Manga spoilers for 253, 256, and 257, so if you haven't read them don't blame me for ruining it for you! After all, I did warn you.

Also, EDIT: This was originally a songfic, but I re-read the terms and am going through all my songfics because there is an implication that they violate the rules…so I'm removing the lyrics and tweaking the story just a bit in the hopes that I can make them still work as stand-alone song-inspired fics.

So...please listen to Skillet's amazing One Day Too Late while reading!

Judo Heartfilia passed away one month ago.

One month ago.

The words rebounded in Lucy's head even as she walked almost robotically to the flower shop to buy two bouquets. One for her mother, and one for…Papa.

Standing in front of the two graves made everything magnify. She was an orphan now, wasn't she? Her father, the one she'd never liked but had finally, finally started to have a decent father-daughter relationship with…she'd missed him by one month. In seven years of being frozen in time…she had to come back just one month too late? It was like fate was laughing in her face, tormenting her for her dreadful time of return.

But then…why couldn't she cry?

Before Lucy even realized what was happening, she was walking back toward Magnolia, with Natsu and Happy trailing silently behind her. Her mind was reeling with all the thoughts she hadn't yet spoken. The thoughts she wasn't sure she'd ever be able to put into words.

"Lucy…" she recognized Happy's voice, though it seemed to come from a place very, very far away. Before she could arrange her face into something that didn't appear deadened, though, the need to acknowledge the blue Exceed was taken from her hands.

"Happy," came Natsu's voice, and with a very covert glance over her shoulder, Lucy saw him shake his head at the little creature. Something in Lucy was thankful as she turned her expressionless face back to the front, but another part gave a lurch with something she couldn't express in words. Really, how could she have been so fortunate, that day over seven years ago, to find Natsu in Hargeon? Not only had he saved her from slavery, or worse, but he had brought her to the guild she'd always dreamed of, and now he was saving her from the unneeded pity that most of the useless words usually offered.

When you just lost the only parent you had left, an I'm sorry just wouldn't cut it.

Papa.

What would she do without him? She'd never been particularly close to the man, but it still hurt that he wasn't alive anymore. They'd become closer after the incident at Love & Lucky when she had blindly gone to save him even though he wasn't there yet. Now he wouldn't there for her to tell her problems to anymore.

The tears just wouldn't come.

"…I wish he'd just hurry up and die!"

"Right? Like, totally! For sure!"

Lucy's heart stung at the words, remembering when she, too, would have had that outlook. Now that he really was gone…

"Hey, damnit, you over there!" Natsu's voice cut across her ears. "Can't you read the air here? Well?"

His demanding tone must have disconcerted those foolish girls, Lucy thought, because they sounded kind of freaked out when they responded. The blonde didn't care what either of them said. Then Natsu spoke again.

"Just shut up, get the hell out of here!"

"Get lost!" she was a little surprised to hear this out of Happy as the girls muttered something almost mouthy as they walked away. Knowing that the incensed dragonslayer, thinking that they were hurting her, would try to go after them, Lucy spoke up for the first time since she had said a soft "Goodbye" at the gravesites of her parents.

"Stop."

She heard Natsu stumble over his words a little and he said, unsure, "Well…"

"Sorry…for making you worry about me." she continued, softly.

"Are you okay, Lucy?" asked Happy, oh-so innocent.

"Yeah, it's just…my dad…" she didn't know how to put it all or why it hurt so much to tell them but also felt like a relief, "I was just caught off guard. Two months ago…"

"That's not right…it's already been seven years…hasn't it?"

The passing of time…why did it have to be so drastic? Why couldn't she have been gone for seven months? Then she would have been back six and a half years before she lost her father. She would have been able to build up the relationship they'd never had…the relationship she'd always wanted with her father. Now she'd never get the chance.

The words she said to Natsu and Happy fell out, and finally she found herself voicing some of her very own thoughts by saying, "Why is it…? I'm so sad…and so lonely…but the tears just won't come out. Maybe…I really do hate my father…"

Perhaps the most meaningful words that Natsu had ever spoken to her were said in the next few moments, and she'd always remember them.

"That's not true," her eyes turned up to meet his. "I don't really know how to say this, but whether your tears fall or they don't…I don't think that has anything to do with how you feel."

It took a long moment for the words to fully sink in.

"Yeah…thank you," Lucy said gently, casting a weak smile at the two. "I'm really okay now…I know that may seem weird…"

Whatever happened next faded away, but Natsu fell into step beside her and Happy beside him as they continued the walk back home. They both respected her silence, and both knew she wasn't okay as she'd like them to think. That they respected her enough to let her be meant so much to her she would never be able to thank them for it.

She really wasn't as okay as she'd pretended she was. She realized it for herself when her landlady threw her roughly into her room and pointed out the seven years' worth of birthday gifts from the late Judo Heartfilia. And when she read that last letter from him…

The tears finally came.

And when Natsu and Happy called up to her room that they were going out on a job, she wiped her tears, because she had to look to the future now, didn't she? And it was right outside her apartment. Lucy didn't want to let it get away. She didn't want to let her best friend move forward and leave her behind.

"Wait! I'm coming, too!" she shouted, grabbing her bag and rushing out.

No, Lucy wouldn't make the mistake of missing what she had ever again. She wouldn't let these moments pass her by, because you never knew when you were going to lose those that meant to most to you. She wanted all the time she could have with Natsu, because she couldn't deny that he was the most important person in her life now.

Even before the catastrophe seven years ago at Tenrou Island, she'd begun to realize that she felt differently for him, and his words and seriousness earlier had solidified the fact. And even if she didn't want to, she knew and acknowledged what this feeling was quickly changing into.

As she dealt with Natsu's motion sickness on the train ride to their destination, letting him rest his head in her lap, she mulled over her regrets. What wasn't a regret was all that she had done, and all that she meant to do, by going to Tenrou Island as Cana's partner. She regretted that she didn't get to know her father like she could have and should have in those seven years. Looking down at her now unconscious teammate and nakama, Lucy decided she wouldn't be in the same boat with Natsu. She'd get to know him inside out, even if it deepened her feelings for him and would hurt in the long run.

She didn't want that kind of regret hanging over her.

The blonde celestial mage of Fairy Tail was changed by just this one single experience. These emotions surging through her…the pain she didn't want to feel ever again. They had changed her, and probably for the better.

She would always smile. More than ever before, she let herself smile and never tried to hide it. When she was sad, she would put on a brave face, which wasn't unusual, but she would let it drop around Natsu, because he always knew how to help. He may seem clumsy and a little dumb, but he really wasn't. He knew something about what she was going through, having lost his foster-father years earlier. He could always comfort her. And in return, the least she could do was smile.

Lucy stopped hitting him as much, unless what he did was really, really stupid. He didn't really deserve all of the abuse, she realized in hindsight. Even if they weren't conscious of the seven years passing around them, the blonde felt that she had been matured by them. Perhaps she was, if only because of her father's death in the last month of those seven years. But time was immaterial now. What was important was what she did here andnow, with her precious friends. Making memories together was what she needed. Happy memories, sad ones…she wanted to take it all in.

What she had missed with her father she would never bypass with her friends.

One year more. Two.

Whatever happened, she'd show her best side to everyone. Only Natsu saw her on her worst days, and he accepted that side of her.

She finally said out loud that she loved him.

Lucy didn't say it to him, because she didn't want to make everything difficult. But she knew she'd have to tell him soon or she might not ever get the chance. The missions just kept getting harder and longer and more dangerous, and he kept getting hurt more often. She was afraid that if she didn't tell him, she'd lose him forever. Her vow to regret nothing would be null and void if she didn't get the chance.

"Natsu…"

Lucy was in her bed, and she knew he'd crawled in with her, with his back to hers. His heat was radiating from his body, warming her. It didn't matter that her heater was broken, or that she could see her breath in the air, because when he was there it felt warm and cozy and perfect.

"Yeah, Luce? Are you still cold?"

So thoughtful.

How long had he been this way? Was it something to do with the way she had taken care of him after his extensive injuries on their last job with Erza and Gray and Juvia and even Wendy and Charle? Was he being so nice because she'd cared for him?

She made herself stop her thoughts, knowing that they were just the attempt by her subconscious to thwart her choice of action.

She didn't even answer his question.

"I think I'm in love with you."

She closed her eyes, letting out a sigh. When he didn't speak, she felt that the situation would get awkward fast. Or maybe he'd mistake it as a friendly love…but she hadn't just said 'I love you'. It would be hard to mistake her meaning when she had added that one important 'in'. She felt the bed move and she tensed her shoulders, expecting him to be leaving her to freeze and telling her that he was sorry. But at least she couldn't regret not telling him, and she could never regret telling him. He needed to know.

But he wasn't leaving.

One of his arms somehow forced its way underneath her, around her waist, as the other fell across her side. His hands clasped his own wrists and she felt herself being pulled against him. His warm breath tickled her skin a second before his chin rested on her shoulder.

"It's about time, Luce," he said softly, hugging her tightly to himself.

Their mission had a time limit, but the two didn't really care that they were one day behind when they returned. Their reward, of course, was halved, but it didn't matter. The job had been a little difficult for the two of them, especially with the dragonslayer being so protective of Lucy–how had she not realized that sooner?–but it had also been kind of fun. Lucy was glad that she'd finally told him about the feelings in her heart.

Maybe it had only been a week since then, but she was glad. Anything could have happened between then and now, so she was happy to have this time with him.

One day too late

Two more years had come and gone since she'd told him how she felt. Lucy's surname had become Dragneel a year earlier, and already her belly was fit to pop. The downside of this new beginning was that Natsu was constantly gone on solo requests, or jobs with the team, and she was left home with Levy and Mira as nursemaids, ready to cater to her every whim. The one thing they couldn't do was bring him home safely, but for the last eight months he'd done that well enough himself.

Eight months, however, was only when they'd found out that Lucy was pregnant.

It was during an absence on his behalf that Lucy was sitting at Fairy Tail's bar, talking with Levy, when she gasped at a new sensation.

"What's wrong, Lucy?" Levy asked, ever conscious of her pregnant friend's health.

"I…my water…I think it just broke…" the blonde managed, looking with wide eyes at her blue-haired friend. Levy's eyes mirrored Lucy's shock, but she raised her voice to call Mirajane, which also attracted the attention of everyone else.

"Mira! The baby's coming!"

The glass that the barmaid was holding dropped and shattered as Cana and Wendy and Juvia and even Erza all surged forward to lend a hand. Lucy would later vaguely remember wishing that Natsu was here so she could crush his hand and shout vile obscenities at him for missing this and for causing this, but she let those go as the first of the contractions began.

He'd get an earful from her when he got back (when, because it hurt too much to think of the what ifs). After all, it was a grueling six hours of labor for her, without even her husband's hand to pulverize as her body was wracked with the pains of birthing her first child. But even so, she wouldn't trade her memory of seeing her daughter's face for the first time for anything in the world.

It was a good thing that she and Natsu had agreed on names beforehand, she remembered thinking, because she was able to call her little angel Layla after her mother without a second thought or a guilty feeling. And even if the little girl had her father's shock of pink hair, tufting adorably about her small head, Lucy knew that she would turn out just as beautiful as her namesake had.

"She's so adorable, Lu-chan," she remembered Levy saying, with Wendy and Mira and Cana and even Juvia promptly agreeing while Erza took a few breaths, steadying herself after her first experience as a midwife.

"Juvia thinks that she looks like Lucy, but with Natsu's hair," the water mage supplied, and Lucy grinned, running her fingers across the silky smooth pink tufts.

"She does have her father's hair," Lucy agreed, playing with it. It was then that she opened her little eyes and it was revealed that Layla's eyes were the same shape of Lucy's but were the dark, impenetrable black of Natsu's. "And eyes."

Baby Layla was passed around after her mother had been able to hold her a while, and was promptly given back to the mother when she'd been passed to Gajeel and started crying. After giggling, Levy assured her fiancé that the baby couldn't see clearly yet and had most likely started to cry because she was hungry. Grudgingly, the iron dragonslayer accepted his fiancée's explanation.

"Lucy!" A shout woke her the next morning, from the main room of the guild. She was still in the infirmary at Fairy Tail with Layla sleeping in a basinet nearby. The voice, though, couldn't be mistaken.

"Lucy! Luce! Mira, have you seen Lucy? She wasn't at home, and she's due soon, and…"

His ramblings were cut off by Mira's softly spoken words. There was a brief delay after her words, which Lucy couldn't decipher, cut off, but then the silence was effectively broken.

"WHAT?"

The door bursting open with such a loud noise woke Layla, and Lucy quickly picked the child up, hushing her, before looking at her husband.

"You're one day too late, Natsu," she said, casting a frown at him.

"Lucy! I'm sorry, really, I got held up and–she's…she's so cute, Luce!"

He's already wrapped around her finger, Lucy realized as she passed the now calm babe to her father. His eyes were wide as she opened hers, and he seemed to be nervous.

"Sit down and calm down, Papa," Lucy said to him, smilingly, as she patted the bed beside her.

No one came in to disturb them while Natsu was getting to know Layla, or when Lucy made a bottle and had him feed her. They knew enough to let the couple have a few hours alone with their daughter after he had been gone so long.

Not for the first time in the last four years, Lucy took a few moments during this time to reflect on the past. There was a twinge of pain when she recalled how she had felt after losing her father, when she remembered how numb she had been until receiving that last letter from him. She remembered the regret and how much it had hurt her and changed her. Perhaps most of all though, she remembered her promise to never regret something like that again, which was probably responsible for the courage she'd used to confess to her husband.

Watching him feeding their firstborn child, Lucy realized that she didn't have any regrets about this.

"I love you, Natsu," she said, leaning against them. Her eyes fell on Layla, and she corrected herself, "I love you both."

"We both love you too, I'm sure," he replied, kissing her forehead tenderly.

Nope.

No regrets.

One day too late

Wow. I can't believe this. It was meant to be kind of a study on how Lucy feels after losing her father…but then it turned into this. I can't say I'm displeased, though. I actually like how it ended up.

Anyway, I hope you guys liked this as much as I loved writing it.

The song is One Day Too Late by the ever-awesome Skillet.

Ahem. I'd also like to say that the characters mentioned are those used in Fairy Tail and are the property of the wonderfully-sometimes-frustrating-but-still-amazing Hiro Mashima. I also want you to know that some of the story above are the exact words from the translation on MangaFox. I wish I owned the characters and the song and those specific lines of dialogue, but all I own is the story.

Thanks for reading!