FTWS APPRECIATION WEEK

Favorite Quote

This quote holds SO much in it. [insert John Mulaney meme “now we don’t have time to unpack all of that”]

Favorite Scene

Honestly my favorite scenes of the show are all Silrah related and I think it's quite obvious why.

First I couldn't decide between the Greenhouse scene and this one but even though I adore the Greenhouse scene this one just opens up a whole other level of character depth for both Farah and Saul and then Ben with them bantering and talking about their past and downing shots together....

From the *hands* to Farahs laugh I adore this scene and of course the underlying silrah angst is delicious....

"I feel like a glorified babysitter."

"Don't laugh at me, Saul."

...

"Imagine they think we don't know."

FATE APPRECIATION WEEK

Season 2 is slowly but surely approaching so there's no better time to say goodbye to Season 1... or rather, to say hello to the:

Season 1 - Appreciation Week.

Come celebrate this show that with only six episodes, still made us fall in love with its characters, locations and plots.

The Week will last from August 7th -- 13th and below are the suggested themes for each day -- but honestly, do whatever sparks joy. Participate in as many or as few of the days as you would like!

August 7th | DAY 01 - Favorite Character

August 8th | DAY 02 - Favorite Relationship

August 9th | DAY 03 - Favorite Episode

August 10th | DAY 04 - Favorite Scene

August 11th | DAY 05 - Favorite Quote

August 12th | DAY 06 - Favorite Location

August 13th | DAY 07 - Free Choice

Author’s Note: An AU that’s been started and probably won’t be finished. After s1, Farah goes missing, and she pops up in the unlikeliest of places, Gardenia, CA, where Saul and Sky happen to be visiting Bloom and her parents. The only issue: she doesn’t remember any of them, not even Saul. How did she get there? Where’s Rosalind? Your guess is as good as mine.

Characters: Saul Silva, Sky, Bloom Peters, Vanessa Peters, Farah Dowling (mentioned)

Relationships: Skloom, implied Silrah

Warnings: Mentions of bullying, mild language

“It’s been a long time since you came here with me,” Vanessa shakes out her yoga mat, spreading it flat on the worn wooden floors. Bloom follows her lead, stamping on the far left corner even as it curls disobediently from the years it’d spent rolled up in her closet.

“I thought it was time for a change, you know? I used to like coming here,” she offers her mother a tentative smile, a silent reminder of the fragile bond they’re both trying to foster. 

Things haven’t been easy in recent years, a toxic cocktail of teenage angst, anger, and confusion that had Bloom pulling away and erecting barriers faster than her parents could tear them down, furious for reasons she couldn’t explain when they kept reaching out to her despite her repeated efforts to slap their hands away. It isn’t their fault she’s different, strange, weird, or that her classmates whispered about her and shared conspiratorial looks in the halls when she passed. Sometimes those looks were meant only to hurt, disdain and contempt tossed her way as casually as a greeting; other times they were a warning of bad things to come, like a locker covered in graffiti or a soft drink to the face like some cheesy high school drama. Little examples of bullying that could never be proven to be bullying because for all that Bloom knew their intentions to be malicious, she couldn’t actually prove it.

It isn’t her parents’ fault she’s adopted either, in general because they hadn’t known themselves, but specifically because it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t change anything, doesn’t stop them from loving her, or she them, and it has actually made things better, rather than worse. Finally Bloom has an outlet for her frustrations, finally she has some semblance of answers for that little voice in her head that’s always whispered that she doesn’t belong. It’s right: she doesn’t belong, and that’s okay, because she’s finally found a place she does.

But it isn’t an excuse to neglect her parents or her home, the only world she’s ever known. In a month’s time she’ll get to visit her friends in their worlds, but until then she’ll be home, and rather than feel stuck, Bloom is determined to make the most of it, to make up for lost time, and begin making amends. She’s lucky, she knows, to have the parents she does, who care for her and love her and try their best. But what she’d said to Miss Dowling hadn’t only applied to her time at Alfea: she had been a brat, and not a single person she’d behaved that way towards had deserved it. To her parents, it had cost them their daughter and their patience; for her classmates and teachers, it had almost cost them their lives. Joining her mother for yoga hardly fixes anything, but it’s a start.

“So,” Vanessa stretches her hands high above her head and Bloom is quick to mimic her, muscles protesting because she has definitely not been following Mr. Silva’s instructions to “stay limber and fit” over the summer months. “Are you excited for Sky to visit?”

Bloom ignores the teasing lilt to her mother’s tone; reaching for her toes is worse, and Bloom grunts at the stretch of her back, almost falling over when she tries to replicate her mother’s tree pose.

“Um, yeah, I mean, it’ll be really nice to see him, and I’m so grateful you and dad are letting him stay at all like, seriously grateful.”

“Well his father is coming too, isn’t he? Mr. Silva?”

“Yeah,” Bloom had been staunchly trying to forget that fact, because the only thing worse than admitting to her fitness negligence once school began again is having him witness it first hand for the week they’ll be visiting the first world. But it’s the only way her parents -and Silva- will agree to Sky visiting at all. A small price, but still a price.

“That’ll be fun,” Vanessa remarks blandly, and Bloom does lose her balance this time, huffing a laugh as she falls on her butt.

“It will not! Mr. Silva’s going to hover over our shoulders the entire time and fret and worry and-”

“He’s a dad,” Vanessa interjects, “It’s kind of our job as parents to fret over our kids.”

“He’s not a dad,” Bloom grumbles, only partially because she feels like disagreeing, but also keeping in mind what Sky had told her. Vanessa glances sideways at her daughter, sensing there’s more to that simple admission than Bloom is sharing, but opts not to press. It likely isn’t Bloom’s secret to share, nor her feelings to emote; Bloom, meanwhile, toys with letting her mother in on this little bit of personal information Sky had shared. Surely it can’t hurt, right?

“Sky sometimes feels like… like Mr. Silva is only looking after him because he feels like he has to. Because he and his dad were friends, so it’s an obligation. And sometimes Mr. Silva gets so caught up in trying to do what he thinks is right that he forgets to just…”

“Be a dad?” Vanessa finishes quietly. Bloom stretches her legs out to the side as far as she can, thankful for the opportunity to stay sitting for these stretches. She nods.

“I know he loves Sky, and Sky loves him too but they’re just so awful at showing it. Or even saying it.”

“Well, honey, some people aren’t good at expressing themselves. And if you want to know a secret, men are the worst at it, that’s just a fact. I know we’re not exactly winning any family of the year awards but maybe we could help? Remember this is meant to be a vacation for Mr. Silva too, after what happened last year.”

“Yeah,” Bloom breathes a sigh, lying flat on her back to stretch one leg straight in the air. It’s funny to think about the teachers needing a break the same as the students but, well, Mr. Silva had almost died their first month of school, and even though they’d taken care of Rosalind and her followers, there's still no sign of Miss Dowling, and it’s taking a toll on morale, and their remaining headmaster. If anyone needs a break, it’s him.

“Yeah,” she repeats, “I guess you’re right.”

She drops her leg, turning her head to face her mother, who’s done the same. Mother and daughter share a grin. An enthusiastic clapping ends the moment, and Bloom tilts her chin to stare down her torso at the legging-clad woman at the front of the room.

“Alright everyone! Who’s ready to do some yoga?”

“It hasn’t started?” Bloom groans, and Vanessa elbows her with another grin, both getting to their feet for the start of the actual class.

~

“I’m starting to think this wasn’t the best idea,” Silva admits, watching Sky toss clothing haphazardly into a bag that’s far too big for the scant week they plan to spend in the first world. A scoff pushes its way passed his lips when Sky holds up two identical jumpers, a sniff test determining which will be joining him.

“You’re not rescinding permission are you?” Big blue eyes widen pleadingly, and Silva shakes his head in fond exasperation.

“I am not, but I just wonder if it’s really such a good idea, making a trip to the first world after everything.”

“That’s exactly why it’s a good idea!” Sky argues, rummaging in his drawers for socks. Silva eyes the overflowing laundry hamper to his left; had he not taught to boy to keep a clean room, or is this some bad habit Sky had picked up from Riven in the dorms?

“It’s been a rough year,” Sky continues, shoving far too few socks into the duffel. “We deserve this little trip away. We always go camping over the summer, how’s this any different?”

“It’s not camping,” Silva points out the obvious, and Sky rolls his eyes.

“You really want to be in the woods for a week after all that’s gone on?”

“You can’t run from what scares you, that’s letting the fear win,” Silva challenges, and Sky heaves a sigh, tugging uselessly against the zipper refusing to seal away his shoddy packing job.

“Are you going to be like this the whole time? Because I’d ask you not to come, or remind you you don’t need to, only Bloom’s parents would feel more comfortable with you there and I know you’d feel more comfortable being there too.”

“Like I’m going to let the two of you galavant around the human world knowing those monsters might still be out there -not likely. And I hope I did talk to Bloom’s parents, and I’ve not been conned by two of her human friends on the phone trying to sneak her boyfriend in the back window.”

Sky removes a handful of wrinkled t-shirts in an attempt to fix the bag situation.

“She hasn’t got any human friends,” he replies absently, and Silva perks up from where he’d been leaning lazily against the door. The nonchalance with which his adoptive-son speaks such a confession into existence is akin to one commenting on the weather, like it doesn’t speak of potentially significant insight into the life of the changeling girl.

“What?”

“Yeah, she said she’s never really got on with any of her classmates before,” Sky removes a jacket too. “That she didn’t really hang out with anyone in particular.”

Silva files that information away to analyze at another time, not wanting to ask any leading questions that will have Sky accusing him of snooping on Bloom again, or using their fledgling relationship for his own gain. The bond they’d reforged is still fragile, and Silva is loathe to do anything that could break it, or strain it in any way. There’s far more they haven’t talked about that they need to, but it’s never the right time. The irony of his earlier insistence about not letting fear control one’s life is not lost on him. He’s terrified of losing Sky, and he hadn’t used to think he could be scared of losing Sky to anything other than death. But the thought of the boy turning his back on him, walking away, fills him with the same deep-seated fear and trepidation as losing Farah or Ben does, the same deep-seated fear and trepidation he’s spent every waking moment trying not to drown in the longer they go without word of Farah’s whereabouts. So rather than address those topics that had driven them apart in the first place in the interest of healing from them, learning from them, and moving on, he’s letting them fester and boil, sticking at a place in his chest and causing a pain almost tangible enough to have him rub at his breastbone.

“Is that really how you’re going to pack that? Have I taught you nothing?”

“You taught me to pitch a tent and dislocate someone’s knee cap, not fold shirts.”

“Don’t get smart with me, I know Ben taught you how to do laundry properly because he’s the one who taught Farah and I.”

Sky’s grin is just shy of shit-eating, and Silva lobs a shoe at him, rummaging through the bag and pulling out handfuls of clothes.

“You’re not gonna need half of this. It’s a vacation, remember? Bring two uniforms, but for God’s sake pack like you’re a normal teenage boy. T-shirts with bands you’ve never heard of and cargo shorts. But you’d better pack one of those nice button downs and slacks we got you. Last thing I need is Bloom’s parents thinking I raised a barbarian.”

“Didn’t you?” Sky quips, and Silva can’t resist wrapping him in a headlock that knocks most of the clothes back on the floor. Sky fights back only half-heartedly, weakened by laughter, and is quick to try and fix his mussed hair when Silva lets go.

“Empty that out and go get the suitcase from the hall closet. We’ll fold your clothes properly or Ben’ll have our heads.”

“Yes sir,” Sky mock-salutes and Silva watches him go with a fond smile quirking his lips, absently smoothing a t-shirt that definitely shouldn’t have been packed, whatever bag it ended up in, because that is definitely a ketchup stain. He huffs a breath and straightens, sorting out the clean clothes from the dirty, mentally tallying his own clothes’ count to start a load of laundry, trying not to think about how much he wishes it had been a teasing “dad” tossed his way, instead of “sir,” knowing he has no right to expect it, ask for it, or want it. But he can wish for it all the same.