There is an unspoken rule among them—no one asks about the past. Zoro's query about Lucy's dream is the closest either of them ever get to asking about each other's history, and both Lucy and Zoro know better than to ask Nami about her own. One does not become a thief who steals from pirates by choice or lucky happenstance.

Usopp, who Zoro actually likes even if he is a bit of a coward and a bit of a liar, has no such scruples, and almost immediately starts asking the rest of them where they came from and what their stories are. Usopp definitely didn't suffer the easiest of childhoods—Zoro knows what it is to be an orphan—but he clearly hasn't endured the same kind of hardships as the rest of them. There's an edge about a person who has suffered that could be recognized by others who have experienced similar things, or maybe just have darkness in them, and such people know better than to dredge up old memories. Usopp is messed up enough to get along with them well, but not quite enough to recognize the unwritten boundaries that trauma etches around people.

Nami is immediately defensive, but aboard the new ship it isn't like she can threaten to take her little boat and sail away. Luckily, Lucy shuts Usopp down before it becomes an issue.

"Doesn't matter much, does it? The past is the past, and we're going forward! I'm going to be the Pirate King!"

Usopp seems to get the message—he's clever, and his questions were born out of friendliness and curiosity, not any kind of mal intent. The conversation moves along easily and thirty seconds later Lucy pesters Nami into a loud, long-winded lecture about propriety or something, which, according to the navigator, Lucy is missing on a scale equivalent to a weird social birth-defect.

Zoro knows better than to ask, knew he might be pushing it when he asked about Lucy's dream, but suddenly he wants to know everything about her. He wants to know where she was raised, what her home life was like, who loved her and who she loved, who shaped her into who she is.

He doesn't ask—knows better—but oddly enough, he wants to. He thinks maybe, one night if they are both awake and keeping watch, he could tell her about Kuina, and maybe in return he would get to hear about her own history, the person to whom she swore her own oath.

Then he shakes himself. Lucy is right—the past is past. She is going to become the Pirate King, he is going to be the World's Greatest Swordsman, and that is all they really need to know.

In Syrup Village Lucy acquires three things: a ship, a nakama, and the realization that she frets.

Usopp is great—all her childish antics Nami and Zoro are too mature or uptight to indulge in are fully validated by Usopp. He tells amazing stories, he's a liar that uses his incredible skill for good, he's braver than he thinks, he's great with a slingshot, and he's innocent in a way no one else aboard the Merry is.

Plus, he's connected to Shanks and his crew. No way Lucy was going to pass on bringing him along. He might be terrified of everything, but Lucy can tell he's special.

The Going Merry is a great ship—it's sturdy, well-built, and a good size for the crew she has planned, which is probably small by most people's standards. But now she's just missing a cook, a doctor, and a musician, and the Merry has more than enough room for them, plus a few more strays if she acquires them.

Plus, the Merry is a gift from a friend. Lucy couldn't be more appreciative.

As for the third revelation, well. That comes as a bit of a shock.

Most people would probably accuse Lucy of being selfish or careless before saying she frets. Lucy would have agreed with them until Syrup Village, and Zoro.

Zoro is hurt and it's making her itch inside.

He didn't even get hurt badly. Yeah, the scratches are long and probably painful, but they weren't very deep. Certainly not as bad as his injuries from Buggy and Cabaji a month ago, which are now fully healed thanks to a meditative healing technique Zoro learned from his sensei, and lots of sleep.

Lucy's just noticed, though, that Zoro seems to get hurt a lot. And because he goes against dangerous opponents who always have sharp objects, he seems to come out of most fights against high-caliber enemies looking like someone tried to grate him.

It makes something inside Lucy demand to check him over after every fight, make sure he's really okay.

She restrains herself though. Zoro is strong, stronger than anyone she's ever met aside from maybe Ace and Shanks and Gramps, and if he says he's fine, he is. She believes that. And it's not like she's going to tell him to stop going after the people with the swords, because then he would have to stop pursuing his dream of being the World's Greatest Swordsman.

Even if Lucy thought he would listen to her, she wouldn't ask that of him. She would never ask her nakama to give up their dreams.

Lucy sits beneath the figurehead, eyes trained on the mast of the ship rather than the horizon. She can hear the rhythmic clink of weights as Zoro moves through the paces of his training regimen. It's been two days since Syrup Village, and he's already claimed the aft deck as his weight room, which Lucy finds amusing.

A pair of mud-colored boots clomp their way to her position on the deck, and Lucy finds herself staring up at a long nose and dark, curly hair.

She grins and bounces to her feet, using a complicated move that requires the incredible flexibility of her rubber body. "Usopp!"

The boy looks down at her cheerfully, but there's a hesitation in his eyes. Lucy can tell he's still vaguely surprised they want him here at all.

Well he'll grow out of that. It's not like Lucy's any good at lying.

"Lucy!" Usopp greets. "I had an idea for a new slingshot ball!"

Lucy grins at him, because she's quickly discovered that Usopp is good at a great many random things that are ridiculously useful, including chemistry and physics. Both of those subjects go waaaayy over Lucy's head but even she can tell Usopp is uncommonly gifted at all forms of invention. "Ooooh, that's great! What does it do?"

Usopp opens his mouth to explain, but there's a loud crash from the other side of the ship that immediately arrests their attention.

Lucy looks for Nami first, sees her coming out of their shared cabin, and then looks for Zoro.

She doesn't see him.

"Zoro!" she yelps, and she's halfway down the stairs when there's a groan and Zoro emerges from under the ridiculous weights he uses.

"I'm fine," he grunts, looking disgruntled. He stands, brushes himself off, and immediately picks up the weights again.

Oh. No wonder they heard a loud crash—he's practicing his katas with high-weight-low-rep combos. The weights will probably fall again before the day is out, because he's supposed to practice those until the point of muscle failure.

Hopefully he won't be under them next time.

Lucy resolves to keep an eye out, just in case. The thought eases a knot of tension Lucy didn't even realize existed.

"Hey, Lucy, Zoro is kind of scary, isn't he?"

Lucy steps back to the aft-deck, and leans back on the figurehead. She can talk with Usopp and watch Zoro that way without seeming like she's watching Zoro.

She just…wants to be able to react, if something goes wrong. She won't interfere otherwise though.

"Scary?" Lucy asks, because no, she doesn't think so. Zoro is one of the least scary people she's ever met. Strong, absolutely, but not scary. "Not at all."

Zoro wouldn't beat a child for hours with a spiked glove. He'd probably cut off his own hand first.

Usopp grumbles. "Well of course you don't…"

Lucy doesn't know what Usopp means by that. "Zoro's nakama. Nakama aren't scary."

Usopp doesn't say anything to that.

On his next rep, Zoro sets the weights down and wipes his forehead with a towel. He then locks eyes with Lucy, and raises an eyebrow.

Huh. So he knows she's watching. Well, it doesn't have to be a bad thing that he knows. She waves, grinning cheerfully, and Zoro rolls his eyes before taking a long swig of his canteen.

Lucy takes that as permission to fret from a distance, and she relaxes against the figurehead, listening to a story Usopp probably thought up three seconds ago, but it's so rich and imaginative that Lucy is willing to believe him for a while.

She keeps an eye on Zoro though—careful and benign and maybe a little protective. She just—she loves her nakama. It's been two days and she already loves Usopp. She knows they're all strong and capable in their own ways, and Lucy would never, ever get in the way of their dreams while they help her achieve hers, but she can't help but want to keep them safe.

Lucy thinks about the promise she made as a lonely seven-year-old, just a little girl who already loved this crew fiercely. She thinks about it and hopes her crew understands—she'll always be there to catch them if they find their limits aren't enough.

I promised you would never be alone. Ever.

Meeting the pervy cook is a wholly terrible experience that Zoro never wants to think about again.

Sanji is a womanizer, and he has an immediate appreciation for both Lucy and Nami. The redhead can take care of herself like no one Zoro has ever seen, so he doesn't worry about her, but Lucy…

Zoro knows she isn't as naïve as she sometimes portrays herself. He knows she must be able to take care of herself pretty well, and knows she's more than strong enough to beat up anyone who comes her way. But something dark and twisted and possessive springs up in his chest when he sees the blonde man fawn over his captain. He has to restrain himself from stabbing Sanji with a fork when his hand brushes the small of Lucy's back in a gentlemanly gesture to guide her to the table.

Sanji is perfectly respectful, if a bit over-the-top in his adoration, and frankly seems more interested in Nami anyway. But something in Zoro revolts at the way he casually refers to Lucy as "my Lucy-chan," and the way he gushes about her "natural, windswept beauty."

Yeah, she's pretty, Zoro thinks, but she's not yours.

Which, of course, is how he realizes that he finds his captain attractive, which.

Well, fuck.

It isn't like he hadn't realized it before. Objectively, Lucy is pretty. She doesn't have much in the way of a figure, but she is slender and there is a power to her movements and even grace, in her better moments. She has a beautiful face, too, with a delicate, bone structure. She always has an air of brash confidence, and a carefree affect that glows from her tan, sun-kissed skin, and her light freckles are similarly endearing.

Zoro is attracted to girls. He noticed she is attractive.

The thing is, he's never been so personally affected by it. He hasn't ever felt so possessive before, to the point where the sight of another man expressing interest makes him want to kill things. Yeah, he was angry at Cabaji, but mostly because that man intended to attack her, hurt her…Sanji is only flirting.

That is more than enough to irritate Zoro, but this feeling? This sick anger that makes him feel more unstable than he has been in…years? This is more than that.

He doesn't care at all that the cook is flirting with Nami.

The only thing that keeps Zoro seated at the table and not throwing punches is Lucy's reaction. She seems completely bewildered by Sanji's behavior, to the point where she's almost defensive. The stupid cook proves himself not useless, and tones his behavior down a little in response. Still affectionate and dramatic, but not quite so worshipful. It pisses Zoro off, but any action on the swordsman's part would be an overreaction, at this point.

Nami and Usopp, both more observant than he likes, give him smug and confused looks, respectively. Zoro isn't in the mood to figure either one out.

Still, when he finds out that Lucy wants to bring the love-cook with them, and Usopp gives him an absolutely golden opportunity to hit the cook, it takes all of Zoro's willpower to restrain himself. Lucy probably already considers Sanji nakama, and would be upset if Zoro slices him in half like he wants to.

He really, really wants to.

If truth be told, Sanji's exuberant fawning almost makes Lucy write off her instincts entirely and pass him by.

Thank goodness she trusts her instincts too much to do that.

Sanji, from the moment they meet, insists on "spoiling her." Lucy has never been spoiled. She's heard the term used in much more inappropriate contexts than she thinks Sanji intends, but it makes her more cautious regardless. He calls her by terms of endearments such as "darling," "lovely," "angel." He keeps offering to cook her more and more extravagant things, soon outpacing Lucy's culinary knowledge, and honestly Lucy is so far out of her depth with this that it's not even funny.

No one ever behaved like this back home, especially not to Lucy. Is he…is he flirting with her, or making fun of her? Is this some weird form of harassment? Lucy genuinely can't tell, and it's making her feel constantly wrong-footed.

He touches her easily, which is kinda new. She's a tactile person herself, but she usually initiates it. She and Zoro have been pretty touchy lately—she's not sure how that started but oh well—and the only other guys who touch her are Ace and Usopp when wrestling or hugging. Sanji treats her like glass, and guides her gently from the small of her back. She's tense around him because she just—she doesn't have any clue what's going on, and she's never been treated like anything delicate before and she's pretty sure she doesn't like it.

She's so uncomfortable with his behavior that she nearly writes him off again, but then Lucy watches Sanji feed a starving pirate, and she knows he's special.

Sanji is going to be her crew's cook, whether he knows it or not.

Knowing that, Lucy introduces him to her crew. Usopp seems indifferent to the idea of new nakama but excited about real food. Nami seems more amused at Sanji's antics than anything, and since Lucy has seen Nami smack around men who aren't acting appropriately, that actually relaxes Lucy toward Sanji's weird behavior, and Zoro…

Zoro looks pissed. Lucy's not sure why, but Zoro has that look he gets sometimes when he just wants to stab things, and he can't seem to stop glaring at Sanji.

Lucy doesn't make any show that she noticed, and just hopes he gets over it soon. She can't have her nakama at odds, after all.

"Mihawk is here?"

Lucy has never heard Zoro like this before, never seen him so desperate and full of near-manic energy.

"Mihawk?" Lucy asks, because she's still not sure what's going on.

"The best swordsman in the world," Zoro replies breathlessly. His eyes are skittering across the wreckage of ships one swing of that man's sword has wrought. Lucy spots the ship at the same time he does, and Zoro turns to her, eyes electric and wild. "I have to challenge him."

This couldn't come at a worse possible time. Nami is gone, and with her their ship. Sanji still hasn't agreed to come with them and Lucy has to protect the restaurant to pay back her debt to Zeff. Zoro is always so steady beside her, and Lucy really doesn't want to let him out of her sight. She certainly doesn't want to let him fight a man he might not beat.

But like hell she would trample on his dreams like that.

"Of course you do."

Hearing Mihawk's name is akin to injecting epinephrine in his veins, and suddenly everything he's ever worked for is offered to him on a silver platter, the fight of his life, the culmination of the dream he and Kuina shared—

He loses.

And what will you use your strength for when you've accomplished your goal?

Zoro doesn't know. There's never been anything but his goal. There's nothing nearly so important.

Why do you refuse to step back? Do you wish to die?

Zoro can't step back, is beholden to this spot and speared on a blade no longer than a kitchen knife, and if he steps back now he loses everything that ever made him who he was.

Yes…such is defeat.

I'd much rather die.

The blade withdraws and Zoro gears up for a final bought, because he knows he won't last long against Mihawk with that great black sword of his.

He tries.

He fails.

The gulf between them is great as the gulf between the earth and the sun.

But Zoro is a swordsman to the bone, and so he sheaths Wado, an apology floating in his throat, and turns to Mihawk with his arms spread wide.

Scars on the back are a swordsman's dishonor.

Admirable.

Don't rush to death so fast, young one.

Zoro barely even registers the pain—or the ocean he falls into. His mind is blank, blank, blank and then two sets of hands grab him, drag him up back to the surface and as light rushes in so too does thought and emotion and revelation, and—

He lost. Kuina, I'm so sorry, I lost—

"Zoro? Zoro! Is he alright? Zoro!"

"Like hell he'd be alright, he—"

He holds his one remaining katana aloft and points to the relentless sun, the white silk hilt stained with flecks of his own blood.

Everyone quiets.

Defeated, deathly injured, and uncharacteristically emotional, in that moment there is nothing Zoro wants more than to see Lucy beside him. He's not sure when she became the person he wants to be around when hurting, but she is.

"Lucy…can you hear me? I'm sorry to worry you." And she is worried, he can feel it, and how strange is that, that someone should be worried for him? That he should care about someone else's safety in turn? "I know…that if I don't become the world's strongest swordsman, it will only embarrass you."

Kuina is dead. Long gone. He can't swear to her so he swears to his captain, to Lucy who believed in him and who he let down along with the rest of his expectations.

"I swear," he chokes, and he hasn't cried in years, not since Kuina— "I will never lose again! Until the day I fight him and win, I swear, I'll never lose again! You got a problem with that, Pirate King?" He screams hoarsely, his voice choked by tears and pain and grief, and maybe a little embarrassed anxiety besides.

Her reply is instant, warm, and very like her. "Nope!"

The exchange would be meager and unfeeling for almost any other pair, but for them…it's enough. It would always be enough.

Lucy is in tears by the end of the fight, and then Mihawk bisects her swordsman and throws him in the ocean—the one place Lucy can't reach. Sanji tries to stop her but she gives him his first order—Let me go—and he releases her immediately.

Lucy throws herself at the Shichibukai, furious, but Mihawk is better than her, better by miles, and barely puts any effort into dodging her attack. Zoro is miraculously fished out of the sea breathing, and Lucy is shocked to her core when he makes a new oath in her name to become the World's Greatest Swordsman, that he would never lose again.

She's also touched, and something warm unfurls in her stomach and chest at his words.

"You got a problem with that, Pirate King?" He yells. His voice is hoarse and thick with tears.

No. No, of course I don't. "Nope!"

As if I'd ever throw you and your dreams aside.

Question: Is the length of these chapters good? Or would it be better to make them longer? I'm aiming for 3k words per chapter but that's going to be a lot of chapters, quite frankly. So. I may restructure now if that seems better to you guys.

So I tried really, really hard to keep to the whole idea of teamwork and friendship as described in the series as much as possible. Everybody trusts each other to do their best and live. I love that, really, but it's really hard for me to write even friendship without that protective nature to it, especially for Zoro and Luffy/Lucy, so I may have screwed up a few times. Plus, the guys all display a certain amount of chauvinism over the course of the series, so if I write them in character they almost have to be more protective of Lucy than they are of Luffy.

Also, I really like the idea of mama-bear Lucy. Like, obviously her goal is to become Pirate King, but nothing is more important than her friends. No one hurts her babies and lives.