Chapter 8

It hurts…

Pain. It was the first thing that managed to surface out of the black, blurry haziness that was my consciousness at the moment. I wanted to open my eyes, but they were so heavy. Sooo heavy. It was just too much effort for me right now, so I gave up on that.

I would just keep lying down like this for the moment. Breathing was enough trouble on it's own, or so it seemed. I was just breathing. In and out. And again. For now, that was more than enough. The blackness that surrounded me was really comforting. It was quiet and dark, just what I needed.

Fuck.

There it was again, the pain that was coming from somewhere. It was hard for me to locate it, as I was barely aware of my own body. It made me want to open my eyes again, but I failed. Again. What was I doing here anyway? It suddenly appeared to me that this wasn't my daily state of living. What caused this half-consciousness of mine, this pain. All of this thinking made me tired, and the blackness was about to swallow me back, when everything came flashing back to me.

The man. There had been a man in a long black coat. And he had kidnapped me! Suddenly I remembered it. Those awful weeks. Getting locked up in some guys basement after being tossed in a van. And then the worst began. Days after days after days of torturing.

I lost any notice of time down there, but they always managed to make the next session more painful than the one before. Sometimes they would record it when they were working on me. It was absolutely terrifying, not knowing what was going to happen next.

I was about to faint, letting the black, fuzzy clouds around my consciousness consume me again. That way I didn't have to think about that awfull time. I couldn't believe how I survived that shit.

Wait.

Did I even survive it? Or was I still there? Where they waiting for me to wake up, so they could continue to torture me? Panic seemed to be taking over my thoughts, and even my breathing didn't seem to work that well anymore now, but then another memory popped up.

Two strong, tanned arms, holding me. Picking me up. Carrying me. I would always feel safe in those arms. I managed to calm down a little. And then, finally, the rest came back too.

Zoro!

I thought. He had been there. God knows how but he had been there and he had saved me. I felt like I was close to crying but that was never gonna work if I couldn't even open my fucking eyes. Zoro. God, how much I loved that that guy. He had saved me, tried to bring me to a hospital. Of course that didn't work out, but he tried.

Dad…

I felt so sorry for that man, and I was so absolutely done with him. I guess a part of me still wanted to forget about his behaviour after Yui was killed. After all, he was still my father. I felt nothing of that anymore. It was over. Whatever relationship we had left, was over after he put a fucking knife in my stomach.

Of course. That was where the pain was coming from. To be honest, I felt like my whole being was aching at this moment, but there was one spot that hurt the most, so I decided that that was the place where my stomach should be.

Having caught up with my story, I felt really relieved. The blackness was sort of falling away too now. I had to see him. I had to let him know that I was still alive. Zoro was probably worried sick about me.

Finally, I was able to open my eyes. Not, too far, but enough to get a look at my surroundings. At first, I was a little bit blinded by the light, although it was warm and natural, coming from a big window on my right side. I was lying on a white bed, in a white room. Some small tubes were sticking out of me and most part what I could see of my body was covered in bandages. Seemed like Zoro managed to get me to a hospital after all.

With some effort, I turned my neck so I had a better look at the left side of my bed. There he was. He was sitting on a chair, but his upper body was lying on my bed, and he was snoring loudly. I smiled and felt a single tear running across my face.

I forced my left arm and hand to move, which was incredibly difficult, so I could touch his hair. I stroked it up and down untill he started to move underneath my fingers. He raised his head, still looking all sleepy. He blinked a few times and I smiled at him. Finally, he seemed to realise what was going on.

"Sanji…" He managed to get out, before he started crying uncontrollably.

He crawled on my bed and hugged me so tightly I really thought that I would pass out again for a moment. It really hurt actully, but I didn't give a fuck. I was back. I still couldn't move properly, so I wasn't able to hug him back, but it didn't matter. Suddenly, I noticed I was crying too. We layed there for a while. Together, with the sun setting outside, the light shining on our bodies, and it was perfect. This was good.

Of course, there would be more trouble. This was life. There would always be bad times.

But we would handle it. Somehow.

We had each other. And that was it.

That, was enough.

The End

AN: Everyone! Thank you so much for reading my crappy piece of fanfic! It was my first one but I enjoyed writing this so much, although I never could have done it without any readers :) I hope to improve and write some more stories in the future!