Life After Near Death

The Wounds Remain

"Friend?" Gray scoffed. "You're not my friend, Natsu."

He felt a sharp pain in his chest hearing that. "We're teammates," he insisted sadly. "I saved you because I want you to live."

"Why?" Gray asked bitterly.

Natsu shouted back, "What the hell do you mean, why?"

"You want me to be on the team. You want to fight with me and go on missions. Isn't that so?"

"Of course—"

"That won't ever happen again!" Gray screamed. He suddenly grabbed his chest and collapsed backward, shivering in pain.

"Gray!" Natsu cried out, reaching out and putting his hand on a sheet-covered leg. "Gray, what's wrong?"

Raspy breaths hissed between his clenched teeth as he shook with agony. "Everything. Every-fucking-thing is wrong. I ... I can't even move, Natsu. Can't get out of bed. Can barely breathe."

"You'll get better," the Dragon Slayer whispered sadly, hating to see Gray in so much pain.

"Better?" he scoffed. "Have you listened to the doctors? Their best case scenarios are that I'll be in a wheelchair. Dammit, I don't want to live like this. Useless, weak, unable to fight."

"But Erza said—"

"Erza's too optimistic. The doctors told me how bad it is. They're not even sure how long it'll take for me to recover from my lungs and stomach. Months! Even if they can fix my gut, the leg is hopeless. I overheard a nurse say it might be better to cut the whole leg off and give me a prosthetic. It's still an option. Frankly, it's a better option than what I've got now." He glanced down and saw Natsu's hand. "Are you touching my leg?"

Natsu looked down at his hand and quickly removed it. "Sorry. Does it hurt?"

Gray laughed sardonically, shaking his head slowly. "I can't feel a thing. Nothing. It's like I don't even have a leg. It's just something there, something for people to stare at. And the right leg: half of it's there, half of it's not. I'll be an invalid for the rest of my life, Natsu. That's what you rescued. Not me. Just a shell of what I was. The real Ice-Make wizard Gray Fullbuster died on that battlefield. I ... should have just died."

Flames sparked over Natsu's body. "Gray, you bastard! Don't you dare say that. Do you really want to be dead?"

"I don't want to live like this," he sneered.

"We worked hard to keep you alive. Can't you accept that we want you to live?"

"You're all just greedy," Gray muttered in depression. "Think about me. I'm the one who has to live through this pain."

"You want pain?" He raised his fist, but Gray suddenly leaned over, coughing harshly. He grabbed his stomach, curled to his side, and began to howl in intense agony.

Erza raced into the room and grabbed Natsu's fist. "What the hell are you doing?" she yelled.

"I ... I didn't hit him," Natsu muttered. His fist lowered. "Gray?"

Gray coughed harder, and blood splattered out of his mouth. His blue eyes opened wide as pain engulfed him. He tried to cover his mouth, but blood poured between his fingers in thick purple-red streams.

Lucy shouted out in the hallway, "Someone, get a doctor. He's hemorrhaging." Then she ran inside. "Gray, cough into this," she said, holding a pan under his mouth.

As Gray leaned over it, he suddenly vomited bile mixed with blood clots. The blood splattered out of the pan, onto his pillows and blankets, and speckled Lucy's arms and her blouse. Gray groaned in agony, holding his stomach.

"Oh God, it hurts," he moaned.

Lucy rubbed his back and softly encouraged him to cough it all up. Although she tried to be calm for his sake, Lucy's face went pale with terror as Gray vomited even more blood and struggled just to breathe.

Natsu watched in shock and horror as the reek of blood filled the room. It was different from when Gray was unconscious and on life support. At that time, he looked peaceful, like he was simply sleeping, although he had been paler than a corpse. Now Gray had color to his cheeks, but Natsu saw how his body was struggling just to live.

Gray began to gag, coughing mouthfuls of blood so much, he could no longer inhale and his lungs began to convulse as they struggled to get air past all the blood. Doctors and nurses rushed in. Natsu, Erza, and Lucy were guided away from the hospital bed as the nurses dealt with the blood and a doctor called to get a breathing tube to help clear Gray's air passage. As the white flurry of coats and nurse uniforms fluttered around, Natsu briefly saw Gray between the bodies. Although his color was draining fast, and blood streaked down his chin and neck, Gray still managed to shoot Natsu a sharp glare that showed bitterness and hatred.

'You forced me to survive. You made me live only to suffer. You did this to me, Natsu. You kept me alive only to exist in utter hell.'

Natsu turned and fled the room. He kept running, fleeing away from the stench of blood and pungency of disinfectants. His keen ears clearly heard a doctor saying that Gray needed surgery, and fast, or he would bleed to death.

Natsu raced down some stairs, through a waiting room, and out the hospital doors, just as an ambulance was pulling up. The man they wheeled in was bleeding heavily.

More blood! The smell was everywhere.

Natsu turned and ran another way. He had to get away from that building and the smell. At some point, he fell. He had tripped on something, he did not see what, and tumbled onto the cobbled road. As he slid, a rock cut open the palm of his hand.

More blood!

"Dammit!" Natsu screamed, frightening people walking along the road.

He stayed there, down on his knees, staring at the trickle of blood flowing from his hand.

Why did people have to bleed? Why did blood have to smell so horrible? Why did Gray have to get hurt like that? Why...?

'Why Gray? Why not me?'

A hand touched his shoulder. Natsu jolted, looked up, and saw gentle eyes amidst scarlet hair. His face felt wet. He reached up and touched his cheek, too numbed to fully realize why there was water streaming down from his eyes. He had no clue when he began to cry.

Erza held her hand out. Natsu took it, and she easily hoisted him back up to his feet.

"Let's go home," she whispered.

Natsu did not move for a while. Erza had also rushed toward Gray when he was coughing up blood, and Natsu saw drying red splatters on her armor.

More blood! It was just too much.

Natsu collapsed into her arms. He could not remember if he had ever cried in front of Erza like this, but somehow, of all the people he knew in Fairy Tail, she was the only one to whom he could admit his weakness. She held him consolingly, and suddenly she Requipped into plain clothes. Instead of hard metal armor, Natsu sobbed into a ruffled blouse. When he grabbed around her, it was to the softness of her back. When she stroked his pink hair, it was not a gauntlet, but Erza's strong yet feminine hands.

Natsu cried, and he did not care if people saw. He sobbed and wailed, clutching onto Erza's blouse, right there in the middle of the street, and nothing else mattered.

He had wanted Gray to get better, to wake up, be happy, and have more fun with him, being rivals and bickering like they had always done.

He never, ever, wanted Gray to truly despise him.