Castaways
Pairings: Mostly Noah/Courtney and all of the canon pairings at the end of TDWT.
Warning: Violence and Character Deaths. This story is pretty dark, especially in the beginning.
Summary: After the end of Total Drama World Tour, some of the contestants wash up on a deserted island. Will they be able to get together and survive?
A/N: I know. A long wait. But eventually posted is better than never posted. This is the longest chapter yet! So...yay!

Part Four

Cody was the first one to see it.

"An island!" he cried, flashing a gap-toothed grin that was aimed very obviously at Sierra.

"Huh?" Courtney asked, still feeling a bit weighed down.

"Do you want me to take Sierra?" Cody asked. "You look really tired and I'm rested up."

Courtney flashed him a doubtful look. Sierra was really tall and Cody was just…short. It didn't look very possible. She thought about reminding him of that fact until she saw the strangely hopeful look on his face.

"I can do it. You need to rest, right?" he asked, seeing her hesitation.

Courtney sighed and nodded. "Only for a little bit." She told him firmly, using her best "CIT voice."

Cody flashed her a grin, and for a moment, Courtney smiled back at him.

Things were starting to feel normal again.

They were all going to make it.

They were all going to be okay.

Then she remembered Heather, and her feeling of optimism disappeared immediately.

Maybe not everyone.

"Am I hallucinating or is that an island up ahead?" Noah asked, with a slight smile, trying to make the situation lighter.

Owen hadn't said a thing since he had to pull him away from Sadie.

The silence had been overpowering. Noah liked his peace, especially considering some of the things they had seen, but this was too weird.

It wasn't like him.

Not talking.

"Owen-?" he tried again. "I said-"

"I know, buddy."

His voice wasn't bitter or angry in anyway, but the neutrality didn't fit him. It was cutting in a way that was sharper than his sarcasm could ever hope to be.

"We'll see some of the others. Izzy is probably there, throwing coconuts at monkeys or something.

"Yeah." Owen said, his voice quivering slightly.

"Then we can rest and eat coconuts while we wait for rescue," Noah said quietly, trying to force a small smile. Owen turned his face away sharply, his eyes becoming hard for a split second before filling with pain.

"I don't think I'm hungry."

For an absurd moment, Noah had a million smart alecky remarks at the tip of his tongue regarding Owen's voracious appetite and his sudden lack of hunger.

But despite his instinct to fall into his anti-social habits, he knew that it would be better to say silent if he didn't have anything constructive to say.

"You'll get your appetite back when we reach land," he said instead.

Owen nodded, looking unusually subdued. "Sure," not sounding entirely convinced.

Noah stopped swimming and turned to face Owen. His best friend wasn't looking into his eyes. He gritted his teeth. After what happened to Katie and Sadie, he had a hard time talking about their situation, but Owen's talk about a lack of appetite set him off somehow.

"Come on, Owen. We'll need to bring our energy back up and-" Noah knew he was starting to babble. It was such a little thing. They were still in the middle of the ocean and the island was still a long swim away, but something told him he had to win this argument, even though it was stupid and didn't make much sense.

"Buddy-" Owen tried to interject.

"We'll probably have to hike around the island when we get there to find civilization and-"

"I don't think I can make it." Owen admitted softly.

Noah stopped babbling. Obviously stupid optimism wasn't going to work. It wasn't like he was good at that sort of thing anyway. He exhaled slowly, taking a good look at his friend.

Owen was shaking and his face was red from a combination of physical exertion and sunburns. His eyes were red and he was on the verge of tears. Noah had never seen him look so bad.

He couldn't stay silent. He had to do something to take Owen's mind off his exhaustion and fear. He shakily started swimming toward the large boy, working hard to keep his face neutral.

Once he reached Owen so that he was right in front of him, he put his hands on Owen's shoulders.

"We'll be okay. We're close."

There was a long silence. Noah resisted the urge to start swimming away. Owen wasn't going to be allowed to avoid this.

"Tell me you are going to make it to the island and we're going to eat coconuts together with Izzy." he said, trying to sound confident.

Owen looked away.

"If a scrawny, wimpy nerd like me can do this, the big, tough, dodgeball king can do it."

Owen let out a small chuckle at "dodgeball king."

Good, Noah thought with some relief. Get him laughing. He'll forget he's too tired to even see straight. No more "I can't make it" or anything stupid like that.

But Owen's mirth was short lived. As soon as he stopped chuckling, he shivered. "You don't look as bad as I do, buddy."

Noah let go of his friend's shoulders. "You're not going to give up. We can see the island. Do you really want to end pathetically like-?"

"Did you think that Katie and Sadi were annoying?" Owen asked abruptly.

The question caught him off guard. He didn't even remember what he was saying before. The long swim was getting to him too, dulling his usually sharp mind.

"What?"

"You made fun of them a lot. You must've thought they were annoying."

"A lot of people are annoying." Noah said guardedly. What did Owen want him to do? Lie?

"Like me?"

"No." Was all Noah could say.

"It was so easy for you-" Owen murmured.

There was a long pause. His large friend seemed like he wanted to say something else, but he was fighting it with all his might.

"What was?" Noah asked hesitantly, knowing he would get an answer he didn't want to hear.

"Leaving them behind."

Noah's chest tightened. He shut his eyes tightly to avoid any burst in emotion. "There was nothing we could do."

"Would you leave me behind?"

"No. I wouldn't."

"What if I couldn't swim anymore?"

"I'd pull you."

"You're too small. You couldn't pull someone my size."

"I'd try."

"You wouldn't make it! You'd drown!" Owen cried incredulously.

"Then you have to try too." Noah responded, giving him a sad little smile.

A millisecond later and he couldn't breath as his friend was smothering him with one of his bone crushing hugs. "I'll try my best," he promised with a shaky voice. "I'll just focus on the land."

Noah nodded and pulled away from the hug, turning his back to Owen. "Let's go." he said in a monotone voice.

"Thank you, buddy." Owen whispered, but Noah didn't hear him. His voice was too soft.

Trent saw Izzy pass him just as he was about to reach the rocks that circled the island. The long swim was difficult and a test of his endurance, but the rocks and the waves near the shore were a whole different challenge. He swore as something brushed against his leg, and he took in a mouthful of water as he unreleased a string of profane words.

He didn't normally curse, but the coral or whatever it was was extremely sharp.

He quickly regained focus and grabbed a rock just as he was about to slam into a larger rock.

It would have been horrible to endure a marathon swim only to drown just before reaching the island he though grimly.

Izzy seemed to be doing much better, and she was squinting in concentration as she wove through the rocks. She seemed a lot more athletic than Trent, even though he was no slouch in that department.

She looked back at him with worry, but Trent nodded. Watching Izzy move gave him a little more confidence as he let go of the little rock and pushed back and forth against the smaller rocks, keeping his legs near the surface to avoid the coral.

Just as his energy was about to give, his hands gripped the sand on the beach and he used his arms to pull himself up on shore.

He almost sobbed in relief as Izzy ran to him, her eyes widening as she looked down at his leg.

It looked worse than he thought. He was bleeding a lot and the sand underneath his leg was red from the blood seeping out of the deep cut.

"It's not as bad as it looks," he said lamely in an attempt to reassure Izzy and himself.

The redhead swallowed nervously and ripped a thin strip from the bottom of her wrap, tying it around Trent's leg.

"Thanks," he said, surprised at her quick action.

Izzy sat down beside him, her eyes focused on the sea.

"The others will make it. Izzy is sure of it."

Trent nodded, sitting up beside her.

Maybe, he thought, feeling a lot less optimistic.

Courtney quickly looked around. She had been keeping track of the postions of the others. It seemed like everyone had somehow clustered off into groups and they were all within sight of each other.

Noah and Owen had fell behind for a little bit and Courtney had worried that their endurance had run out, but now they were gaining ground and they seemed to be going at a decent speed.

Courtney herself had recovered a bit when Cody started holding Sierra again. He was struggling a lot and Courtney would probably take her again soon once she looked around a bit.

It appeared that two people had already reached the island and were standing on shore. She couldn't make out who they were, but it was pretty encouraging anyways. Surviving was looking very possible. If she could just get Cody and Sierra to hold up, they would be fine, and even though they were both weaker, they seemed to have a good attitude.

"Princess?" a voice called out.

Cody gave a small glare in the direction of the owner of the voice.

There was no denying it.

Duncan.

"My name is not princess." Courtney said haughtily as he swam towards her, rolling his eyes.

"Whatever." he mumbled.

"Gwen!" Cody cried, when he saw the goth girl swimming behind the punk. She smiled uneasily, staying behind Duncan a little bit.

Now it was Courtney's turn to glare.

If Gwen saw her look, she didn't seem to notice. The other girl seemed more distressed about the awkwardness of the meeting than by anything else.

"Really. You're letting the twerp do the heavy lifting?" Duncan asked in exasperation, pulling Sierra onto his own shoulders.

"No...Courtney carried her most of the way! I was just giving her a break!" Cody shouted, still glaring at the punk.

Courtney gave him a grateful look when he rose to her defense, even thought it seemed motivated more from his jealousy than any real, righteous rage.

"I'm helping you, geek, so get over the attitude." Duncan muttered testily.

"Let's just cut it out," Gwen said in a long-suffering tone.

Courtney nodded, for once in agreement with Gwen.

"Are you two okay?" she asked, hesitantly, trying to avoid looking at Duncan. A part of her wanted to swim away in a huff with Cody, but Duncan was actually being pretty helpful, despite the bitterness between them.

"We're holding up fine...except...well..." The goth bit her lip and Courtney had a pretty good idea what was bothering her.

"Did you see something...happen?" she asked, trying to sound encouraging. After seeing what happened with Heather, it was hard for her to turn her back on Gwen, even though the betrayal from before still hurt.

Duncan and Cody stopped staring at each other with animosity when they sensed the atmosphere get heavier.

The punk started to swim besides Gwen, but hesitated when he saw the little look of pain that flashed in Courtney's eyes for a second. He lightly tapped Gwen's arm and cleared his throat softly.

"We saw Blainley and Ezekiel drown."

"We tried to get to them, but there were too many rocks flying around and one hit Ezekiel on the head and Blainley couldn't eventry to swim." Tears were forming in Gwen's eyes.

Courtney nodded sympathetically.

"The same thing...happened to Heather. I saw it."

Cody looked up at her suddenly. She hadn't told him about that.

"I don't know if I could have done something to prevent it-"

"No way," Duncan said brusquely. "You would have gotten beaned in the head too. You already hung back a little too long."

The last part was said with an usual warmth that she hadn't heard from Duncan in awhile.

Her jaw tightened as she suppressed the part of her that missed it.

"Yeah...And if you hadn't gotten to us, I don't think we would have survived this long," Cody added.

Courtney smiled lightly, feeling a little weight disappearing from her shoulders.

Even when Duncan put an arm around Gwen, she didn't feel the familiar surge of anger.

Cody swam behind Sierra and held her hand.

The girl struggled to smile.

"See, now we'll make it for sure," he said to her softly. "The island's getting bigger and closer. Duncan's bigger than me, so carrying you is like nothing...even if I punched him out before."

The punk snorted, but he looked more amused than angry. Sierra even smiled a little bit.

In her head, Courtney continued her mantra.

Just keep going. Keep going. Almost there. Almost there.

"Can we...rest again?" Owen wheezed.

It had been the third time in the past 15 minutes. Noah knew it was 15 minutes because he counted the seconds in his head to keep his mind off the pain.

They were very close and chances were looking very good that they would make it now. Some more people had even made it onshore and they were close enough to see who they were.

Izzy..Trent..Bridgette..Eva, and DJ, who was now pulling Harold ashore.

"Rest is fine." he answered. "We're so close."

Owen smiled, but he didn't even have the strength to talk anymore.

"Izzy and Eva are even giving everyone coconuts." Noah noted in amusement.

Owen chuckled. He looked so much worse, but he seemed to be more determined to hang on.

They had fallen behind a bit more, but he could see that Leshawna, Tyler and Lindsay had passed the rocks near the shore and were walking through the shallow water to the beach. DJ was holding onto Tyler and Lindsay who were still clinging to his back. He was shuddering a lot as he fell to his hands and knees on the beach.

Courtney, Gwen and Duncan, who was holding Sierra, were making their way around the rocks and harsh waves by the shore.

The last part wasn't going to be easy. It looked like everyone was struggling through the last part.

If Courtney was struggling through it, then he and Owen were probably screwed, not that he would tell Owen.

There was no way he was going to wreck his friend's morale by telling him his concerns.

Just getting there was a battle for him.

He had been thinking of a plan for awhile, but the best thing he could think of was Owen floating while Noah pulled him along, or calling somebody out to help them.

But it didn't seem possible for people to back from shore, since the waves were too strong, and if they tried to go for it alone, Noah wasn't nearly strong enough to pull Owen around the rocks without getting both of them killed.

Even without Owen, he probably wouldn't be able to do it.

Cody hit one of the rocks and Noah winced. There was blood coming out of his nose and he was unconscious. Fortunately, Courtney was close enough to pull him onto her back as she pulled him onshore where Duncan was laying Sierra out on the sand.

"Everyone else has made it." Noah said with false brightness, patting Owen on the back.

"The last part is hard, isn't it?" Owen asked.

"We should probably rest for a few minutes." Noah said, dodging the question.

Owen winced. "Okay."

"We just need to use the last bit of strength."

"Noah! Owen!" Geoff called, waving his hands enthusiastically. "You guys can do it!"

"You're almost there!" Harold cried.

"You ready?" Noah asked.

"Yeah. I think...I can do it." Owen said softly.

"I know.

END OF PART FOUR

I felt bad about the long wait...so I made this chapter longer.

Now there will be more character interactions and Noah and Courtney will finally interact!

I'm taking my sweet time getting there, I know.