A/N: I wrote this on a whim and I doubt it even meshes with any Fairy Tail canon if you think too hard about it but this is a fanfic so.
Lucy has this little crush on Erza. She follows Erza with her eyes and gets just a bit flustered if she stands too close. Maybe "little" is a bit of an understatement.
Lucy remembers the exact moment she first saw Erza. In that one moment, her breath had been stolen by the red-haired beauty. She had seen the photos in the magazines before but the Ezra in the photos didn't command the same presence Erza did in real life. She had an aura that drew your eyes to look at her body. Or that's what Lucy kept telling herself as she found herself unable to turn away.
Erza has this thing for Jellal. That much is obvious to anyone who gives it any thought. Lucy, however, didn't just give it any thought. She mulls about it for hours on end as she looks up at the ceiling of her bedroom. Lucy doesn't really think about why she would be thinking, or even caring, about who Erza did and didn't fancy.
So she can't say she knows the reason why her heart ached as fiercely as it did.
Erza does little things for her. When she looks sad, Erza offers her a piece of her cake (something that Nastu reminds her is no small honour). When she looks happy, Erza does her best to share with her in the mood. Lucy remembers when this was all very simple. When she didn't try so hard to find any little underlining meaning in Erza's actions or words. When she wasn't desperately hoping that Erza held even a fraction of the same feelings.
It doesn't take much for Lucy to remember that this is why they say that magic is like hope; it springs eternal.
Erza is strong. Lucy knows this first-hand. It takes her by surprise when she finds Erza crying one day. It takes her by surprise when she hears about Erza's problem. Her tears seem to always and forever be caused by that one person. In that moment, it finally dawns on Lucy just how much she dislikes Jellal. And how much it hurts that Erza is shedding tears over this man when Lucy has always been there.
It's in that moment that Lucy just knows. She'll never be Erza's choice when it comes to love but she can damn well be her best friend. Even if it kills her.
Being Erza's best friend is really unusual. Lucy isn't sure what makes it unusual. Is it the fact that she now spends hours beside Erza picking out which suit of armour she thinks looks best? Or is it the way she had to develop a sweet tooth for strawberry cake and other goods just because when Erza says they're going for lunch, she means she's going to devour every last cake in sight and it'd be a shame if Lucy didn't help her out by eating a slice every now and again?
When she's with Erza, she laughs. She laughs until her face turns red and her heart starts to hurt. She tells herself she can't be picky because this is as close as she's going to get. It comes as no surprise that when she's at home, fondly recalling these memories, her chuckles turn to sobs.
Lucy thinks her heart might just break the week Erza starts avoiding her. The woman doesn't even meet her eyes, anymore. She can feel Erza's eyes on her back when she turns around though. And that feeling, even if she's just imagining it, is what keeps her together for that one week. At least she knows that Erza just can't cut her out her life anymore. She's been permanently engrained and now, Erza can't just leave her alone and stop looking out for her.
So, she just keeps her head up and smiles. And when Erza looks in her direction for just a second, Lucy makes sure her smile is as wide as it can be without breaking her face in half.
It's been almost a year of hopelessly pining after Erza and Lucy thinks maybe it's time to just stop. She's the master of her own body and what not. She can just stop if she wants to, no big deal. She laughs to herself when she realizes that if it stopped when she wanted it to, she wouldn't be wanting it to stop right now. Lucy wonders exactly when her little crush became something a lot scarier.
She wonders when it became love. And when Erza rushes up to her, puts her arm around her shoulder and begins to retell the story of what happened on her latest solo mission. Lucy thinks it might have been love at first sight after all.
She had been taught that patience is a virtue. She had heard the tales first hand of how her father and mother built up their empire out of patience and hard work alone. Lucy has just never thought that patience ever worked for her. She never waited for days and months and years for something to happen. If it didn't happen as soon as she wanted it to, she wrote it off to fate. Patience is one of the many things Fairy Tail has been teaching her. Patience in her team mates because Natsu and Gray's habit of constantly fighting and their inability to avoid property damage requires the uttermost patience. Patience in all things regarding herself.
It's on a summer afternoon of just sitting down and talking about nothing when Erza nonchalantly leans over and captures her lips in a short but sweet kiss. Lucy now preaches about patience to whoever gives her the time of day.
She had patience not only in everything, but patience in one thing above all the others and it worked. She was rewarded. Lucy thinks that she should maybe start investing in business deals because patience worked for her parents and she now knows it can work for her too.