The NaLu Chronicles

The Loves Of Her Life (Part 2)

Part 3 is coming after this one and I think it's going to be the last one.

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Gray is his old, bright self, full of jokes and charm and topping off everyone's glass with wine as he tells stories about what Natsu missed, acting like he was unaffected when she still remembers holding him as he cried, raging against the world for taking his only real friend from him.

Lucy is quiet, preferring to watch them interact, to let the sound of their mutual laughter warm her heart like it used to.

"So? No ring. What's up with that?" Natsu asks, staring at her hand before he grins at Gray. "Last I remember, you were just about ready to bend the knee."

Gray's mood takes a dip then and he clears his throat. "I, uh, forgot to mention that..." He forces a grin as he says, "Lucy and I aren't together anymore."

Natsu pauses, looking between them. "What?"

"We broke up, about a year after, uh... you went missing," Lucy says, playing with the stem of her wine glass. "Things were complicated."

"That's her polite way of saying I f**ked up and cheated on her," Gray informs him, shrugging his shoulders high at Natsu's incredulous look.

"Why don't we change the subject?" Lucy suggests. "Gray said something about a welcome back party...?"

They let her bury the issue, but she can see Natsu has questions.

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He asks her about it when he drives her back to her apartment.

She invites him in for a nightcap and they sit together on her couch with a bottle of red between them.

"Gray wouldn't cheat..." he finally says. "He loved you too much for that."

"Things were different after you disappeared. Gray was different. He... couldn't cope. He failed out of Harvard, he started spending a lot of time in clubs, and... one thing led to another." She shrugs, staring down at her glass. "There's a lot I can deal with, but I couldn't get over that."

He stares at her a long moment, his lips pursed. "That night I kissed you... Did you ever tell him about that?"

"Natsu, that was completely different..."

"Humor me."

She frowns, shaking her head. "No, I didn't. You were drunk and you didn't mean it."

"Yeah, well..." He half-smiled. "I kinda did, actually."

When she looks at him, he's not looking at her, staring purposely at the table instead.

"I thought about that a lot, while being held captive... I asked myself if I regretted it, taking that chance. And sometimes I did, sometimes I wished I didn't know what it felt like to kiss you. And other times it was the only good thing I had to hold on to..." He laughs then, bitter and hollow. "Which was stupid, because I knew you were with Gray, that you loved Gray, and that when I came back, nothing would change. He'd still have the girl and I'd be the screw up that slept on your couch."

He swallows thickly, picking at his thumb like he does when he's nervous. "I was relieved when I didn't see a wedding ring. Even now, knowing you broke up, part of me is relieved. And that makes me a really sh!tty person, I know that, but I just... I fell in love with you when I was seventeen. You were rambling about something, I don't even remember what, but you were going on and on and I just put my hand on your shoulder and you sighed... You just leaned into my hand and smiled up at me and I... I looked at you and I thought Gray had all the luck."