[A/N] This one is getting such a rapidfire uploading because I have so much of it done. Sorry, Chippendale fans! xD

Cana hurled her deck of cards on her table and dumped her bag on the floor unceremoniously. How dare he try to read her cards! Damn Makarov and his stupid fucking magic lessons…Stupid fucking Laxus, too, for that matter.

Star and Strength, Star and Strength…ugh, she could've lived with keeping the other cards, but why the fuck did she have to draw those two? She was perfectly fine with her old wounds, thank you very much, and just the thought of the "power of love" was enough to make her vomit.

"The future isn't written in stone," she told the room firmly. "And if it was, stone can be broken." **

She was going to fight this reading with everything she had. The cards had to be wrong. She didn't think she could handle it if they were right. Her scars had scabbed over, and that was all that mattered. They needn't be reopened now.

There was a knock on the door. If that's him then I swear to god I will bash his head in with this bottle, she fumed, storming to the door, scotch in hand. She hurled it open, beginning a scathing remark but stopping when she saw Mirajane standing outside.

"I closed the bar early," Mirajane apologized sheepishly. "I wanted to make sure you were okay."

Cana stepped aside to let her friend in. "Now, tell me about the readings you've been having," Mirajane said sweetly, arranging her skirt as she sat down.

Cana explained them all, leaving Strength for last. Mirajane pursed her lips. "You'd think after last year—"

"You'd think," Cana snapped, glaring at Strength like she could frighten it into changing. "I'm perfectly fine holding my grudges."

"Are you sure?" Mirajane pressed. "I remember how happy you were."

"Yeah, the past tense being the operative here!"

"Cana…"

"Please, don't, Mira. I can just avoid him while he's in town. Maybe I'll take a job, for good measure."

"Cana Alberona, you listen to me this instant!" Mirajane exploded. A ghostly wind fluttered her dress and hair. "You loved him!"

"I thought I loved him!" Cana fumed. "And then he went and cheated on me with Evergreen! For two months—until I found out and dumped his ass!"

"Well, your cards are telling you it's time for a second chance!"

"He's had plenty! Yeah, sure, I could forgive him for Evergreen, forget the whole thing, but what if he did it again? Would you trust him not to do the same stupid shit? Not to mention what he's done to the guild over the years and been fucking forgiven for it!"

"What if he's changed?"

"That rat bastard never changes," Cana said bitterly. "Did you miss his stupid, attention-whore entrance this morning? Nothing ever changes."

"But it can," Mirajane said softly. Her heart ached to see her friend in such pain, and no matter how hard the brunette tried to hide it, the barmaid could always see through her.

Cana turned away. "I'd rather it didn't." Her voice dropped to a whisper. "It hurts less that way."

…

Laxus stuck his hands into his pockets and strode out of the guild. No point being there now that the bar was closed.

"Where to next?" he wondered aloud. Visiting Evergreen was always fun…but if—when—Cana found out, there'd be hell to pay.

Wait, why the fuck should he care what that bitch thought anyway? She dumped him ages ago. The only woman to ever dump Laxus Dreyar…

Takes a special kinda woman, he mused. He shook himself. Go get drunk, Laxus, he told himself.

He obeyed himself, hustling off to his favorite non-guild bar. He then proceeded to get massively, stupidly drunk. "I mean, what's she even pissed at me for?" he slurred to the drunk guy beside him.

"I dunno man, but chicks," the poor wasted bastard agreed unsteadily. "Can' live with 'em, can' live wi'out 'em."

"I mean, it was a whole fuckin' year ago she dumped me," Laxus protested. "What hell's she gotta be mad about? It ain't like we rebounded or nothin'." His new drinking buddy nodded sagely. "And I ain't slept with her sister—she don't even got a sister for me to sleep with!"

"Chicks," the guy repeated dreamily. "I should go find me one a those." He staggered to his feet.

Laxus raised his tankard. "And all the best to you, my friend."

Those stupid cards. Theypushed her from ordinary bitch levels to, like, Evergreen bitch levels.

Still, as plastered as he was, Laxus knew it was a really fuckin' bad idea to confront her about it.

**Not mine; I take this quote from one of my favorite books, Dragon Prince by Melanie Rawn. Fits, doesn't it?