A/N: Once again guys, thank you all so much for the amazing response for the last chapter. I understand that many topics in this story have left many of you sharing your own experiences and thoughts and feelings, and I just want to thank you as I know how difficult that can be, and how hard putting your thoughts into words is. If this story has helped you in anyway, I know it's doing its job.

I am so sorry for the delay, but this chapter needed time.

WARNING: This chapter contains themes that some readers may find upsetting.
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Chapter Eight

We sat on the bed staring at each other. On top of the covers, wearing nothing but our underwear with our shoulders slumped.

My hair was tangled and needed cut. Natsu's fell into his eyes and was messy.

He smiled at me, leaning back on his hands and tilting his head gently. He looked at me as if I was a prize, sometimes. A precious prize that he couldn't believe he had.

A prize that I let him believe he had.

Even when he didn't.

We hadn't left his room since my arrival. The night had gone by in a blur. One filled with gentle kisses and passionate caresses.

When the sun had come up, neither of us noticed. The birds were singing, and the world was still, and when it was due to go back down again, all the words that I had been preparing to say began to fade away with its light.

I hugged my knees to my chest, my chin resting on the right as I turned my gaze towards the window. The blinds were open, and the sun set the fields in the distance ablaze, and I found myself smiling at the grass dancing to the beauty of nature's fire.

"What are you thinking?" He all but whispered, breaking our silence.

I turned to look at him as he lay back onto his elbows, a leg stretching out on either side of me. He was smiling. Why I didn't know, but he was.

At me.

Dropping one leg straight, I slid closer towards him, my foot coming over his hip as I curled the other under my body.

"Do you think beauty and destruction can coexist?"

Pulling a pillow over, he lay down, tucking his right hand under his head as he traced circles on my ankle with his left.

"Well, yeah," he answered, simply. "Neither are very hard to find when you look. It just depends on which one you're looking for the most."

I liked the way Natsu spoke.

He didn't try to sound deep or poetic. He just said what he thought. In its simplest form, he spoke truth.

And I admired that.

He shivered when I placed my hands on his thighs, but he didn't move them away. Like the rest of his body, they were littered with scars. Long ones, and short ones. Ones that ran deep, and others only in memories.

When I ran my hands along his legs, I could feel them, and his breath hitched, and I wondered if they still hurt.

"My dad was a bit of an asshole," he answered, nonchalantly. "Best day of my life was when I found out he'd been killed."

My fingers curled at his words.

"How did he die?"

His hand stilled on my calf, and he sighed, and I couldn't tell if it was out of remorse at how he had felt that day, or relief that he would never have to worry about seeing him ever again.

"Drunk son of a bitch fell into the canal," he answered, a tug at his lips. "I was fourteen. Feels like a lifetime ago, now."

His hand went back to its ministrations, and just like that, he was done talking about it, and it amazed me at how someone could be forgotten about so easily.

I took a breath, and he looked at me, and with pain, it spilled out.

"Six months, two weeks and four days," I choked out.

Brows knitted together, he slowly sat up, the question loud in his eyes.

"That's how long it has been since my mom died," I confirmed. "Six months, two weeks and four days."

His mouth was straight, and his eyes were sad. And like him, he could see that it felt like a lifetime to me too.

"Claire De Lune was playing," I recalled, closing my eyes at the memory. "And it was beautiful."

I lifted my hands from his thighs, hearing the music as I held them in first position.

"I was in my room, and she was watching me from the door," I smiled, my arms moving to second. "She loved Debussy, and she loved ballet, but she didn't stay, because she knew I had to practise."

My eyes stayed closed, and I could feel him watching me intently.

"I had a recital that night, and I wasn't ready," my arms continued to move to the music in my head, and Natsu continued to watch as I danced my memories before him. "I was wearing my black cardigan over my leotard, and I never wore black, but that day I did."

I felt the burning in my eyes and in my throat, the ball of pain slowly crawling up my gullet as the music got louder; the sweetness of the piano kissing the pictures in my mind.

"I didn't hear him at first," my voice was husky. "My father. My sister was out, and I was the only one who he had in that moment. . .and I didn't hear him. I didn't hear her."

A tear fell.

"The music was still playing when his cries finally broke through," I confessed. "And I didn't turn it off when I went to him. I walked towards him to the most beautiful melody. The halls were so quiet, but Claire De Lune followed me."

Another tear.

"I found him in the middle of the stairwell," I sobbed, my arms curling into my chest. "He was sitting over her, and his hands were covered in her blood as he tried to plug her head. And he was screaming. . .But all I could hear was the music."

I could hear Natsu's breath catch, his hand tightening on my leg.

"And then it ended, but the screaming didn't," I opened my eyes. "He was screaming for a towel, and I couldn't move. I couldn't move, and I should have. I should have been able to because he needed me. She needed me. And I couldn't."

My hands were shaking, and Natsu took them, holding them tight.

"She fell, and I would have had to step over her to get to the towels, and I couldn't," I looked at him through my tears, and he looked at me through his. "I gave him my cardigan. I gave him my fucking cardigan. She bled to the bottom of the stairs and I gave him my cardigan to stop it, Natsu. And it didn't stop it. It didn't stop it."

I couldn't breathe, and he could tell, and he pulled me in until my face was buried into his shoulder, running his hand over my hair while whispering his words of comfort as I broke.

"When the paramedics arrived, they handed me the cardigan back," I cried, clutching on to him. "I didn't know that you could see blood on black until that moment."

My hands were on his shoulders. My nails digging in until I knew I wasn't going to float away. I pulled back to look at him, and he brushed the hair from my face.

My ribs hurt, and my eyes stung, and I felt like I was going to crumble to dust right before him.

"If I had just got the towel, she might still be here," was my confession. "It's my fault she's dead, Natsu."

"Don't talk like that," he said, hand on my cheek as he stared deep into my guilt. "Don't you dare talk like that. You did everything you possibly could to save your mom, Lucy. Everything."

I sniffed, and I sobbed, and the hysterical cries wouldn't stop.

"They took her to hospital," I said. "They shaved her head, and fixed her bones, and when I went to see her, I walked straight past her because I didn't recognise her. I didn't recognise my own mother, and like a child, I held the nurse's hand, and she took me to her."

My hands moved to his neck, and I held him, my sobs dying as I continued to remember.

"She was in a coma, and for five weeks I visited her every day, and then one day, she was gone," I shrugged, and my lip quivered. "Just like that. She opened her eyes, looked to the ceiling, and just stopped. . .being."

He was silent.

Not because he wanted to be. But because he couldn't find anything to say that would take the pain away.

Instead, he pulled me back into him, hooking my legs over his hips, and wrapping me around him.

He let me use him as a rock. One to weigh myself down on. One to cry and hold onto until I was ready to let go. Until I knew I could breathe without.

"Natsu," it was a whisper, my lips kissing his shoulder. "Thank you."

His grip tightened, and I knew that was his response.

He was warm, and he was there, and in that moment, it was all I needed. In the darkness of the room, in the quietness of our embrace, it was time.

"Natsu?"

To be open.

"Yeah, Luce?"

To be honest.

"I'm pregnant."

To begin to move on.
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A/N: All I can say from this chapter, is thank you.