First of all, I just want to apologize for the incredibly long wait everyone! I am so sorry! Turns out that doing a Front Desk CSR job is NOT my cup of tea...so I quit that job...and now am at home full time, at least until we can figure something else out lol...

But enough of my excuses...

Enjoy the chapter!

We woke at dawn.

Well, technically, we woke up just before dawn while it was still dark, to pack first.

Old Man Toto saw us off with a smile and an unexpected gift for Luffy.

"That's genuine Yuba water, all that I was able to extract last night after you fell asleep."

Luffy's eyes widened as he reached out for the small individualized-sized barrel and said, "Wow! Water! You got some?!"

Old Man Toto explained, "Yes, right after you fell asleep we hit the water level. This was all I was able to distill last night."

Luffy looked down at the small barrel of water he held in his hands in wonder, saying softly as he hugged the barrel closer to his chest, "Wow that sounds complicated. I'll drink it carefully!"

Toto just smiled, "I'm sorry that's all I was able to give you."

I smiled and after giving a bow of appreciation, I said, "It means more to us that you gave this water to us at all, sir, than the quantity. Thank you Toto-san."

Luffy hung the small barrel around his neck, the barrel resting in the middle of his chest.

We left quickly after that.

About five mins after the city was out of sight, where we saw the last palm tree jutting out of the sand, Luffy suddenly sat down, leaning against the trunk of the tree crisscrossed and hands folded back behind his head.

It took us a couple of minutes to realize he wasn't following us, seeing how he'd been the back of the group. When we did, Sanji shouted out to him angrily, "Hey! What are you doing?!"

Luffy had a deep frown as he hummed, "nnnn…"

Vivi asked him, "What's wrong Luffy-san?"

Zoro and I shared a glance before looking at Luffy questionably.

We all nearly face planted at Luffy's deadpanned comment of, "I quit."

Vivi was quick to say, "'you quit'...?! What do you mean Luffy-san!"

Nami screamed at nearly the same time as Vivi, but due to her sentence being longer, it came out sounding like it was after Vivi had spoken, "We don't have time for your stupid games right now, Luffy! Now get up!"

Luffy, still keeping that odd calm and even tone of voice from before, said in response to the two of them, "we're going back."

Sanji stepped forward to explain, as if Captain Luffy DOESN'T know what his words mean right now...seriously, just how stupid do these people think he is?! I couldn't help thinking as Sanji finished his explanation with, "This is for Vivi-Chan! C'mon, Lets Go!"

I had to force myself not to laugh when Luffy muttered out, "Booooring," dragging out the "oar" sound for added effect. Luffy knows the in's and out's of being a little shit better than shit itself! Hahahaha! I finally giggled to myself internally at the sight of the more excitable members of our group's faces.

Nami scowled, while Sanji flipped his lid yelling out, arms in the air and all as his face went red with anger, "What did you say?!"

Usopp and Chopper were just staring at Luffy with their jaws dropped and their eyes blown wide. They started to stare back and forth between everyone that was talking.

Staring straight at Vivi, Luffy said, "I want to beat the crap out of Crocodile!"

His words silenced anything Nami might have been about to say. In the following silence Luffy proceeded to explain his thoughts.

"If we stop the guys who are rebelling, will we stop Crocodile?" His words made everyone stop and think, as he continued, still maintaining eye contact with Vivi, "We can't do anything, even if we go to this place. We're pirates, you'd be better off without us."

Nami tried to protest but Sanji, now calm and collected like he usually was (so long as it didn't involve a lady) stopped her with a wave of his arm as he muttered out, "Sometimes, he hits the bullseye without even thinking."

Usopp turned to Sanji and replied with a nod, "That's Luffy for you."

Nami looked to Sanji questionably, and I scowled at them and snapped, "What makes you think he didn't think about this? What the fuck guys."

They gave me stink eyes, but didn't say anything else as Luffy continued to talk to Vivi, closing his eyes for a moment.

"You just don't want anyone to die in this war! The people of your country, or us, or anyone!"

Vivi frowned, but patiently waited for Luffy to finish. I could see that she was trembling more and more as Luffy continued, "You're talking about a fight with one of the 7 Warlords, in which over a million people will be in battle, yet all you want is for no one to die!"

Vivi inhaled sharply but still held her tongue, as Luffy opened his eyes, gaze still locked with Vivi's, "That's naive," he finished softly.

Sanji, having seen Vivi start to tremble the more Luffy spoke, yelled, "Stop, Luffy! Can't you think of Vivi's feelings-"

But Nami stopped him before he could march over to interrupt them further, "Wait Sanji."

"But...!" Sanji tried to protest, but as usual, he complied to Nami and her silent 'no' when she shook her head, a small frown on her face as she looked at Luffy and Vivi.

Vivi, having heard Luffy out, yelled, "What's wrong with that?! What's wrong about not wanting people to die?!" throwing her arms out as she spoke.

Luffy, voice still soft, yet more serious than I'd heard in the near two weeks that we'd been sailing together, said, "People die."

No one moved when Vivi launched herself at Luffy, punching him in the face so hard that it sent him sprawling in the sand. This was between the two of them to resolve.

She was yelling loudly at Luffy, who was slowly picking himself up out of the sand, standing with her shoulders hunched over as she panted between breaths due to her rage and assorted mixed emotions that had been stoked from Luffy's words.

"Stop talking like that! Don't you dare say that again! That's what we're trying to stop! You can't blame the rebels or the army for this! Why should anyone die?! This is all Crocodile's fault!"

Luffy, finally showing his anger, punched Vivi back, yelling out, "Then why are you risking your life?!"

Usopp and Chopper yelled out, "That's going too far Luffy!" while Sanji screamed, "Dammit, Luffy!" but Luffy wasn't paying any attention to the rest of us.

His sole focus was on Vivi.

I could see Will raise an eyebrow as he too watched what was going on. But no matter how I looked at him, I couldn't decipher the thoughts behind his facial expression. It sent a pang through my heart at being unable to know my brother's thoughts. Just another thing that was taken from us as a family by these long seven years.

Zoro, while paying attention to what was going on with the two, stepped to the side and started scanning our surroundings. Probably a good idea for someone to at least keep watch out for enemies, oops, I thought as I too gave a quick scan. Seeing nothing, I turned back to watching Luffy and Vivi.

Vivi had tackled Luffy and was sitting on him while she kept hitting him in the face with vicious slaps. On any other person who didn't have a body made of rubber, those blows would likely have rendered them unconscious.

In between her blows, Luffy continued to shout out to her, "Even I can tell what this country needs the most!"

Vivi yelled out distraught with misery and rage, "What!?" but Luffy kept on speaking as if she wasn't slapping him in the face or yelling at him, "Just by looking at the situation! You think risking one life is enough?!"

Vivi demanded of him, "Then what am I supposed to risk?! There's nothing else I have to….!" Before she could finish, Luffy grabbed her robes in front of her collarbone and sat up, causing Vivi to slide off his lap and sit in the sand, to meet her face to face as he screamed, "Why don't you try risking our lives too?! I thought we were friends!?"

Vivi's eyes immediately started to overflow in tears and she covered her mouth to muffle her sobs.

Luffy continued in a much softer tone and volume as he stood up, placing his straw hat back over his head, "So you can cry those kinds of tears."

Vivi pulled the hood of her robe that was covering her hair down over her eyes as she dug the heel of her palms into her eyes, sniffling, as Luffy continued, "I know you're the one who wants to kill him the most!"

Everyone's face was calm now. Grim and determined.

Luffy practically growled while he placed his hand over his straw hat on his head, tilting it down so it shaded his eyes, as he demanded, "Tell me. Tell me where Crocodile is!"

Sobbing in earnest, she nodded out while saying, "Yes!"

At her cry, I could feel the tension in the air relax and I sighed in relief. I hadn't even noticed that there was a tension, sort of like a physical thing hovering over me like a weighted blanket, as the two had been arguing, until it was gone.

Will had his gaze locked on Luffy with an intensity that I didn't understand, but I heard Neal whisper into his ear, "was that…?"

Will nodded a quiet, "yea. I think so."

I didn't know what they were talking about, but I trusted that if it was important, then the two would let the rest of us know about it.

It took another fifteen minutes before Vivi was able to calm down again, but once she had, she started to explain where we'd have to go, using one of Nami's maps for the country.

We all crowded around the map as she pointed it all out, "This is Nanohana, where we sent Carue ahead to the capital, here," she pointed his route, "and this is Erumalu where we met up with Ace and Will-san, and this is Yuba, where we are now, Crocodile resides on this side of the Sandoran River, in an oasis called Rainbase, just to the north of us. It will take a whole day to walk through the desert to reach the oasis city of Rainbase."

Panting from the heat, Chopper asked, "will there be water there?"

"Yes, it will be safe. It's a gambling town, seperate from all the fighting, with a very deep, and large oasis as it's source of freshwater. Unlike Emumalu, however, it doesn't have a canal leading to the Sandoran River. It's also been exempt from any attacks of sabotage since it's Crocodile's base of operations."

Nami muttered to herself, while I swear her eyes changed into money symbols, CREEPY! "Oooh, Gambling?!"

Zoro, who'd joined us when Vivi and Nami had pulled out the map, said to Nami when he heard her mutters, "Oh no, what are you thinking?" while Sanji said, "I guess there are towns like that, even in Alabastra, huh?"

While we were talking, Luffy and Usopp were arguing about something, while Will and Neal just watched from the sidelines, a faint bemused smile on Will's face and Neal had his head cocked sideways in confusion, all while keeping his beak pointed north. This made him have to stare at them with one eye only, but since it was a part of his biology, I was sure he was used to that. It did make me wonder as a side thought, do they have monocular vision like a chameleon? Or does he just focus on what he's seeing from that one side with his peripherals?

We were drawn out from our strategizing when Luffy's hands, holding his small barrel of water, stretched out past us while he screamed, "Gum Gum, NO WAY!"

We looked over to see Usopp, his arms held out towards Luffy and crying as he said, "All you have to do is give me one sip~ He gave us that water to use…!"

Stretching his arms out another way, Luffy called out, "No way!"

"Gimme!" Usopp reached again with a lunge.

"No way." Luffy's hands retracted and using the recoil he sent them again out away from his body, only this time in a different direction from where Usopp was trying to reach currently.

Usopp followed after his arms, and Luffy shouted again, "Gum Gum NO Way!"

"Gimme!"

I sighed in annoyance and walked over to them to put a stop to this.

Luffy turned to face me, still moving his arms this way and that out of Usopp's reach while he cried 'gimme' each time. Luffy was avoiding stretching his arms near me, as if I wanted to steal his water barrel too. Seeing how I had his attention as he no longer was looking at Usopp and instead was focusing on my face, I asked, "Captain, I realize that Toto-Ossan gave you that water specifically, but please, would you just let Usopp have a sip, after he both asks politely and if he promises to only take a teeny-tiny sip?"

Luffy pouted, and said, "No way! Old Mr. Sandy-Guy gave us this water, after digging all night long! We can't just drink it right away you moron!"

I scowled at being called a moron, but I'd been called worse, so whatever...

Usopp seemed to sag in defeat at Luffy's words. Thankfully, Sanji was over on the other side of camp and didn't hear Luffy talking that way to me. One of the ways that he still acted overbearingly chivalrous with me, was in the small things, like pulling my chair out, serving us "ladies" first, and in this case, ensuring no one, not even our Captain, spoke so rudely to me.

It was sweet sometimes, especially as it kept most of the verbal nonsense to a minimum, but it could get old after a while. I am not a fragile little girl that needs to be protected, damn it! I was trying to compromise with the guy, and let him do these small acts, but that didn't stop it from annoying the shit out of me most of the time.

Nami had come up to grab something out of her pack that was still loaded up on the pervert camel, and heard the last comment Luffy had said. It apparently shocked her because she said to him, "Wow, so you really CAN restrain yourself when you need to."

Luffy, of course, got offended by that hurtful, offhanded, remark from Nami, yelling out, "How Rude! Of course I can! How Rude!"

Usopp just walked away panting, tongue out and everything. I thought about telling him that he'd be better off keeping his tongue inside his mouth so as to avoid further drying it out, but in the end decided against it.

I looked around at the others, and I was suddenly reminded of our first night out in the desert, camping underneath the stars with a small bonfire…

During the first night while on our trek, we'd all told our stories of how we joined the Crew to Ace and Will, (and me, since I wasn't there for everyone else's) so I'd heard about Usopp's home, he was nearly just as bad off in this dry desert heat as Chopper and I, growing up on a lush island in the near tropic climate of East Blue.

Thinking back to that first night, I couldn't help but think, It had been a lot of fun.

Luffy had started off saying, how, when he'd set off from his home island, he'd lost his first boat to a whirlpool, and had had to drift in a barrel of apples, before meeting a boy that dreamed of being a Marine, while stuck on a bad pirates ship. Of course, Luffy seemed to suck at putting things together in any form of sequential order, so Zoro had to reiterate and fix it from what he'd been told by the boy, who was named Koby, himself, before we could understand the whole story.

Luffy had nodded saying, "that's what I said!" even though it really wasn't.

Nami had made a comment about how she'd been stealing all of the lady pirate's, Alvida's, treasure, and had seen Luffy and Koby briefly ("the boy with pink hair and round purple glasses, right?") both there and at Shellstown a day later inside their local tavern.

Then Luffy talked about how he found Zoro tied up to a post at a Marine base.

Zoro blushed, and said, "shut it." but didn't refute Luffy's statement.

Luffy had a really serious face for a second, saying how awesomely strong Zoro was for surviving being tied up like that for about three weeks with no food, whereas he'd have died in three or five days.

Sanji had grown pale, and I caught him nearly silently muttering to himself about upping Zoro's dietary balance for vitamins and minerals.

Aww….what a big softie! They act like they don't give a shit about each other, yet here he is, muttering away about what to sneak into his food to keep Zoro healthy.

They'd all quickly gone around in turns after that, talking about their pasts and how they'd met and deciding to join the crew.

I'd nearly choked while laughing when they got to the part of Zoro's duel with Uncle Mihawk.

Ace had whistled with his eyebrows raised, clearly impressed, while Vivi was looking pale and a little green at the thought of Zoro's scar. He'd often gone shirtless when he worked out his warm-up routine before our spars, so she'd had plenty of time to see it over the course of our journey. I heard her mutter about how it made our reaction to the news of facing a Warlord so much more sense now, but I was distracted by something else so I missed the exchange she had with Nami and the others over that comment.

It was Will's reaction that had distracted me.

Will had spit checked at hearing about our beloved, and unmet, Uncle, coughing as he tried not to choke from the surprise.

Looking over at me with wide eyes, I nodded at his nonverbal question that was burning in his eyes. He took my silence as a hidden message to stay silent about knowing him, and from that point paid better attention.

Almost everyone continued on, ignoring Will's reaction, thinking it was just in response to them having already fought a Warlord and living, correcting Luffy whenever he didn't explain it right, or when it came to things that he just didn't know about due to not being there.

I snuck a side glance over towards Zoro, the only one to not ignore Will's reaction and smiled a little at his knowing and concerned gaze that was locked onto Will. Since Zoro was the only one who knew of Will and my connection to the World's Best Swordsman, he knew the real reason for Will's spit check.

Luffy laughed at Zoro for being overpowered by Usopp and their friend, Johnny, which had happened after he'd just barely survived a life or death duel against Uncle Mihawk.

Zoro was visibly annoyed with this reaction, while also ducking out of sight with his cheeks stained pink from embarrassment. Like most boys, however, he didn't take to emotions such as embarrassment too well and lashed out at the most convenient excuse. As I was swiftly coming to acknowledge as a regular occurrence, that excuse being an impromptu sparring match with Sanji.

Sanji had made some snide comment about Zoro's strength and it led the two to duking it out until Nami put the smack down on the two. They slumped to the ground with dual bumps of pain, but wisely chose not to continue their spar.

Luffy then looked over at Ace and said, "Then I kicked Arlong's ass and Nami finally said she'd be my navigator! That's where I got my bounty!" His smile was in its wide, D shape as he chuckled, "Shihihihihihi," and Ace smiled fondly at his little brother.

Usopp looked over at Nami and asked quietly, "Did you want to…?"

She sighed and looked up at the stars, saying, "What Luffy's not telling you all, is that Arlong had taken over my whole island, killed my adopted mother for not being able to pay for both her life and the lives of my sister and I. He then enslaved me into drawing him sea charts, all while dangling a false hope of buying back my village for the price of One Hundred Million Belli for eight years straight."

We had all fallen silent at her very short explanation of what her living hell had been like.

Now that's some messed up shit. Fuck, I hope Mom and Crys were able to escape before reaching Sabaody. I couldn't help but worry, Will had at that point already told me how he'd escaped in a more in-depth tale as we'd set up camp that night, so it was fresh on my mind.

After a tense and silent moment or two, Zoro grunted and said, "As Luffy said, we kicked Arlong and his crew's ass, and Nami officially joined the crew as the Navigator."

With a small, grateful smile, Nami nodded while rubbing her tattoo, and Luffy then launched into how he'd met me at a bar named after the Pirate King.

I raised my left eyebrow at Ace's flinch, he frowned and I saw his eyebrow was slowly ticking in anger as he ground out in a dangerous tone of voice, "And just WHY were you at a bar named after, HIM?"

At his stressed words, that clearly was carrying hidden meaning for Luffy and him, my other brow rose in intrigue. What does the Captain and his brother have to do with the late Pirate King? I wondered mildly.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Will glancing at me and shaking his head with a slight frown, silently telling me to not ask. Touchy subject then, best to ask the Captain himself after Ace leaves. Don't need to see if I smell like a grilled fish if he loses his temper.

Luffy had laughed while saying confidently, "I got lost! Smokey's smoke trail faded away when I was looking for the execution platform, and when I tried to find it myself, I got lost! Anyways, that's where I met Wisp! She was cleaning the bar while I talked to the owner. He told some great stories about the Pirate King!"

If anything Ace's expression got even darker, as his rage grew. Weird…

Luffy just prattled on, as if used to Ace's weird rage over the topic of the Pirate King. Which he probably was, given that Ace is his older brother.

Ace's face went from flushed red with rage to white in horror when told of what happened at the scaffold. When told by Zoro and Sanji, of just HOW close Luffy had come to being decapitated, he'd started beating the top of Luffy's head, to which Luffy cried that it hurt. In retaliation, Luffy tackled Ace and the two began to wrestle on the ground in a fit of brotherly love and affection...tinged with massive amounts of violence that was punctured with Luffy's cries of "ow!" and "That hurt!" whenever Ace got a good hit in.

That had everyone but Will confused, as Ace wasn't wearing gloves with sea stone like I did, so how did his punches hurt Luffy? A Rubber-Man that shouldn't be able to be hurt by blunt force no less?

Will just shrugged at our confused faces and said, "He IS a commander for the Whitebeard Pirates. All of them are able to use this thing called Haki, or whatever, in the other half of the Grand Line that lets them affect, and even hurt, devil fruit users and straight up bypassing them like Luffy's Rubber body."

Zoro and Sanji both opened their mouths to ask about it, but Will shook his head quickly saying, "Sorry, but I don't know much more about it than that. Only other thing I know is that there's three types, two of which anyone can technically learn, and the other you gotta be born with."

They shut their mouths with a disappointed frowns, not realizing that they were doing it in sync with each other. I had to hide my smile, and hold in my giggles at the sight, behind my hands. I wasn't very successful, as my shoulders still shook, but since Usopp and Nami were doing the same thing, they didn't notice my reaction.

Luffy, having survived Ace's impromptu life lesson and punishment via Older Brother, (((Yes that's a thing, as all you with younger/older siblings know! Don't try to deny it!))) sat back down and picked up his narrative from after that point as if there wasn't a ten minute interruption. Talking about meeting the Island Whale Laboon and his caretaker, Crocus.

Meeting Vivi, when she called herself Miss Wednesday, and taking her home to, "Sake Summit", we all as one, corrected him saying, "Whiskey Peak", to which he just waved us off with a, "yeah that," before telling Ace and Will of our "awesome" adventure at Little Garden.

It was the first time I got to hear the whole tale of what they'd all had to go through, while Sanji and I had dealt with the "Unluckies" and fooling Crocodile into thinking we were all dead.

Will had scowled at Sanji the entire time for that part. Which confused me, but I wasn't sitting next to him to ask what was wrong.

Getting to hear the tale of how everyone met and convinced Chopper to join the crew was fun...

I loved the fact that we have a actual Doctor as a part of the crew, don't get me wrong, but, god-damit! Did Nami have to nearly DIE for that to happen? I mean seriously?!

I gave Zoro another smack upside the head when he tried to play off that him jumping into subzero temperature waters wasn't that big of a deal, and I got glowered at by him for it while everyone else laughed at his expense for getting lost as soon as he washed ashore. I had to be restrained from strangling him when I found out from Chopper that he'd been wandering the island in only his soaking wet pants...Dumbass...

They gave a brief side note to Will and Ace about meeting Mr.2, Bon Clay and his Devil Fruit abilities, which then had brought us up to date with the situation here.

We'd turned in for the night not long after that, since Chopper, who was still rather young compared to the rest of us, had nodded off around the time that Usopp had been explaining Mr.2's Devil Fruit.

Zoro carried him over to his bed space, and Usopp, and Luffy cuddled up to Chopper for his furry warmth.

Coming out of my memories, at Will's sigh, I saw him open his Storage Box.

I glanced back over to Luffy, who was holding his small barrel close to his chest with a frown on his face.

It really wasn't fair of Luffy to horde water like this.

Thankfully, Will still had about two large "Ace-sized" canteens full of water in his Storage Box.

He took one out and carefully sectioned it off into everyones near empty ones, as I walked back over to the others, Neal giving him a helpful claw while in his Griffin form.

Vivi continued by saying, "Thankfully we won't have to worry about crossing the River until after our fight."

Looking at the map, I asked confusedly, "How come it doesn't show the other side of the island? I mean I realize that Alabastra's a big place, and we only needed to focus on these particular towns...but what's on the other side of it?"

Nami looks up to me and then with wide eyes back to her map like she hadn't thought of that. It made me want to facepalm my forehead. Why is it that I feel like I'm the only one with common sense around here?!

Nami quickly turns to Vivi and pulls out a piece of paper, with the top listed out "things to ask from Vivi for when/before we leave," below I could see a couple things like, "lockable refrigerator, something I faintly recall Sanji begging from her before we'd docked at Nanohana. God that feels like a lifetime ago.

She quickly adds to the bottom, "Ask for more detailed maps/charting information of Alabastra, she added in parentheses, (make sure to write in my map's margarine: Due to shifting sand, the sand dune's elevation and size change nearly daily, be warned of various dangers while crossing) along with other various thoughts that she considered important.

Humming to myself, I throw out to her, "when we leave Alabastra, and you get the chance to work on that World Atlas of yours," she quickly turns to look at me, at the mention of her dream, "you should talk to Will about his dream. You might be surprised how it could align with yours." I finished and walk over to stand beside Zoro before she can reply.

Just before I joined his side, he called out to everyone, "Alright already, let's just go," his tone clearly conveying his impatience to continue onwards.

Vivi and Sanji were quick to put away the couple things we'd pulled out during our quick impromptu break, and after Will made sure everyone had their, now full, canteens, to which Usopp had practically sobbed over, everyone but Will and I, looked to Nami, asking, "which way?"

Nami looked up at the sun, saying, "North is," she pointed the same way Neal's, now back to his natural smaller parrot form, north-facing beak was pointed to.

We all started walking, except for some reason, Zoro was walking the opposite way. Wha? I thought, confused as the others called out to him, "North is this way, idiot."

Neal flew off of Will's shoulder and landed on Zoro's left shoulder, saying, "Just go the direction my beak is pointing, and you'll always go North, Zoro-san."

Zoro blushed and grumbled at being called out for going the wrong way, but asked Neal, "You mean to say that you're always pointing North? How?"

He'd just caught up to us, so we all clearly heard Neal as he explained, "I am a North Billed Parrot. Which means that while I am in my natural form," he ruffled his feathers for emphasis, "I always point true north. Regardless of the Grand Line's oddity with your human compasses." He puffed up his chest in pride at that.

However, because we were so close and we all heard him, that also included a certain energetic red-haired navigator.

She did an about face and snatched up Neal so fast that I'm not even sure ANY of us was able to see her as she did so, a manic gleam in her eye.

Will stopped walking and frowned back at Nami.

She was tilting Neal's face this way and that, and comically enough, Neal's face practically snapped back to facing north each time.

He tried to squirm out of her grasp, but a curious and greedy Nami is a very, very strong and dangerous thing, something I'd yet to see anyone avoid.

She asked rapid fire, "How does that work? Is it always true North? Are you the only one? Is it a feature of your devil fruit? Or do you just naturally do that all on your own as a species? If so, are any birds like you able to do that? What Island are you from? Where can I find more of you? If I can't, can I keep you? Oooo! You can help me with my cartography! It'll be so much fun! EEEEE!"

She danced in place, squeezing poor Neal close to her bosom with stars in her eyes, before Will, who's face I saw going darker and darker red, marched up to her and snatched Neal out of her hands.

He was a little rougher than I think he meant to be, because Nami ended up on her ass in the sand. Sanji of course was livid and started yelling at Will to be careful with a Lady, but since he was holding the reins to the pervert camel while Vivi was still sitting in his saddle, he didn't charge over.

Will was turned sideways, away from Nami, stroking Neal's feathers along his spine, helping to fix the messed-up ones from Nami's thoughtless actions. Neal was merely standing on Will's forearm, shaking and occasionally ruffling his feathers back into place after Will straightened them out with his free hand.

Nami stood up and asked hotly, "What was that for Will!"

Will didn't answer for a second, waiting until Neal was calm again and had flown up to rest upon his left shoulder again.

"What was I doing?! Seriously!? What the fuck did YOU think you were doing to Neal?!" Will exploded, turning around now to face Nami properly.

At his outburst, Nami stepped back, surprised because Will had, for almost the entirety of our trip in the desert, been a pretty calm and chill guy to be around.

"Just because he's an animal, doesn't give you the right to treat him like he's a THING. He's got feelings and can think for himself! So how dare you say something like "If I can't find more of you, can I keep you?! Seriously what the fuck!?" Will was glaring at her, and Nami, ever proud Nami, tried to deflect the severity of what she'd said.

She'd winced, because of Will's words, the words she'd said while half crazed, finally caught up to her, and she paled. Opening and closing her mouth she uttered, "I didn't mean-"

He slashed his arms through the space between them to cut her off, and said, "Yea, I can see that. Still doesn't change the fact that you apparently don't see him as a person himself. It's not ME you need to apologize to after all!" Nami flinched again, and I wanted to step forwards, but knew that like my confrontation with Sanji before, this was going to be something that Neal and Will had to deal with.

Nami, face white with regret, tried to defend herself as she apologized, "I'm sorry! I wasn't thinking, all I could think about was how amazing that was, and before I really thought about it, I was moving and saying things before thinking. I'm sorry, Neal, Will."

Will looked at Neal who ruffled his feathers again, before saying, "I can understand your excitement Nami, and I do forgive your physical rough handling just now, but we're going to need to sit down sometime later, when we're not all pressed for time, and have a long chat before I can say for certainty that I'm over what just happened entirely. Until then, I'd say we are okay enough to keep going on. Alright Will?"

Neal finished by looking over at Will, who after sighing, said, "yeah. Fine. Let's go then. Did you want to walk or fly? Or I guess you could ride on my shoulder if you wanna conserve energy."

Will walked off first, and after a near silent murmur into Will's ear, Neal decided to ride on Will's shoulder, offering comfort any way he could, which for him meant running his beak through Will's hair as a gesture of preening. Zoro, who had had a front row seat to the entire thing, finally started walking with everyone.

Grunting as he passed Nami, he said, "You'll have your chance to hash it out and you can apologize to them again. Come on, we don't have a lot of time to be bickering among ourselves. This is for Vivi, remember?"

Nami managed to pull herself together, and rejoined Vivi on the pervert Camel. Luffy and I walked ahead of them, and Usopp came panting besides the camel.

I tried not to dwell to much on what had put that panicked look into my baby brother's eye when Nami had said she wanted to "keep" Neal…the implications of that fear in his eyes made my heart ache for the two of them…

AND DONE! with this chapter anyway...still more to come!

Soooooo this chapter was NOT beta'd but I was starting to get anxious about having not posted a chapter for the last two months even though I've got stuff written for all the way to the knock up stream at Jaya...I was feeling really bad because it was my personal goal to have at least a chapter once a week posted and I felt like I was letting you all down...espessially when I kept seeing people fave/following durring these last month and a half/two months (ehhh almost two months) and even one person who decided to unfollow...made me feel bad you know? I swear I didn't mean to leave ya all hanging!

I also decided to leave the letter to the readers from last "chapter" more as a reminder to ME that I need to keep writing and posting...I dont want to have such a long absense unless something really really really serious comes up IRL...

Thanks SOO MUCH FOR ALL OF YOU WHO HAVE STAYED AND CONTINUE TO LOOK FORWARDS TO THIS STORY!

HOLY COW! everyone! I just realized, there's 51 of ya'll who've followed the story!

My mom and I made a deal where I'd drink a bottle of Mikes Lemonade (I don't really drink, like hardly at ALL) when I got to 50 follows :D thank you so much everyone, I cant express how much of a "pick me up" that gave me when I saw that...

-ThayetJade