Chapter 2 – Dark Waters

She found him on one of the bridges that crossed the river just outside of the hospital, leaning against the railing and staring down into the dark water, blank-eyed and far too pale. It was a surprise to see him, almost an unpleasant one despite the fact that she was delighted to see him alive. If rumours were correct, he had only woken up for the first time the afternoon before and was barely out of bed, and probably shouldn't have left the hospital building at all.

"Hey, Fried?"

He startled, but didn't look around, keeping his eyes fixed on the water. "Oh. Hello, Lucy."

She offered him her best smile, even if she wasn't certain he could see it. "I thought you'd still be in hospital. Has Laxus woken up?"

His answering smile was weak, but at least it was there. "No, he has not. I would still be there if I could. Porlyuschia needed to run a test of some kind, and so I was ordered out, along with Ever and Bixlow, lest we irritate her more than we probably already were. I'm afraid this is as far as I could get."

That didn't sound good. She knew how tired she'd been in the first couple of days after the attack on Tartarus was over, how deeply she had slept, how difficult it had been even to shuffle to the bathroom or kitchen. How much worse must he be feeling, magic gouged to the core by a vicious poison and strength sapped by a superhuman effort to save those he loved? He must still be utterly exhausted.

"Are you okay?"

It was a weak question, and she regretted it the second the words left her lips. But he seemed to be considering answering it, so she shut her mouth on the automatic apology she had been about to make.

"As much as I can be," was his eventual response, and she relaxed. It was the answer she had half-expected. After all, Fried's dedication to precision of language was legendary, so he was never going to give a ridiculously false answer like yes, I'm perfectly fine, thank you.

"Then can... can I stay here for a bit?" It seemed rude to just lurk nearby without asking, even if she just wanted to watch the water go by as well.

"Of course."

Lucy leant on the railing, unconsciously mirroring his pose. The water running beneath the bridge was dark even in the morning sunlight. The boaters who usually called to her as she walked to and from her house never came down this far. The only things floating by were the pieces of vegetation ripped from the banks of the river higher up in the mountains where the current was faster and fiercer, which now curled and swirled dazedly in the water, unaware of their final destination. A branch with most of its leaves still clinging to it swept out from the shadow of the bridge, a flash of green in the dark water.

Aquarius probably would have complained bitterly about being summoned from a river swirling with dead and dying vegetation.

Lucy sighed and propped her chin on one hand. There was almost nothing in the world that she wouldn't give to be scolded by Aquarius again, if only it could mean seeing her again. Then again, Aquarius had always complained about being summoned from almost all forms of water, except fresh sea water... and even then, the first time Lucy had summoned her from the sea in the bay of Hargeon, she had complained about Lucy dropping the keys.

Hargeon...

Lucy glanced sideways at Fried. He was still unmoving, and unless she watched very closely for the slightest shift of his coat, she might have wondered if he had turned to stone. Did he know what had really happened that day when he thought he'd managed to save everyone? If he didn't, was she the right person to tell him that the Master of the guild he loved so much had lied to him without blinking? She swallowed, suddenly uncertain of what she was about to do. It was the right thing to do, she was certain of that. But she had no idea how he would react.

"Fried... about Hargeon..."

"I know, Lucy."

And suddenly the deadness in his voice and the unnatural stillness in his body made perfect sense to her. "Fried, I... I'm so sorry..."

He made no answer, merely staring down into the water below them as if he was separated from it only by inches instead of several feet. Finally, he said "People keep saying that to me. I'm not sure why."

Lucy tried to come up with an answer, but she couldn't find one that she could bear to say aloud. We thought we were losing you, we thought we'd lost you, the lie didn't matter, the lie we told to the man for whom words are the perfect truth didn't matter because he'd never live to find out...

"Did you never wonder?" His eyes swung up to meet hers for the first time, and she felt a thrill of shock as she realised how blank they were, how dead. There was no question that he was still beyond exhaustion, but she was beginning to feel as if there was something else there too. "You know as well as anyone that of the four people there, Laxus was the most important to me. Did you not wonder why I rescued him last?"

She shrugged, avoiding his gaze uncomfortably. "It... it crossed my mind."

"Because that was the only way to save them all," was the answer, unexpected and matter-of-fact.

"What do you mean?"

He took a deep breath and looked away, back at the water. "When everything went dark, and Laxus ordered me to save everyone, Yajima was the closest to me. He was the person I took as I escaped. I went back out of bravado to get Bixlow. I went back the second time because I would be a poor friend indeed if I left Evergreen to the poison." He suddenly stopped and swallowed, closing his eyes.

"You... you don't have to tell me," Lucy said, realising from his shifting expression that he was reliving something she couldn't imagine. She wasn't completely sure why he was talking to her like this either – it wasn't as if she was someone he spoke to regularly, and Fried had never been one for revealing his innermost thoughts to anyone. "I don't have to know."

He glanced up at her again, and he looked so tired. Almost hopeless. "No, you don't have to know. But you have to understand."

She didn't understand at all, though. She wanted to – if only she could help him now, perhaps the second-hand guilt at being silent through the lie would finally die – but what he had gone through was so far beyond her experience that it was sympathy that welled up instead of empathy.

Precision of language, she thought to herself. It really is important.

"Then I'll listen to everything you need to say," was all she said aloud. It was, after all, the only thing she could really give him, the only thing that might help.

Fried's expression was fixed, his eyes glassy. "I took Laxus last because he was the only person I would have gone back for that third time. Once, out of bravado, because I am a mage of Fairy Tail and we are bold. Twice, for duty, for I am a rune mage and am bound by my own rules more tightly than by gravity itself. The third... I could not have gone back that third time for anyone else. Not even if I was ordered to. Not you, or Master, or Mirajane, or even Ever or Bixlow. Just him." His eyes fluttered closed. "I always knew he was the only one I would ever die for."

"But you didn't die." It was all she could think of saying. "And that's a good thing, Fried."

But Fried didn't reply. For several long minutes, the only sound was the water rushing by beneath their feet, and the susurration of sound that every lively town has, even when that town has been nearly wrecked a week before.

"How much do you know about everything else that happened?" she asked at last, forcibly changing the subject in the hope of finding something easier to talk about. "With Tartaros, I mean."

"The basic details." His voice was bitter now. "We came back from Hargeon, Hargeon was placed under a state of emergency in which more than a hundred people died because of the Magic Barrier Particles despite everything that Laxus did, the guild declared war on Tartaros, Tartaros brought the fight to the guild, there were some fairly vicious battles and -" He stopped suddenly and looked at her, almost as if he was seeing her properly for the first time. "Lisanna told me you lost one of your Celestial Spirits in the battle. I'm sorry. I know how much you care about them."

Aquarius...

"Did they tell you about the dragons?"

That actually got his attention. "Dragons?" Something sparked back to life in his eyes. "Plural?"

"Yeah," she said, and though she knew how sad and terrible the ending had been she couldn't help smiling a little at the memory of five gobsmacked Dragon Slayers staring up at their parents. "And not just any dragons. Igneel, Metallicana, Grandine, Weisslogia and Skiadrum."

"The Dragon Slayers' dragons." Fried's expression finally gentled into something approaching emotion. "That would have been a sight to see. Lisanna's story got a little confusing just after she started talking about faces, and I fell asleep not long after that. I assume the dragons turned up some time later... though she did vaguely mention Acnologia."

Lucy turned back to the water. "I'm not sure anyone actually knows the full story of what happened," she admitted. "None of us saw everything. This was... it was just so much bigger than anything I've seen Fairy Tail get into before. All the other times it's just been Fairy Tail, or maybe a couple of other guilds. This time... this time it was everyone, everywhere. There was just... so much damage."

"We should have been here to help," Fried said, and she looked at him in shock. Surely we didn't mean Laxus and the other Raijinshuu? "If I'd been quicker to realise what was happening, if I'd brought everyone home faster, before the barrier particles really affected us, maybe we could have done something to help. The protective runes around the guild-hall might have been stronger. They probably could have withstood the blast, then at least we'd still have a guild-hall. I - we could have fought. We could have helped."

That was the moment that Lucy finally understood what it was that had driven Fried out here alone, so far from all of the others.

A strange, aching sadness rose in a wave of compassion against her heart, breathtaking in its rise and leaving only stillness in its wake. A writer she might be, but she couldn't reach the words she wanted. Comfort seemed hollow, pity was contemptible, logic was far too cold.

And so she said nothing, and leaned against the railing of the bridge, and just stayed. Sometimes, silence said more than anything else.

.

Lucy had long since forgotten why she had ventured out into town in the first place. Somehow, it seemed to pale into insignificance when compared to standing on a bridge over a dark river for long, slow minutes as the sun climbed towards midday, one half of a silence that had too many wounds at its heart.

She would heal; she knew that in her head even as her heart ached. And he would heal too, eventually. But the scars from this battle would linger for much longer than they ever had before, and she had no way of knowing what echoes they might leave in the minds and hearts of those who had drowned in darkness.