One Piece and its characters belong to Eiichiro Oda. Mirim belongs to TWP.
Ace was asleep and the party up on deck had quieted down enough for her to believe that most of the crew, with the exception of those who were on watch duty and therefore sober, was asleep. That was her cue to get up, and regretfully out of Ace's warm embrace, and see if one or more of her brothers were still awake. She had not exchanged words with any of them for such a long time. Curse that naïve part of her which ruled her mind when she suffered amnesia. Sleeping pirates littered the ground through the halls and up the stairs to deck but she merely flew over them, for once not bothering to sneak past them so as to not wake them as she usually would. They seemed to be a happy enough lot despite being asleep, for tiny smiles and light expressions adorned everyone's faces. Perhaps it was because now they did not have to worry about anything but the rival crews instead of her safety. The thought made her feel like a stupid brat who knew nothing more of the world than what she was told. How many restless nights had they suffered while she was gone?
As expected the sky was a black canvas filled with bright stars and a new moon, so slight in its appearance that she at first did not realize it was the moon. It was not cold outside, which was surprising since there was not a single cloud in the sky, and there was no wind either though she could easily remedy that if she so wished but it was so peaceful outside, and while all of her comrades were asleep and some of them snoring loudly, some more quietly, she found it cruel to do anything to disrupt their slumber. No, she merely wandered about deck, trying to find anyone awake. Vista was out, she noted after almost tripping over the broad man. Jozu was deep in slumber as well as their captain, if the thunderous snores were anything to go about.
Izo and Haruta lay sprawled out over each other and other crewmembers and she had to stifle a snort of laughter at the very undignified position the cross-dressing 16th Division Commander found himself in. Still, all of the commanders were out and for a moment she found herself looking for Thatch, knowing he would probably still be drinking despite not being able to stand on his feet. She paused and shook her head violently. Thatch had been dead for over a year already, one would think she would have broken out of old habits by now. There was one commander missing though but she could not find him anywhere. She took to the sky, surveying the enormous deck of the ship from the air but to her frustration she still could not find him. She landed on the crow's nest and sighed, thinking that the man had probably gone back to his quarters. She had planned on apologizing too, which was the main reason she had left her own quarters and human furnace for. Knowing Marco he had probably retreated back to his room, less cheery than the occasion called for. She could go check on him but she did not want to risk waking him.
'I guess I'll have to wait until tomorrow.'
"What's wrong?" She jumped startled and clamped her hands over her own mouth to stifle the shriek that threatened to erupt from her mouth before turning around swiftly, staring wide-eyed at Marco who lay sprawled out on the top of the crow's nest, not far from where she stood, a bottle of wine in one hand while the other rested behind his head, to make it more comfortable. He sat up slowly, watching her calm down from the sudden surprise by him speaking to her that caused her heart-rate to skyrocket. How had she not noticed him when she landed right beside him?
"You scared the shit out of me." She said after a while and he looked away. "Sorry." She frowned at the lack of a "oy" in his sentences and plopped down beside him. He glanced at her but did not say anything and neither did she, as she was gathering her thoughts and waiting for the right moment to speak. After a while of merely sitting together in silence while the air between them was so tense she began to find the situation very awkward. It was not like she and Marco did not use to sit together without exchanging words before but this time it was different and she was not quite sure why. It felt weird sitting beside her own brother and that was not normal! It could be that the whole atmosphere was awkward because she had given him the cold shoulder all the way from Marineford and back to the New Moby Dick. This made her realize that perhaps she should have apologized to Marco before heading off to see Mihawk. Somehow it felt like she had prioritized the swordsman before her own brother. It was wrong, it was so very wrong, she did not mean anything by it, she had simply recalled that the man held answers she wanted and had hurried over to see him. Marco was always on the ship, she could talk to him anytime she wanted, that was the reason as to why she had gone to see Mihawk right away.
"I'm not mad at you." She started, not really knowing where to begin and thought that the main cause for the awkwardness between them was as good a place to start as any. "I was mad at myself and without thinking things through made you and Ace think I was angry at you. Ace yelled at me earlier this evening, telling me to grow up." She had underestimated the sheer uncomfortable feeling she would go through as she apologized to Marco for acting like a brat. She felt really childish for having resorted to ignoring the people closest to her just to avoid exploding in their faces. They were used to her letting her rage run wild if she was angry and it would have been better to just have let it run lose even if it was misdirected. Marco probably would have taken that better than being ignored. Marco seemed to be sober enough to not having been in the same cheery mood as the others which was depressing. Usually he would waste no time getting drunk if he had no other pressing duties and the occasion called for it though it would take a lot of alcohol to make him pass out, due to his Devil Fruit. Still, he was more sober now than he usually was at this time of night and she could not shake off the feeling that it was her fault that he was like this.
Which made it even more awkward because Marco was not saying anything…
Clearing her throat she plowed on, not noticing that her, in her mind, well-planned speech turned into nothing but a ramble.
"I was angry at myself because my amnesia-suffering –self was such a naïve moron who let herself be manipulated by the Navy into believing you guys were the assholes and the marines the saints. I mean, I woke up on this ship, surrounded by all of you, having you all treating me as family as usual, trying to help me remember shit and still I let myself be tricked by old Sengoku. I mean, I have pop's mark on my arm, how could I believe their lies?" She pushed a stray strand of hair behind her ear before continuing, beginning to speak of another old marine from Roger's generation.
"Garp gave me pointers every now and then but I was still too stupid to connect the dots before I saw my wanted poster. Apparently they had not gotten rid of them all and shit just escalated from there really. I was dreaming about you guys, old memories and such, I even recalled when Sengoku cut me down and I still believed the old geezers until Akainu tried to fry me." She did not notice the tiny, barely visible flinch that passed through her big brother at the mention of Akainu almost killing her. She was too focused on her bare feet, watching her toes wriggle while she talked.
Wriggle… that was a funny word…
'No no, don't get distracted now!' She needed booze, badly…
"And that Keita, man if it wasn't for the fact that he lives on fucking Marineford I would go back and bash his skull in for tricking me like that. I mean, we slept in the same bed and all that and he acted like the chummy fiancé he was supposed to be. I wonder how much they paid him for keeping tabs on me, the bloody bastard was all over me all the time, I couldn't get a break-"
"Slept in the same bed, oy?" Marco's voice was strained and if she had dared even a glance at him she would have seen the veins throbbing dangerously along his throat and forehead. But it was a fact she was a bit embarrassed at the moment and too far into her apology to be able to even allow her eyes to twitch his way so she merely nodded.
"Yeah, though he kept a fair distance away from me at all times though. I think he almost pissed his pants every time we went to sleep." The humorous comment calmed Marco somewhat and his overprotective big-brother instincts died down and retreated back into the darkest recesses of his mind again. Those instincts had not made themselves known for years and it was almost refreshing to feel them overtake his rational mind again, it almost made him feel younger. Then again, back then he would not have had to feel worried about Mirim feeling any attraction to any male though he had seen boys giving her longing stares every now and again. A well placed glare from him and they turned away.
Then there was Ace… Well, he could trust the younger man so he did not feel the need to go all Big-Brother on him.
"But what I was trying to say is that I wasn't angry at you or Ace or anyone, and that it wasn't your fault I got captured by the marines back then and brainwashed because that was really my own fault and I take full responsibility for being careless and airheaded and, well I'm sorry I worried you and hurt you for being a moron, again, and well yeah, I'm sorry, really-"
"You're way too careless and airheaded, kiddo. Is there anything beneath that thick forehead of yours anyway, oy?" He knocked her on her forehead and she stopped her rambling completely, staring dead ahead for a few seconds before she whirled on him, eyes wide with anger and mouth half-open. She was apologizing, which was uncomfortable because she never had to really give one up before, and he was making fun of her?
"Huh?!" It was a strangled grunt, as if she was trying to restrain herself from doing something violent and he did not doubt that she was indeed trying to keep herself in check. Still, that did not stop him from continuing to egg her on, it was too entertaining not to. He had missed this. It had been far too long since he had last done this as he realized he had almost forgotten how much fun it was to rile her up.
The most important thing was that the awkward, tense air had lifted.
"Well, I wouldn't be surprised if there wasn't anything but air stored up inside your head, oy. With all the dangerous stunts you pulled as a kid I wouldn't be surprised if you knocked your head one time too many, oy."
"Pardon me, brother dear?" She grit out, glaring daggers at the man beside her. "Says the one who sent me off with a gun when I had amnesia! I'm no good with a gun with my memories! Who's the stupid one?"
"Touché, oy." He chuckled and handed her his bottle. This time she ignored the nagging voice in the back of her mind, which sounded disturbingly alot like Doc's voice, and took a large swig off of it, rubbing away the droplets which trickled down her chin with the back of her hand as she handed the bottle back to Marco. The awkward atmosphere dispersed and Mirim found herself relaxing again. Now everything was as it should be. Soon enough the bottle was emptied and the two lay down, Marco crossing his arms behind his head and Mirim resting her head on his stomach. They used to pass time a lot like this when Mirim was a child, since she was more attached to Marco than the other commanders, due to him being the commander who was closest to her in age on the Moby Dick. He was still as warm now as he had been back then, she noticed and wished that they could just curl up together as they used to in the past.
She felt safe when she was with her brother like this, and recalled the many times she had snuck into his room at night when she was younger and crawled into his bed, knowing she was safe from any monsters beneath her bed with her big brother watching over her. She doubted she could still get away with that though. All of her kicked-puppy-expressions stopped working on him years ago and besides it would be weird, considering she was an adult now too.
But just resting like this, atop the crow's nest, was nice. Marco thought so too.
Just curling up to her big brother like this and be safe forever, not having to worry about anything else would have been bliss, but Mirim had been slapped in the face by the harsh reality and she needed to do something about it, she needed to talk to somebody. Marco was the man to speak to now. He always had an answer, he always knew what to tell her.
"Marco-nii?" She asked and felt him shift beneath her. She took that as a sign that he was listening to her, that he was still awake.
"I won't survive will I?" He tensed beneath her at her question. Either he was unsure what she meant or he knew exactly what she was talking about and agreed with her yet did not know how to break it to her. He would do her no favor by hiding it from her though, he would only endanger her if he let her parade about as she was now.
"I'm not strong enough to live in the New World anymore. I barely survived the war and it was all just a stroke of luck that I did."
"I wouldn't say that, oy." Marco said in an attempt at comforting her. "You beat an admiral, Kizaru no less. There aren't many who could claim to even be able to touch him, oy." It was true, the man having the ability of light and moving at light speed made him incredibly hard to catch, even if one could use haki. Mirim could not use haki so instead she had used her brain and fixed a chain made of seastone onto the end of her scythe. That made her more capable of fighting pirates and marines with the power of a logia fruit, because she had learned as she grew up that without the skill to use haki one would have to find other ways to survive in the New World. She was strong, incredibly so, but she could not deny that she had been protected her whole life by the name Whitebeard and the strength of her crewmates. The war had opened her eyes, which she had kept closed in childish naivety, and the truth had unfolded before her.
She was not strong enough.
The very fact scared her, for even if she was a pirate and was satisfied with living through her life one day at a time, knowing she could die any given time, she wanted to live. Now that she had what she never really knew she desired, she wanted to live. She did not want to acquire one dream only to die moments later. Some may have called her selfish but she did not give a fuck. She deserved to live just as much as any other human in the world.
"I lucked out, you know that." She replied curtly, scowling at the night sky. "So what if I killed Kizaru? I wasn't strong enough to hold my own against Sengoku, you saw how easily he took me down, twice and if it hadn't been for my mom and the others materializing, which I have no idea how they did by the fucking way, Ace would have- Ace would have- fuck!" Her voice broke and she moved an arm to cover her eyes. She wanted to cry, she really wanted to cry, because she was so terrified, so very, very terrified. It was several months ago, almost a whole year, since the war but the memory of the Second Division Commander leaping in front of his little brother to protect him from the magma was still fresh on her mind. The amnesia had spared her those terrible memories but now that she remembered who she was again, the memories seemed to be so recent… as if it had been only yesterday the freckled man had almost died. She desperately wanted to cry.
But not in front of Marco.
But Marco had always been the good big brother who could read her body language and expressions as if she was an open book and he sat up, causing her to sink into his lap and began to gently pet her head, occasionally letting his hand brush through her long hair. The ends were still singed, he noticed. She still had not cut off the burned ends even though she had complained about them. Soft, barely audible sobs escaped her and she buried her face in his stomach, trying to hide though it made it all the more apparent that she was crying. He could feel her tears on his skin. Instead of commenting on it though, he answered her unspoken question with his deep, lazy voice.
"We'll make you stronger, oy, kiddo. We'll make you stronger."