Kaizoku wa Kaizoku desu… A Pirate is a Pirate

Part 1 of a 4 part series

by Aoikami Sarah

Chapter Eight – Marina Says Goodbye

Shanks squeezed his eyes shut. "I'll never get to tell her…" he whispered and drained the last of the brandy. Resting the empty bottle next to the photograph he had taken off the mantle in Marina and Shep's house. The brothers flanked her, immortalized in sepia tone, laughing, arm-in-arm. Someone knocked on his cabin door. He stayed quiet, hoping they would go away.

"Shanks…?"
His eyes snapped open. "Marina!" She clicked the door shut behind her and leaned against it. "Well…" he laughed lightly. "This is certainly a surprise."

"I had come here to order you to leave immediately," she stated. Her eyes looked ahead. Her hair partially hid her face. "My youngest son's head is irrevocably filled with dreams of becoming a pirate thanks to you. When he came home last night with a knife wound and a Devil's Fruit ability, I had everything I could do to keep from screaming. Instead, I poured that sentiment into the idea to pay you a visit and let you have a piece of my mind once and for all. I was blinded with rage until I reached the harbor and learned that Luffy was in danger."

She paused for a moment, taking shallow breaths as if the very effort of speaking was too much for her. "Since I came here to Fuchsia more than a decade ago, all I have wanted to do was to raise my sons in safety and peace. When I first held Ace in my arms, I wondered how I could possibly take such a fragile thing onto a pirate ship. Then I read that Roger had died…" She lowered her head. "And I resigned from piracy forever. Shep could never understand that. He didn't realize how motherhood had changed me."

Shanks whispered the few words that would come to him. "No. He couldn't," he admitted.

"I never intended to tell you all of that," Marina said, and lifted her head with a soft, sad smile. "I was going to hate you and your brother till I died. Hate you for leaving me, for being able to be something I could no longer be. But I didn't hate you. I hated myself. I'm so sorry, Shanks." To his astonishment, she crouched down to her knees. "I do not expect to be forgiven, and I will never be able to repay you for saving Luffy's life. Please forgive me!" Her tears splashed down onto the wooden floor.

Shanks stretched out his arm and tried to touch her, but she was too far away. "Marina… It's not you who needs forgiveness. It's me." She looked up at his outstretched hand. "I never said one word to Shep to change his mind when I could have. My jealousy has hurt you."

She shook her head. "I should never have come between brothers…"

"That's not what I mean. I was jealous of Shep, not you. I've always loved you, but since my brother won your heart first, I couldn't fight him for you."

She took his hand. Marina did her best to hold back her tears as she allowed him to pull her into an embrace. She rested her head on his chest and gasped in horror. "Shanks! Your arm!"

"It's just a flesh wound," he said with a grin and held her tightly with his right just as he had held her son only an hour before. She broke down and wailed in anguish as he stroked her hair and tried to imagine what his life would had been like had she fallen in love with him rather than Shep. "Everything happens for a reason. I was meant to come here like this and meet Luffy and Ace. I was meant to put those wild dreams in their heads. That's the way fate works. It often goes against what we plan."

She nodded against his chest and quieted. They stayed like that for a moment before she went back to kneeling at his bedside. "This is good-bye," she said with her eyes on her hands which she rubbed together in her lap. Her bare arms were thinner and paler than he remembered. She had always been loud, energetic and strong, but the woman in his room was hardly a shell of her former self.

"I'll be back one day…" Shanks tried to smile to encourage her.

"You might be back, but I'll be gone." Her pale eyes darted across the room, avoiding his. "I've been ill for years now. I won't last through the winter."

Shanks' heart broke. He reached out and touched her face, still damp with tears.

"I know you don't owe me anything, but if you could, when you meet Ace and Luffy again out there on the Grand Line, tell them how proud I would be of them." She touched his hand and stood up shakily. "Good-bye, Shanks." As the door clicked behind her, Shanks put his hand to his face and sobbed quietly before finally falling into an exhausted sleep.

.X.

Ace walked ahead of the Mayor, silent and sullen. Bower carried Luffy on his back. The youngster was nodding off to sleep. When he heard soft snoring come from his cargo, Bower stepped up his pace to catch up with his older brother. "Ace, please don't worry about your mother. She can deal with those pirates."

Ace kicked a rock and made a face. Looking over his shoulder, he saw Luffy nod out and shrugged. "I guess if she was a pirate captain, that's so."

Bower's stomach turned a little. "Has she ever told you that before?"

"No. She's never said anything about her past or our dad either. But what I've put together now is that she was once a captain, she knows Captain Shanks and you used to be on her ship since you called her 'Captain' back there." He caught up to the rock again and gave it another careless kick. "I'm pretty observant. Luffy's not. I'm glad he's so clueless. He doesn't realize the painful things going on around him. This is his first taste of pain, seeing his hero lose his arm like that."

"You say that like you've already known pain." Bower marveled at him.

"You've been friends with Mother for a long time, right? Even before we were born, when she was a pirate?" Ace asked, not bothering to look up for a nod. "Luffy was too little, but I remember Father." Bower stopped in his tracks. "That's the pain I feel. I remember the shouting and Mother crying. But I also remember being happy with my father. I've never known what happened, where he went. I don't need to know. I just know that it hurt Mother and that hurt me."

He lowered his head and walked as if being pulled on a chain towards the house. "I'm sure that the pirates have something to do with that pain, but for some reason, no matter how hard I try, I can't hate them." Ace balled his fists. "I want to jump on board a ship and go adventuring just as much as Luffy does, but I can't because I know how much it would hurt Mother."

To his surprise, Bower's hand patted his shoulder. "That's just fine, Son. The blood that flows in your veins is like iron to the magnet of the sea. One day, you and young Luffy will surely sail away from this place, just like your parents before you. Perhaps you will search for Roger's treasure… that would truly be something, that would…" he said wistfully.

Ace stared up at Bower, perplexed. "Mr. Mayor…?"

Bower straightened up and shifted Luffy up a little higher on his back. "Not today of course, perhaps not for years to come. You're but babes, now."

Ace sniffed and did his best not to cry. "Is that really ok? Would Mother really be ok with that?"

"When your mother gets back home, you should talk to her about it." Bower cleared his throat and smiled. "Don't tell her I said so, please. She'll take it out of my hide."

They walked up the path to the door. Ace chuckled. "Yes, yes she will."

"Y… you wouldn't…?"

Ace opened the door. "Rest assured, Mr. Mayor. I'm pretty good at keeping secrets myself."

"So it seems." Bower laughed softly and let Ace close the door behind him.

More to come...