A second ago, Natsu had been running towards something that looked a hell of a lot like a dragon, except way smaller, with eight heads instead of one, and wearing a really nasty expression. But in the space between one blink and the next, the monster seemed to have laid down on the floor and died, after scattering a lot of blood (and all of its heads) around the cave. That…didn't seem right.

But before Natsu could question it, he wobbled, weak in the knees for some reason. He tipped sideways, toppling right into familiar, chilly arms.

"Natsu," Gray gasped, and then he was falling too. Natsu really didn't want to fall on Gray, who was in rough shape and probably shouldn't be fallen on by a Dragon Slayer, but he was too off balance to stop himself. His full body weight dropped on top of Gray, and the ice wizard grunted.

"Sorry, Gray, what-" Natsu broke off, not even really sure what he was asking. He rolled off of Gray and lay spreadeagled on the floor, looking at the cave ceiling for a moment to see if things might make more sense that way.

Instantly, Gray was on him, feeling every inch of Natsu's body in a way that Natsu usually thought should be saved for behind closed doors. "Please be okay, are you okay, please be okay-"

"Gray," Natsu yelped, sitting up. "Course I'm okay, what are ya-"

He broke off as soon as he got a good look at Gray, wide-eyed, pale, and covered in blood. Gray froze with his hands on Natsu's shoulders, staring back at him. Gray hadn't looked great before Natsu had run into the cave, but now, he looked like he'd been through a fight for his life, all in the span of a second.

"What happened to you?" Natsu demanded. "Are you okay? You look like hell, Gray! Is all that your blood?"

Natsu sat up a little more, letting Gray's hands fall off his shoulders. He pointed towards the ruined hulk of the monster behind him. "And what happened to that? Did I kill it? I guess I might have forgot a whole fight, but it looks like I was really cool."

Gray laughed in his face. It was the way he'd laughed at Natsu when they were kids, and Natsu had said something particularly stupid.

"No, dumbass," Gray said, starting to smirk. "You got turned to stone, like, right away. I killed it."

That set him off again, in another short burst of scornful laughter. It wasn't a very pleasant sound, edging into cruel, but Natsu hadn't heard Gray laugh in weeks. Much less laugh at him. For a minute, everything felt almost normal.

"Well…that's cool," Natsu finally said, not really sure how else to react. "I bet ya looked really good, I wish I could have seen it…."

"I was blindfolded," Gray said solemnly. "It was cool."

"Wait a second," Natsu said, looking down at his clothes. "You said I was turned to stone right away, right? Why am I…covered in blood?"

"What?"

"Look, Gray."

Natsu's pants were filthy, but the streaks of fresh, bright red blood were impossible to miss. Natsu started searching Gray over worriedly. There was a mostly healed wound on his shoulder - Wendy had clearly already gotten to that. It took Natsu a bit to find a second wound, this one on Gray's thigh.

"Oh, it's there," Natsu said, pointing. Gray frowned, shifting the tatters of his pant leg so he could see it better.

"I didn't even feel that. It can't be too bad."

"I mean, it's not great. You're getting blood on me!" Natsu turned away for a second, searching for Wendy. "Wendy? Do you have enough magic to heal this?"

Wendy grimaced - she was looking pale and exhausted and Natsu felt pretty bad for even asking. But Gray was really messed up too, and he couldn't afford another wound, not even a small one.

"I'll look at it," Wendy said, moving closer. But before she could do more than run her hands down Gray's leg, she froze.

"This…I-"

"What is it?" Natsu said sharply.

"It won't heal," Wendy said.

"That's not-" It hit them all at the same time, and Natsu trailed off.

"It's from Oblatio, isn't it?" Gray said. His voice was very small.

Natsu looked down at the wound in Gray's thigh. It was a mostly horizontal slash, outside of the leg, maybe four inches above his knee. It was about the length of Natsu's hand. It didn't look particularly deep, but it was still bleeding badly enough that blood was dripping down Gray's leg.

And Gray would have it forever.

Even if they made it out of this somehow, even if Gray managed to defeat Magnus and everything was okay, this wound was never, ever going to close.

Suddenly, even though they were in the biggest open space Natsu had seen in days, the walls seemed to be closing in on him. All he could see was Gray's blood, trickling into a small pool on the cave floor. It was bright against Gray's ashy skin, and whenever Natsu looked at Gray for the rest of their lives, he'd see that.

If they had much left of the rest of their lives, that is. Natsu whimpered softly, barely hearing himself, and grabbed Gray's arm. His fingerprints left red smudges on Gray's wrist, and Natsu's breath caught in his throat. He hadn't even realized that he'd gotten blood on his hands, but it was everywhere, and that would never change, and-

"Natsu, stop," Gray gasped.

Natsu looked down, and realized that he'd been grabbing Gray's wrist hard enough to leave little indentations where each of his fingertips had been. He let go of Gray immediately, scooting backwards another few inches as though Gray had shocked him.

"Sorry, Gray, sorry, I didn't mean to hurt ya-"

"Natsu." Gray's voice was serious, and steadier than Natsu had expected. Still, Natsu could hear a very faint tremble running through it. "I…I can't have you freak out right now. P-please. I…just can't."

Natsu just stared at him, shaking, at least for a few seconds. He very rarely doubted whether or not he would be capable of anything. But now, for a moment, he wasn't sure that he could calm himself down. He was teetering on the edge of (losing Gray) panic, and he didn't know if he could stop himself from tipping over.

But Gray had asked him to. Gray needed him to, and he was looking at Natsu with wide eyes that looked a little panicked themselves, and Natsu forced himself to take a deep breath. And then another, and another, until the claustrophobic fear receded. In its wake, it left behind the stress and sadness that had become a constant for Natsu, joined by a new sense of shame.

"Okay," Natsu managed, giving Gray something that hopefully looked sort of like a smile. He wanted to apologize, even to beg Gray's forgiveness for not being strong for him, but that wouldn't help anything. That was still all about Natsu. "Not freakin' out. Deal?"

Gray swallowed hard, and Natsu saw him look around, anywhere but the bleeding wound on his leg. His eyes landed on Natsu's, and Gray gave him a short, sharp nod. "Deal."

Only someone who knew Gray better than anyone else would have been able to see him trembling.

"I can just freeze it again," Gray said, clearing his throat.

"That seems like it'll hurt-" Natsu started, but Gray had frozen the blood before Natsu had time to finish his sentence. He froze it just over the surface of his skin, and after he'd rubbed most of the blood that had dripped down his leg away, he was left with nothing more than a thin, red line.

"Will you be able to move like that?" Natsu asked. It looked like the sliver of ice would dig in any time Gray bent or flexed his leg.

Gray grimaced. "Uhh…probably. It hurts my skin if I keep an ice bandage on too long, so I want it to be as small as possible. Because it'll be on for…a while."

Natsu swallowed delicately. "Right."

"I can keep moving," Gray said abruptly. That was all the warning Natsu got before he hauled himself to his feet, swaying alarmingly as he did it.

"Gray!" Wendy yelled. "You need to calm down!"

"I'm-"

Natsu surged to his feet and grabbed him - he was pretty sure that Gray would have fallen otherwise. Natsu lowered him carefully back to a seated position. Gray was shaking.

"We need to take a breather," Erza said. By "we" it was clear she meant Gray, although Natsu supposed Wendy probably needed a rest at this point too. "Let's…we'll stay here for a little while. And try to figure out what to do."

Lucy hadn't been able to spend all her time at the hospital, but she tried to be there as much as she physically could be. If she wasn't with Jellal, what was the point of her having stayed back at all? The more time she spent with Jellal, the more likely she would be there when he finally woke up. And the more likely she was there when he woke up, the more likely she could stop him from throwing any nurses into the wall.

Lucy had brought a few books that Levy had asked her to read, and she was cross-referencing them against each other. Personally, Lucy doubted they were going to find any more information to help Gray defeat Magnus - they'd combed through everything so carefully. But if she did find anything, she could call Loke back, and he could give it to the other team. And there was just the slightest chance that she would find something, and that that something would make the difference, and so she wanted to make sure she was reading carefully and taking notes. She did not want to lose Gray again. She would do whatever she could do to prevent that.

So far, she hadn't been able to offer much. Even the avenue of communication they maintained through Loke was barely her doing. She could call Loke to her side, but in order to get to Gray's team, Loke was using his own magic power to open his gate. She couldn't even help with that.

It was draining him, too. He'd shown up earlier that morning to give her their daily update. It wasn't much, just that Lucy's teammates had made it to the caves on Mount Hakobe, and that it was hard going. Loke had been pale, and moving carefully, almost like he was sore. Lucy recognized the signs - he'd been using too much magical energy, and while he was in the human world, he couldn't replenish it. Lucy would have loved if he could stay with her, just for a little, and tell her more about their friends, but she knew that wasn't possible. They were all making sacrifices.

Lucy sighed, blinking away the tear that fell and obscured part of the tiny words she'd been trying to decipher. She scrubbed her eyes impatiently, setting the book down. She wasn't paying much attention to it anyway, and she might as well go and get a cup of coffee, or…something. Something to distract her from everything that was happening very far away from her, and that nothing was happening right here.

Lucy stood up, and that was when all hell broke loose.

There was a choking sound from behind her, soft enough that Lucy could almost have missed it. Then, there was a cacophony of frantic beeping from all the machines scattered around the room, and there was no way she could have missed that.

Lucy spun around to find Jellal, eyes wide and panicked, clawing weakly at his face. She froze where she stood, unable to quite believe her eyes. A second ago, he'd looked more dead than anything, and now he was a thrashing, panicked tangle of limbs that were very much alive.

"Jellal-" Lucy started forward, not sure what she was supposed to do. But this was why she'd stayed behind in the first place, and she couldn't just stand there.

Jellal ignored her, or didn't hear her at all. His hands found purchase on the tube that they'd put down his throat to breathe for him, and there was a horrible suctioning scrape as he yanked it out. Lucy saw with horror that the end of the tube that had been in Jellal's throat was slick with blood. His head rotated vaguely, but his eyes glided over Lucy like he didn't even know she was there.

The tube fell from weak fingers. Lucy watched as Jellal fumbled with one of the lines in his arm, but it was clear whatever burst of strength that had carried him through the unplanned extubation was already vanishing. He couldn't seem to force his fingers to grab the thin tubing.

But instead of giving up, he tangled his fingers in one of the lines and pulled. He couldn't dislodge the thing, but a bead of blood appeared in the crook of his arm. When he tugged again, a thin red trail started flowing towards his wrist. Even if he was weak, even if he didn't know what was going on, he still very much had the power to hurt himself.

"Jellal!" Lucy screamed. "Calm down! You're safe!"

He glanced towards the sound of her voice. His pupils were blown wide, and there was no recognition in his gaze. A high-pitched frantic sound cut Lucy off before she could try communicating with him again, and she realized with shock that it was his heart rate monitor, showing his terror in jagged, irregular spikes.

Lucy found that she was all of a sudden surrounded by hospital personnel. They were ignoring her - all completely focused on Jellal. Lucy felt like she could breathe again. He was awake, there was clearly something still wrong with him but he was awake, and now that the doctors were here they would be able to make him better….

One of the nurses approached Jellal's bed. As she did so, Lucy felt a faint charge ripple through the air, making the hair on the back of her neck stand up. And then, she saw a small, swirling ball of blackness appear in Jellal's hand.

"Back. Up." The voice that came out of Lucy didn't even sound like her own. Something in it caught the attention of everyone in the room, and the nurse immediately backed away from Jellal.

Lucy's thoughts were going a mile a minute. If Jellal did…whatever he was planning on doing to that nurse, he could really hurt her. The best case scenario was that he just slammed her into a wall. Even that would be bad, but she knew he could do so, so much worse.

And that wasn't all. Jellal had gone into the coma because he had used up all of his magic energy. Finally, he had apparently regenerated enough to wake up. If he were to immediately throw weaponized magic at a nurse…Lucy didn't even want to think about what that would do to him. She had no idea how powerful the spell he was planning to cast was. If he actually used it, it could outright kill him.

"Jellal?" Lucy asked, somehow managing to keep her voice from shaking. "Jellal, it's Lucy. You're okay, alright? You're okay. It's Lucy."

Jellal froze, still aside from his shaking hands. He stared at her from the bed, eyes still wide and unseeing. Lucy did her best to catch his empty, panicked stare. It was kind of unnerving, but not as bad as the magical energy held in his trembling fingers, or the blood that had started to coat his chin.

"It's just me," she said. Lucy was talking as gently as she possibly could, and the unbidden image of speaking to a wild animal swam up from the back of her mind. She didn't want to think about Jellal that way, but she couldn't quite shake the comparison.

"Do you know who I am, Jellal?"

He still wasn't moving, although Lucy could hear his breath scraping in and out of his damaged throat with every frantic exhale. It was far too fast, and much too shallow. If she didn't get him to let go of the spell soon, he would almost certainly hyperventilate himself right into passing out. Even worse, he could potentially hurt himself as he grew more panicked.

"Calm down, Jellal," Lucy said, raising her open hands and showing him her empty palms. "Nothing here. Nothing to hurt you. It's just me, okay? Just your friend Lucy."

She still couldn't tell if he could understand her. She didn't think he could make out her words, but when she raised her hands, his fingers twitched and she watched the spell dissipate.

Jellal's head fell back on the pillow, and for a moment she thought he really had passed out again. But as his head rolled to one side, his eyelids flickered open and froze wide once more as he continued to hyperventilate. The manic strength he'd had when he first awoke was draining away, but he was still scared. He (mostly) trusted Lucy, but she didn't entirely trust him around the nurses. Not yet.

Carefully, Lucy took a step forward, keeping her hands fully within his line of sight. His eyes widened, and she heard his breathing speed up a little bit more.

"I need to come a little bit closer," she told him. "I'm not going to do anything, okay? I want to help you."

At this point, she was pretty sure that he was too panicked, or too confused, or both, to understand a single word that she was saying. It was all about the tone of voice, and her body language. She could have said pretty much anything, as long as she said it gently. But Lucy kept talking to him, because this was Jellal, and she'd known him for years, and she just wanted to see him safe.

Lucy knew that walking across a hospital room, even slowly, didn't take very long. Still, by the time Lucy made it close enough to reach out and touch Jellal's shoulder, his eyelids were fluttering again and the heart rate monitor was screaming an incessant warning. But he hadn't moved to cast again. Maybe he couldn't.

"Jellal?" Lucy said again, tentatively. He might have blinked at the sound of his name. Or perhaps he hadn't reacted at all. She could tell she was losing him again, very quickly.

"I think he's safe," Lucy said to the room at large. "Just don't…make any sudden movements."

"We're going to need to administer something to calm him down," one of the doctors said.

"Is that…safe for him?" Lucy asked.

"We're not trying to put him back to sleep, just make him a little more relaxed. He should be more comfortable that way too." The doctor hesitated. "And frankly, I don't know that he could survive another episode like that. If he's starting to wake up, we…can't afford to risk it."

Lucy looked at Jellal's face. Aside from the tattoo and the blood smearing his lips, his face was the color of milk. He was still breathing fast, but it seemed weak and shallow and strained. It was a relief to see him breathing on his own, but…his lungs were clearly hardly up to the task. Lucy didn't want to think about what might have happened if he'd ripped out one of his other tubes or wires - surely he needed all of them. And the burst of energy itself seemed to have left him drained nearly dry. His eyes were pale slits, his hands still on the bed. Lucy agreed that he couldn't survive much more than that.

The doctor carefully approached Jellal's bedside. He managed to roll his head to watch her, but there was no real awareness in his eyes - it looked like he was just tracking the movement. He didn't try to attack her, and that, Lucy supposed, was something.

The doctor added something to Jellal's IV, and the effect was immediate. Whatever tension had remained in his limbs melted away, and his jaw went slack. His eyes drifted closed. He wrenched them open, like he was afraid he would be attacked once his guard was down, but he was clearly struggling to fight the effect of the drug.

"I thought you said it wouldn't put him back to sleep," Lucy said accusingly.

"It isn't supposed to. But his body is exhausted. Calming down for him right now might mean sleep."

The doctor sounded rather worried about this, and Lucy risked taking her eyes off of Jellal for a moment to look back at her. "Is that…bad?"

"It's just that…right now it's still impossible to tell how much brain function he's actually regained. If he goes back to sleep, it will become that much more difficult. It's going to take longer to determine his baseline for recovery."

Lucy swallowed hard. "Oh," she said.

She had assumed the fact that Jellal was awake meant that Jellal was fine. He was often panicky and anxious and confused - whatever brain damage he'd given himself now certainly had plenty to stack upon. But now that she was thinking about it, at no point had it seemed like he'd been processing on any level. There hadn't been even the barest hint of recognition in his eyes. Not once.

For a moment, all she could do was stand there. The first thought she'd had, before Jellal had started panicking, was how relieved Erza would be to hear the news. What was she supposed to tell her now?

"So you won't be able to tell until he wakes up?" Lucy asked, trying not to sound combative. "Still?"

The doctor nodded. "I'm sorry. We just won't be able to run the necessary scans. I know you were hoping for better news, but I can assure you that him waking on his own is…a good sign. And at least he's able to breathe on his own. Considering his state when he was brought in, that's already an excellent improvement."

Lucy imagined telling Erza that her husband was awake, breathing, and unable to recognize any of his friends or family and calling that an "improvement." Then, she imagined the doctor's slick professionalism melting away in the face of Erza's sorrow and rage. Then, she smiled and thanked the doctor. In a few more minutes, she was once again left alone with Jellal.

Briefly, she considered not telling Erza, at least not until she had more information. Lucy knew how badly waiting helplessly weighed on Erza, and she'd already had to do plenty of it. In some ways, it might be easier to spare her the frustration and the worry.

But if it was her husband, Lucy would want to know. And Erza, never one to shy away from a difficult truth, would want to know as well. Lucy took a deep breath and unhooked the key of the Lion from her belt.