"Sweden Sour," Part 3
The Total Drama Jumbo Jet's lowest deck was the Cargo Hold, filled with large boxes of food, electrical equipment and other supplies. Chef and the interns occasionally came in and out, but nobody bothered to guard it. Just about every contestant had been in there at least once, if only to look around before leaving in boredom. Owen had once tried to sneak snacks from there, only to run away screaming that he had seen a monster. Noah had used it as a reading room before his elimination. Heather had confronted Alejandro in there less than half an hour before.
Now it was empty—or so Courtney hoped. She didn't put much stock in Owen's "monster" claim, but couldn't discount the possibility of one of Chris' wild pets. And she wasn't quite sure if she was allowed to be in there anyway.
The only sounds she heard were her own breathing and heartbeat, both still quick from her encounter with Duncan. She tiptoed in as quietly as possible, then sat down against the nearest row of boxes. She took several slow breaths, trying to calm down.
Then she heard a moan.
"AAAGGGHHH!" she screamed, jumping to her feet.
"Huh?!"
She looked down on the other side of the boxes—and saw Cody blinking blearily up from the floor.
"Ugh! You!" she snapped. "What are you doing here?"
For a moment he stared at her like he didn't understand the question—which, combined with how much of a zombie he had been all day, was seriously starting to get on Courtney's nerves. "Hiding from Sierra," he croaked before looking down at the floor.
"Of course you are," she said, crossing her arms. "Though I notice the two of you were still chummy enough to form an alliance against me," she added.
"No." He spoke so quietly that at first Courtney wasn't sure she had heard right, but then he continued "I voted for Sierra. I always vote for Sierra."
"Huh?"
For a moment that information gave Courtney a surge of excitement...before she realized that that wouldn't have changed anything anyway: it would still have been two votes to kick her off against one for Cody and Sierra each. That thought immediately made her bitter again, and she glared down at Cody, semi-consciously looking for some justification to vent her anger on him.
"So she jumps in front of a cannonball because you were too stupid to move, and you thank her by trying to kick her off the show." Her face suddenly hardened, her fingers digging painfully into her tightly-crossed arms. "You know, I can't stand any of you people. It's like everyone on this plane is just—looking for opportunities to turn on everybody else! You! Heather! Duncan! And that—lying tramp who you just won't accept strings you along for your vote without ever actually being interested in you!"
Cody looked up at her. His face, like hers, was set in a hard expression, albeit one that was still oddly blank.
Courtney expected him to yell at her. And when she looked back on the scene later, she could even think of all the things Cody could have said: that Gwen wasn't like that, he totally really liked her, or that Courtney had done plenty of sneaky things last season herself, that she had been turning on the Amazons by throwing challenges, that she had been trying to use flirtation to manipulate him while plotting with Sierra behind his back.
Cody didn't say anything like that. Instead he did something that caught Courtney completely off-guard.
He pulled his knees up to his chest, wrapped his arms around his legs and began to cry.
(Bus to the Toronto Airport, just before the start of "Walk Like an Egyptian")
"The Zeke is goonna dominate this season, eh!"
"If you say that one more time, I'm going to defenestrate you before you get the chance," Noah said, glaring down at his book.
Cody rolled his eyes. "Come on, Noah. Aren't you excited? We're finally back in the game!"
"I'm 'excited' at the prospect of winning a million dollars. But 'The Zeke' here is acting like my two-year-old niece on a sugar rush."
Cody had to admit that was an apt comparison—Ezekiel kept bouncing around in the seat behind them (and occasionally falling out of it), talking a mile a minute about what kinds of challenges might be coming up, the places they might go and whether or not any of the eight languages he knew might be useful. ("I can speak Mandarin, but what if we goo somewhere where we need Cantonese, eh?") Cody had a hard time keeping up, especially when Ezekiel lapsed into his impenetrable attempts at 'teenspeak.'
"Hey homeys, I have an idea! What if the three of us form an alliance, eh? Get a drop on this biz befur the game even starts!"
"That's a great idea!" Cody said.
Noah looked up from his book to stare at him. "No, it isn't. Chances are the three of us won't even be on the same team."
"Ooh, yeah." Ezekiel looked worried. "I haven't really thought about the teams that much, eh. What if I wind up with, like, Heather oor Duncan oor Courtney oor something? OR EVA?!" he said in sudden horror.
"Eva isn't in this season."
"Ooh. Good."
"Don't worry about it, Zeke. No matter what team you end up with, it's not gonna be the end of the world. And even if Noah and I are both on the other team, the three of us can still hang outside of the competition. Right, Noah?"
"Sure, 'hang.' Whatever." He turned the page of his book.
Ezekiel was finally quiet for a moment, resting his head on the top of Cody and Noah's seat. "Doo you really think I have a chance to win?" he asked, his tone uncharacteristically solemn.
Cody shrugged. "All of us have a chance. Just because we got voted off early last time doesn't mean we can't go farther now."
Ezekiel smiled. "Yeah. Yoo'r right. I'm goonna prove that I'm not a loser this time." He suddenly jumped to his feet, raising his fist in the air. "Look out, Total Drama—this season, THE ZEKE is goonna—"
"WILL YOU BE QUIET?!" Courtney snapped from a few rows ahead.
Ezekiel jumped, then noticed that several other passengers were also giving him annoyed looks. He slowly sat back down.
Cody chuckled to himself as he put his hands behind his head. "Personally, I don't even care that much if I win. To me it's all about having a good time, hanging out with cool people and all the fame that comes with being an international TV star."
"Yoo're lucky. Yoo already have a band and a record contract and everything. I've been trying like crazy to get my rap career ooff the ground."
"He's a spare body in a second-rate boy band. Be happy you haven't achieved such an Uncanny Valley of fame," Noah groused.
Cody glared at him for a moment, then turned away, letting his gaze wander to the other denizens of the bus.
Three guesses on which denizen that gaze finally stopped at.
Gwen was sitting in a seat by herself, reading a magazine. Her blue lips were turned into a small, cute frown. Cody watched her for a moment, smirking to himself. Noah noticed, rolled his eyes and went back to reading.
A good time, hanging out with cool people, fame and finally getting another chance to hook up with Gwen.
This season was going to be awesome.
Courtney blinked hard, stared at Cody for a moment, and said "Uh..."
Cody sobbed three times, sniffled, paused, then went back to sobbing.
"Um—Cody, look—I didn't really mean that. I mean—after all, voting for Sierra is a lot better than trying to get me eliminated, right?"
Cody's crying only seemed to be getting louder.
"And I didn't mean that about Gwen, either! Well—I did mean that lying tramp part, but not the—not-actually-being-interested-in-you part. She might be, one day! I mean—"
"This isn't about Gwen!" Cody said, finally lifting his face up from his knees.
Courtney froze in mid-sentence. "Oh," she said, for want of anything better.
"I m-mean—not t-totally about her," Cody gasped. He wiped his hair out of his face and kept his hand there, as if hoping he could somehow hide his tears at this point. "I don't know. I mean—yeah, there's everything with Gwen, but everything else...I just don't..."
He trailed off. Then, just when Courtney thought he was through talking, he lashed out with one leg and kicked the box across from him with the sole of his foot.
"This whole season sucks," he said with sudden venom. "It's just so many little things. Almost all of my friends were on another team—Noah, Ezekiel, Owen, Harold—I mean, I got Gwen, but now she's gone, and—all these challenges are terrible, I almost got poisoned in the Amazon, and now it's like you said, this whole team has just fallen apart—everybody trying to vote each other off, scheming against each other, and I'm no good at that, I don't want to pick sides, I don't hate any of you guys, not even Heather—except Sierra. Oh hell, Sierra!" He kicked the box again, but sniffled at the same time. "She is the worst! She won't let me do anything by myself! She steals all my things! She never listens to anything I tell her! She—she—"
He covered his face again, and again Courtney didn't know what to say. It was uncomfortable; since she always had an idea of what to say, whether or not anyone else wanted to hear it.
When he spoke again his voice was back to a croak, now muffled by his hand. "I know it probably seems pretty low, voting her off like that. Even today, when she took that meatball to the gut. But I—just—can't—stand her! Sure she doesn't something like that once in a while—I mean, she always makes a show like she's trying to do things for me—but it's just not worth it. One big gesture doesn't make everything else she does tolerable. Do you know what I mean?"
Courtney bit her lip and thought for a long moment. Then she sat down on the floor beside Cody. "I think I do."
He looked up. "You do?"
"Yeah." Without thinking Courtney pulled her legs up to her chest, imitating Cody's former posture. "Actually, it kind of reminds me of Duncan."
Cody blinked as Courtney looked wistfully away.
"Like, for example...a little before last Christmas, he and I had a huge fight. I honestly can't even remember what started it. I'm pretty sure it was his fault, though," she added, as though worried Cody might think otherwise. "Anyway...we weren't talking, weren't calling each other, and I honestly wasn't even sure if we were still together anymore. I was kind of a mess about it—but don't let him know I said that.
"Anyway...about noon on Christmas day, he just shows up, out of nowhere. And keep in mind, we don't even live in the same province—he must have been driving all night just to come see me. And he had a dozen red roses, and he even brought another half-dozen for my mom—probably because my parents both hate him...and he apologized for whatever we were fighting about, and he acted like a perfect gentleman the whole day...he even wore a decent outfit. And it was...wonderful."
She smiled wanly, remembering the two of them curled up on her couch by the fireplace, enjoying the last hour or so before he had to drive home. Then her face fell and her eyes clouded.
"But then, after a few weeks, everything just went back to how it was before—he would act like an ogre, and we'd start fighting...and then we had our big breakup, and then we got back together, or I thought we did, but then he—left—" Her voice started to break. "And I—I missed him so much, because when you're not fighting you kind of just forget that you fight all the time, and then he came back—and wound up with Gwen—"
"Um—Courtney, it's okay—I-I get it—"
"—and now he's acting, I don't even know—he's not apologizing this time, he's acting like the whole thing is my fault, when I didn't—" She suddenly sniffed. "I didn't do anything, but he's—acting like a totally different person now, and I—I don't even know—"
She suddenly gasped, feeling the dam of anger in her mind finally crumble. A strangled sob escaped her throat, and before she knew it she was crying into her hands.
Almost instantly she felt Cody's hand on her shoulder.
"Courtney, hey—don't cry, don't cry, okay?! I'm sorry, I didn't mean to—make you think about all that again, or anything. I'm sorry, alright? Jeez, look at me—crying about my stupid problems and forgetting what you've been through this season."
She tried to answer, but the best she could do was suck in a breath to stop crying, only to start again a second later. She waved her hand and finally managed to sputter "It's—n-not y-your fault. I just—I just don't understand. He and I—I thought we had something special. I know we fought all the time, but—I d-don't know, we'd always make up, after a week or two at most. I don't know why he suddenly decided—I mean—I thought we had something! Something special!"
Cody slumped back down. "Me too," he murmured. He glanced over at her. "Remember last season, when you thought he and Gwen were sneaking around?"
She sniffled. "Yeah. And you kept telling me I was overreacting," she accused.
"Yeah. Well...I wasn't lying when I said that. I really did think you two were crazy for each other, even with all the fighting." His eyes fell to the floor.
Courtney sniffled, wiping her eyes. "Me too." She hesitated. "Or maybe I didn't. "Gwen," she grumbled. "What does she have that I don't, anyway?"
"Nothing," Cody said with a lethargic shrug.
"Well, there has to be something," she said, a bit crossly. "You're obsessed with her. What's so great about Gothy McNasty that made Duncan choose her over me?"
Cody glanced over at her, looking thoughtful. "I don't like her because she's better than anyone else," he said finally. "I mean—yeah, she's hot, but you're hot too. She's smart and tough, but you're smart and tough. She's just my type," he said, shrugging again. "I don't know Duncan well enough to say why he chose her over you."
From her expression, Cody could tell that Courtney didn't like that answer. He looked away, and the image of Duncan and Gwen kissing came unbidden to his mind once again. He grimaced.
"What about Gwen?"
"What about her?" Courtney asked scornfully.
"I mean—why would she pick Duncan instead of me?"
Courtney scoffed, blowing her bangs out of her face. "No offense, Cody, but she did let you down once before."
"But that was with Trent. Trent's a good guy, and he was a good single guy." Cody gave the box a third, if rather halfhearted, kick. "But she picks Duncan over me? Duncan? A—stupid jerk who already has an awesome, hot girlfriend and then winds up cheating on her? I can't even win against someone like that?"
"I guess not," Courtney said wistfully.
But Cody only seemed to be riling himself up—his spine straightened, his eyes turning hard. "I'm a hundred times better than that guy! I'm Cody Jameson-Anderson, dang it! I'm a rock star! I'm the President of the Albert Einstein Fan Club at Upper Crust College! I won third prize in the Manitoba Provincial Science Fair!"
"Really? That's pretty cool."
"Thanks!" Cody said, still sounding angry. "And what does Duncan have? A prison record and a bunch of stupid piercings? Gwen chose that over me?!"
Courtney sighed. "Well, it's like you said, isn't it? Duncan likes Gwen more than me, Gwen likes Duncan more than you. It doesn't have to make sense."
She sounded bitter. Cody slumped down, a sour look on his face too. "I guess you're right. It's just...not the way it's supposed to be, is it? When I started this season—I dunno, I just had all these plans of how things were supposed to go. I'd hang out with all the people I like, and manage to win a bunch of challenges, and Gwen and I would get closer and finally hook up. Instead I've been Sierra's prisoner all season, and then I lose out to...freakin' Duncan."
"Tell me about it. I had plans, too, you know. Duncan and I would dominate the game, and I'd get to the million and finally prove that I can win this thing. Now I'm single and about an episode away from being voted off."
Cody gave a humorless chuckle. "I guess we both have to change our plans, don't we?"
"I guess so."
A long pause came over the two. It was broken when Courtney sniffled.
"I really thought Gwen was my friend, too. Can you believe I actually miss her?"
"You do?"
"Yeah."
He looked away. "Me too."
"Well, duh."
"No, I really do. But...not like that, exactly. She's my friend. Even if..." He sighed, and when he spoke again his voice cracked. "Even if she's never going to like me the way I like her."
She regarded him for a moment. "And you're okay with that?"
"I guess. I mean—I'm not happy about it, but...I'm actually more okay with it than you might expect." He laughed again. "That always seems to surprise everyone. Even when she was with Trent, a lot of people—on fansites or whatever—just didn't seem to get that I could be bummed out and happy for them at the same time. And it's weird, because now..."
He trailed off. She looked at him expectantly. "Now what?"
"Now I'm...not happy for her and Duncan. But...I don't know. I guess I'm just...resigned. I thought I could make her like me after Trent, I thought I could make her like me after she got with Duncan, but now after all that's happened, and she's off the show...I kind of don't want to bother anymore." He hunched over again. "I don't think I'm miserable because I want her to be my girlfriend anymore. Now I'm miserable because I realize it was always a lost cause."
"Oh." And then, realizing that sounded inadequate, "I'm sorry."
"Thanks." He bit his lip. "I still miss her, though. And Noah, and Ezekiel, and Tyler..." He sighed. "Owen's still in the game, but he's on Team Chris. You're pretty much the only friend I have left, now."
Courtney blinked. She almost said something, but then stopped herself, looking away.
It surprised her to hear him call her that. She didn't really think of Cody as a friend.
But then, she remembered: all of her friends were gone now. Bridgette had never been on the same team anyway, Gwen and Duncan could go to hell as far as she was concerned, she had botched any hope of an alliance with Heather or Sierra...with a start she realized: Cody really was the best friend she had in the game.
"You're not ticked at me?" she asked suddenly. Cody looked confused. "About getting Gwen kicked off?"
"No. I mean—I didn't want you to, and I would have done just about anything to stop it, but...I get why you did it. And believe me, I would do just about anything right now to get Duncan out of the game."
She scoffed again. "You and me both."
A very long silence fell between them. Suddenly Cody rose to his feet.
"Well...I better go. If I stay here too long Sierra will come looking for me, and then I'll have lost this hiding place for good. You coming?" He held out his hand to help her to her feet.
"I don't think so. You may not have tried to vote me out, but to be honest, I'd rather be alone than around Heather and Sierra right now."
"You sure?"
"Yeah. But hey—maybe come tell me if the two of them nod off before you do?"
He smiled at her. "Good idea."
Despite herself, Courtney smiled back. "Thanks."
He turned and walked away, head still bowed to the ground. She listened as Cody shut the door behind him, leaving her alone.
She waited a long time, just to make sure he was gone. Then she reached into her pocket and pulled something out.
"WILL YOU BE QUIET?!" Courtney screamed, turning to stare at the idiots in the back of the bus.
Ezekiel jumped, finally noticed how many people were glaring at him, and slowly sat back down. Courtney sighed, turned around in her seat and rubbed her temples. "I swear, my head is going to explode before we ever get to the airport."
Duncan wasn't listening. He was leaning across the aisle, talking to Gwen in the next seat over.
"So anyway, then the killer guy takes off his mask, and guess who it is?"
"Who?"
"Honestly, I don't know if I want to give it away."
"Come on, just tell me."
"Okay, it's—"
"AHEM."
Duncan turned around. "Yeah?"
"I thought we were discussing our plans for the game?"
"Well, Gwen and I were discussing X-treme Bloodbath, which is honestly a lot more interesting."
"You know what?" Gwen said nervously, putting up her hands. "I didn't mean to interrupt. We can talk about this later, Duncan."
"Thanks," Courtney said, a bit sarcastically, as Gwen picked up her magazine and went back to reading. Duncan rolled his eyes as he turned to his girlfriend, who had picked up a clipboard from the seat. "Alright, I made a list of possible alliance partners—those new contestants are wild cards, but in the 'dumb and easy to manipulate' category we have Ezekiel, Cody, Harold on a good day, Izzy—"
"Princess, we don't even know what teams we're gonna be on. Don't you think it's a little early to start working on alliances?"
"It's never to early if you want to get something done right," she said determinedly. "You want to win this, don't you?"
He shrugged. "I still have half a million in the bank. Don't get me wrong, I'd love to add to it, but I'm not sure it's worth another season of this hell."
"Well, I haven't won my million yet. Don't you want to help me so we can join the country club together?"
She said it teasingly, but Duncan just groused. Courtney's eyes narrowed.
"Come on, I'm serious here! I really want to win this. And even if you don't win, I want you to be there with me for as long as you can." She laid her head on his shoulder. "I missed you when we were broken up, you know."
He sighed. "Yeah. I missed you, too."
"Then help me out with this." She held up the clipboard with one hand, using the other to play with the string she wore around her neck. "Of course, you're right—we don't know if we're even going to be on the same team, and if we aren't then there's not much we can—"
"Hey," he interrupted. "Is that my skull?"
"Huh?"
She looked at the string, and indeed, pulling on it had revealed the little wooden skull he had carved for her back in the first season. "Oh, right," she said, carefully patting it under her shirt.
He kept staring. "When did you make it into a necklace?"
"I don't remember. Some time after we finally got home from season two. I didn't know what else to do with it. Didn't I ever tell you?"
"Nah."
"Oh. Well, I thought it was a nice way to keep it close to my heart—without clashing with my usual wardrobe."
She smirked at him. He rolled his eyes, but smiled back.
She nuzzled up a bit closer to him, lifted her clipboard and went back to talking about the game.
Courtney turned the skull over in her fingers, her lip quivering.
She stopped wearing the necklace whenever the pair broke up, but she had been been carrying it in her pocket since the Greece challenge, because...well, she couldn't quite say why. She just didn't like the thought of being without it. Maybe she had been hoping to wear it again, one day, when Duncan finally apologized and the two got back together.
But that was never going to happen, she realized. The two were broken up. Permanently. Forever.
She wrapped her hands around the skull and brought them to her face, feeling a new wave of tears slipping out onto her cheek.
Cody returned to Economy Class to the most amazing, beautiful, miraculous sight that he could have ever hoped to see: Sierra had fallen asleep before he arrived.
"Where have you been?" Heather grumbled, looking up from a magazine that she had read about a dozen times since the season started. "And where's Courtney?"
"Huh? Oh...I don't know. Around."
"...She's not plotting with Alejandro, is she?"
"What?! No. I just think she's—in the bathroom or something."
"Hmm. Good."
She went back to reading as Cody sat on the opposite bench, leaning against the wall. According to his watch it was about noon back in Canada, but it was early evening for them. Either way, it might as well have been the middle of the night as far as he was concerned. He would try to stay up for a little while, though, and get Courtney if Heather drifted off before him.
Cody wasn't sure how he felt at the moment—but, for the first time since Gwen's departure, he wasn't listless and miserable. Now he felt...drained, in a good way. Talking to Courtney had been cathartic, relieving the stress that he had built up all season. And weirdly, he actually felt sort of free now that he had declared the end to his Gwen-crush. Somehow the thought that they were just friends, that he didn't need to steal her from Duncan or prove that he could get her, made him feel like a weight had been lifted from his shoulders.
He hadn't gotten the girl, and that sucked. But Courtney lost her guy, too. These things happened. It was okay.
Sure, he still had Sierra to deal with, and most of his friends were gone. But...that was okay, too. Right? He had Owen, once the teams finally merged. And he had Courtney.
He glanced out the window, smiling wanly.
This season may have sucked so far, but I don't know...maybe it'll get better from here on out.
Author's Note: I'm almost tempted to end the story here, on a cautiously-optimistic note. I won't, though. XP
This is supposed to be a major turning point in the story, so I can only hope it came out as well as it needed to. I almost feel like I should have started the story here, but those first 40,000 words were kind of necessary to set up the emotional arcs. After this we start to build more legitimate romance and AU elements.
About half of the Cody/Courtney fics I've seen are him comforting her after the events of "Greece's Pieces," only for his issues to come out as well. Here I sort of inverted it, which wasn't really intentional but I sort of like doing.
I'll try to update soon. I'd like to get this back to weekly updates, but I want to get the whole Niagara challenge done first so we'll have to see how it goes.