As Rogue awakens the next morning he recalls everything that went on last night when he got back to Sabertooth, with a groan.

Flashback

"WHAT THE HELL WERE YOU THINKING ROGUE?!" Said a very furious Minerva.

He replies calmly with, "I wasn't, my body acted on its own accord. But I will admit that I took her to the infirmary because I was disgusted by your brutal actions. She may be weaker than you but that gives you no right to torture someone."

Minerva's blood was reaching it's boiling point as she says through gritted teeth, "When the games are over you will be removed from Sabertooth permanently."

Rogue scowls at this and says, "I was planning on leaving anyways."

With a "Tch" Minerva turned around and stomped off down the hall. Rogue turned in the opposite direction and started heading towards his and Sting's room.

As Rogue walks in and closes the door behind him he turns to see a slightly ticked Sting, with his arms crossed, and his foot tapping impatiently. With a sigh Rogue asks, "I assume you want an explanation, am I correct?"

Turning back into his normal self, after he looked like a father who's son had just come home two hours after his curfew, he says, "No shit I want an explanation what was that shit you pulled out there?!"

With a deep sigh Rogue replies, "I was doing everything I could to keep myself from going down there and helping Lucy. What broke that control was when she weakly called out to me and said my name before she was dropped. My body moved on its own and transformed into a shadow and moved quickly to catch her."

Forgetting most of that explanation Sting smirked and said, "So Blondie called out to you instead of her guild mates, eh? Is there something you need to tell me Rogue?"

"What is there to tell? We've only met a few times."

"Ah, but they must have been pretty important moments for her if your name was what was on her lips when she needed someone to save her."

Rogue scowls but also has a light pink blush on his face as he says, "Stop assuming nonsense Sting."

Sting smirks, "Whatever dude, you may not have seen it, but when we first met Natsu and Blondie I saw the way she looked at you. She looked like she saw a ghost."

As that leaves his mouth Sting's eyes widen as he says, "Wait a minute you said that girl you said you travelled with 8 years ago had blonde hair and joined Fairy Tail. If I remember correctly Blondie is the only blonde chick in that guild. Do you think she remembers you and is waiting for you to remember?"

With a sigh Rogue says, "I don't actually know if she successfully joined Fairy Tail I just know she wanted to. I also feel like she wouldn't have wanted to wait for me to remember. I think you're getting delusional Sting."

Said male pinches the bridge of his nose and whispers to himself, though Rogue can hear him, "And he thinks I'm the idiot here."

Rogue sighs and says, "Look Sting, I don't want to get my hopes up on if it's her or not. If it is then I think there should be a point where I realize it and if it's not then at least I wouldn't have made her feel awkward by not waiting and just asking about it."

Sting shakes his head with a sigh and says, "Whatever man, I'm goin to bed."

Rogue grunted and did the same after getting his pajamas on and laying down. After watching the ceiling and thinking for a while he started to drift off to sleep before being fully immersed in the world of dreams.

End of Flashback

Feeling a head ache coming on at the memory, he decided it was time to get up and get ready for the games. As he got showered and dressed, he thought about the conversation he had with Sting the night prior. Lucy could very well be the girl he travelled with, but he wasn't 100% sure yet and he was going to wait until he was, because he didn't want to make their friendship awkward for thinking it. Lucy was too precious to him to want to fuck anything up accidentally.

He finally made it to the arena and went to the Sabertooth balcony where Sting greeted him with his usual cocky smirk.

He looked over the arena and when his eyes landed on Fairy Tail's balcony he immediately started looking for a certain blonde. When he couldn't find her he made a point to assume she was still in the infirmary and would visit her later. The competition started and he decided he was just going to walk around the inside of the arena for a while.

As he's roaming the halls he sees a door. Curious, he walks up to it and opens it slightly, while wincing at the obnoxious creak that it produces. He looks inside to see a spiral stair case. When he walks into the cylindrical tower like structure he stands in the middle and looks straight up. The stair case goes up for about 100 feet.

He starts to climb up, making sure to avoid the stairs with cracks in them in case they were to collapse. It takes him about five minutes to reach another door at the top. He opens it and walks out to see that he can spot the whole arena from above, including the audience.

"Beautiful isn't it?"

Hearing a voice causes the shadow dragon slayer to almost jump out of his skin. He turns around only to give a sigh of relief when he sees that it's none other than the blonde celestial Mage. Remembering that she has spoken he quickly responds with, "Yes it is. I didn't even know it was here."

Lucy walks to stand next to him while looking over the railing at the arena and says, "Yeah I found this on the first day before We had to gather for the first competition. This is only the second time I've been up here though."

There's a moment of silence before Rogue looks over and takes in her appearance. When he sees that she's mostly healed and just has a bandage around her neck and bandaids in a few places he gives a small smile and says, "I see you recover fast."

With a chuckle Lucy replies, "It helps to have a sky dragon slayer that can heal you fast."

Rogue just nods and turns his head back to the arena. His mind starts to wonder off as he thinks about whether Lucy could be the girl from all those years ago. She was the only blonde girl in Fairy Tail. There's no reason he can think of that the girl wouldn't have made it into Fairy Tail. He remembers how close Frosch seemed to be to her, like she knew Lucy.

As his mind keeps rambling on he fails to realize that Lucy is starting to lean dangerously too far over the railing while cheering on whoever was doing the competition from her guild. One of the fragile decorative stones that is holding up the top part of the railing was starting to crack under Lucy's weight, and before she knew it she was teetering over the edge.

Rogue was pulled out of his thoughts when he heard a gasp. When he looked over to see what was wrong his eyes widened as he saw Lucy starting fall over the railing. Frozen, he just watched as she starts to go over until he hears one thing that makes his mind go blank before he lunged his arms over the railing to grab her hands, "RORO!!"

Flashback

As Lucy was leaping from rock to rock in the river that ran through the forest they were traveling through, Rogue was on the bank watching her closely before he says, "Lucy you're going to fall in and get hurt, would you please come back to the river bank?"

Lucy just looks at him and smiles, "I'll be fine RoRo."

Rogue looks at Lucy in slight horror and yells, "RORO?!"

Lucy just shrugs and says, "Yeah it's the nickname I'm giving you."

Rogue blushes a little and repeats it in a whisper, "RoRo?"

His head shoots up when he hears a shriek and Lucy call out, "RORO! HELP!"

"LUCY!!" He jumps onto a rock and leaps to the rock Lucy occupies and grabs her before jumping to the other side of the river bank.

Lucy hangs onto Rogue for dear life with her eyes glued shut. Rogue sighs and says, "You can open your eyes now LuLu."

Hearing his voice she opens her eyes and looks at him before she realizes what he's called her, "LuLu?"

Rogue smirks and says, "Well if you get to give me a nickname I get to give you one."

Lucy smiles fondly at the boy and gets off of him to stand up and brush off the dirt that had gathered on her closes from their landing. With a giggle Lucy says, "Alright I kind of like it. No one's ever called me that before. If I ever make other friends I'll be sure that if they come up with the same nickname I deny them the use because it's solely yours to call me."

Rogue blushes and looks at the ground shyly saying, "You don't have to do that."

"But I want to." She says with a closed eyes toothy smile.

Rogue gives her a small smile and says, "Well we better find a place to camp it's getting dark."

"I agree it's going to get cold here too so we should probably share body heat and sleep next to each other tonight."

Rogue blushes and nods before he walks ahead of her to keep her from seeing the blush.

End of Flashback

Rogue lunges his arms and torso over the railing and grabs Lucy's left hand as he screams, "LULU!!"

He quickly hoists her up and brings her into his chest where she hugs him tightly while shaking slightly and sobbing quietly.

Rogue runs his hand over her hair shushing her, "It's alright. I've got you."

Lucy just keeps on sobbing as she nuzzles further into his chest and tightens her grip around him. With a small chuckle Rogue says, "I see you're clumsy as ever LuLu."

Lucy's sobbing abruptly stops as she hears him call her the nickname he had given her 8 years ago. She looks up slowly and looks into his blood red orbs with hope and asks, "Do you finally remember RoRo?"

Rogue just nods with a smile and says, "100% I know it's you now."

She smiles widely and buries her face back into his chest and sobs louder as she says, "I've missed you so m-much. I-it was so w-weird not having you a-around after we separated. I didn't get to join Fairy Tail until about a year after we went our separate ways so it was so lonely without you."

Rogue smiles and buries his nose into the crook of her neck as he says, "Well, I'm here now. And there's no way you're getting rid of me because after the GMGs I'm joining Fairy Tail."

Lucy, hearing this, freezes and looks up with him to look into his red eyes to see if he really means it. She sees his sweet smile and smiles in return before she squeals and jumps up to wrap her arms around his neck and hug him tighter. Unfortunately knocking them both over in the process. They look into each other's eyes and without realizing it start to inch their faces closer and closer...

"ALRIGHT THAT'S IT FOR TODAY'S GRAND MAGIC GAMES. COME BACK TOMORROW FOR MORE COMPETITIONS AND BATTLES!"

They both jump apart and look away with deep red blushes on their faces. Awkwardly they both cough and say, "I should go."

They laugh and Rogue opens the stair case door for Lucy to exit first. She mock-curtsies and says, "Why thank you, Sir Rogue."

Rogue mock-bows and says, "But of course, Madam Lucy."

They both get to the bottom of the stairs before they go their separate ways to their guilds, but not before smiling and waving back at each other.

Both of them only thought one thing as they walked back 'Damn it. So close.'