Lucy

We were following behind her through a crowed street in Magnolia. I couldn't take my eyes off of the back of her head. "Are you sure?' I whispered to Natsu. He was walking next to me, his eyes fixed just as intently on her.

"Absolutely." He told me.

"It doesn't make any sense! Nashi is 8 months old, not 15 YEARS old!" I tried to keep my voice down, but it seemed to be carried on the wind.

"I don't understand it either. But I know her smell." Natsu said. "It may be fading, but Nashi's sent is still on her blankets and clothes at our house, plus there's no way I could ever forget it."

I tried to argue back but the girl in front of us stopped. "I can HEAR you!"

"Of course you can!" my stupid husband said with a stupid grin on his face. "It's the dragon slaying magic!" he turned that stupid grin to me "She gets that from me."

"Would you stop it!" I slapped his shoulder and then pointed at the girl. "That is NOT my daughter!"

Natsu touched my hand and pulled it down. He then leaned in to whisper into my ear. "She has your eyes."

I allowed myself to look at her again, and made sure to look into her eyes this time. And then I saw it. It wasn't just my eyes, she had my mother's eyes as well. "How is this possible?"

"The place I was in, time moved differently. While it was only a few months for you, it was 15 years for me." Her words were soft but there was a hardness in them too. It made me think that there was something very hard about this girl.

I let myself stare at this girl. REALLY stare at her and take in all of her features. It wasn't just the eyes, I could see Natsu's jaw and my nose. Her hair was obviously from Natsu, and she may have a touch of my mother in her cheek bones. The tears started to fall as I remembered all of the times I dreamed of holding her in my arms again. Feeling her skin on mine as I breathed in her scent and let the warm feelings just wash over me.

I took several careful steps to her, and she started to back away from me. I stopped, and then she stopped. "I have to find the others." Then she turned and bolted away.

I felt my knees give out beneath me and I would have hit the pavement if not for Natsu. "I told you, that REALLY is her!"

"It's really her." My throat was too try, so my words came out raw. "She's really home." I felt the air in my lungs leave me and I struggled to breath. Natsu lifted me up in his arms and then turned around. Watching the surroundings, I could tell he was heading back to the guild hall. "Wait!" I shouted, fighting for him to put me down. "Stop! We have to go back! We have to find her!"

"Don't worry. I'm just taking you back to the guild hall so you can tell the other what we discovered, then I'm going back out for her. And I promise, I'm not coming back without her!"

Gray

When Lucy walked back in the guild hall, we were still picking up stuff and trying to fix the floor. When she started talking to us, our jaws hit the floor.

"WHAT?" Levy shouted, she ran up to Lucy and took hold of her shoulders and started shaking her back and forth.

Lucy managed to push the girl back and then straightened a lock of her hair. "I don't fully understand it, but it's really her. One of those people that fell out of the anima was my Nashi." She turned her head back to the bar and saw the card that Natsu had earlier and then moved to retrieve it. She gave a slight laugh when she read it again. "It's all clear now." She handed the card to me and I read the single word that was written.

I felt my chest tighten and I looked up at my friend. "Does this mean that…"

"I think," Lucy said "whoever sent those cards to us the other day, and then this one, sent our children back to us today. Only they are not the infants and toddlers that we were expecting."

The feeling in my chest got even more tight, and then I dashed out of the guild hall. I could hear my guild mates cry out for me, but I ignored them. I didn't give a damn about them right now. There were only 3 things I cared about. The first thing was to tell my wife that our kids were not only safe, but also home. And the second and third were our kids themselves.

When I rushed into the house, Juvia was right where I left her. She was sitting in an arm chair by the window, a pool of water around her. In the beginning the entire city of Magnolia had a series of rainstorms that almost washed the city away, but I was able to help her ease back. Now, it only rained on her. I still didn't like it. I didn't like seeing her this sad.

I ran up to her, putting myself right in the middle of her rain, and took her face in my hands. "Juvia." I said, my voice slightly frantic. "Juvia listen to me! I need you to hear me now." Her eyes were unfocused and staring, but there was a twitch that made me sure she was at least partly listening to me. "They are here! Our Silver and our Lynne! They are here!" I waited for her to do something, but she just sat there. "Juvia, please."

There was suddenly a wall of water that pushed me back. I turned back to her and saw her eyes, burning with anger. "How dare you!" she said, voice low and filled with rage. "How DARE you LIE to ME!" She stood up and I moved to stand as well. I saw her raise her arms to send another attack at me, but I quickly threw myself at her and froze us together. "NOOOOOOO!" she screamed, trying in vain to throw herself around and break the ice that surrounded us.

"LISTEN!" I shouted in her face. She stopped moving then turned a weary face to me. "Just a few minutes ago, 10 people fell into the guild hall from an anima. One of those people was Nashi, Natsu and Lucy's kid. Lucy told us herself that it was really her, just older. I promise you, I would not lie about this." I waited for her to say something, but for the moment she just kept her eyes locked onto mine. Finally, the rain stopped, and she cried.

I leaned forward and placed a kiss on her forehead and then released the ice around us. Once free, she sank to the floor and her tears intensified. I tried to comfort her, but when I saw her face I realized she didn't need comfort. She was smiling. Her eyes were shining brighter than ever and I knew that she would be ok. "Where are they?" she asked.

"I'm not sure. They ran off, but they can't be far. Probably still inside the city somewhere."

She took a few deep breaths and then stood. It took her a moment to steady herself, then she turned her determined eyes back to me. "Then let's go find them."

Nashi

I ran until my legs would hold me anymore, and then I collapsed next to a tree somewhere in a forest. I sank to the ground and let out all of the tears that I had been holding back. My chest ached and I couldn't breathe. I knew it, I knew it would go badly when I met them.

'That is NOT my daughter!"

I always wanted to find them, and have a real family. I wanted to have a mother that would hold me tight and tell me that everything was going to be fine and a father that would demand to know where the boy that hurt me was so he could kick his ass. I should have remembered that life is never what you want. It still killed a part of me to hear her say that.

I should have known that I would be rejected. The only reason they kept me at the arena was because I could fight. Maybe if they knew I could fight, maybe they would want me then?

I covered my ears and screamed to the ground. That was no way to think. If they didn't accept me, then they didn't accept me and I had to move on.

But they were my parents. I wanted, more than anything, for them the want me. I wanted my mother to look me in the eyes and tell me that she loved me. I wanted my father to hold me in his arms and tell me that I was more than enough for them. I wanted my family.

Why couldn't I have my family?

I heard the sounds of someone walking on leaves from a short distance away and I shot up and watched in that direction. I waited until I could see a body form and then I tried to run away again. "Oh, no you don't!" he said, tackling me to the ground. I thought about fighting him, but I could never be as strong as he was.

I lay there on my stomach and pressed my face into the earth beneath me, I hoped he would just go, but it didn't happen. He did let me go though. He sat down next to me and waited for me to get up. When I didn't, he laid down beside me. I moved my head just enough so I could see him out of the corner of my eye. He looked calm, not like he was expecting anything from me, but like he was just waiting.

"Are you ok?" he asked me, finally breaking the silence.

"Fine" I mumbled, turning my face back. I knew I looked ridiculous but I didn't care.

"Are you sure?"

"Yes"

When I didn't say anything else, he sighed. "Is that all I am going to get? One word answers?"

"Maybe."

I heard him chuckle and then he moved and forced me to sit up. He didn't pick me up and act like he was going to take me anywhere, he just sat me up so that I was facing him.

"What do you want?" I asked.

"Oh! More than one word!" He gave me a grin that was supposed to cheer me up, but I just wanted to slap him. "All I want is for you to talk to me."

I had to look away from him then. I didn't want him to see how I felt. "About?"

"Anything. Everything." He touched my chin and made me look at him again. "We missed so much of your life, so I want to hear everything."

"That may take a while." I said through clenched teeth.

"I've got time." He just looked at me with these eyes that I could turn away from. I wanted to. I wanted to run away and just keep running. "If you want, start with the group. You weren't taken at the same time, so how did you fine each other?"

"Well, that's because of pops."

"Pops?"

"Yeah, he found us and brought us all together. He taught us a lot about our power and such. When he found us, at least half couldn't use their magic yet."

"But he helped you to unlock it."

"He helped them unlock it, I had my power years ago."

It was strangely easy to talk to him. I had never had conversations this personal with anyone, but after a while it didn't feel strange anymore. It actually felt right.

Pops

I watched them through the lacrima in my secret home. From the moment they first went through the anima and then landed in the guild hall, I watched them. The smile on my face was not a pleasant one for most people. All the years planning, and finally things were falling into place. Learning the translocation spell was easy, but finding the right targets was more of a challenge. Once I found them though, it all became clear.

I was still watching when that pesky dragon slayer found Nashi in the woods. I knew weeks ago how the girl would react if I put her face to face with them so early, which was precisely why I did it. I need them all to be off balance for my plans to work the way they needed to. And right now, well, this smile said everything it needed to.

I flipped around on the lacrima until I found Simon and Elena. They were hiding in some building but Elena was giving her brother a hard time. I could see her fighting with him, and winced when she left bloody claw marks down his face. It had to hurt, but I didn't really care. This was nothing compared to what they had already been through. And it was even less comparable to what was still to come.

I let myself laugh aloud. Enjoy this time, Fairy Tail. I said to myself, feeling the glee building from deep within me. It will not last.

I turned around to my stack of cards and began filling them out.