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Law isn’t sure exactly what Bepo is doing, but if he had to venture a guess he’d say he was trying to be stealthy. Why he was trying to be stealthy is another question altogether.
“Where are you going Bepo?” Law calls out to the bear, watching as he flinches. He hesitates to turn around, an action that concerns him only slightly. He’s known Bepo since he was a teenager. He trusts him and while he knows Bepo could get a little anxious, he knows full well that Law could never really be angry with him, no matter what he did.
Eventually, Law becomes aware of the rest of his crew snickering, or at least trying not to. He turns slightly to look at them, which doesn’t help their predicament. “Something I should know?” he asks.
Penguin, still grinning, speaks up first. “Bepo’s got a date.”
In an instant, Bepo turns around, waving his arms erratically. “It’s not a date!” he insists, his little ears plastered to his head. His exclamation is just the push everyone else needs to start laughing. Bepo half heartedly glares, his cheeks puffing up a bit.
“Who's the lucky girl?” Law asks, a smirk on his face. Even he can’t resist a bit of teasing.
“It’s not a date, I promise Captain.” Bepo insists before anyone else can answer and with that he turns and runs off into the forest toward the beach.
“Why would I care?” Law mutters, earning a shrug from Sachi.
“He’s been acting a little weird about it. Like we don’t know anything about it. Trying to sneak off every night like we weren’t there when he asked her to tutor him.” Sachi explains.
“Tutor him?” all sorts of things run through his mind at that, things he definitely doesn’t want to think about his closest friend. It must show in his tone because at his question, Penguin is inconsolable, guffawing like Law has just told the funniest joke he’s ever heard.
Sachi waves his hand erratically as if he can brush the sudden awkwardness away. “No, No, not like that!” he insists. “It’s about navigation. He asked Nami to tutor him to improve his navigation.”
Law huffs, pinching the bridge of his nose. “This conversation has been a roller coaster.” it would however explain why Bepo thought he would care that he had a date. Especially given who he was meeting every night. He hadn’t said anything to the rest of his crew, knowing full well they would all start acting weird about it, but Bepo was a different story. While he trusted his entire crew, he trusted Bepo the most, so telling him above the others, that he had found his soulmate among Straw Hat’s crew was a decision he didn’t have to think too hard on.
A bit of digging throughout the rest of the night told him that Bepo had heard from Tony-ya that she was a prodigy and so he had asked her to help him with his Navigational skills. He was a talented navigator already, but Nami had a way of reading the currents and weather patterns that he had never seen before and if she could teach his navigator that, they would all be better off for it. He also learned that he had asked for her help shortly after they met up on Zou, which meant that they had been working together almost every night for several weeks. Hopeful he had retained quite a bit from her lessons.
By the time the crews are ready to turn in, Bepo still hasn’t returned, so with Nodachi in hand he heads for the beach… just to check in. His thoughts wander as he walks, straying to the memory of their first official meeting. He remembers the way his heart sank when she said his words, his mind racing with regret. He had always assumed, given the path he was on, that his soulmate would be easy to leave behind. He would meet them in a port somewhere, they would recognize him from his bounty and he would walk away, prepared to die for his goals. It had never occurred to him that she would be a pirate or that she would be a member of the crew he had decided to ally himself with.
When she didn’t react the first time he spoke to her, he chalked it up to the setting. They were of course in a fight and there wasn’t much time to process anything outside of that. But when she doesn’t come to him afterward, he begins to question if he was wrong about her. That is until he finds out why.
“She doesn’t know what her soulmark says.” Robin says, her voice soft in the dim glow from the lanterns on deck. He had been, he thought discreetly, watching Nami all night and eventually Robin had called him out on it. The older woman had a calming presence about her and he found himself confiding in her. “It’s not really my story to tell, but the short version, someone very cruel tattooed over it when it appeared and she never got to see what it said.”
The thought had stuck with him until he finally couldn’t stand it anymore, so he confronted her one night while she was one watch. They had talked all through her watch with a few interruptions so she could check her gauges and their course. She told him everything and it was similar enough to his own story that he found himself sharing that with her in return. At some point she had even let him see the black bar where it followed her right shoulder blade.
“I could remove the ink.” he tells her.
“Wait, really?” she asks, and he tries not to dwell on the hope that shines in her eyes. He finds that whether he’s her soulmate or not he wants to do this for her, to help her reclaim something that’s been stolen by her own personal bogeyman.
“You know the saying, Soulmates are more than skin deep?” he asks. She nods. “It’s actually a quote from a medical study on soulmates. They discovered that soulmarks aren’t just printed on the first few layers of skin. They’re rooted all the way through the epidermis and depending on the person they can go even deeper. I can remove the top five layers and your mark should still be there when it heals.”
He performed the procedure the next night while everyone was asleep. He had resigned himself to having to walk away from his soulmate the minute he decided he would kill Doflamingo, but now as his words stared up at him, he wasn’t so sure he could anymore. He had watched Nami in the weeks they had been traveling together and he had learned over time to see past the surface. From the way she ran the ship on Luffy’s behalf to the way she discreetly cared for her Nakama when they weren’t looking out for themselves. Even before he knew her story he could guess that she had lost someone special to her and that she feared it happening again.
The night before the showdown with Doflamingo he had told her that he didn’t expect to survive. She had been upset, arguing with him until he pulled her close and silenced her protests. They spent the night together and in the morning before they parted he asked her for one last favor. A favor she had seemed to take to heart despite his survival. He had asked her to look out for his crew, for his friends. He knew it was a lot to ask, but he didn’t think anyone could care for them the way she cared for people.
He hadn’t seen her again until they arrived on Zou and that was short lived as she joined members of her crew to retrieve their wayward cook.
Law finds the beach empty. The lights on the Sunny are all off, so he finds his feet taking him into his own ship. He takes a moment to enjoy the feeling of being home, of being back in a place he never thought he would see again.
He finds Nami and Bepo on the bridge, Nami’s back to him as she sits at the command table, Bepo’s maps, books and instruments laid out in front of her. Bepo is laying down on the bench next to her, his head pillowed on her leg while she absently runs her nails through the fur between his ears, her attention firmly fixed on the book open on the table in front of her. He takes a moment to enjoy the sight, allowing himself to fantasize for just a moment that she would leave her crew and join up with him. That she would travel the world with him, always at his side… and hopefully wearing that scandalous dress.
After a moment more, he steps up behind her, feeling her lean back into him as he does. “How did you know it was me?” he asks, keeping his voice low.
“Your cologne.” she replies simply. She finishes the passage she was reading before tipping her head back to look at him. She smiles.
“And how is our student doing?” he asks, leaning down just enough to lay a kiss on her lips.
“Quite well.” she replies when he pulls away. “He’s already a talented navigator, he just needed to connect a few dots to see a bigger picture.”
“Oh, like what?” He asks, moving to sit on the bench in her opposite side.
“Well, most people don’t realize that the currents affect the weather. Strong currents disrupted by changes in water temperature can cause superstorms big enough to wipe out populations. Now imagine running into that in the middle of the ocean, on a tiny pirate ship. If you didn’t know how to avoid it, you’d be sunk for sure.” she explains. “I’m just showing him out to read the weather gauges in a way that he can predict when something is going to happen.” she gestures to the instruments on the table.
Law hums. “I see, well I appreciate you helping him.”
“It’s not just him though.” She admits. “Teaching Bepo means keeping you safe.” She tells him, a slight blush tinting her cheeks. “I just… I know I’m not that strong in a fight so this is what I can do to keep you all safe.”
Law leans into her then, stealing another kiss, this one much longer than the last.
“Thank you.” He says softly, his forehead against her own. She smiles at him.
Their moment is interrupted as Bepo begins to growl on Nami’s otherside. “No,” he mutters in his sleep. “Come back salmon.” he slowly snaps his teeth a few times, like he’s trying to take a bite out of something. Nami giggles as Law gives his first mate an affectionate smile.
“It’s past his bedtime.” Law says, standing and walking around her. Gently he nudges Bepo awake, only for the bear to shoot up, looking around erratically. It’s only as he sees Law that he realizes he’s safe. “You fell asleep on your date, Bepo.” Law tells him, watching as confusion turns to horror.
“It wasn’t a date captain, I swear.” he shakes his head.
Law laughs. “I know Bepo, calm down. Why don’t you head to bed, it’s late.”
“Oh okay.” he replies, standing up and heading for the door.
Nami, ever the shit stirrer takes the opportunity to get one last tease in. “Good night Bepo.” she calls after him, watching his entire body tense before he bolts from the room. “What was that about?” she asks Law when he’s gone.
Law sighs. “The rest of the crew was teasing him about having a date tonight. They of course don’t know about us yet and Bepo does.”
“Why didn’t you tell the rest of your crew? Mine knows.”
Law cringes. “Because they’ll start acting weird.”
“And that wasn’t weird?” she gestures to the empty doorway.
Law brushes it off, leaning down to wrap his arm around her waist. “I wouldn’t worry about it. The whole island is going to know after tonight.”
Confused, Nami asks; “What’s tonight?”
With a smirk, Law calls his room, earning a squeak of surprise from her as he transports them off of the bridge and into his private quarters. He boxes her in against the edge of the bed as they land.
“Three guesses and the first two don’t count.”