Loke's POV

Candor was settling in surprisingly well, despite the initial distrust he garnered among the mages. But with Winter backing him up, Master decided it wouldn't cause any harm to give him a trial run as a mage of Fairy Tail. I couldn't say I was particularly pleased to have him with us (he did try to have Winter kill me, after all) but I knew how much it meant to Winter to allow Candor another chance at a good life, and I wouldn't  want to take that away from her.

Speaking of, Winter was out of commission for a while after our job in Somnia (for which we were payed very little, much to our chagrin). It wasn't that her wounds were that severe, but she'd drained herself of magic to a dangerous extent, and Master said if she didn't rest for a minimum of a week, she would only worsen her condition, to the point where she might not be able to take on any more jobs. 

We were entering day thirteen of her "imprisonment" when I walked up to her (and Lucy's) front door. A few days ago, Lucy, Gray, Natsu and Erza had gone on another job, something that just irked Winter to no end. Once again, she was forbidden from accompanying her favorite mage on a job while her sister (who didn't even understand how badass and freaking awesome Erza Scarlet was) went in her stead.

In any case, Lucy had asked me to check up on Winter every once in a while, to make sure she was properly resting and the like. And so here I was, fumbling for the spare key Lucy had given me (winking as she did so...) and trying to open the sisters' door as quietly as possible. The lights were off, as per usual, as Winter had taken to sleeping away the majority of the day while on bedrest and didn't much like the artificial sun getting in her way.

I shut the door behind me, wincing at the sharp click of the lock resetting, and began threading my way through the perpetual mess that blanketed the girls' carpet. Winter told me it was completely Lucy's fault, that she in no way contributed to turning their apartment into a labyrinth of toppled boxes and forgotten books.

I told her she needed to work on her lying skills.

I knocked lightly on the door to Winter's room; no response. She was a ridiculously deep sleeper, so I wasn't surprised. This is how she'd greeted me every time I'd checked in. So, unperturbed, I turned the handle and pushed open the door, a soft greeting already on my lips:

"Hey, Winter..."

Only, it wasn't just Winter I was greeting today.

There she was, curled up rather adorably in her tangle of blankets, a few pillows tossed to the floor, the only remaining one held greedily to her chest. And then there was Gray, lying beside her, one arm looped around her waist, face buried in her mane of hair.

Shirtless.

(Alright, that part wasn't surprising, but it made a muscle in my jaw tick uncontrollably nonetheless)

I must have shifted my weight unconsciously (probably trying to keep my balance so I refrained from tipping over in shock) because a creak rippled through the air, and Winter blinked open her eyes. She - realizing she was trapped in the Ice-Make Mage's arms - sighed, dislodging the bangs that had fallen over her eyes, and gently elbowed his side, causing him to stir. "Dude, off, now," she grumbled, uselessly kicking backwards in hopes of shoving him away from her. 

The only thing I could do was blink.

"Oh, it's morning." Gray sat up slowly, rubbing at his eyes, trying to stifle a yawn that dropped his jaw and stretched the muscles across his bare chest taut. 

"No shit, Ice Prince," Winter sighed. "Now go home. I still have a few hours of sleep before Loke comes-- Oh. Hey Loke." She smiled, just like usual, catching sight of me, frozen in the doorway. Even exhausted and bathed in incredulity, her smile made my heart ache. 

Gray looked over as well and a small smirk played at his lips as he slid from the bed, grabbing his battered white coat from a chair propped up against the wall. He gave me a friendly shove as he walked past, nearly knocking me back into the wall, I was so disoriented. "Mornin' Loke," he grinned. Without glancing back, he added, "See ya later, Winter. Hope you're feeling better soon."

And he left. Just like that. Leaving Winter and I in the excruciating silence that trailed in his wake. Well, excruciating and awkward for me, anyway. Winter didn't seem fazed by it in the least, judging by how she simply collapsed back into her comforters, absently inviting me over with a flick of her wrist.

Too unsettled to speak, I did as bid and dropped into the chair just beside her bed. So many questions, none of them easy to ask, none of them pleasant to form on my lips. 

The most articulate thing I could come up with, given the circumstances, was: "What... was that about?"

"Gray?" She snorted, sending her uncooperative hair into a small, silent gale. "That moron. Him, Lucy and everyone got back into Magnolia in the middle of the night, I think. Not sure. I was a little more than half-asleep when Lucy came stumbling in through the door, the rest of her team falling inside after her. She didn't say anything, just crashed. Natsu crawled into her bed, and I don't think she noticed until this morning, when she shrieked like a goddamn Vulcan and literally kicked him out of the apartment." She sniggered, caught up in the memory. "Anyway, Erza slept on the couch and Gray came in here cause he didn't wanna sleep on the floor. I just didn't have the energy to kick his ass out last night, so here we are."

It took a moment for her words to seep through the blood rushing in my ears, but as they did, an infinite weight slipped from my shoulders and I hunched forward, burying my face in my hands. This girl... 

"Lucy, Natsu and Erza all left to get breakfast or something," she went on, oblivious to my muffled relief. "Gray was too lazy to do anything, so he didn't bother going.... Hey." She paused, finally seeming to notice the state of unrelenting unease I'd found myself in. I felt her warm hands wrap around my wrists, tugging my hands away from my face. "You ok? Is something bothering you? Cause I literally have all the time in the world right now, so if you wanna talk, I'm all ears."

While this was in no way what I'd actually been suffocating over, the words still came, unbidden, but truthful. "I'm... sorry."

Winter stiffened, half-finished in her action of propping herself up on her elbow. She nearly fell back into her ocean of mattress. She looked at me, eyes wide, brows hiking towards her guarded hairline. "What... Wait, why? What the hell could you be sorry about?"

My mouth went uncomfortably dry; I swallowed feebly, wringing out my anxious hands, my knee bouncing with nervous energy. "It's just..." I stopped, shook my head, tried again. "It's just... I realized something."

Her stricken brown eyes urged me to keep going, to spill my heart and let her deal with the consequences.

"We really shouldn't be partners."

"...Excuse me?"

"Whenever we're out on jobs together, you end up like this." I gestured stiffly to her current position: bedridden and wrapped in an unhealthy coat of bandages. "I just think that, maybe, I'm... I don't know, bad luck for you, or something, and I don't--"

Her gentle, unabashed laughter cut me off.

I blinked, waiting for her to finish.

"You.. you think I... I care," she choked out between half-swallowed laughs, "about getting hurt or whatever? Idiot. You're worse than Gray! Loke, I go out on jobs with you because I want to, despite the hell we usually have to go through. You're my friend; I don't blame you for the shit I have happen to me. Most of it's completely and utterly my own fault. I'm a reckless bitch, haven't I told you?"

A flicker of a smile crossed my lips, which she took as a good sign and forged ahead.

"We're partners, Loke," she said firmly, grabbing me suddenly by my collar and dragging me closer,  "and I don't plan on changing that any time soon." The feverish skin of her nose brushed over mine, and I (barely)  resisted the urge to close the minuscule gap she'd left between us. "And you know what? To prove it to you, I'm giving us a name. Like Levy's team. How about... Team Zodiac?"

I pulled away sharply, ripping her hand from my shirt and nearly succeeding in pitching myself over the back of the chair I still perched on. She looked at me oddly, the bright glow of concern mingling with uncertainty in her hooded brown eyes. 

Team Zodiac? She couldn't have... There was no way she'd figured it out. I refused to believe it. Three years I'd been a part of Fairy Tail, and no one had discovered the truth. Had I been too careless around her? Had I...?

"Loke...?" She waved a hand in front of my face, snagging me from my troubled thoughts. "If ya don't like it, just say so," she huffed, a childish pout pulling at her lips. "I just thought it was cool. It revolved around my being a Celestial Mage, so maybe that was selfish of me. Sorry. I didn't realize I was hogging all the attention with it."

"...No," I said after a moment's hesitation. "I overreacted. I like the name. It suits you." So she'd only meant it like that...

Her smile was too infectious for her own good, I decided. "Team Zodiac it is! Oh, and before I forget, Master came by the other day and he told me that you and me have to keep an eye on Candor while he's in his trial period. So it looks like Team Zodiac'll have three members!"

"...What?"

I never got to hear her answer, because at that precise moment, there was an explosive shout that I recognized as Natsu's:

"Who the hell did this to our guild?!"

Winter and I were up and moving before the final syllable had left his lips, her chasing after his despairing voice, me trailing behind her, worried she'd suddenly collapse from fatigue. She wasn't fully healed, and I knew whatever had happened to Fairy Tail, it wasn't going to be at all beneficial to her.

Who knew that one moment would be the thing that set in motion the climax of our time with Winter and Lucy?