Cover by Kimbeekitty, and posted with permission.

I forgot to post this yesterday, whoops.

A Confrontation

Together, they left the modest cafe, pleased with both the excellent food and the tentative plan they had hashed out together.

"Wait," Lucy said, stopping suddenly in her tracks outside the café and nearly causing Lyon to run into her. She slapped her forehead with an open palm in clear self-reproach. "I forgot to ask… are we going to meet up in Larkspur, or at the client's, or…"

"Lucy!" a voice called out, interrupting the woman mid-sentence. Its owner rounded the corner, his face split with a huge, excited grin. "I've been looking for you everywhere!"

The blonde winced involuntarily in response – a reaction that Lyon took note of. "Natsu," Lucy said, turning to face her rapidly approaching pink-haired friend. With everything that had been going on, Lucy had not yet really sat down with Natsu for a frank talk about where their partnership still stood. There had already been a small confrontation between them on the topic, but… it had never really gone anywhere. They'd gotten caught up in the idea of reforming the guild, and then the incident with Avatar went down… it had been a lot, with not much time for figuring things out.

It was at least a little bit her own fault too, she knew. She'd been avoiding it in part because she knew that it would be unpleasant. But it seemed like she was about to be forced into dealing with it sooner rather than later, and the prospect made her gut churn.

Slowing down from his full-barrel charge down the street towards Lucy, Natsu skidded to a stop in front of her, Happy in hot pursuit. "Oh, and Lyon, too!" Natsu greeted the ice mage. "How's it going? Haven't seen you in forever!"

Lyon peered at the fire dragon slayer curiously. Hadn't he seen Natsu just the day before? "…Yeah," he responded carefully, unsure if he should point that fact out at all. He was beginning to notice a trend emerging in his dealings with Fairy Tail.

"You just saw him yesterday, Natsu," Happy reminded him before Lyon could make up his mind on the issue.

"Really?" Natsu questioned, his face scrunching up in thought. "Huh. Still in town to catch up with Gray or something?" And then, before Lyon could formulate a response, Natsu shrugged off his own question. "Anyway… Lucy!" Natsu addressed his friend, excitement pouring off of him. "Happy and I found an awesome job for the three of us! If you're done talking to Lyon, let's get going!"

"Aye!" Happy agreed, flipping in the air. "It'll be just like old times!"

Guilt lanced through Lucy's heart. How did they even get a job approved for the three of them? Erza knew that Lucy and Lyon were already slated to work on something, so she wouldn't have stamped it… Mirajane. They must have gone to Mirajane in order to get it approved, and the barmaid hadn't known any better, Lucy concluded. "Natsu, Happy, I…"

"Yeah, just like old times!" Natsu agreed. "So you ready or not? We can swing by your apartment if you need to bring anything along."

Lucy sighed heavily. "Listen, Natsu… I've already accepted another job."

"Oh," Natsu said, his apparent enthusiasm hardly dented by her statement. "No problem, we'll go on yours first, then."

Uncomfortable, Lucy shifted in place. "Actually… I wasn't planning on…" She hesitated, unsure how to go about saying it without hurting his feelings deeply. "Look, Natsu. You can't come with me on this job."

He looked confused by this, his face scrunching up slightly and the light starting to dim in his eyes. "What are you talking about? Teammates always go on jobs together, you don't get to do solo stuff when you're in a team. Don't you remember that? From when you first got here?"

Anger arose in Lucy at Natsu's words, bubbling in her veins and rising like the tide. "What do you call leaving for a year to train and only leaving a note for me to find? What do you call that, then, Natsu? Because that's not the sort of thing that teammates do, either!"

Lyon flinched, wanting to be anywhere other than where he was right at that moment. Being in the center of someone else's spat was really not his thing. Sherry thrived on the drama, but Lyon did not agree with her about its entertainment value. He couldn't really leave, though. He and Lucy still needed to figure out where they were meeting up the next day, after all.

Natsu looked taken aback by Lucy's sudden and strong negative response to him. "That's not the same thing at all—"

"No, it's worse," Lucy hissed at him, all of her repressed feelings of hurt rising to the surface, and her brain unable to halt the flow of anger-laced words pouring from her mouth. "Everyone else leaving is one thing. But I'm… I was your partner, Natsu. I deserved the basic courtesy of a face-to-face goodbye."

He scratched his head, beyond confused, and didn't respond. Lucy had caught him off guard, and he reeled from the force of the heavy blow her words dealt.

"I thought you guys already made up over this, Lucy," Happy interjected sadly, also perplexed by what was going on.

Lucy shook her head at the blue cat. "No, we didn't, Happy. We pushed it off in order to remake the guild. And then it got pushed off again with everything that happened with Avatar, and then with the guild all coming back together."

"I don't understand why you're still upset about it," Natsu grumbled. "Didn't we already fix it by bringing the guild back together?"

Lucy looked at her feet, and inhaled deeply. "No," she said. It was quiet, but her voice was strong. Then when she looked up, Lyon saw that her eyes were brimming with unshed tears. "No."

"Then what do you want me to do about it, Lucy?!" Natsu snapped, annoyed. To his mind, everything had been solved by everyone getting back together. That had been the problem, and he had taken steps to fix it already. What was Lucy's deal? Why was she still holding onto this? It didn't make any kind of sense to him.

"I wanted you to apologize."

Natsu froze at the confession. "That's it?" That was an easy fix. "Fine – then I apologize." There. Now everything was better, and they could get back to being partners again.

Instead of the satisfaction he anticipated, Lucy deflated at his response, looking even more hurt than she had before. "Do you even know what you're apologizing for, Natsu?" Lucy shook her head and held up her hand to forestall any protest on his part. "Just… save it, Natsu. Please." Then she wiped her eyes with her arm, and straightened her spine. Looking straight into Natsu's eyes, she continued, "I have to finish getting ready to go on this job I took. With Lyon. And no, I won't cancel it to deal with…" She gestured vaguely between them. "With this. We've already sent notification ahead to the client that it's Lyon and me. Alone. I mean… just the two of us," she hastily amended with a quick, apologetic glance to the ice mage. "When I get back… we can talk. But not right now. I can't… do this with you right now."

Lucy sounded exhausted to Lyon, and he touched her shoulder. "Lucy, if you want to talk to Natsu, I'm fine with picking up the rest of your gear for you. This seems pretty important." His offer had nothing to do with wanting to flee the uncomfortable atmosphere, or so he told himself.

The celestial mage glanced back at Lyon and thought about it for a moment. But then she shook her head. "No, I think Natsu and I both need a little time and… space. To clear our heads, you know?" Lucy turned back to Natsu. "Natsu… I don't know how long this job is going to take, precisely. But I should be back in a week or two. When I do… we'll talk. I promise."

Natsu knew how much a promise meant to her, even if everything in him was rebelling against accepting the offer. After waging a brief internal war, he sagged, and replied, "Alright. We'll talk when you get back."

She smiled at him, then. Honestly, she hadn't expected him to back down so easily from this. Maybe Natsu really had matured over the past year. "Thank you." Then she faced Lyon. "Let's take a walk."

Grateful that he no longer had to watch the pair fight, Lyon nodded. "Sure thing."

"Lyon," Natsu suddenly called out to him, surprising both him and Lucy. When Lyon turned to look at him, Natsu said, "Promise me you'll keep Lucy safe, alright? She gets into a lot of trouble on her own."

Lyon withheld the urge to snort at his honest words, for the idea of Lucy not being able to protect herself was somewhat laughable to him. From what he had just been able to gather from what he'd overheard, the woman had essentially spent an entire year on her own as well, and had been just fine. But instead of saying any of that, Lyon just nodded. "We'll watch each other's backs."

"Thanks, man."

With that, Lyon and Lucy departed, with Natsu and Happy left staring dejectedly in their wake.

Lyon and Lucy walked along the canal for a while in silence, neither sure about what to say to each other after that embarrassing scene. Finally, after they'd walked quite a while, Lucy looked over at Lyon and smiled sheepishly. "I'm sorry you had to see that, Lyon."

"It's fine," he replied with a shake of his head. Though the truth was that he was relieved that it was over, and that Natsu hadn't pressed them about why it was Lyon that Lucy was going on a job with. Lyon had witnessed some of the tension between the two when they came to Lamia Scale for Wendy, and he had wondered about it then. He'd shrugged it off at the time, since it really wasn't any of his business. Now, though, it seemed that it was due to something a little more severe than a simple argument.

In light of all that, it was extremely clear to the ice mage now that Lucy really did need this getaway just as much as he himself did. Which was somewhat reassuring, to know that he wasn't all alone in this.

Lucy swallowed thickly, and let the matter drop. To Lyon's immense relief, she then asked, "So where do you want to meet up tomorrow? I'm open to suggestions."

Lyon considered it for a moment. "How about we meet on the train? If I took the train from Lamia Scale to Larkspur, it would pass through Magnolia anyway. Even if we're not on the same train, though, we can meet up at the Larkspur station."

With a smile, Lucy nodded. "Sounds good to me. Do you know which train you'll be taking?"

"No. Should we head over to the station and purchase our tickets together? That way we can be sure of being on the same train." The offer was out of Lyon's mouth before he knew it was even open.

Lucy practically beamed at him, her entire countenance lighting up. It was a stark contrast to how she'd behaved with Natsu, and it felt good for Lyon to see her shaking off the effects of that unpleasant confrontation.

"Sounds good to me," she agreed. Then she paused, red darkening her cheeks slightly. "Um… afterward… can you help me with picking out my gear, after all? I know what to look for, generally speaking, but I'm not entirely positive that I know which stuff is high quality or not. My childhood memories are probably not super reliable on this topic, to be honest. And I would really appreciate your input."

"Yeah," Lyon said, though he knew it would drastically shorten the amount of time he would have to prepare himself, what with the train ride home he still needed to take. For some reason, though, he didn't think that either one of them wanted to be alone at the moment. And he was willing to roll with that instinct for the time being.

He was certain they'd get sick of each other's company by the time this job was over, but for now he was content to spend this casual time with Lucy.