Rosinante listened to the sounds of the people bustling around him for some time before he could find the strength to open his eyes. His body felt like he had been hit with a boulder, and his left leg burned like fire every time he attempted to move it. Despite the pain, however, he was grateful for the feeling, as it was a stark contrast to his right leg. Even after these last several weeks of being bedridden in a naval hospital, it still had no feeling at all. As soon as Vice Admiral Tsuru had discovered him covered in snow on Minion Island, he was brought immediately back to base and surgery had been performed to remove the bullets from his leg and back, but he still had not recovered.

She and his adoptive father, Sengoku, had visited as often as their duties allowed, but he honestly preferred the days when he didn't have to look into their eyes and see the constant looks of worry and regret written there. He knew he had failed his mission, and ultimately had betrayed the World Government by having abandoned his duties to try and save Law. If it had not been for their intervention, and that Tsuru had been the first to arrive at the scene after Doflamingo's family fled, Rosinante would be facing a court martial now. However, thanks to her quick thinking, and an even quicker cover-up, there was no evidence to tie him to the theft of the Ope Ope no Mi, nor to him acting against orders. Of course, neither one of them ever said anything to him other than words of love and gratitude that he was home and safe, but his heart was broken, and his own shame was eating him alive.

As he lay there in his bed, with the curtain drawn around him, he listened as the nurses gossiped about the traitor Vergo. He could hear one of them sigh as she went on about how good looking, he was and what a shame it was that he was wasting his potential to be a dirty pirate. As he listened to their chatter about Vergo and his ties to the infamous Donquixote Pirates, he wondered if they would chatter so loosely had they known how deadly that man truly was, or that another traitor was lying in a bed less than 50 meters from where they stood. He winced as the dull throb that had begun behind his eyes flared into stabbing pain that caused him to moan as he clutched his hands to his eyes.

The nurses heard their patient cry out and immediately went into action to check on the Fleet Admiral's son. Rosinante found himself surrounded by a group of now efficient and concerned women. Two of them busied themselves with adjusting the various tubes and wires that fed into his IV and the monitors on his body, while a third used a small light to begin checking the reflexes of his pupils while asking him about the pain level and description of the pain in his head, as the fourth wrote down any information called out by her coworkers as they worked.

Rosinante honestly hated being fussed over in such a manner, especially knowing the circumstances that had brought him to being here in the first place. However, as the fifth and final nurse pushed morphine into the clear tubing of his IV, and the sharp pain behind his eyes dulled into nothingness, he couldn't find it in himself to care as he relaxed into the pillow beneath him.

As his body succumbed to the effects of the medication, Rosinante closed his eyes and let the sounds around him fade into the background and as his consciousness drifted towards sleep. He then found himself again reflecting on the events at Minion Island. He had gone there with the expectation of not coming out alive, but somehow, here he was back at Naval HQ. Every day since Sengoku had found him, he had lived his life with the goal of stopping the madness of his brother and to take down the evil empire that had become synonymous with the Donquixote name ever since his brother had shot their father all those years ago. How the hell had everything gotten so far off track?

Golden eyes and white-patched skin floated through Rosinante's mind and tears pricked the back of his eyelids as his body fought to keep them closed. Trafalgar D Water Law. From the moment he heard the boy reveal his secret name to the other children in Doflamingo's family, Rosinante knew he had to do whatever it took to take that boy away from his brother's reach for the good of humanity. However, he had never expected to come to love the boy as his own and so desperately desired to see him live until they spent that time together. Now it was too late.

Doflamingo had won and Law was forever lost to a future that included anything other than being a puppet to a monster. Rosinante almost wished he had not survived to see the outcome, as he was not sure his heart would be able to stand seeing what was to come. When the tears began to roll down his cheeks, the blond finally gave up and opened his eyes. As tired as he was, he knew sleep would not come to him anytime soon, so he cast his devil fruit power to encase himself in silence. This would not only ensure no one would hear him if he were to sob openly, but also, he would no longer hear the gossip that had again started about the elusive Donquixote Pirates.

He was not sure how long he had laid there, his wailing having long since quieted to occasional sniffles and hiccups, when the curtain was suddenly pulled back and he was startled by his adoptive father Sengoku. "Rosinante, my boy! How are you feeling today? Any better? I heard there was an issue earlier," his booming voice echoed through the sickbay, but Rosinante was unable to hear a word due to the barrier he had placed. Rosinante dropped it just as Tsuru walked in behind him.

"Quiet down, you old fool! Can't you see you've disturbed the boy? He was probably sleeping until you came through acting like a damned bull in a china closet," she reprimanded the much larger man while reaching up to bring her small fist down on the top of his head. The clunking sound of her knuckles somehow getting through the thick curls of his hair and making contact with the man's skull brought back cherished memories, and despite the morose thoughts that had plagued his mind all morning, Rosinante could not help but to smile at them. The only one missing was…

"Hey, Rosi! Want some crackers? They might perk you right up!" The towering form of Garp the Fist came rushing through next, holding a bag of rice crackers out towards him with one hand, while the other was putting crackers into his own mouth while speaking. As Rosinante politely pushed the bag away, he looked over to Tsuru to see the vein begin to pulse on her temple. Seems like Garp was as oblivious as ever and had missed Sengoku's lesson, so he was about to get one of his own. Rosinante discreetly edged closer to the other side of his hospital bed, and further away from Garp.

"What did I just say?" The sound of Tsuru's voice was not loud, but the tone carried even to the nurse's station and brought every voice to a still. She then reached over to grab Garp by the collar of his naval coat and jerked him backward and away from the hospital bed, much to Rosinante's surprise. He had really expected her to clobber the man right there, which is why he had tried to scoot as far from the attack zone as possible without falling from the bed.

Garp made a choking noise as he was manhandled, but still managed to keep a death grip on his bag of rice crackers and did not drop a single crumb as he flew through the air to land on his back next to Sengoku, who was sulkily rubbing the top of his head. Once the older woman was satisfied the two idiots she was with were properly chastised, she turned to her self-proclaimed nephew and smiled as though nothing had happened.

"How are you feeling, dear? I hope these two haven't caused you too much distress," she began as she sat on the edge of his bed and reached over to gently smooth his blond bangs back from his forehead. Rosinante found himself at a loss for words, but still could not find it too upsetting as it was the norm for their little odd family unit. Though Sengoku and his wife had raised him since he was eight, Tsuru and Garp had been like an aunt and uncle since he had first arrived. In fact, when Sengoku's wife passed about ten years ago, they had been even closer than ever, and these types of occurrences were more likely than not to happen. It was almost as if they had stepped in to fill the void she had left.

Rosinante opened his mouth to answer her when a frown fell upon her thin lips. He felt uneasy but could not think of anything he could have done recently to have earned her ire. She stared at him for several moments, her brows coming together tighter, and she began to chew on her bottom lip. He knew this could mean nothing good and tried to look away from her intense stare, but she quickly took his chin in her wrinkled fingers and held him still.

"What's wrong, Rosi? Have you been in pain? I can knock some sense into a doctor or two if they don't know how to take proper care of a marine hero," she said softly as she brought her other hand up to brush the pad of her thumb against his right cheekbone and cluck her tongue softly.

Confusion was evident on his face, but at her words both of her companions were immediately on their feet and at his bedside to look him over. Garp's eyes widened slightly and then he looked angry, but Sengoku's eyes began to mist. "Damn it, boy! I should have been there! Why couldn't you just trust me?" he demanded hoarsely, frustration written on his features.

"Shut up, you old fool. What's done is done and there's no going back to undo it." Tsuru admonished again, but there was no bite in her words. She looked like she was trying to keep from crying herself. As Rosinante continued to look up at her with questioning eyes, she answered his unspoken query. "Your tattoos are showing," she again ran her thumb across his cheek and held it up to show concealer smudged on her digit, "and it is only in trails on your cheeks and here." She took the finger and thumb that were holding his face to wipe further down by his mouth on both sides and hold up the evidence of concealer on her fingers.

Rosinante blushed and jerked back to look away from them. Tsuru had always been too observant. Growing up he was able to get away with a lot of things with his father, but not with her. Shamed burned in his chest and he knew he should ease their minds that it was not pain that had made him cry, but would it ease their spirits to know that a trained military man was bawling like a child over a future pirate that may well cause them all untold hell in the future? He had failed to keep Law from a monster and now he most likely would become one.

A pain stabbed his heart and he winced. He could not lie, even to himself. He knew that was only half of the truth. He was mourning the loss of a child's life to a demon because he had come to love that child. He had allowed himself to picture a life raising him away from marines and pirates and everything he had spent his life swearing to protect. Rosinante had planned on possibly never seeing any of these people again and had been accepting of that. Now these three are the ones piecing him back together. 'What a fucking joke I am,' he thought scornfully as tears again filled his eyes.

A fist tapped the top of his head, hard enough to grab his attention, but not so hard as to do any damage. "Stop it, brat. I've known you most of your life and I can tell when you're too far in your own head." At the softness of her words, chocolate-brown eyes turned to look up into soft brown eyes, similar in color to his own. Yes, this was a woman that had been with him for almost twenty years. She had patched wounds, comforted fears, taught survival skills, and even helped him get over his first heartbreak when Bellemere had rejected his confession at age thirteen. Of course, she would know when something was wrong with him, whether physical or emotional.

He reached his arms around her small waist, made seemingly smaller due to his massive size, and pulled himself against her in a way he hadn't since he was a child, sobbing as if his heart were breaking. The sounds of the nurses running from their station could be heard, but Garp stopped them before they could reach the area and let them know their assistance was not needed. The charge nurse looked doubtful, but when Sengoku stepped behind his friend and insisted, she nodded and left with her crew to go back to their other duties.

Tsuru held him and ran her hands along his back, murmuring soothing words until he calmed himself. She had watched him grow from a scared boy into a strong man and seeing him so emotional and broken was unnerving for her, though she would not let him see that. It concerned her that he had gone through something so horrific while with his brother that it would reduce him to this state. It had been the source of many arguments between herself and Sengoku ever since they had brought Rosinante back, as Tsuru had been against the undercover mission from the start.

She remembered how traumatized the boy had been when Sengoku brought him home all those years ago and they had not ever really got him to speak about his life prior to coming to them. They knew his bloodline, and that his brother had killed their father, but they knew very little beyond that since the child had been either unable or unwilling to talk about it… once they were able to get him to stop screaming of course.

Even then, the boy would wake up shrieking in the night for several years after that, clawing the sheets and crying for his brother and parents. It seemed odd since he was so afraid of Doflamingo during waking hours. They also could not leave a lit candle near the child and had to find alternate lighting for him at night since he was afraid of the dark, but at the same time was terrified of fire. It was quite perplexing.

Therefore, when the opportunity for Rosinante to infiltrate the Donquixote Pirates arose, Tsuru was dead set against it. She fought Sengoku from even approaching his son about it because she knew what the young commander would say. He was only twenty-three years old and had already made a successful career in the military, turning heads at every base he had been assigned to. He swiftly was promoted through the ranks due to his intelligence, dedication, and ruthlessness in dispatching pirates without hesitation or mercy. His commitment to the Marine's law of absolute justice was almost overwhelming at times in its ferocity.

Rosinante had just been granted his own destroyer when commissioned as a Naval Commander and was preparing to embark on a two-year mission in the New World when Sengoku had called him to Mariejois to discuss the opportunity to go covert as a part of his brother's operation. They had received word that a black-market trader named Joker had been unleashing devil fruits and massive amounts of weapons to not only pirates, but hostile nations that had no business with that kind of fire power. The best link they were able to find to Joker was Doflamingo, though they were not sure what the connection was, or how to break it. That would be Rosinante's job. He would go in and destroy his brother's empire from the inside out and then hopefully find the means to bring in Joker either dead or alive.

Now here they are four years later, the boy all but an emotional wreck and partially paralyzed for a mission he should have never been sent on to begin with. His face had to be tattooed so that pirates and criminals wouldn't recognize him from the countless raids and interrogations he had been a part of, and the navy had given him the Nagi Nagi no Mi so he could flawlessly fake being mute as to not let his voice be overheard by anyone that may have encountered him in uniform. There was also the added benefit of having a barrier for when he called in to give reports.

Even though the plan he and Sengoku came up with seemed foolproof, Tsuru wanted nothing left to chance and spent a fair amount of time tailing the pirates. Though her own subordinates thought it was to keep an eye on the Donquixote Family, in actuality it was to be close by should anything go wrong and Rosinante should need her. Not that she did him much good in the end. He had still been wounded and the only real usable info they had was that Doflamingo was Joker. To her, the price for that information had been much too high. The proof of that was the shattered man weeping in her arms.

Once Rosinante began to calm down and loosen his hold on the smaller woman, she pulled back to look at him and run her fingers through his matted, blond locks. "Garp, will you go ask the nurse for a basin with warm, soapy water and a washcloth? Sengoku, you can go find Rosi some cold water to drink, can't you?" She turned to the two other men, and it may have seemed as though she was asking, but to those that knew her it was obvious when an order had been given. Garp began to mutter about a nurse call button, but Sengoku grabbed him by his sleeve and drug him out to go find the items. He understood that Tsuru did not want anyone to accidentally see Rosinante's face until they had a chance to cover the tattoos again.

Upon their return, Tsuru helped Rosinante wash his face of the old concealer and he honestly felt better after rinsing his skin. He drank the water at her insistence and then set up a silent barrier before telling them all about Law. He felt like more than anyone, these are the people in his life that deserved an explanation of his actions. He knew they may see him as the traitor he was, but it was a chance he was going to take because they needed to know. By the time he told them of Law asking Doflamingo to spare his life and calling out his final message, Rosinante could not bring himself to look up at any of them. Too many emotions were warring in his mind, but contrite humiliation outweighed them all.

Several minutes passed in silence as everyone stayed lost in their own thoughts and processed what had happened. It was Sengoku that was the first to speak. "So then, I have a grandson, do I? That's marvelous news!" Rosinante's head snapped up, his mouth open in shock. Of all the responses that he had imagined when thinking about this conversation, that one had never once come to his mind, and he had no idea how to react.

"But– I– I mean– I guess, though Doflamingo might have something to say about that! Weren't you listening? He took the boy to raise as his right-hand man. In a few years we're going to have another demon on our hands! He already has been through so much and there is so much hate in his heart…" Rosinante dropped his head into his hands and groaned before continuing, "I just wanted to stop that hate and desire for destruction from creating another pirate like my brother. I wanted to give him a normal life and I failed!"

"Pirates aren't always demons, my boy. I think the idea of pirates sometimes is given more power than what there really is," Garp walked up to the bed with his pinky in his nose and his rice cracker bag empty. Rosinante was not used to words like this coming from him, as he was often more brawn than brain, but it was a little hard to take him seriously at all when he picked his nose like that. Garp went on, "There is good and bad in all men, whether they're marines or pirates or neither, but it's what you do with it that makes them truly evil or not. Some marines have done terrible things and some pirates have done good." He pulled his finger out of his nose, looked at it, and shoved his hand into his pocket.

Sengoku threw Garp a dirty look. "Don't think I don't know who you're talking about, but he was a demon, I don't give a shit what little adventure the two of you had!" Tsuru cleared her throat and Sengoku let out a breath in an irritated huff before turning back to his son. "But he is right in that it's the choices you make in life that will make the kind of person you will be. I think my grandson must have already lost a lot of that hate you mentioned to have room enough for the love it took to ask Doflamingo for your life." Rosinante's eyes widened as his father's words sank in. He had not considered the possibility that Law might love him in return. Could this be true?

Tsuru spoke next. "That's right. That took a lot of courage and for a boy that came to them to destroy the world, it seems very out of character. I also would not worry about him too much. Your brother also seems to have the capacity to love others and may not be quite the monster you think he is." Both Sengoku and Rosinante sputtered and began choking at her words. She looked offended but waited patiently while they calmed down. Garp simply laughed at the look on their faces, knowing what Tsuru meant, having seen the pirate king do some odd things in the name of love prior to his death both for Rouge and for his unborn son.

Once they had quieted down, she continued. "I think the greatest proof of what I'm saying is that you are here with us," she said with a smile and placed her hand on top of Rosinante's. "At the very least, he must care for the child, or he would not have listened to the request and would have killed you anyway. There is also the possibility that he still loves you as his brother, even after all of this and that is why he couldn't do it once he had the boy. Didn't you say he started to walk away once before, but you stopped him to keep Law safe? My understanding is that nobody betrays Joker and lives."

Rosinante desperately wanted to believe that any part of what she said could be true, but the memories of his brother shooting their father swam through his mind. Even after all these years he could taste that acrid hint of gunpowder on his tongue and hear the ringing in his ears that echoed after the blast of the gunshot. He remembered how warm and wet the feeling of their father's brain and flesh was as it hit his face and his skin stung where bone fragments had struck him. No, his brother was a demon from birth to be able to do such a thing to that kind and gentle man!

"I truly think you're wrong, Tsuru. I think the best thing to do is to get stronger and get Law back from him! I'm a navy commander and pirate scum cannot be allowed to sail around to do whatever the hell they please. The doctors want to start exercises soon to help me regain muscle mass so I can use my leg again, I will get these damned marks off my face, and I will hunt down the Donquixote Family and get Law back! If I'm lucky, maybe I can rescue those other children too before they become too warped to lead normal lives."

Rosinante's face was stern, but hopeful. He was done wallowing in doubt and hopelessness. It was time for Doflamingo to meet the real Commander Rosinante Donquixote of the navy on equal footing. It would be a confrontation that filthy pirate would be sure not to forget.