i'd never make the final chapter that short, guys. you know me better than that :)
Courtney hadn't really spoken to many of the former contestants since she returned to her apartment. Honestly, spent the better half of the last day and the half unpacking her clothes and toiletries and cleaning out her refrigerator.
There were lots of messages sent between herself and Bridgette. Primarily when they had both landed and made it back to their homes safely. When Courtney put her phone on the charger in the airport, texts from Bridgette lit up her screen with updates on her life. There were also a few pictures of Courtney on here television screen, different moments between them on reunion and funny screenshots of them when the TV was paused. A lot of laughing emojis came from the blonde.
Trent had also sent a few messages Courtney's way, double-checking to make sure she landed safely and made it back to her apartment. He sent a few distressed messages about the paparazzi bombarding the airport when he returned; that was probably Chris's fault to an extent. She responded when her phone turned on her apologies and short updates about her uneventful return back home. She lucked out by being located next to a smaller airport, and all it took was a mask, cap, and sunglasses to hide most of her face.
Scrolling through her text messages, she had missed calls and texts from those two, her mother, LeShawna and even Gwen had sent one. LeShawna wanted to reiterate that she missed her and wanted to go clubbing in the near future, which Courtney forgot she agreed to when they were on the island. The other message, from Gwen, was a short one that simply stated, "don't disappear, idiot". That one actually made the brunette laugh aloud, and she responded, "make a move, loser.". Her only response from the former goth was a skull emoji and the middle finger emoji. There was also a text message from an unsaved number she had memorized from years ago. That message was just of a winky face. She decided to shake her head and ignore it for the time being.
Katie and Sadie made a text group, titling Bass Girls and including Bridgette, Eva, and Courtney in the conversation. Someone had added Courtney to a larger text group with all the former contestants from their generation. She scrolled through some of the messages, primarily from the same six or seven people. It really seemed like people were trying to reconnect with everyone again. This time, though, the brunette was included. It emitted a feeling inside of her. It came from her midsection; it was one that was warm, and she had to force down a smile.
She was too afraid of opening her social media apps on her phone and seeing if any of the former contestants were trending, who posted what pictures they found screenshots of while watching snippets of in-between interviews, and any potentially nasty comments that could have been left underneath her pictures or sent as a direct message. Additionally, there was a fear of putting on the television and flipping stations until ultimately landing on the gossip channel discussing all the takeaways from the reunion. But she had experienced too much time in silence to be comfortable. The TV had been continuously running music blue toothed from Courtney's phone. All her favorite songs, from Tchaikovsky to Nicki Minaj to Sabrina Carpenter had been playing since she had returned home. It may be a bit of an escapist or avoidant behavior to listen to music instead of thinking over how the reunion went; but Courtney saw it as positive! She wanted to focus on the tasks at hand instead of waste time overthinking events that already occurred. The brunette already told herself several times she had done the best she could while being on television, and she stood by that and is making an active decision to not retract those thoughts. The music was only paused a few times: when she needed to go to sleep (Courtney was starting to discover how difficult resetting a sleep schedule could be) and when she was on the phone with her parents.
Shockingly, they didn't hate her for returning to Camp Wawanakwa. If anything, they didn't sound too disappointed either. Mrs. Otero wasn't exceptionally proud of her daughter, but she did express some sentiment of tying up loose ends and not completely embarrassing herself. It's as if she missed her final interview with Chris where she truly opened up to the world. Her father didn't even reach for the phone to speak to Courtney - her mother simply informed the young adult her father would be expecting to see her at dinner soon.
The brunette will take it, though. No complaints from her parents was a win in itself. After that phone-call ended, the music returned as quickly, deepening beats of an RnB song playing. She wouldn't say the music was loud enough to disturb her neighbors, but it was enough where when the door knocked, Courtney didn't hear it the first time.
When the knocking continued, she debated pausing the music. She had recently finished cleaning the island separating her living room and kitchen and was throwing out the cleaning wipes. Ultimately, she stopped Carrie Underwood belting and walked to the door, peeking through the peep-hole beforehand.
Her facial expression was confused; she doesn't receive many visitors. Her immediate thought was her parents were coming to visit and bother her for several hours, expecting their daughter to cook dinner and discuss her future plans. These thoughts immediately disappeared and her face quickly changed to be blank and unsurprised when the door opened. And standing on the other side was a former delinquent with a bouquet of roses in his hands.
"'Top of the morning to ya, Princess." He greeted, black hair pushed back and black t-shirt fitting his torso a bit too well.
She gave him an up-and-down look, mentally telling herself not to stare at anything not his face. Quickly, she stared at him. "Duncan, I'm not even going to ask how you ended up finding out where I live. More importantly, what are you doing here?" She paused. "Also, it's three in the afternoon."
The silent bubbling in her stomach almost gave her internal smile away. She'd never admit to him how excited she was to see him again.
Somehow, Duncan was wearing jeans in this summer heat. He held the flowers out to her, and she cautiously took them, glancing down at the mix of red and pink roses and smiling quickly. "These are really nice." Courtney twirled the roses around in her right hand, speaking softly.
"You never answered my text." He commented, childish tone in his voice.
Courtney continued to look at the flowers and scoffed. "How does one respond to a winking emoji? I'm not sending one back."
He chuckled. "You still had my number saved?"
"In your dreams." She responded.
Looking back up to the man standing before her, he pulled something out of his pocket and held them out for her.
She stared at the items in his hand, then stared at him. "Duncan, you've got to be joking." In the back of her mind, though, she knew it was no joke.
At this point, she didn't even try anymore to hide the smile on her face.
"For once, I'm being dead serious." He crossed his arms, smiling at her.
Reality quickly hit the young adult, quietly acknowledging she was no longer a teenager. Courtney groaned and turned around, walking into her apartment, and leaving the door open for Duncan to follow her in.
He whistled as he entered. "Nice place you got here. Real plain."
The brunette chose to ignore the final comment for the sake of the headache beginning to form at the front of her forehead. "I just finished unpacking, Duncan. Like, very recently for obvious reasons."
The former delinquent continued poking around Courtney's apartment, going through her snack cabinet and utensils. "So just start right now, we don't have much time before we need to be at the airport."
"And if I say 'no'." Smile gone, Courtney turned and crossed her arms, a deadpan expression on her face.
In response, the other young adult walked and laid on her couch. "Then I guess I'm gonna take a nap right here. After that, probably order myself some dinner."
She sighed. "You're unbelievable."
"You love it." He quickly retorted, smirking as she turned into what he presumed to be her room and hearing hangers move on their rail.
The suitcase unzipped, and there was muttering and groaning from the former C.I.T for a few minutes.
"How long are we staying?" She asked. Ever the planner.
Duncan shouted back, "I only bought one-way tickets, so however long you want to stay."
At that response, she stepped out of her room and walked to him. "Are you joking? You can't just buy tickets with no return date. That's irresponsible. Do you even have a hotel booked?"
Opening his eyes, he looked at her facial expressions beginning to transition from annoyed to concerned. "I figured you would get all that together on the way to the airport. You were always good with planning."
Covering her eyes with her hands, the brunette took a deep breath. In her nose, and out through her mouth. She removed her hands from her eyes and glared at Duncan hard enough that it made him smile a little bit. "Aw, don't be upset, Princess. This is your trip! We can stay wherever you want for however long you want."
The former delinquent stood up from the couch, raising an eyebrow at how comfortable it was, before pulling his phone out and tapping on the screen. He then went over to Courtney and flipped his phone around so she could look at it.
She read over what was on it, and then glared at him again. "You are so annoying. You could've just said we were staying for two weeks."
Duncan threw an arm around Courtney's neck and on top of her shoulders. "But, Princess, you know I like when you get all irritated at me."
"Choke. And stop calling me that." Her response included removing his arm away from her and turning around, returning to her bedroom. Duncan hadn't even taken the time to process the cropped gray tank top and matching sweatpants that were rolled up on the hips to fit.
Refusing to lose sight, he followed her into her room. "I figured I could choose where we get to go next. Well, with your approval of course. I was thinking maybe Germany or Rio." He added on, "That's why the tickets are one-way."
Courtney was squatting over her suitcase, adjusting the folded underwear and matching socks. She looked up at Duncan. "How long do you plan on traveling for? Don't you have a job?"
Duncan shrugged his shoulders. "I kind of figured we had a lot of missing time to catch up on. I've saved up on enough days off to last me a few months. Working on holidays and overtime and things like that."
Despite rolling her eyes, Duncan still caught the smile she revealed before wordlessly turning away to her closest and pulling out sweatshirts and t-shirts.
For the next fifteen minutes, the two settled in the silence of each other's company. Duncan laid on Courtney's bed as she continued to pack, walking back-and-forth between the bathroom and her bedroom, rearranging her luggage, and filling a pocketbook with little crossword puzzle books, headphones, and her passport. There wasn't much going on in Courtney's mind - this was a familiar feeling. It was only some summers ago they shared a similar experience together, where Duncan was relaxing in her room while she ran around her parents' house grabbing things to push into her overnight bag.
Back then, though, the sky was thick with dark clouds and disturbed rumblings of rainfall.
"Okay, Duncan." He opened his eyes to see Courtney standing in the middle of her bedroom. Her luggage was standing upwards and zipped. Across her shoulder was a small duffel bag and in her hand was her purse.
While standing up, he asked, "Do you think you're gonna need all that stuff, babe?"
"Well," she started. "The duffel bag is in case they lose our luggage somewhere. And my purse has all my important documents and ways to waste time. We also don't know how long this trip will be, as stressful as that is, so I packed enough where I won't need to do laundry for around three weeks."
Duncan walked closer to her as Courtney explained her reasoning, and placed his hand on her head, letting it follow her hair to be past her shoulders. The brunette had also added a thin zip-up black hoodie to her outfit, and put on black sneakers.
He took her luggage and began rolling it out to the living room. "Well, there's no better time than the present! Let's get the fuck out of here."
"Language." Quickly followed his statement.
Courtney turned her television off and checked the fridge one more time to make sure there weren't any perishables inside. She had taken the trash out yesterday and was glad there was one less step to complete.
The former delinquent opened her front door and walked out, her luggage rolling behind him. She shortly followed him, turning around and staring into her apartment once more. Then, she shut it and locked it shut, looking down at the doorknob and standing on her tiptoes and letting herself smile behind her hair. Then, as quickly as she let it out, she settled down and removed the key from the door. And once again, allowing Duncan to show her something new.
"Babe, check it!"
A tanned young adult with long, flowing hair was sitting on a burgundy couch in a backyard, sipping on a glass of water and watching a surfing competition on the television set-up on a wooden table. She turned to her left to see her fiancé near-running over to her, shorter blond hair but a bigger smile on his face.
He plopped down next to her. "What's up, Geoff?" The woman asked, leaning over to see the phone in his hand.
When he turned it in her direction, she couldn't help but squeal and form a massive smile on her face.
On his phone was a text sent from their friend, Duncan. The text was an image of the sender and another young adult, with caramel skin and brunette hair that fell over her shoulders.
The picture was a selfie, taken by Duncan. Leaning her head on his shoulder, the brunette - Courtney - was smiling wide and her hand was on his bicep. Duncan, smiling instead of smirking, had his head leaning on top of Courtney's head. In the background, behind them, was Kinkaku-ji, a Zen Buddhist temple. The sun was still up in the photo, despite the thirteen-hour time difference.
"They are the cutest together. Ugh, I love it." Bridgette gushed to her future husband, staring at the picture and pushing some of her long hair behind her ear. "Duncan must be awake pretty early to send that, it's like seven in the morning over there."
Geoff slid the picture off his phone, and it led to his text conversation with Duncan. He was typing out a response as he responded, "Yeah, he said they're getting tea and breakfast somewhere soon and then heading to Tokyo for a few days. Apparently next big flight is to Cambodia, since that's where one of Mocha's grandmas is from."
Bridgette pretended she didn't already know this information from Courtney. The two had been talking for a while since Courtney had abruptly left the country and had only informed her friend once she was at the gate for their departure to the Galapagos Island. "You think they've been calling each other boyfriend and girlfriend yet?"
The two blondes looked at each other for a moment, before laughing together.
i want to shoutout some total drama/duncney fanfictions that have truly inspired me over the years. this fic would NEVER be possible without the works that precede it or were created during it and continued inspiring me.
total drama heroes + total drama villains by mystique84
total drama island: living in new york by mr. panama red
total drama rewind: reimagined by RCR9921
machine gun blues by strayphoenix
ride and die, bonnie and clyde by writingkilledreality
the art of pretending it isn't your fault by contemperina
also shouting out alexex and cereal-killa for being some OG duncney/trentney (sorry i love them) writers and inspirations for me for over ten years
i hope that this fic can be used for inspiration in the future! it's been a lot of fun, and it took me years to finish it, but i did!
i know i am just one of thousands upon thousands of writers, but i want to thank everyone that has favorited and received and followed this story. omg, i'm getting emotional. for those that have been with me since the beginning, thank you. and those that just started reading and everyone in-between, thank you thank you! i started writing this for myself, and then somewhere in the middle began writing for myself and everyone else.
it's really hard to say goodbye to something that has been with me for over six years. but the time has come. each chapter has a piece of me and became a way for me to release emotions i was feeling and situations i experienced. i hope there's at least one chapter you find yourself returning to more than others, because you see yourself in there too.
if this hasn't been said enough in this story - you do not need to go through everything alone. i know talking to people can be so hard, but even if it's someone on the internet you've never met before, talk to them.
enough preaching from me. i hope you all enjoy the rest of your year. as always, thanks for reading!
xoxo