One Piece and its characters belong to Eiichiro Oda. Mirim belongs to TWP.

Mirim had been badly wounded and her life was slipping away as Marco and Ace waited outside the infirmary. It seemed like there was no end to their wounded friends and comrades as they streamed inside the infirmary without stop. Ace only had a few bruises and cuts, Marco had largely healed himself with his power, Jozu had lost his arm but had managed to stop the bleeding with his ability so they were in no immediate threat. None of the Commanders of the fleet had been seriously injured and therefore their treatment could wait. The captain and Mirim was another case entirely. Several times Mirim's life had almost slipped past Doc's hands but he had been lucky and managed to preserve it. The captain had been badly wounded but he healed quickly, obviously being more used to being hurt than the young girl.

One thing was for certain though. The captain of the Whitebeard Pirates would probably not be able to fight for long periods of time anymore. He was not getting any younger and his body couldn't keep up. Right now they were in hiding, nursing their wounds. They had heard of what had happened at Marineford. While the Navy's headquarters had been reduced to rubble, there had been no casualties in the explosion. It was as if it had only affected the building itself and no living being nor thing, which was a miracle in itself. The four mysterious women who had appeared out of nowhere to aid the pirates had disappeared as well, not a trace was left and they were not heard of again.

The island they were hiding on was Whitebeard territory. There had been many pirate crews who had come to try to take over because they thought Whitebeard was too busy with licking his wounds to protect his territory. They were wrong. The fleet had spread throughout to protect the territory, to show that Whitebeard had not kicked the bucket just yet. The message seemed to finally have sunk in after weeks of being repeatedly attacked by pirates wanting to push their luck.

While Whitebeard was quickly getting back to normal, Mirim was still in a coma. Marco and Ace began to miss the rivaling crews attacking them. At least then they had someone to take their frustration and worry out on. Now, they were only patrolling the island or getting drunk to ease the worry.

"If I hadn't been caught none of this would have happened." Marco glanced at Ace who glared at the ground. They had gone over this conversation several times already but Marco did not care to stop the young man. It was better if he let it all out, despite his thoughts being completely ridiculous to the First Division Commander's ears.

"Pops wouldn't have been so badly hurt, we wouldn't have lost so many friends and allies, Jozu wouldn't have lost his arm and Mirim wouldn't be in a coma."

"And let's not forget that they chose this." Marco said and Ace growled. "Why didn't you guys just leave me?" The blonde cocked his head and gave Ace a pointed glare.

"You really wanna go through this again, oy?" The freckled man turned away. "I get it, I get it. I would have done the same."

"Yeah, you would and then you would be in my position, telling whoever it was that got caught that it was only natural for us to come and get him, oy." Ace chuckled. "Yeah. No one gets left behind." There was a long moment of silence where the two were thinking the same thing but were unsure if they wanted to bring it up. Ace finally broke the silence in the end.

"You think she'll ever wake up?" Ace asked uncertainly and Marco scoffed. "Of course she will, oy. She told me she was going to kick your ass the moment we were safe." Ace winced.

"Yeah, that sounds like something she would say."

"You know she'll act on it when she wakes up, oy." They both burst out laughing and continued their patrol in silence. The hours passed by and as evening approached the two found themselves in a bar, drinking.

"If Luffy were here, he would probably try to beat me up because of my sulking."

"I've thought about it a few times myself, but it's not what you need now, oy." Marco shrugged and Ace laughed humorlessly. "Actually, I think I need to be hit a few times. I know I would have punched anyone who had been in my situation and thought the same things as I did during and after the war."

"I could hit you, just for the heck of it, but I don't think it'll solve any problems, oy." Marco set his mug down and turned to the younger Commander. "Don't beat yourself up Ace. You only did what you thought was right and I'm not saying you were wrong," he hurried to interrupt as Ace opened his mouth to retort, "All I'm saying is that you need to put this behind you. So what if you're Roger's kid? Doesn't mean you should die because the Government says so, oy. And it definitively doesn't mean that we won't come and help you just because pops and Roger were two competing captains in the past, oy."

"So you don't really care that I'm his kid?" Marco grabbed his mug and took a swig. "I know that if you don't stop letting it affect you Mirim will rip your balls off and feed them to the Sea Kings, oy." Ace shuddered.

"The worst part is that I don't even doubt that she'll do it." Marco laughed. "No, she would if you pissed her off enough, that's for damn sure, oy." A comfortable silence followed for the rest of the evening, both pirates having run out of things to say. That was how the weeks had passed since they docked and that was how it would continue to be until every last man and woman of the crew were back on their feet again.

And they meant every last one.

Two months had passed since the war and now mostly everyone in the crew and their allies were up on their feet again, going back to their usual duties without a hitch. There were news about Blackbeard acting up in their territory and while Ace wanted nothing more than to chase the traitorous man down he could not afford to leave now, not when his captain was still recovering and knowing that he still was far from strong enough to take the man on in a fight. It would only result in the war all over again and they did not have the manpower for that.

'Not that I ever want any of us to be in that position again.' He thought. The sky was turning darker as the evening grew closer and Ace was sitting in the bar again with Marco nursing a beer. The mood had been cheerful when they had entered but as the day stretched on the both of their moods had fallen into a deep, dark pit.

Or it was so, until a member of the Second Division came running in. "Commander! She's up!" Ace was out of the bar before the pirate could take another breath and therefore he did not hear the whole message. All he did was run down the streets and back to the ship, towards the infirmary.

He opened the door and walked in, a wide grin stretched across his face, and he fell into the chair beside her bed.

"Good evening, slacker, you've been out for a while." He noticed her expression then and raised an eyebrow. "What's wrong?"

"Excuse me but… who are you?" Ace almost fell off the chair as he stared at her slack jawed but before he could say anything Marco entered the room as well. He took one look at Ace's expression, then he took in Mirim's confused and slightly frightened one before walking over and putting a hand on the dark haired male's shoulder.

"She's got amnesia Ace. She doesn't remember anything."