Here's to Christmas - Skulduggery Pleasant FanFic

EPILOGUE

EIGHT YEARS LATER

The All Time Low concert rolled around nine months after she became Grand Mage and she was not disappointed. It was truly amazing. She sang Weightless and So Long Soldier and the crowd was so loud during Therapy Alex stopped singing. She shouted out 'I'm coming with you!' at the end of Dear Maria Count Me In, and afterwards she was lucky enough to actually meet the band and she had framed the photo of her with Jack and Rian on her left, Alex and Zack on her right.

That hadn't been the only ATL concert she'd been to; she'd been to another five in total, and the fourth time she met them again - and Alex recognized her.

"Hey," he said vaguely, "I remember you...Valerie?"

"Close," she'd smiled, "Valkyrie."

And she'd felt honoured. The memories still made her smile after all these years of running Ireland's magical community.

She secretly admitted - she enjoyed being Grand Mage. She'd instigated changes in Ireland that had made things easier for everyone, and she was the first Grand Mage in a long line of failures to be adored by the majority of the magical population. Tanith and Cassandra hated their jobs with a passion, but they were her good friends and loyal advisors. Being an elder nowadays was not as difficult and wearing as it used to be. Valkyrie had made changes that made living easier - she had money now to buy furniture, new clothes, a fully functional boiler. She'd thrown the rule book out the window and she no longer had to wear those ridiclous robes. Fletcher was working in the detective department, and he was still like an awkward teen around her even though he was now approaching thirty. He'd broken up with Stephanie years ago, but he was still a bumbling mess, forever calling her Stephanie, then Valkyrie, then Grand Mage, before shuffling off and hiding his blush. It still felt like she was getting punched in the gut every time he said her name, but it was okay because she had Skulduggery.

Her relationship with Skulduggery could almost be decribed as friends with benefits, but without benefits. They were quite open about how they felt about each other, quite plain, and when they weren't busy solving crimes they were hanging out at Valkyrie's house, shamelessly flirting with each other. Dexter and Saracen found it amusing. Valkyrie and Skulduggery found it amusing and painful, but that's just the way things were. They were okay, in the end.

He constantly told her that she needed to move on from him, but she silently disagreed, after a total of three unsuccessful relationships (each one ended when she accidentally said Skulduggery's name in a kiss). When she argued for him, he protested that he was old, set in his ways, and he wouldn't ever love again so he might as well enjoy it while it lasted...which it had for the last eight years. And whilst she said she was okay with that, she knew she wasn't going to bother looking for another. If she didn't have Skulduggery, she didn't want anyone. Her heart beat only for him. It wasn't her choice anymore, and she wondered if that was the way it was for some people. There was always one who stole your heart and kept it, no matter how hard they tried to give it back. And that was fine.

Her one regret was leaving her family behind, so she found herself more and more frequently sneaking out a cloaking sphere from the Sanctuary to check up on them. Her mother had streaks of fine silver in her hair now and her father had found that he couldn't run as fast as he used to. She could see as he thought of another place, another time when the world was ending and he was running to save his children, to save the world, but those days were behind them now and that suited them down to the ground. Alice was now almost ten years old, and she was beautiful and clever and made Valkyrie proud to be her sister, even if she could only be her sister from far away, from the shadows, where she could no longer be seen by the rest of the world.

"Knock knock?"

She snapped out of her trance and sat up straight. "Do come in."

Skulduggery, Dexter and Saracen wandered in, Dexter holding a thick stack of paper.

"Good morning, Dead Men. And how may I be of assistance?"

Dexter plonked the file on her desk. "We have a new case."

She sighed and hurriedly glanced over the file. "Right. Who's trying to destroy the planet this time?"

"Not so much destroy it," Saracen interjected, "as...preserve it. There's a woman in Minnesota who believes that the only way for her loved ones to pass on is to preserve them for Judgement Day, but she also believes that her loved ones' particles are scattered throughout the Earth and all through the oceans."

Valkyrie pulled a face at him. "So...she wants to preserve the planet in ice?"

"Yes," Skulduggery said.

"Can she do it?"

"In theory, she can."

"And how long do we have before this post apocalyptic event takes place?"

"Three days at the most."

She gestured towards the door. "Then go. Go and get her. I don't want to be encased in ice for all eternity."

She picked up the file and began to read it properly. Dexter and Saracen left, but Skulduggery remained. He usually did in these situations.

"How's the soul mate search coming along?" He asked. She nodded vigorously.

"Very well indeed. He's standing right in front of me."

He chuckled slightly. "In al seriousness, though."

She tilted her head softly. "I'm fine on my own. Really."

He tipped his special hat and the light cast a shadow across his skull. "If you say so, Grand Mage."

She looked down as he went to leave, before saying, "You have to remember that it doesn't matter, Skulduggery."

He turned around at the big white door. "It doesn't?"

"No. It doesn't. At the end of it all, there's only one thing that matters."

"Ah," he said, and she looked up at him, "yes. That one thing."

"That one, special, wonderful thing. The big secret."

"The invisible bond that ties us all."

"The epitome of the human race itself."

"The one thing that remains a constant in our lives."

She opened her palm and the centre glowed a brilliant, bright white. She smiled at him.

"Magic."

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