*** Author's Note: This one's a little shorter BUT I'm building to something here so please be patient with me! Hope you enjoy!

I don't own any of the characters in Fairy Tail.

FIVE

I woke up to sounds of banging, loud cursing, and a disturbingly strong smell of smoke in the air. This does not bode well, I thought. With a groan, and wincing at the pounding headache I could already feel, I slowly sat up on the couch. There was definitely something wrong, the smoky smell was even stronger now that I was up. I peered toward the kitchen, "Natsu?..."

"Just a sec Luce! Ouch!" I heard a loud bang from the kitchen.

"What on earth are you d…"

The kitchen looked like a disaster zone, like the sort of scene you see after a tornado hits. Pots and pans were everywhere, some covered in greyish sludge, some coated in a burnt mess. Some kind of batter was pooling over the countertop and dripping onto the cabinets below, and a large puddle of what I hoped was spilt coffee was inching its way across the floor. On the stovetop, a charred mess was smoking in a pan. I immediately ran over to turn on the stove.

"Natsu, what the hell?"

"Aw, Luce, I'm sorry! I wanted to fix you breakfast cuz you're always cooking for me an' Happy, but one thing led to another, and I broke your French press, and everything's burning, and…"

He paused as I started laughing hysterically.

"It's okay Natsu! Let's just clean this up."

The antics of last night forgotten in the chaos of the morning, we began to pick up what was left of my kitchen. I picked up dishes and deposited them in the sink, while Natsu mopped up the coffee spill on the floor, and he held the garbage can open while I scraped the blackened mess off of three of my pans.

"What were you doing that made such a mess exactly anyways?" I asked while we began to wash dishes. Not trusting him not to break them or make a mess while washing, I washed and rinsed the dishes and put Natsu in charge of drying them off.

"Well… I started trying to make coffee and pancakes. But I got distracted while I was making the coffee and the first pancakes burned. So I went to make more on a new pan, but knocked the French press off the counter when I was putting the new pan on the stove. I spilled the batter when I realized the second set of pancakes was burning while I was sweeping up the glass from the French press. And then you came in…"

I laughed again, "Only you could make breakfast such a chaotic event Natsu. I'm surprised you didn't intentionally set fire to anything, being the pyro that you are."

He looked like he was about to respond, with his finger raised and mouth open to speak, but ultimately, he just laughed with me, flicking the dishtowel at me playfully.

"Yeah, yeah, I make fire for a living. At least I'm not a cat stealing weirdo!"

"Ah! Takes one to know one you breaking and entering weirdo!"

We laughed for a bit before Natsu got a more serious look on his face, "Hey Luce about last night…"

No. Nope, I so did NOT want to deal with all of the drunken repercussions of last night. I mean, I had woken up to Natsu SPOONING me! And with that realization, all of Levy's words from the night before came flooding back as well. Did last night mean anything? Did Natsu LIKE me? Did I like him? No. No, it was way too early for this.

"Don't worry about it Natsu, we were both pretty drunk."

And it may have been my imagination, but I swear he looked a little dejected at that.

"Whatever you say Luce…"

The rest of the weekend passed without incident; at Natsu's behest, he and I watched "How to Train Your Dragon" while he complained that Happy was nowhere near as cool as Toothless was. To which I reminded him that it was kind of a moot point to complain about wanting a dragon, seeing as they weren't real.

"Hmmph, that's what YOU think," was all he replied.

Later that week, after catching Erza looking at me with that same inscrutable expression from the previous day, she finally called me in to her office.

This is it, I thought, I did something totally wrong and she's going to let me go now. CRAP, what am I gonna do?

"Lucy, please… sit down," she gestured to the chair opposite her, "You've been working with us for… about a month or so now correct?"

I nodded my agreement, too terrified to say anything.

"It's come to my attention that you helped a lot with the outstanding projects during our last editing blitz. Is that right?"

Again, I nodded. Here it comes.

"I wanted to let you know I noticed how thoughtful and insightful your comments were on your edits, you have a could have a real knack for this you know."

WHAT NOW? She continued speaking but I was still reeling from her most recent statement, and couldn't think beyond, SHE LIKED MY EDITS? I'm not FIRED? Eventually, noticing her expectant face, I managed to squeak out, "Oh, well thank you, I just tried to write what I would want to hear from someone reading my own work."

"Oh, so you write?"

She continued to stare at me.

"I mean… I suppose I did try to write a novel once?"

Smooth Lucy, real smooth, I thought, she totally won't think you're an absolute dork now.

"Well… If you ever… continued writing that novel I would love to read it some time. You seem to have a… unique voice that we're always looking for here at Scarlett Publishing."

It took all my will power to not drop my jaw down to the floor. She wanted to read my writing? She thought I had a unique voice? I nodded back and excused myself from the room. Somehow, I managed to hold in a quiet cheer until I had reached my cubicle.

I felt giddy all through the workday and until I got home. Erza wanted to read MY writing!

Oh my god. Erza wanted to read my writing.

The giddiness quickly turned to panic as I realized that my dreams of being a published author would require another soul to actually read my words. How could I be so stupid? My work isn't anywhere near good enough to be shown to other people, let alone Erza Scarlett! I began frantically sorting through pages of my novel, trying to find even a small piece I wouldn't mind sharing with someone. Somewhere in the middle of my desperate search, I heard a loud yowl come from outside. Of course he would show up now, I thought. But to my surprise, both a blue cat and a pink haired boy were waiting outside on my patio. Natsu grinned and waved before pointing to a DVD case. It was almost enough to make me forget about my panic over my book, seeing him outside. I hadn't noticed when our movie nights had become such an intrinsic part of my life here in Magnolia, but the calm I immediately felt seeing Natsu outside, grinning dopily at me through the sliding glass door let me know that it would never feel quite right again without them.

Natsu sobered a little as I let him in and he took in the chaos in my bedroom beyond.

"Everything ok, Luce?"

"Yeah… mostly I guess. Oh, I don't know! It's just that my boss found out I've been writing something and she wants to read it sometime and I told her sure, only I'm not sure any of it's actually good enough for her to read… And what if I share it with her and she thinks it's awful and then I'll be the assistant who tried but wasn't good enough and arrrgh…" I flopped down on the couch and buried my head in the cushions.

I felt a gentle hand on my shoulder, "Hey Lucy? I know I haven't read it but you're great, so that must mean your writing's great too right? And hey, if you want to have someone else read it first, you could always show it to me? I mean if you wanted…"

I looked up to see Natsu bashfully rubbing the back of his neck. Oh, this wonderfully terrible, sweetheart of a boy. When had he become so important to me? And was it really only two weeks ago that his blue cat wandered into my life and I kept him inside with me by mistake?

I smiled at him, "Maybe sometime, yeah. Thanks, Natsu."

"Hey hey, any time!" He said with a thumbs up and the largest grin I had ever seen.

"Mrow!"

"See! Happy thinks it'll be great too!"

We laughed until our stomachs ached, and then we settled into our familiar places, Happy happily splayed between our two laps, while the opening credits of the movie started.

That Friday night, I hung out with the Fairy Tail crew again; however this time, wary of another half-naked snow fight, I mostly stuck with Levy. We chatted about work, and what it was like working for Erza, where the best places to hang out in Magnolia were, as well as our lives up to this point (although I kept to myself for much of this part of the conversation. There were too many painful memories I wasn't ready to get into yet).

"So…" Levy gave me a pointed look, "How's it going with Natsu?"

I choked on my drink and Levy unsympathetically pat my back while I hacked out a lung.

"Umm… REALLY there's nothing to tell!"

"Mmmhmm…"

"Really, we watch movies and eat dinner together sometimes but that's it!"

"I know you're holding out on me…"

I started to deny her accusation again, but a pink haired blur suddenly wrapped an arm around my shoulders and playfully mussed my hair, "Hey Luce, whatcha guys talkin' about?"

Levy gave me another pointed look at this display. I rolled my eyes back at her before responding, "Oh, nothing, just movies and stuff!"

"Ohhh did you tell her about that one…"

"Actually," Levy cut in, "I was just telling Lucy about a show you're working this weekend. Didn't you say you had some comp tickets?"

I glared back at Levy but thankfully Natsu didn't seem to notice. In fact, he hadn't moved his arm yet either, which made my stomach flip unexplainedly. What the hell?

"Aww, yeah! It's gonna be totally awesome Luce, they're having me do a ton of pyrotechnics for the show, you wanna come?"

He was so earnest and his smile so infectious, what could I do but say yes? So I beamed back at him and said, "Yeah Natsu, that sounds great."

"Awesome! I'm all fired up now! I'll pick you up around five ok? I've gotta get there early for set up and set checks."

I could feel Levy's eyes on me as I replied, "Sounds good, see you then," and they continued to watch me while I watched Natsu happily walk back towards the others at the bar.

I was definitely in trouble.