Chapter 15: Waking from the pain

The bitter blackness surrounded her pulling her deeper with every passing second. Her whole being hurt as though she had been ripped to shreds then slowly stitched back together with not so much as a localized anesthetic to offer her a temporary reprieve from the pain. She struggled against the agony, knowing somewhere inside her heart that if she didn't open her eyes soon she may never be able to again.

She cried out in the blackness while the searing pain seeped into her head, making all coherent thought simply impossible. She was losing the fight and she knew there was nothing she could do, it felt as all hope was lost and she found herself balling into the fetal position in one last futile effort to keep her body in one piece.

Someone save me…

Someone take me home.

Slowly, Lucy cracked an eye open. The room she was being kept in was dark, and it took a moment for her eyes to adjust. The only light filtered in through the wide, open air windows, casting pools of crystal blue light across the floor. Her confusion was only outmatched by the pain in her extremities, and she inhaled deeply trying to fight back the tears that were pooling in the corners of her eyes as a result.

It took several minutes, but once she had a good handle on the pain she looked around more thoroughly. Lucy found herself lying amongst the soft sheets of an oversized bed completely lost as to what had happened to her. The last thing she remembered was smiling at Levy telling her that their business in Era was finally done, and then the world went black. She tried desperately to make the rest come back to her, but it only caused her head to pound angrily in response.

"Lucy-nee, thank goodness, you're finally awake! I was starting to get scared!" Lucy looked to her left, and then to her right, and suddenly she felt panicked. Pain shot through her whole body when she tried to get up, and she found two strong hands pushing her back down.

"Stupid girl, don't try to move yet." Lucy wasn't sure what to make of this, but somehow she was facing her personal guard, minus Loki. Even though she had forced them back into the spirit world, yes, she had forced them back while simultaneously attacking three of the ten wizard saints. Lucy took a closer look around, and realized exactly where she was.

"What happened, why am I here? I'm supposed to be in Era not the spirit realm." Lucy felt her head throb painfully as she pushed herself up to rest on her elbows.

"You drained your magic power so much that we had to pull you out of your human vessel or you would have died." Lupus answered sadly, tears streaming freely down her soft porcelain skin.

"What about my body, is it damaged?" Lucy felt a shiver of panic run through her as she imagined Levy crying over her cold, seemingly dead, body lying there on the ground.

"She froze you and I helped her take you back to the hotel. It'll be safe for now, so long as she keeps you frozen till your magic recovers." Vulpi ruffled her hair playfully. "I need to go explain things to your husband, because it seems he doesn't have a communication lacrima." Before Lucy could protest, Vulpi had vanished.

"I could have done that through our link." Lucy muttered.

"Lucy-nee, I'm afraid your magic is so low right now that you can't use your link, not yet anyway." Lynx informed folding his ears back in shame.

"We weren't enough help, and you had to use that high level spell with an already depleted supply! This is our entire fault; you could have died because of our carelessness!" Lupus cried, throwing herself across Lucy's bed. Lucy felt a nagging at the back of her mind for her miscalculation, she had used far more magic with the spirit boxes than she had originally planned, and it had left her in a bind later in the battle.

"It's ok Lupus, I'll be fine soon. I just need to rest a bit." Lucy laid a hand on the spirit's dark hair, stroking it softly in an attempt to comfort her small friend.

"Lupus, it's time to let Lucy-nee sleep." Lynx chided, attempting to pull the wolf spirit from Lucy's side. He was doing a better job of hiding the fact that he two had been crying before the blonde had woken from her long slumber, but Lucy could hear it in his voice clearly.

"Stay with me till I get my strength back." Lucy asked quietly, pulling the two spirits down into a hug. "Please, I don't want to be alone."

Natsu was panicking, he couldn't feel Lucy, and he couldn't hear her no matter how many times he called out to her. It had already been almost half an hour since he had lost contact, and he was beside himself with worry. There was no reason for Lucy to block contact while they were on such an important mission. He began to pace back and forth, not knowing if he could move forward until he heard from her.

"Man you need to calm down, Lucy is too strong to have let something take her out like this, so be patient she'll contact you soon." Gajeel tried his hardest to get through to Natsu, but it was no use. Not that he could blame the poor guy, Natsu had become dependent on their link to keep in contact no matter how far apart they were. Gajeel truly envied that ability, but he knew that the perk came with a much higher price than he and Levy were willing to pay.

The only thing that managed to get Natsu's attention was when Vulpi walked out of a cloud of golden smoke with down cast eyes. The nervous smile on the fox's face sent Natsu's stomach to his boots. Immediately Natsu knew something had gone wrong, Vulpi was to quiet, and his ears were folded flat against his skull.

"Where is she?" He growled marching up to the spirit and holding him up by the color of his suit. This was all the confirmation he needed, Vulpi was refusing to look him in the eyes, even though the spirit was never reserved. Vulpi spoke his mind no matter the situation, and he never showed fear in the face of any situation, not even when Lucy had sliced him up in her moment of weakness so very long ago.

"She is safe." Vulpi answered quietly.

"Safe where?" Natsu snapped.

"Well she is still in Era if you want to get technical… Levy is looking after her body for now." Vulpi braced himself for the punch he knew he had coming.

"I knew I should have gone with her." Natsu scowled dropping the fox spirit on his rear, he could feel the overwhelming need to get his pent up frustration out, knowing if he waited much longer that he would do serious damage to the next thing he touched.

"Lucy took out three Wizard Saints with a single hit; she had already taken on more than a dozen S ranked mages just before hand, which left her magic dangerously low. We did what we had to; if I didn't act she would have died." Vulpi knew his words weren't going to settle the anger that was rising in the pink haired man who stood before him, trembling as he tried to hold his flames back. "We just have to wait for her magic to replenish in the spirit world and she'll be fine, I think." Vulpi rubbed the back of his neck nervously.

"YOU THINK!" Natsu couldn't hold back anymore, his fist collided with a boulder only three inches from Vulpi's head, leaving nothing but a pile of dust where it had been moments prior.

"This is unprecedented, we aren't sure if she is different from a regular spirit, so we are trying this. If we stood by and did nothing Lucy would be dead right now." Vulpi flinched at the enormous amount of heat that was radiating off of the man's body.

"Why can't I contact her?" Natsu had his anger just barely under control, he was literally seething.

"Her magic levels are still too low, give it another couple minutes and she should be able to contact you, but when I left she could barely lift her head. Remember that there is a huge time difference between our worlds, she should be fully recovered in an hour your time, and that is a generous statement. I bet she is already trying to move around." Vulpi shook with fear, knowing that Natsu took Lucy's safety very seriously, and anyone who was even partially responsible for hurting her would suffer by his hand.

"You need to go back then, do anything you can think of to help her regain her magic." The mage forced himself to sit on a boulder facing the spirit.

"Before I go, Levy wanted me to give this to you guys so she can contact you. She was very calm during the whole thing, but I doubt she is dealing with this as well now that she is alone." Vulpi tossed the communication device to Gajeel with a weak smile. "I'm going to watch over Lucy, I swear I won't let anything happen to her." Vulpi faded into stardust.

"Blondie took on three wizard saints at the same time…" Gajeel mused proudly.

"She shouldn't have taken them all on by herself that was reckless." Natsu sighed.

"She won, doesn't that count for something?" Gajeel sat down next to Natsu, punching him lightly in the side.

"But at what cost? Winning means nothing if she dies in the end." Natsu covered his face with his hand feeling the worry bubble up inside.

"Lucy is made of stronger stuff than that and you know it." Gajeel gripped the lacrima in one hand waiting for Natsu to calm down enough that he could call his own wife to make sure she was ok.

"She'll be fine, let's see how Levy is doing, I bet she's as worried if not more so than I am." Natsu let out an exasperated sigh looking down at the screen in his friend's hand.

Gajeel didn't have to be told twice, in an instant he had a connection to the sobbing script mage. It took a few minutes to calm her down enough to explain the situation to her fully. Apparently it was extremely difficult to keep Lucy's body frozen at the hot springs because of the temperature the rooms were kept at. That was the last straw for Natsu, he knew that Levy had been involved in the fight, and her color wasn't looking good either.

The two males silently agreed before they cut the connection with the worried blue haired mage. Natsu took the crystal key off the chain on his neck and slashed it though the air creating a door way. He had only done this a few times, and Lucy had been there to instruct him exactly how to make the gate way stable, but he didn't have time to worry about whether he was doing it properly or not.

A soft golden light filled the space in front of him and the two men made their way through; they walked for a few minutes, both concentrating on their destination. When they finally saw the opening, Natsu could feel his face fall. Lucy was incased in ice the same as she had been when she had first experience the explosion of her magic so very long ago.

Natsu had sworn to himself that he would never let something this drastic happen to her ever again, but here she was, the ice melting quicker than the script mage could conjure. His heart hurt at the sight, and all he wanted to do was fix it. Levy was sobbing as she muttered words from a language he didn't know, she looked on the verge of collapsing, but she was still doing everything in her power to protect her friend.

"You've done a good job Levy. I'll take over from here, you need some rest." Natsu patted her head gently as he walked past her to examine her handy work. He started to adjust the temperature of the room using his frost dragon techniques, he needed to focus, because this was the opposite of his original magic and it took a hell of a lot more concentration than lighting or even earth magic. Slowly he was able to rebuild the ice shell around Lucy who lay as if sleeping.

Natsu was left alone, Gajeel understood that his companion need to do this, Lucy was family and that was more important than the stupid dragon for now. They could pick the chase back up once they were sure that Lucy was ok. For now he had his own fainted wife to attend to. She had barely made it to the doorway before she collapsed into his arms. He took her to the room that was connected to where Lucy was being kept, and laid Levy down so she could recover her strength in peace.

Lucy sighed as she listened to Vulpi go on and on about how much he disliked being a messenger, she rolled her eyes as he continued to explain how it was bad for his health.

"You talk too much." Lupus growled folding her arms over her chest.

"Yeah can you just tell us what Master Natsu had to say." Lynx groaned putting his head in his hands.

"Nothing much really… just that Lucy was being reckless and that I'm to protect her with my life, the usual." Vulpi shrugged settling himself into a chair. Lucy already looked so much better; so he assumed that his theory was right, she was gaining her strength back ten times quicker in the spirit realm. The sly fox smiled inwardly knowing he had made the right move, even without the defective lion around to tell him what to do.

"Was that all?" Lynx asked, a brow raised as the fox spirit fidgeted.

"The rest is nothing but minor details, they know that Levy has charge of Lucy's body and that was all I really needed to get across." The fox spirit shivered at the memory of the boulder that was blasted into particles with a single hit from the irate husband of his Master. He decided to keep that to himself, to save face more than anything else.

"Well I suppose I should be a good little girl and rest up, I'm still feeling tired even if I've done nothing but sleep since I got here." Lucy laid her head back on the pillow, letting her eyes close once more. She felt as though when she woke again, that she would be strong enough to at least contact Natsu and let him know that he didn't need to worry. Everything was under control, and she was sure that in a few more hours she would be heading home to finish everything up.

Levy slipped back into the room feeling slightly guilt at hearing Natsu's quiet conversation with the women who was in cased in ice. She couldn't believe that he had found a way to come here to be by her side even though they had been half way across the continent at that point. She watched in awe as the dragon slayer released another blast of chilled air into the room, bringing goose bumps to the script mage's exposed arms.

"I know you're there Levy." Levy froze on the spot; how could she forget that Natsu could probably smell her before she even entered the room? "Did you need something?" Natsu turned his gaze to the blue haired mage that looked like she was about to burst into tears again.

"It's my fault." Levy squeaked as she sank down to the floor next to Natsu.

"It's no one's fault. Lucy is going to be fine; she just needs to rest in the spirit world for a little while." Natsu laid a comforting hand on her messy blue hair and ruffled it playfully. "Sometimes I wonder how you guys put up with me when I acted like this all the time." He chuckled, remembering that for a majority of his life he was the one who rushed into battles that were never in his favor, and now Lucy had picked up on his insane trait. He wished that she had taken any one of his other annoying traits instead of this one.

"You always came home, even if you were in bandages, we trusted that you would always come back in mostly one piece." Levy hiccuped as a result of trying to laugh and cry at the same time.

"We'll that's good to know." Natsu rolled his eyes; his own nerves were frayed beyond belief, but he knew that Levy was much worse at handling this type of situation. He wanted to lighten her mood if only by a little with his goofy antics.

"If I would have realized that she sent the spirits back sooner, I could have done something to help her, I know I could have." Levy sighed.

"She used the Astros Pulvis Ingrum didn't she?" Natsu tilted his head with a half-smile on his lips.

"Um, is that the one that uses the highly explosive masses of energy that can attack multiple targets all at once?" Levy wasn't sure what the names of Lucy's techniques were, but she would never forget what it looked like.

"Yep, she slows time itself as she's gathering the magic energy to condense it into several spheres. When she releases time, the energy gets shot at the target like a bullet of out a rapid firing gun." Natsu watched as the words clicked in the script mages brain.

"I get it; it's like a magic gun so that's why she calls it the Star Dust Machine gun. That was the attack she used on Bastion right?" Natsu visibly bristled at the name that no one had dared to mention in months. No one knew where the guy had disappeared to, and they all had a sinking suspicion that the dreams Lucy had been suffering from revolved around the red hair man who had claimed he would one day take Lucy back.

"You wouldn't have been able to stop her because you were also affected by her time stop." Natsu knew it was little conciliation to know that detail, but he also knew that every little bit would help convince his friend that she wasn't responsible for Lucy's rash actions. No one but Lucy was responsible for her recklessness.

The two settled into a comfortable silence, just watching over the blonde who seemed to be sleeping peacefully inside a glass case. The scratches along her arms and face were the only real reminder that Lucy had been in a duel that had nearly taken her life. After a while Levy curled up on the floor, giving into her need for sleep. Natsu watched her now peaceful face, overwhelmed with how grateful he was that Lucy had such amazing friends, he knew that she was well cared for even when he couldn't be the one providing that service.

There was a knock at the door before Gajeel came back inside, frowning slightly at the sight of his wife on the cold floor. Natsu noticed the lacrima that was shining in his left hand and shot a quizzical look, wondering who he had been speaking to.

"Erza wanted to talk to Lucy." He tossed the screen over to Natsu before picking Levy up and carrying her back to her room.

"Lucy can't come to the screen right now, can I take a message?" Natsu let the sarcasm slide off his tongue like it was completely natural for him to be acting cool and collected like this.

"Why are you and Gajeel there, you're supposed to be tracking down the Dragon, is Elfman there too?" Natsu momentarily panicked, he had forgotten all about the eldest Strauss sibling in his haste to get to Lucy's side.

"We'll be going back as soon as Lucy is up and moving again." Natsu answered quickly. He didn't want Mira to find out that he had unintentionally left her little brother behind. "How is everything on your end?"

"First things first, tell me what is wrong with Lucy, Levy said everything was going fine just a few hours ago." Erza was too smart for her own good sometimes.

"She exhausted herself during the battle, but she'll be fine soon. Tell me about things on your end." Erza gave a look that he knew meant she wasn't satisfied by his explanation, but she couldn't do anything about it through the screen.

"All groups are present and accounted for, we've received the report from our supporters, and it seems that the only ones who we don't have accounted for are Wendy's party." Erza seemed worried that Wendy had a completely separate mission that she knew nothing about.

"Wendy will be fine, remember she has Romeo and Happy with her." Natsu gave her a goofy grin that he knew would calm her nerves a bit.

"So all that's left is to find and destroy the Black Dragon, and Zeref." Erza made it sound like a walk in the park, when it was proving to be a royal pain in the ass in reality.

"Yep, we will handle the rest for now. You can start sending groups of three back to the guild, just make sure not to make it look to suspicious. We have control of the council, but that news won't have spread all the way out there yet." Erza nodded her agreement before breaking the connection. Natsu wished that he knew where Wendy was as well, but he couldn't tell Erza that not even he knew the whereabouts of his younger sister; she would skin him alive for sure.

"Alright, make sure to have Lucy contact me when she is able, I want to be able to tell Laxus she is doing ok." Natsu gave a reassuring smile and promised that when she was able that he would have her call. He couldn't wait till all of this was finished so they could go back to their 'normal' lives at the guild. Natsu turned back to his wife with a frown wondering just how long it would be until she was out of the ice this time around.

A/N:: I'm sorry this has taken so long, I'm just kind of running on empty… If you want you can always message me and let me know what you think, it really does help me come up with ideas for where to go next. I'll be working on the next chapter, but it might be a while before it's up loaded.