Today was the biggest day of Lucy's life.

Forget the day she joined Fairy Tail, the day she married Natsu, or the birth of their first child last year. Those were all important days to her – hugely important of course – but they were about to be topped by today.

Today was the day that Lucy's book was being released.

"You look pretty," Natsu said reassuringly, as she fretted in front of the mirror, smoothing out her pencil skirt once more. She would be meeting Levy at Magnolia's largest book store in an hour. Levy had arranged for her to do a signing and a Q&A session, much to Lucy's horror. Levy was her editor and also her fiercest advocate – Lucy would never have had the courage to finish her book and submit it to a publisher without Levy's unwavering support.

She gave up on her skirt and sighed. Natsu was right. "I'm scared," she admitted.

He kissed her on the cheek, then handed her their son for a hug. He'd be watching with the baby from the audience.

"You've defeated monsters that could level a continent," he reminded her. "Normal humans shouldn't be scary after that at all."

Lucy's heart sank when she arrived at the book store, which wasn't open yet, and there was a line of dozens of people outside the door. What would have been worse – nobody showing up at all, or this many? She almost bolted back home.

Levy waved her down from the crowd.

"Come in, come in," Levy said excitedly, and pulled her inside the building, leaving Natsu to find a place in line with the baby next to Gajeel, who had also been relegated to babysitting duties.

There was a table inside the small bookstore, and seats set up for an audience. Lucy nearly started crying when she saw the stack of books on the table, ready to be signed and sold.

"Mrs. Dragneel," the bookstore owner said by way of greeting. He shook her hand. "I'm very excited to be the host for your opening day."

Lucy smiled gratefully at him. "I'm thrilled to be here myself."

She settled at one of the chairs at the table, Levy taking one next to her. She stared at the stack of books, still marveling that it had come to this.

Ten years. Ten years she had spent writing her story. It had become an escape during crisis at the guild, a source of comfort during some of her darkest hours. Although the characters were all original, they were based loosely on her friends – her family – and she had breathed life into the words such that they sung on the page.

She saw Natsu and their son filter in with the rest of the audience, and gave her baby a little wave. He recognized his mama at the front of the room, and waved back.

"All right, thank you for coming out to the release party for Lucy Heartfilia Dragneel's first book, The Heart of the Party," Levy began, and started clapping. The audience joined in, and Lucy blushed down to her toes.

"We'll start with any audience questions!"

"Oh, that was rough," Lucy admitted when they were finally back home. She flopped down on the couch, and gratefully took her son from Natsu.

"I thought you did well," Natsu said with his signature grin. "Everyone seemed to love it." He leaned over and kissed her forehead. "I loved it."

"We'll see how well it sells outside of the fan club," Lucy said wryly. "I know most of that audience was in Levy's book circle."

"Book people all stick together," Natsu said, and waggled his fingers at the baby, who grabbed at them, enjoying the play. Natsu was a wonderful father, and Lucy hoped that soon she could give their son another little brother or sister. "They'll talk to their friends about how wonderful it is, and the bookstore will have your stack of extra autographed copies up front for weeks. Plus, I saw that Sorcerer's Weekly had an announcement."

"Really?" Lucy squeaked. "I didn't ask Jason-"

"Lucy, one of their own reporters just published a book. Of course they wanted to brag about it." He patted her on the head. "All that's left is to get Hisui to write you a review and you're golden."

"Natsu!" she shrieked, throwing a pillow at him over the baby's head, but she was laughing. "I can't ask the princess to write a review of my book!"

"I bet she'll be hurt if you don't send her a signed copy."

Lucy paused – Natsu actually had a point. Her publisher had given her a few dozen copies to mail out to friends, and sending one to Princess Hisui didn't seem like a bad idea, when she rolled the idea around in her head.

"Okay, I'll mail it to her. But I'm NOT going to ask her to review it. That's just… petty."

"Ah, but if she does it on her own accord, you won't complain."

"No, I won't." Lucy sighed, the reality of it all sinking in. "It's a weird feeling, finally accomplishing your life goal."

"I'm glad yours had a happier end than mine did."

"Natsu…" She reached out to touch his hand. He'd finally met Igneel again, only to lose him shortly after. Then learning Zeref was his brother, only to then discover that he was created to be the one being, human or demon, who could kill him.

"Well, your third life goal was to have the biggest family that you could, was it not?" Lucy smiled and shifted the baby. "Maybe we ought to work on furthering that goal…."

Wordlessly, Natsu plucked the baby off her lap, gave him a quick cuddle before dropping him in the crib, and then grabbed Lucy's hand very gently. Natsu never needed asking twice.

I'm a novelist, she thought hazily as she followed him to their bedroom. I'm a wife. I'm a mother.

But most of all, I'm happy.

1000 word drabble on a topic that is pretty dear to me right now – like Lucy in this story, my first book is now available for sale! I'm published on Amazon Kindle exclusively under the pen name Catherine Blakeney. Please look for my work of original fiction, An Imperfect Princess, available for $2.99 or as part of the Kindle Unlimited program for free. (Make sure to READ the whole thing if you get it for "free" from KU since it doesn't pay me unless people read it, haha.)

Thank you for reading my fanfictions over the years!