Summary — Set after the Tartaros arc when Lucy sacrifices Aquarius and Natsu leaves for training. Based on the song Rewrite the Stars from The Greatest Showman. Loke and Lucy want to be together, but will fate and her stubbornness keep them apart? Or will a certain fire-based tragedy finally bring them together? Co-written by CrazyKitCat and CelestialAuthor. Full credit at the end of the story. :)
Lucy sat in her room alone. Curled up on the floor, she leaned against the frame of her bed. In her hands was a crumpled letter which had been opened and closed so many times, the fold lines were beginning to fray. Natsu's chicken scratch marred the page with the shadows of her tear marks. It had been three months since he had left, announcing that he was going to train for a year and since Fairy Tail had officially disbanded and scattered. She had tried to keep working and keep her place in Magnolia, but without a guild to back her, she'd been forced to move out. She now was staying in affordable housing in the capital of Crocus.
Anger bubbled away in her stomach. She was pissed. Natsu had left right when she needed him most. She had lost her longest friend, Aquarius, in the Battle against Tartarus. Natsu had lost his father, Igneel. They were supposed to be best friends. How could she lean on her friends in their time of mutual grief if he up and disappeared a week after the events without even giving her the chance to say goodbye? All he left was some silly note on her desk about training for a year.
"How could you do this to me, you stupid baka?!" she yelled into the universe. Lucy hadn't expected a flash of yellow light and a response to her question.
"Lucy," the lion smiled as he stepped through his gate. "How are you this fine afternoon?"
"What do you want, Loke?" she asked, without looking up.
"The love of a beautiful blonde," he joked. Lucy rolled her eyes.
"Then why don't you go pop into the bar down the street? I'm not in the mood right now," she sighed.
"I know," Loke admitted as he sat down next to her. "But I thought you needed me more… It's a nice place you got here," he noted as he glanced around.
"Thanks for trying, but I know it's small," she muttered.
"I'd prefer to use the term 'cozy'," he joked.
Lucy snorted as she stood and folded Natsu's note, carefully padding across the room to place it at the bottom of her dresser drawer. Loke just watched her.
"Lucy... We really need to talk," Loke started with a relatively serious tone.
"I don't want to," Lucy replied.
"Lucy, you've been sinking into this depression for months, and—"
"Drop it, Loke," Lucy cut him off.
"Natsu left and that hurt you. I get it, Lucy. But I never would," Loke stood and took her hands.
"Loke, we can't," Lucy took a few steps back.
"Lucy, you can't keep fighting this," Loke answered her. "You know how I feel and I know how you feel."
"Loke, I know what you're saying, but we can't! You know that we can't. Look at us! I'm a celestial spirit wizard and you're a celestial spirit."
"You know there's no laws saying we can't be together," Loke stated. "Look at all of the other girls I've—" Loke winced as he caught himself.
"All the other girls you've slept with?" Lucy finished for him. "I'm under no impression that you're a blushing virgin, so just drop it, okay?"
"But…" Loke began to argue.
"Loke, just don't. We can't keep doing this. It's one thing to feel this way and another thing to act on it. What happens if we give this a go? We fall in love, then I grow old and die, leaving you alone. I don't want you to be left behind. I hate how it feels, so I don't want to cause that to anyone," Lucy cried.
"But, don't you think that's my choice to make?" Loke replied. "Don't you think it's my choice to defy fate? I mean, what if we could rewrite the stars? What if we could rewrite destiny ? There's never been a celestial spirit and mage together before! We could make something magical and change the way it's always been."
"Loke, you know I want to, but I can't risk it… I want to be with you more than anything, but if something were to happen, it could destroy everything. What if the contracts ceased to exist, or what if—"
"The heavens fell apart?" Loke finished, "For one, I think that's being a tad dramatic, and for two, I'm willing to risk it if it means the chance with you."
"Loke…" Lucy took a step towards him as if she were going to cave, but caught herself. "No. No, we can't. I couldn't bear the stares of others. Even if we knew better, everyone would judge us. I refuse to be looked at as if I'm taking advantage of my spirits."
"You're the only one who would think that!" Loke exploded, angrily.
"I'm not, and you know it," Lucy snapped back. "I want to make a stronger name for spirit mages. I refuse to let us be looked down upon for using our spirits as tools."
"If you and I were to date, we wouldn't be just spirit and master, we'd be something more ."
"I'm done discussing this, Loke," Lucy stated. "I'm not going to cave and that's final."
"Very well. I wish you goodnight, Lucy. I hope you rest well." Lucy knew by his tone that he was hurt, but before she could go to comfort him, golden light illuminated Lucy's flat and she was alone again.
"I'm going to bed," Lucy sighed into the emptiness as she curled up in bed. Maybe tomorrow would be better.
The next day wasn't any better.
Lucy woke up late and was quick to get ready. She was starting her first day at Sorcerer's Weekly. She dressed up in her typical mini-skirt and crop-top and swept all of her hair into a side ponytail with a ribbon.
As Lucy ran out the front door, she noticed boxes in the entryway to the apartment adjacent to hers. She noticed a quiet woman struggling with a particularly heavy box. Without thinking, she summoned Taurus.
"Open, gate of the golden bull! Taurus!"
"Hello Luuucy! What a banging outfit you're wearing toooday!" the celestial spirit greeted her with a once over.
"Just help my new neighbor with her boxes Taurus! I'm running late and want to make a good impression. Please?"
Lucy quickly introduced Taurus to her new neighbor, Sally, and ran to get to work on time. Thanks to the bus system in Crocus, she was able to make it with five minutes to spare. Her day was full of work as she learned the ropes working with Jason.
Lucy's day was spent mainly following the overly excitable Jason around, taking notes where she could, filling coffee orders for him and the models he was working with. Lucy was even able to catch up with the girls she knew from her days in Fairy Tail.
Lucy dragged her feet as she shuffled back to her flat. She walked up the stairs and noticed the same neighbour she and Taurus helped out that morning waiting in the hallway. She turned her head as Lucy walked towards her.
"Good evening, I just wanted to stop by and thank you for your help this morning. I really appreciate it."
"Oh, no problem. I'm Lucy Heartfilia," Lucy smiled, offering her hand out to the woman. She looked startled at Lucy's movement for a quick moment before she recovered and took Lucy's hand.
"I… I'm Sally. Sally Ambrose," she replied, shaking Lucy's hand.
"I hate to be a bother but… I'm currently in the middle of moving away from… I'm moving into the neighborhood and I noticed you were a wizard. I was wondering if you'd be willing to help me out with something. Please?" Sally's tone was almost pleading.
"I'd be happy to help, but… Are you okay?" Lucy asked. She didn't need Cana's fortune telling abilities to tell that something wasn't right.
Sally looked really unsure as she looked around. When she looked over her shoulder, Lucy was able to spot a dark bruise on her collarbone. Her eyes widened in realization.
"Can I please invite you in for tea?" Lucy asked, gesturing towards her apartment. "I'd love to hear your story."
It took a few moments for Sally to consider Lucy, but she must have seen something she trusted, because she eventually nodded and followed Lucy into her home.
Lucy decided to start the conversation by volunteering her own story. It didn't take Lucy long to sum up her life at Fairy Tail. Despite all that had happened, it had only felt like a year to her, despite the seven year gap from her time on Tenroujima. It wasn't until she went a little further back to her time when she ran away from home, that Sally's eyes widened.
"You ran away from home?" she asked, shocked.
"I sure did," Lucy smiled. "My father focused more on the family company than me anyway. He only cared about me as an heir, when he tried to get me back. It wasn't until the business went under that he remembered that I was his daughter, not just a pawn in his plans. I wish we had had more time to mend things, but I already told you how I was frozen in time. By the time I got back, he had already passed."
"But he was so powerful. How did you know you'd be safe after you ran?"
"I trusted myself," Lucy smiled as she took their cups to refill with fresh tea. "Maybe you could trust me with your story too?"
Sally hesitated and then the story flew from her mouth as if a dam had broken. It was if she had been waiting for years to tell her story. It turns out she had.
Sally was actually the wife of the owner of the local bank. And it turns out it social position hadn't kept him from belittling and abusing her at home.
She had always done everything she could to support him. She had left her home in the Alvarez empire and had become his wife, hoping to have a better life than being a farmer's daughter. She knew she had come from a less glorious background than her husband, so she had always worked hard to be worthy of being her husband's wife. Due to her mindset, she had always been super receptive of his critiques. She had accepted his mental and emotional manipulation for years. But she had drawn the line when he had choked her earlier in the week because her maid had accidentally knocked over a vase.
She had passed out and when she had woken up, the house was dark and her husband was in bed. Sally hadn't thought farther than running. Her maid, Candace, had hidden her in her home until she could find her lady this apartment.
Due to Candace's foresight, Sally was set financially. Candace had been saving her earnings in another bank for years and was completely willing to support her lady and friend as they both escaped Sally's husband. Candace had been able to gather her lady's essentials, but had had to flee the manor without a bag of Sally's essentials when Brutus, Sally's husband had picked up on the fact that Candace was an accomplice.
Candace and Sally were now living together, but Sally didn't want to live without the bag left behind. It held the momentos her parents had left her before they had passed. However, she was terrified of returning to the manor and having her husband actually kill her for fleeing.
By the time she had reached the end of her story, Lucy was holding Sally as she sobbed in her arms. Lucy couldn't imagine the strength of the woman next to her. Her heart broke for the pain Sally had been through until now.
When Sally's sobs finally slowed, Lucy shook her slightly to get her attention.
"I'm glad you talked to me and I'd be happy to help you. What should I know before I go in?"
"He hates magic," Sally explained. "So many dark guilds have tried to rob him, that he doesn't trust any mages. He's hired Sabertooth several times to put extreme magic suppressant circles around the manor. Any mage who enters the grounds loses their ability to use magic."
That immediately threw a wrench in Lucy's plans to infiltrate with Virgo. But she still had confidence in her physical abilities in case of a worst-case scenario. She had a lot of experience in battle and in running away after being a part of Fairy Tail.
Sally and Lucy went next door and Lucy introduced herself to Candace. Candace listened to Lucy's plan and agreed to help. The three women spent the rest of the night going over the layout of the manor and by the time Lucy went to bed that night, she was confident she'd be able to sneak in and out before Brutus even knew she had gone through the maid's hallways.
The next day, Lucy rushed through her daily duties and then got the rest of the day off from Jason.
As she jogged across town, she went over the plan again. She'd enter the manor though the servant's quarters while dressed in Candace's old uniform. If she was seen, she'd claim to be Candace's replacement. While pretending to clean on her way, she'd make a roundabout path to the unused closet where Candace had stashed Sally's personal items. She'd throw the bag in a trash bag and make a hasty exit, claiming she was taking out the trash if anyone stopped her to ask.
Lucy was thrilled since the plan was actually simple and stealthy in comparison to Natsu's old, ridiculous, and often over-the-top plans that resulted in her making a spectacle of herself. For the first time in a long time, she actually was glad that her partner wasn't with her. She immediately regretted that thought.
It seemed that karma hated that thought too.
Lucy had barely in the house for ten minutes when she smelled the first whiff of smoke. She was confused, but knew that she needed to grab the bag and get out when she heard the fire alarm go off. She forgot about her beeline and headed straight for the closet, when she passed by an office where Brutus was obviously having a mental breakdown.
Lucy was shocked at the chants she heard from within.
"If that bitch had to leave, I'll make sure she regrets it! If I can't have her, than she can't have her home. If there's no house, there's no lawsuit! Ha aha ha aha ha!"
"Is he insane?" Lucy wondered aloud. "Did he really set the house on fire?"
Her question was answered as he burst out of the office with a legitimate torch in his hands. The man had very clearly had a mental breakdown as he ran through the house and set fire to the drapes while only dressed in his underwear.
Lucy knew that she had to get out quick, so she dashed to the closet. However, the house must have not been built well since the room was ablaze by the time she turned around.
Lucy could no longer hear Brutus's insane cackles since the crackle of the fire was so loud. Barely remembering almost forgotten advice from Natsu, Lucy ducked below the black smoke and threw the bag on as if it was a backpack. She knew that smoke inhalation was more dangerous than the flames at this point and made it a point to quickly crawl across the floor in the direction that she remembered the exit was supposed to be. Unfortunately, the wall she reached had no sign of a door. In all of the backwards routes she had been given, Lucy had gotten turned around when she had to abandon her initial route. Unfortunately, the black smoke was getting thicker by the second and she wasn't able to see clearly through the haze.
"Damn it Natsu! Where are you when I really need you?" Lucy cursed. If her nakama were here, the flames would have already been eaten by the dragon slayer or frozen by Gray. Hell, even Erza would have used sheer willpower to make a gust of wind with her sword to put out the fire.
Lucy tried to stumble towards another wall when she felt a sudden pain and blackness took over.
Loke was lounging with the other spirits in the spirit world, silently fuming about his most recent argument with Lucy when he felt something felt weird.
"Did anyone else feel that?" Scorpius asked.
"I'm sorry," Aries immediately apologized.
"It wasn't you," Aquarius snapped. Even though her key was snapped, she was still alive and well in the spirit world, albeit she was a little more snappy from goingstir-crazy.
"Let me go check on Lucy and make sure she's okay," Loke offered.
"Sure," Cancer smiled. "We're sure that's all you're checking-ebi."
Loke didn't even give the jeering the time of day before he opened his own gate and stepped into… chaos.
Outside of a manor ablaze, the firemen were trying to battle the flames. The police were manhandling a raving man in his underwear into a police cuffs for arson. All of the maids were accounted for and were gathered off to the side, whispering amongst themselves in horror. Since everyone seemed accounted for, the firemen were just trying to get a hold of the fire before it decimated the building. At the same time, cops were trying to keep the large crowd of onlookers back.
Suddenly, a petite brunette woman broke through the crowd and latched onto the nearest firefighter.
"Please! You have to help my friend! I'm the old lady of the house, and she went in to collect something for me, but she's not here! She must still be inside! Please save Miss Lucy!"
Loke spun around and had a firm grip on the woman before anyone realized what was going on.
"Lucy's inside?" he demanded the answer while fearing her response. The scared woman just nodded.
"She went in through the maids' entrance and should have come back, but the manor is a maze at the best of times, she must have gotten lost," a second woman explained, putting an arm around the petite brunette.
Loke didn't even think, he ran into the fire.
Everything was black. He immediately felt lost, but he had a purpose to keep going. The fire's heat burned his skin. He felt the stinging heat singe his hair. He felt the magic suppressant circles. He thanked his three years as a mortal as he felt his magic sap out of him. If it weren't for those years, he probably would have already been sent back to the spirit world.
After ten excruciating minutes, Loke found Lucy pinned under a fallen pillar. She was barely conscious.
"Loke?" she coughed. "How are—"
"Stop wasting your breath and just move when I lift this," Loke demanded.
She could barely nod through the haze of her mind. As she felt the pillar's weight move, she forced herself to scramble a few feet. She heard a bang as Loke dropped it behind her as the world went completely black.
Loke saw Lucy barely clear the edge of the pillar before she lost consciousness. He scrambled towards her and felt her pulse. It was fluttering in her wrist as she let out shallow pants.
He didn't even think about his safety or health. He shucked off his shirt and wrapped it around her nose and mouth before lifting her onto his back. He had no idea how, but he was miraculously able to find his way outside through the flames.
He barely felt the hands of the firemen catch him and Lucy as he collapsed into their protective hands.
"Save Lucy," he whispered as he joined her in the blackness of sleep.
Lucy coughed and fluttered her eyes open. Her head pounded and her stomach churned as she tried to sit up. She looked around and found herself staring around a hospital ward. Her heart sank as her eyes came to rest on the bed next to hers. Attached to a magic IV was…
"LOKE!" she gasped. She quickly disconnected her own IV before she scrambled out of her own bed and fell to the floor. She crawled the short distance between their beds and pulled herself up to kneel beside his bed. She took his hand in between her own as tears poured from her eyes. She faintly heard the deadline buzzing in the background from her disconnected machine.
"Oh gods," Lucy was in shock. "Please wake up, Loke. Please. You can't leave me too," she pleaded with his unconscious form. She recognized the liquid in his IV bag. It was a serum that allowed a spirit to stay in the mortal world longer. One of the spirits must have brought it over for him, but something must have been seriously wrong if he wasn't returning to the spirit world.
Lucy didn't even pay attention as she absently heard the doctors and nurses run in alarm at her disconnected machine's consistent buzz. She fought the hands that grabbed her and tried to pull her back into her own hospital bed. She didn't care that she sounded crazy as she fought to stay by Loke's side.
"Please. Please. He can't leave me. He has to go back to the spirit world. He can't die," she begged in desperation. "He can't die. Not Loke. He can't leave me too! Loke promised he wouldn't leave me too!!!"
"Lucy," she barely heard his whispered cough through her hysteria as she fought against the doctors' pulling hands. Everyone went still. "Lucy?" Loke repeated a bit more strongly.
Lucy flung the hands off of her and fell onto Loke's chest as sobs wracked her system. "Why are you here?" she managed to gasp out. "Why are you still here? Why didn't you go back to the spirit world?"
"I promised you, didn't I?" he coughed a laugh out. "I promised I wouldn't leave you."
"This wouldn't count!" she cried. "I feared I had lost you, you dummy!"
"You never will," Loke vowed as he cupped her cheek. "I told you that I love you, didn't I?"
Lucy didn't respond other than to lean forward and press her lips against his. She had finally realized what he had been trying to tell her all along. If they weren't together, there wasn't anything else to fight for. After all, she loved him and nothing else mattered. They could figure out the details later, but what mattered now was they were both alive and they were both okay. If anyone's love could rewrite the stars and destiny, she'd make sure it was theirs.
The end!
CelestialAuthor gave me the plot idea and I fell in love since I love both Fairy Tail and The Greatest Showman. We sat down and he gave me his idea and I came up with the plot. He started the story and helped me flesh out a few conversation starters. We both had work and tried to work on it together, but what was supposed to be a co-written story pretty much ran away with me in one sitting and here it is! Please let us know what you think!