Disclaimer: I don't own Fairy Tail

With every enemy rounded up and stripped of all chances of making a surprise attack, I had Natsu drag most of the men while we managed the rest—much to his protests.

"Why am I doing all of the work?" He groaned, dragging a thick rope with him.

"Are you trying to make a bunch of delicate girls haul that many people?" I replied. We didn't leave Natsu have all the grunt work of course, each one of us were carrying at least one person with us, Natsu had the most of four men being dragged around on a piece of rope. I had to take care of two myself.

"Like I would believe that."

"It doesn't matter now, does it? You're already doing the work, and we're almost there." I jerked my head forward, towards the huge pile—mountain—of unconscious people. Guarding the pile, was Jellal and Meredy's team. My daughter in particular, was frowning, rolling around something with her feet. She met my eyes, showing her slightly glassy ones.

"Ul, I'm sorry for letting you have the extra burden."

"You found out?" She nodded slowly.

"Nothing we can do about it now, planning so far ahead can only do so much, you should know that nothing will ever go as planned."

"But still…"

"I don't want to hear about it, we don't have that kind of time." I want to brush away the conversation and continue with the unfinished work, namely, dealing with the mountain and fixing the things we've destroyed.

Everything settled, damage fixed, and our work done, it was around four in the morning; We were all tired. After we handed off the men to our agents, we dragged ourselves back to the train station and waited for the first train to Magnolia, by that point, it was looking to be at least two hours of sitting, killing time for the first train back.

If there's something I would like to see changed in the trains of this kingdom, is to have better soundproofing, or at least have an option to cram all the loud sleepers into one compartment. If they can't wake themselves up with their own obnoxious, rhythmic, roars that spawns from the inner depths of an insomniac's worse nightmare, perhaps cries from other bombastic people will. Surely, having a collection of sound explosions would harmonies, amplifying itself further until the sound got so unbearable, that engineers are forced to redesign train compartments to have better sound deafening features.

I was seated with Jellal and Meredy, we decided that Fairy Tail should have rooms to themselves, after all, fellow guildmates would hold conversations much better than outsiders. It was about half an hour in our ride back when I heard loud whine that came from the throat, blocked by a veil of phlegm or snot. Judging from the tone, it was a male voice, considering that the sound was coming right behind us, it was Natsu. That was only the start of my woes.

I couldn't read halfway through a sentence before his snoring broke my concentration; sleep was impossible either, by the fact that my body refuses to. All that's left is to comb through Meredy's hair as she laid on my lap while envying her ability to sleep. Jellal, like me, isn't so lucky. Jellal closed his book and looked out the window, eyes creasing together while he bit his lips.

"You wouldn't happen to have hidden magic that can deal with this would you?" He asked, holding a sliver of hope. I gently closed my book.

"Maybe instead of asking questions you know that answers to, we can try to take our mind off things."

"Go on."

"How have your talks with Erza been?"

"They've been going decently." I barely caught his tiny eye twitch. At the start, I didn't know where to look for clues, it's only after linking us together thanks to Meredy, did I learn when he's lying and when to look for clues. After that was simply trial and error. He sighed, "She still doesn't listen."

"Not surprising, both of you are looking out for each other, at some point, you're bound to run into problems."

"We did have progress."

"That's a start."

"Before, I couldn't win against her no matter what, I don't know, it's just, I feel some guilt. A huge part of her problems is because of me, I guess that drove me to listen to her."

"At this point, both of you are just going to see each other as a nosy woman and a closed-off man." He groaned, raking his hair. "It's not all bad though, it shows you two still look out for one another."

"I can't drag her in any further."

"Relax…" I shifted my weight, "you said before, what changed?"

"I'm finding flaws in her logic."

"She does seem unreasonable at times."

"You don't even know the half of it." We stared outside as Natsu's snores counted the time that past: ten intervals.

"What's next?" Now that our job is done, we don't have to stay anymore.

"We leave of course."

"I don't think Meredy will enjoy that, I think she's made a friend from Fairy Tail, Juvia I think. Why don't we stay longer?"

"There really isn't a point." Jellal insisted, what a stubborn fool.

"And there isn't a point in moving either, we just moved not too long ago, we're going to leave with wasting our rent. Not to mention, we're going to be in a dry spell for a while."

"We've had dry spells before, and we still had things to do." The dry spell for us just means, the amount of dark guild activity dying down over a length of time. Generally, after a large-scale operation being thwarted like this tends to dissuade others from doing anything. Time is also needed to recover manpower and resources, taking out a big chunk of dark guilds would leave the pool dry for a while. Only idiots would cause havoc without being properly prepared. For small-scale troublemakers, we leave them to legal guilds or our other members when there are no requests, we can't have our members have no experience at all.

"That's only because we were gathering funds, our finances are better than before."

Jellal smirked, "Someone like you is trying to quit work? There's nothing work in making more money."

"True," I rubbed Meredy's cheek, "I can't make her worry more than she is. Also, I don't know if I can focus, I have no idea if things have settled yet." A burning city flashed across my head, pulling along the rancid smell of rotting flesh.

"Nightmares?" I nodded. "All the more reason to keep going." I pointed at Meredy, her serene sleeping face is just so cute.

"She takes priority."

"You spoil her too much." What Jellal says is true, however, I can see it as making up for being the worst mother during Meredy's childhood.

I shrugged and fired back, "Maybe try to raise a child as well, you just can't help it with these things."

"I rather not, seems like a pain."

"If you skip past the diaper changing phase, it's a more manageable."

"I don't think you can say that, you have no experience." I smiled; I might enjoy it in the long-run.

"Your verdict?"

Jellal gave me a wry smile, "You two win for now, I get to pick our next location though."

"Be my guest. During our stay, do you think you can reconcile with Erza?"

"I'll try."

At some point, I ended up falling asleep, I didn't recall when it happened. However, I woke up to our destination; though it was still a bit away, the start of the city was getting bigger by the second. My legs felt numb, shoulders quite stiff. Looking down, I saw the source of the former. Meredy was still pasted out on my lap, hair strands streaking across her nose and cheeks. I rocked her shoulders, no reaction. We didn't have any time to do the slow escalation, so I slid an ice cube down her nap. The reaction was instant, she leaped from my lap and clawed away at the ice.

"This again!?"

"You wouldn't wake up." I shrugged and turned to Jellal, who was also conked out. "Mind waking him up?" I asked, reaching for our bags.

"Suffer with me." Meredy declared, still reaching for her back. The next moment, Meredy's and Jellal's wrist glowed pink. She shrieked just as she got her cube out, I released another one down her spine. "Why!?" Just then, Jellal jolted awake, confused at first, then he tried to claw at something that wasn't there. Seeing that everyone was awake, I dropped the torture act. Meredy sighed while Jellal glared at her.

"We're almost there." I pointed out the window.

"Why do you never try to link Ultear when she's doing that?" Jellal asked.

"I tried," Meredy pouted, "Ul just deals with it without having any reaction."

"I followed mother's training for a reason you know. Now hurry up," I tossed them their bags, "we're arriving." Still riddled with drowsiness, the three of us came out our room. Chatter was still constant, a roaring bonfire, crackling with so much energy, I wonder if our companions ever rested. An announcement later, the train doors opened, and people vomited out. It was strange, for someone that had a major case of motion sickness, I didn't see Natsu in that first wave of passengers. Stepping out on the platform, I got my answer: once strong, vibrant, Natsu was being escorted, one person on each side, like a crippled old man. Wendy in particular, was on her toes, rubbing Natsu's back while trying her best not to trip as they walked forward.

"I'm never getting on transport—" his mouth inflated, "again."

"You've been saying that since forever," Lisanna commented, "you still do it." She laughed.

"This time," Natsu looked backwards with horror, "is for real." A few more seconds, his spirit stormed back, "We're home!"

"Well," I walked up to the group, "we have to drop off our things, thanks for your help."

"No problem, we're always happy to help!"

"We'll see you around." Erza perked at my words; I didn't bother to explain as we went the opposite direction.

"What do you mean by that?" Meredy asked. "I thought we are leaving after we finished business here."

"We had a talk while you were sleeping, we're going to spend our dry spell here."

"I don't mind but, how did you convince him?" Meredy asked, wanting to know whether I was joking or not.

"I didn't mind staying, clearly, you wanted to stay, so I just sided with you. Then there's nothing he could do about it."

"Thanks…but, aren't you spoiling me too much?"

"Even you noticed?"

"I'm not a child anymore."

"In my eyes, you'll always be my cute daughter. Besides, you've always been so serious about everything, I want you to take this time to loosen up."

"I don't want you to be the one telling me that." She does have a point, there are times when it made it hard for me to lecture her, I'm not exactly the best role model in the world.

"I'm trying to do the same, come on." I pulled Meredy's arm. "Let's get back home quickly."

"Where are we going?"

"To have some sweets. We're going ahead, we'll see you later."

"I'll be in the library if you need me." Jellal said. I hurried my pace, I might as well enjoy our stay while it lasts, when was the last time we had a proper break?

After putting away our things, we found ourselves a nice dessert parlour. Though I said that we're taking a break, that doesn't mean we lowered our guard, our disguises were still up, and we used an amount of focus to watch out for anything dangerous.

"What do you want?" I asked Meredy, crossing my legs. The menu they have is simple in design, using smooth white paper with colourful pictures of their products, pencil marks and corrections further showed that this shop is far from classy, instead opting for a home-like feel. And their choice in furniture reflected that, simple wooden chairs and a small round table.

"I want their daily special." Pointing at a fairly large serving of ice-cream, Meredy seems to look forward to devouring her dessert. "I don't think I can finish it by myself so, can we share?"

"If you're fine with it." After giving our orders, I decided to ask a bit about her new friend. "Have you two went shopping together?"

"Who?"

"Juvia."

Meredy smiled, "We're planning to go tommorow."

"I'm glad you have people to talk to with people around your age."

"The way you said that makes you sound old."

"I'm not your mother for no reason." I shrugged.

"But it is nice, I rarely had people to talk to besides you and Mark, even then, he doesn't always have time. I got to know my team really well, Fairy Tail does live up to their liveliness. They invited me to join them too." This could be a chance for me, but I know all too well, she won't accept if I'm still here. She shifted uncomfortably. "What about you? Do you have any plans?"

I thought about it for a while, I didn't really put much thought into convincing Jellal, sure Magnolia is an attractive city to live in, not in the aesthetics sense; you can just about find anything you ever want; it's safe considering that one of the most famous guild in the lands were posted here; the people are friendly. There really isn't much to not like about this city. Above all else, Fairy Tail feels like a place I could turn to when I'm in trouble, perhaps Natsu's mantra is getting to me, it's such a dangerous thing to hear on repeat with a sunny smile, you start to brush them away at first, a few more times, you start to linger on them.

"I guess, for now, I'll work on my nightmares."

"They're still there?" Meredy leaned forward.

"I didn't lose any sleep. I haven't had anything debilitating later, only a few flashes here and there."

"That means you're getting better right? You haven't told me in detail about your dreams." A waitress delivered our food along with two spoons.

"Perfect timing," I handed her a spoon, "something won't make this discussion as depressing."

"There's something off about hearing your nightmares while something this colourful in in front of us." She dug out a small scoop of strawberry ice-cream.

"It's mainly about recounting my past, even the dreams that isn't a nightmare are related to them." I spooned in some ice-cream, letting cold, sweet dessert wet my throat. "For instance, a lot of my dreams recently are about you."

"Why me?"

"Not quite sure, maybe because you are the most important person to me. Not all them are good memories, all of them are from your training days." I popped a strawberry in my mouth. "The nightmares are more elaborate, they come in different types, some torment me about my past, other tells me about my future, what if I fail a mission."

"Is there…anything I can help with?"

"Just remind me to take breaks."

She grinned, "I've been doing that for seven years now. Give me something I'm not doing right now."

"True," I joined in with her laughing, "perhaps even longer. If I think of something, I'll let you know."

The thought never occurred to me in my entire life; ever since childhood, my life was packed with training, studying, fighting. Then once Hades deemed me ready, it was espionage, manipulating, scheming—my pursuit for power never ended however, further adding lines to my schedule. Now it was information gathering, raiding and redemption. I don't really have a hobby like most people as a result, most of the knowledge and fields everyone would deem as a hobby was something I learned out of necessity, I cook for the sake of convenience; I read to aid in combat. I think…for the first time ever…I'm bored.

Sprawled out on my bed, I was just staring at a ceiling, hoping that maybe, the one imperfection on the painting can take me away to another world filled with something to do. Meredy has left to go shopping with her new friends, and who am I to ruin her day of fun? Jellal was dragged away by Erza, right after I woke up, our door was broken down, and in a flash of silver, Jellal disappeared from our house. I can't do research or anything I consider work, Meredy wants me to rest, avoid it at all cost.

I rolled to face my pillow, something I lost count of doing. It feels so wrong to just be laying here. At the same time, what I'm doing now, is what I'm supposed to do. I could be practising my magic—I should be trying to earn money. Finally, the birds chirping taunted me long enough, I changed to a pair of jeans, white t-shirt and a black jacket before I slammed the front doors shut.

Thanks for reading! I feel like my writing is getting worse, this is most likely a result of forcing myself to write when I have no drive to, lately, some important stuff came up and I haven't been able to focus.

I know that was pretty lame way to have Ultear and co. stay behind, disregarding that, I can get to some fun stuff, if anyone has suggestions, please give them to me.

I don't have much to say this time, I feel real tired. Sorry for the drop in quality, I hope I can fix it soon.

Until then, have a nice day!