Summary: Every time the two visited the graveyard, they had changed. One-shot. Nalu.

Rewritten to fit the canon story a bit better!

Lots of spoilers, even up to the newest chapters (newest being 426). There's not really a way to skip past them, either, so you may not want to read this if you are not caught up in the manga.

The first time she visited, it was just the two of them.

A blonde, standing in the clearing, searching the rows of stones with her eyes.

One large stone, marked, at the very end.

The yellow haired girl finally found the stone, rushing forward and almost dropping the flowers in her hands as she hurried. Placing the red roses next to the heading, the girl stared at words engraved in stone with a sad smile.

Then she burst into tears.

It took a while, but the girl explained everything that had happened to her in the last seven and a half years. Most of it was mundane; the exciting part came last.

"Fairy Tail," the girl whispered through tears. "Fairy Tail saved me."

An hour and a half after the girl had entered, she finally finished crying and got to her feet. "Thanks for listening," the girl said, rubbing at her eyes before slowly walking away. "I'll be back..."

She looked back often, almost hoping to see someone standing there. Someone familiar.

Nothing was there but the echos of the past.

The second time was a little different.

Actually, it was a lot more different than before. There was a total of five now - three alive, visiting, two dead, to stay. More sadness, but for someone else.

The first stone had a new friend. They'd been next to each other for about six months. The girl, the same living person as the first time, didn't cry as hard as she had last time.

She didn't cry at all, in fact.

She stared instead. Behind her was a boy with hair as pink as the amazing sunset at their backs, and a small blue cat. They also stared, waiting, and the cat's eyes started drooping to the point where the boy picked up the cat and placed him on broad shoulders. There was an old feeling in the two males. They too had stood for hours in front of stones with dates and names engraved. They too had played this game before, about two - no, nine years counting the seven years they were asleep - years ago.

One might call it "The Waiting Game".

The blonde stared, waiting for something or someone to appear, but the boy and the cat were waiting for her to act.

In fact, for two usually impatient, they seem to had have become the epitome of waiting. They had played the Waiting Game before, and they knew that it could take as long as two months or two years for it to end. But they didn't know the exact time, because grief was different for everyone.

Finally, the blonde whispered something. Something that the pink haired boy and the cat usually would be able to hear, but said grief had closed their ears. The girl turned, and started walking away. The boy with his cat took as their cue to follow.

The fourth time held the same factors of three alive and two dead.

This time, tears were shed, but they were small. The blonde took time to recount what had happened as she replaced the roses.

"Tartarus... is disbanded," the girl said. "Their leader and all of their henchmen were... defeated."

"I got a few of those demons, too!" The pink haired boy added. "All I did was use my Roar, and they were burned to ashes! Right, Lucy?"

"...It was a little harder than that," Lucy corrected. "You were even captured, along with Erza and Mira and Lissana... And then the aftermath..." there were silent tears going down her face, yet she smiled - not a sad one, but a happy grin. "Also, Mamma, Papa... I want you to meet my boyfriend, Natsu."

"But they already know who Natsu is, don't they?" the blue cat pointed out. Lucy glared until he shrunk away.

"It took a while to beat Tartarus," Lucy admitted. "We all had to sacrifice something in order to defeat them, and our own guild has split up." Her hand wavered to where her keys were hanging on her belt. Natsu's gaze turned somber.

As Lucy recounted the action, the mood lifted and the sun sunk until it was gone and the stars and moon were out. The cat reminded Lucy and Natsu of the time, and they reluctantly left.

"Next time we come back, we'll have a united Fairy Tail again," Lucy promised the stones. "We'll save everyone - everyone." It was if there was a little doubt that she was shoving aside, as if there was a member she could not save. One that had turned to a dark guild, or was striding down an evil path that he may or may not have been able to leave.

There was a different emotion in the air, one not quite sadness, but also not the cheerful atmosphere the three were used to. It was one of hope, because even though her parents were gone, there was still life left for her to live, and enough life for her to find her old friends. Lucy knew this well, as she had seen the fall of a dark guild, and the start of a new relationship.

This time, she didn't look back.

But he did, to sniff the area. For just one second, he had been sure that two people had appeared near the stones, before disappearing. He shook his head - because as much as he wished he was wrong, the dead didn't return.

The seventh time, it was more than a year later and the cat was missing.

"Happy is on a mission with Carla and Wendy," Lucy explained, kneeling in front of the two gravestones. "I'm sorry I haven't visited in a while, but the last few months have just been so busy... Gajeel and Levy's wedding, and then Gray had us do that entire scene so he could propose to Juvia..." As she spoke, she waved her hand in the air, a gold band on her ring finger glinting in the light.

Natsu said, "And sorting out the court case with Jellal. He's a free man, now!" On his hand too was a gold ring.

"That, too. It's taking forever to finalize everything, after bringing everyone back to Magnolia and solving all of our...complications. We're so disorganized with the reforming of Fairy Tail."

They sat in silence for a few minutes before Lucy spoke up again. "And," the young woman started, "I'm pregnant. We found out last week. One month, though, so Mira is still letting me take missions."

"But nothing too hard!" Natsu said, and Lucy huffed. It was clear that they had argued about this before by the way she acted.

"That's not all," Lucy said. "Tartarus is reforming - the only demon that managed to slip away, Tempesta, managed to rebuild with a few members. Lamia Scale and Sabertooth are helping us to track and take them down. We'll get them for sure, though!"

Fifteen more minutes of explaining recent events before Lucy decided it was time to go home, Natsu agreeing for the baby's sake. As they left, Lucy thought she heard the noise and chatter of a converstaion - but then, that was probably just the rustle of the trees.

She looks just like you, Layla, the trees whispered.

The ninth time, Lucy, Natsu, and Happy brought a new visitor: Nashi Dragneel. The girl was too young to understand what was going on, her adorable brown eyes blinking several times and tiny growths of pink hair swaying in the harsh sunlight. The twelfth time, however, she was five years old and was running on short, stubby legs, trying to catch an adorable baby blue kitten: one of Happy's offspring, from with Carla.

The next four visits became farther and farther apart, becoming yearly visits instead of the monthly visits Lucy had intended. They were full of laughter and hope for the future. On the fourteenth visit, Lucy declared that she was pregnant again.

The sixteenth visit, which occurred more than a couple years later, was different.

Lucy ran to the two gravestones, collapsing, alone. Other than the slightly aged face and the color of the roses - white, not red - she seemed exactly like the 17-year old that she had been several years before: defeated, hopeless, and bringing tragedy.

"Nashi," she whispered. "Oh, my - my poor Nashi - "

Sobbing, Lucy Dragneel managed to tell the stones the story. "I stayed home to take care of little Iggy - our baby boy - while Natsu brought Nashi to the guild again last week..." The roses rolled out of her hands and onto the grass, still wet with morning dew.

"Avatar attacked..." Lucy said after a few minutes, closing her eyes. "W - we hadn't yet managed to... destroy them... so they decided to attack our guild... they put Mira in a coma, but she'll wake up soon... Erza is horribly wounded, but it's not too bad... and Wendy wont be able to cast another healing spell f - for weeks. But... my baby!" The tears stopped. The calm before the storm.

"There was a hostage situation, and Natsu hadn't been there to help out Nashi... they... they... they killed her."

Lucy broke into sobs again. "They killed Nashi!" she screamed.

No birds chirped, even though it was springtime. The grass rustled, unsettled, as if to try to commiserate with her loss, but the sun still glared down at the woman. "She's g - gone..." Lucy whispered. "Nashi's gone..."

Then she opened her eyes and looked around. For a second, she had thought someone had put a hand on her shoulder - but that wasn't possible. No one was in the graveyard, and no one was around for half a mile.

It's alright, the grass said. But it's not Nashi or them, and it's not alright, because her daughter was gone, dead, and nothing would ever bring her back.

It's just a few days later when she made her seventeenth visit. A new, smaller stone was added, in between the two larger ones. Natsu, for the first time since the first Tartarus incident, was crying along with several members of the funeral party.

No one had been hit with a loss that hard since the strongest guild had destroyed their guild building that fateful day years before.

The eighteenth nineteenth visit was hard for Lucy to make, but she did it, in tears. The twentyfifth was as well. She started to come more often, yearly visits suddenly weekly. Igneel Dragoneel, only two years old, was confused on why he suddenly didn't have a sister.

Lucy didn't have the heart to tell him that Nashi was dead.

But life moved on. People changed, and by the fiftieth visit Lucy was more mature, but almost back to her normal self. She visited with Igneel, Natsu, Happy, and Carla less often, and the weekly visits became monthly. But she never went more than a month and a half without visiting the three of them. And they never knew it, but even though only three humans were supposed to be standing there, there were six instead.

The 100th visit was much different than the rest.

The 64th was the return of Wendy and Gajeel's dragons. The 75th had marked the birth of Igneel's daughter, and the 88th marked the birth of Igneel's twins with Gray and Juvia's daughter. The 90th was just Natsu, but Lucy had apologized on the 91th visit, because she'd had a doctor's appointment. Age hadn't done her any favors.

But Natsu was alone on the 100th visit, save for a large stone in his right hand.

Once again, the Dragneels had lost a family member.

Natsu placed the grave marker down onto the grass, the fourth in line to the Heartfilia's and Dragneels. He read each of them, brows furrowing at them as silent tears ran down his face.

Layla Heartfilia: A beloved mother and wife who is missed everyday.

Jude Heartfillia: "A Life spent making mistakes is not only more honorable, but more useful than a life spent doing nothing".

Nashi Dragneel: A growing fire Dragonslayer, Nashi was a constant reminder that talent and hope exists in each of us, but what we do not seize is not ours to keep.

Lucy Heartfillia/Dragneel:

There was nothing on Lucy's, because Natsu hadn't decided to put on there yet. That she was a famous author? A beloved Celestial Spirit Mage? A great wife, and perfect mother (and later, grandmother)? The one to unite Fairy Tail again? Lucy had simply done too much to be remembered for only one specific thing.

"Dammit Lucy, what do I do?" Natsu asked. Whenever he had a problem, he would ask Lucy. That was how he had done it for sixty three years - or fifty six, depending on how someone were to look at it.

But he couldn't ask her anymore.

Natsu groaned. Everything was so much different - he now had the speed and strength of a dead sloth, and his once bright pink hair was now a light gray. The hair was almost as white as Mira's was. Instead of being that super cool awesome Dragonslayer he'd been sixty three years ago, he was some old fart. He had done nothing but change for the worse, in his own opinion.

But then, he realized that Lucy had embraced change her entire life. Mom dead? She would move past it. Father hated her? Please, she had worse problems than that to take care of. Evil man from the future destroying her future self? Well, it wasn't really her, just a time-paradox-version-thingy of herself, and she could get past that, too. Aquarius' key? She had never stopped looking for ways to bring her first spirit back.

Death?

Probably. Lucy was most likely singing and dancing with Nashi right now while her parents talked to her. There might have even been been a large red dragon standing behind them. Lucy had always embraced change, and every time the two had visited the graveyard they had changed.

So why couldn't Natsu now?

I can, he thought. I have to adapt.

Then he knew what to write on her gravestone.

Because, change is not what brings us down, but what shapes us to grow even stronger.

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