A/N: So somehow I ended up updating Tale of Two Lovers over TLDE. Which is really interesting since this one was first lol I've been slowly working on it. As I get inspiration etc. Sorry this took so long guys and HOLY SMOKES thank you for all the favorites for both stories. You guys are awesome! I hope you enjoy it!

Chapter 11- The Aid

It took three weeks of travel for them to reach the ends of Earthland and into a city relatively close to Finreal Ruins. During this time, conversation became scarce between Natsu and Lucy, both unwilling to talk about the fact he kissed her to win an argument. Their tension made everyone else incredibly antsy.

Erza located them a room they could share, placing the girls on one bed and the boys on the other. Their room was small for their number with two twin beds, a night stand next to each one and a primitive lacrima teleprompter on top of a worn table. Though they decided to sleep together on the floor instead. The carpet was rough with age, fading from a rich blue to grey, a dirty yellow curtain torn from over use fluttered in with the hot wind, since nobody closed the window.

As night drew on, a mugging occurred down the street where their hotel was located. High humidity made it miserable for everyone. Grey stripped naked in his sleep sprawling out over everyone just to cool down. Erza, Lucy and Wendy slept in their underwear, while Natsu stayed in his boxers.

"Hey Happy...?"

Zero response.

"Tch…" Why was he even awake, heat doesn't bother him so what was? So he tried the next person on his list.

"Psst..Grey?"

"Whaaaatttt is it, isn't it enough that I'm boiling up? I don't need you in my ear too…"

"It's about Lucy…" He left those three words hang in the air, figuring out in that instant it was her who kept his mind running.

That was the last thing Grey expected. "Alright let's step outside."

::***::

Grey didn't bother dressing and leaned against the entrance to the hotel, as he absorbed everything Natsu was telling him. Once the fire mage finished, he laughed for all he was worth pointing and holding his sides. "You got it real bad ya know that?" Patting Natsu's shoulder gave a knowing grin. "I'm going to tell it to you straight, with this one, you are on your own. It should be obvious, but the fact that you are so oblivious to it amuses the hell out of me. I mean…I knew you were stupid, but…" he chuckled and started to pound the wall a bit before continuing, "you're stupider than I thought!" He calmed down long enough to continue. "You'll be fine Natsu, you aren't sick and you aren't catching some weird crazy flu. It happens at least once to most everyone."

In the middle of their conversation a person screamed down the dark alleyway, due to a mugger that was on the prowl. Trash blew around their feet, falling into the gutter with an almost ominous wind.

"Hey wanna blow off some steam?"

Natsu grinned delightedly at the offer and lit his fist up. "Sounds good."

::***::

Meanwhile back at Fairy Tail Headquarters, 12 hours behind during midday….

"You really want to join Fairy Tail that badly…?" Markarov stroked his beard while in his wheelchair deep in thought. 'If I send him on their mission, it might move Natsu a bit...then again I know nothing about this fellow.' A very wide smile full of teeth came with his reply. "Go see Mirajane by the bar, she'll set you up." Rolling away gave a sneaky laugh under his breath, then went to his room with the lacrima communicator and shouted into it as loud as he could.

::***::

Erza was the first to groggily punch the cellular type device from its vibrating, as Markarov's voice bulldozed through the entire room like a drill sergeant, "WHERE ARE YOU LOT?!"

She was going to kill him, her hair looked as though a raccoon nested when their beloved guild master appeared on screen. Whisper yelling is difficult and stressful on the vocal cords. "Do you have any idea what time it is here, we have a long journey still ahead of us and people are trying to sleep!"

::***::

Pushing his wheels to slightly face the warm sunlight streaming through his window nodded his head tiredly. "Yes, yes, that's all well and good, you're far if the time is that different there…can you send me the exact coordinates of your location?" A few beeps and some pushing later revealed a map and to his horror, underestimated the travel time it would take a certain someone to catch up. "That's….in the middle of almost nowhere."

Erza's muffled voice came through on his end, "Yes, we are hot on this old map's trail, the next clue is somewhere in the ruins close to this desert city."

Relief flooded through old bones at hearing the word "city". Where there's a city, there's most undoubtedly a train station. With some connections he could get their new member there within…

::***::

All the requip mage saw, was the old man go ghostly white and blue in the face at her report."Master?" Only to eventually breath and go back to normal.

::***::

He fished for a decent enough excuse… "Ah, can you stay there for a month or two longer? I'm sending someone your way with extra provisions." Maybe that'll sound reasonable enough.

He should have known better when Erza's voice, on the other end, retorted flatly. "You've never done that before." In the background he could see Lucy and Wendy squeezed themselves as close to Erza as possible to get in on the conversation; with their own hair looking just as bedraggled, while waving tiredly.

He felt an invisible hammer hit the nail on his poor head with her clipped remark. It wouldn't be long before she figures out that he's up to something. It would ruin everything if Erza found out. "Consider this a one-time exception; hi ladies faring well?" His response was a duel head drop with a thumbs up. "I see, well try to get some sleep and don't move from that spot till your aid gets there!"

::***::

"Yes Master, I'll let them know." With that, all parties hung up, the girls looked to their eldest sister figure quizzically while all lounging about on top of their pillows and blankets. Erza's response was a shrug and a shake of the head nearly just a confused as they were. However, tiredness beat confusion as they fell back asleep minutes after the conversation.

::***::

Natsu and Grey showed up much later drunk with the mugger that they "had words with" earlier. They landed on top of the twin bed closest to the door, which is where Happy and Charlie decided to sleep, instead of the floor with everyone else.

"WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH" Which woke up Charlie only for her to see him lunging forward straight into Wendy, who also got startled and knocked heads with Lucy, which then caused Lucy to accidentally kick Erza. All three girls were continuously knocking into each other trying to get out of the reasonably comfortable pretzel they managed to get themselves in, hurriedly out of shock to get battle ready against the loud disturbance. After positioning themselves looked to see the scene.

They were pissed, grabbing up the stranger Natsu and Grey all together almost like dirty laundry, shoved them out the window. Erza locked the front door and the window to keep from any chance of them coming back up.

Though be it a kindness of sorts, a few minutes later Grey's clothes fly out the window landing on his head since he and Natsu decided to sleep closest to the wall nearest to their room.

"This sucks ba-"

Natsu punches him while in mid-sentence.

::***::

Living dead would be an understatement, his body can handle being absolutely broken, killed, brought back to life, stabbed in the gut etc. But for whatever reason the dust in this shitty part of the city caused him to have hay fever. It sucked worse than dying.

"Uuuugggghhhhh….."

Charle adjusted her pack while in human form as she turned to assess Natsu's condition. "Wendy, can you do something about this? I mean, I've seen him in physical distress but I've never seen him…sick…it's bizarre."

"Yeah! Be still Natsu."

He pleasantly obeyed the younger girl by leaning down, as she placed her delicate and somehow still soft hands against both sides on his temples, allowing her magic waft over him.

"There that should do it. It'll go away in three days, if I hadn't done anything you could have been stuck like that for a while. Hay fever for normal mages will last twenty-four hours, but unfortunately for us dragons it can last anywhere between a week to three weeks depending on the severity."

"Fan hew Hendee…wuff gung on againe?"

"For whatever reason the Master wants us to stay here for two months to wait for "help". Honestly, I think he's up to something. He's never done this before, but it's the Master's wishes. We can't stay in a hotel that long, so we are making more suitable arrangements for our extended stay."

"Maish sinse…"

"Do you know where to go for that kind of arrangement?"

"Fear not Grey, I asked the servants at the hotel. They suggested a house we could rent out for a monthly fee and there's plenty of jobs in the area needing mages. It seems that mages are rare around here, so everyone is in desperate need. It turns out that it was only fifteen minutes on foot from Hotel Barge."

Tilting her blue haired head to look up, addressed their leader. "Did they at least give you a name, or how big it is, or if there's a kitchen?"

"Well, no I figured we'd find all that out when we get there. I'm sure as long as we're together we'll manage, no matter the condition of our place of stay."

"As long as there's fish, I don't care where we stay."

"Simpleton..."

"Charle, you're cuter as a cat."

"I just hope it has air conditioning, I'm tired of this heat…"

Natsu heard that comment, then grinned impishly. "I can delp wiff dat, yu haben't belt hot yed." He ran up to Lucy in his sickly glory and held her tight, raising his body temperature.

"AAAAUUGGGHHH NATSU!" She felt like lava was hitting her skin, and not in a good way. "GET OFF A ME!" To which she punched him.

He just laughed finding it the most amusing thing all day.

Erza broke up the banter realizing they arrived at their location. It wasn't what they expected, though it never is. Fortunately, in this case it was better than they hoped for. The sign made it obvious this is what the workers at Barge had been talking about. There was a main building with a sign that read "BARGE HOMES FOR RENT" behind the building had been a bunch of houses in various sizes. It looked like an entire community.

"I believe, this will do. Wait here as I get us something accommodating."

::***::

The others had been sitting board for at least an hour now encroaching on the second hour, Grey laid down since he felt like his face would melt off, Natsu was too sick to care and joined alongside Grey. Lucy, Wendy, Happy and Charlie played pebble catch by flicking a pebble back and forth to each other.

"Good news we have an arrangement. Its three-bedroom, two-bath and yes it does have a kitchen. They're working on electricity now." Erza saw their disinterest at the news figuring it would be another hell hole. Exasperated at their lack of attention spoke, "It has air conditioning…" That worked better than she thought; because five of them bolted for the entrance gate like their lives depended on it. The only one who wasn't "running for gold" was Natsu, who she noted just dragged himself like the walking dead. Taking pity on him picked him up like he was a foot-ball and walked to where their house would be.

Natsu didn't care, he just wanted this dragon's hay fever to be gone.

::**::

The house was decent, the gate to the place wasn't a front or a sham. The interior of the house was well built with concrete, a low roof to keep things cool, moderate spacing, a functioning kitchen and a small living-room. Plus, the entire house was already furnished with the necessities. It seems the agency who owned these small houses had frequent cases like theirs, though its little to no surprise, when you're the only city within the desert for thousands of miles.

"Habby nd I sweep on da couch." No sooner did he speak, when they found him already unconscious with Happy curled against his stomach.

Grey chuckled victoriously, "Sweet I get the bedroom all to myself. No complaints here."

"Fair enough, Wendy would you rather bunk with Lucy or myself."

"Hmmmm, no offense to you Lucy but….you have a tendency to toss in your sleep. It's not uncommon for you to kick sometimes too. I think I'll bunk with Erza."

"On that note I myself will stay out here with Happy and Natsu, after Wendy used her magic, I would like to monitor Natsu for a bit out here. I'll just stay in my cat form at his feet. All three of us can share a blanket."

"That's not like you Charle, you usually don't like straying far from me."

"I'm aware, I think it would be better for all parties involved concerning space and the size of the beds. I happened to take a look and they are no bigger than a full size. As a cat I can fit near anywhere, but I also want to keep an eye on Natsu as my priority. Hay fever for dragons is not a laughing matter. I need to make sure his condition doesn't worsen."

"We can't argue with that, alright here are the agreed arrangements: Natsu, Happy and Charlie will be on the couch, Grey has his own room, Wendy and I will bunk together and Lucy has her own space. We'll begin unpacking immediately."