A/N: Hallo guys! I'm sorry the last chapter didn't have a title I meant to put it on, but forgot. It was title Broken Toys as the header of the story in case you were wondering…. But thanks for all your wonderful reviews of semi-hatemail, at least I know that you are in to the story…. And I hope you enjoy this one!

Thanks if you're still with me at this point, our story may be beginning to draw to a close… my prediction of this story ending under 25 chapters still stands.

Oh, and thanks to ShinningStellar for pointing out that my story had accidentally been placed in the 'humor' category rather than the 'horror' category… I'm sorry to all you poor people who started reading this because you thought it would be funny.

Grief

"Hey, the light thread is fading…." Levy's voice broke the stillness with disappointed airs as she pointed up at the glittering trail that was indeed becoming fainter with each passing second.

"I think we're almost at the end of it," Daisy told her thoughtfully as she walked arm in arm with Luca; rather, she clung to his arm, and he walked, though he made no move to shake the girl off. "After all, we've been walking for a while. The Dollhouse can't be never-ending, can it?"

"I wouldn't think so," Finny joined in from behind, "Even magic has its limits."

"Smells like blood," Gajeel said shortly, a low growl in his voice.

"Really?" Shredder asked excitedly. He was ignored.

"What?" Levy looked up at Gajeel worriedly, and he kept his gaze straight ahead. Pushing to the front of the group, Gray grabbed the dragon slayer's elbow, Erza at the ice mage's side.

"What's up ahead?" Erza asked seriously, arms folded and posture erect, shoulders back and chin held high in defiance of her fear. Not fear for herself, of course, or those around her. There was strength in numbers…. But she had no way of knowing where Natsu and Lucy were, if they were together, if they were all right….

"Can't say for sure," Gajeel answered brusquely, the smell beginning to get to him.

He started forward again, but Gray and Erza brushed past him. The crowd had long since come to a standstill as Shine tried to reestablish the light path.

The Gray pulled open the door after crossing the room, heedless of the questions sent his way by Shade and Shine, and his eyes widened with shock. He stretched his arms out wide so fast that they blurred in the air, and the ball of flames that shot out of the room sent his ice shield into puddles faster than one could blink.

Gray stood and stared, mouth working without sound. Erza came beside him, getting up off the ground from where she had ducked the superheated projectile, and looked in as he began to tremble slightly with emotion, and she fell to her knees, hand over her mouth.

There, by the doorway, sat Natsu, Lucy's head cradled in his lap. For an instant one might think that she was sleeping, her arms at her side and her eyes closed, but something was off about the picture. Natsu's trademark scarf was instead wrapped around Lucy's throat, and even then one could see the huge amounts of blood that had been spilled from the blonde.

Donned in a pink ball gown that had been dyed red at the shoulders and wearing a dirty, bloodstained scarf, she lay in a repose she was unlikely to ever wake from. Across the floor were thick smears of red and congealing puddles of the viscous liquid, drying all faster due to the emotional waves of flame that pulse off of the dragon slayer like a heartbeat.

His onyx eyes were dry, but the expression on his face portrayed more sorrow, more anger, more self hatred then a thousand tears could ever show.

"I wasn't here for her," Natsu said in a voice more broken than anyone had ever heard, or probably would hear again. He raised his eyes from her face and looked at the crowd in front of him as people silently filed into the room where he sat and formed a semicircle a respectful distance from the grieving boy. Levy collapsed into a sobbing heap and had to be held up by Gajeel, who looked away. Shade and Shine cried silently, Finny sobbed into Shredder's arm, Bisca wailed in the back of the group. Hardly a single eye was dry. "I couldn't help her."

Wendy ran forward, shoving her way desperately through the crowd, even as Galice tried to stop her. So young, and to see such carnage…. He could see that no amount of healing magic could help the stellar mage at this point. It broke his healer's spirit to even think that, but if the little Sky Maiden killed herself trying, that would do no one any good. That would leave two dead and none saved, and Fairy Tail more shattered than it already was with the loss of one of its members.

The blue haired girl fell to her knees beside the blonde, and Natsu looked at her, his gaze lost, as though somewhere he was searching for an answer as to why this would happen, why it hadn't been him, why there was evil enough in the world to take people's lives; no, not people's lives, why there was evil enough in the world to take Lucy's life of all people.

She was the best person ever, and here she was lying on the ground like a broken toy. A windup doll that's key had run down for the last time.

Wendy stretched out her hands over Lucy, but she must have known that it was much too late already, for she refused to look, sobbing so hard her small frame shook as she shut her eyes, head down.

After a moment her hands fell, and her forehead touched the hot floor, boiling tears spilling onto the ground.

"Wendy," Natsu said weakly, and then weaker still, "Wendy…. Help." His voice began to rise with panic, the volume climbing. "Please Wendy! Please, please, please, please….."

His voice died in his throat as the small girl shook her head, too distraught for words, face turned toward the floor.

Natsu sent forth an animalistic ululation (a/n: I love that word; ululation) of utter grief, the tears finally beginning to flow as he held Lucy close to him, her limp, rapidly cooling form offering no resistance as he cradled her tightly to his chest. There was no suffocating laughter or light fists beating on his arms as there would have been if she had been still alive.

Happy walked across the room slowly, tail dragging and shoulders slumped. He crawled pathetically onto Lucy's stomach and hung there, crying. The three of them had been together, had been a team, and now there was a piece missing. Natsu thought of the times of when it was just him and Happy. They were good times, yes, but when Lucy arrived, things had become infinitely better.

Natsu couldn't stop the flow of memories that sped through his mind. Meeting in Onibus, their first job together fighting with the Vulcan that was Macao, breaking into her apartment at random times and sometimes waiting for her all day just so he could surprise her….

This was a hundred, no, a thousand times worse than losing Igneel.

At least when he lost Igneel there was a chance that the dragon was still alive.

…

"Only one death occurred," Minnie said moodily, "the rest of the dolls were defeated by the main group."

"Who…. Who died?" Lacie cried desperately, and Minnie seemed shocked by her reaction.

Finally having reappeared after watching the defeat of the dolls in the main room, Minnie had found Lacie's heart much harder to read, to reach, and her own energy was draining. She hadn't thought it was possible, but perhaps…. Perhaps….

"Lucy Heartphilia. Though with her death, I think we may have brought down the fire dragon slayer. He looks nearly ready to self destruct if you understand my meaning," Minnie replied tiredly with a hint of smugness. Out of all the people in the Dollhouse, the flaming dragon slayer had the strongest resolve the mental audacity to ignore her illusions.

Maybe he was just stupid.

Lacie halted all movement and turned slowly to Minnie.

"Lucy-chan…. You killed Lucy-chan?"

Minnie detected a sudden change in tone, as well as a swift drop in energy flow. There was no point to lying when the person you wished to hide things from was your creator and you were nothing more than a solidified extension of their emotions that fed on their thoughts.

"Yes," the doll answered simply. No reason to lie. No reason to care.

And yet…. That felt…. Wrong.

"Why? Why would you do that?" Lacie's eyes welled with tears, "Lucy was my friend!"

"She was going to leave because she loved the dragon slayer more than she loved you," Minnie murmured, looking at her hands. She felt unaccountable ashamed of herself. Guilt: a feeling totally foreign to Minnie. She had sent it upon many, but never received any on her own.

Never before had she been made to feel worthless.

"I was okay with that!" Lacie wept, "If I really loved her then I would be okay as long as she was happy!"

"That's a lie…." Minnie whispered, wringing her hands.

"It's not a lie if I believe it!" Lacie cried.

"But your heart says otherwise,"

"I could have suffered for her!" Lacie ranted her fury and sorrow building with each word, "I could have stood it for the only person who showed genuine compassion to me!"

"I'm…. sorry," Minnie mumbled, closing her eyes. If she had been human, she would have cried.

"What?" Lacie asked, stopping her tantrum to make room for surprise.

"I'm sorry," Minnie said, more loudly than before, "I'll fix it."

"You can…. Fix that? You can bring her back?" Lacie asked joyously, jumping up.

"If that is…. What you wish. But there is a price," Minnie's voice faded as she spoke, "A grievous price."

"I don't know what grievous means," Lacie told Minnie.

"Terrible. A terrible, terrible price to pay," Minnie said, looking into her master's eyes.

Crimson met violet, fear met resolve, and apprehension met empathy.

"Name it."

…..

Natsu's heart seemed to have ceased beating, and around him the world kept spinning. Gray came forward and told him they needed to leave, that it was dangerous, that he could grieve elsewhere. It may have seemed insensitive, but there was truth in his words, and even as he spoke there were tears in his own eyes.

Natsu wouldn't have given a damn if he turned to stone sitting where he did, Lucy with him. In fact, he would have liked it. The soft release from the hell on earth that lacked Lucy.

He was in somewhat of a state of denial. One part of him throbbed with two words at every beat of his heart.

"She's dead, she's dead, she's dead….."

While the other half cried loudly over the first, denying all of his senses.

"That can't be, she has to be alive, Lucy wouldn't die without me, she's alive."

"Natsu, come on…" Gray urged quietly, "We'll take her somewhere else."

"No."

"Listen, I know, I know how much it hurts, but we have to go, or else others might die here!"

"No."

"….. alright. A while longer then," the ice mage consented, "Can I sit here?"

Natsu gave no reply, but Gray sat anyways, taking the lack of 'No.' to mean 'yes'.

The whole group, Midnight Sun and Fairy Tail alike stood or sat in reverent silence for Lucy. Lucy, who, while not the strongest mage there was, definitely had more guts than most, and definitely more love then most. And even when her patience ran out, she still had a smile or two to give away out of the abundance of happiness that had been her home.

The joy she had that had lived in Fairy Tail, and the joy she had been that lived in Fairy Tail.

As Natsu shook with grief, he suddenly stiffened and raised his head, his lip curling in a snarl over his teeth, and the heat that had nearly died out flared around him once more, hotter and hotter until the air around him wavered, and Lucy's dress singed at the edges.

"Her," he spat, and that single word contained more venom than a thousand black mambas.

The double doors across the room swung inward, and a much hated pair came through.

Lacie stood, in excellent posture, hands behind her back, slightly in front of a now very subservient and weak looking Minnie.

"What do you want?" Natsu bellowed at them, not moving from where he sat, but sparks began to swirl in the furnace that was the room.

"We… I," Lacie corrected, "Want to repair the damage that I caused."