Same old, same old: Me no own "Own Piece."

Notes: Set between Sky Piea and Davy Back Fight. This is my first fanfiction in a long while, and my first ever "One Piece" fic, so I apologize for the stilted style. I feel like I haven't got a handle on the rhythm yet

It would be another ten minutes before tea was ready. Sanji was in the kitchen, making it. It was an impossibly lovely day, one of those that happened sometimes even on the Grand Line. The sea was deep blue and white, the sun was warm, the kitchen was cool. In between the cutting and dicing and arranging just so, Sanji stole peeks out of the porthole, thinking pleasant idle thoughts. He did not hear the Baby DenDen ring in the pocket of his jacket, which he'd left on the deck.

Usopp did. While the rest of the crew - minus Robin, who never looked up from her book - stood around Sanji's jacket in a curious huddle, Usopp took action. In a flash he was across the deck and clinging to the mast for dear life. "Who is it?" he quavered. "Who's calling us? Why does Sanji still have that Baby DenDen? It can't be safe. I heard somewhere that you can transmit poison gas through DenDen Mushis!"

"Really?" asked Luffy, his eyes going even wider than usual. "Can you transmit meat?"

"Idiot!" Usopp dashed over to smack his captain over the head, then ran back to the mast. "Whoever heard of sending meat through DenDen Mushi lines! That's just dumb."

Nami rolled her eyes. "Poison gas isn't much better. Someone go get Sanji so he can answer the Baby DenDen."

Luffy immediately darted around to block her way. "No!" he cried. "Sanji's making food for us. It wouldn't be right to break his concentration. Let's just answer it and tell Sanji about it later...after we eat."

"It's rude to answer someone else's Baby DenDen," Nami said severely. She put her hands on her hips warningly.

"Yeah, there's no way I'm answering it," Chopper chimed in. He was clutching his hat nervously, looking as if he'd have liked to join Usopp at the mast. "I don't want to be hit in the face with poison gas or meat!"

This time it was Zoro who took action. In one smooth, firm motion, he snatched the Baby DenDen out of the jacket pocket and held it in front of his face, palm-up and rock-sure. Not a line in the swordsman's body gave away his inner doubt. Zoro had never used a Baby DenDen before. It really looked too small to be used at all - and where was the mouthpiece, anyway? Could the other person even hear him on something so small? There was just no reason why a Baby DenDen should even work. Whatever. He was Roronoa Zoro. He would not be bested by some blasted bug. "Hello?" he barked into it, rather too loudly.

"That's right." Usopp breathed a sigh of relief. "Let Zoro answer it. He trains for this kind of stuff."

"Zoro is so cool," Chopper agreed lustily. "It must be great to be able to answer DenDen Mushis without worrying."

Zoro, for his part, had his head cocked to the side, his brows furrowed with irritated confusion. There was been no answer from the Baby DenDen. Zoro was no expert on this kind of stuff, but he was pretty sure DenDen conversations, even ones held on puny runt DenDens, went both ways. "Hello?" he said again, a little more forcefully. "Answer me, jerk."

"Hello?"

Everyone took a nervous step back. Zoro jumped a little when he realized this did not put any distance between himself and the Baby DenDen.

"This isn't Sanji, is it." The voice on the other end was low and smooth and self-assured, and very cultured. It was the voice of someone who wore expensive clothing and ate expensive meals, and paid for them. It was also the voice of someone decidedly female.

A woman was calling Sanji on a Baby DenDen. The Straw Hat Pirates had had a lot of adventures since coming to the Grand Line, but nothing had quite prepared them for an event of this magnitude. Chopper joined Usopp at the mast, while Nami clutched the ship's rail for support. Robin finally looked up; she and Luffy simply stared. Zoro realized that the situation rested on his shoulders. His broad and more than capable shoulders, the swordsman told himself sternly. He cleared his throat. "No, it isn't," Zoro growled back into the Baby DenDen. "Who is this? I can, uh, get him for you." He ignored Luffy's anguished "Nooooo!" in the background.

"Do that, please."

"Why don't you tell us your name first?"

"That's kind of you, but I can tell him myself."

Zoro could hear a cigarette tapped precisely against an ashtray. Nami looked back and forth between him and the Baby DenDen, her hands still at the rail but her mouth fighting hard against a grin. He didn't have to turn around, either, to know the others were doing the same. Zoro was losing a battle. With a woman. On a Baby DenDen. This was a humiliation not to be borne. Zoro beetled his brow even further, to irritated irritation, and was about to make a really cutting remark when Luffy stretched out one rubbery arm and nicked the Baby DenDen from his hand. Zoro ground his teeth a little before following the waving, elongated arm back to its source.

Luffy stood in the middle of the deck, his expression set, legs planted firmly, and the Baby DenDen in his palm. "I'm Luffy, the captain of this ship," he was saying seriously into the Baby DenDen. As one, the others - minus Robin, who didn't do that kind of thing - gave inward groans and buried their faces in their hands. "I'm going to be the Pirate King," Luffy continued, oblivious to the general feeling of doom that had settled over the Going Merry. "If you're not going to tell us your name, Lady, then there's only one thing that I, as Captain, can do." The boy raised his head, wearing a determined expression that, had their faces been free and uncovered, his crew would have recognized well.

"HEY, SANJI!" Luffy sprinted off towards the kitchen. "THERE'S SOMEONE ON THE BABY DENDEN FOR YOU AND IT'S A GIRL AND OOOH, IS THAT TODAY'S SNACK? DOES IT HAVE MEAT? I WANT SOME! OH, IT'S GOO-" The rest was lost in sounds of chomping and indistinct yelling from the ship's cook .

"I thought..." Usopp started, clearly trying to hang onto some shred of normalcy. "I thought Luffy wanted to stop the Baby DenDen from getting to Sanji...?"

Nami shrugged. "Does Luffy ever want the same thing from one minute to the next? Anyway, who cares. Let's go." She motioned for the others to follow.

"Go where, stupid?" Zoro folded his arms over his chest, and was annoyed when he realized he had already taken an automatic step after Nami. The ginger-haired girl turned around briefly to give him a withering look before continuing towards the kitchen porthole.

"I'm not sure I understand," Chopper said nervously as he tiptoed after Nami. "It's rude to answer someone else's Baby DenDen but it's okay to eavesdrop on his conversation?"

"We would have heard it anyway," Nami said in a soothing, reasonable whisper. "That is, if the door wasn't closed. So we're just making sure we can hear a little better."

Comprehension, and awe at Nami's superior grasp on ethical nuances, blossomed over Chopper's face. He inched towards the cabin with renewed, stealthy vigor. Operation: Hear a Little Better proved an initial sucess as the Straw Hats heard Sanji's familiar DenDen greeting float out from the cabin: "Hello, this is the shit restaurant. Would you like to make a reservation?"

What stopped them cold was the reply.

"Hello, sweetheart," said the smooth, self-assured, and now thoroughly amused voice on the other end of the line.

Luffy stopped chewing briefly before deciding that no, the words he'd heard were just a product of his imagination. He went back to demolishing the tea. Sanji absently dug out a cigarette, stuck it in his mouth, dipped his shaking hand back in his vest pocket, produced a tinderbox, and struck a light. Just as absently, he opened the hatch in the floor and climbed down to the storage room. He shoved his way past chests and supplies and found a comfortable place to sit between some boxes. He sat down and pulled yet another crate in front of him. Above him in the kitchen, no longer stopped cold, Nami vented her annoyance on the kitchen table.

Sanji took a reassuring drag on the cigarette before speaking into the Baby DenDen. "Hello, Hina," he said. "To what do I owe this lovely surprise?"

----to be continued
Note: Yes, Sanji is OOC! But I strove mightily to keep everyone else in character, so...might the answer lie in the next chapter? This is my way of begging you to read it.