I don't really know where my head's at, I just know my heart's not there yet

“Why are you coming with me?” Ella asked, looking warily at Rose as the actress followed her into the elevator. Rose was dressed up in a maid costume, just like Ella. Only she wasn’t even copying Ella’s transformation using Method Acting. It was just cosplay.

Rose smiled generously at Ella and batted her eyelashes. “Friends support their friends,” she chirped. “Don’t you know that?”

Ella’s eye twitched behind her bangs. “We… we aren’t friends,” she mumbled. “How many times do I have to tell you that?”

If there was one thing Ella hated, it was overbearing people trying to push past her boundaries. Even worse when that person was a snotty blonde, like Rose.

And yet, aggravatingly, she couldn’t bring herself to entirely hate Rose, either. And that had to be because of her transformation. The Heart Remembers had made her views on Rose change considerably, she feared; while Ella had no idea how Cinder’s opinion of the blonde could have possibly improved, it was the only explanation that she could think of for why her own feelings about Rose had taken an unusual turn for the positive.

…Sure. Rose had helped her out. She had actually done Ella a massive favor in getting her into a room alone with a blindfolded Nick, so she could experiment with him and grow more comfortable with being around him. That didn’t go unappreciated by Ella. But it wasn’t enough to make up for how insensitive and pushy the other woman was.

At least, it shouldn’t have been. But to Ella’s chagrin, Rose was starting to grow on her. Sort of like an invasive weed taking over a garden.

Kudzu. Rose was kudzu, that was a good way to think about it.

“Look, Ella, Nick’s gonna come back up soon enough,” Rose said, her eyes sparkling. “And he’s gonna be super-focused on Kim, right? But… what if he happened to be greeted by a couple of beautiful maids, hmm? Kim’s cute and all, sure, whatever, but you and me? You’ll have plenty of time to get all flirty with him.”

Ella remembered the last time she and Nick had shared a conversation in the Master’s Suite.

Yeah. “Flirty” was not a word she would use to describe that. In fact, just remembering it made her want to throw up…

“Ugh… Rose… just… please stop…” Ella groaned, rubbing her forehead in frustration. “I can’t take this, seriously…”

“What?” Rose’s face twisted with alarm. “Are you okay? Do you need to barf again, or-?”

Ella blanched and swung her hands in a frenzy at the other girl. But lacking Cinder’s killer instincts they just went wild, like play-fights between kindergarteners. “Don’t bring that uuuuupp!” She wailed tearfully, shaking her head. “Are you nuts?!”

Rose just shrugged. “Sorry… just, trying to look out for you, you know?”

Ella calmed down and wiped her sweaty forehead. She looked warily at Rose, and finally summoned up the courage to ask the question she really should have asked the other woman in the first place.

“Rose… why are you trying to be my friend?” She asked, cringing internally at how lame and pathetic that sounded. “I don’t even like you. And I know there’s no way you like anything about me.”

“…Well, that’s just not true at all!” Rose huffed, placing her hands on her hips after pressing the “Stop Elevator” button.

Ella looked at her in surprise as the elevator jerked to a stop. “Eh!?”

“I’m growing on you, I know I am,” the actress clarified.

Notably, she didn’t deny Ella’s claim that Rose didn’t actually like her in return, which was far more damning. Something Ella noted as her shoulders sagged.

“I’m telling you, that’s Cinder.”

Rose rolled her eyes. “Cinder, Ella, whatever. You’re still you, right?”

Ella tensed. “…No, that… we’re different.”

She knew that deep down Cinder was a part of her. But not a part of her that she wanted anything to do with.

Rose saying stuff like that? It was a perfect example of why Ella didn’t think there was any benefit in maintaining a friendship with her.

“Fine, I can see that’s a sensitive subject, so I’ll drop it for now,” Rose said, noting how uncomfortable Ella had become. “But seriously, Ella… I really do want to try and be your friend.”

“Why!?” Ella groaned. As in “Why her?”

Why did she have to be targeted by this crazy woman’s quest to become friends? Just because they happened to be roommates?

“Because I know what it’s like to be the outsider,” Rose said seriously, earning her a stunned look from the other girl.

Of all the things Rose could have said, Ella didn’t expect her to say something like that.

“Qué?”

Rose pouted. “No, it’s not ‘okay’, I’m serious here!” She stated. “Look, it may be hard for you to believe, but I was not always so adored and treasured by everyone on the show!” Rose placed her hand over her chest, puffing herself up with a smile. “Yes, nowadays, the other girls all respect, adore, and envy me, but that wasn’t always the case!”

Ella stared at Rose in disbelief.

“…And people say I’m crazy…” she muttered under her breath.

Rose glared at her. “I’m serious! I was the very first Auditionee on this show, I’ll have you know. Everyone had already formed their own cliques, made their own friends, and no matter how hard I tried, I just couldn’t break into any of them! I felt completely alone and isolated my whole first week here!”

“Really, you were?” Ella said dryly. “I wonder why…”

“Unnecessary,” Rose said with another pout. “Look, I get it, it’s not the same thing. Me, I was in danger of being eliminated, so I worked my butt off trying to get the others to like me. Did it work on everybody? No. Most people? …Also no. …Anybody at all? Um… …Wait, where was I going with this again…?”

Ella turned to the elevator pad and moved to press the button for the Master’s Suite again but Rose managed to stop her at the last second.

“…Look, my point is, you might not be in danger of elimination, but you still need to have friends!” Rose said. “Look. Amelia’s one thing. She’s Nick’s stepmother. They’re always going to have a bond with each other, even if it stays hopefully platonic. And not only that, there are a bunch of girls who are cozying up to her right now, so they can look better in Nick’s eyes.”

Ella nodded. “Right, like you.”

Rose ignored that. “Then there’s Vivian. Way more divisive, sure, and she says stuff sometimes that makes people mad at her. But she’s got a really compelling zest for life that just draws you in! It’s that natural charisma of hers that makes her impossible to ignore, that star power that’s got a bunch of people glad to spend time with her, regardless of her thoughtlessness.”

“Again, like you.” Rose was the one who Ella saw most sucking up to the two of them, so she wasn’t sure what point the actress was trying to make.

Rose sighed and slumped her shoulders. Ella just wasn’t getting it!

“Look… Ella, I get it, you’re just trying to do your thing, hook up with Nick, and forget about the rest of the harem. Totally understand! I was riding that train for quite a while myself! But… come on. Even Augmented Synthetic Humanoid Assassin has somehow made more friends than you, and she can’t even talk!”

Ella winced. That one really stung. She’d had a front row seat to the mute assassin’s antisocial personality, and saw firsthand how she basically ignored everyone on the island except for Nick and Kim, to the point where she couldn’t remember the other woman even glancing her way once in spite of sharing a room with her for the whole first round they’d been on the island.

And yet, she somehow had a bigger social circle than Ella did even with that.

Putting it that way, Rose’s point really hit home.

“…Well, what do you expect?” Ella muttered, looking down. “I don’t exactly have a lot of experience with this kind of thing…”

“Phbblt.”

Ella’s head snapped up and she looked incredulously at Rose as the blonde blew another raspberry.

“Oh, sorry, I thought we were talking about making friends, not excuses,” Rose said snootily, twirling a lock of her regrowing hair. “Again, unless there was some secret friend-making course she took in assassin school, ‘I don’t know how to do it’ isn’t gonna hold water with me.”

Ella winced. She didn’t like yielding to someone like Rose, but… it was kind of her natural instinct.

Especially since Rose was right.

“Well… I…”

“Don’t worry!” Rose’s smiled quickly returned and she patted Ella on the shoulder. This time the flustered and exhausted maid didn’t shirk away. “See, like I said- I used to be like you. Only thinking about myself, only interested in Nick, only… well, I mean, I guess I’m still like that, but that’s not the point! The point is, ever since I got this latest transformation, I’ve been more aware of the other girls. Why do you think I’ve been helping out Morgana so much? Because I’m excited to help her become the sexy witch I know she can be!”

Rose had spent most of her time on this show being selfish and seeing the other women around her as obstacles. But her Fill Out the Cast transformation had opened her eyes, and made her realize that Nick’s harem wasn’t about competing with the other women. It was about helping each person find their own little niche in Nick’s life, everyone working together to play their part in making him happy, as equals!

…With Rose above them all, as the undisputed queen of his harem, the most equal out of any of them.

She’d really turned over a new leaf!

“So that’s what this is about?” Ella asked with a tired sigh. “You want to turn me into his sexy maid or something? THAT’S why you want to be my friend?”

“No, that’s only part of it,” Rose said, rolling her eyes. At least she was being honest. “Let’s take a look at the facts, shall we? You want to be with Nick. Romantically. Fact?”

Ella blushed. “Err…”

“I locked the two of you in a closet so you could grope him, Ella.”

“…Okay, yes.” It was kind of hard to deny her feelings when confronted with such blatant evidence as that.

Rose smiled smugly. “Well… you’ve got a lot of ground to cover. Point in your favor? Nick actually likes you.”

Ella perked up immediately. “He… he does?” She hoped she sounded casual about it. Because she didn’t want to make Rose think she was ****.

Of course, if Ella could actually see what she looked like, that hope would have been dashed immediately.

“Well, he likes spending time with you, right?” Rose pointed out.

“Um… yeah…” Ella wasn’t sure why, but she remembered him smiling a lot on their date together.

“And he talks to you? When he’s free? Says hello if you run into each other in the hallways, checks up on you when you’re cleaning the Master’s Suite?”

Ella nodded slowly, remembering lots of incidents like that.

Rose beamed at her. “See? So you got nothing to worry about!” She tittered, playfully patting Ella on the shoulder. “Nick likes you! It’s just, well… complicated, that’s all.”

Ella bristled. “C-complicated?” She asked hesitantly. “Why…?”

“Because he’s got a lot on his plate. Usually when he sees you in the Master’s Suite, it’s because he’s entertaining someone else. Plus there’s Mary and Holly to consider, and Nola’s sniffing around now too, right? So he can’t give you all the attention you want, so you’re feeling a little lonely.”

“I-I’m not lonely!” Ella protested. Her face began to heat up and her fingers reached instinctively for her rubber-band.

“Well, maybe not,” Rose conceded. “But you aren’t getting a lot of one on one time with him under circumstances like this!”

That Ella could agree with.

“Frankly, Ella, I’d say you completely squandered this whole round, if I’m being blunt.”

Ella glared at Rose. If Cinder were here, she’d give the blonde a piece of her mind! But Cinder was in hiding right now, having already backed down.

Confrontation wasn’t going to make Rose flinch.

“Your day with him was near the end of the round,” Rose continued. “You could have been using that time to gradually work on him, getting to know him better, building a rapport. That’s what I did. Then knock his socks off with a grand date, and make him totally smitten! …Instead you’ve been stuffing your face and throwing up all over his bathroom.”

Ella grimaced. That was a particularly unpleasant memory.

Rose’s expression softened. “Your date with him is tomorrow… and do you have any plans at all? Any ideas what to do?”

Ella shook her head sadly. “No…”

She had come onto this show, thinking it would be her last chance at a faerie tale romance. To actually fall in love. Nick was sweet, and a great guy, but… how was she supposed to fall in love with him, or he with her, if she was so **** to even leave her room and socialize?

Maybe… maybe Rose had a point.

It’s all Cinder’s fault, Ella thought darkly. Of course I couldn’t make any friends, with Cinder always driving people away. Of course Nick would be cautious around me and not get too close, if Cinder’s always there making him feel defensive.

Ella hated Cinder for a lot of things, even though she was also grateful to her for a lot of things.

Right now, though?

Frustration all the way.

Rose could see the cloud of doubt and frustration hanging over Ella, and patted her on the shoulder again. “Don’t worry, Ella. You may have blown several opportunities, but it’s not over until it’s over! Like I told you, Nick does like you. He likes you enough to not be afraid of Cinder, right?”

Ella perked up a little after Rose pointed that out. She raised a good point. Ella’s biggest fear when it came to romance was the elephant in the room known as Cinder. When she first met Nick, she’d tried so hard to make a good first impression on him and keep Cinder subdued, trying to keep her from surfacing for as long as possible. She’d been terrified that if Nick saw that side of her before she could properly prepare him, then he would just give up on her then and there.

And of course, Dakota had revealed the truth to him through that awful movie, and her fears became manifest. Ella was so scared of what would happen that she ran away, and gave Cinder free rein to finish off their date.

After that, she’d been mortified. She’d thought that any chance of the two of them getting together was lost, now that he’d seen that other side of her.

But… no. Nick had met Cinder… and he didn’t reject her. He didn’t reject either of them. He still kept trying to get to know her, even trying to get to know Cinder, because he seemed to sincerely want to give this a chance.

Ella had never felt happier than she had in those moments. Not since after her father’s passing.

Compared to all that… maybe… maybe Rose was right, that she could be a little hopeful, even if she’d messed everything up.

Ella was so focused on her own feelings that she missed the fact that Rose was still talking.

“…And next time, let’s forego the blindfold when we go into the closet… yeah, that’s the ticket alright… yup…”

“…Wait, what!?” Ella blanched in horror. “N-no, no way! I-! That was so-!”

She remembered the rush she’d gotten from seeing Nick helpless and tied up in front of her. Just knowing she could do whatever she wanted with him and not only would he be unable to resist, but he wouldn’t even know it was her doing it.

Those were… uncomfortable feelings. Feelings best left ignored. Ella had to be good; only Cinder could be the bad one.

Rose rolled her eyes and sighed in exasperation. “Okay, fiiiine. No closets. But that’s okay! That’s why I’m here! Tonight, I’ll handle the cleaning, and you, you work on getting Nick’s attention away from Kim. It doesn’t have to be the whole time. But our goal tonight is one legitimate conversation between you and Nick. Just the two of you! No third party mediators, not stumbling over your words, no awkward pauses or uncomfortable silences. And definitely not surprise appearances of you-know-who. Just the two of you sharing an honest, enjoyable conversation with one another, to put him in a good mood. That way, when he wakes up for your date tomorrow, his most recent memory of you will be a pleasant one!”

“Is… is that really going to work?” Ella asked timidly. Rose had a way of making things sound nice, but in actual practice Ella wasn’t so convinced.

“Of course it’ll work!” Rose said with a big grin. “Trust me, I’m an expert! The goal here is to intrigue Nick! Show him a side of you he’s never seen before! Make him think ‘Wow, what’s gotten into Ella since I saw her last?’ THAT’S what we want to be on his mind going into your date tomorrow! We’ll build him up, then knock him down and blow him away!”

Ella nodded eagerly. Rose was being so helpful… yes, she could be overbearing, but maybe… maybe she wasn’t so bad.

“Just count on me, Ella,” Rose said, her eyes twinkling with excitement. “I’ve got the perfect plan! See… I’ll float you a bit of money. Just 5000 BP! You can use it and buy a date for Dream Alley tomorrow!”

“What!?” Ella suddenly considered the possibility that maybe Rose was just a crazy person. “That, um… I don’t… think that’s a good-”

“Sure it is!” Rose ignored her. “Nothing works better at getting Nick to see you in a new light than it being just the two of you, for a whole day together. Together, we’ll come up with a date plan that’ll win him over for sure!”

She grinned and gave Ella’s trembling shoulder a reassuring squeeze. “Just consider me your faerie godmother!”

Ella’s attempt to placate Rose’s crazy plan with a smile ended up turning into more of a grimace. A date was one thing… but going to the place where her dreams could become reality!? When Cinder had a chance of rearing her head?!

She could only picture this ending in disaster, like last time. And even if Nick wouldn’t reject her outright afterwards, she still didn’t want to subject him to that!

Who would?!

Ella sighed as the elevator restarted. Whatever Rose had planned for tonight, she wasn’t even sold on whether or not she wanted it to go well. But she had a job to do… might as well do it.