hey guys! so this is a story that just kinda came into my head one night at like 1am after reading some fanfics with this idea for some other ships in different shows, so no the idea isnt mine but its more like im using the prompt "strange kid" as a base for this story, like how people use the idea that dragon slayers go through dragon mating season or have only one mate for life. and if you read this and have already made a story using this idea, i swear the story plot is mine, if it is similar to anyones in anyway it was not intentional. so please just give it a shot.

disclaimer: i do not own fairytail in any way all rights go to hiro mashima.

Chapter one: Who is she?

"HMPF" Lucy trudged off ahead of me with her arms crossed on her chest.

"sheesh, you don't need to get so upset about it. Its just a top." She turned around

"JUST A TOP?! JUST A TOP?! CLOTHES COST MONEY NATSU, MONEY THAT WE LOST CAUSE OF YOUR DESTRUCTIVE HABITS!" destructive habits? I admit I tend to destroy things, but I didn't do it on purpose!

"HEY ITS NOT MY FAULT THE GUY THREW ME INTO A BUILDING!"

"AND THE CHURCH YOU ALMOST DESTROYED?!"

"HOW COULD I HAVE KNOW THE GUY COULD DODGED MY PUNCH! I THOUGHT HE WAS TOO DAZED TO DODGE AN ELAPHANT"

"WELL YOU MIGHT AS WELL BE ONE WITH HOW LOUD AND DESTRUCTIVE YOU CAN BE!"

We had been on our way back from a rather successful mission when we stumbled on a town being attacked by a dark guild that was demanding money and anyone that had even the tiniest bit of magic in their body. Under normal circumstances me and Lucy would have never taken a whole guild on by our selves. We were about to leave to go get back up from the nearest legal guild there was, but as soon as a crying women outside of a school told us that they took the children as hostages, and were taking children with the potential to be wizards; we snapped. Together we charged into the school and started attacking. The guild had been shocked that someone could be foolish enough to charge in while the children were being held hostage, and they didn't have time to react. Me and Lucy had taken down half of them before they even realized what happened; mainly because Lucy had summoned both Loke and Aquarius right away, using the water fountains in the halls to summon her, so that she could help the kids get outside and I could focus on the bad guys and not have to worry about her or the kids.

I had actually been scared that Aquarius would start screaming about Lucy interrupting her date or something, but when she saw the kids running terrified her expression changed to shocked, then back to anger, but this time towards the dark guild members.

Within five minutes we had gotten most of the kids out of the building and taken down about half of the dark guilds members, fighting together with Loke (who had figured out the situation pretty quick and started using his own power to keep his gate open) the battle had spilled outside and was now raging across town while Lucy and Aries ushered worried parents and scared children to town hall away from all the fighting. Finally, all that was left to do was defeat the dark guild master and free the children he had captured for their magical power.

When I had found were the master had been hiding with the captured children, all I could do for a moment was stare at him, I didn't even know the mans name and I hated him as much as I had ever hated an enemy of fairy tail, I had met his gaze for a second and he flinched, that was all I needed and was about to attack. But then Lucy came running in behind me yelling that all of the citizens were safe and all of the children that hadn't been taken were accounted for by all of the parents. When she saw the master she stopped for a second then started walking forward. I was shocked that she would approach a guild master so haphazardly, and was about to tell her to be careful, but I was her eyes and stopped. Her eyes blazed with anger and hate towards that one man, anger and hate that she (like me) normally kept reserved for anyone who threatened fairy tail. She was so full of rage that she didn't even summon a spirit, she just drew her whip, shocking the master, and started to attack him, lash after lash, she struck at him. I hadn't even needed to help.

Only latter had I realized that she saw that he was physically weak, and by attacking his body she had rendered him defenseless, and completely at her mercy, and she was showing none.

When she started to yell at him though I realized how much it must have broke her heart to see children's lives being threatened. When she asked how he could do that to children, how he could so utterly terrify them without a second thought, told him how he was a heartless monster that didn't deserve to live. I had to go up to her and grab her from behind to get her to stop, but what I hadn't expected was for her to look back at me with tears in her eyes and lean into my chest, silently crying her eyes out. All of that fire, just gone in a second. All I could do was hold her as she wept and try to comfort her.

Once the guild from the next town over had come (turns out it was Lamia Scale, go figure) the issue had been dealt with and me and Lucy had tied all of the dark wizards up in the schools cafeteria. Lyon had complemented us and told Lucy that he was impressed by how much stronger she had gotten before he went to go inform the magic council of what had happened (though we managed to get him to agree to tell them that Lamia Scale had taken down the dark guild and not me and Lucy, Gramps would kill us if he found out we took on a whole guild by ourselves). The villagers had been thankful we saved them and their children but Lucy insisted that we pay for the damages caused during the fight, hence why she was complaining now. The village had wanted to host a dinner for us but we had to leave before the magic police (A.K.A. the army) showed up, so we had to turn them down and leave(I wanted to stay for dinner but I did NOT want to deal with the magic council getting on fairy tails case again.

So here we were walking through the forest, trying to find a good place to make camp before dark. Lucy had calmed down from both earlier and about her shirt.

Oh yea, her shirt. Well the top she had been wearing during the fight had been, in one word, trashed, and that was her spare; she packed two shirts for this mission, just in case one got destroyed, but now both were destroyed. So she had to borrow one of mine, not a big deal, if it didn't make her look absolutely stunning. But it did, so it was. Because I had had a crush on her for a while now. Well crush didn't quite sum up what I felt, love was more of the right word, and that only barely began to describe what I felt. Yea, crazy, me the dense dragon slayer, Natsu Dragneel, was in love with the beautiful celestial mage Lucy Heartfilia.

We were walking side by side, scouting the area for a good place to set up camp as the temperature started to noticeably drop.

And I heard the unnatural russle of some leaves

"hey Natsu I think that looks-MMPH" she stared at my hand covering her mouth as I cut her off mid sentence. I turned in a circle listening for the sound of anything that didn't belong, I thought for a second that maybe it had been my imagination, but than I heard something; shallow breathing. And it was coming from behind us, someone was following us.

"Whose back there!" I yelled spinning towards the sound,

Nothing

"don't try and hide I can her you breathing, never doubt a dragons senses"

Slowly, out from behind a tree a small girl emerged. She looked about three and had pink hair only a few shades lighter than mine, and big brown eyes, like Lucy's. She was dressed in a blue dress that had obviously seen better days. The girl didn't look much better either. I stared at her baffled as I tried to understand why a little girl would be following us. Slowly, like she wasn't sure what to say, she spoke

"hi, my name's Kalie. What's yours?"

She sounded like she had to fight for each word, like she was barely fighting off fatigue or sickness.

I looked at Lucy concerned, wondering what to do, and saw that she was just as confused as I was. Why was there a little girl following us? A sick little girl at that. We turned back to the girl, and Lucy was the one to speak, she took a step forward.

"hi Kalie, that's a lovely name you have. I'm Lucy and this is my partner Natsu. Are you ok? you don't look that well."

"Lucy and Natsu" she mumbled, and even I had a hard time understanding what she said, than she spoke up "thank you," she paused and took a breath, like speaking was exhausting her, "and yes I'm fine" another pause

"I'm just a little-" she was starting to sway. I took a step forward, so did Lucy.

"tired" and she fainted

Me and Lucy were already running towards the girl as she started collapse, Lucy got there before me and managed to catch the girl before she hit the ground.

"hey, hey, Kalie?! Kalie, are you ok? Kalie?!" Lucy rocked the girl in her arms with concern as she took her pulse, and a few seconds later she sighed in relief,

"she's just unconscious, hopefully she'll wake up soon." I let out a breath I hadn't realized I had been holding.

"Natsu can you just set up camp somewhere close to here? I want to make sure Kalie's ok before we go anywhere, she may have family out here looking for her and I wouldn't want them to be worried."

I nodded in agreement and just started to set up right where we were, I was just as worried about this girl as Lucy. I knew nothing about her except her name, and I was already feeling as protective of Kalie as I do for any of my guild mates. It was weird but I paid no mind to it.

Ten minutes later I finished setting up camp relatively quickly being that our "camp" consisted of one small tent with two sleeping bags inside and a fire outside of the tent.

"hey Lucy, I finished I finished putting up the tent, if you want to bring Kalie inside go ahead,

"thanks Natsu"

"no problem,"

We were quiet as Lucy brought Kalie inside the tent and placed her inside of a sleeping bag, when she came out she just sat next to me by the fire; we sat and stared at the fire for a minute before I saw Lucy shiver out of the corner of my eye.

"hey you cold?"

"yea I'll be fine though, I'm more concerned about Kalie, what's a little girl like her doing out this deep in the forest? And why was she following us?" she shivered again, so I moved behind her and sat down again so that she was sitting between my legs, then I picked her up and placed her on my lap wrapping my arms around her.

"Nat-!"

"better?" she was confused for a moment, then seemed to realize that she wasn't cold anymore,

"y-yea, thanks."

"its no problem. you were cold"

She stayed still for a few seconds, then I felt her relax back into my hug. Only then did I really realize what I had done, and I felt my face start to heat up. Great I was blushing. Oh well it was worth it, I rested my chin on her shoulder. So we just sat there like that in silence, enjoying each others company. With every breath I took I inhaled her scent, strawberries and vanilla, every time I would smell it it would calm me down. It didn't matter where I was or what I was doing or who I was fighting, I could be in the middle of a fight with that ice bastard and as soon as I smell her walk into the guild I don't even care about the fight anymore, I just stop and go say hi to her. Dear god am I in love with this girl.

"anyway what do you think she could have been doing out here? I mean we're miles from any towns"

Oh yea, we had been talking about Kalie.

"I don't know, I mean, she doesn't smell weird like any dark magic, if anything she smells too much like herself, like she's not around people a lot. And she was really tired, but I'm pretty sure that I sensed some magic energy coming from her"

"so you sensed that too, huh?"

"yea,"

"it just doesn't make sense! She looks like she's barely three! The only place she could have come from is that last village, but that's ten miles back! How could a girl that young walk all that way? And doesn't she have a family that's worried about her? she's far too young to be in school, so its not like she's one of the students we saved, so just who is she?" I could tell that how Kalie came to be here really wasn't sitting well with Lucy; even if she could get out here on her own, what parent would just let their child wander off like that?

"Luce I'm not gonna pretend to know any of that, but I do know that however she came to be here its because she wanted to be here, because other than why and how she's here there is nothing off about her. She doesn't smell like anything even remotely bad, there was no one else in the woods with her when we found her, and shea's passed out in the tent right now. So as far as I can tell, she checks out. She's just a three year old little girl who happens to have at least some magic power."

"that's not it though. I'm worried about her. she's unconscious inside a tent and we don't know anything about her, she could have a medical condition and we wouldn't even know how to help! We just met her and we know nothing about her, yet if anything happened to her-" she chocked up, but she didn't need to finish the sentence, I felt the same way. But I still wasn't expecting her to turn around in the hug so she could face me and break down crying into my chest.

I understood why she felt like she did; something about Kalie seemed familiar, not like I had met her before, no, it was more like when you look at a picture of someone from long before you knew them and can't quite recognize them till someone points it out to you. But all I could do was try and comfort her, so I started rubbing my hands up and down her back in an attempt to calm her down, then started to speak.

"I know, me too. And for some reason she seems really familiar, but for now all we can do is bring her back to magnolia with us tomorrow, and if she doesn't wake up by the time we get there than we take her to Porlyusica's to see if she can help. Ok?"

"yea ok, I don't why this is getting to me so much." I hugged her tighter and brought her head into my chest.

"hey its ok. you can cry all you need to, no ones judging you for being sad. But think of it this way, at least we found her. if she had passed out any earlier than we wouldn't have found her and she'd be freezing to death right here in the forest, while we were asleep a mile south of here with no clue she even existed. So at least she's alive"

She stopped crying. She looked up and smiled at me; Mavis, if my heart didn't melt every time she did that.

"you're right, things could have been a lot worse. 'Thanks for that"

'I'd do anything for you'

"no problem, now come on, lets go to sleep, and I hope you don't mind sharing a sleeping bag cause, I'm not making you or Kalie sleep on the ground and I'm sure as hell not about to. And if I was her I wouldn't want to wake up next to someone I don't know"

She laughed and said

"oh what a gentleman, of course I don't mind you idiot, its not like you don't sneak into my apartment and sleep in my bed every night" now I laughed, mainly because it was true.

Quietly we got settled in the tent and slipped into the sleeping bag. It was a tight fit, but we made it work, but not without it being a little awkward. Eventually we wound up with me lying on my back and Lucy lying half on top of me on her stomach, it was intimate to say the least, and for the first few minutes it was awkward, but I was getting really tired and it wasn't comfortable for either of us, so I wrapped my arms around her waist and shifted a little so that our legs were tangled together and her arms were resting on mine. Even in the dark I could see the blush stain her cheeks, and I felt the blush on my own, but I didn't care. A couple or not, the woman I loved was in my arms as we fell asleep and nothing could have made me happier.

"night Lucy"

"night Natsu"

End chapter one.

so so like always- feedback is always welcome, constructive criticism and praise alike. and i just want to say that i really love all of you guys here on , i like to watch my stories for the first few days after i put them up to see what people think of my writing and it makes me really happy to see that people are enjoying it. its Christmas eve tonight and i just really wanted to thank any and all of you that have ever written a review on one of my stories or clicked the "favorite" or 'follow" button for any of my stories, I've never been that confident about my writing and every time i see a new review or or more views it makes me really happy. sorry that was so long, but anyway i'll try to post the next chapter as soon as possible.

goodbye for now!