Shattered Dreams ||Nalu||

Chapter Nine

A comforting motion smoothed her blonde hair out of her face, gentle and soothing, and she simply lay there as she slowly came back to awareness. Slowly, ignoring the pounding behind her eyes, she let her eyes flutter open to meet familiar onyx eyes, which were filled with sheer terror and concern. While the concern remained, the fear disappeared, replaced by relief. "Lucy."

"Natsu," the celestial mage rasped in response, groaning softly as she raised an arm to cover her eyes and protect them from the painful bright light. Her head was killing her, and every single bit of her ached. "What...what happened?" she whispered, not wanting to speak too loud.

"A lot of things," he admitted. "You've been out for nearly a day."

Lucy grimaced. No wonder the dragon slayer looked so frantic. Twenty four hours of unconsciousness wasn't a good thing. "Well? What kind of things? Where's Gray and Juvia? Are they okay? What about those things? Oh, and - oh." Her gaze filled with grief. "Aries..."

Natsu helped her sit up, nearly hovering over her, and Lucy shot him a look. Just because she'd passed out for as long as she did didn't mean she couldn't handle herself. But she let him remain where he was, sitting right beside her, because she knew that it kept him calm. Or as calm as the situation would let him be, if the jiggling of his bouncing knee was anything to go by. "Uh, Gray and Juvia are fine. They're checking around the area again. The Marked - that's what we've started calling 'em - are mostly dead. They come back every now and then, but not all at once like they did. Doesn't look like anyone's left alive here, Luce, so we're heading back as soon as those two come back- Lucy?!"

She groaned, doubling over, gagging violently as pain clenched her stomach. She threw out a hand to stop him from getting closer as her stomach rolled and she vomited onto the ground, grimacing at the metallic taste in her mouth afterwards. Red had spattered the ground beside her, and by the horrified look in the pink-haired mage's look, she knew immediately what it was. "I'm fine," she insisted, feeling a hell of a lot better than she had moments before. "It looks bad, but I feel better now, I promise. It's probably left over from whatever happened," she reassured.

He didn't look convinced. But recognizing the pleading look and the fact that there wasn't anything they could do, he sat back. His hands trembling, he rasped, "Your heart stopped for a long time, Luce... Gray said you were gone for a few minutes, but I did that thing Erza said would come in handy to try and help you and it worked. But you were...Lucy. You can't do that again. You scared the hell out of me."

Lucy's hand drifted up to brush against her chest, remembering the furiously burning ache and grimacing when she realized it was still there, though nowhere near as intense. "I'm sorry," she said quietly. "I don't know why or how it happened though, Natsu. So I can't stop it from happening again. It might happen and if I'm passing out..." She shook her head, dragging her knees to her chest and resting her chin on them, ignoring when her stomach rolled again. "I'm sorry, Natsu," she sighed. "I'm being useless. Can't even summon my spirits, and to top it all off I get sick at the weirdest and worst moments..."

Natsu rolled his eyes, annoyed. "Shut up, Luce, we're not going that way. Life sucks right now as it is, don't need it getting even worse."

"Jerk," she muttered in response, though she didn't seem surprised at the clipped tone he used. He always hated when she went into that discussion. She puzzled over their life at the moment. What had they done wrong? Why was everything going to hell when they hadn't done anything recently? Was this the karma she'd been waiting for when she'd felt guilty for not speaking to her father before her seven year disappearance?

She didn't care anymore. She just wanted everything to go back to normal.

"Juvia touched one of them," Lucy whispered, her tone becoming agonized. "I mean, she was going to end up getting them from Gray without a doubt, but...Natsu, that's so many of our friends that have it now. What are we going to do?"