Time seemed such a fragile thing in the stretch of the universe really. A single life could pass by in the mere blink of an eye, meshing together in a passing string of endless grey where all became one. In this world of pale grey, it was easy to lose oneself, thoughts fading into the emptiness around you to mesh with all else and leave your very being to be forgotten in the void. For those that traveled through this desolate world, where silence echoed and screams fell deaf, it was like walking into the grey itself. Colors faded and the world outside became little more than a distant dream of the past or the future, a future where perhaps the grey would finally part to make way for light or darkness, just something other than this nothing.

And yet it never changed, remaining constant as time itself, a forever moving shift from one moment to the next with no real way to tell how quickly events passed by, or really even a way to tell which way was up and which way was down. Wanderers remained suspended in this blank eternity, cursed to continue forwards or for their feet to still and never move again.

It was in this limbo he had spent years now, at times forgetting his own name.

While his own past may at times become blurred, fading into the grey around him, it was the world below that was still clear to him, a bright space of color and vibrant life still held within the locked cages of those who still remembered him. It was in their brightly illuminated souls that a part of him still lived, a discovery he had made after to long in this nothingness but one that had kept him sane through the slow trickle of time.

From light to light he would shift, sometimes lingering only a flicker of a second while at times following one bright memory for months at a time. It was how, even in death, he kept tabs on those still walking the plane of the living, watching over those he was no longer able to stand besides.

For the longest time it had been Luffy that he followed after, especially in those first two years following his untimely death. He watched over his younger brother as a shadow would, there a moment and gone the next but never there fully enough for the youthful raven to see him, to hear him speak no matterhow loudly he screamed his name at times.

After all, the dead could not live among the living.

What hurt more than any pain though was not being unable to speak with those still breathing life, but to find that one who had supposedly lost the glimmer of light in his chest all those years ago still lived on. For months he had searched through the grey, even venturing into the bright white at times only to retreat once more into that neutral ground. Still, no matter how hard he looked or how often he had cried out his name until his voice broke and faded, there had never been a reply.

Though, yet again, the dead could not live among the living.

He was not heard.

He was not seen.

And no matter how many times he tried, Sabo did not feel his touch.

The raw emotion that had crushed him at that first sighting of blond curls and familiar, haunting smile had been enough to rip him from the earthly plane, shaken and form faded from the force of years and years lost leaving him to gasp for breath he no longer needed in a stretching plane where no one would ever hear him.

To know that his brother had lived this whole time destroyed him in more ways than one. The one person he had strived to find the hardest in this place beyond life and yet even now, even in death, he was out of his reach.

It was months before he was capable of descending again to seek out that familiar face changed by time. The second time, the emotional blow was even worse, but he held his ground, refusing to retreat back to the solace of limbo, not when there was so much he wanted to know, so many questions he had unanswered and pain a rush of hurt he could feel flooding through every fiber of his ghostly being.

How many time he yelled at him during that first month… He cursed, he screamed and he cried, an action he had not though himself even capable of anymore. Part of him was thankful that Sabo was unaware of any of this, the Revolutionary free to go about his life now that he had one. The things he said... The things he screamed during this time of turmoil and pent up frustrations, they were not words he ever wanted Sabo to hear, not when he could sense the nightmares just as well as see them, the tension in the blond's shoulders when it seemed as if no one else was there to see it.

Why weren't you there?

Why didn't you ever tell me?

They were questions only his own ears heard and one's he would most likely never hear an answer too. It was a realization he came to one day when the sky was clouded over and the heavens rained down upon the earth. He sat besides his brother, the male besides him drenched while the precipitation only continued through Ace's translucent figure without a care.

It seemed cruel really how the world itself ignored him when his whole world sat not a foot away.

While at first all he had wanted to do was punch the blond in the face, hating how he could still see that gapped toothed grin in his expression sometimes, now there was a somber acceptance. It was not just he that was hurting, a flash of vulnerability caught in bright blue gaze at times and visible now in Sabo's rain soaked form, shoulders hunched and the brim of his hat tipped down over his eyes to shield over the majority of his vision.

It was at times like these where he wished he really could touch the other, not to inflict harm or catch his attention, but to just let Sabo know that he was still here, that he wasn't mad at him anymore, not when it was so plain to see that he was suffering an even worse pain.

A sigh fell through the air, rippling in more energy than breath as he pushed himself to his feet to stand besides the soaked male, wishing for the life of him that he would just go back inside where it was warm instead of beating himself up out here. Still, he knew why it was that he had found the troublesome fool out here even in this type of storm.

He knew the date well.

Exactly three years before now, he had fallen into an eternal slumber in Luffy's arms.

Ace had died.

Three years and yet still, here sat the blond, looking for the world as if he was wishing the rain would carry him away with it, Three years following after his brothers and keeping an eye on them both yet out of the three of them, Sabo seemed the most damaged by it all.

He shook his head, the faintest of smiles rising to faded freckled features as one hand shifted as if to brush across the other's shoulder, lingering there a moment before he spoke words he felt as if he should have voiced far earlier.

"I forgive you, Sabo..."

After that, he stopped visiting the living plane. He didn't stop watching over then, but it was from a distance now, happy at least to know that Sabo was watching over Luffy in his stead. They were strong. His brothers would be safe even without him there by their side. It had come as a bittersweet realization but it was one that he accepted now, even years after that night in the rain by his brother's side. And again time blurred together, fading into the grey as everything eventually would. He had moved past the grey by this point though, finally ready to take those first steps into that pure light that had beckoned him for so long. There, he found those departed from his memories, now found again. Friends, nakama, even family after a while of searching. And for a while, he was at peace with this life after life, this grey turned white.

That was when he first head the call.

It was faint, no more than an echo at first but enough to give him pause and draw his attention. Louder it grew, call laced with the faintest trace of panic. It took longer than it should have to realize that the voice calling his name was familiar.

He started off at just a curious walk, hardly noticing when soft pace turned brisk and feet flew across the floor because he knew that voice. It was a voice he had grown familiar with again, overheard in the halls of Baltigo and out at sea, even that night in the rain though it had been little more than a whisper then. In all that time, never had it been directed towards him, but now his name rang through the air, growing louder and louder.

There was a rustling of feathers behind him, no attention spared to the wings that fanned out to carry him faster still, only knowing that he needed to find the source of that voice once more.

White faded again to grey, passing through the planes and following that tug at his heart that seemed to drive him forwards. Even before he caught sight on blond curls and that stupid top hat he knew who it was.

Wings folded behind him, landing a few paces away as ash bore back into that widened blue that stared back at him that saw him. Finally but still too soon. He could see the shock in his gaze, taking note of the slightly older features than last he had seen upon now once more familiar features.

"...A-Ace...?"

Again, that cry of his name, softer now and heavy with silent questions. And still he stared at him in a mirrored shock of his own, still not over the fact that he could see him, spoke to him. How was he even here, wandering in this land of endless emptiness?

There was a step taken forward and then another, a nagging fear eating at the back of his mind but pushed down, down and away into the pits of his heart where it should smother with a hope that had died long ago. Because Sabo couldn't be here... Still, that thought was pushed back, feet racing forwards because he was here.

But that would mean that-

He crashed into the blond, knocking him back and half surprised that he had even been able to touch him, but his arms were wrapping around his waist and there was a hitch in his breath, burying his head into the male's neck and duly aware of arms wrapping around him in return, that repeated whisper of his name laced in shock as it continued to pour from the blond's lips so close to his ear.

He could hear him.

He could see him...

For the first time since they were kids, Ace could actually touch him.

Which left only one thought to ring through his mind, grip tightening around the blond in a desperate fear that this was just a dream come to life or some twisted form of reality. It wasn't though and part of him knew that without a doubt.

Sabo was here, which meant that Sabo was dead.

"Damn it, Sabo..." There were tears staining his vision, pulling back to cup the blond's cheeks in his hands, knocking his forehead against the others with a shaky breath and wings again fanning out slightly behind him more so to wrap around them both in a blanket of white.

"You came too soon..." And yet not soon enough.