The battle was over. The Straw-Hat crew walked around and over injured or dead marines back to their ship. They were about to climb aboard when Nami noticed something was wrong.

"Where's Sanji?" She asked.

Everyone paused and looked at each other. She was right, he wasn't there! Frantically, Usopp and Chopper ran around yelling at the top of their lungs.

"Oh, my God! What if he was killed?!" Usopp screeched.

"WAAAAAH, SANJI!!" Chopper wailed. Luffy slammed his fist onto his palm determinedly.

"We MUST find him, or there won't be any dinner tonight!" Nami thwacked him over the head.

"THERE ARE MORE THINGS TO BE CONCERNED ABOUT THAN THAT!" She yelled in his ear. Franky grasped his head and cried,

"Oh, crap! No dinner?!" Nami hit him, too. Brook stood silently, wondering what color Nami's panties were. He probably didn't realize what was going on.

"Yohoho ", he giggled quietly. Robin tried to calm everyone down, though she knew she wasn't doing a very good job. Zoro stood amidst all the chaos, silently swearing at himself. Because he knew where Sanji was.

FLASHBACK

Zoro and Sanji finished off the rest of their Marines. Zoro sheathed his swords and Sanji rested his foot on the ground. Sanji lit a cigarette and said,

"That's all? Thought there'd be a bit more excitement."

"Don't jinx it." Zoro said, ticked off at the cook as usual. Zoro started walking away and just when Sanji was about to turn around, the blonde froze. "What now?" He asked, annoyed. He turned around to see a huge hoard of Marines coming straight for them wielding swords, guns, the works. He shot a dirty glare at Sanji and started to unsheathe his swords when the cook shot a hand in front of him.

"Leave them to me." He smirked.

"You can't handle all of them on your own!" Zoro yelled. 'Stupid Ero-Cook. Always trying to get himself into trouble. Pathetic.' Zoro thought with a cross expression.

"Yes I can, stupid Marimo." Sanji retorted. "I'll handle them. Just go back to the ship."

"No! They'll destroy you!"

"You're not listening. I said go back to the ship!"

"You'll-"

"Just GO!" Sanji yelled and took off. Zoro watched after him for a few seconds, then left without looking back.

END OF FLASHBACK

'I should've followed him. He couldn't have gotten all of them alone! How could I have been such an idiot?!' he thought angrily, mentally kicking himself. All around him, chaos ensued.

"But Naaaamiiii..."

"WHY ARE YOU SO STUPID, LUFFY?!"

"He could be hurt out there! What do we do?!"

"WAAAAAAHHH!!"

"If everyone could please, just calm do-"

"This is NOT supaaa!"

"Maybe blue...Wait, are we freaking out?"

"HEY, LOOK!" Usopp suddenly shouted, pointing in the distance. Everyone shut up and looked. Limping through the fog that was settling around them, was a thin figure slowly making its way towards the ship. As it came closer and showed its appearance, almost everyone's breath hitched in their throats.

"Sanji..." Nami breathed.

Sanji looked horrible. His once golden, shimmery hair was messy and matted with blood. He was covered in blood and injuries, he was limping, and he had a huge gash on his right arm that caused blood to run down his hand and drip into the dust. Zoro stared at him for a moment, then his face suddenly twisted with anger. He jumped off the ship and ran up to the blonde, slapping him hard across the face. The cook did nothing but wince as his head snapped to the side.

"ZORO!" Nami shouted, shocked. She was going to start again when Luffy laid his hand on her shoulder, silently stopping her. All eyes were on the two.

Zoro grabbed Sanji by the shoulders and lifted him up to face level and started shrieking,

"ARE YOU FRICKEN' CRAZY?! I told you there was no use trying to beat them by yourself! Are you daft?! Look at yourself!! You got your ass handed to you! You look terrible! This wouldn't have happened if you had just-!" he stopped abruptly. Sanji waited for him to finish, but he never did. Instead, Zoro did the unexpected which made everyone question their eyesight and their sanity.

He had leaned down and squeezed the smaller frame tightly.

Sanji stared.

'But... what is he doing? Why is he... HUGGING me?' He thought, perplexed at the situation. Small tears began to form at the sides of Zoro's eyes as he tried to hold back a smile.

"Glad you're okay..."

696969696969696969696969

A/N: This is NOT a slash fic. Just friendship. Because, you know, somewhere deep down inside of Zoro he has a soft spot for Sanji. : ) Beta'ed by my sister, ninjasandnoodles or Anomaly. ...don't expect Ano-chan's stories to be updated any time soon. She be lazy. By the way, we all know Brook is really an idiot.

A/N: Ano-chan (aka Anomaly or ninjasandnoodles): Hmm, not bad for a first-timer. Head over to DevArt for the accompanying pic, also by RobotBee. She's disco-bear-lover96. Now, let's let the writer of this fic speak! I said SPEAK!

Meep (or Meepindoodle, RobotBee96): Oh gawd. I think this is awesome, by my standards. Normally, I suck at writing. In fact, this is how the fic you just read came to be:

I was dolling a really cute ZoSan friendship pic (as seen here: disco-bear-lover96./art/Glad-You-re-Okay-83148068), and I needed a backstory. So I thought of what would happen and here we are.

Needless to say, I think it turned out great.