Hello! a little late but I made it!

like I promised: ch 3!

- Radish

-9 years old-

"Oi," Loke poked the sleeping boy. "Oi, Natsu. Wake up!"

Natsu moaned and covered his ears. Loke rolled his eyes and slapped his friend on the head, hard.

"Ow! What the hell was that for?!" Natsu rubbed his forehead gingerly, glaring. "What's your problem, ya fucktard?"

"Lucy just got called down to the office."

Natsu was instantly alert. "What?"

"And the teacher's face was really pale and he told Lucy to bring her stuff."

"Shit."

He knew what that meant. After all, he'd been dreading this day for a while.

"Gramps! Hey, Gramps! I'm gonna go..." He tried to think of an excuse. "Gotta go pee!"

The whole class laughed as Natsu scratched the back of his head awkwardly to hide his anxiety. The tiny old teacher peered at him over the rim of his glasses, scrutinizing him.

"Go on," Mr. Makarov said. As Natsu ran past him, he added quietly, "tell Lucy I'm sorry about what happened."

"...Why didn't you call me earlier?" She was crying into the phone. "I wanted to see Mama a last time!"

Natsu stood outside the school office, listening with his head hung low. He couldn't believe Layla had died. Well, he'd known that her disease was killing her but had, like everyone else, become optimistic when she'd lived past her supposed expiry date.

He'd believed that this day would not come. Now, he knew, was the time to pick up the broken pieces.

The conversation had stopped and only quiet sobs could be heard. He stepped into the room.

"Luce?"

She shook her head, her bangs hiding her eyes. "Not now..."

He sat down beside her and put an arm around her shoulder without a word.

"Papa's coming to pick me up. You'd better go." She found her voice eventually, sighing rather than speaking. "You know how he hates you."

Natsu didn't move. "Don't talk, Luce. I know it's hard."

"Did you cry when your parents died?"

"Yeah," he admitted. "Just a little bit. Don't remember them much."

"Oh." She sniffled and they lapsed into silence. Natsu held her hand as they sat together on the office bench, waiting for Jude.

"Natsu, will you leave me too?" She was looking at him now.

"No."

"Never?"

"Never. I'll always be here for you, Luce." She put her head on his shoulder and he stacked his head on hers.

"You promise?"

"Yup. Pinky promise." He hooked his pinky with hers as he held her hand and felt her smile.

"I wish I could have talked to Mama. See her one more time, hold her hand again, tell her I love her."

Natsu felt a drop of something warm trickle down his arm. Lucy quickly wiped it away with a mumbled sorry.

"I'm sure Layla's up there," he hastily murmured into her ear. He didn't want her to cry anymore. "Y'know, watching you sleep and all that creepy stuff."

"Thanks Natsu." She hiccuped, dabbing at her eyes with her hands. "You're the best bestie ever."

He blushed and closed his eyes.

They were lying on the couch in a tangle of limbs, cuddling after making love. Layla had propped herself up onto her elbow and was looking down at Igneel.

She was now a shadow of her former self, all skin and bone and pain. She had grown so weak that it was hard for her to walk next door to visit, so he usually visited her now. When Jude wasn't home, of course. She laid in bed for most of the day, and could go outside for a few short walks a day.

Adultery was something he had only imagined middle-aged fools to indulge in.

But Lust was such a powerful thing. Perhaps humans are really drawn to the darkness. And yet lust was not love, and Igneel often found himself pacing the borderline in frustration.

What he had thought of as love before was simply lustful longing.

She was hardly beautiful now, with her skeletal frame and hollow cheeks devoid of youth and life, but he found himself wanting her just the same. A sick parody of love.

She neither loved him nor wanted him, he knew. She just needed someone to love her and make her feel alive. Jude, who was nearing fifty now, no longer had the energy to satisfy her growing appetite.

Thats all he was, he supposed. A toy.

He looked at her and realized for not the first time that he did not love her.

Dark circles framed her haunted eyes, souvenirs of sleepless, fearful nights. She had confided in him once about how she was afraid of sleeping at night; afraid of never waking up again to see the next day's light.

"I'm going to be hospitalized tomorrow," she whispered. "This is the last time."

He reached over and touched the sensitive skin on the inside of her rapidly-thinning thigh. She felt much too delicate, almost like glass. "I'll visit you and bring you flowers."

"I don't want flowers. I want to live."

"You will, hon. You'll live forever and ever." Half-hearted, the words just come out of his mouth.

"I want to live!" Her eyes were blazing, filled with liquid fire. "I want to dance and run and feel the wind on my face again! Oh, Igneel, you have no idea how jealous I am of everyone! Even Lucy! Sometimes I find myself wishing that she and I could switch places-"

He pushed himself up and kissed her. She kissed him back frantically, as if searching for something from this little human connection.

"Don't you worry, Layla. I'll always be here for you." And for a second there, he almost believed it.

She sighed. "Will you take care of Lucy when I'm not here?"

"Sure, though Natsu's pretty much hoggin' her all the time."

They laughed, but Igneel found himself feeling just a little jealous of Natsu and Lucy.

Jude was looking at him across the room, tearful and lonely as he waded through the well-dressed, polite crowd of rich upperclass men and woman moping about.

She had died.

The gloomy funeral was proof, filled with people she once knew, dabbing away with their silk hankies at tears that would never fall.

Igneel was hiding himself in a corner of the room, trying not to feel guilty about everything he had done. Or rather, not done.

His visits in the last months had been few and far between, mostly just dropping by to bring to kids to see her. She had smiled so brilliantly when she could.

"Igneel." Igneel considered running away from Jude.

"Jude." He nodded at the haggard-looking businessman who seemed to have aged ten years in a week. He softened his voice. "I'm sorry about Layla."

"It's fine." Jude's face contorted with pain for just a moment, like a crack in the surface of a frozen lake. Then the winter chill took over and the crack was quickly repaired. "We all knew it was going to happen eventually. And in the last month, it hurt her so..." The man's voice wavered and he cleared his throat. "It hurt her so much."

Igneel nodded, remembering how her face had looked in the last days. It was painful just to look at her. "At least she's not suffering now."

"Right, I hope not." Out of nowhere he seemed to have conjured up a photo of her, taken a few summers ago when both families had gone on a car trip together. "I hope she's smiling."

"Believe it." Igneel said, almost thoughtfully, as he gazed at the picture in Jude's hand. He was the one who had taken it, and the memory of the moment had floated up through the fog of his mind. "She's always smiling."

Jude looked like he was about to burst into tears, so Igneel patted him on the shoulder in a friendly gesture, feeling more than a little bad about sleeping with his wife.

"She really liked you." Jude said wistfully. "She was always mentioning you."

Igneel gazed at his rich but lonely, almost pathetic neighbour in pity. "I'm glad she thought of me sometimes. You guys are the best neighbours I've had. I'm sorry."

And he left Jude standing alone and staring at her photo.

New chapter tomorrow!

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-Radish