Chapter Thirty-Four:

"Laxus, is it time to do the symbol now?" Asuka whined, tugging on his hair from her perch on his shoulders. For a small girl, she could pull surprisingly hard, but Laxus simply shrugged, which had the unfortunate response of making her shriek and grip tighter. Giving up, he said:

"Not yet. Lucy's not back with the ornaments yet."

"But she is," Asuka insisted, pulling on his hair again. "See, she's up there?"

Following her pudgy little finger, Laxus saw the blonde standing at the railing looking over the crowd on the floor. There was a smile on her face, a serene, peaceful look that he had grown to love. She wasn't aware of it, but he loved to watch her when she was like this. It was such a change from how she had been before Tartaros, before the mayor…and he couldn't say he didn't like the change. Seeing her in his house, singing along to the music she had playing as she washed dishes, or curled up in a chair with a book…sometimes he thought that they had lived like that forever, and he knew that if she never moved out, he'd be perfectly okay with that.

But the peace he found in looking at her was broken as Cobra bulled into him, brows furrowed, dragging a confused looking Kinana with him. His normally expressionless face showed traces of anger, fear, and contempt as he muttered: "Can't believe I didn't hear him coming, but you gotta get her out of here. She's not ready for this."

"What's going on?" Laxus said, feeling a flash of fear. Her could only mean Lucy, and if Cobra was telling him to get her out of the guild hall…

Before Cobra could answer the question, the guild hall doors slammed open and a voice Laxus hadn't heard in over two years bellowed: "I'm home!"

Natsu. Around him, Laxus heard the guild members echoing the word that reverberated in his head, but his eyes were drawn back to the blonde on the landing. Laxus was sure that in the chaos, he and Cobra were the only ones able to hear the sound of breaking glass as the ornaments slipped through Lucy's hands and crashed to the floor.

"Get her out of here," Cobra repeated, as Laxus took in the paralyzed blonde, her face contorted in a way he hadn't seen since the day she first tried to come back to town. "She's melting down again."

"I can't," Laxus muttered, feeling rooted to the floor. "I have to be guild master right now. Please…" He knew that he was acting out of the ordinary, he knew that normally he wouldn't let anyone see him this indecisive, but for the first time Laxus didn't care. Lucy was what mattered now, and like before, he couldn't help her.

"No, you don't." Turning, Laxus saw Freed, Ever, and Bix watching him. It was Freed who had spoken, and he continued. "Go to her. Take her back to the house. Be there for her. We'll take care of Natsu, even if it means that I have to put him in a rune cage for the next two days."

"If you stay here now, we won't forgive you this time," Ever warned with a snap of her fan.

As Laxus's eyes turned to Bix, the seith mage shrugged. "Cosplayer started smiling for real recently. Be a shame for her to lose it."

Kinana shuffled towards him and stood on her tiptoes. "Asuka, let's go find your mum and dad. Laxus has some things he needs to do right now." Without a fuss, the little girl slithered down his shoulders and into Kinana's arms. She seemed to know that something was wrong.

Without the need to stay behind and deal with Natsu holding him in place, Laxus felt his magic well up even before he actively called for it. Teleporting to Lucy's side, careful to avoid the glass shattered on the floor around her, he wrapped her in his arms and transported them away. Away from the guild, away from Natsu…he wished that he could take her away from everything that upset her.

Reaching the house, he let go of her while he unlocked the door. Lucy slipped through in front of him, kicking off her shoes and moving on through the foyer to the living room. Following her, he wondered how best to approach her. While his gut instinct had been very clear that taking her out of the guild was the right thing to do, it was leaving him on his own now that they were at the house. Despite his experiences both as a guild master and a man, he had no idea how to help his roommate, who, if he was honest, he wanted as a girlfriend, who was obviously hurting deeply. All he could do was follow the blonde as she moved automatically through his, no their house to her room.

Inside her room, Lucy was rummaging through things that he had never seen before. When he had officially "rented" the room to her, she and Virgo had spent a day arranging her things that had been stored in the Spirit World since Lucy had given up her old apartment. Laxus hadn't been inside since, and was surprised by how different it seemed, now that she had let herself feel at home. It actually looked as if it was Lucy's room, not just one of the spare rooms in his house. But his attention was taken away from the room and focused on her as the blonde started throwing things out of a box she had pulled out from under her bed. He ducked as a photograph album flew towards him, and as it hit the wall and fell open, he saw it was filled with pictures of Team Natsu, with Lucy and Natsu in many of them.

Laxus could hear her muttering under her breath as she violently emptied the box, object by object, until she came to one piece of paper. She just went…still, gripping the paper in her hands. He couldn't tell if she was angry or sad or…he just couldn't read her. For the first time in his life, he wished he was Cobra, with the other slayer's ability to see inside everyone else's head.

"Lucy?" he ventured softly, moving further into the room towards where she knelt on the floor. "Do you want to talk?"

She snarled at him, sounding a bit like the dragons that had raised their guild mates. "Go away Laxus. I can't deal with…I just need to be alone."

"I'm not going to leave," he said mildly, hiding his surprise. "What's the paper in your hands?"

"Mind your own business," she snapped instinctively, pressing the paper to her chest. "If it was anything you needed to know, I'd let you know."

"Don't be like that," he responded without thinking.

"Don't be like what, exactly?" Lucy hissed, standing up. "I'll be however I want to be."

"Lucy…" Laxus sighed. It was painful, watching her return to the person she had been when she woke up in the infirmary. They had been through so much as she recreated herself around the person she wanted to be now, to see her like this again felt devastatingly cruel. What did Natsu do to her? "Lucy, what's bothering you?"

"What's bothering me?" she laughed bitterly, fingering the folded paper. "What's bothering me?" her voice had dropped to a whisper. "I can't even be happy that my best friend is back because just thinking about him makes me remember how he not only left me here, but he bound me to protect the guild in his stead. He's the reason why I stayed, why I ended up in that bloody contract…and I can't tell him any of it. I'll never be able to tell him. Natsu's never hurt anyone before, never actually made someone dislike him. For him to learn that he made me make the choice that led to me choosing to enter into the contract that did so much damage…it would hurt him so much more than losing Igneel did. So I have to not only live with what happened to me, but I have to live with the reality that I can't tell my friend why I can't stand to look at him, why I'm different, why I don't go on jobs anymore…aren't I allowed to be angry about that? You heard him today, he doesn't even seem sorry that he was gone for longer than he promised! He's not going to see how much he hurt me, how much he hurt any of us! And I can't do anything about it."

Laxus watched in awe as she crumpled in front of him, her voice changing from anger to pain to a deep sadness that he hadn't heard from her in the entire two years that he had gotten to know her. Sinking to the floor, she clutched the paper in her hand as tears began to flow down her cheeks. For all of the time they had spent together during her recovery, Lucy had never broken down so completely in front of him. Moving on instinct, he knelt beside her and wrapped her in his arms, tugging her to his chest. She clutched the front of his shirt and buried her face in his chest, a surprising show of vulnerability. Even with everything that she had gone through, Laxus had never been allowed to see Lucy like this.

"Please," she mumbled into his shirt. "I just can't do this on my own. Not anymore."

"I'll be right here," he whispered, holding her close. "You don't have to handle anything on your own unless you want to."

Eventually, Lucy's tears subsided, leaving the two of them in the middle of the floor. Cautiously, Laxus shifted his hand from the center of her back to stroke her long blonde hair that she had left loose for the day. In the two years that he had gotten to know her, her hair had grown to hang all the way to her waist. While he had certainly appreciated her appearance when her hair hung around her shoulders, it was the longhaired woman in his arms that he would always remember falling in love with. Watching her at the guild as they decorated had only solidified the belief that she was the best thing outside of Fairy Tail itself to have happened to him. Hopefully, she felt the same.

"Lucy?" he murmured after her breathing had evened out and the tears had stopped soaking his shirt. "May I show you something?" When she nodded, he gently lifted her up to stand, helping her through the chaos she had created in her room. Carefully, he led her to the living room and slowly turned the lights on, holding his breath as he waited for her reaction to what he had prepared.

Her sharp intake of breath was enough for him to start breathing again. "Do you like it?" he asked softly, still holding her hands, but unable to see her expression as she scanned the room, now fully decorated for Christmas.

"Yes," she breathed, turning to face him, and he could see tears glistening in her eyes again. "I love it. When did you have the time though?"

"Jellal and Crime Sorciere helped with the tree, but I've been slowly acquiring the rest of it over the past two weeks. After you left this morning, I got everything put together. I know we're planning on spending most of our time at the guild during the holidays, but I thought you might like having the house decorated as well."

"It's beyond perfect," Lucy murmured, squeezing his hands gently with a soft smile. "Thank you so much."

Suddenly nervous again, Laxus took a deep breath. "Lucy…I know that we got off to a rough start, even from back during the conflict with Phantom Lord. But the way things have been going recently…I think we've overcome all that. Maybe I'm just being presumptuous, or reading things wrong but…at least for me, I think there's something more. I want to be by your side Lucy, and I care about you more than I can say. Please, can we give ourselves the chance to be more than just friends and housemates?"

Taking a shuddering breath, Lucy looked at him, and Laxus could see the emotions warring within her plainly displayed on her face. When they settled, he was looking at a deep weariness, mingled with grief. "Laxus…please, ask me tomorrow. Tonight…tonight, I just need to deal with everything else."

"Of course," he replied softly, angry at himself for not taking into account Lucy's already strained emotions caused by Natsu's whirlwind return. "Take all the time you need. I'm not going to go anywhere unless you want me to."

Gently pulling him towards the couch, Lucy motioned for him to sit down. Once he was comfortable, she surprised him by settling herself in his lap and tugging his arms around her. "I need you here," she whispered with a blush as she rested her head against his chest. "I just need to know that I'm not going to be left behind again. Please…don't let go of me tonight. Not even if I'm asleep. I…I don't want to wake up alone."

"Does that mean you want us to stay here, on the couch? Or do you want me to stay on your floor tonight?" Laxus was startled by her request. Yet at the same time, it made sense. Lucy had been left behind by so many people in her life, it was only logical that now, with the wounds of Natsu's departure reopened by his return, she needed someone to cling to, someone who wouldn't go anywhere.

"I just want you to be comfortable," Lucy muttered, resting her head just about his heart. "Honestly, I trust you to be a gentleman, so I'll let you choose what to do in this situation. And it's not like Natsu…" Lucy's voice cracked, but she continued. "It's not like Natsu didn't crawl into my bed whenever he felt like it, so I'm used to platonic bed-sharing."

Laxus raised an eyebrow in surprise at this new revelation, while inside he was suppressing a growl of irritation at the younger slayer's inability to recognize boundaries. But tonight was about Lucy, about helping her deal with the emotions caused by Natsu's return to her life. That was all that mattered.

***So. Well. It's been a while.

Again, I'm sorry for the long wait between chapters. And then I had to go make this one late because beta wanted me to redo a few paragraphs and I was busy. Significant romantic movement though! And the Lucy-Natsu confrontation is delayed some more. She really just needs some space to come to terms with everything. It's like, while he was gone, she didn't have to deal with him leaving her. Now that he's back...well, she has to face the fact that he left in the first place. Also, your reviews were fantastic. I honestly fell over laughing at some of your reactions because they were wonderful.

Oh, and Mashima needs to stop feeding my plot bunnies. They multiply too quickly as it is. At this point, the sequel is never going to be finished because I keep learning cool new things that I want to incorporate.***