Riven closed his eyes, breathing in the fresh summer air as the wind blew against his pale face and maroon locks. Leaning his head back onto the tree, he sighed, straightening out his legs and allowing himself to relax on the soft grass.

The forest surrounding Red Fountain and Alfea was his refuge, a place where he can run and hide when things go wrong, and lately, he feels as if everything has been going wrong.

After ending his junior year with a breakup with his not-really girlfriend Musa, Riven was over it. He enjoyed his summer with his friends, ignored the awkward tension whenever they met up with the girls, and continued to live his life.

The Specialists and the Winx were now nearing the end of their summer, where they had all just come back from visiting home and were spending their last moments of freedom before senior year hit and they graduated into the real world.

But being as there was no good without evil, they had also spent a chunk of their summer fighting off Valtor and the Trix, who had teamed up and threatened to wipe out the fairies in order to prolong their quest of becoming leaders of the magical universe. They had won, putting to rest the temporary threat of evil, but it didn't seem to stop there for Riven.

When the Specialists returned to Red Fountain a week before school started to unpack and adjust, Riven was greeted by a woman with a slender figure and long maroon hair, standing at the door of the two-bedroom dorm that he was sharing with Sky, Brandon, and Timmy.

"I'm your mother," she had said, giving him a smile as if she hadn't abandoned him at birth and left him with his failure of a dad whose drinking was what caused Riven to go from foster home to foster home.

He ignored his friends' confused cries when he shoved his "mother"'s hand away from his face and pushed them aside, heading anywhere but there. Riven didn't care how tired he was - he wasn't going to deal with that tonight.

And that's how he ended up sitting in the forest, leaning against the tree, watching as the river flowed by, the moonlight glistening from the reflections off the blue water. The sight relaxed him for a moment, but his thoughts clouded his brain as he racked his head for reasons as to why his birth mother would find him, and why now.

Riven knew that his mother was the reason why he was able to attend Red Fountain. The Red Fountain School of Specialists only accepted males who had relations with the magical universe because that meant they knew about the Realm of Magix and understood why they had to protect it. And surprisingly, when Saladin found him and told him the truth about who he really was, he discovered that it was his mom who had the connection. She was a fairy a long time ago who went to Earth, wounded up getting pregnant with his dad, and then kicked out of Alfea.

That was all he knew. His foster parents had no idea what Magix was, let alone where he was. They just assumed that he was a runaway, like most foster kids, and never thought twice about it when he stopped coming home. Riven didn't care though, he had his friends. He didn't need his family.

"You need to stay warm," a soft voice spoke from behind him.

Riven whipped his head around, fully prepared for attack until he realized who it was.

Flora tossed the blanket next to him, cocking her head to the side as she watched him relax his stance, sitting back down against the tree and eyeing the blanket that she had just given him.

"I'm not cold."

"It's not so much about feeling cold, it's more about the breeze and how easily you can get sick if you're exposed to the wind for too long," the Nature fairy said as she sat down next to the Specialist, opening the wool blanket and tossing it over their legs.

Riven moved over, allowing her some tree to lean on. He had to admit, the blanket made him feel better physically, but his emotions were still as cold and raw as before.

"How'd you find me?"

"Brandon called Stella, asking if you were with us." They both knew that meant Musa. "We told him you weren't and asked what had happened, and all they said was that you ran off."

"How'd you find me?" Riven asked again, placing a hand on Flora's bare thigh underneath the blanket, sending shivers up her spine.

"Wild guess. It's been a while since we've both been out here."

"We can't keep meeting here," Riven said, brushing Flora's brown hair behind her ear, before capturing her lips with his. Her hand cupped his cheek, deepening the sweet kiss for a few more seconds before pulling away and smiling.

Sighing, Flora closed her eyes, adjusting herself on the blanket so that she was cuddled into Riven's chest. He wrapped his arms around the small girl's body as she threw her leg around his waist. "I know."

"Yeah, it has."

A silence fell upon the two, as they watched a fish jump up from the water, gliding underneath the surface before disappearing down the stream.

"My mother was at our door when we got back."

Flora's eyes widened, turning her head to face Riven, but she didn't say anything.

"I don't know what she wants from me, or how she even found me. She was just there and then I left."

The Nature fairy didn't know what to say. Riven had mentioned his mother only once, after an argument about him not trusting her. It was one of the last few arguments that they had before they broke up and he started a thing with Musa.

Riven and Flora's relationship had been complicated; too different to let their friends know, but too loud to keep it a secret. They had to love each other silently, finding excuses as to why she couldn't go on blind dates that Stella had set up for her, figuring out ways to sneak around curfew to be together, watching as they fought battles together but having to hide their worry for one another when they got hurt. They wanted to tell their friends, but it was then that they kept fighting over his own trust issues, so before they even had the chance to, they were already over.

"You claim to love me, yet I don't know anything about you."

"Excuse me?" Riven asked, turning to face his girlfriend who was standing right besides him, tears streaming down her face. It took all of him not to grab her and wipe her tears away.

"A part of the reason why I fell in love with you was because you had opened up to me. You told me about your feelings for me and showed me your emotions. You showed me what a kind and caring man you are, beneath the stubborn character you always played when I first met you."

Her emerald eyes met his violet ones, both pairs twinkling in pain as she continued.

"But you don't trust me enough to talk to me about deeper things. I can't be with someone who won't share with me their past life, yet they claim that they want to spend the rest of their life with me. It doesn't work that way."

They ended things in that moment, and Riven was more than upset. He didn't agree that it didn't work that way; love was a feeling, and to him, it didn't matter about the past, as long as there was a future. Obviously Flora didn't feel that way, and then he found solace in Musa, who never asked him questions or pressured him into revealing more about himself than he wanted to share.

However, as Musa and his relationship unfolded and ended, he realized that Flora was right, the past was important in order to love someone. He couldn't talk to Musa about anything other than school and fighting. There were no late nights in the forest talking about plants or how he felt improvement in his skills or random childhood memories, just sex and occasional coffee dates.

But Flora and Riven had already decided to stay friends, and that was that.

"Do you think she heard about your offer?" Flora finally asked.

"Why would she care about my offer?"

Shrugging, she leaned back onto the tree besides Riven, turning her head to look up at the taller boy. Despite her anger and hurt after finding out about Musa and him, she still cared for Riven. She understood that love and life isn't always going to be fair, and whatever happens happens.

"It's a big job. You're going to be one of the higher-up Specialists within Magix, and you're going to be assigned to more important missions. It's very well-paid. You told me your mom was always looking for ways to find money, the last time you heard about her right?"

Riven's lips curled to a small smile. Flora always remembered even the little things about him. "Yeah."

The two stared at each other, before Flora broke the eye contact and looked back across the river, where a gray bunny was hopping around the tall grass. She smiled to herself, watching nature surround her, and it brought her comfort, especially in a moment like this. Sitting next to Riven, someone she had loved and still loved, but not being able to fully be there for him was painful.

Riven looked down at the blanket that was draped on their legs, his hands still on her thigh. Letting go of his grip on the bare flesh, he grabbed her hand, lacing their fingers together before looking out into the distance. Flora tightened the grip on his hand, ignoring the roughness of his hand against her soft ones.

"Do you ever wish you could just start all over?"

"How do you mean?"

"You know," Riven sighed, shrugging. He looked up to the stars, imagining what it would be like to live amongst them. He was never the one to fantasize, but he changed after he met Flora. "Start life all over again. Do things better, do things differently."

Flora didn't know how to answer that question. Of course, there were things in her life that she wished she could change; sometimes, she wished she was able to just be with her sister, Miele, and not have to worry her parents whenever she was fighting witches or demons. She would live a simple life, own a plant nursery and grow herbs for people who need them for their potions and spells, rather than possessing that power herself. She would also change how things went with Riven.

"Sometimes."

Riven looked over to her, and their faces were inches away. He recognized the sweet, loving look in her emerald green orbs staring at him, and he missed being near her.

"I do all the time. I imagine what life would be like if my mom never left my dad or if he wasn't an alcoholic and actually cared about me. I wonder if I was never put into foster care and just grew up with loving parents, how different my life would be. Maybe I would still go to Red Fountain, and my mom would be visiting me today out of love rather than greed. I think about whether I would still be at the top of my class, because the reason why I fight so hard is to prove that I belong there, not just because Saladin recruited me. I like to think that I would be, but that's the thing, you never know."

Flora quietly listened to him, as he leaned his head back onto the tree and talked, almost as if she wasn't there. She continued to hold his hand, caressing the back of his hand with her thumb.

"I also wonder if I would be a better friend, and not have trust issues with everyone that I meet. Maybe Sky and Brandon would talk to me about their problems more, and Timmy wouldn't be so scared of me."

"Riven, you are a good friend."

"Not as good as I could be," Riven responded, the words slipping off of his tongue almost immediately. "Those guys would trust me with their lives, but I can't say I do the same."

Biting her lip, she looked down at Riven's chest, unsure of what to say.

"And most importantly," Riven used his free hand to lift up her chin, making her look at his face again as his violet eyes searched for hers. "I imagine what it would be like to still be with you. Maybe if I had shared more about my past and my feelings, then we would still be together. All our friends would know about us and how happy you make me, and I wouldn't have hurt Musa."

Tears welled up in Flora's eyes, her heart swelling at the idea that Riven still loved her.

"I imagine that life all the time, Flo. Me with you, us together."

"I do too," Flora whispered, placing a hand on his cheek.

"I still love you Flora."

Flora took a deep breath, closing her eyes and looking away as the tears streamed down her face. Hearing those words was the only thing she had wanted to hear from Riven for the past few months, and now that he's said them, she didn't know what to do.

"I'm sorry about what happened with Musa, I never wanted to hurt you. I never loved her the way I love you. I know that this is unexpected, but I've been wanting to talk to you about it for a long time. I didn't know if you wanted to hear it, but I wasn't going to miss my chance today. I want to let the world know that you're mines and that I'm in love with you. I want to be with you, and I'm not going to mess it up again this time."

"I love you too, Riv, but I'm afraid, we've tried this once, what makes you believe that it's going to be different?"

"Because I don't want to keep imagining a different life," Riven said, grabbing the fairy's face and tilting it back to his. He turned his body to face her, almost trapping her body against the tree with his legs as he talked. "I don't want to think about how I would be if this and that happened. I want to think about my past and know that it made me who I am today and that there's nothing wrong with that. I want to believe that everything happened for a reason, and that reason is you."

Flora's lip quivered as she grabbed his hands that were on her face, loving the feel of his hands on her cheeks.

She had never stopped loving Riven, and she knew deep down in her heart that it was always going to be him. Their personalities were so different, but they complement each other, giving to each other what the other lacks. Flora didn't care that her mind was telling her to slow down, to think it through before she gets hurt again. She knew Riven changed, and she was willing to take that risk if it meant a chance for them to be together.

Leaning up, Flora captured Riven's soft lips with hers, and she felt him smile through the kiss. They stayed like that for a while, two pairs of lips just pressed against each other as they reminisced the familiar feeling. It wasn't until Riven's mouth parted and his tongue traced her lips that she allowed him in, and all the pent up love and passion that they had been deprived of for so long spilled out.

Before it got too heated, Riven broke away, and they caught their breath as they pressed their foreheads together.

"You know when you said you wanted to do life differently?" Flora asked.

Riven nodded, his hand absentmindedly rubbing Flora's thigh and sneaking up her skirt.

"It's never too late to try again."

hi i'm a big fan of riven and flora, and saw that there were very few stories of them together so here we are, hope you enjoy!