Chapter 8

Passing out, fainting, call it what you will, it had a strange feeling. Those who never experienced it, let alone could imagine the sensation that came with it, would never understand. And even so, for every person it was different. Because we were not sculpted from the same stone, same wood, same ice.

But for Lucy the sensation was one she'd forget just as soon as she lived it.

Like a dream, you wake up knowing the gist of it: whether it was good or bad, whether it made your heart pulse and sweat drip or made you smile and wake in a daze.

She vaguely remembered walking into the room after pushing Natsu out the door. Walking to the dresser, choosing a simple red dress with a pine collar and cuffs, sliding it on but barely getting it over her shoulders before slipping. Falling, the ground rushing up to her, her rushing to the ground. Her fingers slipped and grabbed at something: the table, the bed, dragging the comforter down with her. And the pain, the excruciating screams below her stomach demanding to be acknowledged.

The knives cutting tendon after tendon as she crawled over herself. They stabbed deeper, piercing her lower body with a vengeance she couldn't compensate. And no matter how hard she pushed against it, tried to subdue it with her own force, it was still there. Blaring in her face like an alarm clock on a Monday morning.

And a single name, two syllables, five letters, escaped her lips.

"Natsu."

Before she let the darkness win out.


Lucy acknowledged everything in a list: wet, sting, warmth, light. Her forehead gave off the sensation that something moist had fallen on her, or maybe something wet was actually on her. Then there was the haze of a sting at the bare skin of her wrist, elbow, and neck. Something hot and comforting at her side, the right side. Her eyes followed after that, blinking open expecting what they already knew she would find.

Natsu.

Natsu sitting beside her with the light of the room falling behind him like a backdrop, giving the illusion that he wasn't really there. Like he were an angel without wings. Her guardian angel.

She managed a weak smile before he fell over her, gripping her back and pulling him against his chest. "Y-you're squishing me," she breathed against his shirt. "N..Natsu."

He pulled back, always keeping a hand on her shoulder. "Right, sorry."

Lucy's fingers reached for her forehead and pulled back the wet thing she was feeling, a towel. "What happened?" She raised her hand to stop him before he could speak. "Wait, I mean-" She froze and then jolted out of her bed, Natsu at her side. "T-the baby, is he- is she alright?"

Natsu kept his distance from Lucy, worry creasing the edges of his round face. "It's okay, Lucy. Take a deep breath." He motioned her to do the same as he was but she wasn't looking at him, her eyes were far away and glazed.

"Did something... Oh God..." her knees buckled beneath her. She rested her face in her lap, "The-"

Natsu stroked her head, "Luce, listen to me." As carefully as he could, he pulled her up and gripped her by the waist. "You're okay- he's okay. We're all okay. Okay?"

Lucy gave a distant nod. "I'm sorry. I just-"

"Shh," he whispered. "It's okay," he repeated against her hair. "Everything's fine."


Wendy strode over with a cup of hot water, Lucy looked up at her. "No tea?"

She shook her head, her blue strands of hair swaying with the movement. "It's better this way, it eases the nerves more."

"But there's-"

Wendy put a hand on her shoulder and smiled, "Okay." Lucy blew into the hot water before taking in the bland taste. "Thank you."

Erza's arm were crossed over her chest and she was leaning against the frame of the kitchen door. "You sure gave us a fright back there, Lucy."

Gray nodded, "Natsu ran like hell out the door, I thought someone got in or something." He scratched the back of his neck, "I chased him thinking Tartarus-"

He stopped when Natsu gave him a look, he bit on his tongue. "I'm just glad you're okay, Lucy," Gray said. "We all are."

"I'm just sorry our Christmas ended up being this way."

Juvia shook her head, "The nights still young!" She ran into the living room, turning on the wooden radio. A stream of cool notes came through the speakers and drifted on the still air over to where everyone was huddled. Juvia took Gray and then Erza by the hand, leading them to the open room and inducing a dance. "Come on," she laughed. "Lets not let a little scare get to us. It's Christmas!"

Wendy's eyes trailed back to Lucy's, a reassuring smile sketched on her lips. "It was just prodromal labor, you're fine. The pain was probably too much strain on your body, piled with the stress you've been on, and all the slaving over the kitchen today. Your body and mind gave into fatigue, that's why you collapsed."

Lucy nodded and raised the last remnant of the hot water to her lips, "Isn't it too early?"

Natsu clapped the back of Lucy's back hard enough it made her cough up her water, he smiled in apology. "Come on, Luce. Listen to Wendy she knows her stuff."

"I know I'm just worried..."

"Well don't, it's Christmas like Juvia said. We should be out there dancing with them, not sitting here moping over something that is fine and normal."

Lucy set her cup down and took Natsu's hand, "You're right." The soldier smiled with half his face and squeezed her grip. "Alright," he said before standing with her. "I owe you a dance tonight."

Natsu caressed her back, and all the while, Lucy couldn't part with his gaze. His eyes, their own shade of green. A greedy color that only he owned and no one else, at least she'd never seen any eyes like his. Pine with bursting gold in the irises and a rupture of black contrasting the light in them, how could anyone break a gaze with those colors?

Her heart bounced into a gallop as he swayed her, the edges of her long dress brushed on their rickety floor. For that moment, it was just them. Everything around them, the music, the people, the politics and the war all dissolved into thin air like dew in the morning sun.

Natsu leaned his head enough that his breath was on her neck, mingling with the loose locks of her sun-kissed hair. "You look beautiful," he whispered. "Every day, but more tonight." He pulled just enough to look her over, his eyes slithering down her body. The way they scampered across her figure was different than when Ashton had done the same. The man had looked at her like an item, a possession that he could grab at any given moment because he thought he was entitled to it.

But Natsu looked at her like treasure, like something finer than silk and rarer than pearls. He held her like a thin tread that threatened to leave with the wind, and he whispered to her like his words were only for her and never for anyone but her, to hear. "I never want to stop looking at you," he said between the gap of their faces.

So she drew him closer and kissed the skin below his ear before letting her words trail down his skin. "So don't."

Was the music still playing? She'd forgotten. The world had shrunk into a microscopic bug, inferior to where they existed right then. But there were her feet, her ears, her eyes, and his hand on her waist.

He spun her and led her across the floor, touring around the rest of them as if they weren't really there. For someone as clumsy and hot-headed as him, they waltzed smoothly. She didn't falter either, never missing a step. Of course this was expected, Lucy was born in noble blood. Her father a prestigious business man, dances were second nature to her.

And that was one thing he always compared himself too. He was never one to aspire to be like others, he thought he was the best because that's the way it was. Why deem yourself any lower? You made your own worth and Natsu made his to be higher than the stars.

But Lucy's rich past was something he always wanted to give back to her. He'd pulled her down the pedestal into a world of commoners. He alone replaced her acres and acres of land, the mansion and expensive dresses, for an amateur cottage near the woods. She never complained about this and if anything, when his eyebrows knitted together and his eyes glazed over with that distant look, Lucy always took his hand and reminded him how happy she was just being with him. She claimed that she didn't care for money and jewels, but still Natsu reached for nothing but to give it all to her.

They switched partners, Lucy twirling to Erza and Natsu switching his wife for the doctor in training, Wendy. But the feeling between them never faded, and they laughed as they continued to spin and waltz to the music, never missing a beat. Erza, skilled to the sole of her feet with combat and swordsmanship, was clumsier than ever. She stepped on Lucy's feet, apologizing and flushing the same color of her hair until Lucy spun back to Natsu, who caught her around the waist and drew her closer to him than before.

"You're back," he grinned. How long had it been since they were apart? Too long, Lucy thought and she looped her arms around Natsu's neck.

When the song ended they all separated and sat down for the dinner Lucy had prepared. They caught up on the events for those who were away. Joked about things that happened in the years of their adolescence. Admired the rescued cat as he purred away near the crackling fire. And then, when the time came and the inevitable couldn't be avoided anymore, they spoke about the war.

By then the youngest was already tucked within herself, her head resting on Erza's lap as she stroked her hair. Wendy's breathing was as gentle as the fire in the fireplace. "It hasn't been that long, has it?" she asked, her eyes still on the girl.

Gray took in a breath and let it out through his nose. "Yeah."

"Five months," Lucy whispered.

"Everything was just so sudden," Juvia said. "We weren't in town when it happened."

Natsu looked up from his entwined hands with Lucy to stare at Juvia and then at Gray. "You guys weren't here?"

They shook their heads in unison but Juvia was the one to answer, "We were actually on our way out of town, half-way to Hargeon." Juvia paused, closed her eyes and pursed her lips like she tasted something foul. "When we returned... Everything was gone."

"Well it was our anniversary then," Natsu said coolly. "Great gift the world gave us, wasn't it?"

Now they were all looking at him with sympathetic eyes but he waved at them, "It's not a big deal. Things happen and life carries on," he sighed and then let his eyes trail off onto Wendy. "Sometimes the world thinks things are going too right, that we forget what's important to us. That's why bad things happen. It reminds us with those events what we cherish most." He squeezed Lucy's hand before setting it back on her lap, "It's just that sometimes we have to lose what we cherish most to remember that."

His last words punctured her chest. They were ominous and vague and when Lucy reached for his hand again, he stood up and stretched his arms behind his neck. "Man, I'm beat," he said. "I'm gonna head off to bed now," he told them before setting for the bedroom.

When the door echoed in the house, Gray finally spoke up. "I guess that's our cue to leave."

Lucy jolted up, "W-Wait, you guys don't have to go just yet. It's just a sensitive topic for Natsu. Really, it's no trouble if you guys want to spend-"

Gray put a hand on her shoulder, "It's fine." Juvia smoothed over her dress and gave Lucy a warm smile that didn't quite reach the edges of her pale cheeks, Lucy moved under from Gray's hand. "It is late anyway," without a sign of warning, Juvia wrapped her arms around Lucy's shoulders. "Goodnight, Lucy."

Erza was after her and then a hazy Wendy. Regardless of her sunken eyes and drunken steps, Wendy managed to give Lucy her white smile. "Stay healthy," she put a hand over Lucy's stomach. "For the baby, okay?"

Lucy nodded and pulled her in for a tight embrace, "God you've gotten older. You make me feel so old sometimes." Wendy only giggled and walked out through the door trailing behind Erza and Juvia.

Gray stayed behind, his hands deep in his pockets and a cold look on his face. When he stepped near her, she nearly fell back from the lack of space he left between them. "I'll make sure nothing happens to him," he said, Lucy's eyes widened in surprised but he went on. "Don't worry. I can hate the guy sometimes but he has more to come home to now than just a bed."

He walked out into the freezing night before Lucy could give a word of thanks.


Author's Note: This Christmas "arc" is longer than I expected it to be . Sorry about it but I promise some major Natsu x Lucy moments!