OH GAWD MY FACE MY BEAUTIFUL(!) FACE WHERE DID IT GO I CAN'T FEEL IT – oh, there it is. Also, just for reference, the noise of a dentist's drill makes will always concern the living shit out of me. I'm just putting that out there.

Chapter 10

After everything was explained, it was decided that Marco should be the one to plant the items Ace requested in their strategic locations. He had keys to the entirety of the building (although in light of how pissy he had been to Marshall's face, his universal keys were confiscated whenever he left the building, which ruled out a simpler escape. It was one of those things for which he was going to curse himself for the rest of his life), so he could get to all the locations. Slight modifications were made to Ace's plan to get it to work. Since Norton manned the security cameras and would see what Marco was doing, they had decided to take him out of action. Some heavy laxatives in his lunch would take care of that problem. Norm or Norma would take up his seat in the camera room, taking care to isolate and dispose of the incriminating recordings as soon as Marco was finished. That had actually been Usopp's idea, and the young man was bursting with pride that they had taken his suggestion to heart.

Marco trained his eyes on the door to the camera room. He had already put the laxatives in Norton's morning coffee. Now, it was just a waiting game.

He checked his watch. How long did it take the stupid things to kick in?

Oh! There he was. The rotund man charged out of the camera room straight for the restroom. It was the fastest Marco had ever seen his (not really) superior move.

"Yo, Norm? Can you watch his spot for 'im? I don't think old Nort's feeling quite up to snuff," Marco called, sounding nonchalant.

"Yeah, sure. Whatever."

Nobody from reception so much as looked up. Nice. Now it was time to indulge in a little… espionage.

Luffy knew that Marco and the others were going to take care of Ace. He trusted them, and that was that. He even trusted Marco (though not as much as Zoro or Nami). They weren't going to let anything happen to him. Besides, Ace was strong enough to handle himself, for the most part. There was no way he was dead. Luffy convinced himself that he had been overreacting. He was still a little worried, but, for all his largely nonsensical ways, Luffy had a very logical way of looking at things. Fact One: Ace is alive and probably at least somewhat well. Fact Two: no-one is going to kill him or wants to kill him. Fact Three: both Zoro and Marco are working on helping him get the hell out of here. Fact Four: There's nothing you can do as long as you're in here. Conclusion: Sit on your ass until there's something you can do. When there is, you do it. End of story. There is no point in worrying when there is nothing to be done. It is just a waste of time and energy.

There was that tiny niggling sense of doubt in the back of Luffy's mind, but he did his damnedest to ignore it. It had no place being there and he should just pretend like it didn't exist.

Nurse Hannah was leading him and some others up the stairs to the first basement. He liked her. She was nice and soft-spoken, but she wasn't a wimp like a lot of other soft-spoken people.

"Where are we going?" he asked, unsure if he was allowed to ask questions this time.

"Just your art class, Mister Luffy. Does a little art therapy sound good? We'll let you finger paint!" she said.

Finger painting was good. Finger painting was fun. The paint felt wonderful on his fingers, if a little weird. He would have to remember to keep at least one finger paint-free in case he needed to scratch something. Last time he'd forgotten and went around the whole day with big green marks where he'd scratched his ass. That was gonna be a story to tell the kids one day.

Luffy wasn't an artist by any stretch of the imagination. Even his stick-figures always ended up lopsided and ridiculous-looking. He didn't much care. Finger painting was fun no matter how old or young you were, and Luffy just couldn't understand why the art teachers had forbidden it once you entered elementary school. It was a crying shame.

"Here we are, everyone!" Hannah said. She opened the door to the art room and began leading people to their assigned spots – those who couldn't remember where their spots were, at least. Luffy knew his was right by the little tiny window at the top of the room. The first basement was only mostly underground, which was to say that it was also partially aboveground. What came in through the little window at the top was the most sunlight he was going to see for a very long time, and he soaked in it.

"Okay, everyone," Hannah said, walking to the front of the room and clapping her hands to get attention. "We're going to trying painting our feelings today. Do whatever you need to do to help you relax. Close your eyes, or breathe reeeeeeaaaaaally deep – whatever helps. Just think about how you're feeling and paint whatever comes to mind."

Painting with your eyes closed? That sounded awesome. After all, Luffy's drawings couldn't get any worse. Perhaps closing his eyes might be an improvement.

But that whole 'painting your feelings' crap… That had to be the worst prompt ever. How the hell did one paints one's feelings? It sounded ridiculous. It was ridiculous. Maybe instead of feelings, Luffy would paint thoughts. It seemed easier. Thoughts revolved around something that was part reality and part invented, but it was always clear and distinct. He thought constantly about whatever happened to Ace.

It seemed that Luffy had found something to paint.

He arranged the little tubs of paint in order of the rainbow, so he would remember which was which even without the use of sight. He closed his eyes and began feeling around the edges of the giant piece of cardboard stock they had given him to get a good feel for its size. He breathed in deeply and turned his attention to that tightly-knit ball of worry and doubt in the back of his mind. His hands dipped into the paint and started moving.

He smeared together whites, blues, and greens. There were greys everywhere, too. He just knew. And then he had to mix together a lot of white, some yellow, red, and just a hint of green. If there was a picture he was trying to make, he couldn't see it. He could just see the colours in his head and knew where they went. He smiled a little. This was easier with his eyes closed. The finished result didn't have to look like anything, he knew. It was just a stupid art class, and everybody knew not to take those seriously. He felt his right ring finger make a sharp line with his nail. He had no idea what he was outlining, but it didn't much matter.

This was how one painted one's feelings.

The paint was almost cold and strangely squishy all over Luffy's fingers. He knew Nami would back away with disgust written all over her face if she could see him now. But no. He couldn't allow himself to be distracted. He fell into some kind of rhythm and lost all sense of the real world. It was just him, paint, and paper. And Ace. He couldn't forget Ace.

Two hours later, Luffy felt his consciousness stirring. Every time he had finished a line or a smear of paint somewhere, the next step had just popped into his head. Now, there was nothing? Did that mean he was done? It kind of felt like it. If he opened his eyes now, was the light going to blind him?

He backed away from the easel, turning his head away from the window before he cracked an eyelid.

Hannah was standing behind him, but to his shock, she was the only one. There was no-one else is the room, although finished paintings were still on their easels. How long ago had everyone else finished and gone back to their rooms?

"Hannah? You okay, there?" he asked, waving a hand encrusted both with dried and wet paint.

She was staring at his painting. When he spoke, she seemed to shake herself out of it. "Of course! I'm fine! It's just… I…" she coughed "…Your painting is very good, Mister Luffy."

Oh, that's right! He hadn't looked yet! Luffy turned to see what he'd been constructing for the past two hours and stopped dead. ...Woah.

It looked real. Well, not real. It looked like somebody had painted a photograph with very heavy, thick brush-strokes, but done so rather accurately. It was a room, covered wall-to-wall with light seafoam-coloured padding. The lighting was harsh, and a prone figure was strapped to what looked like a bed in a corner. It was Ace. The features were a little indistinct, but Luffy just knew that it was Ace.

"Maybe I should paint with my eyes closed more often," Luffy said. "Got a sink?"

Hannah pointed him in the right direction, smiling weakly. "Can you get yourself back to your room all right, do you think?" she asked.

"Sure!"

"Er, actually…" she stuck her head out of the door. "Hey, Leena? Can you take Mister Luffy back to his room, please?"

"Yeah. 2016A, right?" asked the other nurse.

"Yes."

"All right, come on, honey. You clean yet?" The two left and Hannah was alone in the room with eleven normal paintings and one extraordinary one. She picked up the wall telephone and hit the speed-dial for the Manager's Office.

"Sir? I need to speak with you in the art room. I think we have a Class A on our hands. Class B at the very least. …Okay, thank you, sir. Right away, sir."

Marco popped his head into the security room. "I've got every point set up," he said.

"Good. I've already isolated the footage. I just hit 'delete' and we're golden," Norm said.

"Then do it!"

"Okay." He dramatically smashed the backspace button on the keyboard. "Voilà. Be amazed."

"Yeah, yeah, I'm very impressed. Now can we get back to the main issue here?"

"There's another issue?"

"Yeah. Do we need to let Ace know how much we've got set up?" Marco asked. "I mean, he is kind of a crucial player and all that."

Norm bit a thumb. "I've got an idea."

"What?"

"Write him a note and kick it under the door. Leave instructions for him to respond with knocks on the door from the inside or something. It won't look suspicious on camera because the security cameras don't record sound. They won't catch whatever reply Ace gives, so long as it isn't visible."

Marco grinned. "Good going. I knew your sister didn't get all the smart genes."

"Hey, what the hell is that supposed to mean? Do people really think that about us?"

"Err…" Marco looked everywhere but Norm's face and promptly left the room.

He grabbed a piece of paper from the little notepad that he kept in a pocket. He rarely needed it, but occasionally the staff would put together notes for getting take-out for lunch, and Marco usually supplied the paper on which everyone wrote down their orders. He began scribbling down his note to Ace.

Hey, Ace. Hope you're not too loopy to read this. Everything's where it belongs and we've got the clips. Shall we get this party started? If so, when? Smack the door for how many days from now it's okay to start. If you want us to get shit started at our own discretion, start whistling something.

Marco

It would suffice.

He trotted down to the fourth basement. God, his knees were killing him after trekking up and down those goddamn stairs all day. Normally, he would pick a floor to hang out on for most of the day. He hadn't done this much cardio in a long, long time.

There was Ace's door. 4103B. He unobtrusively dropped the piece of paper on the ground and quickly kicked it under the door. He slowed his pace and waited for the response.

He grinned when he heard Ace cheerily whistling the Colonel Bogey March, also known as "Hitler Has Only Got One Ball".

(A/N): Blackbeard has only got one ball~.

Auge has two but they are small.

Himmler~ is very sim'lar~

And poor Joe-Balls has no balls at all~.

CONSPIRACY THEORIES INSIDE OF CONSPIRACY THEORIES. IT'S LIKE CONSPIRI-CEPTION. But yeah. I will explain everything in due time. Next chapter, I'm going to get to work on executing Ace's plan at long fucking last. As a result, it might end up being lots longer. We'll see.

Happy Saint Patrick's Day, everyone. Now that I can feel my face, I'm feeling a little more upbeat than I was when I started writing this chapter. Unfortunately, I head back to school either tomorrow or the day after. Ffffffffffuck. I am not pleased. At least I come home for the summer around the 20th of May. I'll do what I can to keep updating regularly, but seriously… Don't come to expect it.