So I made a mistake. In chapter 5(?) where the mystery people are talking to dragon I said blonde hair with purple tips. It's not blonde, it's brown. All the girls have brown hair and green eyes and if I ever say otherwise again someone yell at me. The only exception is Teddy dyed her hair blonde but it's coming out at the roots.

Gerbilfriend ; I figure I'd used cliff hangers enough for a little while, yeah?

Avisian:I'm just glad to hear anything at all! Thank you! Well, he has red hair and a blade sooooo. Poor Dragon. Parent Teacher conference is actually pretty close. More like a PTA?

16: tbh Teddy is my fav to write! I really love reviews, I've noticed though that the stories I put the most effort into get the least and it really confuses me?

The Keeper of Worlds: Who's to say?

Teddy wasn't too proud to admit that she was a pretty bad student. She didn't do the whole essay thing, she hated papers and loathed being told she was doing math wrong when she got the answer right anyways. She never did care about the pressure they tried to put on students to get a good college. She hated high school enough, why would she pay thousands of dollars to go somewhere worse?

The only thing that she had ever liked was her BMZ class. Botany, Microbiology and Zoology was about the most fun she's ever had. They got to grow their own plants and eat whatever came out, once a week someone would stick their hand in the salamander tank to see if it would bite them and at the end of the year they got to dissect a dogfish.

Anatomy, the ones detailed in Law's medical books, was about the same.

She friggin loved it.

It had started the day she had asked Law, partially out of a joke, if he would teach her about the human heart. Then he had pulled out a book, opened it to a good page, and it all went downhill from there.

That was weeks ago. Teddy had been working her way through his library, since she was now banned from the navigation room, the engine room, and the kitchen unless it was an emergency. Law, she figured, thought the whole situation was pretty funny if he was giving her permission to hang out in his private space, read his personal medical journals, and use his own paper to write notes and make connections.

She had been in and out of his room so many times she had no problem letting herself in.

Which was how she found herself in Law's quarters, alone. The shower sounded from behind a door she had learned lead to the bathroom, the only sound in the room.

Teddy wasn't rude enough that she would ambush him in his own room when he was getting out of a shower, so she turned to go and wander around what few areas of the ship she was still allowed to travel. Up until a voice caught her ears.

Where are you going, little one?

Teddy sucked in through her teeth. That almost sounded like her… her mother. But that was impossible. Her mother was gone, fallen into the sea a little after Angie was born. Teddy had only been three at the time. She barely remembered it. But she remembered Ophelia's voice.

The young woman turned around, slowly, trying to figure out whether or not she was going crazy.

Crazy? No, no, you're as sane as anyone. That blood that pumps through your veins, is it human? Are you? Oh, my. Come here, little one. Let me see you.

Teddy's feet moved on her own, drawing her to where Law's favorite sword was propped up on the wall next to where his bed was.

Well aren't you a sight for sore eyes. Not that I have any!

Teddy's whole face spasmed. "Skull- sword joke?"

The laughter that went through her brain sounded like metal clashing together. A shiver ran through her spine. Ophelia's laugh had sounded like a gull crying from the sea. Also unpleasant.

Oh I like you~ So much more fun than my master. Won't you take me from him?

Teddy frowned. "Not on your life."

Aw, why? A little crush on him, maybe?

"Dude, I'm twenty two. I don't do crushes. Besides, I don't need you. He does. For the choppy thing."

Maaah, why don't you just try holding me. Take my hilt, come one, little girl What's your name? Bloody Mary? No, that's not it.

"I already told you-"

"Are you talking to Kikoku?"

Teddy shrieked and turned around, her feet catching one another. She smashed into the ground and was left sitting on her bruised but, looking up at a very, very shirtless Trafalgar D. Water Law. Water dripped from his dark hair, down across freshly shaved cheeks to a barely damp chest where a heart stretched across lean muscles in black ink.

"I'm going to put a bell on you, captain," Teddy threatened. She tried to calm her racing heart. "Help me up?"

Law did, gripping her hand firmly in his and Teddy had the abrupt realization that she should not have asked for help. His hands were warm and strong and she was going to end up as wet as he was if she didn't stop staring.

"Mhmm. You didn't answer my question."

Teddy puffed out her cheek. "If I say he was talking to me first, will you tell everyone to keep sharp things away from me?"

"You're still banned from sharp things after the kitchen incident," Law reminded her. He was studying her, the way he had when she hadn't bled right. His eyes were intense and focused, but not cold or closed off. Just, curious.

"Mmmm, yeah. I guess so," that didn't answer her question, though.

Afraid he'll think you're crazy, little girl? Bloody mary, bloody mary, what happens if I say it three times?

"I'm not figgin Beetlejuice," Teddy would have elbowed Kikoku if it were a human being. She realized belatedly that she had just said that in front of Law. He was going to think she was crazy! Kikoku started laughed again.

Until Law glanced at it and said, "stop teasing her."

Teddy faltered. "You heard that?"

"Yeah. It's a thing that happens with cursed swords, like Kikoku. They can form telepathic bonds, usually just with their owners. He must like you."

"Lucky me," Teddy said dryly.

Law smiled at her expense. He really was much more expressive than people gave him credit for. Sure he didn't laugh aloud all that much or scream in fury if something went wrong. He was pretty well collected.

Still, if you paid attention it was easy to see how he was feeling. Or maybe it was just Teddy. With one dad mute and the other always raising his voice no matter the mood, she had learned early on how to get by with small changes in expression and body language.

"Were you here for something?" Law prompted. "Or just to stare at me?"

Teddy grinned at him, caught. "Why, can I do that?"

"A picture would last longer. "

"Babe, do not tempt me. I'm professional photographer. "

Law gave her a look and Teddy held up her hand, and the book within it. "Can I have another one?"

"You really went through it that fast?" Law's smile increased. Teddy straightened up, a grin stretching across her face. Law had a nice smile. She wanted to see more of it.

"Yeah. I've still got that dictionary, but I'll probably give it back soon. I think I've got most of the fancy shmancy medicine words now."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. And if I don't, I have a cute doctor I can ask directly. Right?" Teddy linked her arm with Law's, turning a massive smile up at him as she leaned onto his bare shoulder.

Law didn't shake her off. He drew her over to his desk.

"Are you still focusing on circulation?" he asked. He let her hang onto him while he went over his vast collection. "I'm running out of those. We might have to pick up something new. How do you feel about visiting an island with me soon?"

"It's a date!"

Angie watched in utter amazement as Ace put away more food than she even knew a person could order. A pile of plates was steadily growing next to him, getting higher and higher as he tore through food.

Angie had finished her fries half an hour ago and Ace was still going, downing an entire chicken before he finally pushed his plate away.

"Hey," he addressed Angie, "You said you might know where I can find my guy, right?"

Angie nodded slowly. Ace wasn't going to pay for that food. No way. Angie had enough to cover her tab but that was it.

"Yeah, I might. I have an idea, at least."

"Great. Alright, then let's get out of here," Ace stood up and settle his hat back on his head. Mary, the restaurant owner, started over to collect their checks. Ace glanced at her, flashed a smile at Angie, and grabbed her hand.

Angie didn't have time to yell when Ace hauled ass, and her, out of the restaurant and into the bright light of the sun. Angie wasn't even touching the ground. She was just flapping comically behind him, muffling a scream into her neckerchief. Ace, with a banner made of Angie, took her running all the way out of the town while Mary shouted obscenities at their backs.

Why is this my life?

Will muffled a scream around the mouth guard she had jammed between her teeth and tossed herself to the ground. The cannonball went sailing over her head, crashing into a boulder and turning it into dust.

She lifted her head, the cap of the Marine hat shadowed her eyes and hid the tears pricking at their corners. Damn it, she hadn't signed up for this! All she had wanted was to see her sisters again. Instead she was getting thrown around with Coby and Helmeppo like a ragdoll. All because her instincts had told her a week ago that she needed to not get hit by a massive fist.

Will pushed herself to her feet, her temper flaring in her chest. The blackness that had overtaken her arms crept further to her hands, and up past her elbows. Her hands twisted with the new armor, sharp points pushing from her fingertips in mock claws.

She dug them into the earth and lifted her face, teeth bared at Garp the Fist. He didn't so much as blink at the darkness in her gaze when she threw herself at him. Will swung her arms at him violently. The gifted dagger had been put aside, for a different training. This was supposed to be strictly hand to hand.

She didn't so much as scratch Garp. He swung his arm and landed a hard blow on her sternum, sending her careening through a wall. She slumped in the rubble, breathing hard. Against her own will the darkness crept up her arms, nearing her shoulders. She didn't have to look to know that there was a patch growing across her stomach and chest too. Her body had realized that its most vital parts might be targeted and was trying its best to protect her.

Like her dad, the one she shared her green eyes and her lack of wisdom teeth with, the steel wrapped itself around her to try and keep the world from doing her harm.

Half of her brain was cursing like a sailor over the fact that her planning had gone to waste, over the knowledge that this power she had was drawing too much attention to her. They were detouring from Alabasta to stock up on some little island, and time was wasting.

The other half was calculating how much stronger she had to be if she was going to survive in the Grand Line. She had no interest in being a pirate. She had no desire to be any sort of Marine officer or defender of justice. She didn't care about any of that. She only wanted to see her sisters again and she knew that to do that she had to be stronger, and that she should be grateful to Garp for trying to help her.

Her rage filled heart was telling her that she needed to take Garp down, now.

Will gripped a slab of rubble so hard it exploded into dust and stood up on shaking feet. Her skin may be hard but what lay underneath felt like jelly. She had no bruises, and Garp hadn't broken any bones, but she had been doing this for hours and it was starting to show.

Without warning, her knees gave out and Will crumpled into the rubble. She didn't even scrap her legs. The pants may have torn but underneath was shining black.

Soft footfalls, one set full of purpose and the other a bit more hurried, told her when Smoker and Tashigi rounded the corner.

They found Will glaring murderously at the Vice Admiral. Deep claw marks marred the thick concrete that made up the flooring of the marine base, the wall had a very Will shaped hole in it. On the other side Coby wasn't in much better shape. He was barely twitching and Helmeppo was about the same. His eyes spun swirls in their sockets.

"How far does your haki extend?" Tashigi asked her, kneeling at the other girls side. Her eyes were on the steel that guarded her leg and ribs now through the torn clothes. Will's temper lessened when she looked into the other woman's eyes. Tashigi did not deserve her wrath.

"My whole body, if I want it to," she knew this for a fac, even if 'Haki' was the wrong word for it. If she didn't keep a conscious check on it, it would cover her from head to foot.

"Then why don't you do that?" Smoker looked down at her. He was, by his own nature, a very gruff individual. Strangers would have assumed he was vicious or cruel or something to that effect. Will, contrarily, quite liked him. He was candid, and while he was admittedly hard to read it wasn't much a problem when he was so blunt about everything. If he disliked a person, he had no problem saying it to their face.

"I don't like it," she said simply. Garp looked at the three of them, his eyes meeting Will's through the hole he had made with her body. He shook his head at their performance and turned to leave, pulling a box of rice crackers out of his coat.

Will's skin and soul burned under that look. That disappointment. Where all of their efforts were nothing more than a gnat he was barely bother to brush off.

The darkness tried to wrap around her throat while she focused. On the armor that covered her skin, her skin that covered her body and forced it to move. One leg, then the other, like a puppet on a string until she was standing on weak limbs.

"You never said," she wheezed through her teeth, "that we were done training you old dog!"

Coby stirred on the ground, managing to get and elbow under himself. Will stumbled back through the hole left by her body, movements jerky from an unpracticed puppeteer. She had never had to do this before. She reached Coby in time to help pull him up. Helmeppo choked and pushed his face into dampening dirt. She grabbed one of his elbows, her green eyes fixed on Garp, who had stopped walking away with her petty, sad insult.

Together, they hauled the blond up. His lengthening hair tumbled aside when his head lulled back for a moment. She feared he might pass out. Then his feet got under him and the three of them stood, facing a man they hadn't so much as scratched.

Will didn't know what pushed her like this. The fear of what the Grand Line could do to the weak. The bitterness brought on by Garps dismissal. The roar of her inheritance that dragged at her flesh.

Will flung herself in tandem with Coby and Helmeppo, trying her damndest to disembowel Garp.

She did even worse like this, no fluidity to her movements, no practice or balance just sharp, awkward slashes that didn't even come close.

Even still, she was the last one standing.

Garp drove his fist into her skull and smashed her right into the ground.

She was aware enough, even with her probable concussion, to know that it was Tashigi that Garp left to get her to her room. They had understood on the third day they did this that as long as no bones were broken taking her to the infirmary was a waste of time.

All she suffered from was exhaustion. No pain, except to her pride.

When Tashigi got her upright once more Will lifted her face to look at Smoker. Her brown hair was matted with sweat, her clothes were dirty and gross. She must have looked pathetic but when she looked at Smoker there was a strange expression on his face.

"You're stubborn, and crazy," Smoker told her blandly.

Will was inclined to agree.

"So," Peggy began, "we've been eaten by a whale."

"Is that what happened?" Zoro looked up at the cheerfully painted sky in Laboons stomach. He detangled himself from Peggy. On the trip into the whale her feet had gone out from under her, knocking her right into the swordsman.

"Yep. Wonder why it looks like this though. Pocket dimension? Or… maybe the whole world just exists in the belly of a whale and we were eaten by another one," Peggy shrugged. She picked herself up off the deck, grimacing when the scrape on her elbow complained.

"What are you going on about?" Zoro glanced at her. Peggy waved her hand dismissively.

"Don't worry about it, I'm just babbling. Nervous habit. Hey look an island!" She pointed off in the distance. Tom, from where he was, was starting to freak out.

"Eaten by a whale, crashed in the ship, eaten by a whale. Margarita's, flint locks, fuck fuck fuck!"

Peggy shot him an irritated frown before she walked to the edge of the boat, peering out at Clover's house. The Merry drifted closer, brought forth on waves of water and probably stomach acid.

Peggy looked down at where Zoro's swords had fallen. In the scuffle they had been tipped out of his grasp and onto deck. She was privately amazed he had let it happen in the first place.

She reached to pick them up before she stopped. Zoro's swords were precious to him. As far as she could recall, besides himself the only person he'd even let touch them was Luffy. The idea of just carelessly touching them, even if it was to return them, was sacreligious. Her fingers twitched and she pulled her hands back, looking again at the little house and pretending the whole thing hadn't happened.

Zoro collected his swords, his eyes unreadable as he regarded Peggy, who ignored it.

Now that the shock of what had happened to her and the truth really started to set it she was getting more giddy, and more nervous. She could hold her own in a fight if it came to it, but the Grand Line, shit this whole world, was leagues beyond the beatings she'd given out in the Wendy's parking lot.

Nervous energy built up under her skin that longer she was on the ship.

Along with it was relief. If this was where they were, her sisters were fine.

When the squid popped out of the sea Peggy's knees locked up completely. She started a quiet mantra of whatthefuckwhatthefuckwhatthefuck under her breath. It didn't stop even when the squid was speared through and dragged towards the island. Even when Clover came walking out, she was still chanting.

"H-hey! If it's a fight you want it's a fight you'll get! We have a canon on our side!" Usopp screamed at the man.

"Whatthefuckwhatthefuckwhat the actual ever loving fuck!"

Zoro glanced at her. "Are you done now?"

Peggy paused, considering.

"Yeah, I think so. Thanks."

"Someone could die if you do that," Clover scolded.

"Oh yeah?" Sanji took a step forwards, his mouth curving a dangerous smile. "Who?"

"Me," Clover said.

Sanji promptly flipped his lid. Zoro held out a hand, like that was going to calm the chef down.

"Hey, don't get so worked up. Old man! Who are you, exactly?" Zoro stood with a casual confidence, a hand on Wado Ichimonji.

"It's polite to introduce yourself before you ask someone else for theirs," Clover scolded, flipping a page in his paper.

"Oh right, sorry," Zoro opened his mouth to introduce himself. He didn't get the chance.

"My name is Crocus, the lighthouse keeper of the Twin Capes, I'm 71 years old, a gemini and type AB blood." Peggy paused. Crocus. She'd gotten his name wrong! A shame cloud formed over her head.

Zoro lunged forwards with shark teeth. "I'll kill him!"

"Hello," Peggy shook off the cloud and waved at him, ignoring Zoro's attempted murder, "I'm Margarita De- er, Devereux Margarita. I'm twenty two, also a gemini and type AB positive."

"The only difference between the two of you is your age?!" Usopp stared at her with his mouth open.

Peggy shrugged. "Yeah, pretty much. My four sisters and I were all born on June sixth, and we all have AB positive. We go to blood drives and give plasma a lot," she added. Mostly Teddy.

"The chances of all of you having AB is rare," Crocus said, levelling her with a look.

"Yeah. Well. We're weird," she shrugged. And wasn't that the truth. No one else would have ended up in this BS situation if their sister tried to change CD's in the middle of a bridge and drove right off. But, she was Peggy Devereux and her whole life was one bad movie.

She could picture it, opening in theatres near your…

The Western Whistle sounds in the background. Cowboy boots with spurs click into view. The camera pans upwards, across long legs and dark jeans, over red flannel and up to reveal a grimly set mouth. Above that sits the small nose and the green eyes of Peggy Devereux (Jayne Wisener), wearing a black stetson.

A black horse comes a stop with his head over his shoulder, bridle shining in the red sun that burns across the Utah desert.

The scene blurs out from red dust to bright green foliage. 'Babes in the woods' from Bo Diddley starts playing. The green trees part to reveal the rest of the girls. Kit (Katie Cassidy) wings an axe into a tree so hard it splits straight down the middle. Will (Amanda Seyfried) is rubbing determinedly at one of their dad's shoulders. It's easy to tell who it is that the girls got their looks from. Erik (Jensen Ackles) signs his thoughts to his husband, Ezekiel (Lee Byung-hun. South Korean was close enough to Vietnamese.)

Teddy (Jayne Wisener) comes jogging out of the screen door in short shorts and a thin red shirt strapped slimly over her shoulders. She sits on the other side of Erik (Jensen Ackles), where Ezekiel (Lee Byung-hun) was not. Already stretched out in the sun on the porch is Angie (Kristen Stewart).

Peggy (Jayne Wisener) comes from around the house to lean on a post in the ground, in jeans and a t-shirt with a certain jolly roger on it.

"Some people never know what's really out in the worlds," Jayne said in the voice over, "The dark parts of the planet. Where the roads cross and the waves part. I was never a stranger to any of it."

Cut to Ophelia (Sarah Lassez) sinking into water, her hair haloing darkness around black eyes.

"It was all so simple back then. Before things changed."

Kit (Katie Cassidy) screams at Erik (Jensen Ackles) so loud the windows explode. She grabs a backpack and storms out of the house, her leather jacket flapping angrily over her shoulder.

Angie (Kristen Stewart) holds her hands on either side of a floating orb of water, her fingers trembling and her eyes wide. Behind her, Erik (Jensen Ackles) exchanges a Look with Ezekiel (Lee Byung-hun).

"Like the seasons change, so did we. We drifted apart."

Kit (Katie Cassidy) kissed both dads on the cheek and walks out the door with nothing more than a phone in her hand and a small hand gun.

Will (Amanda Seyfried) holds a duffle bag in one hand, her college acceptance letter in the other. She is squished between her two dads.

Teddy (Jayne Wisener) hugs Peggy (Jayne Wisener) fiercely. A backpack sits at their feet, a plane ticket in it. Strapped around her neck is a camera.

"Promise you'll call every day?" Peggy (Jayne Wisener) grips her sisters hands tight enough to cut off circulation. Teddy (Jayne Wisener) grins carelessly.

"Cross my heart."

"One by one my sisters left, and one day so did I," Peggy (Jayne Wisener) sits in a train car in jeans and tennis shoes. A pamphlet for a dude ranch in Utah sits in her lap.

"I thought I could escape the unnatural things that followed my family."

Peggy (Jayne Wisener) smiles broadly as she looks over a pasture where a band of horses run, chasing the wind. A man sits on the fence, peeling an apple with a knife. A girl leans next to him, her eyes on the horizon. The man turns to smile down at Peggy (Jayne Wisener).

"I'm Wyatt," said the man (Scott Eastwood). "That's Sammy."

He pointed his thumb over his shoulder at the girl. She pulls back to frown at them.

"I'm Sam," she (Taissa Farmiga) says.

Cut to Peggy (Jayne Wisener) trotting on horseback, the black gelding from the first shot under her legs. Her tennis shoes were gone, replaced with boots and the Stetson was in place. They climbed high in the calico mountains, surrounded on both sides by a steep valley. Something dark moved on an arc they passed under, its eyes glowing.

"I was wrong."

A gunshot echoes in a canyon, music picks up and horses gallop across the open plain, a lone rider on a half wild pony ghosts across the earth ahead of them. A storm breaks overhead, high lighting a skeleton in a black Stetson.

Wyatt (Scott Eastwood) stands in a dusty, abandoned tavern in the Hope Fields ghost town. A child's laughed runs past him outside, but there is no one there. He holds an old leather book in one hand. To one side stands Peggy (Jayne Wisener) and on the other is Sam (Taissa Farmiga).

"We came here chasing our dreams," he reads, "we came here looking for a new beginning and a future where the light might shine on the heads of our children and our children's children. We named our town after what drew us here. What we found, was only nightmares."

Lightning flashes and the black gelding rears, his skeletal rider high in the saddle. On all sides, lit up only by the lightning crouch vaguely canine shapes shadows. Red glows from inside sharply pointed mouths.

"No one can escape their heritage. "

Peggy (Jayne Wisener) turns a bone over in her hands. She sits in the bunkhouse with Sam (Taissa Farmiga) and Wyatt (Scott Eastwood). She closes her fingers around it and when she opens them again the bone is shaped like a knife. A candle flickers across her shadowed face.

"There's something you've been hiding from is," Wyatt (Scott Eastwood) says quietly.

Peggy (Jayne Wisener) nods.

"We can not hide from the past. From the truth."

All three ranch hands are in the saloon again, hiding behind the bar. A dark canine sniffles the ground on the other side, growing close. Sam (Taissa Farmiga) closes her eyes, squeezing them shut as tears start to leak. Wyatt (Scott Eastwood) is clutching his side. Blood stains his fingers.

Peggy rises slowly to her feet, a white knife in her hand. Blood leaks from her shoulder.

"We can only run towards the future."

Dramatic music erupts past the silence of the saloon, steadily growing faster.

Wyatt (Scott Eastwood) jumps from a cliff into a river.

Sam (Taissa Farmiga) holds an only revolver out, covered in dust and muck as a pack of shadows loom in closer.

Peggy (Jayne Wisener) stretches her body across the neck of her black horse, eyes flashing in the burning sun set. A skeletal rider comes at her on a dark bay, gun pointed forwards.

Peggy (Jayne Wisener) lifts a bone over her head and brings it down.

The music cuts.

Everything blacks out. Slowly, light comes into focus on a movie poster. Two girls and a man walk away from a sunset where horses run, shadows looming in unnatural shapes at their feet. Shapes with dark teeth and glowing mouths.

In roughly painted letter at the top it reads 'Inheritance'.

Except that that's a stupid movie title. How the West was Won? No, the Hopeful Three? Bull. New Moon? Ha!

Ghost Rider. Already taken.

Peggy made a face and was immediately pitched off of the deck and straight into the mast of the Merry. She yelled, nothing broken but many things bruised, and looked to see a man dressed like a king holding a bazooka.

Right, she thought , maybe not the best time to zone out.

With a glance at the now furiously screaming Sanji Peggy moved over to where Nami was. She still felt weak, barely more than a skeleton with eyes (and where was Brook to make a Skull Joke when she needed him?) so she knew that she wouldn't be fighting Vivi and… Mr. eight? That didn't sound right. Of course, Peggy didn't give two shits about him. She went to Nami.

"Wanna sit this one out?" She offered.

Nami nodded, making a face.

"Definitely. "

Kit had never had much luck with… people.

The fact of the matter was, she had a mean temper. She didn't see a single problem with expressing it. If someone pissed her off there was no reason she shouldn't tell them. And if they mocked her for her feelings, she was fine with showing them too. With her fists.

More than once a boy had broken up with her for being too emotional, too in tune with her anger and too unwilling to stuff it down and suffocate like a good little lady was supposed to.

In fact, that was how every relationship she had ever been in had ended. With the boy unable or unwilling to handle her temper.

She never hit them unless she had to, she was a bitch not an abuser. And she had never tried to train a boy to be more like what she wanted. That wasn't who she was. If she had ever started to do things like that, she would have ended it then and there. She had once, when Derek had accidentally pushed a button and cowered when she screamed at him. She had send him home the next day and set him up with her soft spoken baby sister, much more his speed.

Sometimes, the boys would go out with her with the intent of 'fixing' her. Trying to tame the shrew, break her of her temper and wear her down into a good little girlfriend. Those ones usually left with broken noses, or worse.

So yes, her relationships, and even many friendships, had always failed her.

Up until now, at least.

Some days Kit was pretty sure that Teddy crashing was the best thing to ever happen to her.

Waking up on a boat in the strong embrace of the only man to ever take her temper and not drop her for it, this was one of those days.

Kit stretched her legs out as far at she could and wiggled until she was high enough and had a free hand to run slowly through red hair, wildfire in the morning light. More like noon light. They both smelled like cheap liquor, and her head was drumming lightly behind her temples but that was okay.

It was nice, to look at his face when he wasn't awake.

When his strong jaw was slack and his dark eyes were closed off from the world, when the weight of his dreams didn't weigh on his broad shoulders and there was no fight to be had, no war to be fought. Like this, he was beautiful.

He was when he fought too.

The first time she had seen it, a terrible, wonderful thrill had shot straight up her spine and right back down until it tingled in her fingers and her toes. Every time since then, after he was done kicking ass and the adrenaline was still tight under his skin she would drag him off, over her and-

Well, that was no one's business but their own, now wasn't it?

Dark eyes flickered open and he turned his head to squint at her, showing off red bites on his throat and lipstick stains on his cheek.

"Fuck," he grumbled, voice rough, "What time is it?"

"Who cares?" she retorted, leaning over to kiss on top of the red smear.

"Gotta see when we dock," he grumbled. He hoisted himself up, released a hiss, and dropped back next to her.

Kit draped herself across him, relishing in the tight muscles underneath her. A single hand came up to play with the violet tips of her short cropped hair. His eyes closed again and Kit made herself comfortable. Clearly they were here for a while longer.

Yes, Teddy had made a wonderful mistake.

Dragon exited the dark room quickly, his cape flapping behind him in a dramatic, bat like matter not unlike that of one Severus Snape. The main difference between the two of them was the fact that Dragon hadn't tormented and bullied children and kept on a creepy relationship with a girl he'd called a slur years before.

Dragon had not done that, in fact he'd had a very healthy and beautiful relationship with his wife. The biggest source of friction between them had been the vexing woman he had just left the room holding.

This whole operation, one of his more ambitious and admittedly most reckless one, hinged around how supposedly powerful the five girls were. Dragon ran a hand down the side of his face. He didn't like it. There were too many variables, too many ways for this to all go wrong.

Maybe he should send someone out to check on them? He was especially weary of the girl on the Marine ship. He wanted to keep a closer eye on them. A more active approach to getting them to understand the sorry state of this world.

And, he knew just the person for the job.

His destination decided Monkey D Dragon turned a corner, chose his route, and changed the course of history.