By the time Gray and Erza had woken up, I had gone inside with Natsu and pulled on a pair of shorts, a coat that reached mid thigh and a sleeveless top that left my stomach exposed. I stood by them, watching the sunlight filter in from a nearby window, highlighting the little spokes in the air while Natsu heated up some coffee for all of us, which I took gratefully when he handed it over to us.

But even that small act of kindness couldn't wipe away the cold hard truth that was placed in my lap that morning.

Phantom Lord.

Phantom Lord had destroyed our guild.

The sentence just kept circling around in my head like a sick mantra, or incantation for destruction.

As we walked away from the house, Happy happily hitching a ride in my arms, a somber silence enveloped us all. It was only punctuated by the concerned questions of Erza and Gray.

Natsu kept silent, more than likely knowing that I was slowly getting back up to my usual level of strength.

But I really couldn't focus on my own health.

Fairy Tail was a big family, and the guildhall was our home, it was the place we would go to after missions and receive warm welcomes from everyone, where we got lectured by Master Makarov and had friendly brawls.

And to have someone demolish it…

I hadn't even seen it with my own eyes, but just from Gray's gruesome description of giant steel pillars, hundreds of them, impaling the guild I flinched.

Why would anyone go as far as to destroy a guildhall?

Wasn't it explicitly against the rules the Magic Council set up for mages for guilds to fight each other?

I thought about all of this as we breached the tree line and entered the town, hearing people gasp from the direction of the park.

Immediately, Natsu and I turned to each other with significant looks and then taking off in the direction of the horrified sounds.

Happy bounced off of my forearms and transformed his wings, flying ahead of us as Natsu and I fell into a dead sprint, Gray and Erza yelling questions behind us, before they went silent and finally heard exactly what we had.

We elbowed and pushed our way through the crowds, and when we finally reached the front, we stopped still, looking up at the giant cherry blossom tree in the park, where Team Shadow Gear was hung up and beaten.

Next to me, I felt the heat of Natsu's flames as he got incredibly furious, an inferno of intense rage.

I did a half turn when I heard Master Makarov, I didn't say anything to him at all, but I think he got the picture when he saw my fists clenched, small pebbles beginning to fly to my hands.

It was like I broke though. Deep inside me, a dam broke, and tears started coursing down my face and the pebbles fell limply to the ground while Makarov screamed, "THIS IS WAR!"

I flinched violently and wrapped my arms around my middle, staring up at the faces of Levy, Jet and Droy.

I didn't know why I was so scared in that moment, instead of completely furious like I had been just a few seconds before the master screamed. Was it that in the deep recesses of my mind, that kind of aggressive screaming reminded me of my father?

"Damn it," I heard next to me, before arms wrapped around me and my head was tucked in under Natsu's chin. "Lucy, are you going to be okay?"

I wiped my nose and nodded, "Yeah, just let me get them down from here and take them to the hospital."

"Lucy!" Master called.

I whipped around on my heel and looked down at him, nearly throwing down Natsu in the process. "Yes, sir?"

"Please stay here and help Levy, Jet and Droy while they are in the hospital. We have a mission to take care of, and I couldn't think of a better person than you to take care of them," he said, nodding as happy flew towards Natsu's shoulder from the direction of the town, where all of Fairy Tail was gathering for some self-proclaimed mission.

I gave a nod and turned around to the tree then glancing at Natsu, who still had his arms awkwardly around me.

"You sure you'll be okay, Luce?" he asked me, his black eyes staring into my and searching my face for some sign that I was still sick. In the background, I heard people calling for Natsu to hurry up. I could have laughed when he twitched and yelled at them to shut the hell up.

I nodded and flashed him what I hoped was a reassuring smile, "I'll be fine, Master gave me a mission, and you have a mission too! So get to it!"

Taking care of Levy, Jet and Droy wasn't all that hard.

I was alone in Magnolia with them, but the townspeople were extremely kind and some would even stop by with food for me or for a quick chat.

I guess they had seen me around Natsu for so long that they all believed he might be my only friend.

But they were wrong: Natsu wasn't my only friend he was my Nakama.

Just as everyone in Fairy Tail was my Nakama.

At first, when I joined, I didn't know what to think of the whole Nakama thing, it seemed like some strange collective hallucination the whole guild was having. How can such a huge group of people be so close knit?

But after being in Fairy Tail for a while, I realized how wrong I was.

We were one collective entity, one giant Fairy Tail, and we defended each other like no other.

The pillow that Levy's head was on seemed a bit flat, so I got up from my position at the door, guarding them and walked over to the closet, where I fetched three fluffed pillows and swiped off any lint of dust that might have been leftover on the white cloth. When I finished, I went to all of their beds, lifted them up gingerly, swiped out the flat pillow and swiped in the fluffy pillow.

I did that for all three of them, and then I got a bit fed up with the dirty sheets and their soiled bandages.

I went into the hallway to call a nurse to come help me change Team Shadow Gear's bandages, because no matter how much of a super friend I thought myself to be, I was no nurse.

When she came, we worked silently. I held up their bodies for the nurse while scanning their bodies for anything that we had to change while she was in the room.

When we finished with the bandages, she escorted herself, out only tweaking the amount of pain killer they were getting on the way out.

And I resumed my spot at the door, keeping a silent vigil over my charges.

I must have been falling asleep when I started thinking about what a mess the room would have been if Natsu was with me.

He'd like people to think he was a huge slob, and he totally was, but when it came to other people, his friends, he would be careful. He would have been persistent in helping the nurses, trying to feed Team Shadow Gear even though they had an IV that gave them all the necessary nutrients.

I laughed, thinking of how he had the potential to burn down the entire hospital while trying to eat fire.

The laugh died in my throat.

When I tried to nibble on a pebble I about made the head nurse faint and smack me on the head about eating proper food.

My eye twitched.

That wasn't a very good experience.

Around five in the afternoon, I got up, waved off the nurses and headed into town to grab some food.

I wasn't really paying attention too much; I was just looking for this little Café that had really good bagels and coffee.

My skin got cold, that creepy feeling I always got when a cloud got in front of the sun, and the air was suddenly flooded with the heavy scent of humidity and then the little drip-drops of cold rain hitting my skin.

I craned my neck up to look at the sky, holding my hand to my brow bone to shield it from the sun. "Huh? Why is it raining? The sun is still out!"

I barely had time to whip around when I heard two distinctive sounds:

"Steadily and silently…Juvia is the rainwoman, Juvia will capture her target."

"Non non non!"

And then a horrible sense of drowning filled me, as I was encased it what I could only describe as a giant sphere of water.

As I passed out, I could only think that I failed Master Makarov, Natsu, and Team Shadow Gear.

I didn't know where the hell I was when I came to; all I knew was that I felt like absolute shit. My senses were in overdrive.

It was moist—no, it smelled like mold. There was a faint dripping sound behind me, and the faint smell of moss of near a corner. And the strongest scent of all though was the cold stone that my cheek was pressed against.

When I opened my eyes, I saw that I was locked in a cell, sitting on stone. It wasn't really the best quality stone I had seen, but if worse came to worst, I could always gnaw on it and get a magical power boost.

I quickly scanned myself, noting that whoever had kidnapped me had foolishly left my legs loose and had only thought to bind my hands. My Spirit Keys were suspiciously missing, but other than the dirty clothes, I was fine.

I swung myself up using my legs as leverage, and then I rolled onto the balls of my feet.

My eyes focused directly at the door as I fiddled with the rope that was binding my wrists. Some part of me probably felt a bit insulted that my kidnappers believed flimsy rope to be enough to hold me back, and the other part of me was just kind of relieved that it was that easy to get out of my bindings.

The rope came loose and fell to the floor limply while I inched towards the door, tensing myself incase my kidnappers decided to show their faces.

And right as I was going to push my hand out to grab the doorknob, I found myself face to face with blinding light and a dour face.

My impulse: jump three feet in the air with a girly shriek.

And did I do it?

I would have liked to say I didn't, but I kind of did.

I could only thank the heavens that no one except the old fart in front of me was there to witness the destruction of my hard-earned reputation.

"Ah, Lady Heartfilia, have you tired so much of your accommodations that you're trying to leave?" he said, looking at my unbound hands.

I glared at him and sneered, "What the hell do you think, asshole?"

He twitched. "Not much of a lady, are you? Especially considering you are the heiress to the Heartfilia Konzern."

I was in the middle of crossing my arms underneath my breasts when I froze.

How the hell did he know?

"Who the hell are you?" I snarled, ready to cock my fist back.

"I am Jose Porla, Master of the magic guild Phantom Lord," he said, quite proudly. "And I am here to take you back to your father, who has hired us, and is in need of you."

All color drained from my face.

He was the one who had organized this?

Phantom Lord?

The guild that had destroyed Team Shadow Gear?

Phantom Lord, who had destroyed our guildhall?

It was these people who had kidnapped me?

And it was my father who had hired them to cause such strife in my guild?

"You can tell my father," I began, looking down at the ground, bringing my fists by my hips. Then I whipped my head up, glaring at this Jose guy in the eye. "That he can go to hell. I'm not going back with him!"

The old fart laughed at my declaration, and only began walking toward me, probably to restrain me.

But a split second before he reached towards me, I noticed the door was open, so I did the logical thing and feinted a right hook towards his face, and when he dodged I twisted around on the spot and rammed my knee into his crotch in the most fundamental self-defense move ever.

When he fell to the ground in excruciating pain, I ran to the door and over the threshold, but stopped dead in place when I saw that I was at least fifty feet off the ground. Blood was pulsing in my ear, adrenaline pumping through my system, and the jittery urge to fight or flee was at the forefront of my mind. Either one spelled imminent death in my case.

Yet, in the distance, I heard something distinctive, a loud shout.

I looked up and bit my lip, then turned to look back at Jose, who was waddling up from his position on the floor.

"You have nowhere to go now," the old fart croaked, cradling his crotch.

I didn't pay him any mind. All I did was take a few steps near the threshold, before I got a running start and leapt off the side of the tower.

I yelled his name at the top of my lungs: "NATSUUUUUU!"

What ran through my head though was: If you don't catch me and I die, I'm going to freaking kill you!

There were a couple of seconds where I felt a terrifying nothingness below my feet or anywhere near me, my hair streaming up in the air, and I had closed my eyes shut to protect them from any flying debri.

But then, I heard a loud roar, an unmistakable Dragon Roar, as a pair of muscled arms caught me in a warm, familiar embrace, and then as he twisted around in air to take the brunt of the fall.

We collided into a brick wall and it tumbled all around us like a child's wooden blocks.

The immense relief that I felt…there were no words to describe it, so I gave a sort of broken smile and looked down at Natsu, muttering my thanks for catching me, not even caring that my breast was in his face.

However, when I rolled off of him and he inspected me for any injuries, he was going to charge right back up to Jose and beat him up.

I really don't know what came over me, but I burst into tears and shook my head.

"Please Natsu, no, can we…can we just home? Please?" I cried out, all the spunk having left me as quickly as the adrenaline had, left only a sad little Lucy-husk.

He did this weird little thing; where he stepped forward and went to reach his hand out to me—opening and closing his mouth to speak—and then he snatched his hand back turned away from me and ran it through his hair. He bounced on the balls of his feet a few times before turning back around to me, flashing me a grin and saying, "Yeah, Luce, let's go home, I left Happy with Erza anyways."

And then he helped me stand up, grabbed my arm and made me sling it over his shoulder.

I wasn't in the mood to tell him I could walk perfectly fine; I was just in the mood to enjoy this small comfort, the speeding up of my heart, and to cry my damn eyes out.

It was my damn fault: always.

I honestly think that it was sometime on my way home that I realized it.

It wasn't as if my whole world was crashing in on me enough, but I realized something earth shattering, something that I just had to keep to myself.

A secret that I would have to take to the grave with me.

All this time, I had never known who it was in my dream that would touch me tenderly, that would make all my dreams of a man come to fruition…I was so stupid to have never known.

The familiar embrace, the toned muscles, the sandals…

…the pink hair.

Natsu.

It was always Natsu in those dreams.

And he could never know.

I mean, maybe it was a stupid hero worship type thing?

Ever since he saved me from the asshole Salamander impostor in Hargeon, I guess I had admired him, hell I had admired him before I even met him, reading up about everything he destroyed in Sorcerer's Weekly.

I looked at him from the corner of my eye, noting how he was looking straight forward, his eyes set in determination.

No, it wasn't hero-worship. I had fallen for him...

It was in the way he was determined to fight for what he believed in.

It was in the way he was fiercely protective of those he held dear.

It was in the way he was so damn stupid that he made me crack up.

It was in the way that he ate all my vegetarian food, even though I knew he was dying to eat a spicy chicken drumstick.

It was in the way that he annoyed the absolute crap out of me sometimes.

It was in the way he took a complete stranger into his house and took care of her.

And those were the exact reasons why he couldn't know.

I bit my cheek so hard that I felt a gush of copper on the inside of my mouth.

He was too good for me.

And there was no way in hell that I was going to ruin our friendship because I thought that he was the one.

No.

I knew.

I loved Natsu Dragneel—but he was never going to know about it.