"You know you make me so happy, right Lucy?" Natsu said absentmindedly one day. He had his head resting on Lucy's lap while she was weaving her fingers through his hair.
A small but content smile crossed her face as red tinged her cheeks "Of course I do you idiot" she said as she planted a kiss on his forehead "You never shut up about."
"Well it's just cause I'm so lucky to have you" he said, giving her a wide smile he brushed his hand lightly across her cheek.
She leaned into his hand as she looked down at him with soft eyes and a smile "Sap" she said, not bothering to hide the happiness in her voice
That had been just less than two weeks ago, Lucy had been just so blissfully happy, with Natsu looking at her with such love in his eyes as if she was the most beautiful thing in the world. Lucy couldn't help but wonder if life shattering events always happened around times of bliss, as if to drag those people down and remind them that their human, that their mortal and completely defenseless against the world.
"Come on Natsu" Lucy said tapping her foot impatiently as she looked down the rails for the metro "The metro is going to be here any minute."
"I'm here, I'm here, don't have a fit" Natsu said as he jogged up beside her "Can't a guy go to the bathroom?"
Rolling her eyes as she held back her chuckle, she said "Sure, as long as they don't miss the metro that is going to our stop and the next one isn't another twenty minute wait!"
"They really need to have more trains going out there" Natsu said "I mean who doesn't like going to the park?"
"Well it's more like a forest then a park" Lucy said as she looked up at the sign, good the train they needed would be arriving in less than a minute "Some people don't really like bugs Natsu."
"Well that's like saying they don't like fresh air" Natsu said with a huff.
"Oh don't be such a big baby" Lucy said as she pressed a peck to his cheek "The train is going to be here any second." Just as she was finishing her sentence Lucy felt something, or someone, bump into her, hard. She felt as her body went off balance and as her body fell forward. The sound of the metro approaching grew louder in her ears as she felt herself go almost weightless.
Lucy could feel tears threating to overflow once again. She would have figured by now that she had cried herself dry. But just when she thought she couldn't cry anymore, the tears threatened to overflow once again. She felt numb and when she could feel like something more than just a thing floating in time she just felt cold and dark emptiness. It was the kind of emptiness that dug at your mind and soul. The kind that sucked everything out of you until you felt like nothing more than a husk.
Every part of Lucy's body screamed as she fell forward, the noise of the train seemed to drown that out as she fell forward, unable to stop herself. By the time she could even comprehend what was going on she was sure her head or arms had to be past the platform. She was on descent to the tracks below and that could not bode well.
Just as her body was telling her this was a good time to scream she felt someone grab hold of her arm and pull her back with such strength that it sent her flying back onto her butt. But Lucy knew what she had saw those next few seconds right before her life came to a screeching halt. She saw Natsu's falling backwards with his one arm outstretched and she swore he seemed to be relieved, as if seeing her sitting on the platform made him fine with falling down onto an oncoming train. Lucy still can't remember what happened, they told she had to expect that, her brain was pushing those memories down and that might be best.
But one minute Natsu was there suspended in air and the next the train had replaced him and chaos was surrounding her.
Having a ring on her finger felt almost wrong to her now, but she couldn't take it off. Without it she felt even more naked, even more, just, wrong. Lucy hadn't been able to take in everything that had been going on around her at the time since she'd been so overwhelmed by what she had just seen. But as days progressed more and more voices of people she didn't know intruded her mind.
"Did you just see that?!"
"That man just saved a girl from falling down onto the tracks!"
"Yeah, but obviously at the cost of his own life."
"Poor girl, hope she doesn't have a guilty conscious."
"I think I saw them standing together before the whole thing, maybe they know each other!"
"That would be terrible!"
Someone was helping her up, Lucy thought maybe they were asking her if she was alright, but she couldn't tear her eyes away from the metro. Her eyes scanned everywhere asking the same question "Where is Natsu?!"
"Ma'am are you alright?" asked a man as she shook her shoulders.
"My fiancé" Lucy asked staring at the metro as it seemed that all the air in her body was leaving her "Where is he?"
"What ma'am?" the man asked, he seemed concerned but she couldn't really tell.
"My fiancé, Natsu Dragneel, I think he pulled me back onto the platform, where is he?" Lucy asked as panic invaded her voice and she could feel as fear invaded her every being as she realized what must have happened.
"I believe he must be the one that was…that is trapped under the train" the man said pausing for a short period of time before changing his response to her.
"Is he alive?" Lucy asked as she felt her body beginning to shake, what were the chances that someone who had been hit by a train going who knows how fast would be alive.
"We aren't sure ma'am, the police and fire department are on their way" the man said looking over his shoulder to look for them, he knew he couldn't be the one to handle this women who might have just lost someone.
Lucy felt her body go limp at those words. She couldn't say anything back, words failed her and her mouth didn't want to work for her, her body didn't want to work for her. The man soon left her and was replaced by a police officer, they had known Natsu. She wasn't sure how he was able to keep her from having a full down breakdown when he must have been as in shock the same as her.
She had always used to chastise him for being far too reckless, acting too much like a hero. He had always blamed it on his job as a police officer. Being a cop caused him to put others' lives before his, it's like he forget he had people who loved and needed him just as much as the people he was trying to help.
Rubbing a thumb over an old picture still in the picture frame, she had been thinking of changing it with another one but Natsu had always claimed that he had loved it far too much for her to replace it. She tried to gulp back the knot of pain that was forming in her throat as she looked down at Natsu's smiling face. She would never see that smile again, Natsu was dead.
2 months after the incident
Lucy was currently standing six years in the past in a body that was six years younger as well. One minute she had been falling asleep in Natsu and her's cold apartment, though by now she supposed it was just hers now, and the next she was waking up in the old dorm room she had stayed in during her freshman year of college.
She doesn't know how she had managed not to scream or freak out in surprise. At first she had thought it was a dream, and she still wasn't so sure, but after pinching her arm a few times she figured she should've been awake already.
Just as she was stumbling out of the bed her old dorm mate, Lisanna, walked into the room. She and the girl had fallen out of touch once they had left college; really if this wasn't a dream she should try and call her when she woke up from this surreal dream.
"Hey Lucy" Lisanna said, as cheerful as Lucy could remember "You better hurry up; you might miss your first class of the second semester."
"Oh, uh, yeah" Lucy said as she rubbed her hand through her hair before pausing for a second, it was cut short, just like how it had been in her freshman year, not the long hair she had grown out since then.
"Well I see you later than" Lisanna said with a wave as she picked up her bag before leaving Lucy by herself to freak out.
Turning towards the closest mirror Lucy almost screamed, she did truly look like her freshman self. But this was a dream so of course it would make her look like her college self. Taking a deep breath she tried to find something to pull on as she tried to remember what her class was before freezing.
She was about to go to the class that she had met and befriended Natsu in, psychology. She had only taken it because she had needed another credit and it had seemed easy to her, Natsu had taken it since he thought it would help with his law enforcement plans. Was this just a dream of her memories? Or was it perhaps like one of those sci-fi movies where someone gets a second chance to re-do something? Was the world or whatever giving her a second chance to stop Natsu's death from happening?
If that was the case then Lucy was going to take it. Pulling a sweatshirt on she grabbed her bag, thank god she had been organized enough back then to pack her bag the night before, and walked out towards her class. If she remembered correctly it was in building 1A or something and it was Professor….something, she hadn't really paid too much attention to him.
She was able to find the class and pushed the door open. The first thing that caught her eye when she walked into the class was the same thing as it had been the first time, pink. Her eye was instantly drawn to the pink which belonged to Natsu of course. Lucy felt herself suck in air, while she really hoped this was dream, she also hoped it was reality. When she had first saw him she hadn't thought too much of him, he had seemed kinda like a punk, with tattoos up his arms and piercings that he would eventually ditch before becoming a police officer.
Originally she had sat next to him just because; it was nice seat not too close to the board but not too far away. This time though her brain seemed to whisper "don't sit by him." She listened and went and sat on the other side of the room. Placing her bag down she stole glances at him while a plan formulated in her head.
If she remembered anything about time travel it was not to mess with time, but surely there had to be some dimension where she and Natsu had never become friends and more. So she decided the best way to stop the events that were coming was to distance herself from Natsu as much as she could, so that's what she planned to do.
This did work for a while, the two were nothing more than classmates, complete strangers that didn't even say hello to each other in passing and while it killed Lucy to be so close to him but yet not be. But it was for his own good and so she kept on and considering how she still hadn't tripped up after a whole term she figured she would be in the clear since she and Natsu didn't ever share the same class after this due to complete opposite majors. Her engagement ring sat with the few other pieces of jewelry she had an while walking by it ever day yet not putting it on made her feel an ache in heart, she knew it was for the best
Unfortunately it didn't last long. At the second term the professor gave them a partner project where they were supposed to learn about the other and evaluate their minds or something of the sort. Lucy had remembered how she and Natsu had been partners since by then they had become friends and she had realized her growing attraction for him. This time though, much to her horror, they were paired up simply because they were the only two left without a partner.
When the professor told them they would just have to suck it up and be partners Natsu had just shrugged his shoulders before picking up his stuff and moving over to the seat next to Lucy. Plopping his stuff down he had stuck out his hand to her and had said "Name's Natsu Dragneel, guess I'm going to be learning a lot about you huh?"
Lucy had taken it tentatively and felt a shock of electricity go between them; this was going to be hard "Yeah I, um, guess. My name is Lucy Heartfilia." Natsu gave her a smile and she felt her heart squeeze, oh how she had missed that smile and how it lit up her life, this was going to be really hard.
By the end of the project they had become tentative friends, Lucy was still scared of what would happen now that he knew she existed, but it had been so hard to not befriend him when befriending him came just as easily as it had before.
So they continued on as friends through the end of freshman year and up until the halfway point of sophomore year, there were no problems. But then Lucy had been dragged to a party by Lisanna and had met up with Natsu there and a few beers led to one thing. Hell they couldn't even blame it on alcohol; they had been slightly tipsy at the most.
But when Natsu was slamming her up against his dorm room's door and slanting his lips over hers, that's what she told herself it was and when she was sliding her hands up his back to pull him closer to her that's what she blamed it on even though every single alarm was going off in her body. The euphoria was taking over her as she remembered what it was like kissing Natsu again because, god, did she miss it. It just felt so right but at the same time she couldn't get the memories out of her mind of their possible future. So she did something she had never thought she would do, she pushed Natsu away.
"We shouldn't be doing this" she panted desperately, trying to think of some reason to tell him.
"But why not?" Natsu asked, his eyes filled with confusion "I thought you were giving all the signs to liking me, I guess I just..." he trailed off as he waited for her answer.
Sucking in her breath she yelled at herself for letting her feelings getting the better of her "I'm sorry Natsu, I just want….." she paused because she knew she was about to tell a blatant lie and Natsu always seemed to know when she was lying "I just want to be friends."
"I understand" Natsu said as he unwrapped his arms from around her waist and took a few steps back.
"Yeah" Lucy said as she stared at the ground "I, um, guess I should be going."
"Yeah" she heard Natsu mumble as he stared at the ground.
Opening the door she said one final "Sorry" before walking out and closing the door behind her.
She and Natsu didn't talk for the rest of the year after that. Even though her body screamed at her to talk to him every time she saw him but she resisted and would keep walking, her eyes down. By junior year she figured that any bond between them was shattered but then Natsu was standing outside of her class one day after it had finished and had went up to her and had begged her to forgive him.
She had been at a loss of words for a second before assuring him she wasn't angry at him and that she had just thought he had been angry at her.
"Why would I ever be angry at you Lucy?" Natsu asked and Lucy felt her heart shatter at the honesty in his voice. This was going to kill her before any damn metro did. So they two of them became awkward friends again since that one night still stuck in their minds and every once in a while Natsu's action showed to be more than just platonic but it never crossed a line. Sometimes she wished he would cross the line, just so she could get one more kiss, just one more hug that seemed to envelop her.
They stayed this way until the end of college and the two went their separate ways but promised to keep in touch. As fate would have it though, they had ended up moving into the same apartment building. When Lucy saw him going into the apartment across from her she almost had heart failure and when he had saw her he'd been excited and had said the same thing that had been on her mind "Fate must want us to be together huh?" He then quickly fixed it and said he hadn't meant it romantically and she could almost believe him now, but she couldn't help but feel that maybe she hadn't been able to prevent the future.
One day Lucy came up with a random idea. She had been in her apartment with Natsu lounging next to her on the coach and was watching some random movie they had found on TV. They had quickly became comfortable around each other once again and seemed to bounce between each other's apartments when they weren't at work or sleeping.
But her idea had been to just simply not go out the day of the accident, and then if she lived through it (Natsu included) she could tell him how she felt and maybe they could fix their relationship and have it back to what it could have been. So she soon began to live towards that day, the day that would determine her entire life. That fateful day did come and unfortunately for her it came with bad news.
"Heartfilia" was the first thing she heard that morning and that was her boss calling on the weekend to ask her a favor "You know that park outside of town right? Well apparently they're having a nature appreciation event or something down there and I want you to cover it."
"Sir it's my only day off this week" Lucy said with sigh as she ran her fingers through her hair as she got up.
"I know but you don't have anything you're going to be doing anyway" he boss had said with a huff.
"You don't know that!" Lucy said feeling anger boiling in her veins, of all the day he had to call her and be an inconvenience was today of all days, she had made sure she had this day off months before.
"Heartfilia please, you were the last person I called but everyone else had something going on" her boss sighed "You're the only person left."
Sighing back at him she huffed "Fine, I'll do it." As she hung up her phone she felt her heart clench, it was looking like fate had this day picked out for either her death date or the person closest to her's.
Getting ready she figured she'd have to tell Natsu their movie marathon was off for today. Walking out of her apartment she lucky ran into him, in full uniform.
"Oh hey Lucy" Natsu said giving her a nod "Sorry I'm going to have to ask if we can reschedule that marathon. I got called in."
"It's no problem" Lucy said, waving her hand at him she added "I just called in too."
"Well are jobs are very demanding" Natsu said with a laugh before walking away.
That was the last thing he said to her, for the second time he had said his final words to her.
Lucy was waiting for the metro and made sure she was far behind the line, but not too far so she could at least hope to get an open seat. She had been minding her own business when she saw something out of the corner of her eye, a police officer with pink hair.
"No" she whispered as her body went cold and ridged and then if on cue she felt weight push up against her and send her flying. The roar of the train returned to her ears and she felt a moment of Déjà vu but this time hopefully this time it would end up a little different.
Once again the familiar feeling of weightless came to her and she closed her eyes as she waited for whatever death was her. But then she wasn't feeling so weightless and she was going in a different direction.
Ripping her eyes open she had once again saw the oh too familiar image in front of her, just a bit different. It seemed she still had been too close as just friends. She watched in horror as she had to watch once again the man she loved fall backwards toward the tracks as the roar of the train grew closer.
She had been given a second chance, and she had still managed to fail. Lucy had failed.