A/N: A new story! Don't ask where the idea for this came from because I don't really know. Also I'm a little concerned that Lucy dies in a lot of my fics, I don't know what's wrong with me. I love her, why do I give her pain? (Wow I wonder if Natsu's ever asked himself that question). Anyway, I hope you enjoy this! Please leave a review!

Dearly Departed – Chapter One

The Manor

The streets were empty but the moon was full, it's glow casting an eerie light down onto the city of Magnolia. Autumn leaves danced in the gutters, stirred by a faint breeze as the last of them fell from decaying branches. The night was quiet, until a harsh shout sounded in the northern district of the sleeping city.

"Get your ass down here, Stripper! I don't like to be kept waiting."

From Natsu's side, Gajeel snickered, but above them a dishevelled Gray urged him to be quiet whilst partially hanging out of his bedroom window.

"Be quiet, Hothead, you'll wake the whole damn street."

Natsu mimicked Gray's over-dramatic 'sshh'ing to Gajeel as the dark haired boy disappeared back into his room. They only had to wait a few moments before Gray reappeared, fully clothed and climbing out of his second story window. Once he reached the ground, the three of them set off without another word.

They walked down the centre of the roads, not fearing stray vehicles due to the late hour. Natsu pulled his phone out from his jeans pocket to check the time. 11:45PM. They'd definitely get there by midnight. The walk wasn't too long.

"So, just us tonight, huh?" Gray inquired.

Natsu scrunched up his nose. It was always more fun when there was a group of them, but he'd been dying to visit this place for week's now- hell more than that, years- and he'd finally mustered the courage to suggest it to the group, but at least one of them was always busy.

But tonight, his patience was at an end.

"Jellal had a date with Erza tonight so we didn't even bother to swing by his place," Natsu began to explain to Gray, "We went to get Loke but he wouldn't come to the window so I climbed up to get him and- Well, let's just say he wasn't alone. Romeo is too young for this, and Gajeel was too lazy to walk across town to see if Sting and Rogue wanted to come."

"Gehe," Gajeel snickered, "Two of them would have shit their pants anyway. Just like I'm expecting Salamander here will."

Natsu ignored Gajeel's comment. His excitement was building and he didn't want to waste his energy getting into a fight with Gajeel before they even got there.

Rounding another corner, their destination came into full view.

"Where are we going exactly?" Gray inquired.

Natsu couldn't help the grin that spread across his features.

"Where to you think?" He replied before gesturing to the house on the hill.

Now unobscured by Magnolia's city skyline, tonight's mission stood atop its signature hill overlooking the town. The mansion was framed by black clouds in the distance, making the abandoned building look even more ominous. It was huge. Even from where they now stood at the bottom of the hill, the peeling white paint and crippling columns were visible. Natsu could have sown he heard the building moan from the strain of the wind. He pulled his scarf tighter around himself as he shivered. They were here.

Heartfilia Manor.

Rumoured to be the most haunted place in Magnolia, the building had stood abandoned atop this hill all of Natsu's life. He had a perfect view of it from his bedroom window, the building seemed to taunt him whenever he deigned to open his curtains. Mocking him for not being brave enough to enter, for fearing the very sight of it.

But now here he was, standing at the manors gate's at the bottom of the hill, finally about to go inside. He still felt that lingering fear deep down in his gut, but was he hell about to let it show when Gajeel and Gray were standing either side of him. That was exactly the reason he'd brought them along.

There was also the hope that they'd be scared shitless too, of course.

Gajeel strode up to the large iron gates, ignoring the multiple 'keep out' and 'BEWARE' signs strapped to the bars. He fumbled with the ancient lock and chains for a few moments before growling in frustration.

"No good," He explained, "We're gonna have to climb it."

Turns out, they didn't have to climb it. Without much searching, the three of them found a segment of the stone wall that lined the grounds that was nothing more than a heap of rubble hidden behind some shrubs.

"I can't believe we're doing this," Gray sighed, shaking his head, "Have you heard what they say about this place?"

Yes actually, Natsu had. With all the stories he'd been told about this place, he could probably be considered an expert. Of course, all the stories varied. It had happened so long ago that you couldn't simply go to the town's retirement home and ask one of those old cronies what had happened. For some of them, the Manor had even been abandoned when they were kids.

The story most frequently told, and the one Natsu chose to believe, was this one:

It had been a beautiful spring night in the late 19th century and Lord Heartfilia had decided to throw a grand ball. People flocked to the manor, not just from Magnolia but all across Fiore. And among those hordes of people? A deadly wielder of dark magic, the King of Tartarus himself! This diabolical man had been lured from the depths of the underworld by Jude's astonishing wealth, and sought to steel it all for himself while bringing misery in his wake.

The party was in full swing when he arrived. The music stopped and the air was instead filled with screams. No one could stop him and his demons painted the manors white walls with the blood of the party guests, torturing all who attended until the sun rose the next day. It had been a slaughter.

Of course, there were gaping plot holes in this version of events, but Natsu didn't really mind. Let his imagination fill in all the gruesome gaps. It only made the story all the more terrifying.

"What's the matter?" Natsu chided Gray as the two of them hesitated at the threshold, "Scared?"

"Would you two stop screwin' around and hurry up already?" Gajeel groaned from beyond the wall.

Natsu was shocked at his cousin's boldness for a moment before he remembered to gather his courage.

This was it.

He stepped onto Heartfilia soil.

Nothing happened.

He tried to disguise his sigh of relief as he followed Gajeel up the hill, Gray trailing behind him.

The closer they got to the manor the more his mind raced. With each new step, this was the closest he'd gotten to it. All his life, he'd ogled it from the bottom of the hill. Or even as far as his bedroom window. Never daring to get closer.

And now? Now after striding up the weed-covered hill, the cracks in the paint were only an arm's length away. He could see details of the decrepit home that he hadn't noticed from a distance. The aging wood, the broken windows, the faint smell of mildew seeping out from inside the house. It sent shivers up his spine.

The three of them proceeded cautiously once they reached the outer decking of the manor, testing their weight on the wood one by one before slowly inching towards the front door. Like the rest of the manors exterior, the large doors were in a sorry state of decay. The once golden handles were now brown and rusted, and the doors once intricate frame had fallen prey to termites long ago.

All of them hesitated at the doorway. Natsu felt two pairs of eyes baring into his back and turned to see the stern gazes of his two friends behind him, each of them having crossed their arms over their chests.

"Well, Salamander, this was your idea," Gajeel gestured towards the door, "Go head."

Natsu was about to call the two of them cowards, but the jibe got stuck in his throat. He was pretty scared himself, but he couldn't turn back now. He'd never hear the end of it if he did.

He turned and reached out to the door.

His hand inched slowly closer, his mind going a mile a minute. Did he knock? No. Of course he didn't knock. No one would answer. Well, no one living anyway. Would a ghost answer the door if he knocked? Just how many ghosts were in there anyway? There had to be a lot, if it had been a slaughter. Oh god, oh god. What was he doing? He was leading them into a death trap! This was insane, they were all going to die a horrible death. Ripped apart by spirits or demons or-

His fingers touched the door. He pushed it open.

And the damn thing fell straight off its hinges, falling inside the house with a loud bang that Natsu felt in his bones. A cloud of dust erupted from the floor beneath it, blinding the three of them momentarily as they coughed and sputtered, trying to get decades of accumulated dust out of their lungs.

Once the dust cleared and he could breathe again, Natsu hesitantly stuck his head through the doorway.

Only to be promptly shoved all the way in by one of his friends.

He fell face first onto the fallen door, another cloud of dust attacking his senses. He coughed as his friends laughed. He wasn't sure which one of them had pushed him in so he'd just have to be sure and remember to beat both of them up later. Right now though, he was too busy scrambling to turn on the flashlight on his phone.

Behind him, Gray and Gajeel lit up their own phones and cast their light into the room just as he did. Slowly, he moved his flashlight across the room.

Despite the decay, it was clear this had once been a grand hall. The ceiling stretched high above them, a chandelier hanging precariously from rusted chains. Faded tapestries and paintings decorated the damp walls, and parts of the grand staircase at the far end of the room had given way to age.

The tiled floor was void of any furniture, making Natsu think that this room was still decorated for the ball until he realised it was likely that this place had been looted long ago. Empty beer cans and deflated balloons littered one of the far corners. So they hadn't been the first to enter here since.

"Where's all the blood?" Gray wondered aloud, finally entering the manor.

As he stood, Natsu realised he was right. There wasn't a speck of blood in sight. Rot, mould, patches of damp, sure. But no blood.

Natsu walked further in, the others following behind him before they fanned out and inspected different corners of the grand hall. The dust tickled at his nose, but it didn't distract him from wandering over to a large fireplace on the right hand wall. Atop it sat ornaments and pictures that previous looters hadn't deemed to be worth anything. Natsu was just reaching out to scrape the grime from what seemed to be a family portrait when a wail sounded from across the room.

Started, he turned sharply, just in time to see Gajeel scampering away from some rats. Natsu shared an amused glace with Gray who was still standing close to the door before turning back to the objects on the mantelpiece.

He refrained from touching them now. It felt wrong to disturb anything, and he'd already demolished the front door. He hoped any ghosts would forgive him for that.

A creak sounded to his left.

Swiftly moving his flashlight to where the sound had emanated from, he caught sight of a door on the wall behind the stairs slowly swaying open. His heart beat sped up.

"Did you guy's see-" He turned to ask his friends.

But they weren't there.

His heart was pounding now as he turned back to face the door. The breeze. It had just been the breeze. Or, more than likely, it had been his stupid friends.

"C'mon guys, this isn't funny." He called as he ever so slowly made his way to the door.

No one answered. He called out their names, but no reply came. Natsu didn't know what he had expected really. He'd chosen probably the worst company to come here with after all, but he was not about to let those two morons scare him. He wasn't going to give them so much of a yelp.

Reaching the door, he laid his hand flat against the aged wood and pushed it open all the way, shining his flashlight into the corridor beyond as he did so. To his immense relief, the door stayed upright. But unfortunately his comrades weren't on the other side.

He turned left and proceeded down the corridor, hoping to catch his friends in the act. The rug beneath his feet muffled his footsteps, and the moonlight that streamed through the large broken windows illuminated the corridor enough that he could turn off his flashlight and turn the element of surprise in his favour.

If the others were still using their phones, he couldn't see the light at this end of the corridor. Pausing in his exploration, Natsu cast one last look down the corridor before turning to look in the other direction.

A piercing sound filled his ears and as he turned he came face to face with a contorted face of white that reached for him with thin fingers. Despite his earlier assurances that he wouldn't be startled, Natsu's heart leapt to his throat as he screamed and stumbled backwards, losing his footing and falling to the ground. His head made a distinctive smacking sound when it hit the floor.

He must have blacked out for a moment, because when he opened his eyes his vision was blurry and a worried voice filled his ears.

"Oh god, please don't be dead, please don't be dead, please don't be dead."

Natsu shook his head to clear away the fuzziness, replacing it with a dull ache as he took in the sight above him.

A girl leaned over him. Her face extremely pale and a picture of worry. The sight shocked him so much that he sat up abruptly.

And his head went straight through her own.

Realising that the two of them should have clashed, he turned to face her whilst simultaneously scrambling away in fear. All of his instincts were screaming at him to run, but once he got a good enough distance away and the figure stood up, he gave himself a moment to process.

She was definitely a ghost. There was no other explanation for that fact that he had moved through her. But honestly? She didn't look like he pictured a ghost would. Sure, if you looked at her too long you would realise that you could see through her, but her figure possessed none of the rotting flesh and oozing blood that all the horror movies he'd seen had promised. Instead, she simply didn't have much colour to her. Her pale skin was the same colour as the floaty white dress she wore. The garment reached her knees, giving way to shapely legs and dirtied feet that didn't quite touch the floor. Her faded blonde hair floated around her as well as her dress, as though she was underwater. And her dark eyes looked sunken as though she'd gone some nights without sleep.

None of that stopped her from looking intimating though when she placed her hands on her hips and scowled at him.

"Well? What are you waiting for?" She shouted at him, "Boo! Go! Leave! Or-Or I'll curse you!"

"I- You- What?" Natsu spluttered.

She growled to herself in frustration before hovering close to him. His heartbeat sped up once more, but he didn't back away. Not this time. She leaned down so that her eyes bore into his own as she waved a threatening finger at him. He expected her proximity to come with the stench of rot but surprisingly there was… nothing.

"I am sick and tired of little boys treating my home like a playground," She scowled at him, "Now leave! Or else."

She stood straight once more, crossing her arms and turning away from him with her head held high. Apparently she'd made her point.

The sight of her foot tapping impatiently as she hung in the air was enough to make him snicker. She wasn't very scary for a ghost.

"Or else what?" He asked from where he remained on the floor.

"I-I beg your pardon?" she asked warily.

Her confusion only made this whole situation more amusing to him. He rose to his feet, brushing the dust from his jeans before crossing his own arms and smirking at her defiantly.

"You said 'leave, or else'" He grinned, "Or else, what?"

The girl huffed.

"Now listen here sir, I-"

She raised her finger to him again, and when Natsu tried to swat it away, his hand sailed right through it. He laughed at her shocked expression as her words died off in her throat. He continued to send one fist to her face, the other her gut.

They both sailed right through her.

His laughter filled the empty corridor, drowning out the sounds of her protests as he continued to wave his hands around in the space were her stomach should be. She tried to back away but he kept following her. She was in the middle of berating him for being rude when something cracked under his foot.

His phone.

Natsu groaned to himself and picked it up. The screen had been shattered. Guess that's what he got for owning an iPhone.

"Now that you've recovered your- your… thing," The ghost girl stammered, "Could you please leave?"

"Why?" He asked, ignoring her request.

"Because this is my home!" She squeaked, "How would you like it if strangers just barged in and started parading around your living room?!"

"Well, I guess that would- hang on wait a second," Natsu frowned as he realised her words, "Your home? You mean you live here? In this dump?"

"Y-Yes," She frowned back at him, but her expression turned sad, "But it wasn't a dump when I was…"

"Alive?" He supplied. This was so weird. He was talking to a ghost!

The girl's expression turned angry again and she raised her arms as though she meant to hit him, but her shoulders slumped and the blow never came. Not that he would have felt anything if she had hit him. She turned and walked away from him.

"Just get out," She called over her shoulder.

He realised then that it must be awful, her life. Or… afterlife. Whatever it was. Here she was, trapped in this decaying house, all alone except for people who come looking for a scare. And how long had she been here? All the stories he'd heard were dated to the late 19th century so… over a hundred years? That was an awfully long time to be alone.

The further she got down the corridor, the more translucent she became, slowly disappearing from sight. Just as he thought she would disappear completely, he called out to her.

"Wait!" She turned, her form becoming more noticeable again as he approached her, "I'll leave, I just want to know one thing first."

"What do you wish to know?" She sighed.

"What's your name?"

She seemed surprised by his question, as though she expected him to ask something else. It made him wonder if he wasn't the first living person she'd unsuccessfully tried to scare away. For a moment he was worried that after all this time she might not even remember her name, but then her expression softened.

She offered him a gentle smile.

"It's Lucy."

"Well, it was nice to meet you Lucy," He smiled back at her, then extended his hand, "I'm Natsu."

Her smile fell and she flinched slightly. He realised his mistake in extending his hand, drawing it back with a nervous laugh, but Lucy continued to stare at him intently. Her eyes were wide and it seemed as though if she could breathe, her breath would be hitching.

"Natsu…" She whispered aloud before shaking her head and closing off her features, "Don't come back."

When Natsu found his way back to the main hall, Gajeel and Gray were there waiting. Wherever the two of them had run off to, Gray seemed to have lost his shirt along the way and, as Natsu approached them and a foul smell filled his nose, it seemed that Gajeel has been rolling around in rat piss.

Seeing Natsu turn his nose up, Gajeel sighed.

"There ain't nothing here but rat shit and dirt." His cousin noted.

"Yeah," Gray agreed, "I didn't see one drop of blood. Although I did hear someone scream before. Was that you Flame Brain?"

"Pfftt no," Natsu scoffed as he made his way to the door.

"Woah, where are you going?" Gray laughed, he clearly hadn't believed him, "We haven't explored upstairs yet."

As intriguing as it sounded, he didn't want to make that ghost girl mad. He told her he'd leave, so he would. That included getting Gajeel and Gray out of her hair too.

"It's like Gajeel said, there's nothing here," He forced his voice to sound bored, "Besides I doubt we'd survive those stairs."

The other two murmured in agreement and the three of them exited the manor. Natsu was halfway down the hill when he turned back, hoping to catch sight of Lucy in the windows. He didn't see her, but he did notice the gaping hole in the house where the door had been.

He called out to the others to wait before going back to prop the door up. It probably wouldn't stop any curious kids, but it would at least keep up the manors appearance. Someone would notice a change this big, even from the bottom of the hill. And it was likely someone one look into it, which is just was he figured Lucy didn't want.

Although he didn't struggle with the weight, the process of putting the door back did earn him a few splinters. He'd have to ask his brother to help him get them all out.

"What you do that for?" Gajeel asked when he re-joined them.

"No reason." He lied.

"Afraid you might of angered the ghosts?" Gray joked, but Natsu wasn't paying attention.

He'd turned one last time, and his eyes caught sight of white figure in one of the upper windows. She was barely noticeable, just peeking out from behind a tattered curtain. But he saw her.

The three of them parted ways soon after they were off Heartfilia grounds, leaving Natsu to ponder his thoughts about the evening as he made his way home to get some sleep before school tomorrow.

One thought stood out from all the others.

He had to go back.