Author's Note: I by all means do not own Fairy Tail or these amazing characters, the lovely wizard, Hiro Mashima, does.

YOU DO NOT HAVE TO READ THESE STORIES IN ORDER!

I highly suggest reading them however and whichever way your needs please. These are all short-stories unless stated otherwise and have no connections whatsoever with each other. Pick your favorite number, a title- anything! The fate and setting that you plop yourself into with Natsu and Lucy lies with you!

I hope you enjoy them and please leave any feedback (just don't be a bully if you don't like it) constructive criticism is always appreciated! And it's always nice to hear what you guys think.

Okay, I bid you farewell!

Day I

She dipped her feet into the dark water. The sun was setting and bled a scarlet-orange onto the sidewalk. The shadows of the buildings contoured across the pavement, grazing the skirt of the passing lake. Swerving her feet, she splashed the water lazily sending ripples across its skin. They stretched and stretched, one after another until they eventually surmised and the water was still again.

Plue tugged at the seams of her shirt and pointed at the now lonely lollipop stick, she smiled and rubbed his head and drew him onto her lap. She squeezed him tighter against her chest until he squirmed from her grip, soliciting a weak laugh from her lips before she let him go again.

It was the one year anniversary of Jude Heartfilia's death. There was an empty feeling inside of Lucy that felt even more foreign to her than on any other day. It was different living without her father even though she hadn't stayed in communication with him nor had gotten along with him for most of her life, something left a gap inside her body.

He wasn't in Magnolia anymore. He wasn't anywhere anymore. He was gone, buried six feet underground being decomposed and reused by the earth. And it was probably why she felt so at odds with herself. She'd never forgotten how she felt the day she'd lost her mother. Regardless of her age then, the memory and the saw splitting through her stomach feeling was vivid to her. It wasn't even her own father who had broken the news to her, but one of her attendants. "Lucy, darling," the honey in the voice was so fake. Expired, that's what she thought. Coated sugar gone bad and hard. "Your mother," she said. "Y-Your mother… she's gone."

Thinking of it now, Lucy couldn't help but feel bitter. She wanted to laugh thinking of what she responded, "When will she come back?"

And the attendant, her name Pamela, only dropped to her knees and hugged her. Then, somehow, Lucy understood her mother would never be coming back. It wasn't a family meeting, a business trip that'd take a week at most, her mother was inevitably gone.

And now so was her father.

But she didn't have a vivid image in her mind of him. Thinking of it now, she couldn't even really imagine his face anymore. The creases in his face were matted into a blurred canvas. Maybe that's why she felt so wretched and wrong. Maybe it was because now she wasalone that it hurt so badly. It was selfish—and she knew it—but it was just how she felt.

Lucy turned to look at Plue who was snuggled close to her lap snoring away blissfully, she smiled and poked his side. "You can go back now, Plue," she said. He opened a lazy eye and stared up at the brown eyed girl and nodded. A golden light took the figure of the white dog and then he was gone.

She stood up and wiped the dirt off her bottom and started turning to her apartment when she was stopped by the frantic calls of her name. The wisps of her hair floated as she turned to look towards where the shouts were coming from, far to her right she could spot two tiny dots rushing towards her at full speed. The dirt they ran through was being lifted around them and soon enough the two dots she saw from a distance were standing in front of her, signs of the sprint they had just finished nowhere to be seen.

"Natsu, Happy?" she asked surprised, "What is it?"

The Salamander flashed his famous grin, "We got a job!"

Lucy felt her nerves calm down as the two beamed at her with sure eyes, a soft smile took over her lips, "Oh."

"All we have to do is—"

"Sorry, Natsu. I don't want to go on a job today," Lucy cut him off.

Natsu's grin fell from his face and he stared back like she'd told him Fairy Tail was gone. "Why not?"

She shrugged and turned for her door, "Not today, okay?"

"Are you sure, Lucy?"

With her hand still on the doorknob, she turned to look at the blue cat and the Dragon Slayer. "Yeah, I'm sure," she said before closing herself in. She slid down the face of the door and curled up against it, taking in deep breaths until she felt the knot wedged between her throat ease.

"Get up, girl."

Lucy's head snapped to the voice, her legs bouncing up on their heels at the order. "You pay rent to cry after a break-up in your room."

She opened her mouth to answer, the Land Lord was so sure about her and Natsu being more than friends. She let her win this time, "Right, sorry."

"And tell your boyfriend to stop going through the window! People are starting to think I have burglars coming in here. How am I supposed to get more people to move in with that pink haired kid looming like a thief? I find him doing it one more time, I tell you I have the mind to…"

Lucy's smile followed her up the stairs as she reached the dim glow of her hallway.

Her room was more barren that night than it normally was, it could have been for the fact that Natsu wasn't climbing through her window with Happy. She walked over to her bookshelf and pulled out a velvet covered album from the top shelf and sat down on the floor.

On the first page of the album were pictures of Jude and Layla when they were younger, at their wedding, Lucy's mom and her celestial spirits, her father smiling. Black and white snapshots at the park, her dad tilting her mom over the pond of their mansion. Layla blindfolding Jude, Cancer giving Jude a haircut. She continued to go through the pages of the velvet album until she entered their lives. Moments all frozen in some space of time. She was never in them, would never relive them, but she knew about them through these fragmented pixels on parchment.

She stopped at the first picture of her family: her mother held her small body in her arms with little effort, tears streamed down her face and touched the corners of her smile. Her father sat beside her, he pulled the white sheet that wrapped around Lucy's tiny body back a bit to get a better look at her. This photo was in color unlike the others that were tinted sepia or black and white. As Lucy stared at the photo and took in every detail that she could, she could see, just barely, the water that grew in her father's eye. They looked happy, both her father and mother, over this little body that was wrapped in a white cotton blanket.

Seeing the picture of her birth after the little stories of her parents' life it struck just how much she didn't know them. Reallyknow them. And it was weird how they just accepted her. They'd known each other for many years before her. Together they'd laughed, fought, and teased each other just before her existence. They'd known her—at least for the most part—longer than she'd known them. They'd gone through her beginning, even if it was just that, but Lucy had only gone through part of their ending. She didn't know what made them the way they were. She didn't know why her father was the way he was and what caused him to be that way. All she knew was that he was like that and there weren't any memories with her that said otherwise.

If she'd known him before, she'd know he wasn't so bad. Because he wasn't, but he was.

As the pages of the album continued, Lucy grew up along with her mother and father. The pages were filled with smiles and laughter held in time through a photo. Moments Lucy could barely recall were frozen by pixels. But then they slowly stopped. Layla was no longer in the photographs and then it was Jude's presence gone missing and soon it was just Lucy and her smile that wasn't as vibrant as it was in the beginning. She closed the album and clutched it to her chest as she lay on the floor of her room.

The tears came without warning, starting as simple drips and then they released themselves into thick and heavy sobs filled with years of hidden pain. She didn't have her mom. She didn't even have her dad. And she wanted him now. It wasn't his fault. It wasn't.

"Why'd he have to go and change too late? Why couldn't he realize before— before I grew to hate him?!" she shouted out into the empty room. She clutched the album deeper into her ribs and squeezed it tighter until her knuckles turned white. Anger, anguish, whatever she was feeling was knocking at her ribcage and begging for acknowledgement. She cried until she couldn't anymore, until it was all out in the form of tears and her mind grew tired and she fell into a deep sleep.

When Natsu climbed through Lucy's window he didn't expect to find her on the floor with tear streaked cheeks. He moved silently through the room and knelt beside her sleeping body. She was gripping a velvet covered book in her arms, like a snake would with its prey. He reached for it carefully not to wake the sleeping girl. As the book slipped into his reach, something escaped out of the bindings and slid across the floor. Without making any noise he walked over to the small piece of paper that was tucked inside and held it in his hands.

It was a letter from Lucy's father.

Lucy, I want you to know that I will love you forever.

He looked from the letter to Lucy and found the answer to her tears in both. After he'd returned the letter into its designated spot and placed the book back on the shelf, he lifted the girl off the ground and placed her on her bed, careful not to wake her. Without any other reason to stay in her bedroom he reached out for the window ready to leave but something grabbed at his wrist and held him back. He looked down at his arm and then up at the sleepy-eyed Lucy that stared back with faded eyes.

"N…Natsu, don't go."

Red beamed in his cheeks as the warmth from her grip ran to his face. "Please…stay," she whispered as her head fell back on the pillow. Natsu looked out the window and then back at her before closing it and positioning himself beside her.

"L-lay down," she yawned. He did as she said. Lucy shifted her body enough to stare at him through half-shut eyes. It was different. Really different and Natsu didn't know how to react in such a foreign situation. His body was tense, his cheeks an involuntary scarlet, and his heart was ready to burst. And it didn't stop there either, Lucy took his hand and filled the space between their bodies.

Natsu turned his head to look at Lucy, her eyes were closed and her breathing was slow and even. Her features were soft and calm, if Natsu hadn't known better he would have thought she was a doll. "Natsu… I…" her voice drifted into a soft smile and Natsu just continued to watch her with blended curiosity and wonder. He closed his eyes and focused on the warmth her hand radiated through his skin.

He had never been this close to a person before, let alone felt such warmth like the one he was feeling right then. He closed his eyes and took in a deep breath, it made him think of Igneel. The pulsing feeling of familiarity was something he hadn't felt in seven years. He squeezed Lucy's hand gently.

He didn't want to lose this warmth too.