AN: Hey guys, this is the other half and much much much more condensed and cleaned up the chapter I'd been struggling with. (It had been nearly 5000 words) It's a good thing I go over these so much out of habit before spell checking because this was one big jumbled mess! I ended up taking out several parts because I came to the decision that it was far too soon to leak so much information all at once.
Lucy stared at the tall wave before her, her hand reaching out, "Lucy!" she heard his voice. At first, she'd thought she was hearing things and she would have continued thinking this if her body hadn't instinctively turned ever so slightly so she could look over her shoulder.
She stared at him, his eyes wide with shock, "Na…" she gasped out. Her fingertips twitched touching the wall of water ever so slightly.
Moments later it came collapsing around her, the water coiled around her trapping her as it pulled her under and away, "Lucy!" She could hear Natsu screaming for her. Even saw him rushing towards her.
Natsu's voice soon faded, the distance and depth between them too great. 'Natsu.' She thought a small smile tugging its way to her lips, her mind engraved with the image of Natsu rushing towards her despite the danger. Fear was written on his face, but it wasn't a fear of dying… it was the fear of losing her. It made her heart feel warm and it solidified her resolve to do this, 'Don't worry Natsu…' she thought as her fathers near invisible hold tugged her back down to the oceans floor.
Lucy dropped down to the seafloor with a disruptive crash causing the sand to be blown around, it fluttered around her unsettled much like her steadily descending strands of hair that slowly dropped back into place around her shoulders. Lucy stood up taking in a breath of fresh air despite being underwater thankful for Aquarius's supportive power to keep her grounded in human form, her father stood before her glaring down at her a watery hold still on her, 'I won't let him keep me here.'
Her father stared down at her disgusted, "Change out of that ridiculous form. You're not a human you're a mermaid!" he ordered disliking the sight of a human before him. Even if that human was his daughter disguised as a human. He could never accept them… He would never accept them… Not again.
Lucy glared back angrily at her father whose deplorable actions have claimed the lives of so many innocents, Aquarius's mark on her chest glowed brightly, pulsating with desire. Lucy let a scream rip through her throat as she tried to force her arms free from her father's hold, "Struggling is useless. You won't be leaving ag…" her father Jude started only to stop and gasp as his hold on her disintegrated leaving his very angry daughter unrestrained.
'I won't let you keep me from him again!' she thought standing up straight in front of her father. This time… this moment was way past due, but that's alright because this time… this moment… It would happen today! "Why are you doing this?" Lucy started her hands by her side shaking in anger.
Jude huffed, grounding his staff recognizing that it was currently useless, "That is such a pointless question, this is what you get for leaving without saying a word to me." He told her crossing his arms his displeasure written all over his face, "How could you, Lucy?"
Lucy frowned slightly, "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have left without speaking to you. It was a poor decision on my part. One I now deeply regret." She tells him in an angry robotic tone as if it had been something that was rehearsed millions of times before.
Jude crossed his arms over his chest swimming up to her, he looked on in disgust at the human form she chooses to stand in front of him in. How he wished he could cancel out the stars power and revert her back to her real form, "I'm glad you came to your senses and came back. A mermaid should not affiliate with those barbarians." He huffed. 'Damn, mana skin.' He mentally cursed Aquarius for assisting his daughter to be in such a state.
"I certainly wasn't looking forward to killing our locals to get you back." Jude said with a slightly sad smile that tugged at his lips for just a mere moment before it was once again gone replaced with a parental scolding glare, "You forced me to go to extreme's Lucy." He told her. "If you hadn't acted so selfishly, I wouldn't have had to lash out like that causing the deaths of a few hundred of our kind. You're the one who brought trouble not only on the barbaric humans' world but ours as well." He explained trying to justify his actions.
Lucy flashed back to all the helpless fish flopping around and endless corpses she'd walked pass to reach the wave. Lucy ground her teeth together, her first tightening at her side, "It's better that you don't associate with them anyways you're a mermaid you have nothing in common with those barbarians! Which brings me back to our conversation before you left dear it's about our family, I have arranged for you to marry…"
"I'm sorry father, but that marriage will not happen." Lucy so rudely cut him off and continued not giving him a chance to continue, "I didn't come here to make amends I came here to tell you my feelings and to say my final goodbyes." She explained to him making sure he understood that this was temporary. That she had no desire whatsoever on staying. "I accept that it was wrong of me to just leave without saying anything. It's a decision I've regretted every day and so I've come back to tell you exactly how I feel before I leave for good." She shouted wanting to make sure her father heard the words coming out of her mouth for once rather than his own.
'Natsu, I plan on coming back to you.' She thought, feeling a strength she'd never felt before whelming up inside her as she thought of Natsu and what could be.
Lucy wasn't sure if her decision to live on the surface was right, but there was only one way to find out… Lucy smiled slightly, "Father, long ago I discovered my ability to go to the surface." She told him truthfully. His eyes widened in surprise at the knowledge that she'd know about this for some time, "You see daddy, the marriage won't work because I've already given my heart to someone else."
Her father throws his hands up in the air in protest, "Preposterous!" Jude snarled already seeing where she was heading with this conversation and he didn't like it one bit. Jude reached out slamming his hands lightly down onto his daughters' shoulders, "Lucy do you understand what will happen if this human finds out your origin?!" he asked her seriously, "It could spell the end for not just you but our kind!"
Lucy looked away from his eyes for the first time to nod in agreement, "Your right that could happen…" she pauses looking back up at him with the most serious expression he'd ever seen on her face, "but what if it doesn't."
Jude growled out in frustration, "They will never accept another species and if they do it's only to trick them in the end!" he yelled. Jude's heart twisting in turmoil of memories he wished had never happened.
Her eyebrow twitched at her father's assumptions, "How would you know?! I bet you've never even met a human!" Lucy snapped.
Jude grip on her shoulders softened, 'Layla…' he thought, seeing the very spirit of his wife shining through their daughter. Jude's head bowed and Lucy could recognize the pain that shot across his face, "I have met a human. I didn't know him well," he stared his voice sounded wounded. Looking at him Lucy had no doubts if they hadn't been under the sea right now, she would be witnessing her father's tears for the first time, "but your mother did and because of that humans' actions she is gone!"
Lucy's eyes widened, "W-What? Y-You said…" she started reaching out to him. She'd never seen him look so hurt before…
Jude growled lowly his hatred in humans only deepening as his wife's death resurfaced in his mind. He'd spent so long… so many years of his time not able to mourn the loss of his wife because he was too busy protecting the one thing he had left of Layla. He'd be damned if he just sat there and let one of those bastards take her from him too! Jude turned away from her not wanting her to see him as weak, "I know what I said…" he said simply a slightly guilty look about hiding it from her presence on his face. When he peeked over his shoulder finding his daughter awaiting further explanation he sighed, "Under that tombstone… there's nothing, no casket… no body… nothing."
Lucy glared at him shaking her head from side to side, "Why?" she yelled fists balled at her sides.
Didn't she get it? Didn't he teach her enough to fill in the picture? Humans were cunning and cruel beings who lied to Layla to lure her away from them! Away from him… so he couldn't protect her. Jude growled lowly, "I'm telling you…!"
Lucy shook her head again, "No, I know there is more to that story! And judging from the sounds of it you don't know any more then what you've told me." She started raising a hand to point a finger at him, "So, for all you know mom could still be alive waiting for you to come and save her!"
Jude went to speak but stopped, looking down at his feet. No, there was no possibility… Jude lightly shook his head still looking at the sea's floor, "She's not Lucy… I wish she was but she's not." He said his voice coming out as a soft whimper. He wished his daughter would stop bringing it up. The last thing he needed was hope when he knew she was gone, "I know you won't believe me because you've never felt it before, but when you're are what the humans call mythical creatures and you're deeply in love with someone…" he started rubbing at the back of his neck. Anything to keep the feelings from taking over right? "you can sense it because of the feelings you both share and that-that feeling only goes away when they die." He finished explained hoping Lucy wouldn't continue tarring open old hopes his younger self use to embody but after many life-endangering searches and the disappearance of that feeling, even he had to accept it.
Lucy's hand reached up clutching the shirt just above her heart, "I know all about it." She told him
Jude stared at her dumbly… there was no way, right? She couldn't possibly be in love! "What?" he breathed out breathlessly, his level of anxiety at the confession rising. Where the hell had he been? How had he noticed all other threats to his child but this one?! He'd spent so much time trying to shield her from danger only for it all to blow up in his face when he came to realize Lucy had been sneaking off. When he had noticed she'd gone missing he'd chase after her, but by the time he'd start to leave to find her usually, she'd be back. Though her statement did clear up the confusion of his daughters' sudden bursts of happiness every time she came home. Oh god, what was he gonna do?! What was he gonna do!
Lucy walked up to him for the first time in years enveloping him in a soft hug and somehow his high level of anxiety began to dissipate but the fear of losing her still present. Lucy settled there comfortably before his arms came around her for the first time in ages. It took but a moment before she realized… he was shaking, "Lucy please… don't pursue this man. Please…" Jude started for the first time in a long time she felt his hand gently caress her back; much like he would when she was but a child wondering where her mother was and when mommy was coming home. It was something he would do to calm her and lull her to sleep, "I don't think I could bear it if I broke my promise to your mother or if lost you too…"
Lucy pushed him away a bit, "What promise?" she asked.
Jude frowned… Looking at her now he could see his words, his actions… they would not sway her. "To watch over and protect you…" he repeated his wife's words.
Lucy for the first time in ages smiled at him a genuine smile, "Thank you, daddy" she told him leaning up on her toes, kissing him on the cheek, "but I'll be alright, promise!"
Stepping away from arm's, Lucy jumped back, steadily floating upwards towards the shore, "Lucy!" Jude yelled trying to grab her using his power. When that didn't work, he swam after her catching her hand.
Releasing a soft sigh, "Daddy, I know trust takes years to build, seconds to break, and forever to repair, but even you should realize not all humans broke your trust. It was just one…" Lucy speaks wisely beyond her years. Rather than pulling her hand away from him she grabbed his other hand with her free one, "If you trust no other human that's fine but trust Natsu because I know without a doubt in my mind…" she paused leaning forward pressing her forehead to her fathers something he use to do to her when she was young and her mother was still with them, "that he will never hurt me." She told him, giving her old man's hands a slight reassuring squeeze before continuing, "I love you daddy."
He hadn't heard those words from her in so long that it shocked him and before he knew it, she was gone again. Jude's eyes widened practically flying up to the surface when his upper body shot up out of the water, he turned frantically looking for her only to find her on the beach being tackled by a human male with pink hair. Jude felt enraged, his hand rising above the water, his fingers twitched at his daughters' words forcing him to remember a time when a young Merman went against his parents who warned him against mixing species.
Jude's hand dropped back down into the water. It'd been so long since he'd seen it on her face. Such a bright smile… Since when-Since when had he become like his parents? Jude glared at the pinkette's back as the three walked away, a vein popping on his forehead as Natsu put an arm around her, his fists clenched tightly as a geyser of water shot up into the air hitting the humans means of surveillance out of the sky, the force made the plane crash into the ocean behind him. Jude growled, 'I'm so pathetic.' He thought, lifting the humans barely conscious forms that he'd saved out of the water, bringing them all in front of him he stared at them with a sharp stare and a strange aura surrounding him.