A/N: Wow this is shorter than I thought. Oh well. I'll be uploading more soon. Thanks for reading!

Chapter 2

"She was right. We couldn't have gone around the storm."

It was Sanji who made the verbal confirmation. Less than twenty minutes after emerging from the storm into the 'eye' of it, they spotted land. A lot of it. There were dozens of small islands dotted about and as the crew dropped anchor at the nearest one, they realized that the storm wasn't moving at all.

"I believe it is safe to assume that the storm is the result of the gravitational field of these islands," Robin commented tiredly. "In order to leave this place, we will have to pass through it again."

Silence overtook the crew again as they made what repairs they could to the ship. No one mentioned that Zoro had disappeared from the deck. Nor that Luffy was still standing near the railing, staring out to sea. Finally, close to dusk, Sanji called them all in for dinner. That, too, was a silent affair. Luffy didn't even have the exuberance to try and steal food from other people's plates.

No one looked at Nami's empty space at the table. Nor at Zoro's, since he had not shown up to dinner. After dinner, no jovial song and dance helped to pass the evening. Near midnight, it was clear that no one would be going to bed. Everyone had an unspoken hope that if they stayed up maybe, just maybe, they'd catch a glimpse of their navigator and tow her in.

A bleary-eyed morning came without the appearance of their navigator. Sanji called them all to breakfast and found that two chairs were empty again. His temper got the better of him and Sanji left the galley and headed down into the underbelly of Thousand Sunny in search of the swordsman.

Zoro was sitting in the men's quarters surrounded by three empty bottles of ale.

"Damned problem child," Zoro muttered. "Of all of them I could have sent up there, I sent the problem child."

"Oi, shitty," was Sanji's greeting. "Get up and put some food in your stomach. You're no good to us piss-ass drunk."

Zoro ignored him.

"Get up," Sanji insisted, nudging the swordsman's arm with his foot. "Be of some use besides a pouting piece of shit in the bowels of the ship."

"It's my fault," Zoro admitted. "I knew I shouldn't have let her go up there."

"Then who?" Sanji prodded testily. "Ussop? Then he'd be the one lost at sea. Face it, nothing you did sent her over that railing."

"She was chasing Sandai Kitetsu," Zoro bellowed. "My sword! I could have climbed up there myself and tied off that rope but instead I threw my sword up there knowing that she'd have a hell of a time getting back down."

"I let go of the sword."

The two men turned to see Robin in the doorway.

"I was holding it as she climbed down," Robin explained. "When the wave hit, I lost my grip and the sword washed to the edge of the ship. If I had held onto it, she would have never gone over the side."

Watching Robin cry back at Enies Lobby had been rough. Yet now, as she shed a single, silent tear, it felt just as heart wrenching.

"And if I could have handled the helm myself, Sanji could have been helping you guys," Ussop said from behind her. Slowly, the crew filed into the men's quarters one by one.

"And I was tied to the ship," cried Chopper. "I couldn't even do anything!"

"I think it is safe to say," Brooke began, solemnly, "if anyone is at fault, that one way or another, we are all at fault."

"So let's do something about it," Franky broke in. "Let's search these islands one by one until we find her."

"We don't even know if she made it to an island," Zoro pointed out.

"Yes she did!" Luffy yelled. Everyone was surprised at the amount of force behind his words. "And we're going to find her."

Their captain stalked out of the room in such a mood that they were all taken aback a little. Chopper looked up at Ussop.

"Do you think she made it to an island?" he asked meekly.

"Yes," Ussop answered immediately. "Nami once told me that it was the mermen that taught her to swim back in her home town. If anyone could swim through a storm like that and make it to an island, it's Nami."

A smile touched the furry face of the doctor for the first time in over a day. "Really?"

"Yep. And that's no lie."