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5 Years Ago
“Arlong, shouldn't you let the kid rest? She's not okay.” Hachi dropped his voice as he glanced between his boss and the kid bent over her desk on the other side of the room.
The captain looked down his nose at her, sweating and shivering. “She’s dripping on the maps.”
“She’s burning up. If she keeps working–” Hachi said.
“Then she’ll be working like the rest of us. Her pathetic human immune system doesn’t get her special treatment. But,” he paused thoughtfully, “if she wants to take some time off, we could add it to her bill.”
“No!” Nami’s voice was weak but clear. “I can work.”
“See?” Arlong said as he turned to Hachi with a shrug. “She’s fine.”
Today
“What’s it like to be sick?”
Nami forced her eyes open, and Luffy’s face swam into view. Too close.
Her head was pounding, but more importantly, the Merry was pointed towards Alabasta where a million soldiers were posed to slaughter each other, destroying the only place Vivi had ever loved. And Vivi was one of the very, very few people she'd ever loved. So, you know. Priorities.
She realized that between the news from the war front and the discolored mark growing on her stomach, there were two pieces of useful information she was withholding, but since the mark hadn't matched any of the ones in the basic medical text on her shelf and since she couldn't make the ocean any smaller, she couldn't do a thing about either of them. Good thing she was a liar. The mark was easy enough to cover with a shirt, and the newspaper was hidden under her mattress, so all she had to do was keep going until she got better.
She pushed Luffy's head back. “I’m not sick.”
“That’s not what the thermometer says.” Vivi’s voice was somewhere above her. From the light streaming in the windows, it had to be about midday.
"Nami, I made soup. Want some soup? We might not know what you have but liquids never hurt," Sanji asked. She could smell the scent of warm broth, the stewed carrots and perfectly seasoned meat wafting up from the bowl and it was nauseating.
It took some concentration for Nami to turn her head towards them, but her argument wouldn’t hold any weight without it. Because she wasn’t sick. Sure, she was struggling to keep track of a thought, she was sweating like a pig and her mouth was dry, but it didn’t feel that much worse than a bad hangover. And there they were, Luffy, Sanji, Usopp, and Vivi, hovering at her bedside like a pack of mother hens.
“I don't want soup, just give me the log pose.”
Vivi held back for a second, then slipped the compass into her palm.
Dammit. They were headed in the wrong direction. "Did you let Zoro steer?"
At least Vivi had the decency to look sheepish. "It was his turn."
Nami let out a grunt of frustration. It took both of her arms to sit up, but after that, it was a little easier to swing her legs out of bed and stand. Vivi and Sanji tried to guide her back to bed, but she put all of the strength she just summoned to push them aside as she strode onto the deck.
Forty degrees NNW? The sun was glaring when it beat down on them, but she could smell the slightest whiff of rain clouds off the horizon. Thirty degrees then. She pushed the wheel but it wouldn't budge. They must have made it heavier.
Time to do the unthinkable: "Zoro, could you turn this wheel for me?"
Unlike the rest of the crew, he did it without hesitation.
"That's great, Stop it there."
"Do you want to get some rest? I can use the cloud's position to keep going straight?"
"Clouds move. Of all the idiotic–"
“Big talk for someone who’s using the railings to stay vertical.”
Nami stepped away with an awkward wobble.
"That's a little more convincing," he said.
"Aren’t you going to tell me to lay down?"
Zoro shrugged. "You said you're not sick, you're not sick."
"But you'll keep turning the wheel?"
A stray wave pitched them sideways and she grabbed the side. Zoro looked at her with an expression that would look gruff from anyone else, but for him was downright sentimental. "I'll keep turning the wheel."
She smiled and leaned on the railing as she watched the horizon. It was almost peaceful, until she heard the door to the women’s quarters slam open.
"What is this?" Vivi's voice rocketed across the deck. She stalked towards them brandishing a newspaper. Nami couldn’t see the headline, but she didn’t need to: the rebel army was growing and Vivi’s home was going to be drenched in blood.
Nami had been so sure that hiding it was the right choice, but when she saw the rage and pain curdling Vivi’s face, she wasn’t sure of anything. Her skin was burning up, her head was exploding, and she'd forgotten every word she ever learned. She tried to open her mouth to say anything, but then she saw her legs buckling underneath her, felt someone catching her, and then she didn't see anything at all.
Later
This time it was just Vivi at the edge of the bed, but if Nami had to guess it was because no one else was brave enough to come in. Vivi’s training kept her face calm but the rage flickering in her eyes betrayed her.
"I was going to tell you."
"Oh really?"
Nami tried to come up with something that would make things better, but her head was too foggy for anything but the truth: "No."
"Why not, Nami?"
"Does it help anything? We'll get there at the same time either way, and I'm going to get us there."
"Like hell you will. You were up there for ten minutes and Zoro had to carry you below deck."
Nami knew she was, without question, the weakest person on her ship full of assassins, liars, bounty hunters, idiots, and thieves. She always knew that. Her maps and her brains were enough to earn her keep, and that was fine with her, but that was pointless if she let a little cold bring her down when they needed her. Maybe Arlong was right about her, she was weak.
"Then let me direct from here. It's probably like you said, we hit a new spot on the Grand Line, the season changed, and my immune system took a dive."
Nami looked away but she knew what Vivi was thinking: bullshit.
"My family has ruled Alabasta for longer than I can remember. There's nothing that's more important to me than the people that have put their faith in my family, and in me." Vivi's voice was quiet, but slick with rage, and some very unroyal spittle was punctuating her sentences.
"I know."
"So why don't you think you're one of them?" The violence with which Vivi took Nami's hand in her own seemed to shock both of them.
"What?"
Vivi's grip was tighter than anything Nami could muster and her expression was heartbreakingly sincere. "You're my friend. Didn't you know that?"
"I didn't," Her voice was small and if anyone asked her, she'd say it was the sickness.
"Well, now you do."
"So, what do we do now?"
"Same thing we would have done earlier if you weren't being a stubborn idiot.” Vivi said, letting Nami’s hands go as she sat back in her chair. “I need to get to Alabasta as quickly as possible."
"Sure," Nami tried to sit up. "I promise I can–"
"So you're going to lie down and we're going to keep sailing until we hit an island with a doctor. It's not about my friend or my people. I'm going to have both."
Far be it from her to deny a princess.
For the first time in days, when she closed her eyes, Nami rested.