I hadn't seen those faces in five years, but even if it had been longer I would have recognized them anywhere, at any time. The one who was dark haired and currently taking off his jacket without really realizing he was doing so had always had the habit of removing his clothes, since before I had ever met him. Then there was the red haired woman, wearing new armor that seemed to be made especially for her by Heart Kreuz, like the armor she had been wearing the first time I ever encountered her. And their smallest member; a creature that seemed to be a flying blue cat, who rested on the head of the one that I had missed the most.

He had pink hair, oddly enough, and had always had such a loyal personality towards those he counted as friends or nakama, and he could always somehow manage to annoy me but make me laugh at the same time.

I turned my head from the group I had hoped not to see for a while yet, until I was ready to apologize for all that I had done, and ushered my students back into the school ahead of me. If I was still even remotely recognizable to them, being a teacher should give them less of a reason to come investigate me, the blonde schoolteacher. I would be a grey area to this team of mages from Fairy Tail, someone that wouldn't be suspected of being the woman who had become of the girl they once knew.

I assumed that the four were here for the job that our mayor had posted. A mage who could control wood had recently been attacking and terrorizing our town at random intervals, set on revenge against a mage he swore he could feel was near. What none connected was that the teacher of transformation magic could be the one that he was nearly raving about. But he was right that he could sense his target's magic, but he couldn't trace the magic back to its source.

Back to me.

He didn't realize, even the three times I'd run into the horrible man, that the blonde celestial mage he met three years ago, the one who triumphed with ease over he and the dark guild he had been trying to establish…was me. I was the one who defeated him, who had him arrested, but it seemed as though he had escaped and vowed vengeance. I hadn't stepped forward yet because he hadn't done anything drastic. Only minor damages had happened to homes, and no lives had been lost to his rages.

My fist was clenched, and it shook at my side at the thoughts that I was too timid, too afraid of losing this lifestyle and the trust I'd earned here, to take on my own enemy. But I would have fought, had he harmed anyone in any way other than just using the juvenile tactics of graffiti and destroying a statue or two. Statues could be rebuilt, but a life could not.

The shouting of the pink haired man faded as the school's door closed behind me, and I followed my neat line of ten year old students into the classroom that we used. These kids listened to me, whether it was because they liked learning magic or whether I was actually interesting or whether they liked the stories I told about the mages outside in our free time, I had no idea, but I really didn't care. It was nice, getting to know these kids and having a hand in their development into young people. My first group of students still talked to me or came around sometimes, even helping with the younger ones. And they were only thirteen now.

"Miss Heart," one of them tugged at my knee-length, flowing skirt. "Miss Heart, what will we be learning now?"

"Well," I said, sitting down on my stool in front of the class as they arrayed themselves around me on the floor, "why don't we have a little test to see how you're doing?"

I laughed a little as they groaned, but one ambitious but adorable girl raised her hand, her blue eyes wide and shining.

"Miss Heart, Miss Heart!" she cried, waving energetically.

"Yes, Izzy?" the girl, whose real name was Isabelle but preferred the nickname Izzy, grinned up at me, the expression lighting up her whole face.

"Can I go first?"

I smiled at her, as genuine a smile as I could muster, and said, "Certainly! Let's see what you've got. Why don't you turn into Mr. Keisuke?"

Keisuke was the other magic teacher of the town. He reminded me of a green haired man I once knew, with his rune type magic. He was probably next door, teaching the students who had more of a knack for his brand of magic than for transformation magic, just like he usually was. He was a nice guy, but his magic wasn't as strong as the other mage of the same type that I had known. Not even close. But I guess not everyone can be as amazing as the person who passed Fairy Tail's S-class exams two years ago; Fried.

"Okay!" Isabelle chirped happily, concentrating on her task. A few seconds passed, and then she said, "Transform!" and standing before me was a pretty good imitation of the man I'd asked her to turn into.

"You've done well, Izzy," I said, "but I'm taking off half a point out of ten. You're still too short. Great try!" I ruffled her hair as she turned back into herself. She grinned at me, pleased with herself, and sat back down as I picked the next kid to do the transformation.

…

I sat in my apartment one night a week later, drinking some cocoa and thinking about many things. One was my students, of course, who were progressing as well as could be expected. There was a boy who just didn't really have the knack for it, or for the rune magic, but I could tell that he did have some magical power, so I would talk to him about celestial magic soon, in private. I had had another student, from my first year of teaching, named Luke, who had been the exact same way, and who was, as I had guessed, proficient in the same branch of magic that I was. He was actually Isabelle's older brother and I had entrusted him with the safekeeping of my keys, letting him use them with the permission of my spirits, although they were still entirely loyal to me. I felt that the boy who had trouble in my class now would be another like Luke; a kid who would be more adept at summoning spirits than at transformations.

Another thing running through my mind was the lack of attacks in the last week, and I couldn't help but wonder if he'd finally given up on his gut feeling or if the wood mage was just planning something bigger than before. If he harmed anyone, I would have no choice but to fight, to reveal myself, but there was another thing that was making me dread this outcome.

The Fairy Tail mages still had not left.

We of the town had no information or ways to tell them where our terrorist had been staying, hiding out and biding his time, and they couldn't find him on their own. I'd asked around town a little, and found that they had tried, but none of their efforts had come to fruition, so they had resorted to taking turns patrolling, in the hopes that they would run into him. Even if these people, the rumored strongest team in their entire guild (a fact that I had no doubt was true), were here and would fight him, if he harmed them I would step in. It would take very little for me, in the state of mind that I was in, to reveal myself in order to help those that had once been very, very dear to me. And it's not as if they weren't a big part of me anymore, just that I had wanted to become stronger in order to feel worthy of knowing them, and in order to do that I had run.

I had run from the guild of my dreams, Fairy Tail, and into the unknown in order to find myself and who I wanted to become. Originally, my intentions were to get stronger, much stronger, and return to them a new mage. One who wouldn't always need saving, who could stand up for herself and not be the one who was holding them back from their true potential. And I suppose I had gotten stronger in my own way, but not very much. I had finally learned the transformation magic that Fairy Tail's own Mirajane had tried to teach me once, and I could summon more than one spirit at a time although we hadn't fought side by side for the three years since our battle with the wood mage. I just trained with them in secret, out in the woods and sometimes with my one pupil.

My strength, I had realized reluctantly but never truly admitted, lay with the friends who were near me, and anyone I cared about. When they were in danger, the will to save them gave me strength beyond my usual limit and beyond the comprehension of those who don't have those they hold dear there with them. And those of this small town, over the three years I'd been here, had become very dear to me indeed, but none of them could overpower the connection I shared with the mages from Fairy Tail.

"Why?" my head fell onto my table, my clenched and bare right fist shaking. The pink symbol there blurred in my tear filled eyes. "Why does all of this have to happen now? When I'm finally getting used to life here, when they accept me and have stopped questioning me about the past, my past shows up to haunt me…but…is it time I go back? I said I wouldn't be gone for too long, but it's been five years…"

I groaned, trying to blink away the tears that threatened to fall.

The note I had left on the desk of Master Makarov before I left had told him my purposes for leaving: I was going to find out who I was, who I wanted to be, and what it meant to be a member of Fairy Tail. I said in the letter that I wouldn't be gone for too long, that I'd come back, and I asked him to tell the guild, especially my teammates, what I wrote to him. I hoped it would dissuade them from looking for me, and I had even asked him to tell them not to. I hoped that Master Makarov had understood, and I felt that if they'd truly wanted to find me they would have done so already. Perhaps they had understood, too.

A scream rent the air, and my head shot up.

"It's him!" someone shouted, and the door burst open to my apartment to show the panting, small, and disheveled Isabelle from my class.

"Izzy?"

"It…it's that mage, Miss Heart!" she gasped out. "He wants to find all the mages, and u-us, the ones who're being taught magic, so he can t-try to sniff out the mage he's after! He attacked Elder Hiro when he said no!"

I noticed the tear tracks on the girl's cheeks, and pulled her in the house.

"Isabelle, I want you to leave out the back door," I told her, all traces of my usual playfulness gone. "Find your brother for me, and tell him that I need the things I entrusted to him for safekeeping. As quickly as possible. Do you understand?"

She nodded, sniffling, "W-why?"

"It doesn't matter right now," I said, "just go!"

She stumbled out the back door as I put on my ring and bracelet combination, which had a dark blue cloth stretching across my marking on my right hand. I was wearing a skirt that fell to a few inches above my knees, of the same dark blue as my accessory, and a much more modest shirt than my old comrades would have expected, showing just a bit of my (ample) cleavage. It had three-quarters sleeves, which was also a rarity for the me they once knew, and was off-white. Long blonde hair was tied back in a ponytail. My shoes were heels, but I didn't take the time to change as I heard the sounds of shouting again, recognizing the scarlet haired woman's voice as she accused the attacker.

I was out the door in a moment, the slab of wood slamming shut behind me. Another shout, this time in pain and surprise, sounded, and I noticed the wood rising out of the ground and wrapping around the red haired woman. Another cry, and I turned my head to find the dark haired one and the flying cat all tangled up as well. The only one not so was the pink haired one, facing my direction and looking wildly around to find his enemy. As I ran out into the square, I saw the enemy appear, a vile smirk on his face. He pointed at the one mage who wasn't ensnared by his magic, and I knew instinctively, and from memory, that this wasn't a strike to incapacitate like the others, but to kill.

Lurching forward, not even caring about myself, I reached out for him.

"Move!" I shouted, able to shove him out of the line of fire. I heard him let out an indignant shout even as the wood that our mutual enemy manipulated pierced through me in several places. I coughed blood, doubling over just slightly in pain. I took a quick count - nine places. I had been pierced badly in nine places. Well, pierced badly in seven of the nine places that I had been struck. These seven were my right shoulder, just up and to the right of my heart, and five different places across my stomach. The glancing blows where a graze just above my chest on the left, and a cut on the side of my left arm. Those seven severe injuries would probably be fatal, or pretty close to it.

"What were you thinking?" voices that sounded far away but were, in all actuality coming from the mages suspended in the air, came out all at once, but I understood the dark haired man's shout. What once were wooden cages around the three began to squeeze in on them, even as I had left my house, but I didn't have time to think about that. The scarlet haired woman struggled, as did the man and the cat, and I felt terrible for causing this.

The man I'd shoved out of the way had regained his feet, stomping over to me and turning me roughly to face him.

"What the hell are you doing? This is a mage's fight - mine!"

"It's not your fight anymore," I managed to avoid eye contact. "He's drawn blood, so he's mine now. Just get out of my way."

"The hell are you talking about - hey!"

I was pushed aside by the wood that suddenly encased the pink haired mage, and I turned to see the wood mage smirking at me, making the cage around the other man tighten like those around his teammates had.

"N-no!"

I had almost said the name of the pink haired man, but changed my word.

Oh, how I had missed these people.

"Miss Heart!" a new voice called, and I turned. My student, my one celestial magic student, Luke, ran near and reared back, throwing something shiny at me. The keys clinked together as they landed in my outstretched hand. "These are yours, right? Show us what you can do!"

He smirked at me. Even he had never seen me at full strength.

"Yeah," I clutched the keys tightly in hand, prepared to fight for the lives of these four old friends, people I hadn't seen in five years and who hadn't recognized me yet, or the keys I had.

"It was you I fought three years ago, wasn't it?" the wood mage, who I recalled as a man by the boringly normal name of George, laughed. "I've got you now, you worthless woman. You think you can defeat me in your state? Ha! You'll be no challenge at all!"

"It's been a while since I've fought with my own magic," I said, starting to twirl the key ring casually around a single finger. "I think it's time I got back into it. Don't you think so too, Loke?"

The orange haired man who had suddenly appeared beside me growled deep in his throat.

"Why don't you keep the keys on you anymore, you idiot!" he scolded angrily, "And why don't you ever call on me before you get hurt?"

"Calm down," I rolled my eyes.

"Loke?" I heard recognition from above. They couldn't see my face, but they would recognize Leo the Lion.

"Virgo, Scorpio, Capricorn, Pisces, Aries…" they appeared as I called to them in random order, almost as casually as I stood but there was a slight edge to my voice, an edge that contained a hint of pain. "Cancer, Sagittarius, Libra, Gemini, Taurus…are you ready? And can you come too, Aquarius?"

"Of course I can," scoffed the voice of the water spirit from the fountain just a little ahead and to the left of where I stood. "There's water right here."

"Let's go, then," I said as Virgo handed me a whip from the Spirit World.

There was a general shout of agreement as I and the twelve zodiac spirits that I had collected together charged at the enemy. The shout I knew would come burst forth from all four of those trapped above as I lashed out with my whip.

"Lucy?"

"Virgo, above!" I hear Aries call, and Capricorn pulled the spirit in danger away and dodged the attack as well. Virgo nodded to him as Loke landed a glancing punch across George's cheek and a wall of water narrowly missed the wood mage, directed by Aquarius. Libra and Gemini worked together, as did Pisces and Cancer. Taurus went in wildly swinging his axe and, unsurprisingly, got hit by a flailing, flexible tendril of wood but was unfazed, merely chopping it in half and continuing on his way. Sagittarius shot three volleys of six arrows in rapid succession, and only three made it through to George; he caught one in the shoulder, a glancing slice across a cheek, and one lodged firmly in his thigh. Scorpio's blast of sand thundered between the wood trying to deter it, smashing into the mage firmly.

"Loke," I called, running forward and slashing my whip at the form reappearing through the sand. "Get ready for your Regulus Impact!"

"Got it," Loke backed up, leaping atop the fountain in which Aquarius currently resided.

"Watch his back," I said to Aquarius, who just threw more water into the battle. At least she'd gotten over her rebellious stage, during which she always felt the need to include me in her most violent attacks.

"Princess!" Virgo called in unison with five of my other spirits calling out, "Lucy!"

I dodged the attack they warned me about even as I scolded Virgo gently with, "I've asked you to start calling me by name, Virgo!" as Capricorn lashed out with Aries' help at George the wood mage. I reached out a hand to Taurus who took it and used it to fling me forward, just as we had trained before, and as I flew I slashed at the enemy with my whip, catching his arm and wrapping around it. I landed on my feet and used his state of unbalance to his disadvantage. I yanked on the whip, which pulled him toward one of his own tall, wooden pillars, and then Libra took the whip from me and with the help of Cancer, they tied him.

"Ready, Loke?" I called, after Sagittarius picked me up and leapt backwards.

"Watch out!" was his reply as he charged from the top of the fountain.

A loud explosion and several small crashes resounded in the small town's central square as the wooden pillars, including those with the constricting cages at the top, crumbled and released their captives. As the dust cleared, and the townspeople flooded slowly into the area, the first thing they saw was the wood mage who had been terrorizing them, unconscious, in a crater. Next they saw the four people from out of town, the mages from Fairy Tail, who had come to defeat their terrorist, climbing up from the ground. What became visible as a fuzzy outline at first then became a group of thirteen around the fountain, atop it, or in it, was what most stared at.

The schoolteacher who had been there for the last three years, the young woman who took great care of the students under her tutelage, their children, a woman who had taught some of their children transformation magic, stood a bloody mess on the ledge of the fountain, a big white goat man with a hand on one shoulder, an orange haired man with her arm around his own shoulders. Arrayed around the schoolteacher, around me, and the two men were a pink haired woman in a maid outfit, standing on the very tip-top of the fountain, a mermaid of sorts in the fountain itself, a man with a scorpion's tail beside the mermaid, a giant bull man, and six others, one of which became two small figures even as they watched.

"Miss Heart!" came the voice of the small Isabelle, but her brother caught her as she tried to take a step forward and shook his head no, eyes on the pink haired man.

The man in question was the first of the Fairy Tail mages to stand up fully, and he was staring, transfixed, at me, and I was looking just as intently back at him.

"I'm fine, Loke, Capricorn. Please go back, all of you, and rest awhile. My injuries will be healed soon enough," I said quietly.

"As you wish," Capricorn lowered his head slightly, and Loke was more grudging as the others began to disappear all around us.

"Be more careful, Lucy," Loke said softly, "and even if you're going back with them, don't just leave your keys where you can't reach them. Call on us when you need us, and before you get hurt like this."

"Just go, Loke," I chuckled, taking my arm back from his shoulders. "I'll be fine. Do you think they're just going to let me die?"

He frowned, but he went, and I was left standing there alone until a flying blue projectile ran into me, screaming, "Luuucy!" and nearly knocking me off my feet.

"It's been a long time, hasn't it, Happy?" I asked, kind of scratching behind his ears. "Did you miss me?"

There was a barely audible sound of assent as the creature who appeared to be a blue cat cried against my chest and I just held him there, trying to comfort him. Footsteps drew near, and I looked up to see the red haired woman and the dark haired man.

"Erza, Gray," I greeted softly, "It's good to see you again."

"Lucy…?" Erza asked softly, stepping forward and reaching out to touch my shoulder. "Lucy, is it really you?"

"I…I can't believe my eyes…" Gray mimicked Erza, reaching out to touch me, running a strand of my blond hair through his hand. Tears began to build in the eyes of both of them, and Erza broke down first, yanking me down from the edge of the fountain and pulling me, and through me Happy, into a hug. Gray followed her soon after, wrapping the group of three into his own arms and making us a group of four.

And still, the one I had missed most just stood as though rooted to his spot, staring at me like I was a ghost. I was pulled to the ground and lost sight of him, the scarlet of Erza's hair breaking the eye contact that we had just briefly reestablished.

After several long moments, they all released me, and I smiled weakly at them.

"Lucy…"

The attention of the four of us turned finally to the one with pink hair, who had approached almost silently, eyes serious and intent on searching my face. Or that was what it seemed.

"Natsu," I replied, loving how his name still rolled off my tongue with ease and hoping, hoping from the bottom of my heart, that I wasn't hated by him for what I had done. For leaving him, even after we'd grown closer and closer, and after all that we'd been through together. I couldn't just leave his name hanging in the air, no matter how badly I wanted to. "Natsu, I'm so sorry…"

And it was my turn to let the tears fall, and I turned my head down to hide them.

"Lucy," the voice was right next to my ear, and really, really warm arms took a place around me. "Luce, it really is you. Did you know how afraid I was? When another week passed, and you weren't back yet, and I was just so damn scared. What if something had happened to you, and I hadn't been there to help you? What if you'd died, Luce? What if you had died and none of us would ever have known? I couldn't stop thinking about it…"

The unmistakable scent of Natsu filled my nose, and I leaned against him as my tears fell silently, without the heaving sobs that most girls are known for. I did let my arms reach up to clutch the dark red vest he wore, the ends of his scarf trailing on my arm.

"I promised I'd come home sometime, you idiot," I said halfheartedly, sniffling a little but unable to stop the tears from continuing to fall. "I couldn't very well die when I had a promise to keep. I just…I just had to be by myself for a while, try to find out who I am…don't you understand that, Natsu?"

"Yeah," he said, and his arms tightened when he continued, "but you didn't need to find out who you are, because it's obvious. You're Lucy. That's all anyone needs to know."

A shaky laugh escaped my lips, along with, "Thank you."

Natsu's embrace shifted, and his hands rested on my shoulders for a moment, pulling me away from him. I released him with one hand, reaching up to wipe my watery eyes, and then looked up at his face. There was something different about this expression, something different hiding beneath his eyes.

"I'm sorry, too, Luce," he said, and for the first time I noticed that his eyes were watery although no tears had fallen. And with those words, he leaned his head down and I realized the exact reason why he'd been the one that I had missed the most when his lips nearly crushed mine. The hand with which I wasn't clinging to his vest, I moved up to touch the side of his neck, gently, with my fingertips. Shortly after, he pulled away from me.

"Don't be," I leaned my head back against his chest, "you don't have a thing to be sorry for."

One of Natsu's hands stroked my hair, then he spoke again, "C'mon, Luce. You need to see a doctor before you lose too much blood."

"Yeah," I agreed softly, not even bothering to protest when he disentangled himself from me and then reached down and picked me up.

"We'll make sure you get better, Lucy!" Happy chimed.

"And after that," Gray said, stepping up beside us as Happy landed on Natsu's head.

"…we'll all go home," Erza finished, smiling a watery smile at me. I returned it.

"Let's go home together this time," I suggested weakly, "right?"

"Right," Natsu said, smiling down at me tenderly.

I smiled back.

…

So, I don't know what you'll think about it, but I kind of like it. A little. It's not written the best, but I just sat and made it all up within the last day or so.

The one section that's a little bit third person is supposed to be that way, just so you know. When talking about the townspeople's reaction to Lucy and her Stellar Spirits.

Anyway, thank you for reading! R&R if you feel like it.

NaLu forever! ;)