Disclaimer: I do not own Fairy Tail.


They are fated to meet in every lifetime, in any country, or even on the seas. Sometimes, they have decades together, others it is only weeks.

Her favorite is the time of princesses and dragons because there they meet while they're young and then, get spend the rest of their lives together. It's the smell of his magic in the white scarf he binds around her slender neck from the mountain's chill or as he regularly slips into her living space and stays by her side, for days and nights, consecutively.

"Natsu, which life has been your favorite?"

His features are still so strong and bright and his, even in his newest form. The thought swells in her throat and catches her happiness, tapering the emotion with the knowledge this would be a lifetime where they met for only hours. Lucy can see the same knowledge weighing heavily in his gray eyes, but it does nothing to dim the grin that has always stretched from ear to ear.

"All of 'em. It's always fun when we're together!"

"You don't have a favorite one? Where we have more time or you're not-"

"Nah, they're all great because I know you're always just waitin' around the corner for me, like I am for you."

She is supposed to be strong and professionally detached, with just the right amount of caring as to not seem cold, but not today. Today, her eyes well and flood and leak, creating a continuous stream of tears down her face. Dr. Heartfilia, the unstoppable force against all illness, is stripped down to leave Lucy, the girl with the stars in her eyes and the sun in her hair, bonelessly slumping over the handsome man confined to the hospital bed.

Natsu tugs her into his arms and tangles his hands in her hair, daringly placing kisses over her hairline. She is the doctor and he is the patient she cannot fix.

"I hope the next one we're young and healthy and friends first before we spend the next 70 years after that as a ridiculous married couple."

Natsu smooths the white coat over her back and smiles gently. "Is that doctor's orders?"

Lucy smiles into the staunch material of the hospital gown he wore and buries her nose into a neck that smells of medicine instead of a campfire.


prompt: an au where the characters are reincarnated as new people and are in a doctor/patient relationship

originally posted: 10-20-13

A/N: This was probably one of those things where someone was wanting a cute and flirty interaction and I wrote this heart-shattering crap. Boy, do I regret because ow.