A/N: Last chapter! Amazing! For anyone who missed theatre shenanigans and the Bad Friends…well. I shan't spoil anything.

Axis Powers Hetalia belongs to Hidekaz Himaruya.
No Exit belongs to Jean-Paul Sartre.
"Most Beautiful Girl in the Room" belongs to Flight of the Conchords.

"Wow. That's incredible."

The cast and crew of No Exit were lounging about on the comfy couches in the green room. Three very successful shows had filled them with confidence – and a bit of laziness, since the actors were chatting leisurely with Maddie and other techies instead of doing one of Arthur's rigorous pre-show warm-ups. Their perfectionist director was outside counting tickets. A decent audience had never failed to show up each night, but Arthur had declared it was better to be safer than sorry. Quite frankly, everyone else didn't really mind that he was puttering around being nervous outside, because they were enjoying the relaxing atmosphere backstage.

Arun sighed thoughtfully and placed interlaced fingers behind his head. "So she was how old when she had you guys?"

"Seventeen with Al, I think…so like, eighteen for me?"

"Man. But hey, you know what? That's a pretty standard story for teenage pregnancies and stuff."

Everybody nodded. It wasn't often that Maddie was placed in the centre of attention, but all the people involved in the play had been utterly fascinated by her story. In the midst of the craziness of tech week and dress runs, it had been the main subject of conversation between them. Maddie didn't mind. For one thing, it wasn't really such a crazy story, as Arun had just pointed out, and…theatre had a funny way of bringing people together. Two or three months ago, she hardly knew any of these people, and they had been completely unaware of her existence. Now she felt perfectly fine with sharing her weird life story with them.

"She's an air hostess?"

"Yup."

"You're so beautiful," Sanun suddenly began to sing. "You could be a waitress! You're so beautiful, you could be an air hostess in the sixties…"

Arun gave him a half-hearted kick, narrowly missing the box of doughnuts somebody had ordered to share (it was nearly empty anyway). "Shut up."

"Aw, come on. Flight of the Conchords!" Sanun shot him his customary grin. "You're so beautiful, you could be a part, time, model!...But you'd probably have to keep your normal job."

Everybody laughed, Maddie included.

"Actually, she might come," she revealed. "She said she might be on a flight coming here, this weekend."

"Ooh, that would be cool!" Emilia, who was playing Inez, spoke up. "I really want to see how much she looks like you and Al."

"A lot, actually. It's really uncanny."

"Part time model!"

HK poked his head in.

"The king of the universe would like to know why he doesn't hear vocal warm-ups reverberating off of the theatre walls," he informed them. "As well as to why the booth is void of people. These are his exact words, except just not as freaked out-sounding."

Arun groaned and hoisted himself out of the armchair. "It's like, forty minutes until the door opens. On the last night. What does he want us to do? All that's going to happen is that we'll be chatting in the house seats instead of here."

HK shrugged. Maddie got up as well. Her role required being backstage, but Arun was right. Might as well hang out with the rest of the crew. To be completely honest, Maddie really didn't want to be by herself right now. If she did, the restless churning of her mind would drive her crazy. What if Evelyn actually did come to the play? Alfred said he would be there tonight too. It would be…so surreal. Her parents hadn't officially met her yet, as the meeting in the diner had been a private affair between children and mother. It was such a daunting thought. Maddie needed something to distract her.

"Spend part of your time modelling, and part of your time, next to meeeeeeee…"

Maddie leaned against the frame of her little ASM stall. Located just behind the right hand wings of the stage, she was in a prime position to watch the show, but still hidden out of sight. All of Arthur's fears had proved to be false, for the play was nearly at its end without a single hitch occurring.

"I can't endure it any longer, I'm through with you both!"

She could see the three actors shuffling about, going through the motions of the fight choreography perfectly. Maddie would have watched, but as it was the fourth time (not including all the rehearsals, even) she'd seen it, she decided to focus her eyes upon the audience instead.

Unfortunately, the only part of the seats even partially illuminated was the front row, and Maddie could only recognize a gaggle of sophomore girls seated there instead. She assumed that Evelyn, if she was even there, would be sitting with Alfred. Maddie sighed and rested an elbow on top of her copy of the prompt script next to her. Did Alfred introduce her to his parents? Hers? To be honest, she wasn't even sure if Mr. and Mrs. Jones would be there…

"Okay, getting ready for the spot on the door soon. Ready? Maddie, is Haley in her place?"

"Huh? Oh!" Maddie scrambled to readjust her headset. It was her only connection to the tech booth, which was really important in order to hear Arun's orders. "Uhhh, I…think so?"

"Good. Standby light cue thirty-two."

"Standing by," HK replied.

Maddie panicked slightly, squinting into the darkness and trying to discern the shape of the young girl. Inaddition to the three principal parts, there was also an extremely minor role of the valet. This valet didn't appear in the last scene, but it was absolutely necessary for the large door prop onstage to seemingly open on its own. So Haley had been given this task.

There was definitely somebody hovering behind the door, but looked significantly bigger than Haley. And hairier. Maddie opened her mouth to whisper-question the mysterious figure.

"Open the door! Open, will you! I'll put up with any torture that you impose – anything, anything would be better than this agony of the mind. This creeping pain that gnaws and fumbles and caresses one and never hurts quite enough…"

Clarence, the actor playing Garcin, was dramatically pounding on the door. To him, Emilia, Cassie, Arun, HK, Arthur, and everybody else in the audience, what lurked behind it were the infinitesimal corridors and rooms that constituted as the cells of utter Hell, but for Maddie, there was just the backstage and someone who certainly was not allowed to be there. Haley suddenly appeared out of nowhere, gasping for breath.

"I totally forgot…oh my god…sorry, I-"

"NOW, WILL YOU OPEN?" Clarence reached for the doorknob.

He jumped back in surprise as the door swung open. Bathed by the full glare of the fronts, in addition to the spotlight, whoever it was in the bear costume raised their arms and roared loudly.

Emilia and Cassie stood up in alarm. Clarence was still closest, his slack-jawed and eyes wide. The actors' responses were adequate, but they had been expecting a completely empty doorway, foreboding and mysterious. As far as they knew, bears were a rarity in existentialist French drama.

"What the HELL?" Arun's yelp echoed through the headset. "Who is that? How did they get back there?"

"I-I don't know!"

The bear roared again and began to chase Clarence around the stage. The audience burst into gales of laughter. Maddie recognized Alfred's hooting voice over the chaos. A voice in her ear startled her.

"Oh man, look out. Arthur's getting up, and he looks pissed. Nice knowin' ya, Maddie."

"W-wait!" she cried, forgetting to keep her voice down. It didn't matter, because the bear was creating quite a lot of noise. Through the wings, Maddie could see it dancing a jig centre stage, in rhythm to the audience's clapping.

It was barely a minute later when there was a loud crash and much swearing coming from the direction of the stage door. Arthur came tearing through, struggling against Francis and Antonio, who looked too greatly amused to be putting up much of a fight.

"You wankers – should have known – ruined my play - !"

Maddie and Haley watched speechlessly as the three boys continued tussling. In the midst of it all, the bear finally pranced through the door and waved flamboyantly at the still-tittering audience before slamming it shut.

Arthur disentangled himself from Francis' restraining arms. "Beilschmidt!"

The head of the costume lifted off quite easily, revealing Gillian's smug grin. "Oh hey, Artyfartypants. Fancy meeting you here."

Arthur glared murderously at her. "I've half a mind to beat your face in right here, Beilschmidt, for ruining what otherwise would have been a perfect run. Were you aware just how difficult it was to convince the faculty to let me put on No Exit? The content- "

"Pursued by a bear," Antonio cut in.

"What?"

Gillian gestured to herself. "No exit, pursued by a bear! Awesome, right? Get it?"

If it weren't for Francis still holding him back, Arthur would have most certainly thrown himself at the belligerent girl and torn her to pieces. Thankfully, Arun's voice interrupted Maddie's frozen train of thought through the headset.

"Tell them to keep it down! They've kept on going."

"H-hey, you guys," Maddie whispered. Gillian was laughing loudly at Arthur, who had broken free again and was beginning to berate her at a furiously fast pace. "Guys!" She was forced to pry them apart physically.

"Quiet, they can still hear us out there."

"Where were you? Why did you let her backstage?"

"Nobody was at stage left," Gillian said airily. "Yo, totally awesome of you to only have one ASM, Arty. Made it so much easier."

Arthur seemed to deflate at her words. Maddie watched awkwardly as Francis began to shoo his friends towards the stairs back to the foyer.

"Well, well. That's the fun we get for tonight. Let them finish. Au revoir, Madeleine!"

He slung an arm around Arthur's dejected shoulders and waved goodbye to Maddie. Antonio followed cheerfully with Gillian close behind, clutching the bear costume's head in triumph. As the four juniors disappeared, Maddie found herself engulfed in the dark quiet of backstage once again.

"Congratulations, you're alive!"

Only twenty minutes later, Maddie emerged, blinking into the bright house lights from backstage. The audience milled around in clumps, and she could hear from the snatches of conversation that the exciting last scene was still fresh in everybody's memories. She joined her friends near the tech booth.

"Did you hear them at the end?" HK asked.

Before Maddie could respond, Alfred came bounding forward.

"Where's the bear, where's the bear?" He chanted enthusiastically before hugging her tightly. The audience had given the four actors hearty applause, but many of them had seemed keen to recognize Gillian's impromptu performance as well. Maddie had stood by her ASM stall, listening incredulously at the cheer for the bear. It was clear that Alfred had participated.

"Did Evelyn come?"

"Um."

The look on his face said it all. The fluttery sensation in her stomach subsided. Maddie suddenly felt very empty instead. Her mind couldn't make up whether it was pleased or upset at this turn of events. She reminded herself that Evelyn's presence had always been a huge question mark floating in the air.

Alfred flipped open his cell phone. "She texted me at like the last second to say that she couldn't come. Sorry."

Silently, Maddie reached into her bag and pulled out her phone as well. Sure enough, there was a little envelope flashing at her.

Arun looked more disappointed than she did. "Aw, man. I really wanted to compare your faces." He was momentarily distracted by Gillian marching by with Principal Hubbard. "Hey, Gill! That was hilarious! Next time you wanna crash something, count me in!"

Since she was obviously in trouble, Gillian couldn't reply – but she did smirk and shoot Arun a thumbs-up. Slinking along behind them, Arthur scowled.

Alfred regarded them thoughtfully. "Maybe I'll try out for the play next year."

"It's going to be a musical." Arun yawned and picked up his bag. "So you can count on pretty much everyone in the entire school to try out. Once again, I'm kind of glad I won't be around to deal with that ridiculousness."

"Hmm, a musical. Even better."

"You, in a musical?" Maddie had to giggle. "Are you serious?"

"Who knows! I could get a leading role!"

Past the laughing of her friends, Maddie spotted her parents waving and smiling in the distance. She waved back. Now that the reality had hit, she was perfectly fine with not seeing Evelyn that night. Perhaps even the fact that only her closest friends and family were here to celebrate this achievement was the proof that she didn't need to go back in time and fix anything to continue with her happy life. As sweet as she might have been, Evelyn wasn't exactly the greatest image of motherhood.

Alfred put his elbow on her shoulder again, engaged in a lively chat with HK. If anything, Maddie reflected, the best thing that had come out of this entire, crazy year was meeting him. Even in spite of their differences, he had been willing to drop everything and accept her as family. Automatically. His elbow dug sharply into her neck, but she didn't mind. Alfred was her brother and her best friend.

"No," HK was telling him. "We can't tell you what we're thinking of."

"Oh, come on! You know you're going to win the proposal anyway. Nobody else even applies for it!"

Maddie looked over again. Mr. Williams was pointing at his wrist. "Hey, Al. You need a ride home?"

He perked up. "Sure! See ya guys!"

They left the theatre together, shoulder to shoulder. The similarities were unmistakable to anyone who glanced over at the two. In the car, Maddie sat between both her brothers, though she chose to stay quiet, letting the rest of her family's lively chatter about the intentions for the actors' – and Gillian's – performances fill the gaps.

When Alfred was let off in front of his house, she was able to scoot over to the window. He was running towards the front door, hopping up the porch steps two at a time. Putting one hand on the doorknob, Alfred paused and turned around to wave.

Maddie waved back as the car pulled away.

N/A: No Exit, Pursued by a Bear! In all seriousness though, I've been wanting to do that for years. Just for kicks. Maybe not for an actual play, but a silly comedy sketch. Just see how we can insert a bear into as many dramatic scenes as possible. Who knows? It may be a hit.

Thank you everybody for reading, even in spite of my prolonged absences between chapters…I am quite grateful. Hope this was satisfying to you! Now that we are done, please review o3o (is it just me, or have there been less reviews in general? Not for just my stories, but others too)