Author's Note: This is it, those of you who have followed this can breathe a sigh of relief, it's all over! This has been far more complicated to write than I anticipated, but I'm looking forward to writing more for Mac and Ilehana, though whether together or separately, I haven't quite decided.

Scene Fifteen - Epilogue

Vixen slipped the DVD that Beast had given her into the drive of Mac's computer and let the program run. Mac looked on, concerned for the data in his labs' systems, despite Beast's assurances that it would only delete and replace data concerned with Robert Kelly's death. Ilehana and her father had already gone to work on everyone involved with the case, altering memories so that the case went from being bizarre and inexplicable to being relatively bog-standard and boring. All the mutant-related physical evidence and notes had been acquired by Ilehana and Mac, and subsequently destroyed by Cyclops and his power. The program whirred its way to a hundred percent completion and the DVD popped out. Ilehana placed the disc into its case and slipped the case into the back pocket of her jeans.

They had spent a little time together at the mansion; Mac getting his tour of some of the X-Men's facilities after Jean had patched him up and bandaged his arm. Cyclops had given him a t-shirt to wear, and Mac was secretly disappointed that there was no sign of the X-Men's symbol, the black cross on a circular red background. He had been awed just by the collection of cars and motorcycles in the garage, the size of the grounds and the sports facilities available to all the youngsters and the mansion itself, let alone by the infirmary, the labs and the hangar hidden beneath the school. Ilehana had dropped a few hints that there was more to the lower levels, but Mac hadn't pressed when she hadn't taken him further into her confidence.

Now that it was all gone, all the evidence and his colleagues knowledge of the case, Mac was a little hurt. He understood the need for removing all the evidence and so on pertaining to the case, and the necessity of removing all knowledge of the mutant kind. He even liked the fact that he was one of a select few that knew about it. It made him part of an elite, something that the Marine in him was absurdly proud of. Not that she had ever been anything more than civil to him in reality, but Mac sensed Ilehana pulling away, distancing herself. She'd been so quiet these last couple of hours, and they both knew that their time together was coming to an end. Would he be able to contact her if – and if they were as common as he was led to believe, when - he came across mutants again? He was somehow too shy to simply as her for her number. He needn't have worried.

Ilehana walked round the desk to stand opposite him. Everything he had been thinking had flashed across Mac's face; she didn't need her telepathy to see his hurt. The distance she had begun to place between them was more for her benefit than his, although it wouldn't do him any harm. So many times it had come to this; this parting of ways, but it was for his safety as well as theirs. Mac already knew too much, and there was the potential that the fool had made himself a permanent enemy – probably more so in Mystique than anyone else in the Brotherhood. The X-Men would watch over him. But that knowledge didn't make this moment any easier.

Ilehana touched Mac's hurt arm in her first true gesture of affection towards him. She smiled, still that shadowed, hollow smile but one nonetheless. Mac returned both gestures, his smile sad because he knew he had enjoyed and would miss her company.

"If you ever need anything..." He began, faltering slightly.

"I'll call." She cut him off quietly. She supposed she could have given it, after all what could it hurt? But something in her refused. "Don't worry, Mac, if you need me, I'll call you too."

Mac grinned at her despite himself, pleased by her comment. She gave him another half-smile, a gentle squeeze of the elbow and he followed her out of his office to watch as she walked down the corridor; he was somehow relieved that she hadn't actually said goodbye. She called the elevator, and when it arrived, she stepped inside. It was only then that she turned back to face him and raised a hand in a farewell gesture. She smiled as he waved back; even from that distance Mac saw the regret on her face. He watched the doors close, just catching sight if her raising her right hand to her temple and close her eyes, head bowed.

Vixen left the Crime Lab with a heavy heart. Wolverine drove up out front as she exited the building, his timing perfect, and she climbed into the Jeep. Neither of them said a word, and though Wolverine sent her many a sideways glance, Vixen returned none of them. She hated herself more in that moment than ever before. Nothing that anyone said would ever change that.

"Hey, Mac?" Danny asked some time later when he came across his boss in the locker room at the end of their shift.

"Yeah?"

"What happened to your arm?"

"It's the strangest thing, Danny," Mac touched the bandage on his injured arm and frowned. He remembered the last few days in great, and some places very vivid detail. He'd been working some mundane cases with Flack and Danny, had a long night going from crime scene to crime scene wishing for something to pique his interest. And then Mac had been called to the scene of Senator Robert Kelly's death; the death that Sid – backed up by Hawkes because it was such a high profile case – had declared as death by natural causes; a sudden and tragic coronary arrest. The media were already hyping up Kelly's binge drinking habits since the kidnap and murder of his son by terrorists. Mac would be attending the closed-casket – a strange detail that was almost burned into his memory - funeral in a few days time. The wound in his arm was fresh, a graze from a bullet no less, but as to how it had occurred... "I don't remember."