Summary: Part of the Wild West 'Verse. Evergreen is the teacher of Magnolia's School House. She is supposed to have a pure reputation….she is not supposed to be consorting with the likes of Elfman Strauss and his Fairy Tail saloon.

Pairings: Elfman/Evergreen, sibling Elfman/Lisanna/Mirajane, Freed/Evergreen friendship, and Freed/Laxus friendship.

YouTube Prompt: A pairing tribute to 'Complicated' by Avril Lavigne because I think the lyrics suit Gray's cool attitude, Gajeel's and Laxus' tough attitude, Natsu's stupidity, Lucy's snootiness, Evergreen's coldness, Elfman's 'manly' behaviour, and their love interest's never-ending exasperation with them for that behaviour.

She didn't meet him until the school roof needed fixing.

She had heard of him. Who had not? The rumours, the laughs, the disgust – he was the town idiot. A murderer, some whispered. After all no one knew what exactly happened when his little sister died only that he had been the only one there.

All she knew was that he was nothing but bulky muscles and lived with his sister, Miss Mirajane – the brothel owner, Laxus called her. For she owned a place of sin. And as the town's only school teacher, Evergreen was too anxious to keep her reputation impeccable to do something as stupid as to see if it was true or not.

She simply did not mix with people like that, and worked fervently on educating the next generation, and teaching them to be good, honest, hardworking, Christian folk.

Then the school roof began to leak and she had to plea with the locals to raise the money for it to be fixed. To her surprise a group of boys came instead with tools and material to fix it for her. He stood there, proud, and tall, as he carried the wooden planks with unnatural ease.

"I have come to help, as a MAN!" he declared loudly. "Wendy and Romeo go to this school and they shouldn't have to suffer with a leaky roof."

"Hmmph," she muttered coldly, "I do not see how being a man as to do with this….thank you," she added stiffly as she realised she hadn't been polite at all.

She was always polite. Even when she wanted to throttle the children when they were acting brat-ish, she was polite, and composed, and a lady. Instead she felt the urge to snap rudely at this man. He unsettled her. He always seemed to be looking her way when she looked up and that made her itch to slap him.

But when she saw him pat little Wendy Marvell on the head affectionately, she suppressed an urge to smile. She was not so easily touched and she did not want to be by him.

Especially him with his big muscles, beautiful eyes, and far too bright smile.

FTFTFTFTFTFTFTFTFTFTFTFTFT

He persists in trying to help her.

All the time. She cannot go anywhere without bumping into him. He insists on carrying her shopping, he insists on helping her cross the dusty road in case of a rogue cowboy came tearing through the town (a rare event), he insists on mending everything for her when he hears it has broken, from her windows, to the floorboards, to the jammed drawer of her desk….he was relentlessly helpful and it was driving her mad.

"I do not need your help!" she shouted. He had come to help her pick flowers for the classroom this time and she just lost it. Who was this nice? Seriously?! "I do not want your invitations," he had taken to inviting her to join him at his sister's house of sin, all the time, he helps her and then invites her to join him for a drink, did he not realise how immoral that was? She was a teacher. She could not be seen partaking in loose morals such a drinking and watching girls dance in a manner that they reveal their ankles. It would ruin her career and reputation! "And I do not want your friendship," she carried on heatedly, allowing every pent up emotion out, "why would I? You're an idiot and a murderer!"

His face turned into one of stone. His beautiful, warm, always smilingly so dumbly, turned into a cold, harsh, and so very….wrong. It was uncharacteristic of him. "Fine," he mumbled, "if that is what you wish, Miss Evergreen," and he turned away. "Though I think the manner of your rejection is very unmanly," he said as he walked away, "not manly at all."

"Well good!" she cried out after him. "Because I am not a man but a woman!"

"You're not even that!" she was taken back as he whirled round and glowered at her. It seemed his never-ending patience and tolerance had died a quick death now. "You are cold, and empty, and painfully soulless. Do you even allow yourself to live, Ever? Do you allow yourself enjoy anything, or are too busy worrying about your reputation to try? You are not a person anymore. You're just a reputation and that's not what really counts in making a person. It's not happiness," he bowed stiffly but clumsily as ever, for he was too bulky for a graceful bow, "good day!"

He left her with tears streaming down her face and her body shaking in fury. How dare he? How dare he judge her? What did he know?

A great deal anyone gives him credit for, she admitted silently as she rubbed the tears away, and that's what really hurts…because he is right.

FTFTFTFTFTFTFTFTFTFTFTFT

Not that she would admit it out loud.

The very next day she was joined for lunch by Freed, a dear friend and a local lawyer for everyone it seemed. He always helped her with any troubles that arises with the school deed and its land. Every so often some greedy arse of a man tries to take it from her, and every so often Freed rises to the occasion and saves the school for her.

She told him about her fight with Elfman Strauss, and instead of being sympathetic to her, Freed was furious and disgusted with her.

"You said what?!" Freed cried out horrified. "Ever! How could you?"

"What?" Evergreen raised an eyebrow. "Are you defending him? You know what they say he did to his sister."

"I did defend him!" Freed snapped. Evergreen's eyes widened in surprise at that. She would have thought Freed would been prosecution for Sheriff Laxus not the defence against him. "He was innocent of any malicious intent which everyone would know if they bothered to remember his little sister was the most important thing in his world." He pinched the bridge of his nose as if he was getting a headache. She only ever seen him do this when Bickslow was being particularly obnoxious or a local feud that required the law to resolve was driving him up the wall. She hated the fact that it implied she was driving him insane. "Ever," he said much more softly, "it was an accident. One that will forever haunt him without you adding to his pain."

"Even if he was innocent of all wrong doing," Evergreen snapped, irritated that she was being rebuked. "I cannot associate with a house of occupation as the teacher of our children requires my reputation to be pure."

Freed sighed exasperatedly. As if she was one of her children who was being particularly stubborn about learning their sums. "Have you ever been to Fairy Tail?" he asked.

"Have you?" she retaliated. He sat there silent and stared at her with an odd look that she couldn't name. All she could say was she had never seen him look so….so….passionate and on the defence. His eyes blazed, his cheeks flushed, but he stood his ground and didn't lose his composure. "You have!" she cried out in horrified realisation. "Freed! How could you? Laxus has said-"

"I love Laxus," Freed interrupted, "He is my best friend. But he…is too strait-laced, he lives such a narrow world that he misses out on the good of other people. It is not a whore house or anything the like. It is a warm, entertaining place, where everyone is beloved. You would be welcomed by virtually everyone in the town. They all go."

Evergreen shifted at that. She quite like the sound at that. It was so cold in her schoolhouse. So quiet once the children was gone….so very lonely. The idea of being round people, being beloved by them, and not just respected…..she did yearn for it now that that great hulking mass of manly stupidity had pointed it out to her. "Perhaps," she muttered sullenly.

"Ever." Freed spoke up again, he looked stern and yet gentle, anyone would think he was the teacher and not her. "Lisanna was the light and life of both Elfman and Miss Mirajane. To use her death like that….it is heartless."

"I know."

She had been very mean to use something like that against Elfman. She had no right to lose her temper like that, and she hated to admit it, but she was wrong to judge when she hadn't experienced something or even given someone the chance…

She will make her apologies. She won't like it. But she will.

FTTFTFTFTFTFTFTFTFTFTFTFT

She found him in the graveyard.

He stood hunkering over his sister's grave. The weather had worn in it down but you could still make out her name, her date of birth, and the date of her death.

She had only been thirteen years old.

It had been Magnolia's greatest tragedy and still was. Everyone mourned Lisanna's death. Everyone sill talked about it behind their hands. People still thought Elfman should have been locked up….

Her mind flits back to when she saw Elfman pat Wendy's head gently. How could anyone think someone so soft, so gentle, so sweet, be a killer. The murderer of his sister….

"I am sorry," she managed to choke out, "so sorry. I didn't mean….I was just cross. I don't really think you murdered her-"

"But I did," he interrupted her. He turned round and she gasped, feeling guilty for causing the tears that were running down his chiselled face. "I didn't mean too. I only turned around too quickly and she flew… I accidentally knocked her into the wall and…"

She wrapped her arms round his shuddering form. "I know," she is surprised by her own gentleness. "I know." She squeezed him comfortingly and pressed a kiss on the temple of his head as a hand stroked through his hair. "Don't cry," she told him, "Lisanna wouldn't want you to cry. She would have wanted you to live."

He wept in her arms until there was no more tears to shed and then eventually he pulled away, embarrassed, and coughed awkwardly as he looked away from her. Not that it mattered, she had great difficulty looking at him in the eye as well.

"I apologise for being unmanly," he said loudly.

"Quit that manly crap!" she snapped.

He seemed vaguely amused. "Did the great pure teacher curse?"

"Oh hush," she muttered, "I'm not so great or pure."

"So you won't mind joining me for a drink tonight then?"

She blinked surprised. "I….yes," she said, "I would not mind at all."

She goes to Fairy Tail that night, and they all welcome her warmly with a smile – people she had never once spoken to before, because she thought she was better than them, greeted her as if she was one of them the entire time.

Miss Mirajane smiled at her and served her a drink 'on the house', Freed toasted her silently, Bickslow waggled his eyebrows stupidly, and Evergreen found herself laughing as the dancers chased Natsu and Gray off the stage.

Elfman then presented her with a fan, a deep dark purple, with feathers that she falls in love with. It was so…unusual for a teacher to own.

But it was fitting… after all he was an unusual man to court a teacher.