Last chapter my friends. The end. Wow...it really didn't take long to get nine chapters out at all. Thank you so much to everyone who's read ths...I mean yes, it is AlxCa. Unfortunately it will be one of my last AlxCa fics for quite some time. But again, if you've read this fic, I can't tell you how much I appreciate it!

I don't own One Piece. I've told you nine times now.

Enjoy the last chapter! (And as always...review!)

Alvida crept back out onto the deck, her candle once again close at hand and her shawl around her shoulders. She was very tired and rather wanted to be back in her hammock, but her desire to work on the carousel was stronger. She had spent the last fortnight sneaking out to paint the carousel horses. There wasn't much left to paint now; maybe she could even finish it tonight!

Alvida grinned with pleasure at the thought of Cabaji's expression when he woke up in the morning to find his carousel finished. Even just painting small things, a silver tassel here, a gold braid there, a couple a ribbons, a sprinkle of flowers, it all added up. One night she had even painted an entire horse's mane and tail, another night she had delicately painted a full saddle and harness.

The look on Cabaji's face whenever he found some new part of his carousel decorated delighted Alvida. Her midnight séances exhausted her, but every night when finished she would turn the key of her own little carousel and fall asleep to the sounds of Plasir D'Amour, all the while thinking of Cabaji.

She would finish it tonight, Alvida thought was only one horse left. She could paint that in one night, couldn't she? Cabaji would be so pleased…

She placed her candle by the base of the carousel and reached for the sack of paints Cabaji left behind. But to her surprise she couldn't find them. She circled the base of the carousel, wondering where Cabaji had left them. However she came to a halt at the horse she had been intending to paint, to find it had already been painted with a mahogany coat.

"Looks like I beat you to it, Alvida."

Alvida spun around. Cabaji was standing just behind her holding a candle of his own in one hand, and the sack of paints in his other.

"Oh! Cabaji!" said Alvida, startled. I was just…um….taking a bit of a stroll and I thought I might…"

"Finish painting the carousel?"

"How did you…?"

"Of course I knew Alvida. Who else on this ship would sneak out in the middle of the night to work on something like this?" He gestured at the carousel. "Who else on this ship actually cares about the carousel, and mind you, who else on this ship knows how to paint for that matter?"

Alvida stood awkwardly, toying with a strand of her hair.

"I suppose it might have been a bit obvious." she chuckled.

She stared at the now completed carousel in the candlelight. The horses looked wonderfully real; almost ready to leap down from their posts and canter across the deck. Alvida was speechless with delight.

"Oh Cabaji." she said finally. "It's beautiful."

"Want to try it out?"

"Really? That is…we can ride it?"

"It wouldn't really be much of a carousel if we couldn't ride it." said Cabaji. "Go ahead. Climb on."

Alvida tenderly stepped up onto the carousel's base and strode among the horses until she found the grey horse she so greatly admired.

The nostalgia was overwhelming as she ran her hand along the saddle; the vague and faded memory of another grey horse, long forgotten, formed in her mind.

"C'mon. Up you get."

Alvida felt Cabaji's hands around her waist and she was lifted up onto the horse.

"Cabaji!" laughed Alvida. "I'm perfectly capable of getting on the horse by myself."

Cabaji shrugged good-naturedly and wound the mechanical that key that began the carousel, and Alvida felt the horse shudder to life beneath her.

"Do you like the music?" asked Cabaji, climbing on the grey horse as well, so that he was seated right behind her.

"Plaisir d'Amour." murmured Alvida, as the melody chimed to life with the horses.

"What else?"

"Cabaji, this is…this is wonderful."

And as the carousel spun so did Alvida's thoughts, they blurred into a sentimental rush of a childhood lost, of a carnival that had come and gone, of a fortune-teller who had told her she would someday be beautiful, of a young boy who had teased her and who's name she had never learned, and of an old grey war horse that she had loved, and that had died. It made her chest ache and her eyes burn with the sad pleasure that came with remembrance, and all of it had been tied to those days she had spent rising and falling on the carousel.

Alvida blinked her eyes rapidly, hoping Cabaji hadn't noticed.

"So how do you like your carousel?"

Alvida started, as Cabaji's voice jolted her out of her reverie. She became aware of his arms around her waist.

"Pardon?"

"How do you like your carousel?"

"My…my what?" Alvida turned on the horse's back to look at Cabaji.

"Your carousel." said Cabaji. "I didn't build it for the circus Alvida, I…I built it for you. I saw the way you looked at that little carousel, how happy it made you, and I wanted…" Cabaji's voice faltered. "I wanted to make you happy."

Alvida stared at him, unbelieving. "You built this for me? Just to make me happy?"

"Alvida, I…damn it Alvida. I love you. I always have. And I wanted to do something for you, to tell you. That's all."

Alvida felt as though someone had reached through her chest and squeezed her heart.

"Cabaji, I…" she faltered.

"It's alright." said Cabaji looking away. "I mean, I understand if you don't feel that way…I'm sorry…"

"No." said Alvida quietly. "It's not that at all."

She turned right around on the carousel horse and kissed him full on the lips. She closed her arms tight around him as the carousel continued its parade of up then down, and Plaisir D'Amour echoed in their ears.

They broke apart finally, staring at each other in incredulity.

"God, what idiots we are." laughed Alvida. "That it's taken us this long."

"Yeah…I know." said Cabaji, a bit shakily, running his fingers through his long dark hair.

Alvida gaped at him. Amidst the wave of memories and sentimentality she had just been feeling, something about that gesture seemed oddly familiar.

No…no way. It couldn't…

"Cabaji," said Alvida very slowly. "How did you know how to build a carousel?"

"Well, I lived in carnival when I was a kid, that's how I knew acrobatics and stuff, and I helped my dad build one once. I guess I took it apart and put it back together so many times I had it memorized. What's wrong?"

Alvida was staring at him with her hand over her mouth in sheer disbelief.

"My god." she murmured, her voice barely a whisper. "You were that boy. You were that boy from the carnival."

Cabaji looked at her quizzically.

"I remember, I was there…" said Alvida, still gaping at Cabaji as though she was just now seeing him for the first time. "I watched you take it apart. You told me to go away but I kept talking to you. You told that you'd helped your dad build that carousel and that your sisters annoyed you and that you wanted to become a pirate. That was me Cabaji! You never told me your name, but I know it was you!"

Cabaji was ogling her with a mixture of horror and incredulity etched into his face.

"No way…" he said, his eyes wide. "That's…that's impossible."

And then they both burst out laughing at the impossible coincidences of life. And long into the night the carousel continued its dance, while Alvida and Cabaji laughed and marveled at the fact that a carousel had brought them together not just once, but twice in their lives.

The End