I don't know Penguin or Shachi that well so they may be out of character.

Family part one

The group of eight children and teenagers, with one adult, looked at each other as they sat in their assigned room in the Bandit Den and ate dinner. Dadan had decided that, as these were not actual bandits and were instead just more people dropped off by Garp, that the four demon children could have the joy of explaining the rules to the new arrivals.

Dadan's other reason for this was that she had a feeling that these people would have about as much to do with her as previously mentioned demon children.

Currently, however, said information seemed to be rather unforthcoming. The two oldest of the bandit kids were alternating staring at each other and glaring at everyone else as if they were trying to solve a complex puzzle and they were all new pieces to be placed. The youngest by far was happily munching on meat and the second youngest was sitting next to him and making sure he didn't choke.

Eventually the other two seemed to come to some agreement, and the blond one of the two turned to the rest of them.

'Good evening, it's a pleasure to meet you. My name is Sabo, the dark-haired boy next to me is my older brother Ace, and the straw hat kid behind me is my younger brother Luffy. The green haired boy next to Luffy is his first mate when we eventually set out to sea.' His introduction finished, the now named Sabo sat back expectantly.

As the semi responsible party, the adult handled introductions for the new comers.

'My name is Rocinante, but some people call me Cora-san. This is my son, Law,' he placed his hand on the tall, thin, teenager next to him, 'and his friends Bepo, Shachi, and Penguin. Bepo is the polar bear mink, Penguin has his name on his hat, and Shachi is the other one.' Shachi looked rather disgruntled with his introduction, but didn't protest it.

'Right,' Ace chimed in after a second, 'it's a pleasure to meet you, now kindly tell us which one of you is capable of remembering the future.'

Four of the five new comers spat out the meat they had been eating in shock, Rocinante lit himself on fire by accident and Law wacked himself on the forehead before putting him out.

'Wh-wh-what?' Shachi finally managed to stutter out as he wiped spit and bits of meat off his chin. Ace and Sabo raised their eyebrows at the boy's inability to lie about or cover up what they were claiming.

'Let me rephrase that then,' Sabo said calmly, 'Which of you lot suggest getting Garp to hide you, because we know that one of you must have.'

'Fairly sure it's not Rocinante,' Ace chimed in. 'Probably his son, I don't think that Rocinante survived last time.'

'Creepy Doctor,' Sabo replied, the statement must have made sense to someone in the room because none of the others who had lived there made any protests, Zoro even nodded.

There was silence as four of the occupants tried to figure out if all of the people they were supposed to be living with were insane, and four of the other occupants waited patiently for a response to the original question.

And then Law laughed, long and hard as the eight other people now stared at him as if questioning his sanity. It took a while for him to calm down enough to answer, but a few could already guess what he was going to say.

'Yes, I was the one that suggested that Garp would be able to hide us from a few people by whom I really don't want to be found. I get … feelings? About certain people that let me know if I should trust them or not, or if there is something I should avoid doing at all costs, is that what you were asking about when you mentioned remembering the future?'

His father and friends were now looking at Law as if he were crazy, probably wondering why he would reveal such delicate information. But law didn't look at them, he didn't break eye contact with the two people who were interrogating him.

Sabo gave a huge sigh and sat back slightly, Ace just folded his arms and glared at the room in general. 'So, you're like Zoro then, I'm not sure whether to be glad or not,' Sabo muttered to himself.

'Zoro?' Penguin couldn't keep his silence any longer.

Sabo gave him a look that was almost as bad as Ace's, before answering the question. 'Zoro is on this island because he was led here by something similar, except he also has infallible Luffy Radar and experiences the occasional dream to accompany the nostalgia and occasional flash back, or is it flash forward?' Sabo finished in genuine confusion.

Everyone else in the room blinked at him, none of them knew either.

'So … this has happened before then? It's, what, normal?' Law said, sounding more than slightly disbelieving, but not quite managing to hide the hope in his voice from a select few in the room.

Ace snorted. 'It's not normal, not by a long shot, but it's not as uncommon as it should be, or as I wish it was,' several people gave him a look, so he elaborated. 'The more people like there are the more chance of someone else we have never met stuffing something up and us loosing our advantage of forewarning.'

Silence descended for several seconds, but Law suddenly had a too knowing look in his eye that all of the demon brats recognised as the look of someone smart who has just figured out something you really wish they hadn't.

Of course, none of them were that subtle, except occasionally Sabo, so it wasn't surprising that the look was so familiar.

'Zoro is not the only one, is he?' the fur-hatted teenager asked.

'Zoro is the closest to what you just described,' Sabo responded, almost too quickly.

'But he's not the only one to remember, is he?' Law clarified. 'You two do as well, don't you? Or, at least, you have some kind of experience with this as well, don't you?' Ace wanted nothing more than to wipe that self-satisfied look off the other boy's face.

Sabo sighed, Ace's emotions were too easy to read, and decided that delay was the best tactic in this scenario. 'This is one of those things that should probably be discussed at a later time and in a semblance of privacy. It is also, as you have probably guessed, a story that is much too long to be discussed over dinner, especially when we are actually meant to be talking about something else, mainly your new living conditions.

'As you can see, you now live with bandits, as per the orders an insane old geezer called Garp, who just happens to be my adopted grandfather. While living with the bandits they will expect you to do all of the chores, help with the usual bandit activities, and hunt for your own food if you want more than a single bowl of rice to eat.

'We, as in us four, do not technically live with the bandits, though Dadan does for some inexplicable reason consider at least Ace, Luffy and I her sort of surrogate sons and hold some weird type of affection for us.

'As we do not actually live with the bandits, and you somehow seem to have pissed off the world Government which is always a plus, you do have the option of staying with us instead.

'If you decided to stay with us then you will still need to help bring in meat and most likely partake in a little steeling and violence, but anyone who says our victims are innocent is kidding themselves. The main difference is that we will expect you to train with us and help us get stronger, and that we have a one week probation period to prove whether your actually worth keep around and trusting.

'The four of us also intend to be pirates when we're older, though that is neither here nor there, but if you are living with us it will mean we have to find a new way to divide up treasure.'

His speech done, Sabo started digging into his food that had remained relatively untouched during the tense beginning of the night, and did his best to ignore everyone else. Soon the four boys who had lived on the island longest had finished their rather impressive meal and let themselves out. Ace gave the parting comment that they now knew the rules, but they could change their mind about who they lived with whenever they liked.

The next morning, after a very poor night's sleep surrounded by unfamiliar snoring, Law decided to give at least two of his so-called "friends" a warning of his own.

'Don't mess with the youngest.' Both Penguin and Shachi gave him a look but Law was unrelenting. 'I met you because you decided that it was okay to pick on people that were weaker than you were, and it is not an attitude that has changed, but that kid is off limits if you know what is good for you.'

'Got a soft spot for him already, Captain? Or do you "remember" him or however they put it?' Penguin piped up.

And for some reason Law smirked. 'I remember meeting a couple of brothers last night that I think are quite capable of, and more importantly willing to, make your life a living hell if they think that you're causing their little brother any trouble, regardless of how I may feel or how strong said little brother may turn out to be.'

Penguin and Shachi looked at each other, and then shrugged; Law got the distinct feeling that they hadn't really taken much notice of what he had just said. They may recognise Law as stronger and call him Captain in respect to his place above them in his future crew, but they were still older than any of the other kids currently in hiding with the bandits and it occasionally showed when they pulled stunts like this. They just didn't believe that it was possible for children they considered so "young" to be able to beat them in a fair fight, especially when they themselves weren't intending on fighting fair.

Law made up his mind then and there that he would not be rescuing them from whatever Ace and Sabo put them through, in fact, he might even give the two brothers a heads up and call it a learning experience for the two bullies, as apparently their experiences while travelling hadn't been enough.

He might not remember, but he didn't need to, he had been an older sibling once before, even if he wasn't any longer, he knew how they acted and felt and just remembering what he had lost made him feel like someone had used his own power against him and was crushing his heart.

No, he would not be saving the two bullies, responsibilities of being captain be damned. Besides, he had a suspicion that in a few years that title might end up belonging to someone else.

REMEMBERINGREMEMBERINGREMEMBERING

Ace was not impressed. Actually, that was an understatement, Ace was down right pissed, and the reason for his fowl mood was the two brats that had decided that Luffy was fair game to pick on. While most of the people who gramps had dropped off appeared older than him and Sabo, with the possible exception of the Polar Bear as he really didn't know much about their ages, both were fairly sure that none of them were older than their real age of thirty, other than the ex-marine.

So, Ace was incredible annoyed at these teenagers who seemed to think they had the right to pick on his little brother without consequences, and even more upset because, currently, they were right. Because of course Luffy himself had to say something.

Once they had gotten back to the tree house and away from prying eyes and listening ears the four boys had discussed this new divergence from the original time line. They had, in the last six months, finally brought Luffy up to date on there little being reborn problem and time traveling shenanigans, mostly because as the first mate Zoro refused to keep anything from his captain.

Of course, even after asking out right, they still didn't have a clue whether Luffy remembered or not, and didn't think they were ever going to.

But that wasn't what was bothering Ace at the moment. No, right now he was annoyed at Luffy's total dismissal of the need to discuss anything, and his final statement that had rung more like a Captain's order.

'Dose it matter?' Luffy piped up when Sabo had finally stopped ranting about smart, creepy, doctor, pirates and brothers with the subtlety of a rampaging bear. 'Law's going to be family, Gramps said so, so we just accept him and his friends the way they are, right?'

Sabo and Ace groaned, Zoro just smirked. Luffy was, and probably always would be, too good and too trusting to survive in the world without them, and Ace and Sabo honestly had no idea how he had lasted so long the first time. It didn't matter how many times they tried to explain the real world to him, or how many times they ran into people like Blue Jam, Luffy would always trust someone until proven guilty, and sometimes he wouldn't accept them as bad guys even then.

What was never said, but damn was it often thought about long into the early hours of the morning, was that all too often those people Luffy refused to give up on did end up holding a spark of kindness that the kid always managed to draw out. And that those very few times when Luffy would find something about a person that pissed him off within the first few minutes of meeting them, often for no good reason, then that person would almost always end up turning out to be rotten to the core.

Ace and Sabo didn't repeat an argument that they had had many times before, they didn't try and tell Luffy for the hundredth time that just because a person was themselves it didn't mean that who they were was good. They didn't even point out that Garp had never actually said anything about Law becoming their family, instead they just gave Luffy the Look, the one that said please think about this.

And Luffy just gave his own look right back, the one that said that he was Captain and he had come to a decision and there was nothing that anyone could do about it.

Sabo and Ace really hated that look, Zoro just accepted it and thought that, in his opinion, the two older brothers should get used to it. All of them had agreed to follow the bouncing ball of sunshine, and occasionally that meant following orders that weren't always smart or even made sense. Because they were still on the island the two oldest were still allowed to have some say, mostly because Luffy was still considered too young to really lead them yet, but all too soon they would have to hand over even their limited attempts at control, and Zoro thought that they should probably learn to let loose slightly now, before it became impossible and they were driven to less acceptable methods of dealing with having to follow orders from their little brother.

But currently that wasn't the point. Currently the three brothers were discussing what to do with the rival Captain (was he a rival? Zoro suddenly felt that wasn't quite right) who had fallen into the same confused boat as the rest of them and moved into their home. The discussion was loud and long until Luffy finally put a stop to it, by making a request that sounded more like an order than any nearly nine-year-old had any right making.

'Ace, Sabo, just don't do anything to them unless I find out something that makes them really, really, evil. Ace isn't allowed to almost kill future family members, and Sabo isn't supposed to threaten friends. You can't do something to them while I like them, but I'll let you know when that changes.'

And that was the end of that, and the reason why all three of them were watching the two "oldest" children of the bandits make nasty comments to Luffy with twitching limbs and tight grips on weapons while Luffy remained oblivious. What was even more annoying was that Law had actually warned them about those two and given free reign once they had Luffy's permission, giving Luffy's opinion more weight than anyone was comfortable with.

This was not going to end well, and all three of them might hate it, but Ace knew that Zoro would ensure they followed Luffy, and it was always worth it when all was said and done.

This is the last of the chapters that was written at least a week in advance, I can no longer promise regular updates, sorry.

I will try though, just don't get your hopes up.