N/A: Posted this on tumblr some days ago and couldn't do it here because ff. net was down or something so I'm doing it right now because it exceeds my self-imposed rule of 1 500 words for "drabbles" that only go in tumblr. Meh.

Written loooong ago and short and so sickingly sweet I want to throw it at kitties. Ick. And the tittle...i don't even.

Summary: Where he meets her a bit too soon but everything else is still the same. More or less.

Disclaimer: Fairy Tail and its characters are propiety of Hiro Mashima.

Before Time

i.

Gray sees the girl on a rainy day crying her eyes out, bawling in the middle of the town he has come to for a mission, and grumbles under his breath watching how that woman is, in fact, quite literally flooding the street with her tears. He is not sure on what to do at first, but Gray knows, without a doubt, that him being from Fairy Tail and all only means that the reporters will somehow find the way of pinning down this disaster on him and, honestly, he is not willing to lose the few jewels left after his public exhibition of nudity.

So he strides towards her, shoves a handkerchief in front of her face and snarls when she looks up with puffed eyes, disheveled dress and crumpled hat atop her head. Thank gods, he thinks before speaking, she has stopped crying at least.

"Here, take this," he grits, "and stop the water before you made this town disappear from the map. I'm inviting you for a meal and you can wail all you want then or whatever but fucking stop. I got enough as it is."

ii.

The invitation, as it turns out, lasts hours.

Gray discovers that the blue-haired woman is called Juvia, a water mage working in Phantom Lord that always speaks in third person and someone who has a great deal of a problem with the rain and a man named Bora.

"Juvia was dumped just this afternoon," she rambles with a voice that's angry and sad and livid all mixed. "Bora-san said he couldn't stand Juvia anymore because the rain was gloomy which made Juvia gloomy–but she should be used to this since it's not the first time and Juvia's lived with the rain for so long and… and…"

There is the glimpse of drops at the corner of her dark eyes and Gray gulps fearing what would come next. He orders another round of beer before the dam breaks free while his mind rakes for something worth answering with and that won't cause the next Great Flood; because he is reaaaally aware of his foot-on-mouth problem around crying girls and this is one those occasions he cannot, by any means, allow himself to screw up.

Lives―his life more precisely― are at stake after all.

"Did you tell him about, errr," Gray looks outside the window to the raining day and back to the girl sitting next to him, "your condition before dating and stuff?"

"Yes, of couse Juvia did."

"Then it's all his fault for not preparing himself," he states.

She looks at him oddly with pink ears and red cheeks, nodding as if she isn't sure what his point is and her brow wrinkles when her gaze lowers down from his face to the torso.

"Why is Gray-kun in his underwear?" she asks.

iii.

Madness strikes with the worst timing ever seen as Gray writes down his lacrima's number on a napkin and hands it to Juvia Lockser.

He would regret this decision later, a voice tells him at the back of his mind, but Juvia beams and thanks profusely as much as she apologizes for all the troubles and Gray kind of smirks at that.

iv.

She calls him after two days, asking him how she could make up for his kindness and doesn't listen when he tells her he was only acting out for his own selfish reasons. Juvia is enthusiastic when prodding him for replies to her conquest and asks question after question in the hopes of learning something that would give her an idea.

He answers all of them, even the ones he didn't want to answer, and she discovers little by little, day after day, and by the time a month passes she presents herself in front of his apartment with a gift in hand and rain following her as always.

Juvia smiles, Gray frowns and looks questioningly.

"Gray-sama," she says and bows promptly, "thank you."

When he tears the paper he finds a knitted scarf― a scarf, honestly, when he was an ice-mage of all things―that brings a frown and clenches his jaw. He thinks this is a joke, at first, before looking up and finding the hesitant smile on her pale face and his scowl wavers.

Gray scoffs.

It's utterly and insanely stupid.

He likes it.

"So," Gray drawls as he invites her inside his apartment for tea, or coffee, or absolutely nothing because he is not even sure if he has anything stoked for visits, "what's up?"

v.

"You got a girlfriend," Cana shrills with laughter. "What the fuck did you do to the poor girl? I hope it's nothing to do with dark magic. And lying is cheating, Gray. Remember that."

"When did I say she was my girlfriend? She is not," Gray huffs smashing the glass of beer against the table. "She's only a friend. A friend―and what do you mean by poor girl and dark magic, you alcoholic twat?"

vi.

How anyone could think Juvia is gloomy of all the possible adjectives, when there were better fitting words like crazed, blissful and ten different kinds of obsessive, is beyond Gray's compression.

The rain following her is gloomy, kind of, but Juvia? Not so much.

And that is a fact, Gray asserts.

vii.

She confesses to him somewhere between here and there, and he is too bewildered at first to answer coherently at her soft words. There is a gnawing sensation climbing up from his stomach to his chest and up through his throat until it reaches his brain and then…

He kinda stands there without saying shit.

She is shy, for once, because she has always been so impossibly open about everything to the point of annoyance, and peers at him from behind blue bangs while playing with the hem of her dress. Juvia isn't stammering, though, or blushing or doing that little thing she does when she is on her dreamland and her eyes don't budge from watching him.

Juvia chews on her lower lip before exhaling. "Juvia just wanted to tell Gray-sama how she feels," she says and shifts from one foot to another. But then her demeanor changes and there is conviction and passion and a tiny bit of viciousness seeping off from her. "And Juvia'll fight for it, too, because she's so sure Gray-sama is the one for her and Juvia wants to marry and have little, blue-haired kids with Gray-sama's lax compelesion while―"

She starts ranting off and on and doesn't stop from walking from one side of the street to another.

Gray watches on until it―something, whatever―clicks and he gasps shakily.

Gray starts moving and blurts incoherently.

He stops her from leaving him behind.

viii.

"Juvia?" After the mission with Deliora and Lyon and Galuna Island Gray isn't expecting the huge ass iron barbs piercing a whole building, or the havoc inside the guild, or seeing Juvia in the middle of it all with a scary, huge dude next to her. He is not sure what to make of the scene if he is honest, so he asks, "What are you doing here?"

"Juvia? That Juvia?!" some of his friends shout. "Your girlfriend's the one trying to start a war with us?!"

Gray doesn't know how to answer at that, either, and he glares at everyone before settling on Juvia who purses her mouth downwards and doesn't look at him in the eye. He pinches the bridge of his nose and sighs.

The huge, pierced dude growls and sneers at them all. "C'mon, woman, this was obviously a bad idea. You can't expect me to feel sorry for this―this―"

"Gajeel-kun, calm down" she chastises, squirming under the dozens of glowers directed to them and mumbles very, very quietly something that never reaches them. Gray strides towards her, not without assessing the guy next to her, and taps her on the arm.

"Juvia," he warns softly.

Her smile is tottering, although confident this time, and turns around to their master with a fierce expression.

So they explain about a Master gone mad and power-hungry, a mission from a rich father who searches for his lost daughter and Juvia apologizes again and again and again until she swears she will help them for the inconvenience they had caused even though Makarov reassures she doesn't have to and the man accompanying her protests threatengly.

But she is a really stubborn person and doesn't listen to any of it.

Gray grins at her at the end of it all and invites Juvia, and begrudgingly her friend as well, to a round.

ix.

"Juvia is joining Fairy Tail," she says practically bouncing and taking in Fairy Tail's hall after their wimpy Phantom Lord is taken down and dealt with. "Gajeel-kun is too. It's nice here. Juvia hopes we can do better here. It seems we will."

No one in the guild complains to that and everyone cheers for their new members.

Later, Juvia drags him under the rain and starts laughing like he has never heard her before. At some point, Gray is sure, he has stopped breathing. And it's such a fucking cliché, too, but the truth at the same time and Gray just―

He is―

He just enjoys it.

x.

Something wakes him up in the middle of the quiet night.

He is too drowsy at first to care about the light shaking of his arm but when Juvia doesn't desist on her never-ending task of pushing him over the edge, he groans and glares at her.

"What? The sun is not even up so I hope it's well worth it, Juvia," Gray growls.

She doesn't answer, however, still pulling him from his arm and eyes set somewhere to their right. There is this astonished, unbelievable expression marring her features, with brimming tears and all, and Gray's scowl deepens at the sight.

His head spins around to watch the window, the landscape of the clean night that could be seen from it and hears nothing but their even breathing. When he questions her with a cocked eyebrows and sitting up next to her on the bed, Juvia swallows a deep, shaky breath and stares at him in amazement.

"The rain," she whispers with a tiny, trembling voice. "It stopped. There is no rain, Gray-sama."

Oh.

That's, well― incredible.

More so when her eyes are shining like that and her white teeth showing with a face-splitting smile and how she clutches him with such a passion that makes his chest throb. His eyes widen as Juvia starts crying, from happiness at last, while she leans in for a kiss that draws a groan from him.

He is almost sweep away by her glee, and even almost forgets how to breathe properly as Juvia mewls with joy against his lips.

Almost, though, because it's still four in the morning and he is sleepy, godammit.

"Congratulations," he says after a while, meaning it too, and her smile brightens. "Now, sleep."

When she starts complaining about how she wants to get out to see the starry night, Gray pulls her down and throws himself over her, thus victoriously quieting the-not-rain-woman-anymore and finding the softest and comfiest pillow he has ever had.

This, he thinks with Juvia's giggles echoing in his ears, is the best decision of his life.