Doppelgangers

By Wesa

Disclaimers: The X-Files, its characters and associated locations belong to Chris Carter and Ten-Thirteen Productions. Twin Peaks, its characters and associated locations belong to someone (David Lynch?), but I'll have to get my tapes out to be specific. I own nothing here, and I'm making no money off of this. But considering the similarities of the TP and XF storylines, not to mention the similarities in appearance between some of the characters, I thought someone had to say something.

This is just the beginning of a story, hardly more than a snapshot. If anyone can see where to go with it, be my guest.

By the way, the title 'Doppelgangers' is open to change, too, if there's a better one out there somewhere.

By Wesa.

Outside, the sun shone brightly on the J. Edgar Hoover Building. In the dim recesses of the building's basement, a slim, petite redhead made her way through corridors narrowed by stacks of files on either side. She stopped in front of a closed door and juggled purse, briefcase, and coffee to find a free hand with which to turn the knob. When she finally got the door open, she looked at the man who sprawled in the chair behind the desk with an expression close to exasperation.

Oblivious to her difficulties, he looked up at her and grinned. "Hey, Scully," he greeted her.

"Hey yourself, Mulder," she returned his casual greeting. "What's this?" She picked up a file from his desk and sat down to study it.

His expression soured as she looked through the file. "And they call me Spooky," he snorted.

Scully blinked, then chuckled softly. "Don't hold back, Mulder. What do you really think about what happened to Agent Cooper?"

"I think whatever he saw in the 'White Lodge' place drove him insane," Mulder replied, and the Institute for the Criminally Insane is exactly where he belongs. Sheriff Truman and his deputies did a good job."

"You don't want to interview Truman yourself?" Scully asked, surprised.

Mulder sighed. "Did you see which DEA agent was sent to investigate when Cooper was accused of smuggling cocaine across the border?"

Scully flipped pages to find the answer. "Dennis Bryson." She looked up. "So?"

"Y' ever met him?"

"No...He's assigned to the San Francisco office, it says," Scully replied.

"Good place for him," Mulder muttered.

"Why?"

Mulder sighed again. "You know how they say everyone has a twin somewhere? He's mine. Dead ringer."

"I still don't see the problem," Scully said, frowning delicately.

"He's a transvestite," Mulder told her bluntly. "I don't think he's gay, but I don't want anyone getting us mixed up, just in case."

Scully grinned, then chuckled, then laughed helplessly. "Mulder," she protested when she could talk again, "just don't wear any dresses while we're there. I don't think I could take it."

"What makes you think we're going?" Mulder asked.

Scully handed him the three-oh-two. "It came out of Skinner's office," she said. "Cooper has disappeared from the asylum. One of the places it's thought he might go is Twin Peaks, and we've been assigned to that position."

Mulder nodded in resignation. "Scully," he asked suddenly, "how do you think I'd look with a beard?"

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The Great Northern Hotel was rustic in design and décor, but neared luxury in its furnishings, and despite Mulder's misgivings, only the concierge looked at him oddly, asking, "Have you stayed with us before, Mr. Mulder?"

"No," Mulder replied truthfully, if a little too firmly.

"You're probably thinking of someone else," Scully said helpfully. Mulder glared at her. "Could you give us directions to the police station?"

Half an hour later, as they descended the stairs from their rooms, Mulder wondered, "Are you going to make me regret telling you about Bryson?"

"Oh, stop," Scully pleaded. "I can't keep a straight face while I'm trying to picture you in a dress. Mulder, I'm sorry, but you'd make a homely girl."

He brightened. "Thank you," he told her as the crossed the lobby. "That's the nicest thing you've said to me all day."

The reaction at the police station was different, though. The pregnant receptionist looked at Mulder uneasily. "Agent ... Mulder?" she repeated dubiously. "Wasn't your name Bryson before?"

Mulder sighed and looked at Scully. "I knew this was trouble," he said.

Scully interceded. "Agent Bryson is a distant cousin of Agent Mulder's," she prevaricated easily. "He works for the DEA. Agent Mulder and I are FBI agents, here to see Sheriff Truman."

"Oh." The receptionist looked at Mulder again, still dubiously.

"I don't wear women's clothes," Mulder assured her. She smiled and rang the sheriff's office to announce their arrival.

He got the same shocked reaction from Truman and each of his senior deputies, and gave them all some version of Scully's explanation - which so far as he knew might have been the truth anyway - smiling slightly at the relief evident in Deputy Hawk's face.

Truman was concerned at news of cooper's escape. "Dale Cooper was the best darn lawman I've ever known," the sheriff told them. "But ... after whatever happened that night..." He shook his head.

"Why?" Scully asked. "What happened?"

Sheriff Truman seemed unwilling or unable to talk about it, so Deputy Hawk spoke up. "He passed through the Black Lodge," he said ominously.

"What's the Black Lodge?" Mulder asked, suddenly interested.

"Every soul must pass through the Black Lodge on the way to perfection," Deputy Hawk told him. "There you will meet your own shadow-self. If you confront the Black Lodge with imperfect courage, it will utterly annihilate you."

"Native legend," Truman said. "Only - only I saw -" He took a steadying breath and tried again, more calmly. "There's a circle of trees in the forest. I saw Cooper walk between two of the trees - and it was as if he had walked behind a curtain. I waited. I didn't see him come out, I just saw him - and Annie - lying unconscious on the ground."

"Annie?" Mulder prodded.

"Do you know about Windom Earle?" Truman asked obliquely.

"Cooper's former partner," Mulder said. "His wife was murdered and Cooper was wounded. There was speculation that Caroline Earle, as a material witness, knew something that implicated her husband, and the he attacked Cooper in order to murder her before she could testify. There was also speculation that he might have done it out of jealousy. The only evidence, circumstantial at best, that he might have actually murdered his wife was that he disappeared afterward."

Truman nodded. "Earle was stalking Cooper," he said. "I still have the files, and I'll let you read them, but essentially what I believe happened was that while watching him, Earle learned that Coop had fallen in love with Annie. Earle kidnapped Annie, and Cooper went after her ... following Earle into the Black Lodge.

"After they came out," Truman continued, "we got them back as soon as possible. When she regained consciousness, Annie had no memory of what happened, and she seems psychologically unharmed.

"But Cooper - Coop was changed. First thing he wanted to do when he woke up was to brush his teeth. While he was in the bathroom, he bashed his forehead into the mirror, and was staring at his reflection, laughing, with blood running down his face when we broke in."

"That's when you first knew something was wrong?" Scully asked.

Truman nodded, sighing heavily and leaning forward on his desk. "Only we didn't have any idea how badly wrong it was." He looked from Scully to Mulder. "Cooper came here when I requested FBI help in the case of Laura palmer's murder. We learned the murderer was a man named Bob, a transient, we thought at first. Then we learned that a one-armed man named Mike was the only one who could reliably recognize him. Turned out that Mike was an alternate personality - an 'inhabiting spirit,' he called himself - of a traveling salesman named Philip Gerard. Mike said that Bob was also an inhabiting spirit, a parasite that required a human host, and that he lived on human fear and pleasures. This," he continued, pulling out a poster, "is Bob's true face, or so Mike told us. He also said it can only be seen by the gifted and the damned."

Behind the agents, the door to Truman's office opened suddenly. Framed in the doorway stood a middle-aged woman wearing glasses ad holding a small log as if it were a child. "There are owls," she said clearly, "in the Roadhouse."

"Oh, Lord," Truman protested. "Not again."

The woman gazed at them a moment longer, then turned away, carrying her log.

Mulder and Scully looked at each other in astonishment. "Owls?" Mulder repeated.

"The last time she said that, Bob killed Madelyn Ferguson, Laura Palmer's cousin," Truman explained. Are either of you prone to visions?"

"What do visions have to do with owls?" Scully asked.

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The Roadhouse was a large nightclub for so small a town. This early in the day it was pretty well deserted. Scully looked from the Log Lady to Sheriff Truman to Mulder. "Now what?" she wondered.

Mulder looked from Truman to Scully to the Log Lady. "Owls?" he asked.

"Owls," she affirmed.

Mulder turned to Truman, who explained, "Owls symbolize spirits of some sort," he began.

Scully felt the world around her fade, and suddenly she was back in the bright white place, with Dr. Tashimora bending over her. He was talking to her, telling her something important, but she couldn't understand what he said because there was something wrong with the sound. Dr. Tashimora looked up, across the table, and Scully turned her head to follow his gaze.

One of Mulder's aliens stood there, only taller, thinner, almost skeletal. It put its hand on her distended belly and smiled, nodding.

The Roadhouse returned, and Scully staggered to a chair and sat down.

"Scully? Are you all right?" Mulder hovered over her worriedly. "What's the matter?"

"Dizzy," she murmured, one hand pressed to her forehead.

"You had a vision, didn't you?" Truman asked softly.

Scully looked up at him, her azure eyes haunted, and shook her head, denying it even to herself.

"I know you don't believe, Scully," Mulder said gently, "but it might be important." He sat down in the chair next to hers, adding, "Tell me," as he leaned toward her, resting his arms on his knees.

Scully protested, "Mulder, there isn't anything to tell! It was just another flash of meaningless memory, and I don't think this was even a real memory, okay? All there was, was the bright white place, and Dr. Tashimora and I couldn't understand what he was saying, and -" She broke off, frowning.

"And what?" Mulder encouraged.

"And there was a Reticulan there, so it couldn't have been a memory. Only it was too tall and thin to be a Reticulan -"

"Skeletal?" Mulder asked.

"Yes, how -?" Scully looked at him in amazement.

"Other reports." He waved it away as of no importance. "Go on. Did it say anything to you?"

"No..." Scully frowned. "It put its hand on my stomach and nodded and smiled at me."

"On your stomach?" Truman asked. Mulder and Scully had almost forgotten he was there.

"I was lying on my back," Scully explained, "and there was a tube coming out of my navel, and my stomach was..." She gestured helplessly. " ... Distended ... like I was eight months gone. It - the tall Reticulan - seemed pleased."

"Scully," Mulder said, "Tashimora is dead. It couldn't be a vision of the future. Could it be from when you were abducted?"

"Abducted?" Truman seized on the word. "What's a Reticulan?"

Mulder spared him a glance, then turned back to Scully. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah," she replied slowly. "Yes, I'm fine now." She looked around at the Log Lady. "So where are these owls?"

"I don't think she means them literally," Mulder said.

"No," Truman agreed. "The tribes around here considered owls to represent spirits and bring spirit visions. Cooper had at least two visions here, and one at the Great Northern."

"And he trusted his visions?" Mulder asked.

"He did," Truman agreed with a nod. "His visions led him to Laura Palmer's murderer - Bob, in the guise of Laura's father, Leland. Bob was in control when Leland smashed his head against the cell door, then left Leland to remember what he had done to his own daughter and niece. Leland died in Cooper's arms."

He turned to Scully. "You said something about a bright white place? The ... legend about the Black Lodge also tells of the White Lodge. The White Lodge is as good a place as the Black Lodge is evil - if that's any help. The White Lodge is the place where the Spirits that rule Man and Nature here reside. The Black Lodge is a sort of a shadow of the White Lodge."

Scully and Mulder looked at each other. "Sheriff Truman," Scully said, "I don't think the White Lodge was where I was."

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While Mulder studied the maps and clues collected by Agent Cooper concerning the location of the White Lodge, Scully went to interview Major Garland Briggs, who had been trying to locate the White Lodge as an unofficial Air Force assignment. According to Truman, Cooper had believed Briggs had actually been taken there once when he disappeared while on a fishing trip with the federal agent.

Scully knocked at the door, which was opened by a pleasant-looking young man, who must be Briggs' son. "Hi," she said. "My name is Dana Scully. I have an appointment with Major Briggs."

The boy stared at her a moment before stammering, "You - you're an FBI agent? Boy, you don't look anything like Agent Cooper!"

"Bobby, that's not polite!" a blonde woman said appearing behind the boy. "Do come in, Ms. Scully, and don't mind Bobby. Garland will be right down. Would you like some coffee? Perhaps some iced tea?"

"Iced tea would be nice," Scully admitted, following her into the house. "Thank you. It is warm today."

"It's supposed to get over a hundred degrees tomorrow," announced a familiar voice behind her.

Scully turned sharply, disbelief warring with the evidence of her own eyes. "Daddy?" she whispered, just before she fainted, collapsing in a heap on the Briggs' beige carpet.

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"My partner recently mentioned to me the old theory that everyone has a twin somewhere," Scully told the Briggs family, accepting with shaking hands the glass of ice and liquid that Mrs. Briggs urged upon her. "Your resemblance to my late father, major, is - it's remarkable!" She gulped a steadying swallow of what she thought to be iced tea. It wasn't. Scully choked a little on the whiskey and stared at Mrs. Briggs.

"You needed it, dear," the older woman told her.

"But I'm on duty," Scully protested faintly, feeling the warmth of the alcohol spreading from her stomach already.

"Call it medicinal purposes," the Major said, smiling. "My wife is always right about such things, Agent Scully. Forgive me, but did I understand that your father is no longer with us?"

"He ... had a massive heart attack, almost four years ago," Scully replied. "It was quite sudden ... You have his face, his voice..." She took another swallow of the whiskey, then a deep breath. "This is ... so unprofessional. Please forgive me."

"The cause was more than sufficient," Major Briggs told her, waving away her apology. "Would you be more comfortable if I worked with your partner?"

"I can do this," Scully said determinedly. "I want to. Major, we need to know everything you can tell me of what was said between yourself and Agent Cooper, all you know of both the White Lodge and the Black Lodge."
The Major looked from his wife to his son, and Mrs. Briggs put an arm around Bobby's shoulders. "When is Shelley's divorce to become final?" she asked, drawing him into the kitchen.

"I'll tell you what Cooper and I talked about," Major Briggs told Scully softly, "and I'll warn you to stay away from the Black Lodge, but everything else I know about both Black and White Lodges is classified."

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Mulder listened to what Scully had to say, a puzzled expression on his face. "Scully," he asked when she finished briefing him, "have you been drinking?"

Scully made one sound, sort of a wry half-chuckle, and dug into her purse, brining out her wallet. "Don't say anything," she told Mulder, showing him a snapshot of her whole family, taken when she was in her mid-teens.

Mulder bit off whatever smart-alek remark he'd been about to make as Scully showed the photo to Sheriff Truman. "Do you recognize anyone in this picture?" she asked him.

"Sure," he replied. "Major Briggs. But who are the woman and kids?"

"My family," Scully answered softly. "That's not Major Briggs," she explained. "That's Captain William Scully, U.S. Navy. My father. He died three and a half years ago. Major Briggs even sounds like him," she added, shaking her head. "Mrs. Briggs decided I needed a medicinal drink."

Mulder shook his head. "I don't like this at all," he said. "I'd send you home if I didn't need your help."

"You didn't react that way when you found out Agent Bryson had been here," Scully protested.

"Dennis is just embarrassing," Mulder replied, "but you saw visions of your abduction. You came face-to-face with a man who might as well be your father's twin." He shook his head again.

"I don't think we can make do any more tonight," Truman told them. "Maybe we can make more progress tomorrow, Why don't you both go back to the hotel, get a good night's sleep?"

"Good idea," Scully agreed. "I'm exhausted. And famished."

"Is the food any good up there?" Mulder asked.

"Mulder," Truman said, nodding, "you're in for a treat. Except for pie - Stop by the Double R Diner across the way. Norma Jennings' cherry pies are out of this world."

Mulder smiled as he rose and opened the door, holding it open for Scully to precede him. "Interesting choice of words, Sheriff," he commented as he followed her out.

To be continued...?