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Try as he might, Bobby cannot remember the last time he felt this fucking tired. In a way, it doesn't seem fair. Apparently, people were having hallucinations for weeks leading up to that movie screening, and seeing awful, personal things. That chaos in the theater the night it played, there wasn't anything that pertained to him specifically; he didn't even get there until everything had already started. Still, the things he saw then have stayed with him since. Not just that unnatural version of Laura, though that, more than anything, has been hard to stop reliving when he closes his eyes, disturbing in how much sense it makes. (He always knew she was afraid of something. He supposes that, now, he knows what that was.) But while Twin Peaks was never as quaint and pleasant as it seemed on the surface, the beings in that theater, the violence and the screaming, was worse than anything he's seen before or could have anticipated.

Things seem to have settled down now, everything having gone back to normal, or whatever amounts to it here, but he doubts he's the only person who's haunted by it in some regard. In order to try to keep his mind off it, he's stopped at a diner on his way back to his apartment after work, not really ready to be alone there just yet. Besides, while this place isn't the Double R by any stretch of the imagination — no pie will ever be as good as Norma's, as far as he's concerned, and then, of course, there's no Shelly here — it has a similar sort of feeling, pleasantly familiar, maybe the closest thing he's got here to home.

Coffee is coffee, anyway. Sitting at the counter, he smiles at the waitress who fills his cup, idly skimming the menu as he says quietly to himself, "Jesus. What a week."
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Leave all phone messages for Bobby Briggs here.
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Leave all mail for Bobby Briggs here.
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It's strange, how quickly the past can come back and rear its head, and how all-encompassing it can become. Just days ago, he was walking into the conference room to be faced with a picture — that picture, the one of her in her homecoming queen crown and smiling like she hadn't a care in the world, fooling the whole damn town with it — of his long dead girlfriend, a ghost of what feels like another life. It's another ghost that Bobby is following now, though at least this one is a little simpler to deal with. Two and a half decades haven't made this shit all that much easier, but knowing what he knows now does, his mother's words from a couple of days ago echoing in his head. He knew it would all turn out well. Bobby doesn't know how the hell that could be the case, but then, that's his dad. He always did seem to be in tune with something that the rest of them weren't. It makes him think of that one day they spoke at the Double R, before he knew how close it would be to the end, maybe the first and last real conversation the two of them ever had.

There's so much he never found out. Maybe this will teach him a little about the man he never really got to know well enough.

Whether he does or not, though, Bobby knows one thing: He's here for a reason. Fate, predestination, whatever a person wants to call it, he's never put much stock in anything of the sort, but whatever is happening now, it was clearly all set into motion a long time ago. He was meant to be here, wandering this path he doesn't think he's so much as set foot on in years, possibly even decades. A part of him fleetingly wishes now that that wasn't the case. All those years ago when his father died, Shelly wasn't pregnant yet, and they sure as hell weren't married with a child. Becky never got to meet her grandfather. Maybe he should have brought her out here, told her a little more about the man, but any chance for that has probably passed. Besides, at the time, he couldn't have stomached it. The crash was so near here, the car gone up in flames, nothing left to identify.

That much, he shoves aside for now. That isn't why they're here, him and the others; they have bigger things at hand, though what those things might be, why his father sent him here twenty-five years after his death, he can't guess yet.

"This used to be the road, where we're walking," he explains to the others, partly to get himself out of his own head. He doesn't need to get wrapped up in the familiarity of it, or the anticipation. "My dad's listening post station was right through there. Nothing left of it now. Took everything away."

Andy speaks before he gets a chance to continue, practically taking the words right out of his mouth. "And what all did your father do up there, Bobby?"

"I don't know," he answers, shrugging slightly as he speaks, still leading the way towards the familiar tree stump he knows will be there. "It was all top secret. Took me inside a couple times when I was little, but all I remember is lots and lots of machines."

He starts to smile then, head tilted up slightly, taking everything in. "He would take me here, though," he continues, a warmth in his voice that he can't quite hide. It's funny, in a way. Throughout his teenage years, he hated his father, or he thought he did, but none of that remains now. It's nice, actually, if bittersweet, to be reminded of what good times they spent together what feels like a lifetime ago. The choice of this place can't be accidental, either. Bobby just isn't sure if his father chose it for what they're doing now because of what it would mean to him, or if he chose it for the two of them because of what it would come to mean all these years later. Knowing his old man, one seems just as likely as the other.

A few more steps, and he comes to a stop, chuckling quietly to himself as the old tree comes into view, the stump jagged around the top edges, every inch of it exactly what he remembers. "Just a sec," he says quietly, holding up a hand before he steps forward towards it, coming up to stand by one of the overgrown roots, just as he would as a child. "This is it." Still grinning, he holds out his arms for a moment. "Jack Rabbit's Palace."

The others follow suit, but for a moment, he's still all nostalgia, the first time he's revisited this — hell, that note they found being the first time he'd thought about this — in longer than he can remember. "You know, we'd sit here and make up great tall tales."

"Two hundred and fifty-three yards due east," Hawk says, his compass in hand, pointing off in that direction, a reminder of what they're here for, and that they're on a time frame.

"And we have to put some soil in our pockets," Andy chimes in. That, Bobby doesn't understand for the life of him, but he isn't going to question it, leaning over to take a fistful of earth to put in his pocket. At least the others seem just as willing to follow suit. Strange an instruction as it might be, all of this is too specific for him to have any doubts about it, and his father wasn't exactly known for his sense of humor.

"Let's hope this is not one of your father's tall tales," Frank says.

Bobby exhales a laugh. "I hope so, too. I don't think so. We'll soon find out." Straightening again, he takes a look around once more. "Father did tell me never wander around here without him."

Now, that's exactly what he's going to be doing, but he was sent here, and he has the others with him. Besides, in no way is he afraid of any damn woods. He's just also not going to take them for granted. He's heard the sorts of things people talk about, knows there's more out here — more in their whole town — than necessarily meets the eye. This might just be about one of those things.

For a long moment, they're all silent, breathing in the woodsy air and the scent of pine needles, until Hawk finally interrupts with, "Let's go."

So they do, Hawk in the lead this time, using his compass to follow the bearing they were given in the note his father left, Bobby picking up the rear. They're well off the path now, the trees growing thicker and the ground more uneven, and all he can do is wonder.

Then all he can do is wonder some more. Dimly, he's aware of making his way back to Jack Rabbit's Palace, but he doesn't know how or why or where he's been in the meantime, an unshakable confusion written into his expression. They made it there, he knows that much. Wherever they were sent, whatever they were supposed to do, they did it. He just, though it can't have been more than a few minutes, doesn't remember what it was. For a few moments, all he can do is look up at the sky in confusion, trying to parse what's just happened, coming up blank. Then at least part of that confusion makes itself clear. Jack Rabbit's Palace is still behind him, his weight leaning on the same root where he'd been standing when they first came here, but the rest of the trees around him are different. Even the bird calls don't sound quite the same; the sky isn't the clear blue of early October, the air colder than it was when they first walked out here. Out there. The tree itself may have moved to wherever he is, but he spent a lot of time in the woods as a kid, and these aren't the same ones.

Staying in place, he takes a few deep breaths, blinks once, twice, shakes his head in case that might help. Then he calls out for the others: first "Hey, fellas!" and then by name, "Hawk! Andy!"

There's no response.

Finally, he does the only thing he can do and starts to walk, keeping track of the route he takes as he goes, not wanting to lose where his only point of reference is. Hand in his pocket where the soil from Jack Rabbit's Palace still is, he sighs. "Dad, I really hope you're right about this," he says under his breath. It's a little easier to be skeptical now than it was earlier, but still, somehow, he has to believe that there's some purpose to this.

The trees clear out eventually, and where he finds himself isn't like any part of Twin Peaks he recognizes. Bobby isn't sure if that's actually surprising or not. Maybe it makes sense that he would be somewhere totally different, rather than having completely forgotten what the place he spent so much of his childhood is like. Not long after that, the quiet gives way to chatter, the empty field to buildings. A college campus, if he had to guess, young adults milling around with bags on their backs, hurrying from one building to another or seeming to put off doing so. Just in the distance, there's a picnic table, and he lifts his hand to get the attention of the people sitting there, though he can't quite make them all out yet. "Hey," he calls, making sure to keep the badge at his waist in view. "Think any of you guys could give me directions? I'm pretty sure I made a wrong turn somewhere."

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Bobby Briggs

October 2018

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