Fury
When Fox and Sanji returned from her errands, having picked up Chopper along the way, Zoro immediately confronted them with the opinion of the shipwright that had dropped by. Fox' first feeling on hearing that the Going Merry was finished as a ship was overwhelming relief; she didn't have to hide anymore.
"Fox, did you know this already?" Sanji asked, spotting the look on her face. She really was much more open than she used to be.
"I'm a healer, not a shipwright," Fox said shortly. "I didn't know whether or not she could be fixed, but I knew something serious was wrong."
"So that's why you've been looking like a ghost lately!" Chopper accused her. "You've been feeding her energy!"
"And now that I know I'm only prolonging the inevitable I can stop," Fox said firmly, heading for the main room with some of Sanji's shopping bags. Setting them down by the kitchen units, Fox climbed onto the table, crossed her legs and closed her eyes. Disconnecting herself from a dying patient was something she'd taught herself through sheer necessity. It never worked completely, but it was better than feeling their death rattle, metaphorical or otherwise, in her chest as said patient's body ceased to function. It was a slow, tedious and painful business to break away but much of life was like that.
Part-way through the process a familiar calloused hand brushed her cheek, briefly opening a new dimension of emotion and connection before fading again. Fox continued her self-appointed task; Zoro was going out and had been worried about her. He would be back soon and there wasn't anyone on the island likely to give him trouble. Fox filed away the instinctive uneasiness that had surfaced with that 'no-one likely'; she could locate the people setting her warning bells jangling later. She had to take care of herself first.
It was early evening when they returned with a heavily-injured Usopp and Fox was feeling much more like herself. She hadn't realised quite how heavily the Merry was sapping her and the change was invigorating. To celebrate, she was walking on her hands along the railing on the main deck, her cowboy hat's strap snugly fastened under her chin. When Usopp woke up she joined the rest of the crew –minus Robin– in the main cabin, leaning against Zoro's side and fiddling with her sunglasses. The sniper was apologising profusely for having lost the money to fix Merry with until Luffy cut him off, declaring that he had decided they were going to change ships. Fox felt the air change and suddenly knew this was going to end badly.
"Hold on, hold on," Usopp protested, "that's not funny at all! Do we not have enough money to repair the ship anymore because I lost the 200 million? We just don't have enough money, right?"
"No, that's not it!" Luffy corrected him, but Usopp was just raising his voice and demanding to know why they were talking about needing a new ship. Zoro tried to get them to calm down but neither captain nor sniper seemed inclined to. His attempts to play peacemaker may have been prompted by Fox' sudden death grip on his arm and very careful breathing; she was trying not to react the wrong way to the situation she could feel coming to the boil. Part of her wanted to kill Usopp for questioning her captain's decisions so rudely, part of her wanted to run away from the immanent emotional pain her Colour of Observation was warning her about and the rest of her was all for throwing a bucket of water over them to get them to stop yelling.
"Merry is going to die!" Luffy shouted. Fox cringed; too late to run.
She tried to let the argument wash over her, but there was too much pain in the air, too closely entwined with people she had healed multiple times who were all in close quarters with her. All she could do was hope she could keep herself together until they ran out of things to say. She managed, just, until Usopp accused Luffy of poor judgement, bluffing and not caring about the ship.
Sudden, terrible silence descended on the cabin as Usopp was abruptly cut off, wheezing as though he had forgotten how to breathe.
"You are a fool," Fox' words cut through the oppressive, choking calm like an executioner's axe. "You think that you can patch up this ship and make her sail again? You are far, far crueller than I had believed possible, Usopp."
"C-cruel?" the sniper managed to cough up.
"Would you force a horse with a broken back to carry you?" Fox demanded harshly. "Because that is what you are asking of Merry. She is dying, has been since being taken to Upper Yard. I have been doing all I could for her but even that was simply prolonging the agony. Have you ever nursed a dying man, Usopp?" The white-haired woman truly looked her father's daughter to Sanji, back straight and scowling blackly from shadowed eyes as the air around her seemed to chill and condense.
"N-n-no," Usopp stuttered.
"Then be silent. There comes a point when, as a doctor, healer or shipwright all you are doing is prolonging the inevitable and causing your patient unnecessary pain. When that time comes a person has to make a choice: will you allow your own desperation to control you and continue the torture, for it is torture at that point; will you allow your patient to slip away in their own time; or will you offer to end their pain as quickly and painlessly as you are able." Fox took a harsh breath. "This is the real world. It is not nice and we do not all get happy endings. However we must be able to live with ourselves afterwards."
"Not everyone can be as ruthlessly cold-blooded as you!" Usopp shouted, eyes screwed up.
"I know," Fox said evenly, but there was an edge to her voice that had Zoro moving forwards and Sanji carefully pulling Nami backwards. "That's why I follow Luffy: he has heart."
"He wants to leave Merry too! I won't abandon a wounded comrade just because he says so!" Usopp blundered on, heedless of the danger he was getting himself into. Sanji desperately hoped this didn't end with a corpse on the cabin floor as he inched forwards to grab Chopper and drag the terrified reindeer out of the line of fire.
"Going Merry is alive! You're just too careless about leaving her! I won't allow– urk!" Fox had lunged almost too quickly to follow, but Zoro had partly blocked the strike that would have taken off the sniper's head. Instead the knife had cut a deep graze above his jugular vein and windpipe before his legs were kicked from under him by the swordsman as Zoro parried another fast-moving knife, that one thrown at Usopp's eye. Fox danced backwards and Zoro followed, engaging her in a brutal, dirty, high-speed close-quarters fight that barely lasted four seconds before the marimo dropped a sword in order to grab her hand. The drip of blood from where the knife had gone right through his palm to the hilt as his fingers closed on hers was loud in the abrupt stillness, then Fox mechanically shook blood of her other blade, sheathed it and let go of the one stuck through Zoro's hand. Turning, she prostrated herself in front of Luffy.
"My apologies, captain; I had no right."
Luffy crawled out from under the destroyed table and gently patted her hair. "It's okay," he told her firmly; "I know how hard you've worked on Merry, keeping her together. You are allowed to lose your temper when people upset you. I forgive you."
Fox rose stiffly to her feet, turned and all but ran from the room; Zoro picked up his sword in his uninjured hand and hurried after her as Chopper dashed over to Usopp to tend to his newest injury. Nami was trembling uncontrollably behind the chef and Luffy looked very stern indeed:
"Usopp, if you don't like my decision you can just leave!" he said tightly, only his clenched fists giving away how very angry he was. "You have no right to say that kind of thing to Fox! She's worked harder on Merry than any of us!"
"Luffy! Be careful what you say!" Sanji admonished him. "Calm down! There's been enough bloodshed for one day."
"No. That's fine Luffy!" Usopp croaked, pushing Chopper aside. "Since that's what you really feel!"
"What did you say!?" Luffy demanded sharply.
Sanji watched as Usopp dug his own grave even deeper and unconsciously revealed his deep-seated insecurity before finishing with, "I quit." The chef then turned and went looking for the crew's swordsman and assassin, as he now was forced to recognise Fox as being; she had left enough hints and clues for him to put the picture together for himself.
He found both of them in the forward cannon deck, Zoro's hand as good as new and Fox kneeling in his lap with her face buried in the side of his neck, trembling as the swordsman's hands gently ran up and down her spine and around her throat. The chef looked the other man in the eye and inclined his head inquiringly. The swordsman looked back calmly, expression firm but serene. Sanji left.
"Are they okay?" Luffy asked anxiously after the chef closed the door behind him.
"Zoro's fine; Fox is still recovering," Sanji said quietly. "She really respects you, you know?"
Luffy bowed his head. "She's been around really powerful pirate crews," the rubberman whispered, "whose loyalty to and respect for their captains is absolute; captains that would have killed Usopp for disrespect if he said that to them. I am the captain and it is my ship, so I have to make the decisions. That is what Fox' presence reminds me of, every day. I owe it to her to be the best captain I can be."
Sanji understood; Fox was an example of the level they had to reach in order to even hope to get to the end of the Grand Line. As it stood she was way ahead of them in every way; what she had said about nursing the dying was just one example, as was her fighting skill. Sanji had seen that the draw of that knife had been awkward but Zoro had barely parried it before it went all the way through the sniper's neck, she had been so fast. The swordsman was also stronger than her, if rather shorter, but he had been losing before he changed his strategy and grabbed her hand. The Shichibukai's daughter was several cuts above the rest of the crew, though she rarely ever showed it.
Then Usopp challenged Luffy to a duel for the Going Merry and Sanji lit a new cigarette; he knew the whole situation could only go further downhill from here.
Things fall apart.
