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Fight Me, Bite Me	By : Rhov Category: +. to F > Fairy Tail Views: 39446 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 3
Disclaimer: Fairy Tail is the property of Hiro Mashima. I make no money, I just do this for my own pleasure.

Chapter List
- 70
- 71
- 72
Chapter 71
Parent Panic

Natsu had just finished making lunch for himself and Happy when there was a loud pounding on the door. Happy rushed over to open it and saw Gray, pale and haggard. Natsu left the sandwiches he had made and rushed over.
"Gray! What the hell happened? Did someone die?"
"Exactly opposite," he muttered, and he took two steps forward before collapsing in Natsu's arms.
The weight shocked Natsu, and he struggled for a moment to hold Gray up. He really did feel like a lifeless husk.
Happy rubbed his head as he wondered over Gray's riddle. "The opposite of someone dying … someone was born?"
Gray's throat hitched, and he clung desperately to Natsu.
"Gray?" Natsu said worriedly. "What happened?"
"Emilia … that lady who was waiting for us. She … I knew her, before we got together. Like … I knew her."
"I figured," Natsu muttered.
"It was one night, but … that's all it takes, right? One night."
Happy thought he pieced it together. "Was that baby she was holding yours?"
"FUUUUUCK!" Gray screamed, and he completely collapsed. Natsu fell to the floor with him.
"Gray?" he asked, his eyes stunned in disbelief. "Are you saying…?"
"He's my kid, Natsu," he shouted in rage. "My … My son. Shit, I don't know how to be a father. I can't be! I don't know the first thing."
Natsu stared ahead, blown away by the news. "Yours? Are you positive?"
Gray looked completely shattered. "He has my eyes. Same color, same shape. She said he was born with really powerful magic. I could sense that in the baby too."
Natsu stood up and took a few steps away from where Gray lay crumpled on the ground. Something stung, so deep he could not comprehend it. He rubbed out his chest and tried to hide his grimace.
"You … You have a kid? You got someone pregnant?"
Gray looked up, desperate for Natsu not to hate him. Then a dreadful thought came to mind. Natsu freaked out about sex because his sperm got some unwilling girl pregnant. In a way, the same thing had happened to Gray, except he had not even known about it until an hour ago.
"Natsu?" he whispered, hoping this did not trigger all sorts of negative responses in him.
Without another word, Natsu walked off to the kitchen.
Gray sank deeper into depression. "Shit," he hissed in anguish.
Happy came up to Gray and patted his leg. "What did the lady want?"
"She's broke. She lost her job because of the baby and can't find work. She came needing help."
"Child support?" asked Happy.
"No … sort of? She said only until she's back on her feet. I … I offered her to try working in Fairy Tail as a waitress or something."
"That was nice of you," Happy said with a big smile. "Then you can see your baby more."
"Shit!" Gray cried out, and his face fell flat to the ground, his body shaking. "How did this happen?"
"Well, a little boy and a little girl fall in love and kiss and one thing leads to another and they share fish and then one day he asks if she wants to pet his tail—"
"Happy!" Natsu cut in. He came back holding a cup and knelt beside Gray. He finally lifted his face, glad to see that Natsu had returned. "You look like you need this," he said, shoving the cup forward.
Gray took the amber liquid and smelled it. It was strong, whatever it was. He tried to drink it, but it was so absolutely awful, he nearly spit it out. Of course, Natsu rarely drank and probably used this alcohol to clean out wounds, so he did not care how it tasted. Still, the fiery burn warmed up the cold dread inside of Gray.
Natsu sat beside him on the ground and took Gray's hand, giving it a comforting squeeze. Gray collapsed onto his shoulder, needing that warmth, needing connection as everything felt unreal.
"Pinch me, Natsu. Wake me up from this."
Natsu shrugged and pinched Gray in the ribs so hard, Gray screamed in pain.
"You are awake, idiot. It doesn't feel real, though," he had to admit. "My mind's a total blank, so I can only imagine how you're feeling."
"Like my entire future just exploded on me," Gray muttered, and he took another drink of the vile alcohol.
Natsu wrapped an arm around Gray's shoulder and pulled him in closer. "Whatever happens, I'm sticking by you, okay?"
"I'm a father now, Natsu," he shouted. "I have a son." Saying it still felt unreal. "Shit."
"Do you think I care about that? You had a fun night with a girl and she got pregnant." Darkly, he muttered, "That's not the worst thing you could do."
Gray looked over into Natsu's eyes and saw the pain in them. Definitely, he was thinking about his past.
"What did you do when you found out?" Natsu asked, looking deeply lost in memories, almost like he wanted to compare Gray's reaction to his own insane and bloody reaction in the past.
Gray shook his head and tried to think back. It was only an hour ago, but it felt like that was another lifetime. "Not much. Cussed a lot. I … I still don't … It doesn't feel real. Nothing feels real. Even sitting here with you, it's like I'm only half here."
"It's called depersonalization. It happens with panic attacks," Natsu said automatically, like he was quoting something a person told him. "AWARE: Accept, wait, actions, repeat, end."
"What?" Gray said, feeling the panic part, definitely, but Natsu was making no sense.
"You're scared. You need to accept that."
"Oh, I accept it!" Gray yelled. "I accept that I am scared shitless, and I want to wake up."
"No, you're not accepting it. You think it'll go away, and it's not going to. You think pinching yourself will wake you up." He squeezed the callused hand. "You're awake, Gray, and this is reality."
"No! Shit, no!" he sobbed, starting to collapse over again.
Natsu held him up by the shoulders. "Say 'I'm scared, but I'm not hurt.'"
"I'm scared, and my life is fucked," he yelled.
"You're not in physical danger, are you?"
Gray felt annoyed by the question. "No."
"Are you about to be killed?"
His shoulders loosened a little. "No."
"So say it. I'm scared, but I'm not hurt." Natsu closed his eyes and said it again, as if he was the one who needed to accept this. "I'm scared … but I'm not hurt."
Gray watched how he did it, and he tried the same, closing his eyes and repeating the mantra. "I'm scared, but I'm not hurt."
"Good. You acknowledge and accept the fear, because the more you resist a panic attack, the worse it gets until you separate from reality. It's tough to admit to fear, believe me! But it's important to do so. Gildarts taught me that lesson," he said proudly.
Gray said the words again as the dread was still there, but accepting it made it just another emotion. "I'm scared, but I'm not hurt."
"Good!" Natsu grinned and took Gray's hand. "Let's get you over to the couch. The next step is Wait. It's like counting to ten before you get mad, but it's counting while you wait for the panic to work its way through. The couch is more comfortable for waiting."
Gray let himself be pulled over and followed with numbed steps. He still did not feel fully there. Natsu got him to the couch, then ran to his bed and brought back a sheet of paper.
"It's a panic diary. My therapist came up with this. After you've had a panic attack, you answer these questions. It helps me, and it's easy. Try it, and you can bring it to your therapist. Because you seriously need to see your therapist after this." He muttered to himself, "I need to as well. So let's both fill one out, okay?"
Happy brought over two pens, and they took a couple of minutes to fill out the sheet of paper. Gray felt this was just a distraction from the issue, but maybe Natsu needed this more than him, so he went along. Oddly enough, he felt himself focusing and feeling more in touch with reality as he filled in the questions.
Name, date, time panic began. Those were easy enough.
What were your symptoms? Well, collapsing in the hall of his apartment was probably a symptom, so was feeling disconnected. Snapping at Natsu was not really nice, either.
Where are you? That question confused him by just how simple it seemed to be, but it also made him look around. He really saw Natsu's house for the first time. He suddenly felt like he was physically in a place, and not lost in a nightmare.
What were you doing when the attack began? He angrily scribbled down, 'Listening to one of my exes tell me I have a baby.' Writing that made it feel more real, though. Emilia was real. That baby was real.
Are you alone? Who is present? He was glad he was not alone. He smiled to himself as he wrote down Natsu's and Happy's names. He was with friends, and just knowing that made him feel safer.
What were you doing or thinking before the attack began? He had been with Natsu and Happy, laughing about the mission they just had. That connected the last normal moment with this new reality.
What actions did you take to calm yourself? He still did not feel calm. Still, he went to Natsu's house, and that was helping; he already felt calmer. It was the only place he could think to go, and he had known that he needed someone, an anchor to reality. He also admitted to the fear like Natsu instructed, and now he was filling out this form. Gray felt his mind refocusing as he wrote all this down.
How do you want to respond differently next time? Gray stared ahead as he thought about that. Next time? The future? He had begun to think that he had no future anymore. His future would forever have a child somehow involved. Still, he was going to have to see Emilia again. He would have to look into those stormy blue eyes and see his son. At that time, he did not want to panic.
What could he do, though? The sheer thought of being a father scared the hell out of him. What if he was a bad father? What if his child grew to hate him? Especially since he was not around this whole time, he had already missed so many things in this boy's life, and he had no idea how much time he would spend with the boy in the future, if at all. Emilia had assured him that he did not need to be part of their lives, but Gray felt like he wanted to be. He wanted…
He had no idea what he wanted.
He realized, that was what truly scared him. He felt like he was not prepared to be a father, but if he had to be one like-it-or-not, he wanted to be a good one. How did he take that first step?
He wrote down on the paper, "Next time, I'm bringing Natsu with me so he can also see my son. If things go bad, I trust Natsu to help me."
He trusted Natsu.
"You're smiling. That's good."
Gray looked up to see Natsu watching him, his paper form filled out already and folded in half to keep it private. Gray did the same, folding his piece of paper and tucking it away. Maybe he could ask his therapist if she had a questionnaire like this.
"Are you grounded?"
Gray looked around the house again. It felt real now. "Yeah, I think so."
"Up to talking?"
He sank wearily. "Depends."
"What's the girl's name?"
"Emilia. I knew her about … three to six months before we hooked up."
"You said it was one night."
"Yeah … yeah, just a one-night stand."
"So, you two weren't dating, right? She's not going to want you back?" he asked worriedly.
He shook his head. "She told me directly, she didn't want to get back together with me."
"Well, that's good, because I'm not handing you over, not even to a lady who had your baby. I'd fight her to keep you!" he declared.
Hearing that eased out a lot of Gray's fears. He really had been fearing from the moment he realized the baby was his, that this might make Natsu leave him.
Natsu saw just how much hearing that made the tension in Gray's muscles relax. "I'm sticking by you, Gray," he swore. "Especially through something like this, we're going to figure it out together. What do you plan to do, though?"
Gray shook his head, feeling weary and scared again. "I have no idea. A part of me wants to be part of this kid's life."
Happy piped up, "Well of course you gotta be. You're his father."
"Happy," Natsu warned softly, and he squeezed Gray's hand, hoping to keep him calm.
"I remember how great my dad was," Gray muttered. "I want to be something like that, a role model at the very least, pass on something." He looked down at his hands, feeling that devil slaying magic tingling just under the surface. No, maybe not that magic, not with the negative side effects, but something. "The baby already has magic, and Emilia doesn't know what to do about it. I could teach him. Emilia told me she doesn't want to be a bother, she could be out of my life as soon as she's stable with a job again, but … but I already know, I don't want that. I don't want to impose on her, but … but this is my kid, Natsu. I want to be part of his life, to at least be a dad, even if it absolutely terrifies me. I want this kid to have as much love and support as possible, not some deadbeat who knocked up his mom and skipped out."
Natsu nodded to himself. "I think that's a really mature thing … which is shocking considering it's you."
"Shut up, jerk. Obviously, I'm not going to just forget that I have a baby." He froze as he saw a twitch in Natsu's eyebrows. "Oh," he whispered. Natsu had completely blocked the memory of finding a poor woman pregnant with his baby. "That's different," he muttered.
Happy hummed, wondering what he meant, but neither of them said anything more about that. Natsu nodded silently to himself, repeating silently that his situation had been different. He had been merely a child, molested and tortured for weeks, driven insane, and the experience had been so disgustingly horrific, blocking it was probably his mind's own act of self-preservation. He felt Gray squeeze his hand, and he wrung it back.
"I'm … a bit overwhelmed," Natsu admitted softly, keeping his eyes down on their hands and on the promise bracelets. "I think you know why."
"Yeah," he whispered, seeing in the distance of his gaze, Natsu was thinking about that past. He looked over to the blue Exceed. "Hey, Happy, can you get me something to drink? I don't know what this rotgut is that Natsu poured for me, but it's really gross."
"Sure," Happy said. "What you really need is milk. That always makes me feel better." He eagerly hurried to the kitchen to pour him a glass.
Natsu was glad Gray sent Happy out. At least for a minute, he could finally stop putting on a brave face. He collapsed onto Gray shoulder, and the fingers wrapped around Gray's hand finally began to tremble with hidden fears.
"I'm staying with you through this, and I'll support whatever you decide," Natsu whispered quickly while Happy was gone, "but I'm seriously freaking out, and I need to get out of here."
"Will you be safe?" Gray asked in worry.
"Yeah, I just … I want to be supportive of you, and I know this has got you really messed up. I don't want to add to that. Stay here and rest. I'll be back. I just … I need to walk, and think, and try to work through these flashbacks."
"Natsu—"
"No!" he shouted, pulling up and looking determined. "You have enough to deal with. I'm okay with you wanting to be a part of this kid's life, but I want to be sure I can be supportive, and right now, I'm just barely holding myself together," he admitted, his voice hoarse and shivering. "So let me walk it off. Be here when I get back. I need you here, and I need to hold you."
Gray really did not want Natsu to leave him, but he realized that this was for Natsu's own sanity. "I get it. Don't take too long, though, and promise me you won't hunt out Emilia. She's done nothing wrong."
"I won't," he promised, and added in anguish, "because I don't trust myself. In fact, when I see this kid, I want you to be there, just … just in case." He truly sounded scared of himself.
"Well, good, because I wrote down," he said, holding up his paper, "that I wanted you there with me when I see the kid again, because I trust you to help me if I panic."
"What if I'm the one who panics?"
"Then we're both going to drag each other away and panic together. You seem to be stronger than me in this, though," he admitted reluctantly.
"Of course I'm stronger than you," Natsu said with a playful grin.
Gray laughed and shoved him. "Shut up, flame-brain."
"You're smiling again," he pointed out, and seeing that smile relaxed him. "I feel better about leaving you here." He got up just as Happy was returning with a glass of milk. "I'm heading out, be right back." With just that, Natsu left the house, and they heard him running off into the woods.
"There he goes again," Happy sighed, and he brought Gray the milk. "So, you knew this lady only one night? That seems like an awful fast time to figure out you love someone."
Gray awkwardly wondered if he should bother explaining to Happy that two adults could have sex without love. Probably it was best not to sully his innocence like that. "Obviously we were mistaken, since it only lasted one night."
Happy hummed and nodded to himself. Then he added in, "Or it's sort of like when Cana says she needs a guy to scratch her itch and sleeps with some guy she doesn't know, although I think that's not really healthy to do if she has fleas."
"What?" Gray asked, blown away by how aware—and how ignorant—poor Happy was. Fleas? Not that type of itch, Happy! "I … I guess you could say it was like that. She had an itch … and I ended up with a baby."
"You're going to do great," Happy said, fully confident. "I know you're going to be an amazing father. Oh, and don't worry about Natsu. I think I know what's wrong."
Gray choked up. "Y-You do?" There was no way Natsu would have told Happy all about that horrific past.
"Yep. He's jealous."
That was not the answer he was expecting. "Jealous? That I knocked some girl up?" he cried out.
"That you started a family without him. Natsu actually wants a family really, really bad. He talks about it sometimes, asking if I would like a little brother. He's probably just upset that you beat him to it. You two are so competitive, after all."
Gray felt his heart flutter. "Natsu … wants a family?"
"He's always wanted to adopt. I used to think he just didn't want to get married but wanted to raise a bunch of kids on his own. He says it's like he wants to be what Igneel was to him, which I think is awesome. If he adopted more Exceeds, we could all play together. Or, I guess, if he adopted human kids too, that'd also be okay."
Gray laughed awkwardly at Happy's cuteness.
"Don't tell Natsu I said this," Happy said, dropping his voice to a whisper, "but sometimes I like to pretend you two are both my dads."
Gray almost dropped his glass of milk. "What?"
"Well, Natsu isn't really my father, but he raised me from an egg, and so he's sort of like a dad and a friend and a brother all wrapped up in one. And he'll say I'm not his kid, but then he asks if I want a brother, so it's almost like he's my father, but not. Maybe that's how things were between him and Igneel. But sometimes, when you're both over here, I like to think that it's sort of like I have two parents. Then Natsu seems a whole lot more like a real dad and not just a friend, but I'm not sure if that's weird, so I don't tell him."
Gray was stunned. Had he really come to be a father figure to Happy over the past year? "I'll keep that a secret if you keep a secret."
"Sure!" Happy eagerly leaned forward. "What's the secret? Tell me, tell me."
Gray set the glass aside and looked down at the promise bracelet, dragging it around his wrist. "Sometimes, I daydream about what it'd be like if Natsu and I lived together … and raised you like our child."
"Really?" he cried out. "Yay! You need to marry Natsu."
"Whoa! Wait! We're not ready for something like that."
"It's been over a year."
"It can take a really long time to be totally certain you want to marry someone."
"Really?" He hummed at that. "Weird, 'cause I know I want to marry Carla, although she won't accept my fish."
"W-Well, it can take a long time for some couples." Also, Carla was Happy's first crush, and he was still very young, so of course he likely did not fully comprehend the gravity of marriage.
"But you like to pretend?" he asked innocently.
Gray bit his lip. "Sometimes … I guess. Still, I'm not sure if I'd be any good at it. Like I don't know if I'd be a good father to that baby."
"That's rather impersonal."
Such a big word out of Happy's mouth stunned Gray. "Impersonal? How so?"
"You keep calling him that baby or my kid. What's his name?"
Gray stared ahead. Name? Name! "I … forgot to ask. I was so stunned, I didn't even think about it." His heart began to race again. "Oh God, I don't even know my own son's name," he cried out, feeling another panic attack surging up.
A name. How could he have forgotten something that important? How could he have barely even looked at the child and asked nothing about him? What day was he born? What was his name? He knew nothing at all, no details, nothing.
"It's okay for now," Happy assured him. "If that lady is going to be working at the guild, then you can ask her there. Make sure you do. It's no good if you go through life calling your own son that baby."
Gray laughed awkwardly. This was only the beginning, after all. He had time to ask Emilia questions. He had plenty of time to get to know the tiny blue-eyed baby. "Yeah, you're right. I'll ask tomorrow."
Happy nodded proudly and patted Gray's leg to show that things would be all right. "Are you hungry? Natsu made sandwiches. I can make you one, or you can eat his since it might be stale by the time he comes back."
Gray stood up. Now that he was calmer, he needed to do something, anything, to take his mind off of things. "Let's wrap Natsu's sandwich up for him, and you can show me what sorts of food you two have that I can use."
"Use any of it," Happy urged, waving for Gray to follow him to the kitchen. "After all, you're family."
He felt his face blush at Happy's easy acceptance of him. "I really hope my son is a lot like you."
Happy turned around in shock. "Eh? Does he have blue fur?"
"No, not that." Gray smiled at how adorable Happy could be sometimes. "I hope he's a happy kid when he grows up."
"With you as a dad, of course he will be!"
Gray laughed to himself that perhaps it was not Natsu whom he really needed to talk to, but Happy … the little Exceed who had grown to become like a son to them both.
Natsu did something he almost never did.
He willingly took a train by himself.
The ride was an hour, and luckily the motion sickness took his mind off everything. He almost wanted to keep riding so he would not think about anything at all.
Almost … but hell no.
When they pulled into a station, he stumbled off and fell to his knees, forcing the other passengers to walk around him. A station attendant came up to check on him, but Natsu waved him away. He stayed on his hands and knees as he tried to stabilize himself. After a few minutes, he could stand, but he wobbled as he left the station. He entered a small town, but he was not that interested in the area itself. It was what was beyond all the houses that drew him there.
He followed a cobbled road out of town and into some woods, then turned onto a rough forest path. As he walked in the variegated shade of the trees, he was once again trapped in thoughts.
Gray had a son.
Why did that hurt so much?
"He can have a child he didn't know about and accept it, whereas me…"
The one time it did happen to him…
"Wait, what are you doing? Stop! Stooooooooooop!"
Natsu hunched over, thinking for sure he would vomit. If he had eaten lunch, maybe he would have, but as it was, he only felt sick.
"He … has a baby … and I … I can't. Never! I don't … don't deserve … dammit!" he seethed, thrusting himself out of flashbacks and sinking guilt.
He forced himself to continue on, angry, frustrated, depressed, so many dark emotions that he hated to feel. This was not like him at all, and Natsu felt that he needed to get over this, to return to his normal self, if only for Gray's sake.
This place was the best way to come to terms with the past.
Finally, the woods opened up to a small church with ancient stone walls and a poor, thatched roof, built in a meadow where the light filtered in from the dark surrounding trees, as if some divine spirit cleared this one little spot just for the church. There were monks tending a garden and one gathering water from a well; otherwise, it looked like parishioners had not been to this church in many years.
The monks glanced over when Natsu arrived, but his focus was beyond the dilapidated building. He walked past them without saying anything and came to a section fenced off, with many grave markers, some with flowers or incense left behind. He walked over to one and knelt beside it. Carefully, he swept a leaf off the headstone.
"I'm sorry for visiting you again," he whispered. "It's been a while." He settled in as comfortably as one can be kneeling by a grave. "I thought I'd tell you—not that you care—but I have a boyfriend now. His name is Gray, and he's … he just found out today that some girl from his past had a baby. His baby. He didn't know about it, didn't plan for it. She had the baby without ever telling him. I dunno, it … it, um … it reminded me of you," he whispered, shaking inside with emotions. "So that's why I'm here."
Natsu grabbed his chest and fell over as the pain began to pour out like a wound draining. Here in a cemetery with only monks around, he could be honest with his raw emotions.
It hurt.
Gray had a son.
Gray wanted to be part of this baby's life.
It was so different from him.
"It made me wonder, what if I had run off as soon as I escaped that man, and someone else found you, and you had that baby and never told me for months or years? What if I was in the same position as Gray? Would you have wanted me to be part of that baby's life? Would you have let me see him, or maybe help raise him? Would I have even wanted to be part of his life, considering what that man did to us both?" he asked, staring at the tombstone.
Natsu's head sank. "I don't think I'd want to be part of the life of a baby brought into the world in that sort of way. Maybe that sucks of me, but … I just don't think I could do it," he confessed and shook his head softly. "That makes me think Gray is so strong. He's way stronger than me, and it pisses me off," he grumbled.
"That's when I realized, I haven't been here since Gray and I hooked up. So much has happened since then. For one … well, I actually remember you now. I finally remember everything," he said darkly. "I remember … my promise. I'll never have a child," Natsu muttered. "I don't deserved one after I … I killed … the one that was in you."
For years, he had only known that, while he was insane, he had killed the man who tortured him—that part, he remembered—and one of the other prisoners, some young girl. That part, he had blocked out, and he was only told about it. Even as memories of that dark time troubled him, he had often forgotten even that fact, that he had also killed one of the prisoners, since he had no recollection of doing it. His life between one spot and the next had been a total blank. Just being told "you killed a girl" did not feel real if you had no memory of ever meeting that person.
Now, he remembered her. Not that he had known anything about her back then, when he first discovered her in that dark place. He did not know her name, her age, or what she suffered through being a prisoner of that sadistic man. He had only known that she was scared, starved, and pregnant.
With his baby.
And he killed her.
Natsu raised his head as the tears flowed down freely. "I couldn't remember you. I blocked it out, locked the whole thing away in a corner of my mind. I was allowed to believe I had killed you while I was so insane, I was basically unconscious, and I was told not to worry about it. I was allowed to forget you … and maybe that saved my sanity. Maybe Gramps and the rest even helped me to forget so I could recover, I don't know. Now, I remember it all, how you looked, the sound of your voice…"
"Wait, what are you doing? Stop! Stooooooooooop!"
Natsu flinched hard at the flashback. "… why I did it," he gnashed out. "Makarov was sparing me by only telling me I had killed one of the prisoners, nothing else. He never mentioned you were pregnant with my child. I never knew…" He sniffed hard and stopped talking to hold down his stomach. "I never knew," he whispered in anguish. "I could never apologize, not in all these years."
For the first time, he could kneel by this grave and truly confess, with memory of the whole event.
"I … hated you," he whispered, ashamed to admit that. "I was ashamed, and I hated you! I hated that my seed managed to stick in you, out of all of them. I blamed you for making his threats a reality. Maybe I was insane, but that's just an excuse. I could have saved you. I could have released all three of you right away, but I didn't. I could have punched you in the gut, and that probably would have been enough to terminate it, but I didn't. I could have still hurt you in that horrible way but saved your life, cauterized the wound, something … but I didn't."
He sighed in grief, and his head hit the dirt.
"I didn't," Natsu whispered miserably. "I left you there to die. I chose to … because I hated that you even existed. It wasn't your fault, you were just another victim … and I remember it now … and I've hated myself since the day I got my memory back … and I really need to say … I'm so … so sorry."
He had said sorry before, but it was empty. He had taken a life, he knew only that much, but not why or how. He felt that now, for the first time, he could finally put this girl's spirit to rest.
"I remember now, after they buried you, I came here with Makarov. I hadn't repressed my memory at that time. I knew what I did, although I don't think I was fully sane yet. Gramps asked me how I planned to atone. I barely knew what that word meant," he admitted, laughing softly. "I said my atonement would be to pay your family a yearly stipend—help them out a bit—and to never have a child of my own blood. Gramps said that was too much, but I made it as my oath, an eternal promise. My punishment would be that I will never—never—have a child. And that's what scares me. I figured it out in therapy, why I can't have my semen in anything. It's not just because of that man. It's you. It's my promise to you. I'm afraid I might break my promise."
Natsu reached out and traced the name on the tombstone.
"I don't know why I came here," he admitted, amused at how extreme this was, to travel all this way just to talk to a tombstone. "Gray saying he has a baby … it reminded me of you, and I realized … I never properly apologized for what I did to you. I'm not good with words, so … maybe I can pray? Yeah! I'll pray for you, and pray for the baby that was in you."
Natsu looked pleased for only a moment at his idea, before the grief hit him again, harder this time, the reality of his actions truly sinking in. His face sank down into his hands.
"I'm so sorry … Mallory."
According to the tombstone, she had been only seventeen, an innocent, scared girl, pregnant against her will. Had she even known she was pregnant? Had she died not knowing why Natsu was hurting her like that? Did she even know—had that man mentioned at all—that Natsu was the father of the fetus inside of her?
He hated that memory. Her screams to stop, her ghastly howls as he stabbed her and sliced the uterus right out of her belly, would always haunt him. The mystery of who she was, what she knew, and if she knew who he was, would never go away.
Even as a child, Natsu knew he could never smell his blood in a woman and not be driven insane again. Not after that. So he had sworn to her right here, at her grave, that he would never get a person pregnant again.
It took almost a year of therapy to realize that the oath he gave her was tied to his phobia. He feared breaking the promise. Even after he blocked the whole thing from his memory, the lingering pieces of that oath grew into a debilitating phobia.
"I'm going back to him," Natsu whispered, tracing the M in her name. "If he wants to be part of that baby's life, I'm going to do my damnedest to support him. I'll whip him into shape and make sure he's the best father in the whole world. For your sake," he whispered, "I'm going to support Gray and this baby. I'll do what I couldn't do back then. I promise you." Natsu's eyes blazed with determination. "I promise you, Mallory, I'm going to support Gray in whatever he decides he wants to do."
The sunlight filtering through the trees seems like it was streaming down from heaven. Natsu looked up into the blue sky and let out a long sigh. A burden that had been on his chest for many months was finally lifting. He had confessed, apologized, and he had a new oath to uphold.
He was not going to abandon Gray.
The sky was turning from blue to orangish-pink. Happy and Gray had finished eating and were playing a card game when Natsu returned. He and Gray looked at one another silently for a lingering moment, then Natsu turned and went into the kitchen. Gray flinched at the way Natsu seemed to give him the cold shoulder.
Happy also looked upset at that. "I'll go talk to him."
"It's fine," Natsu said, coming back with the sandwich he had made hours ago. "Thanks for wrapping this up for me. I'm starving." He immediately began to eat the sandwich while walking over to the table. "Cards? What game?"
Happy grinned at him. "Go Fish. I thought about Strip Poker, but I don't wear clothes because I'm a cat, and Gray's already half naked."
"Yeah, you are. Where did your clothes go?" asked Natsu.
Happy pointed around the house. "The shirt is on the couch, the pants are in the kitchen, one shoe is in the bathroom, the other is under the hammock, the socks are in your bedroom…"
"Sheesh, can't leave you alone or you end up naked," Natsu sighed, chomping away at his lunch. "Deal me in."
Gray could hardly focus on the game now. After dropping such a huge bomb like that, how could Natsu act like nothing at all happened? Natsu laughed as he said 'Go Fish' and cracked a joke with Happy. Gray tried to laugh at it too, but everything felt forced.
He still felt disconnected.
He closed his eyes and went through what Natsu told him. He was afraid … of what Natsu thought and if he was mad and what might happen to them as a couple. He was not in any harm, though. He counted to himself while Happy and Natsu took their turns. One, two, three, four, five…
"Any sixes?"
"Go Fish."
Gray took a card and counted more. Seven, eight, nine, ten. He was safe, he was scared, but those were fears of the future. Right at that moment, Natsu was here, and he was smiling…
He was smiling. And they were together. That was most important right now. They were together, having fun.
"Your turn, Gray," said Happy.
He felt himself relax. They were together.
"Got any tens?"
"Go Fish," said Happy.
Gray smiled and took a card. He looked over to Natsu, saw his smile, and felt at ease.
They played until night, then Natsu thought it would be more fun to go into town for pizza. Happy was excited for that and flew on ahead of them, chanting "Pizza, pizza, pizza!"
Gray and Natsu were left alone to walk toward the lights of Magnolia. As they strode down the weathered path, Natsu slipped his hand over and brushed against Gray's fingers. The ice wizard took the offered hand and squeezed it. Immediately, he heard a sigh of relief from Natsu.
"Sorry if that was all super awkward," the Dragon Slayer began. "You looked petrified when I arrived, so I thought it would be best to focus on something else. A card game was a great idea."
"It beats panicking again," Gray admitted. "Nothing really changed, anyway. I still have a baby out there, and I still have no clue what I'm going to do."
"You take it one day at a time."
"That's easy to say, but I don't know if this is going to be an issue for the rest of my life, or if Emilia will take off in a week and not want me to bother her or the baby."
"That'd be sad," Natsu mumbled. "I hope she at least lets you visit."
Gray hummed. As much as the prospect terrified him, he was warming up to the idea of having a child to train, like how Ur taught him. "So, where did you go? You were gone for hours."
"Walking … visiting someone."
Gray looked over sharply. "Visiting?"
Natsu shrugged as he absently kicked at a rock in the dark road. "I needed to talk about this, get things off my chest, come to terms with it."
"Ah," he said, nodding to himself. "You know, you can tell me when it's your therapist. No need to be cryptic."
Natsu laughed and shook his head. "No, I still should see him though. I went … to a grave."
Gray jolted to a stop. "Natsu!"
"This was something I needed to do," he interrupted, "something my therapist has been telling me to do for a while, and I realized today was the day. I needed … to talk, and explain things, and apologize, and promise—"
His words cut off as emotions surged up. Natsu thrust it all back down. The past was over, and he had to step away from it. He needed to focus on the present with goals for the future.
"Whatever you plan to do about this child, I'll be there to support you." Natsu gave Gray's hand a firm squeeze. "You're my bonded mate, Gray. I still smell my blood in you, and I'm sure I'll smell your blood in your son. That means he's as important to me as you are, and you're the most important human in my life."
Hearing that made Gray feel warm inside, but he was still amused by the phrasing. "Most important human?"
"Well, Happy is more important than you. No offense, but he was here first."
Gray laughed, and Natsu also chuckled. They continued on through the woods.
"Hey, if I have to be second to someone, I'm okay if it's Happy."
Natsu hugged Gray's arm and clung to him as they headed down a hill, drawing closer to the city. "It's almost too bad that ex-girlfriend of yours is so independent. I doubt she'll let us keep him for a week."
"No, Natsu. I seriously have no idea how to change diapers."
"Oh, he's that young?"
"Obviously! I had that one-night-stand with her just a few months before we hooked up."
"It feels like we've been dating for years, though."
Gray smiled and looked up at the first stars in the summer sky. "Yeah, it does seem like you've always been there."
Natsu hummed and blushed at hearing that. He clung onto Gray's arm, leaning in closer as they continued to walk. "So, the baby would be … hmm … a year old?"
"Well, I met her … I don't know … three to six months before we hooked up? I'm not sure. She was just a girl for one night; I honestly did not even get her name back then and probably would have forgotten her, except for that gonorrhea scare. I thought she was the one who gave it to me, since it was the only time I had unprotected sex with a woman. She claimed she was on contraceptive pills, though," he recalled. "Then again, those aren't one hundred percent fail-proof."
"So, maybe three months before us, plus nine months pregnant."
"Assuming he wasn't a preemie."
"Yeah. That means he was born in the autumn."
Gray counted on his fingers. "Yeah, around October." He realized, he and Natsu had been separated right as he became a father. If he had known at the time … if he had been desperate enough to fill in the emotional gap…
"So he's about nine months old? Wow, that really is just a baby," Natsu said in awe. "We'll have to take him out to eat. I wonder when he can eat pizza."
"Probably not yet," he said in wry amusement. "Also, I don't think you take a baby out to eat. They drink milk in a bottle and eat mashed up food."
"Oh, I can mash up food!" Natsu said eagerly.
"You'd pulverize and burn it, you idiot."
Natsu laughed wildly, and Gray chuckled at Natsu's eagerness. Somehow, that made things easier. He relaxed, and as they came into town and entered the pizza parlor, Gray almost felt normal again.
Almost.
In the back of his mind, a voice still kept screaming in terror, 'Oh my God, I'm a father, I'm a father, what am I going to do,' yet now there was another voice soothingly saying, 'Yes, and you have Natsu there to support you through this. It's going to be okay.'
And he believed that.
As Natsu and Happy blew bubbles in their drinks, and the pizza arrived with Natsu shouting cheers, Gray's shoulders relaxed.
He was going to be okay.
End of Chapter 71
Audio: https://chirb.it/3nBP7p
I purposely didn't want to give names to people in Natsu's dark past, but being a huge fan of name meanings, I couldn't help myself. Mallory means "unlucky one," which is appropriate for a girl who was simply unlucky and met a grizzly end.
Natsu used an actual technique for panic attacks, known as AWARE: Accept, Wait, Actions, Repeat, End. One really hard issue with panic attacks is to accept the fear. It's easier to wish it would go away, pretend you aren't afraid at all, or try to block out the fact that you're scared.
"Accepting" that you're afraid, but you're not in any harm, is key. Obviously, if your life really is in danger, do not simply accept it, but actively get out of harm's way!
"Waiting" is also tough but important. It goes against all instincts. Fight or flight are a human's primal reactions to fear, even non-harmful fears. Standing there, counting to ten, taking inventory of your surroundings, and giving yourself time to process the fear, is important to getting through it.
"Actions" may include deep breathing, talking to yourself (silently), and grounding yourself in the present. Most panic attacks stem from your mind blindly plunging into future "what if's" … what if they're mad at me, what if they think I'm weird, what if I mess up, what if I say the wrong thing, what if … so part of "Action" is getting back into whatever safe activity you were doing before the attack began. If you have a panic attack in a store, that may mean pausing, admitting "I'm afraid but I'm safe," counting to ten, deep breaths, and continuing to shop. Bring your focus and energy back to the present moment, because so long as you are SAFE, you have nothing to fear in the present.
"Repeat" is there because the truth is, sometimes you think you're okay, and then the panic returns. You do it again. And again. And again. "I'm afraid but I'm safe, deep breath, count to ten, ground yourself in the present, keep going." It might take a few times, depending on the severity of the attack. Trust me on this, I have a severely debilitating fear of balloons, and you would NOT believe how hard it is for me to go into a party supply store. It's HELL. I have to repeat these anti-anxiety steps probably twice every single time I hear the balloon machine blowing up another balloon, and I've still ended up crouched on the floor hugging myself if one of those balloons pops. Still, I force myself up, talk myself through it, "I am not in any harm," and force myself to keep shopping, until the next balloon, when I repeat the steps.
"End" means just that. All panic attacks end, and that's a really nice thing to remember when you're in the middle of one. They ALL end. They will end regardless of how you respond, or if you do anything at all to ease yourself out of one. It's not your job to make a panic attack go away; that's going to happen one way or another. Your only job is to make yourself as comfortable as possible until it ends. "This will end. All panic attacks end. I don't need to stop it, it will end on its own. I am safe, I am not about to be hurt, I am here in this place and I am safe." When it ends, make a note to yourself on what worked to end it. How can you do things differently next time? But remember, your job is not to force it to end.
So if you have phobias, anxiety, or PTSD, remember AWARE: Accept, Wait, Action, Repeat, End.
https://www.anxietycoach.com/overcoming-panic-attacks.html
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