Chapter Text
It felt as though Farah could feel her heartbeat in her throat as she stood outside the door to your room. Ben’s text had been so vague and the terror of what she might come to face once she pushed past that door was almost too much to handle. She was not a woman of belief by any stretch of the imagination, but in her heart she prayed to any God that would listen that you hadn’t given up on her and left her here alone.
A deep breath. Farah steeled herself for what was to come. Pushing open the door, the room opened up to a scene that had become far too familiar to her eyes, and yet it was altered from that which had become the norm. The room lay as it had always been: the bed was neatly made over your limp form, the nightstand at its side holding the roses that Farah had brought for you only a day prior. The chair that she had spent many an evening sitting in, holding your hand and telling you about her day, still stood facing the bed in its usual position. The difference was in Ben. He was bent over you, checking your temperature, your pulse, anything that he could think to check. His movements were sharp and rushed and Farah felt her heart constrict uncomfortably at the harried look in his eyes. Around the flowers on the nightstand lay plants and vials of a multitude of substances, some open whilst others remained corked.
“Ben, what’s going on?” As though finally collecting her thoughts, Farah pushed from the doorway into the room, hurrying to your side on the opposite side of the bed to Ben. Almost instinctually she laced her fingers with yours, pulling your hand to herself as though you could receive any comfort from it in your current state. In truth she was seeking the comfort of your touch for herself.
“She moved. She moved Farah.” There was almost panic in Ben’s voice as he looked at Farah in earnest. “I haven’t seen so much as a twitch of a muscle from her in sixteen years and now… I don’t understand. Nothing else has changed.”
To Farah, it felt as though time stood still. She looked down at you, right now still laying motionless in your bed. Farah’s lips parted as though to speak but no words seemed to come. She had refused to admit it, but after all of these years a small part of her that she kept locked away deep inside had begun to wonder if it would be kinder to let you go. She never could have done it, of course. She was too stubborn, too selfish, to dream of accepting that perhaps she would never get you back.
“She moved?” she asked softly, a tremor in her voice when she spoke.
“As though she were only sleeping. Her fingers twitched. She turned her head. She’s in there Farah; she has to be.”
Hope seemed to grip at Farah’s heart for the first time in a very long time and she found herself dropping to her knees at the side of the bed. Lifting your hand, still entangled with her own, to her lips she pressed a kiss to your wrist, then your knuckles. Tears threatened at the corners of her eyes but she refused to let them fall. Not in front of Ben. Perhaps later, in the dark of night when you were alone as you always were then. For now she simply whispered into your skin.
“I’m here, my love. I’ve got you. I’ll find a way to bring you back to me.”
She hadn’t expected it, but as the last word left her lips your hand squeezed tightly around her own and Farah felt a wave of emotion envelop her. Her resolve shattered in that moment and the tears she had been so valiantly holding back broke loose from their imprisonment, running freely down her cheeks.
-
Bloom pulled the picture of herself and her parents towards herself, a thousand memories flooding her mind. Not all of them were happy, but so many were. She was struggling to comprehend the reality of it all. She was a changeling. These weren’t her parents, and yet they had raised her, loved her. She had hurt them beyond measure and still they loved her.
“Is that your family?” Bloom startled as Stella’s steps grew closer, her heels clicking on the floor with each step. That was certainly the question that Bloom was now asking herself - were they really her family? “I get homesick too sometimes.” Stella continued, reaching out a hand to take the picture from Bloom’s own. She looked at it for a moment. “My mum… honestly, if she didn’t force me to go here, I wouldn’t. I’d live at home, go to school, just have a normal life. You know there’s no shame in that - no shame in wanting to be home.”
In truth, Bloom didn’t know what to think. A part of her did want to be home, to live her life, to forget everything that she had learned about fairies and magic and changelings. Everything was so much simpler before. So she and her mum had fought, that was normal. She had been normal… until she wasn’t.
“If you want,” Stella continued after a pause, handing the picture back to Bloom, “you could borrow my ring. You may have to go a little way past the barrier, but there’s a gateway in the old cemetery that can take you back home.”
“You… you wouldn’t mind?”
“Not so long as you get my ring back to me safe and sound.” Stella smiled slightly, slipping the ring from her finger and holding it out before her. “A visit home could do you good.”
-
Farah’s mind was racing as she made her way back to her office, the possibilities of what this change in your condition could mean pulling her in every direction. She hadn’t wanted to leave you at all; she had told Ben as much as he ushered her out of the room, insisting that he needed time and space to run more tests on you and assuring her that he would call should anything change. All Farah wanted was to stay by your side, unable to bear the thought of you waking up there without her.
“Headmistress Dowling, you have to come quickly! We think Bloom might be in danger.”
It wasn’t until she heard Aisha calling to her that she realised that three of the girls were running towards her, all seeming winded as they came. At first the words didn’t register, her mind already far too crowded to take in any new information. It wasn’t until Bloom’s name came into it that her mind focussed enough to take in Aisha’s words.
“What happened?”
“Stella gave Bloom her ring, the one that…”
“I know what it does.” Perhaps her voice had been a little too sharp there but at present Farah had too much going on to be patient. “Where is she?”
“She used the gateway in the old cemetery to go home to the First World.”
The gateway in the old cemetery was a long way out, Farah knew. It was so far past the barrier that there was no telling what could have happened with none of them any the wiser. Cursing under her breath she thanked the girls curtly, almost pushing past them as she ran in the direction that Bloom must have gone in earlier that evening.
It still puzzled Farah that in such a short period of time Bloom had become such a pressing concern for her. She cared for all of her students of course, discouraging any form of favouritism from all her staff. She wanted each and every one of her students to be safe and happy, and to thrive in their time under her care. Bloom was different though; the girl carried an air of familiarity with her that Farah couldn’t shake, and it scared her a little that she felt as protective of the fire fairy as she did.
Crossing the barrier Farah pulled herself from her thoughts, it would do no good to anyone should her distraction lead to her own death as well as Bloom’s. She climbed over tree roots and dodged branches as she found the shortest route to the cemetery that she could. As she went, Farah allowed her magic to consume her, pushing it out into the air around her to scan for signs of any hostile life: Burned One or otherwise. For a long while there was nothing, no sign of threat at all, and she began to wonder if the girls had been concerned for nothing. It wasn’t until Farah reached the gateway that she heard it.
Amplified by her magic, Farah could hear the growls of the Burned One just beyond the open door. She approached slowly, knowing that she had no back up here and that catching the creature unaware was her one hope of overpowering it. Under normal circumstances she should have called for Saul at the very least, but there had been no time.
Hadn’t they thought that this part of their life had been left behind them? Sixteen years since the last sighting of a Burned One. The one good thing that had come out of Rosalind’s manipulations and cruelties had been their extinction - the bitch couldn’t even do that right. Just the thought of Rosalind had rage rolling in Farah’s gut, a merciless fire ready to destroy anything in its path. She held onto the emotion - it could be of use.
Pushing past the door Farah found herself in what appeared to be an abandoned warehouse, and a familiar one at that. This was where she had found Bloom not so long ago, frightened and heartbroken, confused about how she had done what she did to her family. The ache in Farah’s heart joined the rage in her stomach; the girl didn’t deserve the suffering that had been inflicted upon her. Farah wasn’t about to let a Burned One do even more damage than had already been done.
She was just trying to hone in on the exact location of the Burned One when a cacophony of sound seemed to expel itself from the walls themselves. Hurried footsteps were followed by growls and roars and then out of nowhere Bloom seemed to fly into the room, her eyes wide with terror. She came to a halt right before Farah, a flash of confusion crossing her features.
“Don’t stop now,” Farah urged, pointing towards the door that she herself had just entered through.
The creature dropped from the ceiling above and Farah turned her full attention to it, eyes glaring white as she sent it flying back with one hand, the other closing Bloom and the Other World out so as to contain the threat. A gnarled arm clawed at where her head had been as she ducked, trying to back it into a corner to stop it moving so much; she would need it still if she were to isolate what was left of its mind and bring it to heel.
She knew she should kill the thing - it was a threat, that much was glaringly obvious. Despite knowing better though, Farah had to keep it alive. What if this wasn’t the only one? What if Rosalind’s attempts to wipe the Burned Ones out had not only failed but had in reality barely scratched the surface? No, they needed to know for sure and the only way to do that would be to read this one for clues to the scale of the problem.
Though it took some manoeuvring and several near misses with one claw or another Farah somehow managed to get it into a corner. She channelled her rage at Rosalind and the pain that she felt for Bloom and her situation, focussing the emotions on one thought - calm its mind. It wasn’t an easy task but the emotions she was channelling were strong and after a moment the Burned One almost went limp before her, still upright but compliant. There was a shed in the forest that she could take it to; a few chains and some Zanbag oil ought to be enough to keep it contained until she could speak with Saul.
-
As expected, Saul didn’t understand the decision that Farah had made. As far as he was concerned the Burned One that she found should be dead. Though they had been discussing it for some time now he still wasn’t shifting on the matter. He didn’t understand that she feared there was more to this than they were seeing thus far. How could there not be when all of this had started the moment that Farah had brought Bloom back to Alfea?
“I found a changeling in the first world.” Saul gaped at her, letting out a deep breath.
“A changeling?” He shook his head in disbelief. “I’ve not heard of one of those in centuries.”
“Yet there she was,” Farah trailed off momentarily, “left sixteen years ago, right around the time the last Burned One was spotted.”
Saul’s gaze flitted anxiously, as though connecting the dots. “You think it’s all connected.”
Farah took a breath, trying to convince herself that she was losing her mind but knowing that there was a chance that she was right. “I’m struggling, Saul.” she admitted. “Rosalind kept so much from us.”
Saul could read between the lines of what Farah had said. This wasn’t only about the Burned Ones, nor the changeling. All of this was tied up in matters that were far more personal for Farah and he could almost feel her pain as she looked to him for support.
“I’m worried about the students. The Alfea they know is very different from the one we attended.” She paused. “They have so much life to experience. Even if this world were safe, what they’re going through can feel impossible. But this world isn’t safe, and I don’t know how long we’ll be able to protect them from it.” Farah looked to Saul then, “I know you feel it.” she hesitated, “the…shift. They’ve had order for so long they don’t know what chaos feels like.”
As she turned to face the window once more Saul uttered: “they might soon.”
A silence fell between them for a moment until Saul’s hand came to rest on Farah’s arm, squeezing it gently. She looked at him with wide eyes, the myriad of emotions that she had gone through that evening finally catching up to her.
“Ben told me what happened in the restricted wing…” A bitter breath of laughter fell from Farah’s lips and she covered her face with her hands.
“Why now?” She asked. “Why, after all this time, does she finally start showing signs of life when everything seems to be falling apart?”
Saul smiled tightly, sighing as he spoke. “To give you hope when you most need it?”
“Hope… How am I to feel hope when we face a new threat from the Burned Ones, the woman I love most in this world seems to be hanging in a state of limbo that I still can’t break her from and Bloom…” Her voice trailed off as she looked down at her hands.
“Bloom?”
“She’s just the same age as Faye would have been.” Farah’s voice broke at the admission and Saul ran his hand down her arm to take hold of her own hand. “I can’t help but want to protect her… I can’t let another innocent child…”
It was too much. It was all too much and despite herself Farah found herself crumpling into Saul’s arms as he held her.
“I know,” he hushed her, patting her back with as much care as he could. There were no words that he could offer to mend her broken heart so he simply held her, trying to hold the broken pieces together as best he could.