Greetings! This is my first fan fiction. Honestly, I just want to publish it to get my nerves out. Honest reviews and critiques are welcome. There are multiple chapters. It's a narrative, not much as far as descriptions or dialog. Pace is fast for a reason. Anyways, let me know what y'all think. Please and thank you!

Just a fan like the rest of you. Thank you Hiro Mashima!

Chapter 1

They'd just made it back safe and sound. All was right with the world, no monsters, no villains. They could relax, finally.

Back at the guild, a typical party had started to celebrate their victory and return, full of alcohol, bad music, games, and brawls. Nothing too special.

Everyone had a blast and some time after midnight, everyone began to weakly hobble back to their homes.

Natsu woke with a massive hang over. Groggy, sick, and in pain, he crawled to the bathroom where he spent what felt like several hours expelling everything from his gut, even after there was nothing left to come up. Sometime after noon, he finally cleaned up and left his home for the guild hall, eager to greet his family.

Everyone was there. Lisanna and Mira laughed at something Elfman was going on about. Juvia clung to Gray, who, as usual, pretended to be annoyed. Laxus and his team were conferring on a job. Cana, Macao, and Wakaba were almost drunk again. Erza sat with Jellal actually sharing a strawberry cake, shockingly. The exceeds were chatting among themselves. Wendy and Romeo were playing a game with Asuka. Nothing wrong at all. Everyone was already there.

He walked over to the bar about to ask for food when he looked around again, noticing a certain blonde was missing. She should be here, in this spot, already eating breakfast, which he was suppose to steal from her to mess with her. She's suppose to be yelling at him right now.

"Hey, Mira, where's Lucy? She should be here by now," he asked while still searching, thinking he'd missed her.

Mira and Lisanna smirked at each other before turning back to the dragon slayer. "I'm sorry, Natsu, I haven't seen her come in yet," the elder sister said innocently while she poured a glass.

"Maybe," the younger started, "you should try looking for her at her apartment. She probably wanted to relax for a little while," she finished with a coy grin, wiping the counter with a rag.

Oblivious to their match-making as always, he perked up immediately wondering why he hadn't thought of that before. "You're right!" he exclaimed excitedly before running back out the door he'd just come through. "I'll go get her," he called over his shoulder, both sisters giggling behind their hands.

He ran through the streets of Magnolia towards his favorite person's home, not that he'd ever tell her that. It was far too much fun to pick on her and she was so easy to fluster. As the building in question came into view he slowed slightly just so he could make his usual leap and climb to her window. Fully expecting a scolding, he slid open the window and landed on her bed.

But, he was met with silence. No warnings, no yelling, no kick to the head, no book or other object thrown at him. No bath sounds, no shower running, no cooking in the kitchen. She wasn't at her desk and from the smell, she'd never come back to her apartment last night.

Where could she be? He thought it was rather odd she wouldn't come home. She had even said she'd wanted to relax today. So, why wasn't she here?

Nothing was out of place. There were no strange scents. There was no evidence of foul play. Nothing, not even a letter stating where she'd gone to.

Maybe she went to the market to get groceries, he thought for a moment before realizing her purse was there in the room, untouched from where she'd dropped it before they'd left for the guild last night. What is going on?

He climbed back out the window and closed it, not wishing to incur her wrath for it when he was already worried. He dropped to the ground and started walking back to the guild hoping to catch her scent.

Outside the guild hall is where he found it. It was from last night and faint but he could still follow it. It lead him outside of town and before he knew it he was at his own door.

Did she bring him home? He stepped inside again, this time paying close attention to what smells were there. Lucy had been there with him. Both their scents mixed at the hammock. The realization hit him like a punch from Gildarts.

Had she slept with him? Had they slept together? The evidence certainly suggested that something very intimate had happened. And, it would certainly explain the scratch marks on his back and rib cage he'd noticed earlier. But, if they had, why did she leave? Shouldn't she be screaming at him right now to never touch her again?

He continued to follow her scent hoping it would lead him to her to discuss their adventures last night, and hopefully apologize before she could kill him or sick Erza on him. However, once he reached the bathroom, her trail stopped. Just stopped. Her scent never left the bathroom. There were no windows, she had to come back through the door. But her scent never left that room.

He searched the house and the surrounding field for her scent, but it only lead him back to where he'd started, the bathroom. He was beginning to worry now. He needed help.

He ran back to the guild and grabbed Gajeel and Wendy. He told them about Lucy's scent disappearing and asked for them to make sure he wasn't crazy.

"Of course, Natsu-san," Wendy offered, as with his story had also become worried about their favorite blonde.

Gajeel merely nodded, knowing if something happened to the bunny-girl, Shrimp would be upset. He doesn't like it when Shrimp is upset.

All three dragon slayers checked the entire house, the field, and the woods up to the river and the outskirts of the city. All confirmed the same thing, Lucy never walked out of that bathroom. It was time to involve the rest of the guild.

They raced back to the guild and immediately informed the master what had happened.

"Inform Levy and Freed, ask them to find anything to hinder a dragon slayer's tracking abilities or relocation spells. Also, have the others look for tracking spells, anything to find her. Something strange is going on," he stated urgently, knowing the slayers were not easily fooled by simple tricks. Someone was trying to hide Lucy from them. How else could she have disappeared from a dragon slayer's home and him not be aware. Forget scent, his hearing alone should've picked up another person's heartbeat in the home, even as drunk as he was.

She wouldn't have left on her own. Even if she had, she's smarter than to try to fool him. She simply would've gone to the train station and left. But that didn't explain her home still being completely intact with all her money still being there. She had to have been taken but by whom and why?

The guild members searched for a week with no results. When one week became two, they started reaching out their friends in other guilds. The dragon slayers and others with tracking and other information gathering abilities searched Fiore for an entire year never finding anything to lead them to her. People began to give up hope, and soon the only one left still searching was Fairy Tail.

One year became two years, then three, and four. Natsu had long since started searching other countries and now was on a different continent all together. He'd even taken to searching magic shops for celestial keys to give her when he found her.

With each stop came new disappointment. No magic to render trackers useless or mask one's scent. No sightings of the blonde and in this particular country, she'd be painfully easy to spot.

After five years, he got the most painful answer. He'd been in a magic shop looking for keys for her, when he saw something that made his blood run cold. A key. One of Lucy's keys. It wasn't under contract. And to his knowledge there were only two ways to break a contract: jail or death. And this one, he knew, she'd never give up without a massive fight to the death.

Aquarius.