to care.

So The Caddy, as loyal as a car could ever be, tore away from the building in a thunder storm shower of gravel. Audrey barked out directions with all of the conviction and zeal of a proper little dictator. Turn Right. Turn Left. Don't worry about that tree, dammit Magenta!

Twin Peaks at night was an entirely different thing than its daytime counterpart. The tarnished side of the same shiny silver coin. The trees seemed to curl in the inky black; the claws of some forlorn beast forever reaching for the sky. Dread hung in the air around the forest shrouded Glastonbury Grove like perfume and Audrey was finding herself increasingly smitten with the idea of just handing herself over to Johnny Law.

The blues and twos were getting closer, their sirens shrieking like banshees in the night. Looking to Magenta, Audrey did the only thing she really could do. She flashed her wife a manic grin and pointed to a path that cut through the beastly trees.

Magenta · Date: 2012-02-08 17:26 EST

The Caddy was fast. Oh she was fast; with Magenta's boot buried in her throttle and her brakes only tapped to slide the turns. But Twin Peaks" finest; though Albert had once characterized them as "morons and half-wits, dolts, dunces, dullards and dumbbells, chowder-head yokels, and blithering hayseeds;" knew the roads. And even the faithful "53, with her exhaust howling and whitewalls grabbing at traction, couldn't outrun a radio and a roadblock.

So the blonde didn't hesitate when Audrey pointed the way, though there was no clear patch through the circling sentries of the trees. The burned-oil stench surrounded them. It was the stink of failure, the reek of loyal machines pushed beyond their limits and abandoned.

Perhaps at some level the Caddy smelled it too, and for a moment her brave heart faltered. At any rate, the engine hiccupped, threatened to fail.

"Not now!" Magenta shrieked, her voice high and girlish and strange. "Godammit don't you dare do this to us now!" She downshifted, shoved her boot to the floor again. The big V8 hesitated, as if gathering its courage, and then roared out a challenge of its own, flinging them into the unknown.

Where they had been bouncing over rock and root, now the whitewalls hissed across a mosaic floor. Black tiles, white tiles, checker-boarded into the distance in front of the car. Black, white, black, white; black, black, white, white; as the Caddy sped forward the tiles merged and mingled, and finally rose before the headlights in the yin and yang of two monstrous doors.

Curled on the passenger seat, Audrey murmured, as if repeating a mantra heard long ago, "Only pure love can pass through the white; only unfailing courage can enter the black." She reached out for Magenta's thigh, her little hand squeezing hard.

The doors dissolved as the car hit them, and the car sailed as if airborne into a realm lit only by guttering fires. Voices grabbed at the women, rhyming and riddling and promising, dwarves and giants beckoned from the edges of the headlights" piercing.

At one point an owl, impossibly large, rose in front of them, its wings wide in the universal command to halt. Its yellow eyes were as big as beach balls, and its outstretched claws curled toward them on orange, scaled feet. The Cadillac struck it in the breast, though, and hollow bird bones broke like straws beneath the impact.

Then, to their right, the Nexus appeared like a great book of mirrors set on its side, its pages sifting closed. Audrey saw it first, pointed with a wordless squeal, and Magenta whipped the steering wheel around hard, urging the Caddy toward it.

Their world went white; light was like a sustained scream around them. And then the brightness began to peel away and fall behind, finally blinking out in their wake like the flash of a sun devil off a shard of glass.

There was ground beneath them again, and Magenta stood on the brakes, wallowing the car to a stop. The Caddy's engine pinged and popped and stuttered, wounded and cooling down. The air around them had the peculiar stale-cinnamon scent that follows magic just as a sulfur stink blooms behind an extinguished match. In the distance, rowing slowly through the sky over a blue-tinted mountain range, was the unmistakable potbellied silhouette of a dragon.

Raccoon eyed with tears, trembling, Magenta turned to Audrey, her voice clamped down hard on the edge of hysteria.

"Home again, home again, jiggedy-jig,? she said