A/N: Even though I haven't written anything on T.C./Trixie in a while, I had some inspiration to come back to this story after I finished exams. So, that means time for chapter number 3!

Disclaimer: I own the original characters that appear.


Mirror, Mirror

Part 3: Desperation

Morning came a bit too soon for Trixie. She would've been content to sleep in all morning, slapping the 'snooze' button on her alarm clock as many times as she wished, but Chloe wasn't going to let that happen. Around the third time she'd hit the snooze button, Chloe had walked in and shut the clock off, followed by yanking the covers off of Trixie's bed. The Siamese faced her friend with a mock glare.

"And you keep telling me not to sleep in," she said. "Come on, lazy bones. You could at least make the effort to get out of bed."

Trixie groaned and rubbed her eyes. It was then that Chloe noticed how tired her friend looked, and her glare melted into concern.

"Whoa. You look drained," she said. "Looks like you're gonna need two cappuccinos if you're gonna be alert at work."

"Three, if I plan on getting this story done," Trixie said. She slid her legs over to the edge and allowed her feet to hit the ground. "I'll get ready while you can make the coffee."

Chloe sighed. "Sure thing, Trix." With another look at her friend, she was gone.

Trixie let out a sigh of her own. She was just relieved that Chloe hadn't been home when she'd seen-

The cat in the mirror, she thought. The cat that had suddenly appeared in her full-sized mirror had haunted her dreams all night long, resulting in her tired state. She'd dreamt that he'd broken out of the mirror and then came towards her with his claws outstretched, ready to claw her to pieces for getting in his way. Another dream she'd had, not long after she'd recovered from that nightmare, was one with a group of strange people in dark, hooded garbs surrounding her, blue and white eyes on the backs of their cloaks and their hands alight with blue fire. She had been launched backwards, and the whole room had suddenly started to go black. She had thought she'd died until she'd heard the cat say, "Well, looks like we're stuck in here together."

She wished she could say that it had all been a dream...but the way he had sounded was so real and desperate that she couldn't just get rid of it. She wondered for a moment if he was a ghost, trapped in a certain place and left to wander, never to rest, until someone helped him to achieve it. If he were a ghost, however, wouldn't he have phased through the mirror instead of hitting his head against it? And then there was the issue with how he looked more lifelike than a ghost was supposed to.

She groaned as she grabbed her clothes out of her drawer and went to shut the door. Who was she to make up such theories? While she knew a good bit about ghosts and what they were like, she certainly didn't believe in them. The paranormal and the supernatural was meant for other people-people like Sherman, who would be inclined to believe in just about anything. To her, the paranormal was just something that people used to spook others. Fantasy, to entertain.

She took a look towards her closet, and shook her head. It was a good thing that today was dress casual day; it gave her a good excuse to not go inside the closet and confront this mysterious cat whose very existence challenged her worldview. After changing her clothes, she slipped on her flip-flops, which were right near the closet door and tossed her balled up shirt and sweats in the open drawer. It bounced off and hit the floor in a messy pile, but she didn't care at the moment.

She went to the door to find Chloe standing there, holding two cappuccinos and dressed in her work uniform. She pouted at Trixie's choice of clothes. "Lucky you. I've gotta put up with this ugly thing five days a week," she said.

Trixie laughed as she closed the door to her room and accepted a cup. "I can kind of understand why they'd put uniforms at your job," she answered. "Knowing you, you would've been late three times a week trying to decide on what to wear."

"Ha ha. Very funny, Trix," Chloe said. "But at least I don't buy up half of New York City."

"Touche," she replied. "So, how was your evening? I didn't get to ask you since I went to bed early."

Chloe groaned. "Do you really wanna know?" she said. "I mean, the first sign that things were gonna go wrong was when the guy showed up, like twenty minutes late. Word of advice: never date a guy based off of his profile picture online. They sometimes never look like that in real life."

Trixie laughed as Chloe continued with her story of her bad night out. The thought of the cat from earlier danced at her mind for a bit, but she nudged it away. Now was not the time for that. Today was the day she returned to her normal life, and put that strange occurrence behind her.


Morning had come a bit too soon for Top Cat as well, having just fallen asleep before he heard Chloe, Trixie's roommate and friend, come into the room to wake her up. He was a little grumpy, mostly because he hadn't been able to catch Trixie before she left for work.

Well, then again, it wasn't like he'd be able to catch her anyway-not since he scared her last night. He groaned upon remembering that. "T.C., you've gotta stop makin' rash decisions like that," he said. He'd have to control himself a lot better in the future. The last thing he needed was to have Trixie think that he was a maniac.

He didn't know how she would take his story, though. She appeared to be the type who thought that things like his own situation weren't real. He had been just like her, too, four hundred years ago-he'd thought that the people who'd claimed to be 'wizards' were just ordinary guys with big egos who wanted to make a few quick bucks by fooling people.

Leave it to him to play with fire and get burned.

He shook his head, blocking out the images of those men, with their cruel, maniacal smiles as they watched him sink into the mirror. But it was no use. He felt a chill wash over him, as it had that day when he'd been sealed, as he remembered the words the man had said.

"You will never meet the One who will set you free. That I can promise you."

He let out a shaky breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding. Thankfully, the person who had cast this spell on him was dead and so were the rest of his ilk. He wouldn't have to see them ever again in his life.

But that also proved to be a bad thing. If Trixie didn't turn out to be the "One" as the wizard had claimed, then that meant the only person who knew the counterspell was dead and buried. And even if he was alive, it was highly unlikely that he'd free him anyway. The guy had a penchant for grudges.

That meant he was pinning all his hopes on a girl who knew nothing about magic, and probably wanted nothing to do with it, anyway.

Top Cat sighed as he closed his eyes. "Not exactly the most promising of situations, eh?"


"So, guys, who's ready to play detective agency again?" Sherman asked.

"Not me," Fred groaned, rubbing his temple. "This whole story's giving me a headache."

"You're not the only one, Freddy," Snagglepuss said. "The details are all mixed up, muddled, even!"

"There were new details that just came in?" Trixie asked, coming around the corner.

"Yeah," Fred said. "The witness that saw the attack is recanting their statement. When asked why, she didn't say."

"I bet she was scared into keeping quiet," Sherman said, scratching his chin. "Those kinds of things do happen."

"True," Trixie said, sliding into her chair. She turned to face her desk and sighed. "Spacely gave me the most work again, didn't he?"

Sherman chuckled. "It's what you get for being the boss' pet," he teased.

"Ha-ha," she replied. "Alright, boys, it's time for us to get back to work."

"Sure thing, Boss," Sherman said, sending a mock salute.

Everyone turned back around to face their paperwork, and Trixie smirked to herself in satisfaction. It was easy to get lost in the throes of paperwork, she mused, to get sucked into the details of the story. It took a lot of effort to get back into the task at hand, which was to figure out which details would have be edited out for the final version, and which ones were worth keeping in and would grab someone's attention.

The details of this murder were so interesting that she considered putting all of them in there, but she knew she couldn't. One, she wouldn't want to bore her readers. And two, Mr. Spacely wouldn't allow it.

Still, she couldn't help but give pause to one part of the story, where it mentioned that the alleged attacker had been wearing a black cloak. It brought her nightmare from last night to mind, where the men with cloaks had sealed her in the same mirror with that cat. She sighed. No matter what she tried, she just couldn't get him out of her mind, out of her thoughts. And she felt frustrated that she couldn't concentrate with him constantly at the edge of her thoughts.

"Hey, Trixie." Snagglepuss' voice called Trixie out of her thoughts. She looked over at the pink-pelted mountain lion, who looked at her with a concerned expression. "Are you okay? You seem dazed, out of it, distracted, even!"

Trixie gave him a small smile. "Oh, don't worry about me, Snagglepuss. I'm fine. I am a little bit tired, though. Stayed up binge-watching that new show last night."

"Well, you'd better get back to work, before Spacely gives you an earful," Fred said.

"Right," she replied. Being that she was extremely tired from last night, she was not in the mood for her boss's tirade. "Thanks for keeping me in check, guys."

"Having to keep Trixie in check?" Sherman said. "The wonders never cease."

Trixie couldn't help but giggle as she set about sorting out her notes. Her workmates' comments kept her from thinking about her problems...at least, for now.


Unknown part of New York City

"You're starting to get sloppy in your work, Gilbert. One more mishap like that, and I may have to remove you from the mission."

A snort. "You think you can do better, old man Leopold?" The slender, bespectacled young man tsked as he pushed his glasses up to the bridge of his nose, smirking as he looked at the four men surrounding him in a circle. His green eyes narrowed. "I already told you that they would've squealed on us."

"Mostly because you revealed your secret too soon," the old man snapped. He locked eyes with the younger man, his gold eyes bright with fury. "Now they're starting to learn who we are. And if the wrong person were to discover us, they would wipe us out, as stated in the prophecies."

"I assume you're talking about the One, right?" Gilbert said.

"Yes."

Another dry chuckle came from Gilbert's throat. "I think we've eliminated all the candidates for that person over the last few years, haven't we? And if I recall, Alec," he said, turning to face a red-haired man with robes that had fire patterns on them, "you said that the probability of that person showing up was low."

"Indeed I did. And all of the candidates that we went after didn't have half the power that the One supposedly has."

"However?" Gilbert said, leaning forwards and tucking his hands into his navy blue jacket.

Alec sighed. "However, these recent crimes we've been carrying out could be piquing their interest. They're bound to discover us soon enough," he answered.

"What do you think we should do?" Leopold said.

"I suggest that we lie low," one of the other men said. "We need to wait until the public is finished reeling with shock before we go after more candidates."

"I agree, Reginald," Gilbert said, "but I also believe that we need to throw off suspicion. We need a way to distract them from the truth."

The men surrounding him looked at each other. Then Leopold focused on him, his eyes narrowing in suspicion. "What do you have in mind?"

"Consider it a way to make up for my past failures." Gilbert's smile was dangerous as he raised his head and looked at the old man snootily. "Give me a few hours and you'll see it on the news tomorrow night."


Trixie made her way inside her house with a sigh of relief. She was relieved that work had finally ended for the day. Although she didn't mind having extra work, this case was so exasperating that it literally made her head hurt. Her coworkers were just as tired as she was, and most of them had looked like the walking dead at the end of day.

She stepped into her darkened house, and she didn't have to look far to see that Chloe wasn't home. Normally, the Siamese got home earlier than she did, but she guessed that she was working late as well. After closing the door, she stepped out of her flip-flops, then shrugged off her light jacket and hung it up in the coat closet. She picked up her heels and made her way to her room, turning on a light switch on her way there. Instantly, the room was filled with amber light from the large overhead light in the living room.

She turned on the light to her own room, and started to set her shoes near her closet, but that was when she hesitated. She took a look at the heavy wooden door, her eyes narrowing. She didn't even know if he could see her through the door, but she had a hunch that someone was watching her, waiting for her next move. She wanted more than anything to step away from the closet, to put off investigating for another day. But if anything, she was no coward. She'd take things more cautiously than others, but she wasn't a coward. And this time, there was no running away.

Trixie sighed as she opened the door to her closet. She could feel the dread starting at the pit of her stomach and make its way to her throat. She didn't even know if she could even open her mouth to speak to this spectre in the mirror...if it really was a ghost, for that matter.

But as worried as she was, her bookish side started to take over. How could someone be trapped inside a mirror? And why were they trapped inside? She wanted to analyze this situation from all angles, to question this cat until he had no more answers, and to get to the bottom of this mystery once and for all. This whole thing had haunted her last night and all day, and had contributed to her tiredness. If she was going to get her answers, she needed to get them now, before she changed her mind.

Taking a deep breath, she said, "Here's to hoping my curiosity won't get me killed." She then turned on the light and stepped inside, turning around to make sure that nobody was in the house.

"Don't worry. Nobody's here 'cept you and me."

The voice that entered the room stopped her in her tracks, and she felt her breath hitch. Slowly, she turned around to face the speaker, who at that moment was floating into view. She stared, frozen in place, as he stood before her, his gaze half-lidded and a self-assured smirk on his face.

Looking at him up close, Trixie could see that he was definitely from another time period than hers; his clothes were made up of a tattered purple vest over a white shirt, which was just as tattered. He had some dark spots running along his legs and arms, as though someone had lit him on fire in various places. His hair was messy and unkempt, and he had some a few bags under his eyes.

He must be an alley cat of some sort. It took all it had in her to not make a face. I only hope he'll tell me the truth when I ask him who he is...

"So, you're the dame who took me outta Strickland's hands, huh? I must say, you're a definite improvement over him."

"Uh...thanks," Trixie said. "Although to be honest, anybody would be an improvement over him."

The cat laughed softly. "You've got that right." His smile faded slightly as he looked at her. "Well, I bet we're going to be in each other's company for a while. Until you can get me outta here, at least."

Trixie was puzzled. "Get you out of there? You mean to tell me...you're actually-"

"Alive? Yeah. I ended up gettin' the jackpot of eternal life by roamin' around in this mirror. And let me tell ya, it ain't all it's cracked up to be."

Trixie paled. "Oh, goodness, that's awful. How exactly is that possible?"

"It's magic, sweetheart."

Trixie almost wanted to laugh at that. Instead, she settled for a little smile. "Yeah, right. Magic."

He frowned. "I don't see what you're smilin' about, since I've been trapped in here for so long that I can barely keep track of the times anymore."

"I'm sorry, it's just...that's just one of the most ridiculous theories I've ever heard," she said. "Everyone knows that magic doesn't exist."

"To ordinary folks, it doesn't. But I know for a fact that it does," the cat said. "And it's nothin' to laugh about or play around with. It's like fire: ya play with it, and you're gonna get burned. In my case, I played with it and got burned badly."

Whatever mirth Trixie had felt was gone now. She stared at him, eyes wide with horror. "So, wizards and warlocks and all those other people...they're real?" she said.

"I'm pretty sure they are. I know for a fact that wizards are definitely real. One of 'em put me in here." The cat raised his paw when he saw Trixie about to protest. "And before ya say anythin', no, there isn't another explanation for this. Unless people found a way to imprison each other with science."

Trixie balked. "What? We don't have technology like that! Why would you even suggest that?"

"Well, how else am I gonna convince you that this ain't a trick of the eye?" the yellow cat sighed. "Look, I've been trapped in here for a good four hundred years. So you can see why I wanna get outta here, right?"

"I guess so." Upon seeing the cat's suspicious frown, she replied with, "Well, I just hope you didn't do anything that caused you to get stuck in there in the first place."

"I stuck my nose where it didn't belong," he said. "And they didn't like that."

His flippant tone gave the impression that there was way more to this story than he was telling her. Whatever happened to him must've been beyond horrible...she thought. As curious as she was, the bitter, almost malevolent stare in his eyes made her think twice about asking further. Instead, she asked, "So, apparently, you need my help to get you out of this thing, right?"

"Yes."

"And how exactly am I going to do that?"

"If I knew, I'd tell ya," he said. "That's for you to find out."

"Really?" She looked up at him, unimpressed. "I'm supposed to free you when I don't have any powers whatsover?"

"I wouldn't say you don't have any powers. After all, if you can hear me-"

"What does that have to do with anything?"

"It has to do with everything!" he argued. "Can many people claim that they hear voices comin' out of a mirror?"

"Of course not! People don't have those kind of abilities," Trixie countered.

"Except for certain types of people," he replied. He fixed her with a serious expression. "And I have reason ta believe that you fit that bill."

Trixie groaned and rubbed her temples in frustration. "Well, you know what, I don't know what to believe at this point."

"That can be dangerous, ya know," he said.

Trixie was about to ask about how that was dangerous, when the front door opened. Chloe's voice echoed all the way from the hallway. "Hey, Trix, I'm back."

Trixie could have breathed with relief. She turned to face the cat in the mirror. "Well, it looks like we're going to have to talk later, uh..."

The cat smirked slightly. "It's Top Cat. But ya can call me T.C., if you want," he said. "All my close friends do."

Oh great. He's one of those cats, Trixie thought. "Well, Top Cat, I'll have to talk to you some other time," she said. "If Chloe overhears, she'll start bothering me. And that'll raise a lot of questions."

Top Cat frowned. "Look, I still have a lot ta explain. But I'm not gonna dump all this on ya overnight," he answered, "even though I'd really like to get outta here."

"I can't blame you," Trixie replied. She knew that she might not be able to keep this promise, but she said, "And I'll look into this. I promise."

Top Cat still looked unsure, but that was when they heard footsteps approaching. "I guess Trix must be on the phone," Chloe said.

Trixie turned towards Top Cat and sighed. "I-I should go," she said, and before he could protest, she turned out the light and shut the door. A few seconds later, Chloe walked in, dressed in a camisole and blue sweatpants.

"Oh, hey there, Trix. Sorry about burstin' in; I didn't know you were on a phone call," she said.

"No problem, Chloe. I just finished not too long ago," Trixie lied.

"So, who was it? Was it that online date from a few months ago?" Chloe asked.

"Wha-No! Goodness, no," she said. "I was talking to someone else..."

"Oh, really? Who was it? Is he cute? Ugly?" Chloe pressed on.

"Chloe, he's a business client," Trixie said, making her way to the kitchen. "Nothing more."

"That's what you said about that other boy who wormed his way into your ice cold heart," Chloe remarked, before laughing.

Trixie sighed, though she couldn't help but smile. She could always count on Chloe to cheer her up whenever she had a day like this. And right then, she needed it. A couple of hours of bicker and banter with her best friend was just what she needed to take that conversation with Top Cat out of her mind. He had answered a few of her questions...but had left her with even more of them. And there was something about him that was making her wary of trusting him; he was keeping something from her, and it wouldn't be easy to wring that secret from him.

And that, above everything else, frustrated her most of all.

END OF PART 3


Finally, I finished this chapter! I meant to have this out in December, but life happened, and I didn't get it done. I hope this chapter makes up for it!

This chapter is called "Desperation" for a reason: T.C.'s desperate to get out of his prison, and Trixie's desperate to keep her normal life and convince herself that magic and all isn't real. I originally called this chapter "The Special One", but I realized that it would spoil stuff for what's going to happen next chapter. So, yeah, next chapter will definitely go into why T.C.'s trapped in this mirror and just who the Wicked Eye is.

Oh, and I couldn't resist having T.C. flirt with Trixie there. I mean, he did it when he first met her in the movie, so I had to put in a reference somewhere.

I don't have any previews this time around, but stay tuned anyways!

God bless, iheartgod175