At the market Anna bought fresh fish and herbs. Later they went back to Lucy's house where she cooked a delicious grilled fish seasoned with the herbs.

"That smells wonderful." Lucy said as she and her friends sat down at the table to eat. "Spetto when will Dad be a little late coming to dinner?"

"I'm very sorry Miss Heartfilia." The middle aged maid replied. "But Mr. Heartfilia won't be able to join you for dinner this evening. He'll be in a meeting tonight."

"Why am I not surprised?" Lucy sighed.

"He sends his deepest apologies."

"I'm sure he does."

"Don't feel too bad dear." Anna said. "I'm sure your father would have loved to join us tonight had his work allowed him to."

"I guess. Sometimes I feel like he'd rather be at work instead of here with me."

"That's not true. Your father loves you very much."

"Well he has a funny way of showing it.'

Dinner was delicious but Lucy felt really disappointed that her father couldn't make it. To make her feel better, Anna told the girls stories about her friends and their days as mermaids. The girls really liked Anna, she was funny, sweet, and a very good cook not to mention they enjoyed hearing her stories.

After dinner they all sat down together in the living room and Anna showed the girls some old pictures she had. Some were of herself and Layla when they were children, some were of them when they were teenagers, and some were of her with friends.

"Here's me and Layla on our first trip to the beach." Anna said handing Lucy an old photograph of her and Layla playing in the ocean together as an eight and six year old.

"You both look cute." Lucy said.

"We loved going to the beach so much. We always had the most fun there especially your mother. She always said that she felt the most relaxed in the ocean."

"I feel the same way."

"I know. You're a lot like her. Oh Layla was truly loved to swim. I'd see her floating in the water for hours. Then one day she told our parents that she wanted to sign up for swimming classes, before we know it she became one of Magnolia's top swim champion."

She pulled another photograph from her bag. "And here's me with my friends at the annual Summer festival."

"They had the Summer festival back then?" Lucy asked.

"Oh yes they've had festival for decades."

She handed the picture to Juvia. It showed a teenage Anna and her friends standing together on the docks, wearing matching lockets, and looking up at the fireworks with genuine smiles on their faces.

"That was one of the most fun nights of my life." Anna said. "We had so much fun playing games, dancing, watching the fireworks, it was all just do exciting."

"You all looked like you were having a good time."

"We had the time of our lives that night. We were having so much and we were all just so happy that we had to get a picture. So I grabbed the nearest man walking by and asked him to take a picture of the three of us all together. It's one of my favorites."

"I really like this picture." Juvia said. "It's so pretty."

"Would you like to keep it?" Anna asked her.

"But it's yours. You said that it was your favorite."

"I have copies. Besides I want you girls to see how close my friends and I were back then."

"Thank you. I'll keep it with me always."

"I'm glad to hear that." Anna glanced over at the clock and saw how much time had passed. "My goodness it's become so very late. Erza, Juvia, no doubt you want to go home now."

"Yeah but we'll gladly stay long enough to help you clean up." Erza said.

"That's not necessary."

"No really we want to." Lucy said.

"Very well. You three wait here and I'll go get the cleaning supplies."

While Anna was getting the dish detergent, the girls sat down on the couch to look at the picture.

"Your aunt looks so much like you." Erza said looking at the younger Anna in the picture. "She even acts like you a little bit."

"She and her friends sure do look happy." Juvia said.

"I wonder what caused them to drift part." Lucy said.

"Do you think that we could ever drift apart like that?" Juvia asked.

"No way. I don't see that happening at all."

"You never know." Erza said. "Anything could destroy a friendship."

"Yes but some friendships are strong enough to withstand anything." Lucy said.

"I hope ours is strong enough." Juvia said.

Anna came back five minutes later and the four of them cleaned up the kitchen. Once that was done Erza and Juvia said goodbye to Anna and Lucy then went home.

"Your friends are wonderful." Anna told her niece. "They remind me so much of my old friends."

"You really miss them don't you?"

"I do." Anna sighed as she looked at the picture in her locket. "I miss them so very much."

Lucy grasped her aunt's hand comfortingly.

"Did you ever try to contact them?" She asked.

"I did once. But I couldn't find one of them and the other just didn't want anything to do with me. She was still so very angry."

"What exactly happened between the three of you?"

"It's very complicated and it's very hard for me to talk about. Someday I'll tell you what happened but for now I just don't feel up to it."

"I understand." Lucy said. "Would you like to have some tea before bed?"

"Tea would be lovely." She said with a smile.

Lucy returned the smile and went to fix her aunt some nice hot tea to drink before going to bed. Meanwhile when Juvia came home she found Ur putting some of her pictures in the new scrapbook Juvia had given her. She had a lot of photographs, Juvia wasn't sure that if there was any room in the book for all of them.

"Need any help?" Juvia asked.

"Would mind handing me the pictures in that pile over there?" Ur asked pointing to the pictures on the other side of the room.

"Sure." Juvia said. One by one, she handed the pictures to Ur who tapped them on to the pages of her book.

"Did you have a good time at Lucy's today?" Ur asked.

"Yes. I met her aunt."

"Lucy has an aunt?"

"Apparently. She's a very sweet lady and a good cook. She made us dinner."

"That's nice."

As Juvia handed Ur each picture she took a moment to briefly glance at each one and smile. A lot of them were of Ur and the kids together. But then she saw one picture that really caught her attention. It was of a teenage girl in a blue sundress with long dark purple hair that was kept in a braid. Juvia had never seen this picture before but the girl in the photograph looked very familiar.

"Ur who's this?" Juvia asked holding up the picture.

"Oh that's me." Ur answered when she saw it.

"That's you?"

"Yes. That picture was taken on my sixteenth birthday but you'd never guess that was me sixteen years ago. I was so different back then. My hair was longer and I wore girlier clothes, I was also very shy and timid back then."

When Ur had her head turned, Juvia pulled out the picture Anna had given her. The dark haired girl in that picture looked identical to Ur when she was a teenager.

"Is everything alright?" Ur asked noticing how quiet Juvia had become in that moment.

"Yes everything's fine." Juvia said quickly putting the picture of Anna and her friends back in her pocket and handing the other picture to Ur. "You know Ur I don't really know that much about you when you were a teenager. What were your teen years like?"

"Oh that was a very complicated and difficult part of my life. I'd rather not discuss it."

"You sure?"

"Yes. Besides it's not something you really tell people about."

"Okay then."

After helping Ur with her scrapbook, Juvia went back to her room where she stared at that picture for hours. It could just be a coincidence. A coincidence that Ur in her youth was a dead ringer for one of Anna's old friends. After all there were lots of people out there who looked alike but had no connection to each other and Juvia would have probably believed it was just a coincidence if she had not seen the locket the dark haired girl in the picture was wearing.

It reminded Juvia of that day when Ur came home and how she started acting so strangely once she saw Juvia wearing that same locket. She had recognized that necklace from somewhere and she seemed somewhat afraid that Juvia had been the one to find it. Technically it was Gray who found it and when she questioned him about where he found it she felt relieved when he said it was at the beach. What if he had told her the truth? What if he had told her where he really found it? What would her reaction had been then?

Ur was hiding something. Juvia could feel it and she had a pretty good idea of what it was Ur was trying to hide. Did this locket previously belong to her? Was she one of Anna's long lost friends? Had she once been a mermaid? If so then what happened? How did she, Anna, and that other girl give up their powers? And what had destroyed their friendship? Juvia desperately wanted to know but was it really her place to figure out? To meddle in someone else's past? To get involved in something that wasn't her business?