After Sanji leaves, pain and devastation is the only feelings whirling inside...

Pain.

Heat.

Physical.

Emotional.

Like his chest was caving in on itself, his very life seeping out through the wound on his chest, as the fever wracks havoc in his body, burning his insides and making him see strange things and memories. He can see their faces. Smiling, crying, angry, it feels like they were there right next to him once again.

But it is only memories, he knows that, somewhere deep inside he realizes it. Though, it feels much better thinking that the memories is the present, then the pain is ebbing out and disappearing.

The bed is cold even if he is so warm, no one lies beside him and gives and takes body warmth. No one else other than the stars outside the window looks down at him. He presses his palms into his eyes, tries to focus on the physical pain, the pain he can handle, not the one in his crushed heart.

Then, a cold hand ghosts over his hot forehead. He sits up with a jolt, looks around the room and tries to find who ever had touched him, panting. But no one is there. It had only been his fucking imagination. Again.

Feeling the dizziness increase and taking over, he feels how his heavy body falls down on the mattress again.

He closes his clouded eyes, tries to fall into sleep so that he can dream instead. Hopefully, it will be a good dream, a dream filled with happy memories. Not like the nightmare he has been living these past months.