Ladies and gentleman - last chapter ! Enjoy.

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She went to bed that night looking forward to the upcoming weeks, ready to let bygones be bygones. There were only a few days left to gher stuff packed, at least that stuff she wanted to take with her when she moved. She needed to find a permanent home there – her first flat of her own. She needed to become acquainted to work with injured and traumatized people. She still needed a lot of training to get back in form herself. But she was quite content with the so far achieved results. Cameron could tell, she thought, smiling to herself. But there were tons of new stuff to take care of. And she was willing to do that.

She had again trouble to find some sleep, but for the first time for weeks out of excitement.

Some time after midnight, she finally went downstairs for a drink. She snatched a bottle of water out of the fridge and indulged in half a bar of chocolate. She brought herself up to the counter. Letting the sweet melt on her tongue, she suddenly remembered some weird detail of something she had read months ago. About cats not being able to taste sweetness as a consequence of some missing protein or something. From her place on the counter, she re-opened the fridge´s door again, staring at its contents for a moment. Then she grabbed the rest of the chocolate and let the door fall shut again.

She finished the bar and the drink, then slipped from the counter back to her feet, leaving the mess of her nighttime snack there.

Out of a sudden impulse, instead of returning to the bed, she changed direction and went straight out to the veranda.

It took a few seconds until her eyes had adjusted to the darkness around her. The light falling through the door from the kitchen lightened only a few steps out here.

There it was. A massive frame. Sturdy. Powerful. Handsome. His eyes narrowed because of the sudden bright artificial light. He had settled down in his favourite chair, long legs apart, forearms resting on the armrests casually. One clawed hand holding a bottle of beer. His eyes gleamed catlike for a moment in the darkness – something she had rarely witnessed.

The figure there in the shadows of the veranda meant trouble. Radiated danger. Pure menace. He looked bad tempered as well. In fact, instead of looking guilty of being caught lingering around on her veranda, he stared at her like she´d been late, letting him sit and wait here for her for hours.

For some moments, she felt unable to move. He wouldn´t speak. Like he never would after a quarrel or another incident. She couldn't decide which kind of greeting would be right – like she never could when they hadn´t seen each other for a while. For a minute or two, she let her inner turmoil seethe. Finally, she crossed the distance between them. She stepped behind him, slipping her hands cautiously over his shoulders and down his chest ´til she had to bend forward to him in a lose embrace. She softly kissed his neck.

"Aren´t you afraid ?" he asked. She caressed his neck and bearded cheek for a moment with her lips. "Right now, only a little bit." Her tone was calm, almost casual. Again, her voice told him something completely different from the messages in her scent. "What about three weeks ago ?" he asked roughly. She shrugged. "Oh. That´s another thing."

He hated her for a moment for having stepped out to the veranda. Catching him there. Still, it left him stunned that she dind´t hesitate to touch him.

He shouldn´t have come here. But he had wanted to face it. Sniff her fear. Watch her avoiding to look into his eyes. Force her to do so to see the rejection and the dread there. "You could have died."

"I didn´t." She opened her embrace. The touch of her skin vanished and caused him to shift uncomfortably while she rounded the chair. "I could die every time I cross a street, you know." He snarled. Not the same. He couldn´t believe that she still misjudged things that badly. "Do you really think they´d have spared you ?" he growled angrily. She stared down at him for a moment. "Do you really think I´d do so ?" she asked back quietly. "You were in deadly danger out there." She sighed, rounding the chair completely, stopping to let him prepare for her to ensconce herself on his lap. He realized that he followed the unspoken request almost unconsciously. She settled down astride there. "Well, you´re a dangerous man." "Do you want to die ?" he barked. "Stop that!" she ordered sharply. He watched her in surprise. "What do you want to hear ? That I´d liked to wet my pants out there ? I almost did! I am not an idiot!" He didn´t answer, but for once, she could see different emotions washing over his face. She could easily guess his thoughts. What if he hadn´t been there in that moment ? If he had left her there, angry after their quarrel. Or had just been out for a walk, as he had been so often ? "Nothing happened to me", she finally resumed.

She hadn´t watched much of the torturing he had done to that guy. The little she had seen had been enough. The outcry the man had finally died with had made her blood run cold. It was irrational to believe that he wouldn´t be able to do the same to a woman, too.

She simply refused to think about the fact that that guy had died by the same clawed hands that softly stroked her hair and back right now.

"I don´t want to put you in danger", he stated lowly. She drew closer to him. "Then don´t leave me alone", she answered, teasing cautiously. He growled again. "They were not even after us, were they ?" Though they had obviously known him and Wilson. "Though I´d really like to meet that friend of yours who owned the house." Obviously, from the little talk there, a woman. A woman somebody had sent about a dozen of heavily armed men after to kill her. "Would she have survived ?"

He watched her for a long time before he finally answered. "Maybe. She´s a class five mutant, with quite a range of combined mutations." He paused. Still, that girl was frail. Unprotected and attacked by many, she still might have failed. "Did you warn her ?" she asked. Silly question. It had been one of the first things Wilson had done after they had left the hunting lodge. Sethra had obviously missed that, still in shock. He remembered her, half huddled up on the backseat. The absent, horror stricken expression on her face. The shock in her eyes.

Still, she hadn´t run. Had stood her ground. Kept her nerves. Even without knowing whom or why she was fighting. "Have you ever been to a real fight before?" he suddenly asked. She snuffled for a moment. "No. I was abroad for a while. But never in the real danger zone." Wilson had asked him about her after their visit at Catherine´s, but he had denied to reveal the slightest bit of information. The merc had only laughed and shrugged, throwing an estimating glance to the sedated girl on the backseat. "Looks like Kitty´s got claws", had been his only comment.

"You occasionally said that certain bloody things constitute your nature." The edges of his mouth twitched in light amusement at her choice of words. His gaze flew to her eyes, awaiting her to continue. "I always thought of that as an excuse. A bad one." "It´s true", he told her. She shook her head. "No. It´s not. It may be in your nature. A part of it." But not everything. She shifted her weight. "But like it or not, some bastard blessed you with the quite displeasing gift of a conscience, too."

"So you´re not scared." It was more a statement than a question. He could smell it, anyway. There was anger. Even rage. Seemed that she wanted to save that to try and make him pay for it later. A whiff of arousal.

No fear.

She let her gaze wonder over his face for a moment, considering her answer, slightly shivering in the cold air of the night. Then she frowned. "No. Not tonight." She bent forward and kissed him. "Come to bed now, big man. If it makes you feel better, I promise I´ll be scared of you again tomorrow." She intended to get up, but he didn´t allow her to leave, hesitating.

No rejection.

"How did you know ?" he asked.

"That you were there ?" she asked back.

She could have told him that she had still hoped and suspected him to return.

She could have told him that she had been tempted to walk out to the veranda the nights before, too, but had thought of that as just too childish – and senseless.

She could have politely lied about woman´s intuition.

She could have told him that the only proof confirming her suspicions this night had been a bottle of beer missing from the fridge.

She didn't.

Instead, she nestled down in the warmth of his body, against his chest, contented. She smiled.

"Looks like I sometimes get a glimpse right into a black cat´s soul."

- the end -

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I want to thank all my readers and reviewers for their perseverance, time and support!

My original intention was to write about Victor meeting the other X men characters, too – but the story about him and Sethra grew and grew, so I decided somewhere down the road to concentrate on their relationship first and bring the others guys into it later. But when I started, I also thought I would write perhaps a dozen of chapters, as a maximum ;-)

So if you still don´t have enough of my obsession with a certain feral mutant – and I can tell that I really really love Liev Schreiber´s great performance as Victor Creed/Sabretooth and I got loads of ideas left – please check out the sequel, "Burning times" – first chapter´s up, so you won´t need to wait ;-)