Who's the dubiously lucky bitch that finished an arc about a virus right before the whole world was hit by a pandemic? I am that lucky bitch. I dodged a bullet. I am never missing a self-imposed deadline again. Ahaha…
The timeskip is here at last! This chapter is an interlude and we'll jump into a new arc in the next one. As I post this, I'm also posting a scene that didn't make the cut for this chapter starring the idiot trio. It'll be on my blog tackyink dot tumblr dot com and on my AO3 with the other drabbles in the story Inky Fragments. And also, adorkablemamebean recently made a bunch of drawings for this story and Anomaly that are super cool, so you can check them out on my blog too!
As always, thanks everybody for your support! Stay indoors if you can, stay safe, and see you next chapter!
35. Tomorrow's another day
(Don't waste a minute on the darkness)
The tower of crepes next to Saki kept growing until it was taller than her, which wasn't exactly difficult, all things considered, and then she moved onto an empty plate that Mack put on her other side to build a second one. Upon arriving at the scene, Law guessed that the official cook had been demoted to kitchen assistant for the duration of that cooking spree.
"Mack, I'm—Oh," he said when he laid eyes on the crepe stack. If he knew his crew as well as he thought, there wasn't enough there to feed just Shachi and Penguin.
Law had gone to check on Marina's condition as soon as Saki warned them that she was awake, and now that he was done, it was Mack's turn to see his sister, but he hadn't expected to find him so busy. While he usually liked to spend his time in the galley, even when he had nothing in particular to do, Mack had understandably been feeling restless since they picked up Marina, and it wasn't strange to find him in deep thought, staring at nowhere, instead of trying a new cooking experiment.
"Okay, you're done here!" Saki said in a chipper voice, somehow balancing the batter container and the ladle as she put some batter in the pan and gave a light kick to Mack's butt.
"The chocolate isn't ready yet."
"I'll take care of it. C'mon, go."
He didn't need a whole lot of prodding to obey, despite giving one last forlorn glance at the chocolate in a double boiler.
Law approached the galley when Mack left, but the entrance was a line he didn't dare cross. "Are we celebrating?"
"Yeah!" Saki replied with a grin she threw over her shoulder before she focused on the pan again. "Also, it got Mack to do something simple to keep him busy while he waited, so it's a win-win," she explained as she took the solid crepe out of the pan and poured another one. If Law found the thoughtless coordination sort of hypnotic, it was only because he was incapable of it, and most definitely not because of the cook.
"Won't you need help?"
Saki chuckled. "Nah, not really, but if you could do me a favor…" she added, "Can you lower the fire under the chocolate? My hands are full."
He supposed he could. It wasn't like she had asked for something complicated. "Sure."
Perhaps.
He stepped into the galley, feeling that he was trespassing and he was going to suffer consequences for it, which was stupid because he was in his ship and he could go anywhere he damn well pleased.
He reached for the stove's dial and turned it. Yeah, that wasn't so hard, he thought for a brief moment, before he glanced to the side and saw a tile on the wall that he hadn't noticed before. It was mostly identical to that one Shachi and Penguin had stuck on the wall near the entrance, except it was missing a couple words that changed the entire meaning.
"What is that?"
"Wha—oh!" Saki snorted as he stared at the abominable tile that said 'Lawless zone' on the wall. "It's just a joke, Capt—I told you to lower the fire, not to make it stronger!"
With a yelp, she dropped was she was holding on the counter and shoved him aside to lower the fire and stir the half-melted chocolate. She scooped some with a wooden spoon and smelled it, and after a few tense seconds, she must not have found anything wrong with it, because she handed the spoon to Law as she went back to the crepes.
"I should ask Mack's sister if she still has contacts in the Marines. We need to make sure they add kitchen crimes to your bounty." And she added, "Can you at least stir it without catching your sleeve on fire?
Law found it very hard to contest the first statement, given the circumstances, and though his knee-jerk reaction was to retort that he had never set himself on fire, unlike others, that would have required a degree of explanations that he didn't feel like giving at the moment, so he simply looked at the mark on the ceiling that he had made way in the early days with a sliver of guilt and approached the chocolate again, spoon in hand, determined to prove her wrong.
—
It wasn't sinking in, the cold truth of what had happened. It felt like a fever dream, not really a nightmare but certainly anguishing, and something she'd wake up from at any minute wondering what the blazes was her subconscious up to.
Clover's out of the left field question when she came back into the bedroom didn't help matters. "Do you like crepes?"
"I… they're fine. Why?"
"I'll let you know that my crepes are more than fine," she replied, wagging a finger at Marina. "Drop by the mess hall when you feel like it. Oh, and by the way, that's the bathroom," she said, pointing to the other door in the room. "I left clean towers under the sink, and you can use anything you want."
And with that, Clover went on her way again, leaving Marina alone with her own thoughts after having already spoken the bare minimum with Trafalgar Law and at length with her brother.
She had a feeling adjusting wasn't going to be easy.
—
The next few weeks after Marina woke up were a learning process.
For instance, she soon discovered that the pristine condition of her new room didn't extend to the entirety of the submarine, and not for lack of trying, she realized, the day she found her roommate chasing two crew members down the hallway with a wet mop for tracking grease all over the stairs. Also, as promptly as Marina called out to her, she had the mop turned against her, the two miscreants fled, and she was threatened to call Clover 'by my name and not that stupid surname I don't even have or else I'm locking you out at night.'
That switch in familiarity felt weird at first, but not as much as getting used to not reacting when someone called for 'Captain'.
Law was… not how she had expected him to be, in many senses.
It was an understatement to say that Marina went through a bit of culture shock when she noticed the crew didn't hesitate to chew him out when he was acting like a jerk, and more so when, one morning, she saw him being forcibly removed from his workspace by Bepo to put him in bed. Mack told her that this was completely normal, but the novelty of seeing Law on the verge of collapse with a coffee mug every morning would still take some time to wear off, she guessed.
On the other hand, realizing that he was equal parts ruthless criminal and disaster man (and maybe not even the former, not so much, and also, Marina could empathize with the latter) did help when she went to talk to him, because of course they had to talk.
It took her a week of nonstop thinking and a few conversations with her brother and some of the other crew members to accept that she had nowhere to go and no idea where to start rebuilding.
"So what exactly do you do in here?" She asked Saki one day when they were alone. If she had felt any discomfort at her presence in her living quarters since Marina had woken up, she hadn't shown it.
"I, uh…" Saki's usually jovial mood got a little darker. "I take up space, mostly."
"Seriously? You must do something of use."
"I'm in charge of managing our finances, but that's an important way of saying that I'm who they send shopping for supplies." She shrugged. "I also prevent those jerkwaffles from drowning in filth."
"That is important."
"Thanks." A grateful smile spread on her face. "Doing deep cleaning and being an occasional emotional crutch doesn't get much recognition anywhere."
"I have a feeling they appreciate it more than they let it show."
More than having a feeling, Marina knew. She had seen their reactions when she had almost killed Saki, and although she didn't understand back then why Mack had sided with her, she had to admit that it was getting more and more difficult not to become at least a little fond of the woman, even though they barely knew each other. She could have been rightfully pissed at Marina, and yet…
Marina wasn't sure if she was very forgiving, very stupid, or both.
"They better!" She replied, her good mood seemingly back. "At any rate, we all get along, so that's what counts. I guess you were getting at something with that question?"
"Um, uh—No, just. Um. Just wondering."
"I'm sure you'll find your place if you want to."
"I wonder." Marina sighed. "I find it hard to believe that your Captain would want me around."
"Well, he hasn't kicked you out yet."
"We're in the middle of the sea."
"Point being?"
She wouldn't have put it past Trafalgar Law to abandon someone at sea before she was more familiar with the man, but it was hard to imagine nowadays. "Well…"
"Girl, there's a script and we need to follow it. You want to know how this goes?"
Marina didn't know what she meant. "You've lost me."
"You suggest that you want to stay, he'll play hard to get, then Mack will look conflicted, which will make Captain uncomfortable, and eventually peer pressure will make him cave in, grumbling all along the process."
"That doesn't sound very likely."
"I've been in this crew long enough to know that he's not a bad guy, but he needs to have an excuse to do a good thing so he doesn't feel stupid by doing so."
"Why?"
"Why not? Aren't pirates supposed to be the bad guys?"
Marina left the conversation more confused than before. Who in their right mind would want to be seen as a bad person if they could help it?
For weeks, thinking about how her former men were doing kept her awake at night. She wondered if they were okay, and she felt so… so useless for not being there for them. She had effectively abandoned them when they needed the most someone to stand up for them. She could only hope that her taking the fall for the incident at Pavis had spared them from responsibility. As far as she could tell from the newspapers, her unit had been taken in by another officer, hopefully Rear Admiral Curtiss, while she took the fall for the incident, but not much else was said, with no mentions of biological weapons to be found in the articles.
And taken the fall she had, because as soon as she was given the okay to walk around the submarine, Tweedledum and Tweedledee had come up to her with a wanted poster with her name (Nicchi A. Marina), her face, a sixty million bounty and the question 'What does the A stand for?'
Which, of course, she did not answer, because running away from her parent's bad calls was the number one reason she had left her hometown, and she wasn't willing to let them chase her to the Grand Line.
And despite the weirdness of the situation, after a while, she started to get used to it. Or she thought she could, at least. The crew was friendly. Her brother was there. The mere thought of starting over with a new identity in a random island gave her the chills.
Saki was one of the people who got up earliest in the mornings, and she had let Marina know that the captain also woke up obnoxiously early most of the time, or didn't wake up at all, since nobody was sure how many all-nighters he pulled in a week, so Marina decided that that was a good time as any to speak to him without many pairs of extra ears around.
The day she found him reading the newspaper in the mess hall, with Saki collapsed on top of a table and Mack cooking in the galley, she decided the time for uncertainty was over. She was going to face destiny.
"Go to bed," Law said.
"After I do the dishes."
"You're not going to do anything like that."
"Let her work," said Mack jovially, at which point Law looked up and saw Marina, and the Saki too realized that she was there, muttered a hi and hid her head in her arms to be dead to the world again.
The air smelled like Mack's tomato sauce. Funny how distinctive it was, even after all those years.
"I wanted to speak to you, if that's possible," Marina said to Law.
He stared at her for a few unnerving seconds. "Sure."
Previously to these weird, weird circumstances, Marina had thought him dangerous, and not much else. Ironically, now that she knew that he wasn't much of a threat towards her at the moment, he seemed more intimidating than ever. He was calm, his expression didn't show much and she didn't know him enough to get a good read on him. If he was annoyed by her presence in his ship or just neutral towards her, she wasn't able to tell, because he had a permanent frown etched on his face.
Marina sat on one of the chairs between him and Saki, since she felt dumb standing there and being stared at.
She stared back, and suddenly it was very difficult to come up with words.
Maybe this was why some people rehearsed important conversations. She was so used to steamrolling her way with words (and force, when required) that she hadn't contemplated the possibility of her mind going blank.
No, really, was he frowning, or was that his regular face? Was she frowning? She did that way too much.
"Um," she started.
Law did not react. Mack kept doing his thing in the galley. Saki moved a fraction from her position so an eye peeked out from behind her arms.
No pressure.
"Can I keep sailing with you guys?"
The noise in the galley halted for a moment, then resumed, as if it had been a coincidence.
"As part of the crew?"
"I guess. I mean, yes."
"This isn't anything like what you're used to."
He hadn't said no outright. That was a good sign. "I can imagine." Hell, what she couldn't imagine was her in her own old ship, walking out in pajamas to pick up a cup of coffee and hang out on the deck.
"You don't get to be an authority figure anymore," he warned her.
"You don't rise in the ranks without knowing how to follow orders," she countered.
"Yes, and despite you following their orders without question, you want me to believe you can change sides just like that? You want me to believe you suddenly wouldn't have a problem obeying mine?"
Marina felt a spark of anger. She had given up on so much precisely because she couldn't abide by those orders anymore. "Are you developing a biological weapon?" She blurted out.
"…What?"
She pressed on, sounding harsh and not caring. "Are you willing to sacrifice an entire kingdom for power? Are you planning on island-wide mass murder?"
Oh, now that was a frown. So it had been his regular face earlier. "What are you on about?"
Marina reached inside her pocket, pulled out the letter she had taken from Prince Ignatius' laboratory and put it on the table, in front of Law, who took it with curiosity at first, and whose scowl deepened as he perused its contents.
She had read it before, as soon as she had been able to after waking up, and it confirmed what she had already pieced together during her investigation. It also got into some technical details that she couldn't make much sense of, and some research by Vegapunk and another scientist working with him.
"This wasn't the only incident. I know how the upper echelons work. I was in Marineford, too," she said, stressing that last part. "The only reason I am here is because I couldn't keep following those orders anymore. I have a conscience, and I pride myself on following it. As long as you are doing anything to disrupt the government's activities, no matter if it's accidental or on purpose, we are on the same side, as far as I'm concerned."
Law put down the letter, his face once again unreadable to her. "What can you do?"
It took her a moment to recover from the sudden subject change. "You mean my skills?"
"She can blackout the entire ship in a matter of seconds," Mack piped in, hidden from view behind the wall of the galley.
Marina stood up on reflex and slammed a hand against the table, which made Saki jump and straighten up. "I was thirteen when that happened, you jerk!"
Law and Saki stared at her with a mix of confusion, surprise, and, in the latter's case, a little amusement. Marina sat down again, feeling her cheeks flush a bit.
She cleared her throat, sat down again and interlaced her fingers on her lap, as if nothing had happened. "Well, I can fight, and I can—"
The lights of the submarine blinked for a couple of seconds, as they had intermittently been doing for weeks, and then they went out. Luckily for them, the sun would be up in about an hour, but for the time being, the mess hall went completely dark, and the stove became the only source of light in the galley.
"—probably fix that," she finished, perplexed.
"Then get to it."
Marina looked in Law's general direction, as he was rendered invisible by the blackout, and before she could reply, the chair next to her slid across the floor and an arm linked itself to hers, pulling her along towards the exit.
"Let's get some candles. Don't worry, I can navigate this place with my eyes closed," Saki said, like only a woman who wandered the hallways daily with sleep in her eyes could. Marina let herself be dragged for a bit, and when they were far enough from the mess hall, Saki whispered conspiratorially, "That was a welcome variation on the script, by the way."
Marina didn't immediately realize what she was getting at.
—
Marina wasn't naïve enough to think that she would be admitted just like that, though. Crews spent a lot of time together, and the bond built in a ship couldn't be forged in a matter of days, and much less between former enemies. She was ready for the suspicious stares that every now and then were directed at her, but, despite some people's reservations, of which Shachi was the main example, she was surprised and touched by the effort they were making to treat her like any other crewmate.
"Nah, you're imagining most of it," Saki told her one day as she rummaged inside the chest where she kept her clothes in order to make space for Marina's stuff (which she didn't yet have, but soon would). "I mean, Shachi was unconvinced at first, but he was the first one to volunteer to screw your bed to the floor when Captain suggested you didn't need to be in the sickbay anymore. I think he's annoyed at the fact he's annoyed and can't help it. He's working on it."
"If you say so…" She commented, unsure. "Wait, you mean this bed wasn't here before?"
"Yup. I suppose it would've been more efficient to swap mine for a bunk bed, but you can't pay me enough to sleep up there while we're out in the sea, and it's not like we could haul you up there the way you were."
"I did think this room was cramped," she admitted.
"You don't mince words, huh?" Saki laughed at Marina's embarrassment at being called out before she could apologize. "Don't worry, you're right. But at the rate we're going, I don't think we'll have to worry about space in a looong time."
"How long have you been in the crew?"
"A year?"
"And you've been the only woman all this time?"
"Yes," she said with a hint of desperation. "And I'm so happy I'm no longer—oh."
She pulled something out of the chest with an effort, and Marina couldn't believe her eyes when the pattern of fabric came into view.
It was fucking blue with daisies and dandelions and it had haunted her nightmares since her teenage years.
Saki held up the dress by the shoulders to show her.
"Maybe you should have this back."
"Maybe not," she said with unconcealed disgust, "How did you even end up with it?"
"I got soaked in Lymes and your mom was kind enough to—ooh, you should've seen Captain with that durian shirt!" She cracked up, and Marina almost forgot her horror at the mental image of Trafalgar Law, Surgeon of Death in one of her father's shirts.
Her entire imaginary of the man was doing a 180 in a very short span and she wasn't sure how to deal with it, so she insisted on the dress. "But why are you still keeping it? Don't tellme you're wearing it."
"Of course not, but…" She let one hand go to shove it in a pocket and wiggled it. "You know."
"I completely forgot about the pockets."
"I couldn't."
"I understand. Forget I said anything."
But Saki didn't forget, no. "Could you be the girl I've been waiting for all this time?" She held the dress to her chest and looked at Marina, eyes brimming with gratitude. "You don't know how it is—scratch that, I'm sure you know exactly how it is to be surrounded by dudes all day, every day. No breaks."
It was all too true. Marina didn't have many friends, and the last time she'd been able to talk at length with one was probably through the letters she and Banu exchanged, which reminded her of something.
She went to her get jacket, now with its back patched thanks to that asshole drilling a hole into it when he tried to stab her in the heart, and reached into an inner pocket to take out something.
Holding it towards Saki, she saw the other woman's face morph from curiosity to astonishment.
"Since we're returning borrowed belongings," she said, handing her the torn bangle she had lost when they fought.
"You kept this?!" Saki exclaimed, holding it in her hands like a treasure. "You're carrying this?! Why—"
Marina shrugged, trying to take importance off it. "It reminded me of someone."
Should she write to Banu the next time they stopped in a town? What could she even say to her? And she wouldn't be able to reply to any of Marina's letters, anyway.
"Thanks," Saki said, a genuine smile spreading on her lips as she examined the torn bangle and then pressed it against her chest. "I don't know if I'll be able to fix it, but I'm keeping it."
"Huh. Is it important?"
"Yeah! A friend gave it to me, back when we first entered the Grand Line," she explained, sounding excited. "A lot happened, and she gave me this and asked me to remember... well, everything. Her name's Banu. I wonder how she's doing…"
"Her name's… where did you meet her, again?"
"A small island called Qaryn. It was all mountain and caves. Really cool, very pretty, some extremely weird people in there though. Have you been there?"
"Yeah, I have," was all Marina could say.
She could give her updates on Banu another day. Marina already had a lot to think about.
The dress wasn't the only reminder of home. Well, not exactly home, but what had been it, long ago. It came earlier than that reveal, too, specifically, the first time Marina went to shower and saw the tangerine shampoo.
"I tried it at your parent's inn and I've been using it since," Saki said when she commented on it. "Oh, but if it bothers you, I can switch to something else."
"No. No, it's okay. It's nostalgic. In a good way, I think."
Saki smiled a bit sadly. "I know that feeling."
—
Bepo took night shift in the bridge most often out of all the people that were usually at the helm, and shortly after Marina regained consciousness Saki took to staying until the wee hours of the morning with him, occasionally napping when she couldn't keep her eyes open anymore. He voiced a few complaints after seeing this was becoming a trend, not because he minded the company, but because it was obvious that she wasn't making up for lost sleep later in the day. Saki learned soon that he could shut him up bringing him food from the galley but not even the best fish sandwiches could stop the worried looks.
On a particularly cold night that the flimsy blanket they kept in the bridge couldn't help much with, Saki entertained herself for some time by making chicken broth. She funneled it into bottles to take one up to Bepo, and while she was doing so, thought she could make the rounds through the sub to see if anybody else was awake and would like some.
She didn't count on anybody being still up except for maybe Law, because it was 2 AM and, as much as she liked to complain about the guys, they had their priorities straight and an enviable ability to fall asleep just about anywhere.
Her assumptions were proven correct when she went into the depths of the submarine to find it deserted, and the only sign that somebody was awake, or tried to be and unexpectedly failed, was the line of light right under Law's door. It was a wonder they didn't find him lying comatose on the floor of the sub more often.
"Are you awake?" She asked through the door.
There was a loud noise of wood on wood, a knock, something scraping against the floorboards, and a lot of paper shuffling. The reply came after all that. "Yeah."
Wondering what the heck was that about, Saki cracked the door open with caution and peeked inside. "Are you okay?"
He was sitting at his desk, and the poker face he was sporting made Saki think he was hiding something. "Sure. Why do you ask?"
She stepped inside the room. "You don't sound suspicious at all."
"What's that?" He said, gesturing with his head at the bottle and mug Saki was carrying, and conveniently changing the subject.
"Oh, I made some chicken broth for Bepo earlier, and I wondered if you'd want some. It's cold tonight."
"You were cooking at this hour?"
Saki felt judged and a little defensive. "Not much else to do. I'm too tired to read, and I thought Bepo could use it."
"I've noticed you haven't been sleeping a lot."
Saki grimaced a little. Of course he had. "I have trouble falling asleep when there are other people in the room."
He looked at her with curiosity. Had she never mentioned it before? It probably hadn't come up. "That's a problem."
"Yeah, well, it's my problem. I'll get over it."
"Do you—"
She advanced towards him to leave the bottle and mug at the desk. "If you ever ask me again if I want sleeping pi—you were reading one of my books!" She beamed.
Law, on the other hand, looked like he wanted to sink into the floorboards. "It's not like I had anything better to do."
"I'm not accusing you!" She said, despite knowing that her reassurance was probably going to make him feel more embarrassed. "I knew you couldn't be a psychopath at heart."
"What do you have against non-fiction?"
"No, what do you have against imagination? It's okay to not be doing serious stuff all the time."
He still looked a bit ashamed, but less defensive. Saki thought it was adorable. Saki also thought she should stop thinking along those lines. "I suppose you have a point." There was a beat of silence, and then, a frustrated question. "Why the hell does The Kraken and the Princess end up in a cliffhanger?"
"I know! I've been trying to find the second book for ages, but it's out of print. Why do you think I spend so much time in second hand bookshops?" And after her passionate reply, she added. "…You really read that one?"
"Yeah?"
"Out of everything I brought you?"
"…You were reading it in the sickbay while Colin was there. I guessed it couldn't be that bad to have you so engrossed."
"You have a lot of faith in my taste."
"Not anymore."
She snorted. "Ass."
Saki shivered and rubbed her arms for warmth.
"I should've asked someone to turn on the heating."
"I'll be fine tonight. And I could put on my coat if it really… oh. Ooh."
Her eyes wandered to Law's bed and set on a warm, thick, soft looking glorious piece of fabric.
"That's a nice blanket you have there," she said, not unlike a thug about to break someone's kneecaps.
Law, trained as he was to smell danger, caught the drift right away. "Saki—"
"It'd be a shame if someone—"
"What are you—"
"—stole it."
Before Law got up to stop her, which, admittedly, he didn't seem to be too willing to do, and with the expertise of someone who'd pulled that maneuver a thousand times before, because her hometown could get downright freezing in winter, Saki threw the blanket around her, dropped on the bed, and rolled over until she was tightly secured in it, covered from head to toe like a sausage in a bun.
"I'm a burrito!" She declared happily. Even the smell was nice, but of course it had to be, because she tossed half the bottle of fabric softener into the washer every time she had to wash towels and bedclothes.
"What you are is an idiot."
"A warm, fuzzy idiot," she replied like it was all worth it – because it was. She had to stifle a yawn. "And why do you even care? You aren't using it. It's discarded. Forgotten. It was crying until I came to its rescue. You can stay on your chair."
He sighed. "Leave my bed."
"But I'm so comfy."
"You have your own."
"It's so far from here."
"Literally on the other side of the wall."
"Yeah, I think I'll stay in this one. Too tired to move."
"What happened to no to being able to sleep when there are other people around?"
"Oh, it's you." She would've shrugged if the blanket wasn't effectively immobilizing her; a prison of her own doing. "You aren't going to stab me in my sleep."
"I could strangle you while you're awake," he suggested.
"Exactly. I know your MO. You'd kill me while I was aware of it, otherwise you wouldn't be able to make your point." And this time, she did yawn, and the words afterward came out slurred. "'nyway, g'night."
There was a bit of silence before he said, marginally less irritated, "I was planning on sleeping, you know."
"Gimme me a sec!" She rolled over until the blanket bun was pressed against the wall, leaving the rest of the mattress vacant. "There."
"Are you serious?" He said, knowing very well that she was.
"I don't take up much space."
"That roll takes up half the bed!"
She gasped. "Are you calling me fat?"
"That's not—" He cut himself short and sighed again. Loudly. Law knew a lost cause when he saw one – his submarine was full of them – and Saki had decided that nothing short of force would remove her from her new refuge.
Which she expected him to exert, by the way. But he relented, and she was pleasantly surprised at not finding herself teleported into her bedroom. He could have done that at any point of the conversation, and he had to be aware of it. Then again, if he had done it, he would have given up on the blanket, and that was inadmissible, because concessions meant defeat and Law was a very sore loser.
She was so tired and quick to fall asleep that she did not notice the bed dip next to her an hour or so later, the awkward glance Law directed towards her blanket roll, or that he actually smiled to himself when he turned off the lights.
She did notice, however, when she woke up a few hours later and the early morning sun was casting light inside the room, that there was an arm around the blanket she had hogged, which would have alarmed her had it not been for the very recognizable tattoos decorating it.
Did it count as spooning when there were easily six inches of fluff between the people involved? She'd have to ask Bepo. If someone had an answer to that question, it had to be him.
She needed to get up and get ready for breakfast, but the circumstances posed several problems: first, she did not want to move because her cocoon was comfortable and warm as heck, second, she'd need to jump over the sleeping insomniac next to her, which would inevitably wake him up, and third, and perhaps most important factor, was the she had rolled the blanket around her so tightly that she couldn't get out.
Oh well.
Resigning herself to make a sacrifice that would surely go underappreciated by all, she closed her eyes again and sank deeper into the pillow, and she was drifting into sleep once again when the body behind her shifted.
Then froze in place.
Then very softly removed the arm around her blanket armor. Whether it was to avoid waking her up or to preserve some kind of decorum or dignity would remain a mystery.
And as tempting as feigning that she was sleep and get some more rest was, that that was it, she couldn't keep herself from commenting lest she choked on her own smartassery.
"Don't worry, I won't tell anybody you're a cuddle monster."
She got hard jab to the middle of her back, but the blanket saved her. "Go to hell."
"I already told you it's more comfortable in here," she said, barely containing a yawn.
He didn't reply right away, so she imagined he was glaring at her, or maybe too sleepy to care. It wasn't like she could turn around to look at what he was doing.
But if she had, she would have understood sooner that her assumptions were wrong and that retaliation was, at last, in order.
Before she could realize what was happening, she heard the door open, two strong arms lifted her like she was a rolled up carpet, and unceremoniously tossed her out to the hallway.
As she screeched mid fall, Law said, "Go bother someone else," closed his door and locked it.
Saki wiggled her head out of the blanket to see two pairs of feet in front of her. Further upwards inspection revealed they belonged to Mack and Marina. She was seemingly shocked, so he offered an explanation.
"Don't mind it, this is normal."
"I see." Judging by her tone, she did not see it.
And they kept walking to wherever they were going.
"Guys, can you unroll me?" Saki tried before their footsteps faded. "Please?"
No one answered her pleas, but Bepo found her only a minute later as she tried to roll down the hallway toward her room.
—
"What do you do when you aren't working on the ship?"
"We do whatever to pass time. Read, fish, train, play cards. Can't do much else."
The third object of that list caught Marina's attention, Saki noticed, because from then on, she started to spend a lot of time in the training room. It was a good idea, in her opinion – exercise was a good way to clear the mind and keep one busy when thoughts were too much, and Saki assumed that Marina was more than a little overwhelmed with the situation. Anybody in her shoes would.
And given that a few of the guys were still keeping some distance from her, despite being cordial – particularly Sturgeon, who, if memory served right, had been thrown in a cell for days before they found him, and who could blame her? – Saki tried to keep her company every now and then when she wasn't busy, maybe spar and see if she managed to not get flattened within seconds. Which she didn't, but whether it was because she had improved or because Marina was still recovering from her injuries, she didn't know.
One day, while Law and Bepo were doing something in the background and Saki was helping Marina to remove her chisels from a training dummy that had seen much better times, she asked, "I've always wondered, how can you stab these into solid rock? They don't even bend with the impact."
"Huh?" Marina replied, confused. "That's haki."
"Oh, so it has a name? What's haki?"
Her confusion grew. "What do you mean, what's haki? I've seen you use it before."
Now it was Saki who was getting confused. She hadn't been aware that technique-thing even existed until then. "What? When?"
"When we fought months ago?"
Saki rummaged through her, admittedly, not very clear memories of the incident, and found nothing. "I think you've got the wrong person."
"Don't play dumb," Marina retorted, and Saki wished she was only playing the part, "you used Observation haki."
"I honestly have no idea what you're talking about."
Marina hesitated, but didn't seem to completely buy it. "Really?"
From his spot, Law butted in the conversation. "It's the same that's used to hit Logias, isn't it?"
"Yeah," Marina replied, turning to look at him. "That's Armament haki. You can hit Devil Fruit users in any form with it, and you can coat your body or weapons to reinforce them."
So that's what she was doing with the chisels, Saki thought. "There are different types, then?"
"There are three. What you used was Observation," she insisted.
"I didn't."
"You absolutely did."
"You dodged before I moved."
"I got lucky?"
"Yup, that's Observation," Bepo piped up.
Several heads turned to look at him, and Bepo seemed alarmed at being the center of attention.
"How would you know?" Saki replied.
"It's common in my home country."
Well, that was a surprise. How, considering the statement came from a talking Polar Bear that summoned electricity with his fur, Saki didn't know, but whatever. "Okay, so now explain to me how I used something that I didn't know existed."
But he, against her expectations, had an answer for that too. "Some people have the inclination for it."
"It's true," Marina confirmed. "Everybody has a type of haki that comes easier to them, and sometimes it manifests under stress."
"So can you use Observation, too?" Law intervened.
"…Not very well," Marina admitted. "My Armament isn't great either, but it is better."
"Everybody can learn the two types, then?" Saki asked. "Because being able to punch a Logia user sure sounds better than dodging it."
"Yes, with enough training. There is a third type, though, but that's innate, as far as I know, and can't be taught if you don't have the talent. It's called Conqueror's, and only about one in a million people have it."
"What does it do?"
Marina stopped to think and find the right words. "The best way to describe it is that it exerts pressure. Take it as a measure of willpower. It can daze the weak-willed, or even knock them out. Marineford was rife with Conqueror users. Sengoku, Whitebeard, Red Hair, Fire Fist, Doflamingo…"
Saki wasn't sure if there was a surge of tension in the air when she mentioned the last name or it was just her imagination. "Isn't that was Silvers Rayleigh did at the auction house?" She asked the other two.
"I'd assume so," Law agreed. "He knocked out every remaining soldier in the building with a glare."
"So he really is living in Sabaody?" Marina said, looking impressed. "Anyway, the Dark King was known to have Conqueror's haki too, so it checks out."
Saki tried to remember how being hit by it felt. "It was like a wave of… some force trying to knock us back."
"Didn't Shachi get dizzy?" Bepo asked.
Saki's eyes widened at the reminder, and she snickered. "He did!"
A small gleam in Bepo's eye suggested that, from now on, he wasn't going to let him live it down.
"Then you know the basics of the other two at least, right?" Law asked Marina.
"I do."
"Can you teach them? To us?"
Marina didn't reply right away. Maybe it had something to do with her trying to gauge how capable she was of doing the job, or maybe it was some remaining reticence to teaching a dangerous man and a World Government enemy, something that would make him even more threatening. The hesitation didn't last long, though. "I… think I could. I won't make any promises, but I can give you some tips and teach you some exercises, at the very least. I have to train my own, if you plan on taking us to the New World, anyway. The skills that have carried you through Paradise won't guarantee your survival over there. It's on a whole other level."
"Well then," Law said, evenly. Saki would have assumed him to be more reserved about accepting her help, but it looked like his head was somewhere else, and he was planning miles ahead of the conversation they were having. "In that case, I suppose we're in your hands."
From then on, Saki had a feeling that Marina hit her stride once again. And also, she couldn't imagine how right she was with that last observation about Law.
—
Months went by, with everybody adjusting to the new situation, and after a while, it was hard to tell that Marina had ever been an enemy, particularly if you saw her cussing out the boiler room squad for the nth time for not cleaning up after themselves and having their workspace look like a pigsty. Saki was glad not to be the only one fighting that fight anymore.
"What is that?" Marina asked one day that she happened to look closely at the deck floorboards.
"A memento from the night it rained coconuts."
She did not understand, but she gave Saki an earful about how they should have cleaned it earlier and took a chisel to the stuck flakes. She lasted an hour before giving up, but Saki approved of her commitment to the cause.
Law, on the other hand, started to put his plan in motion. The declaration that he was going to become a Shichibukai caught everybody off guard except for Saki and Bepo, whose time to be surprised had come before, and if anybody had any doubts about the captain's decision, they didn't show it.
Saki, though, had to wonder about it. She had kept quiet around the others about Marina's warning that Cipher Pol might be looking for her, and she couldn't tell how that issue could play into Law's objective. They could very well ask for her in exchange for the title, and there wouldn't be much to do about it. And she sure as hell didn't want to be the cause of Law's plans falling flat.
In the end, though, and as he promised, she didn't have to worry about it so much. Saki had noticed Law talking strategy with Marina every now and then, since out of everybody in the crew she was the one who could gauge more effectively if the plans were sound, but they kept those discussions private, and the only clue that Saki had about it for a handful of months was Marina dropping dead on her bed one night and telling her, "That man is crazy."
Which seemed like a fair assessment at the time.
As it turned out, the government didn't have a whole lot of margin for negotiation when presented with a box containing a hundred pirates' hearts and the implicit threat that, next time, he could be taking them from other, less criminally inclined collectives.
Saki knew there was some sort of final negotiation behind closed doors, but Law never revealed the details of it. When she asked if her distant relationship had posed a problem, Law didn't deny it, but he assured her that she had nothing to worry about. The Heart Pirates were able to continue their travels through the Grand Line undeterred, the only real changes being that Marines left them alone from that moment onwards, and that they sometimes were ordered to go after some pirate crews that were a thorn on the government's side. The downside was being called government dogs fairly frequently, but truth be told, Saki had had worse jobs, and since their middle management in this one was Law himself, she found it hard to complain about the deal.
It was a temporary thing, of course. They all knew this was just a way to gain safe passage through the Red Line and have some respite from enemies, and that sooner or later they'd give a big fat middle finger to the World Government and they'd all be outlaws again.
There was no doubt by then that Law was planning something else that he hadn't shared with anybody.
The next time they stopped at the Sabaody Archipelago, after a lot of wandering around Paradise, Law went looking on his own for the guy that had managed the auction house, and Saki started to suspect that something relating to Joker was afoot, but he didn't share his intentions or findings.
"I'll tell you in due time," he told Saki when she asked one day, worried about what he was getting into and willing to offer a hand, but that time never seemed to come.
Saki knew, from conversations with others, that she had not been the only one to try, and that they had all received the same answer.
And then, after a while, he did let on that he was investigating someone's trail, but he could manage alone, and he had to be stealthy about it. He didn't elaborate. Saki did not like the face he was making when he said that, and neither did Bepo, or Shachi, nor Penguin.
He was getting more cagey and distant, spending an increasing amount of time on his own, and she often caught him lost in his thoughts and not at all present, like he was looking at something far down the road that she could not grasp.
But she could imagine. She could connect some of the dots and guess that this had something to do with his revenge on Joker. The Doflamingo family was based in the New World, on an island called Dressrosa, and one of the late nights she spent together with Bepo in the bridge, she found out talking to him that Law had shown interest in visiting it.
He'd always been closed off and secretive to a fault, but it was worrying and more than a little hurtful to see that he'd rather not confide in any of his friends and keep his thoughts to himself. Thoughts that, in Saki's opinion, weren't doing him any good, and if he had been anybody else, if the whole crew didn't have blind faith in him, he would have been at risk of losing what support he had. But they gave him a pass, because he was Law, and they knew there wasn't anybody who cared more about the Heart Pirates in the entire world.
She could only hope that, when the time to act came, he would be more forthcoming about what he wanted to do. She was sure they could get through anything as long as the crew was together.
—
Marina had been in Asteria, Saki found out one day, when she asked out of curiosity what had happened after their run-in with Lymes.
She was only able to tell her that they incident seemed to have sparked from a fight between the smugglers and the Revolutionary Army, but she couldn't deliver the happy news Saki had been hoping for, so when she realized that, Saki didn't ask any more.
—
With a flick of the wrist, Saki signed the letter she was writing, and while she waited for the ink to dry, folded a drawing and put it in an envelope.
The water sounds from the shower stopped, and Marina stepped out of the bathroom, smelling of rosemary, because she had got her own shampoo in the end, and wrapped up in a towel at the same time someone unceremoniously opened the door that led to the hallway.
Marina screeched and rushed into the bathroom slamming the door shut, and so did Penguin after he tossed a bag onto Marina's bed as he retreated, yelling apologies as he ran away.
Saki let out a silent sigh and got up to close the door and lock it.
"Do these people not know what knocking is?" Marina yelled from the bathroom, fuming.
"Nope, good luck with that," Saki easily replied, dropping back into her seat and testing the ink with a finger.
Marina came out to retrieve her clothes mumbling something unflattering under her breath. Saki went back to minding her business and wrote Hilda's and Rudy's address on the envelope, which seemed to catch Marina's attention when she was done changing.
"You're writing to someone?"
The implications to her question were left unspoken, but Saki caught the drift anyway. Her parents were dead and her home island was little more than a ruin, so she didn't blame Marina for her curiosity.
"Yeah, some family friends, you could say. They knew my mom a long time ago, and we happened to run into each other." And before Marina could ask again, she said, "They had nothing to do with Ohara."
Marina's mouth, which was already half open to for a question, shut momentarily. "How did you know what I was going to ask?"
"Because you former Marines never drop the habit of interrogating people."
Marina flushed. "That's—that isn't—I didn't mean to offend."
"Don't worry, you'll have to try harder than that."
Marina smiled wryly and dropped the conversation, but since she had brought up the subject, Saki thought there was no harm in asking herself.
"I haven't seen you write a single letter since you joined the crew."
Marina pointedly avoided her gaze. "I've never been in the habit of writing home." Saki guessed that, like Mack, she didn't have the best relationship with their parents. But then, without prompting, she continued, "Mack says he kept sending me letters all these years. My parents never showed them to me."
"Wait, what? Why would they do that?" Until then, Saki had been under the impression that they were awfully overbearing, but not bad people, per se.
"If I had to guess? They were hoping I'd be miserable in the Marines and go back home. Not hearing from my brother for ten years did the trick, I guess, but not as much as they would've wanted."
"Oh. Wow." That was awful. They sounded like type of people to want to control their children by any means necessary. "I don't know what to say."
"You don't have to say anything. There's a reason we both left home as soon as we could."
"Still… I can't say my family situation growing up was great, but I wouldn't change it for yours."
"Say what you will about me, but you're blunt to a fault."
Saki only realized what she had blurted out then. "Oh, sorry! That was insensitive of me, wasn't it?"
"At least you're honest."
"Always," she said in an apologetic tone. "Anyway, family aside, isn't there anyone you get along with that you'd like to tell you're, I don't know, okay? Though I guess some of your subordinates already know you're in safe hands."
"There…" She gave it some thought, looking hopeful for a moment before the spark died. "There is someone, but I'm afraid I'll get her in trouble if someone finds out I communicated with her." She shook her head immediately. "No, forget it. It's silly to consider."
Maybe Saki wasn't known for her brilliant mind, but she pretty good at catching subtleties, and she got the feeling that Marina wasn't just talking about a friend when she said 'someone.'
"Are you sure about that?" She tried. "Would that someone like to know how you are doing?"
"I suppose so," Marina said timidly.
"And would that someone take the risk to hear from you, if it was possible?"
"…Maybe."
"And would you be upset if your places were switched and you never heard from that someone because she was afraid you'd get in trouble?"
Marina caught onto something. "Whatever you want to say, say it outright."
"Write to your girlfriend," Saki declared, and Marina's reaction was immediate.
"She's not my girlfriend!" She said, as she turned a curious shade of maroon.
"Not with that attitude, no!"
Marina huffed, refusing to acknowledge that last quip with a reply, and instead took the package Penguin had dropped on the bed and began opening it.
Saki turned away from her, folding the letter at last, fitting it next to the drawing, and sealing the envelope. "Someone I met shortly after I arrived to the Grand Line told me not to take for granted the time I had with the people I care about."
By the time Marina answered, she was already dressed and the contents of the package were in her hands. "Maybe I'll write. Maybe."
Saki turned to face her once more with a smug grin that froze the moment she saw what Marina was holding.
"What is that?"
She knew perfectly well what she was seeing, but needed confirmation that she wasn't hallucinating after enduring recurring mean jabs for over a year.
"It's a uniform," she said, extending it on the bed for her to see.
"No."
"What's your problem?"
"No. No. You traitor."
"Again, what the hell's your problem?"
Her problem was a horrific white boiler suit, exactly the same as the rest of the crew wore.
Saki felt deeply betrayed. "How could you side with them?"
"I'm used to uniforms, and it's useful for the work I do."
"It's fucking ugly."
"Well, yeah," Marina conceded. "That's usually a thing with uniforms. Communal shame fosters unity."
And since she didn't seem to find anything objectionable about that fact, and Saki had fought this fight way too many times to know she wasn't going to win the war, she got up and headed for the door.
"Where are you going?"
"I need to stab something."
"Oh, do you want to train?"
"You just showered."
"It's okay."
Saki shrugged, and both headed down the hall side by side, because she may just been the victim of the worst betrayal of the century, but she'd been on the receiving end of so many of those that one more didn't really count. It wasn't personal. Hate the wear, not the wearer, and all that jazz.
She silently swore to take her clothes shopping next time they hit land.
So! Storytime!
For a while at the beginning of the story, I toyed with the idea of Marina joining the crew at some point. Back then, Dressrosa was still ending, and we hadn't gotten the group shot of the Heart Pirates. Then we got to Zou, and to my surprise, there was a girl in the crew! Standard One Piece girl body type and long curly hair, just like Mari! So I told myself, oh, great! That could be her! It fits.
Then this story got slightly long. Like, over 4 years long and running. And Oda gave us a name, and people started asking me about Ikkaku joining the crew, and I was there sweating bullets thinking how do I do this without renouncing to Mari's arc or condemning Ikkaku to irrelevance? In the end, I decided to stick with Marina. That's why Ikkaku isn't in the fic. Mari's an alternate version of back then nameless Ikkaku, so to speak. And I couldn't properly answer the questions I got without revealing that Marina was going to join, hence this note. This is the truth behind her character.
The "A"stands for "Anguilla," by the way. Or Angie for short.
(I've been hiding this information for years, let me snicker a bit.)