A/N: Welcome to the final day for CoLu week! It's been one great week, and I'm so glad you guys have taken the time to read my entries for it!

(I've editted this as much as possible, and can't do it again lol. I don't have the time to read over 30k again today, so please forgive any errors you find!)

Without further ado, I give you the super happy ending to a wonderful week of CoLu love...

Day 7: Journey

A small note of backstory for this: This is an AU. Cobra was never chosen to join the Oracion Seis by Brain, and was instead left in the Tower of Heaven. Enjoy.

Journey to the Past

Heart don't fail me now
Courage don't desert me

Two nurses rushed into the room when the patient's heart monitor flat-lined, a third at the nurses' station just down the hall paged the on-call doctor, and a fourth rushed by with the defibrillation cart. What none of them had anticipated was for the patient that had been unconscious for the past three days to suddenly tackle one of the nurses and hold his own intravenous needle to her temple while his arm wrapped around her throat from behind.

"Where the fuck am I?! What did you people do to me?!" he roared, ignoring the pain bursting through his body with every breath he took.

"P-Please don't hurt m-me," the nurse pleaded, whimpering when his arm tightened around her throat and the needle pressed more insistently against her flesh.

"Answer the goddamn question!"

"You're in a hospital," came a gentle and soothing voice from the doorway. "No one here is going to hurt you."

He looked up to see a woman in her mid-thirties wearing scrubs and a pristine white lab coat, a stethoscope draped around her neck and a pair of black wing-tipped glasses over deep blue eyes. "I don't fucking know that," he sneered, growling ferociously when the doctor took a slow step forward.

"You were found on the edge of town," the doctor said, slowly bringing her hands up to show the patient that she wasn't trying to harm him. "A good Samaritan brought you to this hospital three days ago. I will answer all of your questions, but I must ask you to release Anabelle and return to your bed."

He narrowed his eyes at her, hissing in pain when the muscles on the right side of his face pulled uncomfortably. "Give me your word that I can go free," he said through tightly clenched teeth. He listened in on her thoughts and when he found no form of deceit from the woman, simply a purely clinical evaluation of the scenario, he nodded and let go of the nurse named Anabelle before slowly making his way back to the bed he'd woken up in.

"Alright, first thing's first," the doctor said as she ushered the nurses out of the room and closed the door to keep the prying eyes of other, less professional, members of the hospital staff from gawking at the man on the bed. She sighed and walked further into the room, pulling his chart from the foot of the bed. "Can you tell me what your name is?"

"Why the fuck do you need to know?" he sneered.

"Because, young man, you're listed here as a John Doe. Aside from needing to update this file now that you're awake, I need to evaluate you before you can be released."

'He shouldn't even be up and moving around just yet. It's safe to assume he's a mage if he's this resilient. Although, he could still be suffering from brain damage. We should probably do an MRI to—'

He snorted derisively and rolled his eyes, hissing in pain when half of his face was awash in pain. When the doctor made a move to come closer, he snarled at her. "You're not putting me in a goddamn metal deathtrap just to look at my brain, you twit." When her eyes widened only slightly in surprise, the rest of her face remaining stoic, he smirked and added, "And yes, I'm a mage."

"Alright, sir. If this evaluation is sufficient, then—"

"Then I can get the fuck outta here. Good."

The doctor blinked, then started to write something on his chart. "Your name?"

"Erik."

"Your full name, sir."

"That is my full name," he answered while leaning back against the pillows. He sighed and shook his head. "Let's speed this along alright? I don't know my date of birth; I never have. I don't have family or friends that can take care of me when I leave here. No, I won't tell you where I was born, or what my magic is, because I still don't fucking trust you. And the year is X782."

Her eyes slowly rose from the clipboard in her hands. "Erik, what year did you say?"

"X782, why?"

"It's X795…"

Don't turn back now that we're here
People always say
Life is full of choices

Erik looked down at the contents of the box curiously as he sat on the hospital bed. The clothing he'd come to the hospital in was mostly in tatters, with splotches of dried blood all over it. He could tell that it was his based on the holes that were burned through it, since their placement matched the bandages that had been applied to his body while he'd been unconscious. After finding out that he'd essentially lost the last thirteen years of his life, far too many tests from that pesky ass doctor, and his refusal to let them poke or prod at him any longer, he was now faced with trying to find a clue as to where the hell he'd been that he'd gotten so fucked up in the first place. Or even something about what he'd been up to for over a decade.

When he'd gone to the bathroom after talking with the doctor, Erik had taken one look in the mirror, and only grew more confused. He definitely looked older, but not a whole thirteen years. His maroon hair was a few inches longer than he usually kept it, his tanned skin a shade darker—meaning he'd spent quite a bit of time out in the sun. He had more muscle than he remembered, his hands were rougher than they had been while he was a slave in the Tower, and he had a few more scars across his torso that he could assume were from fights. He still had the same pointed ears he'd been born with, the same neutral scowl on his face. But his eye… They had apparently been incapable of saving it when he was brought in, so now he was left with a scar (thank you, Dragon Slaying magic for speeding up his healing) that closed his right eye over.

Turning his attention back to the box, Erik set the clothes off to the side and pulled out a simple black leather wallet. He opened it up and saw that he had several jewel notes, a receipt for some café in town, and a single picture. He carelessly dropped the wallet to his lap when he pulled the picture out, and felt something leap excitedly deep within his soul while he looked at it. There was only one person in the photo, but she was absolutely gorgeous. 'Oh please tell me I actually know who this woman is,' he thought absently, his jaw dropping open slightly while he took in the bikini-clad body with a head of nearly glowing golden hair. From what he could tell, she was sitting at a lake near a waterfall with the sun shining down on her lightly sun-kissed skin.

Dangerous curves that had his mouth watering.

A tiny waist that was begging for his arms to wrap around it.

A chest that barely fit in the small purple triangles of material.

She was leaning back on her hands with her long legs stretched out in front of her. Even though the sight of her body was more than enough to keep him hard for hours, it was her face that took his breath away. A pair of large, brown eyes were glimmering with happiness while she looked at the camera, her pink lips pulled into a mischievous smile with a small portion of her lower lip pulled between her teeth, and a light flush across her cheeks. Her damp hair fell in long waves down to just below her breasts, looking as though she had just finished drying it, and framing that angelic face of hers so perfectly that he almost believed she wasn't real.

'No way in hell could someone this beautiful really exist.'

But the proof was there. If not in the fact that he had a picture of her in his hand, then the echo of a memory in his soul. There was something about her that just called to him, to his very soul. He knew her somehow, and based on the picture in his hand he could only hope that it was more than just as an acquaintance. Erik suddenly had even more of a reason to find out what he'd lost, because if someone like her was in his life in any capacity, he really fucking wanted to get back to that.

With renewed determination, he placed the photo back in his wallet then pulled out the last item in the box. A set of keys. There were only two keys on the small ring, along with what looked like a keycard that had an address printed on it in case it was found, and a keychain of a purple snake with little green eyes. Erik's eye went wide when he saw the snake, his heart clenching painfully when he realized that the hospital staff hadn't said anything about a giant purple snake being found with him.

'Cubellios… What happened to her?'

She should have been with him, just like she had been since he was a little kid in the Tower. That snake had been the only friend he'd had once the other slave children that he'd befriended in his cell disappeared. Macbeth, Sorano, Sawyer, and Richard. They were taken away, and he never saw them again. Cubellios had been the reason he'd gotten away from the Tower in the first place, since she had helped to poison the guards with a bite so he could sneak away from that island.

Had he found those other four kids during that blank period of his memory? Were they able to reconnect? Had they died in that place?

Erik gripped the keys tightly, grinding his teeth together as more and more questions piled up. He'd been told that he was being discharged, since they couldn't keep him there any longer without him trying to bust his way out. He'd been given a plain white shirt and a pair of sweatpants to replace the clothing that had been destroyed. Luckily, his boots were still intact. He looked at the keycard and let out a heavy sigh. The address printed on it was a start, now he just had to figure out where the hell it was at.

No one ever mentions fear
Or how the world can seem so vast
On a journey to the past

The door closed silently behind him once Erik flipped the switch on the wall just inside. An apartment. The address on that keycard had led him to a tall building near the center of the town the hospital was in. Lucky for him, he supposed. He could only assume that he had been trying to get back to this place, or even to the hospital itself, when he had finally collapsed from his injuries. Since he had refused to tell the hospital staff that he had a lacrima implanted in him, they hadn't known that he could ingest poison to heal faster. He was starving, not for normal food since he had eaten before being discharged, but for something of the toxic variety. Still, he needed to get a look around the place first to make sure it was secure.

The first thing that caught his attention was the whisper of a scent that was mixed with his own covering the entire apartment. It was faint, as though the owner hadn't been there in months, but it was everywhere. Morning dew and daisies. He closed his only working eye and took a deep breath as a memory niggled at the back of his mind, skirting around the edges of his consciousness like a little tease. That scent was so relaxing, he just wanted to drown in it.

Opening his eye again, Erik made his way to the living room from the entryway. There was a kitchen off to the right with a breakfast bar acting as a divider between the two rooms, a hallway on the left, and a large sliding glass door covered with blinds that led to the balcony. The walls were a soft cream color, the furniture perfectly matched with a plush mocha colored couch and loveseat, a rich chestnut coffee table, and a lacrima television mounted on the wall. There was one whole wall covered in floor-to-ceiling shelves, mostly filled with books. Only a few were actually used for anything else, and it instantly drew his attention to it.

He seriously felt like an intruder, creeping around the place as silently as possible as though he shouldn't be there, searching through belongings that he couldn't remember. Everything was so foreign to him, but he knew that he'd been here before simply by how ingrained his own scent was in the cool air. Erik took hesitant steps toward the shelves, skimming the titles of the books, finding two whole shelves full of movies—mostly horror or thrillers based on the unfamiliar titles—and then little odds and ends. There was another picture of the blonde woman in a simple silver frame, surrounded by a downright freaky group of—well, not necessarily people—individuals. A huge bull, a man-goat, a maid in chains, a woman in a sheep costume, a ginger-haired man in a suit. Her arms wrapped around the maid's and sheep-girl's waists, holding them close as if they were her sisters. He would have believed it was some sort of costume party if it wasn't for the little snowman that was sitting in her lap, or the floating cross that was snoring off to the side. Or the floating blue-haired mermaid that was being held by a half-man, half-scorpion with white and red hair. Or the bird that had a compass on its head. Honestly, the list could go on and on. The frame was a brushed silver of sorts, adorned with at least a dozen clusters of stars, with an inscription running across the top of it.

'I've loved the stars too fondly to be fearful of the night.'

'What the hell kind of shit is this?' he wondered, furrowing his brow in confusion. The woman looked a couple years younger than the picture he had in his wallet, but she was still absolutely radiant. Especially with her body only covered by a black tube top and a light pink miniskirt, and her hair pulled into low pigtails. She wasn't wearing a costume, as far as he could tell. Hell, she wasn't even wearing makeup. He'd thought the lack of makeup in the picture he had already seen was simply because she had been swimming, but a look at the next picture on the shelf led him to believe she never wore the shit.

He felt a twinge of something he could only describe as jealousy when he looked at that next picture. It was clearly a candid shot that had been taken in a park, and the woman was curled up between a tall, muscular man's legs while they sat on the ground against a tree, her right hand holding onto the fur lining of a large coat that was draped over his shoulders. The pair was fast asleep, his arms wrapped protectively around her bare waist, his knees pulled up to shield her smaller body against the outside world, and his nose nestled in her hair. The pair of them couldn't have looked more perfect for each other. The woman with her dainty and wholly feminine features, that soft beauty Erik couldn't help but admire every time he saw her face, light skin and golden hair. Then there was her companion. Equally blonde spiky hair, thickly corded muscles that radiated power with an electrifying intensity even in a photograph, a strong jaw, and an odd scar over his eye.

She looked so damn comfortable in that guy's arms, like it was the best place in the world for her to sleep. He couldn't explain it, but the thought of that angel being held by another man made him sick to his stomach. 'Probably because I just want her for myself,' he mused. He took one last look at the picture, and just before he turned to the next one, something on the frame caught his eye.

'Sometimes, being a big brother is better than being a superhero.'

The message was etched into the dark metal of the frame, each letter carefully painted in white to help it stand out even more. Erik lifted his hand slowly and picked up the frame, his fingers brushing over it as he looked at the small details he'd missed before. Clouds rolled along the edges, small lightning bolts arcing off here and there toward the picture behind the glass. There were small stars etched deeper into some of the clouds, painted in a soft, glittery gold. 'Her brother, huh?' he thought while returning the frame to the shelf. One thing was for sure, with a guy that intimidating as a sibling, whoever this woman was would definitely be well-protected.

The next photo on the shelf had a wide and hopeful smile stretching across his face. A younger version of himself, maybe only a year or two older than his last memory, stood in the middle of a huge field with his large, noxious tendrils of crimson poison swirling around him. While it was intriguing to see what he'd actually looked like while using his magic, what really stuck out was the giant purple snake whose snout was brushing against his cheek while she coiled herself around him.

'A poisonous pair. The best of friends.'

"Cubellios," Erik whispered fondly. If there was a picture of his oldest and dearest friend in this place, then clearly she must still be around somewhere. Maybe he had been able to figure out how to hear her voice!

A picture of himself with an arm around a purple-haired barmaid was the next on the shelf. He had that same self-assured grin he always used while their heads rested against one another, her own smile both coy and mischievous. Her green eyes looked so familiar, like he had known them all his life. The way he held onto her was one of comfort, safety, assurance that neither would disappear. Erik was extremely aware of little nuances in body language as a result of his Soul Listening magic, but he couldn't understand why he would be holding onto the woman that way when seeing her now didn't bring anything pushing against the fog that blocked out his memory. Not like the blonde woman did.

'You can never lose the love of a friend.'

Not even the inscription on the frame gave him a clue about who the woman was.

The final picture on that shelf also had him in it, but he was arm wrestling with a red-haired woman in a bathing suit, both of their eyes glinting with fierce determination. The whisper of a memory tried to surface for him but nothing came from it. Just that he knew her. What was surprising though was that the closer he looked at his face in the picture, the more he noticed how tense his jaw was. He was actually struggling in that little match. Erik frowned when he looked at the frame, taking in the countless weapons that were etched into it and the small skull-and-crossbones that were embossed in each corner. The bottom portion of the frame had an inscription etched into it, just like all the others.

'Whoever said sibling rivalry was a bad thing has never met us.'

Erik was officially confused. He didn't have a family, let alone someone that he could call a sibling. Cubellios was the first friend he ever had, the only one in his life that he'd considered a member of his family, even if he didn't really know what that was like. Did that mean the red-haired woman with piercing brown eyes was someone he considered to be a sister? Maybe that was why seeing her had given him that small glimmer of a memory.

He looked down to the shelf below it, and his breath stalled in his throat. Why he hadn't looked at this picture first was beyond him, since it was larger than the other four. It was a photo taken at what he could only assume was a wedding reception. The woman's brother was dancing in the background with what Erik assumed was his bride, her long red hair pulled into an elegant braid that was woven around itself into a bun. The couple definitely looked happy and in love, but that was nothing in comparison to the main subjects. Erik saw himself for the first time with the blonde, and he couldn't help the smug grin that spread across his face when he saw her pressed tightly to his chest with her lips only inches from his while they danced. While it could very well have just been that they were close friends, dancing together at a wedding, Erik was able to see that his hand was sitting dangerously low on her back with his fingertips grazing her ass. They were looking deeply into each other's eyes as though they were the only ones in the room, the smile on his face matching hers and surprising the hell out of him with its appearance. He hadn't been aware that he could even smile like that in the first place, but the warmth that spread through him at the sight of it was all he needed to know that this woman was definitely someone special to him.

So just who the hell was she? A friend, girlfriend, or maybe just a fuck-buddy? Were they maybe more than that? With an exhausted sigh, he turned away from the shelves and walked into the kitchen. He couldn't hear a single sound or soul within the confines of the apartment aside from himself, so he simply pretended it was the most normal thing in the world to walk around the place. With his mental fingers crossed, he opened the cupboard beneath the sink to look for some cleaning supplies. Nothing. His eye narrowed, he moved on to what he assumed was the pantry. Only non-perishable food. With a roll of his eye, he finally decided to check the refrigerator.

"Okay, my ass has definitely fucking been here if there's bleach and snake venom in the fridge," he whispered to himself. He pulled the gallon-sized jug from the appliance and didn't even bother with a glass. Honestly, there was no point since he was pretty sure there wasn't anyone else that was planning on coming in and drinking the toxic liquid. Once the chemicals hit his tongue, he moaned softly and took a large gulp. Then another. And another. If he had been out for three days, then that meant he'd gone without any poison in his system whatsoever for far too long. That could very well have been the reason for his memories not returning. Maybe he'd gotten an injury that had yet to heal, which meant he needed to heal faster. When his lungs were screaming for oxygen, Erik finally pulled the jug away from his lips, his eye widening when he found that he had emptied half of it in one go.

Within moments, as the bleach settled itself in his stomach and started being absorbed into his bloodstream, he felt loads better. Still couldn't remember a goddamn thing of the past thirteen years, no sudden revelations or choirs of angels sounding in the distance that accompanied an epiphany, but he felt better. That was worth something, he supposed. Deciding that he needed to take a look around the apartment more, maybe even see if he had some damn clothing in this place so he could get out of the borrowed hospital sweats and shirt he'd been given, Erik put the jug down on the counter and walked out of the kitchen. A quick peek into the few doors lining the hallway revealed a bathroom, linen closet, a spare bedroom that was painted in a soothing sky blue, and then a master bedroom.

And this was where it got weird for him again. He felt like someone was going to pop out at any second and throw some handcuffs on him for breaking and entering. He felt around for a switch, and his eye nearly bugged out of his skull when he saw the room. While the rest of the house looked completely normal, almost as though it had been cut from a magazine about interior decorating, the master bedroom was more along the lines of a 'seduction suite'. The walls were a deep crimson, the ceiling, moulding, and carpet were black. There was a large four-poster bed on the far wall with a black and red bedspread, and… Cobra slowly looked up at the ceiling and his jaw dropped. "A fucking mirror?" he asked the empty room, "Seriously? There's a mirror on the ceiling? Who the—" Erik paused and blinked, then took a deep pull of the air and slowly walked over to the bed.

Even though he felt like the biggest fucking creeper in all of Earthland, he leaned down and smelled the pillows. Roasted garlic and almonds were heavy on one pillow—his own scent. He leaned over and smelled the other pillow, his eye sliding closed when that morning dew and daisies aroma that barely permeated the air filled his lungs. "Fuck me, if that's her then I'm the luckiest guy ever…" he whispered, a small smirk pulling at the corner of his mouth when he looked back up at the mirror on the ceiling. 'I wonder if that was my idea… Seems like something I'd do…' The thought of having the blonde woman in a bed that he had very obviously slept in more than once had his imagination running wild. With all of the things he was able to hear rattling around in everyone he encountered, it was hard not to develop at least some small semblance of an imagination. Especially when he got to listen in on artists—specifically authors. Their minds were always so vivid, with more detail packed into every single memory than anyone could hope to achieve. They attached emotions to everything, and he absolutely loved hearing how they worked through word problems. It was like his very own theme park.

With one last deep breath, Erik pulled himself from that soothing aroma and made his way over to the dresser. There were six drawers; two columns of three. He just had to take a guess and see what he came up with. The top left drawer provided him with a view of a surprisingly large amount of lingerie, little slips of lace that he was sure provided no actual coverage, matching bras for a very large chest. Instead of slaking his curiosity to figure out just how large the blonde's chest really was—because there was still a possibility that these weren't her belongings, or even that he was actually an intruder at the moment with no real right to be in this apartment—he closed it and moved on to the next drawer.

All. Fucking. Bikinis.

In a wide array of colors. Some with strings to tie them closed, some that he couldn't even begin to figure out just how they were to keep anything hidden.

He carefully closed that drawer as well, then sighed and looked at the other half of the dresser. He slowly opened the top drawer on the other side, assuming that he didn't even want to know what was in that bottom drawer on the left, and tensed as though a rabid animal was hiding just inside, waiting to rip his dick off and eat it. "Now we're gettin' somewhere," he said triumphantly when he found several pairs of boxers and socks. He grabbed one of each, shut the drawer and went to the second. Tank tops. A frown pulled at his lips while his brow quirked in confusion. Erik never wore tank tops. Not with the scars on his wrists and back from being in the Tower. Hell, even the clothing he'd been wearing when he was brought to the hospital had consisted of a long-sleeved shirt, a coat, a pair of pants, and boots. It was the same shit he always wore. Granted, the style had been a little different—something he reasoned was because it was thirteen years later than he could remember—but he was still covered.

Erik shook his head and closed the drawer, then bent down to open the bottom one. All pajama pants. "Okay, maybe I started sleeping with a shirt on?" he whispered, closing the final drawer with a sigh. While he was at least getting an idea of the kind of life he may have been living, possibly with the blonde woman whose picture he'd been admiring, Erik was only finding more questions instead of answers. And it was starting to give him a fucking headache. What he needed was a shower and a nap. Then he could look at this shit with fresh eyes—well, eye would be a more accurate description—later on, and hope something clicked for him.

Plan of action in place, Erik opened the bottom drawer and pulled out a pair of pajama pants, setting the socks down on top of the dresser for later, then went into the bathroom to take those stupid, annoying bandages off and take out his stitches.

Somewhere down this road
I know someone's waiting
Years of dreams just can't be wrong
Arms will open wide

"Take my hand… fly!"

"Crazy wench… gonna kill yourself!"

Lilting laughter filled the air. "… Fly, Erik…"

"Maxi pads…"

"That's disgusting… Research…"

"About… flying…"

"What I am, right?..."

A bright smile. Warm brown eyes shining with glee. Whispers of birds on the wind. A blonde angel glowing in the sun. An echoing hum, the perfect harmony... So calm and soothing. Morning Dew and daisies.

"I love you… Always be my little fa…"

"—love you… with me… help you fly!"

Cobra's eye slowly opened as he rolled onto his back, pulling the pillow he'd commandeered as his official snuggling buddy with him while he took a deep breath. "Mmm," he hummed sleepily, "I really hope that's what you sound like… So damn relaxing." His dream had only been small, faded clips of images or sounds, but he couldn't stop himself from believing it had been about her. Maybe it was a memory. That'd be a great start. With another deep breath, he looked over to the nightstand and realized he'd slept for at least ten hours. 'Time to find some answers… Or clues… Hell, even a fucking receipt for some other town would work for me.'

Although he would have much rather stayed in the bed, wrapped up in sheets that held the foreign scent (no matter how diminished it was with time), but he would never be able to find the blonde woman, Cubellios, or just where the hell he belonged if he stayed there. Also, he needed to piss something fierce.

After dragging himself from the bed, using the restroom, and looking in the closet to find an alarming amount of half- or quarter-shirts that looked like they belonged on a little girl's doll—along with just as many pairs of shorts or skirts—Erik sighed in relief when he saw clothes that were much more his style. Long-sleeved black shirt, a pair of red pants with straps hanging down around the legs, and even a coat similar to the one he wore in X782, just with a small bit of fur lining the edges. There was even a pair of boots that he could trade his bloody ones for.

As he went back into the living room, Erik started looking through the bookshelves more thoroughly. There were countless books in nearly every genre. 'I like reading, but not this much,' he thought, his thumb brushing over the spines. He paused when he found one book that didn't have a title on it, pulling it from the shelf and frowning when there wasn't a single word on the outside of it, just some weird tribal looking design that reminded him of a bird on the cover. He opened the book and froze. The very first page had a picture of himself and the woman. Kissing.

"Well, fuck me with a rusty spork," he whispered incredulously. While he'd been hoping that he and the blonde were something more than just friends who could dance together at her brother's wedding, and knew deep down that she was very special to him, Erik hadn't seen a single shred of proof to show him that it wasn't just wishful thinking. For all he had known, he'd been some creepy ass stalker for the last thirteen years, and this was a shrine to her—thank you again, overactive imagination. But now… Now he had proof. At least one kiss that was shared between them and captured in a photograph. And not just a little peck on the lips. No, apparently she had been very forthcoming with her intentions if the way her hands were tangled in his hair was any indication. There was just the smallest pink mark that he could make out on her hand, but it was mostly obscured by his hair. 'Maybe she's got a tattoo on her hand?'

He slowly walked over to the couch and sat down, then turned the page. His eye widened just a little further with every picture he saw. Each one had a caption beneath it, just a simple and fucking vague explanation of what was happening, and… He grinned when he saw the elegant feminine handwriting curling so delicately with each perfectly penned number. Years. There was a year listed just under the captions for everything, although the ink was a different color and looked as though it had been added as an afterthought.

The woman was sitting on an infirmary bed, her ankle being wrapped in a bandage with a splint by a slightly older woman in a pink dress with long white hair and blue eyes. A chuckle slipped past Erik's lips when he saw one slender middle finger raised at the camera while she stuck out her tongue. 'Our First Mission. X784.' That was a starting point, as far as he was concerned. If he knew her in X784, then that would mean there were just two years that he was missing before the book started.

The blonde was sitting next to him at a table. Her head was lying on his shoulder and there was a sweet smile on her face that was so at odds with the feral grin on his. There didn't seem to be anything special about it, and they weren't cuddled up to each other, so he could only assume that he hadn't known her very long by that point. 'Astral Toxin Inception. X784.' He wasn't entirely sure what to make of the caption, so he simply moved on.

Erik frowned when he looked at the next picture. It was another one in an infirmary. He was lying on a bed with the woman held carefully in his arms as they slept. He had a few scrapes and bruises, but her… She was only in a sports bra, so he was able to see the bandages wrapped around her ribs, and there were more along her arms and even her head. The small portion of her face that was visible gave him the perfect view of a split lip and a black eye with tears streaming down her face and soaking into his shirt. 'Post-Phantom War. X784.'

*.*

"You're my hero, y'know that?"

"Nah, someone's gotta look out for your ass. Always getting into trouble…"

She giggled softly, hissing in pain as her ribs protested the movement. "Still… Thanks for saving me."

"Always will, T—"

*.*

Erik put a hand to his forehead and closed his eye, feeling the rest of the memory fading into nothingness as the pressure that had built up slowly faded. Apparently, looking at these pictures was definitely a step in the right direction, even if he had to deal with some discomfort from memories surfacing. He could handle that if it gave him the answers he was looking for. He looked back down at the picture, and shook his head slowly. If that wisp of a memory was associated with this picture, with the events surrounding it, then he had to believe that he'd done right by her in some way. 'I saved her,' he thought, furrowing his brow when he tried to push further against the fog that blocked everything off from him only for his headache to return. With a growl of agitation, deciding to keep his head from splitting open, Erik moved on.

He was in the middle of a huge field again, except this time he was flying through the air with Cubellios several feet beneath him. Crimson poison was flowing from his hand and right into a training dummy, and the picture was captured just as the thing exploded. 'Poisoning Inanimate Objects. X784.' Cobra laughed and rolled his eye.

The next photo showed the blonde woman in that same field, and his eyebrow quirked when he saw that she was wielding a whip in one hand while the ginger-haired man in a suit from the picture on the shelf faced off against her. Her arm was held out in front of her, the whip pulled taut as it wrapped around the man's ankle, and there was a huge grin on her face. 'Whipping Lions into Submission. X784' He didn't have great memories where that particular weapon was concerned, but he had to trust the judgment call he'd clearly made back then if he trusted her not to use it on him. She didn't really seem like the type to have that sort of darkness within her, but Erik figured he could decide that for himself once he found her again.

The next several pages were filled with random pictures of the two of them—and sometimes even Cubellios—walking in the woods, on a train, or sitting at a quaint little apartment with pink walls. Hell, there were even pictures of him getting into fights with people—like a guy with pink hair that had fire covering him from head to toe, or the back of a naked man that had a sword made out of ice in his hand—although why the guy was naked was fucking beyond him at that point. From what he could tell, this woman had become a very close friend of his during that time. As the pictures progressed, the two of them seemed to gravitate toward one another, their body language practically screaming attraction while the images themselves were just ordinary.

Cubellios was coiled around the woman, her slender hand reaching up and tenderly petting the large snake's snout, her nose crinkled and what Erik assumed was a laugh bursting from her as Cubellios' tongue flicked out across her neck. The sight of it warmed his heart. His first friend had clearly approved of this mystery woman, since that was the same thing she'd always done with him once she was large enough to wrap herself around him. 'My Favorite Girls. X784.' The caption made him pause. This one in particular was written by himself instead of the woman, and he couldn't help but smile even wider as he thought, 'Hell yeah. I can definitely see why.'

It surprised the hell out of him to see a picture of the pair of them on the deck of a ship. That part wasn't much of a shock—since he and this woman apparently went all over the damn place if the other pictures were anything to go by. It was the fact that, while she was wearing a bikini that had his mouth watering, the version of himself in that picture wasn't wearing a shirt. With other people clearly around and able to see him. The scars on his wrists were completely visible as his arms wrapped around the blonde, his palms pressed to the backs of her hands and their fingers laced together. Even a couple of the lash marks on his back that had travelled up and over his shoulders could be seen. Instead of trying to hide himself, the Erik in that picture looked like he didn't have a care in the world while his nose was nestled in the crook of her neck and they looked over the railing on the ship out into the sea.

*.*

"You're not putting that shit on me, psycho! Just lemme drink it!"

"Don't be a baby!"

"I'm not!"

The woman paused, frowning and placing a hand on her hip while holding a dark brown container in the other hand. "You said your scars are sensitive if you get too much sun. So get the fuck over here and let me help you."

"Ugh… Fine…" Slender hands smoothed a cool substance over his back, then his wrists, and his head dropped when those dainty yet strong fingers started kneading the muscles that were tense.

"See? All better. Now you won't be shedding like Cubellios! Good thing too, otherwise I might just start calling you Cobra."

"You're fucking hilarious…" His tone was drenched in sarcasm.

A peal of laughter split the air. "Aww, poor widdle Cobwa's all gwumpy." She pinched his cheek, laughing when he snapped his teeth at her. "Fine fine, I'll stop…"

His eyes narrowed, a growl slipping from him. "I really am gonna fucking bite you if you keep that 'snakefucker' shit up."

She leaned in close, a devious twinkle in her eye and a seductive smile on her lips. Their noses brushed together. "When we get back, I'm sure you'll be doing a whole lot more than biting me..."

*.*

Erik blinked as he looked down at the picture again. She was able to touch his scars? She was fine with it? This woman teased him, and he hadn't tried to stop her aside from a half-hearted threat. Based on that little sliver of a memory, she actually cared enough to help him even when he was being an asshole—'And holy fuck is it hot when she talks like that,' he thought—and that look in her eyes right at the end had been a promise of hours of fun for the both of them. He looked down at the caption and frowned when nothing seemed to click into place for him. 'On Our Way to Tenrou. X784.'

He looked at the picture of them on the boat for another minute, brushing his fingers over where his hands were clasped with hers. "Why can't I remember you?" he whispered sadly. "I want to... I know you're important, especially if you got close enough to even see my scars in the first place. So, why can't I even remember your goddamn name? Why did you have to disappear instead of that hellhole I grew up in?"

Erik turned the page and chuckled when he saw himself giving her a piggyback ride off of a different ship, both of them covered in bandages along with the few other people he could see in the picture. He had no idea what happened to fuck them all up so badly, but they all looked so damn happy. 'Back from the Grave. X791.' While the first part of the caption had been funny, considering they all looked as though they really got their asses handed to them, the year threw him for a loop. Seven years since the last picture. His brow furrowed and he thumbed the page to see if maybe there were a few that had gotten stuck together.

Nope. It somehow went from X784 to X791. None of them looked a day older than the last picture though. Then again, maybe he was just imagining things. They were pretty banged up, so that was probably why he couldn't tell that they were older. He wondered if maybe something had happened to make her disappear from his life for that time period. They were obviously a couple before going to Tenrou, so maybe they broke up? If that was the case, then he could only assume they had gotten back together with how many pictures were still left for him to go through.

The next one only confused him further. The blonde was in a cemetery, kneeling in front of a grave with white lilies in her lap. Her back was to the camera, the sky was a dreary grey, and he could feel his soul aching to comfort her. 'Saying Goodbye to Dad. X791.'

He brought the book closer when he looked at the headstone. There hadn't been any pictures of her family in the book, not even her brother. Had he not met her family? It was clear her father had died, and that she was mourning, so why had the picture even been taken in the first place? He sighed in frustration when he couldn't make out more than 'Ju—' and 'Hear—' with the angle of the picture, the woman's slender shoulders blocking the rest from view.

*.*

"I'm sorry..."

She sniffled and hugged him tighter. "It's not your fault. Parents are supposed to go before their kids... I-I just... I wish I could h-have said..."

He kissed her hair when she broke down into tears. "I know... We can go see him though, alright?"

She nodded quickly. "I w-wanna find Cubellios first... Sh-she should be there... Th-That way... Both of you c-can finally m-meet him..."

"Whatever you wanna do. I know she's out there somewhere. I can feel it."

"I miss her."

"Me too..." He paused and chuckled, lifting her chin up and brushing away her tears. "She does not give better hugs than me. That's a dick move."

A smile through her tears. A watery laugh. "Sure she does. Cuby wraps around me just right. Best cuddles ever."

"So sorry I'm not a snake." Her smile brightened as he pushed her down onto the bed. "But how about I just get you wrapped around me instead?"

*.*

Erik blinked repeatedly to clear away the headache that came back ten times worse. That memory had a lot more detail, but now he felt like taking a hammer to his skull. After several deep breaths, it diminished until it was just a dull ache between his eyebrows. He looked back down at the picture and felt tears welling in his eye along with a sharp, searing pain that pierced through the empty socket on the right. "Fuck!" he hissed, dropping his head to his hands and pressing against his eyelids to force the tears to leave. He vaguely remembered the doctor mentioning that his tear ducts on the right side might still get nerve impulses when he cried, even though they didn't actually function over there now. Apparently, his craptastic brain decided pain was how that shit needed to get translated. He hadn't thought much about it at the time, since he never cried as far as he could remember, but... It seemed even that was different now, too.

While his eyes were closed, Erik thought over what that memory had told him without trying to figure anything else out, or pushing for more of it to come back. He was with the woman while she was grieving, he was apparently compassionate and gentle with her, and it seemed like she cared about Cubellios just as much as he did. What made his heart sink, however, was the fact that she had mentioned finding Cubellios. 'Does that mean she disappeared? Fuck, did I ever find her?'

He shook his head to clear the questions away. He would get his answers eventually... For now, he just wanted to see the rest of the pictures and hopefully find a clue as to where the woman was. She didn't come to see him in the hospital, but he had to find her. If anyone could help him put the pieces of those missing years together, it seemed like she would be the one.

Erik turned the page and raised an eyebrow at the side-by-side pictures. One was of himself, passed the hell out and cuddling on his side with a pillow, and a dark blue comforter pushed down to just below his hips. He wasn't wearing a stitch of clothing, and the only thing that was covering him was that comforter, but he had a feeling it didn't stay that way once the picture was taken. 'Code Name: Cuddly Cobra. X791.'

The second picture was very similar, except it was her. Naked as hell with only that same dark blue comforter covering her hips. She wasn't cuddling with a pillow like he had been, and was instead smiling sleepily at him with one arm being used to cover her nipples and an adorably red nose. In her free hand was a crumpled tissue that helped to explain the state her nose was in. 'Secret Agent Sniffly Sex Kitten. X791.' Again, the caption was written in his own hand. Just the sight of her like that had the breath rushing from his lungs, and his pants suddenly becoming much tighter. The knowledge that she was very clearly naked was much more arousing than seeing her in a bathing suit, even if her nose was red and raw from sneezing and she looked a little pale—something he could only assume was a cold. If he hadn't thrown the camera to the side and ravished every inch of her right after that picture was taken, then he didn't deserve to remember a woman as beautiful as she was. Then again, if she had gotten sick, then Erik guessed he could forgive himself if he hadn't pinned her to the bed. The fresh hickey on her collarbone was enough to let him know that he'd already accomplished that.

"Shit, how often does this chick get hurt?" he muttered when he turned the page again. This infirmary was different from the others, but she was still wrapped in bandages. Her whip and a leather pouch of some sort were on the table next to the bed. Just like the other pictures of her lying in an infirmary, Erik was right there with her. Except this time he looked ready to kill anything and everything that tried to come anywhere near him or the blonde. 'Post-Naval Battle, GMG. X791.' Yet again, he was officially lost.

He skimmed the rest of the pictures, taking in all of the different places he and this woman had apparently gone to. Theme parks, the beach, picnics in a park, a resort in the mountains, a casino. Photograph after photograph, years of memories that he didn't have. Occasionally, they would be walking in the woods, on a dirt path through some hills, or even sitting in a booth in a train. Most times, it was just the two of them, but every once in a while her brother would be there as well, looking just as bored and angry as Erik usually did when he wasn't alone with her. Or the red-haired woman that was apparently Erik's sister would be there, a soft smile or terrifyingly stern expression on her face. But there wasn't a single thing he could go off of to find the blonde. There weren't any common occurrences except for the apartment with pink walls, the bed with the blue comforter, and an infirmary that either had one or both of them being bandaged up.

One thing he could tell about this mystery woman though, was that she was full of life and happiness. Even in the pictures where she was scowling at the camera, something that surprisingly sent shivers down his spine, she was still so vibrant. So radiant. He wanted so badly to know who this woman was, to find her and hold her close, to ask all of the questions that he couldn't answer for himself. Erik had never depended on anyone in his life, but the thought of depending on her didn't make his stomach churn. It made his soul almost sigh contentedly.

The next picture he came across made him pause and tilt his head to the side. She was standing on top of a table in a pair of short-shorts, a lacy crimson bra, and one boot with the biggest shit-eating grin on her face while she pumped a fist into the air. He was there as well, in the process of glaring daggers at the blonde while unbuttoning his shirt. Whoever had been taking the picture was clearly a master at it, since they'd been able to also capture what the cause for the woman's apparently gloating was about. There on the table was a Scrabble board with a few words already in play, with a row of shot glasses on either side of the board between the letter trays and the game board itself. There were four empty glasses on her side, and six on his side. His eyebrow raised in surprise when he saw what had been put down, and he couldn't help but wonder how he'd found someone that was clearly as intelligent as the blonde was.

"Perspicacity, esoteric, quantum, jargon, colloquial," Erik muttered as he read the words on the Scrabble board that he could make out. "Orgasm, spandex… Viridian? Huh, that's different." One look at the caption had him chuckling and shaking his head. 'Rainy Day Boredom Leads to Strip-Shot Scrabble. X791.' Just beneath the caption was a bar napkin with quickly scrawled rules for the game that he and the blond had apparently been playing.

Rule #1: Combine letters from two Scrabble boards. (They never have enough otherwise)
Rule #2: Draw 1.5 times the amount of letters as usual. Second tray can be used to hold the excess.
Rule #3: Upon setting a word, player must define it accurately.
Rule #4: If a set word is either improperly defined, opposing player can define to steal points. First player strips one piece of clothing and take a shot.
Rule #5: If the word is not in the dictionary, player must strip one piece of clothing and take two shots.

Erik chuckled again and brushed his thumb over the napkin. It seemed the woman was definitely intelligent, but she also could enjoy herself. He'd never considered a word game to be a source of that much entertainment, or that it could be turned into a drinking game in the first place, but he definitely liked the idea. He was curious though. Was he the one that had come up with it? Or was it her?

He quickly noticed as he kept looking through the pictures that there weren't any gaps after that seven years. From X791 until Christmas Eve X794, there were tons of pictures documenting his time with her. He hated that he couldn't look at them and just pull the events surrounding the image from his memory. It made his heart ache that he wasn't able to remember someone like her. Someone that he could tell he loved. Maybe that was part of the reason he was so desperate to find her. His heart and soul remembered her well enough. It was just his mind that couldn't recall anything.

The final page of the book had a picture of them as well, except this time they were both lying beneath that blue comforter. Their skin was slick with sweat, their hair matted, and they were cuddled so closely that there wasn't a single pocket of air between them as she laid almost completely on top of his chest. Erik's gaze was immediately drawn to her shoulder, to what was a very clear bite wound where his teeth had punctured her delicate skin. His eye widened, already knowing what that particular 'love bite' actually meant when he noticed the small purple veins branching off of the mark. And that was when he saw it. The fingers on her left hand were gently touching the tip of his ear, and there was only the slightest glint of light that reflected off of a golden ring adorned with a small ruby. "You're fucking shitting me," he said breathlessly.

*.*

"Of course I will!"

"You sure? You can't back out once it's done..."

"I've been sure for years, but you already knew that." She giggled, her thumbs brushing over the tips of his ears. "I still expect a ring, y'know."

"Good thing I came prepared then... Marry me?"

She blushed and nodded happily. A delighted squeal echoed as he rolled her over on the bed, slipping the ring on her finger as his lips descended on hers.

*.*

A wide grin spread across his face, his heart soaring right along with his soul. "No fucking way... She's really... Holy shit..." Erik whispered happily. He looked at the small paper that was folded and taped beneath the picture, then opened it slowly.

All out of pages in this one. Looks like I'll have to start a new book for us. I can't believe so little time has gone by since I started this, and I'm glad you decided to add a few quirky captions of your own. Hopefully your mission is finished soon, because I miss you already. Go ahead and leave this one at the apartment in Shirotsume. I've got another one here at home. Be safe and hurry back to the guild, alright? I love you to the stars and back, Sugar.

P.S. The sooner you come home, the sooner you get to enjoy my new lingerie. I'll give you a little more motivation: If I could still get poisoned, then you eating this off of me would involve a very short time limit. See you soon, sexy.

Erik went to close the book and frowned as a picture fell out and fluttered down to his lap. He picked it up, setting the book on the coffee table, and his jaw dropped. The blonde was propped up on her knees on the blue comforter, wearing a pair of panties that was made from little hard candies with a string running through them. The matching top was similar to a bikini top from what he could tell, except she wasn't wearing it. She was holding it in her hand and nibbling on one of the candy pieces while she grinned at the camera. Her other hand was tangled in her hair, the light pink tattoo on the back of it mostly covered by her golden tresses, giving him a completely uninhibited view of her bare breasts. "I… Am so… fucking lucky," Erik whispered absently. He may not have had any memories of the last thirteen years, but right then he couldn't help but fill those blank spaces with the image in front of him. "God, she's sexy as hell…"

While the brain in his pants was screaming at him to take that picture into the bathroom, and he was very ready to do just that, he couldn't. He apparently had more than just a nameless blonde that he was searching for. Erik had a fiancée—a mate—that was waiting for him back at home. Where exactly home was, he still hadn't the foggiest. But he was more determined than ever to get his ass back to her. He didn't think the whole draconic mating process worked for second generation Slayers, but based on the bite on her shoulder in the book and the fact that the wound had healed and left deep purple veins traveling from her shoulder and onto her chest in the picture in his hand? Yeah, clearly he'd been wrong. And he could only assume that he had figured it out sometime during that gap in his memory.

No way in hell was he going to keep her waiting any longer than he needed to. Erik had no fucking clue how he would find her, but it was happening no matter how much time it took. He picked the book up from the coffee table, then walked quickly back to the master bedroom. He'd seen a spare knapsack on the floor of the closet, so he pulled that out and threw whatever he thought he might need in it, then carefully set the scrapbook on top and closed the bag. She had said to leave it at the apartment he was in, but that wasn't going to happen until he found her. He had no way of knowing how much time would pass before he could see her in person, so those pictures of a past he couldn't remember would hopefully give him some clues along the way.

With a much lighter feeling in his heart, Erik looked back at the darkened apartment one last time before he stepped out and closed the door. 'I'm coming home. Wherever you are, I swear I'll find you again."

The deadbolt turned and the door opened not a moment later with the lights flickering on shortly afterwards. She took long strides into the apartment, searching for anything out of the ordinary, any sign that Erik had been here recently. "Erik?" Lucy called, "Sugar, are you here?"

Silence.

She refused to let her fear of the worst possible scenario imaginable stop her from venturing further into the apartment. With her mind set on finding any clues that her mate was still around, Lucy made her way towards the kitchen while the door closed behind her a minute later. She smiled when she saw the half-full gallon of bleach sitting on the counter. After years of trying to get him to remember to put it back in the refrigerator so it would be cold when he wanted more, Erik still left it out. She didn't mind that he drank directly from the bottle, considering he was the only one that was drinking out of it in the first place—and she would rather not taste bleach or potentially poison their guests if any dishes were to get accidentally contaminated. It was more a matter of not having a random gallon of bleach on the counter all the time. Still, that one bottle, set the exact same distance it always was from the refrigerator, had her heart racing excitedly. "He was here!" she shouted happily.

The temperature of the bottle, and its contents, had her deflating just a little. It was room temperature, not a single bit of a chill to it. She wasn't entirely sure how long it took for the bleach to warm up enough for that, but the fact that it was there was enough for her. She put the bottle back in the refrigerator and raced out of the kitchen, still smiling while she looked over at the hulking and coat-covered back of her 'older brother'. "Laxus, can you smell him? Was he here recently?"

"Sorry, sis. It's been a couple days at the least," Laxus sighed, turning around and wincing when he saw Lucy's shoulders sag a little. "It could be more since you've got his scent on you now… Plus it quite literally smells fucking toxic, so I hate breathing it in to begin with… It's always strong as hell."

Lucy let out a dejected sigh and nodded slowly. "I'll… I'll just go check the bedroom, and see if maybe he left a note or something…"

"Lucy," Laxus called after her, sighing when she simply ignored him. "Goddamnit…" He hadn't meant to make her upset, but the way she had slowly trudged down the hallway made him feel like a total asshole. Here his little sister was, running all over the goddamn country for two weeks in search of the only guy she had ever liked—the guy who she fucking mated with and that she was supposed to marry—and there hadn't been any trace of him whatsoever. None of the Slayers were able to pick up his scent while they were out and about on their own missions. Nearly the entire guild was keeping an eye out for him; if not for the fact that he was a member of Fairy Tail, then because Lucy wouldn't stop crying when she thought about him. She would think she had a lead, go off and look, then come back in tears when it didn't pan out.

Erik was only supposed to be gone a couple days, tops. It was a simple bag-and-tag job for some beasts that were terrorizing a neighboring town's farmland. It was something everyone knew he could handle, especially since he'd just been promoted to S-Class that past year. Lucy had stayed behind because she wanted to get some quality time with the girls while they worked on wedding arrangements—something that Laxus had thoroughly explained to Erik that he needed to avoid like the plague (well, like a normal person would avoid the plague) if Lucy would allow it.

Lucy even gave him a few extra days before she started to worry, because she thought that maybe he'd gotten held up with something. The problem came when the requestor contact Makarov and said that the mage who took the request never came back for his reward, so he was sending it to the guild even though the job was only half finished. Laxus had gone out with Bickslow and Gajeel to handle the job and see if they couldn't catch a hint of that disgusting, lip-curling, poison-tinged scent of his… And of course beat his ass for making his mate cry at all. Laxus may have also considered shocking him into sterility, not for making the woman he took as his mate cry, but because she was also Laxus' baby sister. No, Erik needed to have a damn good reason for being gone this long without at least calling her; otherwise, they would all be wearing gas masks to the funeral pyre lit by Laxus' very own lightning.

The only reason they had come to this apartment in the first place was because it was the closest major town to where Erik's mission had been. Lucy hadn't thought to check here, even though she had apparently given him a scrapbook to drop off when he got off the train before getting started on the job—since he would have been passing by anyway. It wasn't until Laxus' wife mentioned the two couples going on vacation when the weather warmed up enough that Lucy had realized they had never looked for him at the couple's little home away from home. Laxus still had no idea why they'd gotten a place all the way out in Shirotsume when it was so far from the guild, but any time he asked… Lucy and Erik would both just blankly stare at him (something he blamed the younger Slayer for teaching her when she was trying to keep a secret).

Lucy roughly wiped her eyes before Laxus could smell her tears, and made her way into the bedroom. The bed wasn't made, and there was one pillow pulled far away from the headboard. 'He was cuddling with my pillow? How long was he here?' The closet was hanging open, a good portion of his clothing had been ripped off of the hangers, and the emergency bag they kept on the floor was gone. Fear clutched at her heart while she stared at the open door. What could have possibly happened that he would be in such a rush to get out of there? Erik was oddly obsessive when it came to keeping things tidy—with the exception of that gallon jug he could never seem to put away—so there had to have been some reason for him to throw hangers all over the place, even leaving a few shirts and pairs of pants strewn across the closet floor.

What Lucy saw next nearly had her knees buckling. The boots he'd been wearing when he left on his mission were harmlessly sitting next to the closet, but they were covered in what she already knew was dried blood. Not just covered in it, but it was clear that the blood had been thoroughly soaked in the crimson liquid. She numbly walked into the bathroom, and her eyes were drawn to a single towel hanging on the rack. A pair of unfamiliar sweat pants and a white shirt draped over the edge of the hamper. Hesitant, fear-filled steps drew her closer and closer to those foreign clothes, and Lucy had to stifle a sob when she saw the insignia for Shirotsume's local hospital printed on the tag. "H-Hospital…?" she whispered, her throat constricting while she looked up to the closed shower curtain.

Biting her lips, Lucy drew it back quickly, and found nothing wrong. Even still, she couldn't stop her tears from flowing. She turned around and wrapped her arms around herself, not hearing Laxus calling out her name as he drew closer to the master bedroom. She was just about to start making her way out of the bathroom to tell Laxus they should just head back when something in the trash can by the toilet caught her eye.

White, red, black. Three seemingly innocent colors, colors that she had grown very accustomed to since joining Fairy Tail.

Bandages. Blood. Thread. Erik was hurt, and pretty severely from the amount of medical supplies sitting in the trash. Her mate was hurt, and she hadn't known about it. And now he was missing. She knew that the smart thing to do would be going down to the hospital to ask about his condition when he'd left, why he was wearing those clothes, pretty much fucking anything to figure out what was wrong. The only problem with that idea is that Erik still didn't trust people. He wouldn't have given them his real name, or told them anything about himself if he didn't have to.

"L-Laxus," she whispered weakly as the room started spinning. She hardly heard his footsteps rushing closer to where she was, or the worry in his voice while he called out to her, feeling her blood rushing far too quickly through her pounding heart. This was too much for her to process, and she knew it. The world turned on its axis, and Lucy felt two familiar and thickly muscled arms wrapping around her just before everything went black.

I'll be safe and wanted
Finally home where I belong
Well starting now I'm learning fast
On this journey to the past

Erik sighed as he made his way back to the train station of yet another town. He searched the place high and low, looked through store windows, went into magic shops, everything he could think of. It had been three weeks since he left that apartment, and he had been tempted to simply go back and wait there to see if she would show up looking for him more times than he could count since that first day. Every time he found himself ready to turn tail and run back to Shirotsume, the conversation he'd been roped into by one of the other tenants in the building would filter right back in.

*.*

"Erik! I almost didn't recognize you! How have you been?"

"Fine."

"How's Lucy doing? You guys haven't been to town in a few months."

"… Lucy?" he asked in confusion.

The woman laughed and rolled her eyes, bouncing a baby on her hip. "Yes, Lucy. You know, your better half?" she teased. "She's in that one guild down south, you know the one."

"Lucy…" he said slowly, a soft smile on his face. "She's… She's good. She stayed back home while I went on a mission." A name. He finally had a fucking name for her! And a direction to go. Finally some fucking answers.

"Oh, well be sure to tell her hi for us. I've gotta get going. See you around!"

*.*

Three weeks, and all he had was a name and a direction from Shirotsume. At the time, he'd been absolutely ecstatic. He still was when he went to sleep at night and looked at the scrapbook he'd brought with him. He would look at every single picture, silently repeating her name and hoping with everything he was worth that another memory would pop up. It never worked. Three weeks and he didn't know anything more than he did the day he left that apartment.

He couldn't give up on searching for her, and he definitely couldn't just turn around and hope she would come find him. What if she never did? What if she was waiting around for him to come back to her, not wanting to leave in case he finally returned and she wasn't there? Erik had no idea how long it had been since he and Lucy had taken that final picture in the scrapbook, since the night he had marked her. From what he could tell, it was organized chronologically, so they had mated sometime after Christmas Eve the previous year. He already knew that it was nearing May, so that gave him a short window to work with, even shorter if he took off the three goddamn weeks he'd wasted so far.

He just needed a miracle to land in his lap. Even another memory would suffice. Just a small snippet of something about her to help him keep going. That way, he could feel like he was making progress instead of wandering around with his thumb up his ass, searching for a beautiful blonde needle in a haystack.

Erik sighed as the train pulled into the station, already feeling a headache coming on from the sheer amount of people he was surrounded by. This was why he was always alone before. He couldn't hear Cubellios, and he'd been able to use that to his advantage by focusing his magic on trying to pull the sound of her soul out. Now, he had much more control over it, but the dull buzz that a person's soul faded into when he intentionally tuned them out was more like a beehive had been shoved in his skull from how many people were around. He slowly stood from the bench he'd been occupying for the past twenty minutes, and grabbed his bag before he boarded the train.

The whisper of a soul was calling out to him once he reached the door to the compartment he was planning on taking residence in for the next few hours, but he ignored it. He already knew for a fact that it was just a foggy memory of Lucy's soul that he could never place, and it only made his chest tighten when he considered the fact that he still had no way of finding her easily. His heart and soul quite literally ached, and he brought his hand to his chest to try and rub out the worst of the pain—as if that would actually help him. He wanted to hear what Lucy's soul really sounded like, not the little phantom memory that disappeared as the train started to move. He would feel so happy and free for a short period of time, and then the memory would fade without ever fully taking shape, leaving him feeling more and more heartbroken. He had to persevere though. If not for the sake of remembering what he'd lost, then for the sake of the woman he loved. Lucy deserved to have her mate and fiancé with her, and he swore that he would do right by her by not giving up. He owed her that much, if not more for giving him the ability to love someone after how his life had started.

Three weeks, and she still hadn't found him. Lucy grabbed her bag as the train pulled into the station of yet another town. She had gotten a lead the day before about someone seeing a man that looked a lot like Erik boarding a train that had been headed this way. Maroon hair, pointed ears, looking like he was ready to punch everyone in the face. It seemed everywhere she went, there was at least one person who said they saw someone that kind of matched his description, but no one ever said that it was him. The person people described would have one or two of the same characteristics, but they also told her that the man they saw didn't look much like the picture she showed them. No one could seem to pinpoint just what it was that made the person they saw different from her fiancé.

In all honesty, Lucy was beginning to lose hope of ever finding him. She refused to give up her search, because she knew that if the tables were turned, Erik would never stop looking for her. She couldn't understand why—if this person that people randomly saw was actually him—he would be wandering all over the place. The cities or towns she travelled to in search of him seemed so random. There wasn't any sort of order to them aside from getting further and further south.

"Luce, I smell him," Natsu said once they stepped off the train. Wendy had insisted that he take the motion sickness pills she and Porlyusica had made, and he was suddenly extremely thankful for them. The ride from his mission with Happy and Lisanna to the town Lucy had been in that morning was a total breeze because of them, and they had instantly boarded another train to come here. Aside from not wanting to vomit all over everything in sight, Natsu knew that his lack of immobility right then was going to be important to help the sweet blonde find her mate. "Happy fly up and see if you can spot him. This crowd is too big."

Lucy nibbled her lip and held onto Natsu's hand while Lisanna held the other so they wouldn't get separated in the swarm of people that were disembarking the train, along with those that were boarding it for the next departure. She searched every single face they passed while Natsu tried to get a clear direction on where to go, unable to take her eyes off of the people around them to see that Happy was flying back towards them.

"I see him!" Happy shouted as he flew back down to hover over Natsu. He kept his eyes trained on the pointed ears, tanned skin, and maroon hair of the familiar Slayer as he said, "He's headed for the train!"

Lucy whimpered and looked up at Happy, only to follow his gaze and catch a glimpse of Erik's left side. "E-Erik?" she whispered excitedly. Without another thought, Lucy broke away from the group and started pushing her way through the crowd. "ERIK!"

"Shit, Luce!" Natsu shouted, his grip tightening on Lisanna's hand as he dragged her behind them. "Happy, stay with her. Make sure she doesn't get lost in the crowd!"

"Aye, sir!"

"Erik, wait!" Lucy screamed, elbowing and shoving people out of her way when they tried to stop her from cutting sideways through the throng. Happy flew down beside her and quickly lifted her into the air, shooting forward over everyone's heads and right toward the man they were pursuing. Her heart began to sink when he boarded the train, and she pounded her hands on the closed doors when they reached them only a minute later.

"Miss, I have to ask you to step back. The train is departing."

"ERIK! Please! I'm here!" Lucy screamed as tears pooled in her eyes. She knew her soul was screaming just as loudly, so why wasn't he coming to her? She was desperate to stop that train from leaving, and shoved the attendant to the side while she started running down the length of the train, looking in window after window to try and catch a glimpse of him as it started to move. She finally saw him and the air rushed from her lungs. He was still as handsome as the day they had met all those years ago, but he looked so lost and confused while he held his head in his hands. She would know those hands and pointed ears anywhere, those scars around his wrists that barely peeked out from beneath the jacket he was wearing. "Please," Lucy whispered. "Erik, don't go…"

His left hand lowered to his chest, rubbing slow circles over his sternum with a pained expression on his face, and she felt the pain resonating within her as well. She followed the train as it left the station, her steps elongating until she was sprinting to try and keep up. Faster and faster, she ran and kept her eyes on the window to his compartment even when it moved past her. Extremely warm arms wrapped around her waist and pulled her to a stop, and Lucy struggled for only a moment before she heard his voice.

"Luce, stop!" Natsu shouted, sighing when she froze in place. "You almost ran off the edge. You coulda gotten yourself killed!"

Lucy's heart shattered while she stood on the edge of the platform, watching that train disappearing off into the distance. They had been so close! She'd felt the mating mark on her shoulder thrumming with energy the closer she got to him, but he hadn't seemed to notice her presence at all. Erik had told her during their first mission that her soul was completely different than anyone else's he'd ever heard. He had said that he would never have a problem finding her because her song was so unique. If that really was the case though, why hadn't he even looked her way? It was like she didn't exist! "E-Erik," she sobbed, turning around and burying her face in Natsu's scarf.

"We'll find him again, Lucy," Lisanna whispered as she hugged the blonde from behind, grimacing when she felt just how much Lucy was trembling. "We'll find him."

Home, love, family
There was once a time
I must have had them too

"Bix, wait," Gajeel said softly, pulling the Seith mage to a stop and taking a deep pull of the air. Toxic. Dangerous. Bitter in a way that made bile rise in his throat. "It's him."

"Who?" Bickslow asked while his babies floated protectively around the pair of them.

"That slithery little fuck." Gajeel sneered, seeing that familiar head of maroon hair coming around the bend in the path a few yards ahead of them making his blood boil. "Oi! What the fuck, man?!" he shouted, his lip curling further in disgust when he was simply ignored.

"Holy shit," Bicklsow whispered incredulously. He placed a hand on Gajeel's pierced forearm to keep the Slayer in place, feeling him tensed and ready to go pummel the guy into the ground just like every other male in the guild had been for the past month. They all saw Lucy as a dear friend or little sister, and her fiancé's disappearance had taken the brilliant light right out of her as time continued to pass without a trace of finding him. She had stopped taking missions completely while she searched for Erik, and Laxus had been making sure there was at least one group out that was specifically looking for the Poison Slayer while she was being forced to stay at the guild to rest. And here the guy was, on the far eastern side of Fiore, doing fuck only knows what. Still, even though Bickslow wanted to let Gajeel go and give Erik a piece of his mind, one thing made him pause. "His eye…"

Gajeel was just about to push Bickslow off of him, but those two whispered words—filled with so much confusion and concern—had him halting and narrowing his eyes while he took in Erik's appearance. The fucker looked the same as he always did, except for the fact that his right eye was closed over with a long scar running down his face. 'What in the hell happened to him?'

Erik's gaze stayed locked on the ground in front of him as he roughly shouldered past the two men that were blocking his path. He didn't have time to deal with idiots that were in his way. Not when he was nearing four weeks since leaving Shirotsume and he still didn't have any idea where he could find Lucy. Every single day, he looked at the scrapbook. And still… Nothing. In the morning when he woke up, he would look through the pictures while eating his breakfast. The same thing at night before bed. By this point, he knew them all by heart. What year they were taken, every fine detail the camera had captured in both the foreground and background. And he wasn't any closer to her. With a growl, Erik sidestepped and whirled around to glare at the guy that had tried to make a grab for him.

The guy was about a head taller than himself, his skin tanned a few shades lighter than Erik's, muscles that looked powerful enough to bend metal on a whim, and piercings fucking everywhere. His eyebrows, the bridge of his nose, all down the cartilage in both ears, his forearms. Even his fucking chin. He was quite literally the perfect poster boy for a biker gang. All the guy was missing was a leather jacket and cigarette in his mouth… And a motorcycle, but that was beside the point. Needless to say, while Erik was willing to admit that the guy looked intimidating, his soul sure as hell didn't sound intimidating in the slightest. In fact, this big burly guy that looked ready to eat him alive, with crimson eyes that were burning in barely contained rage, was probably the sappiest son of a bitch he'd ever heard.

'He's so concerned! Fuck, Bixy would make such a great dad. Wish we could have kids of our own. Those'd be some pretty fucking adorable babies… A little girl with my hair and those gorgeous green eyes of his… Or a boy with his hair and my red eyes. And they would both get that adorable little pouty look on their faces just like him when they get angry… Damnit, now I just wanna fuck him… How the hell did I get so goddamn lucky?'

Aside from the revelation that the pierced man in front of him was gay and very clearly in love with the helmeted, skirt-wearing guy (Bixy?) standing next to him, Erik wasn't sure he had ever heard a rant about babies that was so goddamn mushy in his life. It was almost sickening—not because it was about another man, but because he could quite literally feel cavities forming in his teeth the longer he listened to the guy.

"Where the fuck have you been, asshole? Bunny's worried fucking sick about your ass!" Gajeel snarled. "And don't get all fucking growly with me, cockstain. I should beat your ass just for—"

"Gajeel," Bickslow whispered, "Calm down."

Erik furrowed his brow when he tried to figure out just who the guy—Gajeel, apparently—was talking about. He couldn't get a clear picture of who the person was, just an image of some seriously voluptuous curves on a woman from the shoulders down while she was wearing a red, strapless leotard with a fluffy rabbit tail on the back. "Who the fuck is 'Bunny'?"

When Gajeel snarled again, Bickslow's grip on his arm tightened while he scowled at the Poison Slayer. "What?" he whispered. "You know exactly who the hell he's talking about. Cosplayer's been running all over the goddamn country looking for you… Speaking of which, why the hell are you all the way out here in the first place?"

Erik blinked slowly. "Cosplayer?"

"Bix, I'm gonna fuckin' kill him," Gajeel growled. Honestly, what kind of pathetic excuse for a Dragon Slayer couldn't even remember his mate's nicknames? Okay, sure. Lucy was a special case that was given a different nickname by every person she met, but still. That was beside the point. "This isn't a time to joke around, you Toxic Twat. Your mate's fucki—"

Erik's eye went wide, his whole body and soul stilling completely for only a moment before he was spurred into action. Faster than Erik knew he could move, Gajeel was pinned to the ground beneath him, his hands fisted in the raven-haired man's shirt. "You know Lucy?!" he asked desperately. 'Yes! Please, tell me he knows where to find her!'

Gajeel was just about to snap the little shit's neck for tackling him, but the sheer amount of desperation that was hanging thick in the air—and the fact that Erik had just called Lucy by her name—made every bit of his anger die away in an instant. There was something seriously fucking wrong. And it wasn't just the fact that Erik was now missing an eye. "Seriously?" he asked slowly. "Since when you do call her that?"

Erik slowly sat up, letting go of Gajeel's shirt and plopping himself on the ground unceremoniously with a sigh.

Bickslow frowned and crouched down in front of the other two mages, tilting his head to one side when he saw how confused Erik seemed. "You're always teasing her about being like Tinkerbell…"

*.*

"Erik, look! I got my guild mark!" Lucy said happily, her voice soft but no less high pitched than the squeal of joy she wanted to let loose.

He smirked down at the hand she was proudly holding a foot away from him, the bright pink guild mark sitting on the back of it and still glowing as the magic from applying it faded. He looked back up to see the brilliant smiling face he'd happened upon a week prior down in Hargeon, and shook his head with a small chuckle. "Told you he'd let you join."

Lucy pouted and tried to lightly punch Erik's shoulder, only to miss when he dodged out of the way. "You're so mean to me," she huffed, internally berating him and wishing hours of pain and suffering on the Poison Slayer for—as she so eloquently thought—being a dildo.

Cobra chuckled again, then ignored the shocked souls all around them as he gently grabbed her newly marked hand. He turned it one way, then the other as he looked at the familiar mark that was a shade of bubblegum pink he didn't know was even possible to create. "Leave it to a blonde to get it in pink," he teased.

"Dick," Lucy grumbled, sighing when his grip tightened on her hand as she tried to pull it away.

"Well, it's official," Erik finally said, letting her hand slowly slide from his and silently marveling at how soft her skin was—which may or may not have been the reason he had even offered to bring her to the guild… He would deny it if anyone asked his true intentions, but there was no way in hell he would turn down a busty blonde like Lucy; especially not when her soul seemed to always sing the purest incarnation of a lullaby he'd ever heard.

"What? That you're a dick?" Lucy asked, turning her gaze up to meet Erik's mesmerizing indigo eyes when he chuckled again, and matching the amused quirk of his lips with one of her own.

"That too. But, I was gonna say you're officially a Fairy now, Tinkerbell."

*.*

Erik winced and put his head in his hands when he was pulled from the memory. 'That's not a tattoo on her hand… It's a guild mark!' That was, by far, the most vivid of any of the memories he had gotten back as of yet, and it seemed that the more detail there was involved, the more his skull would try to split itself in half just so his brain could hop out and run the fuck away. Without realizing that he was still around other people, since he'd spent the last four weeks travelling by himself, Erik whimpered in pain and quietly whispered to himself, "She's… She's a blonde… fairy?"

Gajeel and Bickslow could only sit and stare as Erik curled in on himself, placing his head between his knees as they drew up to his chest.

"I-I've gotta… find… her…" Erik growled, grimacing as he forced himself to stand up. His head began pounding, much worse than any other time he'd gotten a memory back, and he stumbled only to find himself being caught by six little tiki-faced totems that were floating in the air. The little souls inside of them were humming soothingly while they helped to steady him, almost as if they knew exactly what was wrong.

Gajeel took a slow step forward, his studded brows pulling together in true concern for his fellow Dragon Slayer. "You doin' alright, Cobra?"

Erik jolted at the use of that name, something that he knew Lucy had called him while they were on the ship that was going to that Tenrou place. "What did you call me?" he whispered.

"Cobra," Gajeel said slowly. "I heard Bunny call you that a while back. What the fuck happened to you, man?"

Erik blinked slowly and shook his head, wincing when that small movement caused a flash of pain to burn through his skull. "Nothing. I'm fine. I just need to get back to her…"

"Well, if you hurry back to the guild, you should be able to catch Cosplayer before she leaves again," Bickslow said, silently thanking his babies for catching Erik.

"Last I knew, Sparky, the Demon, and Salamander's team were keeping her ass there for a couple days to rest. She's been goin' crazy trying to find you…" Gajeel added.

"Sparky?" Erik muttered, "Demon? Salamander? Who the fuck are these people?"

Gajeel looked over at Bickslow, both mages rushing forward when Erik tried to pull away from the totems only to stumble again. "Alright, you're definitely not goin' alone," Gajeel said with a scowl. "We're taking your ass back to the guild, because if you don't make it there in one piece…"

"She's gonna skin us alive and set our asses on fire…" Bickslow finished, "Then probably skewer us and set us up in front of the guild…"

"She's way too good at that ritual sacrifice shit," Gajeel mused with a shudder. "I blame you for that."

"Wh-What…?" Erik asked slowly as his arms were thrown over Gajeel's and Bickslow's shoulders. He could hear them talking to him, but the voices slowly faded as his vision darkened until he finally lost consciousness.

Home, love, family
I will never be complete until I find you

"Sis, you're not going anywhere," Laxus sighed. "You just got back this morning. Look at the clock. Twenty minutes… You've been here twenty minutes, and you're already wanting to leave again?"

Lucy turned her weary gaze over to the blond behemoth sitting at the bar next to her. "I'm finishing this smoothie, then I'm heading out on foot to check the woods around town, Laxus. If he's on his way back, he might not have taken a train…"

"Luce, we don't know that he's on his way back though," Natsu said from her other side. "You've been gone all week. Just take a day to rest…"

"You definitely need it, Lucy," Mira added softly. "You look so tired… Have you been sleeping?"

Lucy simply shrugged. "Sometimes," she sighed in resignation. "It's kinda hard to do when he's not around since we mated… And when I know he's out there and not… Not here… w-with—"

Laxus frowned and pulled Lucy into his arms when she started crying for the second time that day. "We're gonna find him, little sis," he whispered tenderly, his worried gaze flickering up to his wife as she walked over. "Little Red, wanna hold onto her for me? I've gotta go talk to Gramps…"

Flare smiled softly and nodded, carefully pulling Lucy from Laxus' now slightly crumpled shirt and into her own arms. "Just let it all out, Blondie," she whispered. "You'll see him again, okay?"

Lucy nodded while she continued to cry, her arms carefully wrapping around her friend's waist and her tears trickling down her chest. "I-I just d-don't get it… H-He didn't even l-look at me… when we f-found h-him…" That was the worst part of the past four weeks. That day that she had chased after the train Erik had boarded, he didn't acknowledge her presence in the slightest. Add to that how pained he looked at the time while he was rubbing his chest… It almost looked like his heart was breaking right in front of her eyes. She hadn't gotten a single lead, or even a whisper of one since that day. While she had been wrapped in Natsu's and Lisanna's arms, Happy had flown over to the ticket booth and asked where that train had been headed, then pulled out the jewels from his own little fishy knapsack and bought all of them tickets for the next train headed to the same location. There were four stops along that route, all of them heading to the east. They had each taken one of the stops, searched the town and asked around to see if anyone had noticed Erik, then met up in the final town only to find that there wasn't a trace of the maroon-haired man anywhere.

"C'mon, let's head up to the office and we'll lay down," Flare said softly. "You and I both could use a nap, and I'm sure your little nephew here would love to get some quality time with you."

Lucy sniffled and let Flare lead her away from the bar and slowly up the stairs. She smiled down at the baby bump that was just starting to show, then placed her hand over Flare's stomach. "Did you guys find out if it's actually a boy?" she teased half-heartedly.

Flare smiled and shook her head. "No, but the Tesla Coil you call a big brother has assured me—repeatedly—that we're having a little boy. He says he's incapable of having girls. Something about how he's gonna lose his shit trying to keep everyone else's grubby hands off of her, so he had a very long talk with his balls to sort it out beforehand."

Lucy giggled and opened the door to Laxus' office, pulling away from Flare once they reached the far wall. She slid one of the bookcases to the side and pulled down the large and far-too comfortable murphy bed that Laxus had installed, then sat down and kicked off her boots. Once she and Flare were settled, with both women on their sides and facing each other, Lucy sighed dejectedly and looked up at the large reddish-orange eyes that always seemed to have a vacant expression—although, Erik had pointed out that Flare's brain was there only part of the time, he'd also explained that she was terrifyingly intelligent. "Flare," she whispered sadly, "Do you… Do you think he'll ever come home?"

A small, comforting smile spread across Flare's face while she nodded. Her hair loosened itself from the braid it was in and wrapped around Lucy like a blanket, pulling the exhausted blonde closer to her. "He'll come home, Blondie. And if, for whatever reason, he doesn't get his ass back here very soon… Then Laxus is gonna go out looking himself. Your mate might come home a little charred, but your big brother will help you find him. That's why he's talking to Gramps right now."

Lucy slowly nodded, her complete exhaustion finally catching up with her while those warm and comforting locks tenderly rubbed her back. "Thanks, big sis…" she whispered as her eyes slid closed. "You two take such good care of me…"

Flare blushed and carefully pulled Lucy's head to her chest, her smile widening when the sleepy blonde sighed and cuddled closer to her. "We'll always watch out for you, Blondie," she whispered. "It's the least we can do."

One step at a time
One hope, then another
Who knows where this road may go

"Okay, so just how many nicknames does she have?" Erik asked, looking from Bickslow to Gajeel as they sat across from him in the train compartment.

"Hmm," Bickslow hummed in thought, "Well, there's… Blondie, Cosplayer, Luigi, Lushy, Princess…"

"Bunny or Bunny Girl," Gajeel added, "Lu, Cheerleader, Cosplay Queen, Busty, Top Heavy, Titania 2.0, Squish. Pretty sure Sabertooth's guildmaster has started calling her Tits McGee—but you might have nipped that shit in the bud, since Ryos told me that Sting 'miraculously' got food poisoning a couple months back."

"Then there's all the things you call her," Bickslow chuckled. "That list is way too fucking long… You guys have been together for years, and you came up with most of them before we went to Tenrou."

Erik blinked slowly, trying to absorb all of the information he was taking in. From what he'd been told when he finally woke back up, Bickslow and Gajeel were putting the mission they were about to take on hold so they could get him to Lucy. They had carried him for hours to get to the nearest town, then got a carriage to take them to the next town over that had a connection with the railway system. It would still be several hours before they were in Magnolia, so Erik had decided that he should try to get information about anything and everything that he couldn't remember. His eye narrowed when he looked at Gajeel again. "Why exactly do you call her Bunny Girl?"

Phantom War. Breaking into a warehouse. Kidnapping the blonde he'd been sent to collect. Brutalizing her and beating her almost to death with his iron.

Erik felt a rage-filled growl escaping him, nearly incapable of recognizing it as his own while he watched guilt flash over the Iron Slayer's face for the briefest of moments. Before he could attack the bastard for that particular memory—of what was apparently the day Gajeel and Lucy met—one of his own decided to pop up.

*.*

"Y-You f-found me…" she sobbed, clutching tightly to his shirt as she tried to control her shuddering breaths to minimize the pain in her broken ribs.

He smirked and carefully lifted Lucy into his arms. He paused for a moment, looking over to where the Fire and Iron Slayers had started fighting against each other, and nestled his nose in her hair. As he hopped onto Cubellios' back and flew away from the fight, he whispered, "I'll always find you, Tinkerbell. We're partners, remember?"

Lucy smiled up at him, the pain she was in subsiding for a moment while she let herself get lost in those fathomless, indigo eyes. "You sound just like—"

*.*

Bickslow's totems shot forward when Erik lunged at Gajeel, knocking the wind out of the enraged Slayer and pushing him back into his seat. "Erik, just calm down… Gajeel—"

"Do you even know what he fucking did to her when they met?!" Erik shouted. Bickslow's soul suddenly seemed to match the discordant minor intonation of Gajeel's when the day he'd met Lucy surfaced in his memory.

Fantasia… A toy store. Dolls flying everywhere. 'Just following orders…' Attacking Lucy and the ginger-haired man named Loke.

Bickslow grimaced and nodded, dropping his head in shame. "Yeah, I know…"

*.*

A head of dirty, golden hair popped up over the edge of Cubellios' scales as she wrapped herself protectively around the prone Slayer who was half-buried in rubble from the deep crater surrounding him. A brilliant smile graced her face as Cubellios helped her climb over, then Lucy knelt down next to him and brushed her fingers through his sweaty hair. With a gentle and exhausted giggle, Lucy said, "Looks like I found you this time, Lost Boy."

Erik groaned as she helped him sit up, watching as Lucy gingerly wiped away the grime from the charred pieces of his outfit. Most of it was intact, even after taking that blast of lightning that Makarov's shit of a grandson had sent out to destroy the town and everyone else with it. Hers, on the other hand, hadn't fared nearly as well. He shrugged his jacket off and threw it at her face, snorting when she scowled at him and put it on. "Very funny…" he growled, leaning most of his weight on the surprisingly strong blonde as she helped him to his feet. "You're a goddamn riot."

Lucy laid her head on his shoulder while she smiled impishly up at him. "Y'know, I really am," she said, "Isn't that right, Cuby?"

Cubellios hissed softly as her head lowered to Lucy's face, her tongue flicking out and pulling a soft laugh from the blonde. Lucy tenderly kissed her snout, then a thankful smile spread across her face as Cubellios slithered around so she and Erik could climb on.

Lucy settled herself in front of Erik, and he grumbled, "Damn women… Always ganging up on me…" He heard her heart fluttering when his arms wrapped around her, pulling her back flush against his chest, then he turned and lightly kissed her cheek. A wide grin spread over Erik's face when he quite literally heard her squeal internally over that small show of affection. It was loud as hell, and would have normally been cause for him to flick her in the head to cut that shit out, but he couldn't bring himself to care about that when it was a reaction he'd been hoping to get from her. "I guess I can deal with it though," he added, "As long as it's a hot little Fairy like you." He watched a deep blush settling itself across her cheeks as Cubellios flew into the air and made her way back to the guild, and thought, 'If that's how she reacts when I kiss her cheek, I wonder what she'll do when I ask her out later tonight…'

*.*

Erik's eyesight focused on the two guilty mages in front of him, and he growled, "What the fuck is wrong with you two?!" Both of these guys had attacked Lucy at one point or another, but they talked about her as though she was one of their closest friends. "Any reason in particular you thought it was a good idea to attack her?"

Gajeel sneered, hating that his particularly violent past with Lucy was being brought up again, but it was Bickslow who quickly spoke. "Hey! At least I wasn't trying to sleep with her like Laxus was!"

"Who the hell is—" Erik paused, his eye going wide when he got a very clear picture of what Laxus looked like from Bickslow's memory. Spiky blond hair, a large fur-lined coat, strong jaw, odd scar over his face, and stormy blue eyes. "Her big brother… Was trying to fuck her?!"

The guilt that had consumed Gajeel and Bickslow was quickly washed away at the utter look of disgust on Erik's face, both of them laughing uproariously. "N-No, man! They're…" Bickslow said between laughs, his tongue lolling from his mouth, "They're not really related. He did that before they got to know each other. It wasn't until after the Grand Magic Games that they started acting like siblings."

While Erik slowly blinked, clearly trying to assimilate the new information, Gajeel said, "If it makes you feel any better, you tried to poison me for a solid month after I joined for what I did to Bunny... Fucking worked too, ya sneaky prick."

Bickslow nodded and chuckled. "Yeah, and you used your magic to somehow convince my babies that I was the Devil, and that I was going to eat them. It took months to get them to trust me again…"

Erik furrowed his brow, looking over to the windowsill in the compartment where the little totems had settled themselves, then shrugged. "Oh… Well then… That's cool." They were silent for a short while, then Erik said, "I know we're engaged… right?"

"Yeah, and mated," Gajeel said with a devious glint in his eye. "Good thing too, because Sparky was ready to kill you for not asking his permission first."

"Oh yeah!" Bickslow cackled, "He kept shocking you every time you got near her… And then Cosplayer ended up reminding him that you asked her out way before he became her brother. You nearly pissed yourself from laughing so hard when she made him apologize to you in front of the guild!"

Erik slowly shook his head while he looked out the window, the corner of his mouth pulling up into a small smirk. Apparently, he'd chosen one hell of a woman if she was able to rein in that blond behemoth that had taken the moniker of 'older brother' so seriously. He wanted so badly to see her. He had so many questions that he wanted to ask her. But mostly… He ached to hold her and kiss those beautifully plump lips of hers. His soul hummed happily at the thought of being with Lucy again, and even though he couldn't really remember too much about her, Erik had a good feeling that it was about to change.

Back to who I was
On to find my future
Things my heart still needs to know

Erik looked around at the town they were walking through, noticing all of the things that had changed since his last memory in X782. There were more buildings, for sure. But the oddest part of it all was the fact that the town appeared to have been separated in half, and everything was at least a good twenty feet in the air above them. "What the hell is up with this place?"

"Gildarts must have just gotten to the guild," Bickslow chuckled. "He's got a tendency to lose control of his magic, so the town built a path that leads straight to the guild for him to walk on. That way he can't accidentally make everything around him explode. Cost a shit-ton of money to do it, apparently, but I think it's saved the city more in the long run."

"Are all of you crazy fuckers so destructive?"

Gajeel gave him a feral grin. "Kinda what Fairy Tail does best. You and Bunny are probably the least destructive ones in the guild though. I think the most damage you two have done is blowing up a warehouse."

The trip was a short one, and Erik was finally staring anxiously up at the large doors in front of the Fairy Tail guild. This was it. He was actually going to see Lucy. "Is… Is she here?" he whispered.

Gajeel frowned and took a deep pull of the air. Morning dew, daisies, and a hint of bitterness that burnt the hairs in his nose even from this distance. She was definitely inside, but he couldn't understand how Erik wasn't able to tell just by scent alone. Realization dawned on him a moment later, and he chuckled as he thought, 'Oh yeah… He doesn't remember what she smells like…' He looked over at the maroon-haired mage, saw how tense he was, and reached over to open the door. Once it was opened enough, Gajeel grinned and pushed the distracted Slayer inside and shouted, "Bunny! I think I found a Lost Boy!"

Lucy turned from her conversation with Mira, feeling loads better after taking that nap with Flare, and her eyes landed on him. Pointed ears. Spiky maroon hair. Deliciously tanned skin. That familiar scowl. "E-Erik?" she whispered, a wide smile taking hold when he turned to look at her. With a squeal, Lucy scrambled off of her barstool and ran across the totally silent guild, lunging at her mate and tackling him to the ground.

Erik grunted once he hit the ground, his arms instantly wrapping around her bare waist to make sure she didn't get hurt in the fall. The first breath he took was filled with the most amazing scent he'd ever come across. That morning dew and daisies scent he'd smelled all over the apartment was definitely Lucy, but it was the toxic tinge to it that had his mouth watering and a contented purr rumbling through him. An eagle seemed to take flight in her soul once his nose brushed against her neck, but her confusion instantly overtook it while she pulled back with a frown. He looked into those deep chocolate eyes of hers, his eye wide in shock at just how much more beautiful she was in person. "Lucy" he whispered, hoping this wasn't some sick twisted dream that he would wake up from only to find himself in another hotel room. "I… I really found you…"

Lucy's head tilted to the side, her heart racing with happiness while her mind was trying to figure out just why he'd let her tackle him. Normally, Erik would just brace himself and catch her. So why hadn't he done that this time? She felt a twinge of guilt when she saw that his eye was closed in a wince, and once his words registered, her confusion only intensified. "Whatever happened to 'Tink'? C'mon, Pan… Where the hell have you been, anyway?"

*.*

"C'mon, Pan. Take my hand, and we'll fly!" Lucy said happily, reaching her hand out to gently grasp his.

"Crazy wench," Erik laughed, "You're not dragging my ass with you just because you're gonna kill yourself!"

Lilting laughter filled the air as Lucy squeezed his hand. She turned and wrapped her arms around his waist, sighing happily when he leaned down to kiss her. "But fairies fly, Erik!"

"Maxi pads and Red Bull do the same fucking thing," he chuckled. "Does that mean you're both?"

Lucy blanched and pulled her head back to gape at him. "That's disgusting… Do you have any idea how many cans of Red Bull one of those things can hold?" she whispered in horror. When Erik shook his head with a grin on his face, she whispered, "Too many…"

He blinked slowly and asked, "And you'd know that shit, how?"

"Research. A very strange day of research… That may have involved a couple bottles of tequila with Levy."

"'Nuff said," Erik replied. "Now, about these fairies flying…"

"That's what I am, right? Your little blonde fairy?"

Erik laughed again, taking in her bright smile and warm brown eyes shining with glee. The wind whipped past them, sending the sounds of the birds in the surrounding forest singing through the air. Her hair billowed off to one side, catching the sunlight and making her glow as though she was an angel. That sweet lullaby of her soul intensified the longer he looked at her. It was always a perfect harmony, so calm and soothing. Another gust of wind sent water misting over the pair of them, and his next breath was filled with her scent when he leaned down to kiss her again.

"I love you, Tink," he whispered tenderly, grinning when her face lit up at hearing those three little words for the first time. Why he hadn't said them sooner was something he couldn't understand, because seeing and hearing just how strongly she felt once he said it made him happier than he could have ever imagined. "You'll always be my little fairy."

"I-I... I love you too," Lucy whispered back, giggling happily and leaning up to capture his lips in another tender caress. Her hands smoothed over the multitude of scars on his back. "Now, come with me. Tink is gonna help you fly!"

Erik rolled his eyes and nodded. "Alright," he sighed dramatically, "I guess I can let you drag me to my death..." He paused and let his gaze drift down to see where her chest was pressed against his, grinning lecherously as he looked at the dark purple triangles of material that barely covered her chest. "But I'm getting a picture of you in this new bathing suit. You can put it in my casket."

Lucy grinned excitedly and took a step back, lacing her fingers with his as they stepped over to the edge of the waterfall. She peered down and looked at the lake below, then over to where they had set their bags down when she decided it was time for a swim before they went back to the guild from their mission. "Or you can keep it in your wallet for those late nights with a bottle of Jergen's," she teased, then squealed when Erik lunged at her and threw both of them over the edge of the waterfall.

Even with how much he had fought jumping over that waterfall, once he and Lucy were in the air, Erik felt like he was on top of the world. He didn't take his eyes off of her though. The giddy smile on her face as she laughed filled him to the brim with happiness, and their eyes locked just before they finally hit the water below.

*.*

Erik frowned when his eye refocused on Lucy's worried face. "I... I woke up in a hospital in Shirotsume," he said sadly. "I saw your picture in my wallet and... I've been looking for you, but... I didn't know where to go..." That familiar sting of tears made him flinch, and he quickly brought his hand up to press the heel against his scar-covered eye. He took a shaky breath, his mouth thinning into a grimace, and added, "I couldn't remember anything... But, I... I knew I had to find you..."

Lucy slid off of Erik and pulled him up to sit next to her, ignoring everyone around them as she slowly pulled his hand from his face. Her eyes widened and filled with tears when he lifted his head, and she finally realized that what she had thought was him wincing in pain was actually a scar closing his right eye. "Wh-What... Happened?" she whispered, slowly bringing her fingertips up to run over the skin. "It's gone... Oh god, who did this to you?!"

Erik shrugged and looked away again, suddenly not having a damn clue what he should say. He'd had so many questions he wanted to ask her, so much he wanted to know, but one look at the tears in her eyes made him feel like he'd failed her somehow. His gaze shot up and he gaped at Lucy when he heard the sadness in her soul turn into an astounding amount of rage. "Lucy, are yo—"

"Motherfucker," Lucy whispered in a hiss. "That's why there were bloody bandages at the apartment..." She leaned forward and brought both hands to his face, tenderly pressing her fingers to the scar there and nearly growling when he flinched. Yay for that particular side effect of being mated to a Dragon Slayer. Overprotective and fucking growling at things. "If I ever find the little fucker that did this to you, I'm shoving barbed wire down his goddamn urethra and burning his fucking skin off with sulfuric acid... No one hurts my baby and gets away with it."

While everyone else in the guild shuddered at the threat that so easily passed her lips, each of them thinking about the fact that Lucy ended up letting Virgo punish whoever hurt Erik, the Poison Slayer was finding himself both disturbed by the mental picture her unspoken words were painting... And insanely turned on.

Lucy was seething as she started running her hands carefully over Erik's torso and arms to see if there were any other injuries that hadn't healed completely. When Erik flinched again, she really did growl. "It's been a month, why haven't you healed up yet? Did you not have enough poison? Erik, what's—"

"Uh, Bunny? Take a breath," Gajeel said cautiously, shuddering and not-so-secretly taking a step behind Bickslow when she turned her scowl up to him. "Just sayin'... Your mate is confused as hell, and he's been trying to find you this whole time..."

"Cosplayer, he doesn't even remember joining the guild..."

When Lucy turned back to him, Erik nodded at her train of thought concerning not even remembering her—how she hadn't come into his life until he'd already been part of Fairy Tail for two years, the fact that he wouldn't know who she was, how happy they were together, or even what happened to Cubellios. Lucy, he was quickly coming to realize, had an uncanny ability to surprise him; and it happened yet again when she pulled him into her arms and started running her fingers through his hair while she started crying more insistently. "Please don't cry..." he whispered.

"Why shouldn't I?" Lucy sobbed, "You're hurt and… and you don't remember me..."

Erik hesitantly wrapped his arms around Lucy's waist, sighing when she cuddled closer to him in an instant. "Because it hurts to see you like this," he whispered softly. "I get flashes sometimes, and everything but my fucking brain remembers you. We're mated, so there's no way I could ever really forget you. I just… I don't have any memories of the shit we did together..." He whimpered when she only started crying harder, and felt a charge of static run through the air when a shadow covered both himself and Lucy.

"So you finally fucking came back," Laxus growled, his hands sparking dangerously as he stepped around Gajeel and Bickslow in the doorway to the guild. "You don't even deserve to be near her after the shit she went through trying to find you..."

"Laxus, man," Bickslow said carefully, "It's not his fault—"

"Bullshit!" Laxus roared. "She fucking saw him on that train, and he acted like she didn't even exist! What the hell was so important that you couldn't even pick up a lacrima and at least call her?! Shitty little bastard… Do you have any idea how much she's cried since you fucking disappeared?!"

Erik grimaced and closed his eye, pulling Lucy closer to himself when those words cut into him. The searing tears he had been fighting against came back more forcefully than before, and there was nothing he could do to stop them this time. He deserved the pain that came with it, and so much more for being the cause of Lucy's suffering. "I'm sorry, Lucy," he whispered, burying his nose in her hair, "I'm sorry I can't remember... I'm s-so fucking s-sorry..."

"Laxus," Bickslow whispered, throwing a hand on the Slayer's arm when he tensed to pull Erik away from Lucy. He pulled it back just as quickly when he got shocked, hissing in pain and cursing under his breath.

Gajeel growled and pushed Bickslow behind himself, gaining Laxus' attention with a punch to the side of his head. "He's got fuckin' amnesia, Sparky. He's been trying to find Bunny this whole time, and didn't have a fucking clue where to look for her. He didn't even know her goddamn name when he woke up."

"Yeah, I believe that about as much as Ivan bringing his sorry ass down here on fucking Christmas so the kiddies can sit on Santa's lap," Laxus sneered. "He left her ass here to do fuck only knows what and—"

Erik growled and pulled away from Lucy to stand and glare at the irate blond Slayer. "Look, Lightning Rod. I don't give a shit what you think I was doing, but I'd never fucking abandon Lucy. I woke up in that goddamn hospital thinking it was thirteen years ago, and the only clue I had about what the hell I'd been doing in all that time was a picture of her and a key to that apartment."

"Then why didn't you just stay there?" Laxus growled. "She was there two weeks ago."

"Because there was a note in some scrapbook that told me she was waiting for me! So, I packed up some shit and booked it! I didn't even know her goddamn name until some lady with a baby asked how she was doing!" Erik shouted, poison slowly beginning to leak from his mouth as his anger rose. When a gentle and familiar hand touched his back, he flinched and stepped away, snarling as he whirled around only to see Lucy's tear-filled eyes looking back at him. The pain that lanced through her soul at his actions—of stepping away from her touch—only made him feel worse. "Shit…" he whispered. "Lucy, I'm sorry…"

Lucy shook her head quickly and gave him a tremulous smile. "I-It's okay, Sugar. I couldn't touch your back when we met either… I understand."

"No, this is bullshit, sis," Laxus growled. "How are you just gonna believe him on this? Mate or not, it doesn't excuse what he fucking did."

"Fuck off, Spark Plug," Erik growled.

"Make me, asshole," Laxus growled in return.

Lucy's eyes widened when lightning and poison started filling the air around them. "Erik, stop! You could kill everyone here!" she shouted, rushing to stand between the two Slayers. She wrapped her arms around Erik and started humming his favorite song in her head, shivering when the poison he was letting off soaked into her skin. 'Fuck, I forgot how good that feels…'

Erik froze and stared down at Lucy incredulously. "How good what feels?" he whispered.

Lucy blushed and lifted his fingers to her lips, being careful not to touch his wrist, and closed her eyes while she slowly inhaled the poison leaking from his fingertips. She smiled softly and sighed, feeling like she was finally complete with her arms around him. When her eyes fluttered open, Lucy couldn't help but giggle at the vacant look in Erik's eye while he stared at her lips. "Your poison. It's the only kind I like more than sugar."

Erik's mouth quirked slightly when he looked back up into Lucy's eyes. "Good to know."

"Now, let's go see Master and find out if there's anything to be done about this memory loss," Lucy said sweetly, moving away and lacing her fingers with his. She turned to frown at Laxus, seeing him staring at her as though she had grown a second head. "If that wasn't proof enough for you, then I don't know what else he could possibly do to show you he's telling the truth. You know he would have just used his other magic to make you shut up if you pissed him off enough. And Erik never tries to challenge you with his poison. You owe him an apology when this is all sorted out, Laxus Dreyar. Otherwise, I'm not talking to you for a month."

Erik bit his lower lip to stifle his laughter when he heard a slew of whines and curses filter through Laxus' mind at being scolded in front of the guild. He took a quick step away from Lucy when she tried to elbow him, then chuckled and moved back to her side when she pouted at him. "Gotta be faster than that," he whispered challengingly.

"Erik, child," Makarov said happily once the young couple was standing in front of him, his aged eyes sadly taking in the scar that ran over the Poison Slayer's eye.

"Who's the old man?" Erik whispered to Lucy.

"Erik, this is Master Makarov," Lucy said sweetly. "Master, he—"

"So I heard," Makarov replied, keeping his gaze on Erik. Although the tanned mage looked the same as he had a month ago—scarred eye notwithstanding—his posture was nearly identical to the day he had joined. Then again, the only real difference in it at this point was that it was Lucy by his side and not his large purple snake, Cubellios. "What is the last thing you remember, Erik?"

Erik frowned and narrowed his eye at the older man, wondering just why he couldn't get a clear read on his soul. With a sigh, deciding that the bastard probably had some sort of protection against his particular brand of magic, he cleared his throat and said, "The last thing I remember is walking through the woods with Cubellios on our way to…" He paused and his frown deepened. That was where the memory got hazy. There were just snippets of the same memory from that point on, but he had to focus on pulling those little bits out. "We were wandering around, looking for a guild to join… And a woman with red hair found us… She was… She was wearing armor, maybe?"

"That would be Erza," Makarov supplied, smiling and pointing to the end of the bar where the Requip mage was eating another slice of strawberry cake while she watched everything unfold.

Erik turned to look at the woman, and his eye widened when he realized she was the woman in the picture that had named them as siblings. His stomach churned when he heard a portion of her soul screaming in terror while it was locked in a box of sorts. 'That sounds like the Tower… Was she there too?' He nodded slowly and turned back to Makarov. "Yeah, her. And then she gave me some directions on a piece of paper and left… It's all blank after that."

"That is the day you joined the guild, child," Makarov sighed. Erza had found Erik and Cubellios just before they entered Magnolia, and when he had asked if she knew of a mages' guild nearby, she had pointed him in the direction of Fairy Tail. He had apparently been concerned about everyone's reaction to Cubellios, but Erza had assured him that she would be considered another member of the guild if he chose to join. Makarov knew it would take some time to figure out just what had happened to Erik's memories, especially since Wendy was out on a mission right then. He looked at Lucy for a moment, seeing the dozens of questions in her eyes. "I will contact Porlyusica to see if she has any suggestions on a course of action until Wendy returns. She can also create an artificial eye for you, so—"

"No," Erik said quickly, then turned to gape at Lucy when he realized she said the same thing.

"I might not like that you lost your eye, but… You look really sexy like this." Lucy blushed and kept her gaze on the floor, a small smile on her lips when Erik squeezed her hand.

"No," Erik repeated as he turned back to see the guildmaster grinning at him. "It's been like this for a month, and I've pretty much adjusted to the lack of depth perception… Thanks, though…"

"Master, will Wendy be able to get his memories back?" Lucy asked softly.

Makarov sighed and shrugged. "I haven't a clue, child. She should be able to if there is an injury that is keeping them out of reach, but…"

"If it's a spell of some sort then she might not be able to do anything," Erik finished, his face hardening at the thought of not regaining what he knew were some very happy memories with Lucy. "I get bits and pieces sometimes, if that helps…"

"Then there is hope that she will be able to heal whatever is causing your memory loss," Makarov said with a grin. "Now, since you've finally returned, I believe it's time to welcome you back in true Fairy fashion." He paused and took a deep breath, then shouted, "It's time for a party!"

Yes, let this be a sign
Let this road be mine
Let it lead me to my past

It was several hours later that Lucy and Erik were finally able to sneak away from their celebrating guild mates. Lucy led him to their normal table, tucked in the farthest corner of the guild just next to where Gajeel usually sat eating his metal, and sighed once she sat down. Normally, she would have instantly tucked herself under Erik's arm and cuddled right up to him, but she didn't want to push him too much if he had mentally reverted back to the mild aversion to touch he'd had when they met—or, worse than when they had met, she supposed, since it had taken him two years just to allow anyone within a few feet of him if he wasn't in one of the guild brawls.

Erik frowned at where Lucy's mind had gone, and wrapped his arm around her shoulder once he sat down beside her. He chuckled at the startled expression on her face, and said, "I know you're not gonna hurt me, Lucy. I'm just trusting my previous judgment to let you close, even though you're right about that…"

Lucy smiled up at him and snuggled a little closer, sighing happily when she could hear his heart beating against his chest. It was a little faster than normal, but she figured it was because he was being touched when his memories of the progress he'd made were gone.

"Do you think you could help me fill in some of the blanks?" Erik whispered uncomfortably. He didn't understand exactly why he felt nervous all of a sudden, but he knew it had something to do with the fact that he needed to rely on someone that was essentially a stranger. 'Not entirely,' he reminded himself as he looked down at the mating mark on her shoulder, 'I just can't remember everything right now… That's all it is. She's still the woman I love.'

"Of course," Lucy said happily. "Ask me anything."

"What happened to Cubellios?" There were far too many questions concerning Lucy herself, and he knew that he would probably spend hours relearning everything about her. "Did… Is she okay?"

Lucy sat up a little bit and pointed over to the bar, smiling when she saw Kinana looking their way with a rarely seen reminiscent smile. "See the purple-haired lady over there?" she asked. When Erik grunted, she said, "That's Cubellios. She goes by Kinana now."

Erik's eye widened, his jaw dropping while he looked at the woman that he'd seen pictured with himself at the apartment. "That's… How?"

"Well," Lucy said softly. "Cubellios got sick before we went to Tenrou for the S-Class trials, so you had to leave her here with Porlyusica. So, at some point during the seven years we were frozen on the island—"

"Wait, what?" Erik asked in confusion. "Frozen on an island?"

"Yeah," Lucy nodded sadly. "A huge dragon attacked, and the guild's first master showed up as a ghost and saved us. But the spell she used kept us frozen in stasis for seven years…"

Erik nodded slowly. That would explain why he didn't look a whole thirteen years older than his memories. If he had been frozen in some sort of spell for seven years, then he was technically only missing six years' worth of memories. It also explained the huge time gap in the scrapbook, and maybe even why Lucy had added years to the captions.

"Anyway, she ended up turning into a human while we were gone," Lucy continued. "We figured out that Kinana was actually Cuby just before the Grand Magic Games in X791—it was a couple months after we got back. You kept saying that you felt like someone was calling out to you, but you couldn't figure out where it was coming from. Then someone tried to attack me while you were out on a mission with Natsu—" She paused and pointed over to the salmon-haired Fire Dragon Slayer that was in an arm-wrestling match with Gray. "—And Kinana got really upset when she found out what happened because I came into the guild all bloodied up. She ended up collapsing and turned into a snake right there. As it turns out she was cursed, and if she gets too upset now she'll turn back into a snake for a few days."

"So… she wasn't really a snake that whole time?"

"Not really," Lucy said gently, furrowing her brow when she looked up to see a strange emotion sitting on Erik's face. She couldn't place what it was, but it almost looked like he was saddened by the news. "You guys are still best friends, Erik. She doesn't remember much about when she was a snake, but she gets bits and pieces here and there. She does remember how you met, and helping you get out of the Tower, and you two just worked around what she couldn't remember."

"What about Erza?" he asked softly, his brow furrowing as he looked over to see the woman in question bashing two guys' heads together while she scolded them. "There was a picture at the apartment..."

Lucy smiled again, drawing slow circles on the hand caressing her shoulder. "She's your sister, like Laxus is my brother. You told me that when you joined the guild, you waited for her to come back and asked why you heard the Tower in her soul... When you guys realized that you both grew up there, you became inseparable."

"She was... She was there too?" Erik asked. His eye locked into Erza's, and he watched with no small amount of trepidation as she walked over to the table he and Lucy were sitting at. She held so much power and authority in her stride, but her face was a stern mask that he could tell had been created to lock the Tower away.

Erza smiled as she sat down at the table, then stuck out her gauntlet-covered hand and said, "Erza Scarlet. I don't know how much Lucy has told you, but I'm willing to answer any questions you might have."

Erik looked down at the gauntlet, then up to her face. She was absolutely ecstatic that he had returned, but the knowledge that he had no memory of her, or even of Lucy, had her soul wailing and the Tower growing with her inner torment. He slowly lifted his hand, placing it carefully in hers, and tightly gripped it when she tried to pull away after their salutations were complete. "You're my sister?"

Erza nodded quickly, a pained smile taking place on her lips. "It seems we have more in common now," she said, lifting her other hand and pointing to her right eye. "Master offered you an artificial one because they had already made one for me..."

"When..."

"When else?" Erza asked softly. When his eye widened as realization dawned on him, she lowered their joined hands to the table, bringing her other hand up and requipping out of her armor to feel the familiar calluses on his fingers and palm. She sighed as she looked down at the scar on his wrist that was peeking out from under his sleeve. "Lucy has helped you a great deal since you brought her to the guild, Erik," she said with a fond smile. "I did what I could in the two years before that, but... There's only so much a sister can do."

Erik nodded slowly as he looked at their joined hands, then whispered, "Did your family sell you to them? Is that why you've got a name?"

"No, I was taken. A friend in the Tower gave me the name because of my hair." Erza paused, lightly squeezing his hand and smiling when Erik lifted his saddened eye to meet her gaze. "Just as I gave it to you. You've been Erik Scarlet since X782."

"You... I..." Erik sputtered, then looked from Erza to Lucy when they both laughed. "Really?"

Lucy smiled and nodded. "Yep. And you'll be giving it to me when we finally get married," she said sweetly. "I'll be the first Scarlet that doesn't have red hair!"

"Hey, Titania!" Gajeel bellowed from the bar. "There's more cake up here!"

Erik blinked when Erza ripped her hands from his and made a mad dash across the guild hall, instantly taking residence at the same stool she'd been in when he was talking to Makarov. "What the fuck?" he whispered absently.

Lucy laughed and rolled her eyes. "Erza has a huge sweet tooth. Cake is apparently always on her mind."

Erik nodded then said, "Wait... She's Titania?"

"Yep, why?"

"Because I've heard of her, even before joining the guild I guess... She's a monster..."

"Yes," Lucy giggled, "I nearly had a heart attack when she threatened to maim me if I dared to besmirch your honor..."

"You're fucking kidding!" Erik cackled. When Lucy shook her head, her laughter increasing in volume along with his. "So, why is it that you're called Titania 2.0?"

"Huh? Oh! You mean Scary Lucy?" Lucy rolled her eyes and said, "That's what people call me when I'm angry. I think it was Laxus or Gajeel that started that one, and you usually just call me Scary Lucy or something about being a goddamn psycho."

"That's because you're terrifying when you're mad, Luce!" Natsu shouted happily as he ran by, holding Gray's boxers in his hand while the naked mage chased him.

"Yeah, you even made Master cry!" Happy added while running interference and slowing Gray down by shoving Juvia in his path. "But, that could be because he thought you were gonna sit on him..."

"I'M NOT FAT, YOU MANGY FURBALL!" Lucy bellowed, her face turning red in her agitation when Happy laughed and flew away. "One of these days, I'm just going to cover him in spit until he swears not to say it anymore..." she grumbled.

Before Erik could respond, a white-haired barmaid came over to their table with a tray of food and a sweet smile. He recognized her face and the pink dress she was wearing from the picture of his and Lucy's first mission together, but there wasn't a name. As if she'd read his thoughts, the woman smiled sweetly and said, "My name's Mira Jane, Erik. Everyone calls me Mira, though."

Erik nodded shortly and took a breath to say something, then his eye closed when he smelled what was on that tray in her hands. He couldn't tell exactly what it was, but he knew that he'd mow down whoever he needed to so he could get a bite of it. "What in the name of all that is holy is on that fucking plate... And who do I have to kill for it?"

Lucy smiled up at Mira and giggled while she sat up. "Looks like someone's a little hungry for your delicious cooking, Mira." She turned to see Erik's eye was still closed and said, "Sugar, you're smelling our food. Mira adds whatever element she needs to for the Dragon Slayers' food, since you guys need to eat it so often."

"You're fucking kidding me, right?" When Lucy shook her head and smiled at him, he turned to look up at Mira. "That's… damn…"

Mira let out a small laugh and grabbed the first plate from the tray. "Erik, I wanted to try something different for when you came back, but with the circumstances I figured I'd make you the same thing you ate when you joined the guild. So, you've got Paneed Veal with Amatoxin cream sauce, and a side of sautéed Lily of the Nile leaves." She paused and grabbed his drink, then added, "And a beer with chlorine."

When Erik just continued staring at Mira, Lucy quickly realized that he was caught up in listening in on Mira's soul. Which was something that he really didn't need to experience on his first day back.

"Blonde hair, tan skin, brown eyes."

"No, I say purple instead of brown. It'll make the eyes pop more."

"His hair and eyes, her complexion, and definitely his ears. It'll be perfect!"

"No! Twins! Triplets even! Oh, so many babies! They all need his ears though!"

"Oh, I agree, Sitri. Then the little girls could dress up as elves for Halloween! And they wouldn't need to use any of those stupid prosthetics!"

"Really? That's where you went with those ears on adorable babies? How about little boys with—"

"There's nothing wrong with wanting to dress them up like elves for Halloween, Halphas!"

"Don't make me come over there, Sitri… Good. Now, what about little boys with—"

Lucy lightly elbowed Erik to gain his attention, and when he jumped and stared at her, she simply smiled at Mira and said, "He's been getting little flashes of his memories, so he zones out sometimes."

"Ignore it at all costs, Erik. Those are demon souls that Mira uses for her magic, and they apparently know when you're listening... Also, Halphas isn't above making you cry for listening in while they're plotting our future. No, I'm not kidding… She's done it before. It took me two hours to get you to unlock the bathroom door, and you wouldn't talk to me about what she said to you for a week. Trust me, that's something you don't want to remember…"

Mira smiled sweetly and grabbed the other plate on the tray. "Lucy, you haven't tried this yet. I made you the same thing, but you've got a shitake cream sauce since I know you don't like having too much poison at once. I did add a little ground hemlock in the sauce though. Gives it that extra kick that it's missing without the Amatoxin. And some jasmine tea."

Erik stared at Lucy in amazement while she took a bite of some poisonous greens, and his breath stuttered when her eyes slid closed and she moaned softly. He shook his head and quickly took a bite of his veal, and his eye widened when those potent toxic flavors burst across his taste buds. "Fuck, Mira," he said once he swallowed. "You're amazing…"

Mira laughed and shook her head, holding the tray to her chest as she said, "This is a much better recipe than what you used to eat back then. Since you and Lucy became a team, she started experimenting with different poisons to see what the best way to prepare them was."

Lucy blushed and nodded as she took a sip of her tea, then sheepishly admitted, "Yeah, but you had to be there with me in case I forgot that I had put something poisonous in the whole batch… Since that first time I almost got my dumb ass killed for taste testing the soup…" She paused and sighed as she glared at her plate. "Stupid snake venom trying to kill me…"

"Seriously?" Erik deadpanned. "You forgot that you put snake venom in the soup?"

"One, yes," Lucy countered. "And two? That's the exact same thing you said after you got the poison out…" When she saw him raise the eyebrow over his good eye, Lucy giggled. "I didn't realize until we were together that you didn't have to actually suck on my neck to get it out… Sneaky bastard. I had a hickey for a week, and Mira lost her mind trying to force me to bear your children right then and there…"

Erik paused mid-chew to look at Lucy, seeing a fond smile and a light blush on her cheeks while she replayed the memory of that day. Honestly, he was pretty impressed with himself for doing something so damn risky when she'd ingested snake venom. That is, until he heard her own thoughts during that time that were running along the lines of: 'Oh god, yes. Suck harder. Fuck, that feels good… Mmm, who would have thought those sharp teeth would turn me on this much? Oh shit, he's licking me?! Damn… Okay… Control yourself a little, Lucy… Just. A. Lit—If he doesn't let go soon, I'm fucking him right here!' He cleared his throat and waited until Mira walked away, then asked, "When exactly did that happen?"

"Hmm? Oh, the snake venom thing?" When Erik nodded, she smiled sheepishly and said, "About a month after I joined. So, it was still a couple of months before we started dating."

"I see," Erik answered with a smirk. "So, we've been together for..."

"Our anniversary is in October," Lucy said. "Not including the time skip, it's almost five years. You proposed on New Years. Right at midnight."

"And that was when I marked you?"

Lucy nodded happily. "It threw me off though, because you were being a total sweetheart all day," she laughed. "I thought you'd been possessed."

"Am I really that much of an asshole to you?" Erik whispered sadly.

"No, Pan. You're a sweetheart when you wanna be, but I fell in love with your sense of humor." She took another bite of her food, then paused and burst into a fit of laughter.

"Lucy, I heard what you were thinking, and I'm fucking lost…" Erik said softly. "Your shit just… stopped working… And then you started laughing…" He watched in shock and a little trepidation when Lucy just laughed harder, trying to listen in and figure out what had caused her brain to malfunction. The only thing he could hear from her was more. Fucking. Laughter. Inside of her head. All the way down to her soul. 'Since when can someone's fucking soul laugh?!' If he had thought it was creepy to hear a bunch of demons talking to one another about their plans for his and Lucy's future children, this one took the cake. He had no way to even put into words the level of creepiness this shit had reached, because it was all Lucy's voice—all her own laughter—just at different pitches all at once. The worst part about it all though, was the fact that even this weird noise coming from her soul was making him hard. 'Really? This is sexy somehow?! REALLY?! How am I getting turned on by this?!'

"I'm… I'm sorry!" Lucy laughed, wiping away her tears and fanning her face. She took a deep breath, then said, "You said you know why you call me Tinkerbell, right?"

"Yeah, because you're a blonde fairy… And you look sexy as hell in a green mini-dress."

Lucy blushed and whispered, "It was your idea for me to dress up that way, y'know."

"Wait," Erik whispered, "You… really wore a… What the… Please tell me there's a picture of this somewhere." He had been joking about the mini-dress. Well, not necessarily joking, but he was only going based off of his imagination concerning her looking like the little fairy. Then again, that mental picture he got was probably the exact reason he'd actually gotten her to wear it.

Lucy's blush deepened as she said, "Yes, there's a whole album at home of everything you've gotten me to wear so far, Erik. That one seems to be your favorite though."

"You mean you wore it—"

"More than once? Yes. Wings and little green shoes included. We chose not to deal with pixie dust… Because glitter is the fucking devil."

Erik nodded in agreement. Even he knew just what glitter could do if not properly handled… while wearing a hazardous material suit. Even then, he was sure the little particle of satanic shininess would find a way to weasel their way in and stick to a person. "Question before you keep going with this explanation…" When Lucy nodded, he said, "Just what have I gotten you to wear?"

"Let's see… I've been Tinkerbell, a cheerleader, a maid, a cop, a firefighter, Alice in Wonderland, a cat—which was a weird request, until I realized you were doing it to piss Loke off." Lucy laughed when she saw Erik's jaw dropping with each costume she named, his eye glazing over as he very clearly pictured her in each costume. "A ballerina, an angel, a devil, a prisoner, a go-go dancer, a dominatrix, Belle with you as the Beast, a fucking dragon… You know, I guess I can't yell at Bickslow for calling me 'Cosplayer,' now that I think about it…"

"… Wow…" Erik said breathlessly. "I should have waited to ask you that one…"

Lucy laughed again and said, "So… Because you kept calling me Tinkerbell, which you eventually shortened to Tink, I started calling you Peter Pan—or Pan. You've got the pointed ears, plus you're a mischievous little shit when you want to be."

"Alright," Erik said with a quick shake of his head to try and dismiss the images that were whirling around in there. "And the whole 'brain-stopping' thing you pulled?"

Lucy giggled and lifted her fork that had a few Lily of the Nile leaves on it. "Mira said you were eating these when you first joined. And she already told you that I've been fiddling around with different poisonous plants and chemicals to figure out how to season your food. Because of that, I know that the other name for these is Peter Pan. So, even though you fought me calling you that in the beginning, it looks like I was right all along. You've always been Peter Pan."

"That's just wrong…" Erik scowled at her, then quickly leaned forward and stole the poisoned plant from her fork. "Delicious, but wrong…"

Lucy smiled and lifted her thumb to his lip, then swiped away a small bit of moisture that had dripped onto it from what he'd just eaten. Without thinking, because it was what she normally did anyway, Lucy popped her thumb into her mouth to clean her thumb off, then paused when she caught Erik watching her with rapt attention. "What?"

"Nothing, just… You keep surprising me, and it's weird as hell."

Lucy finished the last bite of her food and said, "You told me before that it's because I think too much. You can't always hear everything that's going on inside my head, so I end up surprising you more often than not. You'll get used to it, Erik. I'm the only one that does it."

A few minutes later, Mira came by the table with a freshly chlorinated beer for Erik and another cup of tea for Lucy. "How was everything?"

"Delicious," they answered in unison.

"You know, Erik," Mira said as she put all of the empty dishes on the tray, "I don't know why you didn't just look at your guild mark. That would have given you a clue on where to go while you were looking for Lucy."

Erik frowned and looked down at himself as if he could see his skin through his clothes. "I didn't see one anywhere…"

When Mira frowned in confusion, Lucy sighed and said, "That would be because it's on your back. I guess you wanted to have it in a place that you could easily keep hidden, since Master tended to send you on recon missions when you joined."

"I let someone put a stamp on my back?" Erik asked incredulously. "How?"

"Because it was Master," Lucy answered. "You were tense as hell from what you told me, but he did it as quickly as possible and made sure to put it where there weren't any scars. So, it's between your shoulder blades."

"Well, that makes sense then. I didn't have any reason to look at my back when I woke up." Erik frowned and pulled out the scrapbook he'd been carrying with him for the past month. "And I would have had an idea sooner if your guild mark was actually in one of these pictures. I could only see a little bit of it, so I thought you just had a tattoo on your hand."

"We'll just have to fix that then!" Mira said with a wide grin, pulling a camera out from thin air and lifting it into the air triumphantly. "Lucy, let's see that guild mark!"

Lucy laughed and rolled her eyes, then lifted her right hand into the air with the Fairy Tail emblem facing the camera. She leaned into Cobra's side when his arm hesitantly wrapped around her shoulders, then smiled just before the flash momentarily blinded her. Mira handed her the newest picture, and Lucy pulled out a pen while the image appeared on the photo paper.

"Lucy Heartfilia, Fairy Tail mage. X795."

"There," Lucy said with a nod as she stuck it to the inside of the front cover for the scrapbook, "And we'll get a picture of yours later on when we're at home, and I'll put it right in here with mine."

Erik smirked and gently squeezed Lucy's shoulders when he heard the extraordinarily perverted pit her mind had fallen into, then sighed and looked down at the scrapbook while Mira collected everything and made her way back to the bar. "You know," he whispered as his thumb brushed over the first picture in the book of them kissing, "This thing is the only way I even knew we were really together… It's probably why I searched even harder for you…"

"If you'd like, I can tell you what we were doing for these pictures. Maybe it'll help trigger something," Lucy answered softly.

"In a bit, sure," Erik nodded. "I guess you were the one that decorated that apartment, right?"

"Yeah, except for the bedroom," Lucy giggled.

Erik chuckled. "So that was my idea then?"

"Yep, everything except for the mirror," Lucy answered with a sly grin. "Your head nearly exploded when I installed it… And we didn't leave that room for a very long time because of it." When Erik grinned at her, she couldn't help by smile right back. 'If he was in the bedroom, then… I wonder if he found the handcuffs… God, that would be hard to explain if… OH, FUCK ME! HE CAN HEAR ME!' Lucy slowly turned her head to see Erik staring at her with his eye widened, and his face a shade paler than usual.

"What…?" Clearly she had to be kidding, right? Erik shuddered at the thought of being anywhere near handcuffs, the time when he'd worn those shackles much more recent in his memory than it should have been.

"Oh!" Lucy said quickly when he started trembling slightly. "No! No, don't worry. The handcuffs go on me! It's fine! I actually really like it when you tie me up!"

Erik jolted in surprise, and stared down at Lucy while a very clear memory of hers started playing out in his head.

*.*

"Do it, Erik… Fuck, yes! Tie me up…" Lucy writhed and moaned on the bed, her breath hitching when he roughly grabbed her wrists and cuffed them behind her back. She was quickly rolled over from her stomach, and stared up at the mirrored ceiling. She moaned loudly when he threw her legs over his shoulders and dove down face first between her legs, the mirror that she had installed recently giving her the perfect view of just what he was doing to her. "Oh my god!"

*.*

"Wow," Erik whispered, his voice shaking slightly while the memory faded. "Leave it to me to find the hottest lunatic out there…"

"Aw, thanks," Lucy teased with a blush. "Right back at y—"

"Why the fuck am I hearing about your sex life?!" Laxus shouted from the bar. "Shut the hell up, little sis!" He let out a bark of laughter when Flare smacked him in the back of the head while Lucy gave him the middle finger. "Love you guys, too!"

Erik watched that short interaction between the three, and then his eyes locked onto Laxus'. He raised an eyebrow when he heard what the guy was very intentionally thinking about, then leaned down to whisper in Lucy's ear. "Your brother says someone named Virgo still needs to give him a new set of cuffs since Little Red over there broke through the last ones... Something about her hair burning through them when she got too excited."

Lucy turned back to Laxus and rolled her eyes with a sweet smile on her face. "I'll make sure Virgo gets a pair that's fire resistant, big brother," she said just loud enough for him to hear her. A simple wink was thrown her way before he turned back to his wife, rubbing her stomach tenderly when she curled up to his side.

Erik sighed and looked around at all of the unfamiliar faces. These were people he had apparently known for years. Friends and—from what he'd been told about how the guild worked by Gajeel and Bickslow on the train—family, with tons of memories that he no longer had with them. He didn't remember Kinana, who was once his best friend. He couldn't even remember Erza, who had clearly become an important part of his life if she'd given him her name and they had actually identified as siblings. The worst of all of them was Lucy though. He could feel that connection he had with her from their mating, and a recognition of her soul that echoed in his. His heart sent the barest tendrils of warmth out when he thought of her. He knew it was all there, but the lack of memories to associate with Lucy made it seem as though everything he felt for her was just a figment of his imagination. He hated it. Everything was so different from the memories that he still had, that it just made him feel like he'd been left in the dust somehow.

"Hey, what's with the sourpuss face?" Lucy asked softly, turning in her chair to fully look at her fiancé.

"Just wishing I could actually remember everything," Erik muttered as he looked back down at the scrapbook. He flipped through the pages, looking at all of the memories he should have with Lucy, and sighed when he got to the final page with the picture of the night he'd marked her and proposed. "Especially this… I don't want a damn picture of what happened that night… I want to actually fucking remember it. And you… You're the most important person in my life, and I can hardly remember you… Except for the small shit that's popped up already…"

Lucy smiled down at the picture. She remembered that night so vividly, and she knew that Erik had as well. It had been one of the best nights of her life—and not because of the whole process of him marking her. That was the night she'd gotten everything she wanted in life. She looked back up at Erik's face, then slowly reached up and turned his head so she was looking into his one indigo eye. "Well," she whispered lovingly, "If you don't remember me, then we'll just have to fix that. And if, for whatever reason, Wendy can't help you get your memories back… Then that just means I get to make you fall in love with me all over again, Pan."

Erik's breath stalled in his throat when she leaned forward and pressed her lips to his. His heart started pounding wildly in his chest as warmth washed over him from where their lips were joined, flowing through his veins and sinking deep into his muscles and bones. The few memories he had of kissing her were nothing in comparison to this. The lips he'd been thinking about for a month were everything he could have wanted, but it was the way her soul started soaring, how the lullaby he had associated with her crescendoed into a full-blown symphony, that had him drowning in her very essence.

He quickly realized that this was the same song he'd heard when he had boarded that train the week prior, except there wasn't a single dissonant tone of desperation altering the melody of her soul. She had really been at the train station that day. It hadn't been just a whispered memory from his own soul. Erik had been blocking out the sounds of everyone around him so much that he had missed her completely. Even though he felt like an asshole for that mistake, Lucy's soul was practically reaching out its warm and inviting arms, and enveloping him completely.

Every trill and tremolo, every note that gently slurred from one pitch to the next, each perfectly harmonized note within the varying melodies left him in awe of the woman in his arms. Erik wanted to say that he would never forget this, but he already knew it was entirely possible. Instead of dwelling on what he had lost, he focused on what she did next. Her tongue lightly flicked out across his lips, and the astoundingly familiar zing of how she tasted mixed with poison had him unknowingly growling possessively and pulling her even closer. His lips parted, allowing her sweet and deliciously sinful tongue to slide into his mouth. Everything inside of him was roaring to life while they kissed, pushing against the fog that had locked his memories away. It wasn't nearly strong enough to break through, but he lucked out when Lucy's own memories of the times they had kissed like this started flowing through her. Erik was so focused on her soul, her memories, the feel of her body pressed to his, and the way she was kissing him as though it was the only way for her to continue living, that he didn't hear a single thing that was happening around them.

"Heh," Bickslow chuckled as he wrapped his arms around Gajeel's waist from behind resting his head on the Iron Slayer's shoulder, "Laxus, I'm surprised you haven't yelled at them for making out yet."

"I don't have a death wish," Laxus reasoned, glancing over to see Erik pulling Lucy into his lap and her back arching while his hands ran over it to the curve of her ass. "Then again, he clearly does..."

Flare sighed happily and playfully flicked her husband in the forehead with a lock of her hair, giggling when he turned his glare to her. "You leave Blondie and Cobra alone. A month without your mate will do that to you, and you know it."

"Doesn't mean I have to fucking like it," Laxus grumbled as he took a swig of his beer. "Couldn't they do that somewhere else, so I don't have to see my little sister being defiled right here?"

"Gihi. Sorry, Sparky," Gajeel laughed. "Looks like you just have to put on your big girl panties and suck it up... Kinda like Bunny's doin'!"

When Laxus growled and got ready to shock the metal bastard—even though he knew Bickslow would get a little bit of it as well—Makarov walked across the bar top with a wide grin on his ancient face. "I was wondering if he was ever going to kiss her at the guild..."

Everyone turned to stare at their guild master, and Mira gasped. "You're right," she whispered in horror, "No one ever sees them kiss! Not unless it's a special occasion, or someone catches them... But even then, it's only a little peck on the lips."

"You're fucking kidding me, right?" Bickslow chuckled. "I'd be all over Cosplayer all the damn time if I was with her."

"Bix," Flare laughed, "We know... You and Mercury Mouth can't keep your hands off of each other... Ever."

"That's because Bix's tongue is a fucking treasure..." Gajeel shot back with a proud grin, turning in Bickslow's arms and pulling his visor off to brush their noses together. "And I'm a greedy ass dragon."

"Damn, you guys are fucking ridiculous," Laxus chuckled. "Five minutes. You can't go five fucking minutes without—See? Now they're ignoring me to make out again…"

Gajeel pulled back and smirked down at the slightly dazed expression on Bickslow's face, then turned to Laxus and said, "Not our fault you're a cold-hearted bastard. Looney Tune, give your man some lovin'… Maybe you can pull that lightning rod out of his ass."

When Flare just kept humming tunelessly while staring off into space and rubbing her belly, clearly having one of her little moments of introspection that he'd come to know so well, Laxus shook his head at Gajeel. "At least I had the balls to make her my mate, Bolt Biter. What's your excuse?"

Bickslow was finally broken free from his stupor and turned to look at his oldest friend with a tongue lolling grin. "He doesn't have an excuse, boss man." He rolled up the sleeve on his left arm, and showed Laxus the small cluster of iron scales that wrapped around his forearm like a bracer. "He asked me a couple days ago. I was gonna tell you when we got back from that mission."

"Son of a bitch," Laxus whispered in shock, looking from the mark on Bickslow's arm to Gajeel's cocky grin and back. After he took a moment to let the information sink in, he narrowed his eyes and gave Gajeel a hard glare. "Hurt him and I'll fucking end you."

"Trust me, I don't plan on it."

"Sorry, I don't think all the lovin' in the world could get that lightning rod out of his ass," Flare finally said when she came back to reality. "I could try getting a whole hand up there to pull it out, but he won't let me get more than a finger in."

"Yes, it's been wedged up there for years," Makarov chimed in, cackling as he jumped out of the way when a 'mysterious' bolt of lightning shot towards him.

"See, Sparky? It's hopeless," Gajeel laughed.

"You're so fucking dead," Laxus growled.

Lucy slowly lifted her head to catch her breath when there was a loud crash at the table right next to her and Erik. She turned to see a slightly smoking Gajeel stand up and brush debris off of himself before yelling out something about Laxus and fingers in his ass as he rushed back into the beginning stage of a guild-wide brawl. Seemingly nonplussed, she turned back to Erik with a seductive smile. "I missed you too, Pan."

Erik was torn between going right back to what they were doing, and watching as nearly every member of the guild started fighting one another. Tables and chairs were thrown everywhere, magic misfired and hit pillars and rafters. A guy with short black hair threw his shirt off faster than Erik could see while a chilled mist surrounded him. Natsu was breathing fire from his mouth while riding on top of a huge, muscled man with white hair, screaming about being 'fired up'. A soft laugh caught his attention, and he turned back to look up at Lucy, only just realizing that she was straddling him and her nails were lightly dragging over his scalp while she smiled down at him. "What kind of fucked up insane asylum did I wander into?" he asked carefully.

"Oh that?" Lucy asked sweetly. "That's just the first party brawl. There should be about four more before midnight."

"It's already seven at night, Lucy."

She nodded happily then leaned down and pressed a soft kiss to the lips she'd been missing for so long. "Just another day in Fairy Tail," she whispered.

Erik couldn't help but smile back while he listened to her soul's lilting melody while she stared deeply into his eye. "Y'know," he said softly, sliding his hands up from what he belatedly realized was the most perfect ass he'd ever felt, "I don't think you'll have to work too hard to get me to fall in love with you, Tink." He chuckled when Lucy's eyes lit up, her thoughts revolving around his use of her little nickname. "Your soul's singing, and it makes me feel like I'm home."

Lucy giggled as happy tears filled her eyes. 'I love you so much, Erik,' she thought. She brought her hands to his cheeks, her thumb brushing over the bottom portion of the scar on his right eye, and said, "Well then… Welcome home, Pan."

Erik gently brushed away the few tears that had escaped her eyes, then leaned up and brushed his lips against hers when he replied, "I love you too, Tink. Told you I'd always find you…" When Lucy let out a watery and downright giddy laugh, he finally closed the distance and kissed her with everything he was worth. It didn't matter to him in that moment if he ever got his memories back, because he could always make new ones with Lucy and the rest of Fairy Tail. While he would love to remember the night that he'd marked her, or the day they had met, there was still a whole future of possibilities that were just waiting for him and his beautiful little Fairy to explore. Lucy's arms slid around his shoulders, his hands glided down to the small of her back, and while they both basked in the utter perfection of being reunited with the one whose soul was so closely tied to their own, all Erik could think ...

And bring me home
At last

Thank you all so much for joining me for my very first pairing week. I had a blast writing seven days' worth of CoLu, and I'm so glad that Dragon'sHost and Eien ni Touko decided to make this a thing!

The song that was used for this story are from the movie Anastasia ('Journey to the Past'). I decided to take a page from my fellow authors on the site and use the lyrics as a point of narration instead of being sung in the chapter.
-Here is the link on YouTube: watch?v=nIk0PdXsU9c

An enormous shout-out goes to LittlePrincessNana for being the most amazing form of support during my plotting and editing for all seven prompts. Along with the most wonderful late-night, weekend brainstorming for ridiculous stories! I had been planning on all seven being a surprise (even for her) and then… I just couldn't keep it away from my lovely Triplet! Good thing I didn't, because she ended up helping me fully plot out some of the prompts (like 'Rumors', with her role-playing as Cobra during a Skype conversation!)

Also, I'd like to send another small shout-out to Dragon'sHost for the idea of him having Erza's last name from her Family prompt story, The Scarlet Family. Credit where credit's due and all that.

This week could never have happened without all of you, and if I've forgotten anyone in my little shout-out section (whether today or throughout the week), then this is my sincere apology! I appreciate all of you! And you can blame it on my brain being otherwise occupied with life things.

As a side note: If you would like to see this particular prompt as a full-length chapter story, then please let me know. There were several ideas that I had for this story, but I didn't want this to be too long. If I do make it a full-length story, then it will start in the same place as this, follow the same plot, and then extend afterwards for an undetermined amount of time (which will include smut, if that helps to sway you…)

Keep an eye out for my upcoming CoLu chapter story, Poison Fairy. It will be coming out some time after the epilogue for He Might Be the One is posted.

So… Review, Follow, Favorite! I love you, guys! Thanks for reading!

~~GemNika.