Water make blood… Gray could feel the blood pumping through his veins. Juvia's blood. Pain, anguish and fear filled Gray's heart until he couldn't breathe. Looking down at the woman, bleeding and lying still next to him, Gray couldn't believe what was happening, that he was still alive and that she was not. Grabbing her into his arms, tears and grief ripped through him, screaming out his anguish, Gray felt like his life was ending.
Gray woke up with a start. His heart raced and his breathing was ragged. He was disoriented and not sure of where he was. It was dark and quiet, that much he could tell right away. Looking around the dark room, he tried to process what had just happened. Slowly, his heart rate and breathing began to return to normal. A nightmare. One that had tormented him every year on this particular day. He felt a small movement from next to him. Looking down, he saw the woman next to him shift into a sitting position next to him.
"Are you alright My Darling?" Juvia asked softly touching his arm.
Relief, stronger than anything he had ever felt before washed through him, making him weak. He grabbed Juvia to him and buried his face in her soft blue hair. Juvia wrapped her arms around him and held him tightly and caressing his back.
"The nightmare?" she asked softly. He murmured something that she couldn't make out. He seemed to content to stay like that for a while, so Juvia just held onto him until he could regain his composure. After a few moments, he pulled back and looked at her tenderly.
"Tell me you're real." He said softly.
"I'm real." She smiled up at him.
Nodding, Gray pulled Juvia into his arms and laid back down tucking her firmly into his arms, her back against his chest. "Tell me again"
"Juvia is real." She repeated. "Wendy saved me. She healed me and returned me to you." She said softly. Juvia grabbed Gray's hand and slid it over her side so his palm could rest on her round belly. "She healed me and returned me to you, so that we could welcome this little baby into the world." She continued sleepily.
Gray lay there holding both Juvia and their unborn child savoring the feeling of both her in his arms and the subtle movements of their child in her belly. In the four years since the battle with Alvarez, each year, on the anniversary of their forced duel, Gray was plagued with a nightmare where he relived the single worst day of his life. Juvia was always there to comfort him after he was awakened by the dream though. Thinking back to the nightmare, he did realize that this time the dream had been shorter, less detailed. He hoped beyond hope that soon he would no longer have this dream. He would once again have to thank Wendy tomorrow for saving the woman he loved more than anything.