Hello my darlings!

Oh my goodness I am soooooooooo sorry that I haven't posted in a while... I had complete and utter writer's block and I was super distracted all weekend! I was out most nights for the past few days and wasn't really able to get much writing done...

The reason I was out was because I was celebrating my birthday early! Yes! Today is my 22nd birthday! Today's chapter is a thank you gift from me to all of you who have given me such wonderful feedback on my work! I really can't thank you enough for the support that you've given me.

Anyway! I'm quite happy with today's chapter, I think that I really managed to get back into the story. I read the new chapter of Fairy Tail this morning (YAY! CHAPTER RELEASED ON MY BIRTHDAY) and while it wasn't what I was hoping plot wise I still really enjoyed it! I teared up a little when I saw that Natsu, Happy, and Gildarts still had their guildmarks... (You know what I mean if you've been keeping up with the manga, if you haven't been keeping up... You'll find out sooner or later) I'm super excited for next week's chapter.

I'm feeling really good about the rest of the story that I have planned out so far and I really hope that ya'll are going to enjoy it!

As always, review and suggestions are wonderful!

Much love

Sabina

Chapter 14

Three Days Till Lucy's Date

Lucy's POV

"Lucy! Let's have a girl's day!"

"Huh? A girl's day?" said Lucy confusedly. Levy and a few of the guild's younger women had just swarmed her as she walked into Fairy Tail's guildhall. Levy was beaming and the other women were looking very excited.

"Yeah! We'll all go to the bathhouse and then we'll go to the spa! We can get facials and manicures! Besides you've gotta look good for your man in a few days!" explained Levy. She winked at Lucy suggestively, making the blonde blush and hide her face in her hands. She missed the knowing looks that passed between the other women at the mention of 'her man.'

"Come on Lucy it'll be fun," coaxed Juvia. Lucy sighed.

"Well I suppose it would be really nice to get my nails done and stuff. Alright, lets go! Oh but wait, where's Erza? Shouldn't she come along as well?" she added, looking around for the red headed woman.

"Oh she's not here! She and a few of the others are helping Natsu with his training!" said Lisanna quickly, making Lucy frown. Natsu asked for Erza's help? Why didn't he come as me, I thought we were partners…

She felt a pricking at the corner of her eyes, a sure sign that she was about to tear up. Was he still mad at her? Did he think that she was too weak to help him?

"Lucy, are you ok?" said Levy concernedly, gently shaking the celestial mage's shoulder. Lucy fought back her confusion and the tears, her face breaking into a strained smile.

"What? Yeah, I'm fine! Let's go!"

A little while later they were stripping out of their clothes and heading into the warmth of the women's bath. Lucy smiled a little as she grabbed her bathing supplies. It was going to be nice to spend some time with the other women. Not all of the ladies of Fairy Tail had come along, but a good few of them had. Levy, Wendy, Carla, Lisanna, Cana, Juvia, Bisca, and surprisingly Evergreen.

"Oh man this is going to feel great!" said Cana, taking a big gulp out of the wine bottle that she had snuck in. Lucy giggled at her.

"Are you sure that it's not just the booze?" she teased. Cana stuck her tongue out at her.

They set their supplies down and settled themselves into the large bath at the back of the room. The women sighed as the herbs in the water soothed any aches or pains that they happened to have. This bathhouse was a favorite spot of the Fairy Tail guild, as the water contained healing medicines that were wonderfully refreshing after long missions. Lucy sat against the wall, tilting her head back and closing her eyes. It felt wonderful.

"So Lucy…" She opened her eyes and turned towards Evergreen, who had sidled up to her and was giving her a sly look. "Why don't you tell us a little more about this date of yours? All of us are dying to know more…" Lucy flushed and laughed nervously as the other women crowded in to listen in.

"Oh come on guys it's just a date, it's not that exciting," she grumbled. The other women all rolled their eyes and Lisanna made a tsk-ing noise.

"Oh come on Lucy, you know it's a big deal," slurred Cana. "You're one of Fairy Tail's most popular bachelorettes, AND your date is from the infamously gorgeous Blue Pegasus guild… We need details." Lucy groaned but she knew that they were going to be persistent.

"Well alright… What do you guys want to know?" she said resignedly, causing the other women to giggle excitedly.

"What does he look like?" asked Lisanna, earning some nods from the rest of the peanut gallery.

"Well…" began Lucy, hesitating a little. She was actually having a hard time bringing his face to mind. She had thought him handsome when they had met, but for some reason she was having trouble remembering. Every time she tried, she found herself comparing what she did remember to Natsu… She shook her head and pushed the thoughts of the dragonslayer out of her mind. "W-well… Darius is really good looking; I've actually seen him in Sorcerer Weekly spreads before… He's really tall, not too buff but still pretty muscular… He's got black hair, keeps it pretty short and styled nicely, dresses very suavely like all the men from Pegasus…" The other women giggled in excitement.

"He sounds like quite the looker! What color are his eyes?" asked Bisca. Lucy blinked. His eyes? She supposed that she should remember but for some reason she couldn't. She saw the expectant expressions and decided to just wing it.

"Oh they're this really pretty shade of blue," she said, waving her hands about animatedly, trying to cover her lack of knowledge with enthusiasm. Levy gave her a suspicious look, but it didn't last long. Lucy sighed in relief as the blunette was distracted by the next question, which came from Wendy.

"What's he like Lucy? He must be super nice to have caught your attention!" said the youngest dragonslayer, a dreamy look on her face. "You've always had good taste in men, and you wouldn't have said yes if he wasn't super polite!" Lucy blushed a little and nodded. She hadn't realized that everyone had noted her rather high standards.

"He's very polite. He was very complimentary on my taste in clothing and he was such a gentleman when we left the store. He even kissed my hand before he left…" Lucy's face reddened as a few of the girls gasped and giggled. Cana wolf whistled.

"He sounds like quite the charmer," said Carla approvingly. The little white exceed was known to be rather old-fashioned.

"Yeah I suppose he is!" said Lucy, smiling. Her heart sank at what Juvia said next. She was closer to the blue haired woman than she had ever been before, but the water mage really had a knack for bringing things up at the worst possible time, without thought for how it would make Lucy feel.

"So he's quite different from Natsu it seems," said the water mage. The other girls giggled, but Lucy just shrugged. She had hoped to keep the conversation away from her teammate but she had known deep down that it would probably be brought up no matter what.

"Yeah he doesn't sound at all like our hot-headed goofball," said Evergreen, eying Lucy curiously. "Are you sure that he won't be too boring for you?" Lucy groaned in exasperation.

"He is not going to be boring," she said, starting to get annoyed. "It'll be nice to spend time with a guy who doesn't set things on fire when he gets excited! And he won't be embarrassing to eat with cause he probably won't stuff his face like a wild animal, he won't make inappropriate comments about my outfit, he'll probably give me compliments if I dress nicely, he'll pay for dinner, he'll talk about things other than fighting, and he'll treat my like the lady that I am!" Lucy hadn't realized that she had gotten louder and louder as she spoke, until she was shouting by the time she had finished. She hadn't even realized that she had gotten to her feet, and that tears were threatening to fall from her eyes.

The other women were looking at her in shock. Levy slowly reached out a hand and gently pulled Lucy back down to a sitting position.

"We were just curious Lu… Sorry if we upset you…" She said slowly. The other women nodded, looking a little sheepish. "Why are you crying? Is there something you want to talk about?" added the solid script mage. Lucy hurriedly wiped away the tears from her eyes.

"What? Oh, no I'm fine!" she said quickly, waving her hands dismissively. "Let's hurry up and get washed! We can head over to the spa and get our treatments!"

Lucy was feeling a lot better by the time that she returned home that evening. After her little outburst at the bathhouse, the girls had steered clear of the Natsu topic and had stuck to discussing what she was going to wear for her date, and what she should do to get ready on the day. They had all gone and gotten massages, facials, and had had a fun time getting their nails done.

They had insisted on helping Lucy to pick out a nail design that matched her outfit for her date. They had unanimously agreed that she should wear the outfit that had gotten Darius' attention. She had to admit that she was looking forward to wearing the new clothes, especially since her nails now matched the star design that covered the leggings that she loved. Black gel polish covered with tiny golden stars and silver sparkles covered her well cared for nails and she couldn't help but smile as she admired them as she lay in bed.

"Whatcha smiling about Lucy?" asked Happy from his position curled up on one of her pillows. Lucy smiled again and scratched the exceed behind his ears, causing him to purr happily.

"Oh nothing Happy, just thinking," she said. The little blue feline yawned tiredly and she giggled as his eyes began to droop shut. "Go to sleep buddy." Happy nodded even as his breathing slowed and he fell into a deep sleep.

She sighed as she snuggled further under her covers and closed her eyes. She could feel her own body being pulled slowly into sleep. As she slipped further and further into the realm of her dreams, she thought that she heard a familiar voice whispering to her… Her dream senses mingled with her conscious senses for a brief time, as she teetered on the edge of consciousness. She felt the faintest, gentle brush of something over her lips… She could barely taste it, but the touch had left the taste of cinnamon on her lips.

Sorry I didn't show last night Luce… I was too tired from training… I love you…

Natsu's POV

Natsu wasn't sure how that day's training was going to go… He hadn't dreamed the night before; his body had been too exhausted to put any energy towards dreaming. His sleep had been fitful too… He had been constantly waking up in a sweat. Now he was about to start the second half of his jealousy training… At least it wouldn't be as hard on the others to keep him from going crazy.

"Are you ready my dear?" asked Master Mavis sweetly, smiling at the tired young man. Natsu grunted and nodded. They might as well get started.

A little while later they had made little to no progress. He was still doing fine with the images of Lucy with randomly created men. He could even stand seeing them obviously flirt with her and kiss her. But as soon as Mavis conjured images of Darius, it was as if they were starting from square one.

Natsu panted as he calmed down from his most recent outburst, sweat pouring off of him as he tried desperately to get the images of Lucy in the arms of that scumbag out of his mind. The others were trying to catch their breaths as well, looking a little bit singed from his flames. Natsu groaned and flopped down onto the ground, covering his face with his hands.

"I'm never going to get this…" he muttered, uncharacteristically pessimistic. "I don't know what it is about that guy but something is different when I see images of him with Lucy…" He could see Erza pondering his words out of the corner of his eyes.

"Maybe it has something to do with the fact that you know that Darius is a real person, not a made up illusion…" she wondered aloud. Laxus gave her a thoughtful look.

"You may have a point Erza," said the lightning dragonslayer. "It might be worth a shot to try it with images of people that Natsu knows are real." The first master clapped her hands together and smiled at them.

"What a good idea! I would expect no less of the grandson of the third master!" she praised, causing Laxus to grumble in embarrassment.

"Well let's give it a shot. We've only got one more day to get Salamander through this training," said Gajeel gruffly. He looked rather irritated, probably due to the slightly smoking red mark on his face. During his last bout of anger, Natsu had struck the other slayer's cheek with a particularly strong Fire Dragon Iron Fist…

"Alright, Natsu on your feet," encouraged Gray. The ice-make mage had been oddly nice to his rival lately, but Natsu appreciated it. He had known Gray a long time, and the other man must have been able to see how tough this was on the pyro. Even thought they fought on a daily basis, they were still friends deep down. Natsu took the hand that Gray offered him and got to his feet.

"Alright then, who should we try?" asked Erza, her elbow resting on her sword which was stuck in the ground. They thought about it for a few moments before Gajeel pointed at Gray.

"My vote is for ice princess over there," he sneered. "It might be a good idea to start with someone that Salamander associates with on a regular basis. Maybe he'll be able to reign himself in if it's a teammate." Natsu and Gray both blanched at this.

"What? Why me?" shouted the ice mage, his face reddening. "I'm not interested in Lucy like that at all! I like Ju-" he had continued, but stopped himself. They stared at him intently and his face grew even redder. "I-I like someone else…" he muttered, steam rising comically from his red face. Gajeel snickered at the embarrassed ice mage but didn't say anything.

"I have to agree with Gajeel on this one," said Erza slowly, still giving Gray an amused look. "Let's give it a shot."

"Alright then, get ready everyone!" said Mavis, beginning to summon the illusions. Natsu braced himself for the rush of anger.

It hit pretty hard. As soon as he saw the image of a shirtless Gray embracing Lucy and giving her what he thought were the eyes that Juvia fantasized about, he felt his body temperature skyrocket. He didn't realize that Mavis hadn't actually made the illusion anything more than Lucy embracing a dear friend.

"GRAY!" he roared, launching himself at the illusion. He half expected the others to immediately try to restrain him but for some reason they didn't. The image of Gray jumped away from Lucy, holding up its hands.

"Natsu I was just hugging her," said the copy. Natsu glared at it, flames spouting from his nostrils.

"Just. Hugging…?" growled Natsu, rage still filling his voice. This time however, the rage was more subdued, the others could sense that he was thinking through what the copy had said. "You were…just hugging her…" he said again, and his voice was noticeably calmer.

"Yeah man, we're just friends. It's okay for a guy to hug your girl if as long as he doesn't try anything," said the copy slowly. The flames covering Natsu began to die down. In a few moments they were completely out and his breathing had almost returned to normal.

"Excellent Natsu!" said Erza, giving him a bone crushing hug. Natsu let out a pained squeak as she hugged him, then gasped when she let go.

"But… That was different from all the other times," he said slowly. He looked at Master Mavis curiously. She smiled at him.

"I decided to try something a little different. I think that we've been focusing too much on images of Lucy actually showing interest in other men. The whole point of this training is to keep you from attacking people out of jealousy. Assuming all goes according to plan and the outcome we want comes about when you confess to her, the real issue is to keep you from attacking anyone that you see as a threat to your claim on your mate," explained the ghost. Natsu could actually see her point.

"Wow… Why didn't we think of that before?" said Laxus, a surprised look on his face. "I guess we hadn't really thought this through as thoroughly as we should have."

"It's quite alright my dears," said the blonde ghost, giggling at them. "That was wonderful progress Natsu, I suggest we continue the training like that. We'll try with Gray again for a few more times then we'll move through the other men of Fairy Tail before trying a few members of other guilds. Then finally we'll try again with Darius."

They all nodded and began the training again.

A few hours later Natsu had made tremendous progress. It had only taken two more times with the Gray copy before Natsu could see them embracing and not even give any signs of jealousy. They had continued with a few of the younger men in the guild; Jet, Droy, Max, Gajeel (much to his irritation)… They had even progressed to various members of other guilds!

They had hit a bit of a snag when Mavis had summoned up images of the Trimens, cause due to their naturally flirtatious natures the copies actually had made passes at Lucy; but after a while Natsu was able to keep himself from attacking the copies even if they flirted with the copy Lucy.

"Alright then… I think that it's time we try Darius again," said Erza. They were all seated on the ground eating. They had decided to break for lunch after Natsu's last successful viewing of Lucy being flirted with Pegasus' Hibiki.

"Yeah," said the fire dragonslayer, his eyes filled with more confidence than he had had this morning. "I think that I'm ready."

"Before we try again I think that we should go over some things for you to think about," said Gray, placing his water bottle on the ground. "This is going to be different from the other copies. We know for a fact that this guy is really interested in Lucy so it's going to have to be convincing. But you can't let the thought in your head that he's going to win over Lucy. You're going to be the one who gets her in the end and you have to keep that in mind when you see them together for real," he said, speaking sternly but encouragingly.

"Gray is right. The best way to keep your anger in check is to remember that this guy is nothing compared to you. You've known Lucy longer, and you've been through much more with her. You've been right by her side while you were both looking death in the face, and you got through it together. Nothing that this guy can say or do will make Lucy value him more than you," said Erza, smiling at Natsu. He looked at them all with a stunned expression on his face.

"I…I never really thought about it like that before…" he said in wonder. They all grinned at him.

"We decided to save that bit of advice for right before the final test," said Gajeel, sneering like he always did, but the sneer was somehow friendlier. Natsu was shocked that the iron dragonslayer was actually being nice to him. They had always been butting heads, even after Gajeel had joined the guild, but it seemed like the guy actually wanted to help.

"Thanks guys, I really appreciate it," said Natsu, trying not to get emotional.

"Come on man, its nothing. How many times have you saved the guild's ass in the past?" said Laxus, smiling at the younger man in a brotherly way. "You've just gotta remember that the whole guild is behind you on this. You're special to Lucy. You were the one who brought her to Fairy Tail. You were there for her when he dad died. You fought like a dragon to save her on so many occasions." Gajeel nodded at Laxus' words.

"Yeah you kicked my ass good just to get her back," he said, surprising everyone present. It was strange to hear Gajeel admit that Natsu had beaten him.

"You can do this Natsu," said Erza. She stood up and they all followed suit; except for Natsu, who remained sitting on the ground for a few more moments. His head was hung, and they all knew that he was fighting off tears.

He wouldn't cry now. Their words had touched him. He felt such a sense of family from these people. He wouldn't let them down. Natsu stood up.

"Right lets do this…." He said, determination filling his voice. Master Mavis smiled as brightly as the sun.

"Very well then!" she said, and began conjuring the images.

Natsu took deep breaths. He had to get this. He couldn't fail. He closed his eyes and waited. He opened them when he felt the magical energy that Mavis was manipulating settle.

Illusion Lucy stood in front of him. She looked beautiful as always. She was smiling as she talked to the illusion of Darius, who was grinning at her, obviously as entranced by her beauty as he was. He could feel the anger beginning to build inside him as the illusion of Darius put his arm around Lucy's shoulder and whispered in her ear, causing her to giggle.

A small flame formed at the tips of his finger as he saw the man kiss her on the cheek.

I will burn him…

He was about to leap forward when the words of his friends filled his head.

"Nothing that this guy can say or do will make Lucy value him more than you."

"You've been right there with her side while you were both looking death in the face, and you got through it together."

"You were the one who brought her to Fairy Tail."

As these words filled his mind, Natsu could feel the anger ebbing away. They were right. This guy was nothing compared to him. Natsu knew Lucy better than anyone. This guy had no chance in hell with such a wonderful woman.

He closed his eyes and the flames died.

"That's it! You've done it!" exclaimed Mavis, letting the illusion shatter and clapping her hands. The others all cheered and gathered around Natsu, clapping him on the back and praising him. He smiled at them and thanked them, a huge grin on his face.

That night when he had returned to his home, he hadn't felt as exhausted as the previous day. He was proud of himself. He had mastered his jealousy.

On the previous days of training Natsu had been plagued by doubt; doubt that Lucy would chose him over Darius. Now that doubt had dwindled to almost non-existence. He would win Lucy's heart. He would show up at her date and steal her away from that unworthy pretty-boy.

He smiled as he settled into his bed, feeling truly relaxed for the first time in days.

That night when the dream began he immediately rushed over to Lucy and pressed a tender kiss to her lips.

Sorry I didn't show last night Luce… I was too tired from training… I love you…