This is based on a Tumblr post I made a week or so ago, about a possible outcome for Jerza in the Alvarez arc. And for some reason, a lot of people wanted more of it. So here's the fic version.

Special thanks go to Yurisakura, and thir13enth, for inspiring and proofreading this, respectively.

Enjoy.

This is the hardest thing Jellal has ever had to do.

He doesn't want to. Everything in him rebels against it; balking, heels dug firmly in the ground. There's something thrashing around in his gut. Crawling through his veins, too, is the scratching creature breathing ice into his blood, the one he recognizes distantly as his old companion, Fear.

But in the scarlet saturated light, he sees her, standing with her surviving friends. Holding Wendy close and a little too tight, her nose buried in the teenager's hair while the girl trembles and clings to her with thin arms caked in dirt and dried blood. The rest of her team huddles close, all of them touching someone else in the group, anchoring themselves to each other.

(Something inside Jellal crumbles at this vision of closeness, of love shared.)

And that's when Jellal finally accepts what he must do.

She spots him, then. She's always been good at that, he observes, as she makes her excuses to leave her friends. He's too distant to hear the words, yet he imagines he knows them all the same.

(I'll be right back. This will only take a moment.)

The blood-stained rays of the setting sun over the battlefield catch on her hair, setting it afire with color. He drinks in the sight of her walking towards him, engraving it into his memory.

It's a grim amusement to him. That this should happen now, in the ruddy light of a dying day.

(Third time's the charm, he thinks.)

"Jellal." Her voice is hoarse, from shouting and from many, many tears shed. Her eyes are bloodshot, yet warm all the same for him.

(It takes everything he has left in him to not change his mind.)

"Erza," he says instead... and then he freezes, unsure of how to do this. Unsure of what to tell her, how to say what he needed to. The words lock behind the lump in his throat, constricting and piling up in his chest.

Silence doesn't sit long between them.

"How are you?" she asks, as if this were any other day, any other circumstance. As if there weren't bodies still being taken off the field; as if several of the dead weren't in that state because of them.

(Jellal isn't sure any amount of scrubbing is going to remove the new blood on his stained hands.)

"Dizzy," is what he tells her, and it's an honest answer. He shallows thickly, his tongue heavy in his mouth.

(When was the last time he had water? To drink, rather than to drown? He can't quite recall.)

Erza frowns. "You should have Wendy or one of the other healers check on your condition. Could be a concussion."

Jellal shakes his head. There is no way he's putting any more strain on that little girl. Her suffering isn't a burden he's prepared to bear.

(His head is spinning.)

"I'll be fine," he insists.

(This, he knows, is a lie.)

Her stare persists, despite his weak assurances, and he knows he's caught in the deception. Instead of facing her knowing eyes, he deflects. "After this, I need to find all of my guild members." A glance over the wildly altered terrain tells him of the difficulty that task entails, and breaks his gaze away from hers.

She follows his line of sight as it lingers on the corpses of the Alvarez soldiers. "They were going to kill us and all our loved ones," Erza reminds him. "It doesn't add to your sin. We all did what we had to. To live."

He almost snorts at the ridiculous notion. Not even she believes that; he can hear it in her voice. No amount of well-intended, placating words can erase the truth.

Their Emperor brought these soldiers to Ishgar shores, it was true.

But this is an Emperor he'd once worshiped, too.

And there are far more bodies than just these left in Jellal's wake.

(He sees them every time he closes his eyes.)

A shout captures Erza's attention, and she glances back at her friends. They wave at her. She nods to them, and Jellal knows his time has run out.

"Sorry, Jellal," she apologizes, turning to face him again. "I have to go. We'll talk more later. Good luck finding your guild members."

"Wait," he calls as she steps away from him. He hasn't said what he needs to yet, and if she leaves now he might not have the strength or the will to do it later. If he waits, he condemns them both to even more suffering.

The last thing he wants is cause her more pain than he already has.

"What is it, Jellal?" she asks when he stalls.

It takes him a moment. "Erza... I..."

She waits for him.

(She always has.)

"I'm sorry, Erza." The words come out abrupt, harsh, like stones dropping from his mouth. "But this is goodbye for us."

Her brow furrows in confusion. "W-what?" she stutters. "What are you talking about? Of course it's goodbye. I'll see you..." She fumbles. "...again. Later."

"No," he tells her gently, with a slight shake of his head. "There won't be a later for us. There won't be a next time. Erza... I'm sorry."

The shake of her head is far stronger than his was, her eyes beginning to turn wild. "Jellal, what are you talking about?" Her demand is hard, but the emotion swimming in her brown eyes is not.

"We can't... we can't meet... anymore."

Her eyes widen briefly, shock and hurt passing through them. Then they narrow, and she hisses, "No."

Jellal sighs. He should have expected this response. Erza never backs down without a fight. It's a part of what he loves so much about her. "Erza..."

"No!" she says, louder. "No. "

"This is for the best," he insists.

"Who's best?" she challenges him. "Because it certainly isn't mine! Or yours! You're running away again, Jellal."

(He can't deny that.)

"I thought we moved past this, already." Her tone is bitter. Angry. Hurt. Exactly what he didn't want. "Eight years ago, I let you go. Never again. You promised me back then that you wouldn't throw yourself away."

"I'm not."

(He is, and he knows it.)

"You are! You're throwing us away!"

"There is no us, Erza! There can't be an us!" His sudden outburst and rage-tinted words surprise her, and she recoils from him.

(Good.)

Quieter now, he continues, "It took me a long time to come to terms with it. But you and I... we can't be together. I love you, Erza." His smile is twisted; he can feel it. Warped with pain and sorrow he's failing to hold at bay. "I always have. I'm sorry that it has to be this way. I'm so sorry."

"Then why?" she asks, in a harsh whisper. "Why? What's stopping us? We've been through so much, gotten past the worst that this world can throw at us. Why now, when we've finally earned ourselves some peace?"

(The sorrow in her voice, the minute tremble in her shoulders... it almost breaks him.)

Jellal licks his dry lips, and lets out a halting breath. "Because if we're together, there will never be peace."

Before she can respond, he fills the gap between them with words, with justifications.

(Excuses.)

"The Magic Council is never going to grant me a pardon. They've always been stubborn, and I've committed far too many sins to ever justify their letting me go. And honestly? I don't... I'm not sure I want them to. I don't know how far I still need to go, how much more I need to do, before I can forgive myself for my past crimes." He glances at the battlefield, his eyes not quite focusing on the corpses. "Let alone my current ones."

"None of that is your fault." Her voice is a ghost along his ears.

"It is, Erza. It is. I told you back at the Tower, didn't I? I gave up. I gave into the darkness. Everything I did, no matter how much I regret it... it's still on me, alone. All the suffering I caused to all those people... and all the suffering I caused you. It's all on me."

She shakes, as if standing in a blizzard. "It wasn't your fault."

"I can't blame everything on Ultear."

(Her flinch is all the reply he needs.)

"And... I can't keep repeating the cycle," he confides. "I can't keep hurting you. I won't."

"You're not!"

"I will."

"You won't!"

I will, Erza!" His words burst from his chest, the dam finally broken. "The Council is going to keep coming after me, for the rest of my life! If we're together, and the Council finds that out, what do you think they'll do to you?! At the very least, you'll be thrown in prison for not reporting me! And..." He gestures at her friends, waiting for her with worry etched onto their faces. "And what do you think will happen to them?!"

Horror sinks into her countenance, the color draining from her face. Erza knows well indeed what will happen to them. How they would try to help her, to save her. How their own crimes in abetting an escaped criminal would come to light.

"I could leave with you."

The suggestion rings false, but it was nice to hear all the same.

He smiles at her, softer than he ever has before. "Thank you, Erza." And he means it. With all of his heart. "But we both know that Fairy Tail is your home."

"And I refuse to be responsible for taking away your family a second time."

His voice drops. "Please don't let me take them away from you."

With that, her shaking stops.

(Jellal's not certain she's breathing, either.)

Would it have been kinder to keep his silence? To fade out of her life, gradually? To just let her give up on her own, blame him for vanishing, as if he had never been?

No. She deserves more kindness than that. Erza deserves more than a goodbye born of cowardice, or laziness.

"So what now?" she finally asks, resigned to the inevitable. She would never endanger her friends willingly; Jellal knows it, she knows it.

He hates that she looks so defeated. Erza should never have that expression.

(Just one more sin to add to the countless others.)

"We say our goodbyes. We leave here. We live our lives. We move on, and we find happiness where we can. Your happiness is all I've ever wanted, Erza."

(A slight untruth, but this one he thinks is forgivable.)

There's one last tired spark of defiance in her eyes. "What if I don't move on? What if I'm not happy with this? What if..." She swallows, hard.

He remains silent, for "sorry" seem inadequate - even if that's all he has to offer. "Sorry" cannot build a relationship or surmount all of their obstacles, and he suspects that he's known that for a very long time.

"Sorry" cannot always fix what's been damaged, or broken.

(And they are very, very broken.)

When she speaks again, her voice quivers and her eyes glisten with restrained tears. "What if I'm never happy again?"

"...You will be." It's all he can offer.

And she nods, there being nothing left to say.

"Goodbye, Erza. I love you."

"Goodbye, Jellal. I love you, too."

He turns to leave, and manages to take a few steps before the first, quiet hiccup behind him reaches his ears.

(She never cries in front of him.)

Walking away now, with Erza's soft sobs echoing in his ears, is the hardest thing Jellal has ever had to do.