Faint: Juvia/Gray: In response to Chapter 334, although Gray is not dead, so yayyy!

A/N: Because who hasn't made a fic about this chapter yet? R&R!

Disclaimer: I'm pretty sure Hiro Mashima is not my name. Preeeety sure.

Ba . . . dump . . . .

Ba . . . dump . . . .

Ba . . . dump . . . .

Ba . . .

Her body gives an involuntary jerk as the last 'dump' fails to reverberate throughout his seemingly lifeless form and she pulls her head away from his chest, stifling a shriek.

Her eyes, frantic and wild, scan his pale face, his eyelids, his lips, fingers, anything, for any sign of movement, of . . . life.

But there is nothing . . . nothing but the intense wrenching of her heart, nothing but the harsh downpour of rain around them, and it hurts, the rain does. It's biting, freezing, falling harder than she's ever allowed it to before, falling until it stings and turns her skin an irritated red.

His skin doesn't change. It's still so white, so pale, even as the blood from the ghastly holes in his body run across, mingling with the showering water until the ground beneath them is pooled with a liquid resembling raspberry lemonade.

She can't swallow. Something is there, something odd and stubborn, lodged in her throat so that she can't swallow, can't utter a sound. She finds that she can't cry either. The rain, this powerful rain, has stolen the moisture from her eyes, the despair, and is hurling it down for everyone else in the area to experience as well, to taste as it lands upon their lips- the agony of a shattered heart.

Gray. She's never figured that he'll become the color of his name, but this appears to be the case. Look at his eyelids. They're so . . . gray. For a long, long while, she's forgotten how grim a color it is. How dead.

Dead.

Dead.

Oh.

Just as something warm slides down her cheeks, (has the rain turned hot, or is she finally shedding tears?) she releases a sound, such an anguished sound it is, echoing in her own ears, and throws her arms around him, her entire figure wracking with sobs so vigorous that he shakes along with her.

It's not romantic, Gray-sama! This whole thing, dying for someone you hold dear, even though she is sure she will have done the same, have the roles been reversed. It's daring, maybe, but it's not romantic. She's watched it numerous times in films, thinking that it's so lovely, how the boy sacrifices himself for the girl.

She realizes now she has been thoroughly mistaken. What is there now, residing inside of her, but the grief? And such an insufferable pain it is, that she has to wonder if he's even been aware of her devotion to him, because this pain, this tightness of her lungs, of her heart, can only be worse than getting blasted to smithereens.

At least that will have been fast. But this excruciation within her . . . it feels as though it will last for centuries.

However, what Gray's done . . . what else can she do but feel grateful to him? She can't hate him, can't hate him for leaving her, for getting himself killed, because her love overwrites it all, overwrites the hate and anger that she perhaps wants to feel toward him. She should be thrilled that he treasured her enough to die protecting her.

Yet, it's . . . it's so hard. There is so much . . . missing. So much she hasn't the chance to tell him, so much she hasn't gotten to hear him tell her . . . . She's wanted them to survive this dragon situation together, with all of the guilds. She's wanted them to, again, walk hand in hand after they finish up victorious. This shouldn't have happened. She should've just paid attention!

Is she always such a hindrance to him? Why is it that she claims that she will protect her Gray-sama at all costs, but he ends up dead, anyway? And to save her, at that!

Oh, this pain.

They might as well have just died together, she thinks as she screams her throat raw, pressing her forehead to his so that the wetness from her cheeks, from her hair, now sodden and stringy, drip steadily onto his emotionless face.

Thunder crackles overhead. There are voices coming from behind her and she's almost forgotten that she isn't alone.

She isn't alone.

She isn't alone.

No, she can hear them behind her, they who are as responsible for his death as she is. Them, with their rattling jaws and horrible beams and their cowardly nature, sneaking up on people, and why the hell are they still alive?

She whirls around, eyebrows drawn, lips bared, and sends a whirlwind of rain in their direction, heavy like metal, and sharp like needles. She's sure to make water flow up their nostrils and down their throats, drowning them, drowning them until they are as dead as her insides, as dead as her Gray-sama.

Or at least . . . that's what she will have liked to happen.

In all honestly, she expects that she will rage, rage just like she has back when Meredy was a threat. But now . . . she guesses that perhaps raging to protect someone loved grows rather ineffective after that someone is dead and gone.

Gone.

A/N: . . . I didn't couldn't write what I wanted to. I wanted more, I dunno, Gruvia in this somehow, but when Gray's dead as he is in this, it's sorta . . . hard. Meh, and it needs more angst! I think. And I guess this is a drabble. Whateves. R&R!