Special thanks to Rexan for giving me the idea to start this. We all know how Luffy met Zoro but how does Luffy remember it?

"Luffy?" Sanji calls his captain as he gently dries the last plate with a towel. It has been hours since lunch and Luffy had bounded over like usual whining for a snack. The brain in Sanji ignored the pleas but the cook in him whipped up a banana split the size of a bazooka. This was a part of their daily routine so Sanji didn't need to look back to know his captain-one of the most wanted and feared pirates in the East Blue-had stuffed his mouth full with vanilla ice cream.

"How'd you meet the idiot marimo?"

"Voru?"

"Yea Zoro, and if you speak with your mouth full again I will personally make sure you never eat again."

-gulp.

"What about Zoro?" Luffy asked brightening at the subject he knew well about.

"How'd you meet him? What happened?"

It wasn't like Sanji to butt into others' business, but in truth he found it incredibly unfair. The green headed idiot knew all their stories. Even if he didn't know the gruesome details and would never tell a living soul he knew. He had a glimpse of what their life was before they joined the crew, and he watched their tears fall before their salvation-a raven head teen. He would never tease them, never joke about it, and probably never talk about it even after it was mentioned first, but he was still there. He still watched. And he still knew.

Yet nobody knew Luffy and Zoro's story. It was a time-their time-that was protected by their silence. Knowing the duo, if asked, they would answer. However as if it were part of an unspoken promise between the Straw Hat crew no member dared to breach their trust.

Until now.

Of course it doesn't mean Sanji is jealous. Sanji doesn't do jealous. He does... mildly curious.

"I found him."

"Yea, I guessed that much," Sanji finishs the dishes and takes a seat across from his captain. He inhales a deep breath of cigarette, his prize to himself for a job well done, before continuing. "I'm asking about what happened after that? Did you save his sorry ass and threaten him?"

Luffy looks up from his dessert and looks at Sanji with a curious expression on his features. The normally bright eyes are glazed and out of focus; he is reminiscing.

"I found him," Luffy repeats slowly.

Luffy remembers a time when he was just as sure as his dream as he is now-but with no one to stand by his side.

There was a constant gnaw of solitude, that single shred of insecurity he didn't understand until after he met the green headed swordsman. Yet from the moment Zoro looked back with a rueful grin, calling him captain, those insecurities were solved, forever banished for Luffy knew never again would he face the waves alone.

And that had completed him. Zoro had made him whole and thus invincible.

Luffy grins as he corrects Sanji.

"But he saved me."