Disclaimer: I do not own MySims or any of the characters in it.

When the town reached three stars, it became very obvious. Sierra was here to stay, and so was her popularity. You couldn't go a day without seeing her at least ten times. Hearing her name twice that much was completely inevitable. She was Sim City's sweetheart, and nobody seemed to be more upset about that than the sweetheart herself.

"Hey Buddy," she came in a week after our little chat, her voice definitely not exuding the typical cheerfulness. Her eyes were puffy and purple, and her clothes were dirtier than usual. The door swung around over and over behind her, and I could just make out her wagon, loaded up with things outside the door.

"Hey. Are you…alright?" I asked. Slowly, it was becoming easier to say a few more words to Sierra. She was always glad to talk to me, and I wanted to return the favor, and not make it seem like I couldn't stand her or something of the sort. Besides, I saw her in the hotel every morning. Being kind was necessary.

She blankly stared at me. Only yesterday she had moved in Roxie Road, and the day before that Vic Vector. The typical townies were bouncing around- Travis had been joined by Rhonda, who liked to talk all day. Her eyes narrowed in on Elmira, who had just pushed Travis to the floor for 'being too loud.'

"I'm fine," she murmured, struggling to keep her voice happy. Her attempt fell dully short, and Travis gave her a sympathetic hug. I stared down at my desk, rage ripping at me slowly. For whatever reason, I couldn't stand Travis, and how he refused to leave the town. He had said he was "just stopping by." Well, wasn't it time to get on his way?

Elmira marched right up to Sierra, surely knowing everything about her. "You call this a three star town? There's not even a library!"

Everyone but Elmira and Sierra winced. Sierra just looked apologetic. "Nobody has come offering to run it. I'm afraid few townspeople want the job." I wanted to jump to her defense, her own sounding too meek. Who cared about a library? Hardly anyone in town even wanted one.

"Well, I demand you build one, despite your pathetic excuses!" Elmira fumed.

"She doesn't have a pathetic excuse," I cried suddenly. "She has a good reason. Nobody wants a library in this town!"

Sierra turned her bright eyes to me with a smile, but then Elmira blocked her, looking furious. "What did you say?"

"Would you move here?" Sierra interrupted. "There's a great spot located in the desert, though it's rather far from town." I felt relieved, thinking that if Elmira did take her up on the offer, at least she would be far away.

"Of course I will! I have to make you all see the wonder in reading!" Elmira demanded, her voice still furious. I looked nervously at Sierra, who slowly nodded. She glanced at me for a second, and then left, leaving me to see her struggling to pull her wagon after her.

That night, I found it hard to think about anything but Sierra as I aimlessly walked around town. Was everyone like that to her? Did everyone she offered to help yell at her? Or was it just Elmira? I thought about Travis, and wondered if she would move him into town. It calmed me down to think about how she had never invited a townie before.

I had to stop when I came to the forest. Across a fallen tree bridge was Sierra herself, a shovel held tightly in one hand, a detector in the other. "Twenty cakes…twenty gingerbread men," she repeated over and over again, and when her detector started to beep like crazy she would set it down and start digging, struggling to bury the shovel into the hard dirt.

I felt frozen, unable to help her. It seemed like she rarely got what she needed, and like every movement was harder than the next. I could tell how hard the dirt was just from where I was standing, I could tell how much she was struggling, and yet I found it impossible to move.

After a while of work, she sprinted past me, not even noticing me standing there in the dark. Her wagon was waiting, filled with games for Vic Vector's place, and I watched as she continued to run, struggling as she pulled the heavy wagon. Her backpack bounced, every hit against her back loud and sounding difficult, but she kept on running until I couldn't hear anymore.

I felt immensely curious, though I knew I should just feel guilty. She was doing all of that for someone. Someone was making sure she didn't get any sleep, and instead had to run all over town in the middle of the night, picking up the essences.

I found out exactly who that someone was the next day when Sierra came running into the hotel. "Anybody new?" she asked, and when I shook my head she said, "Oh. I wasn't too late, right? I've been in my workshop since…well, for a while," she shrugged it off.

Had she been in her workshop ever since I had seen her? It was already the afternoon. "Nobody's come by but the townies." Travis and Rhonda were joined by Roger, who was doing push ups next to my desk. Travis was grinning at Sierra, who didn't seem to notice, and Rhonda didn't seem to notice that nobody was listening to her talking. Even if she had noticed, she probably would have kept going anyways.

"Well, I've got to get to Roxie's then. Thanks Buddy," she said, and I watched as she grabbed onto the handle of her wagon.

Something propelled me forward, and I took it from her hand, my fingers brushing against her's. My cheeks flushed as she gave me a puzzled look. "I can help," I said. "I mean…I just…you work really hard…I feel kind of bad."

Sierra looked like she would turn me down for a moment, but decided she did need the help, and thanked me, pushing it along to make it go faster as I steered and pulled it into Roxie Road's Ice Cream.

The second I heard my foot make a splatter, I knew something was wrong. When I looked down, my shoe was coated with sticky melted ice cream, and a mop was vigorously swiping around them.

"Oh, now you come," Roxie said, nearly hitting Sierra with the mop as she made a violent gesture. Sierra timidly came out from behind the freezer and sink she had been pushing, looking very mortified. "After three tubs of my Choco Choco Delishy Delight has melted all over the floor! I've been switching them around in the freezer, but it's the hot afternoon, Sierra! How could you let this happen?"

Sierra looked on the verge of tears. "I'm so sorry Roxie," she quickly carried the refrigerator to the back of the room, where the rest of the ice cream was waiting. "It took me a long time to get the gingerbread men and the cake…"

I thought about Sierra's face covered in sweat last night as she painstakingly extracted those forty essences. More than before, I wanted to come to her aid, and stand up for her. But what could I say? I watched her work and didn't do a thing but just that- watch?

"Sorry isn't going to refreeze those tubs! Do you know how much money I just lost? You're supposed to be some whiz with essences, and yet it took you that long to get them?" she seemed to get madder every second.

A tear formed in Sierra's eye, which she quickly wiped. "I know apologizing won't help, but I will…I'll clean this up, and I'll build you an extra freezer to make sure nothing wrong can ever happen."

Roxie seemed to hesitate, than passed the mop off to Sierra. "Fine, but I'm not sure if I even want your freezer. How do I know if it's even going to work?"

I gaped at her, but Sierra merely took the mop that was flung at her and began to furiously clean, trying to get the job done as quickly as possible. Roxie looked at Patrick, who looked at the mess outside, laughed, and kept walking. "Look at that!" she exclaimed, flinging her hands into the air. "I just lost another customer!"

"Stop it!" a voice shouted. As I slowly realized it was mine, blood rushed to my cheeks. Sierra paused in her mopping to look up at me, and Roxie looked stricken as she turned her hard gaze to me.

"It's not her fault your ice cream melted. She probably stayed up all night trying to get your essences. You don't know how hard it was. If you want her to build things for you, why don't you get the essences and then let her build the stuff you want, and see how hard it is? She's doing you a favor in building all of this extra stuff."

It was like once I started I couldn't stop. I kept on going through my monologue, feeling angrier than I had in my whole life. Every time I looked at Sierra I just got madder, seeing how tired and innocent and weak she looked, watching me as she clung tightly to the mop.

"Come on Sierra, let's go. Roxie can clean up herself. You don't have to make her anything, if she needed to she could have used a neighbor's freezer or something," I held out my hand to her.

Her hand hung in the air over mine, but she didn't take it yet. "But I have to…I mean, this is my fault, Buddy, I'm supposed to help them-,"

"Help them. But they're just taking advantage of you. When was the last time you slept?" The embarrassed smile she gave me was my answer. "Come on, let's go."

She set the mop against the wall and took my hand, and I pulled her and the wagon away from Roxie, who looked completely infuriated as we left. I looked over at her only once, and she blushed as she met my eyes.

"Thanks Buddy."

Author's Note: I know that's not the exact amount you actually need for Roxie's request, but it seemed better to make it harder than a little bit of prospecting haha. I know nobody wants to picture the characters like Roxie bossing our main character around but I figured while I was playing the game that Sierra must really go through a lot. And I'm sorry this took like a year to get up, but…all I have are pathetic excuses. =p Thanks for reading, hope you enjoyed! :)