Close a sync browser instance without exiting NodeJS

Question

I am trying to create a gulp task that combines 3 instances of Browsersync, runs end-to-end tests against them using Protractor, and then nicely closes the instances of Browsersync.

So far I have come up with the following solution:

/**
 * Run the end-to-end tests using Protractor.
 */
gulp.task('test:protractor', [
  'serve:user',
  'serve:bootstrap',
  'serve:website'
], function(done) {
  var protractor = spawn('protractor', [
    path.resolve(__dirname, '..', 'protractor.conf.js'),
    '--suite=bootstrap',
    '--param.host.user', 'http://' + util.getDockerIp() + ':' + serve.userServer.getOption('port'),
    '--param.host.bootstrap', 'http://' + util.getDockerIp() + ':' + serve.bootstrapServer.getOption('port'),
    '--param.host.website', 'http://' + util.getDockerIp() + ':' + serve.websiteServer.getOption('port')
  ], {stdio: 'inherit'});
  protractor.on('close', function(code) {
    if (code) {
      throw new Error(chalk.red('End-to-end tests failed'));
    }
    serve.userServer.exit();
    serve.bootstrapServer.exit();
    serve.websiteServer.exit();
    done();
  });
});

The problem is here xxxServer.exit(). This call process.exit()internally, closing the entire instance of NodeJS. Thus, I cannot close each server nicely and let gulp handle the rest.

I could not find any information about disabling Browsersync in any other way, so I looked at a function exitthat looks like this:

function exit() {
    if (browserSync.active) {
        browserSync.events.emit("service:exit");
        browserSync.cleanup();
    }
    process.exit();
}

So, I tried to manually clean up without calling process.exit()

serve.userServer.instance.events.emit('service:exit');
serve.userServer.instance.cleanup();
serve.bootstrapServer.instance.events.emit('service:exit');
serve.bootstrapServer.instance.cleanup();
serve.websiteServer.instance.events.emit('service:exit');
serve.websiteServer.instance.cleanup();

This still disables the NodeJS instance.

Browsersync process.exit()?