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'With this secret, we can enjoy life and have no fear from death.'

_{[But it's almost mechanical. He does believe that on normal days and tries to live by it. But ... well. Fuck his life, right?]}

I don't fear my own death as much as that of others.

Fear is a death in itself.

[This time, when she moves into his personal space, it's different from the usual — it's more deliberately pressuring, more pointedly invasive. More designed to make him acknowledge her.

After all, he's not going to like what she's saying.]

You're not responsible. It wasn't a failing of yours that caused it to happen.

_{[No. He doesn't. He wants to protest and he looks like it, with the frown that appears, the almost defensive way he angles himself in relation to her.]}

I failed to prevent it.

[He should be on the defensive, and she's not surprised that he is, because she is pushing his boundaries — and it's because, in her mind, he needs it.]

Could you have? What did you do wrong — not in retrospect, but from what you knew at the moment you made your decision?

_{[He probably does need it. But to him, it's uncomfortable. Stressful, exposing. Intrusive. He doesn't want to have to defend himself or his guilt, because he doesn't know exactly how - which, if anything, should be a sign that it's the wrong thing to do. But he's still doing it. That is a problem.]}

I followed protocol.

_{[He didn't do anything wrong. But there are things he could have done more right.]}

That's not enough. I should have known more. I should have seen the signs. I didn't understand her fear or trust my own intuition.

[The one thing that's sustaining her determination in this is the thought that he should know her well enough by now to recognize, if nothing else, that she's not aiming to hurt him. Unsettle him, push him, cast him off balance? By all means. But not to wound, not to anguish. Just to provoke.]

Do you think if you just suffer enough, you'll be given the means to change it?

_{[He understands that. He's not hurt by her so much as he is the memories, but ... well. Those words do hit him in a way he tries to twist away from.]}

It's not about me, Carmen.
_{[And it isn't. Not like that. Not about his hurt or his pain. It's just about the fact that he couldn't save these people when he should have been able to. And that he doesn't learn from it.]}

_{[His voice almost hard - he can't change anything. As much as he wishes he could, he's very aware of that.]}

[She should take his hand, ground him somehow with that faint bit of human contact, but she doesn't. She's more than close enough to, but there's still a thin sliver of distance between them. He can make that sliver a chasm if he desires; that's his choice to make.]

It is about you. I'm making it about you. You get hurt time and again and every time it's someone else, it's not you. You're the man who can walk around delirious in the rain and still think of nothing but reaching out to comfort me so I won't worry when I find you. It's always someone else's pain, someone else's problems. This time it's yours.

[And she looks him dead in the eyes, refusing to give him the chance to look away.]

I'm not about to stand by and watch you get hurt. Even when you're the one doing it to yourself.

_{[Fow now, he'll balance no the edge of it. He's silenced by her words, even stunned at the way she's pressing them. It softens him a little, touches the apparent determination he has to give himself up for others. It's something he'll probably continue to do for as long as he remains - that won't change with just words. But an insight into the fact that he's doing it is a start, however fleeting.]

[He truly doesn't see it, you know. The pieces he gives of himself without taking them back. Them or anything.]}

I don't-

_{[And he actually falters. There's a moment like hesitation when he looks between her eyes, and then, very softly:]}

What are my problems?

[She looks at him, just looks at him, and it feels as though there's something hovering there between them, suspended in the moment whispering by, like she's holding her breath in anticipation. They're so close and she can almost feel him teetering there on the brink of the precipice, and yet she still somehow finds herself feeling as confident and capable as if she were standing on a real one. Heights don't frighten her. There isn't much that does.

She doesn't want him to change, not really. He wouldn't be the Dale Cooper she knows if he were any different. But she looks at him now and sees herself reflected back, how she's evolved, how she's grown.

She's better now, because she's known him. And if she's done it, proven it, pushed the limits and succeeded, then it can't be impossible. Not even for him.]

You can't let go. Of the guilt, of the past. You know you can't change it but you can't stop dwelling on what might have been.

[She reaches up, slow and careful, and touches her fingertips to his cheek.]

You don't know what might have been. But you're determined to destroy yourself wondering.

_{[She thinks it's destructive. It strikes him with that touch, with what she's saying. But he's not trying to make himself crumble. He's trying to push forward.]

[He can't let them go. They're his mistakes and they haunt him in an almost literal sense. It doesn't stop. It's there in the light prickling of his skin whenever there's something odd and that same feeling was found with his mother and Caroline and so many others. It's there. He's constantly reminded.]

[And if not by that, then by nightmares. Or by things, entities, telling him about them.]

[He averts his eyes for a moment before he looks back. It's not distance he's creating. Just a little space in his ever-crowded mind.]}

I don't wonder.

_{[This is true, actually, even if it takes him a little while to say.]}

I just regret.

Regret is like ambition. Either you control it, or it controls you.

[She moves forward just enough to close the distance, carefully puts her arms around him, and just holds him.

She knows how to stand on her own two feet, she thinks as she catches her hat by its brim and lets it fall to the wayside, clearing that last obstruction so she can touch her forehead softly, gently to his. She doesn't need him, and it's strange to think that maybe, that's really what he needs most.]

It doesn't matter how long it takes for you to let go of it. Until the day you can, I won't let go of you.

_{[He returns the embrace without really thinking about it. It's when she's touching her forehead to his like that that he realizes exactly what this particular one means and he lets himself draw comfort from it. His eyes fall from hers to her lips and he watches her speak those next few words with a slightly bowed head; a slow, silent nod.]

[He usually doesn't realize until people say these kind of things how much he does need to hear them.]

[It's getting to him in a place he's usually not very aware of. She can probably tell, just by the way he looks up at her again, mixed emotion in his eyes. He's quiet when he thanks her. It would be a murmur, if it wasn't so articulate.]}

That means a lot, Carmen. Thank you.

The best way you can thank me is by listening to it.

[It's gentle, careful, but still with a certain conviction to it that can't be denied or mistaken. And maybe this is a flaw of hers, as well, that she can't simply leave this alone the way she left his fear of birds alone, accepting that it defied reason but it was simply so and that was that. But this, the martyring, the guilt...she's seen this before, and she couldn't leave it alone that time, either.]

It's about time someone let you lean on them for a change.

_{[He smiles for a very short second, not dissimilar to the way people smile defensively when they're not sure what else to do - but not quite that, still. He kisses her and then hugs her closer and he can't promise her that he won't change; but he doesn't argue.]}