DISCLAIMER The X-Men are the property of Marvel Comics and are used without their
permission. Sikudhani McCoy is the property of Darqstar and is mentioned in this story with her
permission. This is a work of fanfiction, intended for entertainment purposes only.

The Reflection In The Mirror
Part Six
By ScarletLady

Remy awoke to find the pup parked on his chest. That wasn't exactly unexpected, he'd gone to sleep there, after all, but now
the pup was staring at him.

"T'ink maybe you wan' go outside, l'il Chat. Guess you goin' to be moving then, neh?"

The pup calmly slid down the side of Remy's ribcage, and romped to the end of the bed, where he again sat and watched him.

Remy pushed the covers aside, and swung up to his feet. Getting dressed was a chore he tried not to think about in advance,
even though his wardrobe consisted of simple sweatsuits, and his running shoes were Velcro fastened. One handed as he was, it was still difficult. His mane of long hair that used to be a woman's fantasy was gone. It was something of a miracle it had grown back at all. It was getting longer, but not because he wanted it that way. He couldn't keep it out of his face, without two working hands to tie it back. It's shagginess at this point was due entirely to the fact that he couldn't stand having a stranger touch him and mentally cringe. He wasn't strong enough for that, yet.

He went to the door of his bedroom, and called the pup. "Let's get goin', Chat."

The pup looked down the sheer cliff he was perched on, and whined.

"Oops. Sorry 'bout dat, petite." Remy went back and picked up the pup. "Guess de stairs gonna be a bit much, for a while too.
Let's hope you get bigger dan you are now real quick."

After shooing the puppy outside for a few minutes, Remy went about making sure the pup had everything he'd need to be on his own for a short while. "Gotta go to town and pick up de monthly stuff, pup. Maybe I find some Puppy Chow, and a couple of
toys too, neh? Also gotta go see the doc again." Remy's tone went flat on the last statement. "Don' want to. Dey be talkin' bout
more surgery. Don' know how much more I can take, pup. De' hurt finally be levelin' off, some. Nothin' dey can do 'bout de
face, but dey t'ink maybe dey can help de hands, maybe even de arms. Don' know if it be worth it, pup. I do fine now,
d'accord?"

The puppy yipped.

Remy's shoulders sagged. "Non. You be right. Dis be no life I got here. It be existing, no more. But I jus' don' know about dis
surgery dey want to do, pup. I jus' don' t'ink I can handle any more pain. Each time it comes a li'l closer to gettin' loose. Don'
wan no more nightmares. Don' wan' to dream anymore. Not much of a life here, but don' know what more dere is for someone
like me. Gonna have more t'inkin' to do, but be doin' it later. Jus' gonna get t'rough today. Tomorrow take care of itself."

Remy played with the pup for a while, but as the sun climbed higher in the sky, Remy knew he had to get going. "Better be
headin' out now, Chat. See you soon." He grabbed a ball cap and his gloves.

Chat stretched, yawned, and promptly settled in for a nap. Remy grinned. "Try to miss me a li'l, Chat." The puppy snuffled a bit, and rolled over onto his back for a quick tummy rub.

During the long walk to town, Remy's thoughts were brighter than usual. Most of the walk, he had a half smile showing, as he
thought about his new friend.

Remy quickly did his necessary shopping for groceries with the aid of a stockboy, to include food for the puppy, as well as a
couple of chew toys, to spare his fingers from sharp puppy teeth. They couldn't do any more damage than had already been
done, but the nerves were painfully sensitive. He arranged with the stockboy to have them delivered tomorrow morning.

His steps lagged a bit as he approached the hospital. Remy had no problem getting around, unlike other blind people. He
always knew what was around him, but it was like walking through a maze blindfolded. Occasionally his attention would falter
and he'd walk into a table, or miscalculate where the edge of a door was. "Dieu", he said as he did that very thing. He felt his
frustration level rise out of all proportion to the incident. **I wan' see again!**

Temper simmering, but already cooling, Remy went to the desk and asked for Doctor Harrigan. The hospital was the one place
where he didn't feel like the main attraction in a freak show. "Guess dey seen it all, here", he thought.

The nurse told him that the Doctor was showing a group of new interns around the hospital. He would probably be a little while, would he like to have a seat?

"Non. T'ink I go find him. Didn' have an appoin'ment, just had a question or two for me." Remy asked for his approximate
whereabouts, and strode off.

The nurse watched his still award winning backside with a smile of pure appreciation.

Remy faltered for a second in shock as he caught that, and nearly blushed. He rounded the corner, and doubled over laughing.
**Didn' t'ink dat would ever happen again!** First a new friend, then this! His life was almost back to normal. He quickly
sobered. **So okay, it's gon' be a diff'rent normal for me now. But hey, it gettin' dere, non?**

Remy heard/felt a large group of people heading toward him in the hallway, then caught Dr. Harrigan's voice. "Remy, good of
you to stop by. I was just going over the hospital layout with our new group of interns. I should be wrapped up in a bit, would
you like to wait in my office?"

Sitting around with nothing to do didn't have any appeal at all for the Cajun, and for the moment, his shields seemed to be
holding pretty tightly; at least, he wasn't getting swamped with feelings of revulsion from these fledgling doctors. "T'ink I maybe tag along?"

"Sure, sure. Glad to have you." The doctor continued on wending his way through obstetrics, x-ray, pharmocology, admissions,
and other assorted areas. Finally, he approached the emergency room. "We can't go inside at this particular moment, doctors.
They're dealing with a rather spectacular mess made by a head on collision. If you like though, we could watch from the theater overhead. Show of hands in favor, please?" After a quick count, the Dr. Harrigan herded the group towards the stairs. "Remy?" he asked. "Coming?"

"T'ink not. Don' seem much point sitting up dere listenin' to a whole lot of not'ing."

"Well, come by my office in an hour or so, all right? We'll talk then."

"Dat be fine." Remy said vaguely. He was catching something. What was it? It was pulling him, almost calling him.

****************************************************************************

Dakota remembered the accident. It would have been a mercy to have forgotten, but mercy was in short supply in her life these days. Every pain filled cry she mentally uttered was relived again and again as the doctors probed and prodded, doing their best to repair her shattered body.

In some foggy, dreamlike way, she realized the anesthesia was standing between her and the screams she could feel trapped in the back of her throat.

One by one, the doctors began shaking their heads. "No hope for this one," she heard one say. "Injuries too extensive," another added. "With these kinds of injuries, it doesn't look good," was the most encouraging thing she heard out of it all.

Her mind was filled with fog, but she heard every word, and slowly, oh so slowly, worked it through. They didn't expect her to live. **So be it,** she thought. What, after all, did she really have to stay for? The cat in the back alley she sometimes fed? He'd find another soft touch, she was sure. The parents who refused to speak to her? It would be a relief to them to have some socially acceptable excuse to not speak of her to family aquaintances. Her job? Hm....well, she supposed the customers at Kelly's Diner would ask after her for a day or two. But really, there was no shortage of down on their luck people who could replace her at Kelly's. It had been awfully nice of Kelly to hire her with no references, and nothing but his intuition to go on, but Kelly made a habit of that, and she'd just been one more in a long line of people he'd helped.

Stacked up against all the reasons it would be a relief to let go, to give up the burden her life had become, any reason she could find to stay seemed pitifully weak. In a brutal bit of honesty, she was forced to admit there wasn't one person who would miss her.

She morbidly wondered who would attend her funeral. **Does a funeral parlor hire professional mourners?**

Dakota wished she could tell the doctors to be content with having done their best. She didn't mind...much. As big a mess as
she was physically, it wasn't a patch on what she felt in her head. Trying to resolve feelings, emotions, and thoughts through a
velvet gray blur of medication and shock wasn't easy. It was beginning to put her to sleep, too.

The doctors must think she was out cold. **Jesus C. Frog, couldn't have the patient waking up on the operating table. It simply
isn't done.** She didn't want to sleep. After all, she'd heard from the best that she was going to die. Things couldn't get much more final that that. She'd go gratefully, well...at least quietly, but she wanted these last few...hours? Minutes? Crimeny, you'd think they could have been just a bit more specific. These people were supposed to be experts.

It was like knowing a date was going to pick you up Friday night, but not having a clue what time. Not that she'd had that
particular experience. With the date, not the time. On the other hand, how ready do you have to be to die? Lots of people
didn't get any warning at all, so she guessed she was kind of lucky. It could have been someone else traveling down that
particular road today. Someone with a family. Someone who would have her hand held, and cried over because she was going
away.

**Gah. Where'd all this self pity come from?** She was used to being alone. It's been that way more than half her life. **Gee, all 27 years of it. Whoohoo.** She couldn't remember the last time someone had physically touched her, till the doctors stitched up every inch of skin she had. Black humor danced through her. If she'd known a fatal car crash would get someone's hands all over her, she might have tried it sooner.

Ah, there. She heard the doctor give instructions to move her to a room. Not ICU. Good. Not carrying health insurance she
couldn't have afforded anyway seemed like a very smart move on her part. The hospital was unwilling to spend money on
someone who was going to die, and apparently had noone else to foot the bill. She almost giggled. **I hereby promise to never
reveal this to "Hard Copy"** she avowed.

She was by herself. When did that happen? When did everyone leave? She felt a stab of panic intermix itself with the twinges of pain that were growing more bold.

She was always alone. Dang it, she was dying. The reality took hold. She tried to understand what that would mean, but just felt empty. So many years wasted. She was a good person, always tried to do the right thing, and help when she could, but without someone to share things with, retrospectively it seemed kind of a pointless existence. Mortality was a word in the dictionary.  Now it stared her in the face, and demanded that she acknowledge it. There was no escape.

**Having a friend here would be nice right about now,** she thought. At least, it would if she had any friends. She'd stopped
believing she had anything to offer someone else a long time ago. The first time her father had beaten her, she'd known there
was something wrong with her. Her father couldn't hate her if she were a good daughter. She'd felt shock, but nothing else at the time. Oh, the pain was there, but it was just pain. Pain alone couldn't make you cry.

Her father continued her "discipline" through the years. Her one act of both defiance and self-preservation had been to cease talking. That had been 22 years ago. As a child, when she'd felt the screams rising in the place where nightmares are born, she locked them away, along with her voice. To speak now would mean opening that overful closet, and watching all the things accumulated over the years fall free. Never! She'd never allow the horror crammed into that space to pollute what was left of her life. Besides, who would she talk to, anyways?

Wondering if she could even manage to speak again was kind of pointless, she decided. She knew the doctors were aware she
didn't speak, her medical bracelet would have told them so. But it made no difference, to them she was unconcious, likely to
stay that way, and if not, in too much pain to be coherent.

That she had noone to say goodbye to eliminated any lingering doubts she had about the wisdom of going without making a
fuss. Not that she could have made much of a fuss, considering she didn't think she was capable of lifting a finger, but it would have been the thought that counted, she was sure.

She was glad her eyes were closed. Knowing death was creeping up on her was easier when she couldn't see it. A touch
cowardly, perhaps, but bravery seemed a bit out of her reach at the moment. She gave a mental sigh.

Wouldn't you know it, she was starting to feel bored. Pain was pain, and she'd lived with one kind or another ever since she
was five. It was nothing new. But to be without her beloved books was irritating. You'd figure someone would be playing a
radio or something at the very least. This place was like a tomb. ...Bad analogy. It was awful quiet around here.

Her sensitive hearing picked up a small commotion down the hall. **Sounds like someone ran into one of those cart thingies.**

Ah well, might as well be gory and take inventory of the damage. Head injury; she knew that from both the doctors comments
and the feel of bandages criss-crossing her forehead. No sensation of hair on the back of her neck. Did they cut it? Hope not.
She rather liked it long, and thought she looked like a poodle with it short. Then again, no one was going to be photographing
her for posterity, so the heck with it. Her face from the cheekbones down felt like all the skin was scraped off. Perhaps it was. Bandages again.

Sheesh. It would have been easier to start with what didn't hurt. Well, it was never too late to take good advice. She began
again. Eyes feel all right. She sort of remembered covering them with her arm. She ran over all other pertinent body parts. The
best she could figure, at least they were all still there. They hurt far to much to be otherwise.

Ah...there! The back of her left hand seemed to hurt less than everything else. She twitched it experimentally, and felt some sort of monitor fall beside her hand. An alarm went off, and with some expectation, she waited. This might rate here some company.

A nurse hustled in, panting slightly, and looked for the source of the noise. Spotting the disconnected monitor, she quickly
reattached it, all the while muttering about careless aides, then bustled back out.

Dakota wondered if the nurse even looked at her while she fussed with that bit of plastic that seemed so important to her.
Probably not, she decided. After all, she wasn't going to be around long enough for the nurse to have to worry about her. And
again, she'd gone full circle.

Death. It was welcome, but did it have to be so...final? Reincarnation was looking better all the time. Did she have time to
convert to Buddhism? She thought she might make a rather nice pet. Then again, with the way her luck was running lately, she'd wind up in the pound, waiting for D-Day.

It occurred to her that she was growing rather whimsical. It'd been a long time since she'd been able to see amusement in
anything, and so she let the mischief in her have it's way. After all, what could possibly happen if she said to hell with all of her problems? The commotion down the hall had settled down, finally, but lots of footsteps were growing closer. Bigwigs on tour, she decided from all the tap taps instead of the squish of nurses crepe soled shoes.

Well, that distraction didn't last long. Bored again. Locked inside her mind, she searched for diversion. The pain she was feeling may have been a constant companion, but she'd never hurt so many places at the same time. Setting it aside was growing a bit difficult. She needed to focus on something else.

Dakota idly wondered who would end up with her books. There was something she would miss after all. Maybe I can come
back and haunt a library? Her books had been her companions when lonely, her solace when sad, and her escape from a world
that seemed designed for pairs.

She started a catalogue of her favorites. Absolutely anything at all by Louisa May Alcott. Whoever thought they were children's books had certainly never read them as an adult. Simon Green, who wrote with humor dancing through his pages, Sharon Green (no relation) who's views on male/female relationships came through loud and clear. Mercedes Lackey, who's
imagination took flight, and carried you with it, Georgette Heyer, writing with an old fashioned view of the world, yet managed to make you love her thoroughly believable characters. Judith McNaught, who's ability to make one feel the romance her characters feel always enthralled her. Romance, fantasy, history. These were her choices. Hm...no murder mysteries, no true crime, no death, blood, gore, sensationalism. Escapism at it's purest, it seemed. No reality may enter here. Well, Jiminy
Grapefruit, she dealt with reality every day. Why should she bring its ugliness into her one absolute pleasure?

She heard the voices in the hall again. **Sounds like a herd of door to door salesmen.** The nurse had left her door slightly
ajar, enough for her to clearly hear the conversations swirling from one side of the hall to the other.

"No need to stop here. This floor is relatively untenanted, and there's just enough time to get to the cafeteria for lunch."

Then she heard The Voice. "Doc?" Water over gravel. Smoke over sandpaper. Like a fuzzy warm blanket on a cold winter
morning, it suddenly wrapped around her. Everything she was responded to that incredible sensation. Tears started forming
under her closed lids. **Too late, too late,** her heart mocked.

She begged The Voice to say something else. It obliged. "What's wrong wit' her?" An accent she couldn't place, but enchanted her nonetheless.

"She's one of the car accident victims we saw in the emergency room. I'm afraid there's not much we can do for her."

"She be okay, though?"

A hesitation. A long hesitation. "No." No more than that.

"She goin' to die?"

The tears in her eyes grew in size. **Not going to cry!** She refused to allow it. It didn't do a smidge of good when she was
five, it certainly wouldn't help her now. She made herself concentrate on the voice. Focus on one thing, and let the rest go away.

As voices go, it was well worth listening to. She wished she could listen to it forever. Or at least what she had left of forever.

The Voice had a small conference with the "salesmen" she now knew were doctors. The shoes had skittered to a stop in a
cluster around her door.

"No fam'ly?"

"Not that we know of, Remy." A name! Her voice was called Remy.

"Maybe I could stay here for a while? I got time."

"We still have things to discuss, Remy."

"I got time for dat later. She don'."

"Very well, another day. But we will talk, Remy. You know as well as I what there is to be gained."

"Later, den. T'anks, doc."

The Voice - Remy - came inside her room, and pulled up a chair beside her bed.

"Hello, chere. I be Remy LeBeau. I t'ink maybe you lonely, non?

**French! He's French. Wow. I must have some good Karma somewhere to rate a this one on my deathbed.