"Lucy, please come back to me. I'm sorry. We'll find a way. We can work this out." Rufus pleaded. His eyes were brimming with tears. Although,whether it was tears from frustration or sadness, he wasn't sure.

"Rufus, it's alright. I should have known that we weren't meant to be. At least, like this,you can be with Minerva, no?" Lucy told him in a soft voice.

"Lucy... I'm sorry, I really am. Don't die on me, please don't." Rufus pleaded her. This was supposed to be an easy mission. How could everything have went so wrong?

"I'm sorry. Goodbye." After saying that, Fairy Tail's bubbly celestial mage took her last breath.

"No... No! This can't be happening. Lucy,wake up. This isn't remotely hilarious." Rufus said. He regretted his actions, he should have used another way.

"Rufus, she's gone, there's nothing we can do about it. She wouldn't want you to cry." Minerva told him, she too had tears streaming from her face.

Hearing what Minerva had said, Rufus reached up to touch his face. He hadn't realized that he had been crying. All the fight in Rufus had left him. He looked nothing like he usually did. He was slumped over in defeat.

This was a simple mission. At least it had been, until the dark mage captured both Minerva and Lucy. The dark mage was holding them by the neck, threatening to throw them over the edge of the cliff. Both girls were helpless because he had cast an anti-magic spell on them.

"Choose. Which one? Who shall fall to her death because you hadn't chose her? Only one shall live. The question is, which one?" the dark mage had asked him.

Rufus was truly devastated. He loved Lucy, she was his girlfriend for Heaven's sake, but lately, lately there had been a slight change in him. His heart doesn't race whenever she smiles at him anymore. Rufus had realized that he had not loved Lucy anymore. When it happened, he didn't know. What he did know, was that he was royally screwed. For instead of being attracted to Lucy, he had found himself attracted to Minerva.

Rufus had planned to tell Lucy after the mission. Unfortunately, due to certain circumstances, he had accidentally let it slip. Upon hearing his confession, Lucy had been calm. A lot more calm than he would have imagined, but then again, Lucy had always had a way with forgiving people way too easily, even people who broke her heart.

After that, they had continued the mission as if nothing had happened. The only change was that Minerva's hand was in his instead of Lucy's. Lucy was smiling, but he could tell it was forced, after all, they had been dating for three months.

Had Rufus known that things would have gone like this, he wouldn't have asked her to continue the mission with them.

So when the question was asked by the dark mage, he was screwed. He could not choose. Who should he choose? The girl whom he had loved for the past three months, or the girl whom he loved now? Seeing his hesitation, the dark mage had threatened to drop both of them.

At that moment, Rufus had made his decision.

To say that Minerva was shocked was an understatement. Lucy however, smiled, as radiant as ever.

After the dark mage had dropped a mage and released the other, Rufus has swiftly taken him down. After defeating the dark mage, Rufus ran as fast as lightning to the location of the fallen mage, and now, here they are.

Ten years later,

"Daddy, why do we always come and visit this grave?"a girl with blonde hair similar to her father's had asked.

"This is the grave of someone very important to me," her father replied while smiling sadly, memories of the past resurfacing.

"This grave belongs to someone very noble. She died so I could live. She was the light of the fairies, the celestial goddess, as your Aunt Yukino likes to call her," the little girl's mother told her.

"Oh! So she's the one that Aunt Yukino respects so much. What was her name again?" the girl asked her parents.

"Her name is Lucy Heartfilia," the father told his five-year-old daughter.

The father is no other than Sabertooth's memory mage, Rufus Lohr. The mother is no other that Sabertooth's one and only Minerva Orlando. The little girl is their little daughter, Maia Lohr. The three of them will forever be in Lucy's debt.

A breeze blew past them and a slip of paper caught Rufus' eye. He grabbed it form the air and read what it said.

The words, "No matter where I am, I will always be in your heart," was written across the tiny piece of paper.

Upon reading it, Rufus stared at the sky and smiled.

In the skies, Lucy smiled as well. There were tears in her eyes though, but these were not tears of sorrow, they were tears of joy.