A sad(ish) one shot that takes place in an AU in which Natsu died, leaving Lucy with their son. It's pretty low-quality, I threw it together a while ago, so sorry about that.
Lucy couldn't even look at her son without crying. Everything about him was the same as his father's. His bright pink hair, his white, silky scarf, his deep, wise eyes, everything. She now knew what her father had felt like, every single day. She was afraid to open her eyes, knowing that she had to face the unbearable pain of her son, her beautiful son, the best and most golden blessing, yet the darkest and most cruel curse.
She hadn't told him yet. It had been four years, and her son had already turned seven, and she still couldn't tell him what really happened. She couldn't bear to keep it to herself, yet it would break her to relive it. Her son deserved to know, but she was selfish, afraid of the pain she knew would come.
She had held Natsu extra close that night, for no reason, just a little voice in the back of her head. The primal instinct to hold on to what you think you're going to lose. And she had lost him. The next morning was the last time she would run her hands through his pink hair, the last time she would wrap his silky scarf around his neck, the last time she would melt in his eyes.
She nearly went mad the day the scarf arrived. She had ran to her son, hysterically wrapping it around his neck, her explanation too butchered by sobs for the boy to understand. But she had held him close, closer than she had held his father. She had cried into his pink hair, held tight onto his silky scarf, and drowned in his eyes.
It was so tempting to just leave the boy, just like her father had done to her. Let him raise himself, like she had done. Let him ponder the story of his father, the legendary feats he had accomplished, and the heroic sacrifices he had made. She wanted to so bad. Just escape it all, the house, the cold nights, the eyes.
But she didn't. She couldn't. Although it was impossible to bring herself to look into his eyes every day, it was even more so to make him suffer like she had. So she raised him. Lucy was going to pour her everything into raising that boy to be as strong and courageous as his father.
It took away her livelihood, and she had cried herself to sleep every night, clinging onto the echo of her husband. She had suffered every single moment of it, but she raised him, better than any mother or father before her.
She raised him, even though her eyes watered every time she ran her hands through his pink hair.
She raised him, even though her face was stained with tears every time she wrapped his scarf around his neck.
And she raised him, even though her heart broke every, single, time she threw herself into his eyes.