Scraps of Paper

Heartbeat

Lucy tapped her foot anxiously as she slouched in the tiny plastic chair. The receptionist looked up at her with annoyed eyes, but the blonde didn't care. She was the one who should be annoyed! She had been waiting for this doctor for two hours, and had been sitting in this small child's chair for half of that. All the regular, human sized chairs were occupied by other waiting patients. Lucy had wanted to grab one when the woman who'd been sitting in it got up, but then an elderly woman came in and the girl didn't have the heart to do that to the poor woman. So here she was, shuffling awkwardly in a chair that barely fit her whole butt, annoyed, and glaring at the set of legos in front of her. Lucy huffed, abruptly stopping her tapping by slamming her foot against the ground. The little girl beside her looked up from her coloring book, frowned and moved away. Lucy could feel the receptionist glaring at her again.

It wasn't the wait that really upset Lucy, although it was certainly troublesome. In truth, she would wait here two days if thats what it took to see this doctor. She'd already waited four months for this appointment, and she wasn't going to let her five hour drive up here go to waste. Dr. Dragneel was one of the greatest doctors in the industry, she'd been told. If anyone could tell her what was wrong with her, it was definitely him.

Lucy's heart sank, and her hand unconsciously went to touch the necklace against her chest. The pendant was a small golden star with a little diamond in the middle. It wasn't anything outwardly extravagant, but Lucy cherished it over anything else. It had been the last gift she'd received from her mother, just before the young woman died of a mysterious disease. It was that very reason Lucy was here right now, sitting for two hours in this foreign town with a bunch of strangers. Nobody—not any single doctor she'd visited—knew anything about her mother's cause of death. It wasn't cancer or anything like that, but there was something in her mother's body that had killed her, and now it was possible that it was in Lucy's body.

The doctors told her that she shouldn't worry. The chances she inherited it were a hundred in one, but Lucy had began to suspect that the chances weren't as small as they appeared. There were no signs thus far, but she didn't want to take a chance. Her whole life had been put on pause after learning there was a possibility she too might die, and she hadn't been able to move past it. Thoughts of dying like her mother flitted through her head all the time. What if she died? Dying didn't really so much matter as the circumstances it would happen under. Lucy knew without any explanation that her mother's one regret was leaving her and her father. What if she also had a family when she suddenly died? A daughter or son? What if they were younger than Lucy was? And her husband—what could it feel like to die with the love of your life watching you? Lucy shuddered at the thought, her chest growing tighter with each passing moment. It was too much to just believe in chance. She had to know, if only to make sure those possibilities never became a reality.

"Miss Heartfilia?" The receptionist called out, her eyes already locked onto the blonde. Lucy stood up so quickly that she nearly knocked her chair over. She startled the little girl, causing her purple marker to skid outside the line.

"Hi," Lucy said, quickly jogging over. The grumpy woman didn't bother to respond, looking down at the papers with cold eyes. Lucy tried not to fidget as she answered the basic question about her identity, but she found herself tapping her foot once again. Finally, the woman sighed and stamped the paper, sliding it over the counter.

"Doctor Dragneel will see you now, room 3," she grumbled.

"Thank—" Lucy started, but she was already holding a phone to her ear. Lucy cringed back and turned on a heel towards the open doorway. For the past hour she'd been considering just running in and demanding the doctor to see her, and it was a little unsettling to have her imagination become a reality. She walked through quickly, her heart thundering in her chest.