Chapter Text
He comes to between one step and the next. The clank of his last footstep jars a mind that does not know it’s moving. Around him, bright spots of light glow and pulse, auras of excitement and happiness and naive anticipation. His legs crumple beneath him and his knees slam into the ground.
He catches himself on trembling arms as he tilts forward. Dark, too-sharp tattoos stand out on the backs of his hands, the red irritation of new ink still covering his skin. This is not where he was.
His crew was dead, blown to bits before they knew what hit them. And then the Strawhats and Penguin and Shachi, falling as they ran, fighting to the bitter end for their captains. And Bepo and Franky, standing as the last shield between them and the encroaching marines, using their bodies to shield them from the gun fire as they were pushed further and further into the rocky crevice, unable to summon even a small room and Luffy barely moving as he struggled to protect the last of his crew. And Luffy’s eyes managing to widen just a bit beyond the half-lid they’d been stuck at when a lucky bullet passed through the shipwright. And Luffy’s soft, almost silent gasp as it hit his chest. And Luffy’s blood-splattered cough as the bullet lodged in his heart.
And his desperation as he pushed what was left of his lifeforce into the biggest Room he could imagine so he could shred every. last. Marine.
He curls forward, tucking his arms around his chest as his forehead hits the metal grating. He gasps, back heaving as he fights for air past the panic filling his throat. Tears of relief and joy and terror mix into a silently sobbing Trafalgar D. Water Law.
Footsteps approach, swiftly growing from a casual walk into a frantic run as they sound from behind him, but he can’t look up. He knows he’s having a panic attack. He knows this will worry his crew. He knows that this makes him look weak in front of the people he cares for more than the world.
But he doesn’t know if this is real.
A hand touches his back and his gasps escalate, moving from barely hiccupping breaths to full-blown hyperventilation. He curls tighter, hands grasping harder into his shirt, the brim of his hat catching along the floor. The bright auras turn frantic, shouts and heavy footsteps barely making a sound past the roaring in his ears. The floor is rolling beneath him, sweeping back and forth on the waves as his head grows lighter and lighter.
And then the roaring fades, taking the voices along with it. He begins to float, the gentle sway rocking him out of consciousness.
~*~
Happiness is Penguin’s middle name. Or, at least, it feels like it.
The crew had been growing recently and, as Shachi had pointed out, they would soon be ready for the Grandline. Everyone is training their hardest to keep up with Bepo and their Captain, and Penguin has made significant progress in the last few days. He’d lasted over ten minutes against Bepo in their last spar and Law had smiled at how even his stitches were when he patched up Uni last week. And he isn’t the only one.
Ikkaku had performed her first appendectomy during their last island visit with Law only observing and offering minimal commentary. Clione is making the Polar Tang’s engine run smoother with every passing day. Everyone is getting better in leaps and bounds. They’ll surely be the best pirate crew in the Grandline!
He hums jauntily as he walks through the halls, making his way to the mess. His footsteps beat a happy rhythm to match his joyful mood. His head sways back and forth and his shoulders rise and dip as he dances his way through the ship.
Penguin turns the next corner and comes to a dead stop.
His Captain is curled into a ball in the middle of the hallway, body trembling with near silent gasps.
A millisecond pause and he’s running, already shouting for help as he slides to his knees. A light touch has Law shaking harder, curling impossibly further into himself and gasping for air until he passes out.
He’s pulling Law onto his side, body limp and pliable in a way he’s never seen his Captain, is absolutely batshit terrified of, when Bepo and Uni come thundering down the hall.
They’re frantic, Penguin’s explanations panicked and shaking as they check their Captain for wounds, heart rate, breathing, and then they’re off again, taking Law to the infirmary. Everyone’s running in, needing to see Law for themselves, needing to know what’s happened.
Bepo is quick to take over, placing sensors and checking blood pressure as Ikkaku inserts an IV with the basic bagged fluids in anticipation of potential problems. The rest of the crew is silent, harsh breathing barely breaking the silence as they watch from the doorway.
Panic is creeping under Penguin’s skin. He’s shaking and afraid and lost because everything was going well, they were finally ready.
His hands are shaking where he has them clenched around his Captain’s forgotten hat.
~*~
He’s sitting beside his captain, brow furrowed as he flips through his chart when he changes. It’s subtle, and Ikkaku, sitting on the other side of their Captain’s bed, and the crew sitting or standing around the room, posts abandoned in favor of watching their leader for any minute change, miss it completely. Bepo blinks and his eyes fall out of focus as the rest of his life shifts into place and the bullets that killed him burn into scars across his back. He grips the papers in his hand tight enough to crumple them. Everything from the last hours, both then and now, comes easily and he wants to sigh.
Law’s vitals and bloodwork show the extreme strain and deficiencies that come with continued overuse of his power. It’s something he’s seen dozens of times, and yet never before if he’s actually back in time and not truly dead.
(And he wants to whimper and cry and curl up with his Captain and the rest of the crew because he had lost them all to that damn island. Wants to clutch at his back and the burning wounds that had killed him wants to scream and cry and shout at the sky because he had been right.
Law had never questioned the time aspect of his devil fruit, the powers of his Room coming to him with an almost supernatural ease after the first time he’d activated it. Law was so sure he’d discovered every aspect by the time they set out.
Bepo had seen the horror is his Captain’s eyes when the memories of Cora-san and his childhood were strong and knew that his best friend wouldn’t be able to handle the idea that he could manipulate space and time. Knew that the shaking, underfed teen he’d held through sobbing nightmares would kill himself trying to bring back the ghosts that haunted him if he’d had an inkling that it waspossible. So, despite the clear signs, the way Law could separate a still beating heart from a living person or pull the energy from previous hits to rebound them on the perpetrator without stockpiling the energy or even the fucking immortal surgery, Bepo kept his silence and let Law live believing he knew everything about his devil fruit.)
“Oh Captain,” slips from his lips in a sigh before he can stop himself. His hair stands on end and his back tenses as he remembers everyone else in the room, their bright presences so soothing and familiar, yet achingly incomplete.
“Bepo, is he…?” and Shachi’s voice is so terribly quiet, the barest shake petering out into silence.
He’s not sure how to explain this to them, or even if he should. That should be Law’s decision considering it was his powers that put them in this position. And considering no one else was reacting the way they would if they knew what this was, none of them had come back as well.
(Would they come back? Was it just him and Law? Could either of them handle it if they were?)
He heaves another, heavier sigh and stands, grabbing another bag of fluids and replacing the depleted one, “He’ll be fine, he just needs rest. “
Ikkaku’s head shoots up and the crew starts making confused noises. Internally, he winces at the abrupt change, but he’s got too many things to confirm before Law wakes to spend any more time babying his idiot captain.
“What—” Uni steps forward, arm reaching for Bepo as the mink starts toward the door when a fast-moving, bright spot pings at the edge of Bepo’s range and it feels malicious.
He’s running for the bridge seconds before the proximity alarms blare.
He misses the sudden intake of breath and jolting flinch from the man on the bed.
~*~
Luffy is more than ready to burn the government to the ground.
He’s had enough, and even Koby and Gramps won’t be enough to stop him from slaughtering the entire organization, from the lowest Marine to the Gorusei themselves. He’ll dance on their corpses and use the fat from the Tenryubito to burn whatever remains of Mary Geoise when he was done with it.
He ignores the burning itch spreading across his chest as he pushes through the (familiar, why is it so familiar?) undergrowth on the too warm island. He’s in old clothes, too light and thin to grant him any protection from the snow he’d just been covered in, the soaking, cold wet that sunk into your bones and never really let go.
There was no hard rock at his back or warm metal and soft fur at his front or the comforting heartbeat of someone more than a friend at his side and he’s on the verge of losing it.
(Sabaody and Kuma and Marineford are all rattling around in his head and he wants to break down and pound at the earth, make it hurt just as much as he did for all the loss and pain his family had to go through because the old and rich wanted to feel above the rest of the world. But he can’t loose them. Not again.)
It’s brighter when the foliage breaks, a small plain of grass leading to a short drop-off and Luffy skids to a stop, staring at the bright, calm ocean. The breeze is warm, and the ground is soft. A series of windmills turn in the distance, leading to a small fishing village. A few tiny fishing boats sit past the break. Birds call and fish splash.
The East Blue is calm and warm and peaceful and a world away from where he’s supposed to be.