Here goes my second fanfiction! I hope you all enjoy it. I have already written several chapters ahead, so I will try to post rather quickly. Disclaimer: I do not own Fairy Tail.

Summary

As Fairy Tail settles back into its old ways after the year split, all the members are returning to their normal, boisterous, destructive selves. That is everyone except Lucy. As she contemplates her loss of Aquarius she finds herself questioning her actions as not only a member of Team Natsu and Fairy Tail, but also as a mage entirely.

Chapter 1

The guild doors slam open drawing zero attention from the rambunctious group. The blonde celestial mage, normally cheery, stomps her way to the bar.

"Want your normal?" Mira curiously asks.

Lucy shakes her head, "No make it strong… and cheap." She scowls down at the bar. Mira nods in understanding.

"Lucy, we can just…" a pink haired mage coming up behind her says.

She cuts him off with a glare that could rival Erza's. Natsu immediately stops causing Gray to bump into him.

"Watch it Flame Brain!" Gray shouts at him.

"What'd you call me Ice Princess?" Natsu fires back. They start to brawl in the center of the guild ignoring the anger radiating off of Lucy. She smacks her head against the bar hard.

Mira winces and hands her a drink. She mumbles something resembling a thank you into the bar sits up throwing the whole glass down at once. She motions for another one to which Mira quickly obliges not wanting to be caught in this girl's wrath. Lucy was always happy and very rarely annoyed. Mira had never seen her truly angry, and when the cheerful ones are angry it's best to stay clear.

After downing her second drink in a gulp, she has drawn the attention of the resident alcoholic. "What's botherin' ya Lucy?" Cana asked her.

"Stupid dragon slayer, stupid ice stripper, stupid flying cat…" Lucy mutters to herself. Mira and Cana look at each other at a loss as Mira pours her another drink.

"We're not slayers, Lucy, you're gonna have to speak up…" Cana hesitantly prods.

"And thank Mavis for that! Otherwise, I'd have nowhere to drink because you woulda prolly destroyed the bar by now!" Lucy shouts back at the two then slumps into her next drink.

They both nod in understanding. Team Natsu was known for two things. One, being the strongest team Fairy Tail put out, and two, being the most destructive team. Both were truly a significant feat as the guild was filled with both powerful and extremely destructive mages.

"Where was Erza?" Mira asks.

Lucy groans, "Got a letter from…" Mira and Cana both nod understanding she meant Jellal, but everyone kept it on the down low. "Though, she might have made the whole thing worse! Sometimes she can be just as bad as those two!"

"So, what's got ya bothered? This isn't exactly new?" Cana asks. She gets that it was annoying, but they had come back many times like this and the blonde was never this irate.

"My rent is due in three days! And thanks to these idiots I can't afford it! On top of that, if I'm late again, I'll get kicked out!" Lucy whines.

"How much are you short?" Mira asked.

"5,000 Jewel," she sighs laying her head back down on the counter. It wasn't an absurd amount, but Mira knew she should have had more than enough from the mission they came back from. They must have barely gotten any of the reward.

"Why don't you just go solo?" Evergreen who had wandered up in the middle of the conversation asked. She was going to hand Mira the job for her team, but was both humored and annoyed at Team Natsu's antics.

"Oh, I've tried!" Lucy says turning to Evergreen. "If I go anywhere near that request board, those two are all over me."

Evergreen thinks to herself then marches off to one side of the guild. The three girls just shrug thinking she was over Lucy's issue. Much to their surprise, they hear Evergreen's thwap from her fan. They all turn to see she had hit Elfman across the back of the head.

"Here you are, bragging about how much of a man you are yet you have yet to win one guild brawl!" Evergreen accuses Elfman.

"I'll show you how a real man fights!" Elfman shouts then dives into the solo battle between Gray and Natsu bringing several others with him.

Evergreen marches back over to the gawking ladies at the bar, "Don't sit there and gawk at me, although I know I'm gorgeous," she adds with a wink. When she's closer she lowers her voice, "Now's your chance." She nods her head towards the request board.

Lucy shakes herself out of her stunned reverie and cracks a small devious smile. She bolts to the board grabs a day long mission and slaps it on the counter for Mira to approve. She quickly jots it down in the book, and Lucy turns to head out of the guild. She freezes realizing she might catch their attention if she went out the front door. She turns to the side door smiling in gratitude to Evergreen, "Thanks Ever! I owe you one!"

Evergreen despite her self smiles, but covers by saying, "Only the Ranjishu can call me that!"

Lucy half turns and smirks at her giving her a small wink. She raises her hand in a 'Goodbye,' but is shocked when she runs into a sturdy, muscled chest.

"Oh," she blinks up at the blonde haired mage in surprise. "Sorry Laxus didn't see you there." Freed look affronted that someone would run into Laxus, but Bixlow just chuckled at the scene.

"Yeah, because he's so easy to miss," Bixlow laughs. 'Miss, miss, miss,' his totems chant.

Laxus casts him an annoyed glance, but peers down at the celestial mages who had cast a worried glance back at the rumble in the center of the guild. "No problem, where ya headed so quickly?"

"Gotta mission, solo, gotta go, bye," she was inarticulate as she kept glancing towards the center of the guild hall. At the end, she darts past them all and out a side door.

Laxus shrugs at her peculiar behavior and raises an eyebrow at a beaming Evergreen.

"Oh no," Ever says raising her hands, "You want the story, get it from her." She gets her job paper stamped and the four of them head out of the guild hall on a mission of their own.

A day later, Lucy is walking back along the canal with Plue. She was absolutely thrilled. She handled the mission on her own, and it was a breeze. Best of all, she got to keep the entire reward. Not only could she pay her rent in time, but she actually had enough to restock her fridge for the rest of the month! Well, until Happy and Natsu raided it again.

She pushed her payment through the landlady's mail slot, and she hummed to herself as she went through a relaxing routine of a bath, hot tea, and working on her novel. She fell asleep without a care in the world.

The next day at the guild she was surprised to hear that Natsu and Gray had been dragged away by Erza. She had come back looking for all of them to help assist Jellal. Mira explained how peeved they were that she had left on a mission without telling them, but Erza made them get over it and drug them out of the guild hall. She said they would be gone for at least a week.

There was a split second where Lucy was sad to be left behind, but the moment was so fleeting that she wasn't sure if it was even there. She was excited to get to spend more time alone. She decided to have a casual breakfast chatting it up with Mira, Cana, and Levy. Levy and Lucy decided to take a small mission to just spend time together and make some easy money. They were gone for most of the day, but they had a blast getting to catch up and making some money was just a bonus. The jewel wasn't high, but she quickly realized that it could add up quick kind of like when Natsu and her watched Asuka for the day. They agreed to start taking more of these in the future.

At the end of the day, she decided to spend the rest of the week training with her spirits. She had discussed it with Loke and Capricorn in the past, but Team Natsu always wanted to join and although they did try to help they were just a burden. She told Mira not to expect her for the rest of the week.

The next morning she headed out to a clearing just outside of Magnolia. It was secluded enough to train, but not too far away. Her mornings were spent sparring with Loke and learning how to control her fleuve d'étoiles with Virgo. The afternoons she spent working on her star dress with her various spirits. She would conclude the day by working on holding open multiple gates and emptying out her magic container. She wanted to increase its size, so she could hold more than two gates open without almost fainting like she did with Aquarius… She shook her head. She couldn't let that sting bring her down, but even so she rubbed her hand across the broken key as she fell asleep her final thought being to her lost friend, "I'll become so strong, I can summon you without a key…" She knew it was silly, but the thought gave her hope.

Each day for the next week was spent like this. She was always exhausted falling into her sleeping bag each night dreaming of her reunion with Aquarius. While she only spent a week, her sparring had improved dramatically. She was excited to be able to fight alongside her spirits more, and they were encouraging her all the same. She was also working on opening more gates at a time. So far, two golds was still pretty strenuous, but she had managed to pull out Plue on the last day with two golds. Capricorn was very impressed. They all knew she had done it before, but everyone still felt like Aquarius might have used some of her own power to come out, not totally, but a little. They did know however that Lucy was more than capable of summoning three Zodiac keys with the proper training.

The last day she emptied her container by chatting with Capricorn, Loke, and Plue around the fire. They were all just starting to fade away as the last of her magic ended, but she could see the pride in their eyes.

She was just about to go to bed when she felt something slimy. She leaped up screaming, "Oh Mavis! Gross! It's on me! It's on me!" She was jumping around doing a weird jig and patting frantically at her legs.

"Blondie?" a deep voice calls out from the shadows. She immediately grabs her whip and launches it at the voice. She hears a hiss when it strikes his flesh.

"How dare you attack the great and honorable Laxus!" Freed jumps out of the shadows rapier razed.

She immediately retracts her whip, "Oh sorry! I didn't mean to!"

"Damn Cosplayer! You were fast enough to hit him!" Bixlow said whistling. 'Fast, Fast, Fast,' his totems called.

They all moved into the fire light of Lucy's little camp. Lucy puts a hand on her heart, "Sorry, I didn't realize it was you guys! You scared me!"

Ever whapped Freed with her fan, "Lower that damned thing. We did sneak up on the poor girl."

Freed tisked and put his rapier away, "Well, she was the one screaming."

Lucy blushed, "Oh, that…" They all waited patiently for an answer. "There was a bug on me."

There was a moment of silence then all the males of the group started laughing. Ever gave an apologetic smile completely agreeing with Lucy on how disgusting bugs were.

They ended up joining her for the night instead of heading the rest of the way back to Magnolia. They were just returning from their mission which Lucy was thrilled to hear all about. She thanked Ever again for covering for her telling her that it actually got her this extra week of training too!

"Trainings working," Laxus commented. Lucy raised an eyebrow in surprise. Yeah Laxus had opened up to the guild, but he was still one of the strongest next to the Master and Gildarts. To get praise from him made her want to train even harder. The rest of the group seemed surprised as well. He shrugged at all of the attention, "She was fast enough to hit me." Everyone nodded in agreement, albeit Freed did so begrudgingly.

They ended up talking late into the night and returned to the guild together. When they arrived, people turned their heads in surprise at how casually they were all conversing with each other. No one had really seen Lucy with the Ranjishu or Laxus, so they were all surprised at the smiles on all of their faces as they exchanged banter.

Natsu came charging up throwing his arm around Lucy dragging her away, "Luce! Mira said you went on a mission without me! I get not brining Popsicle, but me!"

"Hey Ash for Brains!" Gray said punching the back of his head tossing his arm around Lucy. "But, seriously Lucy what's up? Did you go with the Ranjishu?" She could hear the hurt in his voice.

"Oh no. Nothing like that. I did a solo mission to pay off my rent. Then when I got back you guys were all gone…"

Erza cut her off, "I'm truly sorry about that. I didn't mean to leave you for our last mission where, I hear these two royally misbehaved," she glared daggers at the two which had them clutching each other in fear. "Then we had to leave you behind on our covert operation," Erza looked sorry.

"Don't worry about it! I went on a short mission with Levy, then I went and trained for a week!"

"So, you weren't with the Ranjishu?" Gray asked again still a bit protective of his teammate.

"No, we just came back at the same time," Lucy reasoned with them. They all stared at her a minute and decided to accept that as her answer.

"Well fine, but time for us to do a full team mission. Wendy's back so let's grab her too!" Natsu shouts.

"My turn to pick the mission," Gray shouts!

"Not if I get their first, Stripper!" Natsu shouts back. They both bolt towards the board ending up in a ball of flying fists.

Erza sighs mumbling something about the two behaving more like monkeys than mages before heading off to select the mission and get Wendy.

Lucy just stood there and sighed. She caught a glance of the Ranjishu at their regular table glancing down at her curiously. Ever gave her a look of sympathy, but she just gave her a small shrug and a smile. She was slightly excited about the budding friendship, and it gave her just the boost she needed to bring her back to her old smiling self.