My best dreams and worst nightmares have the same people in them."

— Philippos

Natsu never went back to the hospital.

Summer passed into autumn. It was another two months of surgeries and sessions with magical healers before Gray was deemed to be in stable condition. Still, his diet was extremely limited. The doctors had not even begun to talk seriously about rehabilitation for his leg, not when all focus had so far been on fixing the extensive damage to his internal organs. He was stuck in bed mostly, although he was allowed to go outside in a wheelchair for some sunshine and fresh air.

Lyon stayed around Magnolia during that time, worried for his adopted brother. He saw that Gray was not the same as before. No matter how Lyon tried to tease him, cheer him up, or encourage him to have Ice-Make challenges like they used to do as kids, seeing who could be the most creative, Gray had no interest, not even in using a small bit of magic.

"Why bother?" he would mutter. "I won't be able to fight as a wizard again, not after this."

"We don't know what the future will bring," Lyon told him sternly. "We create our future, like we create our ice. We can be dull and boring, or..." Lyon used both hands to create a gorgeous miniature peacock of ice that landed on the arm of the wheelchair and began to strut around. "...we can be inventive and create something amazing."

Gray made a fist and slammed it down, crushing the sculpted bird into icy shards. "In the end, it's gone in a flash. It melts and gets destroyed. Ice doesn't last!"

"Gray," Lyon sighed worriedly. "This isn't like you."

Gray said nothing, but his scowl was enough. Lyon kept quiet, but he was still worried about this grim mind-set Gray had picked up.

At some point, Gray got into a habit of poking his leg. He felt nothing past the horrendous scar, where muscles and tendons had been blasted away and his bone partly blown apart. The doctors removed the shattered bits of bone, a Bone Magic wizard had repaired the damage, and somehow they managed to save the limb; however, since there was no known medical procedure to reconnect major nerves that had been severed by many centimeters, and no healer in Fiore powerful enough to completely regrow almost a quarter of his upper thigh, including tendons and muscles, the physicians wondered if amputation might not be a better option. Fiore had advanced prosthetics, Gray could probably be fitted with a fake leg and be walking in a few months. However, for now, the leg was secondary to healing his lungs and organs. He felt nothing, and so he kept poking it, knowing he should feel something, but watching vacuously as his finger pressed into flesh that did not seem to be his own.

One day, there was a knock on the recovery room door, and Erza stepped in with Juvia. Some people at least still visited him. Gray had no clue why he felt angry that Natsu stayed away. If the Dragon Slayer did show up, they would have just argued, anyway. The doctors frequently warned Gray not to get riled up, since his lung was still healing and his stomach was susceptible to bleeding. Maybe Natsu had been ordered to stay away precisely for that reason. Gray wasn't sure, and he felt weird asking anyone about that flame-brain idiot.

"Gray-sama!"

Juvia's voice was much more pacified these days. She had dark circles under her eyes. Considering all the rain Magnolia had been getting, Gray knew she must have been crying a lot.

He felt unworthy of anyone's tears. Why should people cry for a man who should be dead?

"Sorry it's just us," Erza said. "Lucy and Natsu are off on a mission."

Gray grumbled, "Good for them. Maybe they'll finally hook up now that I'm not in the way."

Erza's brow tightened. "You've been really bitter about Natsu."

He softly scoffed and looked away. "When have I ever been sweet about that idiot?"

"He saved your life."

"He saved a body." Gray weakly shook his head. "My life is over."

Erza sighed and walked up to him. She and Juvia stood on either side of his bed. Gray sat up, but Erza realized his legs were unnaturally still.

"Gray, the doctors told you, this bitterness and fatalistic pessimism is not going to help with the healing. It's making your stomach worse."

"Oh yeah," he snapped. "How much worse can it get?"

"You could be dead."

"At least then I wouldn't be in pain all the time and facing a life in a wheelchair."

Juvia grabbed his hand. "Gray-sama is strong. Juvia believes that if Gray-sama wants to walk again, Gray-sama will..."

"Will you stop calling me Gray-sama already," he shouted, violently shaking her hand off. "Goddammit, do you think that's cute or something? How about talking like a normal person and not like a moron?"

Juvia gasped and jolted back.

"Gray!" Erza scolded.

He harshly looked away and grumbled, "Why don't you two just leave? I'm pathetic, right? You're just here to appease your own egos, visiting the poor, unfortunate invalid."

Erza's eyes narrowed. "I should have let Natsu hit you."

"You should have let Natsu let me die."

"Now I'm ready to hit you!" she warned.

"So what?" he muttered.

Juvia looked over to Erza, who glanced at the rain woman. Gray had been like this since waking up. He had not attempted suicide, but he was angry at the bleak prospects of his life. Part of Erza hardly blamed him. It was a sobering thing, coming to terms with a major disability. Gray's life would never be the same. The doctors also warned that, after a near-death experience such as Gray's, his personality might change. She just wished she knew how to make things better.

Quietly, Gray mumbled, "Can you please leave? The pain killers are making me sleepy and nauseous. I'd like to sleep. It's the only time I'm not in pain. Send a nurse in, though. I'm beginning to despise bedpans."

"Juvia can help with that!" the blue-haired girl eagerly offered.

"Hell no!" Gray sneered.

Erza pulled on Juvia's arm. "Let's go. If he's strong enough to be this cantankerous, then at least he's getting better."

Juvia leaned over and kissed Gray on the forehead. "Get well soon, Gray-sama." Then she hurried out of the room.

Gray rubbed the kiss off with a disgusted face. "Get well soon?" he muttered after they were gone. "It's never going to get better. Never..."

He looked down at his legs again. He poked the dead leg in anger. He could wiggle his toes on the right leg, but the left was still completely paralyzed. He suddenly punched his leg with a shout of anger. Still nothing.

"Dammit," he whispered in frustration and depression. He quickly blinked away tears and pulled the covers over the rising bruise on his leg before a nurse entered.

Days passed. Although Gray seemed to be improving, he was still in a precarious state and could not leave the hospital. Makarov decided that since this injury happened while on a mission, the guild would cover all of the hospital bills. He told the doctors, whatever Gray needed to get better, any surgery at all that might help, do it. The guild funds would cover the expenses.

Then on a breezy autumn day, Lucy ran into the guild and up to Natsu, who was drinking at the counter and wishing he could get drunk to escape from the pain in his heart. Life in the guild without Gray was oppressive.

"Natsu!" she shouted. "Natsu, we need you. It's about Gray."

He spun around with wide, terrified eyes. "Oh God, what happened?" he asked, fearing to know.

"We ... we don't know. He's disappeared. Please, hurry. We really have no clue how to find him, so we're relying on your sense of smell."

Natsu left with her, running almost faster than her and annoyed that Lucy's heeled boots slowed her down. When at last they reached the hospital room, it was empty.

"We have no clue how this happened," Lucy said fretfully. "I mean, Gray can't even walk! Well, not good. And his wheelchair is still here."

Natsu saw the wheelchair in the corner. He looked around the rest of the room. "His clothes are gone." He pointed to an empty spot against the wall where Gray's clothes had been hung up for his attempts at therapy.

Natsu sniffed and began to follow a scent he knew well. It led him out of the hospital through a back door. No wonder nobody saw Gray leave. Natsu leaned over near some dirt. There was a print of a barefoot, something dragging, and then a round, deep imprint.

"He left on crutches."

"Crutches?" Lucy exclaimed. "He can barely walk, though. He can't be far."

Natsu rushed forward. "What was that idiot thinking?"

Natsu kept sniffing, following a fresh scent. It got stronger, and he knew they were catching up. Then they came to one of the many canals that flowed through Magnolia. Up on the bridge, they saw a man with black hair resting on crutches, one leg turned awkwardly. He gazed down at the water.

"He isn't thinking about jumping, is he?" Lucy whispered in horror.

"Hey!" Natsu shouted, and he stomped forward. "What are you doing, asshole? Sick people should stay in bed."

Gray glared at them and sneered, "What do you care?"

"I don't, but pulling a stupid stunt like this scared Lucy."

"Just stay back," he whispered, staring down into the dark river. "Just leave me alone."

Lucy took a few steps up the bridge. "Gray..."

"Stay back!" he shouted. Gray again looked down into the river and whispered, "Don't get near me."

Lucy stopped, and she held onto Natsu's sleeve before he could storm forward. "Gray?" she said softly. "Don't do this, please."

Gray gave Natsu a cold, derisive grin. "I gotta thank you, I guess. I've come to realize, I didn't want to die like that. Defeated, humiliated, in pain ... I didn't want to die that way."

"Then keep living," Natsu said sternly, eying Gray cautiously. "Live until you're an old man."

"And what?" he asked with a self-deprecating laugh. "Be some old man in a wheelchair? Maybe stuck in bed, too frail to move around on my own? Having someone change a bed pan for me? I'm already living that way!" he screamed. "I'm already there, living like some crippled old man. Hah! Beat you to it." Gray looked over the edge of the bridge. "I'm gonna die one day, either from these wounds or sometime in the future. No matter what they do, I'll die anyway. I want it to be on my terms."

"Do you think throwing yourself off a bridge and drowning is better?" Natsu shouted.

Gray gazed into the water. "I almost drown in my own blood every morning. Water doesn't taste as bad."

Natsu yanked away from Lucy and stomped up the bridge. Lucy reached out to hold him back, worried that Gray might really jump, but Natsu was too fast. The Dragon Slayer stormed right up to Gray's face and grabbed him by the shirt, yanking him forward.

"What's gotten into you, droopy eyes? Upset over some injury? We're members of Fairy Tail. When was getting hurt ever a problem?"

Gray sneered at him. "When I was told I'd never walk again."

"You're out here, you're walking."

Gray lashed out. "I can't feel my goddamn leg!"

"So what? Look at Gildarts. Acnologia tore up half his body. He lost a leg and an arm, plus some internal organs, and he can still kick our butts. Even if your body gets weaker, you get stronger. That's all there is to it. So wake up that goddamn snowball head of yours and stop thinking death is better."

"I hate you, Natsu!" Gray lashed out.

"Then hate me. It's better than being dead."

"You know nothing about what I'm living through."

"I know you're living, and that's all I need to know."

"Fuck you!"

Gray threw a punch, and it hit Natsu's face to the side. Natsu could have easily stopped it, but he figured Gray deserved at least one free hit. Then he punched back, hitting the side of Gray's face.

"Bastard!" Gray snarled.

Lucy watched with teary eyes as the two punched each other in the face over and over.

"Natsu, stop!" she shouted. "Gray is still injured."

"He's strong enough to punch me," Natsu reasoned just as Gray's knuckles collided into his jaw. "Count this as physical therapy for your arms. You lost a leg? Big deal! Strengthen your arms. Strengthen your magic. Dammit, Gray, you're strong. I admit, you're almost as strong as me."

"I'm way stronger than you," Gray growled back.

"Then why are your attacks so weak?" shouted Natsu. "You wanna die? Die fighting me for real. Come on, Gray. Hit me."

Gray slammed a punch into Natsu's gut.

"Wuss. Really hit me!"

Gray shouted and collided his fist into Natsu's face, splitting his lip until blood ran down Natsu's chin.

"Come on, princess!" Natsu goaded, beckoning with flames on his fingertips. "You're stronger than this."

"Not anymore!" Gray yelled in frustration.

He tried to throw another punch, but he lost balance on his legs and fell to the ground. The jolt hurt way more than he knew it should, a surge bubbled up from his stomach, and Gray leaned over. Blood and bile coughed up from his stomach.

"Fuck!" he screamed. His hands covered his bloody mouth. "Is this really it?" he cried. "Is this all that's left of me? Goddammit!"

Natsu dropped to one knee. "Gray?" he asked in worry. "Is it your stomach?" He began to reach forward.

Gray slapped his hand away, streaking it with his own blood. "Don't you fucking touch me!" he seethed. However, two seconds later, Gray's eyes rolled back. Natsu caught him before his head fell backwards.

"Gray?" he whispered, cradling that cold body. He could smell the blood and feel the shuddering breaths of air near his face.

Gray looked up at Natsu with gritted teeth, his mouth dripping blood, and scorn crackling in his eyes. "Damn you," he muttered before losing consciousness.

"Lucy!" Natsu shouted back. "Run back to the hospital. Get a stretcher or ambulance or something. He's bleeding from the stomach again."

"You both take things too far," she scolded to cover over her fear. Lucy quickly brought out a silver key. "Open the Gate of the Charioteer! Auriga!" A man with a grand chariot appeared. "We need to hurry to the hospital," Lucy ordered as she climbed onto the chariot with the Celestial Spirit.

"My chariot is the fastest transportation in the Spirit World," the man declared, and together they sped off through the streets of Magnolia.

On the ground, Natsu held Gray, resting the black-haired head on his warm shoulder. "Stay with me," he whispered. "Bastard, if you die in my arms again, I'll kill you for good. I'm not restarting your heart again. I'm serious. Don't ... don't you dare die on me."

Natsu looked down with pained eyes and moved the strands of hair from Gray's face. Gray looked in pain even asleep, and it made Natsu want to protect him. When he heard a soft groan of agony, it felt like something was burning in his chest.

"This is hell for us too, you know," he whispered. "It hurts to hear you say you want to die. It hurts all of us. Get it through your glacier-thick skull: we don't want you to die. Stop this. Just ... stop it. It hurts ... it hurts all of us to even think about losing you. Asshole."

Natsu rubbed Gray's cheek with the back of his fingers. In the silence, he lost track of everything around him, staring at Gray's face.

"Gray," he whispered.

He wiped away some blood, gently swiping his thumb over Gray's half-parted lips. His thumb lingered, feeling soft breaths and warmth from Gray's mouth. This breath, this warmth, meant life! He let his thumb linger on Gray's lips, feeling this confirmation of life persevering. Suddenly, Natsu yanked his hand away.

"Goddammit, what the hell is wrong with you?" he muttered under his breath, but he was not fully sure if he meant what was wrong with Gray, or with himself. "No use just sitting here." Natsu got a strong hold of Gray's body and stood, carrying him bride-style back down the bridge. "Damn, you're heavy," he grumbled.

Gray coughed in his sleep, and Natsu heard gurgling in his damaged lungs. Was blood filling the lungs again? He needed to hurry. He shifted Gray's head so it would not dangle and cause Gray to choke more. He rushed forward, hoping to cut down the traveling distance for anyone coming to help.

A few blocks down, Natsu saw Lucy returning on Auriga with three medics. That had a stretcher and laid Gray on it. When they saw Gray and listened to his chest, one said they needed to hurry. A tube was carefully threaded into his mouth and down into his lungs, siphoning blood out of the lung. Another medic put a mask over Gray's face that pumped oxygen for him to breathe. The third placed her hands over Gray's chest, and a warm magical glow flowed into him.

Natsu stood back, watching these medics work right there, in the middle of the street, to save Gray's life. He saw other people stopping to stare at the trouble.

Natsu lashed out at them, "What are you looking at?" The flames in his eyes scared them, and the pedestrians scurried off.

Auriga's chariot was barely big enough for Lucy and the medics, but Natsu stood back.

"You guys go on," he said. "I'd just get sick. I'm heading home, Lucy."

"I'll tell you later how he's doing," she promised. "Auriga, go!"

Natsu watched them speeding away, and privately he was glad Lucy rarely called out that Celestial Spirit. Just looking at the chariot made Natsu queasy.

"Take it easy, ice princess," he muttered. "Get better, and stop doing stupid things. Stop worrying us and focus on healing yourself. You pulled through. You're alive. You're strong, Gray. So please..."

His words faded. Please, what? What did Natsu want? These feelings confused him. All he wanted was for Gray to get well enough to come back to Fairy Tail ... right? Even if he could not do missions like he used to, they could have fun together. They had done plenty of missions that did not call for fighting.

No more fighting.

No more brawling with Gray.

No more defeating monsters together.

Natsu's chest hitched, and he tightened his fists. He never realized what a major part of his life Gray had become until it was stripped away from him so suddenly.

"Gray," he whispered wistfully.

He wanted life to go back to how it was—

—and that would never happen again.

Natsu turned sharply and stomped back toward the forest and his house with Happy.

That evening, Lucy gave Natsu the bad news.

Gray's escape and overexertion caused a surgical seam in his small intestines to rupture, and his lung wound reopened. Then, either from all the movement, his fall, or the rough ride back, the nerves in his injured spine shifted. Instead of seventy percent sensation in his right leg, Gray now had only thirty percent. He could no longer even stand.

Gray needed surgeries on his intestines, lung, and spine. However, doctors could not operate at all until his blood count stabilized, and all this excessive bleeding was not helping. When Natsu heard that, he marched back to the hospital and volunteered to give more blood. He wanted Gray to pull through this, and he did not care what he personally sacrificed, so long as Gray would one day come back to Fairy Tail.

So the surgeries were scheduled. They patched his intestines and lung easily enough, but the operation on his spine was dangerous. There was no guarantee it would even work, and a chance Gray might lose all feeling in both legs. However, the alternative was to do nothing, and Gray would definitely never walk again. On the chance that maybe, one day, he could at least stand on his own, Gray opted for the surgery.

Natsu did not visit him before the operation. He stayed at home, brooding in uncharacteristic silence. Although he never considered himself to be particularly religious, he gazed out his window at the storm clouds gathering in the west, making the autumn forest ominously dark, and he muttered a supplication to whatever might be out there.

"Please let Gray get better. Please let this work!"

The next morning, Makarov announced to the whole guild that the spine surgery went well, but the damaged nerves needed time and therapy to heal. The damage was so bad, if not for magical healers, Gray would have been paralyzed from the waist down. Now, he had a chance at regaining one leg ... someday. The pressure was off the nerves, but it would take time to regain full sensation.

Natsu went to the hospital that afternoon. He sat by the stiff bed, silently staring. Gray was unconscious on strong medications, since the nerves were in a fragile state and intensely painful. Still, Natsu sat by his side and watched the chest rise and fall. He looked at the bag of blood dripping through a tube and into Gray's artery to replace what he had lost. Natsu briefly wondered if that was his own blood that he had donated.

He finally stood and walked right up beside the bed. Gray had that peaceful look again, like the first day he was brought here, a step away from death. The feelings of that day returned, and Natsu looked nervously toward the recovery room door. It was shut to keep out noises. They were alone, and it was a little too quiet.

He sat on the mattress right beside Gray and felt the chill radiating off the pale skin. He watched Gray breathing. Then Natsu put both of his arms next to Gray's shoulders and leaned over him.

So long as he kept breathing, he would live. That was the most important thing now. Keep breathing! That first day, a machine had forced Gray to breathe and live. Now, he breathed on his own. Despite the extensive damage, his lungs were working.

Natsu wanted to feel that breath, make sure it was real, and Gray really would survive this. Hardly thinking, he leaned over until his face was directly above Gray's. Their breaths mingled together, hot and cold.

This was what Natsu wanted: reassurance that this precious life would go on, that he had not lost Gray, and one day...

One day...

Natsu's eyes hid behind his pink bangs as he examined every detail of Gray's face. He felt a strange warmth, a heat he had never experienced before. Something tingled in his chest, like a tiny flicker that wanted to spread, but Natsu feared this sort of fire.

And he felt something more.

Possessiveness!

He knew it was a trait of dragons, to hoard their treasures. Igneel did that all the time. He did too, to be honest. Natsu's house was crammed full of treasured memories. However, feeling this way toward Gray was strange, and it scared him. He had felt possessive over things, concepts, even ideals like protecting the smiles of his friends, but never toward an individual person.

He watched the Ice-Make wizard's lips as the breaths slowly came in and out. His fists clenched as he felt like he wanted to claim these breaths, this life, this very soul. That was wrong, though. Igneel once told him, even if he fell in love—and there was no way this was love—nobody should claim ownership over a person.

Still...

For how much he had always felt a deep-seated rivalry toward this man, Natsu never wanted to lose Gray.

He closed his eyes tightly as tears slipped down his cheeks, and he shivered from the heartbreaking memories of seeing Gray close to death. The memories haunted his dreams. The sight of that blood was a nightmare, and he never wanted that to happen again. Even if he had to forcefully claim and protect the ice wizard, he never—ever—wanted to see Gray suffer like that again.

"Don't die on me, Gray," Natsu whispered. "Don't you dare ever leave me, asshole."

Without thinking, he leaned in closer, and his lips got nearer to Gray's. Softly, Natsu's lips barely brushed against the sleeping mouth, just enough to feel that, despite the cold breaths, Gray's lips were quite warm. It was a sign of life. Warmth, breathing, a beating heart. He was alive! That was all that mattered. He would live through this, and what happened afterward, they would deal with it together.

Natsu suddenly stood up and covered his mouth.

Did he really just ... to Gray...

"Sorry," he whispered in shame. Kissing an unconscious person! Really, he was the worst! "That ... it wasn't a kiss. I was just ... checking. That's all. Why the hell am I explaining it? It's not like you can hear me."

He gazed down at the sleeping body for a moment more. That flickering in his chest grew hotter, but he struggled to quench the flame. Whatever that flicker was, it scared him.

Having Gray so close to death, fearing every day that Makarov might announce the worst news of all, the loneliness of being amongst friends but not having his rival there to antagonize him ... that was all this was, right? Just weird emotions and wanting Gray to get well. Yet when Natsu placed his hand over the cold, limp fingers, the flicker warmed his chest again.

What was this?

Why did he fear it?

Natsu shook his head. Gray always messed up his mind. Now, even though Gray was unconscious, Natsu was annoyed by something the ice wizard was doing to him.

"Whatever," Natsu sighed aloud. "Heal up, Sleeping Beauty."

Natsu stepped aside, turned off the lights, and left the hospital room.

Gray was in a dark dream. He swam in blood. The sky had no stars, just a silver moon, so perfectly round, a solid color that shined on the red sea in steely coldness.

He felt himself sinking. Something had his legs. He could not move, and it was pulling him down, down, into blood and darkness. He could taste the blood as it went over his head.

He slipped below the waves, thrashing, fighting, but all in vain. He struggled against the sinking sickness and pressure in his lungs as his body prepared itself to die.

No! He did not want to go like this.

Then something swam up to him in the red water, something warm and bright, so bright it turned the crimson water pink. Lips pressed against Gray's mouth, and hot air filled his lungs. The breath was sweet, the lips soft and warm. Then this pink creature of fantasy pulled away, but not before giving Gray enough air to fight and the encouragement to go on.

He struggled back to the surface, fighting, swimming hard, until finally his head came above the bloody waves. He gasped for air. When he looked around, nothing was there. He was alone again.

The touch to his legs was back, but this time, instead of greedy hands pulling him down, the hot hand guided his body through the blood sea, over to land and safety. Then those gentle hands pulled away. Gray saw only the pink glow under the crimson waves, but he knew it was the same creature. The warmth drifted back off into the ocean, leaving Gray stranded on the lonely island.

"Wait!"

Gray sat up in bed, wide awake now.

He looked around. He was still in the hospital. It had been nothing more than a dream.

However, when Gray reached up to his lips, remembering that kiss, his mouth felt a lot hotter than usual. Then suddenly he heard a door shut. He jolted over at the sound and just barely glimpsed pink hair walking down the hallway.

"Natsu?" he asked. His hand went up to his mouth again. "What the hell sort of dream was that?"

———

Notes:

The celestial spirit Auriga the Charioteer is an OC created for my GraLu story "I Leave You, My Pride."