Chapter 5 | Hurting

"What the hell are you doing here?" Natsu demanded and seemed to tower over her. Lucy held her ground even though anger, insanity, and bitterness radiated from him.

"I heard you were being stupid and reckless." Lucy hadn't been so close to him in a month. She felt her heart pounding out of control. The fact that she knew he could hear it made it even worse.

"Like it's any of your concern. Go away, I'm training."

"No you're not. You're just beating on defenseless trees and hurting yourself."

"You tryin' to pick a fight with me?" Natsu put a not so friendly hand on her shoulder. "Because you really don't want to." He let the full weight of his hand rest on her shoulder and she had to expend some effort to stand up straight.

"I just want you to stop acting hysterical."

He narrowed his eyes and growled at her, but Lucy continued. "If this were just affecting me then I would let it go, but," Lucy looked back at Happy, still hiding behind the house, and continued, "You are scaring Happy. This isn't just hard on you, think about him. I know how you feel, but you need to find a different way of dealing with your problems!"

"You have no idea how I feel!" Natsu ripped his arm off her shoulder and the flames burning around the area flared. Lucy screeched, put her hands over her face, and pulled away. She recovered and got in his face.

"I know how miserable this is, how lonely it feels, how unbearable the pain in my chest is when I see you. Sometimes we'll share a brief moment of eye contact and this rush of emotion reminds me how much I still want you, but knowing that you won't be mine crushes me. I wake up some mornings thinking you are right beside me, but then there is just this heart wrenching emptiness."

"I don't have to listen to this," he said and turned away.

"Natsu I love you so much. It's killing me to be apart like this, and now to see you are losing it..."

"It's you! You're the one making me lose it. Every time I think I might be okay, I walk through the guild doors you are there. Your smell is all over my house, every mission I go on I always think I hear your voice, I can't get away from you."

"Well what do you want me to do!?" Lucy screamed at him. "I don't know what to do, how to feel better, how to help you." She started towards him and he stepped back. She tried again and reached out an arm but he pushed it away angrily.

"You're the one who rejected what we had. You shouldn't be here crying about it."

"Natsu," Lucy sobbed and dropped to the ground landing next to a patch of grass still on fire. "I'm sorry. I really thought it would be better." Her robe caught fire at the edge next to the flames. Neither of them noticed. When she crawled up next to him he didn't move away again.

"I made a mistake. I want things to go back to the way they were." She wrapped her arms around his legs.

Natsu started to walk away, but she held on tighter. "Please don't leave yet!" She pressed her face to his legs.

"I'm just trying to do what you wanted. You're not being yourself right now," Natsu said emotionally unattached.

Lucy shrieked in pain and pulled away when she felt fire creep up onto her leg. They both looked to see that the bottom of her robe that rested on the ground had burned away and the fire had ate its way up to her leg. In a swift movement Natsu grabbed her hand to pull her up and used his other to rip the robe off of her body. It landed on top of the fire that initially caught it aflame. The fire spread over the silk and slowly ate it away.

Natsu was about to let go of her hand until he noticed a large blister on the back of her hand. "What is this?" Anger stirred inside him and he shoved her hand in front of her face. "Was this me?" He remembered seeing her put her hands up when he lost his temper earlier.

"It doesn't matter!" Lucy tried to pull her hand away to hide it. She would do anything to make that look of guilt disappear from his face.

"How can you tell me not to be reckless when you're with me like this? You should have gone away when I told you to!"

"I'm sorry!" She tried to pull away again and winced in pain.

"You didn't even notice your robe catch on fire. Are you trying to get yourself hurt?!"

"No! I just want to get through to you!"

Natsu pulled her into him and stared at her so angrily Lucy couldn't quell the fear building up in her. "Do you want me to hurt you? It would make it easier for you if I were the one in the wrong instead of you right?" he said darkly.

Lucy couldn't speak. She could only manage to shake her head back and forth. Natsu gently pulled her into an embrace with an exasperated sigh.

"I'm sorry. I know I need more control," he whispered into her ear, "but please don't be reckless. I need to know you will survive even when I'm not around."

Lucy nodded.

Natsu let her go and the pain in her leg made her fall back down to the ground. Natsu extinguished the flames around them.

"Go home Lucy," Natsu turned away from her numbly, "and don't come back again. For both our sakes." He set off into the wood leaving behind a sobbing Lucy.

Happy came over to Lucy and picked her up to fly her home. "I'm sorry…I thought that if you two just talked…" Happy trailed off and started crying too. They didn't say anything on the way back to her house, but when he dropped her back off he sat next to her on the bed. Lucy had laid down and pulled the covers over her body. "You should be with Natsu," Lucy pet Happy on the head lovingly, "I think he needs somebody more than I do."

"But you're crying."

Lucy took a deep breath to steady her voice, "I do it a lot anyway, don't worry," she paused then spoke up again, "Thank you for bringing me to him. I know all we did was fight, but," Lucy put her pillow over her face and sobbed into it, "That's the most we've said since being in the hospital. I missed him so much. It was so nice just to have him look at me the way he used to, even if it was for only a moment," her voice was mumbled by the pillow, but Happy still understood. "Please go be with him, I'm worried he might hurt himself. I hope he knows that I never stopped loving him."

"He never stopped either," Happy said as he left to go back home.

Happy flew through the night sky feeling so heavy that he might drop down to the surface. There was no doubt that Lucy had it bad, but Natsu was worse off. Happy had seen Natsu in mourning and go through bouts of depression, but never had Natsu shown such a dark side. Natsu would say scary things and threaten to do others. On missions he was unnecessarily brutal and if he was reckless before, he was now crazy. It was so unlike Natsu, Happy had no idea how he could help him out of it. As Happy flew back home he saw Natsu sitting in a circle half a mile in diameter of scorched earth.

Natsu saw Happy flying above him, but he made no move nor sign of recognition when he landed in front of him. He couldn't believe that Happy would go behind his back and get Lucy, but then again Natsu had embraced her again when he believed he never would. Talking with her again made him the happiest he'd been since that day at the hospital. She looked sad, though not much worse than how she appeared at the guild. Natsu knew she was having a hard time, and while it made him miserable to catch her staring at him with sad eyes he was glad that she still couldn't move on. Just maybe if she were sad enough she would change her mind for real and things could return to normal. She couldn't come back to him like she just did though. As much as he wanted her back, he wouldn't accept her unless she was acting rationally.

"How could you bring her here?" Natsu said, expending all the energy he had to remain calm when Happy approached him.

"I thought you two could work things out if you just…" Happy stopped talking when Natsu stood up and started to walk away.

"Things can never be the way they were." Natsu's last words haunted him as he walked past his scorched land back into the forest. Happy fell back and sat on the ground helplessly.

Natsu wanted out of this whole situation. He could leave Fairy Tail, maybe he could be happy again if he never had to see her face again. He couldn't believe Lucy clung to his legs like that. Crying and pleading with him, saying the things he had wanted to hear for so long. Natsu pinched the bridge of his nose to keep himself from letting tears escape.

Natsu circled back to Happy and picked him up and placed him on his head. "Come on buddy. I know you were just worried about me. Sorry for being like that."

"Lucy said she never stopped loving you."

"I know."