The deck of the Sunny was damp. The passing breeze smelled of distant frost. The orange trees and mast creaked in the wind. This was no place to sleep. Yet, Trafalgar Law wouldn't be seeking better quarters.
He sat on the ground with his back against the wall of the stairs. He had laid his coat over him in a makeshift blanket, and his hat was pushed off his head as a pillow. He was set to sleep here, despite in the unfavorable conditions, but his eyes were wide open, unblinkingly staring beyond the ship's deck.
Law was vaguely aware that someone from the Straw Hats was standing watch, he hadn't bothered to check who it was now after he had seen Zoro turn in for the night. That evening, against his will, his thoughts had taken a turn for the worst. And he knew why: he was exhausted. The events on Punk Hazard had drained him. But knowing the cause couldn't cure the symptoms.
Don't go to sleep, what if you die? What if they kill you? Don't let go of Kikoku. Don't close your eyes. They will hate you, they will kill you.
Law pushed himself further against the wall. He hated this. He knew this was irrational, knew full well where these thoughts came from and what they were doing. For god's sake he was a doctor, of course he understood this. But his stomach twisted with dread and his eyes widened. His grip on Kikoku tightened. It didn't matter that he could make a diagnosis, to help.
He felt sick. Why had he made this alliance, why had he trusted this crew?
Don't think like that. You need their help, he has to be taken down. Reasoning didn't help. He tried to steady his breathing, and grabbed Kikoku's tassels, twisting them tightly around his finger then releasing and repeating over and over. He needed to sleep. It was late and he knew he would need his energy.
Law closed his eyes, realizing how tired he was by how easily his eyelids shut and how impossible it felt to open them. I'll be fine, he reasoned, they haven't killed me yet. I can sleep. He didn't stop himself from falling asleep, and his paranoid thoughts didn't creep up to hinder him either. So, slowly and miserably he managed to fall asleep.
__________________
"Doctor," someone pushed his shoulder, "Doctor wake up! You really shouldn't sleep in the office." They laughed a little.
Office?
Law barely registered the word before he blinked open his eyes, slowly sitting up. Bright light surrounded him; it must have been morning. He rubbed his eyes and reached for his sword.
His hand couldn't find it.
This woke him up properly, fear rushing through him. He needed that sword, needed Kikoku, needed to defend himself. His eyes fully opened, he realized this was not the deck of the Sunny. He was in, in fact, some kind of office, sitting at a desk covered in different files and textbooks.
Remembering the voice that woke him up he turned to look at who had spoken.
A nurse stared back at him; he was a stranger. Law had never seen the man before, but slowly, painfully, he realized he knew the uniform. Oh god how he knew the uniform.
Grief and fear hit him at once, he had last seen that uniform on a corpse piled next to him in a wagon removing the bodies from Flevance.
Try as he might, he couldn't stop the choked noise he made.
"Dr. Trafalgar are you alright?" the nurse asked, his smile faded to concern.
Law couldn't respond. He wanted to tell the stranger of course he was alright, but his mouth wouldn't move. Dr. Trafalgar. That was his parents' title. He didn't have time to register that he was hyperventilating, choking out sobs between gasps, losing his composure, before he landed on the floor.
Distantly the nurse called for help, but his voice was drowned out by a ringing in Law’s ears. Why is this happening? More nurses entered the room. Law couldn't tell how many, he could barely see through his tears and the darkness threatening to overtake him with each beat of his heart.
They moved him onto an exam table, slowly, listened to his breaths through a stethoscope, grabbed him a cup of water to calm him down. The standard procedures for dealing with this.
He distantly heard them calling him “doctor” and asking what had happened. They seemed to think he worked here. They didn't recognize his face from any wanted posters, at least.
His hands wouldn't stop shaking, his chest hurt, his eyes burned from the tears. He tried to take a drink, knew it would help, but his hands couldn't move and his lips wouldn't part. Trying to distract himself, he took in the people surrounding him. Most were nurses, wearing uniforms with emblems of a dead country on their chests, ignoring how wrong it was for them to be alive. He might have almost been able to ignore the uniforms, but a woman in a doctor's coat stood among them, her face made Law's heart stop.
He had last seen her in this hospital. Flevance's hospital, he realized. She had been cold to the touch, staring blankly at the ceiling, blood spilling from the gunshot wound to her chest. She had no idea her son had found her, had tried to shake her awake before desperately running from the Navy's soldiers, barely clinging to survival.
"Mutti," Law choked. Mother.
Something worse came over him. He froze, the grip on his cup failing, sending the water across the floor. He couldn't breathe, he couldn't blink, he couldn't move. And then all too suddenly, before he realized, he couldn't stop his cries from echoing. Even in all his dreams he had never seen her face look so alive again.
"Oh mein Liebling, was ist los?" She walked towards him, pulling him into her embrace. Oh my darling, what's wrong? She moved her hand over his back in circles, following his cries. "Breathe, Law, breathe. What happened?"
How could she not know?
He couldn't speak, his mouth wouldn't move to form the words he wanted to say. His mouth failing, he tried to sign "You're alive?" but his arms felt weak, it felt like he was pushing through water. It was shaky, but that wasn't the main issue.
"Is something wrong with your chest?" His mother asked.
She couldn't understand him. Of course. She hadn't been the one to teach him signing, it had been Cora-san. Law had learned to sign long after his mother was cold.
It felt like the floor cracked open, pushing Law away from her. He had forgotten, the language he had learned with Cora-san wasn't something he could share with her. He had lost her too early for that.
He couldn't move his head, he felt too frozen still. His hands could move though.
"No," he responded, "Can you understand me?" He was asking the nurses around him, surely one of them knew signs.
A pause.
"Oh! Yes I can, can you hear us?" One nurse behind the man who had woken him spoke up. She signed as she spoke.
"Yes," he signed back.
"Well that's good," she replied, "Can you speak?"
"Not now."
The nurse nodded and turned toward his mother, "Doctor, he's saying he can't speak right now. I imagine it's a side effect from this panic attack. If you don't know sign language though, I'm happy to be the translator for you!"
She seemed so positive Law almost felt at ease. Almost, if she hadn't been so clearly from Flevance. If he didn't know she was dead.
He hadn't noticed right away, but since he had woken up everyone had been speaking his language. A language that should have died with him. Now he heard a nurse speaking Flevish, sounding just like the doctors who found Law and Lammy sitting outside a conference room their parents were speaking in, heads pressed against the wall to try and listen. They would jovially ask them how they were doing, tell them how they respected their parents, and wish them the best before returning to their work.
His heart ached.
"That would be helpful, thank you," his mother replied. She turned back towards Law. "You can be done for with work for today, I'll make sure someone is covering your shifts in the meantime," she held his hand up to her chest, " a doctor just as skilled as you." She added the last part with a wink, her awful wink that she could never get quite right, and which would make Law and Lammy laugh as she exaggerated trying to make it better.
Law thought his heart might stop. He had forgotten about that.
That was his mother. He looked at her face, taking in the details. She looked the same as when he had last seen her, but older and, he realized, much healthier. Her skin was free from the splotches of lead that had been there when she died, she looked like she had been able to eat and rest and like she hadn't been calling foreign nations begging them to help Flevance, desperate to explain that the poisoning wasn't contagious. She looked so alive. So alive it felt wrong. It made the grief in his chest flare up, made it harder to breathe.
He nodded in response. Somehow in his attempts to get someone to understand him, he had calmed down a little. Not enough to be able to speak, but just enough that he was once again able to move freely.
"Alright, I'll call Lammy and she can take you back home," his mom said, going to find a denden-mushi.
Back home.
Law hadn't seen Flevance any more recently than when he had left it. In his memories it was always the burning remains, the open graveyard, the thousands of flies buzzing first, his life before that was a vague painful blur. He pushed the thoughts back, he was calming down, he didn't want to jeopardize that. He needed to figure out what was happening.
He sighed, he hadn't realized he'd been holding his breath. He tried to cough or make some noise otherwise, to test if he could begin to speak again, but a lump still sat at the back of his throat, stopping him.
Fine, I'll work this out before I meet anyone I need to talk to. It will be fine.
He waved at the nurse who had offered to translate for him, "I'm going to go to the bathroom." He needed the chance to get his head on straight.
"Got 'ya! I'll let Dr. Trafalgar Sr. know," she laughed a little while adding, "Dr. Trafalgar Jr."
He nodded. He didn't think about her joke.
He found the bathroom easily enough, and got to work fixing himself up. Whatever was going on he was not going to let it get the best of him. If, somehow, this was the work of an enemy's devil fruit, Law wasn't going to sit around sobbing.
He started the sink, running his hands under the cold water and splashing it on his face. He checked his reflection to make sure he was presentable. Something warped and wrong stared back.
It was his own face in the mirror, he knew that, but so much of him was missing. The eye-bags he'd had since he was young were gone, he finally looked well rested and not haunted. His facial hair was still there but considerably more cleaned up and professional looking. That wasn’t the worst of it. The discolored patches of skin on his face, and he now noticed, everywhere else as well, were gone. When he had removed the poison from his body, he certainly hadn't been concerned with fixing any symptoms of it that weren't lethal. The loss of pigmentation on his skin where the lead had crept out to wasn't something to worry about for him. But now they were gone, he almost felt sick. He hadn't loved the remnants of his poisoning, but it felt worse somehow to just be rid of them. To see a face where he could pretend they never existed.
This wasn't right. This wasn't real.
What the hell is happening?
Examining his hands finally, he noticed he was also missing his trademark tattoos. He had taken such care in planning those out, asking his crew, just the three others at the time, how stick-and-pokes worked and if it was a viable option for his plans. Shachi had laughed and told him it would be too much of a pain in the ass, he'd better recruit a tattoo artist. Dammit, he felt wrong. Here he was, so sure he was himself, yet missing so much of him. He had to figure something out.
Someone knocked on the door, "Law, are you there? Lammy said she would be here in a few minutes," Law's mother said.
He cleared his throat, his self examination must have been enough to snap him back into being able to speak.
"Alright, I'll go wait for her out front." He didn't want to see what out front looked like. He didn't feel like he had a choice.
He opened the door to the bathroom to see his mother standing there, smiling at him. He thought his heart would crack.
"That's great you can speak again! I was pretty worried about you, truth be told. I'm impressed you knew how to sign though! Where'd you learn that?"
Law paused for a second, running through his thoughts like flipping through a book. As he thought about how he would address the issue of who Cora-san was, he also couldn't shake how real she looked, even when he knew she couldn't be.
But at the same time, his chest ached. He wished he could tell his mother about Cora-san, about everything he had done for him. Law wanted to tell his mother who had saved her son. He couldn't. She was dead. And then all too suddenly, like the sense of wrongness that came with staring at a word for too long, her face morphed into something unknown. Maybe no one else would have noticed, but Law could. The person in front of him was no longer his mother, not really. He knew now, whatever this was, it wasn’t real.
"I figured I would learn some in case something like this happened," He settled on. It was a lie, he had learned because the Amber Lead had built up around his throat near the end of it, and speaking hurt enough he had needed an alternative. Cora-san had taught him, first begrudgingly during his days with The Family, then excitedly while he was dragging Law to every hospital in North Blue.
"That's handy then!" His mother replied.
He nodded. He wished so desperately that he could let his guard down, let himself run into his mother's arms and believe it really was her and sob and grieve and hold someone he had lost. Instead he headed towards the hospital's entrance and said goodbye to his mother who should have been dead.
He wasn't ready. He had thought his mother looked older than when he had last seen her, but he hadn't realized truly, that had meant wherever he was, thirteen years had passed for her too. Not until he saw Lammy. He hadn't realized he'd been wrongly looking for a kid until she caught his eye and waved. He froze again. God dammit.
He wondered briefly if this is truly what she would look like if she had survived.
Her face looked so much like their father's, but her hair was lighter and her eye's were the same gray as their mother's. She had a scar on her chin from when she and Law had been running between alley ways to find a good spot to watch the parade, and she had tripped and scraped her chin. Law remembered her complaining so much about how uncomfortable the bandage on her chin was after their father had gotten her cleaned up and taken care of. And like a crashing wave, he kept remembering her. Lammy asking to go to the festival when Law was finished studying, Lammy coming down with a fever, the poison slowly sapping her life away right before his eyes, Law begging her to stay quiet in the hospital room's closest, desperate to save her from the Navy soldiers.
He was shaking. Lammy, this Lammy, not the one he knew, was standing in front of him, reaching for his hands. Her face was so convincing, he felt sick.
"Law? Geht es dir gut?" Are you okay?
He needed to steady himself. He needed to calm down, to be able to handle himself if anything started to attack.
"Ja, I'm fine."
He tried so much to ignore how Lammy looked. She couldn't be real, she wasn’t real. But all the small details, all the smallest things he had forgotten were there, just older now. Healthier. He felt like he was being crushed.
"What about you? How do you feel?" He asked. He had to know, even when he knew this was fake.
"Me? I'm fine, I'm not the one who just had a breakdown after all," she laughed and pulled him into a hug. "I'm glad you're alright, mom sounded so worried over the phone."
He couldn't breathe. All his composure, all his work to calm down melted away. He hugged her back, choking back sobs.
His little sister was alive again.
Of course I'm okay! He wanted to say, you're okay. He couldn't. He just stood there, trying to push down his cries, fighting back the desperation to believe this was real.
He didn't want to move. He missed his sister so much. Law hadn't let himself really, truly, mourn her. Of course he had grieved, but he was so angry after surviving everything, he hadn't really processed things right. He loved Lammy, loved her so much he had never wanted to think about her again, knowing she could never come back. But here she was, an almost perfect duplicate of his little sister. He sobbed.
Lammy hugged him back. "Did something happen?" She sounded older too, this wasn't her voice. It couldn't be.
Law tried to breathe, he needed to answer, "No, nothing." As far as he could tell, whatever was going on here, that was the truth. Lammy was an adult, she had made it. Nothing could have happened, no one could have survived without the Ope-ope fruit.
He stepped back from Lammy, finally letting her out of the hug. He wanted to look around the town, to confirm his suspicions about this place, this Not-Flevance.
The buildings around him were the same architecture he had grown up seeing, the same small details that made him feel almost at home. Except, here, the buildings were colorful. He had grown up around glistening white houses. These were made from brick and stone, any white on them was the same that could be found anywhere else in the world. This wasn't the White City, this wasn't where he was from.
Lammy was watching him look around, her face looked worried, "What're you looking for?"
"Hm?" he paused to hear what she said, "Nothing, just taking in the sights."
His sister laughed, he wanted to record it.
"You're so weird," she said.
He choked out a shallow laugh in response.
Lammy turned to look at the city around them too. "Hey, since you're off work, do you wanna go to the festival? I want to check out the market, it'd be more fun to go together."
Law took a step back. "The festival?"
"The fall festival, did you forget?"
Bad luck, he thought, she'll get sick again. This is awful luck. He tried to push the thought back, this wasn't real. Whatever it was that was happening this should be fine, it should be-
No, no he was getting too comfortable. There was no way this was real, his family was dead, and the last time he had let himself hope things had gotten better for him, Cora-san had died. If he let his guard down it would happen again. He had to stop being comfortable, he had people who wanted him dead. This had to be a trap.
"Hey Lammy," he said finally after gathering his thoughts. He needed to test her, he had to make sure he understood this was fake.
"Hm?"
"What happened to all the white buildings?”
"What?" She laughed, her face twisting in confusion.
"You know, the one’s made from the lead?”
"What? What lead?”
"Amber lead. Fleavance’s specialty,” he practically spit out the last words.
She stepped forward and pressed the back of her hand against his forehead.
"Lammy, I'm fine-"
"No you aren't. I'm not a doctor like you or mom and dad but you’re confused, that's bad. Did you get hurt or something without realizing?"
"What? No, I- "
She took his hand, "Come on, lucky us we're outside the hospital. Let's go find someone who can help."
She dragged him forward one step, Law panicked.
Two steps, Law smelled smoke. He swore Lammy’s grip tightened.
Three steps, he heard Cora-san's voice so clearly in his head. This one will be different Law, just you wait!
Four steps, his hand went cold and clammy, he heard screams.
He fell down. He was shaking so bad it hurt, he felt nauseous. His sweat felt cold. He tried to push himself up, but his arms were too shaky, the world was spinning. He tried to lift his head to look at Lammy, but the movement was too much and he crumpled over again, throwing up a little from the motion. Lammy must have come to his side, trying to help him sit up, holding her hand on his back to steady him.
His head hurt, his vision blurred. He was desperate. "This isn't real," he choked out, "This isn't real, it isn't real."
If Lammy was saying anything he couldn't hear her for the pounding in his ears.
The ground sunk, he started to fall.
________________________
He woke up screaming. It was still dark, and was much colder now than when he had fallen asleep. Snow had started to fall. He tried to stand up, hands gripping Kikoku for support. He was shaking horribly now, both from nerves and from sleeping out in the snow. His coat must have been thrown off while he was sleeping, it lay on the grass beside him.
He heard footsteps rushing toward him, and acting on instinct he drew his sword.
"Torao-kun!" Nico Robin was running towards him, stopping short when she noticed his weapon pointed at her. She raised her hands and stepped back, "What happened?"
He was so tired of hearing that tonight. "Nothing," his voice trembled from how badly he was shivering, "A nightmare, don't worry about it."
"Do you want to talk about it?" She offered.
"No."
She nodded slowly, looking him up and down.
He watched her warily, he put Kikoku back in it’s sheath.
"I'll go wake up Chopper and see if he can help-"
He cut her off, "Thank you Nico-ya, but I don't need his help. I'm a doctor." … not a doctor like you or mom and dad but … He would've fallen over again if it wasn't for Kikoku steadying him. Why was he being haunted by her like this? She wasn't even real. The real Lammy… he didn't want to think about it. He could feel the flashbacks coming, he couldn't deal with this. Not in front of an unfamiliar crew.
"I know that Trafalgar, but this isn't your ship. Chopper would know where everything is," Robin replied.
"I don't need the help."
Robin stood there, silently. She must have been assessing the situation, but Law couldn't grasp what was happening in her mind, her eyes gave nothing away.
Finally, she spoke, "Well, let's at least find you a place inside to warm up and sleep."
Law wanted to protest, but he was shaking too much and his thoughts were rushing by too fast to be of much use.
Robin led Law into the kitchen, helping him gather his things to make sure they didn't freeze over on the deck.
"Would you like something to warm you up? I think we have tea around here," Robin said, checking the cupboards.
Law wanted to respond, he figured it would be weird to decline, but he found himself in the same miserable conundrum as before in his dream: he couldn't speak. He huffed, at least she was looking at him for an answer.
"Yes, thank you," he signed in response.
Robin smiled back. Of course the archaeologist knew sign language, he felt like she might somehow know everything.
"Good, I'll make it." Robin both said and signed back.
A few moments passed before she spoke again. "You know, Trafalgar, I don't mean to pry but-"
Oh no.
"-you seem to talk in your sleep."
Law thought briefly about jumping overboard. He imagined the icy sea water would feel better than having to reply to Nico Robin about his nightmare.
She grabbed the pot and walked over to the table, sitting across from Law. "You don't need to talk about it. I won't ask, but from what I could make out…" she paused for a moment, something briefly crossing her face that Law wasn't able to pinpoint, "we seem to have some things in common I suppose."
His face must have betrayed him in his confusion, Robin laughed.
"Nothing too bad, but nothing good. It seems we…” she paused, she seemed to be choosing her words, “…both have lost people very close to us."
"That's the life of a pirate," Law replied curtly.
Robin sighed, something heavy must have hung over her. "I imagine so."
Law didn't respond. He looked at the teapot sitting untouched in the center of the table. He missed the Polar Tang.
Robin cleared her throat, getting his attention. "I will make it clear first my loyalty lies with Luffy, I've made up my mind there, and will follow his choice to move forward with this alliance. But I'm no fool Trafalgar Law, I know what a pirate alliance entails."
"Of course," He replied.
"I don't trust you, I doubt I will no matter how long this alliance lasts. However-"
She paused for a moment to collect herself, Law watched her hand ball into a tight fist as she continued.
"I can't help but extend sympathy to someone suffering the same nightmares I’m all too familiar with, and or someone who has lost their mother."
Law bit his tongue. What rotten luck for her to figure that out. Did she know who else he'd lost too? Was she trying to?
“Why do you think I lost my mother?”
“A guess, I happened to hear you yell in your sleep. Unless my guess is incorrect, in which case I apologize.”
Law scowled. “What did I say?”
“I may have heard wrong, but I do remember you saying ‘Mutti’ which to my knowledge means mother, of course I-”
Law slammed his hand on the table, he hadn’t realized he’d done it until after the noise rang out across the room. “How do you know what that means?” His voice shook, but in his shock and anger he managed to speak again.
“It sounds the same as mother in this language, doesn’t it?” Robin replied. Law swore she was feigning ignorance.
“There’s other words in other languages it could be, couldn’t it? How do you know that one?”
“How do you?” She answered.
Law just barely stopped himself from replying I asked you first. He didn’t need this to become some schoolyard argument. “Cut the act.” He readied his hand on his sword.
They stared at each other across the table, the teapot forgotten. He couldn’t ruin this alliance before it truly began, but he wouldn’t answer her. It was just one word but he’d let his native language slip, and of course it was around the only woman whose job was reading dead languages.
“What do you know about O’Hara, Trafalgar?”
Law paused. What does that have to do with this? “It was in West Blue, that’s no reason to know a language from the North.”
The tension in the room was nearly tangible.
“I’ll drop the facade, Trafalgar. O’Hara was destroyed by the World Government. I was the only survivor, as you may be aware. It became a habit of mine to keep up with whatever information I could about other countries to suffer the same fate.”
Oh, right. That’s what it had to do with this. He had forgotten the archaeologist's origins.
Law sat down again. “Why would that mean you know Flevish?”
“I’m invested in language learning, what can I say?” Robin replied.
Law didn’t move, he didn’t want to reveal what he was thinking.
Robin sighed. “Whatever your connection is with Flevance, I won’t tell anyone. My only goal here was to extend the olive branch in understanding. There aren’t many people out there to have this in common with, after all.” She smiled at him, but there was no hiding the sadness behind it.
Law huffed. “I’ll hold you to not telling anyone about this then.” He couldn’t look at her anymore.
Robin nodded. “Of course.”
She was right, he figured. He had never told anyone what he went through, not in any detail beyond saying where he had come from. The Family had figured it out from context, and Law figured the original members of the Heart Pirates had pieced together enough of it from his condition when they had met. Evidently, if his nightmare was a good diagnostic tool to work off of, he hadn’t handled everything as well as he thought, try as he might.
He sighed. Fine. I can extend the olive branch too. “What did your mother do?” he asked, it was a basic enough question to begin to bridge this bizarre gap.
Robin laughed a little, relaxing just a bit. “She was an archaeologist. What about yours?”
Law pulled his hat further down over his face, smiling a bit, “She was a doctor.”