Author's note: Hello again, lovelies! As always, I am sorry for the very sporadic updates - I had to sort out real life shit. Also, is anyone reading Fairy Tail: 100 Years Quest? Because I am and I am quite enjoying it. Anyway, hopefully this turned out okay!

Lucy almost instantly regretted returning to her childhood home. While she had been happy to see the staff again – Spetto, Ribbon, Aed, and Bero, her celestial spirit magic teacher – the house brought back both the fond memories she shared with her mother, the occasional memory where Aquarius didn't try to drown her, and awful memories of recent years. Stepping inside the house immediately seemed to bring back the feeling of loneliness she'd felt as a child, and she looked around, gazing at familiar walls and decorations.

The house wasn't home to her, not anymore. Now, it only housed childhood ghosts and bad memories.

A short while later, she found herself being dressed for an audience with her father, maids at her sides. The dress felt heavy, dragging against the floor as Lucy moved in front of the mirror, looking at her reflection. In her peripheral, she could see two of the maids putting the finishing touches to it, making it perfect. Making her perfect, like a doll to be dressed and put away on a shelf. Lucy internally grimaced at the feel of the dress, at the way the tight bodice of it pulled against her bruised side. In just six months away from her father's house, she had forgotten the feel of wearing dresses such as this one. Frankly, she did not miss it.

The maids pulled back and admired their handiwork, giving her happy smiles. "How's that, miss?"

"It's not too tight, is it?"

"It looks like the sleeves might be a wee bit too short for you now, miss."

Lucy smiled again, meeting their eyes in the mirror. Gods, her hair felt heavy, piled up on top of her head like that. "It's okay," she reassured them brightly, moving her eyes over the smaller details. She seemed to have gotten taller in the time that she'd been away from the house, as well. No doubt the influence of Fairy Tail's chaotic environment.

Another moment, then she turned around, giving the maids another smile. "I should probably get going," she said, and the maids smiled, bowing out of the way as she walked forward. Lucy tried not to let her discomfort at the submissive gesture show as she passed them, the dress dragging along the floor as she went.

Gods, she hated these dresses.

The walk out of the doorway, and down the endless hallway, seemed to be an endless one. It allowed her to mentally review her thoughts and take in the house. Being back here in this house, the house that she had grown up in, always alone and removed from the outside world, filled her with a familiar loneliness. Even the way her footsteps echoed off the walls, devoid of paintings of ancestors due to the relative newness of her family's legacy, sounded like it was the loneliest place in the world.

Soon, all too soon, she was approaching the doors to her father's study. Double doored and imposing, they stood tall against the length of the wall, the dark wood always somehow glinting in the lamplight. Spetto was passing by, carrying a tray of tea, and gave Lucy a wide, happy smile. Lucy returned it, hoping it didn't look too strained as she came to a stop outside the doors. She carefully put one wrist over the other, breathing in slowly to try and ease her growing anxiety, the voice in the back of her head telling her, shouting that this had been a terrible idea.

Lucy moved her hand to her side, where the bruise still painfully made itself known with rhythmic throbs. Where she had hidden her gate keys – time in Fairy Tail, where trouble erupted from nothing, had taught her to always have some sort of defence on her. Breathing in again, clenching her fist at her side, she raised her hand and knocked on the door.

"Excuse me, father?" she said through the door, old habits and patterns about speech coming back to her as though she'd never left. "It's Lucy." Another breath. "May I come in?"

There was a pause on the other side of the door. It was the times like these ones that Lucy wished she had some sort of enhanced hearing magic, just to fill the silence that seemed to permeate from the door in that seemingly endless moment. Then: "Yes, you may."

Lucy slowly pushed open the door, automatically falling back into her old posture, her old walk. Stepping into the room, she gently shut the door behind her, and turned to look towards her father. The reason why her guild mates were injured, her guild hall in ruins, why she was here in the first place.

Standing in front of the dark wooden desk at the far end of the office, Jude Heartfilia was bathed in the light from the wall-length window, casting an elongated shadow against the carpet. His hair, neatly slicked back in the perfect look for an overlord of a business or empire, faintly shone gold in the filtered sunlight. The same golden hair as Lucy's own – at first glance, she may have looked like a carbon copy of her mother, but there were small differences between them. Like her hair colour – Layla's had been a shade or so lighter, like wheat instead of gold, Where her mother's eyes had been a light brown, almost edging on amber, Lucy's were a smidge darker, the same colour as her father's.

"You ran away without even saying a word to me." Lucy snapped back into reality, and hastily shifted her posture again. Her father was frowning at her. "How could you?!"

Your treatment, for one, Lucy thought, nearly said. She barely censored herself in time, and shifted her face, putting on an invisible mask, made her face blank. "I'm sorry," she said, voice carefully neutral, devoid of anything. "I shouldn't have left without speaking to you. It was a poor decision on my part." Stick to the formal language, don't show any feeling. "One I now deeply regret." Her mind flashed to Levy again, to Jet and Droy in bandages. All of it stemming from her father's indignation, because she didn't leave a note.

"I'm glad you finally came to your senses and left that guild," her father said, giving her a glance before turning to the side, hands behind his back. Lucy took the opportunity to quickly grimace, a moment of freedom before shifting her face back into moulded china. "A lady of your status shouldn't be affiliated with those ruffians." Lucy wondered what her father would think if he knew exactly what she'd been up to. A younger part of herself, a naïve voice in the back of her mind, wondered if he'd be proud of her achievements – she had helped in stopping a plot to bring back Deliora, had gone on numerous jobs with her friends, even performed in a nightmarish play – before logic smashed it down. Before he'd look at her achievements, he'd comment on her manners, her decorum, her choice of company. "I certainly wasn't looking forward to wasting any more of my money to have it eradicated."

Don't show emotion.

"You forced me to go to extremes, Lucy," he continued, closing his eyes for a brief moment. "If you hadn't acted so selfishly, I wouldn't have had to lash out at your guild."

You didn't need to lash out in the first place. Lucy kept her face carefully blank.

"You're the one who brought trouble upon your friends." Lucy lowered her gaze slightly. Her father's words were an involuntarily repetition of Lucy's inner thoughts, the thoughts that had been circling ever since the war between Fairy Tail and Phantom Lord ended. "It's better that you don't associate with them anyway. You're a member of the Heartfilia family. You have nothing in common with those peasants..."

Lucy thought back to Erza, the valiant scarlet warrior, screaming in agony in the clutches of José's malignant dark magic; to Gray, staring in horror at a nightmare come back to haunt him from a past she knew nothing about; and to Natsu, telling her his darkest secret to make her feel better, flashes of nervousness showing behind his bravado. Maybe she didn't have anything in common with them. She was willing to agree that point. That was only because the people she was friends with – those who had chosen, despite everything, to befriend her, some directionless new kid to the guild – were all extraordinary.

Natsu had said that her father had done everything he did out of misguided love. Lucy was very much willing to disagree.

"You come from a completely different world than they do," her father continued on, oblivious to Lucy's train of thought. "Which brings me to the reason why I wanted you home in the first place, dear." So there was a reason why he'd gone to so much trouble. Lucy had wondered at that. After six months and nothing, what would suddenly prompt her father to react so violently? "It's about our family. I have arranged for you to marry Duke Sawarr. The Junelle heir." He turned, turning his back to Lucy, and faced the window, hands still behind his back.

Lucy's mind was reeling. In the six months that she had been away, her father had gone and arranged for her to get married? Even in her thoughts, she found herself speechless at his behaviour. This was worse than anything Lucy could have imagined. It was as though she was a china doll, simply being handed over to someone else for ownership. The thought made her feel sick.

She said none of those thoughts. Instead, she said, "Yes, I suspected that might be the case." Still carefully neutral, still showing none of her inner thoughts or turmoil.

Her father hummed. "Try to think of this as an investment in your future." Lucy nearly snorted. Of course he was using money as an analogy. When wasn't something about money? "Once you're married, you'll have access to the Junelle family's vast lands in the south, which will allow us to expand the Heartfilia Railway, and bring in millions." So she wasn't just a china doll being given to a new owner. She was being sold to the highest bidder. The clarity of the situation made Lucy feel nauseous.

"I see," she said, a hint of resignation accidentally entering her tone.

"And I expect you to give birth to a baby boy," her father said, as though it was an obvious point. He'd been planning her entire life and future whilst she'd been gone, Lucy realised numbly. "We need a Heartfilia heir." There was a brief pause, as her father gave her a moment to absorb the information. "That is all for now. You may return to your room."

Lucy let the silence reign on for another moment, before letting out a silent sigh. "I'm sorry, father," she said quietly, finally letting her mask drop. "But that's not going to happen." Her father turned around, wide eyed and shocked. Lucy stared at him, expression defiant. "I didn't come here to make amends. I came here to say my final goodbyes."

"I realise that it was wrong for me to leave without saying anything – it's something that I've regretted every single day." Lucy glanced towards the desk, where a framed picture of her mother sat, shining in the light. "And so, I've come back here to tell you exactly how I feel before I leave for good!"

Her father looked apoplectic with anger, but Lucy didn't care. She'd listened to him talk about everything that she was supposedly doing for the rest of her life, from marriage to babies, so he was going to listen to her whether he liked it or not. He owed her that much.

"All the money in the world can't buy you happiness!" Lucy said loudly, clenching her fists at her side, near where her keys were. "I figured that out when I was a child." She tilted her head up. "Finally, I'm truly happy!" Her father still looked stunned into silence, stunned from anger. "And I'm not gonna let you ruin it for me!"

Her father seemed to snap out of his trance, and he took a step forward, hand reaching out. "Lucy," he said, a warning tone entering his voice.

Before Lucy could think about it, she was taking a step back and whipping out her keys from where she'd hidden them at her side, in a small, neatly hidden pocket. Less than a second later, she had a golden key in hand, was pointing it straight at her father, hand unwavering. Steel glinted in her eye. She would not back down from this.

"Don't!" she warned. Her mask was completely gone, as though it had never been there in the first place. "I am not a puppet for you to control! And I am done with letting you rule over my life!" A smashed rice ball flashed in her mind's eye, and Lucy grit her teeth. "I have found my own life, and I love it! I wouldn't trade it for anything, not for all the money in the world!" She slowly pulled her hand back, keeping a firm hold of her keys. "Because I love Fairy Tail! And I am a proud Fairy Tail wizard!"

She raised both hands to the top of her dress, across her chest, and she pulled at it, pulled until she felt and heard a tearing of fabric. Very suddenly, the dress fell away, leaving Lucy standing in only the underdress, but never feeling more alive, more emancipated, than she did in that moment before. As her father watched with now horrified eyes, strips and tatters of the dress's material fell around her like the ash of her burned away life.

"It doesn't matter that you're my father," she said, keys clinking together as she shifted. She raised a hand, the hand that held her keys, and pointed at her father. "If you threaten us, if you threaten my friends, we will crush you just like any other enemy!"

Her father's eyes widened at that, and for the first time, Lucy felt a jolt of sadness at the situation. "It didn't have to be this way." She smiled slightly. "We could have sat down together, had tea and talked things out." Her face fell again, and she sighed. "But... now I can't trust you. You've hurt too many people I care about." She clenched her fists. "I don't need fancy dresses, a big house, or lots of money to be happy. I just need to be accepted for who I am!"

A brief pause, an interim where she and her father simply stared at each other – the elder still in a mix of horror and confusion, the daughter in resignation and defiance. After that pause, Lucy turned away from him and slowly started walking towards the door of his study, stepping through the shreds of the dress. "And I'm not Lucky Lucy Heartfilia anymore," she threw out, not looking back, eyes focused on the door. "I'm Lucy of Fairy Tail." She lifted up her hand with her guild mark on it, allowing her father to see it. "People there treat me like family." The rice ball flashed before her eyes again, the memory of a little girl crying alone. "Something you never did."

She stopped in front of the door, and looked at the floor. "It was hard to leave this house," she admitted, lowering her hand and clenching it again. "Only because I have so many fond memories of living here with mom. It's really hard to leave them behind." A beat. "But it's time for me to move on."

She turned around again, faced her father once more, and offered him a slight smile. "I believe that, if mom were still alive, she'd tell me to always be true to myself, and do whatever makes me happy."

A look of anguish crossed her father's face, and, just barely, she heard him murmur, "Layla…"

She turned back to the door, and this time placed her hand on the handle. "So this is goodbye, daddy," she said softly.

Lucy didn't wait for a response, and was stepping out of the door, closing it solidly behind her, before she could hear anything else. She offered each of her old teachers and staff a friendly smile, trying to not let her inner turmoil show, as she stepped past them – they had been crowding at the door, listening in and had been caught off guard. Lucy didn't have it in her to scold them. After her confrontation with her father, she just felt drained. She wanted to go home. Back to Magnolia. Back to Fairy Tail.

Getting changed back into her normal clothes was a quick affair, and suddenly, she was standing outside the house, staring up at the building that she had spent her childhood home in. Her gaze lowered to the statue of the angel, standing in front of her. It seemed to be watching over her, seemed to smile at her and radiate an aura of peace. Lucy paused, pressing her hand against the lettering below the angel.

LAYLA HEARTFILIA

X748 – X777

She pulled her hand away, and slowly turned around. Just as she was about to start walking forward, ready to start the journey home, a giant flame appeared in front of her. Lucy immediately recognised that flame. She'd seen it appear, had been in it whilst it had been appearing, countless times. She could only stare, wide eyed and shocked, as Natsu and Happy tumbled out of it, lacking their usual grace.

"What – " she started to ask, eyes wide. Happy took note of her, did a double take, then launched himself off of Natsu's shoulder, crashing into Lucy's chest like a furry blue cannonball.

"Lucy!" he yelled, giant tears rolling down his face. His paws tightened their grip on the material of her shirt, and Lucy could just hear the claws sinking their way through the shirt. "Please don't leave! You can't leave!"

Lucy opened her mouth – whether to console this crying cat about… something… or to ask what on Earthland was going on, she didn't know. No noise left her throat, though, the words abandoning her as quickly as she tried to think of him. Over Happy's head and ears, she looked towards Natsu and gave a slightly desperate, questioning look. Natsu just shrugged in return.

"That's how I found him," he explained, gesturing at Happy. Lucy attempted to carefully pry him off of her top, but when that failed, she sighed and settled for holding him there instead. "Something about you leaving a note and leaving?"

"A what? A note?" Lucy asked, confused. What note? She hadn't left any notes for anyone to find. She'd never intended to stay, to bow to her father's ridiculous demands. "I never left any…" she trailed off, something clicking in place. She hadn't left any notes, but her letters. Letters she'd written to her mother. Her head snapped back down to look at Happy, eyes beginning to narrow. "Did you go to my apartment, cat?"

And as Happy scrambled to explain why he'd been in her apartment, Natsu watching passively in the background, Lucy felt that there was no place that she belonged better than Fairy Tail. As the three of them started the walk back to the train station – Natsu had said that he didn't have enough energy to transport them back to Magnolia with his creepy flames – Lucy glanced back at her family's home, at her childhood where her ghosts still lingered. Without really thinking about it, she looked up towards the window at the very top, in the very centre overlooking the estate.

She could see the barest glimpse of her father, staring down at his daughter engaging with the ruffians. A second passed, and she looked away again, looking forward, continuing onward.

It was maybe half an hour into the trek back to the station – it was taking longer than normal due to the three of them choosing to walk more slowly, coupled with the fact that her father's estate was a fair journey from the town – that Lucy noticed that Natsu was acting strangely. This, in itself, wasn't a strange thing. Natsu could be very odd when he wanted to be, and tended to view the world in an odd way, something that Lucy suspected was down to being raised by a dragon. No, what was strange about Natsu's behaviour was that he wasn't acting like himself.

It wasn't noticeable, at first. He was still smiling, talking as they walked, and overall being quite animated to the untrained eye. Upon further glance, though, Lucy noticed the way his smiles seemed strained, how his animations seemed forced, and how there was something off in both his tone and entire demeanour. She probably wouldn't have noticed anything, but her years of reading various genres of books, plus the time she'd spent writing things of her own, had taught her to be more observant.

Then there were the tears in his clothes, the shadows that lingered under his eyes, the half-hidden wound on his chest. Lucy wondered what the hell he had been up to.

Lucy finally worked up the courage to ask him about it when they were seated on the train, heading back to Magnolia. It would be a couple of hours, at least, so it was a good a time as any. Natsu sat across from her, slouched in the seat and tucked into the corner, in the tiny sliver of carriage wall between the back of his seat and the window. Beside him, Happy was sprawled out on the other side of the seat, fast asleep.

"Hey, Natsu?" Lucy asked hesitantly, pausing as the train went over a bump. Natsu went green at the motion, and his breathing went deliberately even. He made a humming noise, though, to show that he'd heard her. Lucy searched for the best way to word her question. Asking what he'd been up to sounded too accusatory. Natsu still wasn't looking at her, head tilted back, and eyes closed, so Lucy sighed, took the plunge. "Are you okay?"

Natsu shifted his head slightly and cracked one eye open, looking at her. "Aye," he answered, tone careful. He gave a tired smile, but Lucy wasn't convinced. "Why'd you ask?" There was something guarded in his tone.

Lucy barrelled on, regardless. "It's just – you have that cut on your chest." She gestured towards it, Natsu's open eye watching her. "And you've seemed really out of sorts today." She frowned as his expression seemed to shutter. "Did something happen?" Natsu didn't respond, merely stared at her. "Natsu?"

After what seemed like an endless moment, Natsu sighed. "It's nothing," He gave her a smile that seemed more forced than anything. "Don't worry about it." Lucy continued to stare at him, frowning in concern, and Natsu just closed his eye for a moment. "Okay…" A beat, a deep breath to seemingly collect himself. "I just dealt with another of my brother's demons." His face darkened. "Another that he just left to wander Ishgar."

Lucy frowned in thought, biting her lip. "Your brother," she repeated quietly, watching him. "Zeref…"

Natsu nodded, eyes opening slightly again to regard her. He looked rather like a cat in that moment. The train bumped slightly, rocking the compartment from side to side, and Natsu paled at the motion. "Yeah," he said, sighing heavily. "The demon had been… causing issues for a town. I decided to put a stop to it." He flexed his hand slightly, casting it a shadowed look. "Never gets any easier, though."

Lucy looked down, at a loss for words. What could she say to that? She had no experience with demons, beyond Natsu himself, and as she had told him numerous times, he wasn't exactly the best example for demony things. "I'm sorry," she offered, looking back up. Natsu merely gave her a subdued smile and lifted one shoulder slightly, letting it drop back down after a moment.

"Don't be," he replied, tilting his head slightly so that his cheek was resting against the glass of the window. His eyes turned concerned as he looked back over at her. "What about you?"

"Me?"

"Mhm." Natsu shifted again, almost pinning her with his stare, intense and all-seeing. "You just saw your dad. He sent the Phantom creeps after you." His face twisted in obvious distaste, and Lucy smiled slightly at that. "Can't've been easy."

Lucy took a moment to think about her response, mentally went over the events of that day. She had known that it wouldn't be easy, even before getting on the train to go back. Being in her childhood home, though, and facing her father… in some ways, that was harder to deal with than Phantom had been. And saying goodbye to her father, even if she didn't regret it, was still the hardest thing she'd ever done. Her chest ached slightly.

"I'm…" she trailed off, trying to find the right words to describe her feelings. Natsu just watched her quietly, hand idly running through Happy's fur. For a moment, she felt like saying that she was fine, but eventually decided against it. Another sigh, and, "I will be okay."

Natsu nodded again, hint of a smile playing around the edge of his mouth. "Yeah," he agreed quietly, "you will be."

After that, they settled into a comfortable, companionable silence. Natsu resumed his leaning against the window, somehow managing to curl up into an even smaller ball and rested his cheek against the glass again. Lucy watched him for a while, smiled whenever he would groan from motion sickness.

By the time they had arrived back in Magnolia, the ache in her chest had dissipated, replaced by a tingling warmth. She smiled for the rest of the day.

Author's note: So! That's Lucy's 'going home' thing dealt with. I'll also be skipping the 'a star removed from the sky' episodes because there's not really a lot I can do to change them, so it'll just be an off-screen event that characters will refer to later on. This means that the next chapter will be the start of the tower of heaven arc :) Anyway, I really hope that this turned out okay!

The line 'demony things' is a tiny reference to a side quest in act two of dragon age 2 :)