Fun fact: Nobody is more surprised that this got updated than I am.

Chapter 10

He had never been the person to sit quietly and think. Moments of peace for him were filled with noise and company, so utter stillness was not something welcome. Therefore when the slightest bit of consciousness returned, Luffy did his best to open his eyes and greet the world again. It took several blinks to make the blurriness go away, but soon enough the smiling faces of two of his friends greeted him.

"Good morning, Luffy..." Nami smiled kindly at him, her tone somehow reminding the young captain of singing. A wide grin instantly appeared at the sound. "How are you feeling?"

"What happened?" Luffy croaked out, causing his eyes to widen in surprise. "EH?!" The sound came out surprisingly alike to a robot and not the Franky kind. "What happened to my voice?" His throat had had enough at the point and a round of coughing occured.

Usopp ran out of the room to alert their doctor, while Nami placed a comforting hand on his shoulders. "Shush... Shush, you idiot. What were you thinking? Yelling like that right after you woke up?" she reprimanded softly. "Do you have any idea how sore your throat is?"

"I... think... I... know... now...!" He choked out between his coughs.

Chopper came back with a small bowl of ice chips, Usopp trailing behind him. With a large spoon he fed them to the rubber boy, after his coughing had calmed down a little. The captain's black eyes closed for one or two seconds in relief, before looking back to the little reindeer with a pout.

"I want waaater...!"

Usopp rolled his eyes at his friend. "You're not getting any water, idiot."

"Why not?"

"Luffy!" Chopper called to get his attention. "How are you feeling?" The young doctor was frowning at him, his gazed glued to his captain's face in search for signs of pain, he was certain Luffy wouldn't admit to.

"Thirsty..." he insisted, which earned him a warning glare from his navigator. "I'm... okay. A little tired. Just give me so meat and I'll be fine!" The other three did not look very convinced. "Really! I am fine! Better than I've been in a while... What did ya do to me, Chopper?"

Chopper's already huge eyes widened and adopted a new kind of sparkle, before he promptly ran off to his desk and started messing around with his stuff, looking for something. Mere seconds later he came back victorious, rattling a small box in front of Luffy's face. "This," he chirped. "Your new medicine."

Luffy blinked once. Twice. And then, his trademark wide grin appeared in a joyful combination with his also quite characteristic yell of "awesome!". Rubber arms stretched and wrapped around the doctor not only once but a couple of times, making the small crewmate giggle in shared happiness. "I knew you could do it, Chopper! Thank you!"

"Ah... but... " Chopper's happy attitude faded a little to leave place for some guilt. "If I had made it sooner, this... this wouldn't have happened..."

"Chopper, don't say that..." said Usopp, who had by then taken a seat next to them. "Nobody blames you! I mean, what other doctor would be as awesome as you and find the medicine to begin with?"

Nami nodded at the doctor as well. "Usopp's right, Chopper. Give yourself some credit. You did a great job."

Of course, Chopper just ended up being Chopper and did a weird kind of jelly-ish dance while cursing them and saying they don't make him happy. And every single one of them could tell otherwise. Luffy himself had to add his own comment.

"So no harm done! Besides I'm fine, right?" His head tilted a bit to the left in thought, leaving his crewmates waiting for the question that was certainly coming. "Umm... guys..." They could tell it was going to be stupid. "... What happened anyway?"

Nami felt ready to break her record of not having hit her captain ever since they met after two years away. But she found patience to let it go; a patience that was probably the result of having hit a poor old guy a tad too many times for her to have any right or to even have a particularly strong need to hit anyone else for a while. "Robin had a bad feeling that night. So every half hour or so, since she wasn't sleeping anyway, she would sprout a pair of ears and eyes up on the crow's nest to check up on you. At some point... she saw you... having a fit..."

"Nami! Get up! Hurry!" Robin suddenly jumped from where she was lying in bed, reading the book on her lap. She had been perfectly comfortable two seconds ago and now she was frantically ushering her to get up. However there was something horrifyingly similar to terror in her expression and Nami didn't really need to know any more to follow her orders. There weren't many things that could bring such a reaction out of the woman and if Robin suddenly looked so afraid then that just meant that something bad had suddenly happened.

"What's happening? What should we do?"

Robin rushed outside first and then turned back to give instructions. "Go find Luffy, I'll get help."

What the woman had failed to mention was exactly what was going on. Nami had thought there was trouble ahead and they needed to tell the captain about it. She had assumed that by getting help, she had meant wake some of the boys up to help with whatever the problem was. She hadn't imagine that what they required was medical help and therefore could not expect the sight that greeted her in the crow's nest.

"Luf- Oh jeez! Luffy?! LUFFY!"

Her strong, proud, goof of a captain was lying curled in a fetal position on the floor, hands tightly clenching his chest in a desperate attempt to ease the pain, gasping like a fish out of the water. Violent shakes rattled his body and every sound which escaped him sounded utterly agonizing. There were droplets of blood everywhere. Staining his lips and his hands, tainting the floor with red. But the scariest part was the look of shocked fear clearly visible in his wide eyes whose light almost appeared to fade with every breath that adamantly refused to enter his body and help him live.

Nami herself hadn't been so terrified in a while. "Chopper!" she screamed, praying the doctor would hear her and having forgotten Robin's words. "Chopper, get up here! Hurry! Oh please, hurry!"

She didn't know what to do. Luffy couldn't breathe. He couldn't breathe. In a panicked haze, she found herself kneeling down next to him and reaching out to him to touch him, if only to offer some comfort, though she suspected the boy wouldn't be able to focus on her touch either way.

"Luffy!" Chopper suddenly appeared with Robin right behind him and, if the massive sound of footsteps coming from below them was any sign, everyone else as well.

"And that's about it..." Nami finished re-telling the story to the boy, who had been surprisingly quiet yet not sleeping during the whole thing. "We carried you to the infirmary and Chopper helped you breathe again. Thankfully, around that time the medicine finally became ready and you got better..."

Usopp sighed. "You gave us all quite a scare, Luffy. You've been unconscious for two days now."

Newfound panic took over the young captain. "Two days?! " he exclaimed, ingoring the protest of his throat. "That means I missed-"

"Ten meals," Usopp finished for him. "We know. I'm surprised you weren't sleep eating. But perhaps your throat was in a little too bad a shape to allow you to do that."

Chopper smiled joyfully again at him. "Sanji told us to let him know when you wake up, so he can prepare those for you."

Luffy was practically jumping in excitement. The girl of the room rolled her eyes at him and headed for the door. "I'll go tell him. I don't think I can handle any more of this anyway."

She was stopped on the door by her captain's voice. "What do you mean by that, Nami?" With a small chuckle, she unknowingly gathered all her fondness into a smile and gave it to the black-haired man on the bed.

"Nothing at all. It's good to have you back, Luffy."

A/N: Umm... so yeah... I know it wasn't worth the wait, but I still hope you liked it..? You can always review and tell me what you think. Who's still here, who hates my guts, stuff like that.. A few comments on the chapter would be a nice addition. Heh.