TITLE: Mirror Images (2/42) AUTHOR: Ana Vicente RATING: PG CLASSIFICATION: X KEYWORDS: Some Scully Angst and a bit of Scully/Other Romance (May all shippers rest assure - it doesn't last long :)) SUMMARY: Indicated on Mirror Images head page. SPOILERS: Nothing major, but it helps if you've seen Clyde Bruckman's Final Repose, Emily and Quagmire. TIMELINE: Indicated on Mirror Images head page. DISCLAIMER: The X-Files trademark, concepts and characters are the property of Twentieth Century Fox Television, 1013 Production and Chris Carter. No infringement intended. ARCHIVE: Just let me know about it (beforehand would be nice:)). FINISHED: July 21st 2000 APPROXIMATE SIZE: 11K (5 pages) FEEDBACK: Constructive criticism would be much appreciated, whether or not you liked it. To Thorn17@mailcity.com or alienmoon76@hotmail.com. All flames will be sent to Kaye to light her pipe. ICQ: #86468911 WEBPAGE: http://members.tripod.com/Thorn17 AUTHOR'S NOTES: None what so ever. ------- + ------- 2 Dana Scully stood by the window of the brightly lit room, looking out but unable to see anything other than herself on the mirror the darkened street had brought to the panes of glass. Behind her, the party went on. People who had once been a part of her life gathered in small groups: chattering, laughing, eating and drinking. They were enjoying, or at least pretending to enjoy themselves. She could do neither. She felt estranged here. Their paths and hers had drifted apart after medical school. Theirs had led to hospitals, clinics and research centers. Hers had taken her first to Quantico Academy and, more recently, to a basement office housing the unit of the FBI a lot of people in high places felt couldn't be buried deep enough: The X-Files. And even that was over now. Her partner and her were still together; had been reassigned to the Violent Crime Section, but she knew that wouldn't last. They were still too close to the X-Files for some people's peace of mind. Her wide blue eyes took in the entire room before focusing on a group of people across the room. Alexis Shaw and Craig Gardner were talking to some other old friends whose names she couldn't even remember anymore. Craig was the host of this year's reunion. Alexis was her ride for tonight. Alexis had been one of her best friends from medical school; Craig and her had been on more than a few dates. They had been close to her once; she had never entirely lost contact with them; but she could no longer relate to them. Even if she could not hear them, guessing what they were talking about - what everyone in the room was talking about - wasn't much of an effort. They'd be telling each other about their careers, their families, maybe even their pets: all subjects she had no desire of discussing, not with any of them. She had no pets, anyway. She had had a dog - Queequeg - some years back, but the golden-red Pomeranian was gone. She was certain the circumstances under which she had got and lost Queequeg would be a shock for the others. As marriage or relationships went, her work demanded too much of a commitment for her to be able to commit to anything or anyone else. Most of the time, she didn't consider it that much of a sacrifice; even knowing that, as long as she was the partner of Special Agent Fox Mulder, her career in the Bureau would be going nowhere. She couldn't help the smile as she thought of Mulder. How would her older friends react to the man who had taken such a big part in her life for the past five years? Possibly much in the way she had reacted herself when she had first met him. Probably worse. They would consider him a madman, an obsessive dreamer at best. They would never understand the bond that had been formed between the two of them; there were times when she couldn't understand it herself. Mulder and she were so different. He was a believer. He believed and defended that aliens roamed the Earth; that many of the things the scientifically deafened mankind - his words, not hers - dubbed as superstition or myth were real and took place everyday, everywhere. She fiercely believed in the vast reach of science. She had fought Mulder every step of the way, trying to make him see that, if they couldn't find a reasonable explanation for an event it was simply because they weren't in possession of all the necessary data, not because some paranormal force was at work. But she also fiercely believed in him. And, as they solved case after case, each one stranger than the prior, she had begun to loose her footing. She hadn't embraced Mulder's theories of alien conspiracies an evil things lurking in the dark - she suspected she never would - but she had seen too much to maintain the same unshakable faith in the facts and figures she had been taught. These people still held that faith, and to a - certain extent - she envied them for that. She imagined herself announcing to them that what she did for a leaving involved chasing aliens, ghost, genetic mutants, and such. They would laugh, believing her to be joking. The Dana Scully they knew would never waste her time with such nonsense. The only thing was, she was far from being the Dana Scully they knew. The past five years had been a long and eventful journey. What she had been through, what she had survived, had changed her beyond self-recognition. So much of what she had learned was wrong. Too much of what she had learned was right. And she had come to realize the price of knowing. She thought of the terminal cancer that had afflicted her merely a few months ago - an eternity ago. It was all gone now, nothing left of it, as if it had never existed. She fidgeted with the gold cross she always wore, pursing her lips bitterly, her eyes welling with the sharpness of the memory. A lot of things in her recent life seemed to be disappearing as if they had never existed. Scully tucked the gold cross underneath the burgundy silk of her dress, and the dark memories in an even darker corner of her mind. Not a single tear trickled down her face. Mulder had gone to a B-rate monster film marathon in some rundown movie theatre. He had asked her along, and she now wished she had gone with him. She wasn't sure why she had decided to come to this reunion; she had missed all the previous ones. Maybe she had been trying to prove to herself that she hadn't changed that much, that she could still go back. If that had been her subconscious plan, it had certainly blown up in her face. All the party accomplished was confronting her with a part of her life that was dead. She wanted to leave. She needed to leave. That place, those people, every muffled word and laughter, suffocated her. Again she looked at the group of people across the room. She had arrived with Alexis, but it didn't seem like Alexis would be leaving anytime soon. She'd have to call a taxi. She turned around, looking for Craig, who had meanwhile wandered off, and she bumped into a blond man with deep black eyes. "I'm sorry..., " they said, echoing each other's apology. The man bended slightly to take a better look at her face. "Dana? *It* is you." Scully looked up and forced a smile. She didn't have the faintest idea of who this person was. He must have realized as much since he pointed at the nametag stuck to his lapel. "It's Tom, Tom Folger. I was your lab partner in Chemistry, remember?" Her smile broadened. "Tom, of course. I hadn't recognized you. You used to wear glasses and you had that, huh ... " Her hand circled tentatively around her chin. "You mean my pathetic attempt at a beard?" He laughed heartedly. "I heard you had joined the FBI. Forensics?" "Used to teach them at Quantico. Lately I've been assigned to a special unit of the Violent Crime section. Still do more than my share of autopsies, though." "So, you're chasing bad guys out there." Way, way out there. She smiled. "What about you? What have you been up to?" "I'm working right here in Washington, at the Greenville Memorial Hospital. I've specialized in gastroenterology. You wouldn't believe how full my schedule is," he said. "I probably know half your clients. The way things are going, I'll probably end up being one of them too," she joked. "Eat right, at regular intervals; don't put yourself through too much stress; and you'll never have to see me again." He paused for a moment, apparently pondering what he had just said, and added, "Professionally, that is." I see you haven't changed much," she said, more flattered than she'd like to admit. "You have, I can tell. There's something darker in your eyes. Something interesting." He stroked her face and pulled her chin up gently, noticing something." And, at the same time, you don't look so well. Is there something wrong?" "You suddenly sounded very much like my partner, I think he's recently fallen under the influence of some mental ailment that causes him to think he's my mother." She straightened up uneasily. Why has she said that? She liked Mulder worrying about her. "I'm fine. Just tired. I was about to ask Craig if he'd call me a cab." "You didn't bring your car?" he asked. "No, Alexis brought me. But I don't think I'm waiting for her. I don't think I should've come in the first place." She pushed a disheveled lock of red hair back into its rightful place. "It was nice seeing y7ou - " "Hey, look, if you'd like, I can give you a ride home," he offered. "No, don't bother. I'll take a taxi." She had a feeling this could all lead to the kind of trouble she didn't need. "It's no trouble at all. To tell you the truth," he whispered, "I'm dying to get out of here. Amazing how everyone's changed. It's almost like I don't know them anymore, like we don't have anything else in common now other than the fact that we went to the same med school at the same time. You know what I mean?" She smiled again as she looked into his deep black eyes. She knew exactly what he meant, and she couldn't believe she was falling for it. She placed her hand on the crook of his arm. "Just let me tell Alexis I'm leaving, and then we can go." After all, what she did for a living involved chasing aliens, ghosts, genetic mutants and such. She had survived cancer, the loss of loved ones, and her partner's talent for antagonizing their superiors. Leaving this party with Tom didn't even qualify as trouble. END OF CHAPTER 2