"Fascinating!" exclaimed Cameron, his eyes sparked with... well, fascination. "Enduring all of those hardships and defeating Mal using the friendship you had with the other personalities... It's something like poetic justice!"
"All he did was push a button," Gwen pointed out. Then she let herself smile slightly. "Still, great job, Mike."
He was a little wary about sharing his experiences in his mind with his friends, considering that if he hadn't bludgeoned his head with a huge boulder, Mal wouldn't have gotten near-permanent control, and Mike's friends wouldn't have gotten the short end of the stick whenever Mal messed with them. Then he thought that that would be silly, not telling them about his journey within the mind. They completely understood that the situation happened as it was, and that they had to deal with it. Which they did. His friends still clung to the hope that he wasn't really gone (at least until the near end, from what Cam told him, and even then Zoey still seemed to hold out hope), and boy was he glad. After everything that happened, his friends deserved to know.
And so he told them all about his little journey, from appearing there chained to the rock that failed to lock away the then-unknown Mal, to meeting up with his other personalities and learning of their punishments invoked by Mal (except for Manitoba wrangling Mike's dream of kissing Zoey in the rain, which he awkwardly avoided telling the others. Hey, Zoey was right next to him; he'd prefer the kiss to come as a surprise to her), to reaching Mal's tower.
When telling them of the reset button at the top that'd basically destroy the other personalities, leaving only Mike to reign in control, he couldn't help but frown as he remembered how vivid and recent it was. Telling about how Mal disappeared made his frown vanish, replacing it with a smile. He remembered how awesome it was to tell Mal off, without a hint of anger or anything, and he was quick to point it out to the others.
"It's got to be tough, though," Gwen continued after saying her previous statement.
"What is?" Mike asked, though he already had a feeling on what it was.
"That your alternate personalities are gone," she clarified.
Yup, he was right. He grimaced, his gaze down on the roof they were on. "It is kind of lonely... But they're all apart of me now! So they're not really gone." He looked up at them, a big smile on his face.
Cameron nodded. "I'll say! It's like they're all infused into you, making you whole again!"
"You mean whole-er?"
"Er, no offense Mike, really, but before all of this—" Cam waved his arms in an arc to make a point. "—you were... uh..."
"About as whole as a Dracula movie without Béla Lugosí," Gwen said.
"Uh, yes, I suppose that analogy works. Kind of." He turned back to Mike. "One theory I've had was that your personalities were all apart of you at one point; they were you. One, singular Mike. But then they became different incarnates of you, stripping you of any of the powers they've had."
Mike reeled his head back. That made so much sense. He felt stupid for not thinking of something as simple yet complicated like that.
"Wow," said Gwen, voicing as much surprise as Mike was feeling.
"So," he continued, "when all four are with you again, you gain everything they had that differentiated them from you. Like Svetlana's gymnastic skills."
Oh, right. Mike chuckled, rubbing the back of his neck. "Guess I was too excited to be back that I didn't really think so much on... the whole-ness of it all, I guess."
"What about the bad parts?" Gwen asked. "Wasn't Manitoba Smith a girl-hound or something?" After a few stares, she hastily defended herself. "Hey, I know about season four and those personalities. It's just something that'd seem to be a problem."
"I doubt that," said Cameron. "I think, if the trait conflicted with Mike's personality, it wouldn't be a problem, or at least a small one."
"Yeah?" Mike asked, egging on the explanation.
"Some of the bad ones are with you, though. You seemed very vain when you started speaking about how you beat Mal. Like how Manitoba Smith would be."
Well, if that's the worst thing, then it'd be something he could deal with. In fact, Mike was almost overjoyed; it just wouldn't seem right if he was perfected by being given only the skills that made his personalities useful. Having the good and the bad was much better.
"It wouldn't be a problem," he said simply.
"Of course it wouldn't," said Zoey, which caused Mike and the other two to yelp. She'd been awfully quiet during this float back to land. So quiet that they all forgot she was even there. But here she was, plain as day, hugging her knees with one arm while stirring a stick in the water with the other. Her gaze into the water's reflection of her seemed distant. Sad, even. But this season of Total Drama was finally over. Shouldn't she have been happy?
"Hey, Zoey, you okay?" Mike asked, putting a hand on her shoulder. She tensed immensely, causing Mike to almost take his hand off. But no, he believed that she'd relax once she realized it was him.
"Huh? Oh, o-of course. Why wouldn't I be? I'm fine..." She only let her eyes look up once, and that was at the sky for just the sliver of a moment. Then she seemed to be lost in thought in her reflection again. But, she wasn't, Mike knew. Her body was still tense, and she would be until Mike let go of her shoulder. So reluctantly, he did.
"Uh, Zoey?" asked Cameron, only to gain no response.
Gwen waved an arm in front of Zoey's face. "Zoey?" Not even a glance. "Is she broken or something?"
"Of course not," Mike said, feeling that broken was a really poor choice of words. He tried putting his hand on her shoulder again. Just as he thought, Zoey was relaxed until she felt his hand, then immediately tensed up again. This time, he reeled his arm back as if it were touching a hot stove.
"What, is her shoulder like toxic or something?" Gwen quipped, seeing how Mike instantly took his hand off of Zoey's shoulder. "Because we've had enough of our fair share of acid today."
"Fair share?" Cameron seemed surprised. "How is it that Mal almost throwing us in toxic waste a fair share?"
Mike pouted a bit. Mal really tried to kill his closest friends? It didn't seem unlike him, but it was just... horrible. Absolutely horrible. Absolutely... like Mal.
Zoey's reaction was much worse, and much more surprising given how aloof she'd been. She whimpered, dropping the stick and using that arm to seize her knees even more. Her eyes shut tight as she burrowed her face into her arms. All three noticed, and they were all as shocked as Mike.
"Zoey?!" Mike exclaimed, standing up on the (thankfully not rocky) roof, but hesitant to make any contact with her.
Zoey whimpered even more.
No time for hesitance. He put both of his hands on each of her shoulders, trying to ignore how tense she became. "Zoey!"
Her whimpers became a loud din, now a cry that sounded fearful.
He wanted some reaction other than the crying, so, without much thought, he shook her quite harshly. "ZOEY!"
It happened like a flash. Zoey's arm swiped backwards at him, only to miss his body by centimeters. She swung so hard that it turned her a full one-eighty, her back turned to the water. Before any of them could help her, she tipped off of the roof, falling into the water with a splash so powerful that it completely drenched Mike, his hair wettened down to where some of it covered his eye. Cameron and Gwen, though, weren't as wet, as they sat farther away. But they still got wet.
He knelt down to the edge of the roof, quickly scanning for any sign of Zoey in the water, only barely noticing how Cameron and Gwen were rushing next to him, also looking for her.
"There!" Cameron pointed to a blurred but unmistakably Zoey-like form that was heading up to a spot right in front of Mike. She finally emerged, coughing up a bit of water before opening her eyes.
"Here Zoey, let me help you up," Mike said, offering a hand.
She never looked at the hand once. Zoey simply stared Mike right in the eyes, in unbridaled horror. Before any of the three could make sense of it, she let out an unearthly wail and fumbled backwards, swimming away from them.
"She'll get hurt if she gets lost out in this wreckage!" Cameron yelled. "We have to get her!"
"I'm on it!" With skill befitting a female Russian Olympist, Mike summersaulted into the air then dived down in the water, where he swam towards the direction Zoey went towards.
"Be careful!" yelled out Cameron's already fading voice.
Careful? Zoey couldn't have swam so far in so little time, especially when Mike was on her tail with Svetlana's skills.
"Remind me never to tempt fate again," Mike said slowly as his swimming motions became sluggish. Zoey couldn't have gotten that far, right? Wrong. Whatever it was that scared her, it scared her good. But it couldn't have been Mike that she was afraid of. Even though she stared him right in the eyes before screaming...
Speaking of eyes, he noticed that some of his hair was still covering his eyes. He brushed it to the side. Maybe now he'd be able to see more around him, like Zoey sitting on the roof with Cameron and Gwen and aw dang, he just went in a big circle for nothing, didn't he? At least he didn't have to go far to get back to the others.
When he arrived, Zoey was seated at the farthest corner, shivering oh so much. Cameron and Gwen just sat away from her, totally clueless as what to do.
"When'd she come back?" Mike whispered as he climbed back onto the roof and sat down.
"A few minutes ago," said Cameron. "She didn't say much, but what she did say..." He turned to Mike, his expression dead serious. "You have to talk to her."
Mike was caught off guard by how down right serious Cameron made it seem, but if he wanted to help Zoey, then maybe that was what he should do.
He made his way towards Zoey, each step getting heavier and more forced. Her mumblings were starting to become clearer and clearer, and it almost seemed like his feet started becoming unwilling because of these murmurrings. But no, he had to keep going towards her, no matter how uneasy listening to her words made him feel.
"... him... can't be... but..."
He was close enough now. Not wanting to scare her off again, he said softly, "Zoey...?"
She didn't hear him, instead repeating her near-incoherent mantra.
He sat down a few paces away from her, deciding to simply inch closer to her as he started talking. "Zoey, come on."
Zoey kept up her mantra.
"It isn't like you to be so, so scared, and honestly, it's scaring me."
Mantra.
"What's got you so terrified?"
Mantra.
"You can tell me. You can tell all of us."
Mantra.
He made it close enough to where he could wrap his arm around her waist. But that'd be stupid, given the situation. "We just want to help you."
Mantra.
"I..." Mike raised his hand, contemplating whether to put it on her shoulder or not, despite it not being such a good tactic before. What else was he to do, though? Nothing?
The mantra stopped, though Zoey didn't lift her head.
He set his hand tentatively on her shoulder. "I want to help you."
She tensed just like he thought she would, but to Mike's surprise, she relaxed a few seconds afterwards. A forced relaxation, but it meant that she was giving the effort. And finally, she spoke towards him, despite not looking at him. "...Do you?"
"Of course."
"But he can't help you unless you tell us what's wrong," said Cameron, Mike now realizing that he and Gwen have been sitting there for some time. Were they miffed at the whole 'I want to help you more' thing that he implied? From the looks of Cameron's statement, it didn't seem to bother them.
Zoey's back heaved up and down shakily, as though she was crying. No, wait, she was. After patiently waiting for her to stop, she finally looked up at the setting sky, then turned around to face the others, Mike's hand forced to be taken off of her shoulder. Her lips showed a smile, but her eyes showed fear. She glanced at Gwen, then Cameron, and finally let her gaze simmer on Mike. To his immense relief, she didn't seem like she was looking at him like the devil, but it was more wary. Closing her eyes, she took a deep, shaky breathe and spoke.
"I'm so sorry for freaking out earlier. I just... agh." She opened her eyes again. "I can't say."
"Come on, Zoey," Gwen said. "You can tell us."
"No, I mean I just... can't put it into words."
"Ah. Got it."
Cameron nodded. "Take your time, Zoey. We aren't going anywhere soon."
Zoey's head shrunk back slightly. "Uhm, actually, I think I'd like to speak with Mike about this. Alone."
"Oh, sure," Cameron said as he clasped his hands around his ears.
Gwen raised an eyebrow. "Don't you think we should all—gah!" she began, though was elbowed in the stomach by Cameron. "Right, sorry." She too covered her ears.
"Thanks a bunch Cam, Gwen," Zoey thanked, then turned to Mike. "Mike."
She didn't say anything after that, so maybe he should've been saying something? But what was there to say, other than... "What's wrong?"
"I, I'm not sure if I can say it in a way that you understand," she admitted.
He put his hands gently ontop of hers. "I can try to, though."
As he expected, Zoey tensed under the touch, though it faded almost instantly. Good. That was good. She managed a shaky smile. "Aw, that's so sweet..." Her eyes widened, and she swiped her hands from underneath Mike's, leaving him confused. "But, um, anyway... I guess you're wondering what all my screaming was about."
"Well, yeah."
Instead of continuing, she slowly raised her hands, using them to hold Mike's cheekbones gingerly. He didn't pull away, as he felt that this was important. To her, at least. The hands moved like ants, traveling up towards his still-wet hair. And as she reached that part of his hair that was brushed aside, she gulped.
Gulp? Why would she gulp? There was nothing wrong with the way his hair was at the momeng. It'd dry out on its own. The only thing that part of his hair did was cover his eye. Cover his eye... Cover...
His eyes widened. Of course. He was such an idiot for not realizing it sooner. Her mouth a thin line, she brushed the piece of hair back to covering his eye. She wasn't scared of Mike. She was scared of...
"... Mal..."
"Zoey, I'm not—Mal's gone. It's just me."
She didn't take her eyes nor her hands off of his hair. "It, it looks..."
"My hair's just wet," he said, gently lowering her hands from his hair. He tried putting it back up, though to his frustration, it always fell back down. After trying to shake the water out didn't work, he began to grow frustrated. "Stop being hair, wet!" he told his hair after it stubbornly refused to stay up. Finally, he settled with his bangs just covering his forehead, as opposed to an entire eye covered.
Zoey's gaze broke away from his hair, and she said, "You have all the good and the bad from your other personalities. What about from Mal?"
He blinked. "No, I have everyone except him. He's gone, Zoey. For good."
"Is he... 'gone' gone?"
Puzzled, he asked, "What do you mean?"
"'Gone' gone."
"She's asking if he's dead," said Gwen, causing Cameron to elbow her again.
"No, you guys can open your ears now," said Zoey. They did so.
"Dying?" asked Mike. "I don't... It's not like he bled to death or anything. He just disappeared. I'm all me right now."
"I really, really want to believe that, Mike," she said, then sighed. "But I just can't. When Mal was in control, he acted like you almost perfectly."
"I'll say," said Cameron. "And he still was able to perform evil deeds, right under our noses."
"For all we know, he could still be in your mind," Gwen pointed out.
"So... you're not sure if I'm Mike or Mal, so you can't trust me?" he asked.
Zoey nodded. "It seems bad of me, I know, but when I started thinking about..." She sighed. "If Duncan or Alejandro didn't find out about Mal, I doubt that I would've. But what if he shows up again, and none of us would, would know?"
He didn't answer. There was nothing to say that wasn't already said. So he shifted his gaze down to the water, looking at his reflection. It did kind of look like Mal, but not exactly. His hair was just wet. That was it. It was doubtful that he could make his hair look perfectly like Mal's. Right now, Zoey didn't trust him. And he had no way of proving that Mal really was gone, nor did he have some kind of way to make sure he'd stay gone.
"I guess there's no way to be sure," Mike admitted. "And I understand if you don't want to take my word for it."
"I–I want to!" Zoey hastily corrected, then sighed. "I just don't know if I can..."
He sighed as well, shifting his gaze to the seemingly endless ocean. If Zoey couldn't trust him, then... was he really worthy of being with her? Maybe he should've just left right now. Just leave, and spare her any more potential heartache. She'd be much better off without the threat of Mal. Cameron and Gwen too, of course. But at that moment, Zoey was all that mattered.
Just as he was about to come to the conclusion of swimming away, Zoey spoke up again. "But I can try."
Mike was shocked.
"Even if Mal comes back, I'm not about to let him ruin what we have," Zoey continued, her voice filled with determination. "And Mike, what we have is too, too special to give up."
She cupped her small hands over his much larger hands, a big smile on her face. "I don't want to live in fear over this. But what's a few days or weeks or whatever of fear compared to a lifetime of happiness with you?"
"Zoey..." Mike choked up, his eyes on the brink of tears. "Nothing can compare to being with you."
She smiled.
Before she could say anything more, a clap of thunder echoed out, and rain started pouring heavily, drenching the four of them. Mike and Zoey locked eyes, knowing what the other was thinking. And if there was any tense feelings before, they were gone when they kissed.
Things would work out for them.
It always did.