Nami’s legs wobbled a little as she picked her way up the ramp, the fear that someone would accost her at the last moment haunting every step. But no-one did. As she finally closed the ramp behind herself, her knees almost gave way. With a sobbing sigh, she fell against the wall, as if trying to embrace the ship, trying to be absorbed into it.
Her ship. Her home, her sanctuary, her independence – the tangible symbol of everything she’d worked so hard to have. There was a twinge of doubt there, the memory of how Thassco had violated this place, just as he’d violated her, and remembering that he was dead didn’t exactly make her feel better. But she’d made it. Her fear of never seeing any of this again had not come to pass.
Shakily, she picked herself up and made her way through to her quarters. It was tempting to shower again, and again, to really scrub herself clean, but she’d wasted too much time for that. She stripped out of her dress, a garment she’d never look at the same way again, and changed back into a more neutral bodysuit. A little closer to being Nami the doctor again, not Nami the slave-whore.
You loved it, though, didn’t you? Deep down. The way he treated you. The way people looked at you in the street…
She ignored that voice. Making her way through to the pilot’s cabin, she began her preparations. She had promises to follow through on. A stranger’s life still counting on her.