Over a year has passed since that demoralizing day, when everyone in the guild watched as a torn up Lucy flew out the door. They ignored the dismembered parts Lucy left behind and started rebuilding. Only Mirajane and Wendy showed any signs that they didn't think Lucy deserved what happened that day. The two took the ear and hand and buried them out under her favorite tree to write under in the back and cleaned up her blood. When Makorav returned from his meeting he was completely horrified from the reports he got and shut himself in his office for over a month, only talking to and accepting food from Mirajane or Wendy.
As time grew on the guild realized that nothing seemed the same without Lucy being there, nothing was quite so fun without their smiling friend, and after a year the only person who didn't feel very remorseful was Natsu. He was the one who destroyed her entire state of mind after all.
Natsu and the rest of the team had just returned from a mission to clear out a minor dark guild that was causing trouble near Magnolia. Mirajane welcomed them back and Natsu and Happy went home late at night, for some reason they passed Lucy's old place and Happy flew to check the window, "You won't find her," Natsu said, "She's not coming back and you know it."
Happy looked down on his friend and saw the look in his eyes, they didn't match his body language, "I can still have a little hope, and what about you, you seem distracted."
Natsu stared at him with a surprised look, "It's nothing, now come on, I'm hungry." But Happy noticed him looking back over his shoulder, "He liiiikes her," The blue cat said to no one in particular after following Natsu. The next day Natsu was approached by Erza and Grey.
"You've got a mission, Natsu, in Hargeon." Said Erza in a Matter-of-Fact tone, but Natsu was angry.
"You don't get to decide that for me, and why Hargeon, what's the reward? What's the job?" Natsu was doing his very best to hide his emotion from Erza, but she knew him all too well.
"Natsu, everyone here can notice it, that smile after every mission was the kind of smile you gave Lucy when she told a joke. You've been distracted lately too, has your conscience finally caught up to you or are you going to keep on lying to yourself that you don't miss Lucy."
Grey chimed in too. "Come on Flame-head, even you have to agree at some point that what happened was overboard and that Lucy belongs here." Natsu shot him a dirty look but conceded in the end, there was no getting out of this one.
"All right fine, I'll go, what's the mission?" He asked in a defeated yet relieved tone.
"It's a group of local bandits, they stole over 8,000 jewel worth of stuff from a popular magic shop that just opened up, the sender doesn't want them hurt too bad, just that they get to jail. You can bop some heads, but don't go destroying the town like the last time." Erza read to him from the poster.
Natsu smiled at the thought of him destroying the port when he and Lucy had first met, and he finally started to cry. Erza, Grey, and everyone else left him alone for a while while he cheered up and left for the mission, maybe knocking a few heads would take his mind off of it.
Meanwhile in one of the villages just outside the city limits the very same message happened to reach the ears of a cloaked figure in the corner of the tavern. It was spoken by the person who sent out the request, an older man who was taking a break from his shop for a little after the robbery. "I don't need them killed though, just get them ruffled up for the city guards to take care of 'em, that'll show those bastards not to mess with me."
"With pleasure." Came a reply from the cloaked figure in the corner who overheard the conversation. The person took the copy of the poster that the man had on hand and walked out the door into the night with an intent to complete the job.
Natsu boarded the train early the next morning very sluggishly, already looking green. Don't tell me you're already sick." Happy said with a sigh, but Natsu did not respond, instead he threw up.
Later, the train stopped, "Last call for Haregon!" Came the yell from the conductor, but Happy was still trying to get Natsu up and out of the cart.
"This isn't working..." Happy thought as he spotted the open window. In a last ditch attempt he activated his wings and managed to pick up the still groaning Natsu, take him to the window, and unceremoniously launch him out and onto the platform. Natsu instantly felt a lot better.
"Woohoo! I'm fired up, thanks Happy! Now let's go bash some burglars." Natsu said with his signature smile that went from ear to ear.
"Remember Natsu, the job says beat them up a bit, not fry them like roast fish." Came the cats reply.
"Aye!" Hesitating for a moment to think about what Lucy would say to Happy's statement, and recalled all the fun times with his former partner until he heard a faint whimper for help in the alley up ahead. He ran around the corner and saw five men in various outfits and looked like mages, though they had no visible guild mark. Even he wasn't dumb enough to not figure this out, they were either most likely from a dark guild, or possibly one of the more rude guilds, or they were the burglars. Judging from the purple outfits and the fact that it was mid-day, he assumed they were the burglars from the poster. It didn't really matter though, by the end of the day they were not going to be happy.
Currently the group was terrorizing a younger boy who had just so happened to get unlucky enough to get caught by the bandits. "Oi!" Shouted Natsu at the thieves, they turned their heads almost in unison, and the boy scurried off back to his home.
"Who are you?" One of them asked, igniting a bright red flame in his hands, Natsu felt his hunger rise at the site of it.
"Don't have time for chit chat fellows, I'm all fired up!" Natsu said with a grin.
"Cocky ain't yah?" Said the fire dude, "Leave this one to me, the bigger they talk, the easier it is to shut 'em up." He quickly launched a large fireball at Natsu and smiled when Natsu made no attempt to dodge. "See boys, that's how it's do-" he stopped when he heard the slurping noise, like someone was eating spaghetti. Looking back, he saw Natsu sucking up the flame as if it were, in fact, spaghetti. And to his surprise Natsu was not burned.
"Ah, that was good, thanks for the meal, now I'm really fired u-" Natsu was cut off, much to his irritation, by a person cloaked in crimson red jumping over him and landing at the ready. "Ehy! What's your problem?!" Natsu asks with outrage, "I was just about to get to the good part..." He trailed off, he swore the person felt familiar. But the unknown character was already sprinting toward them, ready for combat. The group of purple-clad thieves readied themselves for a fight, but they stood no chance from the figure that was already in the middle of them. A quick jab to the spine of fire dude and a quickly following elbow to the face of one of the others left them crawling on the ground, groaning with pain.
The three left standing looked at the figure with anger in their eyes, "You bitch!" One of them shouted before summoning a short sword and flinging himself at the person who just attacked two of his comrades, but the attack failed miserably. The cloak turned itself and dodged the blade, grabbing his wrist, the person flipped it's attacker to the ground, leaving him stunned. Before the cloak could attack Natsu made the next move, jumping at the two remaining thieves, "Iron fists of the flame dragon!" He shouted as his flaming fists collided with their stunned faces and sent them sprawling on the ground. The fight was over in mere seconds.
"Ehy, Happy! Where'd you go? Did the fight scare you off?" He asked his blue furred friend that was hiding outside the alley. He didn't notice the hooded person next to him realize who was talking.
"That's mean, Natsu, you know I don't like that anymore." Came Happy's reply as he jumped out from his hiding place.
"Yah yah I know." Natsu said as he turned to the hooded figure, it smelt familiar, "I could've handled them myself you k-" he cut himself off as he finally put two and two together and figured out the answer was five, and why the figure looked familiar as it backed away, "It couldn't be... There's no way..." But the figure was gone, leaving a lingering scent of recognition.
Lucy had run away almost as soon as she overcame her shock. But as she headed around a corner minutes later she bumped into something, or someone, and fell to the ground. She heard a sharp intake of breath and looked up, standing before her was the very person she did not want to see, the flame boy himself, Natsu Dragneel. She realized why he was looking at her, her hood was off and her cover blown. She hurriedly pulled back up the hood to hide herself and tried to run away but she felt a tug at her wrist, damn that Natsu.
"Wait!" Came Natsu's shout, he had made up his mind, "Don't go! Don't you want to go back to Fairy Tale?!" He instantly regretted saying those words as Lucy turned to him with an Icy expression he had never seen before.
"Why would I ever want to go back to that stupid guild after I was treated like THAT?" She emphasized the word 'that' as she remembered what had happened a year ago.
Natsu shook his head, "But the others all miss you, Erza, Grey, Mira, Cana, Wendy, Happy, hell even Gajeel admitted it. Can't you come back? We were wrong to treat a friend like that, can you give us another chance? Even just for a little?" He asked and regretted it again, curse his stupid way with words. Lucy flashed toward him and in an instant there was a glowing dagger at his throat as she leaned toward him with a voice that would make steel shatter.
"You should have thought about that before you asshats nearly killed me, huh?" Lucy hissed, and walked away, leaving Natsu behind, stunned.
