Ok so basically here's what happened with the end of chapter 6: my goldfish died, I got sad, I got sick (not because of the goldfish) and I just sort of didn't really want to do anymore. I have now taken some time to write an actual proper ending (of sorts) to make up for being naff. Hope you enjoy it :)

The next morning I had awoken to Natsu coming into his bedroom with a tray, two plates filled with pancakes along with two steaming mugs of coffee. I slowly sat up in bed, all my muscles protesting slightly; I was still pretty fucking sore. Last night might have been a mistake (in the physical sense) and it was going to take even longer for me to recover from some of my injuries now. I didn't care though. Natsu placed the tray down on his bedside table, took my face in his hands and kissed me softly.

"Morning." he grinned as he pulled away.

"Morning." I replied grinning back at him. "How long was I asleep?"

"Not long," he replied. "You look really adorable when you're asleep you know that right?" I blushed.

"Shut up." I pouted, turning away. He laughed so I turned back to pull a face at him. "So what did I do to warrant this treatment?"

"Do I need a reason to want to treat you to pancakes in the morning?" he asked. I raised an eyebrow at him as he slipped back into bed with me.

"There are so many sarcastic answers I could give to that question." I responded. He chuckled.

"Ok, ok." he said handing me one of the plates. "It's partially because I wanted to do something to show you how much you mean to me and how much I really want to make a go of this."

"And?" I asked suspiciously.

"It's partially because the eggs were going to go out of date." he admitted.

"I think your honesty is what I like the most about you." I grinned before taking a bite. The eggs may have been going out of date but these were the best pancakes I had ever eaten in my entire life! I had no idea Natsu could cook like this. "These are really good." I told him. I didn't want the praise to go to his head so I didn't go over the top with it.

"I'll take that." he grinned. "So did you have any plans for today?"

"Not really." I said after a moment's thought. "Considering as I didn't really expect any of last night to happen whatever plans I might have had would have gone out the window anyway. Why?" I added a second later. "Did you?" Natsu shrugged.

"I was thinking we could just stay here for the entire day seeing as neither of us has anywhere to be." he stated. The idea sounded perfect; staying with Natsu, in bed, all day. It might actually do me some good all things considered.

"What about the rest of the guild?" I asked as a grin began to spread over my face. "Won't they miss us?" Natsu waved me off.

"I doubt they'd even notice we were gone." he replied.

"Probably not." I said, voicing my thoughts out loud. Natsu put his plate back down on the tray and turned to look at me. Tentatively he reached out and ran a finger, gently, over one of the grazes on my cheek. He hung his head, his hand drawing away.

"I'm sorry." he said softly. I took hold of his wrist, bringing his hand back to my face and pressing a soft kiss to the back of it.

"It wasn't your fault, you know that right?" I asked him. He sighed.

"Are you sure?"

"Laxus was going to explode like that at me at some time or another." I shrugged. "It wasn't a case of 'if' it was more a case of 'when'. He's really easy to piss off and he's also really violent regardless. I just didn't expect his explosion to be quite like that though." I rubbed my hand over my eyes trying to repress the memory of the previous night that threatened to come to the surface of my mind. I felt Natsu's hand on my shoulder and I looked over at him.

"Can I ask you something?"

"Sure." I replied.

"Last night, when you came over," he began tentatively, as if he didn't really want to ask or receive an answer to the question. "after, you know, everything else that happened to you why did you then…?"

"Why did then I effectively ask you for sex?" I asked.

"Well yeah." he replied. "I would have thought that after everything that would have been the last thing on your mind for a long time. I mean I went along with it because you were quite insistent about it but there was always something in the back of my mind telling me that it was a bad idea and not just because of Laxus finding out about it but because of…other stuff."

"Honestly?" I asked rubbing my hair with one of my hands. "I mean don't get me wrong everything I said about being in love with you since we were kids and not being able to get you out of my head were all true but, after Laxus last night, I needed to have sex with someone but on my terms."

"How do you mean?"

"I chose to have sex with you last night." I stated. "It needed to be able to make that choice and it had to be on my terms. Do you get what I'm saying?" I wasn't explaining myself particularly well but I think he seemed to understand.

"I do, I'm just trying to work out why?" he asked.

"Otherwise I would never have touched another human being again." I replied a little sadly. It was true; I knew that if I hadn't had sex with someone soon afterwards that was on my terms (regardless of whom it had been with, I would have ended up shrinking deeper and deeper into myself. I would have shut myself away from the world just becoming more and more afraid until I couldn't make physical contact with anyone. I would have let it consume me, not allow anyone to help me and probably would have tried to end it all again. The fact that it had been Natsu last night – with someone that I really love and care about – had just made the whole thing much easier to deal with.

"I can see your thought process behind that." he stated after thinking over what I had just told him. "I don't fully understand, and I probably never will, but I just want to make sure that you're ok."

"I'm just trying not to think about it at the moment." I sighed. "If I think about it then it's real and I have to face him again next time I go to the guild and I have to remember it every single time I see him. To be honest I'd rather just spend the day with you right now." I added turning to smile at him. He smiled back and I saw him visibly relax. He leaned back against the headboard of the bed, making himself comfy before taking my empty plate, putting it with his and gently pulling me down so that my head was resting on his chest.

"That's definitely an idea I can get behind." he stated. "Worry about everything else tomorrow?"

"Please." I replied.

"About tomorrow?" he began, his fingers absentmindedly drawing circles along the top of my arm.

"Yeah?"

"Well you know it's the Harvest Festival tomorrow?" He was hedging around the question and I grinned against his chest, realising what he was about to ask.

"What about it?" I asked. I didn't feel like making it easy for him plus it would be nice to hear him actually say the words.

"I was wondering if you perhaps wanted to go with me at all?" he asked. The tone of his voice suggested that if he wasn't bothered either way but from where my head was I could hear his heart hammering in his chest and I wasn't fool in the slightest. I glanced up at him and he was blushing slightly, I chuckled.

"That would be nice." I replied smiling. A grin spread across his face.

"Cool."

"Wait!" I suddenly realised after a moment's thought.

"What?"

"We can't," I told him. "Laxus will be there." If he saw Natsu and I together there was every possibility that he might just kill me this time. Natsu kissed my forehead and tightened his hold on me.

"Don't worry about him," he stated. "I'll take care of it."

"But…" I began but he cut me off with another kiss.

"Don't worry, just come with me and have fun, ok." he stated. "I said I'd protect you and I will. If Laxus tries anything he's going to have to go through me first alright?"

"Ok." I replied even though I didn't think it would be.


Natsu and I spent the entire day in bed talking, kissing and just lying there enjoying each other's company. It was wonderful. The following day we went to the Harvest Festival together. I made extra effort to make sure I kept my clothes on because I didn't want the rest of the guild asking questions as to why I looked like I'd gone a few rounds with something twice my size. For the most part, though, I was able to relax as Laxus was nowhere to be seen. Then everything suddenly changed.

Laxus and the rest of his goons in 'The Thunder Legion' staged an attack on both the guild and the town. They held the town and some of the female members of the guild hostage and got the rest of us to battle it out against them and each other in order to save them. I never came across Laxus in the fight (and that was probably a good thing too) but I did just about manage to get a fair amount of brawling in, despite still healing injuries.

It was a difficult fight for all involved but eventually we as a guild managed to beat Laxus and 'The Thunder Legion'. Now that most of the rest of the guild needed some kind of patching up I didn't have to be quite so conscious of covering up the bandages I was already sporting. No one asked and Juvia, bless her, never said anything to state otherwise where they had come from. It wasn't until after I had been given a once over by Mira that I went looking for Natsu. I found him practically covered in bandages, wincing as Erza finished covering the last of his wounds.

"My god you look awful!" I exclaimed. It hadn't quite meant to come out like that but he still let out a soft chuckle.

"Thanks." he replied. Erza glared at me.

"You try going a few rounds with Laxus and see if you look any better." she snapped. Natsu and I shared an awkward look that she didn't seem to catch.

"So what's the damage?" I asked him. He shrugged as much as his injuries would allow him.

"Nothing much." he lied.

"Couple of broken fingers, a broken wrist, bruised ribs, a twisted ankle, shattered clavicle and mild concussion." Erza reeled off packing bandages back into the first aid kit on the floor. I sank to my knees so I was level with him and took the hand that was covered in the least bandages.

"I'm so sorry." I whispered.

"It's ok." Natsu replied trying to grin at me but it came out as more of a grimace and he winced in pain.

"No it's not." I replied quietly. "I can assume that he gave you a few extra hits because of what happened between us?"

"I got in a few lucky hits of my own." he replied. "Even gave him a few for you." he added. I gave his hand the gentlest of squeezes.

"Thank you." I said quietly. From his other side Erza got to her feet.

"I'm going to check on a few other people," she stated. "Gray will you make sure he stays here and doesn't try to move too much?"

"Sure." I nodded. I waited until after she had left before I leaned over and very softly kissed Natsu's forehead. He winced slightly again.

"Why is it," he began grimacing. "that whenever I get injured I always get her patching me up?" I laughed.

"You're just lucky?" I offered.

"She's not gentle; she's a psycho." he groaned theatrically but grinned all the same. I bit my lip to keep myself from laughing.

"So what happens now?" I asked after a pause.

"What do you mean?"

"With us and Laxus and everything." I clarified. Natsu's looked at me in confusion.

"You haven't heard?" he asked.

"Heard what?"

"Laxus has been kicked out." he told me.

"What?"

"Erza told me." he stated. "Once he'd been bandaged up Gramps went to see him and told him that because of what he'd done today he had to leave Fairy Tail."

"So that means…?" I began tailing off, afraid to voice it out loud just in case it turned out not to be true. Could it finally be over? I could actually be with Natsu without having to worry about looking over my shoulder for him all the time? That would be too much of a dream come true.

"You don't have to worry about him anymore." Natsu told me, smiling. I shakily let out the breath I'd been holding. I didn't quite know how to feel about this. On the one hand I was absolutely elated that I didn't have to worry about Laxus anymore, I was so happy that I could actually be with the person I loved and not have to worry about getting killed for it. On the other hand I was terrified of the thought that I could actually be happy for once and not have to burry my feelings underneath resentment and dislike. After doing that for so long the idea of not was quite scary. "Hey," Natsu began when I didn't say anything. "you ok?"

"Yeah." I replied, a smile spreading across my face. I was just going to go with elated for this one. "I think I am."


That night the celebrations for the Harvest Festival carried on. Despite everything that had happened that day everyone seemed more than happy to forget it and enjoy themselves and Fairy Tail were no objection. For the first time in months I felt at ease and, even though various parts of my body still hurt from the last few days, I could just enjoy myself without having to worry about anything.

As Laxus walked out into the crowded streets of Magnolia for the final time, everyone in the guild stopped to watch him leave. I raised my arm in our guild salute along with all the others as he left – despite everything that had happened between us I felt as if it would be disrespectful not to. He turned back one last time and as he did our eyes locked. I stared defiantly back at him, standing tall and proud to show him that he no longer had any hold over me at all. A flash of something crossed his face before he turned and walked away but I couldn't tell what he was thinking or feeling at that point. All I knew was that he was gone and relief flooded over me.

"Hey," a voice said from beside me. I turned to see Natsu standing next to me. I smiled at him. "you ok?" He slipped the hand with the least bandages on into mine and gave it a gentle squeeze. I returned the gesture, trying not to aggravate any of his injuries.

"Yeah," I replied, nodding and smiling at him. "I am." And for the first time in years I actually meant it.

There we go, that's slightly better...it's been a very long month T.T