If Cora didn't come back

He felt the explosion. It wasn't heard. Pushing open the door of the cabin Cora deposited him in, Law had seen him run up the path, up through the snow. Maybe there were steps below the white. He couldn't hear a thing. Snow falling had its own kind of silence, indistinguishable now as Cora's power coated everything. Black feathers swaying was Law's only indicator that there was movement at all.

Huddled in a blanket, it sure wasn't warm out, but just as the nagi-nagi no mi quieted all around them, Law's fever drove out the cold. There was no way he could've stayed on the boat he and Cora had taken to Minion. He wouldn't have survived. The amber lead or the ocean would have taken him. Which one first he didn't know. But that ocean was as rough as fuck and to steady their small boat against it when he struggled to keep the blanket around him was impossible.

Could he be healed? It was a nice thought. Maybe it was unfair the shit he'd gone through. Maybe it was hard stuff to go through. Maybe it wasn't punishment for not playing with Lammy, not doing his chores, for being more interested in frogs than friends.

Cora had cried for him and Law cried too. He hadn't cried since before he'd escaped in that cart of bodies. He didn't know what he thought about it. Made things hurt in a different way from the disease. Doflamingo was always sniggering, and Law tried to laugh too. Even when things weren't so funny. Especially when they weren't funny. He'd seen the shift in everyone's eyes as they tried to figure out Doflamingo's mood. His power kept them tippy-toe teetering on the edge of approval. It was sweet when Doffy loved you, and terrifying when you crossed a line.

It was fair. They were brats. They crossed those lines all the time. But where they were drawn was hard to figure out. What was okay one day was off limits the next.

Now on the step, covered in snow, he liked seeing his air puff out in front of him, if only it didn't hurt to kinda pull the cold air in and expel it. Cora was coming back and maybe he could shake this cough. Law watched the building on the hill silently burn.

Maybe he wouldn't come back. They'd only just escaped some of the marines mobilised to track him down on the islands they visited because Cora tried to cure him. Luck. How much did he have? This town, it was quiet and empty of people too. It was a good town for him. Stripped of everyone. No-one could yell at him here because there was no-one to yell at him. What happened? The houses were intact. Not burnt or shot at or shattered.

If Cora wasn't coming back, this would be the last and it wouldn't be such a bad last. He'd got away from the soldiers who gunned down his parents, hid from platoons tramping through Flevance, hadn't gone to his execution with Sister and his classmates, had escaped the fire that took Lammy and, by dulling every last nerve in his body and mind, had left Flevance with his silent countrymen.

Could have done with Cora's ability then. The putrefaction of the bodies had set in with some, was definitely in process with others, and the gurgling, jostling, squelching — the smells, and the clammy, wet skin — were feelings he tried to buy off with ice cream and doing the best he could for Doflamingo. Learning from the man. But he'd escaped that too.

Death hadn't broken him after Cora threw him from Donquixote headquarters, hurtling down a crazy number of metres, at least ten times his height, and landing sharply on the scrapyard metal. And he'd survived stabbing Cora. The phoney mute hadn't ratted him out.

Would he survive Doflamingo? Cora had kidnapped him. It wasn't Law's choice, but not all things were upfront and Cora tried to help him. If he'd untied him more often in the early days he would've run. He wasn't the strongest. This disease was degenerative.

He couldn't run. So he sat in the snow. If Cora didn't come back, he'd sit in the snow and let it cover him. He glanced up the hill and heard shouts and shots. Not a good sign. He'd sit in the snow that constantly hushed the world around him now. It was difficult enough to think as it was, lungs tight with every inhalation. The flakes were pretty.

If Cora didn't come back, the snow would slow Law down and, really, walking was difficult. Cora had carried him for the last few weeks. He was still shivering, that was a good sign. But if Cora didn't come back, he'd lie down, close his eyes, and fall asleep. He'd fought hard, but better that the white lead take him than some uniform-clad or cutlass-waving thug take him with promises of safe journey leading to dark nights. Let the snow take him, this white city. If Cora didn't come back. It was almost time.

A/N:

I was rewatching the scenes where Cora set off to get Law's devil fruit, and Law is left sick and alone in the cold, well on his way to death. He's seen so much already, and escaped so much already, but he was a lot healthier and able before.

Though he wants to believe that Cora can do this and hopes he can, that burgeoning hope, trust and love must have come up against Law's past experience of being exposed to (but also escaping) grim, horrific, traumatic events, which stripped him of everyone he cares about. So, this is a drabble/one shot centring on what might have gone through his mind, him being more than a few degrees close to death from either hypothermia or Amber Lead Syndrome, in the time it took Cora to get the ope ope no mi and to return with it.

Thanks for reading. This is part of a drabble collection called Bepo's Drabbles on AO3. All G-T rated. Drabbles are really hard to upload on FFN, so I just upload a few here and there. I hope you enjoy this one.