Brook had read about it long ago, but he didn't remember that until long after he was convinced his sanity had rotted away as well as his flesh.

People who lose limbs often reported phantom sensations, and phantom pain, where the limb once was. Inklings it's brushed against something, twinges in the non-existent muscles, deep aches of something being terribly wrong. Yet without limb being there there's nothing to soothe or heal, to make the sensations and pain go away. They're psychosomatic, the brain playing tricks on the mind.

Brook didn't even have a brain to be playing tricks on his mind. He had no nerves to be misfiring, muscles being pulled adjusting to a differently shaped body or flesh to be sore at a remaining stump.

Instead, the first time it came – And it came slowly, bringing along with it that extra suffering of foreboding – he thought he must be dying once again, whatever kind of death a skeleton could die. His whole body told him it was aching, sore in a way that before spelt inflammation. But he collapsed to the wooden floor of the abandoned Rumbar ship with a clatter, just bones on wooden planks. In a lighter mood he might have joked to himself at how like a xylophone he sounded, but as it was he gasped for air and pressed whatever counted for his phantom-eyelids shut, steeling himself on his cane until that too gave way.

But he didn't die. He didn't even pass out. He just lay there suffering as much from the pain as its terrifying lack of reason. Without reason there was no way to understand or stop it, or to know when and why it might strike again.

And it did strike again. Again and again.

Each time, by pain or despair, Brook was brought to the rotting, equally dead floor of the lifeless ship. And each time it passed, although not without a malicious whisper that it'd be back soon.

Each passing reopened the wound of dread in his mind, compounding it into a permanent scar to match the one on the outside of his skull.

As time set in, and with it the realisation he was lost on a rudderless ship in an isolated and uncaring ocean set in, Brook came to fear it more and more. Its terrifying lack of rhyme and reason was one thing but to be trapped with it, with no doctors to ask or medicine to take. To be trapped in an eternity of suffering in order to keep their promise to Laboon- Could he, perhaps, give up? Maybe, if they knew what he was going through with this they would forgive him- No. No, he must keep their promise. Breaking it would hurt him more than this ever could.

So Brook found a way to cope, through trial and error. 50 years allowed for a lot of trial and error.

He took to lying spread on his back on the main deck, staring up into the fog-darkened sky so that he could barely tell if his eyes are open or closed. He learnt to lie there and feel the weight of his bones on the wood, the way they rubbed with the slight pitching of the ship. It reminded him what he was, what his body was. And it made the episodes pass quicker, even if they still felt like they lasted days.

Sometimes the pain would be strong enough to bring delirium with it; he actually welcomed those times, any relief from the reality of his situation.

He learnt to lie there on deck wishing death would come instead of fearing it. It didn't scare him once he was wishing for it and being disappointed by it; death became more like a very stingy parent over the years feeling like that.

And Brook learnt that he could make the pain totally go away, if he was willing to replace it with an even stronger one. No matter how much it might have felt like his body was being crushed and torn apart by the phantom pain, that pain had nothing on the grief of remembering his dead crew, of counting off each of their names on a tongue that wasn't there and thinking of their families that would never know what happened. Or even worse than that, the tiniest little things: They would never stick small objects in his afro while he was sleeping and then place bets on how many days till he noticed again. Their chef would never complain Laboon's squeaking made it impossible to tell if they had mice stowing away on board again. Captain Yorki would never walk up behind him and throw his arm around Brook's shoulder again, full of excitement about where they were heading next.

Because they were all dead.

And he was dead too. Yet he wasn't allowed to be with them.

Brook stopped fearing pain and death for those 50 years; he was just too familiar with them.

~#~

It was still there when he met Luffy and his crew.

It kept out of the way at Thriller Bark while he was busy but it came back after that, often at night, most often on the nights that reminded him of the Florian Triangle. When it did Brook gripped his cane tight, clenched his jaw, pressed his eyes shut and prayed for it to pass soon.

He could act his way through most things with it by that point, and he did. With no flesh there were no knuckles to turn white gripping his cane. With no muscles on his face a clenched jaw looked no different to his jaw being normally shut. His eye sockets looked the same whether they were open or closed to him, and he had had a long time to get very good at praying for things to pass.

He could push through the pain and keep up conversations because speaking helped take his mind off it, gave his mind something else to chew on other than his missing flesh and nerves. He could keep up with his duties on the ship because it was just pain and the body that pain was trying to protect wasn't there anymore.

Pain was one of those things like hunger, heat and cold that didn't really stop him anymore. He used to let it, back when he thought he could die of those things, but nowadays they were nothing more than an irritation to him. The rest of the crew didn't need to share in pointless irritation, so he didn't tell them.

Brook did try to do something about it on the way to Sabaody nonetheless because, for all he was used to it, it was still annoying. And fighting with his own body didn't seem a good idea when he needed to rely on it for fights to protect his new and precious crew.

So tonight, on watch with the young sniper, it was easy enough to offer he'd watch the back of the ship while Usopp watched the front. Once Brook made his way back there it was easy enough to slip inside for just a little while, into the infirmary room. He hated to endanger his crew in any way but this part of the sea was calm and looked about as safe as any part of the Grand Line could be- Then again, it had looked safe that day, that day with that crew and their poisons, when-

Brook stopped his mind from remembering that. It had remembered that day too many times; there was no need to disturb it any more.

He searched the shelves, what books there were that the little doctor kept in here. There were lots on diseases, on medicinal herbs and remedies for stomach ache, ear ache, headache, eye ache, nose ache- Okay, he might have been skimming the pages a little too quickly at that point.

He found one on anatomy next. It wasn't useful to his phantom pain situation yet he couldn't help but smile and laugh, fingers fondly stroking the skeletal system page where someone with a black pen has added an afro to the diagram's skull – Signed 'The Real Captain Usopp, Accept no forgeries' with a fancy signature of the sniper's face – He set that book aside to reach for the next.

It was right at the back he found one on surgery, turning to the chapter on amputations. The diagrams and descriptions made him somewhat faint, despite not having a brain or any blood to leave it, but in the after-care section, past all the gangrene and sepsis talk:

'Phantom limb sensations – Amputated limbs may often result in the patient experiencing sensations that their limb, or other missing body part, is still present. The majority of the sensations are painful but can also feel as if the limb is moving, itchy, shorter than it should be or distorted in some way.
The sensations can be worsened by external stimuli such as stress, anxiety and weather conditions depending on the individual. Phantom sensations are intermittent and their occurrence tends to decrease over time.
The cause of phantom sensations is hypothesised to be-'

"AH! What did you do to my books, you bastard?!"

Brook fumbled the book, catching and fumbling it again multiple times until it finally ended up flying high into the air. It came down on the hard infirmary floor with a small tearing sound from its spine and two dozen notes cascading like a snowstorm from where they had been carefully placed between pages before.

One of said notes swooped and floated, coming to rest at Chopper's small foot. He sighed, reaching down to pick it up.

"Ah! Oh, Chopper-san!" Brook picked himself up from where he had also fallen on his spine, without an accompanying ripping sound thankfully. "You gave me such a fright I'm certain that my poor heart stopped! Not that I have one, of course!" and he laughed.

Chopper just walked across the floor, the cute sounds his little hooves made at odds with the serious expression on his face. Brook waited silently on his upmost behaviour as Chopper checked his books, eventually removing every one that Brook had messed with and setting them on his desk to check and put back in order tomorrow. Brook's spine wilted a little with guilt. His jaw opened to say something, but he cringed from actually uttering his apology. Chopper was flicking through the book Brook had dropped last, letting out another small sigh at the new state of its spine. "So? What were you looking for?"

"Ah..." Brook let it hang. "...I suppose your being here must mean the watch shifts have changed over. I must apologise to Usopp-san in the morning for leaving him to perform ours all alone-"

"Brook!"

He was thankful Chopper didn't grow into his human form when he shouted. Even sat on the floor across from Chopper's Brain Point form Brook felt small enough. "It's not an important matter," he tried to dismiss. "Just a little complaint I sometimes suffer from."

"You were looking at the page on phantom limbs?" Chopper confirmed, then ordered, "Sit on the bed."

Brook complied, unfolding himself silently as he watched the doctor hop up onto his seat and review the section, obviously astute enough to guess the problem. "...It's all right if nothing can be done for me. I know I'm-"

"Shut up and let me read," Chopper ordered again, turning the page, then back. "You might have a lot of physical and psychological eccentricities because of what you've been through – Seriously, what's so special about panties? – but I can't consider myself a doctor worthy of the Grand Line if I can't deal with unusual medical needs like this."

Brook sat quietly, letting himself be in awe of one so young but so sure of himself already. "...You don't like panties, Chopper-san?" he asked softly.

"I don't have any interest in human women."

"...What about reindeer panties?" Brook asked.

Chopper paused and you could almost see the thought bubble beginning to form above his head. It popped with a sharp yelp from him as he spun round fiercely in his chair. "Reindeer don't wear panties!"

"Don't you?" Brook's skull tilted down, perhaps deliberately to show his gaze had moved from Chopper's face.

With a small bounce, Chopper hopped down from his chair and walked across the room. He leapt up high onto the bed, high enough to smack Brook's face with his hoof, "You pervert! And stop trying to change the subject!" before landing on the bed. Brook chuckled mirthfully and rubbed his cheekbone as the young doctor took up a position standing beside him. "The normal treatment for phantom limb pains is to use a large mirror and have the patient move their remaining limb whilst watching its mirror image; it tricks the brain into thinking the limb is still there so the pains settle down. That's not a cure but it helps deal with the pain until the body adjusts to its new state." He sighed, rubbing his head beside one of his antlers. "Obviously we can't use that for your situation though. And if you still get the pains after 50 years in that state then what we need is a cure, not simply a palliative until you heal on your own."

"Do you think there is anything that can be done?" Brook allowed himself a little hope, despite looking down at his own skeletal hand.

"Mmm... It's hard..." Chopper flopped as he admitted. "I have no idea how your body is even able to get these pains without a nervous system or brain. I don't even know how your body works well enough to give you painkillers; I guess if you can digest food you could take oral ones..." he lapsed into mumbled musing, staring through the open front of Brook's jacket at his hollow ribs and spine.

Brook stayed quiet, content enough whatever the doctor could or couldn't do. It was enough just to have one person care about him- It was enough just to have one person in his life who could care about him after so long with nothing but himself and this pain.

Eventually Chopper cut himself off with a final sigh. "Are you in pain right now, Brook?"

Around the handle of his cane, only one of Brook's fingers flexed while the others held on tight. "A little, but not enough to impair me in any manner. I have no intention of allowing myself to be a burden to this crew."

"I didn't mean it like that," Chopper said. "Go get some sleep. Then, in the morning, come back here and I'll see what I can do. I'll search for some other treatments we can try while I'm on watch tonight."

Brook was still for a long moment before he lifted his head, skull somehow shifting into a smile. "Thank you, Chopper-san. I could kiss you for this- Well, if I had any lips to kiss with! Yohoho~!"

"Hurry up and go to bed!" He gave Brook another, lighter, smack with his hoof as he jumped down to go back on watch.

Brook touched the spot Chopper had hit again. It hurt, but in doing so it took his mind off the rest of his pain. "Thank you."

~#~

Brook slipped silently into the infirmary next morning once everyone was at work, so silently it scared Chopper into screaming once he noticed which in turn got Brook screaming too. "Damn it! Say something when you come in here, Brook!"

"Yohoho~! But I don't have a voicebox to speak with~!"

"Ahh... Whatever," Chopper gave up, pointing his patient to the bed once again. "I didn't find anything in any of my books for someone of your unusual medical situation."

"I would hope not," Brook commented, one leg nonchalantly crossed over the other and cane hanging from his wrist; "I do like to think of myself as something of a trendsetter."

"But anyway, despite you being even further from my medical knowledge than Franky," (Outside on the deck Franky sneezed, scattering a shower of iron nails instead of snot into the grass) "I managed to come up with a treatment plan I hope will work."

"Really?" That he had even been able to come up with ideas when Brook himself had been defeated by this for 50 years, "You truly are a miraculous doctor, Chopper-san. In all my years at sea, I don't think I ever met another who would have willingly risen to this challenge and held his own."

Chopper began to wiggle. "Hehe, don't say that, you jerk~!" Brook waited for the dancing to settle down before Chopper came to stand at his side on the bed again, pulling a piece of old, browned paper from a pocket of his shorts. "Okay, Brook. My first thought was that since we obviously can't do the mirror trick with your situation, this might be the closest alternative we can manage." As Chopper handed the paper to him Brook recognised it as his old wanted poster- Ah, so that was what had seemed off about the wall of the boy's room this morning. "I don't know if it'll work at all, but if it does you can use that as a trick to keep the pain at bay for now."

"Thank you," Brook said, trying to concentrate on his own face, still so young and joyous, as if it were still there. It was impossible not to see his white, bone thumb holding onto the side of the page though, lying over that old image with sharp, cold reality. "I will... try it," he said for Chopper's sake.

"It's okay if it doesn't work," Chopper said, again a lot more astute than Brook had credited him. "In some ways, it might help the cure I had in mind if you don't use it too much."

"Oh?"

Chopper nodded. "I want to use a holistic cure approach, partly because phantom pain is a systemic problem with biological and psychological components, but mainly because I have no idea what will work so I want to try throwing as much at it as possible." Brook laughed and Chopper pulled his hat down in a little embarrassment. "I'm sorry, Brook. I guess I'm still not a very good doctor."

"Nonsense. You treated everyone at Thriller Bark with ease; you're marvellous."

Now Chopper giggled, "Idiot...!" Then he pulled the hat back up off his eyes, looking up at Brook with a serious smile again. "Firstly, physically I noticed you appear to still be moving as if you had flesh on your bones." Brook looked down at himself with a confused hum. "The way you carry yourself, like your shoulders and spine, is still the same as a normal- Ah! Living- um, human being with flesh," Chopper corrected diplomatically.

"You can call me what I am, reindeer-san," Brook said, a merry glint seeming to shine off the edge of his eye sockets.

Chopper sighed in relaxation. "You still move and distribute your weight in the old way you did before you died. Your bones look as if they're still aligned as they were when they had flesh and muscle on them. All of that means, in essence, you're moving unnaturally for the reality of how your body is now."

Brook looked down at his right hand, flexing the long bones that previously would have made up his palm as far as they felt they could go. Then with his other hand he took hold of his middle finger and bent the whole set of bones down to his wrist far beyond where his flesh would have let them go. "Like this?"

"Mm. Or, I bet you experienced this when you were growing up: When the human body is going through growth spurts during puberty, particularly for boys who on average grow more, the brain doesn't keep up with the new size of its body or the length of its limbs, leading to clumsy behaviour and accidental collisions with their surroundings."

"Yohoho~! That may as well have been the subtitle to my adolescence; I still remember hitting all of those doorframes even now," Brook reminisced fondly.

Chopper laughed. "I struggled with that a lot after I first ate my devil fruit; I couldn't get my new forms to work for a long time because they were so different to the four-legged one I was used to." Brook tilted his head fondly, enquiring. Before Chopper let himself get onto another tangent because of that rambling, afro-mulched mind though, "So I figure if we realign your bones to suit the much lower weight you're carrying now, hopefully once you get used to that it'll train you to move in a new way that's more comfortable for your current body. That should help lessen any physical strain you're somehow experiencing," he declared, looking over a body that shouldn't have been suffering from incorrect use of muscles anyway.

"Does this mean I'm going to be hitting my head on doorframes again?" Brook asked.

"Probably. It will likely make you a bit taller as we can straighten out many of your bones now."

"I never thought I'd get a chance to relive those days; what fun! Yoho~!"

"Well, at least you're positive about it," Chopper supposed as he watched Brook start pulling at one of his arms as if trying to straighten it out already. "Stop that! What if you pull it off?!"

Brook let out quite the blood-curdling scream at that threat, one that set Chopper cringing. When he opened his eyes again, Brook was now sitting on his own hands like a scolded 5-year-old and looking as guilty as one as he waited. The much younger reindeer sighed. "It wouldn't matter if you did pull it off, Brook; I can put dislocated arms back into their socket," he thought he ought to reassure just in case.

"...Oh! Yoho~!"

Once he was done shaking his head, "Anyway, along with that physical approach I think we also need to work on the psychological aspects involved in this together."

"...Such as?"

Chopper could hear the discomfort Brook was trying to hide and walked closer, plopping down beside him on the bedcovers. "Do you like being a skeleton, Brook?"

"Like...?" Brook turned to him in the way only a skull could, hollow and emotionless.

Tiny hooves pressed together, fidgeting like human fingers they were nothing like. Chopper took a hard breath, but he let it out again easily enough. "People used to call me a monster because of what I am- I mean, they still do when we visit new towns. It used to bother me; first my herd kicked me out just because of the colour of my nose," He covered it now with his hands, making a cute squeak, "then humans rejected me because I wasn't one of them either. I used to get really angry about it, but it's only because I'm part-human I could learn medicine, and it's only because I'm part-reindeer I could pull Doctorine's sled or knock people out with my antlers for her- Wait, those are terrible examples!" he panicked and put up with Brook laughing. "A-Anyway, nowadays I don't mind what I am; this is my half-and-half form," he pointed at his current Brain Point form, "and it's the way I feel happiest because this is what I am." He beamed for a second, then Chopper panicked again. "Um, what I meant for you is that I don't know- I shouldn't assume but- I'm not sure you're... entirely comfortable... with the way you are, Brook. Or at least what happened to you to become that way..." Chopper pressed his hoof points together, flexing them awkwardly and wishing Brook would just speak already.

The silence persisted a minute longer, only finally punctuated when Brook took his hands out from under his clothed hipbones and set them in his lap with a slightly rattling sigh. "You're far too sensitive for your young age, Chopper-kun. A boy only becomes like that when he's suffered far too much in his young life."

Chopper was going to protest he was nearly an adult now, damn it, and he was just fine! But the haunted sight of Brook's skull staring vacantly across the infirmary stopped his protests dead.

He watched the expansion and then contraction of Brook's ribcage as he breathed in and out with lungs that weren't there, then spoke, "Certainly... Although I should be used to myself after so long, you are not incorrect in your assumptions, Chopper-san." He picked over his words carefully, as lightly as his hollow steps when he walked. "I... I may not know how but..." He turned his skull down to the skeletal hands in his laps, his own hands and his own lap. "Such an odd fate to befall any human..." slipped out distantly. "And of all people on this vast sea, me..." His hand flexed up, bones making a soft but not unpleasant clacking sound.

"Brook?" Chopper asked.

It took a moment for Brook's skull to snap to face him with a similar sound. It took far less for it to seem like he was smiling. "Ah, don't mind an old man's ramblings, yohoho." He stilled for a moment, seeming almost doll-like. Then, "Would you mind telling me more about your own experiences adjusting to your devil fruit, Chopper-san, if it's not painful for you? I wouldn't want to trouble you but... it is nice to know I am not the only one."

"Of course!" Chopper beamed as always when a cure was finally in sight. "Whenever you have some free time come and see me; I'm more of a physical doctor than a counsellor but I'll do what I can for you, Brook!"

"Yohoho~! It would be my pleasure!" Brook stood to tip his hat properly, having taken enough of the doctor's time with this session and messing up his books last night. "Thank you again, doctor-san!"

Chopper giggled, starting to dance again where he was still stood on the bed. Before his patient disappeared out the back door though, "Ah, wait!" Brook, already bent slightly through the door frame. "I wanted to say even if they're kind of annoying for everyone else, your skull jokes are probably good for you, Brook, if they help you to come to terms with what you are. They say humour is really good medicine."

It looked as if he had given Brook Christmas in just two sentences with that, his jawbone dropping in a way that looked like pure delight. "I shall be sure to definitely keep that in mind, Chopper-san!" Brook confirmed with a determined voice before the inevitable, "Ah! But I don't have a brain for a mind to live in anymore!" He even pulled the top of his skull open along the scar for that one before walking away laughing madly.

Chopper sighed. "Maybe I shouldn't have added that part..." He jumped down from the bed, going back to his desk to continue fixing the books Brook had messed up last night.

~#~

That very afternoon they came to the Red Line, then came Caimie and Sabaody, and...

It was a long two years, to be apart again so soon after finally having a crew again. But it was time Brook knew how to spend now: He wouldn't be a burden to the crew once he returned to them.

And indeed, those two years later...

"Brook! Brook!" Chopper tried to stage-whisper to him about as successfully as Chopper could hide around a corner. Luckily no one paid any mind to Brook being invited into the infirmary for whatever reason; their resident doctor doing check-ups on each crew member to acquaint himself with their new health situation seemed natural, after all.

"Yes, Chopper-san?" Brook took a seat on the bed by instinct, despite how long it had been.

"How are you doing?"

"Perfectly fine! As always, nothing a little milk couldn't fix! Yohoho~!"

"No, I meant your..." Chopper looked around the infirmary as if there were room for anyone to be hiding in there. "Your... bone phantoms?" he finally asked, failing at whispering again.

"B-B-Bone phanto-! Oh, you mean that." Brook's immediate terror evaporated in an instant, back to casual nonchalance. "For a moment there you had me thinking that my bones were haunted," he confessed with a hand on his ribcage. "Well, by something other than myself! Yohohohoho~!"

Well, he was in good spirits at least- Damn it, now Chopper was making puns himself. He sighed outwardly, wheeling his doctor's seat over to the bed. "Are you still getting the pains?"

"No, not any longer." Brook appeared to smile. "I was able to argue with my managers the need for a good chiropractor who could work these old bones into a better shape." He sat up more easily now, a skeleton unfettered by the memories of muscles and flesh. "I also had a lot of time to... Ah..." he trailed off a little. "I came to terms with my nature now, with the true nature of my devil fruit and what has happened to me. That came with its own pleasant surprises along the way." His new powers, his understanding of his nature as a soul separate to his body, "It was all because of your advice. Thank you, Chopper-san." Brook figured reaching out to pet the little reindeer couldn't hurt this one time.

Chopper soon had his hat pulled down though, giggling to himself. "Damn you~! That doesn't make me happy when you thank me~!" But despite his words he giggled some more. Eventually he was done, lifting his hat brim back up tentatively. "So... no more pains?"

"None," Brook confirmed.

"Ah, I'm so glad! I had no idea what I'd do otherwise!" Chopper hopped down from his seat, wheeling it back to his desk. "Can I tell Doctorine about this? I mentioned you in my letters to her while I was away but I kept your problem confidential. I know it would really fascinate her to hear about this as it's such a rare problem. I need to write and tell her I made it back to you all safely actually..." he began talking himself as he took a small stack of envelopes out of a drawer, all pre-addressed with the same name and location.

"Certainly. I've no need to keep it a secret now it has passed." Brook leant over, hoping it was okay to be a little curious. He couldn't help but wonder about the sort of island a reindeer would have come across a devil fruit on and the doctor who would have taken such a being in as a student of medicine. Chopper didn't make comment as Brook picked up one of the spare, pre-addressed envelopes to read...

...Well, well. "Yohoho!"

"Hm?" Chopper looked up from the letter he had started.

'Dr. Kureha, Drum Island' – Brook set the envelope back down, hand lingering fondly. Chopper certainly deserved a compensation for all this help, although Brook figured he would save that tale for another time. "Ah, it's nothing," Brook said with a smile. "...If I may though, although I no longer need them, would you mind telling me more tales of your time on Drum Island at some point, Chopper-san? I think I would very much enjoy hearing them."

"Oh. Sure," Chopper agreed cheerfully. "Doctorine didn't used to tell me many stories but Doctor told me them all the time – He was an adventurer when he was younger! Or a good-for-nothing thief. I'm not sure which one of them was telling the truth," he admitted briefly before continuing regardless with renewed cheer.

Brook took a seat to listen, skull fondly leant in one hand as he watched the miraculous little doctor and let his bones relax.