A/N: I know I have a TON of other fics to work on, but this idea came to me at work, and I really had to write it down.

This will be a two-part story, with the other half coming up really soon.

This takes place near the end of the Thriller Bark arc, so if you haven't read/watched that far, YOU ARE WARNED.

Also, this is a Nakama fic, not Yaoi.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~SIDE A

"Oi. Marimo. Wake up."

Zoro stirred with a muffled groan. His head felt like it was stuffed with cotton, and he had a strange feeling like there was something he should be worried about, but for the life of him he couldn't figure out what.

He blinked his eyes open slowly, then grunted in surprise as he was nearly blinded by the whiteness that surrounded him. Levering himself up, he looked around only to see nothing but blank whiteness all around him. There was no sky above him, no ground below him. He was surrounded by pure…nothingness.

"What the Hell?"

As he whipped his head around from side to side, he could hear the faint jingle of the three gold bars in his ear swinging against eachother, but other than that and the increasingly rapid pace of his own breathing, he could hear nothing. Nor was there any scent to this place either. Just that odd blankness. He didn't even feel hot or cold, just…there.

"Rather dull don`t you think, shit-swordsman?"

He snapped his head around again, but there was no sign of the cook anywhere. It had sounded like the cook was to his right, but there was nothing there. No arrogant blonde, not even the smell of cigarette smoke.

"Over here, asshole."

He whipped around to the left, half expecting to see nothing, but Sanji was standing right there, lit cigarette dangling from his lips. His suit was immaculate, not a speck of dust on it, and for some reason this struck Zoro as odd. So did the fact that the cook seemed completely at ease, as if he didn't have a care in the world.

The swordsman, however, was growing more uneasy by the second. He had noticed that his swords were gone, sheathes and all, though he couldn't remember removing them from their place at his hip. His own clothes were perfectly clean and remarkably free of holes, which was rare even on a good day. He also didn't feel tired or hungry or thirsty. Something was wrong.

"What the Hell is going on, curl-brow?"

Sanji turned to look at him fully, and a shiver ran down the swordsman's spine when he saw none of the usual anger or hostility in the cook's gaze. Only a strange kind of sadness, or resignation.

"What's the last thing you remember?"

His first impulse was to growl at him for such a stupid question, but he paused. Now that he actually tried, he could remember some things. Thriller Bark, missing shadows, that weird talking skeleton, and then that supersized Luffy-thing. Oz, maybe? But that was strange. Sanji had been one of those most injured by the horned monstrosity, yet now he seemed to be perfectly fine.

He could also recall Luffy wailing on Moria and getting back all of their shadows. He remembered how glad he was that that mess was finally over so that he could go lie down and sleep somewhere.

But something else had happened, right? Some other enemy?

Sanji was watching him quietly the whole time. Upon seeing Zoro's confusion at the events following the battle against Moria, he sighed, smoke streaming from his nostrils to disappear into the blankness.

"It's time to go, Marimo. The others are waiting."

Zoro's brow creased in confusion. "What the Hell are you talking about, shit-cook?"

Sanji didn't answer. The swordsman was about to ask again when he heard something. Something in this strange blankness that wasn't them.

"-ro…Zoro!"

"…the fuck?"

It kind of sounded like Luffy's voice, but as before when he looked around he saw nothing but himself and the cook. His gaze turned sharply to the blonde, sure that there was something that he wasn't telling him.

Sanji merely turned his gaze away, and Zoro lunged forward and grabbed the lapels of his jacket. He was ready to shake that strange, sad look off of the cook's face when he heard Luffy's voice again, clearer now.

"ZORO! WAKE UP ZORO!"

"Come on, Sword-bro!" That was Franky's voice.

"Z-z-zoro! P-please!" No mistaking that trembling voice for anyone other than Usopp.

"Swordsman-san, please, you must not leave us." That was Robin. But why did she sound so sad?

"-Three…Four…Five! Come on, Zoro! Don't give up! One…Two…!"

The last was Chopper, and now he felt something pushing on his chest with every count, and every time it reached five, he felt a sudden current of air filling his lungs.

He also heard another voice crying. Not quietly either. Loud, screaming sobs of utter grief. He couldn't make out the words contained in those cries, but he thought he recognised the voice. But the question was, why was Nami crying?

His grip tightened on Sanji's collar and he shook him roughly. "What the fuck is going on here, shit-cook?!"

A small hint of annoyance flickered across Sanji's face. He slapped Zoro's hands away and re-adjusted his jacket. "Like I said, moron, the others are waiting. It's time to go."

"Go where?! It's nothing but this God-damned emptiness all around us!"

"Turn around."

He wanted to argue that there was nothing to see back there, but the look on the cook's face was beginning to bother him again. Grunting in frustration, he turned around.

And stared that the scene before him.

Nearly thirty feet away from them, the nothingness abruptly ended. In it's stead were the crumbling walls and rubble-strewn grounds of Thriller Bark. But it wasn't the surroundings that had caught his attention.

His crewmates, or most of them anyway, were circled around someone lying amidst the rubble and broken stone. Chopper was trying to resuscitate the person, compressing their chest and occasionally attempting mouth-to-mouth. Usopp was crying openly and pulling at his hair. Franky sat a little further off to the side, one large arm around Robin's shoulders as the dark haired woman wept silently. Zoro could see the person's face because Luffy was blocking his view, and the young Captain seemed torn between shouting at the poor victim and encouraging Chopper. It wasn't until he saw his own swords lying at the person's hip that thing finally started to click into place.

That body lying on the ground was him.

And that revelation led to another. He now remembered what had happened after Moria.

Another Shichibukai. Kuma.

He remembered how easily they had all been beaten. How Kuma was going to take Luffy's head while the young Captain lay senseless. How he had bargained for Kuma to take his life instead.

And how that stupid asshole-cook had intervened.

But he had knocked the cook out, hadn't he?

"Cook, what the fuck did you do!"

Sanji wouldn't look him in the eye, instead looking over his shoulder at their Nakama who were trying desperately to revive the fallen swordsman.

"ZOROOOOO! AS YOUR CAPTAIN, I SAY WAKE UP!!!"

"Sword-bro, c'mon. You have to stay with us!"

"We can't lose you too, Swordsman-san."

We can't lose you too…

Zoro froze, his horrified gaze fixed firmly on Sanji. "You bastard. What did you do? Answer me!"

"It. Doesn't. Matter. The others are waiting, so get a move on!"

"Fine!" The green haired man turned on his heel and started to walk towards Luffy and the others. He heard the steady tap-tap of Sanji's shoes as the cook followed behind him, and as he got closer and closer to the others, he started to feel more of the pain and weariness he knew his body must be suffering. He relaxed considerably when he set foot on the rocky ground of Thriller Bark.

He was barely ten paces away from that strange blankness when he realised that the cook had stopped. Growling, he spun around to yell at the cook.

"Stop wasting time and move your ass, cook! Weren't you the one that told me not to keep them waiting?!"

Sanji was standing right on the edge of that eerie nothingness, the toes of his shoes mere millimeters away from the rocky ground where everyone else stood. His eyes were still focused on some point behind Zoro, his expression nearly as blank as the nothingness on which he stood.

Wanting this whole ordeal over with so that he could safely kick the blonde's ass, Zoro stormed forward and grabbed his wrist in a vice-like grip. He yanked hard, and was astonished to find that the cook didn't move even an inch. He tried again and again, pulling as hard as he could, but the cook wouldn't budge past the edge of the emptiness where he stood.

He vaguely registered Nami's cries intensifying again, and now he could make out what she was saying.

"Sanji! NO! How could you leave us like this! Why did you give up so easily!? H-how…could you leave me?"

Zoro's grip on Sanji's wrist went slack as his eyes widened. "Sanji…"

Hearing his name spoken by the other, the blond finally met Zoro's gaze. The expression in his eyes was bleak, and no long resigned as it had been. The grief there nearly tore Zoro apart.

"I can't."

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~SIDE A – END

A/N: I was gonna post this all in one go, but I figured it would be better to split it in two. I'm typing the other half as we speak, so it shall be up in the next couple of days.