Fairy Tail belongs to Hiro Mashima.

My first Laxana piece. I just thought Cana deserved some love. As always, reviews would be great.

Edited 8-2-14.

Cana had never felt understood by anybody in the guild, not even by her father, Gildarts, whom she loved with a depth she couldn't comprehend. There were the occasional people she would confide in when her troubles became too much to bear and she needed to let them out, even if she couldn't word what was bothering her.

When she was younger, there was always Gray, then loud and outspoken, impossibly arrogant until Natsu's arrival, which also brought an end to their closeness. Since Tenrou Island, she'd gotten Lucy to talk to and Lucy wasn't bad, but Cana wanted more than a platonic friendship with a friend who'd always have someone else when she, Cana, was alone. She could probably also count Macao, who often chatted with her at the bar, but he was too old to have a friend like her, and she too young for a man who was both a master and a father. To be honest, Cana was lonely.

And yet, she couldn't say that now, sitting beside Laxus. To those who ever gotten beneath his rough exterior, he was a quiet man and surprisingly tender. Of course, Cana wasn't one of those who'd gotten too friendly with him, at least not as friendly as he was with the Thunder Legion, but he seemed a little more approachable than he had been before and even offered to help her carry her bags to the train station when she'd left on a solo mission a few days back. Then again, she had been struggling with them and almost every decent person at the guild would have helped. Still, she couldn't shake off the feeling that Laxus watched her, not in a hostile way, but in a way that hinted that he wanted to talk more, that he had something to say to her.

She sat next to him now in the empty bar, the guild hall dimmer than usual with almost everyone except the two of them home and preparing for bed. Cana hadn't noticed that the place had emptied out. Sure there at been the "see ya tomorrows" and "gonna be back in the mornings" from the guild members, but she'd gotten so very drunk today worrying over some feeling lurking in her chest that she couldn't get rid of. How she'd ended up sitting next to him was a mystery too.

"Hey.. Laaaxus," she slurred, head in her arms, slumped over on the counter as she reached for yet another bottle in the rapidly shrinking stock she'd begged from Mira before the Strausses had left.

"Stop drinking, Cana," he muttered, almost as if he were annoyed, but there was an edge of concern in his voice that she'd never heard from him before. He took the bottle from her hand and placed it out of her reach. She frowned at him dizzily. Her mind wasn't working as well as it usually did.

"How did you even get drunk?"

"Give it…" She reached again, but a sudden wave of nausea made her stop and she collapsed back to the counter.

"Really, Cana, you're drunk enough." He looked strange in the candlelight, his features softer than usual. She couldn't figure out why he was even there. She lay still for a while, watching him and he pointedly looked in the opposite direction, chin in hand. He broke the silence abruptly.

"You should get to bed. Don't you have a job tomorrow?"

Since when did he know when she planned to work? Her lids drooped and she groaned, pushing herself up from the stool, but she swayed and would have hit her head against the edge of the counter if it wasn't for his hands around her waist. Why was he still here?

She leaned heavily against him, her legs moving as though she were walking in a heavy current, dragged constantly back and forth. Never before had he been so kind to her. In fact, she'd never seen him act this way to anyone.

He must have guided her all the way to Fairy Hills, though of course she couldn't see the path in front of her. Nevertheless, there was a warmth to the way he guided her through the dark, his soft curses when she tripped over her own feet, his arms the perfect temperature against her clammy skin. There was even a moment Cana refused to acknowledge when she could have sworn that he'd brushed a messy strand of her hair from her eyes when she almost passed out in his arms. And in that wild, dizzy, drunken night, Cana had to admit that for the first time after Gildarts' hug, she felt togetherness with someone.