Note: Sorry this chapter is a little late. My anxiety kicked up and I was feeling really stressed out from all the editing and posting I've been doing. This accelerated posting schedule has really worn me out. I'll try to keep on the same schedule for the rest of this verse, but it's going to slow down after this and I think that I'll do a less ambitious schedule for the next multichapter.
Chapter 25
(In which Gray finally comes home.)
The journey back to the guild wasn't a terribly pleasant one, and not only because Natsu was motion sick the whole way there. Going back when they hadn't found Gray yet was wrong and frustrating, and Natsu wasn't the only one who was quiet and out of sorts on the train. The atmosphere was thick with disappointment and tension and worry, and the knowledge of their failure hung over them heavily.
To be honest, the atmosphere at the guild wasn't much better. The three of them trudged into the guild hall half a day later than they were supposed to have returned, and the building was already crowded with glum, disheartened faces, although it seemed like quite a few people were missing. It was Erza who spotted Natsu and his companions first.
"You're late," she said, although she didn't actually sound angry. Natsu glimpsed a hint of relief in her eyes, but also disappointment. Relief that they were safe and their tardiness didn't mean that something had happened to them, and disappointment that they hadn't found Gray and brought him back. "You didn't find anything?"
Natsu bit his lip as he considered how to best answer that. They had found some signs that Gray had been up in his hometown, but then they had lost him again. That was perhaps the most frustrating thing of all, that they had been so close and gotten their hopes up, but then never caught another break. And even though they had known that Gray must have been up there somewhere, even that knowledge hadn't been enough for them to find him. That one chance discovery hadn't changed the fact that it was ultimately nearly impossible to run across one lone amnesiac who didn't want to be found in such a vast land. It was like confirming that there was indeed a needle in the haystack, but still being unable to actually find the needle itself.
"We do have some news," he said slowly, "but no, we didn't find him."
Erza blinked at him in surprise, evidently not expecting them to have found anything at all. "Wait, let's gather everyone here first so that we can all hear it at once. You were the last ones to return and everyone else has already come back from their individual searches in outlying areas, but a few people decided to keep wandering around the city while we waited for you."
She smiled sheepishly. "And I made them all take a communications lacrima with them this time," she added with a rueful laugh. "If we had been thinking more clearly a few days ago instead of panicking, we would have sent one up to Isvan with you. It would have really helped with coordinating the search."
Natsu stared at her for a moment. "That would have been really useful," he replied, wondering why they hadn't thought of such an obvious solution to their problem. Not that he'd really been in much of a state to think anything through clearly when he'd first realized Gray had disappeared, but they could have saved a lot of trouble if he had sat down and thought things through instead of running off immediately with only the most basic of plans.
If they had just brought a lacrima with them, they could have sent a message back to Fairy Tail that they had found signs of Gray, and the guild could have sent backup without Natsu and the others ever having to come back. Natsu let out a breath. It was too bad, really. They could have still been searching right now, like he had wanted to.
He noticed that Lyon's lips also tightened in a fair approximation of annoyance, but the Lamia Scale mage just let out a harsh breath and shook his head. "Well, we're here now," he said with a sigh. "We'll make sure to bring a lacrima when we go back."
Erza's eyebrows shot upward and a faint gleam of hope entered her eyes. "When you go back?" she asked.
Despite himself, Natsu chuckled a little. "Now, now, Erza, we said that we weren't going to talk about this until we got everyone together," he teased.
She scowled over at him, but then sighed and nodded. "I'll be right back."
Natsu watched as she hurried across the guild and disappeared into the backroom, a lacrima already in her hand. He had the feeling that everyone else would be showing up shortly, unwilling to risk Erza's wrath. But he didn't have a whole lot of time to think on it, because half the guild was already here. Judging by the immediate onslaught of questions, they had been waiting impatiently for Natsu and his group to return. Which he supposed wasn't terribly surprising, considering the fact that his team might have had the best shot of finding Gray.
But he was under orders not to share what they had found until everyone else was here too, and he didn't dare say anything about their trip until Erza was here to hear it. He didn't have a death wish. Instead, he, Lyon, and Happy were ushered to a table to sit down, and Mira brought them drinks while everyone else took turns relaying their stories of their specific missions, giving a brief rundown of everything they had been up to over the past few days. Apparently everyone else had already met up and discussed their findings—or the lack thereof—while they were waiting for Natsu and the others to show back up. Now they were determined to get Natsu and his team up to speed.
Not that there was really much to tell, since no one had found much of anything. Not even Gajeel's team hadn't found anything, even though they had started off at Gray's apartment, which was the only place they could say that Gray had been with any real certainty. Still, Natsu quite enjoyed Levy's retelling of how Gajeel had led them around the city in giant loops as he tried to follow Gray's trail. The mental image of Gajeel running around on a wild goose chase, sniffing like a dog and getting frustrated as Gray outsmarted him time and time again, put Natsu in a slightly better mood, at least until Gajeel helpfully pointed out that Natsu had done the exact same thing when they had first realized that Gray was missing.
There were a few other entertaining stories as well that his friends were eager to share, which was probably more an attempt to lighten the mood than anything else. They seemed determined to try forgetting about the lingering tension and frustration, at least for a few minutes until Natsu told his tale and they could get back down to business. Natsu particularly liked Lucy's story of how Loke's womanizing had derailed their entire search. Apparently they'd been in a small town a couple hours away and had randomly run across a few of Loke's old flames, who immediately recognized their one-time lover and caused such a fuss that both Loke and Lucy had been temporarily detained while the town officials tried to figure out what was going on. They had been subsequently released with an apology and a polite but firm request to leave and not come back.
Lucy was indignant and kept shooting irritated looks at the unconcerned spirit, but not even that could cloak the underlying worry lurking in her eyes. Even Loke's apparent nonchalance was undermined by the tension radiating from him, and although everyone laughed and joked about the incident, it was obvious that no one could quite forget the situation they were in or the fact that they had completely failed to find their missing friend.
In any case, Natsu wasn't surprised by the disappointing results. After all, he had scented Gray in Isvan. Although they hadn't actually been able to find him, the dragon slayer knew that Gray must have been in Isvan for at least part of the time. In which case, it would have been awfully hard for anyone else to find him around Magnolia.
He also quickly realized that they weren't only waiting for Fairy Tail. As more of the scouting teams began trickling in, he began noticing a mixed assortment of mages. Natsu, Lyon, and Happy had pretty much run off as soon as the initial panicked meeting had been adjourned, because they wanted to find Gray now and weren't interested in sticking around to see how things worked out back at the guild. Now Natsu could see that this had turned into a much bigger venture than he had anticipated.
Apparently Erza really had contacted Sting and Rogue, because Natsu spotted them slinking back into the guild hall in defeat a few minutes later. They had come in separately since they had each led a different group, and Natsu noted with interest that Minerva, Rufus, and Yukino were there as well, along with Frosch and Lector. Meredy and Jellal had also apparently stuck around to help out in the search. Even Gray's landlady ended up hobbling into the hall after a bit. And was that Porlyusica over there, talking to Wendy?
Natsu was dying to ask what she was doing here given her misanthropic impatience with such things, but restrained himself. He didn't want to be on the wrong end of her sharp tongue again; he had gotten far too many biting lectures from her over the past months. Instead he settled for glancing over at Lyon and arching a questioning eyebrow.
The ice mage just shrugged. "Why don't you ask?"
"Because she would rip my head off," Natsu grumbled. "Why don't you ask instead? She doesn't hate you as much."
"She hates everyone," Lyon answered with a hint of amusement. "And I don't want to get on her bad side. So no."
Natsu rolled his eyes but subsided. It wasn't like he cared that much. He was willing to sacrifice his curiosity for the sake of his continued survival. But apparently Happy had other ideas.
The Exceed stood up. "Natsu wants to know—" he started loudly, before Natsu hastily clamped a hand over his mouth.
Porlyusica glanced over suspiciously and Natsu hurriedly turned away and forced Happy to look away as well, so that they wouldn't draw her attention. Although Happy had pretty much managed to draw everyone's attention, since he had been speaking as loudly as possible without actually yelling.
"Natsu wants to know…what?" Lucy asked with a puzzled frown.
"Nothing," the dragon slayer grumbled, scowling at Happy, who was looking much too smug.
He released the little cat, and Happy settled back down without protest. The Exceed didn't say anything else, but he was wearing a self-satisfied smirk. Natsu rolled his eyes and let out a breath. Of course Happy would pick now to finally perk up and go back to his normal mischief-making self. Then he shot his friend a suspicious look as it occurred to him that perhaps this had just been Happy's way of trying to snap him out of his brooding. The Exceed just looked back with innocent eyes, but there was something knowing in them as well. Natsu nodded to him slightly, before turning away as Erza marched up to the table.
The requip mage had been running around for the past couple hours, doing whatever it was that de facto guild masters did when panicking and trying to coordinate a massive manhunt. She had been tense and jittery and hadn't stayed seated for more than a few minutes at a time, instead continually disappearing to do whatever it was she was doing. Natsu didn't ask, because he understood how stressed out she was.
"Alright, everyone is finally here," she said, her tone all business as she looked around the motley gathering.
Natsu figured that it was about time. They had been waiting for a few hours now, because apparently a few teams had ended up drifting outside the city limits to nearby towns so it took them longer to get back. And to top it off, one team had managed to lose their lacrima and had decided to keep on searching instead of going back to the guild. It had taken a while for a search party to track them down, and Erza had not been pleased.
Natsu glanced around at the assembled mages and non-mages alike. It was kind of touching, really, how so many people who didn't normally interact with each other on a daily basis had still shown up to give their support, out of love for Gray and the rest of Fairy Tail. It was kind of funny, actually. Gray had been so worried that his condition was tearing the guild apart, and there was definitely some truth to that. The guild had definitely been a different place since his return from the void and everyone had been stressed and upset. Team Natsu had all but disbanded, each member preoccupied with their own separate roles instead of sticking together, and the changing dynamics had spread to the rest of the guild as well.
But in some ways this whole experience had seemed to bring the guild closer together as well, and had even drawn in some people who were normally outsiders, such as the Sabertooth mages, Meredy and Jellal, Porlyusica, and even Gray's landlady. And, of course, Lyon had gotten dragged into it too, and had become a lot closer to Fairy Tail over these past few months. They were a peculiar little group, but they'd put aside their differences to focus on working together towards a common goal. For all the bad that had happened, there was still a silver lining.
It buoyed Natsu's spirits for a few moments, before Erza turned to look at him expectantly. It was nice, but not nice enough to overshadow what had happened to Gray. It didn't change the fact that Gray had no memories, that he was missing, that he was lost and confused, that everyone was shaken up and upset and sad. But then again, maybe it went back to what he had been telling Lyon at Brago, because maybe these things couldn't magically fix their problems, but that didn't mean that they couldn't help start patching things up. It seemed pointless to throw away the good just because of how overwhelming the bad seemed. Natsu automatically reached up to finger his scarf, a silent reminder of that lesson.
"Care to fill us in, Natsu?" Erza asked.
Natsu sighed and briefly outlined his team's activities over the last few days. He glossed over some of the more personal things and tried to keep most of his frustration and discouragement out of his voice. He focused mainly on the fact that he was confident that Gray had at least visited his hometown, even if they hadn't found any sign of him at Ur's house or Brago. He didn't want to tell them how much of a shot-in-the-dark the search had been because he didn't want them to give up on it yet. Yes, the task of actually locating Gray by searching the entirety of Isvan seemed daunting and kind of hopeless, but that wasn't a reason to give up. Natsu still wanted—needed—to go back and continue the search. It didn't matter how bad the odds were, as long as he was doing something to find Gray and bring him home.
And he wanted the others to come help the search effort and poke around Isvan with him, so although he was honest with them about the fact that the whole situation was like searching for a needle in a haystack, he tried not to be too obvious about how almost-impossible it really was. Then again, he wasn't sure how much that really mattered, because even if there were a few dissenters and voices of reason, he was pretty confident that most of the guild would jump on this chance, however slight, even if they knew exactly how impossible it was.
Sure enough, everyone's hopes started rising as Natsu told them that they had at least found evidence of Gray's passing, and once he had finished the story, a debate sprang up about how to best conduct the search. They plotted and schemed for quite a while, talking about the logistics. Someone even ran out to acquire maps so that they could plot out different routes and pinpoint the places where Gray might be the most likely to go. They talked about what supplies they would need, who should be teamed up with who, and who should take what route.
And a couple hours later, when they were finally done planning everything they could possibly plan, Natsu was satisfied. The task was still daunting, but it would be more bearable with his friends helping out. Even if it would still be hard to locate Gray, they had a much better chance of it now. Despite Natsu's knowledge of the odds they were facing, he was actually starting to feel cautiously hopeful
"Well, let's go find Gray," he said, his eyes flashing with determination.
But it turned out that they didn't have to, because that was the moment that Gray burst into the guild hall.
The journey back to the guild wasn't a terribly pleasant one, and not only because he was still confused and a little panicky over what had happened in Brago. Mostly it was because he had to fight the curse the whole time. He had been able to fit Gray's family together into a neat little unit, and that knowledge and understanding had allowed him to remember what he had discovered without the curse taking it away. The curse could steal away all those only half-understood snippets of knowledge and feeling, but it wasn't nearly as effective at pulling away the memories that he well and truly understood and had pieced together.
But he hadn't been able to really figure out the relationship between Gray and Ur and Lyon, so the curse still had something to sink its teeth into there. He had to fight to hold together all the little scraps of information and knowledge that he had started fitting together from Brago and the cabin, because the curse was trying to rip them away again. He just needed to hold on long enough to find Lyon and work out how the older ice mage fit into this whole mess, because he thought that it was his inability to understand the different sides of Lyon and the different relationships between Lyon and Gray that was preventing him from fitting that whole second group together. Plus he still had to figure out how Fairy Tail fit into this, but he would worry about that after he got the second group sorted out.
He jumped off the train as soon as it hit Magnolia and practically flew through the streets, desperate to get to the guild and figure this out before he lost the progress he had made. He could already feel it starting to fade at the edges and slip away, and he couldn't bear the thought of losing it all again, not when he was so close.
So he was already panicky and hyper-focused on the task at hand when he flung open the doors of the guild hall. There was a moment of stunned silence as everyone took in his sudden arrival and disheveled appearance, and then everyone started jumping up and talking at once. They were asking him if he was okay, asking what had happened, asking why he had left and if he had managed to find any more memories. And a lot of them were hurrying towards him, but he could not afford to be distracted right now, not when he was right on the edge of either forgetting everything or remembering it all.
"Stop," he said tightly, his eyes darting around the room as he took a half-step back away from the sudden onslaught. "Just…stop. Wait. Please."
Everyone paused again, and Natsu quietly told them all to stay back and give him space, even though the dragon slayer looked just as close to running over to him as the others. He appreciated it, figuring that Natsu must have been able to pick up on something or other in his voice or eyes.
But it wasn't Natsu he needed to find right now, so he looked away, frantically searching the room with his eyes. He first noticed that there were an awful lot of people here, even people that weren't part of Fairy Tail and weren't normally here. He wondered why they were all here now. As he hastily skimmed over the faces of both Fairy Tail mages and usual outsiders alike, he noticed that many of their expressions were a mixture of relief and worry and anxiety and some other emotions he couldn't quite make out in his hurried survey. It occurred to him that his disappearance might have hurt or scared them more than he had intended it to and he felt a little bad about it, but this wasn't the time to worry about it. He could apologize later.
He continued to search the sea of faces until he found Lyon. Ignoring the others, he stepped towards Lyon and approached the older mage cautiously. He still didn't know how to reconcile the hateful Lyon of Gray's childhood to the Lyon here now, and he was apprehensive. Maybe there was something he had missed. Maybe Lyon didn't really like him—like Gray?—as much as he had thought. Had he been wrong in judging Lyon to be his—Gray's—friend?
He half-circled Lyon, moving slowly as he studied the older mage with slightly narrowed eyes. Lyon seemed to pick up on the change in his attitude, perhaps could read the wariness and uncertainty in his eyes, and began looking more anxious and unhappy by the second. He didn't necessarily want to make Lyon uncomfortable, but he needed to know.
"Gray?" Lyon asked cautiously.
He shook his head firmly, but Lyon persisted.
"Gray, what's wrong?"
He shook his head again and ignored Lyon for the moment, trying to look past the older mage's fear and all the questions he couldn't answer.
He used the memory fragments he had picked up in Brago and Ur's house as a crutch—a bridge—to evoke more memories now that he was standing in front of Lyon. He teased them out of his shattered mind carefully and sifted through them, looking for some way to make them all fit together. He tried to puzzle out the new memory snippets that were flashing through his mind as he studied Lyon's face, tried to figure out how they connected to the Lyon he had slowly been getting to know these past few months, but he just didn't get it.
Lyon had done cruel things, but also kind ones. He had both good and bad memories of the other man, and the discrepancy between them was so great that he had a hard time reconciling it. He had actually grown to rather like Lyon over these past months, despite their rough start and the occasional jolts of discomfort that still cropped up from time to time.
But Gray…What had Gray thought of Lyon? He tried to puzzle it out, cocking his head to the side and frowning slightly as he studied Lyon's increasingly agitated countenance. Gray had sometimes been angry or annoyed with Lyon, but underneath it all there was something else. Something like—
He blinked in surprise and rocked back on his heels to look at Lyon with new eyes. He suddenly realized that all his confusion and frenzied attempts to reconcile the different sides of Lyon were irrelevant. It didn't matter what Lyon had done in the past. Gray had forgiven Lyon, and Lyon had also forgiven Gray.
And even more than that, to Gray, Lyon was something like…something like…something like a brother, he decided. He turned the word over in his mind and it felt right. And 'brother' meant 'family'. And if Lyon had been family to Gray, then surely Ur must have been too, because they were grouped.
He considered that. The thought hadn't really occurred to him because he had already concluded that Gray's parents had been Gray's family, and that had been that. But Lyon and Ur felt like family too. They felt like a different kind of family, but a family nonetheless. He sucked in a breath as the pieces finally clicked into place. Gray's parents had been Gray's first family, and after they had died, Ur and Lyon had been Gray's second one. And if both of the first two groups had been Gray's families, then the thing he had been searching for to connect all three groups together…
He backed up slowly toward the entrance of the guild again so that he could really take in the scene.
"Gray?" Lyon asked again, swallowing hard and studying him with hurt, anxious eyes.
He glanced back at Lyon and smiled. It faded after only a moment because he still had things to figure out and couldn't take the time to explain everything now, but it was genuine enough and he hoped that it might help assuage Lyon's concerns a little.
Then his attention drifted away from Lyon and his eyes jumped from face to face, studying each guild member in turn. Even those people who weren't part of the guild had some connection here, but he was mostly interested in Fairy Tail because it was the third group. Because even if Gray had felt something for the rest of these people too, there had been something deeper and more meaningful tying Gray to his guild.
He took in all their worried, anxious, puzzled expressions and let all the memories wash over him. Gray had had a lot of good times with these people. Sometimes bad, but mostly good. The pieces he was picking up were a little random and disjointed, but they were enough. As he considered the newest memory fragments and let his eyes drift from person to person, he realized that his assumption had been right. These people were more than just Gray's friends—they had been Gray's family too.
Something clicked into place and he let out his breath in a soft sigh. Yes, all three groups had been family. And he felt like he was so close to fitting everything back together, but he wasn't quite there.
In the beginning he had had difficulty making even the simplest of connections. Over time, he had finally managed to fit some of the random emotions and memories and characteristics into individual people. Then he had been able to organize some of those people into groups. Now he had figured out that each of those groups represented a family, but although he now knew how they were related, he also needed to figure out what the overarching quality was that held them together. There were three families, but something bigger connected them and held everything together in a unified whole. There had to be something else.
Something in the back of his mind—Gray?—whispered 'home', and he considered that. He hadn't really been able to understand the concept of family before because he hadn't been able to fit the people together, and perhaps he hadn't been able to understand the concept of home because he couldn't understand family. He hadn't quite been able to feel like any of these people were family because he hadn't been able to understand them. He hadn't been able to feel like he was home because he thought that home was a place where you were supposed to belong, and he was just a visitor in the body of the person who belonged here.
He still belonged to the void. He might not call it home, but that was the closest thing he had to a place where he belonged, even if maybe he'd prefer it if he could somehow belong here instead. But Gray must have had a different home, because Gray didn't belong to the void the same way that he did. He had a hard time understanding what home really meant, but if it was what connected these groups together, then surely it must have something to do with the three different families.
He had traveled to the places where Gray's families had been. Were those places 'home'? Did Gray have three homes, then—one for each of the places Gray had lived and laughed and loved? But that didn't seem quite right either. Gray had lived in the apartment he stayed at now, and he had never felt any connection to it even remotely close to what he supposed 'home' might feel like. And although the places he had traveled to had stirred up memories and helped him puzzle out Gray's families, they hadn't felt like anything so special as 'home' either. The places themselves didn't quite give him that sense of belonging that he'd almost felt when he'd remembered Gray's families.
He had the feeling that he was looking at this the wrong way. Maybe it wasn't so much about the places as it was…
About the people, he realized, his eyes widening as he scanned the room. Gray's home hadn't been the city of the ice mage's birth, hadn't been Ur's mountain cabin, hadn't been the apartment, hadn't even been the guild hall. No, Gray's home had been the people. Gray's home had been the family—the families—that Gray had come back to at the end of the day. Gray hadn't so much been in love with the places of the past, but rather the people that he had come to consider as family. It wasn't about the places Gray belonged in, but the people he belonged with. There were three families but only one real home, because Gray had felt like he belonged with all of them and hadn't needed to make the distinction between them anymore.
He was teetering right on the edge of an epiphany now. As he looked around at the people surrounding him, he could almost feel love—Gray's love—for them. He could almost—almost—feel like he was home.
Home is where the heart is.
He wasn't sure if that was something he had overheard over these past few months or if it was something that Gray had known or believed. He didn't know for sure, but it felt right. He had gone on this journey to find Gray. He had gone to the places that had been important to Gray, but he realized now that it wasn't the places that he had needed to see. The places had jogged his memory—Gray's memory—but it was the people and the families that he had needed in order to connect the pieces together.
Because home was where the heart was, and he had traveled around to the places where Gray's families and home had once resided. And in the process, he had been collecting the pieces of Gray's heart. Some piece of Gray's heart had belonged to each of those families, and he had managed to pick up those pieces—remember those pieces—even if he hadn't realized that that had been what he was doing.
He felt like he was holding the pieces of Gray's heart in his hands now, if only he could figure out how to connect them into what had once been Gray. If he could just fit those pieces together, maybe he could find Gray, could figure out what it was that had happened to Gray. If he could just fit those pieces into one real home, one real understanding of where Gray had belonged. One real understanding of where he belonged.
He froze, his mind abruptly coming to a halt for a split second. Wait, where he belonged? This wasn't about him. This was about Gray. Because he and Gray—
His eyes widened as the realization finally hit him.
"I've been going about this all wrong," he breathed.
There was a brief pause as everyone stared at him uncertainly, unsure of how to respond.
"Are you okay?" Natsu questioned cautiously, his eyes flaring with concern. "Gray?"
He let his gaze drift back to Natsu. "Yes," he said slowly. "Gray. Oh, I've been such a fool." He laughed breathlessly and met Natsu's eyes. "You've been right this whole time, haven't you? I've been Gray all along."
He had never felt like Gray. The others had called him Gray, had told him about the life he had lived before as Gray, but he had only half believed them, half understood them. As far as he had been concerned, he was as close to nothing as you could get. The void had stripped away all sense of himself until there was nothing left of him, until he wasn't sure if there had really been anything of him in the first place. Gray had been as good as a stranger to him, someone who may have existed once but was now dead and gone.
But really, Gray hadn't simply disappeared and died, had he? Oh, it wasn't nearly that simple.
It was like that whole fiasco with Lyon. Lyon had had different sides, had changed over the years, but had always been the same person. And he hadn't needed to find a picture perfect way to line up all those rough edges and inconsistencies, because it had been unnecessary when Lyon had been the same person the whole time, when he had accepted Lyon for all of those sides and acknowledged them all as valid. He hadn't needed to take two different sides of Lyon and mash them together. He hadn't needed to see Lyon as two entirely different people just because the older mage had changed.
But that was what he had been trying to do with himself, wasn't it? He hadn't felt like Gray, so he had tried to figure out how he and Gray connected, had tried smashing them together to figure out how he could make them into the same person, but they had always been the same all along. And it was even worse when he had thought that maybe only one of them could exist at a time. How silly was that?
He had gone on this journey to find Gray, but he thought that maybe he had found himself instead. Or, more accurately, he had done both, because he and Gray were one and the same, weren't they?
No wonder he hadn't been able to find a person in a handful of half-remembered things. Everything he had needed to know had been inside him all along, but he hadn't known how to find it. He had been searching for a stranger when he should have been searching for himself. It wasn't so much that he needed to search for scraps of memory and try to force them together in a puzzle, but that he needed to look within himself and open his mind to what was already there and had been there all along. He had created a puzzle where none need have existed.
The curse couldn't destroy his memories. It hadn't been able to make him disappear like it was supposed to, and it couldn't make his memories disappear either. He had been brought back from the void because the void was not as permanent as the curse wanted it to be. So then his memories must somehow still be accessible too, because the curse just wasn't powerful enough to destroy him completely. He had been searching for memories in places and other people and in a paper notebook, but they must have been here all along.
And Gray…He didn't need to find Gray. Gray had been here the whole time, but he was too blind to have seen it. Every time he had thought Gray was telling him something or showing him a memory or calling him to do something…That had all been him. He had been making his own choices and recalling his own past this whole time, even if he had been attributing them to someone else.
And then Gray was laughing—because how could he have been so stupid?—and he was crying—because how could he have been so stupid?—but the truth was that Gray was both laughing and crying, because he had been the only person here the whole time. He probably looked like a crazy person to the others, but he was too relieved and happy and overemotional to care.
Everything was finally coming together, and it wasn't quite the same as it had been before. It was less that things were coming into alignment and clicking into place, and more like he was slipping back into Gray's mind as easily as a second skin, deftly snaring it away from the suddenly helpless curse and settling back into the person he had been and linking it with the person he was now to make one whole self. It wasn't as jarring and confusing and overwhelming as before. No, it felt right. It wasn't perfect, he could still feel the rough edges where the person he had been and the person he had become didn't quite meet up, but it felt right.
But although it was a gentler experience this time, there was still a brief moment where the return to his senses hit him so hard that he stumbled a few paces to the side and slammed into the wall. He briefly closed his eyes and rested against the wall, trying to calm the storm of emotions inside him, because it was that overwhelming mix of sudden emotion that was what had hit him so hard this time, not the memories. The relief that he'd figured it out, the joy that he could finally let go of everything that had been bothering him and feel like he really belonged here, the triumph that he had ultimately beat out the curse and won the war.
But mostly it was the love that got to him, because God, he loved these people standing around him. He loved them so much that it hurt, but it hurt in a good way and he held on to that feeling as tightly as he could because he never ever wanted to lose it again.
"Gray! Gray! Are you alright?"
He opened his eyes and pushed away from the wall, turning to look back at the others. He smiled at Natsu through his tears.
"Guess what, flame brain?" Gray asked, his voice wavering slightly. "I finally found it."
He had found Gray and Gray had found himself, and everything felt so right, and it was here to stay this time. Gray was here to stay.
Natsu could obviously sense the change. Perhaps it had been Gray's words or something in his voice. Probably he could see it in Gray's eyes.
Whatever the case, the dragon slayer stayed motionless for a moment—the whole guild did, really, because it was such a stunning and unbelievable revelation that no one dared move in case it evaporated like a dream that had been too good to be true—but then slowly approached the ice mage. Gray watched his friend walk towards him and could read the swirling emotions in his eyes, and he remained still and waited for Natsu to do whatever it was that he planned to do.
Natsu was fumbling with something around his neck. At first Gray thought that he was playing with his scarf—he had a habit of doing that in emotional situations, after all—but it quickly became apparent that the dragon slayer's fingers were working at something beneath the scarf. Natsu paused directly in front of Gray, keeping his eyes locked on the ice mage's face as if afraid that Gray would vanish again if he looked away. He finally managed to unclasp the object he had been fumbling around with, and Gray watched as Natsu pulled out the necklace.
The dragon slayer reached out and grasped one of Gray's hands, turning it so that the palm was facing up. He deposited the silver chain in it with trembling fingers.
"Welcome back, ice block," Natsu whispered, his voice breaking slightly as he finally began to cry, the tears dripping silently down his face.
Gray stared at him for a moment, his heart twisting painfully at the sight of his friend's tears, but then looked down at the necklace coiled in his hand.
'If it's important to you…'
Gray let the chain slide through his fingers and fall to the floor. It hit the ground with a faint clinking sound and lay there abandoned. It was important, but Gray could always pick it up later.
There were more important things.
Instead, he opted to launch himself at Natsu with enough force to send the two mages stumbling backwards a few paces, and wrapped his friend in a tight hug. And then they were both laughing and crying as they clung to each other so tightly that it hurt to breathe. That seemed to break everyone else out of their trance, and suddenly everyone was crowding around, and there wasn't a dry eye in the house.
Lyon was suddenly by his side, eyes filled with tears, and Gray unhooked one arm from Natsu so that he could hug his brother too. And with everyone gathered around him, smiling and laughing and crying, Gray had never before felt so loved, had never before felt so much like he belonged, as he did now.
Gray had finally come home.
Note: I guess it might kind of feel a little anticlimactic? That's what I was worried about, anyway. But I feel like it kind of had to be that way because this whole final revelation was a really internal, personal thing, and ultimately I like it, anticlimactic or not. And it was a pain in the neck to figure out what Gray's thought process might be and how he might figure things out, let me tell you. It would have been so much easier to just pull an "Eileen" and introduce a random character who could magically fix everything for no apparent reason. But I wouldn't have been satisfied with such an easy cop-out and I feel like this needed to happen, for better or for worse.
So, this is technically the last chapter-chapter, but there's still the epilogue and the two little after-story one-shots for extra closure. I mean, I wanted to end the chapter here, but I feel like this is not necessarily an ideal place to end a story - it's kind of a little abrupt, maybe? - so hopefully the extra pieces will give that little bit of closure the verse still needs.
emmahoshi: Oh yeah, I managed to blow my perfect posting schedule right at the very end, ha ha. Ah well. I wasn't honestly a fan of the communications lacrimas in canon (they, like, came out of nowhere? And why did we really need them?) and I only mentioned them here to cover up a possible plot hole (aka someone being like "why didn't they just bring a lacrima with them?"). At least if I mention it and give a reason for why they weren't used, it reads more like I thought through all the possibilities instead of just forgetting about it. Oh yeah, I'm sure the guild would have continued searching for Gray despite the odds because he's important enough to search for, but the impossibility of the task deserved to be addressed. Gosh, yes, human relationships are so complicated, and that has to be extra confusing for someone who's forgotten all those dynamics and isn't as familiar with how things work anymore. Ha, I did really want Gray to be able to figure this out on his own (and considering how often I mentioned the fact that this was something he'd have to do on his own in earlier chapters, it would have been less than ideal to bring in a deus ex machina at the last minute). Nothing wrong with having a little help along the way, but I like the idea of Gray mostly doing it himself. Ha, I did want to do something with the "neckless" for the ending, and draw parallels to everything that happened with Natsu's scarf. Because I'm a sucker for parallels, ha ha. 6 hours? Wow. That's way too long for this, even with stops and starts XD