A Roommate's Tale
emberfire411
It was about two months into the battle against Baltor that Flora noticed Bloom was acting strangely.
It was hardly noticeable at first; just the occasional date that she canceled with Sky because there was a test to study for or a lot of homework to do or magic lessons had been totally exhausting. And the days she did go out saying she had a date, Bloom wouldn't get back until late, usually getting in trouble for curfew or having to get cover from one of the Winx girls. This went on for a few weeks before Stella had commented about it, not noticing Bloom had been listening. The sneaking around at night abruptly stopped.
By then, Flora had a basic idea in her head that there was someone else Bloom was seeing. She considered her ex-boyfriend Andy, who she'd found out about during one of their late-night roommate rants. But she remembered Bloom saying with a straight face the relationship had ended because they were better off being friends. Flora then considered one of the Specialists, and then moved onto some of the acquaintances from Red Fountain. But the nature fairy couldn't see any of them hooking up with her friend. This led to the assumption it was a new guy, or just a whole lot of quality time with the Eraklyon prince.
That idea quickly left her head at about three a.m. one night, when she was awake taking readings on her newest plant experiment – which needed energy testing every five hours over the next two days. She had a flashlight hovering above her clipboard as she jotted down some notes, and Bloom was fast asleep, muttering about something. Being her roommate for the third year in a row, Flora was used to her friend's constant sleep-muttering, mostly because it had to do with Kiko eating her homework or failing a test or something like that. But she was caught off guard when she heard Baltor's name. When Flora turned to her friend to see if she was having a nightmare, she found a small smile on her face. As she repeated it, Flora realized it wasn't just the name that'd surprised her. It was the way Bloom said it with a kind of sleepy happiness.
Flora had made a mental note of the incident and let it fade. She was stuck making assumptions by herself anyway, knowing that her friends may take the idea out of proportion (not that Flora didn't love Stella; she just didn't love the constant drama that followed her around sometimes), and that the Specialists wouldn't be of much help; Sky would be shocked, Brandon and Riven would be cracking jokes about it, and Timmy would want to get a 'logical assumption' on it. And she loved Helia, but it wouldn't be right to bring up the idea that one of his good friends might like the man threatening his grandfather's school. And besides, Bloom seemed to still be herself. So she ignored the occasional mutter of Baltor in Bloom's sleep or the rare occasion she'd come in through the window late at night when she thought Flora was asleep. There didn't seem to be a real problem, right?
Winter break came, and for a change Flora would be staying in the city while her parents came to Magix for Christmas. Everyone else was going home – even Layla, who was still mad at her parents over the arranged marriage thing. Bloom seemed very excited to go back to Gardenia (Mitzi had a vacation in the Caribbean, so she wouldn't be there), and had been the first one out the door of Wizgiz's room when the bell rang. And by the time Flora had gotten the aeromagic book she wanted from the library to read over break and gotten back to the dorm, Bloom was already gone.
The break was two weeks of utter bliss. Rose hadn't been too much trouble when Flora had been forced to go out Christmas shopping with her, and the two had had fun once Rose's sugar rush from the hot chocolate subsided. The one thing that'd stuck Flora as odd though, was when Rose had asked about Bloom's holiday plans. She had replied that she was on Earth with her family, and Rose had stubbornly denied it, saying she'd just seen her at the coffee house they'd passed.
To try and prove her wrong, Flora had taken her back to the shop, and upon looking in the window, found no trace of Bloom. Granted, there was a redhead sitting on one of the red leather sofas, but her back was turned so her face couldn't be seen from the store window. And besides, there was a man with chocolate brown hair sitting next to her with his arm around her. Rose had somehow gotten the idea in her head that the man had an illusion spell on himself. She said he was red blonde and had a burgundy coat on, and that Flora should cast an anti-illusion spell on the café to prove it. Flora had immediately chided her, saying that messing with people's days was not in the holiday spirit. Rose had been disappointed that there wouldn't be any mayhem for the day, but when she saw there was a pretty pink dress in a window up the street, she forgot and dashed to the store. Flora had to run to catch up.
She didn't mention to Rose that she too could feel an illusion spell, or that as she turned to start back up the street the girl had turned her head hit the man's shoulder, revealing a laughing Bloom.
When Flora returned to Alfea in January, all of her friends seemed refreshed and ready to continue with the years battles. The first night back had consisted of a famous Winx Club slumber party to share details about winter break. But the biggest piece of dorm gossip was when Bloom took the purple scarf she'd been wearing off her neck to reveal a beautiful and sparkling diamond necklace. Stella had bugged her for hours, apparently refusing the idea Mike and Vanessa had purchased the item for her. Finally, sick of the constant 'Sky gave it to you, didn't he?' and the raised eyebrow, Bloom and the girls had broke down laughing, and Bloom had finally said it was from her boyfriend. Though the topic was dropped, Flora took another mental note that Bloom hadn't said 'Sky', but just 'boyfriend'.
Being the person she was, Flora didn't mention the coffee incident, but brought it up the next morning, saying absently Rose was adamant about seeing Bloom in Magix a few days before Christmas. She felt her friend temporarily stiffen, and then give a little too-high laugh and say Rose had probably seen her because she'd been doing some shopping in Magix for her old friends from Gardenia Jr. High. Bloom then made an excuse to leave the room.
While unpacking her suitcase and thinking Bloom's actions over, Flora accidentally knocked her purse to the ground. While picking up the scattered contents, Flora came across a black rectangular jewelry box. Out of pure curiosity, she opened it up to find a gold charm bracelet; very expensive looking with small gold hearts, dangling gold cords with blue topaz spheres (Bloom's birthstone), and one charm with the symbol of Eraklyon on it. The note tucked into the top of it said: Bloom, Merry Christmas and I hope you can forgive me. I love you from the bottom of my heart, I hope you know that. Sky
This confirmed the other boyfriend theory. Now the only thing Flora wondered about was who he was. She had run out people. The guy at the café was no use because he'd had an illusion spell on him. The only real idea of a person she had was – to her utter shock – Baltor. But that seemed so impossible. Bloom wouldn't have managed to fall for someone like that…right? Her sweet, optimistic, Cascada-loving roommate, and the greatest threat of the magical dimension together? Flora ruled the idea as crazy, but didn't put it away. Her life seemed to run on crazy during times like this.
It turned out the idea wasn't as crazy as she'd thought. The next week the girls were doing investigative work in Cloud Tower, planning to bug the school to try and gain an advantage in the battle. Over the week, they would slip into Cloud Tower one by one, and put the bugs up in various locations. It was risky, but everyone had memorized Stella's transport spells and could say it two seconds flat. The third night, Flora was in charge of putting Tecna's micro-cameras in the two libraries in the school. She had done the first, and while she walked down one of the long and dark corridors to the second (the one filled with the more powerful spells), the heard a noise. It was almost like a faint moan, and she traced it to one of the doors that she remembered was Ms. Griffin's old room. Flora peeked through the crack in the door and tried to contain her gasp.
She found Bloom in her fairy form (she and Tecna had yet to earn their Enchantix), pressed p against one of the walls, making out with Baltor. One of her hands was knotted into his long hair, and the other was wound around his back, keeping him close. Baltor had a hand around her waist while the other was running almost absently up and down her leg. Even if Flora had made any noise, the two were too distracted to hear it. She could only stare in shock at the entangled pair, wondering if she was dreaming. She actually pinched herself and blinked rapidly, but the sight still lay in front of her.
She was considering how to respond to this, but suddenly Bloom smiled against his lips, her eyes were alight with something Flora had never seen. The most romantic encounter she had ever witnessed between Bloom and Sky was deemed only friendship worthy when Flora saw that look. She realized after a second it was love; not forced love, not pity love (both of which now seemed to be associated with Sky), but just pure, genuine love. Bloom was happy, happier than Flora had ever seen. So before she could be noticed, Flora slipped away, just as Bloom de-transformed and Baltor reached for the zipper of the blue jacket she was wearing.
Flora didn't say anything about her discovery. She decided it wasn't her secret to tell. Instead, she focused on making up excuses for Griselda during the nights Bloom was late for curfew, and helping with homework when she'd slept in and missed a class. Bloom talked to Sky less and less, and while the other Winx girls asked if he'd gone behind her back with Diaspro, Flora merely shrugged, saying they were probably just overreacting. Occasionally a fancy collection of gems would go missing from a planet, and somehow at least one of the jewels would end up on a necklace in Bloom's jewelry box or wink from her ear when it caught the light. Flora slipped into not questioning her friend, and was merely happy for her.
After a while, things started getting harder. Musa had volunteered for a truth serum in Griselda's advanced potions class, and accidentally blabbed that Bloom had been acting strange, missing curfew and staying kind of distant. Griselda had hit her hard after that, suspending her powers and restricting her from leaving campus for two weeks. Bloom had argued it was ridiculous, but had no choice but to mope around campus for the time being. Flora had tried her best to cheer her up, but it only worked for so long. Eventually, Ms. Faragonda had become concerned, and she had a long talk with her. That hadn't ended well – at least, that's what Flora and the rest of the girls gathered by the yelling and the remarks they'd heard when they crammed into Stella's closet to listen to the conversation in the next room. It'd finally ended with Ms. F in one of her rare bad moods, slamming the dorm room door shut, adding a week to Bloom's sentence for disregarding authority, and muttering about how 'something wasn't sitting right in that girl's head.'
Flora later learned from the grape vine Bloom was not allowed to get back in the fight against Baltor until she stated what the real problem was. As mad as the nature fairy was, she realized that Ms. F and Griselda thought something was seriously wrong with her, like she'd been spelled or she wasn't really Bloom. She'd also heard that Bloom's powers were put on watch, so any spell would be detected. That also meant no late night trips to Cloud Tower.
Flora didn't expect the situation to get worse, but it did. While on her way to her aeromagictherapy class, Musa told her Sky had come to try and talk to Bloom. Flora immediately ditched the class (she usually never did, but this was an emergency), and rushed back to the dorm. She got there just as Sky slammed the door shut and stormed off down the hall, muttering some surprisingly mean words under his breath. With hesitation, Flora walked inside only to find her friend in a sobbing heap on her bed. When she opened the door, Bloom looked up, thinking she was Sky, and Flora saw the burning rage in her friend's eyes. The look immediately disappeared when she saw it was only Flora.
After several pots of sage tea and a box of tissue, Flora found the story out. Bloom had tried to insist she was fine and she didn't need his help, and Sky thought she was breaking up with him. The arguing escalated from there, and when Bloom finally said she did want to break up, Sky had assumed there was someone else (of course, he had no idea the reality of the idea). He'd then proceeded to call her every name under the sun, only to leave after Bloom called him a no good self centered bastard and threw the old Christmas present at his head.
Flora realized then just how much pain her friend was in. She was tired from spending nights up trying to trick the tracer on her powers, she wasn't focusing on her school work, and the only person who could give her any real comfort was a person she couldn't see. And now that she thought about it, Flora also realized Baltor hadn't been doing much stealing lately either. Each was too focused on the other to care. Flora saw that Bloom wasn't interested in this life anymore, and apparently Baltor wasn't either.
That night, Flora snuck out for a change. She headed for Cloud Tower, her heart set on helping Bloom. She took the secret entrance – one of those hollow trees the freshman used back in the days when they had free will, and headed for Ms. Griffin's office, carefully avoiding the Trix. Entering the 'headmaster's' office, she found Baltor absently looking through a spell book from Eraklyon, his eyes on the book but his mind somewhere else.
Baltor immediately shot up and demanded to know what Flora was doing there, but the idea of fighting her was short lived when she said it was about Bloom. After casting a sleeping spell on Icy, Darcy, and Stormy so they wouldn't overhear, Flora explained how she'd found out about the two of them, how Bloom's power was under careful guard, and how miserable she was. She continued on saying how her friend had no interest in magic anymore, and suspected it was because compared to Baltor, it was worthless. She felt a little weird, sitting in one of the chairs and addressing the man who'd been her enemy for so long, but he seemed a bit like Bloom; miserable. He listened and finally told her she was right, and that by some miracle Bloom had managed to make all the magic of the universe seem utterly worthless.
Flora explained the way Bloom's powers were being guarded, and Baltor seemed angry at the fact it was such a simple spell and he could break it easily. But thanks to the shield on the school it'd be difficult to get in. All Flora could do was explain how the shield's energy worked, and insist the moment either of them had a plan to escape they do it and run. With that, she headed back t Alfea, just as the sun started rising.
Over the next few days, Flora noticed a radical change in her friend. She seemed perkier and started focusing in her classes more. In fact, by the end of the week, Bloom seemed totally back to normal, almost like nothing had happened. This obviously relieved Ms. F, and she finally took all the bans off Bloom's power, saying she was thrilled to have her back.
The next day, Flora walked into her room to find a folded piece of paper lying on her bed. She picked it up and read it.
Flora,
Found out what you did for me, and all I can say is thank you. I know I've been a real pain in the you-know-what these last few weeks, and it means so much to me that you stood by my side. I told the girls I was going to a movie that Sky invited me to so we could try and make up. I hope they buy that whole fake note idea; it sure worked on Stell back in freshman year! Anyway, thanks, and I hope I see you again soon. God, eloping…how cliché am I?!
Bloom
Bloom never came back from that movie. And the next day, Cloud Tower mysteriously caught on fire. None of the students were injured, and when officials finally got into the school, they took down the Trix. Baltor vanished, and was thought to be killed in the blaze. While everyone laughed at the irony, Flora laughed for a completely different reason.
The years went by. Flora and the rest of the girls graduated, Helia proposed to her, and they ended up having a boy named Jeremy two years later. But she was disgusted to find that after only three months after Bloom left, Sky went back to Diaspro. Flora no longer talked to Sky, and she didn't think any of the other Winx girls did either. Finally, Flora decided that she'd had enough of keeping everything to herself, and one night while the three of them were sitting on the back porch at their home in Limphea, Flora confessed what she knew. Helia took it in surprisingly good spirits, saying Sky and Bloom never seemed right together anyway.
A few days later, a letter came in the mail, the return address merely saying London, England. Flora opened it up to find two papers and three pictures. One was of Bloom sitting on a brown leather couch, the window behind her showing the London Eye, holding her hand up to her face with an 'I'm-so-not-picture-ready' smile on her face. She looked a bit older, but happier none the less. The next was of a little baby girl with a small head of red blonde hair and shiny blue eyes, dressed in a red rose spotted dress. Flora flipped over the picture and saw the words Adision Carmela Giordano, Born November 23. She grinned realizing the little girl had to be Bloom and Baltor's daughter. And the last picture was in the house again. Adision must've gotten a hold of the camera, but the girl had gotten a good one. Baltor had his head over a book – now wearing a pair of black square rimmed glasses, and Bloom was behind him, leaning next to him so she could see whatever he was pointing at. It was simply beautiful.
As for the papers, one was a legal paper that in case something happened to Bloom and Baltor, Flora would have full custody of Adision. And the other – under a letter she could tell was from Bloom, was an address in London, with a message scribbled at the bottom 'Visit soon! I'm pregnant again, off work for the time being, and getting hooked on daytime television. I'm about to go mad!' Beneath that was different handwriting that Flora assumed belonged to Baltor. She cracked up at the phrase, 'She's not kidding. I'm begging you to get out here.'
As she read the letter over, Flora found herself laughing. Things sounded wonderful for Bloom. Apparently using minimal magic was becoming a little difficult. Adision had just discovered her powers – apparently by lighting her neighbors microwave on fire, which had given her a good scare. And Baltor hadn't completely given himself up either. It turns out half of the spell books that'd been returned were actually cloned, and the real ones were in London. He's still not over the whole 'vast spell collection' thing, Bloom had written, He's got a room with floor to ceiling bookcases on two walls filled to the brim. And still going for more! I sure can pick 'em, eh?
Flora remembered Amore saying to Stella one day that love was the most powerful thing in the world. And when she read that letter and saw how happy Bloom really was, Flora saw how true it was.
Update [7.3.16] - This story is available in Spanish via Bloom Malfoy. Check my profile for the link!