It's a Good Thing

by Wordlet

Many have seen Luffy's smile, some unfortunates have witnessed his anger, but very few have seen his desperation, his fear. Sometimes one must wonder, where does it all go? Apparently, a certain crew is about to figure it out, not by choice, of course. Why would they choose to be saddled with Luffy, age 7 and up? Nakamaship. Mem fic meets Chibi fic. A Big Bang production. 2016

4. So much for that plan

Eight hundred one

It was probably nothing.

Eight hundred two

They could handle it.

Eight hundred three

He is on watch.

Eight hundred four

Ignore it.

Eight hundred five

Ignore it.

Ugh. He sets the weight down with a loud clang, rolling it to the side as he leans close to the wall to look out one pane of the panoramic windows of the observation deck.

Endless ocean in every direction, a few clouds scattered above the sapphire, spoiling the pale hue the sky. If he squints then there might be a speck of pink on the horizon; maybe a sea king, maybe a ship, it doesn't matter much.

He steps away again, bends for a new weight. Nothing to distract him.

The wailing spikes and Zoro curses under his breath, hands flinching to his swords.

Some would call him weak, he can't control the instinctual twitch, but instinct has been what keeps him in the game for a very long time.

Zoro wraps his fingers around a weight handle, closes his eye, focuses on using only certain muscles.

It isn't that he can't stand to hear his captain cry, (he hears that all the time, dramatic as the idiot is) it's the fact that he makes a point of being there when it's sincere crying. Like Water Seven with Usopp. It doesn't happen often, and Zoro knows he tries to keep it hidden, which is why he tries to be present, because he can understand wanting to be alone, but Luffy isn't an alone sort of person. If Zoro doesn't see him let it out, most likely, he hasn't let it out. He wants to be there, and he wants to know he's done what could be done.

Eight hundred six

He has a job here. On watch and stuff.

Eight hundred seven

Nami and Usopp can handle it.

Eight hundred eight

Let them handle it.

Just keep on training. Ignore it, ignore it, ignore it.

The wail quiets.

Zoro shuts his eye and lets out a breath, pausing in the middle of a lift.

Time passes quicker, an hour, maybe two. Sunlight slants across the floorboards as he cycles through his exercises, till sweat begins to glisten on his chest.

He stops when there's a light knock on the trap door, a courtesy, though she knows no one else does it. Robin. She pushes open the door.

"Good evening, Zoro." She greets and he nods in reply. "I thought I might come early for my shift, I know it gets lonely up here."

He shrugs as extra arms begin to pass books up the mast and stack them in a pile by the door. He doesn't mention that she is in fact an hour and a half early.

"Nothing's been happening," He gestures to the windows and she tilts her head as though considering his statement next to her own planned response before saying her part.

"Yes, but I'm certain you heard the small fiasco we faced earlier."

"Didn't sound small," He keeps his eyes trained on the horizon while Robin situates herself on one of the cushioned benches rimming the room, her pile of books beside her.

"Luffy regained a number of memories," She admits "Though it was quite a shock, he aged physically before mentally. He was understandably upset upon discovering he'd no longer be able to swim but was completely unaware as to how it had happened."

"And?"

She sniffs humorously, flipping open the first page of one of the books.

"Once he'd almost calmed down again he began to remember, all in a rush apparently. Nami described it as being transported to the moment. He thought he'd just been rescued from a sea king by Shanks, he was rather panicked. Apparently Shanks was grievously injured in the rescue."

"'S a shame."

"Not particularly. It all happened twelve years ago and it couldn't have been that life changing. He's a yonkou despite of it. Did you know Shanks only had one arm?"

"Yeah, not till recently though."

"Interesting,"

"I never knew Luffy was the reason he gave it up."

They sit in the silence, watching the ocean , Robin skimming through pages and Zoro running his fingers around the hilts of his swords.

"This isn't gonna work," He draws the white katana, tilts it so the tempered metal reflects in a clear sheen. "We're in the New World. He knows that."

"Knew," Robin corrected.

"He knows." Zoro insists. "This is why we waited two years. And more than the last two years has been erased. It makes it all pointless."

Robin nods.

"He's our responsibility."

"I don't like this," The sword whips to the side and comes to an instantaneous stop as Zoro's muscles tense.

"It's hardly your choice." He tips his head to glare and she raises her eyes to meet his gaze. A beat, two beats, three. She smiles, though it's not much as each of her smiles last but a few seconds.

"It will pass, we will make it through."

"I'll make sure of that." Zoro growls re-sheathes Wado. Robin nods, drops her eyes back to the book.

"As will I. He has things to do, no?"

"That's right, a goal to achieve. We're sailing full speed ahead as soon as he remembers that he's got it."

"Oh, I don't believe it ever went away."

~3~

She swishes the orange juice around the glass, watching the color wash over the clear glass and then drip back into the bottom of the glass. At least, that's what she was pretending to do. Really she's keeping a close eye on Luffy who has not moved from the railing for over fifteen minutes.

Granted it was pretty interesting to watch an island on the grand line, and it was what Luffy usually did when they came to a new port, though it was different for a child Luffy stare in awe at all the strange stuff then it was for an adult Luffy to bounce over everyone yelling about all the cool stuff he saw.

"Naaaamiiiii," He yawns, tipping over the railing and then leaning back again. Franky had installed his Luffy-proof railings on this part of the ship only so that Luffy could watch the ship sail in, they kept him aboard but it wasn't perfect; Luffy-proof railings mean that they have a post that you tie one arm to. Franky had assured them he was working on a different design.

"Yeah?" She's been fielding questions for the better part of fifteen minutes, he asks the strangest things, but this is Luffy, without the experience that he's had with other islands.

"Why does the mountain smoke? Is it angry?"

"Sort of," She sets down the glass and gazes out at the island again. It's on the larger side, which is good. It wasn't their original plan to dock here, Luffy had had his sights set on a port a bit to the West of this one, but what with his current form they'd made a group decision to skip out on an island that might be too dangerous to even have a port and instead land on the first, least dangerous island they came across.

Aside from the volcano, this one is looking pretty good.

"That mountain has stuff called lava in it, that's like… liquid rock, it's red and really hot," She considers for a moment. "If you see any don't touch it, kay?"

"Mhm," He hums absently.

"So the lava gives off smoke, which is why the mountain gives off smoke," Nami finishes her explanation and Luffy nods, still humming, watching the ash cloud above the island. The volcano had almost convinced them to keep sailing in search of another island, but a closer look at the port showed a thriving marketplace and trade center, meaning that the mountain probably wasn't a real threat. There's all sorts of other interesting aspects on the island so Luffy has been pointing out each and every one and asking questions, even the ones that aren't noteworthy ("Hey! Look at that!" "What?" "That! See the cliff?" "Uh, yeah. Nice cliff…" "Yeah, that's really cool!").

Nami and Usopp had had to relay a shortened version of the Shanks fiasco to the rest of the crew, met with a unified unrest and varied degrees of horror, distress and quiet contemplation, but it truly seemed to be in the past for Luffy. They'd convinced him Shanks was fine and Luffy had cried for almost an hour before finally admitting that he felt a lot better. When Luffy had begun to question them, they'd explained that a mystery portal had brought him to them and he was actually twelve years in the future; a smaller lie then what they'd previously give him.

"Wha?! Does that mean I'm…" He'd counted on his fingers "...fifteen?"

"Nineteen," Robin had corrected "But I'm sure we'll figure out a way to get you back to your timeline very soon." Luffy had agreed and asked no further questions.

If he asked, they were stopping at the island to try and locate a voodoo witch fabled to be skilled in both the art of time travel and of making meat stew (cover story courtesy of Usopp the Great)

"Namiiiii! Is that lava?"

"No, Luffy, I told you, lava goes inside the volcan-oh jeez!" The ship shifts to starboard and a new side of the island came into view, a red and black river steams as it bleeds slowly, seeping down the side of the volcano and directly through a jungle like forest to deposit itself into the sea, sinking quickly into the depths of blue. "Uhm, yeah, Luffy, that is lava."

"Mhm, you're right, it looks hot…"

The spectacle passes but Nami now fears for the safety of the island much more, a live lava river never spells 'good omen'; the rest of the island may also be dangerously deceptive. She keeps an eye on the coast, trying to identify the worst dangers as they turn in to dock, trying to figure out what to warn Luffy's next set of chaperones about before they get set loose on the island.

"Ok Li'l Luffy-bro!" Franky calls from the lower deck, sauntering out into the open air, a tropical print shirt flared open over his metal chest and his shoulder rotator orbs gleaming from a fresh polishing. Luffy's attention immediately snags on the cyborg who had already charmed him with his greeting earlier ("Hey Li'l Luffy-bro, mecha. Nice to meet you, mecha." "He's a robot!?" "Cyborg… mecha.") and he strains against his arm as it stretches and pulls him back into the pole on the railing.

"Uncle Franky is ready to take you out!" Franky poses as Nami rolls her eyes and pulls Luffy's arm out of the knot, releasing the boy to go fawn over his self appointed 'uncle'. Really though, she feels more like an older sister, which is weird to say the least. He's nineteen for goodness sakes, not actually seven.

"Where are we gonna go?" Luffy asks, clinging to Franky's leg as Sanji strides out to stand beside the two.

"Shopping," he replies, looking down at the boy who cranes his neck to stare up at him from his perch on Franky's leg, gleeful. "Franky needs some new mechanical parts for a project he's working on."

"That's right! I'm improving the shark sub to go to greater depths, need a metal with a better strength, or a pressure balancing system; I can get both of them here!" Franky explains and Luffy nods like he understands, a serious expression coming over his face. Finally he snickers and the serious look melts away to leave his face guileless.

"So it's a mystery trip!" He laughs and points to the dock, grinning widely. "Let's go!"

Franky laughs indulgently and Sanji smiles around his cigarette.

"Alright! Hold on, mecha." Franky sweeps up the boy who squeals and giggles madly as he's set on Franky's shoulders, his legs straddling the cyborgs neck, and he clutches at the hair that suddenly bursts from Franky's scalp, still giggling. Franky clambers onto the railing and makes a leap to the dock, Sanji hopping up and preparing to jump down as well, only pausing when Nami calls his name.

"Yes, my beloved?" He whips around and steps down to the deck to kneel. "How may I be of service?"

"Just make sure you keep him away from the lava," Nami reminds "He'll probably find it and he'll probably forget I warned him it's hot. I don't think that seven year old Luffy will be as invulnerable as Luffy usually is."

"Anything you ask of me, Nami-san!"

She nods and lies back on her deck chair, picking up her orange juice glass and taking a sip, waving her hand so Sanji will go ahead, Franky alone can't possibly keep track of the hyper boy.

Heck, the entire crew working together can't possibly keep track of the boy.

~3~

"Wow! It looks just like home!"

Sanji glances down at the boy as he bounds around the pair's feet, almost like a puppy who doesn't want to wander too far but still wants to run.

After Franky had made inquiries into the metal he was looking for he'd been told that the best place to get it was a lava spring on the Southern side of the island, towards the base of the mountain, consequently fairly deep in the jungle forest of the island.

Luffy was having the time of his life.

While Sanji and Franky hike slowly Luffy flits about, climbing halfway up trees before Sanji reaches up and pulls him down, chattering about how Shanks would sometimes go into the woods and come back with lots of food and how Makino took him up to the edge sometimes and let him play while she talked to some dairy farmers that lived in the upper hills of his island and fleetingly he mentioned how he always liked the jungle when his Grandpa took him into it to fight monkeys.

Mostly the only thing they had to do to keep him satisfied was nod and make slight noises of understanding, and then he'd skirt on to another topic or trip on a rock and stay on the ground to oggle a beetle crawling around.

"Gotta admire his sense of adventure," Franky chuckles "Not all seven year olds can look at this situation as a good opportunity, I know a few kids that would've sat around the ship and cried for their parents."

"After all this I don't think he ever knew his parents," Sanji muses "We knew he'd never met his dad before, but I assumed he'd stayed with his mother in that case." He steps to the side as Luffy loses his grip on the tree he is climbing and plummets to the ground where Sanji had been standing; he lay still for a moment before jumping to his feet and attempting again, growling that he wouldn't be beaten by a tree.

"Besides, Are you really surprised that Luffy was always like he is?"

"Haha! You're right there!" Franky guffaws and Sanji reaches up to pull Luffy off the tree before he got too high again.

"Come on, crap kid, we're moving on."

"But I wanna climb the tre- WOW!" Luffy's jaw drops as the trio cuts through a thin layer of brush to reveal the lava spring, a bubbling red and black spurt of lava dribbling out of a crack in the wall of the volcano and pooling into a swirling pool of harsh, glowing, grays and blacks, the shore of the pool made entirely of solid metal, gray with a black sheen.

Surprisingly, this was not what Luffy was gawking at.

Luffy wriggles out of Sanji's grip and stumbles over the uneven, scorched, sometimes grassy ground, throwing himself around the trunk of a particularly tall tree, more out of the forest then in. Where many plants in the same sort of position had succumbed to the lava this one remains tall, had maybe even grown stronger, judging by the extra thick width of its roots. Luffy is won over immediately.

"It should have a treehouse!" He murmurs, staring upwards, slowly lifting one sandaled foot to begin the climb, scratching against the bark as he begins his ascent. He nudges slowly up the tree before going still, sliding back to the ground, only a few feet beneath him. His head tilts to the side and his form sags momentarily.

"Luffy?" Sanji steps forward, Franky's face is grim as he steps in close behind.

A shiver runs through the boy and suddenly he's on his feet again, and he's loud.

"Aaaaaaaaaccceee!" He wails, scrabbling at the tree, trying to climb higher, but falling a little short. "Ace, I can't get up! Ace you said you'd carry me up today! Aaaaaaacee!" He whines and scrabbles at the bark, pressing his face into the bark. He sniffles. "Sabo would help me up, Ace. Ace, I miss Sabo!"

Sanji had stiffened at Ace's name and the two exchange glances before Franky prompts the boy, stepping forward.

"Hey Luffy," The boy whips around, dropping to the ground and holding up his hands like he thought he was holding something. "Who's Sabo?"

Luffy's eyes dart between them and he clenches his fists around air, looking shocked as he realizes that there's nothing in them.

"My pipe…?" He asks himself, quizzical. He spins around. "Ace! Help! There are…" He stares at the top of the tree, where, of course, there is nothing. "...Ace?" He spins around to stare at them again, flashes the glance up to the tree and then back down at them, tears budding in his eyes. "Ace would never leave me!" He snarls weakly at the two of them. "Don't touch me cause he's my big brother and he'll beat you up! I'll beat you up first though!"

It was all bravado, they could tell that, but it was strange on Luffy, who usually had plenty of power to back up his threats. There was something else underlying it too.

"Go ahead and try, Luffy-bro! You can't punch through my SUPER cyborg armor!" Franky poses and Luffy falters in his attack amazed by the cyborg. Surprisingly, he shakes it off pretty quickly.

"Gotta find Ace." He mutters and Sanji pulls out a cigarette, lighting it with an easy motion.

"Luffy, I think we better explain some things to you…"

"Shut up!" He shouts and suddenly pulls his fist back. "I fight Ace all the time! I'm super strong! Gum Gum…!" He rears back and lunges forward throwing his fist toward them.

"Woah! Luffy-bro!" It's not like it could actually hurt either of them, but the last thing they need is for this to come to blows, something this stupid. Unfortunately, that seems inevitable as the fist rockets more or less toward Franky's face.

But it doesn't hit. Surprisingly.

Luffy grins like he's landed a successful blow as his arm shoots just past Franky's face, and he looks very focused as he tenses the muscles in his arm and it warps in it's path to twist around Franky's neck…

"Yeah!" He cheers, and before either of his chaperones have any clue what's happening he's breezing between the two of them, propelled by the retraction of his own arm as he goes careening into the trees behind them. "Rocket!"

"Shoot, Luffy!" Sanji almost trips over himself as he spins and charges into the jungle after him, but the little bugger is fast, and he's already out of sight. "Darn it!" Sanji snarls "Come on Franky!"

Luffy is physically loud at all times, but the same corresponds to his haki voice, no one with observation haki can possibly not hear him, his voice is just unbelievably loud.

That sometimes just means that it echos.

"Luffy-bro! Where are ya hiding?" Franky bellows and Sanji plods along behind him, hands in his pockets. "Come on out! We're aren't that bad!"

"Shut up, stupid cyborg," Sanji lightly kicks Franky's shin and tilts his head, trying to listen better, rubbing his finger in one ear. "I can hear him, but I can't tell exactly where…"

"Oh, there he is!" Franky guffaws and trundles forward, reaching up into a tree where Luffy had been cowering but now is jumping away with a strangled sort of squawk as Sanji darts forward and locks the boy between his arms and chest. Sanji can feel Luffy struggling, somewhere in the last five minutes Luffy got wet and his shirt is seeping water onto Sanji's suit. Sanji growls.

"Calm down already! What, are you crying?"

"NO!" Luffy denies, still wiggling impatiently as he tries for his freedom. "I'm not crying, only babies cry, I'm a man!"

"A little man, sure." Franky jokes and Luffy glares as the shipwright laughs.

"Leave me alone, you big bullies!" He rears back a foot and gets Sanji in the shin wth a weak kick from a soft rubber foot. Sanji looks down at him and snorts. Luffy mantles.

"Listen brat, you ought to learn this right now because it's kind of important. Listen before you start attacking because you might start beating up people who don't want anything to do with you."

"You're chasing me, don't blame me for beating you up." Luffy gripes back, Sanji rolls his eyes.

"We're chasing you because we're supposed to watch out for you, can't do that if we're not there when you get into trouble. What's got you all riled?"

"I don't know you." Luffy answers bluntly.

"Make some new friends than, dimwit, you're good at that." He hands Luffy to Franky and smirks. "Sanji." Luffy glowers at him.

"And I'm Franky." Franky bellows. Luffy struggles for another moment before letting himself go limp, biting his lip.

"Luffy."

"We know." Sanji grouses, "Now why don't you know us?"

"Should I?" Luffy remains petulant, refusing to look at either of them as they begin to plod back towards the lava spring, no way in heck Sanji was walking all the way out here again so Franky could get what he wanted, they'd get it now.

"Yeah, you should," Sanji 'hmphs', "You should also know that you're not supposed to wander off, you're a crappy kid who follows trouble around like a lapdog."

"Not true! Trouble follows me! That's what Sabo says…" He quiets again and than chews on his lip before looking at them again. "Ace says I follow trouble though, so maybe. I don't think so."

"'Course you don't think so. If we thought you did it on purpose you wouldn't ever leave the ship."

"The ship?" Luffy perks up and Franky informs him proudly:

"The Thousand Sunny, best pirate ship this side of the Grand Line! And this is the better side so it's better than those on the other side too."

"A pirate ship?" Luffy repeats, suddenly eager. "I wanna see, I really wanna see, show me, can you take me and show me?"

"Sure! Stick close and we'll start heading back once I'm done collecting this SUPER cool type of metal, wanna watch?"

"Yeah!" And just like that the situation seems diffused, Franky sets Luffy down before Sanji can stop him but the boy doesn't do anything more than flit annoyingly around Franky as he starts to chip out chunks of the metal from the banks of the spring.

Sanji smokes off to the side as they chat energetically and intermittently burst into loud exclamations of SUER and sugoi! They're such crappy kids, and heck, Franky's like thirty.

When Franky has the metal he wants he ties it up with a rope he brought and hefts the heavy load onto one of his shoulders, than strides confidently back the way they had come, hardly burdened at all, which causes Luffy to praise him for his strength and ask if he can carry some because Ace only ever lets him carry light stuff cause he thinks he's weak but he's not and Sabo agrees but Ace never does and he has to get stronger to prove him wrong and prove Sabo right because he wants Sabo to be prou-

And the chatter cuts off just like that, midword Luffy dims and droops, suddenly deciding that he's not happy and he's gonna be dejected and a depressing mess for a bit. Sanji puffs out a small plume and reaches down to pull on Luffy's cheek. The boy straightens and curls one hand into a fist, an angry expression coming to light but then cooling as quickly as it came.

"Don't pull on that," He grumbles and slaps lightly at Sanji's hand till he lets go.

"I wouldn't need to if you didn't keep dropping off like that. What, you keep deciding you don't want to bother with us?"

"No," Luffy evades, wandering a little further ahead and rubbing at his cheek "I'm thinking."

"Good one." Franky snorts and Sanji smirks around his cigarette.

"What about?"

"My brothers." Luffy's voice verges on excitement before dropping back down into evasion "Why do you care?"

"'Cause we care about you, Luffy-bro!" Franky rocks backward on his heels and shoots him a look that borders on perplexed as he lifts his shades. "If you're upset than we want to fix it."

"I don't even know you," Luffy repeats edgily, crossing his arms.

"Sure you do, I'm Franky, and he's Sanji. Come on Luffy-bro, we were having a good time!" Franky urges and Luffy hesitates for a moment before seeming to settle with the idea.

"I miss Sabo…" He finally says, deflating even further. "Ace is great but, but Sabo's Sabo and Ace is Ace and I don't want just one, I want both of my brothers!" he finishes in a rush, spreading his hands in exasperation.

"Where did Sabo go?" Sanji asks and Luffy looks up at him with hurt in his eyes.

"Sabo left." He grumbles. "Sabo's a noble and his parents wanted him back." He shrugs like it doesn't matter but it clearly does. "Sabo didn't want them to hurt us so he left."

"Good brother than, smart kid." Franky acknowledges, and Luffy shakes his head furiously.

"No! He wasn't smart, and that's weird because Sabo's really smart! But he shouldn't leave us! We miss him, it makes Ace mean." He pouts and bounces a little ahead because he'd been falling behind. "We're safer together. Besides, now he's gonna miss the pirate ship!"

"He is, he's going to miss a super cool ship," Franky agrees mournfully and Sanji elbows him irritably. "You'll get to tell him all about it later so that doesn't matter too much! Don't you worry about it Luffy-bro, he'll be back before you know it!"

"I guess," Luffy fades out of the conversation again and this time neither pursues it, they have enough to chew on for now, and talking about it isn't helping at all. Live and let lie, maybe, is the best strategy to apply here.

Luffy doesn't cheer even as they meander back into the town, remaining morose even as their surroundings shift into a colorful port town with vendors and loud crowds, just the sort of thing that Luffy likes. Walking through the market seems to try his resolve though, his stomach grumbles loudly and he almost floats after a few of the scents, always pulling back and grumbling to himself, sometimes to cover the grumble in his stomach.

"Do you want something to eat?" Sanji asks against his better judgement, knowing that if the answer is yes he'll have to buy out a whole food stand and if the answer is no he'll get him something anyway because he already knows that his captain is hungry and asking is just courtesy. He won't let him go hungry, especially if he's keeping himself hungry on purpose. It doesn't happen often but it's stupid as heck when he does do it. What Sanji should do is cook up a big meal when they get back to the Sunny.

He asks anyway.

"No," Luffy lies, resolute as he ducks away, trying to hide his horrible poker face.

"How about ice cream?"

"I don't want ice cream."

Ice cream it is.

As Sanji wanders closer to the sides of the street, inspecting the various ice cream vendors for reasonable prices and fairly good quality ice cream he spies something that makes his hackles rise.

A man in a white uniform is dashing around a street corner, ducking as though hiding, and if Sanji doesn't know that uniform than he isn't worthy of being a pirate, because crap they've got a marine on their tail. He curses and steps after the fleeting flash of white disappearing around the corner before he hears Franky laughing behind him and he turns for a moment to make sure he's not being stupid and laughing at Luffy for doing something stupid. He's not, he seems to be laughing at some younger kids who have come to inspect the strange robot like man that has invaded their street. He looks back and checks around the corner but the marine is long gone, of course he is, they never stick around long. He stalks along for a few more steps before forcing his stride to even out, it won't matter if he's tense, so long as he keeps an eye out… Nothing to be done about it now anyway, if one marine knows then so do the rest in the area. And certainly there are a lot, marines are too cowardly to go anywhere without at least a whole battleship watching their backs.

He snorts and blows out a few rings of smoke to cool his nerves, then saunters back toward the food stands, he thinks he might have spied a gelato vendor in there, Luffy would definitely like that...

~3~

"And then you got him ice cream?" Brook asks, clarifying.

"Yes! Heck, if I knew you were all going to get so worked up over a treat to cheer a kid up I wouldn't have done it!"

The congregation sat around the table in council. Almost full. Robin and Chopper had been left to Luffy-wrangle outside because, well, someone had to do it, and Chopper was pretty good at keeping up with the bubbly captain on a normal day, so why not now? Robin, for her part, had eyes on the room, literally, ears too, so it wasn't like she was missing anything.

The meeting was currently meant to determine Sanji's punishment for returning to the ship with a sugar hyped Luffy. Also to discuss what Sanji and Franky learned.

"It's good that you cheered him up, but did you have to give him ice cream? Why not a meat skewer?" Nami holds her head in her hands, staring down at a notebook with lines and lines of writing scratched out. With Luffy out of their hair for a few hours they'd all been putting their heads together to try and find a solution, and a cause for the whole fiasco. Possibilities so far: Devil fruit, nearby island, general Grand Line weirdness.

The devil fruit option is both circled and crossed out.

"Not to mention, two ice creams, Luffy's hyper enough as it is…"

"I'm so sorry, Nami-san! The crappy kid stole mine before I ate it. Half of Franky's too." He growls, rolling a smoking cigarette between his fingers.

"I let him have some of mine," Franky shrugs "Kid was downright mopey, cramping my super style."

"Why was he upset again?" Usopp asks "He was normal when he left."

"Lapse," Sanji grunts, "Like when he remembered Shanks, weirdest thing."

"He sees this huge tree," Franky holds up his hands "Monstrous, and he starts trying to climb."

"Talking the whole while about how it needs a treehouse," Sanji adds. "And then…"

"Bam!" Franky claps and the metal clangs, "Starts yelling for Ace, pulled right out of time, he had no idea who we were or where he was. Ran off the second he could."

Zoro leans across the table and picks up a fresh bottle of beer, popping the cork out and taking a swig. He points the mouth at Sanji. "So you two idiots go chasing after him and tell him…?"

"That we're not gonna hurt him and he's on a weird new island."

"So he doesn't know who any of us are?"

"Not at all, Nami-swan!"

"He knows we're pirates." Franky shrugs. "And our names. Probably Robin's and Chopper's at this point too."

Usopp pulls out a new sheet of paper and starts drawing a few charts and scribbling out notes while Brook ducks out to go try and calm down Luffy with Chopper as Robin swaps in, peering over Usopp's shoulder.

"And the reason he was upset was because of his brother, correct?" She points to an error on Usopp's paper and he erases it furiously. "Sabo was kidnapped?"

"Yeah, and Luffy-bro got into a fight with Ace-bro because he thought that they should go get Sabo-bro, but Ace thought he'd be happier where he was."

"Because Sabo was a noble, they're all sworn brothers, turns out." Robin nods. "I see, Luffy's from Dawn island, so Sabo would have been a noble in the Goa kingdom. The island is known for it's huge forest, so the trees are probably reminiscent of the vegetation Luffy grew up with if he lived in the mountains, which we are assuming he did."

"Jeez, these kids lived alone on a mountain in a treehouse." Nami rubs her forehead, "On one hand no wonder Luffy has no idea how to operate in society. On the other, how bad a job could Garp do."

"Really bad," Zoro grunts and the rest of the table nods solemnly in agreement.

~3~

"Luffy..." Chopper trails off as he follows his tiny captain through the door and into the aquarium, where the hyper-active child comes to a dead standstill, staring at the blue and the fish it enclosed.

"Whoa…" He gapes at the glass which encircles the room, and just as quickly as he'd stopped, darts forward, entirely enraptured. He presses himself against the glass, leaving sticky trails where his fingers (still grimy from the ice cream he'd eaten) rub over the smooth surface. "Look at all the fish! What are they doing in there? That's so cool! That one's red! It's for Ace! Look it, it looks like Ace!" He makes a face at the fish, contorting his features to make it look like those of the fish. His eyes fly open wide as another fish swims close to the glass, yellow with a red band across its middle. "Looklooklook that one's me! It's my hat! Look!" He wrestles his hat off his head and pushes it against the glass, presumably so that the hat can 'look'. "This is so cool! Oh man, Sabo would love this!" His voice dies, his exuberance falling flat and lifeless into a despondent tone. "But Sabo isn't here, is he?" Luffy turns away from the fish tank and look to Chopper who is still standing in the doorway, his mood too has changed rapidly from exasperation to tearful empathy.

"No, I- I mean, I don't really know Sabo, but, he's not here…" He scuffs his hooves nervously, trying to occupy himself. Luffy is staring at him with wide eyes, but he casts them down as he slides down to sit on the lounge chair. He sniffles.

"I miss him already…" He moans, hugging his hat so the straw crackles and Chopper winces. "I don't get why he had to leave…?" He looks up at Chopper again, despondence and heartache glimmering in his eyes, Chopper titters and hurries closer to offer comfort, sifting carefully through his mind to locate a solution to the current dilemma.

"I'm sure Sabo didn't want to leave…" He starts and Luffy nods.

"He didn't, they made him," Luffy's voice is thick with understanding and scorn.

"It's horrible." Chopper whispers, crawling up to sit next to his captain. The boy immediately clings to his soft fur. "The world can be really mean sometimes Luffy. You can't blame anyone. There's not enough people to blame sometimes."

"I can blame one person," Luffy disagrees "I can't blame anyone else when it was only one person's fault!"

"But it's never just one," Chopper comforts, "Sometimes it feels like the whole world pitches in! I lost someone I loved, it wasn't anyone's fault he was just sick, no one killed him. But I thought for a long time that it was my fault, for not being able to treat him. It wasn't."

"It is my fault though!" The small boy almost growls and the sound is so low that Chopper almost doesn't catch it. When the words register he stiffens, holding in the transformation his body is insisting he needs to go into, the words hold the aggression to pull at his instinctual defense.

"It is not!" He gasps and pushes Luffy away so that he can look him straight in the face and tell him as much. "You can't say that Luffy! It's not! I don't even know what happened but I know you would never do something that would get someone you loved in trouble, and you love Sabo, he's your brother!"

"He is." Luffy nods fiercely "And Ace and Sabo say that brothers protect one another, and I didn't, Sabo got taken." He clenches his fists and bites his lip. "And he did it for us! That makes it even worse! He protected us but I still couldn't protect him!" Chopper pulled Luffy close as his speech began to slur. "And Ace told me I can't cry because Sabo wouldn't want to see me crying and he doesn't want a crybaby around and so I don't but- but, it's my fault, isn't it? It is."

"It's not." Chopper denies vehemently. "Luffy you can't blame yourself, it ruins everything!"

"Ruins everything?" Luffy repeats numbly.

"Yes, if you blame yourself than it hurts, right?" The boy nods. "So Sabo was trying to protect you, and if you're hurting yourself than that ruins the point of protecting you, you're wasting Sabo's-"

"No!" Luffy gasps, bolting upright "I can't do that!" He turns wild eyes on Chopper who can't help but feel his insides loosen a little, some progress at least…

"Right. And, and maybe Sabo wouldn't want you to cry but don't you think he'd rather you not hurt so much?"

"Yeah…" A hesitant nod.

"Doesn't crying make it feel better?"

"A little…" A carefully averted gaze, the hat is being pulled down over his eyes.

The solution finally arises in Chopper's mind. He scoots closer again and wraps his arms around him, snuggling.

"Then what do you think Sabo would want?"

He's answered by a half strangled hiccup as Luffy hugs him back.