Lacking cocoa mix, Lucy opted to go the old fashion route and actually melt hot chocolate into milk. Given how somber Natsu still acted when he and Happy arrived at her apartment, she doubled the amount of chocolate she'd first thought might be needed, and the result was sweeter and creamier than she'd intended.

Natsu had three servings before she made him stop with the warning of a sugar crash.

"We can make more tomorrow," she promised. "Don't overdo it for now."

"I miss overdoing things."

"I miss you overdoing things too. It feels wrong to finish a job and not owe anyone half my earnings in damages."

"It still doesn't feel right to not take any jobs."

When Lucy took the half drunken mug of hot chocolate from Natsu, she placed a small stack of papers in his hand. "Here. I have a few new stories written up for you. I know it's not the same, but it might kind of be like being there."

Happy nested himself in Natsu's lap while Natsu adjusted his glasses, letting the magic lenses refocus for him on the fine print. How well he could read without them, Lucy didn't know. He could at least find his way around without them on, but after him having had the best vision of anyone he'd known in the past, it still looked strange to her to see Natsu depend on something like that to see clearly.

His vision was good enough that, out of the corner of his eye, Natsu caught her looking upset. "What?"

"Nothing. Just… It's nothing. How are you feeling after the trip over? You can read in bed if you want."

"The chair's comfy enough," Natsu's eyes drifted back down to the story. "Are we sleeping together tonight, or do you want me on the couch?"

"You've demonstrated more than once that we both fit on the bed. You can have the window side if you want."

Natsu grinned and nodded, not suspecting for a moment that Lucy was worried he might fall out of bed. Not that he'd fallen off her couch the last time he was over, but if Gray had lost his Natsu privileges for assumed carelessness, then Lucy wasn't taking any chances. Besides, the bed was soft and the view from the window was pleasant, and Natsu clearly wasn't happy with the situation with Gray. He wasn't going to complain about a little special treatment in getting explicit permission to share the bed with her.

"I'm low on food, by the way," Lucy mentioned. "I'll see you two to the guild tomorrow, but after that, I need to go shopping."

"I don't wanna go to the guild," Natsu said.

"Why not? Fairy Tail is like a second home." In fact, she'd always suspect that it was closer to being Natsu's first home.

"He's worried that Gray will be there," Happy said. Whatever he intended to say after that, Natsu clapped a hand over the cat's mouth before it could be said.

"Everyone's only seen Gray once since they split you two up," Lucy informed him. "It would be a pretty big coincidence if he showed up. And if he does, you can ask him for me what on earth was up with him leaving you behind."

Natsu made a noncommittal noise and held the story up to feign focusing all of his attention on it.

"I only have so many people I can leave you in the hands of. I think you and Happy could manage for an hour or two on your own, but I'd rather not risk having the master drag you back to Laxus's tomorrow night. Please, Natsu, agree to go to the guild."

She'd picked her wording carefully. Throwing in the threat of life with Laxus while making it sound like she wasn't threatening him, and phrasing the whole thing as a request. Natsu didn't bristle quite as much over others deciding what to do for him anymore. Not when Gray had done just that more times than any of them could count. He did still like to have control over his own situation, though. Presenting the guild as an option earned less resistance as compared to an order.

"Fine," Natsu said, "But I'll hate you forever if Gray's there."

"And here I thought you loved him," Lucy said, forgetting for a moment that Happy wasn't in on that secret.

Natsu, momentarily oblivious to the cat on his lap, shut his eyes and said, "That's the problem."

-o-

Because Natsu wanted to train her, Lucy carried him on her back the whole way to the guild. Happy held onto Natsu's jacket, wings out, pulling up to lighten Lucy's load whenever her knees threatened to give out. By the time she reached the guild she was beat, but Natsu had a fun time with it, and until she fixed whatever mess started with Gray, he needed all the cheering up he could get. Lucy herself had never been in love, but it wasn't hard to imagine how badly it must have hurt to be in Natsu's position.

"What do you do when you're frustrated?" Lucy asked. "What kind of coping methods have you tried?"

"Beat things," Natsu said. "Go on a job and beat up people, or go punch a bag in my room. I drew Gray's face on it a while back. Before I got sick and everything."

Happy, who now knew what 'everything' entailed, snickered.

"Can you still do that?"

"No. Now I… I don't know. I just deal with it, I guess. Not like I have much of a choice."

"I'm going to buy you a stress ball while I'm out. You can squeeze it when you're upset."

"Squeezing stuff helps?"

Lucy regretted nodding at that, because Natsu promptly squeezed her arm. It didn't hurt exactly. Natsu's grip strength was abysmal. It did make her feel bad, though. She already knew Natsu was distressed, but she didn't exactly need such an abrupt reminder.

She got him to the guild, suffering through applause and laughter at the sight of her and Happy struggling to carry Natsu together in order to get him to a table near the back of the room where Erza sat.

"You have babysitting duty whenever I need to work," she told Erza as she set Natsu down, "so you can practice looking after him now. I need to run some errands."

Natsu took the teasing in good spirits, but Erza went stiff, eyes widening at the implication that what they were doing for Natsu could be called babysitting.

"Don't take too long," Natsu told her.

"I'll be back before you can have any unpleasant encounters."

It wasn't a promise Lucy could really make, but since she intended to track Gray down herself, she didn't anticipate Gray showing up and giving Natsu any grief before she could get an explanation out of him.

-o-

Had they been characters in a story, Lucy would have expected all the assurance she gave Natsu that he wouldn't encounter Gray to be a sure sign that Gray would show up at the guild. Since they weren't just a bunch of fictional characters playing out certain clichés, she expected to find Gray sulking in his apartment. Much to her satisfaction, when she knocked on his front door, he opened it up for her and proved her right.

"Your back."

There was something unsettling about the bland way he said it, and Lucy hesitated when he stepped aside so she could go in. Gray's eyes were dull, and he hadn't shaved that morning. Natsu, at least, had kept up his daily maintenance.

Natsu would also have the whole guild descend on him looking for signs that he was unwell if he showed up unshaven, but that was neither here nor there.

"Are you alright?"

"Yeah. Just… been a while since I didn't have any reason to get up and work. You picked Natsu up from Laxus's place?"

Lucy nodded. "He's staying with me for now, but I have someone else keeping an eye on him what I'm here." Out of consideration for Natsu, she left out that that someone else was watching him at the guild. "I wanted to talk to you about… whatever happened that made the master split you two up."

"I'd love to talk to anyone about that," Gray said. "No one's told me what I did wrong. Gramps thinks I'll harass whoever reported me."

"It was Natsu," Lucy said, confident that Gray wouldn't actually harass him.

"Na… Natsu?" Gray paled. He had the same heartbroken look on his face that Natsu did when admitting that he was afraid of seeing Gray at the guild, and for a moment, Lucy wondered if maybe Gray really was going through a similar heartbreak to Natsu. The kind where you thought it was someone you loved, not just a friend, who wronged you. "Why did… We… We fought the night before over Sting… but I told him in the end that it was alright for the two of them to see each other. I can't think of any other reason Natsu would have gone and tried to get me into trouble."

The implication that Gray hadn't actually done anything to deserve being mistrusted wasn't lost on Lucy.

"So what happened then?" Lucy prompted. "Natsu mentioned that there was a fight and he complained about you after, but he didn't seem to have much of an idea as to why everything happened the way it did. Why did you leave him behind?"

"Why did I what?" The confusion on Gray's face looked too sincere for Lucy to doubt.

"Natsu said you left him somewhere you weren't sure was safe. That's what the master is upset over."

"No… I…" Gray took a seat at his kitchen table, staring down at his hands as he wracked his brain for whatever incident Natsu might have meant. "Maybe… the day Sting offered to have Natsu stay with him? That was a while ago, but I can't think of any other time, and I did little things like that often. Left him home or at the park with Happy to cover for me while I knocked out errands. Not too long after he got his bandages we got separated from Happy and checked all over town for him. Natsu didn't want to deal with the guild while everyone wanted to know how he'd faired from his attack, so when we stopped for lunch I asked him to wait in the café and ran to check the guild on my own. When Happy and I came back, he was gone. He'd left after some waitress said something about him, and Sting and Rogue found him and helped him back to his place. Sting was pissed with me when I caught up with them. He might have complained about that more while Natsu was staying with him, and then Natsu brought it up because he was mad at me for telling him to stay away from Sting. Do you think that's it?"

"Maybe." Lucy thought from talking to Natsu that it had been a matter of days that Gray was AWOL, not the kind of brief absence Gray described. "How mad was Natsu the morning they split you two up?"

"We weren't talking."

Livid then. Lucy had never seen Natsu give anyone the cold shoulder treatment, and it seemed strange to her that Natsu would react that way to being told not to see Sting. That was already something Gray forbid—hence their sneaking behind Gray's back to get Natsu over to Sting's in the first place. Even the incident with the café that Gray recounted couldn't explain that kind of anger, which meant that there was something else they weren't accounting for.

"It's not that I don't believe you," Lucy said, earning herself a dark look from Gray, "but nothing I'm hearing lines up right. I'll be back when I have the chance, but let me see if I can get more detail out of Natsu first. I don't think that abandonment complaint he had is the same one you've mentioned."

"I can't think of any other time I've left Natsu with anyone I don't trust. He could get himself where he needed before that incident, and I've been extra careful ever since."

"Natsu definitely said you left him alone for days."

"I would never do that. It kills me just to leave him with Laxus."

Despite her best efforts to remain neutral and keep things amiable with Gray, Lucy couldn't help but sound annoyed when she said, "Which is why you haven't gone to check on him."

"I was forbidden from seeing him!" Gray snapped, pushing up from his chair to defend himself. "You think I wouldn't be there every second if I was allowed? I kills me not to be with him!"

Lucy hadn't realized she'd backed away when Gray yelled, but as he steadied his breathing, she noticed her rear pressed hard against the corner of his kitchen counter. What was she even supposed to say in response to something like that? That Natsu wasn't happy either? If what Gray said was true, that would only make things harder on him.

Watching him attempt to calm himself, it almost seemed to Lucy that Gray was taking the separation harder than Natsu was, which might make sense to anyone who saw only Gray's neuroticism and Natsu's frustration with all the mothering he received as a result, but Lucy knew better. Natsu loved Gray, and it crushed him to be taken away and left to feel abandoned. The only reason Gray should have to feel that same level of hurt…

"Do you like Natsu?" Lucy dared ask. Natsu would murder her if he learned she was so upfront, but she wasn't asking on Natsu's behalf.

"You think I'd go as far as I did for someone I can't stand?" Gray asked. "Gramps said you're taking over Natsu's care when you get back, so… I can deal with that. You know what you're doing with him now The two of you make a good couple anyway."

With Gray being as particular as he was about Natsu's care, Lucy almost let the praise of being an acceptable caregiver distract her from that last little bit. "Couple?"

"Yeah. You and Natsu."

"We aren't a couple."

Gray snorted. "Nice try. Half the time, I catch you two sleeping in the same bed. Watch out for Sting, by the way. He actually declared himself a contender for Natsu's love, so you have yourself a rival. Beat Juvia to getting one, I guess."

Whether or not anyone else knew it, there had been a love rival for Juvia for a few months. More important to clarify than that, however, was the Natsu-Lucy relationship. "Natsu crawls into bed with me because I only have the one and he has no sense of personal space. We're friends, so he doesn't think anything weird of it. I've given up on stopping him by this point."

"Natsu and I are friends too," Gray said, "and he thought it was extremely weird for us to share a bed."

"When did that happen?"

"We didn't get his hammock moved over the first night he was here," Gray said. "In any case, Natsu only wants to sleep with you."

Or, maybe, Natsu didn't want to sleep with Gray because wanting more than just friendship with him made him think of it was weird to share a bed while their relationship was anchored. But Lucy couldn't say as much without breaking Natsu's trust in her. "Natsu and I aren't interested in one another that way. Natsu… I don't know if he wants me telling you this or not, but he came to me for advice with his actual crush."

Lucy had never realized had appropriate a term 'crush' was, because 'crushed' was an apt description for how Gray looked when Lucy told him that. She couldn't wait to rub it in Natsu's face that she'd been right about him having a chance if he confessed. If Natsu still wanted to confess. She needed to sort out whatever happened between him and Gray.

"Who…"

"Sorry. Sworn to secrecy." Seeing Gray only look further crushed at that, Lucy gave him a sympathetic smile and said, "You wouldn't want me to run any tell anyone if you confided in me about who you liked, right? Especially not Juvia."

That made Gray laughed, albeit nervously.

"I can't betray Natsu's trust, and I'd do the same for you."

"Then do you mind if I confide in you?" Gray asked. "Since I can't tell the person I like anymore."

"Go for it," Lucy said, already knowing his answer.

"I… I might… like Natsu. I don't know when I started thinking about him differently. Definitely not before he got sick, but… I-I mean, I didn't offer to help because I'm into him or anything. I just… Makarov asked, and then I felt like he needed someone there, and… I don't know. At some point it stopped feeling like something I did just 'cause he needed it."

"Don't worry." Lucy clapped her hand on Gray's shoulder. "I'll get to the bottom of this and have you two back together in no time."

"Ah. But Natsu's crush—"

"That's for him to tell you." Lucy was so excited to have confirmation on Gray's feelings that she could almost kiss him. "Gotta go pick him up now. Don't worry. Your secret's safe with me!"

-x-

STA: The best hot chocolate is made with actual chocolate. Just FYI.

Oh. Another FYI. Don't get too excited for the next chapter. I'm not done being a brat with the drama yet.

Guest: I'm glad that you're feeling... um... well... you're not happy, so... I', glad that you're feeling not bad!

Ryuu91: Thanks! And yes, Lucy to the rescue!