I've kind of given up on apologizing at this point. The truth is that this chapter has been essentially done for weeks. Literally, it has been sitting in my computer for like a month while I studiously ignored it. And I've been meaning to put it up, but I kept forgetting and putting it off and now here we are. I got a couple panicked reviews asking if last chapter was the end while I was not-updating, and I actually did consider just leaving it at that. But I already wrote this chapter and something about leaving that as the end feels wrong, and so chapter 19 has been allowed to exist. I wanted to make this the last chapter, actually, but I just petered out somewhere about 2/3 of the way there, so here's what I have done. I swear on something super important that chapter 20 will be the last chapter. Pinky promise.

Last thing before I stop spouting excuses: One of the reviews I got on chapter 18 made me really annoyed, so I'm gonna call you out right now, "Guest". I believe your exact words were "It's starting to get old and boring." That was the entire review. And I absolutely appreciate honesty and constructive criticism, but there's a point where honesty is deliberately phrased in way that pisses off the person you're talking to, and you are seriously toeing the line. So the immature, petty child in me has an honest message for you, if you even read this (since God knows no one wants to read something they think is boring): You're rude. And I don't like you. Yes, I realize the chapters get repetitive and something like 1 out of 3 chapters does absolutely nothing to advance the plot, but actually spending any time at all to leave me a completely unhelpful and critical review just proves that you're one of those internet people that no one likes. Take ten seconds to Google the phrase "constructive criticism" and come back when your brain has processed and fully understood the concept. You're obviously not a writer, because if you were you would understand that people post on this site and any other with the understanding that their readers will treat their writing with the respect all writing deserves. If you don't like it, don't read it, and don't fucking bother to leave rude comments. Work out your issues somewhere else. I'm not here to make you feel better about yourself because leaving nasty reviews makes you feel powerful. In conclusion, screw you.

I feel better now. Sorry to all the people who read that and were offended (except for you, Guest). I'm not a very chill person when it comes to people insulting my writing without regarding common courtesy. Normally, I'm less angry. Aaaaaaaaaanyway, I'm done. Enjoy chapter 19!

When you reach the end of your rope, tie a knot in it and hold on. - Franklin D. Roosevelt

We do not remember days, we remember moments. - Cesare Pavese

It was dark, the kind of inky black that swallowed you down deep and suffocated you slowly. Her hands floated before her eyes, luminously white in the absolute black surrounding her, thin and fragile and wrong. She tried to speak, but the darkness surged into her mouth and swirled down her throat, staining her lungs and turning the world foggy.

Help, she tried to scream, panic filling her lungs. Help me, Gray-sama.

Who is that?

An impossibly vast exhaustion soaked through her bones, sinking into her chest and carving a tired hollow inside her. Her ears began ringing, or maybe they had been ringing all along and she'd only just noticed. She was starting to lose track of time. Had she been there a minute, an hour, a day? The blackness stretched on forever, inviting her to simply let go. Stay there until she forgot her own existence, floating aimlessly, thoughtlessly, in the open sea of nothing.

Juvia.

Stay, the nothing whispered. Stay and join us. Become one with the emptiness, the abandoned shadows. You are not the first. You are not the last.

Juvia, please.

You're already forgetting, aren't you? Your name, your life, your world. The people you loved, the things you've done. The faces of the ones you've killed.

Juvia, it's okay. Let me help you.

Gray-sama?

Forget, the shadows hissed. Forget it don't need it anymore.

Juvia shook her head. I have something left to do.

Nothing from that life matters anymore. Let it all go.

I have to leave, Juvia insisted. I have to go before it's too late. I can't stay here.

She twisted and turned in the empty blank space, searching for a way out, anything to bring her back to the surface. It was like moving through a lake of cold butter without anything to propel her, but she kicked out with legs she hadn't known she had. For the barest second, the darkness split open like the ripple of curtains pulling apart in a breeze. The gap was gone as soon as it appeared, but it had been there. She kicked again, pushed forward into the unknown, searching for something she couldn't identify.

Let me out.

Stay.

No.

She struggled forward another inch, but for all she knew, she was moving farther away from the way out. There was no way to distinguish one course from another except for her own sense of direction. Juvia closed her eyes. The black remained unchanged.

I'm going to leave now, she said soundlessly, not resisting the tendrils of shadow that twisted down her throat. As it sank into her flesh, she began to understand. Eyes still closed, she reached out and stretched her fingers until they brushed something foreignly solid in all the nothing. She stepped forward, somehow moving smoothly through the murk, and wrapped her hand around the knob. Taking a deep breath, she twisted the handle and pushed the door open.

The space behind her eyes exploded with light, and then she was falling into nothing.

Levy woke up with a start on her bed. Her tongue was dry and it stuck stubbornly to the roof of mouth. Once she had peeled it off, she licked her lips, trying to refresh her brain. There was a dull ache in the back of her skull, remnants from the strange flash of agony just as she was about to reach the vacant apartment – Juvia's apartment.

Gajeel. Gray. What had happened to them?

Levy darted out of bed and tripped over a book, landing on her elbows on the hard wood floor. She groaned, rubbing the already-forming bruises. The book had slid when she stubbed her toes on it, and now it sat in front of her, dark and ominous. It was one of the bigger, older tomes in her expansive collection, one she didn't recognize. But that was wrong. Levy knew every book, every page, every word in her room. There was no way she didn't know this book.

Oh.

She reached for it hesitantly, letting the leather brush her fingertips before committing to lifting it and opening it. The book opened to a page where someone had inserted a sheet of loose paper, covered in her own neat handwriting. Comparing the sheet and the page underneath it, Levy's eyes widened. She had translated this, before she lost her memory. She had understood what this meant for… For Juvia, she assumed, since she couldn't remember who it was.

The ache in her head deepened into a steady pounding.

I can't tell them. I can't ask them. I can't. I'm sorry, Juvia.

What?

Levy looked at the paper again, read the first paragraph, studied the image she had copied from the original page.

"Levy, Juvia would never want that."

Were these…her memories? Of Juvia?

"What was happening to you, Juvia?" Levy whispered to herself, reading farther into the explanation. "Why would you need someone to perform this ceremony for you?"

"Shrimp."

Even without looking up, Levy knew that voice. She stood and hopped and danced her way over her books to the open window. "Gajeel, what happened? Is Gray okay? What–"

His hand covered her mouth as he grabbed her wrist and pulled her into him, still balanced on the windowsill. "It's all fine, Shrimp, just shut it for a second." Levy could feel her cheeks burning, pressed against Gajeel's chest. His breathing, slow and steady, echoed in her ears, and his heartbeat matched hers, pulsing beneath corded muscle.

"Gajeel–" she gasped, peeling off his hand from her mouth.

"Shut up," he growled. "Let me think."

"Don't pop a blood vessel," Levy muttered under her breath, squirming in his grip. His fingers only tightened around her wrist. "Gajeel, let me go," she said, louder this time. "You don't need me to be right next to you if you're just thinking." He startled her by pushing off from the windowsill and landing lightly on the floor. "Gajeel!" He just smirked at her, flashing the sharp edge of a canine. Levy scowled. "Let go already," she demanded as she twisted away from him, not noticing him put his mouth up against her ear. And then he blew.

Levy shrieked and kicked backwards automatically. Her heel connected with something solid – his shin? – and his fingers fell away from her wrist, the momentum sending her tumbling to the floor for the second time that morning. This time she landed on the heels of her hands. "That hurt," she complained, frowning up at Gajeel. He scowled back.

"What was that for?" he grumbled, rubbing his shin. Levy scrambled to her feet.

"For blowing on my ear like that!" she snapped, tugging her hair down around her face like a protective shield. "Why would you do that?"

Gajeel shrugged. "Don't we have bigger shit to deal with?"

"That's right," Levy gasped, spinning around and running back to there bed, where the mystery book lay forgotten. "I found this book I don't recognize with my other stuff earlier. I think it has something to do with Juvia." Gajeel came over and squatted next to her on the floor, peering at the yellowed pages.

"How do you know it has to do with Juvia? Couldn't it just be an old book you forgot about?" he wanted to know. Levy rolled her eyes dismissively.

"I know every single book in my collection, Gajeel. I don't just forget books once I've taken them in. And anyway, I had some sort of…vision, about Juvia, when I was flipping through this one." Gajeel frowned.

"What kinda vision? Like you saw her or something?"

Levy shook her head, staring down at a smudge of ink on the bottom corner of the page. She rubbed at it absent-mindedly as she said, "More like… I heard her. Talking. And I- I was talking too. I think it was a memory. From before."

Gajeel leaned forward intently. "What were you saying?"

Levy closed her eyes. As she tried to remember, a dull ache blossomed in her temples. "I said something about… I couldn't do something. I couldn't ask 'them'. And I was sorry – I said her name, and that I was sorry. And she said–" She stopped to take a breath, trying to think through the increasing pain bouncing off her skull. "She said she would…never…want that," she finished weakly. "And that was it."

"So what does that mean?" Gajeel mused, wrinkling his nose. "What couldn't you do? Who didn't you ask?"

"I knew something that could save her," Levy explained. She pulled out the clean sheet of paper she had translated a page of the book onto and thrust it at Gajeel. "Read this."

Gajeel pushed her hand away, his lip curling in distaste. "Just tell me what it says, shrimp." Levy sighed and set the sheet down.

"This is a book of occult rituals, Gajeel. And this particular ritual–" she tapped a fingernail on the correct page in the book– "is a rejuvenation ceremony. It was used to refresh the land in times of drought and poor harvests. The tribe that practiced this ritual believed that the rain was the source of all life, and if it didn't rain daily, the world would shrivel and crumble into dust. So every day, they summoned the rain. It's said that their tribal leader, Rennar, called the rain from their sacred shrine every morning at dawn. But according to this book, that's not what happened."

"Get to the point," Gajeel grumbled impatiently. "What does that have to do with Juvia?"

Levy scowled at him. "I'm getting there, calm down. According to the book, instead of doing a simple daily ritual, Rennar performed an enormous spell to make it rain every day – permanently. No matter what, it would rain every day for the rest of time."

Gajeel glanced out the window. "It's not raining."

"Obviously. Someone disrupted the spell."

Clearly bored, Gajeel chewed on his lip. "Who?"

"I don't know," Levy snapped in exasperation. "But that's not what matters." She waved the translation in Gajeel's face again. "What matters is the spell itself. See, if Rennar had just performed a daily spell to call rain, it wouldn't have had any bad side effects. But this spell actually alters natural weather patterns, rather than summoning a few water-saturated clouds. And for a big spell like this you need–"

"Sacrifices." Gajeel was paying attention now, staring at the translation like it held the answers to life's mysteries. "They sacrificed people for this shit?"

"They were fanatics – more like a cult than a tribe, really. Every year, they had to sacrifice a member of the tribe in order to maintain the spell." Levy paused. "But then they stopped."

"Maybe they ran out of people to sacrifice," Gajeel suggested. Levy shook her head.

"That's not right. There were descendants. Like Juvia. Maybe–"

"Juvia's ancestors are those nutbags? Are you shitting me?" Gajeel growled.

"No, I'm not. This spell Rennar used had more than one consequence. If it was ever cut off, then the mage who cast it and their descendants were cursed. Their magic, the most invaluable piece of them, would be what killed them."

"I don't get it," Gajeel said, scowling. Levy rolled her eyes.

"They were all doomed to evaporate, Gajeel. Rennar was a water mage. His body was made of water, and he passed that magic down through a dominant gene to his descendants. I'm saying that Juvia was cursed. That's why she died – and how. And that's exactly why no one could save her."

I could have, Levy's guilt whispered. I could have saved her, if I was brave enough.

"Wait, wait, wait. How do you even know that?" Gajeel demanded, taking Levy's translation from her hands and scanning it like he was searching for clues. "Does it say somewhere on here, 'Juvia was a descendant of What's-his-face'? 'Cause I don't see it, Shrimp."

"Of course it doesn't say that, Gajeel," Levy snapped, irritated. "It's just logic. Look, I'll walk you through it. I must have translated this before Juvia died, and before we all were cursed and forgot her, right?" She raised her eyebrows insistently at him.

"Right," he admitted grudgingly. "So?"

"So, if I forgot about it, it must have applied to her somehow. Yes? Yes. We have to also consider that she did die somehow. We don't know how, but this holds the spell that could have saved her."

"How the fuck do you know that?" Gajeel demanded, staring at the translation again.

"The memories, remember?" Levy traced a fingertip across the page of the unfamiliar book. A shiver ran down her spine. "I said I was sorry for not saving her. Why would I have that specific memory if it wasn't related to this spell? There are two versions of the same rejuvenation spell on that page, Gajeel. Rennar modified the one on the bottom. That one is an immensely powerful rain spell that is effective for one-time use." He shook his head, still not understanding. Eyes sliding shut, Levy rubbed her temples. A migraine was building behind her eyes. "A spell like that would be used to refresh a dried-up body of water, a shrinking ocean. So if Juvia's body was made of water…"

"This spell would have brought her back," Gajeel said slowly. "She would have been fine again. But it says…" He squinted, just to make sure. "It still needed a sacrifice?"

Levy peeled her eyes open again. The room was spinning a little. She thought she might vomit if she couldn't lie down soon. "Just one, but not to kill. It was written so that it would slowly drain away the life of the sacrifice over years and years, never quite killing them, but that kind of magic hurts like a demon. You'd never stay sane if you didn't take–take heavy drugs– Mavis, that hurts." Levy slumped sideways onto the floor, letting the cool wood suck the fire out of her skull. "Gajeel, I think I'm dying. It hurts," she whimpered.

"I feel it too, Shrimp," he ground out from somewhere above her. "It's the goddamn curse Juvia put on us. This spell is triggering something it doesn't want us to remember."

"Then… Juvia must have been saved– She must've been saved before," Levy gasped through the pain. This was worse than fire. Someone was splitting her skull open from the inside with an axe. "And we must've…known the sacrifice. Met them somewhere."

Dimly she heard "stop talking" and then the floor fell away. She was moving forward, dipping and hiccuping through the air, supported by something sort of soft and also sort of hard.

"Gajeel?"

"Quiet."

"We need to talk to Gray."

"Yeah."

"We should bring the book."

"Already got it."

She was still moving. She wondered absently if Gajeel was floating somewhere above her – that was where his voice seemed to be coming from.

"Gajeel?"

"What."

"We're going to find out about Juvia, right?"

"We're going to save her, Shrimp."

She fell for days, or maybe years. She fell until she couldn't remember the feeling of standing still on solid ground, and she just kept falling. She had opened her eyes long ago, but there was nothing to see but endless white. She closed them again, deciding the black was easier to stare at for hours on end.

And then she stopped. Simply hung suspended in air, as if she had gotten caught on something and couldn't get down. Slowly, she peeled open her eyes. The empty white was gone, replaced with four ivory walls and a simple wood-paneled floor. "Hello?" she whispered. "Where is this?"

A noise from the corner of the room, where a bed was pushed up against the wall, made her jump. And then she realized she was hovering three or four inches off the floor, and she was about as opaque as a dirty window.

The noise came again, distracting her from her horrified confusion. It was somewhere between a groan and a cough, and it was coming from the mound of blankets tangled into a ball on the bed. "Hello?" Juvia ventured again. "Is someone there? Can you hear me?"

"Goddammit!" the blankets bellowed, flying off the bed to reveal a painfully handsome dark-haired young man…wearing nothing but a pair of navy boxers.

Gray.

Juvia stared at him, and for a moment she would've sworn he saw her. Their eyes met, but then those bottomless dark irises continued on in a sweep of the room.

"Gray-sama?"

He froze. "Juvia? Is that you? Where are you?"

It was his voice, the voice that had called her back through the blackness, the voice she had dreamed of since they first met. Juvia opened her mouth, but the words all piled up and stuck in her throat. What was she going to say to him, the person she had left behind?

"Juvia, if you're here, I'm begging you. Say something. Anything. Just give me something to work with." He was standing in the center of the small room now, fists clenching and unclenching as he searched for her. He really couldn't see her, Juvia realized miserably. She was just a phantom.

She shook her head, fighting tears that welled at the corners of her eyes. Her teeth sank into her bottom lip, desperately keeping herself from making a noise. He couldn't hear her, even it killed her. Again.

"Juvia, please. It's okay. Just let me help you. I want to bring you back."

He didn't understand. Of course he didn't understand. She had never explained it to him, after all. She hadn't told him or anyone else. They wouldn't have forgotten her without a fight, and Juvia doubted she could have won that fight.

Someone slammed their fist against the door. "Gray, open up. Gray!" He stood, silent, frozen in the center of the room. "Gray, it's important! I figured out something about Juvia!" That was Levy's voice, Juvia realized dimly. Levy was at the door. Everything was so fuzzy, but chunks of her life were filling back in one by one.

"Streak freak, open the goddamn door before I kick it open," a gravelly voice rumbled. "Mavis, I don't have time for this shit. Fullbuster!" Gajeel. Juvia choked back a sob. Gajeel was just outside the door. Her oldest friend, her closest comrade. The one who had her back no matter what. He was just a door's width from being in the same room as she was.

And he wouldn't be able to see her.

Maybe he wouldn't even hear her voice the way Gray did. Maybe he would look straight through her and–

"Have you had enough, Ms. Loxar?" a smooth, cultured voice inquired over her shoulder. Juvia jumped a foot higher into the air.

"Who–"

"You don't remember me, I see," he continued sadly as if she hadn't spoken. A cool hand on her shoulder kept her from turning around. "It's rather to be expected. You were only a very young child at the time. And I imagine it's not something you'd really want to remember. Near-death experiences can be traumatic, especially for infants."

"How– You can really see me?" Juvia asked, spinning to face the owner of the voice the moment the hand's pressure let up. But there was nothing looking back, only ivory paint and disappointment.

"Of course I can. How could I touch you and speak to you if I didn't know where you were?" the man's voice said, still behind her. "Come now, there's no time to waste. You do want to regain your body, don't you?"

Juvia nodded emphatically, so hard she thought her neck might just snap off. "I do. Please."

"Then, after you," the voice said gently, nudging her forward. The air rippled like fabric in the wind and then pulled apart, leaving an empty space in the air itself. Juvia watched, mesmerized, as the hole filled with water until it was a vertical pool hovering inches from her nose. "Step right in, my dear. You'll go straight through," the voice assured her. "Don't be nervous."

Juvia wasn't afraid. Water was as familiar as her own skin. Even strange, hovering water didn't make her nervous. But...

She cast one more look back, searching for Gray's muscular frame, but he had left when she wasn't paying attention, and now it was only her and the voice and the strange liquid door. For the future, she thought to herself, and stepped through.

The world went black and there was the familiar sensation of merging with the water, leaving her physical limits behind, and then she was floating through a world made of water. A gentle current carried her farther and farther away from the door that was already indistinguishable from the rest of the liquid surrounding her. Hello? she said, not with her voice, but sending a simple thought through the currents, searching for a response.

"Welcome, Juvia," the voice said. "Do you recognize this place?"

No, Juvia thought, but that wasn't really true. As she scanned her surroundings, the world came suddenly back into focus, and she noticed things that triggered waves of sad longing through her – a school of mysterious ethereal fish too beautiful to be something from Earthland, the silhouette of a man glowing with otherworldly light out of the corner of her eye, the lonely echo of a mournful wail in the distance. Where is this? Where are we?

"Welcome, my dear," the voice murmured. "This is the place that saved your life; this is the place you will return to one day. When it is time, but not now. Now you are here to heal."

I don't understand.

"Oh, you will, one day. For now, follow me." Before Juvia could ask how she was supposed to follow something she couldn't see, a thin trail of green light lit up the water, leading up and to the left, deeper into this world Juvia knew and didn't know.

Juvia followed the path until the glow dimmed and then disappeared altogether, leaving her drowning alone in a sea of darkness. She waited, and waited, and waited, reminding herself that the water felt much different from the thick sticky substance of the dark world she had come from.

"Juvia."

She turned, searching for the source of the new voice, wishing for anything she could see. She was tired of the emptiness everywhere she looked. As her eyes adjusted, she could barely make out the delicately curved figure of a woman floating towards her.

Hello?

"So you are Juvia," the woman said, looking carefully at her through the semi-gloom. "We have waited many years. Welcome home."

Next chapter is last chapter, I swear. Seriously. It might take a while, but when chapter 20 is done, Evaporating will be done too. Remember to leave a review. Love you all!