For the day after their introduction to Justine, there was an increase in time the boys spent in the library of their school. Stealing books from one another for the librarian to loan out and shuffling past each other between the shelves when searching for something, anything, that would hold some relevance to their studies. Anything that Justine mentioned in the ending minutes of their classes, and to clarify anything they found themselves struggling to understand. Writing the required notes, and planning the essays that he had set for them to do - each boy determined to make the man bend with even the smallest amount of praise for their work, though they knew he would not likely give it to them just because they asked.

"So, let's summarize." Justine began, crossing his legs beneath himself as he settled on the dewy September grass in the school's middle courtyard, eyes squinted against the sun and pen in hand, though he would not need it, "The First World War, what points do we make?"

"Trench warfare." Jellal cowed out, knees rocking under the weight of his forearms, voice stretching out the last few syllables.

Gray clicked his tongue, pencil between his teeth, "Mountains of dead."

"On both sides," Sting muttered.

Natsu gave a small laugh, "Generals stupid."

"On both sides."

"Armistice; Germany humiliated." Ren continued, feet sprawling into the middle of their circle, face tipped back to bask in the glory of the early September sunshine.

Justine's lips turned down for a moment, voice light, "Keep it coming."

Jellal turned towards the teacher, eyes watching a coal tit in the tree, "Mass unemployment."

"Inflation," Offered Ren, the thought lost to the scream of those on Junior lunch.

Gajeel's chest puffed out as he continued the line of thought, "Collapse of the Weimar Republic, internal disorder, and the rise of Hitler."

"So our overall conclusion is that the origins of the second war lie in the unsatisfactory outcome of the first?" Justine's head shook as he looked about the boys, tone almost disappointed in how excited he sounded.

"Yes," Gajeel replied, thinking for a moment before repeating the word with some hint of confidence, "Yes."

Justine smiled, head shaking once more, "First class," A smile erupted on Gajeel's face, skin bloating with contentment, "Bristol welcomes you with open arms!" Justine watched with satisfaction as their smiles fell, "Manchester longs to have you! You can walk into Leeds!" Justine punched the ground, his voice mocking and carefree, jovial and almost as though he had taken something from how he looked to them, "But I'm the fellow of Magdalene College Oxford and I've just read 70 papers all saying the same thing," Justine's pen was flung from his hand as he spoke, hitting Sting on the shoulder, "And I'm asleep."

Rouge's hand wavered in their air as he blocked the sun from his eyes, "But it's all true."

"What's truth got to do with it?" Justine's brow raised as he spoke, the boys laughing softly in disbelief, "What's truth got to do with anything?"

"The new man seems clever." Porlyusica mumbled into her cup of coffee, looking out from her classroom window on the opposite side of the courtyard.

"Yes, he does." Bob replied, unfolding his lunchbox as he shuffled one of the chairs at the desk forward, "Depressingly so."

Porlyusica turned to Bob in the silence, watching as he poured himself a cup of coffee from the flask, "Didn't you try for Oxford?"

"Cambridge." Came the curt reply, wonder and agony dancing in his voice, "Cloisters. Ancient libraries. I was confusing learning with the smell of cold stone." Pulling a biscuit from his tin, Bob looked up at his friend, "If I had gone I'd probably never have worked out the difference."

"Durham was very good for history." Porylusica muttered, watching Bob unfold a handkerchief and wiping down her desk, "It's where I had my first pizza." The woman took a small sip from her coffee, looking to where the boys sat on the grass, basking in the sunlight, "Other things too, of course, but it's the pizza that stands out."

Bob took a moment to process her words, looking away and nodding, "Er, Dragneel's a good-looking boy, though somehow sad."

Porylusica's face turned to Bob's, small horror on her lips before she seemed to dismiss it all, "You always think they're sad, Hector." She looked away, placing her cup behind her on the desk, "Every, every time." Bob tucked his handkerchief into his shirt collar, listening to the woman as she spoke, "Actually, I wouldn't have said he was sad, I would have said he was cunt-struck."

Bob's lips hung open with the scandal of the woman's words, her name passing softly from his lips, "Porlyusica."

"I'd have thought you'd have liked that." Porlyusica muttered, Bob's face piquing in interest, "It's a compound adjective." The woman laughed, reminded of the times when she had had to deal with her younger brother's in her youth, not for a moment missing their antics, "You like compound adjectives." Bob's blubbery face twisted into a grim smile as she looked towards the sound in the courtyard, "Oh!" She stood, taking her coffee with her as she wished to see where they would go, "Going walkabout."

"Oh, yes."

Justine had taken the boys out of the school grounds, towards the nearby park to saunter closer to the war memorial in the middle of the coppice of ash trees, "The truth was, in 1914, Germany doesn't want war." Justine shrugs as he nods his head towards an elderly woman and her dog on the other side of the square, "Yeah, there's an arms race, but it's Britain who's leading it." His voice rises, the pupils slowing behind him as the digested the information, "So, why does no one admit this?" The teacher himself began to slow, only to look up to the top of the monument, where the soldier's hat was covered in bird waste, "That's why. The dead." Justine chose his words, enunciating them, "The body count." Justine allowed a moment for his pupils to depart from his back and inspect the figure they had seen a thousand times before, "We still don't like to admit the war was even partly our fault 'cause so many of our people died." The words came slow, punctual, "And all the mourning's veiled the truth." Justine removed a hand from his pocket, bending at the waist momentarily to indicate the names, "It's not 'lest we forget', it's 'lest we remember'." Justine smiled as their faces seemed unable to hide what they thought, that he was madness incarnate, "See, that's what all this is about - the memorials, the Cenotaph, the two minutes' silence. Because there is no better way of forgetting something than by commemorating it." As soon as it looked as though Rouge were about to talk, Justine raised and brow and squared his shoulders, "And as for the truth, Cheney, which you're worried about, forget about it." Justine's head twitched, smile small, "In an examination, truth's not an issue." Rouge's mouth hung open as he laughed, some of the other's joining him.

"You really believe this, Sir?" Natsu stepped down from the higher steps, Justine looking up at him from the bottom, "Or are you just trying to make us think?"

"You can't explain away the poetry, Sir," Rouge muttered, hunching forward as Ren leant against him to look at the soldier.

"No, Sir." Gray nodded, arms crossed over his stomach, "Art wins in the end."

"What about this one, Sir? 'Those long, uneven lines standing as patiently as if they were stretched outside the Oval or Villa Park'," Natsu descended the stairs, ignoring the words of his friends as he took in the statue he had seen a thousand times, "'The crowns of hats, the sun on moustached archaic faces, grinning as if it were all an August Bank Holiday lark'." Rouge's gruff tones came to an end.

Gray picked up from there, "'Never such innocence, never before or since'," Gray made a motion with his file, pointing from one cobbled stone to another, "'Has changed itself to past without a word'."

"'The men'," Ren began on the other side of the statue, walking with a rush to be by Gray's side, "'Leaving the gardens tidy'."

"'The thousands of marriages lasting a little while longer'." Sting's voice was sweet, close enough that Justine could almost feel it.

"'Never such innocence again'." Gajeel placed his hand on Sting's shoulder, leaning on the younger boy.

"How come you know all this by heart?" Justine asked, the boys laughter exiting their noses as puffs of air, and the teacher's brow raised as he began to walk away, "Not that it answers the question."

"So much for our 'glorious dead'," Rouge said with eyes closed against the sun as he attempted to look once more at the once familiar stone.

"Quite." Natsu lamented, the other's walking away from himself and Rouge, Sting lingering at his shoulder, "Actually, Lucy's my Western front." Sting blanched at the words, Rouge clearly seeing what Natsu could not and that was the panic on the boys face, "Well, last night, for instance." Rouge chuckled, Natsu continuing as if daring him to tell Natsu he was wrong, "I thought it might be the big push," Without a word Natsu walked away, after the teacher and the others, and Rouge watched Sting frantically run after the other, "So, encountering only token resistance, I reconnoitred the ground as far as the actual place."

"Shit!" Boomed with a laugh from Rouge, the image of the secretary blooming in his mind.

"No, I mean not onto it." Natsu stopped, placing a hand on Rouge's chest, "Certainly not into it." Natsu's lips twitched, and for a moment, Rouge was reminded of winding Summer's spent in the forest, "Up to it."

"Fuck," Sting said, Natsu glancing to him with a smirk before moving away.

"And the metaphor really fits. I mean, moving up to the front, troops presumably had to pass the sites of previous battles. Well, so it is with me." Natsu sighed happily, "Like particularly her tits, which only surrendered about three weeks ago. And which were indeed the start line of a determined thrust southwards."

The night before, Natsu had lain in Lucy's bed with her kiss, but when he had attempted to put his hand up her skirt she had stopped him, pulling away, "What's the matter?" Natsu mumbled, not daring to try again until she told him.

"No-man's-land." Lucy let rumbled from her chest, eyes glittering as she thought of the word's learned in her own courses of history when she had been at school.

"Ah, fuck," Natsu sighed, propping himself up on the bed, trying not to be annoyed with how Lucy laughed at him, "So, what do I do with this?" He groaned, indicating the obvious bulge in the front of his denim trousers.

Lucy looked at the bulge for a moment, brow raised as her lips remained parted, her gaze flickering from his eyes to lips as she replied, "Carry out a controlled explosion?"

"Still," Was muttered as they rounded the corner, the gates to the school in view as well as their classmates on the other side of the road, "At least I'm doing better than Makarov."

"Makarov?" Sting commented in disbelief, Rouge's head spinning to look at Natsu as he slipped from the pavement, "No!"

Natsu gave a little smile, "Tries to." Natsu gave a slick smirk when Ren looked back, Sting's protests drawing attention, "Chases her around the desk."

"Euh!" Rouge continued walking on the road, Sting shuffling closer to Natsu as their other friend spun in a circle whilst making noises of disgust.

Sting frowned when Rouge rejoined them on the pavement, his face red with laughter and hand on his forehead as he tried to calm himself, "Actually, the metaphor isn't exact because-" Sting's tenor warbled when Natsu looked at him, "What Lucy is presumably carrying out is a planned withdrawal." Natsu's brow furrowed as Sting continued, his simpering voice floating between Rouge and Natsu, their minds still fixated on the idea of Makarov chasing Lucy around the desk, "You're not forcing her; she's not being overwhelmed by superior forces," Rouge tried not to laugh at how Natsu seemed to deflate, "Does she like you?"

"Course she likes me." Natsu snorted, lips drawing tight.

"Then you're not disputing the territory, just negotiating over the pace of the occupation."

"Just let us know when you get to Berlin," Rouge announced, enjoying the brief look of hurt on Sting's face.

"I'm beginning to like him more," Natsu sighed after a moment of silence, the three stopping on the pavement as they looked at their classmates entering the school grounds.

"Who? Me?" Sting's voice was hopeful.

"Justine." Natsu said with some disgust, lips tight as he looked over his shoulder at the other, "Though he hates me." Natsu jogged away with a shout, "Gray!", leaving the other two to ponder their existence.

The two were silent, Sting drawing higher as he watched Natsu's back, Rouge watching his friend, "Cheer up, least he speaks to you." Rouge pat his friend on the arm, turning to look at the familiarity Natsu had with Gray and Ren, "Most guys wouldn't even speak to you." Sting turned to look at Rouge, the other watching the car that rushed past them on the road, "Love can be very irritating."

"How do you know?"

"That's what I always think about God." Rouge turned back, fingers touching the rosary beads within his pocket, "He must get so pissed off," Rouge sighed, bumping shoulders with Rouge, "Everyone adoring him all the time."

"Yes." Sting muttered, voice sarcastic as he looked at the other from the corner of his eye, "Only you don't catch God pouncing about in his underpants."

"I'm wild again. Beguiled again." It was in Bob's class that afternoon that Sting sung again, their class sober as their listened to the lamenting song, "A simpering, whimpering child again. Bewitched, bothered and bewildered am I. Couldn't sleep and wouldn't sleep when love came and told me I shouldn't sleep." Natsu's brow raised when Gajeel turned to laugh at him, the other's lips pressed tight to prevent a wide smile, "Bewitched, bothered and bewildered am I. Lost my heart, but what of it?" "He is cold, I agree." Gray snickered, Gajeel elbowing his side as Natsu's head fell back so that he was looking at the ceiling and Ren looked up from the book in his hands, "He can laugh but I love it, although the laugh's on me. I'll sing to him, each spring to him and worship the trousers that cling to him." Elfman, sitting in the front row closest to the piano, turned when he saw Sting's gaze shift from the music to something else, his lips parted when he looked at Natsu. Elfman rushed to pull his notes from the desk, where Sting was lowering himself as he continued to serenade Natsu, the boy shaking his head whilst suppressing a laugh, the rest of the class stuffing fingers between their teeth, "Bewitched, bothered and bewildered am I." Rouge turned and shared a look with Natsu, the pink-haired boy shaking his head and glowering as Rouge snickered and enjoyed the melody his fingers played.

"Well done, Eucliffe." Bob said as he struggled to stand, the two boys rushing back to their seats before the teacher raised his little brown book into the air with a smile, "And now for some poetry of a more traditional sort."

"Oh, God!" Gajeel cried melodramatically, collapsing hard onto his table so that it scrapped against the floor until it his Sting's back with enough force that it caused the blonde's table to move.

"Er, Redfox, w-what is this?" Bob blinked, looking at the black haired boy as he returned to a normal sitting position.

"Sir, I don't always understand poetry." Whimpered from Gajeel's lips.

"You don't always understand it?" Bob asked incredulously, smiling a little as he threw his arms out, "Redfox, I never understand it." Bob touched the lapel of his blazer, finger moving to touch his temple, "But learn it now, know it now, and you will understand it-" Looking from the window, Bob's hands fell to his sides, "Whenever."

Gajeel brought his hands to the table, leaning forward, "I don't see how we can understand it." Gajeel looked to where Sting had turned and was leaning on Gray's half of the desk, "Most of the stuff poetry's about hasn't happened to us yet."

"But it will, Redfox, it will." Came exasperatedly from Bob's lips, glancing around the rest of the class, "And when it does, you'll have the antidote ready." In turn, Bob raised his hands, "Grief, happiness." Pushing his glasses up his nose Bob smiled to bare his teeth, "Even when you're dying." Bob looked down as he collected his book in his hands, flickering through the worn pages for something to read, "We're making your deathbeds here, boys."

"Ay!" Before their teacher could find his page, Gajeel raised his hand and waved it, looking back at Gray before speaking, "We've - er- we've got an ending, Sir."

Joy spread over Bob's face, the skin turning pink, "Oh! Goody!" Raising his arm, Bob looked to his watch that was rested there clapping his hands, "Yes, well be sharp! Where's the kitty?" With that the room burst into movement, Gajeel and Gray racing to the front and Sting leaping to gather the beaten tin box for Bob who was lumbering towards Gajeel's seat in the second row.

"And we have to smoke, Sir," Gajeel said as Bob turned, aghast at the suggestion until Sting brought him the kitty.

Raising a packet into the air, Gray winked at Ren who smirked down into his book, "And I happen to have some, Sir."

"Very well." The fat on Bob's neck swung as he sat, Sting collapsing into the chair in front of him.

The room remained quiet as Gajeel and Gray adjusted themselves, Rouge playing a quick tune on the piano as the two huffed to prepare their voices, "Jerry," Gajeel's voice was pitched high, body leaning forward pleadingly, "Please help me."

"Shall we just have a cigarette on it?" Came the reply, Gray's face turning down and hands in pockets.

"Yes!"

Gajeel offered the packet to Gray, the other removing two of the cigarettes and placing them in his mouth, Gajeel holding up a light for him. When both were lit, Gray puffing smoke from his nose, Gajeel took one and both made a fanciful show to blowing smoke at Sting, "May I sometimes come here?"

"Whenever you like," Gajeel replied, tentatively reaching to touch Gray's hand, "It's your home too." With a wavering voice, Gajeel turned from Gray with stiff movements, looking to the back wall behind Jellal, "There are people here who love you," Bob gave a withering look to Gajeel as he chuckled, tongue stuck between his smiling lips as he bit it.

"And will you be happy, Charlotte?" Gray stepped towards Gajeel's back, holding the burning tobacco at shoulder height.

"Oh, Jerry!" Gajeel sighed, turning with drawn brows, "Don't let's ask for the moon," At that moment, Rouge chose to up the tempo of the gentle music, "We have the stars!" Both boys turned to Bob, lifting the cigarettes to their mouths and billowing out smoke. After this all the boys turned to Bob for his opinion, Gajeel continuing to smoke.

"Lovely." Bob clapped, running his thumb over his ring, "Hm!" Bob sighed with the rest of the class, before lifting a finger and twitching it side to side, "Could it be Paul Henreid and Bette Davis in 'Now, Voyager'?" The class howled with laughter, Gajeel and Gray muttering and protesting as Bob stood, "It is famous, you ignorant little tarts!"

"But we ain't never heard of it, Sir," Gray threw his arm out, glancing back at Gajeel as he stepped down the aisle.

"Oh!" Bob sighed with disappointment, "Walt Whitman, 'Leaves of Grass'." Bob smiled happily, recalling the words fondly, "'The untold want, by life and land ne'er granted. Now, Voyager, sail thou forth, to seek and find'." Bob lifted his hand, looking forlornly at the chalkboard as his hand mimicked the movement of a wave. He settled himself, drawing in quick, shallow breaths that made himself proud, before lifting the kitty and shaking it, the coins already contained within jingling, "Fifty pence, please!"