A/N: Nothing in this chapter is necessarily meant to be read as LuNa or LawLu, it's just that Luffy's an affectionate little bugger and I could so see him getting even more cuddly when he's sick and confused. Those of you who are interested in seeing a romance written by me can check out my new AceLu oneshot called 'Red and Black', which I worked very hard on (for four months and a 13K+ word count!) and I'm very, very proud of. (*Shameless self-advertisement*)

Sorry for the long wait. Spilled water on my keyboard and had to replace it, yadda, lack of inspiration, yadda, working tirelessly to finish above-mentioned oneshot and get it out, yadda, all my fault and I apologise. And now, the long awaited chapter!

Consciousness wandered into his grasp again as he felt the fingers of the girl he had met — Nami, his muddled mind placed — gently brush a lock of his hair behind his ear. Her hand was warm, a nice, soothing warmth different from the uncomfortable heat that interchanged with the shaking cold, and he really wanted to be closer to it. He felt himself whimper when it drew away.

"Doctor's here," an indeterminate voice proclaimed. It sounded both far away and vastly close at the same time. Nami stood up when she heard the words, head turned away, so he guessed she wasn't the speaker.

A second later there were larger, more masculine hands squeezing his shoulders reassuringly. "Doctor's here," the voice that was now distinctly Law's reiterated. He winced at how loud it sounded. "She's just here to check you over," it continued on a whisper, "nothing too serious, I promise."

There was a minute in which he felt nothing but the blanket and the pillow, but then a third pair of hands, withered and very familiar, lifted his chin. "Say ah."

Say ah? He was sure he'd been told to do so in the past, but at the time he could only wonder. Why ah? Why say anything? He tried anyway, knowing fully the well the consequences these particular hands weren't averse to giving. It barely came out comprehensible as his lips stuck together.

"Open your mouth, boy, and be snappy about it."

He tried again to comply, but his jaw was locked and his lips were sticky. He didn't get much headway until the doctor became impatient and separated his teeth manually. She shined a flashlight down his throat and he could almost taste it. "Can you wiggle your toes?"

He could do that.

"Good. Your circulation is going well enough… How's your breathing? Can you use your nose easily?"

That he couldn't. He attempted to shake his head slowly, but it agitated his headache and he took a sharp, steadying breath through his mouth, which was interrupted by a hiccup.

"Guess not. Get him something to drink, would you?"

As someone's footsteps began to sound farther away, and the prodding of his body continued, he had to wonder where his brother was. Law and the doctor and Nami were there, but where was Ace?

"W-where," he croaked, but his throat was so dry. Something that felt like a glass touched his lips, and slowly something cool and wet slipped down his tongue. He wanted to grab the glass and drink greedily, but he didn't for fear of Doctor Kureha and her ways. "Where's Nii-chan?"

"Who?" Nami asked. She sounded strangely garbled, but it was probably because of whatever was stuck in his ear. There was something stuck in his ear, wasn't there? It sure felt like there was.

"He means Ace." Something made of cloth wiped leftover wetness from the corners of his lips. "He'll be home soon, little hat-wearing one. I promise."

Placated, his mind turned to the boy who usually came to visit him along with Kureha. "…Chopper?"

He heard a crackling cackle. "He's in the other room, boy. Your friend introduced him to your pet and might I say they get along splendidly."

"'S nice…" he forced himself to mumble. He wanted desperately to sleep again, to become dead to the world among the stark white sheets, but he wanted even more to see Ace first. Law promised he'd be home soon, so it couldn't be that long, right?

Right?

All was quiet.

Well, not quite, as they could still hear the people in the other room, but it was the sentiment.

Anyhow, all was not quite quiet but mostly so. Ace felt like he could have heard a pin drop, even though he couldn't have as it wasn't that quiet, as he watched the young boy trying to hide behind a glass of water with bewilderment.

…This was his home, right? It definitely looked like his home. So why was this stranger looking at him like he was an intruder, a trespasser, and why was the boy there in the first place? He hadn't walked through the wrong door, had he?

He guessed he hadn't, as the glass the boy was trying to hide behind housed Zoro, but that left the question of the boy's identity and purpose. He was certainly an odd seeming child — dressed almost exclusively in a particular shade of light brown that matched his skin tone, save for his pink shorts, his nose, which was coloured blue with what looked like marker, and the cheesy Christmas themed headband he wore, which was green with red reindeer antlers protruding from them.

It wasn't near Christmas yet, though, nor any other holiday in which one would dress up. Ace couldn't place what the antlers were doing atop the boy's head.

"…Hello, little guy," he tried. The boy shrank back in response. "I'm Ace. What's your name?"

The boy muttered something he couldn't hear. Ace cupped a hand around his ear in a signal to speak up. "…Chopper."

"It's nice to meet you, Chopper." Chopper shifted bashfully on his feet, but didn't come out from behind Zoro, as if the marimo would protect him from the unknown man. "How did you get here?"

"We drove." Chopper bit his lip and glanced left and right feverishly, looking for all the world that he was reluctantly giving away some great secret. "We took her favourite car — the blue one — all the way from the clinic, and she left it in the parking lot below the building, which I don't know if it was a good idea because what if someone decided to break into it or it was damaged while we were gone, but I hadn't thought about that until just now because she told me we were going to see Luffy and I got excited."

"You came from a clinic… to see Luffy…" The pieces put them selves together seamlessly in Ace's head. "'She' is Luffy's doctor, isn't she? And she brought you along so she could give him a check up?"

Chopper seemed earnestly confused. "Isn't that what I said?"

"For the most part, I suppose," Ace conceded. "You were a little vague on the details. …The pertinent details. You told me lots about the little things. You're friends with Luffy, then?"

Chopper turned his eyes on his own shoes, cheeks burning in shame. "No…" he admitted miserably.

"No? Why not? Luffy's not the type to turn down friends." Or is he? Some little voice quibbled in the back of his mind. You really haven't known him long enough to tell. Who's to say it wasn't his own decision to have only Sanji and Marco as friends?

But he told that voice to shut up. The Luffy he knew was cheerful and friendly and outgoing; he wasn't and would never be the kind to sit in the corner of the room, refusing to speak to anyone if it wasn't necessary.

Luffy wasn't anything like Ace.

"I turned his offer to be friends down," Chopper corrected. "It's better this way."

"Is it really?"

"Of course it is." Ace could tell Chopper was surer in his words, yet his hands shook slightly around Zoro's glass. He wasn't that intimidating, was he? Well, to such a small boy, he guessed he might have looked rather imposing…

"Why?"

"Because I'm alone."

Ace had no time to ponder this before Chopper's anxiety redoubled. "Oh no, oh no, I shouldn't have said anything," he whispered hysterically to himself. He pleaded to Ace, "I never talked to you! I've never met you! I was silent and you don't even know my name! Okay?"

Ace frowned, and Chopper immediately hid himself again behind Zoro — though it wasn't a very effective hiding spot, the boy didn't seem to notice.

At that moment, an unfamiliar, old and yet spry woman emerged from down the hall.

"You must be Ace," she smiled through battered lips, "I'm Doctor Kureha."

"Glad to meet you," he took her extended hand and shook it cordially.

"I see you've… encountered my boy Chopper." She motioned.

"Who?" His lips turned up in an artificially clueless grin. "All I see is Zoro."

She laughed brusquely. "So you've talked already then? I understand. If you'd like to see your little brother, you know where he is."

"How is he?" Ace questioned with concern. He hadn't really thought Luffy was bad enough to call the doctor, but Law was the medical student, and he must have called her for her to be there. Perhaps it was more serious than he had assumed?

"Oh, he'll be fine," she waved him off. "That friend of yours is taking good care of him. And the redhead girl was eager to help, too. I think the three of you will see him right as rain."

Redhead girl? Nami was there? It didn't matter. Luffy mattered. "Can I see him?"

"Did I not just say you could, young man? Honestly, kids today need to learn how to listen."

Why were his eyelids so uncooperative? They kept drooping, and it was a struggle to keep them open. They only had to be open long enough to see Ace, so why couldn't they even manage that? It really wasn't fair, especially with Nami singing that song — "May you have shelter in storm to hide you, may you have stars in the night to guide you…" — that just made him so sleepy.

He wanted to tell her to stop, but he really also wanted to keep listening to the song. He was listening to the song so single-mindedly, he barely even heard the door swing in as softly as it did.

But then Nami's voice tapered off, and one of his eyes blinked open curiously. When it did, the first thing he saw was a warm smile, then freckles across the bridge of a nose, then dark eyes and dark hair, and he felt a comforting palm on his forehead. "Hey, kiddo." He could nearly feel the rumble of Ace's voice through his brother's hand. "You been good while I was gone?"

A small noise of joy escaped him and he slumped back, only then realising how tense he had been. The second his head fully came into contact with the pillow, he fell into the blissful slumber he had been yearning for instantly.

It had taken him long enough.

Special Extra! Ten Years Ago!

A younger Doctor Kureha looked sadly at the two young boys waiting together obliviously on one of the cots. One black-haired and one blond, each one a picture of childish innocence as they chatted the wait away cheerfully.

These boys don't deserve something like this.

She, the illustrious Doctor Kureha, had been begged by a small orphanage, owned and run by an old friend of hers, to use her famous medical talents to help the black-haired boy she gazed upon now. According to Makino, The five-year-old had spent most of his life bedridden of one sickness or another, every one worst than the last. The green-haired woman's simple request was to find out what was the route cause of the boy's ailments and put it right.

She had accomplished half of her bargain.

But now she had no idea what could be done for the boy — Luffy, his name, as she had been told.

And his friend, the blond one — Sanji — who was so very fond of Luffy, as she too had grown after the time-consuming tests she had put him through, shouldn't have to be so unimaginably cautious with his friend. Especially not when they were both so young.

They wouldn't be able to play in the dirt anymore. Luffy wouldn't be able to go out in the rain, or eat anything sold by street vendors, or travel, or go to a carnival, amusement park, or circus. He would never see a zoo, or a farm, or another country. He would miss out on so many parts of childhood, and if Sanji were a good friend at all, he would have to accommodate for that.

"Boys," she approached them faintly. They hushed themselves in anticipation when they saw her. "…Do you know anything about viruses?"

The boys shook their heads.

"Viruses are miniscule living organisms… very small animals," she amended, remembering their age. "They're so small you can't even see them. If the get in your body, they… they can hurt you. They make you sick."

"…Like monsters?" Luffy deduced naïvely. "Invisible monsters?"

"Yes, exactly. They live in many different places, but they're abundant — There are a lot of them in certain areas. Dirty places, damp places, dark places…"

"Like under beds?" Sanji piped in. "It's always dark under beds, and they're never very clean."

"There are monsters under my bed?" Luffy asked with distress. "I sleep there!"

"Luffy," she put a hand on his shoulder in what she hoped was a consoling gesture. "A boy like you… is very weak to monsters. Please, promise you'll be very careful, alright? Monsters can hurt you easier than they can other people, and they like to take advantage of that."

"I will!" He nodded fervidly. "I promise I will!"

She couldn't help but smile at that. "Thank you. Now, I have to tell Makino about this back at the Centre. How about I drive you two back home? Come on, follow me."

As Doctor Kureha strode down the hall slowly, mindful of her charges shorter legs, her thoughts inevitably turned to Luffy and Sanji walking behind her, hand in hand and unaware of the way their fates were changing.

She couldn't help but think she was taking away their chance at a normal life.

A/N: Hey guys, I was wondering, what characters do you want to see turn up in this story? Obviously the straw hats, and I have roles planned for a couple other characters, too, but I'd appreciate if you told me whom you'd like to see. I'll think up their role later.

I really hope including that extra makes up for the long wait. You probably don't care, though, huh? Yeah. Sorry again.

In answer to a reviewer's question; no, I was not born premature myself, but that's not to say I didn't have my own set of birth complications. Let's just say that if my dad hadn't been paranoid enough to make the doctors double check, there wouldn't have been anyone to even make this account. I do, however, know someone who has an immune system issue and is sick out of school a few days every week (sometimes entire weeks altogether) and she says she would much rather be at school, it's that bad. For perspective, she hates school. Not that that's very unusual.

No, Nami doesn't know what Nii-chan means. She doesn't speak Japanese.

And now a question for my reviewers: Are the long waits for my chapters worth it? It occurred to me because I was recently reading a fic in which the author mentioned the three-month anniversary of the story around the twenty-seventh chapter. That's, what, ten chapters a month? You guys are lucky if you see one from me.

I spend forever fleshing out what happens in a particular chapter, then writing it, then editing it for grammar and typos, and finally reading it over a few more times to make sure it accomplishes what I want it to and is all around enjoyable before I post it. But that means sacrificing efficiency for perfection (or as close to perfection as I'm capable of). So, in your opinion, is the long wait for my chapters worth it?