Cana leaves the room when the song is playing, throwing some excuse about getting new booze while they're waiting.

Unbeknownst to everyone except the Thunder God Tribe, Laxus trails after her.

It's when Cana's stretching for a wine glass on the top shelf-- Laxus reaches over her and takes it down, handing it to her.

Cana stares, strangely apprehensive.

She takes it, "thank you."

And Laxus leans back against the counter of the kitchen island.

"What?" Cana says, shuffling uncomfortably. "Something on my face?"

Laxus folds his arms-- "well, you're obviously not fine."

"That is your business exactly how?" Cana returns, pouring wine-- wine, not beer-- into her glass. "Never counted you for the caring type, mister delinquent."

"I might look like this, but I've known you the longest," Laxus says, "you hate wine. You only drink it when you're trying to pretend you're not a mental wreck."

Cana downs half the glass in one take, and swirls the rest of it around comprehensively, like it was a martini.

Their eyes land on each other's-- and for a painfully long minute, they say nothing.

Finally Cana puts the glass down.

"I came to Fairy Tail to look for my father," she says, "I found him, but he's not really what I imagined. Then Macao came by, and..."

She trails off, hands reaching for the wine again. She messes up her hair and grunts out in frustration.

"Man, why am I telling you this? Just forget it."

Laxus doesn't move from his spot, doesn't scoff, doesn't think of anything antagonizing.

Instead, he stays there... and stares, patiently waiting for Cana to continue.

"Just..." Cana finds the answer forced out of her, very willingly, "y'know, neither of us have any great father figures before Master." She chuckles, "but I think.. If I had a dad that actually knew who I was... I think he'd be a lot like Macao to me."

She glances toward the hall, and that movement isn't lost to Laxus.

"You know the phrase 'blood's thicker than water'?" Laxus says, "my dad used to say that against me all the time before Gramps took me back."

This time, Cana's the one staring at Laxus with an unreadable look in her eyes.

"When I met Freed, he told me... that it was bullshit, and the phrase was actually meant to say something that meant the literal opposite," Laxus tells her. "I don't remember the full phrase, though. But it was great to hear that."

Cana takes a sip from her wine, and stares into the red liquid. She smiles.

She hops up and retrieves another glass from the shelf, pouring out another quarter glass of wine before handing it to Laxus.

"To shitty dads?" she asks.

Laxus sighs. He knocks his glass against hers.

"Sure, whatever."

-

"Here guys, I brought cake!"

"Yay!"

"Oh? She's not staying in Fairy Hills," Levy says, "but her rent's much cheaper."

"I mean, we do give leeways to younger girls who are just starting out in the mage business," Erza says, "but Lucy's past that leeway by now, it'll be hard on her to keep up the rent right away."

"But that's certainly a nice deal, it's close by, and it's over the waterfront, too," Lisanna says, "she'll be living alone, but that's nice too."

The room erupts with laughter, loudest from Gildarts.

"You're ruining her dream!" he snorts inelegantly.

"Oh, Natsu, don't do that!" Lisanna laughs, hitting him on the shoulder in her laughter, "poor Lucy! She has to deal with this?"

"She was having such a nice relaxing bath, too," Cana sighs.

"Natsu just casually greets the girl that walks out in just a towel," Loke says, "oh! Instead of peeking into the bath, you wait for the naked girls to come to you!"

And then he's smacked in the face by a Mirajane with a Satan arm.

Natsu and Happy winces in unison, holding their cheek as if they'd been hurt, too.

Loke finger guns, "that was splendid."

Erza glints with admiration, "very beautiful kick. I must ask her to teach me that."

"Well, we don't get lots of chances to go to someone's house," Natsu says, "the dorms are gendered, after all."

"Yeah, it's been a while since any of us got ourselves a house on our own," Gray adds, "it makes the house worth breaking into."

"Mira-nee and us have a house," Lisanna says.

"But your house has Mira," Gray says, waving her off, "not worth risking death to go over and play."

"Plus Lucy's got a nice house," Erza says, "speaking of which, we raided her house in the ending song. This must be why."

"Yay, Lucy's house is the new hangout spot!" Natsu cheers.

Levy sighs, "Poor Lucy."

"She called you a feline creature," Lisanna repeats, holding back laughter.

Mira shrugs, "I mean, if he did that in my house the river's not where he's going to drown."

Happy squeaks, running behind Natsu, "Mira's scary!"

"Hey, Mira!" Natsu chides at her, "don't freak him out!"

Mira chuckles.

"See, Natsu, that's why you don't invade a girl's house," Loke says, "she has embarrassing secrets out in the open that she doesn't want you to see."

"Why are you phrasing it like he found her porn mags?" Gray retorts.

"See, Natsu, that's why you don't invade a girl's privacy," Levy repeats, very necessarily, "Lucy was so nice to you, now she's knocking you around."

"Yeah, you've been nothing but getting smacked around since the start of this episode," Elfman tells him.

"A diary?" Gray suggests.

"Or a letter?" Erza wonders.

"Isn't it too thick for a letter, though?" Mira asks, "or maybe it's a stack of unsent letters."

"Or a diary," Loke returns to the first suggestion.

"Or porn," Levy jokingly suggests.

"Wait, why?"

"What, it's totally possible."

There's a round of laughter. "Oh, poor Lucy! This is going to be the trend with Natsu."

"She's never going to be left alone now," Mira sighs, "Natsu is persistent with this, after all."

"Poor Lucy," Lisanna says again.

"Everlue?" Erza asks.

"Who's that?" Gray turns to her.

"Dunno," Mira shrugs.

Cana hums. "He's the feudal lord of... where again, ah, right. Shirotsume, I think," she says, "his face was on some of the mission requests in the last episode.

"So this time Lucy's going on a proper mission, right?" Levy asks, "it'll be her first job!"

"First job, huh... I still remember mine," Natsu sighs. "It was a disaster."

Gray blanches, "the beginning of Fairy Tail's destructive legacy."

"In his defense," Happy says, "Erza continued it and it spread to the rest of the members."

"I remember Bisca's!" Levy says, "she and Alzack went on one together, right?"

"I went on mine with Elf-niichan and Mira-nee," Lisanna says, "Levy, you went on yours with Erza, right?"

"Yeah! Cana went on one with Macao and Wakaba, right?" Levy turns to the taller girl, who nods.

"Enough reminiscing, guys, we're still watching here."

"I've been thinking this for a while, but Lucy is pretty nice, huh?" Cana says, "usually you'd kick them out and lock the doors."

"She might be snappy, but she's a softie deep inside," Lisanna chuckles.

"Six? That's quite a spread," Cana says, "and three golden ones, too."

"That's incredible," Loke says, "even two golden keys are a lot for an average Celestial Spirit mage."

Even Karen only had two golden keys, after all. And quite a few silver, but silver can be easily found in named stores with her connections.

"How do people get golden keys?" Levy turns around, "they're not something you can get in stores, so would it be like, treasure hunting?"

Loke shrugs, "the keys could be anywhere. They're worth a lot, so when someone gets their hands on it and they aren't a mage, they usually sell it."

"That, or they offer them in exchange for monetary rewards in jobs," Gildarts says, "I've seen some S-class quests that offer keys as an extra compensation."

"S-class?! Wait, how expensive exactly are these keys?!" Mira jerks forward-- S-class quests pay in near millions at a time. For a key to be able to foot that amount...

"They're priceless, depending on how much you want it, and depending on how strong the spirit is known to be," Loke says. He then adds, "Leo's key once went on auction for two billion jewels, because he's known as the strongest of them all."

"Two billion?!" Natsu shrieks, "how many zeroes is that?! Wait, how many hundreds is that? Twenty??"

Gray throws a pillow at him, "go count in a corner!"

"That price in mind, it still raises the question of how Lucy got a hold of so many," Freed says, "she's not much of a spender, as we've seen thus far. She doesn't have the budget."

"Maybe she inherited it?" Cana suggests, taking her cards out of her pocket. "If her parents were Holder-type mages too, maybe she got a few golden keys from there."

"That makes sense," Levy hums.

"The harp-- oh, that's the one you mentioned earlier? The silver key that looks like a human?" Bickslow turns to Loke, and he nods.

Loke looks a little longer at Crux's key. It's been a while since he's seen that old man.

"Crab?!"

"CRAB?!"

There's a collective facepalm across the older ones in the room when all the absolute children bolt forward, varying levels of interest in the aspect of a crab spirit.

Loke chortles at the scene, "guys, I can't see."

Erza and Mira reach forward, tugging all of them back into sitting positions.

Lisanna sits down, then gets up again to pry Happy off the wall.

"Nikora," Levy repeats, "that white blob thing in the opening song?"

"So this is where we meet it!" Lisanna fawns, "it looked cute from afar, so I wonder how it looks in person."

"That's cute?" Gray asks, baffled.

"But look at your face, Natsu," Evergreen teases, "you look disappointed."

"I am!" Natsu whines, then in a brood, "all her other spirits were cool."

Cana laughs at that.

Lisanna clutches Happy closer, "it is, right?!"

"It's a nice Happy-like size," Gray says, "so you girls like stuff like that?"

"It's like a teddy bear," Erza says. "So there are fully animal-like spirits, huh... so not all of them are like humans in either intelligence or appearance."

"Or mochi," Mira says. A moment later, "it looks delicious."

"Don't eat it!"

"That's another thing that's strangely underwhelming," Elfman says, "I thought contracts were more like-- y'know, professional and cool."

"This is almost casual and friendly," Cana says, chuckling at the imagery, "like helping your aunt with her work in your free time, that kinda thing."

"Just a word of promise, huh..." Levy says, "kinda romantic, don't you think?"

"Romantic, you say..." Gray repeats it, looking at the screen. "Well, it's impressive, certainly. Does anything particularly happen if you break the promise?"

He doesn't look at Loke, so Loke doesn't answer. Instead, they keep speculating amongst themselves.