I really hope you like this one and I hope to write a holiday one-shot for tomorrow! Let me know what you think!

Natsu's eye twitched as he tried to focus on the board and ignore the conversation going on behind him. Some guy wouldn't shut up, continuing a one way conversation with someone who obviously didn't want to talk to him. Eventually he couldn't even hear what the teacher was saying and he snapped around, staring at the kid ready to yell but when he looked at the girl he was bothering, his words faltered in his mouth.

She was beautiful, I mean drop dead gorgeous with big brown eyes and perfect blonde hair pulled back in a ponytail. Whoever she was must've been new because Natsu had never seen her before but before Natsu could even process his thoughts, he was snapped back to reality by the kids gratingly annoying voice.

"So why won't you talk to me, huh? I just want to be friends!" He said even as he placed a hand on her back, she ignored him shoving off his hand. "Come on, don't be so cold!" His hand moved downwards and Natsu's hand twitched and landed in the kids face.

"What the hell!?" He screamed holding his nose as blood spurted from it.

"Mr. Dragneel!" Their teacher, Gildarts, shouted. "Principal's office now!"

Natsu stood up and trudged out, catching one more glimpse of Lucy before he left. Later, after he got chewed out by the principal for a good half hour, he arrived back in the class just as it ended. He grabbed his stuff but looked over at the girl who was also packing up. Gildarts left the room with the rest of the kids who poured out leaving the two of them alone. Natsu walked up to her, meaning to say something when she glanced up at him but got lost when his eye caught hers.

Upon closer inspection, Natsu discovered that Lucy's eyes weren't simply brown. He leaned forward, finding them to be a deep mysterious mocha that drew him in even as she fell back when his nose bumped hers. She dropped to the floor, looking up at him with fear and confusion. "What're you doing?" She asked softly.

Natsu went bright red, started stuttering and ran a hand through the back of his hair. He couldn't even get out a word before she rolled her eyes, got up and walked away. She stopped in the doorway, looked at him and muttered "Thank you." before dashing out. By the time he gathered himself enough to speak, she was gone and had already disappeared into the chaos of the school's halls and Natsu's interest in the girl grew.

At lunch, Natsu's mind kept wandering and he couldn't get her out of his head until Gray slapped him in the face. "HEY! Ice princess, what the hell?!"

"You're spacing, flame brain. I didn't want you to drool."

Natsu leaned in to land a punch on Gray's head but his fist was stopped by a particularly tight hand. Erza stared down at him menacingly and he quivered in his shoes. "Sorry…" He muttered. "I was just thinking about this girl…" Gray raised his eyebrows at Natsu teasingly. "Shaddup!"

"So who is she?"

"No idea, she's in my English class, blonde hair, brown eyes, really quiet."
"Oh… her." Gray said, looking disgusted.

"What!? Who is she?"

"Seriously?" Gray looked at him but Natsu's confusion only grew. "You really are an idiot. Natsu she's the school freak! Has been since like kindergarten."
"What!?" Natsu's eyes grew wide but memories flashed through his mind and he realized why she looked familiar. It's because she wasn't new, she'd gone to school with them forever but he'd never really noticed her. She always carried a book and rushed from class to class like the hallways would kill her if she didn't get out of them as quickly as she could and everything made sense again.

"Uhh, Natsu?" Gray said, waving a hand in front of Natsu's face. "Seriously, maybe there really isn't anything up there."

Natsu ignored his comment and as soon as the lunch bell rang, he ran out in search of her again with no luck. It wasn't until after school when he finally remembered her name. Lucy echoed through his mind and for the next week it was all he could think about.

He searched for her in the halls and tried to work up the courage to talk to her in English but failed for several days straight. It wasn't until Friday, when Gildarts left the room that something finally happened. The kid that he'd punched had gathered some friends but they didn't come after Natsu. They went after Lucy, bothering her relentlessly.

She sat there, taking their ruthless comments about her life and body. They spat rumors around the room and Natsu watched unsure of what to do until he saw a tear roll right down Lucy's cheek.

"What's your deal, bitch? Why do you think you're so much better than everyone else that you don't have to talk to us?" One kid shot at her, getting right up in her face.

Finally, Lucy snapped and everyone within a ten foot radius flinched when she slammed down her pencil. "Fine!" She yelled, staring at the kids. "You want to know "my deal"? Here's my deal: I lost my mother at age 6 when I came home to find her laying in the middle of the street. I was 6 years old when I watched the life bleed out of my mom and no one had bothered to help her! I have an abusive workaholic father who couldn't give less of a damn about his only child, and I've never had a friend before, for eighteen years of my life I've never had a best friend because nobody likes me! I've been depressed since second grade and I've wanted to kill myself since fourth"

Her eyes snapped to every single person who dared to look at her. Every Time someone looked into her eyes, you could see them shrink back, see the blood drain out of their face and the will to live disappear from their body. Her eyes were unforgiving to any that dared challenge the newly emerged beast and the kids who started it all looked like they wanted to delete themselves from existence at that very moment.

But Lucy raged on even though she already stolen every bit of life the room had to offer. "And yeah, my life may not be the worst out there but I'd say that it's pretty damn shitty to me so the next time you decide that it would be fun to pick on someone like me, remember this moment! Remember that silence holds a shit ton of secrets that you couldn't understand in your wildest dreams…" Lucy's fury faded, leaving tear streaks down her milky, red cheeks. As the room stared at her, she clamped a hand over her mouth like she couldn't believe those words had just come out of her mouth. Then she snatched her belongings and sprinted from the room almost tripping twice before she made it out the door and down the hall.

One kid had the audacity to laugh which made Natsu rip himself from his seat, stalk over to the kid and grab his shirt. Natsu lifted the kid from his seat, tearing the fabric of his shirt as he did so. "You think that's funny? Huh?" He screamed, pointing at the door where Lucy had exited.

The kid gulped, shaking his head furiously as he met Natsu eye to eye, seeing the fire that flowed through him. Natsu dropped the kid in disgust, kicking a chair over as he dashed out of the room after Lucy.

He bolted down the hall, searching for her even as she seemed to have disappeared. Eventually he burst through the back doors of the school and found her curled up in the alleyway behind it. When she heard his footsteps, she craned her neck to see who it was and at the sight of his obnoxiously pink hair, she turned away again, ducking her head and putting her arms over it.

"Go away…" Lucy muttered, voice muffled by her hands.

Natsu paused a second, gazing at her crumpled form with pity. Guilt had stabbed him in the heart when he thought about all the times he'd ignored her. Everytime that he'd seen her get shoved down in the halls, whenever her books spilled to the floor and everyone laughed but nobody helped. He'd laughed along with them, seeing her but never really seeing her, until now. "No, I'm not going anywhere…" He said softly.

Her head whipped around again and Natsu could see the fire again, blazing in her eyes. It terrified him, she terrified him, but he continued to walk towards her. "It's not like you've ever noticed me before! You're Natsu Dragneel, Magnolia High's golden boy, the star who's perfect at every goddamn thing you do! And look at me, I'm invisible! My superpower is not being seen because no one ever actually wants to see me! I'm a bother to my own father, a nuisance to everyone I've ever met, so why do you all of a sudden want to talk to me? Huh? Why is it that only now, when someone is acting like a dick to me, that you want to help? Want to be my friend? Newsflash for you buddy… no one wants to be my friend or they'd be laughed out of town! So just get out of here, Dragneel! Leave me to my goddamn misery already!"

He stood right next to her now and Natsu knelt down, shaking his head at her demands. Her eyes shone with fear and anger when he reached a hand out and to his shock and ultimate terror, he saw her flinch. Natsu yanked back his hand when he saw how scared she really was of him and when he put her previous raging words from the classroom with it, his eye began to twitch from rage when he realized that her father wasn't just a workaholic. It made him want to track down the asshole and beat him bloody but the tears in Lucy's eyes put out the fire almost as quickly as it started because she needed him here more than he needed to be somewhere else, avenging her.

Natsu sat down and crossed his legs, one over the other and he folded his hands in his lap. Her eyes bore into his soul and he couldn't handle it, ultimately shifting his gaze to the ground before she moved her head again, giving her the back of it as she tried to curl up into an even tighter ball against the wall. "Lucy…" He mumbled. "I… I know I haven't been… a… a friend to you before. But… I regret all of my actions…"

"Ooo regret…" She replied snidely. "Because that makes up for years of ignoring me and treating me like I don't exist… You know apologies can't make everything better! An apology is deception in a nice package… and words are only things that we use to get what we want… So what I'm wondering is… what the hell do you want?"

Natsu sat there stunned by her fierce words. "I… I just… want to be your friend."

"That's a first…" She snorted.

"Okay just stop it!" He burst out. She craned her neck again to look at him and Natsu tried to ignore the look on her face that told him, she'd expected him to burst out. "I just… I mean stop talking about yourself like that. Like you don't matter! Because that's bullshit, Lucy, bullshit!"

This time Lucy shifted her body fully so that all of her faced him and she stared at him shocked but also suspicious. "And how the hell would you know that? You basically didn't know I existed until a week ago!"
"And then I met you…" He replied his voice soft and his eyes genuinely shining. The shock on Lucy's face grew and she looked like she might cry again. "Lucy, I ignored you for so long without even knowing what I was missing out on. And that was a huge mistake because now that I know you even a tiny bit, all I want to do is get to know you even more!"

Lucy scoffed.

"It's true!" Natsu proclaimed, this time he reached out but she didn't flinch and he took her hands in his. "I really really mean it, Luce. All I want to do, is be your friend."

Lucy's huge brown eyes filled with tears and the wall she built up inside of her shattered. She collapsed in his arms sobbing and unsure of what else to do, Natsu simply held her. Lucy let out everything that she'd taken in but never released and let the waterworks loose. When the tears finally stopped, Natsu whispered something that nearly made them start right back up again.

"You said you didn't have a best friend for nearly 18 years of your life right? Well guess what? Now you have me." And he damn well meant it.