Chapter 79: Waking
The third dawn came soft through the healing house windows, pale light filtering through the frost on the glass, painting the room in shades of grey and gold. The fire had burned down to embers overnight, the warmth fading, but Juvia did not notice. She had not noticed much of anything for three days.
She sat in the chair she had pulled to Gray's bedside on the first night, the same chair she had occupied every hour since. Her hand was wrapped around his, her fingers intertwined with his cold ones, her thumb tracing the same slow pattern across his knuckles. She had not slept. Not really. She had closed her eyes sometimes, drifted at the edges of consciousness, but always snapped back, afraid that if she let go, if she looked away, he would slip somewhere she could not follow.
The healer came and went. The elder came and went. Villagers brought food she did not eat, tea she did not drink, blankets she let fall to the floor. She was aware of them, distantly, the way she was aware of the fire dying and the cold creeping in. But her world had shrunk to the space between her hand and his, the rise and fall of his chest, the faint pulse she checked a hundred times a day against her wrist.
On the first day, a healer from a neighboring village had arrived, a woman with silver hair and eyes that seemed to look through flesh and bone to the places where things were broken. She had worked over Gray for hours, her hands glowing with a soft white light, her face pinched with concentration. When she finally sat back, she was pale and sweating, but she nodded.
"His bones are set. His organs are healing. The internal bleeding has stopped." She looked at Juvia with something like sympathy. "But the damage was extensive. The magic I used draws on his own energy to complete the healing. He will sleep until his body has rebuilt what it lost. It could be days. It could be longer."
Juvia had nodded. She had not moved from the chair.
On the second day, Gray's color improved. His lips lost their blue tint. His skin warmed. The healer came again, checked his bandages, pronounced him out of danger. Juvia had felt something loosen in her chest, something that had been wound tight since the moment she saw him fall. But she did not leave.
Now it was the third day. The snow had stopped falling sometime in the night. The village was stirring outside, the sounds of morning filtering through the walls. Juvia sat in her chair, her hand in his, and watched his face.
His eyes opened.
It was not a dramatic thing. There was no gasp, no start, no sudden awareness. His eyelids simply fluttered, once, twice, and then his eyes were open, unfocused at first, then slowly, painfully, finding her face.
"Juvia," he said. His voice was a rasp, barely a whisper, barely there at all.
Juvia made a sound that was not quite a laugh and not quite a sob. She leaned forward, her forehead almost touching his, her hand squeezing his with a gentleness that cost her everything.
"Gray-sama," she breathed. "Gray-sama is awake. Gray-sama is alive. Gray-sama is..."
"Hungry."
She blinked. "What?"
Gray's lips twitched, the ghost of a smile. "Starving. I feel like I haven't eaten in a year. What happened? How long was I out?"
"Three days," Juvia said. "The healer said your body needed to heal. That the magic used your own energy. That you would sleep until you were strong again."
"Three days." He tried to sit up, groaned, sank back into the pillows. "Feels like longer. Feels like I got hit by a mountain."
Juvia pressed him back down, her hands gentle but firm on his shoulders. "Gray-sama must rest. Gray-sama's body is still healing. Gray-sama cannot…"
"I'm hungry, Juvia. Really hungry. Like, I could eat a whole cow hungry. Maybe two cows." He looked at her with something like desperation. "Please tell me there's food in this village. Real food. Not just mountain herbs and prayer."
Juvia laughed. It surprised her, the sound of it, bright and sudden and real. She had not laughed in three days. She had not thought she would ever laugh again. But Gray was looking at her with that ridiculous expression, the one that said he would crawl to the kitchen himself if no one brought him food, and she could not help it.
"Juvia will find food," she said. "Juvia will bring Gray-sama the best food in the village. Juvia will…"
She stopped. Gray had caught her hand, the one that was still pressed against his shoulder. He held it there, his fingers warm now, his grip weak but steady.
"Stay," he said. "Just for a minute. Let me..." He closed his eyes, breathed, opened them again. "Let me look at you."
Juvia's cheeks flushed. She tried to pull away, to hide the dark circles under her eyes, the tangled hair, the clothes she had been wearing for three days without changing. But Gray held her hand, and his eyes were soft, and there was something in his expression that made her stop fighting.
"You stayed," he said. It was not a question.
"Juvia stayed. Juvia will always stay. Juvia promised."
"I know." His thumb traced the back of her hand, slow, deliberate. "I remember. In the cave. You said you would build slowly. Stone by stone. That you would wait."
Juvia nodded, not trusting her voice.
Gray was quiet for a moment. His eyes drifted to the ceiling, to the fire, to the frost on the windows. When he spoke again, his voice was different. Softer. More careful.
"I watched Natsu. For weeks. Months, maybe. I watched him with Lucy and Erza, and I thought, how does he do it? How does he just... know? What he wants. Who he wants. How to get it." He paused, his jaw tightening. "I thought something was wrong with me. That I was broken somehow. That I couldn't connect the way he could. That I was always going to be the one watching from the outside."
Juvia opened her mouth to speak, but he squeezed her hand, stopped her.
"But I was looking at the wrong thing. I was looking at what he had instead of what I wanted." He turned his head, met her eyes. "And what I want is you. Just you. Not because you're like them. Not because you're anything like anyone. Because you're you. Because you stayed. Because you carried me down a mountain when I was dying. Because you sat in this chair for three days and didn't leave."
His voice cracked on the last words. He swallowed, tried again.
"I don't know if I can ever be like Natsu. I don't know if I can be the kind of person who just... knows. Who's sure. Who doesn't second-guess every decision he's ever made." He took a breath. "But I'm sure about you. I'm sure about us. And I don't want to build slowly anymore. I don't want to wait. I want to be with you. I want you to be mine. I want to be yours."
He looked at her, and his face was open in a way she had never seen, vulnerable, afraid, hopeful all at once.
"Juvia Lockser, will you be my girlfriend?"
Juvia stared at him. The room was silent. The fire crackled. Somewhere outside, a bird called to the morning.
"Yes," she said. Her voice was barely a whisper. "Yes, Gray-sama. Yes. Juvia will be your girlfriend. Juvia will be anything you want. Juvia will…"
He pulled her down, and she fell against him, careful, so careful, her hands braced on either side of his head, her hair falling around them like a curtain. His arms came up around her, weak but determined, and he held her there, against his chest, against the bandages, against the heart that was beating strong and steady beneath her ear.
"I'm not going anywhere," he said against her hair. "And neither are you."
She laughed again, wet and wonderful, and buried her face in his neck. "Juvia is not going anywhere. Juvia is exactly where Juvia wants to be. Juvia is exactly where Juvia belongs."
They lay like that for a long time, tangled together on the narrow cot, the morning light warming the room, the frost melting on the windows. When the healer came to check on her patient, she found them asleep, Juvia curled against Gray's side, his arm around her, her hand on his chest, rising and falling with each breath.
She closed the door quietly and told the elder that the young man would be fine. That they both would.
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Next Time: The Return to Magnolia