Author's Notes (Still Pretty Long): And now it's being updated on Saturday. Better or worse than Friday? I'm worrying about this too much, I'm sure.

I actually got more reviews for the last chapter than the first one! Nice! :-D And I'm glad so many people seem to agree that Courtney flirting with Cody makes more sense than her randomly choosing Tyler. As I've mentioned to a few people, I honestly think the writers just chose him because they knew he was getting voted off that episode. To me, either Cody or Alejandro would have been the more logical candidates.

And something else a few people brought up: no, I do not intend to go the whole "Die For Our Ship" route and make Gwen the villain. Any of her actions, positive or negative, I'm trying to ground in her canon personality. Duncan...well, the same, but canon gives me significantly less "positive" to work with, especially this season.

I hope you enjoy!

"The Ex-Files," Part 2

"This is all a crock, you know," Courtney grumbled as they walked briskly along the path Chris had assigned them. "There's no way we're actually going to find any alien artifacts in this place."

"Yeah," Sierra said, nodding. "I mean, everybody knows about this place, so if they were smart they'd've moved all the alien stuff to another site years ago."

"...What? No—"

"Guys, focus!" Gwen said, turning around to face them. "We have to be on our toes. We don't want to get caught by any of the guards or anything."

"Oh, gee! Thanks, Captain Obvious."

Gwen gave Heather a dirty look. She was somewhat cowed when Heather reflected it right back, along with added glares from both Sierra and Courtney.

"I'm just saying—you know, this place is serious business. Tons of people have tried to get in and find out what's in there, and nobody's ever made it."

"That's true!" Cody said quickly, seeing how Courtney's mouth was opening to make some sort of nasty comment. "Um—you sure know your stuff, Gwen."

"What? Oh, um...thanks, Cody," she said, giving him a soft sideways look and smiling slightly.

Courtney's eyes burned like fire for a moment—but then her face softened into a simpering smile.

"Oh, well, if you trust her, Cody," she said, drawing closer to him again. "Hey, if Gwen knows so much about this place, whuddya say we make her team leader for this challenge?"

"Huh? Um...sure?"

"But I—um—"

Gwen looked back at them for a moment, only to catch sight of Courtney smiling nastily at her. For added benefit she stepped even closer to Cody, then entwined his arm with hers, earning another confused look from him and a suspicious glare from Gwen.

She failed to notice the equally-suspicious look from Heather, however. Sierra's, on the other hand, had already passed suspicious and was headed to "murderous."

The walk from Area 52 and around the rock formation was surprisingly uneventful, considering the members of Team Amazon half-expected to be vaporized (or at least arrested) at every step. After about a half-hour of walking they got within sight of the base itself, which was actually pretty anticlimactic—a fenced-in collection of buildings, some house-sized (barracks, Cody supposed) and some larger with showy "51" logos on them. There were spotlights, but all of them seemed to be facing inward, on the buildings themselves—those might be a problem later, but as far as they could tell getting inside wouldn't be particularly difficult.

The group stood behind some rocks about fifty yards away. Crossing to the fence and climbing in looked, if anything, suspiciously easy.

"Ooh, some kind of security vegetable patch," Heather said, her voice dripping with sarcasm. Then she grimaced. "Cody, get your clammy hands off of my leg!"

"I'm not touching your leg," he said, confused as he held up his hands to prove it.

Heather (and everybody else) looked down to see a large, purple-and-orange lizard wrapped around her calf, lolling out its tongue with a vague hissing noise.

All five of the Amazons screamed like little girls, Cody included, and Heather kicked the lizard off with all of her strength. The next moment the whole team was running across the field toward the base with the lizard, for whatever illogical reason, chasing after them at a much faster speed than one normally sees lizards accomplish.

That is, until the ground suddenly exploded beneath it, hurling it up and away in the air.

BOOM!

Everybody froze, except for Sierra, who let out a shriek and tried to jump into Cody's arms. Cody, unfortunately, did not realize she was about to do this, so instead she wound up landing on his shoulders, wrapping her arms and legs around Cody's head and torso. This was very uncomfortable for Cody.

"Since when do lizards fly?" Heather asked, watching its path through the air with wide eyes.

"Everyone, freeze," Gwen said slowly, trying to keep from panicking—both she and Courtney had stopped in odd positions, having figured out what was going on before the others. "We are on a mine field."

There was a moment of stunned silence. Sierra was the first one to break it as she angrily tightened her hold on Cody.

"Way to lead, New Heather."

Gwen: (horrified) New—Heather? !

Heather: (indignant) OLD GWEN? !

"Well—ugh—this is sort of—ugh—an awkward situation…isn't it?" Cody strained under Sierra's weight, all while trying very hard not to move his feet even the slightest bit.

"Ugh…what are we gonna do?"

"Maybe you should make out with the mine field's boyfriend," Courtney sneered. She was holding her arms out at awkward angles from her body, as if even moving them posed a chance of setting off the explosions—at the moment, the only risk she might have been willing to make against her life was tackling Gwen and wringing her throat (which might not be too dangerous—after all, if she was on top of Gwen then the slimy goth's body could serve as a shield if they fell and hit a mine...)

"We're wasting time," Heather snapped, tearing Courtney from her calculations. "Someone do something!"

Suddenly, from out of nowhere, they heard a familiar DING-DINGing sound that seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere at once.

"Ugh. Anything but that," Gwen said.

Again suddenly, and again from out of nowhere, Chris appeared—and by "appeared" one means that he flew over to them, hovering over the mine field via some sort of bizarre contraption he wore on his back. Cody stared.

"…Chris has a jetpack?" he said, his tone incredulous and lightly tinged with envy.

"Hey, I'll give you a choice," the airborne host said, ignoring the looks of anger the female contestants were giving him. "What would you rather do: sing a song, or tap dance in a mine field?"

He was suddenly forced to dodge as two lasers similar to the ones that had hit Duncan pierced the air and nearly hit him. "Whoa, whoa, okay! I'm out."

He quickly flew up and out of range, just as more lasers flew where he had been. One of them hit the ground close to Cody's feet, exactly where a mine happened to be. It exploded in a smoky blast, making everybody scream.

"Agh!"

Courtney jumped, momentarily freaked out that she would land on a mine, then hit the ground and took a moment to realize that she was not, in fact, exploded. She growled under her breath, turning to Gwen as a proper outlet for her frustrations.

"Chris wants a song, huh? Well I'll give him a song alright."

She opened her mouth wide and began to sing:

"Boyfriend-kisser!
I thought she was my friend,
But now it's time to diss her!
Sure, we had some fun times,
But I'm not gonna miss her now!"

Gwen, who had been busy trying to think up some sort of mine-related song, blanched. To make things worse, Heather turned, eyebrows quirked, then glared at her and joined in.

"Boyfriend-kisser!"
"You're gonna get
What's coming to you
If it's the last thing
I ever do-oo-oo."
"That's right!
That's right!"
"That's right!
That's right!"

Gwen had the expression of a deer caught in headlights as she looked around helplessly—Courtney was glaring daggers at her, Sierra had lifted her head up to join her, and Heather, while less visibly angry than the others, was singing while giving Gwen her usual look of disdain.

As if as an afterthought she looked at Cody, or at least, what bit of his face was visible under Sierra's arms and legs. Their eyes locked for a moment; his expression was helpless, pained, and sympathetic. At least it was until Sierra's grip on him tightened again, making him wince and look away from her.

Still, for a moment Gwen felt great surge of affection for Cody. Whatever he thought about her and Duncan, he still didn't hate her. She still had one friend, at least.

That relieved thought that came crashing quickly, since the other Amazons hadn't stopped singing yet.

"Boyfriend-kisser!"
"You're not my new sister!
You're a pus-y, gothy, nasty blister!"
"Boyfriend-kisser!…"

Like Gwen, Cody was doing his best to ignore the song, as well as Sierra's grip on his head and shoulders. He was trying to think—how were they going to get out of this mine field? They couldn't just stay here all night while Team Chris went ahead and got to the base—or worse, wait around for some American soldiers to come and ship them off to whatever secret prison they reserved for Canadian teenage reality-show stars caught breaking into top-secret government bases. [1]

If only he had some pebbles or something! But there were none by his feet, and obviously he couldn't go looking for some. The only thing he had on him to throw was Sierra, and while tempting, he didn't think—

Wait a minute! Cody's eyes widened and then, trying not to upset the balance he was using to keep Sierra on his shoulders, he reached into his pocket and pulled out a handful of candy, tossing it randomly in the direction of the base.

BOOM!

"…the last thing
I ever do-oo-oo!"

Courtney and the others turned in the direction of the blast, but Cody was already running for the spot that had just exploded, reaching into his pocket for more candy and throwing it every which way. With every throw a new blast went off, but Cody dodged to run over the pieces that were intact, with Gwen, Heather and Courtney now running behind him.

"You found the way out! And you sacrificed your candy to do it."

Even without looking Cody could hear the smile in Gwen's voice, and—was that gratitude? A sort of tremble of thankfulness in her voice, that Cody got them out of there before Courtney could pelt out another verse of angry vitriol?

Unfortunately, Heather wasn't feeling quite so generous. "Thank the dork while you run!" she snapped.

"To be fair, that is what she's doing," Sierra said. She suddenly shifted her position on Cody (almost throwing him off-balance and onto an unexploded mine), hugging his head closer. "But that was super-clever, my brilliant little Codykins!"

Courtney scoffed, rolling her eyes. "Yeah. Great work, Cody."

At the moment, he was too high on Gwen-praise to possibly detect the sarcasm in her voice.

A pair of American soldiers, dressed cap-a-pie in bulky combat gear, ran out of the largest warehouse with their guns at the ready. They were in such a rush to get where they needed to be that they apparently failed to notice a teenaged brunette looking out from around a corner, who motioned to her companions as soon as they were past.

Team Amazon slipped into the building just as the door was about to close. Gwen was the last one in, taking a brief look around as the others were already gazing up at the huge chamber. She grinned.

"Wicked! We beat Chris is Really Really Really Really Hot here!" she said, letting go of the door so that it could slam shut behind them.

It suddenly flew back open, making her jump.

"Think again, Pasty," Duncan said, strolling into the room with Tyler and Alejandro. Gwen recovered from her surprise and grinned at him.

Courtney seethed at this for a moment, then suddenly grabbed Cody's arm and pulled him towards her, startling him.

"Hey, Cody," she said loudly, her eyes looking away from him toward her adulterous opponents, "I think you and I should look around together…okay?"

"Um…yeah, okay," he said.

Courtney grinned triumphantly as Cody gave a small smile.

Cody: (tapping chin thoughtfully) Courtney's been really nice to me ever since this challenge started. I guess it kind of makes sense, though—she's probably just grateful that I punched Duncan in the face back in Greece. (chuckles)

Sierra: (grimacing) Okay, I don't know what Courtney's up to, but I don't like it. She better not think that just because she's single now, she can start honing in on MY Cody. Nuh-uh...I'm gonna have to put her in her place!

Cody's smile was abruptly cut off when Sierra grabbed his arm, pulling him toward her.

"Heh-heh…um, actually, Courtney, Cody's going to be working with me during this challenge. Right, Cody?"

"Well, uh—um—"

He looked nervously from one girl to the other; Sierra was glaring at Courtney, who returned the look with one that seemed both annoyed and somewhat confused. Off to the side Duncan looked away, growling under his breath; Gwen noticed this and frowned, looking in the opposite direction.

Heather was also quietly watching the proceedings, mostly lingering on Courtney with distrustful eyes. However, after a moment she looked away and scanned Team Chris again, noting something odd. She turned to Tyler, who seemed more interested in looking around nervously than watching the fight. "Aren't you down a dork?"

"They stole Owen and brought him in here somewhere," Tyler said, throwing open his arms to encompass the vast room. "We gotta find 'im!"

"Well, that won't be easy," Cody muttered, taking the chance to pull away from both Courtney and Sierra to look around some more. "In here" was a huge area, and more to the point, crowded—they were surrounded by huge stacks of boxes, some nearly reaching twenty or thirty feet into the air, forming the walls of a gigantic maze. Cody wondered how it was possible that so much could be in here—just how often did aliens crash on this planet anyway?

For the second time in about an hour Cody's thoughts were interrupted by a crackling loudspeaker, and once again Chris' voice came echoing out a second later.

"WELCOME TO THE BLACK BOX WAREHOUSE! FINDING A FUNCTIOING ALIEN ARTIFACT IN HERE IS GONNA BE A BIT LIKE FINDING A NEEDLE IN A HAYSTACK. A HAYSTACK WITH A BLACK-OPS SECURITY SYSTEM," he added, a barely-restrained chuckle evident in his tone. "WHICH, I SET OFF WHEN I HACKED INTO THIS P.A. MAH BAD."

The competitors only had a moment for stunned silence before an alarm began beeping loudly. Instantly everybody yelled, Cody found himself thrown over Sierra's shoulder and the teams ran off panicking in opposite directions.

Courtney peered around a stack of boxes as a pair of black ops soldiers ran by about ten feet away, then turned around just in time for something to konk her on the head. Rubbing her hair and glaring, she turned to see Heather digging through a nearby crate, throwing out random pieces of equipment in every direction.

She pulled herself out of the box, shaking what looked like a hubcap to see if it made any sound. "Great. More broken junk," she grumbled, throwing it away. It bounced off the floor behind her once, then suddenly righted itself in the air, sprouting a new section so that it looked remarkably like a miniature UFO. Heather watched as it hovered for a moment, then slowly lifted into the air and shot away from sight.

"UGH!" Heather raged, spinning around and glaring at the crate. "Can't these boxes have labels? !"

Courtney, meanwhile, had already wandered a bit away into the next aisle made by the rows of boxes. Standing in the middle of the floor was what looked like a gray-and-blue robot as large as Chef Hatchet. As far as alien props went, she thought it looked pretty ridiculous—if anything, it reminded her of the toys her cousins liked to play with.

She wondered vaguely if it was even actual metal and gave it a halfhearted kick in the foot. It clanged metallically on her shoe, and then suddenly began to buzz. Its eyes lit up.

"INTRUDER ALERT," the "fake" robot said, as Courtney's eyes widened and she began to slowly back away. "INITIALIZING ELIMINATION PROCEDURE."

Suddenly a slit opened in its arm, and to Courtney's utter amazement a mammoth gun turret came out—it looked almost like some kind of futuristic cannon, almost as huge as the robot itself. It began to glow blue, buzzing—

Just as some level of Courtney's mind was wondering in shock how such a huge gun could fit in the robot's relatively-smaller arm, gravity seemed to decide it didn't like the lack of logic either. The floor under the robot broke, and it disappeared in a crash, followed by another and another, sounding with repeated mechanical "OW"s. Courtney bent down to look down the hole, watching as the robot crashed into what seemed to be a basement below the warehouse, then crashed through that floor into another basement, and into another…

Courtney had a moment to a.) consider how lucky she was, b.) wonder if she had just dreamed that impossible occurrence and c.) wonder how many floors this place had that they would have to search when her sundry thoughts were interrupted by the sound of Heather yelling.

It took Courtney a moment to find where her teammate, or at least, part of her teammate was—she had stumbled onto some sort of huge metal ring, standing in the middle of the floor just like the robot, which seemed to be filled with weird glowing blue goop. Half of Heather's body was submerged in the weird fluid, while her stomach, legs and butt were sticking out ridiculously. Her remaining body parts were writhing, and muffled calls seemed to suggest that Heather couldn't manage to pull herself free.

Courtney, being the kind and reasonable person that she is, took a moment to at least consider whether or not she should abandon her. (That may not sound charitable, but let's face it, a lot of people wouldn't have taken the time when Heather was the one who was stuck.)

"Hmm…she is a pain. Ugh, but I need her vote to get rid of Gwen."

She grabbed onto Heather's leg and began to pull. She had no idea what it was that kept Heather from pulling herself out, but it was apparently strong enough that she, too, had to struggle for a moment before Heather suddenly went came free, knocking Courtney onto her back as her teammate went flying and crashed into a nearby collection of boxes.

"UGH! What were your waiting for? ! I'm covered in space snot!" And indeed, when Courtney righted herself enough to look she saw that Heather had blotches of the blue goo all over her skin, clothes and hair.

"Sorry."

"Hmph. Well, at least the stupid thing is intact."

Courtney, having risen to her feet, suddenly had an internal panic attack as she realized what Heather meant. Without even thinking her foot twisted to the back of the machine's base, pushing it over with surprising ease. Heather jumped as the ring crashed to the ground, smoking and sputtering.

"Oh nooo!" Courtney cried melodramatically, putting her hands to the sides of her face. "Ugh, better keep looking!"

Heather looked at her in disbelief. "Are you trying to lose? !"

"What? ! As if!" Courtney turned away as if indignant, which conveniently hid the smirk that had crossed her face as she began to walk away.

Heather, however, followed.

"And another thing…what exactly is the deal with you and Cody lately?"

"Huh?" Courtney stopped, half-turning back to her. "What do you mean?"

"I mean you're flirting is so ridiculous you're making Sierra look normal," Heather sneered, crossing her arms. "What gives?"

"Ugh…" Courtney really didn't want to get into her relationship issues—or former-relationship issues—with Heather any more than she had to, but she couldn't really think of any specific reason to keep this to herself either. "It's nothing. I'm just flirting with him to try to make Duncan and Gwen jealous. Why, what do you care?"

"Just making sure it's not anything I need to worry about. As it is I'm wondering if Gwen might try to throw challenges for her new boy toy like she did last season. We kicked her off for that, by the way," she added, leaning closer to Courtney as her voice lowered threateningly. "Because throwing challenges over a guy is bad strategy. Got it?"

"Of course!" Courtney snapped, crossing her arms and looking away again. Then, after a brief pause she quickly said, "Let's split up to cover more ground," and moved away. After all, it would be easier to not look for alien artifacts if she didn't have to worry about Heather watching her every move.

At the same moment another member of Team Amazon happened to be suggesting the very same strategy, and like Courtney he was doing it for his own ulterior motives.

"I'm just saying, Sierra, uh—if we split up, we can spread out and look through more boxes quicker," Cody said, as his psychotic teammate continued to carry him over her shoulder like an oversized purse.

"But there's safety in numbers. I mean, just think what would happen if those soldiers came and I wasn't there to protect you! They'd probably send you off to one of those secret prison camps in Puerto Rico or whatever!" Her voice rose in panic for a moment, then became softer as she patted his butt like a mother burping her baby. "Better just stay with me, okay my adorable little extraterrestrial?"

"Ugh…well can you at least let me walk for myself then?"

"Oh, okay, then. I mean, if you want…"

She set him down from her shoulder back onto his feet, and he quickly took several steps away from her, bumping into a nearby box and knocking out its contents. He and Sierra both turned; a half-ovoid something clattered onto the floor, rolling away a bit.

Cody went over and picked it up. "It's a head," he observed quizzically, turning it around for Sierra to see over his shoulder. Sure enough the metal object had two large, dull eyes that each extended out like camera lenses and a line across the bottom like a closed mouth. An antenna poked out of the flat top of its head. Sierra quirked an eyebrow.

"It kind of looks like you." Cody turned to stare at her. "You know, the head shape. Looks broken, though." Her eyes widened. "OOH! Maybe you can fix it, Cody! I mean, you did win third prize in the Manitoba Provincial Science Fair last year for your robot display!"

"Yeah, I—!" Cody's face suddenly fell as the creepiness of Sierra's knowledge sunk in. Giving her a look, he nevertheless turned to the robot and began to pry at it with his fingers, trying to see if there was some way to get inside of it. After a moment he managed to get the top to click open, but he frowned as he peered inside. He the head upside down and shook it; instead of circuits or wires, all that fell out was a paperclip, two pennies and a gumball.

The two contestants just stared for a moment.

"…Okay, I'm not good at all this sciency stuff, but I'm guessing you can't do much with that, can you?"

"...No, I don't think so," Cody said, replacing the robot head in the box and picking up one of the coins. "Huh…this is some weird looking money…probably doesn't count as 'functioning,' though…"

They wandered away and found more boxes to search through.

One hour later, they were still searching.

"I'm starting to think this is hopeless," Cody said, repeatedly pressing the trigger of a beat-up ray gun and then tossing it with the other trash now littering the floor around them.

"There has to be something in this place. I mean, Chris wouldn't send us on a challenge if there was absolutely no way to complete it. That'd be boring!" Sierra tossed more things out of her crate, reaching deeper for anything that looked salvageable. Soon her hand was brushing the bottom.

Cody hit his palm against a hand-sized cylinder he had managed to extract; for a moment a glowing green-white beam of energy emerged out of it like a blade, but then it flickered and went dead again. Cody grimaced, tossing it away.

It landed on the floor and rolled away for a moment, before being stepped on by one sandaled foot running down the aisle.

"Wha—agh!"

Courtney windmilled her arms wildly, then fell backwards and crashed onto the floor. Cody and Sierra both looked up, startled from their work—instinctively Cody rushed forward, bending down to extend a hand to his fallen teammate.

"Oh, jeez—sorry, Courtney, I guess we've made a bit of a mess here—"

Courtney looked up at him, glaring. For a moment she suddenly remembered that she was supposed to be acting all flirty and stupid with him—but just as quickly realized that neither Gwen nor Duncan was there at the moment. She pushed his hand away, startling him slightly.

"Yeah, yeah," she muttered, climbing to her own feet and dusted herself off. Courtney in turn was startled as Sierra was suddenly standing right between her and Cody, putting her face an inch from Courtney's and glaring daggers.

"Hello, Courtney," the loony girl said, using her name as if it were an insult.

"Um…hi?" Courtney backed up a step, giving Sierra a weird look before shaking her head. "So, have either of you two found anything yet?" she asked irritably.

"Not a thing," Cody said, shrugging helplessly.

"Hmph. Good."

"Pardon?"

"What? ! Um—I mean, good—luck! Good luck finding anything in this dump," she quickly corrected. "This place is a pig sty. So much for secret government agencies being ruthlessly efficient."

Courtney glared at the boxes, while Sierra glared at her. Cody just looked confused, as usual.

Cody: (scratching his head) Well, wherever Courtney's good mood came from, it seems to have disappeared just as fast. Easy come, easy go, I guess.

"Well, anyway, we should probably split up to see if we can cover more ground," Sierra said, suddenly grabbing Cody around the shoulder and pulling him away. "Come on, Cody."

"But I—agh, Sierra, you're hurting me—!"

"Well—wait!" Courtney's mind was thinking quickly—as long as these two didn't catch onto like Heather did it would be better to keep them around; maybe it would give her a chance to sabotage their own efforts as well. "Maybe we should—"

"AGH!"

All three of them jumped as they heard a yell. Cody looked around wildly—Sierra pointed to a gap in the wall of boxes, or rather, the next aisle beyond that gap. "It came from over there!"

All three strained to hear, wondering it the sound had been their teammates, their competition—or something to be worried about.

The latter seemed to ruled out when they heard breathless, nervous chatter rather than terrified screaming.

"Oh, hey—"

"Hey, I can't believe—"

An awkward pause fell, but they had already recognized the voices.

Without thinking Sierra, long used to eavesdropping on people without their knowledge, let go of Cody and knelt down behind a box, peeking over it into the next aisle. Cody quickly followed; a moment later Courtney joined them, staring wide-eyed over his shoulders.

Right in front of them was Duncan, facing the other way. Beside him was Gwen.

Cody suddenly felt cold all over. Courtney's face was frozen, but her heart was hammering in her chest.

"You go first," Duncan whispered, gesturing to Gwen.

"Okay. The kiss was awesome" (Cody's eyes widened as some invisible force punched him in the stomach) "even though now everyone on my team thinks I'm the new Heather. Even Heather!"

"I don't," Cody whispered, only for Sierra to elbow him in the side. Courtney, meanwhile, continued to watch, her face unreadable and unmoving.

"But I can see that Courtney's ridiculous flirting is getting to you," Gwen continued—Courtney's face twitched the slightest bit, but Cody's insides were twisting too much for him to properly sort out the confusing statement. "So if you've changed your mind about our sit—"

Gwen was surprised when before she could finish her sentence, Duncan was kissing her.

All three of the watchers gasped, followed by a soft squeal from Sierra, her determination to hate the couple momentarily overwhelmed by her natural shipping instincts. Gwen's own eyes went wide, but then slowly closed as she melted into the kiss, as her hands drifted up to press against Duncan's chest…Cody felt another punch in the gut, harder this time, as the two separated, a contented smile on Gwen's face.

"Was that just to shut me up?"

Duncan chuckled. "Not entirely."

He was smiling at her. Gwen was smiling back at him.

Gwen was smiling. At him.

"Why don't we just…let things happen? No pressure, no planning…no pookums." She grimaced for a moment, but then immediately that horrible, hideous smile was back on her face. "'Kay?"

Duncan chuckled. "See? That there is why I like you."

"NO!"

Even in their stunned state Cody and Sierra both fell back in surprise as Courtney flew to her feet and suddenly stormed out of their hiding place. Gwen and Duncan jumped and separated, allowing Courtney to march right up to them with hands balled into fists and an expression so hateful that it could have made a mirror explode.

"How dare you? !" she screamed, coming to a stop right in front of them. "How dare you? !"

"Courtney!" Gwen said, eyes wide. Duncan, however, just crossed his arms and scowled.

"'How dare we' what? I have an ache in my crotch that says we're both single no, Princess."

"And you think that makes it alright? !"

"Uh, yeah?" Even Sierra quirked an eyebrow, trying to work through Courtney's logic. Gwen just looked between the two of them nervously; Cody was still frozen in place, feeling like he was watching the scene from outside his own body.

"You just—you two—sniveling, lying, nasty little—AAAGGGHHH!"

She suddenly stomped down on Duncan's shoe as hard as she possibly could, making him cry out in pain and jump up on one foot, his one good eye clouding with tears of pain. Courtney felt tears in her own eyes as she spun around—tears of fury, tears of anger, not tears of sadness, she told herself, she was through with that, all she wanted was to make these two PAY for all the agony they had put her through in these last few days.

"Well, FINE! I hope you're VERY happy together! An OGRE and a WHORE!" she screamed, pointing at each of them in succession. "You both DESERVE each other, so you can both just ROT IN HELL together for all I care! AAAGGGHHH!"

She stormed away, angrily shoving a pile of boxes and knocking their contents all over the floor as she went. Gwen and Duncan followed her with their eyes, listening as each loud step echoed through the aisles, heedless of the tight security. It was a full thirty seconds before she was too far away to hear.

Once Courtney was gone the two turned back, but neither seemed to want to look at the other. Gwen kicked the dusty floor nervously; Duncan scratched the back of his neck.

"So, um—I-I better go and…find some alien junk or something."

"Yeah, ditto. Yeah."

"...Try not to get eliminated?"

"Same to you."

They went off in opposite directions, each hazarding a quick look back when the other wasn't looking. It was only when they were both out of sight that Sierra lifted her head from her hiding place and let out a soft whistle.

"Well, the Americans are definitely going to censor that if Chris lets that into the final cut. That was really—Cody? Cody?"

Cody had slumped to the floor, arms limp at his sides, staring off into space. His eye twitched; his mouth hung slightly open, apparently frozen in shock.

Unlike Sierra, Cody wasn't focused much on Courtney's freak-out. His mind was still stuck on the moment before that, and the happy, love-struck smile that had been on Gwen's face.

[1] He later found out that America did not have a special prison catering to that specific demographic; they went to the same facility as every other teenage reality-show star caught breaking into top-secret government bases.

A/N: I'll be happy if I get to where I won't have to copy canon details so much. Anyway, update next week, until then, please send me reviews! I'll be here, trying to force myself to do homework while I wait.