I wrote this story a few time ago but then a pure soul crossed my way and decided to help me out with my English and grammar and writing (a lot of things!) and helped me (a lot) correcting this story and turning it into something I hope you will enjoy a bit more without all those distracting mistakes (some of them is probably still there because I am a lost cause). If you appreciate my story even a little bit it is all thanks to this amazing girl and friend, the most patient and awesome teacher one could desire so this story is totally and absolutely dedicated to Joy-girl. Thank you my dear!

Boom boom boom boom

Gajeel turned to the direction of his door. Who the hell could it be at this time of the night?

Boom boom boom boom

Grunting, he got up from the bed and moved toward the sound.

"Gajeel?" A tiny, sleepy voice called to him from the wrinkled ball under his sheet Gajeel jumped again on the bed and slipped his big hands over the blue and messy hair that decorated the pillow.

"Don't worry, I'll handle this. You keep on sleeping." He whispered, placing a kiss on her forehead and the girl turned and smiled keeping her sleeping bless.

Boom boom boom boom

The door would be detached at this rate.

Gajeel cursed in a low voice "Coming. Coming." He grunted, blowing from his nose and dragging his feet to the door.

"Who the hell it is?" He asked opening the steel door that he himself had built to guarantee the peace in his house... Apparently it had not worked.

Gajeel lifted his eyebrows at seeing a soaking wet Gray Fullbuster. As soon as he could, the ice mage pushed the door open and entered the dragon's nest like a hurricane.

"I know it's late!" He shouted, "I didn't know where to go. You have to know something!" He pointed an accusing finger at Gajeel's chest.

Gray Fullbuster had been a spike in Gajeel's ass since his arrival to Fairy Tail. His ears had to listen too many times about how beautiful he was, how brave, how kind, fantastic and blah blah. A thousand times Gajeel had wanted to beat the ice mage for his dick icy face of indifference when said Ice prick provided him nights of nonstop weeping from the rain woman. The dragon knew too much about those two to fake ignorance about Gray's presence there at his house. Gajeel knew exactly what, or rather whom, Stripper was speaking about.

"I have to know where she is. Tell me!" The mage barked, approaching the dragon slayer. Gray slammed a fist against the wall and Gajeel felt the air turning colder.

The dragon saw red and didn't think a second more before grabbing the ice mage by the collar and slamming him against the wall, "Hey dickhead!" He snapped, "The hell you think about coming to my house this late at night and attacking me?!"

Gray relaxed a bit in his grip and so relaxed the dragon. The ice maker slid down the wall. "I... I am sorry. I know it... but, I have to find her! Have you looked out of the window?!"

Gajeel didn't need to look out. From days, the city seemed to have lost every small opening of sun. Everything was wound by the dark clouds and the constant damp rain that penetrated the bones, leaving only cold and sadness. In the streets, everybody raced to shelter, tightening their arms around their chest and isolating themselves. Nobody smiled at anybody; an nth demonstration of the great power and great pain of his old friend.

"I listened to you!" Gray protested. His breath quickened as he slammed his fists on the cold floor. "I tried, okay? You told me to give her time and now it is a fucking week that she doesn't come to the guild. None of the girls have a damn idea of where she is." He passed a hand through his hair. "She never returned to her room. I have looked over the city, the wood, along the shore of the river and I don't have a hell of an idea, anymore. You must tell me!" Gray shouted the end but Gajeel sent him daggers from his red eyes and Gray just hugged his own legs letting the head fall on the knees.

Gajeel shook his shoulders. He didn't like the icy and arrogant dick face of Gray, but the one he had now, was of someone who really needed fucking help. He seemed lost and desperate. Look at him, turning this lame over a sentimental matter, Tsk! He told Juvia, Icy pants here, had the mask of the "cool man" while he was just a crybaby, instead, but she didn't want to listen to him. Sprinkler would turn hella scary when he badmouthed the idiot and truth be told he didn't like to deal with her angry ass. You know, not that he is afraid of her but water makes nothing good on iron. Or worse. She would go all sentimental speaking about Stripper being in need to be truly loved and then he'd stop listening because, seriously...he didn't want to know how she planned to make him feel good! (Fun addition! Did you enjoy writing it too? Gajeel sounds fun to write :D)

"Ok, ok." He answered lifting his eyes to the sky. "There is a place.."

"Where?!" Gray urged, "Where it is?" He pushed himself up looking crazy with his eyes this wide opened.

"Stripper, calm the fuck down or I'll take my words back and let you wonder as a dumbass all around Magnolia." The old enemy threatened, looking into Gray's eyes with hostility.

Gray whined "If I hadn't listened to you, if I had done in my way, now she would be..."

"Don't say bullshit! If you had done in your way she would have gone away for good. Believe me, when I tell you that if she really had wanted to disappear you would not have been able to do a fuck about it. You have to thank the gods that this shitty rain is drenching Magnolia because this means that Ameonna is still here!"

Gray tightened his fists, launching himself against Gajeel and giving him a fist full in the face "How the hell did you call her? Jackass! Don't you even think to use that nickname ever again, otherwise-"

"Otherwise what, dickhead?!" Gajeel barked, striking Gray full in the stomach, "Tell me, jackass, do you believe you can come here and stand in front of me making Juvia's defender?

"Do you believe that you know everything about Juvia? Huh, idiot? Do you know who was with her while she was crying because of you? ME! And while people said how much of a strange, crazy, sticky, boring girl she was? ME!" Gajeel shouted, striking Gray with another fist, "And do you know who was with her when you refused her? Guess who." A kick, "Always me." A fist, "Still me when she had nightmares and she saw you dead in her dreams. But you, idiot, you were too proud and busy crying over your sad, sad life to be with her and to reassure her."

Gray had stopped fighting and he was welcoming every strike from Gajeel. It deserved every fist in the stomach that he, the dragon, was giving him. Gajeel pointed a finger to Gray's chest gnashing his teeth. "You believe that you know Juvia." The dragon said, fighting with himself to keep up the tone as calm as possible. He breathed. "But you don't know a shit about her! For how much she doesn't like it, she is and will always be Ameonna, the woman of the rain!"

"She hates it" Gray stated and Gajeel really felt the urge to smash that wiseass face of his against the wall until even Juvia would find it hard to recognize him. But even like this she would probably keep caring for this idiot. That stubborn girl.

Gajeel sighed. She was the same stubborn girl that for years sat quietly at his table when everybody told her to let him alone, that he was a lost cause. The same that kept looking for clues about dragons during her missions and that reported to him even when he told her, his way, that he didn't give a shit about it. She was the one that refused to let him alone when he too was ready to consider himself a lost cause. (I want to read more Gajeel and Juvia bro fics T^T – all the feels!)
He didn't know what Juvia saw in the ice bastard but he was not the one to judge her opinions. The least he could do, maybe, was try to make the popsicle see how much of an idiot he really was.

Gray saw Gajeel's face turning from angry to pissed, from pissed to thoughtful, and finally, Gajeel released the grip he had on Gray's collar giving him a push. He then started to talk opening and closing his fists at his side, "You can't understand it because as difficult as your life has been, you found Fairy Tail when you were what? 10?" He asked, "since then you have had a house, a family, and yet," Gajeel narrowed his eyes "you have been so stupid as to stay tied up to your past, pushing those that loved you! So stupid to push away Juvia!"

Gray tried to retort but Gajeel sent him daggers with his eyes, daring him to interrupt and then the dragon slayer kept talking, "Me and Ameonna, we grew up in Phantom Lord instead, where nothing counts aside for the brutal strength and the power. You can survive there, but only if you could prove to the others that you were stronger, that you didn't need them, that you were fine alone! Juvia and I, we made things..." Gajeel tightened the fists to find the voice that had become stuck in his throat. "We respected orders, we... we killed to show our power and to keep living under a roof!"

"Gajeel I..." Gray tried to speak, with real sorrow in the voice but the dragon looked at him with his red eyes that burned with anger.

"Let me finish. I won't tell you again what I am about to say!" He blew.

Gray fell on the couch holding his head between the hands and looked down.

"When Juvia and I came here to Fairy Tail, we came with dirty hands and a consciousness of almost every crime. You cannot even imagine hard it is to live every day with this sense of guilt. To live among you, all of you, that began to treat us as if we were part of the family."

"You are Fairy Tail members" Gray said lifting his head.

"We felt like cheats instead!"Gajeel yelled in Gray's face "Like beasts that hide in a rabbit hole, monsters that didn't deserve a crumb of the kindness that you were showing to us. Juvia met you, idiot, and she decided to be the kind of person she always wanted to. Juvia had never had anybody that loved her, neither did she have anybody to love and so she didn't have an idea about how she was supposed to do it, which was the right way, but she has loved you and each of you idiots of Fairy Tail from the beginning. She decided to put aside what she had been, she decided to smile, despite every refusal, despite your distance because she wanted to become someone who deserves love - because she wanted you and all the others happy more than anything. You don't have an idea about the time it takes for us 'to forgive ourselves' and to believe that we could live with you - that we too deserved that kind of warmth." Gajeel glanced to his room's direction.

Gray swallowed thinking about all the times Juvia felt "warm" for him and he never once thought that maybe she'd need that same feeling. Damn, he started to consider her part of his family from the very beginning and never once he thought he should reassure her about being accepted. He was so focused about feeling unable to fully return her feelings that he hadn't thought he could start from the small things like telling her she was important for him.

Gajeel started to pace back and forth: "That demon Keith - he forced her to do a thing that she had sworn not to do anymore! She killed him. Do you understand it?" He looked at Gray, deadly serious, "She Killed even after she believed she wasn't the kind of mage that killed anymore. She believed that even an enemy could be a decent person if loved, because guess what? In the past, me and her? We were that enemy! And if this was not enough, by killing Keith she killed your father, and you know damn well that she'd prefer to cut her arm and not than to hurt you somehow. How do you think she feels?"

"I..I..." the ice mage stammered with closed fists to the sides of his body "I had no idea..."

Gajeel walked to the fridge and took two iced beers. With a finger he uncorked one and drank it in one shot, then threw the second at Gray. "Stripper, don't tell her I told you this, but even if I think that you are a dick, you are the only one that can make Juvia smile again. A week of self-pity is already too much so now go and take the rain woman back. It's time for this shitty weather to stop."

Gray stood up, took a sip of the beer and grabbed the paper from Gajeel's hands where he had written an address.

"Thanks!" Gray said, smiling before racing into the street.

Gajeel closed the door and turned around. Wound by a sheet stood the main source of the joy in his heart even if the way they met will always hunt him. She was drying the tears that were rolling down her cheeks with the back of her hand.

"And so you heard everything, shrimp?!"

Levy didn't answer. She covered the distance that separated them and hugged tight the chest of the dragon "I am happy that you are here with me, Gajeel!"

"Ghighighi" the dragon smiled lifting her as if she was made of feathers, "Me too. I am happy I am here with you, shrimp!"

"There was a moment of quiet as he toyed with her locks before he spoke again, "Shrimp, what about going to the beach tomorrow?"

Levy looked perplexed at the drops of rain that whipped the windows

"If the stripper does fine his job, I bet my ass that tomorrow the sun will break the stones!"

Gray raced breathlessly to a small clearing next to a natural little lake. He didn't know that there was such a lake around Magnolia. Looking around he recognized a small cottage with blue curtains that gave him a feel of peace, despite the fog and the rain.

He was in the right place.

Gray ran to the porch and began to knock on the wooden door. "Juvia? Juvia answer" The mage felt the drops of rain becoming less violent on the ground, even if it lasted only a few moments.

Gray smiled! He cleared his voice then, "Juvia I know that you are here. Open this door!"

The rain woman was leaning on the door, torturing an edge of her dress with her fingers. For a whole week, she had not done anything else, other than crying. Crying for Silver. Crying for Gray. Crying for the person that she didn't want to be. Despite crying for a week, the pain in her chest hadn't descreased at all.

Gray kept on knocking and howling at her to open the door. Yet, she couldn't find the courage to look into his eyes yet. How could she after what she had done? Juvia shook the head, estranging herself from the door.

Outside, the rain returned stronger than before and a wave of worry wounded Gray's gut. What would he do if she didn't open that damn door? What would he do if she didn't want to see him anymore? What if she didn't come back to Fairy Tail? What if he lost her?

"I won't allow this shit to happen!" He answered to the scary voices in his head. "Juvia open this door! I will stay here all night if you don't!" Nothing happened so he kept talking, "I don't know if you are aware of it but it's raining a bit - not that the rain bothers me, but I could catch a cold!"

Well, to use guilt against someone who perhaps was already devastated was not the wisest of the ideas, but to that point Gray was desperate and he would have used every trick.

The mage heard a "click" coming from the door and released the breath he hadn't realized he was holding.

Without losing a second it pushed the door open just in time to see Juvia race in another room and close the second door.

Gray ran, but didn't make it in time and crashed against the wood.

"Juvia?!" He howled exasperated, "Juvia open this door!"

"Gray-sama, please go away… Please!" the tiny voice of the water mage said.

"Juvia I beg you... Open up, I just wanna speak!" the mage pleaded, leaning on the door.

Silence.

"Okay. All right." said the ice maker, "If you don't wanna speak, then I will!"

Silence.

Gray inhaled all the air that he was capable of. He had never been too much of a talker. "Juvia, Listen! I know that I have been an idiot... I should have told you before." the mage swallowed, "Juvia, the thing is that I don't care ok?! I don't care if before joining Fairy Tail you were a different person, but I, uhm... I care for the person you are now. Whatever you did in your past - it's fine with me because at the end, every move you made, it pushed you in a direction. It led you to Fairy Tail and to...me!"
He breathed and pushed his forehead against the wood, closing his eyes and feeling hotter. His jacket long gone.
Not a sound.

The mage made a step back pinching the bridge of his nose and walked to the open window to get air. Then he saw the sky had faded from black to gray. It was a tiny step, but gave him the motivation to keep talking, leaning his back on the door He went on, "My father," he said and the room returned to an unnatural dark. "My father didn't want anything else other than to die in peace. He asked me to free him." Gray's lips made a hard line. "He didn't want to live as a body moved only by the desire for revenge. He wanted to die and to reach my mother."

A gust of wind brought it the sweet scent of rain and geosmin.

Gray breathed it in. "My mother... her name was Mika. I am sure that you two would have gotten along." Gray's lips drew a sad little smile. "She liked to cook, to sew, and she had a thing for hats. When I was a little brat she always wanted me to wear one because, back then I was… sensitive to the cold! I am sure that if she could see me now..." He said pointing at his naked chest, "going around almost naked for half of the day, she would scold me endlessly!" A natural smile crept his way to Gray's face and the storm turned into a dense but delicate rain. "The point is that my father wanted to go back to her and I am sure that they are happy now. I am thankful to have been able to hug him one last time and I am thankful about what he taught me, and because he helped me to overcome my fears. I don't have any regrets! Ok?! Not a single one!" Gray leaned his forehead to the door and at the other side of the wood, Juvia was doing the same. ''But still, there is only a one thing that I don't want to happen... but I'll tell you only if you open this door!" Gray took the handle, praying in silence that Juvia would open that damn door.

Click.

The ice mage smiled wide, pushing the door and overwhelming the rain woman who sent a loud "KYAA!"

"It's about time?" Gray whispered, placing his hands on her hips and looking right into her eyes "A week, Juvia! I looked for you for a whole week!"

The rain woman averted her eyes, fixing the floor without finding the courage to lift her face again. "What is it that Gray-sama doesn't want?" She weekly asked, drawing circles on the floor with her toe. If there was something – anything - that she could do for him, she'd do it without a second thought. If he'd asked her to disappear from his life, that he didn't want to see her ever again, she would go without looking back. Even if he and Fairy Tail were the sun in her life. All that mattered was Gray's happiness.

The mage lifted her face with his finger, forcing her to look at him.

Tears blurred Juvia's eyes but it was a good thing for her to not be able to clearly see the face of her Gray-sama or else she would have lost every trace of resoluteness to disappear from his life. She had to leave him. She didn't deserve to love him.

"What I don't want is this to happen again." Gray said drying her tears with his fingers "That's to say: to lose. To Lose somebody else that I love and now the one I am most afraid of losing is you, Juvia, because, Juvia, I...you know!" Gray looked at her with his most determined look ignoring the way that statement made his ears roar and his heart hammer. Ignoring the way her face was morphing from sadness to disbelief, how her watery eyes shone and her cheeks were turning beautifully pink. Ignoring the way her warm breath so close to his face made his knees weak. He breathed in the air they shared and with that breath, he took all the courage he needed to give in to what he wanted to do and kissed Juvia Lockser.

He kissed and kissed her so slowly and for too long that they didn't even acknowledge the blunt sun of the dawn that was getting wide and shiny, passing through the branches, the leaves, and the curtains, blending every color into a golden tone and brightening their future.