#ft ff

   However she finally remembered it was his was because of the one name of the girl Lucy never talked to. The name that filled his call history and blocked out the very rare occurences of her own, Lisanna Strauss.   Now the blonde knew very well the two had been close friends their whole life, and she'd never doubt Natsu's faith to her at all based on his excessive amount of communication with another girl besides Lucy herself. No, she knew with all her heart that the pinkette would be the last person on earth to ever cheat on her.   Then why did it hurt so much?   "Natsu, how come Lisanna's name is here so much?" She asked without even realizing it, cringing upon the sound of her own words exiting her mouth.   Her boyfriend tossed over a listless glance upon her words, raising an eyebrow in confusion as he he looked at his phone pointed towards him.   "I call her for homework a lot," Natsu answered with a shrug, not caring much about it. He was usually a tad bit oblivious to a lot, and in this case to Lucy's slight jealousy bubbling.   The blonde knew Lisanna was a sweet girl, that she would never even suspect of doing anything secretive with Natsu. Lucy always respected their friendship, and hoped Lisanna respected the couple's relationship in return.   Lucy always feared the possibility of turning into a controlling girlfriend, that's why she'd never asked Natsu for anything drastic or demanded anything. They've always had that comfortable and flexible friendship, but that was before they started dating. Although since they'd been labled official, everything between them felt so fragile to her.   "Oh okay," The blonde called out curiously looking at the time stamp of the call. 7:03am. She knew she very well Natsu didn't like doing homework enough to do it that early in the morning, but she didn't want to think about it anymore.   In a relationship two main things you need are trust and love, so she had to have some faith in her boyfriend. Even if he was going to call Lisanna more than her, they were just friends and she believed that.   Lucy decided to just drop the matter and went to his contacts to search up, "Erza," and found her name immediately under "Erza the Devil," with a bunch of devilish emojis. She gave a light laugh at how cute Natsu was to her by using those emotions, and hit the call button.   As she put the phone to her ear, she looked over at Natsu reclining and staring off to the opposite side of the room with a concentrated and disgusted look. Her brown eyes followed his gaze to see their fellow friend, Gajeel Redfox, staring back at him with a mutual expression.   "What do you want Salamander?" The black haired teen spat at Natsu, calling him by a nickname he'd always had due to his pyro interests.   "Something pretty ugly, Metal Face!" The pinkette said raising his voice, so Gajeel could hear him across the busy classroom.   "What did you say? Say it to my face!" The boy replied from the other side, as he abruptly stood up. Gajeel brought his hands to his wrists to scrunch his sleeves up to his elbows on both arms, as if he was going to engage in a fist fight.   "I just did!" Natsu retorted, standing up to copy a fighting stance.   Lucy just watched from her seat, and the rest of the class moved to hide from two as they were used to the crazy antics of the boys.   No matter what, he was always her Natsu. Her best friend, and the boy she loved. She had already forgotten about the fact he had been calling Lisanna more than he called her. She was so focused on admiring him from afar, and lightly giggling at his actions.   He sure was her crazy rambunctious, loving Natsu. She wouldn't have changed him for the world, because they both loved each other as if they were each other's worlds.   "Hello?" A voice from the phone called out snapping Lucy out of her thoughts.   "Oh hello Erza, it's me Lucy. Sorry I had left my phone at home."   That was the thing about life though, nothing good lasts forever.

     Lucy had finally found her best friend, Levy, and Gajeel together at the karaoke section of the party, singing their hearts out in unison. At first it was Levy giggling and teasing him about his gruff singing voice, until she joined along as well with her high pitched yet out of tune voice.   The couple didn't seem to mind since they were having a good time together, and Lucy couldn't help but smile in happiness for them. Even if she couldn't find her own happily ever after, the blonde was glad Levy and Gajeel had at least found theirs in each other.   After the song was over, the two walked over to where Lucy was upon catching sight of the girl.   "What's wrong, Lu?" Levy immediately called upon seeing her friend.   "Nothing," Lucy lied through her teeth, "What do you want to do?"   The blue haired girl looked at the boyfriend with a questioning glance. They both didn't know what there was to do at the party as far games or something else going. All they knew that there was karaoke and drinking, the normal drunk activities.   "How about we start a game of suck and blow?" Gajeel asked with a shrug, considering all the party games they could play. That was the first one that came to mind.   If Levy had been any less drunk than she already was, then she might have disagreed on account of the possibility of her or her boyfriend having to kiss other people. However, she didn't have to be sober to know her friend definitely needed something to get things off her mind.   "Sounds great! I'll go gather up a group of people to play and find Erza." Levy cheered with a slight hiccup and giggle, due to the amount of alcohol in her system.   Lucy only gave the couple a light smile unsure of how to feel about that party game. During high school she'd only ever played it once, and at the time she had no clue what was going on. She had just freaked out when the person beside her dropped the card and stuck his tongue down her throat. Although that was before her Natsu dating days.   With Levy taking the blonde's smile of a sign of approval, she immediately got to work on gathering a group of their friends to play the game. Surprisingly more people than the three anticipated decided to join. The group consisted of Erza, her fiance Jellal, Juvia, Gray, Levy, Gajeel, Lisanna, Natsu, and Lucy. The names besides the known were all other classmates from their Fairy Tail Academy graduating class.   Most of the people had most likely agreed on the sole reason that they were already drunk. They had decided to play the game in clockwise manner, with the list of names being the order of turns.   "The game is simple, when the card is passed around from person to person you either suck or blow to transfer the card to the next person. If the card is dropped you must then kiss the person to your left if you were the one transferring it." The redhead announced, deciding to be the one to explain to the group. After relaying the simple rules, she held out a red queen of hearts card out in the middle for everyone to see.      "I will start it," Erza announced placing the card on the mouth as she sucked in air to keep it connected to her. She then turned to the blue haired man beside her, Jellal, and began to blow the card in his direction once their faces were close to each other.   He sucked in air at the same time, catching the thin card off her lips and turning to face Juvia beside him. She in turn received the card, and moved to give it to Gray. However, when he was about to suck the card Juvia had stopped blowing and it fell between them.   "Looks like Gray will have to kiss Juvia then." The blue haired girl announced to herself proudly, as if she had dropped it purposely.   The dark haired man just gave a scowl and a sigh before reluctantly leaning in the kiss her on the lips. It was a short peck that lasted a few seconds, but afterwards Juvia was swooning and Gray was blushing even though he acted annoyed.        Gray picked the card up off the floor and put it on his lips. He then passed it off to Levy, avoiding Gajeel’s dark glare directed towards him.

  The blue haired girl then passed the card to her boyfriend, leaning over closely so they could be in an intimate position. Levy slowly slid her hand up his thigh causing Gajeel to drop the card being passed over to him.

  The two shared a sloppy kiss having been full of alcohol. They seemed to have forgotten the group of people watching them, and waiting for their turn to end of the game.

  Erza looked over to them furiously, having had a few shots in her system as well, which usually made her somewhat irritable. She cleared her throat loud enough for the couple to overhear, causing them to snap out of their lip lock. As Gajeel and Levy looked back at her, she gave them a dark glare of disapproval for not continuing the game and engaging in a long kiss.

  Gajeel placed the card on his lips and faced towards Lisanna with slight furred eyebrows, not sure of what to think of the girl. Without putting much thought into it, he hurriedly passed on the card to the smaller white haired girl.

  Lisanna was a girl they all knew from highschool, but most not crazily well. Gajeel being one of which who didn’t know her all too well, so he hurriedly had finished his turn. She took it happily without a word, prepared to continue her round of the game.

  Lisanna sucked onto the card before looking Natsu in his eyes to transfer it over to him. He released a quick huff, not thinking much of the girl. He was usually very obsessive with the thought of winning that he didn’t give a second thought about who was giving it to him.

  The pinkette was just focused on winning.more than the more adventurous and flirty aspect of the game. Even though suck and blow wasn’t exactly a game you could win in.

  As the white haired girl came closer to Natsu’s face he slowly leaned back not quite aware that he’d have to pretty close to her to take the item. He’d watched the other pass the card along, but he didn’t think much it until he was suppose to take it off her lips.

  He finally started to lean in to take it with slight hesitation, since he hadn’t been that near to a woman’s face since Lucy. That alone was a whole other story altogether though.

  As soon as he was about to suck the card, a new voice nearby caught his attention, distracting him enough to drop the card. He turned to his left to see a brunette woman beside Lucy. It had been another friend of theirs that had gone to school with them awhile back, Cana Alberona.

  Her cheeks were a bit flushed from drinking, but that didn’t stop the wide grin adorning her face as she looked at the blonde sitting beside her.

  “Lucy! It’s been forever.” Cana called out reaching her arms out towards the seated female, as Lucy stared back in amazement.

  “Cana!” She had called out, jumping up from her spot and forgetting about the game entirely.

  The two embraced each other into a warm loving hug that made each other so happy. The two women hadn’t seen each other in so long, and they’d only been communicating through texts and calls occasionally.

  Lucy had been set on going to college, whereas Cana had taken upon the idea of travelling the world and living a bit before making final decisions about her life. Meaning that the brunette dropped out of high school during her Junior to get a headstart in her planning.

  They’d taken their separate ways for awhile until that moment at the party, so the blonde didn’t care less about some game when her close friend was by her side after so long.

  “I’ve missed you so much, it feels like it’s been forever.” Lucy said against the other girl’s shoulder, getting very emotional. She’d truly missed Cana with all her heart, since they had been very close like Lucy and Levy were now.

  “I’ve missed you too, Lucy.” The brunette replied before releasing from the hug slightly, “Since you don’t seem to be doing anything important you should come with me. There’s something I want to show you.”

  Lucy replied with a quick nod to Cana’s words as she grabbed her personal belongings and gave Levy a smile from across the room. She didn’t want to ditch her friends, but she wouldn’t pass the opportunity to catch up with the one she’d longed to see for years.

  Erza had muttered a few words of protest at the blonde’s departure from the game, but Cana had just whispered something in her ear to make even the redhead understand so easily even in her drunken state.

  Lucy hadn’t happened to overhear, so she just followed behind the female up the stairs of the large house. They continued walking until they reached a room at the end of the hallway, and beyond the door revealed a large bedroom with a wide balcony outside the glass windows.

  The view was absolutely breathtaking in Lucy’s eyes as she went through the glass doors leading her outside onto the balcony. The dark obsidian sky seemed so calm and peaceful compared to the ruckus of the party downstairs.

  She had always admired constellations with no prior reason than the fact that everything at night seemed more alive, and the stars seemed to glow in her chocolate orbs with such beauty.

  “The sky looks so beautiful from up here,” Lucy whispered amazed. She knew that the sky usually always looked the same every night, but for some reason standing upon the balcony made the world so much clearer to her and more tranquil.

  “I knew you’d love the view from here,” the brunette spoke softly as she took a swig from a bottle she had taken on her way up to the room. “I could tell you’d probably want to get out of the situation with Natsu.”

 Lucy took a glance at Cana, and they both leaned against the banister of the railing on the edge, overlooking the sight of the brightly lit town. It was a wonder how Cana knew about that room in the first place. They both stared into the sky lost in thought, not wanting ruin the calm atmosphere with awkward conversation.

  “So what’s going on with you two? I know you didn’t look too happy being around him, and I’d understand why since the breakup would make things awkward.” Cana asked tossing an eyebrow in the blonde’s direction.

  Lucy just looked into the girl’s purple eyes, not sure of how to answer. She was pretty clueless as to what was going on herself, so she let out a light sigh in frustration.

  What do you do when someone you love is in your life, but at the same time they are so far away from your grasp that you are left in a constant empty pain. Do you try your hardest to repair things? Or do you continue to do what’s best and move on with life. Lucy had no idea what was right to do regarding her emotions, and she was just trying not to think about it more than she had to.

  “I don’t know…” She began to say softly while looking out towards the stars in the sky, “but one thing is for sure, I still love him. That can ever change,”

  “So what are you going to do about him? Be friends or leave broken ends to remain how they are?” Cana asked in consideration for her friend. Lucy wasn’t always one to simplify actions into decisions, or to even realize her emotions in the first place.

  She’d have to chose if she wanted to really honestly try and be friends again instead of leaving the situation awkward and emotional like it had been between them before.

  One way or another every decision in life would have to be made by emotions, as long as the choice was decided by living being. Feelings always affect everything in life no matter how little the case. That’s why if you harden your heart to suffering you can justify any decision.

   “He has always been my best friend through everything, and I know he is still trying to be. I could at least attempt to be friendly as well, I mean I’m going to have to face the reality of him being back in my life again sooner or later.” Lucy finally stated in more of an attempt to convince herself, rather than tell the woman.

  Could she even pull off being friends again? Couples who’d break up rarely make it happen as friends, but then again Natsu and Lucy had always had a special connection. It was worth giving it a try, so she was going to.

Layla’s eyes opened slowly. "It..." Her lips twitched, smiling softly. Her hand went to Lucy’s head, stroking her daughter’s short, blonde hair. Lucy leaned into her hand, smiling brightly at her mama’s warm touch; it was the closest thing to a hug that Lucy had gotten in weeks while Layla fought a nasty illness. "Magic is something you feel here. In your heart.”

Lucy frowned, pressing a hand to her chest where she vaguely knew her heart resided. “Like love?”

“Exactly like that, little one.”

“Will I feel it when I go there, mama?” A vision of dragons and magic sword fights flashed through her mind, bringing a delighted giggle to her lips.

“Only if you let it.” Layla smiled, guessing what her daughter thought with stunning accuracy. Lucy’s emotions had always played across her face, something Layla would comment for years to come. “It’s not magic like wizards and witches, it won’t grant you magic powers.”

“That would be fun though!”

“Indeed, it would! But this is different. Don’t shy away from it, Lucy, and you’ll find it.”

Lucy didn't quite understand, but her mama never lied. "Okay, mama."

“Lucy…”

“Lucy…”

“Lucy!”

Lucy’s jaw cracked as she yawned, trying to shy away from the hand on her shoulder and fall back into her dream. It had been a pleasant one, where her mother had spent hours telling Lucy stories despite Jude’s demands for Layla to rest.

Someone shook her harder and the soft smile on Layla’s face faded into her memory when Lucy snapped awake, narrowly avoiding a collision course with Erza’s head as she sat up in her bunk. “Erza? What are you doing? It’s… so early.”

Erza sighed. “Did you forget your punishment?”

Memories from yesterday flooded through her and she gulped back her righteous anger, knowing that further argument would be a waste of breath. While Erza believed that Lucy hadn’t swum to the docks, her fleeing along with Natsu had painted her as an accomplice, leaving Erza with no choice but to punish Lucy as well.

“Right,” Lucy replied gruffly, swinging her legs out of the bunk and stretching. Erza waited for her, looking sympathetic and resigned, while Lucy wiggled on an old pink skirt and a red shirt.

“Wear your hair up,” Erza instructed, offering a red hair tie. Lucy smiled thankfully, pulling her hair back and tying it tightly; it would give her a headache later, but she didn’t want to constantly fidget with it for the day.  

“What are we doing?” She wondered aloud, but Erza reminded quiet, merely escorting her out the door.

Erza led Lucy to the lake of the camp, where she could see the other three boys rubbing their eyes sleepily. Natsu stared directly into the sun, half asleep, eyes somehow perfectly alright despite the agony. He woke when the two girls approached them and tilted his head to face them as their boots crunched in the grass.

“Everyone here?” Erza asked with her hands on her hips and face blank.

“…Yes?” Lucy replied, looking from Gray, Gajeel, and Natsu to Erza then back again, wondering if somebody else had been racing with them that Lucy had missed. Would the others be considered accomplices for not stopping them, too?

“Aye,” Natsu muttered, arms crossed.

“Gajeel, Lucy – the two of you are preparing the arts cabin for the kids to come in after breakfast. Here’s a list of what you need to prepare and here’s what you need to hide,” Erza instructed, passing over two yellow pieces of paper. Lucy cheered silently, accepting one of the papers while Gajeel took the other, relieved that they would be inside and doing a relatively painless task. If anything, they would be done in a few minutes! How was this even a punishment? Lucy would have volunteered to do it without any coercion.

Erza continued. “You’ll also have to clean up from yesterday. Mirajane fell ill before she could continue after the kids so I’m not sure what you’ll be walking into there, her sessions are always entertaining.”

Lucy - who had only seen the aftermath of one of Mirajane’s art sessions - made a face, but wisely stayed silent. The fair-haired counselor was particularly sensitive to comments against what she considered good ideas, something Lucy only figured out yesterday when Makarov had elected Erza to delegate punishment on them. Lucy didn’t know what he had said that set Mirajane off, but she had left in tears while Erza berated the camp leader.

“Gray, Natsu – here’s some trash bags and gloves. Gildarts’ group went a little crazy at their bonfire and made a mess of their area. You’re to pick it all up then empty the trashes into the dumpsters over there. I expect the area to be spotless or else.”

Natsu and Gray blanched. Nobody knew what happened in Gildarts’ group; it was loud and rambunctious, but only a select few were invited over there, the rest delegated between the other campers. Rumors said it was because Gildarts was the only one who could handle them, but she knew the boy named Alzack was there and nothing Bisca or Natsu said about him seemed difficult enough to warrant Gildarts’ attention.

Either way, Gildarts often had the best bonfires; one that regularly made such a mess that his group had to wake early to clean it up because doing so at night would only lead to be a bigger mess.

“That’s cruel and unusual punishment,” Lucy noted while Gajeel sniggered.

Erza ignored her thankfully. “Breakfast break in an hour. I’ll check on you periodically so you better be working. The faster you do this, the faster you can get out of here. Everyone know what they are doing?”

“Aye,” they chorused quietly.

“Onwards then!” Erza marched off to the docks, doing whatever else she did in her free time.

Gray and Natsu pulled on gloves and grabbed a trash bag, marching off in a flurry of muttered threats. Lucy giggled, hands clasped behind her back, grateful that she hadn’t gotten that punishment, as she followed Gajeel. She didn’t remember where the arts cabin was, but he seemed to know where they were going and led her between two cabins, obnoxious snores drifting out of the windows. It was only when they were in a deserted portion of camp that Lucy remembered she knew nothing about Gajeel.

“Uhm, so, is this your first time at camp?” Lucy asked, studying his face. His piercings made her think that he would be threatening – scratch that, everything about his face read dangerous and she shifted on her feet, fearful, till he gave a bark of laughter. It didn’t settle her nerves, but he sent her an amused look after that made her feel slightly better.

“Nah, been here a few years, just not as long as those two.” He jutted his chin towards Gray and Natsu ---- or where she assumed they would be. Then he pointed ahead to a plain cabin; the only difference between it and every other cabin was the colorful door, where a rainbow of handprints decorated the exterior. “Cabins up here, they keep it away from the bonfires. Safety reasons or some shit.”

“Lots of things in there that could go up in flame easily,” she mused.

“It’s wood. This whole damn place is flammable. Nah, I just don’t think they want to lose the door. Damn thing has been around here longer than anyone, think this is the oldest cabin here.”

Lucy frowned. “What do you mean?”

“End of the summer, everybody paints their hand and slaps the door like this is some sort of good luck ritual. Some sentimental bullshit about the camp living in our hearts, Gramps likes that mentality a lot. Everyone here does.”

Lucy bit her lip, eyeing the door with interest as they approached it, but she couldn’t see more than a few handprints before Gajeel was pulling it open. “You don’t believe in that?”

“Even if I did, this isn’t a musical. Don’t think we need a lecture about it every year.”

“Ever think it’s not just for you?” She asked sarcastically, vaguely recalling Makarov’s speech a few days ago about the friendships that lived on in the camp. It was the sort of cliché speech someone would expect from a summer camp, really, so Lucy had tuned it out, too lost in thought to remember the entire thing.

Gajeel didn’t get a chance to respond as both their mouths dropped open.

The cabin was a wreck; streams were tossed about the room as though someone had played catch and a flurry of papers were stacked precariously on the table, coated in the aftermath of a glitter bomb that spilled slowly and steadily to the floor. A pair of scissors were stabbed suspiciously into the table, impressive in its own right when Lucy couldn’t even pull it out. Someone had left a tray of crayons in the window sill, leaving behind a pool of melted rainbow colored wax.

“…How do you even make this mess? What were they doing?” Lucy cried out, running a hand over her face only half an hour later, having finally finished separating the papers by color as required and swept up the glitter. …Well, enough that it wasn’t obvious that someone had a glitter fight in the cabin. She didn’t think the room would ever stop sparkling.

Gajeel shrugged, batting a stream that fell from the roof to land on his head. It clattered on the floor noisily and he stooped to pick it up, tying the stream off to keep it from unrolling and tossing it across the room. Lucy rolled her eyes, ignoring the mess he was only encouraging. It arched and with a thud landed in the small, thin basket that held the other streamers.

“That was a lot of precise aiming for something that could be done in a few seconds,” Lucy noted when he did it a third time.

“There’s a game after breakfast, I can’t practice because of this,” he said, rolling his eyes.

Lucy snorted and he glared at her. They had only known each other for a little while, but Lucy could see that he didn’t often allow himself to just have fun. He seemed the type that broke down walls with a single kick or stole candy from children. He did little to discourage it with his glares, too, but Lucy could already tell that he was just acting like a grumpy old cat.

A grumpy old cat perfectly capable of tying Lucy into a knot, so she didn’t point this out to him.

The front room was cleaned up a few minutes before the chatter of some campers reminded them of breakfast. Lucy stretched her arms above her head till there was a pleasant crack and then she dropped them. “C’mon, let’s go! I hope they still have some peach oatmeal,” Lucy said, rocking on her feet, waiting for the taller man.

“Tch, get there before Salamander then, he could probably eat a horse right now.”

“He uses up a lot of energy being Natsu,” Lucy defended him as they left the cabin, the door closing behind them with a snap.

Most of the camp was still asleep, only some getting ready for morning hikes and some abnormally early birds wandering around. Lucy picked from the first batch of food, eating her food slowly as she waited for Natsu and Gray to show up for their breakfast. Gajeel finished his within a few bites, standing up to get seconds before Lucy was even halfway done with hers; his appetite was second only to Natsu, which made her think it was a genetics thing.

Gajeel finished his seconds, starting his thirds as Lucy finished her first bowl of oatmeal, and still there was no sign of Natsu.

“Where’d they go?”

Gajeel shrugged, unconcerned, staring off into the distance.

Lucy sighed when he finished, knowing they couldn’t delay any longer as their deadline approached. Maybe they had too much to do before breakfast to even consider taking a break. Yet, she knew it was unlikely for Natsu to skip breakfast either. Breakfast was his favorite meal of the day and he loved it – right up there with lunch and dinner. She played with her water bottle as they began their trek back to the arts cabin.

They only got a few steps before they were ambushed by an irritated Erza, dragging Gray and Natsu with her by the backs of their apparently sturdy shirts and dropping them to the ground. Both of their faces were bruised and cut; a knot was forming on Natsu’s forehead as though he had impacted something hard.

“Natsu!” Lucy crouched over him, biting her lip at the various bruises on his face. “What happened?”

“Best friends fight, Lucy, it happens.” Erza said, scratching her nose as Lucy kneeled beside her downed friend. There was an identical knot on Gray’s forehead and she guessed that meant the ‘something’ Natsu had hit was Gray’s head.

Lucy huffed, her worry dissipating. It wasn’t unusual for Gray and Natsu to fly off the handle and start brawls that involved the whole camp, but she thought they would be smart enough to wait till after their punishment to start another. Nonetheless she brushed his pink hair away from his forehead with gentleness, pausing when she felt him shift, eyes blinking up blearily before they settled on her. He grinned, canines flashing, and Lucy rolled her eyes while tapping his forehead.  

Erza didn’t notice him wake up, arms crossed and still speaking. “I thought it would be best for them to work together since Gajeel and Natsu fight too much to be left alone and Natsu wouldn’t consider time with you as a punishment. But I don’t tolerate fighting and they need to be separated before I have to intervene again. When they wake, we’re switching the groups.”

“Umm…” Lucy said, frowning. Natsu wouldn’t really work in the arts room, he would probably cause a mess while they were setting up things for the kids that would come in.

“Lucy, you’ll trade with Gray. He’ll help Gajeel and you’ll help Natsu with picking up trash.”

Her mouth dropped open. “What? No! Erza!”

“Sorry, Lucy,” she said, sincerely. Gajeel watched without much interest. “But I don’t have a choice. They should be almost done anyway.”

“Why can’t we just be done then?”

Erza blinked. “Lucy, we can’t just not finish a job.”

“But…” Lucy rubbed her forehead, nose wrinkling in disgust.

“It’ll be fine, Lucy, it’s not that bad,” Natsu told her, announcing his wakefulness by sitting up, rubbing his jaw where a bruise was starting to form. She winced for him, pulling his hand away to press her water bottle against the bruise carefully. It wasn’t cold, but it was cool enough that she thought it would soothe the ache.

“You’re dumb,” she told him, holding it in place.

“That’s not nice or true.”

Lucy shook her head. “Facts are generally not nice, but even you can’t deny that fighting Gray right now is a stupid idea. Do you want to be left picking up trash for the rest of your time at camp? Erza might actually do that. Then what would I do?”

His nose wrinkled and Lucy knew that meant ‘no’. The triumphant look on her face made him laugh. “You’d be fine without me.” Natsu paused thoughtfully then said, voice low, “I could handle it, you know, you don’t have to suffer with me.”

She tapped his forehead, not pointing out that Erza – who always seemed to hear when mischief was happening – wouldn’t have allowed it anyway. “It’s fine, it’s always more fun when we’re together anyway. Just don’t do it again, I’m only picking up trash for you once.”

Natsu didn’t speak for a long moment, enough that Lucy began to wonder if she had said something wrong. She was being truthful – she hated punishments and she hated picking up trash, but time with Natsu wasn’t exactly a punishment to her. Erza had said it about Natsu, but she wondered if Erza knew that it applied to Lucy as well. After all, this was her best friend, the one who had helped her in the weeks following Layla’s death, and picking up trash with him wasn’t a hardship to do in return; it hardly compared, really, to what he did for her in those weeks or the ones that followed.

But friendship was new to her. As new as the camp. Was admitting such a thing abnormal to confess? Was her rejection of his offer – sweet as it was that he would take the brunt of trash picking for her – similar to slapping him? Lucy didn’t know and she didn’t know how to begin figuring it out either.

Lucy chewed her lip.

“Alright,” said Natsu finally, standing up and holding his hand out for her. Lucy looked up at him, noticing that Erza and a waking Gray watched them with interest. His fingers wiggled, a boyish smile crossing his face. “Guess we can suffer together.”

“It can’t be all that bad,” she replied, accepting his hand; his warm fingers clasped hers and he drew her to her feet with a single tug. Well prepared for his strength, Lucy didn’t stumble, though her hand tightened a fraction around his.

At her words, he rubbed the back of his head with his free hand. “Well…”  

…

It was worse. Far worse. She didn’t even know people could make such an immense mess in one night; it was as though Gildarts had thrown a nonstop party with a hundred people in attendance rather than the ten or so people in his group. Lucy didn’t want to imagine how horrible it must have been before Gray and Natsu started; if this was how it looked after those boys cleaning for an hour, she could only imagine how it looked before.

With her rising disgust, Lucy’s determination dwindled.

“I still don’t see how I got dragged into this punishment,” Lucy grumbled, tossing trash into a bag with a wrinkled nose. “I wasn’t even the one swimming.” Mainly because she couldn’t, but Natsu didn’t need to know about that particular weakness.

Natsu grumbled, his scarf wrapped around his face to keep the offensive odor of the trash away from his sensitive nose. Though his words were muffled, Lucy could make out his bitter remarks and she scoffed, stepping around him when he jabbed a piece of paper with his stick.

“You’re the one who started this,” she pointed out unhappily, holding her breath as she tied off her garbage bag.

He scowled, hefting his bag and then hers into the dumpster. It was their second bag each and Lucy thought they were close to being done since the bonfire was starting to look like an actual place again. Only a little straightening up and they would be done.

They hurried away from the dumpster and once they were far enough away, she let out a breath, relieved to gasp in clean, fresh air. Natsu did a little jump to her amusement, garnering a dirty look and then a question. He repeated it twice, seeming amused by her inability to hear him through his scarf, before she understood.

“I don’t know, she said we needed to be done before breakfast finished.”

Natsu shrugged and lowered his scarf, ignoring her squawk of protest. His eyes lifted to the sky, his hand shielding his eyes from the sun when he spotted it through a pair of trees. “It should be done, we could probably go now,” he said hopefully. “C’mon, Lucy, I’m hungry, let’s go before everyone finishes off breakfast. We’re practically done here anyway, Gildarts’ can straighten it out when he gets here.”

“Do you really want to risk Erza finding out we left early? No, we’re going to finish this already so she doesn’t have a reason to get mad at us again.” Then, lower, she grumbled bitterly, “We already missed the hiking, Natsu Dragneel, we have nothing else to do.” It had started fifteen minutes ago, the hiking group shooting them pitying looks as they passed. How was it that she had been at camp for six whole days and done nothing? Sure, she enjoyed the welcoming feast and the bonfires, but the rest of the days were spent swimming related activities -- of which Lucy couldn’t even participate in -- or hikes beyond her skill level.

She couldn’t even finish her mission, just one dead end after another. As much as Lucy loved the camp, she hadn’t found anything that really reminded her of Layla. It was like… she was missing something, but she couldn’t tell what. What about this place had attracted Layla enough that she remembered it years later? It was silly to think a hike would offer her any insight, but Lucy wouldn’t know if she didn’t try everything.

Now she couldn’t even go hiking till tomorrow and that meant another night of awful sleep. She kicked at a rock, watching it skid across the floor and crack against a boulder around the bonfire.

“The hike for babies anyway,” Natsu scoffed. “We need to go on a real hike and those start tomorrow.”

She pouted. “I’m not a baby, I just don’t go on hikes like you do. I’ll work my way up to the harder stuff.”

“You don’t learn by starting out small like that! It’s better to jump straight into it, learn as you go along with it. It’s like jumping into the lake! You go one foot at a time, you’ll become like Popsicle Princess.”

Lucy stared, dumbfounded. Partially because she hadn’t ever jumped in a lake so she didn’t know the difference, but mainly because his theory sounded ridiculous. “What? That makes no sense!”

“It makes perfect sense, you’re just missing it.”

“I don’t miss anything; my intelligence is vast.”

“Doesn’t matter how intelligent you are if your reflexes are slow,” he said, raising his brow.

Lucy seethed. “What do you know?”

“Enough.”

“Well, you don’t! My reflexes are fine!”

“Prove it.”

“Fine! Let’s go join the game that Gajeel was talking about, I’ll show you!”

With a sarcastic bow, Natsu gestured her forward. “Lead the way.”

She stomped away, fuming. Sure, Lucy wasn’t the most athletically inclined person; if her time wasn’t spent on the lessons her parents required of her, she preferred to read and write, but Lucy had learned archery from Sagittarius when she was twelve, self-defense from her Uncle Capricorn when she was fifteen, and juggling from Virgo just last year to entertain her sick mother. Just an hour, once a week – enough that Lucy could easily win at a stupid ball game and prove her reflexes were up to par.

She missed the victorious grin that crossed his face as he followed behind her.

…

Lucy approached the benches where Natsu sat, his face blank as he munched on an apple. His eyes only drifted to her when she dropped breathlessly down beside him. Her blood was still pumping, a roar in her ears. She smiled smugly at him. “And you doubted me?” she asked as the game began to wind down around them after her score-winning catch in the outfields knocked the other team out of the game.

They had been playing for close to two hours, maybe more, and Lucy’s heart was still racing from the joy of it.

They had tried to take it easy on her since she was the only girl playing and Lucy had wiped the floor with them all without even batting once.

“Knew you were going to win. If Cana was around, I would have put jewel on it,” Natsu said, tossing his apple core into a nearby trashcan. He wound an arm around her shoulder with a laugh. “You showed them, look at his face.” He pointed at one of the boys with long brown hair and dog-like look on his face as he kicked the grass.

“I can’t hear him,” Lucy said, watching the boy’s lips moving with the ferocity of his anger. Too much over a silly ball game.

Natsu tilted his head and she stayed quiet. His senses were always a tad better than hers – more than a tad, really – and she didn’t want to distract him from the idle gossip. His arm was still around her shoulder and she relaxed into him, finding the rush of her game fading with each passing second. “He’s complaining about how his sock went missing in the wash last time he was at camp,” Natsu explained, snorting.

“What? Why?”

“Don’t know. That one is telling him to stop shouting about it though.” The second boy was shorter than the rest of his group with large, bushy eyebrows.

“Who are they anyway?” She recognized them from the cafeteria. They were just another unknown in a sea of vague faces.

Natsu indicated a haughty, white-haired boy. “That one is Gray’s brother, but I don’t know the rest.”

“I didn’t know he had a brother.”

“Would you want to admit that Gray was your brother?” He asked skeptically. She elbowed him, laughing. “They don’t get along, no surprise there. Lyon is good at baseball though. If you lost to anyone, I thought it would be him.”

“I didn’t though.” She demolished him when she caught his almost game winning hit. Had I missed, his team would have won. His team might have lost, but they had played fiercely and it was only through slim luck that Lucy’s had won.

“Those lessons paid off then.”

“Lessons?”

“Well, you know how to juggle, don’t you? You have to know how to catch to do that probably,” he told her, shrugging. “I figured that would put you on par with the rest of these ones here, but you did better than even I thought. Even Gajeel is impressed.”  

Gajeel was one of the people on her team and there was absolutely nothing in his face that suggested he thought she had played well. She would trust that Natsu knew him enough to tell. Then a thought occurred and she flinched, looking over at him with wide eyes.

“Wait a minute… you… you remembered that I wrote that?” She only told him once, months ago, during a ten facts session that he had started on accident, about learning to juggle. Not in her most recent letter, not in any sort of memorable capacity – months ago among a list of insignificant facts.

His gaze grew serious and slightly confused as though the answer to her question was fairly obvious. “I remember everything you write.”

Natsu…

She opened her mouth, unsure of what she would say, when a coughing fit overtook her. Breathless, as though she had swallowed wrong somehow, Lucy turned away from his worried face, afraid that hers had turned as pink as his hair. She took a wheezing breath, rubbing her chest, and asked without really thinking, “Then why did you challenge me?”

“You’re like Erza – you’ll do something out of spite as well. Including leave before either of us got sick from that garbage,” he explained with a grin.

“I think someone could make some ethical complaints about that,” she complained, taking a deep breath as her lungs recovered. Her grew redder and she ducked her head. How pathetic, she thought. A boy expressed… something in her and she nearly choked on pure air.  

“Maybe. Sorry,” he said sheepishly. “It worked out though and it made up for missing the hike, right?”

Lucy thought carefully. “You know what?”

“What?”

She couldn't hold in her mental complaints for ten more freaking minutes.

"Yeah, Natsu?" She asked cautiously, straightening and beginning to fiddle with the machines, though she didn't expect anyone to walk in as their countdown to freedom began. Just eight minutes, Lucy, don't let him trick you into doing something weird in that time. You can do it.

"Who has opening shift? I don't remember," He said, leaning on the counter beside her, adjusting the hat on his head. The forest green uniform might have coupled nicely with his eyes, but his pink hair made him look like a flower, something that she wouldn't admit to his face unless he was being annoying.

(Which meant she told him twice a day).

Suspicious, she replied, "Dunno. Gray maybe?"

A wicked grin crossed his face. "Just wondering."

She narrowed her eyes. "Don't do anything you're not supposed to do, Natsu Dragneel," she threatened, but he waved her words off, so used to her complaints that he had managed to come up with responses to them without having to hear her.

(Which meant that he often said something that didn't match what she said, as though it were a comeback to something she said before).

"I'm not going to blow anything up, sheesh."

She scoffed, knowing that particular response was to the coffee incident of '09, where he had, in fact, blown something up. "Liar, what are you planning?"

"If you look away, you have plausible deniability!"

"There's cameras!"

"Not if I turn them off," he said, grinning.

"Pft, as if you know how."

"What do you think I am, an amateur? I've done it before."

Lucy stared. "You... When?"

"Remember the incident?"

"The... incident? Natsu! Gramps nearly lost it!"

Natsu shrugged and grinned, unaware of the knowledge that he had just bestowed upon her about Fairy Tail's greatest mystery. The Incident lived on in infamy, the exactness of it so lost in retellings that nobody knew the original - and nobody ever would because the footage of it was long gone. She, along with every other member of Fairy Tail, had thought it was a hardware issue and Lucy really shouldn't have been surprised to note that it was him.

Lucy broke from her thoughts when she realized he was fiddling with something and she leaped forward, diving between him and the counter, one hand pressed against his chest to hold him back. Whatever he was doing, she had to stop it.

Mirajane would kill her if something happened. Lucy liked living, thank you very much, but somewhere in her panic to stop, Lucy had forgotten that getting close to Natsu Dragneel was about the dumbest move that she could make. She swallowed, aware of the counter digging into her back and the warmth of his body against her front, so close that a tilt of her head brought their faces within inches of each other.

His eyes flickered in surprise, his trump card falling short as a distraction. "Luce?"

"W-What are you doing?" She cursed her stuttering, like she was once more a girl struggling to talk with her first crush. "You're going to get us both into trouble." Her fingers tapped against his chest in warning, but all that did was remind her that they were still standing together, too close to be professional, too close to even be considered "friends only".

"Nothing is going to happen. You know I wouldn't let you get in trouble." She didn't need to respond to that, only stare at him in a deadpan that had him amending his words quickly, a sheepish look crossing his face. "In serious trouble, at least."

Lucy rolled her eyes. "What makes you so eager to cause a ruckus every time you're closing up?"

The grin crossed his face shouldn't have been legal with the way it made her heart jump. His hand rested on her head, the annoying cap keeping him from playing with her hair like usual. The fact that she actually wanted him to do that distracted her enough that she missed the speculative look on his face until he blurted out, "I like making you laugh."

She blinked. "What?"

His face pinked, nearly matching his hair. "Well, you... You've got this frown on your face all the time now, I wanted to give you a reason to smile, even if it doesn't show up for a day or two when Gramps shows us the footage. It's worth the few hours of punishment," he said, his eyes soft as they looked at her. Like she was something precious.

Lucy knew Natsu Dragneel like she knew her favorite book: she knew the words of his story, she knew the lines that seemed insignificant but meant more, she knew the colors of the cover and the embedded words of the title. And yet there was always a line that she missed or overlooked.

She pushed up on her toes, crossing the few inches that separated them to press her lips against his. Her mind screamed finally, trying to drown in the taste of him. His stillness frightened her till his head bent as he returned the kiss with equal fervor and it was as though a thousand butterflies had exploded in her stomach, her body buzzing with excitement. One of his hands held her head, her ponytail resting against his palm, and a breathless giggle escaped her at the way his fingers played with the hair.

Lucy broke from him to get air, her nose brushing his, not wanting to draw any farther from him than required to breathe. "Natsu," she murmured, opening her eyes, unsure of when she had closed them.

With a wicked smile, Natsu put his hands on her hips, lifting her to sit on the counter, chuckling at her yelp of surprise. "Lucy," he replied, his thumb brushing against her flushed cheek.

"Are you trying to distract me?" She asked, hands resting on the counter behind her, a smile crossing her face.

"For once, no, but good idea." Natsu brought his forehead to rest against hers, a grin tugging at his face again as she lifted a hand to whack his chest with mock anger. She hummed as his hand rested on the counter beside her. "Also, you kissed me. Are you trying to distract me from causing mayhem?"

"Hmm, no, but good idea," she parroted back, laughing at his good-natured huff.

In retaliation, he leaned down, capturing her lips once more.

The bell on the door dinged and Lucy jolted back from him; both stared wide-eyed at the customer who walked in then flickered to the clock. 11:58.

Lucy nudged him back to climb off the counter, relieved that the customer was looking at his phone, not at what the two red-faced employees had been doing only seconds before.

"Welcome to Fairy Tail, what can I get for you?" She asked breathlessly, sharing a secretive glance with Natsu before facing the customer again, somehow relieved to know that tomorrow was another late night.

...

He jumped at her before her hands fully reached her side. She screamed, flailing to no avail as he slipped snow between the collar of her clothes and her back.

“KYA!” She squealed, jumping and yanking on her heavy jacket as something very cold drizzled down her back, rapidly approaching the top of her pants. “NATSU!”

Natsu sniggered, opening his mouth, but whatever he said came out as a yelp as Lucy tackled him, toppling him back into the bed of snow outside of the guild, the cobblestone rushing up to meet them as they fell in a tangle of limbs. With her palms pressed to his chest and her legs on either side of him, her heart gave an odd little thump that she hoped he didn’t hear. He grinned – no, he hadn’t heard it, but he didn’t think she could do anything in this position.

She glared down at him and, without another word, scooped up snow and shoved it in his face as he spluttered.

“Lucy!” but because her fingers pressed against his lips and the snow covered most of his face all that came out as a muffled sort of “Oocy!” She felt his breath on the pads of her fingers, warming them, and for an instant, his lips brushed her skin. She drew her hands away, swallowing away a reaction before it could appear.

“Don’t shove snow down my shirt, got it?” She ordered before her brain could say something potentially stupid.

“Okay,” he agreed too easily.

It was her own warning before he rolled them over with a hitch of his hips; the remaining snow felt off his back, cascading around them as Lucy jolted in his hold with wide eyes. His hands were on either side of her head, holding his weight largely off her. The snow against her back sent shivers through her as it clung to the fur of her jacket, but the warmth of his body shielded her from the brisk wind enough that her teeth didn’t chatter.

The cold made her heart splutter, not the toothy grin on his face as he hovered over her.

“Uhm,” she said articulately.

“I didn’t shove ice down your shirt so you can’t get mad,” he replied, his eyes twinkling down at her. Her breath caught in her lungs; had they always looked that way or was it her imagination?

“No, I suppose not,” she said slowly, blinking rapidly to get the stupid idea out of her head. He wasn’t going to kiss her, don’t be stupid, Lucy!

He stared, confused. “What?”

“What?”

“Are you that cold? You’re supposed to clobber me like usual.”

“Do you want me to clobber you?”

“Now that you mention it, no, but you usually do,” he pointed out.

“Aren’t you supposed to be oblivious to things like that?”  

“Eh? What do you mean?”

“Never mind.”

“Lucyy.”

“Natsuu, I’m cold,” she whined.

“Are you going to shove snow in my face if I let you up?”

Damn, he knew her. She had considered it, but the cold allowed a shiver worked its way up her spine instead and she decided against it. He let her up after she shook her head, rolling neatly off her and to his feet in one rather smooth movement. Later, she would be impressed, but the snow clung to the back of her legs and more trickled down her back as it fell from her hair; she couldn’t think of anything else except how uncomfortably cold it was, worse now that the warmth of his body had left.  

She lifted her hand, brushing the snow off her bottom, but he caught her fingers in his own, dragging her hand over to him. Against her will, her fingers trembled as he brought them up to his face. Lucy, stop it, this is Natsu, he wasn’t going to—

He caught her other hand, studying them both with narrowed eyes—

Her heart stuttered.

He brought her hands up to his lips—

Her face turned bright red, anticipation shooting through her and the cold faded away, leaving nothing but the strength of his hands and the warmth of his breath on her hands—

“Your hands are freezing, Lucy,” he muttered, stepping closer to her.

“Natsu?”

With a whoosh of his breath, the cold of her fingers disappeared entirely. “Weirdo, where are your gloves?”

Her heart returned to normal though the flush on her face hadn’t faded in the slightest. In fact, she suspected it had changed from the pink of his hair to the scarlet of Erza’s. Stupid Lucy. “I didn’t think I would need them,” she said, aiming for dry and ending up with breathless. Before he could notice, if he would notice, she continued, “But clearly I underestimated you.”

Natsu laughed, still warming up her hands, trailing his fingers down her wrists to her elbows, the cold fading as he moved. Was it her imagination or did it sound breathless as well? Lucy, stop, stop, just stop, this is Natsu still.

Internally, she scoffed because it wouldn’t be such a big deal if it was someone other than Natsu. It was all his fault that her heart did summersaults when he got too close or that a cheesy grin came across her face whenever he laughed, even when it was at her. It was all his fault that a simple touch made her ache for something more that would never be.

The fact was that she could tell her traitorous thoughts to stop all she wanted – and maybe she was guilty of not really wanting that -- but she couldn’t stop the hum in her body at his closeness.

It was ridiculous, really, maybe even pathetic, because Natsu was as dense as they came and he hardly noticed the difference between the Lucy he met and the one who loved him.

Not that they were entirely different, she figured, but a foolish, hopeless romantic part of her wished he would notice, damn it. The heat in her cheeks faded replaced, dread replacing all else, because though she wanted him, a smaller part of her knew nothing of what would come after. If he did notice, what would he do?

Before everything else, Natsu was her friend. Her best friend and no matter of poetic nonsense would make her wish for something less than that.

“Lucy?” Ordinarily, her panic could override her hearing, but something in his voice had her thoughts dropping like a stone.

She looked up at him, freezing at his expression. “E-Eh?” The look on his face wasn’t flattering to either of them; it was the sort of look that someone gave when they were walloped on the head with something hard. Had she missed something in her thirty second lapse of concentration? But she didn’t see anyone nearby nor did she—

He kissed her without a word, his fingers tightening around her own briefly before easing, as though leaving her room to draw back and wordlessly hoping that she wouldn’t. His lips moved inexpertly against hers in a type of kiss that was too new to be anything except gentle; she froze for a second till a pleasant warmth shot through her and she leaned into him.

She had wondered, in those daydreams in the guild, what it would be like to kiss him, and what she would do when he did, but instinctively, the pieces worked themselves out. Her hand curled around his, holding tight to his strong fingers and she drew in a shuddering breath against his lips before returning to them, her entire body buzzing with happiness.

It was like Natsu to use action instead of words. She heard, beneath the breathless kiss and beneath the way he drew their twined hands closer to him, the words that he felt. She stepped closer to him, their hands squished between them, aching to be closer and dreading the seize of her lungs that demanded they separate.

Too soon though it had been minutes, he pulled back, the dumbfounded look on his face replaced with bright-eyed knowledge. “I like you.”

She giggled, unable to hold it back. “Yeah?”

“Yup.”

“I like you, too.” The words felt strange and when they escaped her, she felt a momentary dread, the same as earlier, but it faded as the grin on his face spread wider. She smiled back, heart pumping fiercely; a snowflake landed on her nose, but she didn’t notice it at all, too excited to feel anything except the tingle of her lips. “What happens now?”

“Now?” Natsu thought hard and let her hand go. “We should go on a job, but I’m hungry.”

“Hungry?” She asked blankly before her lips twitched, her own epiphany making her laugh. Nothing had to change, really, a great romance wasn’t that different than a great friendship, it just came with extra pieces and extra parts, ones that would slide into place with time.

“Well, yeah, I was coming to get something to eat when you ambushed me— “

Her laugh didn’t end. “What? You ambushed me!”

“No, I don’t remember that,” he said, letting her hands go and backing up towards the guild.

“NATSU!”

With a final snort, he ran into the guild.

A few seconds later, a snowball pelted the back of his head courtesy of Lucy.

You’ve been reading too many horror stories, she scolded herself. How would her father allow her to go next year if she came back home with nightmares this time? It had taken cunning and dedication, some letters from her friend about the camp, and some nudging from her maid, Virgo, before Jude had allowed her to come to camp Love and Lucky. She didn’t know what the eccentric maid had said, but she guessed it had worked on her hard-headed, workaholic father more than Lucy’s attempts or Natsu’s letters.

Natsu Dragneel didn’t really have a way with words. It had irked her a little when the camp first assigned him to be her pen pal as a way to encourage communication between peers so campers were more comfortable with their surroundings at Love and Lucky, but overtime she came to enjoy it. His words had a life of their own and deciphering them often left her feeling as though she were unraveling an ancient language overnight.

This friendship had started last year, back when she originally was supposed to go to camp, but Lucy’s mother died before she could and after that, she didn’t need a guide, she only needed a friend. Natsu had helped, more than perhaps he knew, and she wished, more than anything except to see her mother again, that he would be attending camp again this year.

Nobody stuck out as Natsu though. How did a loud, dense idiot not stand out from everyone else on the bus? The only conclusion she could make was the obvious one: Natsu wasn’t here.

Her shoulder bumped into the window as the bus took an abrupt turn, her eyes blinded as they escaped a sky of dark foliage and entered into the bright sunshine. The bus shuddered once – perhaps it would explode – before stopping completely.

“Waah! We’re here!” The pink haired boy yelped, his face green as he lurched to his feet, swaying like a drunk man. The difference between the novice campers and the newbies became apparently obvious when teens and kids crowded the windows, trying to take their first peek at the camp.

Lucy, of course, was proudly a newbie and she climbed onto the seat across the aisle, peeking out the window in awe.

The trees ended abruptly, as though the twisting branches and dense covers had been protecting the camp from intruders, and instead circled around the cabins like a fence of ferns. A glistening lake stretched across the grounds further ahead, so large that the cabins across it that belonged to a rival camp looked like mere dots. She couldn’t see the dock, but she thought it was on the other side of a large, rickety cabin like structure directly to their left.

On the other hand, she could see the collection of smaller cabins dotted around the camp along a faint dirt trail. She thought that would be where she and whoever would be her roommates would be sleeping.

It was ordinary, exactly as she expected a camp to look, and more beautiful than she expected. Her eyes traced over the camp with a constricting heart and a lump growing in her throat, wondering which parts Layla Heartfilia had known. Did the trees and the lake mourn her as Lucy did? Did they remember her touch or had time taken the memory from them as time had taken it from Lucy?

She grabbed her travel bag off the seat, the last person to exit the bus. The dirt crunched beneath her feet, unnoticed as a white-haired girl interrupted any further thoughts. “Your luggage will be delivered to your cabin, please follow Erza to the mess hall for orientation.”

“Man, again? We already know what to do,” scoffed a boy in the process of removing of his sweater.

Erza turned out to be a girl not much older than Lucy with long red hair and the eyes of a monster as she turned an evil look to the boy who spoke. Instantly, the boy tensed and quieted, now beginning to strip off his shirt to the enthusiasm of a pale, blue-haired girl beside him.

There were no grumblings as Erza led a silent parade of kids her age to the mess hall, which surprised Lucy more than anything. The bus had been rambunctious and filled with talking, but something about Erza – perhaps the fact that she was a demon in disguise – quieted even the loudest person.

Maybe even Natsu would cower from her glare.

Lucy found her frightening – but then she ushered the group ahead of her into the rickety cabin Lucy had spotted earlier. Rather than follow them, Erza stayed behind and Lucy slowed her steps, making no attempts to hide her eavesdropping as Erza crouched beside a teary eyed young boy. Though Lucy couldn’t hear her words, the softness on her face made Lucy reassess her a little more.

Then Erza straightened and Lucy hurried to catch up with the group because she didn’t reassess her that much.

“Wow,” she murmured, “This is kind of…”

She didn’t have a word for it except anticlimactic. The rickety cabin was filled with two long wooden benches on one side of the room and a little booth that Lucy guessed everyone collected their food from. It was woodsy, from the large beams supporting the ceiling, to the floor, to even the booth. It was also rather plain.

Erza entered the room and ordered everyone to sit down. The talking started up again, familiar faces seeking out other familiar faces, till Lucy could barely hear her own thinking, let alone try to strike a conversation with the people around her. As this was no different than home, she pulled out her notebook and scribbled more of her story.

Orientation seemed to take no time at all. A short, balding man told a story about the camp’s origins that involved fighting a water dragon in the lake, recited off a list of rules that ranged from Do Not Kill Your Fellow Campers to Fights are Reserved for the Grand Games at the End of the Year, pointed out the list across the room with their cabin numbers, reminded them of the welcome festival tomorrow, and then sent everyone off to bed even though it felt like they had only been in there half an hour.

One glance outside told her it had been much longer because it was dark outside.

It wasn’t late enough to sleep, but everyone still had to find their cabins.

A crowd surrounded the list, but Lucy elbowed her way to the front quite easily.

Heartfilia, L. – Cabin 13.

Her heart dropped. If the camp was called Love and Lucky, she figured that meant someone could be unlucky too and was there a number worse than 13?

…

There was absolutely nothing unusual about cabin 13. Even her roommates seemed normal: a petite girl named Levy, a bikini-clad girl named Cana, and Erza Scarlet.

Yup, that Erza…

Sleeping with Erza Scarlet in the next bed over was the reason that Lucy had such an unsettling night of rest. Or the uncomfortable beds, or the murmur of voices that woke her up, or just the disconcerting feeling that waking up in a new placed provoked in her. Either way, she slept badly and she didn’t know how could muster up the energy to be in a festival.

Her groggy state lasted only until the end of breakfast when – abruptly – Erza slammed her cup down on the table, bellowing across the room, “NATSU! GRAY!” Two boys brawling immediately separated and hugged each other with frightened smiles on their faces.

Lucy didn’t hear whatever they said to Erza, her wide eyes locked on the two boys. Natsu? One was dark haired and shirtless for some reason – the other was the pink-haired boy who had gotten motion sickness on the way over.

Which one was Natsu though? Shirtless boy or motion sickness boy? She thought it was the shirtless boy, because brave, strong Natsu didn’t seem like the type of person to get motion sickness and yet the shirtless boy didn’t look much like a Natsu either, his features to cold and expressionless for someone like the boy in her letters. The pink haired boy looked wild enough to be Natsu, she thought.

Both were glaring mutinously at the other while Erza berated them for making fools of themselves when Lucy approached.

“Lucy, don’t follow their lead,” said Erza suddenly, spotting Lucy from the corner of her eye.

Lucy faltered and both boys looked at her speculatively. “E-eh? Okay?”

“Lucy?” the pink haired boy said, tilting his head. “Why does that name sound familiar?”

The dark haired muttered something about an idiot under his breath.

“THE HELL DID YOU SAY, ICE PRINCESS?” the pink haired boy said harshly, whirling to face him.

“Natsu,” Erza warned. Natsu stopped, turning to them, but Lucy couldn’t think of anything, her thoughts completely derailed.

Natsu. Pink hair, sharp teeth, and onyx eyes. A tiny furrow in his brow as he studied her for that something he couldn’t remember. His arms were crossed now that he wasn’t fighting the other one – Gray – and she noticed they were strong and muscular, surprising for someone so thin. She tried not to ogle him, but couldn’t stop herself from drinking up the sight of him.

“Lucy?” Erza asked, confused by the sudden, awkward silence as both teens stared at each other.

Natsu, her friend. Natsu, who she didn’t think would be here.

Natsu, who was the second reason that Lucy tried so hard to come to camp. Natsu, who continued writing letters to her a year ago when she was nothing more than a stranger in need of a friend.

Natsu, who had prodded her into giving her skype and then, later, her phone number so they could talk outside letters.

Natsu, who looked at her now with wide onyx eyes, recognizing her at last.

Wait…

“YOU DON’T REMEMBER MY NAME?”

...

The group roared with laughter as Erza retold the story later that night. Natsu and Lucy sat quietly at the furthest edge from the fire and didn’t notice till everyone laughed that the story had been about them. Both jolted, looking over at the group, who were watching them with a mix of amusement and wicked grins, as though they thought the two were being cute.

In reality, they were arguing about the other’s handwriting, debating which one wrote like an animal and which wrote like they were using the wrong hand. Not a legitimate argument, nothing that would break their friendship, but a sort of careful prodding around a topic that neither knew how to examine properly.

Argument broken, Lucy flushed, playing with her fingers in her lap. Levy smiled brightly at her, giving her a thumbs-up in reference to something that Lucy didn’t understand, but she guessed was about winning the argument.

Except she didn’t win.

“Draw?” Natsu ventured, eyes flickering to her face then back to the fire.

“Draw.”

It was the second night of camp and the warm weather had disappeared within minutes of the sun descending, leaving the remaining campers scrambling to their cabins or to the bonfires scattered around camp. There were camp leaders at each one to keep the campers under control – Erza at this one, Mira at another, and some man named Guildarts at the last. In the distance, she could hear the melodious voice of Mira and her group drifting over to them and, further away, she could hear the howling laughter from Guildarts group.

It was peaceful even if Natsu and Lucy were awkward.

The group had moved on to talk about something else. She struggled to think of something to say, but nothing fit. Should she thank him? Should she hug him? Lucy had known Natsu for over a year now, making him her longest and oldest friend, and this was her first time meeting him in person.

“Remember when we talked on skype the first time? We didn’t really say anything, I just wrote and you did… whatever you do, draw maybe, and it was a little awkward at first?” Lucy asked as the memory occurred to her, recalling their first call on skype.

“Yeah?”

“Happy jumped on your laptop and knocked it out of your lap. I remember you swearing and Happy sounded pleased with himself.”

“You laughed at me,” he said, sounding unbothered by this fact.

“It was funny,” she said, grinning. “You don’t swear in writing.”

“You don’t yell in writing.”

“I don’t yell.”

“Do you have memory loss I need to know about?”

“Says the one who forgot my name.”

“I didn’t think you were coming!”

“I told you I was coming in my last letter!”

Natsu stopped suddenly and she could have sworn his face was red, but, no, it was just the flickering fire on his face. “I didn’t read it,” he admitted and she tried not to feel hurt. His letters had been a life-line for her, she read them as soon as she got them regardless of most other obligations – which were none, but still.  

“Oh,” she said, frowning.

“I’ll read it with the rest of my letters,” he continued, not noticing.

“Rest of your letters? How many people do you know?”

“I know a lot of people! Like… there’s the book girl!”

“Levy,” Lucy corrected.

“Yeah.”

“You have a letter from Levy, too?”

He laughed. “No, weirdo, why would I have a letter from Levy?”

“But I thought you said!” Or had he been answering the second question only? Did that mean he didn’t have letters from other people? It was ridiculous to feel special knowing she was one of the few people who sent him letters and yet she couldn’t deny the strange disappointment at the idea that he got some from tons of people.

“We should get mail in a few days, I’ll read yours with my dad’s. Then I won’t have Droopy Eyes reading over my shoulder,” he said, punching his hand.

Lucy held her breath. If all had gone to plan, she would be reading a letter from her mother and father in a few days too, one that detailed the camp as Layla Heartfilia remembered it and recommendations of where Lucy would go, then updates of how things were at home. Lucy would only have been gone for a few days yet the sight of her mother’s handwriting would make her ache for home.

In a few days, she would get nothing. No mother left to send a letter; no father that cared to bother. She pressed a hand to her aching heart, but it wasn’t from a longing for home so much as the longing for her old life and she struggled valiantly for the sound of Layla’s voice in her memory.

“Lucy?”

She blinked and Natsu’s face appeared in her vision. His brows were scrunched thoughtfully, a look she hadn’t seen on his face the entire time she had known him. “Yes?”

He narrowed his eyes and her own widened, afraid that her thoughts had played across her face. They were too strong, too unspeakable, for Lucy to tell anyone, not even Natsu, even if she wouldn’t have hesitated in one of their letters. “You were making a weirder than usual face.” She scowled at him, preparing to retort, but he abruptly stood up. “Come on, I think they are telling scary stories. The fire will help you feel better, too.”

She didn’t know how to respond to that so she followed him. They chose the only free space around the fire, which unfortunately allowed the wind to blow smoke into their faces. Natsu didn’t mind, but Lucy squinted, tilting her body away.

Natsu was right, they were telling scary stories. Gray just finished up a tale of something grabbing his leg in the lake last year – Natsu sniggered, she guessed the monster in this tale was him – and nearly drowned him, but how he escaped. The ending wasn’t scary, but the rest of it must have been because she could see the look of horror on Levy’s face.

Cana laughed when Gray finished. “We’ve heard a ghost story and a mermaid in the lake,” she said, counting it off on her fingers, her body swaying slightly. Natsu made a noise about the mermaid, pouting when Lucy nudged him with a snicker and his retort cut off when Cana continued. “My turn, I’ll tell you the best story.”

“And the last,” Erza said, eyeing the dark sky as though she could harm it for ruining a pleasant evening.

“Best?” Gray asked, outraged.

“Yup. Best. Because this one is actually true,” Cana said, smirking, leaning her elbows on her knees. “Have you guys heard of the monster Acnologia?”

“Acno-luigi?” Natsu repeated.

“Why do you get Luigi from anything that has an L in it?” Lucy wondered, remembering one of his letters where he had started it out as Yo, Luigi!

Natsu shrugged and beamed. “Anything with an L in it makes me think of you.”

She narrowed her eyes. It sounded sweet, but loser had an L in it, too.

“Flirt later!” Cana ordered. “Stare in the flames for a minute, you need to be properly prepared for this one.” She eyed everyone till they followed her command. Lucy stared into the flames, forehead ticking as the smoke blew into her face. Natsu had no such troubles, leaning his elbows on his knees to watch the flickering light.

“Breathe deeply, forget everything except the flames and the sound of my voice.”

Lucy frowned. Meditating hadn’t ever been an art that she picked up before, not even when her tutors did practicing for it, and she questioned whether she could do it now. She breathed – and coughed. Absently, she felt a warm hand on her back, patting her till her lungs were clear and her eyes twitched to the left, where Natsu sat. His eyes were on the flames, his face oddly calm as though lost in trance, but his hand didn’t move from her.

Clearing her throat, Lucy tried again. As Cana began her story, she didn’t even notice when the smoke burning her eyes and lungs faded, when the hand on her back faltered, so focused on the sound of Cana’s voice that she could feel and see nothing else.

“Before this was called Love and Lucky, it was called Fairy Tail!”

The final day of camp crept over Fairy Tail at the exact same time a summer storm began to hit them. Dark clouds blotted out the setting sun and with it, the warmth of the day faded, leaving the campers to scuttle to their cabins. A brisk, cold wind flew through the barricade of trees, ruffling the long hair of a short, pale haired girl. Girl would be the wrong word for her as this person was named Mavis and she was the first camp master. Though many of the campers were her size or larger, Mavis commanded respect and attention, her mind a brilliant combination of strategy and leadership.

She crossed her arms over her chest, watching the camp with the look of someone lost in thought. For good reason, too as this was Fairy Tail’s first session and already the camp was risking closure. Two campers had vanished from their hiking groups in a two-day period and while the police with volunteers combed the woods for survivors, Mavis cancelled all trips into the forest outside of searching.

However, just that morning, Hades – her second in command -- informed her that another camper had gone missing, directly from their cabin this time. Her roommates were moved to other groups while the cabin was cornered off until the police could investigate tomorrow morning. Mavis hadn’t seen the cabin yet, trusting Hades’ word, but a wary, instinctive part of her needed to know.

Mavis trusted her feelings.  

She waited till the camp was silent, the sun long gone and the fire only embers, and then began her trek to the missing camper’s cabin. She ducked under the tape, her bare feet silent on the wooden steps and the door opened without a single noise to betray her; she flicked on a flashlight, blinking her eyes to adjust. The clouds blocked the moon, preventing her from seeing anything outside of the beam of light.

A sick feeling built up in her stomach at the inside of the cabin.

The missing camper’s bed was indistinguishable from the other three – except for the bloodied, ruffled sheets and the scattered glass on the floor around it. She held her breath, stepping further inside, wary of wayward glass and flicked her light around the cabin for anything else amiss, when something caught the corner of her eye.

Beneath the dirt and grime of the wilderness, the windowsill was crushed as though something large and sharp had gripped the ledge. She crept closer, letting out a little gasp of air as she spotted a trail of blood leading from the bed to the window. The window itself looked strange, as though a large tree branch had broken through it and broken the frame, but the mangled mess left behind didn’t hide the bloodied print.

As though someone had grabbed the window in a vain attempt to escape whatever held them.

It led outside.

Mavis felt a kindle of hope. Perhaps her camper was still alive. Perhaps she could save them. She left the cabin calmly; she had spent so long inside that the weather had worsened, becoming a steady downstream of water. When she arrived back, she would have to tell someone to watch the lake in case it flooded from the rain, but that was only an absent thought. With the storm as her cover, Mavis darted into the woods, following the trail of blood.

Deeper and deeper into the woods she went; the lights from camp were swallowed up in the darkness, leaving nothing but her own footsteps and the beam of light as her companions. Mavis felt trepidation, not for her own well-being, but for the thickening blood trail that was her guide and the person to whom it betrayed. She climbed over a fallen tree, so disguised by the moss and grass that it looked little more than a lump among the trees, and appeared in a clearing of blooming flowers. The rain had fallen to a light drizzle, the wet grass squishing beneath her feet till Mavis jerked to a stop.

A person lay in the center of the field, the moonlight shining down on the pale features of their face, the flowers swaying in time with Mavis’ breath.

“No,” she murmured, a sick feeling building in her and she forced her legs to approach. The person was a light-haired girl dressed in tattered scarlet pajamas, blood oozing—

“CANA!”

“Sheesh, fine!”

The girl was dead, Mavis didn’t need to examine her any closer to know, but her sightless eyes made the sorrow nearly unbearable and she lowered the girl’s eyelids. For all her stillness, she might have been asleep. “We will remember you,” Mavis murmured sadly, gritting her teeth against the furious tears welling in her eyes.

She swallowed it back. One girl down, but there were other campers missing and Mavis knew that the marks on the girl’s body were not from any bear or cougar. No, the marks weren’t from anything native to this forest; Mavis could sense the malice in the woods and her eyes traced the gouged marks in the dirt around her, the markings similar to those on the windowsill and only just now reminding her of a footprint.

A footprint of something large. A footprint of something sharp, capable of breaking a window and dragging a girl from her bed without alerting anyone else in the camp.

Something that could steal two campers without a sound.

A monster.

But…

Mavis eyed the trees around her critically and then back to the girl. She regretted telling no one of her actions or of her motives; she wouldn’t be able to wait for someone to find her and she wouldn’t be able to take the girl with her.

Sadly, but promising to be back swifter than any gazelle, Mavis made to leave the clearing.

The weather protested her departure, sending up a gust of wind that spewed dust and fallen twigs from the forest into her face. As she blinked her eyes clear, she heard it. A low, pain filled moaning. A sickening snap. Abrupt, eerie silence.

A shadow edged into the clearing and a large, monstrous figured appeared on the edge. It didn’t make a sound, not with its footsteps nor with the shape – a person, she realized with horrifying certainty -- it dragged behind it, till it tossed the person right into the clearing beside the girl.

Like a presentation to the moon. Like a presentation to her.

Look who you failed to protect.

Look at the lost children’s future.

Look.

Look at me.

Mavis looked at it, obeying its command. Her eyes widened at the creature that stared back at her. The creature opened its mouth –

The fire exploded, jolting Lucy from the story and only the hand on her back kept her from toppling back out of her seat. Cana, her face deadly serious despite the amused light of her eyes, tossed something else in the flames; it sparked violently.

“It opened its mouth and spewed flames. Mavis and her missing campers were swallowed in the onslaught, their remains never found, and lurking in these very woods is the monster that claimed them, the one hungry for flesh, the one that Hades called Acnologia. After her demise, the camp was remained Love and Lucky, in honor of those who died and those survived to tell the tale,” Cana said, finishing the story.

Her ending was met with an awkward silence. Lucy applauded, echoed by the rest as they recovered from their shock.

“That was a good one,” commented Levy, shivering. “I swear I thought somebody was watching me.”

Lucy didn’t comment that two boys named Droy and Jet were doing just that; their fixation with her friend was strange, but so far it seemed harmless and Levy seemed either blissfully unaware – or so used to the attention that she no longer thought much of it. She couldn’t tell – and Lucy was definitely not ignoring the near heart attack that occurred from Cana’s story.

What a horrible story, she thought, eyeing the fluttering trees in the distance with distaste. An untrue, horrible story. One that was, she knew, partially true – Love and Lucky had been called Fairy Tail; the first camp leader had gone missing along with some of her campers; their remains had never been found.

The idea of a monster behind it was preposterous, though. Lucy sighed, forcing her heart to calm down, knowing it was the flow of Cana’s words and the trick with the fire that had scared her. Tomorrow, she wouldn’t think anything of it. Unfortunately, that was tomorrow and it was tonight, a dark moonless night that made the story all the creepier.

Natsu leaned close to her. Her breath caught, wondering – foolishly – if he noticed her fear, if he would comfort her. “She got you good,” said Natsu, sniggering. She scowled, nudging his shoulder with hers, because this was Natsu and he didn’t do comfort like a romantic lead.

“She got you too!” Except Lucy hadn’t been paying attention much to his reaction. Surely if the story hadn’t scared him, the fire would have – no wonder Cana wanted them to stare so deeply into it.  

“Nope.”

“Did too.”

“Did not.”

“Did too!”

“Why would I be scared of fire?” Natsu scoffed and, to prove his point, plunged his hand in the fire.

Or would have if Lucy hadn’t grabbed his wrist at the last moment, jerking it back away from the flame. “ARE YOU CRAZY?” Lucy exclaimed. “Are you trying to become Captain Hook?”

“Captain Hook? Sheesh weirdo, I wasn’t going to put my hand in there.”

“What? Then why did you grab it?”

“Not to burn my hand off, obviously.”

Before Lucy could retort – obviously with something immensely clever – Erza stepped into the conversation. “Will you two continue your confessions later and help the rest of us clean up?”

Natsu blinked. Lucy did as well. During their squabble, the rest of them had been gathering their belongings and cleaning up around the campfire; she could see the other groups doing the same or doing a strange sacrificial dance, she wasn’t sure, more likely the former since this was a camp and not a cult.

Erza cleared her throat pointedly.

Lucy leapt to her feet, releasing Natsu’s hand with a flush. “It—it wasn’t a confession! I was just—and he was—and it wasn’t!”

“Of course,” Erza allowed in a voice that didn’t sound believing. “Clean up, lights out in twenty minutes.”

“Aye,” Lucy said clearly, back straight at the shift in Erza’s eyes. When she focused her attention on some other poor unfortunate soul – sorry Jet – Lucy let out a breath. Natsu still stood straight, his eyes pinched and Lucy giggled at the discomfort on his face as he obeyed orders. “So, you clean up here, I’ll clean up where we sat before?”

“Fine,” he replied, shoulders dropping.

Considering they had only devoured a burger at their previous spot, there was very little for Lucy to clean and she was done within a minute, waiting for Natsu to finish his equally empty spot. By then, the campfire was empty, the flames doused and only a single curl of smoke clinging to the last of its life to say that a fire had been there recently.

It was too dark. No moon, no fire, and only a few lanterns dotted along a trail to the cabins.

She remembered Cana’s story and then shivered. From the cold air, of course, and the knowledge that her cabin was the closest to the forest.  

“C’mon,” Natsu said, his hands folded into his pockets as he started toward the end of the camp.

“Your cabin is that way,” Lucy pointed out, thumb pointing behind them. His was closer to the lake, lucky him.

“I’m walking you to yours,” he said, laughing.

“Why?”

His words were a joke, she could see from the quirk of his lips, but there was something else that Lucy couldn’t decipher. “I wouldn’t want a monster to eat you.” Honesty. She thought that might be the thing she couldn’t figure out, even if she couldn’t tell what that meant. Maybe it didn’t mean anything.

Natsu didn’t hide what he felt and he didn’t sugar coat it either; they came out as he felt them and when he felt them, no more and no less, and she wondered if his prodding earlier had been his way of comforting her. Not with sugary words of a shoujo lead, but the way Natsu would: with laughter and teasing, with his friendship and his company.

That was like him – both the one in the letters and the stranger that was him in person. Except, he was less of a stranger now, as though his words had started to push the two opposing images of him – the one that had been her best friend through the worst year of her life and the one she had met in person for the first time ever – together.

Or Lucy was thinking far too much about a playful comment.

“Hey, Natsu?” She ventured, going on faith with her heart beating fast.  

“Yeah?”

“I wouldn’t want you to be eaten by a monster either.”

He smiled at her and she felt as though she got it right.

She didn’t mention any of her worries when Cana questioned the perturbed look on Lucy’s face. Lucy didn’t reply so much as squint at Cana till she laughed and left to change as well, no doubt supplying her own reasons for Lucy’s troubles.

Relieved, Lucy left the cabin. Nothing in her wanted to explain how the rustling of the trees had scared her awake, or how she thought she heard footsteps but when she peeked outside, she saw nothing. She didn’t want to say the cabin was haunted, but the cabin was definitely haunted.

She hesitated, a wordless desire to see the side of the cabin, but stronger than that was the desire to see Natsu again. If anyone could chase away the chills of her overactive imagination, it would be him. If there was anyone who would listen and not make her think she’s weird – even if he often called her a weirdo for things less weird than this – for being frightened, it would be him.

She sighed, rubbing her face and continuing away from her cabin, adjusting the white and pink bikini she wore. It was cute and comfortable, a major plus in her opinion, and best of all, it held her boobs in with only a slight risk of exposure. A double knot ensured that it wouldn’t come undone and she undid her hair, letting it cascade around her shoulders, as though the weight of it would hold her top in place.

It would be her luck to flash everyone on her first time at the lake.

Natsu grinned at her from across the way. His pink hair was a mess, as though his attempts at combing it had been to run his hands through it, and his eyes were alight with excitement. She fought a giggle at his swim shorts which consisted of white with dark red flames up the sides. Just the sight of him made her feel better, like someone had shown a light on her nightmares and sent them away.

“Lucy! C’mon!”  

“I thought we were meeting there?” She asked when he grabbed her wrist and pulled her along.

“You were taking too long and I want to get there already, we’re going swimming!”

Lucy saw two critical flaws in this.

“That pervert thinks he’s going to beat me in a race,” Natsu said, throwing his spare fist in the air as though he had already won. She let out a breath, relieved to drop one of the flaws in his plan; the other remained a significant hurtle for him to cross. “Sucks Erza won’t be there, I heard she got dragged into taking people for a hike.”

“You say dragged like Erza was the one forced into it,” she deadpanned, knowing for a fact that Erza had hoodwinked a few other people – Levy, for one – into going on a hike at the crack of dawn in the name of nature. “Nobody can drag Erza into doing something that she doesn’t want to do.”

Natsu shrugged. “If I told her she couldn’t do something, she would do it.”

Lucy thought about that. Some of Erza’s most prominent traits were her protectiveness, her strength, and her opinions; it wasn’t a huge leap to think that she would be fueled by spite to prove someone wrong. “If it goes against her morals, she won’t, she’s very…” She struggled to think of a specific word to describe Erza.

“Aggressive.” Natsu snorted.

“Passionate,” Lucy corrected, smiling. “But otherwise… True.”

The lake came into view. “Hey, Natsu?” She held his wrist, preparing to dig her feet to keep him from dragging her along, but at her words, he stopped quite easily, tilting his head at her. “Uhm.” His eyes were dark and quizzical, but patient, which was a word that she wouldn’t have attached to Natsu, not the one in her letters and not the one she met on the first day of camp.

“Lucy?”

Oh, right.

“Can you swim without getting motion sick?”

He opened his mouth and then closed it, his face looking slightly green. “Yup, no problem.”

“Umm…” she said, not entirely believing the look on his face, but he started jogging again, pulling her with him. The angle of the sun blinded them as they skidded to a stop at the blue-green water of the lake. The grass edged right up to the water, ending abruptly at some discolored rocks along the edge of the water, announcing the sudden change from pointy grass to soft, wet sand.

Gray stood on the edge in a pair of dark blue shorts, doing elaborate stretches in ankle deep water. He wasn’t the only person by the lake though; either the race or the sight of Gray’s athletic body had gathered a crowd, the most noticeable of which was the same pale blue-haired girl that Lucy remembered vaguely as Juvia, who was wiggling in the water, her cheeks pink as she ogled him in her pretty blue bathing suit. Two other girls stood beside her, one silver-haired wearing purple and the other with long green hair in daring red, though she didn’t actually know either of their names yet, and a red-eyed boy building a mud castle in the shallow water. She cringed at the disgruntled look on his face, turning to face her friend.

Natsu dropped her wrist, jumping over the rocks – even though that seemed like a waste of effort when Lucy could easily step over them – and began to do his own stretches. “Good luck,” she said, kicking off her flipflops.

A grin crept over his face. “Thanks.”

“I was talking to Gray,” she teased.

Natsu spluttered, annoyed, and Juvia muttered something under her breath about a love rival, but Lucy ignored both, stepping away from the now arguing boys – about how badly they stretched, of all reasons – to the edge of the water, not far from the boy’s sandcastle. The cold water sent a chill through her as she lowered herself to the least rocky part of the floor. The boy sent her a glare for blocking the flow of the water and she wiggled around to let some reach him, but didn’t dare go deeper into the lake and settled for smiling apologetically.

It was an oversight on her part to go to camp and not expect to swim. Truthfully, she never learned, it hadn’t been important growing up. She smiled sadly at nothing, remembering her mother trying to teach her the year before, back when they were sure that the camp was in her immediate future. It only had been one afternoon in the pool, where Lucy had learned to somewhat float, before her mother’s illness had reared its ugly head. She hadn’t been near a pool since then…

Her mother had learned here though, she thought, perking up. Her favorite tale about the camp was when Layla had learned to swim as a child because her mother had painted a colorful story of an aqua-haired, bad-tempered mermaid who had taught her. Lucy’s aunt Aquarius had scoffed, but not argued and Lucy had giggled. She had only seen Aquarius twice since her mother died: at the funeral and later, when Lucy had visited her mother’s grave.

But if her mother learned here, it wouldn’t be that strange if Lucy did too, right? Maybe she would meet a best friend the way her mother had! Or… She eyed Natsu thoughtfully as he stretched his arms above his head, back facing her. Would he…?

“Start your damn race, Salamander!” barked the boy building the sandcastle.

“Shut up, metal head! You’re not even racing!”

“Tch, I would win, don’t need to waste my time.”

“I think you’d get too sick to do it, Gajeel,” Gray sniggered. “I probably won’t even have to do much, just float to victory when Flame Brains over here passes out. Oi, you, Lucy, will you save him when he starts to drown?”

Lucy blushed. She had hoped, perhaps futilely, that she could pull Natsu away later and he could teach her while everyone was at lunch. Scratch that. Maybe not lunch, considering his love for food, but Lucy didn’t want everyone to know about her inability to tread in water.

Thankfully, Gajeel didn’t allow for a response, shooting to his feet. “Don’t compare me to that idiot!” Oddly enough, his shorts were the reverse of Natsu: red with grey-white flames.

“I didn’t, it’s impossible to compare stupid and pathetic.”

Lucy winced, not for the cruel yet characteristics words for the brawling boys, but for the two fists that slammed into Gray’s face the moment the words left his lips. He flailed, falling back into the water while Juvia screeched something incomprehensible, and then he shot to his feet, butting heads with both boys simultaneously.

“Start racing already,” urged the silver-haired girl. “Bisca is supposed to teach me to skip rocks.”

“I don’t think Master would be pleased if we practiced while people were in the water, Lisanna.”

“I know, that’s why I want them to hurry! Besides, we already know who is going to win.”

Both the boys ignored them, but Lucy tuned in, tilting her body to face them. The two girls were sitting crossed legs, the water up to their belly buttons and their amused eyes watching the three boys with only mild interest.

“Hm, I don’t know, Gajeel is pretty steamed, might give him a boost,” Bisca mused, reclining back on her hands. Lisanna hummed thoughtfully, studying the three boys before nodding in agreement.

As they mused on who would win, Lucy returned to watching the three boys. She had expected Gray to win, truthfully, because he seemed more in his element in the water than Natsu and Gajeel seemed too bulky to manage the same speeds as either of the other two. But the look on Natsu’s face, the determination that lurked behind his cheerful grin, made her think it would be wise not to underestimate him. Likewise, Gajeel had a scowl on his face, one that promised vengeance for the slight against his pride.

It could have been either of them.

“Good luck, Natsu,” she murmured under her breath, drawing her legs beneath her to watch. His eyes flickered to hers, catching her words and a breathtaking grin crossed his face.

Bisca threw a rock that landed with a wicked crack against the water and then the boys were off.

“Lucy, right?” Lisanna asked, smiling as the boys splashed into action. “I haven’t seen you here before.”

“First year,” she replied, only flashing Lisanna a smile in return before resuming to watch Natsu. Gray was on his left and Gajeel was on his right, the water splashing into his face with each dive of the other boys’ arms and Lucy giggled at the distaste visible on his face even from this distance. “Where are they racing to anyway?”

Lisanna squinted. “Well, since Erza isn’t here, they might try to swim all the way across.”

“What? No, can they even make it that far before they tired?” Love and Lucky shared their lake with some other camp, though they were on complete other sides of a vast, deadly water. It was ridiculous to assume anyone could make it across without tiring out. Luckily for them, the lake held no boats or wave-riders, so they were at least spared a grisly decapitation. “Will they be alright?”

Bisca sighed. “I think they’ll stop at the buoys, it wouldn’t be like them to pick a fight with the other camp.”

“You do realize who is racing, don’t you?” Lisanna asked dryly.

“Natsu alone would try to fight,” Lucy agreed, laughing. The boys were too far to see their faces anymore, just three figures who grew smaller and farther by the second. “I can only imagine that Gajeel and Gray won’t help, they seem very… competitive.”

“It’s because Gray and Natsu have been at the camp the longest, they’ve always butted heads. Gajeel enjoys the ruckus, especially since he’s Natsu’s cousin,” Lisanna said, running her hands along the top of the water. The race held no interest to her, the results of countless races and countless summers over the years, and Lucy held back a smile when Lisanna continued looking down, even when the boys began to shout at each other, their voices carrying across the water.

“Gajeel is related to Natsu? I don’t see the resemblance.” Then, thinking it over, she amended, “The physical resemblance, I guess Gajeel is loud like Natsu.”

Lisanna giggled. “Yup, they only found out like a year ago.”

Lucy almost asked how they wouldn’t have known about that, but bit her tongue before it could escape. Natsu didn’t much talk about his life – at least not about subjects he deemed sad or unimportant – but she knew from hints and references that he was adopted by a kind couple when he was a child. But, then, did that make Gajeel his actual cousin? She shook her head, deciding to ask him later, and turned completely to face Lisanna, trying to think of an adequate response to Lisanna’s words. “So, have you been here a lot too?”

“Since I was a child. Mirajane is actually my sister,” she said proudly. Lucy gaped and then nearly slapped her forehead. Of course! She could see their resemblance plain as day, the two could be twins if not for Lisanna’s sharper features. “We come every summer! This is your first year, right? You’ll have to go hiking with me, I know some spots that would be great for pictures to take back home!”

Lucy beamed. “That would be great! I’ve taken some around the camp, but I haven’t gone hiking yet, I was waiting for the beginner’s course later today.”

“I’m supposed to do the crafting with my brother,” Lisanna said, disappointed.

Lucy’s shoulders slumped. “Oh, okay, we’ll have to try next time.”

“Definitely, the hiking is one of the best parts. One of the more advanced courses takes you up there -- the view is so beautiful.” Lucy followed her finger to a mountain jutting out from the woods; she tilted her head back just to see the top, vaguely able to make out some figures standing on top of it. She bit her lip – that high up would offer some impressive sights of the lake and camp, but… It was so high up that Lucy wondered how someone even got up there.

One of the figures jumped off and she clapped a hand over her mouth with a horrified gasp.

Bisca jolted out the sound, dropping a pile of rocks into the water beside Lisanna. “What?” She looked over at the cliff as well then let out a breath. “Oh, it’s just Alzack, he went hiking with Gildarts’ group earlier.”

“You can see who that is?” Lucy asked, dropping her hand when neither girl seemed bothered. The figure – Alzack – disappeared beneath the water, but considering no one screamed in panic, she imagined he popped up again for air a moment later.

“This one has eyes like a hawk – especially when it comes to Alzack,” Lisanna said with a grin. Bisca turned red, throwing her arm out to splash Lisanna in retaliation, proving Lisanna right without using any words.

Lucy giggled. “Well, is he going to be okay?”

“He’ll be fine, Gildarts makes everyone jump off. It’s why that course is the advanced one,” Bisca explained, a proud smile on her face. “He only takes a select few with him because the only way down safely is, well, that.” As they spoke, another person leapt off, their squeal echoing across the lake.

“Has Natsu done it before?”

“Not yet, but I’m going to this year!”

She jolted with a yelp, falling back against his legs. Natsu blinked, looking down at her startled face before he burst out laughing.

“You should have seen the look on your face!” He snorted, his pink hair sticking to his forehead as a drop of water traced its way down his face.

“Shut up,” she muttered, straightening up. “You scared me, that’s all.”

“Think I was a monster coming to get you?”

She recalled Gray’s story the day before – and Cana’s comment about it. Her lips twitched. “I don’t know, are you a mermaid?”

Natsu huffed. “I would be a merman, thank you.”

“Sorry, the rules don’t work that way, it’s mermaid or nothing.”

“Who says you make the rules?”

“I did. I made the rules. The rules are now made, so there,” she said, sticking her tongue out at him. He dropped down into the sand beside her with a pout that made her laugh. “So who won?”

“I did,” he said, echoed by Gajeel and Gray. Natsu frowned. “What are you talking about, Lugnuts? I won.”

“No,” said Gajeel.

“I did!”

“I got to the buoy first!” Gray argued.

“Gray, your pants,” Lisanna laughed, covering her eyes while Lucy and Bisca averted their gazes. Juvia, who had been silent up until that point, nearly fainted at the sight of his naked figure.

Natsu rolled his eyes. “Pervert.”  

“Who went to the buoys?” said a dark, deadly voice. The group all whirled around, facing Erza. Her scarlet hair was swept up into a pony-tail, tendrils escaping from her hike, and Lucy would have thought her yellow bikini would have been beautiful if the look of annoyance on her face hadn’t made her relation to demons quite apparent.

She had a knack for looking evil when she wanted to, Lucy wondered where she learned to do that. Maybe that was one of the courses at the camp: how to scare people 101.

Before she could ask, Natsu shot to his feet, jerking her up with him. “Run, Lucy!”

“Why am I running?” She muttered, but followed him without much of a choice. He released her hand as she stumbled and she adjusted her stance, sprinting with him along the edge of the lake, their footsteps kicking up sand and water. Distantly, there was a splash and a yelp from Gray as he escaped from the scene as well.

“Where did Gajeel go?” Lisanna asked, her voice nothing more than a faint laugh the farther away Lucy ran.  

As Lucy caught up to Natsu, his hand catching hers instinctively once more, she giggled.

It was sometime later, during which he dragged her through some of the trees on the edge of the lake and then over a small outcropping of rocks, before he skidded to a stop. He dropped her hand and flopped down into the sand face first with a sigh of relief.  

“Where are we?” She mumbled, nursing a stitch in her side. It had been a while since she had run so fast or for so long, especially over obstacles, more reason than any that she should start with beginners hiking and work her way up to the big leagues. Well, maybe not with Gildarts, she didn’t know if she would ever be ready for making a leap off a cliff.  

“Not that far, camp is through there,” he replied, not winded in the slightest he jutted his chin over to a pair of misshapen trees whose branches were arched like a walkway; it was the lone exit from the cove they stood in unless they went over the little hill like Natsu and Lucy had, which she didn’t recommend if the small scraps on her hands and knees were anything to go on.

She hadn’t seen this cove before. It was as though someone had cut out a part of the hill, allowing water to enter its stony embrace. It was peaceful, the type of place where Lucy would have thought people would have hoarded to themselves; it was far too small to share with the rest of the populace and maybe that was why she couldn’t recall anyone showing her or telling her of it.

Natsu rolled on his back, reaching over to dip his fingers into the water and washing the sand from his face. “You did good for your first hike.”

“Thanks, I’ll bet I could go on an intermediate hike now,” she joked, sinking down beside him and stretching her legs out so that her feet rested in the cool water. The sun blared down on them, warming her skin and she ducked her face away from it, inching closer to the water. “So… who did win really?”

“We got there at the same time, maybe. Think I won still, I got back to the beach first,” he said, holding his hand out for a high five. She rolled her eyes, but smacked his palm with hers, sand sticking to her palm. “Next time, we’re going all the way to the camp though. I think that’s the only way to find out who’s the best.”

“Erza won’t allow that, you know,” Lucy pointed out.  

“You’ll distract her for us,” he explained with a nod.

“Oh, will I?”

“Yup, you agreed to do it.”

“How am I supposed to cheer you on if I’m keeping Erza busy?” She teased, laying down on her back, tilting her head to look toward him when he stayed silent.

Natsu frowned and she blushed. Maybe that was too presumptuous? Lucy didn’t know what to make of their friendship, it wasn’t quite the same as when they exchanged letters; she hadn’t realized how big of a difference it was to talk with someone in person and talk to someone over a distance. It wasn’t bad, she thought, because they skipped over the pleasantries that came with meeting someone for the first time, but they missed the little things. Like learning what their expressions meant, like knowing what not to say.

She opened her mouth to say she was joking – although she wasn’t so sure that was true, even if her words had been teasing as she said it.

Natsu spoke instead. “Good point. Okay, we’ll make Bisca do it.”

Lucy sighed, oddly relieved. How stupidly attached was she already? “Who says Bisca will do it?”

“Alzack will ask her.”

“Why will Alzack ask her?”

“Because he owes me one.”

She eyed him. “What did you do?”

“Nothing horrible, sheesh. I just told him what flowers Bisca probably likes.”

“How do you even know that?”

“She wears the same perfume all the time,” he explained. “If she likes that smell, she must like the flowers too, right?”

Lucy didn’t necessarily know if that was true or not, but she also didn’t have much experience with picking flowers for another person. Most of the time, people gave her flowers – and they didn’t often take into consideration whether or not she would like them. It was about whether her father would like Lucy receiving them or whether it would be that they coincidentally matched someone’s tie.

“Bisca will distract Erza and I’ll cheer you on then,” Lucy said.

“That works out better, we’re a team, it’s only right that we’re together. Maybe we’ll do a tag-team race, someone could wait out by the buoys and then we can do a switch for the other half of the race.” He put his hand behind his head, cushioning his head from the pebbles and rocks digging into him.

Her heart sank. “Oh?” She asked faintly, scrambling for an excuse about why that wouldn’t work without spitting out her pathetic inability to swim. Her eyes flashed between him and the water, fingers tapping against the sand, waiting for something, anything, to come to mind. Her momentary thought of asking him vanished, not wanting to admit to her failings if it garnered his disappointment. “I don’t think that’ll work. I mean, whoever is waiting at the buoys will have a disadvantage from swimming out there, right? They’ll be too tired to swim and someone will complain about the results being inconclusive.”

“Oh.” He frowned again, clearly agreeing with her. She let out another sigh of relief, not noticing the way his eyes darted to her with confusion. “Well, maybe we can— “

“NATSU DRAGNEEL! I KNOW YOU’RE OUT HERE!”

Natsu and Lucy flinched, eyes staring at each in horror as Erza appeared in the archway, her brows narrowed in displeasure. Despite the fact that she had definitely sprinted to them, her body didn’t betray her by panting.

“You know you’re not supposed to swim out that far, it’s against the rules. Time to face your punishment,” Erza said without pity, her eyes fiery.

Natsu gulped, darting his gaze between Erza and the water, as though he wasn’t sure whether he would rather test the unfamiliar terrain on the outer edge of the cove or Erza’s wrath.

Lucy rolled her eyes the instant he leaped for the water with Erza right behind him, but smiled fondly nonetheless, her nightmares a distant memory.