I've noticed that there aren't really any Rowen stories out there, or stories with Wendy and Romeo in general. Even if there are, they are either "way too young to understand things" or "like twelve but lets make them make out anyways like that's not kinda sick". So here's my version. Romeo and Wendy, about to turn 17, going through life just like we do, with maybe just a little bit more drama for entertainment purposes. After all, flames and air? Tell me you didn't see the firebird coming.

DISCLAIMER: IF I OWNED FAIRY TAIL, I WOULD BE LIVING IT UP IN RABBIT CAFES IN JAPAN BY NOW.

When you're a teenager, the most important thing in the entire world is fitting in. Unless you're rich and/or famous, standing out in any way whatsoever is essentially social suicide. Unfortunately, as a 17 year old foster child with blue hair and a chest that was barely pushing a C-cup, Wendy Marvell had been 6 feet under in the popularity department for well over a decade.

Not that it mattered. Why should it? People aren't worth keeping. She had learned that from her very own mother the day she had been dropped off at a dog breeder's house on her sixth birthday. At the time, she had thought she was getting a puppy. At least, that's what her mother's on/off boyfriend Roy had told her.

Her mother had made a big show of handing her one of the puppies in the yard to play with, cooing over just how cute it was, and then walking towards the house with Roy to supposedly "tell the owner which one they wanted". They never came back. Little Wendy, in her blue pigtails and scruffy green party dress with no coat, sat shivering in the dark of the night, the puppy still clutched to her chest.

Mommy said she would come back. She said to be a good girl, and to wait until she came back. She whispered it to herself over and over for hours, until the snap of a porch light came on and large man stood towering over her.

"You're still here?! SUZY! SUZY, GET OUT HERE! THEY LEFT THEIR KID BEHIND!" His voice was much too loud, grating harshly against her ears as she shrank further back into the bushes with a soft whimper.

She couldn't remember much after that. There were lights and police sirens and people talking too fast, shouting questions at her from every direction. It's too loud. Stop. Stop. I just want everything to stop. Go away. Leave me alone, please don't yell. I don't understand what you're saying. Mommy, come save me. Where are you? Don't leave me. Come back. Come back.

They swept her off to a social worker's union called Cait Shelter, where she was put under the charge of Roubaul, a kind, outspoken man in his late forties.

Her first foster home hadn't been so bad. The elderly couple had treated her like a granddaughter, wrapping her in a soft hug and speaking in hushed tones so as not to scare her any more than she already was. Wendy spent 2 years with them before Grandpa had been diagnosed with Alzheimer's and moved back to Crocus in order to get proper medical treatment. She was then thrust back into the system without as much as a brief goodbye.

She spent the next 9 years being switched in and out of different foster homes. She was lucky if she managed to stay in one of them for more than a year. Apparently, the multiple foster parents she had been assigned over the course of her short life did not appreciate her "withdrawn attitude" or "creepy stare". They also had a problem with the hundreds of hours she spent, alone in her room listening to Owl City songs on repeat from the little MP3 Roubaul had given her a few years back. The one time anyone had tried to take it away, she had been 10 years old and had given a death glare so extreme she could've rivaled Satan himself. Naturally, she was placed in a new home before the week was over.

And so the pattern repeated itself, no matter how hard she tried. Because of course she tried to cooperate, and of course she tried to fit in; but it was nearly impossible to pretend to be one of the foster parents' own kids when she was already much too old to play make-believe.

So here she was. Sitting outside Roubaul's office at the grand cliché age of 16, waiting to find out where she had been condemned to next. She didn't have any expectations, really. She just hoped that they were nice and wouldn't take away her bedroom door like the last ones did to "keep an eye on her". Then again, it didn't really matter.

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Lotsa love,

Tiffany, out.