Note: I was going to post this a looong time ago, but the site has been glitching and I didn't feel like dealing with the hassle. Sorry x.x
There were a couple really nice guest reviews on the first part, so thanks, you guys. To answer one of the questions, "madness" in the summary refers to "crazy"...sort of. It's a little more complicated than that, but I think you'll be able to figure it out ;) And although there were some fair guesses about what this part would cover, I did say that it wasn't as closely tied to canon as the first part X)
Erza was down at the river again. She wanted today to be a good day, though. The past few months had been hard on both her and Gray, and they'd ended up by the river more than once. Gray had been pretty messed up after the events on Galuna, even though it wasn't easy to tell since he was so good at putting up a brave front and hiding anything he didn't want the world to see. Then again, who wouldn't be messed up from something like that? It still made Erza's heart hurt just thinking about it, and she felt a little selfish for all those years he had looked out for her and she had never even realized that he was hurting so badly.
And as for Erza, returning to the Tower had been difficult, and watching Simon and Jellal die… No, she hadn't been in a good place either. She had hidden away at the river several times after that, her and Gray on their own little island away from the rest of the world.
But things were starting to get better now. Lyon had appeared again to reconcile with Gray while fighting against Oración Seis, and while Erza didn't trust him after Galuna, she couldn't deny that the fragile hope the encounter had stirred in Gray's eyes was welcome. Erza appreciated anything that gave her friend a sense of closure and comfort. As for Erza, she had at least gotten to see her other friends from the Tower and set them free to live their own futures out in the world. She hoped to see them again someday, but for now it was enough to know that they were free. And even though Jellal wasn't free, it was enough to know that he was somehow alive. She had mourned losing him again, but she hoped to see him out of jail someday.
Erza was ready to start moving on again, and she was going to drag Gray along with her if he wasn't of the same mind. His eyes weren't quite as sad these days, so she assumed that he was feeling well enough to be receptive to her attempts to lighten the atmosphere.
Today, Erza was going to reclaim the river for all the good times again. She was tired of only going there to cry.
Reaching the riverbank, she dropped the heavy skates with a huff and they fell to the ground in a tangle of leather and laces. Now that the river was frozen, she wanted to go skating. She wasn't any good at it, but she knew that Gray was. He wouldn't mind showing her all the tips and tricks when he showed up, and it would be fun. Even if he teased her, which she was sure would happen.
Flopping down into the snow, she shivered and pulled off her boots. Tugging the skates on was harder than expected, given that they seemed to be too small for her now. Come to think of it, it had been a while since she'd last done this. Maybe she should hurry up and get some practice in before Gray arrived, or else she would be completely hopeless.
She clumped over to the river awkwardly, and then fell flat on her face as the blade of the skate twisted underneath her.
"Damn it," she muttered to herself. "I can't even stand on these things when I'm not on the ice."
She was totally screwed. Gray would laugh his head off when he saw her.
Crawling the last few feet to the bank and out onto the ice, she flipped over and sat there for a moment, debating how to best go about this. It occurred to her that maybe she should take off her heavy coat so that she could move more freely, but… She was already shivering, the chill of the ice seeping through her coat and mittens, and she had the feeling that it would only get worse.
Well, she had better make the most of her time or else she'd make a fool of herself. Furrowing her brow in concentration, Erza carefully raised herself to her knees and pressed her mittened hands to the ice so that she could awkwardly push herself to her feet. She wobbled dangerously, feet splaying out and arms windmilling, but stayed upright.
"Ha, that's not so bad."
A delighted smile graced her features, and she hesitantly slid one foot forward…only to have it slip out from underneath her and send her crashing down.
"Nope, it's that bad."
She sighed in frustration, but then shook it off. This was supposed to be fun, and she wasn't giving up yet. Steeling herself, she summoned up a wave of fierce determination and stood again. She made it about two inches before tumbling back down. Well, even two inches was progress. Sort of.
Unfortunately, the next ten minutes or so seemed to bring little improvement. She really didn't think that the human body was meant to be supported by two thin strips of metal. Honestly.
The ice creaked as she pulled herself back to her feet for the hundredth time. She was chilled to the bone and aching all over. Five more minutes and she'd call it a day. Her foot slipped and she went crashing back down.
There was a loud snap, and her startled cry was cut off as the ice cracked and she went plunging into the frigid water below. Erza flailed in a panic, gasping as her head broke the surface again. The blades of her skates couldn't find any purchase even though they were scraping against the bottom.
That was when she realized that she'd fallen into a very shallow part of the river. She relaxed marginally, realizing that this was less of a danger than an inconvenience. The damn skates were heavy and made it impossible to find her footing, and her waterlogged coat was dragging her down too. How annoying. With chattering teeth, she began pulling herself to the bank as best she could with the ice breaking and cracking under her fingers, wanting nothing more than a cup of hot cocoa and a fluffy blanket to snuggle into. Damn, it was freezing.
"Erza!"
Gray was running through the snow, sliding down the bank in his hurry to get to her. Well, now was a great time for him to show up. Awesome. At least he could help drag her out of here.
"Hey, can you–?"
"I've got you," Gray snapped, and Erza suddenly realized that his face was sheet-white and his pupils were blown wide. He reached out and grabbed her arm, pulling her out of the water with some difficulty and crouching by her side as she flopped onto the bank with her feet splayed out awkwardly in front of her. "Oh my God, are you okay? God, Erza."
His body was shaking almost as much as Erza's, and his trembling hands had a death grip on her arm.
"Yeah." Erza frowned. "Relax, it wasn't really–"
"Take your clothes off," he said hurriedly, his fingers already working frantically at the laces of her skates.
"What?"
"You need to get out of your wet clothes or you're going to freeze. Hurry up."
"But–"
"I swear to God, I will strip your clothes off of you myself if you don't hurry the fuck up."
Erza flinched at the mixture of naked panic and anger in his voice. She wasn't sure why he was so freaked out when she was clearly fine, but she obediently began undoing the buttons of her sopping wet coat with numb, stiff fingers, while Gray jammed her feet into her boots none too gently.
"Look," Erza said, trying to soothe him, "it's really not a big deal. The water was only–"
"What the hell were you thinking?" he demanded, glaring at her with burning eyes. "You didn't even think to check the ice before going out there? It's too weak for shit like this right now."
Erza winced. "I just assumed–"
"Assuming gets people killed," he snarled. "If you didn't know what you were looking for, then you should have at least waited for someone who knows how to read the ice. You couldn't have waited a few minutes?"
Erza stayed silent, cowed, as she pulled off her shirt and shivered against the wind, her cheeks flushing. She wasn't all that self-conscious, but the whole situation was kind of awkward. Which was probably not helped by the fact that she was being lectured—berated, more like—by an irate Gray. And Erza couldn't even really offer a defense, because he was right.
"How could you do this?" Gray asked, his hands clenching into fists. He froze, his eyes going glassy, and added in a smaller voice, "How could you?"
"It was shallow and I'm fine," Erza said, eyeing him as she wriggled out of her waterlogged skirt.
Gray's eyes refocused on her, and his moment of vulnerability was swallowed up by his fury again. Ripping off his own coat, he tugged his shirt over his head and shoved it at Erza's chest.
"Towel."
"But–"
"Erza, I swear to God."
Erza bit her lip and accepted the makeshift towel. The water on her skin was making the biting wind even colder, and she worked at drying it off, her teeth clacking together and her breath hanging in clouds of vapor in the air.
"I expected better of you," Gray growled, roughly bundling Erza up in his coat and grabbing her arm as he began dragging her up the bank.
She only had time to yelp in surprise and snatch up her discarded clothing and skates before she was unceremoniously hauled off. Gray's grip was viselike and he moved quickly, not even pausing when Erza stumbled.
"Gray, I–"
"You're supposed to be the responsible one," Gray said coldly as he walked briskly through the streets, heading for the guild. "What the hell is wrong with you?"
His grip tightened even more as he yanked her around the corner roughly, and Erza gasped in pain.
"You're hurting me," she said in a small voice.
He stopped short, turned, looked down at where he was gripping her wrist. He released her and flinched back as if burned, and something like guilt flickered in his eyes. Guilt and… Pain. Fear. Grief.
That was when Erza really realized that something more was going on. His anger certainly stemmed from fear, but it wasn't only because he was unreasonably worried about her fall. There had to be something more to make his eyes hold that much panic and hurt and sadness.
"Sorry," he mumbled.
"It's okay. What's–?"
Gray grabbed her wrist and started towing her along again, the out-of-place emotions in his eyes bleeding back into irritation and a more subdued anger. He didn't grip her as tightly this time or handle her as roughly, and Erza decided not to complain. Not until she knew what was wrong with him.
"But you should be more careful," he said through gritted teeth. "If I'd been too late…"
"But it wasn't even that deep. I would've been fine and–"
Gray made a hissing sound in his displeasure and pulled her into the guild hall, slamming the doors open and storming inside.
"Hey, flame brain, get over here and make yourself useful for once," he snapped, eyes locking on Natsu. "Warm her up."
"You don't get to boss me…" Natsu paused and frowned as he noticed Erza shivering in Gray's coat. "Geez, what happened to you?"
"She fell in the river," Gray said shortly as Natsu approached. "Get Wendy and have her take a look."
Erza tried to protest that a healer was definitely overkill when all she really needed was a blanket and some cocoa, but suddenly the guild was abuzz with panic as everyone gathered round and tried to figure out what had happened. She tried to reassure them that she was fine and it wasn't nearly as bad as Gray was making it out to be, but Wendy was called anyway.
Erza lost sight of Gray in all the chaos, but she already had enough on her plate calming everyone else down. Thankfully, it didn't take long before Wendy reached her verdict and Erza was laid up with a blanket and Natsu as a human furnace. It was as everyone began dispersing that she realized Gray was nowhere to be seen.
"Did anyone see where Gray went?" she asked with a frown.
Lucy's eyes darted towards the doors, her own mouth curving downward. "He was pacing around like a caged animal until Wendy said that you were okay, and then he left."
"Oh." Erza didn't know what to make of that.
"Did something else happen at the river?" Natsu asked, his eyes unusually solemn as he searched Erza's face. "Because this doesn't seem like it should have been a big deal, and it takes a lot to freak him out that badly."
Erza shook her head. "Nothing else happened, but… Yeah, he was really worked up. I think something else must be going on with him. It might be something about the water. Sometimes he gets nervous around the river."
"Water?" Natsu raised an eyebrow. "I've never noticed anything off about him and water."
"It's not super obvious," Erza mumbled, only half paying attention as her brain worked overtime to try sorting out the pieces. "But I asked him about it once, and he totally shut down on me."
"Maybe that would explain why he gets annoyed with Juvia following him everywhere," Happy said, snickering.
"Happy!" Lucy hissed.
Even Natsu leveled a flat look at the Exceed. "He doesn't freak out for no reason."
Happy deflated, and Erza could see the thinly veiled worry in his eyes as well. "I know."
"I'll talk to him later," Erza said with a sigh.
And she would. But after she got some sleep, because it was too damn cold for her to be running around outside. She was already frozen through, and needed some time to recover.
Once she had warmed up a bit, she said goodbye to the others and trekked back to the dorms. After changing into the heaviest pajamas she could find, she washed Gray's coat and shirt, made herself some hot chocolate, and curled up in bed as she thought back over the events of the day.
She was no closer to figuring it out by the time she finally fell asleep, but she was up bright and early the next morning, heart hardened with resolve as she set out to find Gray.
.
Erza was down at the river again. She had been going there pretty frequently since Galuna and the Tower, but she had seemed to be in better spirits lately. Gray hoped that this would be more of a lighthearted encounter and she wasn't upset again.
He strolled along, in no particular rush. Erza would wait, and he was enjoying the chilly weather. The gently sloping snowdrifts made him a little homesick and nostalgic, but he shoved that away. He could just enjoy them too; he always had liked the cold. Besides, he couldn't afford to get lost in the past until he knew that Erza didn't need him in the present.
Leaving the path, he slipped his hands into his pockets and sauntered through the snow-covered grass, down to the riverbank. Then the river came into view, and everything went wrong.
His breath caught in his throat as he spotted Erza flailing about in the water, broken chunks of ice floating around her. For an instant, he saw someone else's face overlaid on top of hers, her life draining away.
And then he was running, the cold air burning his throat as he gasped for breath, desperate to get to Erza before it was too late.
Too late, too late, too late.
As he hauled her out of the water, he found it impossible to quell all the emotions raging inside him. All he could see was her, and how Erza had almost gone the same path. That was when the anger started setting in, because he couldn't deal with the panic and grief anymore.
"How could you do this?" His voice dropped to almost a whisper. "How could you?"
No, no, he couldn't do this right now. This wasn't about her, it was about Erza. And he knew, he knew, he was being unreasonable and Erza would be fine, but all the fear and anger was there anyway.
He was shaking as he dragged Erza through the streets, but it wasn't from the cold.
"You're hurting me."
That pulled him up short, burned through the panicked jumble of his thoughts. He didn't want to hurt her. He had never wanted to hurt her, to hurt either of them.
"Sorry."
I'm so, so sorry.
He only stuck around the guild long enough to get the confirmation that Erza would be alright. He had logically known that already, but it was a weight off his chest anyway. Now that he could breathe again, he made his escape.
He burst back out of the guild and hurried down the street, his attention entirely focused on his destination. The river, it was calling him again. It had been a long time since it had called him so strongly.
It was almost a physical thing, too powerful for him to resist. He felt like a fish, hooked and reeled in for the slaughter.
Gray stopped short at the river's edge, staring out at the gaping hole in the ice's otherwise pristine surface. The water was dark and menacing, and the jagged ice surrounding the hole was sharp and cutting like teeth. A gaping maw, ready to snag anyone foolish enough to approach.
He took a hesitant step forward, and his boot slid in the snow and over the lip of the bank, plunging into the icy water. He jumped back, windmilling his arms for balance, and retreated a few paces to watch the river with wary eyes.
The water was seeping through the leather of his boot, making it chafe at his skin and turning his foot into a block of ice, but he didn't move. He stared out at the water unblinkingly, his mind a million miles away.
He knew that he had screwed up and that Erza was going to have questions. He would have to come up with something to tell her, and he didn't know what that something would be. And he owed her an apology.
But he would worry about that later. For now, he let the water draw him in, imagining and remembering and grieving. Nothing good ever came of the water.
He stood there until the sun had begun to set, smearing red across the sky like blood. Then he finally turned away and limped back up the bank, dragging his numbed, frozen foot along behind him. He returned to his apartment in silence, kicked off his boots, and crawled into bed, waiting for the nightmares to come.
It was only the next morning that he shook off his daze and refocused his mind on Erza again. She would want answers. He wasn't sure how much he really wanted to tell her, but he owed her something after being such a jerk. And he'd have to figure it out quickly, because Erza wasn't known for being patient and she would hunt him down to drag answers out of him.
He headed for the river again, this time not because it was calling him, but because Erza was. Or because he was calling her. Or because they were both calling each other.
Dropping to the ground in a spot directly in front of the place where Erza had broken through the ice the previous day, Gray settled into the snow, pulled his knees to his chest, and waited for Erza to find him.
Erza had always been good at sniffing out the truth. Whatever it was that Gray was hiding, she would find it.
She checked the guild first, but no one had seen him. He wasn't at his apartment either, so Erza headed for the river. Short of being desperate enough to run off, there was nowhere else Gray might be right now.
Sure enough, she spotted him sitting by the water's edge, knees drawn to his chest as he stared out over the water. It was a position that Erza had adopted many times before, and she was usually the one waiting for Gray. Had he been waiting for her this time? If nothing else, he didn't seem surprised by her appearance. He didn't even look at her when she sat down next to him, although she could tell that he knew she was there.
But he said nothing, and Erza tried to gather her thoughts and figure out how to best approach the situation. She had intended to just shake the answers out of him, but he looked so small and melancholy sitting there. She silently offered him his coat and shirt, which he took after a moment, although he didn't look at her. Dropping them into the snow on the other side of him, he resumed his previous position.
"Are you alright?" he asked finally, his eyes still fixed on the shattered ice bobbing in the patch of water in the middle of the river. The spot where, Erza realized, she had fallen through the ice yesterday.
"Of course," she said. "Are you?"
"Mm." Gray sighed. "Sorry for yelling at you."
"It's okay. But why were you so freaked out? You had to have realized that I wasn't in any serious danger."
He didn't respond immediately, but then hunched his shoulders and narrowed his eyes. "I'm only telling you this because I was such a jerk yesterday. It's not something I've told anyone else, so I'd appreciate it if you didn't spread it around."
Erza opened her mouth to protest that he didn't owe her anything and she understood that he had just been afraid, but changed her mind. She still wanted answers, even though she didn't want him to feel too bad about his meltdown.
"What is it?" she asked instead, wetting her lips nervously.
"My mother… Deliora didn't kill my mother."
"What? But you said–"
"I know, I know, I just said that it killed my parents." Gray dropped his chin to his knees and eyed the river mournfully. "But my mother actually died several months before the demon showed up."
Erza's gaze darted to the river and she swallowed hard. "Did she…? Did she drown?"
"Something like that." Gray sighed, his breath fogging in the chilly air. "She was always…different."
"Yeah, you said that on Galuna. What do you mean?"
"She just… She had episodes." Gray unwrapped an arm from around his knees so that he could rub at his face wearily. "She had the most beautiful smile, but that might just have been because we saw the genuine ones so rarely. Sometimes she was alright, but then she'd start withdrawing and stop eating and basically turn into a ghost for a while. I didn't really understand back then. My dad told me that she was sick. Sick with sadness, I guess. The neighbors said she was mad."
"Mad?"
"Yeah. You know, crazy. I don't remember them being really mean about it. It was more like they pitied her and they didn't understand why she would get so sad for no reason. I don't think it was crazy-crazy. I mean, sure, it messes with your head a little, but does that really make you crazy? But yeah, I guess it's what we would call depression."
Erza opened her mouth, closed it again. "Oh. That sounds…really horrible."
"Yeah. It was hard when she got like that. I'd sort of try to stay happy enough for the both of us. Like maybe if she saw me happy, then she could remember how to be happy too. I remember trying to figure out what to do or not do to prevent the episodes or snap her out of them. You know, maybe if I behaved or cleaned my room or was happy, then she would be okay."
Erza swallowed and searched Gray's face, trying to imagine how hard it must have been to be a young child and feel that kind of responsibility.
"You know that nothing you did caused that," she said gently.
"Yeah, sure, I know that now," he said with a shrug. "But kids can be kind of superstitious. Magical thinking and all that. It's like wearing lucky socks so that you'll win a game. If you clean your room, then maybe she'll stay happy. It doesn't really make sense, but that's how kids think, when they're looking for answers to things they don't understand.
"I'm not really sure what made her that way, to be honest. I don't know if something happened to her and it scarred her, and now I'll never know. But it's also a brain issue, and part of it is genetic, I guess."
"Genetic?"
"Sure. Sometimes stuff like that runs in families."
Erza didn't hear the underlying meaning in his words at first, but then her head snapped up and she stared at him with wide eyes. "Gray, you–"
"Anyway," he said, hugging his knees closer and refusing to look at her, "there was this river just outside of the city I lived in. We'd skate there in the winter, and sometimes we'd swim in the summer when the ice melted and the temperature warmed up a little. My mom went there a lot. It's like it was calling her or something. Sometimes she took me with her, on her good days. But when she was sad, she usually went on her own and stayed for a long time. She tried her best, but she wasn't always very good at faking things.
"Anyway, one day my dad was off somewhere—it's been so long that the details have gone fuzzy—and my mom had gone to the river again. I eventually went after her, but I guess I waited too long. She was just floating there in the water. She couldn't have even been there for long, because she hadn't sunk yet. I must have just missed her."
Erza sucked in a breath, her heart twisting painfully. "Oh my God. Gray…"
"My dad said it was an accident," Gray said flatly, suddenly stony-faced. "That she must've just slipped and not been able to get back out. But he didn't believe it either, and the neighbors whispered. I knew, though. She asked me not to come with her that day, to do some chore or another instead. So I wasn't there.
"My dad did his best. He was upset, but he wasn't one of those people who shut down entirely and forgot that he still had a kid. And me… I don't know. I was pretty messed up, I guess. I missed her. I hadn't been there, and now she was gone. You start thinking about what you could have done differently, you know? No matter how dirty a room is, it's not going to make someone off themselves. But kids are stupid, and the fact was that she had a family and she did it anyway. Because I–we hadn't been enough. You wonder what it was about you that wasn't enough to keep her here, what you could have changed."
His voice dropped to almost a whisper. "Because she had you and she chose to leave, and how could she?"
Erza's mind flitted back to the previous day: "How could you do this? How could you?" Hell, no wonder Gray had been so panicky. She tried to wrap her head around that, how it would have felt for a child so young to just find his mother…
Swallowing hard, Erza tried to ignore her aching heart.
"You know it wasn't because of you," she said, reaching out hesitantly to rest her hand on his arm. "It wasn't that you weren't good enough or did something wrong. I guess I can't–can't really understand entirely, but I think it must have been hard for her to make that choice. I don't think she would have wanted to leave you. She would have held on for as long as she could. I don't know what made her lose that fight, but it wasn't you."
Gray smiled bitterly. "Oh, I understand a lot more now. But back then, I wondered and I was sad. And I didn't realize it until later, but I was angry too. I never acknowledged it then, maybe because it felt too selfish. I mean, if someone hurt badly enough to drown themselves, then isn't it a little selfish to hate them for seizing their way out? It feels wrong to be angry at someone who was sad, someone who is dead.
"But it's why I was so blindingly angry after Deliora killed everyone else, I think. Because I already had all that anger and grief simmering under the surface, and the anger at the demon and grief for everyone else just built on top of that. And I guess it only got worse after Ur, since she killed herself too. Because of me. Anyway, they all fed into each other, each thing building on the last. I was angry because how could she?"
He sighed and dropped a hand to twirl about in the snow idly, moodily. "It took me a long time to really forgive her."
Erza scooted closer, pressing herself into Gray's side. Leaning her head against his shoulder, she joined him in his scrutiny of the river.
"I think that's understandable, even if it feels wrong," she said. "Because it's kind of a selfish choice, you know? You feel bad because she was hurting, but she also chose to make you hurt too. She wouldn't have felt good about it, of course. She wouldn't want you to hurt any more than you wanted her to. But she snapped and made that choice, and you have to live with the consequences. I think it's good that you could forgive her, though."
"Yeah, but I could only forgive her because I started to understand," he muttered.
"Understand what?"
Gray was silent for a long moment, his lips tightening. "I used to come down here sometimes as a kid," he said finally, his voice grim. "I usually tried to stay away because it made me uncomfortable, but from time to time I'd sit here and think, imagine what it would have been like. I needed to understand, even if it scared me."
That reminded Erza of their riverside meetings and of how they had started. She had thought that the fear in his eyes back then had been imagined, or maybe just a nervousness because he didn't know how to handle the situation. Her heart sank as she realized that she had been wrong.
"And so when you found me here…?" Erza let out a shuddering breath. "That's why you were so nervous? Why you kept following me down here?"
It shook the foundation of their entire relationship. The beginning, the river, the fundamental underpinnings of their friendship, had never been built on what Erza had assumed they'd been. It didn't undermine the relationship or take away any of its value, but it still rattled Erza to realize the truth. This whole time while Gray had been comforting her by the river, he had been hurting and sad and afraid.
And she had never known.
Gray looked over for the first time, his eyes solemn even though he tried to smile. It came out strained and unhappy.
"I didn't really think you would do anything," he assured her. "But you were crying and sad with the river right there, and… I don't know. I guess I thought it couldn't hurt to be cautious. Because I hadn't been there for her, and I didn't want to leave you alone too. It became more than that, though. You took me by surprise the first time, but we were friends and I came for you, Erza."
Erza's lips trembled and her eyes filled with tears as the shock began wearing off, the full horror starting to set in. How horrible would it be to have one of the people who was supposed to love you the most choose to leave you like that? Death of any kind was bad enough, but suicide was something else altogether. And so young… No wonder Gray had been such a broken child.
"I'm sorry," she whispered, burying her face in her hands. "I'm really sorry. And I'm sorry that I kept making you come down here when… I'm sorry."
It was silent aside from her sniffling, but then Gray reached out to pull her hands away from her face, his fingers cold against her skin. He gave her a melancholy smile and swept his thumbs across her cheeks carefully, wiping away her tears.
"Hey, it's okay," he said gently. "It worked out in the end. It wasn't a lot of fun in the beginning, but it was worth it, for you."
Erza sniffed again, then quickly clamped her hands over her nose as the freezing air assaulted her sinuses. "If I'd known that this was why you got so nervous around the water, I would have picked somewhere else."
Gray stared at her, then his expression closed off and he withdrew, returning his gaze to the river as he said, "It's not the water I'm scared of. It's not even the river, not really. It's what it means to me, what it represents. Because it called her, and now it calls me."
"What do you mean?" Erza asked apprehensively, picking up on his shifting mood.
"I wanted to understand," he said expressionlessly. "But it's dangerous to understand too much. See, I'll never truly know everything that pushed her over the edge, but I understand what would push me over. I understand now, what it's like when the world suddenly loses all its color and meaning. What it's like to feel too much to the point where your body can't contain it, and then feel not nearly enough because all that's left after you burn yourself out is the numbness. What it's like to forget how to feel, to not be able to remember what being happy feels like anymore. And I understand what it's like to be on that edge, to feel the call and waver.
"That's what scares me," he said, sighing heavily. "That I can understand. I forgave her, but… She was my mother and I loved her, but I don't want to end up like her. That's what I'm scared of."
The icy air clawed painfully at Erza's throat as she sucked in a breath. It had already been bad enough to hear Gray almost admit to some of this earlier, but to hear it all laid out was horrifying. Erza had a hard time wrapping her head around it all, but the message was clear enough, even if Gray was skirting around it and dressing it up with words that weren't nearly as ugly as they should be.
"Of course you won't…" Erza swallowed hard, her fingers curling into helpless fists. "You'd never end up like that."
Gray laughed bitterly. "What do you think happened on Galuna? Why did you think Natsu was so worked up? He doesn't freak out for no reason. I gave up and he knew it. Even before, when I went after Deliora… I didn't think about it in those terms, but I didn't really expect to win that fight. No, I am exactly like her."
"You… No!" Erza rounded on him, slamming her hands into his chest and pushing him to the ground. He made a startled sound in the back of his throat and stared up at her with wide eyes as she planted her hands on either side of him and glowered down at him. The snow beneath her hands quickly began seeping into her skin and chilling her to the bone, but she barely even felt it. "You are not! You are nothing like that. You would never–never– You–you–"
She didn't even realize she was crying until Gray reached up to cup her face gently in his hands, brushing his thumbs along her cheeks. He smiled at her wistfully, some of the bitterness melting away.
"I always admired you, almost from the very beginning," he said with that sad smile, his dark eyes gentle. "You were always so strong, even though you'd obviously faced a lot of heartache. You came to the river, you were sad, but you picked up the pieces and moved forward and didn't let it define you. I know what you did at the Tower, but still, you stood on the edge, you gave in to that urge once, but you still pulled yourself back afterward. You've always been strong like that. I don't want to be like my mother, but I always wanted to be more like you."
Erza gaped down at him, her eyes filling with tears again. Then she hung her head, her shoulders shaking.
"It's okay, Erza. We're going to be okay."
Her arms gave out and she collapsed onto Gray's chest, burying her face in his coat, her frozen fingers clutching at the fabric desperately. Gray hummed soothingly, wrapping an arm around her and carding through her hair tenderly with his other hand. And Erza… She knew that she needed to say something to make this better, but she couldn't come up with any words at all, so she just cried instead.
.
Erza had always been good at sniffing out the truth. Maybe too good. Gray sighed softly and stroked his friend's hair absently as he stared up at the gray winter sky, the snow beneath him melting and seeping through his clothes, Erza's weight heavy on his chest.
"That was a lot more than I planned to tell you," he mumbled.
These were things that he had never intended to tell anyone, things that he had planned to keep locked tightly in his heart until the bitter end. Having all those ugly words out in the open weighed on him heavily, suffocating in their implications. He should have kept better control over his tongue, but Erza always seemed to drag more out of him than he really wanted to share.
"You…" Erza trailed off, her voice choked.
"It's not really as bad as it sounds," Gray murmured, pulling her closer. He wished she would stop trembling, stop crying. He hated to see her cry, and it wasn't a good feeling to be the one causing it. "Hey, don't cry. It's not so bad."
"Don't cry?" she asked, her voice muffled by his coat. "It's not so bad? Are you insane? God, Gray. What am I supposed to say to that?"
"You don't have to say anything. I know it's hard when there's really nothing you can say. It's okay. I wasn't even supposed to tell you that."
Erza's body spasmed in what seemed like half a sob and half a laugh. "Thank you for telling me."
A frown crept over Gray's face, but he just sighed. It wasn't like he didn't understand the sentiment—if Erza or one of the others had been hiding anything like this then he would want to know about it—but he still wished that he could take back the words and have a do-over of this entire conversation.
Erza sniffled again and then finally pulled her face out of Gray's coat. Propping herself up on her elbows in the snow, she let her forearms rest across his chest as she stared down at him. Gray let his hand fall away from her hair and winced at her tearstained face.
"Well, you look awfully comfy," he said.
She was not amused. "Sometimes I could tell when you weren't that happy, but I never realized it was this bad. All this time… How could I not have noticed that you were always sad?"
"Whoa, whoa," he interrupted hastily, "I'm not always sad. Just sometimes. It comes and goes. Like now, I'm totally fine."
"You sure didn't seem fine yesterday, or when I found you here," Erza said skeptically. "You definitely seem sad to me."
Gray's eyes dimmed and he sighed heavily. "Yeah, but that's normal sad. It's natural to be sad sometimes. Yesterday just stirred up some memories, is all. I'm not saying that natural sadness doesn't suck, but I can handle that."
Erza hesitated, her eyes conflicted, but then burst out, "How can you sit here and tell me that you want to die?"
Gray sat up abruptly, grabbing Erza and pulling her up with him, and stared intently into her startled eyes.
"Gray–"
"No," he said, keeping his eyes locked on hers and willing her to understand. "That is not what I said. I don't want to leave you, okay? I don't want to make you cry. If I wanted this, then it wouldn't scare me. I know it sounds bad, but it's really not an everyday thing. It's only dangerous if you guys are in trouble and I don't see another way, or when the world goes gray."
He paused, then snickered. "No pun intended."
"What does that mean?" Erza asked, no flicker of humor touching her face.
Gray sobered and sighed, suddenly feeling tired and heavy again. Pushing Erza away gently, he dragged his knees back up to his chest and returned to gazing out at the river. It was easier not to look at her, now that he'd screwed up and told her more than he'd meant to.
"It's not about being sad, not really," he said quietly. "That's part of it, but... At first I usually feel too much. I'll alternate between being extremely sad and extremely angry for no good reason, flipping back and forth at the slightest provocation. Everything is too intense and unstable, and there's no middle ground. But then it'll all seep away and leave me empty. That's when the world goes gray and loses all its color. There's no passion or life anywhere, and it becomes too hard to care about anything. It's so…flat. Even if I know that something should make me happy or sad, I don't feel it because my mood is so flat. It's so empty and cold, and I don't feel much of anything at all.
"That's when it gets dangerous. At least when I'm in that highly emotional part of an episode, I can still feel and care. I mean, it'll make me impulsive and I'll do things that I regret later, but I usually care too much to do anything permanently stupid. But when everything loses its meaning and there's no point to anything… That's when it's easiest to give in, because what does anything matter anyway? Sometimes you'll be willing to do anything to make it end."
He smiled faintly, sadly. "That's when I need you guys to ground me. Even if I can't care the way I should, I still at least objectively know how much you mean to me and how much I don't want to hurt you. You care for me when I can't. It helps a lot more than you realize. But really, I'm usually okay."
Erza was silent for a long moment. "How often does this happen?"
"Depends. Sometimes once or twice a year, sometimes I'll just barely get out of an episode before falling back again. They can last anywhere from a few days to a few months, but eventually I'll snap out of it. There's nothing that will just magically fix everything, but they always end on their own, eventually. It always feels like they never will, but it helps to remember that things will right themselves in the end."
There was a long pause, only the whispering of the breeze breaking the stillness as the two friends stared out at the river. Maybe it was just as well, since Gray still had no idea where to go from here. The world was suddenly off-balance. A monumental shift had occurred, and Gray wasn't sure what he was supposed to do about it.
"No one should ever have to feel like that," Erza said eventually, subdued.
Gray hummed noncommittally, long since past the point of questioning why. "It's been years," he said neutrally. "I'm better at handling things now than I was a few years ago. I know how to cope better now."
"But you shouldn't have to. That's not fair."
"Life isn't fair, Erza. You know that. Besides, there are far more unfair things out there."
"Yeah, but this is you." Erza's voice wavered dangerously. "You don't deserve that. Haven't you been through enough?"
Gray's laugh sounded something like a sigh. "I'm not so special, Erza. No one deserves that. But there's no rhyme or reason to it, and questioning the inevitable will get you nowhere."
"You're special to me," Erza said, her voice cracking. Gray swallowed and hunched his shoulders, dropping his chin to his knees and narrowing his eyes at the hole in the icy river. "I still just… How did I never notice?"
"I'm a better actor than my mother was," he mumbled. "If you knew what to look for then you'd probably be able to tell, but I'm good at faking it."
Erza didn't respond immediately, and Gray could practically feel her mind churning as she tried to figure out what to do. He wanted to tell her to just leave it alone, that they could just move on and pretend this hadn't happened, but he didn't think that would go over well.
Erza finally took a deep, steadying breath and then let it out slowly.
"Okay," she said, determination hardening her voice, "I think I've figured out what I want to say. I don't know if it's necessarily the right thing, if there even is a right thing, but at least I can try. I… God, I don't know how you always come up with the right words so easily. It's so hard."
Gray looked over to blink at her in bewilderment. "Easy? I never have any idea of what I'm supposed to say. Words are not my thing."
Erza stared back silently, her eyes glimmering with emotions he couldn't read, and then shook her head. "Well, you're surprisingly good at it."
"Hm."
Gray was a little doubtful of that claim, but if he had ever managed to say the right thing before then he was glad of it.
"Okay," Erza said again, taking another breath and fixing her eyes on Gray's. Gray wanted to look away, but forced himself not to. "I think it's funny that you mentioned how strong I was, because I've always thought the same thing about you."
Gray eyed her skeptically, his eyebrow inching upwards before he thought to stop it.
"Don't look at me like that," Erza said, scowling. "It's true. It's… I mean, it was like how you'd never give up, back when we were kids and you kept trying to beat me. No matter what, you'd always get back up. Except that you learned when it was better to stop, and we learned how to be friends instead. No matter what the world throws at you, you always stand back up again. But you know when it's better to change tactics and try something else instead, when it's better to let go and move on. Even just being able to let go of all that anger you had as a kid so that you could grow up to be like you are now… That takes a lot of strength.
"And you always look out for everyone else. Even though you had so much sorrow and pain, you'd always help me. I'm kind of amazed that you could bring yourself to do that. I mean, we all have our own tragedies, but everything I found out about on Galuna…" Her eyes went glassy and she shrank into herself a little. "I can't even imagine. That you could bear all that pain and still get up each morning and put on a smile and act like everything was okay… And I didn't even know about your mother. Or that you're…um…you know…"
"Depressed?" Gray suggested flatly, looking away.
The word was awkward and ugly. He had never spoken it out loud in reference to himself before, had never even really labeled himself that way in his head. He had always known it, of course, but he had never described himself that way. He didn't want to apply that word to himself, because that made it seem more real, somehow. It felt heavy and hopeless, an acknowledgement that there was something wrong with him that he couldn't fix. It went against everything he had ever wanted to be and everything that his friends thought he was and everything he had ever presented to the world.
But the truth was that it applied to him whether he used the word itself or not, and it was silly to think otherwise. Time to stop dancing around the truth.
"Yeah." Erza reached out to tilt Gray's face back, and she smiled at him sadly. "It doesn't make you crazy or any less of a person, and it doesn't mean that it's inevitable that you'll end up like her. You're too strong for that, okay? You've been fighting yourself for a long time, Gray. You never lose to an opponent more than once, right? If you lost on Galuna, then you can't lose again. I don't know what made your mom lose her fight, but I believe that she fought, I really do. I think that she fought for you the same way that you fight for us. And even if she lost in the end, I know that she loved you anyway."
Gray swallowed hard and bit down on the inside of his cheek, hating the moisture gathering in his eyes. He was not going to cry.
"I wish I had known," Erza said quietly, the melancholy smile sliding off her face. "I wish I could have done something. You did so much for me, and I wish I could have done something for you too."
Gray chuckled wetly. "You had plenty of your own demons to fight. And you always did more than you knew. You were one of my first friends here, and you helped me work through a lot of things."
"That's not enough," she said grimly. "But now I know. I just…wish I knew what I could do."
"Just…" The memories flashed through Gray's mind, raw and terrible, and he shrank into himself. "Don't leave," he said in a small voice. "Don't leave."
Too many people had left him: his mother, Ur, Lyon. Too many others had been taken away. It was a lot of people to have lost, and each one added to the ache in his heart, the sadness he always carried for them.
"Of course not." Erza's eyes blazed, almost burning into Gray with their intensity. "I'm not going anywhere, as long as you don't. You always came for me, and I'll come for you, okay? You were here when I needed you. When you need me, I'll come."
Gray stared at her for a second, and then felt his lips curve into a small half-smile. "You know, the only good thing that ever came of the water was you."
"…What?" Erza's strange intensity faded as she leaned back and blinked at him in bemusement.
"Well, it was the river that brought us together that first time, wasn't it?" Gray asked, feeling a surge of affection for her. "And it brought us together a few other times. It gave us somewhere to meet halfway, until we built up our friendship and could meet there on our own. It was a little challenging at first, but it gave me good memories to replace the bad, made the river and everything it represented a little less scary.
"At first I came because it called me, but then I came because you called me. Maybe because we called each other." He shrugged and flashed Erza a small smile. "I meant it, you know. I always came for you."
They stared at each other for a long moment, but then Erza scooted a little closer. Pressing herself against Gray's side, she drew her knees up to mimic his position and leaned her head against his shoulder.
"Yeah," she said, "I love you too."
Yeah, maybe that was what he was trying to say. Maybe Erza was better with words than she thought she was. But maybe it didn't matter as much, because Gray already knew, and he suspected that she did too. They didn't need words for that, not really. Or he hoped not, given how many times they had sat here with no words being exchanged, offering only silent support.
Erza surreptitiously snaked her hand over, working it into one of Gray's, and he let his fingers curl around hers. Tilting his head slightly to rest against Erza's, Gray sighed softly and relaxed against her. It was enough to be able to feel her, to know that she was there.
They stared out at the river, the two of them a united front against the world, and they needed no more words at all.
Note: Because I can take anything and make it depressing. But I mean, surely the title would have given you a hint? As long as you know who Ophelia is, I guess. She's from Hamlet, and has been immortalized in "pop" culture as the epitome of suicide by drowning...although it's a little more unclear in the play itself. But she basically went mad and drowned, so...yeah. That's where the title came from.
In regards to the A/N on the first part, I read a story with a minor plot point about how a boy's mother had committed suicide by drowning when he was a kid. Except that in the end, it turned out that she'd actually been murdered and he'd seen it but repressed it, which seemed like kind of a cop-out to me. Gray and Erza seemed like the obvious choices here, given the whole river thing. And yeah, that's where the story came from X)
emmahoshi: Totally random posting date on my part...aside from it being the advent of a new glitch-free period XD But happy birthday, person you know XD Lol yeah, I'd give more for Gray's cold in the summer than Natsu's heat in the winter. Our summers are way hotter than our winters are cold. Happy's comment wasn't the only jab at Juvia, either X) And yes, there are a lot of different kinds of depression, but a lot of it involves brain chemistry problems, and there can definitely be a genetic predisposition there. It runs in my family, for one. And I live with what's called double depression (i.e., major depressive episodes plus dysthymia/persistent depression), so when I bring this stuff up in stories, you can be sure that I know what I'm talking about ;) It's a bit different for everyone, of course, but I'm writing from experience so it's all true. And yeah, I think I'm going to move "Missing" up and post it next because I have reasons for wanting to post a different story right before "Demon of Redemption". It should be up fairly soon :D (EDIT: *snickers* I'll post whatever comments I want to XD But thanks for virtual goodies. They shall sustain my spirit while I write lol)