It was in the heart of night when the little girl finally opened her eyes. Blinking she attempted to focus her tired eyes and rolled over to her side to survey the camp. Bixlow was asleep against the log and Freed was lying on his cot, unmoving. She looked past the haphazardly made tent and saw the silhouette of him. She smiled softly and rose, taking great care to not wake anyone as she made her way to the shadow figure.

"What are you doing up, brat?" The harsh but quiet voice asked her. Her smile widened and she continued toward him. When she reached his side he didn't turn nor did he look her way and she sat beside of Laxus. He didn't have to look to know that she was staring at him with the adoring gaze she always did.

"I couldn't sleep, Laxus," she replied just as soft. Laxus pulled up a leg and rested his arm on his knee, looking out toward the cliff and hills beyond. The night was beautiful and serene, the forest quiet as if preserving the moment in time. For her, it was beautiful and mesmerizing, and perfect to shape into a memory to keep.

"It's your first mission, brat. I don't want you falling asleep because you were stupid enough to come and bother me."

"I won't fall asleep during the mission," she murmured as she placed a hand on Laxus' thigh. He didn't twitch; he expected her to touch him and was getting used to her doing so. He continued to look over the mountains into the night beyond.

She smiled, knowing exactly where his gaze was set. Forward. The future of his guild and his life stretched out before him, and he needed to see what was there. His strength and the growth of his power. Though she was young, she knew this about him already without anyone saying the words. She watched. She listened. She knew.

"Are you happy, kid?" he asked, comfortable enough in her presence and in the dark embrace of night that he could let down his guard.

"Aye, Laxus. I'm with you. That makes me happy."

"You shouldn't give someone the power to make you happy."

"Why is that wrong, Laxus?" she asked with a giggle. For the first time since she sat down beside him he turned to her. Her gaze was soft and adoring, and gave him warmth in his darkening soul. "I'm happy by being with you. I'm happy that you train me so that one day I can protect you. I want nothing more than to make you happy. You're my nakama. My Laxus." Though he didn't show his reaction, a curious sensation wrenched at his heart.

"Get off me, kid," he growled out as the wrenching sensation grew, causing him to become uncomfortable with her guileless gaze. Instead of doing as she wished she shifted positions and laid her head on his leg. Knowing she was pushing her luck she closed her eyes but her smiled remained soft and warm. For some odd reason, he was unwilling to kick her off of him so he kept still, instead looking away from her to gaze once again into the horizon.

"There's nothing more than I could ever want than to stay by your side," she whispered to him. He heard the soft voice but said nothing and kept his gaze towards the distant mountains. "I will never let you go Laxus."

"There's more to life than just me, kid."

"Not if you aren't in it." He grunted in disagreement but she simply shook her head as she nestled to get more comfortable. "You'll see, Laxus."

Silence reigned between them. It was soft and soothing and as life echoed around them in a subtle symphony, the two stayed in their small world. Even as the girl's breathing grew heavy and started to snore, Laxus did not move. He had never had anyone fall asleep on him before. This display of absolute trust shook him and cause that wrenching sensation in his heart again.

He did not understand this girl and he did not understand himself. But he knew that he was beginning to need her around. To want her even though he never let anyone this close.

So he placed a hand on her hair and felt his inner beast calm. He would keep her with him. She was special.

I didn't feel like myself as I left the salon. My face felt heavy and my hair felt…bouncy. The curls were something I hadn't really been expecting and something that wasn't familiar. Even as I was bullied into additional instructions of what to wear, which might I add I wore dutifully, a small part of me was excited for tonight.

There would be a small festival to celebrate the return of Fairy Tail. Most of Magnolia Town would be there and so would the mages of the guild. I wanted to look my best, if I was honest. I wanted Laxus to notice me. To want me.

If the gazes of men passing by were anything to judge by, I was on my way of making a decent impression at least. Which was good, because I was not used to doing this in any way, shape, or form.

But as I rounded the corner and saw the guild in the middle of the merrymaking: I knew I had made the right choice. Laxus was grinning at Freed with a drink in hand. He was so achingly handsome that I could feel my heart beating as if it was going to burst from my chest. Already he had found his old coat and wore it casually draping from his shoulders. It was so him that I smiled.

"My Laxus," I murmured.

I began to walk to him but a hand on my arm stopped me. I turned to see a man holding me back, interest clearly in his eyes.

"Might I ask your name, pretty lady?" I opened and closed my mouth like a gaping fish, unable to even form words. Random men did not come up and hit on me. They certainly did not flirt, and almost never even asked my name. What did one do in this situation?

"Hikari?" I managed to croak out.

"You don't seem so sure. Has my beauty rendered your brain to mush?" The hell did that even mean? What was this man even doing? I could still think, but why was he even talking with me? "Of course, it happens to women all the time. I am Louis." Gross. Absolutely gross was what this was. Condescending assholes were legit the worst. Hearing his absolute belief in this nonexistent charm snapped me out of any confusion I could have had.

"Not interested. I'm meeting my boyfriend." Believing that was the end, I tugged on my arm, only to have it held tighter. Did this man have a death wish? I was an S class mage, and he a normal man. I could pulverize him with the snap of my fingers. Did he have a death wish?

If I had picked up anything from Laxus on the side, it would be his temper, and that was definitely beginning to come into full swing. I could feel the static begin to build underneath my skin as the itch to just flip him and throw a knee into his chest began to gain merit in my mind.

"I love girls who play hard to get." How dense was this guy? I tugged on my arm harder, with no results. This was not good for the guy. I was about a half second away from making a scene. The only thing stopping me would be to ruin my guildmate's good time and reuinion.

"If you don't let me go, I will snap your arm in half. Do you understand me?"

"Oh, so you're into that sort of thing? Violence? BDSM? I knew I found a winner when I saw you." Oh. My. God. I knew some guys were into that but by all that was holy I would wound him in a way where he couldn't get any pleasure out of it.

"You didn't find anything. I'm going to my boyfriend now. Let me go."

The man tried to pull me closer to him but I did not budge. I thought I was showing great self-control by not flipping or mutilating the offending arm that held me against my will. I should be given an award, with how much I was not about to really snap this man's arm. Breathing was the key. Just try to imagine not serving this man a vicious can of whoop ass. Just to breathe and not get in trouble-

A hand darted into my vision and yanked the hand off of my arm with lightning quick reflexes. The electric current on my skin was the first indication, which heightened my skin to goosebumps. The second was the scent. He had such a distinctive scent that I would always be able to know it was him. And the third was the feral growl low in his throat.

"This would be my boyfriend. Fuck off," I stated as I pulled Laxus's hand over my waist. Almost instinctively he pulled me into his chest in a protective nature. It was good his hand was there, for both of our sakes. We were too alike in that regard: no one separated us. Especially not lowlife's like Bob, or whatever the hell his name was.

"Look, you don't have to lie, I know you want me." I felt the electricity spark over my skin and knew Laxus was one wrong word away from claiming possession by pure male violence. Between us the electricity danced, amping up our emotions between the two of us. I could always feel his true feelings in his magic, and he was pissed. I was pissed. I wanted him. He wanted to protect me.

"Fuck off," I told Dave, whatever the hell his name was. "He's mine."

The electricity was tangible in the air now and people were starting to take notice of what was going on. This wasn't good in more ways than one: I didn't need Laxus in trouble for beating up a human and I needed the guild to have fun tonight. I tried to stroke Laxus's arm to gain his attention but it was no use. His eyes were beginning to glint with hints of rampaging dragonslayer and that escalated the situation to something that I HAD to prevent. Yesterday. I moved in Laxus's arms and tried to get him to look at me. I was his Hikari. I could calm the angry beast. But I needed him to look at me and he could not. His unblinking stare was focused on the man in front of him.

Time for Plan 'Fuck it, out of options'.

I turned and grabbed the back of Laxus's head and brought his lips straight onto my own. There was resistance at first: he wanted to pummel what dared to try to take what was his. But I kept him there and moved my lips, deepening the kiss. Around us was murmuring. I heard the affront behind me from Pete or whoever. But most of all I felt the change in the electricity dancing across my skin. His attention was shifting. I moved myself closer to him and held him closer to me, giving all the passion that I could in the situation. Then the electricity changed and sparkled across my skin. I pulled back the kiss now that I had his attention and was going to smirk and say something snarky.

It was the feral gaze of the dragonslayer that stopped my train of thought. The absolute power of his stare when he was losing himself was something I never would get tired of. The flecks of golden yellow swirled and held me transfixed grabbing my awareness until I tunneled into only being able to notice his beautiful eyes. I was paralyzed. And it was because of my attention that he managed to take me by surprise and do what I thought would never happen.

He kissed me.

The kiss was everything I could have imagined and more. Laxus did not do anything by halves and gave himself in the kiss. It was passion, heat, desire. Everything that he was, he gave to me as he slanted his mouth over mine again and again. I could think of nothing but responding back with everything and holding him as close as our bodies could physically be. And oh god when he deepened the kiss I couldn't help the sounds of satisfaction as his mouth greedily devoured me. The electricity between us snapped as we both felt the passion in the kiss, and even as he pulled away the static electricity snapped on my lips, leaving a tingling sensation in the loss of his mouth against mine.

What yanked me out of my reverie of what just transpired was another hold on my arm. I knew by the way my skin crawled and how my energy spiked into being around me exactly whose hand it was. With all the sexual frustration of cocblocking and the absolute livid anger of the harassment from Max grabbing me AGAIN I turned and laid the little fucker onto his back, knocking him out cold as blood poured from his nose.

"Do not touch me, you mother fucker!" I snarled. The electricity snapped between my fingers and I stepped toward the prone body to continue the beatdown that he most definitely deserved.

But this time it was not me holding back Laxus. He grabbed me roughly by the hair and into his arms again. Before I could protest the treatment he grabbed me and slung me over his shoulder. I thrashed in anger, needing to finish what I started but with one hand he locked me to him effectively. Idly he said something and someone picked him up and began to take him away: most likely to a doctor of some sort. But I wanted the man go away, my face contorted in an angry snarl. If he was touching me like that, who the fuck else was he doing this shit to?

Even as I was working up to another round of angry retorts I was deposited into a chair by Laxus. And my Laxus, being the smart mage he was, caged me in with his arms and held me into the back of the chair. I could see the Thunder Tribe around the table, all with varying degrees of reactions. Freed was gaping at the whole display, Bixlow only smirked, and Evergreen sat stunned. It did not matter though. I was still angry. I had to go after him.

"Let me finish what I fucking started-" I muttered, as I tried to immediately get to my feet. Laxus slammed me back down with a hand and leaned down into my face. "He fucking started it, that low life piece of entitled shit he deserved everything he fucking got."

"Are you done?" Laxus asked with a small smirk. He was amused by this; he had always been amused by my Laxus-like temper I would show on rare occasion.

"No I am not fucking done so if you would quit being a fucking cockblock and let me finish this fight I started." Thinking about what the man had interrupted had another spurt of anger coming back. I went to stand and tried to push off Laxus's hand from stopping me. Instead his hand sparked with lightning and slammed me back into the chair, which creaked ominously under the impact. "I know you are not stopping me right now," I stated, my voice dark and dangerous. My dark energy began to swirl as it responded to my anger. I glared at Laxus in challenge, daring him to stop me one more time.

So lost in my anger I forgot what I was doing. No one challenged Laxus. When he leaned closer to me with a smirk I snarled at him, glaring with unbridled hate and frustration. However, I felt a change in electricity. So in tune was I that I sensed the slight change and looked past my anger and gained a single ounce of brain activity again. His eyes were more gold than not. But not with the willingness to fight. I was unfamiliar with this electric current of his. It was one I had never felt before. If he did not want to fight, I did not know why he was turning more feral. His beautiful eyes darkened and the smirk widened as he felt my confusion. The smirk was filled with forbidden knowledge. He knew that which I did not know. Unwittingly in my confusion I began to relax as the anger drained from me.

"Sit down, kid. You already nailed him."

"Goddamn right I did," I stated as I leaned back in my chair. "Makes me wonder what the fuck else he has done. Someone needed to show the fucker his place. Glad that was me, the mother fucker." At my language Evergreen looked as if she was going to pass out in shock, but Laxus only widened that mysterious smirk. His eyes were almost molten now and the electric current was stronger.

"You can't kill him."

"Give me one good goddamn reason," I shot back to Laxus. He raised an eyebrow.

"I think I gave you more than one," he replied easily, his low voice almost that of the dragonslayer.

"The fuck you mean, you gave me more than one, you haven't said shit yet-" Memories of the kiss danced tantalizingly in my mind. The amount of times he kissed me over and over, the feel of his tongue taking total control. In that moment I licked my lips and my gaze flicked over to the lips I saw in my mind. With a low chuckle Laxus backed away and I blushed, realizing that my train of thought was exactly what he was insinuating. "Oh."

"Laxus kisses you like that, and you just say oh?" Ever asked, finally breaking free of the coma of shock and horror.

"Well-!" I had no logical comeback to it and unsure of how to respond. I was thinking about the kiss so all that was doing was turning me on, and I couldn't be pissed at Ever because she was right. My one iota of brain power was not doing wonders for me at the moment.

"No wonder you are painfully single," she sighed as she placed her head daintily in her hand on the table. Laxus dropped into his chair and began to eat again. I could feel his intensity drop as he began to feel more normal, less intense. He too was calming down.

"I'll do without the painfully, thank you," I shot back grouchily. My anger almost completely gone I muttered under my breath both about the stupidity of men and Ever in general. Freed, the blessing that he was, poured me a drink of alcohol and pushed it over in front of me. As I swiped the drink and chugged it, I began to feel my muscles loosen. And as I slammed my empty tankard on the table Ever shook her head again as Freed refilled my drinnk

"Why can't you be more ladylike? Women do not drink." She lifted her head only to give me a disapproving look. Joke was on her, I was immune at this point.

"The fuck you talking about, well behaved women don't make history, Ever." With an elegant toss of my curled hair (seriously how was my hair still curly what sorcery did that hair salon place employ?) I mimicked Ever's persona. A choked laugh from the right as Freed tried to valiantly hold back his laugh and a true laugh from Bixlow was my reaction. Laxus of course ignored most of the shenanigans and Ever simply gaped then smiled in amusement.

"I missed you, you know." At the moment she was truly smiling, the warmth of her easily seen by the few around her. I smiled in response because this was the Ever I was familiar with. No guards in place, a warm smile on her face as she was with her Tribe.

"Not as much as I missed you, obviously." She laughed and took a small, delicate drink.

"You look beautiful today, Hikari," Freed complimented. "I know you grew up without us, but this almost doesn't seem like you."

I laughed, not offended in the slightest. "To be honest it isn't something I normally do. But I figured today was special."

"Not necessarily the makeup," Freed stated with a shake of his head. "I mean you as an adult. I keep expecting the same little kid to come marching over to us and demand to eat Laxus's food." I laughed at the memory. "It's not bad, it's just different. But I'm proud of the woman you have become."

"Thank you, Freed."

"Still a hot woman," Bixlow managed to interject between bites of food. Freed's gaze snapped to the dollmaster with indignant irritation. "Hot! Hot! Hot!" Bixlow's dolls chorused which darkened Freed's gaze further. I didn't take offense: Bixlow simply stated what he meant. He meant nothing harmful by it.

"It's fine, Freed," I stopped the fight before it started. I took a scrap of food from Laxus's plate and he grunted as a miniscule protest against my action. "You weren't gonna eat it." I ate the piece and turned back to Freed. "At least Bixlow thinks I'm hot."

"You are an attractive adult, Hikari, but he should treat women better."

"He's harmless. Ain't you, Bixlow?"

"Harmless! Harmless! Harmless!" The dolls chorused as answer. I shook my head as Bixlow chowed down as if he hadn't ever had food within the last few years.

I shifted in my chair and went to get more of Laxus's food. There was an ominious groan and the wooden chair gave out under my weight and the stress of Laxus's earlier slam against it. I slammed onto the ground butt first with a groan.

"Seriously, not attractive at all," I heard Ever say from the other side of the table. Sighing with agreement I got to my feet and began to look around for another chair.

There was one over near Cana, and I could just grab that real quick and continue to actually eat. I walked around Laxus and went for the chair, but a quick tug on the back of my skirt froze me in my tracks. I immediately went to pull it back up and in my inattention I was yanked back by a hand on my thigh and tumbled into the waiting lap of Laxus. I glared at him but he continued to eat, unrepentant of his action.

"You know, you could have pulled my skirt down, and everyone would have seen my underwear." No response. "You could have asked." He chewed on his food, his face still blank and without remorse. "At least let me sit properly, you asshole." I wasn't particularly mad at this point, more amused by his antics. The hand that held me in his lap lifted and I shifted my skirt around and turned so that I was facing the table and not the other people. Finally I settled and his hand went into my lap, not to hold me there, but simply to rest.

"Some things never change," Freed finally spoke again, drawing my attention. "And I'm glad for that."

I tucked my head under Laxus's chin and wrapped my arms around him. He didn't move or flinch; he simply let me do as I would and I closed my eyes. I fit better in his lap with this older body than my young form. But the feeling was still the same. I was still safe, protected, and fully in love.

Though he had taken a while, he had come back to me.

He fulfilled his promise, even when confronted by dark guilds and the ultimate destruction dragon.

He still had come back to me.

And I would never let him go again.

Author's note: So I know this has been forever since I updated. I haven't forgotten about this story, but since I had taken an extended leave, I figured I'd try to update my stories to see what people are interested in. I know this chapter is slower, and not as long, but please let me know if I should continue and if you guys are still interested :x

For those of those who have read this before and reviewed, I thank you. You guys are awesome and whenever I do see any activity from fanfiction, I always smile.