A/N: Again – I have no discipline. Multiple stories will be popping up constantly. You've been warned.

Disclaimer: I don't own Winx Club.

…

…

The man smirked at the infant he was holding. She was falling asleep, lulled by the feel of his hands rocking her soothingly against his chest.

Short, almost-curly scarlet hair capped her head, giving her a boyish appearance, but most babies couldn't be told apart gender-wise, anyway. Her mouth was open in a soft 'coo' that occasionally hn-ed out a murmur, a soft reminder that she wasn't all-the-way asleep yet. Her hands were fisted, tucked away under the sheet – the finest cloth that could be bought, enhanced with several charms and spells to keep her safe – and her eyes were closing. She was warmth in his arms, hn-ing and cooing an unintelligible language that had him straining to hear, though the woods around the two of them were quiet and he generally did not tolerate any sort of nonsense, least of all children's babble.

"You don't know, do you?" He chuckled darkly, "About your parents, or your sister, or your kingdom…" His lips ravished the words,

"I destroyed it all."

An unhappy 'phle' made him aware that the girl was trying to sleep, and he was interrupting her. "Sorry, Princess. I'll keep it down from now on." He began walking towards the edge of the trees, ending up on a sidewalk. Once he had magically adjusted his clothes so that his attire wouldn't draw any stares, he began walking down the street, humming a lullaby that helped the baby fall asleep.

Once he came to a crosswalk, he stopped, though there were no cars in the road. Golden eyes looked up at the moon. "Bloom," he grinned manically, "It was almost too easy."

[-M-]

"Bloom, I swear by all the gods that I know, if you do not get out of bed right now, I will take that bunny of yours and make mousse out of it!" Baltor roared, banging the pipe in the corner of their apartment.

"Shut u-u-up…" came the drawn out response, and something was hurled at the door that connected her room to the hallway.

Smirking, Baltor shook his head, walking slowly to her room. The door posed no problem, even though she had lined it with anti-entrance spells and traps. He knew she only bothered to show him that she could, not even considering that she'd be able to keep him out. Her registration at Alfea would start in a few days – that's when he would worry. For now, her skills were basic. It swung open with a lazy gesture on his part, and he stepped cautiously into her sanctum, knowing full-well that some plush thing would be thrown at him before he could take two steps. As per their morning routine, a stuffed elephant soared in his direction and was caught before it hit his face.

He held it up, examining it. "I don't remember buying you this."

"You didn't," the teenage girl finally sat up and rubbed the sleep out of her eyes, "I stole it."

He grimaced, "Of all the things to steal – "

" – Eight years ago."

"Oh. Regardless, I'm hungry for some of those pancake things, so…"

"Can't you make them yourself?"

"I can come up with fifty reasons why you should be the one to do it, but at this moment, I don't care to list them." He walked over, easily picking her up off the bed – which, naturally, only gave her an excuse to cuddle up to him and try to sleep some more – and carried her to their bathroom. He set her carefully on her feet – she blearily looked at her reflection – and kissed her temple, ruffling her hair. Then, he went over to the kitchen and began pulling out the largest frying pan they owned, as well as a spatula and bowl for mixing. This was about as much as he understood the whole process, so he left the tools where Bloom would be able to see them and went to see what was on the news.

Bloom soon came out of the bathroom, looking quite a bit more awake, and eager about the coming day. She wasn't usually like this – on school days, she could be the absolute last person you wanted to meet, but today was special – it was a training day. She was sure she'd forgotten quite a lot of things since last summer – which was a lot worse than this one, because they had still had to pretend that he was her guardian, and thus couldn't hold hands in public, since seventeen-year-old girls 'didn't do that with their caretakers.' She knew that Baltor was 'too old' for her by society's standards, but she also knew that he wasn't technically so old, either.

When she was twelve years old, her magic lessons became a bit more 'hands on,' and rather than just history and extremely simple spells, they had begun levitating, using magic to enhance speed, and directing energy to do things. This usually resulted in her setting the surrounding forest on fire, but Baltor was exceptionally patient, and had practiced with her again and again – at the cost of severely singed hair – until she could do fairly well in an evenly-matched mock-battle, as long as she was on offense constantly. It was during this time that he had explained to her exactly what he was, describing how three witches had created him – part wizard, part beast – and how he wouldn't age unless he wished.

This was when her mind had begun to entertain the possibility of them together.

It was during a particularly nasty mock-battle during her fifteenth year that her secret came out. His training sessions generally worked like this: They'd start off with a warm-up battle, where he would allow her to access her power and use it to fire red-hot orbs of energy, staying on the defense until the end, when he would switch once he thought she had been active enough. Then he would use the same energy that she was producing on her, forcing her to dodge, duck and maybe try to get one or two shots in amidst all the movement. She had been getting better recently, able to actually hit him if he wasn't careful, so he began to use other magics, along with his copies of her heat energy.

The blows had started coming faster and more frequently. She knew there was nothing really harmful about the spells he was firing, so she didn't complain, as he would often switch between stages randomly, to try and confuse her; to keep her on her toes. But it had been scorching outside, and constantly firing almost-blazing energy-balls was making her tired, not to mention hot. Baltor didn't seem to notice she was slowing, as he was having too much fun firing off semi-dangerous spells, since it had been too long since he'd done so, nevermind that the combination of bad weather and exercise was making his shirt stick to his back. Thinking up a simple secret-exposing spell, he chanted the necessary rhyme and tossed it at her gleefully, freezing when it actually hit her.

It wouldn't hurt her, or make her physically uncomfortable in any way. The spell was designed to find something that was frequently on the victim's mind, and something that worried them to no end. On top of that, it specifically remembered the caster, so that the victim would blurt information that could aid them in the dispute. Bloom had collapsed – out of exhaustion and dehydration – and so Baltor immediately ran over, worrying he had been too rough. The words had rung out across the meadow, loud and clear.

"I like you."

He knew exactly how she meant it right away, because something like a friendly affection wouldn't have bothered her enough for the spell to trigger her saying it. Tears wet her eyelashes as she continued, clutching her arms to her chest, trying to hold it in,

"Do you like me, too?"

He had stared at her - sweaty, with pink burns on her hands from firing spells that she could barely control, salt water trailing down her cheeks and a bottom lip that was trembling so much he might've thought it would fall off. Her hair was sticking to her forehead and there were scrapes on her knees, which could easily be seen, since she was wearing capris and a T-shirt. Her tongue was staining her teeth red; he figured she had bitten it during the battle.

"Yes," he'd said, kneeling and bringing her chin up so that his lips could meet hers. She tasted like salt.

He never regretted his actions, because their relationship now was still a comfortable one, only more romantic than anything else. They'd had to keep it a secret from every person they met. At her insistence, they moved once she was done with high school, so that they could hold hands in public without him "muttering something about a neighbor seeing" - it had really started pissing her off.

They had moved to a small town called Gardenia. It lived up to its name, having lots of parks and community gardens that were attended to by the many flower shop owners. She especially liked that there was a small population, which ensured privacy in the wee hours of the morning, when the two of them went to the park to train – no-one was ever bothered enough by the crowds to get up at four in the morning to have some alone time outside.

And so they settled into a routine – once a week, they would go to the park, early, and fight. Then they would spend the weekend together doing things like eating ice cream, or going to a movie. During the week, he would go to work and then teach her history about the magical world in the evenings. It was comfortable, cozy and absolutely delightful.

However, peace never lasts. On the third Sunday of July, Bloom encountered another fairy…who happened to be fighting some magical creatures at the time.

…

…

A/N: Review, please.