Disclaimer Hiro Mashima owns fairy tail and all it's awesomeness.

*Hibiki's p.o.v*

I had to admit the last seven years had been a long road of denial, depression, searching, being comforted and finally accepting the fact that Lucy and the other members of fairy tail were gone. Then all that was left for me to do was, try and start to move on. It had been incredibly hard and for 4 years I hadn't been able to it at all. My heart had felt like I had been betraying Lucy, but now it wasn't as hard anymore and I had fallen back into my pre-Lucy playboy ways rather easily I did admit. Which had surprised me, seeing how quickly I'd dropped them after falling for the blonde beauty .

I still slipped up at times even though it'd been almost seven years now since my Lucy was stolen from me. When I was about to finish with a woman in bed I'd call out Lucy's name instead of the woman's I was with, but I had gotten better at that by biting into a pillow if I thought I was going to slip up. Though it never felt the same, ever since that time with my beautiful spirit mage sex hadn't been the same. I didn't feel anything or get anything out of it like I used too. I could perform don't get me wrong, but something was just missing from it. Even if I was with a gorgeous lady I just couldn't reach that high I'd managed with Lucy. She truly was one of a kind.

Eve had pointed out to me on several occasions that the woman I'd chosen to date in the last 3 years had blonde hair, brown eyes or other features that resembled my lost love in some way or another. At first I'd been adamant he was wrong but when I'd gone away and looked at the evidence, I'd seen Eve had been right and the following day I'd caught hold of him and we'd sat down for a chat. I knew Eve had been having as much of a hard time over losing Lucy as I had, and it wasn't fair of me to just shove his opinion aside so easily just because it had upset me at the time. I had sincerely apologised to my friend and teammate as I owed him a great deal for being one, of only a select few, who had brought me back to life after the initial shock and depression of losing Lucy (I'd fallen into a dark pit emotionally after the news and for 6 months I didn't speak a word to anybody). He had forgiven me after several minutes of contemplation and a promise that I'd never dismiss his opinion like that again...unless it was totally wrong, of course.

Though something he'd said as he'd left still stuck with me to this day, he'd said 'I still miss her like mad too, and I'm not going to give up on searching for Tenroujima and bringing Lucy and the others home, so that all of us (Fairy tail included) who have lost a loved one on that island can find closure and move on.' I'd stared at him in shock, finally understand how it felt when someone thought you'd read their mind without permission. The search for any clue as to what had happened to those on Tenrou had been Eve and Ichiya's idea to get me out of my depression and give me something to do after they'd gotten annoyed with my zombie like mourning period. But the problem at the time, and even today, was I had been starting to think that it was a waste of time and effort to my process of moving forward as I was constantly looking behind me and secretly hoping, that we could, by some miracle, find them all alive and well.

When I'd realised this to be a dream, I had been planning to just give up on it and somehow let it all go...but Eve's words made me realise that it wasn't just me who was struggling to move forward, there were others who were having just as hard a time as me. People who had been closer and known the members that disappeared longer than I had. In some cases known them since childhood, needed the closure more than I did. Romeo popped into my mind at that, I'd bumped into him on a few occasions in the past two years (since he'd become an active wizard) and not once had I seen a smile on the young boys face. He was the polar opposite of how he'd been when I'd stayed with Lucy that time after our joint mission went pear shaped. So with that in mind I'd continued on with my research. It wasn't just for me after all, I kept having to repeat to myself when ever the urge to quit kept popping into my mind.

My only problem was that in the past six years of searching, gathering information and just plain manual labour (in libraries of course) the only real reliable clue/piece of information I had gathered had been at the beginning of my search. I had managed too tracked down another stellar spirit mage who was contracted with a Crux, it had been Eve's idea because as he'd said if Lucy's contracts weren't broken with her spirits then, there was some hope of finding them alive. Anyway after I'd explained to the mage my situation he gladly agreed to help and called out his Crux who started it's search. The answer he'd given me had been very roundabout, due to confidentiality clauses in mage-spirit contracts, but the essence of his answer that his summoner translated for me, was that Lucy's contracts were still in place with all of her keys and that gave me hope that maybe she was still alive somewhere waiting for me.

As I said that was six years ago and what little hope that information had given me at that time had changed from finding them alive and well, to finding their bodies! It still made my heart tighten and my chest hurt when I thought that I'd never see my lovely Lucy's smile ever again or hear the sound of her amazing laugh, but at least I could bury her and know that she was resting, alongside her mom, in peace.

"I miss you, Sweetheart," I whispered under my breath, using my nick name for Lucy that would always bring a rose colored blush to her cheeks, no matter how many times I called her by it.

Beep Beep Beep!

The noise from my Archive search engine, snapped me out of my reminiscing and contemplating. It returned my attention to what I should have being doing, concentrating on my research. For the last six months I'd been looking into ether nano particle levels surrounding Tenroujima in the years before, during and after the Acnologia attack and by the looks of it my search was finally complete. As I turned my full attention to the numbers and charts floating in front of me I got a shock, this search was a last resort it was supposed to turn up nothing but here I was looking at my information and it was definitely giving me something...I think.

"Eve," I yelled over my shoulder to where my friend was chatting with some lovely ladies (I was getting a small sense of deja vu here), thought I was too busy staring at my Archive screen to pay attention to them right now, I needed a second opinion on this data and that was rare! The reason I called for Eve to give me the second opinion was this research was just as important to him as it was to me.

"Yes," He called walking over to me, looking somewhat annoyed. Whoops guess he was close to scoring one of them.

"Look at this," I said pointing at the numbers floating in the air. Eve's brow furrowed as he took in all the information, numbers and implications of what they meant. So while I waited for him to make his way through my info, I turned around to check out the ladies that Eve had just walked away from and I had to say they were fiiinnneee. Maybe after Eve was finished looking over my data, I could go over and introduce myself to them...and show them a night to remember.

"Is this credible?" Eve asked but I didn't really pay him any heed as I was still busy checking out the two woman. "HIBIKI!" He yelled into my ear causing my head to snap back around to face him.

"Huh What?" I yelped slightly startled by him shouting at me, he was usually so mild.

"Is this credible?" He asked again hope shining in his eyes as he looked up at me.

"I have no reason to doubt it," I replied a small smile creeping onto my face at his childish excitement, even though we both knew that we weren't going to find them alive. As the full meaning of my data hit him he jumped up and down before dashing over to Ichiya and Ren, looking like a very happy child who just got the best present of his life.

"Fire up Christina!" He cried in happiness as he danced around the rest of our team and Sherry who was sat with Ren. "Let's bring them home!"