A/N: (Summary:) It's a day like any other on the Thousand Sunny, but there are strange sightings on the ship. Where did it come from? Where is it going? If it isn't the klabautermann, then...could it be...a ghost? Join the Strawhats as they discover just what it is that is running around their ship. Pre-timeskip. Nakamaship, no pairings.

I do not own One Piece.

Usopp and Franky were talking animatedly in a corner of the workshop, making broad gestures with abandon when Usopp suddenly froze mid-sweep. He cocked his head from side to side and looked suspiciously at nowhere in particular.

Franky blinked rapidly, "Ow! What's up, bro?"

"Shhh!" Usopp whipped a finger to his lips while his eyes roamed the air. "Did you hear that?" he whispered.

The two tilted their heads side to side. Right when Franky was about to question the sniper once more, a scampering sound pittered across the floorboards above them. The two stared at each other.

"I don't get it, bro. Isn't that Chopper?"

Usopp hummed, then frowned. "That's...what I thought, but it didn't sound quite like him. Usually there's a...a sort of squeak when he's running around."

They thought about this.

"Wait, the aquarium is above us. And then above that is Chopper's office—but we shouldn't be able to hear him running around in there."

Usopp looked like he was going to be sick. No other crew member was lighter than the resident doctor. "A-a-a-a ghost?"

Franky sat down on a crate and took a swig of his cola, "It could've been the Thousand Sunny's klabautermann."

Usopp collapsed on a stool behind him, "Oh, thank goodness. So it wasn't a random ghost?"

A flash of light and the sound of the hatch opening and closing commanded their attentions.

"Huh?" Usopp sat up from his slump and stared at the dark hallway leading to the docking system. Come in, whoever you are! We're not working on anything dangerous," a cheery Usopp grinned.

Silence.

"Aa-uh...This isn't funny." Usopp was beginning to look nervous. "You can come in..."

"The klabautermann?"

But the eery feeling and sound wasn't around…Usopp frowned at the darkness.

A small form peering into the room took shape under Usopp's squint, but it wasn't clear enough to distinguish although it looked like Chopper. It was beginning to look like Chopper—it must have been the short doctor—but Usopp was beginning to wish he had left the hallway lights on as he and Franky stared expectantly. And then he couldn't take it anymore.

"Aaahhhhh!" He lunged towards the path between the workrooms and whipped out his slingshot, spooking Franky with the sudden outburst. Usopp huffed heavily, glaring at the hallway. He blinked. The hatch opened and closed quickly. But I didn't see–…!

"U-usopp?"

The sniper whirled around only to see a very wide-eyed reindeer frozen at the top of the stairs. Chopper squealed and tried to hide—the wrong way, of course.

It was then that Usopp remembered he was pointing Kabuto at the poor reindeer, "O-oh, sorry..."

Franky stuck his head by Usopp's, "Hey! If it isn't Chopper!"

"Did I…come at a bad time…?" Chopper was positively crestfallen and kept eyeing a serious-looking Usopp who was staring at the floorboards.

"Bro, lighten up! What's wrong?"

Usopp was scowling. His thinking face was on. Suddenly he ran and stuck his head up the hatch, yelling for Zoro.

"What." came the muffled reply. Franky and Chopper looked at each and started walking towards the ladder.

"Who was the last person you saw use this hatch?"

"What is this, an interrogation?"

"Just answer me, damnit!"

Chopper imagined Zoro scratching the back of his head. The swordsman replied, "Uhm, you. Why?"

"And before that?"

"…Franky, maybe?"

"H–have you been sleeping there the entire time?"

"What about it?"

They took that as a yes.

"You didn't see the hatch open and close, but nobody go in or out?"

"Yeah, I did. So what?"

Usopp wasn't saying anything. Franky and Chopper couldn't see his expression from their stance right under him. In a second, Usopp was screaming and running into his workshop, looking for his old exorcism stuff.

-~x~- on deck -~x~-

The sun was nearing the portion of its arc across the cloud-specked sky when the weather was warmest. A light breeze kept the air cool but was still strong enough to prompt the Sunny through the calm waters. It was a perfect afternoon to spend on deck, and Nami was not about to waste it.

The crew had just set sail from a summer island, so the girls had had their share of sun-tanning. Instead, they decided to care for the flower beds and mikan grove respectively.

Robin was smiling softly to herself as she listened to the navigator talk haltingly about the layout of the last island in-between particularly hard-to-reach spots. The archaeologist was trying out the new sunhat Nami had insisted on buying for her, and she enjoyed the curious flopping of the wide brim—a new feeling for her. Her two hands smoothed and patted the dirt, plucking up the dying leaves and stuffing them into a small bag by her side. There was no need for her to rush and use her devil fruit. Gardening was a leisurely hobby.

Usopp's yell from the deck reached the pair's ears, but he seemed only to be berating Zoro. Not a terribly uncommon scenario at all until Usopp's shrill screech broke the peace for certain before being drowned out with a "bang." The hatch? Nami stuck her head out of her grove and made a face. Robin shrugged and the gardening continued.

Robin suddenly had the feeling that she was being watched by something next to her. She didn't outwardly show it but this concerned her, not because someone was observing closely, but because she didn't recognize this particular set of eyes or aura. A strange observation, but for someone who had spent most of her life as a fugitive it was a built-up sixth sense, as if eating the Hana Hana no mi wasn't enough.

She sat back, storing the information for later. "Nami. Do you need help reaching?" Robin called, ignoring the dry leaves that snuck their way into the bag by someone's—or something else's—doing just inside her peripheral vision.

"Ah~ That would be helpful, Robin! Just finish your thing and I'll finish trimming as far as I can reach. I'll let you know when I'm done!"

Robin smiled as she watched a head of orange bob between the gaps in the leaves. The younger was always cheerful around her precious mikans.

"Nami-swan! Robin-chwan! I have your afternoon snack!"

"Sanji!" a whining voice ran up and down multiple octaves. "Where's MY snack?"

"Shithead!" There was the distinct sound of something connecting with Sanji's shoe and an indignant—and grumpy—growl from the main deck, as well as a less obvious stomach gurgle by Robin's side.

"Oi! What the hell was that for!" Zoro's indignant cry butted in.

"Don't touch this! This is specifically for ladies only."

Another whine split the air.

"Don't mind him, Luffy. He's just a wannabe-ladies-man."

"Ahh, is that so?" Luffy seemed to be listening carefully.

"Hah~? Like you're any good with the ladies, shitty marimo," came the scoff.

Zoro actually sounded smug—anything to one-up Sanji—"So says the supposed ladies-man who flirts with anything that has boobs and yet didn't get ogled at back at that last island."

Robin heard a slight giggle by the railing overlooking the lower deck and for a split second she saw a little girl leaning over the wood. When she blinked the vision was gone.

"Shitty marimo!" an enraged Sanji almost screamed. "That's because you somehow managed to botch your shirt and Chopper was lecturing you about taking better care of yourself so you don't bleed to death randomly. Who wouldn't stare at a shithead getting lectured like a pussy by a talking reindeer." If the tone of his voice was anything to go by, Robin was sure he was clutching at straws. How interesting. She had to admit though, Zoro was a good piece of eye-candy. No need to list the reasons why, it was quite obvious.

"So, you agree that Chopper is more of a ladies-man than you are."

"How do you even reach that concl—No, Luffy! This is for the beautiful Nami-swan and Robin-chwan!"

"Yohohoho! So this is where the ladies were!" the resident skeleton emerged on deck and turned his gaze towards the garden. "Would you be so kind as to show me your–"

"Like HELL!" an annoyed navigator was suddenly by the rails and throwing a shovel down upon a laughing pervert.

While the banter continued on the lower decks—with Sanji alternating between yelling at Brook, batting away an insistent Luffy, and singing "mellorine"s towards the girls as he walked backwards up the stairs—Robin heard more than saw the much more audible gasp of alarm. Seems like their stowaway didn't want to be found. Light footsteps ran past the flowerbeds and the tree branches parted as the invisible little girl disappeared within the grove.

-~x~- in the kitchen -~x~-

Sanji opened the door to his domain yelling back at Luffy to stay out, called out to his loves one last time and closed the door behind him. He grinned as mouth-watering smells surrounded him once more and he hurried to his countertop to start dinner. Like usual, he was about to try something a bit new with the sea king the boys had caught earlier this morning.

Gutting the beast was always the messiest part and had to be done painstakingly. The last thing they needed was a whole trail of them tailing the ship. This one had had quite a bit of wreckage in its belly, but nothing Sanji couldn't handle. He had found a few things of interest, including an odd tangle of what looked like an old chest and some rope, but he set them aside for later in a miscellaneous storage room of Franky's as dinnertime was quickly approaching.

He chopped up the vegetables and turned to work up a broth, but when he turned back around he noticed that some of the carrot slices were gone. He gave his surroundings a good once over, even looking under the counter to see if the veggies had simply fallen. When he stood back up, he saw that a date was gone from the fruit basket by his arm. He blinked rapidly, suddenly wary.

Boisterous yelling and music filtered in through the cracks of the wood, so Luffy wasn't the culprit this time. He picked his knife back up and began to chop up the garlic. A squeak. He moved on to the onions. A sniff. He moved on to the potatoes and heard a growl that could only come from a hungry stomach.

Maybe he was going crazy.

Even so, the cook reached into a cabinet and pulled out a cup and spoon. He felt ridiculous, but Sanji scooped the rest of the smoothie he had made for Nami and Robin out of the blender and into the little goblet. A rapidly-sliced apple gave it a nice touch. A little hesitantly, he set it down on the counter as far away from his chopping board as possible, and was about to resume his cooking when the door opened.

Zoro's indifferent mug emerged, letting out some of the wonderful smells and letting in the sounds of merriment from the main deck. He looked at the smoothie Sanji had set down.

Sanji was turning slightly pink from embarrassment. The marimo had caught him doing something so stupid—he was sore tempted to take back the smoothie and eat it himself, but refrained. Instead, he snapped at the lazy swordsman that it wasn't for him.

Zoro rolled his neck and settled on the bar-seat farthest from the door. This cut off the blonde's tirade and earned the swordsman a raised curly eyebrow. Zoro usually didn't make a point to have a conversation, or at least imply that he wanted to talk.

At first, Sanji merely waited for his crewmate to speak, continuing his preparation for dinner. The sizzling in the background kept the silence to the minimum, but Zoro wasn't saying anything and it was beginning to irritate the cook. And if Sanji cooked a little faster than usual he wasn't about to admit it, though this gave way to a furious tempo fueled by frustration.

A vein appeared on Sanji's temple and he turned towards the swordsman to mouth-off at him when a clink from the right cut through the hissing from behind him. Sanji whipped his head to where he had left the smoothie. Only an empty cup remained.

The cook blinked rapidly, completely bewildered. He turned to look at Zoro who looked annoyingly calm.

Zoro sighed at the cook's unverbalized question. "The kid's gonna need more than a drink. I was going to ask you for a plate of food but I wasn't sure how to do that without seeming completely out-of-it. It looks like you sort of figured it out though."

Sanji fought the scandalized expression off his face in favor of a blank one. This was Zoro of all people. First off, a drink was not the same as a smoothie but he wouldn't expect anything from a shitty marimo. Secondly, was this "kid" just invisible or a ghost? Was he malnourished or something? Sanji still didn't know what the hell was going on.

Zoro could tell that he had overstayed his welcome and stood. "Look, just the plate of food."

Sanji scowled and muttered a few insults but turned to pile a bit of something on a plate.

"Also, don't tell anyone just yet," Zoro hissed.

Sanji craned his neck so that he could eye a distracted Zoro. His eyes were watching something—or someone—move around the room, but he was still facing the cook. "Why so secretive?" Sanji murmured back. He finished heaping the plate with a full serving and set it on the counter in front of Zoro.

The swordsman seemed like he was debating with the wording of what he was about to say but in the end settled for, "I don't think the kid is…ready for nine people to give him attention at the same time."

Sanji allowed himself to uncharacteristically adopt a surprised expression. Was the shithead actually being considerate...? "Where's he now?"

Zoro jerked his thumb at the table, and Sanji almost yelled at him for being so unspecific when one of the chairs began to swivel. Sanji blinked and the chair stopped swerving when the kid (probably?) realized he…she? was being watched.

Zoro pushed on a knee with his hand and cracked his neck, grunted his probable thanks for the food and walked out with the steaming plate. Sanji forced himself to think that perhaps it was all just a dream, picked up his knife and resumed his cooking. He frowned thoughtfully as he stirred the contents of the large pot. Zoro had implied that this kid-ghost or whatever was hungry. Usually Sanji would have fed the person himself but somehow Zoro's uncharacteristic actions caused him to allow the swordsman to have his way. His shoulders winced slightly as he fleetingly remembered his experience with hunger, the first time he'd looked at himself in a mirror after getting off that god-forsaken ro–

The quiet opening of the door caused Sanji to raise his head. The waning afternoon light gave Sanji a glimpse of a spindly form glancing back at him. It jumped and pattered rapidly away. Sanji almost dropped his ladle.

He must be going crazy. For a moment he had seen himself as a child, starving and shriveled, and staring right back at him.

-~x~- back on deck -~x~-

The kitchen door slid shut behind Zoro. The first order of business would be sneaking the food past his captain. Luckily, Luffy was on the other side of the ship messing with the aquarium again. Hopefully, he wouldn't smell the food… Zoro ran down the steps, approached the ladder and swore.

Suddenly, half of him was netted in his infinitely-voracious captain and Zoro was stretching his arm as far away from the rubbery fingers as he could.

He could hear the others coming towards them, loudly wondering what had caught Luffy's attention this time. Of course. The sound of the kitchen door opening and closing was like an alarm to the captain. Zoro wouldn't have been surprised if Luffy had indeed managed to memorize the sound.

"Get OFF of me!"

"Zoro~ share with me~! No fair Sanji gave you food! Share! Captain's orders!"

In the end it was Sanji who emerged from the kitchen and came to his rescue, his excuse dangling lazily from between two fingers. "Oi, Luffy!" he puffed, "I have your snack in here."

Zoro blinked and Luffy had attached himself to Sanji, the rest of the boys in the crew close behind. Usopp ran by wearing…Zoro didn't want to question it. Superstition would never work anyway, not in this crew it wouldn't. The Strawhats were like magnets for trouble.

The skeleton walked round the corner last, his violin and bow in hand. He took note of the child by the railing who had now turned to stare at the mini mob barreling into the cook's domain, but simply went below decks to put his instrument away.

Zoro finally reached the crow's nest and set the plate of steaming food on the floor. A quick glance out the window told him that the child was now staring up at the suspended weight room and Zoro quickly got back to his training. The kid would make it upwards eventually if he was as hungry as Zoro thought he looked.

Moments passed as Zoro lifted weights. He certainly didn't have to wait long for the ghost child to arrive. The kid sat before the food and kept eyeing first Zoro, then the food, back and forth.

Zoro purposefully kept his eyes closed as the small form debated whether or not to eat the food. "I didn't get it for myself."

It came out a little gruffer than he had intended, but he wasn't about to apologize either. The kid was already digging in.

The plate was empty in minutes and Zoro continued to lift his monstrous weights, under the awed gaze of the little boy. And if Zoro pumped the iron a little more vigorously than usual he wasn't about to admit it. The child grew tired of sitting however, and began cautiously inching around the room, first looking out the windows and then—growing more courageous—hesitantly poking at the various weights laying around the room. Usually Zoro didn't let just anyone touch his weights, but the kid wasn't trying to pick them up– "Oi, don't hurt yourself."

The kid had tried to pick up the smallest weight.

About an hour had passed by the time Zoro decided that he had had enough with the weights. He had been working out all morning before lunch, so perhaps some meditation was in order. Except, he had something else to worry about.

Seeing that Zoro's weights were now put away, the kid began inching his way curiously towards the relaxed swordsman. Eventually the child could have reached out and touched Zoro if he wanted to, but he instead sat down in front of the swordsman.

"T-thank you for the food."

Zoro didn't move a muscle, only murmured that the cook was the one to be thanked.

A comfortable silence washed over the two and the little boy was about to nod off when a faint "Yohohohoho!" was heard just outside the hatch and–

Zoro inhaled slowly but spat some of it back out when a small body collided with his. "O-oi! What the hell!"

Brook wasn't sure if Zoro was talking to him or the kid scrambling all over the swordsman. Maybe both.

"Stop it!" Zoro ground out, though he didn't try very hard to pry off the wriggling and bony body. "He won't do anything to you!" He gave a dry look at the skeleton watching silently. "You can see him, can't you?"

It was more of a statement than a question. Brook gave the younger man the affirmative, "Yes, probably because of the power of the Yomi Yomi no mi. But the question is, what is he doing here?"

Zoro felt the form now behind him stiffen slightly.

Brook took a seat around the edge of the crow's nest in an attempt to make himself look less intimidating. "It does not matter to Luffy-san how you got on this ship so much as why, or whether or not you are a boy or a girl. No one is treated differently here because of their dreams or who they are."

"Relax already." Zoro rolled his eyes and finally pried the arms off his neck.

"I…I ate a devil's fruit!" the boy burst out. "I think..."

"You think?" The ghost kid earned himself a raised eyebrow.

Brook tilted his head in what might have been confusion. "It allows you to change your gender and become invisible? If I remember correctly, you were a girl when you were gardening next to Robin-san."

"N…Not exactly…" the boy had more-or-less calmed and was now settled half in Zoro's lap. "My appearance changes depending on what other people think they see, and how I want to perceive myself."

"So, which are you: boy or girl?"

"…I don't know."

There was an awkward pause at this revelation. "How do you not know?"

"I forget. I don't know how I got here," the child's nose began running.

Zoro raised an eyebrow as he once more pried the boy's arms off of him and set him on the floorboards. "Then when was the last time you ate before what you had just today?"

"I...I don't know...maybe when I ate the devil fruit? 'M...really tired..." the kid began to slump.

"Is he...?" Brook spoke up softly.

"Yeah. He's asleep." Zoro sighed and, with more care than most thought him capable of, gently scooped the little visage into his arms. "I'll go find Chopper."

A/N: I have a lot of One Piece shorts in line...but I just can't seem to finish any of them. Found this buried in a folder. Gonna touch it up and finally finish it for you guys :) I hope to complete this two-(three?)-chapter story before September, so stay tuned!