I'm back, yay! ^^

If you didn't see it in my profile, I was gone for a while because I was busy with the Students' Floats Parade in my town. Beautiful experience. I wanna do again next year :). PM me if anyone wants to see my class' float on Facebook… I feel like bragging xD

On other news, I have a brand new, long-awaited, Word built-in spell-checker! *u* I'm sooo happy! I no longer have to check with an online dictionary, plus the thing is even correcting words I was sure were okay! :o

Silver Apocalypse: Thanks for the Wow's xD

And, okay, my intention wasn't really to give Duncan an excuse for acting like he did. I worked so hard coming up with a good, plausible reason to explain his change… that I did exactly that xD. But hopefully this Courtney chapter will turn it around :)

Anyway, thanks for saying this is good enough to feel like it makes up for the scriptwriter's job ^^

BelleDanseuse: Thank you, glad you liked it ^^

Aah, Duncan and Courtney… polar opposites, and yet they have the potential to work in perfect balance… if they each would just cooperate ¬¬

CarmillaD: Como ves, no pude continuar pronto x_x pero por lo menos volví.

Me gustaría que ni intenten sacar el show a flote, que nomás lo dejaran como está xP o van a seguir metiendo la pata.

Gracias por tu evaluación de siempre, mi crítica más leal :3 y espero que te guste este capítulo.

Part III

Looks Like

You've given up

You've had enough

But I want more

No I won't stop

'Cause I just know

That you'll come around

…Right?

-I Don't Believe You, P!nk

Somewhere along the lines of her life, Courtney had a change of heart.

Once she was finally done with Total Drama Island and Action, she had been ready –and eager- to be thrown into the mind-boggling experience of fame. But things had turned out very differently from what she expected.

The fame that met her came in the form of foul comments of her in gossip talk shows, a long line of cruel hate mail letters, and a cloud of mean-spirited whispers whenever she entered a room.

It wasn't long until she came to the shocking realization –for her- that she was one of the most hated people on the show. And she was, to say the least, bewildered.

She had thought they hated Heather, who had played the part of the biggest bitch around since day one; or Gwen, for trying to steal Courtney's boyfriend- after all, everyone had booed her at the Aftermath show, and with good reason, too. But, why her? What had she done?

It was the most disappointing day of her life when she found out that the people who liked her only did because of her relationship with the show's bad boy (which was in itself, humiliating and degrading). The rest of them thought she was a bitch. It was all rather unsettling for her.

But rather than being pained at the fact that she was hated, Courtney was shocked at the fact that she was not loved.

She had been so sure, so sure, since forever, that was destined to do great things. That she was a natural-born leader, and that once she got out to the outside world and became known, once she had shown the world her true character, everyone would love her, and look up to her. That once people saw her on action in a competition, they would be awed by her moral values and her set of priorities, and she would become another Gandhi, Winston Churchill, or Napoleon, another of the world's great leaders.

She had believed for so long that her anonymity was the only thing stopping her from being admired all around, and Total Drama Island had been her ticket to recognition. But she had only wound up with people criticizing her tactics, her competitive nature, her way of treating others. People she had never met were coming up saying that her way of seeing the world was twisted.

Courtney just didn't get it. She had done everything right… and everything had turned out wrong.

It was then that she started seeing her boyfriend in a new light.

Before, she had had no problem undermining and down-right abusing Duncan. After all, she was an intelligent, sociable woman, with tons of friends and a caring family, who could easily get any guy she wanted; only first she had to focus on forming the successful life that she also had assured.

But one of the things about growing up is the disenchantment of realizing that you have quite a lot less than you thought you did. Courtney thought she had the world at the palm of her hand. Now, she wasn't so sure.

Suddenly, she was facing people's critiques all around, and her so-called 'friends' weren't calling. Her caring family was subtly threatening her to break up with her boyfriend. The prospect of a successful future was now starting to quiver too, and anyhow, it didn't seem as filling as it used to.

And right in the moment Courtney had started to feel like she was alone in the world with the whole world on the other side, she had looked to her side, and there was Duncan.

Constant. Faithful. The only common aspect between the ups and downs of her life. Her rock. It was he who had taken a look at the malicious comments of her in the magazines and then at the paparazzi clogging and blocking the entrance of her house and said, 'Fuck them. Let's see what's on TV,' and 'Don't mind them asses for one second, babe. People should stop criticizing celebrities and take a look in the mirror once in a while.'

It was he the boy she had undermined without reserves, whom she had forced to abide to a strict set of rules, under the illusion that he would stick around forever no matter what she did to him.

But Courtney was learning that good things in life didn't come that often, and she had to take care of what she had valuable.

From that moment on, she had begun treating Duncan as the precious being he truly was.

She had stopped secretly referring to him in her mind as just her temporal guy, her mistake to pass the time until Mr. Right came along; she had stopped fantasizing about her perfect guy in her mind, giving him a shape and a back-story, imagining the circumstances of their meeting and their life together.

Duncan was her reality. A rude punk boy with a criminal record and no table manners was her reality.

And she wouldn't want to have it any other way.

That was when her whole perception of life dramatically changed. Her list of priorities turned upside down: Duncan and human relationships came to occupy the top, and fame and success, which she now realized was the real passing happiness, had flown all the way down to the bottom.

Tamely, disinterestedly and without saying a world, Courtney gave herself to Duncan completely, in mind and soul.

Not too long after, she gave him her body too.

One morning, she was in her house painting the window lintel. Singing, as it was her custom as of late to match the lightheartedness of her new life. She didn't hear Duncan's usual lethargic steps come in through the kitchen door.

The boy stopped in the threshold, taking in her peaceful presence. He leaned against the door frame and smiled at her. She was wearing some shorts and an oversized grey shirt that sported a colorful pattern of different paint stains on the front. Her hair was pulled up in a high ponytail with some strands of soft brown hair loose around her neck. From where she was standing, the afternoon sun hit patches of her skin and made it look golden. And her angelic voice filled the spacious room.

"Over the sea and far away, she's waiting like an iceberg, waiting to change. But she's cold inside."

Duncan quietly approached her, his smile getting a mischievous undertone. She still hadn't noticed him when he stopped right behind her. He produced one foot and swiftly kicked forward a leg of the chair she was standing on. Her singing abruptly stopped and was replaced with a scream as she was sent back in a short fall that ended, of course, in his awaiting arms.

"You in a good mood sweetheart?" He asked her, referring to her singing.

When Courtney caught up with her new surroundings, she frowned at Duncan above her. "I was, before you came in" she snarled, roughly freeing herself from her boyfriend's arms and stepping back on solid ground. She heard him chuckle at her and turned on him, her face tinting red around her nose and cheeks. "You think this is funny? Whatever possessed you to pull that stunt?" she demanded, ticked off for reasons she didn't completely comprehend.

He put his hands in front of himself, trying to get serious but not completely losing the laughter in his voice. "Babe, I…-"

"No!" she snapped in a shrill voice. "That was a seriously stupid thing to do! I could've been seriously hurt! What were you thinking?" she scolded, then pointed an accusing finger at him. "If you ever do that again, I guarantee you it will not be pretty," she finished heatedly, and then turned away from him, still livid as she tilted a bottle of turpentine over her paint-stained hands and began to scrub them together.

Duncan was silent, and Courtney suddenly feared that she had offended him with her harsh words. She looked up with worry, just in time to see him inches away from her, before he caught her lips in a kiss, making her instantly forget her worries as she closed her eyes and kissed back. Of course he wasn't mad. He knew she wasn't serious. He wasn't mad at all.

"Okay, Drama queen," he said playfully when they separated. "Like you even doubt I was gonna catch you."

Despite herself, Courtney smiled. He knew her too well.

"Now get over here," he said, pulling her closer by her hips, and kissed her again.

Courtney closed her eyes and kissed back. She blindly searched for a plainsurface and set down the turpentine bottle. She then threw her arms around her boyfriend's shoulders and continued to kiss him, and the scene ended on a good note.

"How could you think it was o-kay to just—leave like that?"

Ten months later, they were in a pretty similar situation.

"Because it was not! Ugh!" Courtney narrowed her eyes at Duncan. "Abandon me again and it will not be pretty!" she warned him. Then, deciding to end the scolding, she smiled good-naturedly. "Now- get over here you big lug!" She said affectionately, and closed in for a hug. He wrapped his arms around her, just as she expected him to.

She closed her eyes into his warmth and tenderly confessed, "I'm not really mad. I just… missed you."

She felt the smile on his voice as it reached her ears, "Every time I ran from the cops, I thought of you."

His response just made her smile harder. She nuzzled her face in his collar, basking in the scent of him, feeling more at home than she ever had.

She stood there for a while, just embracing her boyfriend, the most constant and sure thing in her life.

Just a note to avoid confusion: This Courtney epiphany was before Duncan meeting his in-laws, and before his change. That's why he's so carefree and unsuspecting up there.

Not sure if I like all of this… You go.

~The Lighthouse