"But there really is only one way."

I have to take care of them this time. After all, they´ve always taken care of me."


I´m so pissed over one thing in this chapter – my computer shut down when I was in the middle of writing and I had to re-write a lot. Lucky I remembered what I wrote, at least kinda.

And now it seems my own computer has crashed, luckily I have my chapters on dropbox.


Lucy left the window open as she headed out of her room. She was heading towards the stairs, and she saw a couple of maids who looked at her with a combination of relief, surprise and curiosity. She could understand that, since she had been inside her room for several days without anyone knowing why or how long she was going to stay in there.

She set her aim for her mother´s room, the place she was most likely to find Layla. She stopped outside the room and opened the door carefully so she wouldn´t wake her mother if the woman was asleep. As Lucy peeked inside, she saw Layla sitting by the window staring out the garden through it, just like Lucy herself liked to do.

"Mama", Lucy said without stepping inside the room. Layla´s head jerked to her daughter and Lucy saw the dark circles under her eyes clearly.

Hasn´t she been able to sleep?

Lucy saw this clearly, but she didn´t ask , for she knew that if she let herself feel, she would regret her decision. Even if she only let herself feel concern for her mother.

"I promise you I´ll marry Charles."

Layla opened her mouth to say something, but before she could Lucy had already shut the door and was on her way away from the room. Lucy headed down the corridor and the first set of stairs to fin her father, even though she knew she had made Layla upset and sad.

I´ll make sure all of us live, no matter what.

"´A life without happiness is not worth living´", a voice next to her said.

Lucy spun on her heel and found herself eye to eye with Aed. "What are you doing here?" she asked surprised.

"Lucy-sama seems to think I simply live in the kitchen?" Aed laughed.

Lucy shrugged. "That´s where I usually see you."

Aed laughed again but then became serious. "Lucy-sama, please cheer up. If you look so sad, you will worry all of us, especially ms. Spetto."

"I´m not sad."

"Oh, my mistake then", Aed didn´t sound like he believed her. "But please smile anyways, it suits you much better, Lucy-sama."

Lucy nodded.

"And one more thing, if you care to take my advice. I don´t know what´s going on Lucy-sama, but I want to give you the same advice I once was given, when I had to make a hard decision. ´A life without happiness is not worth living, because it is no longer life´."

Lucy nodded again, remembering the words that her favorite author had written. Aed smiled at her, seeing he reached her with his words and turned to walk away.

"Aed!" she said and Aed turned to her again. "May I ask when you had to make that decision?"

"It was when I was a young man, when I got to choose between my family and my dreams."

"What did you choose?"

"I´m here, aren´t I? What do you think I chose?" Aed blinked towards her and then left her.

Lucy shook her head and continued her search for her father, who she believed would be in his study, working as usual. She knew her father was well enough to work again the second day, when ms. Spetto had arrived with Lucy´s lunch and not any of the other maids.

"Lucy-sama!"

Lucy turned to the source of the voice and saw ms. Spetto coming towards her.

"Is it very important, ms. Spetto, or can we take it later?"

"It´s important. I´ve been carrying this with me since the day it arrived, waiting for you to figure out what you needed to figure out so I could deliver it to you."

In her hand, ms. Spetto held a letter. One of those letters.

I thought I had been told of all the people I used to be close to?

Lucy received the letter and was torn between telling her decision to her father before she read it, or read the letter right away.

"Thank you, ms. Spetto", Lucy said and ms. Spetto nodded before she left Lucy alone.

In the end, Lucy´s curiosity got the better of her and she returned to her room to read the letter. She fiddled her finger in under the tab and opened it. She pulled out the letter and unfolded the paper.

Dear Lucy,

This is my last letter to you. I´ve now come to the letter that´s about me. I´ll hope you´ll remember something when you read this.

I´m Natsu, a fire Dragon Slayer and we were partners in missions. I´m pretty much everything you´re not, I´m loud, obnoxious (at least, people told me I am sometimes), annoyin (something I´ve been calles as well), impatient, slow when I think… but we complete each other.

I told you how we met, but I haven´t told you about what I was doing before that. As long as I can remember, my father fostered me when I grew up, until 7 june year x777. Then he disappeared, together with the other dragons. After I was left gramps, the Master of Fairy Tail, found me.

My childhood there was pretty much the same, I grew up and fought a lot with Gray, and Erza stopped us. But Lisanna never "died" since I stopped her from going on the mission with her siblings, I think I told you that before. That´s the only thing that´s different in this world.

It was strange going to Hargeon and never meeting you. I was expecting you to show up, but you never did. You never gave me any lunch and I didn´t save you from Bora - we never fought it out with Phantom Lord either since you never joined and they´re still a guild.

Zeref never showed up a the S-Class Trial, so we never got frozen in time. I´m a S-class Mage now, but you don´t have to worry about Cana – like I´ve told you, no matter what she said she didn´t quit. But she didn´t tell Gildarts that he´s her father, I don´t know if she´ll ever be able to tell him...

It´s strange that nothing of this happened, just because the two of us traveled in time. But what´s even more strange is the knowledge that I´ll never see you again.

It pains me to think about your beautiful face. It´s like something breaks in my chest every time I think of your smile. I hear your laugh whenever it´s quiet around me or you caling my name. I see your eyes whenever I close my own. I dream about you every night, and it all hurts like hell.
But the thought of forgetting you hurts even more, so that´s why I bear the pain of remembering you. I don´t want to lose you again.

But I will and you´ll forget me too, because we never met in this life. My memory of all we did together has already started to falter.
I love you. I don´t think I´ll ever love anyone but you. I will miss you even though I won´t remember you. But I will always love you Lucy.

With love - Natsu