It had been a busy day in the guildhall. Mira's ears still felt like they were ringing with the previous sounds that had filled the hall. Now, completely empty, there were only echos that followed her footsteps as she swept up around the place. Lisanna was supposed to stay around to help with closing that day, but she'd begged to go off with Natsu, Lucy, and Happy, and her sister didn't want to deny her that. Mira even let Kinana off early, as well, opting to close up alone.

There was something so...calming and tranquil about it all. Being in the guildhall alone. It didn't feel as homey as it once had, in the first incarnation of the Fairy Tail building she'd grown up with, but something about the current one was nice too.

She was pretty sure she'd like it if it was just a tiny shack.

An essence enveloped the whole grounds, Mirajane felt. She couldn't quite chalk it up to the nostalgia of youth as she'd felt that way the first time she'd crossed the iron gates that surrounded the property as a teenager. It just felt like the exact place that she was meant to be.

From outside then, Mirajane saw through the windows of the guildhall large streaks of lightning travel across the sky before, with a boom of thunder and crackle of static dissipating right outside, the guildhall doors were open and there stood Laxus Dreyar.

They stared at one another, for a few moments, though, with a sigh, just as quickly Mirajane was back to sweeping.

"What?" the slayer grumbled at the lack of reaction. "Mira? No hug? No kisses? No-"

"You're," she told him simply, "late."

"I was on a job."

"I got the completion for the job over a month ago, Lax. Did you forget about that? When a mage completes the job, the guild gets a confirmation-"

"I didn't forget shit," he said simply as he came further into the hall. "I just had some other stuff to attend to while I was out."

"Uh-huh."

"Important things."

"More important than your girlfriend? Who you know will be worried about you?"

"What was there to worry about?" he challenged back without answering. He was coming over to her then, the guild doors shutting with loud bangs behind him. "Huh? I'm the greatest fucking wizard to ever grace Earthland with his presence. Who could ever hurt me?"

"Maybe," Mira remarked, deciding then not to even touch the aspect of narcissism in his comment, "that's not what I was worried about."

He was before her now and, for a long moment, the pair only stared at one another. Mira was giving him something of a glare, but Laxus only stood there, waiting for it to pass. When it didn't seem like it would, he decided that he had to be the one to initiate and reached out to wrap his arms around the woman.

"Mira-" he complained as she turned from him.

"No, Laxus," she said with a frown, ducking his advance. "Now I'm the one with something more important to do."

She was playing some sort of game, he was nearly certain, but he was too tired to figure it out. And, dropping the knapsack on his shoulder to the wooden floor, he said, "Can I at least go take a soak? As you finish closing up?"

Mira shrugged and that was with him because he did need a good bath. If she had hugged and gave some love to him, she'd have probably regretted it.

Life on the road was rough.

Especially when you're gone for so long.

She'd have gotten a full face of stink. Better for him to get a bit cleaner before that happened.

Mirajane continued to clean as if he wasn't there though the fact that he was hanging around never left her mind. She thought about what that would mean for the rest of her night, when he'd be finished up in the bath house, if he was expecting her to cook him dinner at the hall or go back home, was she going to cook for him at all. He'd taken all her drive and ruined her focus.

If she wasn't secretly so happy to see her, she might have been upset.

When she finally decided it was time to go check on him in the bath house, she found him still soaking in the tub, not even glancing up at the sound of her shoes against the tile in the flooring.

"Are you gonna stay in here all night?"

"It's only been, like, ten minutes."

"It's been thirty."

"I'm preparing myself," he told her as, finally, a lazy eye opened and, glancing her up and down, he remarked, "You could always join me."

"Don't be gross."

"You know you want to."

"You've been gone for two and a half months-"

"Who's counting?"

"-and you have nothing to say for yourself about it and I just thought that we were past that, Laxus, but apparently-"

"I was teasing you, demon." And, finally, he stopped lounging back in the tub and sat up some, both eyes maintaining contact with hers then as he stared up at the woman. "Of course I was doing something important."

"What was it? Because it wasn't related to your job."

"Clearly not."

"Then-"

"But it's also not something that I want to tell you about."

"Laxus-"

"Yet," he defended. "Just yet. Gosh, Mirajane, what do you think I was doing? Huh? Out cheating on you or something?"

"I don't know, because you're not telling me."

"I was taking care of business."

"Business," she repeated slowly. "What sort of business could you possibly have to take care of?"

"I'm an important man, Mira."

"Laxus-"

"In the morning," he told her then with a bit more serious tone, "you're going to take off and you're going to come with me. To see what I did."

"And if I don't?"

"Then what, Mira? You don't. But you'll never know. And I know you can't take that sort of temptation."

He was right, of course. Mirajane could cut someone out of her life like it was nothing, but if they had some sort of tidbit of gossip or information that she craved, there was no way that she was going to let it slip through her fingers. This held true when, though she refused to come home with him that night, she arrived bright and early the next morning at Laxus' doorstep, all ready for their day out.

"The train?" she asked when they arrived at the station. "Are you sure, dragon? Is that far away? I wouldn't think that you would want to-"

"If there were literally any other option," he grumbled as he bought their tickets, "I would take it. But my Lightning Body Magic could only get us so far."

"We're going that far away?"

"Yep," he said with a sharp nod of his head. "We are."

Laxus hunkered down on the train, contemplating his life and all that encompassed while Mirajane only watched the scenery go by, wondering just where her boyfriend was taking her.

It was a little nothing town that they arrived at though Mirajane saw much construction going on as Laxus led her down mostly dirt roads. She questioned him frequently what they were doing there, but he only ignored her or outright told her to hush; she'd know soon enough.

When they arrived at a rundown building on the edge of the tiny town, she only made a face at him.

"What is this place?" she asked with a frown.

"This," he said simply as he nodded towards it, "is my new home."

For a moment, Mirajane was silent. Then she kind of laughed. Looking at Laxus' face though, she saw that this was the wrong thing.

"Dragon, I'm sorry, I thought you were joking."

"Why would I joke about something like this?"

"Well-"

"Come on." He was walking further onto the grounds then, towards the building. "Come look inside."

"Laxus, this isn't even a home," Mirajane complained a bit. "I mean, I never took you for some sort of architect. Are you going to remodel? And why here? So far from Magnolia? From Fairy Tail? Why are you-"

"It's not a...house," he told her as, at the door of the place, he fished out a key from his pocket to unlock the heavy door. As Mira's breath caught a bit, when she saw inside, he explained further, "It's a guildhall."

And it was rundown. To the bones. At the sudden amount of light no longer just being filtered through the the cracked and stained windows, but actually flooding the place from the open door, critters of all shapes and sizes fled to the shadows, but neither Mirajane nor Laxus paid them any mind. As Mirajane's hands came up to cover her mouth, he stepped further into it, turning to face her.

"This," he told her simply, "is Dragon's Roar."

"Laxus..."

"I've always wanted this, Mirajane, and I'm not getting any younger. I mean, I know that I'm young to be a Master, fine, but that's what you need to be, when you're first starting out and I know that Gramps, he thinks that I… I don't want that guild. I don't want Fairy Tail. Not anymore. I'll always love it and I'll always look out for it, but it's time for me to become my own man. I can't do that in his shadow. I don't want something handed to me or to take it from somebody. Let Erza or Gildarts or even fucking Salamander have it. I don't care. It's time for me to go my own way." Then, with a grin not typically associated with the man, his whole face lit up as he said, "I'm gonna accomplish my dream."

For a long few moments, she only stood there, staring at him. Then, her eyes watering a bit, she whispered, "This is… Laxus, that's so wonderful."

Nodding a bit, he said, "I've bought it already, but I'm, obviously, going to have to spend some time fixing the place up and getting all the paperwork in order. Then I'll officially terminate myself from Fairy Tail and sell my apartment there. I'm sure Freed and Ever and Bickslow will follow me. I don't expect anyone else to, really, but I know some people from my travels that might show up. And this town is tiny now, but it's growing. Every day. It'll take a few years, even a decade, maybe, but this is going to be everything one day. I don't fail at things, Mirajane, I only learn. And I've learned enough to make this come true. I-"

"Laxus," she whispered because when he got like this, when he got so far into his own self, it was hard to get him to stop, "what about...us?"

That got him silent. But only momentarily.

"I was saving all that money up, you know, for… I was going to ask you if you would… And I wanted to give you a big wedding and all that shit that I'm sure you're into."

"Shit's a bit harsh."

"But… Mirajane," he said as, once more, he took steps closer to her, leaves that had gotten in through cracks and holes onto the crumple in dryness on the dirty floor crunching and disintegrating as he headed closer, "I'm not saying that you don't deserve everything you want. Or that, eventually, I won't be able to give it to you. But I'd been thinking about this for so long and...and I know that I should have talked to you first. But I wanted to surprise you."

"Well, I'm surprised, but-"

"Because I want you to come with me." Back to her then, he reached out to gently cup her cheek. Marianne didn't move away, but certainly didn't lean into the caress either. "I want this to become our place. And I know that I'm asking a lot and that you don't want to leave Fairy Tail, probably, but I planned for you to come with me. To help me with this. And...your siblings too, if they want it. We'll do this together, me and you."

"Laxus..."

"I know that you help Gramps a lot right now with the guild and I'm not asking you to stop that. I'll talk to him. About what I'm doing. And you can help him in his final months as I get everything ready for us both to move on. Then, after he passes the reigns onto someone else, me and you will leave or you can even stay on, for a bit, to help whoever it is get things settled, but then you come with me. To my guild." His hand moved to beneath her chin then as he lifted her head so that their eyes met. "To our guild."

Her blue eyes glistening, Mirajane felt a lot of emotions all at once. Mostly though, she just felt the words slipping out of her mouth as she said, "Yes, Laxus. Of course. This is...so much, but-"

"There's a room, up on the second level, and we can live in it. Or I am. When I'm here, fixing things up and-"

"Elfman," she finally whispered, "is great at this sort of stuff. Lifting things and building them. He'll definitely help you, you know? And Lisanna. And then your Thunder Legion and this is real, isn't it? Laxus?"

Slowly, he nodded before saying, "Don't feel like it to me either."

"You're gonna be a guild master."

"I am," he said with a bit of a smile.

They didn't go back to Magnolia that day. Rather, they checked into the motel that Laxus had frequented for that month and a half he was away, sorting all of this out. Hardly leaving the room, both spoke candidly about their feelings over the whole thing with Laxus determinedly adding just who he'd be marketing his guildhall towards.

"I'm going to have the strongest guildhall in the world, Mira," he whispered to her late that night as she rested against his chest, smiling sleepily up at him. "I'll put my everything into this. And then, once it's successful, we'll get married. I promise you that. Just stick with me for a bit longer and I'll take care of you for the rest of our lives. We'll rule together. Won't we?"

"Mmmmm," she hummed softly as she traced the tribal design on his pec, including the Fairy Tail emblem by memory. Soon enough, that's exactly what it would be; a memory. "And we're gonna have so many babies, too, right?"

"Of course. How could we not? Let my genetics go to waste? Never."

"That'll be our perfect life."

Nodding his head a bit, Laxus agreed, "Our perfect life."

For a few moments, they were both silent, but just as Mirajane finished her tracing and began once more, Laxus was shifting making it impossible. Her eyes, which had drifted shut, opened wide at this, staring deeply into his darker ones.

"Mira," he whispered softly though they were alone in the room, if not the motel completely, "can you tell me something?"

"Anything."

"What's your dream?"

"What?"

"Mine was this. What I'm doing right now." He let out a breath as he asked, "But what's yours?"

"I don't-"

"You never wanted to be a mage. That just happened. You never wanted to be a barmaid. That just happened to. Do you still wanna sing? You can sing at my guild, once I get it established. Do you want a family? I'm gonna give that to you too, once I get everything ready and in place and I can care for you guys. Is that all."

"Laxus-"

"I wanna know," he insisted. "If I'm making mine come true, I wanna make sure that I get yours in there too."

Mirajane thought then, hard, before saying, "You're right. When I was young, that's what I wanted. To be some sorta famous singer. And being a mage was more of a consolation for the power I had. Being a barmaid was just something to numb the fact I couldn't do that anymore and to take my mind off Lisanna. To make money while she was gone. And I do want a family, of course, but I don't know if that qualifies as a dream."

"Then what-"

"All I ever really wanted, from the time both my parents died, was to get that back."

"Get what back?"

"That feeling," she whispered as well. "They didn't have money or any chance to ever get any, but they never gave up. Even when...when the sickness… They worked every damn day, just to provide for us. But you never heard them complain. They would sit with us, their hands calloused and bruised from working the fields all day, and tell us stories or sing to us. Play with the stupid animals that Lisanna would find out in the woods around our house. I never knew how hard they ahd it. Because they didn't think that they had it hard. They were so happy, Laxus. With their life. No matter what it was. Because they had each other. And they had us. That's all the ever wanted. No matter how angry I was, after everything that's happened throughout the years, I think that deep down, that's all I've ever wanted too. It's all I want now. That's my dream. It always has been. I want to be happy like that. With someone. No matter how bad it gets or how good, to never loose sight of it."

Laxus considered this in the stoic way that he had before, slowly, leaning his head down to rest his forehead against hers.

"I'll make your dream come true, Mira," he breathed as she smiled softly, a hand reaching out to press against his guild marking. "At the same time I make mine come true. I swear to you."

"I believe you," she whispered back as his lips came to press against hers.

And they both meant it.

I've always thought of this being a far better scenario for Mirajane and Laxus to find themselves in and always wanted to write it. As time goes on in the canon, Laxus seems less interested in taking over Makarov's guildhall and, deep down, I wouldn't really want him to. I would rather him mold his own the way that he wanted as opposed to under the Fairy Tail legacy. I've never written on it simply because it's difficult to world build away from Fairy Tail when, you know, writing something for Fairy Tail. But you guys get this now, which is a taste of how I think it would originate.