A/N: So...that thing with the consistent updates? Apparently nearly half a year later is consistent. I am sorry about this and while I would love to say that it will be more regular (my muse has returned!) life has a funny way of messing that up. I apologise to all of you that have waited so long for this update (and to my horror I realised how long it had been since I last updated) but also thank you for those of you that have held on and continued to read and support my work.

So I would like to thank CelestialMageLucy, Angie (and thank you for your words - I have indeed found that Lucy and Lisanna are rarely both portrayed as kind when the main pairing includes one of them and Natsu, which I find annoying seeing as in the manga neither act even the slightest bit bitter or angry around each other and the Magic Council...are the Magic Council. Only because they are following the rules and believe that what they do is right, does not always mean that they are), Nalu2015, Cassi0chan, Guest, lightningflamedragon246 and Blonde Neko-Chan for their reviews.

And I say this with the utmost hope - may my next update not lie more than two-three weeks away.

Enjoy! :)

A Chapter from the Past

Chapter 28 - Reconciliations and Revelations

Levy sighed heavily as she let her head fall onto the table with a 'thump'. She had called in a lot of favours and had spent most of the past couple of weeks trying to translate the strange manuscript that the others had brought back with them from Rose Island. Well, in between trying to come up with a way to survive a potential Tartaros attack and trying to figure out what they were attempting to achieve in the first place as well.

She lifted her head up and glared at the parchment of the manuscript. A chuckle interrupted her from achieving her goal of making it spontaneously combust just through her staring at it.

"Shrimp." Gajeel set a cup of tea down next to her and she grabbed it, ignoring the slight burn that her tongue suffered as a consequence of her drinking it.

"I don't know what to do with this." She muttered and gestured to the manuscript with her free hand. Gajeel merely sat down in the other chair that accompanied the table in their kitchen and raised an eyebrow at her in a silent question.

"From what I have translated so far, and believe me it's not as much as I thought I would have by now, it looks like some sort of 'help!' letter. At least, most of it does. However then some of this," And she pointed to the paragraph that was currently causing her so much grief, "Has translated as a threat in a mixture of three different languages while this," And she pointed to another section of the manuscript, "Is an exact description of the political situation in Ca=elum! I have absolutely no idea what's going on here." She sighed heavily and took another sip of her tea.

Gajeel hummed and looked down at the manuscript. Levy knew that he probably wouldn't understand any of it, after all, his strengths lay more on the physical end of the spectrum.

When his brow furrowed though and he leaned over her arm to turn the parchment around so that it was facing him the right way up, she was surprised.

"Gajeel?" She set her cup down and looked at her fiancé in confusion.

"This states that 'We have been trapped by the...something...foe' and then they mention that 'Our numbers...larger every day...Ca=elum is their...' His forehead scrunched together as he tried to concentrate and Levy peered at the part that he was translating.

"No." She shook her head. "That reads 'The moon has waned too many times and we only see the southern stars now.'" Gajeel shook his head as she said this.

"No. I do not remember a lot of what Metallicana taught me apart from fighting and magic but he did teach me how to read in at least three different languages. Insisted on it. These symbols," He pointed to the ones that he and Levy had translated very differently, "Are ones that I remember." Levy's eyes widened as a realisation hit her.

"I've been translating this wrong, or rather..." She looked down at the manuscript with a sudden fire appearing in her eyes, "I've only been translating part of this. What if the author of this meant for certain people to get one message and others another? And by using symbols, hieroglyphs and letters from many different languages, as well as a language that shares all three of them, they would have succeeded in creating two very different messages." She turned to her fiancé; "What is the language called that Metallicana taught you?"

Gajeel peered at the paper as the variation of his scowl appeared that indicated that he was trying to remember something. A warmth spread through her as she knew that she was one of the few people who was able to differentiate between his scowls and what they meant. "I think he called the 'Old Speech' or the 'Téalìor' Speech which I think means origin speech. He used to tell me that it was the language that all others descended from; the one that was used before there was any clear definition of kingdoms or such."

Levy felt confused. She had never heard of such a language but now that she had a name, she would be able to track it down. Somehow. And if that 'tracking down' consisted of her forcing any and all first generation dragon slayers to sit down and write out the hieroglyphs and letters that they remembered and knew, well, then that was her prerogative as the translator of this thing.

"Could you write down the name of it?" She asked and Gajeel nodded at her back as she ran out to get a new piece of paper. Actually several new pieces of paper.

She had finally made a break-through after all.

~.~.~.~.~

This was not going to be easy. Lucy knew that. And still she felt the suddenly very intense desire to hike all the way across the continent in order to avoid this.

She had never been very good with emotional confrontations after all. Or rather, she had once been before her mother had died, her father had, in a sense, abandoned her and before she believed that she wasn't wanted at Fairy Tail any more.

And this most certainly was one. An emotional confrontation that was.

She hated it from the very depths of her soul. And it wasn't made any better by the fact that she knew that she had done something wrong; she didn't need Lisanna to make that clear to her. Or her daughter. Or her son. Or Gajeel. Actually, everyone.

Nevertheless, it had to be done. So here she was, trying to not hyperventilate as she stood in front of Natsu's door, fighting against her 'flight' urge that was telling her that she would only get hurt and left in the end, just like she always did.

But no. She had to stop living like that. She had stop letting her father's ghost rule over her from the shadows. She had to live.

She took a deep breath and lifted her eyes to look at the door. Carefully, at first, she knocked and when no one answered, she increased the strength behind her knocks.

The door was opened forcefully and she felt a small smile turning her lips upward as she knew that Natsu would open the door like that. That smile faded quickly however as she observed the stony expression that adorned Natsu's face.

She cleared her throat awkwardly and her crutches creaked. "May I please come in?" She finally asked when Natsu showed no intention of saying anything.

His expression softened minutely and his eyes flew over her, taking in the cast that was still covering her entire leg and the way she leaned more heavily on one of the crutches than the other. He nodded briefly and opened the door enough to let her in. Carefully she entered his home, taking in the unsurprising chaos that met her once she was inside.

"Why are you here Lucy?" He sounded tired, torn-up. Lucy noticed the dark circles underneath his eyes, the wounds that were still healing, both inside and out.

"I wanted to apologise." Her voice was quiet and she had to do everything to resist the temptation of turning her head away and not looking him in the eyes when she said it. But she knew how much she had wronged him and she knew, despite her discomfort, that he deserved this.

His eyes widened ever so slightly and the surprise crept onto his face. His mouth opened and then closed again and he closed his eyes briefly, as if gathering his strength. The action made her feel awful, Natsu had never had to do that before and the mere fact that she was causing him this much pain made her heart crack even more.

"I think we should sit down." He finally said and turned her around. She followed him, her crutches sounding abnormally loud in the silence of the house. She would have expected Happy to turn up by now but it seemed that he was either not here (and at Charle's - completely plausible) or had simply decided to not disturb the two of them, which would be surprising, but not completely unexpected.

They had, after all, all changed in the past seven years.

The thought brought a lump to her throat. She blinked rapidly in order to dispel the chance of any tears making an appearance. And there it was, one of the things that she had consistently been avoiding for the past couple of weeks. They had all changed, immensely so in most cases, and it was a truth that she had been dodging because she had not wanted to accept that they had changed. What she had wanted was her old life back, the one before she had left, before Lisanna had come back. She had wanted the freedom and innocence of back then, the way that everything had always seemed to work out for everyone, the way everything had been alright in the world.

But it wasn't like that. And it took her nearly being crushed by a building, getting a tongue-lashing from Lisanna and finally seeing how much her denial was hurting both her children and the man she loved in order to see it.

Prolonged bed rest with nothing else to do but think everything over had certainly helped that one along.

As soon as they were both seated, notably on opposite ends of the coffee table, Lucy began. She needed to get it off her chest, she needed to tell him what she had come to say.

"I wanted to apologise." She stated again. "No," She shook her head, "I am apologising. I am sorry for what I've done to you. Everything." She saw his widened eyes and continued. "For erasing your memories back in Crocus for one. I had absolutely no right to do what I did, I was taking away a part of you by doing so and that wasn't fair of me in the slightest. And I did it because I was terrified," He opened his mouth but Lucy held up her hand to stop him from interrupting. He fell quiet again and sat back. "I was terrified of you caring about me as much as I cared about you, Natsu. Yes, part of that fear was due to Tartaros finding out about me interacting with you and that causing them to destroy the guild. But the bigger part was due to me being absolutely terrified of you feeling the same way as I did about you. Or rather," She swallowed heavily, "I was terrified of you not caring about me as much or in the same way that I cared about you. I let that fear make a decision for me that I shouldn't have made and for that, and for what I did, I apologise."

She looked towards his window and noted the pouring rain. How fitting. "I also want to apologise for how I've been treating you ever since I came back." His brows furrowed but she ploughed on nonetheless. "I should have told you, right back when I found out that I was pregnant, of what had happened. There were so many times that I wanted to just come back to Magnolia and find you but I didn't. And I regret that every single day of my life because Kasei and Tsuyu are yours. They are your children and I am so, so sorry that you missed out on the first four years of their life. On their first steps, their first words. The temper tantrums and the terrible twos. On everything. You deserved, more than anyone else, to have known about them and known them so much earlier." Tears, despite her earlier conviction to not let them flow, were now pouring out of her eyes.

"And I am sorry that I lied to you, sorry that when you confronted me, I was unable to tell you the truth. I would say again that I was terrified, and I was, but not of what you might think. I was terrified of you not wanting them, terrified that you might not love them. And I know, I know, that that is not you, that that has never been you. That you love with all your heart and soul once you do and that there was no way that you would not have wanted them. But my father did not want me, he did not want to keep me and I let that influence my decision, which I shouldn't have. I know-" Her words failed her as she hiccuped slightly. She blinked rapidly once again, but it didn't help, her vision was blurred.

"I am so sorry Natsu. Nothing I can say will change what I've done but I am so, so sorry." And with that she stood up and fled the room, the front door clanging against the wall as she was swallowed up by the storm outside.

Natsu could do nothing but watch her leave and eventually, his head fell onto his hands.

His own tears were silent and could not be heard over the howling wind outside.

~.~.~.~.~

"Auntie Mira, Auntie Mira!" The shouts that reached Mirajane's ears brought a rare smile to her face and Laxus, who had been sitting at the bar talking to her was pleased to note the way her eyes briefly lit up.

Ever since Lisanna had landed in hospital, the usual smile that had always had the ability to brighten the room of which she was in, had been almost non-existent on Mirajane's face.

"Yes Tsuyu." Mirajane turned around and then nearly dropped the tankard she had been filling up for him. Wondering what had caused her to be so surprised, Laxus turned around himself and his eyebrows rose up at the sight that met him.

"Look, look! My hair's pretty again!" The small girl twirled around, the bright salmon locks bouncing around as she proceeded to jump up and down in excitement. Her brother was not far behind her, his hair sticking up in all directions as usual, only this time in a slightly different colour.

"What do you mean, sweetheart?" Mira asked, her voice sounding faint to her own ears as she peered down at the two children. So many things were now beginning to click into place for her.

"Uncle Cancer gave us a haircut and mummy's hair last time. I wanted to see what mummy's hair was like." The little girl's smile was infectious and Laxus began to grin while Mira came out from behind the counter and sat down on the bar stool next to him. "Kai-chan didn't but I wanted him to so he did." Tsuyu looked immensely proud of having convinced her brother to change his hair, as if it were a massive feat.

Knowing the small boy's stubbornness, it probably was.

"I like red hair." Her brother replied, looking slightly miffed.

"It's not red. It's pink." His sister replied and stuck her tongue out at him as he grew annoyed.

"Red!"

"Pink!"

"Red!"

"Pink!"

"I think it's called salmon." Mirajane stated feebly, still trying to get her bearings with this new information. She had suspected, but to actually have it confirmed...

Laxus began laughing heartily as a crowd began to form around the squabbling siblings, echoing their arrival not too long ago.

Watching the spectacle from further back, Gajeel snorted to himself as he took another sip from his tankard while Levy looked up in amusement from her translation work.

"It was about bloody time."

~.~.~.~.~

Jellal winced as he peered down at his arm and then sighed. Nothing that Porlyusica had done had made it any better and she had looked quite worried when the black markings refused to fade away. Her comment to herself, just as he had been leaving the infirmary, that the markings were exactly like those that Levy had where she had been impaled had stopped him short.

If they were similar, then the man that he had fought against might be the man that had impaled the young woman. And apart from the fact that the pain currently in his arm was excrutiating, if he could find out what the man had done in order to cause these markings to appear, then maybe they could find a way to heal Lisanna.

Which was why he was currently in the hospital, taking advantage of the changeover of guards in front of the prisoners' rooms in order to slip into 'Gressil's' room. He knew that the man was not in a coma, unlike one of his companions, as he had overheard Makarov mentioning to Porlyusica that the council had already interogated all of the prisoners that they had taken apart from the one Gray had fought against.

He tried to suppress the pain as he entered the room, his arm basically hanging completely useless by his side.

"I've told you, I have nothing to say to you." A rough voice met him as he closed the door silently behind him. Or at least, as silently as he could.

"Well, I'm not the Council so maybe you'll be more inclined to tell me something as opposed to the nothing that you've told them so far." Jellal gritted out, picking up one of the chairs that leaned against the wall and putting it near, but still a fair distance away, from the man's bed.

He wasn't stupid enough to try and put himself in the man's range. He might be handcuffed to the bed with a pair of magically-draining handcuffs but he wasn't going to take any chances around him. The man was dangerous and he knew it.

"Ah, Jellal then." The man nodded and Jellal noted his tired eyes and the defeated look he wore.

"Why have you not told the Council anything? From what I've gathered, you were glad to not have to fight alongside Tartaros anymore." He started and the man, who had kept up a perfect mask throughout their entire fight looked at him tiredly, the mask broken in two.

"And why should I? They would not believe me if I said I never wanted to fight and they would disregard my warnings as me trying to manipulate you all somehow." He coughed, the cuffs draining his magic were doing more harm to him that the idiots of the Enforcement Squad might like to believe. The things weren't harmless, at least not to people like him.

"But you're not." Jellal merely looked interested and stared at the man in front of him before wincing and looking down at his arm.

"What have you done to my arm?" He finally asked and the man looked over at him and his arm.

"I infected you." He stated, looking almost regretful.

"Why?"

"Because I needed you to come and find me and ask questions." That made Jellal look at him in surprise.

"Why?"

"Because I have some idea of what the Master of Tartaros has planned." He looked grim. "And it will destroy everything should he succeed."

Jellal sat back in his chair, ignoring his arm. "What is he planning then?" He finally asked and Gressil coughed again, ignoring the blood the dotted the white sheets covering as he did. Jellal however looked at him in worry. He was slowly noticing the effect the cuffs were having on the other man.

"He is planning, from what Lilian and I gathered - he never trusted the two of us enough to tell us - to capture Zeref and kill him." Gressil smiled mirthlessly. "He wants what everyone wants, power and all of it, and he won't stop at anything to get it."

"Zeref is still alive then." Jellal muttered.

"Of course he is." Gressil snorted. "The man never died." Jellal's eyes shot up at that.

"The Council has been looking for confirmation of that for years." He stated plainly and Gressil shook his head, a small smile now on his lips.

"There is a lot more to that wizard than we might all know. I met him once, when I was very, very small. I got washed up on an island in the middle of the Southern Sea." He looked out of the window. "It's something that I've never forgotten." He turned back to Jellal. "He plans to capture Zeref by using the celestial realm somehow, more I do not know myself. But he needs to be stopped. The man is insane and a monster." Gressil's eyes took on a look of such hatred that Jellal flinched slightly. Such pure and unadultered emotion was rarely seen, especially in such a form.

"Why are you telling me this?" He finally asked and Gressil sent him another mirthless smile. "We have long known what Fairy Tail is capable of - why do you think the first move that man made was to try and break it apart?" Jellal's eyebrows rose once more at that. "He may be many things, but stupid he is not and he will probably get closer than most to capturing Zeref."

Jellal nodded and let the information settle in his mind as he watched the other man lie there. The sudden stab of pain reminded him of something else though.

"What did you do to my arm? What did you infect it with?" He asked finally and now Jellal could see the surprising amounts of regret on his face.

"I infected it - my magic...it is a version of a curse. Far more diminished than the original, but nearly as bad." He sighed. "Have you ever heard of Ankhseram Black Magic?" He asked and Jellal's blood ran cold. He had, long ago. It was during a time that he hated to think of now as he had been possessed back then, possessed by the desire to bring back a man from death who was, according to this man, not actually dead. It had been a footnote to many other footnotes, but in his quest to find Zeref he had been thorough, too thorough.

"I have." He swallowed heavily.

"Then you know what is going to happen if you don't amputate that arm of yours." He said softly. "That was the gift that I gained from the Black Mage." His eyes turned murderous briefly. "He cost me my family when I finally returned to them after drifting at sea for weeks after escaping the island. My original magic was to absorb other's abilities briefly in order to wield them. I was doing so well at school and in my lessons and then I accidentally absorbed his powers, or at least, the ones he wanted the least." His laugh was self-depreciating. "Imagine my horror when the curse did not leave as all the other magic always had. Did you know that most dark curses cannot be reversed?" He shook his head. "I had to watch my mother, my father, my brother all die before my eyes because I touched them. But it wasn't instantaneous death as it should have been. It hadn't meant to be my primary power." Gressil's throat closed up as he closed his eyes in an attempt to ward off the memories.

"You joined Tartaros in order to kill him." Jellal deduced.

"In order to make him pay for what he gave me, for what he made me go through." Gressil snapped angrily. "But then..." Now he looked defeated once more. "The Master of Tartaros knows many spells, many of them fashioned so that one can control others." He turned to face Jellal. "He was ecstatic to find my powers, to find something so close to the source itself. But when it came down to it, when it came to telling him that I knew that Zeref was alive and where he was, I couldn't tell him. Because this man was an even greater one than the one I met on that island. The man on that island, for all his darkness, never meant to give me that curse, while the one I was now forced to serve exploited all of our powers. He made sure we could not disobey him."

"So you fought against me in order to defect." Jellal added.

"I used his own orders so that I could free myself." Gressil grinned again, but once more, there was no humour to be found anywhere within it. "He plans to destroy this world as we know it."

Jellal nodded and decided that he had heard enough for today. He got up and turned to leave the room. Just as he was nearly out of the door, a sentence stopped him in his tracks for the second time that day.

"Be careful, Saint," The rough voice said softly, "There is a lot more to this than you might think."

He would be unable to shake a sense of foreboding for a long time to come.