This is the story of a boy and a girl who loved him very much. One day, the boy wanted to ask the girl why she loved him so much. He still remembered that night, clearer than crystal. It was a foggy January night, with the snow falling in peaceful swirls. But if he could remember anything, it was her. Her long blue hair seemed to float around her bright smile and twinkling eyes. She wore the coat he'd bought her. An ocean blue winter coat from North Face. One of the many birthday presents he'd given her during their three years together. He remembered pointing out several rare species of birds, flying around in the cold grey sky, a sight he knew she'd keep precious if she could.
"Ahem." He coughed loudly to get her attention.
"Are you okay?" she spun around, completely unaware that anything was wrong.
"I wanted to ask you, if, you know, um…" he shifted uncomfortably. Her already shining eyes sparkled from the streetlights, and she smiled.
"Yes?" And in that moment, he knew that she would be willing to do whatever he asked of her, even if it meant giving up her very life so he could avoid walking near a puddle. That was how much she cared for him, and they both knew the other knew that.
The gruff voice that called out, "Move out of the way!" confused them enough. When he looked up, all he saw was a large train, chugging along the railway, bright lights startling him like a deer in the headlights. But he was stuck. They were on train tracks, after all, and the light snow covered the path just enough to trick them into a false sense of security. And of course, Juvia tried to pull him out, but he was helplessly stuck too far to be merely pulled out.
"Gray!" tears began to well up in her navy blue eyes as she tugged helplessly on his hand. "Gray!"
"Go! Leave me!" he begged, desperately trying to push her away to safety, but she refused to leave his side. He had a feeling she would stay.
As the headlights approached, she knocked him to the ground. He knew that she realized that doing so wouldn't spare him, but she surprised him by saving him with what she did next. She threw herself on top of him with tears that began to stream down her cheeks like rivers. "Juvia is sorry, Gray-sama." She whispered. But the steady "WHOO-WHOO" of the train had cut her off as she tried to tell him the three words he'd never told her. "Juvia lov-"
And then Gray woke up, years after the incident, in a large, empty white room in an empty white bed, with an empty white cabinet beside him, groaning at the sick twist of fate that had been pulled. "What's going on?" he asked in a panic. "Where am I? Where's Juvia? What happened to her?" a few nurses came into the room then, muttering to each other and somehow managing to ignore his flurry of desperate questions. "Why aren't you answering me?" he roared. He grabbed an empty picture frame from the bedside cabinet and hurtled it at the nurses in a furious rage. "What's going on?"
"Calm down, sir." One of the nurses muttered as her colleague grabbed a broom and dustpan to sweep up the broken glass. "Please." She added that last word as an afterthought, and he knew that it was a command, not a suggestion. He reluctantly obeyed, still unsure of his environment, but as he glanced at the whispering nurses, he realized he was in a hospital. A rich, well-funded hospital, in fact, so he was obviously far from his hometown of Colorado.
"What's going on?" he demanded to know. "Where's Juvia? Tell me!"
"Mister Fullbuster, speak slowly." the nurse groaned in exasperation and rested her head in the palm of her head.
"Juvia! Where is she?" he sat up straighter in his bed, awaiting the response.
"Last name?" the nurse prodded, tapping her pen against her clipboard.
"Lockser." He informed the woman impatiently.
"I see. And when was the last time you saw her?" the nurse looked up at him from her seat by a white desk he hadn't noticed before.
"I don't know… She was with me." he moaned, fearing her disappearance, or even worse, her death.
"What is your reason of worry?" the nurse inquired. "Just security measures." She assured him.
"She's…" he paused. What was she to him, anyways? "Um… I guess you could say she's my… um… guildmate." he nodded his head affirmative to his own response.
"Let me check our files." She picked up a white telephone on the desk and dialed a few numbers. She held the phone to her ear, and after a few minutes of muffled talking, she turned back to Gray. "Well, she's being checked on now. We'll give you any updates on her welfare. Meanwhile, here's the address of the hospital she's currently at. I believe she's at a hospital in Howard County, Maryland. She should be fine; it's a well-funded hospital with lots of resources." She told him, and one of them scribbled down an address on a slip of paper and handed it to him. He sighed, and nodded reluctantly. The two nurses took out their clipboards once more and began to furiously write down notes. They turned their backs to him, whispering quietly to each other and eventually slipped out the door, leaving him to stare at the white ceiling, wondering when he would be cleared finally see Juvia again.
"Hello, Mister Fullbuster. How are you feeling today?" a doctor inquired as he stepped inside the room.
"Good. When will I be able to leave?" he asked anxiously, shifting uncomfortable beneath the white cotton blankets in anticipation.
"Soon, don't worry. You should be able to go after we check a few things, since we checked you up in the few years you were unconscious."
"Great. Thanks." He breathed a sigh of relief before the doctor's words sunk in. He began to wonder just what he had missed while he was unconscious, then pushed it aside, realizing it wasn't important enough to him to occupy his mind rather than Juvia.
"No problem." The man stood up and grinned. "So don't worry, you should be able to see Miss Lockser soon." He laughed and slipped out of the room, still chuckling as he walked down the hallway.
He waited impatiently for what seemed like an eternity before another nurse peeped her head in and murmured, "Come over and check out a few things at the front desk, and you should be good to go."
He grinned and catapulted out of the doorway and passed the nurse, bounding down the long halls to the front desk, and blurted out his information as fast as possible.
"Slow down, sir!" the secretary laughed good naturedly at his urgency to leave.
And of course he had to oblige, so he restated every ounce of information he knew they'd want while tapping his foot impatiently until the woman said, "You can go."
"Thanks!" he called over his shoulder as he darted out the automatic doors and began to run again, darting down the streets. Then he realized that he had no clue where he was. So, of course, he took the only way he knew how. (Well, they did it in movies, so it must work in real life, right?) "Taxi!" he called out, vigorously waving his arm in the air. After a few minutes of exhausting waving, a cab pulled up to the curb he was on.
"Where to?" a voice drawled from the driver's seat.
"Here." He handed the driver the slip of paper with the address, and he laughed.
"Ya sure ya got enuf money for dis trip?" he asked with a greedy glint in his eye.
"How much do you need?" he responded evenly, leaning forward in his seat.
"Nine-hun'red an' forty-two dollars. An' six'y-'dree cents." The man smirked, obviously not expecting his passenger to have that much money on him.
"Here." Gray opened his wallet and pulled out a wad of cash: his life's savings, besides the amount in the bank. He watched as the driver recounted it, and grinned.
"That's an awful lot of money to be carrying around." The driver shook his head in bewilderment. "Well then, here we go!"
One day and $942.63 later, Gray arrived at the hospital to see a man rush out of the building and towards him, asking politely, "Are you Mister Gray Fullbuster?"
"Oh! Yes." He responded dumbly, staring at the large hospital behind the man.
"Alright, come right in. A hospital down in Florida said you'd be here. You'd like to see Miss Lockser, correct?" the doctor questioned him knowingly.
"Yeah.", he responded, and couldn't help but smile. Soon, oh so very soon, he would finally be able to see Juvia. Without her, he was a goner. He realized now that she was more than just his guildmate, more than his nakama. That's why, as the doctor led him up the stairs and into Juvia's room, he felt like crying. And Gray was not a crying kind of person. In fact, he had only cried three or four times in his life. So he was definitely not the kind of person to break down and cry. She was injected with tubes from every sort of direction, with a plastic mask covering her pale face. "Will she be okay?" he managed to choke out, but the doctor could only shrug.
"We don't know. Her rib cage was cracked, and most all of her leg bones were broken. Her arm, too. She's not in a very good condition." He patted Gray's arm.
"Oh." Was all he said as he stared at her from the chair beside her bed.
"Are you still willing to take care of her no matter what? She may have some speech problems, and she's definitely going to need a wheelchair. Will you help her?"
"Of course." Gray trailed off as he realized how meaningless his life was without her. He sighed and scooted his chair closer to her as the doctor left. "I don't know if you can hear me, but I'll just tell you a story, okay? To keep you company if you can hear me. So, this is the story of a boy and a girl who loved him very much. One day, the boy wanted to ask the girl why she loved him so much. He still remembered that night clearer than crystal. It was a foggy January night, with the snow falling in peaceful swirls. But if he could remember anything, it was her. Her long blue hair seemed to float around her bright smile and twinkling eyes…"