This is the sequel to It Won't Die, but that one was so clearly structured like a one-shot that I figured I'd write the continuation as a separate story. (This one will have multiple chapters, no idea how many yet though.) Read the one-shot first if you want, but it shouldn't be necessary.
As with every time Crocodile felt another chapter of his life come to a close, this too started with him unable to stand the sight of old familiar faces. Whitebeard's had become unbearable long ago, really, but as Crocodile now lay nearly unconscious bearing the man's wounds, the only lucid thought in his mind was telling him this was truly the end of something he would never regain nor recover from. He wasn't the only one hurt, of course, and he could feel his crew seethe at him all the way from the remains of their deck.
His pack of jackals that had run with him right down to this point, past the death of their original captain and the stain of their shared origins, was finally done with him. With this, they were all done with one another and the weight they couldn't shake off in one another's company. Whitebeard had brought to an end what the end of their childhood in the shadow of war couldn't, what famine and decay and knowing they would always remain trash under the hollow shell of their ill-gotten gains couldn't. They were done for. It was the way it had to be.
Marines!
The room was in constant whirling motion even in the darkness, even with the damp cloth covering his eyes. Crocodile gingerly touched his right arm to the wall to gain some sense of stability. The blunt, spiteful throb of the bruises being disturbed at least cleared his rattled brain enough for him to concentrate on the voices outside.
"Damn it to hell. We can't win like this."
Of course they couldn't. Too wounded to fight, and apparently even too wounded to run away. It wasn't exactly a source of distress to Crocodile that they would have to go down with him. He weakly dragged his fingers across the wall, trying to summon the strength to bring it down.
"Get ready! Stand up! Get ready!"
He had a feeling this was the last chance in a long time he would be able to use his power.
"No, wait, is that..."
There was sand between his teeth, on his breath. There was a split second of clarity during which he still wasn't sure if his body was readying itself for another battle or disintegrating. And there was a blessed darkness that washed over his disoriented mind like mercy.
"...been causing us a lot of trouble, that captain of yours..."
Voices muffled, pain dulled. His hand felt like something distant and foreign brushing across his face.
"...small fry like you, why fight for the likes of him when you could..."
He could no more make sense of the garish rays of light coming through the holes in the wall than he could of the dark under the cloth. His skin felt dry when he should have been covered in cold sweat.
"I'm sure we can come to an understanding. Smart, sensible people like you, eh?"
He didn't hear the rest of the proposal and didn't have to. He pulled his left arm under himself and pushed his body up even as his mind was drowning.
They were in at last, with nobody stopping them. Unlike Crocodile, they were rested and had no trouble seeing in the shadowed room. No trouble stopping what they thought was the captain's attempt at lashing out at them with what little he had left. As they pinned Crocodile to the floor with seastone hard enough that he vomited sand and the remaining dregs of his consciousness on the cracked boards, his last thought was not of his dignity but of the devil whose power he had taken into his flesh and who would now be sealed away. He had found the fruit long, long ago; it had tasted repulsive, but in his hunger he had even devoured the thick stem and licked the foul juice off his fingers when he was done. The power he had been awarded with for this selfish deed had been with him even when nothing else remained. He couldn't protect that which had protected him for so many years.
And as the marines took him away, his pirate crew of just as many years quietly retired in comfort with means they had agreed not to disclose to anyone; the sea was vast and tumultuous, and easier though it was for lesser crewmembers to fall off the radar, even the pirate captain Crocodile disappeared from the world with few questions asked and fewer answered.