Seven years is a fucking long time, my friends.

Earlier this morning, I sorta found myself drowning in Crime Sorciere drabble ideas in the years between X784 and X791 that I realized I never thought too hard about since our protagonists had been frozen in time and the entire story sorta conveniently skips over the gap.

So yeah, this story is going to be a bunch of (mostly unrelated) drabbles of events that could have taken place within that time frame. Honestly, this is really just for myself so I don't have a set goal or schedule for this series, but it is what it will be! Thanks for sticking with me thus far, haha!

Enjoy?

seven years to lose

When they first broke Jellal out of his impending and imprisoned death, they found him soaked in tears that had never left his eyes.

"She's gone," he said, body crumpled into a ball even smaller than the cage he had been jailed within.

They didn't need him to explain who he had been talking about.

They had seen the entire island collapse in front of their eyes. They had just watched as the king of all dragons made night of the entire day and breathed death onto the Fairies. They had only clutched onto each other even tighter as they avoided the human-turned-dragon's red-eyed gaze and let the ocean current take them further and further away from the calamities, selfishly fearing the loss of their lives.

"Jellal," Ultear said, handing him her right hand. "Let's go."

He didn't take it.

Meredy looked back and forth, well aware that with every second they didn't move, they risked another chance of violent confrontation with the Magic Council.

Jellal would have to be left here if they didn't get a move on.

Even the thought of that was discouraging to Meredy, who was still trying to understand why Ultear wanted to save the man so badly.

While sharing a Sensory Link with her foster mother, she learned that Ultear had many regrets and that Jellal was one of them. But there were things that her Malguilty Magic couldn't access, and when it came to someone as complex as Ultear, even sharing feelings and desires wouldn't tell her anything about Ultear's plans and motivations.

She could only so much as guess.

However what Meredy did know for sure was that she didn't want Ultear's sacrifices to save him to go to waste, and so the younger woman knelt down to her knees to bring herself to his level.

"Please, Jellal," Meredy begged him. "We don't have much time."

He was unresponsive. He didn't care.

There was only one thing that Meredy could think of that would be able to solve this, and she looked back up at Ultear, raising her right wrist, hinting that maybe with the injection of their own aspirations into Jellal, he would be stirred to move on behalf of them.

However, they looked at once more at the hidden suffering on his face and reminded themselves that the Sensory Link would only overwhelm them with his pain.

So Ultear decided to try again.

"We're going to save Erza, Jellal," Ultear said.

In horror, they watched him slowly turn to face them.

"She's still alive, and we're going to save her," Ultear continued, her voice never breaking.

He looked up at both of their eyes, analyzing them to see if he could trust their words.

He hesitantly took Ultear's outreached hand, and while the two women silently breathed a sigh of relief, they wondered which pain would feel worse:

That of losing a loved one, or that of losing the hope of not.

Meh, this drabble turned in a strange direction I didn't expect.

But to note, I think I'm in love with both the idea that Jellal had believed that Erza was dead for seven years and with the idea that Jellal had believed Erza was alive during the seven years even when everyone else thought otherwise.

…And I might flip between both possibilities as these drabbles come out. :P

Whatcha think?

thir13enth