A week later, Laxus watched his wife sleeping with her face down at the table.

Yuri was the only person who knew what he was going to do, and he supported it. After all, he was the family's original mama's boy. If Lucy spiraled into the pit of despair and illness, it would hurt the entire family, especially Yuri.

Yuri invited Lex over to spend the night with him and Petri, which made Lex quite happy and excited.

So while Yuri and Petri were being chased through their own house by a little dragon boy and a big dog, Laxus was busy committing an act of utter and pure betrayal against his wife for her own sake.

There wasn't a cell of his body that believed Lucy would have consented to the idea of having a lacrima from their dead grandchild put into her body. It was an upsetting idea for anyone to consider, but the fact that it was unsavory couldn't bring the baby back, and dying for that was senseless. He wouldn't allow it, no matter what she felt about it afterward.

A little sleep potion had her in quite a deep sleep.

It made him feel like a monster or a villain, like he was about to commit a grievous crime against her body in order to save it.

If there was any hesitation in him, it had vanished after he went to the doctor with her and had to sit through a conversation where a doctor basically described what was going to happen. The cancer was going to spread and damage her organs until they could no longer function. At that point, it was mostly a question of when they'd reach that point than whether it was going to happen.

When his own father had died, his grandfather had been disturbed and haunted by how difficult and painful it had been for Ivan. Laxus wasn't going to let that happen to his wife, no matter what.

He carried her upstairs, slipped her out of her shirt and bra, and rolled her over on the bed on her belly.

The place where the cancer was growing in her spine was easy to spot because there was already a wound where they'd taken a sample of it. He decided he had the best chance of Lucy not realizing he'd put something in her body if it went in at the same place. In his case, the lacrima behind his eye had been significantly larger when it went in, and it caused a significant amount of damage.

This lacrima was tiny, like a little pebble.

Here, if there was scarring or damage, she'd probably attribute it to the same little wound or to the cancer.

Laxus believed that he'd successfully merged with his lacrima because it went in his eye, which gave the lacrima access to his nervous system. Sticking it in muscle tissue seemed like a comparatively bad idea because it would concentrate magic in one area versus giving it networks to travel throughout the body. He theorized this was probably the reason this process was typically deadly and why Ivan had put chosen his eye in the first place. It also made her back possibly the best place to put the lacrima.

He cleaned the area carefully, and then reopened the wound with a razorblade.

Like Yuri, he knew he wasn't really going to be able to keep it a secret. She'd find out eventually, and she was going to be devastated by the betrayal and furious at his audacity for a very long time.

When he thought about it, it seemed like he'd engaged the dark side of Yuri from the moment he told his son that Lucy was sick. The sweet, honest boy probably would have told him to talk to his mother; the other half of him was ruthless in protecting those that mattered to him. Yuri the sweet boy wouldn't understand what he was doing; Yuri the killer was considerably simpler.

Laxus carefully eased the tiny little lacrima into the wound, and pushed it in place with his pinky.

It seemed to be inert at first, so he gave it the tiniest jolt of lightning and it seemed to come to life within her.

Lucy's toes wiggled at the suddenly jolt of electricity through her body.

He gave it a steady but tiny current as it took root and when he pulled his pinky back, he could feel it still pulsing within her.

Laxus stitched the wound back closed carefully, and watched her throughout the night for any sign her body was rejecting the lacrima.

Surprisingly, her body accepted it without any issues. He assumed she'd have it easier since she'd carried a couple of babies with the same magic, but there was no negative response at all: no fight between host and invader, no sign her body had identified the lacrima as a threat.

Lucy slept quite peacefully, even after the magic potion wore off, and upon waking the next morning, noted that she felt really good, which was surprising since it was her second week of medication.

The day before, she'd already been feeling the effects of the poisonous medicine taking their toll on her body. From her prior experience, she didn't assume that would ever get better while she was taking them.

"Good morning," her husband said, reaching out to tangle his fingers in her hair.

"Hey. I don't remember going to sleep. Did I fall asleep on the sofa or something?"

"Something like that," he said, leaning in to kiss her.

Lucy sat up in the bed. "I actually feel really good. Like, ridiculous. Maybe something is wrong?"

"If you feel good, let's not question it."

The next thing he knew, she had climbed on top of him and was kissing and biting his ears.

"Easy, Lucy!" he whispered in shock.

Lucy gave him a big kiss. "C'mon big boy."

There was one thing he hadn't really taken into consideration and knew he should have. Really, he couldn't lie to her or keep secrets from her. The idea of having sex with her when he was lying wasn't bearable, and even being in that unguarded position summoned every bit of conviction that existed in him.

When he thought it out, he assumed she'd carry the lacrima in her until she either figured out it was there or someone else told her about it. But in all their years, he'd never been able to keep secrets from her. It was just how things worked, and from his position, he knew at this point, the only sensible thing he could possibly do was to tell her himself. Lying to his wife for a long period of time was—at best—the worst idea he'd ever had. If he put the lacrima in her without giving her a chance to protest, that was to save her life. Lying about it was to try and postpone the consequences for as long as possible.

And that simply wasn't fair to her. In theory, hiding it made sense, but in practice, he couldn't disrespect his wife like that. He simply couldn't. It was outside of his abilities as a human being to hide something from his wife.

"I need to tell you something," he blurted out.

Lucy sat back on him. "Okay…what's wrong?"

"I took some matters into my own hands, and I knew you'd be furious, so I didn't give you a chance to tell me no."

Her expression transformed into a frown. "What did you do?"

"I didn't want you to get sick and die, so…I intervened."

"Intervened how?"

Lucy was still trying to come to terms with the fact she was probably dying and there was no stopping it. There was supposedly know way to fix this problem with magic medicine, yet he said he'd done something about it. She felt better than she had the day before, so she was inclined to believe maybe what he'd done was effective.

Laxus braced himself for the worst. "I put the lacrima Yuri had in your back."

Lucy was completely blank for the better part of a minute as she tried to process the information he just provided. The lacrima was basic pure magic power harvested from Yuri's baby, which died along with her mother. The thought that was inside of her body made her feel physically ill. Her stomach turned, and she jumped off of him.

"You…what…What the living hell, Laxus?! Have you lost your mind? That's our grandchild. You put it in my body?"

"It's not anything but magic. Don't be sentimental. This is why we didn't talk about it first."

He underestimated exactly how well her body was getting along with the lacrima and failed to dodge in time when she grabbed the porcelain soap dispenser off the counter and hurled it at his face like she was pitching a softball game.

She hit him hard enough his nose started bleeding.

He picked up a towel and held it to his nose. "I knew you'd be pissed, and I still did it. Look, I don't care how mad you are. You're not going to die on me. I won't allow it. I'm not going to stand by and do nothing while you suffer. Once was enough—never again!"

"You betrayed me! Had you asked, I would have told you to go to hell and not ever bring it up again."

"I didn't ask, because I think your life is more important than what's left of a life that won't ever be," he answered.

They hadn't had an all-out fight in so long Lucy felt like the world was spinning in reverse while she yelled and screamed at him for what was undeniably a massive violation of everything their marriage stood for. He'd broken the sense of trust, violated her body, did something that was twisted and dark by anyone's estimation, and worst of all, he wasn't sorry about any of it.

Laxus expressed no remorse and insisted he'd made the right choice no matter how she felt about it.

He'd forgotten that dragon magic came with some other side-effects.

Lucy already had a bad temper, so propagating dragon magic to her body was like throwing gasoline on an already raging inferno. And she was so pissed he was sure the temperature of her blistering rage would have melted Natsu into a puddle.

She picked up everything in sight and threw it at him, which ended in a broken window in their bedroom that allowed her screaming to be heard in the street and both the couples living across the street and next door.

"How could you do this to me? To take away my own opinion about what happens to me?" she screamed.

He bared his teeth at her and answered, "Because you would have chosen to die! That doesn't make any sense, Lucy!"

Lucy was momentarily silenced by the outburst and sat down on the stairs where she'd been chasing him down with something that she intended to throw at him. When she looked down and saw it was one of their wedding pictures.

She couldn't help but break down and start sobbing.

Never in her life had she felt so angry or so betrayed. If a friend or an ally did something hurtful, it was on a totally different level than for her husband to do it. They'd been together for so long, and it had been so good, but suddenly, everything felt so wrong.

Lucy said, "Take it out."

"It's already fused with you. It's too late. It's done, and you're going to have to live with it. But you'll be alive to hate me forever if that's what you want to do."

Lucy heard the front door unlock, and Iggy poked his head in.

"Is everything okay? We heard yelling."

Knowing his in-laws were fighting was strange, because they just didn't do that. It was normal for them to bicker constantly, but that was just the rhythm of their lives. For them to actually fight like this was uncommon to the point he didn't remember ever being aware of it happening.

Iggy would have minded his own business, but he hadn't wanted his wife to get in the middle of her parents fighting with each other. Yet, he still wanted them to know that everyone could hear and everyone knew something was wrong.

The second person to show up in response to the yelling was Orga Sr., who pulled Iggy back outside.

"Easy Iggy, people disagree sometimes. It doesn't mean they don't love each other. It just means they're pissed off. Leave 'em alone, kid," he said, closing the door again.

Once they were alone again, Lucy sat there and cried, feeling worse about the betrayal than she felt like she had over the fears that she really might die. If nothing else, her husband had always been the most trustworthy, wonderful person in her life. Now, he'd made a big choice for her without even bothering to ask her how she felt about it.

No, it was worse than that. He knew she'd disapprove and did it anyway.

On top of feeling betrayed, she felt so disgusted by the idea of what it was that he'd put in her body.

"How'd you even get it? Did you tell Yuri what you were going to do?"

Laxus replied, "He doesn't want to lose anyone else."

"How could you even involve our son in this? Of course he's scared. His fiancée died for no reason. And his baby too. And you thought what, you'd help his situation by using his fear to trick him into going along with this? Do you even have an understanding of what you've put inside of me?"

"Magic power. I did not put a person in you."

"Do you know that?"

Laxus pointed to his eye. "Remember, I'm the same way. I've had a lacrima in my body since I was six years old. At no point have I ever perceived it as a separate being. It doesn't have a will. It's just magic power. I can say for certain there's nothing there because I've had nothing inside of me."

"Does that give you the right to play God?"

"If God has a problem with it, he knows where I live, right?"

From her perspective, what he did was morally abhorrent. He knew Yuri would go along with it out of the crippling fear he'd have to experience death again.

Yet…

Laxus crossed his arms. "How do you think Yuri would feel watching you waste away and die? Watching his vibrant mom die slowly because she was too stubborn to take the only lifeline that was offered…would that make everything better? Like it or not, everyone needs you."

"But—"

He added, "Lex is little. What do you think it would be like for him, being in this house while you die? We both know that's what was going to happen. Would you really choose to scar him forever? You can say what I did was disgusting or wrong, but it was the right choice to make. Tough love isn't just for kids."

"You're a self-righteous bastard. How am I even supposed to get past this? What if it didn't work?"

Laxus replied, "You feel fine, right? Maybe we'll wait a few days and go to a doctor."

"I'll go to the doctor and you can go to hell. Honestly, knowing you're this full of crap makes me doubt the last two and a half decades of my life. Were you always this much of an asshole?"

"Of course I was. I'll do anything for you. If the situation was switched, can you tell me you wouldn't make the same decision?"

Lucy tried to think it out, but she honestly didn't want to. "I'm going to get dressed and go out for some fresh air. I'd really appreciate it if you weren't around when I come back. I don't want to look at you right now. I am so disgusted that you put that thing…you put that thing in my body!"

Laxus obeyed her wishes for the time being, and went to the guild while she was out after he cleaned up upstairs.

One thing he knew was that despite her fit of rage, she seemed to be physically well. If the lacrima hadn't done anything, she probably would have spent her morning nauseated in bed from the harsh medication she was taking. If she had the energy to wake up and demand sex, and then had the energy to injure his nose, break a window, and trash their bedroom, she probably felt all right.

Lucy wandered around Magnolia for a while, crying and angry. The chilly air did little to tame her temper, and she just didn't understand how she was going to move on. Her husband had taken it upon himself to literally alter the very nature of her body without so much as asking her about it.

She eventually found her way to South Gate Park, where she'd gotten married so many years before.

Lucy sat down under the big tree and replayed the ceremony over in her head. It had been one of the greatest days of her life, because it was the day she and Laxus had become family. When they were young, they'd been so in love, and so enthusiastic about being together they couldn't keep their hands off each other no matter how hard they tried.

They welcome a baby boy, and then a girl, and then two more girls. Later, Lex came along.

It had been good; it had always been so good.

While she was sitting there, she heard someone approach and her oldest son sat down next to her.

Lucy frowned at him. "Did your Dad tell you I yelled at him?"

"Of course not. The entire neighborhood did. Mavis said you were yelling so loud it scared everyone. I figured Dad probably did it and then couldn't keep his mouth shut."

"Your dad is such an idiot."

Yuri said, "Are you mad at me?"

"No. I'm sorry. I'm sorry you got involved in all of this. Your dad shouldn't have dragged you into it. It wasn't right. I feel like he used your fear."

Her son squirmed and made an uncomfortable face that was undeniably like his father's.

"Stop looking like your dad, it's pissing me off."

Yuri pointed at his face. "I was born like this. You always tell me I'm handsome, Mom."

"Now you remind me of someone that pisses me off."

"Well, sorry. I can't really help it. I can't help it that I'm like my dad. I don't mind. My dad just wants to protect everyone, so I want to do that too," he gently replied.

If anyone could placate her, it was her gentle and sweet son. Still, she resisted. "What he did was wrong."

Yuri thought for a while, and then said, "Have you really tried to think about how Dad feels? He was so scared, Mom. I like to think of my parents as these larger-than-life characters, but then suddenly I remember they're human like me. I don't want my dad to experience fear like that, and I don't want you to be sick."

"…but…"

"Dad is right. I'm not saying you don't have the right to be mad, but he did what he had to do to protect his wife. It's what anyone would do. It's not just Dad. We all need you. When something isn't right with you, it's hard for all of us because we love you and want you to share our lives with us. You're the heart of our family. And the spine and the brain and probably all the other important parts too."

Having her son attempt to reason with her and talk her down from her fury was surreal, but his voice was calm, steady, and honest. Yuri was a selfless and loving person who put family before everything, and he easily understood why his father had crossed lines and acted without regard to consequence. It was a trait Yuri also possessed, as proven by the fact he was able to kill to protect his family members.

Lucy thought of her husband as being a smug, authoritative jerk, and in her mind's eye, just imagined he'd come up with this plan and done it because he didn't care about her opinion. Yuri painted him with a different stroke and forced her to consider that he was just a desperate person trying to save his wife's life because he was scared to face a life without her.

"Aren't you bothered? Just thinking where it came from…it makes me feel sick."

Yuri said, "This is the best thing that could possibly happen to it. I didn't have a choice about whether or not Bella died. I got to have a choice about whether my mom has to. I'm just not going to be sorry about that. It actually makes me feel better."

"I'm still angry, Yuri."

"Dad said to me that he knew you were going to be mad at him, and that he didn't care if you were mad for the rest of your life, just as long as you were here with him to be angry."

Lucy was still fuming, but Yuri sat there quietly.

Finally, she sighed. "What did I do to deserve such a good son?"

"You loved me. Let me love you back, okay? Besides, no kid wants their parents to fight. You have to realize all of us, Lex included, know you and Dad had some terrible blowup that was so bad the entire neighbor heard you screaming about him betraying you. The neighbors who don't know us probably think Dad has a mistress or something."

Lucy almost laughed at the idea. "That's kind of ridiculous. One thing I've never worried about is whether he'd ever cheat on me. He's kind of stuck on me."

"That's why you have to take care of him. Dad needs you."

"Is Lex okay?"

Yuri said, "We told him married people just fight sometimes like anyone else. One of his friends at school has parents that are getting divorced so he's a little worried."

"Poor Lex."

He added, "I'm happy with this, Mom. It gives me something so I don't have to say Bella's life had no value, or that it never meant anything."

Lucy couldn't help but cry at this. "But that's not the way it's supposed to work. Old people die and young people live."

"But if a young person dies, does that mean an older person has to just to make it fair? That's no good. Think about our family. Do you even know what you mean to us? Besides, this will probably help you live a really long and healthy life."

She leaned on his arm. "I hate everything you've had to go through, I really do. I want to fix everything, but I can't. I feel like this is just something else you have to deal with."

Yuri smiled at her. "I'm okay, Mom. With all that's happened, I've had a big family to look after me. I can't imagine how much we would all suffer without you. So I'm glad that you're going to be okay."

Lucy wiggled her toes, and noted that mere hours after having her husband perform amateur surgery on her, some of her symptoms were already easing. The tumor in her spine caused her feet to tingle a weird sort of way, which is what had prompted her to go to the doctor in the first place. Now, as she sat there on the chilly ground with her son, she could wiggled them and feel them fully.

She said, "Hey, I have something important to say to you. Your ears aren't broken, so I know you can physically hear me but that you're not ready to listen. That's okay. I want you to remember this when you are."

"Remember what?"

"Love is worth it, Son. I've never been more hurt or angrier at your dad than I was today, but I still love him so much I think I'll burst sometimes, even after all the years we've been together. Remember that, okay? Promise me."

"I promise."

Lucy said, "All right. Don't forget I still expect grandchildren from you someday."

"I've heard you can order everything from catalogs these days. I'll see what I can do."

She burst out laughing, and then froze. "Oh my God, did you just tell a joke? A funny one? Are you going to develop a sense of humor? You seem a little old for that."

"Mom, sometimes talking to you makes me feel really tired. I don't know how Dad does it."

"You actually look like you're tired from staying up late and judging from your skin, I'm guessing you've been drinking and eating too much junk food since you moved. Maybe if you got more sleep and got drunk less you'd feel better? Just a suggestion."

"Thanks, Mom."

He stood up and offered her a hand to help her up.

Lucy smiled and said, "Okay, you're cute again."

"You're kind of fickle."

"Don't make me downgrade you to annoying again."

Yuri asked, "You want to go out for breakfast? You're one of us now. You know what we like to do? Eat."

"That sounds good."

They stopped to get Lex, who was discussing his assorted childhood fears and worries with Petri at the Petri-Yuri house. He'd also already eaten breakfast, but he was happy to eat again.

He ran to and hugged his mom. "Are you and Dad getting divorced?"

"Don't be silly. We're too old for that," she said, flashing a little smile. "Your dad and I are going to be together for a really long time. He's made sure of that. We just had a little disagreement about something he did. Sometimes people who love each other a lot have a moment where they disagree a lot. Everything is fine. C'mon, let's go out. You're not going to turn down pancakes and bacon, right?"

Meanwhile at the guild, Laxus was sitting in his office brooding when the door flew open and he was forced to face the triple threat: Layla, Anna, and Mavis.

"Let me guess, you've come to demand answers and blame me for what happened."

Layla said, "Is it your fault?"

"Well…yes. Coincidentally. Even if it wasn't, you still would have stomped in here like you wanted to fight me."

Mavis asked, "What did you do?"

Anna said, "Mom was yelling about how you betrayed her. Are you having an affair?"

Laxus found them to be nearly instantaneously tiresome. "An affair? Ridiculous. Any man who thinks he can juggle a second woman has failed to comprehend the terror even one wields."

"Then why did Mom scream at you and break windows in our house?" Layla demanded.

Laxus said, "Could you three sit on the sofa and relax, please? You're stressing me out."

He knew from the beginning that making his wife angry would almost inevitably lead to being confronted by their daughters. If they stuck together as a family, the women were a special subset even within their family and showed enormous loyalty to one another.

Anna was the only one who did as he asked as her sisters remained still, staring him down angrily as they loomed over his desk. She timidly asked, "But Dad, what happened? Everyone is worried."

"I'll explain if you all sit down at stop acting like furious animals. Honestly, I'm not evil. Maybe I pissed off your mom, but you should give me a little more credit. You girls are like a street gang."

At the insistence that he would only provide them answers if they behaved and did what he told them to do, they were reminded that he was their father and he actually didn't tolerate direct disobedience from them as his children or as members of the guild he was leading.

Layla and Mavis sat down, and Laxus said, "I turned your mom into a dragonslayer without her consent and she's a little upset about it."

"I'm sorry…you did what?" Layla asked.

"I put the lacrima Yuri had into her body."

"Why would you do that? And without telling her? Mom would never have let you do something crazy and weird and gross like that, Dad," Anna replied.

Laxus said, "Your mother's cancer returned, in her spine and one of her lungs. She was going to die. Now she's not. So she's angry. She's not going to get sick, lose all her weight, her hair, be miserable, and die a painful and slow death. She'll be here, probably still pissed off at me. I'm fine with that. I did it, and I'd do it a hundred more times."

At this, there was silence.

Layla glared at him for a while and they all knew he probably went about it in a way that upset their mother, but none of her children were going to criticize his decision to preserve her life without asking her first. They would normally always be on their mother's side, but about her cancer? Anything that could be done to help her was the right thing to them.

Mavis said, "Mom is sick?"

"Was. I don't think there's any way the cancer will be able to survive in her body. She'll be fine. It won't be able to come back, either. That's been something we've always worried about," he explained.

Anna nodded. "Not just you. All of us. We've all been scared Mom would get sick again. That's how it goes, right? Maybe someone gets better once, but when it comes back, there's usually not a lot that can be done. We've all worried a lot. But…you really just turned mom into a dragon-person without asking?"

Mavis said, "That's kind of a dick move, Dad, Mom…"

He shrugged. "It's done. Your mother is going to be fine, and she'll eventually calm down. I thought she'd get at least a little ill from the lacrima, but her body and the lacrima didn't have any sort of struggle. She just went to sleep and woke up feeling better. So, I'm not sorry. There's a saying about it being easier to beg for forgiveness than ask for permission."

"Whoever made that saying up never met Mom," Layla answered.

Laxus wasn't at all fond of having his children come at him and demand answers, but this was how things worked in their family and he hadn't raised them to be afraid to ask him questions or to express themselves.

He slumped down in his chair.

They were all quiet for a while, but Anna finally said, "That's kind of beautiful, Dad. Being willing to risk everything to save Mom's life."

"Can any of you really say you wouldn't do the same thing? People do everything they can for those they care about," he answered.

At this, he seemed to have overcome their fears and doubts about what had happened that morning.

Layla mumbled, "You love Mom that much?"

"Of course I do. We've been together for over half of our lives. What in the hell would I do without her? What would any of us do?" he asked.

Layla and Anna burst into tears and wanted to hug him, but Mavis was typically Mavis: she didn't say much and didn't move from where she was sitting. It wasn't that she didn't care, she just wasn't expressive in the same ways as her sisters.

Mavis was less likely to consider how feelings as a consideration about whether something was right or wrong, so he felt like she was probably most likely to understand what he felt.

Anna and Layla were emotional and highly intuitive creatures like their mother and just as they'd become furious for her fury, they shared his heartbreak too.

The door suddenly cracked open and Natsu poked his head in. He had a note with the saint wizards' seal pinched between his fingers. "Magic Council is asking for an emergency assist from the saint wizards with something going on in the south. Layla and I need to go."

Layla let go of her father's neck. "Now?"

"Now. Is your armor here?"

"In my locker. Let me get my bag. We can catch the 2 o'clock."

Layla kissed his cheek and said, "Tell Mom I love her. I'll be back as soon as I can."

"Be careful," her father answered.

He heard Layla and Natsu run down the hall to get what they needed and then leave to deal with whatever was going on. Laxus was left worrying, although things like this weren't uncommon. Several times a year, the wizards were asked to intervene in situations where the Magic Council or the Magic Knights might sustain casualties without them.

Since Jura was the top wizard and the head of the Magic Council, coordinating between the two groups was somewhat seamless. Jura worked closely with the Magic Knights, which were led by Sam, so things generally worked well. Fairy Tail hadn't had recent issues with how the magic world was governed for the most part.

Once Layla left, Anna kept hugging his neck.

"Please go tell Mom you're sorry."

Laxus sighed. "It's not that kind of offense. She knows I'm not sorry, and she's going to be mad until she's not anymore. It's better for me to give her space until she's ready to talk to me."

Mavis said, "But you saved Mom."

He looked around the room awkwardly and then fixated on something that caught his eye: Mavis's feet were swollen and she was wearing sandals, despite the chilly weather.

"Mavi, you need to go home and put your feet up."

"There were huge when I woke up this morning."

Anna looked down and realized why he'd said this. "Dad's right. They'll get worse if you don't put them up."

Mavis complained, "I don't feel like puking today and you still expect me to go home?"

Laxus replied, "At least lay down there and put your feet up. You can be stubborn, but it's just going to make you more miserable. Maybe ask Baby Orga to rub them."

"He just left for another job."

Anna snapped her fingers. "You know who would probably rub your feet? Petri."

Laxus said, "Maybe someone a little less weird who wouldn't like it so much."

He sat down and pulled her feet onto his lap.

Laxus rubbed Mavis' feet for a few minutes and let her take a nap there when she fell asleep in the middle of it, proving she was actually fairly tired. Despite the fact the baby wasn't draining her magic, she was definitely draining her mother's energy. Anna had fewer issues and more good days when she was carrying twins.

Anna felt guilty that they'd formed a mob and come to him demanding answers in the first place. Even in the midst of the biggest fight Laxus and Lucy had that they could remember, they loved each other. She could understand why her mom was upset, but it was impossible not to side with her dad on the matter because she needed her mom in her life.

"Do you need help with anything?"

Laxus asked, "How about damage reports? Iggy burned a lake up apparently."

"He burned water…"

"Don't look at me like that. He's your husband. Speaking of which, how are things?"

"Things are good. I'm happy. Iggy and I get along well. We've had some good jobs. We're thinking about taking the boys to the beach in the spring so they can play in the sand and splash around in the waves. I want to be able to take them all kinds of places as they grow up so they can see the world. I know they're too small to remember anything that happens now, but I want to see them be happy about new things," she said.

Laxus smiled a bit. "Watching your babies see and experience for the first time is one of the best parts of being a parent. Just keep a close eye on them. Toddlers love sand. They'll try to eat the entire beach if you don't stop them. And then they'll scream when you tell them they can't."

Anna said, "I think maybe Iggy and I are a weird couple. We spent so much time with the boys, and then when we're by ourselves…"

"You mostly talk about them? You'll get to be more about you and him once they get a little bit older. Toddlers are noisy little attention whores. Once they get to school age it'll get better."

Anna was faithful to assist him in filling out forms for most of the rest of the day, surprised at how dry and tedious the work of a guildmaster was. She wondered if her father really knew what it would be like when he was young and he'd wanted nothing more than to seize control of the guild. Would he have been so terrible, so ambitious, and so insistent if he knew that he was craving a lifetime of 639-I forms?

Her mind kept going back to her parents, but she didn't ask her father to explain himself in detail. He saved his wife because he loved her. In a way, it was a simple matter, although she could understand why her mother was upset. He'd gone about it wrong at the very least.

Laxus casually commented, "Everything is fine."

Lex came by the office in the afternoon, so he could confirm with his other parent that everything was really okay.

Laxus wasn't disappointed in himself that he'd caused Lex stress with what happened, but he hadn't calculated that Lucy's meltdown would be immediately known to their kids. The other surprising fact was how much the older kids were upset by the idea of their parents fighting.

He made a mental note not to ever cross Lucy for selfish reasons, because his daughters would probably get rid of him and no body would ever be found.

The solidarity the women of the family shared was interesting to him, but he knew part of it was from how close their family was in general and the other part came from trying to be successful, independent, and powerful women in a world that maybe still mostly believed women were best suited for domestic life.

When it got late, he walked his daughters home, and then returned to his house with Lex.

Lucy felt his presence and somewhat considered throwing him out of the house. She really didn't want to talk to or look at him, and making him find somewhere else to sleep was well-justified even if their house was now filled with empty bedrooms.

Then again, she felt like he understood she didn't want him anywhere near her and settled for locking the bedroom door and heading to the bathroom to take a shower.

When she was standing under the water, she tried to calm herself down.

She'd been so angry all day that she really hadn't had time to think about anything except what an awful thing he'd done.

The idea that her cancer would return was a fear that haunted her constantly for years, because it was something that was almost more likely to happen than not. When it did, it would be worse, the odds of survival would be slim, and it would mean going through that hell again.

They had a houseful of kids then and she had to put on a brave face, but being sick with a potentially terminal illness had been like having her body taken apart piece by piece with no promise it would ever go back together again. While everyone around her stood helplessly by her side, she lost what seemed like every ounce of flesh on her body, had to have her breasts removed, lost her hair, and right before she turned the corner, really felt like she looked like she was already dead.

And the outside was the lesser of evils. Inside, her body felt like there was a war going on every day. She felt tired, nauseated, like her limbs weighed a ton or more on some days, and like she never wanted to get out of bed on other days.

So when she found out it had returned, she just told herself that it was going to happen and she couldn't avoid it. There wasn't a path she could choose that didn't involve suffering.

Added to that was the grim reality that she was almost definitely going to die.

Die soon.

Die before Lex was even a preteen, before Layla figured out what she wanted, before she could really sit and talk with her grandsons, before Yuri was able to move on, before Mavis' daughter started walking…there were so many things she was going to miss out on and she knew that it was going to hurt the family.

It was almost so much she couldn't even accept it as reality.

But Laxus had taken matters into his own hands.

She could already feel in her body that she was getting better, and knowing what she did about dragon magics, she was sure he was right—there was almost no way an aberrant growth could survive in her.

What he'd done was sick, dark, and upsetting to her, and she knew he knew she wouldn't have wanted him to do it. She'd never felt so hurt, angry, or betrayed since they'd gotten together, yet, the longer she stood there under the water, the more she thought about how as bad as she felt, it was nothing compared to what would have happened to her if he'd done nothing.

There were so many things she'd bottled up inside her from the first time she'd been ill because she felt like she didn't have a choice. Surviving an ordeal like that was terrifying and it left scars, but she'd been too busy to really let herself feel how terrible and scary it had been.

She broke down into tears partly due to how angry she was, and how scared she'd been, and how she'd been hurt by her previous bout with cancer.

Laxus had sensitive ears, and he knew she was half-screaming, half crying, but he wasn't sure if it was okay for him to approach her. After a few minutes, he couldn't stand it anymore and wasn't going to leave her alone when she was sad. If nothing else, the sight of him might throw her back into full rage, and he'd rather her be mad at him than sad about everything else.

He fiddled with trying to unlock the door, and then decided to break the lock instead.

When he went in the bathroom, she was sobbing her eyes out in the shower, soaked to the bone and shaking.

"Lucy…"

She turned and cried, "I don't want to die. I don't. I don't want to get sick and throw up until there's nothing left of me and lose all my hair and have every day from now until the end be bad. I don't want to leave my babies and not know…not know what kind of man Lex is going to be or what our grandkids are going to be like or what my family and friends are going to be doing in a year or five or ten…"

The hurt in her voice made his heart ache, but that only proved he'd done the right thing. Lucy had seemed incomprehensibly brave and at peace with what was going on. As strong of a person as she was, what she was facing was enough to terrifying and break any human being down.

"But I'm so mad at you!" she sobbed.

Her husband said, "I knew you would be. This is a unique situation. If things weren't exactly the way they are, we wouldn't have any options. And instead of you being furious at me, we'd be trying to figure out what to do with whatever time you have left—how to make it hurt less than it was going to, how to squeeze as much time as we could out of your body. We'd be getting ready to part ways, and I'm not going to let that happen. The idea of making you this angry is nothing compared to how I feel when I think about losing you. So I'm not sorry. I'm never going to be sorry.

"I found a way to stop you from getting any sicker and to cause you to recover and I made it happen."

Lucy got out of the shower, and without even drying off, made her way to him and punched him as hard as she could in the stomach before falling into his arms.

She could tell from his ragged breathing he was barely holding himself together, so she didn't yell at him anymore because she was just too tired to do it.

He'd violated the sense of trust and mutual respect they'd always believed in; they were partners in and through all things. They worked together, lived together, raised a family together, slept together, spent nearly all of their waking time together, made every major decision together, and just like that, he'd gone against all of it.

Yet, if he had asked her, she would have told him not to even think about what he'd done.

When she finally let him go, his clothes were thoroughly soaked and she felt a little cold, which he responded to by wrapping her up in a towel.

"I feel like I'm such a burden. I felt like a burden then."

Her husband answered, "That's nonsense. You're the strength of this family. Whatever we've accomplished, we've been able to do, it's been because of you. You know me. I would be screwed without you. I'm so used to having you at my side all the time I feel like I don't even know how to do anything without you anymore. Getting an illness doesn't make you weak. It's just something that happens."

"I'm still mad at you!"

"I'm okay with that."

Being angry at someone who accepted it and wasn't willing to fight or apologize suddenly felt empty and pointless for Lucy. At that point, the only person who was really upset she was pissed off was her, as he'd made it clear he understood her reasons for being mad and accepted that she was entitled to feel that way. He still had zero regrets and would have done what he did again.

He brought her some pajamas to put on and helped her into them as she felt quite numb and emotionally tired by that point.

"Are you ready for bed?"

Lucy said, "Just so there's no confusion, you can't ever do anything like this again. You violated my trust. You violated my body…my sense to make decisions for myself. How could you do that to me? After everything?"

"Because I need you."

He followed her to bed, tucked her in, and then sat on the edge of the bed next to her.

Lucy said, "I'm trying to decide whether or not to allow you to sleep in bed with me."

Their bedroom door opened and Mavis came in wearing her pajamas and slippers.

She said nothing at all and climbed into the bed on her father's side.

Laxus sighed. "First of all, you need to knock before you enter our bedroom."

"Why? The odds I was going to walk in on you doing anything tonight are so low they probably defy the laws of mathematics," Mavis said.

Lucy nodded. "That's true."

Laxus asked, "Could you go home? Babies and toddlers sleep with their parents. You're twenty and pregnant, and you don't even live here anymore."

Mavis replied, "I'm worried about Mom. Besides, she's mad at you. If you go sleep somewhere else, then I'm not sleeping with my parents. Even if she wasn't, there's not room for all of us since I'm big now, and if we voted, you're the one that would have to leave."

His daughter was proposing it was acceptable for her to show up, invade their bed, and then institute a vote to kick him out for the night.

Unsurprisingly, Lucy decided to go along with this, as she wanted to have a nice long talk with her daughter and she wasn't thrilled about her husband at the moment. "I vote to kick you out too."

Laxus pointed at Mavis. "I was nice to you today."

She seemed to think long and hard about this. "Oh, that's right. You were. But you made Mom sad, and I'm on her side. Well, I guess this is technically your side of the bed though. It smells…male."

This was exactly the opposite of what she and her sisters had expressed in his office, as they were grateful their mother was going to be fine. There was just no way that whether or not he was right that they'd really take a side against their mother. Ever.

Laxus decided to resign himself to this fate, because arguing was basically pointless. If Mavis was in a clingy mood, there was absolutely no way Lucy would push her away. In her fragile physical and emotional state, both pregnant and worried about her mother, reassuring herself that Lucy was fine would help her feel better.

Plus, there was a weird camaraderie between a mother and a daughter who was expecting. He didn't really get it, but it was important. And if Lucy was occupied with that, it would help run down the clock on her anger towards him.

"Can I kiss you goodnight at least?" he asked.

Lucy replied, "Of course not."

Laxus sighed and looked at Mavis. "Can I kiss you goodnight?"

Mavis shrugged. "I guess."

He kissed her cheek, and gave her belly a quick pat. "Goodnight. If you do this tomorrow night I will throw you out."

"Kicking your pregnant daughter out into the cold? You're heartless."

Laxus narrowed his eyes. "You live next door."

"So I'm not welcome?" Mavis asked.

With a sigh, he turned and left the bedroom, and could hear Lucy and Mavis whispered quietly as soon as the door closed.

Laxus decided to sleep in Yuri's old room, and was putting fresh sheets on the bed when Baby Orga knocked on the door.

When he opened it, he found the young wizard standing there looking puzzled.

"Is Mavi here?"

Laxus nodded and let him in. "Mavis is indulging in the worst of her bizarre quirks tonight."

"Huh?"

"Mavis invades our bed when she's worried about her mother. Obviously, she's an adult and this is unacceptable behavior, but there's no talking her out of it."

Baby Orga asked, "Is she mad at me?"

"I don't think so. You were already coming around and being a pest when Lucy was sick before, right?"

"Not that much yet. Mavi has never talked to me about it even once."

He was surprised by this, but Mavis had been terrified back then and it wasn't really like her to dwell on or discuss things that made her feel weak. It was part of the reason becoming a parent was proving difficult for her. Every new parent felt vulnerable and afraid of making mistakes, but it seemed to be somewhat amplified in her case because there was no way for her to avoid those feelings.

Laxus let him stay and had a beer with him, but kept pondering on how Mavis had never talked to him about Lucy's first bout with cancer. It only highlighted how traumatic and difficult it was for their entire family when she was ill. Everyone had been scared, worried, and struggled with feelings of powerlessness. Even when it was over, they'd all been left with the fear that someday, it would return.

When he woke up the next morning, he made a big breakfast for his son, wife, and their daughter, both of which slept in long after he'd gotten Lex to school.

He wasn't worried as he periodically heard movement that he assumed was Mavis getting up to use the restroom frequently due to her current state.

He went to the guild, reviewed and posted job listings, and spent the better part of the day with the young wizards.

Yuri went on a job with Anna and Iggy, and Laxus ended up breaking up at least ten separate altercations between Jane Dragneel and Julia Fullbuster in the late afternoon once they got back from school that left shards of ice and ash all over the guild.

Laxus was sitting at a table upstairs watching over the rambunctious guild when Petri sat down with him.

"I heard Miss Lucy tried to kill you."

"The rumors are getting more and more colorful. We had a fight. It happens."

Petri said, "Any news from Layla?"

"None. That's fairly normal."

"There's something that's been bothering me, and the more I think about it, the more it bothers me."

Laxus looked up at him, assuming his concern was Layla-related. "Did you piss my daughter off again? I don't get involved in squabbles. That's not what I do. If you go into a store and choose a wild wolf and it bites you, well, that's on you. You picked it."

Petri shook his head. "I'm good with animals. Anyway, it's not about that. It's about Oaktown."

"Oaktown?"

The young wizard said, "Aria was one of the top five most wanted wizards in Fiore. It was common knowledge he had a history of attacking and killing other wizards. That's information even you had before all this happened, right?"

"Right. It's why Yuri and I rushed to get there."

"Let's say there was no evidence at the place where Lilia died that led to anyone. We found out who did it because we had Lex, a means we assume the authorities didn't have. Lex dropped Aria's name. Let's assume only we could have that information."

"Okay…"

Petri said, "We determined Aria might be around Oaktown because I'd heard of a wizard who used similar magic from the same area Aria was from. Aeris was relatively well-known. Oaktown made sense; it's kind of remote. It's where Phantom Lord was, and there was a new guild led by a former member of Phantom Lord there too—an associate of Aria's. All of that information was publicly available, and if we figured out how to find Aria that easily…why didn't anyone else?"

Actually, Laxus hadn't considered this, but as soon as Petri said it, it didn't make sense. If the Lex piece of the story was excluded, the way they found Aria was actually fairly simple. To think the authorities had been unable to find a most-wanted criminal and three amateurs did without much effort was actually a little silly.

He added, "So the Magic Council and Magic Knights investigate and determine he's a dangerous criminal, and the Magic Knights are entrusted with investigating and apprehending fugitives. The fact that Aria was never arrested suggests either only idiots ever looked for him and were unable to find him, he intentionally wasn't located, or he was found and wasn't arrested. It can only be one of those three things. There is no fourth option."

The guildmaster considered this and found the logic made sense. If Petri, Layla, and Mavis were able to think out where Aria probably was and how to draw him out, there was no reason a person who was actually trained to do that wouldn't have been able to do so.

Laxus didn't believe the kids that found Aria were smarter than all the authorities. That left the other two options: they either intentionally didn't find him or they found him and left him free.

Petri said, "Then think about this: in his capacity as the head of the Magic Council, my dad asked Natsu to visit the crime scene and try to find any scents since Natsu is a trusted saint and an ally. Natsu would have known the scent of every single person who was there that night, right?"

"Right. He'd been in battles with all three in the past. He's a bloodhound, and he never forgets a scent."

"Do you really think Lilia died without causing even one of them to bleed even a drop? Scratch themselves on some sticks? She had some significant power, even if she didn't like using it."

Laxus considered this, but then said, "It seems less likely when we know Natsu knew everyone who was there. Aria and his group definitely killed Lilia, and they didn't leave evidence behind. Natsu would have smelled them. It would be virtually impossible even for them to clean up after themselves. Without a nose, you wouldn't know where the scent was."

Petri replied, "Captain Redfox was there before Natsu. Which is problematic because his group was also responsible for catching fugitives like Aria. When Mavis and I ran into Sam, he was guarding where Lilia died by himself in the middle of the night. He's a high-ranking officer and that seemed weird to me."

At the mention of Sam, Laxus felt like he'd just swallowed a brick, because it connected a lingering thought he had about Oaktown as well. The authorities didn't provide them with any information that Fairy Tail didn't gain on their own. Something always hadn't felt right about the fact his kids outsmarted the highest authorities and beat them to Aria.

Laxus sat there for quite some time, allowing his thoughts to stew. "Did you tell anyone this?"

"The only two people I really talk to are probably the last people that need to know. I wasn't even sure if I should say anything to you."

The guildmaster was reluctant to believe it was as bad as it sounded. Something obviously wasn't right, but the idea that Sam was involved in a conspiracy that killed an innocent person seemed wrong from the start.

"I'll grant that something seems amiss, but Sam's wouldn't do anything to hurt Lilia. They grew up together."

Petri said, "But think about this. Let's say they found Aria before, and realized someone else was giving him orders. Whoever controls Aria is probably way worse than he is, right? Maybe they were spying on Aria to try and find out who he worked for, but in order to do that, they couldn't interfere with him. So you think 'Aria kills people, but his boss kills more people.' For the greater good, we'll try and catch that person first.

"If Aria kills, they look the other way for the bigger goal of catching the bigger evil. Wizards die. People don't always invest a lot into it because we do dangerous work. But Aria killed Lilia, the last person whose death might be ignored or attributed to a wizarding lifestyle. She's connected to the most powerful guilds in Fiore. If Fairy Tail and Sabretooth found out who was responsible, we'd find him and we'd go after him. But if we didn't find out, they could keep going. In that case, it would make sense to make sure we didn't have any clues to follow."

This seemed plausible, and it connected the dots neatly to make a rather terrible picture.

Laxus asked, "Do you think your father knows anything?"

"My dad is kind of overly moralistic. He'd never go along with a plan that involved letting a criminal kill people. Sacrificing lives for the greater good is straight up soldier mentality, right?"

Petri had a strange understanding about how people and events fit together and possessed some sixth sense about what was true and what wasn't. At that point, Laxus realized Petri dragged Mavis to the crime scene because he'd never believed they'd been told the truth about anything.

Laxus gave this careful thought and went through everything that he knew at least twice before coming to the conclusion that something was definitely wrong and had likely been wrong all along. There was no way to know if Petri's theory about what exactly happened was correct without asking, but the apparent lynchpin in all of this was someone who would answer his former master's questions.

If pressed, Laxus didn't necessarily have a problem forcing Sam to do so. If Sam really tried to keep them from finding out who killed Lilia, it was a massive breach of the alliance he'd carefully crafted with the various authorities as Fairy Tail's guildmaster. It also made everything that happened in Oaktown a result of the authorities intentionally refusing to arrest Lilia's killers.

And, while Laxus had previously been agitated with his young members taking the law into their own hands, if they'd done so because those actually responsible for enforcing it refused to do so, he had no reason to be upset about it.

"I'm going to go ask Sam about this."

Petri asked, "What if he won't tell you anything?"

The guildmaster replied, "People resort to lawlessness when laws fail them. Ordinary people? Whatever. Fairy Tail? Big problem. The kids in our guild acting up was a mess. Nobody in Crocus wants to piss off my generation."

Laxus considered Petri to be one of the best assets the guild had, and possibly one of the more standout members of his generation. He could find anything, he was quite intelligent, and he was somewhat utilitarian. Magically, he'd possibly peaked early, but he was strong enough and he was fine with it.

Laxus pondered on the subject for quite a while and decided if they had everything else wrong, one thing that was definitely true was that Sam knew more than they did. Sam wasn't a member of Fairy Tail, and had no obligation to be on their 'side.' In fact, if he was given orders, he had to follow them. That was his path in life, but it almost seemed like the life he had and the life he passed up were about to collide.

Sam had to live his life just like everybody else, but if he was lying and keeping secrets from Fairy Tail, he was no different than anyone else in the world. They couldn't think of him as an ally if he wasn't one.

When he eventually went home that night, he had dinner with Lex and helped him with his homework. Lucy was noticeably absent and he wondered if she was avoiding the house because she still really didn't want to talk to him.

He'd put his son to bed when she finally came in from dinner and wine with Levy.

"Are you still pissed?"

"Of course I am. You can't just ask me not to be mad. I'm not saying I don't understand, or that what you did was wrong. The way you did it was wrong. We spent all this time building this amazing relationship where we make all our decisions together, and then you just…made yourself the only person whose opinion matters. You're not sorry. You'd do it again."

"A thousand times. And then a thousand times after that."

His wife just shook her head at this. "Anyway, I want back to the doctor today. No sign I was ever sick. Just like that. No illness, no medicine, no stress. It's just over. But then I remember it's like that because you put part of a dead person inside of me. You're a bastard. You can let that cloud of self-assured smug keep you warm tonight."

Laxus said, "If you feel well enough to make me miserable, I'm happy. Anyway, I'm going to Crocus tomorrow."

"For what?"

"I think we may have a Sam Redfox problem. I want to ask him if he knows anything about Lilia's death that we don't. Or if he knew who killed her back then before the kids ran off to wreck Oaktown."

"Are you joking?"

"He's a soldier, so he follows orders. If the orders were to not tell us something, it would be right for him to follow them. But I'm a guildmaster and it's my job to look after my guild members. If we clash, we clash. If you think about it, if Sam got fired for not following orders, he'd just be throwing away everything he's worked to achieve for the sake of a guild he never plans to return to."

"What on earth is all this even about? I don't know what you're talking about."

They sat in the living room and had a long discussion about everything, and Lucy felt like she'd been so distracted by everything that went on that she hadn't noticed things didn't add up. It was obvious something didn't make sense and that the person who might be able to shed light on that almost had to be Sam.

Lucy asked, "How about I go talk to Sam? He might open up to me a little more easily. Sam knows we love him and that we're not the enemy."

"That's fine. You're a quick thinker so you'd probably be better at something like that anyway," he conceded with a nod. "The sea of patience I've had for Sam has evaporated at this point. There's a limited number of times he can fuck up and we sit around and say 'maybe that wasn't his intention.' They're all grown now. There's no room for excuses. If he fucked us over, he did it because he chose to."

For the moment, Lucy forgot about how angry she still was and was consumed by concerns about the circumstances around Lilia's death. At the same time, she was inclined to give Sam the benefit of the doubt for now, because sitting around and talking out a conspiracy theory didn't necessarily make it right. Maybe they were wrong, but her husband's attitude was a sign if they weren't, there might be trouble.

Lucy was just glad Layla had disentangled herself from Sam and seemed to have gotten over what he meant to her.

She cautiously asked, "Do we tell Yuri if it's true?"

"Yuri and Sting deserve to know the truth, whatever that is. Also, we have to think about what happened afterward. What happened in Oaktown could have ended with all those idiot kids dead. Layla, Mavis, Anna…what if we lost our children because the authorities were trying to keep us from finding out the truth? Things have been peaceful, and we older wizards have lost the taste for being bastards and renegades, but remember it hasn't been that long that the Magic Council had us in their sights. Everyone has their own agenda. Fairy Tail. The Magic Knights. The Magic Council. It's not Sam's job to look after our interests. It's ours."

Lucy knew this was true. It was inconvenient, but it was true. Outside of the handful of events, the last two and a half decades had been relatively peaceful. Yet there were growing signs the world of dark magic was getting ready to roar back to life, the most obvious of which was the fact that someone, somewhere ordered Aria to kill a person at the heart of Sabretooth and Fairy Tail.

Lucy was so lost in her thoughts as she sat on the couch, she barely noticed Laxus was gradually getting closer and closer to her until he was immediately next to her.

"Laxus, I don't want to talk about us right now."

He asked, "If you saw me unconscious on the train tracks and knew a train was going to hit me, would you push me out of the way?"

"What kind of idiotic question is that? Of course I would."

"If you knew I was going to argue and tell you to leave me there, would you?"

"I'd shove you out of the way, because that doesn't make any sense. And trying to boil down what you did to a simple metaphor where you valiantly save my life isn't going to do anything but make me want to push you in front of the train. I think you knew from the start I was going to be angry, but I don't think you understood why. You just knew that if you did this, I was going to make you miserable. I want to believe that after twenty-five years, you would know me well enough to comprehend why I get mad. After all, probably eighty percent of the irritation and anger I've felt in my entire life was deliberately incited by you."

Laxus replied, "And you expect me to figure this out on my own how? Mental telepathy? What's done is done. I don't think you're anywhere mad enough to leave me, so are we just going to sit around and stew in how angry you are that you're not going to die a terrible, slow death?"

"You are such an idiot!"

She stood up, and she pointed at him. "Let me spell it out really clearly for you. There are several things I'm upset about, and they've got nothing to do with not dying. I do appreciate that you're willing to go so far to save me. I do love you. The first thing is that the means by which you did that make my skin crawl. I would never have gone along with that, and you know that. That is why you did it without asking. Let's say you had asked, and I said no, and you did it against my will. Do you think that would be better or worse?"

"I don't know."

"I wanted to be asked! I deserved to have a right to say what I thought and felt about it. You didn't give me that right. You took it upon yourself to think for me and make a decision for me. I get that you were going to do what you were going to do no matter what, but you deprived me of the right to have an opinion. That's hurtful, and it's cruel. We raised a houseful of fiercely independent women by teaching them to always think for themselves and do what they feel as right. How do you think it looks if you suddenly decide you know what's best and you don't even need to ask?"

Her husband replied, "That wasn't really it. I don't think you understand me in this case either. You think I didn't ask because I didn't want to hear you argue. I'm not scared of you yelling, or afraid of having a disagreement. I don't think I know better than you and I wasn't trying to take everything into my own hands because I'm some kind of backwards sexist piece of crap."

"Then…why?!"

"You're able to live because Bella died. I didn't want to force you to choose between that or dying. That's an ugly choice to make. I'm a little more grizzled than you are, so it's purely logical to me. I just felt like it would be painful for you to have to choose and I didn't want to subject you to that since I'd already made up my mind I was going to save you."

At this, she plopped down and sighed. "I guess I didn't think of that."

He added, "I would just prefer you be angry at me than be disgusted with yourself. You'll get over being mad faster. I want you to be better. I don't want things to be so hard for you. Anger is a simple emotion. It's just that none of this is fair. If you can live, you have to. There are too many of us that need you."

Lucy suddenly felt an overwhelming sensation of resignation. "How is it fair for me to live? You know those people who go to the doctor just like me, who get the same news I did? They're not going to have this chance. I feel like I cheated. I don't have to be sick, or scared, or anything. I can just wake up tomorrow and keep going like it didn't happen. They're all going to die."

"So it would be better for you not to? Life isn't fair. How fair is it for a healthy woman with five children to get breast cancer? Or for it to come back? Meanwhile, evil people just keep going like nothing bothers them. If we're going to have the bad unfair stuff, I think we should take the good unfair stuff when we can. Because as unfair as it was that Yuri lost his baby, it would be just as unfair for him to lose his mother."

At that, Lucy sat down next to him and decided whatever rage she felt was just adding to all the things that were making her emotionally tired. In a very short time, she'd felt the fear of being ill when she first found the symptoms which only increased when a sample was taken, and then climaxed into crippling terror at the news she was probably going to die terribly and slowly over the coming months.

She thought about her life, she tried to make peace with it, and then this entire misadventure had taken place and none of that mattered anymore.

"My feelings are tired," she quietly admitted. "I…I love you. And I know that out of all the people in this world, I'm with the only one who is too stubborn to let a little thing like terminal illness get in the way of annoying me to death. I don't want to die, Laxus. I want to see our children and grandchildren grow and become strong. I want to keep waking up next to you. For a really long time."

He wrapped his arms around her and felt unimaginable relief when she melted into his arms.

She sighed in contentment. "I missed you."

"We scared the hell out of our kids."

"They'll get over it. Maybe it'll be good for them to see it's okay to fight and then get over it. Lex thought we were getting divorced. Yuri had no understanding of why I'm angry so I just kind of had to wing it with him. He's in a delicate place."

Laxus replied, "The girls formed a mob and came to my office to accuse me of having a mistress."

"Ha! That's ridiculous."

"Isn't it? At this point in my life, I fully understand and respect how troublesome women are. I don't need anymore of them in my life. Except Baby Lucy."

Lucy was sure this was the worst fight they'd ever had, and the only time she'd been upset for as long as she had. At the end of it, she couldn't deny that her husband was kind of a weird white knight in his own way. She was happy to snuggle up to him now when she felt emotionally worn out and fragmented, because at least with him, it was simple.

Laxus held her while she curled up closer and closer, and then asked, "You want to marry me again?"

"Once was enough, right?"

"I'm serious. It's a thing people do. After a million years, they have another wedding, recite their vows, go on a honeymoon and pretend they don't have kids."

This was actually very romantic to her. "You want to renew our vows?"

"Is that what it's called?"

"I get to wear a wedding dress, plan a nice little event. I mean, our kids are failing at being adults in a lot of ways. We have three grandkids and a divorce…not one proper big wedding that wasn't baby-induced. I figure, if I want a big wedding, maybe it should be mine. We'll have to wait until Mavis pops that kid out and survives the first few weeks of motherhood. After that. I want it on the beach this time! And after all this, you owe me a new ring and it better be shiny."

Laxus added, "And in twenty-five more years, we'll do it again. And twenty-five after that. And twenty-five after that."

"Promise?"

Lex came down for water while they were snuggling on the sofa, and smiled a bit at the sight of his parents looking happy and comfortable together again. He wordlessly joined them, taking a spot on Laxus' other side.

Laxus ruffled his hair. "Sorry we worried you. Sometimes people fight. Especially with your mom's temper."

"If Mom has a bad temper, why do you talk about it when she's here?" Lex asked.

Lucy said, "Your dad likes it when I'm mad."

Lex confusedly asked, "Does that mean he was really happy when you were breaking windows and yelling?"

"Isn't it past your bed time?" his father replied.

Lucy grabbed him and dragged him across her husband's lap so she could squeeze him.

"Babe, he's not a teddy bear."

She squeezed Lex harder. "He's my sweet Lexybear. He never makes Mommy angry."

Lex asked, "Is it true if a man and a lady have a fight, it's cause the man has a new girlfriend?"

"No."

"Do you have a girlfriend, Dad?"

Lucy said, "That's not the kind of guy your dad is. Don't listen to anything people say."

"Is it 'cause Dad is old? Or because of his ear hairs?"

Laxus pouted at his child dragging him about his problematic ear hair again, but he felt some comfort that someday Lex would be old, and hopefully, would have the same problem and some obnoxious children to mock him for it.

Lucy said, "Your dad and I love each other very much. We just went through something that was a little difficult. Anyway, we're going to have a ceremony and it's going to be like a second wedding except all of you will get to be there."

"Will there be cake?"

"Uhhhh…yes…cake is normal."

"I can't wait," he said, excitement glimmering in his eyes. "Can it be really big? With chocolate?"

Despite being worried they'd somehow hurt Lex with their fight, he immediately demonstrated he understood they were fine by shifting his concerns to the matter at hand: there was going to be a big cake in his future, and he was already thinking out its every detail and looking forward to the day he would get to eat it.

Once he got his water, they tucked him into bed together and got ready for bed. She let him wash her hair in the shower, and rub her back, and then help her into her pajamas and get her to bed. Physically, Lucy felt fine, but being spoiled a little felt quite good after the tumultuous time she'd been having.

Lucy started to wonder about what it was going to be like to join them. She knew the lacrima was tiny, but she was worried she'd gain a sense of smell or start sneezing lightning or pick up weird dragon habits like the weird urge to always need to sleep on top of someone like a lizard. Her greatest fear that she was going to step foot on a train and turn into a nauseated noodle of a woman like the others.

Laxus didn't have any answers at all; the lacrima put behind his eye had been considerably larger and it had taken years before he had considerable powers. In fact, he seemed surprised it had merged so successfully and had no idea what would happen to her after that point.

"You're probably stuck with me for a long time now," she said.

"That's kind of the point. I actually don't really have any intention of not having you around. You can break every window in this house and as long as you're here to do it, I'll still be happy."

"I love you. Go to sleep before you piss me off again, okay?"

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