AN: IT'S FINISHED! Oh man, it's been one hell of a ride with this thing. Thank you so much for sticking with me, and for being so wonderfully patient through my ups and downs and my writer's block. I can only hope you enjoy the epilogue, and that you've had a good read overall!

Disclaimer: Fairy Tail and its characters belong to Hiro Mashima; I own absolutely nothing. Cover image by Rae.

part XVII.

"Hey! HEY! ANYONE!?"

No answer met her shouts, and she slammed a fist against the unyielding wood, wincing as pain raced up her arm.

With an irritated breath, Levy slid down to sit with her back against the closed door. She'd removed the rune spells her future self had put on the house and all but dragged herself from the bedroom, but the actual honest-to-goodness lock on the door wouldn't budge without a key.

The ground had stopped shaking some time ago, and from what she could tell from the cold light spilling in through the windows, dawn had to be approaching. But no one had come to look for her yet, and she felt sick just thinking about what the others were doing. It was clear that her future self had been telling the truth, hard to believe as that had been. From the great, heaving rumbles and the haunting shrieks she could still hear if she closed her eyes, there had been dragons, and more than one. But by the sudden, near deafening quiet that had followed, not to mention the fact that she was still alive and the town was still standing, she could only assume they'd defeated them.

But who had fallen in the process?

It better not have been you, you stupid, stubborn man! But no matter how much she tried to stay angry, because anger was so, so much more preferable to the alternative, the feeling of crippling ineptitude kept crawling back, and it was all she could do to force down the lump in her throat. Her future self had said Gajeel hadn't made it in her time, but Levy was still alive and no one had died for her sake. Did that mean she'd saved him? Or had tampering with the past only ended in more people dying?

Or was it like in the stories, where no matter how great the efforts, the end result would always be the same?

Her hands shook, and she tucked them against her stomach to keep them still. Someone would find her soon – they had to. They couldn't all just be gone. Not Fairy Tail; it just wasn't possible

But the haunted expression on her own self's face was an unavoidable reminder that it had happened, once. It was entirely possible, though it hurt to even think about it. With everything she'd gone through since the start of the games, was this to be the final chapter? To survive, but at the cost of everyone she held dear? Jet and Droy...Lucy. Lily.

Gajeel.

She lost track of how long she sat there, dozing against the locked door, but it had to have been a good while, because when a sudden rattling of the door-handle jolted her awake, the room was aglow with light. And she'd barely had time to register the fact that there was someone on the other side of the door, when she was almost knocked over as a weight crashed against it, and she just barely managed to crawl out of the way in time for the entire thing to come hurtling inwards to slam against the wall, nearly tearing the hinges off in the process.

And then he was there, looming large and dark and altogether menacing with the sunlight at his back, covered in bandages with his clothes torn and tattered and looking for all the world like he'd just dragged himself through the mud and then taken a tumble down a steep cliff. But what drew her gaze and held it was the wild, tormented look in his eyes – like he wasn't actually seeing anything.

But she didn't have time to so much as open her mouth, her happiness at the tip of her tongue, before he was crouching before her and had pulled her into an embrace so rough all the air was forcibly shoved out of her lungs.

"Gaj–!" she wheezed, but stopped when she felt his fingers skim over her shoulders, and her arms, as though checking for injuries. Which was odd, considering the fact that she'd been locked inside the house all along and obviously didn't have any more than the ones she was already recovering from. He released her enough for her to draw back, and when she found his eyes now the panicked frenzy was gone, but it had been replaced by something she couldn't decipher.

His palm against her face startled her; his skin was flushed warm, and his knuckles covered in strips of bandages he didn't seem to have been very careful in keeping intact. His fingers skimmed along the still-healing scar on her brow, and her cheeks, the pads pressing into her skin.

Her look softened. "Are you okay?"

He didn't respond, and surprised her by drawing her close again, in as un-Gajeel an action as she'd ever known. And if her surprise had turned her shoulders rigid, the press of his nose into the hollow of her throat loosened them up, until she sagged a boneless heap against him there on the floor.

She didn't ask if he wanted to talk about it, because knowing him, he wouldn't want to. Not yet, anyway. Maybe with some subtle prodding she'd lure a word or two out of him, but Levy was well-versed in the ways of his person, and knew he needed time to accept things for himself before he had any inclination of speaking to anyone else. His wasn't a heart you forcibly made yourself comfortable in – it took gentle hands and an open mind, and more patience than most cared to give. And she'd give him his space and his silence, for the subtle tightening of his fingers around her midsection spoke volumes in their mute desperation.

So despite all the questions pressing at her mind, Levy simply asked, "Casualties?"

His breath was like a laugh against her skin, but devoid of all humour. "None of ours," he rumbled, and her happiness welled, an unrestrained force within her, and then she was laughing, a near hysterical sound, until tears filled her eyes and her lungs hurt. And when she drew back he let her, but his grip lingered, the tips of his fingers hovering in that awkward way of a man not entirely used to hugging and the space that existed between drawing in and letting go.

She grinned, tears spilling over to trail along her cheek and jaw, and when she drew her next breath the lump in her throat was gone. And her unbridled happiness seemed to loosen something in his severe expression, for the corner of his mouth drew upwards a fraction. He glanced at the room around her then, as though just now realizing where they were.

Levy wiped at her eyes. "I find pretty good hiding places, huh?" But the joke felt hollow even to her own ears.

He didn't respond, and so she tried again. "Did you meet her...me, I mean?"

His nod was a heavy thing, carrying more implications than his gruff response was willing to answer. "Yeah."

She swallowed thickly. "Will you tell me about it?"

He shook his head. "Not today."

She nodded. "That's okay." She gripped the tattered hem of his shirt. "Take me back?"

He nodded, and wordlessly shifted to slip his arm around her back and below her legs, before he lifted her up. Under other circumstances she would have blushed at the close contact, but there was a sombre edge to his being, drumming a dismal tune along his every word and gesture, and it did little but make her heart ache. Something had happened, and it had put its mark on him. The ever curious part of her that craved answers rebelled at his stubborn silence, but she resolutely kept her mouth shut. He'd tell her. Not today, but someday, maybe, when his wounds weren't naked in his eyes and he didn't carry his invisible burden quite so openly.

She closed her eyes as he carried her out of the house, allowing her head to rest against his shoulder. It was a long walk back to the centre of the city, from what she remembered – her future self had made sure to put her as far away from the battle as she could, to protect her. Although now that it was all over, but Levy felt anything but unaffected.

"Levy."

She opened her eyes at the sound of her name, and angled her head so she could look at him. He wasn't looking at her, though, and for a long time it seemed like he wasn't going to continue.

Then, "Glad yer alright."

She smiled into his neck, ear pressed against his skin where his pulse leaped, steady and sure between them. She drew her strength from the sound. There was a universe of meaning behind that remark; some things she would probably never know, and others she would know with time. But for the moment, it was what he was able to give, and she'd take it – she'd take it and keep it close, hoard it for all its worth, one of these small treasures he gave so rarely but that were worth a lifetime of confessions from any other person.

"Yeah," she answered simply, because it was that simple, when it all came down to it. She was alive, and he was alive, and in their new and hard-earned peace, that was enough.

It took well over a week of rest for any of them to be well enough to travel, and by the time they were all set to leave for Magnolia Levy's feet had healed enough to have the casts removed, though she'd had a pair of crutches shoved into her hands by Jet and Droy, who'd also promptly refused to listen to her protests. Gajeel had been stubbornly unhelpful, too, for once siding with her boys, and had told her he'd carry her ass all the way back if she didn't use them. And not in what he'd called 'a pansy assed, gentlemanly way' so if she wanted her underwear on display she was more than welcome to opt out of the crutches. It had taken her hours of wheedling to get them to finally relent, and allow her to walk by her own strength, if only for short stretches at a time.

It had been a relief to find out there hadn't been any major casualties, though there were enough injured to keep Levy company in the infirmary. But the collective mood had lifted considerably by their victory, both in the tournament and over the dragons. She'd listened to the stories about the events of the last day – the great battle and the destruction of the portal.

Of her future self she heard little, but a few bits and pieces from reluctant guild-members who'd been present when she'd vanished. But from the little she did hear, she resolved not to pester Gajeel about it more than she already had. His silence made more sense after she'd heard about what had happened – she didn't think she'd want to talk about it if their roles had been reversed, and she'd had to watch him disintegrate right before her eyes.

"Levy?"

She'd been in the process of buttoning up her shirt, and looked up to find Lucy in the doorway. "Hey. You all set to go?"

The blonde lifted her duffel. "All packed." She stepped inside, depositing the bag on the floor. "How are you holding up?" She glanced at Levy's feet, which had taken the longest to heal, even with Wendy's efforts. Her brows drew together. "Are you sure you're ready to go home today? I could stay behind, if you wanted me to. We can leave later this week, or the next."

Levy snorted. "Thanks, but if I have to spend another day in this bed I think I might cry."

The stellar mage grinned. "Just checking." She came to sit on the bed, stretching her legs out as she fell back against the mattress with an explosive breath. "Hard to think it's just been a few weeks, huh?"

Levy shook her head. "You're telling me."

A gentle sort of quiet settled between them, as Levy finished buttoning her shirt, her fingers still a little stiff and awkward from lack of use. There were unspoken things in the silence; the subject of their future selves had gone mostly untouched in the week that had followed the dragons' defeat, though it could only be ignored for so long. At least to Levy, who'd not been present during the battle and the destruction of the Eclipse. It was odd – it was them, but at the same time it wasn't. It was two different people, who'd lived their lives and made their choices. Now, with the portal gone and their future safe, Levy didn't know if they'd eventually turn into those people. Circumstances being what they were, she probably wouldn't.

"Hey, Lu?"

The stellar mage cracked one eye open, though Levy wasn't looking at her, but rather at the scars in the heart of her palms. "What do you think happened to them? To our future selves."

Lucy was silent a long moment, gazed fixed on the ceiling. Then, "I think about her a lot," she confessed. "What she must have gone through – what they both must have gone through." She shook her head. "I don't know what happened to them. Maybe they just...ceased to exist? Maybe that's for the best. I don't know where else they would have gone."

Levy curled her fingers together, hands pressing into fists as she thought about the girl who'd gotten her to safety – who'd taken it upon herself to change the course of the future, at the cost of her own life – her whole existence. Sitting there on the infirmary bed, safe in her own time, she wondered where she'd found the courage. Now, in the tranquil, late midday silence with her best friend beside her, she couldn't imagine what it must have taken for a person to make those kind of choices. To go back, and to gamble everything she had left on the minuscule chance that she could change something for her former self. On the one hand, she envied her a little bit – Future Levy. To have that kind of strength...that kind of conviction...

But then she remembered the world she'd come from – the existence that had born and nurtured that strength, hard-earned as it must have been. And she didn't feel envy, anymore, but a deep hurt, because what kind of life must it have been for her to decide to risk everything by going back?

"If they did go somewhere...I wonder if they found each other," Lucy said then, after a lull. She shifted her gaze to meet Levy's. "Even if they didn't go anywhere at all...I hope they're together, in...spirit or whatever you'd call it."

Levy smiled. "I hope so, too." Loosening her clenched fingers, she reached out to grasp Lucy's. Her friend's guild-emblem peeked up from beneath her fingers, and she traced it with the pad of her thumb. "I don't know what I'd do without you." She offered a mock-glare. "You get into way too much trouble."

The stellar mage turned her palm upwards, and gripped her fingers back. "Hey, you're one to talk," she retorted, her voice thick despite her attempted humour. "Do you know how worried you've had us all?" After another, heavy pause, she added, "You know, I bet it was your idea."

Levy frowned, and Lucy tightened her grip. "Going back in time. I bet it was your idea. It just feels like something you would suggest."

Levy choked on a laugh. "Me? What in the world makes you say that–"

"You don't give yourself nearly enough credit, you know," Lucy interrupted her. "There's a reason you were nominated for S-class, Lev. You're stronger than you think. And," she drew a breath. "I think that...in the event that something should happen, like an invasion of dragons...I think you'd realize just how strong."

Levy pressed her lips together. "I'd rather discover it some other way," she noted, a little dryly.

Lucy snorted. "You and me both." She smiled. "Well, we've got the future ahead of us now. Nothing will pan out the way it did." She waved a hand about her face. "It's a clean slate...isn't that what they say?"

"Looks like I'm going to have to find that strength some other way, then," Levy hummed.

Lucy grinned. "Looks like."

"I wonder what's in store next."

The stellar mage threw her a sly look. "I don't know about me, but for you I'm guessing it involves a certain metal-studded recluse." She winked. "Of course, there are worse prospects. And now that you're no longer bedridden..." she trailed off, patting the mattress suggestively, "There are better beds than this one waiting."

"Luce!" Levy gave her a shove, but Lucy only laughed, even as she had to grip the mattress to keep from falling off the bed. "God, but you're lewd."

"Oh come on, don't tell me the thought didn't cross your mind when he walked around in that ridiculous shirtless get-up like was no-one's business." She snorted. "It's probably a dragon trait – don't birds do something like that? Preen their feathers to attract partners?"

A bark of laughter spilled from her lips, sudden and unbidden like her mirth. "You want me to ask him if that's what he's doing? Making himself pretty for me?"

"I think you'd make him swallow his tongue if you did that." Lucy was silent a moment. Then, "I'll pay you to– and hey, what do you know, here's your chance!"

Levy looked towards the doorway in time to see the dragonslayer in question walk in, his own bag slung over one shoulder. He took in the sight of the two of them, and the silence that had suddenly descended. His brows drew together. "What?"

Lucy grinned. "Nothing!" she chirped as she jumped off the bed, before striding forward to grab her duffel. "We were just talking, but I'm sensing this is my cue to leave." She threw Levy a meaningful look as she made for the door. "Oh, by the way, your hair is looking great today, Gajeel. Very smooth." She offered Levy. "Gonna make a girl envious one of these days."

He glared at her, his expression uncomprehending, then cut a look towards Levy, who was having a hard time holding her laughter in. "I leave ya alone five minutes, and there's a goddamn mutiny. The hell did I miss?"

Levy shook her head. "Birds," she said, with a very serious look. "We were talking about...birds."

He held her gaze for a breath, then shook his head. "Not gonna ask." He looked at the stellar mage. "I came to tell ya the train leaves in thirty minutes."

"Noted. Do you want us to wait for you?"

He looked at Levy, who nodded. "Yeah. We'll be down in two."

Lucy returned the nod, before she made for the door, throwing a good-natured but borderline suggestive 'don't take too long!' over her shoulder that made Levy blush all the way to the roots of her hair.

And of course Gajeel took notice. "The hell's the matter with you? You runnin' a fever or something?"

She shook her head. "Please don't ask."

He didn't, and she watched him where he stood, loitering awkwardly as though he couldn't decide whether to keep standing or to take a seat. Then, after a moment of indecision, he seemed to make up his mind, but he didn't come to sit beside her. Instead he came to kneel on the floor in front of the bed, one hand reaching up to grasp her ankle, but before she could ask what he was doing, he was sliding her boot in place. Levy watched him wordlessly, wide gaze softening as he did the laces on one boot, before moving to the other.

When he was done, he didn't move away immediately, but kept her ankle between his hands, the silence stretching between them soft and relaxed as the slowly setting sun cast a glimmering play of light across the floorboards, to bounce off the metal studs on his nose.

"You know...I can tie my own boots."

He snorted, but didn't meet her eyes. "That supposed to be a thank-you?" He released her leg then, and she felt the loss of warmth like a jolt, but this time he moved to sit on the bed beside her, and so she didn't complain. After the battle with the dragons he'd kept a tentative distance between them, though his injuries had been worse than hers this time. But she hadn't pushed, and now that he made to close the gap again, however hesitantly, Levy felt her relief in all its staggering magnitude.

She ducked her head to hide her sudden smile, and some of her hair fell out from behind her ear – the one part that was long enough to be a bother. The rest of it was still too short to do much but stick up at odd angles; it was slow in growing, and it all looked rather lopsided.

His hand was on her arm then, and she looked down, only to find a familiar scrap of fabric in the cup of his palm.

Levy blinked, and reached for the strip with shaking fingers. "Is this–?"

He didn't answer, and she held it out before her, smoothing the fabric down. "My headband," she heard herself say, though she felt detached, somehow, from what she was seeing. Behind her eyes she could so clearly remember the image – the bright colours dyed brown with her own blood, falling down from her limp form to land against the ground. It was one of the last things she remembered before she'd lost consciousness. That, and the bizarre thought that she'd never get the stains out of it if she didn't hurry.

She hadn't questioned its absence – hadn't honestly given it a thought, in the days that had followed her recovery. Her hair had been shorn, and was too short in places for her to need a headband for anything other than decoration. But it was in her hands now, the soft fabric slipping between her fingers. The rosette was intact, if just a little different than what she remembered.

She looked up at Gajeel, a question at the tip of her tongue, but he beat her to it. "Bunny girl," he said simply.

Levy closed her mouth, fingers closing around the headband. "She fixed it."

He nodded. Then, "Ya don't have ta use it if ya don't want to. Just...thought you should know I had it."

She didn't hesitate, and before the words were off his tongue she'd tied the headband in place, tucking any errants locks beneath the fabric to keep them away from her face. She watched his gaze flicker to her forehead, and the scar that sundered the once-smooth skin of her brow. With the headband keeping what little hair she still had fully away from her face, there was no hiding it; she might as well be intentionally displaying it for the world to see.

She grinned. "Good as new," she declared with a tilt of her head, and his eyes flickered back to hers.

And then he smiled, and before she had a chance to be properly surprised, he'd reached out to adjust it ever so slightly, fingers lingering by her temple before he pulled his hand back. "Nah. 's better."

Her eyes widened. Time stood still, just for a breath, like an inhale before a plunge into cold waters – a pocket between do and don't where anything could happen. It was a teetering sensation, make or break, which was the way with them, and the way it had been since they'd first met. Push then pull, and then push some more until one of them toppled. Theirs was a trust built slowly and carefully through trial and error; she'd refused to let him walk away once, and when she'd been at her lowest, he'd stubbornly remained by her side. In the stories, it was a self-evident truth that they'd stick together through thick and thin, but Levy had known a reality quite different, and didn't expect fairy tales anymore. The real thing took work, sweat and tears and sacrifice, and in the end you might still be standing alone, despite all your efforts.

It was a shiver of anticipation along the skin of her arms, the thought that he might yet draw away completely – that he might rise and leave without looking back, deciding that it wasn't worth it, or that he was unworthy.

But he didn't rise to leave, and when he instead met her halfway her heart sprang like a wild thing in her chest, and by the next breath she'd shifted closer, her fingers reaching for his jaw with none of her earlier restraint. And when she moved he followed the gentle pull of her hands, her fingers ensnared in the mass of his hair until she was close enough to gently press her mouth against his.

It was a slow thing – a gentle testing of still waters previously ravaged by currents. His hands cupped her shoulders, a care to his movements so at odds with his character, and she wanted to to press her hands over his, to pound the notion into his skull that she wasn't going to turn to dust if he applied too much pressure. She craned her neck, and found his hand slide up to cradle the back of her head, fingers brushing against the tips of the short-cropped hair he'd once been able to tangle them in. And she pushed ever closer, spurred now by his lingering reluctance. She down on his lower lip, hard, and couldn't help the laugh that spilled out at the oath that followed.

He glared, but her glee was a fierce thing, and not to be deterred. "You're not running," she said then, a little breathlessly.

And by the raised brow that met her, with enough surprise to make him take notice. "D'you think I would? Bail when we'd finally made things right?"

She shifted her gaze, avoiding his. "You've been a little distant, since the battle." She shrugged, feeling suddenly exposed. "I didn't know what you were thinking."

He didn't hesitate, "I ain't going anywhere," he declared gruffly. "I was actually plannin' on sticking around fer a while...If that's okay with you."

It was at once a question, and it wasn't. But his guard was down, she realized. He'd intentionally left himself wide open, to rejection or acceptance – whichever she decided on.

She tried not to beam too much. "It's more than okay, Gajeel."

His mouth quirked, just a hint, so quick she thought she might have imagined it. But then a full-blown smile curved along his face, a grin the likes of which she hadn't seen since before the battle. He rose to his feet. "Ya ready ta go?"

She nodded as she slid off the bed, idly smoothing her hands down her shirt over her stomach, a gesture that had become almost second-nature, as though she needed confirmation that the scar was still there. She wore only light dressings now; the bulk of the bandages she'd used to wear was gone, and as she pressed her hands against it she was surprised at the sensation. It was a dull, lingering ache – like an old bruise, but she found that she felt none of her earlier dread that usually accompanied it. It might as well have been just any old bruise, and not the brand it had once been, the one she still saw if she closed her eyes.

She pressed her fingers against it once more, experimentally. But still there was no fear to accompany the ache, and she examined the strange new detachment with surprise.

Although perhaps it wasn't so strange. In the week she'd spent recuperating with the others she'd thought a lot about her future self – the scars on her face had been much more vivid than any Levy bore now – and the world in which she'd had to overcome them. She'd had no soft bed, and no guild of friends around her to help her recover. She'd had Lucy, and yet she'd continued to push forward, even if the world as she'd known it had long since ended.

Her own scars didn't feel any less gruesome in comparison, but overcoming them seemed feasible now, where she'd once thought she'd never move past them; when she'd lain in bed, unable to imagine an existence where she could look at herself in the mirror.

She let her hands fall to her sides, and when she looked at Gajeel next the scar was a fickle thought amidst the dawning realization that they were going home together, after everything. After Raven Tail and Ivan, time paradoxes, future selves and invading dragons – they'd made it through, not wholly unscathed, but together. It was more than her future self had had, and it was everything she'd wanted.

And Levy wasn't about to squander that gift with insecurities.

Walking up to him where he lingered in the doorway, she rose to the tips of her toes, and remembering his smile from earlier, she pressed her lips against the corner of his mouth. It was a small thing – a gesture so at odds with the sheer amount of feeling that lay behind it, but she hoped it conveyed it all the same.

When she drew back, her own smile was quick as the heart in her chest, leaping a joyous dance against her ribcage. "Love you," she murmured, and the words were light as air and so easy now, falling from her heart and her lips without restraint, her private shadows only vague memories in the brightness of her soul. And she would see his own darkness chased off for good if it took her a lifetime, because if she'd been broken and mended whole, then so could he. She loved and she loved fiercely, the feeling bright and warm in her breast, and even Ivan and the all-encompassing daylight-darkness of an eclipse hadn't managed to snuff it out. She'd conquer his shadows, like she'd conquered her own.

She reached out a hand, scarred palm facing upwards – her dignity a furious thing in place of her former shame. "Let's go home."

He grinned, a flash of teeth in the midday sun. "Yeah." Then he surprised her by throwing an arm around her shoulders, for once unmindful of her injuries. And for once he didn't mention the crutches leaning against the foot of the bed.

The gesture made her smile, and she leaned her weight into his side, tucking her face against his chest as they walked out of the infirmary. His shadow stretched, long and sinuous before them, but it seemed less intimidating, somehow, with hers alongside it – like an odd extension of his own, blending in and out of one another as they walked with the sun at their backs.

The rest of the guild were gathered outside, some lounging with their luggage at their feet, while others were saying their good-byes to members of the other guilds who'd shown up to see them off. Levy spotted Lily and Wendy on the front steps, and the littlest dragonslayer waved as they made their way outside. Coming in sight of the others, she felt Gajeel's arm slip from around her shoulders, to fall against his side. She tried not to feel disappointed, and kept her smile in place. Baby steps, Lev. One at a time.

Natsu jumped up from his seat at their approach. "Took you long enough! C'mon, or we'll miss the train!"

Lucy rolled her eyes as she rose to follow. "Why are you so eager? You know what's waiting for you – hours of motion sickness. In my lap."

Gajeel groaned. "I'd forgotten 'bout that."

"It's going to be good not being the invalid anymore," Levy said, and laughed when he turned to her with a glare. "Don't worry, you can rest your head in my lap, if you want," she teased. "I promise not to laugh. Much."

He only grumbled, but didn't decline her offer, and Levy turned to Lucy with a smile. "So. To the next adventure?"

Lucy snorted. "You know, I could do with a holiday, after this."

"Holiday adventure!" Natsu announced. "Let's go back to the beach!"

Lucy hooked a finger into his scarf, to keep him from falling over in his own excitement. "We were just there, you dolt. I think home is holiday enough."

He laughed. "Whatever you say, Luce."

Levy's smile grew as she watched their conversation grow more and more animated, and as other guild-members started butting in to add their two cents, which prompted peals of laughter that rose in volume as they began their trek towards the train station.

A brush against her hand startled her, and she looked down to see him take hold of it, fingers wrapping hesitantly around hers. When she glanced up, Gajeel was looking straight ahead, pointedly avoiding her gaze, but her joy was such that she couldn't have schooled her expression if she'd wanted to.

Winding her fingers with his, Levy gripped them tightly as they followed after their companions through the city streets. The sound of their talk and laughter trailed in their wake – their departure as boisterous as their arrival, and around them the slowly setting sun threw its final brilliance across the cobbled streets, painting the stones golden-yellow and banishing the lingering dark to remote corners. And Levy held onto the hand caught in hers, the warmth of his grip like a tether pulling her down the path before them...

...and into the future ahead, bright and new and theirs, to claim and to live to their hearts' content.

fin.

AN: If you've made it this far, be you a regular or a new reader, I hope you've enjoyed the ride! This story was born from a simple wish to see more interaction between these two in this arc, and along the way it got a life of its own, though I wanted to keep the core of the GMG storyline intact despite the changes, which I hope I've managed. It's not your usual learning-how-to-make-it-work story, but then these two aren't just any couple. And though they've been through their fair share of obstacles, what appeals so much to me is their growth, and the fact that they've managed to become so close despite their past. It's not always easy, but in the end, it is so, so worth it.