Insight

There weren't many people in the guildhall that Mirajane Strauss feared. Especially as a young child. She was an unruly little shit, just like all the other little shits, but an extremely powerful one. One that had already come into her immense power. Whereas Natsu, Gray, or the others would eventually have to find something to force them into being the true powerhouses they possessed the ability to be, she'd already absorbed Satan Soul and was still coming to terms with it.

Much like Erza, she had far to much power than she knew what to do with and, with little to no guidance, it more or less ran wild.

Still, there was someone who could reign her in and, to the very day she was currently living in, he was the one she credited with saving her entire life.

"Oh, Mirajane," Makarov sighed many times to her. "What are we going to do?"

From the guild's destruction to his failing health, he turned for her many times in her adulthood with those very words on his lips. However, there was once, when she was still crumbling under all the weight, that he muttered these words to he and they turned everything around.

"What are we going to do?" he asked with a shake of his head. "Your sister… The guild… Your brother, he… Such a senseless tragedy."

He'd shown up there, at the Strauss household, while Elfman was out. Mirajane had been holed up in there for days. She hadn't let since the funeral and had actually refused to answer the door for just about anyone. A few of her guild mates had come over, to check on her and offer more condolences, but she only hid in her room. Cana, Levy, they all came. They all tried. She refused every single one.

The worst though had been Natsu who came by with Happy. She actually made Elfman answer and tell them she wasn't around. They needed to talk, she knew, her and Lisanna's tow dearest friends, but she just…

She couldn't.

It was on that day that Elfman was out though, off to the store, that the one person Mirajane could never turn away knocked upon the door and, of course, she was forced to open it at the sound of him calling out to her. How could she not? In the deepest throes of despair, Makarov was one of her very few lights. He'd saved them, her siblings and her.

She'd be forever in his debt for that.

Upon entering the little rundown house Mira had purchased for nothing, with her first reward for an S-Class job, the man didn't turn up his nose. Only smiled, warmly, at the teenager. Mira, her eyes stones, looked right through him though.

They sat down in the kitchen where the man refused her offer at tea and Mira only sat there awkwardly, finding different points in the tiny room to stare at, rather than make eye contact with him.

"You know," Makarov said after his previous statement fell on deaf ears and it was clear he was going to have to lead the conversation if he wanted it to get somewhere. "I don't think that I've seen you around, Mirajane. Recently. I thought perhaps that you required me to come inform you that you are certainly still capable of taking-"

"I can't."

"Of course you can."

"I'm telling you, Master, that I can't."

"You are an S-Class wizard. There is nothing that you cannot-"

"I'm only S-Class because of my power." And her eyes fell to the floor then as one hand rubbed uncomfortably at her other arm. "I don't… I can't anymore, Master. Ever again. I'll never be able to again. My...my Stan Soul, I've… I've lost it."

And her voice broke then as her eyes welled with tears she refused to let fall, not in front of him, not in front of the Master, while Makarov only sat there, watching. Silent.

"Your power," he finally told her softly from across the table, "has never been Satan Soul, Mirajane. It's not your Takeover. It's Not your Transformations. It's something much deeper. The first day I met you, I felt it. There was a deep, latent, untapped power that resided in your core. It's not even completely tasted the light of day yet. With or without Satan Soul, you will always have it. And there will always be a job there, for you, at my guildhall. Whether you realize it or not."

He stood then as she finally had to hide her tears in her palms and the man was silent as he watched, for a few moments, before coming closer and patting the child on the shoulder gently. He was so short that when she raised her head from her palms, she was actually staring down at him from where she still sat at the table.

"When I lost my wife," he told her softly as the pair only stared at one another, "I abandoned my son, practically. I took so many jobs. Then, when Laxus' mother died...and Ivan, he… I was so busy with the guild. So often. That I missed...I missed all the signs, my dear. For both of them. And now… But I won't do that again. I wont' ever do that again. Not with any of the new children I've been gifted. I failed you. And your brother. And...and poor, little Lisanna. But I won't again. I promise you, Mirajane, that I will not fail my children again."

And then his tears welled, but unlike her, he didn't mind openly letting them fall. Around them, he added onto his words.

"Come see me, Mirajane, at the guildhall. When you're ready." Finally, he turned to walk off. "I'll be waiting."

She did, of course. Not that day. Not the next. Not even the one after that. But eventually she did go down to Fairy Tail where she was welcomed not only by her concerned guild mates, but also her waiting Master. The job he had for her to take was one that she didn't feel ready for, at the time, but slowly fell into and eventually gave her all. It became her far more than any other job ever had.

Mirajane was a barmaid.

Through and through.

Mostly though, she was loyal to Makarov. All of them were, really, in the guild, but she felt as if she was above all others. It was probably a wrong assumption, but she felt it kind of special. She was sure that they all did, but…

As she stood out on the Master's doorstep that day, Aura standing a bit impatiently beside her, she felt as if she were reporting to the Magic Council or something. That's how high she sought his praise or feared his disapproval.

Upon opening the door though, Makarov hardly spoke to Mirajane. Instead, he addressed the little girl who mostly just wanted to go out and play in his garden. There were lots of cool bugs and things that hung out in the dirt and plants back there that she loved to watch and play with.

But not eat.

Both Master and her mother made that very clear on different occasions.

As Aura went to explore the backyard (it really wasn't much; unless you were three, then it was a lot), Mirajane and Makarov had tea on the patio where, after stirring his cup a few times, the elderly man let out a long sigh and looked up at the woman.

"Oh, Mira," he sighed as he typically did. "What are we going to do?"

"Master-"

"Did you not think that I deserved to know? That I had a grandchild? Do you know how cruel it is to-"

"I didn't even think about you, Master. Laxus-"

"He deserved to know too," he scolded with a frown. "I am not even speaking as just his grandfather, but in a general sense. What you did was deceitful, Mirajane. And disgusting. Why is it you that got to chose for Laxus how his life should go? With no consideration for how it would affect your own daughter. Not only do I not condone your decisions, Mira, but I also am extremely disappointed to find that you, of al people, have made them."

She wanted to say something. To defend herself. But Mirajane only stared down at her hands then, silent. He was, after all, speaking the truth. She had her own reasons, of course, that he didn't understand, but he couldn't understand. Who could? He'd already deemed her incorrect in the situation and, honestly, Mira was sure most would.

"But," the man said after a beat of remorse past, "to dwell is to waste. Life has given you many second chances, Mirajane, in many different ways. This is one of them. What you do now is what matters. Not what you did yesterday, but only what happens today and tomorrow. And then the new today and tomorrow. Laxus is not too broken up by this, I reason, and, well, no harm, no foul, yes?"

She looked up then and the man was grinning at her, from where he sat and Mira had to return it. It would be too hard not to. Once she nodded her head, he finally moved to take a sip from his cup and look out at his garden, where Aura could be seen just between some potted plants. She was squatted down, messing with something, and talking to it loudly.

"She must have found a rabbit," Makarov remarked at the sight, shaking his head a bit. "They've been overrunning the place, recently."

Mira got up at that, to head over there. "Aura, leave it alone, okay? You don't mess with nature."

"No," Makarov sighed more to himself as he watched the woman go bend down where her daughter was, to see just what she was getting into. "You don't."

Laxus arrived back from his job around the same time that Elfman finally came home from his. Between Lisanna and Mira's spat and Evergreen obsessing over a new Strauss, no one had found the time to inform Aura's only and favorite uncle that some news of her paternity had broken. By that point it had spread throughout the hall and he was actually there when he heard the news.

Mira was working, as she always was, and she'd just finished serving a table by the door, moments before he entered. As she turned and left, Elfman heard the snickers from the people at the table and, considering the grown the guild had gone through as of late, he didn't know them. Still, his ear caught something of what they said.

"Imagine thinking trying to pin a kid on the Master's grandson will get you a better position than waitress," one laughed softly to the other and Elfman didn't understand, really, what they meant.

Honestly, he thought they were talking about Kinana. Who, while he wouldn't say he was close to by any means, he did at least hear about constantly from Mirajane considering how closely the pair worked. Gosh. Poor Kinana. A baby by Laxus? How revolting.

His sister was happy to see him, of course, and Elfman was glad to see her in such high spirits. When Lisanna ditched out on their job, boy, he thought something massive had gone wrong, but neither contacted him again and though he worried some, he definitely would have heard if something bad had struck Fairy Tail. He figured they were just having some, uh, 'women' issues. Because though he thought of his oldest sister as all man, she sure could be a big woman sometimes.

Coming from him, this was not a compliment.

Mirajane was glad to see him though and sat her serving tray down at the sight, so she could wrap her arms around him.

"It is so good," she told him softly, "to have you home, Elf."

"I've only been gone for a bit."

"Feels a lot longer. These few weeks..."

"Well, I'm home now. And that's what matters, right?"

As they separated, she couldn't help the long breath she let out. "Right."

"I should probably go check in with Ever-"

"Wait, no, stay. Here. At the guild." She didn't mean to sound so panicked, but she was just a bit. She'd lied to Elfman for so long. If someone was going to tell him the truth, she wanted igt to be her. "I'll be on break soon. Then you and I need to talk."

It wasn't like he was chomping at the bit to see the other woman or anything (or that Evergreen was wanting to really see him either), so he obliged easily with his older sister. She'd been the one giving him commands since she first learned to talk, after all. He'd always follow her orders.

For Mirajane though, taking a break wasn't honestly taking one at all. For her, that day, it meant going down into storage where they'd just gotten a shipment of some cold stuff that she either needed frozen or sent upstairs to be thawed.

She made Elf come with her to help out.

"Is that all you wanted? Sis?" he asked as they arrived down there to begin their work. Again, if Mirajane was telling him to do it, he was doing it. End of discussion. "For me to help out? Or was there actually something that you-"

"I wanted to talk, actually."

"Oh. About something serious? Or just some of that gossip you like to sling about?" He whistled then. "Get this one, sis. You know your friend Kinana. All knocked up, I heard?"

"You what?" Mira almost dropped a box of frozen steaks on her foot. "Where did you hear that? No way! She would have told me. Ooh, when I get to her-"

"It's just a rumor, I guess," he eased off some then with a bit of a shrug. "I heard it when I came in. You know who get her all knocked up?"

"Don't say knocked up," Mira chided. "It's disrespectful."

More so than talking about such a thing in the first place?

Elfman didn't voice this concern. Instead, he only lowered his voice a bit as he said, "It's Laxus. Can you believe that?"

And suddenly Mira's excitement was drained right out of her, like a balloon with a hole.

Sighing some, she stopped what she was doing all together and took a long look over at where he was diligently moving boxes around, at her discretion. Though it was much easier to observe the bond Mirajane had with her little sister, the one that she shared with her little brother was still just as much there. Elfman was special to her in ways that Lisanna wasn't. Though she could recall, vaguely, when Lisanna was born, in her mind, Elfman had always been there. And he'd always been her baby brother. Always. Even as they grew, she always saw herself as needing to protect him. Lisanna, she was in danger from her own naivety and easy to trust personality, but Elfman… Elfman was always just so emotional, when they were kids. Mira had to look out for him because of that. Now, of course, he was more likely to protect her feelings, but only in return for the deep gratitude he had for all she'd done for him his whole life.

Elfman wouldn't be there without his older sister. He didn't know anyone stronger than her. No one was more of man than she was. Not even him.

They'd also lived through something, together, that Lisanna had had no part in. Those two years without her had really made massive changes to both of them. They were different people because of one another. Makarov might have helped bring Mirajane out of her darkness, yes, but it was Elfman that she chose to come out for.

"Elf," she said softly then as they stood around in the dusty basement of the guildhall. "I have to tell you something."

"Of course, sis." He was tired of laughing at Kinana anyways. "Go ahead."

"Do you remember what I told you?" she asked. "About Aura's father?"

"Guess so." Then, suspicious, he made a bit of a face. "Why? What's going on? Do you need me to-"

"I need you to listen."

It was hard, but he could manage.

"I've...I've lied to you, Elfman. About this whole thing. What you heard about Kinana…. I'm sorry. And now Lisanna wont' talk to me and Laxus and his new wife think, like, that they want something to do with her and I just I can't stop that from happening, I guess, and then Master is...he's… I just didn't mean for this all to turn out this way, Elf. I hate it. Why did I ever think that I wanted this?"

That was the thing that Mira and Lisanna didn't have. That Elfman and Lisanna didn't have, even. Elfman had seen Mirajane at her very lowest. Twice before, actually. Lisanna didn't have those vivid memories of the deaths of their parents, but he did. He could still remember how broken Mira looked. And of course, she had no idea what it was like for Mira, when she was dead. How could she? But Elfman knew. He knew very well.

Of course, these tears were nothing like those. Nothing at all. There were hardly tears at all. But just the sight of them, just the idea of them, sent him into this over protective mode. He didn't want Mira to feel anything close to that again. Didn't want her to ever so much as hurt an ounce. She'd more than gone through enough for a lifetime.

He was the one that hugged her that time and, keeping a tight grip on her, Elfman didn't feel that resentment or anger that Lisanna had. No. He'd never have that towards his older sister. He couldn't. Not after all that she'd done for him through the years. There were stretches of time when he had no one else in the entire world, but her.

He could never hate her.

Never.

He couldn't even really recall getting mad at her in years. Perhaps since his early youth. Mira was more of a mother to him than his own had been, given her early exit from life, and little boys didn't fight with their mothers. No. They might disagree with them, they might let them down, they might even disobey then, but they didn't fight them.

Not the good ones, anyways.

"It'll be okay, sis," he sighed into the top of her head as he rested his face there, listening to Mira only try and sniff her tears back inside. "I understand. I understand everything."

But did he?

Laxus, as stated before, arrived back from his around the same time as Elfman, but unlike him, did go run to check in with his sister. No, Laxus had something equally as complex and perplexing to deal with.

"What are you doing?" he asked as he found his wife in the spare bedroom rather than her studio, very diligently shifting around boxes. It had been used as storage, so far, but they'd spoken frequently, before, about it eventually becoming their future child's nursery. At the sight of her in there, well… "Are you looking for something?"

"We gotta get some stuff moved out of here."

"Why?" he asked as he dropped his bag to the floor with a bit of a thud and still just stood there, in the doorway, staring in at her. He'd been gone long enough that they both should have been all over one another already. But they weren't. They were so far apart. "Tasha?"

"For your daughter, Laxus."

He hated it too. Not just her tone (she was talking to him like he was an idiot again; she'd been doing it since the whole thing began and he was about done with it), but rather the way that he let out a long breath, as if relieved. Tasha either didn't pick up on it or just didn't care as she still hardly glanced at him.

Then he realized what she'd said instead.

"Wait, what?"

"Where's she gonna stay when she comes over? Laxus?"

"When's she doing that?"

"You tell me."

They both shared a look that time and his sigh was much more audible.

"Why do you keep pushing into this? Huh? Why can't you just let things progress naturally?"

"Because natural to you is ignoring a problem until it goes away. And this won't go away, so you'll just sulk about it for the rest of forever and do nothing to fix it." Then she looked him up and down. "Well, are you going to tell me about your job? Or what?"

He didn't want to. For the first time in their entire relationship, he really didn't want to be around her at all. Because she was still all serious and shit instead of loving and amusing.

If this was what she was like when it came to a kid they both hardly even knew, what was she going to be like if they ever had one of their own?

"It could be worse," Freed sighed when Laxus went to see him the next day. "She could have left you."

"Is that the worst thing right now?"

"You know you don't mean that."

He only let out a long sigh before shrugging. Still, Freed sat there on the couch, as if studying him.

"Or," he added slowly, "she could not want you to be around the child. Is that what you want? You can tell me if it is. Is it what you'll want when you and Tasha… Mirajane has given up her secret now, to everyone. If you and Tasha are worried about the fate of the child, do not. I and Evergreen and Bickslow-"

"Yeah, I heard about your stupid little stunt."

"L-Laxus-"

"I didn't ask you to go over there, Freed, and fuck things up further."

"Do you think that I wished to go?"

"Yeah, I think you did."

Well…

"I went," he told him with his head held high, "To save Evergreen and Bickslow from going alone. Even you must admit that if I were not there, it would have been even more of a disaster than it was."

"Mira needs space."

"Mira had three years of space."

Laxus only shook his head some as he remarked, "I don't even know why defend her. I'm not on her side. Not really. And she's not on mine. I just… Is it bad? That I feel against my own wife in all this? And she's the one in the right, isn't she? She's the one doing the right thing? I'm the one that's struggling to not do the wrong. So typical. So fucking typical."

"Are you...are you going to see the child?" Freed felt that it would be simpler, when dealing with such a daunting task as being a father, if dealt with in tiny steps. Such as the one he was questioning then. "Again? Now that you are back? Today?"

Laxus shrugged again and Freed let the conversation lull. It was enough of a confirmation, anyways.

For the first time, when he arrived at the Strauss house, no one was home. Which was just as well. He honestly didn't want to see Aura. Not really. Maybe a little. Mostly though just because Tasha had ordered it when she sent him back to Magnolia just for that task. What could he do, then if the girl wasn't home?

It was his luck that the way he chose to walk happened to be the one that Lisanna and Aura were returning from the park on. The little girl smiled brightly when they approached the man though Lisanna did so with hesitance. If Laxus hadn't so openly spotted them, she may have tried to feign ignorance, but he'd stopped, right there on the sidewalk, at the sight of their approach and, well, she wasn't heartless, after all.

Aura smiled at the sight of him, waving joyfully, and he only saw himself in her face when she stood before him, head titled back, and he wondered how no one else had noticed in all these years. Or was he only noticing because he was in the know?

"Hi, Laxus," the little girl giggled and, as her arm dropped, she began to sway on her feet in that way young kids did, as she added, "You came back."

"I always do," he told her and he meant it. Really, he did. "Aura."

She giggled so loudly at the sound of him saying her name, nearly falling over in her glee, and he could see the Strauss in her then. Through and through.

"Was there something that you wanted?" Lisanna asked him slowly. She didn't want to come off as annoyed. Honestly, she didn't even know what she felt towards Laxus over the whole thing, if anything at all. "We were just headed home-"

"I just came by to give her something."

And slowly then, Laxus dropped to one knee, right there on the sidewalk, and produced from the sack on his back a little sown doll he'd picked up in the village he'd just returned from. At it's sight, Aura snatched the thing right up, staring at it in all of it's handmade glory.

In a loud, authoritative way that young children had about them, she announced to the two adults. "She's ugly."

As Lisanna looked on in shock and Laxus tried hard not to hate the ungrateful little brat already, Aura quickly moved to snuggle the thing to her.

"Love her," she declared just as quickly and snuggled the, admittedly, ugly little thing to her chest while beaming even brighter, if that was possible, at her father she hardly knew. "T'anks!'

Laxus blinked and Lisanna relaxed some, but the slayer was the one that reached out to gently pat the head of the young girl and ruffle her soft blonde hair.

"Maybe next time," he sighed as he rose to his feet and only slipped his hands into his pockets, "she'll be prettier."

Maybe. Given that he would still be the one picking out the toy, Lisanna wagered on probably not. Still, Laxus seemed content then and Aura wanted to get home quickly to introduce her newest doll to the others, so they set off together, the short rest of the way to the house.

"You sure are getting a lot of toys recently, aren't you, Aura?" Lisanna teased. "Have you been enough good enough girl for them?"

"Yes," she said with confidence. Her little toy knight and doll were very well deserved, even, she'd wager.

That was the reason, obviously, she was getting them. Obviously.

Why else would she be?

Aura didn't understand, of course, why though, that Laxus and Bickslow of all people were so concerned with her, but she was pretty grateful. Because it didn't matter why. Not at that age. In her mind everyone cared and everyone did what they were supposed to. Adults, at least. They all knew their roles and they followed them.

Why they did one thing or another bothered her very little. Adults knew what they were doing. They had to. Because if they didn't...who did?