Little Lucy Heartfilia (EDITING)

Chapter 13

Lucy's POV

"Surprise!" Everyone yelled. I grinned.

"You all did this for me?" I asked.

"Of course, little sis!" Sting walked over to me, ruffling my hair. I looked around the room. It was decorated nicely. There were pink, purple and blue ribbons all over the walls and hanging from the ceiling. At one end of the room, there sat a slender, long table full of chairs and food. Then, there was a large space for people to dance, with a DJ booth finally at the other end of the room.

Everyone was wearing masks, but it was easy to tell who was who. Except, some of the guys had put on masks like the one from the phantom of the opera, and it was kind of creepy.

Levy grabbed my hand, taking me to dance. I giggled as the girls surrounded us, and we all started dancing. Really, really badly, if I may add.

The guys all just stood at the side of the room, sort of laughing, chatting and watching the girls. I slipped out of the dancing group, standing to the side and trying to figure out the couples.

Gray with Juvia. Jellal with Erza. Elfman with Evergreen. Gajeel with Levy. Laxus with Mira. Romeo with Wendy. Happy with Carla. Lisanna with Bixlow? Sting with Yukino and Rogue with Minerva (just as I'd planned).

Weird. Natsu wasn't looking at anyone. And Cana was sitting at the side, already drinking and giggling to herself.

Alzack, Bisca and Asuka were tearing up their own section of the dance floor. Now that I thought about it, if I didn't start growing soon, even Asuka would be older than me!

But maybe that was a good thing. If I didn't grow, nobody could call me out on how I looked identical to... well, me.

It's actually really fun being Layla Heart. I've been her for almost three years (countig my two and a third in the dragon realm). If I went back to being Lucy Heartfilia, do you think anyone would notice?

A guy I'd never seen before walked up to me. Well, a guy is the wrong word. A little boy, maybe eight, walked up to me.

"Hi." He said shyly, running a hand through his short black locks. I noticed that he had beautiful, blue eyes.

"Hey... do I know you?" I asked.

"Umm, no. I'm Mira and Elfman's cousin." The boy blushed. I shot Mira a death glare. She just winked at me. "Do you want to dance with me?" He blurted suddenly.

"Okay!" I said. We made our way to a part of the dance florr that wasn't occupied.

A slow song came on. Gee, I wonder who did that.

"Uhh, I don't know how to dance this..." I panicked. He just laughed, making me pout.

"I'll teach you." He held out his hand for me to take. I took it. "Now, put your hand on my shoulder..." I did as instructed, whilst he placed his free hand on my waist.

"One, two, three. One, two three." I heard him counting. I accidentally stood on his toe.

"Sorry!" I said feverishly. He just laughed again.

"It's fine." He smiled at me. I smiled back.

I looked around the room. Surely enough, all the couples I had picked out had started dancing together. It was actually pretty amusing, to watch Elfman and Evergreen dance, whilst blushing bright red and trying not to look at eachother. "This doesn't mean I'm interested in you." I heard Evergreen say.

I felt bad for Natsu, who was sitting on a chair, watching everyone wistfully. The dance ended, and I excused myself.

"Hey, Natsu." I said, trying to get up onto the chair next to him.

"Hey, Layla. Happy Birthday." Natsu picked me up, placing me onto the chair.

"Thanks!" I said, smiling. Natsu tried to smile and shake his somber mood, but I wasn't having it.

"What's wrong?" I asked him.

He looked me in the eyes. "...Lucy?"

I tried to hide how flustered I was at his comment. "What do you mean?"

"It's you, isn't it? You didn't die that day."

I gave up. "How do you know?"

He threw himself into a hug from me, squeezing me tight. I laughed.

Natsu chuckled. "The first clue was how you had all the keys that Lucy had. Then that your name was Layla. Although that one took me a while..."

"The third?" I asked. He smiled.

"That your birthday was today. I knew it was your mom's birthday today."

"How... I never told anyone..."

He chuckled. "You remember those letters you used to write to your mom?" I nodded. "I kind of read all of them when you 'died'," he used air quotations to give the word extra effect, "and it said happy birthday to her in one of those."

I remember that letter. I can't believe he read all of those letters, and remembered them.

"So when are you going to tell everyone?" He grinned at me, waiting excitedly for my answer.

"I wasn't planning to... maybe I should just leave it as 'Lucy died, now Layla's here.' That's what I wanted to do."

Natsu shook his head. "You have to tell them! Do you have any idea how much we all missed you? Honestly, everyone still celebrates your birthday, because you made such a fuss of having a big party ad inviting everyone. But your birthday was planned, and then we went on that job, and your 'party' turned out to be a funeral, and we had to bury an empty casket, because we couldn't find you, Luce."

I felt tears well up in my eyes. I didn't know I'd caused them so much grief. Now I felt really, really bad.

Natsu hugged me again. "You have to tell them."

"I will, I promise. Soon. Just let everyone enjoy today, before I reveal it to them."

And Natsu pulled back and nodded. We had a deal.