Chapter 8; Where Did That Come From?

Nami sighed as she walked into class, dropping her bag at her feet and slumping into her chair. Her bruises weren't looking much better, they weren't nearly as bad as they had been the morning she woke up with them, and her makeup helped cover the worst of it, but they were still clearly visible. She was getting tired of everyone staring at her. It was rather annoying.

Still, something good did come out of the whole situation.

Roronoa Zoro.

He'd been spending every moment with her that was possible since the night he saved her from Law. Ever since then though, she hadn't been sleeping. She was having terrible nightmares and since she wasn't sleeping she was starting to get big, dark, black rings under her eyes. And she was finding it hard to stay awake.

Disputed all of this however, she still beamed when Zoro walked into the room and his eyes immediately started looking for her. When his smoldering eyes met hers, he grinned and made a b-line for her. He slid into the seat beside her, letting his bag drop to the floor and looked at her. "Morning," he said, sill grinning.

"Morning, again," Nami giggled, referring to the text he had sent her earlier.

Zoro chuckled. "Yeah well," he shrugged. "How'd you sleep?"

Nami sighed. She didn't want to tell Zoro the truth, that every night she spend alone she had horrible nightmares, some that were so bad she would wake up crying, screaming, and gasping for air, some so bad that she wouldn't be able to go back to sleep, which wasn't helping her appearance at all. "Okay, I guess. I kept tossing and turning."

"Why?" he asked, his brows knitting together.

"Couldn't get comfortable," she lied. Zoro bought it and opened his mouth to say something when Arlong walked in and called the class to order. Nami just hoped that Zoro would forget about the sleep thing.

The whole class period Arlong droned on and on about mermaids and the different legends behind them and Nami found it increasingly difficult to stay awake. Instead of gym, she should have transferred out of this class because she honestly didn't care about marine biology. Fortunately the class passed rather quickly and soon the bell rang. Nami walked out, very aware of Zoro right behind her, she didn't say anything though because just as they neared their next class Zoro's friends ambushed them.

Luffy wrapped his arms around Zoro and Nami's necks, grinning like crazy. "Hey love birds."

Zoro pushed him off and Nami managed not to blush thankfully. "Luffy, knock it off," Zoro groaned running a hand over his head, fighting off his own blush Nami noticed. "What are you guys doing down here, I thought you had calculus and archeology."

"We're ditching and thought maybe you'd like to join us," Franky answered.

"There's a skateboard competition down at the park today, the winner gets ten grand and gets to participate in the state competition," Sanji elaborated.

"Ten thousand dollars," Nami asked.

"Oh yeah," Luffy said. He was still grinning as he moved his hand behind his head and looked at her.

Nami looked up at Zoro. "Well?"

"Well what?"

"Let's go." Nami turned on her heels, heading for the doors.

She was halfway there when Zoro grabbed her and pulled her down another hall towards the cafeteria. His head dipped down, his lips brushing over the skin on her neck. "We can't just walk out the front doors darling," he whispered. Pleasurable shivers ran up her spine and a heated blush spread across her face as he led her through the kitchen.

"What are you doing?" Zeff asked as they walked by.

"Skateboard tournament," Luffy grinned. Zeff shook his head but didn't stop them as Zoro led them out to the big black escalade sitting in the parking lot. He opened up the passenger's side door for Nami before walking around and sliding in on the driver's side as everyone else piled into the back.

"You guys have boards right?" Nami asked, turning around to look at them.

"Of course," Franky snorted. "What do you think we are, idiots?"

Nami just smiled and turned back around, deciding not to answer a question that he really didn't want to know the answer to. She turned in the seat, so her back was pressed against the door and she was facing Zoro, watching him drive. He kept glancing at her and she just smiled. "What?" he finally asked as they neared the park.

"I've never cut class before," Nami giggled, glancing out the window before looking back at him. The whole feeling of ditching school to go to some kind of skateboard competition excited her. There was a thrill to being bad, if it felt this good, she was starting to wonder why she hadn't done it before and why there weren't a whole bunch of other people doing it. It was amazing. Her heart was racing, pumping insane amounts of adrenalin into her system and everything seemed brighter, more vivid to her. She was starting to like being bad, and she had a very good suspicion that she could become very good at being bad.

Zoro grinned and pulled up to the park that was littered with skaters of all kinds, sponsors and judges, not to mention the people there to see the tournament. "Who's all going to enter?" he asked as he threw the car into park.

"All of us you idiot," Sanji muttered as he climbed out of the car.

Zoro rolled his eyes and walked around the car, opening the door for Nami, who was still leaning back against it. She fell back out of the car and into Zoro's arms. "You dumb ass," he muttered, pulling her out and righting her on her feet. Nami just giggled. She felt like she was high, like none of this was really happening. "C'mon," Zoro chuckled, pulling towards the registration table as Sanji and Usopp grabbed the boards out of the back of the car. Zoro leaned over the table and started to fill out a registration form; Nami grabbed a form and put it on his back, and started filling it out. He looked back at her and raised a thick brow. "What are you doing?" he asked.

"What does it look like? I'm filling out a registration form," she answered not looking up at him.

"Nami, this isn't some kind of amateur tournament, the guys here are good, like a pro level," he said, standing straight.

"So? What's your point?" she asked, putting the form down on the table and finished filling it out.

"So you're going to get your ass kicked…do you even know how to balance on a skateboard?" he asked, crossing his arms.

Nami looked up at her, her taupe eyes burning. "Fuck you." She handed in the application and took the board Sanji handed her. She laid it down and skated off towards the public restrooms, leaving Zoro standing there wondering what had just happened.

"Good going Marimo," Sanji muttered as he filled out his own application.

"Shut it dartboard brow."

Zoro didn't see Nami again until they called her name to take her place on the half pipe, and when he did see her, she took his breath away. She'd gone into the bathrooms and somehow completely changed her outfit. She'd literately ripped her jeans into shorts that cupped her ass and left practically nothing to the imagination. She'd ripped the sleeves off her shirt, and the bottom half, leaving her belly exposed, and he noticed the sliver hoop there that glittered in the sun. Her hair was tossed back over her head as she set up, putting the board on the edge of the half pipe, her foot on top of it, ready when the alarm sounded to begin. He watched her and regretted ever telling her that she'd get her ass kicked. She was amazing. He didn't know that she could shred like that. It was like she'd been doing it her whole life and yet this is the first time he'd ever seen her on a board, or outside of school save for the night with Law for that matter. She was like a completely different person.

Nami did a few of the basics, and then started to turn things up a notch. She was doing combos while in the air, gaining enough speed to execute three flips in midair before doing a spin and landing back on the smooth wood, gliding to the other side. It was like she could perform any move out there and a few that weren't. She even managed to do a move that Zoro had only seen in a movie before, and not just any movie mind you, it was a cartoon movie. When her time was she up skated gracefully over to him with a big ass shit eating grin on her face. "Well?" she asked, coming to a stop in front of him.

"Where the hell did that come from?" Franky asked, seeing that Zoro was still dumbfounded, unable to speak.

"I had a pool back home that was never filled with water, so I practiced there." Nami shrugged and never took her eyes off of Zoro who was still staring at her. "What's wrong, cat got your tongue?" she asked, looking him up and down.

Zoro shook his head and smirked. "Well, I guess we all have our little secrets don't we?" he asked, walking forward so he was standing right in front of her. Nami looked up at him and swallowed when she looked in his eyes. They were smoldering and staring right down at her, as if they were staring into her soul. She felt those pleasurable tingles shot up her spine again and they only intensified as Zoro's hand come up to cup her chin. He started to lean in and Nami was positive he was going to kiss her, but he stopped halfway to her lips. She bit her lip and looked up at him, willing him to keep going. Zoro flicked a glance over her shoulder and growled with a glare. His hand fell away from her face as all of the guys moved to his side, all glaring. Zoro pushed Nami behind him as Law walked up to them smirking.

He glanced over at Zoro before leveling his eyes on Nami. "Well I see you're still being a slut."

Nami glared and opened her mouth to tell Law where to shove it when Zoro took one step forward, Luffy and Sanji moving closer to fill in the gap, keeping a solid wall of male between her and Law. Zoro crosses his arms and stared down Law. "What the hell do you think you're doing here?" he asked.

Law laughed. "Same thing you are, ditching school and skating. Though there's probably more going on when no one's looking." He chuckled, still looking right at Nami between Luffy and Sanji. "Tell me something Zoro, has she given it up yet?" he asked.

Zoro growled and instead of answering, he sucker punched Law right in the jaw. He stumbled back and glared up at Zoro before taking his own swing. Zoro ducked the first one but didn't see the second coming right at him. Law caught him in the jaw, sending him stumbling back into the guys as his little gang showed up for backup. That's when all hell broke loose. Kid was fighting Luffy, Law fought Zoro, Killer fought Sanji, Hawkins fought Usopp, Kuroobi was fighting Chopper, and Choo was fighting Franky.

Nami bit her lip and watched them all fight. Bonny was off to the side with Drake who were just watching like she was. They didn't seem too interested in fighting, more like they just wanted to make out with each other. Nami watched as Zoro fell to the ground when he stumbled backwards after being hit and tripped over a branch that had fallen off one of the park's trees. Law smirked and stalked towards him. "I told you Zoro, I always get what I deserve." He jumped on top of Zoro and Nami saw him pull the knife from his back pocket. Without thinking, without any concern for herself she launched herself at Law and threw him off of Zoro.

Zoro saw everything happen in slow motion after Law pulled the knife on him. He heard Nami's scream, saw her run at them, saw her throw Law off of his body, and saw a glimpse of the blade sink into her skin. He growled and threw himself off the ground and picked Law up, throwing him off of Nami. The knife was lying on the ground, blood on the end of it, and he could see where the blood was starting to soak through her shirt. "It's okay," she said looking up at him as he pushed her shirt up. "It didn't go deep."

Zoro sighed and silently thanked whoever was looking out for her that she was right. The knife had entered her body, but not deep enough to cause any real damage to her. "Stay here," he commanded her as he stood and glared at Law who was recovering from being thrown into a tree. "You fucking son of a bitch!" Zoro closed the distance between them and pulled Law up and slammed his back into the tree. "I should kill you right here. It wouldn't be hard," he growled. Nami came up to him and put her hand on his arm slowly. He looked over at her, tightening his grip on Law.

"Zoro, don't stoop down to his level," she said, her voice calm and even. "Let it go, I'm fine, you're okay. Let's just get out of here." By now everyone had stopped fighting and was watching the trio to see what would happen next. If things got worse Zoro knew that both sides were going to fight until there was only one side left standing.

He sighed and let go of Law and took a step back, wrapping his arm around Nami and tucking her body into his side. "If you ever come near her again, she won't be able to save you." He turned and walked away, the rest of the guys following him. Zoro helped Nami into the escalade and drove them back to the school were they snuck back in through the kitchen. All of the guys went to Luffy and Sanji's room while Zoro followed Nami down to her room. Once they were safely behind the door, they started to relax a little.