"As humans we ruin everything we touch, including each other"

Power.

Whenever someone asked me why I did something, the answer was almost always power.

Why do you act so callous, Alexandria? Power.

Why are you so competitive? Power.

Why can't you just leave things well enough alone?

Power.

The answer was always power. More often than not I wouldn't admit it, but the truth was still there—hiding me and mocking.

Power.

I hated power. Hated it. But I loved it even more. Power was the first thing I'd come to know, and one of the last things I'd ever be able to get rid of. I was suckled on power, raised on power, brainwashed with power. I was taught one thing and one thing only in my childhood: In life there was no good and evil, there was only power and those too weak to seek it.

Obviously, I realized the incorrectness of that statement, but I couldn't deny that it had been ingrained within me since I was a small girl.

I was nine when I realized exactly what power was and how much I liked it. It was a cold day in early March, one of those days that in the late frost when the weather couldn't decide if it wanted to stay behind in the barren winter months or thaw out for spring. It was dry as a bone; we were in a drought. The sky was gray that day, all day. Not a dead gray, but a deep one—tainted by underwhelming blues and purples. The sky was bruised, and so were we.

Ultear and I had fought, really fought for the first time. Hades had just relocated our young 'family' and I'd attempted to claim the larger bedroom. Ultear told me no, that she was the older, more talented one, and that she deserved the nicer suite. I told her she could kiss my ass, and a fought had broken out. Hades said whoever won would get the room.

She won, of course, but that didn't stop me. I tangled with Zancrow next, the nine year old version of Alexandria always thinking first with her fists, and I won. I got the next best room, and first experienced the great thrill that came with…

Power.

After that I never wanted to let the feeling go.

In fact, I can think of very few times in my life when I have willingly relinquished my hold on power. One of them was when I left Grimoire Heart. Another was after Azuma died. Or when I drank myself into a stupor after the events of Tenrou Island. They were few and far between, and I preferred to keep them that way.

Power.

So, on a hot, sticky day late in the month of May, I surprised myself by doing something I would've never thought to do.

I'd already stripped Laxus of much of his power, robbing him of his pride and tearing open a wound that he'd worked hard to heal. His cheeks were red and his head was bowed away from me. His gaze was fixed far away as well, staring at some painful point on the wall. I'd seen him crack, his core exposed and vulnerable. I knew he'd never talk. I knew he'd never tell me how—how he'd received a scar so deep.

And so, in an attempt to even out the playing field (and perhaps get him to crack), I made my move.

My voice came first, "We've all got scars, Laxus. Some you can see and some you can't." Laxus glanced up at the sound, a blank look stamped across his face as he stared. I rose.

My fingers went next, moving from my side to the edge of my skirt and tugging up the fabric. I exposed my stomach, and with that came a mark that I knew would even things out. A long pink line ran down my side, beginning just below my breast and ending just below my belly button. It was faint, but it was there, and I watched as the aloofness of his face transitioned into shock.

"My scars make me who I am, Laxus, and so do yours. As far as I see it, in life you've got three options. Victim, Survivor, or Thriver. I'd like to believe that I'm a thriver, and I think you'd like to believe that you are too."

Power.

Sometimes you had to surrender it in order to gain more. Sometimes you had to swallow your pride because you cared.

He reached out—without thinking it would seem—and his rough fingers made contact with my skin. He traced the mark down my ribs, across my waist, to where it blossomed into a series of branches near my hip. I gasped, lightly, accidentally, and his hand fell away in embarrassment the same time his eyes met mine—questioning and tumultuous.

I lowered my shirt, letting the large article of clothing fall back into its former position.

"What happened?" His voice came out in a croak—hoarse with emotion, which was something I'd never heard from him.

"I was seventeen and stupid. Threw a bunch of really harsh, careless words at Hades, and so he drove a spike through my side and flung me into a pillar. Aside from the puncture, I ended up breaking a couple of ribs and catching my side on a piece of the shattered rock. It was dumb stuff that I said, all in a fury of rebelliousness and rage, and if there was one thing Hades would never tolerate it was insurrection."

Laxus' eyes bled with earnest. "Why?"

"Huh?"

"Why are you telling me this?"

I opted for honesty, "I needed to even things out. I poked at your wound; it's only fair that I give you the opportunity to poke at mine."

"That's not how it works and you know it," was his reply. Laxus' voice was cold. "I wasn't asking you to pity me, I was asking you-"

"Look, I wasn't offering you my pity; I was offering you my understanding," I interjected, my tone hollow. Whatever we'd shared then was clearly done now. I'd done my opening up, but I wasn't there to cry and snivel with him. This wasn't a soap opera. This was the real world.

"Why understanding?"

I sighed and chose honesty again, "I am curious about your scar, Laxus. I figured if I offered my scar, my story, and my understanding, you might show me a little piece of yours."

Laxus nodded. He understood.

Power.

I opened my mouth, closed it, opened it again. Something other than power was tugging at my heart. I didn't know what it was—didn't recognize it.

I spoke, not thinking before I did so, "And maybe, there's a small chance that we might help each other sort through everything in the process…" My eyes were on him and his scar, unable to pull away. I ate up his expression and he devoured mine, his jaw clenching and unclenching as he stared. I wanted to reach out and touch his scar, follow the bumps with my fingers and map the plane. But I couldn't; I wouldn't. I'd already taken too much from him.

There was a soft scraping as he rose from his chair. Quiet thwaps as he crossed the floor. A surprised gasp from my mouth as he wrapped his arms around me, crushing my body in an embrace.

I froze, mind, body, and all, and for an awkward moment I stood, my arms extended into the air and my face suffocating behind his massive shoulder. I hadn't known Laxus was capable of hugging. It was a shock greater than the magic he possessed.

One of my arms wrapped around him. Then the other. Then all of me. I melted into him, and I didn't try to stop myself. Laxus didn't dwarf me in his size liked I'd expected, though he was half a foot taller and far more brawny than me—a set of Herculean muscles laid tense under a fashionable maroon shirt. It was his grip that affected me most, and he continued to crush me into his shoulder, but didn't let go. It was a nice change from the typical, willyoupleasefuckoff attitude he possessed and the fighting it often resulted in.

Just this moment, I thought. We both deserve just this one moment.

~Laxus' POV~

Hugging her, Laxus decided, was like it was like holding onto a life—like holding onto a heartbeat. He was holding something whole and pure and completely alive. And he couldn't deny that he liked it. Laxus had never been much of a hugger, nor did he make any plans of becoming one soon, but hugging her wasn't so bad after all. She was a bit stiff, but then again so was he and that was alright.

He pulled away first and stepped back, clearing his throat. She stared back, her features curious and containing traces of what might have been concern. Laxus couldn't tell; he'd never seen it on her face before. She sank back onto the bed and he returned to his chair.

All the while he stared at her. Of course, he hadn't meant to, but it was hard to pull one's eyes away from someone so intriguing. He kept looking her over, his eyes scanning her slightly hunched figure, her worn hands, her tired face. He couldn't look away, and so he kept staring at her, as if she was some kind of freak, which in a way, she was.

He'd never met someone so odd. She wasn't like many of the women he'd met either. At one point girls had thrown themselves at him; they still did. But for some reason she never threw herself at him. In fact, she seemed to hate him a majority of the time. Most women, and people except for Laxus, didn't swear as much as she did. It was considered uncivilized and classless. Naturally, she didn't care. She swore as much as she liked and fought as much as she wanted to and loved as hard as she could, and nobody was going to convince her otherwise.

And yet, in that moment, something about her, something just seemed so fragile. So breakable. Something he'd never seen before. Fragile wasn't a word to ever be associated with Alexandria Douglais, and so he was quite surprised when he discovered that his brain had connected it with her to begin with.

Yet she was still there. Vulnerable. Exposed.

Powerless.

~Xandria's POV~

Laxus was both the first one to break away and the first one to break the silence.

I was surprised, considering he'd just jumped over a multitude of very clear lines. He'd taken leaps and bounds over very clear walls that we'd so carefully orchestrated between us in a way that seemed almost comical.

Breath whizzed through his teeth.

He spoke, "You asked how I got my scar." Again he breathed. "I owe you one. I've owed you one for a while, after all you've done for me, and after almost killing you during the great fight we had a month ago."

"I told you I was fine, there's no need to-"

"No interruptions or I don't say anything else," He said, the exasperation obvious in his tone. I raised my hands in surrender.

"Okay, okay, I'm sorry."

He started again, "The least I can do for you is to explain the story behind this mark. And since you're so curious; I'll oblige—just this once. As long as you don't interrupt my story." Laxus saw the expression on my face and added, "If you run your mouth then I swear I won't tell you anything, Alexandria."

"Alright, I won't!"

"Good," He paused and inhaled sharply before beginning. I watched with baited breath, my eyes shining with curiosity. He started talking:

"You need to understand a few things before I explain. I've got a fucked up family. We're talking severely fucked up. The most fucked up of which is my father. Name's Ivan. I've got a mother that I never knew, and a dad that I wish I didn't. Here's how it went when I was a kid; I lived in a small house—more of a shack, really—with my father, but my grandfather and the other members of the guild were the ones who did all of the parenting. Fairy Tail was my daycare. I'd stay there all day while my father was away scamming somebody or another out of their money. Again, my dad was a dick.

"Once I was a little older, about seven or eight, my father noticed me for the first time. You would think, as any sane person would, that Ivan should've showed me love or compassion, at least some form of concern as I was his son. Obviously, Ivan didn't. I was an object to him, something he could use to earn him money or renown or some shit.

"Being a little kid, I loved him more than I loved anyone else—even as a teenager and young adult I held out this sick faith in him. He was my dad—and dads are like a little boy's hero. Ivan was a god to me. I'd brag on him at school all the time, 'my father's a mage and he could beat up any of your dad's any day'. Stupid stuff like that. I think I said it to convince myself more than to convince the other kids. Deep down I think I realized he was a bad guy, and I just didn't want to admit it then.

"Of course, Ivan used my love for my own father against me. I would do anything he told me. Anything. He could've told me to cut off my hand and I would've done it. My dad was my hero; I wanted him to be proud.

"That's how I got this scar. I was fourteen, and my dad was taking me out on a job with him, which was something he rarely did. The job was a fairly simple one, considering my father thought of me as a worthless idiot that couldn't do anything properly. There was some criminal in Oshibana that we needed to apprehend. Elementary stuff. I could've taken care of the job alone at ten.

"Needless to say everything went to shit. The criminal turned out to be a dark mage that worked underneath Grimiore Heart, and he'd brought along several of his pals from a nearby dark guild. My dad and I were cornered. We would have to fight our way out, and the prospects for survival were looking considerably grim.

"I, being the upstanding young mage that I was, was prepared to defend my father until the very end. But like the coward he was, Ivan tried to make a run for it. One of the dark mages was a user of reequip magic, and he threw several daggers in my father's direction in an attempt to kill Ivan. My father threw up a shield and deflected the blades to the closest person. It was me. Before I knew it, one had cut down the side of my face, ruining my eye and ripping up the skin pretty badly. The only reason we survived was because the dark mages released us; they didn't want to have the blood of two Fairy Tail fools on their hands.

"My dad offered me a bandage and told me to go back to my grandfather. I obeyed, and with a bandage taped hastily over the wound I stumbled back home. I didn't know my father had gone to drink himself into a stupor until months later.

"My grandpa panicked and sent me to the only healer he trusted well enough to take care of me, Porlyusica. She tended the wound and doted on me, and doting wasn't something Porlyusica ever did. I lost the eye; the one you see now is all glass and magic. But not even Porlyusica could erase the large scar that was left on my face after that humiliating battle. I was stuck with it for the rest of my life.

"After that day, I swore I'd do whatever I could to become the strongest mage in the guild. I wouldn't let the name of Fairy Tail be humiliated any more than it already had been, and I was determined to make our guild the strongest—stronger than any dark guild. I had to be better than my father, better than Makarov. I had to be the best to make up for the errors my parents had made. Even after Ivan's excommunication, even after I had argued for him to stay, even after my dark teenage years, I still felt tied down by him, I felt like who my father was, who my family was, defined me. Like I would always be held accountable for his sins. Like I was the one that should have done something about it, or that I had to fix my father.

"So, this scar is only physical evidence of the horrible relationship Ivan and I possessed. It's healed now, just like the other wounds Ivan left me with. He never loved me like a father should love his children, and I've moved on now. Ivan is not the kind father I want, and I owe him nothing. My real family is Fairy Tail, and I'll do whatever it takes to protect that. So that's the story."

I didn't realize my jaw was open until my throat started to dry up. With a parched swallow I shut it. Laxus' expression was blank, but his eyes were dark and brooding. I could imagine that the only thing filling my eyes was unabashed shock.

I didn't know what to say. How could I? Laxus went from cold-hearted bastard to abused anti-hero so fast that it made my head spin. So much for the egotistical, spoiled brat. Now he was a living, breathing comeback story. I felt my stomach curdle; no longer could I hate him so much.

I did the only thing I could think of doing, rising from my seat and stepping forward. My brain wasn't functioning properly as I wrapped my arms around him in a quick embrace.

I muttered in his chest as he froze in place, "Thank you." I didn't know for what.

The silence stretched itself out between us, pulling taught like a rubber band, and I left right after. The conversation was dead and so were we. I made up some lie about running errands. He didn't believe it any more than I did, but he let me go.

In truth I needed some time to gather my thoughts, to process what he had told me. To process what had happened. You didn't hug people unless you cared about them. You didn't touch people unless they meant something to you. And I didn't care about Laxus.

Did I?

A/N: Okay, I just wanted to say that I freaking love this chapter. I loved writing it, loved reading it, loved giving it to you lot to read. It turned out a lot better than I thought it would! I just hope you guys love it as much as I do.