Good Intentions

Celestial Intervention

Natsu glared at him for using the Gray card on him but felt himself giving in.

"Fine, she can come. I have to go do this job. I will meet you at the inn where we stayed in Malba in two days time. She'll know where it is."

"Fine. I'll see you in two days."

Loke disappeared and Natsu started walking again.

"Are you ever going to forgive Lucy, Natsu?", Happy asked quietly.

Natsu did not answer.

"Do you want to talk about it?", Happy prodded. He hated to see Natsu so angry at Lucy but he knew that Natsu had good reason to feel the way he did.

"No."

"Are you going to break up with Gray?"

He was met with silence. Happy sighed. This was going to be a long day.

Lucy was sitting in her apartment. Since she could not do jobs she had decided to work on her novel. It wasn't going very well. She couldn't get her mind off of Gray's words from the previous night.

"How many times did you sit with us, talk to us, pretend to be our friend? You knew, this whole time, and you didn't say anything. Do you have any idea what it was like for us? Not knowing what was wrong with us. Having the entire basis of our relationship taken away from us. Do you know how many hours we trained trying to figure out the effects so that we could stay on the team? We had to go through all of that because our bickering was inconvenient for you?"

She was ashamed to realize that he was right. She hadn't given any thought to how the potion would affect them. She should have told them. She knew that. Now they were both mad at her and she couldn't see a way back. She couldn't forget the hurt looks on their faces when they heard what she and Erza had done, but she couldn't undo it.

Then there was Loke. She didn't know how to fix things with him either. He had made it clear that he was upset with her and he had reason to be. She had acted no better than Karen, his previous master, something that she thought she would never do. She had been trying to protect Erza but she had also not wanted him to know she was involved.

Loke appeared before her.

"Master."

"You don't have to call me that.", Lucy said tiredly, "Loke, I'm really sorry . I was wrong to treat you the way I did. Please forgive me. I will do anything to make things right between us."

"We can talk about that later. Right now we need your help.", Loke said.

"What do you need my help with?", Lucy asked.

"I talked Natsu into going to see the mage who sold Erza the potion. We need to meet him in Malba in two days time"