Not much to say here besides 'Which characters do you want to see in the next few chapters?' Don't forget to review any opinions and ideas J

~I do not own Fairy Tail ~

As soon as the magical aura vacuum stopped blasting energy into Zeref, Makarov carried it away and put it away in another room, stating that all he needs now is to rest. Immediately, I stood up to face the old man.

"Sir, can I stay with him?" I anxiously asked the petite figure, who looked as if he considered it and tried reasoning with it inside his head.

"Of course, both of you have gone through a lot. Remember he needs to rest." I agreed and nodded my head then sat back down on the wooden chair which lay near Zeref. I've never felt so much distress for a person in my life, not even when my mother died; then again I never really saw my mother, or even remember what she looked like, due to her very early death and my always-wondering infantile age. In those cases, ignorance was bliss.

Makarov tried to sneakily grab his teddy bear unnoticed, figuring that I couldn't see him he quickly snatched it and put it underneath his shirt, but I smiled to myself as I caught him doing the act in the corner of my eye.

"I think I'll go and stay in Professor Mirajane's dorm." The Master chuckled vaingloriously and quickly ran out the room, leaving tread marks from his sprinting little feet. I laughed at the scene as he clenched onto his dear teddy bear, realisation hit me when I licked my extremely dry lips: I needed hydration. When I opened the door, I had nearly forgotten that Loke was waiting patiently in the living room and we caught eyes.

"Gramps left in a hurry." Loke laughed half-heartedly, I looked away slowly and approached the kitchen to pour myself a glass of water. Within seconds I greedily gulped down the whole glassful and went to refill it again but I heard the door close behind me which scared me as I dashed around. It was Loke. Of course it was, who else could it of been? His face was unusually melancholic and calmly approached me.

"Lucy... were you hurt?" It looked like that sentence was the most difficult and painful thing he's ever had to say. I didn't answer. He already knows the story, why is he asking me again? "Did they touch you?" He strenuously forced out of his mouth whilst clenching his fists.

"God no! They just hurt Zeref." My voice began wobbling hysterically, alongside my weakening voice my knees lost all tension and I quickly fell to the floor. Loke leapt to my side and supported me with his arms, then leaded me to the couch. I had tried so hard to swallow my sadness but I couldn't contain it anymore and I began crying helplessly as Loke laid me on the couch and then wrapped his hands cosily around my shaking body.

This carried on for a while until my eyes dried out and I lost all my energy, I was still snuggled into Loke's warm chest and he was gently stroking my arm.

"Loke, c-can you leave me alone please?" I sniffed and looked up at him, he understood and let himself off the couch.

"I'll be in the other room."

"No, can you leave me in this dorm?" I just wanted to be completely alone without any person around me, excluding Zeref's comatose body, and just drift off into a satisfying slumber. At first, he completely rejected the idea but he looked at my desperate, sullen face and regrettably left.

"Sleep well, my Lucy." He soothed before closing the door.

The couch was entirely too small for me to lie on, let alone sleep, so I opened the bedroom door to find Zeref on one side of the king sized mattress. Even if the Master is so tiny he requires proportionate furniture, he still had a massive bed, how strange.

I walked into the en-suite bathroom and looked at the mirror to see what kind of monstrosity I resembled. Only a few scratches around my arms, face and legs from the thorny bush but my neck began aching and stinging as soon as I tensed my muscles, I pulled down the collar of the black coat and revealed some bruises around my neck. Crap, they stick out a mile away and they obviously look like finger marks, maybe that's what Loke was worried about.

Refreshing cold water splashed on my face as I cleaned off all the dirt and grime on my body using the tap in the sin, then used my wet palms to rub off the mess on my arms and body and soon I felt as if I hadn't run through a mud heap. However, there was nothing I could do with my birds' nest of a hair, which ran in all directions with muck and small pebbles gathered everywhere, except try shake all the gunk off and run my fingers through it.

Once I felt like I was cleaned up enough, I entered the bedroom again and took off the majestic coat, revealing my bikini once more, but I noticed that the ends were shredded and torn. If Zeref liked this coat as much as I do, then he'd be really sad to see it ruined. I mournfully folded it and placed it on the wooden chair I sat on when I foolishly waited for Zeref to at least open his eyes.

Promptly, I cautiously grabbed the duvet cover and slide underneath it and laid my head on the plump pillow, careful to avoid any sudden movements in case I awoke Zeref. I sighed delightedly and began melting into the soft, cool mattress, turned to my side and looked at him. He looked so peaceful despite the terrible mishaps he's been through, including the weight of those men's deaths on his shoulders, I was almost jealous of his oblivious state. My eyes drifted off to sleep whilst I still faced him.

When I woke up, I immediately noticed that during the night my arm managed to swing around and become wrapped around Zeref's waist. I gasped and quickly snatched it away, holding my arm in shock, the sudden movement seemed to wake him up and he opened his eyes looking straight at me. His lips curved at the sides as he weakly smiled.

"Good morning, I was wondering when you were going to wake up." Wait, does that mean he was already awake when my arm was unexplainably hugging him? I turned away and my face heated up with embarrassment.

"I-I'm sorry!" My face flushed as red as a tomato as I tried to cover my mortified face.

"Don't worry, it was actually very heart warming to wake up to that." He chuckled lightly. Nooo, I'm so embarrassed, why did I do that, stupid arm! "But when did we arrive at Makarov's?" As soon as I was confident that my face was back to its normal colour, I began to explain what happened the night before, except for Loke's confrontation, and his face soon dropped when he realised that I knew the situation he was in. Suddenly he gasped and pushed my hair back, revealing the rest of my bruises, and his face crumpled up angrily.

"That bastard did that to you." He sighed, releasing his anger in a sorrowful exhale. I uncomfortably rubbed my neck and brought my hair forward again. "Understand me, Lucy I didn't want you to be involved in this. This was my problem." I shook my head when he brought it up again.

"How about we never talk about it again? I don't want to ruin a potentially fantastic brand new start at life." I suggested which he happily agreed to.

"Let's go back to the dorm so you can take a break from beach clothing, as will I." He stood up with a sudden burst of strength and revival and then forced me up with him, ignoring my sceptical moans of being taken off this absolutely comfortable mattress. Although, he wouldn't leave until he perfectly made the bed and folded some of Makarov's clothing which I daren't look at.

As we walked towards our dorm, not only did we receive a wide range of reactions towards my partial nudity and Zeref squashing up very close to me to avoid anyone spotting my exposed bruises; we earned a lot of icy stares. I had to cover up as much of my scraped legs and face as I possibly could, including half my eyesight, causing me to be blindly manoeuvred to our dorm room. Yes, I tripped and fell over... A LOT.

"Don't mind them, Lucy, they're just not used to me being around people, understand?" Zeref tried to ease my discomfort but it was folly, I was self-consciously staring back at the gawking eyes until we eventually arrived at our dorm room.

"Did you see the looks they gave me? They could see the scratches and my messy hair and my lack of clothes! I could just feel what they were thinking: slut, whore, tramp." I cried out as soon as he closed the door and just collapsed onto the couch.

"Don't fret, come now, they weren't thinking of you like that, they are decent people." He sat next to me and awkwardly rubbed my back to try comfort me. "Well, most of them." He silently added however I could still hear it.

I could tell he knew his coat was tattered at the ends and torn in the back and that he was probably heartbroken when he kept looking at it, so I took it off and folded it nicely and placed it upon the glass table in front of us.

"I'm sorry." I finally forced the words out. I didn't know whether I should keep to the unpleasant silence or break it with a pitiful apology. He nodded and shook his head.

"I have many others like it I won't be missing it too much." He grabbed the pile and dropped it in the bin in the kitchen. When he walked back he looked all over my body me thoroughly. "Did Makarov not treat your wounds?" He crouched down in front of me and held my left knee which had a massive cut across it. Yesterday, I guess I hadn't noticed most of the lesions which covered my body; this made me even more insecure about what the students could see.

"No." He sighed distastefully and walked over to his side of the room, where he opened the bedside table drawer with a red cross imprinted on it and brought back a first aid kit.

"Let me clean those out, after all, you were on the ground and who knows what could've infected those open cuts. Remember that there is a first aid kit in every room in the drawers with pharmaceutical crosses on them." Something I definitely expected from him. "They're too dirty for me to work on; can you have a shower so most of them will be cleansed?" He stood up and led me to the bathroom despite my lack of an answer. "I'll be waiting."

Soon, after an agonising ordeal of patting my open sores dry, I walked outside of the steaming room, holding my bikini in a bunch, in a white towel. He stood up wearing a new set of heavy, black clothing and pointed to the laundry basket.

"Now, let's cover up these ouchies." Ouchies... What a childish but incredibly cute way to say it!

I was led back to the couch in just my towel and he placed me still in the middle of it and then crouched down in front of me to observe. After a few minutes my cuts on my face and legs were carefully cleaned and covered with bandages, but he started to remove my towel. I gasped and snatched it back, my face burning up.

"There were some on your stomach and back that I need to attend to." He calmly explained, not even realising what he was about to reveal.

"I can do them myself!" I pushed his hands off and refused to look back at him when I walked towards my wardrobe. I grabbed some clothes and slammed the bathroom door unintentionally loudly.

Crap, I'm not angry at him, I was just in shock, I hope he doesn't feel bad; he was just trying to help.

"Hey, it's not too late to go shopping for some clothes." Zeref called out from the other side of the door. I opened it wearing some navy blue skinny jeans (which I never wore but I wanted to cover up my bruises) and a tight white shirt with a lime green cardigan.

"Do you have a scarf I can borrow?" I asked as I tried to raise the shirt's collar over the hand marks on my neck. He slowly nodded and aimed his head to the ground, avoiding looking at me. A long black scarf was handed to me and I quickly wrapped it around my neck and smiled gratefully at him, he then offered me his arm and announced.

"Let's be on our way."