Oh, there'll be love, love, love wherever you go

An awkward atmosphere hung over the group of women as they loitered in front of the hotel. And the person feeling the brunt of that awkwardness wasn’t Morgana, for a change, but Rose.

“Um… look…” Rose scratched her head, twirling a lock of her wavy blonde hair through her fingers. “Morgana, I… I’m sorry that I… said all those things, and made you cry like that… really, I am.”

“You should apologize!” Holly snapped, crossing her arms over her chest. “Rose, we get what you were trying to do, but there’s a limit! You can’t just crush someone’s heart like that, even if you’re trying to help them!”

“Hey, come on, she was just trying to help, right?” Vivian protested, coming to Rose’s defense, while feeling a little awkward about inserting herself into the conversation.

“It’s alright!” Morgana asserted, shaking her head. “I… I was already crying,” she pointed out. “Rose helping me like that, it was just… well, maybe it was kind of what I needed to hear…”

In that moment, Morgana had been convinced that Rose was the worst person in the world. All those horrible things she’d said, not caring about how she was feeling and just yelling at her for being scared and weak and miserable, it had made her feel like complete crap. But ultimately, the actress had been correct.

Morgana had been crying and pitying herself because she thought her situation was hopeless, that she was a failure.

But she wasn’t a failure. She hadn’t failed yet. She hadn’t even really tried. Morgana could sit there and feel bad for herself when she’d done everything she could to get Nick to fall in love with the real her, and it still didn’t work.

And even when that time came… …Well, Rose wouldn’t be crying and feeling down about herself, would she? No, Rose didn’t know the meaning of giving up. She would just keep trying, keep pushing, over and over again until she achieved success, because that was the kind of woman she was.

It had worked for her. Even though everyone Morgana talked to said that Rose’s actions her first week on the show had been horrible, by the time Morgana arrived it seemed as if the blonde had actually managed to get Nick to fall in love with her for real.

That was something Morgana had always admired about Rose, even when the actress had tried to scare her off and assert her position way back when.

If Rose can be brave and cool like that… maybe it means that I can be, too.

The last thing Morgana wanted was to emulate Rose. But she still admired the woman’s tenacity, her determination, and her devotion to Nick.

Those were the things Morgana wanted for herself; so she would work hard to not give up, just like Rose did.

“You said some really bad things, Rose,” Morgana said to the actress. She placed her hand over her heart, which still ached a little. “A lot of the stuff you said… it really hurt. But… I’m not mad. I don’t blame you! I just… I just want to be the kind of person you said I could.”

She looked hopefully up at the other woman. “Do you… think that’s possible for me?”

“Sure it is!” Rose said, nodding firmly. Her blue eyes sparkled with determination and she took Morgana’s hands into hers. “Trust me, Morgana, you can definitely do it! It’s great that you want to be something other than just a piece of eye-candy for Nick! If you’re going to try and turn your life around and become someone he can love and cherish, then I’m right there for it! I’ll do whatever I can to help you find your place in his life!”

Morgana’s heart swooned a little. While Rose wasn’t someone she considered a friend, the feeling of support she got from the other woman, it was dazzling to her. It nearly brought her to tears once again.

“Th-thank you,” she stammered out, blinking away her watery eyes. “Thank you so much for helping me, Rose…”

“Hey, no problem!” Rose said with a smug smile, letting Morgana’s hands go. “What do you think the Harem Queen is for, huh?”

“That’s not your role,” Dawn pointed out sharply, not about to let Rose slip that one by while everyone was distracted.

“Yeah, if anyone has a claim to that title, then it’s Mary, not you!” Holly agreed, nodding firmly along with Dawn.

“Well, uh… don’t forget, that’s actually one of my transformation paths,” Vivian awkwardly chimed into the conversation.

Everyone look at her.

“…Sorry,” the heiress said, scratching her hair. “Just wanted to get in on the conversation, that’s all.” She laughed it off pretty well, but it still felt like a weird thing for her to say in the other girls’ opinions.

“So what now, then?” Rose asked, turning to Morgana. “We’re all here for your sake, don’t forget,” she reminded the other girl. “If there’s something you want to do for your date with Nick tomorrow, just let us know! If not, then we can come up with a plan together!”

That had been her plan from the start, in fact. But one thing had led to another, and this whole day had spiraled out of her hands, and control had ended up being wrenched out and plopped right there in the middle of them.

Luckily, Rose had managed to avert the disaster and bring the smile back to Morgana’s face. But it hadn’t been easy.

Right now, she just wanted to see the other girl have a good day tomorrow with Nick, to blow away some of those negative feelings that Rose had no doubt were still clogging her heart and mind.

Well, would you look at that? Me, working hard to bring a smile to another girl’s face and try to make sure she has a good time on a date with Nick tomorrow! I wouldn’t have believed it if I wasn’t here myself! Rose thought, patting herself on the back for her good deed.

Sure, she’d ended up causing Morgana more grief than maybe was absolutely necessary. But she’d still worked hard and did everything she could to help, even if it had been in a clumsy way.

Now she just had to hope that Morgana would be able to get to her date with a smile.

“I-I actually have an idea or two about it… maybe,” Morgana said, her voice filling with hope as she looked at the other girls. “Can we, uh… go in and talk about it?”

Morgana fiddled with the wide brim of her witch had, trying to block out the sun beating down on her face. She didn’t like being outside very much.

“You want to experiment with your magic?” Dawn asked doubtfully, her ears twitching when she heard Morgana’s suggestion.

“I’m not so sure about that,” Rose agreed from her spot on the lounge couch, leaning forward and cradling her chin in her hands. “It’s one thing to practice your magic when it’s just you and me around, but bringing Nick into things… I don’t know. Your spells have a tendency to backfire even when you practice them.”

“Plus, didn’t you say you wanted to shake the notion of yourself as just some sexy witch?” Vivian reminded her. “If you ask me, nothing would do that better than a complete image change, like last time!”

Morgana’s eyes flickered over to Vivian briefly and she bit her lip. True, she understood what Vivian was trying to say, but the more she thought about it, the more she found herself doubting if that was the right thing to do or not.

“I-I like these clothes,” Morgana pointed out, standing her ground firmly on this topic. “Yeah, um… maybe… maybe they have a certain… association, but… this is still my style. It’s a part of me, and… that’s what the date is all about, yeah? Nick… liking me for who I am?”

Vivian blinked. She was surprised by the maturity of Morgana’s response. While most people would probably react with incredulity at someone expressing the notion that clothes defined the person you were, Vivian wasn’t one of those people.

Clothing was important. It was a way for someone to express themselves; to show the whole world who they were, through what they liked to wear. Fancy clothes or casual clothes, stylish and tailored outfits to mimic a particular niche, or just throwing on whatever fit. Even how someone took care of their clothes could tell you a lot about them.

It was one of the goals Vivian set out to achieve when she started her own fashion line. To tailor the right clothes to the right buyers, so that everyone could have something they felt comfortable in.

As nice as Morgana looked in other things, Vivian could agree- black really suited her. Especially with that glossy, porcelain skin of hers.

“Back to the magic, though, what exactly do you mean?” Dawn inquired, interested in returning to the topic at hand. “By practicing magic. Don’t your spells only work on us women?”

That was a good point Rose hadn’t even considered. All of Morgana’s spells so far, they worked on the women in Nick’s harem but not Nick himself. Whether it was the fireball that made people aroused or the scent that expanded women’s butts. The only one they knew of that maybe affected Nick was the wind that blew past and lifted up everyone’s skirt, but since Nick didn’t wear skirts, it wouldn’t really work on him, either.

“Oh! There’s an idea!” Holly’s eyes lit up and she sprang to her feet. “What about a practice dummy? You and Nick can spend time together, and practice your spells on a third party, someone who would really enjoy being a test subject for you!”

“Let me guess,” Rose said with an amused, knowing smirk. “You’re volunteering yourself?”

Holly leaned back on the balls of her feet and flashed a toothy smile. “Just a suggestion.”

The girls sitting around the lounge had a lot of thoughts about this idea. But apparently, that wasn’t what Morgana was talking about.

“I-I don’t mean, like, using the spells on him, or around him, or anything!” She hastily clarified, swiftly shaking her head. “What I mean is, like…”

She twisted a lock of her hair and bit her lip. “Doing… doing research,” she clarified.

That got four sets of eyeballs on her pretty fast.

“…What, seriously?” Vivian snorted, shaking her head in disbelief. “Research? You mean like homework and studying and shit? That’s your big date plan?”

“Hey, there’s nothing wrong with a study date!” Dawn protested.

“True, some of the nicest times Nick and I shared were just the two of us, studying together in the library,” Holly said wistfully, reminiscing about those precious days when he’d helped her pass some of her classes by tutoring her as best he could.

Dawn winced. That could have been her enjoying a study date with Nick, once upon a time. But her own actions had messed all that up. …Still, no sense being sad about that now. They’d moved on, and they were adults.

“I’m kinda with Vivian on this,” Rose admitted with a shrug. “Studying doesn’t sound very romantic if you ask me.”

“Well, maybe if you picked up a book for once in your life,” Dawn sniped at her. She still hadn’t totally forgiven Rose for how she’d handled the whole situation with Morgana, even if the goth girl was doing better now and felt a lot happier.

Rose winced. “Hey, I mean… fair.”

“Look, it’s not anything, um, special, or whatever,” Morgana said, scratching her cheek and blushing. She looked shyly around the room. “But it would just be the two of us, together in the Magic Library, looking for… well… looking at interesting stuff. Alone…”

It sure sounded romantic to her.

“…Maybe I just don’t get it,” Vivian conceded with a shrug and a rueful smile. “But hey, it sounds like something you’re passionate about, so you’ve got my full support!” She clapped her hands together. “Let’s go with that! The important thing is that you two have some fun, right?”

“I think Nick might enjoy a date to the library,” Dawn agreed. “But I don’t know if that’s enough to fill up a full day.”

“Oh, y-you don’t think so?” Morgana scratched her cheek and frowned. She could easily picture herself spending a whole day, maybe even two, just reading in a library, but maybe Dawn was right and she should think of some more romantic stuff to do.

“Yeah,” Holly said, nodding. “Don’t get me wrong, Nick loves his books. And whatever you two do together, I’ll bet he’ll have fun, since it’s just the two of you. But a library date, that’s more of a Mary thing.”

“Eh?” Morgana blinked, surprised. “A Mary thing? What do you…?”

“A Mary thing, as in, something you do with someone you’re already head over heels with,” Holly explained. “See, Nick and Mary, they’re really close now. In fact, Mary’s first date with him on the island was to a bookstore! But it wasn’t always that way.”

“True,” Dawn agreed with a nod. “When we first came to the island, you and Mary could hardly stand to be around them.”

“Wait, what’s this now?” Rose was suddenly super engaged with the conversation now.

“D-don’t remind me of that,” Holly said, chewing her lip and blushing as she recalled the prior behavior of herself and her best friend. “There was an adjustment period for all of us when we got here, it’s understandable given how things ended that she’d be a little… cautious.”

Shame burned across her face. After all, Mary and Nick’s falling out back in college had been a direct result of her petty spite and resentment bubbling over, and poisoning her natural feelings of protectiveness. If not for her actions, things could have gone very differently for the both of them.

“Not for me!” Rose protested, pointing at herself. “I didn’t have an adjustment period! I was right there and ready for him the minute I got here, in the hot tub!”

Dawn raised her eyebrow. Rose’s selective memory was working overtime on that one, given how much of a shitstorm her own “adjustment period” had caused, but debating that topic with the actress was a fruitless endeavor.

“Hehe,” Rose tittered, feeling very satisfied with this outcome. “So much for the perfect little wife, huh? I knew I was a better fit! Since I never once hated him or thought badly of him!”

“Right, because that’s what matters here,” Holly muttered, rolling her eyes. She decided Rose could do with some ignoring for a while, and turned back to Morgana. A soft smile returned to her face as she stared at the hesitant goth.

“Look, Morgana,” Holly said, approaching her slowly, “when Mary and Nick were first getting to know each other, things were awkward between them, too. If it wasn’t for me, they probably wouldn’t have been able to even hold a conversation at first, due to Mary’s hang-ups about talking to boys. But over time, they gradually got closer, and they got to know more about each other; and that’s why the two of them could get back in their groove and go on dates to the bookstore like it was no big deal- they’d already built up a relationship based on understanding each other so well.”

Looking back, it made so much sense that Mary would end up as the first woman Nick married (regardless of Rose’s complaints) because the two of them just clicked in a way that Nick didn’t with other girls. That wasn’t a criticism of his relationships with the others, it was just a factual statement about the closeness of the two of them.

Even Holly couldn’t help but be jealous of that every now and then, she had to admit.

“S-so… you don’t think I should go to the library, then?” Morgana’s shoulders sagged and she sighed in defeat.

“No, that’s not what I’m saying at all!” Holly insisted, shaking her head. “I’m just saying that it won’t be enough! Look, Morgana, I’ve been down this road before, so you can trust me when I say I can see how things are going to go.”

She made a pitched face.

“You and Nick are going to go to the library together, maybe enjoy a little awkward small talk, but the emphasis is going to be on the ‘awkward’ part,” she started.

Morgana couldn’t deny that, sadly. Her face turned red in embarrassment. “Y-yeah, maybe,” she conceded.

There was no “maybe” about it, Holly was quite certain this would end up being the case. She continued, “And then when you get to the library, it’ll be fun for a while! But you’re both pretty introverted, and when put together you two couldn’t carry a conversation if you had a forklift. So you’d scurry off to your own corners of the library and bury your noses in a couple of books, both feeling like you’re not doing enough but neither of you wanting to disturb the other out of fear of worrying them or being a bother.”

“Sort of like how you guys haven’t talked at all this round,” Rose interjected, to which Holly nodded in agreement.

“Exactly. And you’ll continue not talking right up until it’s time to leave, and you’ll both feel like you could have done something way more fun, but in the end, you were both too shy to take the steps needed to actually do it,” Holly finished. She recited that perfectly, because she’d SEEN this date before. In fact, she’d been the lone extravert present for it back in college, and it had practically made her want to tear her hair out!

Morgana sagged, feeling deservedly called out with every word Holly threw at her.

“S-so… what should I do then?” She groaned, hanging her head and letting out a sigh. “I just… I want to spend time with him, but all my hobbies are… they’d nerdy hobbies!”

Lonely girl hobbies.

Not the kind of thing that led to the passionate and romantic life that Morgana so desperately wanted to live with him.

“Just try something new!” Vivian suggested. “Ever gone bungee jumping before? That’s a lot of fun, if you ask me!”

Morgana turned pale, then she turned green.

“Or,” Holly said, interjecting herself back into the discussion before Vivian could come up with any more bright ideas that would have Morgana running for the hills, “You could let me take the wheel for a little bit. Trust me, Morgana, you may have been Nick’s number one fan, but when it comes to knowing him best? Not even your research holds a candle to mine.”

Holly called it research, but Dawn was pretty sure in both cases the correct terminology was actually “stalking”.

That being said… she raised a good point. When it came to devotion to Nick, Holly was second to no one. Even Dakota had acknowledged the similarity between the two of them in that regard.

“…Wait, hold up a second,” Rose said, suddenly realizing something. “Are we just forgetting that this is Holly we’re talking about here? Are we really okay with giving her this much control over what Nick and Morgana do on their date together?”

“Hey!” Holly snapped. “…Okay, fair, but ouch.”

“It… it’s okay!” Morgana said firmly, her face lighting up with determination. Her eyes were wide and sparkled like rubies as she looked at the other girls. “I know… I know I’m not in the best condition for all this,” she admitted. “But I really… I really want to make Nick fall in love with me, for real.”

“That’s so great!” Holly gushed, clasping her hands together. “And that’s what we’ll set up to do!”

For the first time, Morgana really felt like getting Nick to look only at her, not for her body or her sexual fantasies, but for her as a person, was something actually within her grasp.