Someone's crying.
No, not someone. Me. The thoughts jolted Levy awake, pulling her from an anything but peaceful slumber. Indeed, she found that she had been crying in her sleep. Again. Sitting up, she wiped her wet face and rubbed her sore eyes. She had woken up the same way for the last week. Ever since her last job.
Instead of going to the kitchen to make herself something to eat, she laid back down, curling up on her side. Her stomach growled loudly in protest, but she ignored it. Did I eat dinner? She couldn't remember. Everything just felt like a blur. Her friends tried to comfort her, but she couldn't hear them. Time passed, but she couldn't feel it. Pain. That was all she could feel.
Only pain.
After some time—or maybe none at all—she pulled herself from bed, unable to ignore the twisting in her gut any longer. Stay strong. She could hear the words in her head, but they had no effect.
"Levy." She gasped, spinning on her heel at the sound of the voice. His voice. Her shoulders sagged when she looked down an empty hallway. No one was there but her. It was only her.
As she entered the kitchen, she paused. Staring at the framed pictures on the walls, she suddenly remembered why she had been staying in bed. Looking at the smiling people in the photographs, she felt even more hollow than she had before. New tears filled her eyes as she took one of them from the wall to look at it.
This photograph had always been her favorite. In it, she had been wearing a beautiful wedding gown, and had been staring into the eyes of her new husband. Gajeel. Even thinking his name caused a new wave of anguish to wash over her.
It was a year ago today that we got married, she thought, the photograph appearing blurry through her tear-filled eyes. It's not fair. They hadn't even gotten a year together.
A sudden, over-whelming anger rushed through her as she stared at his smiling face, his eyes so full of love. Turning, she threw the photo as hard as she could, watching as it shattered against the wall, sending glass all over the tiled kitchen floor.
"I hate you," she sobbed, sinking to the floor. "Why did you leave me?"
As she went to wipe away her fresh tears, she paused, staring down at her arms. Both of them were covered in jagged, white scars. Proof that she had fought to save him. Proof that he was really gone.
Proof that she had been too weak.
"You have to come back," she whispered through her tears, "you can't leave me behind like this. It's not fair."
Although she knew she must sound crazy, talking to herself like that, she didn't care. She couldn't care anymore. As she sat in the silence of the empty home she had shared with Gajeel, she felt alone. Her friends would have been there with her if she had let them, she knew that, but she couldn't bear to be with them. Not when she felt so utterly lost.
If only she had convinced him not to go on that job. If only she had realized sooner they had been walking into a trap.
If only I had been stronger. The guilt plagued her, weighing even heavier with the crushing weight of his loss.
Her stomach suddenly growled again, reminding her that she needed to eat something. Knowing she couldn't starve herself, she made her way to her feet, wiping yet again at the tears on her face and in her eyes.
Stay strong. The words repeated in her mind once more as she made her way over to the refrigerator. That's right. I have to stay strong, don't I? Because she had promised Gajeel she would. As she had held him in her arms while he took his last breaths, he had made her promise to live—to live a full life for the both of them. So she had promised.
And it wasn't just Gajeel's promise keeping her from giving up anymore. No, there was something else she had to live for. Someone else.
Levy placed her hands over her stomach, the tiny bulge there her only light in the pitch black she had been living in since Gajeel's death. It had been the only speck of hope she had been able to feel—the only glimmer of happiness she had been able to imagine.
No, she told herself, a smile tugging at her lips. Gajeel hadn't left her, not completely. He had given her a precious gift, something to keep his memory and their love alive.
He had given her a new life. Their new life.
"Gajeel, we're going to have a baby."
