As they headed back towards her apartment, Natsu couldn't help but fret that their argument had not in fact ended – that seemed logical for why Lucy was suddenly unwilling to go on a job and wanting to talk instead, likely needing some reassurance he didn't actually think she was weak. He hated talking, much more a man of action. So, she was offended that he'd said she wasn't strong enough, he just had to prove she was then…right?

He tugged on her arm to bring her to a stop and had her incline her head back to him tilted in confusion, "hey Luce, let's go fight! I bet you can knock me off my feet! Promise I won't go easy on ya!" Whilst he knew he was physically stronger than Lucy, she was damn sneaky in a fight and had taken down opponents way stronger than herself in the past through her tactics – he was sure she'd figure out a way to get him off his feet at least and then hopefully her ridiculous notion of not feeling strong enough would be knocked away.

She stared back at his huge grin, blinking several times before hitting him on the head. "What are you even on about Natsu! We need to talk not fight, you idiot!"

"Owwww Luce! But see if you can knock me down it'll prove you're really strong, I didn't mean what I said earlier, please!" he dropped her wrist to cradle his head and gave her his best puppy dog eyes he could muster.

"Geez Natsu, I'm not mad about that. I just –I just think we need to talk, about well, you know, about everything with Laxus and well…us" she looked away from his pleading face as a light blush settled on her cheeks, realisation sinking in to Natsu with a soft 'oh'.

She was turned back around again with Natsu grabbing her hand and pulling her onwards to the direction of her apartment, "why didn't you say you weirdo. We said we'd work it out after, so let's go" he looked back over her shoulder with a wide Natsu grin – a soft blush coating his own cheeks as she shifted their hands to interlace their fingers together catching up to walk side by side rather than dragged behind him.

They continued that way in silence for the rest of the walk to Lucy's apartment, neither saying a word nor breaking their more intimate than usual hand holding, Natsu even went through the from entrance and up the stairs with her rather than his normal window entrance. It was only as they walked inside and she offered him some tea that she dropped his hand to go and fulfil the task, as she let go he couldn't help but notice his hand felt colder than it had with her hand in his.

"So, shall we sit?" He realised he'd been stood totally zoned out in the middle of her living room, tuning back in as she came from the kitchen with two steaming cups, he dumbly nodded along reaching to grab a mug from Lucy as they sat down on her sofa next to each other.

"What now Luce?" he turned to look at her but she seemed to be finding her cup of tea the most interesting thing in the room, her curtain of blonde hiding her face from him.

"I guess, well we should maybe talk about the rest of the ritual?"

Yeah, he decided Lucy was right – the tea was definitely interesting he decided as he turned his own tomato face back to his own cup, burrowing his face into his scarf in an attempt to hide some of it.

"Yeah, that's probably a good idea Luce"

"Well, for the facts. From what Levy found we have another 4 days before we both start to go crazy"

His eyes blew wide, he'd forgotten about the time limit, for someone not great with change 4 days didn't seem a very long time at all to get used to something so totally different. He guessed it was time to start cataloguing what he'd have to adapt to so he started going through what he knew of relationships.

For one, couples always seemed to most of their time together, ok that wasn't hard…him and Lucy already spent basically every waking minute with each other, apart from his fishing trips with Happy and her insanely long beauty routines they were essentially always together having fun.

Ok second they tended to live together – that definitely wasn't something they did at the moment. But…he was always breaking in to Lucy's house with Happy and he certainly slept there more often than he did at his house. Actually the more he thought about it the more he thought that maybe them living together would also be ok – in fact it could be great! Lucy's bed was waaaay better than his hammock and if they lived together she wouldn't be able to kick him out…ok maybe she still could but he would have a good reason to get back in, it would be his bed too after all! AND if they lived together at his house rather than her apartment then she wouldn't have to pay rent which would leave more money for food. Yeah, he reasoned that living together would only make positives: better sleeping arrangements and more food.

Next up was physical contact with Lucy, contrary to popular belief he was far from out of the loop with what couples physically did together – growing up in the guild with dragon hearing had certainly given him a good understanding. He took a glance over to Lucy, who was way more animated in the conversation than she had been previously, her head was up and her brows kept furrowing then relaxing, her hands were up and seemingly ticking something off using her fingers. He just watched her for a few seconds, the setting sun shining through her windows and illuminating her hair in a radiant golden glow, if he'd even been uncertain about it before then this moment eradicated any question that she was without doubt the most stunning woman he'd ever laid eyes on. As he nervously turned back to his cup, he was sure he wouldn't mind exploring all those physical things couples did together with her, sure it scared him but together they'd work it out like they did any other challenge.

Now he'd happily ticked off those points on his relationship scale he moved on to the last one which was without a doubt the scariest. FEELINGS! This was definitely more of a head scratcher for him, just what did he feel for Lucy? Just as he was thinking he realised that she'd gotten off the sofa at some point and was bent over in front of him, flailing her arms around in front of his face trying to catch his attention. She was such a weirdo! His weirdo. Yeah, she was pretty much the best person in his life and he sure as heck didn't want her going anywhere and the thought of her being with anyone else had his grip tightening around his mug which he hastily put down on the table to the side before he cracked the poor thing to pieces. Well, if there was ever a time, he took a big breath…

"Hey Luce"

"Oh finally, he speaks! I've been trying to get your attention for the pa—"

"I love you" her jaw snapped shut and her eyes went wide, arms freezing their movements.

"And, I think you should move in with me and Happy"

"What?" when she finally found words her voice was small and quiet.

"I mean we could move in with you, but you pay rent so we'd have less money for food! Plus your landlady is scary"

"Well yeah of course it would be cheaper to not pay rent Natsu. Wait, hang on –did you mean it?"

"Duh – why else would I say it weirdo. Course you should move in with us!"

"The other thing Natsu, did you mean it? When you said that you lo—when you said…you know" her face was radiating its own heat as her blush was so strong and she'd moved her hands to cover her face. He couldn't help how cute he thought she looked, all worked up and nervous – it was relieving to know it wasn't just him at any cost.

"Weirdo, have I ever lied to you", reaching up he tugged gently at each wrist to pull her hands from her face. "Luce, I love you"

For a moment he wished he could take it back, as the tears flowed down her cheeks, he wished he could take back the words that had made her cry. That was until she flung herself forward to wrap her arms around his neck, ending up straddling him from her lunge whilst she burrowed her face into his neck mumbling into his scarf. He pulled her back from him lightly gripping her upper arms so he could look at her with a hopeful expression.

"Say that again Luce"

"I said…I love you too, you idiot" and then she broke out in her mega-watt Lucy grin, his brain took a moment to catch up before he sported a grin to match her own then jumped up grabbing under her thighs as he did to bring her with him, she quickly wrapped her legs around his middle and tightened her arms round his neck. He started spinning them both around her living room, before long they were both spinning and laughing together – joy evident between them.

He dropped them back down on the sofa with Lucy still wrapped around him like a monkey. She pulled away from him to look at him but as she did so her neck started to tingle and she tried looking to see what was happening – but alas this dragon was also somewhere she couldn't see. Natsu caught on to her gaze's direction and looked at her dragon.

"Hey Luce, did you know how many of those flame things were around him?"

"Oh yeah – there were 10"

"Geez weirdo, of course you'd have counted!"

"Of course, I counted! Maybe it was important! There were only ever 3 on the other dragon so I wanted to count when there were so many more." She flicked him on his nose for teasing her but didn't budge from their position. The tingling had stopped on her neck but Natsu was now staring intently at it, brows furrowed with his finger pointing around in a circle as he turned back up to her with a wide grin in place.

"Well, now there's 11!"

"Really?"

"Yup! I even counted twice! But I did see the lil guy puff out another flame ball so 11 makes sense."

"Oh well that would make sense, Levy did say the elemental ring would grow until the next stage. It kind of looked like a pattern before and that there could be 2 missing so maybe there is meant to be 12" she put her fingers on her chin in thought, about to get up to go and look for herself in a mirror – she was beyond interested to see what was happening but as she made motion to move Natsu's hands grabbed her lightly at the waist. "Natsu? Everything ok?"

One hand quickly snapped off her waist to run nervously at the back of his neck instead. "Oh yeah, I just thought of maybe how we get him to spit out the last fireball"

"Eloquent as always Natsu…", nonetheless she raised her eyebrow in interest and prompted him on, "so what did you think it could be?"

"Oh—uh—well—I'm guessing that one came up because we said we love each other"

She nodded in agreement, it did reason to make sense with timing and how everything seemed to be linked to their relationship.

He swallowed heavily, "well, then if we've got a fire ball from feelings. Well maybe the next one is from—uhhhhh"

She couldn't believe he got there before her, of course that would make sense, they'd obviously had so many to start with from how good their relationship was before but it wasn't romantic. Saying 'I love you' had added to their relationship and the next logical step was…

"From something physical right?" she finished for him amidst his blundering, he just nodded back thankful she'd got there too.

"Yeah, that would make sense. So, want to try it?"

"Yes. I mean…if you want to" he offered her a timid smile and started to lean towards her.

It was clumsy, their noses bumped as they bounced off each other in a failed attempt with a light chuckle, but as their eyes caught the air grew silent once more. Lucy brought her left hand to settle on his shoulder as the other snaked up around his neck to play with his hair. He left one hand on her waist but his other came across her cheek sweeping back until his fingers were round the back of her neck as he pulled her to him as their lips brushed together quickly before they both pulled apart.

Sporting equal blushes, they smiled goofily at each other.

"So…did it work? I don't feel anything"

"Oh yeah lemme see" she tilted her head slightly for him to get a better view but what he was greeted with was a frowning dragon with his arms crossed tapping his foot and glaring at Natsu. "He is not happy Luce, one annoyed looking dragon!"

"Hmm, maybe we didn't do it right" and without warning she pulled his head back to hers locking their lips again. This time it wasn't brief and as she pushed her lips against his he threaded his fingers in her hair and tilted her head slightly for a better angle as they moved their lips against each other's. Words from Cana filtered into her head and Lucy tentatively ran her tongue against Natsu's lips – his shocked gasp allowed her access and before long they were fighting for dominance.

When they broke apart, both flustered and panting for air, Lucy already knew something had happened as she'd felt the tell-tale warm tingling – smiling she tilted her neck to prompt Natsu to look. What he found this time was a very smug looking dragon surrounded by 12 flames in what looked to be a complete circle.

"Guess it's time for you to call me the genius of our relationship Lucy as I figured this one out"

She slapped him on his arm "yeah well your idea of a kiss didn't get him fired up did it!"

She wasn't wrong and he could do nothing but laugh at her use of his phrase causing her to break in laughter too, "I'll do better next time Luce, promise."

"Want to test that out Natsu?" she had a look of mischief on her and he leaned back in to prove his point stopping just short of her lips as his nose twitched.

"Someone's coming, fast and they're really close." His nose twitched a few more times, his features scrunching, "they smell a lot like Laxus did before that lacrima came out."

She got off his lap grabbing her Fleuve d'étoiles in one hand with her other by her keys ready for the intruder and he stood readying himself beside her. No sooner had he stood that her windows were blown out and the intruder was before them.

Sorry to all for the delay with this chapter - life got hectic and then writers block but this chapter has hopefully pushed me past that! I reckon we've another 5-10 chapters max left of this story folks.

Thanks to everyone who's stuck with the story to date/followed/liked/reviewed :)

Copperreign12 - I'm always so thrilled to see your review come in and to see how you like the new chapter!