A/N Disclaimer- I don't own One Piece. I would be receiving death threats over my story plots. :/

It wasn't supposed to happen. No one was expecting it, so no one could prevent it from happening. Not Nami, not Luffy, not even the swordsman himself.

Rain pattered forlornly against the deck and the wooden walls of Chopper's infirmary, washing away the scarlet sea that threatened to overflow the ship if their tears did not. Nami was currently standing alone in front of the door, paying no heed to neither the weather nor to the sobs that were wracking her body. Her mind was numb, freezing her to that accursed spot where she could do nothing and be of no use to anyone.

The door seemed so far away, so out of reach, and she could only stare at the handle as it stayed just as deathly still as she did. No one would be walking out of that room for a long time, and no one would walk in either. Only Chopper was permitted to walk in and out, going about his doctorly business and doing nothing to fight back the grief that flooded out of his eyes in a constant stream and dripped from his mouth like the choked little mewls of a dying animal. Perhaps he was dying a little, at least inside.

He was currently in there with their captain, who had refused to leave since the incident. It wasn't his fault, nothing was his fault; Luffy was just a man of his word, and he had sworn that he would stick by his nakamas' sides through thick and thin, day and night, and life and death. He was upholding that vow even now, as his first mate lay cold and lifeless on his death bed with his chest stilled and his pained breathing cruelly halted.

No one went to dinner that night. No one had any appetite or any desire to see each other. It was too soon, too early, and they all needed time to wallow in their own sorrows over the untimely death of Zoro, the late Greatest Swordsman in the World and former right-hand man of Pirate King Monkey D. Luffy.

Robin had holed herself up in the library, refusing to speak to anyone. Well, it was more like she didn't hear them – she was lost in her own, broken world somewhere inside her reserved demeanour. It was visible in her eyes, those ice-blue eyes that couldn't bear to look up at anyone who walked in, for fear of breaking just that little bit more that would tip her over the edge and beyond repair.

And just like Robin's eyes, cracks were starting to form between the remaining crew members. Ussop ignored them all, blocking out the cruel, harsh world that he was starting to regret being born into. The sharpshooter wandered the deck, blindly stumbling past obstacles with unseeing eyes and following through with his daily routine showing no feeling apart from the tear stains on his puffy, red cheeks and war torn clothing. He was especially indifferent to Nami, without even realising it.

They all were, except for maybe Sanji. He seemed to be the only one who tried to fill the endless days with a little bit of normalcy, swooning over his ladies when they were near and scolding the males when they were acting too depressed. To anyone outside of the crew, it looked like he didn't care about the death of his long-time rival and cherished nakama, but it wasn't true. He was devastated and hurt, but he preferred to grieve on his own when and where his crew couldn't see him.

Nami had vaguely noted, whilst wandering the ship like the pale, shunned ghost she had become, that the number of empty cigarette packets and burnt out butts were drastically increasing since that day; but she never mentioned it. She was afraid that, if she dared to, the fragile illusion that Sanji was hiding behind would shatter into small, dainty pieces and she would be blamed for ruining yet another life.

Brook was silent and motionless, making her fear that death had finally caught up with him, too. But as she whiled away the hours watching him sit on the grass staring out to sea, he would occasional let out a soul-shattering sigh that proved that he was, thankfully, alive- even if his soul was not. He had refrained from playing any music over the course of the next few weeks, preferring the cold silence that had enveloped the crew for once in his life and his un-life. It helped him cope, and it made him believe that, maybe, this was all just a bad dream.

Franky wasn't having the same luck. It was all too real to him, as his job meant that he had to interact with both his captain and the navigator in order to steer the ship to safety. But neither seemed capable of speech or direct confrontations, so he left them all to their own devices and locked himself in his workshop while he spent the days fondly remembering the times when things were not so rough. He made little progress with any projects that he had been working on before the Straw Hats had lost their nakama, instead choosing to craft little wooden figurines that took on the shapes of eight happy, smiling pirates hugging a muscular, slightly green headed ornament with three detailed katanas hanging at his waist.

She, however, was alone. Sometimes she stood, sometimes she sat with her back to the infirmary door, and sometimes she paced, trying to sneak a glimpse into the darkened room that housed two of her living and one of her dead nakamas.

No one except for Sanji came to comfort her, and she shooed him away when he did come noodling over to her. This mess was her fault and she didn't want to jinx anyone else who happened to be nearby, and especially not another one of her nakamas.

That stupid swordsman. That even more stupid and idiotic fleet of Marines. And stupid, idiotic, imbecilic her for allowing the stupid swordsman take the hit for her from the stupid, idiotic Marine fleet.

One thing was for sure; life really hated her.

A/N Bleargh, this chapter was really depressing. This story still has quite a bit to go before it becomes happy, but I hope that you, my lovely readers, stick around for a while to read the rest of it.

Read, Review and Enjoy!