AN: Thanks to everyone that reviewed the last time. I know that some of you were concerned that the characters mentioned in the description hadn't shown up. Originally, I just put half of each pair, but I will likely change the characters there to reflect the new chapter. If I could, I would have just put all the pairs up, but I'm only allowed to indicate 4 characters. Lame-sauce.

I will likely also post the next chapter today, it is really the one that sets the story into motion, so I want to get it out there for everyone. I had thought of combining the two chapters, but I felt like it really needed to be separated.

As always, review to let me know what you think.

Sometimes your memories can be your best dreams or your worst nightmares. -Unknown

Erza's eyes fluttered open. Although she didn't remember making it back to Fairy Hills, she knew that she was dreaming. It was the only explanation for what she was seeing.

Erza had seen this scene often in her dreams. She was a child again, back in her cell in the Tower of Heaven. All the tell-tale signs were there: the cold stone floor that she had been laying on, her child like body, and, perhaps the most telling sign of all, Jellal still asleep in front of her. Despite the horrors of being a slave there and the scars that remained, she thought of her time there as memorable… almost pleasant. It was all due to the boy in front of her. Out of everyone that she had met there, Jellal was one of her best friends. He was a constant support for her. He anchored her to reality, he kept her sane. She smiled at her childhood friend and reached out a hand to touch his cheek as he slept. Erza could admit to how intimate the touch was, but it was also a comforting touch.

It was at that point that Erza realized that there was something… off about this dream. The first clue was with the hand she had just lifted to brush along Jellal's face. It was missing something. The cuffs. Erza could never forget those. It was a constant reminder of being a slave here. The thought that they were missing, even in a dream caused her to question if this really was a dream. She sat up and looked at herself. She wasn't in the rags that she wore as a slave at the Tower of Heaven. In fact, she wondered if perhaps someone had decided to play dress-up with her. She wore a long yellow tank top that went down to her hips and with it a blue skirt that stopped above her knees. Usually, Erza had some practical boots on her feet, but instead she found a pair of plain white walking shoes with white socks peeking out from the edges. She also noticed that her hair had been done in a braid, the end of which rested on her shoulder.

Her state of dress was not the most alarming thing that she saw as she looked at herself. The most alarming thing was the guild mark that remained on her left arm. Not only did she not have the Fairy Tail emblem while she was a slave, but this was also not the guild mark that she knew she had. This was just an outline of her real stamp. It was the same color blue and in the same spot on her arm, but it was just an outline. There was no color to it. She moved her arm over the ink on her skin and gave an involuntary shudder.

Erza returned her glance to the blue haired boy in front of her. Now that she looked at him, she knew that this wasn't a memory. He was dressed in simple clothes. He wore a simple white v-neck shirt and tan cargo pants. His feet were covered in black walking shoes, similar to the ones on Erza's feet. Also missing from his wrists were the cuffs from being a slave. Erza narrowed her eyes in curiosity. She gently pushed back his hair to look at his face. The tattoo that surrounded his right eye was still there, but like her guild mark, only an outline remained. She pulled her hand back and her face became pensive as she looked at his face.

Back when they were slaves together, his face always held such peace. This face, even asleep, showed concern and even hinted at distain. She hated that look on his face. It showed how much he still thought about all the pain he delivered to those around him. Erza wished above all else that he would forgive himself for all the things that happened when he was under Ultear's control. She wished that he would have that look of peace on his face again.

"Ugh…" The sound of someone else in the room startled her. When she realized that Jellal remained asleep in front of her, she turned around to look for the source. It was then that she also recognized that she was not in her cell at the Tower of Heaven. In fact, she wasn't sure where she was. She was in a room of some kind. It was stone on all sides. The floors were stone, the walls, the ceiling, everything. The ceiling was high enough that she had to tilt her head up to even see it and although she could tell it was made of stone, it was darkened as if the light in the room couldn't quite reach it. Where is the light coming from? Erza wondered and looked around at the walls for the flickering of a torch or a light lacrima. The walls were rough in appearance and were of the same stone bricks of the floor. She couldn't see any light source. Beneath her, the floor was cold and smooth. However, adorned around the room were stone ruins, crumpled and cracked pieces of stone bricks in various sizes covered the room.

She heard another moan of discomfort coming from behind a larger portion of broken rock. Erza jumped to her feet with her guard up. She suddenly felt very vulnerable without her armor or a weapon to protect herself. Slowly she approached the side of the stone in an attempt to stay hidden. She slowly peeked to see around the edge and was shocked by what she saw.

Right in front of her was her friend Gray, but not the Gray that she had just seen in the library at the guild hall. This, just like Jellal, was the child Erza met when she first joined Fairy Tail. He was waking up, rubbing his head groggily. Erza had to smile, as she noticed that he had already stripped off a white button up shirt, which was on the ground next to him. But almost everything about him was like she remembered from his messy black hair and pale skin to the pendant that hung from a chain around his neck. Even his clothes were similar to what she remembered; black loose fitting jeans and black shoes.

"Gray?" Erza called. She quickly moved towards him as he lifted himself into a sitting position. He was still trying to become more aware of what was going on and failed to notice the oddity of Erza being a young girl again.

"What—"Gray paused. He recognized that his voice no longer had its deep tone to it. He set himself in a panic, jumping to his feet and walking backwards with a hand over his mouth in shock. He was so stuck in his panic that he didn't realize that he was about to trip over two of his comrades.

"AHH!" Gray yelled when he tripped over two little girls causing them to stir. Erza recognized the first girl to raise her head as Levy. The bluenette rubbed her eyes and looked at the boy that had just tripped over her. "Gray?" She asked with a confused look. She was dressed in an orange tank top and blue overall shorts. Although her hair was messy from having been asleep, Erza could still see the orange bandana in her blue locks which also matched her orange canvas shoes.

"Guys, what's going on?" A sweet voice came from the blonde next to Levy. Without opening her eyes, she rolled over to lie on her stomach and moved a hand to support head. She was dressed in a dark pink tank top with a large white heart on the front. The tank top was long and covered most of the jean shorts that she wore that barely reached the middle of her thigh. She wore a pair of rosey-pink canvas shoes. Gray's feet were still resting on Lucy's butt where he had fallen.

"Natsu, go back to sleep, it's too early for breakfast…" Lucy mumbled and allowed her head to drop back to rest on her arms. Gray took his hand off of his mouth and looked at the two girls.

"Levy?" Gray said coming out of his shock.

"Let's just take a deep breath everyone," Erza interjected as she came to sit next to Levy. "And Gray, get off of Lucy." She added shortly after. Gray nodded and moved his feet off of Lucy to sit next to Levy. Levy had nudged Lucy trying to gently wake her up.

"Erza, what's going on?" Gray asked.

"I don't really know, I just woke up like this." Erza said indicating to her clothes and her child-like appearance. Lucy by this point had opened her eyes and was sitting up. She was holding on to Levy's hand and was just trying to take in the scene around her. Erza continued to explain what she could. "At first I thought this was a memory, but things just weren't adding up."

"What things?" Levy asked. Lucy had quickly become more aware of what was going on. She noticed that her hair was down and saw a hair tie on her right hand. When she went to take the tie off to put up her hair, she noticed that her Fairy Tail mark was different. Her eyes widened when she saw that all that remained was the outline.

"Uhh… guys?" Lucy said with a panic as she held up her hand to show the others.

"Yes, mine is like that as well." Erza said and turned to show Gray, Levy, and Lucy her arm. Gray then looked down to his chest to see that the same had happened to his guild mark. At the same time Lucy helped Levy move her top to inspect her own guild mark on her shoulder.

"But it's not just us, either." Erza claimed.

"What do you mean?" Lucy asked after helping Levy re-adjust her clothes.

"Erza?" A raspy voice called, and Erza didn't hesitate to look back towards the corner of ruins she had come around. Jellal stood there, rubbing the back of his head

"Jellal?" Gray asked as he got up to approach the blue haired boy. Gray had become confused because Jellal's trademark tattoo around his eye was difficult to make out when it wasn't filled in.

"Erza, what am I doing here? What is going on?" Jellal asked with concern. Erza had walked towards him and reached out her hand without a second thought. Jellal took her hand without thinking as well, as if it were second nature.

"We were just trying to figure that out." Erza said as she led Jellal over to the others. Lucy and Levy shared knowing look before giggling while Gray just rolled his eyes. Erza noticed the looks from her friends and blushed before letting go of Jellal's hand.

"Let's try to remember what happened before we woke up here…" Erza mumbled. Jellal had also picked up on the situation and a slight blush started to creep onto his cheeks as he cracked a slight smile.

"Well, all I remember was getting into a fight with Natsu." Gray said deciding not to put any more effort into the whole ordeal.

"Which time?" Lucy asked with a chuckle before adding, "It's not too helpful when that happens every day."

"I remember being in the library." Levy said thoughtfully. "The boys had knocked over a bunch of books and were picking them up…"

"Wait!" Lucy almost screamed. "The boys! Where are Natsu and Gajeel?"

"Umm… Juvia has found them." A small girl came from behind another pile of rock. The child Juvia wore a sky blue sun dress with sleeves that covered her shoulders and a skirt that ended at her knees. Her blue hair was pinned back in a half pony tail with a white ribbon. A few strands had come loose and fell framing her face. She had a worried look on her face and appeared to feel very uncomfortable with the frills of her white socks that accompanied black penny loafers. After fiddling with her shoes, she stood up and crossed her arms. "Juvia would wake them up, but Juvia believes that Lucy and Levy would threaten harm to her if she did not let them see Natsu and Gajeel-kun first."

"What do you mean, Juvia?" Levy as she got up to walk over to the water mage. Lucy followed Levy to stand by their friend.

"Juvia does not know how to describe it," Juvia said and began to fiddle with her fingers. While the girls were talking, Gray had walked past them to go around the corner. He took one glance down before taking a gasp and covering his mouth with his hand.

"Gray, what is it?" Erza called, startled by her companion's reaction. She and Jellal ran around the corner to take a look themselves. They were followed by the three girls.

The two dragon slayers looked like kids, just like their comrades. Natsu looked just like he did when he had joined the guild. He was dressed in baggy brown shorts, a loose fitting white t-shirt and his scarf still hung from around his neck. Natsu wore a sandal on one foot; the other sandal was about a foot away seemingly kicked off while asleep. Gajeel as a child was quite different. His usual long mane of hair was much shorter; at the longest it appeared to barely reach his shoulders. In addition, the boy had far fewer metal studs protruding from his skin, particularly from his face. He was dressed in a black tank top and tan cargo pants, finished off with black boots. Gajeel also had fingerless black gloves dotted with metal studs covering his hands.

However, their child-like appearance was not what had drawn attention to the two dragon slayers.

Gray couldn't stand it anymore. He uncovered his mouth and bent over laughing… hysterically.

The two young dragon slayers were sleeping. Natsu had grabbed on to Gajeel's arm and was cuddling into his bicep. Gajeel was sleeping behind Natsu, the arm that wasn't being cuddled was holding Natsu around the waist. Gajeel had one leg between the fire dragon slayer's legs while the other leg was resting over Natsu's legs. The two boys looked perfectly content.

Not only were the two dragon slayers cuddling, they were spooning.

Erza covered her mouth to stifle a chuckle, while Jellal brought his hand to his forehead with an audible smack. Gray had now fallen to the floor in his laughter. Juvia had a smile on her face, while Lucy and Levy had also started laughing.

"You're right Juvia, I might have done something if I found out I missed this." Lucy said as she laughed freely. Juvia only nodded in response.

"I wish Reedus was here," Levy said desperately wishing that she had a picture of the two like this. She could only imagine what Pantherlily would say to see his partner cuddling with the fire dragon slayer.

"Yes, well as much as I enjoy the view, I think we should wake them up so we can get to the bottom of this situation." Erza said with a smile on her face. Gray had run out of breath and stopped laughing. He stayed on the floor on his back to catch his breath again.

"Gajeel," Levy cooed as she sat down next to the iron dragon slayer's head. Lucy walked over and sat down right in front of Natsu.

"Go back to sleep, Shrimp." Gajeel mumbled and squeezed Natsu closer to him to snuggle into his hair. This only caused Gray to burst into another fit of laughter and Levy to blush slightly as she stifled a giggle. She sat down just above Gajeel's head and tried to stir him again. "Gajeel, I have a question for you."

"Sleep…" Gajeel replied. He was not really awake yet and was just acknowledging Levy's voice at this point.

"Don't worry Levy, I got this." Lucy said calmly.

"Hey, Natsu." At the sound of Lucy calling for him, Natsu's eyebrows lifted as he tried to mutter something.

"I just heard that Gray's gonna make S class before you." Lucy said in a sing song voice.

"No way is snowflake gonna be S class before me!" Natsu yelled as his eyes flew open. He tried to jump up to his feet and became very confused when he felt stuck. His eyes found Lucy and his brow furrowed in confusion. "Hey Lucy… How'd you get so small?"

"That's a good question, Natsu. I have a better question though," Lucy said with a deceivingly sweet smile. "How does it feel being cuddled like a teddy bear by Gajeel?"

"Wha—" Natsu said while taking a look behind him. At the same time, Gajeel had opened his eyes in a slight panic only to look directly into Natsu's eyes. Both boys released their holds and jumped away from each other which only caused Gray to laugh harder. Erza spoke up to get Natsu and Gajeel's attention before they had a chance to turn on each other or on Gray.

"Now that you are awake, we have more important things to discuss." Erza said as she approached the two dragon slayers. "Let me see your guild marks. Juvia, you should check yours as well." She ordered.

Natsu and Gajeel both turned to show their guild marks to find that just the outline remained. Juvia lifted part of the skirt to get dress to look at hers to find the same result.

"Erza, what the hell is going on?" Natsu asked with concern.

"I have no idea…"