A huge thanks goes out to everyone who reads and reviews! You guys keep me going! xD
I'm going to try to get at least one chapter out a week from now on, maybe two if I can manage it, because I want this to be pretty well into the story when I have to go back to school for my senior year of high school on August 22. So please bear with me when that time comes and updates may be slower! I still love you guys!
Thanks a lot to ShiningStellar, who's a constant reviewer of all of my stories and is a very reliable person. And who knows? Those of you who review, just keep doing it and your name might someday end up right here!
Anywho, let's got on with it. Here's chapter four of Until She's Home Again!
It was easy to see that Natsu was feeling better by the very next day. When I woke up to get ready for helping out in the café, I glanced out my window to see him playing ball with a few of the children. Watching him hold back for once was adorable, as was seeing that grin back on his face as he encouraged the younger kids to try harder. He really was good with children, and by the time I ran an errand for Harrah three hours later, he and the kids were lying by the side of the street. All of them were fast asleep, all worn out from playing. Even Natsu himself was snoring gently. I covered my mouth with my hand to stifle my giggle before trying to hide my slip-up.
On my way back from running errands, I almost froze in shock at what I saw. Natsu was awake this time, and he had unrolled the sleeping bag he still carried with him. As I forced myself to keep walking, I eyed him covertly as he picked up one of the children gently, so he wouldn't wake her, and lay her on the sleeping bag. He did that with the other three, then sat beside them, watching them with a tender expression I hadn't seen him use before.
"Hey," he said softly as I passed, putting a finger to his lips. Then he grinned, that childlike grin I was so fond of. I just nodded as an answer, slipping back into the café with the package I'd retrieved for Harrah.
Erza spent a lot of her time inside the café, ordering strawberry soda after strawberry soda. I found it kind of cute, but I'd never tell her that. After all, how many people would call Erza the Titania, strongest woman in Fairy Tail, cute? And actually live? Okay, I'm exaggerating, but I still wouldn't have told her, even if I was talking to them as Lucy Heartfilia and not Layla Heart.
The scarlet haired ex-quip mage also tried to make conversation with me, about my magic and perhaps what spirits I summoned. It was dangerous water for me to tread, especially with the intuitive Erza Scarlet, and I treated it as such.
"I don't summon spirits," I said, in a standoffish way. "Like I said to Nara, I don't call on them anymore. That's that."
Erza didn't ask anymore, looking sheepish. Since when could she make such an expression? She never seemed that yielding before. But she just ordered a slice of our strawberry cake, and knowing what would happen if I didn't go get it, and soon, I practically ran to get her the treat of her preference.
That night, they all came to eat at the café again. I found out that Gray had actually been fishing with Happy, which I thought was strange, but didn't question it too much. Happy proudly displayed the fish he'd caught, and Natsu congratulated him. Even though I shouldn't have, I brought out matches with the meal again. Afterwards, I did the same thing I had the night before, taking the mages their favorite treats. Happy got a smaller fish to follow his dinner, Erza an extra large slice of the cake she loved, Gray got a bowl of ice cream, and Natsu merely enjoyed eating the flames from the tips of the matches.
The next day, around noon, I looked up from wiping a table down to see a certain ice mage strolling casually down the street. He acted as if he didn't have a care in the world, which might have been a good thing. The only problem with the overall picture was the fact that he'd lost his clothes. All of them. I dropped the rag quickly, took off my apron, and opened the door.
"Hey," I shouted to him, throwing the apron at him, "go put some clothes on, you dumbass!"
I felt like Natsu, talking to Gray like that. And Gray, just like he used to, looked at the apron in his hands in confusion before looking down. The look on his face was worth it, and I grinned a bit evilly. Now I knew why Natsu liked pointing it out. If that was the reaction Gray gave every time someone told him he'd stripped his clothes off, I wondered why I hadn't got this vindictive sort of pleasure from it before.
"Shit! When did that happen?"
"Does it matter?" I drawled, leaning against the doorframe. Layla was easy to keep up in this situation. "Go put some clothes on before the mayor sees you and kicks you outta town."
Wearing only an apron, Gray fled down the street. I averted my gaze with a sigh. This was the typical behavior I'd been expecting. I was somewhat surprised that he hadn't done it sooner.
Natsu played ball with all the kids again that day, this time calling it quits before they all fell over from exhaustion. Then he sat and talked with them, making them laugh at some of his antics. He told them stories about missions that the team had been on, and I realized that they were all from when I was a part of their group. I recognized every story he told, and I quickly ducked back inside the café. I dug out a spare apron and got back to work.
The first thing I had to do was refill Erza's strawberry soda and bring her a slice of cake.
When it came time for Team Natsu to leave the small town of Reason two days after the confrontation with Nara, I couldn't help but feel the hard knot of depression welling in the pit of my stomach. It had been nice to be near them, even if I had to keep my true self hidden from them for the most part. The hardest thing about being close to them was the fact that we were destined to be separated once more. I cursed inwardly. Just when my heart had finally mended the old wounds, it would be torn open again at the sight of Erza Scarlet, Gray Fullbuster, Happy, and Natsu Dragneel walking away from me without even looking back. Because that's how they'd leave; never taking a look over their shoulder, eager to be off on another adventure, for me, but without me.
The thought left a bitter taste in my mouth.
So when I learned that the famous team of mages was packing up to leave town, I slipped out into the forest for the silence and solitude that it offered me. The leafy foliage sheltered me from the sun, and the large trees hid me from view. Brambles and low hanging branches snagged at my black jeans and grey tank, but I ignored it, and even welcomed the small sting and trickle of blood that came from a particularly vicious looking thorn. It could draw my attention, however temporarily it may have been, away from the few people it hurt me to have to lose. Again.
I found myself under a large oak tree, huddled among large, raised roots that were contorting and twisting all around their source. And there I let the tears burn the corners of my eyes, sliding down lower between the wood of my self-imposed prison, as I lamented the departure of my dearest friends. I would let myself cry now, I promised, and then return to Layla Heart. I had to return to Layla Heart! I had to steel myself against the pain, against the heartbreak, and somehow force myself to believe that it would all be okay again, if only I found Layla Heart inside of me and made her come out once more. She'd slipped so badly in the last two days that I'd felt sure I would be recognized, but it was with a painful, sour sort of relief that my former teammates seemed completely oblivious.
Brief it may have been, the hour that I took aside to cry, but for that short sixty minutes the carefully hidden Lucy Heartfilia boldly shined through my punk exterior, weak and still just as soft-hearted as ever.
As their small group walked away from the little town, called affectionately by its citizens by the name Reason, the pink haired dragon-slayer couldn't help but turn his head to glance back. Standing on the main road leading away stood several of the townspeople, waving at the group, but he didn't spot the one person he was looking for. That one mage, with the black hair and all the clothes that screamed delinquent, wasn't there to see them off. And oddly enough, Natsu was a little disconcerted by that. It wasn't as if they really meant anything to her, or she to them, but why did he feel like he wanted to at least say goodbye to her?
He promptly decided that he had wanted to see her one more time because she'd saved their lives. But he really didn't need to, because Erza had chosen to leave a letter when they learned that this Layla chick was nowhere to be found in the morning. They could delay no longer, Erza had said, because they needed to find another job to take on, an even bigger one than this had been. The more challenging the request, the more they got beat up in the process, and the more they traveled would definitely get to Lucy. She would hear, and she would come back.
Dryly, the fire mage thought that it seemed as though the Titania had already forgotten that they hadn't even been the ones who successfully completed the mission. It had been that Layla person.
And then there was Gray, that dumbass, who was walking while simultaneously stripping his shirt off. Natsu groaned to himself, because he knew he shouldn't have expected anything different. But at least the ice mage had waited long enough to be out of sight of the town before starting to unclothe himself. It was a foolish sort of thing to hope, but Natsu had been the fool. He'd thought that maybe, just maybe, doing all of this to bring Lucy back would convince the exhibitionist to train himself to keep his clothes on since she had always complained to him about his clothes if no one else had gotten to it first, y'know? Natsu knew he was being a bit unreasonable in his thoughts, but he was desperate to find Lucy. He missed her so much that he couldn't think of any words strong enough to really describe the feeling. So it had been a stupid thing to hope for, but couldn't Gray keep his damn clothes on for more than five minutes?
Seriously.
Then again, there were the jobs that Team Natsu kept taking. That was how the team had gone on for the last three years, and that's how they would continue until they found Lucy and brought her home. Or until she finally came around all on her own.
It had been three long, painful months since Lucy Heartfilia had left, disappearing from Fairy Tail. Her old teammates had finally begun to pull themselves together again and Gray had come up with a job request that they could do together but which was also challenging, just like old times. Natsu was all for ignoring it, staying there and sulking around the bar all day just as he and most of the guild had done since his blonde nakama had vacated their lives. Happy had sat with Charle on more than one occasion, and the normally standoffish exceed had even tried to comfort her blue (both in skin color and mental state) companion, to no avail. The dispirited cat now sat on the tabe, staring almost listlessly at the paper the ice mage had chosen to take down.
It was only when Erza stood up, slamming the request Gray had picked down on the table so forcefully that the wood splintered, that Natsu looked up at her.
"We will go," she said firmly, a trace of the old Erza back in her tone. "Team Natsu will accept this request. We'll go on every single request we can find, each one more challenging than the last. If we get injured, it won't matter, because we'll be doing it to prove that we need her."
"Need…who…?" Happy asked, ears drooping from his distress.
"Who else?" Erza cried loudly. All eyes in the guild were on the distraught ex-quip mage as she continued, "Who else do we need more than we need Lucy back? We will take the hardest jobs we can find, and we will succeed in the end, even if it kills us in the process. And every time we get a new scar, or break a bone, or are beaten down, the word will spread. She'll hear, wherever she is, and when she does she'll know that we can't keep doing it without her or we really will be killed. Won't Lucy see that we need her back? That our team is incomplete without her in it?"
The room had gone stalk-still, the silence permeating every inch of open space until there was no sound but breathing. The Titania's chest heaved from the force of her conviction, and her hand, still in the splintered depression of the wooden table, balled shakily into a fist. Tears prickled at the corners of her eyes until finally the strongest woman in Fairy Tail was reduced to tears. The racking cries that shook the scarlet haired woman's body wormed their way into the minds of all the fairies present, and touched souls. Erza fell back onto the bench she'd been sitting upon, putting her bloody, splinter speckled fist against her mouth in an attempt to stifle the sounds emitting from her own lips.
She let out a shaky gasp crossed with a sob as a hand, warm and firm, descended on her shoulder, and she looked up.
"Get ready if we're going," the Salamander said to her, eyes hidden in shadow but tears visible on his cheeks. "We're leaving tomorrow at seven. Let's meet up at the train station."
"T-train?" Gray's voice shook as he tried to hold back his own sorrows. "You? What are you talking about?"
"A-aye," Happy agreed with the molding mage, tears streaming down his cheeks and snot unattractively bubbling from his nose.
"That's the fastest way to get where we're going, right?" the dragon-slayer looked up and flashed a smile at his nakama. Granted the smile was weak, and the salty liquid came in a never ending streak from his eyes, but it held a hint of his former childlike grin, and it seemed to be a sign that healing would come soon. "And the faster we do this job, the quicker we can take another, and the sooner Luce hears all about us and how bad we need her back. Isn't that so?"
And a smirk broke out across Gray's face as he finally let the tears he'd held back roll freely. Happy's little laugh and traditional 'aye' rang through the room, and a small smile spread slowly across the Titania's features as she nodded her head. The team of four was back together again, and oblivious to the tears their rather loud conversation and decision had caused among the rest of their family.
They'd do whatever it took, because Lucy was their irreplaceable nakama. Each and every one of them, even the small and sometimes not very useful Happy, would give their very lives if it meant they could get the blonde to come back to them. It was on the second job they took with the intention of garnering Lucy's attention that they had realized this fact.
"Let go of me!" Gray shouted to Natsu, whose fingers tightly clutching the ice mage's wrist was the only thing between said ice mage and certain death at the bottom of the rocky cliff.
"You dumbass!" Natsu grunted, just squeezing tighter even as his broken ribs, pressed flat on the hard rock of the cliff's top, made him want to scream in agony. "I can't do that! What would Lucy do to me then, huh? Not to mention Erza!"
"Let go!" Gray pleaded, spotting the pain that flitted across the face of his pink haired companion and rival. "If I die here, won't Lucy realize that if she'd have been here, she could have done something to help out and it wouldn't have ended this way? You guys will get to see her that much sooner, hothead! I'll die so that she'll come back!"
"If I wanted you to die I would have let you used Iced Shell on Galuna Island!" the dragonslayer screeched, and the dark haired ice mage blinked in surprise at the tears building in the other man's eyes. "And Luce would never forgive me if I let you fall here! Especially if it's for her!"
"Y-you'd say the same thing as me if this were the other way around!" Gray spat, actually trying to wriggle free of the strong grasp Natsu had on his wrist. "All of us would gladly fall if it meant the rest could see her again!"
The eyes of both men widened at the realization that Gray's words were exactly right, but Natsu's hardened quickly.
"Yeah, we would," he winced but started to pull Gray up, "without hesitation, we'd all die for Luce. But don't you see that even if we got Lucy back, it wouldn't be the same unless we were all here together to greet her?"
With one more almighty heave that had the pink haired man screaming from the pain of his exertion, Natsu pulled Gray up and threw him onto solid ground before whimpering pathetically and rolling onto his back, clutching his ribs. The ice mage, also already injured, landed hard on the ground but scrambled up enough to crawl over to the fire mage who was groaning in pain now, hiding that whimper that wanted to escape his lips. Despite the Salamander's protests, Gray pulled aside the tattered vest to see the deep purple and black bruising across his ribs. He sucked a breath in through his teeth, then laughed aloud.
"You damn idiot," Gray said, shaking his head. "You always have to get yourself in way over your head, don't you?"
The snort that came from the dragonslayer made him wince, but he replied, "You're one to talk, underwear man."
Two friends smiled softly at each other through their pain, looking past their rivalry for once to see true camaraderie they felt for each other, though it was hidden behind all the layers of hostility.
And to think that this had all come from their desperate, joint desire to see Lucy again. Even Erza, who had been flown ahead by Happy, knew the same feeling. She'd almost lost to the enemy, had it not been for the blue Exceed's timely intervention. Even as she carried the wounded creature back towards where they had last seen Gray and Natsu, the two talked in low voices about each other's willingness to perish in battle if it meant the other one could see Lucy again. But they came to the same conclusion as well; wouldn't it be better to meet her again…together?
Fairy Tail's Salamander looked up at the clouds scuttling across the sky and wondered if Lucy could see the same clouds from wherever she was. The same bright blue sky, which seemed to promise good things to come and a happy reunion ahead. Could she see the blue that she'd once told him was her favorite shade of the color, clear and unmarred by stormy clouds or pollution? Or was her sky shrouded in darkness, rain pelting down on her from above?
A question that really plagued the mind of the dragon-slayer wasn't nearly so simple as those.
Does Lucy still care about us?
Always the first thought to go through his mind upon recalling this question was that of course she did, she was Lucy! The blonde celestial mage that they had all grown to love, who had become a part of their family so much easier than someone like Gajeel could. She'd been the first to truly accept Juvia, despite all that the water mage had done to her to begin with. Lucy was a sweet, sincere sort of girl and everyone missed her. And especially since she was so sweet, she had to still care about him (he never realized that it had changed from whether she cared about everyone to whether she cared about him). Right? And then the doubts began to surface, once his thought process had gotten this far. He would always start over thinking and when he was in a particularly foul mood, he would think negatively. One of the thoughts was that she couldn't possibly care anymore, because she'd be there with him if she did. She'd tricked them all, with an innocent act that nearly rivaled that of their dear Mirajane, only to leave them hanging and heartbroken when she ran off without a word to anyone.
When he thought like that, it always hurt. It was like a million needles had been plunged into his chest, or like dying a thousand deaths but never actually dying. It was hell on earth, and even through it all, he desperately wanted to see her.
Natsu couldn't even begin to describe the depths of his feelings. How badly he really missed that weirdo, or how much he wanted to find her, to run up to her, to hug her until she couldn't breathe and then never let her go. He missed her so much! Not only had she left the guild (unofficially) without warning, without even telling anyone, but she had left the team. More importantly, to the mage in question, she had left him. Not even a goodbye, or a letter. Even Levy had gotten more, when she got Lucy's completed novel in the mail. There was no such gift for Natsu, but he didn't need anything more than knowing she was okay. That she was alive somewhere and would come back. But unfortunately, the thing he desired to know the most was eluding his grasp.
He didn't want something of hers that she had left behind, because that was too much like closure. Too similar to a permanent goodbye.
It was too much like being abandoned again.
The forest sounds were soothing, listening to my sobbing without ridiculing me or poking fun at my vulnerability. The hour that passed had seemed so much longer, but finally the tears were dry and I headed towards the nearby sound of running water. The brambles seemed more insistent as they tried to snag me, but I evaded them and found myself at a small brook. I dropped to my knees beside the running water, my reflection peering back at me with puffy red eyes. I laughed at my pathetic reflection a little hoarsely. With cupped hands, I splashed some of the pleasantly cool water onto my face, trying to take down some of the swelling.
After another half hour had passed, I stood and made my way back to Reason, struggling to rediscover my own reason.
I knew immediately upon my reentry that my old nakama were gone. A few kids played laggardly in the streets, as though it didn't hold as much joy for them without that crazy pink haired guy joining in. A few adults lounged around, looking about them as though bored of the town and the silence that now pervaded the streets. But the silence was a key factor in my knowledge that Fairy Tail's strongest team had vacated the town and would soon leave the island. I paused for the briefest of moments in the street, looking up at the clear blue sky above me, and let a small, sad smile grace my face.
"Layla! There you are, dear!" Harrah's voice called, and I turned my gaze to her. "Won't you come in and talk to me for a while?"
I couldn't turn down the kindly woman in my current state of mind, so I tried to get a hint of Layla back into my lifestyle when I rolled my shoulders and said, as though bored, "Sure."
I received a smile from the woman, her graying blonde hair swaying from her low ponytail in the light breeze that played about us. Her blue eyes had something akin to a look that showed she knew more than I gave her credit for, but I had no idea why I felt that way. I shook the thought from my mind and followed as she beckoned me into the abnormally empty café above which I had lived for nearly a year now. She wound her way to a back table and motioned me to sit as she went and poured us both a cup of coffee.
"I couldn't help but notice," she said as she came back over to sit, "that you seemed to get along well with those three mages that were here."
"Four," I said before I could stop myself. I knew Harrah had caught it when I saw her look of confusion. I sighed and added, "The blue cat is a mage, too."
"Is…he?" Harrah said slowly, but then smiled. "So, do you perhaps know them from somewhere? They seem to be quite a famous team! Rex wouldn't stop talking about them or bugging them the entire time they were here. It didn't seem like the two young men minded much, and the woman was too drawn in by her cake to notice," the middle aged woman laughed a little at Erza's antics, "but I still told him not to bother them so much. They were injured and just trying to recover. A rather ragtag group, but they were so cheerful and seemed like a good group to be around….Just the type of friends I imagine you used to have, back where you came from."
"I ran into them at Nara's dark guild headquarters and helped them out a little," I shrugged, "so that's where I knew them from. What of it?"
"You don't have to try so hard, you know?" Harrah's voice turned soft, and she looked out the side window next to her. "I'm sure your friends miss you, wherever they are. And seeing how you treated those mages just made me wonder if you knew them, or if they reminded you of people you know."
"Maybe they reminded me of someone," I said dismissively, averting my gaze.
A silence fell, but it wasn't so oppressive that it was uncomfortable. It was broken shortly by Harrah.
"Hey…Lucy?"
"Hmm?" I said, turning back to her.
"So I was right," she said triumphantly, smiling gently at me.
"About what?" I asked, my confusion was undoubtedly written all across my face. Harrah's face softened and she remained silent for a while, only adding to my confusion. What had she said and how had I replied that made her say she was right about something? Was I losing my mind a little as some sort of side effect of my condition?
"Those mages were looking for someone, right?" Harrah asked, taking a leisurely sip of her coffee. "An old friend, a teammate, who had been missing for three years, isn't that so?"
Grudgingly, I nodded at the older blonde's question.
"They asked around town just a little, to see if a girl of her description had passed through," she continued cheerily, "When she left, she had blonde hair just past her shoulders, brown eyes, and a really sweet disposition. They also said she was really curvaceous," Harrah chuckled a little but kept going, "and that she had always had a soft spot for books and making sure that innocent people weren't harmed in any way. They said her name was Lucy Heartfilia, you know?"
"What of it?" I repeated as I shrugged, taking a nice, long drink of the warm coffee to soothe my throat; it was still dry from my heaving sobs earlier. The drink burned as it went down, leaving an unwanted taste in my mouth. I instinctively turned to the sugar bowl that Harrah had brought over on the tray with our drinks. "What does their searching got to do with me, and something that you were right about?"
"I was right because I called you Lucy and you answered."
I dropped the spoonful of sugar and the grainy sweet substance scattered on the table as the spoon bounced lightly on the wood before tumbling off and landing on the floor with a clatter. Silence fell once more, but this time it felt like it was constricting my lungs, making it hard for me to breathe. My hand remained suspended in the air, where my nerveless fingers had foolishly released the spoon and clearly given myself away. I knew my eyes were wide, like a deer caught off guard by bright lights shining at them. I stared at the smiling woman with the graying blonde hair and eyes that knew so much more than I had thought possible.
After all this time, I couldn't believe I'd slipped up so badly. How did I not realize that she hadn't called me Layla? In all the time I had been here, everyone knew me as Layla Heart, their indifferent punk queen and the mage they could rely upon for the jobs that their hometown magic users couldn't handle. The girl who'd shown up out of nowhere, seeming to have nowhere else to go, and who had chosen to stay. The only name they had ever called me by was Layla, so how did I not notice that my real name had so easily slipped from Harrah's lips?
My hand then started to tremble violently and I snatched it back, clenching both of them together under the table and looking down into the blackness of my coffee. Anything to avoid looking at the woman who had unveiled me in the simplest of ways. The worst part was that I had completely shattered at her recognition and found myself unable to keep my façade going any longer. My confidence wavered and crumbled, exposing the shy, trembling, weak Lucy Heartfilia I'd struggled to leave behind me. Perhaps it was so easy to deface me now because I'd just had to deal with letting my closest friends leave me, just as I had done to them. Maybe the guilt I felt deep inside made me easy to read. I knew it made me cave in to my weaker side, my selfish side. Although they know me as Layla now, I couldn't help but want to be near to them and help them to smile like they used to. I pampered my former nakama each night at the café, bringing them their favorite food in my moment of weakness. It was hard to steel myself and stay strong when they were so close to me, so hard that it was almost impossible. And I realized that I would always be the weakest one whenever I was around them. I probably made it easy to see that I wasn't as cold as I normally would have been when those four Fairy Tail mages were sitting there.
"I don't know why you left them," Harrah's voice broke into my thoughts, almost as if Laxus had struck me with his lightning, "but I can see that it's hurting you. Being so close to them, after leaving for who knows why and not seeing them for three years, is tearing you apart. Why don't you go after them, Lay- I mean, Lucy? Tell them that it's you and apologize. They've been searching for you, so I'm absolutely sure that they would understand and accept your apology. What's stopping you?"
"I have to keep my distance, Harrah," I managed to force out. Was I going to have to admit it out loud to someone for the first time that I was going to die soon?
The woman took my sentence in stride, staring at me with a calculating look in those blue eyes of hers. They reminded me of the piercing blue eyes behind half moon spectacles that I had read about in one of my favorite book series. It felt as if Harrah was picking me apart with her eyes and analyzing every single inch of me. That gaze bore down upon me for minutes on end, as if she was trying to think of how to continue this confrontational conversation. Her brow was furrowed in thought, and she had her fingers linked in front of her, resting her chin on top of them.
I could just imagine those blue eyes swimming in tears when I told her I was about to die. I didn't want to think about it, but it was so easy to see when I remembered her distraught expression from when Nara had discovered Rex and tried to take him. My jaw tightened at the thoughts, and I struggled to keep looking at the woman without showing the changing of my emotions. I didn't want her to see my inner turmoil anymore, to get further involved in my affairs. However, I didn't think I would be able to escape the eventuality of telling her. And that eventuality would probably be a reality in just the span of a few short minutes. Harrah's calculating gaze had intensified as I realized my inner state of confusion, and with a sinking feeling I guessed that she had recognized the crossing of different emotions across my face. And since I kept my eyes locked with hers, she probably read me like a book.
"You're hurting," Harrah finally said, leaning back with a sad sort of sigh. "I don't care about your reasons for hiding, I just know that whatever they are is causing you to suffer. Whatever it might be, your friends would definitely understand it. They could help you heal, and you could return to your old, happy life with them."
"I can't return to it," I said, averting my gaze. "There is no way I can go back, Harrah."
"Lucy! Why are you tormenting yourself like this?" Harrah burst out, not her kind and gentle self. My eyes were immediately drawn back to her because of her tone. "It's agonizing to watch you continue down this path that you seem so set on walking! It's self-destructive! You've become the daughter I've always wanted in just one short year, and I can't stand to see you turn your back on the people that clearly bring such joy into your life! Tell me, why you can't go after them right now? What's keeping you from reuniting with them at long last? Chase them down! Apologize for leaving them! They'll forgive you, if that's what you're so afraid of, Lucy. They have been searching for you this entire time! They don't want to persecute you or accuse you of anything, they just want to be with you! Why don't you get that? Why won't you let yourself live happily? Together with your friends?"
"That's just it!" I stood quickly from my spot, my voice raised in a shout. "That's just it! I won't live happily with them anymore! I can't! There's no way for me to live happily with them, so this is the best way!"
"What's the best way? Letting them see you and not even know it's you?"
The tears came back to my eyes and I said vehemently, "Yes! That's the best way. The very best way to distance myself from them so they can still have hope."
"Have hope…?" Harrah questioned slowly. I grit my teeth. "What do you mean by that?"
"If I was still with them, they couldn't be able to hope I'd come back. D'you see? So when I'm finally gone, they won't know any different and can still believe I'll come back to them someday! This way, they can believe I'm alive out there somewhere even if I'm not."
"But you are," Harrah persisted, a light of worry shining in her blue eyes. "You are alive, and you will go back to them someday! Because you care about them, and you can't bear to be apart from them for so long. Right?"
I didn't answer her, my chest heaving as I looked away, out across the empty café.
"Right…?" Harrah whispered. "Lucy…what is it? Why…?"
"I can't let them be there when it happens," I choked out.
"When what-"
"I'm dying, Harrah," I breathed, looking up at her with tears once more shamelessly making their way down my cheeks. "I'm dying and according to everything I've ever read about my condition, there's no way to cure it. You remember when I suddenly run out into the woods and don't come back for sometimes hours at a time? And when I do come back, I'm covered in blood and scratches…? It's because I've got more magical power than I can control, and it comes out in explosive bursts that can hurt me and everyone around me. I've survived three times longer than most celestial mages ever have. I should have died two years ago, which is why I left them. I couldn't bear to tell them that I was going to die soon, because I know they would have worked themselves to their own early graves if I'd told them, trying to find some sort of means to keep me alive and cure me. They're that type, y'know? The ones who would do absolutely anything for the sake of one of their nakama, because at Fairy Tail, we were like a big family. For some of us, Fairy Tail was all we had, so when one of us is hurt we all were. I now I'm hurting them all, but I'm hurting too. See? But this way, unless you find them and tell them who I am before I'm gone, they'll never know and they can always believe that I've found happiness somewhere. They can learn to live and let live, to forget and move on. Maybe if they knew I was dying, they'd understand my reasoning, but I couldn't bear to put that kind of pressure on them. At least I had planned on leaving a letter behind, right? I have it written, and I have for years. It's addressed to the guild, Fairy Tail, and it explains everything; why I left, what's been happening to me, and it also says how I will have succumbed to my affliction by the time they read it. I tell them that I miss them all, and it's my parting wish that they continue to live happily for me. I leave it on my bed every time I go out, so that if something happens to me, someone will find it and send it to them! I just don't want them to know while I'm…well, fading away, I guess. I care more for their happiness than anything else in the world."
My voice was even more choked than before as I said my last sentence.
"Don't you think that they would be happier…" Harrah said weakly, the tears I'd dreaded filling her eyes, "…if you told them firsthand? After all, you're their family, right? I'm sure they'd want to know directly from your mouth."
"I don't know anymore!" I yelled, my hands fisted in my hair in my frustration. "I don't know what I should have done, or what I should do! I just know what I'm going to do!"
I furiously wiped at my tears.
"What are you going to do, then? Lucy?"
"I'm going to go back to the main continent," I said, clearing my throat a little and taking a few steadying breaths to calm my frantic heartbeat and sorrowful thoughts. "I'm going to follow them around, and make sure they don't get themselves killed trying to find me. And if I happen to die helping them, they'll probably figure out who I am, or I'll tell them with my dying breath because I wouldn't be strong enough to hide it anymore. But I have to follow them or I'll go crazy."
"You know," Harrah stood up too, putting our cold coffee back on the tray as she picked it up, "telling them isn't the weak thing to do. I actually think it shows your true strength."
She walked away, tears still on her cheeks, as I stared after her. I thought over her words endlessly, trying to tell myself that she was lying, but deep down I knew she was right, in a way. But really, even if I was still with them, I'd rather not let them know what fate lay ahead of me. I'd want them to smile and laugh with me, like we all used to, not look at me with pity or sadness in their normally cheerful eyes. In which case I really was as weak as I had always thought myself to be, because I couldn't even tell my friends I was dying. I was right, though, that it was a kind of strength. It took a lot of pure willpower to keep myself from reaching out to them, confessing everything. Who I was, why I left, and how much I missed them. There was strength in my silence, but there was an entirely different strength in confession.
I watched blankly after Harrah until she disappeared into the café's kitchen, then I picked up the spoon I'd dropped and took it to the cart with dirty dishes on it from my nakama's breakfast this morning before heading upstairs to pack my bags.
Here's the next chapter! Please review if you have a few minutes to spare! Your comments, questions, and suggestions are all taken into account! ;)