Chapter 3

"Wh-what was that about?" Lucy asked bewildered. She said she was a murderer, but she's a member of Fairy Tail. She sighed, there must be something she wasn't getting, some inside joke or the like. No not a joke. A backstory! A tragic past I don't know about! How exciting!

She turned to Erza, about to ask for an explanation, but she was no longer standing next to her. Lucy whipped her head around, searching the guild for the red-head. Gray had disappeared too-hopefully to get a cloak and a new shirt. Natsu seemed to be unconscious. Since Levy was away with team Shadowgear-something about a trust building exercise-Lucy turned to Cana for information. She didn't bat an eye at the beer barrels scattered around her friend. Cana was easily the heaviest drinker Lucy had ever met. She'd been pretty proud of her drinking skills when she'd first come to Fairy Tail-after all the Heartfilia heir had to attend many fancy cocktail parties-but she'd gotten dizzy just from seeing how much Cana could drink.

Cana looked sourly at the now empty beer in her hand, before shoving it violently to the side. Drinking wasn't helping her drown out the memories. There simply wasn't anything strong enough. Even even downing the strongest drink she knew of she couldn't even get slightly buzzed. How many gallons would it take to forget for a few minutes? Her left leg twitched violently, the wound she'd gotten that day flaring up.

"You're not drinkning?" Lucy asked in a shocked voice, coming up from behind. She couldn't remember ever seeing Cana turn down a drink let alone shove one away. This story must be a lot more serious than she had realized. Shoving some barrels aside Lucy took a seat next to the card mage.

"Huh? Oh, no. Drinking wouldn't do me any good." Cana replied distractedly as she carefully unwrapped the bandages from her leg. She let out an involuntary hiss at the sight of the scar. Two years later and it was still bright red, tinged with black. But the scariest thing was that it was spreading. From what she could tell she was the only one who's wounds from that day hadn't healed. Even Erza had only the faintest of scars left on her face, and she'd taken a direct hit. She'd been sure Erza was going to go blind for a while there, but suddenly the angry lines had started to fade away. Cana had expected her's to follow suit, but they never had.

Lucy stared wide eyed at Cana's leg. "Sh-should I get someone to look at that?" She gasped, standing up to run at her friend's word.

Cana shook her head, and slowly re-wrapped her bandage. "No it's an old wound. A souvenir from that day. It just flares up once in a while is all." She'd gone to Porylusica of course, but the woman couldn't do anything for Cana other than make her the bandage that slowed down the spreading. And even that was hit or miss really, Cana noted. Sometimes she could feel it working, but others it was as though it was nothing but an irritant that accelerated the spreading. Now that Mira was back she supposed that she could ask her about it, but from what little she'd seen of Mira it didn't seem like she'd be able to handle it. Maybe someday Mira would be better-Cana was more than familiar with mental scars and knew first hand how long they could take to heal-and would be able to talk about what she had done, but it wouldn't be for a long time. And Cana more than suspected that would be too late.

"Um, that day?" Lucy asked in a confused voice. Confused, but curious. Very, very curious. This smelled almost as good as Mira's backstory.

Cana blinked a few times. "O-Oh, right." She stuttered. "You weren't there so you wouldn't know…. Anyway did you want something from me?" She asked, deliberately changing the subject. Nothing could be as bad as talking about that.

Lucy chose to let it slide for now, she'd ask Levy about it later. For now she had to know about this long lost member! "What can you tell me about Mirajane?" She asked eagerly.

Cana cringed, and looked longingly at the empty beer bottle she'd thrown away. What she wouldn't give to be senseless right now. Still, even now, a small voice in the back of her head reminded her what had happened the last time she'd gotten drunk. You didn't escape the memories. You relived them. Anything is better than that, right? Isn't that why you don't drink as much anymore? Cana bit the inside of her cheek, trying to block the memories shooting through her head. She still drank more than anyone else in the guild, but she always kept a very careful eye on exactly how much she drank. She wouldn't go anywhere near her limit anymore, and even though she knew that others-praticularly Master-had noticed her change in habits, she couldn't bring herself to talk about it.

Not that anyone else has talked about it. Cana mused, glancing around the guild. Erza had shriveled back into her old shell-no, she'd far surpassed her old shell. Levy never talked about what she'd seen that day, although she'd grown noticeably closer to both Jet and Droy. Laxus had been pale when he came back, and for a few weeks he didn't do much of anything. Then he'd started taking S-class job after S-class job. He at least seemed to be more or less to his old self-not that Cana saw much of him either way. Natsu had been angry. He'd even scared Cana, those first few days. But then he'd just deflated. He'd left the guild one day and didn't come back for a month, and he just pretended like nothing had even happened. Every once in a while though, Cana would see Lucy do something Lisanna would have done, and she could see the pain in Natsu's eyes. Well, it hurt Cana too. Everyone had been close to Lisanna and Elfman. She wasn't sure exactly what had changed with Gray. Something she couldn't quite put her finger on. He didn't really act any differently, not exactly. It was more like his movements had become just a bit stiffer, his responses just a bit sharper than they had been before. Well, that's just his way of grieving I guess.

"Cana?" Lucy asked, leaning in closer. She got the feeling that this story would be worth waiting for, but she couldn't help herself from being impatient. She balled her hands into fists in her excitement, not even noticing that she'd dug her nails into her leg.

Cana flinched away from Lucy's shinning face. Damn, she was so eager to hear this story. Cana barely managed to remind herself that Lucy wasn't trying to make everyone hate her. She just didn't know any better. She bit her lip. When she closed her eyes, that scene was all she could see. Goose bumps crawled over her skin as she remembered the confusion. The smoke, and dust. The blood. She shivered, wrenching her eyes open, trying to keep calm. She could feel her palms beginning to sweat.

"Cana, are you alright?" Lucy was excited to hear the story, but she didn't want to hear it at the expense of her nakama. Stories were fun of course, but in the end the mental and physical well beings of her guild mates was far more important than anything else. "Look, just forget about it OK? I was just a little curious is all." She said, laughing nervously.

"No, it's alright." Cana said quickly. She plastered the smile she was used to forcing by now onto her face. "I just had the worst mental image of Master when he was convinced her could do a gravure shoot for Sorcerer Weekly." Cana said with a laugh. "It was Mira who'd been asked to do the shoot. She was always getting asked to do stuff like that. Erza too, of course. They both preferred jobs to photo shoots though, so most of the time they'd just end up doing action shots. Erza and Mira would fight, and they'd have big photo spreads of it." Her smile was real now, not forced. It hurt a little, thinking back to the good old days. She'd actually been in a few of those photo shoots herself. Every time it was always Lisanna who'd break it up.

Come on, cut it out you guys. You're getting way too serious again. I don't want to have to rebuild the hall again!

Mira, I just saw this job and it looks perfect for us! Come on we gotta hurry, or someone else will take it-forget about this fight.

Cana froze, suddenly unable to talk over the lump in her throat. It was like she could hear Lisanna, as though she would come through the door any minute with Elfman yelling something about how the job they'd just been on had been manly.

"She sounds like a ton of fun!" Lucy giggled. "I can't wait to get to know her better."

Cana stared at Lucy for a moment. Of course she hadn't been deterred by Mira's erratic behavior earlier-she'd been in Fairy Tail long enough to know that everyone had their own problems. But Lucy didn't walk around with a poisoned leg everyday. She had never experienced the kind of the terror that Cana had that day.

She knew it wasn't Mira's fault. She'd never blamed her, not once had any of them really blamed Mira. Even Natsu had known from the start that it wasn't her fault-he'd just needed someone to yell at, someone to blame. Cana knew, and yet she could stop the fear that was creeping up inside her at the thought of having the take-over mage in the guild again.

And Cana hated herself for it.