"You're what?"

I know my voice had jumped like three octaves and I felt like there was heat rising up in my throat.

She gave me a tense smile and put a hand on my cheek from where she was standing with my arms on her sides.

We were outside the Guild Hall and I could feel the sun on my back. The sound on the people in the town filled my ears and I didn't know if I'd heard right. I could have sworn she said...

"Natsu, I'm pregnant," she repeated gently, her golden brown eyes on mine.

I could hear my heart in my ears. I knew my mouth was open. My head hurt and my hands tightened slightly on her hips.

I didn't know she was talking until I looked at her lips moving.

"... And it'll be fine, Natsu. We're not exactly kids anymore and the guild will probably love to help. Juvia has little Storm and I mean, Mira has had to take care of her siblings and now little Jule. I mean, that little boy is a handful and they can handle it. "

"But we're not them and our kid isn't gonna be like Jule." I didn't mean for it to come out as condescending as it did and I knew before she even frowned that I had said the wrong thing.

She stepped out of my hands and shook her head. "I just... I don't know what else to tell you, Natsu. I thought maybe you'd be... " she had started to walk away and her back was to me.

And then my mind started to work so fast.

Lucy was walking away from me. With our baby.

Our baby.

A flash of a little boy with a sideways smile and controlling a roaring fire with his hands. Someone to teach everything Igneel had taught me. Someone to look up to me. My kid, for God's sake.

"Wait, Lucy," I called, running after her and grabbing her wrist.

"Huh?" She looked at me and I knew I'd upset her. She would've cried if I hadn't gone after her. She looked in my eyes and I was sure. Right then.

"Luce, I am happy. I'm sorry," I explained, rubbing the back of my neck. "I just... I didn't ... I'm worried. I haven't had a Dad since I was a kid. I don't know to do this. I just... I'm scared."

She didn't hear me say that a lot. She gave me a gentle smile and put her arms around my neck. "So am I," she admitted.

"We can do this. We're the strongest team in Fairy Tail, dammit."

She laughed, leaning back. "That's right."

"Hell yeah," I said, cracking my smirk.

I pressed my lips to hers and we stood like that for a while and I knew I'd made the right choice. This is where I was supposed to be.

I grabbed her hands and cracked a smile. "Hold on," I said, turning away from her and throwing the doors of the Guild Hall open.

"Hey, guys!" I shouted over the din of the groups sitting at the wooden benches. "Lucy and I are having a baby!"

It had never been that loud in the history of Fairy Tail.

People ran up to us and everyone was yelling over each other, maybe hoping we could hear them.

"I knew it! I told you all that they would get together!" Mira yelled, Jule looking at her funny from her arms.

"Oh, Storm will have a friend his age," Juvia said with the newborn asleep in a blue blanket in her arms. The kid was a heavy sleeper.

"DRINKS FOR EVERYONE IN HONOR OF NATSU AND

LUCY!" shouted Master Makarov from the counter, a

mug in his hand.

Cana laughed next to us. "Everybody keep having kids!"

Everyone stayed late into the night and I realized that this wasn't a problem to anyone else and it shouldn't be for me.

I realized then that it wasn't.