Chapter Five

Cavalleresco

Juvia stared at Gray, and Gray stared right back at her. She seemed surprised, shocked, her blue, almond-shaped eyes wide and confused. Gray's heart started to pound again at the sight of her, his mouth going dry. It evoked something not only warm in his chest, but primal too, that urge to protect another life.

"Gray…" Juvia breathed, unable to say anything else.

"Well, well, Gray," cut in Lyon's voice. "So nice of you to join us." His eye flicked at Juvia and then snapped back onto Gray. "She your woman?"

Juvia went slightly red, in spite of the circumstances, and Gray himself flushed against his will. That just made him even more pissed off at Lyon, if that were possible.

He leveled the Desert Eagle again.

"You deaf? I said put the knife away and get away from her, shithead."

But instead, Lyon simply used the point of the knife to clean his fingernails. Which was an outright insult to Ur's memory in Gray's opinion.

"LYON!"

"Sherry," said Lyon, sounding bored.

The woman Sherry had become a flash of pink as she whipped a small pistol out from under her dress.

Shit!

But before either Sherry or Gray could fire, Juvia reached under her own skirt and whipped out her own gun, a blue beauty of metal and death.

She aimed—

And fired.

Sherry screamed and fell back, falling back against the dumpster behind her and clutching her shoulder that now bled thick, deep red. But Gray was more stunned at the expression on Juvia's face.

Stone cold. She hadn't even flinched.

He never would have pegged her for one experienced in firearms. But it was plain as day that here stood before him a woman who clearly was. Her entire demeanor had shifted, as though she had slid into the skin of another person, bright eyes now cold as an arctic ocean, and just as dark and fathomless. Almost dead. Not a flicker of remorse for the woman writhing in pain at her feet.

And very coolly, Juvia did the smart thing and kicked Sherry's pistol to the side.

"SHERRY!" Lyon lurched forward, raising the beautiful knife that was a twin to Gray's, about to slice Juvia's throat with it.

He stopped short with the barrel of Juvia's gun now pointed squarely between his eyes.

"Don't think I won't do it," she told him.

But Lyon's mouth curled, challenging, rodential. "Oh, I dunno. You could've killed Sherry the same way, and yet…."

Juvia clicked back the hammer on her gun, her mouth curling ever so slightly as well, but on her it stirred something in Gray, reminded him how deceptively still water could be when so much roiled beneath its surface. "I don't see her as great of a threat as you."

Meanwhile, Sherry slowly edged along the dumpster, trying to inconspicuously grab her pistol from where Juvia had kicked it out of her reach, but Gray aimed his Desert Eagle at her.

She froze.

"I don't think so," he told her flatly.

Lyon's eyes flickered between Sherry on the ground, bleeding badly with Gray's gun trained on her, and then to Juvia, and then back to Gray. His eyes seared with ire, but he backed down.

For Sherry's sake.

"Lyon, wait!" Sherry moaned, as Lyon put the knife away and scooped Sherry up in his arms. "I can still…."

"That's enough," he admonished, and for a moment Gray saw more of the foster brother he had grown up with. He had always been the sort of person who preferred to show how much he cared with blunt and direct expressions.

Before he disappeared down the alley, he paused and said, lividly, "This still isn't over. I'll be back. And I'll keep coming back until this thing is settled."

"That a promise or a threat?" Gray asked sarcastically.

"What do you think?" And with that, Lyon disappeared with Sherry into the shadows. Shortly thereafter, they heard the screech of a car, and guessed that Lyon's getaway car had somehow known to sweep in and pick them up.

Only when they heard a second screech of tires did Juvia sigh and then tuck her gun back in the holster strapped to her thigh under her dress. Gray however was a little slower in putting his own gun away. He slowly pulled it back, and then, still watching Juvia warily, he holstered it back under his shirt.

Juvia didn't turn to face him though, not immediately. And there was suddenly an air of vulnerability about her that made Gray less wary of her, even with what he'd just witnessed.

He sighed and reached for his smokes and lighter instead. "You don't have to say anything," he told her, and realized his instincts were right, that she didn't want to talk about how she actually knew how to shoot a gun, when she finally faced him at those words.

She stared at him as he lit up and took a draw. When he exhaled the smoke, he made an offer to join him, and she hesitated at first, but then, after a moment, reached out and took a cigarette out of his pack with a rather adorable kind of timidity that seemed out of place from the woman she had been a moment earlier, shooting that Sherry woman like it was nothing. And yet at the same time, it was very much in character for her, just the same.

In kind, Juvia didn't say anything about how Gray and Lyon knew each other, and Gray had a feeling that she was offering him the same courtesy he was offering her.

He let her light her cigarette with his, like the night before, and the two of them leaned back against the brick wall outside Fairy Tail Bar, smoking and tilting their heads up at the cloudy dark sky above.

There was a companionable silence between them that Gray appreciated. Not every moment needed to be filled with words, which was a relief for someone like him, who wasn't all that great all the time with words. They smoked, flicked ash on the ground, sighed smoke into the air and watched it spiral up into the night and disappear.

"Gray," Juvia finally said, and she was looking down at her feet now, at her lovely blue pumps.

"Yeah?" said Gray, taking another drag.

"Thank you," she said quietly.

Gray frowned. "For what? You seemed pretty capable of handling the situation without my help."

"I know but…I'm just…touched…that you were looking out for me like that." Then her head snapped up and she gave him a lopsided grin. "Actually, were you stalking me?"

Gray snorted a laugh and flicked another bit of hot ash onto the ground. "Dunno if I'd call it that. Think I'd rather you'd have left it at me lookin' out for ya."

This made Juvia laugh with him. "Well, thanks for looking out for me, then." Her expression sobered again, like a fall of rain, and she looked sidelong at a nearby trashcan. "People don't…usually do that. At least, not many of the people I know."

Gray considered her as he held his cigarette up but didn't put it to his mouth. His theory that she was on the run from some miserable situation was given more credence here, and with that, came a stronger desire himself to…what? Protect her? Make sure she was kept safe? After all, the woman definitely could look out for herself, but still….

"You know you have a place here, right?" he finally told her, quiet and gentle. "And here, we look after our own. You're one of us now."

Juvia's head snapped up again, and this time her eyes sparkled, a far cry from the coldness of before when she'd had her gun out. Those were…tears.

A moment later she appeared to realize that her eyes had filled and made a small sound and turned away again, hastily wiping at her eyes with the heel of her free hand.

Gray did her the courtesy of making no comment on it. If he was being honest though, he wasn't all that great at comforting other people in their moments of sadness. It killed him to see people cry, but just the same, it made him awkward. Maybe it was his being not very good with expressing himself with words, combined with the fact that there had been people in his life who had tried to comfort him, and used the same words anyone would use, and were therefore empty, and provided no comfort whatsoever. Made him sadder, even, and feel lonelier.

Then Juvia hastily finished her cigarette.

"Well, think I'm gonna go back in," she said, sounding a bit like she had a head cold. And she wouldn't meet Gray's eyes as she drifted past him to head back into the bar. "Thanks again," she added, and then she was gone.

Gray looked after her, as he slowly finished his own cigarette, his insides brimming with a gnawing need, a growing desire. Then he tipped his head back and threw the back of his hand holding his cigarette over his eyes, chest heaving as he found it difficult to breathe.

"Fuck…I dunno if I can take this," his whispered to the night. "Please…just…don't let anything bad happen to her…please…."

He thought of Ur, and of his father and mother, the way he'd watched them die, and how much it broke his heart just thinking about it. He remembered the way Lyon had punched him over and over when he found out what had happened to Ur, how he'd come close to killing him, and Gray hadn't even cared, he'd just let him do what he wanted.

Apparently, that hadn't been enough, and Lyon had continued to nurse his anger for what Gray had done until it had festered into the need to kill him outright.

He let out a beleaguered sigh and took one last puff on his cigarette before tossing it to the ground and grinding it out with his boot.

"Gray?"

Gray looked up, hands tucked in his jeans pockets, and then realized he shouldn't have been surprised, considering the commotion out here.

"Oh. Hey, Erza."

And Erza gave a sigh of relief, putting her gun away. "Glad to see there doesn't appear to be a problem out here," she said. "Thought I heard a gunshot."

Gray massaged the back of his neck. "Yeah well…there was."

"Oh? Do explain." Erza raised an eyebrow as she approached him, and Gray wished he'd had it in him to go back inside with Juvia, or maybe find the courage to kiss her, if for no other reason then to get out of getting grilled by Chief Erza Scarlet of the Seventh Precinct—like he was now.

"Was it that Lyon?" she pressed.

"Something like that," Gray reluctantly admitted, and for the sake of at least maintaining public order and preventing any collateral damage Lyon might cause, he recounted what happened as he handed Erza a cigarette.

Juvia slid back onto a seat at the bar and then Makarov Dreyar slid right in next to her, quite unexpectedly.

"Shot o' bourbon, Mira." Makarov winked at Juvia. "Make that two."

"They're on the house, old man," Mira said cheerily, pouring the drinks. "Juvia's my employee, so she drinks free. And well, you're you." She grinned as she slid the glasses across the polished wood.

"Ooooooh, nice." Makarov laughed as he knocked back the dark, fiery liquid.

Juvia had to laugh at how the old man was impressed by her license to free drinks, and she took a grinning sip in spite of herself.

"You seem to be fitting in pretty swell," Makarov observed, swilling his drink.

"Do I?" Juvia raised her eyebrows in genuine surprise.

"Indeed you do, my dear. And I for one am glad to see it." He drew his white brows together as he considered her more seriously. "We seem to have a habit of picking up strays here, you see."

"Oh? Am I a stray?"

"You have the look of one. But that's nothing to be ashamed of. It's hardly your fault. And besides, blood ties don't necessarily make a family. Though there is my grandson." Makarov chuckled, and they both glanced over at where Mira had gone to get a drink for Laxus, and the two of them were clearly flirting.

Then Juvia's eyes danced about the bar, at the camaraderie that warmed the room. It lit a fire in her heart, one that water couldn't dampen.

Then she looked at Makarov and saw him toast her. She toasted him back.

But she wasn't a stray lamb. A stray tiger, perhaps, but not a lamb.

Even so….

It was getting harder and harder for her to find that cold killer that lived within her, at least where this man was concerned.

She hated it. She had always hated it. Killing for Jose. Pulling the trigger in his name. Regardless if it saved her own skin.

That Sherry Blendy though had been another matter, and it caught of her off-guard to consider the idea of her getting her hands on Gray. Or that Lyon—clearly he and Gray shared a past. She wondered briefly what that could be, and then she found herself wishing she could have another smoke. It had been ages since she'd itched so much for a cigarette. But instead of bad memories of cocaine withdrawal, it encouraged sweeter thoughts…thoughts of Gray looking at her through that haze of smoke.

Juvia took another sip, begging for that buzz.

Then she felt Makarov pat her arm.

"I hope you'll be here a while," Makarov told her kindly before he slid off the stool to go harass Macao and Enno.

Juvia watched him go, feeling the thread of her focus unravelling, and then Lucy hopped up to the seat on the opposite side of her, balancing a cosmo in her hand.

"Hey, Juvia!" she said with the zealousness of someone who was teetering on tipsiness, her pink heels and heart-shaped earrings glittering. "What's shakin'?"

"Hm, not too much, actually." But Juvia smiled as it occurred to her to ask, "Hey, Lucy…how long have you and Natsu been together?"

She nodded to where Natsu was now arm-wrestling with Laxus, the guys around them shouting and taking bets. And even though their brows were set, they were grinning at each other fiercely. Juvia had a feeling Laxus was a shoe-in to win, but Natsu showed the kind of guts you only saw in underdogs.

"A few years, actually," said Lucy, and there was starlight in her eyes as she watched Natsu over her drink.

Juvia realized she didn't have to ask what drew Lucy to him. Nor would she ever have to ask what drew Natsu to her, as he glanced her away after Laxus wiped the floor with him and the both were wiping sweat off their faces. That smile he wore for her wasn't one he'd wear for anyone else, Juvia could tell that.

Someone like Juvia, who was starved for love, could tell that.

She was jerked out of her reverie by Lucy nudging her arm.

"So, tell me…you think you might be into Gray?"

Juvia blinked at her, thrown by the question. "I-Into Gray?"

"Sure. Don't think no one's noticed. I mean, like just a little while ago: you go outside after your set, Gray follows." Lucy put her drink down and leaned toward Juvia conspiratorially. "It's okay. I'm pretty sure he's into you."

This surprised Juvia even more. "Really?"

"Yeah. I've never seen him look at a woman the way he does at you. When he thinks no one's lookin' o' course. Gray has a way of…trying to hide how he really feels from people."

"He is very guarded."

"From the little that Gray's told at least me and Natsu, and Erza too, he's had a pretty rough past, done a lotta things he's not too proud of. It's not my place to give you the details…but he is lonely. And since you came here…I've never seen him…I mean…you guys, you always seem to look for each other when the other walks into the room. Maybe not on purpose, or intentionally but…." Lucy gave Juvia a soft smile.

For a moment, Juvia couldn't speak. She had had similar moment with Erza earlier when the two of them had shared a drink.

I don't want to do this, she heard herself in her head.

"Makarov was telling me…you guys tend to pick up strays here," Juvia said quietly.

"I guess you could say that." Lucy traced a circle on the wood of the bar with her index finger.

"That your story too?"

"More or less. I'm a runaway debutante myself."

"Oh?"

"Yeah. You heard of the Heartfilia family?"

Now that Lucy mentioned it, Juvia realized she had thought Lucy's surname familiar.

"Big banker, my father. Jude Heartfilia. But I couldn't stand it, what he wanted of me. He had this idea that I was gonna marry some rich oil baron and spend the rest of my life devoted to producing male heirs to the Heartfilia family as well as to whatever family I married into. Ha! As if I'd just marry without love. As if I'd marry anyone he'd picked out for me. And be hostess to cotillions and charity balls and croquet matches and tea parties and garden parties and parade around in heavy, frilly dresses and carry on vapid conversations, hanging on the arm of some well-to-do. I wanted to be like my mother and write books! But when she died…Father told me to put that silly nonsense out of my mind. Like he was asking me not to breathe anymore…."

Lucy seemed unable to speak for a moment, retreating to a dark place. Juvia knew that look well enough. It came up on her own face quite a lot when she caught sight of it in a mirror.

"I know what you must be thinking…poor little rich girl…."

"No. I wasn't thinking that. Money doesn't buy happiness, after all. Isn't that what they say?"

This time it was Lucy who looked surprised. And then she laughed and Juvia laughed with her, and for her, part of it was genuine joy at having found a friend in someone like Lucy Heartfilia, and another part was a desperate need to hold back her tears.

No. I'm not going to do this.

No more heartbreak.

I won't be a part of it, not this time.

Fuck Jose.

Still, she needed quite a few more drinks to quell that rising panic simmering at the bottom of her stomach. She would think about the consequences of her actions and figure out something to do later. For now, she was going to numb her thoughts until all that fear was washed away.

"So, you and Juvia, huh?" Erza asked, exhaling a stream of smoke.

"I have no clue what you're talkin' about," Gray said at once, taking a drag on that second cigarette, but not looking at Erza.

He felt her eyes on him though, and that was just as bad.

"She's a very lovely woman," Erza candidly opined. "From what I've gleaned just chatting with her for a little bit. And I think she might fancy you a little." Her tone turned more serious. "She's worth more than a one-night stand. You know that too."

"Yeah, I know," Gray sighed.

"You're allowed to be happy you know, Gray," Erza told him. "It took me a while to realize that too, and I try to tell Jellal that every day."

Her voice cracked, and Gray looked at her. Now her face was turned away, but he could tell she was blinking away tears, thinking about Jellal back at home with his therapist, and not with her.

Gray felt for her. "Hey. It's gonna be okay."

Erza chuckled and shook her head, took one last drag on her cigarette and then flicked it into the bin. "Remember what I told you, okay?"

"What did you say, exactly?"

"Just be clear with her, okay. I know how evasive you can be. And I'll have another word with Mira about this Lyon Vastia. More than that, I'll peg him as a person of interest in investigations back at the office."

And before he could say anything, she went back into the bar same as Juvia. Gray raked his eyes up the brick wall of the building, knowing Juvia was in there, and he felt his heart beat in there with her.

If I could just get this shit with Lyon over and done with.

He tossed the cigarette butt aside and left the alley too. Only instead of going back into the bar, he headed for home.

Or he was going to, until Lucy stepped out, a slightly pleading look in her eyes.

"Gray! Hey, are you good to drive?" she asked, taking his hand in both of hers.

"Um…." Gray assessed, and since his last drink he'd smoked with two different people. Yeah, he was definitely sober, at least to drive (of course Erza would argue the adage that if you drive buzzed, you're still driving drunk, but screw that). "Yeah." He ran a hand through his dark, mussed up hair. "Why?"

Everything was a bit of a haze.

Shit, she hadn't been this in deep down the spiral of an altered consciousness since her last comedown. She had no idea she could still get this drunk. She was only barely aware of it, as otherwise she felt herself crawl through the air as in a dream. She felt sleepy enough.

Voices spoke to her as if through water, but she was at least coherent enough to make out what they said, and she responded with some effort at working her jaw that she'd be fine.

But then…another voice.

His voice.

And his hands, taking her gently by the shoulders, and she did her best to find his face swimming in front of her, to meet his dark eyes, so soft and so kind.

"Juvia? Hey, Juvia? I'm gonna get you home, okay?"

"I…okay."

Juvia acquiesced. Gray was taking her home. Gray. That was enough.

She even blushed and beamed, sighing as she swooned forward and Gray caught her against his chest.

"Oh Gray, darling!" she gushed, having no sense of herself. It seemed that in times of heavy drink, another person she might've been more often awakened, one who wasn't afraid to hide how she felt because she didn't have the cage Jose had kept her in crushing her.

And right now, she was so very much in love with Gray Fullbuster.

"Mmmmmm, I like your chest, it's warm," she purred like a cat.

And she heard his laugh, though it was shaky and uncertain.

"Hey now…come on." Gray tugged her toward his truck.

Juvia peeked up at him. "Are you blushing, Gray?" she teased.

"No. Come on, get in."

"Okay, okay…."

Even though he was more or less shoving her into the passenger's seat, she felt him try to be gentle about it. Once she was situated in the seat though, she rested her head against the cool glass of the door window and was half-conked out after that, aware only of the jostling of the truck on the road and the murmur of the radio.

Then the glass fell away and she jumped a little as she tipped forward.

But again, Gray caught her.

"Hey, you're okay," she heard him tell her, draping her arm over his shoulders so he could help her into what felt like a house, but Juvia wasn't really sure of anything anymore.

Lights came on and stabbed her eyes and she gave a little cry.

"Too bright," she muttered.

"Hang on…."

"Mmmm…I love you, Gray…."

"Aw shit, you're drunker than I thought…."

She was dropped onto the soft cushions. As soon as Gray let go of her, she tipped again and literally crashed on his couch. She stretched out her limbs, as her nose filled with the scent of cigarettes and Gray in the couch's fuzzy fabric. And then a warm blanket, soft as a cloud, laid over her. She mmmmmmm'ed and tugged the blanket up to her chin, and barely after that…she really couldn't remember much else, except that sense of being suspended in the velvet darkness that preceded true dreaming.

This was hardly the first drunk person he'd taken care of, though after the way she'd more or less beaten him the night before at drinking, Gray was a bit stunned to see Juvia the very next night passing out from having had one too many.

Just the same, she couldn't very well be left alone in the state she was in.

After settling her on his couch and watching her as she drifted off, snoring softly, he dropped in the adjacent armchair and lit a cigarette. He nabbed the paperback laid on the nearby side table and found where he'd bookmarked it and sank back into the narrative—one following a man fighting his way out of a jungle—occasionally resurfacing to glance over at Juvia.

Her mouth was slightly hanging open, and there was something actually kind of soothing about her little snores. He found he couldn't get back into his book though as easily every time he tried to, and worse still was when he heard her mutter, "No…Gajeel…."

He glanced over at her, noting the plaintive note in her voice. She was frowning, and even twitching a little, as though she wrestled with some demons in her dreams. He wondered who Gajeel might be, if he was someone important to her…if he was someone she'd lost.

Unconsciously his hand went up to the cross around his neck. Then he stuck the cigarette in his mouth and laid the book aside, swapping it out for the old guitar he had leaning next to his TV. He was terrible at it, but he liked strumming it now and then. He did his best to pluck softly, in some ramshackle semblance of a lullaby, the cigarette smoldering between his teeth. And after playing a little bit, Juvia's muttering subsided, and her body and her brow relaxed out of its restlessness, and she went back to snoring softly, peacefully.

He played on a little longer before he stopped. He smiled to himself as he watched her sleep then, his heart humming and yet at the same time aching. Noiselessly, he reached over to where a strand of her blue hair fell into her face and tucked it back, gentle as a breath. She didn't even stir. But she did make another "mmmmm" of contentment at the touch of his finger to her skin.

"Mmmmm…Gray…Gray, I love you…" she mumbled.

Gray withdrew his hand and looked away, taking the cigarette out of his mouth and tapping the ash of it off into the nearby empty can of beer.

She'd said that earlier too, when he'd been half-carrying her inside. At first, he'd thought it was just her drunken mind, but hearing it again, while she was sleeping, he reconsidered. It didn't scare him any less, but at the same time it drew him to her. It hurt, trying to pull away when everything inside him wanted to be closer to her.

"Fuck," he muttered, and took one last drag on his cigarette before grinding it out on the beer can and jamming it inside its mouth.

Maybe he was falling for her.

And maybe that Gajeel was an ex-lover of hers. Maybe living, maybe dead. But clearly gone.

The man she was running from?

Probably not. She'd said his name like a prayer for salvation, not like a plea for mercy.

He heaved a sigh and got up to put the guitar away before making himself some coffee.

It was gonna be a long night.

When Juvia emerged from her cloudy visions in sleep, the first thing she noticed was she was curled up under a blanket that wasn't hers, on a couch she didn't recognize, in a room that she didn't recognize either, lit by gray morning light. However, like in the aftermath of a glass vase shattering on the floor, she began to recollect the shards of memory from the night before, sharp as they were in her pounding head. In some ways, emerging from this kind of sleep was reminiscent of when she'd emerged from the haze of her last comedown, when Gajeel had been looking after her.

It'd been like…she'd been clawing her way out of the darkest depths of the cold ocean before finally reaching sunlight and breaching the surface at last, breathing in the morning.

That's right…I really hit the bottle hard last night…and then…someone…brought me…here….

"Mornin', Sleepin' Beauty."

Juvia twisted around and saw…Gray.

"How ya feelin'?" he grunted around the cigarette in his mouth.

"Um…okay…." Meanwhile, inside her chest her heart thumped faster and faster. She was in Gray's half of the duplex. Gray's.

Unbidden, a blush crept up and warmed her cheeks.

Gray gave her a lazy smile that didn't help matters where keeping her feelings under wraps were concerned. He held out a plastic bottle of some kind of juice colored electric blue.

Juvia raised an eyebrow. "Gatorade?"

"Rehydration."

"Oh. Right. Of course."

Yes, she'd need something to rehydrate herself quickly after all the drinking she did. She took the bottle he offered her and after a bit of effort managed to sit up on the couch. She was still in her dress from last night, but now it was all crumpled, like her hair, like she felt all over.

"I must look a mess," she muttered, voice hoarse. She twisted open the Gatorade and knocked back a few gulps.

"No worse than anyone else who drank that much, and I've seen worse," Gray told her, still with that lazy smile, like her very existence mildly amused him.

Juvia glanced about the room as she sipped her drink, Gray having stepped back out of the sitting room into what sounded like the kitchen. It was pretty sparse—just the armchair, the side table, the little bookshelf, the TV, and the guitar next to it—the eggshell walls washed out, but her place was even emptier. There was an attempt at warmth here, but in the end, this was a place where someone who was indeed lonely lived.

And she had an idea that if anyone did come over here for intimate activities, it was only for a night. But rather than be turned off by that, Juvia completely understood it. After all, like she and Lucy had been talking about last night, Gray was very guarded, kept things very close to the chest. Of course he never spent the night with anyone for keeps.

"Doin' better?"

Juvia looked round at the door that had just swung open, briefly revealing a kitchen behind him before it shut again. Gray took a sip from the steaming mug in his hand, the cigarette finished and gone.

"A little," Juvia reported truthfully. She sloshed back the rest of the Gatorade and then wiped her mouth off with the back of her hand.

"Think you might wanna eat something?"

"Um…yeah, I'm a bit hungry."

Gray fed her a bowl of oatmeal—something soft that'd go down easy—and watched her from where he lounged in the armchair and lit another cigarette. Presumably he wanted to make sure she could keep food down at this point. Juvia warmed all the more to being looked after like this.

And she admitted as much. Why try to fight it anymore?

Even if she'd been buzzing, she was still committed to the decision she'd made for herself. That she wasn't going to go through with killing Makarov. But then that left the fact that in not too long a time, Jose would start to wonder and check in on her again, by which point she'd be either ignoring his calls or just doing away with her phone altogether. Just drop that thing in a river somewhere. But her silence would concern him further, and he'd send out either Aria, or Sol, or Totomaru, or a combination of two or all three of them after her, whoever was available, to see what the hell was going on.

She should probably be gone by then, but she hated leaving for the very same reason that she wanted to stay and didn't want to kill anyone anymore.

In the meantime, she supposed she at least wanted Gray to know that in the short time she had come to know him, he had made her feel very happy. Much more so than she had in a long time. And that went for the rest of the little family who all hung out at the Fairy Tail Bar…Natsu, and Lucy, and Erza.

She really wanted to stay.

Maybe just one more day.

"Thank you," she said, softly.

"Hey, don't worry about it," said Gray, sounding evasive. Man, he really was guarded. Even a show of gratitude discomfited him a little.

But then again, in the case of her expressing said gratitude, maybe it was something else.

She pushed that aside.

"I mean it." She did her best to keep the break out of her voice as she looked up at him and their eyes met. God, she loved his eyes. They were dark, but so very soulful. "It's been ages since anyone's just…you know…looked after me. Not that I'm like…helpless or anything," she added hastily, digging back into her oatmeal and taking another bite. "I'm just…you know…i's been a while…" she tried to explain in between chewing.

Then Gray said, "Did you mean it?"

Juvia's head snapped up, eyed him watching her while he took another drag on his cigarette. "Mean what?"

Gray exhaled a stream of smoke. "That you love me." His voice was so quiet and so hoarse she hardly heard him.

"Um…." Shit, did I say that out loud when I was drunk?

Then Gray chuckled. "'S okay. I know you were hammered."

Some of the tension in Juvia's stomach relaxed. At the same time though, she felt a bit wilty.

So she polished off the rest of the oatmeal and then, clutching the empty bowl tightly in her hands, heart pounding, she whispered, "Gray, I…." The words rose to her lips. "I know…I've only known you for a few days…a weekend at best but…they've been…very happy days." She pursed her lips, bracing herself for what would undoubtedly be his awkward reaction.

And she was right.

"Oh…um…well…."

Then his tone changed to one of concern.

"Hey…you're not thinkin' o' leavin', are ya? You just got here."

"No, no, it's…n-nothing like that," Juvia lied. Damn it. "Um…." Her eyes listed on the guitar by the TV. "Do you play much?" she nodded toward the instrument.

"Oh…eh, a little." Gray got shy again, but his smile was still there this time too. "I'm not all that good. Or I used to be better, I should say."

Now that she thought of it, she'd thought she'd heard guitar strings playing in her sleep….

Juvia chanced a glance and saw him ruffling the hair at the back of his head. She felt herself flush and quickly looked away.

"Anyway, I'm glad," Gray finally managed to say. "I like…seeing you…happy."

Excitement swooped in Juvia's stomach.

Oh, she had it bad.

Gray took a hasty last puff on his cigarette and ground the burning tip in a can of beer, where he already had a bouquet going of other used cigarettes. Juvia looked up again when he stood and stretched a little.

"Well, I'm gonna sleep for a bit. It's Sunday, shop's closed, and I didn't get a wink last night."

"Oh…because you were looking after me?" Juvia experienced a lance of guilt.

Gray seemed to sense this as he furrowed his brow. "Uh…well yeah but…don't feel bad about it. I had to make sure you were okay, right?" He gave her his lazy smile again, and Juvia meekly returned it.

So Juvia collected her keys and her thigh holster, and Gray graciously bid her goodbye with a thermos of coffee after she told him she didn't have a coffee maker.

"I know it's a dehydrater, but now you've had some Gatorade, you deserve a perk up."

"Why thank you, Gray."

When Juvia got into her own place, her insides sunk with depression at being back here, alone. But she didn't have time to brood on that. After showering and sliding on a loose t-shirt and yoga pants from her bag, she sat cross-legged on the floor with the thermos of coffee from Gray, trying to think what she was going to do next, now that she was planning to go AWOL on Jose.

Gray woke up sometime in the midafternoon, blinking in the sunlight pouring through his bedroom window, feeling as rumpled as his clothes (which he hadn't bothered taking off before crashing). He checked his watch—a little after three—and then pushed himself up and swung his legs over the bed and laced up his boots.

Then he stepped outside to the weedy backyard bordered by trees. From the limb of a wide oak, he had an old, worn-out punching bag hung. After he wrapped white cloth around his knuckles he laid into the old bag, pummeling it with the same ferocity that he imagined doing to Lyon if the two of them crossed paths again. There was still a place for Lyon, deep in his heart, he still felt guilty, after all, for the role he'd played in getting Ur killed, and Lyon had never made him forget that, but even so…he wanted so badly to move past this.

With every punch, the life he'd had with Ur and Lyon flickered in his mind's eye…and it was all he could do not to break—which just made him punch harder.

By the time he quit, the sun was starting to set. Sweat poured down his face, made his muscle tank cling to his toned body, made his dark hair damp. He wiped some of it off with the back of his arm as he stood there, catching his breath. The punching bag looked like it was nearly on its last leg.

Then he went in, grabbed his cigarettes and pulled one out with his teeth, pausing as he acknowledged that after this one he'd only have one cigarette left.

"Shit," he muttered.

After he lit up, he cooked up a beefsteak in the frypan for dinner. He ate it from a plate standing in front of the TV where he had the news on. Outside it got dark as he washed off his plate and then grabbed his gun and strapped the shoulder holster on, then threw on a shirt and pocketed his beautiful, nacreous pocketknife from Ur. Nabbing his keys from the hook, he stepped out, pausing on the stoop to look back at Juvia's door next to his.

The lights were off in her place. He wondered if she was out, or if she'd gone to bed early. And even though he couldn't have possibly been able to think of an excuse, he still wanted to see if she was there.

Actually, he just wanted to see her.

He shook his head and walked away, taking the shortcut through the backstreets to the corner store to pick up another pack of cigarettes. Maybe some more beer.

He decided against that though in the end and just grabbed the smokes. He was a little short on cash at the moment until the till at Happy's filled up enough for Natsu and him to split for another payday. Which actually shouldn't be too far off since, as Natsu put it, Juvia had paid for the repairs on her Lamborghini "handsomely". Tip included.

However, now that he thought if it, if that girl was on the run, she'd better think more carefully about throwing around money like that. Actually, if he were her, he'd get rid of the Lamborghini altogether. Living in the neighborhood like this with a luxury sports car parked in the drive of your less-than-kempt duplex raised a few eyebrows, and words like "stolen" and "drug money" and the like got thrown around. Juvia was the last person who deserved to get involved in shit like that.

In fact, she was the last person who deserved to get involved in shit period.

Back out in the dark backstreet and on his way home, everything went oddly quiet for a moment. Gray stopped. The wind whipped through the sort of funnel made by the two brick buildings he was walking between, but other than that, he didn't hear anything.

He went on, but stuck his hand in his jeans pocket and felt for the handle of Ur's knife.

A few more steps, and then the rapid stamp of feet at his back.

Gray whipped around, knife out, dodging the blade that came down towards his face just in time. Instead the blade struck the brick wall behind him, sending sparks flying. In the ringing silence, Gray was met with Lyon's murderous glare, and the two of them stood there, livid eyes locked, both of them catching their breath.

"Lyon…." Gray managed a sardonic, perhaps even eager smile. "'Bout time, you sonofabitch."