Notes: To paraphrase TheSecondBatgirl...look at their faces and their coats and how adorable and married they are.

Ahim knows that her parents would be horrified if they saw her snuggling on a couch with her crewmates. Curled up like a pile of puppies with commoners. Pirates, no less.

If they weren't already dead, they would probably collapse at the realization their daughter was a pirate too.

But her parents iwere/i dead and Ahim pulled the blanket up a bit higher on Luka's arm and settled Joe's head more comfortably against her knee, gently stroking his hair when he stirred. There was no disgrace in taking comfort in this way. She and her friends were alive and sometimes that was enough.

Joe backed Marvelous against the wall outside the captain's quarters, placing his hands on either side of the captain's head. "What. Was. That."

Marvelous smirked. "A kiss. I assumed you were familiar with them."

Joe rolled his eyes, then leaned in and kissed Marvelous until they were both breathless. "I meant before that."

Gai leaned out of his own doorway, smiling. "He meant the bit where you jumped in front of him in the middle of a battle and took a hit for him, nearly getting yourself killed," he said helpfully.

Marvelous and Joe both glared at him.

Gai shrugged. "Carry on." He closed the door again.

Marvelous chuckled until Joe turned his glare back to the captain, whose expression cleared to one of remarkable honesty and trustworthiness. Marvelous said "I won't make any further self-sacrificing moves, I swear."

Joe snorted his disbelief and kissed him again until neither one could quite remember what they had been talking about. "Bed," Marvelous managed to gasp.

Gai opened his door again. "I thought you'd never ask. Come in."

With a shrug, Marvelous pulled Joe in the room and both of them tackled a laughing Gai onto his bed.

His life was insane, Joe thought. Completely insane. Everything he'd ever learned about being a team, about being strong, about being a soldier...all of it broken on a daily basis, if not hourly.

It shouldn't work. But it did. Oh, did it ever, he thought as Marvelous pressed open-mouthed kisses down the side of his neck.

Luka strolled down the busy street, luxuriating in the sun on her skin and the sound of Doc behind her, carrying her packages. He was complaining, as usual, but she knew he wasn't really mad. She couldn't remember being this happy ever before.

The crew rolled their eyes at her acquisitiveness, but shiny trinkets sometimes appeared in her box that she knew she hadn't picked. By coincidence, it was usually after Joe or Marvelous had been in town. Somehow one or two of her favorite foods always seemed to be on the table or in the cabinets, especially if she'd had a difficult day and if Doc or Gai had been shopping. And Ahim just laughed and patted her arm when Luka growled at everyone, then tucked blankets around them both when they cuddled on the couch.

The crew of the Gokai Galleon took icare/i of her. Luka couldn't remember ever being taken care of before this. Cain had tried, once or twice, she supposed, but there had always been more children. So many children, crying and needing and she never had enough to help them, but now she would, she'd take care of all the children.

Doc jogged a few steps, catching up with her as he juggled food and clothing bags. She grinned at him and he stopped in his tracks, nearly dropping a loaf of bread. "What? Is something wrong?" He looked wildly around them.

"Never mind," she said, patting him on the cheek as she grinned harder. "Let's go home."

hr

It was all so much more amazing than he could have imagined, Gai thought as the crew sat down to dinner. It wasn't just the rush of being a Super Sentai, because he'd had that before he'd joined the crew. It was...it was being part of the crew and food fights (even if they made Doc mad) and Ahim fussing over his injuries and curling up in bed with Luka and Joe absently cuffing the back of his head when he couldn't stop talking.

Sometimes they didn't take him seriously, which made him sad, but when it counted, they were there. They thought they weren't heroes, which was laughable, but nothing seemed to be able to shake their collective delusion.

Doc tapped his shoulder. "If you don't eat quickly, Luka's going to take all the fish."

"Oh!" Gai came out of his contemplation of his teammates. "Thank you."

"You're welcome," Doc murmured as he dodged Marvelous' arm to grab a bunch of grapes.

Gai managed to spear some white fish just before Luka, smiling broadly at her scowl. Unlike the others at the table, he had living relatives, but they'd never felt as much like family as this bunch did.

Don ducked under Joe's sword arm, tripping over his own feet and scowling as Joe hit his rear with the flat of the sword, making him sit down abruptly.

Joe raised an eyebrow at him and Don sighed. "Sorry?"

"Don't be sorry. Try again." Putting out a hand, Joe helped him stand.

Don tried to mimic Joe's athletic pose, sure that on him it just looked ridiculous. He tried to pretend that Joe was a Gormin trying to kill him, tried to hit him with the sword, and mostly managed to get run around the room like a madman.

Finally, he collapsed on the ground, arms flung out. "Just finish me off. I'm done for."

"You're getting better."

Jaw dropping, Don stared up at him. "Are you joking?"

"Do I joke about this?"

"Well, no. No, you don't. But..."

Joe shrugged and helped him stand again. "Your fighting style is unorthodox, but it gets the job done."

"Oh." Don didn't quite know what to do with himself. He still wasn't used to praise, even now. It confused him every time Ahim praised his cooking or Gai looked at him in awe when he fixed something. But they did it all the time, as if it was nothing. Even Marvelous, for all he could be demanding, would clap him on the shoulder and say "Well done."

Joe was looking at him oddly and Don bowed deeply. "Thank you."

Joe studied Don, who tried not to shuffle his feet, holding his gaze. Finally, Joe took Don's sword out of his hand and placed it on the nearby table with his own, then took Don's shoulders, drawing him close for a slow kiss.

Don shivered at the care Joe was taking with him. This—this love, this sex, this tenderness—it was something else the crew gave so easily and it baffled him as much as it pleased him.

Ahim wasn't a delicate princess any longer, Marvelous thought as she lay across his bare chest, her slowing breaths almost ticklish on his still-sensitized skin. Probably she never had been, but he'd thought her pampered and weak when they first met, even as he'd been impressed that she'd survived as long as she had.

He hadn't realized then the iron will that lay beneath the sweet exterior or the way she would teach him about being a leader. Never in front of the others, no, of course not. But they'd spent so many late nights of her making endless cups of tea and gently telling him stories from Famille, each one somehow a lesson he needed to learn.

And it wasn't just Ahim that had taught him things.

Joe...well, Joe had reminded him that there was something to live for after Basco's betrayal and Akared's death. Luka combined cynicism and love in a potent mix that kept him on his toes. Doc proved they could be something more than a ragtag bunch of losers on a deteriorating ship. And Gai showed him that there was joy and life on Earth, not just something to live for, but something to fight for.

Each member of his crew had rebuilt a measure of his trust, both in himself and in others. The instinct that had made him snatch Joe for his own had been fortuitous and each subsequent crewmember had made him closer to whole.

Marvelous pulled Ahim closer and swore to be worthy of their trust in him.

-end-

Note: My alternate title for this fic was "Three Times the Gokai Galleon Crew Had Sex and Three Times They Didn't". I'm just sayin'.