25

After Margot and Ben had left to swim, Oliver decided it was time to make his plan clear.

"Look, Mal..." Oliver started, glancing at the girl eating all the strawberries she could get her hands on. "Ben was right, you know?"

Mal paused, placing the strawberry in her hand down. "About what?"

"About you being a good person." When Mal just stared at him blankly, Oliver sighed. "Look, I'm not gonna pretend to understand what you went through on the Isle or what your parents expect from you. I don't even care why you love spelled my best friend. But honestly, I can tell you're a good person inside, so you don't have to hide that while you're here. You're not on the Isle anymore."

"Wait, you know about the love potion?" Mal fretted, panicked as she stumbled away from him.

Oliver groaned. "Even Margot figured it out, and it's tough to notice when you're the one being spelled. I mean, those two were acting all in love with each other until that cookie, then suddenly, Ben's in love with you, and Margot's in love with me. Doesn't add up at all."

"So, what? You're gonna tell on me now? Get me kicked back to the Isle?" Mal wondered, the terror she was desperately trying to hide so clear on her face.

Oliver chuckled sadly. "You've got that bad of an opinion of me, huh?"

"Well, you haven't exactly acted like you like me." Mal retorted.

"I'm protective of my sister, and Ben. And even Margot a bit now. But, just cuz I was protecting them doesn't mean I didn't like you. I honestly think you're really cool, and your graffiti art is badass, even if my mom might ground me for admitting that." Oliver grinned. "You don't need to follow every rule to be good, that just makes you a pushover, and I personally prefer someone with a bit of spunk."

Mal tried to hide her smile, but her blush gave her away. "So... you're not selling me out then?"

"Nah. You're too interesting. Besides, you deserve a second chance. You probably don't get enough of those on the Isle."

"You can say that again. My mom would kill me for just having this conversation with you." Mal snorted humourlessly.

"Then she should work on being a better mother."

Mal's green eyes met Oliver's blue ones, and for a few moments, she seemed to lose herself, before forcing herself to look away. The two of them stayed in comfortable silence until Mal noticed how still the water was and how long the other two had been away.

"Gogo?" Mal called out. There was no answer. "Gogo?! Are you ok?!" Mal tried again, more frantically this time.

"Mal, I'm sure she's fine. Ben wouldn't let anything happen to her." Oliver reassured her, but Mal pulled her arm away from him, moving closer to the water.

"Ben?! Gogo?!" Mal's voice had by then become very high-pitched, and without another second's hesitation, she jumped in the water.

It was only a few seconds before the water become too deep, and Oliver jumped in after her, pulling her back to shore.

Ben and Margot arrived seconds later.

"You... you can't swim either?" Ben asked, watching Mal with something akin to awe on his face.

"No!" Mal yelled, huffing.

"You live on an island!" Ben rebuked, while Margot just watched her friend fondly.

While Mal huffed about how she shouldn't have tried anything, Margot just pulled her into a hug.

"Thanks for trying to save me, Mal." Margot grinned. "You're like my own Fairy Godmother, you know? No offense, Oliver."

"None taken, I've got my hands full with Ben already."

Mal let out a frantic laugh, before pulling Margot back into a hug. "You scared me, idiot."

"Sorry, Mal. Won't happen again."

After they grabbed some towels to dry off, Oliver and Mal sharing one and Ben and Margot sharing the other, much to both girls' embarrassment, the discussion of what to do about the love potion came up.

"Ben, man, I'm gonna be honest with you here, if you dump another girl right before the coronation, it's gonna be bad for your reputation. People will think you're a heartless player." Oliver explained with a grimace.

"So... what? You think I should fake date Mal then?" Ben wondered with a frown.

"No, you may be a theatre geek at heart, but you can't act. Blame the whole love potion thing on me, say that me and Mal were having a competition to see who could make the strongest spell, and you two accidentally got caught in it. Then, because you had to ask Mal out so publicly, you still take her to the coronation as friends to show you have no ill will from the magical mistake and that you'll honour your word." As Oliver spoke, Mal watched him with wide, admiring eyes, clearly in shock that he would protect her like this. "Everyone already knows I like pranks and am competitive, so it wouldn't be too hard to believe I'd challenge her to a contest like that."

Ben nodded, agreeing, and Margot also had no problem with it. Both of them had stopped caring about the reason Mal had spelled them in the first place when she'd risked her life to save Margot.

"Yeah, the only thing is, now you can't date anyone till after the coronation, since Mal will be your date." Oliver explained, his eyes flickering over to Margot, who blushed, looking off to the side as if it were interesting.

Ben also glanced at her, then nodded. "Even without this whole situation, it would be too dramatic anyways."

"Yeah, Audrey would murder any new girlfriend you get as long as she's not scared of her, and Mal's scary enough that she wasn't gonna get murdered, but she might be the only exception to that."

Mal grinned deviously. "Why, thank you. She should be scared of me after what she did to Margot."

Oliver cackled. "Oh, you should've seen the way Ben ripped her a new one. I've never seen him yell so much, it was epic. Honestly, I wanted to mess her up too, but Ben really did it for me."

"Oh yeah." Margot chimed in, her face blank as she turned to Ben. "I think you should apologize to Audrey for the way you asked Mal out."

"Excuse me?!" Mal and Oliver yelled in unison.

"Mar, she hit you." Ben growled, his eyes dark.

Margot's face, steeled with determination, didn't change. "I'm not gonna argue that she's a good person, because she did betray me and she treated me badly, but she loved you and only four days after dumping her, you publicly and very romantically asked out her nemesis. You guys have been friends your whole lives, and I think it would be good of you to be the better person in this scenario."

The other three stayed silent and Ben searched Margot's eyes carefully, his own face betraying his anger, before he sighed. "Fine. I'll apologize to her, but I sure as hell am not forgiving her."

Margot felt a little, triumphant smile spread on her face as she let herself finally enjoy the feeling that Ben wanted to protect her. It was rather nice, especially knowing that she wasn't completely betraying Audrey by giving her this second chance. That felt nice too