Notes: Beginning right after Roger finds One Piece. I got asked on Tumblr about Rouge headcanons, and then this happened.
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amphitrite
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It begins with a girl in a harbor, because it always begins with a girl in a harbor.
It begins like this: her aim is sure and steady, her haki blows him clear through three buildings. Rayleigh picks up Shanks and Buggy under both arms and narrowly avoids certain death. Crocus ends up heavily concussed.
She struts forward, rubble smoking around her.
Captain Rouge, she says, her smile thrice as deadly as the cutlass she holds to his throat. But you may call me Captain.
Rouge kicks Gold Roger's ass, as it happens.
Roger, as it happens, is smitten to terrible, seething, Woman, I Am the Greatest Pirate of this Century, Perhaps All Centuries, Please Give Me the Honor of Being Mr. Captain Rouge pieces.
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Finding Rouge is the next hardest thing, after One Piece. She flies with the ocean breeze from one island to the next, and he imagines he can hear her distant laughter carried by the waves. For the first time in his life, Roger curses the all-encompassing vastness of the sea.
Rayleigh buries his face in his hands when the Oro Jackson diverts course, once again. Mate, he advises, marry her or walk the plank.
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Their second meeting ends in two destroyed villages, several acres of ruined sequoia forests, and a battle against Garp's marine fleet. Roger tries to casually slip in that he is busy, this fight is kind of interrupting the mood, could you please go somewhere else for a while, and then Rouge mistakes Roger's head for a speeding cannon and punches him across Garp the Hero's battleship.
(Shanks does not take this well. Shanks is pretty sure he has to avenge his captain's pride.)
Their third meeting can be summed up in this manner: she kicks his ass again, then kisses his cabin boy on the cheek for being 'such a witty lad'.
(Shanks avoids Roger for a week.)
On their fourth meeting, she falls in love with his ship. She hangs from the mast like a monkey and ties ropes into butterflies into sharks into swords, and gifts them to Buggy and Shanks, who are equal parts terrified and delighted. Roger tells Rayleigh to remind him to send a thank-you letter to Tom.
(A reply comes back, weeks later: WOO HER WITH A DON, ROGER!)
A while after that, Whitebeard's phoenix boy delivers Roger a barrel of Fishman Island's finest wine, and informs him that Captain Rouge just spent the week partying with them. The lady can really hold her ale, Whitebeard spent the whole time insisting she join his crew, and anyway, he can probably still catch up if he chases the western winds at the fastest speed.
(Give your old man my reply, the Pirate King says, and firmly chucks Marco off his ship.)
The fifth time they meet, it is Rouge who walks up to him, and Rouge who tells him, you should have just asked for my number.
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Their love was not a slow, whole thing. Rouge and Roger's relationship spanned just a year and ninety-seven days. She never joined his crew and he never joined hers; they met whenever the ocean chose to guide their sails together.
Though, in truth, they were never apart for long.
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The Oro Jackson is anchored on the horizon. He is back from the ocean and he tastes like saltwater and algae. It's the safest way she will ever get to drowning.
My jolly roger, she croons.
My captain, he hums.
Perhaps this is why she loves him, and why he loves her. Perhaps here, laid out on the beach with the tide coming in, they could be washed out to the ocean, together, dissolving into seafoam and wind and sunlight.
Rouge asks if he likes the name Ace.
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Listen.
Gold Roger is the greatest pirate of the century, man just about mythologized, but he is Portgas D. Rouge's loverboy, first and foremost.
(Sometimes with unofficial appearances by Rayleigh, which will remain unofficial because Rouge, Roger, and Rayleigh is an alliterative storm the world is yet prepared for.)
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It ends with Shanks, banging on her door at midnight. He is crying and she can barely understand him. What's left of the crew has prepared a boat. It'll take her to the next island over where she can hop on a bigger ship. Sail to someplace safe. Another ocean. We can't ever see you again. He made a deal so they can't harm us, but they're watching. The baby. They can't know about the baby.
Captain Rouge vanishes the day Gold Roger is cuffed and walking into Impel Down, Level Six.
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Baterilla is far enough from the Grand Line and Marine Headquarters, and safe enough to live in peace and quiet. It's utterly boring.
Garp finds her a month later, thank god.
She likes him. She likes making casual conversation with him, such as, 'How's that son of yours doing? The one that's destabilizing countries, overthrowing dictatorships, and aims to take down the World Government?' She likes seeing his face purple into an eggplant.
But he is loud and boisterous, which makes him good company on an island full of boring peace and boring warm weather and boring hibiscus flowers. He rubs her ankles and helps her throw up and anxiously listens behind the door when the doctor visits. He even listens when she talks about being a single mom, how she regrets she'll have so little to give when her child is born. Garp never speaks about his son's mother. She doesn't ask.
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Rouge weaves seaweed and shells in her hair, covers her bare feet with sand for modesty and walks through town, scoops up the tide and presses it to her mouth. What a hateful thing, to jail a pirate five hundred feet of concrete from the ocean. She imagines seeing the Oro Jackson's sails on the horizon, Roger leaping from the deck, spinning her dizzy.
She drifts on the sea, arms spread, water brimming in her ears.
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No one is with her the day Roger's execution is broadcasted.
Shakky calls later, tells her Rayleigh hasn't been sober since. He thinks he can find Roger at the bottom of a liquor bottle. Shanks and Buggy have left. Crocus is living inside a whale. The World Government is arresting Tom. The crew is gone. Everything is gone.
Rouge hugs her belly. Not everything, she swears, and she sets her teeth, curls her hands that have destroyed whole fleets into fists, and she prepares for the worst, for the long, inevitable fight that she swears, she swears, she is going to win.
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The Marines are coming for the baby.
Captain Rouge takes a deep, deep breath.
She doesn't exhale for another two years.
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The story of Rouge and Roger has evolved into legends that vary as wildly as the colors of the sea. As such, it's impossible to piece together the whole truth.
But all the legends agree on one detail: they never were apart for long.
fin