a/n: I tried my best with this since I had very little inspiration. has someone done this sort of fic before? i have no idea

Sleeping Beauty

The Sleeping Girl

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"What was that, ice-freak?!" Natsu shouted nearly from the top of his lungs as he swung his way off the bed, soon regretting his action once his cased arm painfully hit the headboard. The young salmon-haired boy was hospitalized earlier today for breaking his arm. He, and a few of his friends were seated in his assigned room waiting for the nurse to come back with some papers—minus himself as he knelt down on his knees clutching his cast to his chest trying to make the stinging pain subside. Any medication he was on wore off earlier.

"I called you an idiot, duh." His acquaintance Gray responded in a tone that would make anyone snap. The raven haired boy snorted at the pained expression the boy was wearing from merely bumping his arm, "Serves you right! This is all your fault anyway."

"What!" Forgetting the throbbing in his right arm, the little boy stood from the ground and starting shouting again, "It's your fault! This wouldn't have happen, if it wasn't for you!" He was angry anyone could tell by a single glance. Though his friends were used to it and merely blinked for a moment before sighing and shaking their heads.

"Wh—What?!" Gray shot up from his seat, jabbing his thumb into his chest as he stomped closer to the other boy, "How is it my fault, dragon breath?!"

"Enough you two!" A red haired girl, Erza, not much older than the two stood from her seat and got between them, "There will be no fighting here—we are in a public Hospital. And Natsu is in no condition to be roughhousing." Not like she'd allow them to fight for long anyway. Though, she can't argue on what Natsu had said. The situation of Natsu breaking his arm is Gray's responsibility. "If you two want to be productive of something, why not play a game?" She asked.

The three of them silently exchanged glances for a few moments as they thought of a possible game they could play together. Natsu tapped his chin in thought before his eyes lit up and a grin spread across his face, "Hide and Seek!"

"Ugh, you're such a twelve year old." Gray rolled his eyes, losing his shirt as he spoke.

"You're the same age as me, idiot!"

"Boys." Erza warned. She turned to Gray, "Since you have the blame for Natsu's injury, he will be choosing what game we play, " Gray's jaw dropped, "You know the rules—just don't be going into places that will get us into trouble. We can play until Mr. Makarov meets us to leave."

"Ice cup, you're counting!" Natsu pointed to the boy, a wide teasing grin on his lips. The other boy merely rolled his eyes and turned around in a corner and placed his hands over his eyes to count.

"1, 2, 3—" Once he started counting, Erza and Natsu were out the door, leaving it open to let the boy know they weren't hiding in the room. Erza went into the empty room next to the one they just ran out from, but Natsu kept heading down the hall.

"I'm not gonna lose this time." Natsu laughed to himself as he ran deeper down the hallway, not taking much mind to the fact that the deeper he ran down it, the darker it got.

Once he had figured he had ran far enough, he made a sharp turn and ran inside the first door he saw and closed it behind him. He slouched down on the floor with his back against the doors surface as he heaved to catch his lost breath.

It was when he settled his breathing down did he hear the beeping echoing through the shadowed room. Looking up, he realized he had ran in a room that was in use. Natsu stood to his feet and got a better look at the soft bumps formed on the bed in the middle from where he was—a little girl his age if not younger, resting there still and as silently one could be. If it wasn't for the beeping from the heart monitor, he would have gotten the impression that she was dead.

Curious, he walked to the end of her bed and picked up the clipboard that had her information and condition written on. Most of the words he understood… to a degree. The words that have more than five letters make his eye twitch.

"Lucy Heartifila." He read her name aloud and set the clipboard back down. Natsu walked around the bed to where he was on her right side, trailing his eyes over the blonde-golden hair that was spread neatly across the pillows. There multiple tubes coming in and out of her mouth and nose, and just the sight of it made him cringe. From what he could understand from what was written on the clipboard, this girl was here in a coma, and has been since some accident.

But him—he's only here for a broken arm.

There was a cushioned seat on the far side of the room that he walked to drag over, trying to be as quiet as he can in fear of this girl rising from whatever depths of sleep she was in. He figured Gray must still be counting, or is looking for Erza at the moment, so there was time to spar. And honestly, he feels like he's being rude about what he's doing. But at the same time he wonders where this girls family is at—why no one is here at her side while she goes through this?

Her head, arms, and hands were wrapped in bandages and covered in scraps and bruises.

"You've had it tough.." He mumbled to no one in particular.

Natsu shifted sideways in his seat and propped his feet up against the arm rest and fingered his arm cast as his eyes followed the girls pulse track on the heart monitor, not noticing the faint movement from beside him on the bed. But once he heard the doorknob on the other side of the room jiggling, he flailed and jumped up. Acting fast, he slipped underneath Lucy's bed while the door to the room opened.

"Is he in here?" He heard Gray whisper.

"There's a patient sleeping in here, so I don't think so." Erza whispered next, making Natsu smile mischievously, "Let's go to the next one." After she said that, he heard the door close. He waited a few moments before making his way out from under the bed and letting out a breath of relief.

"That was a close one." He sat back down in the chair and leaned up to where his arms were crossed against the bed. There was a short pause as he felt the side of his hand brush over another's warm skin before he got over his slight panic, knowing for sure something like a light brush would wake someone up from a coma. Natsu drug his eyes up to the girls face again and sighed, "I'm sorry for coming in here and hiding, but I'll leave once I'm sure they won't catch me."

He wasn't expecting a response, of course. But it started him when the girl twitched and a small smile came to her lips.

She can hear him?

"You can hear me, Lucy?" He whispered, leaning up toward her face with his eyes wide.

Well, go figure she could probably hear him—she's just in a deep sleep! Not liking how dark it was in the room, he reached out toward the table lamp that was next to them and switched it on, wincing at the sudden light for a few seconds before adjusting. With the new light, he also noticed just how large the room itself was. It could probably fit six more people in here! What was she doing in here all alone?

Feeling something brush over his fingers, he nearly jumped and looked down to see that the girl laying in front of him had wrapped her pinkie around his. Other moments this would have been considered friendly or something around there.

Well, no—he doesn't know this girl. He came in here hiding from his friends while they played a small game of Hide and Seek. The only thing he knows about this girl was her name and that she was in a coma. So, Natsu was on the brig of having a freak out, but he manage to shake off the feeling and sit back down.

"I should leave soon, it's getting late." He mumbled, looking up to the girls face once again.

"Oh, hello there!" The sudden voice that entered the room made him yelp and spin around, but his ankle got caught on the leg of the chair he was seated in, and caused him to fall back. The woman—a nurse—gasped and quickly ran to his aid, "Goodness—are you alright, young man?" The woman helped Natsu off the ground and into his seat.

"Yeah.." Natsu hissed, rubbing his broken arm as it began throbbing in pain from whacking it on the tiled floors. The woman smiled and knelt up from the ground and walked around Lucy's bed to pick up her clipboard, "S—So, um—is she okay?" Natsu asked, gesturing to the blonde girl sleeping in front of him.

"Uh—her? Oh yes, she's fine." The nurse smiled, checking a few things off the clipboard before setting it down again, a sad look coming to her features as she looked upon the little girl, "She's just.. sleeping."

Natsu ended up leaving soon after that, finding Erza and Gray looking for him in a panic near the E.R enterance with Mr. Makarov with them ready to leave. He went home and spent the next day complaining about his arm and arguing with anyone who brought it up, but the blonde girl in the hospital bed all alone in that room didn't leave his mind for an instant.

Believe it or not, he went back. Again, and again, and again. It was when he was a little older that he found out her mother had died in the car accident she was in, and that the father is over seas paying the bills by letter—not giving a crap he assumes. Otherwise the old man would be here beside his daughter. But instead, he left her in this big Hospital room all alone, sleeping in her thoughts.

Days turned into weeks, weeks turned into months, and months turned into years that Natsu kept this up. Every now and then, he would bring something with him to put around the room, either it be a flower or a bouquet.

He was now a young man of eighteen years old.

The nurses and doctors have become quite used to seeing him here, they'd often stop by for a tease or to check up on the sleeping patient or just to have a small chat to liven things up a little. Natsu had watched this little girl grow into the woman that laid, eyes shut in front of him—breath taking beautiful.

He'd often find himself staying there from morning to night, doing nothing but sitting there, walking around, and even talking to her. Though barely any acknowledgment is given, but he never complains or worries.

But there was this one time her heart monitor skipped a beat and and scared the very soul out of him.

Then it came to where he doesn't know what he's doing anymore—why he's here. His friends question him and about this girl they don't even know—heck, he doesn't even know that much of her either. He would sit there and moll about it for hours to come, doing nothing but thinking as he looked at her. In any other's eyes this would have been creepy or stalker-ish, but to him it was much more.

At the age of twelve and until the age of fifteen, he was coming to see a new friend—someone he wanted to give company to even though they don't know him. Someone who will wake up one day to find that parts of her life was missing and gone.

But soon after he turned sixteen, he felt something inside him jolted as he looked upon the sleeping girl laid in front of him.

Now, at the age of eighteen, he still sits in this same spot, and after so long of moiling over it—finally he came up with an answer.

"Can you hear me, Lucy?" He asked softly as he stood from his seat.

Many—many times have his friends and the people in his life pulled him aside, telling him to give up on this girl he only knows the name of. It's more than just her name, what happen to her, why she's here, how he found her—it's his desire to be here with her. And the fear.

Natsu saw a small quirk on the side of her lips and he smiled, feeling his chest jolt slightly. His rough palm brushed over the smooth surface of her hand before he set it there and leaned down towards her, using his other hand to move a few strands of hair from her eyes as his lips came in contact with the corner of her mouth and cheek.

"I love you." He whispered as he pulled away, switching the light off as he walked out of the room.

The next day was a weekend, and Natsu showed up at the Hospital a little earlier than he would on the weekdays. He walked down the same darkened hallway he has been for six years and toward the familiar door.

But as he approached, he noticed something was very different than the others. He stopped in the middle of the hall, seeing the door to Lucy's room opened—flooding with nurses and people and all the lights on.

Fear tugged in his chest and he ran the rest of the way, stopping in the door way once seeing the reason for all this sitting up in the middle of the room.

His eyes widen, locking with hers.