When Lucy entered the guild, she was expecting Natsu to be doing, well, Natsu things—fighting with Gray, drinking a beer, and/or chatting with anyone and everyone. When he was with his nakama, the light couldn't be put out of his eyes. There was always a new story to be heard, an old friend to catch up with, or a tale to be told. Not a person inside the hall could say they didn't know Natsu as a person because he was always ready to draw up a chair at any table. Sure, some preferred his company more than others, but that didn't mean he wouldn't try his best to at least get a laugh. He was always at the heart of every large group and wouldn't miss the excitement for the world.

So when he was sitting all alone in the darkest corner of the now frozen guild, nervously tapping his foot on the ice and shooting people furtive glances, she knew something was entirely wrong. Natsu wasn't saying a word to anybody, not even to complain about the fact that the entire hall was covered in ice. Add that to the fact that, oh, their shared apartment just burned to the ground while he was MIA, and Lucy was practically boiling with suspicion and rage. If her leg wasn't still feeling like someone had taken a flamethrower to her skin, she'd probably march right over there and Lucy-kick some sense into him.

From the looks on Gajeel's and Wendy's faces, neither of them had expected this either. They both seemed to be too shocked and astonished for words. The same thought was running through both of their minds—what in Mavis' name was going on?

It took all of them a few seconds to get their voices back. Lucy was the first one to say anything.

Struggling to get out of Gajeel's arms, she started fuming, "Let me go, Gajeel! I'll kill him! I'm going to murder his suspicious little—" She broke into a violent coughing fit even as she kept fighting to get down.

Gajeel somehow managed to keep his hold on her, but it was definitely a struggle. "Calm down, ya devil woman! I can't carry you if yer gonna be floppin' around like a fish!" he hissed, exasperated. "Ya wanna make that leg worse?"

Finally snapping out of her daze, Wendy reached forward to help him calm Lucy down. "Lucy, I know how you feel, but we still need to get you fixed up. Please keep still so we can get to the infirmary without another injury! It's already going to take a lot of magic to heal it without adding more on top of it," she pleaded, her eyes big.

Lucy immediately stopped, feeling guilty. She wouldn't want to tire Wendy out unnecessarily, and she really wasn't being fair to Gajeel who had been nice enough to carry her all the way to the guild. Blushing, she ducked her head and mumbled an apology.

Wendy smiled, "It's no problem. Let's just get you fixed up." She squeezed Lucy's hand before leading the way to the back of the hall where the infirmary was located.

Gajeel followed right behind, casting questioning glances to Natsu's table every couple of feet. It seemed Natsu still hadn't noticed them walking across the room away from him as he was deep inside his own world. The fact that his girlfriend was being carried, injured, in another man's arms seemed entirely lost on him.

Lucy's heart turned heavy. If he had been there like she had thought he was, their apartment would have been fine. He would've just swallowed the flames like a big, delicious dinner. That's why she had gone back—she believed the only way fire could ever be a danger to her was if Natsu was somehow unable to defend her. He could've been knocked out or hurt or just totally unaware and ready to fix it in a second...

But she knew he had been there! It wasn't making any sense! How could he have abandoned her when she couldn't forget him for a moment?!

She turned her head into Gajeel's shoulder and tried not to cry. The whole ordeal was emotionally taxing enough without having to question the person she trusted most. They were supposed to be happily engaged and planning a wedding by now, not betraying the core values of their relationship and what it stood for.

Gajeel harumphed a little when he felt her tears but didn't question or try to comfort her. Lucy was grateful for his silence, knowing that nothing anyone could say right now would take the sting away. She just hoped Wendy could maybe knock her out for a bit so she could forget about it.

When they got to the bar, Wendy ducked around it to let Mira know what had happened. Returning a minute later with the worried mage right on her heels, Wendy walked over to the infirmary door and opened it, ushering the rest inside.

As the door was about to close behind them, Lucy glanced back just in time to catch Natsu's eye as he broke out of his huddle to scan the room. His eyes immediately went wide as he noticed just what was happening. He jumped up and tried to call out her name, but by then, the door had shut between them.

Lucy tried not to think about him as she was set down on one of the stark wide beds. She quickly wiped away the leftover tears as the two women got to work grabbing the appropriate ointments and bandages for the burn. Even though she knew they could probably guess why she was crying, she'd rather not get the pity looks or attempts at comfort. Right then, she just needed a good cry, but she'd have to wait until she was alone.

As she watched the girls fuss over her wound, she saw out of the corner of her eye Gajeel slip out the door. She didn't comment on it, figuring he must not feel very useful now that there was really nothing for him to do. One less person to see her in her shame, anyways.

"It looks like it's a second degree burn," Wendy interrupted her thoughts as she finished examining her wound, "which means that it's going to hurt quite a lot but will heal with time." She smiled widely and put her hand on Lucy's knee. "I'm going to speed up the process and then let your body do the rest."

Mirajane stood behind her, nodding along in agreement to what she was saying before speaking up, "It's best to let your body finish the healing so that you won't build up a tolerance to the magic, and it won't wear Wendy out too much. I'll help you bandage it up and take care of it for the next few days!" She also smiled and patted Lucy's foot reassuringly.

Lucy tried to return the smiles, but it came out as more of a grimace. They were being so kind in the face of her obvious distress, and she couldn't be more grateful to these amazing women. They were angels in mage's clothes.

"Thank you very much," she whispered, not trusting her voice to stay steady any louder.

Moving around to the top of the bed, Mira pulled the blonde into a tight hug. She didn't have to say a word for Lucy to feel the respect and love rolling off the mage in waves. Those feelings were so comforting and needed at that moment for Lucy that thetears started leaking from her eyes once more. She didn't try to stop the sobs as they wracked her body and broke down all her walls.

They held on tight to each other as Lucy slowly calmed down. When her body stopped hiccupping, and her eyes started to dry, she pulled away from Mira and offered up a genuine smile. The take-over mage reflected the smile with great joy, her eyes sparkling with a few of her own unshed tears.

Mira had just opened her mouth to say something when the door flew off its hinges and slammed into the opposite wall. With it came Gajeel, flying like a giant sack of bricks through the doorway. All the girls tensed, Lucy instinctively reaching for her keys as the other two placed themselves in front of her. They were all ready for a fight.

But standing in the now empty space where the door used to be was Natsu, fist on fire and rage in his eyes.

"Like hell I won't see Lucy!" Natsu spat to the iron dragon-slayer disentangling himself from the wrecked wood. "That's not up to you to decide!"

"Are you that stupid, Salamander?!" Gajeel shot back as soon as he was back on his feet. He crossed the room in a few steps, saying, "Can't you see this is nowhere near the right time for this?! Especially when it's your fault!" He emphasized his point by shoving his finger hard into Natsu's chest.

"My fault?! I could never heard Lucy if I tried!" Natsu scoffed, icy in his anger. His gaze tore through the other mage like cold knives, but Gajeel only tsked and met the challenge with a disapproving look of his own.

It took Natsu a second to realize that no one was rising up to contradict his statement. He cast his gaze around to the two women who avoided his eye. Disbelief made its way onto his face as he looked between Gajeel, Mirajane, and Wendy, all clearly feeling mixes of discomfort, pity, and anger.

Finally, he found Lucy's eyes and flinched, seeing the clear hurt in her face.

"My fault? You're hurt, Lucy? Because of me?" he looked bewildered, like a child discovering for the first time that a parent wasn't as perfect as he had always believed. Lucy's heart broke even more seeing that shattered disbelief on his face. She knew it had looked just as devastating on her own.

Casting her gaze down, she swallowed the lump in her throat and concentrated on her anger. "The apartment is gone, burned down." She clenched her fist, digging her nails into the skin of her palms to keep from crying once more. "Everything went up in flames," she hissed the last part through her teeth, feeling betrayed by the word.

"Yeah...I know," came Natsu's sheepish reply.

Lucy's head immediately shot up to see him rubbing the back of his neck uncomfortably. The blush on his face was a complete 180 from a second ago when she had thought his world was shattering around him, just as hers had done. And here he was, acting like he had accidentally left the toaster on and burnt their breakfast, not their entire freaking lives.

The rage in her broke at that point. The sadness could no longer hold back the flood of pure anger she felt towards him at that moment.

Casting aside the blankets around her, she leapt from the bed and sprang at him with her hands outstretched as if to choke him. Taken off guard, Mirajane and Wendy reached to stop her, but their delayed reaction had them fumbling for air. Gajeel seemed too surprised to move, only unfreezing when Lucy shoved him to the side, stumbling back a few steps in his shock.

When Lucy reached Natsu, she seemed to decide against his neck and instead went for his face with one solid punch from her right hand. He went down without a fight, his eyes open wide in confusion as he fell straight on his bottom with a loud thud.

The only thing that broke the silence was the loud panting of Lucy's still-labored breathing. Natsu reached his hand to his cheek in wonder as he was assaulted by the flames in Lucy's eyes. She had had enough of his games and was ready to just about pummel him into the ground.

Just as she was about to do just that, she collapsed down beside him. Her leg had given out, slashing pain up and down her calf at the abuse. Luckily, Natsu's instincts kicked in, and he caught her before she even had a chance to hit the ground.

By that time, Wendy and Mira had reached the pair and were able to help Natsu bring her back to the bed. The whole time, Lucy kept smacking her fist against Natsu's chest, the tears returning to leak out of her eyes and put of the flames of her rage. With each hit, her pounding got weaker until she eventually gave up and let them lay her back onto the bed.

"You're so stupid, Natsu," she whispered, her voice breaking on his name. "How could you do this? To me? To us?"

"Luce, you don't understand," he soothed, attempting to get her to look him in the eye. "You gotta let me explain."

She glared at him then, accusing him with her gaze. "What is there to understand?! You destroyed everything! My pictures, my letters, my novel...our home," she stuttered slightly but picked up steam again, "You can't just get those things back! They took a lifetime to collect, and you destroyed them in a moment!"

Natsu took the heat without flinching. He patiently waited for her to finish hurling her words at him. When he felt she was done, he pulled her chin towards him to bring their foreheads together and gazed deeply into her wet eyes.

"I saved all of it. It's all still okay," he whispered gently, imploring her with his onyx stare to believe him. "I got it all out yesterday while you were gone with Erza. Every last bit of it is safe."

A shock went through her as she registered his words. This had all been planned? But she had seen her precious possessions go up in flames!

Natsu beat her to the punch, "I switched the things you would notice with replicas. Got a friend to help me out," he smiled bashfully.

Lucy finally found her voice, unlocking her eyes from Natsu's intense stare to gaze down at her lap. "But...why? None of this makes any sense..."

Rather than answering, Natsu pulled away and held out his hand to her. "Let me show you," he smiled one of his signature smiles, promising adventure and hope. She couldn't help but feel nostalgic as she gazed down at his hand, trying hard not to let the joy she could feel rising in her chest take over. Somehow she knew, this was Natsu, and she would always trust him.

And she could do it one last time.

Levy's feet had gone completely numb by the time she stopped crying. The sun had already melted over the horizon to be replaced by the sliver of light that was the moon. The few rays of light leaking from the sky couldn't quite pierce through the tightly woven leaves above her. The tree trunk behind her wasn't necessarily cold, but to her chilled body, it felt like an icy hand down her back. The frost had moved into the ground and up into her toes like a seeping fog, an invisible, creeping breath of ice.

None of this had mattered to Levy. Her mind had gone as numb as her limbs. She had already gone through all the self-pity and self-hate that comes with big arguments like theirs had been. In her head, Gajeel had been murdered in many gruesome ways, most involving some sort of tree impaling him. His body limp and bloody from her fists. Hanging from the rough bark of a giant oak by his own metal staples—

That's when she had shut her brain down for good. That was one path she didn't want to go down. Even if it had been years since their initial meeting of sorts, she had forgiven him for what he had done the second he had thrown himself in front of her on Tenrou island. So why did it seem like she couldn't let it go?

It was too hard to think about right then. With Gajeel mad at her and the pressure of the pact hanging over her head, this was just the last straw to break the camels back. For the first time in her life, she had literally shut down her entire thought process. Instead, she had spent the last two hours staring at her knees as tears silently slipped down her cheeks.

That's exactly how Gajeel found her.

She didn't even know he was there until he sat down next to her. He didn't say a word as he slowly lowered himself to the ground, close but not quite touching her shoulder. The only noise he made was a small grunt as he pulled a sharp rock out from under his butt and flicked it away.

For some reason, this was absolutely hilarious to Levy. She tried her best to hold her laughter in; she was still mad at him after all. But the fact that a painful little pebble had lodged itself up the great Dragon Slayer's ass was the most ridiculous thing to happen to her all day. It might have been the exhaustion or the emotional tension, but it was enough to break her composure.

In trying her best to keep her giggles in, a giant snort managed to escape her nose. That wasn't the only thing, though. A large bubble came out and popped across her face, leaving a giant trail of snot. The hours of crying out in the cold had left her nose stuffed and runny, and it just couldn't hold in her slightly crazed humor.

"Oh god," Levy moaned, embarrassed as she tried to cover up her face. Her lifeless fingers barely moved, but she was still able to hide most of the damage with their bulk.

Gajeel's deep grumble of a laugh came from beside her. "And here I was, thinking this would be a serious moment," he tsked, shaking his head in disbelief.

Levy, attempting to wipe the snot off her face with her coat sleeve, paused to stick her tongue out at him, catching some of the drip off her face, and making her cringe as the boogers caught on her tongue. "Gah!" she cringed in disgust, almost gagging at the taste.

Chuckling even more, Gajeel wrapped his arm around her and pulled her closer to his side. Levy resisted for a moment before surrendering to the familiarity of his warmth. She had lost her anger with him an hour into her pity fest, but the guilt just kept getting stronger and stronger. She had said some rather cutting things, things that were honestly unforgivable in such a serious relationship. He had trusted her with his vulnerabilities, and all she could do was throw them back in his face. That just made her petty and childish and ignorant and—

"I'm sorry," came a mumble from beside her. Looking up in surprise, Levy saw Gajeel trying to avoid her eye. If she wasn't mistaken in the dark, she could almost see a light blush dusting his cheeks. "I didn't mean to...There were a lot of things I didn't mean to say to ya."

It took a second for Levy to find her voice. He had practically pulled the words straight from her sad, guilt-ridden brain. Was he feeling some of the same things she was? Or was it just a coincidence.

Levy wet her lips a little nervously. "There wasn't anything you said that wasn't the truth," she whispered softly, unable to find her full voice. "All of it was the truth. And you had every right to say it to me. Especially after what I said to you..." Her voice puttered out, but she cleared her throat and kept on. "I know I can't just apologize and hope everything will be back to what it was." She glanced down and fiddled with her fingers, pulling at the material of her gloves. Her breath puffed around her face in a fog as she tried to hold in the fresh tears threatening to spill.

A sigh from Gajeel. He pulled her closer and placed a gentle kiss on her head before speaking. "If you start blaming yerself, I'm guilty as well." Levy was about to protest, but he kept going, not giving her a chance. "But we can only forgive each other if we forgive ourselves first."

He looked down at her with the little half-grin she loved. Right in that moment, she knew he could never be evil. This wasn't the same man she had met so long ago. So many things had happened between them, around them, within them. She couldn't claim anymore that she was somehow unconsciously afraid of him. Every part of her knew he was the righteous defender of Fairy Tail just as much as he was a humungous softie with a heart the size of a dragon. The only darkness in his heart was directed at those who had let that same darkness consume them.

Then why was she still dwelling on the past like this?

Staring deeply into Gajeel's eyes, she searched for the answer to her question. But the only thing she could find was emotion—trust, hope, guilt, and a whole lot of love.

She couldn't hold his gaze without feeling like her heart might burst. Her gaze dropped once more to her lap.

"I'm not sure if I can do that," she whispered, wrapping her arms around her knees. "I just don't know why I... why I feel this way! Why I'm so scared, and why I keep bringing it up, and why I'm just so...hopeless!" She slammed her head in her hands and started sobbing. She really didn't think there had been any tears left inside her, but of course she had to be wrong.

For a few minutes, the only sound she could hear was her own hiccupping breath. Gajeel's hand on her arm rubbed small circles on her skin. Whether it was absent-minded or comfort-driven, she had no clue what he was thinking.

He finally broke the silence as he cleared his throat, his hand stilling in its repetitive motion. "When we got back from Tenrou island, things were real crazy. A lot of time had gone by and a lot of people had moved on with their lives. No one was really the same anymore. Except us," Gajeel's voice was low and slightly growly, like it was hard for him to talk about this. Levy stayed still, listening intently. "I left the guild as someone people looked at out of the corner of their eyes, whispered about when they thought I couldn't hear, kept away from any real... light within the guild. And I deserved it fer what I did."

Running his free hand through his hair, he sighed. "When we got back, people forgot. I was accepted back into the guild like any of ya. I was back with the heroes, so I was one of 'em. Not that I'm complainin'!" he hurriedly added. "It was what I wanted. But at the same time, I didn't know who I was going to turn into," he hesitated, seeming to be unsure of what to say. "Ya know, sometimes it was just easier always being the bad guy. Then at least I knew what to expect, I guess."

"Being trusted was a lot harder 'cuz then I actually had to trust other people and be someone worthy of their trust. And there was no obvious way to do it," he shrugged and resumed his soft finger circles. "I think that's maybe what yer scared of. The uncertainty of our future. The fact that we can't just call ourselves the 'Bad Guy and the Bookworm' anymore and know that that's how we'll always be, ya know?"

Levy did know. As she stared down at her folded arms, she could feel the truth resonate inside her as she took in his words. Ever since she had joined Fairy Tail, she had been the token smart girl, the intelligent planner, always ready with a strategy to win the day. But honestly, her teammates could do it without her. And she wasn't just a brain; she was a fighter, too. She couldn't keep falling back on the stereotypes in their relationship just because she was scared of change, scared of what they could be if they weren't boxed in by what they had been.

Looking up at Gajeel, she watched as he stared off into the dark. At one point in their relationship, she probably could have guessed what he was thinking. Yet, now, here they were, and she had absolutely no clue what might be running through his mind. To someone who craved knowledge and preparation, not knowing what exactly to expect was unsettling. It wasn't exactly awful, though.

Finally accepting this truth was hard, but she knew it was the only way to move on. She was the only one keeping herself nailed to that tree, and enough was enough.

Steeling herself, Levy took a deep breath and spoke from her heart, "I trust you and our future together," she reassured as she carefully climbed up into his lap, her legs going on either side of his hips so she could look into his eyes. "With every ounce of my being. Even if it's different and unexpected and scary," she took a breath and admitted, "For both of us."

Gajeel wrapped his arms around her waist as she leaned her forehead into his. For the first time in a while, there was peace inside her heart. The fears that had been plaguing her now had a name and a face that she could fight against. With Gajeel by her side.

Looking up, Levy met his gaze as he brought up a hand to cup the side of her face. They both slid their eyes closed as their lips met together in a sweet kiss full of the vulnerability and love that they felt. Even if their hands so frozen they could barely move them, their butts had gone numb from sitting on the hard earth, or Levy still had a bit of snot on her face, this moment was tender and gentle and beautiful.

As they pulled back, Levy looked up at the sky with a large smile. The clouds had cleared, and the stars seemed to be smiling down on them. The large pine that they were leaning against was swaying gently in the breeze, its branches rubbing together with a soft rustling sound. The night now looked as beautiful as the moment felt.

Looking back at Gajeel, she pecked him on the lips one more time before climbing backwards off his lap. "I think I found the perfect tree," she winked, laughing at his confused face. "Come on, Mr. Muscles, we have work to do!"

A/N: Gosh, this took WAY longer than it should have. I had 90% of this chapter ready by August, but I just couldn't get the last few parts in. You might notice a few parts are a little skimpier...

You should ask my friends, I literally say I need to update like every day, and do I ever? No. So sorry about that! I will try my hardest to crank these out faster and better...

Anyways, next chapter will be some Jerza for sure. Let me know who else you would like to see! I can even do some Miraxus! Reviews make my life :)