Sure enough, Natsu was waiting right outside. He was looking stressed and also sort of guilty, although he put that expression away as soon as he saw Gray. He smiled, although it still looked a little tight around his eyes.

"How'd it go in there?" Natsu asked.

"Uhh, I think Erza's thing went better than mine."

Gray had hoped for a small laugh or a sarcastic comment, but Natsu still looked faraway.

"Did you need to do any…?"

Natsu didn't finish the sentence, but he didn't need to - Gray was already frantically shaking his head. "No, please Natsu…I really just want to go home."

"Sure, Gray, I can take ya home."

Natsu peeled himself off the wall that he'd been leaning against. Gray sidled up to him - he didn't actually want to go so far as to grab Natsu's hand, but he was a little surprised when Natsu didn't reach out to take Gray's hand himself. Natsu had hardly touched Gray since they left Porlyusica.

Instead, Natsu shoved his hands into his pockets and just started walking in the direction of their apartment. Gray waited for a split second, half-expecting Natsu to turn around and sweep Gray into his arms, or kiss him, or take his hand, but it didn't look like any of those things were going to happen.

Gray put his head down and hurried after Natsu. Natsu heard him coming and stopped for a beat, waiting for Gray to catch up. He gave Gray another half-smile, and Gray smiled back with what felt more like a grimace. He drifted a little closer to Natsu, hoping once again that Natsu would reach out for him, but his hands stayed in his pockets.

None of this was fair to Natsu. Gray knew that. He also knew that if he asked Natsu to carry on like nothing had happened, all the while knowing that he would probably end up dying again and leaving Natsu alone, he was going to make the whole thing much worse.

But dammit, he wanted to hold his husband's hand. Gray was terrified, so much more frightened than he'd ever been in his life, and he wanted Natsu. He wanted Natsu to hold him and tell him that everything was going to be alright, even though they both knew that was a lie. He'd assumed that he wouldn't have to ask, and that Natsu would just do it automatically, the way he always had before.

Without really thinking about it, Gray's hand twitched towards Natsu's. The Dragon Slayer didn't seem to notice. Gray stared at his hand for a few seconds, then put both hands in his pockets, ignoring the sharp twinge of pain from his missing finger. He wasn't going to ask Natsu to engage with him any more than Natsu felt ready for. Even for Gray, that felt too selfish.

They spent most of the walk in silence, which was…unusual for them. Gray didn't mind it as much as he'd expected. He was exhausted, and after walking for a few minutes, he could barely keep himself awake. In the back of his mind, the fear of falling back into the darkness still lurked, but it was almost silenced by fatigue. By the time they would reach their house, Gray thought he might even be tired enough to go to sleep.

After about halfway, Gray wasn't really bothering to watch where he was going anymore. He'd grown up on these streets, and he could find his way around in pretty much any condition, including mostly asleep. He barely even needed to open his eyes.

And almost immediately after that, he tripped, stumbling slightly. He managed to catch himself quickly, automatically bracing himself for his necklace to fly up and hit him in the face, just as it had ever since Erza had given it to him years before.

It didn't. Gray was processing pretty slowly, so it took him about five seconds to realize that was because his necklace was gone. This was concerning in and of itself, but much more so because he was pretty sure that necklace also had his engagement ring threaded through it.

"You okay?" Natsu asked distantly. "You must be tired, huh? Do you wanna rest for a second?"

He sounded worried, which sounded like Natsu. But Gray realized that he had made no move to catch Gray when he'd fallen, which wasn't very much like Natsu at all. Gray swallowed hard.

"Where's my ring?" he asked. "And my necklace?"

"They're…at home," Natsu said.

"You…don't have them with you?" Obviously he didn't - there was no reason for Natsu to lie. But the answer was surprising enough that the question was startled out of Gray. If Natsu had been the one to die, Gray was pretty sure he would have worn Natsu's ring around his neck forever. It was almost impossible to imagine just throwing it in some random drawer or something, to collect dust.

But he supposed people processed emotions in different ways. Natsu usually processed emotions in the way where he accumulated lots of items, and attached a high emotional weight to them. But Gray had never seen him go through something like this. He told himself that this was different. He told himself that that made sense.

"No, like I said," Natsu said. "Your ring and your necklace…they're at home."

"Oh."

"I'll give 'em to you when we get back."

"Thanks."

The rest of the walk was silent. Natsu kept his hands in his pockets the whole time, which Gray found vaguely suspicious, but he couldn't muster up the energy to care about this either.

By the time they made it back to their house, black spots were gathering in Gray's vision. He knew he'd technically been gone for over a week, even if that time didn't feel real to him. But even taking that out, it had been a while since Gray had been home. They'd left before the crack of dawn for the battle with Magnus, and it was now late evening. He'd been on his feet for at least twelve hours that he could remember. And he'd died in the middle of that.

But when Natsu opened the door for Gray and ushered him inside, Gray was not greeted with the relaxing oasis he'd hoped for. Instead, it looked like their house had been taken over by a hurricane.

At first, Gray thought they'd been robbed. But Natsu didn't seem surprised, he just kept walking towards the bedroom. Gray stood in the living room, absolutely stunned, while his brain struggled to make sense of what he was seeing.

It took a few seconds, but slowly, Gray realized with horror that everything that was missing - from their walls and couch and table - had been something of his. The painting he'd bought at a thrift store and hung behind the couch, his favorite of the many snow globes he'd received over the years, even the pair of shoes that he never remembered to put away. It was all just…gone, like he'd never lived here at all.

"Natsu," Gray started, and he thought he was going to sound mad but he mostly just sounded tired, and sad. "Natsu, what happened to all my stuff? Where…where is it?"

"I didn't throw it out," Natsu said immediately. "It's all in here. I wouldn't ever throw it out…."

Gray swallowed down the bile that was rising in his throat and told himself that this made sense, too. Natsu had spent years filling their bed with random crap that reminded him of Gray, so maybe this time he'd gone even further and piled all of Gray's stuff into their bed.

"It's in here," Natsu called from the bedroom, and Gray swallowed again and followed.

Their bedroom was, if possible, even more gutted than the living room had been. Gray hadn't even realized how many of the things in their shared space were "his," until he was staring at the empty spaces they'd left behind. He glanced towards the bed, half-hoping to be greeted by a messy nest of all their belongings. Instead, the mattress was stripped almost bare.

The blanket from their bed - Gray's favorite, because it wasn't too hot - was crumpled unceremoniously in the corner, half-buried in a pile of all his missing possessions. Natsu sidled over to it, seemingly unbothered, and kneeled down.

"Let me find the ring," he said, and like it was nothing, began pulling apart the tower of Gray's things.

So this was how long it would take Natsu to move on from losing him? A week? If Jellal had taken a few days longer, would Gray have been picking his stuff out of a trash can? Had they missed him at all?

Gray had two choices, start crying or start yelling. He picked the second one.

"What the hell?" he said, hearing his voice waver, but pushing through anyway. "What were you gonna do with my stuff? I was only gone a week, Natsu! I've seen you keep garbage for years, and you can't even keep my stuff for a week?"

Natsu froze and looked up from the pile, eyes widening in the first genuine emotion Gray had seen in hours. "No, I-"

Gray cleared his throat, pushing himself through the next part before he decided that he didn't want to hear the answer. "Natsu, did you…. did you even care that I was gone?"


For the first time since Gray had woken up in Natsu's arms, Natsu found himself wondering if perhaps this was all a dream. Gray coming back to life…that was wonderful to the point of being surreal, but it had still felt right somehow. It had been difficult for Natsu to believe that the universe would really go so far as taking Gray from him, and it only made sense that it would eventually give him back.

But the idea of Gray asking Natsu if he had missed him…if he'd even cared….

That was so horrible it didn't feel real. It felt like something Natsu's brain must have cooked up. Gray couldn't…say something like that to Natsu. It wasn't right.

For a long few seconds, everything felt frozen. All Natsu could do was stare at Gray and try to figure out if this was some sort of cruel, horrible joke.

And then everything seemed to surge up inside Natsu at once. The strength went out of his middle, and he crumpled sideways. By the time his face hit the floor, he was already crying.

Gray's face was mostly hidden by a film of tears. But what little Natsu could see looked vaguely horrified.

"Natsu, I-"

"Of course I missed you!" Natsu screamed. He wanted to dissolve. He wanted to crumple Gray into a tiny ball that he could fit inside his chest. He wanted to tear his entire body inside out, he wanted to thrash until he split in two.

He settled for wailing again.

"How could you SAY THAT?"

"I didn't mean-"

"All that I DID WAS MISS YOU!" Natsu was crying so hard now he was surprised he could still get out intelligible words. He could hardly see; he was sure he was drooling. He felt vaguely nauseous with the force of his tears. "You don't understand! I couldn't look at your things for a single 'nother second! Gray, I thought they were going to KILL ME! I couldn't sleep, I couldn't eat, I had to put your stuff somewhere because I thought I was going to DIE!"

"That's not what I meant, Natsu. I just thought-"

Gray sounded kind of panicked. He didn't finish the sentence to explain what he had thought. He settled instead for putting a hand on Natsu's shoulder. Natsu thought about pushing it off, but couldn't quite bring himself to.

Instead, he grabbed Gray's hand in both of his and doubled over, crying until his ribs started to ache. Even through his sobs, he could hear when Gray started softly crying too.

"Natsu, I'm sorry, I just…. I didn't know what had happened, and all my stuff- I just don't remember anything, I don't know…." Gray trailed off, sniffling. "I didn't mean for any of this to happen."

Natsu knew that, of course he knew that. None of this was Gray's fault either, but now he was apologizing to Natsu, and Natsu couldn't even stop crying long enough to figure out what to say.

"I-I'm s-sorry," Natsu managed, hanging onto Gray's hand so hard he was worried he might hurt him. "I j-just…. I missed you so much…."

"It's okay, Natsu," Gray said, and Natsu couldn't see him but Gray's voice was thick with tears and Natsu knew he didn't mean it. "I…I wasn't here."

"I'm sorry," Natsu repeated, curling a little further into himself and dragging Gray's hand with him. This hurt, more than he thought he could ever hurt again, but it was still the best moment he'd had in weeks. At least Gray was here with him, and for now, he was safe. Natsu wished he could stay in this instant forever, because the thought of coming back to his house, empty again, still filled with reminders of Gray, was more than he could take.

"Natsu, what happened to your hand? When was this? It's new, right?"

Gray's voice sounded more alert than it had pretty much the whole night, and Natsu was startled into an answer without really thinking it through. Earlier, he'd been trying to hide his bruised and bloodied knuckles by keeping his hands in his pockets, not wanting to worry Gray. But he'd grabbed Gray's hand in his panic, and there was no point in trying to cover it up now. Natsu whimpered softly as he tried to think of some lie he could tell Gray, but he couldn't think of anything but the overwhelming sense of looming loss he'd felt when he'd opened his knuckles on the tree.

"Did you…did you do this yourself, Natsu?" Gray's fingers were gentle on the back of his injured hand.

Suddenly, Natsu was crying so hard again that he really couldn't speak. His head was starting to pound, but he couldn't calm down.

"Whoa, Natsu, it's okay, just tell me-"

"I can't lose you again," Natsu sobbed out, so unintelligibly that he knew Gray was the only person who might be able to understand. "I thought it was gonna kill me the first time, and I can't do it twice. Who…no one can do it twice. It's not fair."

"Natsu," Gray said slowly. Natsu's hand seemed temporarily forgotten. "I'm not going to die again. Okay? Magnus doesn't know I'm alive, we'll-"

"He already killed you once," Natsu whimpered. "And now I don't know…I can't…."

Natsu looked up in time to see Gray bury his face in his hands. "Well, I guess I don't know for sure," he said sadly. "But I don't wanna die again, Natsu, and I'm sure gonna try…."

"Gray, that's not-"

"I didn't ask for this, and I don't wanna put you out any or make you so sad, but it seems like I have to do something or a lot of people are gonna die. I just…."

Natsu was still crying, but his tears were already slowing. He reached a clumsy hand for Gray's thigh - he wanted to be touching him again. "Can we just ignore it?"

"What?"

"Can we just…pretend it'll all be fine? Not talk about it anymore?"

"About…me maybe dying again?"

Natsu sniffled. "Yeah."

"Okay. That sounds nice." Gray's hand found Natsu's again.

Natsu wasn't sure how this was going to really work. Pretending everything would be fine was all well and good, but he knew better than anybody at this point that sometimes the universe had other plans. And anyways, he was pretty sure he was going to think about the possibility of losing Gray about a hundred times a day, probably like almost every time he looked at Gray, and it was probably going to randomly make him cry a lot.

But he wanted to try. If they actually didn't have much time left together, and this was all the Gray he was going to get, he didn't want to waste it being sad or distant or god forbid angry. He wanted to spend it with Gray.

Somehow, and Natsu wasn't exactly sure how, Gray ended up on the floor, and their limbs intertwined, and they were cuddling in a way that was almost more intimate than sex. Their legs were sandwiched between each other, Natsu's forehead pressed lightly into Gray's chest while Gray's hot breath ruffled Natsu's hair. One of Natsu's arms was trapped awkwardly between his and Gray's body, the other resting on the outside of Gray's thigh. Gray's arms were around him. Incrementally, Natsu felt himself relax. He was still crying, and he was pretty sure Gray was too, but it didn't feel as hysterical now. It felt more like a release.

Natsu wasn't sure how long they stayed like that. It was…a while, he was pretty sure. Gray seemed to need it just as badly as he did.

Eventually, Natsu's tears slowed, then stopped. He could tell from Gray's breathing that he'd stopped, too. They lay there like that for a little while longer, and even though Gray was freezing (as always), Natsu didn't want to move away.

"Gray?"

Gray moved slightly, tipping his head down. "Yeah Natsu?"

"I missed you," Natsu said simply, and kissed him.

Just for a moment, everything seemed to melt away. All that was left was the feeling of Gray in his arms, Natsu's lips on his. He closed his eyes and lost himself in the kiss, banishing everything else to the back of his mind at last.

He didn't pull away until he needed to breathe. Gray blinked at him, his lashes casting matted shadows across his cheeks, and smiled.

"I was waitin' for that," he said softly, sounding as breathless as Natsu felt.

Natsu took hold of Gray's face and brought it up to his, kissing him again. A little harder this time, as he let go of some of the aching need for Gray that he'd been carrying around with him for the past week.

He hadn't kissed Gray yet. Gray had been alive for hours and hours, and this was the first time Natsu had kissed him.

Natsu didn't know what the hell was wrong with him. He loved Gray, and he loved kissing Gray, so much so that he'd asked Gray to spend the rest of their lives together. He couldn't believe that he'd forgotten that even for a second, much less for hours on end.

Natsu wouldn't be able to truly ignore the impending threat of Gray's death, but he was going to have to try harder. Gray needed Natsu to be with him, and Natsu needed that too. As badly as it hurt, if the unthinkable happened, Natsu would never forgive himself for not spending every extra second loving Gray as hard as he possibly could.

When they finally broke apart, both of them were panting lightly. Gray was slightly flushed, the color standing out starkly in his pale face. His hand found Natsu's, and he smiled again.

Natsu took it, rubbing his thumb along the back of Gray's hand. "Let's find your ring," he said softly.

Gray nodded, letting go of Natsu's hand. Natsu noticed that he still wasn't looking directly at the pile of his belongings, but that was understandable. Natsu wouldn't have known what more to say even if Gray had wanted to talk.

It didn't take Natsu long to find the ring. Whatever it may have looked like, he hadn't just thrown Gray's stuff into a haphazard pile. When he'd found Gray's necklace and ring in his pocket, he'd put them carefully in a box, and nestled it safely into the side. It had hurt to look at them, but it hurt even more to think of them getting damaged.

"Here ya go," Natsu said, handing the box to Gray. "See, I told you I kept it…."

Natsu expected Gray to slip the necklace back over his head, but to Natsu's surprise, Gray took the ring off first. With some pain, and an amount of concentration, he started slipping it back onto his left ring finger.

"Hey, no doesn't that hurt?" Natsu said. Gray's hand wasn't swaddled in bandages anymore, and the ring finger had technically never been injured. But even aside from the gruesome hole where the pinky should be, Gray's hand looked swollen and fragile from the trauma of the wound.

"It's not bad anymore." Gray said it with a small hiss of breath that let Natsu know he was lying. "See, now that the wounds from the sword can be healed, Wendy was able to grow skin over it and stuff…."

"But still, I don't mind if you just leave it on the necklace Gray…."

"No. It hurts a little, but I…don't mind. I want it this way." He hesitated for a second. "It's worth it."


Technically, Wendy knew more details about the resurrection itself than Erza did. But because Erza was usually the one to answer questions - about anything and everything - all the questions about Gray's resurrection were still being directed towards her. It was about an hour before things settled down enough that Erza felt she could leave, and she did so quietly, without even telling Wendy.

She felt vaguely guilty during the journey to the hospital. She was not the only person who wanted to see Jellal. She was not the only person who was worried. It was starting to seem like the general attitude in the guild towards Wendy, and perhaps even to a greater extent towards Jellal, was that they were the saviors. They had brought hope to a hopeless situation. They had returned Gray, delivered Gray. She was sure the other wizards would want to thank Jellal, and it even seemed like they might just want to see him, touch him, look at him and be reminded that perhaps there was still a chance of all of this turning out okay.

But Erza needed to go alone. And so she had left.

The receptionist when Erza arrived at the hospital was a different one than the one who had made Erza fill out Jellal's intake forms. She looked at Erza without recognition.

"Visiting hours are over," she said gently, apparently deciding Erza wasn't hurt herself.

Erza explained her situation, and was pleased when her voice didn't crack.

"I'm sorry, but-"

"Please," Erza whispered. "I'll be fast."

The receptionist hesitated, and Erza found herself tensing. She told herself that if the receptionist wouldn't let her see Jellal, she would accept that and simply visit him the following morning. She wouldn't push her aside and force her way into Jellal's room. She hoped.

"Alright," the receptionist said. "Just this once."

Erza relaxed.

"Thank you," Erza said, putting the last of her energy into keeping her voice steady. She somehow managed to keep herself from vibrating with impatience as the receptionist gave her Jellal's room number, and directions on how to get there. Erza nodded her thanks one more time and hurried away from the front desk, before the receptionist could change her mind.

She paused outside Jellal's door, trying to steady her breathing. Jellal was asleep, she knew that. Worse than asleep, Jellal was in a coma. The receptionist had told her that his condition remained the same, and Erza knew that rationally, she was going to step into the room and she was going to see Jellal lying there, unconscious.

But part of her, the childlike part that she'd never been able to outgrow, told her that she would open the door and Jellal would open his eyes. That was how it worked in all the fairytales she'd been told as a small child. In those stories, the hero was never punished for doing something selfless, like risking his life to save a friend. In those stories, love was a physical, tangible thing that could work miracles.

Erza knew those stories weren't true. She'd learned that lesson as a child in the Tower, and the same was true now. As much as she loved Jellal, loved him with the entire force of her being, she couldn't force the world around her to participate in her own personal fairy tale.

She stood outside the door, fighting with that part of herself until she could silence it. When she was sure that she would find Jellal lying unconscious in a hospital bed, she allowed herself to step through the door.

As soon as she saw him, Erza realized she'd still somehow been overly optimistic. She'd known that he was in a coma, but she didn't really know very much about comas. Everything she'd ever heard, and everything that Wendy had told her about Jellal's body after the Tower, had led her to expect him to look like he was sleeping. Instead, he looked like he was dying.

Jellal was on a hospital bed, surrounded by such a complex webbing of wires and tubes that Erza could barely see him. She stepped closer, horrified, and saw a flash of blue hair through the maze of plastic. Erza sidled up closer to him, picking her way around beeping machines, and finally got a glimpse of his face.

This, more than anything else, shook her. Even when Jellal was asleep, he looked alive. She could tell if he was having a nightmare by the tightness around his eyes, or if he was in pain. Very, very occasionally, when he was deeply asleep, he looked nearly peaceful.

Now, he didn't look like anything, except tired and faded. His face was completely slack - no lines in his forehead, no tension around his jaw. Honestly, it didn't even really look like he was breathing - the only real indication she had that he was still alive was the steady beep-beep-beep from one of the machines. She assumed it would have made a different sound if he had been dying or dead.

There was a tube down his throat, supported by thick white straps and taped carefully in place. That was to support his breathing. She knew that…how? A movie, maybe? She must have seen it somewhere. That same part of her brain told her that this was something they did to people who were too weak to keep breathing on their own, and that it was a very, very bad sign. Machines were doing for Jellal what his body should be doing naturally. But his body couldn't anymore. And without these machines, he wouldn't be alive.

Erza didn't think she'd ever seen a real person intubated before. She was sure she had seen some of her friends in worse shape than this. She'd seen Gray die, for god sakes. But that had just seemed different somehow. He'd gotten paler and paler, weaker and weaker, and then he'd slipped away and been gone. There hadn't been this long, horrible period of inbetween. She knew Jellal wasn't dead, but he really didn't seem very much alive either.

Were you supposed to talk to someone in a coma? Erza definitely remembered hearing that before, but now she couldn't remember if it was an urban legend or a myth or if it was something true. Could he hear her? Would that…would that bring him back?

Erza had never been able to bring Jellal back. Not when he was a child in the Tower, wild-eyed and dangerous, not when he was a force of evil to be stopped, threatening to kill them all, not even when he was a frail shadow of himself who didn't remember anything except her. Even now, when he was in a Guild, when they were married, she'd hardly been able to convince him that his life was even worth staying alive for.

She was Erza. She had always been able to fix anything, overcome anything, solve anything.

Except Jellal. Never Jellal.

She sat down beside him anyways.

"Gray is alive," she said. "I don't know if you saw. Before…well, you did it. He's fine. A little shaken up, but fine. He's probably at home with Natsu now."

It felt sort of silly to talk to him, like talking to an inanimate object. She stroked one of his pale wrists, brushed a finger across a shadowy eyelid, felt a few strands of his dirty, matted hair. These were about the only parts of him that she could easily reach. She forced herself to keep talking, at least for a little.

"Thank you for that," she said. "For returning Gray to us."

Erza meant to continue, but the next words wouldn't come. She was overjoyed to have Gray back. She felt it deep within her bones, a relief so overwhelming that it almost felt like pain. Jellal had done the impossible by saving Gray, but he couldn't repeat the miracle on himself.

Erza had gotten used to Jellal by her side, mowing down or thinking around any obstacle that she herself couldn't immediately solve. Now, she was stopping herself from turning and asking him what he thought, how to fix things. There was no one there.

It was possible that there never would be again. Erza didn't have any option now but to wait, and hope that luck and the universe were kind to her and to Jellal. In her experience, they very rarely were.

"Get better," Erza finally managed. "Please."

She didn't let herself say that she needed him. That they all needed him. If he really was there, he surely already knew that.

Even after she was done speaking, Erza felt herself lingering there beside him. She held his hand, reluctant to let go even though it didn't feel like Jellal's. It was limp, and cold, and brittle-feeling.

She had to go home. The next day, she would be expected to be Erza again. The Guild would have questions. Natsu and Gray would probably have questions. She would need to lead. She knew all that, so why was she hesitating? He wasn't waking up..

Erza gave Jellal's hand a final, gentle squeeze and stood, stretching. She looked down at him one last time, trying to imagine his face without the tube in his throat before she realized that was almost worse. Without the tube, he would just look dead.

"Goodbye," she said softly. For a moment, she considered writing him a note. But that was senseless. When she had more of a plan, then she would write him a note. He wasn't waking up tonight anyway.

Erza walked out the door and shut it behind her, almost managing not to look back as she walked away.