A/N: Thank you so much for all the favorites, follows, and reviews! I'm touched to see how much support this story has. I hope you'll enjoy the ride.

One thing: Some of you may have noticed that I changed the title of this story. It was originally going to have some kind of ridiculous storyline about actually stealing a star, but I did some re-thinking and realized how utterly stupid that was. So, Faster than Light it is, and I'm not changing it again. Sorry for the confusion.

Now, without further ado~

For a while, all Lucy could do was sit there in shock in the place she'd materialized. All of her hopes and dreams, years of hard work and dedication and derision, friendships, ambition—all down the drain in a matter of mere moments. It seemed as if all her extremities had gone numb. She was a jellyfish, with no brain and drained of all vitality; it was all she could do to sit upright. But that mindset didn't persist for long, and the old Lucy came raging back to the surface.

She turned to Natsu and pointed back in the direction they'd last seen her ship. "Take me back," she demanded.

"Back there?" He looked at her as if she'd crawled out of an insane asylum. "Psh, hell no. I don't want to die."

"I don't care," she growled. "Take me back. Now."

He shook his head adamantly. "I can't do that."

"I don't care!" she screamed again. "Do it!"

He looked taken aback at her outburst. "Why do you wanna go back so badly?"

"Why? Because my entire life is back there, you bastard! Everything I have, everything I want is back on that ship we just warped away from. I don't care about turning you in that this point—I just want to go home."

For the first time, he didn't meet her pleading gaze. "I can't."

To her embarrassment, tears began to pool in her eyes. "Are you that cruel that you would take my life away from me?"

His eyes snapped back up to hers. "No, that's not it! I would take you back, I really would. It's just…" he swallowed guiltily. "I can't. This ship's engines aren't advanced enough to handle two warp jumps in a day. They're not even supposed to be able to do even one—I had manually install a makeshift warp core into them to achieve even this."

Lucy's hand fell limply to her lap. "You're flying a piece of junk that can't even handle a warp jump? How have you even made it this far?"

"Well, it actually can warp, it just requires twelve hours to cool down and another three to charge back up. It's honestly a pretty huge improvement—when I first installed it I had to wait three days between each jump."

"Fifteen hours…" Her eyes widened. "Wait, but by then the mission will be over! My ship will be gone!"

"I'm sorry," he mumbled. "I didn't mean to take you with. I just wanted to stop you from raising the alarm."

Lucy inhaled deeply, massaging her temples. She supposed he was telling the truth; he had been yelling at her to stop moving and something about a transporter, but she hadn't been listening, being more focused on seemingly fighting for her life at the time. But if he was telling the truth, then there was nothing she could do about her situation now. She was, for better or worse, stuck with the thief before her now.

"Fine," she sighed. "I'll tell you what: I'll tag along with you for a while. But at the first opportunity we have, you're returning me to the Federation, got it?"

"Really?" he said. "That's awesome! Now I've already got a crewmember!"

"Hey, don't get so excited now," she warned. "I'm only going to be here for a little while."

"Who cares? Now I don't have to talk to my socks and do everything myself."

Lucy glanced around at the filthy ship. "Speaking of being here, we need to get some things straight. First off, there is no way in the nine circles of hell that I'm living in a ship as gross as this."

"Sorry," he said, scratching his head. "I'm not too good with keeping things clean. Never have been."

"Well, you're going to get good. Fast. The fact that I can still smell this stuff even with air ventilation horrifies me beyond belief."

"Sorry," he muttered again.

They spent the next half hour sorting through the various piles of clothes, dishes, and garbage scattered haphazardly across the tiny ship. Lucy ended up throwing out most of his clothing as they were so filthy, shredded, and stained that no amount of laundering would be able to save them. She took great pleasure in tossing out the spoiling food and mold-encrusted dishes, but Natsu refused to let her throw out the random bag of cat food in the corner or the bits of broken machinery. "I need them," was all he would reply when she asked.

The bathroom was also a bit of a mess, but not nearly as bad as she'd feared. At least both the toilet and the shower were operable, and he had a decent supply of toilet paper stocked up. And while there was a toothbrush, she couldn't locate any form of toothpaste or mouthwash in the whole ship. There was also a notable lack of towels aside from the one threadbare scrap hung carelessly over the shower panel. It occurred to her that she was going to need to acquire some toiletries as well as feminine products, but she shelved that in the back of her mind, vowing to deal with it later. She still had to focus on basic things like survival.

After wiping down the counter in the bathroom taking out the trash Lucy came back into the main cabin, wiping her forehead.

"Thank goodness that's basically over," she huffed in relief. "How in the world have you managed to gain your kind of reputation in this run-down tin can?"

Natsu looked up from a maintenance panel. "I didn't always have this ship, y'know. I used to have a really great one, a big Zoltan explorer. Aah, that thing was nice." He sighed nostalgically and grinned at her. "Had a really great entertainment system."

She flung herself into the navigation seat. "What happened to it?"

"I lost it when I tried to steal a Federation cruiser."

"You WHAT?"

"I had a bet with Gray: whichever one of us could get a Federation cruiser first would be able to order the other one around for a month." He hung his head dejectedly. "I didn't realize that they were having some kind of Admiral's convention, so they'd nearly quadrupled the security to impress 'em."

Lucy whistled slowly. "Wow. Talk about bad timing. So they caught you?"

"Yup. Warped in, all ready and rarin' to go, and the next thing I knew I was surrounded by five battleships, had my engines hacked, and was caught in a tractor beam. It was pretty embarrassing how easily they got me, even with all that extra security."

"Don't feel too bad. The Federation's known throughout the galaxy for its security. You'd have had no chance at all if the Admirals' ships were there."

"I knew that, but I still thought I could pull it off. I'd done crazier things before, or at least I'd thought I had." He shrugged. "I guess I got cocky."

"So they captured you, right? How did you escape?"

"Honestly? I got lucky. The loser guarding my cell was a greedy pig. I told him that I'd give him all the treasure I had in the secret compartment in my ship, but he had to let me out to show him. Idiot actually did, but his superiors knew he was flake and kept an eye on him. They'd known he'd let me out from the start and were ready. The only reason I got out at all was because of Happy."

"Happy?"

"My best friend. He bravely took the fall for me, holding our pursuers off and giving me time to escape to a cargo ship they had listed for scrap. Oh Happy, I've never had a friend like you," he added, his eyes shining with unshed tears.

Lucy bit her lip. That's actually pretty sweet, that he had such a good friend, she thought. She opened her mouth to say something comforting, but nearly bit her tongue off when Natsu leaped from the floor and pumped his fist enthusiastically, yelling, "But fear not, my friend! I, the great thief Natsu Dragneel, shall come to your aid and free you from the nefarious clutches of the enemy! Do not despair or lose hope, for your salvation is speedily forthcoming!"

He struck a heroic pose that would have been impressive had he not immediately doubled over in pain, clutching his side where Lucy had kicked him.

"Geez, I'm right here!" she snapped, lowering her hands from her ears. "You don't have to yell so loud."

"You don't have to kick me so hard, either," he moaned from the floor.

Lucy ignored this. "You shouldn't waste such a surprisingly large vocabulary on stupid statements," she advised. "If you want to save your friend, you should actually do something about it as opposed to just running your mouth."

"I would," he protested as he straightened. "Except I don't have any supplies that would help me fund that kind of venture. That's why I was stealing from your ship; I really needed some repair kits to help get this piece of junk along."

"I see," she said, nodding. "We need to upgrade a bit. Fine, where do we start?"

"Huh?" he said. "Wait, all of sudden you're just on board with what I'm saying? What happened to all that high-pitched shrieking that was going on before?"

She glared at him. "At this point the only viable option left to me is to help you along your way as fast as we can so that I can leave. If we don't get this ship properly space worthy soon, I'll never make it to a Federation outpost so far out from our territory."

"Oooh, gotcha. In that case, then we probably want to head out for the Engi controlled sector. It's not far from here—we could probably get there without warping within a couple days. I know a couple dealers there who would probably cut me a deal or two."

"Engi?" Lucy echoed, thinking back to her lessons back at the Academy. As communications officer she'd had plenty of exposure to the various life forms associated with the Federation, but the Engi were a rather mysterious race secluded within the Alvarez star system, a region left mostly unexplored by the Federation. "Are those cyborgs?"

"Sort of. They're some kind of weird hybrid between humanoid and sentient machines but not like a cyborg. They're basically entirely made of machinery, but they still need air to live. They're also really nice, so we shouldn't have too much trouble going through their territory."

"Oh, thank goodness," Lucy yawned. "I really don't need more trouble in my life right now. So we're heading off immediately?"

"Yup, soon as I can get this stupid navigational system to respond."

"Good. In the meantime, I'm gonna take a nap. Cleaning this place has totally drained me." She rose from her seat and headed towards the bed on the back of the ship, only to pause a few feet away from it.

"Wha's the ma'er?" Natsu mumbled around a sonic screwdriver.

"There's, um, only one bed," Lucy muttered.

"So?"

"Well, it's your bed, isn't it? I can't take it from you."

He gestured dismissively. "Nah, go ahead, it's fine."

She blinked. "But even if it's fine for now, you're still going to need it later tonight. I can't just take over your bed."

"Hey, I said it's fine, alright? I'll take the floor; I'm used to hard surfaces."

"I can't do that!" she exclaimed, scandalized.

He strode over to where she stood and stopped barely a foot away from her, looking her straight in the eye. "I said it's okay with me," he said steadily. "It's my fault you're stuck in this garbage can anyway. The least I can do is give you a place to sleep."

Lucy held still, gazing into his honest onyx eyes and felt a wave of shame begin to well up within her. It occurred to her that from the moment she met this man she hadn't been particularly kind to him, both in her mannerisms and her movements. And yet here he was, offering her one of his only bits of comfort in a horridly uncomfortable situation. Suddenly, she felt as if she could no longer meet his eye, and dropped her gaze.

"I…thank you, Mr. Dragneel," she whispered.

"Hey, don't worry about it!" he laughed, clapping her shoulder. "If you feel that bad, think of it this way: we're gonna get a new ship soon, and we're not taking one without two beds. Okay?"

She nodded mutely, unable to return his blinding grin.

He went back to fiddling with the navigational system, whistling some off-key tune as he did so. Lucy sat on the bed despondently and lay down, but did not fall asleep. Instead, she tried thinking of something she could do for him as an apology for her deplorable behavior. The problem was she had very little to work with in general, and had no idea what he needed aside from more supplies and a new ship. And as much as she would like to help him along in that area, she would need a huge sum of money to purchase said supplies.

Lucy rolled over, facing the wall. Money. That was it. It was probably the only thing she could do help out her host. While she didn't have any money on her, she did have a considerable amount stored in her intergalactic bank saved up from her various mission pay. She was loathe to part from that money, as she had been considering buying a small house back on Magnolia for herself, but perhaps this situation called for it more than a far off dream. Besides, buying a house on a planet thousands of light years away wouldn't help much if they couldn't get off the floating bit of scrap they were currently stranded in.

That settled it. When they reached the Engi controlled-sector and came across a shop, she would donate her money to help out Natsu. Happy with her decision, Lucy closed her eyes and allowed herself to drift off to the soft shores of sleep.

It seemed as if she had barely closed her eyes for more than five seconds before Natsu was yelling in her ear to wake up.

"Wassamatter?" she mumbled.

"We've got a bit of a problem," he said with a grim look. "There's a C-class vessel headed on an intercept course for us. They'll be here in minutes."

Lucy pinched herself, chasing the remnants of sleep away. "Why is that a problem? Is it a military vessel?"

"Nope," he answered curtly, seating himself at the helm. "Worse. They've got multiple different types of equipment on them from different sectors, and not in an organized way. They're pirates."

"Pirates?" Lucy exclaimed, taking the seat next to him. "Oh great, just what we need in this condition. Please tell me we've got shields."

"Yeah, but bare minimum. Level 1-C only."

"That's it?" Shields on most ships in the explored territory of space had four levels of shields, each with three sub-levels. Level 1-C was the lowest possible, barely enough to fend off a couple asteroids.

"Kind of."

"Then we've at least got some weapons handy, right?"

"Well…" he glanced at her nervously. "Does a Flak count?"

"You mean an advanced garbage disposal system?!"

"Yup."

"Lovely," she said shortly. "Welp, we're dead. Do you reckon these pirates take slaves?"

He shook his head. "Nah, don't have the right markings on the hull. I'd say these are just some third-rate thugs looking for easy scrap."

"Yeah, that pretty much sums us up right now."

"Hey, c'mon," he protested. "We've got at least one thing they don't have."

She raised an eyebrow. "And what's that?"

He raised his in return. "The best pilot in the galaxy, obviously. Dodging their attacks'll be a cinch."

"Normally I'd debate that with you," Lucy said. "But in this case you'll have ample opportunity to prove it to me yourself. Look." She nodded towards the viewer screen, which showed the pirate ship coming into short-range sensor view. It was a small vessel painted a horrid orange with mismatched parts like Natsu had pointed out. "So what do we do now, captain?"

"'Captain?'" he repeated quietly to himself. "Heh, I like that! If Ice Princess could see me now…"

"Mr. Dragneel," Lucy said sharply. "Focus."

"Oh right, sorry." He pressed a few buttons on the control panel. "I've started up the Flak, but it's gonna need time to charge up."

"What good is the Flak going to do?" she asked, confused.

He winked at her. "Why do you think I insisted we keep all that broken junk? When that ship showed up on the long-range scanners, I dumped it all in the Flak compartments."

Lucy's jaw dropped. "You're going to use our garbage as missiles?"

"Pretty much the only option we've got right about now," he said. A section of the control panel lit up as he spoke. "Oh crap, they're hailing us."

"So answer it!"

"I'm no good at that stuff! You're a communications officer, right? That's what your bag said, anyway. So communicate! Answer them!"

"What do you want me say?"

"Anything, just buy me some time to get this stupid thing charged! Flaks fire the garbage at a weird velocity that somehow bypasses shields under Level 3, so this should work, but it takes a freakish amount of time to power up."

Alright… Lucy thought, and opened the hailing frequencies with some trepidation. "This is the—" She started to issue the usual interspace greeting, but realized she didn't know the name of their ship.

What's the name of the ship? She mouthed to Natsu.

He shrugged hopelessly. I don't know! I didn't think I'd have it long enough to be worth giving a name.

She gestured furiously. Pick a name! Any name!

The-the Dragneel! No, Dragon! Yeah, the Dragon!

Gritting her teeth, Lucy refocused on the transmission. "This is the Dragon," she said clearly. "Please state your business."

A harsh voice crackled over the comm. "A big name for a small ship! This is the Bootlicker, and we demand the immediate surrender of your vessel and its goods!"

Over on the side Nastu frantically signaled for her to buy more time. Lucy swallowed hard. Communications Officer she may have been, but she was never the one to negotiate with another vessel—that was the captain's job. She really had no idea what to say.

"All our goods?" she asked coyly. When in doubt, rely on womanly charms. "Surely you don't need all of them. Won't half do?"

Sadly, the enemy commander didn't seem to appreciate her tone. "Our conditions are non-negotiable. We demand complete surrender, or you shall die here and now in the cold embrace of space, and we shall salvage what scrap is left from the husk of your pathetic ship."

A glance at Natsu told her still he still needed more time. "Oh, how eloquent!" she crooned. "I could listen to such poetry all day." Natsu snorted with laughter.

"Your pitiful attempts at flattery are futile." Was this commander deaf or something? Did he not have any ego whatsoever? "Now, make your decision: surrender or die!"

"Well, dying doesn't really appeal to us," Lucy said hesitantly, "but we're not in the best of shape and need some time to—"

"No time! Immediate surrender or death!"

Now panicking slightly, Lucy glanced at Natsu again. "Uh, I really could use some good news here," she whispered urgently.

He didn't answer but leaned over to the comm and yelled, "Oh yeah? Well then here's our surrender, ya bastards!" He slapped a button on the side of the control panel. "Eat this!"

The Dragon shuddered with the impact of the release of the garbage. Heart in her throat, Lucy watched a stream of metal projectiles being launched at the pirate ship. To her amazement, nearly three quarters of them actually penetrated the shields and slammed against the hull of the Bootlicker, damaging the hull.

"Almost!" Natsu grinned and began recharging the Flak.

"Are-are we seriously fighting off pirates with trash?" Lucy sputtered.

"You betcha! Woah, crap—" he quickly typed in several commands to the navigational system and the whole ship lurched to the side, narrowly avoiding a laser beam from their opponent. "Yeah, this is the stuff!" he yelled.

Lucy had grabbed on to the control panel to avoid being thrown out of her seat. "I don't think you're supposed to be enjoying this," she bit out.

"Don't be like that, it's all part of the fun," he sang happily as he yanked the ship to the side again. "How's the Flak doing?"

She leaned over to examine the gauge. "It's almost charged," she reported. "About ninety-eight percent."

"Good. When it's ready, aim it and blow them six ways from next Wednesday!"

"Happy to oblige," she muttered. Locking on to her target, she hit the Release Garbage button and threw her head up to see her results.

Their remaining trash sailed through the shields with little resistance and collided roughly with the Bootlicker's hull. With a great trembling, the enemy ship imploded before them in a fiery explosion, sending debris in all directions. Stunned, Lucy lowered her hands and gazed at the wreckage in disbelief.

"We…we killed them," she stammered. "They're dead, and I killed them!"

"Oh no," Natsu said, facing her and wagging his finger at her. "You are not pulling that pity for the enemy crap on my ship."

She stared at him in horror. "But they're dead. I didn't know the ship would be destroyed from that volley, I didn't mean to kill them—"

Natsu slammed his hand on the control panel, shocking her into silence.

"Lucy," he said quietly. "I want you to listen carefully to what I'm about to say. Now, I don't know what kind of comfy, cushioned life you had on that fancy Federation ship, but out here as a lone ship unassociated with any race or government, things are very different. We don't have the protection of a government or fellow species behind us. If we're attacked, we're on our own. For people like us, drifting pirates and thieves, it's kill or be killed out here."

"But—"

"They would have killed us, Lucy," Natsu said fiercely. "There's no such thing as surrender for pirates. And if we hadn't destroyed them, they would have marked us and hunted us down for revenge as soon as they recovered. It's how things work out here. So don't you dare ever feel bad about defending yourself. Do you hear me?"

She bit her lip. "I—"

"Do you hear me?"

She nodded slowly.

He exhaled slowly. "Good," he said. "I'm not trying to be cruel or bad, Lucy. I don't like killing people either, but that's the way things are out here."

She closed her eyes, breathing in deeply. "Alright," she said. "I'll try to keep that in mind. But don't think for a moment that I'll ever throw away my basic morality."

"I wouldn't want you to. That's what makes us who we are."

Lucy smiled slightly. "Agreed. Thank you for calming me down, Mr. Dragneel. I really appreciate it."

He waved his hand dismissively. "No problem. We're crewmates, and if we're gonna be together for a while I figured we might as well make some things clear. Now," he said, settling down at his post at the helm. "I'm gonna fly around and see if we can get anything good from these scraps. Why don't you go and calm down? This was probably pretty crazy for you."

Lucy sighed. "Okay."

"Oh, and one more thing—" Natsu swiveled around in his chair to smile toothily at her. "I hate formalities, so just call me Natsu, 'kay?"

Blinking, she smiled back at him. "Sure thing—Natsu."