title: And Then You

notes: I'm just having a lot of feels and emotions from chapter fifty of Shingeki no Kyojin. So I'm sorry for this. Pfft, no I'm not.

setting: I don't really know. Just know that this doesn't take place after whole 'Rogue from the future' fiasco, because then...yeah. It just doesn't. Because they fixed it, and if this was after that, then Gray and a lot of others wouldn't be alive. Could be any other time though. I guess.

disclaimer: I don't own Fairy Tail.

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{we were in love}

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She stands, still and quiet. Her beautiful and bright, bright, so bright eyes are dull and lackluster. Her golden hair is blown about her as a soft breeze grabs it and lets go. The sun is hiding behind thick, dark clouds that threaten to open up and let loose torrents of rain. She fits in, with her pretty black lace dress and black heels. She fits in but she is so terribly, horribly out of place.

The white scarf wrapped around her pale and otherwise bare neck feels like a noose. It is weathered, and a bit tattered, and if one looked closely enough, it would appear to be made of dragon scales. One end of it drifts behind her as she fingers the material and stares down at the object before her.

A casket.

An empty casket.

There is no beautiful smile on her pink lips as she stares down, down, down at the offending object. It's a prison for the dead – only, this one is empty, and so she hates it even more.

She hates death. She hates dying.

And yet, here she is – staring down at an empty coffin which she hates, in an empty graveyard.

The bells of Kardia Cathedral chime four times, and on any other day, she would smile at the beautiful sound. But not today. Today those chimes hold a sort of grief and finality and she can't bear it.

"Where are you, now?"

Her voice is raw and full, and it takes everything she has to force those four words out. Four words, four chimes.

"I don't hate you for leaving – I just want you to come back."

He's not coming back. He's never coming back.

Not this time.

The empty casket is like the hole in her heart. The thing to fill it is missing and nowhere to be found.

Never to be found.

She reaches out and traces the edge of the cold, cold gravestone and her bottom lip trembles as she reads the words. She already knows what they say. She's already read them a thousand times over. They're stuck in her head forever – on a repeat cycle.

It's slowly killing her.

"I love you."

A raindrop hits the ground.

"I miss you."

Two.

"I want you to come home."

Three.

"It's always more fun when we're together."

The sky opens up, and it pours.

She sinks her chin into the worn scarf and attempts to swallow the lump in her throat. A few breathless sobs escape her lips, and she clenches her fists.

The sound of footsteps approaching behind her doesn't make her turn, and a hand rests on her shoulder.

"Lucy," the voice is deep, soothing yet exhausted, and she doesn't even need to turn to know who it is, "it's time to go."

She could feel him coming before she heard him, because the temperature dropped drastically.

"Gray." Lucy looks up at him with red and swollen eyes from beneath her thick lashes. It breaks his heart. "Why do people leave? Why did he go away? Why did Natsu leave?"

Her voice is broken and beaten, she looks like the incarnation of grief and distress, and Gray can feel himself breaking. Shattering into a million tiny pieces like Lucy, only he has someone to help put him back together.

He hesitates before answering, and they stand there for a long, long time soaking in the rain. They're both drenched before he finally speaks.

"He didn't want to go away. He wanted to stay, that idiot." he scoffs and stares at the tombstone. Where his best friend and rival for life isn't buried.

It's funny in a sick and twisted way. They all know he's gone but there's no body to prove it. So they're burying an empty coffin and that is just something that pisses him off to no end. He's still out there – somewhere – but the Magic Council is fickle and so the woman who loved – still loves – him has to bury an empty box.

He hates it.

They all hate it.

"He wanted to stay with you." Gray states, even though she already knows.

She always knows.

Lucy doesn't look at him. "I hate it."

"I know."

He hates himself a little too, for thinking like he does. Lucy has always been pretty and cute, he's always thought that, but now, as he looks at her, he realizes that Lucy Heartfilia looks beautiful even when she is sad, and he can't stand it.

She throws her arms around him and he swallows hard before wrapping his arms around her. Lucy is like glass, and she has shattered into something that he cannot fix. Something that he can't reassemble and it kills him.

Gray puts a hand on her head and turns to look at the four figures waiting for them across the cemetery. Juvia is holding an umbrella – not pink today, but black – and Wendy is standing next to her, holding a crying Happy. Charle stands beside her feet, looking even more solemn than usual. Erza is off Mavis knows where probably beating the inanimate life out of some pillar or mountain, and everyone else has already returned to the guild.

And Gray hates it.

He escorts Lucy to Juvia, where the blunette takes the crying girl in her arms and hands the umbrella to Gray. They all stay like that for a while, and everything is not okay.

And he fears that it will never be okay again.

Because Natsu Dragneel is dead and he is never, ever coming back.

end notes: You think you're safe - and then I come up with something like this. Plenty more angst where this came from, people.