A/N: This is my first attempt at writing for Twin Peaks, as well as my first post on this site. I am not American, but I have tried to Americanize all spellings, though there may be some that I have missed, in which case I apologise and gratefully welcome corrections. Hope you like it.

Disclaimer: Not mine, not making any money from it, no copyright infringement intended.

Albert has never liked trees. The vapors that rise from them chill him in a way that few things can and the smell of sap sets his teeth on edge. On weekends when he was a boy his father would take him walking in the forests near their home in Oregon and at the end of the day his lungs and throat would be aching from breathing in the cold mist, his ankles sore from stumbling over snaking roots, his hands and knees damp with mud. Give him a lamppost or tower block any day, he thinks. A lamppost has no foliage to hide behind, but that's just it, really. He doesn't trust the things that hide in the branches.

Pine trees are the worst, he finds. The way the needles turn up later, in shoes and pockets and packets of cigarettes, like sand. The oozing sap that leaves a sticky trail on his skin wherever he brushes up against a bough. Most of all it's the drooping limbs, heavy with moisture, that fold around the trunk, a more substantial cloak than the pervasive, wheezing miasma. He hates them for the cloying cover they provide.

Cooper, of course, loves the pine forests that choke the town of Twin Peaks. He has dragged Albert into the woods behind the Great Northern to discuss the case; Albert just wishes they could have stayed indoors. Or, better yet, in the car, away from walls cluttered with stags' heads and carved fish.

"Can you just smell that sharp pine scent, Albert?" Cooper's clear voice breaks through Albert's internal grumbling – most people register only faintly, testing the locks and rattling the door handles on the very perimeter of his thoughts, but Cooper has always demanded full attention from those around him. The intruder alarm in Albert's head stopped ringing years ago.

Cooper inhales exaggeratedly through his nose and does his best Boy Scout impression, complete with dippy grin. "There's nothing quite so refreshing as a brisk, health-giving walk in the woods."

Albert is momentarily speechless. Sometimes he thinks that he and Cooper have nothing in common but the job – and even that is doubtful, to most people. He remembers Cooper's words on first learning of Albert's pacifist vows: We may have chosen different weapons, Albert, but we're fighting the same battle, and that's what counts.

"Refreshing? Health-giving? Coop, breathing pine sap is about as good for you as inhaling cotton candy, and a lot less pleasant." Albert scowls. It isn't as eloquent or as snappy as he would have liked, and he worries that it won't quite mask his discomfort. He finds that longer tirades, while not at all subtle, are more likely to distract, particularly if he throws in a few insults.

Cooper, of course, sees through it all anyway.

They have reached a small clearing now, and though Cooper's smile is as witless as ever, his eyes have adopted that warm and knowing look that Albert is growing distressingly accustomed to. He waits patiently, contemplating the trees, while Albert scrabbles for a cigarette to cover the stench. When it's lit and slowly burning away the damp rot in his lungs, Cooper turns to face him again.

"You know Albert, I really think we're on to something here. These woods hold a lot of secrets, and I believe they are the key to finding Laura Palmer's killer."

Albert doesn't find that hard to believe. He glares at the hulking shape of a Douglas fir and thinks that he would like to know its secrets, the way he knows Laura Palmer's secrets and so many others. He'd like to get that tree on an autopsy table and examine every inch, strip away the branches and the bark, cut right to the core and find out what makes it tick.

Albert has always known that, while Cooper relies on Albert and his post postmortems and forensic reports for evidence, there will be times when he has to rely on Cooper and his methods; the dreams and the Tibetan rituals and the rest of the mumbo jumbo. Here in Ghostwood Forest, listening to Cooper muse about giants and men from other places, he realizes that this is going to be one of those times. To crack this case, he will have to return to the darkness of his childhood walks, to the days before he knew what a bone saw was, or how to read a person's life in their internal organs. And he will have to stick very close to Cooper to make sure that they both get through it.

For now, he exhales another cloud of smoke and tilts his head back. As long as he keeps his eyes on that steel grey sky, Albert can almost imagine that he and Cooper are safe, hundreds of miles away, in their concrete jungle.