This is my exchange fic for lockandk3yfiction for the 2020 FTLGBTales Fairy Hearts exchange for Valentines Day. I really enjoyed writing this. I'll post a chapter a day until this is complete.
Disclaimer: I do not own Fairy Tail.
Water rivulets slid down a striped awning, muted in the rain-darkened blue light of late afternoon. Beneath it lay a tiled patio with two small tables of woven iron, and two chairs at each. It was at one if these that Lucy sat. She watched the wavering shadows of the water as they danced across her table, wholly entranced by the soothing patterns they formed on her arms. The chair and table were beginning to cool against her skin, but Lucy didn't mind so much - content to watch the shadows of rain droplets on her skin a little longer. Thin wisps of steam escaped the spout of the small teapot resting on the table beside her arms. The teacup was empty for the moment, but a significant amount of sugary sludge remained in the bottom, awaiting a refill.
Lucy drew in the balmy, humid air deep into her lungs before releasing it in a great gust. After the day she'd just had, the staccato beating of the rain on the awning was a comfort, as were the small splashes of the rain sliding onto the thin rail of the wrought iron fence separating the coffee shop patio from the rest of Magnolia.
It had been a day full of meetings and testimony with the Rune Knights. So long as Jose could claim that he was acting under a request from the father of a kidnapping victim, then Phantom Lord's actions a few days ago would carry an overtone of legitimacy. Unless Lucy put that to bed with her testimony on Jose's true intentions to take down Fairy Tail no matter what. Jude Heartfilia had provided the excuse, but Jose would have found another reason to wage war given enough time. He deserved to pay for threatening Lucy's friends, the family she had chosen, and the city she now called home.
Her gut ached still, but otherwise she had been given a good bill of health from Makarov's doctor friend with the stern face and bright pink hair. Compared to what could have happened, Lucy supposed she got off lucky. Natsu had rescued her in the nick of time. Twice. Erza had taken the brunt of a Jupiter Cannon blast, and protected Magnolia. Levy and her team had only just been released from the infirmary. And countless other friends had put their lives in the line of fire. Including Makarov.
Yeah, it could have ended a whole lot worse than it did.
The only thing Lucy couldn't seem to get rid of was the rising guilt over her father's involvement and instigation. It sat like a weight at the base of her throat, omnipresent and threatening her ability to breathe. That, and the sensation of constantly falling even though her feet remained firmly on the ground.
Discovering the coffee shop was a stroke of luck, and the scent of warm fruity tea and the petrichor of the summer storm passing overhead were finally starting to ground her. The rain dampening the heat of the season, relief flooded Lucy's body, cutting through the nervous energy that had kept her moving through everything the past few days.
Lucy tore her eyes away from the flickering shadows and light to pour another cup from her teapot. It smelled especially heavenly, helped along by the generous addition of sugar on Lucy's part. Although her sweet tooth had been nothing to sneer at before, Lucy had to admit that Erza was probably rubbing off on her a bit.
Movement out of the corner of her eyes froze her hand when the teacup was halfway to her lips, however. Carefully setting it back down, Lucy focused on the motion in the street beyond the fence. The mere existence of it was aberrant, the majority of Magnolia's citizenry driven to cover by the falling rain. An oddly shaped pink umbrella, with large red hearts embroidered on the sides and frilled along the bottom edge, swam into view.
Lucy felt her breath catch in her throat.
She knew that umbrella.
It belonged to a woman that she knew. The woman with blue hair, with dull eyes and a voice like dripping water. The woman that had abducted her and brought her to Phantom Lord. A woman accompanied by rain.
Memories of rainwater filling her lungs assaulted Lucy, driven into a terrifying, escalating frenzy spurred on by the sensory stimuli around her. As her breath began to quicken, it began to feel less and less like a memory from days past, and more cemented in her current reality.
The woman from Phantom Lord approached slowly, unaware of Lucy's fixated gaze. Her own was trained on the ground, her umbrella clenched in a white-knuckled grip and her shoulders hunched as she walked down the street.
Lucy saw her overlaid with a ghost of her doppelganger from Lucy's memories. Although this woman wasn't looking at her now, Lucy could see her dark eyes staring down at her, devoid of any spark, and her lips moved but with all of the rushing water and her own choked gasping and struggles Lucy couldn't quite make out what the blue-haired woman was saying and… it was something, but what was it? She couldn't-couldn't breathe-couldn't think-couldn't-
The woman passed in front of the coffee shop. Soon, she would be directly in front of Lucy, and then she would be gone down the street, out of sight. If Lucy kept quiet, she would move on without even noticing the Fairy Tail mage.
Lucy's mouth gaped wordlessly, all air driven from her lungs.
Couldn't breathe couldn't call for help couldn't reach her keys couldn't hear-
"Juvia!"
Startled by Lucy's sudden outburst, the woman halted in her tracks. Looking up, she met Lucy's gaze, cerulean strands of hair clinging to her face from the rain.
With that, Lucy's world snapped itself back into place with a sudden, sickening lurch and twist. It settled like a key turning into a lock, clicking into place. Unlike before, the woman's dark eyes were glistening in the half-light and absent of the dullness in Lucy's memories. For the first time, Lucy noticed that they were same blue as a rainswept sea.
Clarity swept through Lucy with the force of a tempest breeze, scattering the debris of her memories to the corners of her mind. But for the rain pouring down, time hung still in the air. Neither willing to break the shocked silence between them, they remained still and stiff, even as water dripped off the rainwoman's umbrella and stained the shoulders of her coat an even darker blue than her eyes.
It felt like one of those moments in Lucy's childhood storybooks in her father's library - the ones she had reread over and over again until the bindings fell out. Stories where the protagonist often faced a single decision that could decide fate, the future splitting into a new path before the readers eyes. A moment so often spoken of but so rarely felt or even recognized as it was occurring in reality.
Lucy hung on that precipice, held up only by the thin string of her remaining courage - stretched and ready to snap and send her into freefall once more.
Then the glow in Juvia's eyes dimmed, and her chin dipped. Her brow furrowed, her lower lip trembling. Shoulders hunched, Juvia lowered her umbrella closer to her body, and began to turn away, more withdrawn than before.
"Juvia!"
The rainwoman stopped once again. She half-turned towards Lucy, a question in her gaze. And maybe it was just wishful thinking on Lucy's part, but maybe… maybe she saw hope in that gaze as well.
Lucy swallowed thickly.
And took the dive.
"Do you want to sit with me and wait out the storm?"
The question surprised them both, if Lucy was reading the wide-eyed stare of the other girl correctly. And girl she was, now that Lucy was seeing her more clearly. Juvia probably wasn't any older than she was. Just a teenager.
"The storm never ends when Juvia is around." Juvia's words were matter of fact, spoken bluntly though they lacked any real edge required to make them cold.
Emboldened by her own actions, or perhaps guided by her stubborn streak, or maybe even by Juvia's not-quite-refusal, Lucy doubled down on her offer. "Then just stay here a while with me and pass the time."
Juvia hesitated. "...Why?" Her voice cracked on the single word, her eyes darting across Lucy's face in a desperate bid for understanding.
"Because I want you to." The celestial mage couldn't quite put her finger on it, but it was something she suddenly, deeply desired. With all her heart.
Kindness had always been Lucy's default, and now was no exception.
"Please?" she implored, when Juvia failed to respond.
"But didn't… didn't Juvia…" Juvia's lower lip trembled even harder than before, her face twisting up in pain. "Didn't Juvia and her guild… hurt you?"
That wasn't an outright refusal, either. Lucy would take it.
She thought about the question. There was a reason she'd called out to Juvia, she was certain of it. A reason to want to sit with her. Lucy reflected back on all of the meetings, and talks, and the chaos surrounding the conflict with Phantom Lord that she had endured up to that moment. There was one thing she'd been wanting to know this whole time, she realized. Something she hadn't been able to articulate, or had been too afraid to. Something that could really only be said straight from Phantom Lord's mouth and not from any other.
"Would you have done it - any of it - if you hadn't been ordered to?" she asked.
Lost, Juvia stared at her helplessly in the rain, not seeming to notice as more water soaked through her clothing. "...Juvia doesn't know," she finally answered, her voice hoarse and so quiet Lucy almost didn't catch it.
The honesty of the response struck a chord in Lucy. It wasn't the answer she had hoped for. Blaming everything on Jose and her father was much easier. If Juvia had pointed to her guild master, Lucy would have wholeheartedly accepted that. But instead of taking the easy, less painful path, Juvia had taken the one lined with the thorns of self-accountability and examination.
A genuine smile pulled at her lips unbidden, stretching slowly across her face. "Thank you, Juvia."
Juvia blinked rapidly in bewilderment. Juvia turned away from Lucy and hurried away, down the street, little splashes following in her wake.
Lucy watched Juvia depart, a little disappointed but curiously absent of the fear that had rocked her. Bringing her teacup to her lips, she was surprised to find that her drink had long grown cold. She sipped it anyway, the fragrance dimmed now but the sweetness and the taste of fruit on her tongue even stronger than before.
Fear couldn't survive in the face of kindness, so her mother had once said. Those words echoed in her head now. Words she'd kept deep inside of her heart for a very long time.
Next time she saw Juvia, Lucy hoped that she would be able to convince the rainwoman to take shelter with her. Next time she wouldn't be afraid or ashamed. Either of them. Next time… Next time.
But first… There was something else she needed to do. Something she'd been avoiding.
Draining the sugary slush at the bottom of her cup, Lucy stood up and returned inside the coffee shop with it and the teapot. When she emerged, she thought she saw a faint golden light breaking through the clouds, although it would take a while yet to reach Magnolia proper. It would be a clear night, bright and full of stars.
Maybe it was time she finally dredged up her courage and faced the cause of this whole mess.
Decision made, she retrieved her umbrella from the stand by the door, and made her way back home. She had a letter to write and a train ticket to purchase.
The rain continued to drum overhead, in time with the steady beating of her heart.