After a stressful exams week for Nicole, Trent, and Noah, it was finally winter break, which meant Nicole and Trent were off school for the month. Trent would be staying the night on and off for the duration of the month while he spent some time with his family, and she'd be joining him right after Aunt Amelia's famous Christmas party to spend the holidays with his family, just for the pair to be back with Noah and Cody in time for New Years. Noah was happy to have her back, as they had both been too busy since after Nicole's surgery to keep up as much communication as they'd liked. As they ate, the four were catching each other up on how life was going for everyone, with Nicole continuing with a story she had about Trent at their university.

"I should probably mention that everyone in the music department treats Trent normally. They'll ask him about Drama Brothers and Total Drama sometimes, but only once in a while when it's brought up and after getting to know him." Nicole said. "It's just Millicent who's the crazy fan-obsessed student."

"She's majoring in composition. Nice girl, but definitely doesn't understand how to take a hint."

"Or how to respect boundaries." Nicole spoke out loud. He chuckled as he thought of an incident regarding Millicent then went on. "So Nic and I were in our sight reading class—" Noah interrupted them to ask a question.

"Wait. Nic?"

"It's just a nickname he has for me." Nicole said.

"I didn't know you liked nicknames."

"I never said I didn't like nicknames." Nicole told him as she looked up to Trent. "You can keep going."

"Right. So anyway, she comes up to me and just starts pouring her heart out about how much of a fan she was, and I say thanks but that I'd prefer if she just treated me like any other student. That's all I want."

"So you have a fan." Cody exclaims. Trent chuckled as he took a bite of his chicken.

"Millicent is way more than a fan. Nicole keeps running into her in between classes and she'll ask her all the time if she knows what I'm up to and if she could let her know she says hi." The four of them stifle out a laugh.

"You're right, she's not just a fan, she's clearly in love with you." Cody states. Trent takes Nicole's hand next to him.

"This girl is the only one I'm in love with." He looks over to Nicole. "Right, babe?" Nicole manages to swallow the piece of chicken in her mouth and smiles over to him, too lost in his eyes to gather a response. Cody lets out an 'awww' as he watches them.

"I can't believe you two have been together for a year now." He says.

"I still can hardly believe we're even together. Who knew I'd be dating someone my brother worked with on a reality show?" Nicole states.

"What a crazy world we live in." Noah said, tapping in and out of the conversation.

"And then in February we'll be—" Nicole quickly put her hand over Trent's arm and squeezed it to stop him from speaking, which made Noah suspicious.

"In February you'll be what?" Noah asked.

"Nothing." Nicole said, answering for Trent.

"What's happening in February?" He asks again. Trent looked over to her as she sighed and whispers at her.

"You haven't told him yet?" Cody begins taking another bite of his food, not knowing what else to say. He could sense tension rising between the twins and wanted nothing of it.

"Haven't told me what?"

"Nothing, it's not a big deal. Can we please change the subject?"

"If it's not a big deal why can't we talk about it?" Noah said immediately. Nicole's face was turning red as she began to tense up. Trent tried to comfort her by stroking her shoulder, but she rejects this attempt by brushing her shoulder away from him.

"Not now." As Nicole and Noah look down, trying to control themselves, Trent tries to shift the subject before things get ugly. "Did we tell you what our sight reading class put together when she came back to school after her surgery?"

"No, what did they do?" Cody asked, helping in trying to avoid an argument. Both boys knew this could get ugly fast.

"They made her—" Nicole interrupted Trent and looked at him as she put her hand on his arm.

"Stop." Nicole said, looking over angrily at Trent. "It's fine. I'll tell him." She let go of Trent's arm as she took a pause and braced herself for what she wished she could have talked about in private with Noah. "Trent and I are studying abroad in February."

"Why would you want to keep that from me?" Nicole paused and gave a deep breath before giving the kicker of her news.

"It's in Australia." He became quiet as he processed the sudden news.

"Oh."

"It's a great opportunity. It's the perfect spot for both of us to study music and for me to study Astronomy as well. We'll be gone for six months." Although Nicole tried hard to make this positive, Noah seemed to ignore her points and spoke out against them.

"Why wouldn't you have told me sooner?"

"I was going to tell you this week."

"But I don't understand what's gone wrong between us if you wouldn't have at least let me know you were considering it?"

"We aren't the twins with no friends anymore, Noah. Sometimes I won't be able to tell you everything first, we have lives outside of each other for once."

"For once?'" Noah mocked. "I'm so sorry that I didn't have any other friends growing up because I was busy comforting you from bullies!" Nicole scoffed at Noah and crossed her arms.

"And I'm sorry that being rejected by my peers simply for being myself for years on end was such an inconvenience to you." Nicole stated. "I am not doing this right now. Don't bring up the past. We're talking about my study abroad program."

"No, I am going to do this, you started it. Everything you mentioned and everything I mentioned all circles back to this one moment." Nicole ignored him and continued on.

"I didn't tell you until now because I wanted to wait until I actually got in."

Noah ignored her as well and continued. "Figures. Seems like every important life event these days I find out on accident."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Nicole asked.

"It'slike how you wouldn't tell me about even seeing Trent let alone being in a relationship with him until you were here with me in-person. Remember that? I also learned by accident." Laughing nervously, Trent was determined not to be a part of this anymore, but he was too afraid to do anything about it.

"Okay. Why bring it up? We resolved that over a year ago!" Nicole yelled. "How about this? When you went on Total Drama, you didn't hear me complain. I'm studying abroad for six months and you're going absolutely insane on me right now!"

"I thought we weren't bringing up the past." Noah brought up and mocked.

"Like you said, this has a point." Nicole says as she leans forward in her seat. "You went on Total Drama Island to earn some money for the two of us. That's all it was going to be and you said that. But then you left me not because you wanted to make money, but to avoid facing your reality. I was at home, going to therapy and learning how to cope with our loss, something you had to learn four years after it happened."

"The only reason you got to do therapy on your own was because I was holding you back. We couldn't progress in our joint sessions when you were opening up and I wasn't, so they split us up." Noah yelled.

"And that's supposed to be my fault?"Noah stood up from his seat and looked down at Nicole.

"You didn't see their death like I did." Noah stated. They both froze. "You didn't see it from my eyes. Of course you weren't going to have as much trauma as me." Nicole was at a loss for words, but found the courage to speak back.

"You have no idea what I went through waiting for you three to call me back after that earthquake. It's not a competition, we both went through a scary experience and at the end of the day, I lost a mom and dad too, even if I wasn't there when it happened. The least you could have done was stick around and be there grieving with the rest of us." At this point, neither of them were making any sense, but everything was all coming out like word vomit. Nicole began to shake as she leaned back in her seat. She was beginning to feel dizzy and overwhelmed.

"Come on, can we just pause and be happy for Nicole and me?" Trent begged.

Noah regretted how this entire argument came about. Of course he was happy for them, but at the moment they were going at each other like cats in an alleyway. They hardly knew how they got to this point but they were clearly going for it anyway. Trent was attempting to calm Nicole down, and he could feel Cody trying to whisper something about apologizing to Nicole; but he couldn't hear what he was saying nor could he speak up, even if he wanted to. For the first time in months, his heart rate was spiking. His voice had gotten shaky the more he'd spoken, and he could feel himself beginning to sweat. He needed to get away before he had a panic attack in front of everyone. He stood up to push his chair in, and walked away to his room as calmly and sanely as he could, then slammed the door. This left Nicole sitting with Cody and Trent, speechless over what had just happened. The three were silent for a minute until Nicole began to stand up and held her hand out to Trent.

"Could I have your keys?" She asked him hesitantly.

"Nic—" Nicole interrupted her.

"You can stay here, but I'm not. I'm going to Bethany and Joshua's. I'll get your car back to you tomorrow, I just really can't be here right now." Trent nodded as he stood up to get his keys from the front door, and she followed him. Cody kept staring at the front door, then back at the hallway, and back at the empty chairs around him.

"Do you need me to come with you? Will you be okay?" Cody heard Trent ask her. Nicole looked at him with tears swelling in her eyes, and as soon as Trent handed his keys over, she left without saying a word. He walked back over to the table.

"I have no idea what I just witnessed." Cody stated. He had never seen or heard of any sort of tension between the twins. Everything Noah had ever mentioned of his childhood with Nicole had been completely positive. "Should we do something?" Trent chuckled at what Cody suggested.

"After that blow-up? No way." He said. "We need to let them have their space."

"Do you think everything's going to be okay?" Cody asked.

"I don't know. I hope so. I knew Nicole and Noah were stubborn, but I've never seen either of them like this. Only time will tell."