Moving right along, it's time to slow things down just a little bit.

Just by looking at her, one could tell that her last fight had left her in a bad way, though not in the way that one would expect. Physically, she wasn't looking all that bad. Her wounds had healed up nicely, with just a little help from the ships doctor. Her fingers had a few red marks on them from the strain that she had put on the use of her strings, but it was nothing serious. All in all, she was still the picture of near perfect health.

But when you looked in to her eyes, you saw something completely different. Her eyes were bloodshot, so she had indeed been crying for a long time. There was a sort of far away look in her eyes, even though she was looking straight at Luffy, almost as if she weren't really focusing on him. And if you were to look deeper into them, you could see past the gentle disposition that she was attempting to hold up, and see the hurt that stung at her heart. But what hurt her most wasn't the betrayal of her former friend, or the fact that he had attempted to kill everyone she had ever cared about. What hurt the most for her was the fact that she had actually ended someone's life.

Luffy saw none of this. All he saw was his nakama asking him if she could stay with him. "Sure, Vivi, no problem."

Vivi let out a small, extremely forced smile before walking up to the head piece and leaning against the railing of the ship.

For the longest moment they were silent. Neither speaking, nor moving.

"Luffy, I…." Vivi began.

"So, how are you feeling?" She was caught off guard by Luffy's interjection.

"I, I guess a little better now." She searched her mind for whatever it was she wanted to say. "I... are you angry with me?"

Luffy turned back to her with a slightly confused look on his face. "Huh? Why would I be angry with you? You haven't done anything wrong, have you?"

Vivi forced herself to look at him. "Well, Nami told me about how you haven't ever killed any of your enemies, no matter what evil things they committed. You have been so silent since we left the island." At this she paused for a second. "Kohza, he had told me about how he had threatened my father with his life if he tried to stop him. He threatened to kill you and him if I didn't go back with him. Something inside of me snapped at that. I didn't care about anything else but ending his life right then and there."

Luffy had turned his body around so that he was now fully facing her. Even though he still held his completely blank stare on her, he was listening intently to what she was saying.

"I had never killed anyone before. Sure, I may have raised a weapon against someone, but I never went into battle expecting to end another human beings life. However, Kohza's actions had made me believe he was something other than human. And yet, when you stopped me, when you opened my eyes to what I was going to do, I became scared. Scared of what I was going to become if I had indeed killed him when he didn't kill anyone. I was able to stop myself then, but…." Her voice failed her then as the tears started to come up again.

"You killed him to protect me right? If you hadn't done that, then he would have sent that drill straight through my body, and I wouldn't be standing here right now."

She looked up at him, tears starting to stream down her face. "But I still killed him! I killed him! I didn't even want to kill him! I just wanted to stop him, keep him from killing you! I didn't want to kill him then!" She said quietly but sharply.

Luffy hopped off of his spot and stood in front of her. She was on the verge of yet another outburst when he slapped her across the face.

She froze, her head still turned to the side. "Oi, what's the matter with you? You're starting to go back to the old selfish Vivi! You can't have everything! Right then either I was gonna die, or he was gonna die! That's just the way it is!"

Vivi slowly turned her head back to him until her eyes locked with his. "Why? Why must someone important to me always die so someone else can live? Why can't everyone simply live together peacefully? Why can't….." She was stopped once again, this time by Luffy gently placing a finger on her lips.

"Why do you always want to know 'why'? Why can't you just let it be and live on?"

She stared at him for a good minute and, in spite of herself, giggled a little.

"What? What's so funny? I'm trying to be3 serious here." Luffy was more than a little lost.

"That's just it. You look really cute when you talk all serious like that." She said between giggles.

He cocked his head to the side and smiled. "Yea, I guess I do, huh?"

They laughed for a little while before finally turning back to the front of the ship and staring over the sea.

"Say Luffy, what did you guys do after you left Alabasta?"

"Oh nothing much. Just went to an island in the sky, met a bunch of people, kicked the ass of a guy who thought he was God, found a lot of gold, came back down, landed in a Marine base, escaped, and then met back up with you."

Vivi just stared. "Nothing much? Luffy, you guys have had quite the adventure while I was in Alabasta."

Luffy smile his big, toothy, ear-to-ear smile. She loved that smile.

She turned back out to the sea and looked up at the stars. There wasn't a cloud in the sky this night, so the stars seemed to all come out and twinkle in the night's sky. "Beautiful." There was no other word she could use to describe it.

Then she caught it. Out of no where a small streak appeared in the sky. A shooting star. Immediately closing her eyes she made a wish on it.

Luffy watched her with a slight hint of confusion. "Oi, what are you doing, Vivi?"

She opened her eyes and turned to Luffy. "I'm making a wish. If you see a shooting star in the sky, you make a wish on it, and as long as you don't tell anyone what it is, it will come true."

"I see." He looked up at the sky. "Well, I don't need any shooting star to make my wish come true. I am going to be the pirate king, and no one's gonna stop me."

Vivi smiled again. "And me and the rest of the crew will be with you until you make it there."

A funny thing happened then. Out of no where, Luffy reached over and grabbed her hand. It was so sudden and so unexpected that she actually jumped, slightly scared. "True, but I want you to stay with me, even after that. Will you do that for me Vivi?" He turned towards her, his face no locked in a soft stare on her.

Vivi blushed slightly. This was something she hadn't been expecting, yet it was something she had been wanting forever. "Yes, Luffy. I will."

Luffy smiled, then following her example, leaned in to kiss her cheek. Vivi stopped him momentarily, and then redirected his lips so that they met hers. Both of them closed their eyes and let themselves get lost in the moment. Vivi had pulled him in closer so that she could wrap her arms around his neck, and trembled slightly when she felt his arms around her waist. She was surprised by how gentle he was with her, but continued the kiss, not wanting it to ever end.

Over on the side, a feminine eye and ear rested smugly on the railing. Back in the ladies quarters, Robin was sitting up in her bed and smiled. "I told you, princess-san. Sencho-san always has the right answers." Lying down, she blew out her lamp, made her two appendages disappear, and went to sleep.

Ok, there it is. Be happy everyone who wanted to see it. And keep biting those fingernails because I plan on doing more.

Ok a few things.

The next arc is the Water-7 arc. Now, I know this might make some people a little bit angry, but I am going to skip over the Davy Back Arc.

I won't be jumping directly into it. I will try to have them do a couple of more things before I decide to start it up.

Depending upon how long it takes me to get there, I may have to suspend progress on this story until I refresh myself with the beginning of the Water-7 Arc. There are a few key points during the arc that I need to look up on.

Ok, people you know the drill. R&R&have a nice day.