A/N::

::Last time::

"LUUUCCCYYY!" A ball of blue fur came flying through the door crashing into the blonde at full speed. "COME QUICK!"


Lucy's eyes widened in horror as she looked closely at her small friend's face, his fur was matted where thick tears streamed from his large eyes. She pushed away from the table abruptly, the cat still in her arms. "Where?" She asked in the calmest voice she could muster.

"Ho-home" Happy choked out. Lucy nodded in understanding letting go of her friend.

"Lucy what's wrong?" Levy asked a little shaken.

"No time, Happy lets go!" Happy took to the air and flew towards the exit with Lucy only a few steps behind.

Lucy followed Happy out of the guild as quickly as her feet could carry her. Happy didn't need to explain, he didn't need to say a word at all, as they headed back up the hill to Natsu's house. She went over several different scenarios as they made their way, each one worse than the last. Lucy tripped a few times as she ran in a full out sprint just behind Happy the whole way. At this speed it only took ten minutes to get up to his place. The two burst threw the door breathing heavily, "Lead the way!" Lucy breathed through her panting, she was calmer than a normal person would be, thanks to the effects of the magic potion Mira had given her less than a half hour ago.

"Up here." Happy flew up the stairs and Lucy followed close behind. When she opened the door she couldn't believe the the scene that lay in front of her, she was torn between staying silent waiting for an explanation and bursting out in a fit of hysterical laughter.

"Don't just stand there! Help me!" Natsu whined from under the toppled over wardrobe. His arms were moving around wildly as he tried in vain to move the monstrosity that had him pined and severely bruised.

"Do you really need help getting out from there?" Lucy raise a delicate eyebrow as an uncharacteristic blush spread over Natsu boyish features. The sight sent Lucy's stomach churning in a way that she had never experienced before, she just stared at his as he struggled, his face growing a deeper shade of red with every moment that passed.

"I didn't want to break the damn thing! It was expensive!" Natsu nearly growled in his embarrassment.

"It's to heavy for me alone, Lucy help me!" Happy cried as he tried desperately to lift the heavy piece of furniture. Lucy couldn't help herself, the sight was just to humorous to hold the laughter back. The room was filled with echos of her hysterical bellowing. Lucy clutched her sides as she tried to regain her senses, but every time she looked up a new wave of loud giggles erupted from her doubling her over to start the process again.

Natsu was growing more embarrassed by the minute and decided to shock his friend out of her fit. He lit his hand on fire and willed it to stretch across the room, igniting the blonde's skirt at the hem, it wasn't enough to hurt her, but she would surely come back to her senses quicker. A shriek of terror brought a smile to his face. 'Serves you right for laughing at me.' Nastu though as he watched her roll around on the floor in a panic trying to put out the small fire.

"Would you please help me now?" Natsu whined louder than before. "This thing is REALLY heavy."

"I don't even want to know how you got yourself stuck like this." Lucy said with a sigh, putting her full weight into pushing the wardrobe up enough for Natsu to scurry out from underneath.

"Good cause I wasn't going to tell you!" Natsu stuck out his tongue as the three pushed together to put the heavy monstrosity back in it's upright position. After all the physical exertion Lucy felt her knees start to buckle under her own weight. She allowed herself to drop to the floor with a loud sigh.

Natsu was rubbing the sore area around his rib cage where, if he had been a normal person, it surely would have left an angry bruise, if not slightly fractured bones. Lucy envied the way he could bounce back like that, no matter how bad his injuries were. Happy seemed satisfied now that Natsu was out of harms way and had set himself comfortably on the bed purring slightly as he drifted off to sleep. Lucy wasn't sure what to say as she looked around the room once more. It was rather pretty, with expensive looking fabrics, and furniture. After what seemed like forever she decided to break the tense silence.

"You've been rather busy lately." She pushed herself up onto her feet with a fake smile plastered on her face.

"Yep." Natsu grinned happily, he was proud of how seriously he had been taking his missions, so that he was able to collect the full rewards. He needed every penny to finish his great master plan, and so far he was doing better than he could have dreamed. He hadn't destroyed any building in over two weeks and his wages hadn't been garnished at all for every mission he had taken during that time. "But it's totally worth it." The emotions behind his words were completely lost on Lucy as she tried to keep her nerves steady.

"Well, it's getting pretty late. I think I'll head home." Lucy made her way to the door, oblivious to how Natsu's face had suddenly fallen for the second time that day.

"Yea, I guess I'll see you tomorrow at the guild then." He called with less energy than usual. Lucy didn't want to leave yet, but she was quickly losing every ounce of courage in her body once again. The feelings in the pit of her stomach were confusing and she knew that there was no way she could figure this out if she stayed here any longer. It was overwhelming, and she needed to leave before the mixed up feelings practically swallowed her alive.

"Yeah, tomorrow." She took a deep breath before smiling to herself. "Hey Natsu." She could hear him shift as he waited for her to keep going. "Beware of falling wardrobes" She giggled before making a mad dash for the exit, afraid he might burn what was left of her skirt. Once she was out in the cool autumn air she realized that she wasn't going to head home, not just yet. Her feet carried her back to the guild, her inner turmoil reaching its peak as the entrance to the guild came into view. It didn't take long for the women to notice Lucy enter the guild looking rather frazzled, they figured it hadn't gone as well as they had planned by the look of her even more disheveled clothing. Lucy walked straight to the bar and gave Mira a serious look. "Mira may I have another one of those drinks?" She asked softly putting herself in the chair gently.

"What on earth happened?" Levy asked as she took the seat next to her friend.

"Eh?" Lucy looked over her shoulder with a rather tired expression.

"Um Lucy you look terrible..." Levy coughed, trying not to laugh at her good friend's charred appearance. Lucy looked down at herself and sighed.

"Uh yeah, I guess this was my punishment for laughing." Lucy tugged at her burned skirt with a sigh. "And I really liked this one too." She muttered as she reached up to fix her loosely bound hair. "Natsu can be so dramatic sometime you know, he wasn't going to die because I was laughing or anything." She was slightly irritated now, adding on to her previous emotions.

"Here Lucy this should help, but you shouldn't drink any more of this today or it might have some weird side effects." Mira placed a cup in front of the blonde with a friendly smile.

"Thanks Mira." Lucy wasted no time downing the potion this time. She sighed as she set the empty cup down, taking deep relaxing breaths as she sorted through her current situation. Feeling her whole body relax, Lucy turned to her friends with a genuine smile.

"Lucy, what was that all about?" Cana asked as she slide into a chair on the other side of the blonde effectively trapping her in her place. "I haven't seen Happy that upset in a while."

"Um, Happy was just over reacting like usual." Lucy sighed. Looks were exchanged between the blonde's companions who weren't sure what to make of the events that had just taken place. Lucy was cut up at the knees and elbows, with dirt smudged across her chin. The women had noticed she looked worse for wear when she had originally come to the guild, but each had chalked it up to the mission, with the exception of Lissanna who knew that Lucy hadn't had any trouble subduing the bandits they had captured. It had almost been child's play for them, like going on a mission with Natsu, Lucy did most of the work, while Lissanna simply tied up their captives.

Lissanna had kept it to herself, but over the past month, Lucy seemed to be a little high strung, barely staying at the guild longer than it took to grab a new mission, and occasionally a new partner. No one missed the way her eyes scanned the guild every time she returned, or the wistful glance towards the guild entrance while she was present. 'Poor Lucy, could you be any more obvious?' Lissanna sighed as she watched the others interrogate her friend.

"Then why are you such a mess?" Cana asked none to gently. Lucy couldn't help the giggle that bubbled up in her throat just remembering how helpless Natsu looked stuck under the wardrobe.

"Like I was saying to Levy-chan, this," She pointed to the burned portions of her outfit with an accusing finger. "was most likely punishment for laughing at him." She felt a fit of laughter coming on and said quickly. "Natsu got himself trapped under something he didn't want to destroy, and Happy came to get me to help get the poor idiot free." She couldn't hold it down any longer, and let out a vicious sounding cackle, which caught the attention of several of her guild mates including Erza.

Lucy didn't pay much attention as she enjoyed the feeling of blissful joy her laughter gave her, anything that would distract her from the burning in her stomach was more than welcome at that moment. She had been half tempted to pick a fight to get her mind to clear a bit.

"Oh my." Mira covered her own mouth as she giggled at the sight of Lucy nearly losing control of herself, as she giggled away, not caring who was watching her. When the blonde fell backward off her chair, the others couldn't help but joined in on her laughter.

"Oi Gray!." She choked out looking for her nearly naked friend. "The next time you see Natsu, tell him to beware of falling wardrobes, he'll know what you mean." Lucy finally brought herself up into a sitting position, looking at the confused expression on Gray's face. The ice mage shrugged off her comment and went about taking off his pants without realizing what he was doing.

"It's good to see you're feeling better." Erza crossed her arms over her chest as she came to stand next to Lucy.

"Um, well it's hard to stay depressed when your best friend is an absolute idiot who can't seem to function like a normal human being." Lucy laughed nervously.

"So does that mean you straightened things out?" Lissanna squeaked from behind the bar, putting the tray she had been holding down to lean over and get a good look at Lucy.

"No, I helped him escape before I pretty much ran straight here." Lucy admitted looking rather defeated. "I was going to go home and get ride of my ruined clothes, but I decided to come here instead." Lucy got up from the floor and sat back in her seat, battling back the remainder of her giggles in fear that Erza might disapprove of the gesture.

"So what are you planning on doing now?" Levy leaned her chin on her folded hands, observing her friend.

"I think I need time to sort some things out." Lucy conceded with a deep sigh. "I dunno why, but I'm having a hard time dealing with everything."

"Maybe a mission would clear your head." Erza placed a heavy, armor clad hand on Lucy's shoulder.

"That might not be such a bad idea, it'll give you the space and time to work through it!" Levy cheered. Lucy looked around her and it seemed that all of her friends were in agreement.

"I guess that makes sense, it couldn't hurt at least to try it." Lucy made her way over to the request board, not really sure what she was looking for, she needed space, so a mission that would require Natsu was out of the question, or was it? Lucy grinned as she came up with the most diabolical plan yet. She grabbed a decent looking mission with a rather large sum for it's reward and turned round to find the most unlikely person she could possibly want to spend time with.

"Gajeel!" She shouted, running over and cornering the taller dark man in the corner he and Panther Lily were occupying. Mira, Levy and Cana watched on in sheer awe as Lucy walked up to Gajeel like he was the same as any one else. The thought that this woman truly had no fear crossed their minds nearly simultaneously.

"What do you want bunny girl?" Gajeel growled narrowing his crimson eyes in her direction.

"I have a proposition, hear me out before you say no." She seated herself on the opposite side of his table as she spoke.

"Make it quick then." Gajeel grunted, busying himself with a small pile of scraps.

"I want to take a mission, that is going to require more than just myself. Natsu isn't available, and since you're just as strong as him I was hoping you could help me out. I'll only take ten percent of the reward if you agree." Lucy placed the request on the table so that Gajeel could look it over while she crossed the fingers on her other hand behind her back, praying that greed would do the dirty work for her.

"Why would you only want ten percent. This is a rather large reward, are you stupid or something? I knew it, the flaming retard's stupidity is contagious." Lucy cursed under hear breath, before the next idea popped into her head. Lucy leaned in closer so no one could hear what she was about to say next. She didn't realize that she was unintentionally giving the iron dragon slayer a very nice view of her assets, and was there for also unaware of the worried stare that she was receiving from a certain blue hair solid script mage.

"I don't need the money, I just want to do the job for experience." It was half true, she really didn't need the money, with all the jobs she had taken this month already, she had been able to put enough away to pay her rent two months in advance plus a buffer if Natsu destroyed anything of her other belongings. Gajeel leaned back in his chair and took a long look at the blonde spirit mage.

"Twenty." He stated simply holding out his hand. Lucy blinked at him for a moment before smiling, that was easier than she had expected, no pulling teeth to get her way this time. Silently she cheered for her small victory.

"Deal." She reached out and shook his hand. "Meet me tomorrow morning at 9 I'll get the tickets so we can just meet at the train station, I'll go get the mission approved, now. See you tomorrow!" Lucy turned with the page secured in her hand and a bright smile set on her face and marched her way over to Mira.

"Did you just make a pact with the devil?" Cana said jokingly, Lucy ignored her keeping her gaze on the older woman with a satisfied smile on her face.

"Mira, Gajeel and I are going on this mission in the morning if that's alright." Lucy slammed the page on the bar, winking at Cana who choked on her ale.

"YOU DID MAKE A DEAL WITH THE DEVIL! Are you CRAZY?" Cana sputtered out, ale spilling down the front of her bare skin.

"It's a job, Cana. And I can handle myself just fine." Lucy smiled at the others who were clearly flabbergasted at her move. "Honestly I couldn't think of a better person to take on this sort of mission anyway!" Lucy was proud of her plan, she would have time to work through everything without fear of having to explain it to any of the girls, and Gajeel wasn't the type of person who asked a lot of questions, it was absolutely the perfect combination.

"Are you going to tell Natsu you're leaving?" Lissanna asked with a worried expression as she caught a glimpse of the request. "I mean you're going to be gone for more than a week with this one."

"He hasn't paid much attention to me for the last month, so I don't think he'll really mind. I'll leave a note on my desk just in case though." Lucy's smile faltered for a moment as she wondered if he would even bother breaking into her apartment looking for her when she didn't show up like she had promised.

"Lu-chan, are you sure this is ok?" The bubbly book worm seem uncharacteristically nervous. Lucy simply nodded, feeling that everything was falling into place.


Gajeel is the devil himself! Bawhahaha. Man I can't wait to write the next chapter! *Happy dance* let me know if you liked it!