A/N: Many thanks to allissrose for turning this from a 2 am mess into something awesome

I had some witty authors note planned out earlier but I forgot what I was going to say :)

Juvia wasn't crazy.

She repeated her string of denials time and time again: she wasn't any type of crazy. Not too crazy to function; not insanely mad or maddeningly insane—even if it was true, none of that occurred because of...of that incident. The one not to be spoken of. Ever—for that was another story for another day (a day that will never come).

She saw no need for a psychologist, no need for those pitying glances that ripped holes in her (sane, sane, completely sane) mind. No need for friends—could she call them friends anymore?—to look at her with so much worry.

(What was there to worry about?)

If they actually cared, it wouldn't have happened in the first place. Juvia would still be (not so) content. She wouldn't have to talk about her feelings, plastering on her imitation of a cheery smile as she pondered all the reasons why she was within her rights to mutilate her psychologist—but she didn't, did she?

No, she stayed and smiled and gazed at those office tiles, solely to look up at a wall the color that she loved.

Nonono, Juvia was totally sane. At least, that's what her friends thought—settled for, wished; all too eager to be convinced and put at ease. They were oblivious, blindfolded from the situation's reality, because reality swallows hard and burns harder, but the lies slip down like wine and oh, how badly they all wanted to forget. Their eyes were blind, but Juvia's own could see only one thing— for the shades and hues had faded until she could see only one thing: that color that she loved.

(It is a blessing, Juvia whispered to herself; it is a blessing to see nothing but you love.)

The world was as cruel as always, oblivious as her friends—poor and fake, prescribed to her and watered down doses and forced down her throat—to what was happening to her damaged mind. Dreams, hallucinations, nightmares, all filled with the color. The color that wasn't a color, the color that was a man; and that she loved with breathless intensity.

After all:

Why not call a color the dead man you truly loved—but who never loved you back? When you're insane, Juvia thought - giddiness like shredded metal, shiny and sharp - anything goes. And they all think I'm insane, don't they? Deep down?

….Was she? Did it matter?

She stopped denying her insanity after a while. After all, it wasn't Juvia's fault; it was those stupid ex-friends of hers and their stupid mistakes. But of course, with this acceptance came consequences. That stupid psychologist (Juvia should have murdered the bitch when she had the chance) deemed the woman 'severely depressed' and said that her love of that beautiful color was a 'coping mechanism'. Unfortunately for her lovely psychologist, the medication that was supposed to 'help with depression' only heightened Juvia's hallucinations—because seeing only what you love is a gift, the woman's patient insists—and Juvia's constant acts of, well, sheer, dizzying insanity finally drove the last of her idiotic friends away.

But of course, the consistency and routines that came with being crazy made things dull. Wake up, swallow pills, pretend you're fine, swallow more pills, (pretend to) sleep, repeat. Sure, you could throw some annoyed ex-friends and a dash of what Juvia loved in, but still, the seconds ticked by and the consistency, the steady pounding of ordinary—it drove her a little...mad.

Ha, it turned out that Juvia was too crazy to function after all.

With her boring routine and her boring life, it was no wonder Juvia tried to mix things up. It was a part of being crazy: programmed to crash-blaze through her destructive life and do such reckless deeds—stupid, crazy girl, coming apart at the seams.

Why? Does anyone ever know why?

Because—duh—they're insane.

So Juvia, with her insane mind and her insane actions, took a few too many pills one morning – one boring, boring morning just begging to be spiced up.

It was truly worth it as she fell to the floor of her apartment, vision fading to black and a bittersweet, blissful smile planted on her ravaged face.

So now, all Juvia can do is sit by a grave and love a color that could never have loved her back.

(The grave might be Juvia's own, or it might belong to the color Juvia loved, but her eyes slips shut; and she sighs—

—and she doesn't wonder anymore.)

She sees nothing but gray.