Author's Notes:

I don't own One Piece, characters, or anything created by Eiichiro Oda. But the way the words go together – that's all mine.

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Part 1 - Kokoyashi Village

Chapter 1 – Room Did Sway

"She did it again, Gen!"

From the knocking on the door, it sounded as if the visitor was thisclose to pounding. Gen looked at the clock by his bed. It was an indecent time to be awake and he got up reluctantly. He took his uniform from its place on the chair, where he had laid it out carefully the night before, and he put on his hat as well. He might as well look the part of a police officer, even if he still didn't quite feel like one.

It was Malley, from Gosa, the next village over. Bellemere had gotten herself into especially hot water this time, if the fat bar owner had bothered to walk all this way in the middle of the night.

"Come on in," Gen said, opening the door further to allow for the girth of his visitor.

Malley drew himself up indignantly and launched into his tirade immediately. "Bellemere is out of control. She harassed my other customers, broke bottles, she smashed up a chair, stormed out without paying and was, and was, was – "

Gen interrupted the pub owner before he had a stroke. "Have you told Chimo?" Chimo was Gosa's officer and the one who should have been handling this.

"Chimo is fully aware of what Bellemere's done," Malley said. "He was the one she smashed the chair on."

It took Gen a moment to regain his composure. "A chair."

"On his head," Malley said pointedly.

Gen swallowed his fury and said, "Do you know where she went?"

"No one has been able to find her."

"Oh, I will. She'll wish I hadn't too." A tally of the damages suddenly danced in his head. "Malley, let me get my wallet."

Malley took his arm before he could go back into the house. "We'll work that out later. Just find her. She was saying some pretty strange things tonight."

==============

He was ready to give up. Bellemere wasn't in any of the side streets where she usually slept off her nights of bingeing. Wherever she might have run off to, she would be nursing a severe headache in the morning. That's when he would give her an earful – when she was too hungover to talk back and too sick to her stomach to escape.

Gen rubbed his face and wondered what time it was. Being woken up like that was not the way to start the day, the night, whatever hour it may be. He was still sleepy; he couldn't even remember what day it was.

What day it was…

The lantern clanked and bounced in his hand as he took off at a sprint. He should have remembered. Had anyone in the village remembered? He thought she had been quiet lately.

It took him only a minute to run to the graveyard.

The light from the lantern washed over Bellemere. It was probably the only thing that had washed over her in days. He could smell her from here.

She was lying on her stomach with her head almost touching the double gravestone, her hair hanging in her face. Her left hand was gripping an empty bottle; her right hand was curled into a fist, ready for a fight.

The problem was she wasn't fighting anything that could be struck.

A dark thought flitted through his head. He knelt down and placed a hand on her back and confirmed that she was breathing. He took the bottle away and, with policeman's eyes, noticed that there was dirt under her fingernails of her hand. When he rolled her over, he saw the earth staining the front of her shirt and the furrows in the ground on top of the grave.

Something had to give. Gen was afraid that it would be her.

He picked her up, surprised at how light she was. With the size of the chip on her shoulder, she always appeared to weigh much more. He maneuvered her onto his back and began to carry her piggyback down to the village.

"Gen?" she said thickly. Her breath stank.

"What?"

"Home?" she managed.

"I'm not carrying you up that hill. We're going to Doc's."

She muttered something incomprehensible and obscene, then lapsed into silence. They were on the outskirts of the village when she spoke again.

"Gonna barf."

Gen waited on the road for her to finish emptying the contents of her stomach into the bushes. He didn't help her; she wouldn't have accepted anyway. Then they set off again.

He balanced Bellemere on his back and knocked on Doc's door at the same time. The lights came on slowly. "Who is it?" the older man called through the door.

"Just me."

The latch was slid back. "And, Bellemere, I'm guessing."

She started slipping and he hiked her up further onto his back. "Can you check her out?"

Doc opened the door. "Let's see what the cat dragged in."

Gen started towards the infirmary, but Doc motioned for him to take her to the back bedroom. "What did she have?" Doc asked.

"I found an empty bottle of wine in her hand, but she was drinking at Malley's before. I don't know how much or what."

"My bet is on whatever was cheapest." Doc said he threw back the covers. Gen started to put her on the bed. "She's filthy. Help me get her out of these clothes."

Unlike the doctor, Gen hadn't perfected his professional mien. He swallowed reflexively, glad that the light of the lamp was low and would hide the searing flush that was rising on his face, but he complied. They put her in a bathrobe and then under the covers. Doc checked her pulse and then asked, "Did she – "

"All over the side of the road."

"Then most of it is out of her system and she'll only have the mother of all hangovers in the morning." Doc put a chair next to the bed and stopped Gen from sitting down. "There are some blankets in the closet. Get some sleep."

"I'm awake. I might as well keep an eye on her."

"You have work tomorrow."

"So do you," Gen countered.

"I'm the doctor, and I get up at four in any case. You go take a nap. I imagine you'll have a big enough mess to clean up tomorrow as it is."

Gen decided to let the old man win this one and went to the couch, but he was awake at seven. He left quietly, intent on making a few apologies to some people in Gosa.

He found Chimo already sitting outside of the police station. There was a large bandage peaking out from underneath the other officer's hat. "Did you find your problem child?" the man asked, when he saw Gen.

"She was sleeping it off." There was no reason to tell Chimo where she had been though. "About your head…"

"This?" Chimo touched his temple. "My old lady gives me worse."

"Bellemere'll be around to apologize later today."

"What is she doing about the damages at the bar?" Chimo asked.

"I talked to Malley already. I'm footing the bill until she scrapes some cash together – "

Chimo interrupted him. "If you stop covering for the girl, maybe she would take responsibility for herself, Gen. If she's old enough to get into these messes then she is old enough to deal with the consequences."

Gen nodded. It was a nod acknowledging that the other man had spoken, and not the nod of agreement.

Chimo nodded back. It was the nod of a man who thought the other man was a fool.

They knew where they stood with each other.

"How are you finding the Kokoyashi beat?" Chimo asked.

Gen laughed. "It's boring. The biggest crime is - "

"Orange poaching. Or is it Bellemere? She's her own crime wave." Chimo chortled at his own joke, making it less funny than it already was.

"I'll be heading back now. I have some paperwork and don't want to keep you."

"Keep an eye out for the orange poachers, Gen," Chimo called out, as he left.

==============

The shutters were thrown open and the sun poured in like a tidal wave. Bellemere covered her face with the pillow.

"Get up," Doc ordered.

She couldn't muster coherent speech, so she resorted to moaning in protest.

"I've done more before nine o clock than you're going to do all day." Bellemere tried to fend him off but he took the pillow from her. "I don't run a bed and breakfast for just anyone. Take a shower and get dressed. By the time you're through, Gen will be back, we can eat, and you can start groveling for his forgiveness."

She opened her eyes reluctantly. "Why would I – " A flash of memory; a few beer bottles, a chair, a piggyback ride. "Oh."

"'Oh' is right. Practice being remorseful while you're showering."

Bellemere sat up and realized what she was wearing. "My clothes."

"I contemplated burning them and settled on hanging them outside on the line to air," Doc said from the hallway.

"You washed them?" she called back.

"I'm sorry. Is 'maid' written on my forehead? I put them outside so they wouldn't stink up my house. And what part of 'Take a shower' don't you understand? I can smell you from out here."

Her last bath was a faded memory. Bellemere sniffed her armpits and grimaced. It would be nice to be clean.

The distance from the bed to the bathroom was immense. As she held onto the towel rack, she reflected that it was much more embarrassing to be hungover in someone else's home than in her own.

She let the water run hot and hard as she tried to get the dirt out from under her fingernails. Perhaps if she stood under the water long enough her hangover would be steamed out of her.

Perhaps if she stood under the water long enough, she would wash away.

After her shower, she found a set of clothes Doc had laid out for her. She went into the kitchen in shorts that hung around her knees and a loud flower print shirt that was fashionable with the older men on the island. Gen and Doc paused in their conversation.

"Give me black knee socks and I'll be ready for retirement," she said, as she sat down at the table. She was surprised that her stomach wasn't churning at the smell of the sausages and fried potatoes.

"It's alive," Gen said dryly.

"Reluctantly," Bellemere retorted, but not with her usual vivacity.

"Have something to eat. And here's some juice." Doc offered her a glass.

She made a face. "You don't think I don't get enough orange juice? I only own an orchard."

Gen took a sip of his coffee and refrained from explaining that owning an orchard and working an orchard were two different things.

Doc pushed the glass at her. "You're drinking it, young lady."

"Coffee," she countered.

"Do you want a very long winded medical lecture about the ill effects of alcohol on the human body?"

She rolled her red-rimmed eyes. "Anything but that."

He removed the coffeepot from the table before she could disobey him. "I would hate to see the state of your liver," Doc muttered as he went back into the kitchen.

Gen put his cup down. "I'll walk with you to Gosa later."

"Doc said you already went. Softening everyone up for me?" she asked lightly, congratulating herself on keeping the tremor out of her voice. It wouldn't do to let Gen think that she was felt anything like guilt. She picked up the mantle of 'unconcerned slacker' and found that it still fit. "Look. I can pay the old man back. I don't have money right now, but I'll sell some more oranges. Problem solved."

Gen shook his head. "Who are you planning on selling them to?"

Bellemere examined her breakfast thoughtfully and realized this was the first meal in a week that she hadn't drunk.

"You have to work, Bellemere, by doing things like setting up contracts with buyers, hiring hands for the orchards, and at the very least, trimming the trees," Gen lectured.

The sausage had flecks in it. She wondered what they were. She hoped they were spices; she hated to think of the alternative.

"Are you listening to me?"

She snapped her fingers and grinned. "I got it! I'll pay with something better than money!"

"What's that?"

"Best currency on the island. Myself!"

Gen's knife and fork clattered onto his plate. "Bellemere!"

She grinned like a wolf over her breakfast. "The impression I make lasts much longer than anything you can buy with mere money."

Gen sputtered again, at a loss for words, and praying that she didn't think about who might have helped get her out of her clothes last night…

"What is it? Gen, are you choking?" Doc loomed in the doorway, carrying a plate of fruit. Oranges were a main feature.

"I'm being indecent," Bellemere explained and then put a big forkful of potatoes in her mouth.

"Ah, what's new," Doc muttered.

The rest of the breakfast consisted of Doc lecturing Bellemere about the state of her health, the continued effects of her drinking, and wondering exactly how many of her brain cells had been killed by last night's binge. Bellemere bore it with the injured air of a put upon martyr while Gen pretended he was more awake than he really was. The late nights and early mornings that involved cleaning up after Bellemere were beginning to wear on him.

When she'd filled her belly with the food, which had tasted even better than usual because it was free and hadn't been cooked by her, she pushed away from the table. "Thanks. It was great."

"Where are you going?" Gen asked, as he sipped his coffee.

She rolled her eyes. "I'll go see Malley and Chimo and apologize."

"It's early. They won't be expecting you yet."

"All the better the reason to go, huh? I'll catch them off guard, keep them from planning what they're going to lecture me about."

"You aren't embarrassed to go out, looking like that?"

Bellemere glanced down at her new clothes. "No."

Gen picked up his hat. "Then let's go."