Hello, everyone. I'm LunarBlaze and this is my first Fairy Tail fanfic. Please review this story and enjoy!

(I don not own Fairy Tail or any of its characters)

Chapter 1: How did I end up like this?

A stifled cough echoed through the somewhat empty house of Natsu Dragneel and Happy the Exceed. "I HATE being sick. It's so annoying," moaned Natsu in a scratchy, hoarse voice. He had a hard time getting into a comfortable position in his hammock so instead decided on sleeping on the couch. Even so, his couch wasn't too comfortable either. "How did I get sick in the first- I remember now..."

A few days ago...

"Natsu! Did you catch one yet?" shouted Happy as flew over to his adopted father. They had been fishing at the lake for over an hour and had not even gotten a little nibble. Although, it was the middle winter; it was to be expected.

"Nope. Well, it's getting late so we should really-" Before Natsu could react, he was pulled into the freezing water with great force. Happy, frightened by the sudden "attack" on his best friend, began to search all over lake. Then the blue cat heard small splashing which quickly turned into incomplete shouting and hissing and struggling. The flying Happy swiftly followed the sounds of the fight. To his surprise, Happy found the DragonSlayer wrestling a huge fish (and huge as in as eight Elfmans or one huge Makarov).

"You- fish! I'm going- And when I'm done- YOU HEAR ME?" yelled Natsu as he was continuously dragged in and out of the water, unable to finish a single sentence. Finally, the fire mage had enough of the pathetic fight and gave the monstrous fish a taste of his Fire Dragon's Iron Fist. After knocking out the "fish" in a single blow, Natsu sluggishly dragged it out of the water and onto the lake's shoreline where he collapsed next to their dinner.

"Are you okay, Natsu? It took you quite awhile to beat this jumbo fish," Happy asked, afraid that something had happened to his close friend. That's when Happy noticed something was not right with the Fairy Tail mage. He seemed paler and out-of-breath.

"Don't worry, Happy. I'm perfectly! I was just caught off guard that's all." He grinned at his flying companion with his usual toothy smile, but instead of being natural it appeared more... forced. Happy wasn't too sure he could take his word for it but just nodded anyways and began blabbing on and on about how they were going to have a feast that night. Instead, Natsu just blocked out the cat's blabberings and focused on not trying to collapse into a heap of utter exhaustion. He knew things were going to get worse.

And they did.

Two days after the fishing trip, Natsu already felt like he was mauled by Erza multiple times and had no energy what-so-ever to even force his trademark grin. His nakama quickly noticed this change in attitude and personality (Gray tried picking fights with him, Happy and Lucy did everything they could to cheer Natsu up and get him to answer their questions, but Erza just dismissed it as a phase, despite being extremely worried as well) but the pink haired wizard dismissed it as exhaustion from training. Boy, did he make a mistake. A few hours later, Lucy picked out a request that paid a decent amount of money to defeat a thief guild. For Erza, Gray, Lucy and Happy, they thought the request would be a cake walk. As for Natsu, he knew this would not end well.

After they had arrived at their client's house (which the client was sort of a pervert since he tried to look under Lucy's skirt but was quickly slapped away, courtesy of Lucy herself) and received information on the thief guild, Nightmare Needle*, Team Natsu quickly took off to take care of the troublesome guild. They were not only surprised by how easy it was to take care of the lowlife thieves but how much difficulty Natsu had fighting off only five people. "Natsu, are you sure you're alright?" Lucy asked as she lifted her hand up to Natsu's forehead.

"I'm fine," insisted the DragonSlayer as he grabbed Lucy's wrist. That was a mistake on Natsu's part. As soon as Lucy felt his hand she knew Natsu wasn't well. His palm was sticky with sweat and as hot as a burning bonfire.

"Why didn't you tell us you were sick?" snapped Lucy. Natsu thought she was criticizing him for being an idiot, but Lucy was, actually, extremely worried for her nakama's state of health and her nakama himself. But a small part of her was also hurt that the fire mage didn't tell anyone he was ill.

"Luce, I'm really..." Before he could finish, everything began to spin at extreme, his train of thought stopped immediately, and the world around him began to fade into darkness. The last thing Natsu heard was the worried shouts of his nakama. To him, Lucy's cries were the clearest. Two days had passed before he woke up again. Lucy and Happy had filled him in on what happened after he fainted. Apparently, wrestling in freezing cold water in the middle of winter wearing only a vest, pants, sandals, and a scarf was the easiest way to catch a cold, even for a FIRE DragonSlayer. Because Natsu hadn't given the time to rest and recover, the cold had rapidly developed into a high fever. In other words, he had to make up lost time starting at that moment.

Present day

After reminiscing through the memory, the pink haired mage sighed and rolled onto his right side, attempting to try and get comfortable again. He was planning to go on an easy request that paid A LOT (A LOT, A LOT) that he had reserved** before he had left for the thief request. Since he was sick in bed (Or on the couch), Erza, Gray, Lucy and Happy took it for him, promising they'll give the Salamander his share of the reward. "I still wanted to go anyways..." complained the irritated Natsu before he starting coughing from the small amount of strain he put on his throat. "Note to self: don't talk until I feel better." And people THINK Natsu doesn't know how to think logically. They're wrong... one percent of the time. "I'm so bored! What can I do when I'm stuck in bed?"thought Natsu irritably. Then he heard a knock at the door and then a voice; a voice he was too familiar with.

"Natsu, are you awake?"

"Why is 'she' here? I thought she was on the request!" Natsu kept trying to think of what he should do. Three ideas came to mind. Should he A: ignore her and pretend to sleep ("She'd come in anyway."), B: let her come in ("And let her baby me? Actually... in that does sound ni- What am I thinking? Get a hold of yourself, Natsu!") or C: tell her to go away ("That would hurt her feelings... What the heck? I'm not a sissy!"). But the answer was D: "none of the above" for she had already walked in during his "thinking". Natsu was too distracted to notice her until she walked past the couch. "She already came inside! Stupid! Stupid! Stupid! Stupid!" As Natsu continued to mentally call himself "stupid", the girl placed a wet cloth on Natsu's forehead in hopes that it would cool down his fever. At that moment, he noticed the girl's presence next to him. "L-Luce..."

References:

* I couldn't think of a better name for a dark guild… it's very cheesy

** I don't remember if you can reserve requests so I'm just going to roll with it

I'm REALLY sorry if I made Lucy, Natsu, Happy, Gray, or Erza OOC. Again, this is my first time writing a Fairy Tail fanfic. Anyways, what do you think? Please review this story and if I made any mistakes, please tell me. If you liked it, thank you for enjoying it and than be prepared for the next chapter. Until next time!

-LunarBlaze