Sims In Bloom: Generation 2 Pt. 258 (Forbidden Fruit & Forever Friends)
Much to Heather and Conrad's relief, Lavender and Roan were getting along better lately. After Lavender's public humiliation at the community fundraiser, Heather made sure Roan wouldn't make things worse with his usual attitude.
They could watch TV together without arguing over the plot - perhaps because Lavender was always so focused on her latest knitting project. She was keeping her grades up and working hard on an extra credit project for school, so her parents agreed to help her purchase rare seed packs in search of a flirty bean for the stump in the backyard.
"I promise I won't go through without permission once the tree grows," she assured them when they found the last bean. "Maybe something inside could help Karla and Andre when they finally meet Kaulu. Or maybe we can trade it with Haumaea instead of a water fairy."
They couldn't deny Lavender's ideas were decent. Maybe Haumaea would settle for a seed to grow a PlantSim, or maybe they'd find something else with even more value. Either way, they'd come this far, and a stump with just five beans instead of all six was just taking up empty space behind the house.
"I'll be the first one to go through," Heather said before taking Gord for a walk. "But I'm not in a hurry, especially while Karla and Andre are still in Innisgreen."
Lavender was still working on her school project in the yard when Heather came home to spend time teaching Iris, and Heather watered the stump before bed.
The next morning, she and Lavender woke before dawn to find a forbidden fruit tree taking up the yard. Lavender was excited, but she didn't rush her mother through the mystic portal.
Instead, she gifted her with her first completed knitted object - a teal and yellow knit cap she could wear as Brindleton Bay settled in for another long winter.
"The first clothing I made is for you and in colours you like, because you supported me when I decided to stop playing violin."
Heather loved the goofy homemade knit cap and promised to wear it as often as possible. Encouraged, Lavender made it a goal to knit an item of clothing for everyone in her family. (Official Gen 3 goal alert!)
With Roan behaving much better, Heather decided to indulge his request to return to Sylvan Glade - this time with Peter Parker, who'd missed the trip the first time he went with his grandparents.
Heather got specific instructions from her mother on the mystical tree before leaving for Foundry Cove with Roan, making it to the Glade without much trouble.
inside the pink-hued wonderland, Heather fished in a nearby pond while Roan hung out with Peter Parker and took photos.
"Thank you for taking me here," Peter Parker said to him. "Now I can return to where I come from with happy memories."
"You're leaving?"
"We've just had the best adventure I could hope for, and I have to go find someone else who needs adventures just like we've had."
"But you're my friend!"
"You'll make many friends. Friends who won't disappear as you get older like me."
"I'm still not that old! I'm only seven."
"No, but you're old enough to have adventures without me."
"But- but did I rescue you? Like Spider-Man?"
"You did; exactly like Spider-Man!"
Roan took this to heart and left Sylvan Glade with a smile, returning the stuffie shell of his friend, Peter Parker, to his spot next to the bed when he came home.
Lavender and Roan were doing better emotionally, but seventeen-year-old Ash was still struggling following his breakup with Scotti - mostly at school, where he was forced to see her every weekday.
Instead of moving on from the end of their relationship, Scotti always found a way to be in the same place that he was - whether he was working out in the basement or practicing programming, or enduring cram sessions with their classmates in the lunchroom.
He wasn't interested, but Scotti was convinced she still had a shot as long as he was still single. At least this was easier to deal with than being completely on her bad side; ignoring her was easier than he thought.
His teachers encouraged him to consider early graduation because the genius was no longer challenged by the curriculum, but he still didn't feel ready to think about college.
He'd received an email about meeting his new guidance counselor after Career Day, resolving to talk to them about his future after listening to various presentations in the auditorium.
He paid particular attention to the presentation by his Aunt Suri's grandmother, Clara Bjergsen, a renowned baker and skilled chef who was still working hard, even as a widow in her late 70s.
Ash liked cooking and he was pretty good at it, and he'd always liked famous chefs like his first celebrity crush, Dulce Alegria, but he was still set on a career at Landgraab Engineering like his grandfather, Geoffrey.
Just before the end of the day, he studied in the new guidance counselor's office while he waited to meet them.
It wasn't common to get new guidance counselors, but the email said Mrs. Helena Gordon would be thrilled to meet him. On her name alone, he was more than intrigued - especially since he'd spent years trying to coax Helena and Stephen Gordon out of her graves again in Myshuno Meadows.
Now that Lavender had quit violin, he was sure he'd lost his opportunity to connect with them, but the only Helena Gordon he knew had been a high school guidance counselor before her death; with his abilities, he was certain this was more than a coincidence.
The door to the office opened with a click and Ash looked up from his textbook.
A woman with lavender-coloured hair smiled as she stood over her desk. "Ash Landgraab. My name is Mrs. Helena Gordon, and I'm your new guidance counselor."
"I know who you are," he said. "You're Conrad's mother." ->
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