Author's note:

First things first: Have you read the latest chapter of the manga? It had me fangirling like crazy, I mean how awesome an entrance was that? Finally they are back! Spoiler alert: I'm so much looking forward to Ronin-Zoro/Geisha Robin fanwork!

Now on to the main part:

As always thanks to Alyah727 and also a huge thank you to all of you who followed and favorited this story and I'm happy for every review I get, thank you very much!

What happened so far:

Last time Zoro was brooding on a way to get out of this very awkward chemistry between him and Robin and today we'll see how his plan went and Robin's reaction and maybe something you guys have been waiting for!

And now without any further ado, on to the good stuff (I hope)

3

She was always thinking, overthinking even, always analyzing everything she laid her eyes upon, anything happening around her, but right now her mind was completely blank. She did not think of how he was walking contradiction, always asleep yet never missing anything happening in his surroundings; always gruff and harsh, yet caring for the younger members of the crew with a fatherly love that belied his youth; always fearless in battle yet driven by the trepidation of losing all of them; his body hard as steel, yet his touches soft like a butterfly's wing. She just felt his lips on hers, the warmth of his hand hovering tentatively just inches above her hips. Considering how often in the last weeks she had thought about the possibility of this happening it took her entirely too long to respond, to move her lips against his, to wrap her arms around his strong neck and melt against him in a way she wanted to since the day she had fled the infirmary in abstract innocent fear.

It was over as suddenly as it had started, he pulled back, cheeks clearly pink even with the night's shadow shrouding them in comfortable darkness. His hand, that had been too shy to touch her, found its way behind his head in the same way it always did whenever he was unsure about something and tried to compensate for it with light humour or nonchalance. The "sorry," he muttered was almost too quiet to pick up for her and yet it resonated loudly in her skull "shouldn't have done that".

Of course he shouldn't have, they should not, they were Nakama after all. That was a logical explanation, but the tiny voice in the back of her head screamed at her that she was too old for him. He could have anyone he wanted; why should he settle for an old lady? She smiled at him, since he had the decency not to just up and leave. She owed him at least that, "You're right, Zoro-san, if we let ourselves get distracted we might be crushed by the mast, since we wouldn't hear it break," she said lightly, imitating her usual morbid sense of humour and hoping that he would buy it, or at least accept it for what it was; her try to find back to normalcy, to go back to how things had been before all this. "Nami would triple our debt for sure," he laughed, strained, but a laugh nonetheless. She raised a fine brow, "Your debt, after all from the last 10 minutes it's you who is on duty, Zoro-san." He grunted in response and made for the crow's nest.

With a hand over her thundering heartbeat she surveyed the few people lingering in the harbour, hoping no one had witnessed their display. It wouldn't do to have such a thing go public.

He had been on his way to town when he had seen her. He came over and told her that she should stop feeling guilty, since she was not responsible for his recklessness on the last island and that he hoped everything could get back to normal. Gods he was so innocent! It had made her laugh, she had been so afraid of his observation skills that she had not taken into account how naive he seemed to be when it came to women. Getting comfortable in the lookout for her shift she had watched his retreating form getting lost on the main road to town, thinking whether or not she should let him know that the guilt she still felt about that incident was not the reason for her avoiding him. When he had returned to relief her from her duties around midnight, his gait sluggish and his breath heavy with alcohol she had welcomed him at the railing. Unimpressed by the scowl on his face, that had told her his evening had not proceeded as planned, she had decided to use his inebriated state to get rid of the emotional ballast she had carried about for the last weeks; hoping he would just chalk it up to some conversation he had witnessed in the bar or at the docks the next day. "I didn't feel guilty, swordsman, I just liked what I saw", she had said and regretted it the moment the words had left her mouth. The clouds had left his eye, his back straightened, all his senses had seemed to zero in on her in an instant and a moment later his lips had been on hers and all her thoughts had gone silent.

The next day everything was almost back to normal, apart from that twinge of regret she felt whenever she laid eyes upon him. The day after that she returned to the crow's nest where she would read to his grunts and the barbells' chimes, where she would eventually fall asleep and be covered by the rough old blanket when she awoke. Everything was back to normal except she wanted him. She wanted him in a way many men had wanted her in her past but never had she wanted any man in that way and it confused her beyond belief.

He was a boy, in age and experience, compared to her at least. How could she be interested in him? Oddly enough it was not his body that put the cover models of her guilty pleasures to shame, or his gruff persona that had the tavern girls swooning. She had known strong and gruff in her past and had not appreciated it at all, if anything, it should keep her on edge.

Savoring the soft chocolatey taste of her coffee on her tongue she concluded that it had to be that softness; the gentleness with which he held his swords whenever he wasn't fighting, the diligence with which he kept them in shape, protecting them from the corroding salt all around them like they protected him whenever he was surrounded by enemies. Protection. That was another of his qualities. The fierce aura he exudes, when faced with peril, had lesser men cowering in fear but kept his Nakama calm and confident. He calmed them. Be it fear or excitement he had a way of grounding all of them. Even his fights with their chef or navigator helped them to vent unneeded energy or agitation, calming them in the process. Didn't look like that at first glance. She turned a page of her copy of "Poxy Island: last mystery in the north blue" in an attempt to keep up the appearance of not being lost in thought. Of course the others were aware that she sometimes just sat and thought, but when her thoughts circled about her newly found libido she preferred them not knowing anything about it.

I really hope you liked this, in the beginning I was thinking about ending it with this chapter, or better halfway through that chapter. You know, a kind of bittersweet ending, but as it turns out, I'm a sucker for happy ends.

Please let me know what you think about this one. I know, the more romance there is in a One Piece fanfic the more the characters get OOC, but I'm doing my best here!