Natsu had been acting weird. Well, he was always acting weird, but this was a new level of strange. He was jumpy and twitchy and untalkative. And if Lucy didn't know any better, she'd say he was avoiding her.

But he wouldn't do that to her. Right?

The fact that they hadn't seen one another in five days since their return from the last soggy mission does raise some flags, though. A person can only be just missed so many times without causing suspicion.

Lucy finds the magic number when she arrives at the guild and asks if Natsu is in only to find, big surprise, she had just missed her partner for the fourteenth time.

She was pissed. Disappointed, too. If Natsu had a problem he should have been able to talk to her about it. That's what friends do. Talk. And Lucy felt comfortable confiding the vast majority of her secrets in him. The trust in this relationship must be disproportionate. That realization made Lucy even more pissed.

She stalked home, crabby and tired and in the mood to eat her feelings. Fine. If Natsu wanted to be a jerk and give her the cold shoulder, that was his prerogative. Lucy certainly didn't care. She didn't need him. So there. Problem Solved.

She flops into bed on her stomach at three in the afternoon and wakes up at ten the next morning, her makeup smeared and caked, her hair greasy and tangled and her bed disappointingly (but unsurprisingly) void of a certain pink haired salamander. Of course. He'd stopped sleeping there weeks ago. Lucy wondered what she did to make him hate her like this. She could say it didn't matter all she wanted, she knew through the anger and the grief, she missed him. Desperately.

End of week one and Lucy was fearing her happiness slump would never end. She was lonely. There was no getting around it. Natsu was MIA and Levy had been spending less and less time with her and more with Gajeel (Which was also starting to make her suspicious. Was everyone hiding something?). Lucy was left to her own devices for the better portion of every day.

When she finally managed to sit the bookworm down to get an outside opinion on the Natsu situation she seemed unsurprised.

"It's because he's in love with you. Duh."

Lucy's about to ask how avoiding her completely suggests love when Levy speaks again, "I mean, it's so obvious that you two adore one another, I don't know why you guys don't just man up and bone already."

"Levy!" Lucy chides. She blushes a furious red, "Why do I tell you anything? Like, ever?"

Levy laughs, "Because our friendship is unconditional."

Lucy slumps forward and smashes the heel of her palms into her eyes, trying to flush out the last vestiges of her embarrassment. She sighs, "What am I gonna do?"

Levy watched her friend for a moment. She worried her bottom lip in her teeth. She threw a cautious look to Gajeel, who's watching her from across the hall. Could she tell Lucy? Was that even allowed in the dragon rule-book? "I think..." she begins carefully, "I think it's a dragon thing."

"Like finding Igneel?" Lucy's eyes widened.

"Uhm..." Levy glances at Gajeel again, he shakes his head in warning. Sometimes she hated that super hearing of his. "Like, more of a nature issue."

"So, like, hibernation," Lucy said. That sounded pretty ridiculous, even to her.

Levy bites her lip again. She knew what was up. Gajeel was really bad at keeping secrets from her. She kind of wished she didn't know, because while she didn't want to ruin Natsu's guise she didn't want to leave Lucy in the dark. "It's biological."

Lucy frowns, "C'mon, Levy, just explain what you mean already."

"Well, you know how baby's are made?"

Lucy gasps, "Mavis, is Natsu in heat? Do they do that? Is that-"

"No, no, no," Levy said, waving away the idea quickly," he's just..."

"Has he got a girl?"

Levy sighs, "It's-"

Before she can finish her thought, Gajeel has lifted her out of her seat and hoisted her unceremoniously over his shoulder, "That's enough, Shrimp."

And then they were gone. And then Lucy was alone. Again.

And Natsu had a girl.

Lucy spent the next day moping around her apartment soaking in self pity. The day after that she realized how stupid she was being. Why should Natsu get to make her feel crappy just because some girl was more important to him than her. Ridiculous.

She decided she was done feeling sorry for herself and ready to be sunny-Lucy again. Happiness-slump be damned.

She slipped into her favorite sundress, fixed her hair the way she liked it and got her makeup on just right and she walked out the door with her chest out and shoulders back and head held high. And she felt better. And she was not going to think about Natsu for a while.

She wandered the city aimlessly for a while, enjoying the stares she was getting. She'd forgotten what a little attitude in your step could do to boys. It was a nice little ego stroke.

You are confident, she thinks, you are happy.

So she is. That is, until she arrived at the guild only to be greeted with the news that Natsu was leaving on a three week mission in the mountains that evening. Speculations and rumors were flying. Natsu was never away for that long unless he had a very good reason.

But Lucy knew what this was about. He was running away with that girl of his. He was leaving Lucy behind.

Who even was this girl? Had Natsu been hiding her from Lucy? They couldn't have been having a steamy love affair without someone finding out. So the entire guild had turned on Lucy to keep Natsu's lover a secret from her.

Wait. No. That was even more ridiculous than the notion of Natsu even having a secret girlfriend.

But regardless of what her crazy imagination was spewing out, something was up. And Lucy was going to find out what.

She left the guild within five minutes of her arrival, deciding that Natsu wasn't just going to abandon her without getting an earful of furious ranting first. She stared off in the direction of his house. He was going to listen, then he was going to explain himself. Lucy would make sure.

AN: In honor of back to school, here it is: chapter two. Short, short, chapter two, after a very long wait *bows apologetically*. Sorry that Natsu and Lucy didn't really interact in this chapter, but next one will involve angry confrontation, so stay tuned if you'd like! Reviews are love! Thanks for reading!