Dreams and Nightmares

I can't look out the window, I can't look at this place. I can't look at the stars. They make me wonder where you are.

It couldn't be happening, not again.

Natsu could feel everything around him, from the chill that hang in the air to the movement of a blade crossing the space towards where Lucy stood. His mind screamed for him to run, to attack, to do something, but his body remained frozen.

He turned his head, her name spilling from his lips before he could even focus his dark eyes on her form.

Things had wrong in a way they had never before. The situation was too confusing. There were too many unknown variables, like the mages from the future and their post-apocalyptic realities. First, the princess was planning something, then there was another Lucy, and another Rogue, and an Eclipse Gate.

Natsu knew there was a big picture, some aspect he was missing or a piece of information he simply didn't understand, but there was only one thing that he could focus in the moment: someone was threatening Lucy.

He stood there with a shocked expression on his face as the blade pierced through her, the edges wrinkling the material of her cloak around the gash it created. Sluggishly, as if in slow motion, Lucy fell, blood sprinkling her lips with every gurgling cough.

Natsu was trembling. He wasn't sure if it was from surprise or anger, but he could feel his entire body shake as he stared at the wounded figure of his best friend. Even when the Lucy from the present – his Lucy, he tried to remind himself – dropped to her knees, pulling her older self to her lap, he didn't move.

He was only vaguely aware that the Lucy hurt by Rogue was the one who'd come from the future. What he'd seen didn't register completely in his brain, and it was replayed again and again in his mind as he tried to work through his shock and despair.

"I… never closed… the… gates…" She whispered between pants, blood running down from her stained lips.

"I know you didn't!" Lucy exclaimed, holding the other's head up. "I would never do such a thing!" She frowned, the corners of her mouth tugging downwards, as they did when she was trying not to cry. "Why did you save me?!"

The woman in her arms took a deep breath, but the shakiness of it only served to emphasize the fact that there was a sword sticking out from her chest.

"Because… You're… my past… Either way… I would have ceased to exist…" The woman coughed again, but there was the smallest of smiles in her face. "To die whilst being watched by myself… It feels strange…"

"It's the same for me, so you can't die!" Lucy yelled, panic sipping into her voice as her grip on her older self tightened.

"It's okay…" She said, and the comforting ring of it reminded Natsu of every moment Lucy had used that exact tone to make him feel better after a fight. "I managed to meet with everyone…Even though I never thought I'd have the chance to, ever again…" As she continued to talk, her watering eyes seemed to overflow, and tears spilled down her cheeks. "I'm… happy with… just that…"

Natsu didn't approach her, he didn't move. His mind was blank, except for that horrible realization that she was going to die.

Lucy is dying, Lucy is dying, Lucy is dying.

He knew that Happy was saying something, but the dragon slayer found out he just couldn't focus on anything besides the image of his best friend, lying on the ground, bleeding and crying, so completely broken, because he hadn't been quick enough, he hadn't been strong enough to protect her.

How was he supposed to live without Lucy?

Maybe it wasn't his Lucy, the Lucy from the present, but the future didn't look very good. Their lives were about to suffer a big change; some sort of great evil was going to threaten the world and they wouldn't be able to stop it.

He wasn't ready yet.

Natsu had lost so much already, but it wasn't the sort of occurrence you got used to.

Lucy had been his friend for what felt like centuries. She'd been by his side, his best friend and partner, since her first mission in the guild. Their connection had been strong then and it only grew with their time together. Little by little, they found out details about each other, from their favorite activities to their most well hidden fears, aspects of themselves that they had never shared with others.

When she wasn't there, things didn't seem the same; the fights didn't excite him as much, the fire didn't have the same taste.

So how was he supposed to live without her?

Happy snuggled against the wounded Lucy's shoulder, crying as she embraced him.

"Hey…" The woman called her present self. "Show me your guild mark…"

"Eh?" Lucy hesitantly offered the other her hand, shifting her eyes to the woman's face and, then, to where her right arm should be. Tears flowed from her eyes as something finally registered in her mind. "You… Your left hand…"

There was a reason why she'd been using her left hand.

Natsu fixed his eyes on the ground, feeling as his lips started to quiver. He grinded his teeth, trying to keep himself from crying.

He could still remember Lucy on her first day at the guild. She had been so incredibly happy, skipping over to him as soon as Mirajane finished stamping her with Fairy Tail's mark. Even though they hadn't known each other for more than a couple days, the girl hadn't bothered to curb her enthusiasm. She wasn't one to put a cap on her joy, and that was one of the things he'd liked most about her.

The guild mark was the physical representation of her dream-come-true. And now it was gone.

He clenched his hands into fists, anger and dread filling his chest in a manner he had never experienced.

"I really… wanted to go on more adven…tures…" The woman struggled with her words. "Protect… the future…"

And just like that, she was silent. His Lucy hovered over her broken form, crying into her hand to stifle the sound of her sobs.

Stuck in his mind, Natsu shivered. He suddenly felt cold, like all the heat in the world had been sucked out, leaving him in nothingness. The sensation crawled into his soul, freezing his body with a wave of fear and insecurity.

How could he have let her die? He…

He had to save her.

Lucy lowered her hands to her lap and looked up, brown eyes fixing on his face with surprise.

"Natsu?"

He paused, and the shivering subsided.

This wasn't how it had gone, it wasn't how he remembered it.

"Natsu!" She cried again, more firmly. "What are you even doing here?!"

The boy opened his eyes to the irritated expression of his best friend. The blonde was leaning against him, her face so close that he could almost feel the heat of her skin as she blushed.

"Your temperature is off!" The girl complained, pouting, and, for a moment, his gaze descended to her pale pink lips. "It got so warm, I woke up!"

He felt like crying and laughing at the same time. A month after the end of the games and he remained unable to forget how future Lucy's face looked as she died. The remembrance created a knot in his throat, and it hunted him in his dreams.

"How did you even get in he–" She was interrupted by Natsu pulling her down onto him, crashing their bodies together and burying his face on her neck.

The girl felt herself grow even redder. With this new position, she was basically draped over him, with his leg between hers. The air around them felt lighter, fresher than it had been when she first woke up. Like always, he had spread himself across her mattress, forcing her to adjust in her sleep, until she was lying against his chest so she wouldn't fall off the bed.

She sometimes wondered if he was really that much of a kid or if he was actually a gigantic pervert.

And just as she was about to shout at him for taking advantage of her, Lucy felt him start to shake and something wet drip onto the skin of her shoulder.

"I saved you." He whispered, almost aggressively.

They had been through this before, of course, but he had never been so open about his feelings. Maybe it was the strange intimacy of the moment, maybe the sleepiness that still involved them; Lucy couldn't find in herself the energy to nitpick the situation.

Still, in spite of how well Natsu hid it, there was no way she wouldn't have noticed that the frequency of his night visits had increased. It wasn't long after they were back to Magnolia that the first nightmare came; he had broken into her apartment and awoken her, because he had needed the reassurance that she was, indeed, alive.

"You did." She smiled into his hair, griping the edges of his shirt. "You always do, don't you?"

He relaxed his neck, letting his head drop to her pillow so that they were looking directly at each other, noses touching. His eyes were already dry, as the shock of the nightmare had passed, but his expression was serious.

"I can't lose you, Luce." The dragon slayer muttered after a second of silence, brows scrunching up in a pained expression. "I think I would die."

Lucy closed her eyes, suppressing a gasp at the meaning behind his words. Slowly, she pushed herself forward, lightly brushing their lips together.

"Let's not find out, ok?" She breathed into him, reveling in his – now – comforting warmth. Lucy smiled, thinking about how he probably wouldn't remember this in the morning, or how he would imagine it to be part of a dream.

Natsu kissed her more firmly, but his eyes had already drifted shut and, mouth still hovering over hers, he fell back asleep.

So, this was a prompt given to me on tumblr. It was supposed to go into Anthology, but I want those to be stories-under-1k only, so I decided to publish this separately.

Sorry, I was in the mood for sad fluff.

Thank you to everyone who has started to follow me. Thank you to everyone who just found this story and thought it might be interesting.

I know I should be writing the next chapter for Something More, but I also have some prompts given to me on tumblr, so I need to work on them from time to time.

The song is Stars, by Grace Potter and the Nocturnals.