"Lucy, what happened with the news? Was your dad really mad?"

"Thank you, Erza," Lucy said to her concerned friend. "And he was, at first. But I have something I want to ask you, too."

"About what?"

Lucy hesitated. Should she ask her friend about Jellal? She didn't want Erza to be hurt if she didn't know, but she could also satisfy her curiosity. In the end, she decided to let it go.

"Oh, I just wanted to know if it wasn't too crazy here, since both me and Dragneel weren't here."

Erza shrugged. "Well, Ms. Vermillion and Mr. Dreyar just barely got the reporters to stay as far as they are right now," she began, "and the people wouldn't shut up today. Seriously. I don't think anybody is talking about something besides Nalu."

"Nalu?" Lucy repeated, making a face. "What the heck is that?"

"It's a ship name for you and Dragneel," Erza explained calmly, although it looked like she was trying to hide a smile. "You know, the first two letters from yours and Natsu's names. Nalu."

"That is the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard," Lucy said loudly, "and I just spent the past twenty minutes with Natsu Dragneel, himself." She regretted her words as soon as she finished her sentence. After the entire class stared at her for two seconds, they all turned back and began gossiping about something new.

"Kill me now," Lucy groaned as Erza finally let out her smile. "I bet the news'll say I'm pregnant, tomorrow."

Erza laughed behind her hand. "I doubt your father will allow the reporters to keep talking about you and Natsu. Didn't he bribe them all to keep their mouths shut?"

Lucy gave her friend a look. "Did you not see all those reporters outside?" she asked, gesturing at the windows. "If they were paid by my dad, they either gave the money back, or are going to continue bothering me anyways."

"You two, back there! Gossip after class, please."

At the teacher's sudden voice, Lucy and Erza quickly sprung their heads away from each other, acting like they hadn't been talking. When had the man even come in, anyways? They glanced up innocently at the tired-looking teacher, whose name Lucy had honestly forgotten, who just sighed and turned back to the board.

However, Lucy and Erza hasn't been the only ones not paying attention to the lesson. There were plenty of kids with their phones out, and their soft snickering slightly unnerved the young Heartfilia.

"Hey."

Lucy glanced over at Erza, who held an open book in front of her face.

"Are you still coming to detention? Jellal, Juvia, and Levy are coming."

"Of course I am," Lucy replied with an obvious tone. "I'm not letting a detention get on my permanent records. Hey, I almost forgot to ask, did you three take the bus? I know I'm the one who takes us on . . ." Lucy stopped talking when she noticed that Erza's gaze was behind her. Turning around slowly, Lucy looked up into the stern face of their teacher.

"Um, hello."

* * * * * * * * * *

"Lucy, I'm so glad you're here! And Natsu, I saw you in the hallways earlier, but I couldn't say hello."

"Mira? What're you doing here?" Lucy asked in surprise. "Where's Ms. Vermillion?"

"Oh," Mira giggled, "your supervisor had a short meeting last period, but it still hasn't ended, so I'm temporarily watching you guys."

"Aren't we in the same grade?" Jellal asked as he leaned against the wall next to Erza. "And we don't need a babysitter. Most of us are here because we want to be."

"Please, I know you're internally screaming about being able to stay with us for a longer time," Erza scoffed with her arms crossed. "Especially me."

"Yeah, but it's not the good type of screaming. I have somewhere else I need to be. I don't have time for detentions."

As Erza and Jellal bickered with each other, Lucy wondered about her thoughts related to the male senior. She wasn't close enough to him to ask him directly, but she also wasn't sure she wanted a messenger to receive an answer.

"Alright, everyone," Mira suddenly said cheerfully, clapping her hands together once. "Let's the seven of us talk about something together as a group."

"Sure," Gray said with false enthusiasm as he stepped away from Juvia. "Let's start with the Nalu ship, shall we? I'd first like to congratulate the genius who came up with that name, because it's one of the stupidest thing I've heard of."

There were small sniffling sounds, and then a full-out cry could be heard from Mira in the following seconds. "I'm not sad," she sobbed. "I'm not crying."

"Ah, you must've come up with the name, Mira," Gray said awkwardly. He tried to comfort the senior as an angry Juvia got held back by Levy and Gajeel.

Suddenly, Lucy had a good idea. She took out the notebook she had penned in front of Natsu, earlier. Maybe all of them were dreaming about an alternate lifestyle.

"Let's change from the topic. Who here, besides me and Dragneel, had a dream with us, but in another lifestyle?"

Natsu groaned loudly from where he was standing. "Are you still going on about this?" he asked. "I thought you had ditched the dumb idea."

"Oh, so you're telling me you have absolutely zero interest in trying to figure out what they mean?" Lucy shot back. "See, I don't believe you when you say you don't care about them. I know they're not one-time things for you."

"Did I ask you to believe me?" Natsu asked. "And besides, even if you are right, what are you going to do when you figure out what they mean? Nothing. They're just regular dreams. They're not real."

"They aren't just regular dreams!" Did Dragneel not feel the same way she did when she saw these dreams? "You actually see the scenario from a third person point-of-view, but you know what you're thinking. And, you don't just get these dreams when you sleep. You told me you saw something when we were in Exit 7, earlier."

"Wait, when you two were in the where?" Gajeel interrupted, stepping up. "Why didn't you tell, Dragneel? Unless, events unable to speak of --"

"Gajeel!" A red-faced Levy, although she wasn't the only one, smacked the ex-delinquent before he could finish.

"Oh, don't worry, Shrimp," he smirked, resting his arm on Levy's head. "You'll be able to know what it feels like one day. Probably."

Now red-faced for a different reason, Levy smacked Gajeel a lot harder than the previous time, and stomped over next to Lucy.

"Levy should try to understand Gajeel," Juvia said to the short girl. "He is not that good at flirting, see. He used a hi-then-bye approach at Phantom Lord."

"Hi-then-bye?"

"He would only speak to a girl once, then never look at her again after they --"

"Hey, don't you have to stalk Gray, or something?" Gajeel interrupted, shoving the surprised male into Juvia's open arms.

"So, you want to answer the question I asked you before?" Lucy snapped to Natsu when she realized they were the only ones not doing anything.

"Even if I wanted to, which I don't, I don't remember the question," Natsu replied smugly. "So ha."

"It's okay, I'll repeat the question for you," Lucy said add if she were talking to a toddler. "What did you see in your non-regular dreams?"

"Why, so you can write everything down in your precious notebook?" Natsu replied in the same tone. "No thanks, I'd rather not have another wannabe reporter write something down about my private life."

"Well, the reporters wouldn't be wanting to write something about your private life if you hadn't started a crappy rumor in the first place."

"I'm going to do a Heartfilia here, but it was Gray's fault. I had nothing to do with it."

"Stop." Lucy raised her hand in a halting gesture. "You're going to do a Heartfilia here? What the hell is that supposed to mean?"

"It means I'm going to do what the Heartfilias are best at, which is putting the blame on others," Natsu said slowly. "Am I wrong?"

Lucy gritted her teeth angrily. She should've just bashed his face in, in Exit 7. She had thought they could hold a temporary truce in their mutual curiosity behind the dreams, but she was clearly wrong. Just as she was about to get physical in the smirking bastard, she heard footsteps running towards them.

"I can't believe I'm late on the first two days! I'm so sorry, everyone. I should've given Mira the key, at least. You're all waiting outside, again. The Third and I were trying to get the press to leave, and we just barely managed to get them all to leave."

Lucy, Levy, Erza, Juvia, Mira, Natsu, Gajeel, Jellal, and Gray stopped what they were doing, and looked up at, or down, rather, at Ms. Vermillion, who slightly frowned when she saw the seven of them.

"Was there an issue, Mira?"

As Mira tried to come up with a suitable excuse, Lucy took a brief glance around the hallway.

She and Natsu had obviously been yelling at each other, Erza and Jellal seemed to have just made up, Juvia was still holding on tightly to a limp Gray, and Gajeel's face seemed to have been hit by . . . Levy's . . . bag. Lucy was definitely asking her friend about this, later.

"I'm really sorry," Mira was saying to Ms. Vermillion when Lucy decided to pay attention again. "I tried to stop them at first, but then I wondered if it wouldn't be better to just leave them be. It's not as if this is a first-time occurrence, after all."

After a few seconds, Ms. Vermillion nodded, the smile back on her face. "Alright. Thank you for staying here, Mira. Have a safe trip home."

"It was no problem," Mira assured, her usually cheerful face, cheerful again. "I hope you have fun with the kids today, too, First."

"Wait, Mira gets to call you First, too?" Natsu asked as the six followed Ms. Vermillion into the detention room.

"Well, she does help out a lot," Ms. Vermillion said. "I think she spends more time in the office, actually, than in her classes. She's gotten quite close to many of the teachers here.

"But we're not here to talk about Mira," Ms. Vermillion said, "no matter how sweet she is. First, I'm delighted that you all decided to come again. It makes me love my job." As she said this, she slipped her shoes off and jumped onto the teacher's desk again.

"Second, I want you all to make a circle like I did last time, surrounding this desk I'm sitting on. Go on," she added encouragingly when nobody moved. Eventually, Erza finally stepped up, and everyone else quickly followed suit.

"Good! Now sit down, all of you, before I tell you what I have planned for today."

The six sat in the circle, suspiciously identical to the order they sat in on Wednesday. Although no one complained, this meant Lucy and Natsu had reason to make eye contact, so they glared at each other menacingly. This was what Lucy got when she tried to stop fighting with Natsu.

"Now," Ms. Vermillion began carefully, "if I remember correctly, both Lucy and Natsu talked about a dream they had, both involving the other person."

Lucy cut off her glaring contest with Natsu, interested by what the head was starting with. If she made Natsu tell Lucy about his dreams, well, Lucy was willing to temporarily try to keep peace with the annoying Dragneel. She secretly sneaked quick glance at said person. His face showed annoyance, but his eyes showed a sign of interest and relief. Lucy smirked to herself; the bastard really did want to know, he just didn't want to give into her.

"Wait, we have to spend the entire detention hearing these two talk about their dreams?" Jellal suddenly asked. "I'd rather do absolutely nothing, or just leave. I don't really care if I get a detention my records, see."

Erza casually jabbed the person to the left of her with her elbow, causing Jellal to double over in pain. "Sorry for that, Ms. Vermillion," she said sweetly. "Jellal would actually love to be here with us."

Ms. Vermillion nodded, the cheerful smile still on her face. "Good! Um, why don't you start, Natsu? On Wednesday, I remember you asked Lucy about something related to your dream. Tell us about what happened in it."

"Why do I --"

"Hold on!" Lucy interrupted, frantically flipping through her notebook for a clean sheet. "Okay," she finally said, looking up, pen ready in her hand. "You can start now."

"You're seriously going to write all this down? What do you plan to be when you grow up, a novelist?"

Lucy glared at Natsu, although she was internally glad that she looked like a novelist, unless he was just joking. "Just tell us about your dream," she snapped.  

Natsu rolled his eyes, but he finally began to speak.

A/N:

When they're explaining the dreams, they will be in more detail, since the ones you first saw were only dialogue.