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Sphinx's weather this time of year was usually balmy and cool, according to all the reports Sabo had read about the place. It wasn't a difficult cluster of islands to find nor reach, its largest landmass topped with a huge mountain and a smattering of smaller islands all around it. The currents were mild, natural resources were abundant, with a population consisting mostly of children and the elderly. It would, under any other circumstances, be ripe for exploitation by the World Government.

Sabo hopped off their boat with a crate in his arms and splashed through the ankle-deep water to shore, Koala on his heels with a bouquet of flowers.

"Isn't Marco the Phoenix protecting this place?" Koala asked, scanning the horizon as they trekked a well-worn path up the island's lone hill. "We should be careful, Sabo."

"The Phoenix isn't known to instigate," Sabo answered, eyes fixed on the two towering stone memorials ahead of them. The Whitebeard Pirates as a whole were difficult to provoke unless they caught wind of slavers or drug traffickers in their territory, and in their last years of operation preferred diplomacy over force out of consideration for their captain's failing health. "Besides," Sabo added, "he's supposed to be on the central island."

The Navy still considered Marco an active threat, as he held the influence and ability to reunite the former Whitebeard Pirates and their allies, but the RA had him classified as a reasonably nonbelligerent pirate. In recent months, several former members of the Whitebeard Pirates' intelligence network had joined the Army and made themselves indispensable assets; it was through them that Sabo learned of Sphinx and the graves placed there.

The pirates didn't share information easily, that vigilance in their opsec one of the major reasons Whitebeard's operation was so successful, but they'd eventually concluded that Sabo and Koala wouldn't be a threat to the villagers and they were certainly not going to share any sensitive information to the World Government.

So Sabo wasn't worried about being accosted by any former first division commanders of the Whitebeard Pirates.

He approached the larger memorial first, walking a slow circle around it. Captain of the Whitebeard Pirates, the epitaph read. Here lies a great captain and father, liberated from the exhausting role and labor, who captained the Moby Dick in the spectacular Era of Pirates.

Sabo muffled a laugh into his glove. "Pirates don't make great writers, huh? How many times can a memorial say 'captain'?"

"It's nice," Koala said softly. The epitaph was clumsily worded, but sincere. "I wonder who wrote it?"

Sabo hummed, tracing the letters with his finger. "The Phoenix, I bet. 'Exhausting role and labor'..."

"Maybe Red-Hair," Koala said, "since he handled the funerals. And he's a captain."

"Does he seem exhausted by the role and labor?"

With Shanks's reputation, Koala had always thought that he would probably find managing territories the most exhausting. He didn't have many, even after taking on several islands that had formerly been affiliated with Whitebeard, and seemed to want to keep it that way. "Hard to tell," she said, "he's pretty elusive even for our operatives."

Sabo approached Ace's grave obliquely, his grip on the crate in his hands tightening as he kept the familiar necklace in his periphery. When did he pick that up? he wondered. There were so many things he didn't know about the man Ace had become. Was it a gift from Dadan? Did he see it at some far-away market or souvenir shop, and buy it because it reminded him of life with the bandits?

He finally came around to the front of it, and read the engraving with a sigh. "Who do you think wrote Ace's?" Sabo asked, wrinkling his nose. "Did they run out of things to say or what?"

Koala opened her mouth to answer. Before she could, a deeper voice spoke up from behind them.

"Sorry it doesn't meet your standards," it said. "I'm better with numbers."

Sabo and Koala spun on their heels, dropping into defensive stances and looking kind of silly with their hands still full. Neither of them were specialists in Observation but they were usually proficient enough to sense someone approaching; the tall, unassuming man in front of them had managed to arrive completely undetected.

Now that they were aware of him, the newcomer's Voice wasn't difficult to pick out; it was just thrumming quietly under that monstrous haki that blanketed the central island and the waters around it. Not an oppressive will, but a strong enough one to warn away anyone approaching with hostile intent. Sabo'd felt it coming in, a confirmation of the reports that Red-Haired Shanks was in the area, but it shouldn't have been so overwhelming that it could drown out Marco the fucking Phoenix.

He was unmistakable with that tuft of blond hair at his crown and the massive crest of the Whitebeard Pirates inked across his chest. At least he looked more exasperated than angry, and he wasn't poised to attack so Koala dropped her guard as a show of good faith. Sabo set his crate on the ground.

"I like it," Koala said with a cautious smile. "It's really sweet. You must have loved them a lot."

Sabo let her handle it; she was really cute, and always made a better impression.

"Who are you," Marco said, unmoved, "and what are you doing here?"

"I wanted to leave these for Whitebeard," Koala said, lifting the bouquet of Baltigo roses in her hand. "They're desert flowers. They mean 'courage and tenacity in the face of insurmountable odds'."

"You knew Pops?" Marco asked. His expression was still unreadable, but his tone had shifted.

She didn't have time to cover the whole long story, so Koala shook her head. "Not quite. He was very important to people I care a lot about. I just wanted to pay my respects."

That could be referring to literally millions of people. Marco made a face at her. "You're gonna have to be a bit more specific."

Koala put the bouquet down slowly, knowing better than to underestimate the sleepy-looking man who had managed to sneak up on two trained revolutionaries and still looked completely at ease. It meant either that he was overconfident, or (more likely) that he could handily send them packing if he were inclined to. She kept her hands in full view before bringing them to the front of her shirt to unbutton it.

Marco's brows shot up, arched even higher than they naturally sat, but he was remarkably calm about a young woman suddenly deciding to strip in front of him, and he watched carefully as she turned around and pulled her blouse off her shoulders to reveal the brand on her back.

"A Sun Pirate?" Marco said, sounding relieved that she hadn't just decided to flash him. Then, glancing at her neck, "No, you're not a Fishman. Then..."

Koala pulled her shirt back up, and faced him again while she buttoned it. "I'm the Assistant Fishman Karate Instructor of the Revolutionary Army," she said. "Fisher Tiger gave me this brand. My name is--"

"Koala," Marco said.

Both Revolutionaries' heads whipped around. Marco put his hands up, palms forward in a placating gesture even though they all knew that if the Phoenix wanted them dead, there was very little either of them could do about it. "Where did you hear that name?" Sabo demanded.

"Jinbei was a close affiliate of the Whitebeard Pirates," Marco pointed out. "He told us to keep an eye out for a human girl called Koala, who has the Sun Pirates' brand on her back, and if we met her on the sea to let him know if she was alright."

Koala's eyes went wide. "Jinbei did?" She didn't think he'd ever want to see her again, after Fisher Tiger's death. "How is he?"

Marco tilted his head very slightly to the side, giving her an appraising look, and he didn't answer the question. He wasn't one to reveal the comings and goings of his allies, especially to suspicious-looking strangers. "And you?" he asked, turning to Sabo.

"I bet he could guess my name too," he said to Koala. "I'm not taking off my shirt, though."

"Please don't," Marco said.

"Right, excuse me! I'm the Revolutionary Army's Chief of Staff. We haven't had much reason to contact the Whitebeard Pirates, so I apologize for the intrusion." Sabo tipped his hat. "It might be presumptuous to think you've heard of me, but I'm Ace and Luffy's sworn brother." Lifting the crate in his arms and turning it to show Marco its contents, he waited for older man to take stock. A bouquet of yellow and orange primroses, a bottle of wine, three cups, and a newspaper with Luffy's face on the front page. "We made it official in a ceremony over three cups of wine when we were kids."

Marco's expression was so tired that Koala had to fight back a sympathetic laugh. "So you're Sabo," he said with the same look on his face everyone tended to get when they heard about the pedigree on those three brothers. "And the RA's number two?"

"One and the same."

Marco's eyes narrowed. "I see," he said.

The non-reaction seemed to unnerve Sabo, and he slowly lowered his crate to the ground again. "I lost my memories in the incident that caused Ace and Luffy to believe I was dead," he explained, "but Dragon saved me. I regained them when I read the news about Marineford, after the fact. I know it's hard to believe, but—"

"It's fine," Marco interrupted, pinching the bridge of his nose as if he were fighting off a headache, "I believe you."

"You do?" Koala asked.

Actually, he more than believed them; he was immediately reminded of the first time he'd heard Sabo's name, when it appeared in the news and Ace had shared the story of his other, deceased brother who coincidentally shared a name with the Revolutionary Army's mysterious chief of staff. They'd all just assumed it was a common name in certain parts of the world. In Marco's forty-five years, he's seen weirder coincidences.

"I think two revolutionaries could come up with better lies if they had ulterior motives." He turned to go, lifting one hand in a lazy wave. "Don't break anything."

"I thought we were going to die," Koala muttered to Sabo as they watched Marco fly off, toward the island visible in the distance with a huge mountain at its center. "How did he know we were here?"

"Beats me!" he said, although he suspected that Marco might just have a range of Observation so wide that he'd sensed them coming even through the noise of Red-Hair's haki, which was too terrifying to consider right then. Sabo stepped forward instead of dwelling on it, emptied the crate under his arm and turned it bottom-side up to serve as a little table. While he laid out the cups, Koala approached Whitebeard's grave and set her bouquet at the foot of it. She sat cross-legged before the huge granite base.

Edward Newgate was the only human Fisher Tiger ever spoke well of, with a kind word occasionally spared for his crew. Jinbei always enthusiastically agreed, and was friendly with the man personally although they never crossed paths with him while Koala was sailing with the Sun Pirates.

There were many humans both before and after Whitebeard whose moral posturing on behalf of Fishmen's rights yielded no action, but Edward Newgate was the only one who'd risked his status, his reputation, and his life for the island. 'Old Pops Whitebeard,' Jinbei used to tell her with a big grin and a fond laugh, 'is quite close to King Neptune. They've known each other for decades.'

Hack, who was old friends with one of Whitebeard's division commanders as well, privately told her once that had he not joined the Revolutionary Army he would've signed up to sail with Namur's division. Even Arlong, who didn't quite trust that the alliance would last or that Whitebeard was truly without ulterior motives, agreed that they gained more from his flag than what Whitebeard stood to gain from claiming Fishman Island as his territory.

The pirate would come up in conversation completely unprompted all the time among the Fishmen that Koala knew. 'My wife served him in the Mermaid Café once!' or 'Some of his crewmembers bought the distillery's entire stock last week!' His visits to the Ryugu Kingdom while he lived were always cause for celebration; he didn't just protect the island, Whitebeard and his crew spent their ill-gotten berries generously there. He was, Hack had once told her, notoriously stingy otherwise.

Koala had hoped to meet him herself someday, a man to whom so many of her loved ones owed their lives, the prosperity of their families, and so when Sabo told her of his plan to visit Sphinx to pay his respects to Ace, Koala insisted on accompanying him.

They'd invited Hack, but Hack said that he'd gone only a few months after Marineford at Jinbei's invitation, with a contingent of Sun Pirates. Koala had resolved not to feel hurt about being left out, acknowledging it was a trip that Hack deserved to make for himself without any tag-alongs and she wasn't ready to face the Sun Pirates again anyway, but it had stung all the same. 'Jinbei asked me not to tell anyone,' he had told her somewhat apologetically, 'since Whitebeard didn't want a lot of people knowing about Sphinx.'

Koala smiled sideways at Sabo when he sat down beside her.

"I have a lot to thank him for too," he said.

Turning her eyes back to the memorial, Koala folded her arms across her knees. "Do you think," she said quietly, "things would've been different if we'd ever made contact?"

"What were we gonna do in Whitebeard's territories?" Sabo countered bitterly. Dragon had no reason to interfere with Whitebeard's operation in the New World. Edward Newgate outlawed slavery in his domain, tore down exploitative oligarchies, pumped supplies into underserved villages and set up trade routes to support the islands under his protection. Sabo expected no less from the man Ace chose to follow. "Was there any island under Whitebeard's flag that didn't want it?"

"An alliance would've been nice," Koala said. She could imagine liberating an island and immediately putting it under Whitebeard's protection like some kind of rehabilitation program for exploited nations. "Even though most of our activity is in Paradise and the Blues..."

Sabo pushed himself to his feet and swept his hat off his head, bent at the waist toward Whitebeard's grave. "I know," he said solemnly, "Ace was happy and loved as part of your family. For that, I'll always be grateful."

He straightened and turned to Ace's memorial next, face scrunched into a painful facsimile of exasperation. Koala knew it as his trying-not-to-cry expression, but didn't point it out.

"And you," he said, "you're really helpless without me, huh?"

They made their way to the central island later in the afternoon, picking through an abandoned port town, into a tunnel that RA intelligence had said would be hidden behind a waterfall. Sabo extended his Observation and hiked to a simple wooden house on a hill, pushed open the (unlocked!) door and greeted its inhabitants, two men lounging at a table with an opened bottle of wine and two cups in front of them.

"Red-Haired Shanks," he said. "Marco the Phoenix."

"Ooh," Shanks jeered, "titles." He laughed when Marco kicked his ankle under the table and gave him a stern look. Don't tease the kid, he seemed to say.

Sabo addressed Shanks first, tucking his hat under his arm. "I want to properly express my thanks," he said, sounding much more natural about it than Ace had. "Luffy's a handful, and he wouldn't be alive without your intervention back in East Blue, and at Marineford. I don't know how to repay you."

Shanks gave him a solemn nod, but there was still a faint smile on his face. "Don't mention it. We're all looking forward to seeing where he goes from here."

"And, um, Marco." Sabo looked awkward when he turned to regard the older pirate, painfully aware that he hadn't made the best first impression, up on that hillside. "I know Ace didn't make it easy on your crew, even to the end. Thank you for being there for him when I couldn't. For saving Luffy at Marineford, too." Sabo took a shaky breath, and for a second his gaze was far away. "If I had to find out I'd lost both of them from the papers, I wouldn't know what to do with myself."

Marco was, as ever, the picture of sympathy. "Sorry you had to find out that way," he replied. "I wish we could've done more for both of them."

"I mean," Sabo said, turning away as he discreetly dashed his sleeve across his eyes, "knowing those two, there's not much else you could've done."

Marco and Shanks shared a look, and Koala began to tug at Sabo's sleeve, trying to usher him toward the door.

"We had intelligence that Red-Hair was here," Sabo continued, collecting himself as he ignored his partner, "so I figured I could kill two birds with one stone." He winced when he heard himself, at the raise of Marco's brows and Shanks's badly-muffled snort. "So to speak."

"I appreciate that you came by," Marco intoned politely, though it was a strained civility. "Did you want to sit down...?"

"Sabo!" Koala hissed.

"I just wanted to ask," Sabo said, eyes wide, hat literally in hand, "if you could tell me about Ace?"

Shanks stifled a laugh into his fist, then reached over to pat Marco on the shoulder. The latter looked resigned. Koala gave Sabo a particularly aggressive smack on the arm, and it was only then that he looked properly at the pirates sitting in front of him. Marco appeared composed and neat, but Shanks's hair was tousled, his shirt buttons improperly fastened.

Sabo followed her gaze to the side, through an open door to what must have been Marco's bedroom, and noted Red-Hair's signature black cloak in a heap on the floor. He felt his face heat up slowly, and looked frantically at Koala.

"You're interrupting," she said, trying to haul him bodily out the door.

"I, uhm," Sabo said. "I can come back later! Or never? Maybe never--"

"It's fine," Shanks called to them before they could flee, "it's fine! Come sit. Marco can give you stories about Ace, if you give me some stories about Luffy."

"You're a terrible negotiator," Marco grumbled, but he stood up and pulled chairs for Sabo and Koala while Shanks went to fetch more sake cups out of a cabinet.

"Do you two drink?" asked Shanks. "There's water and juice, too."

"We definitely drink," Sabo said huffily, annoyed at the implication.

Koala had no such reservations and gave Shanks a big, sunny smile. "Juice please!"

Marco doled out stories about Ace carefully, still cognizant of letting information slip about the Whitebeard Pirates' former allies and movements. He kept most of the details vague, but painted a picture of Ace that held largely true to the boy Sabo had known.

Adult Ace was reckless, but brave and kind. He protected his crew fiercely, and defended his division with the same devotion when he became a commander. He talked incessantly about Luffy, and showed off his bounty posters every chance he got. When Marco mentioned Ace's tattoo, Sabo excused himself to the bathroom and splashed his face with ice-cold water from the tap before he could embarrass himself in front of strangers.

He questioned both pirates about Blackbeard when Marco was done, and they were pretty forthcoming about him. Neither had qualms about giving the Revolutionary Army information about Teach; having another organization aware of and ready for him could only be an asset, and Sabo wasn't going to volunteer on anyone else's behalf but he certainly planned to put that information to good use.

"You didn't know he would betray the crew?" Sabo asked, knowing it was a sore spot but hungry for anything else he could glean. "How? How does someone hide that for thirty years? And from someone like Whitebeard?"

"It's easy to claim in hindsight," Marco said in that infuriatingly rational and mature way of his, "that we knew all along he couldn't be trusted, but that wasn't the case. There's no expectation of fair play for pirates, only how you choose to conduct yourself and your crew. When shipmates stepped out of line, the division commanders would enforce consequences. Teach rarely ever stepped out of line."

"It was the same for Roger's crew," Shanks added. "We were never told not to steal, cheat or lie. Even when Teach gave me these," he said, pointing at the scars over his eye, "I didn't like him, but it's not like it was the first time I clashed with Whitebeard's crew. Even I didn't think he'd turn on the old man like that."

Sabo chewed on that while Shanks and Marco branched off onto a tangent with Koala, describing the structure of Teach's crew and giving her a rundown of what they knew of their capabilities. The RA had some of that intel already but most of it was new. Information exchange between two of the most well-connected pirates in the New World was predictably more robust.

When the others turned back to him, Sabo prefaced his stories with the reminder that he'd gotten his memories back less than two years ago, and very traumatically at that, so his recollection of their childhoods might not be the most accurate.

Shanks waved him off with a laugh, pointing out that no one exaggerated, embellished or forgot details like a bunch of drunken pirates, so he didn't have to worry too much about accuracy.

Koala calmly sipped her juice while her colleague became progressively less inhibited, his movements bigger, his words less careful while Shanks repeatedly filled his cup. That was Red-Hair's tactic to squeeze information out of another party and Sabo played along, though Marco didn't expect that any Revolutionary would truly let themselves slip in the presence of pirates.

Besides, he's seen Shanks pretend to be drunk often enough to recognize it in some wet-behind-the-ears kid.

"So," Sabo said after he'd shared the story of how Ace finally came to accept Luffy, "what's an Emperor of the New World doing here?"

"Do Emperors need emperor-level reasons to visit old friends?" Shanks shot back. "When you get older, you'll know how important it is to make time for people."

"Never thought I'd ever hear you say something like that," Marco commented, nudging Shanks with his elbow. "Finally acting your age?"

Wrinkles creased at the corners of Shanks's eyes when he grinned back. "Don't be jealous of my boyish good looks and youthful perspective," he teased.

Marco reached over, brushed his fingers through a lock of Shanks's hair and smiled at the immediate softening of the other man's expression. "Is that what you're calling gray hairs," he murmured, plucking one, "and lack of impulse control?"

"Just because they're harder to find on you," Shanks grumbled, snatching the single strand of silver out of Marco's grasp and holding it up to the light to glare at it. "Bet I'd look good, though. Beck did, when he was going gray."

"There's more where that came from," Marco said, reaching in again, and he laughed when Shanks batted his hand away.

Koala smiled at their banter. She looked relaxed, but both revolutionaries knew better than to trust the pirates even if they liked them, no matter how laid-back and easygoing they seemed. It would be stupid to forget themselves in the presence of Red-Haired Shanks and Whitebeard's former first division commander, even if they were squabbling like teenagers.

Sabo considered faintly that Ace liked and trusted these men, two towering figures on the world stage whose names were infamous all across the Grand Line. They didn't meet enough people back then for Sabo to know whether or not Ace was a good judge of character, but he liked to think he was.

"I have to say," Sabo said to Marco when there was a brief lull in his exchange with Shanks, "You didn't even look away when Koala took her shirt off! What's that about?"

"He's a doctor," Shanks said, looking amused. He cocked an eyebrow at Marco in a silent question.

"People take their clothes off unprompted all the time to show me a weird rash or infection," Marco explained. He'd heard that doctors on land experienced this often as well, but pirates have even fewer qualms about dropping their trousers right on deck. There are, after all, much fewer women on the ship to scare off and the ones who sailed with Whitebeard have seen too many naked men to bat an eye. "I don't want to, y'know, recoil from someone who trusts me enough to bring up their medical concerns."

Koala let out an 'aw'. Sabo squinted at him. "You're annoyingly nice," he said, "aren't you?"

Shanks snorted into his drink at Marco's look of affront. "I'm a pirate," Marco retorted. "I wouldn't characterize any of us as 'nice'."

"He really is," Shanks cut in, as he liked nothing more than contradicting Marco. "You can't say anything to his crew without hearing about how cool and smart and nice Marco is. If it's not Marco it's 'Pops this,' and 'Pops that.'"

"Pops was a great pirate--"

"Birdbrain's not nice to me at all," Shanks groused. "The last time I had him take a look at my shoulder, he went 'Wow! Gross. What is it?'" He shoved Marco as the other man laughed at that memory.

"It was a staph infection," Marco supplied helpfully. "Hongo could've given you antibiotics."

"Well see, the problem is that he wanted to when I got cut, but I said naw, it'll be fine! and I didn't wanna hear him say 'I told you so!'"

"Well now you know to listen your ship's doctor, don't you?"

"Ace told me he got a stress rash on his arm once," Shanks told Sabo, "and you know what Marco told him?"

He nudged Marco's leg under the table to prompt him to finish the story.

"Just the truth," Marco said, voice even. "It's a rash; it might make you uncomfortable, but it doesn't make you disgusting."

Sabo took that in quietly. He wasn't, at ten years old, any good at helping Ace work through the myriad of personal issues that haunted him and the knowledge that they had followed him into adulthood made his heart sore. It was absurd to feel guilty for the actions of the Celestial Dragons but if there was one thing a revolutionary understood, it was that emotions are rarely rational. Koala gave his arm a supportive squeeze, which neither pirate missed, but they charitably said nothing.

Marco continued, "Ace'd just made Second Division commander at the time and it was a lot of work he wasn't used to yet. It had been a long time since someone new became a commander, so we didn't realize he was struggling until then. Cleared up within a few days once we adjusted his workload."

Marco was, Sabo considered, exactly the kind of brother Ace really needed. Calm, strong, patient. Virtually unkillable. "I'm glad he had someone like you looking out for him," Sabo said sincerely.

"It was a genuine pleasure to have had the opportunity," Marco answered in that kind way that reminded Sabo so much of Kuma. His heart really was just taking a beating from all sides today. "I know Pops felt the same."

"You keep calling Whitebeard 'Pops'," Sabo mused aloud.

"That's what we called him."

He wrung the brim of his hat. "Did Ace?"

"Yes."

"And you knew about—"

"Roger and Whitebeard were old friends," Marco told him, "so it's not like that was a problem for us."

Sabo wrinkled his nose. "I thought they were enemies."

After all, every report of their meetings that the RA had misappropriated from the World Government said that they would fight, sending out blasts of Conqueror's haki so powerful it would leave rank-and-file marines unconscious for miles all around, which understandably made surveillance difficult.

"I guess they did claim that," Marco said thoughtfully. "But no, our crews were more like friendly rivals than anything else. It was the same with Red-Hair's."

"He was kinda like an uncle to me," Shanks agreed.

"Why did he ask Gramps to take Ace in then?" Sabo asked. He tried to keep that plaintive edge out of his voice, but at the sympathetic look Marco gave him, he knew he didn't succeed. "Why not Whitebeard?"

"I don't know."

"But you have theories."

Marco crossed his arms. "Just conjectures," he demurred.

"Do you mind sharing them?"

Sabo was aware that he was asking for intel from Whitebeard's ex-first division commander, who was as careful as any revolutionary about his opsec, but he'd been forthcoming enough about Ace and had even shared information about Roger and Whitebeard's relationship that most pirates didn't know, including among Whitebeard's own crew. He hoped his sincerity would be enough, but Sabo braced for a refusal.

Marco contemplated his answer for a second, and chose his words carefully as he spoke. "One possibility: he knew that Ace's lineage would make him a high-priority target for the Navy, and Pops never wanted that kind of attention. Maybe Roger didn't want to put that on him, even if he would've agreed to it."

"Was he a considerate man, Gol D. Roger?"

Marco knew Roger, in some ways, better than Shanks did and the look the younger pirate shot him meant that he was paying attention. Marco knew him as an adult, with all his strengths and flaws, and not as the threat the world tried to cast him as, or the towering pillar of strength that Shanks did.

"You could say that," Marco said. "He was reckless, but always wanted to do right by his friends. It was hard not to like him." More wistfully: "Ace was similar in that way, but he didn't want to hear anything we said about Roger, good or bad."

"Oh," said Sabo.

"Another possibility is that he hoped Ace would be a Marine."

"I don't think so," Shanks cut in. "Captain Roger said once that he wanted his son to find the One Piece."

"I think," Marco said, meeting Shanks's look with a steady one of his own, "he could have changed his mind by the time Ace was conceived. With the possibility of an actual child, the government hunting down his crew and his loved ones, he might've thought that Ace would be safest as a Marine under Vice Admiral Garp's protection. It would've been a success story for them if it ever came to light and they'd have no reason to want him dead."

Shanks didn't have a response to that, but Marco could see him struggling with the idea, trying to frame Roger's last year of his life as a father and not as a pirate. Marco only knew fathers (he'd say that he knew the best father) and had never been one himself, but Shanks seemed to accept at least the possibility with the droop of his shoulders.

"Obviously," Marco concluded, "things didn't work out that way."

"I wish it could've been Whitebeard," Sabo all but whispered.

Marco had a look on his face that said he was somehow used to this aura of melancholy. He probably was. "I don't know that that would've changed anything," he offered. "Besides, I asked Ace once if he wouldn't have preferred that, and he said no."

"Why not?"

"He said, 'What would Sabo and Luffy have done without me? Who would I be without them?'"

He'd also said, 'Besides, I've got you all now,' but Marco kept that to himself. That part was important to him but not relevant to Sabo.

For his part, Sabo would happily give up meeting Ace if that could have given him a happy, safe childhood with a father who adored him. He might've grown up under Whitebeard's protection to be like Marco, comfortable in his own skin and sure of his place in the world. Sabo knew that his brother'd arrived at Whitebeard's doorstep angry, hurting, ready to die, and had left the world knowing he was so loved his family declared war on the government itself get him back.

"I'm not sure," Sabo said hesitantly, as if he knew he was overstepping, "that sworn brotherhood operates by transitive property, but if there's anything we in the Revolutionary Army can do for Ace's family, please contact me. And if you ever plan to go after Blackbeard, I'd like to lend my assistance as well."

"It can operate by transitive property if you want it to," Marco said with a wry smile.

"Membership to the stinky guys' club isn't exactly closed," Shanks quipped, "is it?"

"It's not," Marco agreed. He pulled a notebook out of his pocket, ripped out a page, and wrote his snail phone number on it. "Contact me here if you need me. Don't leave a message if I don't pick up, just knock twice on the receiver and hang up."

Sabo tucked the paper into the inner pocket of his coat, and jotted down his own contact information on another sheet. "And this is me. I recommend—" Sabo cut himself off as Marco memorized the number and set the paper on fire with a burst of blue flames. The sheet didn't char and disintegrate as it would normally, but it fluttered in tiny pieces to the floor as if phoenix fire had torn it apart. "Yeah. That."

"What do you plan to do next?" Marco asked.

"What Ace would've wanted," Sabo replied, "I'm gonna help Luffy. We got a report that the flame fruit is in Dressrosa. If you don't mind, I plan to claim it."

"Doesn't make a difference to me."

"What about you?"

"I'm retired," Marco said with an innocent-looking smile. "I'm not doing anything."

"Retired," Shanks scoffed when Koala and Sabo had left the island. It was well after dark, which was just as well for the revolutionaries who'd rather depart stealthily. "What's the latest from your end?"

"Straw-Hat's left Fishman Island." Marco took a sheaf of papers from the top drawer of his desk and flipped through it. It was a report of the latest news from the underwater kingdom. "Fukaboshi says he claimed the island and pissed off Big Mom. Namur followed them a little ways out and says they're probably gonna end up in the area of Punk Hazard."

"Yep, sounds like him."

"There's a lot more." Marco handed the documents to Shanks, who sat at his desk to skim them. "He's shaking things up already, and the crew's only been reunited for a few days."

"Anything on Teach you didn't already tell our new friends?"

"He's still on Fullalead. That admiral, Kuzan, is reportedly part of the crew now." Marco looked steadily at him. "You shouldn't get involved."

Shanks dropped the papers onto the desk, and turned his seat. "If you're involved," he said, catching Marco's hand, "I'm involved. Besides, you know I'm keeping tabs on Teach too."

"Shanks—"

Shanks brought his hand up, brushed his chapped lips over Marco's knuckles. "He hurt," he said softly, "my friends."

"That doesn't make it your fight."

"Transitive property," Shanks declared. "Stop arguing with me about this, you won't win."

Marco pulled Shanks out of the seat and stood in front of him, looking simultaneously exasperated and fond. "You're hopeless," he sighed as the younger pirate crowded in close and planted a rough kiss on his cheek.

"I don't plan to do anything crazy."

"Step back a bit," Marco said, tugging lightly on his empty sleeve. "I can handle myself, you've lost too much already."

That was, Shanks thought, an insane thing for Marco of all people to say. He was a man who'd cut away as much of himself as he needed to to keep his people safe, if only they'd let him. "Ah," Shanks answered, slinging his arm around Marco's waist and tugging him close, "but the only thing I miss is you."

"It's only been two months."

"Yeah, it's been months." The look Shanks gave him was heated. "C'mon, let's make up for lost time."

Marco stayed stubbornly in place when Shanks tried to lead him toward the bedroom. "Your crew's back in three days?"

"Yeah." A groan. "I was afraid those two would never leave."

"You were the one who invited them to stay," Marco retorted as he finally allowed Shanks to pull him along.

"Like you were gonna say no."

"You don't know what I was gonna say."

"Yeah I do, ya big sap." Down one arm, Shanks couldn't pick Marco up but he kept his grip around him, swept one foot behind his ankle and tipped them both onto the mattress. Marco landed with a grunt, and made a noise of indignant protest when Shanks rolled on top of him. "But," Shanks said with a grin, "that's what I like about you."