A/N
Thank you, helpmewoofy11 for reviewing even though you'd already read it. I hope whoever reads this enjoys.
Disclaimer: I don't own Fairy Tail.
Lucy groans as she wakes up. There's something soft on her face that tickles her nose when she breathes in. She tries to brush it away and it mumbles, "Fish…" Opening her eyes, Lucy sees the blue fur of the one and only, Happy. She quickly shoves the furry animal off her face, not bothering to be gentle. He opens his eyes blearily. "Wha- Lucy, why'd you wake me up?"
"What are you doing on my face?!" she shouts at the cat. There's a moan from the floor beside her bed alerting Lucy to there being yet another person in her room.
"Sleep more…" comes the voice. Lucy identifies it as Natsu's. There's a shuffling sound on the floor as he repositions himself.
"Get out of my room!" Lucy screams at the two, making Natsu jump up, looking around wildly. The room in the guild is now officially Lucy's since the house she rented was rented to someone else a long time ago and she's been in it for ten years anyway. "What are you doing?!"
"Mm? Luce, I always slept here when we were friends before," he mutters. This makes Lucy pause, always?
"Always?" Lucy's curiosity ruled out her desire to throw the boys out of her room. Happy lazily flies from Lucy's bed to Natsu's head.
"Yeah, Happy and I'd come in your window at night and sleep at your place."
"Nothing ever happened, right?" Lucy asks suddenly worried.
"What woulda happened? We were-we are good friends and nakama," Natsu responds looking slightly puzzled. Lucy sighs, did she not tell Natsu about this? Was it better not to? She smiles at his correction of words though, over the week on their job they did become good friends.
"Nothing, never mind," she says hurriedly. Natsu gives her an odd look and shrugs.
"So what are we doing today, Luce?" Natsu asks changing the subject.
"Well first, you are getting out of my room so I can change and shower." Happy and Natsu sulkily leave before Lucy hurts them. Lucy walks to her bathroom that's joined to her room. She gets into the shower and starts rubbing some vanilla scented shampoo into her hair. More and more memories are coming back and spending the last few days at the guild talking to everyone helped a lot. She remembered about Lisanna in Edolas. During that whole thing, she was brought to a different world where flying cats were the rulers and there was limited magic. She remembered Tenrojima and how Cana finally told Gildarts she was his daughter. It happened really often now, even finding Natsu and Happy in her room had stirred up one; when she had cleaned their house and waited all day for them to return only to go back to her apartment and find them sleeping there. She feels like everything will come back in one rush if a specific thing happens.
Her mind drifts to Natsu. Does he hold the key to the rest of her memories? He was friendly when she woke up and then after realizing she didn't remember him, extremely jerkish. On the island though, on the third day, they woke up and he was nice again.
-Flash Back-
'Morning, Luce Natsu said. Luce? Lucy thought he'd go back to being mean after recovering from the shock of being a dragon. She really hadn't expected him to revert to calling her by her nick-name that he came up with.
"Uh, 'morning, Natsu. Ready to train?" she asked him.
Yup. How'd you sleep? Lucy stood up and brushed off her skirt.
"Good." She got onto his back as they went to hunt for the day. When they found one of the large pigs, Natsu breathed flames on it. Lucy was happily surprised that Natsu had actually "cooked" the meat instead of just charring it like he did the other two times. He let her and Happy go first and then ate. They carried the left-overs back to the cave for later and brought some with them to the beach. While they were training, Natsu accidently cut Lucy's leg with his tail.
He rushed to her side and said, I'm sorry, are you ok, Luce?!
She winced, but nodded and ripped the first strip of material from the bottom of her shirt. "I'm fine. Thanks for worrying." Lucy smiled.
-End Flash Back-
Lucy shakes her head. She couldn't have feelings for Natsu, it'd be too complicated. He appeared to have very mixed feelings about her and although was more open, he still eyed her like she would just disappear any moment. Maybe she could go on a date with Loke today. She shuts off the water and just as she's about to get out of the shower, her door opens and a pink haired head peeks in. Lucy quickly covers herself with the shower curtain, blushing.
"You done yet?" he asks.
"No! Get out, Natsu!" Lucy yells at him and throws the shampoo bottle. His eyes widen and he closes the door, allowing the bottle to only collide with wood. After waiting for a few minutes to make sure he is gone, Lucy gets out of the shower and dresses. Downstairs she sits at the bar with Levy, Juvia and Lisanna and orders some breakfast.
"Guys, I woke up with Natsu in my room!" Lucy tells them.
The three women laugh, "Juvia wishes Gray-sama would sleep in her room!"
"He's really affectionate. I'm not surprised that you did, he used to do that before also," Lisanna smiles.
"What did you do?" Levy asks. These three women quickly became Lucy's best friends. Occasionally Juvia refers to her as her "love rival" and Lucy doesn't understand that, but they're still good friends.
"I shouted at him and Happy. Then when I was showering, he opened the door on me! I had to throw a shampoo bottle at his head." She laughs with her friends as Mira puts her breakfast down. Lucy digs into the eggs, hash browns and ham still chatting with her friends. When she's finished, she excuses herself only to be stopped by Natsu.
"Hey, Luce, where are you goin?" he asks her.
"Oh, just out. I'm going to explore Magnolia," Lucy says vaguely.
"I'll come with you!"
"No! I mean, I can do it on my own. Um, don't you have something to do?" Lucy is uncomfortable not telling Natsu what she's really planning to do, but after seeing what he did on the island when that guy was around her she didn't want to tell him.
"C'mon, Luce!" he pleaded.
She sighed in exasperation, "Fine, Natsu! I'm going to explore Magnolia with Loke!" Loke appears next to her grinning. He's wearing his mage clothes, but his hair and glasses are the same as when he's in his spirit get-up.
Natsu gets a peculiar look on his face. "Um, ok. I did have something to do anyway," Natsu says. He's fiddling with the necklace he always wears along with his scarf. Walking away, he shouts, "Oy, ice brain, tin head! I got somethin' to show you guys!" Lucy shakes her head.
"Shall we go, miss?" Loke asked politely.
"Yes, we shall," Lucy giggles hooking her arm through his. They walk down the stone streets looking at vendor's wares and the river for hours. In one shop, Loke buys Lucy a little charm bracelet with all the Zodiac charms. In addition, they purchase twelve little gold key charms to add to it. The mage and spirit visit the library and look at several books. Lucy buys a few to help inspire her novel that she continued writing. After a while, they find a nice little café and sit down out on the patio. They both sip iced tea and look out at the shimmering water of the river. A boat sails past and a man waves at them.
"So what'd you do the entire time I was asleep?" Lucy asks breaking the quiet.
"Well, in the spirit world, one day is three months in this world. It was only forty days in my world so it really wasn't that long. I just hung out with your other spirits. Aires kept saying 'I'm sorry' over and over for a while, but we got her to stop. Capricorn paced a lot. Aquarius was absolutely ecstatic that you didn't call on her for a long time. She got to go on a long-term vacation with Scorpio." He chuckled, "She might even be nice to you for the next couple times you call her."
Lucy laughed too, "Oh yeah, I remember, my friends and I went to a day long party in the spirit world and came back only to find that our training time had completely disappeared!"
The play-boy spirit touches her hand sitting on the table and looks into her eyes, "Lucy, do you like Natsu?" Why'd he have to bring him up? That was the whole point of going out with Loke for the day, to not think about that particular boy. She feels a blush creep into her cheeks and she looks away from his gaze. Unknown to the two mages, a blue cat had been spying on them all day following the instructions of his best friend. When he saw Loke touch Lucy's hand, he flew off to tell Natsu, not waiting for the rest of the conversation.
"Uh, um…I really don't know, Loke. You're great, but I feel like this is more of a friendly date-tour-thing. I don't feel the same way around you as I do Natsu," Lucy says.
"Ah, I thought so. I never stood a chance back then either. Don't worry, Lucy, you'll figure it out I'm sure." Loke pats her hand and withdraws his.
"It's just, he's an idiot, but he's pretty caring and sweet. He's energetic and…sorry. It really has been a wonderful day. Thanks again for the bracelet," she says shifting her wrist so the charms catch the light.
"No problem, Lucy." Loke smiles. Suddenly, there's a roar from somewhere.
"Dragon!" someone yells.
Another voice shouts, "It's coming this way!"
"Aren't they supposed to be extinct?"
"It's probably just some young hooligans pulling a prank!"
Lucy puts her head on the heels of her hands with her elbows on the table and wearily rubs her eyes. "Natsu…" she groans. She leaves some money on the table and grabs Loke's hand, pulling him out of the café.
"What's happening?!" Loke questions Lucy as they run in the direction of the roars.
"Natsu. You know how he got turned into a dragon? He can change whenever he wants now," she explains, but only leaves Loke with more questions. It's not long before they find the road blocked by a massive, winged, red lizard. "Natsu! Quit this now!" Lucy yells to him. Natsu looks down and sees Lucy and Loke. Lucy forgot to let go of Loke's hand and so Natsu just gets more jealous and roars. Lucy rolls her eyes, "At least move somewhere were you're not disturbing the public!"
Natsu rolls his eyes, but bobs his head and jumps into the air, spreading his wings and flying into the woods where he was originally turned back into a person. Lucy and Loke follow, no longer holding hands. On the way, they meet up with Gray, Gajeel, Erza, Levy, Juvia, Lily, Carla and Wendy.
"Juvia wants to know what's happening," says Juvia as she runs.
She's the only mage here who doesn't know about Natsu's ability. Earlier, what Natsu wanted to show Gray and Gajeel was his dragon power. "Natsu," Lucy answers. They make it to the clearing which Natsu has made bigger by knocking down and burning some trees. Happy nervously hovers nearby. When he spots the others, he lands next to them and explains to Carla and Lily about Natsu. Lucy walks forward with her arms crossed over her chest. "Natsu, what are you doing?"
Natsu ignores Lucy and grabs Loke in his huge fist bringing him up in front of his snout. "Hey! Natsu! Whatever you think I did, I didn't!" Loke shouts.
Keep your hands off Lucy He growls. Natsu's hot breath blows back Loke's hair and makes him cough, it does not smell pleasant.
"I wasn't doing anything! We were just out as friends, isn't that right, Lucy?"
Lucy supports Loke, "Yup, just friends, Natsu! Don't worry, he wasn't being a pervert!"
Natsu starts squeezing Loke, "Bye, Lucy! I had a great time today! Call me whenever and good luck with your dragon friend!" Loke calls and disappears, closing his Celestial Gate. The others have surrounded Natsu and are all prepared for battle if he attacks. A puff of steam blows out of Natsu's nostrils and he glows, shrinking back down to normal Natsu size.
"Explain yourself, Natsu Dragneel!" Erza demands, while holding a sword to Natsu's neck.
Natsu is still too angry even to be afraid, but he answers, "Personal problem. Nothing big. Fixed it."
"You endangered the citizens of Magnolia, Natsu. You made it impersonal."
He huffed, "Look, no one was hurt, nothing was destroyed, that's all that matters right?"
"Fine, but for punishment, you'll be…" she gets an evil glint in her eyes as she scans over the people with her, "Lucy's slave for a week."
"A week!" he shouts dumbfounded. "That's the longest punishment ever!"
"Well, it won't be that bad, you have Lucy. Would you prefer I give you to Gajeel?" Gajeel smirks thinking of how much fun it would be to have Natsu running round doing chores for him, bringing him food and calling him "master".
"No, no, Erza. A week with Lucy is just fine. I'm sorry. Won't happen again," Natsu quickly amends. Everyone laughs and disperses back to the guild or whatever they were doing before the dragon issue.
Lucy stays and looks at Natsu disapprovingly. "So," Natsu says.
"So."
"Um, sorry about that," he says sheepishly, rubbing the back of his neck.
"Why'd you do it?'
"I had to protect-"
Lucy cuts him off, "You weren't protecting; you were cutting off a friendly date. I was not at all romantic."
Natsu blushes, "I liked it better when it was only us and Happy on that island."
"Really?"
"Yeah."
"Well, you're going to be spending a lot of time with me in the next week also because you're my slave," Lucy smirks evilly. "Since it's already late, we'll start tomorrow by going shopping for new clothes!" Natsu groans and follows Lucy back to the guild for dinner and sleep.
A/N
Please follow or favorite if you haven't already. I know there are 26 of you out there who get alerted when I update. PLEASE REVIEW I really, really like getting them :P If we can make it to fifty reviews, I'll write the fiftieth reviewer a Fairy Tail one-shot with a topic and coupling of their choice. Oh, it does not count if someone reviews under "Guest" over and over on one chapter. Thanks, I'm not obsessive at all :P :)
PS. I'm not demanding you review, I'm just asking a lot. Thanks :)
~Maggie
