That same night, despite the frigid weather, a small cluster of blue and black flowers sprouted up on top of the thin layer of snow that covered Old Corona...

Time Skip

Emma stretched her arms when the sunlight spread across her bedroom. She looked around to see that Varian wasn't with her anymore. Soon, her memories from the night before returned.

The clock had struck midnight and Varian's smile fell into a frown.

"I'm sorry, Emma, but I have to go home," Varian shrugged. "I'm going to get in trouble with Dad if I'm not there tomorrow."

"It's alright," Emma said with reassurance. "I'll see you tomorrow?"

"Definitely," Varian promised.

Emma held the Varian doll in her hands, stroking it gently with her fingers. Her longing to be with Varian kept growing stronger.

"Emma, that boy is here for you!" Viktor's voice boomed from the other side of the house.

Emma scrambled out of bed and quickly changed into her winter dress.

"You comin' or what?"

"I'm almost ready, Father!" Emma slipped on her boots and ran to the front door, where her father and Varian were waiting.

"Remember, if you try any funny business, boy, we'll make sure you never set foot by this house again," Viktor warned.

"Y-yes, sir," Varian gulped.

"Hey, Varian!" Emma stepped outside the house. "See you later, Dad."

She closed the door and flattened any loose strands of hair that stuck out.

"I'm sorry about him," Emma laughed nervously. "He can...be like that sometimes."

"Yeah, I get it," Varian chuckled. "Dads, am I right?"

Emma smiled slightly, trying not to laugh. While her father and Quirin had some similarities in being overprotective, Quirin was much nicer to her than Viktor was.

"Hey, I found something weird by my house on my way back last night," Varian said, snapping Emma out of her thoughts.

"What level of weird?" Emma smirked.

"Pretty weird," Varian replied. "C'mon, I can show you!"

With that, Varian took off running with Emma following behind.

"Why...do we...need to...run?" Emma wheezed.

They arrived at Varian's house sooner than expected (with Emma's lack of running skills).

"It's right around...here!" Varian pointed at a group of black and blue flowers.

"Wow...they're beautiful," Emma gushed.

"Yeah, they're incredible," Varian agreed. "What's weird is that they sprouted out of the snow. Flowers don't normally grow in the snow."

Emma couldn't help but feel drawn to the flowers. It was almost like they were calling out to her. She slowly reached her hand out to touch it.

"Woah, woah, woah!" Varian grabbed Emma's wrist. "I wouldn't touch that if I were you."

"Why not?" Emma furrowed her eyebrows in confusion.

"I saw a bird land on it last night and it fell I'll," Varian explained. I took it in and it was dead when I woke up."

"Aw, poor birdy," Emma mumbled. That was all it took for her to resist the temptation of the flower.

"I'm going to run some experiments on them today and I was wondering if you'd like to join me," Varian continued.

"Sure!" Emma smiled.

Time Skip

"Now, let's see how it'll react to a drop of Flynnolium..." Varian wondered. He held an eye dropper above one of the flowers, and carefully squeezed the Flynnolium onto it.

A moment of nothing passed.

"That's odd. Flynnolium usually reacts much faster than-"

BOOM!

Emma and Varian's eyes were wide with shock and their hair had shot upwards from the explosion.

Varian coughs and writes some notes down in his research journal. "Don't ever...use Flynnolium...on the flowers...again," he noted.

"I wonder what else we can do," Emma said. "I mean, so far, we've conducted a lot of experiments and we still don't have any answers."

"We'll figure something out," Varian promised. "We just gotta be patient and keep experimenting."

Emma trusted Varian and knew that he was right. He found answers to most of his experiments and questions, so she knew that she couldn't doubt him now.

"Let's keep going then," Emma agreed.

Word Count: 678

I just had some ideas for the story recently and I can't wait to continue writing it. I'm also working on the Varian X Reader Stranger Things book and an art request at the moment and I'm sure that I'll get those done too. Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this chapter!