Hello all! Its been quite some time since I've started a new fic but I've been wanting to do one for SoS for forever, and so, as part of Acciendentally the Whole Fanfic's 'Try Everything' writing challenge, here I am trying something new. One neat thing about this challenge, it ends in a little more than 3 months from now, so I'm really gonna try to push this story to completion in three months (ambitious I know)

Please do leave a review if you can, I happy take in constructive criticism (though if you don't know what to say I also just like hearing from the people reading ;) Its great motivation, and I love to get to know y'all and be part of the community) (as such also feel free to PM me if you just want to talk HM and SoS)

Thanks for choosing to read!

Endless fields of yellow and green whipped by the passenger window. We had been in the car for quite some time but I continued to watch the blurred scenery with anticipation.

"This is going to be so exciting!" Tim told me again, for the tenth time since we had first gotten all my stuff together (which apparently still only equated to one suitcase) and squashed into the vehicle.

Not missing a beat, I smiled, "Yeah." I reassured him before leaning my head back against the window.

I, of course, was lying. I was not sure. Not sure at all. A mute panic had hit me the second we had left the city's boundaries. It was too open out here, too different. It was pretty embarrassing to admit, and Tim was probably the only other person in the world to know, but I had never actually left the concrete jungle before. I had never flown in a plane, wandered through a forest or even seen the ocean. The city was all I had ever known, and with every spin of the car's tires I was getting further and further from the few things I had ever loosely defined as 'home'.

"Hey…" I said.

Eyes on the road, he nodded his head to show he was listening.

"What if I have that thing…" I trailed off.

"What thing?" He asked.

"Gorophobia or whatever." I answered.

He laughed, "A fear of wide open spaces, isn't it? Yeah right, you're not weaseling your way out of this. You already have one out of control phobia you can't have two."

"I could." I argued.

"Believe me, you're gonna love this." He dismissed, shaking his head slightly.

He sure must have a lot of faith in me. What city slicker whose feet never stepped off pavement before someday wakes up and makes the conscious decision to become a farmer?

Though I guess if nothing else, no one could ever say adaptability wasn't of my strengths.

I am truly a cockroach.

Now instead of looking outside, I watched him lazily from the corner of my eye. His hands were holding the driver's wheel rather tightly, knuckles white from the pressure. Was he excited? Or nervous? Either way you could tell he really really wanted this to work out for me. No, he needed this. He needed to see a success story.

For as long as I had known him, (which was pretty much my whole life), he had always seemed to be smiling. Yet the years were catching up with him, and there were far more grey hairs on his head than there probably should have been for a man his age. The lines that were beginning to form on his face betrayed that he spent a lot more time frowning than laughing. The life of a social worker is a taxing one after all.

"Here, I'll play some music." He said, driving with one hand while he messed with the dials, but most of his usual stations were just static out here amongst the grain fields. Eventually he settled on a classical station. A shrill symphony of violins sang in the background coming out muffled and grainy through the old speakers.

"Oh!" I said in surprise, attention quickly whipped to outside his window. "What the heck was that?" I asked, looking at the largest shaggy brown animal I had ever seen flash by. "… A bison?" I guessed.

He was quiet for a moment, looking torn between amusement and worry. "… That would have been a cow." He finally said.

I gawked, then bit my lip in embarrassment, then gawked again. "but… it was brown, aren't they white with those black splotches?"

He just shook his head in disbelief. It got worse of course because that's when I remembered, "Those milk cartons in grade school… white milk was white and black spotted, chocolate was brown. WAIT-"

"I'm going to cut you off right there." He said, "Before you completely embarrass yourself: No, brown cows do not have chocolate milk."

I leaned back in the seat, regretting even coming up with that thought, I knew better. It was one of those moments of stupidity though… "That wasn't what I was going to ask…" I stubbornly lied.

"Of course you weren't." He agreed.

The country roads were so much more empty than I'd ever thought possible. Nothing like city traffic, and we hadn't hit a light in a while. Then again there wasn't really a lot out here. We had stopped at a gas station a distance back and purchased some sub-par coffee and two dry blueberry muffins. I couldn't quite remember when that was but the cups were now empty and taking up space in the cup holders and the wrapper for the muffin was sitting awkwardly at my feet as I kept mentally reminding myself to pick it up before I got out of the car.

Since then it had been nothing but flat fields and worn wooden fencing. We moved at a steady pace too, the only time the car would slow would be for tractors crossing.

"Hey Tim." I said as he was forced to hit the brakes for a tractor up ahead that either overestimated its speed to beat us across or simply didn't care about highway traffic.

"Mhm?" He asked.

"Why did the tractor cross the road?" I asked, fiddling with the tip of my braid.

"I don't know, why?" He asked.

"To get to the other side." I said.

He laughed loudly, even though the joke was really lame.

The tracker was clear on the other side and the car jolted a little as he attempted to accelerate. The check engine light was on. There was always something new wrong every time I entered the car. As to be expected of a vehicle I had rode in since I was in booster seats. The leather was almost too cracked to be comfortable and it had long since lost any kind of car scent, instead there was something that suspiciously smelt like gasoline.

I had asked him about replacing it every now and again but he'd simply scoff and look offended saying, 'How dare you! Porsha's still fit as a fiddle! She'll out live us all!'

I suspected he kept it for us though. Most of us never found our "forever homes". This car is the closest thing I have to a nostalgic place. Though I had never thought I'd be in it again, I had aged out of the system a couple years ago. So it was a surprise when he called me up and ranted about an exciting job opportunity he'd found.

After five years of bagging people's groceries, I was willing to try anything –even farming.

The car pulled into a dirt patch at the side of the road that I supposed had to be a parking lot of sorts. Tire tracks in the dirt showed where other cars had once been at stop.

Tim opened his door and grinned at me wryly. "We go the rest of the way by foot. Good thing you packed light eh?"

I reached down to collect my garbage but he waved me off, "Don't worry about that, I'll throw it out back in the city. Just stuff it in the cup. You'll find garbage collection isn't quite as good out here…. Or existent.

Bewildered, I did as he told.

To not even have black bin pick-up, I was beginning to have second thoughts about country livin'…. Okay, fifteenth thoughts.

It wasn't a long walk at all, but my heart was beating a mile a minute and the short path through the trees felt much longer, and much too short at the same time. Just where exactly were we going? All I knew so far about the town was there were no guidebook entries, no google maps street view, no garbage collection, and obviously no roads for cars. What century was I about to enter?

Picking up on my nervousness he laughed. "Don't worry, this isn't the official entrance, it's just a shortcut into town. Ordinarily, people enter through the trade depot gates. There's a big market and all sorts of vendors from many different countries used to come to buy and sell."

"Used to?" I asked.

My question was not given a response as the trees cleared up ahead and Tim turned back to me. Always with a knack for corny lines he smiled widely, "Welcome to paradise!"

It was a town. Quaint, very green and most significantly, very very small. There wasn't any concrete and most walkways were bricked together in a painstaking way that I thought no one bothered to do anymore since cement. There were flowers in planters all around town and perfectly cubed leafy hedges. It felt a little like a village from a Disney movie and I almost expected to see the villagers all leap out of their homes and sing a joyful ode to country living. At least for an inner city kid that had been bounced around the ghettos her whole life, this place seemed unreal. Suddenly the new clothes he bought me that had made me feel like an 18th century milkmaid didn't seem so out of place.

"Breath taking isn't it?" He asked.

I just nodded.

He pulled out a wrinkled piece of paper from his pocket and squinted to read it. "We're supposed to go see the guildmaster, then how about grabbing a bite to eat before I hit the road again? It'll be my treat."

For the first time today, I perked up and he just shook his head with some humour. The only thing better in this world than food was free food.

I decided against asking what a guildmaster even was, much more entranced at the thought of lunch. Those muffins felt like a long time ago.

"If only we could find that dang guild, it's supposed to be-"

"No need." A woman's voice rang out behind us.

We turned to a rather refined looking woman. She was probably my height, but her posture was so straight she stood an inch taller. She was older without being old but showing the same fatigue Tim always seemed to have. "You must be Annie." She took my hand to shake, "I am Veronica, the Guild master. We've been looking forward to meeting you! Another farmer is just what this town needs to step it up."

"Hello." I said, feeling like with just that I had already botched my first impression. I probably sounded too withdrawn. I needed to say more. "I-" I bit my lip, "I am very grateful for the opportunity."

She beamed, "Well, I'm sure you'll fit right on in here nicely. I trust the drive was fine?"

"We got here without a hitch." Tim told her.

"That's good to hear." She smiled. "Well, we could stand here and talk, or I could go show you your new home!"

It was a ways up the mountain. I peered back every now and again doubtfully as the town grew smaller and smaller down below. I truly was going to be out in the middle of nowhere it seemed.

Still, it was pleasant. The air was sweet unlike anything I'd ever tasted in the city and a long river lazily curled its way down the mountain beside us, giving a picturesque quality to the land.

Finally, over half way up the mountain we stopped.

It took every ounce of my restraint to manage my breath and pretend I wasn't thoroughly winded.

"This is it." She said and I did a double take.

The fields had become more like wild meadows. The amount of land was so vast that you could see the shadows of clouds, leaving a patchwork of dark and bright over the mangy grass. There was a really old house it the center looking rather lonely and abandoned. It was tilted to the east as if a giant had come and accidentally sat on it. A part of its roof had caved in as well causing me to doubt the inside structure's preservation was any better.

"It's been awhile since someone has used this land." The guildmaster said nervously. She bit her lip as she waited for me to react.

"I-" I started to say. I had rehearsed the lines over and over in my head. Not that I would have needed to, it was my default lines anytime I ended up and a new foster home. Well, this wasn't a foster home, but the situation was similar. I knew I should nod politely, Turn to thank Tim for looking out for me, turn to her and thank her for taking a chance on me. Yet, for once, the words were lost.

I walked around in a circle taking it all in. "Is this really okay?" I finally asked in wonder.

She let out a sigh of relief and he grinned.

I touched the old wood of the house and felt a smile bubble up. Was this really mine? I honestly hadn't known what to expect- but a home of my own and all this land to start seemed to impossibly generous.

"I'm glad you like it." She laughed.

"I- I do." I said. "Truly! Thank you so much!"

"Well there's still some preparation to do so in the meantime you'll be staying with your neighbour. Come by the guild later today and I'll introduce you. I'm sure you have some goodbyes to finish up first. Well, I getting ahead of myself. I'll walk you back to town and give you a brief tour. Plus there's some papers you need to sign."

As it turned out the tour truly didn't take a lot of time. The town was even smaller than I had guessed. With only about twenty residents, I'm not sure it could even call itself a village. We ended at the guild and sat down to get the paperwork out of the way. I didn't really understand a lot of it but Tim read the papers over with approving nods.

Veronica reclaimed them with a smile. "Congratulations Annie. You are now the proud owner of your very own farm! Any ideas for a name?"

I looked at her blankly. "Um. What are normal names for farms?"

"How about Hope farm?" Tim asked excitedly.

Now it was his turn to receive my blank stare. How tacky.

"Hope farm sounds alright." I told her.

She beamed. "Wonderful!"

Tim clapped a hand on my shoulder. "Let' eat!"

Unsurprisingly for its size, there was only one restaurant in the town. Such that its name was simply, 'Restaurant'.

The food though, was unexpectedly amazing. Then came dessert and I gawked at the cake slice.

"What's wrong?" Tim asked.

"It's too pretty to eat." I said, which earned a hearty laugh from my ex-social worker.

"Thank you. I'm flattered to hear that." I jumped at the voice, having not realized the waiter was behind me.

It was a young guy, probably my age. I hadn't paid too much attention to him at first. He was attractive for sure, with tousled acorn coloured hair and soft blue eyes. My very first impression though was, 'this is the kind of guy that neatly folds up his apron at the end of the day and puts it away into its very own drawer'. Organized, together, friendly, but a little too stiff.

"You made this cake?" Tim asked.

He laughed, scratching the back of his head with some minor embarrassment. "I made everything, this is a one man business after all."

"To own your own restaurant at your age, it's really something!" Tim marvelled and the man just laughed, politely accepting the compliment.

"Well, it was my grandfather's but he passed last year so I'm managing on my own now." He admitted, smile looking a little more forced as his eyes glanced away sheepishly. Then just as quickly his smile warmed again. "Are you two sightseeing or here for the trade depo?" He asked.

"Neither." Tim said proudly, "I'm just here to help move in Annie, she's going to be the town's newest farmer!"

Now the attention was shifted to me. "Um, hi." I said, my voice coming out a little too soft for my liking.

He eyes flashed in recognition. "So you're the new mystery farmer! Everyone has been dying to meet you, Veronica has kept pretty much everything about you under wraps. I'm Raeger." He held out his hand for me to shake and I took it hesitantly.

"You' be seeing a lot of Annie I'm sure." Tim said, "She's a bit of a glutton when she can be, food's her favourite thing."

At that I blushed deeply and scowled at him. "I-" I started to protest but didn't really have any leg to stand on, what he was saying wasn't exactly false. "…Yeah." I admitted.

Raeger laughed silently in amusement, "Professional cook and professional eater. I'm sure we'll get along just fine! I change up my menu a lot so I'm sure there will always be a lot of new items to try. Feel free to come as often as you would like."

"Uh, yeah." I said, "maybe…" I had always found it hard talking to such dazzly people, they made me nervous.

Another customer came in and Raeger left us. "He seems nice." Tim commented. "Maybe you two might become friends."

I shook my head in amusement, "I am really getting the mother-dropping-her-daughter-off-at-kindergarden-for-the-first-time vibe from you today."

I expected him to laugh but he didn't. "What can I say?" He said quietly.

"Tim?" I asked in worry.

He was quiet for a good moment before speaking up. "I'm really sorry things never worked out in the past Annie." He said.

"Well, that's the norm isn't it?" I asked.

"I never told any of you before but… I used to be a foster kid too." He said. I looked at him in surprise.

"It was a very similar horror story I'm afraid. I just always thought that maybe I could help, you know? Even if I couldn't magically make things better, I had always thought it would have helped me if my social worker was… a friend. So I took you to ice cream shops between placements, reminded you that you were a normal girl, but… It only made it all the more heartbreaking every time I had to come get you after another bust."

"It did help! A lot!" I protested.

"Still, every time I saw you, you seemed more and more…done."

"Done?" I asked.

"Yeah done. You still have that look now too." He pointed out.

"I don't think I understand." I said.

"Disillusioned maybe is the better word. If I hadn't brought you out here you'd have been in that grocery store for the rest of your life wouldn't you?" He asked.

I didn't like this. I hated it when he got serious. I smiled instead but it came out like a grimace, "Well... you know... It's as good as it gets for someone like me."

He shook his head. "And that's precisely what I mean. You were done. Ready to chalk your whole life up to simply surviving. You weren't going to get married or have kids, you weren't going to ever leave those couple blocks of the city. You weren't going to live a life."

I chose that time to start eating my cake. I didn't want to respond to that. I didn't need to, he hit the nail right on the head.

"Anyway." He said, "I just want to say… approach this opportunity differently. Think of it as a new beginning. "Have you heard of the term 'Tabula rasa'?" He asked. I shook my head. "It means blank slate. You are now a blank slate. Veronica agreed not to disclose too much about your upbringing. Try living life for once."

The rest of the time we spent in the restaurant was in silence. I mulled over what he told me. Eventually we said our goodbyes and he left, and for the first time, I felt truly alone. Empty. Blank. It was scary, but maybe also a little… exciting?