notes: I don't know what I was on when I wrote this.
notes2: I don't even think this makes sense in context.
notes3: Well, ever since I read the latest chapter, I've always asked the question "Why would Lucy close the Eclipse door?" and ta-da, this came out.
notes4: If it doesn't make sense, I know.
notes5: A few spoilers for Chapter 324.
disclaimer: I don't think it would be appropriate to draw the latest manga chapter and cry at the same time.
summary: She closed too many doors except one.

In the end, she really did close the door.

Well, she wanted to, and she could've but she didn't.

Rogue's words replayed in her spinning head, and it was a wonder she could still comprehend them as more than strings of words.

It was fate, he said, that the person would close the door even if they reasoned with her. It was fate that she would definitely close Eclipse for as long as she lived and breathed. She would lead the world to its own destruction and the truth weighed heavily on her shoulders. She remembered promising to herself that she would never ever close the door, no matter the circumstances, no matter the sacrifices, if it meant that the world would be rid of the dragons. That the future would be saved.

It seemed easy enough to keep when she saw how many of the innocents have died, caught in the battle, and how many of her nakama was lost protecting them. The once majestic castle of Mercurius has long crumbled down to nothing but ruins, and right in front of her was nothing but the door of the Eclipse.

Numbed by the death of so many people she loved right in front of her eyes—Gray, Erza, Mira, Juvia, Gajeel, and many more that she couldn't bear include to the list—she stood near the looming gate and felt some sick satisfaction of being able to watch the obliteration of the dragons.

She was the Celestial Spirit Mage, and she had the ability to open this door. There was a brief contemplation on whether or not she should, but the dragons had taken too many and they will take more if she let them.

The door lit up blindingly, but she found that she didn't want to close her eyes in favor of seeing each of the winged reptiles disappear with the Eclipse cannon. Blink and she would miss seeing the suffering in their eyes in their last moments.

And then, off to the distance, somewhere in the raging sky, a body of black, glinting scales was rushing towards her with frightening speed, teeth bared in an angry sneer. She realized with a start that it was Acnologia, and that it planned to kill her before she had the chance to destroy it and its kind. Despite assuming a blank, emotionless mask from having witnessed too much carnage and too much bloodshed and just too much, pure horror displayed in her big, big eyes because this dragon was once a human, but it lost its heart and compassion in the transformation, and all that was left was a sinister need to kill. This dragon is truly evil, and it would have no hesitation in ending her life.

(But then, to fear for her life would mean she had something left to lose; did she?)

Her eyes squeezed shut, and she helplessly waited for impact (because she was so tired already, and there was nothing she had that she hasn't lost), but it never came, and she was still in one piece. There was a voice calling her name, and she started at the familiarity of it, a shock of electricity going through her body. The back of her eyes started to sting with unshed tears, and she forced her gaze to rise upward, swallowing back a sob that threatened to escape her lips. The black dragon struggled to charge at her again, claws reaching out towards her and swiping wildly at the air, but something was keeping it in its place, keeping it from getting to her. Something that had pink hair.

She couldn't help the gasp, eyes wide in disbelief. "Natsu..." The sting in her eyes grew stronger at the sight of him, bloody and bruised but alive, and her trembling lips formed a smile on her face. Her feet moved to walk closer to him.

"Lucy!" Natsu shouted, eyes as bright as she had remembered, but raging with something similar to panic and anger. "Lucy, don't come closer!"

She immediately halted her steps upon realizing the situation. Squashing her intense desire to just embrace Natsu and never let him go, she backtracked until she was beside the Eclipse again, feeling its overwhelming power quake the ground. There was silence for a few moments as they reached an impasse, charged tension in the air. But then, her veins froze like ice when a thought sank in.

Natsu wouldn't let go of Acnologia.

The Eclipse cannon was going to fire at them.

Natsu would get caught in the beam.

He would die.

She would close to door.

The brightness of the gate was starting to hurt her eyes, but she still ran and stood in front of it, whole body screaming at it to stop, stop! don't fire! Her hands clenched into tight fists and she willed herself to close the door, yelling in frustration when it didn't show any signs of weakening. (She can close it, can't she? Rogue said she can. Why can't she now?) "I want you to close, dammit!"

She heard Natsu scream in alarm. "Luce, what are you doing?!" he exclaimed, and she imagined his dark eyes growing wider, "You can't close that door!"

"I can, Natsu!" she replied back, defiant, desperate, "And I will!" She will close this door because she can't lose Natsu, too. There had been too much sacrifices and she knew, deep inside, that she wouldn't be able to handle another one, especially if it was him. She loved him, and he was all she had left.

"Why?!" he shouted, "This is the only way to save the future! Your future!"

Having taken enough, she whirled around to face him. "Because you'll die, Natsu!" That one sentence destroyed her composure into pieces, and streams of tears trailed down her cheeks, flowing over the tracks that had long dried. "I don't want you to die!"

He faltered, and she thought she saw sadness reflected in his eyes before they flared up again, a renewed determination burning within. "Are you going to let Lucy and the others' sacrifice go to waste?" he said, and there was a slight tremble in his voice, "Are you going to let the future repeat itself?"

That was all it took for her to break down and collapse to her knees, shaking with violent sobs. She made a promise to save the future, to not be the cause of the world's destruction, and she knew that the better of the world was always heavier than one person. Her future self, Erza, Gray and the others had died to protect it, and she would never ignore their sacrifices.

But the future didn't seem that worth it if it meant losing Natsu. It wasn't fair.

The Eclipse grew brighter and started to engulf everything around it with absolute light, the whole land beginning to shake with the large amount of magic concentrated in one place. As the rumble became louder, she started to hate herself because she chose the whole of humanity over Natsu.

She chose to let him go.

Through the tears and the doom and the blindingly white light of the Eclipse, she spared one last glance at Natsu, finding him tired and crying but still with that big, cheerful grin on his face, and she realized just how much she loved this boy. The ache in her heart grew unbearable when he waved at her, shouting, "I love you, Lucy!" just as the light of the cannon enveloped him and the dragons.

Desperation and panic clawed at her as she watched the one she loved most disappear into nothingness, gone without a trace. Her hands reached out into thin air, vainly trying to get a hold of any of Natsu, to keep him there with her.

There was nothing left.

The future was saved, there was a quiet peace surrounding the world, and most of humanity still survived but—

—but he was gone.

She was alive, but she lost all the people in her life for the better of the future.

(What was there for her future now?)

In the middle of the wasteland on the aftermath of a vicious battle, the lone survivor screamed her throat raw and cried.

notes: Yeah, I don't know what happened here either.
notes2: I haven't done angst in one day so this is the result.
notes3: I hope this doesn't really happen because I would freak.
notes4: Thoughts?