A/N: This is my first Spooks story, so let me know if you think I'm headed in the wrong direction. I must admit that this is also way more angsty than I usually write, but this story just came to me as I was struggling over a chapter for another fic I'm writing! I'm all depressed after writing it actually!
Let me know what you think!
***
As a child, she had never known what to think of mirrors. When the sun shone on them, they sparkled, glittering enticingly like her mother's forbidden jewelry, appearing both alluring and exciting. But in the dark, the glitter turned to the glint of teeth, sharp and eager to swallow her whole. It became a gaping hole hanging on the wall, threatening to suck her into a cold and bitter lake, its surface tossing and turning, imitating her mind and trying to drown her in its own twisted version of her truth. As an adult, things didn't get much better.
Sometimes when she looked in the mirror she smiled. She could see the determination, the confidence, and the self-assurance that seemed to ooze out of every pore. She noticed the shine of her hair, the glitter of the green in her eyes. And as she smiled, she could see her cheekbones as they defined the shape of her face, showing off her dimples when she smiled one of her rare true smiles. She sometimes even tilted her head down slightly, admiring how her new haircut framed her face, accentuating her eyes. It was after these times that she walked away with that little extra bounce in her step, aware of the secret twinkle playing around in her eye. Her enigmatic smile, though as cryptic as ever, would be that tiny bit more free, her demeanor a smidgeon less daunting.
Sometimes when she looked in the mirror she cried. The pain in her eyes blinded her to any of those physical attributes that left the majority of people feeling plain and intimidated beside her, and the ice cold façade that she froze into place throughout the most of her day melted under the fierce heat of her torturous and inescapable emotions. That ache in her chest, compounded by loss - the loss of her father, and the respect of her family, as well as the loss of the one man she had ever truly loved – had left her desperate for something - anything - to hold on to. Desperation was not a feeling that Rosalind Myers tolerated in others, never mind in herself. And it was then that she dabbed on another layer of make up, a physical shield that mirrored the mental ones that built on each other until nothing could penetrate them, at least for another few hours. It was then that she employed that infamous dry sarcasm that no-one could fully decipher, hiding behind it in a way that she would never admit to. It was then that people needed to cower.
But these days, more often than not when she looks into the mirror she simply looks. She no longer sees the pain, nor the beauty. She sees only a body, an empty shell that she can fix up and send back into the world to become yet another legend, to adopt yet another name. She misses the haunted look that stares back at her from those dead, lifeless eyes. And as she walks away from that bottomless lake, she can't help but wonder whether it is a bad thing that it has frozen over, that there is a thin layer of ice on the surface, trapping the tossing waves beneath it. She wonders if it is a bad thing that she can no longer feel, that along with the pain and anger, she has locked away her love, her compassion and her pride. But later, as she lays on a couch that smells musty from disuse, with the hand of yet another government traitor up her top, the pervading stench of his Condor pipe tobacco catching in her throat serves as a bitter reminder that it is only by throwing away the key that she can survive this world. It is only by trapping her emotions that her mind can doggedly weave through the maze of barely hidden razor blades that has become her life, and still leave her some semblance of an existence when the Service tosses her out at the other end of the pipe.
Hours afterward, once she has passed the pen drive crammed with newly stolen information on to Malcolm, she barely glances in the mirror. She knows what she will see, and she no longer needs to apply that extra layer of foundation to reinforce her mental walls. They have grown so strong that she doesn't know if she will ever be able to break them.
***
Rewiews are like chocolate!