~Year X784~

Lucy sat propped up on pillows in the guild infirmary, thinking over the past few days. I can't believe this. I am a terrible friend. I promised Cana I would help her win the S-class exams so that she could finally tell Gildarts that she was his daughter. Why did I have to get injured? All of her closest friends, sat around her with worried expressions on their faces. She hated this feeling, the feeling of not being able to do anything.

"I'm sorry Cana," Lucy mumbled as she looked down at her hands which were clenched in her lap.

"Don't worry about it Lucy, it's not your fault." Cana said kindly, but it didn't reassure the celestial mage.

"Cana, I promised though…" Lucy trailed off, not wanting to state what she had promised in front of the others.

"Honestly Lucy, its fine. It's not your fault a building fell on you." Cana stated as she stroked the blonde's hair gently. Lucy grimaced slightly and looked away from Cana's kind face.

"Lucy, do you want me to say here with you?" Loke asked, but Lucy shook her head.

"No Loke, you go with Gray, you have to keep your promise with him."

"Are you sure Lucy? I can find someone else to go with." Gray said, half hoping that she would say Loke could go, but also wanting to leave Loke there to keep her safe.

"It's fine Gray, it's only for a couple of days anyway. You two go and win, of course, I'm still hoping Cana wins over the two of you." Lucy said poking out her tongue at them.

"Alright brats! We must get going now." Master Makarov said, "We'll see you when we get back Lucy."

"Bye Mina! And good luck!" Lucy called and they all wished for Lucy to get better soon as they left.

~One week later~

Normal P.O.V.

Lucy lay in the guild infirmary, and she was pissed off. Macao wouldn't let her join the search parties, because she hadn't healed properly yet. Lucy had vehemently protested saying that she could at least go on the boat, but Macao was having none of it. Instead he had asked her to watch over Romeo whilst everyone was out. It wasn't that Lucy didn't like Romeo, she loved the little kid, but she really just wished that he wasn't sitting in the chair next to her.

"Ne, Lucy, I'm bored." Romeo said as he rested his head on the mattress. "Will you read to me?"

"Alright, go and get me a book." Lucy said, and the young boy scurried away to get one. It had become a practice of theirs, over the past few days, for Lucy to read to him. They were both worried about their friends, and reading helped distract them from it, at least for a little while. Romeo soon came back with an old looking tome. Lucy sighed; Romeo had a habit of choosing strange books that were often for learning magic rather than having a story. Romeo handed over the tome and Lucy brushed some dust off of its cover. She made a mental note to clean the guilds library at some point.

Lucy opened up the tome to the table of contents, quickly scanning through it for fire magic. Romeo was pretty much obsessed with fire magic, wishing to be a fire user like Natsu, who was his biggest role model. Lucy quickly leafed through the pages to the section on fire magic. It stretched on for a couple of hundred pages, and Lucy knew she would probably be reading it for the next couple of days. Romeo could only absorb so much knowledge at a time, thus Lucy usually read to him in several sittings with food breaks in between. Lucy began to read for Romeo, as he sat attentively in his chair. Romeo's eyes glistened with excitement as Lucy described the basics of fire wielding. After an hour of reading aloud, Romeo's eyelids began to droop, and his head fell to rest upon the mattress of Lucy's bed. Lucy stroked his hair fondly before placing a bookmark in the tome and putting it gently down on the bedside table. Then she too, quickly fell asleep.

~Three days later~

Macao had finally allowed Lucy out of the guild infirmary, and she was practically jumping for joy. Well, not really, she was too sad about her friends' disappearance, but it still felt damn good to be out of bed. Lucy stood on the deck of a boat, She had tried to summon Loke for seemingly the millionth time. Lucy didn't understand, celestial spirits couldn't die, when they got too severely injured they would just go back to the spirit world, but for some reason, Loke wouldn't come when summoned. Lucy had tried asking her other spirits, but they didn't know either. The Spirit King had told them that Loke was trapped somewhere, and couldn't return to the spirit world. But that didn't stop Lucy from trying to summon him every day, sometimes, several times a day.

The boat continued on its course, with many others moving along with it, all of them searching for even the tiniest piece of cloth that might tell them where their friends are. Lucy draped her arm aver Romeo's shoulders. A silent comfort to the small boy. The two of them looked silently out over the waters, eyes roaming for even the smallest thing floating in the water.

As usual they found nothing. None of the boats even did. They continued searching for the next six months, slowly, the number of people still searching diminished, until all had given up hope. All except Lucy and Romeo. The two of them would often go down to Hargeon and stare at the waters, waiting for any kind of signal that someone had been found.