Chapter Twelve:

Standing at the infirmary door, Laxus paused before going in. Since Lucy had woken up, he had tried to stay away from the blonde unless Mira had ordered him to deal with her latest bout of insolence. She had developed the uncanny ability to pinpoint a person's weak spots and target them with words carefully chosen for maximum damage. Even Mira had been reduced to tears at one point during the two weeks the blonde had been awake. It had taken Freed two hours to talk the woman out of stress baking in the guild's kitchens. Laxus hadn't seen Mira that broken since she thought that Lisanna had died.

He had a few things he wanted to say to the demon himself about how she manipulated him into letting Lucy move in with him. First, he was a bachelor. Even though he had shared a place with the Raijinshu after the Tenrou incident, most of his living had been done at the guild, with his room merely being a place to shower and sleep. Getting his own house was supposed to give him a place where he could go back to at the end of the day and not have to deal with other people. Locking him and Lucy in the house defeated the purpose of that.

Second, Lucy was a girl. Laxus admittedly didn't know very many girls outside of a few flings he had before the Fantasia incident, but from his dealings with Ever, most girls didn't like sharing space with guys. When Ever had moved in with the Raijinshu after the dissolution of the guild and Fairy Hills closing down, she had set very clear boundary rules about her space and privacy. She also had terrorized him and Bickslow into giving in about being fully covered at all times. Given some of the stories he had heard Lucy telling Mira and the others when he went to the bar for something, Laxus could only guess that Lucy was similar to Ever in her requirements for personal space. At least the guest bedroom had its own bathroom.

The third problem was that Lucy hated him. While her words were harsh to everyone, she seemed to be particularly venomous when it came to him. So far he had limited his contact with her, because he didn't want her to know that she was his weak spot.

Exile, training under his grandfather, training on his own…none of it had prepared him for this. The day that she had almost died, he felt as if he was inhaling the ethernano again, trying desperately to save everyone. But this time, the poison was of his own creation, making it the worst of all. He had nearly killed a member of his own guild. Laxus knew that some of the others noticed, but he did his best to hide the fact that he wasn't sleeping well, and wasn't eating much either.

Taking a deep breath, he summoned his old mask of indifference and opened the door to the infirmary, avoiding the pillow which was on the floor. Lucy had obviously already tried to throw it at someone that morning. He had told whoever was looking after her at any given moment to leave it where she had thrown it until she was going to sleep. They had enough to deal with when it came to her without having to dodge flying objects. As he came into view of the bed, he saw that her breakfast plate was overturned on the floor, bits of food scattered around it. Sighing, he looked at the blonde in the bed. "If it were up to me, I'd make you pick that up."

She glared defiantly back at him. "Try it," she baited him, ignoring Mira who was trying to finish pulling her long hair back into a ponytail, her face set in a grimace. "I won't."

"You're right," he said indifferently, crossing his arms against his chest. "But only because you're not allowed to walk much yet. If you were, you'd be picking it up. As it is, I'm seriously considering not letting you eat every time you throw your food on the ground."

"Wendy wouldn't let you do that," Lucy snapped with a toss of her head. "She keeps nagging at me because I'm not eating."

"If it became an issue, we could just feed you like a child," he suggested, seeing the way her fists clenched in the sheets. "But I'm not here to discuss your eating habits."

"So, am I going to be hauled out and executed?" Lucy said nonchalantly, gesturing to Mira doing her hair. "I was given real food today and they put clothes on me and now they're doing my hair. Seems as if you guys are setting up to do away with me."

He snorted. "If we were going to kill you, we wouldn't have saved you in the first place."

"Then what's the big occasion? Going to make me sign another contract?"

That stung, but Laxus kept control of his face as he replied: "Wendy and Porlyusica have told me that the next step in your recovery needs to take place somewhere that isn't the guild. Since you were living in the storage room before you moved to the infirmary, we've decided to place you with a guild member."

"And who's the lucky winner?" Lucy asked sarcastically as Mira finished with her hair.

"Me," he said coolly.

"No," Lucy announced flatly. "I refuse. I'll go back to my room here at the guild, thank you very much."

"You don't get an opinion in this. Your things from the storage room have already been packed and are waiting at my house. And what part of you needing to get out of the guild hall didn't you understand?"

"I refuse to live with you," Lucy spat, eyes filled with rage. "Send me to Mira, send me to Ever, hell, send me to Flare Corona, but I refuse to go with you."

"Mira doesn't have the space for you, although she could make time. Ever and the Raijinshu have the space, but not the time. And we're not sending you away from the guild. You don't have a choice in this matter, and even if you did, your options would be limited. For two weeks you've been throwing tantrums worse than Asuka ever did. People are tired of your crappy attitude."

"Well I'm sorry that I'm finding it a bit hard to readjust to the idea that I have a future again," she snapped. "Maybe if you hadn't taken my only family away from me I would be adapting better."

Laxus growled. "You know why you can't have your keys. And you have plenty of people downstairs that would be willing to help you if you would just stop acting like a two year old."

"I don't want anyone's damn pity," Lucy bit off the words as if she was trying to keep herself from completely losing control. "I didn't ask for your help. You've just managed to make a bigger mess. So go away and let me stay here."

"No," he snapped, and looked at Mira. "Is Levy at the house?"

The woman nodded, her lips pursed as she looked at the blonde mage sitting in the bed. "She brought a stack of paperwork for you to work on as well, and said that she's stay until the afternoon. You aren't expected back until tomorrow, when Lisanna will come over. Levy should have the schedule."

"Good," he grunted before turning back to the bed. "Lucy, I'm warning you, if you hit me right now, you're going to regret it."

He saw her open her mouth for a biting remark, but before she could say anything, he swooped her up and lightning travelled out of the room.

***So, this is the original Chapter 12. You'll find that the plot remains almost exactly the same, although the content varies. I've had a lot of people ask me for a copy of this, so I'm going to just post it up in its own story. If you guys want to see 13 as well, I'll post it here too.***