Death By Water

The sky and sea that day were brilliant. Deep green ocean waves, topped with creamy white foam, seemed almost to imitate alpine mountains in summer, while overhead the sky glittered like aquamarine. Gulls wheeled above a small Caravel ship, cawing happily.

But from inside the ship's kitchen there came only the sound of grieving.

It wasn't fair. It wasn't right. Those were Sanji's disjointed thoughts as he smoked a desperate cigarette by the kitchen table. One of them should have seen - should have been there to catch him and pull him back from the dark, as they had all done so many times before. How ironic and so utterly twisted that the one time it had counted, nobody had been there at all.

Of course, there had been the battle, all black smoke and confusion and wood splinters flying like miniscule daggers every which way. No one had the luxury of guarding a friend; all energy was spent on beating back the roiling horde. And somewhere in that dark mess of shouting and blood, he fell, his cries - if indeed he had cried out at all - lost among the others. They didn't notice. They didn't search for him. He died alone, in the water, and they only learned of his passing when he bobbed up to the surface, pale and cold like so much debris.

The guilt was terrible. That he was lost to the ocean - that was not even the worst of it. No, the worst - the very worst - was the solitude and anonymity of the crime. To not be alone, to take solace in kindred spirits: wasn't that what had brought them together and kept them whole? Sanji mulled over the thought bitterly as he surveyed the room. As if in self-punishment, his companions were scattered, each to his own corner to bear the weight of grief alone. They all blamed themselves.

Chopper and Usopp were weeping openly at opposite ends of the kitchen, and even Nami, drumming her fingers on the table in distress, could not keep her wondrous eyes dry. Robin sat in the shadows with an inward look. Her face was drawn and exhausted, as if each new death (and she had borne witness to many) dragged her soul down that much further.

Yet all their sorrow combined could not match that of the swordsman, Demon Hunter Roronoa Zoro. The great broad shoulders were hunched, the proud head bowed, the strong violent fingers now doing nothing but stroking that pale, still face. Zoro would not speak and he would not eat. He simply sat and stared and, Sanji feared, wished himself at the side of the one he loved best.

After was seemed like years of silence, Nami drifted over.

"What should we do with his body?" she asked in a low voice.

Sanji looked at her: practical even in despair, planning for the future even in the darkest hour. She was beautiful; someday he would find a way to tell her.

But for now, all thoughts must be given to him.

"I think," Sanji began, and stopped. He stubbed out the cigarette, buying time. Finally, he was ready to go on. "I think we flush him down the toilet."

At the word, Zoro's fingers jerked and he flinched all over, as if struck. Chopper and Usopp raised tear-stained faces in disbelief.

"No," said the swordsman harshly. It was the first word he'd spoken all afternoon. "Not the toilet."

Sanji bristled in spite of himself. It had been a long day and he was in no mood to argue. "Then what else do you propose to do with it, Marimo?" he shot back.

"Him."

Angrily, Sanji jabbed a finger at the goldfish lying on the table. "No, Zoro. Not 'him.' It. You decided to make it a 'him,' God knows why, but it's gone now. It's never coming back, and you'll just. Have to. Deal. With it!" By the time he finished he was shouting, to make himself be heard over the furious scraping of the chair as Zoro leapt to his feet and the renewed wailing of his crewmates. In truth, Sanji did not know who he was trying to convince - Zoro, or himself.

"He was one of us!" the swordsman was yelling back, sweeping Sanji's thoughts away on the tide of anger. "He will be given honor, as a fallen companion!"

"I loved him, Sanji!" Chopper chimed in with a sob. "It - it just isn't fair!"

"Life isn't fair, Chopper," Sanji answered curtly, though he tried to keep the worst of the frustration out of his voice for the reindeer's sake. "I told you, didn't I? A goldfish is not like a human or a dog. You have to control its food, because it can't control itself. You can't keep on feeding it because it looks lonely, or you feel sorry for it, or you think it's time for dinner. A fish with too much food in its belly will die. I'm sorry we didn't keep a feeding schedule. I'm sorry the fish died alone. But you've learned a valuable lesson now, so for crying out loud let's just flush it down the toilet and be done with it!"

The speech seemed to procure the desired effect. Though there were ominous, rebellious mumblings, like the rumble of a distant storm, everyone seemed ready to put the whole ugly affair behind them.

But then Robin spoke up.

"Mr. Swordsman is right. We cannot flush Mr. Goldfish down the toilet."

Sanji took a deep breath. "Why the hel - why ever not, Robin dear?" he asked. As much as he hated to admit it, the day's events had taken a bigger toll than he would have liked.

Robin nodded her head towards the lower deck. "Mr. Captain is still in the bathroom."

Dead silence greeted her news as they all digested this forgotten detail. Luffy, who had shut himself in the bathroom as soon as the battle was over (to continue, he claimed, his morning face exercises) had not checked in with Goldie the Goldfish with the rest of them and still did not know.

"The news would kill him," Nami said in a hushed voice.

"Yes," Sanji murmured. Actually, he mused dryly, it wasn't his captain's heart he was worried about so much as his stomach. Luffy had liked Goldie well enough, but Sanji wasn't sure he'd be willing to pass up a fish dinner in deference to a mere emotional bond. "Then what alternative do you suggest, my dear?" he said aloud to Robin, willing the horrible visions of Luffy and his appetite to dissipate from his mind.

Robin shrugged. "A burial at sea. Is it not the warrior's way?"

"Yes," Zoro said fervently. His eyes, until now dulled with the patina of rage and grief, began to take on their old and (Sanji thought sourly) fanatical glow.

"But Goldie wasn't a warrior," Sanji protested. Why did he feel like he possessed the last shreds of sanity left in the room?

"So?" Nami shrugged. "We'd give Usopp a burial at sea if he ever died."

"That's right!" Usopp, by this time cheered enough to make his way to the table, proudly puffed out his thin chest. "The Great Captain Usopp deserves nothing less than - hey!"

The two of them fell to bickering.

"It must be done quickly," Robin continued.

"He needs a shroud," Zoro declared. That was when Sanji knew that the swordsman was crazy. Goldie's death had apparently snapped his mind so much that he was actually agreeing with Robin. It was with a certain amount of resignation that he watched Zoro snatch a napkin off the table and wrap the fish in it. "Sleep well," Zoro said reverently to the small yellow corpse. "This napkin shall be your raiment and bed in eternal slumber."

With those words, everyone - some of them still squabbling - filed out of the kitchen and into the fresh bright air.

Stepping into the light, with the crashing waves and wheeling birds overhead, was like a return to the living world after spending an age in the dark. They all found themselves remembering - not the sorrow of Goldie's passing - but of the good times, the joy of his short but fiercely lived life. One by one, slowly at first, they told stories about Goldie: the minutes spent watching him circle 'round his bowl, the way he almost followed a finger dragged across the glass but which was probably just coincidence, how they could leave for hours on an adventure and still return to find Goldie in the same spot, swimming aimlessly in a circle six inches in diameter. Now, in the briskly snapping breeze, even his three-second memory seemed precious.

There was no eulogy. The time for lamentations was over. There was some discussion about whether to light the napkin on fire and send Goldie out to sea on a pyre, but in the end Zoro just flung the tiny body as far as he could toward the horizon. They stood at the railing and listened for the distant 'plop' of the body hitting the water, and Sanji imagined that his companions were, as he was, thinking about Goldie rejoining his ancestors under the ocean waves. Such was the cycle of life, he mused. Goldie was part of the water now. His soul was free and his body would return to the elements; in every piece of seaweed and every fish caught for dinner they would find a piece of him, and in this way Goldie the Goldfish would be immortal.

But that was a truth to be realized in later days, in the quiet of the evening and the sudden, revelatory sight of a sea bass dressed in creamy garlic sauce. Now, while the others turned away to soldier on with their lives, Sanji and Zoro hung back behind.

For a while, they did nothing but stare out to sea in a rare, companionable silence.

Presently, Zoro said, "I never told him." His voice was very quiet. "I never told him that I loved him."

"But he knew," Sanji replied. "That's the important thing."

"I know," Zoro said, though he did not sound wholly convinced. Changing the subject, he said, "When should we tell Luffy?"

Sanji shrugged. "It doesn't really matter, does it? He'll know soon enough."

As if by an unspoken accord, the two left their post and headed back towards the kitchen. They could hear Luffy coming out of the bathroom and up the stairs. There was no need to tell him; he would know soon enough.

He would know soon enough.

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notes: Okay, it wasn't really death by water; more like death by overfeeding. But an excuse to quote Eliot is an excuse to quote Eliot. I had a ton of fun writing this one, and I hope you will find reviewing equally fun!