Lucy could not help but squirm slightly at the knowledge that Lisanna would be going on a mission in her place. Even though Erza had given her a compliment by saying they were missing a powerhouse since her magic had been sealed, she could not help the jealousy that arose when she thought about the white-haired woman going on a long mission with Natsu.
Clenching her fists, Lucy dug deep inside herself, trying to force her magic out. The jealousy she was feeling quickly turned to anger as she struggled internally against the barrier she could feel surrounding her magic. She desperately slammed herself against the barrier hoping for even the tiniest crack to form that she could pull out her power. Sweat beaded on her brow as she sat quietly, fighting an internal battle with the power that had taken so much away from her.
As her frustrations mounted, Lucy suddenly shot up out of her chair, pushing it back with force a couple feet. The noise of the chair crashing to the ground awoke her from her inner thoughts to see that everyone at the table had stopped talking to look at her. The papers that Meredy had laid out previously had been moved aside and a map put in its place. The way that Erza, Meredy and Gray were looking at it implied they had moved on to talk about strategies.
Embarrassed, Lucy blushed furiously. "Please excuse me." She spoke abruptly, the words barely making it out of her mouth before she was sprinting from the room. Once in the hallway, she turned and went the opposite direction from the seating area, running further into the building. Turning a corner, she slammed her back against the wall and slid down, so she was leaning against it. Lifting her knees to her chest, she wrapped her arms around them as she began to cry.
Lucy's entire situation was almost too much for her to handle, and now she had learned there was potentionally another three victims. Did they have their magic sealed too? Was she the only one who was dealing with this? Everyone around her had been sympathetic to her plight, but they also didn't share the same connection with the zodiacs that she did. Not being able to access her magic had severed the connection to her celestial friends. The loss was almost more painful than not being able to use her magic. Not even Loke had come through since losing her magic, leading her to assume that the zodiacs didn't realize anything was wrong, as their connection to Lucy and her emotion was blocked too.
As her cries turned into body-wracking sobs, Lucy heard footsteps coming towards her; she was unsure who she wanted to come around the corner. As Levy turned the corner, Lucy felt herself slump, partly from relief from seeing her friend, partly from disappointment that it wasn't the person she was hoping for.
"Lucy? Gajeel said he heard someone crying. What's wrong?" Levy asked as she knelt down next to Lucy. Her very large baby bump made the motion stiff and awkward as Levy tried to get herself in a comfortable position next to the crying Lucy. Once seated next to her, Levy pulled Lucy down onto her shoulder. Lucy, who was slightly taller than Levy, had to bend herself awkwardly in order to be comforted by her friend.
Lucy continued to sob and was unable to speak. She and Levy sat in the hallway on the floor, with Lucy's head on Levy's shoulder, the bluenette petting her hair in comfort as her sobs began to die down to sniffles. Lucy wiped her nose on her sleeve, sitting up again as her tears dried up.
"Did something happen? Do you want to talk about it?" Levy asked, grabbing Lucy's hand and giving it a squeeze. Her brown eyes soft and full of worry.
Sniffing loudly, Lucy wiped her face on her sleeve again. "Its nothing new. I'm just feeling overwhelmed by the loss of my magic, and now Natsu."
Levy's face went hard, "What did that idiot do now? I swear, I will kill him for you if you need me to."
"He's done nothing particularly wrong." Lucy chuckled, "And besides, I didn't take you as the blood thirsty type."
"Well, maybe I won't kill him, but Gajeel would if I asked him. Let me tell you, pregnancy hormones bring the worst out of me. I can't go two minutes without wanting something. Usually its food related, but I'm not ashamed to admit that Gajeel has never looked or felt so good." Levy's voice took on a dreamy tone.
"TMI." Lucy held up her hands between her and Levy, creating a barrier between them.
Levy laughed, grabbing Lucy's hands to hold in her own again. "Sorry, my filter is also on the fritz." She turned serious again, "Why is your loss of magic overwhelming all of a sudden?"
"Its been overwhelming this whole time." Lucy's frustration was back again, causing her to speak sharply, "Everyone says I'm handling my new situation well, but I'm not. At first, I thought maybe it was just an injury caused from nearly freezing to death, and that it would be back in a few days, but then those few days passed and there was no change. Its been nearly a month, and I haven't been able to do anything with my own magic. I don't even know if the zodiacs were affected or not. Their keys were in my room at the time, maybe something happened to them." Wrapping her arms around her legs, Lucy lay her chin on her knees, "Not being able to check on them is painful."
Levy sat with her legs out in front of her, her hands in her lap. "I'm sorry, Lucy. It didn't even occur to me that you would be worried about your friends. I guess I've been a little preoccupied with my own life that I didn't even notice that you were in pain." They sat quietly together for a moment as tears began running down Lucy's face again. "Could maybe Yukino of Sabertooth help in some way?"
Lucy sighed, wiping away her tears, "I don't want to take that route yet. I'm still hopeful that my magic will return one day soon."
Levy looked at her, her eyes shining in earnest, "Can I offer a distraction then? I found a new dessert cookbook you might be interested in. You could come over and we could make cupcakes or something." Levy gave Lucy a hopeful smile.
"Thanks, but I just want to go back to Natsu's and be by myself." Lucy moved to stand up.
Levy grabbed Lucy's arm before she could move away too far, "Speaking of Natsu, what's happened between you two? I don't want to pry too much, but you did mention he was part of your feeling of being overwhelmed."
Sighing, Lucy sat back down, "Where do I even start? I've been so confused by him lately, and last night, we sorta slept together."
"Wait, sorta slept together?" Levy cut in, "You guys used to end up in the same bed at your apartment, but you never referred to it as 'sleeping together'." Levy ran her eyes across Lucy's face, realization dawning when Lucy blushed a deep red, "No way! Oh, Lucy!" Levy hugged her friend as close to her as she could with her belly in the way. "You've been crushing on him so hard for so long!" She cried as she pulled back, her hands holding onto Lucy's shoulders, "I'm so happy for you!" Her smile slowly faded from her face, "Wait, if you slept together, why are you confused?"
"Well," Lucy began, dropping Levy's hands from her shoulders as she leaned against the wall again, "For starters, he kissed me at New Years."
"So long ago!" Levy interrupted again, "Why didn't you say anything?"
"Because after he kissed me, he acted like nothing happened!" Lucy said, her annoyance in the days following said kiss coming back, "He said some cheesy line about it being good luck to kiss at midnight, too. I wasn't able to make heads or tails of the whole thing, especially since he was ignoring it. I began to assume that he did it on a drunken dare." Taking a deep breath, she huffed it out, "Then, again yesterday, he suddenly just kissed me out of the blue."
"What were you doing?" Levy's eyes shone with excitement.
"Cooking. I was sitting on the counter as I was waiting for Natsu and Happy to come home. When Natsu came home, he was by himself. We began talking about my apartment and how the investigation hadn't been going anywhere, then we talked about different living accommodations before he cracked some joke about him wanting me to stick around so he could see me in a maid's outfit. Then, as I was laughing, he kissed me!" The blush on Lucy's cheeks returned as she remembered the feeling of Natsu's lips on hers, "I think we would have progressed further had my shirt not caught on fire."
"Mavis, were you wearing it?"
Lucy laughed lightly in embarrassment, "No. He took it off rather quickly."
"Oo, hot." Levy smirked, eating up the details that Lucy was giving her.
"It kinda was, yeah. But then! He just bolted! After he dealt with the fire, that is. I had gone to get a new shirt, and when I came back, he had already headed out into the yard, obviously avoiding me again." Lucy huffed, "I thought I would go talk to him after I had finished cooking, but the next time I looked up, he was totally gone." Lucy finished with another huff.
"Okay. Then what?" Levy prompted.
"He came back later, after I had just gotten out of a bath. He was talking about mating, well Dragon Slayer mating." She looked to Levy to confirm that she understood what she meant.
Levy nodded her head in agreement, "Go on."
"So, we moved to the living room to sit down and actually talk. I was angry, but can I really be blamed for that?" Like a good girlfriend, Levy patted Lucy's arm and cooed soothing noises at her, validating her anger. "I may have set out to punish him. I wanted him to feel the pain that he had caused me by always walking away, so I tried to send him away from me."
"But that didn't work?"
"Well, it was working, until I noticed a box on the table." Lucy unclasped the pouch at her waist and offered it to Levy for her inspection, "This was inside of it. He told me he was trying to get it for me for Christmas but was short on the funds he needed to complete the commission."
"Wow, this is really well made. Oh! And look!" Levy pointed to a double 'M' burned into the leather on the bottom of the pouch, "This is the 'Magnolia Motifs' logo. This is high quality craftmanship! This must have cost him a fortune." Levy sighed in wonder, "I've been wanting something custom made from that shop for years, but I've never been able to afford it." She handed to pouch back to Lucy.
Lucy looked at the pouch in a new light. "If I had known how much it cost, I might not have accepted it." She said softly.
"Lucy! Natsu got it for you! Look," Levy pointed to the L.H. monogrammed on the front, "It even has your initials, you can't just give something like this up."
"I don't really want to give it up, anyways. This gift means a lot to me because the fact that he intended to gift me with a new pouch at Christmas says to me that he cares enough to notice small things like my old pouch falling apart. That's all I could think about when I first saw it." Lucy replaced the pouch on her hip, "I felt that he was telling me the truth about him having strong feelings for me, but we really still haven't talked about it. Actions are one thing, but I don't know what he is thinking."
"You can figure that out as you go along." Levy offered.
"Maybe, but now Crime Sorciere has requested Fairy Tail's help, and while Erza wanted me to come, without my magic I can't fight. So instead, Lisanna is going in my place."
Levy frowned, "I know you have seen her as a romantic rival in the past, but I really don't think Natsu cares for her the way he cares for you."
"That's so hard to believe though. When we first returned from Edolas, Macao and Wakaba couldn't stop cracking jokes about how Natsu and Lisanna could now get married like they had always planned. Natsu's relationship with me changed the day we found Lisanna. That's why I'm so confused by him and all of this. What if I'm just a steppingstone to his true love?" Lucy picked at her clothing, her heart feeling heavy. Levy sat silent next to her, seemingly at a loss for words.
"I don't think you're looking at this from the right perspective." Levy began, her voice slow and halting as she thought about her words, "I really think you should take a deep breath and come back to this issue another day. I'm sure if you talked to Natsu, he would clear things up with you."
Lucy sighed, tucking some loose strands of hair away from her face, "I don't know if there will be time to figure anything out before they leave. They sounded pretty serious before I ran out of the room."
Levy rubbed Lucy's back, "I'm sure everything will work out. C'mon." She struggled to stand. Lucy stood quickly, offering her help to the pregnant woman, "Let's go get some milk and cookies, I'm starving!" She turned and headed back to the seating area of the guild.
"Shouldn't you eat something healthier?" Lucy asked as she followed her friend.