Examination

Luffy had been surprised to see Old Man Rayleigh, but he quickly turned his attention to Doctor-guy as he slid off Jinbe's back and grabbed Fox by the hand.

"Doctor-guy, can you give my assassin an examination? She's pregnant," he said matter-of-factly, leading Fox forwards.

"You know, I rather hoped you would manage not to emulate your mother like this," Rayleigh commented, shaking his head.

The doctor rose to his feet, Luffy's hat hanging from one hand. "Dracule Lisska, daughter of Dracule Mihawk and Pearl, daughter of Silvers Rayleigh, and also known as 'Angel of Death' Fox," he said coolly. "What a surprise."

Luffy stumbled slightly at the Doctor-guy having guessed Fox' secret, but the assassin just chuckled.

"You've been talking to my mother, Trafalgar Law," she said sweetly, "I see her fingerprints all over you."

Law frowned. "I can give you an examination," he said shortly, "but it will have to be on board my submarine."

Fox let go of Luffy's hand and gestured to the Doctor-guy. "Please, lead the way Doctor Law."

The Doctor chucked the straw hat at the rubberman then turned around and led the way down the steep slope to the shore, Fox right behind him. Luffy caught his hat and set it on his head, relieved it hadn't got lost.

"Ah, Luffy-kun," Old Man Rayleigh said, turning his attention away from his granddaughter. "It's good to see you again."

"What are you doing all the way out here?" Luffy blurted out. "I was just about to head back out to the Sabaody Archipelago by following the Vivre Card! Where are the others?"

Old Man Rayleigh chuckled. "Well I doubt they have all been reunited just yet; I left my own Vivre Card with Shakky. I could hardly move around freely otherwise, you see."

"Dark King Rayleigh; are you truly him? I am astonished," Jinbe said shakily. "And Pearl is your daughter? I'd never have guessed."

"Jinbe; thank-you for taking such good care of my granddaughter over the years," Old Man Rayleigh said. "Now how did she get here, do you know?"

"I called her," Luffy said, fidgeting. He didn't like waiting and he didn't like not being able to keep an eye on Fox. He knew he couldn't watch the examination as that was private but he was still worried. She was sort-of married to his big brother now which meant he had to look after her more than he had before with her just as his assassin. Of course she was sort-of married to Zoro too, and Zoro would be very angry if she or the baby got hurt when Luffy could have done something about it.

Luffy tried not to think about Zoro and Ace being sort-of married to each-other. It didn't make any sense so he was going to ignore it.

Law led the way down into his ship towards the main theatre, his mind buzzing with questions. His main question was how on earth Pearl had known he would meet up with her daughter several days before he even decided to watch what happened at Marineford, let alone help Straw-Hat. Behind him Dracule Lisska –Angel of Death Fox– strode gracefully, her hair full of leaf litter and wearing poorly fitting men's clothing. She looked nothing like as elegant as she had on Sabaody and nothing at all like her bounty poster; Law suspected that was deliberate. On the one hand, there was the law-abiding Pose Artificer with a Government contract, on the other an apparently unbalanced killer with a history of massacres whom Straw-Hat called his assassin. What kind of person was Monkey D. Luffy to not only have an assassin as part of his crew but openly acknowledge her as such? Was it sheer confidence? Most of what Straw-Hat did seemed to be.

He opened the door to the theatre and gestured. "Do come in, Miss Angel of Death."

She stepped past him and sat down on the operating table. "Please call me Fox; it is who I am," she said politely, "and feel free to ask the questions meeting my mother has planted in your mind."

"Fox-ya," Law conceded, closing the door. "Please take your shirt off."

The woman did so, revealing a bandage breast band. "I was doing the laundry," she said as she folded the shirt in her lap, "and wasn't expecting to be called away."

"Where were you doing the laundry?" Law asked, pulling on a pair of gloves and moving closer.

Fox smiled. "Nowhere near here," she admitted candidly, "But my captain called me so I had to answer."

"Arm," Law said shortly, reaching for the equipment to check her blood pressure. Fox obliged. "How long ago did you conceive?"

"About two weeks before the Straw-Hats first arrived in Sabaody, so a bit over five weeks ago," she calculated. "I've been eating appropriately."

"Define appropriately."

"My mother gave me very specific advice on what and how much I should be eating while pregnant when I saw her shortly before we wound up in the Auction House," Fox explained, "and before that I was eating as healthily as it is possible to on board a ship. Sanji takes food very seriously."

"Hm," Law acknowledged as he checked her blood pressure. "You are a quarter mermaid, yes?"

"Something close to that; I've never checked precisely."

"It will affect how I judge the outcome of the examination," Law explained, removing the cuff and noting down the results. "Mermaid biology is similar but there are certain distinct differences. How well do you manage at deep-sea pressures?"

"Without difficulty; I can also breathe underwater and before I ate Devil Fruit I was fast enough a swimmer to outpace a fishman," his patient told him.

"Why did you eat Devil Fruit and what type?"

Fox glanced up at him. "Is the former relevant?"

"No." Law still wanted to know though.

"I was forced to eat Devil Fruit; it was the Mei-Mei no Mi."

Law nearly fumbled his notes, but directed her towards the scales. "Logia, correct?"

"Indeed." Fox smiled serenely at him. "Tell anyone and both you and they will have an unfortunately fatal accident. I like being underestimated."

"I've never heard of a Logia successfully making it through a pregnancy before, but that may simply be due to their rarity and the fact that most pirates and Marines are men," Law mused, accepting the threat's validity. "That you ate the Life-Life Fruit may actually help keep the embryo alive." He paused. "Have you been using it on the baby?"

"I've been monitoring it through my body's systems but not otherwise," Fox said. "I didn't want to accidentally accelerate its development or damage it."

"Very wise," Law muttered, taking note of her weight and height. "Do you know where I can get hold of your medical history?"

"My mother's doctor has my recent medical history; from when I was fifteen to the present day," Fox told him. "There isn't anything between nine and fifteen, which includes the time I ate Devil Fruit, but before then is also recorded by mother's doctor. Before I was four will be sporadic and unreliable though as I lived with my father."

Law translated that as 'constantly on the move'. "You're Grand Line born I take it, Fox-ya?"

"Yes. Fishman Island has my birth certificate."

Not surprising considering Pearl was a mermaid. Law made another note. "Who is your mother's doctor?"

"His name is Kajiki, but you'll only get the records by getting in touch with my mother and asking nicely for them," Fox explained. "Kaj is one of her dependants."

So he was either a merman or a fishman living under her protection rather than on Fishman Island. Smart lady for having a doctor permanently at hand when she had such a large community depending on her.

"I'd like a blood sample," he said, reaching for a syringe.

"So long as only my given name appears in your records," Fox said evenly.

"Fine; Dracule Lisska, no added epithets," Law agreed easily. Fox sat back down on the table and kept her eyes on his hands rather than the needle or his face.

"So, assassin?" he asked as the little vials filled.

"I'm told I'm very good," Fox said unhelpfully.

"I've never heard of you."

"Proof enough," Fox said lightly. "Anonymity is an assassin's greatest asset."

"You captain told me," Law pointed out.

"He's my captain." That meant far more when she said it than when he'd ever heard similar statements from other pirates.

"What does his being your captain mean to you?" he asked as he removed the needle from her arm, gave her a cotton bud and set the vials aside. She waved away the cotton bud and the wound closed smoothly. Regeneration; very interesting.

"He gives the orders and I obey them." Again, a loaded statement.

"No matter what?"

"He's a good captain." So much she wasn't saying that was nonetheless perfectly clear. Fox really would follow any order her captain gave her, yet trusted Straw-Hat not to order her to do anything she couldn't –or wouldn't– do.

"The next few examinations are rather invasive," Law said bluntly. "Take off the rest of your clothes please."

After the pelvic exam Law let her get dressed again while he got the ultrasound working. "You can't just have one check-up, you know," he pointed out. "Ideally you need monthly ones until the end of the second trimester, fortnightly ones for the following two months then weekly until birth."

"My situation is far from ideal," his patient drawled from behind him as she pulled her trousers back on, "and I can monitor the baby's health much better than most mothers; I've monitored pregnancies before so I know what to expect."

Law really wanted to have an in-depth medical discussion about what exactly her Devil Fruit Ability enabled her to do, but recognised this wasn't the time. "Sit," he said shortly, bringing the machine forward. She sat, not bothering to put her shirt back on. Law spread the gel over her lower abdomen, then placed the transducer, his focus on the screen. He hadn't actually done this since he was in training, which had been a good many years ago. Piracy meant he got a lot more trauma patients than any other kind and pregnant woman tended to run away rather than ask for assistance.

"And there it is," he muttered, spotting the half-inch long embryo on the screen. "Can't distinguish gender yet though; too early." He moved the transducer slightly to get a better picture. "You are indeed in embryonic age week six, so gestational week eight. Birth is generally in week forty, so thirty-two weeks away; slightly less than eight months." He set the machine aside and handed her a wipe for her abdomen. "That's everything; you are in excellent health from what I can see and there doesn't seem to be anything wrong at this stage. The blood test will take time but considering your Devil Fruit I doubt I'll find anything amiss."

"Thank-you Doctor Law," Fox said, wiping herself down and shrugging the shirt over her shoulders before walking towards the door. Law hesitated.

"Come back," he said.

Fox turned around, her hand on the door handle. "Pardon?"

Law watched her from the corner of his eye. "I have no idea how you got here Fox-ya but I suspect you can teleport or some such to come when you captain called for you. Come back on board my ship in a month's time and I'll give you your next check-up."

"What will it cost me, Doctor Law?" Fox asked, moving back into the room with a deceptively gentle gait. She moved like a person who killed with her hands; considering the details on her bounty poster, she probably could.

"I want to know what your Devil Fruit can do," he said frankly, "and I'd like some more questions answered."

"Questions?" She was within arm's length now. Far too close when she was acting like the assassin her captain had introduced her as.

"Why did you say you could see your mother's fingerprints all over me?" He hadn't meant to ask, but it still came out.

Fox stepped back, just out of reach. "Know anything about Haki?"

"Haki?"

Fox looked him in the eye, unexpectedly serious. "Find out. Learn. Work hard, because in the New Word your life will depend upon it. My mother is an absolute savant with Haki so she sees more than most, but I can see enough to know you've met her recently and that she upset you."

Law sensed he'd been handed for free something a lot of pirates died before even learning existed. "She knew I'd meet you," he said quietly, "told me so nearly three weeks ago."

"That sounds like mother," Fox sighed. "Did she give you a message? She does that whenever she sees someone is going to meet me. I've been stopped by all sorts of people. Frequently Marines; you haven't lived until you get accosted in the street by an Admiral who informs you that your mother wants you to stop by for tea in ten days' time at four o'clock."

Law blinked. That… made things less bad, actually. "She told me to kiss you," he said bluntly.

Fox cocked her head on one side. "You'd better do it then," she said pragmatically. "She'll know if you don't and it's a test."

"Test?" Law had an idea, but confirmation would be helpful.

"She wants to see if you can be trusted. You know what she does for a living, yes?"

"Information?" It certainly wasn't the madam she looked and acted like; well not entirely.

Fox smiled. "Indeed. Trustworthiness and reliability are very important in the information trade. This is a small thing, a trivial thing, but if you don't do it she'll make rude comments about your unreliability next time you want something or insinuate unpleasant things about your masculinity or lack thereof for not being willing to kiss a pretty girl. Better just to go with the flow and avoid all the hassle."

Law pondered Fox' words, considering what he had learned of her mother from talking to her over lunch. Pearl did seem the type to make everything into a test, constantly assessing the value and reliability of the people around her. He knew he did it to a certain extent, but the Dark King's daughter apparently took it to greater extremes.

"We call her the Storm, you know," Fox said idly, tossing a scalpel around with familiar ease, "because she's rather like a really nasty Grand Line cyclone."

Dangerous, unpredictable and takes you completely by surprise. Oh, yes. Law could see it. Walking over he took the scalpel away from Fox and pecked her on the cheek. "There. Now get out and don't come back for a month."

Fox reached up and tapped him on the nose with a glowing finger, making him sneeze. "There, now I can find you," she said brightly, then legged it out of the theatre at a run.

Law wondered what on earth he was doing offering to help Fox, but decided the inconvenience was worth it to get an in on Madam Storm's information network. Knowledge was power after all.

A bit of Luffy and a lot of Law, who has somehow wrangled his way into being Fox' doctor for the next eight months. How did that happen?