A/N: Ooh, look at me. Actually updating on the day I said I would-when I should actually be doing my summer homework which all needs to be handed in on Monday. Oops. Oh well, here's the latest chapter. Also, special shout out to the reviewer who came up with the idea for the last scene. You know who you are, but it wont let me save your name in this chapter! I hope it turned out as cute as you imagined it! Enjoy!
Disclaimer: I solemnly swear that I am up to no good. And also that I don't own Fairy Tail.
After Master had dropped that bombshell on the pair, the crowd of mages all filed back into the guild. Mira, who was just waking up after her fainting spell, got up from floor and went to stand behind the bar.
"So Master, what did you learn?" she asked.
"Levy is working on a reversing spell and you are going to track down the sender of the request. Also, Natsu and Lucy are going to move in with each other and cannot go anywhere if they are not escorted." Clutching her chest, Mira almost started hyperventilating when she heard that Natsu and Lucy had to live with each other.
"My...my OTP...living with each other. This is my chance. My chance to make the Nalu ship sail." Mira was mumbling under her breath hunched over with a nearly crazed look in her eyes when suddenly she jumped up with a-slightly evil-grin on her face. "Master, I'll watch and look after them today!"
Master nodded his head. "That's fine Mira." Turning to the rest of the guild, he said, "The rest of you, go about your normal business and act like nothing has happened. We don't want to suggest to anyone that something is wrong in the guild."
As everybody returned to what they were doing before the spell was cast, Mira turned to Natsu and Lucy, who were looking at her in slight fear, and offered them lunch.
"Yosh!" cried Natsu, "Mira's fire chicken is the best!"
In excitement, he jumped straight up to one of the tall barstools and put his head on his hands, eagerly waiting for his meal. Mira giggled and moved to the kitchen to start cooking while Lucy was still on the floor, looking up at Natsu sitting on the chair.
"Oi Natsu! How am I supposed to get up there?" With her tiny body and an average strength, she couldn't make the jump up to the barstool next to Natsu, even if she tried.
"Hang on Lucy, I'll help!"
Mira, who had started on the meals, giggled again as she watched Natsu's enthusiastic reply from the corner of her eye. Getting them two together would be so easy and so overdue as well. Anybody could see that they were perfect for each other really, and that was without knowing the fact that Lucy was the first girl Natsu had ever taken an interest to-after Lisanna of course. Everyone had been so shocked when Natsu turned up to the guild with a girl in tow. Normally he didn't pay any attention to anything around him so the fact that he declared straight away that Lucy was his partner was a huge surprise too, and the slight blushes he had when Lucy sat too close or said something to him weren't lost on her either.
Mira shook herself out of her thoughts to see Natsu trying to help Lucy up onto the seat next to him.
"Natsu, it's not going to work!" Lucy insisted.
"Come on Luce! Just trust me, okay?" He smiled innocently and Lucy couldn't help but cave to him.
"Fine," she huffed.
Natsu reached down and linked their hands together and, in one fluid movement, heaved Lucy from the floor up onto the chair next to him. Or at least that's what Mira supposed would have happened if they hadn't done it completely wrong. Instead of Lucy landing on the stool next to him, she had landed sitting in his lap with her face buried in the crook of his neck and their hands squished between their bodies. Mira almost squealed at the adorable scene, but held back in fear of shattering the moment and breaking them apart.
"They liiiiiiike each other." Happy said, popping up out of nowhere. Mira almost strangled the cat for his bad choice of timing. Startled, Lucy broke away from Natsu and instantly turned bright red before hopping over onto the stool next to Natsu.
"Shut up you stupid cat!" hissed Lucy while Natsu looked unaffected by what had just happened. Happy flew out of Lucy's reach and over to Mira in the kitchen.
"Happy..." she started, with a dark aura coming from her head and a knife in her hand. She was going to kill that cat for destroying that perfect moment. Oh boy, when she got her hands on him-
"They really should just kiss already."
Happy's interruption startled Mira and she dropped the knife she had been planning to threaten Happy with next to him, almost cutting off his tail in the process.
"Aaaghhh!" He cried and took off to go hide behind Natsu. "Natsu! Mira tried to kill me!"
As Natsu comforted his friend, Mira thought about Happy's comment. She had always thought the cat was as oblivious as his partner and only said things like that because he knew it embarrassed people, but she may have actually found a useful partner in her matchmaking schemes for the future.
She filed that information away for future thought and finished up Natsu and Lucy's lunch.
"A Fire chicken for Natsu," she placed the dish down in front of him, "and a Caesar salad for Lucy." She winked at Lucy and then retreated back to the kitchen, hoping to spot more cute moments between them as they ate.
Her hopes were dashed, however, when lunch passed with the two partners laughing and chatting between themselves and no more embarrassing moments occurring.
After lunch, the two entertained themselves by talking to their fellow guild mates because they were banned from leaving the guild by themselves. Natsu, of course, went straight to where Gray was sitting with Juvia, sitting very closely together, Mira noticed, and demanded a fight from him while Lucy was called over by Cana.
"What's up Cana?" Lucy asked.
"Well, I know that Gramps said you were gonna be accompanied at all times, but I like to keep tabs on my friends too."She smiled fondly at Lucy. Although they didn't get to talk very much with her rowdy team and constant missions, she still counted the girl as one of her close friends after she agreed to become her partner and help her with her, cough, daddy issues, cough, during the S-Class exams.
"So," she continued, "I want you to have this." She held out a card to Lucy which she took and examined. It was one of Cana's tarot cards with a picture of Lucy on the blank side and a 'C' on the back.
"It's one of my personal calling cards," she explained, "It'll let me know if you're in serious danger by triggering the twin card, which I have, automatically. You can also contact me at any time by tapping the 'C' on the back of the card twice." She beamed at her idea and took a long drink from the barrel sitting next to her.
"Cana, I don't know what to say." Said Lucy. "Thank you!" she cried, throwing her arms around Cana's neck.
Cana was a bit rigid at first, but she soon relaxed and hugged the girl back while grinning.
Lucy wouldn't admit it, but the thought that the spell could have been a deliberate trap had never really occurred to her. But now that it was a possibility, she was a bit scared to be honest. Even though she knew that a guild member would always be around to protect her, the fact that her spirits couldn't do as much damage worried her and she was a bit uncomfortable with the feeling of not being able to protect herself. This card from Cana though, had given her a bit more confidence. Even if something happened to her, she would still be able to do something about it!
She said goodbye to Cana and decided to head down to see Levy in the library. Lucy a bookworm herself so maybe she could help with the research in some way.
When she arrived in the library, she found Levy already surrounded by a pile of books and Gajeel sitting with his eyes closed in a chair close by.
"Hi Levy-chan!" Lucy greeted, as she walked over to the bluenette.
"Lu-chan!" she exclaimed, "What did Master say?"
"Well, me and Natsu can't go anywhere without an escort, and we're not even allowed to take missions!" Levy grimaced, she knew how Lucy was with her rent money, so any missions she couldn't go on to earn it would just make her more and more anxious. "And that's not even the worst part," she continued, "Master decided that Natsu had to come and live with me!"
Levy gasped. "Isn't that great Lu-chan!? Now you can have more time with Natsu!"
Lucy looked at Levy like she had lost her mind. "Great? What do you mean great!? I can barely handle him at my house for short visits, never mind him temporarily living with me! I'll be crazy by the end of the second day!"
"I agree with Bunny girl," Gajeel finally decided to say something after having watched their conversation through one eye. The other was still closed so it looked like he was almost half asleep. "Any time spent alone with Salamander is bound to make you nuts."
He stood up out of his chair and stretched, cracking a few bones in the process. "And that reminds me, I haven't made fun of him yet. I'm going Shrimp, Bunny girl can keep you company for a bit." With that, he left the room and went in search of Natsu upstairs in the main hall of the guild.
"Bye Gajeel!" Levy called after him, a slight blush on her face. She turned back to Lucy. "As I was saying, now you can spend some more time with him...alone." She wiggled her eyebrows with a smirk on her face.
"Levy-chan!" Lucy shouted. Her face was bright red and she pointed an accusatory finger at Levy before blurting out, "Don't think I didn't see that blush when you said bye to Gajeel!"
Now it was Levy's turn to blush as she looked wildly around the room to escape looking into Lucy's eyes. Glad that she had diverted her attention away from her own...situation...with Natsu, Lucy began questioning Levy.
"So, anything happen while I was away on my last mission?" Now it was Lucy's turn to waggle her eyebrows at Levy.
Levy's relationship with Gajeel was unexpected at best, after all, who would expect the victim to fall for the one who did them harm? But the Phantom Lord incident happened ages ago and since then, Levy had become quite interested in the dragon slayer. Lucy had been the first to notice her friends quick glances towards the man, and when he finally started warming up to her, Lucy had gone to Levy straight away to confess she knew of her crush on him. Lucy had become her confidant and Levy kept her updated on anything that happened while, in return, Lucy gave advice to Levy with what to do next.
Before Lucy had left with her team to do their latest mission, Gajeel had still been a person who sat near Levy in the shadows, observing but never interfering. To have Gajeel be that close to Levy and even have him follow her around meant that something must have happened while she was away!
"Nothing big even happened Lu-chan!" protested Levy. "He just invited me to go on a two-day mission with him, so obviously we had to book a hotel room so that we could spend the night." She suddenly became a little flustered as she remembered what happened.
"And...?" prompted Lucy.
"Well, there was only one room left in the whole hotel and it was a single, so we had to share the bed together." She ended the sentence with a squeak which soon turned into a squeal as Lucy started jumping up and down, making little squeals of her own and holding Levy's hands.
"But nothing happened!" shouted Levy, "He even slept on top of the covers and in the morning he didn't even mention anything about it." Levy couldn't help but feel a little disappointed that Gajeel had seemed unaffected, after all, it would have been nice to know that she could have at least some sort of affect on boys. But, when they had got back to the guild, Gajeel hadn't seemed as distant and now he actually talked to her, without her being the one to initiate the conversation. She supposed that he liked to follow her around because, out of all the members of the guild, she was one of the least violent prone and one of the most soft spoken, so there were very few times when she would need to interrupt or speak to him, giving him the peace he wanted.
"What are you talking about Levy, this is great! He's finally reciprocating your feelings!"
"I wouldn't exactly call it that Lu-chan..." Levy trailed off, still unsure.
"No," Lucy insisted, "I'm certain. Things can only become better in your relationship from now on!" She stood up and pulled a little pose with a fist in the air and the other on her hip, causing Levy to giggle at the cute sight she was unknowingly being shown.
"Lucy!" Both girls looked to the door when they heard Mira's voice being carried down the stairs. "It's 5 o'clock. We're going back to your house so that I can make you and Natsu dinner when we get there."
"Coming Mira!" Lucy shouted back. Lucy was shocked to discover how long it had been already. She had thought that days being spent only in the guild would be long and boring, but the time had flown by today. She turned back to Levy. "Bye Levy-chan, I'll see you tomorrow."
"Bye Lu-chan!" she replied, "But don't think I've forgotten about our previous conversation." She finished with a devious smile.
Lucy shivered. Why was she surrounded by meddling women? Her love life-or lack of more like-was nobody's business but her own. Why couldn't they respect that?
On the way back to Lucy's house, Natsu and Lucy were forced to walk in front while Mira walked behind them. Lucy could understand this, because by walking behind them, Mira could observe the surroundings for any suspicious people who may be following them a lot more easily. What Lucy couldn't understand, however, was why her and Natsu had been forced to hold hands!
Lucy silently seethed to herself as they walked, causing Natsu to shy away from her as much as possible while she was holding onto his hand. He didn't know why, but Natsu had a feeling that her bad mood had something to do with him, so trying to be as invisible as possible was definitely the sensible course of action.
Meanwhile, Mira was in shipping heaven. She had convinced Natsu and Lucy that they should hold hands to 'stop them from wandering off' as she said, but really, it was just an excuse for her to watch the cute scene in front of her right now. They looked like small children, completely smitten with each other but unsure how to go about acting towards one another-or at least that's what it looked like in her head. Oh she couldn't wait to see the babies produced as a result of this ship. They would be so adorable and perfect and she would be Godmother to the children, in thanks from Natsu and Lucy of course for helping to get the together, and then she could plan their future pairings and-
"Mira, we're here!" Mira was shook from her shipping-induced hallucination by Lucy's voice, and she looked around to see that they had already reached the blondes house.
"I think we broke her." Decided Happy, who had been flying above their heads during the walk to Lucy's house.
"I'm fine Happy," placated Mira, "now let's get inside so that I can make us some dinner, shall we?" She turned to them with a slightly delusional and scary smile on her face.
"Lucy," said Happy, "Mira's scary."
Looking at the women as she opened her door, Lucy couldn't help but agree with the cat. She could already tell, this was going to be a long night.
A/N: Yay! Did you see the amount of girl to girl heart to hearts I had in this chapter? Girl power rules! So, I started this chapter on the Friday, but it has actually ran over into Saturday by 1 hour 48 minutes, so I apologise, dear readers, for not keeping my promise and updating on the Friday! *Bows*. But apart from that, thank you so much for reading! Review, favourite and follow! Oh, and also, if you have any scenes or situations which you might want to see happen in the story, just tell me. Any inspiration is welcome and it will help me to come up with new ideas and chapters! Again, thank you!
