Eleutheromania

Chapter Twenty-One: FIRST BIRTHDAY ANNIVERSARY~!

I'M SO SORRY FOR THE DELAY, EVERYONE! This was supposed to go out on March 28th for Eleutheromania's first birthday, but unfortunately, Life and Stuff kept interfering. Ah, I also changed jobs again, so I'm back with dinosaurs again! (thank f**k). Also, blue hair!
Now, as a heads up: the collab fic that Shibo and I are working on, at last count, had reached about 18k words. However, it won't be published until we've both passed Marineford. There is just one problem: We Need Motivation! So please continue to review Eleutheromania and A Brother's Greatest Treasure, so that we can get there sooner!

"Koala!" Sabo suddenly appeared at the doorway. "You're a girl, right?"

Her eyebrow twitched. "Sabo-kun, where are you going with this?"

"I made Lami mad again – how do I fix it? I mean, I just go find more food for my brothers when we're fighting, but that never worked on Makino-san, so what do you do for a girl?! Ah, hello, Dragon-san!"

There was a chuckle from the snail phone, and Koala thumped her head on the table.

It was going to be a looong trip back to Baltigo.

"Right," Koala sighed, taking her newsboy cap off and running her fingers through her dirty blonde hair once their conversation with Dragon-san had been disconnected. "Start at the beginning: what did you do this time?"

"Nothing!" Sabo exclaimed. "I asked if she was religious, that's all!"

Koala glared at him balefully. "Idiot. She's a private person, and you go and ask her something like that? That's a delicate, personal thing, you know!"

"Jungle!" He shouted defensively, throwing his hands in the air. "The closest to religion we got was Dadan wanting to be a Fairy! How was I supposed to know she'd be so offended?!"

"Well, what did she say, then?"

"She's an atheist."

*twitch twitch* "Then what did you do to piss her off again!? If she's an atheist, and you know nothing about religion, then why did you ask in the first place?"

Sabo turned away, arms crossed defensively over his chest. "I was curious, because she wears a cross under her dress."

"… And how the hell do you know that?"

Sabo gave a resigned sigh. "She pulled it out when I was tangled in the netting. I didn't mean to pry, I was just curious."

Koala groaned. "You're such an idiot, Sabo-kun. Think. What's the religious symbol of the Knights Templar?"

Black eyes widened in shock. "Oh…" Sabo bowed his head, his fringe shadowing his eyes. "Ne, Koala… how do I make it up to her?"

"Give her some space and apologise?"

Sabo shook his head. "An apology is just words. You need actions, if you really want to mean it. My brothers… I'm sure you heard from Dragon-san, what happened in the Goa Kingdom seven years ago, and how he and Iva-san saved me. It was nearly two years before I could go home to Ace and Luffy, and they thought that … that I had died. They were so mad, and … I didn't know how to apologise then. I said 'sorry' so many times, and even though Luffy forgave me, Ace… He said, "what's the point in useless words? How do I even know you mean it?" When I look in Lami's eyes, I can see a similar pain to what was in Ace's, so I know she must think a similar thing. I made it up to my brothers by always being there, and getting more food, and training harder and finding them cool presents. But they were so easy to figure out! I don't know what to do with Lami, other than keep my promise, but… that's not something that can be so easily finished."

Koala was silent for some time, before sighing sadly. "I don't know, Sabo-kun. Like I said, our doctor is a very private person, so I don't really know what to do. Let her cool down for a little while though, and then go and apologise to her, and, I don't know, make dinner? I mean, yeah, the Komusō have fed us so far, but we'll just go and ask someone about it for tonight, ok?"

After a moment, Sabo offered her a weak smile. "Sounds like a plan. Thanks, Koala. Let's go see what we can do about it, then."

Meanwhile, in another part of the small town…

This, Leif decided, was the life. The looms used on Templar Island were far larger than the one that Aunty Dawn had taught him to weave on, or the one he had set up aboard the ship, but that was ok, he liked learning new things. It hadn't taken very long for him to get used to the different size and requirements of these new looms, and after giving a brief biography to the monks and priestesses who were running the whole show, they'd only been too happy to let Leif make whatever he'd wanted.

He'd started this new bolt on board the ship, making a plain white roll of cotton-based fabric, with every hundredth thread being a piece of one of his friends' silk; this way, he would always be able to find and help out his new human friends! Thanks to the larger looms, he was able to make an even bigger bolt, so he had heaps of material to work with! And white material was easiest to dye, so he could leave that bit until last. The next step after his speedy cloth-making was to find the clothing designs he'd need.

He'd had the ideas for many outfits drawn up since that first day on Silk Island, when he and Coby had met Koala, and then gone to help Lami treat Sabo, and his conversation with the navigator that morning had only given him further insight to the tastes of the Blue Scribe Pirates. However, Leif thought that it might be better to just make them all another outfit quickly, and if he had the time later (they were pirates, you could never be too careful), then he'd make them all something cool.

Captain was already wearing his new shirt, but Leif had also made him a new pair of pants, and had the base of a doublet and coat set aside for when Leif could put a sturdier material on the outside. Those could wait a little while; they'd do for the moment, once Leif found some dye that wasn't black or red. (He sent some of his friends off to the forest to find the plants that would help him make blue dye, and moved on)

With Sabo's clothes cut, sewn and missing only a splash of colour, Leif turned then to the navigator's wardrobe. Leif had been all geared up to make her a new dress, but apparently that wasn't on the charts. Koala wanted three-quarter sleeves, a miniskirt, and tights (and wouldn't that last one be awkward, if he didn't have his friends to help him take measurements?) in white, black and yellow. Leif sent out another group of his friends to try and find plants to make yellow dye, and did his best to match the flowing patterns that she'd requested with the black ink available.

Roman Leif, generally speaking, liked a challenge. Koala's clothing designs did not count, so Leif didn't feel so bad for thinking that they were just being unnecessarily painful.

The doctor, however, was proving to be the hardest for Leif, as he hadn't been able to talk to her (like, at all) about what she wanted! She'd worn the same thing in the almost-fortnight that Leif had known her, and whilst the gloves, dress and tights were cute, she had to want a change by now! I mean, come on, Leif was by nobody's standards the tidiest person around, what with always rolling through brambles and ditches, and climbing trees and the occasional cliff face in search of new threads or dye ingredients, but at least he had more than one set of clothes! He had two, cargo pants and singlet for warm weather, and a jacket and long sleeved shirt for the colder weather. Leif's clothes, just like the one's he was making for his new friends, were sturdy, and built with his lifestyle in mind. But what did one make for a very scary and slightly antisocial doctor?

After five minutes of bashing his head against the loom going think think think!, one of the trainee seamstresses took pity on Leif, and helped him draw up a new dress and gloves for Lami, only in dark red. The young seamstress (her name was Sorano, and she thought that Lami's swarthy skin and mysterious eyes were the sexiest thing ever – Leif did not agree) had been only too happy to help Leif, as they crafted a sleeveless, kimono-themed dress in dark-red and black, chattering away amiably about the people who normally came to her island, and what the marines in the other port were like. They'd only arrived yesterday, Sorano said, but their captain was a cutie~! Leif had to listen as she waxed poetic about the captain's taste in sharp clothes, and were he not working, he would have fallen asleep. That is, until she'd mentioned the fact that the marine captain was carrying a cute little pug dog around.

Leif felt himself go pale, under his dark skin and layer of dirt.

The student of Aokiji, Headquarters Marine Captain and renown sharpshooter, Calamity Jane, and her partner, Kate the Pug, were on this island. The self-same Jane who had been coming to Silk for the last three years and idolised his tailoring abilities so much that so she could recognise his work by the weave alone. The same Jane who could take one look at him, see the pink in his fringe and the turn of his eyes, and point him out as the apprentice of Silk's tailor – the dead apprentice.

"Aw, hell!" Leif whispered.

"You lied to them, Nii-sama. Sister says you're not supposed to do that." Lami scolded as she pulled on a new dress.

Law shook his head, pacing around their shared room. "Something didn't sit right – why didn't he talk? Who were those kids? If they knew that he was a User, then they should have been worried that he had fallen into the sea, but they just laughed. So either they don't know, or they don't care. I don't like it… You stay away from them, Lami."

She snorted, and started to towel off her hair. "Where am I going to see them again? I'm always either at school or here or the beach with you."

"Then until they leave, let's not go to the beach anymore."

"Law – !"

"As your big brother, it's my job to look after you, right?" Law demanded. "I think those kids were pirates too, so stay away from them all, ok?"

Lami sighed and grumbled, but nodded.

Heading back down to the main part of the hospital, both siblings were in a less-than-stellar mood. Law was to go back into surgery (this time it was the father of one of his classmates), and Lami would go back to studying under her parents, helping to carry supplies around. Until the epidemic was better contained, school had been closed.

"Lami, what happened? You've changed your clothes." Their mother, Watel D Himeko, asked, coming out from behind the front desk with a collection of new pills. Lami laughed awkwardly, and said she'd tell her later.

"Kaa-sama, Lami, I'm going back in to surgery now," Law said firmly.

"Would you take someone with you, Law?" Himeko called after her son, worried.

He looked back with a frown. "I'm fine on my own. You need everyone else to do other jobs, and nobody likes watching me dice people up, anyway."

"You've been using your power a lot, and even with Lami forcing you on breaks, I'm worried you might be overextending yourself. Why don't you take your sister in there, and she can watch over you, just in case."

Law shook his head quickly. "She can start coming in tomorrow – Tou-sama is going to teach her something important today. I'll be fine, Kaa-sama, so don't worry!" Kissing his mother and sister each on the cheek, he quickly trotted off to the room where his patient was waiting, drew the screen around the bed, and proceeded to "operate" the Amber Lead from his patient's body.

Meanwhile, Lami had been instructed by her mother to organise the medications behind the front counter until her father came for her, when somebody called out.

"Excuse me?" Lami peaked out from the back shelving to see a strange, incredibly tall man with a pink mantle and sunglasses, and behind him, the man from the beach.

"Ah, Corazon-san!" Lami called cheerfully. "You haven't dried off yet? You'll catch a cold!"

"Oh?" The other man asked. "Are you one of the doctors who helped my precious baby brother?"

Lami blinked a few times then, before nodding hesitantly. "I'm not a doctor yet, but I held Corazon-san out of the sea long enough for my brother to help me get him back onto the pier. Who are you?"

The strange man paused for a moment, before giving a flourishing bow. "My apologies, young miss, I forgot my manners. I am Donquixote Doflamingo."

Lami's eyes narrowed, and she stuck her hands on her hips. "So you are a pirate. Donquixote-san, this is a hospital, so unless you're injured please leave." She turned back to Corazon. "It was nice to meet you again, but it wouldn't hurt for you to say so, too!" She ducked down behind the counter, and started riffling through the bottles of pills down there, as well.

"My little brother can't talk," Doflamingo told her, leaning against the counter. With a scowl, Lami ducked back up again, cobwebs in her pigtails.

"Why didn't you say so earlier?" She scolded, coming around with a stepstool and her backpack. "Corazon-san, please take a seat over there." When the shocked blonde didn't make any move, Lami sighed exasperatedly, took his hand, and dragged him over to one of the waiting room seats. "Please take a seat," she told him professionally, drawing a wooden stick and stethoscope from her backpack and stepping up onto her stool. "Please say, 'ah!' for me – or, um, pretend to."

Using the stick, Lami held his tongue down, and peered down his throat. Grumbling, she pulled a penlight out of her pocket, and looked again. Frowning, she chucked the stick into a nearby bin, pulled the stethoscope up over her ears, and placed it over his chest, and closed her eyes. Concentrating on her Haki, Lami listened as closely as she could to his chest and diaphragm. Pulling back with another frown, Lami asked him to take off his mantle, slip his shirt down a bit, and turn around.

"That won't really be necess –" Doflamingo began.

"Are you a doctor?" Lami interrupted him, a no-nonsense tone in her voice. At the surprised shaking of the pirate's head, she gave him a rather fierce look. "Then don't tell me how to do my job in my own hospital! Corazon-san, please turn around."

The other occupants of the room, the family members of Law's latest surgery, giggled. As cheerful and silly as Lami was normally, she took her patients very seriously, and wouldn't take 'no' for an answer.

After another minute, Lami pulled back, and jumped off of her stepstool. "How strange! Corazon-san, there isn't anything physically wrong with you at all, and I can't find any traces of lockjaw herbs, so whatever is stopping you from talking must be either mental or traumatic." Huffing, she crossed her arms and glared up at him. "You should have written it out to me and Nii-sama earlier! He's a better doctor than me, so he might be able to help you talk again!"

Picking up her stepstool, Lami walked back behind the counter, grumbling. "All of the other doctors are busy right now, so I'm afraid I can't help you at all. Maybe if you tried the Sister? Her God might be able to do what science can't."

"That's ok," Doflamingo said quickly, before she could interrupt him again. "That's not actually why we're here. I wanted to thank the doctors who helped my precious little brother out!"

"Oh," Lami blinked for a moment before giving her most professional smile. "I'll let Nii-sama know you said so. Thank you for coming." She ducked under the counter again, and they could hear her rummaging amongst the bottles and containers.

Above the desk, Doffy was developing a headache – this little girl kept sidelining his plans!

"I was wondering, I heard that one of the doctors here ate the Ope Ope no Mi?"

There was a thump!, followed by a pained whimper. Lami drew herself up again, rubbing at the lump on the back of her head. "You're still here, and asking such questions?" She sighed, and folded her arms on the front counter. "Look, Donquixote-san, this is a hospital, and we're in the middle of an epidemic. We're really busy, and short of staff – that's why they have an eight-year-old manning the front desk, instead of in school. Maybe one of the doctors ate a fruit, and maybe one of them didn't – I don't see why it affects you, since you only came here to thank a doctor, not ask for help. So please leave and let me do my job, ok?" She turned to Corazon. "Please go and dry off before you catch something. And also, don't tell people that you came to Flevance just now, because they might get mad with you, and think you caught the Amber Lead. Have a good day."

Trying his best to contain his rage, Doffy turned around, and his brother followed. Naturally though, they didn't make it ten steps before Corazon tripped over his own feet, crashed into a trolley covered in surgical implements, somehow managed to shove a scalpel through one palm, and knocked himself out in the process.

There was a squeak behind them, and suddenly Lami was there, carefully removing the remaining instruments from any close proximity to Cora, and flipping him over gently. "Donquixote-san, I need you to grab that baby Den Den Mushi from the counter," Lami asked calmly, pulling a bandana out of her bag and gently wrapping it around where the scalpel went through Cora's hand.

"Just pull it out, I'll take him back to the ship; he'll be fine." Doffy said carelessly.

He was shocked by the withering glare he received. "Donquixote-san, this man is now my patient, and I am going to keep him under surveillance for a concussion tonight! Now please hand me that Snail!"

Stunned beyond belief, Doffy reached over the counter and handed the tiny white and blue snail to the furious little girl. "Go back to your ship where you'll be of use," Lami told him in a chilly voice. "If you're at the docks, it'll be easy to find you if his condition changes. Now please leave my hospital!" Turning away from him, she used the snail to call out over the hospital sound system, "Tou-sama, we have an unconscious knife wound and concussion in the waiting room! Can someone help me carry him to a room please?"

.

On Templar island more than a decade later, Lami leant against the bough of a tree, breathing hard and holding on to her arms tightly. She hated to admit it, but these attacks were becoming more and more frequent, more painful.

Once the stinging pain subsided a fraction, she reached into her bag and pulled out a canteen and two of the pills she had made the previous day, downing them quickly. Sliding down the trunk until she was sitting against it on the ground, Lami rolled down the sleeve of her right glove, looked at the lurid white marks, and had to admit that they were getting drastically worse.

"Nii-sama," She whispered, thumping her head against the trunk, eyes closed, and rolling the glove back up to her elbow. "Where are you?"

.

OMAKE!

It had been a week since Lami had snuck back into Flevance and stolen the antidote for Amber Lead from under Doffy's (figurative) nose, and Leo was making a fast recovery. Sometimes, though, Lami and Leo had … political disagreements about how fast the pixie-faced spitfire was healing.

"Dadan-ya," Lami asked the Saturday after Leo's initial recovery, in a chilly voice. "Where is Leo-ya?"

Dadan sneered from where she was going through her bookkeeping. "Those brats! They were supposed to do chores today, but instead they all ran off to do karaoke! All four of the bastards!"

Lami felt a twitch develop in her cheekbone – Law had started calling it her Leo-twitch. "Karaoke. A week after suffering from an incredibly rare and deadly poisoning, when she should still be recuperating in bed, and that idiot thinks it's a good idea to do karaoke?!"

Dadan sniffed. "Well, if she wants to go ahead and kill herself, Bink's Sake is the best place to start."

Lami was quiet for another minute, before throwing her bags (she was spending the night again) onto the siblings' shared bed with a snarl, gripping her bokken and travel-kit tightly, and then stalking out of the room with her fiercest glare in place. Dadan wasn't likely to be helpful again, so Lami headed straight for the backdoor and dragged Mogra down by his ear.

"Maa, maa, Lami-san!" He squeaked, cowering at the look in her eyes. "There's no need for violence, they just wanted to have some f – "

"If the next word out of your mouth is fun," Lami threatened. It really said a lot about the Dadan family, and Lami's temper, that Morgra shook his head quickly and shut up, absolutely terrified. "Good. Now how the hell do I get to Bink's Sake?"

"Eh? Maa, that's easy! It's only two blocks over, but it's tucked into a tiny little alley, so –"

"How do I get there." Lami enunciated.

"I'll show you!" He squeaked again.

Sabo loved his siblings dearly. They were his treasure, after all! But, well, sometimes they didn't exactly have the best of ideas, and "let's go sing karaoke!" when Lami-chan had specifically said that Leo needed to stay in bed and rest, well…. You couldn't exactly blame him for being scared, could you?

"… Ha~ving the time of my li~fe!" Leo sung, off key.

"And I've ne~ver felt this way before!" Ace joined in, cheerfully ignoring Sabo's pointed looks, and the fact that Lami had beaten both of them in a fight, three times in a row, on Sunday.

Luffy was laughing at them at the back table, eating the snacks that Brook, the bar owner, had set out for them, and giving his ridiculously oversized Irish setter, Laboon, a good rub behind the ears.

"Ne, Sabo!" Luffy cheered over the top of their siblings' horrible singing. "Cheer up! It's karaoke, karaoke!"

"We really shouldn't be here today, though, Luffy." Sabo worried. "Wasn't Lami-chan coming over today?"

"Nah, that's Saturday."

"…Today is Saturday, Luffy…"

"Huh, really? Oh well, Dadan and the guys will look after her until we get back! It'll be fine."

The next five songs passed by in a similar fashion, and Sabo was half convinced that Lami was going to storm into the room and maybe kill them all, but since it had all been going so well, Leo was fine, and maybe Luffy was right! They were at a karaoke bar, and Sabo was going to have fun, dammit!

"I came in like a wre~cking ball!" Sabo and Leo were warbling along together, when Lami-chan did bust the door down. Ace choked on his food, Luffy burst out laughing, Leo swore under her breath, and Sabo fell over his own feet with a very dignified and manly – manly – shriek.

"Monkey D. Leo." Lami said in her coldest voice. "What part of stay in bed or else, didn't you get?"

There was a collective gulp! and then a scrambling for safety.

Lami knew no mercy.

If you don't have internet connection and the little therapod/T-rex thing comes up in your web browser, hit space bar and play the game~! If I can hit 1240 drunk, you guys will be tops!

For anyone who reads my other fics, I am working on them, however, my grandfather passed away today, so I don't know when I'll get around to them (may or may not also be so not sober as I post this, but, deal with it)