When they're underwater, time is fluid and bears no meaning. Minutes blur into hours, and then into days when they finally emerge from the depths of the ocean, stopping at a small island to refuel and resupply.

She should feel grateful that they've docked, considering how she can barely sleep whenever they submerge. There are too many voices echoing inside her head, one half of a conversation permeating the empty silence of her room, and she's slept fitfully for the past few days. She'd caught a glimpse of herself in the bathroom mirror as she'd brushed her teeth and gotten ready for bed; pale, with dark bruising under her eyes, white-blonde hair as lank as seaweed.

She doesn't ask if anyone else can hear the voices anymore.

She can still remember the concern that the rest of the crew had expressed, well-meaning and trying to be helpful but failing; their comments had ranged from Lami, you're not sleeping enough to Lami, you should see a doctor, hearing voices isn't normal.

She closes her eyes, creates a bubble of silence and burrows under the covers. The quiet chatter, the passing footsteps slipping in through the crack under her door dulls away into nothing. The silence is familiar, comforting. Cora-san would use his own powers to do the same for her and for Law, and the memory never fails to warm her. It's one of the few moments with him that she can actually remember, of her inhaling and exhaling mouthfuls of labored breaths, watching as he'd stayed up through the night to nurse both her and Law.

She's slipping in and out of a fitful sleep when she hears it: The most horrible scream she's ever heard. Agonizing. Unceasing. She's a spectator, watching as Sabo clutches at a sheath of newspapers, all of them bearing the same headline announcing the death of Portgas D Ace in big, bold print. She can only watch, helplessly, as Sabo throws back his head and releases a sound of utter torment, his mourning filling the room with a broken sound that makes her throat tighten. She can only watch as his friends rush towards him, confused, but trying to support him, trying to ease his pain in any way that they know how.

Lami slams back into her body, sitting bolt upright in bed and screaming, the sound echoing off the walls. Cold beads of sweat run down her forehead, and she's shivering, gagging for breath in between shrieks.

"Sabo," Lami whispers, her heart fracturing in her chest. She's much too far away to do any good, and she doesn't even know how to contact him. The entirety of her own helplessness hits her, and it hurts. Not just emotionally – it's a physical pain in her chest, dagger-sharp. Because he's her very first friend, the first one she's made outside of the Heart Pirates, and she can't do anything to help him. "Sabo."

Dry sobs tickle her throat, and she takes several short and shallow breaths, desperate for air. Lami forces herself to keep breathing, until her heartrate returns to some semblance of normalcy, until the tears are no longer clogging up the back of her throat.

She isn't getting any more sleep tonight. Untangling herself from the mass of sheets that had wrapped around her while she slept, she swings her feet over the edge of the bed, until her bare toes hit the carpeted floor of her bedroom.

Lami throws on an old hoodie of Law's, over her cherry-printed pajama set, and tiptoes out of her room.

It's unsettling, wandering through a dimly lit submarine that is never devoid of life. Her friends, sans Bepo up on night watch, are resting in their bunks, the soft sounds of sleep drifting through the air. She stops to check on them, smoothing thrown-off blankets over lanky limbs, and grabbing more blankets from the linen closet whenever someone's fingers and toes feel too cold for her liking.

When she's done, when she can't delay it anymore, she seeks out the room at the end of the hall.

"Again?" Law asks, when the door to his room is tugged open, not even bothering to look up from the thick tome he's currently poring over. "This is the third time this week." Lami only sniffles. Now, he looks up, concern written all over his face, the worry lines around his mouth and forehead deepening when he catches sight of red-rimmed eyes and shirt sleeves soaked with tears. "What's wrong? What hurts?"

His room warm and comfortable, and familiar to Lami from spending as many hours in her as in her own room.

"I'm fine," Lami tries to evade. "This is one of the perks of having Haki. Give it about two days or so, and I'll be fine."

Law looks unconvinced; Lami hastily changes the subject before he can worry himself to death over her. He isn't eating right, his free time is taken up with plotting revenge on Doflamingo (he stubbornly refuses to let her help), and his sleeping schedule is a mess. He doesn't need an extra problem to turn his hair grey.

"I want a story," Lami says, tossing herself unceremoniously onto his king-sized bed and making herself comfortable under the covers. "The one Mom and Dad used to tell. Please?"

Law's never been one to begrudge her small comforts, and he doesn't start now. Sighing heavily, he leaves the desk and flicks off the lamp, until the only light illuminating the room is from the ocean, casting a ghostly blue glow over the room. He props his back up against the headboard, stretching out long and lanky limbs. A calloused hand cards through her blonde hair, and Lami sighs contentedly, snuggling closer under the blankets to place her head in his lap.

This is nice.

"Once upon a time, on a small island, there was a very great surgeon named Halsted. He was married to a nurse. He loved her – immeasurably."

The story is warm and familiar. Though her brother's voice isn't the high, flute-like lilt of their mother's, it does a remarkable job of soothing her distress, calming her enough that she's on the verge of dozing off.

"Now, this doctor loved his wife very much, so much so that he conducted many experiments, trying to find something that would stop her hands from bleeding.

"One day, Halsted noticed that his wife's hands were chapped and red when she came back from surgery. And so, he invented rubber gloves. For her. It's one of the great love stories in medicine. The difference between inspired medicine and uninspired medicine is love."

Love to the point of invention.

It's a beautiful sentiment.

Law holds her until she falls asleep, but when Lami wakes up to the sun streaming in through the window, she's reminded that she doesn't live in such a simple, beautiful world. Because he's gone, there's a needle of pain working its way into her heart, and she learns that Portgas D Ace has been sentenced to execution.

A/N: Please review!