Lucy let out a loud sigh as she closed her apartment door behind her. Pressing her back up against the door she slid down until she was sitting on the floor. As much as she was enjoying her work this week, it was a lot more tiring than what she was used to.

Ever since the beginning of the case she had been getting home close to nine every night, compared to the time she would normally get home, six, she was spending a lot more time at work than usual. But it what was needed to help out with the case. She knew she must have looked over the bones about ten times, top to bottom; skull to phalanges. She had found about everything she could about the bones, and while she did find something new almost every time, these observations weren't much help. She didn't think knowing that one victim played soccer when they were younger or that one broke their arm in the same place twice when they were an adolescent.

Sighing again she wondered whether she should get up or just fall asleep there, running on coffee wasn't working too well for her. Shrugging off her bag, Lucy slumped to the ground and pressed her face to the cool tile of her kitchen floor. Really, how did she expect to do this for a living when she seemed to be barely handling once case?

Scrunching her face up she pushed those thoughts out of her mind. She could do this, she was just tired from working overtime to find out how she could connect these bodies all together and find everything she could to help Natsu. Levy had offered to help her but besides helping her with fleshy bodies; she normally declined the offer for help.

Why? Maybe it was because she was just too stubborn and wanted to prove to others, but mainly to herself, that she could do this. Maybe she thought this was what he mother would. Maybe it was a mixture of both. Though Natsu didn't seem to be doing any better, working on this huge case by himself. She couldn't help but feel that this might end up falling down all around him, but she would do her best to help him out. Which reminded her of what she had promised him earlier.

Lifting her head off the floor she looked over at her bag, hesitating to reach out and grab it. The person that she knew who worked at city was none other than her father. She was hesitant to call her father herself; it would break the whole system that had been created. It would mean that he would expect her to call him as well, wouldn't it?

She had promised Natsu that she would call him tonight; while she could always lie and say she hadn't been able to get through to them it just didn't sit right with her for some reason. Grabbing her bag she rummaged around until she found her phone at the bottom.

She hesitated a few seconds before finally shoving aside all of her speculations and calling him. It took only two rings before he picked up.

"Lucy" Jude answered, something almost like surprise in his voice, he also didn't seem to believe that his daughter was calling him; he seemed to be at a loss for words. "We just talked yesterday."

"Yes father, we did, do you have a problem with that?" Lucy asked, immediately switching to the defensive.

"No, no, no, of course not" Jude said hurriedly. "I'm just surprised that's all, pleasantly surprised."

"Father, I'm calling to ask you a few questions about a colleague of yours, Marde Geer" Lucy said as she thought about maybe getting up off the floor, while it was comfortable a bed did seemed much more enticing.

"Marde Geer" Jude said as if he was hearing the name for the first time. "He is a member of the city's general assembly. I've talked to him a few times; he seems like a nice guy. What do you want to know about him?"

Now that was a question she should be asking herself, what exactly did Natsu want to know about him. "It's not that I have questions about him per say" Lucy said as she wracked her brain for something to ask.

"What do you want with Marde Geer?" Jude asked, not seeming to notice the panic showing in Lucy's voice as she scrambled to come up with questions, why hadn't she asked Natsu what he had wanted to know about Marde?

"Well it's more what does my part-the FBI agent I'm working with wants with him" Lucy said, catching herself on the word partner, could they even be called partners? "The guy I works with thinks that Marde might have…something to do with what we're investigating."

"Really?" Jude asked, emotion coming into his voice for the first time during their phone calls. "He thinks Marde might be mixed up with something?"

"He has a pretty solid theory" Lucy said as she finally got up off the floor, reaching down she grabbed her bag. "He just needs some more evidence to connect Marde to the crime. I figured since you work at city hall with him you could help."

Jude was silent for a few seconds before answering "I'll help you out anyway I can. While the public might like Marde, most of us at city hall hope he doesn't get voted in as mayor."

"Why do all hate him so much?" Lucy asked, glad she had been able to finally ask a question that might help them out. Taking out a piece of paper and pen from her bag she got ready to write.

"He just seems-" Jude said before pausing for a second. "Slimy?"

"What?" Lucy asked.

"He just seems kind of off, too good to be true sort of deal" Jude said. "Like he's hiding something."

"I see" Lucy said as she wrote it down, it was good to know she might be able to get some help at city hall if a majority of them didn't like Marde. "Do you know anything else about him that might be useful?"

"Sorry Lucy, I don't him well enough and neither does anyone else around here. He keeps to himself mostly, holed up in his office when he's not off helping the public or whatever it is he calls it" Jude said. "I'm still at work though, maybe I could go look in his office to see if he's in."

"You're still at work?" Lucy asked though she figured she shouldn't be surprised, he had always been a workaholic even when her mother was alive.

"I had something I needed to finish" Jude said half-heartedly.

"Sure" Lucy said as she rolled her eyes, she should tell him he needed to get a hobby like golf or bingo or something. "Don't stay too much longer though, I know you probably were in there by seven, you've already gone into overtime by now."

"You sound just like your mother" Jude said and for the first time in a long time he sounded….amused rather than his usual monotone attempt at humor.

"Thanks for doing this father" Lucy said as she shoved her pen and paper back into her bag. "It was helpful."

"No problem Lucy" Jude said "Good bye, talk to you later."

"Good bye" Lucy said before ending the call. Dragging herself to her bedroom she threw her bag down in the corner before considering putting on something else to sleep in. Shrugging off the idea she collapsed onto her bed before falling asleep in seconds. Later she wished she had told her father to forget about talking to Marde and to just go home.

/

Natsu is hunched over his laptop as he searched the internet for anything about Marde, other than anything that just talks about how great Marde is. He wasn't getting much luck; each website just said the same thing over and over again as though they just copy and pasted it of one resource. Which one was the original was not something Natsu knew nor did he really care to figure it out.

What Natsu did know was that Happy was not happy (no pun intended) since he had been practically abandoned by his owner for what had felt like forever and even though Natsu was back, he was still being ignored.

"Happy I'm sorry" Natsu said as Happy proceeded to flop down onto his keyboard and stare at him as if threatening Natsu to push him off. "But I have something important I need to do and I can't do it with your butt on my computer."

Happy just flicked his tail impassively as he continued to stare at Natsu, hitting the space bar repeatedly. Natsu swore his cat was smarter than what any cat should be.

"Listen you can sleep on my face for all I care tonight and suffocate me if you just let me do this" Natsu begged feeling like this was something a kid would do with their parents.

Happy flicked his tail again before standing up and leaping off the computer, but not before he stretched on it as if it was on last fuck you.

Sighing Natsu continued to scan the search results for anything helpful but finding nothing. He was finally considering just giving up and getting some sleep when his phone went off. Taking out of his pocket he looked at the screen to see it was Gajeel, which actually surprised him that Gajeel would actually call him unless maybe he was dying and they were holding him at cannon point to call him.

"Hey Gajeel" Natsu said half wondering if one of the other gang members had stolen his phone and had called Natsu because it had the worst name.

"Natsu, I have some info for ya." Natsu almost fell out of his chair when he heard Gajeel's gruff voice.

"Really?" Natsu asked. "Are you being forced to call me or something?"

"No" Gajeel answered, annoyance coming to his voice and all was normal again. "I'm doing ya a favor, so ya should count yer blessings that I'm in a good mood."

"Okay than" Natsu said "So what did you learn then?"

"I found out a little tidbit 'bout Jackal, apparently the guy is Tartaros' demolition expert. Pretty much this guy blows things up" Gajeel said.

"So he makes bombs and shit than?" Natsu asked getting excited slightly, if this was true than there was even more of a reason to connect Jackal of Tartaros to Jackal from the bombings a few years back.

"Yeah I guess" Gajeel said. "That's all I learned but I figured it would help ya."

"Thanks Gajeel" Natsu said as he closed his computer. "This has been helpful."

"Don't get killed, 'kay" Gajeel said before hanging up.

Natsu fell back against his chair as it all sank in. There was a good chance he had a connection to who Jackal was. He'd need to ask Gildarts for the file tomorrow but until then maybe he should slow down on the research and get some sleep.

Getting up from off the couch he heard Happy meow at him, apparently angry that Natsu had decided only a few minutes later that he didn't want to pay attention to the computer. Once he reached his room he collapsed onto his bed. Happy followed after him and landed on his back.

Natsu figured he could just fall asleep like that until Happy decided his back wasn't just comfortable enough and decided to scratch his back like he was a new scratching post.

"Happy come on" Natsu grumbled as he grabbed the cat by the scruff of his neck and pulled him off his back.

Looking at Happy he swore the cat looked like he was quite proud of himself. "I know you want to exact revenge, but could you save for another time." Rolling onto his back he sat up and began to unbutton his shirt. Grabbing the remote he turned on his tiny, static TV that he got for a deal at some lady's yard sale. He clicked until the news was on and began to get ready to go to sleep, which pretty much just meant taking off all of his clothes.

Sliding his tie off he half listened to the news, not bothering to really listen until he heard the announcement of "Breaking News!"

Glancing over at the TV he saw something that unsettled him to the bones, not enough to shake him but enough to scare him slightly. The screen was showing footage of town hall on fire, or well smoking on one side.

A reporter appeared on the screen as she told the public, in a surprising neutral tone, what was going on. "Town Hall has just experienced something we haven't heard about locally in years, a bombing. At exactly ten o' one pm the building shook as a large hole was blown out the side of it. Flames consumed the side of the building, but thanks to our amazing firefighters the blaze has been contained. Police don't know yet what exactly the motive of this bombing is but they say they plan to talk with the FBI about what the possible theories may be."

Natsu was already out the door by the time she was saying "Now back to Tom with the weather."

When he reaches city hall he feels like he can let out a small sigh of relief. There was little damage to the building, but whether or not anyone was hurt was a different story.

As he was looking around for Gildarts he saw someone in the crowd that he didn't expect to see. Among the crowd of spectators straining to get a look of the damage was Lucy Heartfilia. From what he could tell she was still in the clothes she had been wearing that day, just more wrinkled, and she had a look of panic plastered across her face, trying to look over the crowd while she bit on one of her knuckles.

"Heartfilia" Natsu called out as he jogged over to her.

She turned to him and for a few seconds some sort of relief was in her eyes before it turned back into panic. "Natsu" she said. "What are you doing here?"

He figured he should be asking her the same thing but he decided to wait for her to tell him considering how pale her face had become in the past few seconds of him watching her. "I saw it on the news and, well, I have a reason to believe that Jackal might have done this."

"J-Jackal?" Lucy asked her voice shaking slightly. "You think he set off this bomb." She was beginning to shake now.

"Um yeah, if Marde Geer is really Tartaros' leader than it would make sense if he attacked his place of work since I found out that Jackal is the explosion expert of the gang" Natsu said, worrying that Lucy might pass out right then and there. "Hey Heartfilia, are you okay? Do you need to sit down or something?"

"No, no" Lucy said shaking her head as she turned her attention back towards the building. "I need to find someone first."

"Who do you need to find?" Natsu asked, placing his hand on her shoulder only for her to flinch at the contact. Drawing his hand back he asked "I can take you past that little barricade and get you to the EMTs or a police officer."

"Th-that would be nice" Lucy said not even taking her attention away from the all the lights and smoke of the scene.

Natsu walked over to one of the officers keeping the crowd back with Lucy in tow. He showed his badge, glad he hadn't taken his work pants off, and pointed at Lucy as he said "She's with me." The guy nodded and let the two of them pass.

Since Natsu didn't even know who they were looking for he figured he should just follow Lucy until she found who she was looking for. "Not that it's any of my business" Natsu said, drawing Lucy's attention to him voluntarily. "But I take it you're looking for whoever you know that works at city hall?"

Lucy turned her attention back to searching for whoever it was she was looking for and Natsu figured she wasn't going to answer him. "Yeah."

"What?" Natsu asked, not catching what Lucy had mumbled.

"Yeah, I'm looking for the person I know from city hall" Lucy said as she continued to stare straight ahead with her back to him.

"Okay" Natsu said with a nod as he began to look around for any sign of Gildarts.

"I-It's just that I'm worried that-well now even more worried since you think Jackal is behind this" Lucy said as she began to ramble, twisting her fingers as she scanned around the ambulances and the few people who weren't harmed in the blast.

"Heartfilia, take some deep breaths" Natsu said, looking at her back. "Count to ten, you don't need to tell me anything you don't feel comfortable with."

Lucy became quiet other than her heavy breathing she was silent. Natsu figured she had just went back to looking for whoever it was she was worried about when she broke the silence.

"My father."

"What?" Natsu asked, barely catching what she had said.

"It's my father who I'm worried about" Lucy said.

So that was who she knew at city hall. "How can you be so sure he was here when the bomb went off?"

"I talked to him when I got home and he told me he was still at his office. I talked to him about Marde and-" Lucy said, her voice beginning to sound frantic as she brought up the subject of Marde.

"Heartfilia calm down, you're getting yourself worked up again. Let's just focus on finding your father first, what is his name? I'll ask around to see if he's here" Natsu said, cutting her off before she could continue.

"Jude Heartfilia, but still Natsu what if Jackal did this because he found out that we're trying to figure out who he is? What if he did this to freak me out or something? My father is always staying late at work, what if..." Lucy said before she began to trail off, tears beginning to well in her eyes. Her father's assistant had called her after the bomb had gone off to tell her what had happened and that she didn't know where Jude was.

She had told Lucy that Jude had left his office, not like he was leaving for home since he had left the office door unlocked, and that she didn't know where he had went. By then Lucy was shoving on a pair of shoes and was out the door. Even if she and her father didn't have the best relationship didn't mean she wasn't worried out of her mind of what had happened to him, all the possible situations running through her head as she ran down to city hall.

"Heartfilia, calm down okay" Natsu said, grabbing Lucy's shoulders and turning her around to face him. "Listen, I promise you that this was not done as an attack on you, okay? If Marde Geer is the guy we are looking for than it would make sense that Jackal would attack his work place as a way to threaten him, like he's not safe at all no matter where he is. Jackal probably didn't even make a connection to you and your father, it's just a coincident."

"O-okay" Lucy said, a little taken back with Natsu's outburst.

"Do you feel a little better?" Natsu asked, releasing her shoulders from his grip.

"I'd feel a lot better if I could find my father" Lucy said, staring blankly at Natsu.

"Okay than, let's go find your dad" Natsu said as he walked up to the closest officer with Lucy following him. "Do you happen to know anything about Jude Heartfilia?"

The officer looked him over with a raised brow before answering; apparently he wasn't one who worked with Gildarts. "Yeah" the officer said before pointing his thumb behind him "He's over there with the others who were in building. I think only one person got seriously injured."

"Thanks" Natsu said before steering Lucy in the direction the man had pointed. "Do you see him?"

Lucy scanned the faces that were standing around and let out of sigh of relief when she recognized one of the faces. "Yes, he's fine" Lucy said before running over to him.

"Lucy" Jude said as he seemed to recover from Lucy's sudden hug "What are you doing here?"

"What do you think I'm doing here you idiot?" Lucy asked as she squeezed her arms tighter around her father. "I was worried."

"Still" Jude said as he patted his daughter's arm. "Why did you show up here?"

"What do you mean?" Lucy asked as she drew back from the hug. "Why wouldn't I come rushing down here after hearing that my father was in a building that a bomb had gone off in?"

"I just thought-" Jude said before cutting himself off mid-sentence. "Never mind."

"So are you alright, I mean you seem alright" Lucy said as she looked him over.

"I'm just a little shaken up, I was close to the blast so they want to take me to the hospital to watch me for the next twenty-four hours to be sure" Jude said. "They'll be loading me into an ambulance soon I guess."

"Okay" Lucy said. "Call me when your let out, okay?"

"Okay, I didn't mean to make you worry" Jude said.

"It's fine, I'm just glad you're fine" Lucy said as looked over at Natsu who seemed to be pretending to not be watching. "I'm going to head home."

"I'll talk to you tomorrow Lucy" Jude said as he watched Lucy walk over to Natsu.

"So, do you feel better?" Natsu asked once Lucy was standing next to him again.

"Yeah" Lucy said "I need some sleep though. Thank god I only live two blocks away."

"Do you want me to walk with you?" Natsu asked, a few milliseconds later he realized what exactly he had said and began to kick himself. No way would she agree to the offer, just a few seconds ago she was shrugging him off, but he just loved to embarrass himself even more.

"Sure, that would help calm my mind I guess" Lucy said.

"Really?" Natsu asked, surprised she had accepted.

"Yeah, if I have a big strong FBI agent with me than I don't have to worry about Jackal jumping out and attacking me" Lucy said with a laugh. "My imagination is a bit wild."

"I see" Natsu said. "Well I'll make sure to shield you with my body if he throws a bomb at us."

"Can people even throw bombs?" Lucy asked.

"Sure if their small" Natsu answered as the two of them walked away from city hall.

"I think you're talking about grenades" Lucy said with a chuckle as the bright lights from city hall began to disappear.

"I guess you're right" Natsu said with a shrug. "So, um, did you talk with your dad about Marde?"

"Yeah I did, that's why I had called him before the bomb went off" Lucy said. "He wasn't able to tell me much but he did tell me that almost everyone who works at city hall doesn't like him."

"Really, why?" Natsu asked, he had thought since the public seemed to love him so that it be the same for his co-workers.

"Apparently they think he's too good to be true" Lucy said. "My father called him slimy."

"Slimy?" Natsu asked, stifling a laugh.

"I know, I thought it was pretty weird too" Lucy said before a comfortable silence fell between them.

Shoving his hands in his pocket Natsu figured it only be about five minutes until they reached Lucy's apartment. He wondered whether or not to fill her in on what he had found, which wasn't much, he had already told her about the main thing he had found out about Jackal.

"Listen, thanks for helping me out back there" Lucy said, suddenly breaking the silence.

"Hey, no problem" Natsu said "Just helping a fri-someone out. Nothing to it really."

"Still, I appreciate it. Anyway, do you have any sort of plan for what you're going to do once we find out everything we need to know to pin down Marde and find Jackal?" Lucy asked a little confused on how Natsu planned to go around all of this.

"I'm not sure to be honest" Natsu said as he ran a hand through his hair. "But the main goal is to arrest Marde and Jackal. They seem to be considered the strongest members of the gang. Plus, since they're the instigators of this war, perhaps if they are out of the equation than maybe the war will come to an end. It would cripple them if their two strongest members were taking away in the middle of the war; they'd feel pressure to end it since neither side would really have a reason for fighting."

"I suppose your right" Lucy said as she stopped outside of an apartment complex. "Thanks for walking me back, it helped calm my nerves."

"No problem, well I hope you'll be fine by yourself" Natsu said as he raised his hand in goodbye.

Lucy returned the gesture as she said "I'll be fine, if anyone should be worried about being targeted it should be you right?"

"Haha" Natsu said hoping his laugh didn't sound too fake. "I guess you're right. I'll see you tomorrow then."

"See you tomorrow" Lucy said as she watched him walk away and eventually turn down the street. Heading inside she walked up the steps to her apartment and tried to ignore the fact that she had forgotten to lock the door in her haste to get to city hall earlier. The second her head hit her pillow she fell asleep.