My not very Christmas-y gift to you. :) Wrote this lil' one-shot out of random, so yeah. Hints or Jerza, but the fanfic mostly focuses on Jellal's familial relationship with his fellow Crime Sorcière guild mates. Anyways, enjoy.

Revised: April 6th 2013

Fairy Tail © is Hiro Mashima's.

"Meredy, you have to do something about your foster mother," Jellal told the petite pink-haired teen, who was elegantly sprawled on the flat rocky ground with a lacrima pen, happily scribbling away on a large sketchpad Ultear "bought" her for her sweet, sweet, sweetdaughter as a gift.

"Every time we meet up with Fairy Tail, she ends up making Erza nervous and messes up the entire visit," he stated. Meredy, barely listening, took out a color-changing lacrima pencil and began to add lambent vibrancy to her artwork.

Jellal stared at the silent adolescent. She had been quiet since this morning, letting her right hand dance around the formerly blank canvas. Ultear didn't cast a spell on her, did she? Jellal brushed the idea off, knowing that Ultear finds him a better guinea pig for her "freak experiments", as he calls them, but never said it out loud, compared to Meredy. The only reason he was addressing Meredy about such a matter was because it was the time mage's turn to search for food, and was absent for the moment.

"Meredy?" Still, she says nothing. Suddenly, he began to ponder on how he could act so casual when he literally had a landfill of sins that could never be cleaned up and fully sanitized - not even close - in his lifetime. He can comprehend that Ultear's antics are in reality attempts to lift his constantly depressed mood, though all her efforts have been as successful as trying riding a dead horse.

He remembered the day he finally saw Erza again. She forgave him, and shared their moments. Though it was a while ago, he would still smile when picturing the utterly shocked faces and gaping mouths of his two guild mates when he managed to muster a chuckle upon hearing a joke the same night. What the jape was, he could not recall.

When he is with his small, independent guild, he does feel more at ease. Over these six years, Jellal noticed how Ultear's intentions and expressions were different from the ones she possessed and wore during her Magic Council days. They were filled with goodwill and warmth, and she unleashes an occasional "men are morons" speech when he commits an error. Meredy has also changed. Over the time she knew him, Meredy has grown stronger both emotionally and physically, no longer the broken little girl she once was. All in all, they became a major part of his life and saw them as sisters.

"Hey, I'm back. Got some good grub here. Did I miss anything?" an authoritative voice ricocheted off the walls of the cave. Meredy gave a near-unnoticeable wave. Ultear, with her hair as pitch-black as always, approached and sat near the burnt out fire-pit and set down a decently-proportionate bag of provisions and turned to Jellal.

"No, nothing happened." The azure-haired man ignited a fire from his palm and lit the pit until the flames grew bright enough to sustain themselves. Jellal added some more dry wood to the newly ignited source of warmth, followed by Ultear, who placed a rack over the mini-inferno and over that, a pot. She proceeded to prepare three minuscule fowl for a meal, jerking the feathers off at high speed, as he filled the pot with water.

The large-busted woman sharpened a rock using her magic and sliced the unfortunate birds' flesh, then setting them aside and moving on to chop the greens she had gathered. Once finished, she dumped chestnuts and the meat into the pot, whose water was now at boiling heat.

"Interesting." Ultear plopped right next to Meredy. Looking over to what she was doing, she brushed some of her daughter's locks of bubblegum hair for an improved view. It took several moments for a reaction; a wide smirk spread across the woman's porcelain-tinted face. It was surprising, Ultear never wore any makeup since the Tenrou Island incident. "Yup, we've have a masterpiece here," she commented.

Curiosity sparked, Jellal attempted to crawl over and take a peek. He was swiftly pushed back to his original spot, followed by the sight of Ultear swishing her finger side-to-side, saying "no-no, not for Jellal". A faint giggle came from Meredy.

Sighing in defeat, the twenty-six year-old male went and discarded the already-cut veggies into the bubbling broth, which was almost ready, and stirred the mixture. He removed the pot from the fire-pit, gingerly placing it on the level ground, as a means to cool it down. Then, a voice startled him.

"Done! My Masterpiece is done! Jellal, you can see it now!" Meredy cheerfully stated, holding the artwork above her head in pride, before she flipped the sketchpad around, revealing her work.

"She a real artist, right, Jellal?"

"..."

"Jellal?"

Thump.

Meredy got up, carrying her things and poked at Jellal's unconscious form.

"Aw, he loved it so much he passed out."

The bubblegum pink-haired teen looked at her well-drawn picture of Jellal and a certain scarlet-haired lady engaged in a rather passionate make-out. "As ridiculous and cliché that sounded, I agree."

And done. I got the "men are morons" thingfrom a recent Fairy Tail Episode (the one where they show Ultear's reaction to Jellal casting Sema [which would blow his cover]). That wasn't in the manga, so I give the animators a kudos for that, though they're animating Juvia's hair horribly (ಥ_ಥ) and they didn't animate the under-the-bridge Jerza moment that I and many other Jerza lovers waited for (double ಥ_ಥ). Plus, the animators seem to dislike Gray. He looked so much cooler in the manga.

Before I shower my author's note with complaints, thank you for reading and Happy Holidays.