Beginning note: So. This is it. It was a fun like … two or three weeks. I loved writing this. But midterms are coming followed closely by grading midterms, so business will probably keep me off the site for a bit. I hope everyone enjoys and please review!
Thank you ALL so much. And to the Anon, since there are no more chapters to thank you in: Thank you in advance! :*
When the Lights Go Out
Chapter 11
The Long Goodbye
Polyusica took one look at the box that held Wendy and said she would have to be freed of the possession before anything else was done.
That was difficult.
She, Polyusica, and Fried all worked on the spells to remove Howl. It took over a week. They only knew she was herself again when she stopped trying to kill them while they worked their spells. Wendy wouldn't look at any of them. Wouldn't go near Levi. Or anyone else.
Not even Charle.
She could have healed her own eye, Charle told them in whispers while Wendy sat at a table in the corner. Porlyusica could have healed it if she didn't have faith in her own powers. But Wendy would let no one do anything about the eye.
She bandaged it without saying a word to anyone. Penned her hair in a way that covered the bandage and half of her face. In the mornings when people came in, everyone noticed the slight tear stains on her cheek, but no one brought it up.
She was a constant person of conversations, but only when none of them were in the building with her. Some forced their way to her side. Charle. Master Makarov. Mirajane. Lisanna. Natsu. Lucy. But she did not acknowledge them.
Levi suspected she'd come out of it. But it would take a while. And it would take Gajeel back, telling her she shouldn't be upset. Levi understood more than she herself would say. She kept a happy face, and an upbeat tone.
Wendy made no sound. Offered no words to any of them.
One month.
Levi noticed that wherever Wendy sat, she could always see the space in the air where Gajeel should come back. Where Gajeel would come back. Where they had come back.
Her face was always neutral. No smiles. No frowns. Nothing.
But still she waited.
Levi didn't encroach on her space. She respected the girl's fear. The girl's guilt. But she couldn't help watching either. She didn't expect him back quite yet. If they'd been gone for four months after Gajeel returned, than he would likely be gone at least four months. Probably longer. Maybe a lot longer.
It was a big job he took on. An imp - …. no. Not impossible. But hard. A hard mission.
Not impossible.
Two months. She wasn't crying yet.
She dreamed of him.
Wendy wasn't coming home. Her rooms in Fairy Hills were covered in dust. Levi cleaned for her when she remembered. If the girl decided to come home, she wanted her to have a place to go that she wouldn't have to worry about.
Slowly, so as not to scare her, Levi sat closer and closer to her. Charle had done the same, but a little faster. Wendy wouldn't touch her. Charle probably never went home either. Though the Queen did come see her once, and Levi watched Charle crying on her shoulder in a back room for hours.
Happy skipped missions with Natsu and their team to spend time next to Charle.
Pantherlily kept by her side most of the time.
So did Jet and Droy at times. They were so happy she came back alive that they almost didn't know what to do. She encouraged them to take two-man jobs as a favor to her. So that she could pay her bills and together they could buy food for Wendy.
Mira wouldn't take their money after the first month. But Levi sent them out anyway. It gave them something to do. It freed her of the guilt of keeping them leashed to her. She had enough guilt as it was.
She was still going home. Still taking showers and baths. She always had books to read. She studied some on what might be going on in the other level. On why Gajeel might have been chosen. She talked to Natsu. Wished she could talk with Wendy; she would know better than anyone.
But Wendy was silent.
And Levi found nothing in her books. Nothing in her dreams.
Three months.
Unlike Gajeel, her hope didn't grow as the months went by. She knew he was alive when he started, and the hag wouldn't come to let them know she won.
Though maybe she would.
To gloat. To try and reclaim Wendy. To throw his body at them.
She was dreaming of things like that now. Though she also had dreams of his grin. Dreams of the way his skin felt under her hands.
Dreams of his laugh. Of his voice when he tried to protect them.
Of his face the last time she saw him.
She wished she had lied.
Four months. The days were getting longer.
She slept so that she could see him. It was the only place she could find him.
Wendy didn't sleep at all. Not that she ever saw. And she saw her more and more. Levi didn't go home much anymore either. To clean. Her place. Wendy's place. She brought books, but her eyes didn't stay on the page as much.
Jet and Droy still ran their jobs across her. Sometimes. Sometimes they didn't even come say hi between. Just went for the board. Picked something. Left again. They were hurt. She knew she hurt them, but how could she go when she knew he had watched for her?
How could she abandon him when he never lost faith in her?
Five months.
Wendy was losing weight. She ate less. Cried less. Blinked less. Sometimes her hands were in her lap. Other times her hands were on the table, and she rested her chin on them. Levi thought maybe it was getting harder for her to hold up her head. Levi thought that it was only her magic keeping her going.
It was healing magic. How hard would it be to kill her?
But she was wasting away slowly. Levi could see it. And it was seeing it in Wendy that allowed her to see it in herself.
She held Lily sometimes and wept. He didn't say anything about that. He put his paws on her forearms, and his soft body was always still. Easy to hold. He did nothing to startle her. He was so strong. So strong to be there for her when she knew he was hurting too.
Together they watched.
But nothing ever happened.
Six months.
Seven months.
Eight months.
They were all forced home. Bathed. Put in their beds. Fed. Well Wendy was. Levi was able to do those things for herself still.
Levi hadn't near reached the state that Wendy had, but she knew what she was doing was unhealthy. She knew she should take better care of herself.
Wendy was trapped in her room with Charle and Juvia to take care of her. Levi hit her books. Pantherlily lived with her now. He said it was his job to watch her. Watch her while they waited. That she was the one his partner loved best, and that meant while Gajeel was gone he had to do what he could to protect her as he would have.
If he were here.
But he wasn't.
She held Lily when she slept. Like Gajeel used to hold him. She could still find him in her dreams. She still had that at least.
Nine months.
Ten months.
Eleven months.
A year.
On the one year anniversary Levi arrived at the guild early. Wendy was already there. Both of them had been working off and on, but never big jobs. Never anything that would take them away from Magnolia for very long.
Levi slept every night at Fairy Hills because she knew Wendy was only sleeping in daylight. Part of it, Charle had told her in secret, was that she had nightmares in her sleep. And that they were lessened if she slept in sunlight than in darkness.
Wendy feared the dark now perhaps more than she feared anything.
Except maybe lightening. She looked like she was being tortured when the heat cut through the sky.
It was also something that Levi could understand, but then Levi could only find him in darkness, so she slept in darkness. Every night. Seeking him out. Reminding herself that once … once he had been real.
The guild filled that day. Because everyone had remembered. It eased her bitter feelings about them and their happiness. Not that she begrudged them their joy, but it hurt her. And she knew it tore at Wendy.
But they had to live their own lives. Levi realized that. She could not hate them for having their laughter and their groups of smiles. But she thought Wendy might. That she might hate everything. She talked now, but her words were soft and rare.
The poor girl was more than heartbroken. More than traumatized. She felt guilty. That it was her fault. She was the reason he had gone to die. Levi knew it, though the girl said nothing of it, and tried to tell her that she shouldn't take any guilt on herself.
It was Levi who opened the door.
Levi who told him to go.
Levi who refused to lie, when lying would have kept him with her.
She wanted more than dreams. She wanted his flesh. His heart. His mouth. His laughter. His life.
But she had sent him away.
Sound was hushed as the guild looked to the empty space in the middle of the room. There was a reverence there that she'd never felt in all her time in the guild. And they waited. As the sun rose. And the sun moved. As the sun died.
Night was born.
Shadow filled the hall. In the corners where light did not reach.
Shadow filled the center. A door into nothing.
The sound of metal on wood was heard. But nothing else.
Levi was the only one who moved. When the door faded.
A pile of iron rivets. And a brown eye.
She did not cry.
She would not cry.
She would never cry.
End
Author's Note: so yeah. First, I know it might not seem like it, but seriously the worst part of this is that Levi will never know why this happened. It was explained to Gajeel, but Levi will never know. Wendy will never know. NO ONE will ever know. And that's really sad. Second; I know a lot of you were hoping, and possibly expecting, a happy ending. But this was a horror story from the very start. Everyone can't be happy at the end of a horror story. In fact most people should be not happy. And someone has to die. I'm sorry, but that's just the way shit goes sometimes.
And trust me no one struggled with this harder than me. I love Gajeel. And I totally want him and Levi to be happy, but I didn't think it would work. So. Sorry. But … yeah. If you want happy: Plans and Executions is happy. Rusty Red is happy. Only Her; happy. Somewhere in the Middle; perhaps too happy.
When the Lights Go Out … not happy.
To my Anon: Thank you for every comment. You are a fantastic reviewer! I wasn't offended by the comment on 9; I wanted you to see where I was coming from. I've been one of those disappearing/pretend it's not happening people. And I've been on the other side too. So I wanted to let you (and anyone else who read that extremely long rant!) to know I wasn't making it up from whole cloth. That it was actually a part of the story with meaning to me! But thank you for letting me know your feelings on that too.
And YAY! A new Ga/Le fan! The more the merrier!