Erza stood nervously outside of the Magic Council building, twiddling her fingers against one another anxiously. She clasped and un-clasped her shaking hands and would often grip at the folds of her white sundress. Gray, Juvia, Natsu and Lucy all stood with her as they waited patiently. None of them were allowed to be present during Jellal's final trial that would give him a permanent sentence. Lucy placed a hand reassuringly on Erza's shaking shoulder. "Everything is going to be okay, Erza. They'll let him go. They have to after all he has done," the blonde encouraged her softly, and Erza just nodded stiffly, her eyes never leaving the front door of the council building.
Natsu grumbled impatiently next to Lucy and folded his arms behind his head. "Man, do they seriously need to take this long to figure out if Jellal deserves to be free or not? I mean obviously they need to just let him go and so he can come back with us. He ain't done nothing wrong."
"Jellal has taken down a lot of dark guilds in the past," Gray added. "If it weren't for him and Crime Sorciere, those dark guilds would've most likely aligned themselves with Zeref, and we would've had to of fought a lot more than what we did."
The blue-haired water mage nodded her head next to him in agreement. "Zeref has been defeated now, and Jellal had a hand in that as well," Juvia pointed out. "Honestly, if it weren't for him, who knows what would have happened. If the Magic Council doesn't set him free, it would truly be unjust." She tossed some ice blue locks of her hair over her shoulder and gazed up at Gray nervously, linking her arm with his. "You don't think they'll lock him back up again do you?"
Gray placed one hand over Juvia's clutching at his arm, and stared hard at the ground. "I certainly hope not, but I wouldn't put it past them. After all, they locked him up even though he helped us defeat the Oracion Seis and helped us save so many lives back then during the entire Nirvana incident. It still pisses me off."
Lucy shot Gray a dark look. "Shut up, Gray. You're not helping matters," she uttered from the corner of her mouth. Gray could be very tactless at times, and he didn't seem to acknowledge the change in Erza's body language. Her shoulders hunched and she clutched at the front of her dress even harder, still trembling. She cleared her throat and raised her head.
"We do have to take in consideration that we may never see Jellal again," Erza grit out shakily. "This is why the Magic Council wouldn't let us attend the trial. Because they knew we would have something to say. So now, we wait patiently until the verdict is reached. If they decide his sentence is to be imprisoned for life, I... at least want to say goodbye to him." Erza turned around and gazed at all of her friends who were all giving her a mixture of worried and sympathetic expressions. It didn't make Erza's plight any easier, and she tried to not let tears creep up into her eyes that desperately wanted to make their appearance. Her nose tingled and she turned back toward the building, blinking against the burning in her eyes. She swallowed hard. "Let's just keep quiet for now and wait."
Almost as soon as Erza spoke those words, the doors to the building opened and a shadow stood in the doorway. Erza's heart began pounding heavily in her chest with a combined mixture of fear and anxiety. She blinked against the brightness of the sunlight and the silhouette in the door way trying to see if it was someone from the council or if it were... the figure stepped out. Erza gasped as the spikes and tufts of cerulean hair and the crimson red of his familiar tattoo came into view. Jellal took a few steps forward and then stopped, his mouth slightly open in shock as his eyes came to rest on not only the scarlet haired girl in the front, but the other members of Fairy Tail accompanying her.
Erza didn't know when she picked her sandaled feet up off of the ground, but she did and she began walking toward him. "Jellal... a-are you...?" she began choking out.
Jellal smiled lightly. "I'm free," was all he said with a hint of disbelief sounding in his voice, and at those words, Erza's feet picked up faster and faster until she was running to him, and he was making his way quickly toward her as well. Her arms were outstretched for him and Jellal held his waiting arms open as Erza dove into them. He grasped her around the waist and lifted her up into the air, swinging her around in a circle, scarlet hair flying all around him. "I'm free, Erza. I don't have to run again," his baritone voice resounded softly in her ears and Erza let the tears that had began brimming her eyes fall.
"You're really free? Does this mean that," and her breath hitched on her words. She wrapped her arms around his shoulders tighter, hands gripping the back of his neck.
"We can finally be together, Erza," Jellal's trembling voice gave Erza the answer to her unasked question, and they stared blazingly hard into one another's eyes. Erza's with happy moisture trickling down the front of her face and off her nose, Jellal's brimming with unshed tears of happiness and relief. The entire Fairy Tail gang was cheering and yelling and running toward the twosome now, but they all stopped and gasped as Jellal tilted his face closer to Erza's own and captured her lips in his own. Erza ignored the residual sounds of her guildmates as she closed her eyes and finally, finally was able to pour herself into the kiss of Jellal, the kiss of a free man, the kiss of redeemed man, and of the man she loved more than life itself. He was free, they were free, and they were free to do whatever they want. She tangled her fingers in the tips of his soft, blue locks at the base of his neck and kissed him harder than she ever had in her entire life, and Jellal reciprocated.
"Well, now that that's all settled, Jellal. FIGHT ME!" Natsu screamed from the background, his mouth wide open with flames on his tongue, his fists raised in the air.
Lucy slapped him on the back of the head. "You idiot! Can't you see they don't want to fight right now? They're celebrating!" Lucy looked back at her friends and smiled brightly for Erza. After all this time, they could finally be with one another and they deserved it more than ever. Lucy wiped at the corner of her eye with a knuckle. "They deserve this."
Jellal and Erza broke the kiss, turned to look at the feisty, protesting Natsu, while Lucy held onto his scarf to keep him in place, and the two burst out laughing. If this was what true freedom felt like, then Erza and Jellal would take and enjoy every single moment of it because all of their lives, they never knew if true freedom truly existed. From the time they were children, and up til now, they had been fighting nothing but darkness. Now, they knew that this was their true freedom and that it most definitely existed.