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Part 1
Natsu was a groaning heap by the window and clearly not paying attention to anything other than the number the lurching train was doing on his motion sickness, but Lucy was undeterred.
"I was thinking about some kind of pretty floral design and filigree for the cake. What do you think?" When he didn't respond, she nudged him in the side with her elbow and elicited another moan. "Natsu?"
"Don't care," he mumbled. "But dragons would be way cooler."
Lucy rolled her eyes. "You don't put dragons on a wedding cake."
Still, she had to smile a little as he leaned away from the window to flop over on her lap instead. She brushed the hair out of his eyes and resigned herself to being a life-size snuggle pillow. If Natsu had his way, the entire wedding would be dragon-themed.
"How about a compromise?" Erza suggested. She leaned forward from where she was sitting across from Lucy. "You know the wedding toppers? Instead of just doing normal figurines, you could have a dragon for Natsu and then dress you up like a princess. A play on the old dragon-and-princess cliché."
"Except the dragon does get the princess," Natsu mumbled, although his eyes stayed clamped shut.
Lucy chuckled fondly. "So he does. Well, I think it's a great idea! That would be so cute!"
Erza smiled, visibly pleased with herself. Lucy had been a little worried when she had declared she would be a wedding planner, but her girly side has asserted itself with a vengeance and she was nearly as excited about the whole affair as Lucy herself. And although part of it was just that she was caught up in the glitz and glamor, cake and pretty dresses, Lucy suspected the real reason Erza was so enthusiastic was because she was thrilled to see two of her friends finally getting married after so many years dancing around each other. It was the only wedding on the horizon for the team since Erza had finally given up waiting for Jellal and Gray had never shown an interest in Juvia or anyone else to start with, so it was kind of a big deal.
"It would be, wouldn't it?" Erza asked smugly. "I'm very good at this whole wedding planning thing. And while we're on the topic of cake, have you given any more thought to–?"
"Not strawberry," Lucy interrupted, rolling her eyes. This was something of a bone of contention between them, but she wasn't budging.
"I'm just saying–"
"Oh my gosh," Gray groaned. He had spent most of the trip staring out the window and trying to tune out the wedding discussion, but apparently he had finally had enough. He leaned away from the window and scowled at the girls. "Can we lay off the wedding talk for five minutes? Seriously. Give me a break."
Happy had long since abandoned Natsu and Lucy to hide by Gray, but now he looked up from where he was tucked against the ice mage's side and removed his paws from his ears. "I agree with Gray!"
"Me too," Natsu muttered.
"What?" Lucy's hand tightened painfully in her fiancée's hair. It was one thing for Gray and Happy to be tired of hearing about the wedding, but this was Natsu's wedding too. "Whose side are you on?"
"Yours, yours," Natsu groaned. He curled up tighter against her. "Always Lucy's."
"That's better." Lucy went back to stroking his hair instead of trying to scalp him. She rolled her eyes in Gray and Happy's direction. "There's only a couple months left before the wedding and still lots to plan. Sorry if I'm a little preoccupied with it."
"But it's all you've been talking about for months," Happy said mutinously.
"And?" Erza huffed out a breath and glared daggers at the boys. "Weddings are important! They're exciting! They have to be perfect!" She shook her head in disgust. "Guys don't get it."
"It's not that I don't get it," Gray said. "But I got those two together so that we'd have to deal with less of their relationship drama."
"What're you talking about?" Natsu slurred, flipping over to glare across at Gray. "You didn't get us together."
Gray scoffed. "Of course I did. You're too dense to have figured it out on your own. If we waited on you, there'd be no wedding for another ten years."
"He's not that bad," Lucy defended loyally. Gray raised an eyebrow and she coughed and subsided. He had a point.
"I thought it worked, too," he muttered. "But we only replaced one thing with another. There's less rampant sexual tension, but now it's all wedding talk all day, every day."
"Gray!" Lucy sputtered, flushing hotter than Natsu's flames. "There was no–no sexual tension!"
Happy snorted. "Uh, yeah. There definitely was."
Even Erza shrugged apologetically and nodded.
"Mm," Natsu hummed. He seemed to have gotten over his irritation with Gray now, lulled back into his half-conscious daze from the motion sickness and Lucy's fingers in his hair. "Less tension, more sex."
"Natsu!" Lucy screeched.
Gray burst out laughing and nearly toppled right off the seat and onto the floor. Happy actually did fall to the floor when he rolled a little too far while cackling. Erza did her best to disguise her laughter as coughing, but it wasn't an effective technique.
Lucy sighed and fought down her blush. Still, she couldn't really be mad at Natsu. It was just the way he was. As if sensing her thoughts, he slipped one of his hands into hers. She smiled.
She couldn't really be too offended by Gray, either. He was, after all, the one who had finally prodded Natsu into action by walking right up to Lucy one day and asking her out when Natsu was right beside her. That had been a shocking moment since no one but Juvia had suspected that Gray had designs on Lucy. As it turned out, Juvia had been wrong again and that was only Gray's tough-love way of forcing Natsu's hand. He had gotten a broken nose for his efforts, but he had been laughing even while Natsu was attacking him.
"Well, if you want her so badly," he had said, "you'd better go get her before she gets tired of waiting for you and you lose your chance."
The memory still made Lucy smile. Natsu and Gray were such odd friends, but they got things done. And Lucy couldn't say that she was disappointed Gray had finally taken matters into his own hands, even if it had been absolutely mortifying at the time. She had been starting to think that Natsu would make her wait forever.
But if breaking them apart took as much work and time as getting them together, they would have a long and happy and loving marriage. Lucy couldn't wait.
"Alright," she conceded, suddenly feeling much more magnanimous towards Gray. "What would you like to talk about?"
He eyed her suspiciously. "Anything besides the wedding. I mean, we're going on a job. Even talking about that would be more interesting."
"Good idea!" Lucy's face lit up. "It's great that it's such a high-paying job. I still have to pay rent until I'm through with my lease and move in with Natsu, and weddings are so expensive!"
Gray uttered a cry of despair and dropped his forehead against the window with a loud thunk. "Why me?"
Point for Lucy. She might love the guy to pieces, but he had complained about her wedding.
Happy was stuck somewhere between groaning and laughing, while Erza made no show of hiding her satisfaction this time. Lucy leaned back comfortably and watched them all with a small smile on her face.
They were all dorks, but she loved them for it. Erza would be the perfect maid of honor, it was inconceivable that Natsu's best man would be anyone other than Gray, and Happy had already agreed to be the ring bearer—although Lucy would have to keep an eye on him and consider giving him fakes since he had already mused aloud about hiding them as a prank. And Natsu… Natsu would be the perfect husband, even if he was kind of an idiot.
Lucy carded her fingers through his hair, and he sighed contentedly. Someday, she wanted a little girl with hair as pink as his. And maybe a girl that looked like her. And maybe a boy with Natsu's eyes. Gray and Erza would make perfect godparents, and there were plenty of other great choices among the rest of the guild for any extras. Levy and Gajeel would jump at the chance. Or Levy would, anyway. Gajeel would probably mutter mutinously and let Levy pull him along for the ride.
They would just have to wait and see what the future held on that. Lucy didn't mind. She already knew enough to believe that it would be a wonderful future. She would have Natsu by her side and the team would always be together, laughing and bickering and teasing just like this.
That was all she really wanted out of life, and it made her happier than anything to know that nothing could ever break them apart.
Gray coughed out a curse and lunged behind some debris to avoid the giant rock that was ripped out of the floor and thrown at his head. Warm liquid trickled down his arm. He leaned back against the wall and sucked in a breath through gritted teeth as he traced his fingers down the gash running up his left arm to ice it over and stop the bleeding.
There was another cut on his right leg where a sharp piece of rock had sliced along it, which was making it painful to keep dodging around. Not to mention that he'd already taken out a string of less compelling villains before running into the leader himself, who proved to be far stronger than originally thought. So now Gray was running out of magic and wishing that the team hadn't thought it was a great idea to have everyone split up.
It really sucked to have an opponent that could turn the entire room into a weapon.
"Come out, little ice mage!"
The only consolation was that this guy wasn't as strong as Jura, even if he had similar powers. Gray was extremely tired of being pelted with pebbles and crushed by rocks.
Time to finish things.
He bit back a pained grunt as he bent to scoop a handful of pebbles off the ground. He wound his arm back and tossed them across the room, where they clattered against the stone floor. On the bright side, the dark mage had already torn up the floor and walls from using chunks of them as missiles, and now the room had rocky debris everywhere and lots of hiding places. It wouldn't be that much of a stretch to imagine that Gray had snuck around was cowering somewhere on the other side of the room.
A loud crash echoed through the chamber as the dark mage ripped a huge chunk out of the wall and flattened the place the noise had come from.
"I wonder, did I squash you this time?" he mused.
Pity Natsu hadn't run across this guy. Those two would have had tons of fun destroying everything. Birds of a feather.
Footsteps slapped against stone as the man headed over to check if he'd managed to catch his prey. Gray stood stock-still and watched with unblinking eyes as a tall, brown-haired man stepped into view and peered into the corner, back to him.
Gray didn't wait for an invitation. His hands flew through the air like lightning, and a hammer of ice came crashing down over the dark mage's head, sending him slamming to the ground. Gray let out a breath and limped over.
The man wasn't quite unconscious, but his eyes were unfocused and he moaned in a satisfying fashion.
Gray nudged him with the toe of his boot. "I don't suppose you'd be willing to tell me exactly how many of your minions are swarming around this place?"
"Never," the man bit out. "This base was impregnable. I was unbeatable! What do you and your little friends think you're doing?"
"Uh…beating you?"
A strange, sinister smile worked its way over the dark mage's face even though he stared up with empty eyes, somewhere balancing on the edge of consciousness. "No, you aren't. You could never beat me, and you'll never leave here alive."
His hand curled against the floor. Magic shot out in waves—how could he possibly still be able to use that much magic while barely able to stay awake?—and the entire room began to shake.
"What are you doing?" Gray asked in alarm. "Stop it! This place is underground. You're going to collapse the whole building on top and break through the ceiling and crush us. That would kill you too! And your guild!"
The man only smiled wider. He was certifiably insane, or had lost what little remained of his common sense along with the brain trauma he had just sustained. Gray slammed his foot down on his face with the sharp snapping of bone, and the dark mage's eyes rolled back as he finally lost consciousness for good. But the damage was already done.
The whole structure seemed to shudder, and a loud snap rang through the air as a crack shot through the wall. Gray didn't know exactly how far the magic had extended, but… Shit. The bastard was going to bring the whole place down on them.
He lurched for the wall and slammed his hands against the rough stone, pouring out all the magic he had left. His head spun in a dizzying fashion. The next thing he knew, he was slumped over on the floor, blinking blankly at the wall. He pulled himself back to his feet with a curse, swaying dangerously.
Glittering ice climbed the walls and wedged itself into the cracks, and he could feel his magic seeping into the stone and traveling along the rest of the base to support the structure. He could already feel it weighing down on him and putting a strain on his magic and body. The building was stabilized for now, but… There was a large two-story building above ground-level and a whole sprawling labyrinth below ground, and that was too much weight and stone to support for long.
His magic had already been running low and now it was stretched thin, straining to reach every part of the failing structure. He had nothing left to give, and he couldn't hold it for long. Everyone needed to get out now.
He started for the door, but his eye caught on the unconscious man sprawled across the ground and he groaned. The crazy bastard probably wasn't worth the effort, but…it wasn't like Gray could just leave him here. Gray grabbed him beneath the arms and dragged him over the rocky ground and out of the room, still swaying unsteadily on his feet, lightheaded from the pain and fatigue. The guy was heavy and Gray didn't have the energy to do any better than this.
"Natsu! Erza! Lucy! Happy! Everyone needs to get out of here right now! The whole place is collapsing!"
His voice echoed along the dimly lit corridors in a haunting ricochet, and he could only hope that everyone heard him and both his team and all the stupid dark mages made it out in time. He kept yelling as he struggled to drag the man back down the hallway and made for the stairs to the main level so that he could effect their escape. He yelled long after his throat was hoarse and scraped raw just to make sure, and couldn't even summon up the energy to feel bitter as a handful of dark mages appeared from various rooms and scampered to safety.
It was all he could do to put one foot in front of the other and concentrate on maintaining the magic that was their only thin—quickly weakening—defense against getting crushed by tons of stone.
The floor seemed to jump oddly beneath Natsu's feet, but he just slammed the dark mage to the ground and paused, tilting his head as he heard snatches of yelling filtering down the passageway.
"Natsu! Erza! Lucy! Happy! Everyone needs to get out of here right now! The whole place is collapsing!"
"Is that Gray?" Happy asked. He fluttered his wings nervously and looked back down the dimly lit corridor. "That doesn't sound good."
"He says the place is collapsing," Natsu said.
On cue, the walls shuddered and a jagged crack shot through the ceiling above their heads, sending stone dust raining down on them like ash. A thin sheen of ice spread across the ceiling like a living thing, stopping up the chasm, but not even that could stop the tremors running through the entire base. Gray must be channeling magic into the structure to give them a chance to escape before it all fell down.
"Not good!" Happy wailed. "We need to go!"
Natsu nodded. "Lucy–"
"Lucy is still upstairs near the front. She'll probably get out before any of us. We're the ones farthest from the exit. We need to go."
Happy had a point. He and Natsu had trekked to the far side of the underground bunker while Gray handled the front half, and the girls were still sweeping the upstairs. More than likely, Natsu and Happy would be the last ones out.
"Guess we'd better get these guys too," Natsu grumbled.
He leaned down to heave up the unconscious dark mage at his feet and throw him across his shoulders, and then they were off. Their progress was slowed considerably by the fact that they'd left a trail of unconscious enemies behind them, and Natsu couldn't conscience leaving any of them here to be crushed. He had to lug around a few, and even Happy struggled under the weight of ferrying along two of them. Luckily, it seemed like a few had woken up in the meantime or weren't entirely incapacitated to start with, because Natsu didn't see how they would be able to get all of them out.
The bunker rumbled mutinously all around them, plaster and small chunks of rock falling from the ceiling. The ice held—of course it did, because Gray was strong—but it was better not to press their luck. They moved as quickly as possible, traversing the underground labyrinth back the way they'd come and hobbling up the staircase.
The ground floor seemed to be suffering as much damage as the basement. The floor trembled and shook under the strain, and one of the walls in a room they passed through was halfway collapsed. Natsu and Happy hurried all the way to the front of the building, dodging rubble and bits of falling ceiling. Bursting out the front door, they dragged their unwieldy burdens several feet away before dropping them well out of the danger zone.
Natsu spotted Gray standing a bit farther back with an unconscious man sprawled beside him in the grass, staring straight ahead at the quaking building with dull eyes. He looked pretty beat up and exhausted, but maybe the empty look in his eyes was just because he was focusing on the magic that no one else could see. Erza stood up from where she'd been hogtying some near-escapees and brushed off her skirts.
"Oh, good," she said. "I'm glad you two made it out. You were so far back."
"Is Lu–?"
"Is everyone out?" Gray asked dully, his zombielike gaze unwavering.
Natsu looked around and unease began creeping over him. "Where's Lucy?"
Erza frowned. "She was closer than the rest of us. I thought that maybe she'd left through a side entrance, but I still don't see her."
Natsu spat out a curse. Anything could have happened. Lucy could be hurt or incapacitated or trapped under a bit of fallen debris or lost somewhere in the depths of the building. He should have gone and looked for her, but he'd thought…
"Lucy!" he called, lunging forward.
The building groaned ominously, and something in the air snapped with the force of a reverberating shockwave. And the whole structure collapsed like a house of cards as the ice supporting its skeleton fell away
"No!" Natsu screamed. "Lucy!"
Happy grabbed the back of his shirt and tugged him back, straining every muscle in his little body. "You can't go in there!" he wailed. "It's falling down!"
Natsu thrashed like a wild beast, desperate to fight his way through the chaos to find Lucy, but Happy held on tight. "What the hell, Gray?" he roared. "Lucy's still in there! Why did you let go?"
But he couldn't look back. His wide, horrified eyes stayed fixed on the stone graveyard as the rumbling died down and the clouds of dust began to settle. All that was left was a rocky wasteland, still groaning as the rubble settled.
Natsu ripped himself out of Happy's grasp and ran for the deathtrap, his feet slapping the ground in time to his thundering heartbeat, and this time his friend didn't stop him. He scrambled over the piles of rubble, slipping and sliding as pieces shifted beneath his feet, and began frantically digging through all the debris as he called for Lucy.
He was probably worried about nothing. Maybe Lucy had already escaped through a different entrance. Or maybe she was still inside somewhere but had found some protection. She was fine. She had to be.
Erza and Happy joined the desperate search, spreading out to sift through the rocks. They knew the general area Lucy should have been in, and they would find her. Natsu wasn't as careful as he should have been in the shifting debris, but he didn't care about cuts or bruises or fingertips scraped raw. All he wanted was Lucy.
It seemed like they searched for an eternity before a choked sob rang through the air.
"Natsu!" Erza called, her voice breaking. "She's over here."
Natsu rushed over and crashed to his knees beside her, gravel and sharp-edged rock digging into his skin. Lucy was lying on her back, eyes closed and golden hair bright against the drab gray of the stone surrounding her. Erza continued digging her body out with trembling hands.
Natsu couldn't hear her breathing or her heartbeat, sounds as familiar to him as his own. Why couldn't he hear it?
"We need to get her back to the guild," he said. His voice trembled. "We need to get her to Wendy."
"She's gone, Natsu." Erza let out a shaky breath and swiped her hand across her eyes. "I'm so sorry, but she's gone."
"No, it's not too late. If we could get a healer–"
"Natsu, she's not breathing. She has no heartbeat. Her head…"
Lucy's limbs were twisted at odd angles. One side of her head was smashed, leaking blood and fluids. Natsu didn't want to look at that. He only wanted to look at her face so that he could convince himself she was just sleeping.
But he curled over Lucy and cried, because Erza was right and it wasn't fair. Only a couple hours ago, Lucy had been breathing and laughing and alive. They were supposed to get married. They were supposed to have a little girl that looked exactly like her, sunny and happy and smiling like her mother. They were supposed to have time.
Natsu wailed and clutched Lucy's broken body to his chest. Erza and Happy were crying too and touching him, trying to comfort him when they couldn't even comfort themselves. He didn't want comfort.
He held Lucy until he had finally cried himself out and was left with that numb, hollow, heavy feeling that came when you ran out of tears. Slowly, he picked himself up from the rubble and pulled Lucy up with him. She hung limp in his grip. They hadn't gotten the chance to say goodbye, even. He couldn't bear to say goodbye now when she couldn't hear him.
"Natsu?" Erza rasped. Her eyes were red and swollen as she pulled herself to his feet.
Happy hovered alongside and brushed a paw along Natsu's arm.
Natsu turned away and stumbled through the wreckage with heavy, unsteady steps. He tried to summon up memories of when Lucy had been laughing and happy, but right now he barely had the energy to think at all.
At least until he stepped onto open ground and spotted the last remaining member of their team.
Gray was kneeling on the ground in the same spot he'd been standing, hands braced against the grass. His dark eyes were empty and dead as he stared straight forward as if he wasn't seeing anything at all.
Suddenly, Natsu's grief turned to rage. He was gentle as he lowered Lucy to the ground, but then he charged forward and grabbed Gray by the collar, dragging him up. Gray stayed limp and unresponsive, still staring blankly.
"How dare you?" Natsu yelled. He shook his one-time friend roughly, but Gray was just deadweight. "You knew she wasn't out yet! You knew!"
Gray's head flopped forward, his hair falling over his eyes. One lone tear tracked down his cheek.
Somehow, that only made Natsu angrier. Everyone else was crying their eyes out, and Gray had one fucking tear?
"I trusted you!" Natsu roared, pulling one arm back and slamming his fist into Gray's face. Gray didn't react, and that only made Natsu want to hit him all the harder. "I trusted you! You killed her! I hate you! I hate you, I hate you, I hate you!"
People were screaming behind him, and he was almost glad when Erza finally managed to pull him off Gray, because he felt like he would just keep going and going and going until there was nothing left of him.
Note: Oops. I sort of debated whether or not to include something from Lucy's POV in the beginning, but then I remembered that I'm heartless so I did. I'm still sort of uninspired by Nalu in general, but it's not like I have a real problem with it so I figured I could use it as a vehicle. Now that the basic premise is out of the way, let's tear the entire team apart for funsies because I'm a horrible person and that's the actual focus of the story.
emmahoshi: Same lol Well, where would we get all that great wedding banter if there wasn't a wedding? XD Actually, I never really considered setting it just before the wedding. I don't think the additional angst value would be enough to justify the coincidence. If it was then I'd go for it, but it wouldn't really make that much of a difference here. Anyway, to be honest, the focus is more on Gray and Natsu's deteriorating relationship and the effect this all has on the team. Maybe if it had been elsewhere, other options would have been more tempting. Yeeep, it's going to be a big mess for everyone. And poor Erza tries so hard X)