pairing: sophie, sabo, ace friendship
summary: "Read ch.33 to 37 in one sitting and. Tear ducts. Working overtime. I kid you not my entire sleeve is soaked. If it suits your fancy, and if you've time for it, can you please, please, pretty please with half my soul on top (need the other half to read it) describe how you see it if Ace was able to escape and introduce Sophie to his brothers? Whitebeard or ASL or both." - anonymous on tumblr
words: 3300
he came back from smoke
Sophie didn't know why or how she thought of it: she just blurted it out on instinct, no time to think with hellhounds and prison wardens hot on their tails, "Iva-chan, is there any way you can get in contact with the Revolutionary Army? I bumped into their top forces just eastward of Sabaody, on Omiramba! They might still might be in the region to help!"
Emporio Ivankov blinked down at the young woman running alongside him. The legendary Queen of Momoiro Island was quick as a whip, and he didn't need her to explain what she meant. His eyes widened, and despite the sweat dripping down his massive face, his heavy makeup remained supernaturally waterproof. Ivankov replied quite diplomatically, as he Hell Winked away jailers, that revolutionaries liked to avoid scuffles between pirates and marines.
"No, no, you don't understa—Sabo! You know Sabo!?"
Ivankov's eyes snapped back to her. "The boy from—"
"Dawn Island! He lost his memories, right? Your Chief of Staff, he doesn't remember it, but he's Fire Fist's and Straw Hat's brother! There must be revolutionaries planted in Sabaody who're watching Ace's execution! You have to find some way to contact them and tell them to get their butts to Marineford!"
"Hee-haw! What a twist! His father Dragon, his brother Sabo, that Straw Hat boy really has all the allies in the world, doesn't he!"
Sophie looked out at the jailbreak vanguard where rubber punches were flying, slamming down obstacles left and right effortlessly. When Emporio Ivankov put it like that, it didn't seem like a twist at all. Just another example of whatever fateful wind that blessed Straw Hat Luffy the moment he was born. "Yeah, it's greaaat…"
She hoped she sounded respectful, properly in awe, son of Dragon, Will of D, blah blah blah. But with the way Ivankov looked at her, it was likely that her version of respect landed around the vicinity of a toilet.
Sophie narrowed her eyes. Let's just see if this works.
For a moment, Ace was about to go up in smoke.
A burst of blue that was Marco slammed into Akainu. Burned an arm and a leg clean off, but that was okay, he was already regrowing it as he half-limped on the ground, yelling at them to run. Ace took some magma to the chest, but he still somehow had his head still on, smoke billowing from the burns on his skin.
A black top hat, racing in as Akainu lifted his fist back again.
Sabo jumped through the fire, blazing.
He grabbed his two brothers and hauled ass. The two of them were latched in his grip, a hollering Luffy and Ace, unbecoming kindling.
Sophie was knocked flat on her butt, but Koala was there to drag her upright, her fists clenched tight and her kicks tearing through mortar shells the marines blasted their way. Revolutionary officers appeared from the dust with their pistols drawn and their commands thunderous. Ivankov and Jinbe defended Sabo's back as he dragged Ace and Luffy to safety. Oris Plaza split in half as Whitebeard drew a line in the sand, shattering apart the Admirals trying to give chase.
The Polar Tang emerged, Law roaring at the pirates to come aboard. The Red Force appeared, providing backup. Teach watched from the top of Marineford Castle, tapping his fingers with a grin dark as night.
There was a brief but intense burst of violence with Kizaru flinging out beams of light, and Shanks stepped in to stop this tomfoolery. Sophie leaped onto the Polar Tang, and Jinbe followed her with Straw Hat in his arms, who was bleeding massively from his wounds. Marco flew Sabo and a burning Ace to the revolutionaries' battleship; Ace was clenching his hands over his burned chest, but his eyes were bright, and his hair was whipping up all over as he looked back at his father.
Whitebeard's laughter echoed across the sky as his children sailed free.
Amazon Lily saw an entire armada docked on its shores: the Whitebeard Pirates, the Red Force, Sabo's battleship, and a yellow submarine.
"I'm fine, I'm fine, really," Sophie said, upon returning home. "Oh, don't make a fuss. Well, make a bit of a fuss. I almost died." The Hearts hugged her until she couldn't breathe. "Yes, this is nice," she sighed, sinking into her crewmates. "Thank you."
The first thing she did—after bandaging herself up, as Law was quite busy doing some life-saving surgery on Straw Hat—was take a very long shower. She was pretty sure it'd take another week to wash away all the Impel Down gunk. She was still finding gross little gloopy stains on her skin after furiously rubbing soap everywhere.
After getting dressed, she swiped a stray newspaper and was reading it in the bathroom while brushing her teeth. Someone was knocking loudly at the door of the submarine's deck, and someone else, Penguin maybe, was shouting her name. He could wait a minute. She hadn't brushed her teeth in almost ten days. She needed to devote a full hour for killing the plaque on her precious molars.
As she flipped through it, Sophie breathed a sigh of relief. The papers hardly mentioned her. She was just another convict that escaped Impel Down. Her little adventure in Marineford went unmentioned, hidden from the public likely to keep whatever shreds of confidence in the World Government that was left. She expected a bounty increase at some point, but the papers were solely interested in discussing the three brothers that were taking the world by storm. Ace, Sabo, Luffy. Stars aligned by fate, connected through red sake cups.
Ha!
That wasn't bad at all. In fact, it was perfectly lovely. Sophie nodded to herself as she straightened out the newspaper with a satisfied little raise of her chin. She was happy to remain anonymous. She wanted to enjoy her freedom to wander islands without anyone knowing who she was, blending in as a completely inconsequential face in the background as she explored, thank you very much.
The knocking sound became more insistent. She heard her name being called again. This time it was Hai Xing shouting it. Ah, her mortal weakness. She couldn't ignore him.
She stuck her head out into the passageway. "Ah'm bwushin' m'teef, can't it wait—"
Ace was at the door, and she almost dropped her toothbrush. Her gut dropped right through the floor. Oh, god.
"I'm sorry," she burst out, rushing forward, and she was stroking his cheek before he could say anything. His eyes were ringed with red and his head drooped, as if his neck hurt to much to carry its weight. He looked a bit half-dead. His skin wasn't as warm as it should be. "I'm so sorry, your pops… oh, Ace, I'm sorry."
His chest was wrapped in bandages that were getting a little spotty with blood. But he stayed on his feet, his unruly black hair falling all around his face, bruises and cuts scouring his torso and disappearing under loose pants. His hand came up to rest over hers, and he lifted his eyes, and they looked at each other.
She cupped his face in her hands, pressing their foreheads together. Ace still wasn't saying anything, he simply swayed forward, perhaps inadvertently leaning into her touch as his brow furrowed in—in grief? In pain? All of the above, surely. She couldn't even imagine what he was going through, and she didn't know at all what to say, so she just babbled like an idiot, "But Whitebeard saved all of us. And—and—and he saved you. He did what dads are, are supposed to do, so, so it's okay, you know, it's okay to cry, he loved you so much, it'll be okay—"
"I need to show you something," Ace said, and she shut her mouth. Wonderful. An excuse to stop sounding like an idiot. She'd take him up on that offer.
He took her by the wrist and led her outside to the deck of the Polar Tang. They stepped out into the warm sun shining over Amazon Lily. This time, the toothbrush actually did fall from her hand, toothpaste dripping from her mouth onto her shirt.
Because fourteen knees touched the ground. Except for Ace, who stood beside her, all the remaining Whitebeard Commanders went on one knee, bowing their heads. Jozu, Vista, Izo, Haruta, Blenheim, good god her head was spinning—who are they bowing to and what the actual heck is happening?
Sophie responded to this fittingly by going, "Wait, oh my god, what," also dropping to one knee, and looking around wildly for—she didn't know what—for the ghost of Whitebeard with his wrinkled old man pecs? A glory of angels, no, the Pirate King himself descending from the clouds?
"No, Curls, this—" Snorting with laughter, Ace pulled her upright and touched his hand to his chest. "This is for you."
"Oh," Sophie said.
She stared at him for a moment longer. If this was a joke, it surely had to be in poor taste. Though, what did she know. She was the primordial entity of poor taste.
Sophie turned slowly on her heel and stared at the Whitebeard Commanders, all of them on bended knee. On the Red Force, anchored beside the Polar Tang, Shanks lounged a hand on Gryphon's handle and nodded at her with a grin. On the revolutionaries' side, Sabo took off his top hat and clasped it to his chest. And the crews of the allied captains on the battleships circling the Polar Tang—the Decalvan Brothers, Whitey Bay, Whirlpool Spider, Bohemian Knight Doma, and dozens more infamous New World pirates, looking at them all made her head hurt—every single body lowering itself on bended knee, every head bowed, from captain to chore boy, on the aftdeck to the bow of the ship, extending their respects… to her.
To the girl with toothpaste dripping down all over her chin.
"Um," she said, after a great stupid pause. "Why?"
Marco rose to both feet, and the rest of the Commanders followed suit. He seemed to be chuckling too, by the way he was running his hand over his mouth. "Emporio Ivankov told us everything, yoi. The Whitebeard Pirates are owed to you."
Sophie still looked like she was shocked by an electrified wire, mouth open like a fish, unblinking. Actually, she wasn't quite sure if she was existing on the right plane of reality anymore. She slapped herself on both her cheeks, startling the Whitebeard pirates. And then as she began hitting herself on the head and muttering to herself, Marco glanced at Ace, who crossed his arms and shrugged as if he didn't see anything wrong.
A whistle pierced the air. On the upper deck, Anko waved down at Marco. "Can we have one of your islands?"
"Very ballsy," Marco said. "Doesn't quite work like that, but we do have lots of gold."
Sophie's eyes flashed, turning predatory. "Shachi, Penguin," she called behind her, "how much gold is it gonna take to fix up the Polar Tang?" Kizaru's lasers had done a number on her.
Shachi flung his arm around Sophie's shoulders, giving Marco a two-fingered salute. "I'm thinkin' somewhere in the territory of a quarter-billion beli?"
"Two hundred and fifty mil?" the Phoenix said easily. "Done."
Shachi's mouth dropped open. "Baller," he whispered. The news spread to the Hearts, who were watching this jaw-dropping scene. While their jaws had not actually dropped when the Whitebeard Pirates offered their gratitude to their resident janitor (in fact, they had mostly stifled their giggles or legitimately cried in laughter), a cheer rose up at the idea of rolling around in money.
"Aww, your crew's adorable," Ace approved.
Sophie nodded. "Way cuter than yours."
He replied, "How am I supposed to argue with that?" with a look that made her shove him aside. The surgical anesthesia clearly hadn't left his system. It was making him a bit touched in the head.
She changed the subject. "You and Sabo talk yet?"
"Yeah." A pause. "No. Not really. Come with me."
"Seriously?"
The disbelieving tone of her voice made Ace frown. It was more of a… pout, actually, if big, fiery pirate boys were capable of looking like a kicked puppy.
"Okay, okay. Stop doing that. Your luck's gonna run out one day, Portgas."
"Maybe," Ace hummed, the sunlight of a new day gleaming in his eyes, "but it sure as hell hasn't happened yet."
"This is weird, right?" Ace inquired, after a long, long stretch of silence.
"This is weird," Sabo agreed, standing about a small kitchen table's distance from him.
Yeah. This was also weirding out Sophie. She'd agreed to be in the same room as them, and for lack of a decently private neutral zone, they were standing in her tiny cramped cabin that hardly had room for her on a good day, much less two other people. Ace was leaning against the door with his hand still on the handle, just in case he remembered a good excuse to bolt, and Sabo was pressed up uncomfortably against her desk. She sat in her hammock and was doing something actually beneficial to her time, which was giving her curls an oil treatment. It made the cabin smell like coconut. There was some dried seagull poop on her window. Yes, what a perfect backdrop for a reunion between two long-lost brothers.
The silence was getting weird again. Well. Weirder.
Sophie decided she had to do something. Sabo was a recovering amnesic. Ace was—well, he was just recently almost executed, and his dad died, and he was the secret baby of Gold Roger. She didn't know where to begin with these two. Their lives massively reeked.
She took pity on them. (And also she really wanted to go lay down with her crew, because whenever she closed her eyes she saw spiked bats and cannonfire. The recurring nightmares were gonna be so lame.) She cleared her throat, tossing her damp hair over her shoulder and arching a hairy eyebrow. Her oversized shirt and cotton shorts somehow achieved intimidation. "You noticed it, right?" she asked Ace. "Look at his hair. Isn't it just like yours?"
Ace studied Sabo for a second. "You grew it out."
Sabo raked a hand through his wavy blond hair, which imitated Ace's in length. "Yeah, and? I'm still taller."
"I still have two working eyes."
"Shut up. You got burned worse than me."
"Cool, right?" Ace lightly patted his chest. "Our scars are gonna match."
Sabo turned vaguely pink. "Whatever, man," he muttered, smoothing his hair over the left side of his face. "Is that my jolly roger tatted on your arm?"
Ace flexed his bicep and Sabo let out a burst of exhilarated laughter. Then he scrubbed his face. "Fire Fist. You were Fire Fist the whole time. You even had my roger on your arm. You know how pissed off I am?"
"Heard you go around destabilizing countries and shit. Sounds busy."
"Yeah. It is. But I feel like I should've had some time to call you up, if only I fucking remembered."
"I never remember to call back." Ace waved it off. "Seriously. Ten years is nothing."
"It's ten years, Ace."
"What's ten years when we got a lifetime ahead of us?"
Well, that was all wonderful and good. "Don't lose your memories again," Sophie called, still combing oil through her hair. "I don't have the emotional capacity to go through it a second time. This has been, like, terrible for my blood pressure."
They both looked at her. She'd only known them for a few months, at best.
"Thanks," Sabo said, his voice soft with sincerity. "For Ivankov. For everything."
Her chest flip-flopped. Ewgh, what was that? "No problem," came a breezy reply. "You're now indebted to me for life, but I'm sure you can work with that."
"You know what, I take it back," he dryly amended.
"Good." She gave him a stern look. "I prefer it when you're not impeded by your crippling sappiness."
"Wow," Ace said after a beat, and confided in Sabo, "She's never talked that way to me."
His lips twitched. "These marine girls, they like it when I'm mean."
Sophie scoffed. Loudly.
"Did she really spit in your face?" Ace muttered, remembering with a flash of wicked interest. Something about watching their interaction seemed to flip a switch in his brain. "How'd you get her to do that?"
"He was a miscreant!" she trilled, sticking her hands on her hips. "And you know what, the real hero of Dawn Island was Dadan-san all along, whoever she is. Ace said she was a bandit, but I think she might've also been a very large bear."
"What happened in Impel Down?" Sabo shot back at Ace; they were standing shoulder-to-shoulder now, a unified team to deal with the annoying girl in front of them. "You told her about Mt. Colubo. I know my rights. There's something in the Brotherhood Codex about this."
He was in for a long story.
"There's a country on the brink of a civil war about a week's sail from here."
"You should come with us for Pops' funeral."
Caught off-guard, Sophie stammered, looking between the two of them. Ace's and Sabo's expressions were serious; they weren't joking. That was all very nice, but, but—
She was rescued by a bloodied hand on her arm, wonderfully familiar. Her captain was cleaning off his hands, having just emerged from his operation room, and was fixing the other two men with a politely—or rudely, it was honestly hard to tell with Law—flat stare. "She's finally home, fellas. We're not eager to hand her away anytime soon."
"Understandable. You know, you got a great crew here." Sabo rested a hand her on the shoulder, and he grinned down at her, that wrinkled eye of his an upturned crescent. "You fit in pretty nicely with them, Heart."
"It suits you," Ace agreed with a warm glow in his face, and he reached out and touched her right wrist, where red ink spilled around a tattooed heart. Here in the sunlit passage of the Polar Tang, they seemed almost an eternity away from their prison cell in Impel Down.
Sophie slowly allowed herself to smile back, feeling a glimmer of something that almost frightened her: hope for better days ahead.
She hadn't… really done anything, except for saying the right words at the right time. That was hardly worthy of adulation. But maybe that was enough. The world may not know what she'd done, but those who mattered did. And they would remember it. She'd never been particularly good at making the right decisions in life, so this… this felt like something to be proud of.
Though, it was of Sophie's opinion that she'd be perfectly fine if she never again got wrapped up in another escapade with these Dawn Island boys. Unless there was something in it for her, of course. Perhaps another debate with Sabo. Or another one of Ace's stories. Well, they could discuss the details later.
They went down to Law's operation room, and Ace opened the door a crack. His eyes lit up and his smile grew, and he opened the door wider, stepping inside.
"Hey, Luffy. There's someone we want you to meet."