"I'm home!" Gray said as he entered the tiny little two-bedroom cottage he shared with his new wife Juvia.
However, instead of his wife rushing in to greet him lovingly, all Gray heard was a wail from the bedroom. Scared that something terrible had happened, Gray ran as quick as he could through the kitchen, knocking over a chair as he went, before entering their bedroom.
Juvia, five months pregnant, and her belly getting bigger by the day, was lying on top of the neatly made bed that she shared with her husband. She was still dressed in her blue nightgown even though it was noon, and she had several empty tissue boxes scattered around her, with a half-full one balanced on her belly bump. She sniffed heartily, her eyes swollen and red, and her cheeks wet with tears.
Her lip quivering, she stared at her husband who stood stock still in the doorway observing the scene, still clearly afraid at the state of his wife.
Gray had been away on a mission, trying to earn some extra money before the babies were born, and things got even more hectic. All manner of scenarios for his wife's distress raced through his head. Did she perhaps see Porlyusica, and had gotten some bad news? Was something wrong with their unborn twins? Perhaps Juvia herself was not feeling well? Or maybe, being the loving wife that she was, she had missed Gray so much that she had worked herself up into this crying mass of woman.
Gray, his face etched in worry, hurried to his wife's side as she looked up at him pityingly.
"Gray-sama…." she squeaked out, her arms outstretched towards him as he kneeled down beside her and the bed, before another great wail burst from her lips. She began to sob in earnest before him, clutching at his shirt.
"What the hell is wrong?!" Gray asked in desperation. "What happened?! Is it the babies?!"
Juvia shook her head emphatically, tears flooding down her face.
"Then is it you, are you hurting somewhere?!"
Juvia shook her head again. "Juvia is feeling fine!" she assured him loudly, but she seemed to become more upset with each question asked.
"Did something happen at the guild?!"
Juvia shook her head once more, taking another tissue as she bawled.
"Is it about me? Were you worried?!"
Juvia again shook her head, and said, "Juvia wasn't worried about Gray-sama," she insisted between sobs.
Considering Gray had just come back from a very dangerous mission, this annoyed him a bit, but he brushed it off, and went on, "Then what is it?! Why are you crying?!" he asked her, as he held her hand.
Juvia turned towards him, and he leaned close to her.
"Juvia is crying… Juvia is crying… Juvia is crying…. Because… Because… Because she doesn't know why she's crying!" And she busted out in fresh tears and howls yet again.
Gray's face became blank as he looked at his confused mess of a wife who was now sobbing into his shirt collar clutched between her hands and holding him close.
"L-let me get this straight," he said, trying to inject some logic into the conversation. "You're crying… because you don't know why you're crying?" he asked, hoping that this sentence sounded just as ridiculous to her as it did to him, and that she was about to correct him.
But, to his horror, she merely nodded her head in agreement, her eyes slits, her mouth open, as the tears continued to fall.
"Gray-sama! JUVIA LOVES YOU!" And she cried some more.
Sighing heavily, Gray disentangled himself from his distraught and very soggy wife, and got up from his kneeling position. He brushed off the empty tissue boxes from the bed, to make space so he could sit beside her. She cuddled her wet face into his open shirt, and sniffed.
"When do you think it will stop, Gray-sama?" she asked pleadingly, sounding like she had an awful head cold. But, Gray knew her congestion was just the result of the waterfall of mucus that had rushed continuously out of her nose since morning.
"Hopefully soon," he said with utter sincerity, brushing her hair with his hand as she lay across his chest, still sniffling, and a new wave of tears swept over her once again.
"There there," Gray said, patting her lovingly, and he couldn't help but laugh a bit at the situation. He knew he shouldn't, and he knew that Juvia was going through a lot, and her hormones were probably playing havoc with her emotions. Much to his surprise, however, his own chuckling seemed to have triggered Juvia as well, for between her sniffs she also started giggling.
"Oh, Gray-sama, Juvia must seem so silly," she said, and he could feel her warm breath on his skin. "Juvia understands if Gray-sama needs to get away to the guild. She's probably not much fun to be around right now," and her voice was mostly light-hearted, with just a tinge of sadness, as she finally seemed to have gotten a reign on her sobbing.
"Nah it's ok, cry or laugh as much as you want, I'm not going anywhere," he reassured her, and she raised herself up on the bed with difficulty in order to look into his eyes.
"Oh Gray-sama," she said gratefully, before her eyes welled with tears once more and she burst out crying again.
Gray smiled in a half-resigned, half-amused sort of way, and held his wife close.
It was going to be a long pregnancy, but as he felt a slight movement from Juvia's belly that was pressed to his side, he thought that he'd go through it a million times over for the end result. Juvia, however, might not agree.
"GRAY-SAMA!"
THE END
A/N: Just a quick little bit of fluff. ^^ I picture Juvia as a very emotional pregnant lady, similar to her behavior in the 4th OVA when she got drunk. I can definitely see her bursting into tears for no reason, and Gray having to be there for her. It just makes my heart happy and amused hee! Thanks for reading! ^_^
