The Dragon Father

Reunions

Seven years ago everyone on Tenrou disappeared. 

No one knew what happened although there were plenty of conspiracies. The friends and family of those lost were devastated by the loss of reason. It seemed that they had all simply, vanished.

All those years later, a fisherman saw a glowing fairy tail symbol beneath the waved. Alerted immediately, the members of Fairy Tail raced to the beach where a giant sphere with the fairy tail symbol emerged from the waves. Slowly it washed onto the beach; in it was a giant black dragon.

"Acnologia!" everyone cried in happiness, but the true joy came when Acnologia, unconscious opened his wings and uncovered the remaining fairy tail members asleep in his claws.

Acnologia had awoken in a hospital bed. He rubbed his head and looked around at the unfamiliar surroundings. He walked out and came face to face with the Fairy Tail members. Immediately there were tearful embraces and cries of joy. Acnologia was confused as to why some people looked so much older and why others had hardly changed. Finally, Makarov, sensing Acnologia's confusion, took him aside and explained.

Acnologia had questions. Some Makarov could answer, and some he could not.

"What happened those seven years? How long have I  been out? Is everyone alright? What happened to Zeref? How the hell did seven years go by? How's everyone? What happened to the guild? Do you know what happened to Serena!?"

Makarov explained each one as best he could. Fairy Tail had fallen from its grace through the years, Acnologia had awoken only a few hours after he had, everyone from Tenrou was fine, Zeref was gone, he didn't know how time had worked, and Serena was alright. When he got to what he knew about Serena Acnologia listened with a blank face. Makarov had only gotten bits and pieces about the new world and most of them weren't good news.

Acnologia listened to the jubilation in the guildhall and sighed, "Now is not the time to worry about it. We have time to make up for."

Time was made up. Eventually. 

Those lost in the seven-year gap explored the changed Magnolia in wonder. Wendy ran from store to store eyeing the many knick-knack shops with wonder. Gajeel was nearly lost to a new music store. Natsu, Sting, Lector, and Happy ran around gasping at everything. Rogue and Erik seemed rather overwhelmed while Laxus looked unconcerned. Acnologia looked at everything with interest, it was almost like returning to civilization after his one-hundred-year long mourning.

"Hey look, isn't that our house?" Sting asked stopping in front of a run-down building.

"No way, our building was way more betterer" Natsu disagreed.

"Natsu-san, I don't think that's a word," Wendy pointed out.

It was their old apartment complex. There were so many memories in this place. The steps where Erik would listen to the world while petting Cubellios, the garden that Natsu burned down... twice, the support beams Gajeel had put in himself, the lightning rod Laxus had played on in the horrid storms. He opened the door to the empty building and smiled at the light and dark stains caused by playful games of tag played by Sting and Rogue through the halls. The air vents that Wendy would play hide and seek in. He walked back out and looked up towards their old apartment, there was the window that Natsu broke playing soccer with Sting, Gajeel, and Rogue. The window Wendy broke when she tried to fly... and succeeded. That other window broke by Laxus when Natsu knocked over his bottle collection. The dozen other windows that were broken due to his children.

"Wow, it is our old house," Natsu realized.

Someone was running through Magnolia, their feet slammed on the stone roads. Their breath came out in pants.