This is it. The final chapter. *Cue dramatic music*

(whisper, whisper)

(silence like the rainfall)

'- Wake up -'

(flicker, flutter, gentle hands)

'- Norge -'

(cold sweat, fevered brow)

(wake up, wake up, WAKE UP)

'- wake up!'

Norway opened his eyes.

There was light falling onto his face, warming his skin. Vague shapes were moving around him, talking in low voices, though he could not hear the words. He could feel his shirt sticking to his back; feel sickness churning in his stomach.

'- must be fever -'

'- anything we can do?'

'- just needs sleep, sleep, that's all -'

Norway let his eyes roll back in his head, and blackness swirled around him once more.

When he next opened his eyes, the blurred shapes were gone. There was something touching his cheek: something cool and pleasant against his fevered face.

(drowning, drowning, white eyes staring)

(life and love and pain and death)

'No,' Norway moaned. 'Make them go away...'

There were people talking around him. The sickness roiled in his guts again, and he rolled onto his side, fighting down the impulse to vomit.

(white hand white ribbon white face white eyes white white white)

Black.

'Norway -'

(drowning, drowning, wake up wake up wake up)

'Norway, please -'

(those white eyes staring staring staring)

'Big brother -'

Norway woke.

He noticed at once that the pain of the fever was gone. The sickness no longer writhed in his stomach, and his face felt much cooler.

'Big brother -'

A hand closed around his. Norway forced his eyes open, and saw a pair of violet ones staring back into his, relief and worry scrawled across the familiar face.

'I-Ice?' he managed.

Iceland didn't speak, but instead seized Norway around the neck and hugged him so tightly Norway could feel his collarbone creak.

'Never, ever do that again,' Iceland said into his shoulder.

'W-what...' Norway croaked.

Another face appeared over Iceland's shoulder, looking frightened.

'Norway!' he squealed. 'Oh, thank God. I'll go and tell Sweden and Denmark you've woken up, shall I? They've both been worried sick!'

He disappeared from Iceland's shoulder and Norway saw him exiting through a door.

'Help me sit up,' he muttered to Iceland.

Iceland looked apprehensive. 'You sure you can manage it?'

Norway cast him a stony look. 'Of course I can manage it. I'm not that pathetic.'

Iceland gave a faint smile and helped Norway raise himself into a sitting position. It was a strange feeling, Norway thought; this weakness which he had never experienced before. It was like suddenly ageing fifty years and being unable to do the things he was used to.

'That's better,' he sighed as he leant back against the bed. 'At least I can see properly now.'

He cast his eyes around the room, taking in the open window and the one door that had been pushed almost shut. 'Where am I?'

'Sweden's place,' Iceland said, 'it was the closest. This is one of the guest bedrooms.'

Norway nodded. 'What happened, Ice?'

Iceland glanced at him worriedly. 'You really don't remember?'

Norway frowned. 'Remember what?'

Iceland seated himself on the end of Norway's bed and began compulsively smoothing the blankets. 'You've - you've been in a sort of...coma.'

Norway froze. 'What?'

'You've been asleep for more than a week. You just went to bed one night and...didn't get up in the morning.' He stared at the ground, his hands clenching in his lap. 'It's been awful. We didn't know whether to tell the other nations, but they could hardly not notice that you haven't been turning up to meetings. Finn and I had to tell them you were sick.'

Norway rubbed both hands over his face, feeling exhaustion and relief sweep over him. If this was true, and it wasn't just another level of the nightmare...he really was safe.

'You want something to eat? Drink?' Iceland offered, standing up. Norway suddenly noticed how parched his throat felt, and the fact that his stomach was snarling impatiently.

'That would be nice,' he said, watching as Iceland turned and moved through the door that Finland had left through.

Once he had gone, the silence in the room seemed to thicken. Patterns danced on the walls from the sunlight on the window, making shadows flicker across the ceiling and floor.

Norway closed his eyes, relishing in the coolness of his eyelids.

He didn't know what to think. If he had been in a coma for days, did that mean that the dream had been just that: a dream? Had it just been a figment of his comatose imagination as he lay unconscious?

The sound of Iceland returning through the door with a laden breakfast tray encouraged him to open his eyes. He was joined by Sweden, Denmark and Finland, all of whom were beaming (with the exception of Sweden, whose blue eyes seemed slightly less hard). Each of them greeted Norway with smiles and delighted exclamations, wringing his hand and hugging him. Norway lay there, feeling the pain and terror of the dream sliding away as he laughed and joked with the others. The room was washed with sunlight, and he felt happy; elated. It was though nothing had ever changed.

Perhaps if he had not felt so relaxed and happy, he might have seen. Perhaps if he had not been so content to forget; to act as though nothing had ever happened, he might have noticed.

But he didn't, and therefore didn't see the white eyes that watched him from the shadows.

Waiting.

Well, that's it! I really hope you enjoyed the story, 'cause I had a lot of fun writing it! And again, I'm really sorry that it took me so long to post the final chapter.

Farewell, my lovely Narwhals!

~ Flybie