Well here it is, sorry about not updating last week but as anyone who read my profile knows, school was out to kill me last. If you could die from death by homework, I would have been dead long, long ago O.o

Well here it is, hope you enjoy reading! ^-^

Day 19- desperation

They couldn't believe it. Luffy knew. Not only that, but any ideas that they had left that could possibly have worked would fail before they were even put into action, it was pointless trying to got Luffy to speak if he knew what they were up to after all.

The crew held their last meeting without Luffy on the 12th night. They didn't even need to distract Luffy this time, after dinner he got up and gave them a grin before walking out onto deck, leaving them to it.

Sanji took a deep drag and held it in for a while before breaking the silence with a question everyone wanted answered. "What now."

Zoro sighed, "There's nothing we can do. He knows what we're up to, we know he wont speak so we have no choice but to leave it at that."

"We can't do that!" Nami stood up sharply and glared at him. "We can't have a Captain who refuses to command his ship for a whole month!"

"It's already been two weeks." Zoro pointed out calmly. Rather than try to force Luffy to talk, it seemed his way of just letting Luffy get on with it was the only one left. "We only have just over two weeks left to go, if we just leave him alone he shall have done this thing of his and we wouldn't be disrespecting him be forcing him not to."

"A Captain needs to take command of his ship!" Nami retaliated. "How can we follow an order if he never gives it!"

"When have we ever had problems understanding what he wants from us?"

Nami stopped then. Though she hated to admit it, Zoro was right. Luffy always got what he wanted across to them just with a look or the way he moved. It was strange, how easy it was to read just his body language, it showed just how well they knew him. Though sometimes, when he was thinking or serious, he became unreadable. It was like he made it easy to understand him.

Nami turned to Robin, desperate for back up.

Robin just smiled. "Zoro-San's right, it's now up to Luffy what he wants to do. We can only follow his wishes."

Nami groaned and sat back down. Robin, her last hope had failed her. She hated it when Zoro was right.

"Eh, wait a minute." Said Usopp from across the table. "Does Luffy even know how long a month is?"

The whole crew sweat dropped. Knowing him, probably not.

. . . .

The next week was one of the slowest they could remember. The first two weeks of Luffy's challenge they were occupied, they had something to do and things to think about. The first week for example was a different experience, the second they filled up with their plans. Now however, they had nothing to do. Nothing to think about. It was just empty silence, forced smiles.

Zoro hadn't thought that he'd mind that much. It was quiet, no Luffy laughter and screams to distract him or wake him up. Other noise did that though, nothing changed. Luffy still woke him up and bothered him and still got yelled at by the others, so it was no big difference. He had been occupied anyway. But now, everyone was silent. Like the life had been sucked out of them almost. It was actually too quiet to sleep and he found that he didn't like it. He wanted the noise after all, even just a little bit, even for a moment. He wanted to feel at ease again. He hadn't fought the shit cook in a few days either, neither of them could be bothered to do so. There was no point.

For Brook, it was almost reliving his worst nightmares. Waking up to find that his time with the Straw Hats was just a dream after all and that he'd go back to living in the silence alone on his old ship, Nakama dead, the Straw Hats a dream. This was almost the same. No one spoke, no one smiled a genuine smile and no noise apart from some forced small talk. Brook hated the silence and hated being alone. This was like both together, an eternal never ending nightmare.

Chopper liked to think of the silence as a disease. He could cope with it that way. It was a disease eating away at his Nakama and could only be cured once Luffy spoke again. Until then the disease was working its way throught the body of the Straw Hat group causing pain and sadness wherever it went. Chopper had tried to make the others talk, but it seemed that they and he had no energy for it so he too finally lapsed into the folds of silence and started waiting, waiting for the cure to arrive.

Robin thought of the silence as night, darkness, cloaking everything in it's path, swallowing the light. Luffy was that light. He had guided them all to a better place, a place of fun and adventure, of Nakama and trust. Luffy was still here, the darkness couldn't take him, but he was....sleeping. Waiting dormant in the dark to wake them all up again. They were all sleeping really, no energy to do much, the light had been sucked out of them. She began to patiently wait for the darkness to go, but never before had she longed for it to be so loud. Normally she liked the quiet, she was able to read her books or relax in peace, but now that she thought about it, there was always noise, somewhere there in the background. She missed it, the noise.

Franky was loud. With or without anyone to help him, Franky always managed to be as loud as possible. That was his personality, loud, large and super. Unforgettable. But he too wanted, a kind of fuel, something to keep him going, keep him happy, sunny and loud. This fuel was his Nakama, now so quiet and withdrawn so he too had no energy. He had lost his fuel you could say. So he also started to wait for it to come back, whenever that may be.

Usopp and Luffy were partner's in crime, the main mischief makers on-board. It had been strange at first, playing with a Luffy who wouldn't talk but they had gotten round it. They hadn't actually played for a while, a week actually. He didn't know why, it's just whenever they got together Usopp felt the need to apologise. Luffy gave him confidence, made him believe in himself but it was harder now and he didn't know why. It was only silent after all, it didn't change anything between them. But somehow it did.

Sanji found the silence difficult. Strange. On the Baratie there was never a moments peace, being in this crew there was never a moments peace. Until now. He didn't know what to do or how to act around others. Was it only he who was affected this way? He didn't think so. For some reason, he almost felt numb inside, it was as if he had no emotion left. Luffy had actually stopped raiding the fridge the past few days and his efforts before that seemed forced as though just to keep the normality. They were sloppier than usual and not energetic. Sanji didn't even kick him out when he caught him, just sighed and pointed to the door. His food was still excellent, but lacked that lustre that it normally had. He couldn't get into the right mood. His flirting to the ladies were forced or small too, but no one noticed, they were too enclosed in their own problems to pay too much attention.

Nami couldn't take it, the force smiles, the silence. She wanted to talk normally, not just small talk but to talk like Nakama should. She wanted to hear laughter a-board the ship, wanted to hear the sounds of things breaking, the sounds of boot to blade, the sounds of swearing and kicking and the sounds of Luffy. Any sound of Luffy. She wanted to hear his laughter ring across the decks, the sound of him talking, the sight of him being yelled at even, anything. She wanted to be happy again, to feel normal. No one blamed her she knew that, everyone knew it was just something she said that he took seriously as a challenge. Luffy was extremely competitive, but no one thought he'd take it this far.

She had to try and talk to him, just once. Just to hear him answer. Just to try

Luffy knew. He knew how they were feeling and he knew that he found out about their plans. Nami had given his hat back almost straight after he stopped looking for it. Since then, everyone became silent, like they couldn't be bothered to speak any more or do anything for that matter. He watched them all slowly fall into silence, Sanji stopped flirting as much, Zoro increased his training as if to give himself something to do, he'd seen Nami try to draw a map but fail and she hadn't tried one since. He really didn't want to cause them this much pain but he had come to know his Nakama a lot better by this, their little actions they never even thought about, ones he'd never noticed before. Like what food they liked, how or where they liked to sit, what they smiled at, what they got annoyed at.

He didn't think they knew that he was watching them, looking over them, making sure that they weren't doing too bad. He'd go over to each of them in turn when this happened. Just a smile for a pat on the shoulder to let them know that they were doing fine.

He was sad though, that they'd stopped plotting. They had nothing to do now and it showed, they had just seemed to give up, let him get on with it. They were unhappy, but they also respected him and what he was doing. He was truly grateful for that.

. . . .

He was sitting on the figurehead when Nami approached him.

"Luffy?"

He turned to look at her. She seemed nervous about something so he jumped to to stand opposite her, leaning on the rails.

"Luffy, the crew have been talking and we have decided that if you wont speak then I'm going to be Captain."

It was a lie, they both knew it. It just showed how desperate she was.

Luffy grinned, shook his head and waited for her to speak again.

Nami looked him in the eye before doing so. "Luffy please, just say something, anything. The crew can't go on like this any more."

Luffy said nothing.

"Come on, Luffy just one thing. Just end it! Do you know how everyone feels?"

"Oi Nami, calm down a bit-"Zoro tried to interrupt from behind her.

"No!" Nami cut across him. "I can't stand this any more! The silence, they emptiness, everyone's depressed and all you do is carry on like you have no clue how you're making us feel! Do you like to see us this way?"

The whole crew held their breath. Nami knew she'd gone to far.

"L-Luffy I'm sorry. I didn't mean that." She said in a quiet voice as she stared at the floor.

Luffy put a hand on her shoulder.

"Please just forget about it." She tried again.

Luffy shook his head again. He'd come to far now and wanted to get this done. He'd always regret it if he didn't.

"Nami drop it already." Muttered Zoro from behind her.

"Leave Nami-San alone you unwanted seaweed!"

"What was that curly brow?"

"Uhh guys?" Usopp's voice crackled from above on the loudspeaker breaking up the imminent battle. "We have company. Ahh! They've fired a cannon!"

A crash was then heard as Usopp scrambled to get onto deck.

Zoro smiled evilly. "Perfect timing, I really need a workout."

"Chu, don't hog them all greedy marimo. Oi Captain, coming?" Sanji turned to Luffy.

Luffy smirked and cracked his knuckles nodding a yes. The crew finally had something to take their frustration out on.

Chopper and Usopp couldn't help but feel a little sorry for who ever was on the other ship. The battle they knew was going to be an extremely short one. Unfortunately for them, they were wrong.

Well the genre has turned dark and depressing at the moment so sorry to anyone who wanted to smile with reading this.

Mwhahaha! Cliff hanger XD

Any improvements you can see please let me know and as always please read and review to let me know what you all thought! ^-^

Author notes:

-Usopp was on look out for anyone who didn't know :D

-May be OCC but it's the inside workings of their minds, so please let me know!

-There aren't actually many notes to make O.O

Thanks for reading!

Also a massive shout out to Kiarra-Chan for pointing out a few typos ^-^ Hope it's fixed now XD

~AHWH~