"Smokey! Are you sure you don't know where he is?" Luffy asked with a worried expression on his face. Smoker on the other hand looked more annoyed than worried. "I already told you hundreds of times that I don't know where that brat went! Didn't his friends say that he had dropped his phone before running off?" he told Luffy, for what seemed to be the hundredth time today.
With a pout Luffy excused himself and went back to the Mikan. His shift was about to start, though he wasn't in the mood for work, right now. He wished he could be with Law right now, who was being paranoid and freaked out whenever he saw someone with black hair and freckles.
Nori wasn't treating him that great recently either, though he didn't tell anyone about his pregnancy trouble. Though he did finally tell everyone that he actually was pregnant, though it wouldn't have been much of a secret anymore anyways, considering that he was already the 7th month pregnant and had decided to tell everyone when he was 6th month pregnant.
Nami had decided to throw a baby shower and everyone came, except for Ace and Sabo of course…
Luffy had already talked to Sabo, though he didn't know where Ace could be either and he was quite busy in South Blue. Luffy had heard rumours though that there might be something going on between Sabo and Marco and when he brought it up Sabo had begun to stutter uncontrollably, something that used to happen a lot when he was nervous.
As soon as Luffy reached the Mikan he walked inside. Nami wasn't in today, saying she had a 'family day out', whatever that meant.
When he walked to the back of the shop he walked past Vivi who was washing an older woman's hair and smiled brightly at him when he entered.
It was quite a busy day today, there had been a lot of reservations, no wonder Nami decided to take the day off.
When Luffy's break came up he got to the break room and sat down immediately. His back was killing him and every movement hurt. The fact that Nori was lying against a nerve in his back didn't make it any better, either.
"Nori… Can't you at least lie a little different..?" he asked, rubbing his belly as he long sigh escaped his lips. Of course the little angel wasn't going to do what he asked. Instead of lying differently, Nori decided to start kicking, which applied more pressure on the nerve and caused Luffy to nearly wince in pain, he managed to hold back when he saw Vivi walk into the break room, she probably closed the shop for an hour so that they could have break together.
"Are you okay, Luffy-san? You look a little pale.." she pointed out as she sat across from him, putting a cup of coffee in front of both of them. "Never felt better!" he lied with a wide grin before taking a sip from his coffee.
"That's good to hear! Say, you still haven't heard anything from Ace-san, have you?" she asked, but could already guess when she saw his expression. "I see.. It's been nearly 2 months since he's gone missing, right? Or, well, ran off.." she corrected herself and looked worriedly at Luffy.
"I really think you should go see a doctor Luffy-san. You're really pale and your sweating too!" she pointed out, and Luffy wiped his forehead baffled to see that he indeed was sweating, though he wasn't hot at all, on the contrary, he actually felled ice cold. "Nah! Don't worry! It's probably just because we've been working so hard today! It's really difficult moving around so much with this much extra weight, ya know!" he tried to assure her, but she still looked worried.
"I just hope you're right.. I don't think it'd be good for the baby if you got ill now.. And besides, I think you should stop working soon. All this stress can't be good for you, especially now that Ace-san is missing and Law-san is being a bit too paranoid.. And I'm forbidding you to lift any of the heavy boxes!" she pointed a finger at him accusingly. "Eeeeeh?! Why? I don't mind lifting the boxes, their not that heavy! And what else am I going to do if I'm not going to work all day? Traffy isn't home around this time either!" he whined, though he couldn't help but remember the conversation he eavesdropped on a few days ago between Nami and Vivi, they were saying that he looked extremely tired lately and that he was looking skinnier than normal, even though he had a huge belly.
"Doesn't matter! You're almost 8th month pregnant, Luffy! I'm not willing to have you go into labour while in the middle of work! You know just as well as me that men often go into labour a bit sooner that women normally do! Anyways, I'm going to go and get some lunch, want to come along?" she asked, looking at him curiously yet he noticed the worried look she was giving him. He sighed and nodded. "I'd never turn down food!" he smiled as he remembered that he hadn't eaten anything today yet.
As she turned to get her jacket, he struggled to get up and had luckily managed to do so, before Vivi returned.
When Vivi came back into the break room she was carrying his jacket as well, smiling gently at him as she passed him his jacket. "Thank you." He said smiling and they left to get lunch.
3 Weeks Later
"Luffy-ya.. You're not going to work today." Law said, arms crossed over his chest as he looked at Luffy worriedly. He was getting sick of people looking at him like that. Everyone seemed to be looking at him with a worried gaze and he didn't like it.
"Traffy~! Please? What else am I going to do all day?"
"Rest. Luffy-ya.. You don't look so good and you've been shivering a lot lately, are you sure you're alright?" He asked as he got closer to Luffy, but Luffy moved away before his hand could touch Luffy's cheek.
"I'm fine, I'm fine. I'm just a bit cold because of the weather outside, that's all. And you don't look so great either, you know." He pointed out.
With a sigh Law put on his jacket. "Okay, fine. But promise me that today will be your last day at work, okay?" Luffy nodded and smiled at his boyfriend. Law noticed that it wasn't his usual bright smile, but a forced, weak smile. He gave Luffy a quick peck on the lips and turned to leave. "Be careful and don't do anything rash, okay?"
"I'll be fine! Now go!" Luffy said, with a scowl and Law smiled at him lovingly before leaving their apartment.
As Luffy heard the click of the door shutting he sighed. "Okay now, how am I going to stand up?" he asked himself out loud and pressed both his hands down onto the surface of the couch and pressed himself up, his knuckles turning white. When he finally stood his vision was completely black and he stumbled a bit, before everything came into focus again.
He walked into the kitchen, opened the fridge and took out some of yesterdays leftovers and put them into the microwave, before moving to get the thermometer out and putting it into his mouth.
When the thermometer peeped, indicating that it was done measuring his temperature he took it out of his mouth and sighed as he looked at it. 39.9 degrees Celsius (103.82 Fahrenheit). "Why won't it go down?" he asked himself out loud, letting his head fall. "I already went through all of Traffy's books, but couldn't find anything.." he went on, but decided to just leave it at that and eat lunch before leaving for work.
An hour later he was standing at work, sweating and panting in the break room. Nami had sent him to take a break a minute ago and he couldn't get himself to sit down. He was afraid that if he did, he wouldn't be able to get up without help.
He tried to concentrate on something else and tried to look for Law with his haki, it cost him more effort than usual to use his haki now, but he felt like he wanted to see Law, and he did. He was probably running another errand for Dr. Kureha, because he was about to cross the street when he stopped abruptly. Luffy wondered why, but then he saw why. Ace. He was walking up to Law and he looked not only as if he hadn't showered in months but also furious.
Without saying a word he punched Law right in the face, Law stumbled backwards, holding his hand over his bleeding nose and tried to reason with Ace, who seemed like he didn't want to talk. Ace kicked and punched him several times, while Law tried vending of any of his attacks and that's when Luffy noticed in horror to where they had unconsciously moved while fighting. The street. And the traffic lights for the cars where green. Luffy could feel his heart start to raise in horror and then a truck came, he tried to stop as soon as he saw them, but didn't manage to do so in time. He saw blood on the street and neither Law nor Ace were moving.
He wanted to cry out their names, but no sound left his mouth. His vision was turning black and he felt dizzy and then suddenly pain shot through his entire body and it felt like his body was being ripped apart. He fell to his knees, his hands clutching his stomach to try and ease the pain. "Luffy?! What's wrong?!" Nami yelled in shock as she saw her friend on the ground in pain. "Oh god.. Vivi! Call an ambulance!" she yelled into the shop and the blue-haired girl looked at her shocked before she nodded and took out her phone dialling the number quickly.
"Luffy! Don't worry, everything's going to be fine!" she tried to assure him and wiped away the tears that were streaming down his face while rubbing his back. As her fingers touched his cheek, she froze. She immediately stood up and ran towards Vivi ripping the phone out of the girls hands. Luffy couldn't hear what she was yelling into the phone, but didn't care either way, he felt like he was going to die.
The ambulance got there within a couple of minutes and the first thing the doctor did was put a thermometer into Luffy's mouth before helping him up and placing him into the ambulance. When the doctor took the thermometer out again it read 41.3 degrees Celsius (106.34 Fahrenheit). "Nami.." Luffy crooked out as he looked at her with worried eyes. "Ace.. and Traffy.. I want to see them." Even though his voice sounded weak she could hear the worry and pain in it. "I'll call Law for you, but I don't know where Ace is.." she trailed off as she took his hand into hers and the ambulance drove off. He shook his head lightly. "They're.. hit by a truck.." he nearly whispered and he could see the shock on her face as she turned to the doctor in front of her.
"Oi, tell me, do you know about to dark haired guys getting hit by a truck?" she asked, her voice serious, though the worried tone in it could be easily heard.
"Yes, We were first supposed to go there, but because we were closest to you we came here instead. I only know that when the truck driver called the ambulance that he said that both of them were unconscious and bleeding heavily, though I don't know anything else about their condition. Why? Are they friends of yours?" he asked, now all his attention was on Nami. She looked at him with a deep frown before replying. "Yes. One of them is his brother and the other is his boyfriend." She said, and the doctor turned back to Luffy, giving him something against the fever.
"Zoro! Sanji!" a hysteric voice cried as he ran up to the fighting couple. "Usopp? What's wrong?" Zoro asked as he took their daughter up into his arms. "It's Luffy! He's going into labour and Nami said that he has a high fever!" as Usopp explained what had happened, the eyes of the two widened in shock.
"And… I just ran into Smoker.. he looked like he was about to freak out! I asked him what was wrong and he said that Law and Ace got hit by a truck!" he nearly yelled, fear written all over his face. "They got hit by a truck?!" Sanji yelled in disbelieve.
"Why would they get hit by a truck?" Zoro asked, but Usopp only shook his head. "I don't know! Smoker wouldn't tell me anything else before he ran off.."
"Why the fuck are we still standing here?! Let's get to the hospital!" Sanji yelled and all three of them ran towards the hospital as fast as they could.
