Layla always imagined being married would make her married life like that of her parents. At no point did she calculate that she wasn't her mom, and Sam Redfox wasn't her dad, and they weren't old. Only after the fact did she realize it had taken them literally a lifetime to achieve what they had.

An unfortunate truth had revealed itself to her, after a year as a wife:

The idea of being married and the reality of being married were so dissimilar it was absurd.

If her mom and dad ever had yelling, screaming fights where they threw things at each other, she'd never seen it. She and Sam certainly did.

Her father, who seemed to do his best not to say 'I told you so' told her when he visited that the purpose of dating wasn't to decide whether to marry, but to establish a relationship and determine how things would work. It was the relationship itself, and not a piece of paper or ring that made him happy.

Layla was from a different generation, which had grown up in Fairy Tail after the adults settled down. Another fact she'd failed to even recognize is that they all settled down at once after a protracted period of war, tragedy and strife, which made them anxious to be still. Most were orphans and came from terrible circumstance so when they settled down it was the first time many of them really knew what it was like to be part of traditional family.

She felt isolated in Crocus, and as lavish and as nice as their apartment was, she missed the East Forest. She missed her guild. She missed her family.

When Sam's enlistment period ended, he signed on for a short extension without consulting her because of his unrelenting loyalty to the queen.

So while she was getting ready to move back to Magnolia where she was sure her funk would end, he was skulking around trying to figure out how to tell her.

They didn't make any deals before they married about where they would live or what they would do. They just assumed everything would be great and they'd figure it out along the way. They might have made tentative plans afterward to move, but Layla was quickly realizing Sam built a life in Crocus and he didn't pine for Magnolia like she did.

She woke up most mornings wishing she could go pull a job off the board and travel to some remote place to do something exciting, and yet every morning her schedule was nearly the same. Domestic. Boring.

Sam suggested maybe she could spend some time with a local guild, and even her father said that was an okay thing to do. After all, even he'd spent time in another guild. Layla couldn't bring herself to that, no matter what. She could never erase her Fairy Tail mark or carry the mark of another guild.

Being married was teaching her the fairy tale she'd always wanted to have was not only all she hoped it would be, it sucked most of the time, it was difficult, and maybe it wasn't even right for her at all.

She'd been fine as a wizard who had a different boyfriend every week and wandered around doing jobs. In that phase, she'd constantly been growing, constantly satisfied by excitement.

Every time she looked in the mirror, she remembered she wasn't a pedestrian housewife. When she went to buy groceries in the little market and everyone stared at her eye, she was sure most of the people she came in contact with had no understanding of what the scar really meant or why she didn't mind it. In the elite world of the wealthy in the capital, beauty was everything for a woman.

At the same time, she knew Sam wasn't really doing anything wrong. He treated her well most of the time. They fought about things most couples did. He wasn't terrible. Their worst fights were bad because they both had bad tempers. Nothing more, nothing less.

Because she'd jumped head first into this, she didn't even have the nerve to tell her parents how hard it was.

It was a visit from her older brother that allowed her to vent all of her frustrations and irritations.

Yuri already knew Layla wasn't adjusting well to her life, yet when she visited or the parents visited her, she seemed to be in pure bliss.

Hearing her outline all her problems, none of which were Sam's fault at all, painted quite a picture.

In childhood, they'd all had these neat, cookie-cutter crushes:

There was him and Lilia, which had been such a mess as they grew up. They were on, they were off, then on, then off for a long time, then he nearly destroyed her world and coaxed her into leaving her fiancé for him, and now that they were on again, it wasn't the same. He felt like there was a future they were just supposed to have, like they were destined to be together, and yet, he just had this weird feeling he was starting to get.

Sam and Layla had such a long and complicated story that entire volumes could be written about it. They'd always cared about each other, yet they'd never gotten along. Not as babies, not as small children, and then especially not as teenagers. The way they yelled at each other as toddlers was the same way they yelled at each other as married people. The only people who were surprised by this was Sam and Layla. That was ignoring all the heavier stuff, because oddly enough, Yuri didn't believe it played a huge role in how they treated each other.

Anna and Iggy were odd at first, but they had the most wholesome and probably the healthiest relationship. They were partners, friends, and Iggy had a very Natsu-esque attitude about home-life. If he was with his family, he didn't mind what else was going on. So while Anna obsessed about raising her children perfect and still growing as a wizard and trying to be a wife, Iggy supported her in whatever way her could and tried to help her lower her expectations for herself because he was just happy they were doing all right.

Mavis was a late bloomer and at no point had she ever seemed to need Baby Orga, despite his persistence. It took time and a lot of consistency to whittle her walls down, and he respected her exactly as she was . They were weirdly secretive, but she seemed fine. She always seemed good though; despite her abrasive personality she was successful in life and managed to navigate without having any of her own personal problems, something none of her older siblings had accomplished.

Yuri believed Mavis was probably better off because she never got so invested in the idea of dating. She never seemed to want a boyfriend and even though she treated hers well, no one had any doubts in the world that she'd be just fine if that didn't work.

Meanwhile, everyone else was busy being careless, emotional, and trying to find more about themselves in others.

Yuri felt bad for Layla, and he didn't like the position she was in. Deep down, he had reservations about Sam that lingered at the edge of his mind even though he believed Sam had grown up and overcome all the things that had happened.

All this made him think very carefully, and it forced him to respect the one of them that was happiest was Mavis, who was equally happy in or out of a relationship.

Hearing Layla admit she'd been happy without a boyfriend was interesting, but also sad, because she was married. And he knew if one of their parents had walked in right at that moment, she'd go right back to pretending everything was perfect.

Yuri said, "When you married, did you guys agree on where you'd live?"

"No, we just sort of did it. I just assumed everything would be fine. By the end of the night maybe we were planning. But nothing is going the way I expected. I mean, how could we not get along?"

"Because you've never gotten along."

Layla said, "Sam likes Crocus. His life is here. People respect him and adore him. He walks around and everyone is in awe of him."

Yuri argued on behalf of Sam, simply because he knew Layla and knew she had the ability to be almost unbelievably self-centered. "You give up your dreams so he can be happy or here or he gives up his so you can be happy. How is anybody going to be if the other person is disappointed? And then you talk about babies. You need to chill out and admit this doesn't work the way it is. You can't stay like this forever. You either have to fix whatever is wrong or you should quit now before things get worse."

"I can't just…"

Until he said it, he didn't really know that he felt like that. The words came out with more conviction than he'd expected, but he knew some small part of that was his poisonous doubts about Sam.

Layla didn't need a big brother most of the time, but he felt like she needed one right then.

"I was the one that was with you when you lost your eye. We almost died together, and I remember your face. You were so determined. You're such a powerful wizard and I know the deepest things in the magic world are calling to you and you're sitting here playing house and you think it's Sam's fault you're not happy."

For all her power, Layla had always been just a little bit crazy, but it ran in the family. Yuri had memories of watching Makarov do and say things that were absolutely bonkers, and he had the same self-sacrificing yet self-centered behavior. Makarov would do anything to help his guild, but he'd also do quite a lot to help himself.

Layla always had competing interests and goals; she loved magic, but she wanted to fall in love. She'd willfully taken on a lifetime of strife to try and pursue both at the same time, only to elope with Sam and land her in a position where pursuing life as a Fairy Tail wizard was difficult.

Yuri asked, "What if leaving Crocus isn't what's best for Sam? You know if he goes home, he has to face everything that happened, and all the people who might hold it against him forever."

"Like you?" she asked.

"The thing with Bluenote was probably an accident. Breaking into our house and trying to steal stuff from Dad while Mom was sick in the hospital was a bit much. I can treat him okay, and I don't think he'd try anything, but that doesn't mean I want him in the family. Not to put to fine of a point on it, but if Sam gets mixed up in anything bad again and you're married to him, it'll probably impact you in some way or another."

Layla was quick to defend Sam, but she knew there was probably no changing Yuri's mind. He was slow to dislike anyone or to get angry, but she'd known him to harbor feelings deep inside. It was part of the pathology of Lilia—no matter how many women he handled, he only let Lilia be his girl because it was ingrained in him somewhere extremely deep.

It made her not trust his opinion very much, even though it had seemed true.

Yuri could practically hear her brain hit the brakes and toss out everything he'd had to say. He knew it would go this way, because she was stubborn and whatever she did, she did with her everything. Telling Layla to go home if she wasn't happy was like telling a sign post to do a lovely interpretative dance. Quitting wasn't in her nature, and neither was giving up on someone she'd chosen to love.

Now that they were older, it was clear that despite being raised by the same parents in the same town and having mostly the same experiences, they were all vastly different. They related to the world and to others in dissimilar ways, encountered different challenges, and made different mistakes.

Layla finally said, "I can't believe you even still feel that way. You never said anything."

"You didn't anyone a chance to say anything."

"What else do you think?"

"About you and Sam?"

She nodded.

Yuri said, "I think you are the most powerful wizard in our family, and you're supposed to reach heights in the magic world the rest of us don't even know exist. But you're going to dig in, and you're going to fight to make this work. Your growth is going to be stifled, you're not going to work, you're going to end up pregnant, and you're going to live out a frustrating and mediocre life here in Crocus.

"And I guess I just don't get it. You already paid the toll, and you did it with your blood. With your eye. It's like you bought a train ticket and then didn't get on because you thought you'd be happier if you went somewhere else. If you were supposed to living like this, you'd be happy."

It was the most he'd ever seemed like his father. Normally, Yuri was polite and easy to get along with, but his biting criticisms of Layla were the kind Laxus hit the guild members with when they were doing something stupid or needed correction. Except instead of being a frustrated guild leader or father, he was an annoyed older brother, who was watching his sisters face assorted perils.

Anna got pregnant, Layla eloped.

The grim reality was that relationships were innately destructive. They destroyed some part of each person involved and then fashioned that missing part into something else. At least, that's how it looked, and it left a sour taste in his mouth.

He'd been engaged for a few months, but was he supposed to get married?

Yuri felt restless and frustrated, and only understood now at his age that his parents had tried hard to protect them from themselves.

There was a sense of tension between the siblings, who had always been close.

Layla turned away from him and asked, "Why'd you even come, Yuri?"

"I came to ask you to go on my job with me. It'll take a while. It's remote. You can come on my jobs with me from now on. I don't want to leave you up here by yourself."

The idea was delightful, and she asked, "You don't mind?"

"Nobody in this world I'd rather wizard with than you. I went on my last job with mom and she got into the wine and told me how I was born again. Besides, it's nice to work. You get so far away from everything. I love being out in the woods or in the mountains or whatever and knowing no one else is around. It makes me feel close to the world. Closer to magic. Being in the city is annoying, I guess."

Layla said, "Do I need to pack warm or cold?"

"We're going north, so warm."

His sister packed a bag, left a note for Sam, and made sure their cat had food and water.

Layla was pissed off at her brother for showing up and having opinions, but she knew no matter what, he loved her as much as anybody would. Yuri was always there for her, and when she wrote a letter to him complaining about boredom, he showed up to carry her away to snowy peaks for violence with monsters.

All seemed right in the world again, except for his motion sickness that came as soon as they were on the train; that was gross and inconvenient as always.

Yuri sighed in contentment as the first waves of nausea came. "It's good to go on jobs with you, you know how to operate a puke bag like nobody else."

Back in Magnolia, Laxus was watching his grandsons and marveling at the fact he was a grandfather for the thousandth time. It made him feel old, but in an acceptable and warm sort of way. They were three months old and still very much at their chubby baby phase. Like all dragons, they were voracious eaters, screamers, and poopers.

Sometimes he felt like Iggy and Anna went on tiring wizard jobs because they could sleep.

Yuri was out on a job and planned on stopping to get Layla if she so desired, Anna and Iggy were on a job, Lucy, Mavis, and Levy were on a job, and this left him with Lex and with his grandsons, Hadyn and Taryn.

Two baby boys, a seven-year-old, and the family patriarch.

They were also all dragons.

Lex helped him feed the twins, asking a multitude of questions about babies he patiently answered.

Laxus believed that having older children learn how to look after babies was an important character-building experience. He felt it had shaped all his older children and taught them to be compassionate and loving toward family.

Lex asked, "I think I want to be a big brother."

His father's brow rose. "…that's never going to happen. You might as well give up on that right now. That ship has sailed and you missed it."

"Mom takes good care of babies. I see her with the twins all the time."

That eyebrow continued it's upward climb. "She takes good care of babies as opposed to your father, who just doesn't know what he's doing."

"I don't know. You're not Mom."

"I have five kids and two grandkids. I know some things. And you know what? Someday, when you get older and you have kids, you're going to show up here with an annoying, screaming baby and beg me—the guy who isn't as good as Mom—to take care of your kid so you can sleep. And I will bring this day back to your remembrance," he said.

"That's petty, Dad."

Laxus said, "I'll show you petty. Just wait until you grow up."

Lex said, "Mavis told me that you dropped Yuri on his head when he was a baby."

"Yuri is twenty-three years old. Why all of you can't seem to forget that yet can't remember to take out the trash is a mystery fit for the ages. Besides, I didn't really drop him. He rolled off the couch onto his skull when he was about the age the twins are now."

The idea that Yuri was ever small was strange to Lex, as Yuri had been the tallest person he knew for as long as he could remember. To a young child, tall people were still basically giants who walked the earth with him and Yuri was the tallest of the giants.

The boy added, "Mavis also said that when babies are little, their heads are soft like cheese, and when you dropped Yuri on his head, it squished his brain."

Laxus sighed. "Mavis would never lie, right?"

"She lies a lot, Dad. She told me that the refrigerator was a magic portal to the North Pole and that's why it's cold, and that it closed whenever the door opened. So if I got inside, I could go to the North Pole. I did it, and it didn't work. Cause that's not how refrigerators even work. She kept me in there for a long time. It was cold, but I had my jacket on cause I thought I was going to the North Pole. It was a good place to think though, cause I ate some pudding when I was in there."

When he got too old to be guildmaster, Laxus planned on someday writing a book about Mavis and Lex. He felt like every time he turned around, she was talking him into doing something ridiculous like eating fish would give him the ability to breathe under water or that snakes were caterpillars whose legs fell off.

The door swung open and Lucy and Mavis entered, covered in slime and angry.

Lucy took her boots off and dropped them outside the front door, knowing they needed to be cleaned before being brought inside.

"Welcome back! How was the job?" Lex asked.

Mavis took a few steps toward him and gave him a huge hug, covering him in the goop. She affectionately whispered, "I'm tired and I'm covered in monster boogers. But now you are too, and that makes it a little better."

Lucy sighed. "Mavis!"

Lex peeled a stringy, slimy chunk off his arm.

And then he did what made sense and seemed fair to him as a little boy:

He picked his nose and wiped it on her shirt. "That's my booger. It's for you."

Had he not retaliated by being gross, the parents would have intervened to help him, but he did. So they did not save him when she dragged him by the collar out the back door and threw him into the swimming pool.

Lucy patiently waited as Laxus fetched her a towel and said, "Our kids are weird and disgusting."

He briefly contemplated which pool chemicals would neutralize monster snot and then focused his attention back on the babies while everyone else in the house had to bathe due to pool water and monster slime.

Overall, it seemed like a normal afternoon at their house.

Once she was clean, Lucy joined her husband on the living room floor where their grandsons were happily kicking about, looking around and studying their every move.

She kissed their little feet and their little cheeks and their little tummies.

"Just look at these little feet, who even knows where they're going to carry these boys someday."

Laxus kissed her cheek. "Probably to adventures, misadventures, you know…the same as their parents."

Lucy kissed him back. "You know, I really miss when everybody was under the same roof. It's weird not having Anna here when she comes home, and especially weird not seeing Layla. Then I think Yuri will move out someday…maybe, and Mavis. Even Lex is going to grow up."

Laxus said, "I don't think our oldest is ever going to leave. I'm not complaining. It just is what it is."

"My Thunder Baby can stay with us as long as he wants. Besides, there's no reason for him to waste money trying to live on his own. Having to pay rent, buy food, that stuff takes a toll."

"He's an S-Class wizard, not a waiter at a restaurant."

Laxus rolled over onto his back. "I thought Layla would be moved back by now."

"Sam signed a short extension. It'll be over soon."

He grumbled under his breath, as he was getting impatient with having one of his kids that far away all the time.

"Do you think they're all right?" he asked.

Lucy shook her head. "I feel like she's trying to convince me everything is perfect when she writes."

"Me too. But if it's not, if she admits it it's like she admits she fucked up. I don't think she's going to do that," her husband answered.

"Of course she won't. Those two are going to have to take the long way around to figure out how to handle things. I think they can. It's just going to be hard, but we can't make their decisions for them."

Laxus stared up at the ceiling and said, "I think Anna and Layla have scared Yuri a little bit shitless about getting married. I'm fine with that. I'm fine with them living their lives and settling down or whatever, but those things have consequences and I think it's good for people to understand that. Not just our kids…the other kids in the guild that are starting to get to that age too."

Lucy went back to kissing baby feet. "Did we have a hard time?"

"I don't think so. I mean, we had some fights early on. But eventually we just figured out how to live a life of contented bickering and things have been good. I can't think of any time I wasn't happy," he said.

"Me neither."

Lucy leaned down to kiss her husband and gave him deep kiss. "Are we going to tell Layla we know she needs help?"

"We've been telling our children they can't bullshit us literally since they were born and it has never worked. At this point, it would just be wasted breath," he argued.

He reached up for her short blond hair and smirked.

"What are you thinking about?"

Laxus twisted his fingers in her hair and pulled her down to kiss him. "Actually, I was just thinking we need milk. I need a distraction. You want to go out on a date with me?"

"A date, huh? You're probably just trying to get into my pants."

"My butt isn't big enough to get into your pants," he teased.

Lucy punched him in the stomach lightly. "You love my backside."

"I do."

"You're like a little dog or something, always wanting to chew on it. Honestly, it's kind of gross."

Laxus asked, "Why would I be a little dog? Couldn't I be a big dog? I feel like I'd be a Great Dane."

"Little dogs are the real biters, so…I can envision you as a poodle."

"Doggy-style is the only canine reference I will consider valid," he said.

Mavis hit the bottom of the stairs in a fresh set of clothes with a towel wrapped around her wet hair and glared at them. Lex was right behind her, also fresh from the shower.

He was about to ask a question, and Mavis put her hands over his lips. "Our parents are weird and disgusting. That's all you need to know."

"Okay."

Mavis went on as they went to the kitchen to get sodas. "You're lucky. Since you were adopted, you didn't get anything weird in your blood. There's no hope for the rest of us. We were doomed before we were born to live like this."

"I eat poison."

"Don't argue with me. I'm trying to teach you a lesson here."

Laxus got up off the floor, and helped his wife up, and then picked up the baby boys and carried them up to their crib upstairs.

They dressed and got ready for their date, and found Mavis and Lex still exploring the deep philosophical things of the world at the table.

"We're going out, you two can watch the twins until we get back," Laxus said.

Lex asked, "Can we go?"

To which Mavis replied, "Mom and Dad go out on dates when we get on their nerves so they can get away from us. By the time they get back, they'll be happy to see us again."

Lex just nodded like he understood what she was trying to explain, and Lucy wondered if she was really the best person to be around him all the time. Looking at the world through her eyes must have been strange indeed.

"What do you think parenting is about, Mavis?" Lucy asked.

The little blonde gave her a lopsided, fanged grin. "It's half annoying your kids and half trying to escape from them. Or…maybe one-third annoying us, one-third trying to escape from us, and one-third cleaning up vomit and diapers."

Laxus said, "Why are you like this?"

"I don't understand why people keep asking me that question. I'm the most well-adjusted kid you have. I haven't killed anyone, I didn't get knocked up, I didn't elope, I've never been under investigation by the Magic Council."

Lex said, "I didn't do any of that stuff either."

Mavis replied, "Don't argue unless you want to go back to the North Pole."

Laxus assumed this mean Mavis was possibly threatening to put their son in the refrigerator against his will. Since Mavis would never let actual harm come to him, it was easy to excuse these shenanigans because she loved him and he did occasionally provoke her.

"Do what you must. We're going out for pasta," he said.

Lucy grabbed her sweater as they left and then walked with her husband. He reached for her hand and she squeezed his back. "Sometimes, I think you might have a crush on me."

"Maybe. You're hot and I'm horny."

"Are you really?" she asked.

He had to think about it. "I'm not sure, actually. We have to get a little closer before I can make any predictions about my dick."

His wife said, "Sometimes, I think about when we were young, and we had sex all the time, and it just seems tiring to think about. I'm in good shape, and there's nothing wrong with my stamina as far as exercise goes, but the idea of doing it three times a day or more for multiple days just seems like overkill."

Getting old as a couple was interesting, but comfortable. They still teased each other and played almost constantly, but over the course of their marriage, things had changed. Lucy lost her sex drive completely when she was ill and once she got better, it didn't really ever come back to the way it had been. Now she was starting to go through changes and he was too, experiencing occasional dysfunction.

They were honest enough to admit they were okay with all of this and had no problems laughing at and enjoying their mishaps when they happened.

Although, for the record, they were both in fantastic shape. Probably Lucy more than Laxus because she'd been working quite a bit. After spending so many years tending primarily to the guild and to children, suddenly she was stretching out her wings as a wizard and reminding everyone that she was still the queen bee of celestial spirit summoning.

It was not uncommon for people to assume that Lucy and any of their daughters were siblings. But he was still stuck with his silvery-white hair and he'd been a few years older than her to start with. It made them look like they had a bigger age difference than they did, and she enjoyed teasing him about it.

She didn't look like a forty-four-year-old who had saved the world more than once, given birth to four kids, made S-Class, raised a whole generation of young wizards with him at Fairy Tail, kicked cancer's ass, and had grandchildren. Lucy was still vibrant and still so ambitious.

There wasn't a day that he hadn't felt lucky to be with her.

"You're looking pretty good, you know. Your arms look really strong," he said.

Lucy flexed her arms to show him the muscle. "Yeah, you better be careful. You don't want to piss me off."

He laughed. "What are you going to do? Beat me up?"

"I mean, maybe."

Laxus grabbed her and threw her over his shoulder. "Now what?"

She squealed. "Put me down, you barbarian!"

"Never ever!"

He carried her down a narrow alley and put her down. "How about now?"

"Laxus! Behave!"

"C'mon, don't be like that. We used to do stuff like this all the time. I am horny, right now, and I think you are too."

Lucy looked around and knew there was nearly no chance anyone would see them. "I…okay. But if we get caught, you'll be sorry."

There was rustling of clothes, and Lucy was pinned against the wall.

And when they were done, panting and satisfied by their quick little diversion, Lucy fixed her skirt and he bit her ear lightly, making her giggle.

"Stop. Zip up your pants. Be good. Geeze."

Laxus did as he had been commanded. "Right, we're responsible adults."

"Of course. I'll forgive you if you buy me dinner."

Please Review!

AN: So, I sort of fell off the face of the earth for a while. I had an unexpected death really close to me, and it just, it sucked the life and the inspiration out of me. For a long time, it was like I just couldn't write. Writing about a family was something I felt like I couldn't do when I'd lost someone so close to me. I don't know how many of you guys are still with me, but I am sorry for not updating this story for so long.

Special thanks to Guest, Kairi1780, Ikazuchiru, belladog2524, motherotakuu, dragonlady98, kennedydreyar, animegirl549, kurosora1021, JenheartAI, Therashae, Sea Dragonslayer, Adonisx, chipthemunkey, savygirl1515, beefcakebarbierenewed, madsoullessqueen, sexylaxus, kurahieiritr JIO, JenHeartAI, FairyglitterXD, LunastarLady, katiekat2001, dlynncherry, Lea, b2utifulshawol, saskiarosee, rere97maui, 17, queenofws, stavroula99, MWolfe13, lucyheartfilialover360, screen, and arouraleona for reviewing!