Natsu didn't know if to burst out laughing or to remain shocked and confused. He stared into the pair of green eyes of the Minister and even though he was standing above him, he was slowly feeling as if he was slipping down, under the power of that dangerous glare. It felt like, for the first time, he was able to feel how heavy and cold the touch of the rain felt. Lucy shifted and judging from her scared, worried expression, you could tell how she was still confused of the situation.

''The war is soon going to end, Mysterious Prince. There is no turning back anymore. What was done is done.'' He paused. ''And… from the very beginning… We didn't need a queen as a weakling, dragging us behind.''

''What…?'' Natsu asked wide eyed.

''Maybe the King (may he rest in peace) did care for her and took her as his Queen, but I never did take her as my Queen. Neither any of these men gathered here. We never accepted her. Yes, I agree that the reason might have been the time, it was too soon. But…'' he paused and straightened his back with a grin. ''You might as well do whatever you may like with Her Majesty. A which, a mere commoner, from what I've heard… and on top of all…''

He breathed it and widened his eyes threateningly.

''A criminal.''

A cold pause of silence fell upon them.

''A criminal… should always face the consequences she deserves.''

He smirked proudly.

''In other words, you will rather do us a favor by taking her life.'' he let out a horrid laugh. ''You are no threaten to us, Prince!''

The crowd of people exchanged doubtful looks, but slowly, delicately, the lies were blooming inside their heads. The Minister's words had been heard by them all, and they seemed so reliable that no one could even imagine them being any other way than the saving truth.

Natsu's knees were trembling. It was too soon for him to lose his confidence. Why was this happening? Why wasn't everything going according to his plan?

They were all supposed to stop the bloody war, sign the contract with the dwarfs and giants, and then he and Lucy would be long gone.

They were supposed to be woken up from their madness of cruelty, their thirst for innocent blood, their greed! They were supposed to be able to do a final act of kindness and end everything so he could leave this world without any regrets…

…But what were they doing?

He had to admit, these men never ceased to amaze him. Even when he had put what was more dear than his own life at danger, even when he used everything he could only to stop them, they were stubborn enough to keep going with their despicable schemes.

They were more than ready to kill their own Queen, their own ruler just for the taste of greed.

He was shocked, amazed, disgusted. Just how bad can people be?

The Minister grinned when seeing his reaction.

''So, Mysterious Prince, will you do us a favor and get rid of the Queen?''

''M-Minister…'' Gungeon Bother spoke boldly. ''Are you assuming she is the person responsible for…''

''Yes, for the King's death.''

The peasants gasped.

''Is it true?''

''But how could it be…?''

''Her Majesty?! Why would she?!''

Natsu felt for a moment how his entire body boiled with anger. How could they…?

''Kill her.'' The Minister called out. The following moment, nothing apart from the rain could be heard. The pink haired man felt how his heart was brutally beating in his chest and he air ran through his nostrils, filling his lungs with desperation.

''If you dare, that is.'' The Minister continued and his expression darkened.

After a long break of deep silence, Natsu felt so lost as if nothing could go more wrong in that moment. His muscles were highly strung. His wide eyes were slipping over the heads of those criminals. The Minister's narrow eyes pierced patiently through his being, and his expectations of what was to follow were already known to Natsu. But he couldn't react. He could only grit his teeth in frustration and wait. He gathered his courage to do something spectacular, to win that cruel man's fear back; but what could he do? He couldn't himself to do something to Lucy to demonstrate anything. Bringing out a drop of her blood was already a sin that deserved death to him, and as that had been the limit, it was already done. He couldn't do anything anymore. The tight path he felt he was being pushed through gave birth to a painful ache in his heart. His uselessness, it stung him; his hate, it nailed him against a wall in front of all these bastards.

Out of the blue, a sigh of the Minister could be barely head in the storm. He let his chin lower as if in disappointment.

''As I thought…'' he spoke and looked even deeper into Natsu's eyes. He added, in a deep, loud tone: ''You can't do it.''

The reaction through the crowd started out as a weak rumor of amazement.

''You can't kill your lover after all.''

''Lover?!'' the soldiers burst out in shock.

''I knew it! I knew it all along!'' the peasants began. ''He's been her lover all this time! The Queen is a **! She's been messing with men behind the King's back!''

They were all shouting and protesting and Natsu felt even more cornered than ever. Lucy was silently watching the scene. He threw her a glance and noticed the whiteness of her face and the fear in her chocolate eyes.

The bad excitement of the people was contagious and soon the Minister began to feel the tumultuous beating of his own heart as the air was heavily entering his chest. His wide eyes watched with antipathy she stillness of the pink haired feline who had now turned into a little kitten under his glare.

''It's all a lie!'' he yelled and even if they understood the gamut of what he had meant or not, they got even more excited. A peasant took out a knife and the murderous glare in his eyes made Natsu shiver.

Natsu grit his teeth furiously. He had no words left to describe these beasts.

''She's never done such a thing!'' he yelled out of the blue, not able to control his rage. He felt how the blood was boiling in his veins. ''You crawling pooches don't know a thing and you still come at me accusing an innocent person and defending your King! Just shut up and stop the damn war! I swear, I'll rip you all to pieces…''

''Stop it.'' Lucy whispered out of the blue. She squeezed her eyes and judging by her weak body shaking, Natsu could tell she was crying. ''Please… Just stop this nonsense. They're never going to get it-''

But he was too angry to be able to listen to her. He was going to defend her with all he got.

''The King made the decision to marry this person! If you respect your King even a little, you will know that she didn't do a thing.''

''The King has always had a rather odd taste in women, Prince! …But don't get fooled!'' the Minister continued and suddenly a horrible, disgusting grin spread on his wrinkled face. ''It's not the King that we're defending down here.'' He laughed shortly. ''Did you really think that we even care about such a King?''

The pinkette's eyes automatically widened.

''What did you say?''

''Did you actually think that, after witnessing for so many centuries how a spoiled brat was naming himself King, being nothing but a lazy, greedy kid, would impress us? We have endured his reign and the gods be our witnesses, not one of us has ever respected him.''

Speechless, Natsu stared at him for long.

''You must have been seriously dumb to imagine such foolishness.''

Along with him, Lucy stared down with shock at those grinning people.

''Thank God he's gone!'' a very old man yelled with his knuckled fist low in the air. ''If he would've lived a minute longer, I would've moved to another Kingdom.''

''You don't…. care…?''

The Minister continued grinning overly pleased.

''We never did.''

''You don't care… that you ruler, your leader… is dead?''

He shook his head.

''And you're still accusing the Queen as if you'd care?''

The words came out of his mouth as a broken whisper, but the Minister read on his lips and understood. In response, he grinned wider.

''The King only stood in my way!'' the Minister acknowledged boldly. ''Now I still can't be happy that he's gone, because there is still a burden in the way. The Queen.''

''She's not guilty. You can't do this.''

''She is, and she shall pay for her crime. When she will be gone, nothing will stop me from finally becoming the new King.'' He paused and then his grin vanished. ''You shall either hand her to us, either execute her yourself, which… you've already failed to do once.''

''You're crazy.'' Natsu said as he took a step back. ''You're completely mad.''

''Please stop the hesitation.'' the Minister spoke as he thrust forth his hand with a frown. ''Do as you've been told!'' he then screamed.

''She didn't kill anybody, you bastard.'' Natsu spoke calmly, his eyes still widely looking into the Minister's.

The man seemed to be losing his temper.

''Hand her over or kill her! Just do it already!''

''NO!'' Natsu yelled and immediately calmed down. ''She's innocent.''

''Do you have any proof? You already failed to convince us once!''

''She didn't kill your King, Minister.''

His voice was shaking in pain. Lucy raised her eyes towards him and saw worry, sadness and a little regret in his deep onyx eyes.

''She didn't kill anybody.'' he repeated.

''THEN WHO DID?! HOW DO YOU KNOW SHE DIDN'T KILL HIM?!''

A moment of silence fell over the people and everybody was waiting in suspense as if something important was going to happen. The Minister's eyes were now angry and impatient while Natsu's were mild and sad. He stared for a moment longer.

''Because I did.''

It took them all a couple of minutes to fully understand what he had said. You could watch as the Minister's figure was slowly returning to normal and then changing to shock. He had obviously not expected that answer. It seemed as if the rain had stopped and the silence was so deep that nobody dared to make a move of say a word. All the eyes were set upon the pink haired man whose confession had startled them. Lucy was, too, staring up at him. What was he thinking? That was a lie! It hadn't been Natsu who killed Gray! She knew that, but she couldn't do anything?

The Minister's lips moved. Everybody heard the two words that came out loud and clear. The reaction on the couple's faces was obvious: shock. Rain poured down, sky was grey. The soldiers gripped their weapons. Some pulled out their swords stepping forth. It was over. The command?

Kill them.

It all happened in a flash. Nobody saw when or how, but the soldiers were up beside Natsu. He tried to resist, but he was shot to the ground. Lucy was pulled away from his reach. They screamed. Their fingers touched once more before they were brutally parted and taken to separate ways. Lucy's heart was beating like crazy. She saw the color of his hair before it was pulled down in the middle of those soldiers tying him up. She shut her eyes, yelling when they violently gripped her wrists and held them together at the back. At the same time, many other hands were nailing her in the mud, keeping her away from freedom. She kicked to every side possible, but her legs were knotted together so tight that she couldn't feel her frozen feet anymore. She shook away from their touches, but she was lifted and carried on their shoulders. In the blink of an eye, she could see Natsu in the same situation. Her heart was bursting out of her chest; the desperation of somebody who knows is fighting for their life was filling her whole, hand in hand with a crazy adrenaline. She screamed until her voice went hoarse. She couldn't feel the pain anymore. Her arms and legs, cold as ice and numb as bread, kept on fighting. Eventually, her eyes opened wide and her pupils shrank before the sight of death. The scaffolding, unleashing its horrid sight before them, was approaching. She felt how extremely desperate she was beginning to feel.

But even when she thought she couldn't be in a worse condition, something terrible happened. The soldiers carrying her stopped. Natsu was taken forth, placed above the beheading rock and forced to stay still. It is so true that before your death, the mind and body open up to much greater abilities. Natsu raised up that moment, took down a couple of soldiers with his bare head. If her hands were free, Lucy would've covered her mouth.

''Get off of me you bastards!'' Natsu was screaming.

''Say your last prayer, you murderer!'' the Minister yelled with his sword up in the sky. Lucy's breath was cut. She saw the sky lighten up and everything went blindly white. When the vision returned to normal, she breathed again. Natsu had managed to get away from the blade. The thunder that followed, though, came together with a punch that immobilized him to the ground. And then, the entire show entered her head as if it was all just a bad dream. She couldn't accept that she was living the reality, when her whole body froze as ice and then melted as water to the ground.

The blade pierced him.

A moment of hesitation, then it was pulled back. Natsu's knees fell to the ground. He spaced out wide eyed. Lucy felt her mouth open and her lungs release air:

''NOOOOOOOO!'' she cried. Unconsciously, her vision filled with tears.

Natsu couldn't hear her. His head automatically turned to her direction and just as well, tears started rolling down his cheeks. The blade entered his body again. Blood started spilling from his mouth. His vision was already blurry. Once more, the life was drawn out of him along with the pierce of the sword.

He fell numbly to the ground.

Luckily for him, he was spared of the pain to watching his love be carried away in the storm of yells and cries. The silence which overwhelmed him was only shaken by the lazy beatings of a heart. He didn't know if it was his own heart, or the heart of this fading world, but it was for sure that they were weaker and weaker.

Lucy's cry for her beloved was thrown once and for all in the wind of blood and despair.

She was, just as Natsu, executed for a crime they never made, in the stormy afternoon of a day in midsummer.

Silence

…

Darkness

…

Fear

…

''Is everything alright up there?'' a warm, familiar voice could be heard.

He felt his cheeks wet with hot tears, but he couldn't understand why. He was hugging somebody so tight as if his life depended on it. He stood in something soft, and realization hit him hard when he found out it had to be a bed. He waited a few moments longer in amazement, trying to figure out what was happening. He breathed in, and such sweet air filled his nostrils, along with a perfume he knew so well and for some reason, he loved it. A sweet, tender touch on his arm made him open his eyes slowly. In front of him, the pair of the most amazing eyes looked inside him with such love and the same feeling of shock that he felt.

He smiled softly and removed with a trembling hand a lock of hair from Lucy's pale face. They were both shaking. The strong emotions they had gone through had marked them deeper than scars. They hugged each other suddenly, burying their faces in each other's shoulders and breathing in each other's scent. Speechlessly, they closed their eyes and cried silently. It was shocking.

They were back.

They had only just died.

A few moments ago, they had died.

For real.

The door opened and they jumped up from Lucy's bed. It only took them a second to study with amazement the room that they had only seen six months before. It was just as they had left it; a mess from their pervious fight. The complexity of what they were feeling was indescribable. They wiped away their tears just in time before Layla, Lucy's mother, entered the room filled with worry.

''Is everything alright, I heard you screa…ming….'' she was cut off by the sight of her daughter and Natsu. Well, let me rephrase that. The moment her eyes met their figures, a wave of shock cut her off.

Who were these people and what had they done with the Lucy and Natsu she knew?

Natsu was five centimeters taller than six mon- no, five minutes ago, which meant he was suddenly a lot taller than Layla. His chest was swelled, his shoulders wider than she had ever noticed. His figure was straight and so noble, that it shocked her to recognize him as the neighbors' son. His face was even more handsome and the look in his eyes was the look of a person who has been through a lot of experiences in his eyes. They were glittering with life. It made her blush with amazement to see that he was suddenly so grown up! He seemed manliness in person. He was looking down at her not with annoyingness as she had expected, but with love and such kindness that she almost backed up.

And her daughter! Oh, her daughter was so beautiful! Has she always looked like such a lady? No, she looked like a queen! No sign of complexes that Lucy had had; what complexes? A person like her couldn't have anything to be ashamed with. Shockingly, she had suddenly lost any pond that would've been in addition. She had a perfect figure: her back straight, her chest (and what a chest) held forth with pride, surprisingly six centimeters taller than before… Her expression was the same as Natsu's. She was looking down at her with love and her eyes swam in tears. Her breath was cut; she couldn't believe this was real.

They both looked so alive, as if they had just passed through death and came back to live. What a joke, right? As if that'd be possible!

''Mom…'' Lucy whimpered under her breath. ''Oh, mom…''she couldn't believe this was real. In a moment, she felt all the longing she had felt for the woman gather up inside her heart. She threw herself in a hug and hardly managed not to burst into tears. Layla hugger her back amazed, barely remembering what her purpose for coming there was.

''A-Are…. Are you guys alright? I… I…''

Natsu burst out laughing with happiness. He was crying. He joined them, hugging both girls at once. He kissed Lucy's head and let out another laugh.

Caught in by the sudden wave of happiness, Layla smiled surprised, confused, happy herself, but not understanding why. She felt a lump in the throat and without any reason, the contagious tears reached her too.

''Jude dear!'' she called out laughing. She had no clue why, but it felt like she had to share this sudden joyfulness with her husband or she wouldn't be able to put up with it. Typical to mothers.

Jude, as long as Igneel and Catherine, entered the room confused or the situation. As soon as they met the view, they were even more confused. Lucy and Natsu, more beautiful than ever, were crying happily in each other's arms. Layla explained herself wiping away a tear:

''I don't know what's wrong with these two. I just came to check on them, when they suddenly…''

She pointed to them letting out a chuckle. Natsu couldn't stop himself; his eyes widened with surprise and even more joyfulness at the sight of his parents, suddenly shorter than he remembered them.

''Dad! Mom!'' he laughed and hugged them tightly. Lucy also hugged her father and then the two exchanged the hugging pillows they were calling parents.

''What's up with you two? So suddenly!'' they all laughed extremely confused, but replying with the same kindness to the sudden love.

It took the two families a half an hour to understand that nothing particularly had happened, but something surely did change in Lucy and Natsu.

They were all shocked to see the physical changes, also. Considering the two weren't spilling a word, they just had to live with the wonder. But they had been very discreet with the questions, like 'Since when were you this beautiful?' or 'I didn't know fights grew you taller'. Natsu and Lucy kept silent the entire time, simply admiring the sight of family again, after such a long time.

When they realized it was very late, the Dragneel family had to part with the Heartfilia one, but for some reason, it all seemed to heartbreaking, that in the end, they slept over. And the entire time, the two couples were secretly throwing curious glanced towards the two kids who were suddenly inseparable. They were both sitting on a couch, holding hands and looking in each other's eyes with so much love that even a blind person could've guessed they were in love. This contradicted any law of physics or any law invented on this Earth, but the atmosphere was just so magical that no one dared to break it with a curious question. Whispering to each other words the rest could not hear, Natsu and Lucy seemed in their own world like two lovebirds.

No one ended up being able to explain the phenomenon. It was all a complex event of two hateful neighbors, after being locked up together for ten minutes, came out in love, not to mention looking radically different.

A day didn't pass without the two of them seeing each other, and so, the families in whole seeing each other.

Not even one year passed since then, when the Heartfilia family and the Dragneel family decided that nothing could change the situation anymore, so they secretly promised the daughter and the son to each other.

It couldn't be called an arranged marriage.

They had asked for it, those lovebirds!

Alright! As you've probably guessed, that poll from a long time ago ended up with Lucy and Natsu returning to Earth! So there it is!

Don't worry! This isn't the end. The next chapter is about their first day of school after such a long time, so this is totally not the end. And, if I have the time and if you guys are good and review nicely, I will also add a chapter about their future together. Kyaaa!

Thank you for not killing me yet. Me suuuupeeer late with update. Well, school killed me enough times already, so…

Also, I'm sorry if this chapter seemed rushed. I didn't intent it to be so, obviously, but time is stressing me out! I hate this! I wanna give up on school and move to an island alone with pencils, papers, internet and my laptop. Okay, maybe I'll add a hot exotic guy for my entertainment. As for your entertainment, I hope you've had it with this chapter.

*winks* See ya! _-

P.S.- Yes. I did it. I did what no one else had ever dared to do. I killed Natsu and Lucy.