Next chapter! Hope you enjoy it!

It was early in the evening. Dinnertime had come and gone, but a lot of the campers were still up, hanging out by the poolside. Two such campers, Eva and Noah, were resting on the sun loungers in their favourite spot. It was a little more quiet in their corner, with the others mostly congregated by the poolside bar a little ways away.

"You sure finished that quickly," Noah remarked as Eva dropped a book into his lap. Angels of Dusk, another Peter Sands book that Noah had brought along with him. It was an absolute door-stopper at nearly five hundred pages, yet Eva had powered through it in three days.

"Yeah. It was good." Eva responded. "Not as good as Portrait of a Man in Peril, though."

Noah nodded knowingly. "Told you that was his best one."

The faintest of smiles graced Eva's lips. "Couldn't put it down. I stayed up all night reading that. Almost didn't want it to end."

"But alas, all good things must come to an end," Noah said, reclining his head back to look at the stars. "But I did bring along another one of his books: Still Water Mill. That one's pretty long, too. It'll keep you occupied for a while."

"How many books did you bring with you? Seriously, from the sounds of it, you have enough to stock an entire library."

"Well I'm a fast reader, so I had to bring enough to-AAAAAHHHHH!"

Noah fell off his lounger in shock as a burst of red smoke suddenly appeared right between him and Eva. A human form materialized out of the smoke, and with it, an all too familiar voice.

"Hey, Noah! Hey, Eva! Wow, sweet place ya got here! Sure beats that crummy island, haha. Ooh, look, everyone else is here, too! Hi, you guys!"

Noah blinked. "Izzy?!"

Izzy grinned, gesturing to herself. "Isadora Nascar Bell, in the flesh! Just got voted off, and now I'm so down to par-tay!" She sashayed her hips for effect.

"How in the everloving fuck did you do that?" Eva said, pointing at the dissipating cloud of smoke.

"A good magician never reveals her secrets." Izzy said sagely.

"Also, did you just say your middle name is Nascar?" Noah had never been more confused and alarmed - simultaneously - in his life.

"Sure did! My parents let my brother pick it! He was only like five at the time, and he was super into NASCAR at that age. Still is, actually."

Eva and Noah shared a look.

"Hey, look everyone! Izzy's here!" Tyler called out from across the pool.

Soon everyone was congregated around Izzy, all desperate to know what wacky shenanigans got her booted this time around. To everyone's shock - but no one's surprise - it was for shooting Heather in the butt with a tranquiliser gun.

"She was knocked out cold for like, half the day!" Izzy bounded around animatedly as she told this marvellous tale. "And when she did wake up, her head was lolling to the side and her speech was really slurred! You could barely tell what she was saying!"

Quite a few smirks were shared amongst the other losers, Noah and Eva included. They had yet to see this week's episode, of course, but they knew that it was bound to be a doozy - if Izzy's description of it was anything to go by.

After a while, the novelty of Izzy's return wore off and everyone returned to their business. Noah lay back on his sun lounger, arms behind his head as he reclined. As the crowd slowly moved indoors one by one, he smiled. He was looking forward to the night ahead of him; peaceful, beautiful and relaxing. Since the other campers were starting to go to bed, he would have the entire poolside to himself. It was too good to be true.

You know what they say about things that are too good to be true. They usually are.

Eva had long since bid him goodnight and gone to bed. The poolside was now empty. It was perfect.

One thing that Noah hesitated to tell people was that he loved stargazing. Oftentimes others thought it was lame, or boring, or weird for someone as smart and sardonic as him to do. But that didn't stop him from enjoying it anyway. There was something so endlessly mesmerising about finding shapes and patterns amongst the stars. And, yes, a part of him liked it for the aesthetic reasons, too.

Noah let his mind wander far, far away as the stars twinkled high up above him. There was no sound save for the gentle rustling of leaves and the waves crashing on the shore. The lights in the hotel went dark, one by one. The poolside lights did too, except for the one by the backdoors. He was in his own little half-lit world of peace and quiet. Slowly, but surely, a content smile crept its way onto his face.

Something akin to total happiness swelled in his chest. Things literally could not get any more perfect.

So of course, it was to be expected that things would eventually become not perfect.

"Hey Noah! You're still out here? I thought I was the only one!"

Izzy's head emerged from the bushes next to him. Noah gasped, barely holding back a scream.

"Jesus, Izzy! Stop scaring me like that!"

"Sorry! It's just really fun to scare people! Especially when they go 'AAAHHHH' like you did earlier. Once, I managed to sneak up on my grandpa while he was napping on the couch. I scared him so much that he peed himself! It was hilarious!" Izzy broke into giggles, wiping a tear from her eye. She sat down on the other lounger, taking her feet out of her slippers. "But anyway, what'cha doin' out here?"

"Well, I was enjoying some peace and quiet," Noah narrowed his eyes at her, hoping she'd take the hint.

If she understood just how much she was annoying him right now, she did not acknowledge it. On the contrary, she stayed right where she was and craned her head back. "Ooh, I know what you were doing! You were looking at the stars!"

No point in hiding it now. "Yes. I was. Now please just leave me alone so that I can keep looking at them in peace."

"Nah. I think I might join you." And with that, Izzy lay down, defying Noah's hopes for some alone time.

But, to Noah's confusion (and partial delight), Izzy actually shut up for once. She didn't chatter endlessly about whatever; she just lay there, hands on her stomach, hair like a ginger halo around her head, stars filling her eyes. It was so unlike her to be as still as she was that Noah forgot to stargaze himself. He kept his eyes on her, almost daring her to ruin the moment somehow.

But she didn't.

She was as still as a statue, looking more star-struck - literally - than Noah had ever seen her before. It was as if she'd never laid eyes on the sky before. Noah continued to watch her quietly, in wonder of her new subdued demeanour.

Finally, she did turn to face him. When she did, her eyes were wide with awe, and she wore a smile of pure joy.

"Why are you staring at me like that?" she said, voice barely above a whisper.

Noah blinked, slightly embarrassed at being caught. "I've just never seen you look so… peaceful before."

Izzy continued to smile at him, like she couldn't believe what was happening to her. "And I've never seen anything as beautiful as this." She gestured to the sky, palm up, fingers splayed.

"The stars?"

Izzy nodded. "Back home, there's so much light pollution that you can't even see them. But here… I never knew they could be so beautiful…" Her voice was so oddly whispery and dreamy that Noah found it hard to believe it belonged to the same psycho hose beast who was wanted by the RCMP.

"You've never seen them before?" Noah was in even more disbelief when Izzy shook her head.

"Nope. Unless space documentaries count, of which I've seen many, trust me. But they're so much nicer looking in real life."

"They are." Noah could hardly believe what was happening with his life. First he managed to forge a friendship of sorts with the resident female bully, and now here he was bonding with the most insane person he'd ever met. Over stargazing, no less.

Izzy turned to Noah, speaking a little louder this time. "You're pretty smart, right, Noah? Do you know any of those constellation thingys?"

Noah was more than happy to show off his knowledge. "Sure," he said as he pointed into the sky. "That's the Big Dipper right there. And that-" he pointed at another cluster of stars, "-is Orion's Belt."

Izzy's eyes sparkled with the stars. "Cool!" she exclaimed happily.

Noah pointed out a few more constellations to her, actually managing to hold onto her attention as he did so. She listened intently, asking a few follow-ups questions, and generally being a respectful student of the stars.

If only for a little while.

After another half-hour, Izzy slowly started returning to her normal self. Her voice rose in volume, she started doing weird acrobatics on the lounger, and she started telling Noah all about the time she accidentally got locked in a grocery store overnight. Her star-struck demeanour had worn off and Noah couldn't help but sigh. Oh well. It was good while it lasted.

"...And that's why, if you ever find yourself desperate enough to break a window, now matter how expensive it may be to replace, just do it! Otherwise your funeral would probably be even more expensive!" Izzy finished her rambling with a slight cackle.

Noah rolled his eyes. "Sure. I'll keep that in mind next time I go grocery shopping."

"Good!" Izzy took a moment to pause, then she continued with, "Actually, this reminds me of the time I-"

"Hey!" A voice called out to them from near the hotel. It was one of the staff members. "You two should be inside by now! We're locking up for the night!"

Noah stood up and breathed a sigh of relief, silently thanking the man for sparing him from yet another one of Izzy's long-winded tales. Speaking of whom…

"Well, it was nice talking to you. Goodnight."

But Izzy wasn't going to be shaken off quite so easily, not just yet. She stood up and latched onto Noah's arm as he walked along the edge of the pool towards the doors.

"Wow, your arm is so bony! You need some meat on this chicken wing! Ooh, is that a buffet table over there? Is the food here any good? Owen would love it here, don't you think? Hey, I wonder if-"

They finally reached the doors. Noah took the opportunity to wrench his arm away and step out of Izzy's reach. He pushed open the door and went into the dimly-lit hallway leading to his room. "Well, it was nice talking with you-"

"Sure was!" Izzy gave Noah one more surprise for the night: a hug. A brief one, but a hug nevertheless. "Thanks for showing me the stars tonight! See you tomorrow!" And then she turned and skipped off down the hallway to her own room.

Noah stayed where he was, scratching the back of his head. That girl was absolutely nuts. But tonight, she was somewhat bearable. He'd never seen her in such a dreamy, peaceful state before.

He wondered if he'd ever see her like that again, or if this was just a one-time-only thing.

Hopefully Izzy wasn't too OOC in this chapter, even if it is sort of the point lol. I've always liked the idea of certain activities (like stargazing) having a sort of calming effect on her and turning her slightly less crazy for a while.

It's sort of a headcannon of mine that Izzy is primarily a city girl and doesn't have quite as much experience with the wilderness as everyone thinks she does (though that's not to say she doesn't have any at all - I mean this is Izzy we're talking about), so it makes sense to me that she hasn't gotten a good hard look at the stars before.

I also though that stargazing would be an interesting hobby for Noah to have, since it's pretty solitary (or as social as he wants it to be) and knowing all the constellations is kinda nerdy :P

Now that Noah has established the foundation of friendships with both Eva and Izzy, the next chapter is going to focus more on Eva and Izzy becoming friends, as well as the formation of the trio we all know and love.

See you next time!