Note: This was meant to be a one-shot, but I ended up writing more too. But this first part could still stand alone as a kind of bridge between Galuna Island and...Oración Seis, I guess. In terms of Gray and Lyon's relationship, anyway.

If Lyon hadn't been in a numb daze after Deliora fell apart, he probably would have punched Gray in the face rather than let the younger man help him up. But as it was, Lyon was in some kind of shock with too many emotions swirling inside him at once, so he barely protested when Gray pulled him up off the ground and half-carried him out of that cursed cave and up to the surface. Gray carefully deposited him on the ground to sit with his back against a boulder, and Lyon watched him and his stupid friends with something like detached wariness as they discussed the problem at hand. He didn't know what possessed him to give them the warning about the villagers. He blamed that on the shock too.

And then all those idiots were finally leaving, and Lyon was more than glad to get rid of them. He needed time to come to terms with his defeat and everything that had happened with Deliora and Ur and that stupid fool Gray. But then he realized that Gray had paused and turned back to watch him.

"What are you looking at?" Lyon snapped, not wanting to have to dirty his hands any further by dealing with this boy he had once loved as a brother but now hated with all his heart.

Gray didn't answer immediately, just watched Lyon with tired, unreadable eyes. His stupid guildmates had realized that he had stopped and they paused as well, turning back to see what was going on. Lyon resisted the urge to bang his head into a rock. Just when he had thought that he'd finally gotten rid of them.

"You might as well go ahead and say it," Gray said finally.

Lyon blinked at him in confusion, startled by the unexpected statement. "Say what?"

Gray let out a breath. "Whatever it is that's been eating away at you all these years. I'm sure there are things you've been dying to say to me. You already said some of them while we were fighting. You might as well finish what you started."

Lyon stared at the other mage with narrowed eyes, studying his expression in an attempt to discern exactly what it was that Gray was expecting him to say. But Gray's face had been carefully schooled in a neutral expression and his eyes didn't give Lyon so much as a hint.

Lyon didn't speak for several long moments as he tried to marshal his thoughts. Were there things he needed to say to Gray? Yes, he thought that there might be. That mix of emotion, all that anger and hate, was burning at his throat, trying to claw its way out. Still, he wasn't sure what exactly there was left to say.

He opened his mouth, not quite sure what was going to come out.

"You killed her," he said dully.

There was a pause.

"Yes."

Lyon stared at Gray, searching for any sign that he was sorry or was hurting or was going to try defending himself against the accusation. But that one word was the only thing that came out of his mouth, and his face was so damn expressionless. He might as well have been talking about the weather.

That made Lyon angry, the fury slicing through his numbness. How dare Gray be so unaffected? He should be crying or begging for forgiveness or something. Not that Lyon would give him any comfort. No, Lyon wanted him to hurt, wanted him to suffer for what he had done. It made him furious that the bastard could stand there and not hurt. Really, Lyon would have even been okay with it if Gray had gotten angry and tried defending himself, because then there would be an even better excuse to rip him to shreds.

But Gray just stood there, and his apparent indifference opened up the floodgates. Suddenly, Lyon's fury finally found words.

"You have a lot of fucking nerve," he hissed, his hands clenching into fists at his sides. "You've got a lot of nerve coming up here and daring to lecture me after all the shit you did. You've got a lot of nerve daring to use her magic. You don't deserve it. And you've got a hell of a lot of nerve still being alive."

He scowled at Gray, looking to see if he had managed to hit a nerve yet, but although the younger mage had fixed his eyes on the ground, he still didn't display any overt emotion. That made Lyon even angrier, and he could feel his face contort with fury. He was going to twist that knife as far as it would go, hurt Gray as much as he could, until he could finally crack that mask of nonchalance.

"God knows our lives would have been so much easier if you had just curled up and died along with your good-for-nothing parents," he growled.

He thought he saw Gray's lips tighten involuntarily for a moment, and he bared his teeth in sadistic satisfaction. Maybe he had managed to hit a sore point after all. Well, he was going to push it as far as he could, because he wanted to see Gray break, wanted to see Gray shatter into a million pieces too small and jagged to be put back together again.

"She would still be alive, anyway." Gray's eyes narrowed slightly, but he appeared otherwise unaffected. Lyon pressed on. "Or if you were going to be such a goddamn fool, then you could have at least run off and gotten yourself killed without dragging us into it. Or if you were going to insist on killing her, you could have at least had the decency to off yourself afterward, like you deserve."

Gray didn't react to the venomous words, but that stupid pink-haired dragon slayer did. The Fairy Tail mage suddenly lunged for Lyon, his eyes flashing with fury and his fists burning with flames. Lyon struggled to his feet with some difficulty—because no matter how injured he was, there was no way in hell he was going to take the dragon slayer's attack sitting down like a helpless victim—but Gray's arm shot out and blocked his friend's way.

"Let him finish," Gray said flatly.

Natsu paused and turned to look at him disbelievingly, indignant rage painted on his face. "But he said–"

"I know what he said," Gray interrupted. He finally glanced over at Natsu to give him a quelling look. "If it bothers you so much, then why don't you go on ahead to the village and see if you can figure out what's going on? I'll catch up to you."

The dragon slayer still looked like he wanted to protest, but whatever he saw in Gray's face made him reluctantly back down. He backed up a few paces and his flames obediently died away, but he made no move to leave. Instead he glowered at Lyon murderously, looking like he would like nothing better than to smash his fist into the older mage's face. Gray's other friends looked much the same, either furious or teary-eyed or both, but Lyon didn't care about them.

He only had eyes for Gray, who had turned away and was watching Lyon expressionlessly again. It only fed Lyon's fury that he was still so damn impassive. Maybe it was partly because it felt wrong to yell and rage at someone who wouldn't fight back, maybe it was partly because Lyon wanted the satisfaction of seeing Gray break. Whatever it was, it bothered him.

So, ignoring his screaming muscles and the stabbing pains slicing through his body, he remained standing and prepared to tear into Gray again.

"Just what do your little friends mean to you?" he sneered, giving the angry Fairy Tail mages a contemptuous once-over before returning his gaze to Gray. "Do you care for them? It's too bad no one warned them that everyone you care about seems to end up dead."

Gray's gaze dropped to the ground and his eyes clouded over for a split second. Lyon pressed his advantage.

"You know that you don't fucking deserve to have anyone care about you anymore. And really, they'd probably be better off without you, anyway. Who knows which one of them you'll end up killing next?"

Gray flinched, but didn't otherwise react. Behind him, Natsu growled and took a threatening step forward. The redhead's hand moved to her sword and she glared at Lyon. Even the blonde was starting to look more angry than horrified. Hell, even the stupid flying cat—the stupid, flying, blue cat—looked ready to launch itself at him.

It irritated Lyon that these people seemed to genuinely care about Gray. As far as Lyon was concerned, Gray had forfeited the right to have friends and family the moment he had turned into a murderer.

"I don't know why she loved you so much," Lyon said in a low voice, clenching his fists even tighter until he could feel his fingernails digging into his palms. "I didn't even want her to take you in at first, but she did it anyway because she wanted to save you." His mouth twisted unpleasantly in disgust as he spat out the word. "Because she felt sorry for you and she wanted to help you move past everything with your parents and Deliora. But you just couldn't let it go, could you? She should have just listened to me, and then she'd at least be alive. I don't care how sad and angry at the world you were. Watching your parents die didn't give you the right to turn around and kill someone else.

"You took her away from me too, you know. You don't have the right to sit here and be okay with everything when I'm not. Believe it or not, I cared about her too. She was my goal, my role model, but she was more than that too."

Grief wrapped itself around his heart again, and he tried to shake it off. He didn't want to mourn anymore. When he wanted to mourn, he always distracted himself instead. He had been able to distract himself with the whole plan to resurrect the stupid demon, but now the plan was gone and he had nothing left to hold on to except for his pain. His pain and his hate. It was better to be angry than sad, and he would rage at Gray if it meant that he didn't have to grieve anymore. So he fed that pain to his anger and watched it flare up again.

"How dare you? I will never–" He paused, unsure of why the words wouldn't come out. "I will never–"

This was it, what he had wanted to say. And yet something was stopping him from saying it, and he didn't know what. He didn't know why it felt so wrong even though it felt so right.

"Just say it," Gray said quietly.

Lyon searched for any sign that Gray was feeling anything at all, but the younger man's face was still unreadable. It made him angry enough that he could finally push out the words.

"I will never forgive you," he spat, wondering why the words tasted like ashes in his mouth.

Gray let out his breath in a soft sigh and for a second Lyon thought he might have looked a little sad, but he also didn't look surprised. Lyon wondered if he had known that everything was building up to this all along.

The words were out in the open now, ugly and jagged. They chafed at Lyon, rubbed him the wrong way, grated at his nerves. They were supposed to make him feel better, but they had only succeeded in making him feel worse. And that wasn't fucking fair, because Gray deserved this and it was what Lyon wanted, but it still left a bitter taste in his mouth that detracted from the satisfaction he should have felt. He thought that those words should have maybe been cathartic or satisfying or something, and the fact that they didn't have the desired effect made him furious.

It made him furious enough that he forced his body to take a few unsteady steps forward despite the white-hot pain that lanced through him, and he swung a fist at Gray's face. He had anticipated that Gray would defend himself and block the wild punch, so he was surprised that even though he could see Gray's eyes tracking the fist hurtling towards his face, the younger man made no move to stop it. Lyon's fist connected with its target, but because he had adjusted for the eventuality of Gray blocking him, the unexpected contact threw him off-balance. His arms windmilled in the air as he pitched forward, and he would have fallen if Gray hadn't grabbed him and held him upright.

He eyed the other mage warily, but Gray's face remained inscrutable as he slung an arm around Lyon and carefully helped him stagger back over to where he had originally been sitting. Lyon was too surprised to protest as Gray gingerly lowered him back to the ground so that he was sitting with his back to the rock again. The two men stared at each other in silence as Gray released Lyon and stepped back.

"Are you finished?" Gray asked finally, his voice soft.

Lyon watched him blankly, his anger and fury finally starting to slip away into numbness once more. It wasn't fair because he had every reason to hate Gray, but at this moment all he felt was numb and dead. He wasn't finished. He knew that there were still things he needed to say, but he'd be damned if he knew what they were. He didn't know what else there was to say. He didn't know what words could take the edge off that maelstrom of hate and anger and mostly-strangled love that clawed mercilessly at his heart.

So even though there were still words left unsaid—there had to be, because surely there must be something he could say that would knit his broken heart back together and tame his wild emotions and make him feel better about this whole mess—Lyon just turned his head to the side and stared at the ground with narrowed eyes.

"Yes," he said coldly. "I have nothing else to say to you."

Maybe now was when Gray would finally drop this act and do something. Lyon was ready for him to beg or yell or offer some kind of apology or explanation, but he did none of that.

"Alright, then," Gray said with a sigh. "You should really think about joining a guild or something. You'd have friends and people you could rely on, and they'd be there for you in your darkest times to help you through. You could find a new goal, a new dream—something better than this obsession you've had for all these years. I think it would be good for you."

Despite himself, Lyon looked back over at Gray, startled by the unexpected words. The younger man watched him somberly.

"Take care of yourself, Lyon."

Gray turned and started walking away, leaving Lyon gaping at his retreating form. What the hell was that about?

"Aren't you going to say anything?" Lyon demanded. "I just accused you of murder, told you that you didn't deserve to have friends, said that you didn't even deserve to live." He clenched his fists in frustrated bewilderment. "And you're just going to walk away? Aren't you going to defend yourself? Make excuses? Point out my screw-ups? Anything?"

Because he just didn't get it. He didn't understand how Gray could just sit there through all of that and not defend himself or get upset and yell. Lyon kind of wished that Gray would get angry and turn this into a real argument, because it felt wrong attacking someone who wouldn't fight back.

Gray paused and half turned, just enough to glance back at Lyon. "Why would I?" he asked quietly. "This was for your closure, not mine." An unamused, sardonic half-smile played at the corners of his lips for a second before vanishing. "Besides, I've always felt much the same."

Lyon sucked in a breath, eyes widening at the admission. It made the leftover anger drain away. He didn't know exactly why since this was what he had wanted all along, but even though he wanted Gray to hurt, he couldn't really take pleasure in it right now.

"Gray…"

"But now that you mention it, maybe there is something I want to say to you," Gray continued as if he didn't sense the change in Lyon's mood.

He turned to face Lyon fully, and his eyes were suddenly hard and cold. Lyon was almost—almost—glad, because it seemed like maybe he was finally going to offer a defense after all.

"You have a right to be angry," Gray said flatly. "You have a right to hate me. I'll take your fists, your magic, your angry words, if that's what you need me to do. I'll take them, but in return I expect that you don't throw them at anyone else. If it's me you're angry at, then it's me you should take your anger out on. You have no right to take out your anger and grief on everyone else. No matter how much you hate me or how much you miss her, that doesn't give you the right to hurt other people. This scheme of yours almost killed you and your friends and my friends. And it would have had the potential to kill a lot of other people too, if Deliora hadn't already been dead. You should have known better. I thought you were better than that."

Lyon shifted uncomfortably and looked away. It wasn't that he regretted his plan to revive Deliora, exactly, but he didn't like being reminded that people could have died. Because despite his callousness towards the villagers, he didn't really want them dead. He wasn't completely heartless. To be honest, he already felt a little bad about ordering the eradication of the village.

"And really, you should thank Natsu for stopping me from using iced shell," Gray continued.

The dragon slayer in question had been glaring at Lyon for the past several minutes, but at those words his attention immediately focused on Gray. The blonde and redhead looked confused, but then turned to look at Gray in horror. Lyon supposed that they wouldn't have known about Gray's attempts to use iced shell since they hadn't been there.

But really, Lyon didn't care about them. His attention was as solely focused on Gray as theirs was. He didn't know where exactly Gray was going with this line of thought, but he wasn't sure that he liked it.

"Because no matter how much you hate me, no matter how much you think I should be dead or want me to be dead, you would never have been the same if you had to watch me use that spell to clean up your stupid mistake. It would have plagued your nightmares and discolored your memories. It would have haunted you for the rest of your life, and you would have never forgiven yourself." Gray spoke with a quiet certainty born of experience, and for some reason it made Lyon partly horrified and partly sad, even though it should be satisfying.

"Do you understand?" Gray asked, fixing Lyon with a hard look. "You should really be more careful when people's lives are hanging in the balance. I would have thought that you would have learned from my mistakes instead of repeating them yourself. I expected better of you."

Lyon stared at Gray, his thoughts churning wildly. He wasn't sure what to make of that little speech. Wasn't sure how he felt about it either, because it had managed to resurrect that ugly knot of snarled emotions again, although it felt a little different this time. He didn't know why it bothered him that Gray was expressing disappointment in him. It shouldn't matter, really. Gray had screwed up first, he had screwed up worse, and he didn't have any right to lecture Lyon on right and wrong. But at the same time, Lyon knew that he was at least partially right. Things had begun spiraling out of control and could very well have ended up with someone's death, and Lyon didn't want that on his conscience. He'd seen enough death in his lifetime, and he didn't want to see any more.

Maybe that was the reason he felt just the barest twinge of guilt about what he had forced Gray to almost do, because he didn't want to be responsible for anyone's death, not even Gray's. But something told him that that wasn't the whole story either, so he forced himself to really consider what Gray had said. Was it really true that he would have hated himself if Gray died from his mistake? Gray had killed Ur. Gray deserved to be dead. Lyon wanted Gray to–wanted Gray to–

Shit, this was worse than he'd thought. That tangle of panic and desperation and angry fear that he had felt when Gray went to use iced shell on Deliora… He had thought that it was because he didn't want to have to spend another three or so years re-melting the ice again. He had come so close to having his showdown with the demon and then Gray and his friends had come in out of nowhere and ruined it, and Lyon hadn't wanted to wait years for another chance. That was at least partly true. But if he was being completely honest with himself—and he kind of wished that he wasn't—most of that desperation was for Gray, because some part of Lyon apparently still loved him enough to not want to watch him die. And deep down, he knew that Gray had been right when he said that Lyon would never have been the same if the younger mage had used the spell.

"I don't really want you to be dead," Lyon grumbled finally, reluctant to admit to this failing.

Gray smiled faintly, although the expression was still tired and melancholy. "I know."

Lyon frowned at him, wondering how he could seem so certain about that when Lyon himself hadn't been fully aware of it until a couple minutes ago.

"You and me, Lyon, we've been chained to the past for far too long," Gray added quietly. "It's time for you to start moving on. Like I said, you might want to try finding a guild. It's what got me through these past ten years. It'll give you something new to focus on, new goals to work toward, new friends to rely on and help you through. Just think about it, okay?" He sighed and glanced away. "And if not that, then at least find another way to cope. At some point, you're going to have to start looking to the future instead of hanging on to the past. It's not easy, but that's what you've got friends for. And you know that she would rather see you move on with your life than stay caught up in what happened to her."

Lyon bit his lip and looked away as well, because he did in fact know that Ur would rather see him let go of all this and make his own way in life. He didn't think that she would have approved of this scheme to revive Deliora. He also didn't think she would approve of how he had treated Gray. She would have wanted them to stop fighting and just get along already, but Lyon wasn't prepared to do that.

He wasn't sure that he was prepared to move on yet either, but did he really have a choice at this point? The scheme he had devoted so many years of his life to had, quite literally, fallen apart before his eyes. He couldn't challenge and defeat Deliora, couldn't surpass Ur, couldn't do anything to fix what had been broken. What choice did he have besides to figure out a new way of life? It would bother him to no end to follow Gray's advice because it would be like admitting that Gray was right and he was wrong, so maybe he wouldn't look for a guild yet, but he'd have to do something.

"Well, we still need to go sort out the mess with the village," Gray said, turning away. "Good luck, Lyon."

Lyon stared dazedly at Gray's back as the younger man walked away. He didn't know why it made him feel so damn empty to watch Gray leave again. He should want this. He didn't need Gray. Didn't want Gray. But hell, it seemed like he was never going to be able to fully forget about what Gray had once meant to him. And besides that, the whole situation felt bitter and incomplete, like it couldn't be over, because…because it couldn't be over.

There were still things Lyon needed to say, things he needed to get off his chest to really come to terms with everything. There must be something else he needed to say to Gray, because there were words clawing painfully at his throat even though they were stuck there, leaving him to choke on all the things left unsaid. He still didn't quite know what they were, only that they were there and were desperate to escape. They forced his jaws open and tumbled out, even though he still wasn't sure if he really wanted Gray to hear them.

"I'm sorry," he said, not completely sure what part of all this he was apologizing for.

Gray paused and his head tilted downward as he apparently dropped his gaze to the ground, but he didn't turn back around.

"I'm sorry too," he replied quietly. "And God knows you can be an infuriating idiot, but I forgive you anyway."

Lyon's breath caught in his throat, which was too bad, really, because it blocked the words that he finally realized he wanted to say. Instead, he watched Gray walk away, his friends following behind him after shooting Lyon one last death glare. Lyon stared after them until they disappeared from view. He got the feeling that Gray was very carefully resisting the urge to look back, and he managed it right up until the last second. It was right when they were disappearing around the bend that he finally glanced back. It was just for a split second and then he was gone, and it made Lyon's heart clench painfully for a reason he couldn't quite put his finger on. Gray's eyes had still been mostly unreadable, but for just a moment, Lyon could see the pain and grief lurking there. Even though it should have been satisfying, it made him feel bad instead.

Lyon let out his breath in a shaky sigh. Maybe it was time to admit that he could no longer hate Gray as fully as he had used to. Now that he had finally been able to vent all that anger and hate that had been twisting at his insides for years, all the half-remembered love was seeping back in to take its place and fill in the gaps. Lyon was still angry, still thought that it was Gray's stupid mistake that had ultimately led to Ur's death, but he wasn't sure that he could really hate Gray anymore. Wasn't even sure how much he could really blame Gray anymore.

He vaguely thought that maybe it was actually nice to have seen Gray again, just to see how he had changed and to get the chance to let out all that pent-up anger so that he could finally start letting go of the hate. And Gray really had changed from that angry, grief-stricken boy hell-bent on revenge. Lyon wondered when Gray had grown up. He was almost sad that he had missed it.

Gray had changed for the better, and maybe it was time that Lyon did as well. It wasn't such bad advice, really, finding a guild and a new goal. Maybe he'd do it eventually. He felt like he owed Gray something, and although following a piece of advice wasn't much, it was a start. And maybe one day he'd work up the courage to tell Gray what it was that he really wanted to say, because he had finally—finally—figured it out.

It was strange, he reflected, that the words he had really needed to say all along were the same ones he had never imagined that he would ever want to express.

'I forgive you too.'

Note: I went back to re-watch parts of the Galuna arc to see how far I could make Lyon go before he went OOC, but man, he really said some nasty things in canon.