Realization

She sat there…looking. Wondering how something so bizarre and strange could peak her interest so. How someone so delicate and fragile at heart could go on and live as if the world around him was nothing but an intangible entity. How someone so adorable… uh! SNAP OUT OF IT! Wanda quickly whipped her mind back where it should be focused, her work. What's more, the most important exam of the year. Her pencil pressed firmly against her paper on the cheap metal school desk in a failing attempt at distraction. Thunk, the pencil tip clicked out of place from the pressure.

Wanda swore inwardly and hung her head back over the chair. She scanned her eyes around the room cautiously, as if any fast movement would set off some sort of alarm. She didn't have any more pencils… and she couldn't use magic during a test. The room was far too silent. There was no way she could ask the fairy two desks away for a new pencil. The only one close enough to her with an extra was… Cosmo, the person she had known since she was little, yet grew apart from as popularity pressed him outward from her friends. Wanda closed her eyes again in a slightly self-loathing embarrassment. It was bad enough that talking to him would completely trash her social rep, but what was worse… she was in love with him.

Slowly turning her body toward his desk, and checking to see if anyone was watching, she opened her mouth slightly to ask him. However, a curious Cosmo was busy stacking the pile of extra pencils his mother so over-preparingly packed for him on his desk in a skewed tower. Wanda smiled equally as curious an expression. He was so easily amused! Remember to check that off on Reasons I Love the Dorky One, she noted to herself.

As she sat there observing him push his soft, green hair out of his eyes to make the final adjustments to his tower, and putting the last pieces on top, his face lit up in satisfactory accomplishment. Wanda rolled her eyes laughing inwardly in thought. Silly guy…

"Um, Wanda…?" she snapped out of her blissful trance to meet a pair of blank green eyes, "Uh… it is Wanda… isn't it?" He hesitantly asked the more popular girl when she didn't respond. He had barely spoken to her in the longest time.

A blush caressed her cheeks, and she nodded sheepishly.

"Oh, well… um… Wanda," he emphasized, "why… why were you staring at me?"

Wanda's face became a mix of embarrassment and defensiveness all too quickly, "I wasn't! I was just going to ask if I could borrow that… that…" she had to think for a moment of what she was going to ask him in the first place, and smacked herself for being the creator of such a tremendous awkward silence. Then it all came thundering back into her mind, once it decided to agree and comprehend. Why was this so hard?! Oh yes! That was what she needed…

"PENCIL!" she nearly shouted, and the whole room's gaze fell upon her… including that of the teacher's. She was oblivious until she saw the wide eyes of Cosmo nearly pop out of his adorable head as a taller figure walked irritably towards them.

--

Wanda had never been in detention before. And if it weren't for the fact that Cosmo was sitting right beside her, she would have loathed it even more. But it certainly did soften the blow…

The detention teacher had trusted Wanda to keep a good watch on Cosmo, and left early from the room. The teacher in charge of watching them had known Wanda well. Wanda was never any trouble. She was a good student. However, Cosmo… the detention teacher knew all too well. But really, Wanda thought, this wasn't because he was bad at all… not in the slightest. Cosmo was always being picked on. It was always one of those other fairies having a merry old time of themselves beating him up, or blaming him for everything. The popular kids knew that he was a klutz, and that he wasn't the most sensible fairy… but she knew that he had been tormented enough to accept that he was different, and would always be different. Wanda read it all over his face as he sat staring sadly down at his desk, his forehead pressed lightly against the table, and his eyes welling, threatening tears.

"…Cosmo?" he winced slightly and closed his eyes, small, fluid droplets of water traveling gracefully down his cheeks. He didn't respond… until a simple question that he finally felt comfortable asking emerged in his head.

"Why do things like this happen to me?" he asked plainly. "Why do people treat me this way?" Cosmo looked at her briefly awaiting a response, though not really intending to hear one. Wanda flipped through her thoughts for an answer, her mouth slightly gaped, but none came, as he expected, and he shifted his position back to its previous pose.

She thought a bit harder, desperate to remember all that she had always thought about him, all that she never told anyone else for fear of what they would say… and finally put the pieces together as one, for the first time.

"Because…" she started, her eyes beginning to soften even more, "… because they have no idea what to think. The others are just kids, no matter what age they become. They only see the big picture, not the steps along the way. Not the jewels hidden on the road they take. They will never take the time to think about you the way that… I do… They won't take the time to step into another person's soul for even a moment because they are too busy with their own lives that they don't care whose spirits and hearts get stepped on along the way. I know this must seem meaningless at best right now, but please promise me that no matter what happens to you or me that you will never for a moment think that you are going to be alone… because there is… someone that will always care for and love you with all her heart. Trust me. She wouldn't rather be with anyone else other than you."

Wanda at this point, whilst going on and on of her confessions of her secret passion and growing need to be with him building up with every blessed word she spoke had subconsciously made her way over to Cosmo's desk. Barely did she notice the way she had grasped his hand tenderly in her own. Barely had she noticed the way she was staring into his beautiful emerald eyes as they stared deeply into her heart. Barely did she realize just how tight she had pressed her body against his as she kissed him tenderly and protectively whilst they gently ran their fingers through their pink and green hair relishing the moment, and whilst tears flowed freely like rivers down from their eyes in their embrace… until they finally broke apart.

The tears plumping back into their eyes, Cosmo looked at Wanda, feeling numbness, a good numbness within him that he had never felt before. Intently listening to her every blessed word, his eyes filled with amazement, not tears of sadness, but feelings far beyond the usefulness of any expression he could make to replicate it upon his face as he had listened to the only one in the universe that stood up for him pour her heart out at his very feet something that he never thought would happen in his infinite life. He processed in his mind; somebody cared about him. He was a being worth existing more than just for punishment and pain. Somebody loved him. But what was more, and far more valuable in his mind… Wanda loved him. They sat, nestled close together in each other's embraces as they glanced at the clock now and then, hoping that their time, even in detention together, would never end.