Natsu was late for school. He had woken up to his brother, Zeref, throwing three magazines and a newspaper at him, all of which had his and Heartfilia's names in them. His father wasn't too mad, although he was pissed that his son had to with the Heartfilias, and "especially a romantic one, at that." At first, he didn't want him going to school, as there might have been reporters there, but Natsu was able to convince him otherwise.

"What if Heartfilia goes but I don't? It'll make her look unafraid of what people might think of her, and respect her more for it, while I'm just hiding at home."

Igneel Dragneel had then proceeded to literally push his son out the front door, causing Natsu to almost step on his blue cat, Happy, on the way.

As Natsu drove to school he wondered if Heartfilia really was going to show up. Probably not, though. She seemed like the type of person to consider her father's words as the final law, and Natsu didn't think Jude Heartfilia would let his daughter go anywhere. In fact, he was probably scheduling for her transfer to a different school, although this could've just been Natsu's mind begging.

"Mister Dragneel!"

Natsu slammed on the brakes when he saw the crowd of reporters and cameramen run towards him. It seemed like they hadn't been allowed inside of the school, so they were waiting outside, waiting for him. He made a quick U-turn and drove away as quickly as possible, running through two red lights and four stop signs. Eventually, he couldn't see the reporters anymore, so he slowed down, wondering what he should do. In the end, he decided to park behind Fairy Tail Low. He doubted any reporters would be hanging around there.

After parking, Natsu wrapped his scarf around his face in order to avoid attention, trying to slip into the building. However, as he did so, he crashed right into somebody from the opposite side.

"Ow, watch it!" Thankfully, the scarf had muffled Natsu's shout, so the only people who could hear him, were him and the person he had run into, who turned out to be . . .

"Heartfilia?"

"Dragneel? What the hell are you doing with that scarf around your head? You're not a ninja."

"I was trying to hide my face," Natsu snapped, although he removed his scarf. "It's called a disguise. I didn't want to draw any attention to myself."

Lucy scoffed. "Are you kidding me? That scarf could attract people from across the street. Now, get out of my way. I, unlike you, actually plan on getting to class before the reporters find me."

"Oh yeah, same." Natsu walked alongside the blonde heiress as they both walked into Fairy Tail Low. As the two buildings were connected at some point, it would be safer to pas through, like this. However, it was soon clear that neither Natsu nor Lucy knew where they were going, and there was no one around to ask. Also, there was an awkward silence between the pair, which was also getting tenser as the seconds passed. In the end, Natsu couldn't take it anymore, and tried to start up a pleasant conversation. 

"Those reporters are really something, huh?"

"No thanks to you," Lucy replied in a clipped tone. "And I know you say I always say it's your fault, but it really is, this time. I had nothing to do with that rumor starting."

Natsu sighed irritably, wishing he had never tried to talk to her in the first place. "I wasn't going to say anything," he said crossly, as what she had said was partially true. "And I was just trying to --"

"Oh, Romeo!" Lucy cut Natsu off and ran to a kid in the hallway. The two began talking, and Natsu also walked over to them, curious about their conversation.

"I'm not too sure, but I think it connects at Exit 7," Romeo was saying to Lucy. "But why are you asking? The place is l--" He stopped when he made eye contact with Natsu. "Are you Natsu Dragneel?" he asked him, pushing Lucy away to run up to him.

Natsu smirked at Lucy's surprised expression and the kid's awed face. "Yep," he said proudly.

"You're so cool! You're my role model, I want to be just like you when I grow up."

The smile on Natsu's face grew wider when he saw Lucy's expression. "Aw, thanks, kid," he said to Romeo. "I got this far by never listening to what anyone told me to do, you remember that."

"Yeah, so you know your role model is a complete douche," Lucy said, getting over her shock. "Come on, Romeo. There's nothing good about that fish-headed boy over there."

"I am not  fish-headed."

"You said your head is salmon. That's a fish. Anyways, thanks for your help, Romeo," she said to the kid, not giving Natsu a chance to reply. "And you really need to find a better role model. Like me, for instance."

Natsu clucked his tongue. "What's so good about you?" he said to the egoist. "You're not good at anything."

The smug look on Lucy's face dropped in a flash. "I'll have you know I tutor this kid here," she said, gripping Romeo's right shoulder tightly. "I teach him English every Thursday, and another kid Math every Tuesday. I'm on the Honor Roll and my friends actually like me."

"Well, I'll have you know that I'm perfectly capable of continuing my father's business in the future," Natsu replied, as he couldn't think of anything else. "While I make the company better, you'll just drop the reputation of yours until it's hit rock bottom."

At this, "pissed" and "furious" were two understatements to what Lucy looked like. She was at the stage between ready-to-kill and fight-until-you-can't-breathe stage. She dropped her hand from Romeo and was ready to attack Natsu, but he was already gone by then.

Natsu ran as fast as he could to Exit 7. He had no idea why Lucy looked so mad, but he wasn't going to stop and ask what the problem was. Once he arrived in front of the correct door, he pushed on the already-open door, ready to run through, but someone was already standing inside of the room.

"Look, just because I'm pret-- Natsu!" Jellal looked up and made eye contact with the confused boy. "Um, what're you doing here?"

"Who were you talking to?" Natsu asked, ignoring his question. "Were you calling somebody?"

"What? Oh, um, yeah. So what're you --"

"Natsu. Dragneel."

Lucy's deadly tone made Natsu remember why he was at Exit 7 in the first place. "Well, it was nice talking to you, Jellal," he said, ready to run past Jellal before Lucy had the chance to reach him. "But I actually have to get to class, so . . ." Natsu ran at full speed, but he didn't seem to be going anywhere. He turned around and saw a fist on his collar. "Ah, hello, Heartfilia. How are things in your world?"

"Quite terrible, actually." She scoffed with disgust before leaning Natsu's face closer to hers. "And to think I thought you couldn't get any more worse. I don't know why I even bothered trying to talk to you."

Natsu raised an eyebrow. "This isn't about before, is it? About what I said?"

A muscle in Lucy's jaw twitched, and Natsu was getting ready to fight, but Lucy didn't seem to want to get physical. "No," she said emphatically. "I wanted to ask you about the dream you talked about in detention two days ago."

A dream? Natsu frowned. He thought he remembered something about a rainbow, and Heartfilia had definitely been in it, with him. "Um, yeah, what about it?"

At that moment, however, Lucy suddenly sneezed, which led to her loosening her grip on Natsu.

"Aha, freedom!" Natsu wriggled out of Lucy's grasp. "Hey, Jellal, can you tell me which way it is to Fairy Tail High?" He turned around to face his senior friend, but he was nowhere to be seen. "He left already?"

"Are you kidding?" Lucy scoffed after recovering, grabbing Natsu again and dragging him to the other side. "He left as soon as I grabbed you. And it's obvious, isn't it? There's a long hallway here, with a door on the other side."

Before Natsu could find some way to reply, a scene suddenly flashed in his head. He and Heartfilia were in a large room, similar to the one they were currently in, but this one had a bunch of red stuff surrounding the walls. He tried to reach for Heartfilia's hand, her doing the same, but they were both eventually blown backwards.

"Lucy!" Natsu crashed to the ground in reality as he screamed the same name he screamed in the vision. He blinked his eyes in confusion, and saw real-Heartfilia look down at him with a weird expression on her face.

"What's wrong with you?" she asked condescendingly. "I'm right here. Stop screaming. And my first name too, at that."

"What are you talking about? I didn't say anything."

Lucy rolled her eyes as Natsu got up. "Are you kidding? You yelled 'Lucy!' before landing on the floor."

"I didn't scream, the me in the dream did!" Natsu raised his voice, ready to fight, but Lucy didn't look ready again.

"You just saw something?" she asked. "You were in it? Was I in it?"

"Um, yeah," Natsu said slowly as Lucy suddenly began digging through her bag. "What the hell are you doing?"

Lucy dug out a pen and brown notebook from her bag, flipping to a new page. "Okay. Now, what did you see? Where were we? Was anybody else there? What was the mood? What was I wearing? What were you wearing? Did we say anything to each other? Don't leave out a single detail."

"Should I tell you how many times I blinked, too?" Natsu asked sarcastically as he began walking away towards the door. "I'm not telling you anything."

"Alright, first of all, that's the wrong door. You're going in the opposite direction. We just came out of there." 

Natsu turned around and realized that she was, unfortunately, right. 

"And second of all," Lucy continued as Natsu walked past her, "don't you want to know what the dreams mean? I've been having dreams with you in them too. Don't you think this means something?"

"I think it means you're crazy," Natsu replied nonchalantly, although he was kind of interested in what she had to say. "You read too much. Besides, that was a one-time thing." Plus two other dreams, Natsu added in his head as he got ready to pull the door open.

"Oh, please," Lucy said, running behind him. "I remember you talking about me and a tree with rainbow-colored leaves appearing in your dream in Detention. "You seemed pretty excited to talk about it back then. Now that I'm actually replying to you, you don't care?"

Natsu dropped his hand from the doorknob, turning around to face Lucy. "That's for me to know and you to find out," he said, as he honestly had no idea what the answer to her question was. He was curious, but he wasn't willing to go and do research just to find out. He turned back to the doorknob, ready to leave, but it was locked. "What the heck?"

"Yeah, it is quite 'What the heck?' isn't it?" Lucy snapped. "I seriously shouldn't bother. I mean, we're supposed to be dating each other. I should be avoiding you for as much as possible. What the hell am I doing?"

"No, this door won't open." Natsu jiggled the doorknob, twisting it in every direction. "I think it's locked."

Lucy laughed. "What are you talking about? No door locks from the inside. Besides, I saw Jellal walk out through this door. Move over, you're just weak."

Natsu smirked as he stepped aside for Lucy to try. If he couldn't get it open, Lucy didn't have a chance.

"Lucy Kick!"

Natsu's mouth dropped as Lucy aimed her foot at the doorknob. He was pretty sure he heard something crack, and that something most definitely wasn't Lucy's foot. Lucy tried the door again, and it actually opened.

"If I had known you would try it that way, I could've gotten us out even quicker than you did," Natsu defended when Lucy smiled mockingly at him. "And 'Lucy Kick'? What a dumb name."

"Dragneel? Heartfilia? What are you two doing here? I don't remember seeing you both in the morning, and I didn't think you two would be appearing, today."

"Mr. Dreyar!" Lucy turned to the head's assistant. "It's not Third Period yet, right? Me and Natsu ended up locked inside Exit 7, which is really ridiculous. Why do we have a door that locks from the inside?"

The head frowned. "Exit 7?" he repeated. "Why were you two in there?" He suddenly narrowed his eyes. "Were the news perhaps true? I had my doubts, but Mira was quite insistent --"

"No!" Natsu interrupted the old man. "We just coincidentally met, because we decided to go through Exit 7 from Fairy Tail Low to here, because of the reporters outside."

Mr. Dreyar nodded, then frowned again. "Wait, how did you get into Exit 7 in the first place? Those doors are always locked from both sides, so only staff members can get through."

Natsu frowned. "Really? The door was open when I went through." Then, he remembered something. "Hm, maybe Jellal had somebody open the door for him," he suggested.

"Jellal? Jellal Fernandez?" Mr. Dreyar repeated.

"Oh yeah," Lucy added. "He was able to get out through the door. I saw him."

"Uh . . ." At that moment, the bell rang, and students began wandering around. "Well, look at that! Go to Third Period, you two." Mr. Dreyar began walking away quickly.

Lucy raised an eyebrow at the retreating man's back. "That's odd; he didn't tell us how Jellal was able to get in and out."

"Yeah," Natsu replied. "I'll have to ask him later."

"Look, it's Natsu and Lucy," someone whispered. "They're together. Maybe they are dating."

"WE'RE NOT DATING!" 

At that one comment from someone, Natsu suddenly remembered that Heartfilia was his enemy, and that it would be best for the both of them to stay separated for as much as possible. With this thought, he quickly headed to Third Period.

A/N:

So, they are both starting to become civilized with each other! Sort of. Cheers to them both.