Lucy paced back and forth in front of her large bed, unable to get in just yet. As appealing it was looking at the moment, she couldn't bring herself to wind down and relax.

Instead, the girl went into her kitchen, made a hot cup of tea, and finally sat down at her table. She tapped her slender fingers against the warm cup, and blew her bangs out of her face. The reason being for her odd behavior was an event that had occurred only that morning.

The team had been on a three day long mission, the norm for something including all of them, and things had gone a bit unexpectedly on their last day finishing the job.

Long story short, Lucy had made the honest mistake of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Early in the morning, she had decided to go for a short run, keeping to herself and not waking anyone to say that she was going to step out. Unbeknownst to her, the group of mage bandits they thought they had taken care of still had some left over people that had been out of town while Team Natsu had taken care of their other members. And unfortunately, they wanted to get even with Fairy Tail.

She had encountered them a ways away from their hotel, and they immediately saw the Fairy Tail tattoo on her hand. Things were getting pretty ugly, as Lucy was majorly outnumbered and had made the wrong choice of leaving all her things back at the hotel.

She had taken a few of them down, thanks to the moves Natsu had forcefully taught her for some reason, but there were still too many. She had somehow ended up encircled by all of them and nearly strangled to death when she was finally caught, but just when she was about to pass out Natsu came out of nowhere and beat the remaining guys to a pulp.

Relief washed over her at the sight of him, but the same couldn't be said for Natsu. Instead he had gotten furious. Spewing things like "You should've told one of us that you were leaving!" And "What were you thinking taking them all on at once?!"

She hadn't understood why he was upset at her of all people, but she didn't need to to yell right back at him.

And so her odd behavior continued.

They hadn't talked for the rest of the day, with only tense silences to send chills down their team members backs. She felt sorry for snapping at him, but still angry she didn't know why he had gotten so upset at her.

Now that she thought about it, taking the last sip of her tea, she was refraining from getting in bed because she was hoping he'd stop by. He usually did. For some reason though, after they got back from the disaster that occurred in Crocus, he hadn't come by that often. And now that it was almost eleven in the evening, her hopes of making up that day were growing slimmer.

Sighing, she put her head on her table, and shut her eyes, unintentionally falling into a light sleep.

About two hours later, Lucy awoke to the feeling of overly warm arms wrapping under legs and around her back, followed with the feeling of being lifted into the air.

She cracked her eyes open and noticed she was moving closer to her bed, and yet she wasn't the one moving at all.

Sudden realization burst inside her like a steaming teapot and she jumped out of the pair of arms, whirling around to see a surprised face.

"Natsu?!"

She wrapped her arms around her torso, noticing how cold it had gotten and immediately missed his warmth.

"What are you doing here?" Her clock now read twelve-thirty in the morning.

Natsu, in his tall form, scratched his head and leaned against her table.

"I came to check up on you… see if you were okay from this morning…"

He fidgeted with his fingers as he looked downward, something he rarely did unless he had something he wanted to say.

"And when I did I saw you'd fallen asleep at your table so I figured I'd just put you in your bed…"

Lucy, a bit miffed at the hour spoke again, "Okay fair enough. But why couldn't you have just come in the morning like a normal person?" she stepped a bit closer to him, and to her surprise he tensed up at her movement.

"What is it?" she questioned.

He looked up at the girl and knew he should've had every reason to smile at what he saw. Her hair was a mess, her lips were puffy, and her eyes had a sleepy look still lingering in them. She was her usual unguarded and beautiful Lucy, but he couldn't bring himself to smile.

"I can't sleep…" he simply said. It was half the truth.

Her brow raised, frustrated, "Alright let me get something straight. First you yell at me for no reason after I almost get strangled to death," she saw him flinch at those words, "you don't talk to me for the rest of the day, and now in the middle of the night you break to check up on me and say you can't sleep?"

He simply nodded.

She threw her hands in the air, exasperated, "Alright, you have two seconds to tell me what's really wrong."

Lucy was about to have any of this silence bullshit. She was going to get it out of him one way or another.

One.

Silence.

Two.

No answer.

"Alright, that's it."

She then lunged at him from the side, and collided with his chest, the both of them landing on the floor with a loud thud.

Immediately, before he could try and escape her grasp, she straddled him and put her hands on both sides of his face, forcing him to look her in the eye.

She spoke slowly now, her nose just an inch or two from his, "Now, tell me what's wrong."

Natsu, who would surely blush in the particular position, couldn't even do that. Instead, he felt his face contort into a pained expression. There were no words he could form, in his mind at least, that would convey what he needed to say correctly.

"I'm sorry."

An apology seemed a good way to start.

"For?"

He sighed, "For earlier, I guess…"

"You guess?"

"Lucy, you aren't making this easy for me…"

"I didn't know I needed to."

"Fair enough…"

"You said you couldn't sleep. Start with that."

Another sigh escaped his lips, "It's partially true….. But when I actually do get sleep, I have these… nightmares. Every time."

Lucy sucked in a sharp breath. She knew how this sort of thing worked. It's a lose lose situation. You don't sleep, and you feel awful, you do sleep and the dreams make you feel even worse.

"What are they about?" she asked softly.

Natsu didn't want to answer. He didn't like exposing this stuff to anyone, not even Happy. So this was a ridiculously hard thing for him to do.

And precisely because this was Lucy straddling him and asking for answers was the reason this was so difficult.

A few more seconds passed and he finally got one word out.

"You."

Lucy blinked, and moved back a little from his face, searching his eyes, which he immediately covered with his forearm.

"Natsu."

"What?" his voice was turning hoarse, and it burned a hole in her gut.

"Natsu. Natsu, why are your nightmares about me?" she gripped his arm and tried to pull it off his face but it was useless.

Shit… shit. Natsu thought. This was going the complete opposite way he wanted.

Lucy, at a loss for what to do, bent all the way down and laid on top of him, wrapping her arms underneath his neck in an attempt to hug him.

"It's ok. It's fine. You don't have to answer, just let me help."

Seeing him like this was like a slap in the face. She was too busy looking at him as this indestructible guy, when even he had things like this to deal with.

Giving up on his fight to restrain himself as she gripped him in an embrace, he shot his arms out and held her as tightly as possible without hurting her.

He'd wanted to do this, and more, since the day they had gotten back from Crocus. Afters seeing her die like that… it messed him up. Though he'd done a hell of a job covering it up. Until now at least.

As if getting a reminder of that day every time he saw her wasn't enough, his subconscious decided that it needed to haunt his dreams too. Every night it was the same scene over and over again, and he eventually decided to give up on sleep. Though that only worked out as well as you'd imagine.

"I just…" he spoke into the silent room, "I wasn't mad at you earlier, just so you know."

"Then why yell at me?" she replied into his neck.

"See you like that… almost passed out in that bastards arms brought back some…stuff and I just panicked…."

"But you saved me in the end, so what was the problem?"

"What if I can't do that every time?"

'You won't have to. I can take care of some things on my own you know."

"But what happened in Crocus-"

"Ahh." Lucy stopped him, finally realizing what this was about.

"Natsu that was a completely different circumstance. You can't compare that crazy experience to everything else we do."

"It's not that easy…"

"I don't think it's supposed to be, and that," she finally released him and sat up bit to look at his face, "is why you're going to let me help."

Lucy bent forward and touched her forehead to his, just like he had done with her future self.

Taking in her soft features, and finally feeling a small wave of calm wash over his body, he sat upwards and hugged her again, sighing in content when he felt her arms wrap around his back.

"I get the left side of the bed."

"It's been waiting for you dummy."