BEHOLD. CHAPTER FIVE COMETH.

Chapter 5: Lesson One

"I asked you a question Gajeel. Don't make me repeat myself." Erza's voice had gone dangerously quiet, Gajeel understood that she was upset that something had happened with her nakama that she wasn't aware of, but he wasn't angry with just Gray. He was furious with all of them because of Juvia's circumstances. He jerked himself out her grasp.

"She's safe. That's all that you need to know." He dusted himself off and walked to the mission board, aware that the others were watching him.

"No it isn't! Why did she leave in the first place?!" Erza thundered behind him. He rolled his eyes; they were such a dramatic bunch. Just `cause she had left, they were causing such a fuss. Gajeel felt a hand come down on his shoulder and when he turned to look at its owner, a fist hit him square in the face, sending him crashing into the board. He clutched his mouth and looked up to see Gray straightening up, minus his shirt as usual.

"That was payback." He grabbed Gajeel by his shirt and hoisted him up, arm drawn back to punch him again. "You feel like telling us why she left now?" Gajeel snorted.

"Why don't you tell them yourself stripper? You should know better than anyone." Gray let go of his shirt in surprise. He heard the guild members behind start muttering to each other, wondering what Gajeel was talking about. He saw Lucy shift uncomfortably behind Gray where she was standing with Levy who looked at him in confusion. He shook his head and snatched a job and slammed onto the bar in front of Mira, who took it silently and approved it for him, sliding it back across the table. Gajeel turned to Gray from his place at the bar.

"Whaddya remember about Salamander's party last month, Ice Moron?" Gray bristled at the name but thought back to the event in question. His eyes scrunched up as he tried to remember.

"Remember? Not much, I was wasted, remember? So were you." Gajeel snorted and happened to glance up to the second floor, locking eyes with Makarov. At his slight nod, Gajeel realized he had the master's permission to reveal Juvia's circumstances. Juvia would probably kill him later, but he would deal with that when the time came.

"Wasted huh? I'm not such a light weight that I'd screw a girl thinking it was someone else!" Gray went still as Gajeel's roared statement cut through the guild like a knife. Almost immediately the guild went silent. Gray straightened and stood directly in front of Gajeel.

"Oi, what crap are you talking about? I never -"

"Shut up. That night, you were so drunk that you grabbed Juvia and screwed her, thinking it was Bo-" He saw the master shake his head, and changed the statement. " thinking it was someone else you asshole!" He shoved Gray back, away from him as he picked up the mission flyer and his bag. Erza tried to intervene at this point.

"Gray, is he telling the truth?" Gray backed away, clutching his head, trying to remember that night. His eyes suddenly widened as the memory came to him, swimming out in front of all the other jumbled memories from the other night.

"No." He whispered. Gajeel sighed, "Yeah, it's true. and because of you, Juvia, is in a situation no woman should be!" Lucy put a hand on his shoulder.

"Gajeel, he made a mistake. Let him apologize to Juvia for it. She doesn't have to leave because of this." Gajeel shook her off and Lucy backed away.

"Come off it! You guys all sound like you care, but you can't even imagine how she feels!" The guild was silent as Gajeel became enraged, throwing tables now. " You all thought because Juvia was so carefree, that she just had a crush on Gray. She loved him! And you made fun of her! She tried her hardest to get his attention, yourattention, bastard!" He pointed to Gray, expression furious. "But you brushed her off every time. Didn't even give her a response. Do you know how happy she must've been when you ….when you...and then you go and call out the name of another woman?!" Gray looked ashamed as the memory came back to him in its entirety. Gajeel was practically shaking with anger now.

"But if it was just that, I wouldn't want to kill you right now. It's what happened after that pisses me off. You hurt her so badly that she ran back to the dorms at 4:00 in the morning, without anyone! And because she was an idiot, she let herself get caught off guard, ended up being raped! All because of your stupid drunkenness!" Gajeel pointed an accusing finger at the ice mage as the guild members exploded into exlamations of rage.

"The bastard raped and branded her! And because of the two of you, she's pregnant!" Gray froze. Lucy dropped her pen, and Natsu sighed. He had known, since the day Juvia had walked into the guild to talk to Gajeel. He hadn't known how to bring it up with Gajeel and now that the whole story had come out, the whole guild was wracked with guilt. Levy's eyes were wide as saucers and Mira had fainted into her sisters arms. No one seemed to know how to deal with the statement. Gajeel scoffed.

"You guys, you are her nakama and Juvia would never want you to feel like what happened to her was your fault, but, " he turned to Gray. "You have some serious apologizing to do. You took a naïve, simple girl's dreams and crushed them flat. Take responsibility for it." With that, Gajeel turned heel and left the guild, with Pantherlily chasing after him.

… … …

Juvia wandered the fruit market in center of Galdrom, she stood in front of a fruit vendor and had become aware of a group of middle aged observing her and giggling behind her at a distance. She picked up a bag of apples and handed it to the vendor.

"10 jewels, please." Juvia rummaged through her bag for the money and looked up to see one of the women paying it for her.

"Oh no. Please, you don't have to do that! Juvia would feel most unfortable!" The woman turned and smiled mischievously at her.

"No no Juvia darling, don't think anything of it. You're new here aren't you?" The other women gathered around her and Juvia nodded meekly, wondering what kind of mess she had gotten herself into.

"I'm Matilda," the woman who had payed for the apples said, telling her she was the wife of the woodcarver over in the next plaza. The other women introduced themselves to her as they took her to a nearby café and sat down with her. Elmira introduced herself as a modest wife of the town metal smith; Eliza was the wife of the only livestock owner in the city while Sachiko was the housekeeper of the town mayor.

"Ne, ne." Elmira leaned towards her over the table as Juvia sipped her tea, furtively glancing at her new company. "That delicious looking bad boy you were with yesterday is your boyfriend isn't he?" Juvia choked on her tea, coughing harshly and staring incredulously at her.

"Ah?"

"No, no Elmira, it's written on her face. Someone that cute wouldn't be her boyfriend." Juvia smiled when Matilda intervened, at least they understood her she thought . "He must be her husband."

"Huh?!" Juvia looked at her, shock all over her expression. The women giggled at her expression and leaned forward conspiratorily.

"Ano ne, you're pregnant aren't you?" Juvia jolted away from them.

"Hah?! How did you know?!" Juvia was aghast as she looked at the amused faces of her company. Sachiko winked at her, her graying hair gleaming in the sunlight as she tapped her cheek with her index finger.

"A mother knows." Juvia blushed as tried to correct them.

"That's - that's surprising, but Gajeel-kun isn't Juvia's - "

"Ah! So his name is Gajeel!" The women chattered amongst themselves excitedly as Juvia stared at them, at a loss of what to do. She hadn't known bringing Gajeel with her would cause this kind of misunderstanding. She sighed. The women turned their attention back to her.

"Ne, ne. Come shopping with us! We'll take you to the best places in town and we'll get to know each other!"

"Yes, that's a wonderful idea!" They grabbed Juvia and sped into the central plaza of Galdrom.

.. .. ..

Hiroyuki the metal smith looked up from his work and his conversation with his friends to see his wife fly by with her friends and a blue haired young woman. Samuel laughed, as he watched them go by, seeing his wife, Eliza in the midst of it.

"Looks like your wife and Sachiko found a new friend." Hiroyuki shook his head.

"That poor woman. She'll never know what hit her."

.. .. ..

Juvia waved sweetly as she saw her new friends off from her front door. They had walked her home, scolding her about holding heavy things at such an early stage of pregancy. They had given her advice on how to best maximize her time and how to deal with the things that were to come.

"Good bye! Thank you for today!" She bowed as they turned to wave and as soon as they were out of sight she went inside the house and collapsed on the couch, a plume of dust rising, making her cough. Juvia thinks older women are scary! She looked at the clock in the living room and realized that she had six hours left until Gajeel returned home. She got up and surveyed the room.

"Yosh! First cleaning, then Juvia will cook Gajeel dinner!" Steeling her resolve, Juvia filled a bucket with water and used her water powers to expertly clean the floors and windows of dust and grime. She then got out a mop after some searching in the storage closet and wiped down the floors, wiping down the windows with a clean rag. She then took a cloth and dusted all the furniture, along with polishing the wooden and iron fixtures in the room. Finishing downstairs, Juvia repeated the process in all three rooms up stairs, taking extra care in the bathrooms. She set the rooms according to how she usually lived, and unpacked her clothes. She saw Gajeel's half opened suitcase and put his clothes into the closet next to hers. Her hands stilled as she hung his fifth vest into the closet, running her hands lightly down the length of it.

Juvia realized, that here, in this city, it was only her and Gajeel. The way things were going, her child would likely grow up to believe that Gajeel was his father. She sighed. The way things were, it looked like things were only going to get more complicated. She didn't want to lead her child on, but... Gajeel being a father somehow made her feel ...happy. She shook her head. What was she thinking? This was Gajeel she was talking about. He'd sooner fight a dragon than change a baby's diaper. She thought of Gajeel feeding a baby milk and difted into a fit of laughter. She shrugged, at this point, there was no telling how things were going to turn out. She had no choice but to just go along with it for now. She clapped her hands in satisfaction as she looked around her sparkling bedroom and then went down stairs, tying her hair as she went.

"Time to cook!"

.. .. ..

Gajeel looked at the flyer in his hands and then at the building in front of him. Then back down to the flyer.

What the fuck is this? He thought. He was sure he had picked up the mission form for putting a bunch of bandits in jail...how had he ended up in front of a Magnolia highschool with a flyer to teach the basics of magic to a bunch of highschool delinquents. He groaned, he had been so angry that he must've snatched the wrong flyer. He turned to go back to the guild when a high voice called out to him.

"Ohayooooo! You must be Gajeel-kun!" A tall but ancient and severe looking woman raced in front of him, grabbing his vest and dragging him inside the building. "Oh you look just as Mira-san described you!"

Mira? Damn, I can't get out of the job now. He dusted himself off as the woman finally let go of him.

"My name is Towa Mariko," She bowed and then looked at him, pushing her glasses firmly onto her face from one side. She looked him up and down, making him largely uncomfortable. She handed him a thick sheaf of paper and shoved him down the hallway of the school all the while talking a mile a minute.

"You will be in charge of the senior class of the school, theyre a right bunch of sorry looking souls. No direction, motivation or anything. All of them look like they've given up on life. Also, they're pretty violent. Don't forget to duck whenever they throw something. Well. That said, good luck." She patted him on the back and then sped away, leaving Gajeel standing in front of a heavily vandalised classroom door. Gajeel sighed, and opened the door to the classroom, promptly hitting the floor to avoid being smacked in the face from a large dictionary.

"Whooo! Shin! Nice shot!" He heard an adolescent male voice yell. He winced. He hated his sharp sense of hearing at times like this. He got up and dragged himself to the class podium surveying the kids. All of them had strange hairstyles and many sported some kind of weapon. He yawned. This was going to be such a crappy job.

"Oi." He said, seeing that no one had taken notice of his entrance. He narrowed his eyes. If he was here, he was damn well not going to be ignored. He raised one gloved hand and slammed it on the podium and yelled.

"OI, BRATS! SHADDUP!" The class went silent, finally taking note of the gigantic, heavily pierced man at the front of the class. He grinned at their stares, fangs showing.

"Now that's more like it." He opened the book the principal had given him.

Lesson 1: Spirit.