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The warm light of morning streaming through her apartment window was enough to wake her mind up from the deep grips of sleep, reminding her that there was a brand-new day ahead of her. Though the rays of morning sun provided her with a pleasant heat, Lucy’s mind was more occupied with finding her preferred source of it.
In her half-sleep haze, she turned to her other side, arm reaching out to pull her partner closer so she could snuggle into his chest and relish in the warmth that he provided. Where she had expected his heat, instead she was met with the cold, empty blanket beside her.
In her confusion, Lucy cracked her eyes open to confirm what she could infer from her touch. She was alone in her bed; the blankets on the other side of the bed were ruffled and left a mess, the only evidence that someone had once occupied the space. The sheets were cold, indicating that whoever had been there before had left long prior.
Lucy brought her hand up to her eyes to rub the crust of sleep out of them and pull herself back into the land of the living. Once she was sort of awake, she gazed around her room for any sign of her partner up and waiting for her, only to be met with an empty room before her.
"Natsu?" She called out into her apartment, hoping that he would poke his head out of her kitchen or bathroom to join her back in bed for a lazy morning.
Nothing.
Swinging her legs off the edge of her bed, Lucy slipped off to try and find where he had run off to. Her body was still tired, protesting every step of the way as she trudged to the kitchen, fully expecting him to be sitting at her dining table going through the contents of her fridge even in the early hours of the morning.
"Natsu, it’s a bit too early for--" She cut her reprimands short when she made her way through the door to find her kitchen as untouched as she had left it the night before.
Going through her fridge and pantry, she found everything in its correct place, not a single morsel missing. Closing her fridge door, she checked for some sort of note stuck to the front of it but was only met with the usual half-finished grocery list pinned on there.
Confused but not deterred, Lucy made her way to her bathroom, assuming that he had just needed to use the toilet while she was asleep. She gave one knock on the closed door, then another one, then two knocks.
Nothing.
"Natsu? Are you in there?"
She waited quietly for some sort of reply, only to be met with the silence that had become too familiar to her this morning.
"Natsu, I’m coming in, okay?" Lucy called out. "If you don’t want me to come in, just say something."
Though her hand was resting on the doorknob, she hesitated for a moment, worried about what was on the other side of the door. Briefly, she considered the possibility that this was just another one of his dumb pranks, and he was standing behind the door, waiting to jump out and scare her. However, any fear of one of his childish games was overridden by her need to know where on earth her boyfriend had run off to.
She opened the door with one hand covering her eyes in case he had just been sat on the toilet or perhaps bathing, but when no greeting came from it, Lucy peeked through her fingers to find the room just as empty as all the others. Knowing how Natsu was, she made sure to check behind the door to make sure she wasn’t hiding from her to jump out of her, to no avail.
Panic was beginning to settle in the bottom of her stomach, and it was beginning to make her sick.
Frantically, she moved back to her bedroom, looking behind every door, under her bed, in any place she could think of where he could be hiding, whether it was feasible or not.
"Natsu, whatever this prank you’re playing is, it’s not funny," she said, trying to keep her composure as she waited for him to jump out at her but not being able to suppress the way her voice wavered in the middle of the sentence.
This all had to be some sort of dumb, stupid, childish prank. That’s what it had to be. It was the only reasonable answer.
Because he couldn’t have left her again.
Could he?
But the only evidence left of his existence in the apartment were the messy sheets he had left on his side of the bed, and he never liked to draw out his pranks this long.
Lucy scrambled over to her desk to try to find some letter or note that he had left her, only to find it barren of anything new or unusual. She checked her bookshelf, her drawers, her bedside table.
Nothing, nothing, nothing.
Her body began to tremble against her will, and she struggled to catch her breath as the memories hit her all over again.
He had left her, and she was alone.
And this time he hadn’t even had the decency to leave her a note.
It didn’t take long for the tears to begin to flow freely down her face nor for the quiet whimpers to become full-on sobs.
Natsu wouldn’t just up and leave without saying anything, would he?
But he had. He was gone, nowhere to be found, without so much as a goodbye.
No note, no explanation of where he had gone, no promise of his return.
This feeling, this horrible, awful, gnawing feeling, was one that she had never hoped to feel again.
This feeling of loneliness.
It had been so long since she had last felt its grip on her heart that she had been so convinced that she would never have to feel its effects again, but here she was, sat alone in her apartment and left to fend for herself once more.
How could he not have learned from last time? Did he not know what leaving her had done to her? Had she not been clear enough that he was never, ever, to do that to her again?
Why? Why would he do this to her?
Without thinking, Lucy stumbled back to her bed, her legs quickly giving out beneath her before the back of her thighs hit the cool sheets. She wailed into her hands, her crying having since spiraled into loud, unhinged sobs at the prospect of having to go on like normal when her best friend, her boyfriend, her partner, had just disappeared without warning.
He had promised her. He had said they were going to be together forever, so what had changed on this random Tuesday morning?
With no dignity left in her body and no one around to judge her for it, her cries became hysterical. She wailed loudly and without restraint, not caring if her neighbours or passersby heard her grief. There was nothing going on in her mind but Natsu, Natsu, Natsu, Natsu. The same Natsu in whose arms she had fallen asleep the night before, the same Natsu who she had expected to be right there when she woke up, the same Natsu who had told her that they were always going to be together.
Had it been naïve of her to believe him?
She could barely hear the opening of her front door over her sniffles and cries, her mind and body all-consumed with sorrow and anguish over the prospect of being alone once more.
"Lucy?" A familiar voice called out into the apartment, cutting through the sound of her cries filling the room.
As soon as Natsu entered the apartment, he froze in place, taken aback by what was playing out before him. His girlfriend, who had been sleeping peacefully when he left, was now holding her face in her hands, wailing like it was the end of the world.
"Lucy? Oh god, Lucy, what’s wrong? What happened?"
Immediately abandoning the bag of food he had entered with, he made his way to her side, resting one hand on her back while the other tried to coax her head up to meet her eyes, only to be met with resistance as she firmly hid her face in her hands.
"Lucy? Lucy, c’mon, stop cryin’ and tell me what’s going on," he tried, his voice soft as he tried to hide the panic that was crawling its way to the surface, as not to upset her any more.
While her sobs seemed to have subsided slightly since he had returned, he could still hear the gentle whimpers and sniffles, even as she tried to bury the sound in her hands.
"Where were you?" She asked, finally looking up at him, her eyes puffy and red with tears, as if she had been crying the entire time he was gone.
"I just went down to get us something for breakfast- I-"
He looked down at her, completely baffled by what had gone on between when he left and now. He hadn’t been gone for that long, he thought, but clearly, he had been gone for long enough for her to have a complete breakdown, and he hadn’t been there when she had needed him the most.
"Lucy, you gotta tell me what’s wrong," he tried again, his voice as gentle as he could muster.
"I thought you had left me again," she whimpered, tears still rolling down her cheeks, even as she tried to hide them under her hands.
That last word struck him like a knife straight to his gut, and she could see the guilt spread across his face.
He left her.
Again .
"Lucy, I-" He sputtered, not exactly knowing what he could say to make this situation any better.
What had begun as him trying to do something nice to give back to her had completely backfired and blown up in his face. His first instinct was to panic, to completely freak out and lose his cool, to simply beg her to stop crying, but he had a feeling that maybe that would only serve to make things worse. Instead, his hand rubbed gentle circles on her back in a bid to sooth her as she continued to weep.
"Listen to me… take deep breaths, follow my breathing just like that."
At his suggestion, she tried to suck in a shaky breath in an attempt to calm herself down, and soon she was breathing in tandem with him.
Breathe in.
Hold.
Breath out.
Repeat.
Her rushing heart rate was beginning to slow to a normal pace, and her anxieties slowly began to fade until they were little more than vague memories in the back of her brain.
"There’s no need to panic, I’m right here now, aren’t I?" He reassured with a grin, trying to show her that everything was okay.
Eyes still glassy with tears met his, and she nodded slightly. There was no need to panic. He was here.
In fact, there had been no need to panic in the first place.
Now that her rational thinking had kicked back in, she realised how absurd this whole situation was. Of course Natsu hadn’t left her; why would he?
"I’m sorry," she murmured, her gaze cast down in embarrassment as all of her common sense came crashing down on her in an instant.
She had been so quick to jump to unrealistic conclusions, only to break down over it like a child. She should have been smarter about it, more rational and realistic, but once the prospect of Natsu leaving her entered her mind, it was the only thing she could think about.
She should have had more trust in him by now.
"Sorry? What are you sorry for?" Natsu asked, brows raised in confusion as to why she felt like she was the one needing to apologise.
"For... getting so upset, for worrying you," she admitted, wiping away the snot that was dripping from her nose. "I was just being stupid and irrational."
"What? Ya don’t ever have to apologise for that," he assured. "Of course I’m gonna be worried about you if you’re cryin’, but ya don’t need to be sorry about it."
His hand moved up to rest on her cheek, his thumb wiping away a stray tear that threatened to creep down her rosy cheeks.
"I’m sorry, I shoulda known better."
There was no time for apologies or forgiveness; instead, Lucy threw herself into Natsu’s arms, burying her face as far into his chest as she could, and he willingly took her, holding her tight against his body.
He was here. He was back. He would never leave her.
Her grip around his torso was tight, as though if she held him any looser, he might fade out of existence. Not that he minded. His grasp was just as tight, with one hand wrapped around her waist and the other resting gently on the back of her head, holding it there, tucked beneath his chin, with no plan on letting her go any time soon.