For all his maneuverings—physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual—it was perhaps inevitable that Agent Cooper would end up quietly slow-dancing with Audrey Horne in the dining room of the Great Northern hotel, at the wedding reception of an octogenarian publishing magnate and his twenty-something bride, following a conversation with Agent Bryson that called to mind all of Cooper's limited knowledge of the DSM and its recommendations about gender identification disorders. The whole night seemed to be about par for the course; he should have expected as much.

After hours of cold, analytical dissection of their conversation from the day prior—when he'd told her about Caroline, about Windom Earle, and about the real origins of his personal policies regarding relationships—Cooper had been struck by the disparate portions of himself, the conflicting desires and the way they seemed to assert their presence at the most inopportune times. The loss of his job, however temporary, had sent him reeling, to be sure. It would have been a balm to have a steady soul to stand with at such a juncture, and it took a lot to resist her. Because yes, a part of him desperately needed to push her as far away from him as possible, for her own safety and his own sanity; but a much stronger part of his unconscious had different designs.

This was the part of him that let Audrey slip into the space created by his outstretched arms on the dance floor that night; that guided his right hand into the only place it had ever felt so at home—along the sensual, delicate curve where Audrey's back became Audrey's something-else—and that gave Cooper all sorts of frustration as he flexed his fingers and guided her closer to him until they were swaying and connected most intimately; that folded his left hand around her right and, at one point, pulled their conjoined hands into the narrow space between their bodies not yet occupied by either of them, nestled right against his chest. He brushed his nose through her curls and heard her inhale his aftershave right off his jaw. Not a word was spoken, and for a long moment, he forgot where he was and who he was and all the trouble he was in. The danger of being close to Audrey Horne had suddenly turned into a benefit, and he was grateful for the diversion.

But Margaret Lanterman approached them after the first song, holding out her hands in front of her, her log firmly pressed in the notch of her elbow. "In my day," she intoned, "We danced this far apart."

It made Audrey giggle as the older woman left but it made Cooper uneasy, and with nervous eyes he scanned the room for nosy stares as he released Audrey slightly from his embrace and the new song picked up the tempo.

"You're an excellent dancer," Audrey smiled, echoing their previous dance floor confessional. He noted with wry satisfaction that her cheeks were flushed.

"The wonderful thing about dancing, Audrey, is that you never know where the steps will lead," Cooper said, matter-of-factly. "You have to hang on and hope the music takes you there."

Audrey continued to blush. "I remember where it led us before."

Cooper's smile diminished.

"You know I was right, don't you?"

"About what?"

"Circumstances," she said. "The last time you held me like this you were going to breeze your way out of town in a matter of days. Now—"

"Audrey."

She shrugged. "I just think that maybe I could be right about a lot of things," she told him. "Like us."

The word—'us'—ping-ed off his heart and landed heavy in the basement of his stomach. He groaned, feeling the air rush out of his lungs. "Audrey—what I told you last night…this is very dangerous business…"

Audrey nodded. "I know that," she said.

"Audrey, I don't know if you do," Cooper shook his head; it was purposeful without being malicious. He was leaving no room for misinterpretation, shutting off the side of him that was resistant to this plan and running full throttle into the fray, consequences be damned, but he would be gentle with her. "I can't let what happened to Caroline happen to you. I won't let it. If that means I can't be…"

Audrey shook her smile right off her face. "I thought after everything that happened yesterday—your suspension and the fact that you're staying here—I thought you'd change your mind about me."

"It's not you I have to change my mind about, Audrey." Cooper looked over her shoulder, glad to see that no one—as far as he could tell—was watching them. "I'm staying here because I've been suspended. I've been suspended because a grave lapse in my own judgment influenced by my feelings for you led me to commit crimes in a foreign country the consequences of which—"

Audrey had practically stopped moving. "Are you angry with me? Because you've been suspended?"

Cooper shook his head. "Of course not, Audrey—"

"I'll talk to Daddy. He knows people. They can have you reinstated." She was pleading, desperate. "I should have never gone up there."

"No, you shouldn't have," he said, his voice soft, "But that's beside the point."

"Could you honestly go to jail for this?"

Cooper pitched his head to the side and sighed as he nodded. "Yes, but—"

She twisted her face into a grimace.

"Audrey," he intoned, "I don't regret what I did. Not even for a second." His sharp recall brought him back to the day he was first shown the tape sent to Ben Horne, watching Audrey, bound and gagged and fighting against her captors, and his stomach dropped out and down and into his shoes. He tightened his embrace, holding her close—protectively—as he let his lips brush the top of her hair. He squeezed her hand, hoping to impart some semblance of reassurance. If he did, it didn't register on her normally open, expressive face; when he pulled away to look at her, her eyes were guarded, her lips pressed in a line razor-straight, and he guessed she was stifling tears. He tried again. "I would do it again in a heartbeat if faced with the same situation," he said, adding with a soft chuckle: "I might call the Mounties first, but—"

"But your oath," she said, with all the seriousness the situation invoked. "This is your career on the line."

Cooper was neither frustrated by his inability to say what he had originally wanted to say, nor deterred by the emotional state of the woman in front of him. He approached the subject with matter-of-fact precision. "Audrey, yes, I took an oath. But I'm beholden to more than just the Bureau. It was more than my duty to rescue you. It was...personal. For me. I wouldn't change that. But that's the problem, Audrey—it can't be personal. Not ever. And with you, personal is all it is. Deeply personal."

She lifted her eyes to his; he saw there were tears gathering along the lower fringe. "I don't know what to say," she shrugged. "You say such wonderful things that make me think you care about me and then—"

He fought every urge in his body to close the charged space between them and seal his lips to hers. "I do care about you. Very much," he said. "But I also know the dangers. I know them intimately, deeply, and far better than you should ever have cause to. And so long as I'm in your life, you're at risk."

She clucked her tongue and stiffened in his arms. "And then you push me away," she said, finishing her sentence from before.

Cooper saw her bristle, anticipated her next words: I'm eighteen. I'm grown up. You can't tell me what to do.

"I couldn't live with myself if anything happened to you," he whispered finally. "Not again."

"You don't know that it will."

"I know Windom Earle, and I know what he's capable of."

"Dale."

It broke his heart, hearing the way her voice cracked as she said his name, and the sadness in her eyes as she read his reaction and realized he was not changing his mind. She shook her head once again, confused and disillusioned, and as the song finally ended she turned and faked a smile as she left the room, swiping at her eyes as she did.

Cooper waited until she was through the doors and out sight before he let himself feel anything.

And what he felt like was a cad, though a casual observer might have labelled him far worse. He'd broken his Golden Rule about getting involved, not only with someone involved in one of his cases but with a much younger girl—Woman, he corrected himself—than he might rightly have laid claim to otherwise. He'd made love with her on two separate occasions—here, Cooper might have said "Twice" but honesty was a virtue he prized above all others, and he had honestly lost count of the number of times he and Audrey and journeyed to that most erotic of heights together within the span of those two glorious nights.

And then, when it was all said and done, he'd pushed her away. For her own good, he told himself. But since when do you get to decide the fate of another, consenting adult? his inquiring mind buzzed at him.

He had no reply, so he tried to think of something other than her smile as he made his way back to the bar. He dodged questions from Sheriff Truman and ordered a beer, but quickly decided he wanted to neither sit nor drink and so excused himself with a weak apology and made his way through the lobby to the elevators, down the hall and to his room.

There, he collapsed onto the bed without taking off his suit and fell promptly to sleep, dreaming of music notes and barstools, blue roses and pretty girls with ebony hair and crimson lips, weeping softly as they danced on a worn timber floor…

COOPER: I broke her heart, Diane. I wanted to save her and I broke her heart…(Pause) I wish I could say honestly that I am glad to have put some distance between myself and Audrey, for I fear that I've let our relationship become too much of a liability. It's no longer a question of if Windom Earle re-inserts himself physically into my life, but a question of when, and the fewer people around me when that inevitable confrontation happens, the better. (Pause) But, this is of course not to say that I don't wish for better circumstances. I can think of dozens of scenarios in which Audrey and I could happily continue down the path we're on…I just don't know how to do that now, with so much at stake. (Pause) I have let far too many people get hurt, and Audrey cannot be another. I only wish there was some way for her to see that…