Click to see the full-size picture.

Name: Melissa Carter

Birthdate: November 15, 1974

Description:

Hair: Auburn; falls a few inches short of knees when not in braid or ponytail
Eyes: Gray with blue flecks; turn steel-gray when angry
Height: 5’6"
Weight: 125 lbs.

Other notes: Slim and graceful, pretty but not exceedingly, body slightly muscular from a steady workout regimen. Her eyes are usually friendly and she has an open and frequent smile that shows even white teeth. She owns a crow, Draven, and nine cats:
Yeti, male, silver classic tabby
Bear, female, orange mackerel tabby
Nanook, male, brown classic tabby Maine Coon
Spook, female, solid gray (following five cats are her kittens)
Flash, male, orange mackerel tabby
Tiger, female, orange mackerel tabby
Shadow, male, solid gray
Ghost, female, solid gray
Enigma, female, gray mackerel tabby

Schooling: Grade school, junior high, high school, college, FBI academy.

Work record:

Registered nurse in a hospital in Washington, D.C. Dismissed for “misconduct” after firing a gun in a patient’s room. After a short hiatus, entered the FBI Academy at Quantico. Worked as a special agent partnered with Agent Fox Mulder and Agent Dana Scully, left the FBI after being reassigned away from the X-Files. Joined the DC police department as a detective, but left because of unresolvable differences with the other people at the station. Currently a detective with the Baltimore PD.

Background:

Her father, Matthew Carter (deceased), is her hero, a police officer with an extensive collection of antique and modern firearms. He taught her to shoot when she was 5, and gave her a .22 long-barrel revolver as a birthday present when she was 10. It’s from him she inherits her hair and eye color, and her love of good-natured teasing. He also instilled in her a desire to do good for the community and to protect others, which led to childhood dream of being an officer like him. Her father was shot and killed while rescuing a fellow officer during a gunfight.

After his death, her mother, Helen Marie, became oppressive and overbearing, demanding that she “grow up and act like a lady.” She sold Matthew's entire collection of firearms, one of which, the M-16 he used in Vietnam, Melissa later recovered in a crackdown on illegal firearms sales. For an active, tomboyish girl like her, life during junior high and high school was a nightmare of dresses, makeup, and hair salons. In addition to this torture, her mother remarried.

Her stepfather, James Charles Smith, hated Melissa for reasons he never explained, if he even had any. He was an alcoholic and would beat and yell at her, repeatedly telling her that she would amount to nothing, would be a loser forever. In desperation and the realization that this was a way to defeat him, Melissa, at her mother’s demands, decided upon a medical career. Her college years were a whirlwind of studying and striving to be at the top of her class, attempting to prove to her stepfather that she was worth something and that she was not a loser. While she did not graduate number one, she was in the top ten percent of her class and was offered a position at a D.C. hospital, which she promptly took.

After meeting Agents Mulder and Scully, she remembered her dream of becoming a law enforcement officer and enrolled in the FBI Academy. After graduation, she joined them in investigating the X-Files. After being reassigned away from the X-Files, she grew disenchanted with the FBI and decided to seek a career elsewhere, landing a job as a detective with the DC police department. After a series of episodes where her adrenaline-packed, almost violent behavior clashed with the more conservative attitudes of her fellow detectives and officers, she left the DC department and searched for a job elsewhere. She found a position at Station 14 in Baltimore, situated in a run-down, high-crime neighborhood. She finally found contentment on the job there, thriving on the opportunities to chase down fleeing drug dealers, burglars, kidnappers, and murderers.

Back to the fan fiction page.