Natsu tumbled to a halt against the far wall of the tiny room, just in time to hear the click of the lock on the door. He didn't know what the hell had hit him, but it had hurt. And more importantly, it had separated him from Gray, leaving the ice wizard alone with a murderer.

"No," Natsu whispered, pushing himself upright and scrambling towards the door. His leg protested, but Natsu ignored the pain. If he could just push himself a little further, enough to get back to Gray, he could rest all he wanted afterwards. They both could.

On the other side of the wall, Gray started to scream. It was loud, panicked, and wordless, and he sounded like he was in pain.

Before he even had time to think, Natsu was throwing himself against the door, screaming back to Gray. He'd expected the door to give, possibly even break, under his weight, but it was like hurling himself against a brick wall. Or, more accurately, like hurling himself against a wall made of whatever had knocked him into this room in the first place.

Natsu was screaming loud enough that he almost didn't hear it when Gray's screaming stopped. It was abrupt, ending in a harsh, painful sound, and followed by silence.

"GRAY!" Natsu yelled at the top of his lungs, loud enough to hurt his throat, but there was no answer, and the door wasn't breaking. Natsu wasn't even sure that his magic would be able to get through.

"No, no, no, no, no! " Natsu whipped his head around, looking for anything that could get him out of this room, and back to Gray before whatever had stopped him from screaming stopped him from breathing, too.

There was another door on the other side of the room. Instantly, Natsu threw himself towards it. As he lunged forward, the ice splint on his leg gave way, and Natsu's broken leg collapsed under his weight.

It hurt, badly enough that Natsu screamed again, but not badly enough to stop him from trying to get back to Gray. If he had to crawl, he would.

And he did, through the door and into a hallway. As soon as he made it through the door, he caught Gray's scent. It was saturated with terror, and intermixed with a scent that Natsu didn't recognize, but it was easy to track.

Natsu followed his nose down the hallway, crawling as fast as he could, dragging his broken leg behind him. He was dizzy with the pain, and every time he accidentally put his weight on his leg, he was afraid he would pass out.

But the sound of Gray's broken scream kept him going, until he rounded the corner and saw him.

Gray was being held aloft in the air. There was nothing visibly holding him - all Natsu could see was a slight shimmer in the air around Gray. He was being held just high enough that the tips of his boots skimmed the ground. The wood beneath him was red with blood where he'd fallen, and it looked like the ice patch he'd put over the stab wound had stopped working.

Gray didn't seem to be struggling. At first, Natsu wasn't sure why. There was nothing visible to struggle against, but still, it wasn't like Gray to just give up and die. And while there was a lot of blood, Natsu didn't think it was so much that Gray would have already passed out.

Then, Natsu actually saw Gray's face. It had been pale before, but now it was so red it was almost purple, suffused with blood. His chest was still moving weakly as he heaved for breath, but he was clearly choking. That's why his scream had cut off. He wasn't struggling against Rinel's magic because he physically couldn't.

Natsu's heart started to beat faster. How long had he been stuck in the room? One minute? Two? It looked like Gray might still be conscious, but only barely. Had he been without oxygen for that long?

How long could he survive?

Natsu couldn't see Rinel from his spot at the end of the hallway. He tried to get to his feet again, but his body continued to betray him. Natsu was shaking so badly he couldn't even get his good leg underneath him, let alone his bad one.

Natsu started to crawl forward again. Every second, he was aware that Gray was still choking, that Gray was being forced to go a little longer without oxygen, that Gray was closer to death. But Natsu was very nearly spent, and he could only force himself to go so fast. He knew it was a miracle that he was still able to move at all.

Finally, Natsu was able to get an angle on Rinel. He was still at the top of the stairs. It seemed he'd been unable to shake himself free from Gray's ice magic - Natsu could still see it holding his legs tight in place.

Natsu couldn't tell if Rinel saw him. Either way, it didn't really matter. His attention was entirely focused on Gray. It clearly took some effort for him to maintain the spell.

There wasn't much space in the hallway. If Natsu shot fire at Rinel, it would be difficult to avoid hitting Gray. Natsu knew Gray probably couldn't survive a burn right now. But Natsu thought he had a clear shot, there seemed to be just enough room….

Using magic was always much easier for Natsu when he could yell and run and jump. He still sometimes struggled to cast without speaking. But he did not want Rinel's attention to shift onto him, and Gray's life lay in the balance.

Natsu used the wall to drag himself to his knees. He leaned his shoulder against the wall, anchoring himself as best he could, and took a deep breath in.

Then, he locked his eyes on Rinel, making sure he was aware of the space he could use without hitting Gray. When he was sure he had a shot, he opened his mouth and screamed, unleashing all the rage and fear he'd been holding back for the past few days. The roar accompanied a jet of flame, the heat so intense that Natsu saw the ends of Gray's hair curl as the fire shot past him and slammed straight into Rinel's chest.

Natsu didn't bother to check to see if Rinel was dead. When the fire hit, there was a brief scream, then the sound of a body falling. Natsu had heard that sound enough times to know that Rinel wasn't getting up again, not after his fire.

As Natsu pushed himself off the wall, the shimmering around Gray's body faded, and he dropped heavily to the floor. He landed in an awkward tangle of limbs, one arm trapped under his body, his face turned away from Natsu. He wasn't moving.

"Gray, come on, come on, come on," Natsu whimpered, pushing himself off the wall and collapsing in a heap as his limbs shook beneath him. Desperately, he crawled a few more feet, until he could reach out and touch Gray. The ice wizard was half on his stomach, face pressed into the wooden floor, and he was cold to the touch.

Colder than usual, that is. Natsu moved to Gray's face, taking his boyfriend's jaw in his hand and tilting his head gently, until Gray's cheek was resting on the floor facing Natsu.

"Mnnh." Gray's voice was hoarse, and almost inaudible, but his eyes were open and he was blinking at Natsu.

"Gray," Natsu whispered, fighting back the stupid urge to cry. He'd cried enough, and now everything was over. "Are you okay?"

Gray winced, closing his eyes. The hand that wasn't trapped under his stomach drifted towards his throat, ghosting across a series of nasty bruises that had blossomed on his neck.

"I'm sorry," Natsu said softly. "I came as fast as I could. Looks painful…."

Gray didn't say anything, but Natsu did get a slow blink in response. In the stillness of the house, he could hear Gray's labored breathing filling the hallway with a horrible rasping sound. Every inhale sounded painful, and judging from the expression in Gray's half-glazed eyes, they were.

Natsu couldn't ask Gray to walk. There was no way the other wizard would even be able to sit up. At this point, it would be a miracle if Natsu could even get him to form a full sentence. And as much as it pained him to admit it, Natsu knew he couldn't walk either. His leg was throbbing, and as soon as Rinel had dropped, the adrenaline had fled his system and left him shaking so badly that he couldn't even stand on his good leg.

Which meant…at least for now, they were stuck here. Which was bad. But, while Natsu was in a lot of pain, he didn't think he was going into shock just yet. He could think clearly, and he was still able to crawl around pretty well. He would take care of Gray for…as long as he needed to. Until he could think of some other sort of plan.

"Lemme…lemme take a look at this," Natsu said, gesturing vaguely towards the wound in Gray's stomach. "I'm gonna…t-turn you over, okay? Might hurt a bit for a secon', but then you'll be more comfortable."

Natsu reached out a hand, and managed to slowly roll Gray onto his back. Gray groaned as Natsu moved him, but even that small vocalization sounded painful and forced. Once Gray was on his back, Natsu crawled closer to him and adjusted his arms into a position he hoped was natural and comfortable. Gray seemed entirely too weak to move his limbs on his own.

"Okay, okay," Natsu whispered. "Ya with me still?"
Gray managed a slight, painful-looking nod. Natsu wasn't sure how much longer he would be able to stay conscious.

"Imma look at this," Natsu muttered. He adjusted the tattered remnants of Gray's coat away from the wound in his stomach. His hands were so numb that he had to concentrate to get his fingers to close around the fabric. He wasn't sure when they'd gotten that clumsy. It didn't seem like a good thing.

Gray's stab wound actually…didn't seem to be bleeding as badly as Natsu had expected. The ice patch was completely gone - it seemed to have cracked off when Rinel had attacked. But it looked like the initial application of cold had somewhat served to sear the wound shut, the same way Natsu might have with fire. The torn edges of Gray's skin were whitish and almost blistered-looking, which Natsu was sure was bad but at least seemed to be keeping him from bleeding.

Now that Natsu was pretty sure Gray wasn't in immediate danger of bleeding to death from the stab wound, Natsu decided to turn his attention to Gray's throat. He wasn't really sure how damaged it was. It was painful, obviously, but Natsu didn't know if it was just the kind of bruised that would heal up in a few days or if Rinel had crushed his windpipe.

"How well can ya breathe?" Natsu asked.

Gray was too weak to shrug, but he managed to gather the strength necessary to roll his eyes.

"Just hold up your fingers," Natsu said.

Gray hesitated, then curled his thumb and pinky in to hold up three fingers. If someone else had held up three fingers, Natsu might have thought that was pretty good. But he knew Gray, and he knew that for Gray to admit there was anything wrong at all, something must be pretty wrong indeed. Gray was struggling to breathe, and Natsu…really wasn't sure what to do about it.

Gray sucked in a wheezing, painful-sounding breath. He screwed up his face, clearly concentrating hard, and then managed the smallest, most breathless-sounding whisper Natsu had ever heard. Natsu had a pretty good guess of what Gray had been planning to say, otherwise, he probably wouldn't have been able to hear him.

"Rinel…dead?" Gray asked.

Natsu nodded. "He's dead. It's all over, Gray. You done good."

Gray closed his eyes, and something approximating a sigh of relief escaped his lips. His jaw relaxed slightly, and as some of the desperate focus left his face he just looked exhausted and in pain.

"It's okay," Natsu whispered, grabbing one of Gray's hands from where it lay on the floor and squeezing it tight. One of Gray's eyes slid open, and Natsu saw a faint smile twitch the corner of his lips. He didn't think that he imagined it when Gray squeezed his hand back, ever so faintly.

That should have made Natsu feel better. Gray hadn't smiled the whole time he'd been in this house, not even when he'd gotten Natsu freed. He'd looked relieved, buried under a layer of panic that had only faded now.

But his hand was cold and weak, and it looked like the smile was all he could manage. His eyes closed again, and his hand relaxed in Natsu's grip.

"You gotta stay awake," Natsu told him. He moved his free hand to Gray's face, not letting go of Gray's hand, and brushed his overly long bangs back. Gray pretended not to like it when Natsu stroked his hair, but Natsu knew he was lying.

Gray moved his face into Natsu's hand with another rattling, painful inhale. His eyes didn't open.

"Just keep breathin,'" Natsu told him. "Even though it hurts."

He didn't want to think about it. He'd been trying to ignore it since he realized that he couldn't move another step, but now he couldn't avoid it any longer.

There was a chance the two of them wouldn't make it out of here. It still didn't feel very real to Natsu - the prospect of death never did. But he couldn't move, and Gray sounded like he was a few breaths away from passing out. Once he did, if help hadn't come by then, Natsu knew he wouldn't last much longer. After that, Natsu would be alone. He could die too, of starvation or exposure, before anyone even found them.

There was also the possibility that Gray would die here, in his arms, and Natsu would still be found. That felt a little more real, and therefore infinitely more terrifying. Natsu felt his breathing speed up a little, and forced himself to slow it back down as he continued stroking Gray's hair. Like it or not, there was nothing more he could do but wait for rescue.

"That's the house," Doranbolt whispered, nodding towards a small townhouse with a van in the driveway. Erza clenched her gauntleted hand around a greatsword and started forward.

"Wait," Lahar hissed, catching her arm and immediately letting go of it as she whirled on him. "Um, backup?"

"There's no time!" Erza said angrily, striding forward again. She and Lahar had left the courtroom…god, it had to have been over an hour ago at this point. They'd met up with Doranbolt, which had taken some doing, as he'd been mid-investigation when they'd contacted him. However, he'd already figured out that Rinel had a contact named Tony, who owned a property just outside of Magnolia. He'd had to pay off a few people to get the address, but that was worth it. Once Erza had known about the house, she was almost completely positive that that's where Natsu was being held, and most likely where they'd taken Gray after the trial.

Doranbolt had agreed, although Lahar was slightly more skeptical. He believed Tony was there, and maybe Rinel too, but he thought it seemed like too obvious of a place to hold Natsu and Gray. He'd called for emergency backup to clear the place out, in case it was a trap, but Erza didn't want to wait for that. She could clear it out herself. Lahar and Doranbolt could be her backup.

From the outside, it wasn't clear whether the house was inhabited or not. The window shades were drawn. The only real clue was the van in the driveway, but that didn't necessarily mean anything. Erza prayed that this was the place, and that Rinel and Tony were home - not only did she want to rescue Natsu and Gary, at this point she was aching for a fight.

Erza spared a glance back at Lahar, to make sure he was following her and not waiting around for more Rune Knights. He was, although he looked a little unhappy about it. Erza didn't care.

Erza requipped into her giant armor, and kicked down the door of the townhouse. She half-expected someone to have seen them coming up the driveway, and be waiting for them just inside the door, but the entryway was empty and silent.

Erza crept forward, on high alert for any sign of a threat. She knew at least Rinel and Tony would be there, but who knew how many more allies Rinel would have? It was impossible to say how many people she would need to take down to free Natsu.

Erza took a few more steps forward, and it was then that she heard a sound. She'd been alert for something like the scraping of a weapon being drawn, running footsteps that signaled an imminent attack, but this sound wasn't anything like that. It sounded like someone whispering something over and over, and possibly crying.

It sounded like Natsu.

Erza stopped listening for the sound of intruders, and broke into a full on sprint to reach Natsu's voice. If it was a trap, which it could be, she didn't care. Anything, anyone they threw at her, she would simply cut to pieces in order to make it to Natsu.

Erza skidded sideways into a hallway, still following the sound of Natsu's voice. About halfway down, she saw Natsu, curled on his side, facing something she couldn't see from this angle. His shoulders were shaking, like he was crying.

"Natsu!" Erza was at his side before he could even turn his head towards her, grabbing his shoulders as gently as she could. She scrambled around his body, half-noticing a still shape out of the corner of her eye, but not paying any mind to it in her effort to see what was making Natsu cry. "Are you hurt?"

"N-no," Natsu said shakily, but even at a quick glance, Erza could see that his leg looked like it was angled slightly wrong, and his face was tense with pain. Erza laid a hand on his head, trying to calm him down.

"Where are the people who took you? What happened? You're sure you aren't hurt?"

"I mean, yeah, but…not as bad as Gray, ya gotta help him first, I'll be okay, hurry Erza-"

"E-Erza?"

It was so quiet that Erza almost didn't hear it, a raspy whisper off to her left. Erza turned towards it, and the unmoving shape in her periphery resolved itself into Gray. The maker wizard was lying on his back, his face turned slightly towards them, and he was covered in blood. One hand was lying by his side, outstretched, streaked with dried blood. His neck was mottled with dark, swollen-looking bruises, and the shirt he'd worn to the trial was stained with red.

In the panic of finding Natsu injured, unable to move in a strange house, Erza had barely thought to worry about Gray. If anything, she had vaguely assumed that he hadn't made it to Tony's lair first, and she would have to track him down after getting Natsu taken care of.

It hadn't taken her very long to find him, but she should have been even faster.

"It's me," Erza said gently. Natsu pushed at her a little, and she moved towards Gray, reflexively taking his outstretched hand. "Is this…tell me this isn't all your blood, Gray."

Gray didn't seem like he could talk much, likely due to the horrific bruising around his throat, but the grimace on his face told her all she needed to know. When she looked down to find a half-frozen, still bleeding gash all the way through his torso, her fears were confirmed.

"Oh, Gray," Erza whispered, closing her eyes for a moment. If he had asked her for help, or if she'd been faster to figure out what was going on, none of this would have happened. "What did you do?"

Gray made a soft, whimpering sort of groan. "I stopped it," he whispered. "I…they're dead."

"What are you talking about?" Erza said. "Who's dead?"

Gray looked like every word was paining him. "I killed them. Don't worry."

"Gray-"

Gray's face screwed up. "I'm sorry," he whimpered, voice raspy from the bruises. "Natsu-"

Erza finally realized what he was so upset about - the fact that she had seen him lie on the witness stand. He was telling her…he'd fixed it. Killed Rinel, and probably Tony too.

He was in such bad shape that Erza wasn't exactly sure that she believed he'd done it. Once Gray and Natsu were stabilized, she would check the house, make sure there was no one left who meant them harm.

But that wasn't even really the important thing. The important thing was the fact that Gray thought he'd disappointed her, and that he was worried she might be angry. The idea that Gray was worried about that made her chest ache.

"Hey, no," Erza whispered. "As soon as I saw you on the witness stand, I knew Natsu was in trouble."

"She did!" Lahar piped up from somewhere behind her. She wasn't sure exactly when he'd entered the house, but she was grateful that he seemed to be allowing her to have some space with the two boys. She hoped Doranbolt was calling for help.

Gray's eyes had gone flat and glassy. She wasn't sure he could still hear her. Erza swallowed hard, squeezing his hand lightly in hopes of getting his attention and continuing onwards.

"I'm sorry for not realizing anything was going on," she said. "I'm not angry. I'm just worried about you and Natsu, and sorry that you had to go through that. There's nothing for you to apologize for."

Gray had clearly stopped listening. His eyes drifted closed. Erza wasn't sure he'd made out any of what he was saying. His lashes cast ghostly shadows over his white cheeks, and he was so pale even his lips were snow-colored.

"Gray, come on, stay with me," Erza whispered, squeezing his hand again. "Just a little longer, just until help comes."

From off to her side, Natsu started crying harder. "He's dead," Natsu sniffled. "He's dead, isn't he…?"

"He's not dead," Erza told him, leaning down to examine Gray's wound. There was a flurry of movement beside her as Natsu sat part of the way up, arms trembling as he fought to support his weight.

"Natsu, don't-"

"Is he dying?" Natsu cut across her, tears still threatening to spill down his cheeks but momentarily held at bay. "Is Gray…?"

Erza swallowed hard, looking down at Gray's half-closed wound. She thought Gray had just finally succumbed to the pain and exhaustion and passed out, but what if she was wrong? Leaning down, she went back to studying the gash through his side. It was bad, but she didn't think it had hit anything vital, and it wasn't bleeding too much anymore. Gray's ice seemed to have mostly frozen it shut.

"Gray isn't dying," Erza finally said, unable to keep the relief from her voice. "I think he'll be okay, now that we're getting him help. He's just exhausted. Injuries aside, this is the first sleep he's gotten in the past few days."

"Oh. I…I didn't know that," Natsu whispered, and Erza looked up to find him staring down at Gray. The unshed tears welled up in his eyes, and he started to cry again.

This time, Erza didn't think it was out of fear. It sounded like relief, and the utter exhaustion she was sure he had to be feeling.

"It's alright," Erza told him, instinctively moving to him and pulling him close. She was careful not to jostle the leg that she was now positive was broken, but she thought there still might be a chance that he'd push her away.

He didn't. Instead, Erza could feel Natsu grab the back of her armor as he buried his face in her shoulder, his own shoulders beginning to shake as he cried harder.

"It's alright," Erza whispered again, not even sure if he could hear her. "You're both going to be okay."