Author's note: I'm so sorry that this took so much to be published! I had a hard case of writer's block and the words just wouldn't come out! Ah, but here's the chapter, I hope you enjoy reading it!

Disclaimer: I do not own Fairy Tail or any of its characters- Hiro Mashima does. The only profit I make from this fiction is the feedback I get from my readers. Oh, and this chapter was once again beta-ed by soshoryuu.


Chapter 2: 14 years old

"Natsu."

It was dark. He could barely make his surroundings. It was Lisanna's voice but… different somehow. Muffled. Almost as if she was speaking to him from underwater.

"Help me."

He spun around, looking for the owner of the voice, but couldn't find the girl anywhere. A cave stood in front of him, he realized. Natsu knew the cave. Would recognize it anytime. He had grown up in it after all. Had almost died in it too.

"Natsu…"

Panic seized up his body as the wind started to pick up around him. A couple of raindrops fell before a full storm took form. Trees shook under the wind's ferocity and the roar of thunder made his insides tremble. It was all too familiar, almost too much. The entrance of the cave was a black hole carved from the walls of the mountains, deep and unforgiving. He could not go in there. He remembered the cold all too well. He could never go inside of it again.

"Natsu… help me!"

But Lisanna was in there now. Was she cold? Had the frost gotten to her? He needed to help her! But fear had him paralyzed, and his legs refused to move. Dark memories buried deep in his brain resurfaced to take hold of his sanity. Memories of frostbite and pain, of hopes crushed and abandonment. No, he could never go in there again. He would die if he did!

"Natsu…"

Her voice was dying away. No, no, no… no, Lisanna could not go through the same thing he had! He would die before letting something like that happen! He would rip monsters apart and stand up to the most merciless of storms to protect her.

So he willed his legs to move even though everything inside of him implored him to run away. The fear was still there, threatening to tear him to pieces if he dared to take even one step more towards that dreaded cave. Only death waited in there, the fear told him, a painful and lonely death at the hands of the frost.

But Lisanna was in there too, and she needed him and he would crush his fears down for her.

The first thing he noticed when he stepped inside was that it was humid. And silent. It was a sharp contrast with the noises of war the wind was putting up against everything outside. He could see his own breath turning into a foggy mist in front of him. The walls dripped in a steady pit-patter that echoed throughout the mountain, breaking the black silence the cave was immersed in. It felt like entering a mausoleum, dark, and cold, and smelling of death.

"Natsu…"

The whimper snapped Natsu awake, and only then he realized he had been frozen in place. He had to keep moving. Lisanna needed him.

One torturous step after the other, he forced himself to delve into the darkness. His eyes struggled to snatch the faintest gleam of light, but even with his dragon's sight it was difficult to see anything at all. His stomach churned in a million knots. He tried to swallow, but his mouth was raw dry. He suddenly understood what people meant when they spoke of claustrophobia. He felt like the walls were closing around him, choking the air out of him.

His foot stumbled with something hard, and he tripped over it.

"Dammit," he cursed as he stood up and turned around to see what the hell had interposed in his way.

He gagged as an icy fist grabbed his heart.

Lisanna's eyes were looking at him, piercing through his soul, big, hollow and lifeless. Her normally milky skin was tainted blue, and her hair looked stiff and oily. She laid still, frost covering her figure, her lips swollen with blood and parted open in her dying breath.

"Where were you, Natsu?"


"Natsu!"

He woke up desperately gasping for air. His lungs were hurting and his eyes stung with tears. His world was a blurry mess, images mixing in front of his eyes in an uncontrollable spiral. He was unable to tell if he was still in the cave or not, was unable to tell if he was alive or not. But there was a ghosting pain in his lungs, so he figured that if he still needed to breath, then he must not have kicked the bucket yet.

A soft paw caresses his arm, and he looked up to find a bush of blue hair and big eyes looking at him worriedly.

"H-happy?"

He was startled at the sound of his own voice; hoarse and fearful.

"I-I was trying to wake you up, Natsu, but you wouldn't open your eyes, a-and you were trembling and crying! It was scary, Natsu!" Happy was fucking crying, and in the midst of his confusion Natsu didn't know how to calm him down.

A ripping pain hit his insides suddenly. Moving Happy out of the way, he tried to scramble out of his hammock and get to the bathroom, but he hadn't given two steps before a violent wave shook his guts and he was throwing up all of his dinner.

"Natsu! We need to take you to the doctor!"

A groan managed to come out from the mess of misery the boy was. He swallowed up another heave by sheer will power. There were tears in his eyes; his body was soaked in sweat and weak from the effort of puking. He tried to reach the table beside his hammock, but his trembling hand slipped and fell back to the floor again.

This sucked. Everything fucking sucked. Suddenly, staying on the floor until the end of times like the piece of trash he was currently feeling like didn't seem like a bad idea at all. Trash didn't have to worry about cleaning the vomit. Or calming Happy down, who was flying around the room with desperation that was borderline panic.

Oh, crap. Happy!

"Happy…" Dammit, since when was talking such a hard thing to do? "Ca-calm down, buddy… I'm okay," he said as he stood up with unsteady legs.

"Well, you don't look okay! Natsu, you just threw up, you are sick!"

"'M not," he mumbled as he climbed up the hammock again. Decidedly, he could deal with clean ups tomorrow morning. He was feeling like shit right now. "It was just the nightmare, Happy. I'm fine now, I swear."

The kitten didn't look convinced at all. He disappeared from the room only to come back a couple of seconds later with a glass of water in paw. He handed it to Natsu, and said boy accepted eagerly. He hadn't realized just how thirsty he was. His throat felt like sandpaper, rough and full of the taste of bile.

"Take little sips, please." Happy laid down over Natsu's chest to peer at him with anxious eyes. "What happened, Natsu? What was that dream about?"

For a brief moment, Natsu considered telling Happy about it. But that moment had a short life; Natsu discarded the idea immediately. He didn't want to bother his friend like that.

So he did what he knew best. Put a smile on his face (albeit a tired one), and eased off his friend's worries.

"It's okay. I was hurting a little bit before, but I'm fine now," he said as he sipped from the glass.

The kitten didn't look satisfied.

"Don't you want to call Lisanna? Maybe she will know how to help you."

Natsu coughed on the water at the mention of the girl's name. Images of the dream came back to him, vivid and wrecking and horrible. Blue skin and bloody lips. Lisanna's eyes forever opened in a hollow stare.

He shuddered, trying to dissipate what was left of the dream. Yes, that was right, a dream. Just a dream that wasn't anywhere near reality. Lisanna was safe, sleeping in the warmth of her cozy bed, with her elder siblings looking after her. And with Mirajane nearby, no living soul would dare to come near her. Yes, Lisanna was safe and he had nothing to worry about. This was just his PTSD trying to get the better of him, as the Master had once told him.

"It's alright, buddy. We don't need to wake Lisanna up for a stupid dream," he assured him as he stroked the fur behind Happy's ears. "We'll go see her tomorrow, okay?"

The kitten still looked unsure, his usual sarcasm buried under concern for his best friend.

"Please tell me if you need anything at all, will you?"

His tone was so worried, and his eyes so innocent and his small claws were digging deep into Natsu's skin, as if afraid the boy would crumble if he let go. Compassion wormed its way into Natsu's chest, tainting his voice.

"Of course, buddy. Do you want to sleep in my hammock tonight?"

"I'm a grown cat! I can sleep by myself," he said as he stood up and crossed his arms over his chest. His words sounded outraged, but his tiny body was still quivering with fear.

"Oh, but I am the one who had the nightmare here! I am the one who doesn't want to sleep alone. Would you do this for me, Happy? Sleep here with me?"

"Oh, well…" The cat seemed to consider it for approximately one second and a half, before flopping down and snuggling into Natsu's neck. The boy chuckled and petted his head.

"Feeling better?"

"Yeah…"

The room was soon filled with light purrs. Natsu closed his eyes and tried to lull himself to sleep with Happy's purring. But every time his lids closed and blackness filled his vision, lifeless blue eyes appeared in front of him, leaving him with a sour taste in his mouth and the ghost of a chill running down his spine.

He sighed.

He didn't get much more sleep that night.


"Natsu had a nightmare yesterday."

"Happy! Shut up!"

"He did?" Lisanna's concerned eyes turned to him, demanding answers. Natsu spluttered, blushing furiously. Why was it so hard to form a coherent sentence when she looked at him that way?

"It was just a stupid dream! Nothing to worry about!"

"He's lying! He was so scared he puked!"

"For God's sake, would you shut up, you stupid cat?!"

"Mama, he called me stupid!"

"Natsu, apologize!"

The boy groaned and did nothing to conceal his irritation. Crossing his arms and looking aside, he grumbled:

"I'm sorry Happy, for calling you stupid. Forgive me?"

"Humm, I don't know." The cat leaned his chin over his paw. "I'm going to have to think about it…"

"Oh, come on!"

"Happy..." This time it was the cat the one who was faced with Lisanna's stern gaze. Natsu swore sometimes the girl resembled a little bit too much to her hellish older sister. "Come on, accept his apology."

Happy giggled with mischief before jumping to the air, wings unfold.

"Okay, I accept it. But you will have to buy me fish!"

"I will, I will. Geez, you are worse than a diva!"

"Mind your language, you still need to make up to me!"

"Come on, boys, can we stop fighting for five minutes? Please?"

Natsu stiffened, meeting those sky-like eyes and feeling kind of numb underneath then. Lisanna was looking at him with that pleading smile that made his heart stutter like a goddam fool. Why was it that he was never able to think clearly when she looked at him like that? It cracked his nerves apart.

"Whatever, Lis. It's not such a big of a deal anyway," he mumbled standing up from the bench they had been sitting at and walking away. He needed to put distance between them, and talk to his heart and see if maybe it could calm down a little. That hard pounding in his chest was becoming annoying.

"Hey, Natsu, wait for me!" He heard her said behind him as she stood up. Happy took off flying high above them, his shadow dancing on the sand.

They had been hanging around in the Magnolia's bay, chilling under the shade of a sakura tree. The day had swept by calm and uneventful. Natsu had tried looking for a mission to go, something challenging that required his full attention. Something that would force him to focus in the current task, and stop his mind of wandering back to the nightmare that had decided to haunt him during daylight too. But there were only easy tasks available that could be finished in the span of a morning and Natsu was left with nothing to do and way too much time to think. Exactly the thing he wanted to avoid right now.

So he ended up inviting Lisanna for a walk at the bay. Happy had insisted in spending time with her today. The cat was still worried about him, and wouldn't stop pestering him until he agreed to invite her for a stroll.

"So, a nightmare, huh?"

His first instinct was to brush off the subject. Natsu didn't like opening up to people, he wasn't really good at that kind of stuff. He simply buried his pain under fists and missions and fire and hoped for the best. It had always worked before. He was the one to comfort and cheer people up, and not the other way around.

But Lisanna knew him far too well. She would straight realize he was hiding something from her. For some reason, the easy and fake smiles he always put on his face around others never worked with her.

"Yeah." Natsu kicked off a small rock. It rolled innocently until it stopped a couple of feet ahead of them. He shoved his hands in his pockets before answering. "A really horrible one."

"Was it… you know… the one of the cave?"

Lisanna knew about the day Igneel disappeared. The day he, a fire dragon slayer, had almost died from hypothermia. Of course she knew. Save for the Old man, she had been the only person he had managed to tell. It had been a couple of years ago, when they were twelve or so. They had a sleepover at her house, staying up late playing Monopoly and watching horror movies. They had pitched a tent with bed sheets to replace their secret hideout, flashlights their only source of light. It kind of gave a mysterious air to the whole ordeal. Under Lisanna's and Happy's awed stare, Natsu told ancient stories of dragons his father had told him once. When they had finally gone to sleep, Natsu did it with Lisanna's smell close to his nose, sailing him to good dreams.

But somewhere along the night the dream ties pulled them apart. Natsu squirmed away from their friends ended up on the other side of their made up tent. As the tendrils of nightmares began to take over his unconscious mind, his body began to move in panic. The cold was there, threatening to snatch him away from the new life he was trying to build. In his sleep, he trashed and threw kicks and punches until he ended up pulling down the bedsheets and their shelter came down around them.

He woke up crying, with a really scared Lisanna calling out his name. Coming back to reality was like a blow in the gut, it kicked all the air out of his lungs. Darkness surrounded him, panic was controlling his body. Only when Happy turned on the light, recognition was able to pass through his confusion.

"Natsu, what… what happened?"

His two best friends were looking at him with worried eyes, so caring and understanding that Natsu broke then and there. He told them about the nightmare, about the day in the cave, about the fear, about the cold. They had listened silently, Lisanna nodding and encouraging him to keep speaking every time he seemed to lose himself in the past.

He had ended up exhausted, eyes dry from crying them out. The tent had been destroyed, so they all squeezed into Lisanna's bed to sleep what was left of the night. But he had felt incredibly lighter, and this time both Lisanna and Happy embraced him tightly and refuse to let him go for the rest of the night. He could never admit just how good he had felt in that cuddly hug.

They had only grown closer after that night. Natsu felt every day more at ease with Lisanna's presence. Not that he hadn't felt like that since the beginning, but having confessed to her about his deepest secret, his worst nightmare… it felt freeing, somehow and he loved the fact that there were no more secrets between them anymore.

But this thing, this secret could hurt Lisanna. Natsu wanted to keep her safe above everything else.

Natsu thought carefully of his words before answering.

"Yes, I was in the cave but… it wasn't the same nightmare. Some things had… changed."

"Changed? How?" Lisanna's face was really close to his. She had moved closer to him during their walk. Now, she seemed to realize about this, because she moved out of Natsu's personal space with pink cheeks. "I mean, you don't have to tell me if you don't want to," she said, looking straight ahead.

"No, no, it's okay. It's just…" Natsu bit his lip, unsure of how she would take it. He kicked at the small rock once again, dragging it with him in his way. "Someone else was in the dream this time. I wasn't alone."

"Oh, uhm." Her hands twisted nervously behind back and her eyes were pinned to the sand below. "Was this person a friend or a foe? Did they make the dream better?"

"No," Natsu sighed. "They only made it worse."

Lisanna stopped walking and looked aside. She was obviously unsure of what to say, but was desperately trying to find the words to comfort him.

"I'm… really sorry to hear that, Natsu. I cannot imagine that nightmare going any worse. It must have been horrible."

"Yeah, it was."

Lisanna's posture was respectful, and her scent was none invasive. She was making him understand without words that she wouldn't push him in this matter. She knew just how deep these wounds run.

She always knew. She knew him better than he knew himself. There was so much comfort in Lisanna's presence, something he hadn't been able to feel ever since Igneel left. She smelled of home, and was the only person who managed to push the cold away. He always felt so warm with her. She deserved to know, and he wanted to tell her. Because if he couldn't trust Lisanna to listen to him, then who would?

Impulsively, like everything else he did in life, he spluttered out:

"You were in the dream, Lis."

She snapped her face to him, eyes wide in surprise and concerned. It almost made him regret having told her about it, but the words were already out; it was too late to go back. There was only moving forward now.

"You were inside the cave, and calling for my help… I knew you must have been freezing, so I hurried to go inside. But when I got there, I found you lying on the floor, and the frost had already gotten to you. You were… you were dead. Because I couldn't save you."

Uttering each word was like twisting a knife in his throat. Fuck, why was it so hard to talk about this? His teeth grinded, his fists opening and closing, his shoulders hunched. He couldn't even look at her in the eye. He was reliving the dream all over again, images merciless before him.

"Your skin was blue and you weren't breathing. But your eyes were still open, looking straight at me, pining me there, leaving a hole in my stomach… Fuck, Lis, you were dead. When I looked into your eyes, it felt like I was dying too. It was horrible."

He had to bit his lip to keep tears from coming out of his eyes. Why was he even doing this? Why wasn't he cheering and laughing, like his usual self? This pain was nothing; he should have just buried it like he always did. Ignore it and just keep moving forward. There was no time to think about himself. Protecting his friends came first. Thinking about his own pain only brought bad results.

It hurt so much to talk about this. Like scraping on a bad-healed wound, tearing off the skin to let the pus out. It was disgusting, and painful, and damn, why was he even doing this, he should have just let the subject slip-

Lisanna's hand was on his arm, comforting and warm, and no matter what he did, he couldn't take his full-attention from it. The hand slid up his arm slowly, passing his elbow and strolling through his shoulders, climbing through his neck to rest on his jaw. Leaving a trace of goosebumps in its way. She gently stroked his face with her hand, until their eyes met. Natsu couldn't move a single muscle, couldn't breathe. Lisanna had never touched him like this. It had never been so intimate. So close.

She blinked at him slowly, lazily, those white lashes fluttering over her pretty pink check. Wait, pretty? Since when had he thought of Lisanna as "pretty"?

Since always, you oblivious flame-brain.

The obnoxious voice in his head was immediately shut up when cunning smile lifted her lips.

"Hey, why so mournful, Natsu? Nobody has died. It was just a dream, you said it yourself. I'm here, okay? Nothing to worry about."

He wanted to agree, he swore he desperately wanted to. But the dream was too fresh in his mind, painting everything with its ugly colors, and it was hard to see reality clearly when nightmares were fogging his judgment.

He sighed and looked away, everything inside him shaking with insecurity. But Lisanna was having none of it, and this time her other hand came to his face too. It startled Natsu when she suddenly grabbed his head with force, forcing him to look at her and stay there.

"Lisanna, wha-"

"Listen, Natsu. I'm right here and I'm not going anywhere. I promise you, I'll always stay by your side. We need to raise Happy together, right? You are the father, remember? And I'm the mother. You protect our family, and we nurture it together. Nothing will happen to us because you are here protecting us. Aren't you?"

Her logic seemed so simple to follow. He could protect them, right?

The sound of ice crackling underneath his feet reminded him that in the dream, he hadn't been able to do that. And the consequences had been disastrous.

Sighing, he took her hands in his, prying them away from his face and holding them between them.

"It's not that simple, Lis. And you know it. Anything can happen. What if I'm not strong enough to protect you? What if I'm not fast enough to get to you?"

"But Natsu, the thing is that you don't need to be! We've got friends, remember? There's Mira-nee, and Elf-nii. There's Erza-san, and Gray, and we are all friends, and we all protect each other. You don't need to fight alone. You are not in the streets anymore."

Something she said had his spine going rigid, and she noticed. She always noticed. Damn girl, was too observant for her own good. And she knew him too damn well.

"That's the problem, isn't it? You are still scared to be left alone, like when Igneel left you."

"He didn't leave me, something must have happened to him…"

"The result was the same! You were left alone and that hurt you even more that the cold, right? And you're scared to be left alone again."

This conversation was weighting way too heavy on his knees. He sat down over the sand, crossing his legs and pouting to the side.

"Why are you psychoanalyzing me? Goddammit, Lis."

"I just want to help you, Natsu," she said as she sat beside him, and dammit she sounded so genuine, and he didn't smell any lies coming from her. Not that he ever had to. Lisanna always smelled like truth, had never lied to him. Everyone else did it at some point. Even the Master once lied to him, hiding secrets from him. He could smell the lies in all of them, and it left him wary.

All of them but Lisanna. Lisanna who always spoke with truth, and carefulness, and understanding.

"I don't know if I can be helped, Lis."

The cold was still there. It would never leave him. He knew that as well as he knew the sun would rise with each new day.

"Well, of course you won't be able to be helped. Not if you don't let somebody do it."

There was quietness between them, only broken by the sound of the wind and the waves crashing in the shore. Happy had flown far down the coast, landing on some rocks and leaning over the seashore, trying to eventually catch fish.

Insecurities weighed heavy on Natsu's back, making his resolve creak like the ice of his dream. Natsu usually headed to battle feeling invincible, but right now it felt like his strength was wavering. Failing him.

Something in his silence must have talked to her, because her head bumped his shoulder and stayed there. When he looked down he found lapis lazuli eyes looking up to him under long lashes with a compassionate smile.

"You are always there to catch us when we fall, Natsu. Let me be there for you, and catch you when you are weak. It's okay to be weak, sometimes."

Natsu wanted to believe her because Lisanna smelled like truth, and his nose had never failed him before. She was right. She had to be.

"I don't think I can forget this dream," he sighed finally.

"I don't think you should," she said then, surprising him. Her voice was low and intimate, speaking at only inches from his face. "Don't forget it; but use it as fuel to make yourself stronger. If you don't want something like that to ever happen, then keep training to prevent it."

A slow smile crept on his lips, and hers were soon to follow. They shared a knowing look, saying more with their eyes than their lips ever could. And there it was again, Lisanna's warmth slipping through his skin, finding his core and making him stronger than any training could.

"That's what I'll do, then," he whispered close to her face.

Finding his confidence again was easier than he had thought so when she was smiling to him like that.

She stood up suddenly, shaking her shorts to get rid of any sand that was stuck there.

"Besides, Natsu, if I ever froze, I only need my dragon best friend to unfreeze me with his fire breath, right?" She smiled mischievously, looking down at him and offering her hand.

Now his smile was outright cocky. He took her hand and stood up beside her.

"You can count on that."

"I know I can." She closed her eyes with a bright grin and began walking to where Happy was. Natsu followed right behind.

Magnolia's bay was rocky, and the sand was sticky and hard. Not a good place to spend a summer day, but walking down the beach and climbing up the rocks had become sort of a tradition to them. As they grew up and childish play was slowly forgotten, other interests came into view.

Natsu felt the stupid urge to hold her hand.

They used to hold hands all the time when they were young. It was natural, meaningless, as normal as eating together, or playing around. But somewhere along the way, holding hands became something different. Something else. And just like that, the comforting gesture had stopped happening between them. Natsu wondered just when that change had happened.

It was kind of disappointing. Right now, he almost felt like he needed to take that pale hand in his. But holding hands was almost an edgy move now. What if Lisanna didn't like it? It could make things terribly uncomfortable between them.

Oh, to hell with it.

"Hey, Lis, can I hold your hand?"

She didn't answer, not with words at least.

Her fingers laced with his own and it felt so right, this little gesture.

Her hand was warm, and she was warm, and Natsu knew that as long as he had Lisanna by his side, the coldness would stay away, locked in his mind as just a harmless nightmare.


Author's note: Once again, thanks so much for reading, guys! Hopefully, chapter three won't take so long to be published. I'll admit I let many of my personal headcanons about Natsu's past slip in this fic, but meh. That's what fanfiction is for, right? If you enjoyed the fic, please let me know with some feedback, please? Thank you! ^_^