AN: I hope you enjoy! Also, to the guest who reviewed, thank you!

Warnings: Unrealistic scenarios and terrible logic strike again! OOCness because Kizaru is hard to write.

Chapter 2

The morning was a rough start for Eva as she had awoken to a blinding headache and a huge craving for grease. Grumpily, she shut all her blinds, hating the sun for waking her up so early and wishing for the less painful darkness. While she slowly and painfully prepared her breakfast, she tried to think back to the night before with little success. She had almost no recollection of the night's events. However, despite this, something felt off to her, like she was missing something important. Ignoring the feeling, she continued on eating her breakfast sausages slowly and nursing her coffee like it was a lifeline, completely unworried. She was sure, in this time of unawareness, that, if it had been significant, she would have remembered it when she had woken up. It would not be until later that she would realise how wrong that chain of thought had been.

After eating, she went to her closet, intent of finding some headache reliever. To her horror, there was none to be found. She triple checked just to be sure. Thus, because this was an issue that she could not ignore, she forced herself to get ready as fast as her body would allow in order to make her way to the general store nearby. There was too much that she needed to do today to allow herself to wallow in self-misery. Her bedroom was a mess for one thing, though she suspected that was mostly due to her drunken stumbling around last night. She distinctly remembered it being clean before yesterday. She was also due to meet Robin later on to discuss what had happened at the bar, if the text message she had received at breakfast had been any indication. Robin had seemed more than a little concerned that Eva did not remember much.

So, after she had pulled on a pair of jeans, a simple button up top, and her pair of worn, but comfortable hiking shoes, she left the comforts of home behind to proceed on her mission of hunting down Advil. The elevator took its sweet time to appear and, by the time it did, Eva had almost gone 'fuck it' and headed back to her apartment to curl up on her couch. It was childish, but she really did not want to go outside and face the world today. Her head pounded painfully in her skull when she moved and, just as she had suspected, as soon as she left her building, the sun nearly blinded her, making her headache even worse than before.

The city on this island was not built up like some of the others. Sure, there were the towering office buildings, all clustered together, downtown, amongst large malls and expensive condos, but, where Eva lived, if felt more like an older town area. There weren't too many taller buildings nearby and, the few that were there, were apartment buildings like hers. Otherwise, it was mostly pubs, specialty stores, and general stores along the sides of the streets. The weather was a bit too erratic here for most people. The summers were warm, but the other seasons tended to blur into one long grey winter. This city wasn't very touristy, seeing as the main attraction was the large marine base situated on the waterfront not too far away from Eva's place. It was certainly within walking distance. While you couldn't get inside the base unless you were a marine or had a marine escort, it was always neat to see the ships docked there.

The streets were not busy as she wandered down the sidewalk that morning. Only a few marines were out, looking just as hungover as herself. As she passed them by, they glanced at her oddly, seemingly recognising her. Eva almost paused to ask them why that was, but decided better of it. She was starting to get the feeling that she did not want to know what she had done.

When she finally arrived at the store, she made a beeline for the drug section. This was to be a straight in and out operation, she told herself. Today, she would not get distracted by the candy section where chocolate was definitely not calling her name. Her sweet tooth was only second to her love of caffeine in the morning. Thankfully, her current state of being was working in her favour to curb her sugar cravings. She wasn't sure she could handle it at the moment.

The brightly lit store was just as empty as the streets outside. She doubted that there was anyone else here aside from the cashier. It was rather early. The shop had only just opened an hour or so ago. Quickly, she rounded a corner to enter the drug section only to freeze in her tracks at the sight before her. Apparently, there was another shopper up at this time. A horribly familiar one. One that almost caused her heart to nearly stop as she unexpectedly, with extreme clarity, recalled last night's proceedings. Slowly looking through the aisle was an older man dressed in a yellow striped suit. A man that she now recalled being a little bit too familiar with last night. Desperately, she wished that she hadn't for ignorance was bliss after all.

So much for not making herself look like a slut in her favourite bar.

She cursed quietly in her head, panicking slightly, before she darted back around the corner faster than she had ever moved in her life. She thanked her lucky stars that he had not noticed her staring at him in horror for the brief second or two that it had taken for her to register just who she was staring at. To calm herself down, she counted to ten and debated on what she should do for the moment. She knew that she was being a bit on the pathetic side, acting like a preteen spotting their first crush, but what she had done was pretty far out compared to what she was like sober. Sober her would never have approached a stranger in the first place without a good reason. Admiral Kizaru's reaction upon seeing her, if he remembered the night, was not something that she wanted to find out about anytime soon if she could help it. She would rather have the whole affair placed under the rug so to say.

Deciding to wait a few minutes for him to leave, she pretended to be preoccupied with the goods in her current aisle, which, unfortunately, was stocked with foot medication. Something which she couldn't even bring herself to feign interest in. Didn't the Admiral have some minion that he could have sent as an errand boy in a minor abuse of authority? And why had he come to this particular store at this particular time? Just what were the chances? Didn't the marines have their own pharmacies or something? After awkwardly idling around, picking up a few items here and there, and pretending to read their labels, she decided that enough was enough. Rallying her courage, she headed towards her prize, the Advil. She turned around the corner, thinking that Kizaru had to have left the area by now.

Except, he hadn't left. No, instead he was standing right fucking there in all of his bright yellow glory, grinning down at her as she nearly walked abruptly into him. She got the impression that he had been patiently waiting for her to come back around because he had one hand stuffed in his pants pocket while the other casually held two boxes of Advil in front of himself. Curiously, his ever present marine coat was absent. He looked quite at home standing around in the aisle. Though, when she thought about it, he could probably look at home anywhere with his comfortable slouch and easy going grin. Spitefully, she noticed that he didn't look hungover unlike her either. She had looked and felt like death coming to the store today and here he was looking right as rain before her. The bastard.

"Oh, hello there!"

He was too damn cheerful too, she decided, as he greeted her in that peculiar drawl of his. He was standing extremely close to her as a result of her oblivious approach. A fact that he didn't seem to care about because he made no effort to move away. A little uncomfortable with his proximity, but not finding it objectionable, she flatly replied back, still wishfully thinking that he might not remember the whole night.

"Hello again."

He grinned wider, obviously amused by her tone. To her mild surprise, she noticed that she was still drawn to his presence, even without booze in her system influencing things. There was just something about him. She couldn't quite put her finger on it. Perhaps it was the quiet confidence that he displayed in everything that he did? She resisted the urge to move even closer. Instead, she distracted herself with twisting the bottom of her shirt. A bad habit. He questioned her after a moment of silence.

"Feeling any better?"

Eva frowned, listening to his odd inflection. Was Kizaru mocking her? It was hard to tell with him. Grudgingly, she admitted to being horribly hungover. She glanced at the Advil longingly in his hand. In response, he hummed and leaned forward a fraction.

"Had a little too much fun last night then?" he asked, drawing out the last syllable unhurriedly.

He was. He absolutely was teasing her, she concluded while watching his grin widen just a fraction. Unfortunately, she didn't quite know how to react. Even as embarrassed as she was, she did have to admit that she had enjoyed her night. Very much so. However, there was no denying the fact that she had drunken too much and made an idiot of herself. She couldn't quite fathom how he was seemingly so unconcerned about his reputation after that whole situation. Despite being one of the highest ranks in the Marines, he did not seem to care about the public image of the marines as a whole either, for the actions of one in uniform would often affect the public's view of the whole institution. She could be wrong about his opinions on this point, she admitted to herself, it wasn't like she had actually talked to him on the subject. She wasn't so sure that she wanted to annoy an admiral, especially one as confusing as this man, by commenting on such an observation, but she was not usually one to be dishonest. Deciding that she might as well be truthful on one part of her thoughts, seeing as he was the one she had made a fool of herself with, she responded that, yes, she might have had too much fun last night.

Before she had a chance to continue her train of thought, his already hard to read expression felt even more closed off to her. Kizaru was never an open book at the best of times, but his eyes appeared colder to her, regardless of his unchanged demeanour. Perhaps it was her rarely acknowledged intuition kicking in, but it screamed at her to continue talking before he dismissed her and walked off. Apparently, he had not been teasing her so much as awkwardly testing the waters in a manner which jarred with her mental image of him being a suave pickup artist.

"But," Kizaru's expression changed to mild curiosity as she rushed, "I don't know about you… but I liked it very much."

The embarrassment was back again. Her constant companion, it seemed. As the heat rose to her cheeks, he hummed again in acknowledgement, sounding pleased. The coldness was gone as fast as it had presented itself, making her wonder if it had even been there to begin with. Unexpectedly, he took one of her hands, which were still tugging at her shirt, and pressed something into it. She glanced down to find herself holding one of his boxes of Advil. In the midst of their stilted conversation, she had temporarily forgotten about the reason for her being at the store in the first place. Already missing the warmth of his hand, she looked back up to find that he had wandered off already.

Not much of a touchy-feely type, was he? She mused. He hadn't even technically responded to her admission. Of all that she had seen of the Admirals in the news, she had thought he would've been the somewhat romantic one of the three. Or, at least, the one most willing to talk. She almost snorted as the image of Admiral Akainu trying to be romantic strolled its way into her mind following her musings.

She whirled around to find Kizaru sauntering off towards the cashier, holding his one remaining box. Figuring that she might as well follow him, seeing as she needed nothing else in the store, she rushed over to catch up with him. Thankfully, he did have a rather slow pace because she doubted she could've caught up without running otherwise. Her body would have protested violently to such an action at the moment. She was tall for a women, but she felt dwarfed next to his towering height. Her typical stride would have been no match for his, if he had shown any drive in any of his movements. He seemed to take in and do everything in slow time, which contrasted with the cunning intelligence lurking behind his sunglasses. When he didn't have his head in the clouds at least. She got the feeling that he was a bit of a space cadet at times.

As she fell in beside him, his eyes flickered down to look at her briefly, but, otherwise, he made no other acknowledgement of her presence. Apparently, he had assumed that she would tag along.

Fucking marines.

As they reached the counter and passed over some change to a particularly bored looking teenager, Eva pondered on whether or not associating with a marine in any capacity was a good idea. Especially one known to stand more on the merciless side of things when it came to criminal activity. Everything that she had read and seen about the Admirals showed that Kizaru was not as black and white as Admiral Akainu, but he wasn't as friendly as Admiral Kuzan either, which left him in this grey area that Eva was not certain that she wanted to tread in. Would he care that she had committed crime in her youth? He probably would, especially if he found out about the one incident that she kept buried.

Zoned out as she was, staring at Kizaru's back as he collected his box back from the counter, she failed to notice a stranger entering the store with an anxious gait. The newcomer had his hands stuffed into a dark hoodie pocket and was trying to hide his face inside the sweater's large hood. The pocket obviously contained more than just his hands for the man was nervously trying to hide the shape of a hidden object while approaching the single cashier. Thankfully, the tall marine noticed in time for him to shove her amongst the aisles as the stranger, suddenly adopting an aggressive stance, pulled out a sleek pistol and shouted,

"Hand over all your money!"

She landed on her ass amongst with a muffled, "Oof!" She heard a lackadaisical, "So scary!" coming from her admiral followed by a terrified squeak from the poor cashier, who was now wishing to go back to her hated boredom from earlier.

Since when had Kizaru become hers? They had hardly even spoken to each other!

Fear for the two others overtook her. However, her curiosity was overriding her survival instincts, causing her to inch forward to get eyes on the scene. Unlike Luffy, a bullet was perfectly capable of maiming or killing her just as much as it could do to the teenager at the counter. She knew this, but she did not want to be situationally unaware in a time like this. The cashier, she also knew, would not have any abilities that would help her out of this tight spot. The girl would most likely comply to the criminal, but Kizaru was obviously intent on aggravating him instead. She knew that Kizaru had Devil Fruit powers, but she did not know if it would aid him in this kind of situation. He certainly did not seem the least bit concerned. All reports on the Devil Fruits possessed by the Admirals had been rather tight lipped about what, exactly, they could do. All they had ever reported was that they were quite fearsome to behold and that nobody would ever want to be on the receiving end of those powers.

Eva couldn't quite make out Kizaru's expression from her crouched position on the floor, but she doubted that he looked anything, but bored with how he was squaring off to the criminal. His slouch was still present and he had not bothered to remove his free hand from his pocket. Unfortunately or, perhaps, fortunately, she could not see much of the robber, aside from the arm pointing the gun at Kizaru at a ridiculous sideways angle. Thankfully, the crook appeared to not be especially bright because he had forgotten about her being by the till when he had entered the store and, thus, was not looking for her. He was entirely focused on the other too.

She had never considered that she could be amongst the people being robbed instead of being the one doing the robbing. Nor had she thought that someone would rob a dinky general store like this in broad daylight. But, she supposed, people have done stranger crimes. This wasn't something that she was eager to experience again.

After Kizaru's comment, the agitated criminal started waving the pistol around, frightening both her and the cashier even more.

"Don't piss me off! Throw your cash by my feet and I'll let you live!"

She observed that he hadn't exactly said that they could walk away unharmed either. Who's to say that he would not take the cash and then proceed to shoot them anyways? She heard the till being opened and the sound of the teenager digging out the cash frantically. Some change clanged onto the floor. Unfazed, Kizaru drawled, once again sounding irritatingly cheerful,

"Why should I give money to trash like yourself?"

"Fuck you, I'll grab your wallet from your dead body!" the stranger bellowed, pulling the trigger.

The cashier screamed, masking Eva's own horrified cry. The world seemed to slow down as the gunshot raced towards the Admiral. An image of a bleeding young child flashed before her eyes. A memory. Was she to be witness to another murder? To her shock, the bullet phased right through Kizaru and embedded itself into the wall behind him. Kizaru, who remained indifferent, was completely unharmed. In fact, he hardly seemed to have noticed that an object had passed through him at all. The robber howled out in shock and confusion,

"What the fuck!? What are you?"

Music interrupted Kizaru's reply.

A cellphone. Her cellphone.

It went off in her pocket, filling the room with the obnoxiously jaunty ringtone that she had set for Robin. A ringtone that she had specifically chosen because it was loud and damn near impossible to ignore. Frantically, she tried to grab her phone out of her pocket and shut it off, but, in her haste, she dropped it onto the ground with a loud clatter. The screen cracked down the middle as the phone continued to ring.

There was silence from the others for a moment as the music continued before the robber started swearing liberally and moved into her line of sight. He aimed the pistol towards her, intent on shooting her with no questions asked. Eva looked back up at him in terror from her position on the ground. Another old memory tugged at the ends of her consciousness, begging to come to the forefront of her thoughts. An image of another pistol, a more ornate one, superimposed itself onto the sleeker, darker one currently aimed at her. Before the robber could fire, a beam of light passed through his hand, causing him to drop the cocked gun and clutch his bleeding hand. She was abruptly brought back to reality by the absurdity of seeing a laser beam appear in the middle of a general store.

What the hell?

Kizaru stood with his index finger pointing towards the criminal. Eva hadn't seen him move his free hand out of his pocket to begin with, let alone how he had produced a laser beam from his finger alone, but she knew that he had somehow done so in a blink of an eye. The cashier was certainly staring at Kizaru like he was some kind of alien monster, instead of looking at the person who was going to shoot them all with that same look.

"Now, now, that is enough of that. I cannot have you hurting civilians while I am around."

In response, the criminal just swore some more at Kizaru and lurched for the fallen gun with his good hand. Another beam of light passed through that hand too and buried itself into the street outside, leaving a second smouldering hole in the cement. Remarkably, the front window hadn't shattered with the onslaught of two laser beams. Eva stared at the man's bleeding hands in bewilderment. The terror from before rose up to new levels. Her old memories finally fully forced themselves upon her, hiding her view of the outside world. These were ones that she had long thought to have buried long ago.

She hardly noticed as some passing by marines, having heard the commotion, barged into the store, ready to lend a hand. She didn't register anything as the criminal had his hands half-heartedly bandaged, handcuffs were roughly placed around his wrists, and he was dragged, none too gently, out by the same marines. The noises around her were distant, almost sounding to her like she was imagining them. Lost in her head, she stared unseeingly at the pooled blood on the tiled floor.

As a criminal she had seen some terrible things done by others, but she had only had a gun pointed towards herself once, a long time ago, after a robbery gone wrong. She and another girl, a girl she had met before Luffy and the gang, had decided to rob a rich man's house. They had thought that they would be able to get rich quickly by doing that. It should have been an easy job. In the end, however, her friend had died and Eva had ended up owing her life to another crook with a golden hooked hand. He had let her go, after saving her from her failed attempt at thievery, with a dead girl on her conscious and a debt hanging over her head. A debt that remained unfulfilled to this day.

She would never be able to forget his name.

She had tried.

That incident was the true reason that she feared the marines. She could handle a few scornful looks from people whose wallets she had taken, but she did not want to deal with that event and the consequences that would follow if it was ever linked to herself. She was terrified that one of the marines would come knocking on her door to take her away, even after all this time. True to the hooked man's word, no one had come for her so far. Normally, she buried that incident deep within herself, always blaming herself for what had happened despite the fact that there had been no way of knowing what would eventually come to pass. That they had been about to barge into a meeting between crime bosses so long ago.

A hand landed on her shoulder, startling her into awareness. She blinked and found herself looking at Kizaru, who was crouched before her. For once, he was not smiling, but watching her warily instead. She allowed him to help her up off the floor as she distantly saw, as if through water, the absence of anyone else, aside from one other junior marine on guard. Quietly, Kizaru asked,

"Are you alright?"

Mutely, she nodded. It felt wrong for him to speak in such a normal tone of voice. He was always so mockingly cheerful that the difference was stark, highlighting the reality of the situation. She felt terrible for being so fazed when it had been him who had actually been shot in the end. Her eyes, without her consent, drifted to where he should have had a bullet hole. Kizaru, spotting her glance, commented that he was unharmed and that she need not worry about him. He gently brought her right hand to pat his chest where he should have been injured, proving to her that he was not lying, before releasing it. Still, she couldn't help the feeling. It gnawed at her along with the terror from earlier.

Seeing that she was still off kilter, he took her arm with one hand and, in a very familiar action from last night, placed his other hand on her back.

"I am taking you home, Eva."

Again, she nodded, not trusting herself to speak lest she start to cry from the overwhelming emotions crowding in upon her. She didn't think that she or Kizaru would handle it well if she broke down in front of him. Gently, he guided her around the crime scene, expertly avoiding the blood splattered on the floor. Despite his efforts to avoid getting any blood on both of their shoes, she dispassionately observed that there was already some dried crimson speckled over his white shoes. There was no new emotion to seeing it.

As soon as they were outside, he paused and turned her away from both the shop and the smouldering holes in the ground. Distantly, Eva was aware of a slowly gathering civilian and marine presence that were being drawn in by the commotion. Kizaru leaned down and asked for her address, having forgotten to ask her while in the store. Having him so close was comforting instead of unnerving this time. She should have been freaked out by him, seeing as he could kill people from a distance with no physical weapon and survive gunshots without injury, but she knew, in the back of her mind, that he was not going to harm her. At least, not right now. Shakily, she pointed down towards her apartment, which she could see the top of, situated a few blocks down the road.

"I… live on the 5th floor of the brick apartment building…."

She saw him nod before he straightened up and continued their walk, ignoring the curious comments of the gathering crowd. Time seemed to warp as he guided her along. Her mind kept flashing back and forth from the present time to the past, dredging up all sorts of horrible feelings. Only his warm hand on her back pulled her out of her mind and into reality enough to keep her putting one foot in front of the other. She was not able to get her thoughts under control during the time that it took them to reach her building. They kept dragging her back into her memories every time she struggled against them. She was temporarily brought back to reality when she felt cold from the lack of his hands upon her. The glass doors of her apartment building loomed before her. She turned her head to the left to see the tall marine standing with a hand outstretched before him, palm up.

"Do you have your key?"

Robotically, she reached inside her jeans and pulled out the brass coloured key, which she slowly forced herself to hand over. He took it without a word and unlocked the doors. Afterwards. he did not give it back to her, instead choosing to place it inside his own pocket. He opened the doors quickly and, once again, silently guided her up to the elevator. As the elevator doors shut behind them, he asked what apartment number she lived in. She didn't recall answering him, but, in one moment, she had been in the elevator and, in the next, she suddenly found herself standing in her entranceway as Kizaru went to open her blinds. The blinds which she had closed earlier in what seemed like a lifetime ago. He came back soon enough and guided her to her couch, helping her to sit down when she showed no intention of doing so herself. Once assured that she was not going to move from her seated position, his comforting presence disappeared again. She could hear him rifling through her cabinets, looking for something, followed by the sound of running water. His footsteps came closer as he approached her with a glass of water in one hand. He moved as if to offer her it, before he aborted the motion and, instead, set his newly found glass of water on the coffee table in front of her. His box of Advil, which, at one point, had been placed in his pocket at some point during her lapse of awareness, was set next to the glass. It had somehow survived the journey unlike hers, which was laying forgotten in the aisle she had been tossed into.

Carefully, he tried to ask her if she was okay again or if there was anything else that she needed. Eva, too busy staring off at something only she could see, did not answer. He stood awkwardly before her, indecisive about whether he should leave, before she heard him sigh. His slow exhale was followed by her feeling a weight settling into the couch beside her as he prepared to wait for her to rejoin reality.

Evidently, reporting back to base their side of events immediately after a crime was committed, which they had been witness to, was not something admirals had to follow. When she would be back to her normal self, Eva would realize that it was along the lines of the fact that Kizaru just didn't care about reporting, and that no one wanted to be the one to make him care.

A few hours later, she tiredly came back to reality and discovered that he was still next to her, fast asleep.