When Sanji awoke, it was with the feeling that he was missing several large and rather important chunks of his memory. Why was he sleeping in the galley? He recognized the smells from his kitchen in an instant, even dazed with sleep and with his eyes closed. There was a terrible taste in his mouth, and the more he came to, the more his body complained. Why was he aching everywhere like this?
Some of what was going on with his body - especially his stomach - reminded him unpleasantly of the first time he had gotten into the liquor store at the Baratie. That had been some stupid attempt to impress Zeff with something, he couldn't remember what, and it had failed spectacularly. The aftereffects were something he had happily avoided thinking about for a long time now. Had there been something with drinking? Sanji vaguely recalled Zoro and Luffy urging him to finish something... but surely that wasn't it? A party would not explain why his eyes still refused to open.
Neither would a party explain why he recognized something else. On each side of him, one of his crewmates. But not Robin and Nami - no, for some reason he was cuddling with what could only be his drooling captain and a snoring swordsman. It made him slightly more anxious to remember the events of the night before.
The night before... the day before. With the island, and the flower.
The memories didn't come nicely lined up one by one, but all in a jumble, intense and confusing. All the impressions, the bone-aching cold, the darkness. Falling. The storm, the woods, the stream, and the cave. It wasn't all making sense - how had he gone from being in the forest to falling into the sea? But it did explain why he was hurting, and more or less what the others were doing there. The darkness... His throat constricted, and he could feel his heart accelerate in his chest. If he was on the ship, if they had found Chopper, why could he still not open his eyes?
So far Sanji had kept from trying anything more strenuous than opening his eyes, but when he did he found that he could move his hand without any greater difficulty. He had to tug it free of somebody's arm, and blankets that weighed far more than blankets should be allowed to, but at least it obeyed him better than his eyes, and didn't hurt much at all. Very good. The hand was finally level with his face. There he hesitated for a moment, but only a moment. With his bare fingertips, he traced his cheek up to the edge of - bandages. Covering his eyes. His let his hand fall down on the blankets, and released a breath he had not even been aware that he was holding. He needed a cigarette. Badly.
The motion had attracted attention. At his side, Zoro stirred. Sanji didn't know why he was so sure it was the swordsmaster - he had known it ever since he woke up. Maybe he did remember a little bit of last night, now that he thought about it. Zoro had been so warm, and Sanji so cold, and... He flushed, and wondered dismally if there was any way he could exchange that particular memory for one that would allow him keep some of his dignity intact.
"So you're awake now," Zoro remarked in a low voice.
"Yeah." Sanji's throat felt raw when he answered, his voice hardly more than a rasp. Desperate for a distraction from the returning memories - any distraction - he blurted out the first thing that came to his mind after that. "What happened to my legs?" Sanji was pretty certain that none of his memories included information on why they felt as if he had been using them to stop cannon balls.
"Ah, that? That was probably the landslide," Zoro said casually.
"Landslide?" Sanji's rasp was louder this time.
"Yeah."
"What landslide? I don't remember any landslide." Sanji would have had more questions about that, if he had not been distracted by the sleepily cheerful voice from his other side.
"Oh, Sanji! You're warm!" Luffy emphasized his approval of that by snuggling closer under the blankets.
Sanji had to agree that it was a good thing, being warm. From what he could puzzle out, the lack of being warm had played a pretty large part in last night's events. It even made him inclined to accept a little snuggling.
Around them, small sounds indicated that they were not the only ones in the kitchen, or the only ones waking up. Usopp mumbled a sleepy "good morning", and Sanji could hear Nami yawn, and imagined her stretching. The distraction that mental image caused led to a brief moment of total oblivion to anything else going on, which was only interrupted as realization struck - it was morning already, and he hadn't cooked a meal since yesterday's lunch. The ladies would have had to make do with whatever was available, and with him out of the way, who knew how much Luffy had left them?
"Oi, get off!" Sanji shoved at Luffy. "I've got to make breakfast, move."
As expected, the mention of food had an immediate effect on his captain. Luffy bounced away as fast as if he had rocketed himself. "I want meat!"
"I'll see if we have any left," Sanji sighed. It was only when he tried to stand up that he realized there was another obstacle still left to overcome. Zoro's hand pressed down on his chest, effectively pinning him to the mattress.
"Idiot." The word came from right above Sanji's face, and he could feel the swordsmaster's solid weight dent the mattress as Zoro leaned over him.
"What? Get away from me, asshole!" Sanji's legs might be bruised, but that didn't mean he couldn't use them to kick the stupid swordsman's head. He arched back, brought his knees almost to his chin and then kicked up, all in one quick moment. Zoro kept his hand firmly in place as he avoided the blow with a curse, but when he jerked back he banged into the table.
The impact prompted a startled cry from Chopper. "Ah! I'm awake, I'm awake! What?" He sounded much more asleep than awake, until he discovered what his patient was up to. That definitely woke him up. "Zoro! Sanji! What are you doing?" the doctor yelled, horrified. There was a rapid patter of hooves against planks, and then he was at their side, interrupting their scuffle.
From under the significant weight of a lot of Zoro, Sanji wheezed, "Breakfast."
"What you said," the swordsman explained simultaneously. "Keeping him from doing anything stupid until you can check on him." Even without being able to see it, Sanji knew he had the full force of one of Zoro's glares directed at him now.
"Breakfast isn't stupid," Luffy remarked. This went largely ignored, but Sanji could hear Nami get up - probably preparing to bodily keep their captain from interfering further if she had to.
With Chopper about to admonish him, Sanji stopped squirming under Zoro's hold, changing his tactics.
"Okay. Do what you have to do now, and then you'll see I'm fine. I can make breakfast, no problem."
"So you can see now?" Zoro said, inexplicably exasperated. A hush fell over the room, and Sanji himself felt suddenly cold. He raised a hand to the bandages covering his eyes.
"I..."
"Yes," Chopper said firmly. "You should be able to, now, after the medicine." The pressure from Zoro's hand disappeared, and the mattress stopped listing as the swordsman stood up.
"You were lucky," the doctor continued. "It wasn't so bad, what I treated last night, and I washed it out and made a good compress for it - don't you remember?"
Sanji shook his head. Maybe that would come back to him later, but right now that was one of the pieces of his memory that remained missing.
"You said you were fine," Chopper said accusingly.
"Well... I am now?" Sanji felt vaguely guilty with the little reindeer rebuking him like this. "So, uh, can you take this off now?" He indicated the bandage wrapped around his head.
Chopper thought about it for a minute, and Luffy took advantage of the silence to request a breakfast of meat, since he had not gotten any for supper.
"Okay," the doctor finally agreed. "Maybe it needs more time, but... you're strong!" The unabashed admiration in the middle of what Sanji had expected to be a medical explanation made him smile.
The unmistakable sound of Chopper's footsteps came closer, and Sanji sat up, wincing a bit at the stiffness in his muscles. He bent his head so that the reindeer would be able to reach.
A change of pressure around his head followed as the doctor deftly undid the fastening and started unwinding the bandage. It was done in almost no time at all, and then Chopper wiped off what felt like some kind of cool paste that had been covering his eyelids with a soft cloth.
"It's good, it looks good." Chopper's words were followed by an encouraging pat on Sanji's arm. "Try opening your eyes now. Carefully!"
His stomach tight with apprehension, Sanji did what he was told. He still would have done it slowly, even if the doctor had not urged him to, because it was the only way he could right now. His eyelashes were glued together, from Chopper's paste or something else Sanji didn't know - he didn't want to know. Forcing the eyelids open caused his eyes to sting, but not worse than on too-early mornings when the light was too bright and his head still heavy with wine.
The first impression when his eyes cracked open came like a kick in the guts - it was dark. Solid darkness, and for a moment he feared that Chopper had failed. Gradually it changed, shifted. Like swimming up from deep waters, there was wavering light in his vision now. And as when the surface grew nearer, there was more and more light, and shapes began to appear. Distorted at first, impossible to focus on through the shifting layers of blurriness, he could finally distinguish color, then form. There was pink, fuzzy pink, and brown, all soft around the edges, and a shimmering, wobbly dot of blue.
Sanji tried to take it in all at once, drinking his fill of color and shapes and movement. After spending so long in the unending dark, he was as greedy for them as a thirsty man in a desert is for water. It quickly got to be too much. His eyes watered and the world melted into an indistinct jumble of colors, but not before he managed to catch a glimpse of anxiously staring eyes.
"Heh. Chopper, you did great." Sanji smiled without reserve even as he blinked away tears. "Thank you."
"I don't need your thanks, dumbass! Don't think it will make me happy!" The only thing that might possibly match his own soaring relief was the little doctor's enormous pride - and his frenetic attempts to hide it. They failed, of course - Sanji didn't need eyes to tell how happy Chopper was right now.
The doctor made an effort to pretend like his outburst had not happened. "Sanji, you can see?"
"Yeah." Sanji was still smiling, and around him he could hear his nakama reacting with various levels of enthusiasm and relief at the news. He was anxious to see them, even though he knew they were right there. He forced his watering eyes open again. This time the world around him was much sharper and brighter. It was as if he was right under the surface, water only glass-thin above him, the others fading in and out of his vision. "A bit blurry, but that's passing."
"Ah! Yes, that should get better in a while. Your eyes were hurt, so they need rest, just like you. But they'll be fine!"
"So, does that mean I get to make breakfast?"
"You should probably rest..." Sanji got the feeling that a hard battle between professionalism and hunger was being fought right in front of him.
"I'll make those cookies with the yellow frosting for you?" The temptation of one of Chopper's favorite treats was enough to tip the scales in favor of hunger.
"Okay!"
"And meat!" Luffy cheered from the background.
"But be careful!"
"Sure." Sanji patted his shirt, then his pants, feeling for his cigarettes. They were not there. Before he had a chance to ask about them, Chopper interrupted.
"You can't smoke now."
Sanji knew which battles he could win, and which he should leave for later. If he neglected to say anything now, there was a chance the doctor would forget to tell him how long this "now" was to last for.
"Right," he agreed obediently. Chopper looked surprised, but Sanji only shrugged, and as he had been hoping, the doctor was not suspicious enough to elaborate.
Sanji's eyes were managing to stay open longer and longer before they watered shut, and he was rediscovering how to blink. When he raised his head, he could see Nami, Usopp and Luffy following the proceedings from right behind Chopper. Zoro and Robin were sitting opposite each other at the end of the table, but their attention also seemed fixed on him and the doctor.
"Ahh, Nami-san, Robin-chan! You won't have to go hungry anymore, I will take care of you now!" With newfound strength, Sanji did his best to bounce to his feet. It worked pretty well, all things considered. Luffy laughed, but didn't say anything. He looked pleased, though.
Usopp had been hovering at the corner of Sanji's vision for a little while now. Before Sanji could move to grab an apron and start cooking, the sharpshooter was there. Usopp burst out into an explanation of lights and mirrors and glass, and there was something about giants and lighthouses there too, but what got Sanji's attention was the mention of certain kitchenware of his. "Wait. Back up. You did what with my large glass bowl?"
"Uh. I put it in the Emergency Beacon?" Which did not explain much, except when Sanji quickly looked for it, said bowl was not in its usual place.
"Yeah. And where is it now?"
Usopp laughed, nervously it seemed to Sanji. "Well, you see, the amazing light that I put together and used to find you, it kind of... cracked it. A bit."
"You cracked the bowl?"
"It was to find you! You're lucky it lasted as long as it did, because without it you would have been left in that storm. Ah, if only it hadn't cracked, then I could have set it up on the mast, and the Going Merry would have been the ship able to light up the night on the whole Grand Line!"
Sanji had been distracted with blinking, but he managed to focus on Usopp now. All in all, a bowl was a small price to pay for the seeing and warmth and working lungs and friends all around him. He surprised Usopp with his smile, he could tell. "I'm sorry I missed that."
And that surprised Usopp even further, to the point where the sharpshooter stuttered a bit before managing to get his reply out. "Yeah. It was really cool." The words were subdued, for Usopp, but full of wistful pride.
The comfortable silence between them was interrupted by a sweet and lovely voice. Nami had apparently become interested in their conversation.
"Usopp?" she asked, smiling at sharpshooter, who had for some reason decided to start backing away from the navigator.
"Um. Yes?"
"The little mirror you borrowed from me, the one you said I would have right back... where is it?"
There was some further backing on Usopp's part, which led him straight out through the kitchen door - too far away for Sanji to focus properly on. "I think a giant albatross, the one that that swept down on us last night got enraged and... pecked it with its mighty beak? But I can fix it, don't worry!" With that he turned tail and fled. Nami didn't run, but followed him. There were not that many places to hide on the ship.
This gave Sanji a bit more of peace and quiet in the kitchen, not to mention space to work in. When he turned, he found that Zoro was no longer in the room, and Robin was lost to the world in some book at the end of the table. Chopper had taken a seat close to him, and was following Sanji's every move with a critical eye. Which only left Luffy in his way. Well, if there were any ingredients left to work with, not even his captain could get in the way of making this a breakfast to remember. Sanji felt like celebrating.
Outside, the sun had risen in a clear sky only occasionally dotted with little white tufts of cloud. The temperature was nice and warm - obviously they had left the islands with colder seasons behind during the night. The deck was almost dry already, and Zoro had made himself comfortable on a nice spot right by the kitchen door. He had just finished vigorously cleaning his katanas, especially the one he had been forced to get all sticky. After the wet parts of last night's adventure, there had not been as much gunk left to get rid of as he had feared, and he had quickly polished all three to a shine. Now it was finally time for a well-deserved nap.
The nap didn't last for very many seconds before it was interrupted by loud voices from within the galley. The first was Luffy's, brimming with excitement over something.
"Hey, Sanji - did you bring any of the meat flower with you?"
Ah, so that was it. Food. Of course. Sanji would have fun with this one.
"It's not a - I didn't - What?"
"To cook! I wanna eat it!"
As if there had ever been any doubt of that - was there anything Luffy didn't want to eat?
"You can't eat it! Besides, it's a plant, why'd you want to eat that?"
Well, true. Vegetables were very low on Luffy's list of things he liked to eat.
"'Cause it eats meat! So it's a super-meat plant! It'd be like eating all the meat it's ever eaten at once!"
With a grin, Zoro leaned back against the cool planks of the outer wall, the sun warming the last of the night's chill out of him.
"...no. No, It wouldn't."
He didn't envy the cook right now.
"Yes!"
Luffy could be very persistent. Unfortunately, Sanji's explanation was delivered in tones too low to make out from where Zoro was sitting. His captain's answer, however, was clear.
"Ah, it's a mysterious super-meat plant."
About half a second later, the door slammed open right next to Zoro's head, and Luffy came flying out, followed by a colorful curse. That had been a pretty good kick. If Sanji was well enough to beat up Luffy, he really would be fine. Zoro smiled, and went back to sleep.
First of all, I hope you will all forgive me for the liberties I've taken with real life medicine. (And with that I mean that I totally ignored it in favour of using the amazing One Piece style "Shounen Science" to fix Sanji up.)
Writing this was great fun, and I want to thank everyone who has left me comments and words of encouragement. It has made sharing my writing a wonderful experience, and one I will gladly repeat.
Finally, a huge thank you to Xparrot, for being a wonderful inspiration, for careful and patient editing of this story, and for being my neechan. Love you, and I'm so glad you enjoyed your present!