The Scars That Make You Whole

By CrimsonStarbird

The Laws of You and Me, Part 3

-Those Left Behind-

"Coffee? Tea?" Cana offered.

Lucy pulled a face. "Tea, please. After all that, I think I need something civilized."

"Milk? Sugar? Whisky?"

"Milk, one sugar… and please don't put any whisky in it."

"Suit yourself," Cana shrugged, upending the bottle of Mirror Blue over her own coffee cup. Lucy rolled her eyes at her friend's back, secretly grateful that Cana couldn't see how difficult it was for her to suppress her smile.

It didn't matter that they were in a deserted canteen rather than their bustling guildhall – it didn't even matter that it had been ten months since they'd last seen each other. Just as when she'd sat down for afternoon tea with Wendy, the moment they began talking, it was as if nothing had changed. Ten lonely, directionless months vanished into nothing.

They were sat in the canteen at Pinewoods Residential. The facility's communal areas were closed for the night, but Cana had swept in with the key and the confidence of one in charge, removing two of the chairs from atop a table and inviting Lucy to sit while she raided the empty food bar for anything the cleaners might have overlooked. Inside, the facility was disappointingly modern for such a regal building: whitewashed corridors, more security cameras than windows, and a high-tech office-block canteen which was as far as possible from the candlelit banquet hall Lucy had been expecting.

Cana looked the part, too. Over a modest blouse and tie she wore a night-blue military-style jacket, studded with polished silver buttons. The puffy shoulder bag she usually carried on mage jobs was gone. Instead, her cards were held in a special holster on her belt – next to a torch, a keyring larger than Lucy's, and what appeared to be a pair of genuine handcuffs. A dark blue cap, proudly bearing a metallic crest, completed the ensemble by taming her wavy hair and adding to her authority. The smart, commanding, and official young lady who worked as a security guard for Pinewoods Residential couldn't have been more different to Fairy Tail's resident drunk.

If one ignored the fact that she was drinking coffee-laced whisky in the middle of her shift, that was.

Cana set two steaming mugs down on the table – well, one was steaming; the other was just emitting alcohol vapour – and tossed down a packet of biscuits. Only after sniffing her cup for any trace of whisky did Lucy raise it to her lips.

"So, Cana, you've been working here since Fairy Tail disbanded?" she began.

"Only for the past couple of months." Perfectly at ease, Cana lounged back in her chair, finding a comfort that only practice could draw out of the spartan metal seat. "I set out to look for Gildarts first, but I couldn't find him, so I ended up hanging out with Quatro Cerberus… though, that didn't last long."

"You got fed up of being the only girl in a guild of guys?" Lucy grinned.

"Nah, the guys are great. They know how to drink – oh, yes – and they're a fun guild… but they're not my guild, you know? The longer I stayed, the more restless I got, so when I saw this job advertised, I decided to move to Marguerite Town. I was only supposed to be working a couple of nights a week as a security guard, but when it turned out that no one had managed to smuggle a drop of alcohol past me in a month, they promoted me to Head of Security while the former head's on maternity leave. It pays the bills, and besides, I wanted to do something away from a guild for a while. I actually kinda like having a fixed schedule. Even if it is a nocturnal one."

"I get that. I've been reporting for the Weekly Sorcerer ever since leaving the guild. Still, I must admit, I'm surprised they let an alcoholic supervise other alcoholics…"

"This place is for alcoholics with problems. I don't have a problem."

"Right," Lucy said, to the mug of whisky.

"I am one with my alcoholism, Lucy."

"Whatever works for you, Cana," Lucy sighed. "Though, isn't taking a job that prevents people from drinking against your personal philosophy?"

"Nah. Anyone who checks into Pinewoods Residential's intensive detox programme without researching exactly what they're getting themselves into deserves what they get. By enforcing abstinence, I'm helping them out, really. Plus, I'm allowed to keep any alcohol I confiscate, so…"

Lucy rolled her eyes. "And suddenly, all becomes clear."

"You have excellent taste in whisky, by the way." Cana frowned at her half-empty cup, gave the coffee machine an unenthusiastic glance, and decided to top it up with Mirror Blue instead, diluting the coffee almost to invisibility. "Speaking of which, Lucy – what are you doing in a place like this?"

"I was looking for you. I'm, umm… I'm trying to get Fairy Tail back together again."

"About time! Count me in!"

"…Really?"

"Yeah! What, did you think I was going to say no? Don't get me wrong, I like the free booze, but I like my guild more!"

"I know, but… well, you're only the second person I've asked, and the first one said no."

"Who'd you ask?"

"Wendy."

"Well, she's with Lamia Scale now, isn't she? It won't be so easy for her to leave all that behind – unlike those of us who have been hoping for months that an opportunity like this would arise," Cana added, winking.

"Yeah, I thought that if I could get a few more people together, I could show Wendy that Fairy Tail still exists."

"Good thinking. There are a few more of our old members in Marguerite who'll be up for it, too – I can give you their addresses, if you'd like?"

"Thanks." Zeref probably knew them already, but being able to tell people she didn't know very well that she'd got their addresses from Cana rather than from the guild's sworn enemy would probably cut out a lot of unnecessary panic.

As Cana scribbled down the names, Lucy observed, "None of these people have joined Lamia Scale, have they?"

"No, I think Wendy's the only one. I know that Macao's working at the Phoenix and Pyre – that's where I ran into him, by the way," she added, rather unnecessarily. As if Cana would spend her time somewhere that wasn't a pub. "Some of the others are freelancing, or working as independent mages, I think."

"But… if they didn't want to join Lamia Scale, why come to Marguerite Town at all? There must be far more mage work going in a town which doesn't have its own guild."

Cana opened her mouth, paused, and then decided it would be more productive to fill it with another swig of whisky instead. "Yeah, you'd think that, wouldn't you? I don't know why so many people from our guild came here. I'm here because that's where the job vacancy was, but… I don't know. You'll have to ask them when you find them."

"Maybe I will," Lucy said, pocketing the list of names. "Thanks for these, by the way."

"No problem. Though… Lucy, did you really come all the way to Marguerite to find Fairy Tail members without knowing who was here, or where to find them?"

"Well…" Lucy's gaze jumped apprehensively from one stack of chairs to another. "I'm, umm, travelling with someone. He's in charge of finding the guild's former members."

"He's not one of us?"

"No. Just… a big fan of Fairy Tail. He wants to see the guild back together even more than I do, so he's helping out."

"Who is he? Someone I know?"

Lucy shifted uncomfortably at the question. It wasn't as though Zeref had explicitly asked her not to mention his involvement. At the same time, the whole point of him hiring her was so that he wouldn't have to face any members of the guild himself. Lucy had a feeling that most of her friends would struggle to see his help as a positive thing. Some (Natsu, she tried not to think) would refuse to collaborate with an enemy, even if their immediate goals aligned. There would always be those who believed that, no matter what Zeref had wanted from her that day, she should have held her ground and defied him until the brief and inevitable end.

Then again, most people probably wouldn't recognize Zeref, would they? Though they all knew he was still alive, and had swapped their tales from Tenrou Island, very few of them had seen him in person. Zeref always concealed his magic completely, and if she could convince him to dress in more normal clothes too, there would be nothing about him to suggest that he was any more than an ordinary young mage. Plus, the thought of her and Zeref working together was so counterintuitive that it would drive people away from the truth. She could just make up a fake name for him, and as long as they were careful around people who might have met him before, they'd probably get away with it.

That being said, it would only take one suspicious person to stumble upon his true identity and bring this whole mission crumbling down. If people knew Zeref was involved, they might lose their faith in Fairy Tail – and in her, for believing in him and his promise of a non-aggression pact. And where would that leave her?

No, she couldn't risk anyone finding out about Zeref's involvement. Not yet. It was her decision, her secret, her journey to make; any consequences were hers to deal with, not theirs.

Keeping things from her guild was hard, but not as hard as it would have been ten months ago.

"Lucy?" Cana prompted. "No offence, but this new friend of yours seems a bit dodgy-"

"He's a spy," Lucy blurted out.

"…Come again?"

"He's a spy. He has access to this big surveillance network, which he's secretly using to help track down our colleagues. But he could get into a lot of trouble if anyone finds out what he's doing, so… I can't tell you his name, and it's probably best if you don't ask too many questions."

After a moment, Cana's serious face split into a far more suitable grin. "Heh. Sounds like you've found yourself an interesting man, Lucy."

"Not really." A familiar scowl wormed its way onto Lucy's face as she thought about all the times she'd wanted to punch her travelling companion in the past twenty-four hours alone. "He's the kind of man who knew full well you were working as a security guard here, but rather than informing me, he let me believe that you were some sort of prisoner – I mean, patient – and then made me scale the wall with an open bottle of alcohol so that you'd catch me."

"I like him already," Cana assured her, draining her cup. "You can't go wrong with a man who goes out of his way to deliver me free whisky."

Lucy rested her forehead on the table with a groan. "You would not say that if you'd met him."

"Nah. You can tell your Spymaster General that I approve."

"Approve of what? And wait- Spymaster General? I don't even know what that is!" Cana simply gave her an infuriating grin. Grumbling, Lucy added, "Besides, you can tell him yourself. You're coming with us, aren't you?"

"Ah. The thing is, Lucy, while I am one hundred percent behind your reuniting-the-guild plan, I also can't just quit my job without notice. It may only be a part-time arrangement, but I did sign an employment contract, and I would rather like to get paid at the end of it, you know?"

"Oh. I actually hadn't thought of that."

Bloody Zeref and his let's-go-on-an-adventure mentality. Intelligence network or no, he really hadn't put a great deal of thought into this mission – and then he'd gone and got her caught up in it as well. The idea that everyone could – let alone would – immediately drop what they were doing and flock to Fairy Tail's banner was a fantasy, and the real world had no place for fantasies. The past ten months had taught her that.

"Tell you what," Cana was saying. "I've got a month's notice on my contract, so why don't we set a date? Let's say, I don't know – the First of September, at the site of the former guildhall. That way, no one you speak to has to decide then and there, and it'll give people a chance to get their affairs in order before moving back to Magnolia. It'll give me time to track down my old man, too."

"Cana, that's brilliant!" It would also, she realized, stop her from having to hide Zeref's identity from an ever-growing entourage as they moved from place to place. Passing on a message, rather than trying to literally reunite the guild as she went, was a much more achievable goal. "I can't believe I didn't think of that…"

"You've spent too long running with Natsu," Cana winked. "He's burnt away all your common sense. Though it sounds like your new Spymaster General isn't much better…"

"Let's not go there," Lucy sighed, though she had never agreed with anything more.

"I totally get it, though. Finally getting the guild back is just… well, I can see how meeting someone who can help you make that a reality would, you know, sweep you off your feet."

Privately, Lucy thought that was a rather romantic way of describing blackmail, but she just said, "Well, thanks for bringing me back down to earth, Cana."

"Hey, what are friends for?" Cana waved the half-full bottle of Mirror Blue towards her and winked again.

With their plans made, Lucy got to her feet. Just as when she'd left Lamia Scale, she had little desire to return to Zeref after hanging out with a true friend, but this time, with Cana's support, her goal seemed a little more tangible. How could travelling with Zeref be a bad thing if it meant bringing her friends back together again; letting this be the norm rather than a once-in-ten-months occurrence? Whatever his mysterious motives might be, this was worth it, right?

"Oh, Cana," she spoke up, as the two of them walked down the manor house's drive. "Are you going to Lamia Scale's parade tomorrow?"

"Yeah. I've got the night off, so I'm going to sleep all day and then head out to the festival in the evening. You?"

"I'll see you there. I bet it's nothing on Fantasia, though."

"I am all for it being less crazy than our last Fantasia," her friend grinned back. "If Wendy declares the start of the Battle of Lamia Scale, I'm getting out of this town faster than you can say not a-bloody-gain."

"Seconded," Lucy vowed.

Zeref was waiting for her back on the country road, a black and silver figure beneath the pinprick constellations. "So? How'd it go?"

As he fell into step beside her, she treated him to her usual glower, knowing that the exasperation in her voice would compensate for what the darkness hid. "Would it really have killed you to tell me that Cana was working as a security guard, and that I could just walk up to the front gates and ask to see her?"

"Nothing can kill me, Lucy; that's the problem," came the nonchalant response. "Besides, my way was more fun."

"I'm not sure how much more of your fun I can take," Lucy grumbled.

"What did she say, though? Is she coming back to the guild?"

"Of course. She came up with a good idea, too – instead of recruiting as we go along, we've set a time and place for a whole-guild reunion."

Zeref considered this for a moment. "That is a good idea."

"Yeah. What with Wendy saying no and others like Cana having fixed-term job contracts… We sort of rushed into this quest without thinking, didn't we?"

"I put a great deal of thought into it," Zeref considered. "Though I will admit that once I'd decided to do it, my thoughts as to how to go about it didn't extend much beyond getting you on board."

"Maybe I'd have been able to come up with a better plan if you'd given me some warning, rather than just showing up in my house and demanding to leave at first light," she retorted automatically, before the full impact of what he'd said hit home. "Wait… was I your first choice for this job?"

"Yes."

"Why me?"

Those star-speckled eyes turned towards her; she was at once caught and held by the darkness within. But he looked away again without answering the question, and said instead, "What date did you set for Fairy Tail's reunion?"

"Huh? Uh… the First of September. At the site of the old guildhall."

He nodded slowly. "Alright."

"You're not going to complain about how far away it is?"

"No. If anything, it's a closer deadline than I was anticipating, but I'll be able to work to it, I'm sure."

"Cana also gave me the addresses of more members in Marguerite for tomorrow."

"I could have given you those addresses." Zeref sounded a little put-out by this; that childish petulance had slipped back into his tone for the first time in the whole conversation.

"Sure, but this way I can visit them when they're not at work, rather than walking blindly into whichever awkward scenario you'd managed to manufacture for me this time."

"Spoilsport."

"Damn right."

After that, they lapsed into silence, but it was the most companionable silence they had shared since the mission had begun. Things, so Lucy thought, were finally starting to look up. It seemed that the less she needed to rely on Zeref, the more bearable travelling with him was going to be. Once she got back into the swing of this adventuring malarkey, it might not be so bad after all.

Her optimism lasted for about half an hour.

That was how long it took them to reach the hotel Lyon had recommended in Marguerite, whereupon her streak of good luck imploded with a shout: "WHAT SORT OF CLICHÉD DEVELOPMENT IS THIS?"

Zeref, who had been loitering in the foyer and letting Lucy deal with the receptionist, perked up at her distress, and wandered over to investigate the disturbance. "What's going on?" he asked, in a tone that informed her he wasn't here to help, only to find out if he should be getting the popcorn in.

"He says they've only got one room left in the entire hotel," Lucy fumed.

"I do say that, because it's true," said the receptionist, folding his arms. "What were you expecting, at 10PM the night before the Day of Thanksgiving? We've only got a room at all because the trouble on the western road has been scaring people away!"

"We need two rooms!"

"It has a sofa as well as a double bed, if that helps?" the receptionist said.

"It doesn't," Lucy huffed. "Fine, we'll go somewhere else."

"By all means. I wish you the best of luck finding somewhere with two free rooms at this time of night. And, of course, I can't guarantee that this room will still be available by the time you've realized it's impossible."

They glared at each other.

So much for this adventure picking up now that she was learning how to deal with Zeref; she'd already found someone less helpful than him, and fate wasn't on her side either. It wasn't as though she objected to sharing a room on principle, but sharing with the Black Mage was another matter entirely. She'd barely managed to relax knowing he was in her house. In the same room, she wouldn't sleep a wink.

"Lucy, take the room," Zeref said suddenly. At her surprised glance, he explained, "You can have it. I'll find somewhere else."

"…Huh?"

"It's fine. I'll meet you back here tomorrow morning."

"But there might not be any other rooms available!"

He shrugged, already halfway to the door. She shouted after him on impulse, "No, wait, you can sleep on the sofa, it's fine, I don't mind-"

But he simply raised his hand in farewell without turning round, and disappeared into the night.

The doors swung shut in the silence.

"…Oh," Lucy mumbled. "That was disappointingly anticlimactic."

"That'll be seven thousand jewels," said the smug receptionist.

As she handed over the money, and received a little key in return, Lucy glanced over her shoulder at the exit. Zeref was long gone. She had what she wanted, but… getting it without a fight left her feeling oddly hollow. How could she not feel guilty at the thought that he might not find anywhere to spend the night, all because she had overreacted to the idea of sharing a room with him in an emergency?

It was perhaps the first time he had ever gone out of his way for her, and he had done it so casually – flipped from making things difficult for her to helping her out just like that. Even though it was such a trivial, sensible thing, she tossed and turned throughout the night and knew she would not be able to dismiss it so easily.

It was only later that she began to wonder if he'd been as uncomfortable at the thought of sharing a room with her as she had been with him.

The first time Natsu found himself back outside Lucy's front door, he was angry.

He should have known that it wasn't going to be so easy. No kidnapper wanted to be followed. Of course there would be doubling-back; dead ends; a false trail that led right back to where he'd first picked up Zeref's scent.

Okay, fine. He'd lost a little time, but the scent was still strong. This time, he'd be more careful.

The second time it happened, Natsu was furious.

Fire coursed through the road, his fury taking form as heat which warped stone and immolated the flowers lining the Blooming Capital's streets. Pedestrians fled the scene. Rune Knights did not dare to approach. It ended only when Happy braved the inferno to push his partner into the canal – though it wasn't the muddy water that doused the flames of Natsu's fury, but the tears of his partner, who stood on the floating Dragon Slayer's chest and grabbed his scarf in both paws and shouted until he understood that burning Crocus to the ground wouldn't bring Lucy back.

The third time they set off, they approached the task with more care than Natsu had ever given anything in his life. Sometimes he moved on all fours, nose to the ground, not caring for the stares of passers-by. At other times, he walked slowly, checking every alleyway they passed for some indication that Zeref and his prisoner had slipped away into the shadows. When he tried to run, Happy was there to hold him back. It was far better to edge down the true path than to sprint blindly down the wrong one.

This time, Natsu was sure, they were going to find the exit Zeref had taken from the city.

So when he found himself back at Lucy's door for the third time, Natsu was scared.

His draconic senses had never let him down before. Even when all had seemed lost, he'd always had his Dragon Slayer magic to rely on, the skills he had inherited from his father and now proudly wielded in the name of the Fire Dragon King.

Why would they fail right when he needed them the most?

Not even Happy could restrain him this time, and he sprinted away at a pace that defeated the Exceed's attempt to give chase. Alone and helpless, Happy went back to Lucy's house to wait – and sure enough, Natsu showed up not half an hour later, gasping for breath and shielding his eyes with his arm so that his partner would not see his tears.

And again.

And again.

Before they knew it, night was falling. They must have walked the length of every single street in the city ten times over, and Lucy was a whole day further away than when they'd started.

None of it made any sense. Zeref's trail wound through the city on a route that even the most aimless tourist would have described as meandering. It frequently doubled back on itself, ran laps around major monuments, wove through the market as if stopping to buy a souvenir from each stall in an order determined by lottery, and dallied on all the main roads equally without ever drawing close to a single city exit.

No kidnapper would take such a route. Even as a false trail, it would have taken hours to lay, and Zeref hadn't had that much of a head start.

Besides, Zeref would surely have been as noticeable laying the trail as Natsu had been following it, especially with a captive in tow, but while many shopkeepers had commented on the Dragon Slayer's antics – a word for which he had destroyed more than one market stall that day – none of the people Happy asked had seen anyone matching Lucy's or Zeref's description. And, though there had been hours of trade and tourists passing through the bustling market square, the scent trail hadn't become any weaker…

Heedless to his partner's protests, Natsu broke into Lucy's flat for the second time that day. This time, he ignored everything his trusted dragon's nose was telling him. He kicked aside furniture and tapped along the walls with more force than strictly necessary to find hidden compartments, until at last he ripped up the rug in the centre of the lounge to reveal a shimmering black shape.

At first glance it appeared to be an oil spill, black liquid with an unnatural sheen, but it moved like no liquid Natsu had ever seen. It never stopped twisting, splitting itself into writhing ribbons and flowing back together, forming a succession of complex shapes that Levy or Freed might have been able to read but to Natsu meant only one thing: evil.

Flames burst to life at his palms and he struck the magical rune with both hands. Power surged. Fire washed over the room, disintegrating the rug and scorching the furniture. The black liquid did not ignite like oil, but crumbled like ash, purified by the fire until not a trace was left.

And in the emptiness…

Nothing.

He could smell ash; he could smell smoke. He could smell Lucy's scent, but it was old, and it drifted through the apartment as a purposeless cloud. He could smell Zeref too, but it was far fainter, and impossible to pin down. From outside the house, he could smell neither of them. Whatever curse Zeref had left behind to manipulate Natsu's sense of smell had been able to erase their trail from it just as easily.

Natsu knelt amidst the ashes and the silence.

It wasn't just that Zeref had Lucy.

No, Zeref had swooped in and taken her from right under Natsu's nose, and left behind a distraction that would only work on a Dragon Slayer.

That wasn't a coincidence.

That was personal.

"I am going to kill that bastard," Natsu vowed.

"Natsu!" Happy swooped in through the window, glanced around, swallowed, and decided to put the destruction aside for the sake of the more pressing concern. "Lucy's neighbour finally got back from work! I asked if she saw anything, and she said she overheard Lucy arguing with a stranger who wore old-fashioned clothes in the street this morning!"

"So?" Natsu growled. "We already know Zeref has her!"

"Yeah, but they were arguing about the direction to Marguerite Town!"

At last, the Dragon Slayer looked up from the floor. "Are you sure?"

"Yeah!"

"Marguerite Town? Why would Zeref take her there?"

"I don't know," Happy admitted. "But it's the only lead we have, and we've lost enough time already. I think we should ask that question once we're there."

Natsu's pause was agonizing, but in the end, he got to his feet. "Alright," said he, in a voice that was still mostly sane. "Let's go to Marguerite Town."

True to his word, Zeref was waiting in the foyer of the hotel when Lucy came downstairs the following morning. She wondered if he had managed to find another hotel room, or if he'd had to camp out on his own. Yet he didn't bring it up, so neither did she, and they discussed their plans for the day as if nothing had happened. Which, she supposed, it hadn't.

Lucy was going to visit the houses or workplaces of the members of her guild that Cana had told her about. Zeref, on the other hand, was going sightseeing.

That had been Lucy's suggestion. She wanted him as far away from her as possible after the stunt he'd pulled at Pinewoods Residential, even if it meant doing all the work herself. They were to meet back at the hotel at noon, so that she could provide him with a progress update over lunch.

Labour thus divided, Lucy and Zeref set out to begin day two of their quest to reunite the guild.

By mid-morning, Lucy had entirely revoked her designation of this journey as a 'quest'.

This was not some epic tale destined to go down in legend. It was, in fact, the most mundane journey she had ever been on.

Even counting the battle on the road the previous day, and her brief tussle with Cana and her associates, she had already sat down and had tea twice as many times as she'd had to use magic. Now that she was not relying solely on Zeref's information, the sub-quest 'break into a secure facility under cover of darkness' had been replaced with multiple variations on the theme of 'knock on the door of a responsible adult and inform them of the plan'. In addition, Cana's idea of setting a date for the reunion – and thus giving people time to think about it – ruled out the possibility of any more dramatic rejections à la Wendy.

The most exciting thing that happened all morning was when she knocked on the final door and it opened to reveal Romeo literally diving towards her, in a hug so enthusiastic it sent both of them sprawling into a nearby puddle.

Still, since the solution to this crisis was for Macao to invite Lucy in for yet another cup of tea while she dried off, it all sort of cancelled out.

So it came to pass that Lucy found herself in the kitchen of the small townhouse which veteran guild member Macao and his son Romeo were currently calling home, fending off the young teenager's repeated apologies and wondering idly how much tea one could drink before bursting.

"Lucy, I'm so sorry!" Romeo exclaimed, for the billionth time. "I heard the rumour that you were tracking down all the Fairy Tail members in the city, and then you were here, which meant that it was true, and the guild is getting back together again, and-"

"Romeo, it's fine, really," Lucy smiled. "I'm honestly thrilled to see you so excited about it. We're meeting at the site of the old guildhall, on the First of September. Can you make it?" she added, glancing at Macao.

"We'll be there," he confirmed.

"Of course we'll be there!" Romeo slammed his hands down on the table in a burst of emerald fire. "I've been waiting for this for ten months! I can't believe it's taken this long for anyone to do something about Fairy Tail being gone!" To Lucy, in a whisper, he added, "I tried to run away from home to look for everyone, but Dad caught me. Twice."

Lucy laughed. "Yeah, I'm only here because there was no one to stop me from running away," she agreed, and the conspiratorial grin she got from the boy in response seemed to justify the not-quite-truth. "As for why it took me so long… honestly, I don't know. There were times when I wanted to, but I was just so angry."

Angry enough to throw a table at Natsu, anyway. There was nothing like being blackmailed by an immortal death-mage to change one's mind.

"You think you were angry?" Macao said brusquely. "Seven years we kept this guild alive while you lot were on Tenrou Island – seven years of debt and mockery and abuse – and then Fairy Tail was back together not six months before the Master disbanded it. No explanation, no apology – just the guild we'd fought so hard to protect, snatched away overnight by the very man we were protecting it for. It's a good job the Master vanished straight afterwards. If he'd stuck around after pulling that little stunt, we'd have given him a taste of the hell we went through for him, that's for sure."

"Da-ad," Romeo whined, in an alarmingly good we've been over this voice, and his father sighed, dispelling the tension.

"Yeah, I know, son. Master Makarov wouldn't have disbanded the guild without good reason. Do you know why, Lucy?"

"…I don't, actually." But I bet Zeref does, she added silently, wondering if he'd tell her if she asked. Perhaps she could trick it out of him… or perhaps she'd have more luck trying to convince him that she needed the knowledge for their quest. He had already confirmed that he knew Makarov's location, though he'd been equally clear that he wasn't prepared to reveal it yet. The thought of trying to wring information out of a man who always seemed to be three steps ahead of her made her wince.

Sighing out loud, she added, "For that matter, I don't know where the Master is either. I know that he was supposed to be on the new Magic Council, but he never showed up, and no one has seen him since."

Macao's frown mirrored Lucy's, but Romeo broke into a very Natsu-like grin. "He'll be back as soon as the guild's reunited. Besides, once he sees how hard we've been training, nothing'll be able to keep him away."

"You've been training?"

"You bet! I came fourth in the under-sixteens Marguerite Spring Tournament!"

"Nice one," Lucy smiled, caught up in the boy's excitement, if not entirely following the details.

Macao pointed out, "Wendy and Sherria tied for first, though. Those two are in a league of their own."

"Yeah, well, you lose to Cana every week," his son shot back.

"I don't lose every week! I was the last one standing during the Solstice celebrations!"

"…Yeah, I meant your training battles, not your drinking competitions."

"Aren't they one and the same, with Cana?" Lucy laughed, and then, at the mention of her friend, she remembered another point that had come up in their conversation. "Neither of you have joined Lamia Scale, have you?"

Both shook their heads, vehemence split equally between father and son. "I'm working at the Phoenix and Pyre – needed a steady job to pay the rent – and I'm freelancing as a mage when I can."

"And I'm helping out at the summer camp!" Romeo piped up.

"Yes, two retired Lamia Scale mages set up a summer camp for kids – you know, sports, orienteering, puzzle-solving, a little bit of magic… Romeo helps out there. He's great with the little kids. They see him as a role model."

"Yeah! I can't wait for the guild to get back together, so that I can show Natsu how much I've learnt!"

If Lucy's smile became a little forced at the mention of her former teammate, neither of her old colleagues seemed to notice. Shifting the conversation back to her original topic, she followed up, "Do you mind if I ask why you didn't join Lamia Scale?"

"Because it's not our guild," Romeo shrugged, a blunt and utterly unoffended response. "Like Dad said, we waited seven years for Fairy Tail once before. We're not the kind of people to just abandon our guild and join another one so easily."

Macao backed him up. "The Lamia Scale mages understand that. They've been really good to us, allowing us to work freelance in their city with no expectation that we'll ever join them. They know we'll be gone as soon as Fairy Tail comes back."

Remembering how Lyon and Sherria had reacted to her quest, Lucy nodded slowly. Romeo jumped in, "Oh! Not that we're saying Wendy was wrong to join Lamia Scale or anything. With Sherria being there, Lamia Scale was already kind of like a second home to her. But for the rest of us, we only have one home, and that's Fairy Tail."

"I understand that," Lucy smiled. "There's something that has been puzzling me, though. Quite a few people from our guild have come to Marguerite Town, but no one except Wendy did it to join Lamia Scale. Can I ask why you picked Marguerite? Surely there would be more freelance work in a city that doesn't have a famous guild, like Crocus or Hargeon."

Romeo blinked at her, an expression of confusion whose authenticity she could believe – unlike when Zeref did it. Yet it hadn't been Romeo she was really asking, and Lucy could have sworn that she saw a shadow dart momentarily across his father's face.

However, Macao did not answer the question at first, instead glancing to the clock on the wall. "Romeo, didn't you say you were helping out with a tag rugby session at midday? It's already quarter to; go and get changed."

The boy jumped to his feet and sprinted up the stairs. Perceiving it as a dismissal of sorts, Lucy also stood up. "I should probably be going, too. I'm supposed to be meeting- uh, another colleague at midday."

By now, she was so accustomed to Zeref ignoring any questions he didn't want to answer that she didn't realize, at first, why Macao accompanied her to the door, or why he began to speak in an undertone that would not carry up to Romeo's bedroom.

"Lucy," he began carefully. "Do you remember what it was like to fight Tartaros? Fairy Tail had been in dangerous situations before, but never like that. Our friends were led into traps, kidnapped, and tortured. Half of Magnolia was destroyed simply because it stood between the demons and us. Not a trace was left of the guildhall. This wasn't just another case of our guild stumbling across a dark guild or a conspiracy and putting a stop to it – Tartaros sought us out. They targeted Fairy Tail. They attacked us, unprovoked, because of who we were."

Lucy's response came as a whisper – a ghost of a time she had wanted to forget; dark days spent trying and failing to cope in the aftermath of that battle, alone. "I know."

"We won that fight because we were together," Macao continued. "The Master, and Natsu, and Erza, and you and me and Romeo and everyone who stood as one against the guild of demons. Our unity has always been our strength. I was so proud to be part of Fairy Tail that day.

"But what happened as soon as the war was won? The guild was disbanded. Our one advantage over the dark guilds disappeared just like that. Our unity, which kept us strong against dragons and dark mages and hell itself, finally fell… but it wasn't to an enemy. It was to an inexplicable decision from within. The battle against Tartaros taught us that the evil in this world is vindictive – and it has chosen Fairy Tail as its enemy. And yet the guild we fought for on that day, the guild whose mark makes us a target for every dark mage in Fiore, abandoned us."

Macao sighed, seeming, in that one expression, wearier than Makarov and older than Zeref.

"Why did so many of us come to Marguerite Town, you ask? Because of Lamia Scale. They're one of the strongest guilds in the kingdom. They stick together and they care about their home. With Fairy Tail disbanded, this is quite possibly the safest place in Fiore."

They stood on either side of the open door: Macao in the house he was paying for through an ordinary bartending job, relegating his mage work to a hobby in a city where there were few independent jobs going in order to provide a stable home for his son; Lucy in the street outside, wrapped in the chill wind and yesterday's clothes, having gambled everything she had on a man she didn't trust for a guild she wasn't even sure she wanted back.

She had learnt a lot from the ex-colleagues she'd met since her journey had begun.

From Wendy, she had discovered that not everyone had spent the past ten months floundering in the same mental rut as her.

In Romeo, she had seen the unadulterated joy she had once felt for the guild, and thought that she might be capable of feeling that again, in time.

Cana had shown her that she had been too caught up in the impulsiveness of Zeref's quest to consider any of the logistics – or the repercussions. She had been so desperate for something – anything – to change in her life that she had already stopped caring that she was travelling with a man whose ultimate aim was to destroy her guild, along with everything else she held dear.

But it was Macao's parting words that stuck with her the most. It was his simple and sincere honesty; the utter lack of shame that could come only from an inability to understand that others might not feel the same way.

"Lucy," confessed he. "We came to Marguerite because we were scared."