Erza, Natsu, Lucy, Gray and Happy all sat around one of the many tables in the Fairy Tail Guild, as the sun started to set, watching the weather report on their crystal ball.
"And remember, folks, tonight is set to be the coldest night in the history of this beautiful town of Magnolia – our brilliant team of Weather Wizards has estimated the temperature to reach a maximum of minus four degrees Centigrade."
"I don't know how I'm going to keep warm tonight," Erza wondered aloud.
"Don't you have special armour that can warm you up, or something?" Lucy inquired.
"Nothing that's comfortable enough to sleep in. Besides, as soon as I fall asleep, any armour that I have requipped into fades away."
"I don't see what you're complaining about," Gray said pointedly.
"That's 'cause you're a freak." Natsu muttered.
"What was that, Pyro?"
"You heard me, Ice-boy."
Soon fists were flying in one of their usual arguments.
"Why don't they seem affected by the cold?" Lucy asked. "I mean, I know Gray is an Ice Wizard, but Natsu –"
"He is the Fire Dragon Slayer," Happy announced, as if that explained everything.
"Not helping." Lucy said.
"As the Fire Dragon Slayer, an eternal fire burns inside him," Erza explained in her methodical way, "and so he cannot get cold. It is physically impossible for him."
"Must be nice," Lucy whispered under her breath.
"Lucy, how are you keeping warm tonight?" Happy asked inquisitively.
"Wish I knew," she sighed. "The only spirit that I have that can help me here is Horologium, but I can't keep him around all night. And I don't think I can sleep while sitting inside him."
"I remember my dad tried to invent something to help me once – I always got cold quite easily. It looked like an ordinary blanket, but it had an SE plug hooked into it. The idea was that you hook yourself up and your magic energy warms up the blanket for you."
"Sounds cool! Did it work?" Natsu asked eagerly, with a huge smile on his face.
Apparently his fight with Gray had resolved itself. Lucy had never quite managed to understand those two – one second they would be fighting, and then, by some unfathomable signal, they would agree to stop.
"To a point," Lucy answered, "It did warm the blanket up, but it took away too much of the user's magic energy, so that they would end up fainting."
"Oh," Natsu said. He sounded rather disappointed – but Lucy couldn't understand why.
"I have to go," she said, standing, up, "it's getting late."
"I'll escort you home!" Natsu said, "Wouldn't want you slipping on any pieces of ice that may be lying around." At this point, he glared at Gray.
"I'm not responsible for all the ice in this town, you know."
"Well, you should be."
As they started fighting yet again, Lucy picked her most used of her silver Gate Keys from her belt.
"Open! Gate of the Clock Constellation: Horologium!"
As he appeared in a puff of smoke from the Celestial World, Lucy turned to speak with him, "Horologium, can you carry me home tonight? I don't want to be exposed in this awfully cold weather."
"As you wish," Horologium replied politely.
And so they left the guild hall, leaving Happy staring unhappily at Natsu and Gray, who were still in the midst of a heated argument.
"Can't you do something about this?" the tiny blue cat asked Erza, nervously hovering in the air behind her.
"I could, and usually I would," she replied nonchalantly, as she cut herself another slice of cake, "However, right now their respiration is warming up the guild hall, thus making it better for the guild as a whole."
"Hey, where'd Lucy go?" Natsu inquired suddenly.
"She left. A while ago, actually," Happy pointed out.
"Didn't you notice, you moron?" Gray's patronising tone taunted him.
After quickly dodging another one of Gray's punches and giving as good as he got, Natsu hurriedly rushed out of the front door.
"What is he up to?" Erza wondered before taking a bite of her specially ordered cake. (She didn't tell anyone, but it contained several magic ingredients designed to keep one warm. Erza always thought ahead.)
"Something stupid," Gray muttered, "I should probably go after him."
"No, it's okay, Gray," Happy said, "I'll go." And he used his Aera Magic to fly speedily out of the guild hall in pursuit of Natsu.
It could have taken him hours if he had to comb the whole of Magnolia for Natsu – but he had an idea where he was headed. As it turns out, his hunch was right.
"This is so cold," Lucy thought to herself, as she climbed into bed, "It's almost as bad as the time Natsu and I went up to Mount Hakobe to rescue Macao."
Suddenly a terrible thought occurred to her. "I hope I don't get a cold. That would be terrible."
She shivered at the very thought of it, and was glad she had draped every single blanket she owned onto her bed. After all, one could never be too careful.
Included in the myriad of blankets was the failed experiment that she had been telling the others about earlier. Even without plugging in the SE plug, it was the warmest blanket she had ever had, hence why she still kept it.
The unused SE plug dangled on the floor, making a scraping sound whenever Lucy rolled over, which was often, as she was trying to find a position she was comfortable and warm, which is a lot harder than it sounds.
Eventually, however, despite the noise and the cold and the weight of countless blankets pressing down onto her, she finally managed to fall asleep.
Natsu was sitting on the riverbank and gazing up at Lucy's bedroom window when he heard the flutter of Happy's wings. "Hey buddy."
Happy said nothing, waiting for Natsu to reveal his motives in his own time. Sure enough, it hadn't even been five minutes before he started talking.
"I'm worried about Lucy. I mean, I know she'll be fine, but still. She doesn't like the cold."
Happy looked at him quizzically as he continued talking, "I just wish I could do something to help."
As he said this, his right hand became engulfed in flame as he used the Fire Dragon Slayer technique known as Fire Dragon Iron Fist.
"My Fire Dragon power is useful in fights, but can't really be used to help my friends."
The flames on his fist flickered and danced, casting ever-changing shadows on the walls of him and Happy. He sighed, simultaneously extinguishing the fire.
"I just – at least, I wanna know if she'll be fine."
At this point Happy had decided that, if only for Natsu's peace of mind, he should help him.
"I'll carry you up if you want, but that's it."
"Thanks," Natsu whispered gratefully, grabbing Happy's tail, "I owe you one, buddy."
Happy effortlessly pulled Natsu up to Lucy's bedroom window, where Natsu slid the window open without a sound. As they stepped inside (it wasn't the first time they had entered Lucy's apartment via the window) Natsu glanced around in the half-light, soon locating Lucy's bed.
However, he couldn't see Lucy herself, as she had drawn her head underneath the covers in an effort to be even warmer.
"She's fine," Happy whispered as softly as he could, "and now we have to leave."
Natsu was turning to go when he caught sight of the SE plug dangling on the floor. Before Happy could say or do anything to stop him, he had picked it up, plugged himself in and had fallen asleep at the base of Lucy's bed.
Knowing that it would be useless to try and wake him up, Happy collapsed in a small blue and white pile next to him and was soon also sound asleep.
As the warmth reached her, under the blankets, Lucy smiled in her sleep.
Lucy woke up, the smile still lingering on her face. "Odd," she thought, "I feel very warm." And it wasn't that the weather had changed its mind halfway through the night – she could see frost on the window.
Then she saw Natsu, who was sitting in the same position as he had fallen asleep in the night before. Only now he was deathly pale, his pink hair hanging limply over his face.
Happy had woken up a few minutes earlier and had been silently shaking Natsu, not daring to say anything in case he woke Lucy up. Now that he saw that she was awake, he glided over to her, a worried expression on his face.
"What happen –" she started to ask; then she saw the SE plug, still connected to Natsu's right arm.
She immediately bent down, trying to disconnect the SE plug, "It's frozen right onto his skin!" she exclaimed.
"I'm sorry, Lucy. I – I couldn't stop him," Happy said sadly, his ears drooping.
"Never mind that now," Lucy said, pulling on her warmest coat over her night clothes.
"You're going out now?" Happy asked, more than a little bewildered. Lucy nodded, a determined expression on her face.
"But – you'll get cold…"
"We have to save Natsu!" Lucy yelled, "I don't care if I have to freeze to do it!"
"Get him to the guild hall as fast as you can," she told Happy, determination burning in her eyes. "I'll catch up."
"Aye," Happy said, wrapping his tail around Natsu's waist. It took a little more effort to lift him than before with the added weight of the blanket, but before long they were airborne and Happy sailed out of Lucy's window.
As she closed her window and ran down her stairs and out her front door, she grabbed one of her many gold keys from her belt.
"Open! Gate of the Maiden: Virgo!"
"You summoned me, princess? What can I do for you?"
"Carry me to the guild hall as fast as you can, Virgo!"
"As you wish, princess," Virgo replied, picking Lucy up and starting to run.
As Lucy arrived at the guild hall, she noticed that a crowd had already gathered around Natsu's unmoving body.
After quickly closing Virgo's Celestial Gate (only after thanking her politely: Lucy always made it a point to treat her spirits right), Gray spoke up, "Happy told us what happened. I always knew he was an idiot. Guess we have to get that SE plug off him as fast as possible."
"Yeah, but there's a problem," Lucy replied, "It's frozen to his skin."
"We noticed," Gray said. "The only way we can think to get them off is by melting the ice around it. Unfortunately, we only have two Fire Wizards in the guild: Natsu and Macao. And Macao's Purple Fire Magic doesn't contain any heat."
Just as Lucy opened her mouth to reply, she heard Gajeel's rough voice say, "Move it."
The crowd parted to let him through, where he kneeled beside Natsu. His Iron Dragon Slayer Magic quickly travelled down his arm, causing his fingers to become five razor-sharp knife blades. He moved swiftly, before anyone could say anything, and separated the SE plug from Natsu's wrist, slicing the SE plug into multiple pieces as he did so. These pieces then clattered noisily to the floor as the entire guild had stopped talking (some had even stopped breathing) as he had performed this daring manoeuvre.
Suddenly Jet burst from the crowd, his anger at Gajeel clearly audible in his voice as he yelled, "What were you thinking?! You could have easily cut Natsu's hand off!"
"Jet!" Levy cried, bursting forth from the crowd, "I'm sure he wouldn't have done it unless he was sure he could!"
"That's right," Gajeel said, "I would never do anything to harm a fellow guild member." His steely voice gave nothing to indicate it, but he was secretly very glad that Levy had stood up for him.
He left, leaving Jet speechless and Levy trailing after him.
"Well, that takes care of the SE plug," Gray commented, "Now what?"
"We need to get him warm. If only he could eat some fire…"
"We have to wake him up first," Happy pointed out.
"I know that," Lucy said. The adrenaline had kept her standing, but now the cold and the stress were getting to her (the super-speedy run with Virgo didn't help). "I know that…" she repeated wearily.
All the events after that were a blur to her. A fire was lit…Natsu was placed in front of it…someone carried her and placed her next to Natsu…she somehow managed to fall asleep.
Lucy finally woke up when Natsu started to stir. His left arm had somehow gotten itself draped over her, and she didn't know if it was someone's idea of a prank or if Natsu had done it while he was still unconscious (she was rather hoping for the latter).
After disentangling herself, she went to find Gray and Happy.
She took a deep breath and finally voiced something that had been troubling her, "Why did he do this?"
Happy looked up at her, a mischievous grin on his face. "He loooves you."
"Shut it, cat."
"I hate to say it," Gray suddenly said, "but he's right."
"Huh?" Lucy said, turning to face him.
"Natsu is very loyal and would defend any of his friends to death in a fight. But to do something like this – you must be very special to him, Lucy."
With a lot to think about, she decided to go for a walk. (The weather had gotten warmer – it was then slightly past noon.)
As she walked beside the river in her usual fashion, balancing right at the water's edge, she thought hard about what Gray and Happy had said. It wasn't the first time someone had said something like that, but still – what if they were right? With her head so full of thoughts, she didn't pay attention to her steps like she usually did, and a stray pebble made her completely lose her balance – she wobbled – started to fall into the river – a hand grasped hers and yanked her back out of harm's way.
"Gotcha," she heard the familiar voice say.
"NATSU!" She yelled happily, embracing him, "You're alright!"
"Yeah, I'm fine," he smiled, "A little bite of fire was all I needed."
Suddenly his smile vanished, "Listen. I – I heard the others talking about me. And I – well…"
"Is it true?" Lucy asked, her heart starting to beat very fast.
Not being able to find the words, Natsu only nodded. Lucy noticed that he was blushing – it suited his hair colour.
He turned to leave, obviously embarrassed. Lucy grabbed his hand before he could leave and he turned, staring into her sparkling eyes.
"I'm glad," she said, before pulling his head down to hers.