A week passed as the guild rebuilt and focused on returning to their normal routine. Lucy was spending her time reading a book on the couch in Cyrus's new apartment with her feet resting in Natsu's lap as he amused himself with small fire tricks that he had been working on. The book was something Levy had recommended to her; a riveting tale of adventure and a romance between two mages. She was just finishing reading the ending when she heard a small crash from the kitchen.

"You alright in there, Cyrus?"

He responded with an embarrassed laugh, "Yeah, I just slipped on a little water on the floor and dropped my glass. It's alright, I've got a broom in my room."

"Well, do you need help, I could go grab the broom if you want?"

"No!" Cyrus burst from around the corner, wide eyed. Lucy looked at him and could see a hint a nervousness before his usual smile returned to his face. "I'll get it, you just keep reading, you look so comfortable already."

He gave her a quick suggestive wink before turning down the hall towards his bedroom. Lucy was puzzled for a moment before she glanced down towards her feet and noticed Natsu absent-mindedly rubbing her leg all the way up to her mid-thigh and back down. She felt her face grow hot with a blush and immediately snatched her legs from his lap and pulled them to her chest. Natsu extinguished his flames and looked at her red face with confusion. Lucy was breathing a little unevenly when Cyrus came back into the room and he snickered at the look on Lucy's face. In attempt to relinquish some nervousness as well as remove Natsu's attention from her face, she chucked her now finished novel at Cyrus's head. His sudden sputtering and foolish expression caused Lucy to smile and then launch into a fit of giggles. Natsu was baffled.

"What the hell Luce? What's so funny?"

At that Cyrus began to join in with his own hearty laugh and pretty soon the two were laughing themselves to tears. For the life of him Natsu couldn't understand what was happening but as long as Lucy was laughing he decided it didn't really matter. He just closed his eyes, leaned back and listened. His favorite sound had always been the crackling of burning wood but lately he found it to be Lucy's laugh. Lucy worked hard to make herself look a certain way in public but when she laughed, and he meant really laughed, not that stupid fake laugh that she did for the lame joke of whatever date she had that week, she let it all go. Her shoulders loosened, her nose scrunched up, her eyes screwed shut, and she sounded so free. Listening to her laugh was akin to the feeling of sunshine on his skin; light and incredibly warm. She was his best friend, so he took her laugh as reassurance that she was happy and safe. That was all he really wanted, was for his guild to be safe and happy, especially Lucy.

Across Magnolia the guild was bustling and alive with laughter and merriment. Mages conversed and spoke of recent adventures and the strong aroma of alcohol wafted across the room as beer sloshed out of clinking mugs in celebration of a finished rebuilding of the guild. All of this went unnoticed by Fairy Tail's resident solid script mage, who was holed up in the guild library speedily reading through a plethora of books about ancient artifacts. A grumpy Gajeel sat beside her and huffed as he blew a stray piece of hair from his face. He'd been thinking about cutting it lately. It was becoming a hassle.

Just like this damn artifact.

Gajeel heaved a heavy sigh and missed the slight twitch of his girlfriend's eye.

She looks so great in those little red glasses, so focused.

He got up and made his around the table to take a look at Levy's tall stack of books.

But…

He picked the top book up from the pile and noticed the one below it began to teeter on the edge and in the process of trying to fix it knocked the entire pile over onto the desk in front of Levy.

he always thought she looked best…

"GOD DAMMIT, GAJEEL!"

Angry.

Levy slammed her hands onto the desk and shoved herself out of her seat. She turned to him with a furious glare and gritted teeth. "Is this that awful for you, because you don't have to be here ya know?"

Levy's jaw was clenched and her hair was messy from the lazy bun she had placed it in earlier. There were heavy bags under her eyes and her neck was beginning to hurt from leaning over books for hours on end. So suffice it to say that she was not in the best of moods that day.

"Believe me, I don't want to be here shorty but if I'm not I don't know when I'll get to spend time with you again! You spent weeks losing sleep over this damn thing, and now even after your research was taken and the fucking rock was stolen you continue to spend your time on it. You're up here reading through book after book every single fucking day! Do you even remember when was the last time you let me take you out?"

Levy's fury died down for a moment. How long had it been? Days? Weeks.

Oh

"I'm sorry Gajeel. It's just, this thing, I can't explain it. There's something off about it. I spent weeks researching and still couldn't even find out what it is or where it came from, just stories about it being stolen from people over the centuries in search of power. It's just some stupid rock, so why does everybody want it so bad? I just won't feel right until I know."

"I get it Shrimp, but I need you. Look at you. Its stressing you out and not having you around is stressing me out. I need you. Please Levy…"

Levy was used to hearing his nicknames for her but hearing her name from his lips always made her heart skip a small beat.

"Okay…"

She didn't like spending all of this time away from him, but she guessed she underestimated how much it was affecting him and straining their relationship. She had grown irritable over the weeks and had snapped at him for no good reason more than once. She suddenly felt a wave of guilt wash over and looked to her feet in shame, feeling a few tears spring to the corners of her eyes.

"I'm sorry Gajeel."

She felt the tears slide down her cheeks and closed her eyes to try to stop them. Gajeel's chest tightened a bit at the sight.

Shit. Please don't cry.

He hated seeing her cry, especially when he was the one responsible. He was never good with words so they fought quite a bit but he never failed to feel like a complete dickhead whenever he made her cry. She deserved better than that

"Hey."

He sighed as she ignored him and stepped forward to take hold of her chin, tilting her head up to face him.

"Hey. Listen baby, don't cry. Please don't cry. It's okay, alright? I'm sorry for being such an ass." He gave her a lopsided grin. "Forgive me?"

She giggled at his signature way with words and nodded her head furiously. His grin turned into a content smile as he began to wipe the tears from her cheeks.

"Good, now wipe these tears and get back to being my big strong girlfriend would ya?"

"Big?"

"Oh I'm sorry did I say big? I meant little, tiny, short, puny. Those work for ya?"

She laughed and playfully smacked his arm. He gave her a mischievous smile before picking her up and tossing her over his shoulder.

"Gajeel!"

"C'mon, Shorty. I'm taking you out on a date! You can get to studying later."

He descended the stair case with heavy footsteps and Levy hid her face from the hoots and hollers directed towards them as they walked out of the guild.

"Stupid Gajeel," she muttered under her breathe.

He smiled and playfully smacked her ass with a "gihee."

They made their home but unfortunately, never made their way to the restaurant Gajeel had in mind. There were more pressing matters as they began to think about all of the other things they had been missing out on and decided to spend some quality time in bed. They'd have time for a date later.

Gajeel would make sure of it.

After an eventful day Lucy and Natsu decided to stay the night at Cyrus's instead of walking all the way across town to Lucy's apartment. Natsu had fallen asleep on the couch, so now it was just Lucy and Cyrus sitting on the floor and talking the night away. In the background Lucy could hear a faint melody playing from the music lacrima and she tilted her head back and lost herself in it for a moment before Cyrus spoke.

"How do you do it?"

"I'm sorry, what?"

He sighed, "How do you do it? All of this. It's just, after I left home it was fun but I realized I had no idea what I was doing. I was so lost without someone telling me where to go. You've been doing this for so long, being an adult, taking care of yourself, and you've handled everything that's happened to you so well. I guess I was just wondering. How do you do it without wanting to explode?

Lucy laughed a little at his last question. He was right. She had been taking care of herself for a long time, and maybe she felt a little lost or lonely sometimes, but thanks to Fairy Tail she hadn't felt that way in a long time,

"I guess I felt that way for a while, along while actually. It can be pretty lonely on your own and confusing, but being in Fairy Tail makes most of that go away. I never feel alone or lost because I know that they will always be there for me."

He smiled and looked down.

"Yeah, I think I'm starting to see that. It feels like I've got a second family. For the first time in my life I feel like I'm where I belong."

That struck Lucy and something inside of her stirred with familiarity. She often felt like her and Cyrus were similar in a lot of ways. They both loved to read, were deep thinkers, and believed all beings to be equal and deserving of the same mercy and respect. And now this. They both felt like they were living the wrong life before they joined Fairy Tail, nothing else just seemed to fit. But there were things that made them different as well…

"What's it like, having parents?"

Lucy could see the questioning in his eyes. She couldn't blame him, it was a weird question.

"It's just, most of the people in Fairy Tail, they didn't really grow up with parents. All they really had was each other and I know I had my dad, but I mean not really. I was ignored for a lot of my life so I kind of had to figure life out for myself and then I ran away. I guess I mean to ask, what's it like to have normal parents? "

"Oh…"

It was silent as Cyrus grew embarrassed, he hadn't really thought about it before and he didn't want to make Lucy sad or look like he was bragging.

"Well…It's a bit like" -he smiled to himself– "like having a north star. I remember reading one of those star books you gave me and it said that people used to use the north star to make maps. It's like that. Growing up, no matter how bad I messed up, I always knew that I could go to them for guidance or comfort. They were my biggest heroes. At the same time though, I wish I could have treated them better. I was pretty rebellious as a kid and I didn't always treat them well and when I left, it was so sudden and I never really took into consideration how they would feel about it. Sometimes I wonder if they miss me…"

"I'm sure they do."

They sat there on the floor, eyes looking towards the carpet. They were unaware of the large pair of onyx eyes watching them from the couch. Natsu had woken up around when Lucy was telling Cyrus about Fairy Tail and was relaxing to the sound of her voice. He had to admit that it was interesting hearing what it was like to have parents. All he had ever had was Igneel, and he was a god damn dragon. Now that he thought about it, the other dragon slayers were the closest thing he had to blood family.

He looked up when he smelled something that made his heart hurt. Lucy was looking at the floor and silent tears were running dripping from her eyelashes and running down her beautiful face. He sat up off the couch and saw her eyes widen when she realized he was awake but she immediately turned her back down to the carpet so that he wouldn't see her cry. He hated seeing her cry, he decided that the only thing worse than seeing it was being the one to cause it. He leant down to hold Lucy in his arms like he always did when he wanted to soothe away her tears.

Being held by Natsu only made her cry harder and a sob climbed its way out of her throat. He tightened his hold on her and began to gently stroke her hair, quietly uttering soothing sounds. She hugged him back and the words that came out made him understand the sudden tears.

"I miss her so much."

He closed his eyes and nodded his head.

"I know Luce, I know. Shh. Its ok. I'm here now, It'll all be ok."

Cyrus wiped a stray tear from his cheek and felt guilt settle itself deep in his stomach.

He missed his parents too.