Aside from Frosch waving in the window nobody moved. Rogue and Natsu stared at Sting and he stared back. A minute passed. Two minutes. Then Sting got down on his knees and bowed so deeply his forehead touched the dirt.

"I'm sorry," he said. "I screwed up."

Any protest, any scolding, any sort of acceptance of the apology, any complaint that a simple sorry wasn't enough, even a relieved sigh to see that Sting didn't hate him, died in Rogue's throat as emotions clashed inside of him, different voices in his head all demanding he react in some conflicting way. Natsu was not as stunned.

"You did screw up."

"I know." Sting straightened back up, but didn't stand. "I'm sorry, Rogue. I was an idiot. I should have had more faith in you."

Why? Why was he there? Rogue blinked back tears, trying to find an explanation for what was happening. Sting was back. Sting was apologizing. Sting was apologizing without any arm twisting. How had he gone from hissing and glaring to this? There had to be a reason.

Did he care what the reason was? Sting was apologizing. Sting… wanted him back, right?

"Well, he shouldn't have any faith in you!" Natsu snarlled. "What the hell is wrong with you? Your lover tells you he's pregnant and you kick him out? It rained enough to flood Lucy's place that night! What if someone hadn't taken Rogue in? What if he'd gotten sick? He could have died! He and your child could have died!" It was hard to tell if Sting or Rogue looked more stupefied to have this pointed out to them, but Natsu ignored their shock and continued with his rant. "He wasn't even expecting to find someone who'd take him in for more than one night. What if I hadn't found out he needed work, and he wasn't able to get hired anywhere? If Rogue had gone to anyone else asking to stay for the night he might be homeless somewhere right now, and then he wouldn't be in any sort of shape to put up with your shit and the baby would have probably died anyway." He paused. "Not that Rogue's really in a good shape to put up with you anyway. I hope your happy knowing he can't even think of what you did without losing his voice."

The tirade left Natsu panting, cheeks red with rage.

Rogue took a step back, partially out of concern that Natsu might combust and partially because Natsu was right. For as thrilled as he was to see Sting again… No. He didn't even care about all the worst case scenarios that Natsu had saved him from. For as thrilled as he was to see Sting again the simple fact that Sting had the nerve to have accused him of sleeping with someone else was reason enough not to run back to him.

"You're right," Sting said once he found his voice again. "You're completely right. I put Rogue in danger when I made him leave. It was stupid of me. I just thought… but I was wrong, and it was wrong of me to have done that to him. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry, Rogue."

"I'm sorry too," Rogue told him. "I'm with Natsu now."

"He told me." Pure misery flashed in Sting's eyes, but he quickly turned his gaze downward to hide it. "I…" The question of when they got together jumped to the front of Sting's mind, but asking that while apologizing for assuming Rogue had cheated on him was probably a bad idea. "If there's anything I can do to make this up to you, I-"

"You can leave," Natsu told him. "It's our one month anniversary. You're ruining it."

The numbers all crunched a bit too fast in Sting's mind for him to keep up with what was happening, and before he could stop himself he blurted out, "You two slept together before you even started going out?"

The hurt in Rogue's eyes, at having been accused again in such a short amount of time… actually didn't match Sting's. He had Rogue had been together for years. Rogue had handed him a 'check yes or no' request for them to date as soon as they were old enough to get the basic idea of it. Rogue had taken things that far and that fast with Natsu after spurning Sting's advanced for years?

"I don't see why that matters," Natsu said.

In the part of his mind that hadn't gone numb, Rogue pieced the situation together, and realizing where the accusation kept his throat from constricting too tightly for him to speak. "We didn't."

"You… didn't?"

"We didn't," Rogue insisted. "Natsu and I shared a bed the first night, but we haven't had sex."

Natsu sputtered. "That's what he was talking about? H-he should have made it obvious!"

"From context I assumed it was," Sting muttered.

It ought to have been, Rogue silently agreed. It was almost like Natsu had deliberately made Sting's confusion over the situation worse, which was silly. The only chance Natsu would have had to talk to Sting was while he was still of the opinion that he and Rogue needed to make up. What had changed his mind anyway? Seeing how Sting had acted? The two of them hooking up?

"I'm sorry," Sting said when neither Natsu nor Rogue said anything. "I… I'm only making this worse, aren't I?"

"You are," Natsu assured him.

Rogue thought that getting that cleared up had actually improved things quite a bit, but held his tongue.

Sting rose to his feet, back at eye level with Rogue, though his eyes were still downcast. "If our child-"

"It's not your child anymore," Natsu told him, despite having emphasized that it was earlier. "You gave up that right." To make sure Sting got the point, Natsu pulled Rogue in and held him close.

Sting swallowed back a wave of nausea at sight of Rogue, who would have slugged him for trying something like that, allowing Natsu to hold him in such a way. Rogue, of course, was still processing things too slowly with a half numb mind to realize he ought to be protesting the way Natsu was pulling him around, and would have aimed a kick for Natsu's family jewels had he been close enough to his right mind to object to being used to hurt Sting like that, regardless of accusations and apologies.

And it really hurt him. Sting took a step back, then a second, and when he hit the wall of Natsu's house on his third step he turned and bolted into the woods. So long as Natsu and Rogue didn't know that the crashing sounds were him actually crashing into objects that didn't register in his blurry vision, he didn't care if they heard it.

-o-

"Does this mean Fro doesn't get to play with Lector anymore?"

"I'm afraid not," Rogue told Frosch. "You like Happy, though, don't you? And Carla and Lily?"

"Fro really likes Lily. He gives Fro fruit that are one color on the outside and another on the inside."

"That's good," Rogue said. "I don't think we'll see much of Sting anymore." And he was going to keep reminding himself that not seeing Sting was also good.

"That bastard hurt Rogue way too badly," Natsu growled.

"Even though he only did it because he thought Rogue had hurt him," Happy said.

That was the last thing said that night. Natsu, still fuming, turned out the lights and felt his way to his hammock while Rogue changed into pajamas in the dark. He tried not to focus on Happy's comment as he crawled into bed, but the words kept replaying in the front of his mind. Sting had hurt him. Sting had hurt him worse than Rogue had known he could be hurt, hurt him so bad that the pain was all he could think of when his mind drifted to Sting.

Which was why he hadn't thought of was that something had to have allowed for Sting to think Rogue had cheated on him. Sting had always been trusting of Rogue before, and for him to suddenly decide that there was another man Rogue was seeing behind his back… meant that the confusion was probably Rogue's fault.

Sting had hurt him worse than he'd know he could be hurt. There was nothing lower than being told by someone he'd loved for so long that he wasn't wanted anymore. But how badly had Sting been hurt being led to believe that someone he'd loved for so long didn't think he was enough anymore?

Rogue didn't want to think about any of it, because he didn't want to have to admit that he was lying to himself. He didn't know if Sting would try to come back again, but even if Natsu was sweet and caring and trying his best to be what Rogue wanted, Rogue hoped he would come back. He lay awake all night in the mattress Natsu had bought him and wished he could listen to the blond sleeping next to him again.

He could have had that back. Those little moments where he watched Sting sleep, face free of that obnoxious pride. He could have gone baack to listening to that high and mighty voice that dropped down to a friendly, teasing tone that Sting had reserved special for him.

Rogue sighed and buried his face in his pillow, and for the first time since he'd packed his things wished he'd grabbed his old pillow while rushing to get his packing over with, the one that had the scent of Sting's shampoo from those nights when he'd crawled into bed with Rogue, pretending the next morning that a neighbor had been too noisy for him to sleep on his side of the house even though their neighbors had moved out over a year ago. There was a photo under his pillow from one of his first dates with Sting. He hadn't been able to give up those memories. Not yet.

In the dark it was hard to make out, even for a dragon slayer's enhanced vision, but Rogue pulled the picture out and looked at it, recalling when it had been taken. They'd been trying that dinner date thing that Sting and seen some of the older guild members doing. He'd insisted they get a photo of their first meal together that was actually probably one of the thousandth times they'd eaten together, and their hundred-and-somethingeth time they'd eaten dinner together at a restaurant, but because they were a couple it was somehow special that time, so Sting had handed the waiter a camera and asked him to take a picture when their food came out. Sting hadn't been able to wait for the man to snap the shot and begun digging in, so his mouth was stuffed in the image.

The memory made Rogue chuckle, and he placed the photo back under his pillow, feeling a little warmer about Sting. Feeling a little more open to the idea of hearing him out.

But he was with Natsu. He'd told Sting so himself. He was Natsu's boyfriend, and for wishing for the person who put him through so much trouble rather than the one who rescued him, he was the worst boyfriend ever.

-x-

STA: Merry Christmas! I actually finished this a couple days earlier, but decided to hold off for the 25th. In a way, my gift to all you readers was to make you wait.

Well, Sting's back. Sorta. That probably wasn't the reception he'd hoped for. And before anyone can ask, yes, there is an explanation for how Sting found out Rogue wasn't cheating on him and he really was the father, and there is a reason that the confusion was Rogue's fault. I will get to that, so if you were planning to leave a review telling me that was missing then please don't. I really hate getting reviews that are like "Oh, you forgot this" or "you know, X should really be..." when I was planning to explain that in a later chapter. Doubly so if it was going to be explained in the next chapter, because then I feel like it will look like I only thought to include whatever was pointed out because it was pointed out.