Natsu shot a brief glance back at the prone figure of Jellal, allowing his anger add fuel to the flames licking their way up his arms. Siegrain was proving annoyingly difficult to hit, especially since Natsu was limited to pinpoint attacks for fear of harming the innocent bystanders in the restaurant. Siegrain shared Jellal's uncanny speed, and as much as Natsu hated to admit it, he wasn't as fast as the older wizard.

Luckily, the ice seal that Gray had cast over Siegrain's mouth seemed to have pretty much knocked out his ability to cast spells. Natsu thought that Siegrain only wanted to kill Jellal, not him or Erza, but Jellal had some nasty nonlethal spells that could conceivably have come in handy.

Now, it was basically down to hand-to-hand. Natsu knew that he and Erza could take Siegrain down, but it was already taking longer than he'd thought, and Jellal did not look too good from what Natsu could see of him..

Erza shrieked and swung at Siegrain with a sword. She went wide, and her sword bit into a (thankfully empty) table. She was clearly freaking out about Jellal, not to mention absolutely furious. The result was that she was kind of less good at fighting, not that Natsu would ever say that to her face. But the panic and fear she must be feeling seemed to be affecting her aim, and Natsu knew that was also likely part of why they hadn't managed to subdue Siegrain yet.

Not that that made her any less terrifying. Erza's face was a mask of fury. If Natsu had been Siegrain, he probably would have already given up by now, just because Erza seemed so scary.

But since that didn't seem to be happening, Natsu and Erza had no choice but to try to take Siegrain down, and since Erza wasn't doing so hot, it was going to have to be mostly Natsu.

Siegrain seemed sort of distracted by the sword coming down only a few feet from him. Natsu knew he needed to take whatever openings he could find. He ran forward. Siegrain dodged to the side, way faster than Natsu could hope to compete with. But instead of attacking Siegrain directly, Natsu blew out a chunk of drywall, showering the room in pale dust. He had a second to watch Siegrain blink and reel back, before the dust obscured Natsu's vision.

He'd meant to give Erza a chance. He wasn't entirely sure if she was present enough to take it. If she could get the upper hand on him, even just for a second, they could end this now. But if she couldn't….

The dust slowly settled. Natsu could make out two figures. At first, he wasn't exactly sure what was happening - whether or not they were still fighting, whether or not Erza was winning. But slowly, it became clear that Siegrain was on his knees. Erza was standing above him. She had one hand in his hair, roughly dragging his head back. The other hand was holding a sword, and the point was resting just below his throat.

"Don't move!" she hissed. "It's over."

Siegrain started to struggle. "You can't kill me," he growled. "I-"

In one motion, Erza dropped the sword and punched him in the face. With her gauntleted hand. Instantly, he went limp, slumping forward onto the ground.

"I have him!" she yelled to the restaurant at large. "I have him!"

Jellal heard Erza yelling. His brain seemed to be working very, very slowly now, and he was struggling to process the words. But he was familiar with all of Erza's various yells, and he knew that she was happy.

They…they must have won. Jellal let his head slump to the side, towards where the yelling was coming from. His vision was blurry and starting to fade in and out, but he could still make out the armored shape of Erza looming over Siegrain. He was on the ground, struggling, and Erza seemed to be tying him up.

Jellal blinked, and Erza was on her feet, a fistful of Siegrain's hair in her hand. She dragged him to his knees, then started forward. As she yanked him with her, he stopped fighting against her and snapped his eyes up, glaring at Jellal.

You don't deserve her! Siegrain screamed at full force inside Jellal's head. The gag over his mouth prevented him from speaking aloud, but it didn't block the telepathic channel the two of them shared. Jellal gasped softly, momentarily reeling from the psychic impact of Siegrain's aggressively projected words.

You should be the one to die, Siegrain mentally spat as Erza continued to drag him closer. We both know that! We share the same brain, and if it's crossed my mind, it must have crossed yours.

Jellal blinked, trying to gather his tattered concentration enough to form a response. "You…you were going to take her memories. How does that make you better?" he whispered. He knew he could respond via the link, but he was in too much pain, and he would need all the magical energy he could gather to dismiss Siegrain.

Gray looked down at him, clearly confused. "Jellal, what are you sayin'?"

Jellal blinked up at him, unable to decode the meaning behind Gray's words as Siegrain continued to scream directly into his head.

Correcting her memories is a kindness! Do you really think she wants to remember this? Do you think she'll still love you, knowing how you lied to her? Is this what you think a relationship should be?

Siegrain's words started to blend together into a meaningless blur of rage, and Jellal gave up trying to listen to them. By the tone of his voice, he could tell that he probably wouldn't like what he was hearing. He just waited for what seemed like an eternity, breathing as slowly and evenly as he could manage and waiting for Erza.

"Here he is," Erza snarled, dragging Siegrain up and pushing him roughly to his knees. Her hand left his hair and went to his shoulder, keeping him on the ground. "Banish him, Jellal."

This will not be the last you see of me! You're tampering with something you don't understand, Jellal! Erza will be mine, and I'll put you in the ground where you belong!

Siegrain's voice was shrill and strident in his mind, cutting through even the pain and the exhaustion. Siegrain began to struggle again, thrashing back and forth as he tried to shake Erza's hand from his shoulder.

Jellal tried to sit up so he could reach Siegrain's shoulder. He managed to get himself about an inch off the ground before his torn and damaged stomach muscles protested so much that he was momentarily afraid he would black out. Jellal allowed himself to fall back. He spent a moment just gasping for breath on the ground, trying to gather the strength he would need to try again to sit up.

"Whoa, don't move like that," Gray said. "You're too hurt. No way."

Jellal squirmed weakly, but it was more of a protest than a legitimate attempt to move. He felt Gray's hand move to his shoulder. Gray kept him easily pinned to the ground. Jellal knew there wasn't a chance that he would be able to dislodge him, but he thought that probably would have been a bad idea anyways - Gray was right, and he should stay flat.

"Get him down there," Gray said from somewhere above him. There was the brief sound of a struggle, and then a thump as Siegrain was forced to the ground beside Jellal, cheek pressed into the tile. He was still struggling, but Erza had him tight, so Jellal knew it would be useless.

Jellal tried to turn to the side, but even that proved nearly too much. He felt Gray's hand on his back, helping him roll over. With some amount of effort, Jellal managed to reach a hand out to touch Siegrain.

The world was going in and out of focus now, his vision seeming to contract slightly with each beat of his heart. Jellal didn't know how long he would be able to stay conscious. He knew he needed to banish Siegrain. But what if he couldn't? He was running on fumes, the absolute last of his reserves taken up by just trying to keep his eyes open.

Maybe, once Siegrain was gone, Jellal really would just die, and Siegrain would win after all.

Jellal started the banishment spell, but he was cut off partway through when he felt blood sliding up his throat again. He coughed a few times, trying not to gag, and allowed it to run out the side of his mouth.

"Ah! That's not good," Natsu said from somewhere behind him. Jellal hadn't even realized Natsu was here now. He didn't have the strength to turn his head and look at him.

It took Jellal a moment to catch his breath again. At that point, he thought too much time had passed, and he needed to start the spell over. He took a small, shaky breath, and tightened his grip on Siegrain's shoulder. Siegrain was back to screaming in his mind, but that didn't matter. It was just a wordless rush of noise at this point - every ounce of Jellal's concentration was on his spell.

Jellal finished the incantation in a rush, racing against the blood climbing up his throat. As he began to cough, he took his shaky hand from Siegrain's shoulder and sketched the glyph that would send him away.

No! Stop! You can't do this-

Siegrain's scream of rage was cut off abruptly as he began to dissolve back into Jellal's outstretched fingers. Jellal grimaced at the tingling sensation the reabsorption always triggered, fighting to concentrate long enough to make sure that Siegrain really had vanished.

Within a few seconds, there was no trace of his double remaining, and Jellal let his hand fall to the ground, landing in a sticky puddle of his own blood. The last of his concentration left him, and Jellal let his eyes slip closed.

As soon as Siegrain disappeared beneath her hand, Erza lunged forward to Jellal's side. Gray was crouched above him, hands drenched in blood that seemed to be still oozing from Jellal's stomach.

"He's not doing so good- ow!"

Gray yelped as Erza pushed him aside, taking his place putting pressure on Jellal's wound. If it hadn't stopped bleeding by now, Gray must be doing something wrong, and Erza would surely do a better job.

Besides, she was desperately worried about Jellal, and she wanted to be close to him. The fight had started so quickly that she'd barely had time to process the fact that he'd been stabbed, and she certainly hadn't gotten close enough to examine the wound.

It was bad. Erza couldn't see much through the blood coating Jellal's stomach, but there was a frighteningly large pool of blood surrounding him. As she peered into his blood-streaked face, hoping he'd open his eyes, he coughed gently, and blood trickled from the side of his lips and wound its way across his cheek.

"Jellal?" she asked urgently, resisting the urge to shake him and demand that he respond. "It's Erza. Can…can you hear me?"

The only response that she got was a quiet moan as more blood leaked from his mouth. Not even his eyelashes fluttered. Beneath her fingers, the blood from his stomach was flowing, but she didn't think it was because she was doing a particularly good job stopping it.

Jellal was dying.

"GET WENDY," Erza screamed to the room at large. "Someone get help, NOW!"

Jellal seemed to react slightly to the sound of her voice. He managed to wrench one of his eyes open, just a sliver, and he stared up at her blankly. She kept one hand on his stomach, and with the other she reached up to cup his face.

"Stay with me. Come on, Jellal, you're fine. You're stronger than this…."

He groaned, and his eye slid closed again.

"What happened?" Erza heard an unfamiliar voice say from behind her. "Is he alright? He looks…."

"Did you see that other guy that was with them?" someone else said. "He looked just like that man on the floor, but I'm positive there was another person there. Did they kill him?"

"I heard someone say those two guys weren't allowed in the restaurant. Are they the ones who caused this?"

"Can we leave? I don't want to be here anymore. Can we get the check, please?"

"I once attended a first-aid seminar, so I think I can help. Let me through, and I'll take a look at the young man…."

"Hey, everyone!" This was Gray, and he sounded angry. He'd stood up at some point - she wasn't sure when - and he was now looming behind Erza. "Can't you guys see we're going through something here? We're going to need everyone to BACK UP!"

"Yeah, come on, you heard him," Natsu said. "Give us some space."

There was the vague sound of shuffling, as the patrons of the restaurant stepped backwards. She heard the sound of some vaguely dissatisfied murmuring, but she tuned it out - she needed to focus on Jellal.

"Hey, does anyone have a communication lacrima we can use?" Natsu yelled. "We're gonna need to call someone. Oh you there, you got one? Okay, yeah, just hand it over-"

There was the brief sound of whoever Natsu was talking to protesting, but Natsu clearly won. "Hey, Gray, Wendy's probably at the Guild Hall, right? We can just contact Mira…."

Erza stopped listening again, and went back to using all her attention to push on Jellal's stomach. She tried to ignore the feeling of his blood welling up between her fingers - she was doing all she could to stop the bleeding, and Jellal was stronger than this, he would be just fine….

Erza still didn't really understand what had happened. Jellal had made…a second Jellal? To go to the armor fitting with her? That meant she hadn't seen the real Jellal all day, which was…disturbing to say the least. She still didn't understand why he'd done it, or how he'd done it, or who had known about it. She was pretty sure that when he recovered, she was going to be pretty angry at him.

And that meant that he had to recover. Jellal would be fine, because otherwise Erza wouldn't be able to tell him how angry she was.

"I'm ordering you not to die," she told him softly, stroking his matted, bloody hair back from his eyes and trying to ignore the crimson streaks her fingers left on his cheek. "Do you understand me? I'll be angry later, but if you die, I will never ever forgive you."

Jellal's eye twitched again, opening ever so slightly, and Erza knew he had heard her.

"Please don't die," she whispered, leaning forward until their foreheads touched and praying that Wendy would come quickly. "Please."

As soon as Jellal opened his eyes, he decided that it would be a while before he even considered moving. From the vague, disconnected feeling everywhere throughout his body, he could tell that he was still on painkillers. Even so, the ache in his stomach and shoulder were immediate and unrelenting. If he moved, that would push the pain to the forefront of his mind, and Jellal wasn't eager to relive that.

This wasn't the first time Jellal had woken up since the banishing of Siegrain, but it was the first time that he felt even halfway capable of forming coherent thoughts. He had a few confused recollections of waking in the hospital, usually with Erza holding his hand. He'd always fallen back asleep before he could talk to her.

Before that, Jellal could only remember bits and pieces. He thought that someone had called for Wendy, which made sense, because he didn't know how else he would have survived even long enough to make it to the hospital. Wendy had come, and then the paramedics, and then everything else was pretty much a blur. He didn't remember getting to the hospital, he didn't remember where Natsu and Gray had gone, and he didn't remember Wendy leaving. Jellal wasn't even sure how long he'd been unconscious, although judging by the fact that he couldn't move his shoulder at all, let alone sit up, it hadn't been that long.

There was a slight noise from the left side of his bed, and with a considerable amount of effort, Jellal managed to turn his head. Erza was sitting beside him, glaring for all she was worth.

"Hello, Erza," Jellal whispered, giving her his best smile. It wasn't a very good one, because he felt weak and sick with the combination of the drugs and the pain, but it was at least an effort. "Where did Natsu and Gray go?"

Erza scowled. "They confessed everything! I sent them away for helping you with this ridiculous scheme. How are you feeling?"

Jellal felt too sick to even bother lying about how sick he felt. "I've been better," he managed. His voice felt raw and raspy, but he didn't think he could stomach water - he doubted he would even be allowed to drink it. "But I'm…I'm not dead."

"Is there anything you need?" she asked. "I could call a nurse."

Jellal doubted there was anything aside from time that would make him feel better at this point. Even though he'd only been awake for a minute or two, he already couldn't wait to go back to sleep. He needed an escape from how terrible he was feeling, and he also knew he needed to get as much deep sleep as possible while they were letting him stay on the good drugs.

"No," Jellal whispered. "Nothing I need."

"Good," Erza said angrily. "If you're alright, then…then I think it's time for me to be angry with you."

Jellal supposed this was fair, but not that fair. He knew he'd messed up, but it wasn't like he'd wanted or expected to cause such a scene. Being angry at him was one thing, and that was Erza's full right, but telling him she was angry, while he was still laying in a hospital bed, too weak to get up….

He supposed she must be really angry.

"At least I didn't try to modify your memory and let this whole thing go away," Jellal managed.

He'd meant it to be a joke, but as soon as the words crossed his lips, he realized it wasn't a very good one. Not the least because Siegrain was supposed to be a pretty much perfect double for him, with his same personality, skills, and priorities. Jellal hadn't done what Siegrain had done, but Siegrain was a part of him. If Siegrain had done it, that meant it was inside Jellal too.

Jellal did not like that at all. He shuddered, and then wished he hadn't as the movement sent bolts of pain radiating through his torso and arm.

"At least there's that," Erza said icily.

"And I could have done it too," Jellal mused aloud. "But I didn't even think of it. That must mean something, right? I know I messed up, but at least I-"

"Dear, please stop talking," Erza said. "You're still on thin ice."

That was fair. Jellal's thoughts were still coming slowly, and he was struggling to put words together, but he knew he needed to apologize. He was going to apologize now, but it was probably going to be bad, and it certainly wasn't going to be enough. He would need to apologize later too, and after what he'd done, it was going to need to be a really good one. He couldn't think of anything yet, not now while he was still foggy from the drugs and the pain.

"I'm sorry," Jellal whispered, his eyelids beginning to slip closed despite himself. He could see that Erza still looked angry, and he wanted to fix things now, but he couldn't think clearly enough. "I'll…apologize more later. I promise. But right now…I'm goin' to pass out."

And he did.

Erza perched in the living room, vigorously polishing her favorite swords. She knew that this was the sort of gesture that might be perceived as "aggressive," but so be it. It had been about three weeks since the incident in the restaurant, and it wasn't that she was still mad at Jellal, but she hadn't quite managed to entirely forgive him yet, either. And she hadn't been able to have anything approaching a productive conversation yet - even though he was technically up and around, he still looked so weak and fragile that Erza knew she should probably wait to broach the subject.

She was angry, but she knew that she wouldn't be angry forever. It wasn't the first time that Jellal had accidentally made plans with two people at once, or forgotten to be somewhere that he'd promised to be. She knew that after his years at the Tower, combined with his traumatic time in prison, his brain didn't always work quite as well as he and others around him expected it to.

Of course, usually he didn't conjure a double to try and get him out of these sorts of situations, and that's why Erza was really upset. If he had just talked to her, all of this could have been avoided.

But the past three weeks hadn't all been bad. Erza had finally received her Ice Empress Armor, and she had promptly donned it and gone off to revenge herself on Gray for shielding Jellal. The armor had worked even better than expected, and she'd been able to punish Natsu without stopping for a break in between. She'd wanted to tell Jellal about it, but he'd been asleep. And besides, he would probably think it was a threat.

"Erza?"

She looked up, pausing with her polishing cloth in hand. Jellal was in the doorway, leaning against the side of the wall, his right arm still strapped across his chest in a sling. He couldn't stand for very long yet, and Erza was honestly surprised to see him out of bed.

"Are you alright?" she said quickly, putting down her polishing cloth and beginning to start towards him. "Do you need something? Water? Food? Did you forget to take your medication?"

A small smile flitted across Jellal's face as he shook his head, putting his good hand up to stop her. "No, no…. You can keep polishing. I just wanted to talk."

Erza narrowed her eyes, letting the question remain unspoken. Jellal cleared his throat awkwardly.

"I just…hope you're ready for an armor fitting next week," he said.

"No," Erza said. "I already got the Ice Empress Armor and used it to defeat Gray in single combat. I can show it to you if you'd like. But I don't have anything else scheduled."

"It's not for the Ice Empress Armor. And I actually scheduled it myself."

Erza had no idea what Jellal meant. She cocked her head. "What are you talking about?"

"I've spent some time designing anti-Jellal armor. I call it the Juggernaut."

Erza smiled. "What?"

"I'm not planning to summon Siegrain again, but it's for…you know, if he ever becomes a problem in the future. Also, I assume you will want to test it out by fighting me. It's very large armor, so it will make you stronger. And it will also make you faster."

"And you don't mind if I use it to defeat you?"

"If you couldn't use it to defeat me, it wouldn't be very good anti-Jellal armor."

"And you promise to go to every single armor fitting?" Erza asked suspiciously.

"Every single one."

Erza considered for a moment. Then she got up and wound an arm gently around his shoulders, pulling him close. She was careful to avoid all the various wounds, and to avoid putting too much weight on him at risk of knocking him over. "Very well," she whispered into his neck. "I suppose that was the apology I needed. You are forgiven. As long as you don't do it again."

"Trust me," he said, and she could feel him smiling against the top of her head. "I won't."