I went back to this scene in Skypiea, and you could technically say that Oda cheated a little bit, as he includes the Merry’s smile but not any of the words she said, but it’s so unusual for Oda to have just a black panel in the middle of the page that a reader could infer that there’s some information we’re not getting. But the inclusion of the smile onomatopoeia plus the repairs of the Merry are enough to indicate that whatever fixed the Merry was benevolent, so I personally think it’s just good setup for this moment here