If you'll recall, when we left Courtney and Duncan, Duncan revealed the truth of his juvie arrest to Bridgette. Meanwhile, Courtney found Playa's hidden film vault and destroyed the footage of that same confession without watching it herself, vowing to win Duncan back regardless.

And now, we learn their fate...

Rule 38: Never overestimate your own control

Courtney took a deep breath. She fixed the collar of her blouse, settled her sweater over the smooth lines of her shirt. She was about to face her greatest challenge to date. Perhaps the greatest diplomatic challenge in all of Canadian history.

With a 'you can do this' nod, Courtney braced herself and swiveled her chair around.

"So," she began, from the head of a spotless conference table. "I'm sure you're all wondering why you're here."

Leshawna snorted from her seat to Courtney's right. "You said there'd be food."

From Courtney's other side, Lindsay perked up. "There's gonna be food?"

"No, Lindsay. She lied."

Courtney promised, "There will be food! ...Eventually."

Lindsay sighed and kicked her chair into a spin as Leshawna muttered something that sounded suspiciously like bitch, please.

"Who cares about food, dudes!" Geoff said enthusiastically, the last of the trio gathered before Courtney. "We're throwing a party. Finally! I can't believe it!"

"Neither can I," Leshawna said dryly, angling her head to give Courtney a side-eye.

Courtney held up a finger. "Yes: a big, food-filled, Hasta La Playa party. I want to throw one, and you're all here because you have the skills I need to make it happen."

"Oh my goooosh," Lindsay said, her head watching Courtney as she spun her chair in lazy circles. "I love it! We totally need this."

"I agree," she said. "And now that the interns are gone, there's no one here to stop us. So," she looked to each of the three campers in turn, "are you in?"

"Duh," Lindsay and Geoff said in near-unison.

Leshawna deliberately crossed her arms. "Why are you throwing a party?"

Courtney folded her hands in front of her. "Well, Leshawna, as a future politician, it is in my best interest to leave this competition on good terms with everyone. I know I haven't been the most collaborative, but I would prefer to leave this show with all my bridges intact." Except Heather, she amended in her head. Screw Heather. "A party is the best way to do that."

"That's true," Geoff nodded.

"Works for me!" Lindsay agreed.

Leshawa looked Courtney up and down for a stomach-churning moment longer. Then she nodded once. "I'll hear the rest of your pitch. Count me in, conditionally."

That would have to be good enough for now. "Great. Then this party-planning committee is—conditionally—assembled!" Courtney announced. Geoff high-fived Lindsay and Leshawna. Courtney turned his offered high-five into a handshake before settling back into her padded office chair.

When she'd first discovered the professional—and secluded—conference room, she'd quickly concluded that this was where Chris and Chef did their dastardly plotting. Now, it was home to her own plot, which was about as half-baked as Chris's tended to be.

She cleared her throat. "As you'll all know if you've been on a committee before—" She took a moment to chuckle to herself, "—your specific role and title are crucial to our group's direction. Lindsay, you'll be Chief of Presentation and Thematic Consistency." To Geoff, she said, "You'll be Senior Entertainment Coordinator," and then to Leshawna, "and you, our Head of Media and Camper Outreach. Any objections?"

Over Geoff's whoop of agreement, Leshawna scoffed.

"Is there a problem?" Courtney asked.

Leshawna turned to Lindsay. "What's your title, Lindsay?"

"I'm—! Uh... Chief whatcha-ma-call-it!"

"And what are you in charge of?"

Lindsay's spinning chair slowed as she forgot to kick for momentum, her brows knitting together. "Um..."

"Uh-huh." Leshawna turned to Courtney. "I don't care how many versions of this resume-building nonsense you have on that PDA of yours. You call me Head of Media and Camper Outreach again and I'ma walk out on you." She made a point to glance around the boardroom. "I don't see any media on this island."

"You know what I mean!"

"No one here knows what you mean," Leshawna said flatly.

"Camper Outreach!" Courtney repeated. "You know—drumming up enthusiasm, spreading the word, getting people to...participate. You're good at that."

Leshawna made an mmmm sound, her expression mellowing somewhat. "And those two?"

Courtney took a moment to center herself, ignoring the near-physical pain it took to cast aside the job titles she'd so painstakingly developed. "Lindsay's in charge of decorations, and Geoff's doing tech and music."

"Ohhhhhhhh," Lindsay said as Geoff shouted, "Sick, bro! Where at?"

"Ah," Courtney said, "good question. Location. I was thinking the ballroom, but—" Courtney hesitated, fighting down the part of her that still wondered if this would all be easier if she just did it herself. "I am open to...other options."

"The ballroom is totally last week," Lindsay said immediately.

Courtney blanched.

"She's right," Leshawna agreed as Geoff stroked his non-existent goatee, intensely focused on an empty spot of table in front of him. "The ballroom's been done."

"Then what do you suggest?"

Geoff snapped his fingers. "The roof!"

For the briefest moment, Courtney felt the urge to throw up and was forced to wonder if she had PTSD from nearly falling to her death, or if it was simply difficult to admit that Geoff was a better event-planner than she was. "The...roof?"

"Yeah, we can take advantage now that everyone can use the employee staircases without getting in trouble," Geoff explained proudly.

"Ooooh! We could string up lights. And set up a tent!" Lindsay said, spun to the back of the room.

"Tents earn you major party points," Geoff agreed. "There's gotta be a tent."

"But I don't think I packed one," Lindsay said, staring up at a spinning ceiling in thought. "And I know I didn't pack my fairy lights…"

"The prop room will have all of that," Courtney cut in, pulling out the two keyrings she'd been gifted (and abusing) since the interns abandoned ship. She deposited them on the table with a clank. "Ladies and Geoff, behold the keys to the kingdom. Every room, closet, door, and cabinet on Playa de Losers at our disposal."

Courtney isolated a funny-looking key from the set and slid it across the table to Leshawna. "You'll need this one, by the way. A skeleton key to all the camper rooms in case you can't get to everyone with your...charm."

"You underestimate me," Leshawna said, taking a moment to admire the key before depositing it securely in her cleavage. "So if I'm recruiting and these two are setting up, what's your job, huh? Head Bossypants in Chief?"

Courtney resisted the urge to fire back. "You can think of me as...Project Manager. Here to direct the artistic vision and offer assistance where needed."

"So you're gonna let us run the show," Leshawna clarified, "and only offer assistance when needed?"

Courtney hoped her smile didn't betray how hard she was clenching her teeth. "Yes." She stood up and tucked in her chair. "And to start, I'll escort you to the prop room to begin your respective preparations." Courtney unhooked the prop room key and, after a brief struggle between her hand and her brain, handed it over to Geoff.

He tucked it in his shirt pocket and placed his hand over it, on his heart. "I won't let you down, boss."

Courtney nodded. "I appreciate that."

"Well color me impressed." Leshawna sat back in her chair, watching Courtney thoughtfully.

"Yeah, wow," Lindsay chimed in, jumping to her feet and leaving her chair to spin on without her. "Since when are you a team player?"

Since I had something worth playing for.

Courtney swallowed. "Sometimes you have to take big risks for a big reward, right?"

"Right," Leshawna agreed neutrally. She turned to Geoff and a (very dizzy) Lindsay. "Why don't you two get a head start while the Head Coordinator and I talk logistics?"

Geoff helped Lindsay out of the room without running into any of the walls. Leshawna closed the door behind Geoff, then turned to Courtney with a gleam in her eye.

Courtney stood hesitantly, feeling far too much like a trapped animal. "If we're all finished, we are on a bit of a time crunch here..."

"What's this really about?"

Courtney fought not to fidget with the keyrings still in her hand. "I don't know what you mean."

Leshawna leaned over the table and gestured that Courtney do the same. "I said I was in conditionally, Coordinator in Training. And my condition is that you tell me why you're doing this—none of your BS about mending burnt bridges."

"It's not BS." Courtney felt her nose twitch. "Mostly."

There was a challenge in Leshawna's answer. "No?"

Subtly pulling her PDA from her pocket, Courtney glanced down at the countdown taunting her. T-minus 17 hours until evacuation. She turned her attention back to Leshawna. "If I…" She sighed deeply. "If I tell you, you'll help me? That's all you want?"

"You want me to ask for more?"

"What? No."

Leshawna smirked. "Good," she said, sweeping her arms open grandly. "Then the floor is yours."

Courtney crossed her arms over her chest, bitter that Leshawna had enough foresight to block the only exit. She pursed her lips and posed herself carefully against the edge of the conference table to buy herself a little more time. "The party. It's...for Duncan."

"Mhmm. And?"

"What do you mean, and?"

"And why are you throwing Duncan a party?" Leshawna went on, unphased by Courtney's indignant tone. "I know it ain't his birthday."

Courtney groaned, resting her hip against the table. "How much about..." She waved her hands a little in lieu of saying "us" or something equally implicating, "do you know already?"

"Ha." Leshawna's mouth pulled into a grin. "Enough to keep up. You don't exactly keep a low profile."

"I've been made aware," Courtney muttered. She flushed red and stared at the floor, loathe to admit it aloud, and to Leshawna of all people. "Look. Duncan and I had something good, and I messed it up. I...I want it back. But he won't talk to me, so this party will at least get us in the same room."

"Did you try talking to him?"

Courtney raised her gaze back up, accenting it with a deep sigh. "Of course I tried. Why would I go to these lengths if I hadn't already tried?"

She'd been trying not to think about it: finding Duncan outside the spa, bleeding from his lip with Bunny in hand. Courtney had a plan, like she always did: start with some small talk, then jump into a recap of her last few hours. How she'd found the film vault and reviewed their history on and off the island; how it had made her realize that she wanted to be with Duncan regardless of his past because she was into him; how she was more than willing to resume a relationship with him under the implicit assumption that this fight between them had never happened and that they'd never bring it up again.

But she'd been harshly interrupted, not even ten words into her spiel, told to get to the point or get out of his way. And faced with Duncan's frigid anger, Courtney choked on her own logic—all the things she'd planned to say torn out from under her.

Duncan watched her like you'd observe a failed experiment: a science fair volcano that fell apart instead of erupting. He walked past her with Bunny obediently in hand, around her and down the hall like she wasn't there at all.

Leshawna waved her hand, dispelling further conversation on the topic. "Fine, so you tried talking to him. I'll assume it went south. What's throwin' a party gonna change? He still doesn't wanna hear from you."

"This is going to be different because I'm going to explain myself properly," Courtney said, "in a social situation where he's marginally less likely to cause a scene." She rolled her eyes. "If every vapid teen movie is to be believed, this is how you solve your romantic issues on a time crunch."

Leshawna's expression was that of barely masked amusement. She grinned, and though there was nothing malicious in it, Courtney couldn't help herself from feeling very small. "You know, you could apologize," Leshawna said.

Courtney blinked. "...Obviously." She pushed off from the table, brushing imaginary dust from her pant leg. "Obviously, I'm going to apologize."

"Uh-huh. So in conclusion," Leshawna said, "you want to throw a big 'ole party so Duncan can get stuck hearing your apology?"

"Yes."

"And as Herder of Cats, it's my number one priority to get him to the Greek. By any means necessary."

"Correct."

"You know you're never living this down, right?"

Courtney eyed her PDA almost reflexively. That 17 was ticking ever closer to the 16, closer to zero and Chef and the end of everything. She gritted her teeth. "Are you in or out, Leshawna?"

"I'm in, girl," Leshawna said, rolling her shoulders back. She held the door open grandly for Courtney. "Just wanted to be clear."

Courtney caught up to Geoff and Lindsay with ease, as most of their head-start had been spent going in circles without her to navigate. Walking at a clip, she slowed only long enough to grab each blond by the elbow and drag them down the proper hallway.

Five hallways and over two dozen doors on the ground floor later, Courtney stopped them dead in an intersection, looking side to side. Were door labels really that expensive? Why did every door and hallway look the same?

"Did a camera spot us?" Lindsay asked, looking around wildly. "Are we—" She dropped her voice, "colonized?"

Courtney thought on that for a second. "I'm going to assume you mean compromised. And no. I shut those down from the hub in Chef's room," she said. "I'm just trying to remember which way the prop room is from here." That was two lefts, then right, straight, two more rights... Now they were coming from the other side, so that was a left… "It's around here somewhere, but I swear these walls move when you aren't looking."

"Yo, I get lost in here like five times a day," Geoff confessed. "It took me an hour to get to the prop room the last time. Then another hour for me and Dunc to find a chainsaw. Then another to get back to his room. I've started baking in an extra 45 to get anywhere."

Courtney tilted her head at him. "You never struck me as the punctual type," she said, diverting the topic as far from Duncan as possible. "No offense."

"The party can't start if you're not there," he said with a shrug.

That...made sense, actually. Courtney had never considered it.

She looked from Geoff to Lindsay, who was counting off party necessities on her fingers (and looked sincerely put-out when she ran out of fingers). If Courtney was going to coordinate an event of this scale on such a tight timeframe, she would have to rely on them. It was daunting, and uncomfortable, trusting anyone else with the future of her relationship, and yet...it was oddly comforting to know she wasn't alone.

"Thanks for helping me, by the way. Both of you. You're the—uh—trendiest people on the island, and you didn't have to do this, but I...I think this will be a success."

"Awwwww!" Lindsay cooed, giving Courtney a quick hug. Courtney repressed her self-defense reflex to kick her in the face.

"Success is my middle name, dude," Geoff said, throwing his arm around Courtney's shoulders from the other side. He rocked them awkwardly together before leaving Courtney to stumble out of it in a daze, confused from all the sudden physical contact.

"I thought your middle name was Geoff?" Lindsay said.

Courtney caught Geoff's eye and, for just a moment, thought she might have glimpsed the wonderful qualities Bridgette and Duncan had spent so much time telling her about.

She checked her PDA as an excuse to look away. They were eating up time. Courtney jerked her gaze back to the blank, narrow hallway ahead of her. It looked familiar.

"Oh, this is it!" she said, jogging over.

"It is?" Lindsay asked, following her to an unmarked door. "No wonder we're lost."

"We're not lost," Courtney said, "clearly, because we're—never mind." She stepped back and allowed Geoff to take her place in front of the door.

He pulled the key from his pocket and leaned down to the lock. "Y'all ready for this?"

Courtney laughed. "Are you?"

Geoff fumbled for only a moment before the door swung open.

The prop room was exactly as Courtney had left it: disorganized and spattered with the insides of a glow stick, hanging waterfalls of string lights still sparkling after being left on for days, gobbling up Chris's electric bill. From the door, the bounds of the prop room looked nearly nonexistent: columns and columns of shelves, expanding in every direction except for down.

"I wasn't ready," Lindsay said, both hands clapped over her mouth. "I was so not ready!"

"You never are," Geoff said wistfully, taking his hat off to admire the room.

"Yes, yes, they're very pretty," Courtney cut in, pushing through the two in front of her toward the heart of the warehouse. "We're on the clock!"

She explained the room as they walked through it—columns organized by episode, left to right and up to down, ranging from relevant on the ground floor to downright puzzling as you climbed the levels. She found that easier to focus on than the memories of her first time here, or the first person to be there with her. She was the expert on the layout, this time.

"All right, it'll be fastest if we split up," Courtney said once she'd finished. "Lindsay—"

"Oh, you're one step ahead of me," Lindsay said, heading off in the direction of the wigs and waving a hand behind her.

Courtney moaned with the pain it caused her to let that comment go.

"All right, boss," Geoff said, sporting a giant grin that somehow made correcting Lindsay seem less important. "Time's a wastin'!" Doing a quick 360, Geoff retrieved a giant feather pen from the closest shelf and then a large map from two shelves higher than Courtney could even reach. "For notetaking, my lady," Geoff explained when she gave him a look. "You don't party in a vacuum. Though that has theme potential..."

"A vacuum?" Courtney repeated.

Geoff uncapped the pen and lowered himself to the floor, turning the map to the uncharted territory of Boney Island. "Yeah! Like, why're we doing this? Be specific. If it's a going away party, that's one thing for the lighting and the playlist. Totally different if it's celebratory. Then the speakers need to be a certain distance from the dance floor. Not to mention—"

"Sorry, I—hold on," Courtney said. Geoff's feather stilled, and though Courtney took a moment to absorb what he'd thrown at her, she couldn't seem to find additional sense in it. "I don't think we're on the same page. It's a party party. You know. Aren't they all sort of...the same?"

"The same?!"

Courtney saw her mistake immediately.

Geoff's eyes welled with tears. "This is my fault. Two months as teammates, and now we're here. I didn't share enough! I didn't teach you."

"Hey! Hey," Courtney said, getting down on her knees and gripping his shoulders. "There's no need to panic. You're the master, right?" He had to be, if they were going to pull this off. "And I'm a quick learner! You can teach me now. Right now. Without crying."

Geoff hurled himself back to his pen. "I'm going to have to," he sniffled, furiously adding to his notes.

"So walk me through it," Courtney said, sitting back on her heels. She wondered how obvious it would look if she tried to read his lettering upside-down. "Where do we start?"

"Step one is always, always party context," Geoff said, holding up a finger. "What are we talking here?"

Courtney fought back the urge to repeat herself, that this was obviously a party party and Geoff of all people should know what that meant. But telling Geoff that this was about mending burned bridges wasn't entirely true and might disrupt whatever pseudo-science he practiced. Instead, she thought back to her conversation with Leshawna and, ridiculously, said, "It's...an apology party. Is that a thing?"

Geoff snorted. "Is that a thing," he murmured, the feather moving wildly in his hand. "Of course it's a thing, people need to say sorry all the time. All right! Apology party it is."

"So what does that mean for us?"

"Well, no strobe lights. And that narrows down confetti and punch flavors and a few other things." Geoff looked up at her briefly. "What kind of apology?"

"I, uh..." Courtney couldn't begin to imagine what an acceptable answer to that sounded like. "Do you have any examples?"

"Are we talking a forgotten anniversary?" Geoff asked, flattening out on the ground and rolling onto his stomach. "Broke your favorite pen, broke all your pens, lost your cat?"

"You've thrown a 'sorry I lost your cat' party?"

"And a thousand more," Geoff said wistfully. "It's in the food choices. So, what's the deal?"

Courtney had hoped it wouldn't come to this, but the clinical approach Geoff took in his questioning made it a little easier to answer, "Duncan's mad at me."

Geoff nodded and said, quietly, "I think I knew that. Did I know that?" Then, as the story clicked into place, "I knew that." Courtney drooped at the realization that yet another person knew of her catastrophic failure, until she realized that fact also saved her another retelling. "Okay, so that means a medium-sized disco ball and mylar confetti for the tables," Geoff murmured, taking notes. "The color scheme could still be all wrong though..." He looked over at Courtney, tipping back his hat so she could see his face from his angle on the floor. "What's our desired outcome here?"

"Is this the scientific method for party planning?" Courtney joked.

"Huh?"

She leaned back on her hands with a small exhale. Bridgette would have understood that attempt at humor. "It's an apology party: I'm going to apologize. He's going to listen to me, and then he's going to forgive me."

That was the plan, anyway. The party would be her platform to say something meaningful, and as soon as she did, Duncan would inevitably come around to see that all of this was a big misunderstanding. A manipulation. A mistake.

"No, I got that," Geoff said, "but how? Are you gonna take him aside in the corner? Because if so, we need a corner. Duh. Or do you need a conga line to distract everyone while you talk? Drop a banner down from the ceiling? Are you gonna sing to him? Make a formal address? Or there's the classic—"

"That one!" Courtney said, sticking a finger to the ground. "The formal address. That sounds, uh..." Like something I can handle. "That sounds like me."

Geoff put the pen back to the map, which was quickly running out of unmarked land to write on. "All right, now we're getting somewhere! Then I'm gonna need a microphone and a break in the playlist, so we have time for speeches. As for music—"

Perpetually aware of the time, Courtney cut in. "Something upbeat and catchy, right?"

Geoff pointed at her with his feather. "With this crowd, it's gotta be familiar tunes."

"Top 40s?"

"Too generic."

Courtney thought for a long moment. "90's anthems?"

"Keep going..."

"2000's anthems!"

"What kind?"

"Oh! Oh!" she said, getting excited despite herself. "The end credits from movies? From romantic comedies!"

Geoff wiped a fake (or real?) tear from his eye and held up a hand to her. "I'm proud of you, dudette."

Courtney met his hand with a firm high-five, then handed him a handkerchief from the closest shelf.

After scribbling down their music guidelines (no Celine Dion), Geoff affixed the feather pen to his hat for safe-keeping and joined Courtney in search of Lindsay.

"Marco!" Geoff called, rounding a corner and coming face to face with a display of what Courtney ironically recognized as water polo equipment and Geoff didn't recognize at all.

"Lindsay!" echoed out from somewhere near the periphery of the room.

Courtney and Geoff exchanged a look, then shrugged, alternating calls of "Marco" until they found Lindsay trying to balance a large, rolled rug on top of an already-overflowing shopping cart.

"Finally," Lindsay said, abandoning the rug on the ground. It unrolled halfway to reveal the bottom third of what was, without question, Chris McLean's face. Lindsay stared down at it for a long moment. "That's not what the label said..."

Geoff winced and kicked the rug back into place. Courtney shoved it away with her toe.

"Need a hand?" Courtney asked, eying the cart. In addition to being overfull, it was tilting to the left at a slight, but slowly increasing, angle.

"Yes," Lindsay said. She shot Geoff a stern look. "I've been grabbing fifteen colors of everything since you didn't give me a theme, Jordan."

Geoff peered into the cart, then began pulling out packs of streamers and piling them onto the nearest shelf until there were only two colors left.

Courtney and Lindsay leaned in together to see what Geoff had left behind. "Ahhh," Lindsay said. "Apology party?"

Courtney's jaw dropped. "You're in on this too?"

"Duh," Lindsay said. "There's only one way to say 'sorry for getting cheese all over your hair straightener'. And saying it, isn't it."

"There's only one way to get cheese on a hair straightener, I hope," Courtney said, wrinkling her nose at the thought.

Geoff grinned. "You'd be surprised. Linds, you told me this story, right?"

"Probably. With the grilled cheese?"

Geoff threw his head back laughing. "Yup. Yup, you did."

Courtney rolled her eyes. She accepted the nonconforming color confetti packets from Geoff as he emptied the cart of all its off-theme materials.

When he was finished, Geoff took another look at the shopping cart, which, though less precariously stacked, still had little room for the tent he and Lindsay had deemed essential. "Yo Court, you know where I can get another one of these?" he said, patting the cart.

"They live with the cooking challenge supplies," she said. "Over..." Courtney oriented herself to the shelf in front of her, then ran through the series timeline as quickly as she could. "...There," she pointed.

"Cool," Geoff said with a salute. "I'm gonna grab another one. Lindsay, you know about the flowers?"

"Psh. Do I know about the flowers." Lindsay walked back around to the head of her cart. "I got this, George!"

"Sweet! Holler if you need me, then," Geoff said, taking off through the aisles, his feather bobbing ridiculously with his speed.

"As soon as I figure out where to find them, I am going to get the most apologetic flowers ever," Lindsay announced, pushing her cart forward.

"I can take you," Courtney said, picking up Lindsay's front wheels and turning the cart in the correct direction. "You said flowers? There's practically a garden of fake greenery by the west wall."

"We said flowers," Lindsay corrected, smiling brightly in Courtney's direction. "And so much more. Let me think..." She closed her eyes, then began ticking off on her fingers: "Tables, chairs, and cushions."

"We can borrow those from the dining room," Courtney replied, "with cushions from the lobby if necessary. But let's avoid dragging furniture all the way from the prop room if we can help it."

"Every party requires at least a little dragging," Lindsay told her. "But yeah, fair."

"What else?"

"Fairy lights! For sure."

Courtney marched herself to the nearest prop column and reached in between the shelves to grasp a string of lights. With a yank, it came loose and dropped in a pool on the floor. Courtney fed the meters of string lights through the shelving, wrapped it over her forearm efficiently, and deposited it in Lindsay's shopping cart.

"Done. Next?"

Lindsay smiled sheepishly. "Could we maybe get some that don't blink?"

Grudgingly, Courtney returned to the nearby column and repeated this feat for each type of light strand, in case Lindsay changed her mind, or Geoff decided medium-sized Christmas lights at a party signified mourning the death of your potted plant.

"There," Courtney huffed. "That's enough light to signal our own airplane out of here."

Lindsay beamed. "Great! Now we need ribbons, balloons, and candles. Oh, and a rug without Chris on it."

She and Courtney both made a face. Courtney said, "Most of the nice decorations are on the column for the first episode. Geoff should have the rest of your party essentials in his yacht package." She thought for a moment. "I'll cut the carpet out of my own bedroom if we really need it."

"Oh, we will," Lindsay asserted. "No one's gonna have a good time if we have to stare at Chris's face all night."

"Agreed." Courtney ran through her mental checklist. "All right, that's enough to start. We're short on time, so I'll draw you a map to navigate without me." She paused. "You can read a map, right?"

"Of course," Lindsay said, flipping her hair. "How else would I get around the mall?"

Courtney dug through Lindsay's cart until she came to a colored box of markers. She glanced up the shelf in front of her and, unable to reach anything better, selected an umbrella of transparent plastic. She propped it up open on the ground and began to draw.

"Bad luck much?" Lindsay asked, tapping her foot disapprovingly.

"My luck can't get much worse right now," Courtney muttered, drawing a red star on one edge and labeling it Exit.

"Oh, yeah," Lindsay said, her expression mellowing. "Apology party."

"Yup."

"I know all about those," Lindsay said. When Courtney didn't reply, busy trying to sketch on the convex surface of the umbrella, Lindsay continued. "Remember the cheese thing? That's not even the first party I had to throw over a hair straightener. The first time, I was staying at my cousin's house and left the straightener too close to the smoke detector and set it off at like, three in the morning. And my cousin had this important test or something the next day, so she had to roll into it with like five cups of coffee and these awful bags under her eyes, which is so embarrassing, right? Anyway, I had to throw a giant party even after she passed her test because it wasn't the first time I set her alarm off, and she wouldn't stop being mad about it! Until I made this toast about how her hair is better than mine. Which is a lie, but whatever."

"That doesn't sound much like a toast," Courtney said, counting the squares to make sure she'd gridded everything out correctly.

"Anything's a toast if you're holding a drink," Lindsay said. "And toasts have like, a totally high apology success rate."

Courtney paused. "They do?"

"I mean, it's worked for me like four times, so."

Tapping the marker against her lips, Courtney asked, "Say we wanted to do a toast tonight. What would we need?"

Lindsay preened. "Well, first, you're gonna need a break in the playlist. You'll have to take that up with Gerard. And of course you need a drink! Punch works fine if it's got enough of a kick. You never want to toast with wine because that's just a fashion disaster waiting to happen. Champagne is the best, but it's tacky to serve in plastic cups—"

"Whoa, wait, hold on," Courtney said, abandoning her map. "We can't do that."

"Oh, I know. So tacky."

"Not that! We can't…" Courtney lowered her voice. "...we can't serve alcohol."

Lindsay looked at her blankly. "Why not?"

Courtney stood, as if to outrun her rising anxiety. "Think about it! More than half our fellow campers are veritable trainwrecks when they're sober," she said. "And more importantly, we could get in serious trouble!"

Lindsay stared. "But the interns are gone. You said so."

Courtney opened her mouth, then shut it. For once, Lindsay's look of absolute incomprehension meant she had realized something Courtney hadn't. There was no one here to stop them. No one to tell them they couldn't drink. After all, in the penthouse, Courtney and Duncan already had—

"Do we really need it?" Courtney asked weakly.

Lindsay's look firmed into determination. "Does Beyonce need her back-up dancers?"

"Yes?" That felt like a trick question. "Er, no. Does she?"

"No, but the more you have, the bigger the party!"

Courtney sighed, giving in to her recently lax conscience. They didn't have much time. Courtney wasn't going to spend it arguing with Lindsay.

"I can hunt some down," she admitted. If she could fumble her way into the penthouse again without being overwhelmed by the utter Chris-ness of it and her own personal connection to the place. "Anything in particular on the drink menu?"

Lindsay offered a few suggestions—in order of their toasting success—while Courtney finished the map and wedged the umbrella into the cart. Lindsay's onslaught of questions and inability to remember the order of the episodes led Courtney to relabel everything anyway.

When the black of her marker started to overtake the blank of the umbrella, she gave up. "Just shout for Geoff if you need something," she said. "Or me, I guess. We'll help you."

"And we'll help you back!" Lindsay replied. She cleared her path of the offending rug from earlier, shoving it to the very back of the nearest shelf. Then, she looked over her shoulder at Courtney. "You can fix anything with a good apology, you know. Seriously."

"Thanks, Lindsay," Courtney said. An absurd thought occurred to her. "You're...not as clueless as I thought you were."

"I know, right?" Lindsay chirped, pulling out the umbrella and twirling it over her shoulder like a parasol. "And you don't have as many clues as I thought you did! Which is nice. You're just like the rest of us."

Lindsay turned her cart and disappeared down a row before Courtney could decipher how she felt about that.

The secret trophy case entrance to the penthouse wasn't difficult to find, now that Courtney knew what to look for. She made the grueling, four-story ladder climb and waded through Chris's junk on the balcony, keeping an eye out for where it reached peak concentration. The echoes of feedback from Geoff's sound system and Lindsay's conversation with her umbrella map amicably padded the silence of the room.

Courtney would have rathered another day in the Chicken Hat than a visit back to the penthouse. It spoke only to her dedication to this party, to Duncan himself, that she was willing to think of the location at all, let alone run an errand in the single most emotional place that existed for her on the island.

Courtney suspected that when she looked back on her life, that evening in the penthouse—much like the evening in the fish cabin—would stand out to her as a significant one. She would write about it in her memoir. By then, she'd have the context to see exactly what about those evenings made them so special.

What about that person made him so special.

Courtney nearly tripped over a Manet-inspired portrait of Chris McLean and found herself face-to-face with the passage inside. Her heartbeat rolled into a higher gear as she swiped at every trophy on the shelf until she found the one that wouldn't budge.

She stared at the trophy and imagined the mess waiting for her inside. Scattered clothes and bottles; an overflowed bathtub; paintings and books ruined on the floor.

It felt wrong to walk into the penthouse on her own, to overwrite the memories she and Duncan had made there. Together, they had given the penthouse a beating out of frustration, or desired chaos, or, maybe, just to revel in the fact that for a moment, they finally understood each other. When would something like that ever happen again?

Courtney checked her PDA. T-minus 15 hours. If she wanted to keep Duncan in her life and not just her memory, it was now or never.

She tipped the trophy forward and heard the rotation more than she felt it, a whoosh of air while she remained still, the world pivoting around her.

Courtney didn't face the room immediately. She stared at the golden cup a moment longer, her knuckles white with the grip. It was presumptuously engraved: Best TV Show Host, "Total Drama Island."

Finally, she turned.

Blinked.

The penthouse was pristine. As if nothing had happened there at all.

Of all the things Leshawna had been asked to do (or never asked to do and done anyway), none utilized her skills quite so well as Courtney's latest request. Wrangling Izzy into semi-formal attire? Easy. Getting into Noah's headspace and coaxing him out to a social situation? Simple. Propositioning Harold with a bootylicious dance to get him past his fear of Duncan? Obvious.

Shoving a couch and vending machine in front of Heather's door so she couldn't swoop in mid-party and curse Leshawna to prick her finger on a spinning wheel? Well, Leshawna would have done that for free.

Leshawna fixed the hem of her leopard-print dress (courtesy of her yacht package) and, after double-checking that she'd cleared the girl's floor, set off down the boy's hallway. These rooms had been cleared by her expertise as well. All but the last.

This one was going to require some finesse.

Leshawna let herself into Duncan's room quietly, her skeleton key replacing a knock. A few notable differences marked the room as Duncan's: the scar in the floor, for one, from Duncan's midnight rage against Heather and the interns' speedy patch job. The bedside table was a pile of splinters. A black duffel bag poked out from under the bed, where the mattress had been stripped bare of all its sheets and pillows.

No sign of Duncan.

Leshawna shut the door and headed for the only other room on the floor: the one reserved for Owen in the event that two girls made it to the finale.

She didn't need her skeleton key for that one. By the looks of it, the door had been brutally kicked in, splintering the doorframe. Leshawna pushed it in and took stock of the room. Other than the bed, every piece of furniture had been shattered and sharpened into stakes, swords, and shuriken that were littered all over the floor. A switchblade stuck out of the far wall, where it had been either stabbed or thrown. The only thing left intact, really, was the mattress, where a nest of sheets and pillows gave away Duncan's presence in the dark.

"I don't care who you are," the bedsheets growled. "When I say I will kill you, I will kill you."

Leshawna scoffed and flipped on the lights. "This your first time getting dumped, drama queen?"

A hand snaked out from under the sheets to point at Leshawna accusingly. "You, I'm going to enjoy killing."

Leshawna shuffled into the room, kicking a path through the signs of Duncan's knife-fueled rampage to sit at the foot of his mattress. Something shifted among the sheets and, suddenly, Bunny bounded out and into Leshawna's lap.

"Hey there, honeybunches," she cooed, petting him. "Did this big 'ole cream-puff scare you during his temper-tantrum?"

The blankets shifted down, revealing a icy blue eye.

But before Duncan could speak, Leshawna cut him off. "Calm down, I'm messin' with you. Bridgette says she beat me to an intervention by six hours." Duncan was silent. She released Bunny, who hopped back to him. "She kept it vague in the retelling," Leshawna said flatly, "so don't strain yourself."

Duncan scooped up Bunny protectively and burrowed back under the sheets.

"Real mature," she quipped. A middle finger emerged from the sheets in her direction. "You're handlin' this heartbreak spectacularly."

"What the hell do you know," the sheets grumbled.

Leshawna smirked. "I know you've been dizzy on the comedown since you stepped foot on this island. And that there's no way a girl like Courtney has so many synonyms for 'delinquent' on hand without putting some effort into it."

There was no answer.

Leshawna sighed loudly. "So this is your plan? Hide under the covers until evacuation tomorrow?"

"Nice try," Duncan muttered. "DJ and Geoff already stopped by. I'm not going to Courtney's stupid party."

"Good," Leshawna said. "I wasn't gonna invite you."

"Good," Duncan agreed.

"It's never a good idea to go to an ex's party," she advised. "Between you and me, you're making the right call here. Stay as far away as you can, as long as you can. All the food in the world ain't worth the drama, ya feel?"

Duncan's stomach growled traitorously.

"It's probably stale anyway," Leshawna went on, standing. "Courtney says it was up in some secret penthouse pantry. Can you believe that?" She adjusted her hoops. "I'll still eat it, though. Anyway, I better get back there myself. I was just checking in. We triathlon partners gotta stick together."

Leshawna made a straight line for the door, almost tripping over what looked like a half-formed sword. As she reached for the knob, the sheets shuffled significantly behind her.

"She sent you, didn't she?"

Leshawna turned back to Duncan, raising a brow at his accusation. "Excuse me?"

"She sent you to make sure I wasn't coming, didn't she? That b—!" Duncan's insult was lost in inarticulate swearing as he vehemently staggered out of bed and into his various articles of clothing.

"Come on, Duncan, don't be an asshole," Leshawna said. "You both deserve some space! Stay in tonight."

Duncan threw on his skull shirt and stalked out the door. "Let's see what's so damn great about this party I didn't get invited to," he snarled.

Leshawna shut the door behind them. "Not gonna bring your emotional support rabbit?"

"Screw you."

Leshawna followed Duncan to the employee staircase, grinning to herself. It was both a gift and a curse to be so damn good at her job.

Duncan took the stairs two at a time. It was bad enough that memories of Courtney wouldn't stop running through his head. Bad enough that everyone suddenly felt entitled to his business. Now she was barring him from the best thing to ever happen at Playa de Last Resort and expected him to take it lying down? Just because she broke his heart? Just because he was too tired to fight anymore? Ha.

Nothing motivated him quite like spite.

Leshawna trailed behind him, lobbing steady jabs his way, like how he should reconsider acting like a whiny brat in front of everyone, and wouldn't it be better if he sulked in peace?

Duncan ignored her.

He finally reached the top of the employee stairwell and shoved the door open, intending to march up to Courtney and make a scene.

With another few moments to process, Duncan might have noticed how much effort had gone into this event: the string lights draped around the perimeter of the roof between closed poolside umbrellas, around a stage with Trent's towering amps and Geoff's state-of-the-art mixing table, Geoff himself behind it, getting people dancing. He might have seen the dancefloor, puzzled together from pieces of the Dock of Losers, or the assortment of food under the tent in the back, and the semi-formal, semi-ridiculous outfits on everyone in attendance.

But he only saw Courtney—in a floor-length, silver-sequined dress that reflected the spotlights roaming over the dance floor. She was wearing lipstick and heels. Her hair fell straight down to her shoulders in a way that it never usually did.

She looked about as stunned to see him as he did to see her.

Before either of them could speak, Leshawna squeezed around Duncan and onto the roof. In passing, she patted Courtney on the shoulder. "I told him you didn't want him here. Good luck!"

Courtney whirled. "You what?!"

Without breaking her pace, Leshawna shrugged. "He's here. My job's done," she said, heading straight for the food.

Duncan wasn't listening. He was frantically reconnecting to the part of his brain that spoke English.

Courtney turned back to him slowly. "Duncan, hi," she said, a little breathless as she swallowed down the instinct to chase after Leshawna. "Glad you could make it! I don't know what Leshawna said exactly, but you were absolutely invited, I want to assure you, and I'm so glad you could make—ah, I already said that. I really am happy—"

"Sorry, have we met?" he asked coolly.

Courtney's welcoming smile flickered.

"Duuuncan," Lindsay trilled, arriving and tossing an arm around Courtney's shoulder. Her other hand held a glass of something dark. "It's Courtney! You know, Courtney? CIT?" When she only got an annoyed look from Duncan in response, she gestured. "Ohhh, I bet you don't recognize her because she's all feminine and stuff. But it's her. I did her makeup! And look at that dress, I mean wow, am I right?"

"I don't recognize it," Duncan said.

He did. He'd had at least sixteen separate fantasies of Courtney wearing that dress.

"You don't?" Courtney asked. She looked down at herself, then back up. "It came from the penthouse. I was up there looking for supplies. Maybe you remember it—well, you said you didn't—but it was just...in the closet, and I thought 'What's the harm in getting dressed up?'"

"Beth tailored it for her!" Lindsay supplied, unsteady on her feet. She had on a silk scarf with her red party dress that looked like something Chris would own for bragging rights only. "Doesn't she look preeeetty?"

"It's a dress," Duncan said.

A dress that fit like it was painted on her, better than he could have ever imagined or hoped to describe when he had first teased her with it in the penthouse.

This was revenge, Duncan realized suddenly. For what, he didn't know, but she'd chosen the single piece of clothing that would make him miserable, organized an event where it could be on full display, and hired Leshawna to make sure he paid witness to it. It was so subtly underhanded, a plan very uniquely Courtney—and he had walked right into it.

In his attempt to look anywhere but at Courtney, Duncan finally noticed the rest of the party. Something wasn't adding up. "Why am I here?" he asked the two of them.

"Because!" Lindsay said, "Courtney's gonna—"

"Lindsay," Courtney said, suddenly overriding her forced casual tone. "You came over here for something?"

"Oh yeahhh," Lindsay said, unlooping her arm from Courtney's shoulders. "DJ says we need more silverware."

Courtney pointed. "Under the dessert table."

Lindsay blinked once, very slowly, in Courtney's direction before wandering back out to the rooftop. Duncan wondered if it was supposed to be a wink, and then, more worryingly, what a wink could be doing in a situation like this.

Courtney brought her attention back to Duncan and flashed him with a smile that he knew from experience was too symmetrical to be genuine. "I guess she starts remembering people's names after a few drinks."

"I guess."

God, Courtney looked amazing. He fixed his gaze over her bare shoulder to keep himself from doing something stupid like forgiving her just because she looked gorgeous. If this wasn't revenge, then it was coercion. All he had to do was say what she wanted to hear and he could appreciate all of—

Duncan stopped himself right there. In the war between his libido and his ego, his ego was losing. Miserably. He had to remind himself that Courtney had ruined what they had and held herself blameless for all of it. No pretty dress or fun party was going to change that. No matter how much he secretly wished it would.

"I'm glad you're here," Courtney said after a moment.

Duncan shoved his hands in his pockets. "You already said that."

Courtney swallowed, dipping her gaze to the dainty bangle on her wrist. When she looked back up, it was with renewed charisma. "There's a lot left in the penthouse, you know. At first I thought they'd cleaned it, but...everything was still there. Underneath."

She paused for a moment, like he was supposed to find some meaning in that. He refused to, for his own sake.

"Not just the alcohol," she continued, "but food too. A lot of it. Mostly junk, since Chris has horrible taste, but enough to put together a nice spread. He had it hidden in a secret pantry that opened when you moved his cookbook. The interns told me about it, but I thought they'd lost their minds. Crazy, huh?"

Duncan wasn't sure he could answer. There was a growing pain in his chest now, that settled deeper and deeper every time Courtney opened her mouth.

She kept talking. "Then, I figured since I was there anyway, I should bring over some accessories from the closet, so everyone could get dressed up, you know? I didn't want to be the only one, but I thought it might be nice—well, I thought you might think it was nice…" She eyed him hesitantly, tucking some straightened hair behind her ear. "I hope you'll stay and enjoy it."

He wanted to. Badly.

But Leshawna was right, whether she'd known it or not. Duncan should have avoided this, because it was actually hurting now, seeing Courtney looking so lovely, everyone having such a good time. In some alternate timeline, they were at this party together. But that was impossible now. They were over. Courtney stood in front of him as a loss—a permanent reminder that he would never outrun his reputation. Better, then, to lean into it. Delinquents didn't like parties.

"I'm gonna go," he said stiffly and set back down the stairs.

"Duncan, wait!"

Courtney's hand closed around his wrist as the door to the roof shut behind them with a bang. "There's food here," she said quickly. "The only food on the island. You haven't eaten all day."

"I'll manage."

He tried to yank his wrist from her grip, but she just followed him down one more stair. "Duncan, please, I really think you'll—"

"What?" he said, coming to a full stop and looking her straight in the eye. "You think I'll what, Courtney?"

For a second, it looked like he'd caught her off guard again. But in the privacy of the stairwell, her expression steeled into that look of determination he used to love so much.

"I think you'll have a good time," she finished evenly.

Just then, the lights in the stairwell flickered. Abruptly, they went out altogether. Duncan nearly tripped down the next step as it turned to darkness. Still gripping his wrist, Courtney went stumbling behind him, cursing.

It was suddenly quiet, even with the disgruntled shouts from the group on the rooftop. The music had gone off. The lights had gone out. Even the usually imperceivable buzz of electricity was gone.

Playa's power was dead and, when it didn't return after a couple of seconds, Duncan guessed that this time, it was for good.

"Just like I thought," Courtney muttered, tugging a reluctant Duncan back up the stairs. When they emerged onto the roof, lit well enough by the night sky, she shouted, "Geoff, grab the generators!" and made a few gestures to Lindsay and Leshawna, who jogged over to join him.

In the darkness and the quiet, Duncan was struck with the bizarre sensation that they were alone. He shrugged off her grip, and Courtney left her hand floating awkwardly between them. For a moment, Duncan found himself wishing that her hands were around him instead, or in his hair, balled up in his shirt, between his fingers. Then he wished he had never shown her that dress, or met her in the first place.

"Look," Courtney said, forceful, but quiet enough that those nearby wouldn't hear. "I know this isn't how you planned to spend tonight, but this roof is the only place for kilometers with any food, and it's about to be the only one with power."

Duncan frowned. She was right.

"And I'm not under any illusion that you staying means you've forgiven me or anything. But even if it's just to eat...I hope you will."

Duncan looked at Courtney, shimmering in the faint light of the stars. He looked beyond her at the silhouettes of his friends, familiar and yet the slightest bit off, everyone sporting at least one ridiculous penthouse accessory.

"I know what you're doing," Duncan said finally, walking past Courtney and into the party.

He really wished that were true.

The only thing less consistent than Playa's power is our writing schedule.

From strayphoenix: Well Courtney, it seems the real treasure was the friends you didn't irrevocably screw over along the way.

I don't even know what to say about this chapter other than the clock is ticking down: for Courtney and for us. Only a couple more chapters now until the end of this rollercoaster ride called TAOP. I'm going to ugly laugh-cry if we end up finishing this on or around our ten year anniversary. Actually, let's be real: it'll be uncontrollable weeping.

Let us know your thoughts on Courtney's party-planning committee and her underlying plan. Do you think it'll work? Does she have a snowball's chance in Wawanakwa? Do you believe what the rom-coms say? Stay tuned to find out.

From Contemperina: Happy Valentine's Day, readers! Today, we celebrate our love for you, and also our love for the exponential equation that represents the consistent but steadily increasing gaps in our posting schedule. I would say that my New Year's Resolution is to conclude this story in 2018, but that may be giving us too much credit. 2019, though, here we come.

I hope you enjoyed this chapter's ride, hurtling steadily towards some sort of conclusion (?) that is only made possible by revisiting so many settings from the past. Is it symbolism? Is it lazy writing? Is it the fact that you can only introduce so much new architecture on Playa before the island weighs too much and pushes itself into the sea? You be the judge.

Also, stray and I only recently realized that Muskoka is not, in fact, on an ocean but instead a Great Lake? Clearly we are not from Canada. So if you want to just do a Find All - Replace - ocean - lake throughout the full duration of the story, that would do the trick. We spend hours researching how long it takes to die if you get stuck in an industrial freezer and ultimately move the scene to a pantry because the answer is, startlingly, NOT THAT LONG, but we never looked at a simple map to see where our entire story is taking place. Go figure.

Thanks, as always. Until next time!