Slipping Through Cracks

Summary: Because there's got to be something better than in the middle, Lucy knows this much. But Natsu didn't until it was too late. Re Uploaded because FF is stupid.

Rating: K+

Genre: Hurt/Comfort, Angst, Romance

Pairing: Natsu/Lucy, Lisanna/Natsu references

Status: Completed Oneshot

Time: Approximately three hours

Disclaimer: If I owned Fairy Tail there would be little pink haired, brown eyed children running around by now. But their aren't. So put the pieces together.

Author Note: A oneshot based off of One headlight, by The Wallflowers, this story is fron Natsu's point of view. I'm proud to introduce my first fanfiction! (I wish I found this site sooner, it's so great!)

So long ago, I don't remember when
That's when they say I lost my only friend
Well they said she died easy of a broken heart disease
As I listened through the cemetery trees

It hurt.

Reality that is. It stung and blistered my bare flesh, carved deep circles under my eyes, and left bruises on my ego. It made my heart ache and my mind swirl. I felt with every passing day the sinking feeling of guilt in my stomach.

Because I did this. It's all my fault and I don't even remember when it happened. It's not like I realized when I started to become distant, at the time everything was changing. My world, the way I looked at things, and now, the people I hold dear to me. My horizons were broadening too, my metaphorically closed eyes opening, and my arms embracing things that I never even thought possible. Now that Lisanna returned, our relationship bloomed in more ways than one. It had happened so quickly, so devastatingly fast that I didn't even notice what was happening until I was dating the white haired girl.

my first kiss, and my first date came soon after that. I would never guess that something so sweet could lead to something so bitter, because if I were to venture a guess I would say that it was in that time period that I forgot Lucy within the gray zones of the relationship with Lisanna.

some people—my friends, my nakama, my family—tell me that I lost her. Not literally, she was still there, but she was being. Not living, not laughing, not seeing, she was just there. She was like a leaf on the wind, going with the flow, not even attempting to fight the current. She was neutral.

She wasn't Lucy, because Lucy was happy and optimistic, not vacant and cold. She was energetic and fun, not silent and brooding all the time. This impersonation was a puppet with her flesh, but not her soul. The spark in her eyes was gone. The curve to her lips a lie, and the shine of her skin a memory. She was forgotten.

And that was reality, and I'd realized too late because now I'm standing at her window in-between the two barren trees next to her small apartment. It was scary to think that the last time I'd stood here the trees had lush leaves adorning their branches. The sun was hot everyday back then and the grass was green and alive. Now, with the mid autumn breeze running laps around my figure, I thought. I remembered, I mourned.

Because I'd lost my best friend. I don't know her anymore, I can't imagine her laugh or smile. I don't remember anythings but what I want to remember of Lucy, and in reality that Lucy is not the present one. This realization forces me into a decision. I could crawl through her window like the horrible person I am, or I could leave her to her vices, and let her heal herself.

I couldn't fathom how someone as rotten as me could help her heal, so I opted with option number two. I turned on my heel, head bowed, and figurative tail in between my legs as I walked away from her window.

Thinking back on it, I decided that leaving that night had been stupid and naive. Thinking that she would be better off without me, thinking that I could go on without her…we are bonded in ways that one can hope to be with another person. The relationship we shared was a rarity, and I threw it away.

Thinking.

It was never my strong suit.

I seen the sun comin' up at the funeral at dawn
The long broken arm of human law
Now it always seemed such a waste
She always had a pretty face
So I wondered how she hung around this place

I should have crawled through her window that day. I should have begged her to stay and told her my deepest secrets and desires. I should have pushed her onto the bed and held her there, smothering her in my heat. Drinking in her presence, resurrecting my Lucy, and disposing of the Lucy of the present. That way she would still be here, things might have been different.

But I didn't and now I have to live with my choices. Now I spend my time outside her apartment, and watch the lights of a new dweller paint across the window. Even with the trees being full of life, the luxuriant grass between my bare feet, and the colors of a new dawn spreading its wings across the sky; I've never felt so dead.

In essence, Lucy was life, and without her Magnolia seemed dull. I became dull. With the luster of a wild world now gone, I was left to do nothing other than wonder.

I started pondering why Lucy stuck around this place for such a long time. She was so talented with her writing, and her heart was so big. It kind of seemed a little selfish to keep her here in Mongolia for ourselves. Such a pretty person, inside and out, deserves to be free. We were stupid to think we could cage her in, and clip her wings. We got what we had coming for us when he let her drift away. When she left us for something better.

There was only a note on the table, and the date on it told us that she'd left four days before. In a sick kind of way, I found that funny, because for those four nights I'd been staring into an empty bedroom from my place between the two cemetery trees.

Hey, come on try a little
Nothing is forever
There's got to be something better than
In the middle

Those were the words she'd left for us. I don't know what they mean, no, I had an idea of what they meant, but I didn't want to hear it. My hunch had only been proven when the note made Levy cry. I ahd to make sure though, I needed to know that what she meant to say was what I was thinking she said. So, the blunette tried to explain them to me, and I was only part right. I didn't understand exactly because I thought what we had was forever.

I remember when you said that you loved Fairy Tail, Luce and after that I'd thought you'd never leave. But apparently I was wrong because when I told this to Levy she just cried harder. It shocked me. I thought I was being sentimental Luce.

She looked at me with such pity that I almost began to cry myself. The words that she uttered next struck me so hard, that for the next couple months I stopped. I only went on solo missions, spend little time in Mongolia and when I was there, I was outside your window Luce. Watching, listening, hoping.

All because Levy was right when she said that just because you love something doesn't mean that you are forever tied to it, especially if that something holds nothing but dead ends for you.

She said that the reason you left was because you didn't like being stuck in the middle.

It took me a bit, but I figured it out Luce. What you meant by the words on that little piece of paper you left for us. I keep it with me on my travels and look at it every night as a reminder of what I lost, and one rainy night, I understood. I figured out what made Levy's words confuse me.

Luce, I understand that nothing is forever, but what I feel for you is something more than in the middle. I'm sorry, it took me so long to figure that out.

I'm trying to find you now, Luce, because I wanna prove that Fairy Tail holds more than dead ends for you. That there is hope for a brighter future if you come back to me, and the rest of your nakama. I want you to see what your departure has done to us, and how horrible we feel for leaving you alone. It's not only me who wants to prove their loyalty to you, Luce. You're a part of all of us, and we need to get that across.

Please, please Luce, come back. I don't know if I can live a happy life without setting things straight with you first.

But me & Cinderella
We put it all together

Lucy, you had found me. I had given up all optimism, threw all hope to the wind, and fell to my knees and wept. It was the first time I'd ever cried for you Luce. I'd accept that I would probably never see you again and that you were probably living the life you wanted now.

Lucy, I was thinking dangerous thoughts when you found me.

I was thinking that if you were happy, then I was happy, but thoughts like that always lead to more depressing thoughts. The same dark and lonely thoughts that you scared away when I first met you Lucy.

These thoughts haven't been thought since Igneel left me, yes you mean that much to me Luce.

"Natsu?" I remember the tone of your voice when you broke my dangerous deliberations. It was still sweet and caring, I wouldn't have expected anything other from you. But the confusion there was almost as painful as the discontent that laced the sweetness. It sounded like you didn't want to see me Lucy. That you'd ended my chapter in your story. "What are you doing here?"

I'd been searching for two months Lucy. I'd traveled to places that I didn't think existed. Exotic, warm places. Snowy, blistering cold places. Large cities, small tribes. Mountains, forests. Everywhere, Luce, everywhere.

I would have never thought you would find me though. Especially by the cemetery trees outside your old apartment window. I came here to vent, to scream, to cry because I've excepted that I've lost you.

Weird, that you show up now of all times, here of all places, right?

"Are you alright?"

You looked different Lucy. Your hair longer, a lot longer than it ought to be as it has only been two months since I've seen you last. Not counting the time it took me to look around Lisanna, I don't even know how long that took.

You've always told me I tend to lose track of time.

Your clothes have changed, Luce, and I wonder if I've over looked you in my search because you look so different.

I scoff at that, earning a puzzled look from you. If I saw you in passing I would have known instantly. Who am I trying to kid?

A dark, olive green turtleneck covered your entire torso. An odd symbol I've never seen hung on a silver chain around your neck and dangled just below you bust (Which has gotten bigger. I didn't think that that was possible Luce). Your pants, yes, pants, were a dark gray color. I didn't like them because I was instantly reminded of the asshole icebox.

Your eyes, they're still not how I remembered them. Yeah, the same brown, and yeah, they no longer held that dullness that scared me so. But they weren't brimming with happiness either.

Lucy, you looked like you were lost. Like you didn't know where you were going.

I sympathized with you because I didn't know where I was going either.

"…Natsu?"

You had gotten closer by then Luce. You were hunched at the knees beside me, long blonde hair falling over your shoulder as you leaned forward to look in my eyes. I looked away. I couldn't bring myself to meet your eyes Luce. I didn't want you to see me so weak. I didn't understand the tears that kept building at the edge of my tear ducts.

Shouldn't I be happy you're back?

I feared that if I were to looked at you, Luce, like really looked at you that those built of tears would streak my face. I couldn't let you see that, Luce.

"A-Are you crying?"

Your hand was on my shoulder and you were gently nudging my body to face you. I don't know how you figured it out, but you did, and it made me want to cry harder. Not from sadness, but from frustration.

You should be the one crying, Luce. Not me, I'm not the one who'd been wronged and left in the middle as others moved on. Hell, you should be hitting me and screaming at me and cursing me because I had broken my promise. I wasn't there for you when you needed me the most.

I didn't understand why you were comforting me after I was such a rotten friend to you.

But then again, you're so weird, how could I understand you.

Even as you babbled about…stuff under the cemetery trees that night, I had no idea what you were talking about. Stuff about finding yourself, and reconciliation.

Lucy, I didn't even know what reconciliation meant.

But you were smiling that smile that I've been longing to see, and some how; I felt like everything was going to be alright.

So, with your hand drying my tears, I let the first real smile spread across my lips in a long time.

With the smile you're giving me, and the returning brightness in my heart I knew that things can be patched up. Sure, it won't be perfect like before Lisanna came back and before you left. Sure, things will be different between us.

But I wouldn't want it any other way.

We can drive it home
With one headlight