It was a very grey morning...the day of Carey Martin's funeral; a thick layer of clouds were in the skies above, left over from the rain of the previous night, and a heavy fog was covering the cemetery as Zack, Cody, and numerous employees of the Tipton Hotel were all there to pay their respects. At the end of the funeral, everyone was of course telling Zack and Cody how sorry they were for their loss up until Moseby went up to them to give them very important news, "Well, I have had no luck getting a hold of your father, apparently he's traveling around Europe doing performances, and we can't seem to find him."

Zack and Cody looked at each other before Cody asked, "What's going to happen to us then."

"Well," Moseby answered, "You're going to staying at the Tipton."

"We Will," Cody replied as Zack remained silent, just as he did through out much of the funeral.

"Well," Moseby explained, "London decided to buy the two of you your own suites."

That shook Zack out of his quiet state, "What? Why?"

"I suppose," Moseby said, "That's what she thought she should do for friends."

They were both completely astonished that London would do that for them; later that day the two of them were moving into their new suites. Maddie was helping Zack while London was helping Cody; London was doing an odd amount of work, bringing in suit cases and such. Cody took note of this, "London, I just wanted to thank you for doing this for me and Zack."

"I have the money," London explained, "And we're friends, why wouldn't I."

It was here that Cody really realized how much London had matured over the years, she was more willing to do work, more thoughtful about others and such. She also seemed to act less spoiled then she did in the past. Cody smiled and replied, "I guess there's no reason for you not to."

The two of them continued with moving Cody in while, meanwhile, Maddie was assisting Zack two floors above them. Maddie looked at Zack who seemed supressed, they never had dinner together like they planned, Carey's death naturally caused to much of a stir; Maddie decided to try communicate with him, "So, how are you doing?"

"Fine," Zack answered clearly trying to avoid a conversation.

"Why are you closing yourself off," Maddie asked, "Why won't you just talk to me?"

Zack thought about it before coming back with, "Will that actually do anything?"

Maddie was a bit taken back by that question, "Of Course it will."

"Well there isn't much to talk about," Zack said putting clothes away, "My mom was shot and I stood there and did nothing."

"There wasn't anything you could've done," Maddie tried to explain.

Zack shook his head, "The man as high, his hand was shaking, it wouldn't of taken much to-"

"Get yourself killed," Maddie said bluntly, "She would've wanted you to live, Zack, not give your life for her."

"I would like to be alone please," Zack said much to Maddie surprise, she thought he would at least be able to open up to her. She decided that it was too soon to try to force Zack to deal with the pain of losing his mother, so she walked over to the door and opened it to leave.

Right before she left, she turned to Zack and said, "There is no shame in doing nothing Zack, not when you don't have the ability to take action."

Maddie left the suite, closing the door behind her, and Zack sat there whispering to himself, "Maybe that's the problem."

That night, Cody was walking through the lobby when he ran into Bailey; he stopped and said, "Hey."

"Oh," Bailey replied, "Hi."

"I just wanted to apologize," Cody said nervously, "for earlier, I'm sure it was an awkward moment."

Bailey shook her head, "No need to apologize, I thought it was kind of sweet."

"Really," Cody asked.

"No," Bailey said truthfully, "It was awkward."

The two of them laughed before Bailey continued with, "But seriously, there isn't anything to apologize for."

"Ok," Cody noticed that she was wearing a Hotel uniform, "You work here."

"Yeah," Bailey answered, "I"m Moseby's new assistant."

Cody's phone vibrated, he took it out of his pocket and read the text message that he had just gotten. Bailey looked at him while he just looked at the phone a bit confused, "What is it?"

Cody looked at her and replied, "I'm not sure, I need to go."

Cody left the lobby and went up to Zack's suite where he met up with London and Maddie as well as Zack; Maddie was the one who sent him the test message, Zack had apparently come up with a plan that had Maddie very concerned. After Cody came into the room and asked what was going on, Zack explained his plan to him which resulted in Cody bluntly asking, "Are you out of your mind?"

"Thank you," Maddie said to Cody, "Thank you for asking that question."

"We stood by and watched our mother get murdered," Zack said in response to Cody's question, "not because we didn't have the will to do something about it, but because we didn't have the ability to do something about it; I think we should change that and perhaps stop it from happening to others."

Cody found it difficult to understand his brother's thought process, "But dressing up in a costume and fighting crime, how the Hell did you come up with that?"

"What did you feel in that alley," Zack asked, "When that man pulled the gun on us."

It was hard for Cody to think back to it but he ultimately answered, "Afraid, I felt afraid."

Zack nodded as he moved into the main point he was making, "Don't you think it's about time that those people out there who kill, rape, and steal start to feel the same way their victims do?"

"I understand," Cody said much to Maddie's surprise, "I understand why? but there is still the issue of How? There is no practical way of doing what you want to do. We don't have any secret place to build gadgets and costumes-"

"I do," London stated entering the conversation for the first time; instead of trying to describe it to them, she proceeded to take them to a warehouse that her father bought for her several years earlier. While they went through the building that filled with alot of junk, London explained what the place was, "There was never enough room for the stuff that my dad's wifes and I bought, so my dad owns several places like this to store things that we got bored of."

Maddie looked around at the shipping crates that filled the warehouse and simply said, "Have you ever heard of a garage sale?"

Zack smiled, "This is good, this is the perfect place."

"Look," Maddie said trying to reason with Zack, "I know that-"

"Maddie," Cody interupted pulling her aside, "Can I speak with you for a second?"

"Don't tell me that you're going along with this," Maddie yelled as Cody tried to calm her down, "This is insane."

"Listen," Cody whispered, "This is exactly what he needs."

Maddie stared at him, "What, to get himself killed?"

"To move on," Cody explained, "Self-empowerment is exactly what what he needs to get over what happened; I'm not saying that he should actually go through with it, but it will be months before he's in the position to do what he wants to do and by then he'll be over it."

Maddie understood what he was saying, "Let him work through the pain."

Cody nodded, "Exactly."

"How are you doing," Maddie asked realizing that she became so focused on Zack that she forgot to check to see how Cody was dealing with his mother's death.

"It's weird," Cody answered trying to explain his feelings, "I haven't really felt anything, it's not that I don't care, of course I care, but...I just feel empty; there really isn't any other way to describe it, I just feel empty."

Several days went by as London and Zack worked on several ideas for Zack's plan to fight crime, they didn't really go anywhere as the two of them didn't really know what they were doing and Cody was only giving them slight assistance. While Maddie was okay with this because it pretty much left no chance for Zack to go through with his plan, Cody was a bit more conflicted about what to think about the idea because of his inability to really develop any response to his mother's death.

It was just how he described it to Maddie, after the initial shock of seeing Carey murdered, Cody simply felt empty; he had no anger or sadness, it was like there was just a void inside him. Cody just went through the days somewhat withdrawn from everyone else until he went down to see Arwin.

"So why are you here," Arwin asked after the two of them had been chatting for a while.

"Actually," Cody answered, "I wanted to see how you are doing; I haven't really seen you since my mom died."

"Yeah," Arwin said, "I was focusing on my inventing, keeping hard at work."

"Does that help," Cody asked.

Arwin nodded, "Sure, it's what I did when my sister died."

"You had a sister," Cody said as this was the first time he had heard about Arwin's sister.

"She died of cancer when I was about your age," Arwin explained, "When she died, I just felt empty."

The word 'empty' caught Cody's attention, "How did you deal with it?"

"Like I said before," Arwin answered, "I took up inventing, something to set my mind to; you can't dwell on the loss of a loved one if you mind is distracted by something else. But, that doesn't really fix the problem in the long run."

"What did," Cody wanted to know how to deal with his mother's death, and was convinced that what Arwin did to deal with his sister's death would help him.

"Your mother," Arwin said with tears building in his eyes, "When I met Carey...I felt whole again."

Cody smiled as Arwin continued, "I remember the first day that the three of you moved to the Tipton, I spent the first week thinking that she only had one son-"

Cody laughed, "Yeah, Zack and I had a lot of fun with that."

"It was like you were in two places at once," Arwin said, "Took forever for everyone to figure out that there were in fact two of you."

That last sentence got Cody thinking; he stood up and said, "You better get back to your inventions."

"What are you going to do," Arwin asked talking about how he was going to deal with his loss.

"I'm going to put my mind to something," Cody answered smiling, "thank you Arwin."

Cody left and went to the Warehouse to see Zack and London; Arwin had given him an idea that he explained to the two of them, to which Zack just replied, "I'm having some difficulty with this, you want to fight crime with me but you want to be the same person."

"No," Cody said, "Think back when we first moved to the Tipton, how everyone was confused because we were twins; We use that same kind of method. We wear identical costumes, speak the same way, use the same moves, but we stick to the shadows, use misdirection as a weapon; there will be two of us out there but as far as the bad guys are concerned-"

"There's only one of us," Zack said finishing the thought, "that's brilliant; what changed your mind about this whole thing?"

Cody answered, "It gives me something to do."

And that it certainly did, the three of them dedicated almost all of their attention to their plan to fight against crime. Cody designed the Suits and gadgets, London provided the supplies, and the three of them put everything together; London also trained the two of them in martial arts, she wasn't going to help fight crime because she also had to work with Moseby to get her ready to take over her father's company in the future. Soon, what started out as therapy, turned into a new life for Zack and Cody, they both came to believe in what they were doing and that they could make a difference.

They worked so long every day that about a month later, they had almost everything put together; the suits were complete and most of the gadgets were done. One day, Zack was finishing a boomerang like device with sharp edges that was in the shape of a bat; Cody looked at it, "I never did ask, why did you choose bats?"

Zack shrugged, "We're supposed to use fear as a weapon right?"

"Yeah," Cody answered.

"Who the hell isn't afraid of bats," Zack explain prompting Cody to laugh a bit.

Later that day, London went into Moseby's office for her weekly lesson; he just stared at her for moment as she realized that there were tears in his eyes, "Moseby, what is it?"

"Your father," Moseby answered, "was killed this morning."

It felt like the air was sucked right out of her, she suddenly felt like she was suffucating as she struggled to breath; the only words she was able to get out of her mouth was 'what' even though she knew exactly what he said. Moseby got up from his desk, and went over to hug her as she fell into tears...

Author's Note:

Here's Chapter 2, and I'm still in the set up phase of the story; I've actually got two more chapters of setting things up like this before the plot actually gets moving. I am shooting for something epic in length, and it only gets darker and sadder from here. With this chapter, I basicaly establish the main theme of this story; which is 'Trauma, and the various ways of responding and dealing with it'. The next chapter will deal with establishing London's part of the story, and the third chapter will establish Bailey's part. So, Stay Tuned and Please Review.

If I made any Spelling or grammar mistakes, it's because my computer as been acting up and I lost the ability to spell-check.

Production Note:

The Working title of the fanfic was 'The Superhero Life of Zack and Cody' but I eventually gave it the title 'Heart of Madness' up until about 2 days before I posted the first chapter when I changed it to 'Dancing With Tears in My Eyes", which is the title of the Song by Ke$ha which I felt was the perfect theme-song for the story.(I just felt like telling you the steps I took in writing this, it's a personal thing)