Good Things to Those Who Wait
Author's Note: First I just wanted to apologize for my absence. I've been on vacation for the past month visiting family and haven't had the time to actually sit down and write. Now that I am back however, updates will be coming regularly again so to those anxious for the next chapters in my other fics, patience. In the meantime here is just a little one shot to tide you over until I get back into things. Thanks for the patience and understanding.
If there was one thing that Lucy Heartfilia was absolutely one hundred percent done doing, it was waiting. Oh Mavis, it felt like she was just born to wait. As a child she had always had to wait for her father, granted after her mother's death he never really showed, but that didn't stop Lucy for waiting for him. Then she had waited for years for Natsu to finally confess to her and boy was that rough. To this day it still baffled her that a teenage boy could be that ridiculously oblivious, but Natsu did tend to fit into the ridiculous category. And now here she was, sitting on the plush pink fuzz of her toilet seat cover, alone, waiting for little blue lines to show up on the pee stick and tell her whether or not her life was going to change forever.
She had first suspected she might be pregnant last week when she walked into the guild and the smell of Mira's delectable cooking sent her all but racing to the bathroom to toss some cookies. At first she played it off as a bad reaction to the fish Natsu and Happy had made for her the night before, but when the same thing happened the next two days after that she knew she was in trouble. She had gone that Wednesday to see Porlyusica and ask for her help.
Usually seeing the pink haired physician was unpleasant due to her rather downright unfriendly attitude, but this visit topped them all. Naturally at first the woman had refused to help, but the minute Lucy had mentioned the word pregnant Porlyusica did a complete 180. She hammered Lucy with questions like were her breasts unusually tender and had she been sexually active recently. Lucy had flushed completely scarlet when she asked that question as she remembered the night in question. Well, actually it was more like nights, but the specifics didn't really matter in this case. Porlyusica gave Lucy the little white stick and made her promise to come see her immediately after learning the result of the test, then sent her on her merry way. At home Lucy hid the box away and tried to forget it even existed until she could get rid of Natsu. Ever since they had become a couple, he had gotten even more clingy than before, but Lucy had always found it quite endearing.
However that was before their whole life rested on the answers in that little blue box. Lucy practically begged Erza to take him on a job so that she could finally have some time to herself to take the test. Natsu begrudgingly went along with it, promising to be back by Sunday. That had given Lucy two days at least to put off the whole affair.
Today was the last day before Natsu returned home, so she finally gathered her courage and did the test. That part was easy compared to the five minute waiting afterwards and even that was a walk in the park compared to actually looking at the test now that the wait was over. Either way she knew there'd be tears.
Taking a deep breath, Lucy grabbed the stick off the counter and held it in her hands, purposefully hiding the answer under her fingers. Then she uncovered the view and looked down.
Two little blues lines were clearly visible on the white space in the center.
Two lines meant that she, Lucy Heartfilia, was about to become a mother. Tears sprang up in her eyes as utter disbelief and morning sickness caused her stomach to churn, sending bile rushing up her throat. She hopped off the toilet and immediately released the contents of her stomach into the porcelain basin until she was completely empty. After a moment she flushed the toilet and stood to look in the bathroom mirror at herself. The girl in the reflection looked like the same girl Lucy had seen in the mirror everyday, but there was a major difference. In nine months, this girl was going to be a mother. The disbelief returned and Lucy felt absolutely numb to the core.
"I'm pregnant." she whispered aloud to herself. Hearing the words come out of her mouth made it all more real.
The sound of a body hitting the floor in the bedroom helped a lot too.
As it turns out, Natsu had been able to finish the mission early (though in his hurry to return to Lucy he may have accidentally decimated a small island) and had just walked in with Happy when Lucy had spoken those two words. Needless to say the news came as quite a shock, even more so the second time when Lucy had told him after he had woken up from his fainting spell, but honestly Natsu was beyond happy. He was completely ecstatic. He'd always wanted a big family one day and the prosopect of having that with Lucy, the love of his life, was possibly the best thing that had ever happened to him. He was so excited that he nearly toppled Lucy when he hugged her, and then jumped off her regretfully. He asked if the baby was okay. She just laughed like an angel and lit up his whole world with one gentle kiss on his lips. Happy made fun of their pda as usual.
After that they went to visit Porlyusica to tell her the news. She promised to serve as Lucy's personal doctor during the pregnancy and gave her some prenatal vitamins to start taking. Next they went to the guild.
There, Natsu slammed open the doors and yelled at the top of his lungs "HEY EVERYBODY LUCY'S PREGNANT!"
The whole guild hall went dead silent as every head in the room turned big eyed and jaw dropped towards the happy couple. Then chaos erupted. Cheers rang from literally everyone as they went into straight party mode. Booze was passed around and everyone partook in the following celebration. One by one most of the guild came over to speak with the happy couple. First was Erza who promised that she would take her responsibilities as godmother (a self assigned position naturally) very seriously. Both of them were too scared to tell her otherwise. Gray followed giving his own congratulations which resulted in a brawl between the ice mage and the father to be. Wendy and Carla managed to find their way over to Lucy. They both offered congratulations and Wendy offered to use her magic to help Lucy with the morning sickness, much to Lucy's great thanks. Cana gave a grand toast for the couple and announced through a card reading that they would be having a boy. Levy and Gajeel swung by and quickly gave their congrats before heading home to, as everyone assumed, make a baby of their own. Mirajane gave a loud I told you so and made sure that everyone knew that she would be the one throwing Lucy's baby shower. She and Erza began preparations that minute for what would probably be a strawberry shortcake themed baby shower. Master Makarov stuttered over,completely wasted, mumbling something about yet another brat to take care of. Overall, it was probably one of the best parties in the guild's history, that is until nine months later.
After all excitement of announcing their baby was over, all that was left was the preparations and of course the long nine months of waiting until they could finally meet Baby Dragneel. The first three months of the pregnancy were all about adapting to Lucy's new condition. Natsu went on as many jobs as possible so that he wouldn't have to work during the later months of the pregnancy. Lucy did as many non dangerous jobs as the guild would let her until they eventually said she couldn't work anymore. After that she spent her time waiting for Natsu to come home, reading pregnancy books, going to Porlyusica's, and working on her novel. It was undeniably boring and the blonde thought she would die of boredom. Various members of the guild,though it was noticeably more females than males, came to visit Lucy and help her with the preparations for the baby. Everyone was caught up in the baby fever and it seemed a lot like the guild's pregnancy rather than Lucy and Natsu's. More than once Lucy had thought this must have been how Bisca and Alzack felt when they had Asuka.
In her second trimester the couple finally made a decision about their living arrangements. They stayed in Lucy's apartment while the guild worked on renovating Natsu and Happy's place so it would suitable for the newest member of their family. Natsu and Happy worked on packing up all of Lucy's things under her supervision of course. The new position gave the blonde some entertainment during her confinement. As Lucy's stomach grew, people began to grow a lot more interested in her belly. Everyday a different guild member showed up on her doorstep begging to touch her belly and feel baby Dragneel as it stirred inside her. Levy especially was interested in the baby bump. She was over nearly everyday to discuss the thrills of pregnancy with Lucy. When all of her various guild members weren't focused on her belly, Natsu was. He was absolutely fascinated by the prospect that inside of Lucy's ballooning midsection was his son. He constantly had his hand under her shirt and on the smooth skin over his baby. He would press his face against her bump and talk to their baby, sometimes too loudly for Lucy's tastes, and even though she was pregnant she wasn't afraid to Lucy kick him if he got out of hand. If he wasn't doing either of those things, he was watching her, his eyes switching from her stomach to her face and back again. It was actually quite adorable, Lucy often thought to herself. She loved that Natsu was so openly affectionate with their baby. It all added to the undeniably fact that Natsu was going to be a great father once the baby was finally here. He was so excited that more than once he had dragged Lucy into the baby store to show her all of the awesome things he was going to buy baby Dragneel once he was born. One time he came home completely weighed down by the amount of baby clothes in his arms. Lucy laughed so hard that she started crying, which caused Natsu to immediately drop his pile and run over to her, begging her to stop. His excitement was only topped by Mirajane, who turned a small baby shower into a three day festival for the whole town of Magnolia. Lucy and Natsu received so many presents that they didn't have to go out and buy anything for the nursery. Instead the whole town of Magnolia, at Mirajane's suggestion, came together to make sure the Fairy Tail mages had everything they needed for the birth of their first born child, who at this point still didn't have a name. Even though they already knew it was going to be a boy since Cana had told them, they still hadn't been able to decide on a name. However that's not saying that there weren't plenty of suggestions. Cana offered to share her name with the baby, even though it was a boy. Makarov said his own name would be quite striking for a "young lad". In fact one of the events at Lucy's baby shower festival was offering up baby names to the couple. Eventually Lucy and Natsu were able to narrow it down to two. Natsu wanted to name the baby after Igneel. Lucy shared his sentiment and wanted to name the baby Jude after her own father. Both were good names with equal importance and the parents could not decide between the two. In the end they decided that the name of their baby would be Igneel Jude Dragneel.
The last three months were the hardest. With the renovations at Natsu's done, the ordeal of actually moving and unpacking began. Of course the guild all came out and helped the process, but Lucy wanted things done a very certain way and that caused more than a few problems. Add that onto the additional moodiness caused by the hormones and the awful foot and back pain and it made matters a thousand times worse. Eventually Lucy just kicked everyone out and decided she would do it herself. Unfortunately Natsu had a hard time letting her do a lot of anything. He had become so extremely overbearing and protective that more than once Lucy had snapped at him. Of course afterwards she would cry and apologize and Natsu would forgive her profusely and tell her how much he loved her. It was even worse for Happy who made the mistake of calling Lucy a pumpkin when she wore an orange turtleneck. After that whole affair Happy spent most of his time avoiding said pregnant beast. The mood was very up and down in the Dragneel household, entirely contingent on Lucy's moods. The days when she was happy were the best. She used what little energy she had to unpack and decorate the nursery with the help of an always present Natsu and a reluctant blue exceed. The rest of the day was spent laying on the couch watching movies, eating, and dreaming about the future, about their Igneel. Other days were hard. Whether it was because she hadn't slept the night before or because she felt fat, when Lucy didn't feel well neither did anyone else. On those days Natsu made it his mission to make Lucy feel better. He ran out to the store at ridiculous hours to get her peanut butter ice cream and fried chicken. He kissed her until there was no way she could feel like anything but beautiful. If she was in pain he would get her a heating pad or rub her back. He was the perfect husband during the whole pregnancy.
That is until the third of June when he asked Lucy why she peed herself. When she told him why, he fainted, again.
The delivery was hard and even with Natsu by her side it was still the hardest thing Lucy had ever done. It was the longest nine hours of her life. She didn't even remember most of it, thanks to the heavy painkillers, but the parts she did remember were excruciating. The best part of the whole thing was when she heard the first cries coming from her baby. After that it was absolute relief. Lucy remembered the doctor saying it was a healthy baby boy before she fell asleep from the absolute exhaustion of bringing another human being into the world.
When she woke up her first thought was Nastu. She looked around the room until she saw him sleeping quite soundly (and loudly if she was honest) in a chair right next to her bed. Her second thought was her baby. She rang for the nurse and when the scrub covered professional came in she immediately requested to see her son. The nurse left to fetch their son and Lucy began trying to wake up the sleeping dragon slayer. He didn't wake up until he heard the nurse bring in their son and place him in his wife's arms.
Yes, Lucy realized that her life had been a lot of waiting, whether it was for the confession of a certain dragon slayer or for affection from her distant father, but it was all well worth it to have this moment looking into the precious brown eyes of her son. Oh Mavis, she thought to herself. This little being in her arms was her son, the ultimate culmination of the love between herself and Natsu, the perfect mixture between two very different people. She looked up at her husband and smiled at him with more love and pure joy than she ever knew it was possible for one human to ever experience at one moment in time. He smiled back at her with the same brilliance and planted a tender kiss on her forehead, then her nose, planting his head gently on the pink fluff on the top of baby Igneel's head.
She would have waited a thousand years if meant she could have this love in her life, this family. Maybe they had been right all along, maybe good things do come to those who wait. No, she decided, the best things came to those who wait - and god was she glad she did.
Author's Note: I know this isn't up to my usual caliber, but I wanted to write something different from normal so please be kind with your reviews. As always thank you for the read and please leave a review to tell me what you think!