BEWARE: This is more fluffy than the main story. You have been warned.
Sorry for the wait! Forgive me, please. I was trying to get over the idea that I'm not going back to high school next year…and I had to get thoughts for this in order. But, without further ado, I give you Until She's Home Again: The Epilogue. Chapter 1.
And yes, this chapter (and probably the other epilogue chapters) will be shorter than the individual chapters of USHA.
"What are you doing?" the harsh feminine voice barked. "Stand up."
I couldn't retort because my breaths were coming in huge, ragged gasps and I hadn't had time to regulate them yet. My sweat dampened hair cascaded down around my face in shorter locks than my nakama had remembered, and it stuck to my face. My shirt was clinging in the most embarrassing ways and my denim shorts were plastered to my legs. I had my hands on my knees to catch my breath, and I could feel the sweat beneath my fingers. I didn't know whether it was coming from my palms or my legs, but I really didn't care.
"Just…a minute…!" I rasped out in response to Porlyusica's order. As I did so, I pictured her face scrunching up in displeasure, but I paid it no mind. It was just as well, I supposed.
"You can do it, Luce!" Natsu's voice came from a tree to my right, encouraging me. To be honest, just his presence made me more comfortable and more confident, but it was nice that he felt like verbally supporting me, too. I still couldn't believe that Porlyusica hadn't protested when he met us at the doors to the Fairy Hills apartments (in which I now rented a room, since my apartment was sold a few years ago) with his own bags.
Maybe she didn't hate us all as much as she tried to make us believe.
"You won't survive if you don't learn control!" Porlyusica's voice was sharp and made me flinch. "It's been two weeks and you've only improved by a miniscule amount. Are you even trying? Do you want to die from this? Are you—"
"Shut up!" I shouted, my fingernails digging into my knees, stinging. "Just shut up."
Wasn't I here now because I decided I was going to live? Just because I wasn't improving very much…well, it didn't mean I wasn't trying!
"Try again."
The order from Porlyusica was not something to be ignored this time, so I spread my feet into a fighting stance and began to go through the moves we'd already established. They were just simple exercises with my whip, meant to improve dexterity and control over my magical energy.
Truthfully, I didn't believe the results were as miniscule as Porlyusica implied. There wasn't any grand achievement in control, of course, but I had only had two attacks since I had arrived and neither was as serious as the one beside the derailed train. I was improving, although slowly. I just couldn't quite place how far Porlyusica had expected me to come in such a short span of times with techniques that I felt weren't really designed for using as much energy as I needed to.
"Stop. That's enough for now," the healing woman's voice broke my concentration about a half an hour later. I paused and looked to her, raising my eyebrow in an unspoken question. In response, Porlyusica raised an eyebrow at me and on her, it created a cynical expression. I flushed and immediately felt like I should know what was coming next, but I couldn't think of anything. My mind was buzzing with my whip practice and the crackling sound of the energy still racing up and down the whip.
Finally, I just asked, "What next, then?"
The older woman sat down on tree stump, linking her fingers together and examining me with her critical eye.
"Concentration," she finally said simply, and then ordered, "Look at the whip. See how the magical energy is just going down to the tip on two sides?"
I furrowed my brows, looking down to confirm Porlyusica's words. When I saw that her observation was correct, I nodded mutely.
"Now concentrate on it and try to get your energy to go down the length of the whip in tight spirals. That will cover the entire surface area of the whip in your excess magical energy and help to deplete it faster. Do you understand?"
"I think so," I nodded, trying to concentrate as she had told me to even with a lone drip of sweat trailing down the back of my neck. It was tickling me as it slid, so it took a lot of effort to concentrate on what Porlyusica was telling me. I closed my eyes, imagining the whip and the spiraling magical energy in my mind first. I took a deep breath in and let it out—still trying to ignore that pesky drip of sweat—and looked down at the whip. Slowly, the energy already racing along the edges merged together and began to spiral just as Porlyusica had instructed.
"Not tight enough," the woman barked suddenly, causing my concentration to waver slightly and making the energy fluctuate. A stray tendril nicked the back of my hand but I put the stinging aside for the time being, focusing on making the energy spiral closer and tighter.
Just as I willed it, my magical power began to scrunch up, kind of like a slinky, and when I had the coils little more than a quarter of an inch apart, I realized that I had just been manipulating the energy I was already using rather than using more. There was three feet of my whip left uncovered now. I bit my lip and focused on extending the sheath of spiraling energy and within the next minute, I had succeeded.
"Is this—"
"Yes, that's what I meant," Porlyusica cut me off quickly. She then proceeded to add another order, "Make the energy spiral quicker. That will deplete it faster and also be more dangerous to any enemy you might have to face."
"Ah…okay."
It took a little longer for me to succeed at this feat, and if I lost my concentration the energy slowed again. Porlyusica wasn't a nice teacher, though, as I had discovered on the third day, when she first started to give me commands. She worked me until I was physically exhausted, though we had yet to discover how to exhaust me magically.
"That's enough for today," was finally called about an hour after darkness had begun to fall, and I immediately dropped my whip and collapsed to my backside, gasping for breath and shivering in the chilly night air. My body was still completely covered in sweat and it felt disgusting, but I was too tired to move at the moment, so I sprawled out on my back, closing my eyes and trying to regulate my breathing.
"Luce!" Natsu, who had learned that staying quiet, for the most part, was the best course of action during Porlyusica's intense training, leapt to my side. I felt him land beside me after jumping from his tree, but I hadn't seen him.
"Rest a few minutes, bathe, eat, and get some sleep," the harsh woman's voice sounded. "We start again first thing in the morning."
I couldn't help but groan at her words. Natsu kind of chuckled and then I felt his hands brushing my sweaty hair away from my face. At first, I stiffened slightly, but I let him continue. It was comfortable being like this with Natsu. He hadn't changed in the last several years—he still cared about his nakama and still had the capacity to do the occasional nice thing. But then again, he had changed in a few small ways. He was more gently with me now than I remembered and, when I stopped lying to myself, I thought I loved him even more now.
"You should go get a bath," Natsu said after about ten minutes of our comfortable silence, his hand still running through my damp hair occasionally. "I'll make something to eat."
The first time he had told me that, on about the fifth day out here in the woods, I had been too exhausted to protest and then, when his culinary creation was sat in front of me, I was almost too afraid to eat it. I remembered a few failed attempts at cooking in the past, where he'd nearly burnt down my kitchen…but my fears were inconsequential. The simple stew he'd made—with meat from a boar he'd hunted during my training—had actually been pretty good. So this time, I had no qualms.
"All right," I agreed with him, slowly sitting up to feel my muscles screaming at me. "Will you light the fire, first?"
The thing about being out in these woods with the healing woman Porlyusica was that she didn't exactly have running water—at least in the little cabin that Natsu and I used, which was a little ways off from her own home. There was running water so far as a hand-pump in the separate little building that housed the bath, so we didn't have to lug water in from the stream, but that was about it. It was one of the traditional bath houses where a fire was lit beneath. Natsu was the perfect companion when it came to being able to start the fires, and I was really thankful for it.
"I'll fill the tub with water, too. Just go get your clothes."
I flushed and said, "Thanks, Natsu."
Being able to relax and not have to manually pump the water in would be a lifesaver. Actually, he'd been doing this much for me since that first day he offered to cook and it really helped. It was…sweet of him.
"No problem, Luce!" he said easily, and a quick glance showed that trademark toothy grin that I'd missed so much. He stood and offered me his hand, helping me up, and we walked back toward the cabin together. We split up just a little early so he could slip over to the bath house and I continued on to the cabin to get clothes and a towel.
Once the door closed behind me, I leaned back against it for a moment, letting a soft sigh escape my lips. Everything was sore, and everything had been sore since the day Porlyusica had taken over my exercises and began telling me what to do, but I still wasn't used to it. After being apart from everyone for so long, it hurt to be so close to them now but unable to go see them. I wanted to talk with Levy about new books I'd missed over the last few years and I wanted to talk with Erza about perhaps going shopping with me to get some new clothes. I wanted to tease Gray about his obvious newfound affections for Juvia and I wanted to give Juvia a nudge to confess to Gray up front. There were so many things I wanted to do, but I just couldn't right now.
It was weird to be able to be this close to Natsu after so long, too. He was the same crazy fire-spewing dragonslayer I'd remembered, but he was slightly more subdued. I think he tried to hide it from me, but it just didn't work very well. His new maturity wasn't a bad thing, though. It made me realize, every single time I thought about it, how much I liked both sides of Natsu.
"You don't have the right to like him, Lucy," I told myself softly, pushing away from the door to actually gather my sleepwear together. "After everything I've done to all of them, I don't have the right…"
"Luuuuucy!" the playful voice came from a little ways off outside, probably near the bath house. "Your water will be perfect in about a minute! I'm starting dinner now."
"Ah, okay! Thank you, Natsu!"
"Like I said, no problem!"
As I put my hand on the doorknob, checking to make sure I had a towel, undergarments, and a t-shirt and shorts, I realized what Natsu had reminded me of. I took my hand off the knob almost like it had shocked me just so I could cover my mouth. A giggle escaped despite my precaution. And it was useless to try to banish the images from my mind.
Natsu was acting like a housewife.
And it was so cute.
I covered my eyes with my free hand, a wide grin stretched across my features. It had been years since I'd been able to be so relaxed that I could freely think about things like that. It felt kind of refreshing to be able to breathe a bit easier now. I didn't have to feel guilty about leading my friends on a wild goose chase anymore—but even if I didn't have to, I still felt like a horrible person. My survival wasn't guaranteed now, granted, but with Porlyusica's help, my intense training, and with Natsu by my side, I felt confident that I would live to see several more years.
I could never make up for the days I'd missed with my nakama—my family—but I could always make new memories.
"Luce?"
"Yes, I'm coming!" I called back, caught by surprise. I replaced my hand on the knob and pushed the door open. Natsu stood there, looking almost as if he was about to open the door. I flashed him a grin and said, "Thanks again, Natsu."
"No—"
"Nope!" I put my finger to his lips in a hushing motion, and his confused look made me laugh a little. "Don't say it again. I know—it's no problem, right?"
"A-ah, yeah," Natsu beamed back at me, and it was one of his new, mature, subdued smiles that made it seem like he was contemplating someone. There was a lurch in the region of my stomach, and I quickly raised a hand.
"I'm going now! You'd better cook something good, okay?"
"Yeah!"
As Lucy disappeared into the bath house, steam already rising through the high window, Natsu looked blankly at the wooden walls of the building. The back of his neck felt awfully hot—hotter than normal—and he wondered if there was something wrong with Lucy. It was the first time since she'd left the guild all those years ago that he'd seen her smile like that. It was disconcerting for it to suddenly appear like that, but he had to admit that he felt…relieved. He'd been afraid that he'd never see that cheerful grin again.
Natsu covered the lower half of his face with a hand as the burning sensation spread across his cheeks and nose and he abruptly turned his back on the bath house. His heart was beating a rapid rhythm in his chest and he knew. He just knew.
His free hand reached up to clutch the t-shirt he wore, right above his heart.
"I've got to cook dinner…" he told himself, straightening and running his hands through his hair. "I've got to…cook dinner."
It was as if repeating himself would help him get into motion and do what he was supposed to, but Lucy's carefree smile was all he could see at the moment. The dragonslayer managed to make his way over to the fire he was going to cook on and sat down a few feet away with one foot flat on the ground, his elbow resting on his knee, and the other leg flat on the ground and bent at the knee. Staring at the fire calmed him down a little and within a few minutes, Natsu was able to take a deep breath and get back up, fetching the ingredients he needed for what he'd chosen to cook.
In about fifteen minutes, he was adding a few spices to his creation, and then he sat back, wiping the back of his hand across his brow. All that was left now was for the soup to simmer for a while and when it got closer to done, Natsu could slice off a few pieces of the loaf of bread Porlyusica had given them and toast them lightly over the fire. It would be the perfect touch.
"To think…last year I was afraid I'd never get to show Luce my new cooking skills," he said aloud, laughing a little. After another five or so minutes, he stood and headed toward the bath house to tell Lucy that their meal was close to being done.
"Aaah, this bath was just what I needed after a long day of exercise!" I sighed, rinsing the last few soap suds off my skin. I let myself sink a little deeper into the water as my thoughts turned back to the dragonslayer who had made this all possible for me. Natsu was really caring now…almost as if he was afraid I'd disappear again if he wasn't nice. He was more mature, too.
I wondered how long it would take for everything to go back to normal.
Where was the hyper, easily excited dragonslayer that I had first met in Hargeon, when he'd saved me from the false Salamander, Bora? Where was the pink-haired idiot who loved getting into fights with Gray and endlessly annoying me? Where was the Natsu with the cute, childish grin? The answers were pretty simple: he grew up just a bit. I knew that part of him was still in there somewhere, and I fully expected him to have lapses back into that crazy, immature boy I'd known for a few years—before I'd fled because I didn't want to hurt he and all my other friends.
But there wasn't anything wrong with Natsu as he was now. It was just proof that events can change the people involved, sometimes for the better. I really liked the gentle sides the fire mage had been showing me ever since I ran into him as Layla, and those he continued to show me when he found out that it was me. I really liked him—all of him.
Another sigh passed my lips, this one now kind of melancholic or nostalgic rather than relaxed.
"As I thought," I murmured to myself, sinking down to my chin, "I am in love with Natsu."
As Natsu neared the bath house, he heard Lucy mumble something to herself. He paid it no heed and continued. A few steps later he heard her speak again.
"As I thought," her voice was really soft and, if it weren't for his enhanced hearing, he wouldn't have caught it. He was six feet away from the bath house and was in the midst of taking another step. His foot had just touched the ground when she finished her thought, "I am in love with Natsu."
The dragonslayer froze where he stood, his heart thumping painfully against his chest.
Had he just heard what he thought he'd heard…?
HAHAHAHAHA.
Did you expect that?
Don't worry. I didn't either. I came up with it about fifteen minutes ago and decided that it would be the perfect way to end the chapter.
I hope you liked, and please be patient for the next one! (You noticed how long it took me to get THIS one out, didn't you? XD)
Oh yeah, also...I don't own Fairy Tail or Natsu or Lucy or Porlyusica or any other person mentioned. I just own the random extra cabin near Porlyusica's house and the small bath house there, too. Haha.