Note: So, several months back, I received a message from an old PM buddy saying that a few of the last Grayza holdouts were putting together a Grayza-centric fanzine for a last hurrah as everyone starts drifting to new fandoms. I was asked to contribute a fic, so I dusted off my box of unwritten Fairy Tail ideas (at that point, I hadn't written anything for the fandom in a few months) and wrote not one but two Grayza fics to be submitted. You might recall that I'm really only halfway a Grayza shipper, but it was a fun little project to participate in. Anyway, that fanzine was finally published last week or so, so I'm free to post those fics here now. This is the first one.

If you're interested, you can find the free fanzine PDF if you Google "Grayza fanzine tumblr". It's linked on their tumblr page (grazya-fanzine at tumblr). Or you can follow the masked link here: drive [period] google [dotcom] /file/d/1rlVKG83Bxq18mfWu2Fg_0TPIJJpkaGPt/view (remove spaces/brackets and replace "dot" or "period" with...well, a dot). As a caveat, there are a couple not-PG fics in there, so you can do what I did and skim over those parts if you find them uncomfortable. There's some art as well.

Erza was quite tired of feeling small. It wasn't a feeling she was used to, as she was not particularly short and was often regarded as a bit larger than life by even those taller than her. She had a warrior's bearing and confidence born of power, and it showed.

And then she had quite suddenly been turned into a child, a sorry state of affairs that she had not been forced to endure for many years, and been tossed about unceremoniously by Minerva. Also a sorry state of affairs, as she would have liked to defeat the other woman in a fair fight. Again. But then, she thought a little sadly, it seemed like Minerva was intent on defeating herself, dragging herself through the mud to skulk in the shadows with dark guilds.

And as if that indignity wasn't enough, Erza was now surrounded by a group of thawed and very lively giants. One had very nearly squashed her flat. It didn't matter that she was properly full-sized again—thank goodness!—when everyone else towered fifty feet in the air. She might be her normal self, but being confronted with toes almost at eye-level made her feel even smaller than when she'd been forcibly de-aged. She wondered if this was what the Master felt like on a daily basis.

It wouldn't have been so bad if her friends were similarly out of sorts, but they seemed perfectly content.

Flare, after a bout of awkwardness, had smiled the biggest smile Erza had ever seen and fallen back into place like she'd never left the Sun Village at all. Lucy and Wendy seemed more curious than uncomfortable, taking everything in with wide, starry eyes. Charle was berating Happy for his clumsiness during the mission—something about dropping the moon drip and not being able to fly in a straight line when reduced to a kitten, as well as something especially stupid he'd done that Erza couldn't quite make heads or tails of—while he looked contrite aside from the sidelong longing glances he cast at the huge spread of food laid out in the village center. As if he hadn't already stuffed himself silly the second it was brought out. Natsu, of course, was having the time of his life, eating everything he could get his hands on and chatting loudly to anyone who would listen. He was actually sitting on top of one of the giant's heads, for goodness' sake. And Gray…

Erza looked around with a small frown. Actually, she didn't see Gray anywhere. She knew he'd been here earlier when the party had begun, but she couldn't seem to find him now.

"Where's Gray?" she asked Lucy, sidling up next to her.

Lucy paused her storytelling—evidently she was practicing her skills as an up-and-coming authoress by regaling the giants with tales of the team's many adventures, although that was only after she'd gawped wide-eyed at their own raucous yarns—and glanced around the square. The large edifices and sprawling walkways were illuminated brightly in the blazing light of the eternal flame, but only a dozen giants and the humans sans Gray were visible. Still, there were plenty of places to hide or simply be overlooked in a village where everything was twenty times its normal size.

"Hm, I don't see him," she said. "He was here earlier. The giants were really interested in him and Natsu—since they melted the ice and relit the eternal flame, you know—so they were asking a lot of questions. I guess he might have wandered off. I'm sure he'll turn up sooner or later."

Erza shrugged it off. Lucy was right, and it wasn't her job to babysit her team. Gray was a big boy and could do what he wanted. Still, she caught herself keeping an eye out for him. He ought to be out here in the thick of things, celebrating with the rest of them. She was a little surprised that he wasn't picking a fight with Natsu or bragging to everyone with ears about how he'd defeated the de-aging demon and melted the ice smothering the eternal flame.

She drifted around the square, idly keeping a lookout for Gray while she pounded some sense into Natsu and thanked their hosts and winced at the deafening sounds of their revelry. She would have thought she'd be used to such noise and chaos since Fairy Tail had more than its fair share of it, but even such a rowdy guild as theirs couldn't quite compare to a gathering of partying giants. They came awful close, though.

She squawked in surprise as a giant shoe stomped down right next to her.

"Oh?" The giant leaned down and squinted myopically in her direction. "Sorry about that."

"Sit down, you short-sighted oaf!" another giant roared. "You're going to squish one of the little ones with how bad your eyes are!"

Erza shuddered. A near-sighted giant was a terrifying thought.

While the offender shuffled off meekly, Erza took the opportunity to slip between two of the houses. At least she was less liable to get squashed here.

She walked through the gap between the houses—a veritable alleyway of its own—and emerged on the other side. It was a little quieter here since the party was confined to the other side of the housing row, but not by much. It was a little darker too, but light and shadow still danced a merry tune as the eternal flame crackled merrily high above.

She wandered along the street, regarding the houses lining either side curiously. She eyed the oversized objects strewn about and craned her neck all the way back to run her gaze along the roofs. She felt like a doll who had escaped from her dollhouse. What a peculiar feeling. She had never really had dolls before—there had been no use for them in the Tower and she hadn't been enough of a child after to display more than a passing interest in child's toys—but she imagined this would be what it felt like.

She was so absorbed in examining every detail of the village that she almost tripped right over Gray.

He was sitting with his back to one great wall and his face tilted up, lips pursed and eyes distant as his gaze wandered idly among the stars.

"Gray?" Erza asked. "What are you doing out here?"

He brought his chin back down and regarded her, dark eyes glittering solemnly in the firelight. "Not much," he said. "What about you?"

An odd feeling like tiny butterflies fluttering in Erza's stomach tickled her senses, but she squashed it down ruthlessly. It seemed to be popping up more frequently lately, which she found quite vexing. She hadn't put a name to it just yet, but it had definitely been making a nuisance of itself as of late.

"Oh, I almost got stepped on by a giant and decided it seemed a little less dangerous back here. But I thought you'd be thrilled with such a big party."

Gray wrinkled his nose and then caught himself and smoothed his features back out. "I suppose. It's fun, I just needed a break for a few minutes."

"Me too!" Erza agreed with feeling, and a faint smile tugged at the corner of Gray's mouth.

"Really? The indefatigable Erza, strict disciplinarian of the craziest guild in Fiore, was undone by a handful of giants?"

"Oh, hush."

Erza sat down beside him with a huff and eyed him curiously. She wondered what he was thinking about, out here away from everyone. The muffled sounds of revelry ricocheted off the high, stony walls, and she was surprised at how distant they seemed when the party was just down the road.

Gray, after watching her expectantly for a moment more, tilted his head back again and returned his gaze to the sky. Erza followed suit. The walls of the surrounding houses towered high in the air before revealing a thick crack of velvet night and twinkling stars between the roofs, and not even the rough stone pressed against her back was enough to dispel the sudden vertigo. When even the sky seemed small and far away, how could she not feel tiny and insignificant? She took a few deep breaths until her head cleared.

Once her tunnel vision broadened back to something approaching normalcy, though, it didn't seem quite as stomach-churning. She still felt small and a little lost in a world that was much too big for her, but the sky was really the same as it had always been, now that she was looking. It was constant, and Gray was a grounding presence at her side. He was just as small as she in their surroundings, but he was the one thing here that matched her and made her feel a little more normal.

They sat in companionable silence for a while, with only the crackling of fire and muffled roar of merriment drifting their way. Erza wasn't quite sure what to say to him, and sometimes words just weren't necessary. So she did a little stargazing for a few minutes before breaking the spell the quiet had cast over them.

"What are you thinking?" she asked.

Gray hesitated a beat before saying, "Nothing, really. You know I don't do a lot of thinking. What about you?"

Erza pulled her gaze away from the star-spangled sky to eye him sidelong. That sounded rather evasive to her ears, but it wouldn't do much good to push at him and she was just as likely trying to make a big deal out of something small.

"Not much," she said, before changing her mind. There was no point trying to prod Gray into sharing unless she shared something first. He would never open up that way. "Just been feeling kind of small, you know? It's disconcerting to suddenly be the smallest thing in the room."

"Small…?" Gray looked over, eyes sharp with sudden interest, and Erza blinked back in surprise. "Yes, it's a weird feeling. And suddenly being a kid again was crazy, huh? Really…brought back memories."

"Did it?" Erza wondered aloud, puzzling over the careful way he was choosing his words.

"It didn't bring back memories for you?"

"Not really," she admitted, wondering if it should have. "I mean, I freaked out a little about suddenly looking like a child again. What a nightmare! My magic was shot, too. I was even smaller than Wendy! I could just imagine what Jellal…" She trailed off, overtaken by a quiet sort of loss as she thought about how her feelings for Jellal had changed over time and what was missing now. Gray cut a sharp look her way, and she shook off her melancholy before he could pounce on it. "And just imagining you and Natsu jumping on the chance to take me down gave me a headache!"

She had hoped to lighten the mood and maybe pull a smile out of him, but Gray merely looked away. "Yes, I can imagine it would be a pain."

Erza bit her lip. She had the feeling that she had given the wrong answer, failed some kind of test. Gray was quickly losing interest now, and she still couldn't determine the cause of his odd mood or if it was anything to be concerned about.

"Did…something happen? When you got de-aged and fought the demon?"

Gray's pause was so brief that Erza couldn't be entirely sure if it was there at all.

"No, not really," he said. "It was just strange, I guess. It was…just like being a kid again, for a second."

Erza considered that. Maybe it was stranger that she hadn't found the experience particularly nostalgic. Perhaps it would have made more sense to be reminded of her childhood when she saw her child's body reflected in the ice. But to her, it had been more like dragging her childhood body into the present rather than traveling back to the past. She had thought about how it might affect things now, and quickly become too caught up trying to survive Minerva's onslaught to worry about memories.

"Well, we aren't kids anymore," she said finally.

"Obviously," Gray said tersely, and Erza realized she had said the wrong thing again.

"Just… A lot of things happened back then, good and bad. And those things have helped shape who I am, but they don't define me. Things change. We change. I'm not the same girl that escaped the Tower. I'm not still standing around on the sidelines watching the world pass me by and refusing to risk making friends. I'm not still jumping at shadows and waiting for the other shoe to drop. I'm not still waiting around for Jellal to…" She trailed off and took a deep breath, again feeling Gray's calculating gaze on her. "The point is, everything that happened to me as a child helped make me who I am today, but I haven't let them hold me back. I get to shape my own future. We aren't those children anymore, Gray. We've grown up since then."

Gray didn't say anything for a long time. He looked back up at the sky, and his fingers picked idly at the grass peeking from between the paving stones.

"Maybe you're right," he said finally.

Erza let out a breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding. She didn't know if she'd said the right thing, per se, but at least she hadn't said the wrong one.

"I usually am."

Gray nodded to himself and, quite suddenly, leaned in just a little too close until they were practically nose to nose. His melancholy was overshadowed by a smirk, and his dark eyes glittered like the night sky alive with stars. Erza's breath caught in her throat and heat flooded her cheeks. She started to lean back and then stopped herself. Because she couldn't let him think she was intimidated, obviously.

"What, you've really finally given up on Jellal?" he teased.

His warm breath fluttered along her cheekbones like butterfly wings, but it was nothing compared to the butterflies awakening in the pit of Erza's stomach again. And honestly, it might just be the eternal flame blazing somewhere behind them, but it really was much too warm out here.

"W-well, kind of," she stuttered. She reasoned that Gray's already pale skin looked even more washed out in the firelight and dancing shadows, so maybe her flush wasn't really that noticeable.

"Hm…" Gray searched her face and Erza got the very distinct feeling that he was looking for something in her eyes or words or actions, but she didn't know what it was. And then he leaned back and frowned back up at the stars, and it hit her that she had failed the test again. "Yeah, it can be hard letting go," he said softly.

"Yes," she agreed with a sigh. "No one ever said it was easy. But eventually it lets us move on. We can't always be holding on to the past and wonder why our future looks so bleak." She hesitated and then said, with a sudden spurt of unwarranted and frankly dangerous boldness, "We're creating opportunities. Don't you think you should take the opportunity while you can?"

Gray started rather violently in surprise and turned wide, astonished eyes on her. Erza turned very, very red and wished she could snatch the impudent words back out of the air. Good grief, was she flirting with him?

"And do you think," Gray asked slowly, choosing his words with obvious care, "that we should seize every opportunity?"

He could be a gentleman when he wanted to be, offering her a way out again. He was studying her like a puzzle that needed solving again, looking for a sign.

Erza's heart thundered loudly in her chest, pounding against her ribcage in protest. Gray was a good man, really. He had his flaws, but who didn't? He was kind to her and brought swarms of butterflies alive in her stomach when he flashed her that crooked smile of his and sometimes she thought, when he looked at her like she was the only one in the room and he wanted to say something but wasn't quite sure how, that maybe he felt it too. But there was also Jellal and…

She took a deep breath and shook the thought right out of her head. It didn't do much good to give him advice if she didn't bother to consider it herself. Here was an opportunity, maybe one that had always been just around the corner but was now presented to them on a silver platter, and she had to decide if it was worth taking. It was like Gray had asked: was every opportunity worth seizing?

"I think," she said, her voice sounding oddly husky in her own ears, "that depends on us. Obviously we can't take every opportunity, but we should seize the ones we want the most. What do you want, Gray?"

He hesitated, steeling his nerve or making up his mind or still searching for the right answer in her face, and then said, "I very much want to kiss you."

Erza's heart leaped up into her throat, and her mouth was so dry that she had to swallow twice and clear her throat before forcing out a croak. "I think I do too."

And suddenly Gray was awkward and fumbling rather than cocky and mischievous, face dusted pink in the moonlight and hands twisting together uncertainly. After a moment longer of hesitation, he leaned in and pressed his lips against Erza's. It was quick and awkward and downright chaste, the product of a union between two teenagers with very little experience with things like love and kissing.

When they broke apart, they stared at each other uncertainly, faces aflame, and tried to figure out what came next. Erza wondered if they should practice some more. It hadn't been the passionate affair that the romance novel secreted under her mattress back home had led her to believe, but she found that she liked the feeling of Gray being so close. She was even starting to get used to the butterflies. They seemed a little less irksome when he was touching her.

Gray cleared his throat and ducked his head as he rubbed his fingers across the bridge of his nose. "What now?" he asked, sounding a little strangled.

"I don't know."

"But…what are we?"

"I don't know," she answered truthfully. "Whatever we want, I guess."

"Natsu and Happy would tease us mercilessly."

"Undoubtedly."

"Juvia would flip out."

"Of course."

"The guild would freak out."

"Definitely."

"Things might not work out."

"Maybe not."

"So…" He looked at her helplessly as if wishing she would give him the answers. "Is it enough?"

Erza found that the tables had turned and now she was the one trying to gauge his thoughts. "I guess that depends on if we think it's an opportunity worth seizing. What do you want?"

Gray was quiet for a long time before saying, "I think I want to kiss you again."

Erza smiled. "I think I want that too."

And he did. He pressed close and kissed her once, twice. They were still unsure of themselves, young and inexperienced, but he made her feel big and bright and beautiful, no longer small and insignificant when they were the only ones in the world.

And then he kissed her harder, faster, with a desperation that left her breathless. She made a small sound of surprise. It didn't feel bad, just unexpected. There was something a little off about it, like he was starving and frantic…or like he was desperate to distract himself from something else entirely.

When he stopped and buried his face in the crook of her neck, his breath shuddered against her skin like a suppressed sob.

"Make me forget," he whispered.

The elation and wonder crashed down all at once. Erza had been right: something had happened, something that he wasn't ready to tell her yet but hopefully would someday. Or maybe the de-aging really had just made him nostalgic like he'd said. But something was obviously bothering him still, and maybe she had been selfish to forget about it.

She wrapped her arms around him tight and buried her nose in his hair. "I'm sorry," she said quietly, her voice laced with regret. "I can't do that. Our past is always going to be part of us…but that doesn't mean it should close off our future or spoil what we have right now."

Gray's voice wavered as he said, "Then give me something better to remember."

Erza released him to take his face in her hands. His eyes shimmered with unshed tears, and firelight sparked like stars in liquid dark eyes. She thought of when he'd found her at the riverbank all those years ago and slowly set about befriending her—proof that the past wasn't all bad and sometimes it wasn't such a terrible thing to look back on yesterday. She thought of the way he made the butterflies dance and looked at her like she was the only woman in the world until it didn't matter how small she looked to anyone else.

She wanted to give him something back. She wanted to practice kissing him until they learned how to fit together like puzzle pieces. To hold his hand and laugh with him while the guild gaped in disbelief. To be there when the shadows of the past came hunting them, and to live every moment to the fullest at his side.

She wanted to show him that it was okay if they weren't quite sure what would happen next. She wanted to show him the future she dreamed of in her mind's eye and hold on tight to the opportunity they'd been given. She wanted to drag him out of yesterday and show him tomorrow. Their tomorrow.

"That," she said, "I can do."