The last moment of an important nakama. Spoilers for the end of the Water 7/return Robin section of the series.

You know the drill. I own nothing, just love the series, please don't sue.

It ended, as it should have, in flames, and there is a part of her that is glad of it, glad she was allowed those extra days, that extra time. Time to be near them. The ability, with what she could offer, to save them, to repay to them all the hours of joy they'd given her as she watched them go joyfully about their lives and cling uncompromisingly to one another and to her.

But there was a part of her, a part that ached like an old wound, that thought it was too much, too long. She had seen good and she had seen bad. She had been torn nearly in two by the callous and violent actions of those too stupid to understand what a storm they would bring on their heads by causing such violence. She had helped them rescue those they loved and cared for time and time again and, at times, been the one who had to rely on them for the saving. She had seen cities battered and burned, people used cruelly and nearly beyond the edge of their strength and sanity, wanton and utterly cold destruction… but the worst, the darkest, was a battle between friends, caused by her. For love of her, each in their own ways.

She saw, as soon as it started, how it would end. No matter who won, both lost. And she was right. And she wept bitter, bitter tears. She had not joined them, come to think of them as her family, to have it come to this. Better she should have died before. Better that than to have her bond with them come down like a bolt of lightning, igniting the powder keg of too-human emotions, fears, insecurities, impatience, loss and awe.

And then it was broken, torn like a sheet before a gale. Her fault, their fight. They went their separate ways.

But she would not stop loving them. All of them.

It was that love that kept her up in the heaviest of storms, when the world itself seemed to try to beat her down. It was that love that led her to them, after so long searching in the dark. It was that love which allowed her to reach out to them with the last reserves of her fading strength. She pushed beyond the limit, and she did what they had done so many times for her.

She saved them.

But now all was fire, around her, through her, and she welcomed it. For all its destructive power, it was warm, like a close embrace, like a physical reminder of those shared months, of that deep bond. She can see them, hear them, even those who do not speak. She knows them all, and wishes they could share more adventures, but it is not to be. She can accept that, though, she thinks as her timber snaps and splits, dissolving from form into smoke, solid into air and heat.

For a ship, there is no greater fear than that cold, long wait alone at the bottom of the sea. And for the Going Merry, there is a gentle joy in knowing her nakama love her enough to truly let her fly.