Oooooh this is really late this time. Haha sorryyyyyyyyy... Ugh, not functioning. I got like zero sleep yesterday and it's already 11:30... Huffah. Not.
Yeah, sorry. This chapter is both delayed and short (like last chapter, if I recall correctly... I wonder how that happened...). And so, um, yeah. Btw, the quote this chapter kinda sucks. I mean, it's a good quote, but the relevancy is low. Sorry. Again, I'm not really functioning right now. I'm actually typing this with one hand, so that tells you something right there. Typos are bound to be in there somewhere. Don't tell me – I don't want to know.
Oh, something kinda important – I'm going on a trip tomorrow for a couple days, so I won't be home until Saturday afternoonish. Depending on my mood, I may or may not take my computer. So if I do, and you're reeeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaallllllllllyyyyyyyyyyy really really lucky, I will update on Sunday. Even if I don't, there is a sliver of a chance I will update Sunday anyway, but it's more likely that I'll clone a leopard, so we'll see. Summer has made me lazy as hell.
Nothing fixes a thing so intensely in the memory as the wish to forget it. - Michel de Montaigne
Long blue hair flowed across the pillow like a river in motion, spiraling away from a woman's face. Her hands were clasped over her stomach, pale fingers tightly interlocked. She wore a long white nightgown that did nothing to hide the painfully thin lines of her body. She frowned in her sleep, her lips pursed thoughtfully. Her eyes were closed, but Gray knew if they were open, they would be a deep, dark blue.
"Juvia?" Levy gasped. She darted forward to stand with Jace at the woman's bedside. "Isn't this Juvia?"
"No, it's not," Jace, Gajeel, and Gray murmured in unison. They all stared at what seemed to be the face of a woman who had come into their lives only to turn them upside down.
"Her nose is all wrong," Gray said. "Juvia's nose is short, but she has a longer, thinner nose."
"Too wrinkly," Gajeel added. "Juvia's skin is smoother, or just like, younger. This lady is too old."
"This is Rose," Jace said softly. "Juvia's biological mother and my adoptive one."
Before anyone could speak, she opened her mouth and began to scream.
Juvia gagged on Porlyusica's latest concoction as she tried to swallow. "Just what are you putting in this stuff?" she asked, coughing. Porlyusica passed her a glass of water unsympathetically.
"Are you questioning my skills as a healer, missy? I put whatever I see fit in my medicines, and you can shut up and drink up like a good girl."
Juvia huffed as she went back to her table and crossed her arms over her chest. She was bored out of her skull. It had only been about a day since Gray had last come to visit her, but it might as well have been eons. She had nothing to do but sleep and drink Porlyusica's nasty 'medicines'. At this rate, she'd lose her mind before she could evaporate fully. Juvia longed for her collection of romance books, stacked neatly underneath the bed in her apartment. She'd tried to broach the subject to Porlyusica, but the older woman's only reply had been that she didn't have the time to worry about keeping Juvia entertained.
"Juvia!" The door slammed open, making Porlyusica growl, and in strode someone Juvia hadn't expected to see.
"Lyon-sama," she said, her brows lifted in surprise. "What are you doing here?"
"I was in the area and heard about your condition at the guild. How are you doing?" Lyon knelt by the bed, his normally sharp features even more pinched with concern. He reached for Juvia's hand.
"Oh," she said, sliding her phantom fingers away from his and tucking them away where he couldn't see. "Juvia sees. How did you get here?"
He glanced back at the doorway. "One of your guild members guided me."
Cana gave a friendly wave from the entrance, grinning widely. "Hey, Juvia. 'Sup?"
Juvia felt herself tear up and bit her lip. "Cana, Juvia has missed you," she mumbled. Cana laughed, stepping farther into the depths of the tree.
"What's with you? It's only been a week or so since we last talked. No need to get so down about it." Juvia stretched out her arms like a child and Cana obligingly bent down to hug her, ruffling her blue hair in the process. "You're not going anywhere, you hear me?" she whispered fiercely in Juvia's ear. "No one is going to let you leave on your own."
"Juvia is glad you're here, Cana," Juvia murmured in reply, pulling back and quickly hiding her hands under the sheets so Lyon couldn't see them. "Juvia has been so bored." She forced a tight smile, and Cana cocked her head.
"What, you don't have anything to do?" A mischievous grin crossed her lips. "How about I bring you some booze and we have a drinking party?"
"Don't even think about it, child of Gildarts. You're pushing your luck just being here."
"Hah? Don't tell what to do, old bag. I'm visiting my sick friend."
Porlyusica sniffed, clearly irked. "I am the one healing your sick friend, and you are currently standing in my house, so I would watch your mouth, girl. I could throw you out of here before you even knew what was happening. My patient, my house, my rules. Don't make me repeat myself."
As Cana and Porlyusica fell deeper into their bickering match, Juvia sighed in resignation and Lyon ignored the two completely. "So, how's it been going? I mean, putting aside the whole evaporating business. How've you been since the last time we met."
Juvia smiled. "Juvia has been having a lot of fun. The other day, she went on a job with Gray-sama in a neighboring town." She went on to describe the monster and the battle in detail. Lyon was a good listener. He reacted just the right way at all the appropriate places. He watched Juvia as she spoke, smiling faintly the whole time. Juvia couldn't help smiling too. She was at ease with Lyon in a way she was with few other people. When she was done, Lyon chuckled lightly and sat back on his heels.
"Wow, sounds like you did have fun." Suddenly, his eyes twinkled in that way they did when he was about reveal something deliciously awful. "I just remembered I brought you something good to cheer you up." He reached into his pocket and slowly withdrew a piece of paper. Juvia blinked.
"Is that paper…important?" Lyon's smug grin widened.
"Gray would murder me if he found out I gave this to you, but it's too awesome not to." He held out the rectangular sheet for Juvia to see. "Behold, the almighty Gray Fullbuster in all his childhood glory."
It was a photograph, and Juvia's eyes nearly popped out of their sockets as she strained to get a better look. Her breathing was too fast, almost hyperventilation, but she couldn't help it – the sight before her was simply too wonderful.
"That's…Gray-sama, isn't it?" She just had to make sure, because even if the small boy sleeping soundly in his equally small bed looked just like her beloved, there was a chance this was someone else entirely. Some people looked very different from how they had appeared as children.
"Definitely Gray," Lyon confirmed, his grin spreading so far Juvia feared it would fall off his face. "Ultear took this one of the first nights Gray was with us. Cute, isn't he?"
Cute didn't even begin to describe the way young Gray looked, sleeping so defenselessly, huddled tightly in the thick blankets. Juvia could almost hear the sounds of his breathing, soft in the small room. She nearly reached out for the picture, but she caught herself at the last moment.
"Can Juvia…have this?" she asked, peeking from under her lashes at Lyon. His cheeks turned a faint shade of pink and he set it down on the blanket, just above Juvia's knee.
"Yeah, sure. I brought it for you."
"Thank you," she whispered, her gaze glued to the image. "Juvia will treasure this forever."
"I'm tired of this!" Porlyusica roared abruptly. "Both of you out! And don't bother coming back!" She grabbed Lyon by the collar and tossed him out the door, shoving Cana out after him.
"Cana!" Juvia shouted. "Please bring Juvia her books! They're under Juvia's bed!"
"Gotcha!" Cana called back, just before Porlyusica shut the door on her.
As the scream shattered the silence in the room, a lot of things happened at once. Levy shot backwards like an arrow, lost her footing, and fell on her butt with all the grace of a tripped rhino. Gajeel automatically moved to shield her, putting his muscular body between her small frame and the screaming woman on the bed. Gray crouched low to the floor, his instincts telling him to defend himself from something but not knowing what that something was.
Jace reached out and grasped his mother's thin hand. "It's okay," he soothed softly. "You're okay. I'm right here. No one is going to hurt you. Everything is alright." Slowly her shrieks quieted and then stopped altogether. "Mom?"
"Is that you, Jace?" From his position on the floor, Gray couldn't see the woman's face, but it sounded like she was smiling. She had that kind of voice, one that told others what was going through her mind without even a glance at her expression. Juvia did, too. "I must have been dreaming again. I'm sorry."
"Don't worry about it, Mom. It's not your fault." Jace glanced down at Gray. "I have some people I want you to meet."
"Are they your friends?" Rose asked, ample curiosity coloring her tone. Gray stood and approached the bed, his eyes focused on the wall just behind it the whole time. He affixed a smile to his face and did his best to look friendly.
"Nice to meet you. I'm Gray Fullbuster, a friend of Juvia's."
Too late did he see the warning in Jace's dark eyes.
"Juvia?" Rose sounded genuinely puzzled. "Who is that?"
"Huh?" Gray spun to stare at Jace, searching for some sort of hint that this was a joke in his expression. He'd give anything for this to be a joke. Bottomless sad eyes stared back. He turned back to look at Rose. He didn't want to see Jace make that face. This was all wrong. "What are you talking about? Juvia's your daughter, isn't she?"
"I don't know anyone named Juvia," Rose said, that same puzzled tone seeping through into her expression. "I don't have a daughter, either." She coughed. "I'm sorry, it seems like there's been some sort of mistake. Is this a prank?"
Gray took a step backward. His knees shook, threatening to dump him on the floor. "Why…"
Jace grabbed his elbow and towed him to the other side of the room. "Take a deep breath and calm down." Gray did as he said, if only because he couldn't think of any other way to make the world stop tilting. He felt sick.
"What the hell is going on?" he managed finally, when his feet felt stable again. "Why doesn't she remember Juvia?"
"My mother has been sick for a long time," Jace began softly. "She had trouble giving birth to Juvia, and nearly died in the process. The doctors told her she could never give birth again. But she wanted another child desperately, so she and my father adopted me from an orphanage. After that her health started to decline. She barely had the strength to get out of bed, and awful pains wracked her body. But we didn't have the money to buy the meds she needed then, so all we could give her were cheap painkillers and the like. Once Juvia started pulling in work at Phantom Lord, we could afford the actual medication, and Mom started getting better. But those meds have some serious drawbacks. They're crazy strong, but after a certain period of time, if the illness is still in the body, they become much less effective. And they have an awful side effect."
"Memory loss."
"Yeah. It's a specific kind of memory loss. It begins as short-term memory loss, erasing memories of people the patient has spent the least amount of time with recently. Juvia was almost never home, like I told you, and it was rare that she visited with Mom for more than a few minutes. She was one of the first people to go.
"After short-term comes the long-term memories. You start forgetting family members in the same way you forgot distant friends and such in the first stage. Juvia and Mom never spent a whole lot of time together after Mom got sick, because Juvia had to look after me and Mom wash't well enough to talk most of the time."
"So Juvia was just wiped from your mom's existence? Just like that?" The snap of Gray's fingers was a harsh, loud sound in the small room. "The daughter that she gave up her future children for? Gone that easily?"
"There's nothing easy about it for any of us," Jace said, turning away. "But this is reality, and reality has a nasty habit of being hard."
"Does Juvia know?"
Jace turned back and leveled his dark gaze at Gray. He didn't hesitate as he said, "Yeah, she knows."
White-hot rage boiled in Gray's chest. "Fucking–"
A large, strong hand clamped firmly over Gray's mouth. "Stop," Gajeel muttered. "You're starting to freak Juvia's old lady out. Just calm down a second." Gray wanted to scream. Gajeel had known Juvia since they'd been in Phantom Lord together. Didn't it piss him off? Wasn't he itching to punch someone in the face? All Gray wanted was to find the god that had decided they would turn Juvia's life into a shithole of misery and make sure that god never walked again.
"Yeah, I know what you're thinking. I want to rip something to shreds, but now's not the time. There's something more important we gotta do."
What in Satan's name was more important than permanently maiming whoever had hurt Juvia?
"We need to find out if she remembers anything that could help us save Juvia," Levy said, coming around to stand in front of Gray, hands on her minuscule hips. "What's important right now isn't what we can't change."
Gray tore away from Gajeel wordlessly and stormed past Levy towards the dresser standing near the bed. His eyes swept over the top briefly; he snatched up a round object and marched back to the bed. Rose watched him with anxious eyes. "Are you alright?"
Gray thrust the object in his hand out above her face so she could see it. "That's the face of your daughter," he said roughly. His hands were shaking. "But she has a shorter nose and younger skin. Her name is Juvia."
Rose stared into the hand mirror for a very, very long time. Gray didn't notice the ache in his arm; he was watching her expression carefully. After a full five minutes had passed, Rose's blank expression began to crack. Her lower lip trembled. Tears welled in her eyes and dripped down her temples.
"I'm so sorry," she whispered. "I don't know that girl."
Hahaha, did I get you? Raise your hand if you thought she was going to remember Juvia (no, seriously, raise 'em high. I'll see it). But nope! Also, this disease is completely made up. I have no clue if there is a real disease with symptoms like these. Just in case someone felt like wasting their time trying to figure out what disease Juvia's mom has. I think I'll dub it "That Disease That Juvia's Mom Has", or maybe, "Caused By Childbirth Disease". My creative skills amaze even me.
Oh lookie, it's 11:45. Time sure does fly when you're sharing your own unique version of crazy with the interwebs.
Can we talk about how much I hate autocorrect for a second? It changed 'lookie' – oh my fucking god it did it again – into 'kookie' at least five times. And it made interwebs two words. I am pissed.