P.O.V: Part Two
Chapter Two
When he woke up he was in Chopper’s office. Again. And he was covered in bandages. Again. He was also, however, thankfully alone. The ship was eerily quiet and Zoro had the gut-stabbing realization that the galley next to him was, from now on, painfully empty. Sure it would be used, but there would be no life in it. No spirit.
He blinked at the ceiling, not sure what to do now. He wondered if he’d been out for a few hours or a few days and how far away from that damned island they were. He was torn between wanting to be close to it so he could swim back and beat someone’s face in and wanting it to be as far away as possible so he could try to… try to what? Move on? Something like that.
He tested out his limbs. They were all responding again and only a little sore. It was a pain more like after Enies Lobby than Thriller Bark. But his chest, he winced as he sat up, that hurt like a burning sun. A combination of wear, tear, and heartache? Possibly. He never did get to tell him, and that was going to weigh on his mind for the rest of his life.
‘Why did I push you out of the way back then, Sanji? Because the crew needs their cook? Yes, of course, but also because I couldn’t stand to watch you die, because I’m crazy about you, you idiot.’
It would have gone something like that. And maybe Sanji would have felt the same way and maybe he wouldn’t have, but at least Zoro would have tried, damn it. Instead, he ended up watching the cook die anyway.
Zoro held his hands up, stared at his palms and wondered why he was still there.
“Zoro,” Chopper’s voice yanked him out of his thoughts. “You’re awake already.”
“Already?” Zoro mumbled. He glanced over at the little doctor. “How long was I out?”
“Just a day.” Chopper said quietly. “Considering the last time, I thought it was going to be much longer. Are you in any pain?”
“No more than the rest of us, I imagine.” He muttered.
Chopper sniffed and rubbed his nose. “So you… know?”
“Yeah. I know.” He knew. He fucking watched it happen.
“Okay. I want you to try to rest some more. And don’t over-exert yourself.”
“Alright, Chopper.”
It was all too easy to lose himself in unconsciousness as soon as Chopper left. It was cold and dark and what he thought he deserved.
The next time he awoke, maybe ten hours later? Luffy was there by his side. He wasn’t looking at Zoro, but the door that went from the sickbed to the galley. He looked… serious; too serious, as he gently fingered the brim of his hat. He was thinking about something, turning something over in his mind. Zoro had some idea what it might be. What-ifs. What if they had decided to skip that island, what if they hadn’t split up, what if Sanji had gone with Nami the way it was supposed to be?
“You were crying in your sleep,” his captain said quietly, still staring at the door.
Zoro frowned, but wiped a hand across his face. It was wet, damn it. “Yeah.” Zoro wouldn’t try to deny it.
“Are you okay?”
Zoro frowned, not knowing how to answer. He’d be physically fine after a few days, but mentally? Emotionally? “Are you?” he ended up asking instead.
Luffy sighed. “I--” He brushed his wrist beneath his nose, sniffling a little. “Franky burns everything he puts in a pan.”
Zoro winced then brought his hand up to his forehead.
“Brook tried to help him, but he just dumped salt in everything. I guess he thinks it’s the cure-all or something,” Luffy went on. “It’s awful. Everything is.”
Zoro knew that Luffy wasn’t really taking about the state of his dinner. “Luffy. What happened--”
“I just--” Luffy interrupted, wrist now dabbing at his eyes. “I miss him and this wasn’t how thing were supposed to go. There’s no one to yell at me if I get into the pantry and Usopp can’t find his socks and we might run out of cola before we reach the next port and--”
“It’s not your fault,” Zoro blurted out. He said it almost automatically, like he knew where Luffy’s train of thought was going.
Luffy made a strangled sort of noise then wiped at his nose again. “I’m the captain, Zoro.”
“You weren’t there. You couldn’t get to us in time.”
“Then I should have been there!”
Zoro frowned. This is what he didn’t want. This is why he didn’t want Luffy to find out what happened back at Thriller Bark. He didn’t want to see Luffy weighed down with this kind of guilt and regret. He didn’t want Luffy to realize that there’s a downside to throwing yourself head first into the chase for a dream, that sometimes you lose things along the way.
“Even you can’t be everywhere.”
“I’m not strong enough.” Luffy bit his lip, staring at the floor.
“If anyone’s not strong enough it’s me.”
Slowly, Luffy turned to face him. His eyes were as red as his vest. “What?”
“You weren’t there, because you can’t be two places at once, so I should have been the one to protect everyone else. That’s what a first mate does, right? Picks up the slack when the captain's not around?” Zoro fisted his hands into the sheets at his sides. “And what the fuck do I do? I lay on the ground as some bastard fucking--” his voice cracked. “Sanji.”
Luffy frowned. “I saw what happened, Zoro. The others didn’t, I was too far ahead of them, but I did. He pushed you out of the way. How can it be your fault?”
“If I may be so bold.” They both jumped at Brook’s sudden appearance at the door. “Ah, I’m sorry, please excuse my interruption, but isn’t it clear that it’s no one’s fault?” He fiddled with the handle on his cane, looking as uncertain as a skeleton can. “I know I haven’t been here long, but if Sanji-san made the decision himself…” he trailed off. “I rode a ship full of ghosts for too long, gentlemen. I have a unique view on death. I think what Sanji-san did was quite brave and selfless.”
He crossed the room quickly with his long legs and stopped at the head of Zoro’s bed behind Luffy.
“For the good of the crew,” he said, then bent down, face level with Zoro's and spoke in a whisper. “Something that I know you’ve done before, Zoro-san. I’m a bit bewildered that you don’t see the correlation. What do you think Sanji-san was feeling as you hovered between life and death not too long ago? You see from his point of view now.”
He straightened then and crossed back towards the door. “If you let this eat away at you, then all three of you die, correct? You’ll lose yourself until you’re skin and bones. Or in my case, just bones! Yohohohoho!”
“How’d you do it, Brook?” Luffy asked, coming out of whatever daze he had been in. “You lost your whole crew.”
“Hope,” the skeleton answered simply. “And a promise.”
“Laboon,” Zoro muttered.
“I still have one of those nakama left. I shall see him again. You keep sailing for the friends that you have left, not those who are gone.” He smiled, or at least Zoro thought he did.
“It’s hard.” Luffy said.
“Of course it is.” Brook bowed slightly then left the room on such soft footsteps that it seemed like he floated.
Zoro slept through the next day and the one after that. The ship was slowly coming back to life. He heard Franky hammering on some invention and Nami yell out the occasional order. But it still lacked laughter-- and cigarette smoke. He was up and about the morning after that. Chopper wouldn’t let him train, but he was meditating. He had to clear his mind. He had to get back to, or close to, the mental state he had been in before that Bible-toting bear entered his sights. He wasn’t even close though. Every time he closed his eyes he saw Sanji. Smelled his smoke, heard his voice, or watched as he disappeared into a glowing fog.
‘Are you haunting me now, Love-cook?’ he thought to himself once. He could picture Sanji, standing at the stove, turn to him and roll his eyes.
‘Why would I waste my time on you, marimo? When I could be following Nami-san around for the rest of eternity?’
Zoro opened his eyes, knowing that meditation was not soon in coming. The deck was empty, everyone still preferring to hole up by themselves. Franky and Usopp were in their respective workshops, Chopper was in his office, Luffy was sitting on the figure head, Brook was in the aquarium, and the girls were in the library-- Nami probably mapping and Robin probably reading. He hadn’t seen much of Robin lately, actually.
He reached into his haramaki and pulled out Sanji’s lighter. Nami had given it to him that morning. She said she thought he should have it. Zoro wasn’t sure what that meant, but took it anyway. He ran his fingers down the warm metal. His fingers were too thick, he thought, to be holding it. Sanji’s had been so long and skinny. Sanji could flip it open and light a stick up in less then a second it seemed. It took considerably longer for Zoro to get the flame out. He had taken to flicking it open and shut as he stared out at the ship. Something for his hands to do as his brain spaced out. Which was happening with ever-increasing regularity. The others were walking on egg-shells around him, like they were afraid he was going to snap.
Maybe he was.
Maybe they caught him lighting up one of Sanji’s cigarettes from that spare pack he found, just for the smell, or sharpening Sanji’s cooking knives at 3 o’clock in the morning. He had to laugh at himself. Like Sanji was going to come back and bitch about the condition of his cutlery! But Usopp and Franky used them like dorks and Zoro couldn’t help but feel the need to take care of them.
Sometimes, sometimes when his thoughts really got away from him, he thought back to what Brook said, about feeling what Sanji felt. He wondered if Sanji would be doing similar things if he hadn’t made it out of Thriller Bark. Would Sanji polish his katana the way Zoro was sharpening his knives? Would Sanji long for the smell of him like he longed for Sanji’s? Would he, at night, sometimes look at Zoro’s empty bed and pretend that he was just out on watch so he’d able to sleep?
He remembered the look on Sanji’s face the first time he saw him after the Kuma incident. He looked paler then usual and was wearing that weird oversized sweater. It was the first time he’d ever seen Sanji wear something so… frumpy. He looked tired and stressed and just so not himself.
They had stared at each other for a few moments. And then Zoro told him to get that stupid look off his face. He’d cracked a smile then, and Zoro smirked back.
‘I’d tell you the same shit-head, but yours is permanent,’ he had said.
‘Heh. Going to bring me some food?’
‘Think you can keep anything down?’
‘I’m fine.’
‘Are you?’ He meant so much with those two words. Zoro knew it even then.
‘I’m fine, love-cook. Aren’t I talking to you? Can’t you see me breathing?’
‘What about--’
‘Sanji. I’ll be alright.’
‘I’ll make you some soup.’ he turned to leave and Zoro had to, he just couldn’t-
‘You didn’t tell anyone, did you?’ let him go without making sure.
‘Tell anyone what?’ Sanji replied, not turning around.
Things went back to normal after that. Sanji dressed normally again and regained his color. Zoro was healing. They never discussed what happened, though Zoro was certain it wasn’t off the table for good. But then, that island, and Sanji. And Sanji.
Flick went the silver lighter. Flick, flick, flick…
Zoro woke abruptly as two sets of heels clicked loudly past his face. It was maybe two hours since he tried, and failed, to meditate, though he wasn’t sure when he’d managed to fall sleep. He sat up, groggily scratching his head. He picked Sanji’s lighter up from where it had tumbled to the deck and placed it back into his haramaki. What was that all about? He turned his head toward the excited voices of his female nakama. They were taking excitedly to Luffy, and very quickly. Zoro, in his lingering nap-haze, couldn’t quite make out what they were saying. But he could see Luffy’s face. And the way it slowly morphed from confusion to hope to outright glee.
“Oi! Franky!” Luffy yelled, rushing past the girls. “Turn this boat around!” he shouted.
Zoro cocked his head to the side. ‘What? Why? What was going on?’
“Franky!” Luffy yelled again. “Franky, Usopp, Brook, Chopper! On deck!” he whooped loudly, jumping off the helm deck, wrapping his arms around the fore mast and catapulting himself to the grass beside a now very confused Zoro.
“Luffy? What?”
Luffy turned to him, grin stretching his face to a nearly impossible size. “He’s not dead, Zoro! We’re going to get him back! Sanji!” he whooped again, launching himself at the cyborg the moment Franky emerged from his workshop.
Zoro’s world spun for a moment, though he didn’t know if it was from unbridled joy or massive confusion.
“What? …What!” He turned toward the girls and ran the rest of the way to meet them at the stairs. “What?”
Nami laughed. “Robin figured out what kind of fruit user our little friend was.”
Zoro turned to their resident archeologist, trying not to look too hopeful.
Robin smiled softly. “It’s called the plane-plane fruit. It allows him to manipulate space and time. Not only can he jump from one place to another in the blink of an eye, he can also hang between time for as long as he pleases.”
“Hang between time?” Zoro repeated. He must have looked confused because Robin went on.
“Let's say that this hand,” she held up one of her hands in front of her chest, “is our time plane, oh and imagine, if you will, that there isn’t just one. This devil fruit user can enter another realm of time, this hand,” she held up another hand just behind the first one, “and hang there for some time. While he’s gone he’ll appear to have vanished to our eye. Depending on how long he stays in the other plane, he could appear to be gone for a flash or for hours.”
Zoro nodded, understanding it a bit better. “He used the other, uh, time plane to mess with ours.”
“And our sense of time,” Robin said with her own nod. “But, he can also use it on other people, much the same way Nami’s, ah, suitor,” she smiled at the navigator, “made her invisible back at Thriller Bark.”
“So,” Nami broke in happily, “Robin thinks that Sanji-kun isn’t dead at all! She thinks he’s in a different time plane!”
“To be precise,” Robin broke in, “I think he’s being stored in a different time plane until that man meets again with the World Government.”
Zoro remained silent, considering Robin’s idea. “But, if there’s tons of different planes, how will we find him?”
“I think,” Robin started, tone a little less sure, “that the orb he carries around may have something to do with it. Luffy said he saw Sanji ‘break up’ or disintegrate into it. So, I think it’s entirely possible that he’s being stored inside of it.”
Zoro was lost again. “But does that mean that there’s a time plane inside of it?”
“Possibly, or maybe the man has some how figured out how to manipulate time in such a way that he inserted a part of a plane into the orb.”
Zoro rubbed at his face. “These damn fruits. That’s so fucking weird.”
Nami chuckled. “And how many people have said that about Luffy?”
“Besides,” Robin said, “if that’s not the case, I’m sure we can… work it out of him.” Her smile wasn’t an entirely pleasant one.
“Damn straight,” the swordsman agreed. He turned to leave. It was time to try and sweet talk Chopper into letting him train.
“I should add though,” Robin called after him. “None of this is certain. It’s only a theory. There’s still a chance that, well, we’ll come back empty handed.”
He nodded his understanding to the women, while at the same time refusing to believe that such a thing was possible. Sanji was alive, damn it. Zoro didn’t think he could handle losing the cook a second time.
It would take four days to get back to the island, and in those days he’d strive to get as much strength back as possible. He knew, realistically, that Luffy would be responsible for the brunt of the battle, but that didn’t mean he was comfortable sitting on the sidelines. Especially when the battle was for something so important to him, to them all. No one would be staying behind this time; it was all or nothing.
Chapter Three