Phew. I made it under the 2100 word limit. It was 2023 words WITHOUT the Author's Notes and the page break lines; those lines added about 180 'words'... This is for the Fairy Tail Writing Challenges forum under the direction of litashe! Round 1; NaLu. Hope you like it!

The sun rose that morning, bright and shining, chasing the shadows away to make room for its own light. Beautiful hues of pinks and purples and yellows crept out from the orb of luminance, creating a sunrise as beautiful as the most romantic of sunsets. Birds began to awaken, chirping experimentally and then bursting into joyous song. Other creatures woke after that, their sounds leaking out into the rest of the wooded expanse.

It was a combination of this sunlight streaming in through a window as well as the forest sounds permeating the air that woke the sleeping teen. Before even opening his eyes, he stretched in a nearly catlike manner, yawning to reveal a few fanglike canines. His shock of rosy pink hair was in disarray, a fairly unneeded sheet twisted and bunched around his slender but muscled waist, and his toned and tanned torso was clearly visible. An interesting red symbol graced the skin of his bare right shoulder; some sort of winged creature with a tail. A black vest edged with gold lay discarded next to his bed, a similar overskirt sort of garment tossed beside it haphazardly. The waking boy's hand groped for something on the post of his bed, finally finding it when he successfully took hold of the white scarf dangling there. Sleepily, he sat up in his bed and wrapped the scarf around his neck before rubbing his eyes.

This young man was Natsu Dragneel, the famous Salamander of the Fairy Tail mage guild.

As Natsu opened his eyes, he glanced at where his almost-son, Happy, usually slept and sure enough, the small pillow was occupied. The blue fur was certainly unusual on a cat, but no more so than his ability to fly. For a cat. But although Happy seemed, for the sake of appearances, to be a flying blue feline, he was really a strange and special creature from another world called an Exceed, and he was still fast asleep.

The rosy-haired boy climbed out of bed, making his way to where he could grab a change of clothes and then don them. He grinned at his sleeping friend and slipped outside, removing the ordinary t-shirt that he'd just put on and feeling like his exhibitionist frenemy, Gray Fullbuster. At least Natsu had a reason for his stripping; he jumped into the river when he reached it in order to catch some of the yellow fish with purple spots and blue stripes that Happy had liked last time. They would do for the duo's breakfast, and the shirt served as a bundle to carry them.

On the short return walk, he wondered what Lucy Heartfilia, the girl who had insisted that he have some clothes that she called normal in his wardrobe, would say to his treatment of the blue shirt. She had known he didn't really like this particular color because it was the same as Ice Freak's guild tattoo, but she bought it anyway. That weirdo! But Lucy was his weirdo, so he'd deal with her little quirks anyway.

He didn't even wonder when he started thinking of her as his weirdo, but he thought nothing of it.

Natsu got home and Happy was still asleep, so he went about hand-cooking his own fish and leaving the Exceed's raw. After he ate and noticed that the blue feline was still snoring away, the rosy-haired young man grinned a little and left a note on the table so Happy would know where to find him before setting off for the guild, wearing a fresh black t-shirt that Lucy had forced him to keep at his house. With a bounce in his step, he decided he'd ask the blonde to go on a job with him today. It had been a few weeks since it had been just them, and he was missing his time with his nakama.

"Lucy!"

A blonde looked up as the boy descended upon her, encasing her in a warm hug.

"What the hell, Natsu?" she complained, tugging futilely at his arms.

"I missed you, Luce!" he whined, chin on her shoulder. She frowned at him, raising an eyebrow.

"You saw me yesterday, you idiot," she said, deadpan, as the dragonslayer took the seat next to her. His hair was in more disarray than normal, but was returned to Natsu's usual standards when he ran a hand through it. She had never thought he'd be one for that sort of action, but she didn't comment.

"I wanna take a job with you!" the rosy-haired boy said, grinning brightly at her and almost ignoring her earlier statement. She couldn't resist that bright, childish grin, and sighed. Lucy really needed to learn how to say no to that face, but she couldn't.

"Go pick one, then," she told him, putting her chin in her hand as if bored. Her closest nakama–her crush–leapt from his stool and over to the request board like he was spring loaded. Mirajane laughed a bell-like laugh and sat Lucy's soda in front of her, smiling at the blonde.

"You just can't resist, can you, Lucy?" the white-haired woman asked, grinning.

Lucy groaned, and Mira beamed. Her matchmaking attempts were, perhaps, not all in vain.

Meanwhile, the rosy-haired one had snatched a request for the capture of a leader of a gang of bandits, and returned to where Mira was talking to Lucy so he could hand it in for acceptance. Then he urged the blonde girl to get up, because they needed to get started so they could get it all done today. She seemed reluctant when he pulled her up, but she drank half of her soda in one go and shoved the glass at him.

"Finish it," she said, taking the request paper back from Mira to read over it. "The jewels I spent on that drink are not going to go to waste."

Natsu raised an eyebrow at her, but drank the rest of her soda anyway.

He liked how it was slightly tinted with the flavor of her fruity lip gloss.

"Natsu!" Lucy cried, and he glanced briefly her way to see what she was warning him about. So he dodged the attack and Lucy ran in for an attack. She avoided the metal flail aimed for her, but couldn't get a crack in with her whip. She stayed close range, and the rosy-haired boy rushed in to join her, not comfortable leaving her to deal with it all.

His Fire Dragon's Iron Fist was somehow rendered completely useless, and he was thrown back on the floor. Lucy made a strange, grunting sound when he couldn't see, but he quickly got back up to his feet. She was in front of him, her whip wrapped around their enemy's neck, and Natsu grinned. Lucy glanced over her shoulder just briefly at Natsu and nodded at him. He didn't need words to understand the signal, and he used his roar attack to take out the bandit mage.

"Haha! Yes!" Natsu cheered, dancing around in a circle briefly, but noticed that Lucy wasn't really celebrating and was acting oddly. She notices him watching and beckons him over, almost sheepishly.

"What is it, Luce?" he asked her curiously.

"Can you reach back here," she gestured behind her back to the left, "until you find something metal, and pull?"

Natsu found that a really, really weird request, but coming from his weirdo, he didn't mind, so he did as she asked even though he was confused. When he found the metal and pulled, Lucy cried out and fell against him, gasping. It took only a few seconds for him to look from the rapidly paling girl to the metal, red-stained object in his hand. He recognized Lucy's blood must be the red substance coating what looked like a metal tube, which was a form of the enemy's magic. He understood instantly and flung the weapon away from him as though he was burned and turned to hold the weakened girl.

"Lucy!" the dragonslayer cried, reaching down and moving the hand covering the entry wound that was bleeding heavily. So heavily that he couldn't stop it, staunch the flow. And with a lurch, a horrible gut-wrenching leap, he knew she wouldn't make it.

The two slid to the ground, Natsu holding Lucy close to him.

Lucy smiled sweetly up at him then, and if he didn't know that she was in excruciating pain, that she was dying and he couldn't help, he wouldn't have known that it hurt her. The rosy-haired boy wondered unnecessarily how she managed to smile like that when she wasn't going to make it. How she could turn that expression on him, when he couldn't even save her.

"You know something…?" she asked, breathlessly.

"Sh, Luce, don't talk!" Natsu said, almost frantic. Where could he go to get help? And he couldn't just leave her here, so he'd have to take her with him, or–

"I loved you, Natsu," her voice was soft, whooshing out slowly, and his eyes widened at the revelation. His heart beat a frantic rhythm against his ribcage as her eyes fluttered closed. Her breathing slowed.

"Luce! No! Lucy, don't leave me!" Natsu cried, fearful, with tears burning his eyes. And then he realizes; all of it had been indicating that he liked her, hadn't it? Wasn't that why it hurt so much to think that someone else would monopolize all her time? Isn't that why he felt like he was dying a thousand deaths right now? "No, Luce! Luce, I love you, Lucy!"

Her brown eyes slowly opened, just a little, and she reaches up to trail slightly bloody fingers along his jaw line. As his tears began to fall, she brushed a few away. Her smile this time is woeful, sad. And then she went limp in the strong arms of the rosy-haired boy.

"No!" Natsu hissed, holding her lifeless form close to him. "NO!" he howls.

Natsu shot up with a shout, body covered in a cold sweat. His breath came out in ragged, uneven gasps, and he had goosebumps all over. He heard a noise nearby.

"Natsu, what's wrong? Are you okay?"

The dragonslayer turns, incredulously, to find chocolate eyes peering back into his own in the pre-dawn light. Lucy Heartfilia was looking right at him, and was perfectly alive and healthy.

"You looked troubled in your sleep," she continued, "and–"

"Luce!" Natsu cried, lunging forward and causing both of them to tumble off the bed and onto Lucy's soft carpet. He held her in his arms tightly, nose pressed against her neck and taking in the familiar scent of her.

"Eyah!" Lucy wailed, "Natsu, what's wrong with you?"

"I lost you," his hot breath ghosted across her neck, making her hair stand on end in a good way. "Luce…Lucy! I…I lost you! I didn't…I couldn't…no!"

The celestial mage was uncertain of what to do and just hugged him back tentatively. The action made him grip her tighter.

"Natsu…?"

"I like you, Luce!" he nearly wails. She didn't think of it in that sense at all, since he was so distraught.

And so she replied, "I like you too, of course. We're nakama, after all."

"No," Lucy realized that he was serious when he looked up, eyes oddly watery, and said, "No. I think I love you, Luce."

She blushed and countered the statement with, "You think?"

The dragonslayer's expression remains so serious that after just a short span of time, she gave in and sighed, pulling herself closer into his embrace and leaning up to peck him on the cheek, blushing cutely all the while.

"It's about time," she said, resting her head on his shoulder. "What made you realize?"

Natsu didn't think he'd been that obvious, but it was apparent that he had. He held the girl closer to him, as close as he could, as he responded, his voice soft and still holding trace amounts of fear, "I told you already, Luce. I lost you."

"No, you didn't," she replied, smiling before saying softly, "I love you, stupid."

Here it is. I was a little rushed in the bottom 'cause of minimum words...