Lucy woke up bright and early as natsu kept sleeping in the same bed they shared that night. She decided to get a head start on the work before natsu woke up. She was touched by natsu's words last night that she made up her mind to call upon her celestial spirits to help her clean the spa today as much as they can. Yes this meant only summon those who were free today on her schedule, but any helping hands would help a lot.
She got dressed and walked out of the room with one more glance at the snoring natsu who now looked like a giant male version of how Nashi slept with her arms up and legs everywhere.. she giggled to herself and sent a blowing kiss to her husband and left with a silent turn of the door nob. She walked down the street on her own to the spa her and natsu were at yesterday as she was greeted by the man named 'Liddan' once again.
"Ya! Good morning! Are you here to start cleaning? Ya?"
"Yes, *she placed a finger to her lips to monitor to him to keep quiet* .. I'm coming in earlier then 'him' to finish it before he starts. I want to get some free time to enjoy the island before we go back."
"Ahhh!! I see!! Why don't you two spend the remainder of the nights here at the spa once it's done ya?!"
"Okay! That seems like a good deal!"
With that Liddan showed Lucy the way to the repairs first. Lucy summoned Taurus and Virgo who were free today to help with replacing tiles and hammering in nails and screws to the walls to keep them from falling out of the structures skeleton. With this she was managing to keep their gates open for the whole morning but she ran out of magic and had to say farewell and thank you for the hard work. She was alone now but only had to clean the finished room from the dust and trash that came out of fixing tiles and sawing wooden walls.
She had left the inn approximately 2 hours ago…
They only needed 1 second of her isolating herself from natsu and any of her magic to go through with the plan they were ordered to carry out…
______________
Natsu finally woke up with a big yawn as he opened his mouth widely but closed it shut when he saw Lucy wasn't anywhere he looked. He checked the air next as he sniffed and relaxed as he came to know she had left not too long ago leaving him breakfast made already on the little table they were provided. He went to eat quick and got ready to head to the spa as he had followed the trail of her scent. It seemed quite a relaxing moment and quiet..
too quiet…
This made natsu's stomach turn in a bad way that made him begin growing anxiety, he needed to be with luce now.. he can sense something about to happen but didn't know what..
*but as natsu changed his speed from slowly walking to the spa to a fast walk pace, a explosion was heard and people screamed as they pointed at the smoke that arose in the direction natsu was headed. Natsu's heart dropped as he began to run then sprint in the direction of the spa…
When he got there, their was a line of guards who blocked anyone from passing to keep them safe as the building caught fire… only one thing ran through natsu's mind as he watched those well known flames sore the sky engulfing the building all together.
'Luce… where are you?…'
Natsu got goosebumps now as he kept looking at the building that seemed so unreal to him at the moment, it was all fine yesterday, what was happening?! Why did she leave without him?!
Finally he slapped himself to snap out of it and began to fight the guards to let him through. The guards tried hard to not let him through till they heard a feral growl from him.
"Let. Me. Through!!!! I'm a Dragon slayer Mage from Fairy Tail!!!! Let Me Stop The Flames!!"
With no further time to waist natsu began to inhale eating as many flames in one breath. It took him 3 inhales to eat all the fire from the building as he grunted in the rushed heat in his stomach as he sprinted inside the unstable building now. He searched for Lucy's scent but couldn't find any of her scent anywhere. He was losing it by the second, he would not go back home without her no matter what. He began to shake in horror clouding his mind of the possibilities she wasn't there and was taken somewhere! Was she still alive? Who would have done this? Was it a mistake letting her leave without him as he pretended to not notice her movements in the bed? Finally he heard a cough from the distance as he rushed to follow the sound of the cough.
He couldn't see who it was but they were burried under a collapsed roof that had fallen with fire before. Natsu grabbed the piece of the roof and tossed it to the side like if it was nothing. He saw that it was Liddan who had took some damage to his back from the collapsed roof since there was blood on his back and part of his head had became bald as it had lit up in fire burning his hair off and almost causing 1st degree burning injuries. He struggled to get up because of his back so natsu helped him by giving him a hand and when he stood up natsu's eyes widened and contracted as he saw a fainted Lucy underneath Liddan who came out unharmed by the fire.
*natsu began to sob and cry as he grabbed the unconscious Lucy and began to feel if she was really Lucy. She had some ash marks on her face and clothes she wore that day which made natsu worry more because he wasn't hearing her responding to his touch. He began speaking to her as he got flashbacks to when he and Lucy were captured and tortured. Lucy had fainted back then but natsu thought she had died since he could sense anything that told him she was alive. That was one of his worst nightmares and here he was living the nightmare again.*
"P-please Lucy, my friend, my darling, p-please wake up…. I need to h-hear you now… please don't leave me alone again…. lucy… p-please wake up…"
*natsu placed his forehead to hers as he squished all of her body to his to heat her up somehow, she felt warm but natsu was afraid that it was because of the fire that her body was warm. He cried hot tears now as he clenched his teeth and smooshed his bridge of his nose into her neck.. he can't lose her now, not now..*
"N-natsu? … what happened?… what's wrong?.. why are you crying?"
*lucy finally came to as she responded to the crushing hug natsu had her which still didn't register in her brain till she remembered Liddan.*
"NATSU! Please! HELP LIDDAN!! HE SAVED ME!! HELP HIM!!"
*lucy began sobbing now as she saw the man who had came into the room to tell her to come have a break, had heard the explosions go off and threw his body on top of her to protect her like a shield from anything that would have been sent flying. She only remember how Liddan struggled to carry her because his back was pierced with some shards of glass that came flying, but also because he was breathing in all of the fires fumes. He cried a bit before he told her to remember his name for him when the roof came crashing upon them. From their Lucy had gone unconscious and woke up to a crying natsu.*