She is going to break.
She can feel it. She can feel it in the trembling numbness of her hands as she grips her arms hard, can taste it in the bitter words that toss and turn in her head, awaiting escape. She can see it in the blank, fragile eyes that stare back at her from the glass, can trace it in the thin line that adores her face, that seals the scream she wishes to simply let go.
She is going to break, is already breaking, and she knows it.
So she leaves. She retreats from the crowd, from the only home she's ever known, from the only distraction from her dark, dark, thoughts. She leaves because they are the light that chases her darkness away, but blinds her, engulfs her, burns her. And one, just this one time again – please please please – she wants to protect herself.
Footsteps echo from the hall, wood creaking, a door is slammed shut.
The silence that follows is deafening.
Not that it is quiet, he muses. The guild is never quiet, but for some reason something is missing. Something is wrong. He feels…he feels that feeling when Happy's trying to tell a story but gets cut off, or when Lucy takes the pages of her novel away just as he's about to read the resolution. He feels as if a certain red haired mage's exit didn't have proper closure.
…what?
He's not sure what compels him to push his seat from the table, bidding a hasty farewell to the people around him, to his teammates, to the blue-haired mage who had wrapped herself around his arm. He gives a flimsy excuse about needing to be somewhere, when really he isn't sure where. He's not even sure why.
But something was missing, something was wrong. And he feels the need to correct it, to point it out so they can move on, so that it doesn't weigh on his mind. This isn't a new feeling, he considers. He's felt it before, this missing-ness, this wrong-ness, before, and it is after a few moments that he remembers scarlet with that feeling too. He doesn't like it.
He has to find her.
She cannot find herself.
She wants to rage. To scream. To summon a sword and hack away at…something. She wants to fly, up up up and feel the wind as she falls down down down. She wants to see red, taste iron, feel searing pain. She just wants to…feel. Feel something. Anything.
Anything but this emptiness.
Something is wrong with her, she tells herself, gripping the side of her head, eyes wide and wild. Her eyes refuse to focus on the water, refuse to see on her reflection, refuses to see herself. She refuses – she's afraid – to see herself like this, broken and fragile.
She's fragile. She knows she's fragile. She knows that people don't see it, don't see her, and maybe she likes that they don't see that side of her. But she knows, deep deep down, in the abyss in her heart, she knows the truth. Denies it, fights it, tries to overcome it. But you cannot change who you are.
And who she is, is fragile. Who she is, is broken. Who she is, is –
"Erza?"
He sees her freeze, sees her entire frame go rigid as he approaches, like she hadn't even noticed he was there. He freezes too, caught off guard with her reaction. She is never one to be surprised, never one who knew less than he did, and he's not sure what to do. Her name hangs in the air in the stillness of the moment as his icy nerves attempt to function again.
A thousand moments pass in two seconds.
"Gray."
It is not a greeting, a question, or even a statement. It is a word, a person. Someone is here. Someone who knows her. She is breaking, right in front of that person.
She can't.
She hasn't moved. Warmth may have returned to his nerves but he can still feel the chill in the air, can still see the ice wrapping around her, freezing her. Turning her cold.
"Er – " He's about to say her name again, but notices how her hands – they're clutching her hair? – tighten, a tremble running up her arms and disappearing behind scarlet. It's was just like when –
Suddenly, he remembers. Remembers when he felt this wrongness before, a long time ago, a lifetime ago. The Tower of Heaven. Erza appearing when it was they who went to save her. Erza, ordering them to leave. Lucy had pleaded with her to let them come, scarlet hair being the only image of the person they conversed with.
Her hand had trembled then, just a little, clutching tighter at her swords as she ordered them yet again to leave her. He had felt something was wrong then, too – hell, he had called her out of it. But when she turned…
Her gaze is torn away from the murky water as she feels hands gripping at her shoulders, turning her. In her surprise, she focuses on the first thing in front of her, only to see black black black eyes staring back at her. She knows them.
"Gray, what're you – "
They're dry, is the first thing that he thinks as soon as he sees her face. He thinks that that should be a good thing, but it's not. It's not, because what else he sees speaks – screams – louder than he's ever seen before. He sees the tremble of her lips, the paleness of her cheeks, her short but deep breaths. He sees the emotion in her eyes, her brown, brown, eyes. He sees the pain, the turmoil, the fighting emotions he never knew – should've known – she hid behind her armor. Behind her mask.
"Erza, you – " he begins at the same time she does, and they both falter in what they're supposed to say. Instead, they stare, black on brown, an arm's length between them, one's hands gripping the other's trembling shoulders.
'The pain…is too great…'
They're not sure who leans in first, who takes the first step to close their distance. They don't try to think, to remember, to consider the details. They don't try to make sense out of it, or question why it happened.
The tip of her head rests itself below his shoulder. His arms wrap around her frame. She presses her palms to his back. He puts a hand behind her head.
And slowly, very slowly, his shoulder becomes wet. He secures her head in the crook of his neck.
She can feel her heart throbbing painfully, and presses herself closer to him.
He can feel her beginning to shake. He tightens his arms around her.
She tries to hold back her screams, and instead they come out as little sobs.
He feels her getting heavier, so he sits them on the grass before her knees give way.
She tries to pull away, so she can hide. She tries to push him away, so she can be alone.
He won't let her.
She knows that something is wrong, that there is something missing with her. She's afraid that it was never there to begin with, that the darkness has consumed her, swallowed her, trapped her.
He knows she isn't fragile. He knows that she isn't broken. But he's afraid that she's been strong for too long, that she's retreating into herself, that she's forcing herself to not cry so much that the tears refuse to shed themselves.
She needs to cry. She needs to feel, to acknowledge, to understand, to accept. She needs to know darkness, to see in darkness, to live in darkness, before she can go back to the light. Before she can become herself, her true self, the person everyone sees – the person he sees, but she doesn't.
But until then, until she has yet to overcome the darkness –
"I won't leave you."