It took the Red Haired pirate crew and their captain at least two weeks before they finally reached the cove island that Shanks had demanded that they set sail for. And many of the crew had noticed in recent days that their captain had become- strangely enough- noticeably anxious as time passed since they had turned their ship around and begun towards their destination.

And yet no matter how anxious Shanks seemed to become, no one could get the damned man to open up a little bit and tell them what was going on.

So when they finally reached their destination and dropped anchor at the end of those long and almost torturous two weeks, several of the crew- along with the first mate, cabin boy and cook- had all gathered to flip a coin to see who would be getting to run down to the captain's quarters and tell him that they were finally at the island.

"I call heads." One man said as he pulled out a silver coin.

"Tails." Two others said.

"Uh...what do we do if one of us calls a side, and wins and has to fight the others?"

"You can run fast right?" One asked.

The lad that had asked the question before, nodded his head slowly. As if he wasn't quite certain how to respond when the older men all grinned at him. Those terrible shit eating grins that often times than not led to him getting himself into all sorts of mischief and trouble.

"G-Guys, I-I'd really rather not have to run really fast." He said as his eyes started to tear up some while his crewmates kept grinning as they finally flipped the coin. Everyone watched it fall with a mixture of anticipation and horror when a familiar hand snatched it out of thin air, crushing the older men and making the cabin boy weep in relief as they each turned their heads to see their half dressed captain standing there glaring at them.

"Location?" Was all that he said to them as he rubbed at his freshly shaven jawline with his free hand.

"Uh, w-we've arrived at the cove that you wanted to come too sir." The first mate said as Shanks finally stopped rubbing his jawline and looked around for a second. In the years that he'd been gone, the cove island that he remembered had changed drastically.

Mostly because the once pristine white sand beach on the shore was littered with makeshift crosses from the dozens of graves littering the area.

Narrowing his eyes at the old looking grave markers, he couldn't help but wonder what had happened. And if his little mite had somehow fallen prey to whatever it was. Could she have been dead and buried all these years?

He found himself feeling more than a little bit distressed and numb at the mere thought of his little mite never having reached adulthood and dying all alone without him there to protect her.

"Everyone, ready the boats. We go ashore as soon as I'm finished dressing. And depending on what I find when we are there, we'll stay between a few days to maybe about a year or so before we set sail again." Shanks said, already planning ahead just in case his wife was either dead or alive.

This way if she was alive and in fairly good health and spirits he could resume wooing her. Whereas if she were dead...he'd need to know what happened and why as well as the names of every party involved so that he could avenge her.

Afterwards he'd likely return to the island and pay her grave a visit and bow his head in shame for not being around to protect her.

Sighing softly at his own morbid thoughts, Shanks turned on his heel and made his way back to his cabin to finish dressing himself. After all, he couldn't very well show up on his wife's doorstep in only his pants, boots and sash- she might think him some sort of creeper and decide to club him upside the head or something.

Sort of like she had on their first date- well he counted it as a first date. In actuality what had happened was that he had stolen into her bedroom late one night on a whim because he'd wanted to see her. She'd awoken to find him standing next to her bed, watching her sleep and had flipped out on him and bashed him right good over the head with a heavy lamp and then screamed half the town awake thinking that she had killed him.

He'd wound up so concussed that he'd seen five of everything for about three days before his vision had finally cleared up. And the whole time he was staggering about town, trying to chase her down and apologize for obviously frightening her, Gol and the rest of the crew had laughed themselves silly.

Pulling on his nicest black shirt, he took his time buttoning it before grabbing his jacket and shrugging it on as he glanced out of his cabin window, out at the sea and muttered, "You better still be alive and in one piece little mite."

(*******************************************************************************************************************************************)

Mya sat on the porch of her late grand-da's home with her hands carefully folded in her lap as she stared blankly ahead. It had been a while since she had lived on the cove island, far away from the mainland. Almost eight years really. She had come back to the island on a whim after the marines had come to the island and killed anyone that they felt was in cahoot's with Gol D. Roger, the former king of the pirates.

Her grand-da had been just one of the villagers dragged from his home in the middle of the night after Gol's last departure and murdered in front of everyone. Another person who had died that night had been the bar keep, another the hotel manager, a few women and some shop venders.

She herself had even been shot in the head and thought dead when she had attacked the man that had killed her grand-da. The only thing that had saved her was one of the commanding officer's that had come along with the marines.

The moment that he'd seen his man shoot her in the head, he'd gunned him down to make an example of him. Stating before one and all- "We kill pirates and those in league with them, not innocent children." After that he'd checked to see if she was still alive and when he had found that she was, began tending to her wound right there on the street as he had shouted for a doctor to step forward and help her.

She'd wound up having to have surgery where the bullet had lodged in her skull. Having several procedures done to empty her skull of excess fluid. And then slipped into a coma for about a year. And when she had woken up to realize that she had nothing left, not even a home in which to return too- she had hated Gol and his crew for the first time in her young life.

In the years since waking up though, that hatred had lessened to practically nothing. And after living on the mainland for so long and working everyday, she had managed to make enough to move back to the island and buy back her grand-da's home and the land that it had set upon.

Though several months back she had been going through her grand-da's stuff and found a letter addressed to her in his writing stating that she needn't worry about taking care of herself. He had been given more than enough money by Gol to put back for her in the local banks to see to it that she never had to work unless she simply wanted too. And after doing some investigating into the contents of the letter, she had found that Gol had left her grand-da a virtual treasure trove of gold, silver, copper, semi precious pieces of jewelry and gems worth a staggering amount of millions per item and had damned near fainted from the shock.

She had known that the man-er pirate- had been incredibly fond of her as a child. But she hadn't realized that he had been so fond of her that he had practically handed over every bit of treasure that he had collected in his fifteen something years of sailing the seas.

Still, as much as she had...appreciated Gol's insight and worry for her future- she hadn't felt right about simply using the money to live in the lap of luxury like most girls her age would have. Nor had she totally blown it.

Instead she had taken some time to go through everything and had pulled out enough to put into having a shop built for her. As well as all of the materials needed to run the place.

Display cases, lights, some nice classy paintings to hang on the walls- some stuff imported semi expensive goods from the mainland, and some materials for her to design and make her own brand of jewelry and stuff and after about four months straight of constant daily work- she had finally gotten enough unique materials done to sell.

And since opening day, her sales had quadrupled what Gol had left behind for her. The best part of the whole thing happening, had of course been the fact that she had been able to make her high class items affordable for everyone no matter how much or how little money they made.

She even had monthly sales where little kids could come into her shop with jars of pennies and pick something nice out for their moms, sisters, brothers and dads- some have even bought a few items during the sales that went straight to their boyfriends/girlfriends.

It was sweet really, and as long as she kept making such high class items- she didn't have to worry about going bankrupt. And even if she did, she would still have more than enough to live on in her lifetime. So that was something.

Sighing because she felt tired of simply staring blankly ahead- and she hadn't managed to get any work done today, she decided that maybe she could go into town in a little bit and have a drink or two at the bar.

For some reason that she never really understood, going out and having a drink at the bar always helped her come up with new and interesting ideas for her work. Getting up she grabbed her ink pen and her small sketch pad and then started down the steps of her home towards the town.

She had a strange feeling that something really exciting was going to happen soon. She didn't know what.

(******************************************************************************************************************************************************)

The moment that Shank's boat was dragged up on the shore of the beach- he was out of the small wooden boat and slashing over to one line of makeshift crosses. He had seen something that he needed to confirm. It was a name.

Avery Rollin's. He came to an abrupt stop before the marker with the name on it and felt as if his heart would stop beating within his chest.

The last time that he had seen the fifty-sixty something year old man, had been on his wedding day. With Gol as a co-conspirator the thing had been huge.

Shanks even recalled it taking place on his wife's favorite time in the spring. Since everyone knew that if it had been left up to him- he would have been wedded on some dreary day with absolutely no sunlight whatsoever and a lot of rain- just to irritate his wife.

He recalled that Gol and Avery had made sure that he had a nice suit, and that his wife had a pretty white dress that could have doubled as an actual wedding gown.

The church had been fixed up outside as well as inside, and the fellowship hall had several different buffets laid out. They had even had a cake!

It had been a two layer white buttercream icing one, complete with lots of icing lilies and little other things and on top of it was a small, handmade figurine of himself and his little wife.

Everything had been fantastic. Avery had stood with him up in front of the alter with Gol as his ring bearer that day. He had even called him son several times.

Staring down at the cross, he felt an nearly overwhelming feeling of grief as he opened his mouth to say something, but then thought better of it for a moment before simply saying, "I'm sorry my friend, that I wasn't here before. But a deal is a deal and she's twenty now. So I'll be claiming my bride. And...you don't have to worry none- Gol made sure that I turned out well. You just rest up, you deserve the peace." Blinking the sudden wetness from his eyes, he turned and began to walk away- seeing his crew hadn't already hightailed it into town just yet, Shanks almost smiled in amusement.

Damn him, but his boys must be near dying from curiosity. Well too bad he didn't really feel like sharing anything about his wife yet. Though he had no problem mentioning Avery if it would help him learn of what happened to the man.

As a general rule, people weren't usually buried on a beach unless they were sailors. And typically most of the sailors he knew tended to have sea burials more than land ones.

No- when so many bodies were clumped together like that- it usually meant that they were criminals of some sort. But the Avery that he'd known had been a former school teacher. So unless he'd had a bounty on his head for teaching children how to spell and count things- then something bad must have happened.

Really, really bad.

Seeing him return to the group his first mate gave him a questioning look as he gave everyone a smile that didn't quite reach his eyes and said, "Sorry mates, I was paying my respects to one of my family. Now before I hand out your part of the booty we've accumulated this trip- I'd like you lads to ask questions around town while your out doing the usual. I want to know what happened to Pap Avery. Understand?"

Everyone damn near pissed themselves as they all nodded and he took his time handing each of them a pouch of gold, silver and copper coin to use as they pleased. That took the better half of thirty minutes, in and of itself before he was finished and quickly dismissed the lot who in turn began to run up the old dirt path leading from the beach towards the town as he slowly shook his head at their antics.

It was like unleashing children in a candy store.

That poor town didn't know what was in store for it. He thought in some wry amusement as he walked at a more sedate pace than a majority of his crew up the old dirt path and started towards the town feeling a sudden yen to drink some ale in Avery's memory before he went off to find his wife.

God knew that he would need the extra boost of courage after leaving her alone to face the world without her dear grand-da. Especially since he was fairly certain that she may not forgive him anytime soon.