Lucy had taken to spending her mornings with Levy and occasionally Mira until Ingrid needed to be put down for her nap. Being a Friday, Mira had joined them since Blake was at preschool for a few hours that morning, and she didn't like being in the apartment much while she was alone. By that point, given that they had been there for just shy of a month, almost everyone had fallen into what was close to their normal routine. Levy was on maternity leave from her job at Magnolia's City Library, Gajeel was on temporary suspension from the police force (apparently he used force too often and he'd been told to cool down for a couple of weeks before coming back in), Cana apparently owned a bar not too far from their apartment build so she spent a lot of time there, Lisanna worked at a veterinary clinic as a nurse, Elfman was a personal trainer, and Juvia was giving swimming lessons to the kids at the aquatic centre.
So it really only left Lucy not knowing what she doing, but then again, she hadn't really had the chance to worry about it.
Wiping the back of her hand over of her mouth, the blonde trudged her way back to the living area, past the study with the open door that allowed Lucy to see into the warm room with more books than she could count, and then past the small dining room (with even more books) to take a seat back on the lounge next to Mira.
"Oh, come on!" Gajeel yelled at T.V, smashing the buttons on the controller as he sat forward on the lounge. "That fuckin' hit you, Salamander! You can't dodge bullets, you motherfucker!"
Levy sighed as she took one of the small pillows next to her and put it behind her back and let Pantherlily curl up next to her once again, stroking over his ears gently as she stared at the T.V for just a moment before going back to Lucy. "Still sick?" she asked.
"Yeah," Lucy said with a small smile as she drew her own attention away from whatever game it was Gajeel was playing – she'd learnt that Natsu rarely worked, and neither did Gray, so on occasion, they'd be playing online games during the day from their shared office. That was until Erza would walk in and catch them, at least, promptly disconnecting from the game and leaving Gajeel to snicker in the corner of the lounge. "I get better throughout the day though so it's okay."
Mira looked up from where she sat on the floor just next to Lucy, Ingrid lying on her tummy just in front of her and looking towards the stuffed rabbit that Mira had stopped shaking. "Hm? Have you come down with something, Lucy?" the eldest Strauss asked, the concern masking her usually perky smile.
"I don't think so. Probably just something I ate."
Mira hummed in thought as Levy went back to staring at the T.V, one hand still stroking Lily and the other mindlessly rubbing small circles over her swollen belly. By that point, Levy was spending almost her entire day sitting on a lounge or in bed, having Gajeel practically be at her every beck and call, and although the unruly man may act like he hated it, he really didn't mind. After all, it was for Levy, and if he was going to be a slave for anyone, it would be her.
Suddenly, Mira's face split into a wide grin as a certain thought crossed her mind. Her head shot up and she looked to Levy. When Levy could feel a certain someone's eyes on her, she quirked an eyebrow and turned slightly to face Mira, once again shifting her focus from Gajeel trying to kill Natsu and Gray in an online game. Levy didn't understand the look Mira was giving her but she could see the mischievous glint in her eyes that she got whenever she started to think about cute couples and weddings and babies, and honestly, why the hell would she be thinking of that suddenly? When Mira picked up Ingrid from the floor gently and sat her down over her lap, one hand holding the baby upright, her eyes flicked down – gesturing to Ingrid, perhaps?
But no, that wasn't right. That didn't make any sense. Why would she be gesturing to Ingrid?
Mira realised Levy was still confused, so shifting Ingrid slightly, she brought another hand down to her own stomach and rubbed the smallest of circle over her own flat belly, making sure to keep the movement hidden from Lucy, but thankfully, due to the position of Ingrid and where Mira sat, she wouldn't have seen it anyway.
But Levy… She still didn't quite get it. She had a feeling she wasn't supposed to be talking, so she kept quiet even though she just wanted to scream at her friend and ask her just what the hell she was trying to say. Honestly, she didn't have the energy for the charades game.
So with a barely audible sigh, Mira ever so slightly tipped her head forward and as her gaze shifted down again briefly, motioning to Levy's own ginormous belly, Mira pointed to Ingrid, and then cocked her head to the side, motioning to Lucy, who was still oblivious to the silent conversation since she was looking at something on her phone in her lap.
Levy had to stifle the squeal when she finally understood just what Mira had been trying to convey. There was no way that what she meant was possible, and hell, there was no she could jump to that conclusion just from knowing Lucy had been vomiting for the last few days.
It was impossible.
So Levy shook her head, ignoring the raised eyebrows that Gajeel and Lucy were both giving her from the noise she'd made that had come out of nowhere.
But of course, Mira was almost certain that the conclusion she'd jumped to was the correct answer, because honestly, it would be too good to be true if it were the case (at least from her perspective). So, turning to look up at the slightly confused blonde with a slight smirk, she asked, "Worse in the mornings?"
"Yeah…?" Lucy mumbled, not entirely sure why Mira would ask such a question, considering she'd literally just said that she started to feel better over the course of the day (though that wasn't to say she didn't feel queasy at all throughout the day, because she did).
The sparkle in Mira's eyes grew brighter. "Anything else?"
"What do you mean?"
"You know… Like… Anything else that's not strictly normal?" she probed, lowering her voice slightly.
Lucy could feel the heat in her cheeks rise as she ducked her head slightly. "I… I don't know…" she mumbled. She wasn't entirely comfortable with the whole Doctor Mira thing going on right then to say the least. "My lower back starts to ache every now and then… And I had cramps earlier during the week… But I wouldn't say those are that abnormal. Why are you even asking me this anyway?"
Mira giggled slightly as she turned back to face Levy who just shrugged. The other woman still wasn't entirely convinced the eldest Strauss wasn't absolutely insane. So turning back to Lucy, Mira looked up again to see the confused expression on the blonde's face. "But did you get your period?"
"W-What? Mira!" Lucy shrieked, suddenly wanting to curl in on herself. Her gaze flicked towards Gajeel briefly who had suddenly become a whole lot more uncomfortable, and honestly, Lucy couldn't blame him. If Gajeel hadn't been in the room, she probably wouldn't be quite so embarrassed about the conversation topic. She'd still be uncomfortable, though.
"What? We're all women here."
"Oi!" Gajeel shot back.
"Oops, sorry," Mira giggled again. "But did you?"
Lucy shook her head as she ducked slightly, grabbing a pillow from beside her and folding her arms across it. "Not yet…"
"Not at all since we've been here?" Levy suddenly chimed in. Maybe Mira was on to something. It would be almost too perfect for it to not come up in the month they'd been there.
Gajeel groaned as Lucy shook her head again and he tore the headset off his ears and dropped it onto the coffee table, picking up the T.V remote and switching everything off. He'd been about to get up and retreat to the other side of the apartment – away from the girl talk that he really didn't want to hear, but then when Mira asked yet another one of her (probably) way too personal questions, he stopped himself, suddenly intrigued.
"Did it ever cross your mind that you might be pregnant?"
"What?! No!" Lucy shrieked again, looking between all three sets of eyes that were on her. "That's not even possible!"
Levy shrugged, "It honestly sounds possible, Lu…"
"No, it's really not." Lucy insisted, "Bickslow and I… We definitely haven't… Look, it's not possible."
"It's so possible, Bunny-girl," Gajeel snickered.
Mira nodded once as she let Ingrid go back to the floor and gave her the stuffed rabbit to occupy herself with. "It could be, especially since we became our counterparts, remember?"
"It would be possible if the other versions of yourselves managed to conceive before we all found ourselves in this situation," Levy agreed.
Before Lucy could even argue that there was no possible way she was pregnant, Mira handed her her phone, so raising an eyebrow at the woman, she took the phone from her hand and looked down at the screen. Early pregnancy signs? What the hell? Almost hesitantly, Lucy scrolled down the page, reading off the list one by one, basically making a checklist in her head. It amazed her just how many of them were symptoms she'd had in the just week and a half alone.
But it didn't prove anything. They were just coincidences, right? Especially since half of them could just be put down to PMS.
Fuck.
After staring at the list for much longer than she should have, she handed the phone back to Mira and got up from the chair quickly, moving to pick up her bag from where it sat just next to it. "Can you look after Ingrid for a bit?" she asked, her hand on the doorknob as they all stared back at her questioningly.
"Uh… Sure?" Mira answered. She really didn't have any issues with looking after Ingrid. It was just that she was a little confused as to why it was necessary right then.
And before anyone could even ask where she was going off to so suddenly, Lucy had pulled the door closed behind her and was almost running towards the elevators. She knew the pharmacy a couple of buildings down from the apartments would have what she needed to prove to everyone that she wasn't actually pregnant.
She couldn't be.
Lucy stared at the box in her hands as she stood in her bathroom. Her hands were trembling and her heart was racing. She didn't know whether she should actually open the box or not and take the plunge into finding out whether or not she was actually pregnant.
The longer she stared at the box, the more Lucy began to realise that it was entirely possible and plausible for her to be pregnant, especially when she remembered an almost unpleasant conversation they'd had with Claire the day they'd found themselves waking up with a baby and married – it had been Valentine's Day the day before, so assuming the world was out to get her, then… Yeah, it was entirely possible.
But what if she actually was? What was she supposed to do? Having an already nearly 6-month old was entirely different to actually going through it all – pregnancy to birth and all of the joys and woes that came with it.
And what about Bickslow? She could barely talk to the guy, let alone be around him without feeling like her heart had a dagger in it, and after the painful conversation that had taken place less than two hours earlier. If she was in fact pregnant then she was undoubtedly going to need Bickslow by her side; she'd need his support because there would be decisions to make that she knew she wouldn't be able to make on her own.
I'm getting ahead of myself, she reminded herself. I don't know anything for certain, so there's no reason to be freaking out. It's probably nothing, anyway. I am not pregnant.
But despite telling herself that over and over again, there was still that little part of her that realised it was entirely possible she could be.
So with a shaky breath, she flipped the rectangular box around in her hands, and Lucy had been about to open it until she heard the sound of something breaking from the living area, so dropping the box back down by one of the sink, she pulled the bathroom door open and rushed out into the hall.
Bickslow was almost livid. He couldn't understand any of it. Why the fuck would anyone cheat on someone like Lucy Heartfilia – let alone cheat at all? If you managed to get someone like Lucy, you didn't go and fuck it up by sleeping with someone else, but his other self had and he really fucking hated himself for it.
He had the perfect wife, perfect baby; the perfect family. He had happiness that Bickslow himself was only just beginning to understand, so why, just why, would the other version of himself have done something so goddamn stupid?
Bickslow felt guilty enough as it was following the 'conversation' he'd had with Lucy that same morning, but now he felt even worse. The worst part was that he almost enjoyed the overwhelming feeling of guilt residing within him. Even if it wasn't truly his own guilt, he relished the fact that the son of a bitch that was his other self knew that hurting Lucy like that was wrong. Bickslow would put up with the guilt just for that fact alone.
It didn't even matter to Bickslow whether it had happened once or a hundred times, the point was that the guy had cheated and lied. It didn't. Fucking. Matter.
He was ashamed to even be himself in that moment; he was ashamed to share the same name and face, because god, Bickslow was not the same person. He wouldn't do something so heartless and cruel. He wouldn't do something to jeopardise the near perfect life that he'd wanted for himself one day. He wouldn't ever hurt someone like that – especially Lucy because he'd hurt her enough as it was in his own life and she didn't deserve any of it. She didn't deserve to feel any pain at all, and when Bickslow realised that she was going to have her heart completely shattered when she realised just what the other version of himself had done, his own heart hurt. If he could take all of her pain, he would within a heartbeat because everything was his fault.
He would take the blame for everything and he would live with the guilt and pain just because the other version of himself wouldn't, or maybe couldn't.
And maybe he was only feeling that way because it was the fact that there was still a part of the other Bickslow inside of him that still loved the other Lucy – or Lucy in general – or maybe it was his own feelings clouding his judgement, because god, had he actually begun to grow close to the woman, and he knew that that wasn't his body. It was him; the real him, through and through.
But none of it mattered.
So as he sat in the back of a taxi, stuck in traffic, he pulled his phone out of his pocket when he started to feel it vibrate for the umpteenth time.
18 missed calls.
5 unread messages.
Freed and Evergreen had been trying to get hold of him since he'd stormed out of the office, but he wasn't going to talk to them. He couldn't.
Bickslow didn't want to talk to anyone, not unless it was lucy.
But at the same time he really didn't want to, because it was going to hurt her so much and it really was unfair that she was the one who was going to get her heart broken because of something he himself didn't even do.
The world really wasn't fair. He would agree with her there.
With a sigh, he slouched back in the taxi and shoved the phone back in his pocket after turning it off. If there was one thing he really didn't like about that world, other than everything, it was the traffic.
It was only a little past 10 a.m. by the time Bickslow got back to the apartments, and in his angered and frustrated state, he'd completely forgotten that Lucy usually spent the mornings with Levy so she wouldn't even be at home.
But when he finally made it to his apartment and the door was closed firmly behind him, he didn't go and sit down on the lounge, he didn't go and get changed or at least take off the tie that made it feel like he was suffocating. He didn't get anything to eat or drink and he didn't even bother with calling out to the silent apartment to see if he'd get a response, just in case Lucy had stayed home.
No, he didn't do anything but stare at the goddamn photos on the wall.
Bickslow had managed to calm himself down – just a tiny bit – on his way home, but seeing all of those photos just made the anger bubble up inside him again.
He moved to stand before them with his arms folded and stared up at each and every single one of them, and through all of the guilt and anger, all he felt was pain. His own heart hurt again because he still couldn't believe that he could do something so stupid.
It hurt because he didn't understand it. The Bickslow and Lucy in those photos looked so happy and in love with each other, but maybe it had all been a façade? Maybe the Bickslow of that world had been miserable the entire time and maybe that's what led him to having an affair in the first place. Maybe he just wasn't as happy as he seemed in all of those photos.
No. That can't be right, Bickslow told himself. Because that just didn't make sense. At all.
He got the amazing daughter and he got the gorgeous wife; he married fucking Lucy Heartfilia, of all people. There was no way he couldn't have been happy with that life, because all Lucy does is bring joy to those around her. It didn't matter what world she was in, because that's just the kind of person Lucy was. It's physically impossible for anyone to be miserable with someone like her in their life, so just why the fuck would his other self have done something so goddamn stupid?
Was it because that's just the kind of person the other Bickslow was?
Truthfully, Bickslow himself didn't even want to know. The harm had been done, but god, was he so fucking mad, and it was with himself more than anything.
Almost without thinking, he unfolded his arms and in one swift movement, his closed fist had smashed through the glass of the photo right in the centre of them all – one of their wedding photos. The first photo he'd even seen in that world.
He couldn't beat himself up, so he'd have to settle with a photo of himself. He didn't get to marry her and then cheat on her.
Someone like him just didn't deserve someone like Lucy. Not in any world.
Shaking his hand when he finally registered the stinging pain, he stepped over the broken photo frame and shards of glass where they lay on the floor by his feet and made his way over to the sink. "Fuck," he hissed under his breath, wincing as he shrugged his jacket off and over his hand before tossing it onto the bench.
Bickslow wasn't one to lash out like that. Hell, he rarely got angry enough to even come close to doing something like that, but he knew it was only because his he'd let his own emotions and feelings get the better of him. He'd let the fact he held Lucy in such a high regard fuel his anger, and truthfully, he hadn't realised just how much he actually cared about Lucy until that moment. Bickslow could tell the difference between his own feelings and those that were there just because in that world, he was supposed to be in love with her.
Bickslow knew that even though the guy had cheated on her, he still loved her, just because it was Lucy and it was impossible not to love her, at least a little bit.
Even without an actual, physical guild, Lucy would always be the light of it, but the guild still lived on – within them. The guild was there because they were all a family and that's really what it meant to be a part of Fairy Tail.
It was impossible not to love or care about Lucy just because she was the light of the guild. Her smile was one that was bright enough to light up entire rooms and she was almost always bursting at the seams with joy. Her happiness was contagious and her abilities to never give up and believe in someone were ones that many in the guild envied – including Bickslow. The fact that she also had the capacity to forgive almost anyone for anything was something that really did make it hard not to love her. After all, she'd managed to forgive him and his entire team for the stunt they'd pulled with Fantasia, and to that day, Bickslow still wondered how she'd managed to forgive him. Though, he did think it had something to do with the fact she'd kicked his ass… twice.
But regardless, just thinking about how practically perfect Lucy was was making him focus on the fact that his other self had hurt her in the worst way possible and it made his fury rise all over again. That Bickslow didn't deserve her. Hell, no one deserved Lucy in his opinion, and he knew he had no right to decide who actually deserved someone like her, but he didn't care. Bickslow had learned the hard way that the world – no, every single goddamn world, were all terrible places and as long as there's people like him in those worlds, she'll always get hurt. Bickslow had seen her get hurt far too many times – physically and emotionally; he didn't want to see it again and if that meant he had to become far too overbearing, selfish, and a little bit hypocritical, then so be it. In his own way, he kind of wanted her to himself, just because he knew he wouldn't have done something so terrible. If he'd been the one to marry her – to have a family with her, then he would have cherished it with all that he had, because honestly, cheating on someone like Lucy was like going for a second-place prize when you've already won.
Well, that's how Bickslow saw it, anyway.
But it was just a 'would have' scenario, because he would never get someone like Lucy either, just because it would be hypocritical to be with her.
But Bickslow had honestly been too busy, lost in his thoughts, to even notice that Lucy was even home and she was standing at the end of the counter, calling his name and asking what was going on.
"Bickslow? What the hell happened?" she asked once again, her voice frantic as she looked at the blood running off in the water as Bickslow held his hand under the faucet. She'd been standing there long enough to see the water run red to almost clear.
And when Bickslow finally noticed, he visibly flinched – every muscle tensing as he finally turned the tap off. He knew he'd wanted to talk to her… But now, with her there, he really had no idea what to say. It was almost as if he wanted to say it the right way, but really, was there even a right way of saying 'the other me cheated on you because he's an asshole?'
Probably not, he noted.
"What did you do?" she said softly, her voice barely a whisper.
Bickslow looked down at his hand again, already seeing the thin rivulets of blood running down over his fingers from the cuts on his knuckles. Who would have thought a photo frame would hurt so much. But he still didn't know what to say, and the longer he put it off, the less he wanted to say anything.
So, walking around the counter again he made his way back to the other side of the dining table. "Gotta clean this up," he mumbled as he crouched down by the broken frame and shards of glass.
When he picked up the frame and placed it up on the table, Lucy furrowed her brow as she stared at it, walking over to pick it up as Bickslow gathered up the glass from the floor and from the console table. "Why…? What happened? Please, tell me…" Because really, she was confused as all hell. Why was the frame with one of their wedding photos destroyed?
"Can't beat myself up so a photo will have to do," Bickslow said bitterly.
"What are you talking about?"
"The guy's an asshole," he muttered, standing up again as he walked over to the bin to drop the shards in.
What the hell is he talking about? "Who is?" she asked as she followed him with her eyes as he grabbed the dustpan and brush from below the sink.
"Him," Bickslow yelled as he pointed to the frame in her hands. "Sorry, I just…" Bickslow sighed then, crouching back down to sweep up the smaller pieces of glass. "He cheated on you – the other Lucy, I mean, and it pisses me off so fucking much."
Lucy inhaled sharply and she felt the exact moment her heart felt like it had shattered into a million pieces. It was almost as if every happy moment she'd shared with Bickslow and had become her best memories had been ripped from her, suddenly meaningless.
But no, that wasn't right, was it? Because she didn't have those memories; they weren't strictly hers. Rather, they were the other Lucy's memories that were a part of her. But why was she seeing them in the first place? Why was she seeing snippets of the life she'd lived in that world? From dates to holidays they'd apparently taken together, to the proposal and the beach wedding where the same photo in her hand was taken.
But then it was all over again in what was just a few short seconds, and that's all she was staring at: the broken photo frame with man that cheated on his wife, and she felt physically ill. The thought of that Bickslow – Bickslow in general, as it turns out – cheating on that Lucy, and really, it was her in general, too, was bad enough. But knowing that it actually happened, it was making her sick to her stomach.
Dropping the frame back down to the table, she ran back down the hall to the bathroom and as soon as she was in the room, she practically launched herself at the toilet, not even bothering with closing the door.
Bickslow's guilt and rage intensified with the sound of her retching drifting down the hall. Either it was incredibly bad timing or it had hurt her that much that it had made her physically sick, and he hated that. It wasn't fair that she had to deal with that. None of it was fair.
So after sweeping all of the glass into the bin, he looked back down at his bloodied hand and sighed, rolling the sleeves of his shirt up and ignoring the fact he got blood all over the cuff of the sleeve anyway, he made his way down to the bathroom once all was quiet again. Bickslow really didn't want to go in there, but he really needed to sort his hand out and the bandages were in the bathroom.
"Sorry, I just need to get the…" he began as he walked in, only briefly glancing down at the blonde who was leaning on the side of the toilet with her head on her arm before he went over to the bathroom counter. He froze with a hand on one of the drawers when something sitting on the corner of the bench caught his eye. "…Bandages…" he finished quietly, trailing off.
Pregnancy test? What the fuck?
Every bit of anger instantly dissolved into worry and panic and he could feel his heart rate pick up again.
"Lucy?" he whispered, still unable to move or draw his gaze away from the box on the counter.
"What?" she groaned. If she could feel shame or embarrassment, she probably would have. Hell, it was entirely possible she was actually embarrassed in that moment, but she was honestly just giant, messy, ball of emotions. By that point, Lucy couldn't tell one feeling from the next because everything had hit her at once like a train.
"Are you… pregnant?"
Shit. Shit. Shit.
Lucy had momentarily forgotten about the test and she really did not want to get Bickslow involved – not yet, anyway. But it was too late for that, because he'd seen it… And he'd asked… And she was freaking out. Again.
"I… no," she said, pushing her head up as she pushed the lever to flush the toilet.
"Oh… Oka—"
"…Maybe," she then admitted with a grimace. Then, looking down at her hands as she shifted slightly, she whispered, "I might be…"
Stay calm, stay calm, stay calm, Bickslow told himself, because he knew that if he was freaking out, then she was going to be even worse and it didn't take an idiot to realise that the timing of everything was terrible. And honestly, throwing in a possible pregnancy was really just making things worse – especially for Lucy.
But god, did he feel sorry for her because he really couldn't even begin to understand exactly how she felt. He could really only guess.
"I was going to do it just then but then you broke the photo frame, I guess…" Lucy mumbled as she finally raised herself from the floor to stand on shaky legs, folding her arms as she looked down at the tiles.
"Oh… Yeah… Sorry. I thought you were at Levy's," he said, finally able to move and open the drawer.
A semblance of a smile flitted across her lips, just for the briefest of seconds. "And I thought you were at work."
"Fair point," he said, and then after glancing back down at the pregnancy test on the bench, he looked back up to Lucy. "Can you, uh… do it then?"
Lucy could feel the blush creep up on her cheeks as she shuffled uncomfortably with a slight nod. When Bickslow didn't make an effort to move, she looked up and she really couldn't stop the corner of her mouth curling up into a small smirk. Through all of the pain and anxiety, the sight of Bickslow standing before her, awkward and obviously uncomfortable and not really knowing what to do or say was just a little entertaining.
Just a little bit.
"You uh… going to leave? Or are you just going to stand there while I pee on a stick?" she asked.
If it was possible, Bickslow paled even more and then when his own blush formed, Lucy giggled quietly and he stopped gaping like a fish out of water. "U-Uh… Yep, you know what? I'm gonna leave," He muttered as he grabbed everything he needed from the drawer and all but ran back out into the hall. Bickslow could only shake his head lightly when he realised the drastic mood changes would make so much sense if Lucy was actually pregnant.
So as the door closed, Lucy turned back to the bathroom counter and only after brushing her teeth did she finally pick up the dreaded test with a sigh. To think that her entire world could be turned upside down once again in a matter of minutes scared the living hell out of her.