Guess we all are born with parts to play, some of us are stars, and some are just in the way

Everyone was stunned into silence by Rose’s request. Nick was the most shocked of all.

“Wh-what?” He looked at Rose in confusion, not sure if he’d heard that correctly. “What did you say?” He asked.

Rose blinked. She pinched her lips together tightly. It wasn’t a smile she was wearing on her face. She looked at Nick with a strange coldness he’d never seen from her before. If he didn’t know better… he would have thought Rose had been replaced by an echo as well.

“Marry me,” she said again. Her voice was firm and certain. She wasn’t backing down. She was looking directly at Nick, and demanding…

Demanding something he never would have imagined from her.

“Ma-marry, that… I don’t…” Nick managed to stammer out. His brain was still trying to catch up to the conversation, and it was falling woefully short. “Rose-”

“That’s what we talked about, wasn’t it? On our date in Paris?” Rose reminded him. Her tone softened slightly but Nick didn’t miss the sharpness in her voice. “Do you know how happy that made me, Nick?” She asked him. She held her hand over her chest, and Nick saw her cold eyes warm with sorrow. The last thing he wanted to see from her.

“Rose…”

“Is that all you can say?” Rose looked down. “Just my name? That isn’t… the word I want to hear from you, Nick…”

“Rose, I-I think he’s just shocked,” Gina said, scratching her head.

“We all are,” Carly agreed. “I mean… marriage? Time and place…”

“This doesn’t have anything to do with you.” The sharpness in Rose’s voice stunned everyone in the room again. They hadn’t heard this much venom from her in ages. The blonde turned her eyes towards the other women in Nick’s harem, scanning across the room and meeting the gazes of each of them in turn, before her eyes finally settled on Mary.

She winced, then turned to Nick.

“Nick, that’s what I want from you,” she said firmly, squeezing her fist tightly and placing it over her heart. “I’m in love with you. And all this time, I’ve been waiting and waiting for you to finally propose to me… but I can’t keep on waiting. I love you! And… you love me. I know you do… don’t you?”

The certainty in her voice wavered at the end. She swallowed away the cracks in her voice and kept her tone firm.

“You always say it. You always say you love me. That I’m special to you. And I believe you, because you show it to me. Even if I’m just one of the people you care about, even if… even if I’m just a member of your harem, and…”

The next part was the hardest for her to get out. She didn’t want to say it. She resisted saying it with every fiber of her being.

But it slipped out all the same.

“…Even if I’ll never be the number one in your heart…” she managed to get out without sobbing, “I know you love me. So I waited for you to show me. I waited for you to give me what you gave her.”

Mary flinched. Rose wasn’t even looking at her, she hadn’t taken her eyes off of Nick. But the sharpness in that last word… everyone in the room knew who she was talking about without her even having to say it.

Rose approached Nick, and her eyes drilled holes into him.

“I’m in love with you,” she said again. “And you always say you love me. So show me! Marry me, Nick!” She wasn’t sure if she was pleading with him or demanding him at this point. Her voice was strong enough it could have gone either way. But Rose kept her eyes focused on Nick the whole time, even when he wilted in front of her.

Even when it hurt her to see that, she kept going, because she knew that this was the only way she would ever get the truth from him.

How he really felt.

For Rose… that mattered to her more than anything else.

“Rose…” Nick raised his head and met her gaze. He wasn’t wavering, he wasn’t flinching, he was looking right at her. Her heart skipped a beat. “I do love you,” he promised her. “Please… I’m not the best at showing it, but you’re irreplaceable to me. I love the amazing, wonderful woman you are. Even now, that fire in your eyes, that refusal to back down, the way you can say so confidently in front of everyone how you feel… I’ve always been jealous of that. That strength of will, it’s what drew me to you in the first place.”

It was so easy for him once he started. Telling Rose all the things he loved about her made him smile, even as he felt the tension in the room.

But… Rose wasn’t smiling.

She knew she should. After all, this was what she wanted, wasn’t it? For once, Nick was looking directly at her. He was telling her all the things he loved about her. He wasn’t thinking about Mary or Holly or Dakota or anyone else but her right now.

That would have been enough for Rose any other time. But right now, Nick could say a thousand more words about how much he loved her, and none of them would be the words she wanted to hear from him.

“I believe you,” Rose said. She reached out and took his hand in hers and gave it a tight squeeze. She turned her teary eyes to look deeply into his, and finally, she smiled. “I believe you. So… let’s get married, then.”

She felt the flinch in his hand. And she saw the hesitation in her eyes.

Just as she’d expected.

“…What’s the matter?” She asked, letting him go. Her arm dropped to her side. “You just told everyone here you love me, didn’t you? So why can’t you marry me, then?”

“Rose, I… no, that’s not what I meant!” Nick shook his head. He hadn’t even said anything yet, so why was she acting like he’d just rejected her? “This isn’t the right time, don’t you see? I understand how much you want to get married, but with everything going on with Echo-”

“How much I want to get married?” Rose sharply cut him off. She narrowed her eyes. “Right, right. Of course. Because I’m the one who wants to get married. In other words, you don’t want to get married, it’s just something you want to do for my sake.”

Nick’s blood ran cold. No, that wasn’t what I… I didn’t mean it like that, I just… my thoughts are so confused, I… I said… what did I even say?

With all the stress he was under, he wasn’t expressing his feelings properly. The words that had just flashed through his mind, he should have said them aloud, but he failed to do even that.

“Rose, he just misspoke,” Mary protested. “He didn’t mean-”

“Mary if you say one more word, I swear-!” Rose clamped her mouth shut and dropped her accusatory finger to her side. What point would there even be in making threats? She had nothing to threaten the other girl with. And even if she did, she didn’t want to carry out a threat against her, anyway.

Right now, she didn’t even want to see Mary’s face. Or think about her. She just turned her gaze back upon Nick, and resisted the painful sting of the tears rolling down her cheeks.

“I’m not an idiot, Nick,” she whispered. “I understand. With Mary, you didn’t hesitate. You wanted to marry her. Do you think I didn’t see it? How happy you were? That… I wanted that. I wanted you to feel that way about marry me. But… that isn’t how it works, is it?”

Rose shook her head and wiped her eyes. “Echo was right, after all…”

Nick froze.

“Echo?” Dawn grimaced. “Rose, what…”

“What did Echo say?” Kim demanded. No wonder Rose was acting weird. The host must have gotten into her head somehow.

Mary’s heart practically burst with anxiousness. She wanted to tell Rose not to trust her other self, that Echo would say anything to manipulate her. But her words would only fall on deaf ears. No matter what she said… Rose wouldn’t hear her.

“Rose…” Nick looked at his lover in shock. His heart pounded in his chest, and he realized that only his voice would have a chance at reaching the woman he loved right now.

“Nick… tell me you want to marry me,” Rose said bitterly. The words barely even mattered at this point. As she looked at the pain in his eyes, she knew him well enough to know that he would say whatever he could to make her feel better.

But meaning it?

Actually wanting to marry her?

That… that she wasn’t sure she could believe now that things had reached this point.

And yet, her heart still ached to hear it.

“Rose-”

“Just say it!” She snapped, stomping her foot on the floor. The fur on her tail stood up behind her. “Even if it’s a lie…” she whimpered. Tears rolled down her cheeks. “Just tell me you want to marry me… please…”

Nick saw that he was trapped. Whatever he said now wouldn’t matter at this point.

I waited too long, he realized. I should have settled this a long time ago.

He could guess what had happened. Echo had likely come to Rose that morning and told her that there was no chance of her ever marrying him. That no matter what he felt for her, he wouldn’t ever marry her. And Rose had probably denied that vehemently. But Echo had lodged a seed of doubt in her heart, and due to his shock and confusion, he had utterly failed to convince her that she was wrong.

I played right into her trap. Instead of comforting Rose, I caused things to reach this point… no, I messed up even before that.

Just as Echo had insinuated the night before, Nick had grown complacent. He had let things go along without being proactive. He could have married Rose at any point in the previous rounds, but he didn’t. Because he had been comfortable with the way things were. So he hadn’t given any serious consideration towards taking things to the next level.

But I knew that was what she wanted. Ever since Paris. She made it clear that she wanted to get married. But I never actually took her seriously, because I thought my love for her was enough. Nick felt his heart tearing in two. I took Rose’s feelings for me for granted. I should have taken the initiative on my own to give her what I knew she wanted… but I didn’t. I left an opening for Echo to sink her claws in and poison Rose’s heart.

Someone he loved was suffering. And he had no one to blame but his own weakness and indecision.

“I’m sorry, Rose,” he whispered, trying not to cry. “I messed up… I’m so sorry.”

“What are you apologizing for?” Rose’s mouth twisted into a bitter sneer. “Because you know I’m right? Yeah… obviously.”

She turned and cast a cold look towards Mary. “You already have your wife,” she said, gesturing spitefully at the other woman. “Just like Echo said. In the back of your mind, you’re still following the rules. One wife, right? Mary. Your one and only. The rest of us, you might say you love us, but we’re just accessories to her, aren’t we?”

“No!” Nick exclaimed. “I’ve never thought of you that way, Rose!”

“Oh yeah?” Rose crossed her arms over her chest. “Then why is it that you married her, but you haven’t married me? Why is it that I’ve always been the one waiting on the sidelines, watching the two of you live the life I’ve always wanted to live with you!? Huh?”

Her words cut right to the heart of Nick’s failings.

“…Because I made a mistake,” Nick said, looking down. He didn’t want to meet Rose’s scornful gaze. But he quickly forced himself to raise his head and look her in the eye again.

His mistakes all started with him trying to run away from big issues and just focus on keeping everything comfortable and, for lack of a better term, “status quo” and if he couldn’t face Rose here and now, that wouldn’t change.

It hurt, seeing her look at him like that. Seeing the pain all over her face, pain that he had caused, but he couldn’t shy away from her now.

He deserved every last ounce of scorn the other woman had to give him.

“I was happy with the way things were,” he admitted. “It was comfortable. I thought… I actually thought that it would be nice, even, if we could all just keep living like that forever.”

But that wasn’t how this worked. It wasn’t how any of this worked, he saw that now.

“…I was wrong,” Nick said, hating himself deeply for being such a fool. “I never should have taken you for granted, Rose. I… I’m sorry. I’m so sorry… I knew that you wanted to marry me, but… I didn’t think that it was a pressing matter. I took your feelings for granted. I should have treasured you more, but… I thought that it wasn’t important.”

There was no excuse for his actions. He’d wanted to marry Rose. If you asked him if that was what he wanted, he would say yes.

But… was that the truth?

After all, the things people want are determined by the actions that they take, aren’t they? Someone could argue that if Nick really did want to marry Rose, then he would have done so already.

And he hadn’t.

That damning realization struck him in a way he hadn’t felt in a good, long time.

I thought I had changed. After everything that happened, I thought I had finally reached the point where I would stop hurting people I loved. But… in the end, I still managed to make a mistake again. I’m the worst… the worst.

Nick thought about Dakota, wherever she was. And all the pain he had caused her.

“…Echo told me that there was no way you would marry me,” Rose said, confirming Nick’s suspicions. “And I wanted to be sure.”

The finality in her voice made it clear that she now believed what the wicked woman had told her from the bottom of her heart.

“Rose…” Nick pleaded. “I… I do want to marry you! I just… messed up.”

“Maybe you do,” Rose said, biting her lip. “I want to believe you, Nick, because… because I love you more than anything. But…”

Her heart ached painfully.

“…But you could just be saying that because you know how much I want to hear those words from you,” she whispered. “And that’s what hurts me most. I don’t want your pity!” She cried. “I want you to love me! I want you… I wanted you… to marry me because you want to, not because you feel like you have to, for my sake!”

How could Rose marry him now? Even if he was telling the truth, how could she be sure of that?

At this point, anything he said would just be to cajole her, and they both knew it. Even though Rose could see in his eyes how much he loved her and how much it killed him inside to have hurt her like this, she didn’t know if she could trust the words he spoke even now.

And that was agony.

“…Echo gave me my bounty sheet this morning,” she said coldly, showing Nick the list of bounties available. “You see that one, right at the bottom there?”

Nick blanched when he read the line at the bottom of the sheet.

Marry the Master – 98 VP

“Th-this is…” he stammered out.

“98 Victory Points?!” Sylvia’s jaw hit the table.

“That would take her right up to 200,” Dawn gasped.

“Wouldn’t the show be over, then?” Dani turned pale. “But wait, then that would mean… anyone who doesn’t have 100 VP would be…”

“I think that’s what she’s getting at,” Kim said, biting her lip.

“I didn’t want to tell you until I was sure,” Rose said, folding up the sheet and stowing it away. “I knew that if I showed it to you, it would be this whole big thing. You see… Echo was making a point when she gave me that bounty. She knew that I’d never be able to claim it. It was all just a cruel joke at my expense.”

She tried to smile, but painful tears rolled down her cheeks.

“Because you won’t marry me, will you?” She whispered. That’s why she’d asked, before she showed it to him. Because she wanted to hope, just for a bit, that she could marry the man she loved. “I wanted you to say yes… I wanted that more than anything…”

But Nick had made his feelings clear.

“If we ended the game now… that wouldn’t be a good thing,” Nick said quietly. But he knew that wasn’t Rose’s point. “Rose… I…”

“What?” Rose took a deep breath and wiped her eyes. “You want to marry me now? Is that really what you want?”

Mary wished she could help the other woman. She knew how Nick felt. And she knew how Rose felt. And her other self had taken advantage of those feelings to hurt both of them. It filled her with a rage she had never known before.

“…I do want to marry you,” Nick said. “I know that my words don’t mean anything to you right now, but… that’s how I feel. And I’m so sorry that I’ve led you on for so long that you don’t even believe me anymore. That… that never should have happened. I’m sorry, Rose.”

Rose sniffled, and took another sharp breath. Her nose was getting runny, and she hated how much of a mess she looked right now.

“I love you so much,” she whimpered, wiping her eyes. “And I want to believe you more than anything. I… I know that you love me. I just wish… I just wish you could have proved that to me somehow, Nick, beyond just telling me.”

Now, not even his words could convince her heart.

“I know,” Nick said. All he could do was hate himself. If he’d reacted better to her proposal earlier… no, by that point, it had already been too late. His mistakes had only compounded since Paris, he could see that now.

He shouldn’t have let things get to this point.

Rose reached out to him for a second, but then she pulled her hand back. “I know how you feel… I know you love me. And I know now… that we may not get married. But… I’m still glad that you said that,” she admitted.

How big of a fool did that make her?

Well… she was a fool that could still smile, at the end of it all. There was no denying that.

“I love you, Nick,” she said sincerely, giving him the best smile she could. “Even if you can’t love me the same way back.”

Before Nick could say anything, before he could try to convince her otherwise and cause her even more pain, she turned and fled the Banquet Hall, and refused to look back.