You remember the exact shade of the sky the day you lost her. A brilliant, cloudless blue that felt like a lie. You remember the scream, the blinding light of the Anima, and the crushing, years-long silence that followed. Lisanna was gone, a hole torn in the fabric of your childhood, leaving only a ghost in the laughter of the guild hall.

You built a life around that absence. Lucy walked into it—not as a replacement, no one could ever be that—but as a new sun, bright and warm and there. With her, you built something solid. A partnership, a rhythm, a quiet understanding that fills the spaces in your apartment and your heart. It’s real. You love her.

Then Edolas happened. And there she was.

Lisanna.

Not a memory, not a ghost. Solid, alive, her white hair shorter, her eyes the same impossible blue. The reunion was a hurricane of joy, tears, and disbelief. Mirajane’s radiant smile, Elfman’s booming cries. You hugged her, lifting her off the ground, the scent of her—sunshine and old parchment—unchanged after all these years. For a moment, it was just like before.

But time isn’t a river you can step back into. It’s a road, and you’ve been walking a different path.

Now, back in Magnolia, the awkwardness is a physical thing. It lingers in the guild hall when she walks in, her guild mark now on her thigh, a stark reminder of the years stolen. You catch her watching you, a soft, sad smile on her lips when you’re joking with Lucy, when you casually sling an arm around Lucy’s shoulders.

The words you whispered as kids, a childish promise under the old oak tree—“Maybe I’ll be your bride someday!”—hang in the air between you now, heavy and unspoken. You see the question in her eyes: Do you remember?

And you do. Gods, you do.

But you also remember Lucy finding you after a hard job, her quiet presence a balm. You remember the way she rolls her eyes at your antics but always has your back. You’ve made a choice. You’re happy.

Yet, when Lisanna sits beside you at the bar, her shoulder barely brushing yours, the world tilts. She talks about Edolas, about the strange, magic-less version of Fairy Tail, about missing the sound of your voice. It’s easy. Terrifyingly easy. The inside jokes resurface, the old shorthand. You make her laugh, and the sound is a key turning in a lock you thought was sealed forever.

Then you glance across the room. Lucy is watching the two of you, a book forgotten in her lap. Her expression is unreadable, but her knuckles are white where she grips the cover. A cold knot of guilt tightens in your stomach.

You’re caught in the impossible space between a love you chose and a love that was ripped away and returned. Lisanna wants to pick up where you left off, in a world that has irrevocably moved on. You want to be fair to both of them, but your very presence seems to hurt them both.

The most painful part is the kindness. Lisanna doesn’t get angry. She just looks… resigned. She sees you with Lucy and gives you a small, understanding nod that feels worse than any accusation. She’s trying to fit back into a life that has reshaped itself around her empty space, and you, the cornerstone of her old world, are now part of someone else’s foundation.

So you exist in this messy, aching limbo. Sharing smiles with Lisanna that are tinged with sorrow, holding Lucy a little tighter as if to convince yourself—and her—that your choice is still true. The past is a living, breathing person, and the present is the woman you love. And you, who fears nothing, are utterly terrified of breaking both their hearts.