After settling things with Heather, Leshawna began looking for Harold. It took awhile, but she did find him.

"Hi," Harold said awkwardly, not looking forward to this conversation. Cody had warned about this, but that did not change the fact that he'd rather not deal with this.

"Hi," Leshawna returned the greeting with awkwardness of her own. There was silence between the two them for a while until Leshawna spoke up again. "Look…."

"I'm sorry about not being completely honest with you," Harold interrupted. "I didn't want to do it, but you'd finally agreed to start going out with me after so long. I'd risk throwing that away by confronting you about how what you did in Germany wasn't as awesome as you seem to think it was. I might not think Heather's the embodiment of all evil like you do, but I don't like her enough to do that. Please forgive me."

"You'll be glad to know that I'm mad at you, baby," Leshawna said. "I've reached an understanding of sorts with Heather, so I don't think she's the embodiment of all evil anymore. And what would I even be mad at you for? Having an opinion of your own? Not being full enough of yourself to consider the possibility that Heather might actually be human?"

"So everything's cool now?" Harold asked.

"Yes baby," Leshawna assured him.

Oh thank god, Harold thought breathed a sigh of relief, immensely grateful that matter had resolved before it turned into a crisis.

…..

Bridgette caught up with Geoff and was going to ask him about his earlier support of Heather and Cody's relationship. "Hey Geoff," Bridgette said as she gave her boyfriend a peck on the lips.

"Hey Bridgette," Geoff said seductively as he leaned in to start another make out session with the beautiful surfer.

"Not now Geoff," Bridgette said as she placed her hand on his chest to stop him. "I need to ask you."

"Shoot," Geoff asked as he moved away.

"You were there when Heather asked Cody out and were very supportive about it," Bridgette began and Geoff nodded yes. "What I want to know is why?" Bridgette asked in a tone that made it very clear she was more curious than angry.

"I know Heather has done a lot of not cool things before," Geoff began. "But she hasn't done anything really bad in a while. Plus, you saw her take down that asshole Alejandro. If that's not enough to earn her a second chance, then what it is?"

24 hours ago, Bridgette would have countered that Heather did not deserve a second chance. But since then, her opinion of Heather had done a complete 180. She now knew that the Asian teen was not the irredeemable monster Bridgette had originally thought and knew that Geoff was right to give her the benefit of the doubt.

"Oh Geoff," Bridgette said longingly as she leaned forward and the two of them began making out yet again.

…..

Cody came back from warning Harold and found Heather again. "Hey Cody," Heather said with a smile. "When do you want to hit the beach?"

"We need to talk about something first," Cody said then put his hand on his forehead as a gesture of dread. "I am not completely happy with you. You are definitely less of a total bitch than when I first met you, but you still have a long way to go in terms of being a nice person."

"What specifically is your problem?" Heather asked, hoping she could defuse this situation before it escalated.

"How about how you accused Gwen of thinking you were evil just so she could feel better about herself?" Cody said. "Aside from the severity of the accusation, don't you think it was a little hypocritical jumping to conclusions so you could accuse Gwen of jumping to conclusions?"

"Look Cody," Heather began. "Back when I was still queen bee of my high school, I looked down on people all the time and I felt great about it. So that thing with Gwen was less of a blind accusation and more of a highly educated guess. Besides, who's the real bitch here: Gwen for doing the deed or me for calling her out on it? I'll give you a hint: it's not me."

"All right, I'll give you that one," Cody said. "But what about how you told Leshawna about what Harold really thought of her opinion of you. I know Harold didn't say it out loud, but he trusted with that information and you broke his trust just to shove Leshawna off her high horse. Now I completely understand why you wanted to do that: her self-righteousness was starting to piss me off too and she didn't even punch out one my teeth. But that doesn't justify what you did. By the way, when I warned Harold I apologized to him on your behalf, giving you the benefit of the doubt that you're actually sorry about."

"Which I am," Heather pointed out. "And I promise that I will find some way to make it up to him if I just destroyed his relationship with Leshawna. But tell me this Cody: are you saying Leshawna had no right at all to know what Harold really thought of her?"

"Ummmmm," Cody stammered as he thought of as response to this. "Isn't a little lying okay when dating?"

"Have you ever lied to me?"

"No."

"And you never will if you know what's good for you," Heather said with a grin. "That should answer your question." With that out of the way, they started talking about plans to hit the beach.

Cody was very pleased with himself right now. He had just had what could be considered his first fight with Heather and it hadn't ended in disaster. He'd had his reservations about confronting Heather because he was really enjoying what they had.

He really liked Heather. She was strong, determined and very beautiful. It hadn't occurred to Cody until just know, but those were the things he originally saw in Gwen. But unlike Gwen, Heather had actually decided to give him a shot. And even better, she liked him without being totally nutso about it like Sierra was when he first her.

…

About a half hour later, Cody and Heather were walking to the beach with shirts on in addition to their swimsuits and Heather carrying a bag with supplies. They found a spot and laid their stuff down. Heather took her shirt off, got some sun tan lotion out of her bad and started applying some.

Cody took off his shirt and started putting on sun tan lotion as well while admiring how Heather looked in her bikini. He'd seen her in it before of course, but knowing that they dating now made the sight even better than it's apparent aesthetic value.

"Can you goo up my back?" Heather said to Cody.

"Of course," Cody replied while restraining his enthusiasm at the prospect. He put some lotion on his hands and began rubbing it in. He was greatly enjoying caressing Heather's back. Heather was enjoying it as well: Cody was being very gentle compared to other times guys had done this.

After a while, he was done and Heather faced Cody. "Your turn," she said. Cody turned around and she began rubbing the lotion into his back.

I love my life, Cody thought as Heather was massaging the lotion into his back. He was trying very hard to restrain himself from moaning in pleasure because he knew how pervy that would make him look. He was hoping this would end soon so he wouldn't make a fool out of himself. But on the other, a part of him wanted this to go on forever because he was enjoying it so much. It was confusing.

Unbeknownst to him, Heather was deliberately trying to be provocative with the rubbing in process. She was so grateful for all the ways Cody had given a crap about her that she wanted to express her gratitude in a physical form.

Shortly later, Heather was done and Cody was glad that he had been able to control himself. "Let's go for a walk first," Heather said. "I have some things I want to go over."

"Okay," Cody agreed. The two of them started walking along the beach, enjoying the sun and the sight of the ocean.

"The first thing I need to bring up," Heather began, "and I can't be any clearer about this, I am not Japanese. One of my pet peeves is when people assume I'm Japanese when I'm not: I'm of Chinese descent. Even though, culturally speaking, I don't consider myself Chinese at all."

"Funny story," Heather said as she changed the subject. "When I was around 8, the others kids liked to make fun of me for my Asianness. One of the ways they did this was by calling me Mulan. That didn't bother me at all because they were getting my ethnicity right for a change."

That and the movie was a great symbol of female empowerment, but that's really another thing, Heather added in her head. "The other thing I need to bring up is that I had a weight problem when I was younger."

"Really," Cody said while looking over her slim body and finding that hard to belief. "What was your secret?"

"Bulimia," Heather said matter-of-factly, completely ignorant of Cody stopping in his tracks from shock.

"What," Cody said flatly as Heather turned around and noticed that Cody stopped walking.

"I put my finger down my mouth…." Heather began but was interrupted.

"I know bulimia is Heather. You just can't say something like that and expect me to immediately process it. And I so didn't need to know that."

"I know, but I wanted you to know that."

"Why?"

"Because I trust you."

The two of them began walking again while Cody took this in. Cody was incredibly touched by this: he remembered how Heather had said she had trust issues during their date. And having people make her out to be an inhuman monster definitely couldn't have helped, he thought. It was incredibly heartwarming to have Heather reach out to him with this.

They walked for a while and then turned around. Heather spoke up again. "One last thing Cody. I could really use your help drafting apologies to all the people I've pissed off before."

"Of course I'll help you with that," Cody said. "I have to ask though: what brought this up?"

"I've been thinking about this for a while," Heather asked. "Being a bitch hasn't exactly gotten me anywhere lately and I don't really have anything to lose by trying to change. I would have actually apologized before this last season started if I had any reason to think people would have given me the benefit of the doubt about my sincerity."

"I mean, look what happened with Leshawna," Heather continued. "We worked out a truce of sorts after my elimination in season 2 and it only took a few weeks for that to shatter like a glass vase hit with a sledgehammer. And a few months after that, we had the Germany incident. But if I can convince her and Gwen that making me out to be the bad guy out of convenience or force of habit isn't cool, then maybe apologizing won't be as pointless as I originally thought."

Besides that, Heather thought, whenever I hear you go on about how I'm not pure evil, even though I don't understand why, I feel the urge to prove you right.

"That's very big of you Heather," Cody said.

"Hold off your praise Cody," Heather said. "Some things I'm refusing to apologize for. For example, Leshawna isn't getting any apologies: as far as I'm concerned, she got her payback and then some in Germany. And I'm not apologizing for arranging Gwen's elimination in season 2: she was an emotionally unstable saboteur and I did the right thing for the team by getting rid of her. Besides, I wouldn't have had to take the matter as far as I did if people hadn't been so eager to dismiss my suspicions of her."

"Fair enough," Cody said. They had arrived at the spot they left their stuff and went into the water.

Pretty soon, we'll be going back to Canada, Heather thought. We won't be able to spend time with each other like this every day. Even worse, his reunion tour will be starting soon, making things even more difficult. Maybe I shouldn't have suggested that he get his band back together. Whatever. I'm going to do whatever it takes to make this work.

…

Author's notes: and now we have reached the end of this story. I want to thank all of you who have given such monumental support for this story. It has meant a lot to me.