Once again, THIS MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS IF YOU DO NOT READ THE MANGA.

At any rate, this is Surreal.

On days when he still doubted the reality he lived in, when he tossed and turned at night and couldn't get to sleep or when he realized that, somehow, he just wasn't strong enough, Gray Fullbuster remembered what it felt like to die.

Before he'd actually experienced it for himself, he'd heard many things about the various types of deaths he might eventually encounter. One such way to die was to suffer from agonizing injuries until you eventually bled to death. Being a member of Fairy Tail, he had just kind of assumed that possibility was more likely than others. Far behind that lagged the thoughts of death by poison, suffocation, drowning...the possibilities were endless. The one he'd deemed second most likely was the quick and painless method, which was as simple as falling asleep and never waking up or even getting speared through the brain. Third, but lagging almost as far back as such things like starvation, burning to death, and food poisoning, was a combination of numbers one and two—suffering from agonizing injuries until the enemy, out of pity or just bloodlust, ended it all with one simple, almost painless strike.

But when you experience it…it's all different.

In the blink of an eye, he felt the pain. So much pain.

The first laser hit about where his heart was. But he still had enough life in him to feel the second laser. And after that, the third, the fourth, the fifth, the sixth, the seventh…rapid-fire, from those little pseudo-dragons that he'd been protecting Juvia from.

But the eighth…he didn't feel it at all after the initial crunch of his forehead as it entered his skull.

So much pain, such unendurable pain in just a few seconds…and then it was just gone, because he was gone.

Gray clutched his head in his hands, reliving the moment for…who knew? The millionth time since the Grand Magic Games had ended? Or even just the millionth time today?

He had woken up from dreams where he'd died several times before, which was a strange feeling in itself because everyone always said that if you died in your dreams, you died for real. He had just blamed it on the crazy, hectic lifestyles of the Fairy Tail guild members—they did so much crazy shit that they had to acknowledge the fact that it could get them killed. The jobs they took were dangerous, and more than one person had been in the hospital for weeks after slipping up out in the field. But dreaming isn't the same as remembering.

For a while, Gray thought it was just someone projecting the future, to warn them. He'd had a vague idea, even in the moment, but he hadn't been sure until they had passed the old woman, alone on the road. It had been Ultear's doing, and after just a little bit of research, even cajoling Lucy to let him speak to Crux, he'd learned about Last Aegis.

Ultear had traded her own 'time' to turn the clock back…and it had only been worth one minute.

Everyone had glimpsed a minute into the future that day, and while it seemed like many had forgotten it had even happened, he just couldn't.

That minute had saved the lives of more than just Gray, but the knowledge only strengthened Gray's belief—he hadn't just seen himself die.

Gray Fullbuster had actually died.

It felt so surreal, being alive when he knew that he should be dead. Ultear would probably still have many years ahead of her if she hadn't risked it all to try to save everyone. And what killed him most was that he would probably never know what her last thoughts were, and why she had chosen that path. He could make any number of guesses based on everything he'd learned, but even if he had one he felt was accurate, it still wouldn't satisfy him completely.

He hated that she'd given up so much and he felt like it was his fault, even though he knew that was foolish. But he couldn't let her sacrifice go to waste…because this was her atonement.

So he would press on and live, not just for himself but for her, and everyone else who risked everything and didn't get anything in return. Gray would keep growing stronger and stronger, because he couldn't let that bastard Lyon get ahead of him, and he sure as hell couldn't lose to Natsu. And most of all, he'd keep getting stronger for himself, because now he knew the true value of life and understood more than anyone that life was too short to have regrets.

And, however surreal his memory might be, it was the owner of the blue hair fanned out across his pillow that had grounded him once more.

Character-centric, but since I accidentally made it seem like he might have had a thing for Ultear (which was unintended), I added a little Gruvia at the end for my own selfish pleasure.

I don't usually do character-centric fics, so I hope this one was okay! Thanks for reading!