Note: This is the first companion piece to "The Backup Plan", and should be read second. I never planned on writing anything else to go along with that story since I think it's very well-contained and powerful on its own, but somehow I got sucked into this. Think of "The Backup Plan" kind of like Fairy Tail and the companion pieces as something like Fairy Tail Zero, where all the stories are related but the original is the main piece and the secondary stories focus more on giving information about the background and aftermath .

Chronologically, this story would take place in between the two parts of "The Backup Plan", with the exception of the "prologue". (As a side note, the second companion piece will take place after the events of "The Backup Plan", and I will post a handy timeline at the bottom of this chapter to clear up any confusion). This story originates from something Natsu said in the second part of the original story, when he says that Gray had been trying to tell him goodbye during their previous conversation. So this story focuses on how Gray secretly says goodbye to a bunch of his other friends as well, in case he doesn't make it back. Natsu doesn't get such a detailed talk with Gray here because he already got his conversation in "The Backup Plan", but the "epilogue" will be in his POV and the second companion piece will be pretty Natsu-centric.

This piece is made up of 5 related one-shots (one for each of 5 people that Gray says goodbye to), a "prologue" , and an "epilogue". The order will be as follows: "prologue", Lucy, Erza, Juvia, Cana, Makarov, "epilogue". These characters weren't selected haphazardly - they were all included (or excluded) for reasons that I might explain later.

Anyway, enjoy the story.

"Prologue"-The Journal

Excerpt from Lucy's journal:

There were a lot of things we didn't realize until it was too late. Looking back, I can see that Gray put together a complex puzzle for us, giving us each a piece. We couldn't solve that puzzle because we each held on to our own little piece instead of working together to look at all the pieces side by side. If all of us had just come together, it would have been so obvious that something was wrong. Well, they say that hindsight is 20/20.

I realized that Gray was acting a little odd the last time we talked, but I just figured that he was in a strange mood or something. I mean, everyone has off days. It wasn't until Natsu told us about the conversation he had with Gray that I realized what had happened. When Erza asked Natsu what Gray had said, he said that Gray had said a lot of things, but that he had really been trying to say goodbye. Thinking back, it seems painfully obvious that he had been saying goodbye to me too, even if I didn't realize it at the time. After Gray's death we came together to support each other in the grieving process and as we talked, we realized that he had said goodbye to each of us, in his own way.

None of us understood his true intentions at the time, but we had each noticed that he was acting a little strangely. He had been more open, more sentimental, more talkative than usual, but we each chalked it up to a one-time thing. If we had noticed that he had had such an out of character conversation with each of us, then we would have seen the pattern and wondered what was going on. God, I wish we had realized sooner.

But like I said, we each held on to our one puzzle piece, our one conversation, without seeing the bigger picture. If there was an odd one out, I suppose it must have been Gray's conversation with Natsu. When Gray talked to each of the rest of us, he mostly seemed to be trying to cheer us up or help us realize something important about ourselves. From what Natsu told us about their talk, it seems like he was the one comforting Gray. It makes me wonder which was more 'real': was Gray really so okay with using iced shell, or did he feel used and abandoned by being the backup plan? He seemed very collected and in good spirits when he talked to the rest of us, but was he more honest about his feelings with Natsu?

I don't know. This is all just conjecture, really, since Natsu refuses to talk much about whatever happened that night. I guess I can't really blame him. There are things Gray said to me that I haven't told the others as well, things that I hold close to my heart as a small comfort against the pain. I wouldn't be surprised if the others have done the same. There's something comforting about feeling like I hold a secret piece of Gray that only I know, some small thing he told me that he might not have told anyone else. Maybe it's selfish, but it's the only thing I have left of him now. Perhaps someday, when the pain begins to fade a little, we'll all share these hidden little pieces. And maybe we'll find that putting them together will give us a more complete picture of who Gray was and how he was feeling in the days before his death. I guess we might be making the same mistake twice by not sharing everything we know with each other, but for now we need all the comfort we can get.

Compared to almost everyone else at Fairy Tail, I knew Gray for the shortest time. Sometimes I wonder if I really have the right to mourn him the same way that his childhood friends do. I mean, it must be so much harder for them. But even so, he became an important part of my life very quickly, and I miss him so much. And besides that, as I've listened to the others talk about their final conversations with him, I've gotten the feeling that perhaps they didn't know Gray as well as I always assumed they did. Gray has always been something of an enigma. He is—was—never very open about his true emotions and thoughts. I wonder if in those final conversations he was more honest or dishonest than ever before. Honest because he was so open with what he thought of us and even about pieces of his past, and dishonest because he was clearly keeping secrets about what was coming.

But…Even though I can't claim to have a thorough understanding of how his mind worked, I feel like we all knew him very well in the ways that matter. Maybe we didn't know all the details of his past or his true emotional state, but we knew him.

Everything is so different now. The guild is quiet and tense, there aren't any friendly brawls or teasing insults being thrown around, and Fairy Tail's strongest team is missing a key member. I guess I never truly realized what an integral part of the guild Gray was until he was gone. His death has shattered Fairy Tail in a way I've never seen before. Life will go on, like he wanted it to, but it will take some time to heal. Soon we'll have to start picking up the pieces and rebuilding our lives, and I think that figuring out the puzzle that is Gray Fullbuster might be the first step.

I think that the thing I regret the most is that Gray managed to say goodbye to me, but I never got to say goodbye to him. I mean, at the very end I guess I did, but it's not really the same. There's so much more I wish I could have told him. I can't say that I'm ready to let go of him just yet, but I know he would want me to move on with my life, and I need to find some closure somewhere.

So:

Goodbye, Gray.

Timeline:

4 days before the battle

-Makarov asks Gray to be the backup plan (just before part 1 of "The Backup Plan")

-Gray and Natsu talk ("The Backup Plan" - part 1)

3 days before the battle

-Gray talks to Lucy

2 days before the battle

-Gray talks to Erza

-Gray talks to Juvia

-Gray talks to Cana

1 day before the battle

-Gray talks to Makarov

-Gray and Natsu make a bet ("epilogue")

-Gray writes letters ("To Those Left Behind")

Day of the battle

-Gray gives letters to Makarov ("To Those Left Behind")

-Gray uses iced shell ("The Backup Plan" - part 2)

After the battle

-Events of "To Those Left Behind"

-Lucy writes in her journal ("prologue")