Morning found Gray sitting in the same exact spot he was in last night. The fire had died hours before hand not that he had noticed. He just kept replaying the conversation he had with the pinkette last night. What was he jealous of? He couldn't be jealous that he spent the night with Juvia! The two spent so much time together fighting and going on missions that it was almost impossible to wrap his head around. Did Natsu say the wrong thing? Maybe he meant he was jealous of Gray. The ice mage couldn't imagine Natsu being attracted to Juvia, he almost seemed annoyed when she joined Fairy Tail, and he knew her constant rain drove the dragon slayer insane seeing as he was a fire dragon and all. Now that they were friends he had warmed up to her, but she still wasn't anywhere near his favorite person.

Also why was he so shocked when he said he cared about him! Of course he cared about him. They grew up together and besides that he could hardly remember a time they weren't fighting each other, trying to prove who was the strongest. Gray was at a loss for words, he couldn't for the life of him see what was wrong with what he said last night. Okay maybe he has been being a dick about Juvia, but she seemed just fine with their arrangement. 'As long as I can have some of you Juvia doesn't care about anything else Gray-sama!' Rolling his eyes at the memory he chose not to dwell on that and think about Natsu. Deciding to get to the bottom of all his questions he stood ready to see if maybe he had gone to the guild after he calmed down.

"NATSU!" Happy frantically called from inside the house. Not a second later the tiny blue exceed was flying out the front door tears already streaming down his face. He stopped however when he saw Gray standing at the edge of the fire pit. "Gray? What are you doing here so early?" sniffing and trying to make it seem like he wasn't crying.

Gray took in his appearance before answering, tears running down his face, eyes wide and shaking. "Uh morning Happy. Natsu had a fire going pretty late last night so I stopped by to make sure everything was okay with him. But he ran off into the forest before I could really get any answers- Hey wait! Where are you going?"

Mid-explanation Happy had flown back into the house, the ice mage hot on his trail. He followed him through the house, turning his nose up at all the dirty clothes and take out boxes. How does anyone live like this? He had to stop himself from cleaning as he wandered through looking for Happy. A loud cry caught his attention and he found Happy in what appeared to be Natsu's bedroom. The bed was pushed into the corner of the room and had several scratches and burn marks all over it. But what caught his attention was what was on the middle of the bed. It appeared to some type of jewelry but was slightly obscured by a blanket. But before Gray could get a closer look Happy started to cry again.

"Happy it's going to be okay! I'm sure that he will be back, he seemed upset and maybe he just needed to cool off for a little while."

"You don't understand. You never paid attention! None of you ever really pay attention!"

Without waiting for a response he flew right out of the window and straight into the forest. Gray contemplated chasing him and then decided against it. If Natsu didn't want to stay and talk last night then he doubted today would be any different. So that decided Gray walked over to the bed, sat down and immediately regretted it. Somewhere between walking inside and going into the bedroom he had lost his shirt and his pants. For some reason it made him feel weird sitting on the dragon slayers bed with nothing but boxers on. Then he remembered the jewelry he had seen. He peeled back the blanket and was pretty surprised with what he uncovered. It was a ring. Flipping it through his fingers he noticed it was engraved, with what looked like initials 'NAJ forever'.

The 'N' could be for Natsu but he quickly pushed that thought to the side. His last name was Dragneel so the 'J' didn't make sense even though he didn't know his middle name. After inspecting the ring for a bit he got up and redressed and decided to go to the guild for breakfast, hopefully Happy would find Natsu and he could figure out what was going on.

Mira was behind the bar as usual when Gray finally arrived at the guild. It was pretty empty other than that. Cana was at a table with an empty barrel next to her probably nursing a hangover. Erza and Lucy were by the job request board, which reminded Gray that rent was due soon. He tended to forget since he had a pretty impressive savings account from hoarding his job money.

"I swear it was here yesterday! It was a job that paid 60,000 jewels which is more than enough for me to make rent this month and then some. I thought it would be perfect for the team to take on, but now its gone!" Lucy was whining to Erza so Gray walked over to see for himself. "Morning Erza, Lucy. What's going on?"

"Lucy says there was a job posted just last night that she wanted the team to take on but it's gone."

"Well we can ask Mira who was here early enough to have taken it. Hey Mira! Who was in the guild this morning?"

Mira looked thoughtful for a moment before responding "Well Laxus came in to see the Master, and Levy came in to go the library with Gajeel following diligently behind her. Oh! Natsu was here too. He snuck in pretty early and looked at the board for awhile, he did ask me not to say anything but he took an easy job and left. Something about a missing dog. But that was it!"

Lucy's eyes widened and she yelled, "Missing dog?! That jerk took the job I wanted!"

"Missing dog? That's what you wanted us to do? How is that worth 60,000 jewels?" Erza said trying to hide her apprehension on such an easy sounding job.

"It wasn't a normal dog! The owner apparently had been placing spells on the dog to make him stronger, he was planning on using him as protection for his farm but something went wrong. The dog snapped and started to attack the townspeople." Lucy had begun pacing back and forth which made the other two a little nervous.

If Natsu had indeed taken this job by himself then he could get hurt! Gray thought back to last night and how angry Natsu was before he ran off. Happy had gone looking for him and the way he flew into the forest made Gray think that he knew where he would be going. "Do either of you know where Natsu goes when he is upset? Happy ran after him into the forest this morning, so if Happy did see him then we might be able to catch up to him before that flame brain gets himself killed."

"No but I bet Lisanna would know. Apparently they had some little house they made when they were kids, he used to go there a lot when she disappeared."

"Good idea Erza!"

As if on cue Lisanna and Happy walked through the front door of the guild, looking sad and kinda angry at the same time. It was weird because Gray honestly couldn't make his mind up about her. On one hand she was a member of Fairy Tail and he had missed her when she disappeared, but on the other hand the second she came back she was all over Natsu like she owned him. It was a few months before he got to fight him how he wanted to and even then Lisanna always pulled Natsu away before it got too serious. He knew just as well as everyone else that they had a thing for each other when they were kids, but she could be so overbearing. Gray was so lost in his thoughts he didn't even see Lisanna coming near him until it was too late. She cocked her hand back and slapped him. "How could you be so clueless?!" Gray opened his mouth to ask what the fuck that was all about but she cut him off before he could say anything. "Don't bother looking for him. Happy and I tried to reason with him, we tried to calm him down. I haven't seen him like this in years! And all because of one conversation with you he is spiralling again!" Again before he could say anything she stomped over to Mira and started crying.

Lucy was holding Happy as he tried to explain what happened starting with his morning with Gray. "...Gray said he went into the forest so I went after him. I went to all of his favorite places. The lake, that tree that has the tire swing. But by the time I found him he was already talking to Lisanna and decided to leave. He ran so fast I couldn't keep up with him." All of a sudden Happy's face got serious, "Erza... he is dreaming about them again."

Erza shot Happy a knowing look and patted the exceed on the head.

"Don't worry Happy we will find him and bring him home in one piece. I promise you that."

"But Erza we don't know where he went..." Gray didn't want to be the one to say it but someone had to be realistic. Without the job request how were they supposed to know where to go? He did however know that they needed to try. An angry Natsu is a reckless Natsu, and a reckless Natsu always got hurt. Bad. "And also who and what is he dreaming about?" He didn't want to ask and almost as soon as the words left his mouth he regretted it. "Fucking idiot."

"Lisanna!" Mira exclaimed. "You know that Natsu didn't tell everyone what happened to him! Now I am not saying you're wrong for being a little unhappy with Gray but that language is not like you! He will be okay and in the end you will be mad at yourself for talking to Gray that way!"

"What do you mean everyone doesn't know? What happened to him? When?" Gray was getting worried. He didn't know much about Natsu's personal life even though the guy was pretty much an open book, Gray had a habit of tuning him out unless they were fighting. Looking around his group of friends Gray had never felt like such an outsider.

Nobody seemed to want to answer him as they turned to Lucy to see what she remembered about the job flyer. She remembered the town name so they began making plans to head out. "If we take the train we should make it there in two days, Natsu won't have taken the train not with his motion sickness so we should beat him there" Lucy reasoned.

"Okay team, here's the plan. Meet back here in half an hour, we should be able to catch the train by then!" Erza said and then turned and walked away.

"WHAT?!"

"What are the odds of them having no trains going that way today at all?"

Gray sauntered over to Lucy and Erza with his bag on his back. "Well it's only a three day journey if we walk, with any luck we will get there before he actually has to do any fighting." Happy nodded his head agreeing with the ice mage, "We don't have time to sit and wait, let's start walking!"

With that the team turned around and headed onto the trail heading out of Magnolia. Erza in the lead with Lucy and Happy directly behind them. The ice mage needed a second, his thoughts were still swimming with his last conversation with Natsu. What the heck is happening, he thought, I am no closer to understanding why he reacted to me like that and now he is just gone? He couldn't wait to get his hands on that stupid man! He had some explaining to do, not just about why he ran off but also who is he dreaming about that is making him have nightmares? Does it have to do with the ring Gray found on his bed? Deciding to stop driving himself crazy with questions he couldn't answer right now, he followed behind the girls. Hopeful that Natsu didn't get himself into any trouble before they caught up with him.

Thankfully they always carried sleeping bags with them when they traveled since they never knew if Natsu would be okay on a train ride or not. After traveling for half the day they found a decent sized clearing and made camp for the night. Erza and Lucy set their sleeping bags on either side of Gray and Happy placed himself at the end of Lucy's seeking comfort since his best friend was gone. Once Gray felt the area was secure he drifted off into a restless sleep, filled with pink hair and unanswered questions.