•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

It was just a normal evening at the Fairy Tail guildhall. There was multiple bar brawls happening, tons of shouting along with the occasional string of swear words, and plenty of alcohol for everyone. If you moved on towards the bar where the beautiful barmaid was cleaning the counters, you would find Fairy Tail's resident ice-make mage having a heated conversation with a certain blue-haired, water mage.

"Juvia, please, I'm not interested in any of your new baking experiments!" Gray exclaimed in a very annoyed manner.

"But Gray-sama! Juvia baked these cookies especially for you!" Juvia clung to Gray with literal hearts in her eyes as she attempted to force him to eat one of the homemade cookies.

"I'm not eating anything with my face on it!", and after a moment's pause, "Or anything that has your face on it!"

Juvia watched as her precious Gray-sama walked off to start an argument with Natsu over something as unimportant as usual. She turned around with a small sigh and walked over towards the guilds large doors.

"Perhaps it is time for Juvia to head back home for the night." she thought as she walked out into the warm evening breeze.

The journey home was uneventful for Juvia and left her with plenty of time to think about her beloved Gray. With him fresh in her mind, she walked up to her room in Fairy Hills and opened the door. Being the only one in the whole building at home was quite unsettling in its eerie silence. Upon entering she was greeted by hundreds of hand sewn Gray dolls that she'd made to make up for his constant absence. Picking one of them up, she walked over towards her bed and tucked it under her covers.

"Just a moment dear Gray-sama. Juvia is only going to get ready to turn in for the night." she spoke to the doll, imagining it was the real thing, with a soft tone.

She turned her heel to race to the bathroom. Pulling on her favorite pajamas, which consisted of a light blue t-shirt and gray sweatpants with a raindrop pattern adorning them, she quickly got ready to retire into dreamland. Once she was content with her routine, she rushed over to her warm, navy covers and pulled them over her shivering form.

"Juvia wonders if her room has always been this cold." It felt similar to the inside of a freezer. In fact, she could see a white cloud every time she exhaled.

Deciding it was just a malfunction with the cooling system, she buried herself deeper under the covers to ignore it. Eventually, a deep, yet not entirely comfortable, sleep overtook her. However, unbeknownst to her, she was not alone anymore.

•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

The Next Day, at the Guild.

Gray walked in at his usual time to be greeted by the rambunctious gang of wizards he'd become so fond of. Of course, he'd never admit that out loud.

"Hey! Ice Princess!" Natsu called out with a face splitting grin, "Come over here and fight me!"

"Screw that ya pyro!" Gray shouted back with an annoyed façade, "I'm hungry!"

With that being dealt with Gray continued walking until he reached Mirajane, already working, at the bar.

"Hey Mira, can I get something to eat?" he asked with false nonchalance.

"Of course!" Mira beamed at him, bright and cheery as always. "I'll have something for you in no time."

"Thanks." was all he had the forethought to growl out. Something was missing, or should I say, someone. "Mira, have you seen.. Juvia.. around?"

Mirajane turned away from where she was preparing Gray's order, "Actually, no." , she placed his food in front of him, "I haven't seen her since yesterday." suddenly a very scary grin made its way across her face, "Why do you ask?"

With a small grunt of stubbornness, Gray took his food to go sit with his team. As he walked towards their table his thoughts kept wandering towards the absence of his overly cheerful and ever present stalker. Taking his seat next to Erza he decided that she was probably just busy doing something creepy and would come by the guild later.

The next day..

It had been a whole day without even a single sign of Juvia. Gray couldn't help but start to worry. He'd already asked most of his guild members if they knew her whereabouts but everyone had the same answer. Nobody knew where she was, or seen her since a few days before. They had all been quite busy and wrapped up in their own lives that most of them failed to notice her absence. All except for Gray of course. He was really starting to get worried about her, but being as stubborn as he is, he decided to ignore it.

"She'll probably be back tomorrow with some excuse about being busy or something." Gray just kept on repeating this to himself as he walked home to get some rest.

That's what he kept telling himself for a grand total of three whole days. But Juvia didn't show up that day or the next, and on the final day he couldn't take it anymore. He stood abruptly from his chair where he sat talking with his teammates.

"I'm going to take a walk." was all he said to his team's concerned looks. The reality was that he was so worried about Juvia and none of the other Fairy Hills residents would investigate for fear of being caught snooping by the water mage or Erza herself.

He stormed out of the guild with a new purpose in mind. Walking all the way to the Fairy Hills dorm he just went straight inside, deciding that Juvia's safety was more important than the rules. Although, he was very careful to avoid Titania's wrath by being caught in the girls only dorm. He had been wandering the halls for awhile when he finally found a door that looked as if it could be Juvia's room. After all.. there was a very large heart stuck to it with the names "Gray and Juvia" written in the middle. Deciding to ignore that, he went to open the door to her room. As he was reaching for the doorknob he noticed some strange looking scuff marks coming from under the door. Though they were hardly visible if you had just walked past without a second glance.

"What the…" he thought as he turned the knob and stepped into the room.

He could see that it most certainly was her room. It was decorated in her taste. However, it was hard to see any remnant of how it once looked through the disaster it was now. It was a wreck. The walls were decorated with slashes and rips. All of what seemed to be Juvia's wardrobe was strewn haphazardly around the room. Any furniture that she owned was flipped over and thrown everywhere. The whole place was covered in evidence of a battle, blood (Gray wasn't sure exactly who it belonged to) was splattered across the floor, the walls, and had somehow even managed to get all over the roof.

"Juvia…" Gray whispered under his breath as his body shook in disbelief and anger.

He turned and rushed all the way back to the guild at max speed. As he raced down the streets of Magnolia all eyes were on him. Only the occasional food cart or pedestrian got in his way and they ended up being dodged with unbelievable agility. Once he reached the guild doors he threw them open with a deafening bang causing all heads to turn to his panting form.

"EVERYONE *huff* I JUST WENT TO LOOK *pant* FOR JUVIA!" he yelled at the top of his lungs as he stood trying to catch his breath, "She's gone..."

•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••