HELLO READERS!

Thank you so much for all your support last chapter! I sent PMs to everyone who reviewed, except for the guests, but the guests are still very much important. Thank you to Awesome Guest and my other two guest readers who reviewed last chapter! I really appreciate everyone taking time to leave me a little something. Also, I'm really glad that I was able to make everyone so curious! Too bad there's not a whole lot going on in this chapter, but I hope it can answer some of your questions and at the same time, give you more. We're almost through with the set-ups, I promise! Peeks to the plot is coming very soon! Ok, I'll stop now my rambling and let you read now. Enjoy, chapter two of THE BREAKING POINT.


the breaking point

While traveling with the Heart Pirates towards an unknown location, Nami is ambushed and fatally wounded by enemy attackers. The captain of the Heart Pirates, Trafalgar Law finds her and nurses her back to health. He eventually tells Nami that she is on board the Polar Tang, his own submarine. After a strangely vivid dream and observing Law's odd behavior, Nami realizes that she is in fact, not on board a ship at all, as no ship is as still or quiet as the room Law has her locked in.


two | white prison

One Year Prior…

"Your maps sure are nice, Miss Nami."

Nami can't help but smile at the bear sitting across from her.

Should she tell him she has no idea what she's doing? That her hands move on their own? No, she shouldn't. He would worry, and when Bepo worries, he tells Law and when Law is told, Nami is put under the dark doctor's anger.

"Mine look nothing like yours." He pushes his sheet away from himself and slumps in his seat, already beginning to brood.

A cursory look over to his side of the table reveals his statement to be true, but Nami's trained eyes can tell that though his map is clumsier and contains less aesthetically appealing details, everything important is marked precisely. His map is accurate, and that is what matters most. She tells him so, but he is ever the hard one to pull from his self destructive states.

"Don't be so hard on yourself," she chastises him with a wag of her manicured finger, "Practice makes perfect."

Someone told her that once. She's not sure if it's true.

"Sorry…" he mumbles behind his collar.

"Don't apologize either, you didn't do anything wrong."

"Sorry…" he repeats, still behind his collar.

Nami sighs.

Sometimes the guy is too hard on himself. She reaches over to place a comforting hand on his shoulder, but the sound of an approaching person stops her.

A man. A man is coming towards the room.

She whips her head to the open doorway, her body tensing and slowly rising out of her seat, one hand sliding to the knife strapped to her thigh so that when—

Oh.

It's just him.

She lets herself relax when she sees Law's figure enter. Law doesn't mean her any harm. She falls back into her seat.

"Nami," he says, bringing her attention back to him. His eyes almost immediately slip down to her ample cleavage bursting from the skintight jumpsuit she was given. The action does not go unnoticed by her or the other occupant in the room.

"My face is a little higher, in case you're curious, Law," Nami says with a condescending snort as she angles her body away. The feel of a man's leer on her is sickeningly familiar and Nami doesn't like it. Not one bit. Law doesn't bother to apologize; he simply raises his gaze.

Maybe she should change her wardrobe.

Bepo stands from his chair and nervously sidesteps towards the doorway.

"I'll just leave you here with the captain, see you at dinner Miss Nami. Bye Captain!" He smiles, or at least tries to before turning tail and racing to the doorway.

"Wait, Bepo—!"

He is already gone and down the hall. Nami huffs a bit at having been ignored by her favorite bear, but recollects herself when Law slides easily into the chair Bepo was just occupying moments ago.

He tosses an object at her, and it lands with dull thud on the tabletop beside her newly inked map.

A book?

"What's this book about?" she asks as she lifts it into her hands. It's heavy for such a small thing.

"Can't you tell by the cover?" He's smiling. It's not a happy one. He's teasing her.

Nami doesn't like that smile. It nags at something in the far corner of her mind, something dark and dirty and foul, something of which, she doesn't want to think about right now. She focuses on the book instead.

Nami stares thoughtfully at the book, running her palms up and down the smooth leather cover before opening it to one of the many dog-eared pages. The pages are worn, soft and well loved, judging by the scrawls in the margins and between the paragraphs. Her fingers trace the endless lines of what she knows are supposed to be words, but are nothing but lines on paper to her. A deep sense of loss wells up in the pit of her stomach, and for the life of her, Nami cannot understand why.

"Nami?" Law is watching her when she looks to him, his gaze is expectant and bright. When she can no longer stand his golden eyed stare, she turns away to face the book once more.

"I can't read it." Her fingers are trembling against the paper.

"I can't read the words…" she says softly, more to herself than to him.

Law stares at her for the longest time.

"You can't… read anymore?" He says this to himself and under his breath, so Nami knows better than to respond.

He says nothing more when he stands to leave. It's okay though. Nami doesn't know what she would say to him. She's afraid of what he may ask, and what he may do when she gives him the answer.

Present…

She thinks she might be going crazy.

She's been told of this feeling, experienced it before even, this helplessness and dependency. Law is slowly taking over her waking world. He feeds her. He bathes her. He dresses her. He is everywhere and everything here. There is no time, no day or night, only the schedule of when Law decides to come and go in her small room with four walls, no windows, and one door.

This feeling is something she'd rather not relive. That time is something she'd rather not dwell on at all. She almost hates Law for recreating it. Almost.

Right now, though, she just lays like a corpse in her sterile white bed, eyes fastened to the white ceiling and occasional flicker of the single fluorescent light bulb. There is nothing. Nothing but the sound of Law's bustling on the other side of the door.

The door. She turns to her side to face it. Her gateway to freedom. Law does not let her go beyond it without his immediate presence. The only time she has left the room was to bathe, and even then, the bathroom is only three steps across the hall. It is also white.

Law has not brought her swords. He ignores her when she asks for them. He has also lied to her, so Nami thinks that she should kick him down a rank of friendship to acquaintanceship. His character to her is edging on villainous.

Her ear perks at an indistinctive mumble through the door.

… Voices?

That's new. Law doesn't speak to anyone or thing but her. Voices on the other side of the door is unusual.

She slips from the bed as quietly as she can and scampers across the room to press her ear to the door—Law does not know that she can walk on her own now, and after the events of the past—days?—weeks?—month?—she thinks she'll keep him in the dark about that.

"She's not recovered yet." Whoever he's talking to is annoying him. She can almost see him running his hand through his hair.

She strains to hear the reply, she knows he is talking about her, but can only catch a rough rumble.

Pity.

"We wouldn't make it, not like this."

A hiss from Law, and a thud. She assumes that he hit the wall.

"We need more time. She'll be up and ready in a month's time."

I'm up and ready now. She doesn't say that aloud, of course.

Law sighs, then says to the person on the other side of the conversation, "I'll see you there."

Where? HQ? The rendezvous point? The Heart's safe house?

Before she can ponder more, Law's approaching footsteps prompt her to scramble back to her bed. Just as she's pulling the blanket up to her chin, Law enters the room.

The room is suddenly too small.

He glances at her before crossing the room in two easy strides and dropping onto the metal chair. From his pocket, he pulls out a notebook and pen.

"Are you feeling better today, Nami?"

"I'm fine," she says, giving him neither an affirmative nor a negative. If he wants to keep things from her, she'll do just the same.

"Do you have any shortness of breath, difficulty breathing—"

"I heard voices. Who were you talking to?" she interrupts.

His eyes flash to hers. "No one. It was the radio."

Liar.

"Oh, really?" Nami rolls over so that she is facing him fully.

"Yes, really," he says curtly. He clicks his pen turns over to a new page.

"Have you—" he begins, but Nami is not listening.

Law is lying to her.

Law does not trust her.

She has to do something about that.

She holds the hem of her little blue shift down tightly. Law makes an irritated noise and looks up at her with a frown, his hands fighting hers to pull the clothing off of her. She frowns back.

A man's hands on her body…

She twists violently away when his fingertips slide under the skirt and up her thigh dangerously high.

"I'll take it off myself, turn away," she says, inwardly surprised that there is no tremble in her voice even though her heart is thundering wildly in her chest. Law really likes to dredge up the ugly things, doesn't he?

"I've seen it all before, Nami-ya." She's not looking at him, but she can just see him rolling his eyes.

"Turn around."

"Fine," he says exasperatedly and spins on his heel with a sigh.

Nami undresses quickly, it's just a slip of fabric after all, and practically leaps into the bubble filled bathtub. It's a shame that there's no shower, however Nami will make due. Once she's safely inside—and hidden from Law's wandering eyes—she reaches to pull on his sleeve; only Law knows where the toiletries such as shampoo and soap are.

Without a word, Law hands her the soap and begins to wet her long hair. She jumps at first, but Law's washed her hair enough times that she can trust his hands will not wander towards any intimately private areas.

He's staring, she knows, at the tattoos on her back, but he won't ask her about them because the last time he did, she broke his nose. But never mind his staring, Nami fought tooth and nail to have this bath—a real bath, not just a wipe down with a wet cloth—and she was going to enjoy it.

They sit in silence as Nami cleans between her toes and Law gathers her hair into one hand. Just as he's lathering the long locks, Nami asks him what she's been wondering the entire time she's been here.

"Where are the others?"

His hands still, but for just one moment, and then he's massaging her scalp again. It feels nice. She leans back into his hands to better look him in the eye.

"Is Bepo alright?" she asks when it seems that he won't answer her first question.

"Bepo is fine," he grunts in a quick answer. He's avoiding her eyes.

"Is he angry with me?" She tracks all of the changes in his expression with trained eyes, the sweat on sliding down his temple, the furrow in his brow and slight, just slight, downward twitch of his mouth. He's nervous. If Nami were not herself or dumb, she would not know this. He is good at hiding it, she'll give him that.

"No, why would—"

"He hasn't come to see me." She doesn't let him finish, partly to rile him up and partly because she just wants to know.

"I'll take you to him," he offers as he begins to rinse the suds from her hair.

So Bepo and the others are not here, wherever this is.

"When?" she asks, catching his hands in hers to keep his attention.

"Soon." With the way he says it, it makes Nami think that he means never.

"Are you lying to me?" Her voice is low, and if he accused her of threatening him, she would not deny it. She gives his retreating hands a warning squeeze before letting them free. Almost immediately, Law turns around to find a towel.

He doesn't answer her.

"You haven't been sleeping," he says instead, still not facing her, "Hurry and finish, you've been in here for nearly ten minutes."

He's a terrible liar. He can't do it, so he avoids it.

Nami plays along anyway.

"Nightmares," she says truthfully with a small shrug. His brow is furrowed deeper than before when he finally faces her with the towels. She pushes him to turn away before she stands and dries herself.

"Arlong?" he asks nonchalantly, as though he knows her, as though he knows of that monster. She nearly slips on the wet tiles and blinks in surprise at the back of his head. He inclines his head towards her and she is quick to slip on the shift. If Law were anyone else, she would say that he looked almost disappointed that he didn't catch a glimpse of her nubile form. But Law is Law, and in all the time she's spent with him, he's never lusted after women.

All the more reason she doesn't trust him. He is no normal man.

He waits patiently, for her to answer him.

"You knew him?" Her voice is timid when she speaks, so unlike herself. She feels naked under his gaze, though the new white shift is soft against her skin. She doesn't like that he knows this. How does he know? He can't know. No one knows of Arlong, no but her and—

"…No." Law watches her for a long moment. "I knew you."

She is dumbfounded. Before she can ask him what exactly he meant by that, Law puts one hand at her elbow and the other on the small of back and sweeps her back into the white room. He presses her into bed, pulls the blankets over her damp body and doesn't allow her to protest as he holds his palm over her forehead to keep her there.

"Go to sleep, Nami."

Nami doesn't like the way he's babying her, controlling her, but obediently shuts her eyes anyway.

She knows that with people like Law, it's better not to argue.

Law leaves eventually, but even then, sleep does not come.

Her hair is still damp from the bath earlier, but she pays the tangle of curls no mind as she slips out of the bed. The floor is cold under her bare feet. Softly, quietly, as to not alert Law, she creeps to the end off the bed's frame, lifts the corner of the mattress wedged by the wall and from the space, pulls a stainless steel butter knife. It may be duller than she would like, but she knows from experience that something is better than nothing at all.

She'd taken the knife after a particularly nasty argument—if he'd just tell her something her mood wouldn't be so foul—that involved a lot of broken dishes and wasted food many visits ago. Law didn't drop her level of swearing, but she could tell that day, that he was close.

On the other side of the door, she can hear Law walk to and fro, washing dishes and performing other homely chores she never knew he was so well acquainted with. The thought of him not cleaning well enough to her standards makes her shiver with disgust. It is a miracle she hasn't fallen ill from the lack of cleanliness.

But no matter.

Nami must focus on something more important now. She will not sit idly a rot away in this cage—no, not that word, don't use that word—this prison.

She grips her pilfered weapon in her non dominant hand, crouches lows to the floor exactly five paces from the door, and waits.

His humming has yet to stop.

Based on his pattern, in approximately nine hundred and seventy-six seconds, Law will open the door.


Reviews, follows or anything from the readers are loved! Thank you for reading!

SELF NOTE; Law is hard to write… So... nothing really happened, but it's getting there...