Chapter 5 - One step forward, two steps back

I'd like to apologize for the long wait between chapters. Won't happen again, I promise. KV

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Teresa grabbed Casey's arm conspiratorially as the girls left the Double R. "So can I call you deputy now?"

"Oy." Casey shook her head. "Not proud of what just happened in there, Teresa."

"Are you kidding? You kicked ass! You got deputized!"

"Whose ass did I kick? Shelley's?"

Mickey caught up to them after fluffing her hair in the ladies' room. "That waitress was having a fit in there," she informed them, giving Casey a sideways look. "Really hyperventilating."

"I'm going to feel awful the rest of the day if I don't go talk to her," Casey said with a sigh. "Tell Maureen I'll be back as soon as possible."

Casey pushed open the door of the diner again, this time alone, the bell jangling over the door. Norma was wiping down the counters, and caught Casey's eye with a warning. Casey walked over to the Double R's owner with lead in her feet. "Norma, can I say something to Shelley? Or is that a bad idea right now?"

Norma pursed her lips. "Depends on what you want to say." She continued to wipe the counter, as if Casey wasn't there at all.

"No, she can say what she wants, Norma." Shelley appeared behind Norma, eyes red but lipstick and face powder freshly applied. Norma wordlessly handed her the dishrag and retreated into the kitchen. Casey felt apprehension starting to pull her face inwards, and noticed out of the corner of her eye that the table full of deputies was still lingering over pie and coffee.

"I'm sorry," she murmured to Shelley. "There's no excuse - I could've said anything in the world to him, I didn't have to say that - "

"No, it's okay. It is." Shelley smiled ruefully. "I know Bobby is bad for me. I just had to hear someone else say it." She shrugged, but her lip trembled as she spoke. "I heard rumors about him and Audrey Horne too."

Casey had only been in town a month and she'd heard those rumors as well. "There's always rumors with someone like him. The bad boys aren't half as attractive if they don't uphold their reputations."

Shelley laughed mirthlessly as she rubbed the dishrag over the yellow countertop. She bit her lip and nodded. "Problem is, I like the bad ones."

Casey shook her head in agreement. "I used to, too. Probably why I'm still single." Commiserating over men unites all women, she thought, pouting her lips to her nostrils. Shelley giggled at that, but her face suddenly turned serious. She leaned over the countertop to whisper.

"You know Bobby might, you know... try to get even with you now?"

Casey's eyes widened.

"I know he did some stuff to this guy James. I don't know everything, but I know Bobby put cocaine in the tank of his bike, got James tossed in jail for a day or two."

Casey nodded. "I'll be careful. Thanks, Shelley."

The other girl waved off Casey's gratefulness and replied, "One good turn deserves another, right?"

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"You gonna be at the Roadhouse tonight?" Teresa poked her head in the storeroom, where Casey was unpacking bags of cat litter.

"Yeah. I think so." Huffing and puffing, Casey started stacking the bags on top of each other. Feeling eyes still on her, she turned to find Teresa still standing there. "Gonna stare or gonna help?"

Teresa picked up a bag and started to push it towards the back of the stack. "What if Bobby's at the Roadhouse, too?"

"What if he is?" Casey hugged another bag to her chest and hauled it to the stack.

"Aren't you worried that he'll, you know, retaliate?"

"Would Ferris Bueller be?" Casey pushed sweaty strands of hair behind her ears and went for the last bag.

Teresa took it from her with a serious expression. "He was *pissed*, Casey."

Shelley's warning bubbled up in the back of her mind. She'd been trying to ignore it all afternoon, but there it was, sending cold shots of fear to numb the rational side of her brain. She shrugged it off. It wasn't the first time she'd pissed off a local and it surely wouldn't be the last; and at any rate, if she allowed someone to make her afraid of exploring Twin Peaks, she'd create her own roadblock to finding out what happened to Uncle Windom.

"I'm a deputy now, remember? I fear no high school quarterback." She stuck her tongue out at Teresa. "Besides, I don't need to tell you how much I need a drink or five tonight."

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Casey was always surprised how the Roadhouse attracted everyone from bikers to families with small children. It seemed to her like a pretty tough place, not exactly family friendly. Then again, there weren't a lot of options for eating out in Twin Peaks, and it seemed like no one ever tired of Julee Cruise. That's another thing, Casey thought: how on earth do they get her to play here on a regular basis?

Her stomach swirled with nervous anticipation at the idea of seeing Hawk here tonight. Of course he would be here with his buddies, and she was here with some of the interns. But she'd still gone home to change into a tight top, put on more eye makeup and spray some of her favorite sexy perfume (which would probably go to waste in the cigarette smoke, but oh well).

The Roadhouse was a fairly big bar; they could conceivably go the whole night without noticing each other; but if he wanted to find her here, he would. And if he didn't want to find her, then she'd just have some drinks and go home. No huge loss. At least that's what she kept saying to herself. She crossed her legs, stirred her drink, took a sip, uncrossed her legs, stirred the drink some more. Her eyes hunted the crowd.

Teresa grabbed her shoulder and Casey just about spilled her drink. "Who are you looking around for? Bobby?" Teresa nodded sympathetically.

"Bobby?" Casey asked. "Pfffffft." The idea of Bobby was suddenly hysterical. She giggled and poked Teresa's hand, still on her shoulder. "Poke. Poke. Poke. Poke." She snorted with laughter. "What're ya looking at me like that for?"

"Cause I think something is wrong with you." Teresa pushed out of the booth and tried to yank Casey to her feet, but her friend swayed and collapsed on the dirty wood floorboards.

"Casey! What the hell is wrong with you!?" Casey tried to push herself up but suddenly found she could not control her own movements. Her mind seemed slower somehow, and her hands simply would not do what she wanted them to do.

"Come here, Case." Teresa put Casey's arm around her neck to pull her up on her feet, and someone was quickly on her other side doing the same. "Who gave you that drink, Casey?"

Casey's lips wouldn't work right, either. "Tha barrtenderrrrr," she slurred. Her vision was going in and out, fading to black and blurring back to the scene at hand. Everything is really pretty, she thought, making a mental note to tell Teresa she looked pretty later, when she wasn't so sleepy.

"Who's gonna drive us to the hospital?" Teresa asked the table full of interns as Casey's vision went black for good.

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Why am I sleeping on my back? Casey wondered. I never sleep on my back. Casey tugged her arm and felt something attached to it. She slapped at it and bolted upright from the pain.

Calhoun Memorial Hospital had not been updated in quite some time. The walls were yellow tile and the floor was a dirty, scuffed linoleum of indeterminate color. A nurse briskly walked into Casey's room and yelled over her shoulder, "She's awake."

Teresa came in and sat in the hard metal chair in the corner next to Casey's bed. The nurse checked Casey's IV and tut-tutted. "Hon, be careful with that or we'll have to put in another one."

"What the fuck happened to me?" Casey turned to Teresa, but the nurse answered her instead. "Someone drugged your drink last night. Do you remember any of it?"

"Not really. I remember falling on the floor and not being able to move." Slowly it started sinking in. Bobby. Shelley told me he'd get back at me. What was he gonna do after I blacked out?

"The sheriff is gonna come over later to talk to you. They already took statements from all of us last night. It was a pretty bad scene. They shut down the Roadhouse and interviewed everyone in there. The bartender said he didn't do anything to your drink, and they didn't find a bottle or pills or anything like that." Teresa had bags and dark circles under her eyes, and she stopped to yawn. The nurse patted Casey on the shoulder and left the room.

Casey looked down at her arm. "I don't remember a damn thing. All I want to do is go home and sleep."

"Hopefully it'll come back to you a little. I think the doctor said you would be discharged later today. But." Teresa smiled. "I gotta tell you what this guy did last night... the Native American deputy?"

Casey fixed her eyes on her friend. "Hawk."

"Hawk, yeah... I sure hope his mother didn't name him that. We were trying to carry you out of the bar, Leslie was gonna take us all over to the hospital in her truck. I don't think we got three feet before Hawk swoops in - sorry for the pun - picks you up, and throws you over his shoulder all caveman-bride style. It would've been hilarious if it wasn't, you know, not hilarious." Teresa rubbed her eyes. "Or did cavemen drag their brides home by their hair?"

Casey shook her head impatiently. "I don't know. What else did he do?"

"Well, your skirt was riding up of course. He actually pulled your skirt down so you wouldn't be flashing the whole bar."

"No!" Casey's face burned with embarrassment.

"Oh yeah. We were all standing around him, so it wasn't like everyone saw. Then he takes you outside and very gently puts you in his truck, like you were a baby or something. He buckled you in, pulled your skirt down again, pushed your hair out of your face. Not that you were conscious to see or anything." Teresa looked at her inquiringly, as if trying to find the answer to a question. "I thought he was going to kiss you for a second."

Casey twisted the blanket in her fingers.

"He wasn't going to let any of us come with, but I got in before he noticed and I guess he figured it was more important to get you to the hospital than to argue. He took out this siren from under his seat, put it on the dashboard and turned it on, then told me I should've gone with someone who wasn't going to drive like hell. And then I wished I had gone with Leslie. I thought he was gonna get us killed before he could save you. I think my fingernails ripped holes in the upholstery!"

"He's not still here, is he?" Casey tried to peer around the doorway.

"No no, he had to go take statements from people at the bar. But I'm pretty sure he's going to come back to visit if you don't get discharged first." Teresa smiled mischievously. "Are we evading him or waiting up for him, Casey?"

Casey leaned back in the hospital bed. "Honestly, I really just want to get out of here. I want to go home and sleep in my own bed. Were you here all night, T? You didn't have to stay..."

"Eh, I slept in the waiting room. Not so bad. I can sleep just about anywhere." Teresa's red eyes told a different story, but Casey was too tired to press the issue. She laid back in bed and almost immediately bolted upright again. "Oh my God, did someone take care of Moogie?"

Teresa's eyes lit up. "Oh yeah, that's the other thing I wanted to tell you. Hawk took him to the sheriff's station because the shelter is so overloaded right now and none of us could keep him in our apartments. I'm pretty sure everyone there is spoiling him rotten."

Casey nodded. "Okay... So. They have no idea who drugged my drink, huh?"

Her friend shook her head slowly. "Nope. Not a one, Casey."