Lucy Heartfilia woke up groggy and cranky the next morning, to her blaring alarm clock. Without opening her eyes, her left hand reached over and repeatedly smashed the annoying contraption until it gave one last feeble shrill and stopped. The blonde rolled over and slowly opened one eye to check the time. Her eye slowly focused on seeing that the little hand was pointed straight down while the long hand was pointed straight up. 'Eugh... 6:00 AM.' She groaned softly and stretched her stiff muscles. The celestial mage hadn't had a good night's sleep at all.

Looking out the window, she saw that the sun was slowly peeking through the mountain tops and that there were no clouds in sight. 'Looks like there won't be any rain today.' After a few minutes of watching the sunrise, Lucy started to get ready to leave and meet with Laxus.

Her top priority was a nice hot bath. 'Who knows when I'll get another chance with where we're going for the mission.' she figured while she soaked and scrubbed herself pink. All she knew was that it was going to be cold. 'Man, I really hate the cold...' she blanched.

Wanting to look a little nice in front of the lightning dragon slayer, she threw on a blue soft-knit jumper over a short black skirt, a pair of black tights and her favorite brown boots. Inspecting herself in the mirror, she decided to summon Cancer to fix her hair. Pulling out Cancer's key, Lucy called out, "Open, Gate of the Giant Crab!" In a flash of light, the black haired man with cornrows appeared in front of Lucy.

"What kind of hairstyle would you like today? Ebi." Cancer asked while snipping his twin scissors.

"Morning, Cancer. I'm not sure. I want to look nice but not too nice as I'm heading out for a mission. Can you do a style that's pretty but won't get in the way?" Lucy requested while twirling her hair in front of her. It was as long as Erza's now as she had let her hair grow out after the GMG. The blonde always wanted to and after making friends with Flare, the redhead had convinced her to do so.

"Of course. Ebi." The celestial spirit then got to work.

Magnolia Train Station - 7:52am

A bored looking Laxus was leaning against one of the pillars just next to the entrance at Magnolia station. Listening to his sound pod, with his eyes partially closed, passersby assumed that he was oblivious to the world. In reality, he was focusing his senses so he could locate a certain blonde amongst the crowd.

Women and young girls alike, when spotting the handsome young man, would try to get his attention by fluttering their eyelashes at him or swaying their hips as they walked by. The dragon slayer simply ignored them all and continued to wait for Lucy to arrive.

One of the women, eyeing Laxus, boldly approached him. Swaying her hips, she sauntered towards Laxus and stopped directly in front of him. She was slim, well-endowed and was wearing far too revealing clothing for it to be appropriate in public. She would even put Cana's attire to shame.

"Hey, handsome. My name's Nikki and I'm just passing by this town. If you're not too busy, do you want to show me around? I'm sure you and I can have a really good time." she purred while running her hand up and down Laxus' arm.

Laxus gave her an unimpressed look and tsked. "Go bother somebody else, lady. I'm busy and ain't interested," he replied with disdain.

"What?! How dare you speak to me like that?! Do you know how many guys would kill to have a chance with me?" she indignantly screeched.

Not even bothering to look at the fuming woman now, Laxus bluntly said, "Good for you but I ain't one of them. Now like I said, go bother someone...." he trailed off, distracted when he smelled that Lucy was nearby. Moving away from the pillar and completely forgetting about the woman, Laxus picked up his travel bag and walked towards where he could smell strawberries, chocolate and a hint of jasmine.

When her scent got stronger, the crowd parted to reveal Lucy. Laxus had to stop and stare at the vision she presented. She was on her tiptoes, eyes searching left and right for him. Her outfit suited her very well and hugged her in all the right places. Her blonde hair was in a loose long french braid that started from one side of her head, traveled diagonally down to the other side and ended across her left shoulder. He couldn't understand how she could look both sexy and innocent at the same time. Noticing other men eyeing her appreciatively, he growled low in his throat and hurriedly walked over to her, glaring at some of them on the way. The ones who saw his look gulped nervously and quickly started walking in the opposite direction.

Lucy noticing Laxus approaching smiled nervously and greeted him. "Hi, Laxus. Hope you weren't waiting too long."

"Hey, Blondie. And Nah, you're just on time." he greeted in reply. "C'mon, let's grab a compartment before they get busy." He started walking in the direction of their train but stopped when he felt her grab onto the sleeve of his coat. He turned back to look at her in question.

"Oh! Sorry!" Lucy hurriedly let's go and explained, "I still need to buy a ticket. And I forgot to ask Mira where we were going."

"Don't worry about it, Blondie. I got us both tickets already and, so you know, we're headed to Hail Town in the country of Iceberg." He was glad that she was at least a little comfortable enough to touch him, although he would have preferred if she had grabbed his hand instead of his coat. 'Gotta go slow with her. She's still too skittish around me.'

"Really? Thanks, Laxus. How much do I owe you?" Lucy was a little surprised as her team usually bought their own train tickets.

"Nothing at all. I invited you to come with me, so let me pay for it." he waved it off carelessly. Lucy started to protest but Laxus interrupted her to say, "Now cmon. We gotta go or else we'll miss the train."

They quickly walked over to the platform and boarded their train, just as the first whistle sounded. Luckily it wasn't that busy anymore and Laxus found their private compartment straight away. After putting their bags away, both blonde mages sat across from each other and got comfortable.

"So what exactly is this mission and why did they ask Fairy Tail to help out? Isn't Hail Town a bit far?" Lucy asked curiously. As far as Lucy knew, the country of Iceberg was roughly a six-hour train ride to the northeast, past Fiore. She had never been there but have heard that it was as cold as its name and that not many people inhabited the country. The Kingdom of Bosco was closer and Lucy knew there were capable mages there.

"Gramps and I thought the same too. We checked it out and there were reports that a small dark guild has made itself at home near Hail Town. The request specifically asked for a lightning mage to help. Has something to do with their guild master being weak to lightning. The Magic Council have also been informed and will be arriving in a few days to take the members in custody after we deal with 'em." Laxus informed the celestial mage.

"And the Master was okay with you initially going alone? Usually, when you had to clean up a dark guild you would take the Thunder God Tribe with you." she thought out loud. It was one of the things she had noticed when Laxus went out on missions with the team. She would worry a little while they were away as she knew that they would be up against a dark guild. The council has been proactively disbanding any dark guilds that crop up all over Earthland. As the number of smaller dark guilds had been increasing recently, the council had no other choice but to seek help from other magical guilds.

"Oh..? Noticed that did you? The others just assumed that I was going on regular missions with Bickslow, Freed, and Ever." Laxus smirked, waiting for Lucy's reaction.

Lucy turned as red as a tomato, realizing that she practically confessed that she was stalking him. 'Way to go, dummy! Now he's definitely going to know!'

"Um...Well.. That is... I just heard Freed mention it one day to Mira!" Lucy made up, desperately trying to cover up her blunder and turned to look out the window, avoiding Laxus' gaze.

The dragon slayer merely raised an eyebrow towards the flustered celestial mage, before groaning slightly when they heard the second whistle go off, signaling that their train would be leaving in a few seconds.

Lucy still blushing, looked sideways at Laxus when she heard him groan. She noticed that he looked a little paler than normal and that he now had his sound pod back on. His eyes were shut tightly, as he frowned. 'No way. Don't tell me...'

Tapping Laxus gently on his knee. "Um, Laxus? Are you okay?" Lucy asked worriedly, her embarrassment forgotten. She already had a suspicion on what was wrong.

Opening one eye, Laxus grimaced, "I'll be fine, Blondie. Why don't you get some shut eye and I'll wake you when we get there?" He then gave a particularly loud groan when the train jolted to speed up.

"Laxus, do you get motion sickness? Like Natsu and Gajeel?" she enquired softly. Her chocolate colored eyes were looking at him with concern.

"It's nothing I can't handle. Don't worry about it. And whatever you do, don't let Salamander know or I'll never hear the end of it." he grumbled in discomfort.

"Either way, I don't like how you're looking at the moment. I can maybe try something that usually helps when I travel with Natsu and when Wendy's troia spell doesn't work." she offered and blushed again.

Laxus, a little intrigued, asked, "How exactly do you help, Salamander?"

"Well.. When he gets motion sickness, he usually... usually, lays his... head on my lap... He says it calms him down from the worst of it." she explained and tried to look everywhere but at the man in front of her, missing the slight tightening of his lips.

'Bloody flame brained bastard.' Laxus thought jealously as his inner dragon roared in displeasure. It was a good thing he knew that Natsu and Lisanna were mates or else he'd be jumping out of this train to challenge Natsu back in the guild.

"Do you want to maybe try it?" he heard Lucy ask when he didn't say anything.

"Sure. Worth a shot," he answered a little weakly. The train's motion was starting to really get to him.

Lucy got up from her seat and sat next to Laxus. Grabbing his coat that was lying next to him, she rolled it a few times into a makeshift pillow. When she was ready, she gently tugged Laxus down and placed his head on her lap. Out of habit with Natsu, she started running her fingers through his spiky hair. 'It's surprisingly soft...' she mused while still flushing, not missing the fact how her team would freak if they saw her and Laxus right now.

Laxus was in heaven. Not only was he alone with his mate but she was touching and taking care of him. He had never been thankful of his motion sickness, but at that very moment, he was glad to have it. Moving his head to a more comfortable spot on her lap, Laxus sighed in contentment and was lulled to sleep by her gentle ministrations.

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