Hello again people!

Yea I know I've been very rude leaving you with that chapter for a very long time but I've had no real inspiration to write as of late. But recently, as school ended, I felt that need to write again and here we are.

Here's another chapter for ya! And thank you all so extremely much for the lovely reviews!

Enjoy! ^^

Chapter 10

A week passed slowly for Kiko. No food, no water, no company. Not even Bepo was allowed to visit her. Two weeks passed. Still nothing. Had they forgotten about her already? After about three days she had stopped her attack on the door, finally giving in. If she listened real carefully she could sometimes hear people pass by in the hall just outside the door. So close yet so far away, constantly. She would bang and scream at the door whenever she heard anyone but none stopped to listen.

At first she was angry, at everything. Law, Akainu, her past, herself, Akainu and of course, herself. Then came the regret. She would scream at anyone and everything that she was sorry and wanted to take everything back. No reaction.

Law had yet to come speak to her when two and a half weeks had passed, and she was starting to loose hope. He was clearly not going to forgive her any time soon, and calculating that by the time he finally got his head out of his ass it would be too late for her to tell him the truth in person, so she wrote. By the last day of the third week Kiko had successfully written an impressive pile of letter, all containing her thoughts and reasoning when she had received the letter from Akainu. To say she was sorry would be an understatement, after being left entirely to herself for almost three weeks had left her with only a sense and feeling of regret and abandonment. She figured she deserved it. All that remained of the cocky mechanic was a broken shell.

"Captain! Isn't it enough soon? I mean come on, it's been nearly THREE WEEKS for fucks sake!" Demitri threw his beloved Penguin-hat at the floor. He stared wildly at his captain who seemed to have grown colder and colder during the weeks he kept Kiko locked up. Observe, HE kept her locked up. Demitri cowered back a bit at the icy look Law shot him.

Soon the entire crew had all been to see him, one or two almost every day. They knew their captain almost better than he knew himself, and this, this wasn't him. Now they had finally docked at an island, but Kiko still had to remain in her room.

" You can't keep her locked up forever. She'll be dead soon, she was frail to begin with, she won't last long! " Grey eyes looked from him to his second in command, the only one to yet have spoken a word about it. The bear looked to the ground, the wall and back to Law. The captain looked torn for a moment before masking it with a face of indifference.

" I will consider it. Now go get new supplies, we're short on anesthesia. " they slowly trudged out of the room, Demitri picking up his hat but not putting it on again. 'This is not good. I wonder how she's doing...'

After about ten minutes he reached the market and was pushing past people to get to the pharmacy/ medical supply store. When he was just about to open the door he was pulled into an alleyway.

" Oi! What do you think you're doin?" He was met with a look of serious urgency.

" Do you have the intel?"

" What? What are you talking about? What 'intel'? You a crazy person?"

" You are Kiko Tanaka, right? We never received your answer. We need the intel we requested in the letter."

"Letter?" He must have looked pretty stupid, his mouth hanging wide open.

" Quick! Give it to me!" suddenly everything clicked in Demitri's head. Eyes narrowing he punched the man who slid down the wall to the ground. Ripping off the brown cloak he saw the white and blue uniform that could only belong to one organization. Kicking the marine for good measure he ran back to the sub, heading for the captain's office.

"Captain! Captain!" Law ran a tattooed hand through his dark hair, wishing his crew would stop questioning him, accept his decision and for the love of god stop shouting his title all the time like a horribly repetitive mantra. Grey eyes locking dangerously on Demitri as he entered his office, without knocking, short of breath and panic in his eyes.

"What Demitri, what? " The question came out even more venomously than he'd intended but it didn't seem to stop the riled up man.

" The Marines- letter- not her fault." Demitri managed to get out between breaths. Law was already on high alert when the Marines were mentioned.

" What? You're not making mych sense here Demitri, you're gonna have to try harder." bending over and taking a few more controlled breaths he finally met the gaze on his increasingly impatient captain.

"Kiko. It wasn't her idea, they sent her a letter. A marine mistook me for her at the market, told me everything. SHE'S INNOCENT CAPTAIN!" Law stood still as a statue behind his desk, eyes staring emptily into space as his previously tired but now alert brain processed this. In less than a second he was out the door, the key clutched painfully in his hand. It seemed to weigh a ton, at least. The steady beat of his steps increased in tempo until he was practically sprinting through the halls. Crewmembers roaming the corridors barely had time to move out of the way before their captain ran past them, shouting orders as he got nearer to the door.

" Get a gourney to Kiko's room! NOW! Bepo, get me the emergency kit. "

"Yes sir!" came the chorused reply.

Law reached the door he had avoided for three weeks and his hand almost trembled when he put the key in the lock and turned. The feel of thinned out air met him and he had to be careful as he stepped over the piles of ripped paper and shards of every breakable material that had been in the room. The previously acceptable room was an unexplainable mess and in the middle of it all was the bed, and in the middle of the bed lay a small frail creature slightly resembling what used to be his smartmouthed mechanic. Kneeling next to her on the bed he turned her over on her back, immediately checking for a pulse. The sking of her neck felt oily and he got a sickly cold feeling in his stomach as his fingers almost instantly met bone wherever he touched.

" Kiko? O-oi! Wake up!" He kept looking for lifesignns and let out a shaky breath as he felt the blood pulsating weakly beneath his fingertips. But as he looked her over he found several injuries that he found he could not explain, no one had entered the room, he'd made sure of that. Then a painful revelation entered his mind, 'Would she hurt herself?' For the first time in a long time, perhaps ever, Law felt dread fill his being. If Demitri really was right, and if Kiko really never planned to give them away, would she punish herself because she thought they hated her? Then Bepo arrived with the emergency kit and a gourney, after that everything happened in a blur. Throughout the evening whispers could be heard across the ship about the near-dead mechanic. The mystery injuries became a heated discussion until Sam decided to yell at anyone who tried to turn Kiko's wellbeing into a detective story. After that all you could hear were words of genuine concern, noone dare piss off the chef and after Kyle came from the infirmary noone could go to sleep. He told them that Kiko had been very near death when their captain opened the door, if they had waited another ten minutes or so she would have left them, forever. Nicolai got up from his chair in an act of desperation.

" I wanna go sit with her til she wakes up." But Kyle held him back as the other crewmembers from the sickbay came back to the kitchen, getting a cup of steaming coffee from Sam.

" No, you can't. Captain is with her, you don't wanna go in there right now. He damn near tore us to shreds when we hestiated leaving him with her."

" Yeah, not even Bepo was allowed to stay. I've never seen Captn so angered. " another of the men said. Bepo hung his head.

" I'm sorry." Nicolai had trouble sitting still in his chair, a frown across his normally jolly features.

" But what does he have to be angry at? He's the one that locked her up!" Everyone went silent and Sam shook his wise head as they all realized Nicolai had just answered his own question.