Warning: copious amounts of swearing. And more tugging of the heartstrings.

Part 2

The soft beeping of machinery intruded on the dark cloud swirling around Ace's mind and he glanced up, finally taking in the surroundings he had automatically brought himself into while still dazed from the fact that he had died.

He'd ended up on a vacant chair, elbows on his knees and face in his hands. Now that he was looking around, he realized it was some kind of hospital room. He skipped over the gleaming metal surfaces, his mind slowly piecing itself together as he recalled the events of the past few hours.

The memories brought his headache back but thankfully it was a mere shadow of what it had been.

That was good. He needed to be able to think straight now.

His eyes finally landed on the prone figure lying on the bed before him and Ace's hands tightened into fists, igniting almost automatically.

"Luffy . . ."

Luffy, the kid who had taken more punishment than Ace would've thought possible, who always came out on top with a grin on his face, who was so persistent and animated that not even the World Government had been able to slow him down, now lay still, his skin pale and his mouth and nose covered by a mask. Tubes snaked over and beneath the gray sheet that covered him up to his shoulders while machines recorded his heartbeat and breathing with soft beeps.

Ace cursed aloud for a solid minute, indulging in some of the phrases that he'd learned from his time with Whitebeard (and some he'd picked up on his travels), and then swore to himself then and there that if he were ever able to get his hands on the marines or the World Government or anyone that stood in Luffy's path to become King of the Pirates again, he would gut them and burn them alive. No one did this to his family, his brother. No one.

And then the reminder from that too-damned-practical portion of his mind forced Ace to recognize that he was dead and couldn't do anything to help his on-the-verge-of-death brother, the one he had protected time and time again and grown so close to that Luffy was everything to Ace because he cared and he was dying and Ace couldn't do a thrice-damned thing about it because he was fucking dead! The sheer frustration made Ace want to punch something, and he was so tempted to do just that, but he was in someone else's room and some of that machinery was probably helping to keep Luffy alive. Ace didn't want to accidentally break something, because he wouldn't put it past the universe to let him move something just once in the exact right time to have Ace fuck everything up again.

So the boy stayed in his chair, repeatedly running his hands through his hair in an attempt to ease his frustration.

After a few minutes of staring at his unconscious brother—beep, beep, beep—Ace's mind registered that there was something on his neck. Two things, in fact. And a familiar weight on his leg. Glancing down in disbelief, Ace saw his knife, lost during his escort to Impel Down, and his worn-but-still-awesome orange hat held in place on his back by the cord around his neck.

Even his necklace looked just fine, not even a speck of blood on the red beads.

Checking his back in a particularly shiny surface, Ace found that his tattoo looked as fresh as it ever had. There was no evidence of Akainu's magma-fueled punch at all, though the memory made that area of his chest itch uncomfortably.

The ridiculousness of the situation—Luffy alive but looking like death itself while Ace was dead and looked as healthy as ever—finally hit Ace and pulled his lips into a smirk devoid of real humor or amusement. The expression was hauntingly empty.

The machines kept beeping.

Deciding that sitting and doing nothing but drowning in the new ocean of frustration he'd made was pointless, Ace stood and began examining the room more closely, searching for any hints as to who the hell had bothered to rescue and heal his brother. Because, Ace knew, as charming as Luffy somehow managed to be, he was still a pirate with an impressive bounty on his head. Anyone would turn him in given the chance if they didn't kill him first.

To his annoyance, Ace found that he couldn't open the door. He couldn't float through it either, a fact he discovered after two embarrassing attempts to get through the metal obstacle.

Ace decided that being a ghost that couldn't do anything sucked. Like, really sucked. Thinking of it so lightheartedly was the only thing stopping him from letting loose with his fire, which was making his stomach twist uncomfortably and his body feel too warm for comfort.

Or were his emotions doing that?

After sending the door one last glare, Ace walked back over to Luffy and, once the haze of protective rage that momentarily clouded his vision cleared, checked over his brother's treatment. Well, whatever bit of it he could see.

Luffy's breathing was worryingly faint, his chest barely moving at all, but he was alive, which was good enough for Ace. The smaller wounds were bandaged and Ace would wager that they had all been cleaned as well. The medical equipment surrounding Luffy in the room was incredibly high-tech, so whoever owned the place probably knew what he was doing. Or she, Ace amended mentally. He didn't have the faintest clue of who could have done this.

At least Luffy seemed to be in good hands, which eased some of the anxiety twisting Ace's gut (so it was his emotions after all, not his powers).

Then Ace began thinking about how he was still capable of using his fire powers. To make sure, he turned his arm into fire and then, just for the hell of it, he transformed the rest of his body as well. He burned there for a minute, a raging inferno of energy and power that would normally melt anything too close, but when Ace returned his body to normal he found that the room was unchanged, completely unaffected and almost mocking him with its cleanliness. The observation was unsettling; Ace was a guy used to seeing the effects of his power. He wasn't overconfident; he was practical. There should have been evidence of a fire burning, even if it was just slight melting or heating of surfaces.

Ace put one hand to the floor. Nope; it was still perfectly cool to the touch. Even as Ace super heated his hand, the floor remained unchanged.

"I guess physics is out the window," Ace muttered, glancing around in hopes that something had changed. There was a feeling in the air, something that was almost oppressive but not quite, almost as though it was being held off, pushed away.

Frowning, Ace walked over to one wall and lay a hand against the burnished surface. He instantly recoiled.

There was sea on the other side of that wall. Ace couldn't say exactly how he knew, but the knowledge sprang from deep in his core, entrenched in the same place as the origin of his flame abilities. He tried to recall where he'd felt something similar before and instantly curled one hand into a fist. Were they in Impel Down?

Ace felt an immediate revulsion surge in his gut but he pushed it down, a fierce scowl decorating his face as he loosened his fist, crossed his arms, and examined the situation again.

Luffy was alive. That was the most important fact.

Luffy was also being treated and healed. That was the second most important fact; no one in Impel Down would go to such lengths for the ministrations of a dying, infamous kid pirate.

The room was filled with expensive-looking equipment Ace had never seen before, and it all looked perfectly clean. Whoever owned or worked in this place had resources and extensive medical knowledge and skill.

The room was underwater. Ace had no idea what to make of that. Who built a room randomly underwater, much less in the sea?

Ace's ruminations were interrupted as a warm fuzziness filled his brain and his eyes slid shut of their own volition.

An indiscriminate amount of time later, Ace woke up, blinking and stumbling for a moment while his senses readjusted.

"Damn, I fell asleep," he muttered groggily, rubbing his face. Falling asleep while standing wasn't the worst way to do it, but Ace could remember more than one occasion where he'd fallen flat on his face while unconscious and still hadn't woken up. At least he hadn't been eating; that was always awkward to explain, and cleaning the food off had been a pain no matter what it was. Pancakes and syrup . . . the mere memory made Ace shudder and dismiss it. Marco had never let him hear the end of that fiasco.

Ace cast his mind back and quickly recalled what he had been in the middle of thinking about. An idea striking him, Ace quickly walked around the room—carefully avoiding bumping the medical equipment all the while—and checked out each of the walls, eventually coming to the conclusion that there were other rooms by the one he was in. So it wasn't just one room underwater; there were several.

At least the atmosphere wasn't as suffocating as Impel Down's, though with his brother lying prone and half-dead on the table Ace was partial towards being chained in that hellhole's basement.

Of course, that had been what led to this shitstorm in the first place, so Ace really didn't know what to think.

The entire situation had him confused and he hoped that something would happen so he could figure out just what the hell was going on.

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