Well into the preparations for the final examinations, Natsu and Lucy still constantly think about each other. But as the distance between the two of them gradually grow closer, the date of the final examinations draws nearer. With only a week left until then, it becomes a trying time for Natsu as he struggles to catch up.

~ Recharge ~

It has been approximately a month since the night of the meteor shower. Certainly the wait was not easy for the impatient Natsu, but as time passed, he found himself growing in patience. On the other hand, Lucy found herself becoming increasingly troubled as each day went by. She kept thinking about him yet she was no closer to arriving at an answer today than she was a month ago. She really didn't know what to do.

The day began like any other day for Lucy. It was normal, routine – boring. Wednesdays for the girl always started with Physical Education, dampening her mood on midweek mornings. It's not that she hated PE; she just didn't like anything about it. And it didn't help that none of her friends shared the same period as her for PE.

The blonde sighed as she headed for the girls' changing room with her bag. Lucy found her locker near the corner of the room and began changing. She got into her plain white T-shirt, but when she unfolded the bottoms, she realized she had grabbed the wrong set from the drawers back at home. Much to her horror, they weren't track pants but shorts!

Shorts! Her jaw dropped. In the beginning of winter!? She was daunted by that thought. The winds had picked up and the temperature had really begun to drop; she couldn't even stand wearing miniskirts without leggings nowadays, let alone shorts!

Ugh… All of a sudden, there was a churning in her lower abdomen and a sense of foreboding fell over her. Yes, unfortunately for Lucy, it was that time of the month again. She feared that her cramps were about to kick in and quickly decided to skip PE. Hastily pulling on her shorts and shrugging on her track jacket, the girl shut her lockers with an unintentional slam. She locked it, slipped the key into the pocket of her jacket and turned on her heel. She felt multiple pairs of eyes on her as she walked out of the exit in her short shorts. They must've thought she was crazy but she couldn't care less about them now. With both hands in the pockets of her jacket, she subtly clutched the dull ache at the area below her stomach as she walked briskly in the direction of the school nurse office.

Natsu Dragneel yawned while he made his way to his first class of the day. He was rather sleep-deprived lately because his grandfather, Master Makarov, had found him a tutor. It turned out the old man had a friend who was a chemist, Porlyusica. The woman was as old as Makarov himself, which – Natsu thought – was as ancient as a dinosaur, but her mind had remained sharp over the years and she drilled him mercilessly during their tuition sessions.

As a result, the pink-head lost a couple of hours of sleep each night, and this morning, he overslept, causing him to miss his daily walk to school with Lucy. All the studying really drained him; Even now, he was already 10 minutes late but he simply wasn't motivated enough to pick up his pace. The pink-haired boy ruffled his bedhead as he pushed the exit doors open. His first class was in the next building. Walking along a sheltered link way outdoors, he noticed that he was passing by the school gymnasium and his footsteps slowed to a halt.

Lucy has PE on this morning, he recalled. Absentmindedly, he wondered whether the girl would be there right now. Before he knew it, his feet had wandered over to the entrance of the gym.

Standing by the door, half obstructing the doorway, he looked into the large hall. His eyes swept across the vast space but did not find the girl anywhere. He wasn't surprised though for he knew how she liked to skip PE from time to time.

Did she go to the library again? He wondered and then sighed. He wished the two of them had more common classes, especially PE. If the two of them had the same timeslot for PE, he would never let her ditch and they would have so much fun together, he would've made sure of it.

"Excuse me!" A shout from behind snapped Natsu out of his daze and he reflexively turned around. There was a guy trying to wheel a trolley of volleyballs into the gym.

"Whoops, sorry." Natsu stepped backwards into the gym and then stood to the side. His eyes followed the guy as he wheeled along with the volleyballs.

Volleyball huh… His mind drifted off again as it conjured up memories from the school trip when he played beach volleyball with Lucy, Metal Face and Levy. Remembering the way Lucy moved on the sand, he wondered. It's not like she's not fit either, so why does she ditch PE?

Somehow managing to blend in with the walls, the guy stood pondering over that question as he inattentively watched them set up the hall for a mini volleyball tournament.

Ah–! A thought occurred to him. But just as that thought hit him, so did a stray ball from a botched practice serve. Completely caught off guard from having been too deep in thought, Natsu found himself stumbling backwards, hitting the back of his head against the wall before falling onto the floor. If this had happened to anyone else but him, he probably would've found it comedic.

The pink-head sat up, holding his head to control the slight dizziness. Two guys had come over to help him get to his feet, one apologizing profusely while another asked if he was okay.

"I'm fine," Natsu answered, brushing them off. Barely regaining his balance, he turned to leave.

After a couple of uncertain steps, he tripped over the ledge of the entrance and fell to the rough ground on his knees. Clearly, the lack of sleep was affecting him more than he was aware. The two guys who'd accidentally hit him with the volleyball earlier saw and immediately ran out to help Natsu.

"Dude, are you alright?" One of them asked.

"Uh, you wanna go to the nurse?" The other said.

"No, I'm ok," Natsu replied. He got up once more with their help and, this time, he steadied himself before moving.

"You should really go to the nurse," the second guy repeated in a more stern tone.

"Err… I'll think about it." Anxious to get out of there, Natsu left it at that and quickly walked off. As he returned to his original path, he realized he must be extremely late by now so he hastened his steps, only to find that there was a hindering pain at one of his knees. He looked down to see a slit across the right knee of his pants where his knee had been scraped and was now bleeding.

Okay. Crap. He resigned to fate and made a U-turn for the previous building, heading for the school nurse office.

Fast asleep and lightly snoring in one of the beds at the nurse's office was Lucy Heartfilia. She had correctly predicted the imminent bout of cramps. After finding a hot water bottle, the girl drew the curtain around one of the four beds before curling up under the covers. The sound of the door sliding open disturbed but did not fully wake her. The thud of footsteps walking over to the medical cabinet was followed by the clamoring of items within it as someone rummaged through the bottles roughly.

"Sheesh, where do they keep the bandages?" A low voice muttered to himself and Lucy eventually stirred from her light slumber.

Stretching lazily, tears formed at the corner of her eyes from yawning. She blinked away the sleep and stared at the plainness of the dull curtain as she sorted out her memories.

Oh right, I'm in the nurse's office, she remembered.

The sound of drawers opening and shutting ensued in the background, alerting Lucy to the presence of someone else in the room.

"Ah-hah! There you are!" A voice she knew all too well exclaimed.

"Natsu?" She automatically called out.

"Huh?"

Next thing she knew, a hand wrenched wide the curtain around the bed and there standing at the foot of the bed was the pink-haired teen, holding a roll of gauze.

"Lucy!" His face split into a wide smile upon seeing her, but as soon as he realized where they were, the smile dropped. "Why are you here? Did you get hurt?"

"No." She sat up. "No, I didn't," she said again to reassure him.

Natsu frowned. "Then why are you here?"

"Errr… Well…" She awkwardly averted her eyes, trying to decide on the right words to say. "I was just feeling unwell," she said softly with a bashful smile and a slight shrug.

"Oh, I see," Natsu simply accepted that, and Lucy thanked the stars that he did not ask any further.

"What happened to you?" She spotted the gash at his right knee.

"…tripped and fell," he mumbled.

Lucy raised an eyebrow, noting how unusual it was for Natsu to even trip, let alone fall, but decided not to remark on that for now. Instead she asked, "Are you just going to bandage it up?"

"Yeah. What else?"

The girl shook her blond head in disapproval. Throwing her covers off and leaving the hot water bottle behind, she got out of bed.

"Sit," she ordered.

"What?"

"Just sit," she said as she walked over to the medicinal cabinet.

Obeying her command, he sat on the bed. "Are you supposed to be out of bed?" He watched as she scanned the shelves with her eyes, searching for something.

"Sure," Lucy absently responded. She found what she was looking for and retrieved the bottle from behind the glass.

Natsu watched her every move intently, mostly out of curiosity, as she dug around the drawers for some gauze pads. She then rolled the black office chair over and sat facing him such that their knees were almost touching. She sprayed some antiseptic onto the gauze pad before tossing the bottle and the extra gauze pads onto her lap. The boy found himself staring at the crown of her golden head when she leaned forward to clean his bloody cut.

"Geez, how did you even manage to get injured like this?" She asked.

Albeit a little embarrassed, he still recounted the events to her, how he went to the gym to spot her, got hit in the head with a ball, and tripped over the ledge right as he was about to leave.

Done with the cleaning, the girl looked up at him, humor swimming in her dark hazel eyes upon hearing his story. "Are you an idiot or something?" She snorted.

"What about you?" He retorted. "Since when do people wear shorts in winter?"

"Stop looking at my legs, you perv!" She exclaimed out of embarrassment. Lucy was surprised he even noticed her wearing shorts.

"I wasn't looking!"

"Roll up your pants," she changed the topic. "I'm gonna bandage your knee."

He did as he was told and watched as her small hands wound the gauze round and round.

"There, all done," she looked up with a smile.

"Thanks."

Lucy stood to her feet and went to return the items back to their original places. It was only after she'd finished doing so when she realized that he was being too quiet compared to usual. Sensing that he was a little off, she asked, "Is everything alright?"

"Yeah," he answered with a tinge of surprise in his tone. "Why wouldn't it be?"

"Hmm… For some reason, you're being a little weird…"

"You're the weird one," he rebutted. "You're just imagining things."

"But, getting hit in the head by a ball and then tripping and falling… that's totally not like you," she pressed on.

"Can't be helped right! I was thinking about something!"

"What were you thinking about?"

"Hmm, I forgot already. I was probably something about how lazy you are, always skipping PE or something like that," he said.

"Hah! Getting hit by that ball serves you right then!" Lucy exclaimed in jest.

"Oi, oi…"

"Well, now that you're all fixed up, you should get back to class," she said.

"Nah, I'll go after I recharge," Natsu said with a wide smile. It had been a while since he got to spend time alone with Lucy like this. Since he had already missed half of his first class, he decided to stay.

"Hmm, I guess it's a good idea to take a nap," Lucy said, completely missing the point. "If you were more alert like you usually are, you probably would've been able to avoid that accident huh?"

"No, that's not what I meant," Natsu shook his head. He got to his feet and, in two strides, he was right in front of her.

"I'm going to hug you now," he warned so that she wouldn't complain about him 'ambushing' her later. But before she could react, Natsu had already wrapped one arm around her shoulder, one around her waist and pulled her in.

"W-Wait, Natsu!" Lucy shrieked bashfully, the pink quickly surfacing in her cheeks. "What are you doing?!"

"Recharging." Burying his nose into her hair, he drew a deep breath before letting out a heavy sigh.

His breath tickled her ear, causing her heartrate to shoot up. But in the way he just breathed, Lucy could tell that he was really burdened and fairly burnt out by all the studying, and she didn't have the heart to push him away. Also, for some reason, being enveloped in his warmth… she didn't dislike it.

Just this once, she thought to herself. Then she caved in and put her arms around him as well. The next minute was quiet and peaceful as neither of them said a word until Natsu eventually did.

"Lucy," he spoke in a soft voice.

"Hm?"

The pink-head released her from the hug so he could see her face. "If I pass the end-of-year exams, will you go out with me?"

"Eh–? That's…"

"Not go out with me as in go out with me. But I mean like, go somewhere together," he clarified.

"Oh. You mean like a date?"

"Yeah."

"Well…" She thought for a second. "Okay."

"Alright! I'm all fired up!" said Natsu, throwing an overjoyed punch into the air.

And as simple as that, he was alive once again.

The title for this chapter is kind of like a pun on where I'm at currently with my own life. Looking at the records of when I last updated, it has already been about 7 months or so. My writing has become rusty, and I think some of my followers have probably lost faith in me, but that's the least I'd expect since I went on hiatus unannounced. Nevertheless, I'm really grateful to those of you who still waited for an update as well as to those of you who kept asking me to 'please update!' And so, at last, here's a new chapter. (No, it's not going to be the last chapter I'll ever write.)

Sorry that it's kind of short for a comeback chapter but that's just how I felt the story should flow. I'll update again as soon as I find the inspiration and time to finish the next chapter. (Yes! I've already started!)

Thank you for reading & I hope you've enjoyed this chapter! ^^