Chopper watches Karmen lean over the bulwark for the tenth time in an hour. "Does it always get this bad?"
Karmen, looking pretty green, smiles grudgingly. "Only when I increase the dose." She grasps the railing and wills herself not to throw up.
"I have some Sparine. It should help with the nausea."
"That sounds lovely." She sits on her knees, relieved, while he goes to fetch his bag. Karmen takes the medicine and sighs. "Training always makes me feel weak. I think I'll just sleep it off and let the medicine work." She shuffles inside and goes down to bed.
Fifteen minutes later a piercing shriek sounds below deck and doesn't stop. "Not again." Usopp abandons his tools where they land and races downstairs before the rest of the crew can react. "She hasn't had a nightmare like this in a year. Why now?"
He bursts through the door of the women's quarters and the rest of the crew pours in after him. They find Karmen sitting up in bed with her back against the wall, clutching a knife. Her posture is defensive and her eyes are distant and wild, as if she is seeing something else in front of her entirely. 'She's having a bad reaction to the medicine I gave her," Chopper realizes. "She's not aware of her actions right now."
"Medicine?" Sanji glances at the reindeer.
"Where'd she get the knife?" Luffy asks.
"Maybe we should take her down?" Zoro suggests.
"Try talking her down first, you idiot!" Nami yells.
Karmen's screams quiet to sobs as she begins to realize she's not alone. The point of her knife dances violently as her body shakes. Usopp takes a careful step forward. "Karmen? It's me, Captain Usopp. You recognize me don't you? You had a nightmare again, but it's over now. I'm just going to take the knife and we can go have a nice cup of tea, ok?"
"Stay back!" She points the knife at him but her eyes stare past him as she breaks out into a cold sweat. "Please just stop. I don't want to hurt you."
Nami takes advantage of her momentary distraction. Unfolding her staff, she knocks the knife into the corner of the room with one clean motion. Karmen barely seems to register that the weapon is gone. Without it she looks like she's holding her hands in front of her to protect herself from an attack. Nami looks back to Chopper. "What do we do?"
"From what I can tell she's showing symptoms of confusion, hysteria, dizziness, dilated pupils, agitation, nightmares, and is currently mentally impaired. The best thing would be to restrain her until it wears off."
Determined, Usopp closes the distance to the bed. Karmen is still looking past him at an unseen threat so she yelps as he touches her hand and flinches away. He persists and is able to coax her into a standing position. Her eyes move frantically around the room, but her breathing levels out until she seems relatively calm. Usopp leads her through the small crowd of their wary crewmates. Zoro catches fresh tension in her legs seconds too late. "Usopp!"
Karmen rams her shoulder into his stomach, slamming him into the door frame. She runs upstairs before Usopp falls. Zoro jumps over where he lays gasping and follows. The others are only seconds behind. In the distance they can hear Karmen yelling the name "Godwin." They pull up short next to Zoro on the deck.
"Tell me that's not what I think it is," Sanji groans. Karmen stands in the doorway to the anchor room, the normally locked cabinet is open behind her. In her hand is a quill pen dripping with plant extract and a discarded bottle leaks liquid on the floor.
"The Plucharon," breathes Chopper. "She hasn't made an antidote for that one yet."
Karmen holds the quill defensively in front of her. "Don't hurt him! Please," she sobs. "Please don't make me do this."
"Hey! That's dangerous," calls Luffy.
"Stay back, Vivi." Nami places herself between the princess and the secretary.
"But she's scared," Vivi says. "We have to help her."
"We will," says Luffy.
"Hey, Curly Brow. Back me up for three seconds."
"Only because this is Karmen. She'd never forgive herself if she hurt one of us."
Zoro leaps forward and tackles Karmen. Her hand comes down to stab him in the back, but Sanji kicks the quill into the ocean, careful to avoid her fingers. "Rope!" both men yell as they pin her down.
In less than a minute Karmen is tied securely to the mast. She thrashes and kicks while screaming "Godwin" until she can only sob hoarsely. Zoro offers to knock her out but Sanji refuses to let anyone touch her after Chopper says it may only make things worse. Thirty minutes later as she finally exhausts herself they hear her whisper, "I'm sorry I couldn't save you."
Chopper checks her pulse and sighs. "She finally passed out. It should be safe to untie her now."
Zoro cuts the rope and Usopp catches her. "Will she be ok?" Vivi asks.
Chopper feels her forehead to check her temperature. "The effects of the medicine caused some trauma from her past to resurface. With how she behaved, I doubt she'll remember any of what just happened. It's obviously a bad memory for her." Chopper motions that she is physically fine and they carry her to bed. "Let's just let her rest for now."
Nami looks at Usopp as he tucks the blankets around her. "You said she screamed like that every night when you first met her?"
He nods gravely. "She was never awake enough to talk, though, and she always kept things that could be used as a weapon away from her bed."
"It was exhausting just listening to her," Luffy sighs. "She must be tired. Sanji, make her lots of meat, ok?" Karoo cocks his head at the captain.
"When she wakes up I'll make her some chamomile tea with honey," Sanji responds. "Her throat is probably too sore to handle meat right now."
Usopp picks the knife up from the corner and looks at it for a long second. He contemplates removing it from the room, but puts it on her nightstand instead. "I'll stay with her until she wakes up."
"You had me scared for a little bit there. How do you feel?"
"Terrible," Karmen admits. Her voice is hoarse and cracks when she tries to talk too loudly. "What happened?"
"Chopper says you had a bad reaction to the medicine he gave you. It was worse than the nightmares you had back in the village."
Karmen takes inventory of her sore body and the rope burns on her arms. She gasps as she sees the knife on her bedside table. "Usopp, what did I do?"
Unwillingly, he retells the events of the last two hours. Her face falls with each new detail. Horrified, she jumps out of the bed and runs from the room. "Come back!" he calls. Then softer, "I wasn't finished."
She reaches the deck and bows before she can read anyone's face as they all look towards her. "I'm sorry," she croaks. "I caused a lot of problems for you all. Please forgive my actions." Usopp steps out onto the deck behind her.
"Karmen-," starts Nami, but a crying reindeer slams into the secretary before she can finish her sentence.
"Don't apologize," Chopper cries. "It was my fault. I knew that there was a possibility that that could happen but it's so rare that I didn't take precautions. I should have made sure you were ok before you went to bed."
"You did nothing wrong." Karmen pets the back of the doctor's head. "I'm sorry I made you worry. Thank you for being concerned. I'm fine now."
"That's a relief," Vivi says, smiling. Karoo quacks in agreement.
Sanji appears from behind her and hands Karmen a cup of warm tea. She thanks him, sipping it gratefully, but her hands still shake so badly that he has to take the cup back. Whether it's from the bad reaction or the bloodroot, she can't tell. "Is your foot ok?" she asks him. "Usopp told me that you kicked the quill out of my hand."
"Fine, fine." He smiles at her. "It didn't even scratch my shoe."
She finds Zoro's eye. "And your back?"
"Like you could ever cut it." He grins. "What about you? I tackle you a little harder than I meant to."
"A few bruised ribs are nothing," she says, returning the smile. "Thank you both for keeping me from hurting anyone. You too, Nami."
Nami shrugs and grins knowingly. "With how you were holding that knife you couldn't have hurt anyone too badly anyway." Karmen carefully takes the cup in both hands again and lets the herbs and honey soothe her throat.
Luffy leaps over from the ram's head. "So. Who's Godwin?"
The cup shatters in Karmen's hands as she stiffens from shock. "When did I…?" Her voice cracks and her whole body shakes.
Vivi punches the captain in the back of his head. "How insensitive can you be?!" She turns back to Karmen. "I'm sorry. It must be a painful memory for you. You screamed that name for half an hour, even after you lost your voice."
"I see." Karmen wobbles as if she may fall over. Usopp steadies her while Chopper starts picking glass out of her palms.
"You don't have to say anything," Sanji says softly.
"No. After the trouble I caused you at least deserve to know that much." She wipes her eyes with the back of her free hand. "Godwin was like a grandfather to me. He's the man who taught me how to make tea." She flinches Chopper starts disinfecting her hands. "A few years ago Godwin was shot and killed right in front of me and there was nothing I could do." She looks towards the nearly empty bottle rolling across the anchor room floor and her face slowly drains of emotion. "While I was working I kept wondering if I could have saved him if I had the same resources."
Usopp puts a hand on her shoulder. She covers it with her own. "You never told me about him. I'm sorry."
"I don't like talking about it." Chopper finishes tying the bandages. When he steps aside, Nami steps forward and gives her roommate a hug. Karmen returns it dry eyed. She has no more tears to cry. "Chopper, thank you again for taking care of me and trying to help earlier. I think I'll just deal with the nausea next time, though. I'm going to go lie down."
She lets Usopp lead her back to bed. "When it happened," he says softly, "did they hurt you?"
"Not physically." Karmen climbs under the blanket and faces the wall but does not sleep.
Things slowly return to normal on deck. Chopper cleans up the extract, saving as much as possible. Sanji takes Karmen more tea, but finds it cold and untouched when he checks on her hours later. He returns to the deck, finding Zoro in a quiet section of the ship. He leans against the bulwark and lights a cigarette. "What do you think?" the swordsman asks.
"I'm surprised someone as dull as you picked up on that." He takes a long drag and exhales.
"I've seen faces like that before," Zoro says, thinking back to when he hunted bounties for meal money. "There's something… broken."
"It's frustrating. As a man, I want to protect her, but there's no obvious threat." Sanji exhales more smoke. "There's more to it than she's saying, but we shouldn't push her for now. It would be bad for her health."
"Then do me a favor. Let's keep this between us for a while."
"I think I can agree to that."