CHAPTER 7: CLEAN SLATE
Author's Notes: Well, I'm happy about the feedbacks I'm getting from you guys which is why I'm motivated to update this despite the work schedule that I have. Anyway, I've just been transferred to the graveyard shift so I still have time to finish this chapter and then maybe I'll start doing the other chapters bit by bit and post the ones I'll be able to finish on the weekends. Just so you know I'm actually reading your reviews and I intend to reply on them through PM because I don't want to make chapter that would be more on author's notes and I know you guys would actually prefer to read the story anyway. Don't worry though because I'm taking note of all the followers of this story as well as those who put this on their favorites and I intend to thank you all on the last chapter so expect a loner A/N by then haha… Now on with the story.
Disclaimer: I do not own Fairy Tail or any of its characters but I do own the supplemental characters I've added in this story.
"I… I can't remember."
Lucy started to say slowly. Richard and Sebastian just looked at each other. Of course, Richard already anticipated that this would happen when the blonde wakes up as what the doctor has already told him before. Still, he continued to ask the blonde and see if he can help her remember anything at all.
"Are you sure? Try to remember. What were you doing on the beach?" Richard queried. Lucy looked strangely at Richard.
"Beach? What beach?" she asked.
"There's a beach near the village. That's where I found you sprawled behind some rocks. Were you shipwrecked or something? Were you being chased?" Richard pressed on further.
"No, I don't know, I really can't remember," Lucy answered.
"You have to try to remember at least something so we can help you return home. Anything at all."
"I remember looking at the sea. I was sitting on a cliff ad then-
Lucy suddenly gasped and remembered her dream. She remembered falling, someone yelling at her, thunder, the rain, a hand holding hers and then letting her go to fall straight to the angry waves of the sea. She was starting to sweat profusely and her heart beat race a bit. Then Richard spoke again.
"You have a mark at the back of your right hand. Does that mean you're a mage from a guild?"
Lucy slowly looked at the back of her right hand and saw a pink emblem on it. It looked like some kind of bird and random images of a barn where two people were talking, a cliff, roaring thunder, a dark room with a dark figure straddling her on a bed, falling down the sea and being thrown about by the waves, the dark figure that let go of her hand to make her fall to her doom.
Lucy clutched her head screaming in pain. The images she saw were not making any sense to her. Instead, they were making her head hurt.
"St-stop it! It hurts! Make it stop!" Lucy screamed louder while clutching her head. Her eyes were starting to tear up from the immense pain she was going to.
"Miss, calm down. What's the matter? Sebastian, call the doctor immediately. Send our chauffeur to bring him back here fast!" with that said Sebastian immediately went out to do as he was told.
Meanwhile, Lucy was still in pain and decided to bang her head to the headboard to ebb the pain. Richard quickly took her in his arms and locked her arms in an embrace. Lucy kept on thrashing and screaming to make the pain stop and Richard did nothing but hold her firmly against his chest and whispered reassuring things to her to calm her down.
"LUCY!"
Natsu woke up abruptly. He fell asleep on the couch in their (his and Happy's) home after finishing the B rank job he took earlier. It was a request to defeat a group of rogue mages who were harassing merchants in Acalypha. The mages were part of a dark guild which made it difficult but he took it without consulting Erza or Gray about it first. Surprisingly enough, he finished the job with little damage which was very surprising for someone like him.
"What's the matter Natsu?" Happy asked after flying in from the window.
"Nothing. I just had a weird dream." Natsu replied to Happy. He couldn't tell Happy of the dream he just had of Lucy. He saw Lucy calling out to him from below the cliff and begging him to save her and take her home. She was also wounded and kept on crying while asking for someone to help her ease the pain from her body. Natsu shook his head to remove the image from his head. He stood up and started to walk outside.
"Natsu, where are you going?" Happy asked as Natsu walked past him and headed straight to the door.
"I'm going for a walk. Stay here." Natsu walked out and left Happy alone.
"Aye," Happy said a bit sad, "How long will everyone be like this?" He then looked out the window and looked at the twinkling stars. "Lucy, help everyone get better," Happy mumbled to the cool night air.
Natsu walked aimlessly around Magnolia. He wanted to get rid of the nightmare he just had. He started having these nightmares after the last day of the memorial. It haunted him whenever he tries to shut his eyes, which is why he rarely sleeps at all. Sleeping gives his nightmares a chance to haunt him, to make him weak, which he hates the most. Master already talked to him about looking after his health and he just shrugged at the old man's words.
The least I need now is to look after myself. I'm fine as I am right now. He silently thought to himself.
He suddenly stopped and looked around where his feet took him. Without realizing it, he was already in front of Lucy's old apartment. This was the one place that he always avoids going to because it brought him painful memories of what he lost. But for some reason, he wanted to go inside and check the room.
"Heck it's been a while since I went here, might as well have look inside." He jumped to the window and opened it effortlessly and gently landed on Lucy's bed. Instantly, his nose was bombarded with Lucy's scent. He felt nostalgic. Event though Lucy was long gone from them, her room still smells and looks the same but there were additional scents that he picked up which were familiar to him but he chose to set that thought aside. He went to look around her stuff and more memories of her flooded his mind. He wanted to cry, but he refused to do it. The door suddenly opened and Natsu looked at who might have gone in half expecting to see Lucy all alive and angry at him for barging in to her room uninvited.
Erza and Gray came in along with Wendy, Charle and Happy. All of them were surprised to see Natsu in the room standing beside Lucy's desk.
"Natsu? What are you doing here?" Gray asked.
"I should be asking that to you. What are you doing here?" Natsu asked with anger on his voice.
"Hey are you –
Erza cut Gray off mid-sentence. She stepped up and spoke.
"We go here every once in a while to clean the place. We figured it's the least we could do for Lucy."
"What good would it do anyway? She's dead. She's dead because of all of you." Natsu spat back. He started to walk past them but Erza grabbed him by the arm to stop his progress.
"Get your hands off me Erza!" Natsu shouted.
"Not until you listen to us first." Erza said with determination.
Gray went to close the door and stood by it to block Natsu if ever he tried to barge past Erza.
"Natsu-san, Erza-san please don't fight." Wendy said trying to pacify the two mages.
"There's no point in us fighting amongst each other." Charle added.
"Aye. Natsu cool down a bit. We're friends right?" Happy said.
"No! friends help their friends not leave them to their death. Now let me leave already," Natsu tried to jerk Erza's hand off him but she only held on tighter.
"Natsu, listen. We didn't have a choice. It was too dangerous and we can't just let you risk your life like that," said Erza.
"We feel guilty by what happened, you think we wanted her to die? Nobody wished for that to happen," added Gray.
"Well that was what I thought too, but you sure fooled me. Look, I've had enough of your excuses –
"I'm sorry." Erza said while lowering her head.
Natsu was taken aback. Never did he expect Erza to apologize that easily to him.
"I know we disappointed you but you can't blame us. If we let you do what you wanted then, both of you would have already been dead by now and that would hurt our conscience more. Look at yourself. You think Lucy would be proud that you're wasting your life? You barely take care of yourself anymore. You think that would make her happy? Seeing you like this?" Erza lectured Natsu with her eyes starting to water.
Natsu bit his lip. Erza was right. He didn't have a choice. Lucy was gone, his only reason to continue living. For him, his life already ended the moment Lucy died.
"Why do you even care?! Lucy's dead. I won't see her anymore. I didn't even get the chance to say how much she loved me. Do you know much it hurts me to sleep? I get nightmares of her on that cliff. She wants me to help her, to stop the pain, to save her but I can't! Now she's gone forever. I can't do this anymore." Natsu broke down after his confession. His intention to leave was already forgotten.
Then there was silence. Wendy, Charle and Happy were already crying even before that confession. Their guilt increased tenfold. They were also there during the incident but there was really nothing left to do. It was Gray who spoke up and broke the silence.
"That's why we have friends. We help each other out. Right now, we may not be able to handle the situation just yet but if we help each other out then we can make it out of the guilt and misery that we feel. There's nothing we can do for what happened but we have control over what we will decide to do next." Gray finished his statement. Erza gave a warm smile and offered his hand to Natsu to reconcile.
"Lucy wouldn't be happy if we continued to bicker amongst ourselves and it will only make her feel responsible for it. Let's help each other out until we learn to get over this." Erza stated.
"Aye, we're a team so we should work as a team," Happy said.
"That's right," Wendy agreed and smiled after clearing the tears from her eyes.
"Well we can't let the strongest team in Fairy Tail to be beaten by depression, right?" Charle added.
Natsu looked around his friends. After releasing his frustrations at them he realized how stupid he had become to neglect them. Guess I really am an idiot huh Luce? He thought to himself. He grabbed Erza's hand to accept their reconciliation and it seemed that his whole being had just become lighter. They all worked together to tidying up the apartment and spent the evening their. For once, Natsu wasn't plagued by any nightmares and was able to sleep peacefully for the first time.
"I'm sorry to call you out here at night, doc" Richard aopologized to the village doctor.
"It's all right. It's good that she finally woke up. I gave her a small amount of sedative. It will help calm her down, when she wakes up you have to avoid stressing her. She's pregnant so she's very fragile right now especially that she can't even remember anything." The doctor said and took his leave.
"Alright, thank you doctor." Richard replied. He then told Sebastian to escort him to his home and once again he was left alone with the blonde.
Lucy stirred from the bed and woke up immediately. She looked around the room again and relaxed when she remembered where she was. She turned her head to Richard and asked him.
"How long was I out? What happened?" Lucy asked.
"More or less an hour. You had a breakdown so we had to give you sedatives for the meantime. I'm sorry. I shouldn't have forced you to remember things that quickly. How do you feel now?" Richard asked and sat beside the bed.
"I feel weak," Lucy admitted.
"Let me just get you something to eat first. Is there anything in particular that you might like since you know…" Richard was uneasy. He wasn't sure if he should tell the blonde that she's pregnant because she might hurt herself again.
"…Huh? What is it?" Lucy wondered for a brief moment what he was talking about.
"Well, the doctor said you're pregnant so I was wondering what you might like to eat." Richard said waiting for Lucy to become surprised and have another fit.
Lucy just widened her eyes and just screamed 'WHAT?'. She didn't know how to react to that at all but since she was feeling really weak at the moment she just shrugged it off. Richard was surprised by her reaction.
"I thought it was something bad. Well, I'm surprised to know that I'm pregnant. It's weird because I actually feel happy about it even though I don't remember how I got knocked up." Lucy said while scratching her head.
Richard had a blush after catching Lucy's cute side and shook his head a little.
"Well, I'll go see what I can find. The doctor did say that you have to eat to remain healthy. Oh and you're actually having twins. That's what the doctor told us." Richard said and let the room.
"Now that was unexpected." Lucy said to herself.
He laughed a bit at himself after exiting the room. He didn't even know why he was doing this much for a blonde stranger. I feel like I'm the husband here. He blushed after that thought. He then remembered how Lucy looked when she was scratching her head earlier. She was cute when she did that.
"I need to stop thinking like that." And Richard continued to head straight to the kitchen and ask for a meal for the blonde.
Author's Notes: alright guys, feel free to express your thoughts about this chapter. You can also send any ideas you might want to share and we'll see if I can use that with the ideas I have in mind for this story or the next story I'll be making after this one. Wait for the next update okay?