Last chapter! I can't believe I'm finishing this! Thanks to everyone who read this far, and those who left nice reviews on top! :) It's been a nice ride... see you on the next fic! ;)

Part XII: Final

In her first passion, a woman loves her lover, in all the others all she loves is love.
-Lord Byron

Courtney bore holes into Duncan's back.

Look at me, look at me, goddamn it will you turn already.

He was too busy staring at that damned sheep Alejandro was holding up-

Finally. He had turned around, and found Courtney's eyes because he knew what was going through her mind at that moment—and she quickly complied with what he expected by furiously pointing her thumb towards Gwen.

At the same time she slid one finger across her throat, she caught sight of the sadness in his eyes, and her heart sunk and seemed to crawl around her insides. It was like an arrow to the chest, seeing his misery over Gwen being as good as gone, and for a second she felt faint with jealousy, longing and rage.

Courtney did once again the most useful thing she had always done and translated her pain into strength.

"Courtney? Are you sure this is something you should be doing?"

The brunette held up a hand at Bridgette, the other hand pressing the Rewind button on the remote. "Chst-chst! I'm almost done!" she said brightly.

Bridgette was ill at ease, and continued to watch the other girl watch and re-watch and re-re-watch the scenes that involved her, Duncan, and/or Gwen, in search for something that escaped the blonde. Courtney's bubbly persona might have fooled someone who didn't know her– if she hadn't been shaking. Her cheery act was bursting at the seams.

She was relieved when Courtney finally ended the recording.

Courtney did a little laugh as she faced Bridgette. "Idiot just put everyone on my side."

The blonde sighed. "Courtney, look…"

"Bridgette, I'm alright, alright? Actually, I'm happy! Our relationship was just this mindless thing we fell into, and then we just kept going 'cause… D-Duncan did me a big favor—he freed me from his bad influence and put all the fans on my side. What can I complain about? They both did everything wrong!"

On the finished version of the show it was clear how Courtney had decided to open up to Duncan little before he had decided to screw her over, thus rendering her a sweeter and more caring girlfriend than ever, screwed over by two villains. She had done everything perfect. Not that that was any surprise.

The blonde wasn't buying her speech, but it didn't matter. Courtney, internally, was relieved now that the deeper, more real part of her relationship with Duncan had never been caught on camera. To Bridgette, she might or might not have been heartbroken. She would never know for sure, and that was just how Courtney liked it.

As for the rest of the world, they'd believe what she said. She was the good guy.

And as for herself, one thing was certain. No matter what she was at that moment, she would carry on without him.

Carrying on was the only thing she had always done well.

Courtney sighed as she got off the last bus, with nothing on her but a bag with what belongings three seasons of Total Drama had left her.

Half a mile on sandals and it would be home, sweet home once again.

As she walked through the streets of her familiar town, she entertained herself trying to imagine her family's reaction when she returned.

Her mother, pragmatic as she was, would immediately assert she always knew the boy wasn't a keeper and that Courtney was infinitely better off without him. It was the reaction that made the most sense: the less her daughter cared about him, the sooner she could go back to being herself, being productive, being successful.

Justine, who never let go of a grudge, would badmouth Duncan for a long time; it would constantly come up on conversation for a few years, it would wane when her sister got a new boyfriend, and eventually the he would be a distant anecdote of their past. Her sweet Elizabeth would probably be bringing her tea and cocadas, making excuses to stick around even if it meant doing her chores; Courtney would feel like she owed her and would offer to do her hair, and the whole thing would only bring them closer.

Her dad would be extra affectionate in his own silent, hesitant way. He would give her sad, comforting smiles and pat her hair every time he saw her, treating the whole thing as if a pet had died. And Jonah, her little Indian Prince, if he even remembered Duncan, would just be glad he was gone; he and Rachel would cheer her up simply by being her babies.

And the best part was that there was no rush for absolutely any of it. Courtney felt strangely peaceful, and she attributed it to her time on reality TV being finally over.

Now, passing by a house playing upbeat music –most likely prepping for a party-, she felt inclined to sing.

Two years later, she was standing on her new boyfriend's living room, running late for her brother's birthday party.

"Mi amor!" she called.

"Qué?" came from upstairs.

"Apúrate," she urged him to hurry up.

"Like you're ready."

"I am!" for she had been ready for a long time.

No response.

Courtney turned to look in the mirror. She checked her makeup, hair, straightened her clothes. Applied more mascara. Then she just stood there. And she looked, really looked at herself.

Out of habit she tugged at the collar of her shirt, exposing her neck. She had done it a lot in the first few weeks after Duncan. It had started as a sort of fascinated staring, back when she was still processing what had happened, then she had kept on doing it as damage assessment, and now it was just a habit.

She kept checking even though there were no marks.

There had been, at first, and she'd had to be careful to button up her collared shirts and cover up right after a shower. They thankfully had started to fade right around springtime, where it would have looked strange that she kept wearing scarves to bed.

Not that she didn't have new marks to occupy her attention. Bumps and bruises in different states of healing lived in her arms, legs and back, but for some reason she didn't tug at her sleeves the same way she pulled on her collar.

Courtney wondered at herself.

Was she fucked up, because she had fallen from one kind-of abusive relationship into another? Had Duncan been the one to screw her up, or did she have some kind of magnetism for his type? Her mother had taught her better than that to let herself be stepped on. So why didn't she feel like this was something that needed to be fixed?

Courtney stood in silence in front of the mirror and noticed that if you squinted, the human heart itself looked a bit too much like a swollen red bump.

Now, Courtney struggled to leave the collar of her sweater alone. She knew Duncan would be watching her every move.

Another dash of wind swept through, but she didn't shiver this time; the wind came from the West, and now Duncan's body blocked it. The setting sun cast a pale golden glow over the neighborhood. Courtney looked downwards, taking notice that their two shadows, rising towards the east with inhumanely long legs, appeared to be standing peacefully next to each other, unlike in real life.

She subconsciously leaned a little to the side, in a desperate attempt to shield her boyfriend from the sight of Duncan. Meanwhile, she kept her eyes on her guy.

He was truly a beautiful man. Tall, lean. Dark hair in a buzz cut. Brown skin. Little brown eyes and a thin moustache just above thin lips.

She had known him for two years, but they had only pursued their interest in each other over the last half year.

And now she loved him. So very much. And she couldn't stand this setting. Thinking that her boyfriend –with whom, at least, the good moments outweighed the awful ones- could turn and see them at any moment was enough to put her on edge.

She heard Duncan chuckle without humor behind her. "You always did have a thing for lost causes."

Enough. "What do you want, Duncan!?"

She whipped back her head as she said this, and immediately regretted asking, because she could see then, in the way he straightened his back and his baby blue eyes lost their perpetually bored expression, that he actually had something he wanted to say.

"I never asked you. Did it ever…" It was hard for Courtney to believe what she was seeing as his hand rose to point at his neck. "Did you ever get a bruise or… did you have difficulty breathing…after?"

Courtney had never thought she would hear him bring that up in their lives. She shook herself out of her stupor enough to respond, "No, I… it bruised but it went away after a few weeks. I didn't have any other secondary effects." And then she held his gaze. Because she knew he was holding back, and that wasn't what he wanted to say.

He cleared his throat. "I never said I was sorry. …I'm sorry. For everything."

It took all her might not to whisper 'wow' under her breath. "Well," she trailed off, not knowing why she opened her mouth in the first place, before deciding to take his cue and be honest herself. "Two years ago that would've been all I wanted to hear."

"And now?"

Courtney turned away from him and scanned her feelings. It surprised her how little she cared. "Too little too late."

To his credit, for all the awfulness that had been their relationship, Duncan had been a good enough ex. He had never tried to contact her after the show, and he had never attempted to bring up their past prior to this moment. He had never called her while drunk, or gone off about how much he missed her and still loved her. She just hoped he wouldn't start now.

"Do you…" they both seemed to hold their breath. "do you wanna know why? Why I cheated and... all that?"

Courtney flashed back to that morning, where she had woken up to a regular day, not knowing later she would experience an emotional rollercoaster courtesy of a boy she thought was definitely in her past. Now he was offering her- what? Closure? A final plea? One last chance to throw something in her face?

Because she had thought about it, at first; she had thought about him and what had happened between them. She knew the part she had played, but she seemed to change on why he had done what he did almost every day, until she had finally buried it as a question with no answer.

Now she had a chance to hear the official version… did she really want to reopen old wounds?

It happened in seconds. Favián looked up and realized he could see her girlfriend across the street. Courtney's hand rose to wave back at her boyfriend, and she smiled tensely as a sense of dread invaded her entire body.

Something was wrong. Why was super-jealous Favián smiling back at her, not yet frowning at the strange boy behind her? As soon as he looked away, Courtney risked a look back, and found no one behind her. She whipped her head around in time to see Duncan's rapidly retreating form. She stared after him until he got lost in the crowd.

Searching her feelings, Courtney found she felt better at just having gotten his apology, like things had finally settled. She knew then that whenever she dug up the old memory of her relationship with Duncan, she would remember it on a slightly better light.

And she would never know why he had begun the process that doomed their relationship, but that didn't matter. She knew what she felt.

Her answer would have been 'no'.

~The Lighthouse