Chapter 1: Nightmares and days at the beach
The moonlight didn't get a chance to shine through the clouded sky that night. He used the darkness to sneak across the deck undetected. But this time it wasn't to steal the food supplies. The more important thing tonight was that none of his friends spotted him. Once again, the events of Marine Ford haunted his dreams. It was as if he had to relive his darkest hour over and over again.
Luffy gasped.
It had been almost three years since his brother had died. Neither the reunion with his friends nor his recent adventures could erase this traumatic memory.
He tried to hide the fact that something in his past was bothering him so much from his crew. He didn't want his friends to know that it was still bothering him. He didn't want them to pity him. After all, he was the captain, the future king of the pirates. The past was the past. No matter how much he wanted to, he couldn't change it.
"Thank you, Nami," Robin smiled and took the pink mug of freshly brewed coffee from the orange-haired woman. The young navigator sat down beside her friend. "You don't have to stay here, I already have a book for the night," Robin stopped abruptly. Nami looked at the older woman in confusion.
The young woman opened her mouth. But the next creak of the floorboards made it unnecessary to ask why her friend had stopped speaking. "There's someone outside," Nami whispered anxiously, reaching for her clima-tact. There was a high probability that an enemy would sneak on board. For both the Navy and the Bounty Hunters, the night was a good chance for a surprise attack. After all, the crew was asleep.
"It's just Luffy," the black-haired girl said reassuringly. At first, Nami looked at her in confusion. But then she realised: The thirty-year-old had used her Devil Fruit Power. The next moment, the navigator's left eyelid began to twitch furiously.
"He can't be serious!" hissed Nami angrily.
"Is there actually a time of day when he doesn't think about eating! It's three in the morning!"
"Our captain is just a glutton by nature," Robin chuckled. Nami stomped angrily towards the door. "I'll beat him!"
The straw hat boy was facing the steps to his favourite spot. The great lion's head did indeed offer the perfect view of the sea. With this endless view, he felt free. Even on the Going Merry he had spent a lot of time on the figurehead. Even though the others had often expressed their concern that the sheep's head was the safest place for a non-swimmer. He never understood their concern, because even in dangerous situations he could have pulled himself back on board with his gum-gum powers. Besides, Nami was a gifted navigator who warned him in time of approaching storms.
"Luffy!" the angry voice of the aforementioned navigator nagged at him.
"What are you doing?!"
Startled, Luffy turned around and stared into Nami's angry face. "I..." the straw hat boy stammered. Luffy had no idea what to say. Nor did he need one. The young woman's face suddenly softened, changing from annoyed to worried. "Are you all right?" she asked in a quiet tone.
His dark eyes looked at the orange-haired woman with a blank expression. A look of concern crossed her face.
"Please, talk to me," she breathed affectionately. Automatically, she placed her hand on his cheek. Even though his pupils had followed her movements, a shiver ran through his body. Admittedly, it was a strange but pleasant chill. The straw hat boy gave a broad, honest smile.
"I had a bad dream," he scratched sheepishly at the back of his head. "And then I couldn't get back to sleep."
There was only one thing the pirate captain wanted even less than hiding his nightmares from his friends. And that was to lie to them. Luffy was well aware that such a lie would be the destruction of the trust that was the foundation of their friendship. The next thing he knew, her arms were wrapped around his neck. His heart skipped a beat as Nami pressed her body against his. He had already enjoyed her embrace on Zou, but he had made the mistake of not returning it. Something that would never happen to him again. A surprised sound came from Nami's lips as he pressed her body closer to his with his arm.
The captain and navigator of the Straw Hat crew felt the same thing at that moment: a sense of home. It was probably this sense of security that prompted the straw hat boy to share his concerns.
"I didn't want to see Ace die again and again," his voice trembled.
"Luffy..." she replied. In no way had she expected him to reveal himself to her so quickly. Even if she was honest, she saw no reason for him not to do so. But Luffy was the kind of man who didn't talk about his feelings. Only the way he pressed his body against hers made her realise he had hidden much from her and the others.
"I don't want to dream about it anymore." The boy in the straw hat sobbed.
His hands dug into her blouse. His head buried itself in her left shoulder. He didn't want her to see his tears. But he had not considered that she could feel them through her thin blouse.
She patted him on the back. The trigger that increased his tears.
"It's all right," she said reassuringly. Both knew that without this act of friendship, there would have been no outburst of emotion from the straw hat boy.
But Luffy quickly regained his composure and pulled away from the hug.
"Thank you," he mumbled shyly. Nami continued to watch him with a worried look. Worried, especially when Luffy tried to avoid her gaze again.
"Luffy, this is normal," the orange-haired girl began hesitantly. "You don't just get over things like that."
Her words didn't help at all. Her captain still had his face turned away from her. But one thing was clear to Nami: She had to cheer up her best friend. She had to be there for Luffy. In a way, it was a second chance to help him deal with his brother's death. At that time they had been separated. She had no idea what kind of hell the black-haired man had gone through during that time. She had been plagued by guilt ever since she had read the newspaper article. She hadn't been there for him on the day he probably needed her friendship the most. It gnawed at her soul to this day.
"Remember that day on the beach? When you gave me your hat?" she asked him lovingly.
Monkey D. Luffy wiped his hand over his eyes. He looked at her again. A small moment passed before he nodded hesitantly.
Flashback
Luffy's gaze was on Nami. The green, skimpy bikini showed a lot of her naked body. Her lolling on the beach towel made the sight even more erotic. The seventeen-year-old couldn't deny that his navigator was very pretty. But there was something about her that bothered him. Unfortunately, he didn't know what it was. Besides, the ship's cook had been lured by this view and purred around the orange-haired beauty. Luffy wouldn't be able to get in her way and find out what bothered him.
"Captain-San, you shouldn't get our navigator so upset today," Robin spoke quietly.
"Huh?" his lips curled in surprise. "I didn't mean to upset her."
Robin smiled at him, "You know what I mean."
Luffy started grumbling. He already knew what the black-haired woman meant. Some of his character traits often caused the young navigator's temper to flare.
" What about today?" he asked.
"I don't know exactly. I just noticed that our navigator was crying in her sleep," Robin explained.
"She cried?" he wanted to know why.
"Yes, she did," Robin said. "I can't tell you the reason, that's all, I'm afraid. She avoided the subject this morning."
The straw hat boy grinned broadly.
"Thanks, Robin," he said, and walked off in the direction the eighteen-year-old was heading.
Robin opened his eyes. He finally knew why Nami had been bothering him all day. She looked sad, even though she was smiling. He knew that if Nami didn't want to talk to the archaeologist about her troubles, she certainly wouldn't want to talk to him. But he already had an idea of how to get her cheerfulness back.
"Sanji! I'm hungry! It's been almost an hour since breakfast!" the pirate captain grumbled in his childish way.
"Luffy! You can't be serious! It's been 35 minutes since breakfast and we just arrived at the beach!" the ship's cook scolded his captain.
"Please! I'm so hungry!" the straw hat boy kept whining.
Nami sighed in annoyance.
" I'm really not in the mood for this. Sanji, please get him some more food to shut him up," Nami said, completely ignoring the fact that her captain was standing right next to her.
"Anything you say, Nami-san," the cook purred and left to prepare another meal for Luffy.
Nami sighed in annoyance when she realised that she was now alone with the whining captain.
She wanted to say something, but his next gesture silenced her. Puzzled, she felt him put his hat on her head. Meeting his gaze, she simply breathed, "Why?"
But he grinned broadly at her and fluted playfully, "Just because."
The conversation was over for him, so he ran to his friends Usopp and Chopper. Perplexed, the young woman looked at her best friend. Sometimes she wanted to know what was going on in his head.
As he played with his two friends at the water wheel, he couldn't help but glance at his navigator from time to time. She looked so much happier with his hat on. So he had managed to bring back her smile with his gesture. Her face lit up with happiness as his heart quickened for a brief moment.
"Yes. You seemed really sad. Robin also said you cried in your sleep," he said carefully.
Nami nodded.
She was amazed that he remembered it so well.
"I never told you why I was so sad that day," Nami said.
He nodded.
Robin said you didn't want to talk about it. So I didn't ask," Luffy remembered.
"I had a dream about my mother's death," she told him. "Even though it was eight years ago, the nightmares still haunted me."
Quietly, he looked at her. He couldn't understand what the young woman was trying to say. "I still haunt those dreams today," she continued.
" That doesn't sound very encouraging," the straw hat boy sighed.
"I just want to be honest with you," Nami explained. "I don't want to give you any illusions, you know. Things like this will never really go away."
Luffy looked down.
"But that's what friends are for," she smiled kindly.
"Well..." Luffy said angrily after a moment of thought. "That wasn't the first and only time you were sad and not honest with us."
Nami blinked. His angry undertone had really scared her now.
"I forgot about the money for Vivi or whatever," Luffy quoted.
The orange-haired girl looked at him confused.
"That's what you said when we asked you why you were so sad when we left Alabasta," he explained his quote.
Nami looked really surprised that Luffy of all people could remember something like that. After all, it was very uncharacteristic for someone like him, who usually only thought from the wall to the floor.
"We all knew that you were only sad because Vivi didn't join us," he snorted.
"Yes. But I wasn't the only one," Nami had to stop herself from getting angry.
"It was especially hard for you because Vivi is your best friend," he explained.
Nami had no idea what to say. Meanwhile, Luffy turned away from her.
"I'm sorry," the words briefly escaped her lips. The straw hat boy hesitated.
"I misbehaved back then. I should have been honest to you, to everyone."
Nami smiled affectionately at him.
"It didn't seem fair to you. But please don't make this about me. You're not well, and I want to take care of you."
He looked back at her.
"Please let me," she said now, reaching for his hand.
Luffy looked at the hand Nami had taken and then into her brown eyes. A pleasant queasy feeling spread through the pit of his stomach. Automatically, his lips formed into a smile. Nami returned his smile.
"Come with me," Luffy pulled her to his favourite place.
Robin chuckled. Something interesting seemed to be developing on board the Thousand Sunny. The archaeologist had been watching her two friends all along. She had noticed the special bond between the captain and navigator since the day she joined the Straw Hat crew. The dark-haired woman was all the more amused by the naive way in which the two people viewed their close friendship. So childishly naive that neither of them had even remotely noticed that their feelings for each other had long since gone beyond the level of friendship.