Worries of the Flame
Disclaimer: I do not own the characters of Fairy Tale.
A cool breeze fluttered through the little campsite, ruffling the edges of a small bedroll and causing the fire to sputter a little. The shock of pink hair atop the head of the lone man in the camp danced in the light wind, though he didn't appear to even notice it as his gaze seemed far away and yet locked on the fire even as he lay at his leisure atop the bedroll.
It had been nearly a year since Natsu had left the guild and all his friends... and her. Despite the fact that he hadn't seen her in that long, he had no trouble picturing the golden-haired celestial mage. Her memory hadn't faded in all that time, and he was not at all surprised by that. Lucy... she meant everything to him. One of the biggest reasons he'd decided to leave her behind and train himself was so that he would never fail to protect her again, and to keep her safe while he was doing so. Zeref was too much of a threat, wanted something from him, and he still didn't know why. If anyone in the guild - but especially her - was hurt because of him he'd never be able to live with himself. And if it were Lucy, he wouldn't be able to live, period.
A furrow appeared between his brows as he thought back to the time that he'd watched her die. While that Lucy had been from the future and thus not the current time's version of his best friend, the moment he'd seen that strike from the combined Rogue/Sting hit her, everything in his mind had coalesced and then burned. For the first time in his life he'd actually wanted nothing more than to kill. This wasn't the same thing that happened when he was on a job and had to fight, or even when he'd been involved in a fight to the death like with the dragons. Those times... it had been about survival, plain and simple.
This... had not been the same. He'd wanted to make the dragonslayer suffer, wanted him to die. Wanted him to feel the agony that he'd felt watching Lucy be hit by that strike, knowing that she was gone... the only thing that had kept him from completely losing it to the raging fire inside had been the fact that his world's Lucy was still alive, still there... still with him. He hadn't been lying when he'd told the evil future form of Sting/Rogue that they'd taken something dear from him right before his very eyes, though. Even the appearance of losing her had been enough to almost destroy his mind.
And then, right after all of that... Tartaros. He hadn't been able to protect or help her, and she'd been left to stand against Jackal alone. She'd done it, but she'd lost something precious to her then – something she could never retrieve. She'd already lost so much, and that she'd had to give up Aquarius, too... he'd felt so damned guilty knowing how much she grieved the loss.
Of course, she wasn't the only reason he'd gone on his training pilgrimage, simply one of the two biggest. The other had been the death of his father. Igneel's death had hit him harder than almost anything. He'd felt helpless, unable to do a damn thing for his father, nowhere near strong enough to fight off Acnologia. His grief, atop his still deeply held fear of the possibility of losing Lucy again – especially with Zeref out there targeting him - had scrambled his mind, and he'd decided that all he could do was go off and spend all his time training. Away from her and the guild. He had to be tougher, he had to be stronger. Igneel was already gone and there was nothing he could do about that except maybe someday take his vengeance against the black dragon that had murdered him.
But Lucy... Lucy was still alive, and he desperately wanted her to stay that way. He'd sworn he wouldn't let anyone take her future away, and he'd meant that. And now that he was strong enough, he was on his way back to her and all his other friends. Now he was strong enough to keep that promise.
He sighed, then ran tense hands through his hair. The only thing he could hope was that she would listen to him and not kill him on sight for taking off on her, and only leaving a little note behind for her like a coward. A scowl crossed his face, hating that he'd done something like that. But he'd known that if he'd actually talked to her he'd never have been able to leave her behind, so he'd left a letter and run. He still felt terrible about it, but he just hadn't been able to see any other way to handle that matter without losing his resolve the moment she started to cry – and she would have.
His thoughts were interrupted as Happy came back from the edge of the small river he'd just been fishing in for his dinner with a nice-sized trout and sat down near the fire to eat.
"What's wrong?" the little Exceed asked as he took in the look on his friend's face.
"Eh, what makes you think something's wrong?" he asked, his voice a tad bit irritable - which was unusual for the dragonslayer... most of the time.
"'Cause of the look on your face and the crabby voice," Happy replied between bites of his dinner.
"Oi, I'm not crabby," Natsu protested, sitting up but refusing to look at his companion, his eyes still fixed on the flames. "Jus' thinkin' is all."
"Oh, you mean about Lucy."
The mage blushed a little. "No, I-I'm thinking about-"
Happy began laughing. "You're just scared she's going to Lucy-kick your butt when we get back!" he interrupted his friend's stuttering denial.
At that, Natsu shook his head and stopped trying to hide who his thoughts were lingering on. After a moment, he leaned his chin on his upraised knees. "No, it's not that."
It took Happy a few minutes, what with being busy consuming his dinner, but eventually he looked up and caught the pensive expression on his buddy's face. That was definitely strange – Natsu wasn't usually one for a lot of introspection. He was more of the... impulsive type. So for him to be thinking so hard about something usually meant that it was really, really important.
"Then what?" he finally asked as he finished off the last bite of his fish and patted his now full and bulging belly with a satisfied burp.
It was quiet for a moment, then the pink-haired boy asked, "What if she doesn't understand why I left? What if-" his voice faded, and then came back really softly, "she won't forgive me?"
"Do you think she found someone else or something?" the little Exceed asked, thinking his friend was worried that Lucy might be part of a different team now and not want to come back to be on his team. It hadn't occurred to him that his words might make Natsu worry about another guy, not guild work-teams.
The dragonslayer's eyes widened at that. It wasn't something that had really occurred to him before.
He'd never really paid that much attention to females in that way, being too interested in fighting and busy looking for Igneel between jobs. Then he'd met Lucy... and she was different. He hadn't been able to stop himself from noticing her that way. So when he'd sworn not to let someone take her future away, he'd really meant their future. And his training this last year had been part of that. It was a way for him to prepare for just such a future – but would she even remember those words of his spoken so long ago? Had she, at the time, even taken them as he'd meant them? He'd been certain then that she had, that she'd known how he felt and wanted the same things, and he was still pretty sure now... but maybe she'd decided that since he'd left her behind, she'd been wrong in taking his words that way and that he really didn't want be there with her? What if she had, and then moved on after he'd left? He had been gone for an entire year, after all...
He shot to his feet, both fists bursting into flames as he glared at the horizon in the direction of Crocus - where the guild probably was because the Grand Magic Games should be getting ready to start - surprising Happy into falling over. "Someone else? She wouldn't, would she?" he asked faintly, eyes wide with horror, more just speaking to himself in that moment than his friend.
But the cat heard, and it was then that he realized what Natsu was really worrying about. He sat back and tossed the fish bones into the bushes surrounding their little camp before shaking his head and rolling his eyes.
"Why would she?"
"Because I just left!" the fire dragonslayer growled loudly, the fire limning his fists getting bigger as he seriously began to get upset with his thoughts. Too much more of this and he'd run all the way to Crocus just to make sure she hadn't found someone else.
"Tell her why you left. Then she'll know what she means to you, right?"
Natsu blinked, and the fire beginning to overrun his hands and crawl up his arms died slowly. After a moment he shook his head and sat back down on his bedroll, his shoulders slumped.
"I don't think it'll be that easy," he sighed morosely. "You know how mad Lucy can get."
"Then why did you want to leave her behind in the first place?" Happy asked reasonably. He'd never quite understood that part of their year-long training sabbatical.
"To protect her! I wanted her to be safe! I... I could never live with myself if someone was targeting me and anyone in the guild got hurt, let alone Lucy! She means everything to me," he admitted quietly after a moment. "I'm... almost afraid of what I'd... do if something did happen to her."
Admitting that he was afraid of something was a bit difficult for Natsu. He wasn't often afraid of anything. But just the thought of losing Lucy was frightening enough that he was even more afraid of what would happen if he actually did lose her. Would he go mad, destroy anything and everything in his path to get to the one who'd done it – even his friends?
Happy got up and trotted over to his companion, then climbed onto his shoulder. He looked at the one who'd always taken care of him and patted his head reassuringly. "It'll be okay, Natsu," he said, certain that things would indeed be fine. Lucy would understand why they left, and everything could go back to the way it had been before. Well... maybe not exactly the way it had been before, he snickered to himself. It would be nice to see the two finally get their acts together. He'd always known they liked each other and had teased them about it before. Often.
In the meantime, though... he would have to calm Natsu down. While, he, Happy, had no doubts that Lucy would still be waiting for the dragonslayer when they returned, it seemed that now his friend was a little more than just worried about the possibility that she wouldn't be. He hadn't really thought Natsu would take what he'd said that way, but maybe he should have. The flame-brain - as Gray had always called him - had a pretty one-track mind most of the time, and when he was focusing on things that he was normally not so good at, like girls, he tended to miss the messages given entirely. Or overreact, like now.
"I never thought I'd see you getting all upset and acting weird over a girl, Natsu," he tried teasing. "I didn't think you'd even noticed that girls and boys were different."
Unfortunately, that one kind of turned and bit him in his furry little ass when the dragonslayer blushed but growled at him. "Oh, yeah? Don't think I didn't see how you acted over Carla. I'm not as dumb and oblivious about girls as you all seem to think."
The blue Exceed was... a little surprised by, and disbelieving of that, actually – besides being a bit embarrassed at the reference to his still-huge crush on Carla. He jumped down from Natsu's shoulder and pouted his way to the other side of the fire.
"Then why'd you act so weird when you and Gildarts accidentally mixed up your bags and you saw all the mostly naked girls in those pervert magazines he had, huh?" he snarked as he plopped down somewhere as semi-comfortable as hard ground could get. "Gray or Loki wouldn't have just stood there looking stupid and blushing."
Natsu let himself fall back onto his bedroll and stared at the sky while mumbling something that Happy couldn't make out. But he certainly noticed the blush even from the other side of the fire, since it looked like the mage's face was burning much hotter than that little blaze. He chortled mischievously, his paws over his mouth as he giggled.
"What was that? I couldn't hear you."
The put-upon dragon-slayer sighed loudly. "I said, its because I don't really want to see other girls like that, dummy. O-only Lucy," he stuttered, the raging blush actually increasing as Happy laughed harder.
"I'm gonna tell Lucy you said that!" he sing-songed before jumping up and unfurling his wings as his buddy leapt to his feet and began chasing him. "Natsu's a pervert! Natsu's a pervert!"
"You'd better not, you stupid cat, or... or... or I'll never get you any fish again! And I am not!" Natsu shouted as he started off after the Exceed – but not before taking one last lingering look in the direction of the capitol of Fiore.
There was something deadly serious in his eyes for those few seconds, a vow. I'll see you soon, Luce, I promise... just wait for me a few more days, ok?
And then the pink-haired mage was gone, playfully chasing a loudly giggling, blue flying cat through the forest in the middle of the night, his own laughter echoing just as loudly as his companion's.
A/N: Soooo... my first Fairy Tale one-shot. Keep in mind I've only seen bits and pieces of the Tartaros arc, I just know that Natsu takes off and goes on a year's training with Happy after all that, leaving Lucy and the rest behind. And that the guild gets disbanded in the meantime, though I don't know why. Buuuttt... this is my personal, probably A/U idea of some of what might have been going through Natsu's head when he decided he needed to go off on his own, which he's now rethinking a little bit since he's on his way back to civilization – and Lucy. And of course it ends lightly since it's Natsu and Happy, and they can't keep up a somber atmosphere unless it's life or death... well, maybe not even then. Remember when the jade dragon tried to eat Lucy but just melted all her clothes off and then she was blown into Natsu as he was fighting Rogue and Motherglare during the Dragons Arc? So... yeah.