{In my hands
A legacy of memories
I can hear you say my name
I can almost see your smile
Feel the warmth of your embrace
But there is nothing but silence now
Around the one I loved
Is this our farewell?}
- Our Farewell - Within Temptation
"Dammit!" I curse as I shake my hand before looking down to see a sliver of blood seep out from the somewhat deep cut just on my palm under my palm. Licking the wound I put down the stack of old boxes to see that what had cut my palm was a wire sticking through a hole in the box.
"What's wrong?" Lucy asks as she walks into the room with a red bandana wrapped around her head. I show her the cut as a bit more blood begins to seep out making her wince. She's never really liked the sight of blood before, even if it comes from a simple cut as this one which is ironic considering she is a nurse, "Not again," she mumbles before disappearing down the hall again.
I leave the closet I was rummaging through on the first floor and walk towards the kitchen to stick my hand under the faucet. I hiss when the cold water hits my cut before the stinging sensation on my hand slowly starts to dissipate.
"Give it here," Lucy says from behind me before pulling my hand out of the water and dabbing it with a clean dry cloth.
"It's fine," I grumble while trying to retrieve my hand from her tight grip without avail, "Lucy~" I whine as she opens the first aid kit before taking out a small white bottle.
"Quiet you," she hushes before pointing the small bottle at my cut and begins to spay a clear liquid over my injury. Instantly the cut begins to heal itself as Lucy continues to spray until the injury fully disappears with only a thin line any proof of my cut, "There," Lucy commends before quickly putting away her medical supplies and disappearing back down the hall and up the stairs towards who knows where.
"Thanks," I call after her while receiving no reply.
Drying off my hands with a clean towel, I turn and go to see what my wife is doing upstairs. I eventually find her rummaging through a closet in one of the spare rooms that we hardly ever go into. Looking around the room itself I notice that it's in a state of chaos with clothing, books, boxes, and old trinkets strewn across the room. If I hadn't known any better, I'd say that a tornado had hit the room while I was downstairs.
Looking back towards the closet I watch Lucy emerge with a few withering garment bags that she carefully places down on the spare bed in the room. I watch her as she goes through every garment bag carefully inspecting each one with loving eyes at her ancient clothing that she has somehow kept with her for all of these years.
A few of the dresses seem to have come from the renaissance era with their hoop skirts tucked nicely in their bag. A few others seem a bit more modern with their glittery cloth and jaw dropping necklines, necklines I still do not accept the gorgeous blonde wearing in public. Lucy quickly returns into the closet to fetch more garment bags and swiftly looks through each one smiling when she finds them intact or pouts with a frustrated huff when discovering that some are moth eaten beyond repair.
When looking at the ones that have somehow survived the hands of time you'd never think that they were older than a few years. With Lucy's hard work and persistence many of her precious articles of clothing have hardly ever aged leaving them looking brand new, unfortunately most of her white dresses could not be saved from yellowing within time.
"Lucy, why don't you throw those things away already?" I complain before moving to put away some small trinkets that we excavated back when living in the large hot country of Desierto
The blonde gives a loud indignant gasp while clutching one of her more elegant dresses to her chest as if I were to rip it out of her gentle hands and burn it in front of her, "Natsu Dragneel," she screeches so loud my ears almost bleed, "Might I remind you that these dresses cost you a fortune when you got them for me," she snaps and I can feel the ghost of my long forgotten coin purse cry out in pain like it had all those years ago.
"Much good they'll do you now being imprisoned in the closet forever. We should just burn them in a large bonfire outback," I mutter and she probably heard me because the next thing I know I'm on the floor nursing a head injury caused from a flying book that made impact with the side of my head, "Dammit Lucy!" I cry out while looking up at her as she looms over me with another heavy book clutched in her hand that rises up menacingly.
"Say that again! I dare you!" She hollers while waving her book over her head threatening to strike it down on me.
"Geez, ok, we won't burn them then," I cry out while holding out my hands to try to block her assault. When she finally puts her hands down and moves to turn around I reach out and grab her hand making her fall down to the ground with me. She cries out in surprise as I wrap my arms around her to keep her from whacking me in the head again, "Aww come one Luce, do you really think that I'd burn your precious dresses?" I ask while resting my chin over her head and holding her close to me.
"You're a pyromaniac," she grumbles beside me, "You'll burn anything that you get your hands on."
Chuckling, I push away a bit so that I can look down at her, "That's true, but I'd never burn anything that's yours. I value my life too much," I murmur before planting a big sloppy kiss on her forehead.
She laughs while wrapping her own arms around my neck and sighing deeply while settling down. We lay like that for what seems like hours just listening to the vehicles pass by outside as well as the faint sound of music floating down from one of the other rooms. I'd probably stay lying there forever if there weren't so many things to pack and put away in storage rooms or give away to whoever wanted what we were giving.
"Let's get back to work," Lucy finally says while pulling away after ruffling my hair, "We need to finish at least packing up what's in this room so that we can start moving the things out of the house."
Groaning, I stand up before helping Lucy up who quickly goes back to going through her old clothes while I go back to putting away the last of the small trinkets in the room. We work in silence with only the sound of the still playing music in the distance and the soft shifting of cloth as I pull the covers off of the empty bed to put them away. Eventually we make good work with the room removing every piece of article from the closet and putting away all the small trinkets and few pictures that were littered around the room.
After clearing out that room we both split up to tackle the other rooms in the house as I take boxes full of other knick-knacks down to the moving van that's parked outside. I also take bags upon bags of objects that I have finally decided to throw away. Upon rummaging through our old things I have to wonder when we both became such packrats. I guess living for as long as we have has always had us wanting to hold onto the time that certainly takes more from us than it really gives.
Usually the largest part of our collection is the vast amount of boxes filled with picture albums dating back to when we first got our own camera back in the 1800s. Rummaging through one of those boxes now I can't help but be annoyed by all the small photographs staring back at me with faces of some people even I can't remember.
"Why do you keep all of these pictures?" I ask while digging through a box of loose polaroids with random dates scrawled on each picture in Lucy's soft handwriting.
"They're memories," she insists with a small pout as she enters the office carrying in another empty box to fill it with the pictures still pasted on the nearby wall.
"They're junk," I retort while placing another empty box onto my desk to fill it with the other pictures that were framed on the walls of the office earlier.
Glaring daggers at me from across the room Lucy stops from trying to reach for the pictures that are hanging higher than she can reach to look at me, "They're not junk," she complains, her hands resting fiercely on her hips.
"We should just burn them all in a large bonfire out back," I mumble loud enough for her to hear while watching her cheeks ignite into an angry red.
"NATSU!" she cries sounding outraged and I'm so glad that all the books near her have already been put away.
"Just kidding," I laugh causing her glare to deepen its intensity as I get back to work while the music coming from the nearby speaker drones on in a quick pop song that I can't really remember the name of, "It's so damn quiet outside," I grumble while neatly stacking the pictures into the large box.
"Well enjoy the silence while it lasts. I doubt that you'll have any peaceful moments after we meet up with Erza and Jellal," Lucy sighs while closing up her box, "But I guess the new sites we'll get to see will be very much worth it."
Nodding, I look up noticing that the music has stopped. Picking up the small music device I press the play button a few times with nothing happening. Shaking it a few times, I press the device near my ear but no sound is coming out of the contraption, "Damn thing," I grumble while putting the small device on the desk, "I swear that the more years that pass by the more likely things will work for a shorter amount of time."
"You sound like an old man," Lucy says while giggling.
"I am an old man," I argue.
"Oh Natsu," Lucy sighs while shaking her head, a smile clear as day on her glowing face, "I hope nothing happens while we're gone."
"Like what?" I ask while moving to open the curtains of the nearby window.
"I don't know, anything." She says while leaning over the closed baby grand piano to look at me with tired eyes, "I just don't want something bad to happen while we're away."
"Come on Luce, I doubt even an alien invasion would break out while we're away," I joke.
Chuckling at her aggravated expression, I pull the curtains open at the same time that a loud explosion causes the whole house to tremble. A second crash, much closer than the last, blows me back in a flurry of smoke and glass making me hit my head on the edge of my desk. The last thing I remember is the sound of Lucy's earsplitting screams and the horrifying feeling of a familiar sense of confusion that always followed explosions similar to this one.
I called out to Lucy just once and then everything went black with a third explosion shaking the ghosts that had been hidden deep within my mind...
{Never thought
This day would come so soon
We had no time to say goodbye
How can the world just carry on?
I feel so lost when you are not at my side
But there's nothing but silence now
Around the one I loved
Is this our farewell?}
- Our Farewell - Within Temptation