Color:

"What do you think about this color?" Lucy waved a paint chip in front of her husband's face, trying to attract his attention. Currently, the maroon haired man was intensely focused on his cellphone.

"Erik?" No response. She tried again. "Dr. Drake?"

"No you absolute imbecile," her husband growled as his head snapped up, and Lucy giggled. The one way to get her husband to respond was to sound like an undergraduate attempting to ask him an inane question. "That reagent doesn't…oh, sorry love."

"It's alright," Lucy said, secretly curious about what could have distracted him so much that he needed to be jogged out of his own head. "What do you think about this color?"

"Not copper," he muttered, glancing briefly at the chip in her hand. "More woad than copper, if we're going for blue."

"Well, blue can be for either a boy or a girl, right?" Lucy pointed out. "Besides, a nice pastel blue would look nice in the nursery, wouldn't it?"

"Stick with the woad shades then." As Lucy's hand hovered over the rows of paint chips, her husband briefly looked up from his phone to order: "Not cyan. Woad woman."

"Why don't you just show me, since you're the one with the degree in chemistry and knows all of these colors?" Lucy snapped, rubbing her forehead. She knew that choosing paint colors could be exasperating, but they had been here for five minutes and she was already starting to get frustrated. Taking a deep breath, she ran a hand over the barely there bump. She was three months along, and Erik had insisted that they get the nursery ready early, so that way she wouldn't be stressed later. They hadn't even told Laxus or Macbeth yet.

Looking up again, Erik pulled a chip out of the rack. "Like this. This is decently close to woad."

Aviary Blue. Lucy examined the chip in her hand, trying to picture the color in the room they had chosen as a nursery. It would work, but then again, she wasn't sure that she wanted to paint the room blue and have everyone assume that they had known the gender and chosen the color because of that, or that if they had a girl, they had been wrongly informed… "Maybe a yellow?"

Her husband didn't respond again, and Lucy sighed, browsing the rack of paint chips. That's too sunny, that's just…ew. Jonquil doesn't look too bad…

Erik must have looked up as she reached for the paint chip to examine it more closely, because he knocked her hand aside. "No. No, no, no, no, no. No arsenic."

Shaking her head, Lucy moved on to the green section. It was the other gender neutral color on the rack. Most of the shades were too dark, or too ugly, for her to really consider, but that one… "Erik, what do you think of this one? Picnic?"

She had to pinch the skin just under his elbow to get him to look up, but when he did, she got a distracted nod and a "Chlorophyll's good."

Then he did a double take, looking at the brand of paint advertised in front of them. "Good, you're looking at the right brand."

He put away his phone, and Lucy sighed in relief. "Do you think painting the entire room this color would be too much?"

"Maybe this one," Erik said, pulling out another chip. "Nurture Green. Sounds like a good color for a nursery."

Biting her lip, Lucy looked at the colors again. "I still think that it might be a little overpowering to do the whole room in green though."

"What if we did one of those…accent walls? Like they're always doing on those shows you watch?"

"Oh, on HGTV?" Lucy pursed her lips in thought. "I could see us doing that. The wall where we're putting the crib maybe?"

She tried matching the green in Erik's hand to the neutral colors, but she couldn't find one that just…fit. Staring at the color in front of her, she found herself slowly growing accustomed to it. It wouldn't be too much on the walls, I think. And we could always paint over it. As long as we choose different colored accents….

"You want to paint the entire room this color?" Erik said, wrapping his arm around her. "It's not a bad color. I think it would look nice in there. We could get a tan area rug or something for the floor, and maybe a chocolate colored crib…"

"Dark wood rocker with blue cushions," Lucy said firmly, seeing the room come together in her mind. "This is the color I want. We can keep the white trim."

"Have you made your selection?" A young employee was hovering behind them. Lucy was vaguely aware that the young man had been there earlier, when Erik was describing everything in terms of the source of the color, but she had ignored him in favor of trying to decipher what her husband was telling her. "Can I mix the paint for you?"

"This one," Erik said, handing him the chip. "Nurture Green. In Harmony. Flat."

"I'm afraid we don't have Harmony at this store," the clerk said. "We have Infinity, Ovation…"

"Harmony," Erik said flatly. "I don't want volatile organic compounds in my nursery."

"Oh, this is for a nursery?" the clerk chirped, beaming at Lucy. "Congratulations ma'am! Boy or girl?"

"Too early to tell," Lucy said easily, resting her hand on Erik's arm as he growled lowly at the boy. "We probably will let ourselves be surprised."

"Can you order Harmony?" Erik said, interrupting whatever the boy was about to say.

"No sir, I don't believe any of our stores carry that particular type…"

Lucy sighed as Erik began squabbling with the poor employee over their lack of non-toxic paint options. If this was how he reacted to every potential environmental threat, she'd be beyond irritated by the time she was ready to give birth.

"Erik, let's just order online from the retailer, pick up some brushes and rollers, and while you're at work, I can paint by myself."

He whirled on her, panic in his eyes. "No. No painting for you. I'll get Midnight to help me if I really need it. Actually, why don't you go stay with your brother for a few days while I paint the room?"

Now her hackles were really up. "Erik Drake, you will not shut me out of preparing the nursery! I have just as much right as you to…"

Their argument was disrupted an hour later as the manager approached them, the nervous employed skulking at his footsteps. "Ma'am, sir? I'm going to have to ask you to take your domestic dispute elsewhere."

"And why is that?" Erik snarled, turning on the woman, who held her ground. An admirable trait, considering Lucy had seen hardened DEA and ATF agents run terrified from Erik when he looked like that. Even Mest, their ex-CIA friend, cowered in fear when Erik turned on him. He had been fairly menacing when he had both of his eyes, but now that he only had one, and a scar that stood out against his coffee colored skin where the other used to be, he was downright frightening.

"Because the store is closed now," the woman said firmly. "We need you to leave so we could close up shop."

Muttering about incompetent stores that couldn't keep non-toxic paint options in stock, Erik allowed Lucy to lead him out by the elbow, the blonde shooting an apologetic glance at the manager and the employee. It would be a while before they would be able to return to that particular store without getting odd looks, she predicted.

In their car, on the way back to the house that they had moved into before Erik's accident, her husband sighed. "I'm sorry that I just went off on you like that," he said softly, reaching his hand over to rest on her knee. "I'm just…I'm worried about you. After…after the accident, I was terrified of losing you. And now that you're pregnant…"

Lucy smiled softly, rolling up her sleeve to show her tattoo. "I promised you eternity Erik," she said, pushing away the fear that festered within her whenever she thought of how close she came to losing him in the accident and its aftermath. "Don't think you're getting rid of me that easily."

They drove in silence for a few minutes, before Erik said: "I'd rather you not do any of the painting, but as long as you promise to stay out of the room until it's painted and aired out, you don't have to leave the house."

"I can live with that," Lucy said, squeezing his hand. "I'll just spend my time on the computer looking for baby furnishings."

"We've got to tell the others soon," Erik reminded her. "Now that we're past three months."

"Macbeth suspects I think," Lucy mused. "He was watching me the other night when I ordered at Fairy Tail. We haven't gone out as often since the accident, so Mira hasn't picked up on it. Kinana probably knows, since I try to order from her instead of Mira, because I like having the chance to chat with her."

"You should have her over sometime soon," Erik said slowly. "She'd love to spend more time with you, and I'm sure towards the end, you'll be happy for some female company."

Snorting, Lucy replied: "And Sorano's not one for nurturing?"

Erik laughed. "About as much as Erza."

Both of them laughed at that.

***Well, late again. But Beta and I spent some time yesterday afternoon figuring out what this prompt would actually be about. And then I had to spend a lot of time searching the internet with phrases like "toxic qualities of paint" and "colors for nursery". Plus actually figuring out that there's a less toxic type of paint, specifically Sherwin Williams' Harmony, and my local Lowes doesn't carry it. Hence the argument with the store clerk. The paint colors mentioned are real paint colors, so feel free to look them up!

Now, time to sit down and write the angst that is going to be Answers. And then by extension Energy. Spoiler alert: they involve the accident that Erik and Lucy mention. Also, this is set approximately three years into their marriage.***