Final Departure

Chapter 6: Past, present (and future?)

"Why are you the one crying, now?!" Nami laughed out surprised with tears of relief gathering at the corners of her eyes.

"Shut up! I'm not crying!" the huge man in front of her wailed while covering his eyes with his arm as streams of water kept pouring down his face.

It had been two days since that last island and Nami had spent most of her time sitting in her room, listening to the rustling sound of her Climate Tact when she tilted the blue staff to the side. Naturally, she had felt like she didn't have the right to ask Franky for any favours after the things she had said to him. And yet, it had not just taken her this much time to come to his crafting room due to a lack of courage. What she had sought most from herself during those past two days, was acceptance. Nami had long known that she was in the wrong and yet, it had taken her all this time to bring herself to accept Franky as the crew member he was.

She had told him that. All of it. How hard she had tried to think of him as her Nakama... and how scared she had been to be 'replacing' Usopp by doing so. Even her fear of falling behind.

Jeez! This whole time she had given her best to try and keep it together, yet in return that big idiot was now sobbing like a baby, dragging her down the same road! It was pitiful, really...

...and alleviating.

"It's too sad! I understand your pain!" Franky sniffled while putting down one hand on Nami's shoulder comfortingly "The long-nosed Bro was a good guy!"

"To be honest" Nami seized the moment "I have a favour to ask."

She lifted her hand to hold out her Climate Tact to the curious shipwright, who was just beginning to calm down again.

o-o-o

Several minutes passed, since Franky had begun taking apart the Climate Tact. It all seemed very simple on the outside, everything held together by only screws and no seams, speaking of a certain simplicity. Yet, on the inside the shipwright was surprised by the fine mechanics working the complex weapon. There was no question that the cyborg was an outstanding mechanic, however, working with own designs is always different from being confronted with another person's creations. Just looking at this staff made it clear that Usopp was a skillful inventor and yet... it was also evident that he wasn't familiar with any of the conventional guidelines of crafting. He simply made up for it by using an admirable, but unfortunately very specific and individual amount of creativity that would be hard to decipher or copy during the repair. What troubled Franky the most though was a broken piece that would certainly need replacement. He picked up the shattered item before holding his hand out to his waiting Nakama.

"Any idea what this could be? It looks like a simple shell to me, but that wouldn't make any sense as centerpiece of the weapon."

"Shell...?" Nami repeated confused, then realisation crept upon her as she stared at the white shards. "That must be...a Dial...breath...maybe?"

"Dial?"

Nami looked at the man who was repeating her words to her, before finally she began to grasp that Franky couldn't possibly understand what she was talking about.

"I'm sorry, I forget you weren't there..." she noted, trying to sort out her somewhat distraught thoughts. "It's a special instrument we got from an island some time ago. There's no going back there now, so-"

"No replacement, huh?" the mechanic finished her explanation in her stead. "What does this 'Dial' do? Maybe I could-"

"It's fine!" the young woman interrupted quickly, grasping the two unopened pipes of her staff and clasping them tightly. She was such and idiot... Usopp had told her back then that he had improved the Climate Tact by including Dials. How could she go and break them?!

"Could you please just close it up again?" she suddenly spoke to him. Then Nami looked up smiling. "I'll just use it as a staff, the way I did before. I'm sure it'll be fine!"

Worriedly,0 Franky observed the trembling girl who stared at the remaining parts of her weapon in her hand.

"You know" he finally suggested "I have a lot of spare weapons you could use. Pistols and guns, up to bazookas! Just take your pick!"

Nami shivered at the thought.

"I can't" she spoke quietly "Guns are for killing."

The young woman could see the amused protest form on her Nakama's lips, itching to inform her of the redundant nature of her statement. Hesitantly, she decided to share the cause of her uneasiness.

"My mother was shot in front of me. I know that people die at our hands occasionally, it comes with the job description, but still... Guns aren't made to stall the enemy or knock them out. They're purely destructive, made to threaten and kill arrogantly and uncaringly..."

o-o-o

Nami sighed when she stepped back outside, welcoming the fresh air over the pressuring smell of steam and working utensils such as paint and glue. Out here the air was live and moving, weaving trails of salt water around her skin. The wind had picked up by now, much as she had expected. She had known for long that a storm was coming. It wouldn't be extraordinary though, a little rain and rough sea, nothing they couldn't handle.

The young navigator indulged in the sensation of the weather around her. On the outside she could feel the warm wind of the current climate, mingled with the refreshing occasional raindrops hitting her skin sporadically. It was so very different from everything she had been feeling on the inside lately... Yes, the weather was her Nakama and, ironically enough, one of the few constants in her life that she knew to rely on. And only now Nami got aware that Usopp had very much understood that fact about her a long time ago.

Slowly, the girl walked forward into direction of where her lone captain was lying on what remained of the grass that Franky had placed throughout Sunny. Much of it had been burned when that cannonball hit the mast, however, there was still enough left for a little hide-out when things got rough. And things had most definitely gotten rough lately... Whether Nami felt any guilt for what had happened between them, she couldn't even tell. However, there was an odd feeling of consolation in the fact that during those past two days, for the first time since Usopp was gone, Luffy had finally given into a certain gloom. There had been no more fishing advances, no stealing from other people's plates, no yelling about or silly laughs. Unfortunately no talking either...

Nami thought about all those times that she had yelled at her captain and beaten him up over money or simple annoyance. She was aware, that this time had been different. This time all of her words and attacks had been utterly genuine and by any means... personal.

The young woman stopped in front of the boy who was sprawled on the floor. Then she let the three pipes in her hand clatter onto the soft ground next to him, rousing Luffy to lazily open his eyes and let his gaze wander towards the items beside him.

„It's broken."

Slowly, Nami sat herself down, then lay back into the moist grass next to her captain.

„I had Franky take a look at it, but it's no use."

The girl closed her eyes, listening to the rain gently falling around them as she wondered what she even wanted here. She hadn't come to apologise and she wasn't even sure if Luffy was listening to a word she said.

„Franky tried to convince me to use a firearm, you know? You wanna hear something funny though?"

Maybe she would just talk, see if she could get him to understand anything... in the end she would still have to make that one request after all, the one that Luffy wouldn't even let her voice out two days ago.

„Even if I had accepted, it seems like he couldn't even have shown me how to use it. Looks like, as a cyborg, all of his aiming is programmed automatically, so there's no way he could actually teach anyone on that matter." Nami paused, before finishing her thought. „In the end, he's just not a real sniper."

The tangerine-haired girl didn't need to look at her company to know that by now there would be a little annoyance showing on his face. She also didn't care.

„It's ironic somehow, but you know what? I'm actually kind of happy about that. Even such a super-human like Franky has something where he can't match Usopp's skills after all."

Nami's hand crept with her lost weapon on the ground, stilling it from the ship's movement.

„Did you know that Usopp was the one who made the Climate Tact for me? I told him I needed a weapon that would get me at an equal level with you all and he actually did the impossible and designed such a thing for me! I never even thought about it before, you know? How much thought he put into every single part of it. A staff, because it's what I was accustomed to fighting with. The manipulation of the weather to keep me in my element. He even included an attack for the sole purpose of making it easier for me to run off instead of fighting!" Nami laughed at that before wiping her eyes. „It's amazing how he chose all of this so deliberately. Usopp really knew-"

„It doesn't matter anymore" Luffy's voice finally broke the girl's monologue, his tone tinted with an expected aggravation. „Usopp was here, now he's not. That's all there is to it."

Nami pushed herself back up now to sit in the grass while leaning back on her palms. She looked over at her captain, who still had his eyes closed, a hurt expression creeping over her own features.

„That's right" she reflected sadly. „That's exactly how you are, isn't it? Not caring about the past that is..."

Nami took a deep breath. She had sworn to never allow herself to be hurt over this, let alone talk about it, and yet...

„I know, you know?" she finally spoke, trying to keep her tone calm. „About back when we were at Cocoyashi Island. Nojiko told me about when she met you guys, she talked to you about my past. She also told me that you left."

For a moment the young woman had to pause when her voice began to waver. She felt her heart speed up by the second as she battled her feelings inside, torn between the wish of sharing her harboured hurt with this person dear to her and the fear of, by uttering this accusation, betraying the one who had saved her so selflessly.

„Don't get me wrong" she finally continued „I'm grateful for all that you've done for me. I'll always be grateful! I understand you did not need a reason like compassion to drive you to do anything for me. You helped me because you were looking at the person I was at the time and not at my past, but you know... it still... hurts."

Nami wiped away some strands of hair that were clinging onto her face from the by now somewhat stronger rain while waves began rocking the ship more fiercely.

„Even if you don't care to see it, but my past was a part of the person I was back then. And it is still a part of the person I am now." She took a deep breath, calming herself before she spoke her next words „And just like that everything that happened between you and Usopp is a part of the person you are right now. I understand that you don't dally in the past, you live in the now and strive for what lies ahead of you, but simply neglecting everything that happened the way you do-"

The young woman stopped mid-sentence when Luffy finally pushed himself up, a vexed expression spread across his face.

„I don't care about the past?" he murmured in a low voice, his hand reaching up to lay down on his treasured hat. „All of my goals go back to a promise from the past, so don't-"

The pirate captain froze when his hand went through nothing before touching his own drenched hair. Immediately, his eyes shot open. Then he jumped up, spinning around distraught.

„My hat! Where the hell is my hat?!" he shrieked, when a hand grasped his from below, managing to stall the panicked teen for a moment.

„Calm down, will you? I've got your hat on my desk. You left it on the beach, two days ago" Nami explained a little annoyed. Carefully, she tugged at the hand that quickly grew limp in her grasp, trying to coax the shocked boy to sit back down, when a whistling noise howled through the air, engaging in an explosion and then salt water spraying down on them.

A cannon shot?!

Nami jumped to her feet, then felt Luffy's hand slip from hers as he hurried to the rail. Quickly, the young woman hasted up the stairs to the aft deck, trying to hold a grasp of the situation herself. She had to squint her eyes against the wind and the rain, but there it was, a Marine ship was following right behind! How could no one have noticed until now?

The girl spun around when another cannonball was fired at them, then her eyes fell on Luffy who had already made it to the spot of the expected impact. He threw up his arms as he readied himself into a solid stance, when suddenly something rushed down in front of him from above, followed by the sound of iron clashing with steel.

„ZORO?!" Nami shouted surprised. What the hell was he doing here? Had he seen the attack from the crow's nest? Nami watched baffled at the scene unfolding on the deck below, where tension immediately filled the air. Zoro hadn't come to his captain's rescue, he knew that Luffy had been on top of things. This had been nothing but a plain display of dominance!

Luffy only had a moment to adjust to his swordsman's sudden presence, then his eyes shot open before he hasted to the side, where another cannonball was crashing into the ship's rail with a forceful explosion. He hadn't made it in time...

As the attack continued, cannonballs were finally cut in half and flung back one after another while more of their crew members streamed out to the deck one by one, roused by the commotion. Nami hardly took notice of any of the happenings anymore, her gaze fixated on the enemy pursuing them. Even though Sunny was such a magnificent ship, their adversary seemed to be catching up steadily. They had gotten in the advantage by their unnoticed earlier advance and were now pressuring the imminent threat of actually ensuing in an on-deck fight! Judging by the size and remarkable speed of the vessel, those Marines were no ordinary bunch on patrol either. There had to be a higher ranked officer on board. Nami hasted to the other side, to retrieve her weapon that she had left on the ground.

„Franky!" the girl shouted, when her gaze was caught on the shipwright hasting by. Quickly, she hurried down and into direction of Sunny's front, signaling her waiting Nakama to follow. In the ship's fore, Nami walked to the rail, holding onto it tightly as the by now rather high waves forcefully rocked the ship back and forth.

„Get down to the engine room!" she finally commanded Franky „I need your Coup de Burst, we're getting out of here!" Immediately, she could see the cyborg's questioning face lighten up.

„Aye aye" he shouted before opening the hatch and climbing down to the lower deck.

„Wait!" Nami ordered again, her eyes fixed on the rough waters beneath them. „Don't just set it off. Wait until I give you the signal!"

The shipwright uttered another confirmation whilst vanishing below at last. The young navigator gazed back at the sea. They could make for a good distance, if she managed to wait for the right moment. Another wave rushed against the ship's bow and Nami hooked her arm around the rail, not to be thrown off of her feet. When she next opened her eyes against the wind and the rain, lashing over her face, she finally saw what she had sought.

„Nami!" Franky's voice caught her ear.

„Not yet!" she cried back immediately. The timing had to be perfect! Not yet, she thought again as she watched the next wave surge beneath the ship, beginning to carry them high. Not yet!

Nami spun around when the wave had almost reached it's peak.

„NOW!"

The ship engaged in a familiar rumble when Franky pulled the lever, then Sunny shot forward from the peak of the last wave, proudly dashing through the air. Nami looked back relieved. The perfect timing! Once out of the water, there was hardly any friction slowing them down. They would get as far away, as the Coup de Burst could carry a ship. She held her hand over her face, when a first glint of sunrays hit her eyes. Then it was as if they broke through a wall as the ship erupted from the storm, leaving rain and clouds behind. Roughly, Sunny rushed back down onto the water's surface, immediately being slowed down by the forces standing against the ship's motion. Nami felt the sun warm her soaked-through body. They had made it! The marines would be trapped in the weather front for another while, while they could sail off peacefully.

„Suuper!" Nami heard Franky's voice speak to her as he emerged from below the deck. Quickly, the man made it over to his startled Nakama, giving her an encouraging, although almost painful clap on the back. „There you go" he then spoke to her somewhat quietly. „You don't even need your weapon to stand up against the enemy!"

Standing up? The girl thought bitterly. She hadn't even been close to standing up against anyone. The moment when she had gotten aware that there may be a hands-on fight, all she could think about was fleeing...

Finally, the two strolled back to the rest of their crew, where everyone was sorting themselves out after the unexpected flight, some of them visibly happy about the brightness and warmth of the sun, some others utterly fixated on other matters. Nami eyes immediately caught on Luffy's tensed stance, his stressed state over Zoro's unexpected presence openly at display.

Sanji fumbled in his chest pocket while the green-haired man across from him let himself fall back onto the bench that wrapped around the mast, his arms crossed and his eyes closed.

„By the way..." Zoro suddenly rumbled while getting unusually comfortable where he sat „...there's an island coming up."

Immediately, everyone's gazes were secretly directed at the swordsman, waiting for him to make his way back to the crow's nest. After all, Zoro had not set foot on dry land in weeks.

He didn't move.

Sanji pulled up his cigarettes from his shirt pocket, then shoved them back inside, seeing how they were thoroughly soaked. Damn! That had been his last package, too...

Author's Notes:

Finally, another update on one of my open stories! I'm hoping to be updating Final Departure a bit more frequently from here on, however I'm kinda busy with stuff like... ACTUALLY GOING TO JAPAN! Sorry for going off-topic, I just had to mention it somehow!

Apart from that, thank you all so much for all your reviews and support and please enjoy the next chapter! I have been wanting to reply to your reviews one by one like I did during Happiness Punch, however I'm somewhat afraid I would go and start spoiling the upcoming chapters if I did, so please don't be disappointed, I still love all your reviews!