Is Your Heart Colder Than Mine?

They can't just disappear!

(Natsu's POV)

  I waited for what felt like forever. I fumbled with the blankets of the bed and stared off at the ceiling. I wanted to bring Gray back in here, but I knew he and Lucy should have a chance to talk out the situation themselves. But still. Waiting wasn't doing much for me. I sat up, making the bed creak, and stretched when Happy flew in.  He looked at the door with a nervous expression. As I was about to ask what happened, Wendy and Carla slid in with a yelp. The straightened themselves up and looked to me. I tilted my head to the side out of confusion.

  Wendy stepped forward and asked, "Have you seen Lucy? I need to ask her something important but I can't find her anywhere."

"Well her and Gray went outside. She isn't there?" I asked as I got up from the bed.

"No, neither of them were there. In fact, no one has seen them in about an hour." Carla stated and slightly shrugged.

  I sighed and ruffled my hair as I lead them to the main hall and out the doors. Happy landed on my shoulder as I walked the perimeter of the building. Carla was right. I couldn't see them anywhere. But the part that worried me the most was that I couldn't pick up their scents either.

  "Hey Natsu. What do we do if we can't find them here? Are we gonna search all of Fiore? I'm not saying I don't wanna find them, I'm just really hungry." Happy grumbled.

  "They can't have gone that far in just an hour. But if we can't find them anywhere near here, we're gonna have to get some people to help." I told him as I tried to catch their scents in the late summer wind. We soon ran back to Wendy and Carla, who couldn't find anything as well. I could tell Wendy was starting to panic, so I told her that I'd go get Erza to help us. That seemed to calm her down a little but it made Happy a bit nervous. I pat her head before heading back inside.

"Hey Mira, have you seen Erza around by any chance?" I asked the white haired woman with as much confidence as I could muster.

"Oh! I believe I saw her walk to the infirmary. She was looking for Gray." Mira smiled.

I thanked her and dashed up stairs, trying my best not to fall on the way up, and nearly ran right into Erza. I sighed a breath of relief but slight fear that she was going to yell at me. She instead just looked at me with a confused look.

"Is something wrong Natsu?" She asked in a monotone voice.

"Yes actually. Wendy, Carla, Happy and I can't find Gray or Lucy anywhere. I know they aren't at Lucy's apartment because she would never allow Gray to be in there. But I'm just really worried because I can't even pick up their scents anymore.  What if they got into a bad fight somewhere?" I slightly panicked before Erza smacked me upside the head and rolled her eyes.

"Get a hold of yourself Natsu. They wouldn't get into that bad of a fight. Lucy is more mature than that, plus she knows that Gray could probably kick her ass. But if you guys are that worried, I will help you look. I don't really have anything better to do." She said with a small frown. But I could tell, she was as worried as I was. She walked downstairs to the doors and went outside as I trailed behind her. "Well let's see. If they left the area, they would have to leave some tracks. The road is really dusty and not many people walk by here." She turned the corner and crouched down. "It appears that they were sitting here. You can see Lucy's keys' indention here on the ground." She pointed out and I nodded. I walked a little further ahead of her and spotted splotches of what appeared to be blood on the ground. I slightly glared and continued forward. A few yards away there were shoe prints. The thing was though, they weren't from Gray or Lucy. I was absolutely certain. The only other shoe prints lead from the.door to the spot where Gray and Lucy sat. So these were definitely someone else's.

I brought these to Erza's attention and she furrowed her brows. "This definitely narrows down where they went." She mumbled and stood up.

"What do you mean? They don't have anymore foot prints and they can't just disappear." I replied sassily and crossed my arms.

"Yes you're right. But maybe, they followed in their footsteps." She turned and pointed to Lucy's shoe prints it looked like a smaller shoe had also walked in them.

"So you're saying... that someone followed them?" I asked.

She nodded, "Precisely. And perhaps the blood is from a wound the third person inflicted on them. I'm guessing they did it with a blunt object to the head. Otherwise there would be much more blood."

"Damn. Detective a Erza on the case." I mumbled.