A/N: What a nice time to get writer's block on Lucid; right after I promised to start posting it after finishing the current chapter.

Anyways, this was asked for by roguescribe on Tumblr weeks ago with the prompt: "I'm just glad you're safe. I wouldn't know what to do if I lost you."

"I'm going on that job, Natsu, whether you like it or not!" Lucy shouted as she tried storming out of the guild hall again.

"Lucy!" Natsu called after. "Just wait!"

Lucy whipped around to face him again. "I can do solo missions, okay!? I don't need you or Erza or anyone with me!"

"No one's saying that you do!" Natsu insisted. "Please, just don't go on that one! I have a really bad feeling about it!"

"I'm going!"

"At least take me with you!"

"Natsu, it's good money and if I brought you then you'd probably end up destroying something and making me lose half the pay!"

"Please."

Lucy rolled her eyes. "I'll be fine. I'll see you in a few days or so."

oOo

Natsu had continued urging for Lucy to take him up until the point that she finally left, him feebly waving as the train left the station with Lucy on it, headed for a job halfway across Fiore. It was supposed to be simple. She had to retrieve some magical plant from a random forest and deliver it to some rich guy in a town even further away from Magnolia than the forest was.

Of course, Natsu being Natsu, he'd followed her.

He knew he shouldn't have. He knew she'd get mad.

But Natsu just had a really really bad feeling about the mission from the moment he'd seen Lucy grab it. He didn't even like her going on missions alone in the first place.

Obviously, he couldn't very well take the train with her, so he'd had to try and get to the forest on foot as quickly as possible.

He followed her scent, and was overjoyed when he finally caught a stronger whiff of it, meaning he was getting closer.

But as he approached, the scent of at least twenty men also became evident.

And then he heard her shriek.

Natsu ran towards where he traced Lucy to be, but managed to refrain himself from running in when he saw Lucy fighting by the side of a spirit.

"What pretty golden keys!" the seemingly leader of the thieving group announced. "I'm sure they'd fetch a high price!"

"You aren't getting them! Loke-"

"On it!" The lion spirit shouted as he gave a regulus impact to one of the bandits. Natsu watched as Lucy took on the form of her Sagittarius dress and and began her defense, shooting at the men who dared attack. Natsu's eyes lit up and his heart beat faster as he watched her fight, seeing Lucy in combat firing him up in ways he couldn't explain. It looked like it would be a quick fight until both Loke and her star dress suddenly disappeared.

"Wha-" Lucy shouted as her regular clothes appeared again. "What did you do!?"

"Heh heh…" one of the men laughed sinisterly. They're magic users! Lucy suddenly realized. "You like that? It's a spell that cuts my target off from their own magic power!"

And as Lucy was distracted by her franticness to come up with a solution, another one of the men started running at her, sword at the ready. There were split seconds between Lucy noticing the man, bringing her arms up in an attempt to shield herself, and a blur of pink, black, and red appearing in front of her, punching the sword-user away before he could react.

"Natsu, wha-" Lucy couldn't worry about why he was here at the moment as she saw someone move in the corner of her eye. "Blue hair- attacking- he can cut off your magic!"

"Thanks," Natsu simply said, dodging the flare of magic headed his way from said blue-haired wizard before the man was knocked out.

With the man incapacitated, Lucy felt her own magic return, and was quick to re-summon Loke and her star dress to join Natsu in the rest of the fight.

oOo

Lucy sighed as the last of the men succumbed to her magic arrow, everyone in the group either knocked out or run away. "Thank you, Loke," she told the spirit, willing him away.

"Glad to help," he told her while leaving in a puff of golden dust, restraining his flirty tone when he could feel a tenseness between Lucy and Natsu.

Lucy turned to the dragon slayer, who was facing away from her. She couldn't tell at all what he was thinking. "Natsu?" she hesitantly questioned. Natsu didn't answer her, but only because he didn't know how to face her. He thought she would be furious with him for following. But he was able to keep her safe, and that's what mattered.

"Natsu, are you… Are you mad?"

"Huh?" Natsu finally turned around, scratching the back of his neck. She was asking if he was mad? "Why would I be mad?"

Lucy blushed and twiddled with her fingers. "Because- you'd told me you didn't feel good about this job. You told me you had the strangest feeling something bad would happen. You told me to let you come with or to just not go on it, but I didn't listen." Lucy sighed again and looked down, frowning. "I'm sorry."

"Lucy…" Natsu was quick to move to her and wrap his arms tightly around her. "I'm just glad you're safe," he confessed as he took in her scent, calming himself, "I wouldn't know what to do if I lost you."

"But I-" Lucy choked on a sob, emotions and anxieties piling up on her. "I couldn't even manage to do it by myself. If you hadn't followed me…"

"If I hadn't followed you, Lucy, then you would've figured out a way to win. Don't beat yourself up just because I'm a protective sucker that wanted to make sure you didn't have to figure something out." Lucy laughed, but she still hid her face in his chest, so Natsu continued. "You can't have known about the group of thieves and you can't have known one of them could take your magic away. Things are unpredictable, Lucy. I mean, there are a bunch of ways this could've gone wrong. The mission was halfway across Fiore to a mysterious forest teeming with wildlife and strange magic."

"Yeah…"

"We'll just finish the job together, okay? I don't like it when really anybody goes on a mission totally alone," he confessed, making her look up at him in surprise. "I mean, look at Laxus. He's supposedly one of the strongest guys in the guild, but he's got Freed and them trailing after him all the time. Mirajane literally turns into a demon, but when she goes on jobs, she's almost always with Elfman and Lisanna."

"But you-"

"I mean, even before you were here and we formed the team, I still had Happy. I always had Happy with me, and if things got sticky, he could get me out of there or go find support. It's part of being in a guild, knowing someone else has our back. I'll always have yours and I trust you to always have mine, too." Natsu flashed that wide, radiant grin that had greeted Lucy every morning… that had dragged her through the toughest of times…

That she'd fallen in love with.

"Natsu?" she started, her hands hesitantly moving from their position on his shoulders.

"Hm? What's wro-"

Lucy wrapped her hands around Natsu's head and pulled him down to meet her lips.

Natsu barely had time to be surprised before his instincts and desire seemed to take over his hands and his lips, cupping her cheeks and mouth moving against hers.

"I will always have your back," Lucy murmured against his lips.

"I know you will," Natsu mumbled back before devouring her lips again.

"I love you," she gasped out.

"I love you, too," he replied almost in a growl as he nipped at her newly bruised lips.

"What the hell is going on!?" Lucy and Natsu's intimate moment was interrupted by one of the men, rousing from his knock-out.

Natsu chuckled sheepishly as he and Lucy separated, red-faced in embarrassment. "Maybe now isn't the best time for this," he commented with a cheeky grin to Lucy.

A/N: Thank you for reading, reviewing, favoriting, and following!