Gray had expected to wake up on the hard floorboards of the guildhall, but instead he awoke with his head resting in a warm lap, long fingers running through his hair in a soothing manner. Surrounding him, there was a small crowd wearing sombre expressions, but most of the guild members seemed to have left. Shifting, Gray saw the lap he was resting in was owned by one Juvia lockser. He'd have been alarmed if it weren't for the tender expression on her face and tears in her eyes in place of her usual overzealous disposition. Feeling him shift, Juvia must have realised her beloved was waking up.

"Gray-sama, try not to move too fast." She advised in a watery voice.

Ignoring her words and the strain in his head which made him want to stay put in Juvia's warm arms Gray pushed himself up into an independent sitting position. Clutching his pounding head, he asked, "Where is everyone?"

"Outside mostly, they wanted to give you some privacy." A concerned looking Mirajane explained.

"Privacy?" Gray asked, confused.

"It's an excuse." Cana announced, a conflicted expression marring her features. "They were uncomfortable with what they were seeing you go through."

Gray realised the guild had been able to see what had happened to him in the box- he remembered the smoke from Natsu's turn. They would've seen him failing to avenge his parents, they would've watched him remember his parents' deaths. It had been graphic and harrowing, and he'd given them no warning, no wonder they'd left.

Mirajane explained the mass exodus started with a tearful Wendy running out of the guildhall, upon seeing what happened to Gray's parents. Erza had followed her out to try and console her. Macao had chaperoned young Romeo out too, and others had followed.

Gray looked at who was left in the guildhall, surrounding him. These will've been the people who saw the full extent of his memory. It was mostly people he'd been friends with from a very young age at the guild: Cana, Mira, Levy, Natsu. Some newer additions to the guild had stuck around too. Lucy was standing by Natsu's side and Gajeel was a couple tables away (but a few tables closer to the group than he had been), sitting upright and alert. And Juvia. Juvia had stayed in the hall too. She was the closest to his side and the expression on her face could only be described as utter torment.

"Sorry I dampened the mood." Gray drolled. But Cana wasn't having any of it.

"Gray, I've known you for eight years. How have you never spoken to us about how your parents died?" She asked accusingly.

"I never spoke about it, to anyone. Master knew about how I came to be here, that was all." Gray clarified. This wasn't entirely true as the fellow members of his strongest Team had gained some insight into his past during their quest to Galluna Island- but he'd never had a conversation about what'd happened directly, he hadn't ever wanted to. He didn't want to now either, he hated the way he saw the words effect Juvia who, in his periphery let out a little tearful noise.

"Why did you never talk to us about it?!" Natsu demanded.

Gray thought about it before answering. "I hadn't made peace with what happened. It was my fault. I didn't want to have to explain that to anyone."

Juvia gasped as she heard Gray place blame onto himself. "Gray-sama…"

"I agreed to using this box because I knew what I'd see. If it was going to simulate my most painful memories, it really couldn't have been anything other than their deaths. A part of me wanted to go back and experience it again so I could lay them to rest. I knew I couldn't neglect doing that forever, I had to make peace with it or run the risk of someone finding out about it and using it against me in a fight." He explained.

"That and… this whole look into the future seems pretty important to Natsu, and I didn't want to get in his way of achieving it." Gray explained sheepishly his reasoning, not making eye contact with his friend and rambunctious rival.

"But, I had a good idea what you were all going to see if I went in there, I should've at least given you some warning." Gray thought aloud, feeling guilty about the stress he'd apparently caused some of his guildmates.

"If anyone should've done anything, we should've checked and double checked with you first whether you were comfortable with all this Gray." Lucy said, the group around her appeared to agree, scolding themselves.

"My answer would've been the same." Gray explained. "I didn't want that memory to burden me any longer."

"But the risk to you was still there." Levy butted in, seeming distressed. "Someone with a weaker resolve wouldn't've been able to relive what you went through."

She confessed, "I can't predict anything this box does. In your case you just experienced a memory within another memory- that's strong magic! Magic that I could never hope to reverse engineer with runes from the outside. Anyone who goes in there is completely prey to their past experiences. This is more than just parlour tricks, this is continuing to exist in a different space, completely cut off- in a place where we can't help you." Levy warned, real fear in her eyes.

A tense silence fell over the group until Gajeel who'd, until that point, been quiet, said, "Then maybe this whole thing should be shut down." Gajeel proposed the idea, feeling like it had been what Levy had been shooting at from the beginning, but had been too timid to say.

Mira was just about to open her mouth to agree when from the main doors of the guild-

"No."

The group around Gray turned to look at a flood of people pouring back into the guildhall, led by one Erza Scarlet.

"Gray is right." Erza said, authoritatively. "this box, affecting us the way it does can help us become stronger. By using it, we can make peace with ourselves, we can help a friend, we can learn how to better cope with the pain within ourselves and most importantly we, as a guild, can better understand our comrades." Erza declared.

She explained, "I've spoken to the people outside already, they were adversely effected by seeing your memory Gray, but they want to express their support, if ever you need to talk about what you've been through, as a guild, we are all behind you."

Gray just stood and looked at his shoes, he nodded, not able to vocalise his thanks.

"We're all behind Natsu too, which is why we'll see through using this box to the end!" Erza declared triumphantly, which arose a cheer from the guild who drowned out Levy expressing her concerns.

"And I'll be the next to use Pandora's box!" Erza declared, getting ready to do just that. "But before I do, get yourself a drink Gray, you've earned it." She instructed. And Gray couldn't help thinking to himself, that she was right about that. So Gray walked off in the direction of the bar, Juvia trailing along behind him.

A/N: I'm not dead, sorry I haven't updated. I feel bad, so I've updated two consecutive chapters to make up for my tardiness, hope you enjoy. It's kind of good actually because these two chapters link into each other pretty closely. My continuity regarding chapter length is all out of wack though *sighs*

Huge shoutouts to reviewers on my last chapter BanRedfox, IPromiseImNotATotalDweeb (I'm sure you're not, lol), NerdMomDM, And XHallowedFangirlX (Thanks for your nice comments and for theorising about the events of future chapters- it makes me really thrilled x)