After eating you assisted Law with his research. You read through a couple books he had that were in an older language. The text was a slog for him, but it wasn't too different from what you had read in your time. You marked clarifications straight into the book on his order, and took notes separately from what you had read.

It was tedious work, and as the hours dragged on crew members would check in on the both of you, bringing tea and offering snacks. At some point you must've dozed off.

Rationally, that had to be the answer.

Because it wasn't possible for you to have been assisting Law with his research, only to find yourself in a lush forest clearing. Familiar sounds. Familiar scents. Familiar faces.

Lami and Banchina stood in the clearing with you. Banchina was a tall lady with a long nose and soft eyes. Her noble status was entirely new and had nothing to do with her blood or lineage. She had accidentally come upon the Gol-Gol fruit and found herself in a position of importance because of it. A bright mind and good soul, she had adapted incredibly well to noble life, and you and Lami had become not just her friends, but also her tutors and protectors.

She had been gifted with the surname of Millet, and while you all knew the cruel undertones of the name for what it was, you didn't let it bother you. You had even begun to insist people pronounce is Mill-lay, to move the association away from the simple grain it was referring to.

Lami, like you, was born a noble, though her issues with her family before the fall had led her to leave them. Donquixote Lami was intent to stand on her own two feet and had spurned her family's name when she left to protect you. She had sent her family by marriage away a couple of years before things had gone truly wrong. You were aware vaguely that they were somewhere in the North Blue, but little else.

Banchina sent money to her family too, in another sea. In the East maybe, you just knew it wasn't Paradise.

"How?" You question softly. They don't reply. The smiles on their faces, soft and kind and first, seem to strain.

There's mania in their eyes and a strange tilt to their heads. They move jerkily, more like corpses on strings than living bodies. Your clothes were the religious vestments you had stolen. The acrid smell of smoke filled your senses, and the memory flooded into the warped dream.

"You cursed us," Lami's mouth cracked and split as she attempted to speak.

"Cursed!" Banchina hissed, her lips barely moving.

"This is wrong." You murmur looking around the clearing.

The Curse of Bounty gave you rights to the throne. Your family had been imprisoned because they had kept it secret from the world, your father knowing full well what the tears meant. What fate it would seal for you, and he at least wished you to live a life where you could choose for yourself.

Maybe it was centuries of stasis and being lost in your own dreams for so long, but you knew you were dreaming. It was disconnected. It was wrong. You had been doing research just a few moments ago, you were sure.

No one had ever chased you with the corpses of your dead friends.

The scene shifted and you stood on the platform in the middle of the town square. The crowd was faceless, emotionless. The silence was terrible. It hadn't been like this. You had been the one without emotion or sound, the crowd had been screaming at a fever pitch, calling for you to be beheaded. For the curse of your blood to be paid.

God steps forward and quells the crowd. You are not at fault, you were born that way, by the grace of the Celestials you will be spared. They will save you from your curse.

So was the lie given to the people.

Use your curse for the sake of the celestials and live well. Live long. Live forever.

Lami lay broken at the feet of the Celestials, in the cold stone cell with you. Your heart has been long gone, you can produce nothing, but no one wants to listen to you. Banchina had fled with it, Lami had been the distraction, you had been on the run for over a year.

The heart clattered to your feet, gold and heavy, and covered in blood. The cell was far behind you, the trees surrounded you and Lami along with the soldiers that had found you.

Lie, or truth, you knew who the blood belonged to, you didn't need the smug voice of the newly crowned God to tell you.

"Live forever." Lami says in a quiet voice. "If you live forever no one else will be cursed."

"They will kill me, when I continue to refuse."

"I can send you away. Far enough away."

"You will be dead."

"Not immediately."

"I will be cursed. Cursed truly. Cursed completely. To never die is-."

"Your kindness is without bound. You will survive."

"I object."

"All the ways you have a heart of gold are commendable, and useful subterfuge. Use it."

"Lami, I object. As I am now, I only have one heart of gold."

"It was meant to be temporary."

"I meant it to be permanent."

"I'm dying (Y/N)."

"... ... ... No."

"So you say, but it's true. I don't have time enough. I cannot send you far enough away if I don't perform it first, the burst of capacity I'll have is needed."

"It will never be the same." You say it as tears slip down your face, talking over the version of yourself arguing with your memories.

"One day it will." Lami promises. "One day you will open your eyes and see the same room."

"Don't look for me," she continues, voice thick. "Don't search for me in the eyes and names of the children you'll come across. Look for the fruit. I was so close (Y/N), I was so close."

"Instead, I'm laying a curse upon your curse."

"Better you than god."

"I -."

"Eternity."

"-object."

"Room."

The world tints blue. The edges of the ability are lost on the horizon. The soldiers shout, God roars, your world shifts, the demand of shambles on the edges of your mind.

The upheaval roils your stomach. The golden heart is beside you. God has nothing.

You have nothing.

Your friends are gone. Your family is dead. Your country is falling. The false Celestials rise.

You cannot die. Objectively. Completely.

Your heart thumps in your chest.

You are not without your emotions this time. Before you had picked up the heart and moved on. You had lived in a town for a time before you were entombed. Simple existence, hardly living.

Banchina had died alone, and away from her family, because of you. Lami died alone and surrounded by enemies, because of you. Your heart thumped. The world fell, none of the sacrifices meant anything. The seer was wrong, the knight was wrong! It didn't matter what the prophecies were, the world wasn't supposed to fall!

The lives of your friends, of your family! It was supposed to matter! It was supposed to make a difference!

"It was supposed to-!"

"(Y/N)!" Law's voice cut into your dream and your eyes flew open. The golden eyes were looking at you with concern. You could feel your heart pounding in your chest and sweat that made your skin cold. Shivering you let him pull you into a hug. "Hey, it's okay. It's okay."

Emotions well up and you grab the sheets, pressing them to your eyes. "They all died," you cry, your voice muffled by the sheets. "They were not – it was not – I was not worth such sacrifice!"

"... We don't get to decide who dies for us," he says softly. His weight shifts, and legs and arms cage around you as you cry. His voice is soft, and calm, and he rocks you softly back and forth. "We can only do the best we can with the life that was preserved."

"I did not wish to be-."

"But you were." He interrupts. "You were, and you're here." You feel his face against your shoulder.

You sit quietly for a few moments, letting his warmth and his presence calm you. When you're certain your tears have subsided, you lift your head a little and look around.

"Um... Law?"

"Mm?"

"I am... in your bed?" You question hesitantly.

"You fell asleep."

"In your bed?"

"In the chair," he answers, and you can feel the smile on his lips before he leans back a little. "I couldn't risk shambling you into your room just for you to be sick, and I didn't want to lose my place."

You feel him look over and you realize there's a dim light on the desk. The notes are in piles a little more organized than you remember them being, and there wasn't anything scattered around your chair.

"... I realize your determination, but you must sleep." You say, trying your best not to sound nearly as embarrassed as you were beginning to feel. "What time is it?"

"2 a.m." He answers as his hold on you loosens. He doesn't move away entirely, and there's a little hesitation in his voice. "Do you feel better?"

You're quiet for a moment, but you nod. "Yes, thank you."

"I'll make some coffee and we can get back to work, if you're up for it, or I can properly escort you back to your room." He offers, untangling himself from you and standing beside the bed, offering his elbow and not his hand.

You smile, getting out of bed and onto your feet. "A compromise." You begin. "I would like some coffee, and I will continue to organize the research, but you must rest."

"Captains aren't ordered around on their own ships." He replies, but his expression and tone are teasing, not stern.

"Technically, and historically, I out rank you." You insist, lifting your chin higher in the air as you take his offered elbow.

"Not on my ship you don't." His voice has a bit of a grumble, and you can't help the giggle that escapes you.

"Not an order then, an insistent request." You offer.

"Hm. I am inclined to acquiesce to your request, but only because it is insistent." He replies, mimicking your vernacular openly as he steps aside so you can enter the mess hall.

You purse your lips as you step through and into the mess hall, turning toward him as he offers his elbow again.

"You have made quite the point." Clearing your throat, you keep your focus on the kitchen and impending coffee, and not the heat in your face. "Rather, you've made your point."

"Oh?"

"Yes, my... how I speak is, ah, jarring, comparatively."

"Comparatively?"

"Compared to..." You pause as he begins to make a pot of coffee. "the popular vernacular." You put your hands to your face in frustration. "The popular tongue? Parlance? What word could I use that doesn't sound pretentious?"

"Normal speech?" He prompts.

"Humph. Normal is subjective. My usual vernacular is perfectly normal to me." You nearly snap back and then immediately regret your tone. "Ah, I know what you meant, though." You say, looking away.

"Sounds like you had some issues before now." He sets down two coffee cups on the counter, looking over at you with a small smile.

"I was perhaps a bit formal even for the time – Trafalgar Law!" You look at the two cups and back to him. "We had an accord."

"I sleep better after a cup of-."

"Absolutely not. You sleep for crap as it is." You grumble, taking both cups. "I may not have had my emotions for the last few weeks, but I had my eyes, and those dark circles under yours do not need more caffeine."

"Shambles." Law mutters and one of the cups is out of your hand and into his. "We had an accord that I would lay down and rest. Nothing more."

You narrow your eyes at him, but the look on his face is not one up for debate. "... Very well."

The two of you returned to the Captain's Quarters, and you began to go over the notes as Law settled himself in his bed after downing half of his cup of coffee. As you turned the desk light up a little, he tips his hat down to shade his eyes.

It didn't take long for his steady breathing to catch your attention, the soft rhythm of slumber overtaking him. After a few moments you reached over and poured his cup into yours, setting the empty mug back down where he had set it, before returning to the notes.

Minutes dragged toward an hour at least and you dimmed the light on the desk. You hadn't slept much or well yourself, and the coffee could only do so much. The ghosts of your earlier nightmare fluttered at the edges of your tired mind, and when you focused on Law they faded.

The hat had slid from his face some moments ago. He has a pleasant face when he's scowling, and a surprisingly adorable face when he sleeps. The grins that play at his lips and the brief show of emotions are all –

"Reassuring." You murmur softly in the quiet room. Looking around you decide that since you had fallen asleep in a chair the first time, there was no reason to return to your room. It was tempting to join him in the bed, something you could only even consider because of time spent around minks, and more recently Bepo, but the gesture seemed dangerous.

The idea of staying within such proximity seemed dangerous.

"Is it admiration, adoration, or hero worship?" You barely put sound to the words as you settle into the chair by the desk, making sure the space around the small lamp is clear. Some part of you seems certain that the captain wouldn't appreciate being compared to a hero in any manner.

There's no way you slept for centuries to fall in love with a pirate.

The thought comes into your mind unbidden, and you try to wave it away. The Winternight Knight comes into your mind, pulled from another world entirely, only to find love here in this one. If the Seer's words were true, you should be able to meet his descendant someday. The time was right, what little you knew directly of the prophecy was meant to happen soon.