'So if by the time the bar closes
And you feel like falling down
I'll carry you home
Tonight.'
We Are Young - FUN.

Chapter Twenty-Two - Not Ever.

The monotonous ticking of the clock that hung on the wall before him was beginning to drive Cody utterly insane. Tremendous sentiments of disgust and abhorrence were still brewing uneasily in the depths of his stomach as each blink of his eyes seemed like another lifetime that had gone by without his twin forgiving him, when in reality, Zack had only banished Cody from his hospital room no more than about an hour ago.

The twins' parents were in there with him now, along with Bailey, London and Moesby. The mere thought of the beautiful, reuniting family moment that was taking place without him made Cody cringe in dire misery and dejection. The younger twin's mind was a whirlwind of dizzy thoughts having gone from the emotions of blissful, elated happiness to total despair and sorrow in a matter of minutes after being brought back together with his brother. And now he wasn't even sure if he would ever feel that kind of joyful happiness ever again.

There were a lot of moments from these past however many nights it was now that Cody regretted. He regretted attempting to leave the L.A. Tipton in search of Zack without taking Bailey with him. The sheer notion of her almost getting run over on the day of their confrontation with Damon and Jase made him feel sick to his stomach. He still felt emotions of embarrassment for physically lashing out at Brayden over the hatred he had for his brother. Still to this day, he cursed himself every second of every minute of each day for ever trusting or believing anything Ty had ever said. And, perhaps more obviously, it still broke his heart to think about any possible way that he might have been able to save Nate's life. Yes, Cody had a hell of a lot of regrets. But none more so than the seemingly harmless words that he had spoken to Zack on the day of the accident. Because now, after everything he had seen, endured and lived through, Cody couldn't ever picture his life without his twin.

"Coffee, Cody?"

Snapping out of his deep trance, Cody glanced up at the chirpy image of London skipping towards him with Moesby closely following. As she made her eventual approach, London only tilted her head in confusion as Cody simply sighed and glanced back down at his feet. Sharply groaning to herself, London rolled her eyes.

"So now you've gone back to being silent?" she asked in disbelief.

"London, leave him alone," Moesby coerced from the sidelines.

"No," London objected, "He's got nothing to be upset about."

Cody swallowed harshly and gawked back up at the heiress, "London, he won't even talk to me!"

"Yeah, well, at least he's alive."

An instant silence immediately took over the three as Cody simply stared, his mouth agape, not unlike Mr. Moesby's, at the rare yet insightful words that sang from the heiress' lips.

The younger twin wanted to kick himself. He wasn't quite sure what was worse. The fact that he had been just about ready to give up on Zack while he was alive, when the notion had never once crossed his mind at the time when everyone else around him thought that his brother was dead; or that it took London, of all people, to point that out to him.

"So, no coffee then?"

With these thoughts of gratefulness still spiralling in his mind, Cody merely smiled and shook his head, "No, I'm okay," he spoke, pausing for a brief moment, "Thanks, London."

With a ditzy nod of her head, London merely smiled once more before happily bouncing off down the corridor, Moesby close on her heels with his proud gaze still intently fixed upon her.

In the next instant, Cody came crashing back to reality, as he sighed to himself and continued to search his brain for a solution to make Zack want to talk to him again. There had to something - anything that he could at least try. Because at this stage, after everything he and Zack had been through, and especially since his twin was completely safe and unharmed, there was no way in hell Cody was going to let him go. Not now, and not ever.

Suddenly, Cody jumped in surprise as the door to Zack's room swung open, a beaming smile appearing on his face at the sight of his beautiful Southern Belle. Without any other single thought stopping him, Cody pushed everything to the back of his mind as he leapt out of his chair and approached Bailey, giving her a small peck on the cheek.

"How is he?" he then asked in desperation.

Bailey smiled softly, "He's fine," she reassured the younger twin, "The neurologist just came in and told us that there's very little to no damage to his brain. Just a couple of nasty bumps and bruises on the base of his skull. He's going to be okay."

Breathing a blissful sigh of relief, Cody draped his arm around Bailey's shoulders, squeezing her tightly, and perhaps for a moment, even forgetting that Zack was still mad at him. His brother had the all clear - he was officially going to pull through as if nothing had ever happened. And at that particular point in time, that was all that mattered to Cody.

"Uh, sweetie?" Bailey groaned through the stiff grip that Cody had around her neck.

Cody blinked in confusion for a brief moment before he let out an embarrassed "Oh!" and then let go of the farm girl, smiling cheekily as she caught her breath. "Sorry, Bails," he exclaimed, "Just happy that Zack's okay." The smile soon fell from the younger twin's face, "Now I just gotta' get him to talk to me again…"

"Well allow me to be the bearer of even more good news," Bailey eluded, flashing her pearly whites and reaching her hand out to take Cody's, "Your mum and dad are just about to come out of Zack's room and he told me to tell you that he wants to speak to you."

Cody's eyes widened in surprise, "Really?"

"Really," Bailey confirmed, nodding her head. She fell to a moment of silence as she then bit her lip, "He's got some… questions he wants to ask you."

"Referring to what, exactly?" Cody asked, his brow furrowing in concern.

Bailey sighed, squeezing Cody's hand, "Well, it was unfair that he was giving you the cold shoulder like that, Cody. Your parents and I just told him that you've been through more in the past few days then he could ever imagine."

The younger twin felt his jaw drop, "You didn't tell him about all of that, did you?"

"No," Bailey immediately spat. She trailed off for a second or two, "All we told him was that he may want to give you a little bit of a break. And ask you exactly how far you were willing to go to get him back."

Cody remained frozen in silence. He allowed what Bailey had told him to revolve through the spiraling cogs in his mind that were whizzing around at about a million miles an hour.

There wasn't a single day that had gone by when he hadn't thought about what he was going to say to Zack once they were reunited – how much he would apologise, exactly what he was going to say, how he was going to swear to never, ever say anything like that to hurt his brother again. But at that moment, knowing that Zack was going to ask him to explain every single scrutinizing detail of Cody's unfortunate adventure, the younger twin didn't have the slightest clue about what he was possibly going to say.

"Cody?"

Snapping out of his deep trance, Cody allowed his hazy eyes to fall back upon the image of Bailey, which had now been increased with the added figures of both his mother and his father standing in the doorway to Zack's room.

Taking a deep breath, Cody felt his heart cease up and skip a beat as Carey beckoned him to come forward and enter through the door. He faintly felt his beautiful girlfriend squeeze his hand once more and whisper that she loved him before gently letting their grip fall and walking towards his parents. Without saying a word, he tenderly shuffled past Carey and Kurt and gazed around the corner.

What lay on the other side still sent shivers up his spine.

While the image of Zack sitting up in the bed healthy and safe had always been as vivid as day in his mind, seeing it in real life before him was a whole new kind of bliss. Even throughout all the feelings of paranoia and anxiousness that consumed him to the brink, Cody still couldn't help but let out a genuine, content smile as he gazed upon his brother.

Jumping with startle as the door was closed in place behind him with a gentle thud, Cody's delighted demeanour was suddenly shattered as the severe look of irritation and resentment still lay plainly across Zack's face.

"Well, come on then?" the older twin barked.

Cody blinked, "Come on with what?"

"Come on with this heroic tale of your whirlwind adventure I'm supposed to be hearing," Zack snapped back with a sarcastic roll of his eyes.

Cody sighed, scuffling over to Zack's bedside and collapsing into the pinkie coloured chair, "It's not exactly that simple for me, man."

"Well, then why are you back in here wasting my time?"

The vile tone in Zack's voice smacked Cody in the face like a harsh gust of wind on a freezing Boston winter day. Swallowing hard and gritting his teeth, the younger twin couldn't deny that he was starting to get annoyed at his brother's harsh judgement of him, but all the same, Cody breathed out and refocused his chaotic mind.

"After the accident, we were all evacuated to the Tipton in L.A.," he started, without missing a beat, "I was an absolute mess."

"What?" Zack grunted, "Didn't have a clean shirt?"

"I didn't have my brother!"

Both twins sharply fell to plummeting silence. Zack felt some sense of emotion tweak faintly at his core, yet, he still cast his ruthless gaze upon his brother, watching as Cody narrowed his eyes in disbelief and crossly folded his arms against his chest.

The younger twin licked his lips and opened his mouth to tie together this strongly distraught thought, "You insensitive jerk."

Taken aback for the briefest of moments, Zack's eyes widened, "Gee, I'd like to meet the person who managed to finally force the 'tough guy' out of you."

Cody swallowed, his character faltering in the slightest of grief. Images of Nate flashed through his mind.

"Yeah, so do I."

Remaining in quiet, Zack reluctantly sighed and collapsed comfortably back into his pillow, "So, then what happened?"

Cody examined the genuine curiosity on his brother's face before taking a deep breath, "I found out where all the injured survivors had been taken to. So Bailey and I left to come and find you."

"How'd you know I was alive?"

"I just did."

Zack felt a shiver creep up his back at the confident immediacy of Cody's answer, and then fell back to stillness.

Cody huffed a sigh, "I mean, I was right, wasn't I? I may not have found you in L.A. like I thought I was going to, but I still found you here." Not knowing what there was to say, Zack simply nodded his head, feeling the slightest of intimidation in Cody's imploring glare, before the younger twin then went on, "Anyway, Bailey and I were by ourselves for one night, which we actually got through in one piece, believe it or not." A reminiscent smile crept across his face, "Then we met this group of kids. Our age, mostly. They were a big help."

Zack frowned, "Street kids?"

"Yeah," Cody confirmed, "Brayden, Hog," he paused, "...and Nate."

The older twin found himself leant forward in his bed now, watching Cody's mouth move with the closest intensity in every word he spoke. He was nervously fiddling with the hem of his bed sheet, and pushing his hair out of his face every now and then in a similar nature. He hadn't been given the slightest hint by his parents or Bailey as to what exactly it was that Cody had put himself through just to find him, but now sitting there, hearing it for himself, Zack was beginning to feel a whole range of different emotions bubble up inside him at the thought of his baby brother putting himself in serious danger.

"A big help, how?" he questioned apprehensively, "I mean, what were these guys like? Drinkers, into drugs, like, what?"

Cody shrugged, "A little, here and there, yeah."

"Cody!"

"Zack!" the younger twin countered his brother's volume, "I would've dealt with them no matter what they were into as long as they were gonna help me find you."

A tense silence swept over the two brothers once more, the only noise that was, perhaps, louder than their thudding heartbeats being the television humming dimly in the background.

Cody bit his lip, "Anyway, amongst a whole range of separate events, Nate had this cousin. Tyler." Her name tasted like venom in Cody's mouth as he gritted his teeth and pushed on, "She was the one who supposedly knew where the hospital was. So she was leading the way. Then... I don't even know. She, like... fell for me?"

Zack's jaw dropped in utter bewilderment, "What?" he spat with a laugh, "Dude, I found it hard to believe that Bailey fell for you, but now a second girl, too?"

"Moving on!" Cody hastily cut back in, beginning to feel slightly uneasy, "I guess she fell for me, and was jealous of Bailey, and didn't want to see me leave, and..." the younger twin sensed himself desperately trail off as a bead of sweat began to roll down his face and a whole whirlpool of frantic memories and thoughts suddenly burst back into his mind, "Bailey told me, she told me that Ty was leading us in the wrong direction, but I didn't believe her, so I almost lost her and had to find her before she got hurt to and tell her I love her, 'cause I do, Zack, I do, love her so much, but then Ty was so furious, even though I told her that I needed you back, I mean I thought she understood that you're my brother, my twin, and that I love you and needed you back, so then Nate told her to leave but she lost it and pushed him into the road and then Nate..."

Zack's head was spinning as his jaw remained opened and his brow furrowed while Cody continued to ramble on and on before his eyes instinctively locked onto a single, miserable team that slid down his little brother's cheek, "Cody!" he yelped in the most soothing possible way, "Cody, I... I don't know what to say to you, bro."

Cody's vision was now facing the ground. His eyes were shut tightly as he tried to resist the urge to unleash a whole flowing waterfall of tears onto the tiled floor beneath his feet. His chest was hurting in a stinging, burning pain. His head was pulsating as images of Nate continued to flare throughout it.

A switch had finally sparked on in his mind and told him that it had happened. Here he was, in the same building as his girlfriend and his parents and sitting right beside his twin. His unharmed, surviving twin brother. Everything that he had envisioned in his mind as the perfect end to his devastatingly heart-rending adventure had become reality. And with all that out of his mind now, finally, Cody was grieving for Nate.

Still completely unaware of what to do or say, Zack pushed his hair back between his fingers, "Cody, what's the matter? What happened?"

Suddenly, Cody's ears perked up as his eyes widened in shock. Zack frowned in confusion as, rather than fixing his stare on his brother, Cody instead spun around to face the television that was hanging on the wall behind him. The older twin's eyes soon followed and settled on the black box that all this time had been droning needlessly within the hospital room as he then became witness to a girl in the middle of the screen with long black hair and piercing green eyes being accompanied by two policemen into the back of a squad car. Being that he wasn't entirely sure what to make of it, as well as to why it had provoked such a reaction from Cody, what the news reporter eventually went on to explain made Zack's heart skip a beat.

"...the teenage girl, Tyler Lucas, was caught by police this morning and then eventually charged with Aggravated Manslaughter in the case of her cousin, Nathan. Lucas was apprehended by the officers, as was the man who had been driving the 2006 Ford Courier Ute, and immediately taken into their custody. We'll have more on this story as well as Lucas' pending trial and ultimate sentencing when the information becomes available to us..."

Zack was utterly speechless. Shocked. Devastated. And hurting for his baby brother. He dared to sneak an eye onto where Cody sat and felt his heart ache at the image of his twin shaking and severely tearing up in the most tremendous of despondency. He couldn't even begin to imagine how he was possibly feeling and, again, didn't have the slightest clue what there was to say. So, he offered the lamest thing he could muster.

"I'm so sorry, Cody."

The sound of his brother's voice simply drifted in one ear and out the other as Cody's vision faced down to the floor, trying his absolute hardest to rise above the impending whim of more miserable tears. His mind was elsewhere right then and there. The dull expression in Nate's green orbs and the freezing cold rain that had been pouring down on the two of them still felt as real to Cody as if it was happening to him all over again.

"I held him in my arms, after everything he had done to help Bailey and me," he eventually managed to speak, his voice cracking, "and watched him die."

Zack felt a lump catch in the back of his throat, "You didn't have to go through all that just to get me back."

As these words sunk into the back of Cody's mind with the sharpest of penetration, he immediately snapped his head back up and wiped his eyes.

It was obviously going to take a lot for him to move on from and deal with what happened to Nate, as it would, presumably, for Bailey, as well. But, for now, he was thankful that Ty got what she deserved. And while that helped a little, and despite the fact that he could still feel the pain of his heart splintering into dozens of pieces, that didn't mean that he had the right to dump all of that on Zack after all he had been through himself. So, while it seemed his psyche was not going to allow him to forget about Nate any longer, Cody was certain that he had to at least deal with his grievances himself, and definitely not do anything that may cause even the slightest of harm to Zack.

"It's okay, Zack, I'm okay," he assured his twin as strongly as he could. The cogs in his mind continued to turn as the younger twin, staring hard at Zack, was then sent back to the incident all those nights ago on the ship that had caused the whole, entire exploit in the first place. Trying his best to hold back a fresh set of tears, Cody licked his lips, "You just have to believe that I didn't mean what I said to you, bro. I learnt what it's like to not spend every day of my life around you, and I don't want that. Not ever, Zack."

Turning away to sneakily blink away the few trivial tears that were now on the brink of his own vision, Zack took a deep breath, "Of course I believe you. I just wanna forget about the whole thing. I just want everything to go back to normal, okay, Codester?"

Zack watched as Cody eagerly nodded his head before the older twin then reluctantly let a sob escape the back of his throat, "And I just don't want you ever having to go through something like that again, okay?"

Cracking his neck back down to face the ground, Zack watched on, confused, as Cody then laughed and shook his head in disbelief at the fact that it was Zack saying that he never wanted anything horrible to happen to him again.

As a tremendous weight was lifted off both of their shoulders, and the greatest mass of tension diminished from the room, Cody looked back up at Zack, the tears now flowing freely down his face, "Yeah, well, back at'cha, bro!"

Before there was a single opportunity for another word to be spoken, Cody leapt out of his seat as fast as his legs could propel him and dove into Zack's arms, finally, after all this time feeling the warmth, love and safety of his big brother's embrace. Zack squeezed Cody as tight as he possibly could as the younger twin's tears continued to spill onto his brother's shoulder. Looking up to the heavens, Cody mouthed a 'thank you' to wherever Nate may have been as he, too, clutched at Zack with all his might.

"I'm so glad you're okay," he managed to whisper through his sobs, "Just don't ever leave me again."

Zack smiled in relief, struggling through more unwilling tears, "It's over, Cody. And I'm not going anywhere, bro, not ever."

Shutting his eyes securely in the most blissful of reprieve, Cody remained firmly settled in Zack's grip, feeling much more perfect than he ever had.

Amongst the darkness of his eyes being shut, he no longer saw his twin being thrashed about and swallowed up by the violent, unforgiving swash of the ocean. In his heart, he no longer felt lost, torn or empty. All that Cody saw was the image of his brother - happy, healthy and alive. And all he felt was the strongest and most genuine love that he held for anyone or anything else on the face of the planet.

Sup kids. :) I'm not sure what I'm supposed to say this time other than, I'm back!

I'm sorry. And I'm also sorry that I have to keep saying sorry because it takes me months and months between updates. This chapter has been in the works for a while actually, as I've been going through some of my old stories and making fun of myself for writing some really lame stuff, and figured I'd come back with something actually worth ready. So, again, thank you all for sticking around and waiting! :D I really do appreciate it.

Anyway, WHAT DO WE THINK HERE? Aren't they cute. They're always cute :3 This still has one chapter left, but it's more like a short epilogue, so we'll see how long that takes to be written, LOL.

Reviews/opinions/comments about how Zack and Cody came back together here would be greatly appreciated. This story was a huge part of my life for a lonnnnng time, and I'm happy that the twins ended up back together like this :) We're almost finished!

THANK YOU ALL AGAIN!

Till next time, guys :)

Reneyyyyyyyy x.