Chapter 2: The girl in the infirmary
A few days later Team Natsu arrives back in Magnolia after another mission gone wrong.
"Natsu I'm getting real sick and tired of you blowin everything you see to oblivion!" Gray complained.
"Will you let it go already! It's not my fault that nothing can handle my flames!" Natsu yelled.
As usual Natsu and Gray bickered while Erza was about done with the ignorance she had to put up with for the whole mission. This carries on as they head back to the guild hall.
They enter the guild hall looking for their missing comrade Lucy and find her among the rest of their guild mates.
"There she is!" Natsu excitedly rushes over to Lucy followed by the rest of Team Natsu.
"Oh! Hey guys!" Lucy turns to them putting on a smile.
"Care to explain your last minute disappearance." Erza questioned.
"I'm really sorry you guys. I got kinda caught up with something.." Lucy neglected to make eye contact as her eyes started to wander towards the 2nd floor.
"Well, what happened?!" Natsu asked.
Lucy sighed before she answered.
"On my way to the train station I ran into this girl not far from the guild. She looked really sick and tired. I couldn't just leave her there, she could barely stand on her own. So I took her back to the guild. Porlyusica came and said she just had a common cold but…"
"But, what?" Erza pressed.
"I don't know. I just thought for sure that it might have been something far worse than that…"
"Well what's important is that she's okay, right?" said Erza.
"Yeah. She's fine. She needs a place to stay though. Apparently she has a place in Hargeon but she says shes not doing too well."
"So what are you gonna do, just lend her money when you barely have enough to pay rent? Gray asked.
"No, she…. Hey wait! Since when is it your business to know how much money I have?!"
"You usually don't have enough for rent that's all I know." he said jokingly.
"Lucy! You were saying…" Erza pressed on.
"Uhm..Yeah, well she's a mage too. So she could join the guild so she can take jobs and earn money."
"What kind of mage?" Natsu asked.
"She said her powers change based on her emotions."
Erza hummed in interest. "I've never heard of that before."
"Is it okay if I go see her?" She asked.
Lucy glanced back up to the 2nd floor.
"Yeah. I guess. She did wake up not too long ago."
"Hey! I wanna go too! C'mon Happy!" Natsu exclaimed.
Wendy perked up. "I should go too since she's sick! I can heal her! Let's go, Carla!"
They all rush up to the infirmary. Leaving Lucy and Gray behind.
"I…. guess I'll just stay here then." Gray goes over to sit by the bar.
"Why won't you go up there with them?" Lucy asks.
"Well it's not like I can do that much for her anyway."
In the infirmary
There's a knock at the door as five Fairy Tail members enter.
Erza decides to introduce themselves. "Hello there, Lucy told us about your whereabouts. My name is Erza Scarlet the requip mage of Fairy Tail, This is Natsu Dragneel our Fire Dragon Slayer known as Salamander, over here is Wendy Marvel the Wind Dragon Slayer of Fairy Tail, and we have Happy and Carla, two of our Exceeds of Fairy Tail. Welcome to the Fairy Tail Guild."
Brooke looks through the room at all of them one at a time.
"Uhm..It's really nice to meet you all , but I don't think I'll be joining your guild anytime soon."
A wave of confusion washes over them.
"Wait you're not?! Why?" Natsu jumped.
"I'm sorry. I'm just not looking to get close with people right now. At the moment I think it's best that I just focus on a job and get a new place."
"But you are a mage aren't you?" asked Erza.
"Yes but I try not to use my powers a lot since I feel like they were made for evil."
Brooke starts to feel uneasy as she tries to eat the soup set on the nightstand next to her. Erza watches her sympathetically.
"Well if you wouldn't mind we would like to observe a little of your magic."
Brooke ponders for a bit to decide if she has enough strength to control it at the moment. After a while she seems very concentrated on the vase of flowers on the counter behind the group. There is a long intense silence.
*CRASH*
The whole group is startled at the loud crash behind them. They all turn to see the vase of flowers completely destroyed. They turn back around to the girl to find her quietly munching on a little sandwich.
"Wow! That's so cool!" says Natsu looking amazed.
Erza is slightly confused.
"What exactly did you do, though?"
"Well, I made an explosive invisible force field beside the vase. I was only supposed to move the vase to the other side of the counter,but….I guess I didn't have enough control to do just that."
Erza looks back at the shattered vase.
"So what emotion were you feeling just now?"
"Well that only happens when I get uncomfortable, there are three stages to each of my emotions, so it would just get even worse."
After this there is a knock at the door as Lucy enters the room.
"Oh hey! I was just gonna come and see if you wanted to go out to the park with me since the weather is started to calm down."
'Huh? How did it clear up so fast?'
"I know, the weather's crazy around here, but it did get warm enough to go out."
"Well, I don't know I'm still feeling kind of…"
"Oh! Sorry! I meant after Wendy heals you."
Brooke puts down her sandwich with a confusing look.
"Wait! She can do what?"
Wendy rushes over to her on the bed.
"Yeah! I could make you feel better. I mean if you wanted me to!"
The girl was really excited to help. She was so ecstatic that she had already begun the healing process.
"Oh. I guess it's okay, then."
As Wendy heals the sick girl Lucy takes Natsu and Happy to prepare to go out to the park.
Lucy, Natsu, Happy, and Brooke start walking on the sidewalk path that leads to the park. As mentioned before the weather has cleared up a lot and has gotten slightly warmer. As they're walking Lucy starts to make conversation.
"So, how old are you?"
"Well, I'll actually be 18 on the 20th of next month."
"Oh! So your birthdays coming up!"
That's cool! We can throw you a party at the guild and everything!" says Natsu.
"Well that depends on if I'll even still be around then."
Happy rushes to float in front of her face.
"Then you should join the guild!"
"But I already told you guys that I can't be too close to people for too long."
"Why not! You'll love it here. There's so many friendly people in our guild with different you'd find a few people that you'd really like to hang out with." Lucy says.
A few minutes pass and they are already at the park.
"Alright Happy! What's our lunch for today!" Natsu exclaims.
"Today we have, FOUR WONDERFUL FISHES for all of us!"
"And of course I will take care of the cooking part for the three of us." Natsu says smugly.
Natsu steps forward and blows fire at only three of the fishes and manages to cook them all perfectly.
"Alright! Now lets dig in! says Natsu excitedly.
All four of them sit down on the ground to prepare for the meal. Natsu, Happy, and Lucy are now chowing down on their fishes while Brooke just stares down at hers.
"Uhm...Guys?"
Everyone looks up at her curiously with their mouths full.
"I hate fish." She says bluntly.
"WHAT!" Happy yells.
"Well don't be picky about it! Beggars can't be Choosers!" Natsu yells.
"Who said I was begging, I just hate fish. I'm not even hungry anyway. One of you guys can have my fish."
"Hmph." Natsu snatches up her fish.
"Well, I'll take it since you were so ungrateful to Happy."
Lucy starts to giggle.
"Leave her alone you guys. She's not a greedy pig that eats everything like you Natsu."
The rest of them finish off the fish and start to head back to the guild.
Back at the Fairy Tail Guild
Everybody is up and about doing their own thing.
"Hey, Brooke I just wanted to tell you."
"Lucy, is it okay if you guys called me something else?"
"What do you mean? Like a nickname?"
"Yeah."
"Why?"
"I don't know it just feels weird with you guys calling me by my normal name."
"Hmm. Well you do seem kind of pensive sometimes so maybe… Penny!"
"Wait… why Penny, that might get kinda weird too."
"Well too bad, that's your nickname now!"
Lucy giggles in excitement.
"Anyway I wanted to tell you that while you're staying here you can stay at my place."
"Oh. Okay. Thanks."
"No problem. Okay well I'm gonna go take care of some things . You should go make friends with some of the guild members while I do that."
As Lucy disappears into the crowd Brooke goes to relax and sit down at the bar.
'I wonder how I'm supposed to stay around here AND control my magic at the same time.'
Brooke sits there pondering as a white haired mage approached her.
"Hello! It's good to see you're up and about! The name's Brooke right?"
"What? How did you…?
"Lucy told me"
"Oh!"
'Geez, do I even get a chance to introduce myself anymore?'
"Would you like something to eat or drink? The name's Mirajane by the way."
"It's nice to meet you! Uhm… Just a water would be nice."
"Sure!"
Mira saunters off happily to get her the cool drink.
"So you're the new girl, huh?"
Brooke looks over to her left to see a raven haired man sitting next to her.
"Uhm..yeah, I'm.."
"Brooke. Lucy told me."
"Well she sure does talk a lot, huh?"
Brooke looks down and twiddles her thumbs as her water arrives in front of her.
"So what's your name?"
The man glances back at Brooke.
"Gray Fullbuster."
"That's a nice name." She says softly.
"Thanks."
Gray starts to notice that she probably isn't the most comfortable when talking to people.
"So are you gonna join the guild pretty soon?"
"Uhm. No."
"Why not?"
"Well the last thing I need right now is to be around a bunch of people . I'm kind of forced to be alone for the rest of my life because of my troublesome powers." She said jokingly.
"What are you talking about?"
"Huh?"
"Nobody has to be alone. And I'm pretty sure your powers aren't troublesome. You just have to find a positive outlook to everything. I'm not telling you that you 'need' to join the guild. To be honest I wouldn't want to make you do anything outside of your comfort zone. Just think about what I said."
"Oh.. Okay. Well, Thanks for that."
"No problem."
Brooke gets up to leave as she is in deep thought on the whole situation. Meanwhile in the other corner of the guild there is a dark aura watching this whole scene play out.
"Gray-sama... Why do you continue to torture our love?"