A/N: I do not own Fairy Tail.

This is kind of a continuation of Indefinitely so it's supposed to be Christmas Eve ^_^

The full moon shone down on Lucy's face, a slight breeze gently playing with her blonde hair. She sat casually on a soft woolen blanket as she waited for Loke to return from the spirit world. Lucy sighed contentedly; spending the day with Loke hadn't been as bad as she had first thought. Sure, he had insisted on holding her hand the entire time but it was cold and he was warm so she figured she could let it slide. And now, he had brought her here to this refreshingly simple meadow where all she could see was grass and sky, and promised her that he would make tonight the best Christmas Eve she had ever had. She looked up at the starlit sky and reached up, feeling suddenly nostalgic. She had spent many nights as a young girl gazing up at the constellations and when she thought no one was watching, she would reach up on her tiptoes and try to touch the stars with her fingertips.

A gust of cold, biting wind rushed past her, raising goose bumps on her bare arms and legs. Lucy pulled the lapel of Loke's green jacket draped across her shoulders closer, wishing that he would just hurry up and come back with whatever it was he had gone to the spirit world to get.

As the minutes ticked by and no Loke appeared, doubts began creeping into her mind like the cold seeping up from the damp grass beneath her blanket. What if he had met some female stellar spirit and forgotten all about her? Or worse, what if he had ditched her to go on a date with some other woman?

"Loke wouldn't do that," she whispered, her voice cracking because she remembered that one time when she had needed him to fight with her and he didn't come because he was on a date. It had hurt her more than she let on, that he considered his date more important than her. Lucy pulled her knees up to her chest, lower lip trembling in an effort to swallow the lump that suddenly formed in her throat. She should have known better than to think he had changed for her. She lowered her head to her knees, determined to keep her loneliness to herself.

"Lucy?"

Loke took in the sight before him with more than a little confusion. He slowly took his sunglasses off, hoping for clarity to see what had gone wrong. Lucy looked up at him with watery, accusing eyes and he realized that he had made her cry. He had been gone longer than he had told her he would be so she must have assumed the worst. He ignored the pang in his chest—did she really think so little of him?—and chose instead to wordlessly put down the picnic basket he held, let his glasses drop onto the moist grass so he could wipe her tears away with his callused hands.

"From now on," he began. Lucy answered with a delicate sniff, folding her legs beneath her so that she sat more comfortably. He grinned. Even in tears, she was still the most beautiful woman—human or stellar spirit—that he had ever laid eyes on.

"From now on, no matter what happens, I'll always be by your side so believe a little more in me?" He hadn't intended it as a question, but there it was. The only thing to do now was wait and hope. His fingertips lingered on her still-damp cheeks, silently willing her to understand.

She gave an almost imperceptible nod and a tremulous smile in reply. Loke closed his eyes in relief—her trust in him was more than he deserved for everything he had done that hurt her—and rested his forehead against hers, chuckling lightly. He swore to himself, with the moon and the stars as his witness, that he would take away every little thing that saddens her, even if that included him. He had been born anew, that day in front of Karen's grave, so he could become someone who would protect her and every element that made her Lucy.

Their eyes met, both silent because words could never be enough to express the undeniably electric attraction sizzling between them. Her scent enveloped him—sweet, pure, so utterly Lucy—and he knew right then that he wanted to kiss her.

So he did.

Her eyelids slid closed when his warm lips touched hers with a shy hesitation that she hadn't expected from Loke. When he had asked her to believe in him, she had seen the truth in his eyes. He really did love her. And now she realized that she had been in love with him for a long, long time without knowing it. No, that wasn't quite right. Maybe she had known, had always known but fear—of him and the intensity of the emotions he inspired in her—had clouded her heart and hidden what must have always been there ever since that fateful day when he saved her from rogue mages and set into motion a chain of events that inexplicably led to this, them under the strangely warm light of the full moon.

Lucy wrapped her arms around his neck, drawing him closer to her, not minding that the jacket on her shoulders had fallen off. Loke was enough to keep the cold at bay. He seemed more confident now, his lips pressing more firmly—but not too much, never too much. His arms encircled her waist and Lucy shivered, her hands coming up to tangle in his surprisingly soft ginger locks. Without releasing her hold on Loke, she let herself fall back onto the blanket, one of Loke's hands sliding up to cushion her head against the impact as he bore down on her, careful not to crush her with his weight. The same hand then drifted down to gently massage her nape as he continued to kiss her with a fervor that stole Lucy's breath away.

Lucy gripped Loke tighter, soft lips against chapped ones, coming up for breath only when absolutely necessary. Their bodies pressed tightly together, their clothes the only barrier between them. For the moment, this closeness was enough.

She didn't know how long they lay there entwined in each other, their bodies, their very souls melting together until she could no longer tell where she ended and he began. It felt as if the two of them existed outside time, as if they had all eternity to savor each other. But when Loke broke away, it all came rushing back. He was her stellar spirit, she was his master. She was human, he was not. He was forever, and to him, her lifetime was but a blink of an eye. Her suddenly unsure gaze met his and she found herself looking into love so deep she could drown in it if only she would allow herself to. She decided that all that—the complications that would arise if she simply let herself fall—can wait until morning.

"Lucy…" Loke murmured, nibbling at her earlobe affectionately. Her hand slipped down to his shoulder to clutch at it, her breath coming in gasps. He moved lower, trailing languorous open-mouthed kisses down her neck to her collarbone to the valley between her breasts, stopping only at the low neckline of her short black dress where he continued to lavish her body with sensuous movements of his lips and tongue. To compensate for the restriction posed by her clothing, his hand slid along her thigh, the roughness of his palm tantalizing against her smooth, creamy skin. He pushed the hem high enough to make her gasp and color in embarrassment then squeezed her tight flesh teasingly. Lucy jumped then stiffened, startled at the intimacy of his touch.

"Just say the word, Lucy," Loke spoke against her heated skin, his voice thick with desire. He raised his head and looked at her, eyes alight with passion tempered by his unconditional love for her. "Just say it and I'll back off."

Lucy bit her lower lip swollen from his kisses, her uncertainty about them clear in her face. She had been wrong in thinking this could wait 'til morning. Putting off something this crucial, no matter how inviting it sounded now, would just hurt them both in the end.

She knew that he would keep his word and stop if she told him to. But the question was: was that what she wanted? Did she even know what she wanted from him?

"Do we have a future, Loke? When my skin begins to sag and my hair turns gray, would you still feel the same way for me then as you do now?" she asked, her eyes glistening with unshed tears.

"You will always be my Lucy," he answered, burying his face in her neck. His arms tightened around her slight body. "Nothing will ever change what I feel for you." She felt dampness against her skin and knew, with every fiber of her being, that he spoke the truth. Lucy raised her hand towards the starry heavens, the other lost in Loke's ginger mane. Everything—from the pale glittering of starlight to the soft white beauty of the moon to the deep velvet darkness of the night sky—seemed more vivid, as if she was seeing them, truly seeing them in all their unfathomable glory, for the first time. She smiled, her tears drying in the midnight air.

I don't need to reach for the stars anymore.

A/N: *blushes* This is still rated T, right?

Credits to Marshie-kun for the PM that inspired (kinda? maybe?) this piece. It's not like what he/she had in mind but the story kinda moved on its own O_O