To Protect and To Serve

Chapter 19

Jellal was on his way to Giles and Mary's apartment to question them about what he had learned from Mary's sister. His car had just pulled up to the apartment building when he saw Gray heading for the door a gun in his hand. Jellal could see that Gray was shaking but not with fear but with a great anger. Sensing trouble, he quickly got out of his car and confronted him.

"Mr. Fullbuster what are you about to do?" He asked.

"But out detective." Gray said.

"I'm sorry sir but I can't do that. At least not until I know for sure that you're not going to do something crazy, why do you have a gun?"

"You wanna know why I have a gun? It's because I'm gonna kill Mr. and Mrs. Hughes."

"Have you lost your mind?"

"They almost killed Ciel!" He shouted. "They beat him half to death! I'll kill them for this!"

Gray tried to continue into the house by Jellal held him back.

"Put the gun down Mr. Fullbuster." He told him calmly.

"No! They gotta pay!"

"I understand your anger sir-"

"No you don't! At the hospital I went through Ciel's bag and you know what I found? I found the toy penguin that I gave Winter and the blanket that my wife made for him! He's my son Detective Fernandes! Ciel is my son! Mine and Juvia's! Those bastards took him from us! And they tried to kill him!"

"Mr. Fullbuster this isn't the way. If you kill these people you'll go to jail."

"I don't care!"

"Really? What about your wife? Do you think she'll be better off with you in jail? And your daughter? What about her? If you go to jail your daughter will have to grow up without a father and a mother who has to raise her alone. Is that what you want? Is that what you want?!"

In the end Jellal managed to get Gray to drop his gun but the poor man collapsed into tears.

"I just want my son back!" He wept. "And I don't want those people to hurt him anymore!"

"It'll be alright Mr. Fullbuster. I believe that boy is in fact your son and if I have anything to say about it, those people will never lay a hand on that child again." He helped Gray back to his feet. "Come on I'll take you back to your wife. She must be worried sick about you."

The next day Erza went to meet with her client Natsu to discuss the case.

"I don't want Nashi involved in this." Natsu said when Erza proposed using the girl as a witness.

"Mr. Dragneel I understand the concern you have for your daughter but so far she's the only who's witnessed your wife's abuse." Erza said.

"This will be too much for her. She's too young."

"Natsu need I remind you that the best way to win this case is to have a witness to testify against your wife. If we don't then there's a pretty good chance that we'll lose."

"Isn't there any other way?"

"I'm afraid not."

Natsu sighed before speaking again.

"Do you promise not to pressure her?"

"I'll be as gentle as I can with her. I promise and if you'd like we can do the interview with someone she knows with her."

"Alright. Can I see her?"

"I'm sorry Mr. Dragneel but while you're under investigation of abuse, you can't have any contact with your daughter until the trial."

"Can you at least tell me if she's doing alright? She must be so scared by all this."

"According to Lucy your daughter is fine. She misses you but other than that nothing bad has happened."

"Has my wife done anything to her?"

"Your wife is also under investigation for abuse so she won't have any contact with your daughter until the trial."

"I can't believe this is happening." Natsu said. "I can't even see my own daughter and there's a good chance that I could go to jail, what am I going to do?"

"Don't worry Mr. Dragneel, I will do everything I can to make sure that you win this case. Now could you tell me a little something about your wife's background?"

"Like what?"

"Her family, how she grew up, what she did before she married you."

"She worked as a waitress before we got married as for her family and how she grew up, I don't know that much. She never really told me anything about her parents. I asked a couple of times but she always said that it was a painful subject."

"Is that all you know? Come on there must be something."

"I don't know."

"Well think."

Natsu thought long and hard about all the very few times Touka had told him about her past. Nothing he remembered seemed important except for one thing she mentioned to him once.

"She once told that she used to see a therapist when she was a kid."

"What therapist?"

"Dr....Dr. Warren?...No Dr....Dr. Warrod Sequen. I think that's what his name was."

"Alright I'll go talk to this Dr. Warrod Sequen and see if I can get subpoena on her records."

She looked up Dr. Warrod Sequen online and found out that he was the therapist of a local institute. She called Dr. Sequen and scheduled a meeting with him right away.

"I can't talk to you about one my patients Miss Scarlet." Dr. Sequen told her. "It's confidential."

"I understand that sir but I need to know why she was sent to your hospital."

"I can't say. I am truly sorry for what she's doing to that man but I have a policy that I must live by."

"Dr. Sequen she has a daughter and if her husband loses this trial then she will get custody of that child and God only knows what she'll do to that kid."

"She has a child?"

"Yes."

The doctor looked around to make sure that no one was listening, he then pulled Erza into his office.

"Alright. I'll tell you what I know but I can't give you her records. Touka's mother died when she was much younger and her father abused her physically and verbally until she was nine years old, that's when he abandoned her in favor of her stepmother."

"Why was she at your hospital?"

"The abuse and abandonment she suffered from her father made her dangerously ill and violent. After she tried to beat another child to death she was brought here where I served as her doctor. Over the years I learned that she had a very unstable temper, was prone to extreme jealousy, reacted very violently to when she didn't get her way, and was desperate to have a man love her. By the time she was eighteen she seemed to have gotten better but I sensed that she still had some issues. I recommended that she stay in the institute but they let her go anyway."

"Do you think that she would abuse her husband?"

"I do. Despite wanting a man to love her, she also thinks of all men as abusers like her father and she's convinced that sooner or later they will abandon her for another woman."

"Okay thank you Dr. Sequen."

"You can't tell anyone that I told you this. At least not until you get a subpoena from a judge."

"I'll work on that right away. Thank you, you've been very helpful."