Oh my God, what have I done?

Chapter 12

"Come on, Zoro!"

The sun was warm on his face and the air was crisp and fresh. A beautiful morning spread about before him as he watched the sakura petals fall from the trees outside the dojo's porch.

"Zoro, we have practice, let's go!"

Smiling, his grip tightened around the bokken in his hands and he stood. He glanced over his shoulder and caught a glimpse of dark hair and pale, beautiful skin before he closed his eyes. He readied himself and turned. He brought his weapons up, prepared for an attack… but nothing came.

Opening his eyes, he saw only the empty dojo and a lone sword lying on the polished floors a few feet from where he stood.

"Zoro!"

He whirled, expecting her to be behind him, but there was nothing. Where had she gone?

"Zoro, come on!"

That was not her voice. It may have been once, but not anymore. He turned and eyed the sword lying on the floor. Its gleaming gold and polished white finish shone in the morning sunlight, a precious memory of a time and place that was far away.

"Zoro! You have to help Sanji!"

Zoro opened his eyes.

Rubbing the back of his head, the swordsman sat up and turned just in time to see Sanji's silhouette disappear back into the mill. He knew something was happening, something wrong and terrible, but Zoro was confused and his head hurt so badly he couldn't think.

"What the hell is going on?" Zoro groaned.

"Come on! Get up!" Nami cried as she pulled at Zoro's arm, dragging the swordsman to his feet.

Zoro's head was still spinning as he regained his footing and headed back into the building. He knew his disorientation was not only from the blow he had taken when he had fallen, it was also from all of the questions that were suddenly swimming behind his eyes.

They moved through walkways between metal piping as Nami directed him through confusing turns and passages. Was this place getting bigger? How the hell had they found their way through the first time?

Zoro spoke over his shoulder, "Where's he going?"

"Probably to find Moria."

"What's he going to do?" Zoro asked, "Rampaging killing spree, or what?"

"I don't give a shit if he kills any of these mill assholes, but last time this happened his lung collapsed and he nearly killed himself!"

Zoro's steps faltered and he found his breath catching.

"What?"

Nami turned to him, her eyes a strange hybrid of furious and terrified, and she growled, "I'll explain later but right now, we have to stop him."

They reached the bleachers and scanned the surrounding area but there was no indication of where Sanji had gone. Luffy's men had gathered Moria's gang into small groups and zip-tied their wrists. They sat in clumps around the pit, waiting for whatever it was that Luffy had planned for them, but Moria was nowhere to be seen, as were Luffy and Kidd. Zoro's heart beat heavily in his chest, not from excursion, but with dread. What if they couldn't find Sanji in time?

Drake spotted the two of them and waved as he came closer. "Nami, what's up? You look like you just saw Franky naked. Again."

"Have you seen Sanji?" Nami asked.

"Uh, yeah," Drake frowned, "he just blew through here, wrote that he was looking for the Moria guy."

"And where is that?" Zoro growled.

Drake pointed towards the loading dock where Luffy's gang had entered. "Outside actually, Bartolomeo found a gutted portable that we can use to hold him. What's going on?"

Zoro didn't stick around to hear what Nami told Drake, he didn't care. He just wanted to get to Sanji and try to stop whatever it was that was about to happen. His feet pounded the ground as he headed toward the loading doors, his heart raced with a kind of fear he had only felt once before in his life.

He had already lost someone important to him. It was not happening again, not when he could help. Not when there was something he could do.

The cool night air hit Zoro as he ducked underneath the doors, and he almost collided with Kidd before he could rebalance himself.

"What the hell," Kidd said, "what's got your panties in a wad?"

"You okay?" Luffy popped his head out from behind Kidd's frame.

"Where's Sanji?" Zoro asked.

Bartolomeo snorted at Luffy's side, "Damn, calm down, man. Your boyfriend's back that way," he indicated behind him with a jerk of his thumb, "We just passed him; he signed the smoke sign at us."

"What's wrong, Zoro?" Luffy asked with seriousness that startled the swordsman.

"I don't know," Zoro said, "Nami sent me after him. We found a container out back full of prisoners that, I guess, were being kept for the fights. Sanji took one look inside and hulked out."

Luffy's expression darkened, and even in the dim lighting of the single bulb above them, Zoro could see the tension coiling through his body.

"Zoro," Luffy's voice was soft, "were the prisoners injured?"

Zoro shook his head, "I don't think so, besides being starved I don't think—"

"—Come with me!" Luffy grabbed Zoro's arm. As he pulled Zoro down the road, he shouted over his shoulder, "You guys find those containers and get those people out!"

Zoro heard Bartolomeo shouting something back, but he didn't really care to listen. He was more interested in following Luffy and finding out what he knew.

"What's wrong with Sanji?" he asked.

"Sanji hates seeing people hungry," Luffy said, "he goes crazy. We gotta stop him before he gets to Moria. If he lays into him like he did to that guy a few months ago, he could reinjure himself."

"Re-injure himself?" Zoro asked.

Luffy had no time to answer. As they turned the corner, a shrill scream rang out through the night, piercing through Zoro's ears and into his head. One of the portable buildings stood before them with the door wide open and hanging from broken hinges. The shrieking was definitely coming from inside, and Luffy was already racing towards it at full speed. Zoro followed and vaulted over the railing, flying through the doorway and almost colliding with Luffy's back.

"Woa, Sanji!" Luffy called out.

Zoro had been prepared for violence, but what he was met with, was carnage.

One side of the room was covered in blood. Lines of crimson ran jagged as rivulets dripped down to the floor. Moria was on his knees, trying to get to his feet and wiping at the mess that had once been the left side of his face. Sanji stood a few feet from him, breath heavy and eyes burning with rage. Before Luffy or Zoro could move, the cook reached out and lifted the larger man to his feet. He then brought his leg up to connect with Moria's chest, sending him flying across the room. Moria hit the metal siding with a sickening crack and more blood splattered across the wall, adding to the gore already there.

Sanji braced to attack again, but Luffy stopped him. "No! Sanji!" he moved in and grabbed the cook from behind, wrapping his long arms around Sanji's and bracing his feet firmly on the floor.

"Stop, Sanji. Stop, you'll hurt yourself again."

The cook's breathing was raspy, gurgling, as if his lungs were filled with a bad cold. Zoro watched as Luffy spoke softly into his friend's ear, tried to soothe him with quiet words and a firm grip on his body, but Sanji still struggled, still tried to wrestle free.

Zoro took a breath and moved. He was not sure why he did it, only that he felt it was the right thing to do. He came close and slid his hand over one of Sanji's fists. The cook's fingers were rigid and cold to the touch but Zoro wrapped them in his own palm and held him tightly.

"Sanji…" he said softly.

Blue eyes found Zoro's and they were lost and furious. The swordsman felt a pang deep in his heart and squeezed the cook's hand, not enough to hurt, but enough to let Sanji know he was there.

Finally, that rattling, wet breathing started to calm. Those blue eyes lost their fire, and the cook's body slumped against Luffy's. Zoro offered his support and Luffy let Sanji go, gently passing the slender, blood-splattered man into Zoro's hands. The swordsman took hold of trembling shoulders and carefully helped the other man to the door.

Once they were outside, Sanji pulled out of Zoro's hold. He turned away and leaned against the wall of the portable, coughing into the sleeve of his jacket. Zoro stayed where he was, letting the cook have a few moments to recollect himself, knowing this was not the time to be prying, but he found the things that had been building up inside of him start to push and press, clamber up his throat and force their way out past his tongue.

"Are you gonna be all right, or do I need to knock you out or something?"

Sanji turned his head, looking at Zoro over this shoulder. His lips might have twitched into a ghost of a smile, but Zoro was not sure, because the cook quickly turned away again and nodded.

A loud thump from inside the portable pulled Zoro's attention from Sanji. When Luffy appeared in the doorway, the swordsman felt his heart skip, just once, at the look in the young man's eyes.

"Well," Luffy said quietly, "we're just not gonna worry about that guy anymore." He shut the door behind him and descended the steps, wiping his bloody hands on a black piece of fabric that may or may not have once been a part of Moria's jacket. "You breathing okay, Sanji?"

Sanji nodded again and pushed off the wall. He did not look back as he slowly moved away and pulled his cigarette pack from his pocket, but he did wave over his shoulder after he had put a stick between his lips.

Turning back to Luffy, Zoro made a face, "I'm no doctor, but should he be smoking?"

Luffy's eyes were dark and unreadable when they found Zoro's.

"If you've got a death wish then you can go tell him that right now."

Zoro took a breath and looked up at the night sky, understanding, but not exactly happy about it.

"Come on," Luffy said, pushing past Zoro, "I think there's some things you need to know about Sanji."

"I don't think he wants me to know them," Zoro murmured.

Luffy stopped and turned to speak over his shoulder. His eyes did not reach Zoro however, they scanned the darkness of the roads to the east of them.

"Do you care about him?"

Hearing those words said aloud, a strange kind of heat filled Zoro's chest and spread out to his limbs, climbing up into his neck and touching his cheeks. The question was not what made him uncomfortable; it was his answer that gave him pause.

"Yes."

"Then you're gonna shut up and listen to what I have to say," Luffy said easily. "If you want to support him, you need to understand."

Zoro took only a moment to consider before he took another deep breath, and forced his heart rate down.

"Okay, tell me everything."

"Good, now come on," Luffy instructed and started walking. Zoro followed, jogging to catch up and fell into step beside the younger man.

"Sanji and I are from Chicago, so are a lot of the others you've met, like Nami, Law and Usopp. When Dead Day hit, it hit Chicago hard. Nami thinks the plague came to the US through O'Hare International—that's how fast it was. A few of us held up in an old library for a few days in the beginning, but we knew we'd have to find something safer, so we packed up what we had and tried to find more of our friends. We knew where Sanji would be, he was a chef at a pretty famous restaurant and it seemed like he lived there. When we got there though…"

Luffy stopped walking and shoved his hands into the pockets of his jacket. Zoro stopped as well and watched a haunted look pass through the young man's dark eyes.

"What happened?" he asked.

Luffy took a breath. "The restaurant had collapsed. There were parts that were still up, but other parts… I don't know how to describe it. When we went inside, we found Deadies all over the place, torn to pieces, and Sanji's step dad in the middle of it."

Something terrible dropped into the pit of Zoro's stomach, "What?"

"It looked like he had taken out like, fifty, by himself. It was crazy. But then when the place had come down, a beam had fallen on him. Crushed him. We weren't sure what to do, and we didn't see Sanji anywhere, so we almost gave up. But I couldn't leave until I knew for sure. I wanted a body. I wanted to see a body more than I wanted to see nothing."

Zoro nodded, understanding completely, but not saying anything to interrupt.

"We searched for a long time, and finally, Law found the door to their cellar, storage thing. There was a bunch of cement and concrete that had fallen on it, so we were pretty sure there was nothing in there, but I wanted to check anyway."

When Luffy didn't continue, Zoro asked gently, "Sanji was in the cellar?"

Luffy nodded, and his voice was airy and far away when he murmured, "Yeah…"

A chill rolled down Zoro's spine and he wasn't even sure why.

"What happened to him?"

Luffy took another slow breath and closed his eyes. Such seriousness in someone that had, up until now, been such a jovial, maniacally enthusiastic person, was more frightening to Zoro than anything he had ever seen before. Whatever Luffy was about to tell him, Zoro had no doubt it was going to haunt his dreams like the faces of those prisoners stuck in the containers.

"When we opened the doors, I remember the smell. I remember thinking there was no way my friend could be alive down there. There was just blood smell and death smell, and it was just too strong. But then Nami pointed her flashlight down there and I saw his eyes. And I saw what had happened to him."

Zoro was trembling. His hands were shaking. He balled them up into fists and shoved them deep into his pockets to keep himself from grabbing Luffy and shaking answers out of him.

"What?" he growled, "What happened to him?"

Luffy looked at him then, and Zoro was shocked to see tears. They welled up in the younger man's eyes, but did not fall. They merely shone above dark lashes and threatened to escape.

"We almost killed him, Zoro," Luffy said. "We almost put him out of his misery."

Unbelievably, Zoro almost felt like crying himself. He moved in close and growled desperately against Luffy's anguished face.

"Luffy, if you don't tell me what happened right now, I might just kill you."

Luffy blinked, the tears fell, and the young man's voice came out in a harsh whisper.

"They tried to eat him. They had torn him up around his neck and on his shoulder and his ribs and stuff. He was so bad. I mean, if he hadn't looked right at me, I would have thought he was a Deadie."

Zoro's heart hurt, his gut hurt, everything hurt, but he tried to understand. He tried to makes sense of what Luffy was telling him.

"Eat him? If he was bitten by Deadies, how is he still alive?"

Luffy shook his head, "No, not Deadies. People. The people that were locked in the cellar with him. They'd been down there for more than a week and there was nothing but wine. They had started to starve and go crazy, so they attacked Sanji and tried to eat him."

Nauseous, Zoro backed away and shook his head. "That's… that's fucking insane."

Luffy nodded, sniffing and wiping at his eyes. "He killed them all, all thirteen. He hates himself for that, even though he was defending himself. I've tried to talk to him about it, but he won't… Anyway, we found him and Law sewed him up. We got him out of there but he's never been the same. He sees people that are starving or hungry and it takes him back there."

Zoro breathed deep, watching the ground at his feet. That explained why the cook was so religious about keeping everyone fed. That was why that duffle bag of food had been more important than his own life. That was…

"That's why he's always wearing long sleeves and jackets. Why he wears that scarf."

Once again, Luffy nodded slowly. "Nami gave it to him to cover up the scars. They were scaring people."

Dizzy, Zoro's hands found his knees. "Jesus…"

Luffy came closer, putting a hand on Zoro's arm. "Now you get it. There's only a handful of us who know because for some reason, he's ashamed of it. I told you because I know I can trust you to him."

"To him?" Zoro scoffed.

There was a moment of silence that stretched on for long enough that Zoro had to look up. Luffy's eyes were dry, and his gaze was penetrating, intense. It balanced the swordsman, erasing his nausea and bringing back his focus.

"That's what you want, isn't it?" Luffy asked quietly. "You want to belong to him, don't you?"

Zoro straightened slowly bringing his eye level back to just above Luffy's. He reached over his shoulder and straightened the strap on his sword's harness. He might have touched the line of her tsuba for comfort, but if he did it was a reflex.

"Yes, I do," Zoro said.

Luffy's eyes brightened then, and his face lit up with his wide, toothy smile. Gone was the serious and anguished young man. Gone were all traces of that sad, helpless boy that wept at the memory of his friend's horrific past. Where it had gone was a mystery, and how it had vanished so quickly was a puzzle that would probably never be solved.

"Okay!" Luffy clapped him on the back. "Then we've got work to do. We gotta clean up this mess here and get the meds to the compound."

Zoro watched Luffy's back as the young man—or, the young gang leader, made his way back into the mill. There were many different kinds of people he had met throughout his life, people that had changed him, made him think differently, made him see things in himself he had never seen before; people that inspired him, shaped him, but Zoro was sure that Luffy was nothing like any of them. Luffy was in a category all of his own.

Hearing gravel crunch underneath shoes, Zoro turned and met with Sanji' tired, bloody, but still handsome face. The cook had his hands in his pockets and his eyes straight ahead, looking directly into Zoro's without fear. He held his notebook in his hand and he tore a page out and thrust it into Zoro's palm. He held on to the swordsman's gaze and coughed wetly, turning once to spit blood onto the ground. Zoro took that opportunity to glance at the paper.

Don't pity me.

Zoro looked back up, but he didn't know what to say. How could he convey what he was feeling? It wasn't pity. It wasn't revulsion or horror or any of those things. How could he tell Sanji that while he didn't completely understand what Sanji had gone through in the past, there was still a good chance that he understood the Sanji now? Zoro had his own past, and his own tragedies. There were people he had lost and things that he could have done better.

He was about to open his mouth and say those things, tell the cook how he felt and how they were similar in so many ways, but Bartolomeo's voice broke the connection as it rang out through the night.

"Hey! Assholes! You can do your eye-fucking later! Let's get this shit back to that loser Traffy-guy so he can do his doctor bull-shit!"

Zoro turned back to Sanji, but the cook was already heading back to the mill.

He didn't even look back to see if Zoro was following.

TBC