'What will it take to show you that it's not the life it seems?
I've told you time and time again you sing the words but don't know what it means
To be a joke and look, another line without a hook
I held you close as we both shook for the last time take a good hard look!'
I'm Not Okay (I Promise) - My Chemical Romance.

Chapter Ten - Mutual.

Kurt was lost in his own deep thoughts as he walked slowly up the LA. Tipton corridor. He was on his way to find Carey, who had relocated to the quiet sanctuary of the employee's lounge, away from all the other people and the distressing reminders of what had happened to her boys.

Without even noticing, Kurt almost walked right past the door leading into the lounge. It's not that he didn't know where he was going or that he had gotten lost, he was merely far too distracted by all the attention grabbing thoughts flying through his mind.

Much to his own surprise, over the past three days or so, Kurt had been holding himself together pretty well. He had to, though, he kept telling himself, for Carey. The twins' mother had become an instant mess upon hearing the news, and hadn't exactly changed her frame of mind since. But Kurt – no matter how devastated and broken he felt inside – had kept his emotions on the down low, not wanting his mental state to affect Carey's and make it any worse. But, of course, that was all a lot easier said than done.

As much as the boys' father strived to keep his mood shielded away from the rest of the world, he couldn't help but sense the extreme need and yearning he felt to have his sons safely back with him. None of what had happened was anything that Kurt ever possibly could have fathomed. Zack and Cody were meant to make something of themselves. More than what he had, anyway. That was his only wish as a dad.

Shooting a quick double take at the labeled plate on the lounge door, Kurt took a deep breath and cautiously opened it up, peering around the corner.

Each sharp 'tick' that resonated from the clock that hung on the wall was another dull throb that pounded in the back of Carey's head. She was gazing straight ahead, as she had been when she was down in the lobby, and was thinking. Constantly thinking.

The police had arrived a while ago now. But Carey wasn't ready to talk, not yet. She just wanted to be by herself, which was why she had been so grateful when the L.A. hotel manager allowed her to have the employee's lounge all to herself. It was easier for her to gather all her various thoughts here, and it was quieter. Except for that damn clock.

Up until that moment, the police had been interviewing Mr. Moesby, London, Woody and others from the ship concerning where Cody and Bailey may have been. They had also begun their search in the limited space of about a two-mile radius around the hotel. But as Carey was about to find out, it was now or never that she and Kurt had to take their turn with the authorities.

Her head instantly snapped up at the sound of the wooden door creaking open, and Carey and Kurt sighed sadly to one another as they became evident in each other's vision.

Closing the door softly behind him, Kurt tentatively strolled over towards Carey and took a seat next to her on one of the lounges.

"The police are on their way up," he stated, gently clearing his throat, "They want to talk to us."

Carey simply nodded her head, refusing to utter a single word. Sighing again, Kurt placed a tender hand on his ex-wife's knee, "Carey – "

"No, Kurt," Carey suddenly sniped, bringing her voice box back to life. She shifted away from Kurt's touch, "Can we just leave everything, please? I don't even want to talk to the police let alone anybody else, so please, please just leave me alone!"

Kurt stared at Carey, wide-eyed and confused at her abrupt outburst, "C'mon, Carey, you're not going to feel any better keeping all your emotions bottled up."

"I don't care," she growled, "I don't need to talk, I just need to concentrate on getting Cody back here alive."

His wide expression rapidly narrowed as Kurt eyed Carey suspiciously, "Are you trying to tell me that you've seriously bought into the assumption that Zack is – "

"Don't, Kurt!" Carey yelled, fresh tears springing to her eyes, "Just don't, ok? Look at everything we've been told – from Moesby, from the hospital! If I don't let go now, then when can I?"

"Why is it so hard for you to believe that Cody's right and his twin is still out there somewhere?"

"Because Cody's in denial, Kurt," Carey spat, "And so are you."

"Isn't there a difference between being in denial and holding out hope?" Kurt countered on the verge of anger.

"Is there?" Carey curiously posed, "Why don't you tell me, Kurt, because I'm not sure if I know what anything really is anymore."

Kurt slowly shook his head in disbelief, "Look, Carey, I know you're scared – "

"Scared?" she interrupted quietly, "I'm terrified."

The twins' father immediately felt his heart unstitch at the seams as he witnessed the mother of his children bury her head in her hands where she sat and begin to sob softly.

"I know that Cody is still out there somewhere," she recommenced after an awkward moment or two, "But Zack? …I'm terrified that if I allow myself to believe that he is still alive and then find out that he really isn't… I just can't relive that feeling again, Kurt, I can't…"

"And you won't," Kurt soothed, diving across the lounge to collect Carey in a firm embrace, "It won't come to that, Carey, it won't. There is a difference between denial and hope, but there's an even bigger difference between allowing yourself to fully believe in something and simply wishing for it to keep yourself in a stable mind-set."

Carey cried faintly into Kurt's shirt as she clutched onto his shoulder for dear life.

"And I know it's going to take us a while to get through this," he went on, "but we will. We need to stay strong for Cody, because he's the one who's going to need the most support when we get him back and we find out whatever the truth is about Zack."

Carey timidly raised her head and locker her tear soaked eyes with Kurt's, "Our baby…" she mumbled miserably.

"I know," Kurt cooed, kissing her forehead softly, "but we need to calm down and do anything we can to help both of them, ok?"

Carey blinked away her dampening tears and determinedly nodded her head.

Kurt smiled softly, "There's nothing wrong with holding out a little hope for both of them."

Just as Carey exchanged the brave grin, a gentle knock was heard at the door before it opened to reveal a police officer standing on the other side.

Carey nervously beckoned the man to come in as he offered a friendly smile and a tip of his cap before he took it off.

"Good morning," he began kindly, "My name is Officer Jeffrey Matthews. Let me start by saying, I'm sincerely sorry for your loss."

Carey sharply bit her tongue and simply allowed Kurt to nod his head and murmur a quiet 'thank you'.

"Now," Matthews restarted, "I've spoken to many of your boys' friends and other employees from the S.S. Tipton, and some of my other officers have explored the immediate area around the hotel, but I'm afraid we're no closer to finding Cody."

Sighing slowly, Carey tried to ignore the heavy throbbing of her heart beating in her chest and gripped tighter onto Kurt's knee.

"So, I'm hoping I'll be able to get more information out of you and your ex-wife for us to run with," Matthews continued, turning to Kurt and flipping open his notepad, "Cody left to go and find his brother, right? Because he thinks that he survived the capsize of the ship?"

"Yes," Kurt confirmed, "He and his girlfriend, Bailey, ran off last night before Carey and I were even on our flight from Boston."

"So, your sons were always close?"

"Yes," Carey instantly cut in, taking the lead, "Although, they would never admit it. Never. And I suppose there was a stage they went through at the beginning of high school where it always seemed like they couldn't stand to be around each other, but when they first boarded that ship last year, they were all that each other had."

Kurt attempted to hold back the tears welling within him as Carey's recollections were increasingly accompanied by a painfully raspy tone.

"That's why Cody left and is so adamant that Zack is alive," she prolonged dejectedly, "because he loves him too much to believe any differently."

Officer Matthews scratched his head, sighing and forcing himself not to take any affect to the heart-breaking reminiscence.

"Thank you, Ms. Martin," he simply said, clearly understanding how hard the situation must have been for the distressed mother, "And do you have any idea at all where Cody might be?"

Carey frowned and fell into deep contemplation for a brief second. Soon enough, she shrugged her shoulders, "Only wherever might get him closer to Zack."

Taking this into consideration, Matthews nodded his head and scribbled a quick note down onto his pad. Kurt squeezed Carey's shoulder in supportive pride as the policeman then stood up and put his hat back on.

"If that is what you think then there may be one place we could look into," he informed them confidently, "If Cody is so desperate to find Zack, like you say, then it would be my best guess that he would be constantly on the move."

"Well, not necessarily," Carey interjected once more, "You have no idea how smart my Cody is. If he's this persistent on finding Zack, he won't be sloppy about it. I mean, for all we know, he could be staying in one place just carefully watching for an opportunity to sensibly make his next move."

"Bailey, we gotta' leave," Cody announced.

Bailey's head shot up from where she sat on Nate's bed as Cody rapidly appeared from the other side of the door.

"What?" she asked in confusion, "Leave? Where are we – "

"There may be," Cody interjected with a slight wave of hesitation, "a little bit of a hiccup."

Bailey coarsely gritted her teeth, "How little?"

Simply imagining the reaction sure to explode from his girlfriend, Cody sighed and bit his lip, "There's a few people who aren't exactly all that… happy with Nate at the moment, and they may or may not be coming after him."

Bailey's jaw dropped, "Cody!"

"Look, it'll be ok, ok? That's why we're leaving now, so they don't find him."

"And us! Because of him, we're in this, too! Why do we need any of them, Cody, why can't we just leave on our own like we planned?"

The look of accusation from Bailey that pierced straight through Cody's soul caused him to stop and think for a moment. He knew that he didn't want to get himself and Bailey in enough trouble to make her feel so uncomfortable, and possibly even a little frightened, but he couldn't ignore the ever-nagging argument in the back of his mind that said that Nate and Ty and the others were the only chance he had at that moment to get any closer to Zack.

"Bailey, I – "

"Hey, you two?"

The two teens stopped and gazed up towards the door as they heard the dim tone of Ty's voice echo from across the room.

"You coming, or not?" she enquired cynically, "If you want my help so bad, I know where we can go. Nate's buddy 'X' hooked us up with a place to stay."

Cody heard Bailey heave an unimpressed breath from behind him and she rolled her eyes with a shrug of her shoulders as her boyfriend gave her a fleeted pleading look.

"Fine," she spat with no expression. Before another word could be said, the farm-girl then briskly sauntered past Cody and Ty and walked into the next room where Nate was with the other two boys.

Shaking her head, Ty stifled a jeering chuckle and simply glanced back up at Cody with a plain appearance. Cody cocked an eyebrow. It was almost as if this girl only had one facial expression that covered all emotion.

"Smile," he said.

Ty blinked, "What?"

"It'll do you a world of good."

Shaking her head again, Ty locked her pastel green eyes with the dull tone of Cody's, "I could say the same for you."

As Cody fell to silence at Ty's countering argument, the dark-haired girl then shifted her vision to the brightly coloured clothing cloaking the younger twin's body that London had bought for him.

"You're not very good at being inconspicuous," Ty simply stated, "Your gonna' have heads turning wherever we go, included the heads of the losers looking for my cousin."

"I did have a darker coloured jacket, but I…" Cody slowly trailed off as he pictured his favourite jacket sitting harmlessly on what was once his towel station, "I lost it."

"How do you lose a piece of clothing?"

"Hey!" Nate's voice suddenly boomed from the next room, "Whenever you guys are ready?"

Ignoring the older boy's sarcasm, Cody and Ty held their gaze for a second or two longer before the emerald-eyed girl flicked her hair out of her face and spun around, quickly exiting the room. In the next instant, Cody followed and entered the lounge room where Bailey was standing by the front door waiting for the others to ready themselves to leave.

"You alright, Cody?" Nate asked.

The younger twin nodded his head, "Yeah, I'm ok. Are we going now?"

"Sure are," Nate replied, picking up one of the two boxes that he and Cody had brought in earlier, "Hog, make yourself useful and grab the other one, would ya?"

"Why me?" the redhead complained.

Brayden snickered under his breath, "You're the one who needs to lose the most weight."

"I didn't ask you, dickhead!"

Nate merely rolled his eyes in annoyance as Hog and Brayden started throwing different insults at each other while Bailey, on the other hand, eyed the boxes apprehensively.

"What's in there, anyway?" she asked doubtfully.

"It doesn't matter," Nate answered with assurance, "I'm dumping it all. That's what 'X' told me to do. There's a place he said we can stay near where we're getting rid of it, and according to Ty, it's where we need to go to get closer to Newberry."

"What we will do about food?" Hog asked urgently, punching Brayden in the arm for laughing at his indulgent query.

Placing his box down on the ground, Nate dug into the depths of his pocket and proudly revealed a large wad of cash all rolled up in a metal clip. Cody, who had now inched his way across the room to stand beside Bailey, felt his jaw drop to the ground in surprise.

"Nice," Ty murmured along with a whistle from Brayden.

"Half now, half when it's done," Nate informed the group with a smile, shoving it back into the pocket of his track pants.

"Well then, we should get going," Ty spoke, shooting a glance at Bailey, "As long as that's ok with everyone."

Bailey frowned as Cody took a hold of her hand and glared back at Ty, "We're all ok with it," he reassured on his girlfriend's behalf.

"Right then," Nate said, lugging his box back up, "Let's get outta' here."

Then, with not many more words spoken, the group all piled out the front door and began walking in whichever direction Ty decided to lead them.

Bailey continued gripping onto Cody's hand tighter and tighter with every step they took as the younger twin softly traced circles against her skin with his thumb. There wasn't a doubt in his mind that said it was huge risk becoming involved with people like Nate and Ty - the day's events had done nothing so far as to prove that so. But something else that spoke to him, in a much louder volume, was that now that they were finally on the move, he was getting increasingly closer to where Zack was.

"Why do you need to get to Newberry, anyway?" Ty suddenly spoke, breaking the silence.

Cody spotted Bailey rapidly glance at him out of the corner of his eye. Taking in a deep breath, he put on a brave face and gawked up at Ty with a shrug.

"It doesn't really matter. I just do."

"Well, yeah, but still, it's a long way from here, you've gotta' have a better reason than 'just because'?"

"Ty," Nate sharply cut in, "I'm sure if Cody wanted to talk about it he would've by now, don't you think?"

Ty scoffed at the reprimanding tone from her cousin and placed her attention back on Cody, "Well?"

Cody looked down at his feet helplessly, trying his absolute hardest to push all images of Zack and the swashing ocean out of his mind. He didn't want to have another break down, not here in front of the people who had decided he was, what, cool enough to help him? Maybe it was the exact opposite to that. Maybe the only reason Nate had suggested the assistance of his cousin was because he pitied Cody and felt sorry for him. Whatever the reason, the younger twin wasn't going to blow it with any reaction that could be deemed by the group as uncalled for.

"Does it really matter right now?" Bailey interrupted sternly, "Shouldn't we be concentrating on Nate's little 'job'? Who is this Damon guy, anyway?"

Cody sighed a breath of relief and stared down at his beautiful farm-girl, smiling gratefully at her for quickly changing the topic of conversation. Bailey softly grinned back and settled into his grasp as the younger twin released her hand and instead draped an arm over her shoulder while they walked.

Nate, meanwhile, looked over his shoulder and waited for Ty to answer Bailey' question. When his cousin merely bit her lip and started playing with her piercing in frustration, the older boy decided to take the reins.

"Damon, in a word, is a douche," he replied, subtly smirking at Bailey's obvious attempt to hide a laugh, "When the both of them were still in school, he went to the same place as Hog, right, bud?"

Hog nodded as he switched the heavy cardboard box from one of his arms to the other, "He always picked on me and one of my other friends. One day about a year and a half ago when we were still in middle school, I finally stood up to him and we fought it out. We both got expelled."

"Just for fighting?" Cody asked in disbelief.

Hog sorted a laugh, "You weren't there, man. Violent shit, lemme' tell ya."

"When I met Hog, he had already starting hanging around with Brayden," Nate resumed, "Your old man chucked you out after you got kicked out of school, didn't he?"

The chubbier boy nodded his conformation again.

"Yeah," Nate redirected to Cody, "Damon was out on the street giving them both some trouble when me and Ty rocked up to help. Had it out for me ever since."

"Wow," Bailey droned anxiously, "So are you sure it's really such a brilliant idea to be dumping the stuff that your friend stole from him?"

"Don't worry, princess," Brayden cut in, "He ain't got shit on us, right, Nate-o?"

"Ease up, Mr. Testosterone," Nate quipped sarcastically, "I'm the one who always end up scaring them off."

"Yeah, you or Ty," Hog added, "They take one look at her and run off in the other direction."

"Shut your trap, fat-boy," Ty snapped, cutting into Hog and Brayden's array of grunting giggles.

"Whoa, ok, cuz," Nate soothed, "You know how they get, just ignore it. Now, where are we going?"

Ty groaned and slowed her pace up a bit, dropping behind the rest of the group, "When we need to change direction, I'll say so, ok?"

Brayden and Hog both started chuckling again at the dark-haired girl's vicious snipe and began whispering something crude about her 'time of the month' while Nate looked to Bailey and shrugged his shoulders nonchalantly.

Cody, however, heaved a repentant breath and delicately gazed over his shoulder at Ty.

Her empty eyes gaped up, too, and mirrored his for the slightest of moments until a soft expression took over and she quickly darted them towards the ground, leaving Cody to pause in thought for a second or two before he empathetically shook his head and refocussed his attention to the converstion echoing around him.

Hello everybody :) I think I may have come to the conclusion that the chapters in this story are going to continue to be about this length, even though I'm used to writing a little longer, there's just too many separate ideas I want to space out for this story. I'm actually quite happy with how this particular chapter turned out, too :) What did you all think, though? More questions, comments or general reviews are quite welcome :) Till next time!

Reneyyyyyyy x.