I swear I have a super long multichapter fic planned for this pairing, kind of based around this basic idea. I really want to get to it someday. But in the meantime, I hope you all enjoy this short ficlet!

Sometimes it hurt to look.

As it should, really, when one looked at the sun. Even if the shining star was a person close at hand, not a heavenly object sitting high in the sky.

Lucy cast rays that were warm; rays that fell equally on all in Fairy Tail.

It hurt to look.

In the girl, Evergreen could see the echoes of her closest friends. Freed's love of language, and gentile mannerisms. Bickslow's exuberance, his love of his spirit partners. Laxus's devotion to his friends, his complicated past with his father - and of course the blond hair. And she was strong, like them. So strong.

But in Lucy, Evergreen could find nothing of herself - see no echoes of her own. They shared a gender - as did half of Fiore's population. Nothing else.

So she kept silent, whenever the topic turned towards the Celestial Mage. And it did. Quite often. Sometimes, Evergreen suspected the entirety of the group to have formed varying stages of crushes on the girl; steeping in admiration, likeness, and pure physical attraction. Bickslow, with his unending praise for his defeat at her hands during the Battle of Fairy Tail, now long past. Freed, much quieter, in their shared hobbies and mindsets. Laxus... well, Evergreen found that the least surprising of all, in she were being honest. That the brightest sun in her life would be drawn to a like star was to be expected, and she would be concerned if he wasn't.

She envied Titania her easy friendship with the girl - just another thing she'd held against the redhead (though one she had kept to herself). Natsu, for bringing her into the fold first. Gray, for approaching her after.

Evergreen did have one thing, though. One thing that the others did not. She may not have been close to the blond girl, she may not have anything in common.

But she did have one memory.

A memory of a day where after a long job, she'd run into a lost, younger Lucy looking for directions to Hargeon. A Lucy with whom Evergreen had spent an entire afternoon, chatting over tea and gossiping about the latest Sorcerer Weekly issue. When the girl had mentioned that she, too, was a mage... Evergreen's suggestion that she join her own team when she became strong enough had been the most natural thing in the world. The others would not protest - why would they? In her, even then, resided so many afterimages of the people Evergreen loved the most.

This memory was hers, and hers alone.

For Lucy did not seem to remember.

And that was fine, really. Evergreen would keep this to herself, her jealous possession.

If Laxus, or Freed, or Bickslow were to pursue her, she'd cheer them on. She loved them more than anything. Evergreen would hold onto her friends, and the echoes of what might have been had she followed her own dream to Hargeon.

There were no echoes of Evergreen in Lucy.