Fall
Cody tossed and turned in his sleep, calculus equations, history facts, and Spanish phrases filling his mind, his memory doing everything it could to fight through the overload, trying to take it all in.
His brow was sweaty, his breaths hasty and his heart exhausted.
Finals, every student's worst nightmare.
But he knew he had to ace them. All through high school, both back and Boston and now on the ship, he had maintained a perfect 4.0 average. And now, here he was, one week of exams between him and a perfect academic record.
He was so close, so close to his dream, but he also knew it was just one step away from wasting all of it.
He wouldn't let that happen, though.
He had come too far, worked too hard, studied too much to lose it all now.
He woke up again, his restless mind refusing to sleep for longer than a few minutes. He gazed at the clock, seeing it was 4 AM. This was getting ridiculous. He was only asleep for 17 minutes that time. Now, at this rate, he'd only get a total of 3.7 hours of sleep for the night, a far cry from the 8.4 he functioned best on. And with only one more day before finals started, he had to do a careful rereading and editing of his AP Biology paper still, knowing he'd be a laughing stock if he didn't catch all the typos or confused a mitochondria for manganese again. He knew taking collage level bio and chem. together wasn't going to be easy, but with enough work, he knew he could pull it off.
At least he hoped he could.
Those two were certainly the hardest classes, though advanced US History, Calc 2, Advanced Spanish and Western Literature were far from easy. Things got really weird when his mind went to combine them, though he noticed that Shakespeare's sonnets had some interesting rhythms in Spanish.
He pulled the blankets up over his head, trying to rest in the cocoon of his bed and block out the bright lights of his alarm clock that would be going off far too soon.
Still, no matter what position he found himself in, he wasn't comfortable, his leg would cramp, or arm would need stretching, or something. His mouth was dry, so he got up and grabbed a bottle of water out of the fridge, hoping that would allow him to sleep, but as he was up, he noticed how hot the room was. He looked to his sleeping roommate, wondering how he could sleep so soundly.
Then he remembered.
Woody was content with just passing. He knew he wasn't going to ace the upcoming exams, but that didn't worry him. He did enough work to pass, and didn't worry about those missed questions or forgotten assignments. It disgusted Cody how he could be so carefree. He pitied his friend, missing such great potential. But, Cody felt something else, deep within, a feeling that he'd never think he could have for someone like Woody.
Envy.
He envied his friend, how he could live with so little stress. He was so carefree. He knew Woody was wasting away his time at school, missing the point of acquiring the tools he needed to change the world.
But Woody had fun with those useless activities. He embraced every event on the ship, from him and Zack taking on the elderly champions in the shuffleboard tournament to karaoke night in the Caribbean Club. True, he couldn't sing, but he and Zack put on one heck of a show.
But Cody could never join them. He was too busy ensuring that his grades wouldn't drop. He was pushed to his limit, forced to study harder than ever before, and abandon what his friends called fun.
He brushed the thoughts away and returned to his bed, demanding that his mind calm down enough to finally go to sleep. After another ten minutes of tossing and turning, he finally drifted off.
And then he dreamt.
…
Cody opened his eyes, a sky blue wind blowing across him, a gentle chill in it. He looked before him, and saw a tree, climbing high into the sky. The sky had darkened, the sunlight fading, but there was just enough illumination for him to see.
And then the music started.
A song he never heard but one that he knew deep in his soul filled the air.
He gazed on, but a spectator to the events unfolding.
And there before him were two boys, those that filled the photographs on his desk. He smiled seeing them, the younger versions of himself and Zack, no older than 12.
A challenge ahead
A tree to climb
For our destiny
Give it one more try
With determination the younger twin looked ahead, took the branch in hand and lifted himself up. One foot in front of the other he climbed. He smiled.
Zack soon joined him, catching up to his brother, though not easily. He wasn't about to lose though.
He caught up with his brother, and seeing the chance, grabbed his ankle.
The younger twin fell, colliding on the ground with a gentle thud.
Rise up my friend
The Fall is not the end
Gazing up, the younger twin looked on, unshaken by this minor defeat. Thrilled by the challenge, he climbed again, the wind blowing around him pushing him higher, farther. Before he knew it, he caught up with his brother, and with a confident grin across his face he reached out.
Zack was quicker though, pulling his foot away just in time.
Though the climb may be hard
You gotta carry on.
The twins continued ascending the endless tree, avoiding the branches in the way and the leaves scattered about.
A raven flew by, avoiding the tree altogether and soaring into the sunset.
Eventually, the weaker twin caught up again, and with a powerful grip on his brother's ankle, Zack lost his grip.
He fell this time.
Through difficulties we face
And the struggles we endure
One day I know
We will Soar.
Not to fall easily though, Zack reached out, and grabbed his brother. He smiled, a wicked-fun grin. He could stabilize himself and they'd both continue on their quest for the mile high top. But that wasn't as much fun.
So Zack grabbed his brother, and together they fell.
The leaves of fall fell around them with all their wondrous color.
Cody looked on, seeing this great tragedy unfold, of a brother's heartless disdain for his best friend.
But then he heard it.
The laughter.
He saw it.
The joy.
And as the song finished, he too smiled.
My rival and my friend
With me till the end
Together we try
And I know we will fly
…
Cody awoke from his dream, his heart still racing, it all seeming so real to him. He held his hand to his heart, the song still playing in his head despite the face he knew it wasn't real. But, what did it mean?
Was he too nervous because of school so his dreams had become weird? That had happened before; his dreams had gotten really weird the night before that big math competition. He dreamt he was being eaten by the quadratic formula. He couldn't look at a discriminate without wanting to run for weeks.
But this dream was different.
It wasn't scary, or sad, or all these normal things that made him remember dreams.
This dream was happy.
It didn't make sense why; it wasn't anything special, just the strange way the mind wanders when sleeping.
But still, Cody just sat on his bed, looking at the desk and the piles of books and notes that sat upon it. He then saw his alarm clock and that it read 7:28. Only two minutes before he had to get up and get back to work.
He decided to get up now, knowing two minutes of rest wouldn't do much good now. Though, instead of the normal tiredness his body felt when he didn't get the right amount of sleep, he felt energized, and ready to face the day. After shutting his alarm clock off (to make sure Woody didn't follow through in his threat to hit it with a hammer) he got dressed and instead of going to cram more facts into his head, he decided to leave the room without a book for the first time in a week.
He found his way up to the sky deck, gazing out as the sun set the sea on fire as it did every morning, though he had been too busy to notice it recently. And while he knew the beauty it held, he wondered why he couldn't take the time to see this more often.
Then he remembered he never had the time.
Recently he had always either been studying, sleeping, or getting ready for class.
He started to head back for his room, grateful for the cleared head and decided that he shouldn't neglect small things like this through the midst of all his study.
As he rode the elevator back down, he just leaned back against it, thinking. Not rushing it to save him precious seconds.
And as he took several calm breaths the doors opened not a moment too late.
He then saw Zack getting out of his room, his gaze darting nervously around the hallway telling Cody that his brother was up to no good.
He knew he had to stop Zack before he got them both in trouble. (He wasn't sure why Moseby always blamed him too; it had been a long time since had been foolish enough to get involved with Zack's hijinks.)
"What are you doing?" Cody asked causing Zack to try to hide something behind his back.
"What are you doing up so early? I thought you weren't going to leave your room until 9 because you had to study more."
"And you don't like getting up till noon. Zack, you're doing something that's probably breaking at least one law."
"Fine," Zack said finally revealing what he held.
"Is that what I think it is?"
"Yep, the classic hundred dollar bill on a string trick."
"Where did you get the hundred dollar bill from?" Cody quickly took out his wallet out to make sure all the money that was supposed to be in it was.
"Oh, I just told London that the hundreds that she got had been contaminated with extofornutalus disease and that if she was around them too long she would get fat."
"Zack, you can't do-"
"I'll split them with you if you keep it a secret."
"Sounds good." Cody wasn't sure how much money that was his, but he wasn't going to object to free money.
"Okay, I'll see you later, and if Moseby asks…"
"I never saw you."
Cody smiled as he made his way back to his room. Not the smile for when he got a good grade, or when he had solved a hard math problem. No, this smile was filled with amusement at his brother, eagerness to see what Zack had planned, and the thrill of helping his brother get away with it.
Maybe this was immature.
Maybe it was childish.
Maybe it would be fun.
Cody thought about his dream.
The pure joy in it.
The joy that he wanted to have again.
"Wait Zack."
"Yeah," he said as the elevator once again took forever to get there.
"Mind if I join you?"
Zack smiled.
"Just don't get in my way."
…
The plan was set.
Foolproof.
Cody even added a number of extra tricks to make Mosbey's life more interesting.
"Are you sure we got everything?" Cody asked, nervous that they might get caught still. Though he couldn't wait to see that vein throb in the manager's forehead and to know he was the cause of it.
True, it went against what he believed in, but there was a time and place to have fun.
And this was it.
"Yep, thanks to you we have everything set up, and thanks for the idea to use those gloves to avoid leaving finger prints."
"Here he comes," Cody whispered and the two of them ducked behind the juice bar. Zack flipped a switch on a spy cam so they could clearly see Moseby's reaction.
"Zack, where are you?" the manager growled as he walked across the sky deck while taking a sip of his coffee.
Just on schedule.
Zack knew that Moseby would be checking to make sure he was working at exactly 5 minutes after his shift started. He had been late enough times to know how long he had until anyone noticed.
"I should have known, his last shift of the year and he's not here." He leaned against the counter and pulled out his phone, something that made the twins' eyes light up.
With adrenaline-propelled movement, Zack reached into his pocket and knocked the battery out of his phone. Zack nodded to his brother seeing that they were safe from the manager less than a foot away.
"Let's hope Cody knows where that hooligan is," Moseby said as he held the phone up to his ear.
Zack cursed to himself, knowing that there plan was ruined.
Cody wasn't ready to give up yet; his phone normally waited about 11 seconds after the person called to start ringing. They still had time.
Not much, but maybe enough.
As quietly as possible, Cody got out from under the juice bar and ran behind Moseby right before his phone started ringing.
"Cody, what are you doing up here so early?"
"Oh, just looking for Zack. He borrowed my iPod and I needed it back. I thought he might be here working."
Moseby lowered his eyebrow at Cody. "Zack, working?" He began laughing.
"Figured it was worth a shot." Cody shrugged his shoulders; his heart feeling like it was going to burst from his chest. He almost thought it was funny how much better he had gotten at lying. How he could cave at a single glance from his mom or dad and tell all his secrets. But here, he was able to lie to Moseby without flinching. Though, he could sense he was rushing his voice just a bit.
"Well when you find him tell him to get up here before I fire him."
"That won't really do much since this is his last shift here."
"I meant from a cannon."
Cody slowly made his way back to the elevator while as inconspicuously as possible kept turning around waiting for Moseby to finally find the money. He hated to put all that work in getting it set up without seeing fruits of his labor. But just as he pressed the button on the elevator, he heard Moseby take note of the money.
"What do we have here?" he said bending down to pick it up but right as he did so, Zack pulled it away with the invisible wire.
Annoyed, but not yet suspicious, he took a few steps forward after it, hitting a trip wire which threw him off balance. As he tried to stabilize his footing, the sound of a very high-pitched scream filled the air, making him nearly fall over. His foot found itself upon a skateboard, which sent him rolling forward, his arms and legs flailing trying to maintain control of his body. It was pointless as the skateboard propelled him into the side of the hot tub with enough force to toss him into the hot tub headfirst.
While he tried to get back to the surface, Zack ran across the deck to the elevator door Cody was holding open, and with less than a second before Moseby reemerged, the door closed leading the twins to safety.
"Dude, that was so awesome," Zack said, out of breath between the laughter and the running.
"You know he's going to kill you, though."
"Eh, I'll just blame it on Woody again."
"Again?"
"Don't ask."
…
Cody sat in his room and smiled. Books were open on his desk which he had skimmed a few pages of, but he knew he was kidding himself if he thought he could get through everything he had planned on yesterday. But as he thought about it, it was okay. He had wanted to eliminate every possibility of things going wrong, to know the answer to any question his teachers could throw at him, but he knew that was futile and pushing himself way too hard. Instead, he'd do everything he could to enjoy his last few days on the ship. He still wanted to do well on the finals; it was just that, he knew that sometimes there were more important things.
"Hey Cody," Zack said, bursting into his brother's room.
"Will you ever learn to knock?"
"Don't count on it."
Cody rolled his eyes.
"So what's going on?"
"Well I know you said you didn't want us to bother you so you could study, but there's a party up on the sky deck and thought you might want to join us. After all, we'll be graduating in just a few days."
Cody got up from his chair and closed the biology book closed. "Sounds like fun."
"Wait, you mean I don't get to have fun bugging you until you finally decide to come just to shut me up?"
"I'm sure we'll have time for that this summer. Besides, I think there might be such a thing as too much studying."
"Wow, I could have told you that long ago and you're the smart twin."
"Yes, but quitting just because you are bored isn't the way to go about it."
Cody didn't feel like arguing anymore, so went out the door, knowing that he and Zack would probably get into an argument and waste what was left of the day. This might be the last time he'd just be able to relax on the ship. He thought about the three years that had flown by, but before he let that sink it too much, he went down the hallway to the elevator, not willing to lose the present in nostalgia.
"What's gotten into you anyway?" Zack asked as the elevator.
Cody knew Zack would think he was crazy for letting a dream affect him this much; heck, he thought he was crazy, but even so, he felt something in it. Maybe it was something deep inside, that he had buried under all the knowledge and stress that could only find a way out through a dream. Maybe it was a sign. Or maybe it was just the randomness that dreams produced.
No matter what though, he would hold onto it.
"I guess I just want to enjoy these last few days on the ship."
"Why all of a sudden, though?"
"You'll probably think I'm crazy though, but it's because of a dream I had."
"Really, what was it about?"
"Well I saw the two of us and we were climbing a tree, trying to get to the top first but kept knocking each other down."
"And that made you want to actually have fun how?"
"I don't know, Zack, it just did."
Cody knew how crazy this was. The dream didn't make sense, shouldn't be affecting him this much. He was just cracking from too much stress.
But did it matter why?
He was having fun, able to not worry about every little thing, so the rest wasn't important.
"Well, I'm glad to have you away from all those books, buddy." Zack placed his arm around Cody's shoulder. "We only get to live once."
"Maybe you're the smart twin after all."
"I knew one day you'd come around."
Cody just shook his head at Zack's comment. Though maybe there was some truth to that. Zack spent each day having fun, not worrying about the consequences. It was reckless and irresponsible, but was he any better? He worked as hard as he could in his classes, to do his very best, but he couldn't remember the last time he truly had fun through it.
"Can you do me a favor, Zack?"
"What?"
"Make sure I have some fun from time to time instead of just wasting so much time again."
Zack smiled. "I'll take that as a challenge."
Cody gave his brother a nervous look.
"Besides, we have this whole summer ahead of us before we go to college. I'll make sure we have one to remember."
"Thanks Zack."
Cody was afraid of what Zack had in mind, but didn't want to just stay safely away from everything. Maybe things wouldn't go smoothly, but that's what he wanted.
The elevator door opened and Cody saw all the festivities set out before them. Food, friends, and fun all for him to take in. But beyond all that, he saw his lovely girlfriend standing out at the edge of the sky deck staring out into the sea, her silk blue dress gently swaying in the wind.
"She didn't think you would come," Zack quietly told him. "Prove her wrong."
Cody walked up to her, wrapped his arms around her and gently kissed her neck. "You're beautiful."
She turned to face him, her face lighting up like the waters behind her. "You made it."
"I'm sorry for being too busy to spend much time with you," he said, sad to hear the shock in her voice.
"It's okay-"
"But let's make up for lost time," he said cutting her off as the music began playing.
"I'd like that."
Zack gazed on at his brother, proud that he could be there for Bailey. He knew those two love birds were crazy about one another, and hated for Cody to blind himself with school to see what was really important. He knew he had a lot to learn from his brother about studying and responsibility, but he was glad to see Cody learn something too. Perhaps there was a lot they had to learn from each other.
A/N: And after more months than I care to admit, this story is finally finished!
The dream in this story was actually one I had about 4-5 years ago, watching the twins climb that tree with the song playing. Sadly, I couldn't remember much of the song, only part of the chorus which was "Rise up my friend, the fall is not the end" though several months later I was listening to the radio and heard Third Day's song Rise Up which had nearly those exact words so I'm guessing that was either in the dream or my memory was mixed the two songs. Anyway, I rewrote the song here, so the lyrics are my own. I actually have another version of the song on my fictionpress account, but I think I like this one better.
And thanks to Wyntirsno for betaing.
And I must say that I respect those that are able to write strong drama stories through many chapters. I had to force myself to finish this one-shot because I had a lot of trouble getting back into it after writing the dream. But it turned out pretty well I'd say.