20th: Comet

Summary: They didn't do perfection. They didn't do classical relationship. But what they did was around as effective as a glowing stone from the sky.

Dedication: This one-shot is dedicated to Seri3991.

Sometimes, he lay awake and wondered. (Ultear always told him that he thought too much and that all his musing wasn't healthy for him. He was tempted to agree with her but somehow, he never managed to agree completely with the time mage.) He lay awake and he thought about the woman with kind brown eyes and scarlet hair. His relationship with her was somewhat complicated since he was a criminal and since she was a Fairy Tail mage who stood on the side of uprightness and goodness.

Still, they were kind of dating.

Meredy sometimes called him a fool for not taking his girlfriend and running away to a faraway country where they could live together, without having to worry about a magical council that could stir up trouble for them. Still, the male mage knew that his Erza would never run away. She simply wasn't the type of woman who would run away – and he adored her for this. They had been through so much pain and sorrow that anyone less strong than Erza would have ran out of power long ago. But she was still there, unyielding and stubborn as always. They had laughed and cried together. They had fought and kissed each other. And every time one of them had seemed to fall into the darkness, the other one had been there to pick up the pieces.

But their relationship wasn't perfect and he caught himself being envious when he watched how Gajeel could treat Levy like a princess in public. (The first time he had seen this, however, he had firmly believed that someone had drugged the Iron Dragon Slayer.) He wanted to punch Natsu whenever the pink-haired idiot kissed his Celestial Spirit Mage's forehead – just to see her blush. It was unfair that even someone like Laxus could treat his alcohol-addicted girlfriend with dinner when Erza never got anything.

She smiled in her sleep as she dreamed of her blue-haired boyfriend. She felt how her body trembled just because his fingertips traced her lips. She was in love with him and nothing would ever change this. She was incredibly jealous of Ultear and Meredy who could spend so much time with him – on the other hand, neither of the both female Crime Sorciere mages could be with the one she loved. Erza knew from Jellal's letters that Ultear hadn't seen Lyon in months and that Meredy was sulking because the last time she had seen Eve, Ultear had interrupted their date because of a dark guild they had to fight.

For no one who was involved with a Crime Sorciere mage it was easy.

Erza found herself in a – relatively – lucky situation. Her guild was supportive of her relationship with a criminal and supported her by covering for them both while neither Lamia Scale nor Blue Pegasus knew about their mages involvement with Ultear and Meredy respectively. It was a serious situation and while she sometimes felt like she would burst because the happiness was too much for her, she always kept in mind how frustrated the others had to be. She had once pitied Cana because after Laxus' excommunication, the Card Mage had been nearly depressed. Back then, Erza hadn't understood how someone could have so much faith in someone who had betrayed this trust once.

Now, she understood perfectly how it felt to be torn apart between heart and head.

Laxus' scar which happened to be one of his most prominent traits was a consequence from intercepting an attack against Cana. Erza remembered how she had talked with Mira about that incident. None of them had understood why their fellow S-class mage had done this … they hadn't understood why someone would risk to die for the one they loved. Now, both of them understood.

It was true what they said, Erza mused. No one could understand the concept and the madness of love until falling in love. No one could understand the desperation and the hope love brought likewise. The worlds between tears of bittersweet regret and joy that reached to the moon and back were mysteries until feeling them.

She wished, however, that Jellal could be there to hold her in his arms tonight but she knew that this wasn't possible. First of all, men weren't allowed in Fairy Hills (though Laxus and a few others had gotten quite proficient had sneaking in) and secondly: Crime Sorciere was taking care of a dark guild, many miles away.

He wanted to be her hero. He wanted to be there when she was in pain. He wanted to hold her and to tell her that everything would be okay again. He wanted to be at her side - always, today and every following day. He wanted to surprise her with little gifts. He wanted to tell her that he would always be hers and that his heart would always beat only for her.

But he couldn't do this because he was forced to run and hide all the time.

Frustrated, he sat up and looked around in their room. Ultear slept calmly on her bed, wrapped tightly into Lyon's old coat while Meredy slept on her back while she held a snow globe Eve had given her for midwinter tightly in her hand.

The blue-haired man sighed deeply. They all shared the same pain of being too far away from their loves and especially Ultear was getting annoyed with this lately. She had snapped at Meredy earlier today for being too cheerful. Even for the Time Mage's standards, this wasn't normal and Jellal knew that they would run 'accidentally' run into a certain Ice Mage of Lamia Scale pretty soon.

He stared at the sky, looking for a shooting star. He was about to look away and to try sleeping again when he saw one. It was a comet, heading down to earth, probably hitting the ocean pretty soon. The comet wasn't all that pretty but his trail was scarlet.

And that was their love – often depressing because they couldn't be together all the time when they wanted to – but scarlet and beautiful when they were together.