A/N: It's my birthday today! So before I go gallivanting around, I decided to update a little earlier then planned. Yay, what a good day. :


Chapter 2

Lucy, Natsu, and Happy had come to Blanche Peak at the request of the Blanche village elders. Once he had recovered from the train ride, (I'll never ride a train again! he had said, collapsing in the road) they had asked Natsu to clear a small path through the forest which allowed them access to the top of the mountain. But Natsu had gotten...carried away.

'No, no, Lucy, it's much faster if we do it this way! ' He had exclaimed, leaping upwards to roundhouse kick the tip of a pine tree with a resonating, fiery smack.

'Natsu, wait! That might cause an avalanche! ' She tried to warn him, but the damage had already been dealt. As the trees began to fall like dominos, snow from the tallest peaks of the mountain began to thunder down the slopes. Taurus, Virgo, and Aquarius were able to divert the blast, and none were too happy. All of her Stellar Spirits (...Especially Aquarius. 'Don't you DARE you call me for a whole month, you b#' she had yelled) had all refused to come out again until she'd gotten out of this frozen wasteland.

"Mrrg,...freaking...RENT," cursed Lucy, dragging a log towards the cave. "Honestly, the things a girl's gotta to do to make a living around here."

Finally reaching her destination, Lucy dumped whatever wood she had found near the mouth of the cave and surveyed her living quarters for the night. Natsu had managed to find a small cave roughly the size of her bathroom. He had scorched the the rock walls clean of debris and had apparently left to find some firewood.

Removing her pack, she bent to rearrange the contents, groaning in dismay, finding jagged rip in the bottom. 'No blankets or spare clothes? At least I have...two granola bars and a book of matches. How lovely.' She was wearing a faux-fur lined jacket, a cotton shirt, jeans, and a pair of slim boots. The mission wasn't supposed to be a long one, just get in, do what you gotta do, then get out. Lucy wasn't close to prepared for the frozen tundra.

"Oi, Lucy! Gimme a hand with this!" a voice called. Lucy quickly stood up and dashed out of the cave. She had run a mere 6 feet before she came to a skidding halt, open-mouthed at the sight before her.

"What, cat got your tongue? How can it when there's no cat here!" said Natsu, standing triumphantly on top of his findings, his jacket and dragon-scaled scarf flapping in the wind.

Lucy was...speechless. For, you see, Natsu hadn't brought back a mountain of twigs or a pile of logs, he had brought back...a 40 foot pine tree. Words returned to her as she cleared her throat. "Um...Natsu...what are we going to do with that?"

"Got a lighter or some matches? I'm going to eat it!"

Lucy's mouth dropped. (Literally.) "Eat it?! EAT it? Are you serious? Natsu, that tree is half the size of headquarters! It's HUGE!"

"Well, I'm HUGE-angously hungry!" Natsu retorted, defiantly crossing his arms. "Got a problem with--"

Suddenly, an icy blast of wind plummeted into the pair, spraying them with a shower of sharp crystals of ice. Lucy cried out and was knocked to the ground by the force of the impact. 'A snowstorm? Oh no, I can't reach my keys! And I don't know where the cave is? Where is Natsu?' She panicked as she felt her jacket being torn to shreds by the blizzard. The coldness was almost too much to bear. Just as Lucy had managed to stand up, she felt a relatively large piece of ice collide with her temple. Involuntarily taking in a gasp of frigid air, Lucy felt the ground falling from beneath her, her eyelids drooping as the harsh white landscape began to fade to black. But right before her head hit the earth, she felt two warm hands catch her. And then everything went black.


The first thing Lucy noticed when she woke up wasn't the icy cold air or the hard stone at her back, it was the throbbing coming from the right side of her forehead. Clenching her teeth, she raised her hand to inspect the damage the ice had caused...only to find a simple linen bandage wrapped around her head.

'My head is killing me but at least my clothes are dry, she thought, Natsu must have fixed me up. Natsu?' Lucy's eyes widened as she imagined Natsu going back into the storm for his tree. 'He wouldn't do that...would he? And my keys! Where are my keys?' She quickly sat up to survey her dark surroundings, but soon regretted it as her quick movements brought stars to her eyes.

"Lucy? Lucy! You're awake!"

Lucy turned, slowly this time, towards the back of the little cave to see a smiling Natsu, crouched over a small fire.

"I found some matches in your pack! But I lost my tree. All we've got left are a few twigs and this poor excuse for a log," he scoffed, gesturing towards the log Lucy had brought back.

"A rose by any other name would still smell as sweet," Lucy retorted.

"Roses? What nonsense are you talking about, woman?"

Lucy sighed. "Shakespeare. It's, ugh, never mind. It means that that's a log, not a very big log, but it'll still burn the same as any other log out there."

Natsu crossed his arms. "Psh, MY log would have burned 10 times hotter then this! This log is weak. WEAKsauce."

Shaking her head, Lucy was thankful when she spied her keys hanging from a small nook on the wall. She turned to check the weather outside, but was surprised to see the door blockaded by a thick sheet of ice. 'Oh no...are we trapped in here?'

Natsu looked up. "Oh. That."

"...What IS that?" Lucy asked, turning around, her hand over her mouth. "Are we snowed in? Or...frozen in?"

Much to her surprise, he shook his head. "Grey told me once, that the ice actually keeps the cold air out, so you feel warmer. Guess that idiot knows something useful. So I collected the bigger pieces of ice and melted them together!" He shrugged, proud of his accomplishment. "It took some trial and error but you were asleep for the entire thing."

"So are we stuck here for the night?"

"Mmm, yeah. After you fainted, the storm got worse and those ice chunks got bigger! We'd die if we went out now. But it won't be so bad, look," Natsu said, pointing towards the top left corner off the ice wall, "I made an airhole."

Lucy brushed her hair out of her eyes. "And you'll just melt us out tomorrow morning?"

"Yep!" He grinned, flashing her a thumbs-up sign.

She felt relieved. At least they would be out of the blizzard for the night. But something was missing.Dry clothes, check. Shelter, check. Guildmate OK, check. Food, half-check. Granola wasn't enough for her liking but it would have to do. So what was missing? Puzzled, she continued to look around until it suddenly hit her...

"Hey Natsu..."

"Eh?"

"...where's the bathroom?"

Laughing, Natsu got up and showed her a small square shaped crack in the bottom corner of the ice-door. "See here? You can pull it in like...this," he explained, pulling the little square into the cave. Lucy peered in the crevice to see more ice and a little hole dug into the snow.

Proud of his invention, he continued, "You just do your business and voila! Kick some snow over it! Just remember, don't ever eat yellow snow."

There were no words to describe how thankful Lucy was to have no wish to use the ice-bathroom anytime soon.

After pushing the door back into place, the pair moved back to the makeshift fire. Leaning back against the rock wall, Natsu sighed.

"Well Lucy, it looks like it's just you and me."

'One whole night. Trapped in a cave with a door made of ice... With Natsu,' she thought, making herself comfortable on the cave floor. 'Should I feel weird that it's just me and Natsu? Alone? In a cave?' Memories flooded into her mind. Natsu and Grey's brawl. Natsu being train-sick. Natsu teasing Erza. Natsu smiling, introducing her to Fairy Tail. Natsu playfully slinging his arm around her shoulders. Natsu...

'No, Natsu is a friend. We're friends. He's my friend. I'm his friend. Friends. Nakama! Nothing else.'

Trying to clear her thoughts, Lucy reached for her pack and fished around for the granola bars. "Look, I have two of these," she said, finding one and tossing it to Natsu, "You get one, I get one, and no eating the fire!"

Too late. Natsu was already bent over the small fire, which had diminished in size, one fist clutching the flame, the other stuffing it into his mouth. "Wut? Buh wuh? Mucy, Mm hungree."

"NOOOO!" Lucy screamed, dropping to her knees to feed the remaining twigs to the dying fire.

"Psh, fuh, fuh," Natsu mumbled, spitting the flame back towards the log. "I won't eat it. You happy now?"

As she desperately fanned the flame, she scolded, "Natsu, that's our lifeblood right now. If you eat it, we'll freeze to death."

"C'mon, it's not even that cold! Just one bite."

"No! Absolutely not," Lucy glared, her hands on her hips "Just because you're a salamander and I'm not, doesn't mean you can condemn me to death! I'm freezing here!"

'Hmph! Stomach first! Always, feed me, fee--' Lucy's thoughts were interrupted as something soft hit her face.

Holding it up to the firelight, she questioned with a puzzled look on her face,"...Your scarf?"

His eyes were closed as he straightened out the collar of his jacket. "If you were that cold, you should have said something."

A sly smile on her face, Lucy scooted over to poke at the salamander's cheek. "Remember at Mount Hakobe? Saving Macau? How come you wouldn't loan me your scarf then but you will now? Hmm? Hmmmm?"

Swatting away her fingers, Natsu cleared his throat and lightly shoved her away. "I didn't know you as well then. But now we're friends--nakama--and that's what friends do."

"Well thank you, Natsu, I'm much warmer now," laughed Lucy, settling down and opening her granola bar. "I'd much rather be stuck in a small cave with my nakama then with anyone else."

Natsu peered up at Lucy, a hopeful smile on his face. "So now can I eat the flame?"

She glared exasperatedly at him through her blonde bangs, her mouth full of granola. Just as she was about to reiterate why a fire was essential in their situation, a particularly strong gust of wind forced itself through the airhole.

"Will it hold?" Lucy asked, gesturing towards the ice wall.

"Yep. That thing is solid." Natsu got up to tap on the wall with his knucles. "See? Solid."

"How long did it take you to ma--," she said interrupted by the loud wooshing noise of another powerful gust of wind. They both turned to see that the gust was too strong for the small fire, extinguishing it so that only a few sparks remained.

Lucy cried out in dismay, her hands flying to her face. "Noo! Our heat source!" she wailed while Natsu flung himself onto the ground, frantically trying to resuscitate the charred remains of the log. "I can't believe it! I didn't even get to eat it!


A/N: So yeah. Chapter 2! I'm sorry, I know blizzards (and the damsel in distress thing) are so overdone. I needed the blizzard/hail-storm for the ice-wall. I've got plans for it. Lucy's headache too! Wah, I don't want to spoil anything. :

I think total, this will probably be a total or 4 chapters. I want to write a longer, multi-chaptered fic, but Snowed In isn't it, there's only so much one can do in a cave before becoming bored. (Harhar.) Either that, or a series of one-shots! I don't know, I have to go flip through my many post-its with random ideas

Like it so far? See any mistakes? Any suggestions? (I need to work on making my chapters longer.) Please review!