After those difficult days, the lives forever changed by the events continued.

Xavier guided and nurtured his students, teaching them to live with their mutations and work toward finding peace with humans. Under his guidance, future generations of the X-Men were taking shape.

Ororo and Kurt continued to live in the idyllic glow of new lovers. The Nightcrawler had made an incredible addition to the team and all were thankful for having found him.

Scott and Jean both endured months of agonizing physical therapy to help Jean recover from her injuries. She now had a permanent limp, but neither of them cared about such a small thing. A more serious side effect of her many injuries was the apparent loss of her powers. Her mutation had been brought on by a tragic event from her childhood and it appeared the trauma's she had suffered recently had taken the mutation away. Now she was a normal human being again and that took a great deal of adjusting on everyone's part. Scott never budged from her side and made her realize he loved her through and through no matter what. They were married the second she could hobble down the aisle for their intimate ceremony in the school gardens.

Logan and Marie hadn't wasted any time getting to their nuptials, opting instead for a quick visit to a Justice of the Peace a few days after Jean awoke. Everyone took a while to adjust to a content and happy Wolverine.

Danelle and Luc Roi returned quietly to their place in Canada after two weeks at the school, where everyone had treated them as heroes. The pair did not stay there long, as they were again ready to rejoin the society that had sent them into the wilderness.

Bobby handled his last steps into manhood with an ease all around him marveled at. He left the school to attend college, but planned to get the degrees necessary to return there and teach later. On breaks from his studies, he spent his time at the school he still considered home.

Pyro and the Brotherhood thrived in their own ways. Their numbers grew and each new addition genuinely shared Magneto's belief that mutants could never live peacefully with humans.

Humans, for the most part, did their best to prove them wrong, though much ignorance and hate remained.

As always there were skirmishes that called for the team's intervention and Logan led the X-Men brilliantly in those fights until Scott felt Jean was strong enough to be left alone when he retook his role as leader.

This was no happy ending, for in life there is no such thing and this was not the end. In life "ending" is death and, while those who live on will continue to find what happiness they can until their own end comes, death is never a pleasant event.

These X-Men know that without any illusions now.

Just as they know that lucky as they were this time, one day they would go on a mission a member did not return from.

Ever.

The knowledge drives them all to cling tighter to their loved ones in this time they had and make every moment they could a good one.

For as long as they could, they would live and love and prepare for their next big battle.

All of them sensed that it would be coming far too soon.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

That's a wrap! Unless an encore is requested, I bring this series to an end and turn my creative focus to other areas. I'm not yet sure what direction it will take, but I hope to bring you more writing in the future. Now that I have cleansed my mind of the lingering darkness of Jean's death, I hope to bring y'all more X2 fiction. :)

I'm very sorry it took so long to get the last 7 parts up! For some reason every time I tried to upload them as .doc files they'd upload all weird, with symbols and special characters. It took me four days to try saving and uploading them as html documents and I must say that's the way I shall go from here on out.

Feedback, criticisms, and story suggestions are always welcome. Write to missmishka@aol.com