Disclaimer: I do not own Fairy Tail or anything associated with it.
Levy stared at the ring on her finger, slowly rotating it to feel the cool metal slide against her skin. A gift from Gajeel, he forged it from some metal he'd been after for a while and coated it so it wouldn't corrode. It wasn't all that shiny or fancy, but to Levy it was perfect. It had meaning.
"This is the last job I take before we start our life together, I promise," he'd said before he left.
"That's a pretty big promise to keep, Mr. Redfox," Levy replied, smiling even though it pained her to see him go.
"Trust me, coming back to you will be the biggest job I'll ever take on," Gajeel said with a smirk, nudging the small woman lightly.
"What's that supposed to mean?" Levy laughed, nudging him back harder.
"I'm up for the challenge," was all he said, swooping down to capture her lips with his.
It was a long kiss; it always was when he was leaving, conveying everything they may need to say that they can't for the duration of the job.
Soon, she thought, spinning her ring on her finger once more. He'll come home.
Standing, Levy paced the floor for the seventh time in the past hour. She needed to busy herself, needed to get her mind off of Gajeel for once. He was two hours late.
Levy stepped over to her desk, tapping her fingers on Lucy's novel. She'd already read it twice, but a third time wouldn't hurt; it would give her mind a different place to wander, a place that wasn't any of the possible worst case scenarios streaming in her head.
"He'll be home," she told herself, almost startled at her own voice. It'd been so quiet since he left a few days ago.
She should have gone with him instead of busying herself around their house. She'd changed the sheets twice, dusted every surface, and even managed to alphabetize her entire assortment of books, something she hadn't done since she was a child. Levy wasn't normally this restless.
Because she was usually with him.
Nothing meant more to her than fighting alongside the man she loved. She'd grown stronger because of him, pushing herself more so that she could go on all of his jobs.
And he usually wasn't over two hours late.
Things happen on jobs, she thought, nothing goes as planned. There was never a set time when he'd be back, but he tried to give her one, almost as if setting a goal for himself.
"It pushes me to do better," Gajeel had told her one night, stroking her hair as she lay on his lap curled up with a book. "Reminds me I have a reason to go home."
"What about Fairy Tail?" Levy asked, bookmarking her page with her finger. "You always have a reason to come home."
"More of a reason," he said. "A reason I know will motivate me."
Levy didn't like when he talked about himself that way. As if he needed more reasons to live other than just for him.
Three hours. By the time Levy finished the first few chapters of Lucy's novel, three hours had passed since the time Gajeel said he'd return.
He's been wrong before. When Levy didn't go with him, he'd tell her he'd return at a certain hour, but sometimes he wouldn't return until a few hours after, yet sometimes a few hours before. There was no telling with Gajeel.
But this time felt different.
Maybe because it was already dark outside and she could hear the thunder rumbling in the distance. She hadn't turned on any of the lights because it was sunnier that morning, so she let the light pour in. She almost didn't notice.
She was too focused on how empty the house felt without him. He was, after all, one of the biggest things in it. Next to the bed, of course.
The bed was getting colder with every minute that he was gone, however.
Especially in these past, now, four hours.
Levy threw a robe around herself when there was a knock on the door, covering the pajamas she'd changed into to get more comfortable while she waited for Gajeel in their bed, reading Lucy's novel.
The wind blew in when she cracked the door open, pushing it open further and dragging in the scent of rain as it passed through the water droplets. On the porch stood three council members that Levy gladly opened the door more for, inviting them in so they could dry off.
The man in front shook his head while the other two averted their eyes, unable to look at the small, blue haired woman before them.
It didn't feel real at first. It felt like her soul had been projected out of her body, leaving her feeling empty, yet watching the scene play out from afar.
Levy crumbled before the council members, dropping to her knees and shoving her face in her hands, tears instantly pouring like the rain outside. The men stood before her, trying to console her, but unsure how. Before long, it was just Levy sitting with her back against the, now shut, front door, sobbing and screaming into the knees brought up to her chest.
Gajeel wasn't coming home.