Lucy woke up first, and went running. Whether she liked it or not, having four babies took a certain toll on the female body and it took a lot of work to get herself back into shape. That wasn't to say it was impossible, but she'd gained and lost ridiculous amount of weight, carried four children, and gone through the grotesque transformation of her pelvis and hips.

When she got home, she showered and got on the scale and found that she'd successfully achieved her pre-baby weight after six months.

Lucy was disappointed that her body was no longer proportioned like it was back then, but eagerly went downstairs and took out a pair of pink pants from the storage closet that practically made Laxus whine back in the day.

She tried the traditional method first, but it was hard to even pull them up, so she implemented the 'hopping' strategy and managed to get her legs all the way in the pants.

The blonde took a deep breath, stood up as tall as possible, and tried to fasten the button.

These pants had nothing to do with the S-Class trials, but she still found them a challenge.

The button fastened, and then broke off and went flying across the room until it bounced off the wall right above where her two oldest children were silently watching this bizarre behavior their mother was displaying.

Yuri and Layla had been eating cereal with Raijin in groggy silence until their mother came in and went into the closet for her 'skinny' clothes.

They looked at her as if she'd grown three heads, cut one off, and eaten it in front of them.

Layla repeated to her what Lucy told her children when they outsized their clothes.

"Uh-oh, looks like you need bigger pants, Mama!"

Lucy's eyebrow twitched, but when she stood up to make what she felt would be a very witty retort to the three year old, the seat of her pants ripped and Layla broke out into giggles.

Yuri did not laugh, because as it turned out, Yuri really didn't have the best sense of humor. He was a sweet but very serious boy. He took everything literally but could be playful at times; hyperbole was his sister's first language. Listening to them trying to describe the same thing was nothing short of glorious to their mother.

Layla was a little tattletale, and Lucy knew Layla was going to tell Daddy she saw Mommy split the seat of her pants.

Peeling the offending garment off with great effort, she put her yoga pants back on and said, "Layla, what on earth are you doing up at seven in the morning on a Saturday? You're either dead asleep or in my bed by this time."

"I was thinking about my hobby."

It had been three weeks since Layla informed her parents that she needed a 'hobby,' although they still weren't sure where she'd picked up this idea. With the help of her parents, she became member of a baby gymnastics class and spent most of her days learning magic and trying to 'go upside down.'

As if on cue, Laxus came lumbering down the stairs, half-asleep with a baby on each hip. "We're waking up early today?"

He looked at the pants on the floor and one eyebrow rose in question. "Babe, seriously?"

"Don't talk to me right now. It's your fault," she growled.

Laxus put the babies down on the living room floor and watched them start crawling toward their older siblings. Anna got to them first, but decided to put her little fists in the tiger's fur and giggle uncontrollably. Mavis followed, but got distracted along the way and stopped to chew on the coffee table.

Layla got her attention and she crawled over to where the rest of the kids were on the tiger's big bed. "This way, no chewing. Tables aren't food."

Yuri asked, "Mommy are you mad?"

"No!"

The boy tensed, because he was quite certain she was annoyed. "When I'm sad or mad, you know what makes me happy again?"

And she thought he was about to have a sweet moment…

"What, baby?"

"Fighting. And then bacon!"

Lucy wasn't sure which was worse: her daughter giggling at the fact she couldn't fit in her pants or her son telling her she'd feel better about it if she hit somebody and ate some bacon.

Either way, having her son advise her she'd feel better about not being able to fit into her pants after eating some bacon was sad, but true.

The parents went on to the kitchen to prepare a proper breakfast for the kids and while Lucy was stirring batter for waffles, she felt her husband give her butt a good squeeze.

"Don't touch me."

Laxus looked over his shoulder and found his children were all distracted by one another in the living room, which meant he could safely grope his wife during her cooking. "C'mon, babe. Just get rid of that stuff already."

"Why can't I get back into those pants?"

Her husband rolled his eyes as he prepared their coffee to brew. "You're back in shape."

"Yeah, and it's a different shape. I don't know if you noticed or not!" she sarcastically bit back.

Her husband shrugged. "It has no bearing on your performance as a wizard or an athlete or a fighter. If anything, a lower center of gravity is an advantage."

Lucy responded to this comment by punching him in the stomach. "How's that for an advantage?"

"So feisty. I can't resist a girl with big hips and a bad attitude."

She glared at him and said, "There are moments when I look at you, and I listen to you, and I wonder why I married you."

"And then there are moments I fuck you until all you can do is lay there and call my name. Then what?"

She grinned at him and his reference to the night before, when they'd had a notably wonderful time in bed. If he went more than a couple of days, he was always a monster when he finally got it and she loved him like that: rough, powerful, and demanding.

As she cooked, he had her half convinced to join him upstairs after breakfast when they were interrupted.

The doorbell rang, and Lucy answered it and found Natsu with two little boys, Iggy and Sam.

"Mirajane had her baby last night," he said as Lucy opened the door. "Soo...Lisanna had promised to watch Sam and uhhh, you want to watch a couple of extra dragons? I have to catch the train and Lisanna wants to stay with Mirajane today."

Lucy nodded. "How are mom and baby?"

Natsu said, "She's great. She kind of...hurt Freed, but he'll be okay. The baby's good. He looks...imagine if Elfman was a really big baby and his hair was the same color as mint chocolate chip ice cream. That's Henry Freed Justine, the Third. Kid doesn't look like Mira. Doesn't look like Freed much. Just: Elfman."

Iggy smiled. "Uncle Elf is a man!"

The pink-haired dragonslayer grimaced. "...and that's why Elfman can't babysit anymore."

The white-haired, green-eyed three-year-old echoed, "Babysitting is a man!"

"If you can figure out how to make him stop that, I'll buy you some chocolate," Natsu added.

"Chocolate is a man!"

Lucy's expression fell. "I'm sure that got old really fast."

Natsu grinned. "You have no idea."

Elfman and Evergreen were the couple that decided not to have kids. They were very involved with Iggy and all the Fairy Tail babies, but had no desire to have their own. Instead, they traveled, went on fine vacations, and had a house filled with breakable items and white carpet.

Once Lucy had all the kids fed and situated, she left to train, and left Laxus with a houseful of kids he'd never agreed to watch on a day he'd proclaimed was his 'day off.' This was his punishment because she couldn't fit in her pants, and he knew it. He attempted to pawn them all off on Chelia and Makarov, but they were already gone to 'take care of some business,' which led Laxus to wonder why they had a nanny at all.

It was generally a disaster for all the little dragon boys to be together indoors, as something would end up burned up, fried with electricity, or full of little metal needles. He sent all the kids outside to the backyard, so they'd run around like maniacs until they fell asleep and all he had to do was supply juice and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. In that respect, they were fairly easy to watch.

Laxus put Mavis and Anna on a big blanket under a tree by his hammock, thoroughly threatened the boys about playing rough near said blanket, and set them free.

The twins at crawling age had to be watched more carefully than the others as they moved amazingly fast and usually in separate directions.

Anna wanted to be snuggled and made her way straight to her father and held her arms up, demanding his attention.

Mavis wanted to join the little dragons' mayhem, and Laxus intercepted her and brought her back to the hammock.

Layla was doing a handstand as she was amazingly adept in her 'hobby,' which went by the formal name of 'gymnastics' but was actually 'how to terrify your father into thinking you've broken your neck six times a day at a minimum.'

He overheard Iggy shout, "Fire is a man!"

Layla yelled, "Fire's not a man!"

"Fire is a man!"

"You're stupid!"

"Stupid is a man!"

"That's right men are stupid!"

The fact that Layla was literally upside down while she had this shouting match with Iggy just made Laxus shake his head. Kids were so incredibly strange at times, but then again, that's part of what made them so amusing. He was happy to see Layla grow into ambition and become more confident as she'd been such a timid toddler.

Yuri was the undisputed king of the baby dragons, because he was oldest and the biggest. He tolerated no nonsense from the younger boys but would take his sister's nonsense any day of the week. That made Layla the most powerful member of the group although Sam and Iggy would generally go along with whatever she wanted regardless of whether or not Yuri was around.

Sam and Iggy had not yet realized they'd fallen victim to male nature in which they did not want the cute girl to pay more attention to other male.

Iggy was the friendly, sweet one. Sam tried to command Layla's attention by annoying her.

Yuri disapproved of both because it had been ingrained into him since Layla was born to keep little boys from bothering her.

Laxus let them play until noon, administered a round of juice and sandwiches, put the babies down for a nap under the care of the nanny who had arrived back home, and then settled back into his hammock with a beer.

It was probably his fault for not keeping eagle eyes on the boys, but as he lay half asleep, little whispers and laughs were had, and a plan was hatched.

The boys ambushed him and jumped onto the hammock simultaneously, flipping Laxus onto the ground to the sounds of laughter. And then they ran as he sat up and looked at his spilled beer and wondered what the hell just happened.

Laxus sighed deeply.

The boys were running and laughing when a bolt of lightning struck directly in front of them and scared Iggy and Sam. Yuri tried to eat it on the other hand, having discovered that his father's lightning was tasty. Laxus considered chasing them down and scaring them further, but instead, just got a new beer and returned to the hammock. There was a degree of chaos they simply had to accept with a bunch of dragon boys so close in age.

The hammock rocked again and he nearly zapped the person responsible until he realized Layla had climbed into it.

"Look, Daddy!"

She flipped off the edge of the hammock onto her head. "Oof! I'll get it soon!"

"Don't give up. I don't have ulcers yet."

"Can you do a backflip?" she asked.

Laxus nodded. "I'm actually kind of athletic, you know?"

Layla didn't seem to believe this at all.

"What do you think?"

"You look big and clumsy."

Normally, he didn't care what anybody thought about him. It was different with his daughter. A father wants his daughter to think well of him, so he rolled out of the hammock while she clenched her fingers in the netting to stay in it.

"Big and clumsy?"

He jumped and did a backflip just to prove her wrong, but didn't put his beer down first so when he landed he found a very cross little face dripping with beer.

"...oops. Baby…"

The precocious three-year-old pointed at him, eyebrow twitching just like her mother's and said, "Don't call me baby!"

She ran inside and slammed the door, undoubtedly to run to her great grandfather. Laxus was sure this would ultimately end with Lucy angrily asking him why he threw beer on their baby, because Layla had an amazing way of retelling stories with untold amounts of exaggeration.

He shrugged and looked up and found the little boys decided to build a campfire in the backyard.

"Boys, no fires," he called, although he wasn't sure why he had to say it in the first place. He wondered what went on in their little minds to arrive at the grand conclusion that they needed to set the backyard on fire.

They were disappointed by this, and Laxus didn't bother explaining why a group of preschool age boys weren't allowed to set fires in the backyard because, he was an adult and grownups didn't have to offer the little people any explanations. He simply left them to their disappointment, and it was satisfying to him.

When Lucy came home from training, Laxus had successfully gotten all of the little ones to take a nap at the same time. This could be considered masterful parenting at its best, and his skills as a father never failed to surprise her.

There were moments where she couldn't help but appreciate what an excellent husband and father grown to become. They had a good family, and they'd been the happiest couple she'd ever known. He still had a thousand habits that annoyed her and had become amazingly adept at getting on her nerves, but she still felt so in love with him after years of marriage and four adorable little babies.

She groaned when she moved one arm and found it sore and he looked up, "You okay?"

She nodded. "Just a bit tender in places, that's all."

"You want me to a run a hot bath?"

Lucy looked down at the dragons sleeping on blankets all over the living room floor. "You can handle them?"

"As you can see, they are handled," he replied.

Lucy accepted his offer and as she sank under the bubbles afterward, she was grateful she had a husband who would do so much extra so she could train and get ready for her S-Class exam. She'd wanted to become S-Class since she was seventeen, and Natsu and Gray made it. But Gray didn't have babies yet and Natsu didn't have to give birth to the one he had.

She didn't regret it.

She loved her family and she'd do it all over again.

When she was drying off and dressing, she heard yelling downstairs and knew the little dragons had awoken, probably to wrestle and eat. She was glad that they had each other, since they weren't entirely 'normal.' Yuri, Sam, and Iggy needed each other to roll around with and bite and do little dragon things with. She tried to imagine how they'd be as teenagers sometimes and couldn't decide whether to be worried or amused.

As she made her way downstairs, she stopped to check in on the twins and found Loke kneeling on the floor in front of Anna, who was standing up thanks to his hands holding her up and the fact she was pulling on his tie.

"This is rare. You usually hide from the kids," she said.

Loke answered, "I'm not human. They are babies of another species."

"How are celestial spirits born anyway?"

"You don't want to know," Loke replied.

"I do. I'm curious now. Were you a little boy at one point?"

"No, Lucy. Let's move on to a different subject," the spirit suggested.

Mavis was chewing on a teething ring in her crib, watching this unfold.

Loke pointed at her. "She bit me."

Lucy smiled. "Loke, she's got dragon in her and I think all of them went through a biting phase. What are you doing, anyway? I don't mind you being around the kids if you want but it's just out of the ordinary for you."

Anna seemed comfortable with him, like this wasn't the first time he'd been around. She seemed to like him which was a relief for Lucy as all the rest of her kids gave Loke and all the other spirits besides Aquarius so much grief.

The Dreyar babies both loved and feared the mermaid.

Loke said, "I had a conversation with the Celestial Spirit King about Anna."

"That's kind of a scary thing to tell a parent," the blonde replied.

He explained, "An immortals, we have a different perspective on matters that happen in this world. When one threat is removed, another one grows in its place. I can't give you any specifics, but there's already signs of trouble brewing. It's like a bad seed and when it grows up and bears fruit, your world is going to be in trouble again."

"What do we do?" she quickly asked, feeling a surge of panic.

Loke smiled at her a bit gently. "It's not something you have to do. It's a concern for the next generation. You already know which one of your children has inherited your ability like you inherited it from your mother, so it shouldn't be a surprise that we know too. I'm just making sure she is able to grow up knowing and trusting me."

Lucy smiled back. "I'm not even really sure about the best way to teach her."

"Start her off small. A Canis Minor key, maybe. When she gets closer to being an adult, I'd like to be the first. I can come through without using her magic, so I'd be able to help protect her when she starts going on jobs and training. As you know, celestial wizards are particularly likely to be kidnapped due to the nature of their powers," he said.

The blonde tapped on her chin and said, "Let me think. Right, I do seem to remember that phase of my teen years where I was kidnapped every other week as part of someone's mad, idiotic scheme."

"It's normal for our masters. Miss Anna will have an easier time because she has a mother and father that are fiercely powerful and when that time in her life comes, three powerful siblings too. I believe your oldest will probably be a good protector for his gifted sisters," he answered.

Lucy smiled. "My baby boy is a white knight for sure."

"He bites me too."

"Still? I'll have a talk with him about that," she said.

The wizard was at peace with all this as she'd been considering it for quite some time. Realistically, she planned on beginning to pass her gold keys on when Anna was around twelve, and perhaps add another one every year so she would be able to master them all and establish relationships with them one by one if Anna chose to take the path of magic in life.

Downstairs, Laxus was pleased when Levy and Lisanna came to claim their little boys and moved on to the next order of business, which was dinner. Between running the guild, four kids, and Lucy's training, he'd been doing quite a bit more than normal, but he wanted to make sure she was able to pass her S-Class exams because he knew it was really important to her.

Layla was with Makarov, being spoiled as always, which left Laxus and his son in the kitchen.

Yuri sat on the edge of the counter and watched with glee as his father started to cook. "I'm so hungry."

"You're always hungry. I feel like you're going to expensive to feed when you get a little bigger," he said.

"It's cause I'm growing so I can be bigger than you," he happily replied.

Laxus stirred boiling macaroni. "I doubt it. You might be Gams' size."

"I'm already Gams' size."

"How's your little girlfriend?"

Yuri answered, "She's not my girlfriend. She's my friend, and she is a girl."

"Oh? Well, I saw at the park her holding hands with a boy," Laxus teased.

Yuri's face became unreadable. "...I don't believe you. Lilia would never hold hands with another boy."

Laxus forgot about his macaroni for a moment and one brow rose. "She holds hands with you?"

"Maybe once. She was sad, Dad. She was crying cause she misses her dad. I gave her a hug. She said I squeezed her too hard and kicked me. Then she held my hand," he said.

Yuri was lovably rough with his little friend, but for all his assorted mishaps, the little girl seemed to stay around him whenever possible. She'd been over for a few playdates so far and seemed to follow Yuri around while still fussing at him for being a little brute. He'd won her strange little heart by being sweet and wooing her with his pet tiger and all was well.

Layla was gradually warming up to the idea that her brother could have a girl who was also a friend, as Yuri explained it.

"Well, if she's only your friend who is a girl, and not your girlfriend, you have no reason to be upset if she holds hands with all the boys at the park," his father pressed.

Yuri looked up at him and said, "Dad?"

"What."

"Grow up."

Laxus couldn't help but laugh, "...says my four-year-old son while I make him macaroni and chicken nuggets and we discuss preschool drama about his girlfriend."

Yuri asked, "Did you ever have a girlfriend?"

This question caused his father to pause and wonder what exactly Yuri thought and understood about the nature of their family. "Your mom was my girlfriend. She still is, really."

"Before I was born?"

Laxus nodded. "I met your mom a long time ago. She joined Fairy Tail. She used to go on jobs with Natsu and Gray all the time. She became my girlfriend, and then we decided to get married and raise a family. Then you were born a while after that."

Lucy came in and gave her husband a hug, and bent down to kiss Yuri on the forehead as he sat on the counter. "Did you guys have a good day?"

"Dad says you're his girlfriend."

The blonde smiled at how cute this was, as it seemed like Yuri had a hard time bending his mind around the idea. She stood on her tiptoes and Laxus bent down to give her a quick kiss on the lips. "He's my boyfriend for sure."

Yuri scowled at the sight of his parents kissing.

"What's that face for?" his mother asked.

The preschooler answered, "When you guys kiss...it's gross."

Laxus said, "Just wait until you find out how you got here."

Yuri didn't even hear this as he'd already jumped off the counter and ran to the living room to play with his toys and his tiger.

He was sitting there surrounded by all his toys when he spoke to the tiger.

"She's not my girlfriend."

Please Review!

Special thanks to Yed01, Edelweisswhitetiger, pandorababe, wallace11, kurahieiritr JIO, megumiyoung, justloverly, sexyvampires4all, yumeyumi1986, gaia kame, xxshyxx, mewhee89, arouraleona, lunastarlady, w1n6s-0f-f1r3, thornado, tiernank, kennedydreyar, thealicehuntt, helenezahl, deltacaraman, lakeya2700, boyceashlee, katiekat2001, and andy24amk for reviewing!

AN: Next chapter will be the S-Class exam and then there's going to be a time skip :D