Part II – Her new neighbor

Disclaimer: Fairy Tail don't belongs to me, unfortunately.


The city was simply mesmerizing. All the streets full of people and colors and kids and stores and oh so much noise was just an awesome view. The way the sunlight bathed every inch of the city and the way many leafs would fall slowly and beautifully from the trees, making a little carpet at some points of the sidewalk, were fascinating to Lucy. She had visited the city before with her parents, and she did look at it from her old house; but being there in the centre of it all was more exciting than whatever other experience she already had. She was just a little bit uncomfortable, considering all the faces that would turn to look at her, all the questioning gazes and all the hushed questions about who she could be.

Lucy kept wandering into the city, followed closely by Ms. Stupetto and Mathias, a little boy that offered to help both of them with their bags. The blonde didn't want to take anything with her besides her clothes and the Heartfilia's fortune, which was put securely in a bank; and now, she was searching for the place that the couple advertized about. She looked at every plaque and its respective name, trying to locate the Strawberry Street and the building she would find a place to live; but, until that moment, she was doing a poor job of it. She was just so distracted with all the new things she was seeing!

"Miss Lucy, maybe we should ask for directions?" Ms. Stupetto asked with a radiant smile and a knowing look in her face, making Lucy pout. The old maid knew that the blonde was excited for the first time in a long, long time, and wasn't making any effort at hiding her amusement with the situation. "I think it's already lunch time and we didn't even accommodate our things." Ms. Stupetto pushed a little more.

"Ok, fine, I will concentrate in finding the place now." Lucy agreed blushing, making the old woman giggle and the little boy chuckle. She couldn't understand the feeling, because she thought she would never feel it again; but she was happy. She was satisfied in making those two laugh with the simplest of the things she had said or she had done.

Maybe being out of that house haunted with sad memories and bad experiences, was really making a huge difference in her way of seeing life, in her moods and her own deep feelings.

Then, with some more wandering, she finally found the right street. Soon after that, she was at the doorstep of the building, ringing an intercom and waiting for the landlady to show up.

To say she was nervous would be a great understatement.

"How can I help ya?" The old and big woman appeared out of nowhere, making Lucy shriek briefly. A manicured eyebrow rose with the blonde's surprise, and Ms. Stupetto had to hold a giggle from escaping. It was refreshing to see Lucy interacting with another people, and she was so giddy with all her reactions. She really felt like Lucy's mother sometimes.

"Uh… I-Uh, well…" Lucy stuttered, trying to recollect herself after that scary apparition. "I, well, I'm searching for a place to live." She finally said and sighed relieved. "I was the owner of the mansion up the hill, but I sold it." She pointed to the huge building at the distance, up the higher hill of the city.

The landlady's eyes followed her finger and widened a little with recognition. "So you are the Heartfilia girl." She said, not sounding at all like a question. "That Fullbuster boy warned me that you could be showing up." The woman completed, seeing Lucy nodding vigorously at what she said. "I see. Well, yeah, there is a place, and it's already furnished. The rent will be 70,000 jewels." That wasn't a problem at all with all the money she was left by her father, and soon Lucy was taking the stairs to the third floor. "You will be the neighbor of the Dragneel boy, so I advise you to lock your door when you go inside." The landlady commented with a straight face and then left, leaving the keys with Lucy, Ms. Stupetto and Mathias at the door of the apartment 301.

To say Lucy was a little bit afraid of that last advice would be an understatement too.

"Thank you very much for your help, Mathias." Lucy heard Ms. Stupetto say happily, and looked at their direction in time to see the woman handing the little boy a few jewels so he could buy whatever he wanted to. She smiled a little with the way his face brightened a lot with that little gesture. Then, the old maid looked at her, making the blonde avert her eyes to the door in front of her. "Oh well, open the door, Miss Lucy. I want to stow our things and go buy some groceries to our lunch." There you have it, the bossy maid that she was used to.

"Geez, I will, I will." Lucy mumbled, and then opened the door with one of the many keys in that bunch. But, before she could even put one foot inside the place, the door of the apartment 302 opened abruptly making her jump startled. Again.

"Hey there! So you are my new neighbor!" A deep guy's voice came to her ears, and with a lot of hesitation, she turned to look at him. Her breath hitched a little when she laid her chocolate orbs at him, almost drowning with the view of his tanned skin, broad shoulders, toned muscles, strong jaw and intense onyx eyes. She felt inebriated when his perfume reached her nostrils, and when the heat from his presence reached her skin with his proximity she felt all the air in her lungs vanish. His toothy grin made her heart beat faster and the way he walked with so much determination at her direction made her blush like no other time. He was so hot!

He was really handsome even with that pink hair, all spiky-ish and messy.

"Yeah-"

"Come here Happy, let's help the new neighbor!" He cut her off without mercy - oblivious to the way she was almost hyperventilating until that moment - calling for a blue cat (!), getting both her and Ms. Stupetto's bags and entering Lucy's apartment - completely uninvited. "Geez, she kept the ice-prick's furniture!" Still at the outside of her new house, the blonde heard the man complain about her new place.

Lucy was kind of petrified.

She had just met the guy, but she already knew that she had never known someone so unnerving!

"H-hey!" She stuttered and entered her own apartment too, getting even more surprised at seeing the invader checking her refrigerator. "HEY!" She shouted with anger, making the guy look at her like another head was growing on her neck. She was raised to be a lady, and even if that didn't turned out like her father wanted, she would expect the minimum of education from someone; so, seeing the guy that she didn't even know invade her new house and check her new refrigerator was more than she could handle. Seriously. "Could you stop that!" She completed, seeing as how he couldn't be satisfied in only checking her refrigerator, he wanted to check all her cabinets too.

"Calm down, neighbor. I'm only checking if that idiot left something behind. I wouldn't want you to be poisoned by any of his food!" He guaranteed, being soon accompanied by an agreeing meow.

Lucy couldn't understand the blue cat. She just couldn't.

"Just stop messing around my house!" She chided angrily, understanding the landlady's advice clearly at that moment.

"Miss Lucy, I will go buy our groceries. Young man, make her company, ok?" Ms. Stupetto said without any concern, receiving an indignant and disbelieving stare from Lucy and a nod from the guy. Smiling knowingly, she left the place.

For some odd reason, she just could see the children that that couple could make!

"I can't believe it!" Lucy muttered in disbelief, staring at the spot previously occupied by that traitorous maid. In her whole life Lucy never stayed alone with someone she didn't know. Even when her mother was alive and her parents would invite people to her house, they never let her stay with one of the guests without supervision. Even when her father would treat her no better than trash, he never forced her to greet any of his guests alone; and Ms. Stupetto knew this. How could she make such a thing to her now? She was trying so hard not to freak out about her new phase of life, and now she had to stay with a guy – handsome, but a complete stranger! – she never met before, alone, in her new house. How could she handle this kind of pressure?!

"Hey, neighbor, do you think that lady will take too long to come back? I'm kinda hungry."

And a loose one, moreover.

"No, she will return in no time." She answered tiredly. "Can you please stop messing around? I don't even know the place yet, I want to be the one messing things here." She whined frustrated, seeing as how the guy didn't quit his tweaking with her new furniture.

To her surprise, he ignored her.

And the cat did too.

"Oh God, please help me here…" Lucy muttered in despair, already missing the peace of her old home. She knew that it was natural to miss that place even if it didn't make her a happy person, because she lived there all her life; but that situation with her weird neighbor and his weird BLUE CAT was making her homesickness even worse. "At least call me by name. I'm Lucy." She completed without any enthusiasm.

"I'm Natsu, Luigi. And this is Happy." He answered excitedly, pointing to his cat to give emphasis of who could be Happy. Those two were the only ones there, how could she doubt that he was calling the cat Happy? And why he was calling her Luigi?!

"It's Lucy." She corrected, already feeling exhausted.

Lucy couldn't help but be exasperated with the way he could tire her so easily. Maybe she really needed that type of contact with others after so many years of cold solitude. She couldn't count the times her father's guests would come to her house for some high society meeting, or even the times when people of all places came to her asking about her old house; those times weren't really social contact with others, they were only brief meetings with no real expectations or needs to show more than one emotion. She could only stare and be educated with her father's guests and be direct with those who tried to buy her old house. So, at that precise moment, which she needed some social capacity to kick those two out or even accept their presence in her new phase of life, she could see that maybe, just maybe, it could be good for her. To make friends. To get over all her life of nothingness and give it a meaning.

"If you really want to have free pass to my refrigerator, you really need to carry my bags to my bedroom." She said, crossing her arms with determination. If she wanted to learn to act around people for a longer time than a brief meeting, she needed to learn to give a little so she could receive too. Maybe that wasn't really the right choice of philosophy, but she would see that with time. She needed to learn the first step, first.

Natsu looked at her with a huge grin, making her doubt her own suggestion. "All right, then. Now I'm all fired up!" He agreed, and a meow came soon after his explosion of excitement.

She really, really couldn't understand the blue cat.

"So let's go, I will really need another pair of hands to make the stowage faster." She said clapping her hands and waiting for him to get all the bags in the living room.

When they reached the items, that Natsu got them with a bit of force, Lucy couldn't help but notice how his biceps would twitch with his movements or how his hands would grab her bags so firmly. She didn't understand her sudden attraction for the stranger, because in all her life she never felt like that with no one else; but she couldn't say that that unknown feeling was a bad one. All the butterflies in her stomach and the way her face was getting hotter and hotter while she stared at his body's attributes were good changes to her previous state of lethargy.

Maybe she should stop staring. What was the social rule to this kind of situation, again?

"What are you waiting for?" She heard Natsu asking from another room (maybe she should be less distract too), and soon she was running there. She would never admit, but she was smiling a little bit with the entire situation. And, for some odd reason, she felt a little excited with his carefree way of acting.

Maybe he could teach her to be more like him.

Maybe her new neighbor could, one day, be the best of her friends- "Geez, are these your panties? Look, Happy, she still wears the yellow ducks' ones!"… Scratch that. Maybe she just needed some heavy weapon to kill an inconvenient neighbor. "Oh-ho! There are some of them with squirrels too!"

Yeah, that's it.


AN: Well, I hope this chapter was better than the first. But, look, I'm not going to add any new chapters without reviews. I need to know your thoughts about this fic, I need to feel like there are people reading it. So, I'm grateful to CatsCradle22 and Critic-san for adding this to your favorite/following lists; and to IG1701FT and Rose Tiger for adding this to your following list too, but I won't even finish the third part because I don't know if I will continue this story (I was so excited with the idea D:)

So, what I wanted to say is that it's your choice, really. If you want to read more, send me reviews :)

Next chapter...? - "Her first night"

They talked about everything and nothing at the same time. She asked about the weather, even when she knew everything about it for living in that region for all her life; she asked about the neighbors of the others apartments, only to discover that everyone was Natsu's friends and they were, like him, kind of insane; she even asked about Happy's color of fur, and rendered herself speechless with the information that the man dyed the poor cat's fur every once in a while.

His excuse? Because it made Happy, well, happy.

She giggled a little bit remembering her stunned silence when Natsu told her that.