A/N: CHAPTER SEVEN COMETH. REVIEWS. I CRAVE REVIEWS. PLEASE. Yes. Of course I know this is shameless. Even so.
REVIEWS. MUST HAVE THEM.
Also, I don't own Fairy Tail.
Chapter 7: Paternity
"Wait! Erza!" Lucy struggled to keep up with her teammates as they left the store and barreled towards what Lucy could only assume was the hideout of the rogue mages they were after.
"What is it?" Erza responded, not slowing in the least.
"How do you know where to go?"
"I'm familiar with this particular group of mages, though I didn't know they'd decided to use a shield as their guild insignia. But it really wasn't that hard. The council has been having a hard time with this group. Essentially, they're just a bunch of hormonally charged scum who happen to know where to get the good illegal stuff in Magnolia. Their magic is pretty basic and not powerful at all. The problem is, that they're hit men first and mages second. So whatever they lack in magical competency, they more than make up for in street savy-ness."
Gray frowned at this, keeping up easily, unlike Lucy who was wheezing at this point.
"Okay. So if they're this pathetic, what's keeping the council from nailing them?"
"Evidence. There's no physical evidence of the attack except for the signs of rape on the victims' bodies. There's nothing physically tying them to the crimes. The fact that they branded Juvia was a new signature, and it'll be his biggest mistake. In addition, even though there were a lot of women attacked, almost all of them mages, no one ever saw their attackers face clearly."
"Are you serious? This creep has been raping women left, right and center and no one's been able to catch him?" Lucy looked disgusted at the thought. Erza growled in frustration as they turned a corner, flying past pedestrians.
"Believe me, we tried everything we could to get him, but none of the women were willing to say anything once we showed them a line up to see if they could tell which one of them had been the attacker. Even women that had promised to cooperate suddenly told us they just wanted to forget everything and just walk away from it. Our hands were tied and there was nothing we could do about it."
As they finally entered the west end of the city, the population of citizens on the street greatly diminished, and as they neared the very edge of the city, Team Natsu was joined by the rest of Fairy Tail having received Warren's intel' on Team Natsu's position. At Erza indication, they realized they were aiming for a shabby warehouse on the very border of Magnolia city that bore a crudely etched shield on its doors. The warehouse was completely isolated by the trees and underbrush of the surrounding forest.
Just before reaching the entrance, Erza held her arm out, signalling the rest of them to halt. She stayed silent for a moment, listening intently.
"Listen, do you hear anything?"
"No?" Lucy and Gray answered, confused by the question.
"Exactly," Mira-Jane said as she emerged from the crowd of guild members, looking grim.
"We don't hear anything. Which means the warehouse is empty." Gray's eyes widened in shock.
"What?!" He leapt forward and wrenched the doors open, coughing as a foul order overtook their senses, making their eyes water. Natsu and Wendy were completely down on account of their extremely sensitive noses. Gray backed away, using his arm to cover his nose and waved the other in front of his face, trying to wave the smell away.
"Yeow! They may not be here now, but they definitely were here. Holy Mavis. The smell of sweat is way too strong." Natsu said, pinching his nose, eyes watering. Lucy patted his back soothingly, holding her own nose, and grimacing.
A soft breeze blew in just then, in great juxtaposition to their dreary surroundings. It was almost nightfall by now, the sun casting an orangey glow on their otherwise black surroundings. A sound of paper rustling caught Happy's attention from his position on Natsu's shoulder. He flew off into the warehouse, holding his paws over his feline nose and found the source of the sound; a paper that was tacked to the wall via a rusted nail. As he inspected it, Happy went pale, realizing the nature of the contents of the paper. He flew back to Natsu and Lucy as Elfman walked in, surveying the empty space.
"Dammit!" He slammed a fist against the concrete walls. "They escaped!"
"Uh guys?" The group turned to Lucy who was reading the paper that Happy had handed her. "I think I found the 'evidence' the council is looking for." She handed the paper off to Erza who read it with Mira reading over her shoulder.
"This," Erza said after skimming the paper. "This is a list of every woman ever attacked in those cases, with a bunch of other that didn't come forward. It lists everything! Their age, occupation, residence, date of the attack, locations of where they took place, everything!" She looked at Mira in shock. Gray clenched his fists, becoming enraged at the futility of their raid.
"Do you understand the meaning of this?" The center of attention was suddenly Carla, who flew next Wendy, looking pensive, arms crossed over her chest. "It means Juvia-san's attack wasn't by chance. It wasn't a crime of chance. It was planned. They were stalkingher!" With this revelation, the guild dissolved into horrified murmurings. The idea that Juvia had been under surveillance and no one had noticed was terrifying. It was now completely dark as Fairy Tail processed this new information.
"You know," Natsu said, crouching on the ground, studying the footprints of the rogue mages and sniffing the air again experimentally. "They haven't been gone long. Maybe 20 minutes maximum. If it's like this, Wendy and I can probably find them using my nose, their trail should still be in the area – " He cut off as a rumble from the sky interrupted him. In a moment, it was as if someone had opened a tap. They sudden downpour was startling, drenching everyone to the bone instantly.
"Or not." Natsu said dejectedly and slumped to the ground, Wendy with him. "Well there goes our last lead. I wonder how they got out of here so fast? This place looks like their only home base. Why did they suddenly leave?"
"That means," Lisanna said worriedly, emerging from behind Elfman, "that means someone tipped them off. They knew we were coming."
"But who?" Gray said, thinking aloud as he ran over a list of informants.
"The shopkeeper." Erza growled. Suddenly, she turned and took off running back in the direction they had come from. The rest of the guild followed, half splitting up halfway through to go back to the guild to report to the master of their findings. The rest ran to the store, regardless of the rain.
By the time they reached the street the store was located on, Erza knew it was a lost cause. The store lights were out and the door still lay kicked in. Upon peering in the dark store, the shopkeeper was nowhere in sight and the young cashier was out cold behind the counter, rendered unconscious from a blow to the head. She sighed and crouched next to the boy and slapped him in the face.
"Wake up."
"Erza!" MiraJane said disapprovingly from behind her.
"What? I find this is the quickest way to wake someone up from unconsciousness. Ask Gray or Natsu." She said blankly, slapping the boy in the face again. The two flinched, remembering being woken up similarly before.
"Wake up." After the last particularly hard slap, the boy began to stir and began blinking his eyes open. When they did open, Daniel almost wished he was unconscious again as he yelped and backed away from the woman peering at him. Great, it's the psycho lady again. And look. She brought friends. He winced, feeling his head gingerly to feel a large bump. He remembered suddenly, his boss clubbing him over the head with something wooden and then blacking out.
"Daniel." He looked to the red-haired lady.
"It's alright. I just want to ask you a few questions, is that okay?" He nodded hesitantly. He felt he would be made to talk whether he agreed or not, so he decided to cooperate to make it easier on himself. Erza then turned at meted out a few orders, disbanding the onlookers with specific duties. She brought them stools from the stores inventory and sat, motioning Daniel to do the same. She groaned inwardly realizing she had start from scratch again.
Who knew when they were gonna catch this bastard. It was going to be long night.
... ... ...
Gajeel blinked his eyes open, wondering why he was awake. His internal clock told him, it was only about six 'o clock in the morning judging from the colors that stained his windows. Mumbling to himself, he turned in bed only to find that Juvia was no longer in bed with him. He sat up, still bleary from sleep, rubbing his eyes.
"Juvia?"
He then became aware of the sound of throwing up in the bathroom. He got out of bed and walked to the bathroom, finding the woman hunched over the toilet, retching. Her hair was already tied up so Gajeel could do nothing but rub her back as vomited and hiccupped, crying. When she was finally done, Gajeel handed her tissue to wipe her mouth and helped her to her feet so she could wash her mouth. She smiled at him tiredly, looking at him in the mirror, while leaning over the sink exhaustedly.
"Thank you Gajeel-kun, for checking on Juvia. But Gajeel-kun should go back to sleep. You have to wake up in an hour."
Gajeel rolled his eyes.
"For the last time woman. Will you stop acting as if this problem is yours alone? If you're going to handle everything by yourself, what am I here for?" He scooped up the momentarily stunned mage and carried her to the bed, laying her down gently in bed. Then, without thinking, Gajeel leaned down and pressed a kiss to her forehead. As soon as his lips made contact with her skin, he jerked back up.
"Gajeel-kun?"
Juvia looked questioningly at him, a hand on her forehead, eyes wide and watery and blushing a pretty pink.
"Uh – uh. That was nothing. It meant nothing. Just a kiss." Gajeel managed to choke out, turned away and climbed into bed, lying down with his back to hers, hand over his mouth, face a flaming red.
What the fuck did I just do? My body just acted on it's own. He'd seen countless men kiss their wives or girlfriends like this to calm this and he'd done it absentmindedly. What the hell does this mean?!
It's just a kiss you wuss. Are you embarrassed? What are you? A preschooler?
Who asked you? Quit butting in! And I'm not embarrassed. It just surprised me!
Surprised you? You're the one that did the kissing.
Stop saying that!
When Juvia woke up next, she found herself alone, and looked to her right and saw a piece of paper on her bedside table.
Didn't want to wake ya up so I wrote a note. Don't do anything tiring today. Don't pick anything heavier than Happy up and don't do anything stupid. Just relax today. Just so you know, I'm bringing Wendy over today to check up on things. I'll see you tonight.
Gajeel
Juvia smiled, lying in bed and staring at the note. Somehow it made her happy. She gingerly got out of bed and walked to the bathroom, stripping her night gown off as she went and stood in the shower, turning the water on. She sighed as the water cascaded down her body, soothing her aches away. She had found her daily rythm, she found the routine she liked and she was going to stick to it.
Once she had refreshed herself, Juvia busied herself in preparing a meal for her housemate and her guest, becoming something of a whirlwind in the kitchen.
Later that day, in the evening Juvia waited anxiously for Gajeel and Wendy to arrive. Juvia couldn't help but feel nervous. It had been a while since she had seen someone from the guild. What if she thought badly of Juvia for running away?
"We're home." The jingling of the front door cut her worries short and Juvia watched the petite girl walk in, looking all around her, studying the house.
"H-hello Wendy-chan." Juvia attempted a smile and was thoroughly relieved when Wendy rewarded Juvia with a wide smile, walking forward to hold the water mages hand.
"It's been hard on you Juvia-san, I'm glad to see you're doing well." Juvia felt tears prick at her eyes and collapsed heavily on the couch, holding Wendy's hand in both of hers, crying. She had been scared.
Gajeel leaned on the door frame at the entrance of the kitchen, he resisted smiling. He didn't smile, but he was happy that at least one of Juvia's fears were elevated. She was always afraid that the other's would hate her or think differently of her because of this.
"Juvia-san, if it's alright, may I begin the check up now?" At Juvia's teary nod, Wendy began her inspection, running her hands up and down Juvia's body, inspecting Juvia bloodflow, respiratory system and magic flow. As her hands finished their inspection, Wendy smiled at Juvia encouragingly.
"It seems everything is going fine. The little one is safe and healthy so far." Her expression changed here, to one of apprehension. Juvia looked inquisitively at her.
"What is it Wendy-chan?"
"Um. Ano. That is..." She looked hesitantly from Juvia to Gajeel. "Um. I can...I can tell you who the father is."
There was a moment of profound silence in the house. Juvia stared at the little girl. She hadn't thought she would have to deal with that until the child was born. Gajeel stood straight from his leaning position and went to sit beside Juvia on the couch. He took one of her shaking hands and held it in both of his.
She looked at him, terrified.
"G-Gajeel-kun..."
"It's okay. You can do this. You don't have to, but if you want to, you can." Juvia breathed deeply. Now that she knew she could know who's child it was, Juvia wouldn't be able to stop thinking about it until she knew. She didn't want to know and yet, she wanted to get it over with. A squeeze of her hands reminded her that she wasn't alone in this. She had Wendy and most importantly, she had Gajeel. She could do anything if he was by her side.
Juvia steeled herself, and nodded slowly to Wendy, giving her permission to continue.
"The father is...Gray-san."
Juvia's eyes widened, and her chest began to heave. She began to hold her head, clutching it as if confused.
"Wha – ahh."
She gasped, chest suddenly constricting and abruptly, her eyes rolled into the back of her head and she slumped sideways, into Gajeel's lap, body going limp.
"Juvia-san!"
"Juvia?! Juvia! Oi Juvia! Hey!"
... ... ...
A/N: AND? WHAT DOES YOU THINK?