Authors Voice: Urg… You know, when I promised myself I'd update at LEAST once every other month because I know how hectic my life is and how lazy I am? I didn't… expect to push this off to the very last thing I'd do. To everyone who has stayed with me for this story… I thank you. Truly, it means a lot to me. Sorry if this seems rushed. I'm working on updating ALL of my stories and getting my one-shots out of the way so I can free up some of my spare writing (typing) time.

Day 4) Day-dreaming

Morning was chaos.

Everything would have been fine and all, Marco was positive, if Thatch had kept his damned mouth shut. Now, instead of having a happy Ace and Stefan, there was one highly confused Stefan and a very cranky Ace that was out for blood. More particularly; Thatch's blood.

Waking up had been pleasant enough; Ace had apologized for how he ended up stretching his neck across to touch both Stefan and Marco and Marco had simply told the young boy that he understood. It was hard to go from the caring older brother to being one of the youngest. This comment got Ace slightly defensive, saying that he hadn't taken up 'the old mans' mark and that he wasn't even considering becoming a Whitebeard Pirate, but other than that there was nothing going wrong. Stefan then decided since both Marco and Ace were up that it would be the perfect time to roll over onto his back (pinning both Marco and Ace's legs in the process) and demand belly rubs.

Then Thatch had to walk by and comment on how the two had spent the entire night together outside and curled up. Ace had become bright as a tomato and instead of saying anything; he had very quickly moved Stefan off of himself (which was a feat that Marco and Thatch were still trying to figure out) and bolted off into a random direction on the ship.

When Thatch had commented on why Ace wasn't in the Galley for breakfast, Marco and Namur had taken it upon themselves to find their (hopefully) newest brother and ease the worry that Thatch had, but when they found no sign of Ace, they sort of began to panic too.

Even now, a few hours later, Ace still couldn't be found. Thankfully the Striker was still attached to Moby, so Marco didn't worry too much.

"You know, when I made that comment… I didn't mean it to be so bad…" Thatch moped as he, Marco, Namur, Izo and Whitebeard were all on deck and sitting around the giant.

"You should have realized that Ace is sensitive to some things, yoi." Marco sighed as he rubbed the spot just behind his eyes. He could feel the migraine that was creeping up every so slowly.

"But how was I supposed to know that he was going to find someplace to hide and not been seen or heard from again?!" Thatch threw his hands into the air after getting a stern look from Izo and a curious glance from Namur. Whitebeard was mostly trying to stop himself from laughing at the antics of his children and soon-to-be-child.

"What did you do, you oaf?" Izo all but hissed with narrowed eyes. If Thatch somehow managed to make Ace draw back from being open to the crew… Izo would raise hell to make Thatch suffer. Izo and Haurta had managed to make Ace more open by pulling the prank option, and if Thatch ruined it with his humor that was more often than not meant in good intentions, then Izo would be far too pissed to care that he was going to be maiming both his brother and his boyfriend.

"He commented on how me, Ace and Stefan were all curled up last night, yoi." Marco yawned as he glanced at Whitebeard and noticed how the man's chest was raising and lowering much faster than normal. It would have been a cause for concern if Marco hadn't also noticed the slight grin on the man's face that told of finding something much more humorous.

… Did he know where Ace had wondered off to and was taking this whole scenario in stride to get a few laughs? Marco shook his head with a fond smile plastered on his lips. Leave it to 'Pops' to find the humor in a situation that shouldn't be so funny. It also meant that the man also most likely had a hand in helping Ace 'disappear'. Whitebeard gave Marco a look that said 'we'll talk about this later' and Marco tried his best to not let on that the one person who just about knew where all of his children were also knew about Ace.

… It also served as a reminder to Marco that he shouldn't have panicked and instead asked the man. Brats indeed.

When Marco turned his attention back to his siblings, he got to watch as Izo lunged as Thatch with a war cry, making a few of the other crew members who didn't know about what had just been talked about stop and stare.

It was kind of funny, Marco decided with a grin. Thatch and Izo were typically so inseparable, and then Ace got thrown into the mix and Izo took on the role of doting brother who would spoil the life out of the man if Ace would let him.

"Brats," Whitebeard spoke up once he managed to stop his internal laughter, "Why don't we see who can find Ace before dinner?" This caused Izo to stop trying to strangle Thatch long enough that the man could scramble away from his boyfriend and hide behind Whitebeard.

"What do you mean?" Izo asked with an elegantly raised brow.

"What he means," Marco broke in with a grin, "is that he knows were Ace is and wants to see if we can find him too. Are there are limits?"

"No using your powers. Ace got where he is without using his." Whitebeard chuckled and watched fondly as each of his children took on a determined look and began to search for their missing member.

-Skippy-

By the time Dinner rolled around, Thatch was in near hysterics. He knew all too well just how much food Ace ate on a normal basis and the fact that no had found Ace was only feeding into his paranoia. Ace ate like he was a starved wolf- one that would die if he wasn't consistently eating to sedate the black hole that was his stomach.

"Calm down you dolt!" Izo huffed, smacking the man upside the head. "If he's hungry he'll come this way."

"But what if doesn't remember!" Thatch wailed as he fell to the ground, "What if he doesn't want to come here because I'm here? What if I said something that caused him to hate me?"

"While Ace does seem the kind to hold onto his feelings, I don't think you angered him." Izo frowned, not sure if the man before him was playing of his little games or if he was actually worried about Ace hating him. "I get the feeling that Ace is the type of person who isn't afraid to make their anger known. If he didn't try to attack you, then he most likely doesn't hate you."

"But-" "Not buts, Thatch. Get cooking. You've got an entire ship to feed, you know." Izo was almost tempted to laugh at Thatch's grumbled misery of 'yeah, yeah'; except he had been put on cooking duty once and could safely say that cooking duty on the Moby Dick was pure hell. The main chefs were always grouching something or another about the ingredients and how people were always not eating everything they had on their plates.

It kind of made Izo wonder if Thatch was the only chef who knew how to smile and have fun. That being said, his sense of humor needed a little readjusting and the sense of time needed to be cleaned out.

After being shoved from the kitchen where Thatch was, Izo looked around the Galley in hopes of spotting Marco or Namur, but found the place empty of either man. Frowning, Izo made his way over to Whitebeard, who had been moved from the mid-day sun to the inside as per the nurses' orders. However, the closer the man came to Whitebeard, the more Izo felt the need to not interrupt the man he called father. He was retelling a story from when he was much younger and was doing so which such glee in his eyes that Izo would have forever felt bad if he interrupted.

Which meant the search for any of the three missing people was going to be done without any sort of lead. This meant he'd have to recruit Haurta under the promise of giving the woman a dress-up day complete with makeup once they reached the next island. That meant he'd have to set aside some Beri in-order to have enough to cover the young woman's blunders in the art of make-up.

Only, a search provided him with nothing. Haurta wasn't in any of her normal places (two of which were extremely dangerous to be in, and Izo had to wonder just how she had managed to not only walk along the yard* but not fall off in the process) and no one had shouted 'Damnit Haurta' yet at the top of their lungs, so that meant she wasn't off pulling one of her typical pranks.

Upon spotting Vista, the one person who Izo knew would know where the young woman was, he called out and asked his question, getting a rather confusing answer in return. Why would Haurta be down in the boiler room that was hardly ever used?

"I'm not sure," Vista admitted with a shrug as he continued to glare at this one spot on his sword that wouldn't come out, "she had this certain aura about her and I didn't want to be dragged into whatever scheme she's pulling. I think she might still be there." With that, Vista went back to cleaning his swords with quiet grumbles of how annoying this one spot was.

Shaking his head, Izo made his way to the boiler room and once inside, was greeted with the sight of Marco, Namur, Haurta and Ace all playing cards while sitting on one of the often unused engines.

"Izo!" Haurta called out when she spotted the kimono-clad man, "want to play? We just started war!"

"Ace, have you been here this entire time?" Izo asked, ignoring the young girl in favor of trying to ease his worry. If Ace had been here this entire time that meant he had not only skipped breakfast but Lunch too.

"Ah… I was in thought." Ace rubbed the back of his head, "I'm fine, however. Marco made sure to bring me a snack when he found me here. Want to play war? We just started." It wasn't lost on Izo that Ace's voice held some reserve that spelled unease, but instead of questioning it or why Ace was in such thought, Izo simply nodded his head and made Namur move over a little so the he could sit on the engine (while trying to ignore the fact that the grunge on said engine was most likely to stain his almost priceless kimono permanently).

"Hand me a deck and I'll play."

-Skippy-

When the bells rang for Dinner, Izo was adamant about making Ace leave the boiler room and eat under the guise of having been worried endlessly about the man because he hadn't shown his face. Izo wasn't about to tell Ace that he wanted to see the look of pure horror that would be on Thatch's face at Ace's explanation of 'I was in thought'.

The laughter the entire Galley went into at the explanation was loud enough to almost deafen everyone, but it was lovely to hear Whitebeard's uncontrolled laughter that actually shook the ship alongside Ace's free-flowing laugh. Izo was a bit drawn into listening to that lovely laugh of Ace's that he missed the knowing smirk on Marco's face.

- END -

Okay so… The yard… I call it a spar, but all of the historical sea museums I've been too that had diagrams of pirate ships have labeled them the sail yards and my knowledge of ship riggings isn't that good. It's been a few years since I've taken sailing classes and I've only ever been on a Sunfish (think one-person, smaller catboat) and that's not exactly 'good' enough to say I know what the heck I'm talking about…