The morning of the final challenge was awful.

Chris had allowed some off-screen 'reunion time' so nobody got too rowdy during the introduction scenes, and that meant twenty one teenagers glaring daggers at Cody, and Cody doing his best to ignore them.

Did he deserve this? Sure. Did he want to deal with it? Not in the slightest. He was this close to escape, and to have all of these people holding him back now… as wrong as it felt, he pushed down whatever sympathy he may have felt for those he wronged.

Surprisingly, it was Eva who approached him first. Unsurprisingly, she did so mainly to shove him to the ground.

"That's what you get for hurting Beth!" She stormed off soon after. Cody had to admire the girl's tough love for everyone on the island, though that seemed to exclude Cody now. As much as she loved fierce competition, she hated this manipulative type of play more than anything.

Next was another surprise. Beth. Cody could only widen his eyes somewhat as the shy girl walked over to him, concerned stares following her. She looked… horrible, to say the least. Hair unkempt, glasses askew, even the typical knotted shirt was loose, just draping to her knees. Had he done this..?

"Cody." She stated simply, not looking at him. Clearly she was having an internal battle that she eventually won, deciding to glare at him, but not in anger. It seemed to be more of pity than anything else. "I'm over you." She stormed off soon after, into the comfort of Lindsey and the twins.

Cody felt his chest squeeze tightly, but pushed down any negative feelings as best he could. Even Beth managed to grow past him, huh? Everyone was evolving, changing for the better, but he was still trapped here. Trapped in this moment.

"Anderson." The tight, almost formal call out told Cody immediately who was standing behind him. Turning around he saw Noah, now fully healed from the mauling- those Playa staff were something else huh?

"I figured you wouldn't want to talk to me, Noah." Cody crossed his arms protectively, backing away from the other boy. He hadn't forgotten the intrusion, no matter how hard he tried, Noah lingered at the back of his mind. "What is it?"

"Besides telling you I hope you lose in the most painful way possible, not much needs to be said." Noah yawned, covering his mouth. "I've learned you're a far shallower person than I imagined, so I've gotten over the bear stuff. Still don't want you to ever be happy here, but that's another issue."

"What do you mean shallow? And 'gotten over'?" Cody asked in surprise, looking at Noah. These were far from the words he expected to hear.

"What I mean is I see no point investing any meaningful hatred into you. You're just an idiot I was unlucky enough to be in close proximity to. Nothing more to it. Ciao." With that, Noah walked off, leaving Cody in a state of relative disarray.

"Not meaningful, huh?" Cody wistfully wondered. Yeah, he'd been given a chance people would kill for, and every opportunity to correct his actions, and he'd always chosen a path most would be disappointed by. He'd watered down the act of time travel to some childish display of not getting the point if he were to take Dawn's words in a far more dour way.

Looking around, he saw things that surprised him. Of course, there was the giggling girls in Beth, Lindsey, Katie, and Sadie, which was to be expected. But, Cody also saw Trent, Justin, and Harold looking over some sheets of paper… music, huh? Occasionally Noah would come by and chime in something to them, like he was their… manager. Cody wistfully looked at the scene, a sense of both longing and nostalgia burrowing in his heart.

He also saw various couples around. Geoff and Bridgette had gotten together, and so had Duncan and Courtney, despite all of his interference. In spite of everything, they had found someone important to them. They had gained something out of this, while he was just as hollow as he'd been before.

Eva and Izzy were off with Owen, watching the party animal do stupid tricks, just like how it'd been back in the original timeline. Tyler was pining for Lindsey's attention, DJ and LeShawna were swapping recipes, even Ezekiel was keeping Heather company. And what had Cody done?

Looking at his complete separation from the group, he could tell.

"You'll both be wearing these!" Chris pulled out a familiar chicken hat, as well as an unfamiliar monkey hat. Cody supposed the cow one was used due to the size of Owen's head, but the monkey felt oddly familiar. He couldn't quite place it, but he decided to take that option, leaving Gwen with the chicken hat.

Looking out at the stands, he saw an expected sight. Everyone on Gwen's side, nobody on his. He couldn't blame them. He almost had tuned out the entirety of Chris' opening explanation thinking about this.

"On your marks… get set… Go!" Gwen was the first to react, but Cody was no slouch. The two were roughly at the same level of physical ability, so what decided who got to the flagpoles first was Gwen's slightly longer legs.

She immediately jumped onto the pole, Trent and Geoff right behind her to help, while Cody grabbed onto his… and immediately slipped off. Looking back, he saw Heather a few feet away, waving a stick of butter. As nostalgic as her spiteful play was, Cody needed to stay focused on the moment. Taking off his outer layer shirt, he quickly used it to rub away the butter and jumped onto the flagpole, Gwen mere inches away from her target.

Cody rushed his way to the top, and just as Gwen slid down her pole and started to run again, Cody had grabbed his flag. He only had one choice as he saw Gwen reach his pole, and he leaped off, landing on top of her and twisting his ankle in the process.

"Agh! You jerk!" Gwen shouted, pushing Cody off. He looked at her leg and saw she was no better off, a clear stagger and a limp in her movements as she stood, her face cringing in pain. "Don't you know when to give up Cody!?"

"I can't give up here!" Cody shouted as he pushed himself up, his face cringing in pain as well, but his mind pushed itself to ignore it. "I'm gonna make it! You can't stop me now!" He limped his way past Gwen, each step sending jolts of pain through his body, his breathing harsh.

Eventually, he reached the second phase of the challenge, carrying an egg across a wooden plank while avoiding the frustrated mothers. Easy enough.

Gripping an egg in his arm, he slowly limped across the board, Gwen close behind. He looked back at the goth, watching as her focus shifted between glaring at him and looking down in fear. Cody could only smirk, he absolutely had this in the bag. Soon, he'd be free. Free to do what he wanted to do, to live how he wanted to live, to age, to change . This would be his opportunity for true change. He just had to-

"Is that Dawn!?" Gwen shouted from behind.

Cody's body reacted faster than his mind and he spun around, trying to see the blonde girl, his friend . He knew all too late that it was a lie, as the spin caused his already injured ankle to bend at an odd angle, sending him tumbling. It was sheer luck that he managed to latch onto the side of the plank, egg still clutched in his other arm.

"Whoo! That looks bad Cody!" Chris shouted from the other side. "I'm not sure how confident you feel about your one armed pull-ups, but I think you may need to ditch the egg and grab a new one! I think Gwen might win by the time you finish the challenge though.

Cody looked over in despair as Gwen finally reached the other side, depositing her egg and moving onto the final stretch of the challenge. He'd… lost. Because of one stupid mistake he'd lost , he sacrificed everything he ever had for this stupid game to get out of this stupid time loop, and just like that he'd lost.

The hot wetness around his eyes was enough to cause Cody to drop the egg, it falling to the sharks below. Reaching up, he wrapped his other hand around the plank and slowly pulled himself back up. He could hear the cheers from here- Gwen's win was as inevitable as his own loss. And it was all his fault.

He'd barely even been aware of his chosen destination once he reached land, his body guiding him to his den of nostalgia- the claws of a wild animal.

As he trudged further towards a fate willingly imposed on himself, he began to realize what Dawn meant. None of what he had done was true change. Creating just another persona in a long list of them wasn't true change- he was just hiding his true self. Scared, pathetic Cody, hiding behind an identity of a hopeless romantic, a closeted goth, or even the 'antagonist'. None of these were him- all they did was serve to protect his most vulnerable aspects.

The impending pain almost made him push down his suffocating desire for love.

Loop 0083

"You know Cody, you remind me of my brother." Gwen sighed as she rolled the marshmallow in her fingers. Cody was beside himself, still quiet and not very talkative. The kid could survive the game well enough here, but chances were he'd be on the chopping block soon enough. "He's not as quiet as you, but you two kind of look the same. Bet you wouldn't have guessed I'm a natural brunette, eh?"

"I figured you were." Cody already knew that. He knew too much about Gwen, and it hurt to think about why that was. "It's a pretty common hair colour."

"Well, the point is that I don't like seeing you this way. All quiet and lonely. It makes me feel like I'm watching my brother go through something bad… I just want to reach out and help."

"There's nothing you can-" a thin finger against his lips stopped him. He looked over to Gwen, who had a stern expression on her face.

"Don't say that! Just telling someone what's wrong could help!" Gwen chided him, like a mother to their son. It warmed Cody up somewhat, this feeling of care from someone else.

"I just wonder if anyone could ever love someone like me." Cody got out. It was a question that left Gwen somewhat shocked, but she recovered, a small smile on her lips.

"Cody… everybody here wants to see you do your best. Well, maybe everyone except Heather. Isn't that kind of like love?"

Cody only shrugged noncommittally. "Maybe it is."