Well, this story is officially more popular than everything of mine but the Zelda fics and that one mpreg. I don't know why, since they tend to be my worst written works, but for some reason my mpreg tend to get more attention than my regular stories. There will be no beating the Zelda mpreg.

Also, another weird dragon error in this chapter.
The program wrote: they rescued a boyfriend
When I said: can you ask your dead boyfriend

Yuki Kusanagi - Mm... I supose it is important. The main reason it takes time to write though is because I'm stranded there from 7 to 5 in spite of only having several hours of classes. Once I work on the bus schedule I should be able to get home and write faster. (Well, I could just bring my laptop, but I'd be to embarassed to use the dragon software in public)

Beta5200 - No actors were harmed in the making of this story. Just Jellal. He's got a bit of harm to go, actually.

Burned Down - I'm sorry. If you want to know that one you'll have to read to the end. Don't worry. It shouldn't be more than a month wait :)


"At least you didn't hurt the poor guy." Gray laughed as Erza finished her story.

Erza glared in response, quickly silencing her teammate.

"Um… Erza?" Lucy wasn't sure that she wanted the redhead's attention just then, but… "Aside from the ending… what did you… how do you think your date went?"

Erza blinked in surprise and looked down, thinking about it for a moment before responding. "It was nice. As far as I know Angel-san didn't try to pull any moves on me, and he was really pleasant while we talked about play. The only problem with it was…"

"The lack of a body?" Lucy guessed.

"That, and a name." Erza admitted. "If he were alive and I knew who he was then it would have been perfect." As it was, those were two major flaws, but nobody dared point out. "I'm hoping to fix the second one, but there's no raising the…dead..." Erza trailed off, all light leaving her eyes for a moment before she quickly covered her expression with a weak smile.

"Erza?"

"The Council never responded to my letter…"

Jellal's heart clenched. How long could he play Angel-san before he had to tell her?

"Don't worry. If there's any change in his situation and will be all over the news." Lucy assured her.

"That doesn't mean I can talk to him… he-eep!" Erza jumped as Jellal prodded her in the neck, spinning to frown at the air behind her. When she turned back to find the words Jellal wouldn't want you to be sad had been written on the corner of the job Lucy had offered her, some useless plan to pick magical flowers.

"You met him?" Erza asked dryly. The nerve of the-

I was one of the children in the tower. There. Two satisfactory responses, no identity, and no lies.

"…Simon?"

No.

Erza gazed back at the space for Jellal had been, then shrugged and turned back to Lucy. Angel-san would tell her his past when he told her his name.

"Whoever he is, he's awesome!" Natsu declared. "This guy isn't even alive and he killed a Selkie! I'd like to take him on." Behind Natsu, a chair rose up in the air. "Hey Erza, can you ask your dead boyfriend to fight me?" The chair smashed against Natsu's head. His eyes rolled up, and he slumped over on the ground.

Jellal tossed the ruined chair aside. That was payback for hitting him through a tower.

"Well… Anyway, I had a nice time (up until the end)"

"So you like him?"

Erza stared Lucy down with such intensity as to make the glare that she had silenced Gray with look like a come-hither look. Did the dumb blonde not realize that Angel-san was right there? Apparently she did, because after whimpering and whining for a moment, as was Lucy's habit no matter who Erza glared at, she said "um… Maybe we can talk about later at my house. I'll… um… bring a strawberry cake?"

It was hard to argue with cake. Erza nodded and got up, heading for the door, apparently having missed the 'later'.

Not that it made any difference, but Jellal waved goodbye as she went.


"He's dead." Lucy waited until Erza already had a piece of cake in her mouth to say it. "You do realize that, don't you?"

"He's dead? Really? I hadn't noticed." Erza said between bites, rolling her eyes. "Of course I realized that. But I can still interact with him, and if he's broken his promise not to follow me outside of work he has yet to give himself away. He's saved me twice, and I know he likes me so I had to do something to return the favor."

"So that was a one-time thing?"

"Well, I did enjoy it…" And she had heard that Hargeon was getting ready for a festival.

"Okay then." Lucy said, fully understanding what Erza was getting it. "Hypothetical situation: you keep going up him. He's a real gentleman every time. You even get his name, and if he was in the tower, maybe it's somebody thought was cute." Erza hadn't paid much attention to those outside her circle of friends, and she hadn't thought of Simon or Wally as being particularly cute, but she nodded anyway. "You two decide you're in love. I hate to break it to you, but the law forbids you marry a corpse."

"We saw one play." Erza defended, unable to take the offense, since she had been planning on taking Angel-san somewhere else.

"It's hypothetical. Now, say you two just decide to act like a married couple, and now you want kids."

"Adoption." Erza pointed out. That had always been part of her plan anyway. As if she was really going to grow fat for nine months, on a strict diet, with heavy limits on her physical activity. Just having to wait a month for her leg to heal was bad enough.

"Okay. You two adopt a kid. Legally, you're a single parent. Financially, you alone have to support this child. Now take a moment and imagine your childhood if one of your parents was a ghost."


It was late when Erza walked back into the guild, glancing around then hurrying to Gray. Jellal followed slowly, and couldn't hear what she was whispering to him until she was almost done.

"-Like we're anywhere near that point, but they were good points. I mean, if I were a mom..."

"I think you're worrying too much." Gray told her. "If you ask me, anybody who's willing to knockout Natsu is worth at least three dates, dead or not."

Unfortunately for Natsu, Juvia was within earshot of Gray at the time.


STA: With each chapter she appears in, my hatred of Ultear grows. First she made me hate her for what she's done. Now she's all "I'm a good lady." Why? She even got stabbed! Why can't she just die?

Ah, but about this chapter. By virtue of getting his hair bleached against his will, Gray has become the confidant for the relationship. Yay! Actually, this was originally two chapters, but when I was looking at my plans both of these and two later chapters were too short, so I merged both pairs. The story should now be 13 chapters long unless I decide to add more material.