Epilogue: ...or IS it?

The older of the two white coated medics slowly drew the door closed, the swish of the door against the carpet almost masking the sound of his younger colleague's brief sigh. Shaking his head, he locked the door and pocketed the key. "I warned you she was an odd one, didn't I? Still, you can't expect good results every time, and your thesis won't suffer from her failure to respond to the new therapy."

"I know, but it's just… it's such a waste! To be so convinced of such horrible things that never even happened, without any obvious etiology, and no abnormalities on the MRI scans… we don't even know what's truly wrong with her, let alone how to make her even halfway sane again."

The professor tutted, and patted his doctoral student on the shoulder. "Give it time. Science may move too slowly to benefit her, but there'll be others in the future who'll thank us. Progress happens faster in many small steps, and I'm sure you'll get your Nature paper one of these days."

"Yeah, I know."

They walked away down the hall, their muffled footsteps fading out into silence.

Behind the locked door, the woman's mad, chilling laughter soon started up once again.

A/N: Well, I'm afraid I've given you a choice of endings here! Did Mary make it to Pern, or was it all in her head? Is the poor unfortunate in the padded room our good friend Mary Sue, or one of the victims of the SueSlayers working in other canons? Did SueSlayer's previous victims really die horribly, or were they resurrected with the chance to eventually grow into decent writers? The choice is yours... ;)

Anyway, I hope you've enjoyed the story, both the Sue-bashing and Mary-sue's own meta-plot. It's been insane fun coming up with it all, and I promise I'll RITE MOAR SOOOOOON!!111! - but it'll be back to proper stories rather than more crackfic like this.

Thanks to my readers and reviewers, and sorry it took so darn long to finish off.