Happy birthday, Rynn! (aka Bnemesis).

Whaaaaaaaat? An update?

Okay so here's the thing: someone pointed out that I seem to have lost interest in this story, which is both true and not. While I love this story and will never abandon it, it is getting harder and harder for my Muse to stick to the Fairy Tail fandom. That being said, my quick updated will probably not return until Fall, when the anime picks up again. I will still update until then, but they will be slower; you good don't deserve any less than my best.

Thank you! And also: ANGST ALERT.

Chapter One Hundred and Seven - Another Empty Bottle

There are good days and bad days.

The days in the guild had always been split like that, and!they always seemed to revolve around Elle. Good days were the days that Elle would be by their sides, laughing, joking, and causing all-around chaos.

Bad days were the days when Elle was gone. Busy doing timeline things, or when she was hurt, like now.

The entire guild was toned down, still worried for the girl asleep next to him.

On the one hand, Laxus liked the quiet, particularly from Natsu.

But he'd take it all back for Elle.

I hope you wake up soon, he thought, looking down on her sleeping form and squeezing her hand.

The guild was too quiet without her.

This couldn't be true. Nothing was making sense. I hadn't been adopted, not ever. Why would I have ever run away from the Orphanage if I thought I would be adopted? It wasn't going to happen, especially by the time I was twelve.

"I promise you, this did happen," God said.

I looked at her. "But-"

She put her hands on my shoulders, and warmth bloomed through me. "Elle. Listen."

"Yeah?" I asked, trying to focus my breathing before I had what I think might be a panic attack.

"You are living a new life. Do not let these memories define you. You must only know your past so you can understand it and move on. Do you understand?"

After a second of some still-harsh breathing, I took a deep breath and nodded.

"Do you think you can continue?"

After a few more deep breaths, I nodded again.

The world around us shifted, changing, and we were standing in a small house.

Most of the memories sped by, giving me barely a glimpse, and I remembered that God told me that I would receive the peaceful memories in my dreams; that we would be watching the other memories for now.

Not too long after I moved in with Katy and Alistair (Al), Katy got pregnant.

After watching my past-self break down in tears, I thought that I finally understood what was so bad about my past; but I didn't. Instead of being returned to the orphanage like I thought I would be (now that they had a child of their own), Katy and Al didn't give me up.

The baby was born with a beautiful shock of golden orange hair, and was named Amber.

They weren't getting enough money.

Even with Al and Katy each working, there wasn't enough income for the entire family. I got scared again, both in the now, while looking watching, and in the past, when I was a tiny seven-year-old. I thought I'd be returned to the orphanage. Again. (It seemed to be a reoccurring fear, not that I could blame myself. But maybe I'm biased.)

No one could take care of Amber, so they also had to pay money to monitor her while they were working and I was at school.

So I thought they were going to give me up so they could properly raise their real daughter.

But it didn't happen.

Instead, Alistair came home later than usual one night, crowing with happiness.

"You won't believe it!" he cried happily, picking up Katy and spinning her around and kissing her.

"Al? What happened?" she asked when he finally let her breathe.

He beamed at her, and picked up the younger me and Amber, kissing both of us on our foreheads, before setting us back down on the blanket.

He turned back to Katy. "I got a new job!" he said excitedly.

Katie approached him cautiously. "You did?"

"Yes!" he said happily, grasping her hands and squeezing them. "It's a wonderful job, and should help cover all of our costs!"

Amber was too young to properly understand what was going on (she wasn't even a year old, yet) but she giggled because of the happy feelings Al was giving off.

Katie kissed Al, and everything seemed to be fine.

I turned back to God.

"I don't get it," I said.

"You will," she said quietly. "Only a few more memories. Then you can recover. That's the real reason you'll probably be asleep for so long. To sort through your thoughts."

I gave her a wary nod, and turned back to the memory, which I realized was even darker than the other ones.

"Why is it so dark?" I asked.

"Because it was tainted more. It was valued at a higher level, and it fell lower than the others did."

"So what, it's not the end result, but the change that influences the taint?" I asked.

God nodded. "You are starting to understand. Slowly. But there is more to come."

The scene in front of us shifted, to what was probably a week or so later.

Amber was asleep and I was under the covers, trying to block out Katy's angry yells at Alistair, which were hard to distinguish through the walls.

"Why are they fighting?" I asked.

"It should be explained soon enough," God said.

The memory shifted again, and settled.

"Why are we jumping here?" I asked.

Because it was a big jump. In the previous memory, I was around eight. In this memory, I was twelve, and Amber was sitting next to me, at four years of age.

"Because this is when things really started changing before life tracked itself back to what you remember," God explained. "Give it a little more time. Everything else will fill in later. But if I give you all the details now, chronologically, then it'll hit you much worse when things unfold. Better for you to remember those moments throughout time."

I nodded, still not entirely sure what she was talking about, though I had some ideas, and settled down to watch.

Eventually, I figured it out.

The best way I can explain this is with another story that really pulled me in. Fullmetal Alchemist vs Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood. Brotherhood ended up getting rid of a lot of the filler so they can fit in more plot.

The original Fullmetal Alchemist made you get a lot more attached to the characters because of the amount of filler it had.

Maybe it was a bad way of looking at my own life, but if God was showing me all the major points so I could understand what happened to me before I could see how attached I am to everything…too everyone…

I didn't want to think too deeply about it.

But this life seemed pretty good. And I liked Katy and Al well enough, from what I've seen.

So how did I lose it?

The answer came all at once.

"Katy, where are the girls?"

Al burst through the door several hours early, scrambling towards Katy, who had the day off because it was a Saturday.

This memory was different from the others. I wasn't watching a younger me; this time I was me.

"Daddy?" Amber asked from beside me on the ground, playing with Legos.

"We're all right here, dear, what is it?" Katy asked, turning away from the lunch she was preparing.

"We need to go. Now," he said.

Katy's face paled and she nodded, heading towards the garage.

"Al, what's going on?" I asked, standing up and gathering Amber into my arms, a feeling of dread passing down my spine.

"Nothing you need to worry too much about," he said, trying to smile down at me. "Take your sister and pack some bags, okay? We're going on a trip."

I nodded, though confused, and took Amber with me to our room so we could start packing.

"Wha's goin' on Ellie?" she asked, her slight speech impediment getting in the way.

"I don't know," I said, shoving some clothes into the suitcase under the bed.

"Why's Momma and Dadda weiwd?"

"Why are Mommy and Daddy acting weird. 'Acting', sweetie."

"Actin'."

I nodded, throwing in some more clothes. "Good job. And I'm not sure. But they'll tell us soon enough, alright? Probably once we leave for the trip."

"Owkay," Amber said, and I sighed, knowing that I'd have to go over her words again.

"Alright, let's go," I said, shouldering the bag. "Can you walk?"

"Do I haf' ta?"

"Yes," I said sternly. "And it's 'have to'."

"Hav' to."

I sighed, holding out my hand. "Alright, let's go."

I pulled her out of the room only to freeze in my steps and try to shove her back into it.

"Well, what's this?" a man purred, his eyes glinting with something I couldn't name.

At least, I couldn't at twelve.

Looking at the malicious intent now, I realized that my body recognized it anyway as it started to shake.

He leveled the gun at us, before turning to Al and Katy, who had their hands up with guns aimed at their own heads.

I didn't move, I didn't breathe.

"Where is it?" the man asked Al, grabbing onto my shoulder and bringing me closer to the gun.

"In the safe," he stammered. "In the closet."

The man pursed his lips and grabbed Amber's arm, yanking her over to another one of the men.

She opened her mouth to protest, but I met her eyes and shook my head. The four-year-old kept her mouth shut in an uncharacteristic manner.

The man pushed me forward and looked at Al. "Show me."

Al nodded and led the man into another room, with me being dragged along with a gun to my head.

Al opened the closet and went to his knees, opening up the safe before pulling out a file.

"Very funny," the man spat, putting the gun directly to my head, the cold end touching my head and nearly making me throw up from fear. "Where's the drive?"

"What drive?" Al asked, confused.

"The flashdrive, I'm not an idiot!" the man snapped. "Where's the backup?"

"I swear, I don't have one! Please, don't hurt my family!" Al begged.

"Where is it?" the man hissed.

"He's not lying," I said quietly, still shaking.

The man stiffened in surprise before looking down at me. "What did you say?"

"Al doesn't know how to use computers," I said, trying not to hyperventilate. "If he needs to digitize something for work he'll write it out on paper and I'll type it up for him at the school library. We don't even have a computer or a printer in the house."

The man seemed to believe us, which was good, because it was the truth, before turning to look back at Al. "What, you living under a rock or something?"

Al didn't say anything. Neither did I.

The man sighed and took the folder with one hand, nudging me and Al back into the other room with the gun at my head.

"Burn it," he said, tossing the folder to one of his goons. The other man nodded and pulled out a lighter, flicking it on and holding it underneath the paper folder, which began to curl up from the flames.

I didn't see how we were going to get out of this alive. It looked like the men were fine with just leaving us here, but that only made me feel like there was a bomb planted somewhere.

The men were slightly relaxed and about to leave when the first bullet came flying through the window, hitting one of the men in the head in a perfect shot.

The body toppled over, and the blood started staining the floor.

"You-!" the lead man lifted the gun-

Another shot rang out and the man holding Katy fell.

The man in charge aimed and pulled the trigger.

At the exact same moment, he was tackled by Katy to the floor.

The world seemed to slow down as police barged in through the door, but my eyes were only on trail the bullet had lead. Instead of aiming at me, or Al, the man had turned to Amber and shot her.

I couldn't look away. I couldn't move.

I couldn't do anything but scream.

I collapsed to the floor, pulling myself over to her, as the noise slowly returned to me. The ringing of the gunshot faded slightly in my ears, and I could hear Katy screaming in the background at the man on the floor.

Al was saying something to her, probably trying to pull her away from the man to say goodbye to Amber.

Because it was going to be a goodbye.

The girl was crying and she held my hand. "Ellie…"

"Hey," I sobbed. "Shhhh, you'll…you'll be okay…"

"Ellie, I'm scared," she whispered. "It hurts."

I did the only thing I could do; distract her, because there was no other way to help her.

"Well, you're in big trouble, missy!" I said, my voice choking up in a joking manner. "You've been faking your speech impediment for awhile now, haven't you?"

She grinned at me. "You gave me more cookies."

"You little twerp!" I said, trying not to cry and failing. I heard footsteps behind me and knew that Al and Katy had joined us.

"I love you, Ellie," Amber whispered.

"I love you, Amber," I whispered back.

"We love you, Amber," Katy said over my shoulder, Al on the other side.

"Momma. Dadda. I love you."

"We love you too, Amber. Forever and always," Al whispered, each of them taking one of her hands.

"I'm so scared," she whispered. "It's...it's hard to see, Ellie."

"Just close your eyes," I said, stroking her hair. "Just like going to sleep."

The girl's eyes closed and I leaned my head forward to rest my forehead against hers. "It'll be alright," I told her, as she breathed in, and out.

My eyes were closed too, as I laid with my forehead against hers, listening to her breathing, and memories flashed by in my mind.

Playing outside in the river.

In, and out.

Teaching Amber math.

In, and out.

The two of us, laughing over a story I was reading to her.

In…

Her breathing stopped, and I screamed again this time, in pain and agony over losing my sister.

Elle's body arched as her eyes opened and she bolted upright, screaming in agony.

Laxus awoke with a start, staring at Elle, at first feeling (for a split second) joy that she was awake, before horror quickly washed over him.

She wasn't screaming in agony; she was screaming in anguish.

Laxus remembered Elle once telling him about how people could feel mental and emotional pain could cause actual physical pain.

This is it, he told himself. This is what that looks like.

Worse (or perhaps better?), Elle wasn't actually awake. Her unseeing eyes were an eerie white, and for a second, Laxus was afraid that she'd become blind. But no; her eyes were unseeing because she was basically still unconscious, and her eyes changed back and forth from the white of clouds to the glow of the moon. Not her usual light blue, that seemed to shine when she used her magic.

She was sobbing, not blinking, but tears welling up and falling anyway as she screamed and sobbed some more. Laxus climbed on the bed and pulled her closer to him, wrapping his arms around her while she sobbed into his shirt.

It seemed like forever, with her practically screaming and him whispering sweet nonsense into her ear.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the door peek open, Macbeth and Erik in the doorway. Their eyes widened at the sight before Laxus glared at them and jerked his head. They got the memo and slammed the door shut right as footsteps started pounding and a series of voices asked about Elle, all rising in volume.

The noises shut off as the wall glimmered, and Laxus breathed a bit easier, knowing that Freed had put up a rune wall to stop the others from hearing Elle's screaming. If anything, Elle would be upset that they heard that when she finally woke up.

Speaking of waking up…

The timer above her head seemed frozen, blinking, and Laxus wondered what it meant.

She still had to wake up. Right?

Eventually, Elle was still gasping, her chest heaving, but had quieted down. She was trying to cry, but it seemed like there was nothing more to come out. Her eyes were still open and unseeing as Laxus laid her back down, and he adjusted her body and closed her eyes on the bed. She was still breathing heavily, and her face was scrunched up in pain, but it seemed it was all over.

And the timer started counting once more.

Please wake up soon, Elle.

In the months that followed, I was nearly catatonic. Al began to drink. He and Katy would fight more and more. I could hear their shouting through the walls.

I knew that they loved me (or did they?), but they were neglecting me.

I began to feel happier asleep than when awake, when I could sink into dreams of what a family should be; of what it was for me for the past four years.

And after a month of it, I ran away.

They didn't look for me. I told myself that it was probably because they knew that I was smart and could take care of myself, and that they probably thought I was better off without them, but I don't know if that's true. A dark voice in the back of my mind said that they just didn't care.

But no. They didn't look for me, and so I didn't look back.