"Ace? Are you okay?" Ace nodded, and Carmen smiled gently. "Okay," she said soothingly. "I'm making cookies in the kitchen, so if you want one, feel free to come down."

Ace nodded mutely, and Carmen smiled once more before she stepped out and carefully shut the door. Ace swallowed. He liked Carmen. She was a small, Chinese woman with dark hair cut at her shoulders, warm brown eyes and a kind smile.

She was also very loving towards him, even though he'd only been there for a little over two hours. Carmen worked very well with kids. So far, Ace was the only foster child there, though Carmen told had mentioned that more would be coming in a few months.

Ace, however, couldn't take comfort in any of her affections. Luffy's anguished screams echoed in his ears, and his heart clenched painfully. His eyes began to water again, and he scrubbed the tears awat angrily.

He didn't have the right to cry. Ace knew how alone he really was. He didn't have Luffy, which meant for the first time since they'd met, he was completely on his own.

Ace inhaled deeply, and tried to suppress the growing ache in his chest, and the unbidden wish that he could just hold Luffy again. One more time.


Luffy was hopeless.

Zoro was sure of it, and there was nothing he could do. The boy had moved in sixteen days ago, and even though Ben slapped him around and Zoro got annoyed with him more times than not, he still made an effort to smile every morning.

He desperately missed this Ace person he told Zoro about, that much was painstakingly clear. Zoro asked him why he kept grinning all the time, and Luffy's response was nothing like Zoro was expecting.

"Ace likes it when I smile. I can tell. So, even though he's not here anymore, I'll smile. Just for him."

It was strange for Zoro to wake up each day to be greeted with a bright smile and a cheerful demeanor. It usually caught him off guard for a few moment before he scowled and pushed Luffy off of his bed, telling him not to be such an idiot.

Luffy would just chuckle and brush it off, continuing to cling to Zoro at nearly all times of the day.

"Zoro," he whined, tugging on the boy's arm, "Play with me!" Zoro groaned, throwing his other arm over his face. He wondered if he could somehow manage to shove Luffy in a closet for the day, just so he could sleep.

"Please?"

Zoro peeked out at him when he stopped whining, only to see big, brown, pitiful eyes staring at him. He recoiled almost instantly when they grew wet, and seemed to get even bigger.

A prime example of the rare 'kicked puppy look', the longer Zoro looked at him, the more he was pulled in under its power. It truly was a thing to be feared. Especially when Zoro made a face, sighing loudly.

"Fine," he groused. The heart-breaking expression was instantly wiped from Luffy's face, to be replaced by the cheerful glow the boy regularly carried. Zoro dragged himself from his warm bed, grumbling under his breath.

"What do you wanna do?" he yawned, stretching his arms above his head. Luffy cocked his head to the side as he pondered the question. That was another thing.

While Luffy was able to unconsciously made split-second decisions, subjects that required actual thought were beyond him. "Uhh..." Point proven. Zoro distantly heard the thump of the front door, signaling that Ben had gone to work.

"Let's go downstairs, then, yeah?" Luffy simply grinned. "Okay!" he exclaimed happily, and Zoro resisted the urge to roll his eyes.

They had roughly about six hours before Ben returned and curled up in the living room, making nothing of his pathetic excuse of a life. That was Zoro's opinion, anyway.

Zoro began rummaging through the mess in the kitchen, and scored a bag of chips. He shoveled a handful into his mouth and held the bag high above his head to keep Luffy from swiping it.

Luffy pouted, but quickly brightened when he found a half eaten box of cereal. The sugary kind. Zoro sighed and tossed the bag onto the couch in the living room, keeping them out of Luffy's sight, before moving back to the kitchen table and sifting through the mail.

He frowned at the amount of bills, but his motto was: If he didn't have to pay it, he didn't care. The next envelope made him pause.

It was a bit worse for wear, and their address was written sloppily on the front, but he clearly read the name printed on the front. Monkey D. Luffy. Zoro glanced up at the boy who was munching on cereal and digging through the cabinets for other things.

"Oi, Luffy. You've got mail," he called. Luffy turned around, half of a piece of bread sticking out of his mouth. He shoved the rest in and swallowed it in one gulp, making the older boy cringe.

"Ehh? From who?" Luffy asked, and Zoro raised the envelope to peer at the name scrawled in the corner. "Uh, it's that Ace guy!" Luffy's eyes widened, and suddenly he was scrambling over the mess to the table, where Zoro was waving the envelope in air tantalizingly.

"Give it!" he insisted, and Zoro slid it across the table without a word. Luffy was about to rip it open when he remembered there was a very important letter inside. He peeled it open with more care than Zoro thought he was capable of.

Once he had the letter out, he placed the envelope down on the table and raised the paper to his face, squinting at the words. There were a few moments of silence before Luffy peeked at Zoro over the top of the paper.

"...Ne, Zoro?" Luffy asked timidly. "Huh?" Zoro asked, his gaze remaining transfixed on the grocery catalogue beneath him. "...Can you help me read it?" Zoro glanced up at Luffy, who watched him expectantly.

Zoro sighed irritably. "Fine. Give it here." He held his hand out and Luffy hesitated before handing it over. Zoro began reading, and he only got through a few lines before he was looking at Luffy again.

"You should be able to read it fine. It ain't hard." Luffy blinked at him a few times, and Zoro suddenly had a hunch as to what was going on. "Luffy, you know how to read, right?"

Luffy blinked again. "Nope." Zoro groaned, bringing a hand up to cover his face. "So what, you want me to read this to you or somethin'?" Luffy grinned, and Zoro huffed.

"Fine, but just this once," he muttered, and if it was possible, Luffy's beaming smile grew even bigger. Zoro briefly wondered if smiles could blind people. He cleared his throat before he began.

"Dear Luffy, how are you? I'm okay. I moved in with a nice lady named Carmen. I think you would really like her, especially since she makes good cookies. How are you? Ah- I asked that already. Look, Luffy, I want to say I'm sorry. I didn't say anything when we were being separated, and I should've, because I'm supposed to be an awesome big brother, right? I hope you'll forgive me. I miss you, Luffy. From, Ace."

Zoro looked up at Luffy, who was resting his head on his hands, with his elbows braced on the table. He was quiet, which was rather unnerving. "Luffy," Zoro said, and Luffy snapped out of his reverie.

"Hmm?" Zoro held out the letter for him to take. Luffy quickly snatched it out of his hand, holding it to his chest like it was the precious thing on earth.

That night, long after Ben came home and everyone else was sleeping, Luffy stayed up, tracing the contours of the letters reading the message over and over again even though he couldn't recognize most of the words. He knew small ones, like 'I' and 'you'.

The paper was a bit crumpled around the edges and stark white, like snow.

It was written in red pen, and most of the sentences held words that were scribbled out and replaced. At the bottom of the page, before Ace's name, was a heavily scribbled out section about two inches long.

Ace had tried to mark it out as much of possible, probably out of embarrassment, but Luffy recognized the three words anyway.

I love you.