A/N: Thank you to everyone who reviewed! :) Sorry this is a bit later than I had planned - my mum made me go to the movies with her to see Cirque Du Soleil (shes OBSESSED with it!)
Disclaimer: I don't own Fairy Tail!
Enjoy!
Chapter 26
After the awkward dinner, Lucy and Natsu had gone to see Layla before watching a movie and going to bed. They slept in the next morning and Spetto brought them breakfast in bed.
"They should do this at school," Natsu commented as they ate.
Lucy just rolled her eyes. She got up, stretched, and went to have a shower while Natsu was still eating. When they were both clean and dressed, they headed down to the games room. Lucy noticed that Natsu was getting restless. He needed to move around, get rid of some energy.
They decided to play Wii Sport, and Natsu was getting really into it.
"Come on Luce!" he called when they were playing tennis. "You can do better than that!"
"You know, it's just a game, Natsu," she said. "And I've never been good at tennis,"
"But you're good at everything," he said, looking at her confused. He was dead serious.
"That's sweet, but I'm really not," she told him.
"I've never seen you be bad at anything,"
"What about right now?"
"You're not bad at this," he sighed. "You're just not…amazing at it. That doesn't mean you're not good,"
Lucy sighed. She wasn't going to win this one, so she decided to just accept the compliment so they could move on.
After lunch, Lucy decided it was time to go talk to her father. She walked down to his study, clinging to Natsu's hand; she didn't want to be alone when she did this.
Taking a deep breath, she knocked on his door. There was no reply. She knocked again. Still no reply.
Carefully, she opened the door a crack to look inside. He wasn't there.
She walked to the kitchen window, where you could see Layla's grave. Sure enough, he was sitting out there on the hill.
She supposed it was kind of fitting that her mother was there.
The couple walked up the hill towards him.
"Papa," she called softly. He looked up. "I have something I need to talk to you about,"
"What is it?" he asked curiously, on his guard.
Natsu was extremely curious as well, but he tried not to show it.
Lucy took a deep breath. "I want to be an author," she said quickly.
Jude's eyes widened, and it looked like he was about to yell, but he turned back to Layla's grave, taking a deep breath to calm down. Natsu squeezed her hand reassuringly.
"I thought we talked about this," Jude said quietly, through his teeth.
"I know we did," Lucy replied. "But I want to talk about it some more. I can still do medicine, I'll just do a double degree! I'll work extra hard for this Papa, I know I can do it,"
Jude didn't say anything for a long time. He didn't even look at Lucy; he sat staring at the grave.
"If you're willing to do the extra work, fine," he finally said, and Lucy smiled. "But our deal still stands: you don't get into medicine, you take over from me," he said with finality.
"Thank you Papa! I know I can do this!" she cried. Without thinking about it, she flung herself at her father. They both froze for a moment, before relaxing into the hug. It had been years since she'd felt her father's arms around her, and she hadn't realised she'd missed it.
She smiled over his shoulder at her mother's grave. Thank you Mama, she thought, I know you helped with this.
Natsu and Lucy had to leave straight after that to catch their train. Lucy said a tearful goodbye to all the staff she had missed, and they were off.
It was dark by the time they got to campus, and Natsu walked Lucy to her dorm as usual.
"I'm really proud of you, Luce," he told her, wrapping his arm around her waist as they walked. "Now you can go and show him that you can make it as a successful author," he grinned.
"The next few years are gonna be tough though," she sighed, leaning into him.
"Don't worry about that yet," Natsu told her. "We're not even halfway through the year yet,"
"That's crazy," Lucy said.
"What is?"
"I've only known you a few months," she said. "But it feels like years,"
"I know what you mean," he smiled.
The next day, during their free period, Lucy was looking outside the window thinking, when she saw Rogue and Yukino. Curious, she focused on them, forgetting her Chemistry homework.
It looked like Yukino was crying, trying to plead with her boyfriend. He wasn't looking at her, and he looked torn. Was she getting through to him? Suddenly, Yukino turned, saying something, and ran away from him. Rogue immediately ran after her, which gave Lucy hope. They ran out of view, so Lucy couldn't see what happened after that, but it looked like Rogue was at least ready to listen to her.
"What's wrong, Luce?" Natsu asked, getting her attention.
"Nothing," she told him, smiling. Then she noticed that his Chemistry book was closed. "Natsu you can't have finished that already!"
"I'm just taking a break," he mumbled, but at the same time, he put his arm over the papers in front of him.
"What are you hiding?" Lucy asked.
"Nothing,"
"Natsu, don't lie to me," she warned.
"Fine," Natsu sighed, removing his arms. Sitting on the table in front of him were course guides form all different colleges.
"Oh," Lucy said, looking through all the prestigious campuses. "You're really serious about this,"
Natsu didn't say anything. Lucy looked closer – she still didn't know what he wanted to do. Her eyes widened when she saw what courses were circled.
"Natsu, why are all the creative writing courses circled?" she asked. "And the medicine ones,"
"I wanted to see what places you would possibly be going to, and see what they offered that I could do," he shrugged.
Lucy stared at him. "What are you saying?" she asked slowly.
"I'm saying that whatever college you go to, I'll be there,"
"You would really do that?" Lucy asked. "Plan your entire future around where I go?"
"Of course," he said. "Luce, you are gonna be so busy, you won't have time to travel, or have me come visit. Also, I figured you could use the support,"
"Natsu," she whispered. "That's so sweet – but you need to make sure you're really sure about this! I don't want you to do something you don't want to because of me! We'll still make it work,"
"I know," he told her. "But I'm flexible – I still have no idea what I want to do, so this will just help me choose," he grinned.
She rolled her eyes at his logic, but still grabbed his neck, pulling him close so she could kiss him passionately. She didn't care that they were in the middle of the library, their classmates all around them. Words couldn't describe how touched she was that he would do that for her.
"I love you so much, Natsu Dragneel," she whispered when they broke apart.
"I love you more, Lucy Heartfilia," he grinned back.
"And I love when kids actually do their work!"
The two teens jumped apart at the voice. They turned to see the librarian standing behind them, arms crossed and scowling.
"S-sorry!" they both cried, turning red.
"Study!"
"Aye!"
That afternoon, Natsu came with Lucy to Writer's Club.
"You know, you don't have to come," she told him as they walked to the library.
"I know," he said. "But I want to. This is important to you, so I wanna be part of it,"
"You really do love me," Lucy smiled.
"What, you thought I was lying?"
"We both know you can't lie,"
"And you can? You're way too nice to lie to someone!"
"There's nothing wrong with being nice,"
"Just as long as people don't take advantage of you,"
"Well, that's what I have you for," she smiled.
"I guess I'll have to stick around for a while then," he grinned.
"I guess you will," she grinned back. She stopped him in the aisle to reach up on her tip toes and kiss him quickly but passionately before they went around the corner to the meeting.
"Lu-chan!" Levy called. "Wow, I never thought I'd see you here, Natsu," she added, eyes wide.
"Neither did I," Lucy said. Natsu looked away, blushing.
Lucy sat there, trying to pay attention to the girl who was sharing her story this week. It was very hard with Natsu sitting beside her, tracing patterns on her back. She shivered involuntarily, and she could feel his smirk. She shifted in her seat a little and tried harder to pay attention.
He didn't stop. And now he was playing with her hair as well – behind her back so nobody could see. She scowled slightly before she could stop herself. He was just so distracting.
His arm slipped down her back – finger trailing lightly the whole way – to rest around her waist. All Lucy could think about was the warmth and security of that arm. When he started drawing the patterns on her side, she almost lost it.
Her top had slipped up a little, and when she felt his warm hand resting against her skin, all hope of concentration went out the door. Why did she think it was a good idea for him to come?
She shifted again, elbowing him lightly, but that only made her top shift up more. He took advantage and started tracing patterns on her flesh. She stepped on his foot.
She sighed in relief when he removed his hand from her waist. She took a deep breath and focused back on the girl. She would be able to concentrate now.
She only just held back her yelp of surprise when Natsu's hand was suddenly resting on her leg under the table. She shot a quick glare at him, hoping no one would notice. He was looking forward, but his smirk told her he noticed.
He just left his hand there, close to her knee, for a while, not moving an inch. Lucy tried her best to ignore the warmth, and she was finally starting to get used to it when he moved.
He started tracing around the width of her leg, running his finger down the side towards her seat and then back around. He did that a few times before slowly – very slowly – moving his way up her leg.
Why did she wear such a short skirt that day?
When he eventually got to the hem of her skirt, he started playing with the edges, and Lucy felt her face heating up. Desperately, she placed her hand on his, meaning to stop him.
Instead, she found herself pushing it up even higher.
For a moment, she was horrified with herself. She just wanted to run out of the room, embarrassed, even though she knew that no one else could see what she'd done.
Luckily, the meeting ended then, before she could.
"Well, we better go," Lucy said, turning to Levy. "We're meeting Erza at the gym, and she hates when we're late," she chuckled nervously.
"Okay, I'll see you later then," Levy smiled. Something in her eyes told Lucy that she knew exactly what had been happening during that meeting.
"Bye Levy-chan!" she called, dragging Natsu out of the library.
When they were outside, she pulled him into the small space between the buildings.
"Well, that was a very interesting meeting," he smirked. "I learnt so much. I'm glad I went,"
"Shut up!" she yelled, whacking his chest. "You are so distracting!"
"You didn't seem to mind too much," he reminded her, raising his eyebrow.
Lucy half-screamed-half-growled before grabbing his smirking face and crushing her lips to his. He was quick to return the kiss, being just as rough with her as she was with him.
"You. Absolute. Jerk!" she panted between kisses. She pulled back. "Do you know how embarrassing that was?" she asked, pulling his face back to hers before he could answer.
She could feel him chuckling against her lips.
While she kissed him furiously, her hands were knotted in his hair, while his gripped her waist. She had him pinned against the wall, one of her legs between his. Part of her realised that she would be unbelievably embarrassed if someone walked by, but most of her didn't care. He'd teased her too much in that room, and she needed this.
They broke apart for air, and Natsu rested his forehead against hers.
"Erza will come looking for us," he said, panting.
"Yeah," Lucy replied, panting just as hard. "We should probably go,"
Neither of them moved for a minute. They stood there, staring at each other, panting like crazy.
Eventually, Lucy gave him one last quick kiss before stepping away from him. She grabbed his hand and they hurried back to their dorms to get ready for their gym session.
A/N: What do you think? ;)
Can't wait to read your reviews for this one! ;D
Much love x