He felt a presence through his Haki that he hadn't felt in quite a long time. Zoro. Zoro was here.

Sanji stared at the door in front of him, where his mother was waiting. He knew he should ignore the presence he felt. It might not even be anything at all. He could be mistaken. And his mother didn't like it when he was late. Even if it were Zoro, what could he expect? He couldn't return to his crew-mates. He couldn't abandon his mother. Seeing them would only make things more difficult.

But.

Sanji turned quickly away from the door and headed down the hall. The presence he felt was below him, so she was probably on one of the lower floors. He was going to see her one more time. He was going to explain everything. He was going to give them closure so that they could move on without guilt. He was going to explain that he was here of his own will.

When he made it to the first floor he paused. Zoro's presence was still below him. The only thing below this floor was the dungeons. Starting to panic, he took off in a run towards the door that led down to his childhood hell. As he turned a corner at the end of the hall, he ran into a wall of flesh. He stumbled back, but tried to shove the person away. He was blocked by a strong arm that shoved him backwards. Finally taking notice of him, Sanji looked at his older brother, Ichiji.

"Get out of my way." Sanji demanded, grabbing at his brother's shirt to try and shove him away. Ichiji jumped back out of his reach, however.

"I wondered when you'd realize she was here. A bit slow, eh brother? I've already tasted her." Ichiji taunted. "She's feisty isn't she? Just my type. I've got some ideas for her…"

"You bastard, what the hell did you do to her!?" Sanji yelled, enraged. He swung his foot at his brother, who caught it easily.

"Don't worry, she won't need her arms for what I have planned." The red-haired Vinsmoke laughed.

"What… what do you mean?" Sanji questioned, fear raising up in him.

"It's a secret." The man then struck Sanji in the stomach, causing the cook to crash backwards into the wall.

Luffy and Usopp looked up in awe as their carriage brought them towards the Vinsmoke castle.

"Whoa… Sanji's family is loaded…" Usopp said, his jaw slack.

"I bet the kitchen is huge… do you think we can get some grub while we're here? I'm starving." Luffy complained.

"Probably. We can search when we arrive… or maybe they'll take us straight there. They seem to think we're part of the family already. Our infiltration is a success! But I'm not sure what happened to Tra-guy. Maybe they are taking him in a different carriage?"

"He'll be fine."

"I still have his sword."

"Ohhh can I see it?"

"Sure. Its so long and heavy… here, you hold onto it for a while." Luffy gladly took the sword from Usopp and slung it over his shoulder as they arrived at the castle and one of the guards opened the carriage door for them.

One of Luffy's apple breasts had slid down his shirt towards his stomach. Usopp reached over and down his shirt, pulling it back up, to the odd looks of the guards. He noticed their expressions.

"It's okay… we're married." Usopp explained, wrapping his arm around Luffy's shoulders, right as Luffy also tried to explain by saying: "He's my brother." Usopp laughed nervously.

"I'm adopted… so it's fine. Uh, let me do the talking… honey." Usopp winked at Luffy. Luffy nodded and winked back.

"Got it, meat."

The two quickly scrambled away from the confused guards and into the castle. Once inside, they split up to cover more ground. Usopp took the first floor while Luffy when up the stairs. Usopp took the more sneaky method, by hiding behind various furniture and statues as he looked for any clues of Sanji's whereabouts. Luffy took the more straightforward method, and started shouting Sanji's name as he walked down the halls.

Usopp turned a corner and found a large door that said: Top Secret Laboratory written across the top of it. Thinking that this would be a good place to start, but also a very dangerous place to start, he passed the door and continued down the hall.

When he reached the end of the hallway though, he could hear voices shouting. He peered around a corner to see his crewmate, Sanji, fighting with the red-haired man they had met earlier. He stumbled backwards in fear as he watched Sanji smash into the wall beside him.

Deciding that it would be best if he stayed out of this obvious boss fight, he ran back down the hall. He skid to a stop, however, as he heard someone else walking towards his location. Cursing and then praying to god, Usopp slipped into the Top Secret Laboratory to avoid conflict.

The Top Secret Laboratory was just that, a laboratory. It had various machines and tanks of different types spread through out the room. It smelled of disinfectant and lemon, and there was a constant hum from the machines.

Usopp paused to take in the magnitude of the room itself. He had never seen anything like it before. He glanced around, and noting a presence at the far corner of the room, Usopp hid behind one of the tanks. There were voices echoing through the room but it was hard for Usopp to make out what they were saying. He leaned over, trying to understand what they were saying, when he realized that there was a floating arm in the tank he was leaning around. He practically yelped as he jumped back and looked at the tank he was behind fully. Inside the tank was a human being. The human was female, floating in a mysterious liquid, and her long blonde hair waved slightly with the rising bubbles of the tank.

Horrified at his finding, Usopp backed away as far as possible, bumping into another tank. It was another woman that looked exactly the same. He covered his mouth to keep from yelling. All around him, he was surrounded by tanks of people. There were several of the blond woman, but there were also men too.

Usopp edged back towards the door, thinking whatever was in the hallway was probably better than what was in here, but was stopped when the voices he heard earlier grew closer. He hid behind one of the large tanks again.

"Yes, and as soon as Sanji is officially announced as returning, we will strike." The voice said. Usopp frowned, the voice sounding familiar to him. He peered around as much as he could to see the same marine they had met at Punk Hazard, the marine with a tight ponytail and carrying a sword at his hip. The one who was a childhood friend of Zoro's.

"The clones should be ready early, by tomorrow. Make sure your men are ready as well." Came a deep rumbling voice. Usopp couldn't see the man from his vantage point, but he was obviously very large as his shadow was enormous.

"Aye aye." Kuino replied with a salute before exiting the room. The larger man turned back and went deeper into the lab. Usopp waited a few minutes then exited as well.

Sanji pulled himself free from the rubble that used to be one of the walls of the house. Sanji was fast, but Ichiji's raid suit was inhuman. No matter what attack he tried, his brother was always there, blocking it. Ichiji had tremendous control over his powerful suit, and his continuous mocking of Sanji didn't help the cook's concentration.

He was pushing himself up again, trying to think of some way to get past his brother, when a miracle happened.

Usopp burst out of the laboratory door right in front of them and paused, looking between the two.

"Uh oh…uhh.. ninja pepper ball!" Usopp shouted, throwing a pepper ball at the ground in front of him. Immediately smoke and pepper burst into the air, causing everyone to cough and cry as they tried to breath through it. Sanji covered his mouth and quick as possible, used the distraction to slide past his brother who immediately grabbed at Usopp. Ichiji noticed however, and let go of the marksman in a flash and dashed after his little brother.

Sanji made it to the door to the dungeons and flew down the stairs.

"Zoro! Zoro!" He shouted as he stumbled to the bottom and ran to grasp the bars of the prison cell he had been held in as a child. Ichiji followed quickly, enraged.

"Come here you little shit!" He growled, but stumbled to a halt at the cell as well.

The cells door had been smashed open, and there was no one inside.

Both men stared at the empty cell. Then they looked at one another. Then they looked back.

Zoro was lost. She swore she had passed by the same hallway once before, the one with the large painting of an evil looking man and severed heads.

Getting out of the cell had been quite easily actually. She just kicked the door down. Ichiji might be clever, but he was also greatly underestimating her abilities as well. She just wanted to find her swords and find Sanji. So far she had only found more empty hallways. This castle was enormous, and everything was decorated the same way.

She was getting tired, too. She had lost a lot of blood before and it had taken a lot of her strength to knock that door down. If she was going to break Sanji out of this, she would need to conserve her strength. She found a nice wall just outside one of the rooms on a semi secluded balcony and plopped herself down, leaning back and taking a nap.

Luffy was so hungry. He had passed by many people but they kept shouting at him or trying to attack him, which meant he had to fight them back. So, he was never able to get the instructions on how to get to the kitchen. He reached down into his shirt and pulled out one of the apples and started munching on that to keep his hunger at bay. His stomach continued to make noise even so.

A door to his left opened and Luffy stopped and watched as a beautiful woman with long blond hair, blue eyes and swirly eyebrows stepped out of the room. She looked surprised to see him but quickly smiled.

"Hello… You must be Luffy." Sora said. Luffy stared at her a moment, as he was obviously in disguise, so he thought she must be a very perceptive person. Then he realized that he had just ate half of his costume.

"…Right. Have you seen Sanji?" He asked, pulling the mop off of his head now that his disguise had been breached.

"Sanji? He was actually on his way to have tea with me. Something must have delayed him… why don't you come in though and we can wait for him together?" Sora asked, smiling brightly.

"Do you have any food?"

"Cheese and crackers?"

"Alright!" Luffy entered happily.

Sanji was torn between being extremely worried but also extremely relieved. On the one hand, it seemed that Zoro had escaped whatever torture Ichiji had put her through. On the other hand, the way he had talked about it and the traces of blood in the cell panicked him. He wanted to find her quickly and make sure with his own eyes that she was alright.

After discovering the cell was empty, both brothers dashed to see who could find her first, taking opposite sides of the castle.

Sanji could feel her presence somewhere, but couldn't pinpoint it exactly. She didn't seem to be moving, and Sanji had an idea of where she might be. He imagined that she probably got lost somewhere, and then gave up on the excuse of conserving energy. He headed for the stairs immediately, thinking of a certain balcony that had direct sunlight and a cool breeze.

Zoro cracked her eye open when she heard the door beside her swing open to the sound of panting. The figure stood in front of the sun, casting a shadow over her body. She recognized that form immediately.

"Sanji?"

Sanji turned around quickly to see her sitting up against the wall, staring up at him. He was wheezing, sweating, and looked like he hadn't slept in days.

"Zoro…" He stared down at her, almost in disbelief at seeing her again.

"You look like shit…" She said, but her smile was wide and brighter than the sun. She tried to stand but her immobile arms were giving her some trouble. Sanji instead dropped down on his knees in front of her and pulled her into his arms. He held her very tightly for a moment before pulling back and looking her over, worriedly.

"Are you okay? Oh god.. your arms… that bastard…! You need medical attention… damn it…" Sanji cursed, touching her arms lightly. His fingers danced around the edges of her wounds, inspecting them.

"Oi, Sanji." Zoro's fingers intertwined themselves into his dress shirt, as she looked up at the man.

"There's a medic on retainer, we can sneak to his room and get you patched up… don't worry, everything will be okay!"

"Oi—" Zoro pulled at his shirt slightly, now settled in his lap and the distance between them seemed to keep getting smaller.

"Did he do anything else to you? He mentioned… argh that bastard—"

"You shitty cook." Zoro annunciated slowly. Sanji blinked at the insult and looked at her, confused. She was within inches from his face.

"What..?" Sanji's panic had dissipated as he caught the expression on Zoro's face. It was a new look, one he hadn't seen before.

"Shut up." Zoro forced one of her weak hands up and she grabbed Sanji's tie and pulled him into a kiss. It was like a switch had been turned. Sanji's hands slipped around her waist and he pulled her flush against himself as he kissed the one he loved.

It was like all the feelings in him had burst forth in a series of kisses from butterfly to eskimo, to everything in between. Zoro found a pure sense of joy bubbling up within her and as she tried to keep up with her partner, snippets of giggles burst from her lips, which only spurred Sanji further.

"Why are you so damn cute…?" He asked as he tried to catch his breath, his forehead pressed against hers as he held her snugly in his arms.

"I missed you…" Zoro said, smiling at him, her heart thumping happily in her chest.

"I missed you more." Sanji captured her lips once again in a slow, chaste kiss before pulling back and slipping his fingers through her short hair. "Now… as much as I'd love to stay here…" He kissed her again. "My stupid brother is rampaging through the house looking for you…" He kissed her cheek. "And we need to get you bandaged up…" He kissed her jaw. Zoro arched up slightly. "…and out of here…" He kissed her neck.

No. Alarmed at his words, Zoro ignored the pain in her arms and reached up, grabbing Sanji's head gently and pushing him back, forcing him to look her in the eye.

"Don't you dare… I'm not going anywhere… we're facing this together." She stated, her eye narrowed and her voice determined. He stared back at her, surprised at the resolve in her expression.

"But… my family…" Sanji's expression had darkened suddenly.

"We'll kick the asses of those who deserve it and talk to the others." Zoro suggested, shrugging slightly. Sanji laughed and kissed her again.

Law didn't know how much time had passed since he had gotten in the barrel. He was certain he hadn't heard any voices in a few hours, and the constant bobbing of the barrel was starting to make him feel sick.

"Straw-hat-ya? Long-nose-ya? …Anyone? Hello?"

AN: Thank you all for reading :) I'm so happy our couple has finally reunited and their hijinks can ensue.