Every bone, muscle, cell in Juvia's body froze over. She stood helplessly as she felt every hope in her heart shatter and dissolve into the whipping wind. This wasn't real, it couldn't be. She tried to suck in air into her lungs but they weren't cooperating with her. She racked her brain for all the conversations she had had with him. All those tiny insignificant details she had discarded flashed back. How he couldn't remember current events or new places. How he would disappear suddenly or appear out of nowhere. She and everyone else had chalked it down to him being quiet. Like a whisper blown away in the wind, gone before anyone knew it was there.
She wanted to run from the truth, go back to being ignorant. If only she could ignore it. But all the clues had been there. Her and Gajeel had discovered it to be true. There was no running away now.
"Juvia?"
How could she face him? Did he even know?
Slowly, against every fibre of being that didn't want to see him, she turned to him.
He stood several feet away looking utterly helpless at the sight of her tears.
"Juvia what's wrong?" He kept glancing at the structure behind her warily as if it was warding him away.
Before she could stop herself, she flung herself into his arms. He was cold, oh so cold. Had he always been this cold? She couldn't remember now, she could only remember his warm smile.
He felt so strong. He felt so present. She could feel his muscles move as he wrapped his arms around her. She wanted to scream. It wasn't fair, it shouldn't be possible. Why would fate or God do this to them? How was this just?
Juvia's knees gave way crashing her and Gray into the soggy ground.
He clutched her shoulders and forced her to look at him. "Juvia you're scaring me."
But Juvia couldn't answer. Her throat was burning. She was burning. She was freezing. She was an inferno and a blizzard combined into one horrendous storm. She felt ripped apart and shredded and pulled in a million different directions. She felt betrayed and lied too. She felt everything.
She couldn't breathe.
Gray looked at what stood behind her. Mutely, he stood, walked closer, and stopped in front of it. Transfixed, he rubbed his hand along the engravings, felt the grooves of the stone and the letters that formed beneath his fingertips.
It wasn't real.
It wasn't real.
He was right here! He was could feel the wind and pressure of his clothes.
He was alive!
But he couldn't remember. Why couldn't he remember?!
He grabbed his hair and pulled and pulled but the memories wouldn't form.
He couldn't remember how he got here, he couldn't remember his mother's name, he couldn't remember his childhood teacher's name.
He felt himself trembling but he couldn't stop and couldn't look away from the stone.
His heart break and confusion built and ripped through him, escaping him with a scream. The sound reverberated through the air, bouncing of the collection of stone structures lined in neat rows.
He whipped around to Juvia who looked into his wild and frantic eyes with her tear filled ones.
A drop of water splattered on his hand and he looked up into the gray lifeless sky. Rain started pouring down soaking them both.
He could feel it, he could feel the rain.
But with a start he realized he couldn't feel the cold. He didn't feel wet.
He collapsed to his knees in front of Juvia.
Tenderly, she wrapped her arms around him.
He burrowed his head into her shoulder. Juvia could feel him shaking.
"I thought I was… I can't remember how." He whispered.
She wove her fingers through his hair. He feels so real.
She fought to contain her sobs but she couldn't, they were too strong. "I know." She cried.
He pulled back and looked into her eyes, seeing all the emotions they held. He bit his lip.
"I'm scared Juvia. I'm really am. I don't know what's happening. How.. why am I here?!"
"I don't know." She sobbed.
Gray pushed her against him fiercely and buried his face in her neck.
They sat there, in their own bubble of eternity, as time froze around them. But it was no where near infinite enough.
Suddenly, Gray jerked back.
"Gray-sama?!"
Her voice echoed through him but he couldn't hold on to it. He was slipping away.
"Juvia" his wavered.
Juvia caressed his cheek. She couldn't find the right words. Her throat still burned but she had to say more, she has so much to tell him. She snapped her eyes closed. They were suppose to have more! They were suppose to have a life filled with love and warmth and laughter. A life filled with their friends and memories to look back on in their old age. A life filled with each other.
She had to pour all the what ifs and all their plans into this moment. She couldn't bare it if he never knew.
Forcing her voice to cooperate she whispered, "You will always be mine, Gray-sama. I will always love you."
Gray stared into her eyes. He could feel a pull in his gut. He was starting to feel lighter.
He shook his head violently, snapping his consciousness into the present. He wasn't going to let God or fate take this from him.
Was he ever going to see her again?
White hot pain shot through his heart at that thought.
Without a second thought he pulled Juvia to him and kissed her. He kissed her for all the moments he never had the courage to and he kissed her for all moments they were never going to have.
"I love you, Juvia." He whispered, but by the time Juvia opened her eyes the wind had carried his words away.
Juvia sat in the rain for what felt like years. She waited and waited as silent tears rolled off her checks and melted in the soil with the rain.
A seed of agony was planted her heart and she could feel as it spread its roots and took hold of her entire being. It burned her and grew and grew until she couldn't take it anymore. She screamed and wailed at the sky and let out all the fury she could muster, but it was an endless abyss. It was weed, no matter how many times she yanked it from the ground it would grow back untouched.
She would never be free of her love for him. She would always have the burden and the joy of her love for him and his love for her.
Accepting her fate with tears still clouding her vision, she stood on unstable legs, and walked away from Gray Fullbuster's grave.