A/N: Okay, I couldn't help myself! Here's another chapter! :)

Disclaimer: I don't own anything!

Enjoy!

Chapter 3

It was getting late when Lucy had finally committed the route to her classrooms to memory, and she decided to have a shower, maybe write a little, and then go to bed. It had been a long day and she was beat.

She found the water to be quite relaxing as she showered. She made sure to bring clothes in with her, so that she wouldn't have to walk down the corridor in a towel – she wasn't ready for that just yet.

She almost had a heart attack when she saw her clothes were missing.

What do I do? What do I do? She cried to herself, sinking to the floor in only her towel. Maybe I can make a run for it? But my clothes have to be around here somewhere! Who would take them?

Suddenly, Lucy heard a familiar chuckle, and everything clicked into place.

"Cana!" she cried, jumping at the girl hiding around the corner, Lucy's clothes in hand.

"Come on, Lucy, don't be so shy!" she called, as Lucy chased her around the bathroom.

Suddenly, a girl with red hair appeared.

"Cana! Give the poor girl her clothes back!" she boomed.

Cana immediately shrank and handed Lucy her clothes before fleeing the bathroom with a "Sorry Erza!"

"T-thank you," Lucy stammered.

"No worries," the girl suddenly smiled. "I'm Erza, if you ever need anything, come to me!" she told her. The demon that had made Cana practically wet her pants was suddenly replaced with this sweet girl.

"Of course," Lucy smiled back, feeling more at ease. "I'm Lucy, it's a pleasure to meet you, Erza,"

Erza then left so that Lucy could get dressed and head back to her room. She found Cana asleep in her bed. Lucy chuckled softly before heading to her desk. She didn't write a lot, but at least she got something down. She closed her laptop and went to bed.

It was then that she realised that she had already made a bunch of new friends, and none of them were snobs! Sleep came easily to her.

The next day, Lucy went down to breakfast with Cana and met Juvia, Bisca and Lisanna – who was Levy's roommate and Mirajane's sister. She also found out that Levy was the only one in the small group who wasn't on the cheerleading squad.

It was quite early, and she was told that they normally sat with a group of guys as well, but they were hardly ever seen at breakfast because they barely got up in time for school.

Lucy searched for little Wendy, but couldn't find her anywhere. I guess they didn't come here after all. Lucy thought, somewhat sadly.

Lucy went for a run after breakfast, and spent the rest of the morning in the gym with Erza. She was glad that she had a gym buddy that could motivate her, but sometimes Erza went a little too far. She was a very intense person.

Lucy went into the town with Levy for lunch, to this little bookshop/café that the bluenette loved to visit on weekends.

"So," Lucy began, once they were seated. "I think you should join the cheerleading squad with me,"

"What?" Levy cried. "There's no way I could be a cheerleader!"

"Why not?"

"Well, look at me!" she cried. "I'm a little bookworm, a nerd. I've never done cheerleading before!"

"Levy-chan, I can help you," Lucy smiled. "Just come with me this afternoon, I can teach you a few routines and we'll see how you do,"

"But Lu-chan…"

"If you really can't do it, then I won't push you," she said. "You'll never know unless you try! Besides, being so small, you'd be prefect to throw in the air!" she winked.

Levy gulped.

"Please? Just try it!" Lucy begged.

"Okay," she whispered reluctantly, much to Lucy's delight.

After lunch, the two headed back to get changed and then headed out to a grassy area that Levy liked to go to be alone and read.

Lucy showed her a simple routine to begin with, without any flips or tricks or anything, and Levy pulled it off perfectly.

Next, she tried a slightly harder routine, which Levy still pulled off.

"Levy-chan, I don't know what you were worried about, you're a natural!"

"You really think so?"

"Definitely! Now let's try some flips!"

What Levy failed to mention was that she did gymnastics when she was younger, so she quickly picked up all the different flips Lucy threw at her.

After an hour of training, Lucy stopped.

"Levy-chan, I don't know why you aren't already on the team. You are amazing!" Lucy told her.

"Thanks, Lu-chan," the girl replied.

The two headed back inside and got dinner early. All that training had worn them out. Lucy had barely written anything when she fell asleep at her computer. After her gym session, and then training Levy, she was exhausted. Cana came in and woke her up after dinner, leading the half-asleep girl to her bed. Tomorrow she would officially start school.

Lucy awoke to the buzzing of her alarm. Groaning, she hit the snooze button, probably harder than she should have. She had just drifted off again when her phone alarm went off. She reached over to turn that off, before remembering that she left it on her desk. She always did, to make sure that she actually got up. Lucy was not a morning person.

Groaning again, she pulled herself out of her warm bed and walked over to her desk to silence her phone.

She was not all that surprised to see Cana still asleep.

Lucy went over to shake her roommate awake before grabbing her toiletries and heading for the shower. She needed something to wake her up.

Lucy always felt much better after her shower, and she was practically bouncing down to breakfast.

"Can you tone it down a bit?" Cana moaned. She did not shake off the morning so easily.

Lucy just giggled as she grabbed her Weetbix and headed to their table, where all the other girls were sitting with a group of guys. She'd finally get to meet them.

They all looked tired, but she was introduced to Gray, Elfman, Jellal, Loke, Jet, Droy and Alzack.

"Where is your roommate?" Erza sighed, directing the question at Gray.

"Still asleep, what did you expect?" he replied tiredly.

"He's going to miss the first day," Erza said. "I'll go get him up,"

Everyone seemed to feel sorry for the mystery boy, Lucy included as she saw the glint in the redhead's eyes.

Lucy quickly finished her breakfast, and then left with the other girls to get her schoolbag and head to class. She was very relieved to find that all her new friends were in the same homeroom, and she had at least one of them in every class.

When she got to class, the first bell was ringing, and the teacher made her introduce herself, and then instructed her to sit in the seat next to Levy, with another empty chair on the other side.

In the middle of the roll, a teenage boy burst through the doors, apologising. He had familiar pink hair.

"Natsu Dragneel, I hope that this year is not going to be a repeat of previous years," the teacher told him, pointing to the seat next to Lucy.

It was the boy from the train; Wendy's brother! So they did come here!

"Good one, flame brain," Gray whispered from the seat behind him.

"You could have woken me up, you selfish Ice Princess!" he whispered back.

"I tried,"

Suddenly, he noticed Lucy staring at him. Onyx eyes met brown as they both stared blankly at each other for a second. Suddenly he grinned.

"Hey! You're the girl who helped me on the train!" he called. "Lucy, right?"

"Y-yeah. You remember that?" she asked. She was sure he'd been so sick he didn't notice her.

"Of course! Besides, my sister hasn't stopped talking about you," he grinned. Lucy blushed a little.

"That's so sweet, is she here too?" Lucy asked.

"Yeah, but she's in the middle school," Natsu shrugged.

"Sorry to interrupt your conversation," the teacher called, clearing his throat. "But I would like to get on with my lesson plan, if that's not too much trouble,"

"Sorry," Lucy and Natsu both mumbled, facing forwards.

The first day went pretty quickly. Lucy had every class with Natsu, and she quickly found out how distracting he was. It was going to be a long year.

As annoying and loud as he was, the two quickly became good friends. Lucy seemed to be the only one besides Erza who could handle the pink haired boy. She could be as scary as the red-headed demon sometimes.

She found out that he also went to the gym with Erza, and trained just as hard as her. Lucy tried to keep up, but she just couldn't. She kind of did her own thing, and watched them in amazement.

The next day after school were cheerleading tryouts, and Lucy was pumped. She dragged a still nervous Levy down to the football pitch. Lucy eyed the competition as Erza, the Captain, explained how tryouts were gonna go down.

They would first have a group routine, then individual tryouts. This was just as Lucy had expected. She stood next to Levy, whispering words of encouragement as they started. Lucy cheered harder than she ever had before, and it was pretty clear that while there was still talent in the other girls, none could compare to her or Levy.

"Okay, ladies," Erza called after the last girl's individual tryout, "I'll post the names on the dorms bulletin board tonight by 8pm!"

All the girls started to chatter as they dispersed. Lucy couldn't wait to take a nice long bath, and so rushed towards the dorm before it got too crowded.

At dinner, Lucy tried her hardest not to beg Erza to tell her if her and Levy had gotten in. She couldn't wait til 8!

"Luce, I'm sure you got in," Natsu told her, with his mouth full.

"But what if I didn't? What if I'm just being overconfident?" Lucy fretted. She'd studied Erza and Mirajane's faces all through dinner, trying to get some sort of hint. Unfortunately, they were masters of the poker face.

Lucy groaned. "I just want it to be 8 already! The suspense is killing me!"

Natsu chuckled. "Do you want me to go ninja and try and find the list? I think Erza's gone to get it now," he pointed to the empty spot where Erza had just been sitting.

"What?!" Lucy cried. "When did she leave? I have to go find her! What if she puts up the list early?"

"Calm down, Luce," Natsu grabbed her arm and pulled her back down to her seat. "Just finish your dinner and then we'll both go, okay? She's not gonna put it up before the time she said she would," he told her.

"I guess you're right," Lucy sighed. She turned back to her spaghetti bolognaise and ate as quickly as she could.

Once they'd finished eating, Lucy, Natsu and Levy headed over to the dorm. They had fifteen minutes.

Lucy couldn't stop pacing. Natsu had given up trying to calm her down. Levy was reading a book.

The fifteen minutes slowly ticked by, and more and more girls appeared in the lobby, waiting for the list.

At exactly 8pm, Erza appeared with a single sheet of paper in her hands. She pinned it to the board as the girls crowded behind her. As she turned away, she smiled at Lucy, winking.

Lucy rushed forward and looked at the list. There, at the top, it clearly read:

LUCY HEARTFILIA

LEVY MCGARDEN

Lucy screamed and ran to Levy, holding her hands. "We got in!" she cried.

Then she saw Natsu standing at the back, looking scared of the crying girls that didn't make it. Lucy ran to him and threw her arms around his neck, hugging him tightly.

"Congratulations, Luce," he told her softly. "I told you you had nothing to worry about!"

"Thank, Natsu," she said, letting go. "Sorry for freaking out so much," she chuckled.

"Hey, now you guys can come cheer me on at the games!" he called, raising his fist.

"You're on the football team?" Lucy asked.

"Yup,"

"Why didn't you tell me?" she asked, slapping his arm.

"I wasn't sure until this afternoon that I still was," he admitted, rubbing the back of his neck.

Lucy tilted her head, looking at him quizzically.

"You see," he sighed. "I kind of pissed off Laxus, the captain. I threw a ball at his head the other day, and he already hated me anyways,"

"Why did you throw a ball at his head?" Lucy demanded, although she wasn't really that surprised. Laxus was a jerk.

"You were there Luce," he told her.

"That was you?" she gasped in realisation.

"Yeah," he replied. "He's always scamming on pretty girls, and as much as I hate it, there's not a lot I can do. Then I recognised you from the train. You had helped me, so I decided to return the favour," he shrugged, then grinned.

"Thank you for that," Lucy replied sincerely.

"Well, Lu-chan, I'm going to bed," Levy said, reminding them of her presence. "Goodnight Natsu, Lu-chan," she said before waving and rushing up the stairs.

"Since we didn't get to stay for dessert, do you wanna go see if they still have some?" Natsu asked. "I heard they were serving apple pie tonight!"

"Sure," Lucy agreed. The two hurried back to the dining hall.

A/N: There you go! They have now officially met! Things will start to pick up a bit now, and there will be plenty of Nalu moments because I just can't resist! ;)

Anyways, I hope you're enjoying this! Please review! :)