A/N - Hi, welcome to my fic. This isn't quite a competition fic, but it takes place during Total Drama Island, and campers are going to get eliminated every episode/chapter. It doesn't focus as much on the challenges but more on the friendships and relationships formed throughout the season. It starts at the end of Phobia Factor because I wanted to set some background work before we get to the big change. Generally speaking, things are the same until Basic Straining. Cross posted on AO3.

"It's not my fault," Tyler stubbornly repeated for the fourth time, "chickens are terrifying."

Bridgette shook her head, "no, Tyler, chickens are not terrifying, and all you had to do was sit in the same pen as one for five minutes!"

"Whatever, it's not like you were able to finish your challenge either," Tyler spit back, "and what excuse does Geoff have? All he had to do was stand under the hail cloud for five minutes. Same as me!"

"Hail is totally scary though, dude, it can bruise you," Geoff argued, "not like chickens, which are, like, the chilliest birds of all time."

Tyler thought for a moment before making his next statement, "oh, give me a break, Geoff. You just had to sit there. I actually had to touch a chicken."

"Guys, can you please stop arguing about this? We all messed up. This isn't helping anything," Harold was trying his best to keep the peace, but it was becoming increasingly more difficult as the fight went on.

The Killer Bass had been at this for the past twenty minutes. It was everyone and no one's fault that they had lost the challenge, and, because of this, their argument had begun to resemble a broken record.

Bridgette and Geoff couldn't believe Tyler couldn't sit in pen with a chicken for five whole minutes, Tyler was holding on to his defense that chickens were evil, and Harold wanted to keep the peace, but his own failure kept being thrown in his face. DJ, Duncan, and Sadie weren't helping matters; the three of them seemed to have an unspoken agreement to let the four losers hash it out. They were going to vote for who they wanted to vote for.

And then, there was the empty spot at the table: the spot where Courtney should be but wasn't. Since the challenge had ended, none of the Killer Bass had seen their resident CIT, but they all knew where she was. Courtney was in the confessional cam, crying her heart out. No one had brought her up yet, it felt like bad form when she wasn't there to defend herself.

"Shut up, Harold," Bridgette said, "you knocked yourself out before you even knew what your challenge was going to be!"

This whole argument, of course, was overlooking the fact that only three of the eight Killer Bass managed to pass their challenge, and that all five losers would have had to face their fear to beat the Screaming Gopher's seven. That didn't seem to matter to anyone.

Harold looked down at his lap, "you're right, Bridgette, I reacted too soon. I apologize."

"What about Courtney?" Tyler suggested, throwing all caution to the wind. He knew it was a gamble to bring her up, but they couldn't ignore the hole in the conversation forever. For the first time since dinner started, there was a lull in the conversation. Tyler took this as an invitation to explain his thought, "I mean, she could have won us triple points just for jumping into that green jelly. We would have won."

Tyler looked around at his teammates and quickly realized that maybe he should have kept this argument to himself. There was a fire in Bridgette's eyes that wasn't there before, and Duncan looked ready throw the athlete off the island himself. Harold audibly took in a reactionary breath. DJ and Geoff looked amused, like they knew all hell was about to break loose. Sadie was confused.

Things were quiet for moment longer. Then, "No. No, you do not get to say that," Bridgette spit out. Meanwhile, Duncan rose to his feet, said something about needing air, and pulled DJ outside with him.

Tyler had enough sense to not argue back this time, but Bridgette kept going, "Courtney did her best today. Maybe she failed to perform, but so did you, so did I, so did most of us! If we would have managed to face our fears she wouldn't have even been put in that position!"

"Okay, I get it, sorry Bridgette," Tyler tried to apologize, but the surfer girl wasn't finished yet.

"No! You don't get it! Courtney is better than all of us. Maybe she has a backwards way of doing it, but she's the one who's been leading this team since day one," Bridgette took a much-needed breath, "so, she screwed up. We all did. And what are we doing about it? Arguing like children about who deserves to go home! Well, it's definitely not Courtney! What's she doing right now? Crying her eyes out in the confessional."

Things were quiet for a full two minutes. Harold and Sadie exchanged a look of surprise, not believing what had just come out of their sweet granola goddess' mouth. Geoff had a proud expression on his face. Since the arguing began he knew it was just a matter of time before Bridgette lost it. Tyler opened his mouth to say something, but Bridgette shook her head at him and got up, "You should be ashamed of yourself, Tyler. We all should. I'm going to check on Courtney," and with that she left. Geoff quickly got up and followed her out.

Meanwhile, Duncan pulled DJ across camp. On the short walk over to the cabin, Duncan kept muttering about how annoying everyone was being and how there was no way Courtney would be the one leaving. DJ just kept his mouth shut, trying hard not to giggle. It was funny any time Duncan got worked up over anything, especially when it had to do with Courtney.

Once the two of them reached the cabin, they stopped at the porch and sat on the steps. Neither of them said anything for a minute. Instead, they opted to enjoy the first bit of quiet they've had since before the challenge started.

Finally, Duncan broke the silence, "sorry, man," he apologized with a constrained voice, "I had to get out of there. Everyone was being so annoying."

"No worries, I understand," DJ said, giving his friend a smile, "hard not to get mad when someone suggests we vote of your girl."

Duncan rolled his eyes but decided to let it go. There was no point in arguing, especially after he let his dumb crush slip to Geoff and DJ after the talent challenge. It had become a joke among the two of them, don't get between Duncan and his girl. Usually, the delinquent would try to put a stop to it, but this time there were more pressing matters to attend to.

"Yeah, and what about it?" Duncan asked, trying to keep it casual. Then, before giving DJ a chance to answer, he moved on, "let's form an alliance."

DJ shrugged, assuming that was not the end of the pitch. Even though Duncan wanted to give off the impression that he rolled with the punches, he always thought things through to painstaking detail, "tell me about it."

Duncan eagerly obliged, "five person power alliance. You, me, Geoff, Courtney, Bridgette. We're all good enough friends, I guess, and we all perform well in challenges. Five gives us the ability to get rid of the rest of our team pre-merge and gives us a fighting chance post-merge, if we stick together. What do you say?"

"'Course, man," DJ quickly accepted, "we'll be unstoppable! Think the other'll be into it?"

Duncan grinned and pointed to the mess hall door. Bridgette had just stormed out, and Geoff was hot on her heels, "go get them and find out."

DJ ran to catch up with his teammates and heard Bridgette muttering about how she couldn't believe that just happened and how Tyler should be ashamed of himself. He smiled to himself before interrupting the surfer girl's tirade, "Hey Bridgette. Geoff. Can we talk to y'all for a moment?" He motioned over to where Duncan was sitting, "we have a proposition for you."

This caused Geoff to stop, but Bridgette was kept going, "Sorry, DJ. In a moment. I'm going to check on Courtney. Take Geoff, and I'll join you in a minute."

"Sorry, Bridge," DJ grabbed her wrist and walked with her, leaving Geoff behind, "but I think this might help with Courtney, now come on."

Bridgette thought for a second, but ultimately decided that whatever it was DJ and Duncan had to tell her could wait. "I'm going, DJ. Please let go of my wrist so that I can check on Courtney. I haven't seen her since the challenge ended."

"Fine," DJ dropped her wrist and whispered, "but I'd think you'd want to know about a potential alliance!"

Finally, he had gotten her attention. She stopped walking, turned to face him, and crossed her arms, "well, let's hear it, DJ. Let's hear about this alliance that I must know about before checking on Courtney. You've got two minutes."

"Uhm, I'm going to need you to come with me, Bridge," DJ tried, but, judging by the look on the girl's face, she wasn't going anywhere. "Fine, we can stay here," he motioned over Geoff and called out to Duncan.

Once Duncan had made his way over to the three of them, Bridgette demanded to know what was going on, "DJ said something about an alliance." Geoff, who hadn't heard DJ mention the alliance, let out an interested, "what?" that went ignored by his teammates.

Duncan rolled his eyes at the pair, "did he?"

"Uhm, Dunc, man, I think you better get to the point," DJ advised, while Bridgette placed a hand on her hip, and ordered, "you have thirty seconds. Tell me what's going on."

"Fine, Malibu. You heard right. I was thinking a five person majority alliance. The four of us and Courtney. What do you say? And Geoff?" Geoff answered, "yes," before Duncan was able to even get his question out. Bridgette just sighed and nodded.

Duncan grinned a celebratory grin, "great. Now I just have to ask Courtney, and we'll be all official." DJ had to bite his lip to keep from laughing and Geoff grimaced at Duncan's innocent mistake.

"No, you're not," Bridgette challenged, while walking away, "I'm checking on her now. I'll tell her, okay. Just go back to the cabins, boys. Oh, and by the way, we're voting Tyler."

"Whatever, Malibu," Duncan called after her, "just bring her back when you're done. I wanna have a meeting before the marshmallow ceremony."

Courtney sat in the confession, letting the tears roll down her face "I just, I failed," she said between sobs, "I failed my team, and I deserve to go home. They're not going to want to keep me here."

She was silent for a moment before letting out a breath, "there's no way I'll be able to convince them to keep me," she let out a watery laugh, "I don't think I'll even be able to convince myself to keep me!"

A knock brought Courtney out of her pity party. Who was bothering her? Before she had a chance to voice that sentiment she heard Bridgette's soft voice pleading with her to open the door. Figuring her friend wasn't there to ridicule her, Courtney opened the door but remained in the confessional.

"What do you need, Bridgette?" Courtney asked, "is everything okay?"

Bridgette would have laughed at Courtney's instinct to make sure everyone else was fine if it had not been for the tears streaming down her face. Instead, she opted for a smile, grabbed Courtney's hand, and pulled her out of the confessional, "let's get out of here and find somewhere a little nicer to talk."

Courtney didn't know what was going on, but she trusted Bridgette enough that nothing bad was going to happen. They walked past the dining hall and the cabins. She saw DJ, Duncan, and Geoff watching them walk across camp, and she was grateful that everyone else seemed to be inside the dining hall. The less people to see her like this the better.

When they reached the arts and crafts tent, which seemed to be their final destination, Bridgette motioned to the CIT to go inside, and pulled her into a tight hug. Courtney relaxed into her friend's embrace, buried her head in the blonde's shoulder, and let herself cry. If it were anyone else she'd be embarrassed, but Bridgette had the ability to make almost anyone feel safe. The two of them remained like that for about ninety seconds before Courtney pulled back and apologized.

"I'm so sorry, Bridgette," Courtney wiped a tear from her eye, "I let everyone down."

"No! Court, I promise, you didn't!" Bridgette reassured her friend, grabbing and squeezing her hand, "we were down by so much. A lot of us failed. I know I did."

Courtney shook her head, "yes I did! I could have won us triple points. And now you guys are going to send me home!"

"Do not say that," Bridgette ordered with a conviction Courtney hadn't heard from her before, "you are not going anywhere."

"Of course I'm going somewhere! Maybe you're not going to vote for me, but everyone else will! Nobody on this team even likes me that much!" The CIT insisted, covering her face with her free hand.

Bridgette accidentally let out a chuckle at that, "if no one even likes you that much then why am I here with an invitation to join a majority alliance?"

"What?" Courtney's head shot up, "an alliance? No way! With who? No one's going to want to save me! Whose idea was this?" Once again, Bridgette laughed, and wasted no time answering her friend's rapid questions, "yes, an alliance. You, me, DJ, Duncan, Geoff. I don't know, I think Duncan's but maybe DJ's."

These answered posed a whole new set of questions, "I don't understand. Why would those boys want to work with me? Also, who are we voting for?"

Bridgette laughed at Courtney's question, which earned her an annoyed look. It was rather obvious to the surfer why Duncan wanted to work with Courtney. His subtlety left a lot to be desired. Instead of telling her this, Bridgette just shrugged, "I don't know. Maybe they think you're a good competitor. Maybe they like you. And Tyler. So are you in?"

"Sure," Courtney answered, shrugging. An alliance certainly wouldn't hurt anything. And if it kept her safe tonight? Sign her up. "But why Tyler? Why not Harold? Neither of them are very useful."

Bridgette looked to the ground in embarrassment, "I may have told Tyler off at dinner."

"Why? What happened?" Courtney couldn't imagine Bridgette telling off a fly, let alone Tyler.

"Let's just say that things were heated, and Tyler made a suggestion that I wasn't too fond off," Bridgette sheepishly answered, "he wanted us to voted you off, and I kind of lost it on him. Not my proudest moment."

Courtney couldn't believe it. No one had ever stuck up for her in that way before and it made her heart swell with gratitude. She pulled a surprised Bridgette into another hug, "thanks," she whispered, "that means a lot."

"No problem," Bridgette whispered back, "that's what friends are for."

Pulling away, Courtney gave her friend a soft smile. Then, there was a knock on the door. The two girls shared a confused look, no one ever came to the arts and crafts tent except them. Bridgette just shrugged and moved to look out the window on the door. Peering out, she saw all three of their new alliance mates.

"It's the guys," Bridgette informed Courtney, "Duncan said something about having a meeting earlier, guess he got tired of waiting. I'm going to let them in."

Courtney nodded, "sure." She assumed the five of them would have to talk about this alliance at some point before the marshmallow ceremony tonight.

After opening the door, Bridgette stepped aside to let the guys enter. Duncan brushed past the surfer to Courtney and stopped in front of her, not leaving much space between their bodies.

"Are you in?" he asked, trying his best to mask his hopefulness with a layer of indifference. Courtney gave him a slight nod, which caused him to break his façade and give her a quick hug and a genuine smile, "good."

Then, Duncan pulled away and took a few steps back so that he could addressed the group, "it's official, we have ourselves an alliance!"

"Yeah, dude!" Geoff exclaimed while DJ let out a loud, "nice!" Courtney and Bridgette just shared an amused looked, neither could say that this would be boring.

"I know, I know," Duncan continued, "we're all excited. But we've gotta get to the important stuff, like how this is all going to work. We can't just form an alliance. We have to work together as a group." He took a breath and gave a certain CIT a joking smirk, "that means you, Princess. We work together. Can't boss us all around."

Courtney scoffed, like she couldn't believe he was calling her out for being commanding, "whatever, Duncan. I can be a team player."

"Whatever you say," he said before moving on, "there's no way the five of us aren't making it to the merge, and, if we stick together, we can dominate to the end game. That means we have to decide as a group who were going to vote off. We have to consider all our options, we can't get rid of people too early or too late."

While Duncan continued explaining the importance of strategy, all of his new alliance mates, save Courtney, zoned him out. Sure, this alliance was new and exciting, but that stuff didn't matter right now! Why couldn't they just hang out and have fun and not talk this to death?

Bridgette caught Geoff's eye causing the party animal to pretend to gag himself. The surfer let out a giggle at that, while DJ just shook his head and smiled at the pair. Duncan and Courtney remained oblivious to their antics. Then, the delinquent pulled them back into focus by asking, "that good with everyone?"

"Of course!" Courtney answered while DJ, Geoff, and Bridgette all made panicked eye contact. What had Duncan asked? "He can't get away with trying to vote me off!" Ah, it must have been about a Tyler elimination.

"I agree," Bridgette added, hoping she was on the same page, "Tyler has to go. Especially since I kinda lost it on him."

Duncan shot Bridgette a confused yet amused look, "you lost it on Tyler?" Her and Geoff nodded, and the delinquent let out a long groan, "maaaan, wish I could have been there to see it!"

Bridgette smiled, "guess you'll have to stick around next time."

Meanwhile, Tyler was preparing for his own meeting at the dock. He knew it was probably him who was going to be eliminated tonight, and he wanted to say bye to Lindsay. While waiting for her, he reflected on the disastrous dinner and his part in it. In hindsight he knew it was a bad idea to even bring Courtney up in the first place. She had been the Killer Bass' makeshift leader since at least the dodgeball challenge, and he knew both Bridgette and Duncan had grown attached to her in a way where they would never vote her out. And then, with those two's sway over DJ and Geoff, it was never going to happen. He knew that even though there was probably no way he could have completely prevented his elimination, there was a chance that if he hadn't pushed so hard and waited it out that Harold could have been the one going home tonight.

"Hi, Tyler," Lindsay greeted as she sat down next to him.

Tyler wrapped his arm around her and gave her a sad smile, "hey, Linds."

Noticing her boyfriend's uncharacteristically sad expression, Lindsay furrowed her eyebrows together and touched his face, "what's wrong?"

Tyler closed his eyes. He didn't want to have to tell her he was going tonight, but he had to. It wouldn't be fair to her if he knew he was going and didn't tell her. Taking a deep breath, Tyler broke the news, "I'm probably going to be voted off tonight."

"What?" Lindsay asked, her voice full of shock, "why?"

"I failed my challenge then pissed everyone off," Tyler explained, "I thought maybe we should get rid of Courtney, and I stupidly suggested it."

Lindsay leaned away from him and placed a hand over her mouth. Even though she wasn't the brightest girl, she knew the Killer Bass was Courtney's team. Also, neither Bridgette nor Duncan would ever vote off the CIT, and she thought Tyler knew that.

"I can't believe you did that, Tyler," Lindsay admonished, "you know that Duncan totally likes her and that her and Bridgette are, like, best girl friends on this island!"

"I know," Tyler agreed, "I made a mistake. Bridgette even yelled at me."

Lindsay had to laugh at Tyler's pouting expression. He was so cute, she couldn't help it. She also had heard the surfer going off about something at dinner, but she hadn't known what it was about. It had been funny at the moment, and it was funny now. Tyler always said that Bridgette was the nicest person on his team, and the thought of her getting so worked up about anything was amusing.

"I'm sorry, babe," Lindsay said between giggles, "is there anything I can do to help you feel better?" She had a few ideas.

Tyler, it seemed, had the same ideas. His face lit up hilariously quickly as he furiously nodded his head, "yeah, babe. Wanna give me some goodbye kisses?"

"Hmmm," Lindsay hummed, pretending to think it over. Then, she gave Tyler a big smiled and pulled his face to hers. "Of course," she whispered before kissing him.

The kissing went on for several minutes, during which time Tyler managed to pull Lindsay completely onto his lap to where she was straddling him. Then, he laid down on his back, pulling her on top of him. After a few minutes of this, she rolled off him and grabbed his hand. The mood suddenly got sullen.

"I'm going to miss you," Lindsay whined, "are you sure it's going to be you?"

Tyler nodded, "I'm almost positive, sorry." He was quiet for a moment, then, "I'm going to miss you, too, babe. Promise not to forget me?"

"Of course not!" Lindsay exclaimed, as if that was the stupidest question in the world, "I could never forget you, Tyler!"

Good," he smiled at her, "wanna kiss some more?"

Lindsay returned his smile, "oh, yes."

A/N So here's chapter one. If you enjoyed it, please leave a comment. I'd really appreciate it! Like I said at the beginning, this story is cross posted on AO3. I have the first ten chapters up there, but I decided to post it here to reach a larger audience. I will post one chapter every day until I catch up, so ten days. Then, I'll post them as they come.