The Scars That Make You Whole
By CrimsonStarbird
Riot When the Lights Go Out, Part 3
-As I Awake on Padded Ground-
To have spent over six days on an impromptu cross-Fiore adventure and only now be waking up in hospital was, in Lucy's considered opinion, a jolly good show.
She wasn't even that badly hurt – not by the standards of those who had fought Laxus before, at least. Coming away from a fight like that without being wrapped from head to toe in bandages was already a success, even before the fact that she hadn't strictly lost was taken into account.
All in all, Lucy was feeling pretty good as the nurse completed the final checks, ensuring that there was nothing worse afflicting her than magical exhaustion and a few bruises. The quality of the care here was excellent – though it probably helped that the magical injuries ward of Selinon's General Hospital was far less busy than Magnolia's. It was almost as if Selinon's local guild didn't go round starting fights to pass the time. She had to wonder when she had become the bad influence on her friends.
Laxus still hadn't awoken by the time she was ready to be discharged, so she decided to come back and talk to him later. She was a little surprised that the Raijinshuu weren't sat by his bed, although closer inspection solved that mystery – a scribbled note from Freed on his bedside table informed Laxus that they had gone to the Blue Pegasus Archives and would be back to check on him shortly.
Lucy was secretly relieved. At least this way, she would get some time to think before having to talk to Laxus and his team.
Everything had happened so quickly in the heat of battle. She didn't even know what to make of her own revelations yet.
The gentle summer afternoon seemed a lot more appealing now that high noon had been and gone. In the distance, clouds were beginning to gather, but they were far enough away that she had no intention of letting them ruin her enjoyment of a perfectly bright day. She walked through the hospital gardens, gently easing the aches from her muscles, pondering how best to get in touch with Zeref. Would it be better to look for him in the hotel where they had both taken rooms – after she'd put her foot down about letting him stay out alone in the forest again – or in the most luxurious ice cream parlour Selinon had to offer?
Or perhaps he would find her. Amidst the reds and purples of the garden was a little patch of black, which on closer inspection revealed itself to be the hair and robes of a certain Black Mage perched upon a low stone wall.
He turned to look as she approached, and to her surprise, he smiled. "You survived, then."
"What are you doing here?" Lucy demanded.
"Waiting for you to wake up, of course. Sorry I couldn't come in. I don't do well in hospitals."
"Why?"
"It's where people come when they want to live," he explained calmly. "It makes it more difficult for me to control my curse."
Lucy stared at him. "No, I meant – why were you waiting for me?"
The image of the Raijinshuu fussing over a hospitalized Laxus made perfect sense. The image of her own smug and often unhelpful teammate (not to mention, future enemy) doing the same didn't fit at all.
"How else was I supposed to make sure you were alright?" he pointed out, seemingly confused by her confusion. "So, are you alright? I presume the doctors wouldn't have let you go if you weren't."
"Yes, I'm fine. Just a bit worn out. Although," she added, contentment welling up within her once more at the recollection of her achievement, "I think I'm doing rather well, considering I did just, you know, score a double-knockout against Laxus."
Zeref pursed his lips. "You used Keyless Star Dress again."
It must have taken centuries of practice to get such a young voice to sound that disapproving, and Lucy folded her arms automatically. "Seriously? That's the response you're going with?"
"I could feel the strain you were putting on space, Lucy! You are using magic that isn't supposed to be used – that isn't even supposed to exist! Does that not concern you? At all?"
The elation of her victory was quickly going up in smoke. "Suddenly, I am reminded why it was Natsu I was excited to tell about this, and not you."
"Yes, that would have been better," Zeref snapped, and Lucy took a startled step back.
She had only heard him use that cutting tone once or twice before, and it had always been accompanied by the same hellfire flaring in his eyes, the same hostility blazing up between them. This time, he seemed to think better of it, glancing away without saying anything more. She expected to find his fingers curled around his pendant, his usual method for reining in his emotions, but instead he was drumming the fingers of both hands upon his stone seat.
Eventually, he said, "I didn't think you were the kind of person who would take any risks for the sake of victory, that's all."
"I'm not," she bristled. "It wasn't about victory. It was about earning Laxus's respect. Yes, I shouldn't have used my keyless magic, and I tried so hard not to throughout the whole fight, but the only way to get through to him was to fight him with everything I had!"
Zeref shook his head. "You didn't need it to win."
"I did! I had to give my keys to Gemini in order to fool Laxus-"
"Yes, and then you could have called them back to you at the last moment, using the magic I taught you the other night," Zeref finished.
"…Oh," said Lucy.
"Well?"
"I, uh… I forgot about that." At his accusing glance, she deflected, "Oh, come on! It was the middle of battle; I was running completely on autopilot – I'll try and remember next time!"
He did not smile. "The universe is doomed."
"Always so supportive," Lucy huffed, turning away. She watched the irregular flow of visitors in and out of the hospital and wondered if Laxus was awake yet… or if going to check would be a good enough excuse to get her out of this conversation.
"I suppose," Zeref said, after a pause, "that it was impressive how much you managed to deduce about Laxus while you were fighting him."
"I thought you'd approve of that more than my fighting prowess," Lucy smiled. Her next thought, however, turned the mood swiftly back to sombre. "Did you know? About Laxus being injured, that is?"
"I did not," Zeref answered thoughtfully. "He may have been a fool to keep it from his teammates, but by doing so, he was also able to keep it from my spies. I wouldn't have guessed the nature of his impairment, either. Now that I know what to look for, I can just about sense the anomaly in his magical presence, but he's hiding it incredibly well."
"It was your demon who did this to him."
"So I've heard."
"Then… would you be able to undo what the demon did?"
"Hmm. Maybe. Yes, I think I would be able to reverse it."
"Then-"
"But, I won't."
"Why not?"
Zeref gave her a look she'd previously assumed he reserved for people who tried to treat him like a child. "Lucy, have you any idea what a stroke of luck this is for me? To have Laxus Dreyar still alive and able to return to the guild, but also incapacitated through injury – I couldn't engineer a more favourable scenario if I tried!"
"Don't talk about him like that! He's my friend!"
"He's not my friend," Zeref pointed out coolly. "He is, in fact, my enemy, and an extremely dangerous enemy at that. I had maybe two or three people I would have felt comfortable sending out against him, and now, overnight, one of the greatest threats to me has vanished."
"I thought we were supposed to be helping each other!"
"We have a non-aggression pact, Lucy. Not an agreement that I will solve all your problems for you, at great cost to myself or otherwise."
Lucy shook her head. "So you're fine with leaving him to suffer, then."
The look Zeref gave her was completely, utterly baffled. "Of course I'm fine with it! What did you think I was going to say?"
"I thought you were better than that, that's all."
"I have a war to fight on the First of September, Lucy. If your soldiers are compromised, that's your problem, not mine."
"You…"
Her words faded away. Still he was giving her that patronizing look, as if he couldn't see why she didn't understand something so very obvious, and she knew that nothing she could say would change his mind. She was angry – angry and disappointed – both at him for being so heartless, and at herself, for allowing herself to forget who he was.
"Fine." She had nothing more to say to a man like that, so she turned her back and walked away.
Lucy didn't have any real plan for where she was going – only that she wanted to be somewhere he wasn't.
She knew, realistically, that he had no obligation towards Laxus, and that she couldn't really have expected him to do something so contrary to his goals… and she was frustrated with herself for having forgotten that for a moment; for having got her hopes up.
It was difficult to remember the awkward beginning of their quest, when he had been unhelpful and she had been hostile, and their allegiance had been one of necessity, blackmail, and mistrust. This would be so much simpler if she could go back to feeling that way about him.
She wasn't certain, though, that she had ever treated him as an enemy the way he sometimes did her. He had been a stranger at worst, and he certainly wasn't that any more.
When the uninterrupted walk around town had cooled her frustration, she went to the guildhall. Neither Freed, Bickslow nor Evergreen were anywhere to be seen. She tried asking after them, but after several minutes of being unable to get a word in through the barrage of questions about her and Laxus's duel – which, thanks to the lack of any Blue Pegasus witnesses, had already been inflated by speculation and rumour into a clash between the Celestial Spirit King and full-Dragon-Force Laxus – she slipped away to the hospital again.
At least, she'd thought she'd walked into the hospital, but apparently someone had stolen the magical injuries ward and replaced it with a library.
Rather than simply closing the curtains which had been hanging open around Laxus's bed when she'd left, someone – probably Freed – had decided that six-foot-tall book stacks were a better way of providing privacy.
Bemused, Lucy started towards the monoliths honouring the patron saint of Requip Space Libraries and poor packing priorities, but paused when a crisp voice from the other side of the barricade vocalized the question buzzing around her own brain: "Explain."
Laxus, it turned out, could do exasperated perfectly well from a hospital bed.
"These are all the books they had on demons," came Freed's muffled explanation, enhanced by a joy that either hadn't been able to hear Laxus's exasperation, or was simply too well buttressed by his books to be swayed by it. "This is everything on Magic Barrier Particles. These ones are all about Dragon Slayers, sorted by editions published before and after the discovery of Second Generation powers. Those ones there even date from before the Dragon Wars, so they'll be a lot more accurate when it comes to dragons, but they're also much rarer, so be careful with them. And these are… everything else that seemed useful. Plus a little pile of fiction for if you get bored in hospital."
"Right. And how did you get all these books out of the Blue Pegasus Archives without Master Bob noticing?"
"I didn't, of course. He knows. This is all above board."
The suspicion in Laxus's tone cranked up another notch. "So you're telling me that the living, breathing reason why you sleep in a tent in the corner of the Archives is suddenly okay with you taking rare books out of the guildhall?"
"Well, he was once I…"
"Once you what?"
"Once… once he understood what they were for."
"You told him?" exclaimed the Dragon Slayer, with a level of volume wholly inappropriate for a hospital.
"Of course I did!"
Hidden behind the books, Lucy winced. She was glad she hadn't rushed head-first into this confrontation, though she did feel sorry for Freed as the electric lights in the ceiling began to spit sparks.
"Did it not occur to you," Laxus growled, "that maybe there was a reason why I went to such lengths to keep this to myself?"
"Yes, but-"
"That maybe, just maybe, I didn't want the entire world to know about it?"
"Yes," Freed said steadily. "But you were wrong."
Laxus hissed a wordless threat, but to Lucy's amazement, the rune mage held his ground. "It's time you stopped trying to do everything yourself and let us help! I've got these books to go through; Bickslow has gone to see if Porlyusica can explain why the cure didn't work the first time; Evergreen said something about talking to other guilds and hopped on the first train out of Selinon… and everyone in Blue Pegasus is brainstorming ideas for how to extract Magic Barrier Particles."
"You're wasting your time," Laxus snapped. "Do you think I've been doing nothing these last ten months? I've looked for solutions! There are none!"
"Eighty percent of these books are in languages I know you can't read," Freed countered. "And none of us know nearly as much about magic as Master Bob or medicine as Porlyusica. When you can't do something, you're not supposed to write it off as impossible – you're supposed to open it up to your team! That's what we're here for!"
"You can't find a solution that doesn't exist. All you've done is let all the guild's enemies know about my weakness!"
"There is a solution," Lucy interrupted, stepping out from behind a stack of books. As they both turned to her in surprise, she blustered, "I was just, uh…" before deciding it might be best not to draw attention to her eavesdropping. "There has to be at least one way of getting rid of the Magic Barrier Particles. I have a, uh, friend who said he knew how to do it, but he's a bit reluctant to help. Still, the point is, he knew a way, so maybe we can find it too."
Laxus's emotions had seemed so obvious when she could only hear his voice, but now that she had a facial expression to incorporate into his response, she was reminded of just how unreadable he could be. Maybe he'd only let his guard down because he'd thought he and Freed were alone.
Neutrally, Laxus asked, "Is this the friend who interfered in our battle?"
"Your Spymaster General?" Freed added.
"Is that what he called himself?" Lucy sighed. "Cana gave him that nickname. I think he's become quite fond of it." The spark of affection the memory inspired was quickly quenched, however. "It's complicated… but I might be able to convince him to help, or at least trick a clue out of him…"
Laxus seemed to consider this for a moment, and then he beckoned for her to come closer. She approached his bed warily, conscious of Freed's curious gaze burning into her back all the while.
In an undertone, so that Freed would not hear, Laxus began, "Lucy, this friend of yours…"
"What about him?" she asked, trying not to sound defensive or worried and guessing she was failing at both.
"I don't know him," Laxus said steadily. "But this does." He thumped his chest just to the side of his heart – where, she realized, his dragon lacrima must have been hidden within his body. "It knows his smell. It knows his magic. It's terrified of him."
"That's odd," she evaded, wondering absently if it was just his draconic instincts talking, or if the dragon whose magic was sealed inside the lacrima had somehow encountered Zeref long ago… and what it would mean if it had.
Looking into his eyes, Lucy realized that there was a different kind of intensity to his gaze than she had seen upon the battlefield – it was the intensity Sting had shared, when he'd been trying to determine if she was being forced to act against her will.
Laxus asked, every word carefully chosen, "Lucy, is everything alright?"
"Yes. It's…" Lucy paused, wondering how much she could risk telling him. "Like I said, it's complicated. We're working towards the same goal, and we have a non-aggression pact in the meantime. Everything is under control, trust me."
"Are you sure you know what you're doing?"
"I do," she said, catching that gaze and holding it, and after a moment, he nodded once.
"Fine. You can tell your friend that I don't want his help."
Lucy winced. "Look, I know why you might be reluctant to trust him, but I would vouch for him – if I could get him to agree, that is – and you wouldn't have to put up with being this weak-"
Perhaps lightning flashed in his eyes, or perhaps the electric lights dimmed all at once in the room, giving those irises the same apparent flare. "If you think that not being as powerful as I was before means that I am weak, then you are severely underestimating your own strength, Lucy. I am not ashamed to consider our battle a draw, although if we ever do find a solution to my little problem, I will be asking for a rematch."
Lucy gulped.
"Besides…" Laxus's gaze shifted over her shoulder, to where Freed still hovered uncertainly. "I have been assured that, now that the Raijinshuu are on the case, I won't have to put up with being like this for much longer."
"Then you're okay with us helping?" Freed checked, happiness bursting into his voice like an unfolding rose.
"I don't have a choice, do I?" Laxus grumbled. "You've only known about this for three hours, and by the sounds of things, you've already got half of Fiore involved."
For the first time since her argument with Zeref, Lucy found herself grinning. She had become so used to solving problems with him that she had almost forgotten the most important thing: she could always, always, go to her guild for help. Fairy Tail looked after their own – even when they were too proud to ask for it. The guild had got on just fine before she'd met the Black Mage. They didn't need him now.
"And don't you forget that, either," Laxus said to her, and she caught the words he hadn't said, too: if this friend of yours starts causing you trouble, tell me.
"Okay," she promised. Some part of her marvelled at how comfortable she felt around him after a single battle. Maybe there was something to be said for the Natsu Dragneel School Of Making Friends. "Does this mean that you're going to come back to Fairy Tail?"
The Dragon Slayer glanced away. "It means I'll think about it. I suppose everyone's going to know about me whether I go back or not now, thanks to you."
"Yeah… I'm sorry about that."
"No, you're not," he said flatly.
Lucy opened her mouth, then glimpsed the usually-so-composed rune mage beaming like a child at the edge of her vision, and smiled. "No, you're right, I'm not. I'll see you on the First of September."
With a grunt, he turned away from her again, and she decided to take it as a dismissal. All in all, she thought, Blue Pegasus had been one of the most successful parts of her quest to date. Solving the mystery, recruiting four new (well, old) members of Fairy Tail to her side, and a rather impressive performance in a battle, if she did say so herself…
As she left the hospital, she thought to herself that today had been a good day. All that remained was to make amends with Zeref.
Which turned out to be a lot easier than she was expecting, because to her surprise, she found him sitting outside her hotel room.
There he was, back to the door, feet stretched out, four hundred years of inconsideration for other human beings distilled into one black-and-white obstacle right in the middle of the corridor. Lucy wondered absently if the legendary Black Mage and great villain of history had lost his room key.
Then again, she was pretty sure his room was on a different floor – that separation being the only condition under which he would concede to her demand that he stay in the hotel – and no sooner had he spotted her than he scrambled to his feet and all but scampered down the corridor towards her. "Lucy. I've been thinking."
"Umm, okay?"
"I still owe you for coming on this mission with me, remember? Ask me to cure Laxus as your payment for this job, and I will."
Incomprehension evolved into surprise, and then she smiled. "Thanks, but that won't be necessary."
Coolly, she turned away and began the tedious process of trying to get the lock to accept her room card.
Zeref stared at her. "What do you mean, not necessary?"
"Laxus doesn't want your help," she shrugged. "He and his team are going to find a solution on their own."
"But they might never find one! I could do this now, Lucy, and the problem would be solved!"
The lock gave a click of defeat. Lucy turned the handle, and then paused to give him a curious look. "I thought you'd be happy, Zeref. A weakened Laxus, and no obligation to solve all my problems for me – aren't you getting exactly what you wanted?"
"I don't want victory if it only comes from the sheer stupidity of my opponents! Lucy, your guild is full of morons!"
"You're only realizing this now?" she asked, raising her eyebrows. "Really, you ought to have done more research before committing to Fairy Tail's revival."
Zeref shook his head. "Come the First of September, your guild is going to be slaughtered."
"Then why do you look so worried, Zeref?" she grinned back.
Not bothering to wait for a response, she pushed the door open and began gathering her belongings from the room. He followed her inside, but loitered just in front of the door, watching her every move with unreadable eyes.
"So," Lucy chirped. "Where are we heading next?"
"I found out where Gajeel is. I think we should go and speak to him."
"Your spies in the Rune Knights finally came up, did they?" she asked half-teasingly, but was not entirely surprised when he treated the question with perfect seriousness.
"They did. Well, two nights ago, actually, but…"
"But you didn't tell me at the time because you were worried I'd push our appointment with Blue Pegasus back again in favour of going after Gajeel?" Lucy guessed.
"Yes."
"I suppose that after ten months, reaching Gajeel two days later won't make a difference," she sighed. "Do you know anything about Levy?"
"No more than you do. I suspect the fastest way to find her would be to ask Gajeel exactly how she went about infiltrating Avatar."
Slowly, Lucy nodded. "You're probably right. Well, I think we're done in Selinon, so we might as well hit the road now. Where are we headed?"
"To Point Nova – a military compound just outside Crocus."
"Crocus," Lucy echoed flatly.
Zeref gave her a puzzled look. "What's wrong with Crocus?"
"We started in Crocus."
"Yes, but Gajeel didn't arrive until after we left, so now we're going back."
"It took us six days to get here from Crocus!" Lucy practically shrieked at him.
Unhelpfully, he pointed out, "We did take a roundabout route."
"It's still several days' walk away! He'll probably have been reassigned by the time we make it all the way back there!"
"That'll only become more likely, the more time you spend complaining about it."
"…You're enjoying this, aren't you?"
"I certainly am now," he beamed.
Lucy glowered at him. "This is your fault. If not for your refusal to use public transport, we could be there before nightfall." At his predictably uncooperative shrug, she asked icily, "Tell me, Zeref – is the real reason why history thinks you're dead because it takes so you damn long to walk anywhere that by the time you get to the site of your next planned apocalypse, everyone has forgotten all about you?"
"Of course not. I can teleport myself around the world with magic easily enough."
"…And why, oh why, did you not think to mention this until now?"
"Because the spatial magic I use isn't like normal teleportation. There's no limitation on distance, but as a result, I can't take passengers along with me."
"Maybe so," she said, through gritted teeth. "But you could teleport, I could hop on a train, and we could just meet up again at the other end… instead of literally walking across the entirety of Fiore together."
"Someone had to keep an eye on you, didn't they? I couldn't have you reneging on our deal and disappearing."
"Zeref, I am not going to run off!"
"Well, yes, I know that now." He gave another entirely unapologetic shrug. "But think how much fitter you must be after all that exercise."
"You," Lucy stated, "should be very glad that we have a non-aggression pact right about now."
"Oh, I am." He grinned at her, all sparkling eyes and vibrant, wonderful life.
It was so difficult to remain angry with him.
Huffing her displeasure at the whole situation, she slung her bag over her shoulder. "We'll meet at my flat in Crocus tonight," she instructed, before storming towards the train station in a welcome, if belated, victory for common sense.
It wasn't until much later, when the clouds were drifting like lazy albatrosses through a vocal orange sky, and the windowpane through which Lucy watched them was warm from the heat of her forehead, that the reverie of the unfolding countryside offered her a different perspective upon the events of the past twenty-four hours.
She had been focussed on explaining the anomalies in Laxus's behaviour, but when she looked beyond the mystery of his career in Blue Pegasus, wasn't the one whose actions were most in need of explanation those of her very own teammate?
Zeref hadn't merely been helpful during the creation and execution of the plan against Laxus. He had been eager to help. He had hardly complained about the labour involved on his part, let alone the strain on his magic and his immortal body. Compared to how much delight he'd taken in landing her in tricky predicaments during the early days of their quest, in Selinon he had proven to be one of the most obliging and resourceful teammates she had ever had.
And although he had refused to help Laxus the first time she'd asked, hadn't he then spent the rest of the afternoon looking for a loophole that would let him do it without violating his principles? If he hadn't pointed it out, it might have been days before she remembered that he owed her a favour. And even after she'd turned him down, he had still tried to talk her into it.
His actions today had surely gone beyond necessity, beyond even reasonable assistance; he was sacrificing his own aims to help his self-professed enemies without a single good reason why. Not to mention the fact that he'd been civil towards Cana, sympathetic towards Jellal, and had saved Juvia's life without even being asked…
It occurred to her, then, that Zeref had never told her why he wanted to revive Fairy Tail.
No, he had always either evaded the question or flat-out refused to answer. It was impossible to see what he was gaining from this endeavour – but it was all too clear what helping Fairy Tail now would cost him in the long run.
Amidst the confusion, so much murkier than the swamp from which she had unearthed Laxus's motive, there was one shadowy observation beginning to take form. It was ridiculous, completely and utterly ridiculous, but once she had seen it, she just couldn't put it out of her mind.
Zeref had sworn to attack Fairy Tail on the First of September.
He had never said which side he wanted to win.
The train rolled on. Travelling alone for the first time since their journey had begun, Lucy stared out of the window, and she wondered.
In the city of Jasmine, and thanks in no small part to Lucy having moved on and taken the typical Fairy Tail craziness with her, the mages of Sabertooth were enjoying another ordinary day.
Gentle chatter filled the guildhall. The rich glow of the sunset shone through the windows.
And in the kitchens, the evening rush of mages, clients, and the general public alike provided a different kind of energy to that usually associated with mage guilds: a perfectly controlled chaos; a frantic orderliness which Fairy Tail, for all its enthusiasm, would never quite be able to match.
Swirling steam harmonized scents from all across Ishgar. The clanging of cutlery provided a swift tempo for the side of guild life that the hosts of the Tora Tora Tora Eating Contest took more seriously than any other guild. Neatly written orders, pinned atop the counter, fluttered like butterflies in the updraft from the ovens.
Humming tunelessly, the head chef reached over to pluck one of these orders, monitoring the sea bass fillet he was frying purely through the smell of cooking fish and the staccato of spitting oil. "Is that asparagus done yet?" he called.
"Two minutes, Chef!" Minerva shouted back, her voice tinged with apology.
Alright, so it wasn't a completely normal day in Sabertooth. Minerva only worked in the kitchens when she wanted a break from mage jobs, just like Yukino only waitressed on her Spirits' days off. Still, even though Minerva volunteered for it, it did mean that Elfman, as the head chef, was the only person in the guild who ever got to boss Sabertooth's princess around. In this place, the great white toque was the crown. The man who wore it swept from hob to oven to counter with the grace of a man half his size, but with an aura of command to which even his brawny form struggled to do justice.
Picking up a plate, he roared, "I need that asparagus now!"
"Yes, Chef! Ready, Chef!"
The clean plate in his hand blurred and vanished, replaced a moment later by one bearing a meticulous grid of asparagus, the vibrant green of summer glazed with butter and wild garlic. Nodding approvingly, Elfman added seared tomatoes and laid the sea bass on top, gently pouring over his own variant of the glaze until the aroma tickling his nostrils had become strong enough.
That done, he set it smoothly down on the counter and dinged the bell. "Service!" he shouted, and then, just for good measure, he dinged the bell another few times.
"Yes, I heard you the first time," Yukino sighed, as she entered the kitchen backwards, depositing an armful of empty plates next to the sink.
Elfman gave a sheepish smile. "I know. I just like the bell. It's manly. It makes me feel like I'm in charge."
"I don't think you need an instrument for that." Yukino's gaze drifted over his shoulder to where Minerva was wringing her hands, anxious over her late asparagus, and she couldn't help smiling as she looked back at the head chef. "You look a lot better today, if you don't mind me saying."
"I feel a lot better," Elfman admitted. "I don't think it's physically possible to be unhappy in my kitchen."
"Tell that to your poor sous-chef."
Now both of them glanced at Minerva, who reached meekly for the next order as Elfman gave her an encouraging thumbs-up.
"Seriously, though, Yukino," Elfman continued. "Thanks for… well, for looking out for me these past few months. It means a lot."
"Hey, what's a guild for?" Embarrassed, Yukino reached for the plate of sea bass. "This is for table five, right?"
"Yeah."
"Ah, they requested for the chef to bring the food out in person. Sorry."
The head chef shifted uncomfortably at the thought of leaving his kitchen. "I'm needed here…"
"If you can spare a minute to talk to me, you can take thirty seconds to deliver this to the table," Yukino refuted him firmly.
"Alright, alright…"
Elfman picked up the plate of food and trudged out of the kitchen.
He was back less than a second later, his free hand clasped over his chest as if he'd had a heart attack.
Which he probably had.
"I can't go out there!" he gasped.
"Of course you can," Yukino said, bemused.
He shook his head vehemently, not losing his hat only by virtue of practice. "I can't! She'll eat me alive! Or maybe she'll turn my internal organs to stone one by one just to see which produces the most interesting kind of death…"
"Don't be silly. She clearly just wants to talk to you."
"You don't understand-"
The problem was, Yukino did understand. She was kind, and she was sympathetic, and she was one of the few members of the guild who had the patience to see him through his melancholy moods… but she was also a true Sabertooth mage, and she had no time for cowardice. She was not afraid to put her foot down when she sensed her friend slipping from genuinely needing support to rejecting change in favour of a cycle of self-pity, and she had a feeling that this was one of those times.
"Elfman, you've been running away from your girlfriend for ten months-"
"She's not my girlfriend," the chef winced. "She never was. And if you have any kind of attachment to your flesh-and-blood body, don't even insinuate anything of the sort to her."
"…Right. Well, it doesn't change the fact that you've been running away from her, and she has clearly had enough of it. Pull yourself together and go find out what she wants."
"I…"
"Out you go," Yukino insisted firmly. Over her shoulder, Minerva thwacked a ladle threateningly into the palm of her hand – a wordless reminder that if Sabertooth needed its Princess more than a novice chef right now, she would be more than happy to oblige.
"Fiiiine," Elfman groaned. "Tell my sisters I love them…"
And with that, he slunk out of the kitchen.
There she was. His gaze was drawn to her at once, just as it had the first time he had stepped outside his kitchen, pulled like a magnet to the sleek hair and stylish dress and audacious, outgoing, fearless colours he had hoped and dreaded to see for so many months. His heart leapt with recognition, but there was no ground to catch it again, and it fell and kept falling into a pit where crocodiles waited.
She was staring out of the window. Maybe, if she hadn't seen him, he could still get away. Alvarez probably took asylum seekers.
With every meek footstep, he wondered what grave sins he must have committed to make his walk through the purgatory of his guildhall take so long. So much hot sweat was prickling at his forehead that he could imagine clouds of steam billowing from the top of his hat.
The plate jingled on the table as he set it down nervously in front of her. "One fillet of sea bass. Enjoy."
Now she looked around, and Elfman realized with a sickening jolt that she had been watching his reflection in the window the entire time. He swallowed, but she said nothing, picking up her knife and fork and beginning to eat with delicate slowness.
After several moments passed and he was still breathing, Elfman dared to open his eyes a crack. "Is it… to madam's satisfaction?" he asked.
A haughty, detached voice, as if speaking to a servant who had had the gall to interrupt her during her feast. "The asparagus is too tough."
"Ah, you can't really blame Minerva for that. She's good, but she's used to casual cooking, not the pace of a professional kitchen. When we're this busy, the rush of orders can get on top of her…"
Now Evergreen glanced up, reinforcing her sharp look with a jab of her fork, which made Elfman instinctively add another few inches to the already-healthy distance between them. "You didn't even make all this yourself?"
"Of course not! That's not how professional kitchens work! It's my recipe, but I have assistants to help with the preparation…"
Her eyebrows knitted together with a ferocity even Laxus would have envied. "Then I don't even know why I bothered coming here."
"You…" Just for a moment, Elfman's mouth hung open. "You came all the way here so that I would cook you something?"
"Of course not!" Her words lashed out defensively, covering any accidental gap in her armour. "I came to Sabertooth to ask if anyone knew anything about Magic Barrier Particles. Since it's late, I thought I might as well grab something to eat before carrying on to Lamia Scale. I wish I hadn't bothered, now."
"If you'd told me you were here, I'd have made something specially!"
"You have a very high opinion of yourself to assume that's what I wanted!"
"Oh, yes, I forgot." Elfman's voice was rising now, like it hadn't in ten months. Maybe his never-quite-girlfriend was getting to him in a way no one else could manage, or maybe he was just accustomed to their interactions carrying this level of volume, but the mild persona he had cultivated through ten months of keeping his head down was cracking. "Cooking isn't good enough for you-"
"I never said cooking wasn't good enough!" Evergreen exploded. "The only thing about you that isn't good enough is how you rejected me without so much as an apology or explanation!"
Silence fell across the entire guildhall. Neither of them noticed.
It took Elfman several attempts to form the words. "R-R-Rejected you?"
"You've forgotten already? Don't know why I'm surprised."
"Hang on, how could I have rejected you when you never even asked me out?"
"I did too!" she shouted back. "I invited you to stay with me and the Raijinshuu when the guild split up!"
"But that's not- oh." Understanding hit, ten months too late. "So you weren't just… you were actually… well, how was I supposed to know what you meant by that?"
"What else could I have meant, you twit? How many times have you ever seen the Raijinshuu invite someone to train with them? Have you any idea how long it took me to get the others to agree-?"
"Well, I'm sorry for not understanding your unnecessarily complicated hidden message! Would it really have killed you to have said, in words, I want you to come with us when the guild disbands because I like you?"
Evergreen bristled at the sheer bluntness of it. "That's extraordinarily presumptuous of you, given that I can't stand you!"
"These mixed messages are exactly what I'm talking about!"
"No one else seems to have a problem with understanding!"
"Actually, they do!" Elfman retorted. "Have you been in touch with anyone from the guild recently? Juvia's been struggling to make do for months because Gray left without a word of explanation! Lucy and Natsu have been at odds ever since the guild disbanded because of Natsu's failure to communicate! The only people I know who have been getting on fine are Levy and Gajeel, and that's because they actually sat down when Fairy Tail disbanded and discussed the fact that they wanted to stay together! But me, no, I get someone who is worse at communicating than the man who made his girlfriend's acquaintance by literally nailing her to a tree-"
"Right, because you weren't too wrapped up in your own self-pity after the fight with Tartaros to even listen to what I was saying," Evergreen shot back.
"Well, I'm listening to you now, and you're still not telling me plainly what you want!"
"What makes you think that what I want has anything to do with you?"
"I don't care if you want me or not! I want you to tell me either way, because at least then I'll know for sure where I stand!"
That had not come out like he intended. All the time spent convincing himself that Evergreen would never accept his career change, believing that she didn't think he was good enough to hang out with her team – those memories and his own mad adrenaline were speaking now.
And to his amazement, rather than immediately shooting him down, Evergreen sucked in a tight breath. "Fine. I've had enough of being perceived as the villain because no one bothers to listen to what I'm actually saying. So I'll just say it: I've spent ten months missing you and I'm quite frankly tired of it. I want you to come back to Fairy Tail with me so I don't have to miss you any more."
"I've spent ten months believing that you and your team are ashamed to be seen with me because I'd rather cook than fight," Elfman replied steadily. "I want… to not have to feel that way any more."
Evergreen got up suddenly. She reached blindly for her cutlery, missed, and jabbed him with the hilt of an asparagus spear instead. "No one ever said you had to feel that way! And for the record, I'd like it if you stopped acting as though I'm so shallow I would dump you just because you quit being a mage!"
"You can't dump me, because we're not going out!"
"Yeah?" she retorted. "And whose fault is that?"
"Yours!"
"It's yours, you twit! Weren't you listening to a single thing I said?"
Elfman was the first to glance away. "I… I was listening to the part where you said you'd missed me," he admitted, far softer than before. "I'm sorry for screwing up. I've… I've missed you too. Hearing that you're okay with me being a chef makes me so happy."
"Then stop pratting around and get your ass back to Fairy Tail."
"But-"
"No buts. What's the point in you being a chef if you're not working in the one guildhall where I'm likely to come for food at the end of a long mission?"
After a moment, a reluctant smile touched Elfman's lips. "Yeah."
"Not to mention, you owe me a proper homemade meal."
"That is a proper meal," he protested half-heartedly, nodding towards the poor, forgotten sea bass.
"It doesn't count unless you actually make the damn thing yourself, rather than passing the hard work onto one of your lackeys!"
"Fine."
"Fine!"
They glared at each other.
"Just kiss already!" someone shouted.
They whipped around as if they'd heard a gunshot. All the mages of Sabertooth were gathered in the guildhall, eyes glued to the unfolding drama. Yukino had her hand clamped – a moment too late, it seemed – over Sting's mouth. Lector was holding some heart-shaped balloons. Someone had made the mistake of giving Frosch some confetti.
"Oh, for heaven's sake," Evergreen muttered, and she promptly turned the entire of Sabertooth to stone.
"Umm," Elfman said.
"Your adoptive guild is so nosy," she sniffed.
He opened his mouth to object, but he could think of nothing except how much he had missed that no-nonsense expression.
How his passion for cooking hadn't quite been enough to make up for the passion that had been missing from his life ever since she'd left it.
How much of a fool he had been to believe that she would push him away for such a trivial reason.
She leaned up on her tiptoes to kiss him, and for a few blissful moments, he didn't have to think about anything at all.
In the silence of the petrified guild, Elfman finally felt able to voice his fears to the woman he had thought least likely to accept them. "I want to come back with you, and be Fairy Tail's chef," he confessed. "But I'm the one who destroyed the guildhall. I'm not sure the others will take me back so easily."
Evergreen pursed her lips. Not judging him, not laughing at his insecurities, but accepting them as he had never dared to believe she would – and turning her practical attitude towards solving them as only she could.
"Well," she said, at last. "There's one obvious thing we can do about that, isn't there?"