As Her Heart Skips

No. No this couldn't be happening.

It was- It was meant to be an exhibition fight. They were just there to fill the Grand Magic Game's schedule while the events were being set up, and to allow members of participating guilds not in the teams to show off their abilities. It wasn't meant to be anything special, or important, and they definitely weren't meant to be dangerous.

And Chelia didn't mean for this to happen. She didn't! It was just that she'd been practicing her magic a lot of late, she'd been learning some spells that weren't as stable as she thought, and she'd put more magical energy into one of them.

Now Wendy was… She was…

Why was nobody helping. There was an entire colosseum of people watching this, why were none of them helping? There had to be medics or people with healing magic who could help. And why had nobody from Fairy Tail come down to see if Wendy was okay, they were some of the most protective people Chelia had ever seen. They should be here, doing something – anything – that could help Wendy recover from the injury.

Chelia couldn't think straight, she just couldn't. She looked around for help, because surely it would come, and her eyes landed on Fairy Tail's private viewing area. They were – oh no – beating against walls of runes. The runes that the GMG put up to stop fight interference. They couldn't get into the arena.

Mind still spinning, Chelia looked towards the entrance tunnels where she and Wendy had entered from. The runes were covering them, and the officials couldn't get through them.

No. Nobody could get in! It was just her and Wendy now.

She had to do something. Wendy was lying unconscious, partially covered in the dust that Chelia's spells had whisked up. And if nobody else could get towards her, then it would have to be Chelia. But she wasn't qualified to do anything, nor did she know any first aid techniques- no. Wait. She did!

Her and Wendy had gotten close since they first met, and formed the 'Sky Sisters.' The time they could spend together was limited with the missions they both went on, so they had to find the time whenever they could. One way they'd been able to do that was having Chelia tag along to Wendy's medical lessons with Porlyusica. She had been taught how to perform first aid in case her healing magic had failed her, and Chelia had been to quite a few of lessons. She didn't pay as much attention as Wendy did, but she'd picked up a few things.

If there was anything she could do, then she would. But what if she got it wrong-

No. She had to be calm. That's what Porlyusica always made clear.

Chelia charged forward towards Wendy, looking the girl over with still panicking eyes. She wasn't bleeding – oh thank goodness – and that meant Chelia could turn her over, so she was facing up rather than at the ground. She didn't have any obvious injuries.

Oh no. No. Her chest wasn't moving. Was she not…?

Chelia leant down, placing her ear to Wendy's mouth to see if she could feel or hear any breath. She couldn't. Wendy wasn't breathing. She wasn't breathing!

No. Okay. This was something that Chelia knew how to deal with. It was CPR, wasn't it? When you didn't have anyone with healing magic or anything that could jump start the heart, then you had to perform CPR. It was a simple one to do, she was pretty sure. She forced herself to think back to the lessons – silently angry at herself for being distracted for most of the lessons – until a rush of memories came back to her.

30 chest compressions.

She places her hands onto Wendy's chest in the formation she remembered Porlyusica telling Wendy to, and started to push down in sharp compressions. She hummed a small tune that Wendy had made up to keep the compression in time.

The sounds of the worried crowd fell to the background, a muffled mess of unimportant noises. Her entire focus was forcing her hands down onto Wendy's chest in short bursts of strength in time with the small tune that she was humming. Her eyes were burning slightly, but she shook her head to stop the tears from distracting her. Because she didn't ned to cry, because this was going to be fine. Wendy was going to wake up and she would be okay, and this would all be a bad memory.

Why wasn't there anybody here yet? Surely they'd opened the runes by now!

She was getting to the end of the thirty compressions, and thought back to the first aid lessons to remember what she needed to do next. She thought back to the memory of watching Wendy give compressions to the doll, and once she'd done that she'd… she'd…

Emergency breaths. That's what they were called.

Pinch the nose tightly, lift the chin up to clear the airways, and give two strong breaths.

Chelia did the steps needed of her, and her eyes flickered to the left as she glances Wendy's chest rise slightly before falling slightly. It was working. Oh good it was working.

She returned to her kneeling position over Wendy, placing her hands on her chest and giving them sharp compressions. It was all she could do to focus on the situation, trying to ignore both the crowd of people watching them and the burning in her arms as each compression further tired her out. It didn't matter that she was hurting, or that almost everyone in the country could be watching her, she just needed to focus on this. On helping Wendy.

It was at the third round of compressions that a hand landed on her shoulder, and she looked up to see an unfamiliar mage with a firm expression on her face. She looked over her shoulder towards him, still compressing Wendy's chest.

"We can take it from here, young lady," He said, softly. "But we need some space."

Chelia fell back, allowing the man to kneel before Wendy and start casting a soft beige spell on her. A group of nurse and doctor mages surrounded her, meaning Chelia could no longer look after her. She was left in the middle of the arena, the exhaustion of the situation overtaking her. She breathed heavily, closing her eyes, and panting quietly.

"Hey," A woman's voice said. "She's awake."

Chelia blinked as she woke up, head shooting up and banging against the wall. She had been sleeping in the waiting room from the GMG medical bay, and had woken up to see Lucy smiling at her softly.

After the runes had been broken and medical mages had been able to access the fighting arena, they had taken Wendy to the medical bay to both bring her back to consciousness and to check her over for any further injuries. Many of her guild members had demanded entrance to the First Aid bay, none more loudly than her team. Chelia had arrived in time to hear that nobody would be allowed in until she was in a safe place.

By the lack of any noise from the louder members of Wendy's team, it was likely that they'd already seen her and gone by now. Chelia didn't mind that she hadn't been woken up the moment she could see Wendy, she was just glad to hear that Wendy was awake and able to see visitors again.

"Is she okay?" Chelia asked urgently.

"She seems fine," Lucy smiled, stepping back as Chelia stood up. "She seemed more worried about you than herself though."

"Can I- do you mind if I see her?" Chelia asked, glancing at the door.

"Of course," Lucy grinned. "She'll be happy to see you."

It wasn't the most polite thing to do, but she walked past Lucy without saying anything and into the medical bay. A torrent of worrying thoughts hit her as she saw the curtain around Wendy's bed, all of them possibilities as to how bad Wendy might be looking. With panic flooding her, she pulled open the curtain to see…

Wendy was eating ice cream.

"Chelia," She exclaimed, placing her bowl of ice cream on the bed. "I'm glad you're here. Are you okay?"

"I- what," Chelia spluttered slightly, before shaking her head to refocus her attention. "I should be asking if you're okay. Are you okay?"

"I'm fine," Wendy assured her, patting the side of the bed for Chelia to sit on. "Would you like some ice cream?"

"You were- I mean you- you were unconscious!" She exclaimed, looking around in almost disbelief. "You shouldn't be offering me ice cream, you should be… I don't know exactly what you should be doing but I should be the one worrying about you. I mean I should be buying you ice cream. It was me that knocked you out."

"You also kept me stable for about five minutes," Wendy smiled, shrugging and then lifting her bowl of ice cream. "There's chocolate, banana and raspberry. They even gave me a wafer and chocolate sauce."

"How do you know I did that?"

Wendy pointed towards the wall, where a lacrima was mounted showing the days news. On the screen there was a slightly flickering image surmising the days events in relation to Grand Magic Games. Chelia watched in horror as she saw images of her compressing Wendy's chest, and the leaning down to give her-

Oh dear.

"Oh no," Chelia mumbled, placing her head in her hands. "I forgot there was cameras."

It wasn't a kiss. It wasn't. It was a way to keep her heart going, and was a necessary medical action. But that didn't mean the reality of the situation was lost on Chelia. She had placed her lips on Wendy's lips. Her lips had touched her crush's clips. And not only that, but most people in the country would have seen it, and it was being repeated on the news all throughout the day. How was she meant to deal with that?

"I could probably ask for you to get your own bowl, if you want a bigger portion," Wendy said from behind her, as if this wasn't a ridiculous situation. "And I didn't know that you paid that much attention to those lessons you sat in on."

"Why are you not angry at me?" Chelia asked, tearing her eyes away from the screen. "I put you in here."

"Not on purpose," Wendy shrugged. "And then you saved me. It evens out. Do you not like ice cream?"

"What if you didn't come back. Or I did something to your insides or something?"

Wendy sighed, placed her bowl of ice cream onto the bed again. She patted the place in the bed next to her, looking at Chelia with a bit of a firm expression. Following the silent instruction, Chelia sat beside her crush and looked at her with worry in her eyes. She fidgeted slightly, trying to ignore the flushing feeling overtaking her at the soft expression Wendy was giving her.

"You saved me, that's what you need to think about," Wendy said firmly. "Accidents happen, and that's okay. You didn't do it on purpose, and I don't blame you," She shrugged, picking up the remote and flicking the channel to a TV movie. "Oh, I've been wanting to watch this."

"I-I can leave you then, if you want," Chelia suggested, with a level of whiplash for how openly Wendy had forgiven her.

"Watch it with me," Wendy asked, smiling at Chelia softly. "Please."

And, well, who was Chelia to deny her crush after a request like that? She placed her feet on the bed beside Wendy, wondering why Wendy didn't blame her for any of this. But when a head rested softly against her side, Chelia decided it didn't matter. This was more important.