Juvia: The Journey Continues - Mark Brown & Sarah Cracknell - 2008

AN: Sorry! I caught a cold and the last few days have been miserable. I had no energy to do anything except level my corsair to 99 in FFXI.

Juvia's song was the one that inspired this little series of stories. I was driving home from class, and this song came on my CD of 101 Trance Anthems. I went "Oh my, that's so Juvia!" and I wondered if I could make an AMV out of it... But I am no AMV artist. I'm just a writer. So you get fic instead.

Anyone else notice that her outfit is Maatel's from Galaxy Express 999, only in blue? Another reason to stick her on a train.

Juvia clutched the bag of sweets in her hand. She had traveled several towns north of Magnolia to acquire the precious treat - the candy was a specialty and she hoped that Gray would like it since it had taken her so much trouble.

She was sitting on a train, waiting for it to begin the journey back south. She was dressed primly as always, in one of her warmer outfits since the mountains were always a good bit colder than balmy Magnolia.

She sighed and looked out at the train station platform, wondering if anyone at Fairy Tail missed her. She often took simple missions alone, since there were certain things that were eminently suited to her water element. She actually had a lot of jewels saved up, although this trip and the ice crystal sweets in her bag had cost her a pretty penny. No matter - she had nothing else to spend her money on besides rent and food.

The train's whistle blew, and the mighty machine beneath her shifted softly.

She might as well take a nap.

She really, really missed Gray.

A single tear rolled down her cheek as she thought about how much she loved him and missed him. The present she got for him would be worth it, but she didn't like being away from him for so long.

And as the train pulled away from the station, the rain came down suddenly, surprising the people on the platform who had believed it would remain sunny for the rest of the day.

Fairy Tail was in the usual chaos when she returned, and much to her relief she was greeted enthusiastically by Lucy, Levy, and Erza. She hoped that Gray might also be excited to see her after almost a week absence, but instead he was in a fight with Natsu again.

She took a sit at one of the long mead hall tables, setting the precious bag of candies in front of her, watching him in fascination. He was stripped down to his boxers, and she admired the lean ripples of muscles along his back as he wrestled with his favorite rival.

"Ice make - snowball!" he said gleefully, and a perfectly round sphere of snow appeared in his hand. He promptly shoved this in Natsu's face.

"Oh that's dirty!" Natsu hollered, and immediately engulfed himself in flames to melt away the intrusion. The ice melted and turned into water vapor almost instantly, and Natsu had a murderous expression on his face. "I'm going to get you now!"

The fight merrily continued, and Juvia was so focused on watching Gray that she somehow completely missed a burning Natsu leaping across the table where she sat until there was a human shaped fireball careering toward her out of nowhere.

On instinct, she immediately melted herself into a puddle of water. Natsu could not really hurt her. But the precious bag of sweets was not so fortunate. Natsu deftly avoided it with his feet, but the flames licked out from him and set the bag on fire.

"Shit!" Gray swore when he saw what had happened. "Ice make - sphere!"

Juvia reformed her body and peered over the tabletop to see her precious bag of candies encase in ice. The singe marks were still visible on the bag even through the casing of ice. It had burned pretty badly.

"Juvia, I'm sorry!" Natsu yelled, even as Lucy smacked him on the side of the head.

"Really, Natsu? You almost killed Juvia!"

For her part, Juvia said nothing. She simply sat and stared at the bag of candies - ones she had picked up for her precious Gray - and tears pooled at the edges of her eyes.

But before she could cause an artificial rainstorm inside the mead hall, she grabbed her ice covered bag of sweets and fled.

The second she stepped outside, the rain came down.

She couldn't help it. The teardrops came despite herself. She knew that Natsu hadn't meant to destroy it, and Gray had done his best to save his own secret gift, but it still hurt. She loved Fairy Tail, and she loved her friends and she really loved Gray, but sometimes they were just too destructive.

The clouds in the sky followed her, trying to comfort her with rain, but all they did was make the weather gloomy and sad for everyone else. The rainclouds loved her more than anyone else and wanted to shower her with affection, and even the sky itself could not stand when she was sad.

So Juvia had learned to curb her emotions over time, living most of her childhood and teenaged years dully.

It was only within Fairy Tail that she had began to open herself to the world of emotions - the protective tenderness she felt toward Gray, the joy, even the thrill of getting into a really good scrap with your friends.

But sometimes even your friends can hurt you. Even when they don't mean to.

She ducked into her apartment, getting herself enough under control that her loving rainclouds wouldn't follow her right into the room. She dropped the now soggy bag of sweets onto a table, and threw herself on the couch and tried to figure out what she was going to do.

She didn't realize she had been followed.

"Juvia," a familiar voice said from outside her door. "It's Gray. Can I talk to you?"

She sat up, her heart pounding suddenly. Gray... had come to see her?

Warily, she tiptoed toward the door. "Juvia is coming," she said quietly. She hesitated for a moment, and then opened the door.

There was Gray, soaking wet from the rainstorm.

They both stood there for a moment, Gray breathing heavily from running so fast and Juvia dripping unceremoniously on the floor. Her waterfall coif had melted into a series of dripping ringlets around her shoulders.

"I'm sorry," Gray spoke first. "Natsu and I should have been more careful."

"It's okay," she said timidly. "Juvia was not hurt."

"But your bag... is it okay?" He scratched his head. "What was in that, anyway?"

She went and retrieved the sodden bag. "Juvia traveled north to Bristlecone to get a special kind of candy... Juvia thought that Gray might like to try it."

She sighed and opened the bag. The sweets, which were made with ice energy, stayed frozen even at room temperature. But Natsu's fire had melted them down before Gray could freeze them again, and they were all puddled at the bottom in a gooey mess.

"Oh no," Gray said when he saw the bag. "You went and got those for me?" He cocked his head quizzically at her. "You didn't have to do that."

"But isn't tomorrow Gray's birthday?"

His face froze for a moment before he recovered. Apparently, he hadn't equated his birthday with getting presents.

"I... I guess it is," he said awkwardly. He rubbed his hand behind his neck. "Can I see that bag?"

She handed him the paper bag, and then blinked when he tore it in half, revealing the puddle of frozen candy at the the bottom.

He peeled the entire paper bag off, as if it was a wrapper.

And then he bit into the puddle of candy. He made a big motion out of chewing, and going "Mmmmmmm!" as he did so.

Juvia felt her heart getting lighter and lighter as she watched him devour every bit of the ruined birthday gift. To add a finishing touch, he made a show of licking his fingers.

"Thank you," he said. "I don't normally like sweet things, but that was nice and cold."

Now it was Juvia's turn to freeze. "Gray... does not like sweet things?"

"Well, yeah," Gray said, looking away. "Cakes and pies and stuff... those are more Erza's thing."

"Juvia... was going to bake you a cake," she said, her lower lip quivering. "But if Gray does not like cake then... Juvia doesn't have any other ingredients... Juvia doesn't know what to do." Teardrops.

"Aw jeez don't cry again! Dammit!"

And the rain came down.