Cody felt like he had been shot.
" Duncan? Duncan!" Cody felt like shaking, but found himself frozen in place.
Gwen, someone he considered a friend.
Duncan, who he had really only known from Harold's complaining during The Island.
The two of them, kissing.
" You called?" The delinquent slid up, a black eye evident on his face. " Nice bikini…"
Cody's hand flew out of his own accord and Duncan hit the ground. A shocked Cody looked at his fist, slowly opening it up.
Cody could barely hear anything after that, all the sound was indistinguishable.
" Cody, stay where you are!" Sierra's voice became clear.
" You are so eli-min-i-tated!"
" She's got my vote." The Queen Bee added. Slowly, the Tech Geek's gaze turned skyward.
Tyler was gaining on his medal, and Cody suddenly remembered what was at risk.
Who was at risk.
He began flapping, gaining much quicker than the jock due to his light frame.
While Cody would have liked to pretend that his motives for going ahead were purely altruistic, he'd be lying.
Part of him wanted to prove he was useful, but a far bigger part wanted to save Gwen.
To be her knight in shining armor.
To finally be the one she kissed, the one she loved.
He could feel his muscles tensing up as he got closer and closer.
He reached out and sweaty fingers brushed over the medal.
His hands failed to find purchase and he didn't even have time to scream before he hit the ground hard.
" And Tyler wins it for Team 'I am uncomfortably Hot'!" Chris's words pierced Cody's soul.
He had failed.
He always failed when it came down to it.
Cody wanted to curl up into a ball and start crying, but he couldn't even move.
He stared at the blue sky, wanting to disappear.
" Kid, we're leaving." The rough voice of Chef rang out.
Cody tried to respond, but all that came out of his throat was a pitiful squeaking sound.
Slowly, the tech geek struggled to his feet and began shuffling towards the plane.
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Chris, with an even smarmier face than normal, peered out at the last two members of Team Amazon who hadn't received bags. Gwen's eyes darted between Cody and the other members of her team. Cody stared at the floor dejectdly.
" Normally, I'd just tell you who's safe, but I figured tonight, you deserved to know who voted for who. Call it my good deed for the year." A sick cackle came out of his mouth as the tv turned on.
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Confessional
Courtney: I'm voting for Gwen, obviously!(Stamps passport angrily)
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Heather: Buh Bye Gwenny. (Stamps the goth's passport)
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Sierra: (whispers)I'm gonna be honest, I've been shipping DunGwen since Action.
(Now Angry) But cheating is wrong, if Duncan wanted to be with Gwen, he should have broken up with Courtney first!(Stamps Gwen's passport)
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Gwen: I'm screwed.(Stamps Courtney's passport halfheartedly)
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Cody:(with a 1000 yard stare, he silently stamps his own passport).
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" Well, there you have it! With three votes against her, Gwen is leaving."
" Where's Duncan? I wanted to say goodbye." The goth asked sadly, and Cody felt like a knife had been driven into his heart.
" He's not here." Courtney growled out.
The goth caught the backpack, and sighed sadly. Gwen walked away and jumped through the hole.
As Chris went into his ending spiel, Cody stood up and scampered off before anyone, most likely Sierra, could ask him where he was going.
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In the cargo hold of the plane, soft sobbing was drowned out by the rattling of the old plane engine.
Cody sat with his knees pulled up to his chest, hugging them while trying, and failing, to hold back the tears.
He felt pathetic, and that only made him sob harder.
" Cody?" The voice was faint, and so Cody continued to sob. Slowly Cody raised tear filled eyes as he sensed someone standing in front of him.
" Hey Noah." Only a flicker of sympathy made its way across the bookworm's face.
" Mind if I sit here? I don't feel very welcome among my teammates right now."
" Go ahead." Cody managed to croak out.
The sound of turning pages alongside soft crying was the only noise in the cargo hold for minutes.
" This is about Gwen, I assume?"
" Yeah…" Cody whispered his answer.
" Feel terrible because you failed?"
Cody nodded, and Noah let out an annoyed sigh.
" So she's with Duncan now?" Cody finally found it in himself to look into his friend's face, and found one filled with sympathy.
" I don't know. Me and the delinquent aren't exactly bffs." The cynic answered. Cody's lips grimaced.
" He didn't even come to her elimination. She just wanted to say goodbye."
She didn't say goodbye to me. Not even a 'Thanks for trying'.
" Why'd he do it, Noah?"
" He seems to lack self-control." Noah shrugged. " Does it really matter why he did it? Is there anything he could say to explain it that would make you feel better?"
" No." Cody replied honestly.
" Congratulations on the one punch knockout by the way." Noah smiled, though it looked wrong on him.
Cody made a fist, frowning.
" My hand still hurts."
Noah sighed.
" Look, I'm not good with all this emotional stuff, but you know she's never gonna feel that way about you, right?" A shocked Cody stared back at his friend, the hurt evident on his face.
" I'm not saying that to be mean, but you need to figure that out. She's under no obligation to either…"
" I know. " Cody interrupted, " I knew I had a snowball's chance in hell with Gwen."
" Yet you still kept trying?" Noah's eyebrow perked up.
" 'There is nothing impossible to him who will try""
" Did you just quote Alexander the Great to defend your crush?"
" Is that who said it?" Cody laughed, a bitter ugly sound.
" Cody, are you okay?"
" No, I'm not." Cody looked at his friend, and Noah was taken aback at the pure suffering on the tech geek's face.
" I hate this show. My team hates me, I've got a crazy stalker who won't respect my personal space or my consent and a CIT who thinks I'm absolutely useless. Heather has been the best person to me so far. Heather!" He said, the last word emphasized to show his surprise.
" Nerd-linger." Cody let out a squeal of surprise as the queen bee herself arrived, " there you are, I was starting to get worried…" Heather stopped talking as she noticed Noah sitting next to her teammate.
" Probably shouldn't let Sierra see you like this. She might still think there's something going on between the two of you."
" It was one kiss, on the ear, in our sleep, from over a year ago." Noah stated clearly, " I'll talk to you later Cody." The cynic made his way back to first class.
" Alright, why do you look like you're about to throw yourself off the plane?" Cody gulped before answering.
" I feel useless. I failed the team today...I failed Gwen." Heather did her best to suppress an eye roll.
" Cody, do you think this is going to help?"
" Can't make it any worse."
Heather rubbed the bridge of her nose in between her thumb and forefinger, before a new plan finally dawned on her.
" Cody, why do you think Alejandro told Tyler to say that?" The geek was taken aback at the question.
" I, I don't know." He stammered out.
Why did Al tell Tyler to say that during the challenge?
" I'll tell you why." The queen bee projected as much confidence as she could into her voice, " It's because they're trying to divide and conquer us! Well, we'll show that wanna be charmer and joke of a jock, we'll…" Heather stopped as she saw a dejected Cody staring at the floor.
Desperate times call for desperate measures.
She put her hands on the diminutive geek's shoulders.
" You tell anybody I did this, and I'll throw you out the plane myself." And with that, Cody was pulled into a hug.
" Cody, it's going to be okay. This isn't the end. I'm your friend and we're going to get through this." The Queen Bee began comforting the geek.
Cody didn't say anything, only closed his eyes and felt so very much like a child in a mother's arms.
" Now please come back to Sierra before she starts ripping up the floors looking for you."
With a shuffle similar to a man who had just regained the use of his legs, Cody followed Heather.
I'm not going soft...I'm Not!
Author's Notes
Here we have an ending born of one simple question: What if the Amazons had lost during Greece's Pieces.
I chose to mainly focus on Cody's reaction to that, his feelings of failure, and ultimately how much he probably hated the season in general.
From the get go, I knew there were some things I wanted to put into this story:
1, the imagery of Cody as a Knight in Shining Armor. Hopefully it doesn't come across as too corny, but the main point of that little thing was supposed to be that if he had succeeded, Cody would have seen himself as a hero to Gwen.
2, A Noah and Cody interaction. I knew I wanted The Cynic and The Tech Geek to interact. If his team had won, he'd still be around and probably none too happy with them.
3, A bit more of that awesome Heather/Cody friendship we got hints of in World Tour. Here, Heather resorts to drastic measures to help pick up Cody's pieces as she can't afford to lose a teammate...or at least that's what she's telling herself.
Okay, it's like 2 in the morning, author's note over.