Next chapter! Finally…*cough, cough*, I'm sorry for the long wait. This will be the second last chapter so enjoy!

Okay, Lucy was still a little bit -uhm- dunno. But she was startled, because she felt comfortable around pirates and she hasn't ever been this relaxed. They had come to the cave and there they started to joke around and everyone was nice to her.

Well, they were all strange, but they called her strange too, and she decided that every pirate was probably strange like that and that they weren't used to normal people like her.

There was Gray who had the habit to strip and who always quarreled with Natsu, that's why he had offered his help in killing him too. But before they could really kill each other, Erza always stepped in. Erza was nice, but strict and she had an obsession with strawberry cheesecake. She was Natsu's second mate. His first mate was Levy, who was probably one of the most normal people around here. She liked reading, just like her, and they started to debate which books were good and which were bad as hell. But she took some liking to Gajeel-although she denied it- and in Lucy's opinion Gajeel was not suited for a petite girl like her.

He was big and violent and had spikes all up his face and ears and he was plain scary. But somehow it seemed as if the feeling between the two was mutual. He denied it, of course, too. Although Lucy didn't know them this long, she could see that Gajeel would die for the bluenette, but the celestial mage wasn't sure if that was a normal reaction between the pirates.

With this crew, it seemed so. They were a big family and they seemed to break all the guardian lines in piracy. Everything Lucy had read was suddenly questioned in her mind. The picture of violent, big and unscrupulous guys storming the sea in her mind became a picture of nice, caring, strange people trying to survive.

Oh yes, they were trying to survive. Gajeel had yelled at her for living a life full of everything –which she hadn't chosen and abandoned by the way- and after Lucy had yelled back and Gajeel turned his arm in a weird-looking sword out of iron, attempting to slice her in half, the whole crew had parted them and Natsu had explained why Gajeel had snapped out of it.

And now she sat on the wall of the cave and looked outside, imagining a life like that.

It was hard, always struggling to get food and a warm place and stuff like that. They were lucky to have a 'foster-parent' like Makarov who did everything to give everyone everything. But still, on the sea there weren't Makarov and they always ran danger to get caught in a storm and drown or get tracked by someone like her dad- like Levy, Gajeel, Gray and Natsu got already. And they wouldn't have survived if she hadn't interfered. Wow, she had already caught glimpses of such a life without really noticing it. Well, she noticed it but the full extent of its meaning didn't really-

"Buh."

"KYAAAAAAAAHHH!" Lucy screamed bloody murder and jumped up, turning around in self-defense position to face the sneaky little bastard-who turned out to be Natsu, looking at her strangely and suppressing a fit of laughter. Furthermore, the whole crew fell silent and looked at her bewildered. Lucy flushed beet-red and gave up her position, relaxing again and sitting down next to Natsu with a huff.

Natsu finally released the laugh and the crew turned away again, used to their captain's antics. Lucy smacked Natsu's head upwards.

"You're such an idiot!" she hissed between her teeth. Natsu stopped laughing and just giggled.

"Sorry, didn't mean to scare you. Pretty jumpy, aren't we?"

Lucy glared. "Well, you may be jumpy but I'm surely not. I was only thinking and you surprised me. That's all."

"Uh-huh. Sure it is. And what were you thinking?" Lucy opened her mouth to argue back but decided to just let it go.

"About how you live." She murmured. She faced the exit of the cave again.

"What do you mean?" asked Natsu, now dead-serious. Lucy turned around to Natsu again.

"Well, you have all these troubles. The cold and the food and storms and you always have to fear to get caught by some soldiers or stuff like this."

"It's not exactly like we have a choice. And it isn't this bad because we have each other." Natsu replied.

"I know. But some things could be prevented. Like the getting caught."

"Owe, c'mon, that's Jude Heartfilia we're talking about. He's a son of a bitch -no offense."

"None taken." Came the immediate reply.

"And we can deal with him. We were already taken once, and we got out again." Natsu said. Lucy suppressed a groan. He really was dense, talking about this.

"I know. That was the day my groom should've been chosen. But you escaped and that's why he couldn't been chosen and I was thrown out."

"Wait-what does our escape have to do with your marriage?" Natsu asked.

"That bastard planned a party for your execution and wanted to choose the guy I should've married on it." Lucy said matter-of-factly. Natsu edged closer.

"I dunno who would like to marry you -'smack'- Ow! Lucy that hurts! Anyway, why did he throw you out then?" Natsu asked, after the violent interruption- courtesy of Lucy. Lucy froze. Shit. She got herself in an awkward position again. Normally she wouldn't have a problem with telling Natsu that she was the person who helped them back then but then he'd ask why she didn't say anything and maybe think he owed her one or something like that. Or he would think that she didn't trust him.

In her thought she didn't notice how Natsu smirked and edged even closer, amused by her awkwardness.

"Could it be that you wasn't a good girl?" he asked. Lucy looked at him, relieved, that he came up with something.

"Yeah, you could say so." She scratched her head timidly.

"Owe, what did the bad girl do then?" he asked. Lucy froze once again.

"Ehh…"

Natsu smirked harder.

"Could it be that you somehow know the mystical girl with the tricorn who seemed to know the castle quite good and helped us escape?" Lucy looked at him like a deer in the headlights.

"No, no, no, I only heard of her. That was really nice of her."

"Of course, it was. I think I owe her one. I wonder what she would like to have. Maybe a sack jewels would do?" Natsu asked.

"NO! That's way too much! Are you crazy! She would never take that!" Lucy looked at him bewildered. Natsu raised an eyebrow.

"How could you know that? You don't know her."

"No one would take this much!"

Natsu smiled widely.

"Or maybe she would be satisfied with just being in the crew?" Lucy looked at him disbelieving.

"Yeah, I think so…?" she said.

"Good, than we're even." Natsu smirked at her. "By the way, this 'awful' life we live is now yours too." He said while he stood up and walked to the others again.

In that moment Lucy registered two things: 1) Natsu had fooled her. Again.

2) It was now her fucking life too.

With this she got two new questions: 1) Since when did Natsu know this?

2) Why did the imagination of this life got a whole lot better when Natsu said it was hers too?

Lucy was confused and released a frustrated groan.

She turned her head to the exit again and asked herself when Mira would come and get them, like she was told by the others.

Her thoughts went over to the 'awful' life again. She told Natsu that some things were unnecessary. And it was like that this whole hiding thing could be unnecessary. They only had to get to terms with her father. And that wasn't really the easiest task. But she was sure she could handle it. But without the crew, otherwise her father would just arrest all of them.

Lucy turned around and saw that no one seems to look at her or seems to care where she was. With a swift move she rushed out of the cave and walked sideward, so she was out of eyeshot, along the hill as fast and as noiseless as possible because she knew that Dragon Slayers had a very good hearing and she didn't want to get found out by one- Natsu even had four ones in his group, himself, Gajeel, cute little Wendy and Laxus. Last one was a large, broad guy with the tendency to look down on her. Well, at least look down on an attachment of her. Lecher.

When the hill turned into even ground again she started to run. That was when she realized that she had just a vague imagination where the civilized part of the island was. The only thing she knew was that she came over a hill when she escaped-and she only remembered this hill because it was attached to the inn.

And she also wondered if she had enough time. Mira would come after her father left and get the crew but she didn't know when she would come or her father leave. She had to be fast, just in case.

Well, she still didn't know where she had come from. Lucy groaned and turned 360 degrees, looking for something that might tell her where she was and more importantly, where the town was.

Then she happened to notice the top of a hill. Not just a hill-hill, more like a mountain-hill and twice as high as the place with the cave.

She ran towards it. Sometimes she lost balance because she was caught in vines or because a twig pulled at her hair and she really wanted to summon Taurus so that he could just destroy the undergrowth with his ax, but she didn't want to bother him with such trivia and use up her magic.

And she didn't want to hear his pervy comments.

One time, the canopy didn't allow her anymore to see the hill and she had to actually climb a tree (quite the struggle) so she could spot it again. Another time she suddenly stood in front of a lake and she had to go around it. But that wouldn't bother her this much if she didn't know how much time she lost because of that.

When she finally reached the foot of the mountain she doubted already that she would make it in time. None the less she hurried up the hill and watched how the undergrowth grew stonier and lastly disappeared completely.

On the hill, she nearly screamed in delight. There it was, right in front of her, the town and she could fully overview it. She could also make out the ship of her father in the harbor, which caused her to squeal because she had made it in time. And then she spotted the pub and that was when she cried out in joy, because she just happened to climb the hill right next to the hill which was behind the pub.

Squealing and jumping Lucy hurried down the hill onto the street- she nearly broke her neck in doing so- and ran towards the pub which was as loud as always. In front of the doors she stopped, preparing to face her father and bargain for the freedom of the crew, including herself.

So what do you think? I really tried to make a cliffy so you would be curious until the very end. Sorry for the late update, I kinda forget it. Well, here I am again! The next chapter will be the final one! Review!