Chapter 19: A Moment of Calm Before the Storm - Part 1

"Uh, Bobby?" The shipwright peered into his fiancé's library.

The word still gave him a thrill, even though most of their time was spent preparing for the assault on Jaya. The Thousand Sunny had been retrieved from Raftel, where she'd been retired after Luffy gained One Piece, and for the last several days, Franky and the various other shipwrights from the Revolutionaries, Coby's Marine contingency, and the punks from Galley-La had been set to work, upgrading the Pirates' flagship. The Flying Pan and the Mecha Lotus were also outfitted with upgrades and repairs. Truth be told, the entire fleet needed to have work done to it, so the blue-haired cyborg had been able to bury his discontent in work. Now that things were finally beginning to come to a conclusion, he wanted to touch base with the woman he felt was the most important in the world, but...

Robin didn't respond, muttering to herself as she paced back and forth in front of an enormous replica map of Jaya. She was trying to find the best approach, but it was difficult. Even with what Brook had been able to tell her, it was hard to be sure Bellamy hadn't changed his layout, or that Brook had remembered all the details right—not that she would blame him if he didn't because after the sea-water torture he'd described nobody could fault him getting mixed up.

Besides, 'Bobby' wasn't here for the time being. 'Bobby' had been locked up in a strongbox in the corner of her soul. She would let her out later, once they had thoroughly taken care of Bellamy.

As seemed to be the case with her more and more these days, Franky found himself at a loss for words. The large man stepped into the room carefully to avoid disturbing any of her charts. "Uh... some of us 're gonna grab somethin' ta eat, did ya wanna come with? It's not as good as th' All-Blue o'course, but Dragon's kitchen's pretty extensive."

She paused, hand on the wall, before releasing a breath that wasn't quite a sigh and tipping her hat up just slightly. She calmly turned from the map, covered in indecipherable scribbles only she and Nami understood, though some were obviously unpleasant.

"...I suppose I should. I will be able to plan better on a full stomach."

"Yeah." His reaction was somewhat more subdued than normal, and his fingers twitched to reach out to her. How long had it been since he'd felt her kiss? "Uh..."

She knew she was alienating him, and inside her heart ached. But that was behind the ice wall, inside the box. She could not let herself be distracted. Not this close to the crucial point. To fight a monster... sometimes one had to become a monster.

Reaching out to tuck a stray piece of hair behind her ear, he winced when she ducked away from his touch, and his hand coiled into a frustrated fist. His mouth set in a hard line, the angle of his eyebrows causing his sunglasses to fall down onto his nose, and he turned to leave, tense and hurt.

"It's ready whenever you are... Robin."

The little flinch she couldn't quite control was witnessed by nothing but his turned back, and she pulled her hat down further to shade her eyes and hide whatever treacherous emotions may have escaped as she silently struggled to slam the box shut again and lock it tight.

She hoped that when it was safe for Bobby to come out again, Franky wouldn't be too hurt to receive her. If he refused her... One more sacrifice. One more for the sake of her Nakama. For them, she would give up anything, even the man she loved and her very soul.

When he received no answer, the shipwright sighed and moved away, back up the gangplank and into the fortress carved into the side of the Red Line that connected Marineford and Ryuunosu. It was something of a hike but having an accessible port on both sides of the giant strip of land was worth the stairs and elevators and twisting hallways. In lighter, peaceful times there was something of a game among recruits and students to see how long it took them to get lost going from one side of the capital city to the other. But now, under threat of the biggest war the world had seen since the fall of the World Government, there was no laughter echoing the steel-lined corridors. So, every step the cyborg took away from the woman he called home sounded like the thunder of a thousand outraged voices.

He entered the mess hall just as Sanji, Flambé, and their combined team of cooks opened the serving lines for the starving mob of people. The atmosphere here was more jovial, the three factions more or less ribbing each other and proud of their own allegiance, but Franky took no part in it. He merely grabbed a bowl of the blond's famous All-Blue Chowder, made from five different fish—one native to each ocean—and a bottle of cola to sit on his own in the corner of the huge galley, an isolated island of melancholy.

Robin did not enter at all. A line of arms and eyes brought a small portion of soup to her and that was all she ate. She had lost her appetite. She let herself have one, private, moment of sorrow. Two tears in an empty bowl.

Then she thoroughly slammed herself back into the role she must play, the only role in which she was any good because as Robin she was lost and scared, as she had been the day she'd been cast out to sea by a benevolent marine. But Miss All-Sunday? She had survived that tragedy! She knew how to plan, how to think on her feet, how to break emotionally-charged situations into their core parts so she could use them in their most effective manner. Miss All-Sunday didn't need a navigator to keep her from getting lost.

She returned to her maps and her plans and her strategizing. And her fantasizing. It was all that kept her sane some days. Imagining exactly what she would do to the man who had torn her Nakama apart so thoroughly should there be anything left of him once those who had personally been hurt had their chance. Her latest one was to shave him into bits of scrap metal and have Franky weld him into the Mecha Lotus's as a decoration where, constantly battered by sea spray but welded on, he could never escape being repeatedly dunked in seawater like he had done to Brook.

Sometime after the line of hands disappeared; Usopp joined Franky in his corner. Then Brook took a seat nearby, and Sanji brought them all drinks from behind the counter. Zoro was off to the side somewhere, and Luffy rested his back against the wall above them, balanced on a rafter. All in all, the aura of determination hung around the core Strawhats like a cloud of darkness, warding most people off.

Though, among their allies, several were not 'most people'. So, it wasn't long before a certain black-haired co-captain was strolling past their Corner of Despair with his partner in tow.

He stopped, the corner of his mouth curled, and his brows drew together. "It seems like quite a party going on over here, ne?"

"Everybody prepares fer shit in 'eir own way, doc," Kidd grunted, wine-red eyes skating over the gathering of men, hand still twirling a screwdriver, and barely taking in any of his surroundings and the Strawhats' situation.

His brain was still locked into Mechanic Mode, the frame of mind he required to create, repair, and keep track of his mechanical inventions. In fact, Law had dragged him, snarling and resisting, from the workbench where he'd been building a brand-new mechanical arm. He'd barely finished the shoulder mount, and the only reason he'd come was so Law would agree to install it tonight.

He needed to get it done and as long as he was well enough to stand up and weld the little wires, he was going to fucking do it. It simply had to be ready.

"Yes, well, as long as everyone is preparing such that they remember to fuel themselves. Having all of you meatheads relying on those of us with more intelligence in the last moments of battle all because you forgot to eat is just asking for us to leave you to die." The surgeon's eyes flashed with something that he refused to elaborate on, but he shifted his gaze to the head chef, "I know I have at least one supporter, ne, Cook-ya?"

"Hm?" The blond was a bit distracted, but sharp blue eyes darting over the gathered crew had him nodding. "Yeah. I've no desire to have to play Prince Charming to the lot of you sorry excuses for muscle mass because you didn't have the brain cells to eat when there was good food available. With this many people, there's no guarantees of seconds."

The last was directed deliberately at the rubber man, who against all odds, had been so anti-social lately that they'd actually had to force him to eat. If nothing else about him betrayed his inner turmoil, that did. It actually took some doing to make sure that the crews of the other Pirate ships weren't suspicious of their king's behavior. In retaliation of Sanji's comment, a hand snaked down to steal a biscuit from the tray balanced on the chef's shoulder. The blond gave a smirk and a nod, before handing a mug to Law.

"The tea you asked for, Trafalgar-san."

"Ah, thank you." The brunette smiled secretively over the steaming brew and sipped at it with a pleased expression pulling at his usual smirk.

Something clicked wrong in the gears that ran Kidd's mind and the grinding noise was damn near audible. To Law, who was intimately familiar with how Kidd's mind worked, it was actually audible. This malfunction stemmed from a simple fact: the 'Law' gear and the 'tea' gear did not fit together. Law couldn't stand the lack of caffeine for long; he would pass the fuck out without some kind of stimulant in his body and caffeine was the safest.

The dark red eyes came around to examine the brew, already switching modes. Law only drank tea for one reason—he was sick, or anticipating being sick. Depending on what he was drinking, Kidd could usually tell what it was. He'd been with Law too long not to have picked up at least SOME of his medical knowledge.

The problem? Kidd didn't recognize this. He didn't recognize the leaf shape, or the smell. So it wasn't anything he was familiar with. Not exhaustion. Not a cold. Not the flu. But not a heart issue—he STILL couldn't get Law to tell him what the fuck was happening that he'd needed to drink all the fucking foxglove. And not any sort of sleep aid or bacteria fighter.

So then what the fuck was it? Kidd turned his attention on them both, body twisting around so Law was no longer holding him there.

Affecting to be startled, the surgeon raised an eyebrow, smiling around his mug. "Troubles, beloved?"

Sensing the Neverland co-captains needed a moment alone, the Strawhats busied themselves with their own food, turning their backs and shoulders deliberately away from their allies.

"Grrr," was the default response for anything Kidd was either unable to properly verbalize, or had nothing to verbally reply with. There had been a lot of such growls back in the beginning, when the poor musclehead had been trying to explain what was 'wrong' with him in terms the doctor would understand. It had been quite awkward to have a growl replace every other word... he still didn't know how Law had managed to interpret it.

Thus, he didn't reply any other way as he wrapped his huge hand around Law's a pulled the mug up, sniffing at it like the animal he more or less was. His nose twitched and his eyebrows drew together. It was a faint memory. Very faint. Some sort of fruit. A berry? Blackberry? No, that had a sharper scent. Unconsciously, he tried to pull Law in closer with the arm that was no longer there as he sniffed again at the steam, puzzling it out.

"What you're looking for is raspberry." His lover replied casually, as though they were discussing the weather, but his amusement rested comfortably on his face.

"Raspberry?"

Kidd's frown got deeper as he searched his memory. He knew he'd heard Law prescribe it before. But what for? It was always women, he remembered that...

Wait... women...

Pregnant women.

Pregnant...

His pupils turned into pinpricks and he clamped his jaw on the first words that wanted to tumble out of his mouth. If he said that in public, Law would slap him until his head spun and he wouldn't get any sex for a year.

Instead he just breathed deeply, several times, and let go of the mug to pull Law in with his hand. "...I think we need'a have a talk, Trafalgar."

"Oh, this should be fun." The lanky brunet allowed himself to be escorted from the mess hall with a dangerous glint in his eyes.

He waved to the others with a lift of his mug, and as one, Luffy and Usopp turned to Sanji, who shrugged in the same manner that he used when asked about his recipes. He was filling an order from a customer. Beyond that, he claimed to know nothing. It was generally safer that way, though the gathered Strawhats didn't seem to think so, and pounced on the blond in an attempt to get more information out of him.

Kidd escorted him all the way to their own ship's kitchen, where he proceeded to snarl in his fiercest voice that they weren't to be disturbed and locked the door before sitting down, his fist on the counter. Law had managed to instill some manners in him over the years, and with only one hand, this was his approximation of waiting patiently with his hands folded.

"Law, I know what that's prescribed for. This information applied to the fact that you hate tea, especially herbal which is decaffeinated, combined with the fact that you're fuckin' scary smart, means I would like an explanation."

"It's quite simple, Eustass-ya. I'm pregnant." The surgeon took a sip of his tea, waiting for the explosion he knew was sure to follow such a bomb.