Chapter 2 (Yup. Still mildly AU. Back-story's different (really, REALLY different, so any purists out there should leave now.) and I've added a character or two. I gave Ace a pet cat. You know why? CUZ CATS ARE SASSY! And because Ace seems like more of a cat person than a dog person. There's swearing. You have been warned. Oh, also, I've added some stuff to the Moby Dick that probably isn't there, and I've done some different things with Ace's fighting style.)

Ace banged his fist against the wall. Again. He was currently inside his self-made room, a fairly small space with a bed, a writing desk covered in all manner of papers, a medium sized window with several odd-looking plants growing on the sill in pots, and the black, green-eyed cat currently glaring at him from the bed. The room had no apparent door. Ace had found it in the time before he had joined the Whitebeard Pirates. He had been thrown against a wall during one of his innumerable fights with Whitebeard and the wall had felt somewhat hollow. Later that day he had pulled a section of it off to reveal the chamber beneath. After installing a hidden door that blended with the wall and bringing some simple furniture inside, he'd had his own private room. No one else knew where it was or how to get in, so it made for a nice place to go to be alone, or to work. Or to cool off after running into a man you'd believed to be dead for almost ten years now. Ace grit his teeth and banged his head against the wall.

"You're going to lose what pitifully few brain cells you have doing that." The cat said idly from her position on the bed. Ace glared at it. The cat met his eyes evenly.

"Serpent…you suck at cheering me up. You know that?" Ace rubbed at the area above his right eyebrow tiredly. He could already feel the headache coming on.

"Oh boo-hoo poor baby, your friends got mad at you because you tried to kill another of their friends for no apparent reason!" Ace pressed his back against the wall and slid to the floor, still rubbing his head, and gave no response.

Serpent sighed and hopped down from the bed. "You honestly expected them to just stand by while you killed someone they considered their ally without giving them any kind of explanation?" She padded quietly over to Ace, and stuck out one forepaw to rest on his left boot, pressing against it comfortingly. "You need to take a break, Ace. You've already got too much on your plate for one day. Give it all time to settle, and then start working it out tomorrow."

Ace chuckled drily. "Careful, Serpent, you're being almost nice." Upon hearing this, Serpent sniffed, sunk her claws deep enough into the boot to prick Ace's foot, and stalked off to her usual perch on the windowsill.

"Water this plant. It smells almost as bad as you do." She stared out the window, never once looking over her shoulder at Ace. He laughed and shook his head, standing up and watering the plant.

Ace sighed. Dinner had been…interesting. Different than he'd expected. He would have expected news of his little outbreak to spread like wildfire, but no. Everyone acted normally. It had been downright pleasant. It helped to take his mind off the stresses of the day, and relax into the evening. After dinner, he had gone outside and read on deck with a couple other crewmates nearby. Once it had gotten too dark to read, he had returned to his room, bidding the others good night.

Now, hours later, he sat back in his room, going through the assortment of papers on his desk. The desk was illuminated by a candle, and the only sounds in the room were the scratching of Ace's pen and Serpent's quiet breathing from where she slept at the foot of the bed. Ace yawned and rubbed his eyes. Serpent raised her head from her position on the bed.

"Sleep is necessary. You may get more in during the day than anyone else, but the sane ones in the room would appreciate it if you turned off the damn light and stopped making that terrible scratching sound." Serpent drawled sleepily. Ace yawned again.

"Go. To. Sleep. That endless stack of paper will still be there in the morning. Just shut up and admit you're tired and want to sleep." Serpent was now glaring at him through one barely opened eye. Ace sighed.

"Alright. I will. Scoot your cat butt over and let me get into my own bed, if you please." Ace stood up, bending over again to blow out the candle on the desk. The curtains on the window were open, so as soon as the candle was extinguished pale moonlight seemed into the room. At this, Serpent stood up, seemed to smirk, and moved to sit on Ace's pillow instead.

Ace growled dangerously at the cat. "Serpent…don't make me throw you out the window. I know how much you love water." Serpent opened her eyes again to look at Ace.

"Bite me. You wouldn't throw me out that window. You couldn't get me back yourself if you did, so you'd have to get someone else to come after me, and everyone else is asleep." And with that, closed her eyes and went back to sleep. She was curled into a perfect ball, with just her little front paws sticking out and her tail tucked under her chin. Damn cat being cute. Ace thought. But she really was adorable like this. He didn't have the heart to move her. So he climbed in to bed and rested his head on his arm, using it as a pillow instead.

Several minutes of silence passed, and when Serpent did move, Ace was already deeply asleep. Serpent walked to the door and butted her head against the device that would release the catch on the smaller door Ace had built into the wall for her. The mechanism released silently. If there's one thing Ace's good for, Serpent thought to herself, it's coming up with clever ideas. She padded through the door and it shut again behind her, blending in perfectly with the rest of the wall. Serpent made her way through the ship, heading towards one room in particular. If there was one man who was going to be awake after even Ace had gone to sleep, it was going to be him.

When Serpent arrived at the door to Marco's room, it was slightly ajar with gentle light pouring out into the hallway. She slipped into the room silently, weaving around furniture, and jumped up onto Marco's desk, where he was currently seated. He was working on paperwork, and apparently deep into it. Serpent sat on the desk for a few moments, finally got bored waiting for acknowledgment and just said "Hello, Marco!" In a bright, overly-happy voice. Marco jumped about a foot in the air, as he hadn't noticed her until she spoke.

Serpent laughed, and once Marco regained his composure, he turned to look at her with nothing but annoyance on his face. "Dammit Serpent, don't scare me like that! I could have accidentally lit all of this on fire, and then had to spend the next 6 hours redoing it all!" He was gesturing wildly at the papers on the desk. He sat back down in the chair, sighing tiredly. "What do you want, anyway? We both know you're usually asleep at this hour too."

Serpent's mirth faded, and she turned to look at Marco seriously. "I want to talk to you about Ace." She said the words calmly, but the lack of any kind of insult showed Marco just how serious she was. He turned to look at her fully.

"Are you referring to the incident where he almost stabbed out a man's eye this afternoon?" Marco said it drily, but he was interested in what Serpent had to say. It was very rare that she took anyone seriously or had an important discussion with anyone besides Ace. Despite her near-constant teasing, she did respect Ace's opinion, and though she'd never admit it out loud, cared for him deeply.

Serpent sighed. "He's not handling this one too well."

"Yeah, I kind of gathered that from the rage-fit of the century and the way he spoke to Oyaji."

Serpent winced at that. "He feels really bad about that, by the way. Was beating himself up over it most of the afternoon." Her eyes left Marco to instead stare out the window at the nearly still sea. Her eyes were distant, almost unfocused. "He's angry, yes, but that's not all."

"Oh? And how do you know? Can you read minds now?"

"Bitch, please. I'm a cat. I know everything." Her attention had returned to Marco at this, and now she was almost glaring at him. They had a stare down for a moment, but then Serpent's eyes closed. Marco was damn near shocked. Serpent never backed down from any kind of challenge, and yet she had basically just submitted to him. When she spoke, it was quietly, her voice taking on a gentleness Marco had never heard in her before.

"He's angry, yes. He wants to kill Hare with every fiber of his being." Her eyes reopened and focused solely on Marco, looking him right in the eye. "But that isn't all. He's scared, Marco. Really, really scared."

End Chapter 2(?)