A/N: Hello, all my lovely readers. If you're reading this, that means you have read all 55 chapters of this story; all 294,000 words. You've been through thick and thin, cliffhangers, happy moments and sad moments, all that lead up to this.

This is very sudden. Too sudden, in fact, that I spent about an hour contemplating whether this was the right choice or not.

I can't believe I'm saying this, but this is the final chapter of Don't Be Afraid.

If I say any more, I might burst into tears, so I'm just going to leave it at this. There's more information at the bottom which I'd like you all to read, if you will. I hope you enjoy the last chapter of my first story. :')


[x]


Her eyes opened.

Her eyes weren't supposed to open. She was dead. Her soul was supposed to have left her body and traveled to the afterlife, and later who knows what would've happened, but her eyes weren't supposed to open and yet they did.

Maybe I am dead, she thought calmly. Maybe this is my afterlife. Maybe I'm supposed to feel my heartbeat and see my chest moving up and down with my breaths. Maybe I'm supposed to do all the things that would otherwise categorize me as alive, because I died.

I died.

Still, she felt utterly and surely alive. Her heartbeat was unyielding, very much so that she could feel it pounding in her ears. She inhaled, exhaled...inhaled, exhaled, both things she wasn't supposed to do as a dead person...a dead person didn't breathe...

She also wasn't supposed to be able to sit up, or open her eyes, or form coherent thoughts. She wasn't supposed to be able to

"Ah," a familiar voice spoke, "I thought you'd awake around now, child."

She felt the immediate fear course through her veins. The voice was close...not right by her ear, but around her, somewhere that she couldn't see, and it was scaring her because for months and months the only person she saw was someone who snuck up on her and whispered torturing words into her ear, like If you don't cooperate, I'll kill one of your friends and blame it on you or things like Good girl, that's how you cooperate...do exactly what I say...

The voice, however, was much deeper than the other one...much more knowledgeable. Quiet. Careful.

"Victor?" She breathed, not quite knowing why she was doing so. She was sitting up on something comfortable, but her head was turned to see the old housekeeper.

"Yes," Victor Rodenmaar Jr released a tiny smile. "It is me, young one. It's about time you opened your eyes...I've been sitting here for two hours."

"What's happening?" She asked a simple question, thousands upon thousands of thoughts running through her head. It took willpower to focus on only a few thoughts with so many others, but she figured her best bet was to focus on what was right in front of her. "Why am I here? Aren't I...aren't I dead?"

Victor was sitting in an old, dusty chair about five feet from her. His cane was leaning against the side of his chair, and his left elbow was leaning on his knee. "You were dead," Victor corrected calmly. "You aren't now."

"I don't understand," She groaned, moving her hand to lay on her forehead. She had a scalding headache, one that was making her insides burn. "How am I...how am I alive? I shouldn't be alive. I can't be alive. I'm dead. You can't bring a dead person back to life."

"There are certain ways," Victor protested, as quiet and as calmly as you would be on a mundane afternoon. "One thing you should learn, child, is that there is always a way out for those who are clever enough to find it. In this case...I was your way out."

"What do you mean?" She asked, her throat sore and dry, like she hadn't had something to drink in weeks.

"You were dead, yes," Victor confirmed. She felt her heart drop to the pit of her stomach. "But...I decided that—"

"You killed me," She remembered, her eyes widening. "You...Eddie gave you the elixir to drink, and you took it and drank it and you killed me." She looked at him with utter fear in her eyes; how else would you look at your murderer? She wanted to back up into the wall, but she remained sitting on whatever she was planted on.

"Let me finish," Victor continued. "When the others left after you died, I looked at them and there was so much guilt in me that it almost overwhelmed me. I looked at your dead body and thought...wow. What had I done? I was immortal, but I took a teenager's life in return. Someone who hadn't seen the world. Someone who hadn't even finished high school. I was a despicable human being, and I realized that.

"So I prayed to the gods to take my immortality and give it back to you. Or, rather...remove my immortality and return your life back to you."

She was silent. She stared at Victor with a blank expression, breathing through her mouth. Her green eyes, once so full of life, expressed no emotion now. She felt like she was empty...Victor's explanation made no sense whatsoever...it went against everything she'd ever known. If a person was dead — if they died, if their heart stopped, if their breathing halted forever — they were dead and that was that. There was no bringing them back, no matter how many times you cried yourself to sleep or asked Gran when they'd be returning.

She knew that well. She'd attended her mother and father's funerals at such a young age, only 10 years old. She was old enough to know they were dead, but not old enough to realize the weight of what had happened.

She was supposed to join them. She was supposed to be with them right now. She was supposed to be seeing them for the first time in 5 years. And this had all been taken away from her.

"So basically, I was dead, and you brought me back," She summarized blankly.

"Yes, that is exactly what happened." Victor's voice was small, nothing like she remembered it to be.

Both of them were silent for some time. She thought about what happened yesterday...Paul came into her room, saying that he had a plan to end all of this, with a plus: and old man would receive what he had been longing for for decades. She didn't understand what he meant until Victor walked in beside him and she connected the puzzle pieces.

They were going to kill her. And she was fine with that — perfectly fine, in fact — but she promised the others that she would send them a dream when she knew the answer to the curse. And now she did.

"What do I do now?" She asked in a small voice. She felt almost insignificant, standing next to him. Victor went from someone whom she'd opposed for the entire year, to giving up his immortality for her. What if Victor wanted repayment; would she be working for him for the rest of her life? Would she have escaped entrapment, only to walk into enslavement?

"Well, I suppose you return to Anubis," Victor said calmly.

She blinked. "Return to Anubis?"

"Yes," his nonchalant expression morphed into confusion. "I would think you'd want to be with your friends again. Though they're all heading home for winter break now...I think if you left right now, you might be able to spend a few hours with them until they leave. Where you go for winter break is up to you."

"Return to Anubis?" She repeated, unable to process that sentence.

Instead of blowing up with anger, Victor furrowed his eyebrows and remained silent. She assumed he was waiting for her to continue, so continue she did. "But I...I wouldn't be welcome there."

"Why wouldn't you be welcome there, child?"

"They all think I'm dead," she stated simply.

Victor laughed weakly. "Yes, I assume it will all be a shock for them when they see you again."

"They can't see me again," She opposed. She was most likely being too stubborn to cooperate with. "Even if I tell them I'm alive, they wouldn't...they wouldn't let me in again. They'd exclude me."

"That could very well be the truth," Victor reasoned, smiling slightly. "But you never know until you actually try."

She glanced to her right, where the wooden door lay still. She could walk fifteen steps forward, open it, walk outside into the world and never have to come back here ever again. Victor had released her; he had set her free. After two and a half months of thinking it would be her friends in Anubis House who would save her, since she knew she couldn't save herself, it ended up being her grouchy caretaker.

"Should I do it?" She whispered, in the utter silence between the two of them.

"I can't tell you what to do," Victor responded softly.

"I don't know if I want to," She admitted solemnly, scratching the back of her head in shame.

Victor grunted, then pushed himself off of the chair he was sitting on. He grabbed his cane that was leaning against his seat to keep his balance. "Well, child, I know this is a shock for you. If I died and suddenly returned to life, I'd be as confused as you are, if not more. I know this must be a hard decision for you...returning to your friends or not. I know how hard it must be to leave...here."

She blinked as Victor gestured around the room; it was the living room, cold and abandoned compared to Anubis's. "You've considered this place your home for the past two months. You most likely feel that if you leave it...you'll have no place to go back to."

"Yeah," she breathed, refusing to look at him.

"Well, I cannot truly force you to do this," Victor began, "but I encourage you to go back home. Your friends are waiting for you."

"But what if they—"

"Life cannot be measured by 'ifs'," Victor continued, his voice firm. "You must do what you want to do. I wanted to return my immortality and give your life back to you, and so I did. I didn't say 'if I do this...' I wanted to do it and I did exactly that. If you want to return to the House of Anubis, do that. If you don't wish to, well..."

"I want to," she returned immediately.

"Then go back," he stated simply.

She inhaled, exhaled, and repeated. If you want to return to Anubis House, do that. Oh, did she want to return to Anubis House. She'd spent the last 68 days dreaming of being there again with everyone, laughing at the supper table on weekends when Jerome and Alfie would tell stories of pranks they'd pulled over the course of the week and when they'd single out Patricia or when Alfie tried to be romantic with Amber or when Fabian and she exchanged loving glances across the table. She missed everything about that house.

She could go back. She could go back right now.

There was no 'ifs'. She wanted to go back. She could go back. After 68 days, it was finally an option; she wouldn't kill herself by walking out the front door, because the barrier Paul had set was nonexistent. The House wasn't that far away...it wouldn't take very long to get there.

She took her first step forward. It was wobbly, having been her literal first step since she died, but with every push of her mind and reminder that she wanted to do this, her steps steadied. They were slow and shaky, and sometimes her foot moved the wrong direction, but every second was another step closer to the door that would lead her out into the courtyard.

It took a minute or two, but when she reached the door and balanced herself against it, she turned to look at Victor Rodenmaar Jr. He was facing opposite her, looking at the other side of the room.

"Thank you," she spoke up.

He turned around. No words were needed. He smiled, bowed his head, and turned back around. She had thanked him, and all was finished.

She could go home. She could be with the members of the House again. Home.

With that thought, she took in another deep breath, pushed open the front door, and Nina Martin took her first steps toward home.


[x]


Two weeks later
January 8th, 2012

"Fabian, I'm scared."

I reached over and grabbed her hand, cradled it in mine. "There's no reason to be," I assured her, putting on my best smile. "Nothing's going to hurt you."

She inhaled a deep breath, then shook her head slowly."If you say so," she whispered, pursing her lips and avoiding my eyes by paying close attention to the leather couch beneath us. I always felt more assured when we held eye contact over the past two weeks, but she was making her best effort. I couldn't be angry with Nina, no matter how hard I tried.

"I know so," I continued quietly, trying to regain her attention. "Nina, we're your friends. Why would you be scared in the first place?"

Nina inhaled again, but didn't meet my eyes. I couldn't read her expression so I couldn't remotely know what she was feeling. "Because, Fabian."

"That's not an answer, you know."

"I'm scared," Nina breathed the beginning of her response, "because I haven't seen any of them in such a long time. And not just within these two weeks, since before this even began, back in October. I...I tried my hardest to keep in contact with them while I was taken, but it wasn't enough for some of them. Amber held a grudge against me. Patricia's probably still mad at me to this day!"

She had a certain look in her eyes that I couldn't see through. I wanted to help her, but I didn't know how, and it killed me to see her vulnerable like this when I was without a way to comfort her.

"I don't know what to do about any of them. I don't know what they'll think, or how they'll treat me, and that scares me most of all."

Nina's hand, small under mine, was trembling. I squeezed it to let her know that I was here for her, that I'd hold her hand throughout everything.

I took a moment to think about my words, because if I said the wrong thing or my message was taken the wrong way, there was the possibility of scaring her off. I had worked for two weeks to convince Nina that I wasn't here to hurt her, and I wasn't about to jeopardize all that now. "Nina," I began, my voice soft.

She met my eyes.

"In October, when we got the fake call that said the police found your body, Amber woke up the entire House that night. She was sobbing, telling us that she couldn't fall asleep because your empty bed was sitting right next to her. Then, two weeks ago, when you actually died, the first thing I did when I woke up the next morning was check on Amber to see how she was doing. I couldn't find her in her bedroom and I freaked out for a moment, but I found her a few moments later in Patricia's room next door, sleeping on the floor. Patricia told me that Amber came in in the middle of the night, and no one, not Patricia nor Joy nor Mara, could argue.

"Then at breakfast an hour or so later, Amber started screaming and crying at Eddie, so much so that Alfie had to take her out of the room."

Nina blinked and slumped her shoulders. When she didn't speak, I spoke for her. "I don't see any reason to be afraid of Amber, truthfully. I really think that if she saw you, she'd cry. And cry. And wouldn't stop crying. There would be so much crying."

"Yeah, but I still—"

"Do you want to deal with a crying Amber Millington? I don't."

Nina laughed quietly under her breath, which made me feel a little better. All I wanted in the world was to see her happy, which I had yet to glimpse. "Nina," I spoke, "I'll be here for you, throughout all of this. We'll all be here for you, no matter how much you're afraid of us. I guarantee you that."

"I know," Nina exhaled, closing her eyes. I wondered what was going on in that head of hers.

I squeezed her hand, tighter this time. It had been a wild two weeks between us, consisting of nightmares and unspoken secrets, but we'd found our way home somehow. I didn't know how the others would react to seeing Nina alive and breathing, but Jerome and Alfie were due to walk through that door any minute now. And when they did, Nina and I would be ready. We'd face them together, as one.

If I'd realized anything over the two weeks Nina and I had spent together alone, it was that I loved her, and it only took a death to figure that out. I didn't want to lose her to mental illness or physical illness or anything that could take her away again. I didn't deserve that, and neither did the others.

Nina and I stood, hand-in-hand, ready for anything.


[x]


A/N: There was originally supposed to be 7 more chapters, but after six months of not writing a single word of this story, I couldn't get it out of my system. Unfortunately, I lost all inspiration for this story a long time ago. After thinking about it a little bit more, I decided I liked this ending; it leaves room for thought. Now you all can imagine how you think the others reacted to Nina's arrival, and what happened afterwards.

Of course, I had this all planned out; and perhaps one day, I might even publish it (that is, if I manage to write it).

The acknowledgements for this story will be published next week, on the 18th; the third anniversary of Don't Be Afraid's publication. Anyone and everyone who's ever reviewed, liked, or favorited this story will be mentioned, especially a few special people, so look out for that.

Don't Be Afraid has been a huge part of my life for the past 3 years, and there won't be a day that goes by that I won't think of it.

Well...that's it, then. That's my final closing. Thank you so so so so SOOOO much for reading this, and spending however many hours it took to read this story whole. It will never come down, that I can promise.

I'll see you all on the 18th for the acknowledgements xoxoxo

Thank you guys again, for everything. It's been great.

-Julianna

(PS - Have a sparkling day!)