Here it is- the (hopefully) long awaited ending of Left in Scarlet Wake! It's been a real pleasure, you guys. I can never thank you enough for your reviews, for sticking with the story. It's been a really long, stressful time in my life. I've lost some people I really care about, whether to death or to time. I've been hurt. I've been happy. I just want to thank you so much, because you'll never know how much your positive words kept me from discontinuing this.

Thanks!

Epilogue : Healing

How Rogue had found herself sitting next to Remy at the park, she wasn't sure. How she had found herself talking to him- really talking to him- was unbelievable, and she couldn't think of a good reason to even stay.

But she couldn't think of a good reason to leave either.

"'Course y' feel f'r dem." Remy replied to her previous comment. "Dey're y'r friends, non?"

"They were my friends." Rogue corrected softly. "I don't really know where we stand."

"Y' spent de night at deir house." The Cajun quirked a brow. "Remy t'inks dat y're still amis."

"It's confusing." Rogue found herself suppressing a smile. "Logan and I are fighting, and I can't bring myself to talk to Jean or Kitty or anyone else… Why the hell am I talking to you?"

"'Cause y' can' resis' Remy's charm."

"You're an arrogant asshole, Remy LeBeau." She scowled. "I hate you."

"Den leave." He shrugged.

"I should." She stood up.

"But y' ain't gonna do it, 'cause y' like talkin' t' Remy."

"Damn it!" She sat back down. "I hate your guts, Swamp Rat."

"Remy knows, chere." His eyes twinkled. "Remy knows."

"I just… kinda miss her. And I didn't even know her." She sighed. "And I feel bad for my old friends. And I can't make myself be nice to everyone else when Wanda's always talking to me in my head, so I end up being a bitch and hurting everyone."

"Den tell someone dat c'n actually help y'." Remy snorted.

"Screw you." She spat.

But it didn't mean she couldn't take his advice.

"Kurt?" Kitty poked her head into the blue boy's room. He looked at her.

"Ja?"

"Are you doing okay?" She walked in without an invitation.

"I'm fine." He answered softly. He had a picture out of Wanda, smirking at some incident happening off-camera. It had obviously been taken while she wasn't looking.

"Where has that been this whole time?" Kitty asked, running a hand over his to trace the picture.

"In my dresser drawer." The elf answered honestly. "I miss her, Katzchen."

"Here." She propped it on his bedside table. "Now you can, like, see her every day." When he obviously wasn't convinced, she faltered. "Well… Like, her picture, but maybe it's time you, like, admitted that you liked her, and stuff…"

"You babble when you're nervous." Kurt laughed softly.

"You laughed!" Kitty squealed and hugged him.

"Um… Ja?" He looked at her strangely.

"Well you haven't laughed since, like… Um… Yeah…" She mumbled sheepishly. He stared at her blankly. "Maybe we're all, like, healing… Cuz, y'know, we can, like, act more normal now and stuff…"

Healing. Kurt liked the idea of healing his wounds. He'd never forget Wanda Maximoff, his first true love. But he couldn't hold onto her forever. At one point, he had to let go. Not that day- it was far too soon. But it was comforting to know that he could let her go when he had to. It made the day just a little easier to get through.

Take a deep breath.

Jean followed her own advice and took a breath before knocking softly on the door.

"Come in, Jean."

She had never really gotten used to Xavier's uncanny ability to figure out what student was at the door, even being a telepath herself. Taking another breath, she opened the door and took a step into the small office.

"Professor?" She asked. "I… Need your help."

Something about the look he gave her told her this was no surprise to him.

"I'm having… Nightmares. Every night." She began softly. "She's all I can think about, reliving her torture because no one else can. And I didn't know her. I didn't want to know her!"

She paused. It felt good to finally be open, instead of dodging questions and lying to the people she cared about.

"Why am I so worked up over someone I didn't know?" She asked, a look of frustration crossing over the redhead's dace. "I don't get it!"

"Jean, you feel a connection with her." Xavier spoke surely, honestly. "You are the one that remembers her thoughts- and though you should never forget them, they cannot be the sole focus of your life. You are a wonderful student in college. Don't let an accident drag you down."

Surprisingly, a certain redhead woke the next morning to find she hadn't had a single nightmare. Maybe, just maybe, admitting you weren't perfect could help.

When Bobby found himself, once again, cornered by a questioning Jubilee, he actually considered finally telling her what was bugging him. Telling her how the blood had looked, how it had scared him, how he wondered every time he woke up if it was his last day.

But then he decided against it.

"Just tell me, Bobby!" Jubilee groaned.

"I'm fine."

"Bullshit." She rolled her eyes. "I'm sick of hearing that. Just tell me the truth!"

"It's stupid." Bobby grumbled.

"I'm getting sick of this." She huffed.

"If I tell you, you have to answer me one question afterwards."

"Okay." The Asian girl shrugged. How bad could it be?

And Bobby went on to tell her about that day.

Again, she was fighting in his Danger Room, beating the crap out of some punching bag. She looked more tired than the last time- the last week had taken a toll on all of them.

He figured it best not to acknowledge her, due to their self-imposed silences.

"Hey Logan!" She called out through heavy breaths. "Your offer still stand?"

"Which one, Kid?" He raised an eyebrow, careful not to use the familiar nickname they both were used to. Lord knew the wild child went off about the stupidest things.

"If you beat me in a fight, I have to talk to you." She replied with a roll of her eyes. "If I beat you, we forget any of this shit happened."

"No way." The Wolverine shook his head. There wasn't a point. Rogue was a stubborn girl, an angry girl, and she wouldn't tell him anyway-

CRACK!

He was taken by surprise as he fell to the ground, the girl that had just slammed him there standing triumphantly above him.

"You so sure about that?" She asked with a small smirk.

"We'll play your way."

And, surprisingly, Logan had her tackled the next instant with literally no resistance on her side.

"I surrender." She said softly.

Healing. It was all a time of healing. It was her time of healing, even if she didn't know how to honestly ask for help. Logan could handle that. Hell, Logan kinda liked her style.

"Let's talk, Stripes."

Once again, he found himself flipping through the chapters and pages of the past week, looking at all his mistakes, critiquing, finding the things he could have done better. This was Scott Summer's weekly routine to "help himself improve".

That in itself was doubtful.

That particular week, his biggest mistake was letting Wanda die. He had replayed the scenario a hundred times over in his mind, watching the different ways he could have helped or it could have played out. Why hadn't he been playing closer attention to the situation? Why hadn't he just shot Sabretooth away and distracted the big cat?

It wouldn't have been all that hard.

"Negative self-talk." Jean accused him the minute she walked into his room.

"I'm not talking." He replied.

"That's the technical term." She smiled at him.

That radiant smile, when she was really happy, was the reason he got up in the morning. Well, one of the reasons. Watching her, looking at her for the past week, had been horrible for him. It was the worst feeling in the world to see the woman he loved in so much pain, sleeping so little, and not being able to do anything about it.

So, maybe it wasn't the death at all that had him so spooked.

"Scott, please, let it go." She was obviously prying into his thoughts. He never cared. "You can't change the past."

"I can wish." He smirked.

"What good will that do?" She demanded. When he figured out that he couldn't come up with an answer to satisfy her, she smirked. "None at all. Everyone else is finding a way to start healing- maybe it's time you did too."

"It's only been a week." He raised his eyebrow.

"Sooner rather than later." She sighed. "Besides, I didn't say forget her or get completely over it. I said find a way to start."

Start healing. Healing. Not exactly a bad idea.

And the obviously self-righteous grin on her face told him Jean had read his thoughts, and that she was in full agreement.

Kitty couldn't help but grin as she spied Bobby lean in and kiss Jubilee. In her mind, it was about time. Those tow had been making puppy dog eyes at each for far too long anyway.

But, with her newfound energy having heard Kurt laugh, she figured she might even be up for some good old teasing.

"Aw!" She squealed, running in to interrupt the moment. The duo, startled, reeled back. The blush didn't compare with the matching looks of scorn Kitty was receiving. "It's, like, about time! Jeeze, how long have you two liked each other?"

"Get a life!" Jubilee snapped. She had waited an entire year for this moment- and now some ditzy valley girl was ruining it for her!

"Sorry. Like, I haven't had a life since… Forever." Kitty shrugged. "I can't wait to tell everyone about our newest couple!"

"Do you think anyone's gonna care?" Bobby asked triumphantly as he thought of something. "We're all still moping about Wanda."

"Good news always overshadows bad feelings." Kitty waved him off. "Besides, we're recovering. Like, at a turtle's crawling pace, but recovering."

"Great."

Bobby couldn't decide if he was glad that he wasn't the only one recovering. It meant that it was alright to move on with his life. But it also meant that he and his girlfriend- and, with this thought, he couldn't contain a smile- would be subject to some teasing.

"Jean! Guess what?"

Okay, a lot of teasing.

Maybe finally hitting his father was what had done it. Maybe it was finally admitting how insane he felt, how he could feel his sister watching his ever move and judging him, how she, only after death, ran everything they did. But something did it. And that something was what began the healing process.

Pietro Maximoff would never truly be over his sister's death. He could never forget the years he had shunned her, the way he hadn't wanted her, and the way she was. But he could finally look down the hall without choking and losing his mind. He could see the color red without panicking and running. He could finally breathe.

His sister was still haunting him. He could still feel her terrible essence oozing from the scarlet depression and grabbing him. But, maybe it wasn't so terrible to react like a normal human being.

Healing, he had come to realize, didn't mean he felt any better at all. He, in fact, felt worse than before. Healing was accepting her death. Healing was accepting that outrunning the depression wouldn't do anything but postpone it. Healing was understanding that there would always be pain but dealing with it anyway.

Healing was just accepting what was done and knowing you couldn't fix it.

And Pietro Maximoff was healing. Slowly, reaching each stage one point at a time, accepting the pain that came along with it. But he was healing.

The healing was enough that he found himself sitting with Lorna at the table. He couldn't blame her for her death. He could blame Sabretooth, his father, but not the innocent girl. Not that he exactly liked her- but, he had figured out it took too much energy to bother fighting.

"Are you alright?" Lorna pried. Again. She seemed to have this mindset of fixing the whole world.

Pietro wondered briefly if this was a legitimate reason to hate her.

"Fine. Be quiet, I'm eating."

And choking on the food. So, he hadn't quite realized how to finish healing. It was a slow process anyway.

"I'm sorry." She said helplessly.

"Stop trying to fix the world!" He snapped. "Can you not see that some people don't wanna be fixed?"

The statement seemed to sink in, because she was quiet the rest of breakfast.

Lance ran his fingers against the oak wood of the door. A sinking feeling in his stomach told him to just turn and leave. It would be much easier to just not even think about it. Just as he was about to follow that gut feeling, he recalled all the times she had been up late with him just to be there.

With a groan, he turned and opened the door in a quick sweep. Mystique had, as he had suspected, shoved Wanda's stuff into the hall closet until she could find a way to get rid of it. He could smell the cinnamon candles she would burn because she liked the color. He took in another deep breath- he had to do this. For closure. For healing.

For Wanda.

He didn't want his friend's only remains locked away in a closet. He began to slowly look through her things, smiling at some of the memories, fighting tears at others. He took small things to remember her by- one of her many gothic cross necklaces, a CD or two, one of the candles.

His hands brushed against her journal, and he glanced at the thing. He could read it. He could know every thought that had crossed her mind while she was at the Brotherhood house, every little emotion. He could invade everything that was her.

And he set it back down. It wasn't his to read. What good would it do anyway? None at all, he soon realized. It would simply depress him more.

And for the sake of healing, he slowly packed away everything he hadn't taken, and went to his room. Healing. What a concept.

Todd could smell the familiar cinnamon floating about the hallway the moment he opened his eyes. His thoughts immediately jumped to the scarlet girl. Hadn't Mystique destroyed all her stuff? If so, why did he smell her candles? He stood slowly, wandering into the hall to see Lance in his room, staring at the lit candle and listening to some of her music.

Without a thought, he walked into the room and sat next to him. It didn't disrupt the memorial of sorts. It didn't disrupt the almost peaceful scene. It simply added to it, to have another that loved her in the room.

For a moment, Todd could imagine her blue eyes sharply watching them, that soft real smile painted across her face, that soft laugh that she had. It was almost as if she was telling him to let her go.

And he knew he would have to let her go sooner or later.

With that peaceful moment with Lance, with that simple thought, a little piece of his sadness broke away and floated into the atmosphere. And for the first time in many days, he drew in a real breath and felt relaxed.

And, no matter how much he loved her, he would one day be able to let her go.

Healing. He was healing.

Freddy wasn't used to being alone in a graveyard. He had wandered his way over to her grave, to pay his last respects. He had long ago figured out that he couldn't hold on forever. He had long ago discovered that her dark form was haunted the house, and if someone didn't let her go soon, it would never leave.

He could let her go because they had never really liked one another.

Healing. A faster process for him than the others. But healing.

With a sad smile, he put the red roses on her grave and muttered a soft prayer over her headstone.

They hadn't liked each other, but he would still miss her. He would always mourn her death.

Always.

"Good bye Wanda."

With that final thought, he could move and breathe freely. Her dark form slowly released its terrifying grip on him, and he could almost hear her whisper a good bye as his spirits lifted.

And now he was hungry.

He left, leaving her to the roses and the prayer. Let her find her own way.

This was his healing. This was his good bye.

Agatha Harkness watched him go, her eyes fleeting and dark. Once she was sure he had gone, she muttered her incantation. Watching the blue dust billow around the grave after casting her spell, she watched with a soft smile.

If one listened closely, after a few moments he might hear the soft scratching of fingernails on coffin wood. He might hear the whispered pleas for help and panicked cries. But, if one were close enough to hear that, he would have been blown away by the blast of blue light that freed Wanda Maximoff from her grave.

And, as she slowly rose from her grave in her lovely funeral dress, her necklace dangling on her neck, her features restored to their original appearance, she looked around at the world and took in a deep breathe. The old woman stepped out from behind the tree.

"Agatha?"

"Yes child."

Again, it's been a real pleasure. I plan on writing a sequel- hence Wanda's return! Please, review for me one last time?