A/N: Ahahahaha, guess who's back after a thousand year hiatus? IT ME. Anyway, comments give me life, so if you want to see the next chapter sooner (rather than later), please comment! Thank you guys for reading, and I hope you enjoy!


The Sabaody Amusement Park is a wide parcel of land overlooking acres of dormant grass. Nestled in between giant tree roots, it's located at the very edge of the island, lit up (in broad daylight, no less) with what seems like every spotlight in the world. Clusters of bubbles blur the edges and soften the riotous activity. The temperature hovers just above freezing, but with the sun, it seems as if spring is truly on its way to the Archipelago.

The party is in full swing by the time their motely little group enters passes through the wrought iron gates. Lami's never seen so many people gathered together, except in – No. Pause. Rewind. It's been years, and she can't think about it without her eyes burning. So she shoves that errant thought to the very back of her mind, locking it up to deal with later.

Housewives usher children off rides, fathers and sons dip into food stalls, and young couples walk with their fingers intertwined. The picnic area is full of booths of people selling carnival food – popcorn, cotton candy, cheese fries. Stall vendors dole out candy apples or invite people to win prizes at their game booths for the low, low price of five berri a throw. Everything is bright and cheery.

"What do you want to do first?" Lami asks, taking a bite out of the caramel-and-peanut covered apple that Bepo had bought for her. She licks her sticky lips. "I wanna ride the roller coaster!"

Law scans the thick crowd several times before answering. "Yeah, sure. You go ahead with Bepo and the others. I'll stay here."

"Hey!" Aghast, Lami watches as Law plonks himself comfortably down onto a bench made of bubbles, propping Kioku up beside him. "You can't just sit here!"

Law gives her a pointed look. "Why do you ask if you don't want to hear my answer?" He questions, smiling faintly despite himself. "For your information, little sister, I never said that I would actually go on the rides with you. You just assumed that I would."

"You have to!" Lami insists.

"Captain doesn't want to," Law says, taking care to place special emphasis on the word 'Captain'.

"It's your duty as a big brother to go with me," She says firmly, her voice holding an authority that belies her tiny frame and wide-set eyes. "Come on! You said we could go to the amusement park, and that includes going on rides! What if I get scared and need to hold someone's hand?"

"Then hold Bepo's hand!"

"He doesn't have hands, he has paws!"

He's caving. She can feel it, can feel Law's inner turmoil gnawing at his insides. Lami has to fight off her smile. Just a little more pressure . . . Lami pulls out her big guns – a pair of the largest, teariest, puppy dog eyes to ever exist.

He cracks.

"Fine!" Without a backward glance, Law strides off towards the roller-coaster, his nodachi resting on his shoulder. Bepo hurries after him, and Lami hears the delighted shrieks of children who catch sight of the fuzzy white polar bear, apparently undeterred by the grump next to Bepo.

Lami allows herself a triumphant grin around the last bite of her candy apple. She raises her eyebrows at Penguin and Shachi, who grumble, but press wads of Berri into her outstretched hand. They'd doubted her ability to wheedle Law onto a ride, but Lami had proven that the feared Surgeon of Death was not above his sister's pleas.

"Whipped," Shachi mouths, particularly bold now that Law is unable to see him; powerful the Ope-Ope no Mi might be, it does not grant the user an exceptional sense of sight, or of hearing, for that matter. "Captain's totally wrapped around your little finger."

"It's terrifying," Penguin admits in a low whisper, falling into step with them. "But Captain's soft side is totally cute, too!"

"What's disturbing is hearing you gush about my brother," Lami says darkly, shaking her head with a note of exasperation in her voice. Whatever doubts she may have had in the beginning, what with Penguin being in charge of a gang, had all disappeared the moment Penguin had set eyes on his new captain. "Your little crush on him is getting out of hand."

"It is not a crush –"

Shachi speaks up tiredly. "Penguin, what did we say about keeping your gushing over Captain limited to Man-Crush Mondays?"

And just like that, Penguin storms off to join Law and Bepo, muttering all the while about "not having any real friends on the crew", and how "everyone was bullying him all the time".

Lami, very pointedly, does not look at Shachi, fearing that she'll burst out laughing.

Penguin still flips them off behind his back.


As it turns out, eating a candy apple before sitting on a roller coaster is the best way to bring up one's breakfast.

Lami manages to race through the door into the public toilets before she vomits breakfast into the bowl in a violent and noisy gush. She retches again and again. Her hands are shaking, her eyes watering and dimmed.

Lami hears the door opening. She doesn't have it in her to protest, let alone move her face away from the toilet.

"I told you this was a bad idea."

Law's voice, though gentle and free of admonishment, makes her heave again. Over the noises she's making, she hears the door open further and booted feet come in.

"Mmph," Lami says, and realizes she hasn't shut the cubicle door. She tries to do it with her foot, without moving her head or upper body, but she can't find it.

"Breathe, Lami."

A large, too-warm hand is placed on her forehead, right before Lami feels fingers brushing the back of her neck as her hair is pulled away from her face. She tries to thank him, but has to retch again. There's nothing left of her breakfast and mid-morning snack, but her stomach doesn't seem to care. A hand, tanned and wholly familiar, appears next to her head, holding a wad of toilet paper. She accepts it gratefully with a vague-sounding noise in the back of her throat, wiping her mouth.

"Better?"

The sickness is abating a bit, enough that she can nod, can flush the toilet to sit on the floor, can lean heavily against the wall. His hand appears, holding a bottle of water. She shakes her head.

"Lami, you need fluids."

She's tempted to tell him to stick a needle in her arm, but figures that won't go over well, not with how ill she looks. "'M fine now," Her throat is raw. "Really."

"Lami."

"Okay, okay." She takes it, his hand retreats, and the door swings shut.

She can see his well-worn boots and the bottoms of his jeans beyond the door, but the rest of him is out of sight. Lami takes a long swig of water and pulls herself together enough to stand up. She still feels nauseated, but she doesn't think she'll throw up anytime soon. Rubbing her face hard with her hands, Lami comes out.

"I'm fine," She says automatically, making for the sink to rinse her mouth out. "I'm not going to throw up again."

"You should head back to the Polar Tang, get some rest." He looks at her, as though waiting for her to argue, and Lami frowns in responses. "I could go to the Auction myself."

"Yeah, no," Lami snorts derisively. "We came here to do a job, you can't just drop me off on the sub like that. What am I, chopped liver?"

Silence. And it's not from her Devil Fruit, although she's seriously tempted to put up a wall of Calm so that she doesn't have to listen to Law ramble on.

"I'll meet you at the entrance of the park." Law doesn't immediately leave, so she prods him in the back to get him moving, letting a pleading note seep into her voice. "Let me freshen up a bit, and then we'll talk, okay? No Dragons or Marines here!"

Just normal, happy families that could have been them, with their mother and father, if her home hadn't been -

"Five minutes, Lami." With an abruptness that she thinks of as typical, he heads out and she's left alone, staring at the space where he'd been.

She stands there for a minute or two, a hand on her stomach, and then she chances a glance in the mirror. She's a distinct shade of green, and her hair hangs limply against her shoulders. A few cold splashes of water to the face later, and sweeping her hair up into a high ponytail renders her slightly more presentable. Nausea throbs dully in her stomach, but there's nothing she can do about that.

She rummages through her purse and comes up with a packet of mints, along with food coupons for the Amusement Park. She doesn't have it in her to stomach any greasy food, so she crunches two mints at once and goes to find Law.

She passes another motley group, still lingering at the roller coasters – a suited skeleton, a little reindeer, a starfish, a green-haired girl with a pixie cut, a spiky haired man, and a youthful looking boy with a straw-hat looped around his neck. Lami slows down as she passes, a few faces grabbing hold of her attention. She doesn't recognise the girl, or the Starfish, or the man, but the rest she does.

Monkey D. Luffy and his crew.

Well, not all of them. Just their pet and musician, but Lami assumes the rest can't be far off. She scans the crowd, but try as she might, she is unable to see the cyborg, or the cook, or the swordsman. Her gaze rests on Monkey D Luffy, drinking in the messy black hair that sticks up in spikes, the warmth of his mocha-coloured eyes.

Another member of her family, here before her eyes.

"I'm hungry!" Strawhat's complaining, loud enough to be heard over the laughter of the crowd, a hand on his grumbling belly. "I wish Sanji were here to cook me something!"

"Here," Lami says on impulse, stepping forwards and passing him the wad of coupons from the depths of her bag. "You can have these, I don't need them."

"Really?" His eyes light up as though she's given him the world instead of simple food coupons, and Lami can feel his warm joy coursing through her, almost as though she's swallowed liquid sunshine. "Thanks a lot!"

His friends are quick to chime in with thanks, and Lami waves them off with a smile, feeling marginally better than she had before. Strawhat's joy is contagious, his blindingly bright smile familiar and warm. She almost stumbles back with the force of it.

The resemblance between Strawhat and her benefactor is almost uncanny.

Lami closes her eyes. She has a blinding headache.