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She thought she was over him. Well, she didn’t think that actually, but for months she didn’t have a choice but to be. He’d chosen her , so all Lucy could do was cope. Get over it: learn how to live without him.
So she did. When the worst period of grief was over, she’d picked herself up by the nape of her neck and forced herself to live like normal. She’d done it before, she could manage again, even if this time was different. She didn’t have a letter, a promise to hang onto. Instead she had to truly get over him. Eat, wash up, work, sleep, repeat.
The washing and working part went easy. Well, no, calling it easy wasn’t completely accurate. She had to shower every day, scrub her body raw with rough fragrances, just so she wouldn’t have Natsu’s smell lingering. Not that it actually did linger, but it felt like it did. Like he was everywhere, ingrained in her very DNA. It took a lot of scrubbing to ease this, even if the feeling never completely left. Even though she told herself it was just a phase, she knew deep inside that it was bordering on compulsive behaviour – she just didn’t have it in herself to face the discomfort of facing the obsession, so she gave herself grace. It would pass, she told herself, but for now it was fine to be a little bit neurotic. When her skin cracked and bled from the dehydrating habit, Wendy helped to heal her up again. She counted herself lucky.
The other thing that went smoothly was the working. ‘Smoothly’ being used liberally, of course. When she wasn’t cleaning every crevice of her body, she found that missions filled any dangerous silences in her brain. They kept her occupied and solved any rent-related issues, which was a good bonus. It was nice getting away from sympathetic or wondering stares in the guild hall, just getting time to herself. Besides, when she couldn’t get stronger mentally, she’d get stronger physically. The week-long missions at a time added up, and though she still struggled to eat with the same heartiness, she still managed to expand her magic capacity. A silver lining, she told herself.
Eating was a struggle, and so was sleeping. Food had lost all joy, as it only reminded her of him. It was one of his favourite things after all: how couldn’t she connect it to her best friend. Ex-best friend, to correct herself. Anything she put into her mouth, no matter how great it looked or smelled, tasted like clay. Her energy took serious damage from this, and her health did too – though she didn’t care about her health nowadays. But, it made sleeping easier, as her body still sought ways to replenish her energy, picking whatever source that seemed more available.
When she forced herself to eat, her sleep took the hit instead. It was the same nightmares she’d always had – about her mother, her father, her loss of both, destroying Aquarius’ key, the guild disbanding, and Natsu leaving. The dreams about Natsu were the worst. They made her wake up with tears cutting through her already dry skin, and had her running to the bathroom to empty her convulsing stomach. Her entire body seemed to reject Natsu’s absence, shivering on the cold tiles, the taste of vomit coating her mouth. She missed him so much she sometimes thought she’d actually die.
When he one day came and knocked on her door, apologizing for how he’d left her, she felt like she'd entered a dangerous scene. One where she’d immediately run back into his arms, grateful that he ever came to his senses at all. Luckily, her brain had gained some power now that she’d shielded off her heart, so she managed to deal with him rationally. Well, at first at least. Then he opened his mouth and started tearing everything down, brick by brick. He didn’t even mean to – he just held that power over her.
He was so kind, so caring, so vulnerable. Even when she tried to stay upset, it didn’t work. His gentle body language, approaching her slowly like she was a skittish animal fearing for its life. His soft words as he attempted to stitch together what he’d ripped open, not knowing that it didn’t help her hurt feelings. No matter what she said, what walls she put up, he seemed to lay his life out for her. Natsu had removed his own defenses, leaving himself open for her to stomp on his heart, his neck, his vitals. And that made her heart ache: for the first time, he stood completely accountable for his actions, and Lucy still couldn’t forgive him. He’d disappointed her so many times, and she was so scared that he’d do it again. It was impossible to tell if these feelings were unprompted in this situation, but she had to trust her heart, because in case he would wound up hurting her again, she wouldn’t be able to make it out alive. So much of her soul rested in his hands, and he had accidentally handled her so poorly that it almost didn’t seem real.
She didn’t forgive him. She was upset, hurt, even confused at the direction their relationship had taken. Both their relationship and their relationship. She didn’t deserve this either. For all Lucy knew, she had been as much in love with him as she had. And for Natsu to throw around, throw away more feelings of love? Lucy despised him for it. He didn’t seem to even begin to understand the mercy which he had them at, the enchantment he put them under. Of course, Lucy could only speak for herself: she’d never met her , but in a way she still knew what she must be going through. Their love for Natsu wasn’t misguided after all. He was amazing, charming, kind, completely wonderful when he didn’t mess up so much. She just wished she wasn’t so upset with him.
The worst part was that she didn’t even have the right to be upset. They were never a couple, they just acted like one. She was as much to blame for their lack of commitment as he was. In fact, she was even more to blame. She’d known her feelings, understood them, protected them, thinking that one day he would make sense of his feelings and then act on them. But when he didn’t act like she’d predicted, she couldn’t be mad; she wasn’t allowed to be mad. If she demanded predictability, she should have taken matters into her own hands. Even if the outcome of her confession wasn’t certain, at least she could be sure that the act of confessing would happen .
That’s right: Natsu wasn’t to blame for this. Not entirely. He’d been foolish and selfish and naive, but he hadn’t tried to be cruel. He didn’t know any better, and Lucy felt horrible for treating him like he did.
After the kiss they shared the day he’d come back to her, Lucy had kicked him out. Not violently, just a guiding point towards the door. She’d been as upfront as she could be, telling him that even though she was willing to try to mend things, forgiveness was still far away. There was so much to rebuild between them – trust, love, friendship. None of it would come easy, especially since she’d never known him without these. From the moment she’d met him, she trusted him. They had become friends quicker than Natsu could spell ‘friends’, and Lucy knew that somewhere in her soul, her love for him had begun to grow.
So she’d never known Natsu without trust, love or friendship. It didn’t seem possible to start building them up again, when they couldn’t exist without each other. Their love demanded friendship, their friendship demanded trust, and trust was impossible to reestablish without that original sapling of love. No matter how deep she dug, she couldn’t seem to find what was left of it. The love that had grown roots so far into her that it mingled with her very nervous system. The love that had culminated into her entire person, that sat the standard for all her human relations.
Where was she going to start?
She didn’t have to, it turned out. It was Natsu who’d taken the steps to heal what he’d broken. He had started right away; for an entire week after their initial attempt at reconciliation, he slept on her roof. Lucy wasn’t aware of it at first – if she had been she would have tried to keep her tears at bay. But after a week, Lucy’s landlady had slipped a carefully worded letter, asking her to keep her friends in the flat or on the ground. Apparently the roof tiles were dangerous, and she didn’t want to deal with complicated housing-policies.
Actually talking to Natsu about this took a lot of courage. It took two more days for her to confront him, though it was a lot easier having something silly to scold him about. It was the first step to loosen the string between them that held so much tension it had seemed like talking would make it burst. And once the string wasn’t so tense, Lucy found herself daring to meet his eyes properly when she saw him looking at her in the guild hall.
The next step the two of them had to overcome was the one that left Natsu on a blanket outside of Lucy’s apartment like a homeless man. The first time she’d seen him there, was when she was up unusually early one morning to go to the market. Food had finally started tasting something again, and she’d gone out to satisfy a craving for tangerines she hadn’t been able to satiate for months. And there Natsu was, curled up on her front step, seemingly completely oblivious to how he looked. At first she’s taken a step back, closing the door again to gather her thoughts. She hadn’t been prepared to deal with him — she hadn’t had time to gather her courage. Except, as she stood there, regaining some sanity after initial shock, she found that she didn’t feel as terrible as she prepared to feel. Some way or another, her heart had begun to soften.
This didn’t mean she confronted him about his newfound sleeping habits just yet though. She’d walked past him, heard as he stirred in his sleep, and walked to the market without looking back. There was a possibility that he’d woken up when she passed him — he’d always been tuned in with her smell and the sound of her movements after all — but if he had, he hadn’t gone after her. She was thankful, actually, because she hadn’t been in the mood to talk to him. And when she came back, the blanket was nowhere to be found.
The second time she saw him sleeping by her front door, was when she’d been partying with the guild long into the early hours. She was drunk, the night was cold, and before she knew it she was holding Natsu by the scarf, scolding him with tears pouring down her cheeks. How dare he sleep outside like this, risking his health, embarrassing himself for a reason she didn’t even know? She was furious, because his actions were so humiliating that it made her stomach hurt. She asked him what would make him stop, and his answer turned out to be so obvious that she almost facepalmed.
“I won’t stop,” he’d said. His brows had been in a consistent furrow, always worrisome, always concerned. “I can’t sleep if I don’t hear you, I can barely breathe.”
The solution was blinking like a big neon sign in Lucy’s face. She knew how to solve this, she just didn’t like it one bit. But she was drunk, and her heart was temporarily more open for forgiveness. So she took him in, placed him on the couch with a fresh blanket that wasn’t moist from the humid night outside, and then headed straight to bed. The consequences of these actions felt astronomical — she’d let him back into her apartment. Did he take this as a sign of forgiveness? Even his simple minded brain couldn’t draw that conclusion, right? She wasn’t so sure. After all, had their positions been reversed, she’d been relieved to the point of celebration to finally get access to his house.
But the positions weren’t reversed, and Natsu was wiser than she’d given him credit for. Her hangover felt as daunting as always, but having to turn around and look Natsu in the eye? It would be a lethal blow. After an hour of complete silence, she finally turned around and let her eyes scan through the apartment. The couch was empty, it almost looked untouched — had Natsu left as soon as he’d woken up? She wasn’t sure, but she was thankful. She was still so tense that she didn’t know how to act right.
When the sun went down, she heard a knock on her door. Natsu, of course, because who else. He’d looked like a sad puppy, waiting for her to react to his presence. When Lucy didn’t say anything, Natsu took the lead.
“I… Came for my blanket. The dirty one.” He made no attempts of stepping inside and grabbing it himself.
“You can’t sleep outside,” Lucy responded, matter of factly. Natsu’s face contorted into something painful.
“I can’t sleep if I can’t hear you.” He spoke slowly, letting his words sink into her. She knew he wasn’t trying to convince her of anything – he was truly, genuinely, just working with what he had at his arsenal. A dirty blanket and a mind seeking peace in the steady beat of Lucy’s heart. He was fully expecting to be told to sleep on his own again, and he was accepting it. That was enough for Lucy to step aside. She wasn’t evil. Heartbroken, maybe, but not mean.
“Same as yesterday,” she’d told him and left the hallway with the door still wide open, Natsu hovering over the doorway.
They didn’t speak more that night. Natsu sat obediently on the couch, just following her with his gaze. Lucy cleaned up some dirty dishes in the kitchen sink, and then went straight into the bathroom to make herself ready to go to sleep. A short shower, some skin care, and then dental hygiene. Before she left the bathroom again, she grabbed a new toothbrush, still in its packaging, and placed it on the sink. When she entered the living room again she met Natsu’s consistent eyes, and then went straight to bed.
The next morning Natsu was out of the apartment again, and the toothbrush had been used. Lucy placed it in a plastic cup, put it down beside her own, and then went on with her day. She’d caved. He’d been allowed back into her space. But wasn’t this what she wanted? Things were technically going well; they were back in each other’s lives, and they could breathe. But the terrifying sadness that struck her heart when she looked at him, had yet to falter.
Lucy couldn’t sleep. She tried to; drinking tea, reading her book into the early hours, writing in her diary until her hands cramped. Where was he? Wasn’t it unspoken that he would come to her apartment when she pretended to sleep? It worked – he got comforted by her presence, and Lucy carefully let him approach her heart. But he didn’t come that night.
Or the next one.
The third day of not even catching a glimpse of him, not in the guild nor in her apartment, she felt her patience snap. What was he doing? One second they were best friends forever, the other heartbroken strangers, then he scooted his way into her life again, and now he left without a trace?
Her heels echoed in the guild hall when she once again found it without Natsu in it. She was stomping the entire way to Natsu’s house, and no one could stop her. On the way there, she didn’t take the time to think. If she paused, she knew she’d be backing out again. When had she become so cowardly? She drudged on. These were thoughts for later. For now she was fueled by a fiery determination that she hadn’t felt for months. She wanted to pour a bit of fuel on it – just this once, let her demand an explanation from him.
Lucy didn’t bother knocking. If he was home, he’d hear her coming anyway. If he wasn’t… well, then she’d just sit on his couch and wait. Surely she could find means to keep her resoluteness alive, just from the interior itself. Right?
She shoved the door open with more force than necessary, stepping inside like she owned the place. Feigned confidence, but needed. "Natsu!" she called, voice sharp.
Silence.
Her jaw tightened. She stormed further in, scanning the room. The place was its usual disaster – blankets and pillows piled up on the hammock, dishes stacked in the sink, a half-finished sandwich abandoned on the table – but there was something off. The air felt cold and empty.
Her stomach twisted. This sensation was too familiar. She stood in the middle of his house, heart pounding, breath uneven. The place was lived-in – messy, cluttered, exactly as she expected – but something about it felt stale. As if no one had been inside for days. Because, of course, no one had. Her hands curled into fists at her sides. Where the hell was he?
Just as she was about to spin on her heel and stomp right back out, a familiar sound hit – the crunch of boots on dirt, the thud of an easy stride, the shift of movement just outside the door. Lucy froze. A second later, the door swung open, and there he was.
Natsu stood in the doorway, windswept and dust-covered, his clothes scuffed, a faint bruise blooming along his cheekbone. His scarf was still wrapped snug around his neck, speckled with what looked like soot and dirt. His hair was messier than usual, sticking up in wild angles, and he carried the kind of exhaustion that only came from days of nonstop traveling.
For a beat, he just stared at her, blinking like his brain hadn’t quite caught up. “...Uh. Hey?”
That was it. That was all he had to say. Lucy saw red.
“Where the hell have you been?!” The words ripped out of her, hot and furious, as she marched toward him. “Three days, Natsu! Three! Not a single word, not a note, not even a damn message!”
Natsu blinked again, slower this time, like he was still buffering. “...I was on a job?”
Lucy opened her mouth – then snapped it shut. For a brief, infuriating moment, logic tried to settle in. Right. A job. Of course. He was a wizard, this was normal, this was… natural, in fact. Because why would he tell her about the missions he went on? She had only just recently taken the steps to forgive him, but she hadn’t allowed them to become them again. Natsu and Lucy on adventures across Fiore without a bother in the world. That had been them once, but that time was long gone. He still had to make a living – it’s not like he had the royalty from her published books to lean on.
“Oh…” She mumbled, suddenly embarrassed of her outburst. “Yeah, sorry, of course… That makes sense.”
“Yeah.” He rolled his shoulders like they ached. She didn’t miss the crooked eyebrow and the concerned pull at his lips though – he was worried about her. “Just a quick thing in the mountains. Figured you wouldn’t wanna go – just a lotta running around in the cold.” A massive yawn overtook him, his fangs flashing. “Didn’t think you’d miss me or anything.”
Oh she knew exactly what he was trying to say; he was insinuating that the distance she put between them had been meant as an insult towards him. Lucy’s hand smacked against his arm before she even fully processed the movement.
“Ow- hey!” Natsu yelped, stepping back like she’d shocked him.
“You absolute, brainless moron!” she snapped, her voice rising. “You make a point to stay close, show up at my apartment, insisting to stay there, and then, suddenly, you’re just gone? What was I supposed to think?”
Natsu stared at her, something shifting in his expression. His brows knitted together, mouth parting just slightly. “...Oh.”
Lucy scoffed, shoving past him, pacing now, because standing still felt impossible.
“Yeah. ‘ Oh ’.” She whirled back toward him, jabbing a finger in his direction. “I thought something happened to you, Natsu! You didn’t even tell me–”
He exhaled through his nose, rubbing the back of his neck, cutting her off before she had a chance to finish her sentence. “I didn’t think you wanted me to.”
Lucy let out a sharp, disbelieving laugh.
“Of course you didn’t,” she muttered, throwing her hands up. “Don’t you just know everything I think? Well, wake up Natsu, I do want to know about your whereabouts, and I do take notice when you disappear, and I don’t think sex is ‘dirty’.” She was digging up old wounds at this point, but she had a feeling that they’d never heal otherwise. One last scarring, one last time to bring back the hurt. “You just… you do things without thinking, and it never even crosses your mind that other people might care. I told you: I care . It matters to me that we talk, and look at each other, and that we interact.”
She stopped herself. Natsu’s face had gotten a few shades paler, and she wasn’t sure getting yelled at after going on a mission for three days straight was good for him. A beat of silence stretched between them. Natsu shifted his weight, his sandals scuffing against the wooden floor. His eyes, normally so bright and alive, flickered with something unbearably sad. Lucy’s heart weighed heavier than usual.
“...Sorry,” he muttered, voice quieter than she expected.
Lucy exhaled, the last of her anger sputtering out like a dying candle.
“Good,” she said, softer now. “Now sit down before you pass out on the floor.”
Natsu practically deflated as he dropped onto his couch with a dramatic flop, limbs sprawled in every direction.
“Man,” he sighed, stretching his arms over his head. “I did miss ya.”
His words pulled at Lucy’s heartstrings. Did she dare say it back? She wanted to, but her brain didn’t seem to settle. He had stirred up so many emotions at the same time, and she hadn’t gotten a moment to dissect them. Anger, relief, despair, love, everything in a tangled mess. She grinded her teeth while thinking hard.
“Let’s… let’s go home now.”
Natsu’s disappearance had prompted Lucy to make a stance. A mental one, to decide where she currently was in this jumbled, disorienting healing process. Another couple of days had passed by, where words between the two of them were limited to food-discussions and heads ups about bathroom use. She held a bit of pride in her ability to deal with his proximity so well. It had only felt suffocating for half a day, but then she found herself falling into old patterns. Sitting on the side of her couch to save space for the other party, cooking three times the amount of food when she made lunch, and even leaving an inviting open bathroom-door when she did her nightly skincare routine.
She learned to live with him again.
The stars resembled spilled sugar grains on a dark surface, the moon barely visible through her window. It was just a sliver today – her connection with her spirits hadn’t felt as vibrant as usual, so it checked out. She couldn’t sleep. Again. She heard Natsu stir on the couch, and her own bed felt big and empty. She missed him . After all this time without him, she thought she was used to her own space. Not sharing it with anyone – not Natsu, not a single soul. Well, Happy was held close to her chest when he visited, but he’d become so distant lately. He didn’t hang out with Lucy or Natsu – their dispute was probably too much to handle for him. She didn’t blame him.
Twisting and turning for the umphteenth time, she let out a surprised squeak when Natsu stood by the doorway, looking at her. How long had he stood there? Not too long, she guessed, but she wasn’t sure – she’d only opened her eyes recently.
“Can’t sleep?”
His voice in the night. Raspier, darker, quieter. A voice she thought only she would hear. But blue hair flashed across her mind and made her heart sting. There was nothing different between their relationship now – anything Natsu did with Lucy, he’d probably done with her first. Too tired to let the thought linger, she left it and decided to answer him instead.
“Mhm.” She sat up, not caring that the strap on her pajamas had dropped down her shoulder. “No moon out.” She nodded towards her window, not sure if she’d just blamed her sleeplessness on the moon or if she had just tried to find something to say. Natsu stepped closer to take a look.
“Ya’ can see the stars though. Isn’t that Orion?” He had stepped very close, she realised, because when he bent down to point, his hair almost brushed her cheek.
She turned her head towards his face. No moon, barely even a streetlight lit him up, but she could see him clear as day. He looked rawer than he had 7 months ago. He never got quite clean shaven, his pores were prominent, and she realised that the wrinkle between his brows had become permanent. When had he grown up? Why did she allow herself to miss it? His breath was hot when it blew against her mouth, and suddenly she found that her hand was combing his hair with its fingers. Soft, but not as soft as it used to be. Had her withholding her love made him this rough?
Her eyes peered into his. He was somewhere deep inside those dark eyes, concealed, but glowing, reaching out. Her Natsu, with the internal flame that normally licked her entire soul with that warm sensation. Before she could stop herself, her eyes flickered down towards his lips, and the taste of his lips bubbled up inside her. He had kissed her, that day one month ago. She wasn’t sure if it had been done out of love or regret, but she remembered that his lips had been colder than she’d assumed they would be. It hadn’t felt like him .
“I missed you.” To call her words a whisper would be an exaggeration – a breath would be more accurate. The humming of the fridge was louder than her sentence, but the spark of hope in Natsu’s eyes was undeniable.
If she kissed him now, would it feel like him again? Lucy thought that there was only one way to figure it out.
She didn’t even bother wetting her lips before slowly pressing them towards his. They were hot this time – maybe not as passionately hot as they could be, but they were closer to what she knew to be him . His taste was prominent, despite the lingering scent of minty toothpaste.
With one hand cupping her cheek, and the other leaning behind her, Natsu leaned into the kiss. Not advancing to deepen it with tongue, but Lucy thought she could feel him wanting to. For now, though, this dry kiss would have to suffice. She hoped she could take this moment to let go of her other worries – she certainly tried to, but it would take many replicated kisses like this to remove the thought of her as she knitted their lives together.
That was not to say that this night was unsuccessful. It was the opposite, in fact. Because for the first time in 7 months, Natsu climbed into her bed, took Lucy in his arms, and cradled her as she fell into deep sleep. Her heart had forgiven all the hurt – not yet forgotten it, but they dared to hope now that it would.
Forgiveness. Lucy informed Natsu every day that she did. A kiss on his cheek, a hand grabbing ahold of him under the table in the guild. Each mission they took together, tokens for the active work they did to make peace with their situation. And for each day, they went further away from the time of heartbreak. It took them a year to inform the guild about their relationship – that they finally committed to the boyfriend-girlfriend titles.
The amazing thing was that Lucy did heal. The broken trust grew back – not the same, but stronger. A loving feeling that once left her so lonely, grew to become vigorous, empowering. And Natsu got his desired ending – the one with Lucy in his life, a constant by his side.