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Change of Plans - Ch. 8

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Summary: A Total Drama fanfic. Courtney wants revenge on Duncan and Gwen, and soon Cody becomes an unwitting part of her plans. Then, things start to get complicated. Eventual Cody/Courtney, AU from “The Ex-Files” onward.


"Sweden Sour," Part 2

It was cold now, but the cold didn't bother him much anymore. Nothing bothered him much, except everything.

The plane was as empty as his hopes and dreams, allowing him to move freely now until the enemies got back. Not that there was anything to do. Take some food, stretch his legs, all so he could keep from fainting. Because that would make such a difference.

Part of him knew that his thoughts don't even make sense anymore. That little part of him was in the back, tiny and alone and scared, sniffling like a lost child.

"But I doon't want too goo among mad people!" it moaned.

The monster gave a horrible smile filled with yellowing teeth.

"Ooh, you can't help that. We're all mad here. I'm mad. Yoo're mad."

"I'm not!"

"You must be," said the monster, "oor yoo wooldn't have come here, eh?"


Chris and Chef calmly got in their motorboat and made their way to the dock, completely ignoring the intern that was flailing in the water.

"Help! I can't swim!"

"Hang on, Nelson!" Billy turned to Willy. "Do we have anything to pull him in?!"

"Like what? We gotta dive in after him!"

"Is that safe in water this cold?"

"Do you have a better idea?!"

"Oh, wow! You guys need help?"

They spun around. Behind them was a young woman wearing a thick jacket, standing next to a sled. How she had managed to ride up without them hearing was a mystery, but she was now shrugging off her bulging backpack, taking out a long coil of rope.

"Here!"

She tossed it to Billy, who caught it on instinct, still a bit stunned. He and Willy quickly uncoiled it, then yelled to Nelson as they threw it into the water. He managed to grab it, and a moment later they had pulled him onto the ice, where he collapsed, gasping and shaking.

"Here." Billy looked up just in time for the woman to throw a towel at his chest. "And he can use my jacket, too—no offense, but you guys should have checked the weather before picking your wardrobe today."

"We didn't really have a choice about that," Billy muttered, as he took the jacket and helped pull it onto his shivering friend. Even without it the woman was more appropriately dressed than any of the others, with a thick sweater, scarf and earmuffs. And goggles, which he supposed might be useful if a blizzard started.

"Come on, man, we gotta get you back to the plane—" said Willy. The three began to shuffle through the snow. "Thanks for your help!"

"No problem. See you around!"

"Well, probably not, we're only gonna be here—huh?"

The three interns looked back in confusion.

"...Where'd she go?"


"You're zigzagging on purpose to slow us down!"

"I am not!" Courtney snapped, trying to work the rudder that had been hastily attached to their vessel. "It's impossible to steer in this stupid geek head!"

Cody ignored his teammates as he stared over the side of their "boat." He had quickly gone from feeling "depressed and hollow" to "depressed and hollow and seasick." It didn't help that Sierra was standing next to him, running her fingers through his hair in a distinctly creepy manner.

"Let me cheer you up by taking you to a happy place. It's a beautiful mountainside filled with Codies. Some are giant, others are small, enough to tuck in your pocket, hee-hee! And some are chocolate-covered marshmallow Codies."

The image of Sierra eating a tiny, chocolate-covered version of himself—and probably getting off on it—was enough to make Cody throw up over the side.

"There!" Sierra said, like a mother talking to her toddler. "Feel better?"

Cody did, physically, but he didn't answer. His eyes were focused on the water as his vomit slowly flowed out of sight.

It was so cold, he thought, as a random breeze blew made him shiver. Back in Canada, winter would just be starting to melt back into spring. He tried to picture his friends walking home from school past trees that were turning green. It felt weird just to remember that they'd be at school, that that was still a thing. Between this season and TDA, and the Drama Brother tour in-between, he'd barely been to school this whole year. Let alone, like, home in general.

He wondered what his friends were doing right now. Or his parents. Or anyone fortunate enough to live outside of this stupid show.

Cody kept staring at his reflection in the water, and Sierra's beside it.

"What are you looking at, honey?"

He sighed. "Nothing."

From a few feet away, Courtney looked at the pair and scowled.

Then she looked off toward the dock where the other team—including Duncan—were getting briefed by Chris and Chef. Her face hardened.


Team Chris had already taken off before Team Amazon arrived. Chef loaded their cannon while the host quickly gave them the challenge—get the flag or sink the other team's ship. There was only one problem.

"No way is she captain!" Courtney and Heather said in unison, each pointing at the other.

"Well, someone's gotta wear the hat!"

"I nominate Cody!" Sierra said, surprising absolutely no one.

"Fine!" Heather snapped, taking the horned helmet and tossing it onto the deadpan boy's head.

Courtney, who was holding the meat-/cannon balls, gave Chris and annoyed look. "We need matches to light the cannon!"

Chris laughed. "Matches? The best we gave Team Me were some flints, and they actually won the challenge. You're going to have to find some other way to win."

"How?!"

He shrugged his warm, furry shoulders. "I'm sure you'll think of something. Buh-bye."

He gave them the most sarcastic wave and the Chris-iest grin he could muster. Courtney's lip curled, and she threw the meatballs to the ground in anger. (Cody snapped out of his daze just long enough to jump back—they were so hard he half-expected them to break through the wood.) Chris actually drew back in surprise as Courtney screamed at him.

"Listen here, you diminutive little—"

"Hey! We don't have time for this!" Heather snapped, picking the meatballs off the dock.

Courtney redirected her rage from Chris to her. "Well, how are we supposed to beat them without any way to light the cannon?!"

Unlike Chris, Heather didn't back down. "I don't know! How are we supposed to beat them when they already have a five minute head-start? Unless you want Duncan and the others to win?"

Courtney growled, glared at Chris, but then followed Heather back into the Cody head.

Sierra followed, along with Cody, but only because she was holding his hand.

Chris scoffed as soon as they took off. "Man. That girl needs to work on her anger issues." He tilted his head thoughtfully. "Unless she blows up at another contestant, that would be cool."


"Great! We'll never catch up with them! Just look how far away they are!"

"We have to," Courtney growled, tightening her grip on the (for lack of a better word) rail.

"Well, we're not going to. Though maybe we could have, if you hadn't been stalling us every chance you got—"

Heather was surprised as Courtney suddenly pushed her, sending her against the S.S. Cody's side. "What is wrong with you?! You don't think I want to win?! You don't think I want to get Duncan off this show?!"

Before Heather could get over her shock enough to respond, the boat suddenly swerved. She spun around to face Cody, whom they had put to work manning the rudder. "Hey, twerp! Watch what you're doing!"

"Huh?"

Cody had started glaring at the ground at the mention of Duncan's name, but now looked up suddenly, righting the rudder in the process. It was at this point that Sierra suddenly pointed off the bow, catching everyone's attention. "Look! They're turning around!"

Courtey followed her finger; indeed, Team Chris' boat was making a slow turn toward them. "Why would they do that?"

Heather thought for a moment, came up with no logical solution, so instead fell back onto Grade 5 logic. "Because boys are stupid! Battle stations!"

"But they were in the lead! What if this is some kind of trick, or—"

The others didn't wait for Courtney to finish; Sierra found two twigs on the floor and quickly rubbed them together, creating a fire. She lit the fuse just as Heather loaded the meatball, and the cannon fired, sending the volley right at Team Chris' ship.

It missed, but Courtney could hear distant yelling, as if indignant that Team Amazon had attacked when they were clearing planning the same thing.

When she looked up, she noticed that it was Duncan, specifically, who was doing the yelling.

Her gaze hardened. She felt her fingers curl into fists, and the next thing she knew she was pushing Heather out of the way, taking hold of the cannon for herself.

"Hey! What are you doing?!" Heather said, trying to grab it back.

"Fixing the aim!"

"I was doing that!"

"Well, now I'm going to do it right!"

"Uh, guys?" said Sierra. "I already lit the fuse."

Heather and Courtney both blinked, then jumped out of the way just as the cannon fired. Unfortunately, the girls' struggle had managed to point it exactly nowhere useful, meaning it missed by an even wider margin.

Then Team Chris fired back and struck, blowing a hole right in Wood-Cody's face.

Sierra gasped. "NOOOOO!"

She quickly joined the fray with the other girls, struggling over the final cannon ball. Cody watched them dispassionately from the back. He was only vaguely wondering if their team would win, and in all honestly, did not care if they did.

Team Chris fired their second shot.

Right toward Cody, who was too out of it to notice.

Sierra gasped. "COOOOODYYYYY!"

She abandoned the struggle with the others and dove through the air, just as Cody finally looked up.

The cannonball collided with her stomach, and she fell to the deck, gasping in pain. The volley bounced off and fell over the side, splashing in the water.

The other girls knelt beside her, dropping the cannonball to the ground. "Are you okay?!" Courtney asked.

She gasped and nodded, looking hopefully at Cody. He only blinked owlishly, as though not entirely sure what he had just seen.


"She must have been a tourist or something," Billy mused, once they had Nelson in the interns' quarters wrapped up in an electric blanket. "She didn't have a Swedish accent or anything. Plus she was Asian."

"I thought she looked First Nation, personally."

"Whatever." Billy regarded the jacket in his hands with a frown. "Not sure how we're supposed to return this to her."

"Well, she let us take it and took off. She probably doesn't mind."

"I guess. Hey..." Billy blinked, bringing the jacket's collar close enough for him to read. "Jenn-ee-ee?"

"Huh?"

"There's a name on the jacket. Jenny E."

A sudden THUD made them both jump. Willy spun around and could have sworn he saw a blur disappear into the common area.

"Did you see that?"

"See what?"


Before Heather had time to react, Courtney had scooped up the meatball and Sierra's kindling to light up the cannon again. She spun it around, aiming straight for Duncan (and the rest of Team Chris)'s boat.

BOOM!

And it...missed by about three feet.

"What?!" she said, outraged.

"That was our last cannonball, you idiot!"

Fortunately for them, Owen's third shot was even worse—not only did it miss them by a mile, it went right through their own mast, crippling their ship.

Courtney and Heather looked at each other, then burst out laughing. Alejandro and Duncan looked frozen with horror.

"Thanks for turning back to fight, suckers!" Courtney mocked, enjoying the expression on Duncan's face as they sailed past.

"We'll enjoy first class for you!" Heather agreed.

Courtney heard Alejandro and Duncan arguing as she grinned to herself. She was safe now. Team Amazon would win, and with their team so small Chris would probably pull the merger next week. She already had ideas about what to do next—she couldn't rely on Team Chris voting Duncan off, given how Owen just screwed up, but Alejandro kept trying to cozy up to her, so if she could get him into an alliance and convince Cody to vote with them—


"There's the flag! We did it!" Sierra gasped. Despite her injury she poked herself out of the Cody-eye window, trying to reach the buoy where they goal was stashed.

That's when Courtney heard Cody sniff and, for the first time all day, say something with any trace of emotion.

"Owen?"

She looked up just in time to see him fly through the air, fist out like a superhero, then collide with their vessel and blow it to smithereens.


"I—h-hate—all of y-you," Heather gasped once they were back on the plane, wrapped in warm towels and taking hot water bottles from the interns.

"Believe me, I can sympathize," Nelson mumbled, sniffling as he walked away.

"This is all your fault!" she added, glaring daggers at Courtney. "If you had just let me fire the cannon—"

"Like you know how to use it any better than me!"

"You were the one who wasted our last meatball! Oh, you are so taking the drop this time, I swear!"

"Me?!" Courtney thought quickly, looking for an out. "Well—what about Cody?!"

"Huh?" he said, looking up from the floor.

"Yeah, 'huh?!'" Courtney mocked, feeling a surprising tide of anger suddenly well up. "What is wrong with you?! You've done absolutely nothing ever since your Goth girlfriend got dumped! Not even your girlfriend! You didn't help us build, you didn't help us sing, you got Sierra sent to the Infirmary just because you were too busy staring off into space—"

"Well, at least he didn't actively sabotage us like some people," Heather snapped.

"I did not—"

"Ladies!" came a familiar voice, and Courtney looked up to see Alejandro poke his head into the room. "There's no trouble in paradise, I hope?"

Courtney scowled. "It's you guys who are in paradise, remember?!"

"Ah, the pleasures of first class are fickle, but how could they compare to such...beautiful company?"

He gave Courtney his dreamiest smile. She looked down at the ground, grumbling sarcastically.

Heather's eyes narrowed.

"Well, I must be off. Good luck with the elimination, my dears!"

He left. Heather glanced after him, then got up.

"I'll be right back."

She swept after Alejandro. Courtney watched her, then turned back to Cody. His face was as blank as ever, though now it was a different kind of blank—his eyes were wide and distant, and his lip was trembling the tiniest bit.

"What are you looking at?" Courtney snapped.

Cody looked down at the floor. "I don't know," he whispered.


He finally understood: It was all fake. All of it. Everyone. Everything. And if it

wasn't fake then it would be, in time. The already-fake things would make sure of that.

Like look at those people, right now. Bad-Girl had tracked down Bad-Man, and pushed him angrily against a wall. She was mad, and that was real. But Bad-Man was fake, everything he said was fake. He could hear it in his voice, see it in his eyes, smell it on his soul like rotting sugar in the hot sun.

"I am not jealous, you arrogant—"

"Of course I refer to Courtney," Bad-Man quickly lied. "I must make her believe that no one else exists for me. If she is focused on us, then you can blindside her."

Bad-Girl scoffed. "Puh—please. She doesn't even notice you. What are you—"

"Believe me, Heather," he said, and his voice was lies, lies, LIES, "the only woman I want to look at is you."

"That's—you're so—whatev," Bad-Girl stammered, as he edged closer to watch them.

Bad-Man took her face in his hand just as HIS voice sounded throughout the plane.

"All losers please report to the elimination area. All losers!"

"Now go vote her off already," Bad-Man said, and Bad-Girl's gaze matched his own.

And it was done. Bad-Girl's real turned into Bad-Man's fake. Because fake was real, and in the end, everything was fake.

Ezekiel almost had to snicker, laughing as he disappeared into the shadows.

He finally understood everything. It was only his sanity that had been standing in the way.


Heather: I am not voting for Courtney because of Alejandro. But if he wants to believe I am, then that's fine with me. Whatever. (beat) Shut up!


Courtney had a bad feeling as she waited on the bleachers for the elimination. The fact that Heather, Sierra and Cody were sitting together didn't really help matters.

"Cody and I are voting for Courtney," Sierra told Heather in a stage whisper. "We trust you'll do the same."

Heather smirked, not even pretending to hide the conversation. "Bye-bye, Courtney."

She felt her insides freeze up—there went her last hope that Heather might have voted for Cody and given her another tie-breaker challenge. Before she could respond, however, Chris began his speech.

"Ah, the elimination room. This is where one of you will be tossed into the darkness, to plummet out of my life and possibly to the end of your own. And, if this weren't a reward challenge, that would happen tonight. PSYCH, no vote tonight! You're all safe! For now..."

"Yes!" Courtney said, as Heather and Sierra protested.

"Yes sirree! As we speak, Team Perfect Me is getting their reward: Swedish massages performed by a genuine, registered massage therapist." He turned to the camera, ignoring their groans. "What other kinds of therapists will our competitors need before the season's over? Find out..."

Before he could finish Heather stood and stormed off, grumbling to herself. Cody, who had remained expressionless through the entire speech, slowly slid off the bleachers and began to walk away.

"Oh, Codykins! Do you want to maybe get dinner, or—"

"Bathroom."

"Oh. Okay." Sierra looked disappointed, but followed him placidly out of the room.

Courtney stood slowly, walking away with shaky steps. She wasn't eliminated. She wasn't eliminated. She still had a chance at the million. She could still win this contest. She had plans—she was trying to remember them, but her salvation had come so suddenly that she was still in a state of shock, happy shock to be sure, but still it was hard to think—

She suddenly bumped into someone.

Duncan.

For a moment she just stared at him, confused. She felt...nothing, except a dim reminder that she was supposed to be feeling something. It was odd, really. Duncan had conjured a lot of emotions in her since the pair had met, but never nothing.

Duncan, however, had no confusion toward her. He scowled.

"Oh. You're still here. Who took the Drop of Shame for you this time, Princess?"

Courtney's daze was shattered instantly. She blinked, and looked at him again, and then she wasn't quite sure what happened, except that she let out a scream and suddenly was holding him against the wall.

"WHAT IS YOUR PROBLEM?!"

He scoffed. "My problem?!" he said, pushing her away and straightening his shirt. "Says the psycho who just attacks people at random?!"

"AT RANDOM?! What about when you randomly decided to start sucking some other girl's face?!"

He scoffed, turning away. "Whatever—"

"No, NOT whatever!" she screamed, and even she could hear the hysterical squeak in her voice. She grabbed Duncan's shoulder and spun him around. "I've put up with this crap long enough! I want to know what is going on!"

"What is going on with what?"

"WITH EVERYTHING! Why are you pretending you don't know?! I want to know why you suddenly deciding that you like Gwen more than me! Why you decided to cheat on me and have been acting like it's my fault ever since! Why—why we didn't see each other for weeks and then when you come back you're suddenly acting like a completely different person! You said you cared about me!" Her voice cracked for a moment. "Whatever happened to that, huh?! Do you even realize what a total jerk you're being?!"

"I'm not dealing with this right now."

"Yes you are! Get back here!" He kept walking away. "I said get back here!"

He stepped into first class and slammed the door shut behind him. Courtney stared at it for a moment, then suddenly let out a howl, kicking the wall beside her.

"OW! Oh..."

She spun around and stormed back toward Economy Class, then stopped, breathing fast. What was she doing? She didn't want to go sit with those three right after they tried to vote her off, and definitely not when she was in a mood like this. So what should she do? Maybe find Alejandro or Owen, and lure them into an alliance? But they were in First Class right now...with Duncan, getting their Swedish massages. (Courtney closed her eyes and rubbed her temples as she literally began seeing red.)

There was no one she wanted to be around right now.

In fact, she suddenly realized, there was no one on this plane she actually liked at all.

She took several deep breaths, trying to calm her racing heart. And then she went off to find some part of the plane where she could go and think by herself.


Cody: (walks into the bathroom, turns on the light and stands in front of the camera)

(takes a deep breath, opens his mouth to speak, then closes it)

(looks down at the floor for a long moment, his eye twitching)

(turns around, turns off the light and walks out of the room)

I'm really surprised that this story has so much positive attention; I feel like it's not as good as I want it. However, I'm hoping it will get (even more?) interesting after this challenge, so I need to stop with year-long hiatuses. For those who've given this fic so much love, enjoy your early Valentine's Day present!

The theme of this episode seems to be "everyone's going crazy, one way or another."

The next chapter is supposed to be a major turning point in the story; hopefully I can get it out within the next couple days.

And, for this chapter and the rest of the fic: The character of Jenny Everywhere is available for use by anyone, with only one condition. This paragraph must be included in any publication involving Jenny Everywhere, in order that others may use this property as they wish. All rights reversed.

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TheKoboldNecromancer's avatar
Jenny Everywhere is the only one not going insane!

But you know what shocks me about this whole ordeal?  Your writing of Ezekiel's mind track comes off rather creepy, frightening... and sad.  :(  Oh, poor Zeke.

And wow, Duncan's so dismissive of Courtney, it actually makes me hate him more!