Area 51. Can I take a wild guess that no one else who's reading this has ever been there, either? Unless it's for your work, in which case, that's amazing, and I know you can't tell me anything about it so I'm not asking. I believe aliens could exist, but not the ones we see in this episode.

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I sort of noticed more tension that morning(that is, morning in European time, it was dark outside, but I got a bowl of yoghurt topped with previously frozen raspberries as breakfast anyway), but it wasn't the same kind I'd felt with Team Chris the day before. I wasn't sure what it was. Everything looked perfectly normal – Cody was awake, good and wary. Sierra was, for the moment, chatting brightly to Heather.

I, for the time, spoke to my two new friends. "I feel like there's something weird going on. Do you get that?"

"I think it's just the competition strain." Bridgette said with a shrug. "You're probably getting it from the rest of us. I know I feel tense. Last time I had to swap teams, it was with four girls who were severely divided."

Gwen glanced up to give her a reassuring smile. "Well, at least Heather's not putting tape across the compartment and telling you to stay on one side this time." Her expression became serious again. "But I know what you mean. It was like this all through the merge on the island. And…" she looked a little bit anxious. "I think it might have to do with Duncan coming back. I mean, not because it's him, I mean, he's all cool. I think it's the uncertainty. Chris could bring anyone else in. Probably you'd be allowed to as well, Toni."

I shook my head. "You can banish that worry. I'm a junior co-host, remember? Chrissy has more power than I do. Duncan's already teased me about not being savvy enough." I paused. "But I only really felt the intensity here. It seemed all right with the guys, and there I knew about Noah insulting Alejandro without knowing he could hear."

Gwen gave a sigh. "I guess that's where I have to confess, then. I think it's me. I don't know why, but…promise you won't hate me?"

Bridgette and I nodded.

Gwen heaved another sigh. "I feel like I might be starting to…have, you know, feelings…for Duncan."

Okay, neither of us expected that.

"I don't mean that I want to break up with Trent," Gwen added hastily, "Just that I feel like I like Duncan the same way. I mean, he is hot, and a bit flirty sometimes, but I don't know why. It was fine last season when we were just hanging out as friends, but now it feels weird."

"Do you want to tell him?" I asked carefully. "Or I could ask him about you. He might have noticed. I can be super tactful if you want."

"No, don't say anything!" Gwen said quickly. "You could ask him how things with Courtney are going if you want, but please don't ask him about me. I need to figure out whether I want to tell anyone and what to do on my own."

"I swear I won't tell anyone." Bridgette promised. She tactfully didn't offer advice, so I followed suit and nodded, promising not to say a word.

The plane started jolting near the end of the trip. That is, just before Chris called in on the intercom to say the team was testing some equipment, adding "Snacks in the common area if you don't believe me and want a last meal. Junior co-host, I'm letting you join me in my quarters to get briefed."

Of course, I'd caught glimpses of Chris' private area before. He let Chef hang out in there, but never me. So it was pretty fun. Before he noticed me, I'd managed to slip my shoes and socks off and dangle my feet in the hot tub. "Junior co-host ready to be briefed, Chrissy." I said brightly.

"Feet out of my hot tub and put your shoes back on immediately." Chris said, scowling. "We're landing in Area 52 any minute."

"Don't you mean Area 51?" I asked, ignoring his order. The hot water was bliss.

"Take those out right now!" Chris repeated, starting to sound like a spoiled brat. Which he was, let's be honest. "You'll tell the contestants about going to Area 51's military base and bringing back an alien artifact. It needs to be intact. The reason I called you here is because you're not going with them. You can stay here and keep an eye on them via the camera. But I didn't give you permission to use my hot tub and I can leave you in the Nevada desert if you don't get your grimy toes out of it."

I didn't seriously think Chris would drop me from the show. I knew for a fact that the audience liked me - the Aftermath telethon had cheers when they mentioned I was sharing hosting duties with Chris. But either way, I decided I'd given him a hard enough time and took my feet out of the hot tub, instead sitting on the top facing the outside. "What else?" I asked.

"You can put your shoes and socks back on, for a start." Chris snapped. "And I'm not giving you a towel."

I wiped my feet as best I could on the carpet in response, but I did put them back on. It wasn't too bad. I'd take them off again as soon as I was back here. There would probably be enough time to dry my socks, too.

"I have a few friends in the military base." Chris explained. "It's all perfectly safe as long as no one's stupid. You just need to warn them about all the dangers, and don't tell them how safe it is."

I shrugged. The fact that we almost had a plane crash (although we actually had a pretty soft landing in the end) unsettled me enough to think it was half a lie anyway.

Soon, we were all outside in the Nevada desert. "Everyone, welcome to Area 52!" I said.

"Area 52?" Gwen looked skeptical. "Area 51 is where all the cool alien stuff happens."

"The show's so broke we have to fake an area now?" Duncan said, sounding like he was about to laugh.

"I didn't say our challenge was in Area 52." I elaborated. "We're just hanging out on the edge in Area 52 so my oh-so-lovely cohost gets to watch from afar. Your challenge is in Area 51. I'm not supposed to come either – I'll keep in touch, but the challenge is up to you guys. Oh, and Duncan, you might want to step a bit to the left. You're just inside Area 51 right now." Right on cue, a laser zapped Duncan and the second it was over, he obediently moved a bit further inward.

"Okay, so there's a military base close to where we are." I explained. "Your job is to get in and bring back an intact alien artifact. It doesn't matter what it is, as long as it's not broken. Just be really careful. There's a lot of barriers and I don't know about them myself. And legend has it that if you get caught, you'll be zapped to some distant planet. And then you'll either be enslaved, or eaten." Everyone was looking worried, so I hastily added "We don't know if those rumours are true, but either way, not taking the risk is probably the better way to go. Good luck!"

How did the challenge go? Well, I actually had to go in via jet pack to tell Team Amazon, who were on a minefield, to sing something. I didn't stick around to hear the song, but it seemed like a lot of suspicion was directed at Gwen. Apparently I wasn't the only one who'd noticed the tension and the others recognized it was coming from her own conflicting feelings. Still, they got out of the minefield fairly easily – Cody still had some candy from the New York challenge and threw it onto the mines to clear a path for the girls.

Team Chris were taking the minefield on the way out, but on the way in, they had to escape a laser sensor that got movement towards the base (not away from – Team Amazon would have an easy way out, just as Cody's candy would make it easier for Team Chris to leave). Duncan had the idea for all of them to throw a stone on their way in, and they'd cross with the stone getting lasered. This worked for everyone except Owen, who forgot to throw his stone, got lasered and sucked deep into the base.

"Is he going to be okay?" I asked Chris, truly concerned.

He couldn't stop laughing, but he calmed down enough to say "Owen will be fine. You'll see – I asked my connection that anyone who was stupid enough to make a mistake like that will have to look stupid momentarily."

Apparently, that meant they dyed his hair green (at least I think so, but you could tell it started out fair), gave him a mullet cut and put on Heath Ledger Joker makeup. All he needed was a bit of purple.

I didn't actually see this happen, by the way. It was after his team found him. Chris got me hacked into the PA in the base as soon as both teams were there. "Welcome, teams! Just a reminder – one alien artifact, intact! I'm sorry, but Chrissy hacked into the PA to get me here, so…just a warning, there's going to be top security alerted to intruders. I'll be keeping an eye on you from here, so don't worry, if anyone isn't out by the end, we'll be sending someone in to get them and I can give you a full disclosure – you will get out alive, as long as you're smart about it. Your whole team needs to be back first to win!"

Well, I was right, everyone did get out alive. A lot of really weird things happened on the monitors. Chris and Chef just kept laughing, but I was tense. Okay, I did laugh when Sierra hugged Cody and a clone he'd accidentally created and it exploded, but that doesn't count.

The only interesting part I noticed was when Gwen and Duncan ended up running into each other. Gwen blushed pink (I could see hints under her foundation) and said "Um, hi."

"Hey." Duncan was grinning the way he usually did, but I didn't see much difference in it. "Long time no talk."

"Well, we're kind of on opposite teams, so…" Gwen said, looking nervous.

"So I'll just have to wait until we're back on the plane to tease you about being super nervous every time I see you staring." Duncan teased. He made a run for it, but Gwen, suddenly acquiring a sly smirk, stuck her foot out to trip him, then ran off, calling "Try not to get eliminated!"

"Same to you!" Duncan called back. So he'd definitely noticed that Gwen had developed a crush on him, but he'd made so light of it that Gwen seemed to get her edge back. Maybe their friendship would go back to being how it was before the crush. I hoped so.

The thing is, you know what Team Chris intended to bring back? An actual alien. Like, big eyes, green, all that good stuff. It was cute, but it did try to attack the team. Even Owen once they found him. Then, as Duncan was trying to pull one of them off Alejandro, the dark man himself called out "Three, two, one, and…revenge!"

Owen froze. Then, he pulled his underwear up to cover his head, and started singing 'Take Me Out To The Ball Game'. Okay…what was that all about? It looked like some kind of hypnotic trigger or something. Weird. But it distracted the alien, so I guess that was good. Sadly, even though they got back first, Tyler, who was holding the alien in a box, hit an undetonated landmine and came back with former alien life.

"Sorry, dude," I said carefully, "But it's not intact." And he was injured.

"Chef, first aid over here!" I hollered, just as Team Amazon arrived. Gwen was holding the cube I'd seen the aliens come from. Well, at least she'd found something.

"Heather was going to bring back this giant mirror thing that almost pulled her into another world," she said, laughing, "But when I showed her this, she agreed it was a better idea."

"And I saw you and Duncan talked?" I said, lowering my voice so the cameras didn't hear.

"I think he knows," she whispered back, "But he doesn't seem to mind or care."

"Now do you want me to ask about you?"

"If you do it tactfully. He says he's noticed me staring at him. Ask along that route."

So Team Amazon won, and Team Chris was back at elimination. Well, actually…

"Team Chrissy Thinks He's Hot," I said, "Luckily for you, it's a reward challenge. Team Amazon, head up to First Class. We're getting ET set up to watch, and hot popcorn is also on the way."

But as I said to Gwen, I waited to go to First Class, and asked Duncan if we could talk in the cargo hold. He agreed, and we went off there as the plane took off.

"Before you say anything, Toni," Duncan began, "I'm already dealing with one girl who's crushing on me, and you're hot and all, but-"

"Don't flatter yourself." I said playfully. "I'm not interested. However, you apparently know about Gwen."

Duncan shrugged. "Yeah, I know. I'm still with Courtney, though. I even tried calling her once I knew she was eliminated. She yelled at me for abandoning her or some crap like that, but she also told me she wasn't really mad, just missing me and told me to stay safe and that she can't wait to see me after the show's over." He sighed. "I know she's a pain sometimes, but I miss her too. Gwen's hot and she's fun, but same thing with her. I only like her the same way I like you."

"I think Gwen knows that," I admitted, "And she says she still has all the same feelings for Trent she always did. It's a shame you guys aren't polygamists or something." I giggled.

"What's that?"

"It's when you get to marry multiple people." I told him. "It's like cheating with no guilt. Everyone knows that you've got more than one partner and you get to be with them and tell them that you like them all equally. And no one minds."

Duncan laughed. "And I suppose you really don't want to be one of them? I thought the horror movie challenge last season went pretty well, even though I kind of knew that Courtney was going to be mad at me. And you, but she was probably already jealous that we were hanging out. The kiss just made her angrier."

"Good kissers are two a penny." I teased back. "You go back to your chick and as long as I don't have to deal with her, be as happy as you want." I paused. "Do you want me to talk to Gwen for you, or will you do the decent thing and tell her yourself?"

"How about you tell her to come talk to me like we said we would?" Duncan suggested. "I'm sure she knows what I'm going to tell her, but I want to get it out of the way so we can go back to being friends."

So when I went up to First Class, I did tell Gwen, adding "You know he just wants to be friends, but I think he just wants to say it so you can go back to being how you were before."
Gwen managed a smile. "I knew that's what would happen. I think I'd prefer that over the weirdness, anyway."

She certainly seemed happier when she came back to First Class. By that point, our movie was set up, ready to watch, so we didn't talk. We were too busy scoffing popcorn.

So I know Toni's role wasn't big here, but it's not really a host-focused episode, so I decided to address the lack of the love triangle here and give you some kind of mangled explanation of where I put the characters. I LOVED Gwen and Duncan's chemistry while they were friends. I didn't want to lose that by pairing them as a couple, so I went halfway. Gwen develops a little crush on Duncan, he doesn't reciprocate, they talk and agree to stay friends, and Gwen starts to get over it on her own and they are still close platonically. What do you think?