Aw, guys, you make me so happy with all the lovely reviews! Its nice to know that not everyone hates my writing :) Now, the story really begins!

Disclaimer: I do not own our beloved Fairy Tail, just the story idea.

Natsu was stuck in a void of silent darkness. He tried to reach out to touch something, anything, to find out where the heck he was, but all he grabbed was empty air. There was no sound, not even a smell that could give him any bearings. Tentatively he took a step forward, and hitting nothing he took another one, all the while waving his hands around him in case there was a wall. After a while of walking in one direction he would turn and go another way, but he never hit the boundary of the place nor did his eyes adjust to the inky blackness. Then, suddenly, Natsu heard a foot scuff against the ground. He swung around and started to run in the direction of the noise.

"Hello?" he yelled out, getting no reply. He ran faster and faster to catch up with whatever had made the noise but it was like he was just slowing down instead of speeding up. Finally, Natsu just gave up and stopped, breathing hard. He still had no idea where he was, but the floor seemed to be sticky with something. Reaching down to touch it, he felt a warm liquid on the ground. He sniffed his hand, a coppery smell filling his nose.

Blood. Lots and lots of blood.

Natsu fell back in surprise, landing right in the middle of another puddle. He scrabbled backwards but couldn't get out of it. A light flashed on, on of those center stage ones, like this was some sick play. He squinted against the light and tried to make out the figure who was standing in the light. The person, who was covered in red from head to toe, tilted their head and started to stagger towards him.

"Natsu," a familiar voice called out. His eyes widened as he registered whose voice it was. She was closer to him and now Natsu could see her trademark white hair and short pink dress.

"Lisanna?" he whispered. She stared gravely at him, her bloodied face shining in the light. Deep inside his mind he knew this Lisanna wasn't the real one; she was her younger, childish self, and she didn't have that wonderful smile on her face. She was always smiling, no matter what had happened to her. She walked closer to him and reached her hand out to touch his hair, smearin some red into his rosy spikes.

"Why didn't you save me, Natsu?" She asked in a hollow voice. Natsu couldn't answer, it was like his words were swept out whenever he tried to open his mouth. This frustrated the little girl in front of him. "Why didn't you stop them?" She asked. Her voice echoed, and a bunch of Lisanna's were staring at him with accusing looks. He still couldn't answer, and the disappointed girl walked away from him, back into the darkness.

"Wait, Lisanna!" He scrambled after her with his regained voice but the girl didn't come back for him. "Lisanna!" He screamed into the nothingness. The light was starting to fade again.

"LISANNA!"

Natsu shot up, breathing hard, and heard his obnoxious ringtone filling the air. He groaned and grabbed the phone, wondering who was calling so late.

Lucy couldn't fall asleep. She had tried everything she could think of; there were apparently 11,563 sheep that hopped over her bed, she read about the history of yarn, and in her hand she had an empty glass of what was warm milk. She couldn't seem to stop thinking about what Natsu and Juvia had said to her earlier. It was pretty true, after all, that if something made her feel uncomfortable she would run away. She did when she saw the giant crowd of people at Erza's birthday party, she ran away from her home, from her childhood memories. Juvia was marrying Lyon in two weeks and she still wasn't comfortable talking to him. Lucy was always running, and maybe Natsu had a point. She was still being controlled by them, something she had vowed she would never let happen ever again. She could still remember it.

"You'll always be different than everyone now," said one of the men. He towered over Lucy's small, quivering frame and the other one came up behind her and took out her gag. She let out a yelp of pain he grabbed her throat. The first one closed in on her, laughing evilly all the while.

"Mama," she whimpered, "Help me!" The second one let out a sadistic chuckle before gagging her once again.

"No one can help you now," he smirked.

"It stops now. No more running," Lucy said out loud. I really have to stop talking to myself, she added as a side thought. Looking at her hand, which still had the number scrawled across it, she got an insanely marvelous idea.

"Seriously, I know what is normal and what isn't. You are definitely weird." He added.

Maybe Natsu could help her stop running if he was apparently a guru of human behavior. She grabbed her phone and dialed the number on her hand before she could find a reason to make herself back out. It rang twice before a disgruntled voice answered the phone.

"What?" She heard him groan as a greeting. Lucy paused for a second, thinking; she could still hang up and go back to her normal. She could live safely forever. But that would mean that she lost, that she broke the promise she had made to herself. She was once a Celestial Spirit mage; a promise was a sacred practice to her.

"Natsu?" she whispered. The other side of the line was dead silent, not even the boy's breathing could be heard. Lucy was worried that he had hung up on her and she was just stupidly sitting there with her phone, but then she heard him.

"Luigi?" He asked, amazed. Lucy glared into the phone at his mistake, then after a couple of seconds she realized it had no effect since he couldn't see her. Another one of the many reasons why she found technology to be disappointing.

"My name is Lucy," she snapped at him, momentarily wondering how he was able to get her simple name mixed up. He snorted at her correction as a reply.

"Look, if you called me at," there was a pause as both adults looked at the time, "3 AM just to yell at me, I'm going to hang up. Feel free to continue on without me," he yawned and she heard him move the phone away from him.

"HOW DO YOU ACT WHEN YOU'RE NORMAL?!" she screamed into the device, panicked that he was actually going to hang up. In the silence that ensued she could hear her landlady wake up and move around, but she just started yelling at her husband instead of going up to Lucy's room. She breathed out a sigh of relief and went back to anxiously listening for his reply.

"Well," Natsu's shocked voice replied, "you have to do a lot of things."

"Teach me," she commanded with a wavering voice. Never in the past twelve years of her life had she given a command to anyone. Another snort came from his side at her weak voice, causing her to scowl.

"Why?" He laughed.

"Because I'll pay you. It'll be like you are entertaining me without the stripping," she paused for a second while a thought occurred to her, "Unless normal people strip their clothes. Do they?" She realized after her question that she wandered off topic.

"If I say yes, will you promise to never call me at this time ever again?" He sighed. A smile stretched across Lucy's face and she nodded enthusiastically.

"Lucy, you do realize that even if you nod I can't see it, right?" Natsu asked, amused. Lucy realized her mistake and mumbled a quick "yes" into the phone. "Okay then, consider me your teacher," he sighed again. Lucy was about to say a bunch of thank yous into the phone, but an abrupt click stopped her from doing so. She threw the phone onto her couch and fell back into her bed.

Finally, she was able to fall asleep and dream.

Natsu couldn't go back to sleep after her call. Instead, he was wondering what the hell was he sucked into. Why did she ask him to teach her how to be normal? He was practically a stranger to her, and from what he had seen the girl didn't like people, much less ones she hadn't meet before. It wasn't even the request itself that bothered him, but the fact that he agreed. Its bad enough to have to entertain lusty, ignorant women at the House, but now he had to babysit another one? What the hell was wrong with him?

"You really have to stop talking to yourself, Natsu," a small voice piped up. Startled, Natsu fell off his bed with a little scream. In the room next to him Gajeel slammed the wall, telling him to stop making so much noise. Out of the shadows of the room stepped Natsu's partner, Happy. The small blue cat nonchalantly passed his floored (literally) friend and hopped onto the squeaky bed.

"I wasn't talking to myself!" Natsu whisper-yelled at his friend. The cat obviously didn't believe him but decided it was best to drop it and move on.

"If you make enough money, you can stop working in the House," Happy purred as his owner started to rub his ears. Natsu thought about it for a minute and figured that the cat was right; if this Lucy girl was going to help him bring in more money, then why wouldn't he say no? Her odd behavior was also amusing to watch, which was a plus. He laid back in bed and let the cat curl up against his back. Soon, Natsu's breathing became more even and he started to fall asleep.

He dreamed of a world where he could live in freedom.

Oh, Natsu, how naïve you are. Is it really just for the money? Is it? Or does that beautiful blonde make you want to have 33 babies? :D

And so we get to the main plotline. Natsu and Lucy will hang out a lot for her lessons of normality and some interesting things will happen along the way with all of the other characters. I hope you guys don't hate me, if your expectations for how the story was going to go. There will be plenty of chapters to do with the House, though.

On a completely other note, I love how I'm slowly turning all of the characters into ninjas. First Jellal, then Bob, and now Happy. Maybe Elfman should be next, just for the sake of irony :)

And on yet ANOTHER unrelated note, did you know that I really like Gray and Juvia together? Keep that in mind, Gruvia fans, before you try to torch your computer.

-NeverMakesSense