A/N: Here's another Alabasta shot. Trigger warning for suicide ideation in this chapter. But please enjoy Robin! I'm excited to get her in here.

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It seems that the world is falling apart.

She was never truly unconscious but she is suddenly aware (that is, more so then she had been) of all that is happening around her. Of the thick fog of dust in the air, like it is an atmospheric condition and not floating debris that will disperse and settle. Of the blood trickling from the hole in her shoulder, down her arm in streams, but drying already and collecting sand. Of the steady rumble of collapsing stone and weakening supports.

Of the man she's called her leader for two years now, flying out of sight, through the bedrock, and of the boy who defeated him falling back into the tomb, beneath the earth, where she is fairly certain they will all remain for a very long time.

Straw hat Luffy hits the ground and bounces, tumbling among the slabs of stone and cascading dust and dripping blood, limp in the throes of inertia. She finds it hard to believe that he is still alive. Cobra, however, scrambles to his side, spends a tense moment looking him over before he gasps and leans closer.

And since she has always been imprudently curious, she summons a phantom ear beside him to hear what he says.

"You did it," as always the sound floats to her from afar, less like her ear is right there and more like it travels across den den mushi waves to reach her understanding. "You did it," the king repeats, "Crocodile is defeated, the people are saved… thank you…"

And then, even more startling.

"Don't mention it!"

He's awake.

Amazed, she summons an eye as well, though she feels she must be imagining things when she sees the smile on his face. It glimmers, carefree and happy, despite the world crashing down around them (and not just hers which has been in disrepair for quite sometime).

"I owe you so much, and Vivi too, it seems. She's here? You brought her back?"

"Yeah-" A hacking cough that she knows is a symptom of the poison interrupts him, "She wanted to come home…"

"I owe you so much," Cobra repeats in a whisper but Straw hat drifts off as he speaks, eyes slipping shut with a slurred mumble of "tire'd…"

Robin notes that he is in very bad shape.

His voice had been scratchy and hoarse when he spoke, and now, in his sleep (unconscious state) his breaths come in rough gasps. His hands are more red coated than clean skin (which she believes was his strategy but is still fairly disconcerting) and the wound in his abdomen is apparently reopened as there is a darker shade of red to his shirt in the general area. Sweat soaked and sand encrusted, his whole body is filthy and limp with exhaustion.

His complexion is starting to develop a greenish tinge and she makes a split-second decision.

From her cleavage she draws out the bottle of the antidote she kept on her in case Crocodile decided to kill her with his poison hook. It seemed that she hadn't needed to worry (just the regular hook had done the job) but that was not so for straw hat, and now the antidote was useless to her. She was going to die here and even if she didn't Crocodile was no longer a threat to her. Silently, she bloomed phantom hands to carry it over to Cobra before setting it on the ground and rolling it the rest of the way, the glass bottle crunching over the sand and pebbles.

Cobra looked up at her in surprise, then down at the glass bottle.

"What-"

"Pour it into his mouth," she instructs, "It's the antidote to the poison in Crocodile's hook."

A look of determination falls over Cobra's face and he nods, picking up the bottle and uncorking it before gently maneuvering the bottle to the young pirate's lips.

She supposes that with the pirate captain already dying he has no reason to distrust her.

(Though he really does.)

Straw hat puts up no fuss as Cobra tips the contents of the bottle to trickle through his lips, not even a cough or a stutter. He just lies there silently, and Robin feels just slightly disturbed at the stillness of the man who had still been lively hours after being stabbed straight through and buried in quicksand.

"Will he be alright?" Cobra asks, "With the poison in his system for so long-"

"He might die." Robin concedes. "But if it works he has a chance of surviving where we don't. Because of his rubber body the rocks won't crush him. His crew might find him."

"I don't think he's in any shape to survive a cave-in…"

"He wasn't in any shape to fight Crocodile at all. He's still alive."

Cobra muttered something that might have been 'for how long?' but seemed to be done with the trivial speculations.

He turned to look at her and his expression was solemn.

"Why did you lie to Crocodile about what was written on the poneglyph?"

She couldn't stop the pang of shock and disappointment that rang in her chest. He'd known, all this time at Crocodile's side waiting, holding on to this withering hope, and he'd known that it was only what Crocodile had expected, nothing about the True History at all.

She was so glad that she didn't have to try anymore.

"I have no desire to help Crocodile, nor to see this country fall." she admitted and could already feel his anger at the idea that she hadn't even tried to destroy everything he was responsible for protecting. "I only hoped to read the poneglyph, I was hoping that it would tell me about the True History."

"The True History…?"

"What events passed during that blank stretch of years? The Void Century?" She shook her head, lamenting. "Knowledge and wisdom lost to the passage of time, except, it seems, on the poneglyphs on which that time was transcribed."

"The Void Century," Cobra repeated, as if only just now considering that there were things of importance that could have occurred during that time. "But this poneglyph wasn't…"

"No, this poneglyph displays detailed records and instructions on the subject of the Ancient Weapon, Pluton." Robin agreed quietly, "Most of the others I have read have similar such messages, or are records from just after the void century or are simply folklore for the land I find it in." She sighed, leaning her head back against the rock wall, feeling it shake. "I can't search any further. Too many of my hopes have been crushed. I've made too many sacrifices for a false lead. The True History remains, and will to me forever remain, unfound."

Cobra didn't say anything and she appreciated his respect for her decision to die rather than to fail again.

They were silent, the caverns collapsing around them, Robin didn't flinch when a hunk of rock the size of her head thudded into the ground inches from her hand. She couldn't wait till it was over, but she wondered how the afterlife worked. Would she be welcome in Hell? Certainly not in heaven. Would she be a ghost?

Would she see when one day the True History was revealed? Would she see if Straw Hat got rescued?

At that thought she glanced over at the pirate, wondering if perhaps he was already dead?

Instead, it appeared that he was getting to his feet.

"Don't stand up!" Cobra realized as soon as he saw what the young pirate was doing. "You're very injured-"

"This place is collapsing," Robin interrupted him. "Let him move."

He can't be any more dead, after all.

He moved slowly and shakily, almost blindly as he fumbled with the world around him, crumbling at his touch.

He turned in a full circle before his eyes landed on Cobra, sitting on the ground beside him. Silently, he reached down and pulled the old king to his feet, ignoring his protests.

Robin closed her eyes, tired of thinking, of feeling anything at all, and for a moment she drifted to someplace far away, where none of it concerned her anymore.

She was drawn back by a sharp pain, the pulsing of an aggravated wound, and when she opened her eyes she was laid over the young pirate's shoulder. She wondered distantly if he knew he couldn't collect her bounty because he had his own bounty.

"Put me down!" There was no use saving her, she didn't want to live, he'd never make it out with her. His chances were already slim but with her and Cobra? Never. "What right do you have to make me live?"

There was a moment's silence as the pirate carried them back toward the hole he'd blown in the ceiling, staring up at the craggy edges and falling debris. He didn't even look at her.

"Why should I care what you want?"

And he took off.

Robin could feel his muscles spasming beneath her body, the poison battling against the antidote and the body trying to recover. Each breath he took inflated his chest more than most and Robin recognized it as subconscious use of his devil fruit powers. He couldn't breathe right, so he expanded his lungs to allow more airflow (fascinating). He pulled them up by the gaps and ledges left by rocks that had fallen away. He moved quickly, pushing off rocks even as they dropped into the collapsing cavern, using them as stepping stones on a moving set of stairs, falling beneath them as Straw Hat Luffy trudged stubbornly up.

She blinked and they were there, at the top, out. In the hazy gray afternoon and the drizzling rain that was quickly becoming a downpour.

He set her on her feet but she quickly tumbled forward, her knees too weak to support her own weight. Her head spun continuously, like a gyroscope unable to align with gravity. Cobra was kneeling beside her, holding his hands out as rain drops pooled in his palms. Behind her Straw Hat was swaying in the wind, staring up at the clouds as they cried.

He was falling, she realized. He was falling back into the hole which he'd only just crawled out of, teetering on the crumbling precipice as his eyes slipped closed and his smile stretched wide.

She reached out and caught his hand as he began to topple.

It took a moment of him hanging over the abyss for her to remember that she still had to pull him back over land and when she did she realized that she'd half lunged from her place on the ground to catch him. Slightly unnerved at her own subconscious' actions she summoned phantom arms to maneuver him back over solid ground and feebly tugged him to the best shelter available, a tattered awning, while Cobra laughed wildly and smiled at the heavens, cupping his hands to let the rain fall into them.

She rolled the young pirate over and braced her arm against the ground next to him as her shoulder throbbed and bled rapidly, glaring down at the boy that wanted to live, that she'd now saved three times and who refused to leave her in the peace which had been just within her grasp.

You owe me, Monkey D. Luffy, she thought angrily as she stared down at his bloody face. I will make sure that you live, and I will make sure you repay me for every day more I am forced to endure thanks to you.

He would live, she was confident that Cobra would ensure it, but her own actions and needs were the only things she was certain of in this world. She collected her debts, and no matter what happened this imprudent boy would live.

She would make him live, and he would pay her back.

A/N: Feel free to drop a comment and tell me what you think! I love to chat~