Zoro checks the date on the newspaper three times before going to Mihawk's liquor cabinet and pulling out three large bottles of sake. He fumbles it a bit, but nothing breaks. His depth perception is still off because he lost an eye last month, and while it doesn't bother him when he's training or fighting because his Observation Haki is fully engaged, he still hasn't mastered casual motion.
Losing the eye didn't bother him much. Becoming clumsy is way more irritating.
It's late, later than he'd normally be up. But Zoro doesn't want anyone around for this, doesn't want to talk to either Mihawk or Perona at the moment.
A year ago today, Lucy told them all to get stronger. Now it's been a year, and there's still a year to go.
If his nakama were here, at least one of them would make a joke about Zoro not losing any other body parts between now and then. Shitty cook would definitely be one of them. Nami, probably. Usopp, if he was in the mood. Lucy would take pity on him while she laughed with the others.
Tonight is one part sadness and one part reluctant joy. From here on out, the days until he sees his nakama again will never outnumber the days he's spent apart from them.
He wonders, like he often does when not thinking about his training or how to steal more of Mihawk's booze, how they're doing. He assumes well, if Lucy was confident enough to postpone their reunion like she did. He assumes they're doing the same as him—getting strong enough to never hear news on their captain through a newspaper again.
Zoro assumes that the others, upon receiving the news about Ace, were probably equally as shocked, and horrified for Lucy. He bets they were all mind-numbingly worried about her. Zoro's reasonably certain Nami probably took over whatever country she was in at the time with protective rage alone, manipulating everyone there to suit her needs.
He smirks, and tips the first bottle of sake back across his lips. He has a hunch that everyone will have some pretty interesting stories to tell when they meet up again. Zoro will, of course, censor Mihawk out of his tale. His nakama would all understand what it meant for Zoro to do something like that. He doesn't regret it—can't, really, when he's learned so much and still has a year to go—but it would be admitting just a bit too much. More importantly, Lucy would understand that he prioritized her over his own dreams, and she would feel horribly guilty about it.
Zoro doesn't want her to feel guilty about it. Lucy is the best thing that's ever happened to him.
He supposes, though, that if in some hypothetical universe she agreed to ask Rayleigh about the One Piece to further Zoro's ambitions, he would be pretty upset as well.
It doesn't matter much, anyway. He's not going to tell anyone who he's been training under.
The first bottle of sake runs dry. Zoro has an intensely high tolerance for alcohol, even the good stuff Mihawk buys, and so despite there being more than enough in the bottle to inebriate a person Lucy's size to the point of incapacitation, he just feels the beginnings of a buzz. He cracks open the second bottle.
Mihawk is going to be mad at him tomorrow. Zoro does not give a shit, and will probably still think it's worth it when falling off a cliff or whatever insane training Mihawk decides to come up with as punishment.
It's felt like the longest and the shortest year of his life. Longing makes the days stretch. Training makes time pass quickly, as the clock outpaces his growth. What scares him most, maybe, is how much he's gotten used to it, and used to the lack of bedlam around him. He's at a point where he's…comfortable, here. Even finds it relaxing, to some extent, when Perona isn't bothering him. He enjoys himself, like he's sure his nakama are, and it's not that he's guilty about that anymore, it's just…
…what if they don't want to come back?
It's a stupid though. No one on the crew would ever dream of abandoning Lucy or each other like that. But…things change. It's not that he doubts his nakama, it's just…people change. They grow and become better. Zoro knows it's happening to him. It's not so unreasonable to think one of his nakama would grow apart from them either.
He's pretty sure the shitty cook wouldn't come back, if he somehow ended up on some crazy island full of women. The others…well, he's not sure what their tipping points would be. Everyone loves Lucy so deeply he doubts there would be much sway. Sanji is the easiest to distract, besides Lucy, but even he wouldn't easily leave them behind.
Zoro wants them back. Zoro wants them back so badly he feels like he's suffocating sometimes.
He's not sure when this happened. He used to be a loner, for Christs' sake. Then Lucy came along.
He would feel absurd about it if both Usopp and Nami hadn't independently mentioned doing the exact same thing, but he's started to segment his life into a "before Lucy" and "after Lucy" timeline. It's hard not to, given how many changes she's wrought within him.
Zoro's been dreaming about her every night for months now. Sometimes it's horrific—images of Lucy dying on the battlefield are popular—and sometimes it's not. Sometimes it's…well, good. They'd be better if they didn't make him feel like the pervy cook though.
He thinks about how she smiles, how she always has a second grin tucked in the corners of her mouth. How he wants, very much, to kiss her and pull her hips to his and—
Zoro sucks down the last of the bottle, cutting himself off. This…isn't helping. He's just tormenting himself.
He just…misses her. Misses them. And he's afraid that—that—
He's afraid he needs Lucy more than she ever needed him. It surely can't be possible that she would feel this way about him, this…ache that never goes away, or the knowledge that simply standing beside her would...complete him in this infinite, indescribable way. It's not like Lucy to need someone so terribly. It's not like him, either, but Lucy is the perpetual exception to everything in his life.
The third bottle is gone before he starts to black out, and he finds a fourth one open in the morning.
There's a place in Kuraigana that Zoro likes to go to, when he's been banned from training for the day. Neither Mihawk nor Perona ever bother him, and it's on a cliff by the sea. Zoro goes there to meditate, especially when he wants to be alone. As Zoro settles on a black basalt boulder resting precariously above the waves, he thinks it's good they've never seen the view, or the pests would never leave.
The ocean spreads before him, here. Close to the island it looks as dark and murky as Kuraigana herself, but a few kilometers out it sparkles the radiant blue of the Grand Line. Kuma pushed him, apparently, almost the whole way back to the Reverse Mountain. Getting back to Sabaody in a few months is going to be a bitch. He's considered stopping by Crocus and Laboon, actually, to get an update on the whale for Brook, but figures it isn't his place.
Zoro settles into a lotus position, and lays his katana across his lap. Normally he starts a meditation session by cleaning them, or repairing nicks in the metal, but Armament Haki makes the latter unnecessary, and he always cleans them after use, anyway.
They're still…louder, than they used to be, and they clamor for…something. Zoro's not sure what, exactly. Zoro thought he might just be imagining it, that they aren't any different and he's just being ridiculous, but there's simply no way he could have used Kitetsu like this when he first found the katana. They've been like this since Thriller Bark. Even Wado rings at a higher, more insistent tone than she used to. It's disorienting, sometimes, but usually it's not a distraction during training—just like him, they seem to take pleasure in the exertion.
He has…a few theories as to why his katana are like this. He isn't sure how crazy any of them are, and he certainly hasn't mentioned it to Mihawk.
It's funny, but, Zoro thought the way he feels about Lucy would become both less confusing and easier to deal with over time. He thought the feelings might even fade without her presence every day, without her constant chatter and incessant touching and laughter. As it turns out, that is not the case. It just got worse.
It didn't help anything that his feelings for Lucy were tied up in his memories of Thriller Bark and Sabaody. Frustration toward himself and the world in general made it hard to think of himself as being…suited to her. Confusion over that, and his inexperience at dealing with low self-confidence, make it hard to sort anything out. Above all, the ache of longing inside him is so strong and present that it warps almost everything else he feels toward her.
Zoro expected that the separation would actually help him figure out what he feels for her, help him understand what he wants. But instead of offering clarity there's just this hollowness and uncertainty inside when he thinks of it, accompanying the ache of longing.
When he allows himself to think of her, though, there's fondness and awe and amusement and need—physical and emotional—that sometimes threatens to swallow him whole. She's the first thing he thinks of when he wakes and the last thing he sees before falling asleep is an image of her face. He dreams of things that leave him frustrated in the morning, and sometimes he can't get the memory of how she felt in his arms on Skypiea out of his head, or any other occasion where he's held her close. The feel of her skin sliding under his is a brand to his senses and occasionally wind will come off the ocean and it smells just like—
He's tired of fighting what he feels.
And today, now that he finally, finally beat that monkey with Hawk Eye's sword, he can start to allow himself to think he's strong again.
He still has a long way to go. There's still ten months to go before he is supposed to meet Lucy in Sabaody, and beating the humandrill is not the same as beating Mihawk. The top is still a peak away.
But he could have held his own at Thriller Bark, now. He could stop Kizaru's attack, could deal his own.
It's not enough—Sabaody taught him that there's never a point where he has enough strength, that he must always strive for greater heights—but it does…quell, something that has howled inside him for well over a year now. And maybe, with that wound stitched and healed, he can finally start to consider the girl that led him here.
He loves her.
He loves her.
It's at once an epiphany like a sunrise and an easy reckoning, like the soft gasp of wind on the ocean. He has always known, deep down, that what he feels for her goes beyond loyalty or desire or friendship. Those things are there, but it's more than that, so much more. And yet, despite knowing that, it's still a shock to him that he's even capable of such feeling, that he, a person often called a demon and who mostly agrees with the label, should ever find someone that could make him feel like this.
He loves her.
He loves her.
The relief at admitting it makes him nearly lightheaded.
Kitetsu's howls crack sharply across his mind and he puts a hand on the blade's hilt, hoping to quell it. To his surprise, the howling ceases, mellowing back into his mind as it usually does.
"What, you jealous of her or something?" Zoro mumbles to the sword, sliding his thumb across the tightly bound cord.
All three of his swords have a response to that—sharp and reproving. Then they sink back into harmony, quieter than they've been in…well, actually, it might be since Sabaody.
They react to his emotional state, he's realized. Not often enough that there was any sort of consistency to it, but they seem oddly focused on Lucy. He supposes that could be why they've been so disgruntled for the past year or so. Zoro has not been at his happiest.
Wado Ichimonji, Shusui, and Sandai Kitetsu. Mind, body, soul.
"I'm better, now." He informs them. He thinks of chocolate colored eyes and laughing freckles and a straw hat set over a mess of black hair. He thinks of a girl who can save countries with her fists if only she's willing to shed a little blood, and who deposed a god because he pissed her off. He thinks of a girl who can't help pushing people around her to comedic extremes of emotion, who drives him crazy half the time and doesn't listen and is brilliant, bold, and infuriating. He thinks of soft nights when the ocean is still and a girl who sits on the figurehead of her ship for hours, unmoving and silent before the moon and stars, her breath blooming against his collarbone.
He loves that girl. There's no universe he can imagine where he doesn't. Zoro often feels Lucy carved a hole in his chest, a space reserved for her and no one else, and which is irrevocable, unchangeable. She has made him into a new person, altered him forever, and he knows there will never be a moment where he goes back to the way he used to be. It's why he couldn't let her die on Thriller Bark. It's why he refused to consider how he felt about her after Thriller Bark. It's why it took so long to admit it.
He wasn't strong enough. He's still not strong enough. He has to protect her, has to be so strong no one can ever rip her away again, or he'll never be able to breathe when he next sees her. And even then, he doesn't know if she feels…similarly, to him. When they meet…there's no guarantee her feelings for him will be there too.
Besides, she may have no interest in such relationships. He has no idea how she's healed from the trauma of the war, or if she has at all. He doesn't know how she's dealt with Ace's death.
It's selfish, isn't it? To want her regardless?
Lucy is selfish enough for the both of them. If he decides to be as well, then they're really screwed.
Still…part of him wants to just tell her. It's the same reckless part that made him want to pin her against the Sunny's mast when they sparred, that always knew exactly how he felt about her, that recognized her as his without any true claim to the girl's affections, that heard an ultimatum and agreed and promised his dream to hers. That part of him wants to tell her the moment they meet again.
The much larger, more reserved part of him cautions him to wait. He wants to see how Lucy is first, before he makes decision. He doesn't want to burden her if she doesn't share his feelings, or if she hasn't yet recovered from Ace's death. He wants to hold her, feel her heartbeat beneath his hands, rediscover that strange connection that lets them know exactly what the other is thinking or feeling.
God, he wants to hold her.
If he thought admitting he loves her would make it easier to be apart, he was mistaken. Sure, the tension there is gone. It's replaced with acceptance and warmth, and maybe a little giddy disbelief. But now the ache of their separation just feels sweeter, darker, more forlorn, consuming.
The dark sea below him laughs and churns, unsympathetic.
The next day, Mihawk glances at him a second too long as Zoro fends off hordes of Humandrills. For Hawk Eyes, this is the equivalent of staring with his mouth open.
"What?" He demands, next time he gets a break.
"…something is different today." Mihawk intones lowly. It's a question in a statement.
And it's weird, but, for the last fourteen months Zoro has been fighting with an edge of desperation that he just…doesn't feel today. Today his determination is stronger, his focus greater, his mind settled. He moves with a certain…ease he hasn't experienced in a while, and his katana hum in easy harmony.
He's aware of why, of course. Lucy. He's in love with her, and he finally admitted it.
The thought of her brings a certain…he doesn't want to say giddiness because it's too damn sappy, but…there's a thrill in his chest when he thinks of her that's been missing for a while. A sharp, desperate ache, too, but an undeniable thrill.
Zoro looks at Mihawk and shrugs.
Mihawk says nothing, but his gaze becomes more calculating. Zoro doesn't back away from it just glares him down. The older man is undaunted, but doesn't ask any more questions. Instead he turns away, sipping a glass of wine, and tosses one last remark over his shoulder.
"You'll be able to keep up with her now."
For one horribly confusing moment, Zoro thinks he's talking about Kuina.
Then he realizes it's not Kuina but Lucy, and how, exactly, did he know?
…well it's not like Zoro ever prided himself on subtlety anyway.
"Save me, Lucy!"
But Lucy has dreamt this enough to recognize it for what it is—a nightmare, not reality. Ace never begged her to save him. Ace was strong, always strong, and he only ever asked her to live.
"I can't, Ace. You're gone," she tells the dream. She still feels the terror of the moment, the way she felt at the time, but it has no hold on her anymore, and she can lay this demon to rest.
The admiral looks at Lucy with ice in his eyes. Carelessly, he shoves Ace to the ground and magma flows over his back. Ace doesn't scream though. Not even her nightmares can picture such a capitulation.
The admiral looms over Lucy, and she stares him down, undaunted. He can do nothing worse to her than he has already.
The man smirks, his eyes fracturing in madness, and his left arm shoots to the side. Lucy follows the movement just in time to see—
Zoro.
No.
Nononononononono!
Zoro is hunched over at the waist, the admiral's magma fist speared through him. He's leaning over and clearly resisting the impulse to just grab the arm, yank it out, but he can't do so and keep his hands.
Lucy sprints over to him unthinking and heedless of danger because—because—
It's not real. Zoro wasn't at—Zoro didn't die in Marineford. Zoro wasn't there.
Thank God.
Lucy starts awake, and finds herself on Ruskaina once more.
A dream. It was only a dream.
That was…new. She's never substituted anyone in Ace's death before.
Lucy relaxes into her blanket and exhales slowly. Ruskaina is in one of its moody seasons, as Rayleigh calls them, where it's really hot during the day and chilly at night, but somehow always humid. She's cold without the blanket, but she's also sweating. It's weird.
The stars are out tonight though, and they twinkle cheerfully at her from the inky velvet of the sky. The moon hangs swollen above her, full to the brim with gentle light. Lucy wonders if any of her crewmembers are looking at it right now.
She misses them.
It gets both easier and harder the more time that passes. For one thing, she's getting closer—much closer—to seeing them all again. Only nine months to go now, and it hasn't felt like long at all. And as time passes and she sees the fruits of her labor, sees herself growing stronger every day, Lucy knows without a doubt that she made the right decision. She'll be able to protect them now for sure.
But on the other hand…well, she misses them.
It's different from the way she misses Ace. In some ways that is easier to deal with because his fate was so…definitive. She knows she will never see him again, and the way she misses him is sort of wistful and melancholy. She still thinks about him every day, and every time she gets that little bit stronger a voice in her head wonders whether it would have been enough to save him. That hurts, of course, but there's a rigidity to it. She's grown used to it. Her nakama…well she's sure they're all alright, and that they're out there getting stronger, just like her. But that knowledge pulls at something in Lucy, something visceral and deep. It's an active kind of missing. It aches in an open, weeping way that missing Ace does not.
It's a great deal worse when it comes to Zoro.
Lucy's secretly afraid she can't remember what his laugh sounds like. His real one, not the one he uses when he snickers at Sanji or makes fun of her.
(She's not sure she can remember that either.)
She thinks about him all the time. Can't seem to get him out of her head. On better nights she dreams of him, and wonders what he's learned and how he's changed. She wonders if he still smells the same.
Missing Zoro feels like missing a limb. She can't stop looking around for him sometimes, to tell him a joke or challenge him to a race of some kind, or see his reaction to something, or grab his hand, only to realize for the thousandth time that he isn't on the island, and never has been.
It hurts all over again when that happens.
As she expected, the worst part of this whole separation is the things left unsaid. She's going to have to tell him she loves him first thing when she sees him. Just walk up to him and say it.
It's a bit nerve wracking to consider. She doesn't know exactly how he felt about her back then. She might have misread things, or conflated them in her memory. He might not feel the same when they see each other again.
Lucy frowns. At this point, she's not sure it matters. She'd rather tell him than keep it to herself, at any rate. She rubs her thumb across her scarred palm, counting the many things she wants to tell Zoro, how she wants to share all her adventures with him while they go have more. She huddles under the blankets and lets thoughts of him, meld with the rhythm of the tide until she's lulled gently to sleep.
She dreams of sun and sea and laughter, a pair of calloused hands settled on her hips and a broad chest behind her.
"You're leaving?"
Rayleigh doesn't look up from his careful packing. "This afternoon, actually. After lunch."
If there's one thing Lucy can appreciate about Rayleigh, it is that he has a healthy respect for food.
"But, the training—"
"Oh, I've taught you the basics," Rayleigh tells her easily. "The rest is up to you."
Lucy is…very skeptical about that. "But—"
"Haki is something that only grows with experience," Rayleigh counters, and he turns to her and smiles. "If I'm here, you'll never grow further, and the next few months would be a waste."
And that was unacceptable. That made her separation from her crew worthless, and that…she can't deal with that.
"I don't think I'm that good though. My Observation Haki…"
"Will grow with time. You've gotten to the point where you understand your own shortcomings, and you know what you must do to improve on them. That is all I can teach you."
And that's a good thing, isn't it? It means she's grown. It means, thus far, she's been successful. That she has six months until her reunion with the most important people in the world, and she has six months to get strong enough to protect them, always.
She's going to miss him though. Rayleigh is…Rayleigh is Rayleigh. She doesn't have a better word for him than that. He's taught her and was there for her in a way no one outside of her nakama has ever been before.
(And she hates when people leave.)
"You've taught me a lot," she tells him, oddly shy. "Thank you."
"Ah, my dear Lucy," Rayleigh responds warmly, eyes crinkling. "It was nothing at all."
It's been three months since Rayleigh left, and Lucy is alone.
(Lucy's never been alone. Not like this.)
She trains, mostly, using her Observation Haki to track and subdue the most powerful beasts on the island. There's still a few she has to fight before she can impose her Conqueror's Haki on them, and every time she comes away stronger, muscles trembling in exertion and lungs gasping for air, but a smile on her face.
Training feels good. Winning feels good, and hard-won battles feel like growth, and grasping her dreams with two bloody fists.
Lucy talks to no one except the animals that endear themselves to her out of fear. Lucy doesn't hunt them, because she's made friends with them and she hopes they'll stop looking at her like she's going to eat them before she leaves. She'd rather they follow her because they like her. They don't seem to be warming up to her anytime soon, though.
It's lonely. The loneliest she's ever been.
She gets through it by having adventures, and imagining what her nakama would say, how they'd react to the funny orange fruit she discovered or the time she rode a giant bird so high Ruskaina disappeared into the blue of the sea, and she thought she could see the tempestuous waters of the Grand Line in the distance.
She can't cook meat without thinking of Sanji. She can't pass the ruins without thinking of Robin. Lucy wonders, sometimes, if she could take a picture of it for the archaeologist to see.
Lucy has banned herself from sleeping under the safe tree. If she doesn't have to keep a watch out using her Observation Haki, she thinks too much to rest.
Her nightmares get worse, with Rayleigh gone. They aren't simple memories now, just dreams surrounding images of her crew screaming, bleeding, dying in Ace's place, dying a thousand different ways. Robin is dragged beyond the Gates of Justice, Usopp collapses in Alabasta and never comes back in Water 7, Brook runs away across the waves and Zoro—
Zoro dies every night in her dreams, by Mihawk's hands, by Akainu's, in Thriller Bark—
Thriller Bark is the worst, maybe, because those memories are so real, and she knows how close it was.
She thinks about her nakama constantly, even as she conquers the island and its inhabitants. Zoro, however, never leaves her mind.
It's funny. By now she's spent much longer apart from her crew than she ever spent with them, and still they feel…lodged in her heart, permanent and unmovable. Zoro, especially, feels like the constant whole and sum of her heart, present and heavy and so tangible she can almost feel him even separated as they are.
It's almost scary how much she loves him. It would be if she hadn't embraced it so completely.
The longing grows both more intense and easier to bear, as the days to their reunion count down. She's so eager for it she can't breathe sometimes. She's so nervous and elated at the prospect that she gets butterflies in her stomach.
Her nightly ritual—counting her nakama on her fingers in the firelight, and falling asleep imaging Zoro's arms around her, his chest pressed against her back—gets more complicated. She holds one-sided, whispered conversations with him, imagining his responses, the way his eyes would crinkle when he laughed, the way his body would curve against hers.
"I miss you," she tells him every night. "I love you."
There's no one there to hear but the animals, and she can't tell if it helps or hurts sometimes.
It's weird, collecting his stuff from his room after two years. He doesn't have much—just an extra change of clothes, a t-shirt, and his katana—and yet without those things draped over the nearest available chair by the door, the room looks weirdly barren.
"C'mon, Cranky Pants," Perona greets from the doorway. "We better get going."
Zoro nods, and hefts the small pack with his clothes over his shoulder. "Yeah."
He and Mihawk already said goodbye yesterday. Or rather, Zoro said "see ya," and Mihawk went on a long and pretentious rant about how he has to grow yet stronger to kill him, and if they meet again before he's ready that Mihawk will show no mercy.
It's about what he expected from Mihawk, to be honest.
With one last glance around his room—it's still weird, calling it that—Zoro turns and follows Perona out of the castle.
She's quiet, for once, maybe sensing that he doesn't want to talk and being respectful of it.
Then they get to the courtyard, and suddenly his moment of respite is over.
"Aren't you afraid they've changed?"
Zoro is too busy eyeing the scenery—and the tree line for Humandrills—to really register the question. "Huh?"
Perona crosses her arms and huffs, but for once she isn't floating. There's a range, apparently, for how far her hollows can travel from her body, and Kuraigana to Sabaody is pushing it. "You know. Changed. Two years is a long time."
And, yeah, it is, but there are some things even time can't touch. "They better have changed, or the last two years won't mean much."
Perona rolls her eyes, and there's a moment of hesitation before she asks the next question. "What about Lucy?"
Zoro starts veering to the left, back out toward the forest. "Eh? What about her?"
Perona huffs and yanks his arm back toward her. "Honestly," she grouses, and then her expression clears a bit. "Aren't you afraid the girl you love will be different than you remember?"
Zoro flushes, not expecting the frankness. "I told you, stop saying that!"
He never told Perona that he admitted that to himself, but she somehow figured it out anyway.
Perona ignores the request though, and claps her hands as her voice screeches up into a register only dogs can hear. "You're so cute and dopey when you think about her!"
"Fuck off!" He splutters. He is not cute. At all. He's not her freaking bear thing.
Perona does that thing where she gets all offended for no discernable reason. "Why you ungrateful little swordsman! You didn't even answer my question!"
Zoro avoids a boulder. He's fairly certain he's the one that put it there, after fighting with the Mihawk-Humandrill that one time. "What was that?"
The ghost girl huffs. "Aren't you afraid she's different?"
"Nah."
Perona raises an eyebrow. "You don't think she's changed?"
"I'm sure she has." And he wonders in what ways she's changed, what ways she's different, and he wants to find out.
"But you're not worried you two won't get along anymore?"
Stupid question. "Why would I be?"
Perona's fists whirl through the air out of sheer frustration. "Because you two are different now than you were before! Jeez, are you dumber than rocks, or what?"
"Fuck off!"
"Just answer the question, dammit."
Zoro sighs, resigned. He's about to have like three weeks of constant exposure to this girl because it will simply take that long to get to Sabaody. "Lucy's like me."
"Huh?"
It's weird, but this isn't something he's ever had to explain before. "Lucy lives for her dream. It defines her. As long as she's heading towards Pirate King, I know who she is."
Perona doesn't say anything for a moment, which is just plain unusual. He stops, looking at her exasperatedly, and then she flings herself at him, wrapping arms and legs around his waist. "You're so cute!"
Zoro splutters and pushes her off. "I can't wait to be rid of you for good."
Perona pouts, irritated. "Like you'd even find the island if I wasn't going to lead you there!"
"I'd find it fine if people could give decent directions!"
This proves too much for the girl, and she seems to grow three times her size as her temper lifts her when she screams, "YOU'RE THE PROBLEM, MORON."
…Yeah, it's going to be a long trip back.
"Luuuuuccyyy-chaaaaaaaaaaannn!"
It's been two years since she heard that voice, but there's only one person who calls her that name with that particular tone.
"Hancock!" Lucy greets, turning toward the sea. Sure enough, the Kuja Pirates' familiar ship approaches, the sea kings attached to the hull swaying gracefully above the waves. Thirty Amazonians wave at her from the deck.
Lucy grins and waves back.
She's leaving Ruskaina, for the first time in two years. It's the longest she ever wants to stay in one place, and the longest she ever wants to go without human interaction again. It's the longest she wants to be apart from her crew, ever. She's not sure she'll be able to let them out of her sight once they meet up again in the first place, and that goes for certain green-haired boys with swords especially.
It takes a week to get to Sabaody from here, and she's already nervous in a terribly giddy sort of way. She can't wait. She wants to see them now. Two years she's waited, but the next week seems unbearable.
The Kuja pirates already have a raft in the water, ready to come pick her up. Lucy can see Hancock in the front, as well as Margarite and Gloriosa. Lucy turns the hat in her hand, flipping it between her fingers. She's missed this hat, even though it was her own choice to take it off. It doesn't feel right to put it on now, though. Not on this island. Ruskaina is her place of growth, of training, of healing and longing. It was purgatory, in one way, and recovery from the crucible of Marineford in another. It's not a place where she can wear this hat, not when it carries every promise she's ever made in its weave and Ruskaina saw her weakness and burned it from her.
She's ready, very ready, to leave. But she won't deny the place has grown on her a bit. She likes its unpredictability.
"Lucy-chan!" Hancock sings. Gloriosa gives her an exasperated look while Margarite tries to compensate for the way the Pirate Empress wriggles in the boat. "Lucy-san, we brought food!"
Hancock sure does know how to get Lucy's attention. Lucy loves meat, but she could use some meat variety here after two straight years of jungle beast. She's literally had dreams about Sanji's pork chops that made her cry.
"Thanks, Hancock!" Lucy responds. The little boat is approaching an outcropping on the island, which is deep enough at mid-tide to avoid the rocky shoals below.
Lucy turns to the island one last time, spotting the animals she tamed as they peek between the massive tree trunks. She can feel a dozen of the apex predators on the island watching as well, wary of her and the other humans.
Actually, Lucy supposes she's the apex predator now.
Lucy's going to miss this island, in a weird sort of way. She likes the unpredictability of it, likes how she never knows what's going to happen the next morning, and two years went by faster than she ever thought it would.
But Lucy is so, so ready to leave.
She turns to the white tree that provided safe harbor to her so many nights when she was sick or injured, and couldn't protect herself, and she smiles. "Thank you for making me stronger."
The island says nothing in response, but there's a strange sort of shift in the air that makes Lucy think something heard her anyway.
But that's the only goodbye she'll ever give.
Lucy turns back to the sea, and runs down the outcropping of rock just as Margarite is gathering the rope to tie it off, and leaps across the thirty-meter-wide gap with a laugh on her lips.
Gloriosa shrieks in surprise and Hancock and Margarite squeal in concern, but Lucy lands easily, even gracefully, in the little boat.
"That was unnecessary, Lucy-san," Gloriosa scolds, leaning on her staff with a withered hand over her chest.
Lucy just grins at her. "Sorry for scaring you, Granny-Nyon."
"Lucy-chan!" Hancock squeals, and she lunges forward to wrap Lucy in a hug.
Lucy allows it, Hancock bending nearly in half to press Lucy against her. It's the first time she's seen the other woman in two years, since Rayleigh handled all the Kuja Pirates' visits, and it's nice to see her again. "Hi Hancock, Margarite," she adds, waving at the other girl from under the Pirate Empress' shoulders.
"Nice to see you again, Lucy-san," Margarite agrees.
"There will be time for reunions later," Gloriosa decides, eyeing how Hancock had yet to release Lucy. "We'll be late if we don't leave soon."
That had Lucy wriggling out of the taller woman's grip. "We can't be late! My nakama are meeting up soon!" And Lucy will be damned if she waits any longer than necessary.
Hancock pouts a little, but claps her hands after a moment. "Oh yes! I have a gift for you, Lucy-chan!"
"A gift?" Lucy asks, a bit surprised. Margarite follows the implicit orders and maneuvers the little boat away from the shore, back toward the bigger seafaring ship. Lucy grins a little at the rowboat, though, because it's not much smaller than the one she and Zoro set sail on back in Shells Town.
The adventure is starting again. It's high time to sail forth to new seas ahead.
"I'm not telling!" Hancock replies cheerfully, clapping once.
Lucy pouts at her. "Please?"
Hancock blinks, blushes, and then waves nervously. "No, no, no, Lucy-chan! I'll show you on the ship!"
Lucy shrugs. "Okay."
It doesn't take long to get to the Kuja ship, and Lucy is quickly greeted by many, many enthusiastic Amazonians, all of whom immediately start pinching and pulling any available skin within reach. Lucy finds their fascination with her rubber abilities kind of weird, but not uncomfortable, and lets them do as they please.
Hancock, however, is displeased by the attention. "Set sail for Sabaody!" She orders, looking formidable with her fists clenched on silk-covered hips. "All hands on deck!"
The women on deck give mutual dissatisfied hums, but scramble to comply with the orders. Hancock preens a little, then takes Lucy's arm to guide her upstairs to her cabin. On the way, Lucy recalls how she cried here as she left Marineford, horrified at her own actions and yet not regretting them. It seems an age ago and yet not so long.
It was worth it. She was right—so right—to wait, train, and grow. Lucy is stronger now, and she knows she'd never have gotten here without Rayleigh's constant attention to guide her.
Two years is a small price to pay for the guarantee that the events at Sabaody will never repeat themselves again.
"Here, Lucy-chan!" Hancock hums, swaying over to her with a purple box with a blue ribbon around it in hand. "For you! A congratulations present for completing your training!"
Lucy grins up at her friend, and accepts the box. "Oh, thanks Hancock!" Unthinkingly, she shakes it a few times, curious. Stuff inside moves around a bit, but it doesn't sound hard or fragile or anything. Weird.
Lucy slides the ribbon off, and rips the top off to see—
Red. Red fabric. Underneath that is some denim, and that might be black leather. It's—
"Clothes?" Lucy asks curiously, maybe a bit eagerly. The clothes she was wearing when she arrived at Ruskaina two years ago have long since disintegrated. At first Rayleigh kept asking Hancock to send clothes with every food shipment, but she destroyed them almost instantly, and basically resorted to using bandages and tree leaves to cover her thankfully modest bust, and a few sturdy pairs of denim shorts.
In fact, that's what Lucy's wearing now. Although, admittedly, she was walking around the island shirtless there for a week or two, after she ran out of bandages and felt too lazy to weave more tree leaves together when no one was going to see.
She pulls out the red fabric. It's similar to her old red-plaid top, covering only her bust, but this one is a solid-colored red, and has long, flared sleeves that will end just below her elbow. More confusingly, it doesn't have any buttons or lengths of fabric to tie in the front. There's a strip of black leather sewn into the inside edge. Lucy frowns at it, a little unsure, but then she sees the next item in the box.
It's a black leather bust strap, six inches wide and laced in the front. It's not a corset—there are no ribs in it, and Lucy's fairly certain it's not meant to shape anything, just offer protection and maybe a little stability and cover the important bits.
She's never worn anything like this. She barely even wore a bra before, which gave Nami fits and made Robin laugh, and occasionally earned her hopeful glances from Sanji when she stretched in a non-rubber sort of way, popping her spine. Lucy sends Hancock a look, raising her eyebrow in question.
To her surprise, the Shichibukai's expression is solemn, and a bit fiercer than it was. "In our culture, it is traditional to display scars earned through great tribulation, once they have been overcome." Hancock lays one pale, long-fingered hand across her chest. "I thought you might wish to do the same."
Oh.
That's why the jacket won't tie or close. It's why the leather strap will lace over her sternum, exposing the shiny red scar tissue. For all that Lucy doesn't remember receiving it—Akainu dealt it after she lost consciousness—Lucy has always associated it with Ace, and his loss. Maybe now she can wear it as a reminder to the world instead of just herself.
You tried to knock me down. You failed, and made me stronger.
Lucy can understand why the Amazons might hold that tradition.
She nods to Hancock, a bit solemn. "I do. Thanks." She shuffles the clothes a bit, trying to see what the next item is. Sturdy denim shorts, exactly like the ones she usually wears. Good thing, too, since her current pair are on their last legs.
Lucy is about to thank her friend for the new outfit and go change into it, but then she realizes there's one last item in the bottom of the box. Frowning, she reaches in and pulls it out.
It's a fishing net, but Lucy's fairly sure it was never meant to be used for fishing. It's woven from grey cord so soft it feels like silk, and it's not particularly waxy, like a real net dipped in resin is. There are some things woven into the knots here and there—a few colorful seashells, some pretty glass trinkets Lucy has seen the Amazonians wear sometimes. Woven through one side is a canary yellow sash, maybe four inches wide and almost double the length of the net it's attached to.
"What…?" Lucy asks, a bit lost, and looks to Hancock for help.
"It's a skirt," Hancock declares proudly, looking a little smug. "I told you I'd have one made for you, remember? It's not like the one you tried then, but I thought you'd like this better."
Lucy blinks, recalling the days spent on the Marine ship to Impel Down, how Hancock gave her a skirt to try on that was bright yellow but much too big, and how Lucy thought a skirt might be nice if she wasn't such a fighter. "But you gave me shorts…?"
"It's a cover-up," Hancock explains, approaching matter-of-factly and taking the skirt from Lucy, holding out the ends. She deftly lifts it over Lucy's head, and catches her around the hips with it, over Lucy's shorts. "See, you tie it off to the side, just like so…" Hancock weaves a simple knot over Lucy's left hip with the yellow sash. The net hangs off to her right, the edge tickling her knee and a few of the seashells clinking against each other softly when she moved. "…and viola! Fashion and function," Hancock declares proudly. "I know how important that is to you."
Lucy…isn't actually sure what to think. She's never…she's only ever worn a skirt one time. She hasn't had the urge to do so again. Maybe a bit ungratefully, she blinks stupidly at Hancock.
Thankfully, the Pirate Empress seems to have expected such a reaction, because she waves an imperious hand in front of her face, as if dismissing the concern. "I know you don't wear skirts, but Lucy-chan," Hancock tells her seriously, "You're a woman. One who is going to be Pirate King. You should own your femininity, in whatever way you see fit. The rest of the world won't let you forget, after all." The words have a vaguely bitter tinge to them. Lucy opens her mouth to speak—maybe to comfort Hancock—but her friend beats her to it. "Just—try it. The whole outfit. There's a mirror over there. If you don't like it, I'll repurpose the sash to a belt for you, okay? I'll be over there." Hancock hooks a thumb to the adjoining room Lucy shares with her.
And Lucy, figuring she owes Hancock at least that much, smiles. "Okay."
When Hancock is out of sight, she dons the clothing, even swapping out the old shorts for the new ones. The lacing on the leather bust strap takes a minute to figure out, but it goes on easily enough. Finally, she dons the red jacket. It's made of thick, sturdy cotton, and on Lucy it ends maybe two inches above her waist and just below the black leather. Finally, she readjusts the net skirt/cover-up/whatever, thing, uncertain of the way it hangs off of her. As a kid she was liable to get caught on the most random things whenever she wore loose clothing. She kind of doubts things have changed that much, regarding her own self-awareness. A net just seems like asking for trouble, and Lucy's still not all that certain she wants to wear a skirt at all.
But she'll at least try it. That way she can tell Hancock thanks but no thanks, and there'll be no hard feelings. Hopefully. Sometimes with Hancock it's hard to tell.
Feet in her trusty sandals, Lucy clops over to the full-length mirror, and stops in front of it.
Her breath catches.
In part, this is because it's the first time she's seen herself in over two years, and while she's never been particularly vain, she usually knows what she looks like. Lucy's face is thinner, maybe from maturity, or maybe from training. Her tan is deep, like usual, but she has more freckles than she used to, especially on her more-prominent cheekbones. Her hair is longer than it's ever been, and although she'd noticed that she hadn't realized. It's well past her shoulders now. To get it back to her usual length she'd have to cut more than she would keep. She'll have to deal with that later—she doesn't like it long at all.
It's the first time she's seen the scar in full.
It's massive, taking center stage on her chest, and crisscrossing her breasts in an X shape. It looks ugly. It looks dangerous. It looks like the memories it represents.
Lucy's glad Hancock picked clothes that would let her show it off.
The weirdest thing, however, is the net. It's not exactly a skirt, but it gives off a similar effect, swishing when Lucy sways and lengthening the angle of her legs. It drapes around her hips asymmetrically, the top of it spread around the sash and the bottom gathering around her right knee. It's loose enough that it won't hinder her movements. It's flexible, and sturdy enough that it won't rip, and the yellow sash hangs down the outer curve of her left thigh, completing the effect.
It makes her feel…feminine.
Lucy's never felt feminine before.
It doesn't feel weak.
She looks like an adult. Like a pirate. Like a—a—
Lucy reaches for the Straw Hat, waiting patiently beside the gift box. She twirls it in her hand once, rolling it up her arm, and presses the worn, familiar straw to her hair.
Yeah. Yeah, this is—good. She looks like—like—
"You look like a King," Hancock says smugly from behind her. Lucy's still so surprised at her reflection she doesn't even look up at her friend. "A Pirate King, that is."
Lucy squares her shoulders. Widens her stance.
She's ready.
"Yeah," she agrees. "I do."
I added the color black to Lucy's outfit to designate grief, but grief overcome. Hence the black leather. More on the outfit next chapter.
UPDATE: A few of you have asked about Lucy's outfit. Please find a post about it on my tumblr, the link to which can be found here: my the furthest city light . tumblr post / 172607067334 / lucys - post - time - skip - outfit
Or, if the link disappears, the tumblr I use for fic stuff is My The Furthest City Light. There should be a link on my AO3 page if that also does not work.
Next chapter is the reunion, which is one of my favorite scenes in the fic.