Note: Someone made a suggestion about including Loke here, but sadly, I did not. I didn't even think about him until I was writing Natsu's chapter at the very end, and by then I had already written most of the story. Inserting Loke at this point would be difficult, and he would end up being something of an unimportant side character. I think he deserves more than that, so I chose not to include him at all. Not sure if that makes it better or worse, but I didn't want to demote him when he was so close to Gray.

A note on the parallels I mentioned earlier: the chapters that have a counterpart in "Saying Goodbye" (Lucy, Erza, Juvia, Cana, and Makarov) will have a lot of parallels to those counterparts. You'll see some similarities between them - some common themes and settings, for example. Call it lazy writing if you want, but part of it was intentional. Notice that Natsu is almost trying to take on Gray's role in "SG" here. Not that he's trying to replace Gray or anything, but note that it was Gray who was comforting everyone in "SG" and trying to help them with something about themselves, and here it's Natsu who is taking on that job. It can't be entirely unexpected, considering that Gray pretty much asked him to in the letter.

Lucy (Denial)

Lucy trudged up the steps to her apartment mindlessly, her mind occupied with her grief rather than with her surroundings. It had been a long, painful day at the guild, with everyone still in mourning. She had cried so much that she thought she was finally out of tears. Tomorrow she would probably find some more, but for now the tears had left her feeling hollow and empty, her eyes burning and her heart sore. All she wanted to do was go to sleep to escape reality for a little while before she had to get up tomorrow and do it all again.

She mechanically unlocked her apartment and dropped the keys on the side table as she shut the door behind her. Shrugging off her jacket, she started towards her bedroom.

"Hey, Lucy. Are you okay?"

Lucy jumped in surprise and instinctively looked over at her couch. Sure enough, Natsu was seated there. She had been too absorbed in her own thoughts to even notice the intruder. She gaped over at him silently, her mind racing to make the connection between Gray's last visit here and Natsu's current one.

"Lucy?" Natsu peered over at her in concern. "You look like you've seen a ghost."

Apparently Lucy still had a few tears left after all, because her eyes filled with moisture once more, and her body quivered with silent sobs.

"It feels like it," she whispered brokenly, burying her face in her hands. Tears leaked from between her fingers and fell to the ground.

There was a shuffling sound and Natsu was suddenly in front of her, pulling her close to him. Her hands tangled in the fabric of his shirt and she buried her face in his chest. He wrapped his arms around her, not seeming to care that she was soaking his shirt with her tears. He stood still and held her for a moment, before gently maneuvering her to sit on the couch beside him. He stroked her hair comfortingly and whispered quiet words of reassurance into her ear for several long minutes as she fought to get her crying back under control.

Then she looked up at him, her large brown eyes red-rimmed and shimmering with tears.

"A few days–a few days before…you know…He came to see me," she managed, swiping the back of her hand across her eyes. "It was already late, like tonight, and I had just come home, and I looked over and he was–he was sitting there on the couch, right where you were."

Natsu winced slightly. "Sorry, Lucy. I didn't know."

Lucy shook her head. "I know. It's not your fault. It's just…It really was kind of like seeing a ghost, you know? A few days ago he was sitting on my couch like you were, and now…now he's…"

Natsu pulled her close again. "I know," he said softly. "I know."

They sat quietly, the silence only broken by Lucy's sniffles and muffled crying. As she puzzled out the connections between Gray's visit and Natsu's visit, she found herself making another link.

"He was acting kind of funny," she whispered, fresh tears welling up as she at last saw the bitter truth. "But not funny enough to be really suspicious, you know? I mean, he was mostly…normal…but sometimes he would say something he might not have said usually, or there would be something off about his tone or expression, and he was being a lot more open about his feelings and his past than usual.

"And I just kind of thought that he was having an off day or something…or maybe it was because he was trying to make me feel better. But I don't think so now."

Her hands tightened convulsively on Natsu's shirt. "During the–during the battle, when Erza asked you about that conversation you had with Gray…and you said that he had been trying to say–trying to say goodbye…" She trailed off for a moment as she choked up, before managing to force the words out again. "I think…I think that when he came to see me that night, he was trying to say goodbye to me too."

Natsu stiffened as she started weeping full force again, heavy sobs wracking her body.

"I didn't know!" she wailed, her voice breaking.

"Shh…" Natsu whispered, stroking her hair soothingly. "It's okay. You're gonna be okay."

He held her until her sobs finally started letting up. It could have been seconds or minutes or hours; Lucy wasn't sure. It felt like hours though, before she was left trembling and bleary-eyed, her tears finally spent.

"I don't want to cry anymore," she breathed. "I'm so tired of crying."

This wasn't the cleansing type of crying that let her expend her sadness and then move on. This was the ugly kind of crying that left her feeling empty and numb, with only burning eyes and drying tear tracks to confirm that she had been crying at all. She just felt sad and hollow, and a heavy exhaustion settled over her.

"It's okay," Natsu murmured. "But you can't just hide away from reality either. You should…talk. Let it out." He paused. "What did he do when he came to visit you?"

Lucy knew what he was trying to do. He wanted her to talk to let out her pent up emotions and so that she would feel like someone understood her. Even thinking about that night made her want to cry again, but she knew he was right, and she was too exhausted to summon up anymore tears right now anyway.

So instead, she looked up at him and tried to smile. It was a wavering, watery, broken smile, but it was a start.

"Do you want some hot chocolate?" she asked, her voice trembling slightly before she resolutely held it steady.

Natsu blinked at her in bewilderment, confused by the seemingly random tangent. He gaped at her for a long moment. "Uh…sure?" he answered, his reply sounding more like an uncertain question than a statement.

A corner of Lucy's mouth twitched upwards involuntarily at the baffled look in his eyes.

"Come on then," she said as she stood up and walked around the couch to go into the kitchen. She could practically feel Natsu's wary gaze on her back as he followed her, but she didn't turn around until she had filled the kettle with water and put it on the stove to boil.

When she faced him again, she noticed that his eyes were filled with a mixture of bewilderment, uncertainty, and caution. She wondered if he thought she was cracking under the strain. That thought made her smile a little, although the expression was still wistful and melancholy. His eyes narrowed as he saw the out of place expression, and she almost wanted to laugh.

Instead, she sighed and leaned back against the counter, studying Natsu contemplatively. Her tears were all dried up now and she was too tired and numb to really feel the crushing grief that had weighed her down all day. She was actually rather calm now, although she didn't know how long that would last.

And she suddenly found that she did want to talk. She wanted to tell Natsu about what had transpired that night in her apartment so that someone else knew besides her. Even more than that, she just wanted to talk about Gray. The grief in the guild was still too raw, so he had become something of a taboo subject. People were mourning him and crying over him, occasionally asking questions about why he had done such a thing for their sakes, but they said surprisingly little about Gray himself.

She had never really understood why grieving people often liked to share the funny and sweet stories about a lost loved one, but she thought she was beginning to. Right now she didn't want to talk about the sad things. She wanted to talk about the way his crooked smile could light up the room, about how his cool and collected façade hid a selfless nature and deep love for those he considered his family, about the way his dark eyes would shine with mirth as he teased Natsu and the others. Those were beautiful things that she was prone to forget when all she could think about was his tragic death. She ached to be able to see his face and hear his voice again, but since she couldn't, she wanted to talk about them. To remind herself of them so that her grief and pain didn't swallow her whole.

But first, she would talk about that last real conversation, perhaps the most real conversation she had ever had with him. Now that she knew the reason behind his visit and some of his odd behavior, the memory of that conversation had become horribly sad. But it was also beautiful, because he had been so kind and caring, and because she had thought that she was finally seeing a side of him that he rarely showed to the outside world. So, taking a deep breath, she began talking.

"It was night, maybe…three days before the battle? I came home after a long day at the guild, and when I opened the door to my apartment, he was just sitting there on my couch." She smiled wistfully, her eyes misting over as she recalled that night. "Of course I yelled at him for coming in without permission again, but he said he was there to check up on me. To make sure that I was okay. You know, with the battle coming up and everything. I was going to make hot chocolate for myself anyway, so I asked him if he wanted some and he said yes."

Understanding dawned in Natsu's eyes as he realized the meaning behind her seeming non sequitur. Then he frowned a little. "Gray wanted hot chocolate? Since when did he like hot drinks?" he asked in mild surprise.

Lucy laughed a little, and though the sound was a touch strained, she was startled to realize that she also felt some genuine amusement. "Yeah, I didn't even think about that until I made him his cocoa and gave it to him. It was still really hot and I think it might have burned him. But when I commented that he shouldn't have asked for a hot drink if he didn't want one, he just used his magic to cool it off," she said fondly. She frowned slightly. "I mean, I'm sure he drank hot—or at least warm—drinks sometimes, but he really did prefer cold ones."

She began searching through the cabinet to find the cocoa mix.

"Yeah." When Natsu didn't say anything else, Lucy glanced back over at him to see him watching her with a strangely hungry look in his eyes. It occurred to her that he probably wanted her to get on with the story, and she realized that he was desperate to know what Gray had said and done that night. The thought made her heart twist. He had been very close friends with Gray, and she imagined that he was eager to learn anything he could about his best friend's final days.

She sighed quietly as the kettle began whistling and she took it off the heat, carefully pouring the boiling water into two mugs.

"I guess he knew that I would be scared," she remarked softly as she carefully emptied some mix into each mug and began stirring the contents with a spoon. "I tried to deny it. I guess maybe it's because I'm always with you and Erza and…Gray. You guys are always so strong and unafraid, and I guess that I wanted to feel that way too. He saw right through me, of course."

She smiled at Natsu sadly as she handed him his cocoa. He followed her to the kitchen table silently, studying her with an intense gaze. He distractedly started gulping down his cocoa as he watched her, and she winced involuntarily. She supposed that the heat wouldn't bother him, but it made her throat ache just watching him. Shaking her head, she crossed her legs and stirred her drink slowly, staring at the gently swirling contents absentmindedly.

"I mean, I guess I was actually trembling, so it wouldn't have been that hard to tell. He helped calm me down."

She felt a stab of pain and longing as she remembered how Gray had physically stopped her from running away from her fear and then grasped her hand for a brief moment to steady her and stop her trembling. If she concentrated, she could almost feel the brush of his cool skin against her fingers, but then the phantom sensation was gone, and she knew that she would never feel it again. She took a sip of her still too-hot cocoa to disguise the burning in her throat. She would not cry.

She took a deep breath and started again. "He told me it was okay to be scared. And I–I asked him if he was afraid too." Natsu's eyes narrowed slightly in sudden interest, and Lucy shook her head with a sigh. "I expected him to just come out and say 'no', you know? I mean, he was always so strong and he would never admit to any kind of weakness. But he sat there and considered it. He said that he wasn't afraid of Fairy Tail losing, but that he was a little concerned that some of us might get hurt. But later when I commented that all it took was one battle to end things, he just got this really determined look in his eyes and said that he wouldn't let that happen. And he sounded so…so sure, like he knew there was no way for us to lose."

Despite her best efforts, Lucy felt her eyes fill with tears again. "I guess I know why, now," she whispered.

There was a sudden shattering sound. Startled, Lucy looked over at Natsu. The handle of the mug had snapped in his hand, and she could see that his fingers were clenched around it so tightly that they were white. He was staring down at the table with narrowed eyes and an unreadable expression.

"Sorry, Lucy," he said mechanically. "I'll clean it up."

He stood and swept the broken shards of the mug off the table and into his other hand in one smooth motion. Walking across the kitchen, he deposited them in the trash can.

"Oh, it's okay," Lucy said, taken aback. Natsu had seemed calm—if melancholy—the whole time he had been here, but she was getting the feeling that he was still a lot more upset than he was letting on.

She grabbed a rag and wet it in the sink so that she could wipe up the puddle of hot chocolate from the table. As she headed back to the sink to rinse the rag out, she spotted Natsu's hand and gasped.

"You're bleeding! Let me go grab some bandages."

Natsu opened his mouth to protest, but she hurried out of the kitchen and came back a moment later with a first aid kit. Pushing the dragon slayer back into the chair he had previously occupied, she carefully washed the blood off his fingers with a clean cloth and wrapped them tightly in gauze.

"I'm sorry," she said as she worked, feeling Natsu's gaze burning into her skin. "We don't have to talk about this."

"No, it's fine," Natsu said hoarsely. "I'm fine. Keep going."

Lucy hesitated, unsure if she should continue or not, but Natsu was staring at her with that hungry expression again. With a sigh, she kept going.

"And then he asked me if that's what I was afraid of: losing my friends." She finished wrapping his fingers and returned to the other side of the table to slump down in her chair again. "I thought about it. There were a lot of things I was afraid of, you know? He was partially right, but the thing I was most afraid of was that someone was going to get hurt because I–because I was too weak."

She bowed her head, suddenly unable to meet Natsu's gaze. "I didn't want–I didn't want anyone to get hurt because of me, because I can't keep up with the rest of you."

A heavy silence descended upon the room for several long seconds, before Lucy heard a shifting sound and Natsu leaned forward, staring at her intently.

"You do realize that he isn't dead because of your…'weakness', right?" he asked.

She looked up at him again and blinked back tears. "I know…I know that there isn't really much I could have done," she whispered. "He told me that I had strengths as well as weaknesses—that my spirits were useful and that I was clever and that I played a big part in holding our team together. But…I guess I wish that I was stronger, so that maybe I could have done something."

Natsu sighed softly. "At that point we were all almost out of magic anyway. There wasn't anything that I could do either. I couldn't even break down his damn ice wall." He looked at her with haunted eyes. "Strength isn't everything. Sometimes it isn't enough."

"I know. If there wasn't anything you could do, then I didn't really stand a chance." She looked away, lips trembling slightly. "I'm sorry. I know it must hurt, that you couldn't stop him. You and Erza and the others…you knew him much longer than I did, so it must be so much worse for you. And then I wonder why I'm crying so much, if I should be the least upset. Like, what right do I have to mourn when I only knew him for a matter of months and you guys knew him since you were kids? I just…I don't know."

She rubbed at her eyes hurriedly. She didn't know where all the tears were coming from. Surely she should have been out of them by now. Every time she thought she couldn't possibly cry anymore, new tears managed to spring up anyway.

"Lucy," Natsu said gently, reaching across the table to tilt her chin upwards so that she was looking at him again, "you have just as much 'right' to mourn him as we do. Sure we knew him a lot longer, but that doesn't make your own friendship with him any less important. I know how closely you get attached to your friends and Gray was…Gray was special." Pain flared in his eyes briefly before vanishing once more. "And you know…He obviously cared a lot about you too, you know?"

He pulled his hand away and dropped it back to the surface of the table, but Lucy kept staring at him, trying to figure out how he wasn't crying over Gray like she had been. How could he hold back the tears when she couldn't do it no matter how hard she tried? His gaze drifted away.

"He left me a letter," Natsu confessed, still not looking at Lucy. "In it he told me to make sure that I…checked up on a few people. You were included on that list."

Lucy's heart twisted painfully and her eyes filled with unshed tears yet again.

"One of the things he said was to make sure that you didn't blame your weakness for his death in any way, shape, or form. He wanted me to take care of a few other people too, but you were included with the likes of Erza and Cana and Lyon, and other people that he's known for so much longer. You were still included."

The tears were dripping silently down Lucy's face now, and she bit her knuckle hard to hold back a fresh wave of sobs. Natsu looked back over at her solemnly.

"It doesn't matter how strong you are or could have been. We were outmatched in that fight. If anyone should have been able to stop him—to save him—it would have been me." Something flashed in his eyes again, but he quickly regained control of his expression. "If I couldn't do it, then you didn't have a chance. Your 'weakness' didn't contribute to his death in any way. But if you're worried about burdening others, then you should just train to get stronger, you know."

Lucy let out a strangled noise and fought back the sobs valiantly. Natsu fell silent, letting her take a few minutes to compose herself once more.

"You know," she said, her voice breaking, "he pretty much told me the exact same thing." Natsu looked at her curiously. "I said something really dumb about how I didn't know how I'd live with myself if someone I cared about died for me." She shook her head. "In retrospect it was a really insensitive thing to say, especially with what happened to his master. But he didn't get upset or anything. He just told me a little about how he had trained to get stronger afterwards, so that no one would suffer for his weakness again. He told me a little bit about his past, but he really only used it to…I don't know. Show me something about myself, I guess. Like…if I really want peace of mind, to feel like I'm not burdening everyone else, I should just make a change within myself."

She offered Natsu a shaky smile. "Even–even at the end, he was trying to help me and comfort me. I guess that's always how he was, although he was usually more subtle about it. But God, I wish I had known what was going on in his head so that I could have at least said goodbye too."

Natsu's mouth curved downwards. "Yeah, he was always like that. He always tried to act cool and disinterested, but he cared a lot more than he let on, and he'd show it in his own way." He shook his head. "But you know, you did get a chance to say goodbye. At the very end."

Lucy grimaced and looked away. "Yeah, but it's not the same, you know. He told me a lot of really nice things that night and made me feel a lot better about myself, but do you know what the last thing I said to him was then? I told him to stop reading my novels without permission and not to break into my apartment without an invitation again. What a great goodbye, huh? After everything he did for me, I just told him to stay away." Her lips trembled. "But God, he could break in here as often as he wanted if he would just come back. I walk in here every day half-hoping that I'll see him sprawled across my couch. It's not going to happen, of course. I know that. But still…"

She blinked away tears again, her fingers curling uselessly around her now lukewarm mug of cocoa.

"I know," Natsu said quietly. "Every time I walk into the guild I almost expect to see him there, because he belongs there. Just like part of him belongs on your couch, you know? And honestly, I think that those aren't bad for parting words. Those things that you said are familiar and normal, and they're a part of you that belongs with him—with us. Considering what he was facing, he probably wanted to hear something like that to ground him. Those things are so you, Lucy. I think he would have appreciated that. And honestly, he knew what you meant. He was really good at figuring out the hidden meanings behind other people's words."

Lucy just stared at him for a moment. "And what, pray tell, did I mean?"

Natsu met her gaze solemnly. "I think that you meant to say 'thank you'."

She blinked at him and chuckled dryly. "How in the world did you get 'thank you' out of that?" she asked in disbelief, shaking her head.

"It's not the words, Lucy," he answered steadily. "You were thankful because he helped you and because he was kind to you. Do you really think he was so dense that he didn't realize that? Gray was a lot of things, but he wasn't stupid."

Lucy leaned back in her chair and considered that for a moment. Of course she knew that she had been grateful to Gray, and she was certain that Gray had known that as well. She wasn't sure if that was what she had been trying to convey in those final words or if Gray had picked up on it even if she had, but it was a nice thought.

"I suppose so." She glanced at him curiously. "You talked to him beforehand too, right? What did you guys talk about?"

Natsu's expression immediately closed off and he stared at her blankly, his emotions tightly hidden behind an unreadable mask. Lucy regretted asking. The few snippets of information she had already gleaned about that talk had suggested that it wasn't the same as the conversation she had had with Gray. Her talk with him had been comforting for her, but it sounded as if his conversation with Natsu had been altogether darker.

"I'm sorry," she said quickly. "I shouldn't have asked."

The dragon slayer shrugged, his features still arranged in an expressionless mask.

"It's fine. I asked first anyway." His gaze wandered away from her, and she thought she detected a quick flicker of pain before he managed to conceal his emotions once more. "It was different from your conversation with him. He was a lot more upset, although I didn't know why. But…from what you've said about your talk with him, it seems like he was in much better spirits after he got used to the idea of the…backup plan." His features tightened momentarily before relaxing again. "At least he recovered and wasn't so sad towards the end."

Lucy suppressed a wince. She remembered how on the night Gray had come to her apartment, she had stood by the window and watched him walk away down the street after their talk. He had turned back once, and she could still clearly see the melancholy, almost anguished, expression he had been wearing before he noticed her standing there and smiled once more. She had thought that she had imagined it at the time, but now she had to wonder. It was true that he had been in much better spirits when he had talked to her, but had he still been hiding a sadness and loneliness that he couldn't share with them?

She looked away, unable to meet Natsu's gaze for fear that the dragon slayer would see her thoughts reflected in her eyes. There was no way she would tell him about that last look on Gray's face. It was better if he thought his friend had fully come to terms with everything at the end.

And maybe Gray had. They would never know for sure.

"Yeah," she said finally, forcing the words out through her suddenly dry throat. "He didn't seem so sad."

If Natsu sensed a half-truth, he didn't press her. He was silent for a minute, before pushing himself to his feet.

"It's late and you should probably get some sleep. Maybe you'll feel better in the morning." He peered at her closely. "If you need anything, even if you just need someone to talk to or a shoulder to cry on, you come to me, okay? It doesn't matter what time it is or what I'm doing. I'm here for you, Lucy."

She forced a smile as tears burned at the corners of her eyes again. "Thank you, Natsu. I'll do that. And if you need anything, you can always come to me as well."

"Yeah," he said after hesitating for a moment. There was something in his eyes and voice that let her know that he would never take her up on that offer. "Thanks, Lucy."

She stood and walked him to the door, holding it open for him so that he could leave.

"Sorry about your mug," he added as an afterthought.

Lucy smiled a little. "Don't worry about it. Just take care of your cuts and make sure that they don't get infected, alright?" she replied sternly, giving his bandaged hand a pointed look.

"Yeah, yeah," Natsu answered with a short laugh that sounded more forced than genuine. "I will."

He turned to go, before pausing and glancing back. "He cared about you a lot—as much as he cared about the rest of us. He wanted you to be able to mourn and then move on, to go on to live and not just survive. It's not going to be easy, but someday…" He shook his head. "Gray wanted you to be able to be happy again, Lucy. Don't forget that."

Lucy watched him disappear from sight, unable to say anything past the lump in her throat. Yes, she could imagine that Gray would want her to be happy. She recalled the last two pieces of advice he had given her before leaving her apartment that night. He had told her to keep training after this battle so that she could be more confident in herself, and he had also encouraged her to finish writing her novels and then publish them so that other people could enjoy them as much as he had.

She was definitely going to train harder now, once the grief had faded a little. She would get stronger so that nothing like this had to happen again. And as for his second request…

She wandered over to where the manuscript of her latest novel was sitting unbound on her coffee table. It had actually been sitting there for weeks now, ever since she had finally finished it. She hadn't shown it to anyone yet, not even Levy, but it would have been out in plain view when Gray had been there. She knew that he had already read pieces of it on other occasions, before she noticed and stopped him. He hadn't been reading it when she had come in that night, but it was possible that he had read it while he was waiting for her to arrive. She found herself silently hoping that he had. There was something comforting about the idea that he had finished reading her latest novel before he died. But again, she would never know.

Reaching down, she pushed the title page aside and carefully picked up the latest addition to her manuscript. Her eyes silently scanned the dedication that she had penned only days before.

For Gray. I may never know if you finished reading this book before you died, but I really hope you did. I never thought that I'd find the courage and strength to publish my work, but thank you for lending me yours so that I could follow my dream. You will always own a piece of our hearts, and you will be forever remembered as one of our dearest friends. Thank you, Gray. Thank you for everything.

Fresh tears welled in her eyes as she read the 'goodbye' she hadn't been able to give Gray before his death, but she found that she was smiling as well. Things weren't okay and wouldn't be okay for a long time, but just for this moment, as she held this silent farewell in her hands, she felt closer to her missing friend than she ever had since his death.

She realized that she was feeling a little lighter and a little stronger, like how she should have felt after a good, cleansing cry. Her tears had been ugly and cruel and not at all cleansing, so they couldn't have caused the feeling. It occurred to her that perhaps talking about Gray and sharing her thoughts and feelings had had a similar effect. She wondered if Natsu had anticipated that, and if that was why he had encouraged her to talk.

Gently replacing the dedication and cover page, she turned to head to her bedroom. It was true that she felt slightly better than before, but she was still tired and achy from all the crying she had done, and all she wanted to do was sleep. After only a few steps, she paused and glanced back into the room behind her.

She felt the sudden urge to go over to the window and watch Natsu walk away just as she had watched Gray, but she didn't move. She could still remember that heartbreaking look on Gray's face that told her that he had been hiding his pain from her and pretending to be more alright than he really was. She wasn't sure she could bear it if she saw a similar look on Natsu's face. The dragon slayer had seemed so strong and collected while she was falling apart, but Lucy was suspicious that he was closer to breaking than he let on. However, there was something comforting about thinking that he was strong and resilient and able to move on when she herself hadn't quite managed it, and she didn't want to spoil that image of him right now.

There might be more harsh truths facing her if she looked out that window, but she had had enough of reality for the day, so instead she walked away.

Natsu was rather impressed with himself. He had managed to hold himself together through the whole talk with Lucy the night before, and hadn't even started crying until he had made it back to his house and crawled into his bed. Gray had sure as hell better be grateful, wherever he was.

Keeping the mask in place had been tiring, but Natsu had better get used to it, since that's what he would have to show everyone else in the guild as well. They needed him to be strong—to be fine—right now, so he would be. Gray had asked him to be strong, and Natsu would be damned if he didn't follow his friend's wishes to the letter.

So after several minutes spent preparing himself to maintain his composure, Natsu headed for the guild with Happy by his side. They remained quiet the whole way there. The dragon slayer hadn't been very talkative lately, and the Exceed had accepted that.

They finally reached the guild hall and Natsu pushed the doors open and peered inside, expecting to see all his friends. He froze. Someone was missing.

Gray wasn't there.

The dragon slayer scanned the faces in the hall, and his brain started working overtime to come up with an explanation for the ice mage's absence, in order to protect Natsu's fragile state of mind. Maybe Gray was out on a mission. Maybe he had slept in and would be over later. Maybe…

Natsu turned on his heel and walked back out of the hall, letting the doors fall shut behind him. Happy hesitated and then flew after him with a concerned and confused expression on his face.

"Natsu?"

The dragon slayer didn't reply as he began walking briskly in a giant circle around the guild. He had clearly been imagining things. Gray was there—he had to be. When Natsu went in again the ice mage would be sitting at his usual table, giving the dragon slayer a contemptuous smirk as he asked what the hell Natsu thought he was doing, walking out of the guild as soon as he entered it. Yeah. Because the alternative—that Gray wasn't there and never would be there again—was impossible. Completely impossible.

"Natsu? What are you doing?"

"Nothing," the dragon slayer muttered in response to Happy as he walked around the back of the guild and started up the other side. Some part of him knew better than to tell the little cat what was going on inside his head, because some part of him still knew the truth.

"Are you okay?" the Exceed asked with a mixture of frantic concern and desperation.

"Yeah. I'm fine," Natsu said stubbornly. "I'm fine."

And he was. He was completely, one hundred percent fine, because when he walked back through those doors, Gray would be standing there looking for a fight. Natsu was fine because he had to be fine. No one else was fine, but Natsu was strong and he was fine.

He rounded the corner and paused in front of the doors again, taking a deep breath to steel himself before pushing them open once more. His gaze skipped frantically about the room, searching for one familiar face in the sea of gloomy expressions. He let his breath out in a hiss. Gray wasn't there.

Well, third time's the charm. Ignoring Happy's anxious questions, Natsu began circling the building again, his pace and heart rate speeding up until he was breathing heavily and half-running in his desperation to open the doors again and see Gray's face.

When he pushed the doors open a third time, nothing had changed. Natsu's breath was coming in short gasps now, and he was suddenly getting angry because this was a goddamn joke, and it wasn't funny at all. Gray had some nerve to be playing stupid jokes like this, and Natsu would make him pay for it. He would…He would…

Natsu reeled back, letting the doors slam closed again. Some of the other guild members had noticed his odd behavior and were calling out to him, asking him if he was alright.

"I'm fine. I'm fine," he chanted stubbornly, not sure if they could hear his words through the heavy wooden doors.

"Natsu?"

The dragon slayer looked up at Happy, his eyes wide and frantic. "I'm fine," he repeated.

The little blue cat didn't look reassured. In fact, he looked even more worried. "Natsu–"

"I'm going home," Natsu decided suddenly, cutting off whatever it was Happy was about to say. "You can stay here and comfort Lucy some more or something. And tell everyone that I'm fine. They're worrying over nothing."

"Are they?" Happy asked sadly, his eyes shining with concern and resignation.

"Yeah. Really, Happy, I'm fine." A hint of mulish stubbornness crept back into his voice as he repeated his mantra. He was fine. He had to be fine. "Don't tell them otherwise. I'll just…be at home for a while. Tell them I'll come in tomorrow, okay?"

Happy nodded sadly. "Aye sir."

"Thanks," Natsu breathed. For just a moment, his eyes softened. "It's going to be okay, Happy. I'm fine."

The little cat stared at him silently for a long minute, and it was clear that he didn't believe his friend. But he bit back whatever he might have said, only nodding again instead.

"Okay."

With a backwards glance, Happy entered the guild and then disappeared as the doors shut once more.

Natsu turned and headed towards his house, but after a few seconds he found himself running, his feet thudding against the street in time to his silent mantra: I'm fine, I'm fine, I'm fine.

He would be fine. He would be fine because Gray couldn't possibly be gone. There was no way the ice block was dead. It was impossible. Impossible, impossible, impossible.

Bursting through his front door, Natsu barely paused to slam the door shut before running to his bedroom and throwing himself onto his bed. Not bothering to undress, he slipped between the sheets and pulled the covers over his head. He silently focused on calming his erratic heartbeat and jagged breathing so that he could settle down and fall asleep. Not caring that it was the middle of the afternoon, Natsu slowly slipped into an uneasy slumber.

When he woke up the next day, he would laugh off today as just a bad dream. A horrible dream filled with terrible things that couldn't possibly be true. When he woke up tomorrow, he would go back to the guild and open the doors to see Gray sitting there with a scowl on his face, demanding to know why Natsu hadn't come to the guild the day before. Tomorrow everything would be better. Tomorrow.

Because the alternative was too terrible to even imagine, too impossible to be true. Natsu would wake up tomorrow and he would be fine, because it was impossible—impossible—that Gray was dead. They would both be okay.

The lines between reality and fiction, truth and lies, were becoming impossibly blurred, to the point where Natsu could hold firmly to only one unwavering truth:

He would be fine.

Note: Okay, so that was a little overboard for denial, but Natsu is pretty over the top at the best of times. His insistence that he's fine (both to himself and others) is also a form of denial, and perhaps a less extreme and more common way for grieving people to protect themselves when they're in a state of denial.

Also, I don't know why Lucy's chapters always end up so long, considering that she isn't one of my favorite characters or anything. I think that maybe it's because she's more of a talker than some of the other characters, so it feels more natural for me to write her as talkative, whereas most of the other characters don't have as much to say (or rather, they don't necessarily share their thoughts and feelings as readily). I feel like talking would help her in the grieving process, so she talked. A lot xD