The first day he had liked Lucy, it had been sweet—like the Georgia Peach Tea that she had been drinking the first time he saw her.

Natsu had been leaving his friend Gray's room after studying together for their Chemistry midterm when he passed by the dorm's lounge. Even though the room was surrounded by glass, its tinted shade made it hard to see anyone inside. He could, however, hear the faintest, sweetest hum drifting through the propped open door. It was his favorite song. Before he knew what he was doing, his feet were walking him inside the lounge, and he was laying eyes on a beautiful blond sitting at the study table nearest the window looking out on the street.

He sat in one of the stiff loveseats with a dull geometric pattern on it that was close enough to her to hear the Twenty One Pilots drifting out from her headphones as she continued to hum along. The steady beats hammered into him, right against the temples, as he studied the way her tongue flicked out and gathered up the last droplets of Georgia Peach Tea swimming on the rim of her can. Her hands were wrinkled, thin, and stained with ink. He imagined how they would have danced through her thick blond locks, weaving in and out to produce the braid that trailed down her spine and tickled the back of her arm.

She was bobbing her head from side to side, lashes casting a smudge of a shadow on the underbellies of her eyes. Those eyes, nearly absent of the pupil, flickered up, golden as honey. She saw him looking at her, but merely scratched at a freckle on her arm and went back to smoothing out the pages of her pink notebook. The air conditioning vent beside her turned on, blowing a particular wisp of bangs up and away from her pale face. Wrinkles were furrowed into her forehead, growing deeper the longer she stared at the page she was studying.

The red, plastic chair she had been leaning up on snapped back down, and upon impact she stood, glanced at Natsu, then left. His gaze lingered on that can of peach tea, the curly strand of her headphones dangling from the table.

The twentieth day that he had liked Lucy, it had been a blur—much to his frustration.

Natsu had been up the whole night before doing homework that he had put off because he had been fighting with Gray and Gajeel the entire afternoon over why Natsu—who barely even showed up to Chemistry—got a better grade than both of them on the midterm. So when he walked inside the coffee shop he rarely visited due to his usual energetic nature, he was both covered in bruises and drooping like a zombie.

It was no wonder then, that when Natsu froze in complete amazement at seeing Lucy smiling brightly up at him from behind the counter—looking absolutely adorable in the too-big red apron wrapped around her tiny form—that she hardly even spared him a glance.

"Hi there! What can I get for you?"

It was the first time he'd heard her voice, and it was exactly how he had imagined—as sweet and smooth as the Georgia peach tea he'd seen her drinking.

"Just a regular coffee, perhaps?" she pressed when he still hadn't responded. Her eyes glanced to the line snaking behind him to the door and her smile tensed at the corners.

Still unable to find his voice, Natsu just nodded.

"Great!" She grabbed a cup from the stack beside her and poised a Sharpie above it. His eyes were drawn to her hands. They were still stained with ink. "Name?"

"N—" He hacked into a closed fist when his voice came out raspy and strained. "Natsu." As she began to scrawl it down on the cup, he took a deep breath to gather courage and try flirting with her like he'd seen Gray do to nearly every girl he came in contact with. "And what's your name—"

"Alright, Natsu, it'll be up shortly! Next in line, please!"

Well that didn't work out quite as planned.

The twenty-first day that he had liked Lucy, it had been slow—and if the smile that Lucy was trying to hide was any indication, she was enjoying dragging it out.

Natsu had class until 7pm that day, but right after he rushed over to the small coffee shop a block away from his dorm in the hopes that by some miracle, the blond girl that had been plaguing his thoughts for the past three weeks would be there. And she was, leaning against the counter as she scribbled on a strand of receipt paper, using the screen of the register as a tabletop. He was the only customer in the shop at the time, and she didn't look up as he entered, despite a bell going off upon his entrance.

It wasn't until he walked right up to her and asked, "Whatcha writing?" that she jumped back into reality, dropping her pen to the ground in her surprise.

"Oh, this?" Smiling a quirk of her lips that seemed somehow more genuine than the beaming one she'd given him the day before, she tucked the receipt into her apron pocket and scratched at the back of her head. "Nothing, really. Just something that I do when business is slow."

Natsu nodded and opened his mouth to ask her further, but she cut him off with a clap of her hands.

"So," she continued, "what can I get for you…Natsu, right?"

"Yeah," Natsu breathed, eyes wide. "I can't believe you remember that."

She shrugged, and the gesture would have looked completely casual had it not been for the bright blush that was making its way across her cheeks. "I think it might have something to do with the pink hair."

"Salmon."

"What?"

"My hair. It's salmon, not pink." He stuck his tongue out, and he was rewarded with a laugh that made his heart twist. "Also, don't you think it's a little unfair that you know my name, but I don't know yours?"

Her eyebrows scrunched together. "Oh, I'm sorry, I thought you already knew." She tapped her name tag with a nail that had been completely colored in with the same blue ink that stained the rest of her hands. "It's Lucy."

"Lucy."

Her name was perfect: simple and beautiful, just like her. The way it melted off his tongue, as easy as breathing, made him light headed.

"Yeah," she drawled, watching him with narrow eyes. He was just staring blankly at her with a dopey grin loose on his lips, unmoving. She waved a hand in front of his face. "You okay there?"

"Oh." He coughed, shaking his head to clear it of his thoughts "Yeah, sorry." This time it was his turn to blush.

"So what can I get for you, Natsu?"

There was that question again, except he didn't actually want anything. All he wanted was to talk to her and learn more about what music made her hum and why her hands were always stained with ink. He wanted to hear more of the way her tongue snapped against the 't' in his name whenever she said it; wanted to see all the different smiles she could give him.

How do you ask for something like that? Well, without sounding like a creepy stalker, that is. Which he definitely was not, by the way.

"Your number." He blurted it out before he could stop himself, but at the way she flinched back at the abruptness of it made him regret every syllable of it.

Waving his hands frantically about in the space between them, he rushed on. "I—I mean, I'd just like to see you again, is all. Maybe get coffee? But you probably wouldn't like that because of work—oh! Maybe walking around a park? Or shopping? I'm not very good at fashion advice, but look at these arms! They're great for holding bags. Or maybe—"

Her laugh, starting off as a quiet hum in her chest that shook her shoulders and then slowly building into a sweet eruption of lilting notes, saved him from embarrassing himself even further in his rambling. Seeing her with her eyes shut tight, a hand over her wide-open mouth, as she struggled to calm down her laughter, was the most beautiful he'd seen her yet. Slowly, he began to chuckle along with her.

"Those are all great ideas," she said with a sparkle in her eyes, "but why should I trust you? I just met you. You could be a stalker for all I know."

"Please," he begged, hands clasped tight in front of him. "Just one date. If I do anything stalkerish, you're free to leave, no strings attached. Just…one date."

"Hmmm." She tapped her finger, the one with the nail colored in with ink, on her slightly jutted chin, pretending to consider. "Okay. I get off work at five on Friday. Pick me up here, and we'll take a walk in the park like you suggested."

"And your number?" he pressed.

"We'll see how the date goes."

The twenty-fifth, thirty-second, thirty-ninth, and forty-sixth day he had liked Lucy, it had been easy as the two went on their weekly dates, spending even the latest hours of the night in comfortable, smooth conversation.

They shared everything and anything with each other, and learned a thing or two about each other through some coincidental accidents.

Natsu, for example, had learned that Lucy's job was extremely difficult, stressful, and only able to be preformed by angels blessed by Mavis herself when she tried showing him how to make a simple, black coffee before closing up the coffee shop on their first date. Lucy learned on their first date that Natsu had a knack for spontaneous fires when she went to the bathroom for a minute and came back to find him frantically trying to put out the raging fire in a bush on the path in the park they'd been walking on. Natsu learned on their second date that that fire incident somehow spurred Lucy's decision of giving him her number when he'd been snooping through her desk and accidentally knocked her journal onto the floor, opening it to her entry for that date—this also led to him learning that Lucy was an absolute, complete weirdo. Lucy and Natsu both learned that kissing each other made them lightheaded and giddier than they'd felt in years when Happy, Natsu's cat, had tripped Lucy and consequently sent her sailing into Natsu's arms, her shocked eyes becoming directly level and very close to his plump, parted lips.

And even though Natsu knew that to any outsider their newly-budding relationship looked like an utter mess, he couldn't tear himself away her. Because underneath all the awkward, blushing moments, the accidents, and the clumsy way they stumbled through getting to know each other, there was the teasing, beautiful smile, the bubbling, full laugh, and the sparkling warmth of a best friend inside that girl he was hopelessly head over heels for.

And she had finally agreed to be his.

The one-hundred-and-third day that he had liked Lucy, it had been red, flames of two kinds coming together after being sparked by a surprise appearance at Cana's party.

Natsu and Lucy had arrived together that night already a little tense after Natsu had made a comment about not wanting other guys seeing her in the dress she was wearing. It was a tight, little black number that barely came down below the generous curve of her butt and plunged deep enough in the middle of her chest that Natsu thought she might accidentally spill out of the neckline at any minute. He could already imagine the number of drunken guys that would be eyeing her and trying to hit on her at the party all night, and it made his blood boil.

Lucy, refusing to be controlled by anyone in her life, took his command to change as a challenge and put on the highest pair of stilettos she owned and promptly stormed out of her apartment.

So, least to say, it was easy for anyone to see that the smiles the couple were wearing when Cana opened the door were extremely forced. With a dirty look shot Natsu's way, Lucy strutted inside with a flick of her hair and immediately grabbed a drink from Levy's hand, already beginning to gossip about what had happened with the rest of the girls. Natsu wasted no time paving his own way through the party, telling Gray to go get them a couple beers when he saw that the raven-haired boy was on the last bit of the drink he was currently nursing.

Two chugged beers later, Cana stood up on the snack table, accidentally kicking over a bowl of cheese puffs in the process, and whistled loudly with her hand. She wobbled a little as everyone quieted down, spilling beer over a poor sap's head.

"Everyone!" she hiccupped. "Someone pretty snazzy from my hometown showed up tonight, and I want you to give her a warm welcome. Everyone, meet Lisanna. Lisanna, meet everyone!"

At that, Natsu's head snapped up. There was no way….

Then, from behind Cana's gesturing arm, a short, white-haired girl with blushing red cheeks and bright blue eyes came forward, shyly waving to the crowd hooting and hollering for her.

A grin broke out on Natsu's face.

"Lisanna!" he shouted, shoving his way through the drunken mass until he was able to scoop the tiny girl up in his arms.

"Natsu!" she said breathlessly, laughing when he twirled her around once. She kicked her dangling feet at him, telling him over and over to put her down until he eventually did. As the party picked back up around them, he leaned forward to speak to her better, foreheads nearly touching. His hands were still on her waist.

"Why didn't you tell me you were going to come visit?"

She giggled, controlling the beaming smile on her face behind one of her delicate hands. "I wanted it to be a surprise."

He rolled his eyes at the girl, then dropped his hands from her waist so that he could take her hand in his. "Come on, let's get a drink. We've gotta lot of catching up to do!"

Between red cups pressed against quirking lips and uncontrollable fits of laughter that required leaning against each other for support, the two reunited best friends told each other everything that had happened so far in the first year at college. Having been joined at the hip since childhood, it had been an unusual experience for the both of them to not have been in constant contact with each other since school started up. Lisanna attended Edolas University, an entire ocean away from Magnolia, after all, so they rarely got to talk due to the extreme time differences. Seeing her at the party that night sweetened his sour mood just a little bit.

Although it didn't help that he was already on his sixth beer, either.

It'd been hours since Lisanna came, and she'd just gotten done talking about the handful of boys she'd seen since school started. Listening to her relationships sparked a memory through Natsu's sloshy mind, and his eyes instinctively flickered up to find the familiar golden blond head in the crowd. Lucy was leaning against the crumbling mantle of Cana's dusty fireplace, a poisonous look on her face as she stared back at him from across the room. Sighing, Natsu's shoulders slumped and he downed the rest of his drink.

"Natsu?" Lisanna asked, dropping her own cup from her lips. "You okay?"

He flinched, running a hand through his pink locks. "Can I get some advice?"

Smiling the gentle smile he'd grown up memorizing, she nodded and took his hand, beginning to tug him through the crowd. "Let's find a quieter place first, though. I can't think straight with all this music."

With only a slight stumble in his steps, Natsu compliantly followed the tiny girl through the crowd and disappeared into one of the bedrooms down the hall. He closed the door behind him, muffling the massive noise of the party, and flopped down on the bed. His hands were knotted over his stomach; he stared blankly at the ceiling. After kicking off her heels, Lisanna climbed into bed and lied down next to him, mere centimeters between their bodies.

"Okay," she said on a huff of breath. "Spill."

And so Natsu gushed about Lucy to Lisanna, explaining how entranced he had become with her in the past four months, starting from the beginning and leading up to the fight that they had had that night. Lisanna had started smacking his arm aggressively when he told her how he acted towards Lucy, which led to him beating her off with a pillow—which, of course, led to a full out war that couldn't even compare to the ones they used to have at the Strauss' house when they were children.

After five minutes of abusing each other with the pillows of whoever had the poor fortune to live in the bedroom, they settled back on the bed. Their hair was in a ruffled mess, skin flushed, chests heaving with exerted breaths. Lisanna's skirt was ridden up to well above mid-thigh, and one of the straps of her top had slid down; Natsu's shirt scrunched up at the hem, exposing a sliver of tan skin.

"Seriously, though," Lisanna panted. She swallowed, trying to wet her dry throat. "You should apologize to her. You have no place in controlling what she wears."

Natsu let out a loud, long groan. "I know, I know. I'm an idiot. I'll go tell her right now. Thanks, Lis, you're the best."

"I know."

"Gimme a hug," he said, half-heartedly rolling onto his side and raising an arm in the air in invitation.

She snorted. "You already got a hug."

"Not good enough," he drawled, shaking his head. "You're leaving tonight so I need one more for keeps."

"No, thanks."

"Lis."

"No, Natsu!"

They both looked at each other in the dim light of the room, still breathing a little heavy. There was a smirk resting on Natsu's lips as he scooted a little closer to her on the bed.

"…You know that's not gonna stop me, right?"

There was a pause as Lisanna's bright blue eyes widened, but before she could twist herself off the bed, Natsu pounced. He laid his entire body on top of hers, pinning her to the bed with his wait as he wrapped his arms around her and squeezed with all his might.

Lisanna erupted into laughter as she tried to squirm her way out, even though she knew it was pointless.

"Natsu!" she shrieked, the two syllables of his name lilting off her tongue in an affectionate way.

Just then, a familiar voice was heard outside the door, calling out, "Where are—"

The door flung open, and Lucy peeked in, mouth still open from the sentence she was about to finish. Her hand on the door knob began to shake as she took in the appearance of Natsu lying on top of Lisanna, their disheveled appearances making all sorts of unwanted images race through her head. Natsu immediately climbed off Lisanna, both of them struggling to fix their appearances under the thick atmosphere that had formed. The three were frozen, no one quite meeting the other's eye. Then, Natsu stood, reaching out.

"Luce—"

The sob that had been bubbling up in her throat the whole time finally spurted out, Lucy slapping a hand over her mouth as she slammed the door shut. Her sprinting footsteps were heard even over the music.

"Lucy!" He shouted.

There was no thinking. He just ran after her.

Even in her way-too-tall heels, it took Natsu until he was a block away from her apartment to catch up with her. She was still sobbing, the sound of each one scratching his heart raw as he called her name over and over again, begging for her to hear him out.

"You don't understand," he panted as she fumbled to find the right key through her tears. "Lisanna is—"

"No!" she choked out, finally finding the right key and plunging it inside the lock. She swung open the door. "Just leave me alone!"

She tried to scamper inside her apartment and slam the door in his face before he could follow, but Natsu was faster. He wedged his foot in the doorway, one fist pressed against the door as his muscles rippled with tension.

"Never," he growled.

His head had been bent, but at that moment it snapped up just as he poured on all his strength, forcing the door out of Lucy's grasp as she stumbled back. His eyes locked with hers, burning coals in the dark apartment. The door was kicked shut behind him.

"I will never leave you, Lucy. Don't you get that? I'm too goddamn crazy about you to leave you."

"If that was the truth, then why were you cheating on me with her?" Lucy spat, turning away from him.

He grabbed the crook of her arm before she could get more than two steps, and spun her back around.

"What are even talking about? I was giving her a hug goodbye."

She laughed dryly. "Friendliest hug I've ever seen."

"That's just how we are! Lisanna's been my best friend since we were born."

"Good!" she shouted, wrenching her arm out of his grasp. "It's the perfect relationship then! Hope you two are happy."

"If I wanted Lisanna, I would already be with her by now. But we're just friends."

"How can you expect me to believe anything you say? I saw you guys! I saw—"

"You saw one friend giving another friend a hug goodbye before they don't see each other for another half a year."

Crossing her arms over her chest, Lucy opened her mouth to retort. But Natsu strode forward, backing her against the nearest wall and caging her in with his arms on either side of her head.

"Do you honestly believe that I would cheat on you?" he whispered, leaning in so close that they could both smell the lingering alcohol between their shared breaths.

"Do you honestly think," he continued, "that I could want anyone but you? I mean, Mavis, Luce. We may not have been together long, but I know that you're the most beautiful girl I've ever seen and the brightest light in my life, and I would never do anything to risk losing you. You're too damn important."

Finally, Lucy's eyes softened. Taking that as his cue, Natsu leaned in and caught her soft lips between his own, kissing her as though she could shatter beneath him at any second. He had meant it only to be a soft, fleeting gesture; something to prove to her how he felt about her. But when he pulled away to gauge her reaction, he was immediately pulled back down by the bunch of his scarf around his neck.

Lucy moved her lips furiously against his, tugging him roughly against her when she heard him moan into her parted mouth. Their tongues flicked out, brushing against each other and teasingly gliding along the curves of lips. Goaded on by her obvious change in mood, Natsu slipped his hands down from her waist to cup beneath the ample curve of her bottom and lift her effortlessly up. She wrapped her legs around his middle in response and, smiling, nipped at the pout of his bottom lip as she felt him carrying her across the apartment to her bedroom. With a growl, he dropped her on top of the fluffy queen bed and climbed on top of her.

Straddling her between his thighs, hovering just above her with his arms on either side of her head as he struggled to remember to breathe, he studied the girl he somehow managed to be able to call his. Her golden hair was spread out on the pale pink of her pillow in tangles, eyes hooded so that only a glint of their honey color was seen. Her lips were swollen from the force of his kisses; her cheeks were beat red with the lingering tracks of her tears. Following the delicate outline of her neck down, Lucy was all milky skin and soft, plump curves.

His hands fisted in the sheets as he swallowed his rising desire down in a rough gulp. He didn't miss the way her eyes followed the rise and fall of his Adam's apple, and he definitely didn't miss the sudden flare of fire in those eyes, either.

Pushing him firmly back with one hand, Lucy managed to switch their positions so that she was now the one straddling him. Her lemon-vanilla scent surrounded him; the moonlight streaming in through the window illuminated her in an ethereal glow.

This is where she belongs, he thought as he gripped the flesh of her thighs. Here, in the middle of the night, wild, free, and glowing. Just like a star.

In one sudden motion, Lucy took the hem of her dress and drew it up over her head, tossing it to the floor somewhere behind her. She was left sitting on his chest in nothing but a matching set of red lace underwear.

"L—Lucy," Natsu choked. His heart raced in his chest as his brain struggled to catch up to the immediate reaction of his boiling blood just under the tension of his skin.

Even in the four months that they'd been dating, they had yet to go this far before. They wanted to take things slow, make everything special and sweet, unlike what they'd had before in previous relationships. But now….

"What's the matter, Natsu?" Her voice was a deep purr as she slowly smoothed her body out over his. Her generous chest was now just beneath Natsu's chin, pressing into the suffocating material of his shirt as she brought her lips to his ear; her soft hair tickled the flushed skin of his face. "You never wanted me to wear it in the first place, right?"

Her hot breath fanning over him sent shivers through him, and as his pants began to tighten considerably at the images she was unknowingly planting inside his head, he wanted nothing more than to flip her over and ravish her right then and there, finally being able to completely show her just how much he loved and worshipped her. But still, with everything that had happened that night, was this special enough? Was this truly what Lucy wanted? He couldn't risk her regretting this in the morning.

Sensing his hesitation, Lucy pulled back slightly so that their eyes met. He saw nothing but clarity in hers as she stroked the side of his face.

"Natsu," she said with a smile that made his heart stutter. "I'm ready."

When they came back together in that moment, lips crashing together with unabashed moans, they both knew neither would be leaving the other for a very long time.

The one-hundred-and-twenty-seventh day that he had liked Lucy, it had been comfortable and full of the type of pillow talk that Natsu never knew he was capable of.

Then again, with her, it seemed he could do the impossible.

Their days together were filled with soft sheets and the lingering lemon scent of her laundry detergent as they lied side-by-side on the bed. Some days they collapsed into laughing fits as they tickled each other relentlessly; some days they found themselves falling into each other's electric touch; some days they just laid there looking at each other until the lull of sleep eventually dragged them under.

That day they both had their arms loosely draped across each other, tracing lazy patterns into compliant skin, when Natsu suddenly asked Lucy, "How many kids do you want to have?"

The corners of her lips tilted up, eyes flickering all across his face, as if trying to find a joke somewhere there. He just raised an eyebrow at her and poked the tip of her nose.

Giggling, she said, "At least two. But no more than six. What about you?"

"Hmm," he hummed. "I guess I want as many as you're willing to give." Her face lit up bright red when she realized what his words implied. "So six, then."

"Oh really? And pray tell, Mr. Dragneel, how do you think you're going to provide for me and our six children?"

He snorted. "That's easy. We'll start out small."

"Small?"

"Yeah, so at first we'll get a small little house on the edge of town, where there's a bunch of trees and flowers for you wake up to every morning. I'll get a job at the high school here as a Chem teacher, and you'll have all day to write your novel and visit Levy at the library and grab a bite of cake with Erza at Mira's café. And then when I get home, we'll eat dinner over you telling me about everything you did that day and me telling you about how I probably set the lab table on fire for the kids again 'cause they wouldn't stop bugging me about it."

"Go on."

"The first and second kids will fit in the house no problem, but then I'm gonna come home one day to find out there's a third one on the way. So that summer, I'll tell the principal I can't work summer school, and I'll spend the next three months adding onto the house while you go on a book signing tour for your best selling novel. But of course Lisanna is gonna to come with you to make sure the baby is okay with all the travelling."

"My very own personal nurse? How glamorous," she teased, an uncontrollable smiling consuming her features.

Natsu nodded and tugged her closer. "Only the best for you, of course. But yeah, that's how we're gonna do it. And eventually, by the sixth kid, we'll have this big house decorated completely to every one of your weird, frilly tastes—" he ignored her shout of protest, "—and you'll have your own library filled to the ceiling with all your favorite books."

"What about the kids?" she asked. "What'll they be like?"

"Oh, them?" He rolled his eyes. "Crazy. And weird. I mean, look who they have as parents." She laughed at this. "But they'll be so happy and energetic, always runnin' around everywhere, playing with Happy and Plue and probably breaking everything in sight."

"Great," she drawled, giving him a dry look.

He grinned at her in response and tugged her closer to him so that they were mere centimeters apart. "It will be. I promise."

With a sparkle in her eye, she murmured, "Guess we'll have to see," then closed the distance between them in a tender kiss.

The one-hundred-and-forty-fourth day that he had liked Lucy, it had been snowing heavy enough that classes were cancelled.

Since the couple had no responsibilities that day, they had planned to spend the evening cozying up by the fireplace in Lucy's apartment. Natsu had wanted to go over in the afternoon when he'd woken up (mornings just weren't his thing), but Lucy had called him with the news that she had to get Plue more dog food.

"Dog food?" Natsu asked into the phone, peeking out his curtain at the blizzard still raging on outside. "In this weather?"

There was a muffled sigh from her end. "I don't have a choice. I have literally nothing to feed him today. He's so hungry he's shaking."

"He's always shaking."

"Natsu," she whined. "Just wait until I get back, okay? I'll text you when I'm home and then you can come over."

He flopped down on his bed with a huff that made his pink bangs flutter. "Alright, but bundle up and be careful."

"Always am!"

Except she wasn't.

After showering and watching a couple episodes of his favorite show, Natsu began to get curious about Lucy. It had definitely been at least two hours since they'd spoken. Shouldn't she be back by now?

Turning off the TV, Natsu took out his phone and dialed Lucy's number. It rang six times before her perky voicemail-"Sorry, I can't come to the phone right now!"-asked for him to leave a message.

"Hey, Luce," he spoke after the tone sounded. An unsettling feeling was beginning to twist in his stomach. "Just calling to see if you're ready yet. Call me back."

He hung up and had to chant to himself over and over again that she was fine, that she was about to call back at any minute. He'd just spoken to her. She said she would be careful. Nothing could have happened in such a short time. It wasn't like she could have gotten into an accident—she didn't have a car, and the pet store was just around the corner from her apartment.

But if it was just around the corner, why hadn't she called him back? Texted him? Anything?

Before he knew it, the already gray sky had begun to spoil over into a charcoal hue—the sun was setting.

Swallowing around the dry lump in his throat, Natsu jumped up from the couch and shoved his arms through his coat as he scrambled out of his dorm room, not bothering to grab anything

but his phone. He left the door unlocked, mind solely focused on getting outside and looking for his girlfriend.

A small piece of him wanted to believe that she was playing some kind of joke on him—that when he walked outside, she'd be waiting right there for him, a smile on her face, two steaming coffees waiting in her outstretched hands. But the larger, more overwhelming part of him knew something was wrong. His pulse was stuttering against his tense skin. The inside of his cheek was bleeding from where he kept biting it in thought.

He just needed to know where she was.

As if the universe was listening to him, the second he started to jog down the street that would lead to Lucy's apartment, his phone began to vibrate in his jean pocket. He scrambled for it, fingers trembling, breath hitching in anticipation.

The caller ID read Erza.

Cursing, he held the phone up to his ear, but continued trudging through the snow towards Lucy's.

"Yeah?" he answered the phone, already done with the conversation.

"Natsu."

The twinge of her voice made him stop again. Erza had a strong voice, always had. Firm, clear, distinct in its unwavering monotony. But in those two syllables of his name, it had never sounded weaker. More defeated.

There was static between the two as Natsu gathered his thoughts, and then he heard a muffled whimper. Was she crying?

"Erza?" Natsu swallowed. "What's wrong? You okay?"

"Lucy."

It was the only word she could get out before she withered away into sobs so wretched that they physically hurt Natsu, slamming into his body as if she was there next to him, ramming her fist into him for fighting with Gray as usual. He knew, as he watched the furious white snow, uncharacteristic against the dark sky, swirling around him, that it wasn't good. He knew, and his body felt as though he'd been sitting in a freezer for hours, every one of his nerves becoming suddenly hyper-aware of the cold solidifying around him. And he knew, he was trembling. Biting the inside of his cheek and tasting thick, sharp blood.

Over the phone, Erza's sobs turned distant and new breathing occupied the silent chasm between the two callers.

"Natsu?" It was Levy. Though she wasn't sobbing, Natsu could hear how raspy her voice was, so different from her usual cheerful lilt that was very similar to Lucy's. She'd been crying, too. "Can you come down to the hospital? We'll explain everything…."

Midsentence, Natsu began to run. Levy was still talking, blurbs of noises and sniffles at the back of his mind, but he couldn't actually make any of it out, and soon he hung up. His brain felt fried, and his body was shuddering so hard, he wanted to collapse.

Because he was thinking about her smile. How she had a million different ones, each with their own secret lingering behind those petal-soft lips. He had seen plenty of them over the months of their dating, that was for sure. The smile that was soft, urging him to go on when she could tell he felt he was stumbling around stupidly in with his words. The smile that was strained with a matching set of tense eyes that she would always wear when she was struggling to stay happy for everyone else's sake. The smile that twitched sporadically at the corners despite the glare masking the rest of her face because she ought to be mad at him, she really should, but Natsu knew it was extremely difficult for Lucy to stay mad at him.

And as he ran, all of these smiles ran through his head, paired up with so many memories that he hadn't even realized until that moment that they had collected together. He couldn't lose her yet. He couldn't, the very thought of it alone making dry sobs begin to strangle their way out of his chest.

He had so many more smiles to see, after all. All those smiles with life and brightness and energy and emotion that only Lucy could manage. And he wanted to see all the smiles he'd already uncovered over and over again, until it was the only image he saw when he closed his eyes at night.

So she couldn't leave, she couldn't.

You promised, Luce.

The one-hundred-and-forty-fifth- and-sixth days that he had liked Lucy, it had been blank.

When Natsu got to the hospital, Erza had finally had herself collected, though both her and Levy alike had dry, red faces stained with tears, and bloodshot eyes that never fully stopped welling up. They told him about how Lucy was crossing the street. The walk light had been on. But there was a truck driver trying to come to a stop at the red light. His brakes weren't able to grip on the icy roads. And Lucy wasn't able to get out of the way fast enough.

Though they weren't allowed to see her yet as she went under treatment for her injuries, the doctor assured the small group of friends over and over again that Lucy would survive, she would be alright. The worst was over. Only the road to recovery was ahead.

But how could any of them believe it?

One by one, all of Lucy's close friends came to the hospital after Erza and Levy took turns making the devastating phone calls. Cana and Gray. Wendy and Gajeel. Juvia and Mira. All nine of them grouped into the suffocatingly tiny waiting room, breathing in the too-sterile scent of antiseptics, burning their eyes by staring too long, unblinkingly, into the bright fluorescent lights while trapped in their thoughts. Hardly anyone spoke, and no one left once in the four hours that they waited, not even to go to the bathroom.

When the doctor came back to announce that Lucy's room was going to be open for family only, they all eventually argued Natsu's way into the room. With both of her parents gone, and no other known living relatives, being her boyfriend was the closest thing to family to her. And, he argued with a pleading strain to his voice, she didn't deserve to wake up alone.

He was let inside. For a long time, he was unable to move from where he was frozen in the doorway. He'd never seen the girl so…lifeless. Even when she thought that he'd cheated on her, there was still a fiery spark igniting every one of her words and actions. Maybe he could pretend that she was asleep under all those wires and tubes sticking out of her, but even in her sleep, Lucy's face would twitch, and she would mumble and toss and turn.

This Lucy's blond hair was limp, almost brown under the chalky lighting. Her skin was gray. Lips chapped. Not a single movement. Not even an audible breath.

The only thing that assured him that the doctor had been telling the truth about Lucy being alright, was when he held her hand. If he angled it in just the right way, he could feel her weak pulse jumping slowly from beneath the plastic medical band around her wrist. So he sat there during every hour of the day for the next two days, only leaving once for half an hour so he could take a quick shower and change his sweaty clothes on the morning of the second day.

Through all of this, he wished he'd had some sort of miraculous, profound thoughts, or maybe some renewed sort of proclamation for what their future together would be like once she woke up, or that he realized how short life was and therefore they both needed to take advantage of it while they could.

But the truth was, all Natsu could think about was how unfair life was to allow for a soul as bright as Lucy's to be threatened from the life she made so immaculate.

The one-hundred-and-forty-seventh day that he had liked Lucy, it had been love.

While Natsu was slowly dozing off on the side of Lucy's bed, hunched over their intertwined hands from his position in the noisy pleather chair he'd been resigned to sitting in the past couple days, something finally happened.

Lucy whimpered.

The sound jolted him awake, and he blinked repeatedly at her still form, trying to find any sort of sign that would tell him his mind wasn't finally going insane and beginning to hallucinate. And then, just as he was about to go get Erza so that he could have a food break to hopefully rejuvenate his obviously-fried mind, Lucy coughed and then squeezed his hand.

"Luce?" Natsu asked, voice shaking.

"N—" she coughed again, and her eyes squeezed tightly together. Then she started to blink.

"Lucy!"

Natsu jumped from his chair, tears beginning to sting at his eyes. Murmuring her name over and over again, he brushed her bangs back from where they'd fallen in her face, and watched as Lucy began to open her eyes for the first time in what had seemed like years to everyone else.

"Natsu?" Her voice was rough and a little more nasally than usual from the breathing tube lodged up her nose, but it was still Lucy, speaking to him and now staring back at him as tears began to run down his face. "Wha's goin' on?"

He'd never heard her speak so ineloquently before, and the sound of it made him laugh, though he knew he shouldn't.

"You're alive," he whispered, leaning his forehead gently against hers. "You're alive. I thought I lost you. I—"

One of Lucy's hands, weak and trembling, came up to rest against the side of his face. He placed his own over it, then nuzzled his nose into her palm.

His mind was racing. Though he hadn't had any sort of miraculous revelations in the past two days he'd stayed by Lucy's side, he did have a sudden bought of clarity in that exact moment. He took a breath, ready to declare something he hadn't uttered to anyone since the day he found out his dad had died.

"I love you, Lucy."

The shock was clear on her face, and at first Natsu's heart hammered with the ramifications of what he'd just said. What if she wasn't ready for this? What if she was feeling the complete opposite? What if—

With all the meager strength she possessed in the moment, Lucy tugged Natsu's face down so that their lips could meet in one, two, three gentle kisses that made Natsu's body ache. When they pulled away, Lucy had her own tears running down her face as she whispered, "I love you, too," over and over, still stroking the side of his face with her trembling hand.

That's how Natsu knew, finally, that what the doctor had been telling him this whole time was actually true. Lucy would be fine, and he would make it his life's duty to make sure her smiles and laughs and biting remarks and kisses and caresses were never put on the line again. So long as Lucy loved him, neither would ever be alone again, and he would never again allow that love to be threatened.

I HAVE NO IDEA IF THIS IS GOOD OR NOT. I hope you guys like it, though. So please leave a review telling me what you think! They always make me smile ^^

-Jess