Chapter 5

Nami had been 15 minutes inside Nojiko´s house but she spent almost 30 crying behind a tree a block away from there. The freaking guilt was driving her insane and seeing Kuina was like pouring lemon juice into a stab injury.
She hid because she didn´t want Zoro to see her like that, she didn´t want to tell him she had seen her because he sure will worry about it and get mad at her again, and she didn´t know if she could endure another angry scene with him.

Ooo

Zoro waited for her sitting on the bench at the park. He wondered how much that pearl would cost for Nami to ask for his help. He was starting to think he would never see her again. He'd been starting to think he would never see her again. He'd begun to forget her when she appeared and all the feelings for her came right back like as it was 5 years ago.
He cursed, he didn´t want to feel like that. Sooner or later she was going to go and leave him and he didn't want to miss her all over again.
She needed his help, he couldn´t deny that to her, she was his nakama in the end. They could stop being lovers at anytime, but they would be nakama forever. He would help her with this stupid pearl thing regardless whatever he thought of it. He had to admit that something about her story wasn´t convincing. When she'd told him about the Shamanic Pirates he couldn´t help but to remember the letter, that stupid letter she had left for the crew 6 years ago, a letter that lied.

FLASHBACK

After reading the letter Zoro searched for Nami around the whole ship for several hours. Chopper, noticing his anxiousness, stopped him and wondered what was going on. That was when he showed the letter to the crew.
No one was pleased with the way she decided to handle the situation but as she requested, they didn´t go look for her. Zoro didn´t agree with the captain´s decision of accepting what Nami proposed in the letter but he was so angry at her that being away from her was probably for the best.
The next few days Zoro trained for hours and hours, he barely left the training room, just for food when it was extremely necessary.
When his anger started to fade and he'd begun to wonder if the reason of her departure was something he had done, they bumped into Robin and Franky.
The remaining Mugiwara´s of the crew were Luffy, Zoro, Chopper and Ussop.
The couple was travelling around some vacation islands of the grand line when they spotted the Sunny and decided to meet their former crewmates.
It had been a year since they'd left the Sunny and the four of them jawdropped when they met them, especially when they noticed the huge cyborg carrying a tiny baby between his arms. The four of them congratulated them for their new son. He had dark black hair and the biggest blue eyes, like Robin.
They spent a few hours catching up and told them Nami had left the crew. Robin commented a soft "Mph" when she heard about the letter.
While Franky, Luffy, Ussop and Chopper played with the baby, Robin managed to talk to the swordsman.

"How are you doing Zoro-San?" She asked.

"Ok" he said sharply.

"I know you and Nami-san are close so, do you know how she is? I haven´t received a letter from her in months "

"I don´t know anything about her since the time she left the crew and that was 3 months ago" he sounded hurt.

"Oh" she said surprised "But I bet you know the real explanation of why she left, right?"

"Real?" He wondered at loud.

"She didn´t tell you anything? Do you think she left for the reasons she wrote in that letter?" She asked him.

Now that Robin mentioned it like that, his doubts turned into a sense of guilt. "No, I don´t," he blurted out.

"And you let her go anyway?" She raised an eyebrow

"I-I-" He couldn´t complete the sentence feeling utterly stupid.

"What did you do?" She was really intrigued.

"Nothing," he said in his defense as he tried to remember every moment they spent together in the weeks before she left, searching for something that might have upset her. "I did nothing, Robin" he whispered softly and sad.

"Are you ok with this Zoro-san?" She asked him in that wise tone of hers.

"No!" He said frustrated.

"Then you should do something about it" she smiled at him.

That was the last day he spent on the Sunny. That day he said good bye to his nakamas and went to look for her.

END OF FLASHBACK

"I´m back!" Nami greeted him cheerfully.

"Hey! You took your time" He commented.

Nami extended her hand "That Nojiko is so obsessive! She moved my things from one room to the other"

Zoro nodded, he knew Nojiko had some kind of fixation with order. He grabbed her hand. Then he noticed he had been holding her hand for the whole day and blushed. "I´m not going to get lost you know"

It was Nami´s turn to blush softly "That´s not what I´ve heard…"

"I live here!" He said offended while they walked to the port.

"Ok, I let you lead. The pirates docked at the port that used to be Arlong Park" She let go his hand and crossed her arms.

He frowned "OK".

She didn´t move and waited for him. He turned around, presenting his back to her, walked away a few steps and stopped again.

He seemed to be whispering something "What are you doing?"

He didn´t answer.

Patience wasn´t one of the adjectives that would describe her, so she moved closer to him and insisted "Hey!" She found Zoro in deep concentration whispering something and making some kind of weird movements with his thumbs. "What are you doing?"

He extended his left arm forward "There!" he answered her solemnly.

Nami looked at where his finger pointed. Incredibly, he was right "Yeah!" She said surprised.

"See! Well, now you can continue with the guiding. I just wanted to prove it to you," he said. In the end he could have spent the rest of the week trying to get there with his method.

Nami giggled "Ok" they started walking.

"You don´t want me to hold your hand?" she commented as they walked through the little village down town.

"I don´t think that´s necessary," he said looking forward.

"Yeah… What would your girlfriend think if she sees us holding hands" She said looking at the girls that walked by. Every now and then some of them greeted Zoro. Oldest trick in the book, she thought, but this was Zoro, he would never get that it was a trick to know if he was seeing anyone. Also Nami was the jealous type, all those protective comments erupted inside her.

"WHAT?" He yelled surprised.

Nami tried not to laugh at his reaction. "Oh come on! I know that every woman in this town must be drooling over you: Powerful, rich, handsome, lovingly single father" She was a little intrigued about his response.

"Shut up!" They started to leave downtown and head to the port. "I don´t have time for that"

"For what?" she asked, already knowing the answer, but she wanted to hear it from him.

He sighed "For love"

She chuckled "Yeah, like you could decide that"

He looked at her while she talked.

She laughed "Like you could say: Oh no! I won´t be in love anymore, shut down heart" She giggled "It won´t work. You could try to believe that, try to hide your feelings, distract yourself with other things: adventure, shopping, alcohol. You are going to reach a point when you would think that you have forgotten about what´s love about but it would be all a lie. You would see him again, exactly like the last time you saw him but even more handsome and brave and kind and… perfect… and everything you tried to put away would be right back in your heart… but with so much weight that it will hurt you to even breath" She didn´t know when she'd stopped explaining her point and started confessing her feelings, but at some time she and Zoro had stopped walking.
He was right in front of her staring into her eyes. She felt deeply ashamed for a second when something struck her. It was something warm and nice. She didn´t know how but Zoro was kissing her. Her arms jumped to his neck and she crushed her body hard against him. He kissed her desperately, full of passion. Her words had described exactly what he'd felt since he saw her that stormy day she'd knocked on his door.
She kissed him back with all her might, trying to transmit the feelings she had been hiding from him. His hands pressed her back against him, as if he was trying to melt the two bodies together. They felt like, 5, 6,7,10 years ago.
Her feminine scent, the way he nipped her lower lip, how she liked to play with her nails against the nape of his neck, how tiny was her waist between his arms, everything was just how it used to be, how they had dreamed about so many times in the last years.
Zoro tried to break the kiss to breath but Nami pulled him closer again, engaging another round of passionate kissing.
After a couple of minutes he stopped. Placing his forehead on top of hers, grabbing her face between his hands and looking deeply into her eyes, he asked "Nami"
She smiled widely, loosing herself in his eye.
"Let´s go home" He kissed her again, this time it was sweet and caring.
Nami returned the kiss for a couple of seconds. She thought about his phrase ´Home´ and remembered her objective "I have to see those pirates" she tried to continue kissing him but he started to move away.

"Zoro!" She pulled his hand.

"We shouldn´t have done that" He said angry and moved away. He had lost his mind in the last few seconds. He had invited her to his home, knowing it meant everything to him, he had offered her a part in his family and she, she just wanted that stupid treasure.

"Zoro!" she followed him.

He sighed in frustration. He was so angry and hurt, and the worst of all, that feeling was becoming pretty familiar.

She grabbed his arm and pulled him back so he could look at her. "Zoro, what do you want?" she asked honestly. Maybe there was still hope for them, maybe if he forgave her, she could forgive herself.

He sighed. Did he love her? Did he want to be with her? His last days with her had driven him insane; did he want that for him? And for Kuina?. "I don´t know"

She was a little disappointed with his answer but she expected it at some point "Then help me with this" she grabbed his hand.

He accepted it and the two of them walked towards the port in complete silence and deep thought. Nami looked at him every now and then, but his vision was focused on her feet just to keep track with her.

The navigator cursed in silence. She shouldn´t have met him, she shouldn´t have expressed her feelings. She felt depression growing inside of her, it was starting to feel like 5 years ago.

FLASHBACK

Ding-dong sounded the bell of Nojiko´s house. The blue haired opened the door and the second she recognized the figure that was standing in front of her, jumped to greet her.

"NAMIII!"

"Hey," the red head answered coldly.

"What are you doing here! I´ve missed you so much! I want to talk about so many things! TELL ME EVERYTHING!" She hugged her and dragged her to the kitchen.

"Well…" Said the navigator "I´m pregnant"

"WHA!" Yelled the older sister and quickly sat in front of her noticing that Nami wasn´t celebrating it. "What… I mean… how…why… are you here?"

"I don´t want to be a mother, I´m a pirate" She sounded like in trance.

"Well… you…" Nojiko didn´t know where to start from "Are you going to terminate it?"

"I´m not 15, I´m responsible about this. It wouldn´t be fair," she said in an unhappy monotone.

"Nami" Nojiko pitied her "What are you going to do then?"

"I´m going to be a responsible and unhappy mother" She looked at her sister in the eyes, gulped and started crying.

The blue haired moved to hug her "Everything is going to be alright"

END OF FLASHBACK

The climate between them was tense. All he did was regret. How on earth had he ended up kissing her? He couldn´t believe how irresponsible he was. What did he think? That she was going to fall in love with him again and give up her pirate life to form a family with him and Kuina? God damn, sometimes he was so stupid. But on the other hand, the way she'd kissed him back, he could totally feel a deep connection between the two of them.. Could she be trying to deceive him to protect him? It wouldn´t be the first time, but knowing the way he had reacted to those kind of tricks in the past, she should know that lying to him would be even more disappointing and hurting than whatever she was trying to protect him from.

FLASHBACK

Since he'd left the Thousand Sunny Zoro had spent two months searching for Nami. He was sure he would find her in Cocoyashi, her native island, the problem was getting there. After a lot of asking, threatening, taking hostages etc. for directions, he'd arrived at the island.
The green haired asked everyone passing by if they had seen Nami. He looked so desperate and intimidating that he found his answers quickly. Two hours after docking on Cocoyashi, he had arrived at Nojiko´s house only to find it empty.
He ran around the island aimlessly, searching for the navigator. A few locals confirmed him that she was in town, so his search turned desperate.
He remembered the scene like it was a picture he had seen too many times. The sun was setting down, he was running on Cocyashi´s main street that was filled with shops and carts on the sidewalk. Right in front of an Ice cream place he found them. He could see Nojiko enjoying a pink colored snow cone, next to her, giving her back straight to Zoro was Nami. Her long red hair surpassed her waist. He stopped running and moved closer to her, tapped her shoulder and called her.
The rest of the memory was like in slow motion. First it was Nami´s surprised expression, then he called her again and she looked down. The next thing he remembered was the navigator's huge pregnant belly, him trying to form a word, suddenly, vision got foggier and black.
Yes, Roronoa Zoro had fainted.
When he opened his eyes he was laying on the street and Nojiko was treating his wounds.
"What the?" He said. His head ached as if it was opened in half.

"I think you need stitches, lets go to the hospital" the blue haired said but the swordsman was standing up.

"Where is Nami?" He asked her. Blood cascaded down his head to his scarred eye.

"Zoro you are bleeding like hell!" Nojiko ordered him.

"I have to see her, she is…" He couldn´t process what he had seen.

"Look. I know you want to see her but she… she is not in a very good mood" She told him, trying to avert him on her depression.

"Please, Help me. I just want to talk to her" He begged.

"Zoro" Nami called him in a cold voice tone.

He turned around, half of his face was covered in blood "Nami, you are…"

"Pregnant" She finished his sentence.

He moved closer to her and tried to hold her hand "You should have told me I… I´m here" he really didn´t know what to say or do. He felt so bad, like he had abandoned her, she was trying to deal with it alone. Her eyes looked so sad and dull, he had never seen her like that.

She looked down and then glared at him coldly: "It´s not yours, so it´s not your problem!"

Suddenly the pain in his head felt like a tickle compared to the sensation of his heart exploding in his chest. She was pregnant with another man's child? She had been with another man at the same time she was with him?

"Let´s go Nojiko" Nami turned around. The blue haired joined her quickly and the two girls left, leaving the bleeding Zoro frozen in the middle of the street.

Later that night, Nami and Nojiko enjoyed dinner in deep silence. The blue haired had tried to bring up what had happened with Zoro but her little sister refused to talk about it.
The girls finished and the older one started to do the dishes.

Ding-dong sounded the bell of Nojikos house. The red head moved to open the door.

"What the hell are you doing here?" she shouted when she opened the door and found the, still bleeding, swordsman.

"Nami please, let me talk to you" He insisted.

"Fuck Zoro! It´s not your problem! I´ve told you already" She said angrily and without letting the door go, hoping he would leave soon.

"I… I know It´s not mine and I'´m not going to lie to you. I´m not happy about it, It hurts" He said looking down.

Nami stared at him impatiently.

"But you don´t have to run away. I know you must be scared and sad, you don´t have to do this on your own. I want to be here for you" he looked at her.

Her chin trembled as she listened to him. "DAMN ZORO!" She yelled and started crying without control "I TOLD YOU IT´S NOT YOUR PROBLEM, GO AWAY, GO SAIL AROUND THE WORLD, LIVE A LIFE OF ADVENTURE, BE FREE. IT´S NOT YOUR PROBLEM!"

"But…" he said softly and grabbed her hands to pull her closer to him "I don´t want to go if you are sad" His hands climbed her back and pulled her head against his chest. "I´ll stay with you until you feel ok"

She melted in his chest and started crying profusely, you could barely get what she said but it was something like: I don´t want to be a mother, I want to go back in time, I´m scared, it's never gonna be the same, I have many maps to draw.

"Everything is going to be ok" he patted her head and hugged her closer.

END OF FLASHBACK

"That´s it," she pointed at a big black ship with a devilesque mask with creepy horns.

"Ok, wait here" He started climbing the ladder.

As soon as he landed on the deck he heard Nami´s heels tapping the floor behind him. "I told you to wait down there!" he said angrily.

"Well, well, well. If it isn't our one and only favorite thief Nami, the burglar cat!" An Indian like man suddenly appeared in front of him. He had long black hair, his height: gigantic, twice the size of Zoro, his face was painted with red stripes on his cheeks and had a black suite with feathers coming from inside his sleeves. He was thin as Brook and he bended completely to talk in front of their faces.

"Well, well, well. If it isn't our one and only favorite thief Nami, the burglar cat!" An Indian like man suddenly appeared in front of him.

Ten men dressed in the same fashion but with white suites gathered around them.

"And this is Roronoa Zoro. Is he your bodyguard?" It was like he could twist his body like a snake around them. "I thought you were a man of honor Roronoa, I didn´t know you worked for robbers" he said looking at him.

"I'm here for my Nakama" he said seriously and frowned at the weird guy. "I´m here because…"

"I have to talk to you" She moved in front of him, leaving Zoro behind her.

"Are you here to return the pearl my dear?" He asked politely.

"Nami!" He walked next to her.

"It´s ok Zoro, I can handle it from here" she whispered to him. "No, I´m not here to return the pearl… I have a few questions for you and you better answer them or Roronoa Zoro is going to unleash his wrath on you!" She yelled.

Zoro wondered what the hell she was doing, what questions? He was supposed to scare them to leave her alone, not being the bully while she extorted these people.

The tall guy laughed. "Let me see, you played my friend for several months in order to gain my trust only to betray it later on, to rob my treasure, hurt my crew members and steal powerful magic artifacts, then you appear with your ferocious bodyguard and threaten the lives of all of us?" he commented lightly while all of his crewmates laughed. "I realize what you see in her, she is quiet a catch" he said to the swordsman ironically.

"I´ll give you back your treasure" She offered.

Zoro´s sight shifted to Nami abruptly, he would have never thought she would say something like that.

"You´ll return to me all the stuff you robbed me, just if I answer you a question?" He wondered out loud.

"Not all of it and a few questions"

Zoro snorted. Of course she was going to manage to give him all the obsolete things and trick him to go away while she kept the good stuff.

The tall guy and the whole crew laughed again "You have some nerve Dorobo Neko, what is it that you want to know?"

"In private…" she said.

"I know that your dear Roronoa-san would protect you with his life. Even so, I still can´t seem to imagine the lie you told him to bring him here but I don´t think he would kill us if we don´t answer your questions," he started telling to the crew and ended up whispering it in her ear.

She clenched her teeth.

"Tell, me Roronoa-san. What are you doing here?" He asked him smiling

"I-" He started to reply but she interrupted him.

"Don´t talk to him!" She yelled at the Shamanic pirate who laughed frenetically again.

"This one is feisty" he said to the crew. "I think she did you a favor, imagine that temper every morning" He said it as if he was talking to Zoro in silence but everybody could hear him.

"SHUT UP SHINTO!" she was reaching the edge of her patience.

Suddenly the sky turned black and the laughing expression of the captain turned "Look Nami, you robbed us a year ago and since then we have been following you, we will follow you to the end of the sea and recover that pearl, you could still search in every book that´s written how to use it without success," he yelled at her face.

When he stopped he felt Zoro´s blade against his neck.

Nami was pale, clearly scared by his actions.

"Enough!" the swordsman said menacing. "You´ll do whatever she says," he ordered.

"Really Roronoa? You are going to help her even though you don´t know what she's up to," he asked him.

He pushed his sword forward making the pirate move away and using his left hand to pull her behind him. "I don´t care if she lies, steals, cheats, deceives - if she needs me I´ll be there for her, ALWAYS!"

"Zoro" she mumbled.

"I don´t know how a witch could conquer such pure heart" he commented to the crew "In the end I can´t resist a hero… I´ll do whatever you want Roronoa"

Zoro was surprised "Well… If you answer her questions, she´ll give you most of your things back" He looked at Nami from the corner of his eye who nodded smiling.

The shamanic pirate sighed. "Bring the pearl, I´ll show you how it works," he said bored.

"Yeah!" She pecked Zoro on the cheek and moved towards the tall pirate.

The girl walked smiling while she searched for the pearl inside her shirt pocket. Suddenly she stopped, she froze, her face was pale. "I…I…I don´t have it"

TBC

THANKS FOR READING, PLEASE REVIEW!

~Karen K.

Special thanks to BlueLion my betareader!

And another special thank you to my dear friend misshappynewyear who draw the amazing image for this fic, such a pity it´s so small but if you want to see the real artwork search for her gallery on deviantart