I can't believe this only took a little over a month to finish. In fact, it took a month of planning and writing and then a week of throwing out the window what I had already done and rewriting it for real. It was a good idea. I think. This chapter isn't as packed as others, but I promise it has its purpose. This arc has gotten longer than I expected…
And, if you're into that, it's also turned out considerably shippy. Yay?
A few days ago I posted a one-shot about Saki's parents on tumblr, if anyone's interested. It's under the tag "inky fragments"
And thanks everyone for reading! Your support keeps me going!
Now excuse me while I grab something to eat during my break. I'm actually updating this from work...
Jag: Thank you! There's a lot of crew interaction in this one, so I hope you like it too! I'm doing what I can to stay alive while not having obscenely long waits between chapters. This weekend I'm taking a break, though.
15. Worth a thousand words
(The pictures tell the story)
The wooden blinds of Mack's lone living room window, even pulled up as they were, were rattling with the wind when Saki came to, and, to her surprise, she realized that she had somehow managed to fall asleep. It couldn't have been for long, though – the only light from outside was the orange hue of the streetlights and nothing hinted at dawn yet. There were coconut flakes stuck to the glass, but it wasn't raining anymore.
For someone who liked to pride herself on being so aware of her surroundings, though, Saki took a good half minute to realize that she wasn't leaning her head on the couch, but rather on Law's shoulder, and that she'd be a prime candidate for a stiff neck come the morning.
However, he was asleep too, creating a sight akin to a butterfly coming out of its cocoon or a snow leopard giving birth to her cubs. You know, one of those miracles of nature that you just stumbled upon and proceeded to stay very quiet, very still while watching, and hoped that they would be burnt into your mind for the rest of your painfully mediocre and uninteresting life.
That was Saki's first and foremost excuse for not moving, in the unlikely case that someone asked. Admittedly, there was another that weighed about as much, and that was that she was comfortable and didn't feel like making the effort. In addition to that, she couldn't remember the last time she had slept next to someone that wasn't family – she wondered if she had ever been able to, because she honestly couldn't recall, and she was aware that if she had a surname and middle name they would be Intimacy Issues, in this order – and maybe, maybe she wondered if that meant anything at all, but it was entirely too early to think, she was tired, and her pillow-captain was warm and made her feel safe, so this was a discussion that she refused to have with herself.
Just as she felt being drawn back to sleep, Law shifted, and she was disappointed for a split second, thinking that she'd have to give up her position. But instead, she felt a weight on the top of her head, and Law didn't seem to be awake yet, and he was leaning his head against hers and their bodies were touching, not uncomfortably so – lies, her hip hurt where she had hit it days ago –, but enough to make her scoot away had she not been too lazy to move and had he not been, well, him.
Questioning that last part wasn't worth the headache.
She drifted into sleep once more thinking that she had probably read a similar scene in one of her mother's cheesy romance novels, only the heroine would have been considerably more wide-eyed and the hero much more presentable.
—
The cruel return to reality came a few hours later, brought by a doorbell that woke the entire crew up at once, and Saki, who was prone to reacting badly when woken up by loud noises, jumped at the sound, which prompted Law to jolt awake, and before any of the two could realize what was going on, where they were and who needed to be fucking murdered, their skulls collided with the force a rock hippo hits a penguin, sending them towards the carpet holding their heads in pain. Luckily for their egos, everybody else was too busy being cranky and cursing at the door to notice what had transpired. Law and Saki shared the universal look for 'let us never speak of this again,' and directed their attention to the door. Mack, already dressed and looking fresh, was on his way to answer it, and once he opened it, Law felt the urge to slam it close.
There was none other than Bob, staring at them with his beady eyes, completely nonplussed at the four pirates glaring at him from the carpet and the polar bear on the beaten up couch.
"Who are you?" Mack asked, likely feeling the tension in the room and trying to find out if he needed to kick everybody out now.
"My apologies for showing up unannounced. I came to deliver something for Mr. Trafalgar Law." True enough, in his hands there was a manila envelope.
Mack glanced at Law over his shoulder and Law nodded, but when Mack extended his hand to receive the envelope, Bob said, "No. I must personally give it to Mr. Trafalgar."
Cursing up a storm under his breath, which prompted Saki to forget the pain to look at him with amusement, Law blinked the sleep away and got on his feet. At the door, Bob passed him the envelope and said, "Payment for services rendered," he explained. "My employer thanks you for your efficiency and vigorously encourages you not to contact him again."
Law didn't say anything to that, still trying to think of the most effective way to get to Carpus, but Penguin retorted, "Well, your employer should have thought better before trying to blackmail pirates."
Shachi shushed him, but Penguin only stared at him defiantly. Maybe. The cap was already on and it was hard to tell.
Bob only nodded at him, though if in agreement or mere acknowledgement, no one could tell. "That is all. Have a good day."
And he turned the way he came, soon disappearing down the staircase.
The awkward silence stretched until Mack hummed, went through the nearest door and called from inside, "Who wants breakfast?" as the sound of pots and pans began to fill the apartment.
That got everybody else up fast, and as they followed Mack into the kitchen, Law stayed outside and opened the envelope to see that there was a ridiculous sum of money inside.
Saki took a quick glance at it and whispered an 'oooh' before disappearing into the kitchen, but Bepo lingered behind and watched as Law counted.
"This should last us for a while," Law commented, closing the envelope and pocketing it.
Bepo only made an affirmative noise and then got in his face, sniffing.
"What the hell, Bepo?"
"You smell of tangerines."
Law stared at his friend blankly as the info set in. Bepo blinked innocently, and Law saw the shadow of a smile creeping on his face.
"No," Law said sternly, stepping around him to flee to the kitchen.
"But I didn't say anything!"
"Still no."
His crewmates looked at him with curiosity, but since Bepo didn't insist they shrugged it off in favor of the bacon sizzling on a frying pan.
—
Following Felicia's instructions, the Heart Pirates avoided the inn during the morning, and after breakfast split up for a few hours: Law and Bepo headed to the sub, and the other three were left to their own devices as long as they tried to stay out of trouble, or else, and they were all smart enough to not want to find out what Law's threat meant. He split the money and gave them their shares, feeling a like a negligent father handing out the weekly allowance to his kids and letting them run wild without supervision.
Back at the port, the Polar Tang didn't seem to have attracted any Navy attention, but, like the majority of ships around, it was covered in coconut flakes that he wasn't in the mood to clean, so instead he went inside with Bepo to show him their newly acquired Eternal Pose and discuss their options. The route they had originally chosen seemed to be one of the safer ones from what little info they had been able to gather before entering the Grand Line. Diverting their course now would mean that the rest of the journey to the Red Line would be completely unpredictable, and though Law wasn't reticent to the idea, the fact stood that they were only five people on board, which was starting to seem too few for comfort, and that the navigator should be the one to have the last word on the issue.
Bepo shooed him out of the navigation room after a while, and Law left him on a desk, surrounded by books that he didn't understand and feeling more useless than he was content with admitting. He passed by the kitchen to get a lettuce leaf on the way to his room, and once there put it in front of the Den Den Mushi on the shelf, who blinked sleepily but soon grabbed it to eat. At least it wasn't sick anymore. It had serenaded him for weeks with its snores.
He set the Eternal Pose next to it, realizing that he was unwillingly dedicating a small section of the shelf to Joker-related memorabilia that he knew he could use, but still wasn't sure how to, and that both pieces of the collection had come from the same person. A person who had given them to him, he had to remind himself, because she wanted to even though he hadn't been sincere with her when it came to Joker, and she knew it. Law didn't count on that benevolent streak lasting, and he knew that one day he'd have to come clean to the entire crew, not just Saki. But for now, he didn't want anyone other than Bepo to know. It wasn't necessary, and Joker – no, Doflamingo, the king of Dressrosa, was still a faraway shadow that his crew didn't need to be concerned with. Perhaps never, if he could help it. It was his problem, and he'd deal with it alone when the time came.
Staring at the shelf, he could argue, in fact, that the Den Den Mushi had been a thank you and the Pose an apology for losing her temper, not two acts of good faith. But then, she could have so easily kept that Eternal Pose a secret in her efforts to try not to think that her old home was gone, but she hadn't, and he had refused to tell her of his involvement with Joker after she asked directly, and still she hadn't. And then he'd put on an incredible display of tact by asking her if she would have rather stayed with her family rather than leave them to their own luck to go who knew where with a pair of criminals she had just met. In retrospect, that had been a dick question even by his standards. Really, he should have gotten punched for that one, not hugged.
Law didn't do hugs, which was why his brain had deemed that staying frozen in place was an appropriate course of action, and generally avoided close proximity with others, but he was aware that he needed to work on that if he had the intention of sailing in a submarine full of people. It wasn't like he minded the company, either, but he had grown unaccustomed to it. His first reaction at being touched unexpectedly usually was to shove and stab, though judging by the lack of grievous injury in his latest human interaction, he could say that he was getting better at it. He rubbed his jaw, feeling a dull pain where it had collided with Saki's head, which probably was a good indicator of why he wasn't a fan of being in close quarters with anybody and that he should not think overmuch how exactly he had managed to end up sleeping in that position. He tended to use others as pillows, and Bepo was living proof of it.
But just in case that the living proof decided to be smug again about his sense of smell and get weird ideas, Law went into his bathroom to take a long shower.
—
The North Blue was known by many things: ancient kingdoms, the tale of Liar Noland, criminal syndicates, rampant crime, and a chilly weather that froze the bums of careless travelers that underestimated just how fun a northern winter could be. That one last particularity, however, ensured that it wouldn't be known for its ice-cream parlors, and that was exactly the reason why Saki, Penguin and Shachi made a beeline for one that the latter spotted and chose a table on the terrace. It was late autumn, and on a summer island that meant a fair amount people were wearing long sleeves or thin jackets already when for them it was prime short-sleeve weather. The Heart Pirates low-key thought that the townspeople were a bunch of pansies, most of all Saki, who was wearing the striped tank top from the day before and green denim pedal pushers. The life of the tattoo show-off was hard and full of sacrifice, and she was thinking that she could afford another one with the money Law had given her when the waiter came to their table to take their orders.
Like any sensible person would have in their place, they avoided coconut at all costs, which made them discard half the options right off the bat.
She didn't do much talking, partly because she was still processing the events of the night before, partly because the raspberry chocolate chip ice-cream was assaulting four of her five senses in the best of ways, and partly because she had a tendency to shut up and listen when she felt comfortable and wasn't being directly addressed.
Saki didn't know when it had happened and didn't care to find out, but she had taken a big liking to the other members of the crew, even if they were all kind of jerks to each other (but it always evened out, so it was fun), and the revelation, if she could call it that, of how lucky she had been to stumble onto them had lifted some of the weight in her chest. Asteria had stopped being home at some point in the past, and now that she saw it, she could try to let go of it more easily. She couldn't forget, or stop thinking about her family, but…
Maybe she had a new family now. Maybe that was all that she really needed to keep going.
She smiled at Shachi inspecting Penguin's tattoo so up close that his nose almost touched the skin, and she spoke up, "Do you want a matching one?"
She said it sincerely, though she expected a snarky remark from Shachi, but he surprised her.
"I don't know. I mean, I like how it looks and all, but… you know."
Ah. "The needles," she said.
Shachi's cheeks flushed. "Yeah, so what?" He said defensively.
"So nothing," she replied blandly. "We all have stupid fears." Needles, of all things. It could have been dogs or thunderstorms, but no, that wouldn't have been ironic enough in the grand scheme of the universe.
"It would be cool if we all had them," Penguin said.
"Yeah," Shachi agreed, but still looked unsure. "I'll think it over and tell you something."
"Whenever you're ready," Saki said.
"That's…" Shachi hesitated. "Do you have a fever?"
"Man, let it go, she's going easy on you."
"He always needs to complain about something."
Shachi pressed up his sunglasses in a nervous gesture. "H-hey, don't start now, it's you who was being out of character."
"Maybe I'm going through some development," she said. "When will you?"
"I'm a fully developed character!"
"You don't even have a character arc, do you?" She said, taking a big spoonful of ice-cream.
"This is why no one writes stories about you," Penguin said.
"No one's writing stories about any of us," Shachi retorted.
"The papers may disagree," Saki managed to say with a full mouth. "But we're pretty pathetic when you look at it from up close."
"Only from up close?"
She snorted, but Penguin lifted his spoon and declared, "No defeatism! We're badasses."
"Big bad pirates," Saki said, lifting her spoon too.
"Some not so big," Shachi added, and deeming the jab satisfactory, he dug into his cookie dough scoops.
Saki kicked him under the table, he sniggered, and then Penguin ribbed him with an elbow and motioned towards the opposite sidewalk, where a group of men were making their way to the sea with towels and an umbrella.
Saki approved. This was beach weather and those guys knew what was good. Then one of them turned his head towards them and waved. Shachi and Penguin waved back. Saki had no clue what was going on.
"That's the maintenance crew from last night," Penguin explained, "Well, some of them."
Three split up from the group and crossed the road to go talk to them, a chunky guy with a buzz cut, a very big one with a bandanna covering the lower half of his face, and a freak with spiky hair that was wearing a white mask.
"Yo, guys, how're you doing?" Mask guy called, and he was about to shake hands with Penguin when he stood rooted to the spot and so did the other two. "Holy shit, are those for real?" He pointed to the boiler suit's Jolly Roger.
"Uh… yeah."
Saki watched the exchange with morbid fascination, wondering if they were in trouble and they were going to find out what 'or else' meant, but apparently she had nothing to worry about, because at least two of the guys grinned.
"No wonder you dealt with those giant rats like nothing," Giant said.
"Yeah," Buzz cut said, crossing his arms, "I've never met anybody with the guts to get them out of a ventilation shaft."
Saki gave Shachi the side-eye.
"We kind of needed to get in there," he supplied.
"Oh, now I remember you faces!" Giant said. "You guys have bounties!"
The three pirates grinned at them, very pleased with themselves.
"You're that crew… What was the name… Don't tell me, I'm about to remember!"
"Something to do cards?" Buzz cut tried to remember.
"Yeah! Club pirates?"
"No," Mask guy said, "Wasn't it Diamond?"
"Heart," Saki said with a clipped tone. "Heart Pirates."
"Oh, yeah." Giant said. "It sounds kinda corny."
"No offense," Mask guy quickly said.
They were offended. It was their hard-earned right to complain about their captain's stylistic choices, and nobody else was entitled to that.
"So, was last night your doing?" Buzz cut asked.
"That depends," Saki said with in a sickly sweet way, and Shachi made a horrified face upon hearing her. "You aren't going to tell the Marines, are you?"
The guy smiled shyly and shook his head.
"Good!" She said, not dropping her smile. "Because if you were, we'd have to kill you, and nobody wants that, right?"
It became clear in their faces that those three weren't sure if she was speaking truthfully or it was a joke, and she made no attempt to dispel the confusion.
"Seriously, though," Giant after the awkward moment, "We wouldn't."
Mask guy nodded. "Serves them right. They always treat us like shit."
"And pay worse," Buzz cut added. "It was about time someone stuck it to them."
"Besides," Mask guy slammed his hands on the table and leaned towards Shachi and Penguin. The creepy mask made it look more menacing than it was, "you guys are heroes. The size of those rats!"
"Oh, it was nothing," Shachi waved it off with a wide grin. Saki wonder if that hurt his face, with all the scratches he sported.
"Yeah, we've dealt with worse."
Going only by the smiles and the impressed whistles of those guys, Saki would have bet that they were developing crushes on her crewmates.
"Do you mind if I sit with you?" Giant said. "I wanna hear that story."
"Me too," Buzz cut said.
"Yeah! I want to know if the stories on the papers are true!"
The guys looked at each other, then at Saki. She shrugged.
"Sure," Shachi said.
After shuffling a few chair around they called over the waiter to place their order. All things with coconut. Really good specialties, they said, you must try them, they insisted. Though that lost them respect points, Saki thought they were nice, even if they also looked like a circus number, but then again, she wasn't the best to talk, considering the company she kept nowadays.
She didn't catch the guys' names.
—
After the maintenance crew left, Saki wandered a bit more with the others, going as far as the posh district to scout, but the only thing they saw were soulless office workers and people wearing in clothes more money than Saki had had at any given point in her life, and her rates weren't cheap.
On their way to the sub, Shachi and Penguin dropped her off at the inn, since she wanted to check if it was safe already. Felicia was reading a home décor magazine at the reception desk. Blue curtains appeared to be in that season.
"Hey," she greeted happily, lowering the magazine. "We got a patrol asking if we'd seen anyone suspicious, but that's all. What do you think about lace trimmings?"
"Lace…?" Saki looked a bit lost. "They're… fine, I suppose? I've never had lacey decoration."
"I should've guessed you weren't the type." Felicia gave one last look at the pictures and turned her full attention to Saki. "Your rooms are ready whenever you want to come back. Though…" She looked thoughtful for a moment, and then said in a lower voice, leaning towards Saki. "How come you don't share a room?"
Saki had no idea where that was coming from, but nonetheless had an inkling of where it was going. "Share a room with who?"
"Don't play dumb," Felicia giggled. "Mack told me he saw you and your captain sleeping next to each other this morning. There's nothing wrong with it!"
"No," was Saki's knee-jerk reply.
Felicia seemed confused. "No?"
"No. Never." She waved her hands in front of her, and why did this keep happening everywhere they went, they'd been doing so well for the last two islands. "We are not together."
"You… aren't?" She asked, and her expression was a mix of surprised and suspicious. "But you stayed behind together at the restaurant? And you slept against each other?"
Saki covered her face with her hands. "Felicia, no." She felt like a broken record.
"Ah…" She sounded disappointed. "If you say so. You look cute together, though."
"We are not having this conversation."
Felicia giggled louder. "Why not? It's a shame! Besides, you," she rolled up the magazine and bopped Saki on the head with it, making her look back up. She then pointed with it at her face, "have an obligation."
"An obligation," she repeated, wondering if she was going to regret staying there to find out what she meant.
"Yes." Felicia looked deadly serious. "For all the women, men, and those that aren't either that have looked at that piece of man but couldn't get near it – you must tap that."
Saki was officially and thoroughly weirded out by how the exchange was going. She had only come to find out if it was safe to return. Clearly it hadn't been for her. "If you have the hots for my captain leave me out of it, you go ahead, the path is clear."
Felicia appeared to hesitate for a moment, but the hand that held the accusing magazine didn't waver. "…While that's a tempting possibility, I really ship you two now."
"Oh for fuck's—" Someone coughed politely behind her, and Saki screamed bloody murder. She turned around with a hand on her chest, and she would have been worried about her heart had it not already been in the hands of a very competent doctor.
Felicia had gone white when she noticed Bob standing a few paces away, and who knew for how long he had been there. Saki tried to find a clue in his dead fish stare, but the depth of his eyes was impenetrable.
"Excuse me. I am looking for Mr. Trafalgar Law."
Saki proceeded to slam her forehead against the reception desk.
"There isn't any guest by that name in our registry," Felicia noted helpfully, patting Saki's hair.
"Oh. Is that so? My apologies, then."
Saki heard steps, and after a few seconds Felicia said, "He's gone."
"Thanks." She straightened up. "I better go warn the boss that they are looking for him again."
"He's a very sought after guy, huh?" Felicia commented, innocently passing pages of her magazine, but then she looked at Saki and wiggled her eyebrows.
Saki narrowed her eyes and said dryly, "The most innocent-looking ones are always the worst."
As the door of the inn closed behind Saki, she heard Felicia laughing out loud.
—
One of the best things about Law, Saki thought, and about the others while she was at it, was that they didn't expect anything from her. She wasn't used to having guys about her age be nice to her and genuinely not want anything. But they lived together, they hung out, they had fun, and she didn't need to worry about one of them suddenly flipping his lid because he had been nice to her and she wasn't putting out. That would be awful, and as silly as it sounded, because she knew it wasn't true, the mere suggestion that one could have hidden intentions towards her unsettled her.
But then, if she closed her eyes and remembered, she could feel the tingle on her cheek where Law's fingers had brushed it.
She'd rather not remember.
She'd rather not pay any attention as the disgusting state of the deck, either, currently covered in coconut flakes and glistening with oil under the afternoon sun. She'd have to clean that, wouldn't she?
She went inside and followed the voices and the slippery fruity trail that went downstairs, where she found Penguin and Shachi at Law's door, updating him on the encounter at the ice-cream parlor. Law listened with interest, and it wouldn't have surprised her if they were planning to do some recruiting – the sub was still pretty empty, and the guys had been complaining for a while about needing more hands for maintenance. Saki wasn't sure how she was going to be able to cook for so many people, but she'd have to manage somehow.
The guys paused their conversation when she approached them, which suited her fine.
"Sorry to interrupt," she said, "but I ran into Office Ninja at the inn. He's looking for you." She stared pointedly at Law. "Again. And before you ask, I don't know what he wants."
"He'll come here sooner or later, then," Law groaned with a dark look on his face and apparently resigned to suffer Bob's ability.
"He better not come inside," Shachi said with indignation. "We should fling him overboard if he tries."
"Motion approved," Law said.
"Is there any way we can get info out of him?" Penguin asked, sounding impatient. "He could be useful if we want to get back at his boss."
"In any other situation I'd say there is, but I don't think that man is a normal case."
Shachi crossed his arms. "We can get the guy at his office, if he stays past closing hour. Like the last time. Don't bosses do that often?"
"Or we can run into a buttload of security plus the Marines that are already on the island thanks to us," Saki said.
"I don't see you coming up with a better idea."
She avoided looking at him when she replied. "His home."
"We don't even know where that is."
"And it may even be in the complex, so we couldn't get in," she added.
Shachi frowned. "Weren't you arguing in favor of this?"
"Just tossing ideas around. Plans aren't my forte."
Law looked at her in a way that made all too annoyingly clear that he thought the same, but he didn't disagree with her idea. "It may be better," he said, thinking over the possibilities. "We can catch him with his guard low, not to mention that there will be more valuables than in an office building. That is if we can get in there, though."
Penguin sighed. "Which brings us to how we should get that info. And that creep."
"We can ask Felicia first," Law suggested. "She'd have an idea of where he lives, even if she doesn't have details."
"Then you know where to find her," Saki said. "Now if you'll excuse me, I have a shower to take and we've got a sub to clean before the coconut gets stuck forever to the floorboards."
The guys grumbled a bit as she walked past them to get to her quarters, but they began moving right away. Hygiene first, vengeance second. This was another thing that she appreciated about them. They had their priorities in order.
—
The coconut stuck everywhere. The deck, the soles of her sandals, her skin, even the mop, all were covered in flakes, and Saki wanted nothing more than to take a high pressure water hose at the deck and at whoever was responsible for that curse in the first place, not necessarily in that order. Carpus would have done, too, but she might have whacked him with the mop first.
A few steps away, Penguin and Shachi were wasting precious energy bickering about who was throwing flakes at whose clean part, and on the upper deck, Bepo and Law were trying to get the stuff off the wood with as much success as the rest. Bepo was currently near the railing that oversaw the lower deck, fighting a lost battle against the small bits of coconut that were stuck in his fur and sneezing every other minute. He was a true survivor.
When Saki diverted her attention from him and the floor for one moment to take a look at the street, she saw something strange. Not because she noticed that Bob was standing in front of their gangplank and looking up – probably at the spot where Law was waging his own war against the local elements – oh no, they had been expecting that from the start. It was the woman next to him that piqued Saki's curiosity. She was sitting on a wheelchair and carrying a carved wooden cane on her lap, and she couldn't be much older than thirty. She, like Bob, looked up at their sub, but unlike her companion, she was showing a hint of amusement in her face.
"Bepo!" Saki called, and he looked down at her. She pointed at the harbor, and Bepo had to squint through teary eyes to notice the newcomers, but as soon as he did, he dropped the mop and ran towards the prow. The exchange attracted the guys towards Saki, who didn't need much time to realize what was going on.
"He really has come?" Shachi said incredulously. "To a pirate ship? Is that man nuts?"
Penguin grimaced. "And with someone else, too. That guy doesn't have any sense of self-preservation."
Saki tried to make out what Bob was saying when Law got closer to him, but he wasn't speaking loudly and she couldn't. After a short exchange, the woman spoke up, and they could hear that one clearly enough.
"I'm Pomona Hazel," she told Law with a polite smile, "and if we can speak somewhere more private, I have information that may be of interest to you."
"That isn't her!" Penguin exclaimed right away. "We would know!"
"Or the other one wasn't," Saki offered.
Soon, they saw Bob push the wheelchair up the gangplank, and with all the discretion that heels and heavy duty boots granted them, the two boys and Saki made their way into the sub and up the metal staircase until they found themselves huddled up next to the mess hall's door, listening into the conversation. Law had taken a chair by the table and Bepo had done the same next to him. Bob, on the other hand, stood straight, and Pomona was facing them from her wheelchair, with the table as the only security measure between her and the pirates.
Someone who so easily went into a pirate ship was either stronger than she looked or too powerful to be touched, and knew it. And very self-confident, too, or she wouldn't have risked her presence in the first place.
"Who was the woman at the restaurant?" Law asked coldly.
"My stand-in, Layla, and also a long-time friend of mine." The woman's hands were decorated with several thin gold bands and chains that contrasted beautifully against her skin tone. "Fitzwilliam relayed to me that Carpus was planning something, and I couldn't take the risk to go to the meeting personally."
"Fitzwilliam?"
"That would be me, Mr. Trafalgar," Bob said.
"My companion is Remington Fitzwilliam the Fifth," Pomona introduced them, "though I believe Carpus calls him something much more classless." The distaste was clear in her voice, but she was too polite to say anymore out loud. "He is a brute who thinks himself subtle, as has been evidenced by this sorry affair. Luckily for all of us, he isn't half as intelligent as he believes."
"How so?" Law said. "He managed to mangle the deal between you and Joker."
Pomona arched a pair of elegant eyebrows. "Oh, you know of Joker? How interesting," she tapped her lips with a finger, smiling and thinking, "But no, what he really wanted was to scare me from competing against him. And given the circumstances, I have no further interest in that arrangement. I have not been impressed by his plays, so far. And that is why I have come to you with an offer."
Law shifted in his seat, apparently relaxed, but actually getting into a more comfortable position to lunge out of it if needed. Behind the doorframe, the three hidden pirates looked at each other as if making sure that they'd be ready to strike anytime.
"We don't want any more 'offers,'" Law replied.
Pomona, though, seemed to notice the change in body language. "There's no need to get nervous, Mr. Trafalgar. As I said, Carpus is a brute. I am not. But I can't leave his threat against me unanswered, either. And, tell me," she said, smiling slyly. "Am I wrong to think that you hold a grudge against him after he put you and your crew at risk?"
Law didn't say anything. He stared at her, analyzing her and her easy demeanor for the smallest hint of weakness, but she acted like she was having a friendly chat with a business partner over tea, and judging by the growing smile on her face, she took his silence as a positive reply.
"I bring you a proposal that you may or may not take. It won't make much of a difference to me, but for the sake of honesty, I admit that your participation would make things easier." She then entwined her hands on her lap, and the smile vanished. "I know a way into Carpus' estate that is entirely devoid of security. I also know the location of a safe where he holds vital documentation along with precious valuables. I want those documents, and you want your revenge. I care not about what happens to Carpus or his estate."
"And you call him a brute?" Law sneered. "How is this any different? You just want us to go in there and do your work for you."
The woman sighed. "That is awfully simplistic. Fitzwilliam will assist you, and as I said, I am going to follow this plan through no matter what you decide. I would not have resorted to this if his brash actions hadn't forced my hand. I merely thought having some common ground would help us work together. And…" With a pause and a slight tilt of her head, she seemed to debate what she was going to say, though it was likely calculated to attract more sympathy. Still, she sound honest when she said, "Believe it or not, I am grateful that it was you who kidnapped Layla. The usual kind that Carpus hires wouldn't have been nearly as considerate with her."
"Say what you want to yourself, but none of those reasons paint you in a better light than him."
A tense silence followed, but it was once again broken by Pomona. "Your opinion of me is ultimately irrelevant to the issue at hand. Of course, I understand if you want to discuss this with your crewmates just out there in the hallway." The aforementioned three grumbled and relaxed against the wall, though they still didn't show themselves to maintain a small pretense of discretion. "Fitzwilliam will seek you later to get your answer."
She tapped her companion's arm, ready to leave, but Law stopped her.
"We can't know you are who you claim to be, and we are supposed to believe that this man has been working as a double agent for you all this time. Don't you think it's a lot to take on faith?"
Pomona smiled again, amused. "It is not faith that I ask for, but logic. If this were a trap, why couldn't this message be relayed by Fitzwilliam alone? And what need does Carpus have to catch you inside his home when the complex is overrun by Marines and you are sitting ducks until your Log Pose sets?"
Law's eyes narrowed at the unspoken threat. "We'll consider your offer."
"That is all I can ask." She bowed her head twice, once for Law and once to Bepo. "It's been a pleasure."
She seemed awfully calm when she passed the pirates at the door, and Saki watched her get up with difficulty once she reached the stairs to the upper deck and hobble step by step with her cane. Until then, she had never noticed until then how disability-unfriendly the Polar Tang was.
They followed at a distance, and when Pomona and Bob reached the gangway, there was a small pause in which she steeled herself, nodded quietly at Bob, and with a small push she let the chair roll her down the ramp, throwing her hands in the air and yelling 'WHEEEEEE!'
The pirates exchanged a stare, and Law looked like he needed a vacation from life.
Once they were gone, the crew came together on the upper deck, where Law's and Bepo's admirable cleaning job had been marred by two track marks belonging to the wheelchair. Saki thought that that probably stung as much as being patronized by rich jerks nonstop.
"What do you think?" Law asked them.
"They should suffer for dragging more coconut inside," Shachi said irritably.
Law's patience was wearing thin. "Aside from that."
"Let's do it," Penguin said. "It's our best bet."
"Do you really think she isn't the real Pomona?" Bepo questioned.
"No. I just wanted to see what explanation she came up with."
Saki knew what he meant. A fake would most likely have come to them with an ironclad excuse or would have been left bumbling for an explanation, if she had come unprepared. She had done neither, which meant that she was either very good at lying or her confidence was through the roof, which aligned well with the fact that she had gone into pirate territory out of her own free will.
Whoever she was, she was way more dangerous than Carpus, and it looked like, for once, as if the stars had aligned in their favor and it wasn't their heads someone was after.
"I don't think they were lying, either," Bepo spoke quietly. "I didn't notice anything strange."
"I think we should go for it too," Shachi said. "Look, what's the worst that can happen? We can deal with some security on the way out, and we get to punch the daylights out of that dude and get something on top of it."
"Now you've done it," Saki said.
"What have I done?"
"You never say 'what's the worst that can happen.'" She made a dramatic pause. "Ever."
"Come on."
"You know what's the worst that can happen? You—"
"Rock hippos," Penguin interjected somberly.
"…Well, maybe that can't happen," Saki conceded.
And with that said, they resumed their cleaning duties, and maybe they whacked each other with the mops during a fencing contest, but even as they deemed the decks clean enough after hours of effort, they knew they'd be digging coconut flakes from the space between the floorboards for months to come.
—
Back at the inn, after the evening rush was over, the only people left in the dining hall were the Heart Pirates and a few patrons minding their own business. Bob hadn't shown up again, or so they thought. Nobody was sure of anything anymore.
"Miss Pomona comes from old money," Felicia explained while she took liquor bottles from a crate and stashed them below the counter. "Her dad co-owned the coconut processing plant with Carpus' at the time of the explosion. They used to be important until then."
Saki had walked up to the bar of the dining room and sat on one of the stools, armed with her sketchbook and a lot of questions. Qaryn's picture was far overdue, and even if she hadn't been in the mood to draw after hearing the news about Asteria, she owed it to Bepo. She wasn't going to allow herself to dwell in things she couldn't solve.
"What happened to her family? It doesn't seem to have affected Carpus."
"I heard that her dad was blamed for the accident," she said, invisible behind the counter. "He lost a lot of money paying compensation for the victims. His own daughter was caught in Cocopocalypse – I hear she never quite recovered from it."
"The… the what?"
"The Cocopocalypse? It's the unofficial name for the explosion. It was horrible, but don't think the humor was lost on us." And then she added with a bit of disgust. "You don't know how many busting nuts puns I've heard in the last ten years."
"I don't think I want to."
Felicia chuckled. "Yes, I figured."
"So, what did her family do after that?"
"They took a backseat, kept trading on a second plane while Carpus grew more relevant. Miss Pomona is rumored to be a capable woman, though. Much smarter than her father. She keeps landing very profitable contracts, and everybody expects her to take Carpus' place as President sooner or later."
"And Carpus is trying to push her out of the competition."
"He must be comfortable at the top," she said, and rose, dusting her hands off. "What are you drawing? Can I see?"
Saki doubted for a moment, because she wasn't quite finished, but she decided it looked more or less decent. "Sure." She turned the sketchbook towards Felicia, showing her the view of the bay that Shachi had taken Saki to see a few weeks ago. "It's the last island we were at."
"It's so pretty! I can't draw at all." She took the sketchbook from Saki's hands. "And there are so many tiny details," she said, eyeing the market stalls and the clothes blowing in the wind from the windows. "How do you come up with those?"
"I don't," she shrugged. "I'm drawing mostly from memory."
Felicia lifted her eyes slowly to stare at Saki. "How long has it been since you were there?"
"I'm not sure," Saki admitted. "Three weeks, maybe?"
"And you remember how many stalls there were in the market?"
"I have good memory for these things." Saki twirled the pencil in her hands and replied sheepishly. "It's not that weird."
"Woah," was Felicia's answer, and she stared at the drawing for a while. "I guess I can see why someone would become a pirate. I'm a little jealous."
Saki looked at her, puzzled. "You are?"
Felicia laughed a little embarrassed. "Don't get me wrong, this is my home. But sometimes I wonder how things are out there, you know? Mack tells me about when he was on a ship, sometimes."
"I had no clue he was a sailor."
"He traveled for a while on a pirate ship. They didn't get too far in the Grand Line, though. Mack saw they were getting nowhere, jumped ship in this town, and the crew continued traveling. They shipwrecked soon afterwards, I think."
"That's really interesting," Saki said. Someone who could actually handle a kitchen would be welcome on board.
"You think so?"
"Do you think he'd be willing to sail again?"
Felicia thought about it. "Honestly? I think he misses it."
"Hm."
"I'll be sad if you take him away, though," she said with a wry smile. "He's like a big brother to me."
Saki could sympathize, but she wasn't in the mood for sibling-talk. She wasn't sure if she'd ever be again. "You two do look close," she said softly.
"We lived here together before he found a place of his own." Felicia took a long look at the room, recalling who knew what and smiling fondly, and then she changed the subject suddenly. "Hey, have you gone to the beach yet? Arnold gave me a free morning and I was planning to go tomorrow."
"I haven't gone to a beach in ages," Saki admitted. Asteria's was okay, but she never had much time to go after she started working at the studio and then for the smugglers. Most mornings she could have been there were spent scouting for tourists she could make some money off of, or for people Rickhard wanted gone. She was glad not to have to endure that working rhythm anymore.
"Well, that won't do! You are a pirate, aren't you?"
Saki laughed. "Sometimes I wonder that myself. But I miss swimming a lot."
Felicia clapped her hands eagerly. "Then get your swimsuit ready, because we're going first thing in the morning!"
Saki was flashing a grin at her when she heard the steps approaching from behind her, and someone looked over her shoulder to see the sketch. "Hey, that's the place I showed you!" Shachi said, as if rubbing it in her face.
Saki poked his nose. "Even you do things right sometimes," she replied sarcastically, and she was rewarded with a light punch on her right arm.
"We heard you talk about the beach," Penguin said, grinning.
Since neither had manifested any interest in going to the beach before, Saki deduced right away that they only wanted to see Felicia in a swimsuit, and she hid a snort behind a hand.
"You want to come too?" Felicia beamed. "The more the better!"
"That's what I say," Shachi grinned back.
"You're going to love it! The sand and the water are really good for the skin, you'll see."
"The… sand? And the sea water? Since when?"
"Ours are different! With all the coconut bits that are mixed in, it's like taking an exfoliating and moisturizing bath at once! You come out of the water all fresh and shiny."
The smiles fell off their faces and Penguin laughed humorlessly as Felicia began to list all the benefits that coconut oil had for the skin, especially for people who spent so much time on the sea. So much for not having to deal with fruit flakes for a day.
—
Saki ran to the edge of the breakwater and did exactly what no one should do by jumping into the ocean headfirst.
The water was cold and clear past the surface. She knew that last bit because she opened her eyes underwater until the salt sting became bothersome.
She resurfaced soon, flakes on her hair and on her tongue (note to self: salty) and stretched her right arm towards the cloudless sky. Banu's bangle slid down her wrist to her forearm, and she contemplated the blank skin. It was definitely time for another one.
She was jerked out of her thoughts by Shachi dive-bombing and showering water all over her. He let out an agonic cry that she didn't understand, and apparently Penguin didn't either before he jumped, but he followed his friend's example as soon as he broke the water surface.
Saki's worry disappeared right away when she realized that they were complaining because of the scratches all over their bodies, and she laughed shamelessly until her stomach hurt. When the other two stopped screeching long enough to try to get to where she was, she dived and made a hasty retreat towards the shore, hoping they wouldn't find swimming after her worth it.
Felicia had set up two big umbrellas because, as nice as coconut oil was for the skin, it was very easy to get baked under the sun after a short swim. Saki's skin was naturally dark enough to not burn easily, but she didn't want to take any chances anyway.
She didn't know how Shachi and Penguin had convinced Bepo and Law to join them, especially Bepo, the poor thing, who occupied most of the shadow under one of the umbrellas, wearing swimming trunks and the ever-present mask. She thought he'd be having a worse time, but apparently the sea breeze was being gentler on his nose than the smells of the town.
Then there was the matter of Law, who had tagged along with the crew, maybe because he saw it as part of his duty as captain, maybe because he actually enjoyed the beach even without being able to swim. In any case, she wasn't going to complain, and that wasn't only because he was shirtless and he had an amazingly well-done tribal tattoo over those… amazingly well done pectoral muscles… and how did he manage to look so lanky in a hoodie when the reality was that, and why did he keep that hidden all the time while he had his fingers on display to make her look bad by association?
(Truth be told, she was actually feeling too much relief over the quality of the tattoo to take notice of the rest of the surface, appreciating how the lines turned and twisted and didn't look blurry or faded. Someone had done their job properly, and she was thankful for it.
But if she was going for full disclosure, there was the fleeting thought that it was a damn shame that his mother was dead, because she deserved congratulations for making that son.)
He was getting his feet wet on the shore, and she felt a little bad for him. Half the fun of going to the beach was being in the water. The sympathy was dispelled soon enough, however.
"You've got coconut on your eyebrows."
She immediately rubbed them, but her hands were oily and she couldn't get the flakes off. He chuckled at that, and now with her eyes surrounded all around by white specks, she grumbled as she passed him, "You've got something stuck on your fingers."
He smirked at her, the self-satisfied bastard, and she glanced at him over her shoulder for a moment. That was when she noticed the most exciting thing she had seen that morning: his back was devoid of ink.
She pointed at him and declared, "I want that! Uh, wait, that sounded wrong," she quickly corrected herself. Oh, brain to mouth filter, where had you gone? "I want to tattoo that."
The smug smile was replaced by a momentary look of confusion as he noticed where she was pointing at. "Ah. I had an idea, actually."
She grinned. "You never got me anything for my birthday."
He thought for a second before saying, "We hadn't met."
"Details."
"We'll see."
"You know where I live if you make up your mind!" She said, winking at him and excited at the prospect of doing a big piece.
"Do you always do business like that?"
She laughed and continued on her way to the umbrellas while trying to rub away the fruit on her eyebrows.
Felicia, who was lying next to the shade of an umbrella, clad in a royal blue sling swimsuit and sunglasses, followed Saki with her eyes until the latter sat next to her and began drying herself with a towel. When she noticed she was being stared at, Saki took a quick glance to make sure that her bikini was where it should be – it was, pink and yellow hibiscus against bright green fabric, almost matching the majestic bruise on her hip – and readjusted the decorative straps of the bandeau top just in case, but still not knowing what was wrong, she asked, "What?"
"Now you'll tell me you weren't flirting," Felicia said accusatorily.
Saki was taken aback. "I was not!"
"Suuure you weren't," she said with a little smug smile.
"Who was flirting?" Bepo asked.
"No one!"
"Please."
"We were talking about tattoos!"
"She does it often," Bepo confirmed.
"'I want that!'" Felicia mimicked.
Saki facepalmed. "I didn't mean it that way! I was talking about tattoos," she said, stressing every word.
"You are so bad at coming up with excuses."
"You were flirting with Captain?"
She whipped her head to look at him in disbelief. "Bepo, no."
He stared thoughtfully at her for a second, and then said, "I believe you."
Giggling at the rise she had gotten from Saki, Felicia looked in Law's direction, pushing down her sunglasses for a moment to see. "Still. Wow."
"Leave me alone," Saki said, dropping down face-first on her towel with her eyes closed.
Felicia did as asked, but the quiet didn't last very long.
"Who are those?" Bepo asked.
Saki made the colossal effort up looking up and saw that Penguin and Shachi had managed to drag themselves out of the water and they were standing on the shore along with Law, talking to the three guys from the day before.
"The guys Shachi and Penguin met at the restaurant. They seemed very interested in us actually being pirates."
"How are they?"
"Enthusiastic and weird."
"That fits."
Unexpectedly, someone stuck a third umbrella in the sand behind Saki.
"Mack!" Felicia greeted the newcomer. "You made it!"
"It isn't like I have much to do with the restaurant closed," he said, putting down a small cooling bag and a towel under the shade. He was wearing an orange cap and a white t-shirt in addition to orange and yellow swimming trunks.
"The investigation's still going?" Saki asked.
He made an affirmative sound. "I don't know what the hell they expect to find, but I'm sure happy that I have a few days off. Looks like those guys do, too."
"You know them?"
"In passing," he said, sitting on the towel. "They call them to the restaurant for maintenance or whenever something is malfunctioning. They do repair jobs here and there."
"One of them came to the inn once to help fix the boiler." Felicia said. "But why is he still wearing that mask…?"
"I think he uses it when he's welding."
"That isn't an answer, Mack."
"It's the only one I have." He opened the cooler. "Want a drink?"
"Yeah!" He passed her a bottle with a whitish liquid inside.
"Is that made with coconut?" Saki asked.
"Yep. Want one?"
"Ah," she said dispassionately. "I guess I can give it a try."
A scream and a huge splash made them look at the water. Law was walking towards the umbrellas, and by the looks of it, Shachi had just been launched into the water by the other four, who ran after him when they realized he was making dying noises.
"Cards?" Felicia asked, ignoring the ruckus and taking a deck from her bag.
As she watched her mix and deal the cards, Saki felt like she had fallen into an alternate reality, but it was nice to have a breather and pretend to be normal for a change.
—
That afternoon, Saki went with her sketchbook to the tattoo studio where she had been with Law the first day in town. They had been looked at with a mix of pity and horror, but she was pretty sure that that had been Law's fault and the reaction wouldn't be dramatic if she went alone.
Behind the counter there was a man dressed all in black with a shaved head and more piercings and tattoos than she could count at first glance, the sort that no parents would approve for their daughter, but Saki wasn't interested in marriage and she was pretty sure no one sensible would approve of her, either.
Only one thing mattered, and it was that they had made small talk while she bought supplies the other day, she had seen his work, and she had liked it.
The man greeted her and she said hi, walking up to him and opening the sketchbook on the page she had used to draw Penguin's tattoo for the first time.
"I want this on my right arm. Can you do it?"
The artist stared at the drawing with interest, taking in the details of the design, and at last he said with a smile full of teeth, "Yeah. Do you want it done now?"
"You're free?"
He glanced at the clock on the wall. "For a couple of hours. Someone cancelled."
Saki smiled back. "Then lead the way."
—
The wind had picked up when Saki returned to the inn, and she was praying to every god she had heard of – well, not every single one, murder-happy water goddesses didn't get her stamp of approval – that it didn't rain again, because her hands still hurt a bit from using the mop so much the day before.
She had changed into a three-quarter sleeve dark green blouse because she didn't want anyone to make a fuss over the bandages covering her new tattoo, though her wearing more than a t-shirt in that weather may have been enough to arouse suspicion.
She found Bepo on a bench near the inn. He had pulled down the surgical mask and was sniffing the air tentatively.
"Feeling better?" Saki asked, dropping down on the bench next to him.
"Captain gave me more antihistamines. I think they're working."
"Hold on. We don't have much time left here."
"Yeah," and then he stopped his general sniffing and got closer to her. "Are you hurt?"
She leaned away instinctively. "Huh? Why do you ask?"
"Because you smell like you have an injury – Ah! You got a new tattoo?"
She let out a sigh. There went the idea of keeping it to herself. "How can you tell?"
"Because it smells like blood and ink. And disinfectant. But the ink is what gives it away."
"Woah," she said, genuinely impressed. "I wonder what it's like to see the world with your senses."
"Overwhelming, sometimes."
Saki smiled at him. "Can you not tell anybody? Please?"
"It's a surprise?"
"Something like that."
"Okay! What is it?" He asked enthusiastically.
"The same thing Penguin got."
"Oh, you're all getting one?" He seemed disappointed as he took a glance at his fur.
"Shachi's still up in the air. But you could get a secret tattoo."
"No, thank you."
"Boring," she said, glancing up at the sky.
The remark bounced off him. "You look happier."
Saki turned to look at Bepo in confusion. "Do I?"
"You've been kind of down since what happened in Qaryn. Captain's worried about you."
"He told you that?"
He shook his head. "I can tell. He also worries about our route, and Shachi's eyesight because there isn't much light downstairs, and not having enough people on board, and…" He trailed off. "Well. He worries a lot."
She felt bad for adding to the pile. "And you're there to worry about him"
"I suppose." Bepo smiled at her. "Did something good happen?"
She thought a little before replying, watching the people passing by, the dirty streets that were so much like Asteria's, and the sidewalks caked with the remains of the rain that the townspeople hadn't been able to sweep away. Just like when they arrived at Qaryn, she wouldn't be seeing this and swearing she was never going to take another bite of coconut in her life if she had remained home, and somehow that made her feel like it had been worth it.
Well, no, that wasn't entirely correct. She hadn't left her home behind. It had merely switched places with a yellow submarine. She could see that now.
"Not really. I guess I realized some things." She crossed her arms, and unconsciously brought a hand to the flowers on her left arm, hidden by the shirt. She grinned at Bepo. "I figured I've been moping for long enough."
Bepo grinned at her, too, and leaned towards her left arm. "Can I see what you got?"
"Nuh-uh."
"I outrank you, you know. I was in the crew before you. It's an order."
"Not going to work, Fluffy."
His face scrunched up in thought for a moment, and then he conjured the best puppy… bear cub eyes he could manage. "Pleeaase?"
Saki was mostly a smart woman who didn't fall for crude manipulation attempts. She had to close her eyes and look away to say, "No."
"Awww…"
"I won't budge."
"I can be very convincing."
She snickered. "In due time."
Bepo didn't look very happy with that reply, but he let it go.
They spent the next half hour staring at the passersby and discovering how prone to slipping and falling on their butts they were when the streets were coated with coconut goodness. Shachi then came out of the inn to tell them that Office Ninja had just been there and Law had given him their answer, so Saki got up from the bench with a lazy groan and followed him inside. Another day, another job. She was pretty certain that she was never going to find the time to get bored with these people.