During all the years Lucy had known Natsu, she had never thought that he would end up with someone else. She had always had this gut feeling that the two of them were complete endgame. Lucy had spent so many years pining, waiting for them to finally get together, that the day he had grabbed her hand, held it tight and said "Lucy, I think I'm in love," she had braced herself to be confessed to. That he would say some crazy, weird things about just never connecting the dots inside his head, but that he finally got it – that they finally could be together. Do the proper dates, the official hand holding, not just the secret thing they had done at night, after missions, on their way back to Lucy's apartment. They would have their first kiss, they would experience everything for the first time together. They would go through the new nervousness of sharing a bed as a couple and not just as strange friends-ish. It was meant to be them.
But then he started talking about light blue hair, "like the sky, midday", and deep, green eyes, like the forest where he grew up with Igneel, and he went on to describe an energetic, fun, light hearted girl, who apparently was the one for him. She was allegedly strong, not as scary strong as Erza, but close enough for him to be beyond impressed. And the truth was, Lucy knew that she couldn't compare. He had never looked this happy talking with her, he didn't have that shine in his eyes, or the light blush on his cheeks, or that softness in his brows. What he was talking about wasn't just a brief crush – it was love, and Lucy would never live up to that.
When she walked home that day, alone, all she could do was cry. Her heart was aching like never before, she felt weak, and with a blurry vision she sat down on a bench by the river. She felt so stupid. She had known Natsu for years, and not once had he shown any signs of interest for anyone else other than Lucy. The impromptu visits to her apartment had started on day one – hell, the entire bringing her to Fairy Tail was a neon sign screaming "You're special!" All the moments they had together, all the fighting Natsu had done in Lucy's name, all the intimately shared details that Lucy wouldn't tell a soul other than him – what happened to all that?
She must have sat on that bench for an hour, just hulking and crying and grabbing her clothes by her heart, to somehow relieve the clenching, stinging feeling inside of her. At one point she found herself hyperventilating, not getting enough oxygen from all the crying. She wanted to scream, run away, but most of all, she wanted to reverse time. Back to before that dinner, back to before Natsu met his new love, she just wanted to go back to when everything between them was fine. Normal. But despite the many magics in the world, turning back time wasn't possible. Not to that degree at least. Lucy remembered thinking briefly, that had she been a water mage like Juvia, she would have flooded the entirety of Fiore by now. She just wanted to melt through the ground and not exist anymore. Because what would happen now? Who was she without Natsu? Her guild mark on her hand was stinging, because it represented her relation to him. He was the one who made this mark possible, but now that they couldn't be together like before, did she deserve having it?
She knew she had to get back home, into her apartment. There she could wallow in peace, she hoped, after changing her bed sheets of course. They smelled like Natsu. And she didn't know what she was supposed to do with the fish stash in her fridge. Would Happy still be coming by? Would he have time to eat the fish before it went bad? Would Lucy be able to deal with Happy's presence, or would Natsu's absence be too heavy for both of them? She knew she couldn't see anyone in her current state, or in her state in a week from now either. There was so much for her to deal with emotionally first. Even brushing her teeth would be a challenge, since her toothbrush was mingling with his in the cup in the bathroom. She would have to get rid of his towel as well, or the presence of it would remind her of the fact that he wouldn't take showers there again. And his clothes that he had left in her hamper would also have to go, though she didn't want to throw them away. Somehow she would have to face him and give him his things back. And his mug with a dragon print on it would have to be returned as well. Truthfully, that applied to so many things that she started wondering if she would have to burn her apartment to the ground to be able to forget him. Except no – that would mean fire, and fire was another thing she wouldn't be able to see without Natsu popping into her head.
The thing was that the two of them had lived a life of codependency up until that night. They were practically living together, though everything was unspoken. Just the fact that he was in love with someone else meant that they couldn't continue being friends. On paper they would always be close of course, but in reality she knew that they had to give up their friendship. They were never together, but she had to treat them like a breakup, and that felt so insanely bad. She was a fluffer, doing all the girlfriend things but never getting the good stuff. No kisses, no sex, no declarations of love. No proper dates. Just hangouts. And now she was left alone, when he no longer needed her for the other girlfriend stuff. He had gotten himself the real deal, while Lucy was left with the scraps. The heartbreak.
His newfound love was a lightning bolt from a clear sky, and it consumed Lucy's brain to the point where she was bedridden for days. She couldn't sleep, because all dreams were either good dreams about him, or dreams where he kept repeating that sentence. "I think I'm in love." And then she would appear, a blue curly bob in some dreams, other dreams she was an exact copy of Lucy, but with different coloured hair and eyes. It felt nothing short of hell. Lucy kept repeating the same questions – how? How did this happen? And why – why didn't she see it coming? Why didn't Natsu see Lucy as a love interest? Why had he acted like her boyfriend in all aspects of physical, and then found someone else? How did he act with the other woman? Was he shy? Sly? Sexy? Proper, like a gentleman? Did he laugh as much as he did on his "dates" with Lucy? Did he take her to the same restaurants? Did he feel like the world stood still and nothing else mattered when he saw her, just like Lucy had felt with Natsu? It was terrible not knowing the answers, but she knew it would feel terrible knowing them as well.
What really kept her up at night was the smallest moments though. Like the time he took her hand on his own initiative, braided their fingers together and did that soft, caressing motion with his thumb on the back of her hand. And the fact that they were in public, just talking with their friends across the table, and Lucy had felt like Natsu was giving her all the attention in the world, despite them not exchanging a single word the entire evening. She remembered being so content with his hot hand practically glued to hers, despite the sweat and the added challenge of eating with her left hand. But she hadn't wanted to pull away first, and seemingly, neither did Natsu. Though she couldn't remember how it went, eventually they had released each other from their grips. It hadn't been significant then, the important part was that they held hands, not that they quit holding hands. But now she was facing the truth – all things came to an end. If none of them started things again, then she just had to realize that it had ended. She was left wondering if it ever meant anything. Was it just something he had tried out on a whim? Was it too much for Lucy to gently squeeze his hand back? Or was it too little? Should she have done more, or would it have ruined everything?
What about all the times he had come to her rescue while she was doing small, everyday tasks? Like rushing to the store to buy more rice while she was cooking, fixing the flickering light in her bedroom in the middle of the night because she couldn't concentrate on writing, despite him getting woken up after being dead asleep in his own house, building furniture he had ruined in the spree of the moment. Had it all just been friendly? And if it wasn't just out of pure kindness, if there was some love involved, what made him fall out of love? What had Lucy done wrong, and how could she fix it?
The next months were an out of body experience for Lucy. She knew the time had passed, and she knew she had to get back in the saddle, but she was still at that diner, listening to Natsu go on and on about his love and the fact that Lucy wasn't on the receiving end of said love. And every time she tried to move on, it was painfully obvious that she didn't have a place in the guild without Natsu. It wasn't that anyone was shutting her out – if anything she had been offered to go on more jobs than ever with people. But she knew it was temporary. As soon as she seemed normal again people would be able to get back to their daily activities, and those activities didn't include Lucy. So she took on solo jobs exclusively. Always mumbling about rent and increased costs of living, and then she went away as soon as possible. She hoped that if she went on enough missios, she would forget about her troubles for a short while. If she drowned herself in complicated jobs, she wouldn't have time to wallow.
Naturally, that wasn't the case. She still thought about Natsu every waking second of the day, but she found slight comfort in being far away from the crime scene. Soon enough he would bring her to the guild, coax her into joining Fairy Tail, and then that would be it. Lucy would have had to be over it. But it had been months and she still cried every night. She knew that it would never mellow out, this feeling of despair and despondency. She had never ever, not even in her wildest dreams, thought that she'd live a life without Natsu by her side. There had been a before him, and a during him, but to be the only universe where she lived to see an after him, was just terrible. She loved him. So, so much. She didn't know how to function without him. It felt so miserable, that she once caught herself thinking that Future Lucy saved Natsu in vain. She immediately regretted that thought, because of course she didn't want Natsu dead, that would be just as bad. But she wondered if Future Lucy had done it all again if she knew how broken she would become.
There was some consolation in the fact that they were together in every other universe. It sucked that she had gotten the short straw amongst the many versions of Lucys that were out there, but at least it was she who had gotten the shortest straw. Had she learned that Edo-Lucy spent her time fighting an unrequited love she would have felt useless. She would have wanted to help her, because she hated seeing others suffer. Lucy would always pick other people's happiness over her own. If happiness was available to everyone, she would naturally pick that option, but if it wasn't and she would have to sacrifice her own peace of mind, then she would in a heartbeat. Plus, at least she knew that Natsu was happy in all universes. Not always happy with her, but happy nonetheless.
Every time she saw his face she felt ill. Not in a disgusted way, but in a sad way. She missed him so much. She wanted to spend more time with him – the time she had gotten wasn't enough. They hadn't done everything she wanted them to have done. They hadn't gone to that café in Hargeon that opened a couple of months ago. They hadn't seen the renovated towns that they had been to during their missions once. She wanted them to visit some old clients, especially that one lady who had wild boars pestering her plantations. Lucy had promised her that they'd visit and have some tea together. Would she have to go on her own now? Tell her that everything shattered because Natsu had found another partner? Not technically, but emotionally. It was so confusing to spend time without him. Like life wasn't real anymore – just on pause until they got back together. Except that it wasn't like that, and Lucy had to move on. For all she knew, Natsu probably felt like life had just begun.
Sometimes, when they both were at the guild, Lucy found her eyes drawn to him. It would have been fine if she hadn't noticed that his eyes went to Lucy as well. For a split moment, their eyes would meet, and everything was back to normal. Sharing a small glance, a glance that said "I see you, I'm thinking about you" and that was it. Except now she noticed that he didn't linger on her. Only for a short moment, with an empathetic look in his eyes. Then he looked away again. The connection between them had been made, and was then removed. And Lucy hated it. She hated being just another guild mate that he looked at while being lost in thought. But even more, she hated that he knew about her feelings. Even if he didn't know exactly how she felt, he knew that she was grieving their lost friendship. She was grieving the loss of Natsu, despite him being alive and well. It was shameful that he knew, because it meant that her feelings didn't matter at the end of the day. He knew she craved him, he knew she missed him like she missed her mother and her father, yet that pain wasn't worth giving up on his true love. She was cast aside, left longing after what could have been.
She wondered: How could her heart get broken by a man who never even loved her? But she knew. She was in so deep when it came to Natsu. He enchanted her, she had given her heart to him and he hadn't known what to do with it. But he kept it. Lucy would never truly be able to let him go – for her, he was the one. Anyone other than Natsu would be settling. She would eventually do exactly that, settle for the next best guy, but it pained her that Natsu was the one who kept her heart and her soul behind locked bars. She would never get those back. Whomever she was towards her new guys, it could never be as authentic as it was with Natsu.
For her, it was unrequited love. For him, it was nothing.
