It was SO hard to save up the reviews for motivation... so my discipline crumbled after about 2 hours and I had to read them all - and oh, I was excepting screams but this was sooo much better than I could have hoped; you guys are so cute and entertaining, thank you so much for making my week (probably month)! (imagine more exclamation marks)
Also, I thank you for your patience - I might have to stretch that a little further even; I haven't gotten to write a ingle word then entire week and this is my last pre-written and kinda raw chapter...
CheesyDephox, I was doubling over with laughter when reading your review arrive like ten minutes after I posted - thank you so much!
BanzEye, 'Jesus bloody Christ on toast' is now my all time favourite exclamation. Thank you so much for taking the time to review! I'm so flattered and astonished by your praise, though, thank you so so much for commenting on my grammar; that's a huge complement for someone non-english-native (aaand there goes the good grammar...).
Isanien, thank you so much for leaving a review for every single chapter! I appreciate it more than I can express it. It was very amusing to read the calm in between the storm of those who had already read the latest chapter and I'm really so happy to reread all of your lovely comments and thoughts on the story! The way you write your reviews always brings a smile to my face, thank you so much!
And then, after so many lovely mentions you've arrived and I'm grinning like the triumphant-feeling idiot I am once again :D Thank you so much for so much enthusiasm, appreciation for the small things and commenting on more than just the pregnancy, like the Crime Sorcière dynamic etc. I'm very very happy to know!
Jsfmp, thanks so much for leaving me a review!
pilikali, thank you so much for your review! Not only you, so it was all the more amusing to see the bombs go off with people going 'I knew it' xD
Mikasa-Chan, proper fangirl fangirling in capital letters only xD Thank you so much for your enthusiastic review! It always makes me so happy to read and then to update when I get such amazing comments!
Guest, thank you so much for your review and for answering my question - I wasn't expecting that my notes are your favourite part, that's so sweet of you, thanks! Thank you also for your kindness and patience; I'll keep on trying my best for such a lovely community!
Mitzy123, thank you so much for fangirling so much :D you're so kind, leaving an extra paragraph for me and my stupidly full schedule; thank you so much for such care! And the screams on the chapter of course! Made me smile and laugh a lot. Also, I'm glad you liked the Crime Sorcière part; glad it was mentioned!
Somnolent Sushi Roll, thank you so much for a review where I have to scroll and scroll and scroll... :D (did it stop prematurely though? Looks like a cut-off sentence) Thanks for answering on my notes question as well, I'm happy you're content with them! So much to talk about; you just go through the chapter from the beginning and I'm such a happy Author-San, knowing you appreciate the entirety and details of it! Thank you so much for putting so much effort into it and for referring to quotes, little things, big things, Jellal's handsome face xD Love how you said it suits him even though you can't 'see' him xD
Guest, thank you so much for your review and cheering on :D Only time will tell, I'm afraid ;)
foxydame, suuuch a long review! Thank youu! Yes, I'm very glad the glitch is gone, too (knocks on wood). Love your analysis of the failed seduction, the entire review is so wonderful to read, it's like my own little update :D Thank you so much for the 'stellar' character development praise; that's something I'll gladly add to my vocabulary! And the story telling complement alongside the quote; I'm so honoured you appreciate my little comparisons and you even remember the exact chapter and quote from before, thank you for such dedication! I feel truly appreciated!
Oh, there are more (heart eyes) :D haha, you too with the thing Minerva seems like having for Erza xD What did I do to make it come across like that xD but you keep on considering the past and the development, you're so dedicated, it feels as if I'm really reaching you; thank you so much for expressing your thoughts to me! And I, too, was never a big fan of Juvia but just like with Meredy, I explore more and more through writing and become fond of them. 'a goodlooking powerhouse' xDxD that's right B)
Guest screaming their lungs out, thank you so much for such a sacrifice xD I really appreciate the fangirling review!
Wendy Marvel, thank you so much for your review, patience and support!
Again, I'm so very sorry for the long wait but my brain is becoming more and more cooperative again so, if time allows, we'll have ourselves some merry chapters! Thank you all so much! This is by far the loveliest community I've ever been a part of! (heart)
The lock shut with a light click. She had trudged through the slushy snow for far longer than necessary, her blood seemingly freeing within her veins, slowing her pace with every step that had brought her closer to the house. She had hardly been able to get up, let alone walk at Porlyusica's house, dizziness causing her balance to falter frequently. The hold-up had not aided her mind in calming the storm, too upset to form any words to say to him.
It was unfair. She had looked forward to this. Well, not this, but the future of becoming a mother one day. She had managed to convince herself that she could wait, that he had his reasons and that she would somehow be patient and then convincing enough to change his mind. That his mind might have changed on its own; at least when it would be time for Levy's baby to arrive and stir a fatherly feeling in him.
Now she could only hope such emotions existed already, somewhere deep down. He loved taking care of Asuka; this was not too different, right?
With a shuddering sigh, Erza leaned her back against the door. She did not unequip her outdoor clothes just yet – whether due to the need of something protecting her or the urge to turn on the heel and run, she was not sure. Whether his disapproval of her or her child would be worse, she could not decide, either.
"Erza?" His voice came from the bathroom. She winced, her back pressing into the notch of the doorframe. The bathroom door opened and she felt his gaze on her. "I thought I'd heard the door," he made his way towards her, "you didn't say anything," he noted. That was quite unusual indeed – not just because she would assault him whenever given the chance to stand beneath a mistletoe. They always let the other know to be home, if only to say the word.
"Is everything okay? You look frozen solid-" he halted in his tracks when she lifted a hand to stop him. If there could be something even more crushing than him not ever hugging her again, it was him breaking up a hug to retreat from her. "What's wrong?" His brows furrowed. "What did she say?" His voice thinned out in dread.
Taking a step back, Jellal's pupils shrunk in sudden panic. Glancing up, Erza caught them, unable to wipe the misery off her own, knowing to only be fuelling his worries. He probably thought her to have been diagnosed with a mortal disease, about to reveal her lifespan to only be lasting a few more weeks. She would have to tell him. And now.
That he would rather hear what she actually had to say, she doubted.
"What's wrong; what happened?" He went on, nearing her again for comfort. Biting her tongue, Erza compelled herself not to cry. Her eyes were itching as much as the lump in her throat.
"It's… not what you think," she managed. Her knees had begun to shake again so she inhaled deeply to steady herself. "It's fine, there's nothing wrong with me." She barely heard herself with the blood rushing in her ears, heart drumming madly inside her chest.
"Are you sure? Let's get you warmed up first, you look a little nauseous," Jellal remarked, his tone careful, unsure. Not that it kept him from caring about her wellbeing, though she would rather have him not giving a damn already than lose the affection so suddenly. She shrunk further against the door, arms squished between her back and the wood where she eluded his presence.
"Did she find what was wrong? Is it an overload of sugar? Or did the spell casting harm you? Should we go to the hospital?"
"No," she hesitated, lip quivering lightly. Of course, he would fault himself. And he was not all that wrong, or so he would tell himself, she anticipated. Her head was pounding, adrenaline hotly racing through her body, exhausting it by the second. "She… said everything's completely normal," Erza swallowed, not leaving him the room for a relieved sigh, "for… someone who's four months pregnant."
The words echoed through the hall, followed by a deathly silence. She waited for a few moments, more than just a couple of drumming heartbeats.
Finally daring to glance up, she saw his face crumble. His shoulders fell, his eyes ablaze with a wild stare, having lost focus on her. He had gone paler than she already was from the icy winter wind.
"You…" Jellal breathed, fading out again. He blinked to himself, shortly having to steady himself on the wall, stumbling slightly. His gaze met hers, piercing with too many overwhelmed feelings for her to read them all. One thing was sure, however: happiness was none of them. He exhaled again as if trying to speak, unable to form words for another second. "How…?"
Erza felt her insides contort.
"I…" she backed away further into her corner.
"You said-"
"I know what I said but I was wrong." Her voice came out as a bark, teeth clenching as she fixed her with tears blurring vision to the floor. "I didn't mean to," she lifted her head slightly, pleading at him with her eyes, "I really didn't. I didn't know until now, I honestly didn't," she wheezed. His expression changed upon seeing the tears gush from her eyes, the need to reassure her battling his own confusion, arms twitching indecisively.
They fell to his sides, and with pursed lips, he stood his ground. It was like an icicle through her heart.
"Remember when you were tricked and we came to rescue you and Meredy from that old mansion?" She spoke quietly, tentatively watching his eyes narrow in recollection. "When I tried to persuade you to come to the guild to report? We were late and in a hurry and had only just gotten up so I think… I think that's when I forgot," she confessed. "It would fit the timespan…" she added. It stung her heart to hear only herself speak and breathe. He was as if already gone, not a hint of a sound betraying him had she not seen the bobbing of his Adam's apple as he gulped; the clenching of his jaw and furrowing of his brow.
"Of course…" Jellal sighed sharply, making her flinch. "Of course, the one time we actually forget, it works," he almost growled. She did not know whether to be relieved by him trusting her reliability apart from that one time or be scared of the tone of his voice. And he did have a point – some people tried for months and years to actually conceive.
Having started to pace, he went on with muttering more disbelief, the slice of anger rotting into desperation.
Erza winced when his glare found her, drilling into her reddened eyes. His chest heaved with hectic pants. Then the fury melted off him completely, registering her state for the first time since she had told him the truth. Swallowing again, he shoved his feelings aside.
"Erza," Jellal found his voice, steadily advancing her where she pressed herself into the door. "Erza, please, look at me," she saw his feet in front of her boots, two fingers on her chin lifting it to make her meet his eyes. "I'm not mad at you, you couldn't have known," he said, much to her surprise. His hand slid along her jaw, cupping her cheek while her eyes widened, breath held as he continued. "I know you didn't do it on purpose, it's alright, it's just…" he sighed, averting his gaze when unable to bring himself to smile properly for reassurance.
Oh, she knew that smile. It was too close to the one he had worn upon being arrested for the first time – the one that had told her not to be sad; that had torn them apart for years.
"Come on," he spooked her by firmly grabbing her wrist, throwing the front door open, "we're going on a date."
Erza watched the landscape fly by the window. She could not focus on the snowy fields, not even when wild deer stalked across in the afternoon sun. His hands distracted her.
Sitting on the opposite bench, Jellal emptily glued his eyes to the horizon. His pupils flashed, his vision most likely blurry as he was deeply lost in thought. His fingers fiddled with one another. Clasping, unclasping. Clasping, unclasping. Tightening, loosening, curling, turning, scratching, grasping, fondling. He was not aware.
Erza's forehead wrinkled into a concerned frown. He was unhappy, was he not? He was tense and overwhelmed and restless. His eyebrows twitched occasionally and he neither noticed her to be looking nor when she shifted position. He always looked up to check her well-being and mood when she shifted position. His leg was wiggling up and down continuously.
He was nervous. He was worried and discontent and edgy. He had not wanted this. Erza felt her eyes itch again, restraining as much as she could from showing it. Not that he was paying attention.
She should not have told him. No. She should have, that was not the mistake. The scene unfolded in front of her inner eye once, again – how she had found out, crying to herself in confusion and joy and… fear. And then how he had stood there, how she had told him and how her tears had perhaps forced him into acceptance.
Most likely.
Without a doubt.
Erza swallowed at the growing lump in her throat. This was not how she had imagined it to go. She had always brooded about it, even when they had not been together, even when he had been in prison or missing or just too far out of reach. Safe from her grasp on him, she now told herself.
She had hoped for it to go somewhat like one of the countless scenarios she had come up with during those years. The stupidly dreamy ones as well as the more realistic ones. When she would reveal it to him on a starry night or on a beach as golden as the one they had nearly kissed on. And he would have been surprised, even though it had been planned. Positively surprised.
There was also the one where he would have diagnosed it, simply knowing by knowing her, being the one to guide them into their future.
Now he was tightly within her grasp. She cursed at the way it had played out. How she was practically torturing him into guilt of also being responsible, making him pretend to be happy to make her feel better. Chaining him to her. She did not want it to be that way – though she wanted nothing more in the world than him staying by her side for the rest of their lives.
But not this way.
Not when he had 'no choice'; when he was involuntarily feeling obliged to be there and go through with what she had done to them.
She glanced into his face, unable to stand that dance of crisis his fingers were engaged in. He was clenching his jaw, his mind visibly racing inside his head, almost enough to make it smoke. He was unhappy, he had to be.
Erza frowned to herself in sorrow. She would keep the child, no matter what. She would tell him that. And she would tell him that he did not have to stay. It was her fault. She had nearly been more shocked than him to learn the news. She had always taken her pills, being reminded every morning of the sheer impossibility of conceiving. He had relied on her to take care of it and now… now she had ruined everything, just because she had once again been too rushed, too impatient and too selfish.
And this time, it not only affected their lives, but an innocent, unasked one, too.
The train stopped at their destination and Jellal jerked back into reality. He hit his head on the window, then stubbed his toe on the way out. He was a mess. He stumbled once in town, even more over his words, hurrying them through the streets.
Erza waited, watched. He went up to every restaurant there was, finding each and every one of them booked out due to the holidays. He was breathless by the time he confessed to have nothing but an ice-cream to go to offer. She did not complain, neither able to properly enjoy the treat when he raced off again. His own was melting in his hand more than he ate it.
The sun was already setting when they reached the top of a hill he seemed so eager to climb. It was nearly impossible, their boots sliding in the melting, muddy snow. He was looking around frantically, as if more restaurants would pop up from the ground if only he caught a glimpse of them. If only he tried hard enough.
Erza suppressed a sigh. She watched him sadly, finally not bearing it anymore. He would just have to accept that there was nothing there to distract off the topic. She would deal the finishing blow as painlessly as she could. Deliver him.
"Why don't we just… sit…" she proposed instead of the talk she had in mind. Catching his breath slightly, Jellal looked at her with panic in his eyes, then nodded.
"Good idea," he finally agreed.
They sat down on a protruding, fortunately dry boulder, both facing the horizon. The sun was setting the mountains in the distance on fire, conjuring blinding shimmers onto any surface of water across the valleys and fields.
He was fidgeting again, this time with his hands buried in his pockets. As if it was less obvious. It seemed that even the sun bothered him, the pacing of time itself tormenting him mercilessly.
Erza opened her mouth. Then closed it again. She thought it over. Sadly, she realised that she could not give him the choice. It would only force another clandestinely dishonest acquiescence. She had to send him away. She had to ban him completely.
Squinting her eyes closed, she suppressed more tears. Her jaw tightened, knowing it was the only way to atone for her mistake.
"Jellal,"
"Erza," they said in unison, both wincing. Falling silent again. He stood, pacing, throwing anxious glances at the sun that was but a crescent above the mountain. He met her eyes for the first time in over an hour, and it stung her heart to see him so helpless.
"I-"
"I'm sorry," he interrupted once again. His knees shook and he rammed one into the ground, cursing under his breath. She frowned miserably. He was never this clumsy. He did not get up again, however, and she wondered – feared – for a moment that he had fallen all the way back down into the black abyss that was his self-loathing.
His shoulders shook.
"Erza," he tried again, his teeth grinding, "I…" he failed again and she decided that if he did for a third time, she would take it upon herself to release him from his agony. He stood again, pacing, crunching with his feet on the rock beneath the snow. He growled something to himself, fists clenching and unclenching at his sides. He ran one hand through his hair, glancing over his shoulder to find her woeful eyes with his wretched ones. She still loved his hair. And she still loved him.
Films of now lost futures passed through her mind. That future – that unfairly close future – of him remaining in Fairy Tail bogging down into nothingness.
She watched as he returned to the same position, staring the ground down so fiercely, it was a miracle that it had not yet crumbled under his will.
"Erza," he started, his voice determined, if not shaky. Was he perhaps on the same page as her, trying to let her down easily? Trying to convince her… no, he would not. Would he? But if he rejected the child but accepted her, then what would she do? A life with Jellal and the knowledge of having killed her innocent baby or… or bringing it up on her own, without him there, without him ever being there again, without the words to tell her child that its father had left because of it, left them both.
She looked at him, hardly seeing anything with the remains of the sunset and her brimming tears. Fat and salty, rolling down her cheeks, unstoppable from escaping and even less from forming in the first place. She sniffled blinking repeatedly to clear her vision for even an instant.
She sniffled again.
It sparked at her.
Then it blurred and she had to blink again. And again.
The sun caught in it, twinkling in hues of golden yellow, deep red, icy blue and more colours her eyes could hardly catch at the same time, taken in by that tiny, shiny object he held up to her.
Erza wiped her eyes. She stared at the ring in the box. Then at his face. Jellal was kneeling again, his hands shaking with nervousness, eyes wide with concern. She had not really looked as if crying happy tears. Only now did she realise how it must have seemed to him and that he must have kept talking, asking her something.
Asking her that.
She wanted to cry again.
"Erza…?" Jellal breathed, his hand twitching to pull back. Then it sank alongside his shoulders. He let his head hang, his sharp silhouette against the rose-coloured sky merging into the settling blackness of the night.
He closed the box.
"I'm sorry…" he whispered. He did not have any more volume to speak with. She jerked with a suppressed sob, nearly choking on it but still too much in shock to do anything but listen. "I know what you're thinking," he quietly said, "and I really didn't want it to… to seem like that, so if you…" he gave a shaky exhale. "You can say no," he dared not to lift his gaze.
She shook her head, sending fresh tears flying. What kind of an idiot had she been?
"Jellal," Erza finally found herself within that hurricane of emotions still blustering in her head.
"I really, really meant to ask before, I just… didn't have the guts…" he lamented, his entire body sinking into itself.
"Jellal," she repeated. She slid down from where she sat, kneeling upright in front of him in the wetness of snow and mud. "I'm the one who's sorry," she started but he cut in with a sorrowful gaze.
"I'd prefer if you said it directly, if I'm honest," he lifted his head to give a weak smile, one that shattered her heart into a thousand pieces, battering as brutally as his must have felt to have been smashed. He thought she was saying 'no'!
So she kissed him. She took his face with both hands, ignoring how he stumbled and perhaps stubbed something again, pressing her lips to his. Sucking every breath he could have ever used for doubts right out of his lungs. Jellal was confused, hesitant, so she continued until he relaxed, kissing him for over a minute, both lungs bursting when they eventually parted.
"I…" she panted, determined to take over now, "I'm so sorry. I'm so, so sorry, Jellal," she wheezed, having to steady herself on his knee. Her eyes fell onto that tiny box again, hardly more than a square shadow in the mild illumination of the fading dusk. "I do, I do a million times over, ask me again!" She suddenly decided, pushing herself up to find back that rock she had been settled on.
He blankly stared at her. She could imagine how his brain must have combusted with her every word for minutes on end by now. He was at his wit's end, burnt out to a crisp.
Erza sighed, eyes softening with pity. She really was torturing him, regardless of what she did.
"I thought you didn't want the child," she finally confessed, his with jar widening eyes stinging her insides with remorse. "I thought you were upset and angry with me, because I didn't pay attention – and I didn't! It's all my fault, I know that, I didn't mean to-" she jumped when it was his turn to shut her up with his lips.
Parting more gently, Jellal put his forehead against hers. Erza inhaled that familiar scent of his, feeling her eyes itch again. She loved him so much, it physically hurt her inside her chest.
"I want it. And I want you." Jellal's voice was back, low and mellow, cushioning her grief on a down-filled pillow, easing her back into those arms she longed so much to be embraced by. "I never wanted you to feel as if you did something wrong – you didn't, I'm… I'm speechless with bliss, I really am," he assured, holding her closer.
"Erza Scarlet," Jellal breathed against her cheeks, then lifted his face away from hers, "will you…" he opened the box again, a with relief shaky chuckle escaping him. "Will you stand this lunatic for a while longer?" He smiled lopsidedly and she could not help but laugh. This time, her face got sticky with gladness and he kissed the tears instead of wiping them away.
She broadly smiled back, melting into his hug, returning it with vigour.
"Forever and beyond."