For Mirajens.
He plays beautifully but doesn't know why. He can't remember why. The notes that flow from his fingers to the keys and hang in the air are a mystery to him. He can pick up most music easily. After studying a piece for only a moment, he can play it with painful perfection. She likes to order complicated pieces for him to challenge himself. Sheet music from all around the world litters their house. He enjoys the surprise of it.
The most complex piece, however, he can't remember ever seeing on paper. He can't remember the staff or the notes or even the fine sheets they'd surely been printed on.
But the notes. Ah, the notes.
They are a living, breathing part of him. His fingers remember something his mind cannot. And they remember it well. Sometimes snippets come to him. He can feel slender hands covering his smaller ones teaching him the order of the keys. They leave him as quickly as they come.
He plays for her almost every night and he can do it with his eyes shut. Maybe one day the memories will slink from the shadows and he'll remember not just the music but where it came from.
He doesn't mind sitting on the council. He doesn't mind chairing the council. He'll sit through meetings and sift through missives and scrolls. It's fine. Maybe this is how he can not only mend but move forward. The harm he's done can't be undone but he can do this much.
It's the parties he hates. The deliveries that come from the palace in Crocus with a dollop of wax and a seal always lodge a tight knot of anxiety in his throat. He doesn't like leaving his home now that he has one. She is too tired to travel with him this late. Her dresses don't fit and everything is wrong. She offers to go anyway but he only smiles and kisses her forehead.
"Just rest, love," he whispers.
The balls and parties are never anything special. He floats along the fringe waiting for the first opportunity to leave. Circling and circling he draws near the back hallway. His regular driver, bless him, is waiting near the stairs that lead to the service passageways. It is never surprising to find the Chairman wandering these hallways. He is known as an eccentric man who avoids crowds.
A swell of music gives him immediate pause. He would know the piece anywhere. The steep slope of the climbing sixteenth notes, the sudden crescendo, the deep foundation of the bass clef. His fingers tingle and he can't let it go. He chases the notes and his palms clam with sweat because he has never heard this music without playing it himself.
Without stopping to think he throws the door open. It's just a sitting room. There are probably many just like it in the palace. A black grand piano sits at the far end in front of a window that stretches from floor to ceiling. Her dress shimmers in the low light and her hair is flecked with grey. Slender fingers pluck away at the keys and every note tugs at him.
"That music," he says in a voice much louder than expected. "What is it?" The woman at the piano stills and her hands fall to her lap. Her shoulders straighten and she stands – not much taller than she sits. When she turns her mouth opens to speak but no words come out. "I'm sorry to have disturbed you, I was only curious."
"You," she breathes. "That mark –" She watches him as she draws closer and he thinks maybe he should be more concerned but he isn't. Her stature is not imposing in any way but she owns the room and him in it.
"Please tell me where you learned that music," he whispers, desperate. "I've never heard anyone play it but myself." When she stops in front of him, he sees it. There is something in the shape of her nose and her mouth. He remembers her fingers differently, of course, when last he saw them they were younger. So much younger.
She reaches up to touch the mark on his face and he doesn't stop her. He's never seen anyone teeter between joy and sadness besides his wife and he wonders if this is just the way he effects people.
"I can't believe it's you," she whispers. He can't help but wonder at how easily he accepts what's happening. "Of all the places to find you. And –" She steps back to take in his clothes and the medallion around his neck signifying his reinstated position as a Wizard Saint. "You've grown up, Jellal."
"I suppose I have." The hands that taught him music take his and he can see his are bigger now. Her hands fit into his entirely.
"I was so young, they told me I shouldn't be sad to have lost you. I could always have more." Her words sting but the ease comes from her tears. "I did have more but you... losing you was my greatest heartbreak."
"I forgot." Even as he says it he finds the sealed boxes in his mind. He didn't even realize they were missing and didn't know where to look. "They took me through the window." Her eyes are a deep green like his. "It was raining."
"It is always raining on Enca." Enca. The Isle of Storms. He remembers the villa with it's sloping roofs. He remembers the thick green flora that only blooms once a year. And he remembers her slender hands over his teaching him the order of the keys.
The word is heavy on his tongue. He knows it but the shape is hard and the meaning foreign. He understands it in the context of his very pregnant wife and the baby that will come soon. He understands it is a thing Erza will be but what is such a word to him?
"Mother," he whispers softly. Daringly. She peers at his hands and sees the scars and the callouses. She sees everything he's still trying to overcome. He wants to close them tightly but he doesn't want to hide who he is. "I didn't play for a long time. Slaves don't make music."
"We are not a sort easily broken," she says with ferocity.
"I –"
"It is always raining on Enca, my son." Her words startle him. My son. "It rains and it rains and it rains. But the flowers still bloom, even if only once a year. Tell me of your flowers."
He tells her about Erza and their baby and their life together and how every day is a gift because he's been in places where he's wondered if he'll have even that. More than anything he wants her to teach little fingers to play again.