Note: I actually read a book a while back and one of the points really resonated with me on a personal level, and ta-da! Story. This is actually a two-shot, because it got too long for me to feel good about posting as one piece. This first part is more canon-centric, sort of outlining the development of Gray and Erza's friendship, and then the second part is where the other stuff comes in. You might be able to figure out where I'm going with this X)
It was something about the water. Erza couldn't put her finger on what exactly it was, but something about the water called her, drew her in. Maybe part of it had to do with the Tower. Not that she had ever had the time or opportunity to play in the water while enslaved there, but it was on an island. It wasn't much, but… Now that she was cut adrift from everything she had ever known, stranded in a world where she knew no one and didn't truly belong, maybe even such a simple thing could be comforting.
Although she owed Fairy Tail's master a great debt, she still found herself shying away from the guild. Being around other people made her uneasy, especially when she didn't know any of them. And they were all really weird. Not that being weird made them bad, but…
Maybe one day she would fit in with them, but not now. Now she was still stuck between two worlds, halfway between the Tower and this guild. Her future was uncertain, and she was facing the unknown every day. It might be better to move on and try to put the past behind her, but the hurt was still too raw, and sometimes she needed to grieve on her own and escape the confines of the guild.
On those days, she usually ended up at the river. It was peaceful and serene, something that the guild was not, and she could be alone for a moment. She would sit at the edge of the water and let her thoughts drift, mourning the friends she had lost and plotting impossible ways to save them, dreaming of returning to the Tower to bring freedom to those within, wondering what had happened to Jellal and how she could turn him back into the boy she had once known.
When she cried her tears, she felt at one with the river, the waters mingling together. Once or twice she had waded out into the water, small feet planted firmly among the slippery pebbles as the current twisted and twined about her. She felt like an island then, her own Tower in the river even though she had been exiled from the real one.
But mostly she just sat on the bank and watched the water flow on by without her, mourning the fact that she and her friends had been separated and dragged off by different currents. Sometimes the water soothed her after a while, but mostly she found solace in the silent understanding she seemed to have with it that they were, in that moment, one and the same.
She wasn't sure if that entirely explained why she was always drawn to the river, but maybe it was irrelevant. She always found her way here, and that was that.
And then one day, things changed.
She had been feeling melancholy, missing Jellal and the others and her stolen future, so she had wandered back to the river again. It was a nice day, warm and sunny and bright, but she sat with her knees drawn to her chest and her head bowed as tears gathered in her good eye. She was the island again today, and as much as she liked to be alone, it was so, so lonely.
Then she heard footsteps tramping through the grass behind her and a voice calling out, "There you are! Today's the day I'm going to beat you!"
She was so startled that she turned automatically. The weird, violent boy with the annoying stripping habit—Gray—was bounding over to her, but suddenly stopped short, an almost panicked look flashing across his face. It would have been amusing, if he hadn't just stumbled on her crying, and if she didn't want anything more than to be alone right now.
Pulling herself to her feet, Erza swiped a hand across her eye. "You again? You just never learn, do you?" Dropping her hand, she gave him a hard look and settled into a defensive stance. "Well, come on, then. Why don't you try?"
There was a long pause as he stared at her with wide, uncertain eyes. "Ah… No…"
"What?" She raised an eyebrow scornfully. "You surrendering already?"
That was a bit odd, given his penchant for fighting and violence. That boy didn't know how to give up or stay down.
He didn't reply, and she could practically see the agony of indecision in his eyes. He really looked like he'd rather just turn tail and flee, and she even thought that she saw a hint of fear in his eyes and in the way he carried himself. But maybe she was imagining things.
"Why…? Why are you always alone?" he asked finally.
She blinked at him in surprise and then looked away, the smallest of melancholy half-smiles ghosting across her face. "I prefer being alone. Being around other people makes me uneasy."
"If you like being alone so much…" He took a deep breath, his hands curling into fists by his sides, and his eyes hardened. "If you like being alone so much, then why are you crying?"
Erza's breath caught in her throat, and she stared at him wide-eyed. She didn't understand this boy, didn't understand what he wanted from her or why he was acting this way now. But his words, they hurt. They hurt because there was so much truth lurking underneath the surface. She wanted to be alone yet she didn't, she found solace in being on her own yet felt desperately lonely. There was really no way to win.
Gray scowled and stomped over, dropping to sit cross-legged in the grass beside her. His body language screamed of awkwardness, but he just glowered out at the river, not looking back at her.
"Don't you want a fight?" Erza asked, staring down at him in bemusement.
"No," he snapped. "Later. I'll beat you later."
Erza swallowed hard. Silence reigned for a long time, Gray sitting like a pained, angry sentry in the grass and Erza standing awkwardly beside him, unsure of how to respond. In the end, she didn't respond at all.
The two children stared out at the river rather than at each other, no words passed between them, but the uncomfortable atmosphere gradually began to dissipate little by little. They weren't exactly friends but, for this moment, there was a truce.
When Erza had finally had enough, she turned and walked away without a word, leaving Gray glowering out over the water. But she paused, glancing back as she realized that for those few minutes, her island had been a lot less lonely.
.
It was something about the water. Gray couldn't put his finger on what exactly it was, but something about the water called him, drew him in. He wasn't stupid—he knew that a good part of it had to do with her. It had drawn her in too, and now it was calling him next. It terrified him, although he'd never admit it.
As such, he avoided the river as much as possible. If he had to walk past then sometimes it would arrest his attention for a moment before he forcibly dragged his eyes away, but he could usually resist temptation. But there were times when he did venture down to lurk on the banks and look out at the water with wary eyes. Those were usually the days when he couldn't stand to be around the guild anymore, when it was getting to be too much or the memories were closing in. Being around other people made him uneasy and awkward and irritable, and sometimes he just had to get away and be alone.
He liked to be alone. Sort of. The people who he wanted to be with were dead, anyway, so the next best thing was to be alone. But sometimes he'd cautiously approach the river, if only because it made him feel a little closer to her. It wasn't much, but it wasn't like he had much else of her left. It wasn't comforting, not really, but it was something.
He was usually careful not to get too close, not to touch the water, but occasionally his resolve would slip. Once or twice he had waded out into the river and stood there for a long time, the stones smooth and slimy against the soles of his feet, the water tepid and murky as it pulled at his clothing hungrily and swirled around him. Those were days for imagining. He imagined what it would have been like, why it would have happened, what might happen if he lost his footing and went under.
And when he'd finished imagining, often hours later, he would clamber back up the bank with pruney, wrinkled fingers, shivering from anything but the cold. Those times scared him, so he'd usually stay away from the river for a long time, no matter how insistently it called him or how lonely he felt.
He had other places to go when he needed to mourn. He had dozens of people to grieve for, and he carried that sadness around with him wherever he went. He didn't need to go to the river for that.
And it was better that way, since he would rather stay away. Looking out at that water made him antsy and nervous. Nothing good ever came of the water.
So if he had really been paying attention that day, he might have aborted his mission to find Erza ahead of time. He really just wanted to fight her because she was standoffish and annoying and he was sad and bitter, and it seemed like as good a way as any to pass the time. He would be sad today either way, but at least fighting would take his mind off things. It was better to get worked up and find the anger, because it would crowd out stupid stuff like grief and heartache, at least for a few minutes.
He had been so caught up in his search that he ignored the river entirely until Erza turned, tears shimmering in the eye not covered by that strange white patch. It stopped him right in his tracks because he had never seen her cry before and didn't know what to do about it, and then he suddenly became aware of the river right behind her. It wasn't like he hadn't noticed it there—he wasn't blind—but he hadn't paid it any mind because it wasn't the object of his attention today.
But Erza had just been sitting there, staring out at it, crying, and suddenly that made him nervous. Not scared, not when he barely knew this girl and didn't even like her much. But… Okay, maybe just a little scared, just for a moment.
He didn't know what to do, but he certainly couldn't fight her now. Even though he certainly wasn't friends with Erza and this whole situation was putting him on edge, he still had the presence of mind to know that he didn't want her to be hurting enough to cry. He realized that she must have demons in her past too. It wasn't really a startling revelation—everything from the patch on her eye to her skin-and-bones body to her wariness of people screamed that her past hadn't been all sunshine and roses—but it made him look at her with new eyes.
He was used to hurting and it had changed him, made him into someone bitter and angry at the world, and he didn't want to see that happen to anyone else. They weren't friends, not really, but he didn't want to see her cry.
Instead, he sat himself down by the river and glared out at it. He didn't really have anything he could give to Erza besides his company—which she probably didn't want, but too bad for her—so that was what he would give. And anyway, he didn't feel like he could just walk away when she was like this at the river. He didn't really expect anything to happen, but it didn't hurt to be cautious.
If she wanted him to leave then she didn't say so, and he had no intention of abandoning his duty as sentry until she had left the river behind. She stayed for several minutes longer before finally walking away, silent except for her boots clumping up the bank.
Gray sat there for a long time after she had left. His awkward irritation melted into more of a tired melancholy, his crossed legs slowly retreated up to his chest so that he could hug them tightly, and he stared out at the water, imagination and memory working overtime. It was something about the water, and something about that girl.
Since he couldn't make himself leave, he sat there until the sun started to sink and the sky was shot through with hues of orange and purple melting into a bloody red, reflecting that the entire encounter had somehow made him feel even more alone.
Something shifted after that first riverside meeting. It happened gradually, slowly bleeding into every corner of Erza's life and changing it for the better. The most obvious change was that Gray was less overtly hostile towards her, and no longer challenged her to nearly as many fights. They didn't become best friends overnight, but they were slowly learning to tolerate each other's quirks and company. It was funny how the most unfriendly boy, the one who had been possibly her least favorite guild member, was the person who somehow became her first real friend outside of the Tower.
Erza still felt the urge to go sit out by the river when she needed to get away, but it was never the same after that. For one, Gray always seemed to track her down. She had no idea how he did it, but it was like he always knew when she was slinking off to her hiding place. She could count on him showing up four out of every five times, usually within half an hour or so of her escape.
They never really talked about it, but every encounter was laced with silent understanding. Sometimes Gray would just sit with Erza until she felt up to facing the world again. Sometimes, once they had grown a little older and matured a little more, they would talk about anything and everything, and Gray could almost always pull a smile or two out of Erza eventually. Once or twice she had completely lost it and cried on him, but those instances were never spoken of again—he just held her until she was finished, then gave her whatever words, funny or thoughtful or empathetic, that he could come up with. Usually he managed to say the right thing.
Erza had quickly learned that if she really, truly wanted to be alone, it was better not to go to the river at all. Gray's magic locator power only seemed to work where the river was concerned. But when Erza was too lonely to want to be alone or knew that she would be better off with his company even though she felt like she wanted to hide from the world, she went to the river instead. He always came for her, whenever it was important.
And when it wasn't important, too. To be honest, Erza sometimes went to the river when she wanted company but was too proud to ask for it, and Gray would come. She wasn't always in a bad mood—sometimes she just wanted to hang out or talk or get out of the confines of the guild for a few minutes. Although Gray never brought it up, Erza suspected that he knew what she was doing. Something about the amused glimmer in his eyes told her that he knew he was being summoned.
Funny, but he had become much better at reading people once he had finally started letting go of some of that anger and bitterness he'd held onto so tightly as a child. Sometimes Erza wondered what had happened to make him that way, but he never pried into her past so she left his alone. It was a silent understanding they had.
Erza was grateful for it, she really was. She had felt a lot less lonely once Gray had started worming his way into her life, and the call to the river had become less a call to sadness than a call to him. It was nice how the initial awkwardness had melted into a companionable routine, and it meant a lot that she knew she could count on him.
Sometimes she liked to test the boundaries of his magic detector powers a bit, though. It was something of a game, as she tried to figure out when he would or wouldn't find her, discover what his secret was. So far, she was coming up empty. If he was in town and not running off by himself on a job somewhere, then he'd almost always find her, and she could see no reliable pattern in the times when he didn't.
Today she had just finished up a week-long job, and, instead of stopping by the guild or dorm, she had headed straight for the river, dropped her luggage on the grass beside her, and sat down to wait. She was exhausted from all the fighting she'd done, but she didn't feel like sleeping yet even though she was too tired to want to brave the guild. No, the guild was way too high energy for her right now, especially if Gray and Natsu were hanging around.
She had been waiting for nearly forty-five minutes now, and was starting to wonder if this was one of the rare times that she'd managed to sneak under Gray's radar. Since he didn't know that she was back from her job yet, she wasn't entirely surprised. She was half triumphant that she had managed to fool him, and half disappointed because she missed his company.
She was starting to consider calling it a day and heading home when she heard footsteps behind her. Turning, she shook her head and chuckled as she saw Gray picking his way down the bank, hands shoved in his pockets and dark eyes glittering smugly.
"How do you always manage to find me?" Erza asked, a smile tugging at her lips as he sat down beside her.
"Now, now, Erza, I can't give away all my secrets that easily." Gray gave her a lazy grin and a wink. "It's so much more thrilling with the intrigue and mystery. I'm afraid you'd tire of me without it."
Erza just laughed. Maybe she did like that little hint of intrigue. It was a mysterious curiosity, and she found that she liked her image of Gray with a secret magic ability used only for her. She was sure that the real reason behind it would be something far more mundane, but she could ignore that if it remained cloaked in secrecy.
"So," Gray said, "your job took a while, huh?"
She wrinkled her nose. "You don't say. I would have been done days ago if everyone else wasn't so incompetent."
He coughed to hide a laugh, but his eyes sparkled. "And you didn't even bother dropping by the guild to say hi? If I didn't know better, I'd think that you didn't like us anymore."
"Yeah, yeah," she said, rolling her eyes. "I figured you'd show up here eventually. You most always do."
"I come when my lady beckons," Gray said lightly, bending his torso in a mocking bow as a smirk spread across his face.
"Such a gentleman."
"You betcha."
"So, my dear gentleman, what decidedly ungentlemanly things have you been getting up to in my absence? How much trouble has the guild gotten into now?"
"Oh ye of little faith, you wound me." Gray sighed dramatically, his hand fluttering over his chest. Erza just rolled her eyes. "Well, I was on a job for part of it. Other than that… There's a new hole in the guild's ceiling, but it's been patched up. Natsu did it."
"I think you meant to say, 'Natsu did it with my help because we were fighting again since you weren't here to stop us'."
He gave her a look of injured innocence. "That hurts, Erza."
"Am I wrong?"
"Well…no, but it wasn't nice of you to assume."
Erza grinned. Some things never changed. The banter lifted her spirits and made some of the weariness fall away.
"So, are you coming back to the guild?" Gray asked, a more serious light entering his eyes for the briefest of seconds as he looked her up and down like he was double-checking that he hadn't noticed that something was wrong.
"Yeah, yeah, later." Erza waved a hand dismissively and he ceased his scrutiny, satisfied. "I'd just like to enjoy the last few minutes of peace and quiet before I have to deal with all you wild beasts again. It's nice out today."
"It is," Gray agreed. "But I resent being called a beast."
"Please. You know you deserve it."
"Ouch," he said, but he was smiling.
They sat in companionable silence, and Erza basked languidly in the warm sunlight, smiling as a light breeze danced past and tugged at her hair. Then her eyes fell on the river, and she straightened up suddenly.
"It would be a perfect day for swimming!" she announced, her eyes lighting up at the prospect. "The river looks so nice today."
If she hadn't turned to look at Gray, she would have missed the way his eyes flicked toward the river, unease and something like fear sparking in them. It was gone again within half a second, and he glanced back at her with a disinterested gaze and shrugged.
"Eh, I'm not really feeling it. Count me out."
"But it would be fun," she wheedled.
"Nah, that's okay. Go ahead if you want. I'm sure you can have plenty of fun without me."
Erza pouted for a moment, before a more serious question tugged at the corners of her mind. This wasn't the first time she had seen apprehension in Gray's eyes when he looked at the river, and she wasn't sure why.
"Why are you so afraid of the water?" she asked before she thought better of it.
Gray's expression immediately closed off, and Erza knew she had gone too far and broken their silent truce.
"I'm not scared of it," he said shortly, turning away to look out at the river again.
Erza should stop pressing him, but she'd already broached the subject and she wanted to know.
"Did you almost drown or something?" she asked. "One time I almost did, and it scared me enough that I didn't go back in the water for weeks. If that makes you nervous then it's okay."
Gray's eyes narrowed. "Not really," he said, his words clipped.
Erza opened her mouth to guess again, but then slowly closed it. The once jovial and companionable atmosphere had become heavy and strained, and she didn't want to make it even worse.
"Sorry," she said, subdued, wishing she hadn't made him uncomfortable when he'd come all the way down here for her. "We don't have to swim."
"It's fine," he said moodily, eyeing the water like it might bite him. "Go ahead and swim if you want to. Don't let me spoil your fun."
"Nah, that's okay. It wouldn't be the same without you. The river is kind of our thing."
Gray looked back over, dark eyes silently assessing her, then gave her a small smile and nodded. Erza let out her breath in relief, recognizing that her olive branch had been accepted. Gray had gotten the message, and in exchange he was willing to overlook her faux pas.
"So," Gray said, giving her a conspiratorial wink, "how did your job go, then? Must've really been something to tire you out so much. You look like you can barely keep your eyes open."
So Erza launched into her tale, railing indignantly against the incompetent mayor and townspeople. Gray listened and laughed along, occasionally inserting a snarky comment of his own. But Erza could only keep going for so long because she was exhausted, and the warm sun was making her sleepy and lethargic. She'd meant to drop her stuff off at Fairy Hills and then go to the guild, she really had, but Gray was right and she could barely keep her eyes open.
Erza eventually lost the fight and drifted off to sleep, snuggled up to Gray and resting her head against his shoulder, knowing that only the most pleasant dreams could make it through the barrier of love and warmth that Gray had constructed around her.
.
Something shifted after that first riverside meeting. It happened gradually, slowly bleeding into every corner of Gray's life and changing it for the better. Once he had glimpsed Erza's demons, it was hard to view her with the same contempt and hostility as before. That change was a slow one, but it was helped along by the later riverside encounters.
Because Erza had continued going to the river, and Gray couldn't make himself leave her there alone. He didn't really expect anything to happen, but he still tracked her down just in case. At first, he mostly just sat with her in silence, keeping a watchful eye on her and the river, a guard but not a confidante.
As Erza and the others began worming their way into his heart and slowly melting all the barriers he had constructed to keep them out, his bitterness and anger started fading away. The sadness stayed, it would always stay, but the departure of the blind rage made room in his heart for the guild.
He began finding better ways to handle Erza and her moods, better ways to read her so that he knew how best to approach the situation. He learned when it was better to stay silent and offer only his company, and when she needed words instead. The words were the hardest, because he was always terrified that he would say the wrong thing. He had never been good with words.
And then he began noticing that she had turned this into more of a game. Not a silly game, not when it still had such solemn underpinnings, but there were times he would find her at the river but she wouldn't be unhappy. It had puzzled him at first, until he realized that she was using it as a way to get his attention for any and every purpose. She called him, so he came.
He had begun monitoring Erza's riverside activities after that first meeting. He'd glance at the river automatically whenever he walked past, no longer because it called him but because he was checking to make sure that she wasn't there. If she disappeared for too long, he would drop by the river to see if she was there.
He could often tell by her behavior and body language if she was feeling down enough to run off. And in any case, the guild was full of nosy busybodies. Normally that might be annoying, but it was useful if he was trying to figure out where Erza had gone—he knew all the right questions to ask to get the information he needed without arousing suspicions. Erza seemed to think that he had picked up some secret magic ability to know when she was at the river, but the truth was far more mundane: he had become more observant.
But if she wanted it to be a game, if she wanted to call him, then he would come for her.
And then one day, their roles were suddenly reversed.
Galuna was…hard. Lyon and his schemes had dragged up all of Gray's memories and broken dreams and fears.
The others fell asleep quickly, exhausted from their long day, but Gray was unable—and unwilling—to sleep when he knew that the nightmares would come as soon as he closed his eyes. They had haunted him as a child and occasionally come back to torment him throughout the years, and he knew with terrible certainty that they would be back for him tonight.
Instead of submitting to that fate, he crept out of the hut, ghosted through the demon village, and found a place to sit by the seashore. The rolling waves gleamed faintly in the moonlight, and Gray thought about Ur's remains washing out to sea. In a way, it felt like she had just died all over again.
A pebble clattered down the rocky ground behind him, and he started in surprise, looking back to see Erza picking her way towards him. Gray had thought everyone was asleep, but apparently not. Fantastic. Turning back to the dark waters lapping at the rocks, Gray hunched his shoulders and waited. He would honestly prefer to be alone, but it wasn't like he could just tell her to leave.
Erza settled by his side and remained silent for several long minutes. Gray relaxed a little. Company wasn't so bad if it was silent and not pushy.
He wondered if Erza had also realized the grim irony of their usual roles being reversed. He wondered if she felt like he was calling her here, in the same way that he felt like she was calling him to the river. He hadn't meant to, but… Maybe on some level, he had.
"How's your hand?" Erza asked finally, clearing her throat.
Gray darted a glance over at her, to see her watching him with sad, conflicted eyes. Then his gaze dropped to his bandaged hand and he flexed it absently, the linen strips gleaming dully in the moonlight and the cuts beneath stinging and throbbing at the movement.
"It's fine. Give it a couple days and it'll be good as new."
Erza shifted uncomfortably. "Sorry about that."
"It's fine," he said again, gaze wandering back to the ocean.
"If you'd told me why you were so insistent on staying, I wouldn't have tried to stop you."
"I know," he said with a sigh. "Seriously, it's fine. I know how much you respect Jii-chan's orders, and I technically broke them. You were angry and tried to put me back in line. That's all."
Erza sighed heavily, the sound hanging in the still night air. "Yeah, but it was still a dick move."
Gray started in surprise and stared at her with wide eyes, then let out a strangled laugh. "Yeah," he said finally. "Yeah, it was. But it's okay. We were both pretty worked up, and someone was going to boil over eventually."
That Erza had actually pulled a sword on him and threatened him had been shocking and hurtful, but it wasn't like Gray could say that he didn't understand why she had been angry. And in any case, grabbing a bare blade with his hand had been a stupid move that she hadn't expected him to pull. He didn't know if his stunt had convinced her to accept his decision because it had shocked her or because she had seen how serious he was or because she respected him enough to let him go, but in the end, she had given him her support and that was enough.
Erza hummed quietly in agreement, and the two friends sat with only the murmuring of the ocean to break the silence. It lulled Gray back down into his musings, his awareness of Erza's presence gradually receding.
"I'm sorry, Gray," Erza said suddenly, her voice trembling, and he knew that this wasn't about his hand anymore. "I know it doesn't really help anything, but I'm truly sorry."
"Yeah," Gray muttered. "Thanks."
He dug his fingers into the sand reflexively, eyes narrowing. All that grief, old and new, was threatening to break free again. He was keeping it together because Erza was here, trying to tamp down and dull the pain, but everything still hurt.
"Do you–?"
"No," he interrupted. He didn't want to talk about any of it. Even the thought of opening up about it made him want to curl into a ball and cry.
"You know," said Erza after a moment, "maybe it would help more than you think it would."
He leveled a flat look at her. "No offense, but that doesn't really mean much, coming from you."
They had always gotten by with the implicit understanding that talking about pasts was off limits, and Erza was no more forthcoming than he was.
She winced. "Fair point, but…" She seemed to deflate, curling into herself as the sadness sparked back to life in her eyes. "It isn't about me this time. This is about you, Gray, and it's been a long time coming."
Gray sighed. He knew that she was just trying to help, but he really wanted no part in it.
"Sometimes it helps to remember them from before everything went wrong," Erza said when he didn't respond. "Why don't you tell me a little about your parents? Or your master?"
"I was so young, Erza. I don't remember nearly as much as I'd like to."
"There has to be something."
Gray didn't want to have this conversation, but Erza's eyes were just so earnest and pained. It killed him, how he could never really deny her anything.
"My mother was…different," he said with a sigh, his gaze drawn inexorably back to the water.
"How so?" Erza asked, the relief in her voice not quite overwhelming the melancholy.
Gray shrugged, not wanting to go there. "I don't remember that much of her, honestly. But she had the most beautiful smile, and she used to sing me lullabies when I woke up from nightmares, no matter how late it was. My dad was more level-headed, but he loved to tease and tell jokes. He made me laugh a lot, back when I was this ridiculously happy kid. I followed him around everywhere because I wanted to be just like him when I grew up." He pulled his knees to his chest as his heart clenched painfully. "They wouldn't have even recognized me, after."
"I'm sure that's not true," Erza said reasonably.
"What, you think I was born angry and bitter? No, I was different." Gray shrugged again and dropped his chin to his knees, not necessarily wanting to get into the details. "What's maybe the worst part is that my clearest memories of them are their dead bodies. Those are vivid enough that it's like they crowded out all the better memories."
There was a long pause.
"That's horrible," Erza breathed finally, her voice wavering.
Her distress dragged Gray back out of his thoughts, and he realized that he should keep better control over his tongue.
"Yeah, well." He cleared his throat awkwardly. "I remember a little more of Ur. She could be pretty no-nonsense at times, but she was always there if we needed her. She was the glue that held us together. She was…family. Or could have been, if I'd let her. I actually got my stripping habit from her, you know."
"You…what?"
"Yeah, it was part of her training technique. Gotta become one with the cold and all that. I thought she was crazy, but somehow the habit stuck. And after, I couldn't make myself lose it. It's kind of like the only thing I have left of her. Now I don't even have…"
Gray trailed off with a sigh and eyed the ocean sadly, the image of the melting of Ur's ice flashing through his mind again.
"You have her magic," Erza said quietly. "It's beautiful magic."
Gray automatically felt for that coldness inside him, let the ice fill his soul. Erza was right—it was a beautiful magic. And yes, maybe this was Ur's legacy to him. Him and Lyon.
"Lyon was different too," he mumbled, distracted by his thoughts again. "He was still pretty obsessive, but he was a lot happier before… I don't know. He reminds me of myself now, how I was back then. It's too bad."
"And when she–?"
"I don't want to talk about it." Gray hugged his knees closer, the grief threatening to swallow him whole. He had already shared far more than he'd wanted to, and talking about how he had killed Ur was too much. He'd had enough of sharing.
Erza seemed to sense that, because she backed off the topic. "Okay. Okay. But… One last thing."
"What?" he asked, his voice brittle.
"Natsu said that you…that you tried to use your iced shell spell." Erza swallowed hard. "Don't do that, Gray. It would be bad enough if you died any other way, but by your own hand… Don't do that to yourself. You shouldn't even be thinking of that. And shit, you have no idea how much that would hurt us."
Gray flinched, his eyes going glassy. "I know. I'm sorry."
Erza drew in another breath to speak, hesitated, let it out. Sensing that he was well and truly done, she just settled herself against his side, resting her head on his shoulder. They sat in silence, two small figures against a backdrop of dark sea and starry sky. Gray relaxed a little when he realized that she was finished. The silence felt better. Even though Erza wasn't talking anymore, her weight and warmth pressed against his shoulder brought him some small comfort.
They sat for a long time, and Gray realized that he might have waited too long when he noticed that Erza's breathing had deepened and evened out. Oops. He didn't want to wake her up so he stayed still, his mind playing in a tortured loop.
Finally, he sighed heavily. "Nothing good ever comes of the water," he whispered to himself.
"What do you mean?"
He started in surprise, and Erza tilted her head up to give him a questioning look.
"Geez, Erza. I thought you were asleep."
"Nope. What did you mean?"
"…Nothing."
"Because of how Ur's ice melted into the ocean?" Erza suggested after a moment. Gray's lips tightened. "Maybe it's not so bad. It's kind of like she's part of the ocean now, free and wild. If she was still alive in the ice, then why shouldn't she be alive in the water?"
Gray grimaced. "Sure, if you think she's alive. But I think that Lyon's probably right. She's been dead for a long time, and I think I always knew it. I certainly mourned her like it. I think she only told me that she'd live on so that I wouldn't feel as bad, but on some level, I always knew."
Erza didn't reply immediately, but then she let her breath out in a sigh and gently pressed her hand against Gray's chest. "Whether she's alive or not… The people you've loved and lost, you never lose them entirely. You always carry a part of them in your heart. They never just disappear, not when you carry their memories and grief with you forever. And that's sad, but it also means that you can always keep a hold of them."
Gray swallowed hard, his gaze drifting to the ocean again. He was still too afraid to touch the water, afraid that he wouldn't be able to feel Ur and it would confirm what his brain knew but his heart didn't want to accept. But either way, he already knew what it felt like to carry pieces of her in his heart: memories and grief, love and pain.
Unwrapping one arm from his knees, he grasped Erza's hand gently and pulled it away from his chest, staring down at their joined hands. "Yeah," he said hoarsely. "Yeah, you're right."
"And you still have lots of other people, too," she whispered, curling into his side again. "We're here. If you call us, we'll come."
Gray bowed his head and blinked back tears. Yeah. Yeah, that was true too.
"You should go in and get some sleep," he said quietly, instead of responding.
"Are you?" Erza asked. When he didn't answer, she sighed softly. "I'll stay."
Something in her voice told Gray that arguing would be pointless. He didn't think he could stand to go back to the stuffy confines of the hut, even though he thought it was selfish to keep Erza out here. But for now he'd be a little selfish and hang on to her company.
He could tell when she really did fall asleep this time, her breath tickling his skin as she sighed in her sleep and huddled closer. Gray carefully wriggled back several inches so that he could lean against the boulder behind him and stretch out his limbs. Once settled, he gently slid Erza so that she was sleeping with her head on his chest rather than perched uncomfortably on his shoulder.
Draping an arm around her, Gray spent the rest of the night staring out blankly at the darkened ocean, imagining and remembering and grieving as he fought to keep the nightmares at bay.
emmahoshi: Aw, I'm always making you Google things for my stories XD Sorry lol Yup, Ophelia is from Hamlet, and she and the third person from our summary have to do with part two. On being alone, I think people who say that are really of two minds. I tend to prefer being alone when I can, but at the same time there's always a part of me that doesn't want that, and the thought of being totally alone in the world is rather frightening. So I think it's a little of both. And no, no one actually said anything to Gray about iced shell in canon, aside from Natsu while it was happening -_- Yeah, I still prefer Gray/Natsu and Gray/Lyon friendships, but I also have a soft spot for Gray/Erza. I guess at this point I'd started branching out to other people—you might notice that Natsu has featured less prominently in the last few stories, even though he was almost always a key player in my earlier ones X) At some point, I'll go back to him.