Despite the tension in her bones, Levy realized she must have managed to doze off at some point. When she woke up, glancing outside she determined it was close to noon from the angle of the sun. A new sun, new timezone. Her dreams had been plagued with visions of violence and cruelty and death. Her hands stained with blood she couldn't wash off. The faces of her friends and family looking at her with accusation. She took a deep breath to calm herself. Shake away the nightmares and focus on the days to come. A new day she told herself. Her homeland had once been part of Fiore but over centuries it had been taken and retaken by various adjoining kingdoms. It was probably one of the only places in the world where at least a half a dozen languages could be heard spoken within a small two hundred square mile area. Her home was a land that had been conquered so many times, history had lost count.

Gajeel was awake, Levy could tell, despite the stillness and the fact that his eyes were still closed. He wasn't asleep. It amused her to consider how easy it was for her to tell. He scowled less when actually unconscious. Smiling, Levy leaned in and up, leaving the lightest of kisses on his lips.

He smiled at her, eyes still closed, and she almost forgot everything. Including how to breathe. It filled her with warmth and the unshakeable urge to bury herself in his arms for the remainder of her living days. It was potent and intoxicating and now that she'd had some sleep, a chance to recover a little, she could truly appreciate just how much of a physical reaction his proximity caused. She ached for him. An unpleasant, torturous desire for his hands. The contact of his skin.

With her fingertips, she traced the line of his jaw and the bridge of his nose. Cautiously exploring the sharp features of his face. Trying to test the limits of what he would allow. She ran her index finger across his bottom lip with a feather light touch and revelled in the barely suppressed shudder that overtook him. He opened his mouth and took the digit between his teeth. Nipping lightly at it.

"I could get used to these kind of wake ups, Shrimp," He teased her and she laughed.

"You weren't even asleep," She rebuked, kissing him again. A sad smile on her face.

It felt so natural now to be so close to him. Comfortable. It was difficult to believe how different their relationship had been just days ago. The previous tensions between them had gone, leaving a very different kind in its wake.

"I need to show you everything," She spoke quietly. So solemnly that Gajeel moved back to look at her fully. Her eyes were hopeful. He was aware now that she wasn't going to try anything without him. But she was going to try and convince him to let her continue. It was probably the most trust she'd shown. "Will you come with me?" She asked him. He knew he would. This was something he needed to know.

The walk up to the castle ruins unsettled Gajeel. He'd more senses available to him than most Humans. The gifts of Dragon Slayer magic. And the corroded, blackened stone honestly left him uneasy. He could smell death. What would surely be more than ten years later and the place still reeked. He didn't believe in ghosts, but what he thought he knew as fact had been tested so many times in the last few weeks he honestly didn't know what he believed anymore. What he knew about the castle was that the sooner they could leave, the easier he'd sleep.

She sat in the courtyard in the dirt. Even in the years since, nothing had grown here. The soil was barren. The entire place was dead.

"My grandfather took my grandmothers name, McGarden because he didn't want to be associated with his father anymore. By that point Calus had already driven his own wife to suicide. Killed most of his relations out of paranoia. I...still can't figure out how, despite everything, my grandfather turned out to be a good man," Gajeel listened intently. Levy took out a canteen of water and offered it the Dragon Slayer.

"Calus wasn't happy. His only son spurning him like that. When he found out his daughter-in-law was pregnant, he murdered his own son. My father was born in a dungeon," Levy pulled out the book and sat it on her lap, staring at it with an intensity Gajeel had never seen her express. "This book was Calus' last joke," She laughed ruefully. "Named after the prison he left my father and grandmother in to rot. The Walled Garden. Cultivating misery," She spat.

"Why keep them alive? " The Dragon Slayer asked.

"For the blood," She opened the book and paced her fingers against the pages. Words in a language he didn't know seemed to burn their way out of her skin, running in lines down into the paper. Gajeel inched closer as she winced. The process causing her pain. "There's a price to pay. Magic always has its costs. When Calus found out about my father, he knew he no longer had to pay it himself. The council only came for him when he caused the destruction of his home town. They knew what was going on but they didn't care until it was too late. Wasn't their problem once it was just in my family but as soon as they had to clean up the mess? My father thought we'd left it all behind us, but it seemed to keep following us," She huffed breathlessly.

She gestured around them. "The man who lived here thought of himself like some kind of royalty, but he wasn't anything more than a wealthy thug. We'd seen a lot of them over the years With armies wandering in and staking their claim on these lands, it meant these old castles would see new owners every couple of winters. He was just the latest",

"I take it he wasn't sold on the idea of giving that up?" Gajeel finished her train of thought.

"No," She admitted. "He wasn't. And when he found out who we were he decided he liked the idea of infinite power. To hell with where it came from, or what it cost to get it," She looked to a point about ten feet from where Gajeel was standing. "They killed my father there," She pointed. "Someone told him he only needed my father's blood to use the book, so my mother burned the body to ash before they could get a drop of it," She spoke calmly. As though she were describing something mundane.

Gajeel had experienced things growing up that no child should ever have to. After he found himself alone he'd done what he had to to survive, and it changed him. Hardened him to suffering. The knowledge that the woman who was always smiling, was harbouring this type of horror was beyond his understanding. How anyone could experience that kind of darkness and not fall to it gave him new meaning to the term inner strength.

"They killed her next, right where your standing," She choked. "Then it was just me and Maeve," She paused. "And they only needed one of us," The memory looked like it was slipping out of reach. She strained to recall. "When she stopped screaming, she started singing. That was her magic. Music and song. She could make it do things. Even heal." Levy remembered almost dying, until her sisters voice called her back.

"She put everyone to sleep and we ran. There are caves and caverns all over this area. The castle sewer opens up into them. They caught her while she was getting me out." She was resolute; taking a deep breath and locking eyes with him.

"When they tried to use the book, the castle was obliterated. Most of the people here, left. They believe these ruins are cursed. They probably are. I can't explain how I know, I really wish I could, Gajeel, but she's still alive," She held a hand over her chest. "I can feel it."

Gajeel understood. For possibly the first time.

"Have you thought about what that might mean, Shrimp?" Levy looked at him confusedly. "If she is alive, she's been in that place for years. If she is there, even if you get her back, she might not be yer sister anymore," He reasoned. It caused her visible distress to hear it, but Gajeel knew it needed to be said.

"I'll deal with that, if I get her back," She said in response.

Gajeel sighed. There was one more thing he needed to know. After all, Levy had waited years to get to this point and now seemed to be the right time to be asking.

"What's with the manuscript?" He asked, changing the subject.

"I can use it so only me, or someone from my family can pass through. If I open the well, I don't want anything else going in or coming out," Truthfully, that came as something of a relief to the Dragon Slayer. "The lost seal keeps growing once activated and it'll collapse anything inside it within a few minutes, it'll close the breach," She put the book away sighing in relief as the words disappeared from her skin. "But not before I toss this fucking thing through it."

She didn't need to go on. Gajeel took a breath unable to really believe he was going to do this. He laughed inside. Already regretting it.

"Okay."

She looked up to the Dragon Slayer and he extended a hand to her, pulling her to her feet. She looked like she'd misheard him. He smiled at her.

"Let's do somethin' stupid then, gihi."

Dinner was a low key affair. Sliced tomato and cheese with slightly stale bread and ham. There was only cold running water in the cottage and the lacrima lights had long since died out, so they ate in flickering fire light. It would have been moderately romantic in any other circumstances. An amusing thought not lost on Levy. First candlelight supper.

No one had turned up on the doorstep yet, so it seemed her theory about them tracking her magic was right. Even if they came here looking for them, they would more than likely just check her family home, not bothering to go further a field in the search. She could have gone anywhere as far as they could know.

After eating, Levy took to her books to prepare while Gajeel made the small house as secure as he could with the nails and wood he'd found in the garden shed outside; barricading the windows and doors till morning, just in case. It was late when he finished but Levy still sat reading. Meticulously going over everything. All bar one of the candles having burned out.

The Dragon Slayer plucked the book from her hands and set it aside.

"We should get some sleep," His voice came out with a distinctive husk that told Levy she may be getting less sleep than his words were implying. She stood and stretched a little. Her shoulder was tight but rapidly healing and the stiffness was fading with each day. She watched him disappear into the bedroom and with a deep, nervous breath she followed.

She took the same position in the bed as before. Facing him while he examined her. When he leaned in to kiss her she turned to putty in his hands. His tongue left her weak kneed and even weaker willed. There was something exhilarating about being with him right now. Tomorrow everything could go wrong, the price of failure far higher than she should be comfortable with. The afternoon had been emotionally draining and opened more old wounds than she cared to count. She needed to feel just a moment without some kind of despair or guilt.

She absently registered his hands as they caressed from her ribs to her hip before slipping around to grip her rear and press her against him. Hard enough that she could feel the hot growing bulge straining his pants. She gasped into his mouth as her hips connected with his. It was like lightning how fast the dynamic between them kept changing. A kiss igniting something that burned so hot it couldn't be extinguished. Suddenly her hands were in his hair, pulling tightly. Her body arching and grinding into his. Looking for as much contact, as much friction as he'd allow. He moaned, breaking back from her lips. She could see him grit his teeth. Eyes closed in focus.

"We probably shouldn't be doin' this," He rasped. His words were growled out. Uncertain and not entirely sure why. Second guessing his decision to pursue this. She was hurting, looking for even the briefest reprieves from herself and he was a selfish man. He wasn't good for her and this wouldn't save her from anything. This was just a distraction. "I don't love you. This won't mean anything."

She didn't recoil from him like he wanted her too. He'd been expecting to see horror and pain in her eyes as she back away but there was only an acceptance that cut into him more than it should. Her hands didn't falter. Instead, she looped one leg over his hips and nipped at his earlobe, small hands fisting in his shirt pulling herself flush against him.

"It doesn't have to mean anything to you," She whispered and the last of Gajeel's reservations fled. He flipped the woman underneath him in the bed with a speed that made her gasp, crushing her lips with his own. He slid one hand up her thigh and under her stained, rumpled orange dress, stroking bare skin. His fingers moved high enough to pinch and tease her breasts under the material and her breathing faltered at the sensation. She pulled at his pants and he growled at her, lacing his fingers in hers, pinning her arms to the bed while he moved his mouth along the smooth curve of her neck. When he'd reach a particularly sensitive place she would arch up into him. Pull her arms against his, trying to free herself. Feel more of him. He dragged his teeth over those spots till her breathing was raspy and she couldn't speak beyond mumbles.

"Please..." She whispered into his ear and he sat back on his knees. His hands kneading into her hips hard enough to leave a mark. He pierced her with a look so smouldering she almost couldn't meet it, before he pulled her underwear down, sliding them quickly over her knees. He slipped his pants down as far as his thighs, freeing himself. There was little ceremony or care when he sharply thrust into her and she yelped.

He thrust once more before he realized just how tense she'd become; core squeezing him almost painfully. Her face was a tight, almost tortured look of determined focus. When she opened her eyes he saw just how much they'd teared up. He made to pull away but she locked her ankles behind him. Shaking her head.

"Please don't stop,"

He paused. Wide eyed and horrified when he realized what was going on.

"You should've said!" He grunted to her under his breath.

Sex wasn't meant to be painful; even the first time with enough foreplay shouldn't hurt. Her first should have been slow, languid. It shouldn't have been with him. Rough and domineering, hard, calloused hands. The type of women he'd attracted to him had been ones who liked his unapologetic pace.

He wasn't prepared for this, although he really should have known. Or at least suspected. He was an idiot. She deserved better than this and she should have known that too. He pulled back slowly, watching her expression change. He moved slower, leaning over her resting on his elbows. He touched her forehead with his. It was so foreign a sensation; moving like he was, but his patience was rewarded when he felt her nails along his back and felt her finally rock her hips gently into him. Beginning to meet his thrusts. He let a hand travel between them and leisurely glided a finger through her womanhood, circling her gently while he moved. Levy was altogether quiet, but when she came, she screamed out. Clutching at the pillow under her head.

Gajeel didn't think any sight could be sweeter than the expression on her face at that. As though, for a moment everything she'd been carrying had been let go. Released to the wind. He kissed her softly as she slowly came back from the precipice. She smiled at him and, experimentally, he drove himself into her just that bit harder. Her legs tightened around him but her smile never faltered, and he let that be the sign to pick up the pace. Underneath him she was panting as his thrusts grew more and more frantic. She ran her hands through his hair and tugged, pulling him down to meet her lips. The feel of her mouth on his taking him to his own climax.

His heart was beating faster than it had ever had before when he lowered himself beside her. Drinking in the flush of her skin and the bed tussled hair as she lay there utterly exhausted. He traced his fingers over her shoulder and the wound that was scarring there. She didn't seem to notice, turning to look at him, red faced and smiling like everything in the world for once was right.

And Gajeel knew then it had been a lie.

Because he truly did love her, and this had meant more to him than he wanted to believe.

Notes

Thank you for the fav homopotato and suicuneluvr for the review and the fav.

Ihatemyjob1 - That means so much to me! Thank you! :)

Rachel3003 - Hopefully where I'm going isn't going to disappoint.

suicuneluvr- Gajevy is my literal all time favorite pairing. Hope I can do them justice.

I know its cliche to have Levy be the blushing virgin and all but I think it really does tie in with her character. On that note I wanted to portray a slightly more realistic first time. Its not always quite so romantic.

As a side note, and this comes up so many times in so many stories, the hymen isn't a barrier, more like a little bit of tissue that's actually gradually worn away by the time you come out of adolescence. Most active girls won't actually experience a hymen tear their first time because its probably been lost to sports or worn by general masturbation beforehand. Truthfully, if you're in pain your first time there has not been enough foreplay and you're either nervous or just not lubricated enough. Probably both. The vagina is capable of stretching to accommodate a baby. Dude, your penis is not too much for it to handle. Any bleeding is generally on account of some other injury in the canal. In this case, Gajeel isn't exactly used to the kind of care that's required a girls first time round and he jumps the gun a bit.

Next update might be a little while arriving so I just want to leave you with this,

'I will be back!'

Much love,

Moonbeam