I'm done overanalyzing the timelines. Reading through the manga, it's so painfully obvious that Oda hadn't thought about when exactly Thatch died by the time the Strawhats visited Drum… Admittedly, by then Oda expected One Piece to last at most 10 years, so he clearly didn't think he'd have much time to expand on the Whitebeard Pirates (that said, I may have created an extremely exhaustive timeline of canon events to adapt this story accordingly… You know, when to show X happened, when to make Y reference, have things fit… ehem)

Thanks a lot for all your reviews :)

Chapter 3

Thatch unceremoniously dropped down next to Marco in the calm corner of deck she had claimed as her own to draw.

"You're a woman," he said.

Marco raised her eyebrows, but didn't look up from her draft.

"As far as I'm aware, I am," she said, keeping the sarcasm to a lower register than she would have expected.

Thatch scoffed.

"Okay, that was dumb. Sorry. It's just… I need advice."

"From a woman," Marco surmised, less sarcastically.

"Yeah."

Noticing the chagrined note in Thatch's voice, Marco finally capped her pencil and looked at him. Thatch was sprawled on the floor in all his gangly teenager glory, and had a massive pout ("not a pout," he insisted every time) on his face.

"What is it?"

Thatch bit his bottom lip in that gesture that indicated he was embarrassed about whatever he was about to say or do next.

"What do girls like?"

Marco blinked slowly in confusion, staring at Thatch's sullen face.

"That's a very general question. 'Girls' are people, each has her own tastes. Why do you ask?"

Thatch hesitated long enough that Marco expected him to shrug the subject off and just leave. It wouldn't be the first time he did it. He didn't.

"You remember the last island we were on? I saw this really cute girl, and I wanted to take her out to eat something and chat a little. Maybe…" he blushed to the tips of his ears and Marco bit back a tease, because he was having enough trouble speaking as it was, "maybe kiss her or something if she was up to it. But she called me a creep when I talked to her and threatened to call the cops on me. Not that I mind fighting cops or marines, but that's not what I wanted!" he hurried to add, flustered.

Marco hummed thoughtfully.

"What did you tell her?"

"Well… I don't really know how to talk to women —you don't count, you're my sister, ewww— so I've been watching the guys, and—"

Marco burst out laughing, cutting off Thatch's words.

"OI!" he yelled, offended.

"Sorry, sorry," Marco managed between chuckles, patting him on the head. She took a deep breath. "I'm not laughing at you— well, I kind of am, but not like that. It's just… I'm going to assume this girl wasn't in one of the bars we go to, was she?"

"No. I'd gone to buy supplies."

"I thought so. Well, bar methods just won't do, so forget all about them," Marco told him.

"They work on you," Thatch pointed out, then he grimaced. "I've seen you go with plenty of guys." He said it like thinking about it pained him, and Marco had to hold back another fit of laughter.

"If you'd paid closer attention—" Thatch mimed gagging, and Marco swatted him on the head. "If you'd paid closer attention," she insisted, "you would've seen I don't go with guys who act like most of our crew does at those places. But that's beside the point. The point is that those methods work there because most of the women who frequent those bars are working."

"Working? Oh!" Thatch blushed again and Marco chuckled.

"Yes, oh. Not all of them, that's true, but the other ones are either pirates like me, or locals who want to have fun with absolutely no strings attached or want to try sleeping with a pirate. They are generally there looking for sex, nothing else, and aren't so picky about their partner's attitude as long as they're not absolute assholes. Also, alcohol tends to distort one's judgment and lower their standards."

Thatch remained silent for a long moment.

"I fucked up, didn't I?" he asked finally.

"Horribly."

"Okay, so what should I do next time?"

Marco returned to the hotel room with the list of islands, and marked them all in the map. She planned the quickest route to cover them all —and maybe add a few more if they learned of them before they found Teach's trail— keeping in mind that she couldn't know which of these islands Teach had reached.

When that was done —nearing dawn— she went to take a shower, dressed in clean clothes, and sat on the bed. She looked down at Ace. She felt a little bit like a creep for staring at him while he slept, but it was calming, in a way. A reminder that life went on, and she had reasons to stay focused. Once she had left the bar a few hours ago, Marco had realized just how disproportionate her reaction had been, and it worried her. Marco hadn't lost her temper like that over such a small thing as a creep since her teenage years, and yet she had crippled for life a man who couldn't have even grazed her no matter how hard he had tried.

Marco reached out with a hand and brushed her fingers over Ace's hair. They really had been on edge these past two days, she was surprised they hadn't come to blows at some point, and that couldn't continue.

Thatch was dead, and she… well, she couldn't accept it, not yet; she couldn't mourn him properly yet, but she had to control her temper better. It wasn't Ace's fault, and he didn't deserve to have Marco growling at him and ordering him around at every turn.

Marco brushed her thumb behind Ace's ear and he sighed. She bent over and kissed him on the forehead, then trailed her lips down the side of his face, over his cheek, stopped to mouth at his jaw. Ace stirred when Marco reached his neck.

"Wh—" he started, but yawned, "what're you doing?"

"I'm sorry," Marco said, straightening again.

Ace blinked up at her.

"'Bout what?"

"I've been an ass to you."

It took Ace's sleep-addled brain a moment to catch up. He moved to lie on his back.

"Yeah, well, so have I."

"We've been a pair of assholes," Marco admitted, trying to smile. She wasn't very successful. "We really should stop. We're in this together."

Ace hummed an agreement. He then grabbed her by the arm and pulled her down on his chest.

"What brought this on?" Ace asked.

Marco hesitated. Ace was used to her being calm, reasonable, and generally composed. But this was also a side of her, one that rarely saw the light of day nowadays, but that was still there. One that, Marco realized, would be around for some time now.

"I pretty much ripped a guy's hand off last night. It was a disproportionate reaction, he was just being your average pirate rookie jerk."

"To you?" Ace asked, surprised.

Marco chuckled.

"Yeah, to me. That's something I learned yesterday: it seems no one recognized me. We should pay attention to how people look at us. Seeing two commanders of the Whitebeard Pirates out here should cause some level of panic, but there's been none. If we're anonymous…"

"It could be useful," Ace finished for her, realization in his voice.

"Exactly."

"Did you get anything else?"

"I have a list of islands we can try looking for information on Teach. He's likely already moved on from whatever island he reached, but we should be able to find his trail eventually."

Ace had tensed when Marco said that Teach had likely moved on, but she felt how he clearly forced himself to relax.

"Okay."

Marco sat up.

"Go take a shower before we go buy breakfast. You stink," she ordered, trying to joke, and was rewarded with a weak grimace and a rude gesture.

They ate breakfast and resupplied before leaving the island. An advantage to stable seasons was that they didn't have to worry about sudden changes in temperature. It was late May, and as such their summer clothes didn't stand out amongst the population. They had both packed light, trying to fit as much as possible in their small bags, and so neither of them had brought any of the winter clothes they used to blend in at the colder islands.

The Striker could move faster than an average ship when Ace put it to full power, and they reached the next island on Marco's planned route just past lunchtime. This island was a larger one, which meant Marco couldn't sense over the entire place from a single spot. They sailed around it once, so that she could try to scan as much of the area as possible in a short time, and she determined that Teach wasn't here either.

There were two towns at the island, and Ace left Marco at the western one while he headed for the eastern one himself, in an attempt to shorten the time it would take them to ask around.

Ace entered every business he came across and stopped random passersby to show the sketch of Teach's face, but nobody recognized him. He also did as Marco had said and tried to pay attention to the people around him. She had been right: nobody seemed to recognize his face or the large flag tattooed on his back.

This was good, it meant that word wouldn't get out about the Whitebeard Pirates being on West Blue. Teach wouldn't know they had followed him here.

A day later, on the third island they reached in West Blue, they got lucky. Teach had been spotted here. In fact, many people remembered him because he had been seen talking with a man who had quite the reputation for being a monster around these parts: his name was Lafitte, and he was a former policeman from a nearby island who was known for terrorizing the place before he had to flee after the marines sent a large force to arrest him. There had been another man with them, described as a very large and muscular guy, but nobody seemed to know who he was. They heard more than once that he was loud, though.

"I heard they bought a log pose," the man Marco and Ace were talking to said. "Good riddance if they're going to that goddamn place." He took a long gulp of the drink Ace had bought him in an effort to get him to talk.

"You mean they're going to the Grand Line?" Marco asked, leaning forward. She had her arms crossed close to her body on the tabletop, so that her cleavage didn't hide much. It was a cheap trick, but it tended to work.

The man grinned, looking down at her.

"Yeah. They were pretty loud about it and everything. Heard Lafitte assure this dude of yours that he's quite the navigator."

"He's going to the Grand Line?" Ace hissed once they were out of the bar. "I thought he was trying to hide."

Marco sighed and put a hand on his arm. She didn't like the sound of this any more than he did, but it seemed obvious now that they had been wrong in their original assessment.

"If you think about it, it does make some sense. Why would Teach take such a risk to steal that devil fruit only to hide for the rest of his life?"

"It's ridiculous! He can't really expect we'll let him gallivant around the Grand Line without repercussions."

"No, but he likely thinks he has time until we hear he's in Paradise. If we hadn't discovered he crossed to West Blue, we would be scouring the New World for him," Marco pointed out.

"Still doesn't make a lick of sense," Ace grumbled.

Marco shrugged. Ace was right, of course. She couldn't fathom what was going on in Teach's head to make him think he could somehow survive for long after what he had done. Teach had no way of knowing about Pops' bad feeling and the original order to let him go.

"It doesn't matter," she said finally, "we'll get him."

Ace nodded.

"So now what? We get a Paradise log pose and hunt him all over the Grand Line?"

"If we have to," Marco said. "If we're lucky, he will not have crossed to the Grand Line yet. In that case we only have to wait for him at the Twin Cape and we'll be done."

"Right. We can ask Crocus if he's been there," Ace said, then backtracked. "Do you even know who Crocus is? He's—"

Marco interrupted him with a chuckle.

"Yes, I've known Crocus for a long time. He's been at the Cape for over fifty years."

"…Oh. Didn't know he was that old."

Marco laughed.

"Come on, let's go find a log pose. We really didn't pack well for this trip."

This island was one of the closest to the Reverse Mountain in West Blue, and it was easy to find shops that catered to those preparing to cross to the Grand Line. Log poses, however, were hard to come across outside the Grand Line, and they had to visit four shops before they found one.

"Fifty thousand belis?" Marco demanded, outraged. "Are you out of your fucking mind?" she asked the shopkeeper, leaning forward to glare at him.

A disadvantage of not being recognized was that people didn't realize the danger they were in when Marco glared at them. It was in situations like this one when Marco resented how unintimidating her appearance was. Not even Ace looked like anything special compared to all the towering pirates that prowled the seas.

The shopkeeper shrugged.

"That's the price, love. You can take it or go elsewhere, but don't think you'll find it cheaper." He jabbed a finger at the log pose in the display cabinet. "These things are hard to find around these parts."

Marco was about to give this shopkeeper a piece of her mind accompanied by a handful of choice threats —that was five times the average price in the Grand Line— when Ace grabbed her by the upper arm and tugged. She was annoyed, but let him pull her away from the counter.

"He won't give in," Ace said in a hushed voice. "There's a lot of people after log poses and he knows. That's about what I had to pay for mine."

Marco frowned.

"I can't believe I forgot to pack a damned Paradise log pose," she muttered.

Unfortunately, Ace had a point. Given how many shops they had visited to find a single log pose, and the amount of hopeful rookies heading for the Grand Line every year, this shopkeeper really had no reason to bargain unless Marco decided to explain to him in great detail why it was a bad idea to attempt to swindle the Whitebeard Pirates. She couldn't risk it and let their presence in this sea be known if Teach was still here, and they didn't have the time to waste looking for a cheaper log pose somewhere else. One that might not even exist.

Marco sighed.

Damn Blue Seas, she thought to herself, turning around and marching over to the counter.

"Okay, we'll take it," she growled, and held back an insult when the shopkeeper smiled smugly.

She opened her bag, pulled out her wallet, and looked at its contents. A measly ten thousand belis bill and some coins.

Oh, damn.

"Ace, give me your wallet," she said, reaching out with her free hand.

Ace handed it over with a worried expression, and Marco opened it. Two ten thousand belis bills and a handful of coins that in no way amounted to twenty thousand belis when added to her own coins.

"You don't have the money," the shopkeeper realized before Marco could say anything. "You made all this fuss and you don't even have the money," he accused her, indignant.

Marco ignored him, looking down at her bag. They didn't have the money, no, but maybe…

"What about an exchange?" she asked, distractedly handing Ace back his wallet.

"An exchange?" the shopkeeper asked with a sneer. "I doubt you have anything worth this beau—" He froze when Marco pulled out her New World log pose, his eyes going wide.

"I don't?" she asked mockingly, raising her eyebrows.

"Where…? Is that the real thing?!" he demanded, lunging forward.

Marco took a step back and out of his reach.

"It is. So…" she wiggled her log pose, "what do you say? Does this cover the price?"

"Let me see that," the shopkeeper demanded again, and Marco handed it over. It was amusing to watch as he inspected the log pose like someone looking over a treasure. Then again, Marco suspected not many of those made their way out of the Grand Line, and even less of them left their owners' hands. But she had no choice here; they would simply have to get a new one at Sabaody or Fishman Island once they returned home.

"Well?" Marco asked after a full minute.

"Eh… yes, of course, take the damn thing," the shopkeeper said, distractedly opening the glass cabinet for her. Marco guessed he was too busy thinking how much a collector out here would pay for a New World log pose to pay them any attention.

"We need money," Marco said as soon as they were outside the shop, log pose firmly secured around her wrist. "I hadn't noticed we were so short on funds."

"So what do we do? Assault the first pirate ship we see?" Ace asked, grinning.

Marco grinned back.

"Sounds about right to me."

To be continued

Okay, first of all, I have to confess a certain level of evil glee at the idea of having men use pet names with Marco in that dismissive way many so often do to try to set themselves above a woman. Now imagine this shopkeeper and the guy from the bar in last chapter: at some point, some day, there will be a newspaper article with a nice, large picture of Marco, or maybe they'll just see her wanted poster somewhere, and they'll realize just how close they were to death. I assure you these two won't use pet names with that intent ever again.

I've thought many times about how Blackbeard managed to assemble such a strong crew (for Paradise's standards) in such a short time. Here, I've decided that Lafitte and Burgess were already traveling together by the time Blackbeard met them, to lessen the number of fortunate and quick encounters a little.

About the log pose, I assume New World log poses don't work very well in Paradise, because Ace was using a Paradise log pose during his chase: he came from the New World, so if that log pose worked in Paradsie he would have had no need to change it, but he did. Also, given the way Oda handles prices in One Piece, belis seem to have a similar value to yens, so fifty thousand belis would be… around 440 USD/410 Euros.