He catches her scent on the wind as he hurries home to pick up a few things before leaving, and he thinks he's just imagining it because its so close it can't be real. He must be going crazy. If he wasn't crazy from the moment he met Lucy, then he sure is now. Which is exactly why he needs to leave. Crazy and dragon slayer magic? Not a safe mix.

He should have noticed as soon as he neared his house, but his mind was on other things. A lot of other things. Anything but her. So he didn't notice until it was too late.

"Natsu!" he almost winces as she shrieks and he has to blink a few times to make sure this isn't another wild fantasy. Because boy is she pretty when she's glaring like that.

"Lucy," it leaves his lips in a reverent desperation. He nearly chokes on all feeling festering and bubbling and burning in the name.

"What are you doing?" she looks livid. Lucy doesn't get angry often, but when she does, she's angry to her core.

Natsu stiffens, bracing himself for a fit of screams which, if he's being honest with himself, he probably deserves anyway.

She glares at him and glares at him and glares at him, rallying all the anger from the past month and readying an arsenal of slurs that would have made her father weep. How dare he avoid her. How dare he keep secrets like this. How dare he leave her behind. She channels the rage.

She breaths in, ready to lay into the salamander, but all that slips out is a feeble sigh.

"What are you doing?" It's lost all of it's fire. Sad-Lucy has resurfaced.

And it nearly breaks Natsu in two. He wants to pull her into him and warm her up and hide her away from all the bad things in the world. And what is he doing, anyway? It must be something wonderfully awful to make Lucy look so exhausted.

Oh. Right. He's leaving. Well shit.

"Lucy, I-"

She looks up at him expectantly, and he realizes that he's got nothing to say. How could he possibly explain himself. Everything feels so cloaked in secret at this point he has no idea where to even begin. He can't bring the truth out. The truth is too much.

"Everyone at the guild says you're leaving for a while. They say you've got some girl you want to run away with."

"Lucy, you don't actually think-"

"I don't know what I think anymore. I haven't talked to you in forever. Haven't even seem you in ages. Natsu, I can't even begin to think what you've been up to, so yeah, maybe you've got a girl, for all I know. I haven't got any evidence to disclaim that."

And fuck she's right. He's been absent for a while now. For too long.

"There's no girl," is all he can manage. May as well knock that one out first.

"Fine," Lucy says, "Then why have you been avoiding me?"

When he can't draw up an answer she stands up straight and starts walking. For a moment he thinks she's walking to him and he almost shivers in the proximity, but she brushes past him and keeps going. Before he can stop himself he's grabbed her arm and hauled her into his arms, curling around her so he can bury his face in her neck and breathe her in. He'll tell her everything, anything she wants, just so long as she doesn't walk away.

He's surprised at himself for so how long hes managed to hold himself back, how real and right Lucy feels in his arms. Like home. Like belonging.

She's unnaturally stiff and Natsu takes a few moment to breathe, his breath warm on her skin as he exhales. Is she scared? Angry?

Natsu swallows before beginning, "Y'know what? I lied, there is a girl," he closes his eyes, "You."

How he got her to come inside is a mystery unto itself. How he got her to sit down and listen to his crappy explanation must be a miracle.

They're on the couch, Lucy as far away as she can possibly get, pressed against the armrest and watching Natsu with a viscous caution that cuts him to his soul. But she's here. And she's going to listen.

"I never really thought about it before I met you. It didn't really seem like something that would happen to me. But then we met and it was kind of like a getting hit with a sack of bricks and I don't even remember how it felt to be alive before then."

"Glad to see our meeting was such a wonderful experience for you," she rolls her eyes.

"No. I mean, yeah, it happened really fast, but it was a nice feeling. Warm."

"Why didn't you tell me right off the bat?"

"We had just met. What was I supposed to say, 'hey I'm Natsu, you're my mate. Wanna go make some babies?'" he shakes his head, "I didn't want to scare you off. And then we were at the guild and by the time things had slowed down it felt like the wrong time to tell you. And then we started getting close and everything about it was wrong.

They'd have to talk about that later. For now, "Why haven't you been talking to me?"

He sighs, not knowing how to phrase this. It's kind of scary, from an objective standpoint. Everything he wants to say sounds like he has some sort of creepy obsession with her. He doesn't want Lucy to think he's creepy obsessed. Even though he kind of is. "Well, it was warm in the beginning, but then it started to burn. And I..." he runs a hand through his hair, gripping at the pink spikes like he might just rip them out, "wanted you. I still do, sometimes. And not just like that. I want you away from everything. I-" he stops to collect himself. It's pretty obvious he's creepy obsessed. "I didn't know what I might do, if I might hurt you."

She frowns down at her lap, her neatly crossed legs. She looks a lot of things, hurt, angry, confused. She looks a lot of things that he doesn't like, even if he caused them. "Natsu. I don't know how to feel about this. You could have at least told me why you vanished like that. Or why you were about to leave." She's not so sure if she should use past tense on his leaving, still not sure where they stand on the whole abandoning her deal.

"I thought it would be easier if I just stayed away for a while. I thought you would be safer like that. But it got harder. Really hard. And I didn't want to hurt you, Lucy, I never want to do that."

"So you just thought you'd run away. Without telling me anything."

"I didn't want to risk getting that close to you."

Her palm flattens against the side of her neck and Natsu's fingers clench uncomfortably, wanting to take her hand in his and smooth all of the tenseness out of her knuckles. "But you're right next to me right now," she notes with a tinge of accusation.

"It ... changes. Right now I'm okay, but there have been times when I've barely been able to..." his eyes darken with the memories.

There's a rattling at the window and Happy flies in, back from his farewell to Charle, landing between the two on the couch. Lucy stands abruptly, feeling that the time for confrontation has passed. She has some thinking to do.

"I don't know, Natsu. I can't sort through all this right now. I have to go."

He watches her as she leaves with long, shivering strides, feels her presence disappear into the night as she sprints away, and Natsu is left alone, feeling like everything Lucy said has left a gaping hole in him.

"What happened?" Happy wonders timidly. He must have seen how upset Lucy was, if not the context of her emotions.

He runs his hands through his mussed hair, letting out an agonized groan.

"I messed up. Big time."

Does she even have a right to be angry at this point? Everything's out on the table now, she supposes, and in Natsu's defense, it seemed like he was thinking for his benefit. From what she gleaned from his choppy explanation, mating seemed like a dangerous game. Mating. Mate. There was something in her that was repulsed by the idea. It sounded brutal. But there was another part of her that was insatiably curious.

Lucy sits at her table, carton of ice-cream half eaten and melting, trying to sort through everything. Is she still mad? She doesn't even know anymore. She doesn't know how to feel.

On one hand, she appreciates that he values her safety. On the other, he didn't have to be such an asshat about it. And that's not even throwing in the reason behind it. Mate? What does that mean? What does that change between them? They obviously can't keep going on like they had before. But what changes, then? She can't be angry at him for that, she knows. It's not his fault, after all. But can she about the lies and avoidance?

Natsu had definitely crossed some lines keeping this from her. And Lucy is definitely not happy about that. But he'd come clean with her in the end. But only when she'd confronted him.

She scoops out some melted rocky-road and keeps eating. Everything is a mess. She still doesn't know how to feel.

She has every right to be mad. He knows that. He should have seen it earlier but he was torn between keeping her at a distance and potentially harming her. He didn't want any possibility of her getting hurt.

But now everything is falling apart and it's his fault, and boy does he feel like a dick. A dick that misses his mate like crazy. Staying away from her for so long was enough to drive him insane, but having to watch her walk out, walk away from him? He feels about ready to explode.

He lays alone on the couch (Happy is out again, probably with Charle. Natsu'd have to ask about that later), staring up at the ceiling and thinking through a way out of this mess, when it happens again. And he doesn't miss it this time. He bolts up and sprints for the door.

Lucy shows up unannounced again, two days after their talk, looking careful and cautious as she walks up the dirt pathway to his house. Natsu has thrown open the door before she even has a chance to knock.

"Lucy," he says, shaken and nervous and awed by her presence, "um, hi."

"Natsu."

"Are you- what are you-"

She tucks a strand of golden sunshine hair behind her ear and shrugs, "I think I get it," she says, "What you were trying to do by keeping your distance. And I think I forgive you."

A wave of tension leaves his shoulders. "So..."

"So I'm going to give you a chance," she reaches for his hand, in a vice grip on the door frame, and he yields instantly when she takes it and wraps her slender fingers carefully, oh so carefully around his own, and wow does that feel good and right and perfect, "And you're going to explain again. Everything."

Long an: Wow, that took a looong time. I'm super sorry for the huge wait! My excuse is school, which has been absolutely crazy lately. This probably absolutely sucks, but I wanted to get it posted before november because I probably won't be publishing another chapter at least until nanowrimo is over. Some of you may have noticed the tense shift, and I think I'm going to keep writing in present for a while, just because that's easier to me. I want to mention that though this is rated T now, it seems to be in the stars that it will end up M. This is a mate fic after all. If enough people don't like that, then I'll keep things tame, but this is just a warning, in case anyone wants to jump ship while they have the chance. That won't be for a while, though. Again, I'm sorry for the wait. Also if this has been a disappointment. Reviews are love! Thanks so much to those who have already done so! I'll see you all next chapter!