Chapter 2: I don't think about you any more
Summary: A journey and a confrontation.
Disclaimer: Fairy Tail belongs to Hiro Mashima
A/N: This chapter is dedicated to MiereChan and Ash Lite. Thanks for the reviews!
"I too was taught the trade of man/ And learnt the lessons plain. But they, when I forgot and ran/ Remember and remain."
Erza Scarlet is late.
She should have been at Magnolia station ten minutes ago, she thought with a rising sense of panic, yet here she is, stuffing any visible article of clothing into a suitcase, grabbing a bundle from under her mattress, and frantically hopping into her shoes.
To think there are people who believe I'm collected.
Erza grabbed her suitcase and sprinted out of Fairy Hills, running haphazardly across the cobblestones. Master Makrov had assured her that adequate food would be provided, so Erza didn't have her usual mountain of supplies, but the feeling of the heavy bag slapping her thigh as she ran was irritating none the less.
Milliana had told Erza that she would wait at Magnolia Station, and that Wally and Sho would join them at Gardenia. Erza hadn't told her cheerful friend about Jellal, and spent half the night agonizing about it. Hence the lateness.
Magnolia Station's great arch loomed above her head, and Erza slowed down to a jog. She breezed into the station, somewhat out of breath, and arrived at the platform just to see Natsu and Gray attempting to push each other onto the tracks, and Lucy wailing with Happy in her arms.
The sight of the small blue cat warmed Erza more than she was willing to admit. Wendy had taken Charle and Happy to a cat spa the day the murder was announced and Erza decided to take the job. While Wendy had opted to stay in the spa, Happy had adamantly refused to part with Natsu on the job, and had cut his little "vacation" short to join them.
"Erza!" With a shriek, Happy propelled himself out of Lucy's arms and into hers. "I missed you so much! Do you have fish? Where's the job? When will we meet your friends? Will we meet Jellal? Do you have fish?"
Erza smiled despite herself. "I don't have fish. I think the train lunch service does, though."
"Yes!" Happy twirled slightly in the air, then busied himself preening his fur back to its previous shine. "Do you like it? It's an avocado scrub from the spa…"
Erza let her mind drift, Happy's babble fading to a blur in her ears. "Will we meet Jellal?" The curious question echoed in her mind. Would they meet Jellal? Erza had paced up and down her room yesterday evening, trying to figure out how to contact Jellal as the dusk light filtered through her windows. Predictably enough, thinking about contacting Jellal turned into thinking about Jellal, which turned into thinking about kissing Jellal. After a few hours, Erza had given up and flopped on her bed, flushed and irritated.
Somehow, though, she knew Jellal would come. In the shadowy half days after her return to the Tower, when she thought Jellal was dead and gone, she had felt him laughing in her mind, his head cocked and mouth crooked like when they were children. Later, when he was in prison and she was fighting Azuma on Tenrou Island with shaky legs and bloody coughs, she heard his voice caress her ears, telling her to fight, win, not give up. Erza wasn't stupid and her time as a slave has given her a tired cynicism that was hard to shake. She rolled her eyes at Lucy's rants about true love, and scoffed at Levy's books (though she read them secretly later). But somewhere in her heart of hearts, a deep, red place she barely knew she has, Erza thinks that if there were such a thing as soulmates, infinitely destined couples, then she and Jellal would be that.
Yet. Yet there was the shadow of the Tower cleaving through each of their short, stilted conversations, pulling them apart and frosting the air between them. There were the ghosts of a thousand people, barely- friends and acquaintances that Jellal had slaughtered after a moment of crippling human weakness. Erza was always hurtling through her life too fast to sit down and analyse for a moment, but whenever she did she realized that her feelings for Jellal Fernandes were a tangled mix of fear, regret, nostalgia, muted anger, lust and bitter love. "The basis of any healthy relationship is reality, not hopes." Grandpa Rob would always preach with a sage like smile. If that was the case, well. Her relationship with Jellal was pretty unhealthy, to say the least.
These kinds of thoughts tended to make her head hurt. Erza was a warrior, a soldier by nature. She dwelled in the practical and easily scouted, and what she could determine was this: she knew Jellal, and she knew that he would come.
"…Er-chan? Er-chan!"
Erza whipped around, hair flying and blocking her vision in blood red. When it cleared, Milliana was standing, rocking on the balls of her feet. "Er-chan! Hi!"
Erza accepted a hug from the bubbly mage easily. Milliana was one of her oldest friends, sticking with her through pain and bleak tears and moments of startling happiness. It was always good to see her.
"KITTY!" Milliana leapt after Happy, who shrieked again and ducked behind Natsu. Milliana pouted, then noticed Gray.
"You're really hot."
Gray blinked. "I'm an ice mage."
Milliana looked personally affronted. "Whatever. You're not my type anyways." She then bounded over to Lucy and began squealing over her hair, leaving Gray looking very confused. Erza shook her head and mouthed don't bother.
"Er-chan! It'll be so fun, you and me and Sho and Wally and your team and the kitty, oh look! The train's here!"
The large, sedate train pulled into the station. Suddenly the empty station was filled with the quiet chatter of passengers and their family. Milliana grabbed hold of Erza's arm and began to push her towards the waiting door. Natsu, Gray and Lucy followed, looking amused.
"Listen, Milliana." Erza felt suddenly nervous. "About the team-"
"Relax, it'll be fun! I promise I won't spill any embarrassing childhood stories or anything, like that one time you managed to set your hair on fire or something, I'll never tell… oops."
Erza could feel her cheeks heat up. Behind her, her team's eyes were growing wider and wider.
"You set your hair on fire?" Natsu sounded approving.
"Yep!" Milliana looked obscenely cheerful. "Then she jumped screaming into the sea."
"Milliana," Erza growled.
"Yes?" Milliana looked ridiculously innocent.
Erza grabbed her friend's ear and twisted. Then she dragged her to their assigned seats, shooting a glare behind her shoulder to keep the rest of Team Natsu moving.
She was Erza "Titania" Scarlet. She did not tolerate nonsense. She would not be mocked.
And she definitely did not scream.
The train ride to Gardenia was breathtakingly beautiful, with great yawning valleys, sheer pristine mountain peaks and field upon field of flowers: richly red roses, tiny button snowdrops, waxy tulips and everywhere lilacs, as far as the eye could see.
Sitting in the train, scenery was the last thing on Erza's mind.
Not telling her childhood friends about Jellal was a stupid idea. She knew this, but in her defence, she didn't know if he was going to come either. She still didn't. Beside her, Milliana chattered happily while Natsu moaned and curled in on himself. Erza allowed herself to feel a moment of fleeting pity. Then her mind returned to the central problem: how would she tell Milliana about Jellal?
Her friends hated Jellal with a red hot, messy intensity, she knew. It would probably be even worse in Wally and Sho's case, considering that they weren't hiding behind pillars as Ultear casually scattered the truth in the Grand Magic Games. It was important that they all got along for the mission, and for the sake of the hundreds of innocent civilians whose lives were in danger. But would that even be possible?
A long time ago, when Erza was sixteen and still bitter and harsh and lonely, she met a group of teenagers barely her age in Lily, with pained eyes and jaded faces. She sat with them, feeling like she was amongst peers, and watched silently as a boy slit his thigh slowly with a penknife, tears running silently down his face.
"Why does he do that?" Erza had asked.
Another boy shook his head despairingly. "He wounded his leg a few years ago. He was shot by the occupying soldiers." He lowered his voice slightly. "They murdered his family."
Erza was still confused. "But why not let it heal?"
A girl at the edge of the group raised her face. Etched across her features was an expression of strangled despair: the face of someone putting one foot in front of the other because they don't know what else to do. Erza knew that expression. It was the one she wore whenever she saw her face in the mirror.
"Sometimes," she whispered, "it's easier to remember than to forget."
Erza imagines Wally and Sho and Milliana and Jellal, all reaching into the depths of their minds and pulling up their time in the Tower, reliving their experiences and letting them fester and fester and grow.
The train hissed to a stop. "Milliana," Erza said desperately. "Milliana, listen to me. I didn't tell you but there's someone else on the team."
"Okay. Who?" Milliana tucked a wayward auburn strand of hair back into her messy bun.
Erza opened her mouth, then closed it again. "It's-"
But she never got to finish her sentence. The doors to the train creaked open, and waiting for them on the platform were Wally and Sho and-
Oh, Mavis.
Jellal.
For one idiotic, hopeful moment, Erza thought that Wally and Sho had already confronted Jellal, that they were all ready to work together. Then Sho's face contorted into something ugly and horrible.
"Erza." He hadn't called her Erza-nee. Sho was grown up, now. Or maybe he was just that angry. "What is he doing here?" Next to him, Wally was trembling silently.
"You know, that's a good question. What am I doing here, Erza?" Jellal sounded calm and even, but Erza could hear the suppressed rage and confusion beneath the surface.
Erza stepped down from the train. "Can we please do this later?"
"No, we'll do this now." Wally sounded older, more matured, and angry beyond belief. Around them, the rest of the passengers were shooting furtive looks at each other and moving away. Even though Jellal had been officially pardoned by the Magic Council, he was still a source of trepidation, and Erza supposed that even these civilians could tell this gathering had the potential to become nasty.
Milliana hissed with surprise at Erza's shoulder. "Er-chan? What-"
Natsu staggered onto the platform, holding onto Lucy and Happy for dear life. Behind him, Gray followed, rolling his eyes.
"Blocky Head! Weird Card Guy!" Natsu attempted to spring forward, then, in a sudden fit of dizziness tripped over his own feet and crashed to the ground.
"Natsu!" Lucy bent quickly with just a bit more worry than was strictly necessary. Erza raised a knowing eyebrow.
The arrival of the rest of the team deflated the tension on the station almost instantly. Sho relaxed his stance slightly and ran a hand through his hair, grimacing. Wally offered Natsu a small but genuine smile. Only Milliana remained tense.
"We have to talk."
Erza reflected sadly that almost everyone appeared to be telling her that.
Jellal raised a hand to the exit, and Erza took a moment to appreciate the sight of him in casual clothes: dark jeans, a t-shirt advertising some obscure rock band, and a loosely fitting leather jacket. His hair had grown slightly since they had last met, and brushed the nape of his neck.
Erza was pleased that she took in these observations with a detached, professional disinterest. At least one of us won't let emotions cloud judgment.
"Shall we?" Jellal looked faintly amused, as if he could read her thoughts. Then again, Erza reflected, years studying varied magic meant that he probably could.
Erza straightened her shoulders and brushed past him, out into the gloomy Gardenia day. Sho, Wally and Milliana followed, shooting sharp looks at Jellal while talking quietly. Natsu, Lucy and Gray straggled at the rear.
Behold, the heroes of the Tower. Erza didn't know whether to laugh or cry. It'll be a miracle if we get through the first day.
A/N: The second chapter is up! Ash Lite, don't worry, you'll get your Jellal POV soon!
About Jellal's characterization, I have always imagined him to like random, obscure rock bands and to swear in Spanish when he gets really mad ;)
I hoped you enjoyed the update. Please read and review!