Author's Note: First story of 2015! Hello everyone! For those who follow my writing, I know, it's been a while, but I haven't just been lazing around. I really have been writing a lot. Unfortunately, most of the projects I'm working on are not Fairy Tail and one of them is kind of a big one that I want to finish before I start any other multi-chaptered stories. However, I do have a NaLu oneshot in the works, if anyone cares.

This is basically what I imagine could happen when Natsu and company bring Gray back to Rainfall Village after chapter 424. Of course it won't happen like this, but hey, a girl can dream, right? This was supposed to be a drabble, but obviously this is way too long to be a drabble. I wrote most of this on the bus ride to and from school today, so I apologize for any typos.

This is so borderline romantic, I wasn't sure what genres to put it in. So what the hell, I just put it as romance. These idiots destroy me. All of them.

No More Notes by HawkofNavarre

The pain on Gray's face is evident the entire journey back to the Rainfall Village. It only worsens when the village comes into sight, the concentrated circle of rain still drenching the abandoned town in its anguish. Gray knows he caused this and no amount of reassurance was going to change that. He had done what was right at the time to protect Juvia...even if he had ended up hurting her in the process. Natsu doesn't bother saying a thing. He already saved the guy; this part isn't his business.

Wendy greets them outside the little house and informs them that Juvia's fever is stable, but hasn't gone down at all since their departure. Natsu is hardly surprised at this. It doesn't matter what's happened or how well she's being taken care of. She's been waiting for him.

Gray nods and hesitantly opens the door, the rest of them lingering outside a bit longer as he enters. Wendy is the first to follow, the sweet, naive young girl she is. She's been Juvia's nurse for the past few days and apparently has no intention of stopping. It's only when Lucy pulls her to the side that she keeps from approaching the bedside. Natsu joins the two girls, standing in the furthest corner away from the bed while Gray sits himself down on the stool next to it. He's slow to hold Juvia's hand, but the dragon slayer can see that he does.

Gray hunches over her and Natsu can barely see his face anymore, but it's clear enough that he's pressing the back of her hand against his cheek.

"Gray...sama?" Juvia's little voice asks.

"Idiot," he replies, though the gentleness in his tone shows affection rather than any sort of anger, "who told you to get sick in your own rain?"

The pattering of the rain against the boards of the house seems to lessen as the two begin to talk in hushed tones. Natsu can hear it all too clearly with his heightened abilities, but he tries to block it out. He's already seen an intimate moment he knows he shouldn't have been witness to; he doesn't need to hear something as well.

Lucy's still looking though. If he considers some of the perverted things she's done in the past, this really isn't that unexpected. At the very least, she looks entranced by their connection and nothing else. She can't hear them with how quietly they're speaking, so Natsu thinks it's okay to let her look. In the meantime, Wendy goes outside with Charle and Happy, her face a brilliant red. Apparently, she is finally realizing why she shouldn't have gone inside in the first place. It's a good thing that Gray is too preoccupied to care about all these people watching. Well, Natsu isn't watching, if that makes it any better. His eyes are the girl he met in Harujion all that time ago. She's still staring at the couple at the bed with a sadness Natsu can't comprehend. They're all together again, so why does she look like she wants to cry?

When Lucy notices he's looking, she quickly turns her head away, flustered. Today, however, he knows she wasn't being any kind of pervert. He's seen the hurt on her face and he recalls where he's seen it before: on Juvia, just days ago. Natsu reaches for her, but she quickly moves outside before he can touch her. He follows her immediately. The pieces are starting to fit together. He hasn't forgotten the words she said under her breath before they left to save Gray.

She won't look at him under the raining sky even as he catches her wrist and he knows why. She had been the same as Juvia, searching for him, waiting for him to come home and in silent torment every moment he didn't. For once, Natsu doesn't know what to say to her. His throat feels tight and his heart heavy. He...hadn't meant to... He didn't mean to...

He hadn't thought about that way. People left the guild for long periods all the time. What was one more? But he sees it all now. It wasn't "one more" to her. It was him, and he left her behind.

Gray had left Juvia behind and left her with a wound only he could heal; Natsu knows that this is no different

"I was so lonely when you two left," she tells him, her voice strained and quiet. "Even if the guild hadn't disbanded, I would've felt the same way."

"I'm...sorry," is all Natsu can say. He doesn't have any excuses. He just never thought she would feel she so strongly about him leaving, but it's clear now that of course she would. Things had changed from long ago. It wasn't just him and Happy anymore, it was him and Happy and Lucy.

"I wanted more than a note, Natsu. Why...why couldn't you give that to me?" Lucy asks and her voice cracks. She's crying now, and even though he can't see, the faint smell of salt in the air gives her away.

"I never thought I was leaving you behind," he admits as he pulls at her hand, dragging her closer. "I never thought..." You would feel like this.

She lets out a bitter laugh. "You're always leaving me behind, whether it's in strength or battle. You're always running way ahead," Lucy tells him, looking at him now with a weak smile, "but I thought I could at least stay by your side when you went on an adventure."

The words are like daggers to his heart and he doesn't care that she's resisting anymore. He pulls her into his arms, holding her tightly because he needs her to understand that he never thought it was like that. He left to get stronger, so that he could protect everyone. He wasn't strong enough to defeat Acnologia and it was his father who paid the price. He never wants Lucy to have to pay that price, especially not for him.

"I didn't know that was what you wanted," he says softly. "I didn't know it mattered. I was always gonna come back."

"I didn't want you to come back," Lucy replies. She's clutching the sleeves of his jacket so hard that Natsu wonders if the seams will hold when hers are breaking so completely. "I wanted to be there with you. Everyone was gone and you..." She swallows and buries her faces deeper into his chest. "I-I'm never lonely with you around."

He knows he should've seen it sooner. He should've understood the moment he walked into that room and saw the scraps of newspaper that littered the wall. But he can't change the past, and that's something he's known and lived by since he was a child.

Natsu strokes her hair as the rain slows to a mere mist. He's never forgotten Fairy Tail is his family, but it's slipped his mind that he, Happy and Lucy are something more than that. They are parts of a whole in which Natsu is the leader, and he doesn't know how he got there, but he is. They will follow him to the ends of Earthland and back if he leads them that way. Lucy wouldn't want to lead, and neither would Happy. They are always content just to follow. Natsu knows this, and yet he'd left part of the unit behind. Now she is here in his arms and the almost all is right in the world.

Except that she's crying. He doesn't want her to be crying. He's remembered something important and he doesn't want her to think he'll forget it again.

He doesn't ever want to make her cry again.

"No more notes," Natsu assures her, mumbling into her hair as he pulls one of her hands into his. "You, me, and Happy, like it was back then. You want to join Fairy Tail, right?"

Lucy peeks up from his chest curiously and he grins. "Then come with me!"

Her smile is radiant as they run off to look for Wendy. The sun is in the sky now, but the feeling of their interlocked hands is the only thing that warms him. No more searching and wondering and loneliness. No more notes for the person that's left behind.

She is where she belongs and he will make sure she stays there.