He's smiling at her, only it wasn't the him now but the him of the past. A snake curled just behind him, Kinana in her Cubellious form. Two eyes peered wickedly at her. He stood in a line with five others, and they bore down on her with malicious glee.
She was scared out of her mind.
Then another image, him but not him, a cold and serious man now with one less eye and pointed ears. He looked about ready to set the world on fire and Cobra knew that was an accurate description of him while the Neo-Oracion Seis hunted for the Infinity Clock. He glared with even more intensity out of the single eye.
Once again she was scared out of her mind.
The images and emotions of the past towards him overwhelmed Cobra in an instant. He couldn't say they quite came as a surprise, but the intensity and clarity that Lucy's soul was emitting made it feel almost like he was her, staring at himself, wondering if he would die because the man in front of him decided so. Who was he to try and stop it? All these thoughts with the intensity of Natsu's roar from all that time ago.
He brought his hand up to cover his ear as if to block away real sound, realizing he only could because it was now empty of the arm it once held. Lucy was gone.