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The moon was high when Nami stepped away from the helm, no longer tracking the stars or the log pose, confident that they were on course once more.
The navigator yawned. A tired hand rubbed her eyes, then her forehead. She rolled her shoulders, wincing at the crack that came with spending so long hunched and tense.
The deck of the Thousand Sunny was a quiet as it could ever be, the gentle sound of waves merging with the creak of weathered timber. A light flickered in the crow’s nest where Franky was keeping watch. Its faint glow reached the deck around the foremast, painting the steady silhouette of Zoro lifting weights. The rest of the crew were asleep, tucked away in their respective quarters, the quality of Franky’s craftsmanship enough to trap the men’s monstrous snores inside.
Nami sighed as she closed her eyes. There were still days where she missed the Going Merry and its shorter distance from the helm to her bed. She could almost feel the pillow against her head, soft and smelling faintly of lavender courtesy of the flowers from Robin’s garden.
Her sleep tonight would be well deserved.
Stretching her arms, the young woman flicked her eyes to the sails. The Jolly Rodger was on proud display, billowing with the rest of the sails against the favourable wind. Water dripped from the rigging around them. The earlier rain had been more a drizzle than a storm, but its remnants were still drying about the ship. It suited the tranquil setting in its way – the steady drip of water on wood; small puddles mirroring the sky above.
Nami sent a wave to the crow’s nest when she made it to the stairs. A smile crossed her face as she imaged Franky waving back.
The navigator descended the stairs with little thought. Someone had mopped them as usual, whisking away any excess water. It spoke of the same kind of care the stairs themselves had been made with. Franky loved his creation and the rest of them loved it as their home.
Lifting her eyes, Nami caught the sight of her mikan trees swaying in the breeze stirred by the ship. She could imagine the smell of the tangerine grove back on the outskirts of Coco Village, a heady mix of citrus and pollen and dirt.
There were days when she missed her the place of her childhood, a wound carved in her heart. So too were there days when she was glad to be free and far away from the taint of Arlong and his bloody rule. Yet, with the moon shining pale above and the water calm on all sides of the Sunny, Nami was content to simply remember.
She stepped down a stair and remembered skipping through young saplings with Nojiko. Descending another step, the memory turned to one of the many times Bell-mère had taken her shopping in the village, never buying much but providing more than ample time for Nami to look in the windows and want. She remembered pinwheels made from fruit skin. Remembered plain dinners that could never compare to Sanji’s cooking but had seemed enough back then.
Nami cast her eyes back to the stars once more, wondering what her adoptive mother would think of the pirate she had become. Proud and disappointed all at once, perhaps. Bell-mère never had liked her stealing.
The navigator’s half laugh turned into another jaw cracking yawn. She raised her foot, stepped out and suddenly found herself tipping through air. Her stomach dropped as Nami realised her mistake.
“Crap-”
The fall was short and painful. Each step dug into her side and there was a bright burst of pain as she landed in a heap awkwardly on her wrist. Grass from the lawn tickled her legs.
There was a shout and the sound of something heavy crashing into the deck. It was drowned out by Nami’s swearing as she clutched her right arm to her chest. She glanced down and clenched her eyes against the lightheaded swoon that gripped her. When she opened them again, she was thankful to see nothing red leaking from her wrist.
If broken bones were a true inconvenience on a ship, open fractures were all but a death sentence. It seemed like neither had befallen Nami as she tentatively rolled the offending appendage, teeth ground against the pain the movement caused.
Better to keep it still then, she thought in a daze.
“Nami!”
Her name floated through the air, raw and jagged and not spoken by her. Something hit the deck next to her spraying little droplets from the damp grass. Hands fluttered over her head and shoulders, frantic but not quite touching.
“Are you alright?”
Nami groaned, blinked, then blinked again. To her surprise it was not Sanji who hovered over her or even Chopper with his frantic doctoring. Instead, it was gold that caught her gaze, three simple earrings swaying as their owner’s broad shoulders bent further still as though to shield her from the world.
“Are you alright?” Zoro asked again. His voice sounded hoarse, like someone had strangled him. He stunk of sweat, his green hair damp. The sleeves of his coat were hanging about his waist as they often did when he was fighting or training.
Nami exhaled carefully. The others were asleep, she remembered, eyes drifting to the star-studded sky above. That there were no doors banging open meant she had not screamed at least, a comfort to her somewhat wounded pride.
“I’m fine,” she said at last when Zoro pressed his question a third time, his single eye blown wide with worry.
It was true her wrist hurt, and her shoulder and back ached, but it was nothing compared to some of the other injures Nami had suffered from their adventures. Teeth ground together, she pushed herself up only to find herself quickly halted by a hand on her arm.
“Don’t move.”
“Don’t tell me what to do,” she snapped, brushing away Zoro’s grip and ignoring the spike of pain in her wrist.
Zoro, rather infuriatingly, did not move back.
A flash of indigitation washed through Nami. The swordsman had no room to be ordering others to take it easy, not when half of their medical budget was spent on him and his inability to listen to their doctor’s sound advice.
Besides, despite what the others might think, Nami was not fragile. She had survived Arlong and his brutish crew for years. She had survived Enel long enough for Usopp and Sanji to rescue her, had beaten zombies and faced dozens of other terrifying people since then.
What she could see of Zoro’s face did not acknowledge this truth. His body was tense, every muscle pulled taught as he crouched beside her. His concerned burned, screaming that the swordsman did not trust her to be strong enough. Though perhaps that feeling was its own kind of hypocrisy, the consequence of all the times Nami had sought to leave the danger to the other members of their crew.
Still, the woman did not appreciate the feeling nor the dampness seeping through her clothes.
“Help me up if you’re not going to move,” she growled, raising her left hand much like a lady might to a gentleman. “Or it’ll be another thousand berri to your debt.”
Zoro’s lips thinned, but he took her hand all the same. There was a tremble to his grip, barely there but noted all the same.
“Come on, I haven’t got all night,” Nami said when the man paused then failed to start moving again.
“Witch,” the swordsman muttered in return, though some of the tension dropped from his shoulders. Nami counted that as a win.
The care with which the swordsman hauled the navigator up was something she would have expected from the cook, but the hawkish stare with which he watched her for any glimpse of pain was entirely their First Mate.
“See?” she said when she was finally standing. “I’m fine.”
“Your arm’s hurt,” Zoro shot back, voice as sharp as his gaze.
“Chopper can look at it in the morning.”
“No.” Zoro turned towards the men’s quarters while keeping Nami in the periphery of his right eye.
The navigator rolled her own eyes, exasperated. “Don’t wake them up for this,” she complained. “It can wait.”
She took a step to stop the swordsman but stumbled as the world tilted, only partly due to the swaying of the ship. Zoro was at her side in an instant, one large hand rising to steady her shoulder. The next minute Nami’s legs had been swept out from under her as Zoro scooped the woman into his arms.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” she cried, punching the man’s chest with her left hand. She felt a twinge of satisfaction at the involuntary grunt it drew. She hit him again. “Put me down!”
Zoro ignored her, his hasty strides quickly eating the ground beneath them until they were under the shadow of the foremast.
“Zoro!” Nami closed her eyes, pain pulsing up her arm. Her cheeks burned. She swore at him, angry and foul. “Ten percent increase in your debt. Twenty!”
But the swordsman’s grip remained steadfast. His pace did not falter. His chest heaved where Nami pressed against it, his fingers tightening around her at each breath.
“Do you want to be indebted to me for life?” Nami snapped. She squirmed, then hissed as Zoro’s grip tightened again. “And be careful! I’m not one of your stupid weights.”
“Stop moving,” came the gruff reply. His grip loosened minutely though, much to the navigator’s relief.
Then, like a blessing from the heaven’s, Franky’s voice called down to them from the crow’s nest.
“You guys alright?”
“Get Chopper,” Zoro said before his crewmate could answer. “Nami fell down the stairs.”
“I’m fine,” Nami cut in. “This moron’s just being an ass.”
Franky looked between the pair, his eyebrows rising at the protective hold Zoro had Nami in and her half-hearted attempt to get free.
“I’ll tell little-bro you’re in the infirmary,” the cyborg said at last, because of course he would.
Then again, the man had swiftly learnt to steer clear of arguments between Nami and the idiots of the crew.
Franky wasted no time in climbing down the shrouds linking the sides of the ship to the foremast. As soon as his feet hit the deck he went straight for the men’s quarters, not quite running but with a hasty step all the same. Zoro continued towards the infirmary, the sound of his boots echoing in the night.
Nami slumped in the swordsman’s arms, finally resigning herself to her fate. “At least put me down,” she said. “I can walk.”
“You’re hurt,” Zoro bit back, his eye blazing as it looked down at her.
Nami’s retort caught in her throat. The grey of Zoro’s stare was not the most striking aboard the ship, not compared to Sanji’s blue eyes or the deep brown of their captain’s trusting gaze. It was cold and hard and on the bad days reminded her too much of the metal chains from her youth. But in the unfiltered moonlight and the shadows of his face that grey burned with something Nami dared not name.
Maybe that was why Franky had been so quick to comply, she thought. Zoro was so rarely openly afraid.
Nami endured the rest in silence as the swordsman carried her up the stairs, taking each step with an uncharacteristic care.
With his hands full, Zoro had to push the door of the infirmary open with a foot. He sat Nami on the cot with that same strange gentleness from before. Then he retreated a few steps, looking for all the world like he was caught between the need to stay and a desire to flee. His chest still heaved, the man’s breathing fast and shallow.
Nami held her injured wrist gingerly, her brows furrowing. “Are-”
“Nami!” Chopper’s shrill voice cut through the room.
The door opened as the little reindeer slipped through, the hulking frame of Franky lurking behind. Zoro straightened. Nami turned her attention to the doctor.
“I’ll leave you guys to it,” Franky said, his eyes lingering on his crewmates as he left.
Chopper waved at him in thanks, before turning to Nami. “Franky said you fell down the stairs.”
“She’s hurt,” Zoro added, arms folded tight against his chest.
The young doctor spared him a glance as he coaxed Nami to show him her wrist. Chopper asked her a series of questions, moving her hand and arm carefully as he tested for further damage. It was deftly bandaged by practiced hooves, before Chopper moved to check her ribs and head.
Zoro stayed in place throughout the examination, refusing to budge despite Nami’s glare and Chopper’s suggestion that he use the doctor’s chair. The man’s shoulders were hunched about his ears, his body practically vibrating with tension.
Nami ignored him, her attention focused on Chopper.
“It doesn’t look like you have a concussion,” reindeer said at last as he put his instruments away. “But your shoulder is bruised and you sprained your wrist. Wait here and I’ll get you some ice to help reduce any swelling. Keep it elevated and make sure you rest.”
The last word was said with some exasperation. It was not unwarranted – Chopper knew their crew well.
“Thanks,” Nami said, smiling as their youngest crewmember yawned. “You’re the best.”
Chopper blushed. “Shut up!” he said. “That doesn’t make me the least bit happy.” He did that little dance of his all the same, making Nami’s smile grow larger.
Zoro grunted his own thanks when Nami turned a commanding gaze on him. The reindeer left with a spring in his step and a happy hum on his lips, bidding his patient to wait for his return.
“I told you I was fine,” Nami said when the door closed behind him.
Zoro’s jaw clenched and he looked away. “You should be more careful.”
Nami scoffed. “That’s rich coming from you. I just tripped. You’re the one who ends up making Chopper work to the bone to keep you in one piece.”
“You’re exaggerating.”
“You turned up after two years missing a damn eye!”
“That doesn’t matter.”
Nami ground her teeth. His own injuries never did to Zoro, not even after his near death at Thriller Bark.
“Well, I don’t need your help getting to bed,” the navigator said. “So you can leave.”
Zoro’s feet remained in place despite the bite to her words. Nami sighed, giving up on the argument for now in favour of stretching her legs. She made to stand only for a heavy hand to settle on her shoulder.
Nami brushed it off. “What the hell is your problem?” she snapped.
“Chopper said to wait,” Zoro replied.
“I know,” Nami said. “I’m not going to run off on him. I’m not you.”
If the insult behind her words struck home, Zoro did not show it. Instead, he settled closer to her, an impenetrable wall of muscle that Nami wished was not directed at her. His breathing had settled over the course of their time in the infirmary, but the tension in his shoulders remained and his eye still held that wild look.
“It’s not like I’m going to die,” Nami said, only half regretting her words when Zoro flinched. “What are you going to do? Tuck me into bed? Watch me while I sleep?”
The swordsman snarled. “I wouldn’t dream of it, witch.”
“Then go back to lifting weights, or at least put them away so no one trips over them in the morning.”
The man’s hands clenched into fists, but his mouth fell shut when the door opened behind him and Chopper entered again.
“I’ve got the ice…” he said, his words trailing off as he realised the tension in the room.
Nami glared at Zoro before turning her gaze to Chopper. Chopper’s eyes, however, were honed in on Zoro and the white knuckles of his fist.
“Are you okay?” the doctor asked.
“I’m fine,” the man ground out. “You should focus on your patient.”
“Zoro-”
The swordsman cut the reindeer off as he stalked out of the infirmary, slamming the door behind him.
“Don’t mind that idiot,” she told Chopper. “He’s an ass.”
“I think he’s just worried,” Chopper replied as he handed Nami the ice.
Nami scoffed. “He could see I was fine.”
Chopper hummed. He climbed onto his chair, opening the book where he logged the details of every injury he treated. The quiet scratching of his pen filled the room.
“Zoro worries a lot,” the little doctor eventually said. “Robin says it’s because he wants to keep us safe.”
A part of Nami deflated at that. Zoro took his duty to the crew seriously. That was as unwavering a truth as Luffy’s own drive to protect them and each of their dreams.
“He doesn’t have to be so pig headed about it,” she said half-heartedly.
Chopper hummed again. “You should keep the ice on your wrist for another ten minutes. Then ice it again in the morning when you wake up. Let me know if the pain gets worse.”
Nami sighed, murmuring her thanks as she sat and watched Chopper write. The ice was cool against her wrist. Between the cloth it was wrapped in and the bandages around her wrist, it was not quite the burning cold that came from touching ice with bare skin.
The minutes passed as the two stewed in their own thoughts. Chopped came over several times to inspect the ice and her wrist, rewrapping the former when the cloth holding the ice became too damp. Other times he glanced at the door, before tutting and writing in the book Nami knew contained the record of their First Mate’s health.
Nami, for her part, tried not to dwell on burning grey or the look of fear beneath the moon’s pale light.
By the time ten minutes had passed, Nami was itching to escape. She returned the ice to Chopper with a final thanks before taking her leave, promising to go to bed and rest.
The stars were still shining when she emerged from the infirmary, twinkling against the black expanse of the sky. A deep inhale brought with it the familiar scent of the sea at calm. Nami felt herself relax, her tiredness from before catching up to her.
The navigator’s feet made to carry her towards the room she shared with Robin, but paused as the leaves of her mikan trees rustled on the deck above. Her eyes found their silver drenched leaves, turned towards the moonlight as though it were its own kind of sun. A lone figure stood between them, watching still and silent as he watched the horizon.
Nami sighed.
The young woman moved towards the galley with a thief’s tread that had served her well over the years. It was quiet when she opened the door. The ovens were off, the bench clean and clear, Sanji’s busy presence absent from his domain in the dead of night.
Drifting to one of the cupboards, Nami lifted a glass dome and ran her finger through the frosting of the cake left beneath. She smiled at the subtle taste of tangerines. Her theft had left an obvious mark, but Luffy would undoubtedly take the blame come morning.
Curiosity satisfied for now, Nami turned to where the alcohol was kept. There was a line of random jars and bottles in front of her prize – vinegar, sauces and pickled vegetables. A deterrent the young woman was sure had never worked as Sanji hoped. Tucked in behind them was the good sake the cook did his best to ration for the long months they were at sea.
The navigator took a large bottle and settled the rest of the cupboard’s contents back in place. Then she left, making her way up to the topmost deck of the Sunny.
Zoro had not moved from where she had last seen him, alone amongst her trees. She could see the tense line of his shoulders and the way his right hand clenched painfully around the hilt of his most beloved sword. Nami wondered how long he had been standing like that, how long he would continue standing if left to his own devices.
Making no effort to hide, the navigator moved to the railing that faced the lawn and settled against it. The bottle hung in her good hand, half hidden from sight by the way she stood.
Time passed and Nami waited. She watched the moon and the leaves and the endless span of the sea beyond. Eventually footsteps drifted across the deck towards her.
“Chopper said to rest.”
“You’re one to talk,” Nami said, turning to cock an eyebrow at Zoro. “You never listen to him when he tells you to rest. Besides, I thought you might want something to make the night pass quicker.”
She waved the bottle of sake and grinned.
Zoro regarded her with a narrowed eye. “What’ll it cost?”
The wariness stung just a little, but Nami was self-aware enough to admit it was perhaps deserved. She had been holding Zoro’s debt over him more often of late. Her smile softened to something more reassuring.
“Just some company.”
A moment passed. Then Zoro huffed a breath, stepped beside the navigator and grabbed the bottle from her hand. He opened it easily, downing a good portion of it in several gulps before passing it back to her. Nami took a more tentative sip, mulling over her thoughts.
The stars glittered above them, reflected a millionfold in the surface of the sea. It was a sight that never failed to awe her no matter how often she saw it. The night was clear and so the visage stretched endlessly in every direction around them. It was as though she could pick any direction and find a a place unlike any other at the end.
Taking another swing of sake, Nami glanced at the man beside her. She was on his blind side with a clear view of the vertical scar that sealed his left eyelid shut. How he had gotten it was still a mystery, despite Luffy’s badgering and Usopp’s many absurd tales. Zoro’s closed-lip approach to the matter was no surprise. Still, Nami wondered not for the first time if it would do them all better to talk more.
“I’m really alright,” she said at last. “It looked worse than it was.”
Zoro grunted, stealing the sake to take another drink. Nami stole it back with little resistance. The contents were already a third of the way gone.
“I don’t get why you’re so hung up on this,” the woman confessed. “Usually, you brush it off like its nothing when someone gets banged up on the ship.” Or at least it seemed that way.
The profile of Zoro’s face gave away nothing. “Usually, they’re not stupid enough to mess around where it’s dangerous.”
“Don’t call me stupid.”
Zoro flashed Nami a grin when she thumped him on the arm, turning his head so he could see her. “Want me to fawn over you like the cook then?”
“You could learn some manners,” she grumbled, rolling her eyes.
The light-heartedness of the moment drained quickly. Zoro gazed at her with a distant look, like he was seeing something or someone else. Nami touched his arm. The swordsman stiffened.
“It was just stairs,” she said, not unkindly. “They’re not even that high.”
Zoro only stiffened further. He looked away, eye tracing the horizon. “People can die from falling down stairs,” he replied.
Nami regarded the man beside her. The crew very rarely pried into the past of those they sailed with, at least where it was not given freely. Nami’s past had come bursting out in the confrontation with Arlong all those years ago. It had been inevitable, in the end, her secrets spilled for all her nakama to see. Yet, even then there were still parts of her time with the Arlong’s crew she refused to share.
Robin was similar. They knew the basics: the injustice done to Ohara, the tragedy of Robin losing her home and being hunted as a girl across the world, her time with Baroque Works. Still, there was much Nami did not know about the archaeologist. Not that it mattered when they had stared down the World Government to get her back.
Perhaps, the navigator mused, fate had a tendency for dramatics in how their closest held secrets were revealed. The entire debacle at Whole Cake Island with Sanji and his family certainly seemed to corroborate that fact.
But it was their reticent First Mate that the crew knew the least about. Just that he had made a promise to be the world’s greatest swordsman and that he had once hunted pirates across the East Blue. This lack of knowledge had never bothered Luffy. It rarely bothered Nami for all that Zoro could annoy her in other ways.
The man was simple. He was a brute and an idiot with no sense of direction, and more loyal than anyone she had ever met. Yet, everyone began as something even if it was just a child with light fingers and an unrelenting want for more.
Zoro was once a snot nosed child, of that Nami was sure. Someone had taught him how to hold a sword, how to take a hit and keep going. Nami took a swing of sake and mulled this over.
It was hard to imagine the man in the earliest days of his youth. It was hard to imagine the time he had spent in-between that youth and becoming the feared bounty hunter he had once been. Zoro had probably been as sullen a child as he was as a man, and just as helpless at directions. Nami could not imagine he had an easy time making any friends at all.
But that’s not quite true, Nami thought, remembering the quiet moments that preceded the ill-fated fights with Mihawk and Arlong at the Baratie. Zoro had one friend in his youth, singular, and emphasis on the had.
Her mind whirled.
“Let’s play a game,” the navigator said aloud. “Remember when we met Sanji?”
Zoro’s next exhale sounded like a sigh, but he did not protest so Nami took it as agreement to continue. She twirled the bottle in her hands.
“You can go first,” she said, feeling generous.
It took a while for Zoro to speak. When he did, it was with a quiet voice. “I bet you robbed the first person who ever brought you a drink when you first left your island.”
Nami breathed, turning to slide down the railing onto the deck. She appreciated the care that Zoro seemed to have chosen his words with. She could also appreciate that he did not think her so fragile that he could not ask at all.
“Yeah,” she conceded, taking her allotted drink of alcohol. “Was an easy way to get money. Still is.”
The first person to have ever bought her a drink during her travels was a sailor who remembered the same kindness from her own youth. Nami had felt little guilt stealing her purse when they parted ways. She had done what she had to back then.
“Bet you couldn’t have stolen my money.”
Nami gave an undignified snort. “You wouldn’t have had any money to steal.”
“Oi!” The swordsman scowled at her as he sat next to her. “I earned enough berri to survive on my own.”
“Yet you can’t earn enough to pay your debt,” the navigator retorted.
Zoro shoved her with his shoulder, the move gentler than it usually was. Silence settled between them, tension slowly growing in the air.
It was her turn. Nami’s stomach twisted, her palms sweaty. Still, there was no backing out now.
“You knew someone who died because they fell down the stairs,” she told him, gaze fixed on the mikan trees.
Zoro took the sake and drank. Nami closed her eyes.
“Do you want to talk about it?”
“No.”
Nami chewed her lip, wondering how young he had been when he had lost the person. She wondered if he had been alone or if others had comforted him better than she could now. She remembered the tremor in his hands when he had held her, the frantic look on his face as he had leaned over her on the deck. It was no easy thing, facing the bogeyman of one's past.
He wants to keep us safe, Chopper had said. Nami knew it was a want that formed the core of Zoro, for good or ill.
“I’m still here," she told him.
“I know.”
Nami sighed as she leaned into the man beside her. Perhaps the contact would help where her words clearly could not. When Zoro did not push her away, she leaned against him further.
The swordsman dropped the bottle of sake into his lap, his grip loose around its neck. Nami took it from him gently and drank what was left.
“You should go to bed,” Zoro said when she leaned her head back to look at the stars.
“Here’s as good a place as any to sleep,” Nami replied. She stifled a yawn.
Zoro exhaled, long and slow. He shifted next to her, pulling away as he stood. A twinge of hurt and weariness shot through Nami. She closed her eyes, unwilling to watch her friend walk away.
So she was surprised when a blanket dropped over her shortly after and something thudded to the ground on her right. Nami opened her eyes to find Zoro sitting on her left as he sent a pointed glance to where she cradled her injured wrist.
“You should keep that elevated,” he said, echoing their doctor’s words.
Nami smiled at him, propping her right arm up on the small box Zoro had brought. She leaned into his side once more, ignoring the stale smell of sweat that clung to him still. It was easy enough to endure in the open air.
In the end, it was the navigator who fell asleep first, head leaning on the shoulder of the arm Zoro had wrapped around her. Zoro followed eventually, head thrown back as he snored and one hand clenched in the part of the blanket Nami had flicked across his legs.
It was Sanji who found them in the morning, fast asleep and still leaning on each other. Nami blinked blearily back to consciousness at the cook’s brusque tone as he berated Zoro for the theft of alcohol and waking Nami when the swordsman went to kick Sanji in response. Nami smiled at their bickering.
Her hand brushed Zoro’s arm as she stood, graciously accepting Sanji’s help to do so. Her eyes found the Zoro’s own, a wordless question passed between them.
Zoro smiled. It was small, only one side of his mouth tugged up, but it was enough for the knot in Nami’s chest to unfurl.
Their swordsman would be alright, she thought. It left a pleasant glow in her chest as Sanji fussed around her, serving her juice and bringing her ice.
The cook had fixed a drink for Zoro too, something warm to ward off the morning chill that had no doubt settled in his bones. The idiot had slept shirtless and Nami stifled a laugh as Sanji forced the drink into Zoro’s hands and all but kicked him towards the bathroom to shower.
“Do you think we could have cake for breakfast?” she asked the cook, batting her eyes.
“Anything you want,” Sanji grinned. “Care to grace me with your company while I cook?”
Nami accepted the arm he offered with her own grin, finding herself content in the face of the new day.