One Piece 1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer: I don't own the anime nor the characters that I write about, however I do own the story idea. **

**This is an AU so if you don't like the pairing, anime, or AU's then why did you look it up or click on this story?**

Chapter 1

The rain cascaded down upon the small and filthy town, trying its best to wash away the dirt that covered every building, street, and person, but it was futile. The town had seen too much corruption, evil, sin, blood, and death to be cleansed by something as simple as rain. This town was where a lone samurai was currently residing, sitting in a bar and trying to pass the time.

He gulped down his fourth beer, listening to the rain pitter pat against the roof with a scowl etched into his face as he looked around. The bar was filled with criminals, bounty hunters, prostitutes, and other such people out to make a buck or find their thrills. It disgusted Zoro but places like these were just a part of his life as a wandering swordsman. He never stayed in one place, never got attached to anyone or anything, didn't care what happened around him as long as it didn't affect him, and he made money doing jobs that no one else would.

Zoro didn't serve a lord or fight for justice but was more of a bounty hunter, an assassin for hire and preferred to kill those of the corrupted, those that harmed many and deserved to die. He slammed down the empty mug and placed money for the drinks on the table before getting up and walking out, eyes from the workers and patrons following him to the door. He had just pulled the hood of his cloak over his head and walked out from beneath the awning of the bar's building when his ears picked up on sounds of a scuffle from a nearby alley. He didn't know what made him move, made him go towards the noise and actually want to know. Call it a morbid curiosity perhaps but usually he minded his own damn business, not caring much for anyone else and their problems.

His hands instinctively went to the hilt of his katana as the commotion got louder the closer he got but what he saw was enough to make the experienced swordsman's jaw drop. The sounds were caused by a fight but what was so unbelievable was that one person, covered up by a cloak, was fighting against at least twenty men, others already lying unconscious or dead around those still fighting. The figure moved with such grace and precision, fast and strong, the men fighting against the figure fell one by one, until only the cloaked figure remained standing. The fight lasted less than a minute after Zoro got there and now Zoro froze as the figure turned toward him, his katana clicked as it began to leave its sheath. Then the figure collapsed, crumpling to the ground, the rain water pooling on the ground soaking through their clothes.

He just stared, not sure if that all really just happened, the rain pelting against his own hood, the rain was all he could hear. Slowly he approached the figure on the ground, his steps splashing in the water and he squatted down about a foot away from the figure. He unsheathed his sword and used the blunt edge of the blade to lift the hood enough so he could see the lower half of the figure's face. The person was breathing heavily, like they had expended all of the energy and he just noticed the water around the person turning red. He didn't know what possessed him to do it but he sheathed his sword and carefully gathered the person in his arms, trying his best not to jostle them and worsen the wounds. As he stood up with the person in his arms the hood fell from their face, revealing orange hair and the face of a woman.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

Zoro was roused from his thoughts when the cloaked woman he placed on the motel bed, began to groan, shifting and slowly waking up to the pain her body was in. He had stopped the bleeding for most of her wounds and wrapped up some of the others, yet he didn't know why.

He didn't know this person, he didn't owe her anything.

Helping someone without reason as he did for her simply wasn't like him. His own tired body was sitting in a chair across the room to the side of the bed, close enough to watch her but far enough so that if she tried to attack him, he would have time to counter. Why hadn't he laid her on the floor instead so he could rest on the bed? He didn't know but doubted an unconscious body would tell the difference between the wooden floor of the inn and the hard bed.

The girl slowly pushed herself into a sitting position, wincing and gritting her teeth to ignore and work through the pain, limp strands of her orange locks hung over her face. Her dark brown eyes widening for a moment in shock before they narrowed and quickly took in her surroundings, darting to and fro like hummingbirds, yet not noticing him just quite yet as she grasped her midsection. She lifted her hand to her face, her fingers feeling at her hair for a second until she realized that her hood had fallen off.

Zoro was content to watch her, her reactions amusing him but he decided to end her musings and cleared his throat, catching her attention. "You finally woke up." The girl set her dark eyes on him, going from shock to aggression quickly, unsheathing her dagger and scrambling to get into a defensive stance, crouching on the bed as she pointed the dagger at him. He simply regarded her little display calm, if not bored, indifference, raising a moss green brow at her as if to say 'really?' not seeing her as a threat as she was wounded and the near consuming fear could easily be seen in her eyes.

Besides, he had been the one to take her bleeding body off the street and was kind enough to give her the bed; luckily her blood just got on his cloak and didn't soak through to his shirt or pants. His inspection of her seemed to have only made her bristle further, appearing to him like an anger fox cub (with her orange hair) snarling up at full grown bear, completely harmless but trying to look otherwise. Zoro leaned back further in his chair, a hand on the hilts of his swords attached to his belt. Her eyes immediately darted to them as she swallowed.

From what he saw in the alley against the men, she had been able to more than hold her own but with her wounds even she doubted her survival rate against him. He sighed as he draped his arms over the back of the chair, his swords visible and within reach but he wasn't touching them. The simple move was rewarded with her curiously looking from them to him, her body still tense, still on guard but her fear had receded if just a bit. "Don't you think that if I wanted to kill you I would have done so while you were unconscious?"

Her big dark brown eyes narrowed as they roved over his form, still suspicious of him but she did sheath her dagger before settling to sit down on the bed. She ran a small, what Zoro thought of as nearly frail looking, hand through her bright orange hair, removing the tie and holding it with her teeth as she combed her fingers through the shoulder length locks. She never turned her eyes away from him, even as he looked her over, knowing what her body looked like beneath the large cloak that had been able to conceal her frame and gender earlier.

Zoro wasn't one for patience despite he laid back and calm demeanor and curiosity was beginning to gnaw at him the longer he watched the strange orange haired girl. She had taken the tie from her mouth and begun tying back her hair with it by the time Zoro spoke up, scratching the back of his head in frustration and annoyance with himself, not much of a people person or very talkative. "So, what's your name?"

She seemed tentative to answer, to speak for the first time in his presence but when she did… Her voice, the sound of it was something that he would never forget. "My name is Nami." He tilted his head, considering her and the name she gave him. Zoro wondered if it was her actual name but then shrugged.

It didn't really matter to him if it was anyway. It was an interesting name to him though. Pretty, kind of like the girl herself… He quickly shook his head, needing to get away from that train of thoughts. During his little revere he missed the look of contemplation on Nami's face, the way her eyes darted from him to the bed in front of her and became a little hazy.

She wasn't sure how much about herself she should reveal. Zoro was a stranger, one that carried her in from the alley albeit, but that didn't mean she could automatically trust him. Hell, she didn't even know his name yet. Nami looked up at him and fidgeted a bit, her eyes not meeting his in a manner of what he could understand as sheepish or embarrassed. "So… Who are you?"

It was hilarious to him that the woman that he had witness fight and best over twenty men in the alley and been the best fighter he'd seen in a long time, was suddenly acting like a girl, a shy little girl that wasn't comfortable around others and didn't know how to speak to them.

It humbled Zoro, to see and know that he wasn't the only one bad at dealing with people, that they both had their confident fronts. He leaned back, tilting the chair until the back hit the wall behind him, balancing on the back legs as he crossed his arms behind his head.

"I'm Roronoa Zoro, samurai." As he tilted his head back and laid it on his arms in a rather relax stance, Nami leaned closer. The three earrings he wore jingled as he moved and caught the light. She didn't seem to know who Zoro was, even with the prominent bounty on his head, and he shrugged it off, closing his eyes and going silent. Nami wasn't sure if he was thinking or had fallen asleep, neither would surprise her. Though that didn't stop her from jumping when he finally spoke up, nor did it stop her heart from racing and beating rapidly against her ribs.

"Not that it's any of my business… but why were you in that alley?" 'Outnumbered with odds most wouldn't survive at.' He left the last part out but the words resounded in his head, nearly burning with the need to know why they had turned on her, why they wanted her dead and if he could trust her…

Zoro fidgeted in his seat, shifting his position at his sudden discomfort when the last thought entered his mind. He didn't trust anyone. So why would he want to even start now?

He didn't hear Nami moving and opened an eye to regard her, seeing her hands fisted side by side in her lap and her shoulders hunched up by her ears. Her entire body was tense like it was under all the pressure of the world. As Zoro was about to tell her she didn't have to answer, it was just his curiosity asking, she spoke up. When she did her words were measured, careful and calculated.

Zoro wasn't sure whether to be annoyed or applaud the girl for always having the situation under her control and never letting on more than she desired him to know. "I'm an assassin, bounty hunter. I am also new to the area and I suppose the men felt threatened by me encroaching on their territory. The men I had been fighting didn't want competition…"

The words she didn't speak however were clear to Zoro. 'And they wouldn't dare face me one on one so they tried an ambush attack like a pack of cowards.' Zoro's grunt of amusement startled Nami, causing her to look up at him with her brown eyes wide. She watched in confusion as he smirked. "An assassin huh? Well, I think having a rival around will be fun."

Zoro watched in barely hidden conceit as her features began to melt, turning calm as her muscles loosened from the rigid positions they held just moments before. His words got the exact reaction from her that he expected. What surprised him was that he meant it. Zoro honestly thought that the girl would lighten things up, maybe make his own life a bit more interesting.


	3. Chapter 3

**Disclaimer: I don't own One Piece, the characters and this is an AU.**

_**Sorry guys that this one is so short and sorry I haven't been on in ages but I wanted to at least put something up even if it was short. I'll be starting my classes again soon for the Spring semester and yes I'm surviving Nursing but just barely haha. XP**_

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Chapter 3

Zorro stayed in his chair that night, the front legs of it in the air as he tilted it back. His arms behind his head and his feet resting on the table as he drifted in and out of sleep; waking each time the girl in his bed shifted. He was on alert around her but more for the fact that she wasn't sleeping, a restless annoying bundle of energy even with the healing wounds that must have been making her suffer and cause her a good amount of agony for all of her movement.

Though, Zorro couldn't blame the girl for being restless. She was in a stranger's hotel room, in his bed and they had only had a short conversation since they met. None of those things exactly called for an open, trusting, and safe relationship that one should feeling completely and naively comfortable with.

Yet sooner or later, later more than sooner actually, she grew still and stayed that way. Her breathing became deeper and more natural. Zorro opened an eye to see that she had fallen asleep facing him with the blanket tucked all the way up to her ears and he couldn't help smiling at the picture she made. In her sleep she really didn't seem like the dangerous assassin and skilled fighter that he had witnessed her to be.

He knew all too well that appearances were deceiving but in that moment while he was alone with his thoughts, he was content to see her for just a girl. A pretty girl, but just a sleeping girl that was named Nami. He yawned widely, stifling the sound with the back of his hand. His eyelids began to droop of their own accord.

Without the motion and sound Nami created the feelings of sleep were returning as his on edged nerves were soothed. Leaning his cheek against his palm as he drifted off. The last thing he saw before sleep took him was Nami's sleeping form.


End file.

One Piece, Friendship, Hurt-Comfort