Epilogue

Nom Nom made very slow work of the bowl of fruit that had been brought to him earlier, as their freshness left a lot to be desired. He stared listlessly at the TV mounted on the wall as he ate, though the volume was so low he couldn't hear a thing. He picked up another apple slice and examined it before deciding it was worth putting in his mouth. No one had entered his hospital room in over an hour, and the koala was starting to become restless. He was just starting to consider taking a nap when he heard a knock at the door.

Before he could answer, the door swung open and his security guard poked his head into the room. "Sir, the bears are here to see you," he stated gruffly. Nom Nom just stared back him with mild surprise. "Shall I send them away?"

"No, it's fine. Let them in."

The man pushed the door all the way open and stepped aside to grant the bears access. Panda and Ice Bear stepped into the room, and Nom Nom immediately frowned when he didn't see Grizz accompanying them. Fear settled in the pit of his stomach, as the last time he had seen the grizzly bear, he had been fleeing to the woods while his brothers chased after him. He had no way of knowing whether or not they had ever found him.

"Where's Grizz? He's not still lost, is he?" he asked seriously, earning confused looks from the two bears. They both glanced over their shoulders, and Panda sighed in frustration.

"Grizz, come on," he said. "Get in here."

A few moments later, a very shame-faced Grizz slowly stepped into the room, the view of his face partially obstructed by the large bouquet of flowers he was holding. He glanced at Nom Nom for just a second before he quickly averted his gaze and shuffled himself over to the far corner of the hospital room. Nom Nom didn't need to ask why the bear was keeping his distance.

"So…how are you feeling?" Panda asked, finally breaking the silence.

The koala shrugged. "I've got a sprained wrist and a cracked rib, so I'll be out of commission for a few weeks until everything heals." Nom Nom could have sworn he saw Grizz's head dip just a little lower out of the corner of his eye. "I'm curious…Was your house ransacked by any chance when you got back?"

Panda's eyes flashed and he immediately crossed his arms. "Yes, as a matter of fact. There was stuff everywhere! At first we thought we had been robbed!"

"Yeah, well...They traced the signal on my phone back to your cave, but when they couldn't find me there, that's when they started searching the forest. For all they knew, someone could have kidnapped me for ransom or something. They weren't going to take any chances. They were going to work under the assumption that if someone had taken me, then they were probably armed and dangerous, hence the reason they were armed themselves."

"But why did they have to trash the place? The books on my bookshelf were all screwed up and there were a lot of papers thrown around. Couldn't they have figured out you weren't there without having to do all that?"

"Well, they weren't just looking for me, they were looking for any kind of clue as to where else I might be, like a ransom note or something."

"I still say being internet famous is crazy cool," Grizz muttered from across the room.

"Dude, they pointed guns at our faces!" Panda protested as he turned to shoot his brother a glare.

"Well…yeah, but…I mean, he practically had a SWAT team out looking for him when he went missing. How is that not cool?"

"Well, it wasn't cool for me!" Panda quipped.

"Nor Ice Bear," the polar bear agreed, narrowing his eyes.

"Did they damage anything?" Nom Nom asked them.

Panda unfolded his arms as the anger seemed to dissolve from his face. "No, not really. Mostly everything was just strewn about. They went through our closets and everything. Even the shed behind our cave was messed up. It was just a matter of getting everything picked up and put back in its place. No harm, no foul I guess. Anyway….Grizz told us everything last night, about how you guys got lost. Honestly, if it had to happen, I'm glad you guys were at least together. Well…at least up until…You know, never mind, let's not go there."

Nom Nom glanced at the grizzly bear again, noticing he was still looking down at his feet.

"Um…Grizz told us what you did," Panda continued, regaining Nom Nom's attention. He furrowed his brows, unsure of what the panda was referring to.

"What'd you mean?"

"He told us you saved him from drowning in a river!" Panda exclaimed as though the answer was obvious.

"Oh…that." The koala shrugged, quietly adding, "It wasn't a big deal."

Panda looked stunned at hearing this. "It is to me! To both of us!"

"Seriously…don't mention it."

Ice Bear couldn't help but raise a brow. It was strange that Nom Nom wanted admiration and praise from everyone around him when he was only pretending to be a hero, and yet didn't seem to want to be acknowledged at all when he legitimately was a hero; but then he remembered the guilt he had expressed and the disgust at his own actions, something the polar bear was still struggling to wrap his head around. It was apparent Nom Nom didn't feel worthy of praise, even if he had truly done something admirable. There was also the fact that Panda still wasn't in the know about what had happened. He figured at some point Nom Nom would probably break down and tell him the truth, but that was for another day.

The room fell into a brief silence, which was made more awkward by the fact that Grizz still maintained his position in the corner, his back facing the others. Panda finally cleared his throat as he glanced between his brother and the bed-bound koala. "Umm…listen, I think you guys need to talk for a while," he said seriously. He looked towards his brother again, who was now glancing at him over his shoulder. "We're gonna head to the store and pick up the essentials since…you kinda cleaned us out last night," Panda added with a chuckle.

Grizz appeared guilty. "Yeah…sorry."

"It's fine, Grizz. We're just glad to have you back."

With that, Panda started heading for the door, Ice Bear trailing behind him. "We'll see you back at the cave, okay?"

Grizz only nodded, offering his brothers a half-hearted wave as they exited the room, shutting the door on their way out. Another awkward silence set in, with both animals now looking at anything but each other.

"So….are you just going to keep avoiding me like the plague?" Nom Nom finally asked, though he kept his gaze lowered.

Grizz heaved a sigh and finally started shuffling his way over to the bed. "Umm…I didn't know if you liked flowers or not," the bear stated nervously as he held up the colorful floral arrangement. "I just thought…you know, maybe you might like something pretty to look at, I don't know," he said before carefully placing the frosted glass vase on the table near the bed.

Nom Nom offered him a weak smile, muttering a simple "Thanks." He frowned when he noticed what looked to be a stuffed animal tucked under his arm. "What's that?"

Grizz followed his gaze and perked up slightly as he pulled the stuffed toy out from under his arm. "Oh, well….stuffed animals always make people feel better. Well, they make me feel better at least," he said as he held the toy up for Nom Nom to see. "I thought you might like it, too."

"A penguin?"

Grizz glanced down at the toy and then back up at the koala, smiling nervously. "Uh…well, yeah. I thought it was cute. I was going to get you a teddy bear, but then I thought that might offend you, so…I went with the penguin instead."

That statement actually managed to rouse a chuckle from the koala. He reached out and took the stuffed toy as it was offered to him, muttering another quick "Thanks" as he placed it on the bed beside him. They shared another brief silence before Grizz finally remembered that he was still holding one more item in his paw.

"Oh! Here!" he said as he moved towards the bed rather suddenly, which startled Nom Nom and caused him to flinch. Seeing this response, Grizz frowned and took a step back. "I-I'm sorry, I didn't mean to-"

"It's all right," Nom Nom interrupted him with mild agitation as he held up a paw. "I'm still a little jumpy. I'm sure I'll get over it." He stretched his arm out a little further and turned his paw over, waiting for Grizz to hand him the item he was still clutching in his paws, which looked to be a card of some sort.

"They actually had a 'Get Well Soon' card with a koala on the front," Grizz said as he finally handed the card over to the marsupial. "I thought it was a good choice."

After briefly glancing at the cute cover art of a koala hanging from a tree branch with the words 'Hang in there!' printed across the top, Nom Nom quickly opened up the card to read what was written inside. He barely acknowledged the pre-printed well wishes and instead focused on the chicken scratch scribbled across the bottom of the card:

Sorry I tried to eat you. I hope you get better soon!

- Grizz

Nom Nom almost laughed out loud when he noticed the little sad bear face Grizz had doodled next to his name. He looked up from the card when he heard a chair sliding across the floor and saw Grizz promptly take a seat.

"I should have told you," the bear said softly after an awkward silence, looking downward.

"Yeah, you should have," Nom Nom replied with a hint of anger as he closed the card and set it aside. Noticing that he bear's eyes appeared wet, he felt his heart wince with guilt. "But…I guess I understand why you didn't," he added in an effort to ease Grizz's shame. "Maybe I would have done the same thing if I had been you."

"I almost killed you," the bear managed to squeak, his lip quivering. "I couldn't control myself."

"You didn't mean to," Nom Nom continued to reassure, despite the anger he still possessed. Even if he had a right to be upset, he knew the ordeal had traumatized Grizz just as much as it had him, if not more so.

The bear finally broke down, leaning forward to bury his face against the edge of the bed and wrapping his arms around his head as he wept. It wasn't surprising to see, but Nom Nom still couldn't help feeling awkward and even a bit helpless as he watched Grizz sob loudly. He knew words of comfort would simply be drowned out by the sound of his crying and so instead he slowly reached out a paw and placed it against the top of his head, raking his claws through the coarse brown fur.

"I'm sorry….I'm sorry," the bear sobbed against the sheets. "I'm a monster."

"You're not a monster, dumb dumb. You just…succumbed to your natural instincts."

Nom Nom pulled his paw back as Grizz finally lifted his head to look at him directly, wiping at his eyes. "I had no control! I didn't remember any of it! Do you know how scary that is?! I never even thought something like that could happen until I saw it happen to my bros! But I thought maybe I'd have better control over it, you know? They had no idea that could happen, but I did! I thought I'd have better control over myself."

The koala sighed. "Grizz, you're a bear. Bears are predators. They kill and eat things. It sucks for animals like me, but, it's nature."

Nom Nom cringed almost immediately after those words left his lips, and the crestfallen look Grizz was giving him certainly didn't help matters. "I'm not helping, am I?"

Grizz sighed as he rested his chin on his arms. "It's okay. It's just…I know it's nature, but it just makes me feel like I'm a slave to my own evolution…if that makes any sense at all. I mean, saying 'it's just nature' doesn't undue the damage I've done. You're in a hospital bed for crying out loud, and I can't even make any sudden movements around you without scaring you!"

Nom Nom frowned. Although he would have preferred to leave his past actions in the past, he didn't know how else to put Grizz's actions in perspective without bringing up his own.

"Grizz…look at what I did to you…and to your brothers, and then compare that to what you did. I chose to do what I did, remember? I made the conscious choice to endanger your lives in order fulfill my own selfish needs. I knew what the risks were, I knew there was a chance something could go wrong…but I still made the choice to disregard all that in order to help myself. What you did could hardly be considered a choice. You didn't disregard your morals the way I did. Again, you were just an animal trying to survive. I mean…even humans can go crazy and do crazy things that they wouldn't normally do when they're in extreme situations like that. This doesn't define you."

Grizz could only stare back at the smaller animal, blinking away more tears as they threatened to spill over. "I just hate that there's nothing I can do to stop it from happening. It's the lack of control that really bothers me." Grizz wiped his eyes again. "I'm sorry, Nom," he added, his tone heavy with anguish. "I'm sorry I ruined your trust."

Furrowing his brows, Nom Nom took a moment to consider exactly how he wanted to respond to that comment. "Listen to me…I'm not the type of person who trusts anyone about anything. Not since Russ. He was the only person I ever trusted, and I haven't trusted or cared about another person since I was separated from him."

Grizz's gaze fell to the floor, as he interpreted Nom Nom's words to mean that he had never trusted him to begin with.

"Not until I met you," the koala finally added after a moment's pause, forcing Grizz to look back up at him, a flicker of joy returning to his eyes. "When I met you, I thought you were loud and annoying. I did think you were just another blithering fan, and I wanted nothing to do with you. I had told you I wasn't interested in hanging out with friends…and that I didn't need them. At the time, I honestly believed that, but only now do I realize the real reason why."

Nom Nom paused and exhaled.

"I didn't want to trust anyone else. I had thoroughly convinced myself that I didn't need friends and that my stardom was all I needed to keep me happy and fulfilled, but the reality is I was afraid to let myself ever trust anyone the same way I had trusted Russ. I didn't want to go through that again. I didn't want to let myself to get close to someone else, only to end up losing them. I didn't think I could trust anyone. The one downside to having all this fame is feeling like I'm a slave to my alter ego. I almost feel like I have no identity sometimes…and I feel like people don't actually care about who I really am. They only care about the fact that I'm cute, and that I can entertain them. When I first met you, I thought you were no different, but you showed an interest in me beyond just being famous. You still treated me like a regular person."

The tiny smile on Grizz's face was gradually becoming bigger and bigger.

"You were the last person I would have ever imagined I could relate to," Nom Nom added before taking another pause. "You know…I never got a chance to answer your question. You had asked me if we were friends..."

Grizz stiffened slightly, holding his breath in anticipation.

"After everything that's happened these last few days…I feel like I can finally say yes."

His urge to reach out and embrace the koala was overwhelming, and he almost gave in to that urge, but Grizz managed to hold himself back. He fidgeted, looking at the smaller animal pleadingly. "I really wanna hug you….but I don't want to scare you," he said with uncertainty in his eyes. He blinked back tears, wringing his paws. "Can I hug you?"

Nom Nom managed a gentle smile. "Sure. Just don't turn my cracked rib into a shattered rib, got it?" he quipped.

His mouth stretching in a joyous smile, Grizz reached across the bed and wrapped his arms around the koala, being as gentle as possible. He felt Nom Nom push into the hug slightly, while resting a paw against his arm.

Nom Nom made a face as he heard Grizz sniffle rather loudly. "Don't get your snot all over me, geez," he chastised half-heartedly.

"Sorry," the bear laughed. After giving Nom Nom one last gentle squeeze, he finally pulled back, wiping at his eyes for the umpteenth time. "So…what're you going to do now that you're not going to be making videos?"

Nom Nom shrugged as he lifted a paw to observe his claws. "I dunno. I guess I'll just take it easy for a while. Maybe watch TV, read a book…or maybe play some video games." Nom Nom glanced at the bear out of the corner of his eye to gage his reaction, frowning impatiently when he saw him just staring back at him. "Or maybe play some video games," he repeated with added emphasis.

Grizz furrowed his brows for a moment before his eyes lit up as the light bulb finally went off. "Oh!" he exclaimed, finally realizing what the koala was implying.

"Geez, you're slow."

"Seriously?! You really want to?" Grizz was practically bouncing up and down in his chair.

"Yeah, why not? I need to kill time while I wait to get back to work."

Grizz giggled ecstatically. "Oh, man, this is gonna be awesome! When should we hang out? Oh, what sort of snacks do you like? Oh! Maybe we should do a slumber party!"

Nom Nom sighed and rolled his eyes, falling back against the pillow as the bear continued his excited babbling for nearly a minute. Grizz eventually caught on to the koala's annoyance and muttered a quick apology, smiling sheepishly.

"Listen…thanks for giving me a chance."

There was more than one way Nom Nom could interpret that statement, but he didn't feel it was necessary to make him clarify. It hardly mattered.

"Likewise."

Author's Note: Well…this is it, guys. This is the end. I apologize for taking so long to finally release the epilogue but I hadn't even started it yet when I last updated, and I had some down periods where I didn't feel like writing anything at all, and so sometimes i went days without even touching this story. I didn't really know going in how I wanted to write the epilogue, so I kind of just wrote it as I went along and didn't really plan much of the dialogue aside from the opening scene. But the last scene between Grizz and Nom? That wasn't really planned out. I admit, that last scene between them was getting a bit on the shippy side XD I can't lie, I DO ship these two like FedEx and I kinda let that side of me shine through at the end there, but I tried to keep it strictly platonic because a friendship with these two I think would be just as beautiful as a romance ;) But you know…interpret it however you like.

This is the longest story I've ever written that I actually COMPLETED…and man does it feel good. It especially feels good after having recently received a negative review for a discontinued fanfic in which the reviewer stated my inability to finish a story 'reflects poorly' on me as a writer and shows I 'don't give a damn' about my readers. Needless to say, reading things like that really does a number on my self-confidence, but completing this story has helped to rectify that somewhat. I hated to see it end. I know the plot isn't anything spectacular, and the characterization isn't all that great either, but…I still had fun writing it and am fairly proud of it, in spite of its flaws.

Though the story didn't get as much feedback as I'd hoped for, I still cherished every last review I DID receive, especially those of BooBaLooPants (thatdoodlebug), Nebulousaria, and Overrated Fiction. I always looked forward to receiving them and loved hearing your thoughts about what you enjoyed and your takeaways from each chapter. Also another special thanks to thatdoodlebug for giving me lots of encouragement for this story even before I had published it, and again for the lovely cover art.

I'm pretty doubtful that I'll ever write a WBB fanfic of this length again, but this won't be the last story, I can say that much. Not everything that I write will be posted here, but I still plan to keep writing for this fandom. It's without question that all my fanfics will feature Nom Nom. I think I've made it obvious how much I love his character. He is my bae, he is my boo, and I love writing about him, even if my portrayal of him is wishful thinking.

Thanks for reading!