This chapter fought me on the beaches and in the fields and just grew and grew and became more and more tangled. So I chopped it in two to get you an update.

Please, enjoy this rare treat; a whole chapter from Law's POW.

Holidays were enjoyed and peace returned as the year changed and new beginnings were enjoyed by one and all.

The biggest piece of news still hanging around campus after the holidays related to the breakdown Old Red-Nose had when a waltzing figurine of Rudolph showed up at his office, leading him to take a month-long sabbatical.

And so life went on.

For a while, at least.

It was a beautiful winter's day when Luffy and Law arrived at the Mermaid Café for their latest meeting regarding Luffy's thesis. The sun was shining, hidden only by the wispiest of clouds. A light breeze brought with it the promise of spring and the perpetual rain was merely the slightest of drizzles.

Law preferred to keep work at work, but Bepo and Nami had commandeered their office for their biweekly tea session and quite rudely thrown him out, straight into the waiting arms of one Monkey D. Luffy.

Law had fought this outcome valiantly and with great cunning but had finally conceded to the overwhelming persuasion powers of his thesis student and sometimes wielded with great success. Although this time, he'd actually used his surprisingly great physical powers and just grabbed Law in a disturbingly long and stretchy grip and towed him out of the office, barely taking the time to let the man pick up his hat and coat on the way.

If Law was a man of suspicious nature, he'd guess at a set-up; Bepo had mentioned a little too often how he should get some fresh air and no, opening a window didn't count. As he was, however, also familiar with Luffy's virulently bubbly cheerfulness and, most importantly, total lack of any capacity for lying whatsoever, he'd chalked it up to that most elusive of all the gods, Chance.

How fortunate that Luffy had just so happened to know the perfect place to move their thesis meeting.

The café was a well-known icon in town, found in all the tourist guides and beautifully situated on the border between land and sea. University towns were a prime spot for establishments like the Mermaid Café – there were often exchange students who sometimes just wanted a familiar taste of wakame seaweed brulee or shijimi clam pizza. And of course, there were the swarms of fashionable people who wanted to experience the latest news for themselves and thus welcomed the flavour of the month with open arms and wallets – at least until the next big thing became the last big flop.

The Mermaid Café, however, had exceeded all expectations and thrived, even after the initial craze had subsided and nowadays catered to a steady stream of regulars and passers-by alike.

Some say it was the owner's habit of hiring very pretty mermaids and dashing mermen as their serving staff, either gliding among the tables on iridescent bubbles or diving into the opening in the floor that led to the sea and the underwater part of the café, delighting the spectators with their agility in their true element.

Others say it was the exquisite yet surprisingly affordable food selection that drew the crowds.

Some say it's both.

Luffy, however, was firmly in the latter camp, having seated himself and ordered for them both before Law had time to even look for a menu.

"Shishishi," Luffy laughed, trying to catch the last dregs from his ice cream portion. "Don't you agree it's much nicer to meet here than in your office for once? We even got done with all the thesis stuff already!"

Law merely sighed but had to, silently, admit the younger man had a point. The coffee had been excellent and the salad more than passable. Maybe he should go out for lunch more often. This was the first café he visited since moving to the town and their lunch selection was quite nice, if he was honest with himself.

"You are not completely wrong."

Luffy just smiled in that irritating way he had, which seemed to say he knew not only what you meant with whatever you said, but also what you really wanted to say, no matter if you knew it yourself yet.

It was quite rude, really, to know things about you that you didn't know yourself.

Law sometimes wondered at the apparently limitless energy and general joie de vivre the younger man exhibited. His thesis was rolling along quite nicely, once they had ironed out the initial kinks, but he never got discouraged or downtrodden, no matter how harshly Law put the problems identified. He just flowed around obstacles like water.

Or perhaps like glue, leaving everything slightly sticky in his wake.

And some small part of Law that had been purposefully ignored and possibly thrown in a cellar was admittedly a bit jealous of the easy way Luffy just… understood people. Take this specific setting, for example. When they entered the café, he had greeted each and every waiter, exclaiming at how much he missed Camie and how it was so sad that she couldn't take their table and see you later, and after a couple of minutes he was already nattering along with the new waitress who had been assigned to their table like old friends, asking about how she found working at the café and if the floaty bubbles were weird to use and did mermaids poop?

He wondered at the younger man sometimes, the bundle of joy that seemed to know everyone and get along with most of them. The endless liveliness and sunny disposition, the easy laugh, directed as easily both at himself and at others. No wonder Nami lived with him.

When he wondered aloud about the peculiar friendship between the organised and methodical redhead on one hand and the barely controlled incarnation of chaos on the other, Bepo had given him a funny look and then taken a painstaking evening to explain the living arrangements at one of the more infamous houses in town.

It had included diagrams. With arrows.

In several colours.

Law blinked, realising he'd zoned out on Luffy. Luckily this didn't seem to deter the man whatsoever, his flow of conversation uninterrupted by such paltry details.

He'd really have to do something about these musings about his, admittedly lovely, office companion. They were starting to get irritatingly frequent.

"Luffy!" a deep voice boomed across the room.

And speaking of getting along with everyone…

"Kid! Over here!" the rubber man waved wildly as Law sank further down in his chair, the last vestiges of tentative hope and peace of mind leaving him, leaving behind resignation and a general sense of unease.

"You've got to be kidding me…"

"What's wrong, Traffy?"

Law levelled a stare. "Well, if you'd be so good as to look to your left, you'll see what's left of my hopes and dreams now both you and Eustass are here."

Luffy tilted his head in confusion. "But there isn't anything there?"

"Precisely."

"Yohohoho!"

"And what is he doing here?" Law groaned, massaging his temples.

Brook, Professor Emeritus and Senior Lecturer and Elder Reader and Even Older Scholar, was… amusing, but there was something creepy, even to a surgeon, about a living skeleton. He had an ingrained sense of wrongness about him.

Skeletons should be at the inside of your body, safe and sound. Not running about, clad in a top hat and wielding a violin.

"You know he's Kid's thesis supervisor, right?"

"Really? Why?"

"Something about an exploding organ, Robin said."

"They're made for each other."

There was barely room around the table for Law's lanky legs, but somehow Brook, even taller than him, and Eustass, wider than the rest of them put together, managed to fold themselves around the table. Kid signalled the waitress across the room in some sort of code as she nodded and jotted something down on her notepad before floating away on her bubble.

"Rubber Boy! And Traffy!"

Law would never get rid of the nickname.

The only solution was to burn the town down and escape with Bepo in tow.

As Law started planning his greatest arson adventure so far, the rest chattered away, perking up at each and every passing member of staff, looking gloomy every time they passed their table by. But after several agonising minutes, during which Law had finished planning his escape route and made an inventory of the best kindling available on short notice, their wait was rewarded, and food arrived.

With some help from Kid's apparent Tetris knowledge, the waitress got all their orders piled on the table. "There you go! Two triple cheese, one vanilla milkshake, one chocolate fudge and one strawberry milkshake! Is there anything else you'd like– WHAT IS THAT?"

"Ah, yes, I'd like a cup of tea and a chocolate chip cookie, please."

A moment later, Luffy looked over the edge of the table. "Seems to have fainted." He shrugged and started to wave Camie over.

Brook chuckled. "It's always fun to see how the new staff react."

Camie just laughed as she took his order and promised him an extra biscuit for his troubles.

"Oh, yeah, walking and talking skeletons aren't really a thing outside campus. We really should have remembered that." Kid said absentmindedly, focused on demolishing his cheese sandwich.

"But their reactions are so funny!" Luffy laughed, cheerfully stealing Brook's biscuit and ignoring the ensuing half-hearted protests.

Law sighed and accepted his fate and the milkshake handed to him.

It wasn't as if he had anything better to do at the moment, anyways.

An hour later, Brook left, cursing first the mountain of essays he had to correct before the week was over and then cursing Luffy who pointed out that he was the one who had assigned the essays in the first place and so only had himself to blame.

Law felt… weird.

He was slightly annoyed at the nonsensical, rambling discussion upheld mainly by Kid and Luffy, but he also didn't want to leave the sheltering cocoon of warmth at the café, his third cup of coffee in front of him. He'd even gone so far as to try a cappuccino, a novelty for a man raised on the belief that coffee should be black as a moonless night, overcast with cirrostratus clouds.

And somehow, he was then roped into a journey towards the Sunny, with a detour past Kid's place to pick up Killer: the blond Frenchman that sometimes was visible around campus, identified by the plume of smoke that followed him like an unhealthy ghost, was apparently returning to his home country and Luffy insisted that they'd all had to come by and give him a proper send-off.

Law blamed the novel coffee experience on his acquiescence and vowed to never try something like that again.

If this was what a cappuccino did, imagine what a latte would lead to?

But the walk was pleasant and the company amusing, especially as Luffy managed to con Kid into accepting the generous gift of a horrendous novelty mug with a bunch of lovely authentic and traditional Scottish sayings on it.

Law couldn't decide if he liked 'yer a numpty' or 'get oan wi it' or 'a word writ doon can hang a man' better.

Kid's house, however, was something of a surprise.

Well, the flower bed was a surprise, the bulbs covered with straw for winter.

The herb patch beside it was also somewhat unexpected.

As was the beehive.

And the decorative garden gnome, out for a crisp fishing adventure, pole in hand and grin on his painted terracotta face.

"When you said 'place'," Law said, "I imagined an apartment. Or a run-down shack in the woods. You know, a converted van. Or something." He stared at the curtains, hanging in orderly folds. The pattern of daisies matched delightfully with the wooden fence surrounding the garden, decorated with painted white flowers. "Not really a yellow cottage with its own orchard."

"Isn't she a beauty?" Kid said, unlocking the door. "Welcome to 4 Victoria Crescent. It's Killer's mum's place."

"Killer's mum likes beekeeping?"

"Killer likes that. He's way into food. Makes his own honey and dries wild herbs and grows edible flowers and stuff."

"Is the gnome also his? Oh, my bad, I thought he was fishing. How silly of me…"

"Nah, that's his mum's."

And when you stepped inside, there was only one thing you could possibly focus on.

"You have a very nice place," Law said, staring. "But what the actual ever-loving and flying fuck is that?"

Kid grinned. "A chair. What did you think it was?"

Luffy, wide eyed, ran towards it and threw himself down, squealing in delight as it swivelled.

"It looks like a scorpion."

"It's a danger chair," Kid grinned.

"Why?"

"I love it. And shut up about it or I'll kick you out and break your back."

Law scoffed. "I'm a doctor by education and surgeon by trade, which means I could break every bone in your body while naming them and then sew you shut afterwards. Try harder, sunshine."

Kid shrugged. "Surgery is just stabbing someone to life."

"Never become a surgeon."

Kid laughed his booming laugh, the one that seemed to shake something loose within Law – his common sense, perhaps.

He'd never met anyone who was as present as either Luffy or Kid. It would be too easy to get lost in the moment with these two, if he wasn't careful.

After rousing Killer from what was apparently his customary afternoon kip judging from the curses thrown at them and placating him with a packet of pocky, the troupe was off, stopping only for Killer to laugh hysterically at the new coffee cup Luffy had gifted Kid, before attacking the last stop of the evening.

Sanji would not know what had hit him.

Which proved to be true as he choked on his cigarette when Kid gave him a welcoming slap on the back on arrival.

Maybe it was the gathering darkness or the howling wind or a slightly unhinged laugh from Kid echoing down the street, but Law was filled with an ominous feeling and an impending sense of doom.

This was way worse than the general sense of unease he had felt when Kid first joined them in the café – and just look where that had left him.

About to attend a house party for someone he barely knew, like some sort of delinquent.

And then he was engulfed in a white, fluffy cocoon of warmth and claws scratching at the back of his head dislodged his hat and the world was heavy.

"Captain!"

"I told you not to call me that," the muffled reply came from somewhere around Bepo's armpit.

With a bashful "Sorry…" the Mink let Law go. "I was just worried. I tried to reach you all day and then you didn't answer and I didn't know where you were and didn't want to leave you at the office all by yourself…"

"Oh." Law checked his pockets for the forgotten piece of technology and winced at the amount of missed calls and unread messages. "Sorry, forgot it on silent after the meeting."

The heartbroken look on Bepo's face was hard to resist and Law felt a twinge of regret somewhere deep in his heart; in that place only Bepo and a select few others knew how to access, buried behind the forgotten pieces of common decency, easy banter and how to show consideration for others.

"I was just worried…"

The twinge of regret grew to a twang of repentance, bordering on a thrum of shame.

"I promise to keep it on from now on, all right?"

"Sorry."

"Why are you apologising? It's me who's in the wrong!"

"Sorry…"

When looking at the concepts of your study, it is important to keep the independent (concepts that can provide an explanation of a certain aspect) and dependent (the thing we want to explain) variables apart. Some concepts can, of course, be used in either capacity, which makes the task of the researcher that much more interesting.

The concept of love, for example, can be viewed as a possible explanation (are there differences between people with deep feelings of love and others, in terms of values, beliefs and expectations) or as something to be explained (what are the causes of variation in love).

Also.

Can you spot the Pratchett quote?