***Hey guys! Just wanted to say thanks again for all the reviews, and also to give a small warning: The nightmare in this chapter is a little scary. It would scare me to read, definitely. So if you don't want to, just skip over the mass of italic letters towards the end of this chapter. You'll still have the idea of what's going on. Enjoy!***

After a breakfast full of joyful chatter, I found myself standing in a place I'd only dreamed of being for the past fifteen months:

In front of the Fairy Tail job board.

The enormous number of possible adventures at my fingertips had never looked so enticing, and the prices listed below them were almost more enticing. I really was broke. I could afford a few more meals before I would have to start putting them on tab.

Not good.

And after I'd mentioned my dire situation, Erza had instantly suggested we snag a job. So now, Natsu, Erza, Happy, Gray and I stood beside the infamously indecisive Nab Lasaro, pondering the various offers.

I had to admit, it was dizzying to stand here with Fairy Tail's strongest team again. Not only had I missed my friends fiercely, but the closer we got to working together once more, the more excited I was to showcase my new abilities and training. It had been hard to be proud about how much tougher I'd gotten up until now. But as I examined the jobs, considering all the skills they were going to require, I felt my chest swelling. I would really be helpful, now! Just like I'd wanted.

"What about this one?" Natsu pointed a finger at a picture of a post featuring a toothy monster, with "150,000 J" written underneath it. It was exactly the kind of thing you'd expect Natsu to pick. Monsters. Fighting. Action. A job he would probably actually handle on his own (destroying multiple buildings in the process) even though he would give us all equal shares of the pay without a second thought.

However, as I glanced at Erza as she stoically considered the poster, it occurred to me that hunting one monster—which I would have jumped on a year ago—was maybe a little too easy for us, now. It was an adventure, and that was great and all, but it would be far from a challenge; any one of us could have handled it alone, easy breezy. Weren't jobs supposed to help us grow as Mages?

There was also another problem. "Actually," I piped up, "The situation there is looking pretty dire, like a 'needs-to-be-taken-care-of-ASAP' type of thing. Would it be okay if we took a job that we could head out for in a couple days, and also one with a little more pay?"

The four of them turned from the board to stare at me.

"Is there a reason we can't leave for a job sooner?" Erza asked.

Instantly, I felt…awkward. "Um—it's just…there's something important I have to talk about with Master, so I was hoping for a couple days to get it figured out…" I trailed off. Still, the four of them were staring at me.

The awkwardness I felt grew. Was I throwing off their dynamic, getting in the way? It would make sense; I'd been completely MIA for over a year. I'd left partially in order to be worthy of fighting alongside my friends, but, of course, they had continued to grow and develop their own brand of teamwork without me in the meantime. Maybe it hadn't been right of me to guilt them into going on a quest with me.

Hiding my anxiety to look calmly between them, I said casually, "But it's okay, if you want to head out now. I won't hold you back. There'll be no hard feelings, if—"

"No way!" Natsu's interruption was adamant, his arms crossed.

"Yeah," said Gray, apparently agreeing with Natsu for once, "We aren't letting you off the hook that easy."

"We just got the team back together!" added in Happy, "And now you think we should separate it?"

"What?" I was startled. "No, that's not what I—"

"They're absolutely right, Lucy." Erza's arms were folded, too. On her, the pose lacked the immature animation that it seemed to convey on Natsu. "Besides, I am very curious to see how much you've grown. If Solar Flare is even half as great as the legends say, you'll be quite a force to be reckoned with."

My neck and cheeks felt very hot all of a sudden, as they always had whenever Erza had ever so much as taken a step towards complimenting me. "Alright," I muttered, "Well if you guys don't mind—"

Not listening, Happy cut me off. "That's not all she can do! She merged magic with all her spirits!"

My blush deepened.

"Yeah!" Natsu said enthusiastically, "You should've seen her training with Capricorn and Loke this morning. She's crazy fast! And her senses've improved double, easy!"

My gaze snapped to him, and I felt overwhelming confusion. This morning, he'd been furious at the mention of my new abilities. Now he was suddenly excited about them? In fact, come to think of it, he had been pretty supportive watching my training session this morning. Maybe he wasn't mad about the fact that I was stronger. Maybe whatever anger he felt boiled down to the same thing it always seemed to be boiling down to with him: the fact that I'd left. The pang of guilt that followed the thought was starting to become all-too familiar.

Still, the feeling was accompanied with embarrassment. "Don't exaggerate, Natsu—"

"I'm not! Tell them, Happy!"

Happy obliged. "Aye! Lucy wasn't even fighting back this morning, and she managed to hold her own against the two of them for almost forty minutes!"

"Guys…" All I did in this damn Guild was blush, I swear.

"Against Loke and Capricorn?" Gray sounded astounded, "He had me, you, Cana and Loke completely on the ropes on Tenrou." He was looking at me funny now, like maybe he was a little…I don't know. Scared of me or something.

The thought gave me no pleasure. I couldn't even see my face and knew it resembled a plum. "He wasn't using Human Subordination Magic-"

"Yeah!" Natsu threw in, "But he was attackin' you with lightning speed while Loke went at you with Regulus Impact! You should've seen it…Pop! Pop! Pop!" He threw quick fake punches towards a floating Happy.

Dramatically, the cat spun quickly threw the air, flying up and down, all the while saying, "And Lucy was like this!"

"No way!" Natsu countered, suddenly halting in his attack. "She was more like this!" He tucked his hands behind his back and began jumping, rolling across the guild hall floor, and spinning, all the while wearing a face that couldn't quite manage to look concentrated.

More flushed than ever, I bellowed, "YOU'RE EMBARRASSING ME!"

No one listened, except Natsu, who quit flying all over the place to shoo me a grin. Not one person in the Guild even looked over; an entire year, and they were all still used to my yelling.

Go figure.

"Really?" Erza asked Natsu. She sounded intrigued. "Well in that case, we should take an S-Class Job. As long as I'm with you, the Master won't mind."

In truth, I'd been privately considering the idea. Viewing our team logically, I believed that all four of us were probably S-Level Mages, just without the official title (except for Erza, of course.)

"Come to think of it," the red-head rose a pensive hand to her chin, and we all watched her as she continued, "There's a job on the board upstairs that will require someone to lift a curse from Dreydon Castle. Supposedly, the place is crawling with mysterious magical creatures, but there are no human inhabitants, so no one's being threatened. I would imagine it doesn't matter when we arrive to finish the job, just so long as we do finish it."

Already, it sounded perfect. Creepy crawlies for Natsu and Gray to busy themselves with, and a magic-based puzzle that Erza and I would revel in. To be honest, it sounded like it was made for us.

"If I remember correctly, the reward is four-million jewels."

Okay, that really sounded like it was made for us.

"Magic creatures, you say?" Natsu was cracking his knuckles. "You know I'm in."

"Aye, sir!"

"Sounds good to me," Gray agreed coolly.

"Four million jewels?" I shot them a thumbs up, "That works for me!"

Something about what I'd said seemed to instantly lighten the mood, for some reason. Before I knew it, Gray and Natsu stood on either side of me, arms draped over my shoulders while Erza and Happy looked on with small smiles.

"Alright!" Natsu pumped a fist into the air, flashing the Guild his brilliant grin.

Seeing his smile from mere inches away made me breathless for a moment, like the air had been knocked out of my lungs. It was the second time in two crazy, emotional days that Natsu had made me feel that way. A smile I hadn't even meant to form was suddenly on my lips, spreading—

—That is, until Gray ruffled my hair. "Hey!" I said indignantly, shooting him a glare.

His response was a smirk. "Alright, Lucy," he said, "I'm thinking your turn to bring our job to Mira is about—oh, a year overdue…"


Once the Master came back from his meeting with the magic council, Cana announced that we would have a second night of partying to celebrate the return of me, him and Erza. To be honest, I didn't see why they bothered announcing it. Every night here was another party.

It was once I'd finished continuing to catch up with everyone, watching them slowly slip into drunkenness, wildness, and then—for many—sleep (strewn haphazardly around the Guild, of course) that I approached the Master. He sat in his usual manner: criss-cross on the bar, surveying the family he headed. Seeing him enter the Guild today, I couldn't decide if his appearance—which hadn't even changed minutely since I'd left—surprised me, or if it was exactly what I had been expecting.

It felt like he'd been waiting for me, had been all-too aware that I'd approach once I caught a quiet moment. Knowing him, my suspicions were probably right.

"Lucy!" he greeted amiably as I approached, "It's great to see you again!"

I gave him a small smile. "It's great to see you, too, Master!"

"Sit down, child," he patted the bar beside him, "Tell me about your year. Any love interests I should know about?"

Despite myself, I flushed, struggling to come up with a response.

I settled on a small laugh, followed by, "None worth mentioning!"

"Ooh!" Mira winked, pointing at me. "Sounds like there was something, then!"

"Yeah, well…" I stalled, the small smile growing uncomfortable now. "You know…nothing that stuck."

It wasn't a lie. In my travels, I'd gone out a couple times, mainly to try to alleviate some of the loneliness I felt being away from Fairy Tail. I'd connected over one guy with books—I'd always seen myself with a brainy type, a Hibiki of Blue Pegasus type, if you will (minus the rampant, unabashed flirting.) But for some reason, beyond literature we'd had no connection.

"You'll have to tell me about them, sometime!" Mira winked again. My blush deepened and I felt the cold finger of dread trail down my spine, but, thankfully, she had already moved on. "Can I get you anything, Lucy?"

"Could I just have some water, please, Mirajane?" Like I could've afforded anything else. I'd already blown one meal's-worth of money on drinks tonight.

"Certainly," she said warmly.

Once the cup sat before me, droplets of condensation gathering on its outside, I turned to Master Makarov again, looking at him seriously. "You wanted to know about my year."

"Yes, my dear. Tell me everything."

"Well," I said slowly, "I learned and grew a lot."

"I can see."

I flashed a little smile of gratitude at this, then went on, "I learned some of it from my spirits, but most of the year, I was researching. That's how I got Solar Flare."

Just like fifteen months ago, the dark depths of Master's eyes were cast into me. I didn't shy away from them as I had back then, gazing back. "Gildarts told me. An impressive feat, not that I'd expect anything less from a Fairy Tail Wizard."

"Thanks, Master. That means a lot to me. But…" I shifted on the barstool, "Bragging isn't the reason I brought my research up…information on Celestial Magic isn't all I found, in my travels. Master," I leaned forward, "I think…I think I found something that could be bad. Really bad."

For a long moment, the Master was silent, still eyeing me. In a familiar motion, he closed his eyes and bowed his head. "I see. Homesickness was not all that drove you to return."

It was the truth, but for some reason the statement made me uncomfortable. Mirajane was listening now, a seriousness in her bright eyes.

"No," I was forced to agree, finally, "Not all."

The bow of his wizened head deepened. He looked so knowing, you could almost have overlooked the colorful, long-eared hat he wore. "How serious is what you found?"

My lips tightened just before I answered. "Very. Originally, I planned on dealing with this on my own before returning. But when I came to understand its full scope…" I shook my head. "I knew I would be biting off more than I can chew. So I decided to ask for your help. But I have to warn you: I think people will get hurt with this one. Less people than if no one did something to stop it, but still. It's dangerous." For the first time during this discussion, I looked away from the Master, down at my cup of water. "It's why I was hesitant to ask in the first place."

A moment of silence. "You knew that the potential danger of the situation would have no bearing on our decision to help you." My wide-eyed gaze snapped back to him. "We will never turn our back on people who need us, let alone family."

Mira smiled warmly at me: her agreement.

The warm hand on my shoulder made me start, and I turned to see Natsu. How long had he been listening? How had I not heard him approach? His grin was blinding, and he was pointing a thumb at himself. "You know I got your back, Lucy! I'm ready to knock some heads! Right, Happy?"

The little blue Exceed appeared in a burst of blue fur and white wings, coming to land on his shoulder. "Aye, sir!"

"I'd like to offer my help, as well." The stoic voice came from the mass of sleeping bodies, where we looked to find Erza standing atop several groaning guild members, arms folded over her armored chest.

Gray—clad only in his boxers—rose from the pile, muttering at Elfman, "Get off me, you hulking…" His insult was cut off as he stood fully. Dark eyes, caught above a smirk and under dark bangs, peered at me. "Count me in."

I felt a swell of emotion. It was the kind I'd felt every time we'd been on the brink of defeat and heard Natsu or Erza call out to us:

"As long as we have each other, we can fight!"

"If I don't have the strength today, then I'll just borrow some from tomorrow!"

It was the swell of emotion I'd felt when I watched Natsu carry Erza from a destroyed, steaming Tower of Heaven after he had refused to allow her to sacrifice herself. The swell I'd felt when all of Fairy Tail joined forces to destroy Laxus's thunder palace, when they knew doing it would result in their being blasted by lightning. The swell I'd felt when I saw Fairy Tail's strongest team running towards me, with cries of, "There you are!" and "We were worried sick about you!" in front of my mother's grave. The swell I felt when I watched a heartbroken Erza place a hand on Wendy's back as the young girl cried before her vanished home.

It was a swell I hadn't felt in a long, long time. I was close to crying. A year ago, I would have, openly—but it had been too long; my loneliness had calloused over.

"Fairy Tail's got your back, Lucy!" Mira's smile was bright and comforting.

I smiled back, and for some reason, despite the fact that I'd been grinning a lot for the last couple days, it felt like the first genuine smile I'd worn in a while. The first Lucy smile.


The bucket had been ready next to my bed the night before. Somewhere deep down, though, I had known I wouldn't need it. I'd been completely wiped out from my fight with Cobra, and my head had been ringing with the renewed, jovial sounds of my friends' voices when I'd fallen asleep. It had been enough to keep the dreams away, for a night.

But today, I'd prepared to tell Master Makarov and the others about the dark things I'd been hiding up to this point. I was sure tonight wasn't going to bring me the same luck that my previous night had.

I wasn't wrong.


He was coming.

The Collector was coming.

I was in my bed, in the safety of my home. But when it came to him, privacy meant nothing, and "safety" was just a word. Your right to live and choose who you wanted to be were two sides of a cold coin that he flipped in his silky hands. The coin flipped up, spinning before his white-toothed grin and wide, staring eyes. With the tiniest, metallic thunk, the coin landed in his palm, and the silence pressed in upon your ears as he slipped it into his pocket.

He was coming through my window, and all I could do was watch, sweat dripping down my forehead and cheeks, sticking my pajamas to my body. I stared with wide eyes as my window opened with a soft, pop!

And he slid in, smiling at how easy this all was, how instantly gratifying.

This was his release, the past-time he enjoyed most in the world. Stepping in past the confines of young girls' walls while they lay in their beds, the scream clawing at the back of their throats, the desire to fight—to run burning agonizingly beneath their skin.

We were all so completely at his mercy. Beneath the blanket of his Dark Magic, we were rag dolls, his for the taking. He loved that power. He loved his own ability to silence others, to make them surrender. For a while, he would just stare at you.

Then something shifted.

He reached towards my face—his long-fingered, perfectly soft fingers drifting towards my sweaty cheeks as I stared in horror, imploring him with teary eyes.

And suddenly, my hair wasn't blonde and my eyes weren't brown.

Both were black.

I watched him reach for me, and it occurred to me that when the Collector left your room, he left you different.

Some of the girls he left behind were left only with nightmares.

Others were left without their souls, rag dolls of his make.

I, Oriel Usiu, would be one of the others.

Until the end of my life.


I woke up, and instantly flipped over in my bed to hurl into the ready-and-waiting bucket.

About a week after the nightmares started, I'd learned to be prepared.

I released the contents of my stomach, struggling to bury my sobs in-between heaves. When I was done, I wiped my mouth shakily with the back of my wrist, closing my eyes against the overwhelming, acidic smell of vomit, pressing upon my overly-sensitive nose.

Too late, I remembered that just before I'd rolled over, I had seen my window cracked open.

"Lucy?"

Instantly, my body was encased in Solar Flare's flickering light, and my shaking fingers were shooting beneath my pillow to grab my keys.

"Lucy! It's me!" The voice was deep and scratchy with sleep, under-woven with an unintentional growl. It was familiar, achingly so, and I froze with Capricorn's key raised in the air.

Breathing harshly, I turned to the source of the voice.

Natsu lay, sprawled out haphazardly over half my bed. Judging by the way his sandaled feet were only just inside the window, he had crawled into my room and then instantly passed out. Despite his awkward position, he was obviously wide awake, now, propped up on his forearms and staring at me with huge eyes.

Shivering, I breathed in and out.

The arm holding my key fell limp, and Solar Flare faded slowly from my body.

Despite lowering my defenses, the sweating, shaking, and insanely fast heartbeat remained. With my gaze turned down to my pink comforter, I asked, "What are you doing in my room, Natsu?"

He looked taken aback. "Me?! What are you doin', yackin'?"

He leaned forward to examine my face closely, and I flinched. "Are you sick or somethin'?"

"I'm fine," I muttered.

He didn't listen, instead pondering aloud what could be ailing me. "We're not on a train or nothin'..." Leave it to him to assume motion sickness. "And you didn't drink that much..."

Slipping Capricorn's key back under my pillow, I wrapped my arms around myself, trying to come down from the rush of fear-driven adrenaline. My mind felt as if it had short-circuited. My heart was going to fly out of my chest any minute, it was beating so fast. I closed my eyes, and took another shaky breath.

"Lucy?" The voice was uncertain. I felt my bed creak as Natsu shifted.

A warm, rough hand pressed itself gently against my forehead, and my breath hitched fearfully for a second at the contact. After a moment, the hand fell. "You don't feel too hot," Natsu decided, "But maybe we should go to see Wendy anyway."

The automatic "we" shouldn't have caught me off-guard, but it did. I was a Celestial Mage, and, truly, I was never alone; I always had my spirits. My friends. But in the past few months since discovering the awful things I had...I realized I had started to view myself as a single entity, as one person with only whatever strength I had instead of as Lucy who had a family and a support system. I'd begun to feel alone. More than I realized.

Despite this revelation, I let out a shuddering breath, shaking my head in response to Natsu's idea. "How would you be able to tell if someone has a fever or not? You're a Fire Dragon Slayer! Your skin is like a million degrees. And we're not going to Wendy's."

"Why not?"

"It's the middle of the night. She's sleeping."

The thought of seeing Wendy's peaceful, young face set my stomach reeling again. Not so soon after one of the nightmares. Not her.

Natsu seemed confused. "She wouldn't mind. If you're really sick…"

"I said I'm fine, Natsu!"

Even though I felt instantly guilty for snapping, I was grateful for the small surge of anger. It drove me to overcome my shock and stand up, grabbing the bucket and heading to the bathroom to clean it. To my dismay, Natsu leapt off my bed and followed close at my heels.

"Fine, then, grouchy!" he said, "We don't have to go tonight. But if you're sick, you should at least find Porlyusica in the morning."

I sighed, stepping onto the white tile. "It's not that simple this time, Natsu."

I didn't have to look at him to know he blinked.

"What do you mean?"

Again, I sighed. It occurred to me, all at once, how different this moment was from our times in the Guild the past two days. Good times. Fun times. Times of laughter and fun. Now, there was no laughter, no silliness. This was just a little bit of the worst part of my year, coming back to haunt me, and dragging Natsu into the darkness as it did so.

Was I still this weak?

From the corner of my eye, I noticed that he didn't even flinch when my vomit splattered into the toilet. He was pretty acquainted with vomit, I guess, what with his perpetual motion sickness.

The fear was fading, now, the sleepiness of the wee hours of morning leaking into my mind like a fog. Hopefully the rest of the night would be dream-free.

I was reminded that I hadn't answered Natsu when he stepped towards me across the tile. "Hey! I asked, 'what do you mean?' You better start talkin'—"

"DON'T COME IN THE BATHROOM WHILE I'M IN HERE!"

So much for sleepy. I could feel steam erupting from my ears as I glared at the salmon-haired boy, fists clenched.

He flinched, stepping back. "Alright, alright! Geez." Scowling, I turned back to my bucket.

A moment of silence. Two.

"I just wanted to know why you woke up yackin' is all." His voice had fallen to a mumble.

I sighed, my expression softening as I rinsed gross, leftover chunks out of the bucket. He was just worried about me, after all. He deserved an explanation—no, not just an explanation. The truth.

At least part of it. "It was just a nightmare, Natsu."

I hoped that would silence him on the matter, and it did. But when I turned to glance at him, it was to find that intense, coal gaze locked onto me, his expression somber. The way he looked at me was uncharacteristically serious and searching, bringing a flush to my cheeks that was completely different from the breathless blush his grins elicited from me. I looked quickly away, praying he would let this go. I didn't want to go into the details of the nightmare. Not tonight. Possibly not ever.

Part of me was tempted to kick him out of my apartment, Lucy-style. But the other part—the part of me that had felt a surge of emotion upon seeing him for the first time in a year, and was still scared from the nightmare—was glad to have him around.

Even if he did break into my room…again! I gritted my teeth at the thought, scrubbing the empty vomit bucket with furious fingers. An entire year, and he hadn't gained even one manner. When I'd finished, I set it out to dry, washed my hands thoroughly, then began brushing my teeth. I scrubbed, spit. Replenished the toothpaste on my brush. Scrubbed again. I spit a final time, and set my toothbrush down.

Turning to peer wearily at Natsu, I found that his gaze was still latched onto me. I had the feeling he was trying to make up his mind about something—what, I couldn't imagine.

"Where's Happy?" I asked.

Natsu wasn't swayed that easily, though. He got some idea or question in his head, and that was it. Stay out of his way, world. That black gaze remained, and I didn't even feign confusion as to his behavior, instead letting my face settle into the deadpan expression I'd worn in the Forest of One Thousand Monsters as I stared back. I didn't have any notions about my wide brown eyes containing the intensity of his angled black ones, but that didn't mean I was about to back down.

The staring competition wore on, and my eyeballs began to itch from the combination of exhaustion and overexposure to the air. It felt like entire minutes passed.

At length, he looked away. I let out a small, inaudible breath of relief. Something told me he wasn't done with this, but for now, at least, he was dropping it.

"Home," he replied finally, "I was gonna to bring him with me, but he was sleepy so he waved me off."

"Why'd you leave?"

At that, he turned a confused look to me. "'Cause you're back to annoy, now, of course!" He said it like it was obvious, then flashed a grin.

I felt the familiar pull at the corners of my own lips. It really was a relief that the serious moment had passed.

"That's not the only thing I exist for, you know!"

He laughed, but halfway through, it turned into a yawn.

"Smooth," I muttered as he reached up to rub an eye. I swore, he went from uncontainable energy to intensity to sleep-mode to starvation to fighting faster than I could follow.

"I'm tired, Lucy," Natsu whined, "I'm going back to bed."

He began to stumble off towards my room. "Don't sleep in my bed!" I called, chasing after him, "Take the couch!"

Ignoring me completely, he crawled to the far side of my bed and was instantly snoring on top of my blanket.

I balled a fist in front of me, ears steaming once more. "That jerk!" I hissed. Glaring at him, I debated whether or not to chuck him out the open window. However, when he rolled over to get more comfortable, I saw his face—peaceful, for once. Feeling my resolve melt like ice before a glowing hearth, I relieved my fist. My hand fell to my side.

For a moment, I just watched him. I was feeling a familiar tenderness, the same one I'd felt every time I witnessed Natsu sleeping, vying with unwavering loyalty for his friends or unabashedly complimenting me. A tenderness that strode just a little too far in a certain direction for my liking.

I grabbed the semi-dry bucket, turning off my bathroom light. After returning the bucket to its position, I contemplated my half-full bed.

"At least he left me space," I muttered, and crawled beneath the comforter.

Thanks to Natsu's Fire Magic, I was instantly warm.

I settled into my half of the bed until I'd found a comfortable position, and then set about trying to fill my mind with pleasant things. Erza's endearingly painful embrace. Gray ruffling my hair. Natsu and Happy's silly moments in the Guild. Reedus, sitting to the side with a small smile, painting us all. Cana and Gildarts, making up for lost time at the bar. Mira smiling as I'd brought her our job listing.

Still uneasy—but feeling slightly better—I drifted off to sleep.


When I awoke the next morning, the first thing I noticed was the crap feeling vomiting had left in my mouth. Despite brushing my teeth, it always seemed to return in all its vileness in the light of morning.

The next thing I noticed was the arm draped over my waist.

My eyes snapped open, and I turned to look behind me at Natsu. His face still held that innocent, peaceful quality that it always did when he slept. But our proximity didn't feel accidental. At some point during the night, he had taken it upon himself to move closer to me. We weren't exactly cuddling or anything like that.

But there was his arm.

Hesitantly, I glanced down. The rough, tan skin stretching over hard muscle looked especially so against the soft pink blanket.

Dumbfounded, I turned my gaze back to his sleeping face.

In all the times he'd slept in my bed, Natsu had never pulled something like this. Sure, he'd draped himself haphazardly over me like an annoying little brother when he fell asleep too quickly to position himself. He and Happy had curled close to me—an attempt to fuel my anger upon waking up, I'd always guessed. But this was different. There was nothing obnoxious or immature or silly or even pervy about the position. It just seemed…protective.

Studying his face, I was all-too-aware of the way I could feel his arm tucked right into the curve of my waist.

Was this because of what I'd told him about my nightmare?

I couldn't think of another reason.

Suddenly, I noticed something else:

The window was closed.

Frowning, I considered it. I knew I hadn't done that, so it must have been him. Why would he have shut the window? He couldn't have known about the context of my dream. Maybe he had gotten cold?

Instantly, I dismissed the idea. He was Natsu.

I shook my head. The Fire Dragon Slayer was usually a pretty simple guy, but every once in a while the way he acted left me completely baffled. Trying to unravel the mysteries of his more puzzling side was too great a task for this early in the morning.

Besides, I had a big conversation to prepare for. Documents to gather.

Not to mention the emotional preparation I was going to have to put into this.


He wanted her to talk about it, but something about her expression—stark, exhausted, and still clinging onto the remnants of fear—had told him she wasn't going to.

Natsu had been worried in the first place, as soon as he'd seen her throwing up. Then, she'd told him it was a nightmare that had caused her to wake up in a vomiting frenzy, and his concern had spiked considerably. What kind of dream was so bad it made you wake up to puke? He guessed, maybe, if you had a nightmare about eating a vat of rotten fish or something it would make sense, but the speed with which she had prepared to attack him and the fear in her eyes told him this wasn't a food dream.

No, this had something to do with what she'd wanted to talk to the Master about that day. About whatever she'd found in the past year that bothered her so much. Maybe he would be able to figure it out from whatever it was she was planning to tell them.

The thought had made him feel marginally better—enough so that he'd been able to fall back asleep.

But the sound of Lucy's voice woke him up again.

A sharp intake of breath, a whimper.

Natsu's eyes opened slowly, the fog of post-sleep filling his hazy mind. He smelled Lucy. Shampoo. Freshness Potion. Vomit.

Another whimper. For the second time that night, he was suddenly wide awake. He turned to look at her over his shoulder. Lucy's back was to him, but he could see that she was shaking underneath her blanket.

Cautiously, slowly, he rolled over and inched closer, then peered over her sleeping form to get a look at her face.

Instantly, something in his chest twisted painfully.

Her eyebrows were drawn in, and there were tears in her eyelashes, clinging to her nose. Sweat shone on her forehead.

"The window…" she muttered. He stared as her lips moved soundlessly for a moment. Then, "He's…the window…Collect—…he's coming" More soundless words.

"He"? "The window"? What the hell was Lucy talking about? Was she afraid someone was going to come in her window? The thought in itself almost made him growl. Only the members of Team Natsu had that right! Any bastard that was coming in to try to hurt her was going to get a face full of fiery fist.

Natsu turned to look out into the night, almost expecting to see some ugly asshole smiling in at them.

But there was no one. Just the starry sky. Natsu could feel a breeze drifting through the opening, lavishing his skin. Feeling angry, and having no outlet, he crawled over the window and shut it gingerly before crawling back over to Lucy.

For a while he watched, helpless and unsure.

Then another tear fell from her eyelashes.

Last straw, he decided.

He put a hand on her side, and suddenly, her eyes snapped open—huge, brown eyes, peering fearfully out into the darkness of her room, searching. By their unfocused quality, he could tell that she wasn't even fully awake. Still halfway between dreams and sleep.

"Lucy," he said, and instantly her teary eyes found his. She looked so lost. "Lucy," he repeated, more gently, "There's nobody in your room. He isn't here. Go back to sleep."

For a moment, she kept her unfocused gaze latched onto his. Then he watched as something peaceful came over her expression. As she closed her eyes, her head lowered itself onto her pillow, and a second later, she had passed out.

For a while, he watched her. He didn't want her to just go straight back into whatever nightmare was plaguing her. After a little bit, though, her tears dried, and her expression remained peaceful.

These dreams…they just wouldn't leave her alone, would they? That bucket was next to her bed again—had been next to her bed earlier, too. And if he remembered correctly, he'd sidestepped it the night before, too. She'd been ready for this; this had been happening. For how long? And who had she been talking about?

Had someone done something to her?

His hand was still on her side. At that thought, he stretched his arm more firmly around her, lowering himself to the bed next to her. After a few minutes of brooding thought, he was back asleep.