You are my sunshine, my only sunshine. You make me happy when skies are grey...

“Carly…” Nick was at a loss for words when he saw Carly standing at his front door. She looked amazing. She always did, but she looked more beautiful than he ever expected.

She wore a long black dress with straps to show off her generous cleavage, and her hair was long and black. She tied it up in the back with a white headband to reveal her nape and her exposed shoulders, while leaving two long fringes on the front to frame her face. To complete the look, she wore a pair of long black high heeled boots that reach up to her mid thigh, giving her a bit of a height edge on him. And the smile she wore was gorgeous.

Nick could be forgiven for not thinking anything was wrong at all, looking at that smile.

“Good evening,” Carly purred, and she didn’t give Nick time to breathe before she pounced on him. She pulled open his shirt collar to expose his neck and began licking and sucking intensely on his nape, while pushing him back to the bed. Nick could feel the heated passion in her touch as she moaned against his skin, but felt something else from her as well.

Desperation.

“C-Carly!”

Using all the willpower he had in him, he managed to push her off. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to be with her; she was a beautiful woman who he’d already had the pleasure of sleeping with once, and knew that she would rock his world on a repeat performance.

But not like this.

“What’s wrong?” She panted, wiping a few errant strands of hair out of her face. Her gaze was lidded with desire. “I know you want me… I can feel it.”

She ran her fingers up the front of his jeans, palming the bulge that was forming in spite of his wishes.

“Let’s not waste any time…”

God, he wanted to so badly. Holly wasn’t here, there would be no distractions. They could go at it for the whole night.

But somehow, he knew that if that were to happen, he would never be able to forgive himself.

“N-Not right now.” Nick pulled back, breaking contact with Carly. That was when she realized he was doing a little more than playing hard to get. She straightened up and narrowed her eyes.

“What’s wrong?” She demanded icily. “I thought you wanted this! The last time…”

“It’s not that I don’t,” Nick said, shaking his head. “You’re beautiful, Carly, and it would be a privilege to be with you like that. But…”

“But what?” She could sense the hesitation rolling off him in waves. She took a step closer, making sure to wiggle her ass and lean forward to make her best assets shake. But Nick didn’t take the bait. He kept his eyes locked on hers, refusing to back down even in the face of such a tantalizing offer.

“But YOU don’t want to do this,” he said. “Not tonight.”

Anger flared through Carly and she scowled. Who was he to tell her what she wanted?!

“Oh, you think so, huh?” She spat. “You think you know me so well? I’m always down to fuck, Nick, if anyone’s hesitating here it’s you! But that’s bullshit! You think I don’t notice the way you’re always checking me out? What was our last night together, then? Stop dicking around, and start dicking me down!”

Nick ignored the vitriol aimed his way. He stared calmly at Carly while she shouted at him, and when she was done, he said only two words. “It’s okay.”

Apparently, that was enough. Carly started to shake, and tottered towards the bed on her heels. She collapsed against it and began to cry.

“I’m sorry… I don’t know what I’m doing,” she sobbed, looking back at Nick. Her makeup rolled down her face.

Nick approached Carly and placed his hand on her shoulder. He didn’t know what to say to her, but by touching her he let her know that she wasn’t alone.

It was Carly who spoke to him first.

“You deserve to know what’s going on,” she muttered. “Between me and Mimi. That’s why you’re holding off, right? Because you can tell something’s wrong. And you’re right. Something is wrong… horribly wrong. And it’s all my fault.”

“I just want to help,” Nick said softly. “Tell me, what can I do to help?”

Carly looked at him with eyes filled with patronizing sadness.

“There’s nothing you can do,” she answered. “Please, just… listen?”

“Will you tell me?” He didn’t expect that. Given Dani’s reaction and how hostile Carly had been all week, he thought that he would have to push much harder to get her to reveal the truth.

But Carly offered it free and clear.

“I already told Dani,” she said, moving to sit down on the bed. “And I don’t want to make an honest girl like her have to hide things from you. So I’ll tell you everything. About why I dropped out of college… why I became a cosplayer… and why seeing Mimi hurts so much.”

Nick braced himself for what was to come. But it was so much worse than he’d expected.

“You remember how I was in college, right? I was flirting around with people, going to parties, and having a lot of sex. The good old days, I suppose you could call them,” Carly murmured. Her eyes were distant and glassy as she recounted her past endeavors. “I didn’t exactly take school that seriously.”

Nick winced. He knew that while Carly was flirting with him, that she’d also been sleeping around with other guys. As special as their relationship had been, he never had any illusions that Carly was committed to him as anything more than a friend.

Her hand ghosted over her stomach. “But what you don’t know, is that at one of those parties… I got pregnant.”

And Nick’s entire perception of reality changed.

“…Pregnant?” He whispered.

She nodded. “I never found out who the father was. All I knew is that by the time I was heading back home for winter break, I had taken three home pregnancy tests that all said the same thing.”

“…So that’s why you never came back…” Nick had always felt somewhere deep down that the reason Carly had left after her first semester was because of him somehow; it was irrational, bordering on insanity and egoism, but given his terrible track record with women before and after that point it made a sick sort of sense in his brain.

“I could have gotten it… taken care of,” Carly whispered, making a sickened expression. “But the thought never crossed my mind. I was always a bit of a mess, and finding out I was pregnant was a wakeup call. It was like the universe was telling me to forget partying and sleeping around, I finally had something… someone I could commit to. Someone I could love more than anything. I dropped out of college without looking back, moved in with my parents, and prepared for life as a hardworking single mother.”

Tears started to fill her eyes, if they had ever left in the first place. “I wanted to do whatever it took to give my little girl a loving home…”

Nick felt a stab of pain in his heart. The sadness in her voice made it all too clear what had happened.

“I was only seven months pregnant when I went into labor.” Her voice echoed with hollowness as she gazed off into space, not looking at Nick but looking through him. She was seeing something completely different right now, playing back the memories of her past like a film reel. “I know that sounds bad, but the doctor told me that there would only be a few complications. My baby would be fine with a little intensive care… but she wasn’t fine. I didn’t even get the chance to see her.”

Carly’s hands started to shake.

“17 minutes… just 17 minutes of life, such a painful existence… why? What did I do? What could I have done that was so horrible my little girl needed to suffer like that?!” She sobbed, hanging her head. “My Emmy… poor Emmy…”

Nick wanted to tell her it was okay. He wanted to give her some comforting words to soothe the pain in her heart. But what could he say? What words could possibly help her through her loss? He was a published author, and he couldn’t think of a single one.

“After she died… my life just fell apart. It didn’t seem worth living at the point,” Carly murmured, biting her lip. “I went through the motions, but everything that brought me joy had turned to ash. It was like the world lost all its color for me when I lost my baby.”

She raised her head, and the faintest trace of a smile could be seen on her lips. “Then my friend Stacy called. It was one of the days where I actually had the strength to get out of bed in the morning. She made a call that would change my life. She asked me to do a photoshoot with her.”

“And that’s how you got back into cosplay?” Nick asked. “I see. That’s… fortunate. You’re lucky you had a friend who was willing to reach out to you like that.”

If only someone had reached out to him after what happened with Dakota. Maybe things could have gone differently for him as well.

“You have no idea…” Carly wiped her eyes. “Sometimes I think… what if she called me the day before? Or the day after? Or even a few hours later? Would I have accepted? Would I have gone to the photoshoot? Would I have become a model? I don’t know… and that frightens me.”

“But it happened,” Nick pointed out, making sure to keep his tone as gentle as possible. “Whatever else, you should focus on the positive. That it happened.”

Carly sniffled a little and actually smiled. “You’re right,” she admitted. “I love my job. I know it sounds ridiculous, but… I don’t just do it because of the money. I do it because I sincerely love pleasing my fans. It fulfills me so much, to reach out to so many people as their idol. To know they love me, and that they can feel how much I care about them… that’s really something special, huh?”

“If that’s the way you see it, then yeah, it is,” Nick said, nodding. He’d never thought someone would choose to be a skimpy cosplay model for the purpose of pleasing their fans. But Carly really sounded genuine when she talked about how much she loved it.

Carly sighed, and looked across the room at the mirror hanging on the wall. She began to play with her hair, trying to straighten it out. “You see, Nick… there’s a hole in my heart. Ever since I was little, I always wanted to be loved. I wanted it so badly, so much more than other people. I don’t really know why. Maybe I’m just a naturally lonely person, or maybe it’s because my parents work so much. But whatever the reason, I always knew that I couldn’t fill it with just the love of one person. I tried a few times, in middle school and high school… but it was never enough. No one could fill that emptiness completely. Not even you…”

Nick wasn’t even offended by that. “But you thought Emmy could?”

It was a horrible question to ask. But one she didn’t baulk from in the slightest.

“I hoped that if I had a child… my child… that all those empty feelings would go away, that I could finally have someone I could love completely. Instead of a parade of partners who only got part of my heart, I would finally have someone I could give all of it to.” She shook her head. “But it wasn’t meant to be.”

“Carly…” The pain in her voice broke his heart right alongside hers.

“I tried so hard to fill the void she left with work,” Carly choked out, starting to tear up again. “By putting on different costumes, just for a little while… I could forget. I could become a different person, a character loved by thousands… loved by me. And then it didn’t matter that Carly Granger lost her daughter, because I wasn’t Carly anymore… I was loved.”

She placed her hand over his and squeezed, feeling relief flow through her from human contact.

“…But at the end of the day, I still have to be me, don’t I? Even now… I’m not ‘Yor Forger’ I’m still Carly. And even though I know that my fans don’t just love me because of my costumes… even though I know that they’re really my fans… I still feel empty and unloved.” Carly turned to Nick, gazing longingly into his eyes. “Can you help me, Nick? Can you make me feel that way? Loved like that?”

Nick winced. He wanted to soothe her woes and give her the answer she was **** to hear. But it would be a lie.

“…I can’t,” he admitted, too ashamed to even look her in the eye. “What you’re asking… to fill the void in your heart… there’s no way I could promise to do something like that. I want to help you, Carly, and if you asked, I try to do whatever I could to make you feel better, but… I won’t make a promise to you I can’t keep.”

Carly reached up and turned his face towards her so he could see the sad but understanding smile on her lips.

“I know that, of course,” she said, gingerly kissing him on the cheek. “I know it’s not fair to ask you something like that. This emptiness… it’s a part of me. And even if you tried your whole life, we have no way of knowing whether or not it will actually make a difference.”

Nick clenched his jaw. “Then… give me the chance.”

Carly was taken aback. “Wh-What?”

“It might not be possible, but… I still want to try!” He declared, taking her hands into his and holding them tightly. “Please… I want to make you happy, even if it takes my whole life!” It was the least he could do for someone he treasured so much.

Carly stared at him in shock for a few seconds before cracking a wry smile.

“My… that’s really something. If I didn’t know any better, I’d think that sounded like a marriage proposal, Nick!”

Nick’s face went pale. “W-Wait, that wasn’t what I-”

“I know,” she giggled. “Save stuff like that for Mary.” She wiped her eyes. “But just knowing you feel that way… it means the world to me.”

She slipped her hands away from his and rose to her feet, stretching. “Now then… that was refreshing. I feel a lot better getting all that off my chest!” She said with a smile.

Nick stood up and grabbed her arm. She turned away from him.

“…That’s a lie too, isn’t it?” Nick asked, narrowing his eyes. “You don’t really feel any better, do you?”

Carly clenched her hand into a fist. “…You don’t know anything,” she replied. “I told you, it’s fine.”

“But it isn’t,” Nick snapped, tightening his grip on her wrist. “I wasn’t kidding around, Carly! I meant what I said when I promised to do whatever I can to make you happy! And I meant what I said when I told you I want to help you with whatever’s going on with Mimi!”

“Well you can’t!” Carly broke free and turned towards him, and her eyes filled up with painful tears once more. “This isn’t some problem you can just make magically go away! This is something I’ve had to live with for eight years, Nick! Eight! Years! And just when I think it’s starting to get better, that maybe I can finally put this behind me… boom! Something comes along and knocks over all the progress I’ve made, leaving me crying in the rubble! And Mimi… she’s the worst of it!”

“Because she looks so much like you?” Nick asked. “I know that has to be hard, but-”

“It’s not just that!” Carly sobbed. “It’s not! Mimi… she looks like me, but… even if she didn’t… I still can’t deny the feeling I have when I see her! It’s like… it’s like part of me is screaming that she’s mine! That she’s my Emmy… but she’s not!”

Carly could feel something strong whenever she looked at Mimi. Something she couldn’t describe. It was like the other girl was the key to everything. Almost as though she might be able to fill the hole in her heart.

But that couldn’t be.

Mimi wasn’t Emmy. She was a slime girl, and her own person. She was Sylvia’s daughter.

Carly couldn’t just muscle her way in and be a mother to that girl, not like how the others were doing. She couldn’t betray Emmy’s memory like that.

“I want to be her friend…” She admitted. “I want to have a relationship with her… but I can’t! Don’t you get it? She’s… it’s like she’s part of me! But Emmy… Emmy was a part of me, too… and there’s not enough of me to go around.”

Carly was too damaged to let her heart change so easily.

Nick couldn’t believe what he was hearing. Carly felt simultaneously like she didn’t have enough love to give, while being **** for it at the same time.

“Sylvia said… she told me… she said if I won, I could bring Emmy back… just like Dakota.”

The promise hung in the air, filling the room with suffocating silence. Nick couldn’t believe Sylvia had made a promise like that.

“But what if I make friends with Mimi… what if she fills that hole in my heart, what if she… what if she becomes like a daughter to me?!” Carly cried. “This feeling… it’s the same thing I felt with Emmy… what if Mimi takes her place?! I can’t let that happen… I already lost her, and if I forget about her too, then what kind of mother am I?!”

Mimi reminded Carly of the daughter she lost so much that the prospect of befriending her carried a threat that she might lose her daughter all over again.

She wouldn’t let Emmy’s place in her heart be taken by anyone.

“It’s not like she’s really gone… right? I can bring her back… right?” Carly’s face was filled with desperation. She looked at Nick like she wanted him to hug her and make everything okay. But she couldn’t want anything less in that moment.

Nick reached for her on instinct, trying to hug her. But like a feral cat Carly sensed his attempt at intimacy and broke away, not letting him get close.

“Sorry! I’m so sorry!” She sobbed, falling to her knees and cradling her tearstained cheeks. “I know it’s not right… I know I’m not right… but I just… I don’t know what to do anymore…”

That wasn’t quite true. She knew what she needed to do. She’d known for a long time. But she just didn’t want to do it.

“Emmy…” She wiped her eyes, but the tears wouldn’t stop.

“Carly…” Nick crouched down beside her, taking care not to touch so much as a single strand of her hair. If she wanted him to, she would let him know. Until then, he would just be there for her. To save her a spot in his heart until she was ready to claim it.

“It’s so unfair…” She murmured, finally looking up at him. He saw a different light in her eyes, it was the gleam of someone who had made up their mind after an eternity of deliberation. “I know what I have to do… but I can’t do it here. We have to stay.”

A bitter laugh echoed through the room. “The Master’s Suite… some suite. To call it a prison would be more apt.”

“Carly…” Nick could see how much she wanted to go. But they couldn’t. Not while-

The door to the entry hall swung open with a creak, startling them both. They glanced at the open door, and then at each other, confused.

“I guess… we can go?” Nick stood up first and offered Carly his hand. She took it gratefully and rose to her feet, and the two walked into the elevator.

Meanwhile, Sylvia was enjoying a nice spot of tea in her bedroom.

Nope. I don’t know anything… anyone could have left that door unlocked, nothing to do with me, she thought, taking a sip from her cup.

Good luck you two.