The sub was eerily quiet as Law walked up the stairs and into the kitchen. His crew had long gone to sleep, all agreeing that it was better to leave the island with their lives than press their luck. He wasn't tired and decided to make a cup of coffee before reading Akane's book on the properties of herbs. He was surprised to find Jean in the kitchen brewing coffee.

"Good evening, Captain," he said without turning his back.

Law sat down at the small wooden table they had in the kitchen. "Jean."

"Did Shachi make any repairs on the sub before we left?" Jean asked, pouring the dark liquid into two mugs, setting one before his captain and sitting down across from him.

"No, is there something wrong?" he asked, bringing cup to his mouth.

"That's the odd part: it's running better than ever. I've never seen it run so smoothly; we may make it to Zanni in only two days," the large man said, stirring some milk in to relieve the bitterness.

"What's Zanni like?"

"It's a fall island and there's a month long festival going on right now. It should be pretty relaxed," he explained, thinking of the current map he had of the island.

"Thank god," Law muttered into his coffee. He paused before sipping it, his gray eyes glancing up at Jean beneath the brim of his old fur hat."On the Bloody Mary, Miss Akane and I had to fight the Pandamonium Pirates, do you know who they are?"

"No, I've never heard of them. How many were there?" he asked, finishing his coffee and rose to refill his cup.

"A hundred."

"You and Akane got rid of all of them?" he asked, though he wasn't surprised. He had seen his captain fight before and knew he was capable of taking care of multiple people at once and Akane hold her own as well, but the sheer number should have left a mark on at least one of the medics. "Wait, why were you on the Bloody Mary?"

"Miss Akane wanted to gather some of her belongings," he said shortly.

"And the ship was just there in the middle of the open?"

His dark rimmed eyes rolled up to look at his navigator. "Yes, she insisted on going because of that reason."

Jean casted his dark eyes down into his fresh cup of coffee before drinking it; the steam swirled upward, warming his face like a familiar presence.

"How's your shoulder?"

He glanced at his bandaged shoulder where the arrow had pierced it. "It's fine; Akane's paste eased the swelling nicely."

"Good, how exactly did you get that injury again?" Law asked, washing his cup in the sink.

He paused for a moment, wondering how to proceed. "We heard... a voice and we were just possessed. We ran out to where the singing was and were shot at."

"Singing? Was it some kind of Devil Fruit?" he asked, adjusting his hat as they headed to the control room next door.

"Miya, the Cutthroat's musician, first tier. She has a Devil Fruit called the Si-Si Fruit; it allows her voice to drive Devil Fruit users away from her, but non users toward her," Jean explained, sitting down in his chair before taking the sub off auto pilot."According to Mama, it was useful because she could get people closer when she shot at them."

"So a Cutthroat Pirate just happens to shoot at my crew while Miss Akane is here, but don't attack her?" he asked, leaning back on the table.

"They think she's betrayed them."

Law looked up. "They?"

"Whoever is left of that crew thinks Akane abandoned them by joining us, Captain. For whatever reason, they didn't attack her, but it's better we left that island before they could," he explained, watching the dark ocean be pierced by the two headlights.

"It's not as if she had a choice in joining, did she...," the captain said to himself, wandering out of the control room.

"Captain."

Law glanced over his shoulder in the door way.

"If she wanted to leave, you know she would have died trying," Jean said, not looking away from his duties. He could imagine his captain nodding and walking to the medical bay to read a book or practice dissecting something.

Though Law was mysterious in his stoic mannerisms, he was predictable. His mask of cool politeness, the way he fought, the way the corner of his mouth would twitch when he was angry were all things that flew under the rest of his crew's radar simply because they adored him. Even the ones that were lost to the women of Amazon Lily admired his leadership and intelligence, so much so they would miss any cracks the mask had to offer. Shachi and Penguin had described their loyalty in a muddled mess of "he's so cool!" and "he can do anything!"

Bepo's relationship was different, acting more of as an old friend since the two had known each other longer than anyone, but the bear deeply admired him like his crew mates; even Jean himself couldn't help but see his captain, almost two decades younger than him, as a sort of hero that would emerge from old sea tales or legends.

Law sat at his desk with his black rimmed reading glasses perched on his nose. He was reading about the tecra root the mystery caller had suggested Akane make for him and how he could use it to detect Caesar Clown's SAD drug. He knew it would take more than slathering paste on trees to track the gaseous man down, but it was a start. His eyes trailed up over the top of the book and above the medical bay's door where the clock ticked away quietly.

"It's 2:30 in the morning, Captain, shouldn't you be asleep?"

He looked down from the clock to see Akane standing in the doorway with a red silk robe tied around her waist tightly and her jewelry box in her hand. She walked over and sat down on the edge of his desk while he set the book aside, taking off his reading glasses.

"I could ask the same of you, Miss Akane."

She shrugged, setting the box beside her hip. "I just couldn't sleep tonight; besides, I need to figure out how much I'm going to pawn this jewelry for when we get to the next island."

She opened the wooden lid and began sorting the jewelry into piles. A ballerina sat posed in the center of the box, but twirled brokenly around to no music. Law picked up a ring that was around the ballerina's slim waist and rolled it around his thumb and index finger. It was gold with a large diamond center and rubies circling it.

"Who's the lucky man?" he asked, smirking at her flustered expression when she saw the ring in his nimble fingers. She made a reach for it, but he moved it out of the way. "You can't expect me to ignore your past engagement, Nurse."

Akane rolled her eyes, as if the whole affair had been a waste of her time. "You know how I worked in that doctor's office to support my sisters? Well, Doctor Takahashi owned the whole building and hired me to be his personal secretary and eventually his nurse. He gave a lot of... hands on experience, if you catch my drift."

She looked at her captain's face to see the jesting smirk had mellowed into a cool look of examination, as if she were a subject on his operating table. She tucked her hair behind her ear before she continued, feeling his eyes peeling back the layers and staring into her insides.

"After three months of him playing grab ass with me during surgery, he asked me to do house calls for a pay raise..."she checked to see if he was listening and his mouth twitched at the implications of her sentence, eyes closed. "Long story short, he gave me a ring so I could be a 'live in nurse'; I was going to marry him until Mama showed up."

He stated," You were going to marry a doctor at sixteen years old?"

"I wouldn't do it for me: it was for Nori. Hell, I would have killed the whole city if she told me to," she said, turning her body more to face him.

"Why?"

She paused, trying to put her feelings into words. The corners of her mouth lifted into a smile.

She recounted almost wistfully, "I would usually work twenty hour shifts in that ridiculous outfit I wore in my wanted posters. I would come home sometimes at three in the morning and not have enough energy to even make it to the couch in the living room, so I would just kick off my heels and slump against the door. Just before I was about to pull my hair out or collapse from exhaustion, Nori, would bring me a cup of tea and leftovers from the dinner I missed. That made it all worth it."

"I thought your sister was blind," he said, recalling her mentioning it while they walked around Aestus.

"She is; she learned how to use echolocation; you know, like what whales and dolphins do? It was expensive training, but my parents thought she was worth every dime and so do I," she said thoughtfully. He noted she didn't mention the other sister.

His eyes opened to look into hers, hers the color of the cooling coffee on his desk."Why would you keep this ring after all these years?"

"Because what I get back for this little ring will be worth so much more than what I did to earn it," she responded honestly.

He placed the ring back into her palm and closed her hand around it. "Your devotion to your siblings is admirable, Miss Akane, as well as your ability to make light of any situation."

Her smile returned with a flushed face at his observation as she said," I only make light of things that don't affect me now, but thank you, Doctor. That means a lot coming from you."

His laid back smile returned, leaning back in his chair," Why is that?"

"Well," she said, going to play with her hair but his hand prevented her too," even before you were my captain, I had some idea of who you were and the fact that you were the doctor of your crew as well was enough to keep your name on my radar. Now that I've been with you and your crew for nearly a month, I can see why your crew loves you so much."

"Please, tell me why I'm so great," he said with a wide smirk.

She huffed and listed with melodramatic exasperation," You're a good doctor and leader and swordsman and... you're just great at everything you try to do, you know? You can do no wrong."

He patted her hand and rose from his desk, putting the book away. "Do go on."

"Your ego would inflate so much that the walls would be painted with your insides," she said, pointing to the pristine white walls of the medical bay.

He chuckled lightly, the sound echoing in the large room and replied," Ego? I liked it better when you were complimenting my medical prowess."

"I don't want you getting sloppy, so I'll quit while I'm ahead," she quipped and was surprised when he leaned against the desk next to her.

"Now really, Miss Akane, why can't you sleep? As your doctor and captain, don't I have a right to know?" he asked, plopping his fur hat onto the skeleton.

Akane shrugged and asked," Would it be childish to say I had a nightmare?"

"Yes."

Her dark eyes narrowed at his smiling face.

She huffed and began to leave when he grabbed her silky red sleeve to pull her back in place. Law absentmindedly rubbed the smooth fabric between his slim fingers as he said," Now, now, Miss Akane, that rash behavior won't fix anything. As you said: 'I'm good at anything I try'."

She slipped out of his grip and sat in the large leather chair behind his desk, crossing her legs in the seat. He raised an eyebrow at her boldness, but settled into her usual spot on the desk.

"Okay, so I'm at my execution and they decided to hang me, but when they do I don't die; I just hang there for hours and hours until eventually they cut me down and throw me into a wooden coffin before tossing me out to sea. And I try to get out of the box, but the water is leaking and it begins to sink and-"

"You wake up," he finished.

"Yes! I've had this dream about being buried alive before. This is the first time it was drowning so it kind of makes it hard to sleep in a submarine, no?" she said.

"Is this why you're always up so late?" he asked, rising to go to his medicine cabinet in his bedroom. He figured if this was a reoccurring nightmare, a couple sleeping pills wouldn't hurt. He couldn't allow his nurse to suffer while he selfishly devoured the medicine for his own weak reasons, mostly because he ran out of books to read or the past started to leak into the corner of his mind.

"I don't know, I've been having this dream for so long it only bothers me once in a while. I mostly stay up late because at least I have someone to talk to," she called from his desk.

He paused in his search for sleeping pills, shutting the cabinet and pulling out the mortar and pestle .

Law returned to the medical bay, setting the materials down in front of her before saying," If you're going to stay up with me, we're going to work; show me how to make tecra root paste."