Warning! The first chapter has had some major edits, so please go back and read it! Thanks to aphrodite931 (I think the numbers are right) for opening my eyes to how much better the first chapter could be!

Also, I told a few of you after you reviewed that I was planning on almost doubling the size of the chapter from the first one to this one, but with my edits on the first chapter they've ended up about the same length. I'll try to make the third chapter a little longer!

Thanks to those of you who added this story to your alerts or favorites and reviewed! Your support is amazing!

Again, Lucy Heartfilia and all Fairy Tail characters are © of Hiro Mashima. May he continue to write and draw this epitome of epic-ness for chapters and chapters to come, am I right? J

Anyway, without further ado, here is the second installment of "Until She's Home Again".

…

After leaving Magnolia, I had no idea what I was going to do, what I wanted to do, or even where I was going to run to. I didn't have any clue what may lay ahead of me, what lay beyond my decision to flee. Nothing came to me until after the train stopped, and I thought for a moment before taking another to someplace farther from the guild. My objectives changed every time I got to a new stop on the railroad, and I also started to slowly change my look in the towns I came across. Protection against being recognized. If I changed some each time, even if my friends were to try to follow me, coming around and asking for a person of my description, even they would never find me. And even if they could follow me, when they found me I wouldn't be recognizable to their eyes.

And soon, I was a person completely transformed from the innocent, vain, and blonde celestial mage that my nakama at Fairy Tail would have recognized.

At first, I had bought a wig, dark brown curly hair that fell to my shoulder blades in gorgeous, shimmering waves. The next town I had stopped at, I added green contacts to the ensemble, which was an entirely new experience to me. Touching my eyes was hard at first, but I got used to it before the train stopped at the next town, and I decided to change the shoes. They became tall, black, leather boots, coming up to just beneath my knees, with a three inch heel. I tossed the modest and white one inch tall heels I'd been wearing in the bin before I boarded my next train, continuing my zigzag across the kingdom of Fiore. At the next town, I stayed overnight. I bought new pants, sometimes black leather skirts or skinny jeans, but also a few pairs of faded and holey jeans. I threw out all my old, brightly colored skirts and shorts in favor of these, except for a few red ones. All that was left, the next time the train stopped, was to adjust the wardrobe for my torso as well. Red shirts, dark blue shirts, and black shirts would make the rest of my new look complete.

I had to work on a new attitude, too, so the farther away from Magnolia I got, the darker my personality seemed to become. I was the outcast, the girl that no one would have talked to in school or at all, because I was scary and unapproachable. There remained times when my normal, polite attitude would shine through, but I would lock it away and thus scare off the people who tried to approach me in my weaker moments. Anyone who saw me would think I was a delinquent, which was the look I was going for. No one would come up to me this way, asking nosy questions about who I was, where I came from, or anything about my past at all.

Lucy Heartfilia had a darker look that none would associate with the bright, happy blonde that she had once been. And I liked it that way.

…

Over the many, many months that I had been gone from Fairy Tail, my look had changed. Not only did I have a different wig, the first having been destroyed my third week on the run by a major influx of magical power that consumed me, but I had recently cropped my hair as short as Edoras Lucy had cut her own. It was extra insurance, just in case my current black, punk styled wig was lost somehow. I wore a long, black leather coat that fell to the bend of my knees most of the time, always accompanied by elbow length, studded, fingerless leather gloves. Normally, I wore a dark blue strapless shirt, that just covered my chest but still left my midriff bare. A blue belt held up whatever pants that I chose to wear, which on the day in question was a black pleated skirt. Accompanying the outfit were the tall boots that I had bought as I fled Magnolia. The green contacts had been replaced with contacts of an icy blue.

I had become Layla Heart, a freelance mage to the town in which I had found a temporary home. In short, I looked like a bad egg, but a few people here knew me just a little bit and knew that I was almost a polar opposite of my appearance, even with the punk façade I kept up. I wasn't letting anyone get any closer to me, though, because I was more prone to the magical explosions now than ever. It was past the point where it had started to cause damage not only to me, but to those around me, and I wouldn't let anyone deal with it. The heavy damage it now caused on my body at nearly every burst was my burden, and mine alone. And it had been, since the day I ran away.

The one thing, other than the pink insignia on my right hand, that I kept from my past was the use of my mother's name as my own.

And the thing was, I should have already died by now. It was painful, still being alive, thinking that if only I'd stayed a little longer I could have had more memories with my precious people. I was a celestial mage, so I should have died after the first eight or nine months, yet here I was, alive and breathing and just missing everyone I'd left behind. What would they think of me, if they somehow managed to find me? I would almost like it if they'd hate me for what I did to them, but somewhere deep in my heart I just couldn't believe any of them could feel that strongly against me because we were all nakama, all dear to each other. We were a big family.

It was almost a year since I had left the guild behind, and I missed all of my friends so badly I wanted to turn around and go back. I didn't let myself break and return to them, though, because my time should be closing in. Instead, I wandered around in the areas on the continent that were as far away from Magnolia as I could possibly get without crossing the sea. Some of the things I ran across reminded me of the S-class exams, the creatures on Tenrou Island, and thus I remembered my old nakama again. After the fourth time I ran into something else out in the woods, I hurriedly made camp and huddled down in my sleeping bag, trying to hide my sobs from the air around me.

Pain. Why did it hurt so much to be this far away? And last month, when I'd glimpsed Erza strutting through a town, the stuffed head of the beast that was her latest conquest carried easily on one shoulder, my heart felt like it was torn in two. I had run so I would not have to face her. It hurt so much that I was actually thankful she was alone, because I was afraid Natsu might still recognize my scent. And now would not be a good time for them to find me again, because I was supposed to die, and soon.

My heart felt like it was breaking, and I sobbed into the folds of the sleeping bag throughout the night until I cried myself to sleep around dawn.

"I should be dead right now," I turned my head to look up at the sky, finally able to say it out loud. A tear threatened to fall when I recalled watching the clouds with my teammates, my closest nakama from Fairy Tail. But it threatened more when I remembered just sitting next to Natsu under the rainbow sakura tree, staring up as the petals fell and I couldn't help but think then that it was such a romantic scene. If only…but I forced the thoughts, memories, and tears away and allowed myself a small smile, whispering to the sky, "I wonder what you're all doing right now? Erza? And Gray? And how are Wendy and Charle? Has Charle finally given you her heart, Happy? And how is Levy-chan? And Mirajane, Elfman, and Lisanna? Master, are you still alive and well? And how about you…? Even though I lied and then left you, I still wonder how you're doing. Natsu…"

I shook my head, returning my attention to the request paper I clutched in my hand, from the mayor. I myself thought this was more than I could handle, but I knew also that I was on my last legs anyway. Even having given up summoning my spirits very often, I had found a release for my magical power that was pretty unorthodox for me. Mostly because I was physically weak, and because I was a celestial mage. I could now concentrate my power into my hands, feet, knees, or even elbows and then let it loose as soon as I made contact with a target. It wasn't always a very precise way to fight, and I posed a risk to myself with some of the explosions, but it was better than nothing. And I hadn't really been trying to teach myself how to do it the first time I did it.

Somehow, two years had passed since I had discovered from my books that I had come down with the condition of Magical Overflow. Two years, one of which I should not have been alive. And I had just entered a new town, hefting my black duffel bag higher up on my shoulder as I looked around. It seemed like a nice enough place, but over in the harbor town a few miles away I'd heard otherwise, and I thought I'd check it out.

My first glimpse of Reason, the town I'd called 'home' for a year now.

Sighing a small sigh, I looked around for a place to get something to eat, and found a quaint little café and entered it. On the way in, a large man with shaggy, shoulder length, dark brown hair brushed into me roughly, and growled, "Watch it, pipsqueak!" at me. It irked me, but I kept my cool and went in and sat down.

"Sorry about him," the kindly middle-aged woman who came to take my order said as she rushed to me. "He's like that. You look new around here. I'm Harrah, what do they call you?"

"Layla," I said, eyes following the ill-tempered man as he shoved aside another man on the street. "Why do you put up with him?" I asked, jerking my thumb at him.

"He's a mage," Harrah said softly, sitting a menu in front of me. "He's a mage who captured all of our other mages, and the only one left is a kid, no more than thirteen, and we've been keeping him from Nara because all Nara's looking for here is a fight. Our…our mage is my nephew, and he's all I've got left since Nara took his mother, you understand. I don't want anything….Oh! I'm so sorry, you're just a traveler, I shouldn't be involving you in all of this. Just don't worry about it, dear. Layla, you said? I'll be back in a few moments to take your order, all right?"

"Take your time, ma'am," I said, watching the one she called Nara shove another man away and plop imperiously on the bench that he had been sitting upon. I wanted to go give the man a piece of my mind, but held myself in my seat. It wouldn't do just yet to reveal I was a freelance mage.

When Harrah came back to take my order, I spoke before she said anything, saying, "How long has be been here? And do you have any clue how long he plans to stay? Has he harmed the other mages he's captured, or not?"

"I said don't worry yourself about it, dear," Harrah said sheepishly.

"Ma'am," I said, kind of stiffly, "I'm already in on it. I don't want him to hurt your nephew when he finds him. He knows there's another mage here, am I right? And he's sticking around, trying to find him. I'm right, aren't I?"

"Yes," the woman hung her head, graying blonde hair falling across her blue eyes, loose from her bun, "but what can you do about it? You seem like a girl with a really sweet disposition despite the way you dress."

I looked down at my attire and mentally berated myself for the slip up in my attitude.

"Look," I said, putting my elbow on the table and putting my chin idly in my hand. "I'm a mage too, lady, and I don't like it when people like him pick on the ones who can't defend themselves. I don't like that he thinks he's so hot that he can take all of the other mages and imprison them - or worse, since you didn't answer my question. Don't think I'll just stand by and let him hurt your nephew, or any of the other mages he's taken, or any of the townspeople. I have friends back where I come from, you know? I know how it feels to be unable to help, to be virtually useless, but I'm not like that anymore. I can fight, and I will if I need to. Do you understand?"

She nodded, but opened her mouth.

I cut her off when I said, "I'd like your cheeseburger and fries, please. With a glass of water, thanks."

Harrah blinked a few times in rapid succession, but wrote it down and said, "I-I'll have it out in a few minutes, Layla," and after she turned to go, she paused and whispered, "and thank you."

I didn't say anything else, and when my food came I ate, paid, and left.

I stayed in Reason for the next week, just waiting for the confrontation between the mage known as Nara (who was a really disgusting man, hitting on young women and even shoving them around some) and the young boy I'd run into when I went out in the woods because I felt the prelude to one of my attacks. I'd continued on, letting the attack come a good distance away, and then went back to spy him through the trees, making the log in front of him contort and form various shapes by magic. He noticed me there and panicked, taking me by the arm, rambling something about how I needed to promise not to tell, and took me straight to Harrah, who he introduced as his aunt before I said we'd already met. I went by that café every day, talked some to Harrah, and sometimes her nephew, and kept an eye out for any signs of trouble.

And at the end of a week, I got what I'd suspected would come when I was heading towards the café.

"Layla!" I heard a desperate shout and Harrah came running around the corner. Her eyes were bright and fearful, and I knew this was what I had been expecting to happen but also dreading. "Layla! He found out that it's Rex!" the distraught woman said as she stumbled to a halt and I put hands on her shoulders to hold her there.

"Nara?" I asked for confirmation, and she nodded. "What else has happened? Where are they?"

"T-the square! Just around the corner! Rex fought against him, unlike all the other mages, and now I think Nara might kill him!" Harrah wailed, clutching the lapel of my jacket. "I never told you, but he tortures all the other mages! Sometimes, from the other side of town, you can hear them screaming, and I'm afraid he's close to choosing to kill them and please, please, just stop him!"

"I'll do what I can," I breezed past the woman, fists tightly at my side as I walked quickly towards my destination.

"What is this? You call yourself a mage, runt?" came the voice I now instantly recognized, and as I turned the corner into the small town's main square, I saw the young boy laying on the ground, struggling to sit up, and then to stand. Ten feet away from him, feet planted apart and hands on his hips as he laughed in the imperious manner I'd already seen in him, stood Nara. As I walked closer, he said, "What type of magic do you even have? Do you make plants grow? Ha!"

The boy, whose name was Rex, stood defiantly, glaring at the man in front of him.

"You call your lame magic fire? Ha! Have you ever heard of Salamander? I bet you couldn't even match up to him!"

At the word Salamander, my heart sped up. The anger on the face of the brutish man was clearly visible, and I quickened the pace at which I walked. I didn't know what the fire mage Nara planned to do to Rex, but I knew it couldn't be good and that I couldn't let him lay a finger on the thirteen year old. And even if the fair haired boy stood and spoke defiantly, it was plain to see that his fists were shaking, and his eyes showed the traces of fear he tried desperately to hide behind his defiant façade. He reminded me of myself.

"A kid who talks back is worthless," Nara growled, and the air around him began to heat up, "so I'm going to squash out your meaningless little life!"

Rage built inside me at the words, and I burst into a sprint as a knife he held in his hand, heated by the air swirling around him, was thrown straight at the unmoving young boy. Before it could strike Rex, I grabbed him by the collar of his shirt and leapt free, the white hot blade grazing my cheek as it clattered almost harmlessly onto the cobblestones behind the boy and I. I pushed the boy back, facing the poor excuse for a fire mage. And I shouted before I realized what I was saying.

"No life is meaningless, no matter how small!" were the words that escaped my lips and caused me to freeze where I stood. My numb hand fell to my side as I thought about what I had just said. I raised my two shaking hands into my sight, watching them listlessly as I repeated, "No life is meaningless…"

And I found that I believed it. I, the girl who thought that my entire life had become completely and utterly meaningless since I was practically marked for death at nineteen, could now believe otherwise. I wasn't sure where I was when it all changed, or even when it had changed. The self loathing I felt in my heart, the regret at being so cowardly as to leave my friends in Magnolia without a warning and without an explanation…when had it gone? I didn't know, but the fact was that it had. I clenched my fingers tightly, staring transfixed at how the nerveless appendages moved to my will even thought it felt as though they were completely disconnected from my body. And I could fully appreciate that my life, no matter how short it was meant to be, was not meaningless, that it never had been and never would be.

How could my life be meaningless, after having gone to Fairy Tail? Going to the guild, meeting all of my dearest friends, my nakama, had been the best day of my life. And all the best moments afterwards had been experienced there, shared with all of those who meant everything to me. And even if I was gone from them, my days among them would live forever in their hearts and in their memories. I could finally see that my life could never be truly meaningless, since I had made such unbreakable bonds during it. Bonds that would never be broken, even after the last breath left my body.

Warmth spread throughout my body, bringing feeling back to the numbed fingers I stared at, but then I was jerked out of my thoughts by a powerful punch to my stomach, and I slid backwards. I doubled over and fell to one knee, clutching my abdomen with one hand.

"Is that so?" the mage questioned me, smirking. "I'd say that yours is even more meaningless than that little runt's life is!"

"No life is meaningless!" I repeated for the third time, this time in a bellow. I didn't have a clue as to what I was doing, charging the man in such a haphazard way. All I knew is that a telltale buildup of power coursed through me, and before it could wrack my body with pain I subconsciously focused on sending it to the fist I had clenched. I dodged a blast of the man's horrible fire magic - really, Rex was right about him not being able to match up to Natsu - and reeled my fist back. As I descended on the sorry excuse for a fire mage, I cried, "Every life, no matter whose it is or how short it may be, has never or will never be meaningless!"

On the last word, my fist flew forward, surrounded by the golden light that was my celestial magic, and as I struck his jaw I released the energy in a huge explosion. I was blasted back just as much as my target, crying out as my arm showed the telltale scratches of my usual fluctuations of power. The glove of my right arm was in tatters from the attack, and as the leather fell I tucked my hand into the pocket of my long jacket quickly to hide the pink emblem that I was once proud to show. My objective had been achieved, though, somehow.

The other mage lay unconscious in a crater fifteen feet from where he'd been standing when I hit him.

Needless to say, I had gotten stronger by learning to control this technique. And even if I was resigned to dying, I couldn't help but to take on the jobs that people asked me to, as a freelance mage. I liked to help them, and I did it to the best of my ability. I knew that if I could show my face in Fairy Tail once more, if I wasn't about to die, I could be truly proud of the strength that I had attained. But I couldn't show my face there, because I was on the verge of death, and Death himself knocked on my door every time I had a burst of magical energy. Still, I fended him off, as I had for hundreds of attacks over the three years I'd been on my own, and somehow I still clung to life. Desperately, but hopelessly as well, I clung to the meager life I'd built for myself outside of Fairy Tail.

"You can stay here, Layla," Harrah told me as I prepared to head on my way. "Reason needs a stronger mage around to handle some things for a while. At least until some of our mages get their strength back, and maybe learn some more. You're a freelance mage, right? And I know you're not planning to go back to wherever you came from, so why don't you stay in the flat above the café? For as long as you want to. It's soundproofed and everything with magic, because we had a skilled mage here when it was built, so you don't have to worry about privacy when there are people downstairs."

"That's very generous, but-"

"Nonsense," the woman cut me off. Her eyes softened. "You saved Rex, you know? You saved my nephew and his mother and all of the other mages there. And the mayor even agreed that having a good mage around would be a good idea. Maybe you could even give Rex and some of the others a few pointers, so they can be our local freelance mages one day? You've got a good heart, I can just feel it. Please?"

I looked around the square, the lights that lit it up going out one by one until the only one left was right above Harrah and I. The town was really quite a homey little place, a picturesque setting that I knew Reedus would enjoy drawing if he ever got a chance to. And it was peaceful here.

"…Alright."

And I had stayed in this small town for the last year, clinging onto the bit of normality I'd managed to establish, but I still couldn't shake the truth off my back. Never could I shake the facts.

Fairy Tail was the one place I would always call home.

Home is where the heart is, right? That's what they always say. And Fairy Tail was definitely the place that held my heart, and all of its fondest memories.

I clenched my fist and scolded, "Focus on the job, Lucy," as I turned to look at the request.

Location: small, isolated town of Reason, on Lucky Island.

Job: A dark guild has been formed from the few remnants of other dark guilds. It is rumored to be fairy strong and is still gaining members and strength. There are dozens of underlings, but the most dangerous is the guild master. His name is unknown. The guild is known by the name Dark Alliance, because its members come from many other destroyed dark guilds. Please come and take them out!

Reward: 750,000 Jewels.

Yes, it seemed too much for me, but I would try.

To my surprise, then, I heard a huge crash, like an explosion. I looked up to find smoke billowing from the section of warehouses that I was on my way toward. The smoke instantly reminded me of Natsu, but a sad smile graced my face because I knew it couldn't be him. My old team wouldn't be here. The trip across the main continent of Fiore would take three days, and then there was a trip across the ocean to this small island. I was an ocean away from Natsu and everyone else, and it would stay that way. News got here slowly, even with transmission lacrima, because I had just learned recently that last year, the S-ranked Fairy Tail team of Cana and Gildartz had completed a five year mission in only one. I was so proud of Cana! She deserved to team up with her father after all that she had been through to give herself the courage to tell him who she was. And it sounded as though they made a hell of a team.

And all of the things I'd heard Team Natsu had done! My old team, probably so much better off without me, had done so many amazing things I wanted to scream and cry and just cheer for them! I could die happily if I had some sort of reassurance that I could be watching over them on every one of the dangerous missions they went on, making sure for myself that they were just fine and that they were alive and well.

"The job, Lucy!" I grumbled to myself as a reminder, even as another loud boom came from the warehouses. More specifically, from the one that served as the main base for the Dark Alliance dark guild and the one that I had been making a beeline for since the mayor had specifically asked me to go check it out and do what I could. Musing aloud to myself, I said, "Looks like some other mage got to it before I could. I might as well go lend a hand, anyway!"

I rested my left hand gently on the back of my right, where the pink Fairy Tail symbol that I kept hidden would be, and then clenched my fingers into fists. When I looked up again, the confident, badass smirk of my new persona shined through, and I broke into a run as I headed straight for the building in question. As I approached, there were a few more loud crashes and explosions, and I decided that the other mage, or mages, had things well under control if he, she, or they hadn't been killed yet. It didn't stop me from continuing toward the warehouse, though. If I could do anything at all to help, I would.

Memories flooded my mind, situations like this one, where I was running haphazardly into battle. There was the time when Laxus tried to take over Fairy Tail by force, and I had fought against Bixlow. I knew next to nothing about him, and so I was really lucky that Loke knew so much from his time as a member of the guild, rather than as a spirit. There were other times, too. Like the time with Angel, of Oración Seis, who could use Gemini to summon my own celestial spirits against me, or who had possessed Scorpio, the spirit Aquarius dated, and Aries, the one that it would hurt Loke most to fight against. And I had thought I was going to die when Hibiki came up behind me! And then there was the S-class exam, when I was probably seconds away from certain death because I refused to run. Natsu had been there to save me that time, using the enemy's doll of me to defeat him.

Then I was reminded of all of the times I had to be saved. Especially after I'd first met Natsu, and I had been successfully conned and tricked aboard a slave trader's ship. He'd claimed to be Salamander of Fairy Tail, and I had believed him. Until Natsu had come and blasted a hole in his ship and then, once on land and over his motion sickness, destroyed the vessel entirely in his fiery fury at the imposter's use of Fairy Tail's name. And there was the time when the perverted monkey thing who had used takeover magic on Macao. There were too many times like that too count!

I had been completely and utterly useless back then, but no more.

"Get away from her!" I screamed, blasting back the man who had come to Reason recently. He was a mage, and reminded me of Bora, the false Salamander. It was a good thing I was so alert, because he and a few buddies who had stayed outside of town had just come in at midnight to try and take the young women for a slave trade. They were probably lucky that I was one of them and that they thought I was a weakling.

The fist I'd used to punch the man, my left, had no damage at all. I'd gotten better at controlling how much it hurt me in the three months since I'd learned the ability to focus my energy and release it.

Cole, the man I'd punched, stood up and rubbed his jaw, growling.

"Where the hell did that come from?"

"Get away," I told the six women behind me, shoving the fourteen year old Elsa (who reminded me a lot of Erza) toward the town. "I'll take care of this trash."

At the insult, Cole and the ten men under his command charged at me furiously, all of them able to use some sort of magic. One of them was a rather adept wind mage, and after all of the men, including Cole, were down, he was the one who remained. My breathing came in ragged bursts, and I felt the prelude to an attack from my Magical Overflow, so I took the next blow he directed at me, which sliced open my left side in a pretty deep gash, without flinching and latched onto him as I let the attack strike us.

He fell unconscious, and I lost feeling to my legs for a few moments, breathing heavily and trying to staunch my wound. I stood shakily after about ten minutes and made my way back to town in order to ask Harrah if she would please consider patching me up…again.

"I'm not afraid of death anymore," I said under my breath, remembering that time with the slavers, as I reached the warehouse doors. The doors were already blown open and kind of swaying in the wind with a light creaking sound. I stepped inside, nearly slipping on the ice that I hadn't seen in the dim lighting.

Laying all around this room were unconscious, bleeding dark guild mages. Some with slashes through them, as if made by swords. Others were singed and burned in so many places it was hard to tell they were men, and there were scorch marks all over the walls and the stone floor to emphasize this. Patches of ice all over the floor also probably caused the downfall of those who seemed to have no injuries other than nasty bumps on their head, where they had likely slipped and fell and knocked themselves out. There were random chunks of ice scattered around the room, as remnants of the battle. So there were mages who were against the dark guild here, and several of them. Proof of this came with a sharp outcry of pain from above as the whole building shook.

I cracked my knuckles, grinning in a feral, bestial manner that this new persona seemed to love.

Layla Heart was in control, but I didn't realize how temporary it would be.