Disclaimer: A Gwen and Trent story? Those things still exist? You bet your sweet bippy! (Google it. It's not dirty. I promise.)

The groom looked very handsome in his tuxedo. His mother always told him that he should own at least one tuxedo. Though he felt uncomfortable in such fancy duds, one would never know from the smile on his face.

Opposite him, the bride's face was covered by a veil, but she was certainly smiling as well. She blinked away the tears in her eyes, but didn't think too much about it; every girl cries on their wedding day.

But I am getting way ahead of myself. This doesn't happen for, at least, another couple of years.

Let's go back. How far, you wonder? Well…

Let's say…October something, 2011.

The washroom was as clean as a communal washroom in a girl's dormitory could be given that it was utilized by no less than forty girls on a daily basis. Which is to say...it could've been cleaner.

That didn't matter to the green-eyed gentleman who'd climbed through the window. A girl with streaks of turquoise running through her dark hair helped him inside.

"Are you okay?"

He smiled warmly. "I'm better now."

The girl helped the young man to his feet.

"This couldn't wait for some other time?"

"Hey, you got to kiss another guy in a bathroom."

"Yeah…" The girl tucked a stray lock of hair behind her ear.

"You look great."

"Hurry up in there! I have to go!"

The girl sighed. She was a little uneasy, at least until she felt the peck on her cheek. She started to blush. The young man smiled. She smiled back and wrapped her arms around him, drawing him closer. Their lips mashed together. The kiss they shared was as passionate as the emotion behind it was sincere.

"What's going on in there?"

The voice on the other side of the door sounded older and harsher than the last one. The young man knew it was time to go. With one last buss, he scurried out the window.

The door burst open. It was a woman, though she was built like a linebacker. She scowled at the girl, who responded with a look of feigned innocence. The girl cast a glance toward the open window.

Outside, the young man hung from a tree branch, shielded from the harsh woman's eyes by the foliage. She closed the window in a huff.

The young man dropped down from the branch onto the ground. He dusted himself off as he straightened up. He gave a quick glance toward the closed window.

"This never happened to the other fella."

The bookish Asian boy in front of the young man just stared at him, wondering who he was talking to.

The young man shrugged as the lad walked off, clearly weirded out.

"Hey, what time is it?" The young man cringed. He could hear it from across the campus. "About nine after?" Some cackling frat boy who thought nothing of getting lit as early as noon.

The young man checked his watch. "No. Actually, I think it's closer to one." Without looking up, the young man extended his free arm and flashed the supposedly hilarious douche the bird.

Of course, it was a quarter past eleven.

The classroom, as befitting a university, sat roughly 150 students. Most of them headed for the door as class was over.

Political Science was a tough subject at the best of times. A handful of the students were there because their parents were in politics and wanted their children to understand the world they lived in.

Others were just stuck for a class when the easy ones filled up on the last day of registration.

And then, there was the young man, who seemed to have a genuine interest in what the bearded professor was trying to impart.

The young man gathered his books and shuffled across the row of seats to the staircase leading to the exit.

"Trent?"

He turned around. "Yeah, Professor Hamilton?"

"Could I talk to you?"

Trent shrugged as he descended the stairs. He set his backpack down as he approached the professor.

"Is anything wrong?"

"No. Very much the opposite, in fact. You are one of the most gifted students I've ever encountered. Very few students get the intricacies of our government the way you do. Are your parents members of Parliament?"

"Not really. I just…" Trent darted his eyes away, then back at Prof. Hamilton. "…have an interest."

"I wish more students had your interest."

"Thank you." Trent picked up his backpack and headed for the door.

Textbooks stacked on his desk. Notebooks with writing furiously scribbled down.

This was the desk of someone who wanted to work hard to succeed in college.

He couldn't understand how his roommate wasn't studying just as hard as he was. His course load was just as heavy.

Laying on his bed, the roommate turned to face the young man. "You know of any parties happening tonight?"

"Parties?"

"Maybe not parties, per se, but anything: mixers, get togethers, something. I need to unwind."

"I have a big exam tomorrow. I don't really have the time to go searching for parties." The tone in his voice seemed to be pleading for this to become a closed case.

"Okay, fine. Just asking." He glanced toward the wall clock. Restless, he grabbed his phone from his nightstand. A picture of him and his girl filled the screen. He pressed down on the 'internet' icon and opened his Facebook page.

The 27 people he followed that went to the school didn't seem to have much going on in the way of parties. He dropped the phone in frustration.

"To hell with it. I'm going to bed." He slipped underneath his covers, his socks and pants dropping to the floor from beneath his comforter. "Night, Mason."

"Good night, Trent."

Gwen wasn't much for getting an early start on her day. However, her mother told her that she'd have to be to live up to her responsibilities for higher education.

She chafed at having to attend classes that started at eight in the morning; it didn't suit her in high school and it certainly didn't suit her now.

She tugged absently on her blouse as she waited in a line of twenty people for coffee. It was pretty cliché for an on-campus Tim Horton's to be packed in the morning, but their java was some of the best. (The pastries weren't bad, either.)

Running across campus, Gwen held a medium coffee in one hand and her backpack in the other. 'Why can't people have their orders ready before they stand in line?', she fumed to herself.

She ran past a bush. From the bush emerged a weaselly-looking man brandishing a cell phone that he held like a camera.

"Gwen! Hello!"

She momentarily stopped and turned around. "Do I know you?"

"Veek Smars-Houghton of the Instigator. Myself and my loyal readers are curious to know when you and Duncan would be getting back together."

Gwen shook her head. "Duncan? Should I know who that is?"

"The love of your life from 'Total Drama'. So, will you be reuniting with him soon or very soon?"

"I'm with Trent, now. He's with Courtney. I'm no romantic expert, but I'd say that means we have no interest in each other." Gwen started to walk away. The 'quote-unquote' journalist ran to impede her. "Jagoff, I'm late for my class and they only let you have so many tardies before they flunk you."

"But the opportunity to retrieve a lost love ought to matter more to you than an education."

Gwen sighed in frustration. She shrugged off her backpack and fished something out of it. "Okay, I think I'm good for a couple of minutes. Hold this." She handed her backpack to Smars-Houghton, who dutifully took it into both his hands.

"Thank you. Now-" Anything else he had to say was lost in his screams. Gwen deployed roughly a quarter of the contents of her mace spray bottle into his eyes. "What…why…"

"If your hands are full, you can't block against mace", she stated in a matter-of-fact tone. She grabbed her backpack and sprinted across campus.

The 'journalist' was left crawling along the grass, blindly searching for something to sit on and regain his bearings.

Gwen managed to find a seat in her class, high up in the room. No one liked sitting in the nosebleed section; it made it that much easier to be called on.

Sitting immersed in the midsection allowed Gwen to get some doodling done in between taking notes. However…

"Gwen?"

She glanced up from a half-scribbled clothing design at the mention of her name. All eyes were on her.

The professor glanced up at her, 'Troilus and Cressida' written on the dry erase board behind him. "What did you take away from 'Troilus and Cressida'?"

Of course Gwen got the reading done, but she decided to consult her notes to refresh her memory.

She stopped cold at seeing what she'd written. 'Cressida made the biggest mistake of her life'. 'Troilus was a really good guy'. 'Why was Cressida so interested in Diomedes?'. Some of the writing had been stained with tears.

Gwen steeled herself and took a big breath. "My takeaway…", she started in a voice shakier than she had wanted. She cleared her throat. "My takeaway is that war destroys everything. It can cause irreparable damage to families, friendships and relationships. Troilus, a Trojan, loved Cressida, a fellow Trojan. In the midst of the conflict between the Trojans and the Greeks, she was traded for a Trojan prisoner of war. When Troilus went to see Cressida, he saw that Greek prince Diomedes was flirting with her. If not for the conflict, the two of them might have ended happily."

As some of Gwen's classmates murmured amongst themselves, the professor stared at her thoughtfully. "Interesting. Of course, the titular relationship is but a small part of the play itself. The Trojan War is the main focus…"

Gwen settled into her seat, fresh tears falling onto her notes.

Sobey's was one of Canada's leading grocery chains. It specialized in exotic foods from around the world.

More importantly, it was Trent's primary source of income. He smiled as he loaded groceries into a paper bag.

"Thanks for shopping at Sobey's. Hope to see you again soon."

Trent's gaze traveled from an irate-looking old woman in line to the person immediately in front of her.

The gentleman looked to be in his late 20s and very street-smart.

As Trent bagged his groceries, the man took a hard look at him. This was hardly a unique situation that Trent found himself in. He stealthily removed his name tag and pocketed it, figuring - correctly - that the man wouldn't notice.

"Do I know you?" A more frequent assemblage of words Trent had yet to hear in his life.

"I…don't think so." Equally common was this response.

"Yeah, I know I saw you on TV!"

Trent sighed. May as well get this over with. "Okay, you got me. There was a 'Littlest Hobo' revival in the late 90s. I was that kid he pulled out of a burning house. The dog was really nice. That'll be twenty-three dollars and forty cents."

The man gave Trent an odd look as he handed him twenty five dollars. Trent could only hope that the man wasn't compelled to verify this information online. Of course he was never on an episode of "The Littlest Hobo"; he'd been remembering a rerun of the show he saw as a kid in the late 90s.

"And a dollar sixty your change." Trent dropped a handful of coins in the man's hand. "Thank you for shopping at Sobey's. We look forward to seeing you again."

The man shuffled off, somewhat weirded out. The sour-faced old woman took his place.

"Find everything you were looking…for?" Trent glanced to the conveyor belt. There were no groceries. "May I help you, ma'am?"

"They told me you worked here, but I had to see it to believe it." She may have looked as old as the hills, but the woman's mind was sharp as a tack.

"Is there any-" The woman interrupted Trent's kindly spiel with a slap across his face. This got the attention of everyone at the other registers.

"My granddaughter loved watching 'Total Drama Island' with her friends. Then, 'Total Drama Action' started. She had OCD. When she saw you, everyone in school made fun of her. After a while, she couldn't take it. She swallowed a handful of pills. I'll never see her again...and I hold you responsible."

"I'm sorry, ma'am, but you don't-"

"I just wanted you to know that." The woman stomped away. Trent's fellow cashiers gathered around him.

"You all right?", murmured one of them.

Trent rubbed his still-sensitive cheek. "I'll get there."

Much to Trent's relief, the rest of his shift went a lot smoother. Some of his co-workers suggested filing an assault charge, but Trent surprised them by refusing. He felt that the woman suffered enough.

Still, the pain of the encounter - more emotional than physical - lingered all the way back to the campus.

Gwen ran up to him, a smile on her face. Trent tried his best to put his own smile on.

"Trent!" She ran up to him and wrapped him in a hug.

"Hey, Gwen." He tried to put some feeling into it, but it wasn't easy. She dragged him along.

"I'm thinking Pizza Pizza and I'm not taking no for an answer."

"Sounds good."

Known for Ontario's best pizza, the restaurant was pretty busy, even with a good forty-five minutes to go before closing.

Gwen and Trent sat at a table, devouring their slices. She set her slice down, giving him a thoughtful look.

"So, how did things go today?"

Trent glanced nervously at her, mid-chew. "Fine. I went to work, got some studying in. Pretty boring, really. What about you?"

"Well, I had some classes today. Some Shakespeare here, some chemistry there. I even got some designs done."

"Have you decided on a major yet?"

"No. I'm still working on that." Gwen huffed. "Didn't know my mom was gonna be here."

"Still, it's something to think about."

"I'm a freshman. You know, like you? I have plenty of time to think about it."

"Okay. I just don't want you to run out of time."

"Thanks for your concern." Gwen was about to take another bite when she focused on Trent's face. She stared at it. "And was daddy too rough with you?"

"What?"

"You have a mark on your face. Where did that come from?"

"I walked into a door."

"Or it walked into you. Were you in a fight?"

"I don't fight."

"Trent, I'm not one of your customers. You don't have to bullshit me."

He groaned to himself. "An old woman slapped me at work. Her granddaughter had OCD and took her own life."

Gwen had thought of responding with 'You did go a little crazy', but thought better of it. "I'm sorry about that."

"I hate hearing about that show."

"Tell me about it. Some wacko reporter made me late for class. He asked me when I'd be getting back together with Duncan."

"And what did you tell him?"

"No, obviously."

Trent had an inkling when a conversation was about to head south. "Maybe, we should stop talking about the show. That's only going to give it more power."

"Yeah. I guess you're right. I tried calling you around five. You didn't answer."

"I was still pretty busy at work."

"But you didn't call me back."

"I…forgot."

"How do you forget that?"

"I…I was in such a hurry to get back here. I'm sorry."

Gwen sighed and kissed his unslapped cheek. "It's okay, but don't let it happen again."

"I won't." Trent tore into the rest of his slice. As Gwen finished off her own slice, she couldn't help but wonder why he was so evasive. She shrugged; hopefully, he'd tell her when he was ready.