Thirty - Jellal Fernandes

Prison was not the best experience. Jellal had been there for almost a month. He knew that Lahar despised him, but even he wasn't as bad as some of the guards. He guessed that they must know the real reason Lahar threw him in jail. According to records, he burned down the planetarium, but mostly what Lahar and the prison guards cared about was the extortion of their children, who so happened to be on the Era Student Council.

Jellal had been without food for days when he got the news. He was changing cells. Apparently being in a cell by himself, with no food, and poor treatment for his broken rib, wasn't bad enough. As he was waiting for his new cell door to open, the inmate in the neighboring cell spoke to him.

"I don't envy you kid," he said. "Your new cellmate is a monster."

"What?" Jellal asked, a little worried.

"A demon, more like," the man said. "They say he's in for stealing the heart of a child and then killing his girlfriend."

"What?!" Jellal repeated, significantly more worried.

The cell door opened and he was shoved inside by a guard that kind of resembled a frog.

"If you die in there," the guard sneered, "I don't mind cleaning up your body."

Jellal didn't respond. He'd learned that that was the best way to deal with the near constant abuse. Eventually, they would get bored for awhile when he didn't fight back. He wasn't sure if that tactic was going to work as well with his cellmate. He looked around the small cell until he saw a man with dark hair sitting in the corner.

"Hello," the man said. "I'd stay away from me, if I were you."

"Why is that?" Jellal asked warily.

"Everything that comes near me dies," he said, a bit morosely.

"Oh," Jellal said. "I'll just stay over here then."

"That's probably for the best. I'm Zeref, by the way."

"Jellal," Jellal greeted, sitting down on his new bed.

"What are you in for?" Zeref asked.

"That is a long and complicated story," Jellal sighed.

"Is that your way of saying it wasn't your fault?" Zeref asked.

"No," Jellal said. "Well, some of it wasn't my fault, but I helped. And I lied to cover up for it. So I'm just as guilty."

"Accomplice to murder?"

"What? No!" Jellal exclaimed. "I- no. Not that."

Zeref shrugged. "Nowhere near as bad as me then."

"How exactly do you go about stealing the heart of a child?" Jellal wondered, not really expecting an answer.

"Everyone makes it sound like he was still alive when I took it," Zeref said quietly. "But I suppose the wording makes me seem tough enough for people to leave me alone in here."

"So, you stole the heart of a dead child?" Jellal asked. "Or, you killed him and then took it?"

"Listen, Jellal, you seem fairly harmless-"

"Tell that to my life that I've destroyed," he said cynically.

"-so I'm going to tell you what I did," Zeref finished. "Then, maybe you'll see that whatever you did isn't as bad as it could be and you can stop being so self-deprecating."

"Great," Jellal said. "I'll win the 'Not As Much Of A Jerk As I Could Have Been' award."

Zeref ignored the comment and started in on his story. "When I was much younger, my home caught fire and burned down, taking my parents with it. My little brother and I barely survived. Now, my brother had had a heart defect since he was born, and everything with the fire made his health turn south. Long story short, he needed a new heart."

"I see," Jellal said.

"Of course, healthy young children's hearts are not really that available," Zeref said. "And the waiting list was far too long by the time I got his name on it. He needed a heart immediately. Now, don't go crazy thinking I took a heart from another kid that needed a transplant, because I didn't. I probably would have, to be fair, but it didn't come to that."

"So, where did you get the heart then?" Jellal asked.

Zeref sighed. "From a kid whose parents refused to donate his healthy organs," he said. "He had the perfect blood type and he died of some accident, so the heart was perfect. They just didn't want to donate it. I had been studying surgery and medicine for a long time, so I knew what I was doing. I went into the morgue when no one was there and I stole the heart."

"That's... messed up, to be honest," Jellal said.

"I know," Zeref said. "But it saved my brother's life. I hadn't seen him since the surgery I performed. I was in court for a long time and he ended up in the Dragon Foster Care System."

"Dragon?" Jellal repeated, confused.

"A super special foster care program," Zeref shrugged, "for special cases. The judge I ended up with was fairly sympathetic, and I was able to avoid prison for a long time. I had some semblance of a life, still without my brother though. I did get a girlfriend, but that didn't last long."

"You- you killed her?" Jellal asked.

Zeref nodded. "Yes," he said somberly. "Though, it was an accident. A car accident, to be precise."

"That's rough, buddy," Jellal said.

"Yeah," Zeref said. "She died. I lived. The judge lost all sympathy. I ended up in prison."

"For how long?" Jellal asked.

"Four hundred years," Zeref said.

"I'm sorry, what?" Jellal wasn't sure he had heard right. "Four hundred years?"

Zeref nodded. "That's what they do when they want you in prison for life. Even if I were to get my sentence halved for good behavior or something, I'd still die here."

"Wow, that... is an awful story," Jellal said. "I thought my life was messed up."

"You wanna know what's even more messed up?" Zeref asked sadly. "My brother died the other day. His plane crashed with him and all his Fairy Tail foster family on board. All that work to save him and he still died young." It took Jellal a very long moment to process what he had just heard. "Are you alright?" Zeref asked. "Was my story too much?"

"Did- I'm sorry- Did you say that the plane Fairy Tail was on crashed?" Jellal asked. "'Tail' with an 'i'?"

"Yes," Zeref said. "I got the news yesterday. They said no one survived."

Jellal stood up, and then sat right back down. He stood up again and paced for a short moment, then looked back at Zeref.

"Are you sure?" he asked.

"It's what I was told," Zeref said. "Why? Do you know someone from Fairy Tail?"

"I- yes," Jellal said. "I go to Fairy Hills. And..." He fell to his knees and put his head in his hands. "This can't be right. It can't! Erza was on the plane. She wouldn't die. She can't. I can't- There's no way."

"Sorry to be the bearer of bad news," Zeref said. "At least now you won't miss the outside world as much."

"That is not helpful!" Jellal said.

"Well, don't fall apart completely," Zeref said. "Dinner is soon."

-.-.-

Jellal didn't even feel hungry, despite how little food he'd had recently. He contemplated whether he would be better off just dying of starvation; at least then things couldn't get worse. He didn't get off of the floor until well past dinnertime. He felt completely desolate and entirely sure that there would be no more happiness in his life. Just as he was coming to terms with that, two familiar faces appeared on the other side of the cell door.

"Well, look what we have here," Ultear said.

"He looks like a kicked puppy," Meredy noted.

"What are you two doing here?" he asked.

"Breaking you out of prison," Ultear said.

"What?" Jellal asked. "You can't do that."

"Well, technically we're not breaking you out," Meredy said. "But Ultear has convinced the guard on duty to let you free. Aaaannd she also destroyed all the paperwork that says you're supposed to be here."

"What?!" Jellal said again, incredulously. "Ultear, you cannot do that."

"Too late," she said. "It's done. Sorry it took so long. We had to wait until the guard on duty wasn't one that had a kid at Era."

"Looks like you're getting out of here," Zeref said from his corner.

Ultear looked over and gasped. "Is that Zeref? The medical prodigy?" she asked excitedly. "I love your work!"

"Ultear, he stole the heart of a child!" Meredy said.

"Right, right, sorry," Ultear said, calming down. "In any case, we're just here for Jellal."

"Come on, Jellal," Meredy said. "Let's get you home."