Note: The original version of this can be found as Chapter 9 of 'Of All the Things I've Lost.' This is not an Into the Badlands AU. I just lifted a few lines of dialog from a scene between Quinn and Lydia that I super duper loved. I have made some big-ish changes from the original version of the one-shot. I think it's better now.

i.

The warehouse was mostly dark, which was to be expected given the hour. She needed his full attention and she needed him alone. Erza's heeled boots echoed off the corrugated walls and high ceilings as she made her way across the main floor to the stairs that would take her up, up, and up to his private office. How many times had she been in that office over the years? Hundreds? Thousands? Erza ran her finger over the cherry paint of one of his cars. A BMW that, up until two days prior, had been marked with white racing stripes. She was a little surprised the car wasn't covered – but Jellal had been surprising her for months now, hadn't he? He'd gone right over the edge and hung by a thread.

Erza wanted to fix all that. She could.

A quick glance up to the bird's nest office loft revealed his shadowed silhouette against the glass. She felt his eyes on her as she neared the staircase. Erza used to like being watched. The feel of his eyes on her as she worked the business end of the kingdom they'd built from scraps used to excite her. His gaze made her feel confident. Competent. He made her feel like even the things she did behind closed doors were right. Erza hadn't been anything before Jellal. Just a girl with half a name and nothing to it anyway. She'd loved him once – she still loved him. Enough to stop him.

The office door wasn't even locked. He should've locked it. Erza sighed and added sloppy to the list of his recent shortcomings. Her eyes scrutinized the office harshly. It never used to be so messy. Scattered papers covered the floor, cigarette butts in styrofoam fast food cups littered the surface of his desk, the light bulb in the lamp flickered, and his laptop screensaver bathed the room in a dancing pink and purple glow. When she finally stood only a few feet away, Erza folded her hands in front of her. He'd showered but not completely dressed. She pursed her lips at the state of his hipbones and the way his pants hung too low for comfort but said nothing. He was skinny. Jellal had always been lean but this… it was too much. She couldn't let it go on.

"Have you come to read me my rights?" He said easily, poking a cigarette between his lips. She watched him light it and exhale the first toxic cloud of smoke from his lungs.

"What rights?" She asked with a smirk. "I'm not a cop."

"I know that." He flicked the ash from the tip of his cigarette to no place in particular. The grey clump landed on the windowsill. "But that's what this has come to, hasn't it?"

"Jellal –"

"I'd have burned this whole fucking place to the ground once," he whispered. "Just to see you smile like you meant it."

"And then where would we be?"

"Happier maybe?"

"Maybe." Erza stepped into his personal space and plucked the cigarette from between his fingers. She turned her eyes to the warehouse below. The BMW's red paint caught her eye again and she tapped the cigarette against her lips. "If a car is made of stolen parts does that make the car itself stolen?"

"You and your philosophical questions." Jellal's voice was soft. She scanned it over and over in her head looking for sharp edges or perhaps a shred of the violent, paranoid lunacy he'd been slipping into as of late. "You never used to ask me stuff like that."

"I never thought I had to." Erza blew out a lungful of smoke that bounced off the glass and back into her face. "It was just supposed to be the cars," she whispered.

"Things change, Erza."

"I kept quiet about the drugs. I never said a word as long as I didn't see it. But this violence is out of control." She squashed the spent cigarette on the windowsill and spun on him. "You are out of control."

"Erza –"

"Are you gonna to tell me you're fine?" She interrupted with more sharpness than intended. Her heart was betraying her already. She needed to be stronger. "Or that this is who you've always been?"

"Maybe it is. I've never felt more like myself than I do right now."

"We never used to lie to each other, Jellal."

"I'm not the liar in this room, Erza." His words weren't just a deflection. They were true. In every way they were true. She'd promised herself never to have regrets but now they were gathering at her gates and she couldn't hold them off.

"This war is pointless." She inched closer to him. He smelled like cigarette smoke and the Doublemint gum she knew he still kept in the lap drawer of his desk. "You can't win, Jellal."

"I can."

"You should've –"

"Realized my place?" he hissed, finally snapping. "Should I have been content to know I was a bottom level supplier? Should I have been cool just bending over the trunk of any one of those fucking cars down there every time one of the leaders told me to? In front of everyone?" His words stung her in a place she didn't like to think about. No regrets!

"Those are your words, not mine."

"But it's what you mean."

Erza sighed. "Jellal –"

"You know, you've changed too, Erza. You used to be my right arm. I never made any decisions without you. The garage looked to me and I looked to you." He took her hands and slid his palms over her wrists, forearms, and biceps before settling on her shoulders. "But it's been a long time."

"You're an idiot." She didn't take his bait. The regrets she'd denied for so long were chanting her name. His thumbs slid over the sides of her neck and she felt the tips of his fingers tangle in her hair. "You were always convinced this city was a mountain you had to climb. And that's bullshit, Jellal. It's fucking bullshit. You never think!"

He smiled and it was a little bit sad and a little bit unhinged. "I wouldn't have had any time in the sun if not for you. You were always too good for this. Too smart. Too fair." His lips brushed over hers and Erza knew she'd lost herself.

"When we were on the same page –"

"Everything was in control," he finished for her, cutting off the confession that lurked on the tip of her tongue. "You always spoke your mind no matter how harsh or cruel. You did what needed to be done without permission or apology." Her palms flattened against his chest. "What happened?"

"I don't care about anyone else but you," she whispered against his mouth. "The rest of them can rot."

"Is that why you brought a gun?"

Erza froze and he laughed almost too quietly. Jellal kissed her and despite everything she enjoyed it.

"I'm not hurt, Erza. I knew you would. They won't take you in without me." He pulled back only a breath. "Isn't that right? Wasn't that the deal?"

"It's a new life," she whispered. "I want out. Don't you?"

"I want you." Jellal kissed her again with a genuine urgency she never thought to miss. She hadn't realized they'd been moving until her backside bumped the edge of his desk. With one arm around her waist, Jellal shoved everything over the side. Stale soda and rank cigarette butts spilled across the floor. He lifted her to the edge and slid between her thighs.

Erza lost herself in the past. A lifetime of shared kisses and whispers and gasps and sighs. Promises. So many promises. All of the words they'd shared in the small space between his mouth and hers threatened to choke her. Feathered between the honey sweet were the barbs. The lies. The secrets. The closed doors.

He didn't even flinch at the pistol she had strapped to her thigh. In two heartbeats he left the pistol on the desktop and tossed her panties aside. He could still make her tremble and bite her lip in fantastic ecstasy. When he finished inside of her, Erza thought to shove him away but didn't. She tightened her thighs around his waist and wished. She made a wish and took a breath.

Before her words could come spilling out, Jellal took her hand and placed the pistol in it.

"Do it," he whispered. "Do what you came to do."

"I didn't come to –"

"No more lies." Jellal kissed her again and closed his hand around hers. When he moved back his pants were still hanging open and every tattoo on his body shone like some kind of horrible magic. "Let's not lie to each other. Not now."

"I didn't!" Erza felt a tear on her cheek. "I came to –"

"They'll never take me alive, love."

Every molecule of breath in her lungs rushed out. He hadn't called her that in a very long time.

"Jellal, please."

"Do it, Erza." He pressed the barrel of the gun against his right pectoral and the most elaborate of his tattoos – an expertly shaded black and white fairy woman with a crown of thorns. "This is the hill I die on."

Erza was well acquainted with Jellal's many moods. She knew when he was tired or hungry. She knew when the dark clouds were gathering over his head and she knew when his heart was light – those were always the days when he'd kiss her cheek and tell her he loved her.

His grip on her hand that held the pistol tightened and Erza dragged herself from her memories. This Jellal had the wild eyes of a man not altogether well. Erza felt her finger twitching on the trigger.

"I just wanted out. If you won't come with me then –" She poked him harder in the chest with the barrel.

"Ah," he breathed, reaching out to touch her cheek. "This is why I always loved you first. Always so fearless."

"I want out." Erza felt a lump of ice settle in her chest. "I want you, too, but –"

"You can't have both."

"I can't have either without you!" Her words echoed off the walls of the office loft and her hand trembled.

Erza had never seen so much blood in her life.

Rain pelted the windshield of the cherry red BMW. She'd slid more than once already taking turns too fast. Two thoughts pounded her skull from the inside. Firstly, she needed to ditch the flashy car but not until she put some distance between herself and the warehouse. She didn't think the agents would give her a moment more than the time they'd agreed on.

And second?

Erza glanced over at the passenger seat. She bit her lip so hard she could taste blood again. What a mess.

She left the BMW behind an abandoned gas station just beyond the suburbs. On impulse, she tossed her phone into a barrel of oily rags. She didn't need a tail and she knew the federal agents she'd flounced would be on to her by now.

The new car was an old station wagon on its last borrowed leg. Erza told herself she only needed it to work as far as the next town over. There was a guy with a small garage who owed her a favor. Erza's eyes slid to the rearview mirror.

"Don't you fucking die on me," she whispered.