Chapter Nine: Forgiveness
A/N: Here we are. I'm actually pretty happy with how this story is turning out, not gonna lie. Now to fix the other ones T_T.
Gray lays on his back and stares at the ceiling as darkness takes the room over. It's quiet, peaceful, and so tempting to disrupt.
"Oi, you awake?" He says and at first he's met by silence. "Hey." This time the movement in the bed beside him makes Gray twitch in annoyance. There's no way Natsu is asleep. "I know you're up." Gray says and for extra measure he launches one of his pillows at the neighboring bed.
"Yes, yes I'm awake." Natsu growls as he tosses the pillow back. "When you're a parent, I'll disrupt your peaceful sleep so you see how it feels." Natsu says and Gray can tell the pinkette is very annoyed with him right now but he can't help but smile at his success.
"It's weird to think you're a parent. You have a whole child."
"Well I don't have half of one."
"Okay, I learned my lesson, I won't wake you up anymore. Mavis you're cranky." Natsu then very audibly sighs and Gray can hear the springs of his bed as the pinkette shifts.
"Sorry."
"Nah, I woke you up. I should apologize." Again, the pinkette just sighs.
"You still mad?"
"A little." Gray admits and this time Gray shifts to a more comfortable position for a conversation. "How is it? Being a father and with guild responsibilities?"
"Hard." He admits. "I have a place in Magnolia, well, Crime Sorciere does. It's where I stay most of the time. But Sonya is mostly with Ultear at the main base for her guild."
"How far is it?"
"Farther than I want it to be. A two day journey?"
"Wow, that is far."
"Yeah." And they fall in silence. Gray looks around the shadows of the room, trying to find something to talk about. "Why were you so mad?" This time, it's Gray's turn to sigh.
"You've been so calm this whole time, I wanted to get you riled up. So I riled myself enough for the both of us. I just… can't wrap my head around this." Natsu then chuckles.
"I miss these." He admits and Gray raises a brow. "Late night serious conversations that the girls would never believe actually happen." They both then chuckle, imagining what the look on their faces would be. "Is it that weird? All of this?"
"How weird was it for you to see us?" Natsu doesn't respond. "Yeah, it's that weird."
"Why've you been acting so bipolar?" This time it's Gray's turn to be silent.
"I feel like I should be mad at you, but I'm not." Gray then narrows his eyes. "Holy shit, I'm treating you like some responsible adult. You aren't supposed to be some adult older than me! You aren't supposed to have a kid, we're supposed to have kids at the same time and they were supposed to be rivals."
"Yeah. And I was supposed to have a son named Igneel."
"Original."
"Oh yeah? And your child's name wasn't gonna be Ur?" Gray grumbles under his breath, fully aware that, yes, if he had a daughter he would probably have named her after his master. "Exactly." Gray then smiles, adjusting to the odd admission of his old friend.
"If I had a son, it was gonna be Silver." They then laugh at the idea of a future that really can't be. "In the dark, it's so much easier to pretend." Natsu can't help but agree, it really is so much easier. "What's it like being a parent?"
"I already told you."
"No, outside of guild duties." Natsu pauses for a moment and really thinks on the answer. He looks over to the dark outline of Gray. A young mage realistically unsure of where his life is headed, no solid plans for an ever changing future. And the pinkette doesn't want to lie, not to someone fully aware of what life has in store.
"It's like a long quest," he begins, and Gray slowly accepts what he is sure will turn into an extended metaphor. "A quest that you know is gonna end in seventeen, eighteen years, maybe less. And sometimes you want it to be over… and other times, you pray it'll never end." Natsu knows there are hidden insecurities in his words, but a part of him needs Gray to hear them to better understand parenthood. "So, as if I were to take a nearly endless train knowing Igneel were at the end." Gray laughs at the analogy but finds it oddly easy to understand. Natsu then pauses, knowing there is always more to add but he decides what may get one final point across. "Or, maybe, if you had to kill someone but you knew they'd be revived right after. You still have to kill them."
"Whoa, that got dark."
"Yeah. Sometimes it gets dark." Natsu says in an odd tone that makes Gray not want to press. They sit in silence for some time after as Gray absorbs the words, perhaps not fully understanding them but he commits the metaphors to memory, hoping someday they will make perfect sense.
"How can you leave Sonya like that?" The pinkette sighs again as he rolls onto his back.
"We already had this conversation, ice prick." Natsu says with a growl in the back of his throat.
"Yeah, okay, because of her magic." Gray scoffs and rolls his eyes. "I've seen how you guys are with her. And you're strong mages." Natsu scratches the back of his head in a moment of thought.
"You're right." He admits and Gray waits for the but. "But at the same time, as a parent, you suddenly get paranoid about the smallest things." He then heaves an even heavier sigh. "We got a bit cocky, thought we were strong enough. And a few years back we almost paid for it." Natsu says and his response is silence. "We don't want to ever put Sonya in harms way again. Even if it's at the risk of our relationship, I'd rather her be alive and happy." And with that, the conversation is over to the pinkette. The calm mood having sobered considerably and Gray realizes he's reaching some sort of line. The ice mage takes a moment of thought before deciding to not press the irritable pinkette and he opts to fall asleep.
The next day the group meets outside of the hotel, Lucy is the last one as she takes the most time to get ready.
"Okay guys, here we go!"
"Um, where are we going?" Wendy asks, timid as ever, and everyone looks to the blonde.
"You did take into account how the world has changed, right, Lucy?" Ultear asks and Lucy just smiles.
"Of course I did." She says as they walk through the town. "I looked into how the area of the old Guild Master meeting place was so destroyed because of… reasons, that they had decided to simply not rebuild it. Or anything there, for that matter." And when they reach the place, there are still some remnants of rubble and a crater where Lullaby had landed, bright green grass in its place.
"Yes. Destroyed because of 'reasons', huh." Natsu says with a smile as he looks towards the mountain range, forever altered by the demon. Smooth, Luce, he chuckles as this brings back all the great memories. "Do you have a plan?"
"I can't come up with all the plans! I just brought us to a good, secluded spot." Lucy says and raises her hands in defense.
"And a nice secluded spot works perfectly for what we were gonna do." Natsu then says and Ultear shares his smirk.
"I said I did not want a Natsu-training trip."
"Me neither." The pinkette agrees.
"These past seven years," Ultear then picks up and pulls out her orb, "they have discovered a secondary magic container. Which, if unlocked, will release your greater potential. It's supposed to take years of training and honing magical ability, but if I were to speed up the process, I could unlock it in a few hours. Then you could simply train to adjust."
"Would unlocking it really do a lot for us?" Wendy then asks and Carla steps forward.
"What does unlocking it mean?" She speaks up, dotted brows furrowed.
"Yeah, it's worth it." Natsu says then shrugs. "It's really painful, but the power boost would catch you up in no time."
"How painful?" Wendy asks but then clenches her fist. "Nevermind. I'll do it." She says with a sharp nod.
"It's better than you training us." Gray agrees and the pinkette smirks.
"I'll get something for you to bite down on." Natsu says with a laugh and he races away from their fearful glances.
"Okay, who's first?" Ultear asks as her globe floats, glowing a suddenly ominous purple-red.
Natsu comes back, and rather than something for them to bite on, he has individual treats for each person. A bag for most of them, and a cake for Erza. However, when he returns, he sees Erza casually sitting on a log and not undergoing the enhancement.
"I almost feel like not giving you this cake." He says jokingly as he passes her the desert. They both look on to see Ultear standing over the withering trio. "Man, I remember that." He says with a phantom wince.
"When did you do it?" Erza asks before taking a larger bite of her cake. He then sits next to her and opts to watch his friends try to become stronger.
"When Ultear found out she was pregnant." The pinkette states and leans back to look at the sky. "I didn't want to. Not at first. I thought it was like cheating. But I was gonna be a parent and I needed to be strong." He says with a shrug.
"Yes, that makes the most sense." She then pauses in her cake eating and looks at him.
"They're doing better than you did." Ultear says as she heads over to them, her work mostly done.
"Well, they don't have a hormonal pregnant woman doing it." She then innocently forms a new orb that hits him in the back of the head. "Point taken." He says through gritted teeth, but then smiles at the mother.
"How much longer?"
"An hour?" Ultear says and analyzes her orb. "A little over that." Erza nods at the words before contentedly eating her cake.
Afterwards, the exhausted trio cannot find the strength to train and no one sees it as an unreasonable request. They carry the three mages back to the hotel, and regardless of Gray's prideful groans the other two are eternally grateful for not having to walk.
"I can walk." Gray tells the pinkette charged with carrying him.
"Sure you can." Natsu agrees. "I had legs of steel after I did it."
"So you know I can!"
"You dumbass, that was sarcasm." Natsu then rolls his eyes and lays the ice mage on his bed. They both ignore the wince the man has at simply being laid down. "You'll feel better soon." The pinkette says with a laugh as Gray groans in protest, hoping soon isn't some sort of lie.
The next day, they go to the field again, the three trying to stretch the pain out of their muscles. Erza again finds herself sitting on a log eating some cake, a sunhat on and a pair of sunglasses, as if on a vacation rather than a training trip. Just then, the sound of a bell sounds and Virgo appears in the field right before Lucy was going to summon her.
"Princess Lucy, there is an emergency in the Spirit Realm." She says and in a moment they are all around the spirit, sending each other worried glances. "We need you all to come immediately."
"What are we waiting for? Take us now." Erza says after changing in her battle armor. Virgo then takes them through a portal they have no time to truly appreciate, and then they land to see the world oddly colorful.
"Surprise!" All of Lucy's spirits shout and throw colorful streamers that seem like fireworks in the Celestial realm. Even the towering Spirit King is there, his beard colored for the event. They all appreciate the amount of time the spirits must have put into the celebration, from their outfits to the decor and even the wide variety of food.
"We all missed you, Princess." Virgo says and Lucy cups her mouth, completely overwhelmed as tears prick her eyes.
"You guys..." She sniffles before showing a bright smile. "Thank you." And the spirits shout for joy as they crowd their favorite summoner.
"How've you been?" Leo asks as he goes up to the abandoned mages. He looks at Gray with a smile. "The exams went to shit, but hey, I think we had a great chance."
"Hell yeah we did." Gray agrees as they clasp hands. Natsu watches for a moment and places his hands on his hips.
"So what, you were his partner for the exams? How did that work?" Leo then looks to the pinkette with a half smile.
"Natsu! Man, it's been a long time. I hear you've been with Fairy Tail these past couple of years." He then spots the guild mark and his smile grows wider. "You came back! When did that happen?"
"It didn't. I'm just doing it for the Games." He then looks to Ultear. "You know Ultear, right?"
"Last I saw her she was an enemy." Leo says and narrows his eyes. As his hostility grows, he doesn't miss Natsu shift to be slightly in front of the woman, a dangerous gleam in his eyes.
"Not anymore." His words don't have any of the killer intent that his demeanour shows.
"Ultear." Another spirit hisses, and Natsu is quick to shift his glare to Capricorn. The spirit is always calm, however on the sight of the ex-Grimoire member, Natsu can tell the mask is cracking.
"Capricorn, it's okay!" Lucy says as she comes over, smile still bright on her face. "It's okay, I promise. Her and Natsu are an item." She says with a devilish shine in her eyes. Capricorn takes a moment to compose himself before eyeing the pinkette up and down.
"Hello Natsu, I don't believe we have met."
"No, we haven't." The pinkette agrees before smiling. "Capricorn, huh? I think I expected you to look different." He says and cracks a smile.
"I told you about Capricorn, right, Natsu?" Ultear says as she steps up. "And I can take care of myself." She lightly punches his shoulder and he smiles at her. "Sorry about before, Capricorn." She says to the spirit and he nods in acceptance. "Don't let me ruin the fun," she makes a point of ignoring Natsu's hummed protest of her wording, "they're back! Isn't this a party?"
"Everyone else is enjoying it, you're the only ones not." Lucy says and motions to the festival happening behind her. Natsu then laughs and wraps his arms around Ultear's waist.
"Well who are we to turn down a nice party, huh?"
"Yeah, we've got three months away from Sonya, let's enjoy one party, right?" They both then smile and the group wastes little time in joining the celebrations. Natsu becomes almost as equally crowded as Lucy when the spirits recognize him as the human who sees them as equals. They party and even get their hands on some drinks, trying to enjoy the day while they have it.
After hours of partying with few questions, everyone has tired themselves out and all are ready to go home.
"Thank you so much guys. This really means so much, I was worried-" Lucy says with a bright smile.
"We get it." Aquarius interrupts her in her usual harsh manner. "Go to Earthland now. And remember, don't summon me outside of a suitable source of water." Lucy nods, understanding the meaning beneath the words.
"I'll summon you all soon." She promises before turning to see everyone waiting for her by the Spirit King.
"So, how long were we really here?" Ultear asks and everyone turns to her.
"Huh?" Wendy asks, blinking a few times as she tries to understand the words.
"Time flows differently in this realm." She elaborates and the Spirit King's mustache twitches.
"It's a day for three months." His voice doesn't echo in the Spirit Realm the same way it does on Eathland and Lucy finds herself thankful for that.
"Whoa, really?" Gray says, eyes glimmering with excitement. "So we could just stay here and train for a few Earthland days, we'd be unstoppable in the games!"
"Gray… I think you misunderstood him..." Lucy says, her eyes beginning to grow in newfound fear. "It's… three Earthland months for one day here." They all then quickly look from Lucy to the Spirit King, eyes wide.
"Is it true?" Erza says sharply. "Have we really lost all three months here?" She then looks to Virgo. "Send us back immediately. We have not lostall our time yet."
"She doesn't mean to be so harsh, Virgo. But could you send us back?"
"Of course, Princess." And in a flash, they find themselves back in the field, wearing the odd spirit clothing they had been gifted close to the end of their stay in the other realm. They look around to see the dark sky, but how many days had passed they are uncertain.
"Did we really lose all the time we had?" Wendy asks while holding Carla in her arms. Natsu takes a moment to orient himself, both him and Ultear had gotten themselves intoxicated as the party continued, and it was not the time to be disoriented.
"I don't know, but regardless there's nothing more we can do tonight, right, Ul-dear?" Natsu says with a side smirk. "Lets head back for now." Ultear nods with a smile and he wraps an arm around her shoulders. "Or should we head somewhere else before going to the hotel?" They then laugh together and the others and the group look at them.
"Go and have some fun, we'll figure this out." Gray says with a smile, officially forgiving Natsu after all. However, although Lucy processes his words and their meaning, she can't help but watch the two receding backs and can't prevent the feeling of sadness that claws its way into her heart.
"If we go back to the hotel, they should be able to tell us the date."
"Will we even have rooms still?" Carla asks from Wendy's arms.
"Let's just go to the hotel." Erza says with a tone of finality. The walk isn't long but as soon as they walk in they know three months had passed. A male they had never seen before is behind the counter, and the room holds no one even remotely familiar. Erza takes charge in going to the male behind the counter and the others stay put by the door.
From a distance, Lucy can see Erza's conversation with the hotel worker does not go well and as the redhead returns they all already know what she is going to say.
"Almost three months have passed. However, they do have one available room."
"Let's just get it and be thankful there are any." Lucy says with a depressed sigh. "Natsu and Ultear will find us." When they reach the room, they find two twin beds. Lucy, Wendy, and Carla take one, and for the moment Erza takes the other. Gray sets up two makeshift beds on the floor and they leave a single light on.
"We only have one week until the games?" Lucy echoes as if continuously saying it will make it false or easier to comprehend. So far, neither has happened.
"What are we gonna do?" Wendy then asks and Lucy places a comforting hand on her back.
"With Ultear's boost, we're in good shape." Gray then says as he stands up from his makeshift bed.
"Yes, in one week plenty can be done." Erza agrees with a firm nod.
For a moment, Ultear and Natsu thought they saw their friends pass the restaurant the couple had chosen to go to. But, on a second glance, the group is gone like they never existed. They found a nice, small table and ordered some wine and a nice meal. They didn't need anything harder than wine as they already feel a buzz and they aren't trying to be hungover the next day. Natsu had resolved to keep his inner warmth low so he could appreciate everything the way his partner does. He learned that it's more fun that way.
"Remember when we'd go out all the time? I kinda miss it." Natsu says as their conversation slows towards the end of their meal.
"Kind of?" Ultear looks at him with a raised brow. "I miss it. We can miss it without regrets. Sure, after I got pregnant I couldn't have anything to drink."
"We didn't have anything to drink." Natsu says and she laughs at him.
"Thank Mavis we aren't alcoholics or anything. You didn't have to do that."
"I know. But I couldn't experience the pain with you, so I thought I'd do everything else with you." He says and her bright smile becomes softer as she just looks at him.
"I love you." The words slip out. It's not some confession, they've said it hundreds of times before, but looking in each others eyes the happiness that swells within them isn't the usual kind.
"I want to marry you." Natsu then blushes at his lack of control. Perhaps the alcohol loosened his tongue, or maybe he felt too much love to contain, and he wants to store it all in a ring that is visible proof of their love. She sucks in a quick breath and holds it for a moment. Neither of them breath and they bite their tongues. Finally, Natsu decides to break it. "Can I selfishly ask that of you?" She then closes her eyes and sighs. She reaches her hand across the table and he gently takes it in his own.
"If the ring is pretty enough." Ultear looks up at him once more, dark eyes shining and full of love for the pinkette. "Where ever you go, I'll follow. If Sonya has to leave, to hell with it, I was on the run before and I can do it again." They both smile, a soft genuine smile that seems more meaningful than the bright sunshine smiles meant for a more public display of affection. They send each other the smile that is shared like a secret in a code only they understand, with the perfect crinkle and sparkle in their eyes, and their brows raised slightly at the prospect of an entirely new yet familiar life.
-x-
Their relationship was odd at first and something the guild had to adjust to. They didn't all trust Ultear and no one trusted her entirely, but when she told them what really happened with Natsu they began to warm up to her. They had to, or she would have gone straight to Natsu and they couldn't have that.
With the new couple, they started things slow. Ultear came to live with Natsu in his home while Meredy had found a home in Erza's old room with express permission from the other females. They extended the offer to Ultear but she had declined.
With no one else in the house, Ultear and Natsu's relationship blossomed. Not only because of being with someone both attractive and of their preferred sex, although that definitely became a factor as the sexual tension only increased, but also in the quiet moments.
Ultear was the first to break down as they had gotten closer and before they became a couple. The pinekette had leaned in to finally kiss her but at the last moment she pulled away. Her guilt and his heart broken face made her feel all the more guilty and she broke down in tears. He comforted her, begged her to not leave, and settled for planting a soft kiss on her forehead as he tried to drill into her that she had nothing to be sorry for, not anymore. He begged of her to not blame herself and beat herself down.
Natsu broke down not too long after. Ultear had come home from shopping to a quiet house, which really wasn't new for them but Ultear could tell something was off when she saw the pinkette. He was just sitting at the table with a cold mug in his hands. On the table in front of him was a small green fabric. Ultear wasn't sure what it was but she was sure it was important. She sat with him and took his hand as he explained that it was Happy's first possession and that Lisanna had gotten it for him. It had been long forgotten, buried in Happy's small pile underneath a floorboard Natsu had stumbled upon. He had sat there in misery and mourning over his lost friends and Ultear then held him and comforted him. They helped each other pick up their broken pieces.
A/N: There you lovely people are, a bit from the past seven years. Thought it'd be cute to throw in here. Thank you all so very much for reading, please review because it just makes my day and I love to hear what you think and what I need to improve on. I posted this because it's my birthday and I wanted to give you a gift. Well, thanks again! Next time, see ya!