Our Boy Who Came Home:
We met in the trenches.
The sky opened up and showered us with acid rain that stung our hearts more than it stung our skin.
I was walking, my boots slipping in the mud and my gun thumping heavily against my side, when I saw him, sitting there on the ground with an impossibly wide grin on his face. His head was turned towards the sky, ashen raindrops dripping down his cheeks like silent tears. His uniform was completely soaked through, and I saw that his shoulders were shaking slightly from the cold or from the war or from some other emotion that had no name. At first, I was worried he'd gone crazy, many men under my command having done so in the past, but then abandoned the thought when he turned to me and I saw nothing but light reflecting off his eyes.
For some reason, he was happy. In this desolate, god-forsaken wasteland, someone still held the capacity to smile and be happy. For me, it would have been impossible. I was war-hardened, a walking robot that barked orders and fired a gun.
I couldn't smile.
For me, all that could be found was death and destruction. And I embraced it.
And yet here, there was a tiny ray of life, grinning like an idiot in the rain. The soldier held a worn, dirt-caked straw-hat in his arms.
I stared at him, and before I knew it, I had sat myself down beside him on the sodden earth. He didn't look at me, just continued to smile.
"Nice day, eh sir?" He said lightly.
"...Yeah," I replied, adjusting the brim of my helmet so that the rain bounced off it and not my face. "Nice."
The two of us sat in comfortable silence and stared up into the sky. The clouds had formed a single dark gray mass above our heads that rumbled dangerously and hurled bolts of lightening down onto our heads, but we ignored it. I realized that the soldier wasn't looking at the sky so much as he was looking past it, into the future.
The future without the war. Without hate. Without judgement.
The future that both of us knew would never really come.
After a while, the soldier finally looked over at me. Our eyes met and something passed between us, a kind of mutual understanding that instantly solidified us a equals despite our ranks. He grinned. I didn't grin back.
He held out his hand to me. "Monkey D. Luffy." He said.
I took his hand and held it firmly. "Roronoa Zoro." I said.
The soldier nodded his head and looked back up at the sky. I looked at him closely, at the scar carved deep beneath his left eye, and the bandages wrapped loosely around his fingers in danger of falling off. I saw how young he was. He couldn't have been older than nineteen.
I felt a pang of bitterness race through me at the thought of someone so young being forced to go to war. Then again, I was only twenty-one, so I really wasn't one to talk. It continued to rain until I too was soaked to the bone.
I shivered and the boy called Luffy offered me a blanket. I accepted it gratefully, and the two of us sat beneath the bellowing heavens wrapped in the warmth of our own little world. It was such a small thing, sharing a blanket, but to me, it was the first act of kindness I'd received since joining the army.
The world began to get dark, and just before I allowed myself to slip off into dreamless slumber, Luffy spoke.
"I guess we're in this together, right Zoro?"
I nodded and shifted position so that my gun no longer separated us, the heat of his body seeping into mine and making me feel warm for the first time in what felt like my whole life.
The enemy came, and with it came the dying.
I stuck close to Luffy's side, and as we fired our guns together into the distance at bodies we couldn't quite see, a connection formed between us that neither of us could describe with words. It was almost as if he and I became one and the same.
The same body.
The same gun.
The same person.
It was like it'd been that way forever. I felt my insides thaw a bit from the bitter cold of battle, which I wasn't sure was a good thing so much as it was a necessary thing, and let Luffy hand me bullets, and push me down when shells cam too close, and more than any other person on that battlefield, have my unconditional trust.
I had never realized before how hard it was for me to trust other people. Usually, I was the first to judge, and the first to act in every situation, but here, with Luffy, with this boy who I had barely met six hours ago, I found myself almost completely at ease. Dirt rained down on us as the land exploded and changed before our eyes, the liquid shapes of bodies moving through the smoke and mist the only things visible to us beyond the cage of barbed wire we lay in.
I took a deep breath and aimed.
So did Luffy.
One by one we picked off shadows until there weren't as many, and we were out of bullets.
When I looked over, the boy was crying. His lips moved fluidly in what I took to be a silent prayer, and this alone wouldn't have bothered me, but what confused me was the fact that they were parted in a gentle smile, so soft as to almost be loving. Over the gunfire and booming eruptions of shells exploding I caught a few of his words.
"And take them home, O Lord, that they may find love and salvation in thy waiting arms-" Boom.
"And heal their broken hearts and broken bodies so that they may walk and live as men should live-" Crash.
"And die as men should die." He paused and reloaded his gun, tears and rain mixing on the barrel to form a melancholy holy water that both damned and saved the weapon.
"And take them home, O Lord," he said, firing. "God almighty, take them home."
I couldn't tell if he was praying for our soldiers or for the enemies we were killing. I thought it might've been both.
The haunting smile remained on his face until at last the fighting ceased, and both he and I collapsed into a heap on the muddy floor of the trench, too tired to speak. Luffy lay sprawled so that he was touching my shouler. I felt him tremble violently against me, and a wave of pity combined with sadness welled up inside me. They were emotions I was unused to feeling.
Without thinking, I hauled the shivering boy to his knees and brought him into a rough embrace. It was awkward, forced, and completely unnatural, but for both him and me, necessary. I let him sob into my shoulder until dawn crept across the sky and dyed the world yellow.
"Zoro," the boy said. "What's it for?"
I wasn't sure what he was referencing, and so I simply shook my head.
"I don't know, Luffy," I said. "I just don't know."
Days went by and Luffy became my best friend. I don't know how it happened, it just did, but I didn't regret it for a second. He laughed and smiled like a total goofball, despite the hopelessness and utter horror that pervaded our situation. We sat by each other at mealtimes and talked.
There wasn't much about me to share. I told him stories of me growing up in a small town with my childhood friend, Kuina. I told him about joining the army when I turned eighteen and never looking back. Through it all, he simply nodded his head in understanding, occasionally grumbling about the tiny amount of rations we were given or playing with the frayed rim of his straw-hat.
When it became Luffy's turn to speak, he opened up and painted me a picture of his whole life. He told me about his family back home, about his Gramps forcing him and his brother, Ace, into the army. He told me about the ocean and the sky and the mountains and everything good that life had to offer. When he spoke, it was loud and enthusiastic. I couldn't help the small smile that spread across my face, burning as it went.
After a bit, Luffy grew quiet, his face and eyes turning somber and sad.
He talked about watching his brother die right before his eyes, shot through the chest with a hail of bullets. They were on patrol a ways away from their unit when they were ambushed and gunned down. Luffy showed me the holes in his stomach where bullets had been removed and I looked without flinching. His brother had died that day in his arms. It happened two months ago, he said. There was no way any medic could treat the young soldier, he was too far gone. Ace had asked him to smile, and to make it back home. To live the life he couldn't.
I had to swallow a hard lump that formed in my throat.
After that, the two of us were silent. I could tell that Luffy needed a moment, both to remember and repress the surfacing memories, and so I let him be. I'd been at this a lot longer than he had, and so I was desensitized to the sight of comrades falling around me. To him, it must've been a nightmare. Still, I was impressed with his strength. He was still able to smile and laugh and tell stories like any other nineteen year old boy, and he was determined to make it through this hellish war and get back to his home and his family.
After he regained himself, he looked at me and smiled. His eyes were older than they should have been, and that both scared and comforted me. "Come back with me, Zoro." He said. "When this war is over, let's go back to my hometown together and start a business. I'm tired of all this hatred and killing. It doesn't suit a guy like me, you know?"
I sighed and scooted closer to him. "What the hell do you know about running a business?" I asked, taking a bite out of my stale rations and chewing.
Luffy laughed and placed his hat on his head, over his helmet. "Absolutely nothing!" He said merrily. "But it can't be too hard, can it? I mean, people do it all the time. And it sure beats slumming it in these goddamn trenches your whole life, that's for sure." Soldiers from other platoons passed us by as they walked to wherever it was they were going. They stared at the sight of me, the known emotionless killing machine, talking and smiling with the silly boy with the straw-hat. We ignored them and I felt my smile grow wider.
"You're right about that," I said. We both sighed at the same time and looked up into the newly parted heavens. Patches of blue were becoming visible through the thinning clouds, and warm sunshine dripped down onto our faces for the first time in weeks.
For a while, we let ourselves bask in the rare light, savoring the moment. I closed my eyes and breathed deeply, the scent of gun-smoke and unwashed men filling my nostrils and burning the roof of my mouth. Beside me, Luffy snickered.
I glanced at him and saw that he was grinning widely, mischievously. "What?" I said, raising an eyebrow.
"I still haven't told you the best part," he said, giggling. I looked at him incredulously and he reached his hand into the front pocket of his shirt. He withdrew a dirty black and white photograph and waved it in front of my face, smiling like he was showing me some grand treasure. I took it from him and looked at it. In the photo, there was a single woman, tall, with long flowing hair that was either blond or orange, I couldn't tell. She was smiling happily, standing on the porch of a small country house that looked perfect for someone like Luffy to live in.
"Okay, I give," I said after a moment. "Who is she? Your cousin?"
Luffy laughed and shook his head. "She's my wife," he said, taking the photo and slipping it back into his breast pocket. I felt my eyes widen and I turned sharply to stare at him. For a second, I thought he was lying, but the happy smile on his face told me other wise and so I was forced to believe it.
"Your wife?" I said, mouth slightly agape. "You have a wife? How is that possible?" Luffy tilted his head back and laughed loudly, enough to draw even more attention from passing soldiers and medics.
"I dunno how it happened, but yup, I got married!" The boy chuckled. "Her name's Nami. She can be kinda mean sometimes, but really, she's amazing! We've been friends forever, ever since we were little kids, and I guess overtime, we just figured out that we loved each other and wanted to be together for the rest of our lives." Luffy's gaze turned soft and his smile more loving. "She's the best thing that ever happened to me, Zoro."
He paused and ran a hand over the pocket with her picture in it.
"I see," I said. "Good for you, then. Who knows, maybe I'll find someone like that for me someday." I turned my eyes back to the sky and saw tiny wisps of cloud twist into the shape of a seabird, flying high above the two of us and our muddy hell.
"I just..." Luffy began. "I hate to think that... because of this-" he gestured to the trench we were sitting in. "I might never get to see her again. She might have to spend the rest of her life alone, without me, and it'll be all my fault." His voice grew quiet and he stared down into his lap.
I smacked his shoulder with the back of my hand and sighed. "You're not gonna die, Luffy," I said, rubbing the bridge of my nose tiredly. "There's no way in hell I'm letting you skip out on a happy life back home just to die in a shitty place like this."
Luffy met my eyes and I saw gratefulness shining there.
"Thanks, Zoro," he said softly. "For everything."
Months passed, and Luffy and I fought side by side against the never ending sea of enemies. He cried a lot, breaking down after each battle into fits of sobbing and prayer, but also smiled.
It was his smiles that got me through the day.
When the rank of blood and gun-smoke grew too powerful, when my tough exterior was worn thin to the point of collapse, my friend was always there. He'd let me hold his straw-hat, saying it brought him strength and good luck, and drape a lanky arm around my shoulders with a wide grin like the world was perfect. Monkey D. Luffy was the one ray of sunshine in an otherwise hellish black night. When the moon came, we could hear the boys of our platoon sobbing fitfully into their blankets, nightmares and visions of the day's horrors replaying through their heads like sick silent movies.
Their voices were subdued and fearful, like small children calling out for their mothers. It tugged at my softer side, and for what must have been the millionth time since the war began, I would curse whatever god or deity there was for the scourge of human hatred and bloodlust. These boys had no place here, among the death and fire. Luffy most of all. Unlike me, whose life had yielded almost nothing good, Luffy had things worth fighting for. He had a home. He had a family.
When I told him this, all he did was smile. "I have you, too, Zoro," he would say. "We're in it together, for better or for worse. Whether you like it or not." I smiled back at him then, and soon he would ramble off into what our lives would be like once the war was finally over, and we got to go home. He wanted me to come visit him in his hometown, and meet his wife and his Gramps and everyone he cared about. He could sense without me saying that I didn't really have a place to return to, and so he told me to go home with him.
"I lost my real brother," he said one day, blood coating one half of his face and most of his right arm. He was silent for a long time, and I waited. "But... I guess I gained a new one in his place, eh Zoro?" There was both joy and sadness in his voice then, and as I scrubbed mud from both our wounds and tried to keep the frustrated tears at bay, I forced a smile onto my face.
"You bet your ass," I said, words trembling. "You bet your goddamned ass. Though I warn you, I've never had a brother before, so I'm not sure how it works." I covered my eyes with the rim of my helmet and let Luffy's soft laughter wash over me.
It was raining again.
Luffy saved my life.
The day came and battle rung through the air like knives on the wind.
The boy was once again at my side, m uttering his words to God and firing one sickening shot after another. The rain came down heavy on our heads, making us slip and slide through the muddy trenches like worms in the dirt. I fell and he hauled me to my feet.
I was reloading my gun when a grenade was launched from somewhere far away. It was headed straight towards us, a small package of bloody death waiting to surprise us. I didn't notice it until it was too late to move. At that moment, I truly thought that I was going to die. I had few regrets, none of them worth taking with me, and I supposed I was already knee deep in an earthen grave.
I froze, and waited. The seconds felt like hours. I felt trickles of blood and sweat run warmly down my back.
Beside me, Luffy screamed.
Before I knew what was happening, I had been wrenched from my squatting position on the wall and thrown down a few meters away. My face hit the mud and I felt teeth dig into my lip. There was a deafening explosion, and rubble rained down over me like I was being buried. My heart was beating so quickly I was afraid it would burst, my lips stinging and coppery blood filling my mouth. When I turned my head to see what had happened, I was surprised to see Luffy's dirt-caked face staring down into mine.
His body was positioned protectively over mine, his mouth contorted in pain and his eyes watery. Looking behind him, I saw a fresh round crater carved deep into the wall. It was the spot I had been crouching in not five seconds before.
I scrambled to get up, Luffy falling limply onto my chest and his head lolling to one side. I panicked.
I quickly gathered the boy into my arms and cradled him as gently as I could against my shoulder. His eyes were open, but there was a vacancy to them that showed he wasn't all there, glassy black orbs staring up at me like I was some kind of dream. I shook.
"Luffy!" I called, my voice raw. "Luffy, oh God, Luffy! Are you hurt? Jesus, Luffy, jesus..." The boy in my arms squirmed slightly, and instantly I felt something warm wash over my hands from somewhere on his back. I felt my heart freeze.
It took him a few seconds for his eyes to focus, and when they did, they settled on my face. He looked like he was in pain, his mouth tugging down at the sides in a strained grimace. I didn't know what to do. "Zoro..." he whimpered.
"I'm here, Luffy, I'm here," I said quickly, as soothingly as possible. I looked around frantically, desperately searching for any signs of a medic or something, anything, to stop the bleeding. There was nothing so I screamed. "MEDIC! Someone, get over here NOW! We've got an injured man in urgent need of help!" Around me, the sounds of war raged, explosions blocking out my pitiful cries and sending debris raining down over my huddled form.
For the first time in a long time, I was scared.
I was absolutely terrified.
Luffy stirred again, and a small trickle of blood ran out the side of his mouth. "Zoro... are you..." he wheezed and I leaned in closer, my grip on his small form tightening. "Are you... alright...?" My jaw dropped and I felt the need to smack him upside the head.
"You idiot!" I cried. "I'm fine, worry about yourself for once!"
Luffy smiled. It was small and pained, but it was true, and shone like the sun. "I'm... glad..." he whispered. "I was afraid... I might've lost Zoro... too..."
His eyes were beginning to drift shut and the warmth on my hands grew larger. The world around us faded, and suddenly, it was just me and Luffy, sitting in the trenches like we always did, talking.
"Stay with me Luffy," I said, brushing the hair out of his eyes so he could see better. "You haven't lost anything yet. Just stay with me and I'm going to get you some help."
Luffy's smile grew wider and my heart twitched.
"I'm okay..." he said. "I'm gonna be okay... there's no way... I'm going to... die and... leave you here... all alone..." He paused and took a few shaky breaths. "Being alone... hurts much worse than dying..." I could see him struggling to maintain consciousness, dark shadows pooling in his eyes and on his face. I reached down and took his small hand in mine, squeezing it tightly and reeling at how cold it was.
I cried out for someone to come and help, my tone turning desperate. Luffy grew quiet and still. "Hey!" I yelled, crushing his hand. "Don't go to sleep! You hear me Luffy? Don't fall asleep no matter what. You need to stay awake and... and..." my voice broke and tears threatened in my eyes. "You need to stay awake and tell me about that business we're going to start!"
Luffy blinked owlishly and a smile wormed its way onto his lips. "Business... huh?" He said. "That's right, we're going to... get out of this hellhole and... start a... business... Zoro?" He asked.
"Yeah?" I said.
"What kind of business should we start?"
"I dunno," I said, laughing slightly and wiping my face on my shoulder. "It was your idea, you tell me."
He chuckled lowly. "It should be... something fun... no office work and... no guns..." Blood was seeping through the front of his uniform now and I couldn't keep the tremble out of my voice.
"Yeah, no guns," I said.
"Yeah," he said.
When Luffy was quiet I urged him to speak some more. "Tell me about your wife," I said, forcing a smile and looking deep into the boy's eyes. "T-tell me about Nami. That's her name, right?"
Luffy nodded slowly and I saw a faint blush color his pale cheeks. "Nami..." he said, almost to himself. "My Nami... let's see... she's beautiful, and kind... she loves tangerines and... and..." his smile faded and I saw a look of pain cross his face.
"And what?" I asked quickly. "And she's what, Luffy?" I sniffed and felt a tear slide down my cheek, unbidden.
"And she's... Oh God, Zoro..." Luffy said, voice heavy with unshed tears. "And she's gonna be... all alone... I'm not going to be... there... like I promised..." Tears cascaded down his cheeks and he clenched his eyes shut. He didn't sob, just let the tears come and carve trails through the grime and blood on his face.
I began to cry openly.
"You'll be there, Luffy," I said shakily. "You're not going anywhere, not without my permission, alright? So just... hold on a little longer..." I bowed my head and bit my lip to keep the sobs inside of me. "Please... please Luffy... I promise you'll be there..."
In my head, the same track was playing over and over again. No no no no no no This can't be happening it's Luffy and he's not smiling like he should be and he's got a home and a family waiting for him and he can't die and Oh my God there's so much blood and it's Luffy and it's Luffy and it's Luffy...
And it should have been me...
"Zoro..." Luffy's weak voice broke me out of my thoughts. "Can you... do something for me?"
My eyes hurt from crying and I nodded my head. "Anything." I said.
"... My hat..." he whispered. "Can you... make sure she gets it? It's with my stuff... back at the... shelter... I want her to have it... please, Zoro... please..." He was begging me by the end, and his eyes were burning with pain and sadness and fear.
I nodded once more, unable to form words, and I watched as a silent smile formed on Luffy's lips. He looked so young lying there, so much like the boy he was and not like the man he was supposed to become. His eyes were heavy, but still shone with the life and vigor that I had come to know over the past few months. Even though he was dying, he was still my Luffy.
"Thanks, Zoro..." he said quietly. "Make sure you tell her, tell all of them, that I'm sorry... tell them that I love them more than life... and that I... wish I could've seen them... one last time..." Both of us were silent. The rain drizzled down over us, almost like the heavens themselves were crying for Luffy. "Zoro, I... I don't want to die..."
I hugged him to me so that his face was buried in my chest. "I know, Luffy, I know," I whispered.
"Can you... pray...?" He whimpered. "I'm... scared... I'm really scared... Zoro..." I bit my lip so hard it bled. I had never prayed a day in my life. For as long as I could remember, my policy had always been to do things myself without ever relying on some far-off deity that may or may not exist. I was worried that my words wouldn't go through. Luffy's hand tightened momentarily around mine, the fear in his grip evident.
I nodded.
"It's alright, Luffy," I said. "Don't be scared, I'm right here. Um... let's see... God? I... don't know if you're listening right now, or if you're even really up there, but... I guess I've got a few things I'd like to ask you." I paused and swallowed. "Please... don't take him away... Luffy is... he's the only good thing that ever happened to me... When I signed up for this war... I didn't know that I'd find my first real friend... and now... I need him... lot's of people need him..." Luffy's breath was becoming labored and his body was growing cold. "I'm begging you... let him stay... keep him safe... please..." I couldn't speak anymore, the words clogging in my throat and choking me, and so leaned in closer and pressed my chin into Luffy's helmet.
We stayed like that for what seemed like forever.
At last, Luffy tilted his head up to look at me. His eyes were dull and unfocused, and he was struggling to stay awake. My tears fell onto his exposed face and helped to wash the blood and dirt away, making him look like he was only falling asleep. "Luffy," I whispered.
The corners of his mouth tugged themselves upward, and he smiled. The boy soldier, on the very precipice of death, was smiling up at me just like he normally would. Like he wasn't about to die and leave his life behind him.
My heart shattered into a million pieces that could never ever be put back together.
He wasn't looking at me. He was looking upwards, into the stormy sky, into the heavens that wept so furiously over us. I could tell he wasn't seeing the clouds or the rain. The thing his eyes were gazing at was much farther away, and much more beautiful than anything could ever possibly be here on Earth. He was happy.
He was safe.
No longer was he the sad, blood-soaked boy dying in the trench. He was free. Finally free.
I don't know how much longer it was that his eyes stopped seeing. The light faded from within them and his body stilled, becoming relaxed in my arms. I buried my face in his shoulder and sobbed, more loudly and more intensely than I had ever done in my life. I got his blood on my face, but I didn't care. All that mattered was Luffy.
Monkey D. Luffy, my best friend and brother, was dead.
I laid him gently on the ground and ran the tips of my fingers over his eyelids to close them. The smile still remained on his face, and despite the rain and the blood and the churning earth, he looked truly peaceful.
It wasn't right.
I sat with him until the morning came, golden light seeping into every crease and crevice of the long night, turning it to day. Angels ghosted over the no-man's-land in the shape of mist and low-hanging clouds, gathering up the souls and flying them into the glittering sky. I called to them silently, asking them to come for him, and to be gentle with his spirit.
I wasn't sure if they heard me, or were drawn by the scent of my tears.
Time passed. The war ended.
I flew home on a bomber with a tattered straw-hat tucked away in my bag.
Out of all the things I had ever done in my life, what I was about to do was by far the most important. I had a scribbled down address clutched tightly in my hand, smudged and faded from the months of being handled by me, and I memorized the words and numbers so that even if I lost it, I could still find the place it lead to.
I had never been good with directions.
Being back home was strange. It felt like I was walking through a blurry dream, images floating up now and then to give me guidance and keep me sane. When Luffy had gone, he had taken a big piece of me with him. I felt hollow, and so went through the motions of daily life on autopilot.
Eat.
Sleep.
Travel.
Repeat.
It went on for days before I finally reached to doorstep of a small white house.
I double checked the address to make sure it was the correct one, and then, after taking a deep breath, knocked softly on the door. I waited for what felt like hours until a young orange-haired woman finally answered. She was beautiful, her long hair tied up in a messy ponytail, and her slim figure encompassed by a long white dress. I saw that the corners of her eyes were red.
"Can I help you?" She said with a tired smile.
I cleared my throat. "Yes, actually," I said, unzipping the bag in my arms and reaching inside. "I came to give you something." I rummaged around for a second and the woman looked confused. That was, until I with presented her with a battered straw-hat. Her eyes widened, and her hand flew up to her mouth.
"Is that...?" She whispered, tears forming in her eyes.
I nodded and held it out to her. She stared at it for a moment, and then grasped it with trembling hands and hugged it tightly to her chest, a look of unimaginable pain crossing her face. Without another word, she sank to her knees and began to cry. Her tears soaked into the straw and disappeared, almost like Luffy was trying to wipe them away from beyond the grave. I kept my face calm. As far as I was concerned, I'd already shed all the tears I'd ever need to.
The woman continued to sob softly until the sun hung low on the trees and dappled her puffy face.
Somewhere inside the house, a baby began to cry.
I felt my eyes widen, and my heart quickened its pace. The woman turned and looked back through the doorway, and then silently got to her feet and went inside. She left the door open, never taking her hands off the hat, and I took it as an unspoken invitation to come inside. I followed her down a short hallway, framed pictures of her and Luffy smiling out at me from the walls. His smile was as wide in the photographs as it had been in real life.
The woman lead me into a room with a blue door. It was a nursery, decorated all over with pictures of pirates and dinosaurs and other random things that only Luffy could think of. In the corner was a small crib. I felt my breath catch, and for some reason I was hesitant to step closer. The baby was wailing its little head off. Its mother set Luffy's hat down on a changing table and gently reached in to pick it up.
She cradled the child for a few seconds, whispering to it softly and bouncing up and down. The baby grew quiet, and as I looked, I saw that it had jet black hair.
The woman looked up at me and smiled. "I found out I was pregnant a few months after he left," she said. "He... told me that when he got back we were going to... start a family," her voice cracked and I saw a single tear roll down her cheek. "That Luffy... he was always trying to... make me smile and... and..." She couldn't go on. She held the child close to her and kissed its tiny forehead lovingly.
I took a step forward.
"He died protecting me." I said simply. The woman looked up at me in surprise. "It's my fault that he's not here now. I just wanted to apologize, and to make sure you got his hat." I avoided her gaze and instead focused on the sleepy child in her arms. Both of us were silent for a long time.
At last, the woman sighed. "I'm sure he was happy," she said. My head shot up and I saw her smiling warmly at me. I was shocked. Wasn't she supposed to hate and despise me for causing her husband's death? "I'm sure he was happy because... he was protecting someone he cared about. That's just the way he was." She paused, overcome with emotion. "I'm glad. I'm glad to know that he had you with him... that he wasn't alone... when..." She reached up and wiped her eyes. "When he died."
I clenched my fists as the memories of that day surged through me like fire. I cleared my throat again. "He... he wanted me to tell you that... he loved you," I said. "More than life. More than anything. God, I can't remember how many times he told me stories about you, and his brother, and the old man. You should've see him. I've never known a person with more love in his heart than Luffy. I'm just sorry that... I couldn't do anything for him... in the end."
I felt a warm hand on my arm. The woman was standing directly in front of me now, a small, sad smile playing on her lips. She reached down and took my hand. She guided it so that it was touching the baby's cheek, rough calluses meeting new skin, and the child stirred slightly, confused at the sudden contact.
"Isn't he beautiful?" She said, nothing but love in her voice. "It figures we'd have a boy. I know that Luffy would've been fine with either one, but I could tell he really wanted a son." She sighed and closed her eyes. "This is the greatest gift anyone could have ever given me. My Luffy fought to protect us, and so did you. You've got nothing to be sorry for."
I cupped the boy's cheek in my hand and let a smile creep its way onto my face. Inside, it felt like I'd been set free. From the war, from the death, from the guilt. I'd always remember Luffy, no matter what I did or where I went later in life. He would forever be a part of me, the piece of my heart that was warm and filled with light. Looking down at his son, I realized something.
He wasn't really gone.
Monkey D. Luffy wasn't buried underneath the trenches in a far away land. He was right here at home, with his wife and child where he belonged. I felt him. His warm smile on my back and his goofy laughter resounding off the walls.
He would always be here, even when we couldn't see him.
I let a single tear fall down my cheek and land on the floor.
Our boy really had come home after all.
So, what do you think? This idea came to me in a dream I had the other night, and I just couldn't get it out of my head. I hope you like it, and please leave reviews telling me how I did! Until we meet again, stay spicy! - Mikki