"Ow! What was that for?!" Lucy cried, holding her bruised forehead. "I had to get you to listen, so I did the first thing I thought of." Natsu shrugged. "I...That's actually a good idea." Lucy sighed. "Where are we anyways?" She asked. "Do I really need to tell you, of all people, where we are?" Natsu laughed when Lucy gave him a dirty look. "We're inside your head!"

And in that moment, Lucy felt the world crashing down.

Normal POV, Fairy Tail Guild Hall
"And that's what happened." Cana said as she finished her tale. "Cosplayer knows Crash magic?!" Bickslow exclaimed. "Yup." The seith mage dropped into a sitting position on the floor. "As if the woman wasn't already overpowered." He muttered under his breath. "You're telling me? Seriously, I never thought wool would be such a hard thing to control..." Cana trailed off as she glanced towards the blonde reaper laying on the ground. It had been five hours since Cana had been "disconnected" as Warren had labeled it, and Natsu and Lucy were still out cold. Literally. Despite Macao and Romeo's efforts Natsu and Lucy's bodies had frozen over the moment the two had run out of magic. After a full diagnostics Wendy had told them that the pair were fine, albeit going to wake up freezing and likely having colds. Since then the sky dragon slayer had refused to leave their sides. "Just in case." Was what she told them.

Having nothing better to do, the Fairies and Sabers spent the time since then picking up the broken pieces of the Lumen Histoire and gathering them in a pile. Freed had distracted himself by trying to figure out what it had been made out of, while Kid paced back and forth around the underground cavern, Liz and Patty close behind. Oddly enough, Black*Star and Maka sat back-to-back on the ground, polishing the blades of their weapon partners. "Soul hold still! I'm almost done!" Maka cried in frustration. "Do you have any idea how uncool this is? What's the point of this anyways? Are you gonna blind our next opponent?" Soul grumbled.

Levy sat down in front of Maka, a confused look on her face. "How does he do that? Talk, I mean. It's not like scythes have mouths or anything." She asked. "Well, how do Bickslow's babies speak?" Maka asked, not looking up from her work. "They use Bickslow's magic to make their thoughts known." Levy replied. "Well, in a way I suppose it works like that. Through our soul wavelengths, whatever it is that Soul wants to say is passed back and forth between the two of us, like a ball, until it bursts. Except, the ball is going as fast as the speed of sound, thus making what he said heard by everyone else. If that makes any sense." Maka said. "I guess it does..." Levy trailed off in thought. "Now you tell me something. What kind of magic do you use?" Maka asked, putting down the rag she was using to polish Soul's blade.

Soul had fallen asleep at some point during the conversation, and transformed back into a human. His head rested peacefully on Maka's lap, and she mindlessly sifted her fingers through his white hair. Levy giggled as she watched the scene unfold. "You know, you and Lucy aren't all that different. I remember Gray once telling me that whenever team Natsu went on a train, or any form of transportation really, Lucy would lie Natsu's head down on her lap and massage his head. It always helped with his motion sickness, and it made it easier for him to sleep." Levy smiled fondly. "In fact, sometimes I do the same for Gajeel. He never would tell me why it helped though." She pouted. Maka chuckled. "It took getting him drunk, but Soul told me that my scent made it easier to sleep, that it made him relax. He said that I smelled like home. When I asked him why he thought that way, he told me that everyone looks forward to going home at the end of the day. Because no matter how rough it was, no matter how stressful or painful life was, nothing is better than going home." Levy smiled as she glanced at Gajeel having an argument with the other boys. "Home is where the heart is." Maka smiled at the loving look on Levy's face.

After Lucy became a death scythe, she went on missions almost back-to-back, but whenever she came back she would stay for a week and catch up with everyone. And so the members of the Spartoi would have a sleepover in Lucy's living room and talk about all the things that happened while she was gone. Sometimes Lucy would talk about Fairy Tail. She would tell them stories about her adventures with her team, and she would tell them about her friends at the guild. And that included who loved who. She told them that despite Gray constantly giving Juvia the cold shoulder, he loved her more than anything. Which is apparently what he had told Lucy when he was drunk off his ass. He was just afraid of losing her like his parents and teacher, along with her daughter.

Lucy told them that despite Gajeel's gruff exterior he loved his cat, his guild, and most importantly the tiny blue-haired woman that sat in front of Maka, silently watching the iron slayer with a fond smile.

Long list of unspoken relationships aside, Maka could see why Lucy loved Fairy Tail so much. It was a giant family. Maka placed a hand over her new guildmark that rested beneath her shirt. She'd never said anything about why she chose to put it there, but judging by the knowing looks Lucy and the rest of the Spartoi had given her, she didn't have to. The only one who didn't seem to understand exactly why she had chosen to put it there was Soul. She was fine with that though. She wasn't ready to tell him how she felt. Not yet anyways. Regardless, it seemed she would be telling him soon enough. When Lucy had brought them back to the castle the night before, she had pulled Maka aside and made her promise to tell him after the war was over. She hadn't worded it that way, but they both knew that it was a war. They all did really, even little Asuka knew that.

And since Maka knew how seriously Lucy took promises, she knew that she couldn't back out now. She also knew she was going to need a drink before she could even think bout confronting Soul head on. But that was okay. Mira would gladly give her some liquid courage if she knew what was Maka was going to do. Hell, if she told Cana the card mage would just shove a bottle down her throat.

Maka was snapped out of her thoughts when Soul snuggled closer to her, rubbing his nose in her stomach. A blush worked it's way across her face at the content smile on his face because damn it all to hell he was way to cute when he was sleeping. Black*Star pat her on the shoulder as he stood up to walk away. "Hang in there, he's not waking up anytime soon." He grinned as he walked away, because despite how stupid the blue-haired assassin seemed, he was really perceptive, and knowing, when he wanted to be.

Another thing that Maka knew: She was never going to live through the sure-fire teasing that was to ensue once Lucy and her dawn pyro dragon woke up. But that was for later. For now, she was going to enjoy her time with Soul, because like with all good things, these moments were always short-lived, and should be valued. With that thought in mind, Maka shuffled her coat off and threw it over Soul and herself as she shifted to lay down beside him, wrapping her arms around him in a way she would only normally do when they were alone. And as everyone else either lay down on the floor as well or chose to sleep upstairs for the night, Maka took note of the others doing much the same thing. Whether it was Bisca and Alzack carrying their sleeping daughter upstairs, or Gajeel leaning against the wall with Levy and Lily wrapped in his arms, they all knew to enjoy those precious moments while they lasted.

Because it was the calm before the storm.


Hello everyone! I hope you all like this chapter, because honestly I'm having a hard time trying to figure out how I'm going to get from point A to point B with the plot, you know what I mean? Anyways, thanks for sticking with me through all the dramatic pauses that I unintentionally leave you with.

Until next time,

~Dragon-Sensei