Chapter 2 | Falling Apart
June, X795
"Natsu..." Lucy watched her feet drag one in front of the other.
Countless people passed by on the busy streets, but no one cared to notice the girl traveling on autopilot. The only recognition of her existence was the usual "Don't fall in!" greeting when she walked by the river's edge, but Lucy didn't hear the man. She could only think of Natsu. Where was he? What was he thinking? He disappeared days ago, and not even Happy knew where he went. Ever since their conversation, she eagerly waited for him to reappear at the guild, just so she would know he was okay. However, day after day he failed to show and his continued absence made the guild antsy. Lucy felt far worse, she was terrified she would never see him again. The guilt and loss began to suffocate her. As she unlocked her apartment door, Lucy decided she wouldn't even go in tomorrow. Lucy didn't have the disposition to have her hope crushed on yet another day. She didn't bother wiping her tears away.
Lucy walked into her apartment, yet again feeling the heartache of her home's emptiness. She left the door unlocked, perpetuating another foolish delusion that Natsu would suddenly waltz through and jump on her bed. Her stomach twisted when she saw a bump under the covers wadded up on her bed. No matter how much she wished for Natsu to be there she knew the bump was merely her blankets. She ripped them from the bed and tossed them to the ground.
They would never fight for her covers in the middle of the night again. She wouldn't wake up in the morning with his eyes lazily watching her or to the sound of him working out like he did early in the mornings. His cheerful laugh wouldn't make her feel better when she grumped around the kitchen waiting for her coffee to brew. Their days of going on missions were over. She wouldn't get to beat him up when he stole her novel and pretended to read it.
Lucy stared up at the ceiling torn between wanting to take back everything she said that day at the hospital and knowing that she made the right decision.
Sleep didn't come to her, she rather preferred it that way. Nightmares have haunted her since this whole disaster began.
Lucy clutched her pillow to her chest and sobbed. Whenever she fell asleep she saw him. Dead. Not the way she had seen him in a nightmare so many months ago, but how he looked when it happened for real. Lucy never imagined she would actually feel his body cold from death nor did she think she would cry over his body begging him to stay alive. Natsu had promised her he would be safe.
That dream from so long ago was nothing compared to how it actually felt to be there, to live in that moment when his heart stopped beating. He was dead for three entire minutes until she resuscitated him. His face had gone pale, his skin lost its radiating warmth, he was covered in blood, and she had never been more terrified in her life. In those sadistically long moments while he laid motionless, she felt an overwhelming sense of loss like she had felt when her mother passed away. She could still see him like that, feel his blood all over her hands, arms, and clothes.
Though he was alive, Natsu was now non-existent in her life. The fear that drove her away from him initially waned, and a feeling of loss similar to that of holding his dead body in her arms crept into her mind. She wasn't supposed to feel loss like this with him still alive. Living apart from him was harder than Lucy thought possible, but Natsu made it clear that they would consider themselves dead to each other. After all, it's what she said she wanted. Or was it?
No matter how hard she tried to stop the conversation from playing over and over again in her head she couldn't escape it. Lucy cringed and threw her pillow by the blankets strewn on the floor. She tucked her knees to her chest trying to think about anything else, but the mental rehearsal of the event started regardless of her efforts to block it out.
Flashback to May, X795
When Natsu had recovered enough to stay awake for more than an hour, Lucy sat down by his bed in Magnolia Hospital and tried to be as unemotional as she could manage. "I don't want to be your partner anymore." Her voice betrayed her by cracking, but she looked at him resolutely.
Natsu's grin from seeing her enter the room fell instantly. He stared at her like she had slapped him in the face. Feeling the urge to cry at his hurt expression, Lucy stood to leave. If she cried, he would comfort her and make everything seem okay, and it wasn't.
"Wha- Lucy stop!" He shot up from the bed and grabbed her wrist, Lucy saw him wince and press a hand against his bandaged abdomen that Wendy was unable to heal.
"What do you mean you don't want to be my partner?!"
She sat beside him on the bed so he wouldn't struggle and hurt himself even more. The window became her safe haven from the betrayed look in his eyes. "We had a lot of fun together, but I'm ready to move on. The truth is that I'm tired of being around you," she said.
"Bull shit!" Natsu growled and Lucy tried to move away, but his rough hand still gripped her wrist tightly. "What's this really about?" he demanded, but she refused to look at him until he called her name aggressively, "Lucy!"
"There's nothing else to say. I'm just done." Lucy shrugged indifferently.
"No you're not! Give me a reason, why are you saying this?" He grabbed her shoulder to make her look at him.
She moved her eyes towards him. Big mistake. He looked scared, hurt, abandoned, and every emotion that made Lucy want to make everything better or run away and never look back.
"You died in my arms!" she cried out before she could prevent it from slipping past her lips.
His expression softened slightly. "But I'm alive now! What's the big deal?!"
What was the big deal? Lucy truly didn't understand how he could be so dense.
"Your face was pale, your hands were freezing, your blood... there was so much." Lucy hiccuped and stared at her hands. "I scrubbed my hands and arms for hours. It wouldn't go away!" Lucy brought her hand to her face and wiped away a tear threatening to fall. In matter of seconds her composure would completely shatter, she had to get out of the room fast.
She felt his grip loosen and watched as his hand moved to grasp hers. "Luce-" There was that voice, the one that made everything seem alright. "No!" Lucy ripped her hand from his and stood up. "It's all my fault. If you hadn't saved me, you wouldn't be covered in bandages right now." Her voice quivered at the end of her sentence.
"I got hurt because I underestimated him! It's not your fault."
"You say that...but I got- no I get in the way! I mean, how many times have you had to save me? I'm not letting you die because I can't protect myself!"
"TOO BAD!" Natsu shouted and slammed his fist against the wooden head board. Lucy yelped and covered her face from the wood shards that flew in multiple directions. "I'm not going anywhere! Go ahead cry, scream, beat me up-like HELL I'm letting you run away because of a close call."
"Shut up!" she screamed, but he continued to yell, "I get scared too, but that doesn't mean I get to hide away like a little kid!"
"Natsu please stop!" She covered her ears, but his voice permeated her hands.
"We've been a team for years. Do you really expect me to let you go when you give me some stupid excuse that you're afraid of me dying? I thought you were stronger than that!"
"I'm asking you to stop!"
"You should know by now I'm strong enough to keep both of us safe, so don't try to pass this off as you wanting to protect me. If you truly care about me you wouldn't do this!"
"How dare you! You don't even know what you're talking about. You couldn't even begin to comprehend how hard this is for me!" Lucy fell back into the visitor's chair and sobbed. This was not how she wanted this conversation to go. "I haven't felt anything so painful since losing my mother! I'd rather be dead than have to go through it a third time! So what if I'm scared? You've lost people you love, why don't you understand?! What about Igneel, don't you remember how it felt?"
His anger dissipated and he ripped out his IV so he could drop to his knees in front of her. Natsu grabbed her hands softly and brought them away from her face. When she met his gaze she was shocked to see he looked close to tears. Almost as soon as she noticed though, he regained his composure fast enough to make her wonder if she actually saw it correctly.
"Of course I remember, that's why I know I don't want to lose you too," he said tenderly as he wiped away the tears on her face with his thumb. Lucy sobbed again. "You and Happy are all I've got. I mean, I have the guild, but you two are everything to me. The chance that I will die isn't enough to make me give up on our team. You belong with us. If you leave the team," his voice caught in his throat, "if you leave, who's to say you won't just stop being with us all together."
She started crying harder and wrapped her arms around herself. Why didn't he understand without her having to actually say it?
"I'm not as strong as you Natsu," she swallowed, "I can't be with you knowing that it's all going to end abruptly one day. I can't have you breaking into my apartment, or sneaking into my bed, or walking home with me. I can't have all these feelings I have for you. Who's to say you won't die in a week, or a month. We've never defined this relationship we've had, and I was okay with that, but now whatever you would call this has to stop."
"Oh." He let go of her face and let his back fall against the bed frame. "You meant you didn't want to be with me at all." For the first time in the conversation, Natsu couldn't look at her. Lucy was at a loss for words. Something rolled off her tongue eventually, but she didn't know what she was saying. "I'm still in Fairy Tail, we'll see each other at least, even if we don't hang out like we used to-"
"No," he said simply.
"No?" the question barely escaped her lips.
"When you see me there...If you love me like you say...you will leave me alone," he felt his throat close up, "I don't mean if I'm with Erza and the rest, they're your friends too. I'll be normal with everyone, but with just us...stay away." Natsu lifted his gaze from the blood seeping through the bandages around his abdomen to the window. "If you want to take the coward's way out, then you go right ahead, but don't expect that things between us will go back to normal. You can't ask me to treat you as a casual acquaintance when I love you so much." He didn't cry even though he wanted to, Natsu was determined to give Lucy the clean break she wanted.
It took Lucy a while to find her voice, "I don't want it to go that far, you know how much you mean to me."
"Do I?" He looked at her like a hurt animal might, in pain and prepared to lash out. The look scarier than any look she had ever seen him give.
She went to the floor and grabbed his hand desperately. "Natsu please don't be like this! I love you so much, that why-"
"Yeah I know, that's why I should go away. Just, why did you wait so long? You should have abandoned me sooner, saved us both the trouble."
"You can't mean that! The moments we shared are the happiest ones in my life, I would never want to miss experiencing them. I know they mean something to you too."
"They meant enough to fight for you, to be with you even if there was a chance either of us could die. The fear of losing you could never win against my need to have you by my side, because that's how much I love you." He stopped and the two sat in silence. His words hung languidly in the air. After some time he spoke again. "Tell me now if you want me to stay and I will. If not, then there has to be a clean break. You can't cut me out and try to keep me around. It will only make it harder for both of us."
Lucy went numb and just stared at him as he resumed his gaze out the window. There was a beautiful yellow bird nesting right on a branch in front of the window.
"Natsu," Lucy hesitated.
"You should go," he said and Lucy flinched at the coldness of his voice.
"Let me at least help you back into bed." She got her legs under her and stood right beside him.
"I'm fine," he stated simply enough to make Lucy get angry. It wasn't safe for him to sit on the floor with his re-opened wound.
"I see you bleeding." She tried to reach for him, but he swatted her hand away. "Kami! Just fucking go already."
Lucy grabbed his arm roughly, lifted him up, and practically threw him at the bed. "I'm sorry alright! I know you hate me now, but I'm not letting you bleed out onto the floor!"
Lucy saw he was clearly shocked by her violent actions, but what was more noticeable was how fragile he looked. Like if she so much as touched him again, he would break apart. She stared into his sad eyes. He stared back.
It was natural, as if he had done it a hundred times. With a tug of her hand, she stumbled towards him and she watched silently as he lifted a hand to tuck some stray hair behind her ear. He leaned forward like he always used to when he kissed her, but at the last moment he stopped. "I'll never hate you. Our time together might be over, but you're still family. Goodbye Lucy."