A/N: Hi guys! Just wanted to say a quick thank you to the four people that started following my story and the three that favorited it! Thank you, guys! Now, back to the story!

Disclaimer: I own no part of Fairy Tail

Levi had been following Natsu and his daughter for quite a while now.

Once he and Ansel emerged from the forest, they wandered around until they came into the civilized part of town. After that, it didn't take long for them to spot the family of two. After a short time of indecision, it was decided that they should split up. Levi would follow the Dragneels and hopefully get some information from them, and Ansel would scout out the town for the Fairy Tail guild hall. They would meet back up at 2 o'clock.

Levi found that it was pretty simple to follow the pair, and he had been doing so for about an hour. Once they left the vendors, so did Levi. When he saw they were heading for a bathroom, he hung back until they wouldn't be able to see him cross the street.

Once he was across, he saw the child wandering around the stalls, but he didn't see her pink-haired father anywhere. He began following the girl, partly because that was what he was supposed to do, and partly because his parental side felt the need to protect her.

He tailed her for awhile longer, and then she turned around abruptly and ran right into him. He was knocked backward into the stand of potions he was looking at, and he could feel most of them breaking under him. To his shock, the girl started screaming. Loudly.

One of the potions that were knocked off the table spilled into her open mouth. She spit most of it out, but he could tell she swallowed some of it as well. Since he didn't want people to think he had hurt her, he ran away from the wreckage, to the meeting spot he had established with Ansel earlier.

He could hear Natsu's cries of alarm when he found his Nashi.

The Fairy Tail guild doors were thrown open with a swift kick from Natsu, who practically flew into the infirmary with Nashi in his arms.

The guild members were in varying states of shock, but none were as panicked as Lucy. She had migrated to the bar with Mirajane a half hour ago, after Stella fell asleep on the couch. She turned in shock when the doors flew open and got a good look at Natsu's determined face and the way he rushed to the infirmary with Nashi. That's when he knew something was off.

She hopped off her barstool and started after Nastu. The rest of the guild snapped out their trance when Lucy moved, and they all started pouring into the infirmary after her. Worried shouts of "What happened?" "Is Nashi alright?" "Who's hurt?" floated in the air, but were left unanswered. Porlyusica was summoned by Master Makarov.

In the few minutes it took for Porlysica to arrive, it was silent. The tension in the room could've been cut with one of Erza's swords. Lucy was crouching on the side of the bed, staring at her daughter's face. Nastu was pacing, his brow furrowed and his arms crossed. Stella, woken by all the commotion, wandered into the room. When she saw her sister, she ran to the bed side.

"...Sissy?"

Natsu's pacing stopped, and his fist slammed into a nightstand that had the misfortune of being next to him. "Dammit! When is Porlyusica getting here?!" He cried.

"Relax, I'm right here." Said a voice behind him. Natsu turned around, and sure enough, Porlyusica was making her way into the room. "You." She pointed to Natsu, "You can stay. The rest of you, out. I don't need a crowd hovering over me."

The guild didn't seem to be moving fast enough for the pink-haired woman. "I said get OUT!" She yelled. After that, the everybody filed out of the infirmary, into the main guild room.

'C'mon, Stella." Lucy quietly said. When her five-year-old didn't move, Lucy took her by the hand and led her to the door. Then she turned back and glanced at her eldest child. Porlyusica reassured her that Nashi would be fine, and "Would you just leave already?" So Lucy walked out.

Once the room was cleared, Porlyusica turned to Nastu, who hadn't moved since she walked in.

"So, what happened?" She asked.

xXXx

Lucy was worried, to say the least. Her daughter had been harmed, and she wasn't allowed to stay with her. The whole guild was shooting her worried looks, and she could only stare absentmindedly at the infirmary door, waiting for any form of news about Nashi.

The only sounds in the room were of the other children asking their parents what had happened, and somewhere in the background, Gajeel muttering something. It took Lucy a while to understand what it was that he was saying, and when she did, she felt horrible. It had been almost exactly what she had been thinking.

"I should've gone with them."

xXXx

It was roughly an hour before Porlyusica came out of the room, Natsu close behind her. He looked crushed, as if he had been crying.

There was a moment of silence as the guild waited for them to start talking.

"The child will be okay."

A huge sigh of relief went through the whole guild. Then they started to ask questions.

"When will she wake up?" "What happened?" "Is Natsu okay? He's not hurt too, is he?" "What were you guys doing, Nastu?!" "How badly was she hurt?"

Porlyusica held her hand up to silence the questions, then began answering them. "She seems to have swallowed a mixture of magic potions. From what I can tell, there were two main ones. One of them was a paralysis potion- meaning that she wouldn't be able to move even if she was awake. The other-"

She was interrupted by shouts from the guild. "When will she wake up?", "What's the other potion?", "How did she swallow potion in the first place?", and the ever-present question: "What happened when you two were out, Natsu?".

This time, it was Lucy that held up her hand to silence them. "Please, everybody. Let her explain. I'd like to know how my daughter is doing." She said in a calm tone. Once everybody was quiet, she nodded at Porlusica to continue.

"Thank you." She said to Lucy. Then she turned to address the guild. "As I was saying. The other potion was a magic draining one. Normally, such a small dose wouldn't do so much harm, but she's so small, and it was paired with the paralysis. I can only assume that the two had complimentary ingredients, which would explain why they're having such a large impact. And there might've been others that she swallowed, but I can't tell. I have no way of knowing what was in the potions she drank, so I cannot estimate when she will wake up... or if she will wake up. I'm sorry."

Lucy felt her heart drop to her stomach and her eyes fill with tears. "You mean... she might... not... wake up?" She squeaked out. Porlyusica's silence said more than her words ever could've. Lucy started sobbing and fell to her knees. What if my little girl never wakes up? She thought. She wasn't the only one who was crying over the news. Mirajane was crying onto Elfman's shoulder, who was trying to keep his resolve from cracking. The rest of the parents in the guild were also shedding tears over the news. Most of them thought of Nashi as their niece, and even the mere possibility of losing her was crushing.

Nastu crossed the room to comfort Lucy. He held her for a few minutes, trying not to cry himself. But he knew he had to tell everybody that it was his fault, to share the story. The guild has a right to know, he thought. So he squeezed Lucy one more time and stood up. Levy rushed to Lucy's side and started to do what Natsu had been doing; patting her back and hugging her. But Levy's firm baby bump only made Lucy sadder. What if I lose my baby? And she wept harder.

Most eyes had turned to Natsu now. They could tell that he was about to say something important, and they were waiting in suspense.

"It's my fault." He started. And the whole story came tumbling out; about looking through the vendors, deciding to stop for lunch, the way Nashi's eyes lit up when they made plans to go to the pancake place together, and finally, the way his heart stopped when she wasn't where he left her, only to find her passing out on the concrete in a bed of broken glass.

Lucy had stopped crying about halfway through his story, though she had been listening the whole time. 'Natsu..." She croaked. "Natsu, it's not your fault. I would've done the same thing in your place." She reassured him. The rest of the guild chimed in with similar condolences, trying to get him to cheer up.

Natsu's only response was a half-hearted smile that seemed to say "Thanks for trying, guys. But it doesn't help."

"So... what do we do?" Asked a voice towards the back of the room. It was Cana, who had obviously been shedding some tears herself.

Porlyusica looked at the expectant faces of the guild. "We wait." Was her simple answer. "I'll stay with her so I can monitor her."

"Can I see her?" Lucy asked.

The old healer looked at the desperate mother and nodded. She knew if she did anything but say yes, Lucy would nag or start crying again, and she was already getting fed up with people today.

Lucy started walking to the infirmary, and most of the guild followed her.

There they go, like sheep. All they can do is follow each other... well, that and be annoying. She thought to her self.

Once she reached the bed where Nashi was, Lucy looked down at her daughter's face. It was peaceful, like she was having a really good dream. Her hands had been folded onto her stomach, and she was lying on her back. The only movement from the small eight-year-old was the rise and fall of her chest as she breathed.

"I'm sorry, Luce," Natsu said. He had tears in his eyes, and Lucy could see that he blamed himself for letting his daughter get hurt.

Lucy opened her mouth to tell him again that it wasn't his fault, but she was interrupted by a sudden, loud crash from the front room of the guild.

Every pair of eyes shifted to the entrance of the guild, even though none of them could see it from the infirmary. They waited in suspense until Master Makarov cried, "We're under attack! Shield the children!"

The room slowly exploded into discord while all the parents started to round up their kids and hide them wherever they could find a spot. The rest of the guild stepped out of the room to defend the guild hall, as well as the children and parents.

There was a cloud of dust and rubble where the guild's front door had once been, and in it stood two silhouettes, illuminated by the evening light. Before the guild members could see who was attacking, a deep voice called out to them.

"Just give us Jellal, and nobody gets hurt."

A/N: Once again, MWHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Cliff hanger! (Don't worry, I won't be able to resist the urge to write another chapter for more than a few days) Anyway, how was that? It was kind of slow, so, sorry about that. I recently realized that all the chapters have taken place during the same day so far... *makes cringy face* I'll try to speed up the pace! Sorry! Anyhoo, I hope you liked this chapter! Please leave a review, and keep reading! I'll try to pick up the pace.

Also, for those of you who mind swearing, I promise it won't get any worse than the occasional "dammit". I don't usually swear, but I felt like it was necessary in order to get the point across more directly.

P.S. Sorry if the word "potion" was overused in this chapter- I just couldn't find a synonym, so I had to use it a billion times!