Author's Note: So this is the end! Thank you to all the readers, commenters and especially my beta, MeeraNaamJoker/PartlyGood.

Jellal sat restlessly in the waiting room. He wanted to leave but he also wanted to stay. The contradiction was making his heart race and his palms sweat. Anxiety aside, he knew the therapist was a good idea. Seven years prior, he'd had substantial success with a year's worth of sessions before enrolling in college courses, but now things were different. The situation was both better and worse.

He'd thought taking a paramedic's career path would give him a foothold and make the shadow of death in his past dissipate, and for a while he felt like it had. It had only taken one drunk driver to completely destroy his peace. Now that the dream had been shattered, though, Jellal questioned its comfort altogether. Had it truly been peace or just a façade? He didn't know what he wanted anymore, and that reality terrified him.

The receptionist's phone rang softly and he knew it was an in-house call. He'd be going back soon. The fire department had sent him a list of five doctors that would accept his insurance vouchers, but he'd chosen Doctor Milkovitch because her office was near the city park with all the purple blooms in the spring. He watched them every year, and tried to tell himself it wasn't because his mother had grown the exact same plants in her garden behind the kitchen.

"Mister Fernandes, Doctor Milkovitch will see you now." The receptionist stood, escorted him down a short hallway, and opened the door to an office. He'd half expected a pretentious gold plate advertising her services, but there was none. The door quietly clicked closed behind him, and a woman with dark hair greeted him with a business-like smile.

"Would you like me to call you Mister Fernandes?" she asked, and Jellal nearly laughed at the absurdity of her question. No one called him that.

"Jellal is fine."

"Have a seat then, Jellal." She gestured to a loveseat situated across from a black office chair. "Generally I like to meet with my patients for one hour, once a week – or bi-weekly depending on their schedules. I understand you've taken a leave of absence…" She tapped his personnel file with her pen and glanced up at him. "Do you have any questions before we begin?"

"Uh, no questions, really. I've done this before, and yeah, I'm on leave."

"You've done what before?"

"This. Therapy. Seven years ago when I first moved to the city."

"Do you feel those sessions are pertinent to what we're doing here?"

"I wouldn't say they're completely unrelated. I signed a release for the records to be sent to you."

"I have the records, I just wanted to know if you were still having the same issues that pushed you to seek out therapy back then, or if what happened in March created a new set of obstacles for you."

"I don't think relapse is too harsh a term."

"Why don't we talk about how you're feeling right now?"

Jellal grimaced and looked up at her. "Honestly? I feel completely lost."

M A Y

Two years later…

Shellia's hand just barely brushed the rim of the glass bowl. She stood on her toes and managed to curl her fingers around the bowl's lip, just as Jellal appeared behind her and swooped her up by the waist with one arm.

"Wow, you almost got away with that, huh?" Shellia pouted and squirmed. "Hey, hey, none of that." Jellal deposited her on the counter and oh-so-carefully placed the empty wine glasses in the sink. Erza would kill him if he broke even one, as they'd been an expensive gift from one of her vendors.

"Just a taste?" Shellia whined. "Please, Uncle J?"

Jellal placed one hand on either side of his niece and put on his best Serious Face, as Shellia called it. "Your mom specifically said that you can't have any more sugar today or you'll never sleep."

"But icing!" She crossed her arms across the chest of a dress that had remained miraculously clean despite the long day. "Not sugar!"

"There is too sugar in there! And anyway, that's for Erza's cakes and I don't have a death wish, so I'm afraid you lose, kid."

"No cake for me?"

"It's cake with booze in it." Jellal winked at her and began to rinse the wine glasses.

"No fair." Shellia swung her legs petulantly. "I want fun stuff, too."

"Aw, come on, most of the time you're right in the middle of the fun stuff! You got to stay up for the party, didn't you?"

Shellia laughed. "A-cage-ment party!"

"Uh, no." He corrected. "Engagement party. There's no cages."

"Can I have sparkles like Erza?"

"I'll get you something sparkly for your birthday, how's that?"

"Sparkles!" Shellia laughed and her gaze returned to the bowl of icing. "Please icing?"

"No icing." He turned back to her and she stuck her bottom lip out and angled away from him haughtily. Jellal remembered his sister pulling the same face many times when they'd been children. "How about instead of the icing you can have three stories tonight instead of one?"

"Boring."

"I'll ask Kagura if you can ride in the ambulance. How's that?" he offered hopefully.

"With lights and sirens?" Shellia glanced over at him with slight interest.

"Of course!"

"Boring."

Jellal deflated. He wasn't ignorant enough to not recognize manipulation, but he hated feeling like a boring old man in front of his niece. With a sigh of frustration, he peeked into the front hall where Meredy and Erza were saying goodbye to the last of their guests. "Okay listen," he said quietly, reaching into the utensil drawer for a spoon. "You can have one spoon of icing but it's got to be a secret, okay? If you tell your mom I gave it to you, I'll deny everything and you'll get in trouble for sneaking it."

Shellia nodded enthusiastically. Like the biggest kind of sucker, Jellal handed her the spoon with a sizable glob of icing. He snatched it from her the moment she'd licked it clean and tossed it innocently into the sink just as Meredy and Erza appeared in the doorway speaking quietly about the day's events.

"You ready for a bath, shortcake?" Meredy asked her daughter. Shellia reached for her mother who pulled the girl from the counter and into her arms. She blew Erza a kiss as Meredy carried her toward the living room and up the stairs.

Erza approached the bowl of icing and glanced over into the sink.

"You're such an easy mark, Jellal," she said as she stirred the violated bowl with a spatula.

"Excuse me?" He was trying for indignation, but his voice cracked.

"Shellia played you like a fiddle. It's obvious you gave her some of this. Meredy is going to be angry."

Jellal shrugged. "She won't find out about it. A spoonful of buttercream won't keep Shellia awake… right?"

"While you're still alive, we need to talk about something."

"That's a stretch, Erza. Meredy's all bark and no bite." He stood behind her and rested his chin on her shoulder. "What do you want to talk about?"

Erza stirred the icing and remained thoughtfully silent. She didn't speak until she set the spatula aside and left him by the counter to retrieve two cake rounds from the refrigerator.

"I don't want a long engagement, Jellal."

"Okay." He nodded in agreement and slid his hands into his pockets. Erza popped the first round from the tin and placed it on the cake stand.

"It seems overly dramatic and stupid. I've been living here for a year now and no one will be surprised if we married tomorrow."

"Uh… tomorrow?" Jellal blinked.

"I don't mean that literally. I'm just saying." She carefully spread the icing on the surface of the first round and turned to place the second on top.

"You seem really fixated on this idea for it to be just about not dragging things out. What's bothering you?"

Erza frowned and focused on icing the cake. Jellal watched her work through her feelings as the spatula made several dips into the bowl. She expertly evened out the layers of icing.

"My birth control prescription will need to be refilled in three months."

"Okay…?"

She tossed the spatula in the sink and turned to him. "I want kids of our own, Jellal. We're twenty-eight now and I feel like I'm ready… and I don't want to look like a cow in my dress. No matter how long we've lived together –" Erza rambled and fidgeted with the towel she used to wipe the icing from her fingers. "People always judge a pregnant bride! And what if I can't get pregnant? I want to know so we can… explore other options." She glanced up at him with an irritated expression. "Do you not share this urgency?"

"I'll be honest; I never really considered the possibility of fertility issues. And… well, I just figured you'd stop taking your pills whenever you wanted to have a baby." Jellal shrugged and Erza's frown deepened. "Are you upset with me?"

"So you were just waiting for me?"

"Kinda, yeah. This has been a rough two years for you. The new restaurant took some time to get going, the sale of your grandmother's house was a nightmare, and I know all those court hearings over the custody of Shellia weren't a happy time for you."

Erza pulled her hair from its knot and sighed. "Yeah that was kind of an ugly flashback. At least Shellia's ending was happier than mine."

"Erza," Jellal said quietly as he pulled her into an embrace. "Your parents didn't deserve to ruin your life any more than they already had. I know your grandmother was old, but she cared about you. Meredy would've understood if you didn't want to be in court."

"I didn't want her to be there by herself and I don't regret going." Erza pulled back from him and stared up earnestly. "We'll be better parents than that, right? I never want our kids or Shellia to feel like I did."

"Listen, Erik is completely out of the picture now. He has no rights to her whatsoever. And there is no way we will be anything like your parents. I mean –" He grinned. "The bar is set pretty low on that front already, but we'll do better."

"Let's try to get this wedding business done before I run out of pills." She wrapped her arms around his neck and Jellal leaned down to kiss her.

"What the hell, Jellal?" Meredy stormed into the kitchen. Her shirt was splotched with water and bubble bath suds. "Maybe you'd like to explain to me why Shellia is attempting backflips on her bed?"

"Backflips?" he spluttered. Erza laughed and returned to her cake.

"Did you give her sugar?" Meredy stalked toward him and poked him in the chest painfully.

"I swear it was only –"

"Oh, my god! You know she gets like this with even a pinch of sugar after six!" She glared at him so angrily he thought maybe he might not live to see his own wedding. "You know what? This is your problem. Go put your niece to bed. I'm done."

Jellal slunk from the kitchen and found Shellia jumping on her bed shrieking with laughter. The betrayal stung, but not as much as the realization that he'd been played and lost. Even with the lights turned out, it took her an hour to calm down.

"Hey," Erza whispered and nudged his shoulder.

"Hm?" Jellal startled from sleep.

"Are you going to sleep in this bed tonight?" She giggled softly and tugged on his hand. "Your back will hate you in the morning."

"Yeah, I'm coming." Erza helped him to his feet. Before leaving Shellia's room he switched on the night light that scattered tiny stars all across her walls and ceiling. Once they were in the hallway he slumped into Erza side and groaned. "No more sugar after six. Ever."

"You did kind of deserve that. I'm glad you learned your lesson, though." Her fingers carded through his rumpled hair.

Meredy was stretched across the couch on the living room and paused her phone conversation long enough to glare at him as he passed through. The person she was speaking with commanded her attention, though, and her expression slid into a grin.

"Sorry, what? I was distracted by my idiot brother," she said as he followed Erza up the stairs.

"Who's she talking to?" he asked.

"Who do you think?" Erza replied with a smirk.

"That cop again? Fullbuster's stepbrother?" Jellal scowled. "I don't like him."

"You don't need to," she said sweetly. "He's trying to date Meredy, not you. Stay out of it."

"But he's older than her!"

"And? Lyon is a nice guy and you need to leave it alone."

"How do you know he's a nice guy?" Jellal asked petulantly.

"I've met him many times, and don't forget that I went out with Gray for a while. I'm telling you Meredy could do a whole lot worse."

"Yeah, well…" He trailed off realizing he didn't want to take that conversation any further.

"Are you going to brood all night or are you going to come to bed?" Erza asked from behind him. Jellal yanked off his shirt and turned around.

Since proposing to her a month before he hadn't ever grown tired of the sight of the engagement ring on her finger. It seemed to compliment every piece of clothing she owned, including pajamas. However, there was nothing he preferred more than the way it looked when it was all she wore. With a grin he crawled across the mattress toward her.

"I am definitely done brooding," he said before kissing her fervently.