Writing this between the flurry of tests.

Lucy died.

That's right; she had a good life, at some point, before it all went downhill. She was in a cave when she found a gem-decorated door, and unlocked it, and then the lights covered the whole space. Whatever came along with the light must've killed her, and she was in a phase of mind where the one thing she had always wanted was played out by her brain, as some sort of gift so she'd quickly pass on. Otherwise, it wouldn't make any sense. Then again, how could she make sense out of anything when all rational thoughts and reasons got thrown out of the window and her mind went so blank she couldn't even order her eyes to blink?

"N…Natsu?" She managed to sputter out, somehow, despite her barely awake current state of mind. The aforementioned rose-haired man turned to Lucy and blinked. He was doing the same thing she was doing, analyzing and comprehending and trying to take in the fact that she was still there, alive and breathing and real and there. Just a few meters away, a couple of steps' distance.

Natsu recovered much faster, because he flashed that infamous grin she loved dearly, the grin that was so weak and soft the last time she saw it. She reached out her hand to touch him, feel his heat, enwrap her arms around his muscular, breathing body again, confirm that he was really there, that this was really Natsu and the surely lethal cycle of meaningless days that seemed to go on for infinity was finally about to end. All she really wanted was to run to him and hug him and tell him everything she never managed to say, but her knees, despite all the things she'd done with them, suddenly lost all strength and unable to support her body, fell to the ground with a quick 'thud!', which made her thought it had to be a big, cosmic joke the Gods were playing on her, because out of all the times the past few months her body could fail her, they had to disappoint her now. Now, when she could start seeing colors again. Now, when she could finally hear her loud heartbeat hammering rapidly, impatiently against her chest again. Now, when she finally felt alive again.

"…It's okay. I'm here now." The comforting, warm voice she loved a little too much broke Lucy's train of thoughts, making her blink back hot tears that she didn't even realize had already streamed down her cheeks to the hands she balled up underneath it. A tiny part of her thought she looked downright pathetic, completely different from the heartless shell she locked herself inside of lately, and familiarly like the old Lucy, so much so that her guild-mates would probably jump at joy seeing her like that. The hands she was so used to taking patted her head once, twice, and then continuously rubbed it, as though saying, It's okay now, you've done a good job. She took those hands, felt the warmth rush and spread through her, and then let it continue stroking her head.

"Is that what you expected me to say?"

The warmth disappeared all too soon, and before Lucy could voice out her shock, protest, or even a dumbfounded 'huh?', Natsu shoved her with so much strength that her upper body actually fell, too. This earned a big, surprised gasp from Lucy; Natsu had never done that, let alone harming her himself, he never had any sort of mercy on anyone who harmed a single hair out of her, and if the sick smirk plastered on his face hinted at anything, the enjoyment he received from seeing her shocked was not well-received.

"…The hell are you and what did you do to Natsu?!" Lucy barked, quickly rolling back to a safe distance away from him and glared. How dare they try to impersonate him. How dare they mess with her. How dare they do anything to him. How dare they let her drown in joy that he was still there, only for it to- How dare they. Her heart was high on her throat; now that it came back, it couldn't just leave that easily again. She prepared herself to launch an attack, feeling all the love and relief and hope darken into complete anger and hopelessness and despair - until. Until the man in front of her hung his head low and scratched his neck in somewhat clumsiness, showing her that apologetic look Natsu had that always melted her heart and allowed herself to forgive him, no matter what ridiculous, terrible deed he did(not to mention the fact they were almost always money-consuming, that bastard) and Lucy could feel her own grip on her hands tightening, they weren't going to let her harm him.

"Natsu," she called out again, a little louder than she intended to and a little softer than she would've liked. She couldn't move her arms legs again, this time for a lot of reasons stacked on one another, covering each other and becoming so dizzying they formed a strange, new bullshit. When she could finally find it in her to gaze up at Natsu again, she wasn't sure what she expected; for those eyes to be filled with warmth, regret, or both, albeit she didn't think it was possible for them to co-exist together at the same time, but it didn't matter, since she was wrong anyhow. His eyes weren't swirling with any kind of emotion, neither were they blank like how hers was. He looked at her as though she was a normal subject of experiment, important enough to pay attention to, but not interesting enough for him to actually see her.

Oh, dear Heavens, she'd gone insane.

That had to be it. She forced her brain to spin and tick and try to figure out the thousand and one things wrong with the situation, except the one in front of her was Natsu - to not admit that would mean admitting the warmth and love she felt earlier came from someone else, but Lucy would be long gone and spitting at Hell's Gates before admitting that - and she didn't want to believe that he could be so…indifferent about her, and with that, the conclusion she came to was that there was something wrong with her. She had gone mad. Too tired about everything, her brain snapped and provided her a realistic illusion made with her everlasting memories, it should suffice to will her through more.

Lucy slapped her cheeks, trying to force herself back to the harsh reality, and then looked back up to confirm her suspicions, only to have her visions blocked by a familiar rosy pink color, and the familiar, suffocating warmth engulf her once more. Her brain needed more than a few moments to process what was happening, but unfortunately the world wouldn't give her that, for just as soon as Natsu embraced her again, a loud voice called out behind her.

"N…Natsu?" The voice faltered. It wasn't nearly as shocked or hopeful as hers was, but from the way Natsu pulled away and turned to the voice, looks like it did the trick just as well, if not, better. No, actually, he looked as if he'd seen it coming. "I'm back," he grinned, the very same grin he flashed her earlier, and her heart did backflips all over again, despite the whole animosity and much to her dismay.

"It really is you!" Erza made her presence known by stepping inside the cave and squeezing Natsu in a giant, bear hug, much like what she did to Lucy herself when she first woke up months ago. Lucy's eyes darkened and her throat tightened seeing the clear display of affection, not because of jealousy, of course, but the fact that he somehow acted natural towards Erza after being a weird, bipolar ass to her. Was he testing the waters on her? Was she not worth the wait? She hated that she could have such negative thoughts about Natsu, and only for a mere few minutes after reuniting with him. Maybe the world without Natsu had done numbers on her, after all.

"Well, who else could it be?" Natsu teased with his picture-perfect, annoying-but-oh-so-loved voice, forcing Lucy to stand up and leave. Between handling Natsu acting so different to Erza than he was to her, and recollecting herself after the fatal blow her mind and heart received, she was too much of a mess to stay calm around them.

"Lucy?" Erza asked, noticing her leaving. Her tone was curious with slivers of worry tucked underneath it, but she didn't do anything to stop her anyway. Lucy clenched her fists, disgusted at the part of herself that wanted to grab the redhead by her collar right that second and desperately question her the difference between them, what made her so special.

"I just…I need some fresh air." she responded, momentarily dazed the second those words left her mouth, wondering why the lie seemed so much like the simple truth, and then wondering if the simple truth was really all it was. Her confusion was short-lived, however, as she quickly shook her head to be rid of it and went ahead without looking back.

"Light dragon slayer magic," Lucy mumbled under her breath, focusing the infinite, unbinding light to gather on the palm of her hand. With the peachy orange sky enveloped far enough for her to not realize that it was really pink instead of orange but close enough for her to make out tints of pink, and the many red leafs scattered all around her, in that moment, it looked as if the whole world revolved around the light on her hand.

She could feel herself relax into the soil beneath her and the tree she was leaning on, and Lucy wondered if this unexplained peacefulness was how Gods felt, the world on their hands and knowing they could change whatever they wanted, any time they wanted. Bits and pieces of the events that took place minutes ago, months ago, sneaked inside her mind, threatening to destroy her moment of clarity. Normally she would've let them, but she was so focused on the light that all they ended up doing was bow their head in shame and went back to the unwanted but most important memory section of her brain.

She needed this, so badly.

"Lucy?"

The sudden voice caused the aforementioned blondie to lose focus and immediately jolt her head up in shock, effectively making the light disappear in process. The culprit saw this and laughed, rubbing his already-messy raven hair. "Dragon slayer Lucy, wow," he tested the name, the words familiarly right, and from the looks of it, he didn't expect how easy it was to actually come right out and say it. "Don't think I'll be able to get used to that too leisurely."

Neither did she, no matter what he was led to believe.

"What does it matter to you?" Lucy barked, standing up and brushing the invisible dirt off her skirt. She couldn't afford to appear harmless in front of Gray, after all. If the way he soothed his hair and laughed half-heartedly, settling into the tree beside Lucy indicated anything, the ice mage seemed to think otherwise. "Your light thingy is really cool, thought you should know," he said, as though he was talking about a picture she just painted or a novel she finished writing. Gray knew better than to ask questions, and that was the right thing to do, because Lucy wouldn't've answered any.

"You've improved too," she found herself letting out a compliment, and before her cold demeanor and insistence that he didn't matter could kick in to stop her, continued, "I didn't expect you to be able to conjure up lots of magic that efficiently, and with hardly any break in between. But that's pushing it too far, your shoulders were too tense, and because you aren't used to it, your magic couldn't refill the quota you needed. Thus, your attacks were mostly ineffective. Maybe try giving a bit of a time gap between your attacks until you get used to it?"

After realizing what she just said, Lucy could feel her cheeks flush a bit because giving advice to Gray would mean confirming that she, indeed, observed him and actually paid attention and she bit her bottom lip to keep herself from groaning out of embarrassment because that would be even more mortifyingly embarrassing. Realizing the absence of Gray's reaction, Lucy turned her head to see what exactly was he doing, to find him staring back at her, absolutely stunned.

Aware that his object of observing noticed him, Gray pulled his head back and laughed uneasily. "Sorry, I, uh-" he looked at the trees, trying to make up an excuse, but finally decided against it and scratched his neck awkwardly, the look on his face genuine enough for Lucy, "this side of you isn't so bad," he said, and seemed relieved for a second that he managed to say that. "I mean, today is the first time I've talked to you in months, and in those months, I guess I missed a lot, huh?"

Lucy paused at this, those simple words pulled her back to her thoughts. She had been so busy training that she couldn't make time for her friends, and that much was true, except it wasn't the truth. If they were as important to her as they once was, she would've spared time for them, no matter how difficult it was. Her training was just an excuse; she didn't want to see them. What happened at the cave kicked in, swirling an ocean of complicated feelings inside Lucy's stomach, and she remembered just how badly she pushed them away, insisting that she couldn't get close to anyone anymore because they'd only leave.

Lucy clutched her chest with a sour expression in her face - she could feel her heart again, thanks to Natsu coming back, and it felt so natural that if what had happened didn't leave scars all over Lucy, her heart might as well had never left.

…As if.

Back when her heart wasn't there, Lucy could remember the days when nothing mattered anymore, when she trained and trained with almost nothing in her head anymore. She remembered suddenly looking at her bleeding hands and wondering what the hell am I doing, and mornings when she woke up in a half dazed, mostly crazy tired state in the middle of the woods where she passed out on countless of times, and midnights where she just laid there, her whole body and mind sore and crying because she wasn't strong enough and not being sure that the training was any good and because Natsu wasn't there, oh God, because Natsu wasn't there. Lucy clenched her fists, remembering the absolute numbness and the fear of taking things for granted ever again, and now that Natsu's back, she silently questioned herself if that was exactly what she had been doing, all over again.

"There's a lot more you've missed today compared to the past few months," she closed her eyes, trying to figure out how she was going to drop the subject on him, and how she was going to answer the questions he'd inevitably ask, for an instance, why was she wasting time talking to him there calmly and not squeeze Natsu to death by hugging him and burst tears of complete joy? Lucy waited for him to ask, and with the utter silence that came after, realized that she hadn't even told him anything yet, feeling stupid for not noticing sooner.

Lucy opened her eyes to find Gray quietly staring at her, and she was about to comment on how suspiciously quiet he was being, until it dawned on her that her closing her eyes looked as if what she was about to tell him was big, was serious, and he was letting her take all the time she needed to muster the courage she might needed.

"Where's Happy?" she ended up asking, her hands trembling. Judging by the way Gray stared at her and probably wondered why she was lying, he most definitely did not believe her. "Really?" he asked, pain in his eyes, as if their few minutes of what might be able to be considered talking meant they were friends again, or maybe it was just that he didn't think they ever stopped. "Come on, Lucy."

"Where's Happy?" she repeated sternly, then being the one to stare at Gray like he had made a mistake. Gray opened his mouth to say something, but before he could spurt whatever absurd accusation he had in mind out, thought better of it and closed them again. He leaned back to the tree and stared at the darkening orange sky. "We separated, he said he wanted to look for Erza and you to make sure you guys were okay."

"Why would I be anything other than okay?" Lucy mumbled, more to herself than anyone else, and spread her arms as if they were wings. Her hoodie fell back, showing her smooth, uncut arms that had the grace of a Princess and the strength of a general. One would typically ask how could arms so fragile hold such extraordinary amount of power, and if she did train as hard and as long as she did, then where was the proof? Thankfully, Gray wasn't one of those typical people, and instead he crossed his arms across his chest. "You know that's not what he meant." he argued.

"Think he's reached her by now?" she ignored his statement.

"Since I found you, then yeah, probably," he answered, not wanting to point out the elephant in the room any more than he already did.

"Then you should go after him." Lucy suggested, deciding it would be much easier for Gray to see for himself rather than getting the news from her. She still wasn't sure how he would react, and she decided she needed some time by herself, after all. Despite all the mocks and arguments Gray threw earlier on, he didn't put much of a fight at this one. Perhaps he was worried about Happy, perhaps he got the feeling something was waiting for him at the other end.

"Lucy," he called out, one last time, turning his head back to meet her gaze, "join us after you're done," he said, simply, and then he turned his heels and disappeared into the red leafs.

"All right." Lucy whispered, thinking he'd be too occupied with what he'd find to worry about her.

"And then, I woke up, and Lucy was there! At first I was like, whoa, why was she crying? But then they quickly filled me in, so it's all good!" Natsu explained, telling 'his' version of the story, albeit the way his eyes trailed every few seconds and sneaked glances to make sure Lucy was listening made her think there was a bit more to it than just that.

"Good for you, Lucy," Mirajane said, looking at Natsu with dreamy eyes. "You were so sad when we couldn't find him," her fingers trailed the table, "more than sad, we… I thought I lost you," the glint in her eyes turned sorrowful, "I was so worried. You just kept going on missions without ever taking a break, and you never smiled, in fact, I never really saw your face anymore. I thought… I thought the Lucy we all cherished was gone for good." The look on her face made Lucy held her breath, but then she turned her head quickly and smiled so brightly Lucy would've bit her lips if her mouth wasn't full with strawberry smoothie. "But that's a thing of the past. You must be elated, right?" she asked, and noticing Lucy's silence, added smoothly, "oh, but that's not to say I don't like the cool Lucy… I was just, worried, y'know?"

I don't, Lucy wanted to say. Because she didn't understand. She couldn't understand. When she met Natsu again later that day, along with Erza, Gray, and Happy, she wanted to sit and cry all over again, because he grinned, that damned grin, ruffled her hair, and said, softly, "Hey, Luce." His voice was so, so warm, and it made her think everything that happened at the cave was indeed a ridiculous hallucination, except her shoulders still stung where he shoved her, the fresh wound he poured salt on.

Then she stared at Mirajane, her baby blue eyes, expecting her to smile shyly or cry tears of joy or laugh bubbly and talk non-stop about how happy she was. Her gaze lingered, noticing the shadow those eyes carry, afraid that she was still unaffected, and she wasn't, she was so frustrated that she felt like she was literally insane, and no matter how much she wanted to tell the bartender, images of how hurt she was the past few months, how much she cared and how she always tried to stop her from continuing hurting herself flashed in her brain, so instead of crying on her lap and ask for words of comfort she so desperately needed, Lucy finished her last drop of strawberry smoothie and bid her a tired goodbye.

The walk home was mostly uneventful except for a few dazed stumbles and ghostly faces she thought she saw in the dark, her mind infuriatingly tired. The crescent moon hung low in the sky, trying her to make her feel less lonely, which she would've denied because Natsu was back, everyone was happy, and there wasn't any reason for her to feel the least bit of loneliness, but her heart was sore, and her entire legs were numb, and her slow, sluggish footsteps were firm reminders that she was alone. Something she couldn't quite see, hidden in plain sight, made her trip and bruise her knee, the world's way of mocking her for her efforts.

"Lushy~! Welcome home~!" Cheery voices greeted her as she entered her domain, and she was back to nearly two years ago. Naive, exceedingly so, and blissfully ignorant, unaware of the war about take place. She could faintly smell the burning meat undoubtedly fresh out of the oven in the mess of what was once a kitchen, Natsu's definition of cooking. Two unbelievably similar grins waited for her at her bed, and she could feel her heart twist and knot and made her form a crooked grin of her own. They had left her touched, just as they always had, in their own little rare ways.

"What…" she trailed off, the wave of relief hard to ignore on her chest. "What the hell are you two doing here?!" she hissed, preparing to kick them both out simultaneously. The threat came out not nearly as intimidating as she might have meant it to, but it made Happy and Natsu drop their grin anyways, shaking their heads playfully.

"Natsu! Lucy's being mean!" Happy stupidly accused, rolling his tongue.

"Yeah, Lucy…I just got back!" Natsu agreed, an equally stupid pout in his face.

"Get out!" Lucy insisted, tugging at the blanket. However, Happy was already drooling all over the pillow, and Natsu's eyes sparked coolly with interest. He studied the room as if it was his first time there, and by the way he was staring, Lucy would've believed it was. "You have an annoyingly loud voice." he said calmly, then staring at her with all his interest replaced with pure boredom.

And just like that, her moment of peace ended and she was back after the war.

"What?" she stood still for a moment, shocked, but her pride wouldn't allow her more. "Well, excuse me, then. Didn't know you've forgotten it already." she sneered, but he barely flinched. Instead, the coy smirk he laid out on the cave earlier decorated his lips again. "Speak for yourself, you hypocrite." he didn't even look at her, but somehow, the damage it did to her was a lot more than her supposed sneer did.

She couldn't even find it in her to argue.

"Why are you here?" Lucy asked, averting the topic. She put down her things, settling, because Happy was already asleep, and they were probably never planning on leaving her most comfortable bed that night anyways, she'd just have to live with that. "Aren't I always?" Natsu irked an eyebrow, amused.

"No. Never. Not like this." Lucy shook her head. This, at least, she wasn't about to let him have. "Yeah, you always enter randomly without my permission, and yes, you always use the window even though Mira, for some reason, lends you a key from time to time. But you don't sleep on the bed before you know I'm already home, and you always rummage my fridge first before anything else, and you always make sure to leave the window closed not as tightly as it was before to give some sort of hint that you were here-"

"Fucker, stop," Natsu forcefully interrupted, covering both his earbuds with his fingers. "It's bad enough that your voice should suffice for you to become a banshee later in life, but did you really have to give me a lecture long overdue without commas and spaces about how I used to act? People change, 's time for you to grow some balls and learn to accept."

"Accept?" Lucy repeated, her voice barely a whisper, "You're asking me to just…accept? If I could've done that, then there wouldn't be any need for this!" she was screaming then. Blood rushed to her cheeks, painting them in a rosy glow. "You left me!" she clenched her fists, her voice that was meant to sound furious and intimidating instead sounded desperate and strained, "You promised we'd die together! You promised no matter what happened, it'd all be okay in the end, because we'd still have each other!" she stared at her feet, unable to meet his gaze. "You promised, and you did the one thing you promised not to."

Maybe she was being ungrateful. He was back, already, and that alone was supposed to be more than enough. The long nightmare of insignificant days had ended, because the one thing that mattered had came back, basking everything in its glow. She was supposed to feel happy, to feel glad that he was sitting in front of her instead of laying dead somewhere, and she was…only she wasn't. Maybe Lucy was acting bitchy and unreasonable, but she couldn't help it, anything was to be preferred to rather than the stinging numbness she had gotten used to the past few months.

So she stared at him, fists clenched and her chest rising up and down violently, trying to take in as many oxygen as she could, wondering how he would react to her accidental outburst. He was the only one who could make her lose her composure that easily, but then again, he was the only one who could make her regain her composure quicker than losing it. He was simply the trigger to her everything.

Lucy wasn't sure what he expected him to say, maybe he'd come back to being Natsu and apologize, not that Natsu actually apologized, of course, or maybe he'd snap at her or yell at her like he did a couple of times earlier, but all he did was stare right back at her, trying to figure her out. What stoned her wasn't even the fact that he thought there was a right choice and a wrong choice in the matter, it was the realization that dawned on her, deeming herself as a mortal fool, because Natsu was staring at her, and she could feel his hot gaze as she did years back, and though they looked so manipulative, unlike his eyes before, how it made her heartbeat quicken and how her eyes refused to look elsewhere meant it couldn't be any other one but his… except they were green.

She rested her gaze on the beautiful, mesmerizing eyes that caused her words to evaporate onto thin air a little too much, the same ones that used to be a unique metallic onyx and was suddenly a shade of mud green. She should've realized it on first glance, because the onyx eyes that were so clear she could see the warmth, always see the warmth, radiating from were suddenly green, too crowded with foreign thoughts she couldn't exactly put finger on, all jumbled up on one another she could barely see the boy underneath it all.

"…I'll sleep on the couch." Natsu muttered lowly, finally breaking their eye contact because Lucy sure as hell wasn't about to. Granted, given the chance, she probably never would've stopped staring. He pushed Happy out of his lap carefully, not wanting to wake the small exceed up, but not careful enough as to be gentle. He stood up and flashed Lucy a look, waiting for a nod of approval or some sort, but when she merely stared back at him(she never stopped staring, but she wasn't going to admit that), he shook his head and headed to the couch.

When Natsu was out of sight, Lucy collapsed onto her bed, completely forgetting Happy's existence. Everything that happened that day had finally took its toll on her, and it was as if a great weight had just been dropped on her shoulders. Memories rambled against one another, overwhelmingly so, to the point that Lucy couldn't seem to separate them based on their dates.

As if she had been holding back the entire day, Lucy let herself drown in the fluffiness of her bed and the comfort of her soft sheets, and at last, cried.

This chapter was quite challenging to write, actually. The raw one was so short that I had to add the Gray-Lucy scene, which wasn't important, but a nice addition anyways. And is that Graylu I see?! *squint squint*

Well enough of that, Chapter 5 onboard!