Lucy held her head in her palm as she watched Natsu scarf down the food she had brought him. He was done in less than ten minutes.

"I brought something that you're going to like," she said getting up.

"Really?" he asked excitedly. "What is it?"

The way his eyes lit up like an excited child was completely thrilling, and she loved it.

"You'll see," she said, oggling as she watched him pout cutely at her.

She rummaged through the bag happily and pulled out one box of matches. She then went to retrieve one of the two torches that were still planted in the ground from when she had brought them the first time. She opened the matchbox and struck a match, glancing at Natsu's face to see his reaction. His eyes were sparkling and he was practically drooling. She giggles at his reaction and lit the torch aflame. She saw Natsu start to open his mouth to suck the fire up, but she held a finger up, signaling him to wait. He cocked his head at her quizzically with a fallen expression on his face. She decided to toy with him a bit.

"This isn't for you Natsu," she said, repressing the smile that wanted paint itself on her face at her his completely disappointed look.

"What do you mean its not for me? You said you had a surprise for me," he said.

"This isn't your surprise, Natsu. This is so I can see," she said, waving the flaming torch in front of him.

"Then what's my surprise?" he asked, crossing his arms over his chest with an annoyed expression on his face.

"She rummaged through the bag again, holding the torch far away from her so that nothing would catch fire. Then she brought out the book she had brought for Natsu, and held it up in front of his face.

"A book?" he asked incredulously. "Your surprise for me is a book?"

"Yes," she said, biting her lip. It was getting harder and harder not to laugh. "You said you would read the book I brought you, so I picked out one that I'm sure you'll like."

"You're so mean, Lucy," he said, turning away from her to mask his dejected look.

"I am not," she protested. "I told you I was going to bring you a book and I really think you're going to like this one. That's why it's a surprise."

"You're mean. You lit the torch on purpose," he pouted.

"Come on, Natsu. Of course I didn't," she lied. "I just lit it so that you would be able to read better. Its dark after all."

"I can see in the dark," he pointed out.

"Well, I forgot."

It was getting hard to keep this up.

"You're so mean, Lucy."

"Am not."

"Are too."

"Am not!"

"Are too!"

"AM NOT!"

"ARE TOO!"

"AM NOT!"

Natsu turned to look at her and his face nearly broke her heart. He was pouting with big puppy eyes and tears at the corners of his eyes. Lucy couldn't do it anymore. She firmly planted the torch in the ground before dropping to the ground laughing her head off. Natsu just glared at her until she quieted down. She sat back up again, wiping a tear of laughter away. Natsu was glaring daggers at her while pouting, and gave her the same face as before, making her crumble at his feet.

"I'm sorry, Natsu. I was just joking."

"That wasn't funny," he said, still glaring at her.

"It was for me," she said truthfully.

"You're mean."

"I am not," she said, trying in vain to defend herself.

"Yes, you are, and that wasn't funny at all."

"Ok, ok. I'm very sorry. I was just kidding. You can eat the fire."

Natsu stared at her skeptically.

"I'm serious! Look," she said, scrambling to get up. "I even brought you a bunch of matchboxes so you can eat fire whenever you want when I'm not here."

She pulled his hand from his lap and placed the matchboxes inside of it. He looked her over one last time before breaking out into a grin saying, "Thanks, Luce!"

She smiled at him.

"No problem."

She watched Natsu hungrily suck up the flames.

"Hey, Natsu, how come you don't eat your own flames?"

Natsu looked at her with a disgusted face.

"That would be gross! I can't eat my own flames!"

"Why not?" she asked, perplexed.

"It tastes horrible! It's like eating my own poop or something!"

"Oh," Lucy said, making a disgusted face as well. "That does sound pretty gross."

Natsu nodded his head vigorously and went back to eating fire. Once he had eaten to his heart's content, he grinned at her maliciously. Uh oh, was the last thing Lucy thought before Natsu grabbed her and started tickling her sides malevolently.

"S-Stop!" she breathed out in between laughs.

"Never! This is payback for playing that mean joke on me."

"I-It wasn't m-mean!" she managed to protest.

"Oh, yes it was."

Lucy couldn't answer as she laughed like a maniac while Natsu tickled her. He finally stopped after what seemed like an eternity, but was probably only five minutes.

"Hey, Natsu?" she said when she could finally breathe again.

"Yeah, Luce."

"What are the names of the people you were separated from?"

"Why do you want to know?"

"Just out of curiosity," she answered smoothly.

"Well, there's Metal head."

Lucy sweatdropped.

"That's not his real name right?"

"I call him that so much, it's hard to remember sometimes," Natsu said laughing.

She sighed and pressed on, "So what's his real name?"

"Gajeel," Natsu answered nonchalantly.

Lucy sucked in a breath, so her and Levy's hunch had been right.

"And then there's Wendy," Natsu said, interrupting her thoughts.

"Wait, you don't have a nickname for her?" she asked with wide eyes.

"Not really," he responded shrugging. "She's just not as annoying as Iron face. I only give nicknames to people I find annoying."

"What about my nickname?" Lucy asked with her eye twitching.

"Luce is an awesome nickname! You're not annoying so it's not a bad nickname, but you're a weirdo so it suits you," he said with a toothy grin.

"I am not a weirdo," Lucy huffed with cheeks as red as Erza's hair.

"Yeah you are... weirdo."

"Don't call me that," she said lightly smacking his arm.

"But its true."

"Whatever," Lucy scoffed.

"Ok, ok... weirdo," he said with a sly smile.

Lucy just smacked him upside the head in response. Her cheeks were secretly blazing because even though she had protested at him calling her a weirdo, it secretly made fireworks light up in her chest every time he said it. Only Natsu, she thought to herself, shaking her head slightly.

"What?" Natsu asked, cocking his head to the side.

"Nothing, nothing," Lucy said, waving him off.

After some chatting about everything and nothing for a bit, Lucy suddenly remembered something.

"Oh my God," she said, face-palming. "I haven't changed your bandages in over two days!"

"And?" Natsu said with his eyebrows furrowed in confusion.

"Your injuries could get infected or something. Its not something to just brush off lightly, Natsu," she scolded him as she moved towards him to undo his bandages, although they were already sitting pretty close to each other.

"Fine," Natsu pouted.

Lucy smiled at him and the corners of his lips twitched up, but Lucy had already put her head down to focus on unwrapping the wounds. As she inspected the big gash on his abdomen, she saw that the corners were already starting to meld together, that was a good sign. She hadn't known if she should give him stitches or not, but since the wound was healing up on its own she knew she didn't have to. She finished rewrapping it and moved on to the big cut on his wing; Natsu's eyes tracking her every movement the whole time. That one was also starting to mend itself. It was very hard to see, but if she really focused, she could see small, new layers of tissue forming at the corners of the wound. That was good, she didn't want Natsu to not be able to fly anymore since that would mean that he had one less way to escape if anything happened. His other scratches and bruises were healing up rather nicely as well, and it looked like they would completely disappear in a week or so.

Lucy looked at her work, smiling. She had gotten better at wrapping wounds if she did say so herself. She noticed Natsu sniffing the book she brought him.

"Hey, is this really for me?" he asked, looking up.

"Yes, it really is," she said, smiling amusedly.

He grumbled something incoherent before whining, "Do I have to read it?"

Lucy rolled her eyes and said, "Yes. Yes, you do."

He groaned dramatically.

"It's better than sitting around all day with nothing to do," Lucy said, crossing her arms.

"I wouldn't be doing nothing all day if you were here..." he said.

Lucy sighed.

"Natsu, we've been through this. I can't stay with you all day. If I do, my father will probably send the whole fricking army looking for me, and if they find me with you, they'll capture you. Believe me, I'd much rather spend the whole day with you than in the castle, but I can't, and it's really annoying for me, too."

"I know," Natsu said. "Man, I wish I hadn't been separated from Happy, I would be able to talk to him when you're not here," he said, crossing his arms.

"Happy?" Lucy said, cocking her head. "Who's Happy?"

"Happy's my partner," Natsu said happily.

"But I thought you said there were only two other ryus with you," Lucy said, confused.

"Happy's not a ryu, he's an exceed!" Natsu exclaimed as if it were obvious that Happy wasn't a ryu, but an exceed, whatever that was. "I actually thought he was a cat at first, but Carla told me that they were actually a completely different race called exceeds."

"Hold up, hold up, I'm confused here. First of all, what is an exceed? Second of all, who's Carla?"

"An exceed is like a cat that walks on two legs, can talk, and can fly," Natsu explained simply.

"Things like that actually exist?" Lucy asked dubiously.

"Absolutely!"

"How did you two get separated?" Lucy asked.

"When my wing was hurt, Happy had to fly me since I couldn't fly, and then A- my enemy, did this to me," he said, gesturing to the wrapped gash on his abdomen. "and then he did a breath attack on me that blew me and Happy in opposite directions. I know he'll find me though; this has happened before; it's nothing new."

Lucy was a little upset that Natsu wouldn't reveal the name of the one who did such a number on him, but she knew he had his reasons.

"Ok, and who's Carla?"

"Carla is Wendy's partner."

"An exceed too I'm assuming," Lucy said.

"Yeah, and Happy's madly in love with her," he cackled.

Lucy smiled.

"Well, I wish him good luck with her, and you shouldn't make fun of him for being in love; I think love is a wonderful thing!"

"How so?" Natsu asked.

"How?" Lucy scoffed. "Because it's a magical thing that brings people together. It's a wonderful feeling that makes two people care for each other in a way that no one else can and it makes them happy. I think that's an amazing thing," Lucy finished with stars in her eyes, her imaginative mind dreaming up romantic scenes with lovers that were perfect for each other.

She was snapped out of her reveries by Natsu who was waving his tail in front of her face. She was slightly annoyed and slapped it away.

"Oi! Don't hit my tail!" Natsu exclaimed, cradling his tail in his arms.

But Lucy wasn't listening. His tail had felt so cool when she'd slapped it away just then.

"Hey, can I touch your tail?"

"What? Why?" he asked clearly startled by her sudden interest in his tail.

"It felt really cool just now."

"You mean when you hit it?" he deadpanned.

"Well, yeah. Sorry about that I guess!" she said smiling. "Now can I please touch your tail?"

"You didn't mean that!" he said scowling, seeing right through her. "You just wanna touch my tail!"

"No!" Lucy said in a very exaggerated tone. "How could you ever think that I would apologize just to get something I want?!" she said, acting insulted and putting a hand over her heart.

He just stared her down until her lips couldn't help it anymore, and they quirked upwards, revealing everything.

"HAHA!! I knew you didn't apologize to me for real!! You don't even feel the least bit sorry!!" Natsu said pointing an accusing finger in her face.

"Damn it! How could you betray me?" she said, trying to look down accusingly at her own lips.

"Because you can't lie to me!" he declared proudly and crossed his arms over his chest.

"So? You can't lie to me either!" Lucy said, not able to come up with a better comeback.

Natsu muttered something under his breath that Lucy didn't hear but took to be a sign of his defeat. Honestly they could banter like this all night and they wouldn't get tired of it.

"I think my friends would really like you," she said with her chin resting in her palm. "It's a shame you can't meet them."

"Hmm? But your friends sound weird, Luce, like you," he said matter-of-factly.

"Oi! They are not weird and neither am I!"

"Are too!"

"Am not!"

"ARE TOO!"

"AM NOT!"

"ARE TOO!!"

"Then give me an example of me being weird," she declared, now crossing her arms over her chest as he had done earlier.

"Mmmm... You can't do that to me, Luce! You're weird all the time! I can't pick out a specific one!"

"I am not always weird!"

"Yes, you are! But I don't mind cuz your weirdness makes you Lucy, and I can't you imagine you not being weird, weirdo," he said, grinning.

Natsu's words echoed in her head as she blushed a hundred shades of red. How could he say things that made her heart flutter so casually like that?! And how did he make being a weirdo sound like a compliment?!

"W-W-What are you doing s-saying weird th-things like that all of a s-sudden?!" she stuttered.

Natsu cocked his head to the side with his questioning look making him look so adorable! Which was really not helping her right now!!

"What do ya mean? I didn't say anything weird! It's you that's acting weird!" he said, pointing at her.

"I am not being weird! You're the one being weird!"

"No, you're being weird, weirdo!!"

"I am not a weirdo so stop calling me that!!"

"Weirdos are weird and you're a weirdo!!"

"Am not! You are!"

"No, you are!!"

"You are!"

"You are!"

"YOU ARE!!"

"NO, YOU ARE!!! WEIRDO LUCY!! THAT"S IT! THAT"S MY NEW NICKNAME FOR YOU!! WEIRDO LUCY!! PERFECT!!" he yelled, smirking proudly.

"NATSU!!!"

"WEIRDO LUCY! WEIRDO LUCY! WEIRDO LUCY!" he chanted!

"NATSU, IF YOU DON'T STOP I SWEAR I'LL... I'LL..." Lucy faltered searching for something that would make him stop. Then she found it, the thing that had even delayed him from eating the moment he knew she had food for him. "I'LL NEVER PET YOUR HEAD AGAIN!!!" she yelled triumphantly.

Natsu abruptly stopped mid chanting and his face drained of all color.

"Y-You would never..." he said unsurely, biting his lips.

"I would," she said, smirking at him.

"I-I don't believe you..." he said, his voice faltering.

"Oh?" she asked, raising her eyebrow smugly. "You really don't think I would?"

Natsu gulped audibly and his eyes widened like a scared puppy's. Cute, she thought. Then his lower lip started to tremble, and Lucy had to fight hard to keep her smug, challenging face in place. So cute... Lucy was about ready to give in when he finally said frantically, "Okay, okay. I'll stop!! Just don't ever never pet my head, got it?" he asked seriously.

Lucy was amazed at how much those head pets really meant to him to give up this fight. But she gladly accepted it, and said, "You got it." He grinned at her, clearly relieved and she dug her hand into his spiky pink hair, causing him to melt into her lap and purr immediately. Lucy laughed and just watched him enjoy it with the most dazzling smile on her face that Natsu couldn't take his eyes off of.