41. Epilogue

A/N: Last chapter! *puts on Titanic theme* It's basically a bunch of ridiculous fluff, stuff which the story seriously lacks thus far. I don't have much to say (that'll come at the end). So enjoy!

Epilogue: A New Beginning

~3 Weeks Later~

Marinette shoved her books into her pink book bag as the school bell rang. She groaned and wiped the sweat off of her forehead. "This broken air conditioning is killing me!" she announced. Alya smiled as she slid her phone into her pocket.

"Relax Marinette. We only have one more week of school! Then summer, sun, vacation…"

"Yeah Marinette. You need to chill!" Adrien chided, swiveling backwards to face her and winking. Marinette groaned.

"Your puns are awful."

"Ouch, Princess. That's cold." Nino laughed as Marinette slapped her hand against her forehead. Chloe came over from the other side of the table. Sabrina following her.

Although Sabrina still followed the girl, she wasn't her slave anymore. And ever since she became the new Peacock, she started standing up for herself a lot more. She filled the final hole of the Miraculous Team, and the others were glad to have her. Sabrina really was an awesome friend once you got to know her.

"Pizza party at my place! Just the seven of us!" Chloe announced. Marinette lit up a bit.

"Pizza?" she asked hopefully. "I'll be there."

Chloe smiled and waved at Nathan, who blushed, before ducking out of the classroom. Alya watched her go. "I still can't believe how much progress that girl has made," she whispered to Marinette. Marinette smiled.

Nowadays, Chloe wore more middle-market clothes. They weren't very fancy, but they weren't cheap either. Today she was wearing a pair of faded jeans and a cute yellow blouse. And her hair was down. Down! Not to mention she got rid of about 75% of her makeup and she gave up on keeping her nails perfect while fighting. And she was a lot nicer to everyone. She really had come a long way.

"Well, I need to go. Adrien and I promised to handle the afternoon shift. Come on Adrien!" Adrien slung his bag over his shoulder and, flashing his girlfriend a grin, followed her out the door. Nino and Alya were planning on heading out on a date later that day. Nathan looked at the happy couple wistfully. Becoming Volpino made him more confident, but he still didn't have the confidence to ask Chloe out. What if she turned him down because he wasn't good enough?

Finally, all of the students evacuated the school and went on with their lives, leaving the teachers to sort through stacks of homework. Adrien and Marinette found themselves in the kitchen, having promised to bake no less than 100 cupcakes before they could leave.

Adrien groaned. "Where do we even start?" He had gotten much better at baking from the three weeks of living with the Dupain-Chengs, but he was still an amateur. Marinette pulled on her apron and tied her hair back in a short ponytail, a determined look flashing in her eyes. She tossed Adrien his own apron (a green one decorated with baking puns, no less, all thanks to Tom).

"You pre-heat the oven and pull out the bowls and equipment stuff. I'll get the ingredients. Then we go from there."

"Deal!" Adrien took off, skidding to a halt in front of the oven and twisting the knobs around. Marinette made her way to the bakery's refrigerator and started pulling out stuff. They were going to get this done if it killed them.

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Two hours later, they had 100 beautifully decorated cupcakes all specially arranged on trays to show Tom and Sabine. They themselves, however, looked like a pastry train wreck. Marinette laughed as Adrien swiped some frosting off of her chick and licked it. "Delicious!" he announced happily.

Marinette surveyed the mess the kitchen was in. "We really ought to learn how to bake together without making such a mess."

"You started it! You can't sneak up behind me and squirt icing down my shirt without some sort of retaliation!"

"Did the retaliation have to be accidently knocking an entire bowl of batter over?" Marinette asked, raising one eyebrow skeptically. Adrien raised his hands in mock surrender.

"You surprised me!"

"I thought you have cat-like reflexes! And you should have seen me coming!"

"Well now I'm coming!" Adrien said, leaping towards her. Shocked, Marinette skidded backwards, knocking a few spatulas off of the counter. Adrien chased her around the kitchen, both of them skidding on icing. Finally, he caught her and pinned her down, planting a quick kiss on her lips. She laughed.

"Okay. Down kitty, down!" she shoved him off, still laughing as her phone buzzed. She pulled it out of her pocket.

Chloe: Pizza's here and ready whenever you come.

Sabrina: We got everyone's favs!

Nino: on r way

Marinette: Kitty and I will be there soon, we have a slight situation here.

To prove it, she and Adrien took a selfie.

Marinette: *frosting covered selfie*

Alya: You both look great!

Nino: dude that's gonna take you forevs to clean… more pizza for us

"Too bad you can't use your cleansing powers…" Adrien said regretfully, looking around the kitchen.

"Too bad," Marinette agreed, wincing.

In the end, it only took them a half an hour. They were incredibly fast and their excellent teamwork skills helped them to maneuver around the kitchen and take care of the mess in half the time it seemed it would take. After they changed into clean clothes (and retrieved Tikki and Plagg from Marinette's room) they headed to Le Grand Paris Hotel.

The doorman let them in without a word, and they headed up to Chloe's room. They could hear loud laughing before they even reached the door. Walking through, Adrien and Marinette found all of their friends sitting around in a circle, munching on pizza. Nino was telling a story, waving his hands in the air dramatically.

"So then Adrien came up with the best idea! We got some of those ear walkie talkie things and I went to the zoo, with Adrien talking to me through that! I was so nervous I could barely breathe, so all I could do was try and follow what he said."

Alya burst out laughing. "MARINETTE AND I DID THAT! She thought she was going on a date with Adrien, so I was coaching her through an earpiece! She was SO confused when you came alone!"

They all started laughing as Adrien turned to Marinette and raised one eyebrow. She blushed. "And then!" Alya continued, "And then LADYBUG locks us in a cage together, and… Wait a second that was Marinette!"

"Guilty," Marinette said loudly, alerting them all of her presence. Alya whipped around.

"I told you under no circumstances was I going on a date with Nino! And then you do THAT!"

"Well it wasn't technically a date," Nino said, shrugging. Alya shook her head, chuckling.

"Man, how blind were we?"

"Pretty blind," Nino agreed.

"I think the real question is, how stealthy are we?" Adrien asked, grinning. "It's not exactly easy to lead a double life, especially when one of your close friends is Alya, Ladybug chaser extraordinaire."

"How did I not see it?" Alya groaned.

The rest of the day was just as fun. After they devoured the pizza (Plagg ate about 5 pieces of cheese pizza) the kwami hung around on Chloe's bed, swapping stories about their Chosen and their past chosen. The teens, however, decided to play the world's most complicated game of Hide and Seek (or as we sophisticated teenagers call it, Man Hunt). When it got to be late and the sun was going down, they took the game to the rooftops.

Jade and Chat were on a team together, just because Adrien had not recovered from his injuries yet (and probably wouldn't for some time going forward). For the rest of the team, it was every man for himself. Laughter filled the air as they chased each other around Paris.

Finally, Chat slipped away from Jade and headed towards the rooftop that he and Ladybug met every single day for patrol before… before everything. Ladybug was already there, sitting with her back against the rooftop and her knees pulled up to her chest. Chat clumsily made his way over and tapped her shoulder.

"Found you," he said softly. She looked up at him and smiled a bit, before looking down again. Chat sat down beside her. The two of them sat in silence for what felt like hours, just looking at the stars and listening to each other breathe. Finally, Ladybug broke the silence.

"Are you going to miss this?"

"Miss what?"

"Everything. This. There are new miraculous users. It isn't just Ladybug and Chat Noir anymore. Now it's the whole miraculous team. And we're in charge of them. Now we have to watch their backs in every fight. Now we have to train them until they know as much as we do. They'll take some of our patrols. They'll be hanging out at the top of the Eiffel Tower too. And as much as I love my friends, I can't help but miss this. Us."

Chat stared morosely at the stars for a bit, thinking it over. He took in a deep breath. "I think that it will be a little strange at first. Places that only we could get to and things that only we could do aren't just ours anymore. But I think some of it will be for the better. How many nights did you miss doing homework and wake up exhausted because of akuma attacks and patrols?"

"Too many," Ladybug mumbled. Chat slung his arm around her shoulder.

"Exactly. Of course, we don't have akuma attacks anymore. But trust me, something will come up. Now we can spend more time helping people and enjoying being Ladybug and Chat Noir, and less time suffering the consequences in our civilian lives."

"I guess you're right," Ladybug admitted softly. Chat pulled her into a hug.

"Besides," he whispered in her ear. "This is our city. We found it first. We know every single nook and cranny. Who says we have to show them everything?"

Ladybug looked up, and suddenly he was leaning in and she was letting him and it was the best kiss she had ever had. They stayed together, kissing until they couldn't breathe, for the next several minutes.

"Somehow, I think everything will work out just fine," Chat whispered, gazing lovingly into her blue eyes.

"Somehow," Ladybug smiled, "I think you're right."

FIN.

A/N: Can anyone believe that you just read the very last chapter of Secrets and Betrayals? I can't…

Anyway, I have a LOT of people to thank here, so this will be pretty long.

Thank you to my best friend, LandraWolf, just for being there through every aspect of my life and keeping me alive and sane so I could write this.

Thank you to KaliAnn, BunnyJCai22, sjsreader, Masked Revenge, and every single reader and reviewer (for about 10 minutes I considered going through and pulling out ALL of your names, but I just couldn't do it. I don't have time anymore). There are a bunch of you that really inspired me and kept me going, and I could never have written this whole thing without you guys.

The rest of you, your reviews were possibly the best thing that has ever happened to me. And to all of the guests whose reviews I couldn't answer, there are several of you that made me so happy I wanted to hunt you down and hug you.

Also, a HUGE thank you and shout out to everybody that recommended my fic to their friends or fanfic reader. And for everybody who drew fanart (I would still love links if you'll send them).

So I found out about a week ago that Secrets and Betrayals is the most reviewed upon Miraculous Ladybug fanfiction on .

What.

When I started this I was just a really insecure fourteen year old girl, who wanted to write a very short fic about a TV show, who thought maybe she would get five reviews at best. I admired so many fanfic writers and I dreamed about the day where I could be one of them. I tried so hard, even though I KNEW (well, I thought I knew) that nobody would really like it.

So here's my message to every other writer out there (for fanfics or otherwise). Try. If you have an idea, you have something inside of you begging to be let out, let it out. Do it. Sit down at your computer or pull out paper and a pencil and do it. Share it with others if you want. Keep it private if you want.

The thing is, don't compare yourself to your favorite authors and beat yourself up because you're not that good. Because you can become that good. And the only way to do that is if you write. You may look back on your first pieces of writing and laugh at how awful they were, but that's good. That means you improved.

If you worry about spelling and grammar, find a beta. They're here to help and encourage you. Actually, if you're worried about ANYTHING, my advice would be to go find a fellow writer. It could be someone you look up to, it could be someone random, and send them a message over FF, asking for opinion. They may never message you back. They might give you so much inspiration you might burst. They may give you constructive criticism, and help you to become a better writer.

I've gotten many messages like that. I've never turned one down. I read the fics or plot ideas, I give advice. Some of these people I consider better writers than I am. Some end up writing fics that I avidly await to be updated.

So ask for help, and if you are asked for help, be polite. Lend a hand.

Anyway, that was the end of my long rant. I'm sorry…

ANYWAYS, OFFICIAL STUFF NOW! IF YOU SKIPPED THAT WHOLE LONG THING UP THERE, YOU ARE PROBABLY GONNA WANT TO READ WHAT'S DOWN HERE!

The Big Question: WILL THERE BE A SEQUEL?

My Big Answer: Um…. I don't know.

Readers: Wow. Great Lily. Thanks.

Just stay posted. I don't know what else to tell you. There might be a sequel, but I don't know. It might not be for a while. But if I do post a sequel, I'll put another chapter A/N on Secrets and Betrayals. So if you leave that in your follow box, you'll be notified if/when I post the sequel.

Anyway, I love all of you guys so much! I've met so many new people and so many new friends! Leave a review if you want, and I guarantee I'll respond! I love hearing from all of you, and I hope we can still stick together as writers and readers in this wonderful fandom.

Au revoir!

-LilyTheNinjaGirl