A/N: Well here we are, 12 weeks and over 20,000 words later – and it turns out that with 74 reviews, 10 faves, 40 alerts, and over 4000 hits this has been, by far, my most successful story to date! I hope you enjoy this this final chapter, and stay tuned for my note at the end of the story!

Part Twelve

Fa Li heard it at the same time. "Mulan?" she whispered.

Everyone in the room grew silent. Even he who had caused everything listened from the corner. For a long time, there was no sound in the room but their breathing. And as Mulan took another breath, and another, and still more, her breath mingled with theirs. She opened her eyes.

A hysterical voice broke the silence. "She's saved! Oh, Cri-Kee, she's saved!"

Everyone glanced at one another, but no one knew who had spoken. It didn't matter. They immediately focused on the pale figure of Mulan.

"Get her some water," Grandma commanded. "She's trying to say something."

Fa Li held a vase of water to Mulan's cracked lips, and after a moment pulled it away again.

"What happened?" Mulan asked, very low.

"You lived," Fa Li replied.

"The spy – "

"We have him," Shang said, standing up clumsily, without wanting to draw attention himself.

Grandma, who seemed to have a psychic knowledge, knew her granddaughter wanted to sit up, so she and Fa Li carefully adjusted Mulan to lean against the headboard.

"Jian-Die was trying to deliver a message for the Huns," she began.

"Shh."

"And they were going to burn the town – "

"Hush, Mulan."

"And is everybody safe?"

"Does this answer your question?" Grandma nodded into the corner, and Mulan frowned at what she saw there.

"Who caught him?"

"Chien-Po," Yao said. It was at this point Ling burst into the room. "I brought the guards – " he whispered, and then he spied Mulan. "She's alive? Whoa! Did not see that coming!" Ling tripped and fell across everything in the room and finally collapsed by Mulan's bedside. "I'm your servant as long as you live! Oh jeez! Oh gosh! You nearly died again!"

"I know," Mulan laughed. "You can't keep me out of trouble. And you don't have to be my servant, Ling. Just don't flirt anymore, okay?"

"Anything!"

Ling flopped out of the way as Shang appeard by Mulan's side. He had felt very manly upon remembering how he carried her into the house, and figured this was a good a time as any for his speech; but then she turned her face up to his, with that strand of hair perpetually draped over one eye, and she greeted him with that face – the unsure, graceless, honest, half-confident, half-humble, fully wonderful look she didn't even know she had.

And he was forced to mentally re-write his speech on the spot. (What he finally said is for another story.)

Meanwhile Chien-Po sat in the corner blubbering, as the returned Ling awkwardly wrung out his soaking handkerchief and Yao awkwardly patted him on the back.

"C'mon, Chien-Po, she's okay now," Ling urged, nodding fervently in Mulan's direction.

Chien-Po mouthed the words, "I know," yanked away the handkerchief, and proceeded to drench it.

"See," Ling continued, uneasily, "she's sitting up and drinking tea, that's a good sign, right?"

"Whoa, buddy," said Yao, clearly shaken by his friend's meltdown. "Calm down! Ya need to chant? Yeah! That's it! Da bu…uh…"

"No, no, I'm fine," Chien-Po insisted, sniffling, as Ling dutifully took the wet hanky. "I'm just so… glad!"

He sounded anything but. Ling and Yao could only look at each other and shrug as he disappeared into the handkerchief again.

Fa Zhou had not stayed for very long after his daughter awoke. He returned to the shrine to thank his ancestors. But first he sent a look to his daughter that went straight to her heart.

Then it was Mama's turn to speak. She took her place by Mulan's bed, and Mulan tried to smile, but she was a bit apprehensive as to what her mother would think.

"Mulan," Fa Li said, "I have something to say to you. I was wrong to try and force you to get married after you've been so accepting and done so much for our family without giving a thought to yourself. I was only trying to give you a normal life. But you don't fit the mold. You never have. Mulan, your heroic actions sometimes seem so far away and so long ago, and you came home just exactly the way you left, though so much improved, that it's almost easy to carry things on just the way we left them a year ago. But we realize now that we can't. You've grown so much. I suppose we've all changed. The village didn't, but now that you've saved them directly, maybe they will. We were only trying to do what was best for you, and we sometimes forget you too often know what's best for us all. Hopefully the villagers can accept that, too."

Mulan sighed from weariness, then gave a watery smile. She knew she had pleased Baba long ago. Now she knew Mama understood, too.

"You were right, though. I wanted everyone to know I was a hero. Like I deserved thanks for it. That's not what a hero is. But their not knowing helped me to carry out my plan – if everyone knew I was a hero, there'd be no way Jian-Die would have come within a mile of me, and I could never have held him so long. There's just one thing," she said, realizing in a flash. "I didn't save the town. It doesn't really matter – I know I can face every day now, by just being me, so I'm set. But I didn't catch Jian-Die, I just talked to him and hit him once or twice. It was Chien-Po who caught him. And that means…Chien-Po saved the town."

Chien-Po blinked, and yanked his head out of the handkerchief in astonishment. "I? I did not save the town!"

"Yes you did, Chien-Po. The spy would have gotten away if he hadn't run into you!"

"But – but – he only ran into me because we failed to deliver your message. We turned back. Mulan, don't say I am the hero! One would award the soldiers who stopped the enemy, not the Great Wall for blocking them!"

"Besides, we helped!" Ling protested.

"Yeah, we used my belt to tie him up!" Yao added.

"Well, I'm not going to take the credit, so you'd better find someone else who will," Mulan laughed. "Saving China once is enough. Twice is too much. And I don't need credit for either. Facing the daily battles is enough – I think I'm ready to live my life 'normally'. Besides," she added, glancing in Shang's direction and turning him red and flustered, "whoever said marriage was such a bad idea?"

Shang turned away and glanced out the window. "Uh, Mulan," he said, clearing his throat and staring. "I don't think…you're exactly going to live your life normally."

"What do you mean?" Grandma asked, ready to challenge anyone who would deny her granddaughter's wish.

"Well, I mean – look outside."

They all looked.

Out in the distance a tiny golden light, like a yellow flower, flickered and grew. It became larger, blossoming the farther it came down the road. Slowly it took form – it separated into yellow and white and red, then it was a person, then a horse, then a flag. Then a dragon in a circle – the Emperor's seal.

"It's the Imperial messengers!" Ling cried wildly.

"You mean, the Emperor sent those?" Mulan asked in disbelief, as horse after horse crashed down the road, with flags and blazing torches leaving bright vines behind.

One horse reared to a halt in the middle of the road. Its rider pulled a scroll from the bag on his back and unfurled it, shouting the practiced words. "Behold the deeds of the Honorable Fa Mulan, the Lady Soldier, who stopped the Huns at the Tung Shao Pass and in the Imperial City, therefore winning the respect of His Majesty the Emperor, and the respect of all China! Treat her as the hero she is or seek punishment! For the Emperor has declared her an important person, to be remembered through generations!"

Lights had snapped on in windows throughout the course of the speech. While the entire Fa household stayed pressed against the window in rapt attention, Shang crept outside, and soon they saw him say something to the Imperial messenger.

"The military has also announced that a dangerous spy who threatens this very town has been apprehended, thanks in part to Fa Mulan!"

And soon the entire train galloped away like a bright light down the street.

Mulan could hardly breathe, and Mama and Grandma pressed water and herbs to her nose and mouth with all their might.

"They really told," Mulan gasped.

"Of course they did!"

"People know!"

"And that'll bring a lot more problems, but that's life for you. Hey, Mulan, what did I tell you?" Grandma demanded. "That day at the matchmaker's? No matter how long the winter, spring is sure to follow. Well, Mulan? Wasn't I right?"

"You were right, Grandma," was all Mulan could say, throwing her arms around her grandmother. "Life's screwy that way."

And for the rest of that night, the Emperor's messengers galloped through the cities and galloped through the towns, proclaiming the deeds of Fa Mulan. Those who galloped through Mulan's village cried the loudest. The cherry and magnolia trees blossomed rapidly around them as they roared through the streets, and the people who had thrust their heads out of doorways to talk about Mulan now glanced at each other in wonder, many of them dismayed that they had not been first to recognize the village girl for the hero she really was.

Except, of course, for the matchmaker Madam Suo. That lady, upon hearing a ruckus, dashed outside in hopes of being first to spread any new gossip. Instead she tripped on the back landing, fell down the back stairs, and landed unceremoniously with her head in a water bucket. The injury so unnerved her she was out of service for months, and the moral of that story is that maybe lucky red clothing works after all. Mushu, of course, didn't give a hoot about morals; he just couldn't help laughing. (Madam Suo had "somehow" tripped over him….)

But for everyone else – the Fa family, the gang of three, General Shang, Mushu and especially Fa Mulan – the curse had been broken, and though adventure sought them out at every turn, their lives were forever full of honor and respect.

And they welcomed a new spring each year, whenever it happened to burst into view.

The End

A/N: Haha, did you enjoy it? Since this Disney fic was so popular, I have a few others up my sleeve – including another Mulan sequel and an improved sequel to Pocahontas. But right now I'm working on my addition to Disney's The Hunchback of Notre Dame. Keep a look out for these in the upcoming months!