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The invitation came in a neatly handwritten note marked by a Whitebeard insignia.
You are warmly invited to the elopement of Monkey D. Luffy and Portgas D. Ace, Nami read, and spat her drink all over the table.
"You can't just invite people to a fucking elopement," Nami hissed.
"Does that mean you're not coming?" Luffy looked disappointed.
Nami cursed herself silently and then resisted the urge to bang her head against a wall. "No, you idiot, of course I’m—wait, what am I saying? That’s not the problem here. Why the hell are you eloping with your brother?”
“Because I love him,” said Luffy, very sincerely. “And Ace said he loves me too.” Nami kind of wanted to cry.
“Do you even know what an elopement is?”
“Yeah! Makino told me.”
“And what did she say about it?”
“It’s when two people wanna keep each other forever,” Luffy told her. “But they gotta make it secret, ‘cuz some other people don’t like them together.”
“Like who?”
“Like the government.”
Shit, that was pretty accurate. “But Luffy, they're called elopements exactly for that reason. As in running away in secret. It means without a guest list!"
"But it is secret," said Luffy. "Did you see the P.S.?"
Of course she had. P.S. Please don't tell anyone. Yeah, good luck with that, Nami thought darkly. It wasn't like they had massive notoriety and world-scale fame attached to their heads or anything.
On second thought, maybe this whole party invitation thing did kind of make sense.
"I saw the P.S.," she said. "So who else did you invite?" It never hurt to start thinking about damage control in advance.
"Just the important guys," said Luffy brightly. "My crew, his crew, our friends—"
“How loose is the definition of ‘friends’ here?"
"No one’s loose," Luffy cocked his head. "We are tight with a lot of people.”
Nami rubbed her forehead. "I bet," she sighed. Then she remembered something. "Speaking of, what about your second brother? Is he even okay with this?"
"Sabo?" Luffy asked, sounding surprised. "Of course. He's the best man."
"What? Luffy, I really don't think most people have a best anything at—hey! Hey. Wait a minute. Why him? What about us? Haven't we known you since—"
"You're my bridesmaid," said Luffy, and before Nami could pick her jaw up off the ground, "Haha, just kidding."
Nami had always known that Luffy’s jock-looking brother was a bad influence on him. Because Luffy was getting married (god, Luffy was getting married), she had to let it go. "You've gotten all the stuff taken care of? It's really going to be official and everything?"
"Yup," said Luffy, sounding absurdly happy again. "It’s a proper party! Ace even got someone to do the ceremony."
Nami said, "You have got to be shitting me."
"He has a license to officiate marriages," Robin said calmly. "Does that surprise you? It doesn't surprise me. I think he has a license to do everything."
On the front of the hall, Doflamingo was speaking gleefully to Shanks. Shanks started crying into Mihawk’s handkerchief, and Mihawk nodded and patted him on the shoulder.
This was so, unutterably wrong. Maybe it was all a horrible dream and Nami would wake up any minute to a world where her captain was not getting married to Gol D. Roger’s son in a secret ceremony presided over by Donquixote Doflamingo. She pinched herself, hard. Nothing.
She looked around, a little wildly, and caught sight of a familiar figure skulking near the wall, apparently trying to disappear into the shadows. Nami lunged for him.
"Trafalgar," she hissed. "Law. What is going on? "
The man favored her with a flat look. "I am here," he said, "because I owed Strawhat my life and he insisted for me to come here. If I have to think about anything more than that I will not be held responsible for the consequences."
"You'd have an ironclad case," Nami said. "No judge in court would convict you. Even his grandpa will back you up if he knows—wait, oh my god." Nami was awash with cold horror. "Oh my god, Vice Admiral Garp is coming, isn’t he? What's going to happen if the Marines get here?"
"He already has," Law said. "He's talking to Strawhat." At Nami's panicked noise, he jerked a thumb over his shoulder and said, "In the back."
Nami was through the door and into the back corridor faster than she had ever moved in any fight. She could hear the faint sound of voices from down the hall.
Where was Ace, anyway? Knowing Whitebeard, he could appear at the last minute with their biggest battleships in a dramatic entrance and ruin all the secrecy. Supposed secrecy. Vivi and Shirahoshi just arrived merrily with their entire royal entourages. It was probably sending out radars to every news reporter within a hundred mile radius.
The voices grew louder. When Nami rounded the corner she found herself looking at Luffy, dressed in a surprisingly stylish formal attire and a grand coat. He was arguing with his grandfather and someone else. Fortunately it was not another Marine.
Nami crept closer. Was that Monkey D. Dragon from the Revolutionary? Felt like she should have seen that coming.
"—too damn young to get married!"
"No, I’m 19," Luffy told Garp, as if that would make his case any better. “I can do what I want. And I’ve always wanted to spend my life with Ace since I was 7.”
“Exactly! You’re a kid. You aren’t even allowed to date until you’re 20.”
“With all due respect, Sir,” Bogard said, “that’s not the most urgent problem here.”
Dragon stepped forward and looked into Luffy’s eyes. "Listen here, son,” his voice was serious and gravelly. “Consider the situation for a bit. I understand right now it’s easy to think that you're—that you're—" He eventually managed to force out, pained, "in love, but maybe you should take a little more time, think it over. You don't want to rush decisions like this. When I was your age I thought I found the love of my life, but I found out the hard way that it wasn’t the case.”
Garp sneered at him. “I told you since the first dinner that Crocodile was off.”
“As it turned out my partner wasn’t the one for me,” Dragon kept talking over him with a slightly louder voice. “Because I got dumped as soon as you were born—”
Garp snapped. “You dumped your kid as soon as he was born—”
“—and Ivankov told me, years later, that my wife had changed into a man—”
“More a man than you ever before, honestly—”
“—then he fucking went and dated Donquixote Doflamingo,” Dragon finished with a haggard wild look in his eyes. Nami couldn’t believe it. The man looked more emotional than when his closest friends got captured by the government. “Doflamingo, of all people. I can’t believe he chose a celestial over me. I will never forgive rich people.”
“Is that why you started a revolution?”
Garp and Dragon immediately started arguing in new fervor, slandering each other about their respective life decisions as Bogard gently guided them out the door and closed it behind him. Nami braced her back against it for good measure.
"Nice going," she said.
Luffy shrugged. "I don’t get why everyone is so worked up on this."
"At least we know Ace’s side of the family seems to approve," Nami told him in forced optimism. She consciously did not think about all the things she learned earlier about Luffy’s Dad.
Or Mom, for that matter.
"Ace said that was one of the reasons he became my big brother,” Luffy said. “So he can just approve himself when he wants to marry me.” He laughed, like it was some sort of an endearing eccentricity.
Nami squeezed her eyes shut. She counted to ten and then opened them again. "Okay, you know what, I’ll deal with having to think about all your insane family logic after the wedding. Unless you're having second thoughts. Are you having second thoughts?"
Luffy cocked his head and gave her a look. Nami raised her hands defensively. "I'm just asking! If you want to marry your step-brother or whatever, I'm on your side. It just seems like, you know, you could keep living in sin for a lot less trouble."
"I want to do this," Luffy said firmly, with no trace of doubt in his face.
Nami let out a sigh. "Okay," she said. "You better stay out of the way. I'll run interference for you out front. But when you get back from your secret honeymoon or whatever, you owe me one billion."
Luffy's huge smile almost made up for it. Almost.
Luffy was ready to go and Ace still wasn't here. Nami dodged past another swarm of chattering strangers of all shapes and sizes—how many allies did the Whitebeards have?—and scanned the crowd fruitlessly for any sign of an unhealthy convergence of attention.
Instead, she spotted Jinbei across the room. She waved frantically until Jinbei caught sight of her, and they weaved around the throng of guests until they met in the middle of the crowd.
"Jinbei, you haven't seen Ace, have you?"
He shook his head. “The Whitebeards are nowhere to be seen, either.” He looked fairly concerned. "And do you know what happened to Trafalgar? I couldn't get anything out of him other than that he found out Doflamingo is here, and now he's sort of—well—" He turned his head and Nami followed his line of sight.
Law was standing at the open bar (seriously, what kind of an elopement had an open bar?), and as they watched, Law lifted a glass of clear liquid to no one in particular, tilted his head back, and knocked back a double shot.
"...uh," Nami said after a minute. "You better just—keep an eye on him. Okay?"
Before Jinbei could answer, a heavy arm descended on Nami's shoulders—Jinbei’s too, from the ‘oof’ noise he gave. "Hey!" Yamato said cheerfully. "Where's the groom?"
Nami tried to wriggle free, to no avail. "Which one?"
"Yours."
"He's waiting in the back. He's been here a while," Nami said pointedly. "What about yours? He’s your best friend, right?"
Yamato shrugged. "No idea. His other brother is responsible for getting him here. I think Ace has something planned, though."
It was going to be the Moby Dick entrance. Nami knew it. "You don't know what?" She prodded, but Yamato just shrugged.
"Okay, well—" With an effort, Nami managed to twist free. "Listen, I have to go. Send someone to find me if Ace shows up, okay?"
She made a break for it, sparing a glance backward only when she was safely out of reach. Jinbei was still trapped. Yamato started talking excitedly to Carrot, which was just great—the two of them were certainly clueless enough to say something like, "Hey, we should remind everyone else to come here!" Nami reversed course, ready to physically stop them if necessary.
At that moment, an abrupt screech of double doors opening cut through the noise. A hush fell on the crowd.
Nami spun on a dime and leaped for the door. She made it there well ahead of the ensuing rush of excited guests, so she had a front row view of a sudden massive bright inferno blazing right in front of the entrance. Then someone came out of the fire.
First emerged a white shoe, then a white-clad leg, then finally—finally—Portgas D. Ace, in all his descending-from-hell glory. His regal suit and coat made him look unnervingly like a younger, prime version of Gol D. Roger.
It was kind of mind-boggling—but somehow not all that surprising, how the stunned crowd just seemed to part before Ace like the Red Sea. Any last stirrings of resistance were swept away by Sabo's dazzling prince-like smile, graciously bestowed on all and sundry. The rest of Whitebeard Pirates followed behind him. Nami followed in their wake, trying not to gawk.
Once they were safely ensconced in a private room on the opposite side of the hall from Luffy, Nami got a look at Sabo. He looked so different in a proper formal suit. Somehow the blonde looked almost like a world noble. "Er,” she flinched when they made eye contact. "Nice to see you again. Sir."
Sabo took Nami's hand and kissed it in a weirdly aristocratic manner. "It's wonderful to meet you on such a joyous occasion,” he said earnestly.
"Uh," said Nami. "Right."
Sabo went on. "Nami, I'm sorry to impose, but I need to speak with Doflamingo about something. Would you mind keeping an eye on Ace?"
Since that was already Nami's plan come hell or high water, she nodded. Sabo, who was still holding her hand, gave it a squeeze, then released her, clasped Ace's shoulder meaningfully, and departed with the air of one on a divine mission.
"What's he need to talk to Doflamingo for?" Nami asked Ace.
Ace didn't seem to hear her. When Nami took a closer look at him, his eyes were fixed on some nonexistent point on the far wall, clearly not seeing anything. "Hello?" Nami said. She snapped his fingers, then waved a hand in front of Ace's face for good measure. "Portgas D. Ace? Is anybody home?"
Ace blinked and looked at Nami. "Huh?" he said. "Oh. Nami. Were you talking to me?"
"Uh, yes," said Nami. "What's going on?"
"Nothing," said Ace.
"Nice try, but you're kind of freaking me out." A horrible thought occurred to Nami and she leaned forward. "Does it have to do with the wed—elopement? Is there something I should know? Has something gone wrong?"
"Nothing's wrong," Ace repeated. Then he asked, almost too casually, "Have you seen Luffy?"
"Of course," Nami said, "He's been here for—" Her shoulders jerked up. "You're not getting cold feet, are you? Are you? "
"Don't be ridiculous," said Ace, and then, quickly, "Why? Is Luffy?"
Nami rolled her eyes. "You're telling me not to be ridiculous? He's so stupidly in l—" She stopped. Looked closer. Ace's eyes were just a little too wide, and it looked kind of like—
"Oh my god," Nami said. "Are you nervous?"
"Nah," Ace said. "Of course not." A muscle in his cheek jumped.
Nami's eyes were probably popping out of their sockets. The day of judgment had finally arrived. The infamous Portgas D. Ace hadn't even flinched one bit on his own public execution platform, but now he was practically paralyzed with nerves.
"Wow," she said. "Okay, well, look. It's going to be fine—you just go out there, do your thing, get whisked away to the ships, then you and Luffy will have, uh, private time away from the public to—you know. Whatever." Nami decided to avoid thinking about any further detail. "It'll be over in minutes. Unless you really want to hang around and watch everyone else get drunk."
Ace gave her a little disbelieving stare. "I'm not worried about the ceremony."
Nami frowned. "Then what?"
Ace didn't answer. Nami narrowed her eyes. Her mind whirred, fitting everything Ace had said together—
Nami's jaw dropped. "You're worried about Luffy?"
Ace wouldn't even look at her now.
"You're kidding. You don't seriously think he's going to, like, change his mind or something, do you?"
Ace's jaw was rigid. "It wouldn't be the hardest thing to understand,” He managed to say, stiffly. “All I gave him in the last two years was a lot of grief.”
Nami started to open her mouth, then stopped.
The thing about it was, Nami kind of knew Ace by now, and underneath all the permanent fronting and shit-eating grin and "I am Ace, coolest guy you’ll ever meet," he had a lot of self-worth issues. The guy never thought twice to toss his own life—hell, he even admitted that if it wasn’t for his little brother then he’d have given up on living.
At first Nami had just chalked it to some sort of massive brother complex behavior. But if Ace had it so bad that he was seriously worried about the idea that Luffy—Luffy, of all people—might wake up one day and decide that his brother wasn’t worth all this…
"Look," said Nami, and paused for a moment to appreciate a world where she was giving a pep talk to the legit heir of Pirate King. "I've known Luffy, and he was always sure about what he wanted. I was just in there with him, and he is—really, really happy. About doing this." Nami took a deep breath. "Trust me. He's not going to change his mind."
As he spoke, Ace's expression grew progressively—and pathetically—more hopeful. "You think?"
"Listen," Nami said, "I just heard him telling his dad and grandpa that he has wanted to be with you since he was 7. There's no way he's going to get buyer's remorse after all this time."
Ace definitely perked up at that. "Really? He declared all that to Gramps?"
"In passing," Nami added quickly. “He said it in a wholesome, not-creepy way. Unlike what you planned when you proposed to be his sibling.” Nami still couldn’t forget what Luffy told her. “I can’t believe you played big brother all these years just to get into his pants.”
Ace shrugged. “I just wanted to say the vow,” he admitted. “The whole… you know? The cherish and protect, through life and death thing. That stuff. I’ve always wanted to let Luffy know.”
Nami stared at him. “You kind of clearly let everybody know. At Marineford.”
“That’s the point,” Ace said. “I almost didn’t get the chance to say it.” Then thoughtfully, almost to himself, “As a kid I thought… I wanted us to be family, even when we weren’t old enough for the real vow. So I proposed to be a big brother first.”
Shit. That was… “But Luffy said you did it so you can approve yourself later. For marriage.”
“Yeah, that too.” He shrugged again. “Makino said the vow only works if someone from his family gave a blessing, so. I didn’t think anyone would. When I was 11 nobody wanted me around.” He chuckled lightly. “Well, except for Luffy.”
Then his eyes grew unbearably fond. “He is the light of my life.”
"Uh," Nami said, in a desperate effort to derail that line of conversation before she would start getting touched by the weirdly wholesome incest. "So, um. How did Doflamingo end up being your... officiator or whatever you call it, anyway?”
"Hm? Oh, he has a lot of connections so I asked him if he knew someone who can marry Luffy off to me—" what the fuck, seriously, "—and he just laughed and said he would do it himself for free." Ace's smile looked utterly sincere. "Luffy is so glad he is such a good guy now. I think Impel Down has changed him for the better."
"Yeah," said Nami, eyeing him in disbelief. "Uh-huh.”
Before Nami could do something about the disturbing revelation, the door opened and Sabo said, "Are you ready? It's almost time."
"Do you need me? You don't need me, do you."
Nami didn't know how Luffy managed to stay in one place, because Nami couldn't seem to do it for more than a second and she wasn't the one getting married. Luffy, by contrast, looked contentedly happy. And he was almost—glowing. It was kind of sickening.
"I'm great," Luffy said. "You gotta find a seat. I think it's going to be pretty full."
"Yeah," Nami said distractedly, "there are tons of people out there." She gave Luffy a quick once-over again. Cuffs, check, tie, check, shoes, check. "You know how it's going to go and everything?"
"It's gonna be easy," Luffy said, which Nami thought sounded a lot like famous last words. But she wasn't going to say so five minutes before the—what was this called anyway? It wasn't a ceremony, because elopements didn't have ceremonies, and also because Nami really could not wrap her mind around the idea of Doflamingo presiding over an actual wedding ceremony.
It was definitely time for Nami to go. "Okay," she said. "If you're set, then I'll just—" She put her hand on the doorknob, then hesitated. "Are you sure…?"
Luffy gave her a small laugh. "It's cool, Nami," he said. "Really."
"Okay," Nami repeated, and then released the doorknob, moved across the room in two steps, wrapped her arms around Luffy and squeezed as tightly as she could, just for a second.
Luffy was beaming at her as she beat a hasty retreat out the door.
She nearly ground to a halt at the sight of the mass of people jammed in every corner of the hall. Doflamingo was already standing before them like he was born to lead a congregation, or possibly a cult, which probably wasn't all that far from the truth.
There was no sign of so much as a free folding chair. Nami attempted to sidle back alongside the wall. Great, now she was going to have to sit in the back and if something went wrong—
There was a very familiar figure seated in the smack in the middle of the front row, gesturing urgently at her.
Nami made a beeline for Usopp and managed to sandwich herself in between him and Brook. "Where have you been?" she hissed.
Usopp looked confused. 'What do you mean? I'm on time. I was early, even."
"Yes," Nami said, "but—" She paused. She didn't actually know how to express it, but she was sure it was unfair.
"You're the one who almost missed the important part," Brook added, which was more than Nami could take. "Shhh," he went on when Nami opened her mouth, "it's about to start."
The indignation actually left Nami speechless, which was good, as at that minute Doflamingo clapped his hand once. A quiet hush fell on the hall.
"Good afternoon," he said, giving the audience at large a wide pleased smile that unsettled Nami precisely because it looked so... genuine. "This will be a little bit of a special afternoon, hm? For many years I have taken great joy in watching all of you gather in various places, becoming wonderfully familiar to each other through so many murder attempts—” what? “—and thus becoming a healthy, respectable community. But alas! We can only grow so much from homicide. Today we are gathered here not to sabotage, but to celebrate!”
Someone—who sounded like Barto—let out a whoop. Doflamingo aimed a killer glance somewhere to Nami's left and the noise immediately cut off.
"This will be a simple occasion," Doflamingo went on. "Simple, because unlike a war, a union does not need any—" he made a complicated hand gesture "—elaborate plans, beyond what is important. All we will do now is witness an exchange of marriage vows… between two very unrelated brothers.” A meaningful pause. “They may join us now.”
On cue, both doors opened.
To Nami's gratification, the crowd was split between gawking at Ace and gawking at Luffy, who looked more magnetic than Nami had ever seen him, spotless and radiant, still with that low-key glow—which, okay, was actually very adorable, if Nami was into that kind of thing.
Ace, meanwhile, was framed perfectly in the doorway as if he was posing for a photoshoot. Nami could see a shadow hovering behind that she was pretty sure was Sabo, and for a minute she felt guilty for leaving Luffy on his own—but Luffy was walking confidently toward Doflamingo, whereas Ace still wasn't moving. He looked as composed as ever, but Nami frowned; she thought she detected a slightly frozen quality to Ace's expression.
There was a slight movement behind Ace, and he suddenly moved, almost like he'd received a shove. On a lesser being it might have been a stumble; Ace moved smoothly forward like he'd simply been pausing to allow everyone to feast on his presence.
He reached the front of the hall at the same time as his brother. Luffy’s eyes visibly lit up.
Nami was pretty sure she heard an audible awww from someone behind her as a little sigh rippled through the audience. All that was missing were actual swelling strings, or possibly a beam of sunshine shooting through the window. Nami squirmed and muttered to Usopp, "I don't think I can watch this."
Without taking his eyes from Luffy and Ace, Usopp reached out and clamped a hand over Nami's mouth.
It was only Nami's firm, repeated promise to herself that she was not going to be the one to mess up Luffy's weird elopement wedding that saved Usopp’s hand from bloody teeth marks. Usopp probably knew it, too, which meant he was taking blatantly unfair advantage. Nami had to settle for slanting her bitterest glare sideways, not that Usopp was even looking.
After a minute Usopp let her go. While Ace and Luffy were still utterly absorbed in their own little bubble, Doflamingo was watching them with a horribly benevolent expression.
Nami wished she was sitting with Law. Law would understand how wrong this was.
"Here we have two very special people," Doflamingo began. "Very special individuals. Each came from the absolute worst gene pool possible, despite not being inbred—and I say this as a compliment! A family is, after all, about the bond and not the blood. So now we ask them both a question."
Ace and Luffy finally tore their eyes away from each other and looked at Doflamingo.
"First." Doflamingo turned to Luffy. "Monkey D. Luffy, are you ready to spend your life together with Portgas D. Ace?"
Luffy beamed happily. "Since forever!”
Nami heard, from beside her, a distinct sniffle.
She shot Usopp an outraged glance. What gave him the right to get all mushy and emotional? He wasn't the one running around having to listen to batshit family secrets and making sure Law didn't cliff himself and some stupid guests didn't accidentally call the government and Ace didn't turn into the Runaway Bride. Groom. Whatever.
Then Nami realized there was a whole echo of sniffs around the hall. Next to her Brook was dabbing his nonexistent eyes with a somehow wet napkin.
Nami chose to stare ahead. Fine. Whatever. She wasn't going to cry.
Doflamingo turned to Ace. "Portgas D. Ace,” he said, “would you love and cherish Monkey D. Luffy for the rest of your life?"
Ace didn’t even try to answer right away. He was looking at Luffy with the naked expression of someone who would throw everything for him without a second thought. Which, Nami realized, was actually true.
“Yes,” Ace said softly. “Always.”
More sniffs from the crowd. Doflamingo snapped his fingers. "Correct answer," he said. "Now, in the presence of so many witnesses, we will make it official." He gestured to the altar table behind him, on which—Nami craned her neck—was what must be the marriage license.
It suspiciously contained a whole lot of fine prints. Luffy and Ace marked the paper with their fingers, and when they were finished Doflamingo clapped before splaying his hands out wide in front of them.
“Congratulations,” he cackled. "Now you are fucking married.”
The sudden explosion of cheers set Nami's ears ringing. Luffy immediately jumped into Ace’s arms, laughing with abandon. Someone at the back yelled something raucous and probably inappropriate in fishman language. Nami was sure that the loud terrible whistle belonged to Duval.
At the back of her mind, she made a note to herself to check the paper later and make sure it was really a marriage license, and that Doflamingo hadn't slipped in any secret clauses about committing their allegiance to him or whatever.
At the crowd’s hoots for kiss now! kiss now! Ace lowered Luffy to the ground. The hoots grew progressively louder as he cradled Luffy’s face in his hands. Luffy beamed, closed his eyes, and Ace leaned in to him.
He dropped a kiss on Luffy’s forehead.
Then his temples, his nose, his eyes.
It was a shockingly innocent gesture. The crowd just about melted watching Ace pepper playful kisses on his little brother’s face, making Luffy burst into giggles. Ace planted the last one on the top of his head. Luffy tucked himself on Ace’s shoulder as he was held close, looking happy and content in his big brother’s arms.
Someone in front of Nami pressed a hand to her heart and made a teary sigh.
Her crewmates were fully sobbing now. Nami rolled her eyes at all of them. "Get a grip," she said, clapping Franky on the shoulder. "Otama is less of a crybaby than you."
"Shut up," Franky said wetly. "I'm not crying. And Tama could kick your ass."
"Uh-huh," Nami said. "Sure. I—" She was distracted by Luffy, who was starting to speak over the audience.
"Hey, guys," Luffy greeted them all with a smile so blinding and infectious that it immediately prompted a loud cheer. "Thanks so much for coming! This is the best day of my life. I know it was really sudden, and some of you think this is kinda crazy, but you all came anyway, so that—that really means a lot for me. And for Ace, too, even if he didn’t wanna say it."
Luffy looked up at Ace with a cheeky little grin as if to say ‘see, I told you!’ and Ace just squeezed his face until he whined. There was another chorus of "awww."
"So anyway,” Ace chimed in for him, “I'm really sorry we can't stay, but we're supposed to be eloping and we kind of have to catch a leaving ship now. Hopefully before anyone else figures out what happened." A ripple of laughter. "So, yeah, have lots of fun, drinks are on us, and—we'll see you in a couple weeks."
The cheers were even louder this time. Ace and Luffy made their way forward, both with huge, stupid grins plastered across their faces. The fact that they were stubbornly glued to each other probably didn't make the progress any easier, but somehow Nami wasn't surprised that the crowd seemed to open up for them, well-wishers on all sides clapping their shoulders and ruffling their hair—and then closed again behind them.
"Hey!" Nami said indignantly and dove after them, as the entire hall appeared to try and follow.
She lost her crewmates, bogged down amidst the mob fairly quickly. That was what they got for having weird sizes and shapes. Nami, not so disadvantaged, wriggled and squeezed and eventually burst out of the front door onto the step, sucking in a lungful of air. It seemed like the entire crowd was trying to see off the newlywed brothers—okay, that just did not sound right—and Nami had to stand on her tiptoes and crane her neck past to catch sight of them.
Ace and Luffy were already down by the cruise ship walkway. They were waving at a burly woman and her entourage, who were crying uncontrollably. Sabo was already next to them. How did he do it? Maybe Nami should do more philanthropy.
As Nami watched, Luffy turned back and caught sight of her. He brightened, waving one arm. "Nami!"
"Sorry, excuse me—" Nami squeezed between two overly muscled guys dabbing at their eyes, almost ran over a dwarf, ducked under someone’s arm, and suddenly she was there in the little circle of breathing space, the crowd at her back.
"This is the most inaccurate elopement ever," she said to Luffy, catching her breath. "I just want you to have my final opinion on that."
"I know," Luffy said. He was looking all—all earnest. Oh no. Nami felt a dangerous softening somewhere in the vicinity of her chest. "Hey, Nami—Ace said the whole time you've tried to help—you've always—"
Nami shrugged. "I told you I'm on your side," she said. It was kind of getting harder to speak, for some reason. "It's not like you're one of my best friends or anything—"
Then Luffy was engulfing her in a warm, solid hug. Nami squeezed back, closing her eyes—and for a long minute she thought just about how glad she was to know Luffy.
Finally, Luffy let her go, or she let Luffy go, or both. Her throat felt all scratchy. She swallowed once, then again, but the lump wouldn't go away. Horrified, she tried blinking several times, which only made her vision go all funny and watery.
Luffy looked like he was going to cry. No, no, no. If he did—
At exactly the moment when Nami knew she was about to lose it, someone blocked her vision, and before she knew what was happening, Ace was—was embracing her.
"We are really grateful for your help," Ace said, clasping her shoulder tightly. "I can’t thank you enough for always taking care of Luffy."
"Yea," Nami said. She laughed wetly, and had to reach out to pat the back of Ace's shoulders because they were kind of too wide. "No sweat, big guy. Really."
Ace released her. Luffy was beaming at them both. "You guys better get going," Nami said. "Have a good honeymoon and all that. Have fun. But not too much fun. Argh. I didn't say that." Then, because she couldn't help it, "If you need anything, just call."
Ace nodded. The rest of the crew came and they all exchanged farewell hugs. Nami watched as her captain got into the cruise.
Luffy's head popped out. "Nami—guys—thanks a lot—"
"Luffy," said Sabo’s voice.
"Go, go," Nami called, making emphatic shooing motions with her hands.
Luffy gave her one last wave, then his head vanished into the ship brow—
They were gone.
As the crowd dispersed, Nami remained in place just a little longer. After a minute she realized there was someone next to him.
She turned and said to Zoro, a little helplessly, "Luffy is married."
"Damn," Zoro said in blank shock, as if he just realized it all now. "I'm going to go and get very drunk."
Zoro vanished almost as soon as they made it back to the partying crowd; it was a special and unfair talent of his. Nami couldn’t find him but she had no doubt that Zoro was following through on his word, wherever he was.
Most of the people she passed by were already drunk. The guests have mingled together into some kind of bizarre melting pot where they all congregated and partied at the center stage. Apparently Ivankov and Franky were engaged in some kind of an intense twerking competition.
Shanks, as it turned out, was a very talkative and very emotional drunk. “I made a mistake,” he said in the corner while clutching Buggy’s shoulders. “I can’t tell this to anyone but I made a really, really grave mistake.”
Buggy started recording him with a visual transponder snail. “Go on,” he encouraged. “Is this about the time you accidentally called Mihawk a ‘dreamboat’?”
“No, that wasn’t accidental,” Shanks said. “I mean about the joyboy thing.”
“Wait, it wasn’t?”
“The Nika thing,” Shanks stressed. “I was supposed to give it to Captain Roger’s son.”
“You what?”
“I know! The fate of the world rested on my hands and I fucking botched Captain’s last will,” Shanks groaned. “I really didn’t mean to. We even went to East Blue, to—y’know, search for his kid—and then, Luffy just—” He made a swallowing motion and slumped forward. “I mixed up the joyboys and now they went and got married. I can’t believe this.”
“That’s pretty rough,” Mihawk nodded.
Buggy turned around with a loud shriek. “Since when are you here!?”
“Since you said ‘dreamboat’,” Mihawk said matter-of-factly. Then he turned to Shanks. “So it wasn’t accidental?”
“That’s all you got from what he said?!”
Nami felt a severe migraine coming. She determinedly power-walked to put as much distance from the Cross Guild table as possible, but unfortunately she couldn’t get that far before someone tugged at her dress. "Nami," a voice said very urgently in her ear. "Nami."
Nami jumped, startled. Usopp and Chopper were looking at her with identical pairs of big traumatized eyes.
"You should come look at something," Usopp urged her. "Right now."
"What?" Nami said. “But I just—”
Chopper tugged. "Come on," he pleaded, "please, just—this way—"
"Also don’t show on your face that something's wrong," Usopp hissed.
Nami looked over her shoulder in alarm to find a large crowd approaching.
"Bonjour, lovelies," Bon Clay called them, hooking an arm around Wyper’s neck. "We’re getting this angel to the dance floor! Wanna join?"
All of Buggy’s followers instantly cheered. Wyper’s eyes got big and as Nami left she could hear his voice panicking, "No no no—" and got swallowed by the crowd. Nami immediately got pulled through the mosh pit with them. "Ow," she cursed as some longarm elbow caught her in the side, and "ow," as someone else stomped on her feet. "Slow down, what's the big deal?"
Usopp spared a look over his shoulder. He looked harried. "It's Sanji," he said. "He’s—"
The crowd parted and revealed their blonde crewmate; jacketless, tie hanging loose, slumped against the bar with his head in his hands. As they approached, Nami could hear him ramble something about incest and hating his brothers and being single and miserable forever.
"—really, really drunk," Usopp filled in.
Nami whirled on them. "Jinbei’s supposed to keep an eye on the bar!" she hissed.
"There was a spill," Chopper said, looking helpless. "Apparently fishmen are 97 percent water and we found out alcohol kind of dried all that.”
“Then Zoro came,” Usopp said, “but Sanji somehow got provoked into drinking him out, and—"
"You!" Sanji said loudly and Nami looked back over. He had caught sight of them and thrust one arm dramatically forward. Then he straightened and walked toward them, very carefully—didn't so much as wobble, the dexterity was still there—where he stopped in front of Law. "You," he said. "You understand the problem here. Don't you?"
"No," Law muttered. “I don’t understand anything anymore.” He sounded even more wasted than Sanji. Chopper hovered beyond, all big worried eyes. Sanji grasped Law’s shoulders with both hands and looked deeply into his eyes.
"Alright," he said. "Be honest with me."
"Uh," said Law. "Sure?"
"Is anyone else having a surprise taboo relationship, too?"
Everybody stared at Law. At some point their crew had gossiped that there were some things with Doflamingo’s cop brother that hadn't gone well, in the end—but at least Nami hadn't ever had to have this conversation with him directly. "I can assure you," Law said, "that I'm really, really not."
"No?” Sanji scrutinized him. “What about Eustass Kidd?"
Law snapped. “What about him?”
“No offense,” Sanji said, “but you’re kinda too hung up about someone you’re supposed to hate.” Which was hypocritical coming from him, but it wasn’t like Zoro was here.
“I am not!” Law defended himself vehemently. “He just looked a bit like Cora-san, and anyway similar fashion sense doesn’t really—”
It was at that moment when Nami realized Sanji wasn't looking to Law anymore. His attention was glued to something beyond them, and Chopper’s eyes went the size of dinner plates. Nami was just opening her mouth to ask what was wrong when an ominously familiar voice said from behind her,
"Good evening."
Slowly, very slowly—Nami turned.
And came face-to-face with Doflamingo’s chest hair.
"You," it was Law’s turn to accuse, only it didn't sound quite as bitter as Nami would have been comfortable with.
Doflamingo looked thoroughly amused. "Me," he agreed. "Wonderful that we meet on such a beautiful occasion."
"You're totally behind this," Law pointed at him. "This is all one of your, of your—" He took a step forward, stumbled, and fell heavily against Nami, arms caught on her shoulder. Doflamingo raised one eyebrow.
"Um," Nami said, “pardon—" damn, what was she supposed to call today’s wedding Priest? Doflamingo? Shitlord? Your Holiness? “—Father," she settled on, and immediately cringed. "You can see he's just, uh. Taking it a little bit hard."
Doflamingo waved it off lazily. “You must excuse Law,” he said. “Fire Fist and Strawhat just reminded him of my brother and himself. Though it was rather... cute, watching little Law have a crush on his caretaker.”
Law glared at him. “I did not have a crush on Cora-san.”
“Sure,” Doflamingo mocked. “Just on people who resemble him. Don’t think I wasn’t aware of why you stopped by at Marineford.”
Law... was turning red. And Nami didn't think it was from the alcohol.
Before Nami had any time to process what that meant, Doflamingo turned to leave. “Send my regards to Portgas,” he said over his shoulder, “and tell him that the Spade seat is always open. Don’t bother rejecting again—this time it’s on the license.”
“Uh,” Usopp said. “What?”
Doflamingo gave one last lazy wave. “Also tell Strawhat that his mother was great last night.”
They were left staring at him as he left. Which made it impossible for Nami not to get reminded of what Dragon said, and the horrible possibility that Luffy might have to start calling him Dad.
“You called him Father,” Usopp said, which made Nami realize she was saying her thoughts out loud.
"Okay," Nami said. She closed her eyes. "Okay,” she repeated, feeling an aneurysm forming. “We just need to focus on—something else. Anything else. It can't get any worse from here, can it?"
Before Usopp could answer, an awful screech of feedback tore through the air and made all four of them jump.
"Hey, everybody!" Franky’s cheerful voice boomed over the speakers. "I just had a chat with the great DJ here and he's going to let me spin a few for you!" The guests, who didn't know any better, cheered as a heavy thumping beat shook the room.
Nami and Sanji looked at each other.
"Screw this," Nami said. "It's my turn now." She turned on her heel and headed purposefully toward the bar.
Which meant that was the moment when the Marines finally found them.
(Epilogue:
There was a clatter of flying navy soldiers as Zoro scored his fourth strike in a row. His team—Kidd, Momo, Cavendish, and Bonney—cheered. For a minute his face remained impassive, then he grinned smugly.
"Aw, man," Nami muttered under her breath. Her and Sanji’s team was behind on several points.
Next to her, Robin chuckled and leaned back comfortably. “Funny that a wedding venue is the safest pirate haven right now, isn’t it.”
Before Nami had to think of a reply, her transponder snail buzzed. She stepped out from the striking lane—Marco would be up next—for the quiet of the restroom.
"Hello?"
"Nami?" said Luffy's voice. "Uh, I don’t really get it, but—our ship is kinda stuck, there are some old men yelling about joyboys, and I think a buster call is coming?")