AN: Surprise surprise, there's more Robin!

Here's the 'other half' of chapter 12/the Aokiji incident. From here we're moving to Enies Lobby which, considering it's potential, I kind of skimped on. Still, we've got stuff coming up so stay tuned!

Unguard

She wakes up panicked, not from any sort of trigger in her surroundings, but simply because waking up means she has been asleep, and who knows what could have happened in that time.

When she goes to sit up moving seems more difficult than usual and memories return quickly- the man with his long horse, the Davy back fight, Aokiji, the fight, the freezing. She ceases her attempts to move, focusing on a quick catalog of her current state of health. Stiff, to say the least. Very cold, despite the number of blankets she can feel heavy against her chest. Stifled. Vulnerable.

She surveys the ceiling above her and identifies it as that of the galley of the Going Merry. She is in the galley, and so are- she counts the breaths- six other people. The whole crew then. They are all there, alive, nothing short of a miracle. It's dark and the lights are out so it's most likely night. Judging by the gentle rocking of the boat they are anchored and not on the open ocean. They haven't yet left Long Ring Island. She takes these observations automatically, logging her surroundings in an analytical fashion that she has more or less perfected over the years. With those questions answered, she redirects her attention to herself.

As is typical for patients (Which she surely is, suffering from hypothermia at least and probably frostbite and who knows what else) she's been laid on her back. This is for perfectly logical medical reasons but her skin crawls at the thought of her entire front, her chest with her heart and lungs, her abdominal cavity with the stomach, liver, kidneys- all of the important things aside from her brain, still carefully cradled within her skull, is perfectly available to any passing threat.

Immediately she tries to curl to her side, to bare her back to any threats and put up a shield around these important bits. But the blankets shift and her body shivers and in general refuses to cooperate.

She is left lying there, unable to protect herself from the innumerable threats out there, waiting to strike-

"Mnme…" There is a voice and her body goes rigid, even as she immediately recognizes who it is.

Luffy. He's asleep somewhere nearby.

Her heart beats harder with the reminder and then relief as she realizes that the likelihood of safety is far more optimistic with her captain at her side. She can't imagine their protective captain sleeping easily if any of them had been hurt badly and she's sure that even if Luffy is sleeping Zoro is more than capable of jumping to her protection should anything occur. She counts their breaths again. None sound labored but she can't imagine Aokiji releasing them unscathed. Unscathed except for his strike against her, of course, but removing her from the immediate situation is hardly a handicap to anyone. Sometimes she feels she does nothing but attract trouble. And the Straw Hats don't need any help in that department.

She tips her head to the side to see them all and finds Luffy is splayed across a mattress pad right beside her. One of his feet is near her hip and the other above her head. He's on his stomach, hands reached out towards where Usopp is sitting on the floor just a foot or two away, leaning against the table leg.

As she watches he snorts, mumbles something unintelligible, and shifts, flipping over. His stomach and chest rise rhythmically, completely unprotected as even his shirt has ridden up to reveal a swath of his midsection and the blankets he too had been wrapped in are discarded around him- shrugged off in his sleep.

For a moment she questions if he was injured like she was, frozen partially, because of the similar treatment but her thoughts derail quickly with wonder. She can't fathom how he can be comfortable like that, how he can be so unaware of his surroundings and still feel safe with his body almost asking for disembowelment-

She dismisses the thought at once. Monkey D. Luffy started as a means to an end, but she has grown to appreciate his judgment, his strength, and… his kindness. Such morbid ideas, once humorous to her in an ironic way that she may soon commit it herself to ensure her own safety, are now only funny in the daytime and with the full knowledge that she herself would never let such a thing happen to any one of her newest crewmates.

She is sure that there has never been and never will be a crew which she can be more a part of.

And still, the way she lies here, vulnerable, is unsettling. The only people on the ship are ones she trusts and her skin still crawls with discomfort in this position. People naturally curl into the fetal position in sleep, this is the most comfortable way to be for it fulfills a deep, human instinct- to protect the core.

And yet Luffy is bared to the world, injured, with bandages wrapped around the arm that had been frosted before Robin had even been frozen, and an involuntary shiver that seems to strike him every few minutes. Still, he lies without a worry, as he often does during the day, splayed out beside Zoro or lying across the figurehead.

He never guards himself and never seems to feel the need to.

She tunes back into her surrounding, surveying the way Sanji is pillowing his head on his arms as he sleeps in the chair at the kitchen table, Zoro is leaning against the wall the way he leans against the railing of the ship for his naps and it wouldn't surprise her if he were to wake up should she move. Nami, she realizes suddenly, is actually right beside her, sleeping by her legs so that she is unobtrusive and almost comforting in a way. Usopp with Luffy, and Chopper asleep and settled on the sniper's legs, a medical text open in his lap.

"Mnahhh…" Luffy's mumble turns sour at the end and his body tenses. She glances over and notices the goosebumps that have risen along the skin that has come free of the blankets in his movements. He whines again and Robin is contemplating the best way to assist him when Usopp starts awake. Well. Perhaps not awake, but aware.

His eyes don't open fully, but he tips to one side and throws his free hand out, searching for the blanket. Chopper makes a soft startled noise as he slides off Usopp's lap due to the motion, but while he blinks his eyes open he simply gathers himself back into a small ball and curls up under Usopp's stabilizing arm, snuggling into his chest. When the sniper's groping finally produces the blanket's edge he pulls it towards himself, catching Luffy and the mattress pad with it and tugging the whole set up closer to himself. Luffy turns towards him and the blanket settles back over his chest and arm.

The sniper falls back asleep with Luffy's face pressed into his thigh. The captain has calmed it seems, but his foot still juts off the bottom of the mattress.

It doesn't seem to be bothering him, and he's sure to nudge it back off before too long, but the need to contribute seizes her deep and high in her chest. She shifts beneath the blankets, drawing her arms up across her chest and closes her eyes. The single arm that blooms from the floorboards beside her mattress pad reaches across, snags the edge of the blanket in suddenly shaking fingers, and pulls it back into place. She dismisses it in a flurry of petals and hugs herself tight beneath the blanket.

In the dark quiet rocking of the ship, the air is warm and full of breaths. Robin is still cold, her arm coated in goosebumps that hadn't been there moments before. The shield of her arms clutched around her front is enough to quell the edge of the wriggling discomfort and vulnerability beneath her skin. Luffy mumbles again and Sanji, at the table, grunts in response. Blankets rustle down by her legs and she knows Nami has shifted. With a breath that shivers as it leaves her mouth she closes her eyes.

Somehow, she doesn't feel cold.

AN: Let me know what you think and enjoy!