cut the ties and make them whole again
AU, in which Jude Heartfilia cannot seem to stop checking on his daughter even when he's long since disowned her.
.
He disowns her when she is seventeen and different from him in ways he can't understand. Where did she go from the little girl that loved her mother so very much to a stranger that doesn't agree with his opinions? In a way, he knows it's his fault, and in the back of his mind he knows that she is too young to lose her family like that (or at least what's left of it). He's the same, only on the other side of time, too old now to know what living without his daughter, the only remnant of his wife and a happier past, is like. Jude Heartfilia only realizes what he has done when Lucy has already left the house with a promise that he'll never see her again. He almost runs after her, wants to maybe save the relationship he has long since lost with his daughter, but despite the voice in his head, his body slumps down on his chair (he feels so old suddenly, all his energy draining from him).
She always did keep her promises.
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It's been four months in which he hasn't quite managed to get over the absence of his daughter yet. It's so strange to see the house and the hallways empty, so strange to know that he isn't just not able to meet her because she's barricaded herself in the library but because she's gone and it's all his own fault. He doesn't believe in rewinding time or regrets, but somehow, just this once, he wants to take it all back so badly, wants to go another road that doesn't leave Lucy and him estranged and not even on talking terms anymore. He tries to submerge himself in work, but Jude realizes that that can only go so far. It's the evenings that are the worst, a quiet dinner alone at the grand table, and sometimes he wonders if Lucy has enough food and – a thought that's maybe even worse – if he will ever know.
.
Jude Heartfilia has never liked social media, call him old-fashioned, but he simply cannot deal with online friendships and relations. But in a crazy idea, he has typed a search for his daughter's account on OneMagicFiore, one of the more popular sites – the account he always knew existed, but never bothered enough to look at. Now he is still not really looking at it, skipping to the end where it says that this page has not been updated for more than half a year. He breathes out, slowly, and wonders why he was hoping still. Even without a promise, Lucy wouldn't have come crawling back – she got that hardheadedness from him. And the result of it is an account that was abandoned, just like what he did to his daughter and just like she did to him.
.
There's a company that wants to buy his support to force a merger between them and another of the so-called "guilds" – companies offering a number of small-scale jobs to its members, from fixing roofs to finding missing people. He's surprised how well the system works, but he cannot find it in himself to like his possible clients – even their name is shady. Whoever founded this company has had nobody to tell them that Phantom Lord is an awful name, reeking of dark business and underground connections. Or maybe it's just his opinion. He is inclined to just dismiss the job as it is, but clients are clients and he is paid for considering it, and so he makes preparations to look into the company they want to merge with. Their name is better, maybe slightly childish, depending on the way you look at it. Fairy Tail. He tries it on his mouth and cracks a small smile. It does seem like a place where dreams are likely to come true. The rest is only formality, because he has already decided to refuse Phantom Lord, and so he isn't expecting interesting to turn up. He reads a bit about their history, their founding, then checks the head of the company and the employees. He scrolls down the employee list, finding quite a few strange people on the photographs, like a woman with blazing red hair wearing her suit like a set of armour, a man inexplicably not dressed from the waist up and a man with pink hair. What he isn't expecting is a photo of Lucy along with all the others, smiling so brilliantly he has to look twice before he's sure it's his daughter, and the guilt makes his stomach clench.
She could have looked like that years earlier.
.
She goes under the name Lucy. Just Lucy. There's no last name written after that, no reminder that she is – in fact – the heiress of the Heartfilia Konzern … and his daughter. Jude feels a surge of pain, but he disowned her and she surely never wants to be connected to the past she left again. He can understand it, in a way.
It still hurts.
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He looks at her photo every day. It's his daughter, his daughter, the one person he thought he'd never see again. She looks happy in the photo, happier than he has managed to make her, and her sunny smile is the reason he believes in the motto of the company – that Fairy Tail is family. Lucy wouldn't smile like that otherwise.
He knows. He's the one that deprived her of it after all.
.
Two months after he has refused Phantom Lord, the company has gone bankrupt and – surprisingly – soon after Jude finds photos of two former Phantom Lord employees on Fairy Tail's site, new additions to the workplace his daughter has chosen for a living. One is a man with a shock of untamed black hair and piercings all over his face, fearsome until he notices that under the picture is written that the man likes cats. The second is a woman with blue hair cascading down her back like water – she wears blue, maybe to match her hair, maybe just because she likes blue. Jude wonders if Lucy already befriended them, then shakes his head.
It won't do him good to think too deeply on this. It's not like he will have a chance to find out after all.
.
Every three months, there's a new photo. He remembers regretting not having saved the previous one when it happened the first time, then faithfully saves every single one after that the moment it comes out. And it's not only those photos he saves, but also many copies of the "Sorcerer", a magazine purely about the guild-system companies that have become very popular very fast. Fairy Tail is one of the most frequently featured and he takes in all the information he can get. Apparently there are teams that work together most of the time and his daughter is in a team with the three people he has noticed the very first time he looked at the Fairy Tail employee list. The woman with the armour-suit. The half-naked man. The man with pink hair. And a blue cat, because apparently everyone is of the opinion that a cat should also be allowed to join Fairy Tail. It's funny, in a way, and definitely is a great way to advertise, he has to admit (there is just something about cats, especially this one, that makes you feel happy). The team overall seems to have a pretty good atmosphere and he finds himself sighing in relief that Lucy is at least in good hands, from what he can see.
That will have to be enough.
.
Lucy has gone missing.
He finds out per chance, hearing one of the rumours circulating and reading all the Sorcerer copies that speak of the incident. It's not only her, but half of the entire company and he looks at their smiling faces on the screen and wonders what happened to them. They were supposed to reach Magnolia after a trip to the Tenrou island, apparently, but did not return at the time they should have and officials have stated that they might have to declare them dead if this goes on. Jude is afraid, so very afraid when it happens and doesn't sleep properly until seven weeks after, when news comes that they've been found, every last one of them alive, and have returned to Magnolia. He cries in relief when he reads that his daughter is safe, and quietly resolves to – someday, soon – work up the courage to apologize to her.
.
There's a last name to her profile.
It's been a month since the near death of half of Fairy Tail and Jude has not quite managed to calm his insecurities about whether Lucy even wants him to come into her life again, after all that he's done to her. With jittery fingers, he opens the site again, head strangely empty, and scrolls down to his daughter's profile again.
Lucy Dragneel
He breathes in, then out, and then wonders why he's so surprised by this. She would have found someone eventually. His little girl was always going to grow up. But maybe the worst part is that he was never there to see it, was never there to see his daughter grow up, fall in love – be happy. He blinks, lashes suspiciously wet, then his eyes widen and he scrolls up just a bit, just so he can see another photo, another one that has the same last name under it. There are two, a pair of brothers, but somehow he knows it's not the black-haired one. Call it a father's instinct, but his eyes are immediately drawn to the man with the pink hair, the one on the same team as his daughter.
Natsu Dragneel
The photos are fairly new and his smile is so bright that he wonders if it was taken after he proposed. Maybe. Probably, if Lucy's equally shining face is any indication. He wonders how it happened, what this Natsu is like and if he makes Lucy happy enough to make up for all of the years Jude has never given her enough love. And then there's a sudden realization setting in that no matter how happy someone else makes her, Lucy will always think that her own father didn't love her. And that it's high time he rectifies the mistake he made three years ago.
.
Maybe appearing in front of Lucy's apartment isn't the best idea he's ever had, but when she opens the door, she lets him in, no matter how fidgety he sees her get, and he finally, finally gets the chance to apologize, even if he ends up crying too much for it to be acceptable – he's a grown man after all. But then Lucy cries too and hugs him as if she's wanting to soak up all the love he never gave her and he embraces her back, trying to make up for all the years of loneliness she had to endure, and for the first time since Layla died, he feels like a father again.
Catching up with Lucy is easier and harder than he expected. It's easier because he knows what she's been doing and he sees her appreciation for not having forgotten her and instead checking up on her via her company's site so very often – but it is so much harder because Lucy is constantly bursting into tears and smiles and he feels like the worst parent in the world for taking so long. Sometimes, when she thinks he isn't looking, she looks at him like she's afraid he'll disappear again, and he vows in that moment that he will never make her feel sad because he isn't a good enough father again.
.
Jude gets to know Natsu, too. It's sudden and weird and he's definitely not prepared for it, but the pink-haired man enters Lucy's apartment when they're speaking – although that is probably not the strange part. The strange part is the he enters through the window, blue cat draped over his shoulder, and that it looks so routined that Jude wonders if he's always doing that.
"Natsu! What have I told you about the window!"
The man – Natsu – snickers, looking entirely not reproachful, and then takes a good look at him. Jude feels himself shrink under his gaze, because this man absolutely has the right to hate him for all he's done wrong. But instead he comes over and shakes his hand excitedly.
"You're Lucy's dad, aren't you? Man, you really look like her."
He's never been told he looks similar to Lucy. That has always been Layla. Jude almost tears up at it, at the fact that this man so clearly knows that he's her father, even if he's probably never even seen as much as a picture of him.
"See, Lucy? He came! I told you he would if you sent him an invitation."
Jude looks at Lucy questioningly and she quietly admits to wanting to send him a wedding invitation - "But I was planning to do it tomorrow, maybe. I – I didn't actually send it yet." Natsu comes over to her and takes her hand in his and Lucy smiles a happy little smile, full of tears and gladness, and Jude is glad that he came earlier. It seems more sincere that way, he thinks. He finds out from Lucy and Natsu that while they're already married on paper, having filled out all the forms, they haven't actually had the wedding yet, and Lucy admits to wanting to make amends with him, even before he came. They talk until well in the night, Natsu's hand never letting go of Lucy's, and even if he has only known the man for a few hours, he already feels the approval welling up, and when Lucy asks him if he would consider walking her down the aisle, he doesn't even need her hopeful and nervous voice to convince him to say yes.
.
Fairy Tail is an interesting place. There's a big room in the building dubbed affectionately the "guild hall" and the people are as much friendly as they are eccentric. Lucy is proudly introducing him to everyone and everywhere he hears "I'm so glad for you"s and sees people smiling as she tries to show him everything at once. He also hears a few threats muttered at him that if he ever does that to her again, they'll put him through hell. He is only too glad that he wasn't planning on it anyway, especially since the barmaid that looked so gentle and friendly with Lucy has made one of the most terrifying threats he has ever heard when Lucy went to the toilet.
He gets to know the woman with the armour-suit, who introduces herself as Erza Scarlet and has one more remarkable threat for him. The man without shirt is named Gray Fullbuster and it seems that stripping is sort of a compulsory thing for him, so Jude finds he doesn't really mind. Natsu also greets him, grinning before sidling up to Lucy and giving her a long kiss, which she returns with equal fervour. He supposes as her father he should feel affronted, but he only feels proud of his daughter for having found happiness. He also gets to know Lucy's friend Levy and offers her to take a look at the library at the Heartfilia mansion sometime. She thanks him and then squeals the news to a big man with a mane of black hair – ah. He remembers that one. He definitely has to say that Fairy Tail has apparently been a better place for him than Phantom Lord because he's wearing an easy smile instead of the dark expression he had when he first saw his face in Phantom Lord's ranks. He looks around and finds the second one from Phantom Lord too, the woman with blue hair, and soon finds out that she's named Juvia, that she likes Gray and that she has the habit of speaking in third person.
Perhaps the most interesting discovery is that Zeref Dragneel was once a convicted murderer, but has since then undergone a long therapy and is now a part of Fairy Tail and a very friendly individual, even if he's rather silent, very much the opposite of his younger brother. But it really does make him see how easily Fairy Tail gives out second chances and he hopes that he can have one, too.
.
"You know, I'm really glad you came." Jude looks up at Natsu and sees him watching him. "She thought you wouldn't." He doesn't quite need the reminder of how he treated Lucy, doesn't want to remember just how much he made his daughter go through, but he did.
"I -" he starts, not quite sure what he wants to say yet. "I didn't realize at the time and then … it was too late. And I thought she wouldn't want me to come, not after – well." It sounds so much like an excuse that Jude almost cringes, but Natsu only hums. "Lucy was really happy about it. When did you decide?"
Jude clenches his jaw and tries not to remember the despair he felt the day Lucy was announced missing. "The Tenrou incident."
Natsu looks at him with something akin to surprise, then nods. "Me too. I was really afraid she'd die that one time." He doesn't say anything more than that, but Jude understands, because he's been the same, because he only found the courage to make amends after he thought he wouldn't have the chance anymore. It's all the confirmation Jude needs that this man really does love his daughter and he finds himself giving him his official approval. "Although you probably didn't need it in the first place."
Natsu shakes his head and grins. "You're her dad. Of course your approval is important." The I would have married her anyway is left unsaid and since he technically already did, Jude only laughs.
.
The wedding is beautiful, themed in reds and golds and everyone smiling. Lucy herself is beautiful, too, white dress and happy smile making her almost seem ethereal. He proudly walks her down the aisle, so, so glad that he is able to do this, to be here at his daughter's side right now. And even if he regrets Lucy's loneliness because of everything he's done, he can't help but think that this is the way it was always supposed to end up. The thought is only cemented when Lucy whispers a quiet thank you to him before he hands her over to Natsu, whose smile is equally as brilliant as Lucy's, happiness surrounding both of them in the small church bursting full with every single one of their friends.
Fate has a way of working things out, Jude thinks, and smiles.