By the time Natsu finally got the guts to go apologize to Lucy, he found her asleep when she got to her place. He sat in the window for awhile and watched her sleep, wishing he could just crawl right up next to her without having to wake her up and ruin her night with his attempts to apologize.

He decided he'd come back in the morning, but as he arrived home, a noise suddenly came from the town. It was the bell on top of the guild being rung in the middle of the night.

Warren's voice suddenly echoed as far as they were. "Everyone wake up, there's an emergency! Someone took Levy! We don't know what happened or who is responsible, but Master wants everyone to spread out and get to work! People who can trace by scent need to go in opposite directions! Natsu go east, Wendy go south, Gajeel already went west, Laxus head north. Everyone else make groups and search for clues."

Happy came floating from their room. "Levy? Don't think know she's in no condition to be going anywhere?"

"We need to work on finding her for now, Happy. This could be serious. She can't really fight or even get around that well. Let's go," he said.

"Aye, sir…"

Kidnapping a vulnerable member of the guild when it was playing with a full deck was an insane thing to even think about. Short of when they were attacked by a whole country, Natsu couldn't think of a time anyone had ever come at the guild with the whole S-Class roster in town. Everyone was around.

Happy flew him low through the woods, carefully avoiding trees and branches with expert ability.

The other exceeds could maybe turn into big versions of themselves, or swing swords, but Happy could put any winged creature to shame when it came to flight skills. He was the fastest, most adept, and skilled flyer of the group so Natsu secretly felt like he had the greatest exceed advantage.

There was no sign of her scent, and they searched and searched, long after the sun had come up. No sign of Levy, no sign of strangers that might have taken her, no sign of trouble at all. Even after they moved out of Warren's telepathy range, there was nothing.

At around noon the next day, Natsu was a full thirty miles from Magnolia when he spotted a tower of lightning in the distance northwest of where he was, all the way in the mountains. It wasn't close, and he was worried he already had Happy at his limit, but the exceed sped toward where they'd seen the lightning and dropped Natsu over a mountain just before collapsing from exhaustion.

Natsu plopped down in the snow next to Laxus with Happy under one arm. "I don't smell Levy here…"

"It's the wind. I can't find her, but she is definitely around here."

"How do you know?"

The wind carried what was now faint but was definitely a shriek of pain past his ears.

"She's injured for sure, and it's fucking freezing. There are also enemies here. The wind is messing up my sense of smell, but there are several other people here. Whoever finds Levy takes care of Levy. The other person gets to shit stomp everyone here so hard no one ever things about pulling anything like this again."

Laxus was a man of few words, and the words he did speak were usually not nice. The situation obviously made him furious, as everyone in the guild, no matter how tough they were, had been amazed, curious, and happy about Levy and Gajeel's baby.

Once, Natsu saw Levy ask Laxus if he wanted to feel her baby kick, and he had weirdly accepted the offer and awkwardly patted it for a few seconds before wandering off.

They split up, because with the wind whipping around the mountains, it was hard to tell where the sound was coming from. Even scarier, it seemed to go away and was replaced by occasional hints of blood on the air.

When he saw people thrown from one of the caves, he jumped up and went inside right behind Laxus, who had done the throwing.

They dove on each side of her and Natsu pulled off the cloth they'd tied around her mouth to keep her quiet. She was freezing cold, and Natsu found this was the easiest of their problems to fix. Laxus threw his giant coat over her and Natsu heated up the floor and the air so she could warm up.

Levy cried out, gripping her belly with her hands.

"Did they hurt you?" Natsu said.

She panted through the pain and said, "The baby is coming. I want Gajeel!"

"Gajeel isn't here. He'll be here soon. I'll start running right now."

Laxus said, "You can't. You need to stay with her. As long as there are enemies and she can't defend herself. I'm going to go fight."

The sound of battle outside the cave was intense in the minutes that followed, and the mountain shook periodically.

And somewhere in the back of his mind, Natsu knew Laxus had outsmarted him by thinking faster. The deal was that whoever found Levy would stay and the they other person would fight, but he'd been first to Levy and was now outside committing simple, wanton violence while Natsu knelt next to Levy.

Another pain came, and panic seized him because it seemed so intense, and when it passed, she only had a few minutes to catch her breath before another one came.

"I'm supposed to have my baby at home with Gajeel and a midwife," she cried.

Natsu timidly said, "Can you make it wait?"

This only made Levy cry again before another pain seized her. "Natsu, I need your help. Please."

"Tell me what to do."

Levy was embarrassed but started giving him instructions. Natsu was also embarrassed, but followed them because he was also worried.

For any guy, this situation was the sum of some unknown and incredibly potent fears that he actually hadn't been creative enough to have yet. Natsu was scared to death about what was going on, yet he knew he couldn't just freak out. There was blood and various other fluids under her and once he ripped her underwear, everything down there just looked painful and angry to him.

"What if the baby isn't okay?" she whimpered.

Natsu said, "I can hear its heartbeat."

"It's okay?"

"I'm not a doctor, but that's usually a good sign."

Levy reached out and Natsu gave her his hand as she groaned, pushing as hard as she could during the next contraction. When it was over, she said, "I can't believe the person that's going to help me deliver my baby is you, Natsu."

"Do you want me to switch places with Laxus?"

She tiredly answered, "That's the only way this could be worse."

Feeling a little bolder because she made fun of him, Natsu said, "You're the smartest person I know and you're a mom, so you probably don't need help. You've got mom instincts and stuff. You're brave and you're strong. This is nothing for you."

"I know you're trying to encourage me, but it's you're actually making me angry right now," she said.

"Get angry then! This is basically a big battle though and getting mad will help you. It looks like it hurts, it takes a lot of energy, it's lasting a long time, and there's a lot of blood and other stuff that's usually supposed to be on the inside on the outside right now. You're a champion of the Fairy Tail guild, and you don't lose battles."

Another pain, and she squeezed his hand so tight he was sure it was going to bruise while she pushed.

"That's it, I can see…something is happening. If you just keep going, you'll be done soon. Then you'll get to hold your baby, right? Isn't that going to be the best thing ever? You've been waiting all this time."

Natsu counted the fear this experience brought to be on par to facing certain death, but it was what it was, and after a few minutes, he gave her a thumbs up.

"Blue hair. That's a good sign. It's probably best if the baby looks like you. All you have to do is keep going and the pain will be over and you'll have your baby. You've got this!"

By the time Laxus discovered this even had been a kidnapping attempt by Jose Porla to steal the dragon-blooded baby and had beaten both Jose and every other slightly adversarial living creature to pulp, Natsu was yelling at Levy to get all fired up and push harder while she had the head of another human being coming out of her body.

With a final, ear-shattering scream, the baby girl slid into Natsu's hands and started crying.

The horrified yet amazed dragonslayers watched the baby enter the world and take her first breaths while Natsu held her. It was strange, overpowering, and incredible. Natsu reached to his neck and pulled the dragonscale scarf off to wrap it around the baby, and then gave her to Levy.

Happy finally stirred, and Laxus said, "That worthless cat is ready to go get help now?"

"Ah, Happy!"

"Hmm?"

Natsu said, "Levy and Gajeel's baby was born. Can you go back and tell them where we are?"

Levy held her newborn daughter close and stared down at her with the pure, powerful love of a mother. "Hi. I'm your mom. I'm so glad to finally meet you, Amara. I love you so much. I'm so glad you're here. You're perfect."

Natsu had some additional questions, mainly about the fleshy umbilical cord, but Levy didn't seem bothered by the tentacle-like appendage attached to her baby, so he decided it was probably okay although thinking of it as a tentacle made it seem unnatural to him.

He sat next to her and leaned against the wall of the cave. He reached out with one finger, and said, "Look at how tiny her fingers are. That's pretty amazing, right?" When he touched her chubby little hands, he added, "And soft too. Are all babies squishy?"

"Natsu, 'squishy' isn't on the list of words you can use to talk about someone's precious baby," Levy warned.

"Sorry." When he looked up and said, "This is actually really awesome," to Laxus, he almost jumped at the weird, dark expression on the other man's face.

It quickly vanished, and Laxus answered, "Congratulations, Levy. I'm glad everything is fine. Congratulations also on invoking more fear than the dark lord Zeref on two of the most powerful wizards on the continent. There is not enough liquor in this world for today."

"Now that it's over, it's becoming funny for me to think about. Doesn't it seem funny to you guys?" she asked.

Natsu and Laxus answered in unison.

"No."

While Laxus kept watch, Natsu spent most of the time with Levy sharing in her amazement about little fingers and little toes, and cute little chubby legs. He finally asked about the 'baby tentacle,' which brought a certain about of cringey exasperation with it, but Levy kindly gave him a brief lesson.

When Pantherlily finally brought Gajeel into the cave, Natsu got out of the way and watched Gajeel meet his daughter for the first time. His love was instant, complete, powerful, and yes, he cried like he didn't care about anything else in the world but his girl and their child.

Since they weren't really needed, Natsu and Laxus left the cave and ventured back out into the cold. The wind had died down a little, but Natsu suddenly felt like his insides were a mess again.

Hearing Gajeel be a dad just reminded Natsu of how amazing it was to have the love of a father. Even while they were standing around outside, he could hear Gajeel promising Amara that he'd always be there for her, always love her, always protect her.

Natsu knew he was loved like that once, and he'd lost it and that he'd never have it again.

Looking for a way to think about something else, he searched for a distraction and came back to Laxus, who was leaning on the mountain with the deeply angry expression he'd seen earlier.

"Are you mad about something?" he asked.

"Maybe. What the fuck is wrong with you?" Laxus answered.

Natsu said, "I was just thinking about my dad. He cared about me like that. Now he's gone."

"My dad has never cared about anything but himself, not even for a day in his life. Fuck all this shit. I'm going home."

As he watched Laxus take to lightning form and leave, stopping only to blow half a mountain apart out of pure anger, he wondered if they were all broken on the inside. Gajeel, who he could hear quietly promising he'd never abandon his baby because he was still hurt from being left, Laxus, who was only reminded that he'd never actually known the love of his father, or him as he remembered Igneel's warmth.

It was sad. They were powerful dragonslayers sitting at the top of the magic world and then also, emotionally messed up. While Natsu wasn't happy his peers had issues, it made him feel normal.

He thought Lucy deserved to have someone who was tough enough not to lose it over something that made him sad but saw now that Gildarts really was right. Not even for the sake of just keeping her, emotions were hard, and they were real and they hurt. Everyone.

As the day wore on and Natsu and Happy managed to get home after the others, he sorted out his thoughts.

Natsu went to Lucy's place by himself and waited for her to come home. She'd been with a group that headed west, and after she got home, he knew she probably went to go visit the new baby and check in on Levy. They were best friends and it was a big deal for a best friend to have a baby.

When Lucy came through the door, she saw him sitting in her chair, like he'd just barged in like every other time. She'd been surprised to find his scarf at the Redfox hours, since he could have used his jacket for the baby just as easily. She'd washed it and brought it back with her.

"Hey Natsu."

"Hey. I uhhh…I'm an idiot. Is that still okay with you?" he asked.

Lucy nodded and came over to sit in his lap. "Of course it is. Maybe you're an idiot, but your my idiot and I love you."

He'd expected to pay for his transgressions with a little rage, but she ran her fingers through his hair and kissed his temple before putting the scarf back on his neck. It still smelled like the baby, and he was okay with that.

A laugh erupted from her, shattering the gentle beauty of her comforting affections. "Did you and Laxus really help deliver a baby?"

"We didn't do anything. Levy did all the work. She was incredible. We mostly just panicked and suffered incredible terror," he said.

Lucy had a long, hard laugh at the idea. "I'm sorry, that's just the most absurd thing I've ever heard it my life. Like I just…I can't. If I could have just been there."

"It was actually really stressful."

"I'm proud of you too. Like, that's my guy. Stepping up to help his friends, no matter what."

Natsu said, "You don't hate me?"

She shrugged. "Why would I? My feelings were hurt when you ran off, but I didn't think it was because you were being a jerk on purpose. Losing someone you love is hard. I know everyone leans on you because you're so strong, but sometimes, you've got to lean on somebody else. I'd like to be that somebody else."

Lucy held him against her chest.

Then she started laughing again.

"It was really stressful, Lucy. Like a person came out of Levy. A whole person. It looked like it hurt so much. There was blood and sorts of other smells. Levy has powerful instincts though, it was like dragonforce except instead of pure dragon power, it was pure mom power. She had superhuman strength, and growled, and yelled, and did this amazing thing."

"You're the best guy in the world, Natsu. You better not ever crawl out of my bed and not talk to me for days, because if I have to kill you, the world will have to go on without you and that would be a tragedy," she answered as she stood up.

"Hey, come back here!"

Lucy said, "I have something for you."

Natsu noticed something huge leaning against the wall by her closet, and she picked up the big painter's canvas and turned it around.

"A lot of us saw Igneel. So we got together, and we wrote down everything we could remember about how he looked and we asked Reedus to paint this picture. It's maybe not perfect, but it's what we can do," she said, showing off the painting of Igneel.

It was actually really close to perfect, and in the painting, Igneel was breathing fire as he flew against a starry night sky.

Natsu went over and sat on the floor in front of it, staring intensely. "Dad…"

Lucy added, "We could hang it in the house so you'll always have a reminder that he's looking out for you."

Her boyfriend looked up at her. "This is amazing. I don't even know what to say."

"You don't have to say anything. I know how you feel."

"I realized a lot of really important things today. I felt really ashamed of my feelings, but I guess even strong wizards know how a broken heart feels. Even people like Gajeel and Laxus."

"That's just part of being human. People get hurt."

The dragonslayer nodded as he stood and gently put the canvas back against the wall. "So…can we do it or am I on punishment or something? I understand if I am, but I'm still going to wiggle my way out of it."

"Are you going to be here when I wake up tomorrow?"

"Maybe I'll just follow you everywhere you go for the rest of our lives. We'll go on jobs together, eat together, sleep together, take baths together….hey, is that a thing? Can I get naked in the bathtub with you?" he asked.

Lucy playfully pushed him. "Do you want to?"

"I want to be naked everywhere with you. I had a thought the other day about being like that in a weird place, like there were all these bookshelves and books everywhere."

His girlfriend said, "That was the library, Natsu. We went there to research for your house. I thought you seemed really spaced out."

"I don't really like reading and somehow my mind just drifted."

"Your mind drifted to us having sex in the library."

Natsu shrugged. "I believe in achieving my dreams, Lucy. Aren't you the one who tells everyone to believe in themselves and their dreams and they'll happen? It's detailed. You have your legs wrapped around me and for some reason you're wearing that maid outfit just no underwear. I push you up against a big shelf of books and we're standing up, books are flying everywhere."

The blonde put her hands on her hips. "Let me just review again. I took you to the library so we could do important research and instead of helping, you sat there and had an extremely involved and incredibly lewd sexual fantasy instead."

"…but then after a while, I burn up the maid's outfit and we get on one of those big tables and you sit on top of me and—"

"Natsu, what is wrong with you?"

"I'm not sure. Maybe you should try and research it in a book. We could go to the library."

Lucy said, "I love books, Natsu. The library is a safe place for books. I don't even think I can take you there, because I feel like if I do, you're going to sit there with your mouth open and that spaced-out look on your face. And everyone's going to think it's because you don't like reading, but I will know the truth."

"If you refuse to take me to any place that I've ever had a thought like that, there would be nowhere left for us to go," he admitted.

"Really? You've had fantasies about…I don't know. Galuna Island?"

Natsu said, "You'd be dressed up in the tribal clothes of the villagers, and then we'd go up to that big creepy temple and—"

"The guild?"

"The hot tub, the pool, that closet where the cleaning supplies are, and oh, the library."

"Tower of Heaven?"

"I feel like a few bites of Etherion would turn into some warrior god of making Lucy scream."

"The hardware store?"

"On a big stack of lumber, bent over."

"Duke Everlue's mansion?"

"Had a library."

Lucy stared at him. "I feel like you have some really weird and gross vendetta against books. Like you want to go to where they go to be safe and ruin them. Have you…been having these fantasies about different ways and places the whole time I've known you?"

"No, just for the past few days. I didn't know how bad I wanted it until that one night where you teased me and then we went to bed."

Using hand gestures to help make her point she said, "You, Natsu, went through all your memories of us over the past few days while you were sulking, and retroactively created sexual fantasies for all the places we've ever gone together."

"You're making it sound crazier than it is."

"I don't think that is possible."

Natsu shrugged. "Don't you ever think about something and decide you would have made a different decision if you knew what was going to happen?"

"Of course. But that's always about the possibility of 'what better decision could I have made' and not 'what if I could go back in time and have sex in every place I had happy and innocent memories,'" she said.

The dragonslayer pointedly answered, "Do you not think that Galuna Island would have been more fun if we did it in the temple? That makes it the same thing as trying to think about how you could have made better decisions."

Lucy said, "I really get that you had all this weird stuff sort of pent up in you and you're ridiculously horny. If I just try to bang it out of you, are you going to calm down?"

"One of the few things Igneel ever said to me about girls is that once lit, the flame of desire can never be extinguished. You're asking how much fuel you can throw on it to put it out so I think that after all these years together, you don't know how fire works and it's a little disappointing."

"Shut up, Natsu, you're getting on my nerves."

"What are you going to do about it at this point?"

The blonde walked up to him, slid her hand down the front of his pants, and wrapped her hand around him.

Natsu took in a sharp breath and held it as her hand moved.

"I'm sorry, did you say something? Awww…widdle dwagon boy 'can't words' again."

She fell to her knees and pulled at his waistband.

Natsu did not understand why she felt this was a punishment and only felt encouraged to continue behaviors he knew annoyed her. It was true that he fell into a state of 'can't words,' especially when she started using her mouth, but side effects of having Lucy put him in her mouth still involved her actually doing it and was amazing.

Before he knew it they were on the bed throwing clothes and kisses and tongues all over the place. If the first time had been cautious, they now knew that being together felt great and they knew how to make it work.

They went for two rounds instead of one, then another one after that, and again after a short rest.

When they finally finished, Natsu warm and fuzzy on the inside instead of what had happened before, so they lay there together and talked softly for almost an hour before they were at it again.

As Lucy was about to drift off, he asked, "Do you want to unlock your momforce someday?"

She had to think back to their earlier conversation to remember what this was. "Not now."

"Someday. Like the distant future."

"I don't know. I didn't dream about it when I was a kid and I've never like had a moment where I wanted one. But when we're laying here thinking about it, I think about how sweet and adorable you are sometimes and I think it might be fun to see you be a dad."

Natsu said, "I don't ever think about stuff like that. I had this random stray thought recently though where I thought about you having a little belly like Levy did and it fired me up a little."

"Natsu, ewww…Was it during your fantasy tour of our previously beautiful history as friends?"

"Maybe?"

Lucy replied, "I feel like the real demon in you wasn't END, it was this sex beast you've been hiding all along and I unsealed and unleashed it on the world."

"Not really the world, just yourself. You don't complain when it's in you. I think you just pretend to be annoyed cause you don't want to admit you love it."

After he turned out the light, she suddenly burst out into giggles.

"What, Luigi?"

"I'm sorry, I just remembered you and Laxus helped deliver a baby. I just want to know like what faces you made and how weird you were. Levy has nothing but good things to say about you, but I just…to be a fly on the wall…"

"Goodnight, Luigi."

She kept giggling.

"You want to go visit Galuna Island? I was just thinking of that place recently."

"Hell no. Go to sleep, Natsu."

-Reviews Welcome!—

Super special thanks to Anna5949, valerioux, Ember Reverie, and Random-Gaurdian for taking a moment to review. I really appreciate it and I'm glad you're enjoying the story.