Title: MIRROR
Author: Jean Robinson (jeanrobinson@yahoo.com)
Disclaimer: Characters from the X-Files are the property 
of Ten Thirteen Productions and the Fox Television 
Network. All others are the property of the author. No 
infringement is intended. 
Rating: PG
Classification: S, A
Archive: Please ask permission.
Spoilers: nothing specific; set during the cancer period
Summary: Reflections can be frightening for everyone.
Feedback: To jeanrobinson@yahoo.com
Author's notes at the end
*****************************


MIRROR (1/2)
By Jean Robinson


The walls of the Brewster Holiday Inn Express were 
thicker than most of the no-name motor lodges they 
stayed in, but not quite solid enough to completely muffle 
the noise from the adjoining room. When they'd returned 
to the hotel, it was well past midnight. Mulder had, out of 
habit, flopped down on his bed and clicked on the 
television, keeping the volume at a low murmur because 
by his estimation, the set was placed at the approximate 
spot where Scully's headboard would be located on the 
other side. He'd dozed intermittently, coming fully awake 
around 3:30 when he finally realized that the subdued 
sounds from Scully's room had not ceased. 

Curious and puzzled, he sat up and listened more 
carefully.

Thump, thump, thump. 

For a terrifying second he panicked, thinking there was 
an intruder in her room. Then reason kicked in and he 
surmised that the unusual thudding was indeed his 
normally light-footed partner, now clumping about with 
all the grace of an NFL linebacker. Wearing lug-soled 
hiking boots.

Click. Mumble, mumble. Click. Music. Click. More 
mumbles. Click. Silence.
 
Scully rarely even turned on her motel TV, let alone 
practiced the fine art of channel-surfing in the wee small 
hours of the morning.

Thump, thump, thump. Swish, splash. The distinctive 
sound of running water filling a sink or tub, followed by 
the even more distinctive sound of water gurgling out of 
said sink or tub. Apparently Scully decided it was too 
late - or early - to engage in a personal hygiene regime 
for the coming day.

Thump, thump, thump. Rustle, creak. If his bed was any 
comparison, she'd just thrown herself rather forcefully 
down on her mattress.

Thump, thump, thump.

Tick, tick, tick, tick. Now that he was paying such close 
attention, even the almost inaudible tapping of her laptop 
keyboard seemed louder than a 747's takeoff.

Thump, thump, thump.

Click. Mumble, mumble, mumble. Click.

Fascinated, Mulder listened to this repeating cycle of 
motion for almost thirty minutes, utterly and completely 
bewildered by its implications.

Scully couldn't sleep.

Mulder was well aware that everyone had bad nights 
when sleep just wouldn't come, nights when every cell in 
the body screamed its wakefulness until the owner 
wanted to scream aloud in sympathetic resonance. He 
endured such nights on a fairly regular basis. It was his 
trademark. "Spooky Mulder never sleeps," more than one 
acquaintance had commented in awe.

But Scully did. Oh, sure, she had her nights when sleep 
was long in coming, or nights when it was broken or 
uneasy, leaving her more weary than when she'd gone to 
bed in the first place.

But this kind of frenetic activity was not the way she 
nursed herself through a difficult night, even on the 
road. As far as he knew, Scully was more apt to lie 
quietly in her bed and think tranquil thoughts to induce 
slumber. Or maybe she'd court somnolence by reading 
some medical journal article where the average word had 
nine syllables.

Certainly not pursue this restless circle of pacing, 
punctuated by occasional detours into the diversions of 
the television and bathroom. And especially not when 
she should, by all rights, simply have nodded off from 
sheer exhaustion.

The first three days here, they'd worked long but not 
endless hours. A lot of it had been getting up to speed on 
the case. Tracking down routine leads with the county 
police. Working up a profile. Examining the existing 
forensic evidence.

Today they'd caught a break. The prints and the vague 
description matched one Craig Strauss, whose last 
known address was in Ohio. The murders they'd been 
called out to assist with had occurred in four different 
towns throughout Putnam County, New York, all in the 
last two months. Four victims, ranging in age from a 
teenager to a Social Security recipient. Three women, one 
man. An odd racial mix - Cami Thorne and Claudia 
Bruno were white, Carl Seymor was black and Cathy Lim 
was Korean.

The police had already noted the obvious name 
connection; it was, after all, a clue practically akin to a 
message in skywriting. But they were at a loss to move 
further with a profile due to the apparent 
disconnectedness of the victims so far. Mulder was knee 
deep in paperwork, plotting graphs and charts and lists 
and delving into anything these people might have had in 
common with each other or the killer besides the third 
letter of the alphabet.

Late this morning a real estate agent called in to report 
that she'd rented an apartment to a man matching 
Strauss' description, and he had mentioned plans to 
move in that afternoon.

The mad scramble for cars would have been funny under 
any other circumstances.

The traffic jam on Route 301, however, was anything but 
amusing. An eighteen wheeler carrying a full load of 
SUVs to some dealership had jackknifed on one of the 
narrow, two-lane road's sharper turns, and sat wedged 
across both lanes. Even with lights flashing and sirens 
blaring, it took time to circumnavigate the mess. The 
detective in charge had immediately called in to re-route 
other vehicles, but in such a rural county, detours were 
lengthy.

Strauss had come and gone before they arrived at his 
new residence, and they were back to the drawing board.

At 6:00 p.m. that night, the call came in with another 
victim, thirty-year-old Cynthia Ellis. It was the first time 
Strauss had struck while they were there; the first 
opportunity for Scully to do the primary autopsy.

By this time she was well-known to the day staff at the 
county morgue, but the evening shift had yet to meet 
her. When she walked in beside Mulder, the reaction she 
got was startling, to say the least.

The eyes of the young pre-med student minding the desk 
widened to near-comical proportions, and her mouth 
dropped open. The doctor on call's welcoming hand fell 
limply back to his side, his warm words of greeting 
trickling to a stammering halt.

Mulder frowned and glanced at his partner, who looked 
equally perplexed at this bizarre reception.

"Where's the latest victim?" Scully asked, attempting to 
break the awkward silence that had fallen.

"Drawer three," the doctor said weakly, gesturing with a 
feeble hand back toward the storage area.

They edged past the pair, who remained planted in place 
as if they'd actually sprouted roots. Neither agent turned 
around, but both could feel the morgue workers' eyes 
following them until they were out of the line of sight.

"What was that all about?" Scully asked in a low voice.

"I have no idea. Last time I checked, you still had blue 
hair and green skin, same as always."

It was the best he could come up with, and it fell flat. He 
kept forgetting that Scully seemed to lose her sense of 
humor in the morgue.

She located drawer three from the banks of the cold 
freezer area and hauled on the handle, pulling out the 
shrouded body of a single mother with two pre-school 
age boys who had, according to the daycare center staff 
the police interviewed, been on her way to pick them up 
after her job as a teller at the local Citibank branch. The 
car, which had been found abandoned along a wooded 
section of Route 6, had a trunkful of groceries, indicating 
she'd made a detour for a week's worth of shopping first. 
Police stopping to investigate the little Honda Civic with 
two empty infant seats strapped in the back and its 
hazard lights blinking had located the murdered driver 
moments after noticing a rough trail of trampled brush 
and broken branches leading away from the vehicle into 
the woods.

Mulder and Scully had received all the information by 
reading the report written by the police who had been on 
the scene. The wound pattern matched that of the 
previous victims; multiple stab wounds to the abdomen, 
one fatal stab wound to the heart, no sign of sexual 
assault.

Nothing in the data prepared them for the sight of 
Cynthia Ellis, however.

But the cause of the unorthodox salutation bestowed 
upon Scully by her New York colleagues was immediately 
explained.

Both of them were expecting to see only the sad, slack 
visage of yet another life cut too short by brutal, 
senseless violence. Scully pulled back the sheet to expose 
Cynthia's head and shoulders, as she had done 
countless times to countless victims.

They say everyone has a double.

Dana Scully was suddenly face to face with hers.

They both froze, Scully's hands still clutching the sheet.

It was uncanny. The same red hair, cut in the same just-
brushing-the-shoulder bob, parted on the same side. 
Ellis' eyes were open, exposing the same crystal blue 
irises as the pair staring down at her. Death and 
refrigeration had mottled her complexion, but it was clear 
this was a woman with fair skin, too, complete with the 
light dusting of freckles adorning her nose - the same 
small Roman nose on Scully's face. The shape of her lips, 
the arch in her eyebrows, the slant of her cheekbones all 
a mirror reflection of the FBI agent poised like a statue 
above her.

There were some subtle differences, of course. The 
victim's face was rounder, her jawline softer and less 
defined.

But overall, Cynthia Ellis looked more like Scully than 
anyone in her immediate family did.

With a visible effort, Mulder finally wrenched himself 
away from his horrified contemplation of the corpse and 
shifted his attention to his partner. Breathe, he thought. 
Don't you dare faint. It's not you lying dead on a slab. 
Think about what this is doing to her.

Scully was still staring at the dead woman, her 
unblinking gaze fixed on the face.

Mulder was certain his normally pale partner had turned 
a shade whiter; thought he could detect a faint tremor in 
her arms as she continued to hold the sheet slightly 
aloft. Shit, he thought. She doesn't need this. Not now. 
Especially not now.

He wasn't worried that Scully might do something as 
Victorian and unprofessional as pass out, but he thought 
it was time to distract her slightly all the same. "Scully?"

She finally released the sheet, allowing it to float back 
down over Cynthia's face, and raised calm, quiet eyes to 
meet his. "Yes?"

"Are you sure you want to do this? Maybe someone else 
can take this one."

"Mulder, this is the first victim we've seen in a week. Why 
did we come here if you don't want me to do my job?" she 
inquired, as if there was absolutely no reason this should 
be if not upsetting, then at least somewhat unnerving.

"Scully. . . she. . . she looks like you!"

"I'm aware of that." Her gaze drifted back to the bumps 
and valleys formed by the facial contours under the 
cloth. "But it has nothing to do with the case, unless you 
were planning on advancing some far-fetched theory that 
the killer knows us and is stalking me. And we both 
know there is no evidence to support that kind of 
conclusion."

He reached across the body and put a hand on her 
shoulder. "As long as you're sure about this."

"I'm fine, Mulder." She didn't raise her head to 
acknowledge him. "Do you want to stay, or pick me up 
later for dinner? This is going to take a few hours."

Dinner. How typically Scully to be discussing travel 
logistics and food over the deceased body of a woman 
who could be her identical twin. "I'll just wait out with 
your friends." He flapped a hand toward the front area. 
"They look like they might have a few good ghost stories 
to tell."

"Fine." She was already in motion, dragging the body's 
tray onto a gurney to transfer it to the autopsy table.

He helped her with the move and waited until she was 
suited up and ready to start. Until she'd pulled back the 
sheet the rest of the way, clicked on her tape recorder 
and lifted her scalpel. Until she started dictating the first 
explanatory notes.

"Case number 240589, victim is Cynthia Ellis, thirty-
year-old Caucasian female, height approximately sixty-
two inches, weight in extremis approximately 112 
pounds. Victim has nine visible stab wounds to the 
abdomen and one stab wound to the chest, probable 
cause of death. I'll begin with a Y-incision."

She hesitated for a heartbeat before bearing down for the 
opening cut, then appeared to brace herself and started 
slicing.

Mulder left.

That had all been earlier in the evening. She'd concluded 
her work shortly after eleven, and they'd had a quick 
meal at an area diner before heading back to the hotel. 
She reported that Cynthia had, like the others, died of 
massive blood loss and trauma after being stabbed in the 
heart, and if she spent more time pushing her tuna salad 
sandwich around on her plate than she did eating it, 
Mulder opted not to comment on it.

After all, maybe the Highland Diner just made lousy tuna 
salad.

Now, listening to her tramp around her room in a 
nervous circuit of aimless activity, he knew for sure that 
the incident bothered her more than she was willing to 
admit.

Not that she normally admitted anything, under any 
circumstances.

Scully, how are you?

I'm fine.

Scully, are you tired?

I'm fine.

Scully, you have a terminal disease and you've just seen 
what you're going to look like in a few months if one or 
both of us can't come up with a miracle, and doesn't this 
bother you just a little?

I'm fine.

Oh, yeah. That's about how any conversation on this 
subject would go. Sighing, Mulder rolled over in bed and 
wearily closed his eyes again.


End part 1/2
________________________

MIRROR (2/2)
By Jean Robinson
Disclaimer, etc. in part 1


He'd grown accustomed to the darkening shadows under 
her eyes, insidious indicators of her advancing illness. At 
breakfast the following morning he couldn't decide if they 
were more pronounced or if his overprotective streak was 
inventing things. Scully behaved as she did on any other 
morning on the road - coffee, toasted English muffin with 
raspberry preserves, orange juice. Nothing about her 
other than those dusky smudges hinted she might have 
spent the entire night prowling around her hotel room 
rather than sleeping in it.

Until he saw her lift her knife to spread more jelly on the 
muffin and realized her hand was trembling ever so 
slightly.

But again, he held his tongue. His tiny partner had in 
the past shown a temper far out of proportion to her size 
when the topic at hand was her current state of health. 
Mulder still had the scorch marks from more than one 
verbal scalding.

At the county police barracks, it was back to square one. 
More charts. More graphs. More meetings. More 
information, fitting Cynthia Ellis' life and background in 
with that of the previous victims, searching for any kind 
of connection.

It was fate, he supposed, that Scully should come up 
with the answer that broke the case wide open. He was 
known as the genius profiler, but Scully had her own 
talents of observation. While she wasn't as prone to 
noticing the weird and wacky as it applied to an X-File, 
she had quick eyes and she spotted the library book at 
the bottom of Cynthia's grocery bag.

One call to the library was all it took. Almost every town 
in the county had its own library, but all were linked 
together via a county-wide computer system. Yes, all the 
victims had library cards. All had checked out something 
- a book, a CD, a video game - within the last six 
months.

Libraries everywhere had revolving doors of volunteers; 
everyone from junior high school students to senior 
citizen retirees came in and filled out applications to 
spend time reshelving books or updating the 
computerized card catalog. How simple for one more 
unassuming young man go unnoticed in such ranks. 
How easy for him to scan library card files, trolling for 
fresh prey amid the thousands of names.

The police artist's rendition of the suspect was faxed to 
each library, and six hours later Mulder fielded a frantic 
call from the Kent Public Library, reporting that Craig 
Strauss had just walked in and was somewhere in the 
reference section helpfully putting away encyclopedias. 
The librarian sounded on the verge of hysterics.

It took some time to assure her that Strauss was a 
meticulous planner who picked and stalked his victims 
with great care, not the type to pull a gun and start firing 
randomly through the stacks. Police would arrive on 
scene shortly, Mulder told her, for now, just go about 
business as usual. Don't let anyone tip him off.

They arrived just before closing time, but someone 
screwed up and what should have been a simple 
apprehension turned into an all-night hostage situation.

Negotiations were concluded around five in the morning, 
when Strauss released the last of his four prisoners and 
surrendered. Mulder considered it nothing short of a 
miracle that no one had been hurt. While their suspect 
wasn't inclined to go on a shooting rampage, he did carry 
a nine-inch hunting knife and a heavy grudge. Although 
his actions had been impulsive in this instance, one of 
the unlucky librarians he'd held captive was named 
Christopher.

More meetings. More reports. More processing. Before 
they knew it, noon had come and gone.

They'd arrived on Sunday; it was now Friday. 
Unbelievable. Mulder felt as if he'd lived a couple of 
lifetimes in the last few hours. God knows how Scully 
felt; at least he had gotten some sleep the night before all 
hell broke loose.

He came out of the Kent police station, leaving the 
county and town police jawing back and forth about 
jurisdiction, and spied Scully waiting for him by their 
rental.

She was facing away from him, staring across the street 
at a small park where a baseball game was in progress. 
Something about her posture caught his attention; she 
leaned on the car in a way that made him wonder if she'd 
simply fall over if the sturdy Ford wasn't there to support 
her.

Mulder came to a snap decision and ducked back inside 
the police station lobby for a few surreptitious phone 
calls. When he came back out the second time, the sight 
that greeted him convinced him he'd done the right thing 
for once.

His partner had shifted from merely tilting her left hip 
against the car door to stand facing the vehicle, arms 
folded on the roof, head pillowed on her arms.

"Scully?" he called, not wanting to alarm her by walking 
up unannounced.

She lifted her head, pushing back her tousled hair with 
one hand. "All finished?" she asked, her voice betraying 
none of her apparent exhaustion.

Well, two could play at that game. "Yeah. Come on, let's 
blow this joint." He unlocked the doors and slipped 
behind the wheel. Scully buckled herself into the 
passenger seat.

They drove in silence for ten minutes. Mulder made a 
turn onto the main parkway, and began to count in his 
head.

One.

Two.

Three.

Fo. . .

"Mulder, you're heading north. New York City is south of 
here."

"I know."

"Would you mind telling me how we're going to get to the 
shuttle if we don't drive in the direction of LaGuardia?" 
she inquired, a dangerous note coloring her tone.

He tightened his grip on the steering wheel, keeping his 
eyes on the road. "We're not taking the shuttle back, 
Scully."

She paused to absorb that comment, then continued to 
state the obvious with a deceptive mildness that usually 
indicated imminent detonation.  "Washington DC is also 
south of here. Or are we not going back at all for some 
reason you aren't telling me?"

"We're going back. We're going to drive up the river to 
Poughkeepsie and take Amtrak, that's all." He held his 
breath.

Scully exploded. "The =train=?! Do you have any idea 
how long the train takes?" 

He did. He'd talked to Amtrak and knew exactly how long 
the ride would be. It was precisely the reason he'd 
chosen as he had.

She wasn't finished with her tirade. "So what happened, 
did you waste our entire travel budget on something 
ridiculous that I'm going to hear about from Skinner first 
thing Monday morning? What the hell is this, Mulder?"

He kept his eyes pinned on the road and fed her the 
rational explanation. "We are more than a two hour drive 
from LaGuardia, Scully. By the time we get there, it will 
be late Friday afternoon, which is not the best time to be 
on a plane leaving New York. The odds of our flight 
taking off on time are small. Same thing for when we 
land in DC. We leave in rush hour traffic here, we land in 
rush hour traffic there. Add up the amount of time we 
spend getting to the airport, sitting on the runway, en 
route in the air, and getting back to our respective 
apartments at home and it comes out the same as taking 
the train."

He pulled off at the exit, stopped at a red light at the 
bottom of the ramp, and finally turned to glare her down.

The unspoken conversation they held with their eyes 
went on only as long as it took for the light to change, 
but it conveyed more emotional punch and veiled 
meanings than a Middle East peace treaty.

I know you didn't sleep the other night, and we were up 
all last night.

I'm fine, Mulder.

You hate to fly; if you get on the plane you're just going 
to be awake the entire time.

Stop it, Mulder.

You're still disturbed about Cynthia Ellis. Hell, =I'm= still 
disturbed. You practically performed an autopsy =on 
yourself=.

I'm okay with it, Mulder.

You're dying and I haven't found a damn thing that's 
going to stop that yet, so I'm doing the only thing I know 
how to do, which is mother you even though you hate it 
and hate me when I do it.

You're smothering me, Mulder.

I know, but if we get on that plane you won't get any rest 
at all, and you'll go back to your apartment and be 
awake all night again, and you'll come to work on 
Monday looking like hell and telling me you're fine.

Let me be the judge of my own physical needs, Mulder.

Too late. I've already decided this is the only way I know 
you might get any sleep, and God knows you need it, 
Scully. You're not Superwoman. You don't have to prove 
anything to me.

Maybe I need to prove it to me, Mulder.

Find another way, preferably one out of my sight. I'm not 
going to watch you work yourself into an even earlier 
grave. I'm not.

Mulder broke eye contact first as the car behind him 
honked to remind him that green meant go. He stepped 
on the gas, well aware that her furious blue eyes were 
still boring holes in the side of his head.

She refused to speak the rest of the way to the train 
station, maintaining an obstinate silence even when she 
discovered they had reserved seating in one of the club 
cars. Big, plush reclining chairs with footrests and four 
times the room and comfort available in the cramped 
confines of the Delta shuttle.

Knowing that any remark or suggestion he made would 
just ignite the inwardly seething redhead facing him, 
Mulder removed his jacket, loosened his tie and slouched 
down in his seat. Between the all-night hostage siege and 
dealing with Scully, he was wiped out himself. The 
soothing rhythmic clacking of the train wheels sang a 
hypnotic lullaby; he was asleep within minutes.

Even the bustle of the big stop at Penn Station failed to 
wake him. The next thing he knew they were pulling out 
of Baltimore on their way to Union Station in DC.

Yawning, Mulder stretched and blinked, clearing his 
blurry vision. His gaze settled on Scully.

Feet curled up on her seat, she was huddled in a little 
ball, arms wrapped protectively around her middle, 
cheek resting on a courtesy pillow wedged against the 
window.

She looked cold, but he didn't want to risk waking her by 
draping his jacket over her. Instead, he simply sat 
watching her breathe, wondering what on earth they 
were going to do next.

Scully awoke naturally about twenty minutes out of DC. 
To Mulder she still looked tired, but no more so than 
usual. Her anger, it seemed, had dissipated with her nap; 
she agreed to share a cab with him once they arrived, her 
voice displaying none of its former rancor over his high-
handed treatment.

He helped the driver take her luggage out at her 
apartment and stood by the taxi. "See you Monday, 
then?"

"Yes. Have a good weekend, Mulder."

"You too."

Half an hour later he was finally home as well, 
unpacking a week's worth of dirty clothes and rumpled 
suits. That task completed, he collapsed on his couch 
and opened the thick folder containing all their case 
notes. Normally these wouldn't have been typed up so 
soon; some good had come of Scully's bout of insomnia. 
She'd completed all but the final details of Strauss' 
capture.

He flipped through the pages at random, not realizing 
until he was halfway through Cynthia Ellis' autopsy 
report that this document was the one he'd been looking 
for the entire time.

Cause of death, massive blood loss due to stab wound 
puncturing the heart and severing the aorta. More stab 
wounds puncturing the stomach, spleen, left kidney, 
small intestine.

He almost missed the final brief paragraph. It only 
caught his eye because the paper was slightly warped 
and the print slightly smeared, as if it had gotten wet.

Victim has had recent surgery, a complete ovariotomy 
and hysterectomy. Subsequent examination of 
surrounding tissue, review of victim's medical history 
and discussion with victim's primary physician confirm 
that Cynthia Ellis had been diagnosed with ovarian 
cancer. Despite all efforts to date, Ellis was not 
responding to treatments and was expected to live no 
more than six months at best.

This time the tears blotting the paper were his own.

End


Author's notes: The towns and roads mentioned do exist, 
in case you were wondering. The train is for my brother, 
an advocate of public transit. The rail trip from New York 
to DC is quite beautiful and relaxing. The rest is for my 
friend Diane, who taught me that the little things do 
count. And thanks to the world's most patient beta 
reader, Jill; without her all my stories would have 
numbers instead of actual titles. ;-)

Feedback: Send to jeanrobinson@yahoo.com