Not marble nor the gilded monuments
Of princes shall outlive this powerful rhyme,
But you shall shine more bright in these contents
Than unswept stone besmeared with sluttish time.
When wasteful war shall statues overturn,
And broils root out the work of masonry,
Nor Mars his sword nor war's quick fire shall burn
The living record of your memory.
'Gainst death and all-oblivious enmity
Shall you pace forth; your praise shall still find room
Even in the eyes of all posterity
That wear this world out to the ending doom.
So, till the Judgement that yourself arise,
You live in this, and dwell in lovers' eyes.
She brushed black hair out of her baby's tiny pudge of a face, smiling when she clutched the spoon she was offering for her. Her mouth opened wide, and she slurped the mash before she grinned at her sunnily, black eyes sparkling.
Nami cooed before she lifted her head with a frown when he came upstairs.
"Had a fun night out with Aesop?"
Buckley stopped short with a pout for her, shoulders hunched before he began walking upstairs backward to his sleeping pod. "It was nothing!"
"Well, if you want to sneak around just remember to use protection." Nami smiled when Arabella gnawed on the spoon before she blew a bubble.
"We were just hanging out!" Buckley stopped short when he hit someone behind him and paled.
"What's all the yelling about?" Luffy rubbed his eye with his free hand, the other clutching the railing tight to stay up.
Nami straightened with a pout. "If you're hungry, I'll bring something up for you, Luffy. Go lie back down."
Grunting, Luffy clapped his hand on Buckley's shoulder. "Go get Nora and your brothers. We'll have breakfast together tosol."
Her brow furrowed while Buckley pouted and headed past him with a grumble. For a moment, she fiddled with the spoon until Arabella took it from her. "Ara, do you want to feed yourself?"
She babbled nonsense, hitting the tabletop of her highchair while Nami rose to meet Luffy at the stairs.
When he shook his head with a smile, Nami only relaxed a bit. He didn't risk the stairs much anymore, muscles and bones weakening as they were, but when he did, Luffy liked to eat with his family. She walked alongside him to the island where he sat beside Arabella to coo and feed her himself.
Nami set to work while the rest of her family piled into the kitchen area, their youngest son, Apollo, coming to help with breakfast for the rest of them. Their oldest, the twins, Nora and Buckley, whispered to each other at the corner. Buckley - an orange image of his father whenever Nora made him laugh. Sean tried eavesdropping, sometimes tugging at Nora's sleeve.
She tried to shoo him away, black eyes narrowed at Sean while she curled light orange hair around her finger.
"What's so funny? I wanna know!"
"It's not for twerps to know," Buckley said.
"If Sean can't know, you don't say it at the table," Luffy said, smiling when Nora and Buckley pouted.
"But he's being a brat, Dad!"
Luffy laughed. "And you're not? If you can't share at the table, don't say it."
Sean, whose hair and eyes were as black as his father's, huffed, eyes narrowing in an accusation. "If it's gross, I don't wanna know then!"
"It's not gross; you're just a baby," Nora said before she sighed when Luffy raised a brow. "Sorry."
He looked at Buckley next who sniffed. "Okay, we'll stop."
Nami looked back and wondered how much longer it would last.
Luffy smiled at her, tired but warm. He hadn't shaved, and Nami reminded herself to help him later so he wouldn't nick his skin.
After she had breakfast on the island to pass around, she sat next to her husband, brushing hair from his face. He smiled. "You're fussing again."
"I like fussing about you." Nami kissed his cheek and scratched his scruffy beard. "You need a shave."
"Then we can go shave it later." With a laugh, he turned to his meal while Arabella babbled to anyone who listened.
Apollo climbed next to her to eat, humming and kicking his legs. Brown eyes like her own watched and absorbed the room. Luffy reached past Arabella to ruffle orange hair.
"Did you cook breakfast?" He asked, and Apollo glowed.
"I helped!"
"That's great!"
"Mom, what's the atmosphere like now?"
Nami glanced at Nora, raising a brow. "It was at ten percent yestersol. Why would it suddenly be different tosol?"
She sighed as if suffering through her mother's foolishness. "Because it was ten point nine percent yestersol! Not just ten."
"It's not magic. You can wait to test the atmosphere when it hits eleven percent, just like everyone else."
Luffy perked, smiling wider. "It's close now?"
Lifting her chin proudly, Nami beamed at him. "Soon."
With protection from radiation provided by the devices at the lagrange points, and the increase in production of oxygen and other gasses, teams were getting ready for the first test walk on Mars' surface without a pressure suit. It was all that Nami heard any of the children talk about. They pestered her the most it seemed.
The red of the sky was slowly morphing to a cool magenta, and the sun's blue was deepening in shade.
She smiled at her children too. "You'll all have to bundle up though. You have no idea how cold negative twenty actually is."
"Is that how cold that shower was?"
Nami paused, fork halfway to her mouth as she stared blankly at him. "Shower? What shower?"
"At that emergency MARSHA."
Eyes going wide, she flushed before she cleared her throat. "That was different. Negative twenty makes water ice, Luffy. The heater just wasn't warming it. It was to help save energy." She darkened when she realized she was babbling, and the children were staring.
"We should go camping out there," Luffy said, grinning ever wider while she squirmed. "We'll make a fort like last time too."
"I wanna go camping!" Sean cheered and waved his arms.
"No kids on this camping trip," he said with a chuckle.
His face fell. "Aw, I wanna make a fort though!"
Nora scoffed. "They wanna go there and smooch without you running around, Sean."
Sean's face screwed into a tiny point near his nose and mouth before he finally decided. "Yuck."
As they argued over whether or not this was gross, Nami searched Luffy's face. He smiled as he watched their children, lips curled in eternal contentment. She searched for his hand under the table and clung to his warmth.
When he turned that smile to her, Nami's eyes stung, but she didn't blink.
Her thumb smoothed over the back of a hand where the skin felt thinner than before, malleable paper. Luffy squeezed her hand, but she squeezed harder.
She sat in his eyes, she realized.
Nami trembled for an instant before she formed a smile for him and imprinted him in her mind's eye, chipping out a stone for his image to stay inside. When she called for everyone to gather for a photo too, Luffy kissed Arabella's soft, little head, and Nami realized that's when he looked saddest.
Sean clutched his arm with a pout while Apollo found a seat on his lap after figuring out how to share space with the baby. Arabella held his hand though and clung from one gnarled finger to the next as if she could memorize that. Used to this plea, Buckley and Nora sat on either side of Luffy, scooting close enough for Nami's liking for the picture.
As it developed, Nami slipped it into the little drawer with all the rest. She could stare at them.
Later.
But not yet.
The End