Black Tags

Summary: AU: 'I—I'm just imagining things right?' Lucy squeezed her brown eyes shut even tighter, biting back a trembling exhale. Lucy's shivering hands curled and grabbed a fistful of her golden hair. 'B-but he disappeared and—,'

Ratings: Rated T for safety

Disclaimer: Fairy Tail® by Mashima Hiro

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". . . And this is station 5. Most of the patients here are pediatrics or medical."

Lucy inclined her head downward as her response to here scarlet haired senior. As newly hired staff nurse in Magnolia Medical Center, Lucy had her 30 minutes tour around the tertiary hospital to familiarize herself.

Erza Scarlet, a senior nurse, tugged Lucy inside the medium sized nurses' station. Sitting on one of the swivel chairs inside the station was a voluptuous brunette young woman who was busy writing something on one of the patients' charts.

"Cana, this is Lucy, our new staff nurse." Erza introduced.

Cana looked up from the chart on the table and gave the new blonde nurse a wide smile followed by a nod. "Hi!" she greeted rather brightly despite their night shift duty for this day.

"Hello." Lucy timidly replied, as expected to any newcomers.

"Oh hello." a blue haired nurse wearing the typical white uniform of their hospital appeared inside the station.

"She's Levy." Erza introduced again while flipping the pages of the patient's chart on her grip. "She's new here as well."

Lucy bowed her head and smiled, "Hello, my name is Lucy Heartfillia."

Levy smiled back and said, "Levy McGarden, nice to meet you. Can I call Lu-chan?"

"Sure." She replied.

"Lucy," Erza motioned her hand at Lucy, the latter gave Cana and Levy a small smile before skipping her way towards her red hair senior. "For easily identifying the patients, we have five wrist tags, each color identifies in which department or area a patient belongs to. These tags are attached to patients' right wrist. The tags have the patient's name, room or bed number and the name of the attending physician."

Erza placed four tags with four different colors on the table. The blonde newcomer furrowed her eyebrows but held in her curiosity.

Erza pointed the wrist tag in color pink, "This is for Obstetrics-Gynecology patients." she said, Lucy gave a quick nod. Then Erza moved her forefinger onto the green tag. "This one is for surgery patients. The blue wrist tags are for medical patients and the yellow tags are for pediatric patients."

Noticing the creased over Lucy's forehead, Erza tilted her head to her side, "Do you have any question?" she inquired kindly.

"Erhm... I—I thought you said five tags, Erza-senpai? You only have four tags here though."

Silenced perched between the four nurses, Lucy's frown deepened when her three senior nurses exchanged a knowing look with each other.

"Well..." Erza started but hesitant to follow her words. "You won't be seeing any patients roaming around here wearing the fifth tag, Lucy."

Lucy raised an eyebrow, silently giving her red hair senior an inquiring gaze. "Why?"

"The fifth tag is color black." Cana cut in.

Lucy dragged her brown orbs to the brunette senior nurse. "In which department is the black tag belongs to?"

Silence took over for the second time, and Lucy's curiosity heightened because of that silence.

"Dead."

"Huh?"

"The black wrist tag is for patients who have died." Erza said in very serious tone and expression.

Lucy inwardly shivered in fear.

"So it's natural for you not to encounter any patient wearing black tags unless of course you're seeing ghost."

Ghost? Lucy can handle anything with exception of anything that related to paranormal things. She could never handle anything that can't be explained by science, or even logic. Cold sweats formed on Lucy's forehead when she felt warm breathing hitting her nape, she shivered and shrieked when she heard a faint and low 'boo' sound behind her. The blonde nurse scrambled away from the spot she was standing towards Erza.

To her dismay though, she found a laughing Cana.

"Very funny Cana-senpai." Lucy puffed her cheeks out with her cheeks tainted with red hue. "You too, Erza-senpai!" she added in annoyance and pointed an accusing finger at her red hair senior who was smirking in triumph.

"Welcome to the club, Lu-chan." Levy said, she too was smiling but her smile was mixed with sympathy and amusement. "They did that to me on my first day as well." she added and giggled.

"Haha! Sorry, sorry." Cana apologized in between her giggling as she waved her hands.

"Enough with that now." Erza said.

Lucy sweat dropped. 'You're the one started this, senpai.' she mentally said.

"Lucy, do you mind getting these medicines from pharmacy downstairs?"

Lucy took the prescription paper from Erza and nodded, "Sure," was her response before walking towards the nearest elevator. Since she was assigned in station 5, that is located on the sixth floor, Lucy decided to take the elevator.

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Armed with the medicine Erza asked her to get from the pharmacy on the ground floor, Lucy hummed as soft tune while riding the elevator back to the fifth floor.

The elevator let out a faint 'TING' and then the door opened on the second floor. Lucy blinked her eyes when the door revealed a boy, probably around her age, with a lean, well-built body. She raised her eyebrows when her brown eyes caught his unusual spiky rose-colored hair.

Since he was wearing a black tee shirt with dragon drawing on the center and shorts reaching his knees, Lucy thought that he's not one of their patients but idly wonder if he's a visitor instead.

'That's odd, our hospital's visiting time in only until 9pm.' Lucy glanced on her yellow wrist watch. It's passed eleven PM already.

"You're new here?"

Startled, Lucy whipped her head to her side where the young man with rosy pink hair was standing. She then gave the inquiring young man a slow nod.

"Ah, y-yes."

The man smiled, "Thought so, I've been around the hospital for quite some time now and it's my first time seeing you here."

Lucy furrowed her eyebrows, "You're one of our patients?" she asked curiously.

The young man nodded.

"But you're not wearing the hospital gown. It's our protocol for patient to wear the gown."

The young man sheepishly chuckled, almost looking guilty, as he scratched the back of his rosy-pink head, "Hehe... I don't really like wearing those clothes."

Lucy gave the young man an understanding smile, "Yes, I quite understand that but sir—,"

"Natsu."

Lucy blinked her eyes several time before utter an unintelligent, "Huh?" once again.

"My name is Natsu Dragneel. I don't really like being called 'sir'; it makes me sound so old."

Lucy giggled at that answer, "My name is Lucy then." she said, sounding amuse.

Natsu smiled back, "And about the clothes, I'll change back once I got back to my room." He said.

Lucy inclined her head to her side, "If you don't mind me asking. Are you an athlete or playing any sports?"

Natsu opened and closed his eyes rapidly, clearly confused.

Lucy felt her cheeks burning hundred folds, "You just have the same biceps as my best friend, Gray. He's a regular basketball player back in our high school days and yeah you have the same biceps as him."

Natsu chuckled after his short pause, "Yep, before getting admitted here, I used to play basketball as well." Natsu wistfully looked at his own reflection on the back of the elevator's door. "I kind of miss the adrenaline running across the hard court, or hearing the scream of the audience."

"You should get yourself better." Lucy softly said.

Natsu glanced at Lucy and blinked his onyx eyes.

"If you get better and finally get discharged from the hospital, I could introduce you to Gray. Maybe you can have one on one with him; he really likes challenge, that Gray." Lucy dragged her eyes from Natsu's head down to his toe and drew her chocolate brown eyes back up to Natsu's face meeting his raven-colored orbs. "And I can say the same thing on you." she complimented and grinned widely.

The rosy pink haired young man merely blinked his eyes repeatedly before a wide smile crossed his lip. Natsu's smile melted into a soft laugh.

"I wanted to meet this Gray-guy." he said brightly. "I'll kick his sorry ass (somewhere in Magnolia a half-naked raven haired young man sneezed) no one can be as great as Salamander when it comes in basketball!" he said, with his fist hoisted up and his chest protruding proudly.

Lucy giggled at him, "You'll get along nicely with him."

Silence took over for few seconds before Natsu gave Lucy a soft and genuine smile, "Thanks for making me feel better." he said.

Lucy shook her head softly, "Not at all. I'm really looking forward of seeing you play basketball."

Natsu gave Lucy a toothy grin ring lifted his left hand showing his peace sign at Lucy, "Sure!"

A soft 'TING' was heard before the door opened once again on the fourth floor.

"Well this is my stop." Natsu brightly said and took step outside the elevator.

Feeling a bit disappointed that their conversation finally ended, Lucy forced herself to smile at Natsu.

"I'll see you around ne!" he said as he stood outside the elevator.

Lucy, happy about the idea of seeing Natsu again, perked up and nodded eagerly. She waited until the elevator closed itself automatically. Still standing outside the elevator, Natsu lifted his right hand and waved enthusiastically at Lucy. The blonde nurse giggled and waved back at him.

But then she felt as if a bucket of cold water splashed at her when her brown eyes landed on Natsu's right wrist. Everything went in slow motion; her enthusiastic smile was slowly turning upside-down as her brown eyes widened in shock and evident fear appeared on her heart-shaped face.

Lucy tried taking a step backward but she only felt the cold surface of the wall of the elevator pressed against her back. She was still in shock and her body trembled in fear when slowly Natsu's body turned ultra-pale, his body flickered countless of times; it resembled a light that was about to go out.

Natsu was still eagerly waving at her even until his whole body— or his whole being— disappeared before the elevator door finally pressed itself together. With very pale face, Lucy enveloped her arms around her quivering petite body, in hopes to comfort herself.

'I—I'm just imagining things right?' Lucy squeezed her brown eyes shut even tighter, biting back a trembling exhale. Lucy's shivering hands curled and grabbed a fistful of her golden hair. 'B-but he disappeared and—,' when the image of the band wrapped around Natsu's right wrist appeared on the back of Lucy's mind, her chest tightened in horror. 'He's— Natsu is wearing the black wrist tag!' she screamed mentally, horrified at the thought, before a sob escaped from her throat.

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"I missed Natsu." Levy suddenly said before dropping her shoulders.

Cana and Erza exchanged sad gaze before nodding. "Yeah, too bad that his heart transplant didn't go well." Cana added.

The scarlet haired nurse dragged her brown eyes onto the sole picture frame sitting in one corner of her desk. The picture was taken two months ago; she was with Levy, Cana and with their rosy pink-haired patient, Natsu Dragneel.

He's their upbeat and cheerful patient from medical-surgical department in fourth floor. Natsu constantly greeted everyone with cheerful attitude armed with his toothy grin. He befriended almost everyone most especially the three nurses.

Natsu was diagnosed of having a terminal heart problem and was scheduled to have a heart transplant. At first everything went well, after the procedure his vital signs were stable and good; but then slowly his body started rejecting the heart transplanted unto him and with that, it eventually claimed his life.

Of course, they were all beyond sad after he died, aside from the fact that he's far too young— only in his early twenties— Natsu also kept on blabbering about his dream of becoming a professional basketball someday. Too bad he won't be able to fulfill his dream now though.

Levy sighed pushing aside the sadness lingered inside her chest and furrowed her eyebrows. "I wonder what's taking Lu-chan so long."

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Sabrina's Musing Corner: [This is one of the famous urban horror story from Philippines] Something weird happened to Sabrina last night while she's on her night duty. No kidding, Sabrina was alone in station two and she's busy writing her endorsement when she heard sounds— voices in particular— inside the room five just few meters away from Sabrina's working station. Sabrina freaked because she remembered that no one is occupying that room tonight, so that room is supposed to be empty so what's up with those weird voices, argh! Yeah, Sabrina decided to continue writing her endorsement downstairs where her other seniors are busy watching late-night news. Oh by the way who is that woman in white long dress and long jet black hair sitting next to you?

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Did Sabrina cover everything…? Feel free to ask question if you guys still have one.

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