Ch. 8 - Dangerous

—

Recap:

'whos natsu?' Sakimo's grey eyes were genuinely concerned. Lucy sighed.

"Well, it's now or never," she breathed.

"Natsu is… was…my closest friend. Maybe he was even closer then that…" She began.

—

The best thing about having a long talk with Sakimo is that Lucy could finish from start to end without any interruptions.

"So, basically, that's what happened," Lucy finished. She looked at Sakimo, checking for reaction. A yellowed piece of paper was handed to her.

'i think you're strong enough now, dont you wanna go back already?' it read. Lucy sighed.

"I do…" she murmured, "But I don't know if I have the guts to face them again after just leaving them so abruptly." Sakimo smiled.

'go back when you are ready.' Lucy smiled at the note and nodded, even though she knew it was going to be a long time before she would feel 'ready' enough to see Natsu, uh, the whole gang again. After all, she didn't even say goodbye.

— The next morning —

Lucy's eyes fluttered open. "Where am I…?" she mumbled. She sat up with a start. "Oh, right, I was forced into staying the night," she muttered. She looked around, seeing a passed out Sakimo splayed across the wooden bed. Lucy got up and stretched. She went outside, looking around. The sky was a light rosy pink dusted with pale clouds. The air was cold and crisp. Nonetheless, Lucy decided to go for one last swim in the river before old man winter arrived.

Emerald was still laying outside, and his ears perked up when he saw her. "Shh…" she murmured, petting his snout. "I'm just going for a swim." Emerald nuzzled her hand, a little too forcefully, causing Lucy to fall back on her bottom with a thump. Emerald seemed to laugh. "Stupid cat," she giggled good-naturedly. Lucy turned.

A couple of older villagers were up at dawn, looking surprised as they saw the blonde traverse across the village toward the river.

It was pretty cold already, so going for a swim in the river in the morning was probably not a very good idea. Lucy dived in anyway. The shock of the ice-cold water was almost frightening. Lucy swam against the current for 10 minutes or so, but when she realized she wasn't getting any warmer, she climbed up to the riverbank. She didn't bother to dry her hair, instead just drying her body and putting on her cape.

"You went swimming?" An old woman's voice broke the silence of the sleeping village. "The children stopped going for swims months ago!"

"Uh, yeah. It's kind of a daily routine thing. I'll stop during the winter, though," she assured the old lady.

The old lady's features relaxed. "Lucy, was it?" Lucy nodded. "Well, Lucy, thank you for making Rimo happier. He has been cut off from the rest of the village ever since…" The lady's voice trailed off.

"Ever since what?" Lucy prodded. The old lady's eyes met Lucy's again.

"Nothing dear. It's in the past. Run along now, and stay safe in the forest," the old lady dismissed. Lucy nodded again suspiciously before turing towards Sakimo's hut.

Sakimo was now awake, struggling to light a fire in the fireplace. "Here," Lucy smiled. "I can do it." Sakimo nodded gratefully. Seeing her wet hair, Sakimo scribbled down a note and handed it to Lucy. 'lemme cut your hair' it read.

"Uh, sorry, but no," Lucy replied bluntly. Sakimo's bottom lip jutted out. Another note was thrust in her face.

'i would advise you to. your hair gets in your face, no? is it not annoying? i'll even make it look nice. ill put on some makeup too. dark eyeliner. to make you look cool.' Sakimo pulled a good bargain. Lucy shrugged. Why not? It's not like she card how it looked anyway. There was also literally nobody in the forest to show it to as well.

20 minutes later, a shined plate was triumphantly shoved in Lucy's face. Sakimo really needed to stop this habit of shoving things into people's faces.

Lucy looked into the mirror. Lucy had to admit, she looked a lot more mature. Pretty badass too, especially with the dark makeup. "Okay, I'll admit, it looks pretty goddamn epic. You should be a makeup artist or hairdresser to something," Lucy said honestly. Sakimo looked bashful.

'no way, im not that good. here, take the rest of the eyeliner. its made out of charcoal so you can make it yourself too. just add some water to crushed charcoal and you can put it into this container,' Sakimo's note read. Lucy smiled, knowing she would never put on the eyeliner again after today.

"Okay," she murmured. Sakimo grinned and put some food into Lucy's worn canvas bag. "Where's Rimo? I wanted to say goodbye before I left again," Lucy asked. Sakimo smiled weirdly and pointed to the eastern end of the remote village. "Thanks. Goodbye Sakimo."

Lucy followed the direction that Sakimo was pointing at and found Rimo chopping up wood. She watched him for a while, and deciding not to interrupt, she turned around.

"Lucy?"

"Oh, hi Rimo," she said. He stared intently at her some a second. "What?" she questioned, suddenly feeling self conscious. "Is there something on my face?"

Rimo seemed to snap out of his trance and he replied, "Yes, actually. You look beautiful."

Lucy snorted. "Oh, give that credit to your dear sister," she snickered.

Rimo nodded. "So what brings you here?"

"I just came to say goodbye," Lucy said. Rimo looked slightly disappointed.

"You're leaving?" He asked quietly. Lucy smiled warmly.

"Yeah," she replied. "I decided I'm not done with my training just yet," she said.

"I think you're perfect already," Rimo blurted.

Lucy felt a pink tint on her cheeks. "Oh, don't be silly," she said.

"No, I mean it," he said firmly, averting his cloudy eyes. He began chopping wood again.

His words hung in the air as Lucy frantically tried to get her beating heart to slow. 'I can tame a wild beast, defeat a colossal monkey, defeat 11 men myself, and yet I get nervous when I get a nice complement? I'm seriously pathetic,' Lucy mused. Despite herself, she still thought of Natsu. For some weird reason, she thought of Natsu. Of all people, really?

"Yeah, well, uh, thank you for your hospitality," she stuttered. "You've been a great friend, Rimo."

The thwack of the wood paused. Lucy felt the atmosphere darken. "Friend?"

Lucy was confused. "Yeah…?" She said hesitantly. Rimo avoided Lucy's questioning gaze and he pushed pass her angrily. His face was emotionless and solid.

"I gotta go," he said sharply. Lucy stood there in shock as she watched Rimo's figure disappear into the village.

'What the hell? Is he PMSing or something?' Lucy thought as she ran after him.

When the got to the village, Rimo was nowhere to be found. She looked around for a while, but then decided Sakimo could tell her what was wrong with Rimo.

"Sakimo!" Lucy called, poking her head into the familiar hut. Sakimo came out of the other room. She looked confused.

"Hey, I know I said I was leaving, but something happened with Rimo. He,well, I don't know, got really mad after I said…" She ran through the situation in her head. "After I said he was a great friend," she explained. Sakimo was quiet. Suddenly, she snorted loudly before beginning her weird silent laughter thing.

"What's so funny?" Lucy demanded.

Sakimo quickly scribbled something down on a note and pressed it into Lucy's hand. it read: 'oh, lucy. do you not understand? rimo is, despite his poker faced attitude, quite a sensitive man. you may have hurt him because you called him a friend. and because he's pretty rash, he does things without thinking. he possesses strong feelings for you, you know. here, if you can't find him, theres a piece of paper on the table with a pencil that you can use to write a note. haha' Lucy sighed. She had suspected Rimo had feelings for her but also didn't expect them to be true. She walked to the table and began to write.

—

Rimo was watching Lucy leave. Hidden in an abandoned hut on the far edge of the village, he deeply regretted his actions.

Lucy was fighting with herself as she entered the forest. "You gotta go," Lucy told herself. "Don't give into your emotions," she said. "But I don't want to leave on a bad note…" she mumbled. "Dammit," she muttered as her legs promptly turned around.

"Rimo!" Lucy called. Rimo instinctively ran toward the voice calling his name.

"Ri - Oh, what the hell? You were there all along?" Lucy yelled. "Are you serious? Why the hell did I not look there?"

Rimo shuffled his feet sheepishly. "Sorry about before…" he muttered.

"No," Lucy stated, "I should be the one that is sorry. I didn't realize how you felt about me until the last minute. I shouldn't ha-" Rimo placed a slender finger on her lips. Lucy felt slightly uncomfortable, but let him say what he had to say.

"It's fine, Lucy. It was my fault for being so idiotic," he said. "But there is one thing that you can do to make it up to me," he continued.

Lucy perked up a bit. "Oh, yeah? What would that be?"

"Let me do this," he said, planting his hands on her shoulders. He leaned in closer.

His lips were millimetres away from hers when Lucy did the weirdest thing.

She dodged. And it wasn't instinctive.

Because for some odd, weird reason, right when their lips would connect, Natsu's face flashed in Lucy's mind. She felt wrong kissing Rimo when Natsu was still out there.

Rimo stopped. He opened his eyes and saw how close his face was to hers and immediately backed away. "Oh, god, I'm so sorry," he breathed.

Lucy forced a laugh. "There you go again, making rash decisions," she chuckled awkwardly. "Stupid instinctive dodges…" she said quickly. Rimo smiled lightly.

"Well, I, uh, gotta go," Lucy said, looking at the sky. It was mid morning, at the latest 9:00.

"So, I guess this is goodbye, then?" Rimo said.

Lucy nodded. "Yeah… So, uh, bye then."

Rimo nodded. Lucy walked away. After walking a small distance, she turned around and waved. Rimo smiled and waved back.

"Stay gold, Rimo!" she yelled.

—

"Okay Emerald, we can finally go," she whispered to her giant friend. Emerald raised an eyebrow. Cats have eyebrows?

"Hey," Lucy defended. "This makeup makes me look hot and I can see whole lot better with this haircut." The sass master rolled his eyes and lowered down slightly.

Lucy jumped up. "I'm getting better at this jumping thing, huh? Pretty soon you won't have to lower down anymore," she chuckled. Emerald waited patiently for her directions. They sat there for a second before Lucy realized Emerald didn't know where to go.

"Oh, sorry Emer," she said. "Just… take me as far away from this village as possible, alright?" Emerald nodded and took off without a sound.

—Fairy Tail—

The door banged open and the childish voice rang through the hall. "Guys! I'm back!" Natsu screamed.

Mirajane smiled from the counter. "How was your solo job, Natsu?" Natsu grinned widely.

"I got paid!" He said gleefully, sitting down on a counter stool.

"Aye, sir!" Happy squealed. "Now we can buy some fish, right, Natsu?" He said dreamily.

Natsu opened his mouth to answer but was cut off by Erza. "Natsu!" She called sternly.

"Yeah, Erza?" He replied. "Wanna fight?" He asked hopefully. She shook her head silently. It was then Natsu realized that something was up. Ezra called Gray over. He removed himself from Juvia's arms and sauntered over.

"What happened? Did flame-brain over here destroy something?" Gray snickered.

"No. I need you both to listen, this is serious," she replied calmly. That shut Gray up.

Ezra continued. "Do you both remember the job we all went on about a week ago?" She didn't give then time to respond, instead continuing on. "Well, those 11 bandits were dropped off at a police station, including the money. The man who dropped them off said it wasn't his doing, but a visitor who would prefer to be left unknown. All we know is that the bandits were all defeated at once by one woman," she concluded.

Natsu and Gray were both stumped.

"A woman defeated all of those bandits by herself?" Gray was surprised. Maybe it was because the train was shaking wildly when the battle began or because he had lost the will to fight, but even he couldn't defeat all 11 men by himself. If Natsu and Erza pitched in, they could have wiped them all out easily. But to defeat all 11 by oneself? And she was a woman!

"Who is this?" Natsu asked. Ezra shrugged.

"We don't know yet, but this woman - if she is a woman - is powerful. Probably up to par with you guys. And possibly dangerous."

Natsu frowned. Something was wrong with this picture. He felt something in his gut. 'Eh,' Natsu shrugged, 'I must be hungry or something.'

Master Makarov was listening to their conversation. He suspected this woman was Lucy, but there was no real proof. What was really surprising is that if this mystery woman did happen to be Lucy, then Lucy's strength had increased greatly.

A/N:

I don't own Fairy Tail. (I have been forgetting to put these *~*)

IF ANYONE GETS THE REFERENCE IN THIS CHAPTER I WILL BE SO PROUD. I literally could not stop laughing.

And guess what milestone we have reached guys. 50 REVEIWS! Thank you. I don't know what else to say, but THANK YOU! I never even expected to reach even 20. Please keep these reviews coming! It's really gratifying and not to mention fun.

I'm so sorry for the week long + wait! I have no excuses. Oh, and I have set up a poll because it will be easier to keep track of who is voting for pairings. Please vote!

QUESTION: Would you rather chew the same piece of gum for the rest of your life or eat an uncooked tarantula?

Um that's all I believe…

-Jo