Notes: This is for revolutionarygirlkoala on tumblr! it's her birthday today and she's the best ngl. I love her and she loves Sabo and Koala, so this is for her :')

Warnings: Spoilers for Dressrosa, mentions of Slavery, pre-romance

Goes On

Sabo meets Koala a few years after he joins the Revolutionary Army.

Dragon brings her in personally, much like he had done with Sabo except without the unconsciousness and near fatal burns. The Revolutionary leader puts him in charge of showing her around the base, because Dragon knows that Sabo understands the base almost as well as he does.

The first thing Sabo notices is that she's taller than him, the second is that she has a great smile. She's very nice and he wants to be friends with her, Sabo decides in the next following minutes. She's a bit hesitant in her actions and in a way she reminds him of himself back when he was living with his parents. But he can tell that it's not entirely voluntary and tries to make her as comfortable as he can.

It's not really a surprise that they become thick as thieves in the following days, weeks, months. She becomes comfortable with him and likewise for him. She's the first person he's felt this comfortable with since he had last been with Ace and Luffy what felt like an eternity ago but was actually four years ago. Sure, he felt comfortable with the other Revolutionaries and Dragon - even if the man was incredibly mysterious - but this was different. Already, months into their friendship, Sabo could tell that the comfortable feeling was on a different level than his other comrades.

It's nice. When they aren't tagging along on a mission or gathering intel or the various other things that comes with the revolutionary life, they sneak away with books in hand or sometimes fresh stories racing in their minds to the alcove in Sabo's room. Sometimes they tell each other stories. Sabo hears stories about Fisher Tiger, who he knew about very little but was eager to hear more about. The fishman sounded incredible and Koala held him and his crew of pirates in very high regard. Sabo never asked why she had been with fishman pirates of all things, figuring that it was probably a personal thing.

In return, he tells her about his brothers. Tells her about Ace and how he was his best friend and had a bad temper and little patience, especially if you were someone he was just meeting, but he had gone through a lot of things and was a good person and understood Sabo probably better than anyone. He can't stop himself from going on and on about Luffy, the absolutely insane ball of sunshine that was made of rubber and dreams and never let go of his straw hat, who loved meat and his brothers more than anything and would never shut up about becoming the Pirate King.

He tells Koala of the adventures and mischief they had gotten into in the large forest and the streets of Goa. Sometimes, Dragon and a few of the other revolutionaries listen to his stories. Dragon asks questions sometimes, always ones about Luffy. Sabo doesn't really understand why and he won't for a long time, but he answers them anyways.

Koala loves his stories and learns so much about Ace and Luffy that it's almost like she knows them herself. She tells Sabo that she would love to meet them one day and Sabo agrees, telling her that they would love to meet her.

And life goes on.

He learns little things about her everyday they're together at the base or on a rare mission together, things she tells him or others that he notices on his own.

She has a habit of cleaning whenever stressed or nervous, but Sabo never asks why. It wasn't his business and he wasn't one to speak to about habits because he still occasionally caught himself turning around to say something to his brothers, only to find them not behind him before he remembers that he's far away from them and won't be seeing them for a while.

He doesn't find out about until her past until approximately a year and a half after she joined up with the Revolutionary Army.

Both of them had just gotten back from a particularly shaky mission. It was an overall success, because the government had been overthrown and the upper echelons were personally helping to rebuild it from scratch, but it had been very bloody. The bloodiest that both Sabo and Koala had been involved in so far. It shook Koala up visibly when they had gone into a cellar and saw people chained up, starved to the brink of death, and covered with countless wounds. The people had looked at them in fear and a flurry of emotions, but mainly fear. Koala had gone quiet and started to breath very hard. Sabo, who had been standing next to her, hadn't even heard one of the higher ups tell him to take her out of the cellar, he just did. He didn't think of the possible repercussions, he grabbed her by the wrist and led her out of the cellar.

She didn't speak, but it was clear that it had been extremely uncomfortable for her because her breathing doesn't settle for a while and she had broken out into a cold sweat. Her eyes are somehow wider than usual and they look faraway.

Sabo didn't say anything, he doesn't even know what to say, but he lets Koala lean on him and hide her face into her shoulder. He rubbed circles into her back and, oddly enough, when she pulled back she was smiling. Sabo didn't understand why but it's obvious that it wasn't a nice smile. It's forced and it makes Sabo incredibly uneasy.

She didn't say much on the ship ride back to Baltigo, but she cleaned a lot more than usual.

When they get back to the base, Dragon pulls her to the side and he doesn't see her again until dinnertime. She seems better than before, but still a little off. Sabo doesn't push it though, bringing up light conversation about what they had missed on the base while they had been gone.

Later that night, Sabo wakes up in a cold sweat because of a nightmare. It's not pleasant in the slightest, even if it's about Ace and Luffy. The fact that it's them just makes it worse.

He decides to take a walk around the base, not bothering to change out of his pajamas. It wasn't like this hadn't happened before.

He ends up at a balcony, one that gave a person a spectacular view of Baltigo, but it's not unoccupied.

Koala sits on the thick ledge sipping slowly on a mug of what smells like hot chocolate. It's not the first time he's found out here like this in the last year and a half. Sabo makes his presence known and she turns her head towards him, giving him her first real smile in what felt like a lifetime but was actually a few days.

He sits on the ledge next to her, legs crossed underneath him and the wind blowing lightly against his face. They talk about simple things but the mission eventually comes up and Koala tells him why she had been acting odd.

A slave. She had been a slave for the Tenryuubito and seeing the people trapped in the cellar had brought up bad memories.

Sabo feels anger and sadness bubble and boil inside of him over many things. Angry ans sad over the fact that Koala had to experience that, angry that people thought they had the right and need to enslave others and strip them of their freedom, sad that he was born as a noble even still.

Koala can see his anger and puts a soothing hand on his back. She tells him that it's in the past, that she's fine now. Vocalizes that it's not right and it's what they're here to fight, that they would be successful in the end, that they had to be. It's clear that she's still upset because Koala's not the best liar around but Sabo wants to do anything but push her. He never had and it wasn't time for him to start now.

But that night, he lets her know that he'll always be here to help her when she needs it but doesn't tell her that his resolve to help Dragon archive their goals in throwing down the World Government somehow manages to grow stronger.

She leans into him, hugging him close and warm. She whispers that she knows and that she'll always, always be their for him too.

When she pulls away, she's smiling the same great smile that always managed to make happiness stir in his stomach.

He smiles back.