A Snowy Day

Gray's very first thought when he woke up that morning was that he really didn't want to get up at all, because he knew that no matter what, today was going to suck.

He didn't even know why he still kept track of this day (it wasn't like he marked it on a calendar or anything), except that it continued to stay with him. The day itself had been sown into his mind, taking root in a place where nothing could uproot it. Such that in that time he'd spent wandering on his own before coming to Fairy Tail, he couldn't help but be aware of it exactly one year following. From there the pattered had continued, until it was a day that he felt as deeply as his anger, his guilt, his grief, deep in his bones. Not even being locked in a seven-year stasis on Tenrou Island, disorienting some of his sense of time, could prevent him from missing this day, as it came around once again, like a roundhouse kick to the gut.

He threw an arm over his eyes when the sunlight started to pour in from the window next to his bed. And then it became clear that he'd reached a point where he couldn't stay asleep because he'd already gotten more than enough. Moreover, now he was restless with wakefulness. So he made an inch of progress by kicking off the sheets and blanket. Then he laid there for another few minutes until his hunger got the better of him and at the very least, no matter how heavy his heart felt in his chest, he couldn't stand having an empty, growling stomach for very long.

"Damn it," he muttered under his breath before finally sitting up and swinging his legs over the edge of the bed and forcing himself to get up.

He had to face it again, because whether he got up or not, the day would still pass.

The day his master, Ur, who had taught him everything he knew about ice-make magic, had died to save him from his stupid and childish mistake of trying to challenge a beast like Deliora just to avenge his parents.

This was gonna be a long day.

As was typical of how he'd spent this day every year of late, he kept himself to himself, trying at once to distract himself from the hurt by doing something, anything, that didn't involve having to interact with other people, and simultaneously not really doing anything at all, because he felt he at least deserved the choice to sink into lethargy and not have to do anything.

This resulted in him dithering for most of the day.

First thing he did really was look out the kitchen window with a piece of toast in his mouth, and even though the skies were mildly opaque, the sun still in and out, he sensed that it was going to storm later, probably closer to evening.

Then he pulled on a shirt and sweater, even though the cold didn't bother him, being an ice wizard. Wearing a sweater just felt more comfortable. Really, he'd been lost in a recollection from when he was younger and Ur was still alive, and he and Lyon were still living with her under her tutelage: that day was the first time he'd stripped in public, and it had all happened without him even really noticing it until Ur pointed it out and scolded, "Gray! We're in public!"

"Now I got this weird habit cuzza you," Gray muttered on a mirthless chuckle, echoing what he'd said back then (something which had earned him a whallop to the face from Ur).

It was on a day like this that he never made this social faux pas, whether he ended up going out or not.

And sometimes he did go out, but again, he would always be careful to avoid anyone he knew. So obviously every year he'd avoid the Fairy Tail guildhall like the plague, and on the day that would follow, when he'd come back same as before, itching for a job that'd get him into a few good fights, or at the very least to plant one in Natsu's stupid fire-breathing face, no one at Fairy Tail would be any the wiser. In fact, the only person he imagined would even remotely bother to notice that he disappeared like this on this day, on this date every time, and put that pattern together, was probably Erza. She just noticed things that way. But since she hadn't come to ask him about it, she either figured it was none of her business, or just hadn't figured it out yet, like everyone else.

As far as they knew, Gray was just a guy with a little bit of an attitude problem that they could still count on in a fight. Or to crack wise or make fun. Even do something like glomp Lucy once or twice just for kicks. She was pretty cute after all, no wonder Natsu liked her (of course Natsu himself didn't know that, the idiot).

Now that he'd pulled on some clothes though, he was at a loss at what to do now, except fall into that pattern of dithering. Mostly this involved trying and failing several times to stretch out on his couch and just lounge like a lazy cat, staring up at the ceiling, in between making little sculptures with his ice-make magic, like he used to do at night before falling asleep in those days when he'd been traveling alone after he and Lyon had gone their separate ways, or, of all things, actually tidying (not that he didn't manage to keep up with his own housework, but just like Natsu, the bachelor life was a breeding ground for putting off doing that kind of thing until things got really bad, and the fact that Natsu had Happy with him made absolutely no difference, since Happy was just as bad about it).

At least though it was a way for him to work off his frustration.

But then he'd succumb to his lethargy and flop back onto the couch and lay there with his hands pillowed behind his head until he went back to feeling restless.

He was just starting to get this way again, and even tried reading as something different to do, when he got the knock on his door. Actually, he'd been on the edge of falling asleep, with the book (it was actually an action comic, but still) on his face, his stockinged foot tapping the arm of the couch, and then suddenly…a series of loud raps on wood.

And then the doorbell.

Oh for cryin' out loud…whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat…?

Lifting the comic off his face, he glared at the door as though it had insulted him. And then he flung the comic to the floor and made himself get up and answer the door.

But he was actually genuinely surprised to see who was on the other side of it.

"Lyon?"

"Finally!" Lyon had his arms folded and was wearing that disapproving frown of his he was so damn good at wearing on that pointed face of his. "Took you long enough."

Then he pushed his way inside past Gray before Gray could say anything.

"Sure, hey…come inside, great to see ya," Gray said in a deadpan voice to the empty air in front of him. Then he shut the door with an emphatic snap and turned around.

He found Lyon had already gotten as far as the kitchen, and as he was wont to do he'd come in like he owned the place and hopped up onto the edge of the counter, where he now perched cross-legged, banging his heel into the cupboard door below.

"You mind telling me what you're doing here?" Gray demanded, leaning against the doorframe and folding his arms in turn. "I'm guessing you're not here to raid my house for food."

"No." Lyon gave an exasperated noise and rolled his eyes. But then he avoided looking at Gray at all and added, "I just…felt like I should…pop over. For a sec."

"O...kaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay," said Gray, slowly and uncertain how else to respond.

When Lyon looked at him again, Gray raised his eyebrows at him, like, Are you gonna explain yourself more than that?

Which made Lyon give another sigh, but this one wasn't so much out of exasperation. It was more like he was getting uncomfortable, maybe regretting coming here in the first place, but at the same time felt he had to.

Then he dropped his eyes to the floor and said, "Look, I just…felt like…I should…you know…I mean it's…."

But then Gray thought he understood. After all, that day had traumatized Lyon nearly as much as it had Gray, if not as much.

Lyon however caught Gray's rare, flickering look of sympathy and frowned that frown of his at him again. "Look, I'm not really…good…at this sort of thing."

"Well, neither am I, ya bonehead," Gray sniped, finding his annoyance again.

"Either way, it occurred to me that you and I still have some shit to work out between us," Lyon went on.

"Oh God…." Gray dropped his arms and stepped away from the door, looking up at the ceiling as though it could save him from this chaotic tangle of awkwardness. Then he snapped his eyes back on Lyon, who'd gone back to tapping his heel against the cupboard (Gray hadn't even noticed he'd stopped until just now). "Are we really gonna do this? Now?"

"Well, if you prefer, we can just settle this with fisticuffs," Lyon suggested, coolly buffering the fingernails of one hand on the sleeve of his jacket.

"Ha!" Gray folded his arms again and gave him a good eat-shit-and-die grin. "You remember how well that went the last time, don't you?"

Lyon glared at him, but then deflated and looked away again. "Yeah. I remember. Getting your ass handed to you isn't something you usually forget. Especially when it comes from someone like you."

"That supposed to be a compliment or something?"

"Well, it was me trying to be graceful about it, but sure, if you want to see it that way instead, then fine."

"Damn it, Lyon. Why do you always have to do this?"

"Do what, pray tell?"

"Find some way to come out as the 'better man'?"

"Well, let's not pretend like that's very hard for someone like me."

"'Kay, now you're cruisin' for a bruisin'."

"Seriously Gray, that comeback? What are you, five?"

"Guh…." Gray couldn't think of anything else to say, so he uncrossed his arms again and tugged a chair out from his kitchen table with his toe before dropping into it—but sitting with it turned backwards of course so now he could fold his arms under his chin. "Look, what do you want from me? You say we have some 'shit' to work out between us, so what exactly did you have in mind? Apart from the two of us tearing each other's heads off? Because if we're gonna do…feelings…well, that's gonna be waaaaaaaaaaay too weird for me, and I might have to write you off as having gone completely nuts."

And then Lyon, of all things, actually smiled at this. "Actually I was hoping you'd say something like that, because I feel the same way. Regardless…I felt I still should just…see how you were…doing."

Gray raised an eyebrow. "You were…worried about me?"

"Mmmmm. You could call it that," Lyon answered evasively.

Which actually made Gray smile back, if without much warmth or energy. "Gotta admit, that does make me feel a little warm and fuzzy inside," he managed to tease.

Lyon chuckled. "Glad to see you can still find that sense of humor of yours."

They were quiet for a minute, and then Lyon added, "In all seriousness though, I should tell you…I never…really…blamed you. For…what happened."

Gray blinked. "You didn't?" Then he scoffed. "You coulda fooled me, after the way you kept punching me after it happened."

"I was punching you because I couldn't very well punch myself," said Lyon, and then, deciding how he'd put that was kind of lame, cleared his throat and went on with, "I mean, it was really me I was blaming. But you know I would never admit to something like that. After all…I was the one who'd started to use Iced Shell first…and…well…after finding out the price that had to be paid for a spell like that, I felt so much like an idiot that I just…snapped. Or something. At first it was just that Ur was gone, but then well…I think you can guess the rest. You know how easy it is to blame someone else when you can't find the guts to put the blame on yourself."

"Yeah, I see your point." Then Gray actually managed a chuckle of sorts and said, "Doesn't make up for the fact that you can be a real pain in the ass most of the time."

But Lyon just smiled at him again. "Yeah. You're right. I always was a pain in the ass, wasn't I? But like they say, you can choose your friends…."

Gray held up a finger though. "Before you even finish that saying, I'm gonna beg to differ on that. Cuz after joining Fairy Tail, I think it's a legit fact that you can choose your family too."

It was Lyon's turn to blink, and then he laughed. "Man, Gray, you can be so sappy, you know that?" Then he hopped off the counter and made to take his leave. On the way out, he actually clapped Gray on the shoulder, "Be sure to give Juvi my best, won't you?"

Gray rolled his eyes again. "She ain't gettin' in your guild pal, that's the last time I'm gonna spell that out for you."

But Lyon was already walking away, giving a wave. "I'm well aware, Gray. Though you're saying that just confirms that of the two of us, you're the bigger idiot."

Which left Gray blinking bemusedly after him for a moment before he felt compelled to shut the lights off, grab his jacket (purely for practicality rather than comfort, since again, cold didn't bother him), and follow Lyon out.

"Oh, not staying holed up after all, are we?" said Lyon at the bottom of Gray's front steps.

Gray turned his key in the lock on his front door and tucked it in his jacket pocket. "Nah. I mean…it's just…." He looked up at the gathering clouds. "I think it's gonna snow."

Perhaps it was the skies matching his mood, or his mood matching the skies, but either way, they were heavy with the color gray, and given how cold it was….

Yeah, it was definitely going to snow. He could smell it. That cold smell that only snow had.

That was part of what made him decide to risk going out. Besides which, it was late enough in the day anyway, anyone with any sense would be headed for the indoors given the look of the weather. Moreover, everything he and Lyon had discussed had given him more to think about. Though it had ruined his efforts to avoid interacting with anyone, he supposed he felt better about it now that it had passed. If he was being honest with himself, he'd been kind of hoping for a while that he and Lyon would have a talk like that, though being him, he of course had done nothing to be the one to initiate it. He'd left that up to Lyon. Or up in the air. Whichever ended up happening in the end.

Because when it came to expressing how he really felt about things, he was really awful about it and avoided it at all costs…probably because most of his real feelings were too horrific to examine, the kinds of feelings so ugly and painful anyone would fight tooth and nail not to have to deal with them more than they had to, after experiencing them just the once. Once was enough. More than enough. Too much.

So now that he was out, and having no destination in mind, he pounded the pavement with the only real, concrete goal being to avoid getting anywhere near the guildhall. So that was easy enough.

After that, he let his thoughts bounce along with the rhythm of his gait, between thinking about Ur and trying not to think about Ur, and then trying to remember how he'd managed to get through this day, every year, every time. The same way he managed to get through the day his parents died too, he supposed. Grit his teeth and bear it. Tomorrow would come soon enough, and he could bask in the bliss of blocking this shit out again.

Something in the back of his mind though niggled at him, and that was because Lyon had mentioned Juvia (even though he said he'd "conceded" defeat in the "fight for Juvia's heart", which Gray personally thought was a bit overdramatic, even for someone like Lyon). Now she was stuck in there, like a thorn in his brain, and he lacked a pair of mind tweezers to pull it out.

Well, thorn was being harsh. It wasn't like he didn't like thinking about her, after all. On the contrary, he rather did. Even though she was ten flavors of crazy, she always did something that was like lighting a firecracker inside him.

A firecracker that blew up of course, but that was more exciting than nothing.

He kept thinking about that talk he and Erza had had on that balcony back in Crocus during the Grand Magic Games.

"You know how she feels about you, it's not like she hides it…."

Really, Juvia's antics never made him nearly as upset as he let on. He just…had made it a policy not to let anyone get too close. Which was hard where cute girls like Juvia were concerned (and she was cute, that was beyond debate, especially after that makeover she'd done on herself for the Grand Magic Games), because well…he liked cute girls. Cute women. It wasn't like he wasn't interested in getting involved with a woman he could snuggle up to (and do other things besides), but he always had to put the brakes on that when he remembered…

…that people who got close to him—really close to him—tended to well…die.

And in Ur's case, he still blamed himself for what had happened to her, even if Lyon had told him not to. He even felt guilty about what had happened to Ultear, the daughter Ur thought she had lost, what she had sacrificed in order to save him as well as his friends in Fairy Tail.

Because Juvia…he had died protecting her during the battle against the dragons from the Eclipse Gate, there was no getting around that. That was what had happened, before Ultear had cast a spell to give them all that extra minute they'd needed to change fate for the better. So that they could live. So that he could live.

Truth be told though, if he had to do it again, for Juvia's sake, he would.

But he'd be damned if he'd let something happen to her because of him. He was putting that to rest right now.

Even then though, she'd been there. The one to kick him out of his funk when they'd all got back to Magnolia and he'd been lost in brooding over what he'd just found out had happened to Ultear because of what she'd done for all of them.

"I don't know why you're sad, but you should at least try to act happy for your friends."

He'd actually been a little taken aback. She'd actually been scolding him for once.

He'd laugh right now if he didn't feel so sad.

No, he really didn't want to deal with all of that right now.

"Damn it," he muttered under his breath, hunching his shoulders. He didn't want this, not today. He just wanted himself to himself. Lyon had been more than what he'd been ready to handle, but again, in hindsight, he felt a little better that Lyon had at least come round.

Of course, in that funny way that the world worked, sometime after he'd managed to put thoughts of Juvia behind him and find some kind of sorrowful tranquility with his own thoughts, one of the things he'd been hoping to avoid most that day came back swinging, like a bat to the face.

It happened at the seventh corner he'd rounded since getting back his bearings, and the first thing he heard was, "Gray, darling!"

And there was Juvia, running up to him in that dress of hers with the slits so she could show a bit of leg if she wanted, clutching the handles of a brown paper bag in her hands. She even had on a flower pin in her fluffy little hat.

Gray just stopped walking he was so stunned, completely at a loss for words.

"I've been looking everywhere for you!" she cheerily gushed when she reached him. "No one's seen you, where've you been all day?"

Gray blinked, still trying to recover from being stunned. Then everything came back. How shitty he'd been feeling, and why.

He avoided looking at her. "Oh…just…felt like takin' a walk," he mumbled, already trying to think of something to say to get her to leave him be for once without sounding like a jerk.

But Juvia was prattling on.

"I have something for you." She dug into the paper bag. When she pulled something out of it, she let the bag drop to the ground at her feet, and in her hands she held up a lumpy mass of dark gray wool that was clearly—

"I knitted you a scarf!" she announced proudly. Then her cheeks colored and she cast her eyes down, suddenly sheepish. "I did it in a rush, so it didn't turn out all that great…." Then she brightened, beaming up at him again, though her cheeks were still blushing as red as a cherry. "But still, I'd be honored if you wore it."

Oh Juvia…what in Earthland were you thinking?

Unfortunately, try as he might, he just didn't have the energy to fake nice. The best he could do was push past her, muttering, "You better get home before it starts storming."

But no sooner was he walking away than he heard quick footfalls behind him, and then Juvia jumped him, snaring him with her arms like a crab's pincers, squeeing, "Wait!"

"Gah! What the hell?!" growled Gray, though lucky he managed to shake her off of him.

Even so, there she was, blocking his way and holding out the scarf again.

"I knitted a scarf for you!" she persisted sunnily. "Won't you wear it?"

"I don't do scarves!" he snapped at her, losing his temper before he could stop himself.

He tried turning and escaping in the opposite direction, but there she was, popping up in front of him. Again. With that damn scarf.

"Come on, it's a cute accessory!" she enthused, a little teasingly.

"I don't accessorize either," he groused through gritted teeth, turning back the other way, praying that for once she'd cut him some slack and just let this go.

And again, Juvia popped up in front of him.

"But it's gonna get cold out!" she insisted. "Just look at those clouds!"

And once again, Gray tried turning in the opposite direction, retorting with, "So what if it's gonna get cold? I'm an ice-wizard, the cold doesn't bother me anyway!"

Here Juvia dropped her upbeat routine, deflating before his very eyes as she let the scarf fall like water from her hands. It fell into a crumbled heap on the sidewalk, and then Juvia seemed to do the same as she slumped to her knees, crouched in pathetic defeat.

Damn it. Gray looked away, but he couldn't bring himself to cut and run right then. Judging by the uncharacteristic whimper that crept into her voice, she was about to burst into tears any second.

Yet she didn't. Not really.

She only quietly pleaded, keeping her eyes on the ground, "Please Gray…today…it's the anniversary…."

Gray's heart jumped at the word, "anniversary". She couldn't mean…?

But then she went on.

"You don't have to wear it…but…I want you to keep it…as a memento…."

Baffled, Gray couldn't help himself and looked at her again. "A memento? Of what?"

At which Juvia seemed to get her groove back, her eyes popping with hearts as she effervesced with, "Of our anniversary! It's been four hundred and thirteen days since we first met! Don't you remember?"

Oh jeez...that's what all this fuss is about?

Gray turned away again, feeling even more drained than he did earlier. Under normal circumstances, he could've taken her shenanigans with good humor for a change.

But not today.

In the end, nothing could make him forget what this day was to him. And maybe it was that, more than anything else that made him so desperate to avoid running into anyone he knew on a day like today, because no matter what anyone said—even Juvia—they couldn't make him forget how much he was hurting. Really, it just made him hurt even more, somehow.

"That's crazy, even for you," he told Juvia bluntly. "What am I supposed to say?"

Undeterred, Juvia answered with that sincerely radiant joy of hers, though she shifted her tone to something a little more careful.

More like that day when she'd coaxed a smile out of him at the festival celebrating Fairy Tail's return to number one guild in Fiore.

"Well…I'd start with 'happy anniversary'. Any day can be special…if it makes you happy."

"Sorry," said Gray, his voice cracking, just for a second. "Not this one…." He ventured a look, and immediately regretted it, because that was when those pretty eyes of her started to fill with tears.

"But…Gray…."

She'd never looked so sad before. In the time that he'd known her, she'd never looked sad like this.

It was painful to see her like that.

Gray shook his head and started to walk away. "I can't do this."

And he left her there, without looking back, knowing without having to look that she must seem like an abandoned lamb, alone in the freezing cold. Pushing aside the guilt, he worked on losing himself again in the blizzard of his grief, just as the snow was starting to fall.

It took some time meandering around in back alleys, as the falling snow quickly blanketed everything in pure white, but Gray did manage to get himself back to that numb place. That was what happened when you got cold enough, after all, everything went numb.

It wasn't long before it got very dark too. The town of Magnolia glowed with golden city light around him, and that light made the snow glitter. He liked that about snow, how pretty it could look. Just like the roses Ur used to make with her magic. For all the whining and complaining he'd done, it had been times like those when he'd managed to forget that he'd lost his mother and father, his family, and just be spellbound by what magic could do.

That was part of what killed him most. He had been happy, living with Ur, training with Lyon, even if Lyon had been as much a pain in the ass as he was now, and he'd been frustrated with Ur for not teaching him some kind of magic that was more "powerful". It took losing Ur the way he had, and the years of finding his way to Fairy Tail, and finding his place there, to realize that the kind of magic she'd been teaching him had been powerful all along. And it was getting more powerful every day.

That and it took losing her the way he had to realize that he had been happy living with her. In that moment she had been more to him than his teacher. She'd been like a mother. Not the one he'd lost, no one could ever replace her, or his father, but…a mother nevertheless. He'd been crouched on the ground, crying and helpless, frozen with fear that Deliora was going to kill him like he did his parents, all for his own stupidity, and there she had been, hugging him in the cold, telling him everything was going to be all right.

And then she was gone.

Just when he realized what he had, she was gone.

How he had managed to stay as sane as he did after all that, he'd never really know. More than likely it had to do with the friends he'd found in Fairy Tail. That alone had been enough for that guild to earn itself his unwavering loyalty. Like Fairy Tail was a place born to be a haven for misfits and lost souls.

Then before he knew it, his mind found its way to Juvia again, another recollection emerging in his mind. It was vague, but he remembered it well enough. It was when he and Juvia had been talking, really talking for the first time, and she'd told him that she was thinking of actually joining Fairy Tail. Further into their discussion, she'd told him a little more about herself, and maybe it was because she had opened up to him that for all his freaking out, he could handle her brand of crazy probably better than anyone else.

She said she'd spent most of her life alone, because the rain had always followed her, everywhere she went. That was why they'd called her "the rain woman", and no one wanted to stick around her for long. Because she brought nothing but gloomy wet rain, all the time. She'd even had a boyfriend (Gray didn't really remember his name), but he'd cut her loose same as everyone else in her life had. No one wanted to play with her, or be with her, all they did was ridicule her instead. So she'd made friends of her own out of the little dolls she'd sew, even as she was only doing it because they were supposed to be the kind of dolls that had the power to bring good weather and ward off rain.

But no matter how many she sewed together, no matter how much she cried and hiccupped over every stitch she made, alone in her room, the rain wouldn't go away. It was no wonder she was a little off…mental suffering like that would drive anyone a little off the edge, in a way where they could never quite pull back from it, so they grew it into it instead….

"But you…you made the rain go away."

She'd told him this as they'd talked that night, in a rare moment of shyness.

"I don't know how or why…but that's what you did. And I'll always be grateful for that."

Then she'd smiled at him, and his first thought on instinct had been that she was kinda pretty when she smiled.

"So if I can, even after everything with…Phantom Lord…I'd like to join Fairy Tail. After all, Fairy Tail must really be a wonderful place, if it has wizards who can just make the rain go away, just like that…."

Then, in a side street, Gray just stopped. He just stopped walking. Suddenly his legs just felt too heavy. He couldn't think to take another step.

So instead he thought of the way he and Juvia had looked up at the sky at the end of the fight they'd engaged in when they'd first met. He had just rescued her from falling to her death, and was letting her cool off on the roof of the building they were on. He'd been sitting beside her, and that's when the cloudy sky had opened up, and the rain had…stopped.

And he remembered how Juvia had murmured in breathless wonder, how she had never seen the clear blue sky in all of her life. Not until that moment. Then he'd said to her, "Well, what do you think then? It's kinda pretty, isn't it?"

Now he was looking up at the dark, pitch-black, and cloudy sky, the snow falling all around him. He knew deep down that Juvia had probably waited until after he was gone to cry. Because he knew that she was crying. He knew that.

Even though he'd made her rain go away, he was under the impression that her rain could come back to haunt her if she got sad enough again.

It was too cold for rain now though, so…here it snowed instead.

Rain and ice make snow.

Sort of.

Snow was frozen water falling from the sky, anyway.

Then the wind kicked up a little, and suddenly, Gray felt cold like hadn't felt it in years. It wound its way around his bare neck, reached down deep inside, and he shivered.

When did that happen? He couldn't remember the last time he'd felt cold like this.

No…it was….

Gray and Lyon as boys were both huddled in the snow and shivering while Ur had taken them out to teach them her ice-make magic.

Noticing, and deciding not to be tough on them for once, she smiled, unwrapped her scarf from around her neck, and wrapped it around them instead, tying it off in a bow.

"You boys look cold," she said. "Here. This'll warm you up a bit…."

Little Gray looked up at her.

He felt warmer already….

Gray gave a small gasp.

The scarf….

Suddenly everything rushed in. Everything. Everything came pouring in like rain.

Her rain.

He turned right around on a half-stumble, hurrying back onto the main street, frantically trying to retrace his steps from all his aimless meandering.

The streets were mostly empty now, and everything from before was a bit turned around, now that everything was cast in the glow of the street lamps and the light from the shop windows and restaurants still open.

She probably wasn't even there on the street he'd left her anymore, but still. He had to find her.

Then the corners started getting familiar, and he had a better idea of where he was going. And he found the one he'd rounded earlier just before running into her.

As he'd thought, she wasn't there anymore. No one was there.

But he didn't miss the bit of dark gray wool poking out of the snow.

The scarf was still there.

Dropping to his knees he clawed it out of the snow with his bare hands, not wanting it to get any more soaked with the cold wet of snow than it already was. Actually though, as it turned out, when he'd freed the scarf and shook the clumps of snow still clinging to it free as much as he could, and wrapped it around his neck, it still felt just at it would have before getting buried in snow. It didn't feel cold or damp at all.

As he stood, he caught a whiff of the scents still clinging to it. It did smell of snow, but there was also something there…that clean, rain-washed scent that was unmistakably Juvia. He felt himself blush a little when he recognized it, his mind already chasing thoughts of what it would be like to smell Juvia more often.

Aw jeez….

Even so, he had to admit, he was starting to feel the life seep back into him as the cold left him almost as soon as he'd put the scarf on. He pulled it on a little tighter, closer around his neck, and then he cupped his hands and breathed into them to get them warm too, after nearly freezing them numb from digging in the snow with them.

By the time he was making his way down the street, he was toasty.

"Man…this scarf is frickin' warm…."

It was nice.

It wasn't just any kind of warmth. It was the kind of warmth that reached into his heart. He couldn't lie to himself about that.

In fact, he was so distracted that for a moment he didn't register that a woman with long red hair had walked past him. He looked round, thinking it might've been Erza, out walking alone too, but he didn't see anyone else out, so he shrugged it off, thinking he was imagining things. She was the one who was trying to coax him into being more honest about how he felt about Juvia, after all.

Well…he wasn't sure if he could still bring himself to go that far. Right now he was still too nervous, too eager to be cautious about it.

But he at least had to apologize to Juvia.

Most everyone in the guild had gone home for the night, but predictably the usual suspects were still hanging around. Gray found them when he stepped inside and shut the door behind him.

"Gray! What're you doing?!" Mirajane exclaimed, pointing at Gray's feet.

Gray looked down and realized he'd neglected to kick the snow off before coming inside, and now he was tracking huge chunks of snow in which was already starting to melt and make the floor to the guildhall wet.

"Yaaaaah!" he leapt back, waving his arms frantically. "I'm sorry, Mirajane, I didn't mean it!"

But Mirajane had already grabbed a mop from the utility closet next to the bar. She held it out to Gray, giving him a patient smile. "It's fine, but you get to mop it up, bucko. Before someone—"

"Waaaaaaaah!"

There was a crash as Elfman managed to slip on the growing puddle of melted water and skid headlong into the opposite wall.

"—slips…." Mira finished lamely, cringing while their baby sister Lisanna as well as Evergreen shouted, "Elfman!" and ran over to see if he was okay. "Too late."

"Sorry Elfman!" Gray shouted across the hall.

But Elfman waved it away, even while he rubbed the throbbing lump he'd gotten on his head and Lisanna and Evergreen started arguing over who should be the one to fret over him. "It's all good, Gray! I took it like a man!"

"Heh, heh, busted," snickered another voice, and the person it belonged to gave Gray a mocking grin as he and Lucy came over to see what all the ruckus was, hands deep in his pockets.

"Shut up, Natsu," Gray shot at him flatly.

Natsu threw his hands up in the air. "Hey, I'm not the one who turned the guildhall floor into a skating rink."

Gray held the mop head up in Natsu's face. "I can make this floor a real skating rink, charcoal-for-brains, and then you can have fun slipping and sliding all over my ice."

Which of course made Natsu get in his face, poking a finger at him. "Yeah? Well bring it on, I can outskate you any day of the week, frostbite!"

"You, outskate me? Ha! That's rich."

"Nope, nope, nooooooope." Mirajane got in between them and held a hand out to each them, forcing them apart. "Gray, you are not making this floor into an ice rink. Natsu, don't encourage him," she added.

"What brought you in here anyway, Gray?" Lucy asked with her hands clasped behind her back, titling her head to one side, while Natsu started arguing with Mirajane instead (because Natsu would argue with a wall if he thought it looked at him funny). "You've been like, AWOL all day, and then Juvia went to find you and…." Then she frowned. "Hey, where is Juvia? That's the scarf she made you, isn't it?"

"Oh…um…yeah." Gray tugged at it self-consciously. "You…you haven't seen her here…anywhere…have you?"

But Lucy shook her head. "Last we saw of her, she was off to find you. I guess she must've gone home." Then she lowered her voice, looking left and right to make sure no one else was really listening in or watching before adding, "Did…you guys…have a…like a fight or something?"

Gray turned his visual attention to the mop still in his hand. "Yeah, something like that." And then he set about cleaning up the water and snow he'd tracked into the guildhall.

"Well, I'm sure it'll work out okay," Lucy assured him optimistically. "I can't imagine there's anything between you two that you guys can't sort out."

Gray paused in his mopping and beetled his brow at her in mild confusion. "Whaddya mean? How do you know that?"

Lucy winked at him. "I just got a feeling about you two."

Which made Gray blush again and he hastily went back to mopping the floor. Then he rammed the mop head into the back of Natsu's feet because the idiot was in his way.

"Hey, watch where ya goin'!" Natsu snapped.

"Then get outta my way, flame breath!" Gray snapped back.

Which sent Natsu flying at him in a rage, but not before Gray rose to the challenge, leading to the two of them grappling over the fallen mop. This forced Mirajane to pull them apart (again) and order Gray to finish mopping, a task which was ticking him off now that he knew Juvia wasn't even here, so he'd really come here for nothing and had gotten himself roped into mopping because he hadn't been paying attention.

After Lucy gave Natsu a kind of karate chop on the back of his head though, he seemed to cool off, like she'd found the magical off-switch to his berserker mode or something like that. She grinned in triumph as he watched her do a kind of awkward mix between a sashay and some king of made-up ballet move past Gray and out the door on her way home to her apartment, rubbing the back of his head regardless.

"Man. Girls, am I right?" Then Natsu grinned that idiot grin of his.

But then, he wouldn't be Natsu if he didn't grin that way. And Gray couldn't imagine him without it.

So he managed a grin back, though his was a little more melancholy. "Yeah. Girls."

For once that subtle difference in tone didn't escape Natsu's notice and he blinked at him bemusedly. "Hey…you okay?" he asked, being serious for once.

Gray paused in doing the last of the mopping up and then straightened, considering his longtime bestest of frenemies (well, his only frenemy) for a moment before answering. "Yeah. I'm fine. Just got some sticky stuff to work out, that's all."

"Got it," said Natsu, in a way that told Gray he did not get it at all. Then he clapped him on the shoulder and leaned in, acting all conspiratorial-like. "It's the scarf, isn't it?" Then he shrugged. "I told Juvia she should go with something everybody likes. Like food. I mean...she was gonna bake you a cake, or something, but I guess that ship sailed."

Gray raised an eyebrow at him. "That so?"

"Yeah, but what're you gonna do?" Then Natsu started to head out after Lucy, hands tucked clasped behind his head so his elbows stuck out.

"Scarf's fine," Gray called after him.

Natsu stopped and looked over his shoulder at him. "Eh?"

Gray lifted up one of the scarf's tails, rolling the wool between his thumb and forefingers. "Best scarf I ever had. It's just that I was…being kind of a jerk," he added truthfully, ruefully. "To Juvia, I mean."

Natsu blinked at him again, and then he tipped his head back and laughed. "Ha! Man, you better tell Juvia that that's the best scarf you'd ever had then!" he crowed, and then stepped out into the snow outside.

Gray tossed and turned that night, restless with a different kind of guilt. He'd stood for who knew how long at the gates to Fairy Hills, unable to bring himself to call on Juvia's dorm there. Figuring in the end that she was probably asleep, he'd turned tail and wandered home.

When he woke up the next day he hadn't really slept all that well, and he wasn't exactly thrilled with the shadowed look under his eyes. Either way, he hoped to find Juvia at the guildhall. The idea of her being the one to hole up for the day made him feel worse.

But she wasn't there when he got in, and he felt himself wilt a little inside.

"She'll be in, Gray, don't go twisting yourself into knots."

Gray's head snapped up, and he found Erza leaning over the nearby railing, giving that big-sister smile of hers. Though he in Gray's case he always felt that the one she gave him was a just little more sympathetic, like she understood, despite the fact that he'd never really told even her anything personal about his past.

Instead of wearing her armor, Erza just had on her sleeveless blouse with the frilly neckline and the blue skirt. It was her way of letting her hair down for a day.

She shook her head and chuckled. "She's just running a little late, that's all. She seemed a little fragged, actually, but I wouldn't worry about it."

"Fragged?" Gray didn't even want to imagine what that might mean. Maybe she'd just gone and snapped completely. Like during their fight when they'd first met—man her mood swings had been all over the place then. She'd actually been improving from that sanity-wise since joining Fairy Tail.

But then he heard her voice, meek and remorseful behind him.

"Um…Gray?"

Gray turned around, feeling his palms go clammy again. But he did his best to look her in the eye. She deserved that.

Juvia, for her part, was fiddling with her hands. Not coincidentally, a bunch of the others, like Natsu, Happy, Lucy, Wendy, Elfman, and Gajeel, along with Erza, all just happened to be watching.

Greeeeeeeeeeeat.

"Um, I owe you an apology," Juvia went on, bowing slightly in contrition. "Lyon told me…about what happened and I just…."

But Gray didn't need her to finish. He got the idea. Lyon must've told her everything about what yesterday's date had been to him.

But that didn't matter now.

"Don't do that," he told her in a tone of gruff self-reproach. "I was a jerk, I should apologize to you. I'm sorry."

"I wanna make up for my mistake, so…."

Then, before he knew what hit him, Gray had a huge body pillow shoved into his face, one with Juvia's bikini-clad image printed onto it (somehow).

Oh…so this is what Erza meant when she said Juvia seemed 'fragged'…she'd been making this…thing….

At least Juvia was back to her cheerful self, even if she was trying to coax him into taking this fetishy dream of a pillow from her instead, try as Gray did to shove it off of him.

"This is also in commemoration of our four hundred and fourteenth anniversary, so, it'd be pretty rude not to take it!" Juvia babbled on. And then she burst into a peal of giggles, more amused than anything else at how freaked out this was making him.

"Seriously? Come on, this thing's creepy!"

"How can it be creepy? It's just a pillow, silly!"

Then Juvia laughed, that bubbly, never-give-up laugh of hers, which gave Gray pause in their shove-match. He looked around the pillow at her, and she was beaming as brightly as she had been when she'd been trying to give him the scarf she'd made him. Of course, he'd take the scarf over this any day, but like with this scarf, he knew that this all came from a place of love.

Really though, it was just seeing her happy again that made him give in.

"Okay, fiiiiiiiine!" He tugged the body pillow into his arms, but made a point to fold it over so it concealed Juvia's image on it. The fact that it was actually kind of sexy probably scared him more than creeped him out, if he was being honest with himself.

But come on. Wendy didn't need to see something like that, especially now that she was asking Lucy what people did with body pillows.

"Jeez, you sure know how to surprise a guy," he told Juvia a bit brusquely, still trying to shake off his embarrassment, hugging the folded-over pillow to him, hoping maybe he could shrink it down so small that it disappeared.

Juvia just laughed again though, giving him that look she'd given him that day she'd asked him out to eat that one afternoon in Crocus. "As long as it takes your mind off things," she said, rather knowingly actually.

Which, after a moment, got Gray to smile back at her, just a little.

Still, there was no escaping the fact that he now had this weird body pillow thing in his house. When he got it home (feeling like he was a trafficker of some indecent product with how covert he tried to be about it), he flung it on the couch, at a loss as to what to do next.

Well, he knew what your average pervert would do. But that wasn't him (though Lucy would beg to differ given how many times he'd broken into her house either naked or nearly-naked).

To make matters worse, while he was scowling at it and twitching, Lyon came a-knocking again.

"Wow, you're quick today," Lyon told him in mock-praise, wearing that smug grin of his. And like yesterday, he pushed past Gray before Gray had a chance to say anything or react.

He immediately thought of the Juvia pillow stretched out on his couch though.

"Lyon! Wait!"

Too late.

Lyon was standing in the entry way to the living room, staring slack-jawed at the body pillow with Juvia's smutty image printed on it. Then he slowly lifted a finger and pointed at it. "Is that…?"

"Nope! It's nothing! You saw nothing!" Gray shouted, grabbing Lyon from behind and dragging him back towards the front door.

"That—that was Juvia!" Lyon cried.

"Nope, no it wasn't! You're seein' things, man!"

"Gray, don't treat me like an idiot, I know what I saw!"

"Fine! Then forget you saw it!"

"Well, that's not exactly something you easily forget…!"

"Maybe, but you're gonna do it!"

Gray shut the door behind them both, and only then did he let go of Lyon's jacket.

Lyon huffed and smoothed out the apparently offending creases Gray had made in the fabric by grabbing at it. "Jeez. Overrreact much?"

Gray breathed a sigh of relief though before he glared at Lyon. "Listen, you tell anyone about this, and I will shove the pointy end of an icicle in your ear. Got it?"

But Lyon just shook his head and laughed. "You lucky bastard. That's all I'm going to say."

"So you wanna tell me why you're over here today?" Gray asked.

"Just wanted to see if you and Juvia had patched things up," said Lyon casually, stepping down Gray's front steps to the sidewalk now that he'd recovered from Gray's manhandling.

Then he smirked.

"Clearly you did."

Gray narrowed his eyes at him. "Ice-make…snowball."

And before Lyon could duck, Gray clocked him good on the head with the freshly made snowball he'd magicked into his hand.

This knocked Lyon flat, of course, which gave Gray a damn good laugh at the addled and sucker-punched look on his face.

THE END