"So let me get this straight. You went after the thief who stole Whitebeard's pears, saved the thief from someone who wanted to kill her, and then made friends with the thief and gave her the pears anyway because she was poor, and now you want me to help her sick mother?"

"Ah. I forgot. The thief also has a twin broth-"

THWACK.

"HELL IF I CARE! WE CAME HERE TRYING NOT TO MAKE A RUCKUS AND YOU DID EXACTLY THAT! LIKE YOU ALWAYS DO!" Eddie shrieked angrily, completely abandoning his usual demeanor.

It was always this with Jackie. 'Don't cause a commotion, don't do anything stupid', and then he goes off and does exactly what he says not to do. It was maddening. How is this motherfucker my captain?

"Look, you can yell at me all you want after we help their mother. Is that good with you?" Jackie asked.

Eddie was about to hit him again, but saw Jackie's eyes and stopped. They were steeled with determination. It was the same look Eddie saw in his eyes when he fought. Firm. Unyielding. He knew instantly that Jackie didn't take the situation lightly.

"What's with all this ruckus?" A woman's voice wove through the wind in their direction. Eddie spun around rapidly to see captain Cotton, the woman dressed in all-black clothing, walking towards them. Her silky black hair, tied back in a ponytail, swung behind her in the afternoon breeze that gently grazed the deck of the Ivory. She was truly elegant in every sense of the word.

Eddie had found his 67th first love.

He bowed his head and explained the whole situation to her. Although she was slightly unnerved by Eddie's weird tendency to bow at her, she wasn't particularly troubled by Jackie's actions.

"You should go and help out their mother. Those children need someone to take care of them, after all. You are a good doctor from what I hear..." She said, bending over him and putting her hand on his shoulder with an encouraging smile.

Eddie looked up. Instead of looking at her face, though, he stared firmly at her cleavage. "Yes, ma'am! I'll head out at once!"

"My eyes are up here, scumbag."

"Y-Yes, ma'am."

And that was how he managed to convince Eddie to come along with him. Goodness gracious. He wants to fuck every woman under the sun. And moon too, while we're at it. Jackie thought fretfully. But sometimes, Eddie's perverted qualities did make him awfully easy to manipulate. That was pretty nice.

Jackie led him through the maze of dusty, seedy roads and narrow streets. Eddie was, as usual, surprised by Jackie's ability of understanding exactly where and how to get somewhere. He almost never got lost, and already knew his way around the city fairly well despite only being here for about a couple of hours.

"I think it's just across this street and around the corner." Jackie muttered. Eddie followed him through the bustling street, and sure enough, just around the corner was a much wider road lined with well-built houses. Some where three or four stories tall, and others were much simpler and regular houses.

The people all seemed decent enough to Eddie despite Jackie's warnings. But there were indeed a few odd bystanders whispering and staring at them. It reminded him of back when he was a boy, when everyone in his hometown would look at him with revolted expressions and disgust, calling him a witches' child. When they threw garbage and scraps of their leftovers on him every chance they got.

He shivered at the memory. A thought was far more difficult to erase than someone's life.

Jackie led him to a tiny little gap between two fairly large buildings. Across this tiny pathway was a door covered with red paint and a pig's head lying on it's doorstep.

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He wrinkled his nose in disgust. "People actually live here?" He asked Jackie, and he nodded grimly.

"I'm not sure about the details, but it seems like the twins' mother is viewed as a whore in this place. The kids don't know the details." Eddie nodded in acknowledgement. Can't be something good if that's how she's thought of. But I do suppose these kids need a doctor, so I'll do it.

He raised his hand to the door handle, but Jackie jumped ahead and knocked on the door four times. Ah. A signal, huh?

There was a clicking noise, and the door slowly opened to reveal Leo, a short boy with long, uncut hair and ragged clothes. As the two men walked in, Valeria waved at Jackie. "Welcome back!"

Jackie responded with a comforting smile, and motioned at Eddie. "This is the moron I was talking about. Best doc around!"

Valeria looked at the man with long blonde hair that just about extended past his shoulders, and the white doctor's coat. She observed the black leather bag he carried with his left hand. His blue eyes and clean shaven face.

"He looks like a perv." She muttered.

What the fuck did she just call me?

With an almost nervous glance at the disgusted expression of Valeria's face, Eddie looked at the woman resting on the old, worn out bed. Her hair was a lovely black colour, and her curves were apparent even through the stained blanket over her.

Eddie had found his 68th first love.

No, no, no! Now's not the time for this. I'm a doctor. Gotta do my duties. He thought firmly to himself.

He opened the leather box he had brought with him and pulled out a closed wooden container shaped like a square. He pried open the lid to reveal a smelly green ointment inside. The aroma stuck to everything in the tiny house. This ought to help open up her airways.

The medicine was definitely strong, so he didn't want to use it unless he had to. Coughing a bit from the stench, he gently peeled away the blanket to reveal her black dress, and placed his ear on her chest.

"T-This feels a bit...wrong." Leo murmured, his face a tad bit redder than usual. Jackie laughed. "Don't worry. Eddie is questionable, but he loves his work more than any woman."

Indeed, he was fully concentrated on the sound of her heartbeat, and didn't even register than his head was resting on her supple breasts. Hmm...nothing irregular with her heartbeat.

He did feel an unnaturally high amount of heat radiating from her body, though. She has a high fever. Those kids did the right thing by putting a blanket over her. A moist cloth on her head is smart too.

Well they certainly weren't toddlers or anything. They did the best of what they knew.

Eddie noticed her breathing was a bit raspy, and there was a slight rash spreading across her arms. This alarmed him greatly.

That could be caused by some kind of a poisonous substance. Did someone poison her? From what he had been told, the town hated her to bits. It wasn't impossible.

Fortunately, he had just the thing for poison.

He pulled a small glass vial out of the bag. It was filled halfway with what he called Tryticiam, a well-developed medicine he had designed. He had spent years studying bacteria and it's effects on the substance before determining it was safe, along with several others.

He carefully raised her head and poured the colorless liquid into her mouth. With that done, he took the ointment and applied it on her chest and neck.

When he was done, he looked over to the two kids. "I hate to break this to you, but it seems like she's been poisoned. How long has it been since she fell ill?" The two kids gasped in shock as he said this.

Hmmm. I probably should have been a teeny bit more gentle with that, huh?

Valeria replied, "It's been about a week, I think. Maybe more, because she said she felt a little sick even before she collapsed."

Eddie felt faint. A what? A week? An entire week with poison circulating in her body? What kind of a monster is she?

He tried not to do it as much as possible, but it was hard not to feel optimistic about her. She wasn't exactly on the brink of death yet, despite the amount of time for which she had been sick.

"You have a strong mother. Take care of her, alright?" Eddie stood up, and started packing up his materials. But before he could start making his way to the door, Jackie stopped him.

"Hold up, Eddie. I want to hear the full story from these kids." He looked at Valeria and Leo. "Tell me everything that's been troubling you. Because I can see in your eyes that there's something else in this narration that we're missing."

Leo narrowed his eyes at Jackie, untrusting. But Valeria put her hand on his arm, and his glare softened just a tiny bit.

"We're not here to harm you. I think we've proved that several times by now. I don't know about what the rest of the people here with me think, but I know I don't want to abandon you like this. The least I could do is listen to what you have to say."

Eddie understood Jackie's point. And completely respected it. He was recognizing that Elma, Rosa, and Eddie himself wouldn't be particularly on board with helping some random child bandits, and accepting that he wanted to help them.

The twins looked as though they had seen another human being for the first time. And without further disagreement, Leo finally began to tell their story.