A/N: Hey guys, hope y'all enjoyed the end to Remedy. I posted a new story called the Rage of Acnologia, or as I like to call it, Rage of Acno, because Acnologia is just really long and I'm not the best speller on the planet. Please check it out, and thanks for the continual support! Hope you enjoy this Hades/Persephone AU or whatnot!

Disclaimer: Don't own Fairy Tail or any of its characters. If I did, GraLu would've been endgame. This belongs to funfanfin.

• Red String of Fate •

We Fall in Love Again and Again and Again

I

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It's winter this time. The air is cold around her, sharp and crisp, and with every breath she took, it hurt to breathe. The entire campus was covered in fresh snow from the silent fall the night before, yet the path was shoveled away that morning, tainting the pure white with black tar. Dried, dead leaves flitted before settling on the open path. There was a satisfying crunch as she stepped on them. As much as she was a fan of the life of spring, she didn't mind the death of winter.

The holidays are coming up soon, she remembers idly. The strap of her school bag uncomfortably dug into her shoulder no thanks to the heavy textbooks she was carrying. She fidgeted with the strap, frustrated, until she heard the campus clocktower chime a solemn tune she couldn't quite remember the words to.

It wasn't until it ended that she saw him.

He was standing, looking up at the sky as if waiting for a shooting star to sparkle by so he could make a wish. However, it was only four o'clock, right after classes. The sky was a pale gray. There wouldn't be stars in the sky for some time.

His hands were in his pockets, a backpack slung over his shoulders. Hair the color of a raven's wings danced in the wind, tousled and roguish. Her eyes couldn't help but notice his strong jawline like it was carved from ancient stone.

It's him.

Her heart soared as her soul recognized him and swelled with familiar feelings of longing.

She didn't realize she stopped walking until a bike zoomed past her, shattering the eternal moment she unknowingly stepped into. Blinking, she resumed walking, but it's shaky, steps unsure like she didn't remember how to walk.

She tried not to look at him again, but she couldn't help it. His presence was a loud whisper in the wind. She saw the way his shoulders would tense, almost as if overburdened with the weight of the world. Even from her, she could see his eyes, a beautiful dark blue like the endless night of the sky. She had never seen anything so perfect.

With each step towards him, her ribs feel like they'll break under the threat of her beating heart. She heard the Fates cackling in her head, their deft fingers spinning and entwining wispy threads mercilessly.

Memories flashed through her mind with every step she took.

A dark realm, the smell of cool, damp Earth. The tips of her fingers sliding against cold, smooth walls.

Another step.

The jolting wicked taste of pomegranates lingering on her lips, juice as dark and red as blood dripping down her chin.

Another step.

A curved, lazy smirk. The smooth, warm expanse of skin. Desperate kisses against the hollow of her throat.

Another step.

He turned. Meeting his eyes felt like a breath of relief. He blinked, drawing in a breath they find themselves taking in every single life, in every single world.

It's you.

It felt like a lifetime since they had met. In reality, it's been lifetimes. Looking at him now, at the familiar scar etched on his forehead... It felt like an eternity since the last time they were together.

Unafraid, she reached up and brushed the hair out of his eyes. She smiled softly, hands dropping to shoulders.

"Hey there, stranger," she said fondly.

He leaned into her touch, closing his eyes, remembering. Remembering everything. Every touch, every kiss, every promise.

A smirk stretched across his lips. He grabbed her wrist and pulled it down, kissing her palm. His placed his thumb over her pulse, making sure she was real.

"I missed you," he whispered, his low voice rumbling through her like a storm through a desert. "You have no idea how much I missed you."

"I think I have an idea," she said, voice breaking.

She pulled him down, kissing him because there aren't words to describe the symphony singing in her chest.

It was getting harder: she could feel it. He could too. She was sure of it. Losing each other and finding each other and losing each other and finding each other again and again and again for countless years was taking its toll on the both of them. She was sick of the years where they were forced apart, chasing each other like the moon chases the sun and the sun chases the moon. She wished she could always stay with him in a world where the word goodbye didn't exist.

Sometimes they would be together for decades. Other times, only for a few years.

She hoped one day they would be together indefinitely.

For now, she simply kissed him and hoped they would still be together tomorrow.

II

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In this life, her days were filled with flowers because there were some passions that even death couldn't extinguish.

Her shop was filled with colorful arrangements. They climbed up the walls and filled the shelves, thirsty for water and eager for attention. Every time she heard the playful jingle of the door, she would look up and see a customer inhale deeply, as if they've never actually breathed fresh, flower-kissed air before. It made her smile every time, even though none of the customers that came through had the dark blue eyes and deep, velvety voice that haunted her dreams.

It was easier to remember him in this life. The soft petals caressed her smooth skin, and she couldn't help but remember the way his gaze used to feel just as tender, just as sweet. The glorious array of smells reminded her of the meadow that she used to love, of her lighthearted, barefoot dances in misted flowers.

It was the innocence of flowers that captivated her. She wondered if that was because she knew that same purity didn't exist within her, no matter how much she wanted to believe it did.

The roots, however, they yearned for darkness. They stretched and uncurled and reached desperately towards the Underworld, finding strength in isolation and familiarity in death.

Perhaps it wasn't the innocence that attracted her to flowers after all.

In any case, her arms were covered in angry red scratches from thorns and dirt was burrowed stubbornly underneath her fingernails and she couldn't get enough of the feeling of the earth in her hands.

One day in late spring, a sweet, warm breeze danced its way into her shop along with news of a cemetery opening up on the other side of town. It wasn't long before the owner emailed her. He wanted to meet with her to discuss the possibility of a business partnership between her flower shop and the cemetery.

At first, she hesitated, her fingers hovering over her keyboard, trembling slightly. It could be him, her heart whispered hopefully, and she ended up agreeing to visit the cemetery to meet with him.

She wore a dress the color of deep blue orchids and braided her hair into a crown around her head. It had been lifetimes since she had been the queen of anything, but she knew better than anyone that old habits die hard.

She wandered around the cemetery, stepping carefully around the few graves that dotted the land. Their inscriptions were short, sweet, melancholic.

The owner of the cemetery came to greet her with an empty smile and a frigid handshake, and she swallowed her disappointment gracefully. It wasn't him. This man was the opposite of the person she was searching for. This man was calloused towards death, only interested in numbers and contracts and financial opportunity.

Five minutes. She spoke to him for five minutes before declining his offer, gripping the edges of her dress so tightly the fabric wrinkled. The disappointment in her chest turned to a sorrow-fed loneliness, and she fought angry, bitter tears as she walked across the well-tended grass.

"Excuse me," a voice said, low and familiar. "I think you dropped this."

She turned, tears forgotten halfway down her cheeks, and saw him.

There was a boyish smile stretched across his face. She noticed his pale skin was darker than usual. It was obvious that, in this life, he'd spent plenty of time underneath the hot, unforgiving sun. He was standing next to a lawn mower, a box of gardening tools strapped to the side of it. He was holding a book out to her.

Letting out a breath, she stepped toward him, sucking her bottom lip between her teeth to keep from grinning.

"I didn't drop anything," she replied, voice small, tentative, hopeful. He held the book closer to her, and she took it, her fingers brushing against his, igniting her skin.

Through blurred vision, she looked down at the book.

It was an ancient, obviously loved copy. The cover was ripped and worn, but she could just make out the title.

The Greek Myths

She turned to a page whose corner has been carefully dog eared. Beautiful illustrations draped the page of a meadow, a dark throne, six pomegranate seeds held up to curved pink lips.

Persephone the Goddess of Spring and Queen of the Underworld

Tucked between the pages was a flower that had been pressed over time. With shaking fingers, she lifted the flower out of the book.

It was a forget-me-not.

She let out a relieved, surprised laugh and threw herself at him in a hug so forceful it made him stagger backwards. It wasn't long before he wrapped his arms around her and nuzzled her neck.

"Of course," she laughed. "Of course you would be the groundskeeper of the cemetery."

She felt him smiling against her skin.

"I thought it was fitting," he said, soft.

"I'm a florist," she said, feeling him shake with quiet laughter. "I thought it was fitting."

She pulled back slightly to see his eyes. They were as dark and blue and endless as she remembered and looking into them felt like coming home. He kissed her before she could tell him that in this life, she'd adopted a three-legged dog and named him Cerberus.

III

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In this life, there was magic, there was adventure, there was Fairy Tail. She was so caught up in the whirlwind of mortality to even remember the endlessness of immortality.

She held responsibilities so heavy that Atlas would have thanked the gods he carried the world on his shoulders instead of the burden on hers. But in this world, in this life, she didn't carry it alone. The burden was carried by everyone because one's sadness was everyone's sadness and one's happiness was everyone's happiness.

However, Lucy still felt personally responsible. The only relief she'd found was in a person whose responsibilities were as heavy as her own, whose darkness was as consuming as her own, whose demons were as familiar as her own. He was a temple of peace in a land of destruction and she would sacrifice herself if it meant keeping him alive.

Scars adorned his body, spelling the names of those who have tasted death by his hand. He walked like the dead were following him, whispering to him over his shoulder, dragging him down with piercing, demanding fingers.

Despite it all, she thought she saw peace in the dark night of his eyes, and she swore she heard it in the low timbre of his voice.

In this life, he left her for months, because the Fates were fond of familiar patterns in their weaved thread.

In this life, she found him, only to realize that they were both more broken than they were before.

In this life, she loved him before she knew she did.

It was after they defeated Tartarus. Master Makarov disbanded the guild, and everyone went their own way, including her. She felt a pang in her heart when she heard Gray had left with Juvia, or rather, Juvia had followed, but he didn't stop her.

It was the early morning about a year later when she tried pouring herself a cup of coffee. Her hand trembled, and she ended up leaving because she couldn't stop shaking. She clutched her work bag, knuckle becoming a ghost white, as she headed to work. She was annoyed, frustrated, and angry for feeling this way. With the resources she was given as a reporter, Lucy was able to track where everyone was, make sure they were okay, that they were safe. It wasn't until she heard rumors traveling around the council that Gray possibly joined a dark cult of sorts. All she knew was that she had to find him, but she couldn't do it alone.

And she did.

Not exactly as she wanted to, but Natsu was a flashy idiot so the chains around her wrists were more of a nuisance than a surprise. What really surprised her was when she was dragged from the jail cell and out of her chains, Natsu and Happy's yells carrying through the passageway. She was roughly disposed in front of the man she was looking for and was left alone with him. She knew she should've been scared but couldn't nor would she ever be.

He was colored with self-loathing, so it didn't surprise her that she spotted him by the window staring out into the night like it was the last thing he'd ever see. It was on this night under the cold, cruel glare of the stars that they both realized what they were.

She glared at her marred wrists and swallowed hard before gazing into blood red eyes and the darkness that he was.

"You shouldn't be here," he said.

"I..." She fumbled with her words. "We...came looking for you."

"They'll kill you."

Angry hot tears escaped her without permission. "Is that all you have to say?" her voice trembled.

"What is there to say?"

"You left."

"And I'd do it again." His eyes narrowed. "What difference does it make?"

"Because I..." It was in this moment she realized, desperately what he meant to her. "I love you!"

The words flowed from her mouth like a melody, and she was surprised to find that it was a song she sung before.

She remembered the first time she ever spoke those words to him, and she remembered every single time since then. She remembered the six pomegranate seeds, how they licked at her palm and begged to be tasted. She remembered running her fingers down the valley of his spine and pressing soft kisses across the fine lines of his shoulder blades.

Gray staggered a little, and she knew he must be remembering too.

They blinked at each other like they couldn't quite believe what they were remembering.

Before he could speak, she kissed him until she tasted the sea, her tears mingling with the taste on his lips and leaving her wanting. He cradled her face with a hand, his thumb brushing her cheekbone. She felt the same longing ache in the way his other hand gripped her hip, his fingers curling into the skin underneath her shirt. His kiss tasted like heartbreak and healing and home.

They never had to speak to communicate, not in past lives and not in this one, and the way she rose up against him when he pressed adoring kisses down her throat was the only prompting he needed.

Gray took her hand and guided her further into Avatar's base, and she followed him down into the darkness with ease. She'd done it before, after all. Still, the eagerness that ignited in her veins was fiercer than it'd ever been, coaxed to life by his dark gaze.

They found an empty room and spent the night loving each other. There were soft kisses, rough kisses, kisses that drowned them in a euphoria that seemed to be everlasting, that could be eternal.

Here, they made art with their tongues and music with their moans and they never stopped to wonder if they made a mistake; they could see their fates written in the scars on his body, they could see their destiny marked in the lines of her hands.

They loved and loved and loved until their muscles ached with it and their hearts burst with it and their minds consumed by it.

In between flares of ecstasy, she heard him breathe her name against her throat and she shuddered with pleasure.

"Persephone," he tasted the ancient name on her tongue, tasted it on her skin.

She kissed him, soft and tender, nipping at his bottom lip enough to make him groan. She drew back to look at him, taking a second to trace his scars. She knew them by heart, but tracing their patterns had always been one of her favorite things to do.

"Hades," she whispered, reverent and fond. A sigh escaped her. "Will we ever find peace?"

He pressed a kiss against her palm. The gesture was intimate to them, and her eyelashes flutter shut.

"Maybe," he murmured against her skin, soft enough to make her heart swell with dangerous hope.

For now, though, they were Gray and Lucy, and they lived in a world where peace came with war, but to them it was nothing but an idea, a dream.

IV

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They flipped through the years like they were written in pages of an endless book.

Though their bodies were young and new, they felt old, sickly on the inside, contaminated with darkness and hate and loneliness. Lifetimes passed where they only found solace in the other's existence for minutes, for hours, for days. Centuries went by and it took longer and longer to find one another.

At last, even the Fates grew tired of their game.

At Zeus' command, the two of them were finally allowed to return home, to their realm of the dead deep within the Earth.

The relief was intoxicating.

The world below remained unchanged, but their first steps on the cold, smooth floors were tentative, cautious.

It wasn't long, however, before they ran through the long, wide halls with relieved, easy laughter and light hearts. Her dark dress fluttered around her when he spun her and she caught a glimpse of the night sky between the folds of the fabric.

They knew they shouldn't feel so happy in this place of death but there was a certain, specific familiarity in these forgotten columns that they couldn't help but find comfort in. The archaic designs carved into the walls told the stories of the lives they'd lived, and they traced the sharp stones with awe, firelight dancing in their eyes and soft smiles gracing their lips.

They spent decades making up for the years they were apart. They loved each other slowly, without rush, because they knew that finally, finally, they were together.

They slipped easily back into their roles as rulers of the Underworld. She sat on her throne, elevated and magnificent, ruthless and compassionate. He sat beside her, intimidating and bold, cold yet selfless. Their fingers were intertwined between them, and he stroked his thumb over her skin intimately.

She still left for months to bring spring to the world and visit her mother, but the dull aching in her chest was filled with his name and they never quite got used to leaving each other.

An eternity passed.

And then another.

And another.

Years turned into decades and decades into centuries and while one civilization crumbled into dust, another rose from its ashes. They marveled at the harmonious rhythm of life and death. It gave and took, rose and fell. It amazed them how while the world swirled in and out of chaos, their love remained untouched.

"You're my constant," he told her one day, thoughtful and serious. They were laying side-by-side in the middle of a kaleidoscopic field of flowers he had asked Chloris to grow specifically for her.

"I know," she smiled, picking a forget-me-not and using it to blot out the sun. "And you're mine."

He huffed a laugh, leaning over to press a kiss against her forehead and placing the small, five petaled, sky blue flower behind her ear.

They've lived as peasants, royalty, exiles, pirates, students, painters, writers, actors, doctors and everything in between. They've lived lives where they love others, marry others, have children with others, only to find each other somewhere in the middle of an already built life. There were lives where they were together for mere minutes, and others where they were lucky enough to be together for years. They've seen each other as carefree children and as struggling teenagers and as tired adults and as greying elders.

And in every life, in every existence, in every world, their souls longed to find each other, to love each other. Their paths always crossed, even if only for a brief eclipse of time.

He was her constant, and she was his, and they have always found their way back to each other.

Now, on rare, quiet days, they laid in bed and found an easy, sweet, gentle solace in each other's arms. Flowers lined their chambers and they smiled at the sound of Cerberus' low snoring echoing through their halls.

His fingers stroked her spine, she thumbed the scar on his forehead, and they dared to believe that, at last, they have found peace.

A/N: Yeet, yeet, yeet. Stay tuned for more!