Mirror, Mirror

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"Mirror, mirror on the wall- who's the fairest of them all?"
The Queen, Snow White

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She doesn't know when it starts. She's lost track of all time now, especially since they gave her that lovely mirror for her room/prison space/hell.

Unbreakable, of course- nobody trusts you with anything now, not even your own life.

And it's nice to see another face, another mind going through the same as she- they do not talk, not at first, but she sees it in the other woman's eyes.

It's a dressing room mirror, hers is- they trust her, and it's not fair because they don't trust you, but maybe she didn't kill her Him.

They sit there for a long, long time and she watches as the days pass and the woman (girl) starts putting her makeup on in the mornings again.

She wasn't doing it before, but she has such a pretty face that her watcher does not mind, and maybe she saw that, but if she did she never says.

Then one day, she starts to talk. It's inane babble really, in a language she recognises as oriental but cannot understand.

She knows what she's talking about though- it's Him, her Him, and why would it be anything else?

And it's not long before she starts talking back, although she knows the other woman doesn't speak English.

They have the same language though, the same sound- its name is sorrow, and it haunts them both in their every waking hours.

She understands her though, like she was understood, as her watcher talks of her Master, her wonderful, kind, insane Master.

Kami must be Master, or at least something similar, because the other girl says it so often as she talks of Him.

One day, the girl in the mirror plucks down a photo taped to the edge, and for the first time she cries as she talks.

Lucy will never cry, never, never, not ever, not for him, no... her passion, her Master, her God is too good for her tears.

When she finishes, she holds up the picture and shows off a beautiful man, perfect features framed by perfect hair and eyes and body and everything really.

Her Master is just as perfect- she'll show her!

So Lucy brings out her own picture. Torn and scratched, it is hardly worthy of Him, but it's all she has left now.

And the girl understands, she sees him, she knows, she knows all...

They were promised the world, all the worlds, and left with just pictures, dreams, that's all- nothing solid, everything to cherish but the one thing they desire most.

And maybe it's what they deserve- they were unclean, their Masters were the purest of the pure and they saw it in their eyes, how much dirt they had on their skin in the eyes of their Masters, no matter how hard they scrubbed.

Some days they scream out their hatred, their pain for the ones who tore everything away from them in one fell blow.

Kira is his name, apparently, and the Other Woman seems to understand the name Doctor just as well now.

And other days, they sit in silence, staring. The woman's bedroom is pretty enough, all red and black and looking just like his world in all its glory.

The capitals have gone from his name as she whispers, screams, begs it to return to her just this once...

And then one day, the woman does not appear. Lucy remembers how sad she looked, and she waits patiently for her to return.

To be comforted? No, but she can try, can't she? Can she? Or was the silence destroying Her all along?

She never comes back.

Not ever- just like him, not for you.

The men who search through her flat with grim faces do not see Lucy, cannot see Lucy, but she is there and she knows it...

Something is wrong.

If she knew Japanese, she would have heard the words 'tragic', 'funeral', 'suicide' and 'Light' repeated over and over again.

But she doesn't, so she can't, so she sits and waits and listens until there is someone new in the apartment, and she asks the jailers to take her mirror away.

They do not listen, but she never looks in it again.