I don't actually have anything to say so enjoy.

Zoro was genuinely shocked that Luffy was capable of sneaking off without waking any of his companions. Then he was mad that the brat had decided to continue on by himself. Sighing, Zoro stood and nudged his rival in the leg. Sanji groaned but got up. The blond glared at the swordsman before looking at their two other companions.

It took three counts of two before the chef finally registered that the little trouble maker was no longer with them. Getting up, he lit a cigarette and took in a deep breath of the smoke before letting it out, slow and deliberate, "How long you think he's been gone?"

Zoro shrugged and knelt down where the kid-like-teen had been when he had first closed his eyes, "No more than a few hours, but he's used to being out here so for us, he could be a day ahead, maybe more."

Sanji nodded and kicked the other male of the group before gently rousing Nami from her sleep.

"What's wrong, it's still too early to set off?" Usopp complained as he rubbed the sleep out of his eyes.

"Yeah, and we all agreed that one day of complete rest would be good for all of us and-," she trailed off as she looked around, "-and where's Luffy?"

"Left," was all Zoro said before following the faint trail that Luffy had left when he left. He decided that he was either going to cut off the younger male's legs or buy a leash for the senseless idiot.

Sanji, Usopp, and Nami all finished gathering their stuff before following after the swordsman, yelling at him for just walking off on his own. "I know your worried about the idiot but keep your head," Sanji had snapped after catching up to the green-haired man. Said man ignored the yelling that was directed at him and just continued on the path, wondering where a good place was to buy a leash.

Luffy was finally making his way down Reverse Mountain. He honestly thought that he was never going to make it alone. He had looked over his shoulder more times than he could count and almost backtracked a few of those times. He once actually did start to backtrack but reminded himself that he didn't want to force people to come with him.

It was better to be hurt than be alone. Hurt was something that could be healed but loneliness persisted. Even after finding people, the loneliness is still there, just covered up to seem like it isn't. It can take years to fully recover from a single day of being alone. It was something that Luffy didn't like to think about since he had more of the loneliness pain then he let on.

His meeting with Zoro had been a blessing. The angry-looking man had seemed nice and, even though he didn't answer any of Luffy's questions, he was fun to be around. The man had even introduced the teen to a friend. Sanji was almost as funny as the people in the building where they had met. The blond had smelled of food and Luffy wanted to try that food someday, but the odds of that happening now were too low for the obsidian-haired boy's liking.

Then there were Croco's friends. Usopp was fun to listen to. He knew the stories weren't real only because he had been to some of the places that the long-nosed man was talking about, but he still pretended to believe them. Nami, who was indeed a female, was kind of scary at times but he could tell that she means well. You just had to stay out of her way when money was involved.

No! He had to stop thinking about them. The more he thought about them, the more he wanted to go back and he couldn't do that. He loved them too much to go back. He didn't want to endanger them. He didn't want them to die. That's why Ace and Sabo-

No! He wouldn't think about his brothers either. He was tired of crying over them. He was tired of crying period. It wasn't helping him, but to be honest, thinking just wasn't helping him at the moment.

Luffy had gotten so caught up in his thoughts that he had stopped paying attention to where he was going. The trail so far had been a steady decline going back and forth along the mountain, but at this particular moment, the path dropped off suddenly. Luffy hadn't been paying attention and he lost his footing.

He had fallen from high places plenty of times. However, that did not prepare him for a steep drop followed by a gentle decline. After he stopped rolling, Luffy found himself covered in scrapes. He also couldn't move his right leg and left ankle without a sharp stab of pain going through both. He knew they weren't broken, he was rubber after all, but he still couldn't continue.

In the end, Luffy dragged himself into the confines of a small shrub and placed the leaves under and around him. The best advantage of living out in the desert, you learn what the creatures like and don't like, and creatures hated the smell of the shrub that Luffy was taking shelter under.

Garp was following behind Smoker along with Tashigi. He was tired of listening to the man complain about the lost night. In Garp's opinion, they were no worse off than if they had left when Smoker wanted to. Luffy wasn't one of those people you could catch up to if he didn't want you to. He was both trained and raised by Ace and Sabo after all, neither of them would have let him not learn to keep out of the reach of the many enemies that the three had made.

But no, Smoker didn't want to listen to Garp, the only one of the three of them that actually knew Luffy. So now, there was a rift in the merry little band of Marines, not there wasn't one before. Smoker was one of those officers that didn't care about the top-brass but was still a stick-in-the-mud about the job and duties accompanied with it. Tashigi was on the same path as Smoker but had more respect for the higher-ups. Garp just didn't care one way or another. He knew his duty and did it, but not if he didn't feel like it.

Garp was starting to wonder about how this trio was going to survive the journey that wouldn't end anytime soon. Especially since it seemed that silence was an unspoken rule between the three. Garp couldn't even say something for fear of some unforeseen consequence that the universe would dish out.

Yep, this was going to be a journey. A journey that Garp was starting to wish he didn't have to partake in.