Brooke's story ended up being nothing short of miraculous.

She had told us that when we called, she had been in the hospital for a few days. Her health had rapidly taken a turn for the worse and she had fallen in and out of an almost coma-like state. She was, as she said, quite literally hovering on the line between life and death.

When we called and her father picked up, her body was giving up fighting the toxins that her liver wasn't able to process and filter. She was dying and there seemed to be no hope left for her survival. She had accepted death, which she thought was inevitable at that point.

But then, in a surprising turn of events, her mother had shown up. She had found a donor somehow that surprisingly was a perfect match for Brooke. The doctors didn't take into consideration where the donor came from; they just needed to proceed with the transplant as soon as possible.

The transplant was quick and simple. The recovery, however, was not.

Brooke was forced to stay in the hospital after she had gotten the surgery. In that time, she had searched and searched for the next available plane tickets to Rome, Italy, where she knew we currently were. It just so happened that the next available tickets were later on that week. After arguing with the doctors that she would be fine and promising to take the prescibed medicines and follow the strict procedures, Brooke was able to leave the hospital and get on a plane to Italy.

And so that was how Brooke survived. Against all odds. Against her plummeting hope. Against all the ticking clocks. Against death itself.

Brooke was now in Italy with us and we were completely speechless.

"Well, we can't really travel or anything now," Chase said.

"Why not?" Brooke asked.

"You're not supposed to be out of a hospital right now!" I exclaimed.

"Oh, hush. I'm fine," she said.

"Brooke, I'm serious. You need to finish healing before we go out and do anything," I said sternly.

"Look, I didn't haul my ass all the way to Europe to sit in a hotel room. I came here to finish up the most epic summer ever with my best friends and I sure as hell am not going to let a little fatigue and weariness stop me from doing that," Brooke said.

"Brooke, this isn't up for discussion," Chase said flatly.

"You guys are worrying too much!" she exclaimed.

"Worrying too much?! Do you have any idea what you put us all through?!" Alyssa asked incredulously.

"I do. Of course I do. And I'm sorry. But now I'm better and you don't have to worry anymore," she said.

"How about we do this? We'll hang out in Italy for a few more days and then go to Greece. We'll just have to adjust our schedules a bit. I guess going to Istanbul is out of the question now. We can just take the extra time that we were saving for Turkey to stay here and lay low. We won't do anything too exhausting until Brooke's ready for it," Eli suggested.

"I am ready for it," Brooke said.

"No, you're not," the rest of us said. She sighed dramatically and leaned back in her chair.

"Fine. Have it your way," she said.

And we did have it our way. We spent the next five days just hanging around Italy and traveling to different places. We visited new cities and sights and revisited the old ones we already saw. Having Brooke with us really changed our whole experience. Just as we had thought, the trip was a lot more fun with Brooke.

One night, Brooke and I were up late talking. She had told me how happy she was that Eli and I were together. I told her happy I was that we were together, too. Then I told her that she needed to drop her stubborn attitude and give Chase a chance, because despite his male pride, he was hopelessly in love with her. She agreed and did indeed end up giving Chase a chance.

After Brooke and Chase also got together, Alyssa and Derek got together as well. We didn't quite understand why. Perhaps it was because the rest of us were couples. But Brooke said that she had always seen a spark of chemistry between the two. And so we all went from best friends to couples. But one thing remained the same: we were still just as close to each other as we were before.

The rest of the summer, we spent touring the rest of the countries on our list. We went to Greece, Bosnia, Croatia, Austria, Romania, Poland, the Ukraine, and lastly, ended up in Moscow, Russia. The amount of fun we had had without Brooke for the first part of the trip was significantly less than the amount of fun we had with her.

It was true what we had all been saying. Brooke truly was the leader of our group, the glue that kept us together. We had begun to fall apart and lose hope when she was sick, but now that she was back, everything was normal again.

At the end of the summer, we all stayed over at Brooke's father's enormous house before we went off in separate directions: Eli and Derek and I to medical school and the rest off to graduate school. We wanted to spend every moment we had together, because who knew when we would all be together again.

On the night before we were all set to leave, we decided to just sit back and relax and reflect on the incredible summer we had had.

"Part of me wants to believe that that summer was just a dream," Alyssa said, snuggling close to Derek as we sat around the fire pit in the backyard.

"It was just surreal; everything that happened," I said.

"We graduated, Brooke got sick, Brooke got better--" Eli started listing off.

"And we had the most epic adventure ever," Chase finished.

"Well, I guess that's another thing we can check off of our bucket list," Derek said.

"You know, when I was in the hospital, and the doctors were telling me that there wasn't really any hope left, I really got to thinking about the nature of life," Brooke said.

"Here comes the philosophy lesson," Chase said, rolling his eyes. Brooke smacked his arm lightly and he smirked, kissing the side of her head.

"No, but seriously. Dying really makes you think about how fast life can go by. We take things for granted, like our health. To most of us, it's just there, you know? Something that you don't really have to worry about. But being put into that situation, that situation where you don't have that one thing that you've always thought you had, it really puts things into perspective," Brooke said.

"Like how?" I asked.

"That we should really be thankful for every single day that we live. Yeah, some days suck. But that's all a part of the life experience. If you've got only good times in your life, only happiness, you can't appreciate it as much. When I was sick and alone here, I thought a lot about how even if I did die, I did enough in my life that I was satisfied; that if I died, I would die happy. But then on the flip side, I thought about all the things that I had done wrong in my life, the things I wished I hadn't done, the words that I hadn't spoken," she said, pausing and looking at Chase with a sad expression. He reached out and gently brushed her curly hair back behind her ears.

"And I don't know. The entire time I was just wishing that I didn't have to die. Not because saying good-bye to you all was going to be hard, but because I wanted time to re-do the things that I had done wrong. So when the doctor said that they found a match, I was so incredibly thankful. I got the chance to live my life again," Brooke said, her hazel eyes shining in the light from the fire.

"At first I was really angry that all of it happened to me in the first place. But now I realize that it was a good thing. Because it really did make me realize that I need to cherish my life more. It's such a gift, living. We take it for granted, but that's really what it is: a gift. And I'm so glad I was given that gift again," she said.

We all fell into a silence, Brooke's deep words leaving a profound effect on us.

"Hell, so are we," Eli said, immediately lightening the somber mood. We all burst into laughter, for no apparent reason. And we continued to laugh the whole night through.

Brooke really was right, though. Our lives were gifts given to us that we needed to cherish. But us six were even luckier because we had an added gift. The gift of each other's lasting friendship. Even though we were all going off to pursue our separate lives, we would remain connected for all of time, through memory and through our experience. Through our lives. Through the wonderful gift that we were all given.

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A/N: Blekh. I don't know how I feel about this epilogue. Let me know how you liked it in the comments. If you didn't like it, I'll fix it up. I wanted to leave an open, hopeful future for them.

So this story is indeed over. So sad, I know. But I finally finished it. Just like I promised. I have already started on my next work, which is entitled December. It's based off of Taylor Swift's song, Back to December, so if you guys like T-Swizzle, then you should check the story out.

Thanks to everyone's that has stuck with me through my mood swings and this story. It's hard to write a story when you've lost inspiration for it. But I managed to do it, so let me know how I did!

As always, comment and vote! And maybe I'll see you all in the future (commenting and voting on my other stories! =P)

XOXO