When Lucy regained consciousness, she tried desperately to go back to sleep. Today I have to go to the meeting with that suitor. I could always try locking myself up in my room again, but that won't work. It never does. Then all of the memories from the previous night came flooding back.
Her last memory was Natsu telling her to go to sleep and falling asleep on a leather seat in a car. All of the anxiety she had had the night before came back but so came waves of relief. She would never go back to the estate, Natsu had implied as much last night. But now the blonde was nervous about what the leader of Fairy Tail would do now. It hadn't seemed like he wanted to hurt her, but that could have been an act.
Finally she forced her eyes open and was surprised to find herself lying in a large bed with a simple light blue blanket. White window curtains were pulled back to reveal a large window that showed the tops of trees. This must be Natsu's house, Lucy thought, her mind still drowsy from sleep. A soft whoosh noise filled the room and Lucy looked towards the door. To her surprise a blue cat walked in and seemed to make eye contact with her. "Oh good you're awake." Did the cat just talk? Lucy asked herself. No, that's impossible. "What have you not seen a talking cat before?"
"No, I can't say that I have," Lucy managed to say through her surprise and shock.
"That's so weird," the cat teased. "Natsu told me to take you to his office. He's been waiting for you to wake up all morning."
"What time is it?" Lucy yawned and looked around for a clock.
"Oh there aren't any clocks. Instead there's some sort of panel in the night table that can do a holographic display of a clock." Lucy's brown eyes widened, she had thought those were only prototypes. Her father had holographic displays but not that many. Curiosity getting the better of her, she tapped the top of the nightstand and was greeted with a blue interactive holographic display. She pressed the word 'clock' and saw the display change into the time.
"It's 10:00?" Lucy gasped and she smiled to herself. "I never got to sleep in this late." She laughed as the blue cat stared at her oddly.
"C'mon, Natsu's not known for his patience," the blue cat said and Lucy trailed after him. The talking cat led Lucy down a hallway that had glass siding and Lucy gasped when she saw the rest of the house. The furniture that she did see was sleek and obviously incredibly modern, such a difference from the estate she had grown up on. The walls were all glass and they offered a view of the incredible backyard. Beyond the bright green grass was a swimming pool with water that appeared a dark shade of turquoise due to the shade of the trees.
"This is incredible," Lucy breathed as she followed the cat down the hall. They stopped in front of a dark brown door and the wonder that Lucy had been filled with vanished and was replaced with nerves.
"Natsu, we're here!" The brown door silently swung open.
"You can come in little buddy. Good morning Lucy," Natsu said. Lucy's first impression was that Natsu clearly didn't put emphasis on appearing serious. He had a red V-neck, cargo shorts and his feet were propped up on his white, minimalistic desk. Like her father's office, Natsu had two chairs in front of his desk but these looked far more comfortable. Both of the walls were white and had various images, maps, and newsfeeds covering the surface. All the information was constantly changing and Lucy had to wonder how Natsu kept track of it all. The wall behind the desk was all glass allowing more sunlight to stream in through the windows. "You don't have to keep standing you know," Natsu told his guest with an amused, arched eyebrow. Lucy flushed and sat down.
"Sorry, old habits die hard," she apologized keeping her head lowered. She heard Natsu sigh.
"Happy, can you go bring the stuff up for breakfast? Sorry to make you work little buddy but Kinana and Mira left last night and aren't coming today."
"Aye sir!" the blue cat, Happy Lucy figured, exclaimed and grew white wings and zoomed through the air and out the door.
"He can fly?" Lucy asked incredulously. Natsu laughed at her expression.
"Yeah, he was genetically engineered to. All my cousins have cats just like him, we call them Exceeds." He cleared his throat and put his hands behind his head. "Did you sleep well?"
"Yes, thank you. I haven't slept in this late before. Or I mean I have, just not since I was little," Lucy amended quickly, still looking anywhere but Natsu's sharp, dark eyes.
"You don't need to be so afraid of me you know," he informed her. "You should consider yourself lucky, if it had been one of our enemy gangs you'd be in a considerably worse position. I like to think that I've treated you well, considering you're a Heartfilia and Fairy Tail generally has a grudge against your family, not your whole family though, just your father. I'd only hurt you if you gave me a reason to." At the last words Lucy's head snapped up and she eyed the pinkette warily. Normally her opinion never mattered to anyone and she learned the hard way that it was easier to keep your thoughts to yourself. While the Salamander's words weren't exactly reassuring, he hadn't hurt her yet.
"I have the food!" Happy announced as he placed a plate with muffins, fruit, and a pitcher of juice onto the desk. "Can I stay with you Natsu?"
"Sure little buddy," Natsu agreed and Happy cheered. The blue talking cat flew up on Natsu's head and curled up in his mess of pink hair. "Lucy, you can take the food. If there's one thing you should know, I'm normally pretty relaxed and not formal in the slightest." Lucy nodded and reached out and grabbed a muffin and poured herself some juice.
"Thank you, you've been incredibly generous," Lucy thanked her host softly. A small half-smile appeared on Natsu's face. He was genuinely glad that Lucy was at least talking. From what he knew about Jude Heartfilia from observations, interactions, and spies, one of them being Loke who was actually a member of Fairy Tail, Jude Heartfilia was stiff, formal, single-minded, and cold. Of course his daughter would be quiet and shy. She had probably been oppressed since her mother had passed away. Natsu's jaw tensed involuntarily at his thoughts. He chuckled softly at her words of gratitude.
"I'm glad you like it. Lucy, would you mind if I asked you some questions?" Natsu ventured tentatively. He would have to be careful, he didn't want Lucy to close up, quite the opposite. Immediately her brown eyes became guarded and she regarded him with emotionless eyes.
"I'm going to go now," Happy excused himself and slipped out the door.
"What kind of questions?" she replied. Natsu had spent his entire life dealing with people and he had become adept at reading body language. Even though Lucy probably believed she was emotionless, and Natsu had to give her credit for allowing such little emotion to show, Natsu could tell from her tense shoulders, alert eyes, and clenched jaw that she wasn't going to give answers willingly.
"Just information about your father. It doesn't have to be anything specific, I mean I have spies but I just want to see if they missed anything," Natsu said casually. Lucy was on high alert. Natsu had implied that he and her father weren't friendly with each other and while she wanted to find out more about what made her father and Natsu hate each other she wasn't willing to give information.
"How about we play a game?" Lucy suggested and Natsu gave an exasperated sigh.
"And what do you suggest Princess?" he asked sarcastically and Lucy was quietly seething in frustration. If Natsu was trying to provoke her into coming out of her shell it was working.
"I have to ask you questions too, and you have to answer honestly," she ordered and the look in her eyes let Natsu knew that she wasn't going to budge on this. "And your questions have to be a lot more specific." Natsu groaned and looked at one of the white walls.
"We have to go to Fairy Tail soon, so we'll make this fast. I'll do the first question. What did your father do to make you run away and how did you get away?" Lucy sighed and willed herself to stay strong.
"That's more than one question," she accused and her eyes narrowed. Natsu's dark eyes were filled with mirth and mischievous laughter.
"Consider it an elaboration," he countered and Lucy could hear the laughing in his voice. Involuntarily Lucy laughed softly. She didn't remember the last time she had genuinely laughed.
"Well as I said last night, my father wasn't exactly kind and loving; the only time he paid attention to me was when a marriage opportunity came up to expand his business. Yesterday was the last straw. He said he would basically force me to go with him to meet this future fiancé of mine. I didn't want to go and I tried to argue by saying," Lucy trailed off at what she had argued with. She was seventeen today, her birthday would probably pass uneventfully as always.
"By saying what Lucy?" Natsu urged. The gang leader figured that this was Lucy's first time to really have a real conversation and he didn't want to end quickly. "Lucy what did you say?"
"I said that today was my birthday," the blonde said softly and Natsu looked at her in astonishment. Was her birthday never celebrated? That had to be it. And for the second time since they had met only eight or nine hours ago he felt a pang of sympathy go through his heart. The pinkette felt so bad for her. He had been that lonely once, after his father disappeared and Natsu had nowhere to go. The whole mansion and millions of jewels were his and he had no one to share it with. Then he and his cousins, Gajeel and Wendy for their father and mother respectively, had disappeared too, stumbled their way into Fairy Tail. But before that he had been truly lonely. Gajeel and Wendy lived in different houses and they were more than a half-hour drive away. Their cousins Sting and Rogue were even farther away; it was a three-hour drive to get to their house. Another stroke of luck was when a nine-year-old girl had strayed onto his mansion grounds with nothing but her name and the clothes she was wearing. Evelyn had been living with him before she had been kidnapped. Natsu knew what Lucy was going through, he knew it too well. But luckily his loneliness had gone away after a couple of months; he couldn't fathom feeling that way for years.
"Why didn't you tell us? When we get to Fairy Tail we're celebrating. You haven't celebrated your birthday in a while have you?" The question was pointless but Lucy answered anyway.
"Not since the year my mother died. Father never cared and he never made any time for me. The cooks we had would make me small cakes and I would get clothes from others but it felt meaningless." While she was talking Natsu walked up to one of the white walls and dragged some videos and news feeds out of the way. After tapping the options on the wall quickly he typed something into it and hit a send button.
"There, that'll be arriving at headquarters soon. Mira or Kinana will see it and they'll make a cake for you!" Natsu explained and his childlike enthusiasm was contagious.
"Anyway, my father slapped me and I ran back up to my room. I escaped by making a rope out of blankets, sheets, and window curtains to climb out of my room. I might have pulled the curtain rod out of the wall though," she admitted. Natsu blinked dubiously at her before bursting out in laughter. Her new friend, at least she thought he was, was bent over in his chair, holding his stomach, and laughing until tears came down his face.
"That's great!" he crowed, flicking the tears off of his cheeks. "You'll fit right in with Fairy Tail."
"Who says I'm going to join Fairy Tail?" Lucy argued and Natsu's gaze became less humorous.
"I'm not really giving you much of a choice Princess. It's either become a member or we'll have to take more extreme actions." The chill in his voice made Lucy positive that the extreme actions he was talking about were less than favorable. He was right, Natsu had planned this out, she was sure of it. Not that she was complaining that much, but he had her backed in a corner. Lucy came to the conclusion that the only real option she had was to join the gang and she had to ask herself if that would be such a bad thing.
"Fine, I'll join," she muttered.
"Good! You'll learn to love it eventually, I promise," he gave her a brilliant grin. "Now continue your story!" Lucy had to smother laughter at how her now fellow gang member's personality went from that of a cold adult to an innocent child.
"So after I climbed out of my room I had to get past the gates so I grabbed a branch and put the code into the keypad that was outside of the gate. And after that I ran and eventually found you." Natsu was impressed. For not having any outside experience he knew that she was going to become a valuable member of Fairy Tail. They always needed people that were resourceful and clever like that.
"I'm impressed Princess," he complimented her with a smirk gracing his face. "I'm guessing you're pretty smart then." Natsu could have sworn that her cheeks turned a slight shade of pink.
"My turn," Lucy stated distracting Natsu from his thoughts. "What were you doing last night?" Natsu groaned and pondered the best way to explain this to her without letting her know directly that her father was involved in the complicated gang system in Fiore.
"It was a warehouse of a gang that screwed us over," he answered vaguely. Lucy was far from satisfied with that answer but she knew Natsu wouldn't budge. Once more, he glanced at one of the white walls and swore at something he saw. "Goddamn it Freezer Burn, can you do anything right?" he yelled at the interactive surface. "We're going to have to cut this short because this idiot fucked these negotiations up." He took a deep breath to regain his temper and faced Lucy. "Any last minute questions?" Lucy bit her lip. She knew the question she wanted to ask but she was afraid. "You want to ask something, go ahead and ask it. Whatever it is I swear that I won't get angry."
"Are we friends?" Lucy whispered to the quiet room and Natsu looked at her with a teasing glint in his dark eyes. Lucy noticed that they looked green with the angle of the light entering the room.
"We can be," was all he answered and Lucy gave a half-smile. Good enough, she thought.
"Come on then! You have to meet everyone and Mirajane should have that cake ready by the time we get there!" Lucy followed him out of the room. "Happy we're going to Fairy Tail!" Natsu shouted and a blur of blue fur flew around the corner.
"I want to go too!" the cat cried and Natsu chuckled. "I want to try giving Charle another fish today."
"And Charle is?" Lucy asked nervously, intruding on the conversation.
"Charle is Wendy's, my little cousin's, Exceed. Happy is in love with her." As they went down the stairs and onto the first floor Lucy gasped in shock at how truly amazing this house was. The backyard was large and spacious and was that an outdoor kitchen? Natsu stopped in front of a door and leaned down for an eye scan. The pad flashed green and the door slid open.
"You have three cars?" Lucy asked incredulously. "Isn't that a bit excessive?"
"The blue and silver are backups. This one is the one I use the most," he explained nodding his head towards a red sports car with a black Fairy Tail symbol painted onto the door.
"Isn't a bad idea to have the symbol on the car?"
"Yeah, but there's a mechanism that makes it disappear. And besides, the metal and glass are bulletproof and the tires are filled with rubber so we can't get a flat." He opened the passenger seat and gave an exaggerated bow; Happy jumped in after. Natsu slid into the driver's seat and tapped a panel where the controls like air conditioning and radio should have been. After typing in some words he pressed a button and a map appeared on the panel.
"Is this the route you want to take?" an automated female voice asked. The pinkette gave the map a glance before hitting the steering wheel in frustration.
"What the hell? Why does this always happen?" Natsu fumed. Lucy craned her neck to look at what Natsu was angry about. "This GPS always gives me the most convoluted routes possible. Or they're just going in the opposite direction." He began the process of entering the destination again. "Best piece of technology, yeah right. Makarov was drunk when he said that, this thing is a piece of shit," he muttered bitterly. "I want a refund."
"Who's Makarov?" the blonde asked, hoping she wasn't too annoying with her question asking.
"He was the leader of Fairy Tail before me, now he's just kind of like an advisor. Makarov supposedly gets us the best technology ever, which I'm seriously starting to doubt." Lucy giggled at his frustration and impatience. He whooped when the right map showed up and he hit a large button that said drive. He made small talk the whole way, but only half of his mind was actually on the conversation he was participating in. Lucy was smart, the story of how she ran away from home proved that. Natsu felt his lips twitch in a small smile. Aside from how valuable she would be once she started training in fighting, Lucy also knew about dealing with large corporations, like her father's for example. No doubt she had connections that could be valuable to him, if he played his cards right that is. Even better was the fact that Jude Heartfilia wouldn't do that much to oppose them if he knew that his daughter's life was in the balance. Not that he would really give her back anyway, he guaranteed that she would fall in love with Fairy Tail and want to stay. And besides, he may be a gang lord but the idea of mistreating family or friends went against his moral code. If Jude Heartfilia did attempt to get his daughter back, Lucy had the four most powerful gangs in Fiore protecting her.
In Natsu's mind the Heartfilia family had too much power and Jude had been attempting to expand his businesses by trying to takeover Fairy Tail and their allies. As if he doesn't have enough power already, Natsu thought bitterly. Aside from being power-hungry, Jude Heartfilia also became allies with the Balam Alliance, which contained the most powerful, corrupt people that Natsu had ever seen. They had been attempting for years to try and takeover the entire country, which was actually easier than one might think due to their various spies and double agents in the Council already. On top of that, Natsu was unsure if it was the Balam Alliance or Jude himself, but somebody had kidnapped his adopted little sister from under his nose and he hadn't seen her in a year. The idea of questioning Lucy about her was tempting, but Natsu knew he wouldn't get anywhere. It was clear Lucy knew nothing of her father's work so his spirits were lowered yet again as a potential lead ran dry.
When they arrived at the Fairy Tail headquarters Lucy was surprised that it was a contemporary skyscraper made out of dark glass and metal. For the most part, the ride to Fairy Tail was incredibly enjoyable for the blonde. She and Natsu had talked about random, everyday things from music and movies to what places they wanted to travel to, all the while being oblivious to all of the plans swirling around in her companion's head. Natsu had cracked a joke right before he gave his car off to the building valet. Lucy was laughing while Natsu pulled her into the elevator. Before he could press a button however he had to have another eye scan.
"We found that eye scans were far more safe than cards or fingerprints," Natsu explained. "We'll need to get your eye scanned into the system. I'll have Levy do that with you, you'll like her. You're both bookworms." When the elevator dinged they exited onto a wooden floor that opened to a large, open room. The left wall was similar to the walls in Natsu's office. Images, video clips, newsfeeds, and lines of HTML were constantly changing.
"Why are their HTML codes on the wall?" Lucy asked as she followed Natsu.
"Oh those are codes in case we ever need to hack something," he answered casually as if it was something that you could bring up in any conversation. "Hey guys we have a new person!" Everybody's eyes were on them and Lucy felt her face flush from the attention and she moved slightly behind Natsu. "C'mon Luce don't be shy!" He grabbed her wrist and dragged her from behind him. "This is Lucy!"
"Isn't she a Heartfilia?" someone called and Natsu glared in the man's direction and his jaw tightened with frustration and he sighed. Natsu knew that he was referring to Evelyn. That had been a hit they hadn't been expecting.
"Cool it Jet, it's not like I had much of a choice. She saw us while we were working on our raid. And I think Lucy will cooperate with us. Besides she ran away from home and I couldn't let her wander around all alone, she would've been taken by a far worse gang than ours. Does anybody want to argue this with me?" Natsu asked in a deadly calm voice, as if daring someone to make a move against him. "Yo Mira!" he called and a girl with long white hair and bright blue eyes looked up at him from behind a bar counter.
"Hi Natsu, I got your message. Kinana is getting the cake now," she informed him and Natsu gave a satisfied nod.
"Good, Lucy go hang out with Mira and I'll have Levy come over so you can start making friends. I need to go deal with Frost Bite and the mess he got himself into." Before he could make a move a ringing noise came from the interactive white wall and a video camera icon was flashing. Natsu sighed and slid the icon to the right. "How badly did you screw up?" Natsu asked immediately.
"Not terribly, but they want to be the first ones to have those thermal detectors that we're working on." Lucy recognized the teen speaking was the one that Natsu had called Gray the night before.
What do we know about these people?" Natsu questioned rubbing his forehead with one hand.
"Well they work under Grimoire Heart, but these guys are pretty low in their hierarchy, so that's not a problem."
"Except for the fact that said detectors would be going straight to Grimoire Heart," Natsu objected which Gray ignored.
"However Hibiki, you know from Blue Pegasus, said that they're also working on a deal with Jude Heartfilia and information from Hibiki is normally pretty reliable," Gray continued. At the mention of Lucy's father, the blonde's head jerked up. Her father was part of the gang system? How could she not have known? That's why Natsu didn't want her going back home, well being aside. The thought should have made her angry, that Natsu's intentions weren't completely selfless but she had been treated so well that it couldn't bother her. Not that much anyway.
"Knock them out and lock them up, we'll have to question them and I don't want them to go running back to either Grimoire Heart or Jude Heartfilia with whatever information they're gathering. And take whatever recording devices they have, or any technology in general, away and give it to Freed or Levy."
"Is there anything else we could do?" Gray questioned and Natsu scowled.
"Do you want to kill them or have them interrogated?" the pinkette snapped and that shut Gray up.
"So that wasn't entirely screwed up," a girl with long brown hair and a beer bottle in her hand observed.
"We don't know how much stuff has been transmitted though Cana," Natsu grimaced.
"Wait Natsu?" Lucy spoke up bravely and rose from her seat. The gang leader simply arched an eyebrow in response, his charcoal gray eyes looking at her intently. "What does my father have to do with any of this?"
"I'll tell you later," was all he said before declaring that Lucy's birthday celebration would take place that night.
