Yeah, my other story (time and time again - what is it with me and ZoSan lately?) is still in the air, but like I said I'll just be updating when I feel like this. And once and idea is in my head, I need to get it out or I'll never fall asleep.

So this will probably just be a two-shot, ZoSan nakamashipping about their lives before the flashbacks.

Warning: Fluff and a slice of angst. You know me.

Pairing: if you're desperate for it to be ZoSan, go ahead, let your imagination run loose. But it's really just nakamaship.

Characters: Zoro and Sanji, with the guest appearance of a waiter named Dillan whom I randomly invented for the sake of the story.

Rating: K+ for a little cussing.

He didn't remember much from his childhood. Oh, he remembered those agonizing days, weeks, months on that god-forsaken rock, in the middle of bloody nowhere. He remembered that too well.

But before that, it was all hazy. His first few days on the Baratie, his last few days on the restaurant before that. It all blended together in a muddle of colours, shapes and sounds.

He remembered this one day, though. He remembered it because it was the happiest day of his childhood life…and the worst.

He and his parents were going to a sea restaurant. Sanji had been looking forward to it for weeks; it was his birthday now and his gift was finally going to one of the finer restaurants on the ocean. And not only that, but he got to sail there, too! Sanji loved the sea almost as much as he loved cooking. So blue, just like his mother's eyes, although that was the only thing he remembered about his mother. That, and the ruby lips. His father often said that women should be treated like goddesses, and Sanji took it first-hand. Besides, his mother was perfect, so she might as well have been a goddess.

The food was more than delicious, it was divine. But of course, Sanji's young taste buds were easy to impress, and almost anything would be a feast to him. The view they had over the ocean made it even better.

But Sanji was a curious one. They had a desert, one that Sanji had never seen or heard of before. Curious, he snuck into the kitchen, intent on asking what was in it. Maybe his mother could get the recipe and make it someday.

But inside the kitchen was nothing like when his mother cooked. There was yelling; so much yelling, like everyone was furious at the food, the servants, the cooks, at the utensils. And everyone looked so grim, not as gentle and sweet as his mother would look when she stirred soup in the pot.

Sanji regretted this decision. Turning back, he thought he might just go back to his mother and father. But a group of servants were bustling in, and if Sanji didn't act fast, they'd catch him, and mother and father would be disappointed, and he wouldn't be allowed to hold a party…

So Sanji dove into a room that was conveniently placed right next to him.

As soon as he shut the door, fear overtook him. It was dark! There wasn't even a shimmer of light other than what came from under the door.

Holding in the whimpers, he braved the darkness instead of going back and facing those mean-looking chefs. He stumbled around until he found something that couldn't count as soft, but would have to do.

He curled in on himself, careful to be hidden from the view of anyone who would come in, and fell asleep after a little not-crying.

Because Sanji wouldn't cry. His parents said it made him look bad.

He woke up to voices. Not hushed ones, but loud, shouting ones. He was so startled he fell off the sack of potatoes he'd been sleeping on and smacked his butt on the floor.

"The hell is that kid doing here?"

"How should I know, I just came in for some leek and I found this!"

"Somebody go see if there's a lost child!"

Lost?

"M-mother? Where is my mother?" Sanji managed to stutter out, trying not to cower in front of those big, burly-looking men.

"I checked, no one has a blond baby. You think his parents left 'im here?"

What? No! Mother and father would never leave him, they had to be here! Maybe they'd gone to the bathroom, or were searching for him outside…

But as Sanji burst out of the kitchen into the dining hall, there was no mother. There was no father. There were only strangers, unfamiliar faces staring back at him with pity or confusion. Had he really slept for so long? It was nighttime! The windows were dark, reflecting everything on the inside making the place look twice as big, twice as hard to find his parents.

But the reflections didn't hold the images of his mother and father, and neither did the restaurant.

"Aw, hell. Someone grab the kid and get him out of the dining hall, he's interrupting the guests!"

Before Sanji could react, an arm had snaked around his waist and hoisted him up. But this man wasn't as evil-looking as the other ones were, and his voice wasn't as gruff.

"Come on, kiddo, let's wait this one out in the quarters. I'll see if I can contact your mummy and daddy, hmm?" Sanji nodded, keeping the tears in as hard as he could.

Apparently, not hard enough.

He cried his eyes out on that stranger's shoulder, just wanting his parents back.

No one in the dining hall recognized him.

There was no way of contacting his parents, since Sanji didn't know their number.

After a while, the chefs put an ad in the paper, asking the parents to come and get their kid. But they never came back for him. They'd forgotten him, on his own birthday, and not bothered to fetch him again. Did something happen? Were they dead? Or had they simply not wanted their kid back? Sanji never found out.

And Sanji had never felt so alone.

Dillan, the nice waiter who'd scooped Sanji up the day he was found, took care of him as well as he could, doing his best at being a sort-of father figure for Sanji. But he was a waiter and therefore didn't have much time, and Sanji was on the receiving end of a lot of teasing. But he wasn't supposed to talk back; his father would scold him if he did. But his father wasn't here, was he?

Sanji got into a few fights.

His mother had taught him always to repay what others did for him, so at a particularly busy day, he offered to do the dishes, even if he didn't like any of them but Dillan, who secretly taught him the basics of cooking. Sanji practiced at night, when he couldn't sleep. After a while, he became an official assistant cook. He came to view the restaurant as a home, and to look at Dillan as family. While his parents taught him to not get in brawls, because that's just what ruffians did, Dillan taught him to hold his back against people and not let them walk all over him. And when the restaurant -his restaurant- was attacked almost a year later, that's exactly what Sanji did, and that's exactly how he ended up on that godforsaken rock.

Forgotten, yet again.

Eleven years later, Sanji isn't forgotten.

"Curly-brow, get your ass over here, we need to set the sails and Luffy's hungry, so unless you want all of us to be eaten, get your ass in gear!"

Because his nakama are calling him, needing him for this and that.

And Sanji has never felt so not alone.

I think I might be a tree; I'm leaking sap.

Geddit?