I know this is late, but here's the Christmas one-shot for this year! As you can guess from the title, this one is about a Straw Hat Secret Santa!
This story is connected to the currently ongoing "Who Is She?" This one-shot does not take place in the actual storyline, but is something that would otherwise happen with Terra.
Here you go!
Disclaimer: I do not own One Piece. Terra is my OC.
"Happy Birthday, Chopper!" cheered everyone as Sanji brought out the birthday cake. The reindeer's eyes brightened ten-fold at the sight of the triple decker cake being placed before him on the deck of the Sunny.
"Thank you, everyone," he said after they sang the birthday song.
The party went off without a hitch. They had cake (though Luffy tried to shove nearly half of it in his mouth), Chopper was elated about his gifts from each crewmember, and they all ate and drank and danced the night away.
"That was quite a celebration," said Robin a few hours later. She and Terra were sitting on some lawn chairs at the bow. Everyone else was passed out on the deck.
"Yeah, we always seem to go crazy with the parties," said Terra with a laugh as she placed her empty mug down on the floor, "At least Sanji made sure to buy extra food at the last island so that we can still eat after this."
"I hope so. Especially since tomorrow could probably be as lively as today was." Terra frowned and looked over at Robin.
"Why? What's tomorrow?" she asked, "I thought me and Chopper were the only ones with birthdays this month." Robin glanced back at her, a little confused by the question.
"Tomorrow's Christmas. We're doing the Secret Santa in the morning, remember?" The gears churned in Terra's head for a moment before her jaw dropped out of shock.
"You really did forget, didn't you?" asked Robin, surprised by the nonverbal admission.
"W-Wait a minute! Since when did we decide to do the Secret Santa thing? When did we even decide to celebrate the holiday in the first place?" she asked a little frantically. She remembered them celebrating her birthday last week, and then everyone not-so-subtly asking Chopper what he wanted for today. At no point did anyone mention Christmas!
"We drew names when we arrived at the last island before we were given our allowances in order to go shopping for the present. Don't you remember that?"
Terra froze as the memory surfaced in her mind.
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"Okay, since everyone buying everyone else gifts would be too expensive, I suggest that we do a Secret Santa. Does that sound good?" asked Nami as she held out a bucket containing nine slips of paper.
As everyone agreed with the arrangement, Terra was staring out at the island. She was shifting her weight from one foot to the other impatiently as she tugged at the hood of her cloak.
Thanks to their most recent encounter with the Marines, Terra had gotten badly injured and was force to stay in bed the past couple of days by Chopper. It was mostly her fault. She had been careless. But that didn't make sitting still in bed that much less boring. Now they were at a new island, and Chopper had finally given her the okay to leave the infirmary. There was nothing she wanted to do more now than to go on a nice long jog. She didn't care that the island was blanketed with snow. She just wanted to be on the move.
"Hey, Terra!" Terra finally looked over at Nami to see her holding out a bucket.
"It's your turn to pick one," she said. Terra raised an eyebrow as she grabbed one of the two slips of paper sitting at the bottom. She glanced over the name written on it before Nami gave her some cash to spend at the island. She had been about to ask about the paper when Nami turned away to head to Zoro, who was still asleep.
Since they were docking and everyone else was heading out already, Terra shrugged. She would ask about the paper later.
She vaulted over the side of the ship and took off ahead of everyone else, her black feathered cloak fluttering behind her.
"Hey, Terra! Watch out for the ice!" warned Usopp exasperatedly. Terra waved at him from over her shoulder in acknowledgement before she disappeared from their sight.
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"So that's what happened. You weren't paying attention, and forgot to ask about that paper, didn't you?" said Robin. Terra was sitting with her head bowed down, muttering curses at herself.
"This is quite the dilemma," commented Robin.
"Ya think?" said Terra, annoyed, "I'm supposed to have a gift for someone in the morning. And we're out in the middle of the damn sea." She sighed, her shoulders sagging.
"What am I going to do?" she muttered.
"Who did you get?" asked Robin as she reached out to rub Terra's back soothingly. Terra racked her brain for a moment.
". . . Luffy." Robin smiled.
"Well, maybe you're not completely out of luck. If anything, you could probably get away with taking some meat from the kitchen and giving him that," she suggested. Terra looked up at her, frowning.
". . . That sounds like a bad copout, to be honest."
"There aren't many options here," said Robin, "As you said, we're not at an island anymore, and there are only a few hours until Christmas." Terra groaned at the reminder.
"Maybe you can just admit to Luffy that you forgot. I'm pretty sure he'll forgive you, especially if you promise to get him a present at the next island," suggested Robin. Terra thought about it. But it seemed like an even worse option, since admitting it in front of the crew would be embarrassing and Luffy would be left out on the gift exchange.
"I'll leave it to you to decide what to do," said Robin as she got up, "Good luck." Terra sat there thinking as Robin went to bed.
She had already decided that she wasn't going to face tomorrow without something for Luffy. The meat idea she would use as a last resort if she really couldn't come up with anything else. However, she was having difficulty thinking of something else as she sat there, staring up at the stars.
Terra finally moved to the women's quarters, walking silently to not disturb anyone. She rummaged through most of her stuff, but she couldn't find anything that she had to give that she thought that Luffy might like. Except for maybe a few of her pictures, but she already allowed everyone to peruse through them whenever they want as long as they handled them with care. She huffed before carefully setting her photos aside in a pile on the desk before leaving the room.
She stealthily ran all throughout the ship, trying to get an idea of what to give Luffy. However, it ended up being in vain. There was not much on the ship that she herself only owned, and therefore could give away freely. And plus, she really wasn't sure just what, besides food, he would like to be given.
"Why is this whole gift-giving thing so damn hard?" she said with a frustrated groan. She was back on the bow of the Sunny. She flopped down onto her back on the ground. There were only a few hours left until dawn. She still didn't have a gift for Luffy, and she was back to square one, staring up at the stars as she lamented her predicament.
Her eyes eventually strayed over to the black flag at the top of the mast. Their Jolly Roger was waving in the wind.
Terra frowned as she sat up and looked over at the lawn chair she was sitting in earlier. Her katana was still laying against it, the ends of the purple ribbon around its hilt fluttering in the wind. Her eyes lit up with determination as she got up quickly. She grabbed the sword and walked quickly towards Usopp's workshop.
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"Sanji! Breakfast!" demanded Luffy shortly after waking up.
"I told you that I'm already on it, so calm down already!" yelled Sanji as he cooked bacon.
"Should we do that Secret Santa exchange now, or after breakfast?" asked Usopp as he entered the kitchen, where most of the Straw Hats had already convened.
"Let's do it after breakfast. Otherwise, Luffy won't shut up about food the whole time," said Nami.
"That sounds like a splendid idea, Nami-swan!" said Sanji, "I'm almost done cooking, anyway."
"In that case, I'd better go wake Terra," said Nami as she made to get up.
"I'll do it," offered Robin, "She didn't make it back to our room last night, but I know where she fell asleep at."
"Oh, okay."
Robin walked out of the kitchen as Sanji started plating some food. Thanks to her Devil Fruit power, she had found Terra easily before she had gone to the kitchen for coffee. As she approached the younger woman, Robin smiled as she saw Terra slumped over Usopp's workbench. Her mouth was open as her cheek pressed against the surface of the bench. Before her was a small package that was clumsily wrapped in dark blue wrapping paper.
Robin gently nudged her shoulder.
"You're going to develop neck pain if you keep sleeping like that," she said as Terra grumbled. Terra opened her bleary eyes. She frowned when she saw that she was in Usopp's workshop until she saw her present still on the bench.
"Come on. It's time for breakfast," said Robin as she turned to leave. Terra stretched out her back, hearing a few pops. She pocketed her gift before leaving.
Breakfast happened in its usual, rowdy manner. Chopper had inquired Terra about her tired state, but she reassured both him and Nami that she did not have any nightmares last night. That didn't stop them from suggesting that she took a nap after the gift exchange (which she had no complaints about because man was she tired).
Once the kitchen had been cleaned up, everyone gathered out on deck, each with a gift in hand.
"Okay, so should we do this one at a time, or all together?" asked Nami.
"We might as well do it all together, so that no one has to wait longer than someone else," advised Robin.
"That's sounds like a good idea," agreed Usopp.
"Alright! Me first!" said Luffy.
"Did you not hear what Robin just said?" scolded Nami and Usopp. Luffy, however, ran over to Chopper.
"Here you go, Chopper!" Luffy handed him a thick, rectangular present wrapped in bright red paper. It turned out to be a recently updated medical volume.
"Thank you, Luffy!" said Chopper cheerfully. Everyone stared at Luffy, surprised about the gift.
"No problem! Robin helped me pick it out!" he said.
"Of course" was the thought that crossed everyone else's minds.
"Now who got me?" asked Luffy excitedly as he looked about. Terra slowly stood up from the bench that circled around the mast.
"I did," she said. Luffy grinned at her as he ran over.
"Whatcha get me?" he asked, "I hope it's meat!" Terra flinched slightly as she held out her horribly wrapped present. Shit, maybe she should have copped out after all. Even if it seemed too easy, at least she knew it was a guarantee that he would like it. What she had instead was a bit of a gamble.
"N-Not quite," she said, trying not to sound nervous.
Luffy took the offered gift and tore off the paper. Under it was a plain cardboard box. When he opened the flap on top, he peered in to see a purple ribbon. He pulled it out to see that, on one end of the ribbon, there was a metal pendant.
The pendant was roughly circular. On one side, there was a rough carving of their Jolly Roger. It wasn't nearly as bad as Luffy's attempts at drawing the emblem, but also not as good as Usopp's. There were two clasps fashioned onto the pendant. One already had the ribbon running through it while the other didn't.
"What's this?" he asked curiously.
"It's an armband," said Terra cautiously, "It's not that well-made, but . . ."
"I'll say," said Usopp when he stepped closer to look at it, "The artisan didn't do a good job at engraving the emblem onto it. Whatever you paid for it, you probably got ripped-off."
"It was sort of a last-minute job I commissioned them for," said Terra a bit snappishly, "They said this was the best they could do on short notice."
"I still think you got conned," said Usopp, "It doesn't look like they've put a lot of effort into it. They didn't even try to make it shine . . ." Usopp's words slowly died off when he noticed that Terra was glaring at him.
"I-I mean, it's a lovely gift," he amended quickly, although a bit confused as to why she was getting angry at him.
"It's great!" Both Terra and Usopp looked at Luffy to see him grinning at the armband. He had already put it on his left arm.
"It looks cool! Thanks Terra!" he said. Terra was stunned before she nodded towards him.
"No problem."
"Hey." Terra looked around to see Zoro holding out a gift to her. It was a wide, rectangular package wrapped in green paper.
"Huh?"
"What do you mean 'huh'? This is your gift," said Zoro. That was when it dawned on her that someone else was also her Secret Santa. Though, she couldn't imagine what Zoro would be giving her.
"Uh, thanks." She took the gift and tore off the paper. She was surprised to see a book filled with laminated pages.
"It's a photo album," said Zoro when she still seemed confused, "Your tin box got smashed, right? Figured you'd want another place to stash your pictures." Terra's eyes widened before she offered Zoro a smile.
"Thanks, Grasshead." She snickered at his displeased reaction to the nickname.
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Bonus:
"Man, you really did take a lot of pictures since we left your island," said Usopp, looking over her collection as she decided to try to organize them into her new photo album in his workshop.
"Well, I did spend a lot of my allowance on film, and paper for developing them. I should probably spend my next allowance on more chemicals. I'm starting to run low on those as well," she said as she moved on to the Alabasta section of the book.
"By the way, you left your sword in here," said Usopp as he pointed to the katana propped up against his bench, "Though I don't know when you brought it down here. Also, is it just me, or is the ribbon tied around it shorter than usual?" Terra shrugged.
"Who knows." She stood up from her cross-legged position on the ground to stretch.
"I'm gonna walk for a bit. Careful with those pictures," she said as she walked away. Usopp nodded as he turned his attention to her photo album. Terra had already prepared sections for the islands they had visited, and he was surprised by how many she took in the East Blue alone. He guessed that she was a lot more discreet with her picture-taking than he thought.
He was about to go work on his next project when he noticed a tag sticking out towards the back pages of the book. Curious, he went to see what she reserved the back of the book for.
"HEY WAIT! TERRA! WHY DO YOU HAVE A SECTION LABELED 'BLACKMAIL'?"
A fun little end to a much more cheerful Christmas one-shot than the last two were for this story. I hope you enjoyed the holiday one-shot this year.
Reviews are always welcomed. Happy Holidays! And in case I don't get the chance to do this on time either, I wish you all a Happy New Year!