Hi everyone! This chapter is a little bit shorter than usual, but remember the one-shot about Saki's parents I mentioned a couple of chapters ago? It's sort of relevant to this. It's on my tumblr (link on my profile, because FFnet loves making our lives difficult with formatting), under the tag Inky Fragments. You can type that in the blog's search bar and it should be the first hit.
Anyway! Thank you so, so much for all the nice comments on the last chapter. I never thought this fic would get this far when I started writing it. Your support for this story and its characters means the world to me.
Jag: Thanks for the review! I feel a little sad for leaving Felicia behind, too. I'll miss her, but it was not to be!
Sickinbed: Thank you!
17. Drops in the ocean
(Take these broken wings and learn to fly again)
Lately, Bepo worried that Law may be making some questionable decisions. The Eternal Pose in front of him was proof of it, procured through personal risk when he should have been running to safety, and the 'Niva' engraved in a metal tag was the only clue he had to where they were heading. So far, Bepo hadn't found any info about the place in his maps.
Together, they had outlined the course for this journey to the best of their ability. They didn't exactly know what to expect – and where would the fun be in that – but they had chosen a route that, as far as they knew, was marginally safe.
Bepo understood that following the planned route and going to where the Log Pose pointed at would be like telegraphing their position to the Marines. That was the reason Law had given him to alter their plans. But Bepo's sense of smell was good at catching half-truths, too, and he had the feeling that his captain was lying by omission.
He hadn't complained about his decision, because whatever his other motives were, he was right and they didn't need a fleet chasing after them during their travels. But Bepo had the feeling that he would have found an excuse to take them to that island, too, had they not had a run-in with the Marines. He would bet on it.
He would also bet the secret tattoo that he did not want to have that Law was being secretive about this issue because it had to do with Joker, and Law seemed intent on keeping the rest of them out of his personal issues, no matter how nonsensical that was, since he was Bepo's captain, and they were best friends, and they knew all there was to know about each other. As much as Law had always supported him, at times Bepo felt like a nanny.
He took one fleeting glance at Saki, sitting on the desk behind him, writing in the logbook with a face that screamed that the sweet embrace of death would be welcome if sleep was no longer an option that night.
It had been the same with her. Law had said they needed more people in the crew and that at worst she'd be a fine guinea pig, but his motives had not been so clear cut. Not when they'd gone back to the smuggler's den after Saki was gone to retrieve what little info, what little connections to Joker they could find, and left the hideout with an armful of alligator jerkface.
Saki had been the one to find the Eternal Pose in the restaurant. Sometimes, Bepo also wondered how much she knew, and how much she had been told. But he didn't want to stick his snout where it didn't belong, and it definitely did not belong in whatever understanding there was between those two. Neither were the simplest of people, and he was just happy they got along.
But that was enough pointless thinking for the day, he decided. Soon the rest would wake up, and he'd be able to go to sleep.
"It's almost six," he said out loud to Saki, and watched with amusement how she broke out of her sleepy trance to look at him.
—
While Saki adjusted to Mack's presence in her-not-anymore-kitchen and became the official potato peeler of the ship without much of a fuss, there was a point of contention that caused some tension between them: breakfast.
Mack insisted that it was his job to do. Saki's sleep patterns, though restricted to nighttime, were still atrocious and only second to the captain's in their whatthefuckery, and if one day her sloppily wired brain decided that she was going to wake up at 4 AM, she was going to wake up at that hour and no one was going to keep her from geting something to eat and making a new coffee pot, so if she did it for herself might as well do it for the rest, too.
When first informed of this situation, Mack said that okay, that she could take whatever she wanted and make the coffee, but that would be the extent of what she'd do. Saki begrudgingly agreed.
Then Mack tried her coffee for the first time and declared that she was never allowed near a coffee bean again, ever, or he'd report her to the Marines for torturing innocent civilians. He meant the beans, not the crew.
Needless to say, from that moment onwards, Saki wasn't very happy drinking stale coffee from the day before until Mack woke up and put a fresh pot to brew. Worse than that, Mack's coffee was ridiculously weak. And even worse, the rest of the crew liked it better.
And so she found herself, one of those times when she had woken up and didn't manage to fall back asleep, before daybreak, hanging out with Bepo in the bridge, helping him with the logbook while he kept an eye on the sea and told her about the stars he was using for navigation.
Saki was not a morning person. She wasn't either a very late night person, and depending on her mood she wasn't a day person, either, and the paltry orange juice she had taken from the refrigerator in hopes of waking up her brain cells wasn't helping matters. Bepo's words easily came in one ear and flew through the other with the ease of a seagull soaring on wind currents.
The logbook was filled with Bepo's and Law's handwriting, with some odd additions from her during nights she couldn't sleep and Bepo was on duty. The drawings she had made of the islands they'd been to were in a separate file, with scrawled references to know where they belonged after it had become apparent that they wouldn't fit in the logbook. Bepo wanted them anyway, and who was she to say no to him?
"It's almost six," Bepo told her, pulling her out of her mental haze.
"Guess Mack will be in the galley soon, then." She pushed the chair back lazily and got up with a great effort, taking the orange juice glass mechanically and looking at Bepo with dead eyes. "I updated yesterday's record. The technical stuff is up to you, though."
Bepo stared with concern. He looked tired, too, but not like he was wishing for death. It probably had to do with not being a compulsive caffeine drinker. "Careful with the stairs."
Saki grumbled, not appreciating the condescension, and was on the last step to the lower floor when she tripped and fell down the stairs with a shriek.
Bepo ran to the rescue, but when he saw she didn't look injured, he sighed and went back to the bridge.
Come on. Even the bear had lost faith in her.
She picked herself up from the floor along with a few glass shards and went to grab a mop before someone actually got hurt.
—
She would admit to herself, and only to herself, that there was something more aggravating than the coffee issue.
Mack was an early riser. Not random early, either, he was usually in the galley every morning around six. It was also around that hour that chances of a zombified Law turning up in the kitchen went up, sometimes with the days' newspaper, sometimes without if the News Coo was running late.
He didn't talk much. Saki didn't talk much either, because it was almost immoral to have a decent conversation so early and even pirates had standards. But he was a soothing company, a constant she'd had since she embarked on this trip, and it was their quiet moment before everybody else woke up and reality kicked into gear again. Now she didn't have that. Give an unstable woman a little bit of stability, universe.
From what she could see, Law didn't seem to be bothered at all by the change. His routine remained the same, and the only hint of acknowledgement of the new situation that Saki had detected was the small pause he made after Mack made his coffee for the first time. He drank it all the same, and any hopes of retaining her rights to the coffee pot were lost when Shachi said he was glad they wouldn't have to deal with that sludge anymore.
Breakfast rush came and went, and by the time she was done washing the dishes, Mack was rearranging the pantry for the third time that week (order freak) and Law was on the last pages of the newspaper. Apprehensively, she filled her own mug with coffee that didn't smell like the gods had grinded caffeine into powder, mixed it with coal and poured water on it, and walked to the table way more asleep than she should have been. Was that a withdrawal headache she felt? She wasn't sure what to believe in anymore. Reality was crumbling around her like a dry cookie.
As soon as she sat down and without a word, Law handed her the wanted posters tucked inside the newspaper. She mumbled a thank you and took a first sip of the coffee. It was warm, dark, slightly bitterish water, and it was good.
She must have made a grimace without realizing, because it prompted a comment form Law.
"Something wrong with the coffe?"
"No," she said blandly. "It's fantastic."
"Yeah," he agreed with as much enthusiasm, and after a pause he said. "I liked the other one better."
She looked up at him, surprised and grateful, but not grateful enough to keep the snark inside. "You'll have to talk it out with the chef."
"Hm." He folded the paper, already finished with it, and dropped it on the desk before getting up to leave. "You might want to take a look at today's news."
Saki set the posters aside and was left alone, with news of the Commercial Association of Coconut Affairs having elected Pomona Hazel as their new president after her predecessor's early demise, and a new Marine base being set up next to Qaryn to stop wanted criminals from using that route into the Grand Line. There was also something about the Straw Hat boy she'd been seeing lately on wanted posters messing with a Shichibukai in the Kingdom of Alabasta. That something took the entire front page and stole the spotlight from everybody else. What was the point of committing crimes if you weren't going to make it to the headlines?
She tossed the paper on the table with disdain and went back to her posters. There he was again, smiling at the camera like an idiot. Didn't even have the decency to try to look badass. There were more of his crew, a bunch of weirdos from the Baroque Works organization, and… a kid?
Devil Child Nico Robin. 79,000,000 beli.
According to the description, she had to be a grown woman now. Saki was fairly sure she had never seen her before, but the face was familiar, and she couldn't fathom why.
She took the poster from the stack for further research.
And then, after all sifting through those, she saw the posters that actually mattered, and they were a whole week late. She jumped from her chair, ran to the stairwell and yelled, "New bounties are out!"
—
What Marina and her crew found when they arrived to Qaryn, their first stop in the Grand Line after her superiors had urged her to go to do damage control for some incident, was something she'd internally refer to a shitshow. Not out loud, of course, because she had to set an example in front of her men, but it was what it was and she wasn't one to deny the obvious.
A serial killer, a gaggle of elders pointing fingers, a leaderless militia, and one woman trying to reason in the middle of the chaos and being ignored because she was a foreigner. Marina could sympathize with her, but she had come to the island with clear orders, and though Qaryn wasn't one of the nations adhered to the World Government, it had no pull to go against its wishes, either.
Marina had been told to stay there and put some order until a new retinue arrived to set up a base, then to continue her route onwards. Patrol the Grand Line some, come say hello to Marineford and get chewed out by old men that had sticks shoved up so far up their bottoms that they had forgotten how pleasant life was when one was able to sit on a chair without feeling a stabbing pain inside.
A few weeks into her stay in Qaryn, when her crew was already making preparations to leave the island, she received a call from Commodore Curtiss.
Marina oversaw Qaryn's bright bay from her office as she picked up the receiver. Even the most beautiful places had a dark side. She'd seen much of it in her admittedly short career, and she only guessed it would get worse as she spent more time in the Grand Line. The North Blue was dangerous, but it didn't hold a candle to the kind of people that roamed this sea.
"Marina," said a gruff voice on the other side as a greeting.
That was unusual. Commodore Curtiss usually sounded professional, stern, or angry. The way he grumbled her name hid a tinge of mortification and suggested that he wasn't annoyed at her in particular. Marina could tell because she had known the man since she began her training, and telling apart his levels of annoyance was second nature to her by now. She had been on its receiving end more times than anyone else she had known.
And somehow, he still had supported her appointment as captain of the Lymes base. He was a grumpy man with a squishy core made of glue. And to be quite honest, Marina had been wondering when the call would come.
"Sir," she said. The Den Den Mushi couldn't be furrowing more its brow if it tried. "I heard what happened. Have you fully recovered?"
"What hasn't recovered is my ego," he replied bitterly. "So while it was still in tatters, I thought it would be good to take the chance to say that I don't blame you for letting the Trafalgar rookie escape."
Marina was thankful no one was looking, because her jaw went slack and nearly hit the desk. She composed herself quickly.
"I did my job to the best of my ability. If Headquarters doesn't deem it adequate for my former position, so be it."
Yes, that sounded exceedingly professional. It was a good save.
"Headquarters wouldn't take danger seriously until it bit the Gorosei's collective buttocks." He grumbled. "And you talk awfully big for someone who isn't even thirty and nearly got demoted to Petty Officer."
Marina smiled a little. "I'm sure I have you to thank for that 'nearly' not being more definitive."
"Yes, you do, Marina. Yes, you do."
"Thank you, sir."
"Why do I get the impression that you are making fun of me? Is that laughter I hear in your voice, Marina?"
"Wouldn't dream of it, sir."
The commodore clucked his tongue. "Cheeky youngsters who think the sea is theirs." He paused, and then sighed. "Well, I suppose it already is."
Marina's face softened. "You still have a long way to go."
"I do have a promotion to Rear Admiral lined up, now that you mention it, but I suppose it'll have to wait until this sorry event is erased from recent memory."
"It won't be long, at this rate," she said, sounding a little ominous. Lots of new pirates were making waves these last months. "Did Trafalgar really give you that much trouble?"
"Everything was fine until a polar bear crashed through a window and into me and then the building came down."
The delivery was dry, matter-of-factly, and made the statement impossible to react adequately to.
Marina was at a loss for words for a few seconds. "I see how that could go down badly."
"Don't you say." He sighed again. "Well, that was all I had to tell you."
"I appreciate it. All you have done."
"Don't mention it. It's my job." And as an afterthought, he added, "I'm going to send you the latest bounties. And Marina, be always on your guard. The Grand Line isn't a place where you can relax. Not that you did much of that before."
"Thank you for the advice, sir."
"Until next time, then."
He hung up.
He hadn't been completely sincere, Marina thought. Looking after her wasn't his job anymore. Not since she had been posted on the North Blue away from him, but that was how he was. Sometimes she thought he had been more of a father than her own.
And it was ironic, it really was, that even if she was now in the Grand Line, where danger loomed in every corner, Marina hadn't felt this calm in years. She'd always felt the pressure of having to prove herself, to do double than the men did to get half the recognition. She had trained until she dropped, studied more than any of her colleagues and fought tooth and nail to show herself and her parents that she had done the right thing with her life.
She wasn't sure she had managed either, but it didn't matter anymore. Here, in the Grand Line, she was just one more officer with her own crew and no jurisdiction to protect. The only things that mattered were her ship and the orders that occasionally came from above.
In all the time she had stayed cooped up in the Lymes base, going back and forth between towns to keep pirates and smugglers in check, Marina had forgotten how much she loved the sea, but now just one look through a bull's eye in her office was enough to make her remember.
As promised, soon one of the Den Den Mushis began to print miniature versions of the day's bounties. Marina looked at them without much interest until the last one came out, and this time her jaw did hit the desk.
—
Nicchi Maccarello, 20,000,000 beli.
"Your name isn't Mack!"
"Why does he have a bounty and we don't?"
"The Marines didn't see you."
"Aw, man, mine didn't go up."
"Why… why is my bounty so low?"
"He has a surname."
"Who does he think he is to have a surname?"
"Yeah, that was Captain's privilege."
Five mechanics and a glorified potato-peeler-slash-tattoo artist shuffled closer together and stared at Mack and Law with distrust. Bepo just sulked on the side with his five hundred beli bounty.
"Look at them, having surnames like they mean something," Shachi said.
"How classy of them," said Saki sarcastically.
Penguin side-eyed Mack hard. "I'm sure they think they are better than us."
"Us surname-less need to band together," Tuttu joined in.
"You can have the surname if you want it so much," Mack said apathetically. "Make a raffle. Profits go towards galley supplies."
"We don't need your charity," Uni retorted.
"Yeah," Shachi agreed, "Not having a surname is cool."
Penguin nodded effusively. "It's like the name packs more of a punch."
"What would we do with one, anyway?"
Asuka was still looking at the poster in Mack's hands. "Maccarello, really?"
"Some people hide dark secrets," Saki mumbled.
The jabs didn't seem to affect Mack. "You should hear my sister's name, then."
"What is it?"
"You have a sister?"
"Can you introduce me?"
"Dude, aren't you coming on a little too strong?"
"Nothing ventured, nothing gained."
"You're a bunch of twits," Mack declared, and left the improvised gathering in the middle of the hallway.
The group shared uncomfortable glances until Shachi scooted closer to the stairs and shouted up, "So are we throwing a party?"
"Come up and help if you want one!"
The reaction was immediate, and the guys ran upstairs towards the mess hall. Saki took one last look at the few posters remaining in her hand. Her bounty was now up to 30 million. She didn't know if that was really worth celebrating compared to the monstrosities that had been assigned as bounties that day, but she didn't intend to kill anybody's buzz, so she began to walk towards the galley again. She had a cold coffee to retrieve and more tubers to peel, probably.
"Wait," Law stopped her and Bepo before they could go. "Come in a moment, you two," he said, nudging with his head towards his room.
They followed and waited until Law was done searching inside a drawer of his desk. He took out the same logbook Saki had been writing a few hours ago and a metal box that tinkled with the sweet sound of belis.
Oddly enough, he passed them to Saki, who looked at both things like she had been handed a living, breathing creature instead of a notebook and a box and didn't know what to do with them.
"From now on you two are in charge of the logbook, and you," he said specifically to Saki, "keep the funds."
She had been promoted from Lady of the Potatoes to treasurer in a completely unexpected turn of events. "Why?"
"You already take care the shopping, so it's more convenient. And I'm still doing the accounting, so don't think you can pull anything funny."
"I'm not going to swindle you!"
"I know that."
She huffed and held the logbook towards Bepo. Better to keep it in the bridge than in her room. "I'll go find a place for this where no idiots can stumble into it."
He made a curious face. "Why would anyone?"
"Because nobody bothers to knock on the door anymore? Anyway, see you later."
And she left Law's quarters, feeling the literal weight of responsibility in her hands. But it was confirmation that she hadn't become dead weight in the crew, which was something to be happy about. Yes, one less worry feeding her lurking insecurities. Only the coffee remained now.
She decided the best place to avoid stumblings and shenanigans was the trunk where she kept her clothes, so she rearranged it to make room for the box, and when she was done, she took the bounties she was still carrying and placed them in a desk drawer. Her books were sitting on top of it, the few she had brought from home and the ones she'd bought during their travels. But the one that caught her attention was the big history tome that Shachi had brought her when she had been grounded in the sickbay, the one where she kept the only picture she had of her mom. For some reason, she had never wanted to take any others.
Saki opened the book to pick up the photo. If it weren't for this picture, she'd probably have forgotten her mom's face by now. She stared at her smiling face for a few seconds before something else stuck out. There was another woman, older than her mother, with white hair and a strong nose and wide brown eyes…
Saki opened the drawer she had just put the bounties in and took out Nico Robin's poster.
Even as a child, she looked so much like the white-haired woman. Could the two be related? She discarded the thought right away. What would a woman like that be doing with Saki's mom and her friends? The Devils of Ohara didn't go around sightseeing and taking group pictures.
She put the book, the picture, and the poster away, but she couldn't shake off the nagging feeling that she was overlooking something.
While she was alone, she also took the chance to roll up her right sleeve to check out the tattoo. She'd been keeping it covered while it healed, but about two weeks had passed since she'd gotten it and it looked good enough for show already. Short sleeves were in order.
—
Two weeks. It took two weeks for every bastard in the crew sans the captain to wear a boiler suit.
Shachi and Penguin had the original idea, so it was okay. The three new guys worked deep down in the entrails of the Polar Tang, too, so she could understand. But the day Mack appeared in the galley wearing that godforsaken white, smiley, hideous boiler suit was the day she couldn't keep it to herself anymore.
"What have you done?" She whined.
Mack seemed perplexed at the outburst. "It's more practical to get rid of the stains."
Saki stared at him speechless, mouth slightly ajar and not quite believing what she had heard.
"Why does it bother you?"
"You don't get it," she said pathetically. "They'll hound me."
"Don't be so dramatic."
And true to her expectations, the first thing that happened when the guys came into the mess hall, before they sat down at the table, before they asked what they were having for breakfast, was that Penguin and Shachi walked to the galley, shit-eating grins and all, and asked, "When are you going to wear yours, Sa—"
Saki flung a pair of tongs in their general direction. She hadn't even paid attention to who had spoken, and it didn't matter, because both were guilty. The tongs flew to the mess hall, hit the table, and stopped where the other three had taken seat as a fair warning of their fate if they pushed their luck.
"Woah, did someone piss in your coffee?" Shachi asked, peeking over his sunglasses to see where the tongs had landed.
"No, but I can and will piss in yours if you don't leave me alone. Shoo!"
"Aww, don't be like that," Penguin said sweetly.
"Shooooo."
"You shouldn't have thrown those," Mack remarked without turning to look at them, busy scrambling eggs.
Saki suddenly felt awkward at the reprimand. She didn't want to make mad the guy who fed them and she had to work with. "Sorry. I'll get them—"
"No, I mean you should have thrown something else. Blunt or sharp weapons are fine if you need to make a statement."
"Oh," she said eloquently. "Um." She had all the words. "What do you suggest?"
"That fillet knife to your left, for instance—"
"We'll wait at the table!" Penguin said immediately, dragging Shachi by the scruff of his neck.
"…Thanks," Saki said.
"I can show you the technique later."
"That would be nice," she said sincerely. "You have an amazing throwing arm."
"It's necessary. The kitchen is our territory. It falls on us to defend it from intruders."
Saki laughed. "We are warriors."
"We are, and they are vermin invading out land. Never forget that."
"Our?"
"You pioneered it."
It was good to have confirmation that he didn't see her, too, as an intruder on his territory.
"Actually, Captain did. He just wasn't cut out for this kind of life."
Mack pondered for a moment. "Not going to lie, I have wondered where the scorch marks on the ceiling had come from."
"He's a menace."
"Duly noted. Now go retrieve those tongs or you're taking the bacon out of the frying pan with your fingers."
"Yes, sir!" Then she added, because she had to try, "Will a good defense grant my coffee pot rights back?"
"No."
"I'm going to sigh very audibly and passive-agressively so you know how displeased I am with this."
"I don't care."
Saki sighed and left to retrieve the tongs, with which she had to threaten an idiot again before going back to work.
—
When you live for so long with the same people either in the middle of the sea or underwater, it's the little things that make you go crazy or save you from a mental breakdown. The boiler suits issue was beaten to death and then some, and Saki had no doubt that the accusations of lacking team spirit would be a recurring theme for a long time.
She was in her room, on her bed, flipping through the pages of a reference book when someone opened the door without knocking. Months ago, she had cared. Now it was another fact of life that the only person in the whole freaking ship that had the decency to knock on doors was Law.
"If you want to see me naked that badly, listen in until you hear the shower stop running and the bathroom door open, then barge in," she said without any bite to it.
"Ha ha, you are so funny."
The silence stretched for a few seconds while Saki kept looking at her book and Shachi kept waiting for her to drop it, until he couldn't take it anymore and pointed at her. "Will you look at me for a second?!"
Lazily, she sat up on her bed, crossed her legs and said, "Yes, your Majesty, what will you have of me today?"
Shachi's arm dropped and his demeanor switched from combative to unsure in the blink of an eye. Now that was interesting. And worrying.
"Something wrong?" She asked.
"Nope. Nothing. There is no thing that is wrong. Such a thing doesn't exist and—"
"Spit it out."
He took a deep breath. "I want a tattoo!"
For a moment, Saki's face was inscrutable. For a moment, Shachi breathed easy and believed he'd be spared any disparaging remarks.
The moment of peace and quiet and mutual understanding was broken when Saki grinned from ear to ear and said, "So now you want one!"
Shachi spluttered before he could form a coherent sentence. "Not just now, you know I've been thinking about it for some time!"
"And now that you see the cool kids all have tattoos you want one too, is that right?"
"Fuck no, you aren't cool."
"Oh, that's right! I'm not cool because I'm not wearing a boiler suit! Whatever shall I do? How could an uncool person tattoo such a cool guy?"
"Are you seriously holding that over me now?!"
"You know, I think I know exactly what a very uncool person that is definitely not a pirate nor a friend would do."
Shachi's eyes narrowed with suspicion. "What is it?"
"Make you fucking pay for it," she said deadly serious.
"You're kidding!"
"Of course, silly of me!" She said with a smile and a sigh, putting a hand to her cheek. "Since money grows on trees and I live in a fucking forest beli bills drop on my lap with every spring shower." The smile disappeared. "But you know what, it's winter and the trees are bare."
"Wow. Wow. You're more of an ass than usual."
"A woman needs to make a living, Shachi."
Saki thought that he was going to turn around and leave, but to his credit, he crossed his arms and asked seriously, "How much?"
"Hm…" She put a hand on her chin and tried to look thoughtful. "How does forty thousand beli sound?"
All the aplomb he had vanished. "I don't have that sort of money to throw around!"
"Don't be a cheapskate with something you'll have to wear all your life."
"Just… Forget I said anything."
"Wait!"
He halted under the doorstep and glared at her. "What?"
She pointed at her own new tattoo. "Same design, same place?"
Shachi didn't reply right away because he was too busy looking for a trap. "Yeah."
"Okay, I'll make the preparations. You make the call when you want it."
"I told you I don't have that much money."
"I'm not gonna charge you, dumbass."
Shachi's expression froze and morphed the most pure representation of offense Saki had seen in her life, and she had seen a lot of those telling smugglers that their tattoos were cheap and shitty.
"You ginormous bitch."
Shachi slammed the door shut and Saki went into a fit of laughter that lasted for a few minutes. Payback was sweet.
But when the laughter stopped, she left her room and went to find Law and ask him for permission to use the sickbay again. She had no clue where he was, so she was going to tour the Polar Tang and hope that he wasn't taking a nap with Bepo on the deck, because waking those two up when they looked so adorable together was nothing short of a crime.
For the record, it was Bepo who gave them the adorable feel. Definitely not Law.
Her search was cut short very soon when she tried to knock on the door, because she had been given a proper education, unlike that herd of oafs, and she found it unlocked. She pushed it carefully to look inside, and she saw Law asleep on his bed and pinned in place by a book that she'd wager was half his weight. How could he breathe with that thing on top?
She tried to leave without disturbing him, but sadly, that was not to happen. He blinked blearily and for an expressionless and confused moment felt with his hands the thing on his chest until it was determined it was a book, he had fallen asleep reading it, and his lungs weren't collapsing. He put it aside.
"Sorry, I didn't mean to wake you up, the door was open and—"
"It doesn't matter," he said, rubbing his eyes.
Saki noticed how the frown seemed to be perpetually carved into his features from the moment he woke up. It was a fascinating ability to have. Was it some sort of natural self-defense, like those colorful amphibians that scream to their predators, 'DANGER, DANGER, POISON COURSES THROUGH MY VEINS'? Or was it merely a warning for any strangers that approached him? That sounded about right.
It wasn't the time to think about it, though. "I was wondering if you'd let me use the sickbay again."
He caught on at once. "Another tattoo? Who is it now?"
"Make a guess!" She said, but upon second thought on seeing his not-quite-there expression she added quickly, "Shachi."
"Don't scar him for life," he commented, stifling a yawn.
"I don't take orders from a guy with that mess on his fingers!" Silence. Oh, that was dumb. "Well, not about my job. The thing I'm good at. I wouldn't tell you how to operate either… I'll go now, thanks."
"Saki," he called.
"Yes?"
"Are you still forbidden from the coffee pot?"
She grimaced. "Yeah."
"Then buy a new one when we hit the next island. That is an order."
Saki's smile grew at the rate the meaning of his words sank in. "That's one I can follow."
"You better."
She held back a snicker. "And I thought I was desperate."
"Close the door when you leave."
"Aye, aye, goodnight, Sleeping Beauty."
Something hit the door as Saki closed it, and by the sound of it, she would have guessed it was a book.
—
Tsubaki wasn't sure for how many weeks they had been sailing, since she had been out cold for a some days and stayed disoriented for a few more. They had made stops in various islands, but neither she nor Take had been allowed to disembark – an anti-espionage policy, they explained – and their contact with the outside world had been limited to what the revolutionaries told them and what the newspapers said.
She had been intently following the news reports from Asteria, hoping that her grandpa's name appeared in the survivor lists, but when they stopped publishing them, she switched to believing that he was alright and somehow had found his way to safety without the Marine's help. He was that kind of person.
It didn't hit her, until days after the last list was printed, that her sister may have been reading the newspapers too, that her name and Take's hadn't been on any of them, and that she may have assumed that they were dead. Tsubaki's stomach lurched at the thought, and she had ambushed a kind fellow named Bunny Joe for a way to contact Saki, but he had explained that there was no way to send a letter to a pirate ship, because pirates didn't want to be found and wouldn't stay long enough in one place to be easily accessible.
Tsubaki had been inconsolable for days. And somehow, Take, who by all rights should have been feeling even worse, had been the one to hold himself together and try to cheer her up. Tsubaki felt like she was failing spectacularly at being a big sister.
She kept reading the newspapers. Every morning, she waited on the deck from dawn until the News Coo came for delivery, and the crew jokingly nicknamed her Papergirl once it became a routine.
Each time she read reports about the Heart Pirates, she ran to show them to Take. When the new bounty for her sister came out, she nagged the ship's carpenter until he gave her a frame to put it in.
Every little bit was proof that she was fine, that Tsubaki didn't need to worry because if there was someone that could make it no matter what life threw at her, it was her sister.
"Did you check this one out?" The artilleryman asked her one day during lunch, when reports that the Heart Pirates were behind a couple of civilian murders came out.
"Yup. First thing I read in the morning," she said chipperly.
"It says they offed two merchants. Your sister sounds like someone I wouldn't want to cross."
"My sister wouldn't—" She thought through what she was about to say, because the knee-jerk reaction of saying that Saki wouldn't hurt a fly was Yagara bull shit. "She wouldn't do it without a really good reason. Besides, aren't you guys complaining all the time that the news make up stuff?" And she started shoveling food in her mouth.
"If you say so," the man conceded, not caring much for an argument. "But we aren't like pirates, Papergirl. Most pirates are just raiders. We fight for freedom."
Tsubaki got up from her seat, cheeks full of food like a hamster, and proceeded to chew him out. "Doncha dare—" She swallowed with a lot of effort and downed a glass of juice to wash it down. The man looked like he was holding back laughter. "Don't speak of my sister like that! She's a good person!"
He snorted. "And what about this Surgeon of Death, he's a good person too? Doesn't sound like one."
"Yes, he is!" She said, prompting a few heads to turn to listen to her. "He saved her and he helped us, and if it weren't for him Take and Saki and I would've been dead way before you lot rescued us!"
The artilleryman threw up his arms in surrender, and said with a smirk. "Woah, alright, point taken. They're saints, it's all lies and slander."
"Don't talk to me like I'm dumb!"
"You ain't dumb. You're young and innocent, and it's about time you woke up. Pirates don't do god things because."
"That's not true!"
"Hey, that's enough," Koala, a few seats away from them, intervened, and the bickering stopped.
From that day onwards, Tsubaki began to avoid the artilleryman.
Since the day she had picked them up, Koala had been checking in on Tsubaki and Take constantly, and she was the one who had explained the situation once Tsubaki's mind was again fit to take in information.
They were headed to the Revolutionary Army's headquarters in a place called Baltigo, in the Grand Line, and though both kids had been welcomed with open arms among the revolutionaries, they'd never had any choice in the matter, anyway. Koala had made the decision for them, to either abandon them on the docks of Asteria or recruit them. They'd already seen and heard too much to let them go.
Not that they had a place to return to, and Tsubaki wouldn't have known what to do with herself and Take, so she was glad for the sense of purpose this sequence of events had dumped on her.
And what to do when they were in Baltigo? Make friends with other kids, Koala said. Study. Get stronger. Help the cause.
Tsubaki could get behind that. She'd been living all her life in Asteria, knowing the government and the Marines turned a blind eye to what was happening there. She had lost half of her family to the smuggling ring, and she'd never thought she would have the opportunity to get back at them for it.
Saki had done her part with the criminals. Now, Tsubaki thought, it was her chance to help take down the guys who tried to look good but were just as guilty.
Later that day, she rushed outside when Take called her, excited because they were about to reach land.
The ship approached the white shores of Baltigo, the midday sun reflecting on every surface like it was snow instead of sand and rocks, and Tsubaki thought it was the most beautiful place she had ever seen.
This would be home, now. And wherever her sister was, she'd have to trust in her to be alright until they had the chance to meet again.
—
Some days were harder than others.
Saki was past the stage of thinking constantly of her family, which she was aware many people would call it being cold, while she'd say it was a magnificent display of her ability to compartmentalize.
She'd had many things to distract herself lately: getting used to the new crew members, and the good coffee, and not being as useless as she thought by having the crew's finances in her hands.
But now that she was getting used to the novelties, she had more time to think, and time to think meant letting her mind wander to places she didn't want it to go. If there was one thing she missed about living in Asteria was that she didn't have a moment to be idle and think about how much her life sucked.
She quite liked it now. She just couldn't stomach the thought that what she had left behind might be gone forever. And every time her thoughts were down that path, she remembered something so obvious and trite that, had it not been Law who said it, it would have bounced right off of her.
The papers lie.
Of course they did. They kept pinning crimes on them on top of the already very questionable and illegal crap they pulled, she saw that every day. Half of the things she was wanted for, she hadn't done, and about another half of what she had actually done was unaccounted for. Official sources were lying, conniving and incompetent. It stood to reason that they were wrong regarding Asteria as well, and given their track record with the place, she'd be surprised if they weren't actively hiding things from the public.
She hoped they'd be able to uncover something, anything, now that they were headed for the island the Eternal Pose pointed to. She wanted to thank Law for that, but she hadn't been sure how without sounding awkward. It wasn't like he had chosen that route to help her.
He was looking for something else there, she knew it, and he didn't want to let her know more than she already did. But it had been a convenient move for Saki, all the same, and she had all the right to feel thankful.
She looked forward to what they'd turn up, she mused while she stepped out of the shower. Wrapping a towel around her body and throwing another of top of her hair to dry it, she opened the door that connected the tiny bathroom with her quarters, and she was immediately greeted by the door to the hallway bursting open and no less than four dimwits pushing Shachi through it. Mack was, logically, missing from the bunch, because he was an adult instead of an oversized child.
Saki stared at them with a deadpan while they stood frozen by the door, possibly realizing that they had almost stumbled onto a naked chick with allegedly violent tendencies and that knocking before entering suddenly seemed like such a small price to pay when the other option likely entailed losing chunks of their nether regions.
Luckily for them, Saki wasn't easily embarrassed to mind, and she was so used to this that she sounded way more tired than angry when she said, "Will it fucking kill you to knock one of these days?"
There was a chorus of mumbled apologies, so Shachi's very much not-sorry statement stood out. "I didn't want to come here!"
"Yes, you did!" Uni said.
"No I didn't!"
"Yes you—"
"No I—"
"He wants the tattoo," Penguin explained calmly. "But he's too much of a chicken to get it."
Saki scowled and took her sweet time to send a dirty glare to every one of them. "Did I miss something? Are you all running for the asshole of the year award?"
"Eh, no…"
"We didn't mean to catch you like—"
"I'm not talking about me!" She pointed accusingly at them. "How would you like it if everybody made fun of you for having a fear? Have some shame!"
There was an uncomfortable silence.
She waved them out forcefully. "Everybody out of here before I get angry for real! And if I see any of you pressuring someone to get a tattoo from me I'll make sure that you wake up with an indelible dick on your forehead."
The group scattered at her order, but Shachi lingered for a moment.
"What?"
"Thanks."
She rested her hands on her hips. "I didn't do it for you. Worst publicity an artist can get is a customer regretting the purchase."
He let out a small snort. "Yeah, of course. My bad for thinking you were being charitable."
"As long as that's clear."
Shachi left, shutting the door quietly behind him.
Dang needles, she thought, throwing her head towel on the chair.
—
She didn't have to wait long for the conclusion to that hanging plotline in her life. Later that evening, someone knocked on Saki's door while she was sitting at her desk.
"It's open," she said, expecting Law and failing her prediction by a long shot.
"Why don't you lock it if it—"
She threw an arm over the chair's back and looked over her shoulder to make sure she wasn't imagining things. "Shachi?"
"Uh, yeah?"
"Let me take note of this day for posterity."
"Don't start now, I've come here peacefully." He looked around and, for lack of a white flag, resorted to pinching a side of the boiler suit and waving it.
Saki piped down. "Sorry, I'm all ears."
"I'm ready!"
She tilted her head to one side and watched him like a hawk. She couldn't sense anything fishy, but she'd admit that if the guy wasn't so overall expressive, the sunglasses perma-glued to his face would make her play in hard mode. "Is anybody listening in around the corner to make sure you say this? Is it a bet? Are you being blackmailed?"
"No," he said very seriously. "I came here on my own."
She broke into a smile. "Cool. Give me ten minutes and I'll be in the sickbay."
"Cool." He repeated, and scratched the back of his neck sheepishly. "Um…"
"I have no intention of giving you a hard time about this," she said before he could ask.
He looked visibly relieved at that. "Oh. Okay. Thanks."
She waved him off with a half-smile. "Don't. It's my job."
—
Saki was sweeping the lower deck with Asuka when the speakers of the sub announced, at long last, what they'd been dying to hear for weeks.
"Land ahoy!" Bepo voice rang out. "We'll reach Niva in two hours!"
Both Saki and Asuka threw up the brooms and cried out in joy. There was only so much time a person could stay cooped up in a ship without losing their sanity.
Then they picked up the brooms again, because leaving cleaning supplies strewn around on top of a submarine was silly, swept at the speed of the light, and prepared to disembark.
One of the first things they noticed, when the island was still a dot in the horizon, was the cold.
The more the Polar Tang approached it, the more Niva looked like a winter wonderland, and the part of the crew that was furry or from the North Blue greeted the icy breeze like Christmas had come early. The rest of the crew was cursing the weather up and down and rummaging through their clothes for the warmest thing they could wear inside the boiler suits.
"This is heaven," Penguin said, taking a deep breath that probably contained snow crystals.
"Do you think it's snowed in Indent Bay already?" Shachi asked with a grin.
Saki leaned against the deck's railing, eyes never leaving the island. "Asteria sure used to be white by this time of the year."
"Shouldn't you go put on something warmer?"
"Oh?" She took a look at her half sleeves and shorts. "Yeah, I guess. But it's so nice out here."
"You kind of have to pity the other guys," Shachi said. "Well, I don't know about Mack."
"Hope he never got too used to coconut climate. But man, this is a throwback…"
The three sighed contentedly.
"I can't believe they'd rather smell like a mammoth's sweaty armpit than," Penguin spread his arms, "this!"
The wind picked up and snowflakes began to flutter around. Storm clouds gathered and swirled above them.
"Nice superpower," Saki said.
"They don't call me Penguin for nothing!"
Saki snickered and skipped her way to her room, trying not to laugh too loud at the smell of desperation coming from the men's quarters. She dug out from the depths of her trunk a pair of grey pants, a pear green turtleneck sweater, brown boots and a black coat with a faux fur-trimmed hood. She laid out the clothes on her bed and looked at them with obvious disenchantment. It was impossible to shop for bright colors in winter.
Ah, well. She wasn't going to be discouraged by a minor inconvenience. She had a good feeling about this island.
She put it all on and headed out again. She had never worn that coat much, because it had been a present from the old man on her twentieth birthday, and it was so nice she kept saving it for occasions that never came. She stopped in front of the stairs and felt the pockets with urgency when she realized she may have been missing something critical. No gloves. She'd need to get a pair in the island.
"Lost something?"
She turned around to see Law come out of his room with a long black coat under his arm.
"Didn't pack any gloves." She shrugged. "I've got pockets."
She began walking up the steps and Law followed.
"I've always wondered how cold a winter island in winter is compared to North Blue," Law said conversationally. He may not have been as expressive, but it was clear to anyone who knew him a little that he was as pleased with the weather as everybody else.
"Well, no matter how you look at it we were closer to the pole, so…" She took the last stairs to the deck and saw he had stopped. "Aren't you coming out?"
"I'll see how Bepo's doing in the bridge."
"Okay," she gripped the doors' handle and twisted it. "See you la—"
The parting was cut short by screams of terror, and when she opened the door all the way, she had no time to register what was happening before Shachi and Penguin lunged into the sub, crashed against her and made the three tumble down the stairs, sorry pile of limbs and shrieks taking Law down with it too, who instead of dodging had suffered from a sudden bout of trainwreck syndrome and stayed rooted in the spot.
They rolled until they hit the stairs to the bridge, and immediately they heard Bepo rush down to help.
Saki had an acute sensation of déjà vu as it became apparent that what had made Penguin and Shachi tackle her like the pair of savages they were was a sudden hail storm.
She tried not to think of the last time this had happened, because if it was any indication of how the next days would go, she'd rather lock herself in her room for a week and wait until everybody was done with running from law enforcement through sewers.
Bepo's thoughts must have been along the same lines, because she heard him ask, "Don't you guys get tired of this?"
They weren't spared the indignity of disentangling themselves before the rest of the crew came to the rescue, alerted by the noise, but at least they kept the inappropriate jokes for themselves, if only because they owed some respect to their captain.
Mack, meanwhile, watched the sad display skeptically from the mess hall's door.
—
Saki's boots sank in the snow and left a trail of footprints that looked tiny next to her companions'.
Winter was her favorite time of the year.
If you had asked her a year ago, she would have never thought that she'd be spending it in the Grand Line.
If you had asked her in that moment, she would have never guessed that on that same day, twenty-four years ago, her dad had stepped on that same island and caught sight, for the first time, of the woman who would become Saki's mom.
If you had asked her what her parents had been doing when they met, she would have said that her dad was on shore leave and her mom had been busy having her nose buried in a book and falling into a tree well. And while that would have been true, technically, it wouldn't have been the entire truth, though there was no way Saki could know that yet.
But in that instant, in the docks of a white town surrounded by mountains, with Penguin and Shachi showing the new mechanics the proper technique to make a snowball, Bepo looking the most content he'd been in months, and Mack almost smiling, there was no room in Saki's mind for memories of the dead.
"Happy?"
She clasped her hands over her mouth when she noticed she had been grinning while she stared, but the smile didn't drop.
Law was smiling too.
"It feels like home, doesn't it?" She asked him, and an unruly strand of hair escaped her hairpins to flutter in the stormy wind. She tried to catch it as it blew in her face, but she couldn't see it well and missed it.
Law caught it easily and secured it behind her ear. "Isn't it?" He replied, and walked ahead to join the rest of the crew.
Saki could no longer blame the beat that her heart skipped on a medical condition, but she'd say the blush on her cheeks was, without a sliver of doubt, due to the winter cold.