'And I know we won't touch for months
And your smell will evade me
But our love could survive a war
Without the slightest sore.
And I know I can't taste your skin
With an ocean between us
But our love is a dinosaur
Hear it roar.'
Dinosaur - Kisschasy.
Chapter Eighteen - Tearful Goodbyes.
Bailey sat still and silent, her bottom lip still quivering and her hand tentatively wrapped around Cody's. She swore with every emotion she had and in every sense of the word that she would never forget the image that she had regretfully come face to face with upon entering the hospital for as long as she lived.
Bailey had felt her heart shatter to a million pieces the precise second she had reached the end of the corridor to find Cody curled up in the foetal position, crying frantically into his knees that were painfully dug up under his chin. She had immediately, and unwillingly, figured out what had happened, and had then collapsed sadly next to her boyfriend, enveloping him in her grasp and crying just as hysterically.
Now, Cody sat stiffly and dejectedly, his vision cast straight ahead at the pale, white wall before where he and Bailey sat. An instant wave of relief had swept over the farm-girl the moment that Cody had taken the offer of her hand in his. It purely amazed her that even amongst the younger twin's darkest possible moments, he still absolutely refused to shut Bailey out. But even so, as they sat in the dull quiet they had created between them, Bailey nervously mulled over what there possibly was for her to say or do to make Cody feel - not better, that was impossible - but simply any improvement on the all time low that he was at now.
What perhaps astonished Bailey more than anything else, however, and established the most devastating feeling that she had ever succumb to was the distressing realisation that Zack was, in actual fact, truly gone. Bailey was certain that Cody was right and Zack was in Newberry General hospital and was completely fine - and alive. But he wasn't.
In the next moment, Bailey suddenly looked up - though, of course, Cody didn't - as a pair of footsteps were heard coming towards them. She forced an extremely reluctant smile as Officer Jeffrey Matthews stood over the young couple and offered a sympathetic nod of his head.
"Cody, Bailey," he started seemingly unsure of himself, "I can't possibly begin to understand how either one of you are - "
"Tyler Lucas," Cody abruptly interjected, earning himself a wide-eyed stare from both Bailey and Matthews at the unexpected sound of his voice. The blonde farm-girl anxiously scanned her boyfriend's face for any sign or hint of the emotion he had been hiding exceptionally well beneath his exterior, but still, had no such luck.
Matthews raised a curious eyebrow, "Excuse me?"
"Nate's cousin," Cody explained sourly, "Ty. She pushed him."
Matthews eyed Bailey suspiciously as Cody turned his head back to the wall in front of him, refusing to speak another word. Clearing her throat, Bailey slowly nodded her head, "It's true. Ty did that to her own cousin."
Sombrely nodding his head once more, Matthews wiped his brow, looking to Cody, "Thank you, Cody, for keeping your end of our deal." He then re-faced Bailey, "How about you come with me into the next room and tell me a bit more about this Tyler? I think Cody could probably do with time on his own, anyway."
Feeling frenzied at the thought of leaving Cody's side, Bailey turned to face him. While the younger twin kept his eyes glued to the wall, he instead gently squeezed his girlfriend's hand in support, sending a million electric shivers up her arm as her heart thudded lightly in her chest.
As Bailey then nodded her approval, she leaned over and kissed Cody softly on the cheek and then stood up and walked off in the direction that Matthews was gesturing to her, leaving Cody sitting stilly on his own.
Cody could feel the burn of Bailey's kiss flaming against his skin in caressing affection. He hoped that he wasn't blocking her out too much, but at the same time, he was certain within himself that he wasn't quite yet at the stage where he was ready to share his emotions - not with her or anyone else. After all, he was still trying to come to terms with them himself.
"Mr. Martin?"
Cody continued to glare hard at the wall opposite him, blinked, and then allowed his vision to fall upon the image of the older nurse who had previously tried to stop him when he had sprinted up the hospital corridor. He simply stared at her, his red-rimmed eyes filled with emptiness, and waited for her to speak.
"I wish you hadn't burst through here only to get your heart broken like that. It surely would've have been much easier to hear from us that you're brother isn't here," she spoke with a sad, compassionate sigh as she took Bailey's seat beside him. The younger twin clenched his teeth angrily, wanting to bark at the woman that he didn't need nor desire her pity but, instead, decided to keep his mouth shut.
The slightly hefty nurse heaved another breath, "And I appreciate how devastated this must all be to you, but you must appreciate how busy we are at this particular point in time. Now, I'm sure Officer Matthews has informed you that your parents - "
"Cody!"
Before the nurse could even contemplate finishing her thoughts about Carey and Kurt arriving at Newberry General, Cody's head robotically snapped up at the sound of his mother's voice as he saw both of his parents dashing towards him.
As livid as Cody may have been when he had first heard that his parents were planning on taking him back to Boston with no investigation whatsoever into whether Zack was really alive or not, the mere sensation of seeing his mum and dad after all this time caused every single past emotion of anger to completely wash away from the younger twin's core as he leapt up from his chair, sprinted towards Carey and lunged into her open embrace.
"Oh, Cody," Carey droned in tear-ridden happiness, "Cody, thank God you're ok. Baby, I was so worried about you."
Cody breathed heavily into Carey's shoulder, holding back the tears of his own, "Mum, Zack's - "
"I know, baby, I know," Carey interjected. She stifled a shaky breath as her tears began to flow faster, "I'm so sorry you've had to go through this, Cody."
"Yeah, but, Mum - " the younger attempted again, but was then cut off by a strong tug on his shirt as he was towed into a fierce hug from his father. Cody rolled his eyes, craving - for the first time in what felt like a lifetime - the opportunity to speak.
"Buddy, you have no idea much sleep we lost over this whole thing," Kurt joked with a stern tone, "Don't ever do something like this to us again, do you understand?"
Pushing away from his dad's grip, Cody felt his head spin as he was caught between the conflicting personalities of his over-affectionate mother and his reprimanding father. "I'm fine," he spat in reassurance, "I'm ok - Bailey and I are both ok."
Cody suddenly froze, wide-eyed, as his own words brought a new and worrying thought to his mind, "Where's Bailey's mum?"
Carey and Kurt instantly glared at each other in uncertainty. While the two of them had already had the unique pleasure of meeting Nadia Pickett, as well as hearing just how much she didn't appreciate their son leading her daughter so far astray, Cody could only guess that by the sound of the nasally voice he then heard resonating up the corridor that he, too, was just about to have that exact same gratification.
"Bailey! Bailey-Bunny!"
Cody cringed at the high pitched shriek as Nadia then revealed herself at the end of the hallway, wasting no time carrying her short, stout figure up to where he and his parents were standing. Her shoulder-length, fiery red hair matched the blazing fury in her eyes as she waddled angrily towards Cody, her eyes glaring sharp daggers at him.
"Mrs. Pickett - " Carey began, trying to calm the flames licking at her son's feet.
"Don't interrupt me," Nadia snapped hypocritically, "Where is my Bailey?"
Stifling a nervous gulp, Cody held his strong, tall stance and tried not to blink at the intimidating rage coating Nadia's entire exterior. Just as the younger twin was about to open his mouth and begin to attempt to explain himself and his actions, each set of eyes in the corridor suddenly looked up at the sound of the door to the next room opening to reveal Bailey standing on the other side of it.
"Momma?" she asked in confusion.
An explosive smile of relief impulsively beamed across Nadia's face as she pushed past the younger twin and collected Bailey in an affectionate embrace.
"Mum," Bailey began in uncertainty, wriggling out of her mother's tight grip, "Wha-what are you doing here?"
Nadia frowned in a similar amount of confusion, "I'm here to take you home," she answered, nothing the shock in her daughter's wide eyes. "Do you have any idea how worried I've been about you? I've had no idea where you've been, what you've been doing or if you've been ok! And now, after all this time, you've been running halfway across the state with him?"
"Hehas a name!" Bailey thundered at Nadia, "His name is Cody! And it's not like this was all his idea, either - Cody never forced me into doing anything I didn't want to! He didn't even want to bring me along with him in the first place!"
Nadia scoffed in disgust as Kurt grabbed a hold of Carey's arm, all too aware that at any moment she was bound to leap to the defence of their son, as well.
Officer Matthews, who had been standing in the doorway listening after his conversation with Bailey about Ty, abruptly opened his mouth to speak, "May I ask that all of you please move this discussion to another location? There are still many doctors and nurses trying to get some work done around here."
Wiping her eyes with the back of her wrist, Bailey then side-stepped her mum, taking Cody's hand as the two of them began to walk back down the corridor, "I'm not going home," the farm-girl declared as they marched along, "I can't. I don't want to leave Cody after Zack..."
The mention of his brother's name amongst Bailey's tone of devestation was like another hard slap right across Cody's face as he strived his absolute hardest to ignore both the sound of the heated footsteps following he and his girlfriend, as well as the heart-wretching combination of emotions that were still overloading at the boiling rate in his stomach.
"I'm afraid you don't have much of a choice, young lady!" Nadia continued in a patronizing tone, "You're coming back to Kettlecorn with me as soon as I get an apology from your so-called boyfriend."
A twinging chord suddenly snapped against Cody's heart as he froze on the spot, tugging Bailey lightly towards him as he slowly spun around and glared at Nadia in total and utter perplexity. Bailey's world seemed to slow as she immediately noticed the immense animosity that had swiftly taken over her boyfriend's core, surprised to find that even a gentle squeeze of his hand failed to ease his fury.
"What?" he grunted rudely.
"You heard me," Nadia spat back, "I want an apology for all that you've put me and my daughter and our whole family through."
Glancing between each of the faces that were staring hard at him, Cody felt his insides burst in anger as everyone's expression told him to just get it over with and to let Bailey's stuck up mother have the pride of getting him to say sorry. It made him feel sick. Cody knew whole-heartedly that over the past few days he had done things that he never would've imagined himself doing. But he also knew just as surely that he still had his dignity, and nothing was going to allow him to let that go.
"No."
Nadia's brow furrowed, "Excuse me?"
"I said 'no'," Cody repeated, "I'm not saying I'm sorry. Not to you, not to my own parents - not to anyone! I don't regret anything I've done, and I know Bailey doesn't either."
Bailey felt her heart flutter at the defiance in her boyfriend's voice. It was a side of him that she had certainly had enough time to get used to over the past few days, and was quickly becoming one of the main reasons she loved him so much.
"But I do understand where you're coming from," Cody went on, "So just let me say goodbye to Bailey before you leave, ok?"
The fluttering in the farm-girl's heart came to an abrupt stop, "Wait, what?"
Cody looked down sadly at the sudden distress that had overtaken Bailey's eyes, "Bailey... your mum's right. You need to go home."
All tender emotion was violently squeezed out of Bailey's heart as she felt a ton of bricks crash down onto her shoulders and she tore away from the grip Cody held on her hand, "No!" she screamed.
The younger twin took a deep breath to suppress his tears, "Bailey, please - "
"No, no! No way! You can't be letting her do this to us, Cody, you're meant to be on my side!"
Carey felt a tear trickle down her face at the pain in her son's voice as he continued to speak, "I am on your side, sweetie - "
"No you're not! Not if you let her tear us apart!" the farm-girl raged on as she turned on her heels, "I love you, I thought you loved me!" she yelled before running off down the corridor and out of the hospital.
"Love?" Nadia questioned as Cody took off after Bailey without a second's thought, "The two of you know nothing about love!"
"I won't ask the three of you again," Matthews warned just as Carey took a threatening step towards Nadia, "Please exit the corridor so that the doctors may continue their work."
The early morning sun was warm on Bailey's tear-ridden face as she dashed out between the hospital's double doors and collapsed upright against the brick wall. Her shoulders shook heavily through her choking sobs. The last thing she ever expected was Cody to let her go without a fight. She thought that after losing Zack, she would become the most important thing in his life - something he would never, ever let go of. The mere sentiment that told her that that may not be true was enough to make her want to rip her own heart out before he could.
"Bailey?" the younger twin called moments later, bursting through the doors. The farm-girl tried to run away, but Cody soon spotted her and approached, placing his hands against the wall on either side of her, preventing any chance of an escape.
Bailey instantly glanced down at the ground, "Are you trying to make me slap you again?"
"I just want you to listen to me," Cody asked her, "Can you do that for me?"
Licking his lips, Cody took Bailey's silence as implied consent, and then opened his mouth to speak again, "I am on your side. I'd never abandon you," he spoke reassuringly, "But you need your family right now. I promise you, staying with me is not going to make you feel any better. I don't want you around me while I'm going through this."
"Through what, exactly?" Bailey snapped, eventually locking eyes with Cody, "I know physically what is going on, Cody, but I don't have the slightest clue what's happening in your head! Emotionally. Why won't you just talk to me?"
"Because I've still got to figure it out for myself," Cody replied in an instant, causing Bailey to shift her eyes back to the ground. The younger twin then took one hand away from the wall and tilted his girlfriend's head up so she was looking at him again. "I don't want you around me when I'm like this," he repeated, "I love you too much for that."
Bailey blinked away a couple of solemn tears.
"And it doesn't mean I'm letting you go," Cody went on, pushing a strand of Bailey's blonde hair behind her ear, "One more year of school. Then you and me can go to college together, we can leave together - I'll take you wherever you want to go. We can live in a different town, a different state, a whole different country! Then we can be together for real and forever, ok?"
Freely allowing her tears to fall now, Bailey smiled as all negative thoughts of Cody in her mind were impulsively replaced with images of their happy, promising future together, once they had finally managed to get through all the devastation and loss caused in the state of Los Angeles. An electric shiver naturally jolted up her spine as she then propelled herself forward and crashed her lips against Cody's, feeling all his warmth and passion cascade throughout her whole body.
"I love you," she murmured as they parted.
Cody forced the smallest of smiles, "I love you, too. I wouldn't be here if it wasn't for you, Bailey, you know that, right?"
The farm-girl nodded her head and then linked her fingers with Cody's as he spoke a quiet 'good' before he began to lead he back inside where their parents were.
"Cody, wait," Bailey spoke, gaining his concerned attention. He watched as his Southern Belle took a deep, worried breath, "Cody, what do think happened to Brayden and Hog?"
The mere thought of Nate that automatically linked with the notion of Brayden and Hog set a painful fire alight in the depths of Cody's stomach. Amid the rest of his agony, the younger twin forcefully willed himself to ignore the explosive grief attached with Nate's name. He had other things to worry about before he could fully allow himself to come to terms with Nate's death.
Shrugging his shoulder, Cody sighed, "I don't know, beautiful."
"Well, do you think we'll ever see them again?"
There was a short silence as Cody mulled over his answer, "I don't know."
The reality of their lack of knowlege follwed them in sadness as the two then re-eneterd the hospital hand in hand to find their parents stewing silently in the waiting room. In a sharp instant, Carey stood up from her chair and drew Cody into a gentle hug, kissing his forehead in obvious concern for his state of mind.
"Cody, baby, is everything ok?"
"Leave it, Carey," Kurt interjected before Cody had the chance to speak, "He clearly doesn't want to speak to us much about anything."
A fresh flicker of anger flashed in the younger twin's eyes, "That's so like you, isn't it, Dad?"
Kurt frowned, "What are you talking about?"
"Acting all hurt when we shut you out even though you're not around ninety percent of the time to see or care about what's going on in our lives," Cody answered all too quickly.
"Ha, good parenting," Nadia snorted.
"Wait a minute, Cody," Carey interrupted on the brink of another breakdown, "What do you mean 'our'? Who is this 'we'?"
Realising now, too, exactly what it was that Cody had said, Kurt fell to a similar silence as both he and his ex-wife glanced at Cody with extreme amounts of unease.
After a few moments of contemplation, Cody simply shook his head, "I've been trying to tell you all morning. You kept interrupting me. I don't even know how many more times I have to say it."
In one final instant of clear love and devotion for his beautiful girlfriend, Cody leaned over and held back his miserable tears as he kissed Bailey chastly on the cheek and then turned around to walk back out of the large, hospital doors to where he had spotted what was unmistakenly one of the Tipton's limosuines, speaking strongly and emphatically as he did so,
"Zack's not here, but I'd know if my own twin brother was dead. And Zack's not dead."
Hello my amazing readers :) Let me start by saying how sorry I am that it's taken three weeks for me to update, especially since last time I gave you two chapters in two nights. It's just been a little hard because after I wrote those last couple of chapters, school started back up and BAM! hello year 12. It's been a real juggling act for me to try and find time for my writing while I'm also worried about school work and drama productions and trying to settle into my last year of school. I hope you all forgive me :) Oh, and I'm also sorry for the lack of an author's note in my last chapter. I just kinda' felt like that was a moment I shouldn't ruin.
Now, onto this chapter... What do we think? Is Cody going insane or is there really a chance that Zack could still be alive? In the next chapter, he's going home to Boston. Anyone care to guess what that could lead to? Also, to answer a question from Lady Alice101, there is still about five or so chapters to go in this story. Yeah, there's still a fair but to cover :)
Anyways, hope you all enjoyed it and decide to be awwweeesomee and leave me a review :) Thanks, and till next time guys!
Reneyyyyyy x.