Chapter 3

AN: Wow, at the end of the first week of my first chapter being up I only had 95 veiws. Not even 24 hours after the release of chapter 2 and I had more than tripled that. Thanks to everyone who has read my fic!

I have had this idea floating around in my head since July and never planned on posting it but I'm glad I did. In all that time I have yet to decide who I am gonna pair Lucy up with. There are three possibilities. I will let you guys know when I decide, until then bare with me.

I plan on sticking with this story until the very end; a New Year goal for me. Same with the weekly update, but as I said before something can ruin my nicely laid out plans – so don't hate me too much if that happens. ;)

Disclaimer: Sadly I do not own Fairy Tail. :'(

Mira's POV

For the guild it was torture not knowing what had happened to Lucy. They kept up their search long after the other guilds had given up. Everyone was out searching, except for Warren, Cana, Master and Mira. Warren and Cana wanted to join the others in the search but it made more sense for them to be at the guild in case a new piece of information was found; any whisper of a Celestial Wizard was immediately checked out. Everyone was taking this hard, Team Natsu of course taking it the hardest. They had failed to protect her. If they had dealt with Oracion Seis or severed the Infinity Castle's chains faster Lucy never would have had to merge completely with the Clock and she would be in the guild celebrating their victory.

Eleven awful days after the disappearance Loke had stopped by the guild to check on the progress of the search and was in the process of walking up to master's office when he disappeared without a word.

"LOKE!" Cana, Warren and I yelled, concerned for the spirit.

"What does that mean? Is it Lucy, did he find her?!" Cana said as she inched closer to me, wobbling as she went.

"What if something happened to Lucy?" I yelled, leaning on Cana for support. "This can't be happening again. Haven't we been through enough?"

In the few minutes it took for Warren to get Makarov downstairs both of us had let our minds run wild, thinking of everything that could have happened to Lucy and Loke. Master tried to comfort the two of us, but we could tell that he was just as worried and confused as we were. "It'll be fine. If one of my children were dead I would know it. Loke is probably checking a lead on Lucy." He said patting our backs. "Everything will be alright, just fine. It has to be."

He kept saying that over and over again as he starred off into space. I could tell that his mind was running wild, just like mine.

Warren, the calmest one out of all of us, was checking in with the search groups seeing if anyone had eyes on Loke; no one did. We could hear everyone as they asked what had happened, but Warren cut the connection sensing that it was making us worry even more.

Lucy POV

"Urghh… Loke, Virgo what are you doing? Where are we?" I gasped while stretching. I was used to Loke opening his own gate to join in on the guild fights that I didn't even ask why he was about to punch that man but he must have a good reason so I let him be.

It was then that I noticed that both of my spirits had tears streaming down their faces as they looked at me. Not noticing their movement I was shocked when I was crushed by Virgo's hug while she cried on my shoulder. Loke was a second behind her, having dropped the man, whatever conflict they had forgotten. They were squeezing me so tight that I was having difficulty breathing, when they heard me gasping they let up a little but didn't let go. Both spirits wouldn't stop crying and kept speaking over each other, making it impossible to understand a word they were saying.

"Okay, stop! Why are you two crying and can someone tell me where we are?" Pushing them away I got good look at my surroundings. I was in what looked like an infirmary but with only one bed; the walls were white with dark blue trim and tiny cat like symbols. There were no paintings on the walls, they were lifeless and sterile. It was the size of my living room, but was lacking in furniture. There was a chair and round table made out of metal, reminding me of Gajeel's iron, I bet if I looked at the bed frame it would be made out of the same material. They obviously need to read a book about decorating, this place is depressing. The only window in the room was tiny, barely the size of one of my pillows, and had bars on the other side. Ha, prison and infirmary in one.

I was shaking my head when I caught sight of my clothes. "AHHHH! What the hell happened to my clothes?! Loke, turn away NOW! Virgo can you please get me some clothes?" Virgo had disappeared reluctantly and reappeared within seconds with celestial clothes for me. I love these clothes! They were simple, just black yoga pants and a black shirt with blue shooting stars on it, not what I usually wore but they were comfortable and the material felt like heaven.

Quickly dressing I sat down on the edge of the bed when I was done. "Now please explain what is happening; one at a time." I scolded when they both opened their mouths to speak. Loke and Virgo shared a glance and decided that Loke should be the one to answer.

Kneeling down in front of me he held my hand and began his story. "You have been missing for 11 days Princess. Everyone in the Spirit World hasn't been able to contact you or feel your presence the entire time. We have all been worried sick and looking for you. Not only us but the guild too! This is the first time we have felt you, and we came right away afraid that you would disappear again."

"The guild! What happened with the Infinity Clock? The other Celestial Mages? Did everyone make it out alright?" I asked, hoping that everyone was alright and that those mages had been woken up from their 100 year sleep. "What do you mean I've been missing? I just saw everyone in the Infinity Castle." I said glancing between my two spirits for conformation.

Before he could respond a blonde man came in with two exceeds and a doctor right behind them.

"See Frosch told you something was happening." said the adorable creature.

Now I was even more confused. My spirits weren't making any sense and it seemed like there were strangers everywhere. The man Loke had been about to punch was now standing, straightening out his clothes while trying to speak over Loke and Virgo. I heard something about shooting stars and me falling out of the sky. Thoroughly frustrated and feeling the beginning of a headache I forced closed Virgo's gate and silenced everyone by screaming. When all was silent I forced myself to calm down a little as I demanded that one person explain what has happened in the past eleven days.

The doctor having checked me out during the silence left, muttering that all of my vitals were fine and that he would come back to check on me when everything had calmed down. The silence continued until I started glaring at everyone. The man from the floor saw how impatient I was and decided to speak up. Finally I'll get some answers.

Rogue's POV

Her glare was scarier than those two who were about to attack me, Loke and Virgo I think were their names.

"First off I want to introduce ourselves. I am Rogue Cheney. The blonde guy is Sting Eucliffe, ignore his appearance he doesn't always look like this." I said as I rolled my eyes. Of course he would barge in here without cleaning up. He is completely ignoring the fact that his nose is broken and bleeding all over the place. Sighing I continued. "The unconscious woman on the floor is Minerva, our guild master. She was knocked out right before you woke up. As for the exceeds, they are similar to cats except they are able to fly, talk-"

"I know what exceeds are, there is no need to explain." She interrupted.

Surprised I just looked at her for a minute. "Okay...well the one in my arms is Frosch, she is my partner in addition to Sting and the one standing by Sting is Lector."

Looking at her expectantly I waited to hear her name. "Lucy. My name is Lucy Heartfilia. It's nice to meet you all." She said with a big smile on her face.

After the introductions I explained where I had found her and how I have been watching over her ever since. I tried to describe the barrier that had in my opinion, saved her life and prevented her from waking up but when I asked her what it was, both she and Loke were confused and I could tell it would remain a mystery. After that my story was easy to tell since she had been asleep the entire time. When I was finished with my side of what has happened I heard Loke mummer "That's why we couldn't reach her" probably referring to the blue barrier. I looked at Lucy trying to judge her reaction to what she had heard but all she did was nod her head, waiting for Loke to speak.

I watched as Loke took a seat beside her, dragging her to his side with an arm around her waist. When she was as close as she could get she put her head on his shoulder and let out a contented sigh. I could barely contain a growl from escaping, wondering why the sight of them together affected me so much. Looking away from them was the wrong thing to do when I saw Sting lift his eyebrows in question and amusement. Ignoring him I moved to check on Minerva now that the danger had passed; waiting for Loke to tell his side.

-Flash back-

"LUCY! LUCY!"

"Lu-chan!"

"Oi Blondie where are you?"

"Princess!"

"Hime!"

"LUSHII!"

Everyone's voices could be heard for miles as they searched for their lost nakama. Everyone feared the worst, but was reassured when the dragon slayers told them that her scent was strong, and that there was no hint of blood.

All of Lucy's spirits were out looking for her too; the Spirit King had temporarily opened all of the Zodiac gates to aide in the search. It worried everyone that the spirits weren't able to sense her through their keys, but hope was not lost.

Virgo was using her earth magic to check every pile of rock for miles.

Aquarius was searching every nearby water source with her boyfriend, Scorpio. Scorpio was with her because if they did find Lucy he was the only one that could prevent Aquarius from drowning and killing her herself for making her worry so much.

Loke, Capricorn, Cancer and Sagittarius scoured the surrounding area for any hint of her location but came up empty. They thought that something my be blocking her presence from them but couldn't think of anything nearby that powerful.

Gemini transformed into Lucy in order to call out the silver key spirits to assist in the search, since they were unable to open their own gates. When the guild saw Horologium they had hoped he had Lucy within him, but that hope was quickly dashed. When Crux appeared he relieved everyone's minds when he told them that Lucy was still alive because every one of her contracts was still intact and they wouldn't be if she had died during the destruction of the castle.

The entire guild spent the past eleven days searching for her and planned on doing so until they found her. They covered hundreds of miles around her last known location, but all anybody found was her one of her hair ribbons under some rocks. After the first seven days everyone besides Makarov, Mira, Cana and Warren took a job as an excuse to continue their search.

-End flash back-

"…but now that we've found you we can go back-"

"No Loke, we can't." Lucy whispered looking down at her wringing hands.

AN: Hope you all liked the chapter. I know I stop at the most inopportune times but it makes things fun, doesn't it? ;)

ZodiacWriter: Thanks! I'm trying to make this a good story I just hope I can keep it up. I'll try to update more often but with two jobs it's hard to do so. Chapter 4 is already half way done, so I might publish that one earlier than planned.

DeadendAngel4: I definitely will.

TChacha: It might be a RoLu, definitely looks like it so far, but I'm not too sure about it yet. You'll see a potential match up in the next chapter. ; ) Thanks, I'm glad that there are a few people who like it so far. It was one of the things that held me back from publishing it earlier, wondering if anyone would bother to read it let alone follow or favorite it.

EchizenRyoma: If nothing bad happens, then it wouldn't be a very good story, now would it?

wingchan7: Thanks!

I really appreciated all of the reviews I got :) Keep them coming please!