With a broken rib, Gray managed to defeat one demon, but by the time he'd accomplished that Erza had defeated hers, and came to take out the one Gray couldn't beat. Wendy, finishing off her two not long after, came to Gray's side and began healing him without prompting.

"How much energy do you have left?" Gray asked.

"Enough," she told him. "I can heal you and still fight in village."

"Not all the way," he told her. "Just enough for me to—" he coughed, getting flecks of blood on her face. "Ugh… Just enough to stop that. Natsu… Natsu needs help."

"Natsu shouldn't be here," Erza told him. "This job was too dangerous. Could he have even followed us this far?"

"That way." One of the hands Gray used to clutch his side grudgingly moved away from the injured area to point in the direction he'd heard Happy fly off in. "He was here. They followed. Happy pulled him off that way. He was still coherent, but…"

"Did one of the demons hit him?"

"I don't think so… but the walk… and he used magic…"

Finishing with Gray, Wendy sniffed the air. "I'll see what I can do for him. Gray, Erza, can you carry out the mission?"

"I can handle the remaining demons," Erza assured them both. "Gray, you want to look after Natsu, don't you?"

"Yes. Thank you."

While Erza went on towards the village they'd meant to save, Gray followed Wendy and her nose back the way they'd come from, going only a few hundred yards before they found Natsu lying in the grass, Happy by his side.

His face was scrunched in pain, an occasional whimper escaping his lips, usually in response to some slight twitch of his hand. Recalling Natsu's description of what it was like to suffer an attack, to have everything hurt, Gray felt his stomach plummet. He'd been certain Natsu wasn't having an attack before, so what set this off? Was Happy carrying him too much?

Was this because Natsu had tried to save him from that demon a second time?

The sheer guilt that thought brought caused Gray to turn around and retch, spilling stomach acids onto the grass. Natsu had followed them when he had orders not to, Gray tried to remind himself. Seeing Natsu when he wasn't supposed to be there distracted him.

He let himself get distracted, and Natsu felt the need to try and save him. Of course he would have. That was in Natsu's nature. They'd both messed up, but he already didn't trust Natsu not to look after himself, and he should have held himself to a higher standard to make up for that.

"Can you stop it?" Gray asked. "The disease? Can you keep it from doing any more damage?"

"I can try," Wendy told him. "If nothing else, I can try and ease the pain."

"Please. Help him."

Wendy nodded, placing a hand gingerly on Natsu's forehead. He gasped in pain.

"I'll do everything I can."

-o-

With Wendy's help, bringing Natsu back to the guild was easier than when he'd collapsed fighting the dark guild.

It agitated Gray's wounds to carry him, so he surrendered to the idea of Happy and Carla taking turns. With Wendy regularly casting a spell to dull his pain, there was no moaning either. She even maintained Troia for him while they road home, forgoing their inn completely in order to get Natsu back to the guild as fast as they could.

"I don't know how much I helped," Wendy explained as they went. "Vital organs were where I focused first. Porlyusica didn't specify anything there, but I thought that if his heart or lungs became weaker, that could make everything else difficult too. After that I tried to prevent too much deterioration in his skeletal muscles. Sometimes when I check, I catch them starting to… to… to fall apart more," she said, struggling to find the right words for the phenomenon, "but I'm doing my best to minimize the damage. He only wanted to be included. It would be awful if he woke up and couldn't walk anymore."

"Yeah…"

Natsu had first noticed something off when Gray dragged him to complete in a tournament. He'd pushed himself when he knew he wasn't up for it against that dark guild because he was afraid Gray would tease him. Now, knowing the full situation, he'd fallen to another attack trying to protect Gray, because Gray let himself get distracted by Natsu's presence instead of focusing on protection him.

"What happens if he can't walk?" Gray asked, although he already knew. Natsu had been so upset to be unable to run and fight. Having someone walk with him in case he tired out was already too much for him. To be unable to get around on his own at all…

Wendy, unsure of the answer, only said, "I'm doing everything I can."

-o-

It was the middle of the night when they returned and the guild hall was locked up, but Carla flew through an open window on the second floor and let them in. They got Natsu settled into the infirmary bed, and Wendy and Gray began debating how would be better suited to keep watch over him. Finally, grudgingly, Gray went home just long enough to get food for everyone. As much as he hated to leave Natsu's side, Wendy was the one with healing magic, and she needed something to keep her going.

Natsu was asleep when he returned, expression finally relaxed. Gray had never thought to keep track before of how long the attacks lasted, but however long they went, it was too long.

"How is he?"

"Better, but there's no way to know how bad things are until he wakes up. Here's hoping we did enough."

-o-

When Natsu suffered an attack, the world had tilted and blurred and split in two. He hadn't been given much of a chance to process this aspect of his condition the first time it happened, but he did recall that the first two times he woke up once it was all over, his vision had cleared completely.

This time, when he woke up in the guild's infirmary, he opened his eyes and saw nothing but smudges.

"Natsu?"

Ah. That was Gray. So his hearing still worked fine. Gray was the big shape on his right. Who did that make the other two?

Sniffing the air, Natsu pegged them as Mira and Lisanna, and he couldn't quite make out which was which.

"Natsu? Are you okay?" Gray asked.

Natsu did his best to focus on Gray's face, or at least his head. Smiling despite himself, he said, "Yeah. I'm fine."

Silence, then:

"Are you kidding me?" Gray all but shrieked. "Does any of this look fine to you? Really? You can't even look me in the eye anymore!"

Natsu squinted. Where were Gray's eyes?

"Natsu?" One of the white haired blurs, Mira, going by the voice, shifted and stuck what Natsu could only assume as an arm in front of Gray. "How many fingers am I holding up?"

"Um…" He squinted harder. "None?"

Mira's arm fell limp. This time, the ensuring silence didn't end with Gray exploding. Instead, once it had dragged on three times longer than the first, Gray rose and walked out of the room.

"He's mad, isn't he?" Natsu asked. "I followed when I wasn't supposed to and messed everything up."

Neither Mira nor Lisanna said anything, and if either of them looked sad or solemn or tried to give a reassuring smile, he couldn't tell. The only response he could recognize was for Mira to reach down and place a hand gently on his shoulder.

"How mad is he? He isn't going to lock me up forever, is he?"

Before the last attack, Gray had proved that he could confine Natsu with magic, if he so wished. Now without knowing how much worse his situation might be, Natsu half feared Gray could manage this simply by locking the door.

"Has Gray threatened to lock you up before?" Mira asked. Her voice was light, teasing, but he could hear an edge under it. Lucy thought Gray took things too far with him. It had never occurred to Natsu that anyone else in the guild might question Gray's protective streak as well.

"No," Technically, it wasn't a lie. Gray gave no warning the time he froze Natsu inside his house. "Not since I was sick, I mean. He used to say it'd be great if the Council could just throw me in a cell for a few days."

"Alright. Don't worry about Gray," Mira told him. "He's going to get Porlyusica. That's all."

"Is she nearby?"

"I've been waiting half the day."

Natsu reflexively jumped when he heard the woman's voice, and looked in the direction where the door should be. There stood a blue blur with a pink top, and a fleshy blur with black hair. Porlyusica and Gray, no doubt. He didn't want to face either of them so soon after breaking the rules and triggering an attack, and pulled his bed sheets over his head.

"None of that," Porlyusica said, ribbing the sheets from Natsu's hand and throwing them on the floor. "Now look at the ceiling and hold still."

Natsu obeyed, but still asked, "Why? What are you going to do to me?"

"I'm going to check your vision, you stupid child."

A light switched on, glaring into one of Natsu's eyes, then again in the other before flicking off. "Pupils still react to light. How well can you see, Natsu?"

Shouldn't she have asked that first? "Everything's blurry."

"Everything?"

He scowled, looking around the room for something that wasn't, before saying, "Yeah. I guess."

"You guess?" Gray muttered.

"My hearing's just fine, though," Natsu added.

"You can still hardly see," Gray shot back. "And if you think that's fine—"

"Quiet," Porlyusica snapped. "Natsu, I want you to follow the movement of my finger."

"What finger?"

"My fist. Can you make out my fist?"

From her increasingly clipped tone, Natsu suspected that if he couldn't see the fist, he would feel it soon. Fortunately, it was a large enough object for him to make out, and he nodded.

She raised it high above his head, then brought it between his nose, and finally held it in place, asking, "How much detail can you make you?"

"Um…" Natsu squinted, straining as hard as he could, and was about to honestly answer none when he noticed that, slowly but surely, her fist was taking on a definite shape. "Hang on."

He stared at it so hard he gave himself a headache all over again, but when he kept it up for long enough, he could make her fist out fine, right down to the wrinkles on her fingers, and was smacked for saying so.

"Your vision has cleared then?" Porlyusica asked while Natsu rubbed his sore cheek.

"No. Everything else is still blurry."

She paused, then, sounding incredulous, asked, "But you can see my hand still?"

"Not since you moved it."

Porlyusica shifted, then produced a bottle from her pocket and held it at roughly the same distance that she'd held her fist. "Can you make out what this is?"

"Um…"

She moved it up a little, then down, and crossed into the brief range of depth where Natsu could still make things out.

"Oh! I see it. That's a weird shape."

"Interesting." Porlyusica repocketed the bottle. "You're not blind, at least. It seems your eyes have trouble focusing. Damage to the ciliary muscle, maybe? Or the lens itself?"

"The what?" Natsu asked, but Porlyusica was too preoccupied with muttering theories to herself to pay him any more heed. "What muscle did I screw up? H-hey?"

"Hey." Gray repeated, shaking Porlyusica for Natsu. "So can we do anything for this or not?"

"We'll see." She placed a hand over one of Natsu's eyes, pressing down lightly, then pulling away. "I'll need to do another test or two before I'm certain of the exact problem, but I think I'll be able to pin it down by evening. Thanks to one of your friends, I have more experience with eyes than most. I might be able to reserves the damage. At least, in part, depending on the exact cause."

Mira and Lisanna gasped over that, and took to talking in excited whispers with one another. Natsu, who they'd forgotten could hear just fine, didn't get his hopes up. He was done getting his hopes up. He spent a whole month hoping he'd get better and ended up being told he had to give up his old life. Hoping he could still at least follow along and watch didn't go so well either. Hoping that he wouldn't end up functionally blind sounded tiring.

Standing, Porlyusica said, "I'm going home. I need to gather some supplies before I can test him any further. You three keep quiet about this. His hearing still works, and I've heard more than I'd care too about him overhearing you people gossip."

-o-

Natsu was grateful for Porlyusica's embargo on information right up until Gray used it to justify not leaving the infirmary at all.

"Lisanna and Mira can say their busy helping the guild run, but I've got nothing to do but sit around and talk," he'd said. "I'd rather talk with you, and you'd rather I not talk with anyone else about this yet, right? Don't know what I'd tell any of them to make them stop asking."

"I'd rather sleep," Natsu said. He didn't know if having to talk to Gray after making such a mess of things was better than the guild gossiping or not.

Gray didn't comment, letting Natsu roll over and pretend to go back to bed. Eventually, Natsu did doze off. It felt good to close his eyes after straining them so hard, and if you lie in bed long enough, eventually you fall asleep. But after spending a day unconscious, he wasn't exactly tired, and slept lightly. When Gray started talking again, thinking no one would hear, Natsu stirred.

"You get off on worrying me, don't you?" Gray asked. "I think you're trying to drive me crazy."

That made two of them, although it wasn't Gray's health that Gray drove Natsu mad with.

"You should have let me take that hit. Both those hits. You think I like being the one to stand over your sick bed? I'd rather have been permanently injured myself than see you get worse, stupid."

Natsu bit his lip and tried to fall back asleep, feeling guilty for listening in. Gray would express all of this to him later, probably, but it felt like an invasion of privacy to listen just then.

"You idiot," Gray muttered. "Why do you always have to fight everything. I just want you to be okay. It's not like I wanted to control you. I just… I couldn't… I can't see you get any worse. I can't."

-o-

Porlyusica returned, chased Gray out, and ran more tests. They involved horrible eye drops, lots of lights shined at his face, and something that puffed air at his eyeball. Natsu was not happy with her by the time she was done. Even the news that they might be able to repair his vision, more or less, didn't brighten his mood. It came as too much of a shock for it to elicit any other emotion, and once the shock wore off, Natsu found he was still annoyed with all the testing.

Well, by the time the shock wore off, it was possible that his annoyance had more to do with the bandage Porlyusica was wrapping about his face.

"If you don't want me straining 'em, can't you just tell me to keep my eyes shut?" Natsu asked.

"We told you to keep out of harm's way, and you took a train all the way across the country, somehow hiked four miles, then tried to fight a demon. Considering how much less effort opening your eyes is? No."

"But—"

"No."

She snipped the end of the bandage and secured it around Natsu's face, gave the wrapping a tug to make sure it would hold, then nodded in satisfaction.

Natsu gave the wrapping a tug too, and was disappointed to not feel the fabric budge an inch. It felt like he was yanking it hard, but then it felt like he exerted himself a lot when he no longer put any power into things. He'd been warned that another attack would weaken him further, but after the second he'd felt so far from where he ought to be that the idea of being weaker still had seemed abstract.

"I'll give the medicine to Gray. Thank God there's an actual medicine for this one," Porlyusica said, rising to her feet. "You stay here. It's too late for tea, but someone can come in and help you with your therapy later. I need to speak to Makarov."

"Therapy? I can't see."

"Which won't stop you from moving your limbs around. It's not like you'd see much better without those bandages anyway."

All valid points that Natsu was already aware of. He was equally aware of the fact that it would be Gray who, if not ordered to go and work with him, would volunteer to. Listening earlier had been hard enough. To have Gray repeat all those sentiments and expect a reply was more than Natsu wanted to deal with. He felt lousy enough for screwing himself over without the added guilt of knowing how distressed it made Gray.

I can't see you get any worse.

The way he'd said it, softly, almost desperately, made Natsu sweat. Gray had never used that tone before. Ever. And they'd all called one another out on some silly and potentially fatal risk at one point or another.

The sound of the door shutting as Porlyusica left the room, and of her immediately after shouting the diagnosis to Makarov, reminded Natsu that there were more pressing matters than what Gray's tone meant. He had to focus on not going blind, and on working through his therapy so he wouldn't end up too much worse than he'd been before. That would probably make Gray happy, too. At least, as happy as Gray could be with him, after how terrible he screwed up.

How unfair. He'd only wanted to be included.

Sighing, Natsu hugged his legs against his chest and leaned back against the headboard.

"—ran after them," Natsu heard Laxus say on the other side of the wall. "Guess Gray wasn't paranoid when he said Lucy wasn't fit to look after the idiot."

"The fault is with me," Makarov argued. "Gray wasn't the only one who suggested to me that letting him go with them at all might be a bad idea. We might want to consider removing him from the guild completely, for his own safety. If being a part of Fairy Tail makes it too hard for him to take his condition into account…"

"That's a little harsh, don't you think?" Erza asked. "Natsu's one of us."

"Trying to remain one of us is what landed Natsu back in that bed."

It would have been nice, Natsu thought, if they'd taken him home when he collapsed, and brought Porlyusica there instead. No one would hang around outside his house to talk about booting him from the guild.

They… wouldn't really make him leave, would they? Natsu's hand went up to the guild mark on his shoulder. If Makarov removed it now, he wouldn't be able to see. Would he feel it? Having the physical marker of his place in the guild taken away ought to feel like having a limb ripped off.

"Will it be alright to send him off on his own? He managed with Happy before, but Gray said he had trouble buying food by himself. He doesn't live close to anything, and it was already hard for him to carry things for long. Depending on how much worse he ends up after this…"

"It's entirely possible," Porlyusica said, "that he'll no longer be able to walk as far as the guild."

"How likely is that?" Makarov asked.

"I'll have him get up first thing in the morning and see. In the meantime, we should be prepared for the worst."

"We need to find others who can keep an eye on him," Laxus said. "Him and Lucy both don't make sure he takes care of himself, and the only other one we've got right now is Gray. The guy already works himself silly trying to be there for Natsu constantly, all while still supporting himself. It's not fair on him. There ought to be two or three people who can all take turns looking after Natsu properly."

Natsu's breath seized. As if the suggestion that he be booted from the guild didn't hurt enough. He'd known from the start that it was a hassle for anyone helping him to have to take time out of their day to lend a hand, but when Gray chose to monopolize that role and Natsu found himself resenting that his friend thought he needed so much help, it slipped his mind. Almost every job Gray had taken in the past two months was a short, light one that paid little. He'd only taken a big job that required he leave town a few times, one of those times bringing Natsu along and looking after him throughout the excursion.

The guilt of being a burden, on top of the guilt for making Gray feel bad, made Natsu's throat constrict. He should have done his best to ignore the conversation. Pulled the pillow over his head and tried to drown it out until he went to sleep. But they were listing off the names of potential guild members who could share Gray's burden, and wanting not to cause so much trouble for Gray in the future, Natsu found himself listening.

Erza's apartment was girls only, and they worried she might encourage Natsu to do more than he could. Mira's landlady was already annoyed that they brought Lisanna home when they'd originally signed on to have only two people on her property. Max spent too much time out socializing to be expected to look after someone who might not be able to leave home. Wendy could move in with Natsu—assuming someone cleaned his place up—but how fair was it to expect a little girl to play caretaker for a grown man?

"We might want to placing him in a home," Wakaba mentioned. "He's young for it, but there would be people there whose job it would be to look after him. It's not like we couldn't visit all the time."

That was the point where it became entirely too much for Natsu. He grabbed the pillow, wrapped it tight around his ears, and tried to block out the world.

-o-

For Gray, it had become too much long before. His heart was already in his throat just from bringing Natsu home. Watching his friend struggle just to make out what was right in front of him...

He took a deep, steadying breath, and continued his walk. Everyone had come to him with questions. Erza wanting to know what the damage was. Laxus demanding an explanation for how they failed to notice he'd followed them. Lucy, in tears, apologizing for not keeping track of him and begging for assurance that her mistake hadn't caused too much harm. It had been overwhelming, to be forced away from Natsu by that old woman, only to have everyone descend on him in hopes of information. Gray hadn't known what to say. They didn't even know the full extent of the damage yet. He'd turned and ran, knowing only that he wanted to get far away from the entire situation and never look back.

By sunset, however, he had to acknowledge that turning back was needed. He'd spent the past few hours wandering the woods outside of Magnolia, and calming as it had been, if he wasn't back by the time they locked down the guild, how was Natsu going to get home? Or would they make him stay alone in the infirmary overnight?

They wouldn't leave Natsu completely on his own. Happy would be there. For all the good that did. Gray was skeptical of how much comfort Happy could provide just then. If anyone felt worse than Gray, or perhaps Lucy, it was Happy. Whether Natsu had tricked Happy into going further than the cat thought, or whether they really had planned only to hang around whatever inn or campground the team set up, Gray didn't know. Either way, Happy was the one who made it possible for Natsu to get as far as he did.

Sighing, Gray turned around and trudged back to the guild. If he was lucky, then maybe most everyone would already be gone. If Natsu was going home, he could drop him off early the next day, or have Porlyusica pay a home visit. If Natsu stayed the night in the infirmary, then he'd keep him company and slip out first thing when the guild opened up. One way or the other, he didn't want to deal with anyone else until things settled back down.

To his relief, the guild hall was almost empty when he showed up. Only Mira, Makarov, Laxus, and Porlyusica remained, and from the near total lack of lighting, Gray guessed that the only reason the building hadn't been locked up yet was that they hadn't finished their conversation. They were arguing over assessment methods. Therapy. How much guild exposure it might be safe to give Natsu in the future…

"If he can't walk anymore, I don't see the harm in letting him hang around," Gray said as he walked by. "It's not like he'd be able to pull this again."

Mira sputtered indignantly, as if the idea that Natsu might not be able to walk was too preposterous for words. Funny. Last spring, Gray would have felt the same way if anyone proposed the idea that Natsu might not be able to fight.

He opened the infirmary door, and instantly regretted doing so. Natsu sat at the head of the bed, pillow wrapped around his ears. There had been no injuries this time, but the front of his bandages were damp, and despite his best efforts to choke back sobs, his shoulders trembled.

It was nauseating to Gray, to see his friend reduced to that. His heart clenched, and before he could register his own movements, Gray found himself on the bed beside Natsu, hugging him tight.

Natsu didn't react at first, continuing to put all his effort into not crying too openly. Then, slowly, he put a hand up to his cheek and felt the bandages, realized that his efforts weren't enough, and told Gray, "I'm not crying."

"Do you need your bandages changed?" Gray asked.

"No. They're new."

"Alright." For lack of any other ideas, Gray ruffled Natsu's hair. "Bad news?"

"I can't see."

"Right. Sorry."

Natsu pulled the pillow away from his head, setting it in his lap. He never turned his head to face Gray, instead angling himself as if he meant to stare at the wall.

"Natsu? Is there anything I can do for you?"

"Can I ask something selfish?"

Gray knew he was going to regret saying it, but he forced a smile that would go unseen and said, "Until your eyes are working properly again, be as selfish as you want."

"Can I move in with you?"

That had been, quite possibly, the last question Gray expected from a boy who threw a fit over having to be walked home by Gray each night. So thrown off was Gray by the surprise that he forgot to speak, and when the silence went on too long, Natsu tensed.

"Nevremind," he muttered. "I already take up too much time, right?"

"N-no! No. That's fine!" Gray assured him. "That would be easier on me, actually. Saves me time I would have spent trekking to your place. Are you… Are you sure that's what you want? To leave your house?"

"They're talking about making me leave. They said… they might send me… to a…" Despite Natsu's best efforts, a sob escaped, distracting him from finishing that sentence.

Wherever he feared of going, it was no wonder the poor guy was in tears. Gray swallowed hard, realizing there was a concern now about Natsu living on his own, and did something he knew he'd hate himself for. He'd always hated it, after all, when others tried to cheer Natsu up with the promise of going on a job, and look how well that turned out.

"We don't know how bad the damage is yet, or how much of it we can undo. I'll take you to my place as soon as they give you the clear to go, but who knows. Maybe after a few days, they'll decide your good to live at home still."

Natsu nodded, offering Gray a weak smile. It would have been nice if it weren't so forced. Gray could tell he wasn't the only one who thought now that it hadn't been so great that everyone kept feeding Natsu false hope.

-x-

STA: This was a moment I planned out forever ago. I can't believe it took me until chapter 18 to get to. If I'd actually planned this story out chapter by chapter, this'd probably have come by chapter 10 at the latest. Then again, I'm not planning chapter by chapter because I felt like that made me rush and condense too much… so maybe it's good that it took me until chapter 18?

Anyway, I promise this is the last time Natsu's going to be in bed. For an attack, at least. There are many other reasons why he may still end up in bed. Sex, sleepiness, passing out drunk, being shot at with a revolver and rushed to the hospital… Only some of those things are going to happen, but they're all possible explanations for bed usage.

Supernova888: Hate me all you want, but I still love you.