Well, here I am with chapter 4. I'm sorry about the delay, I've had this written since I posted chapter 3, but I've been sick and couldn't post last week as I wanted to. So, instead, you get a holiday update :)
Chapter 4
As it turned out, the first pirate ship they came across was docked at the port of the very same island they were on. Marco and Ace knocked out the few pirates guarding it quickly and efficiently, and they were gone before anyone came back. While there had been a fair amount of treasure on board, they had limited storage space, and thus stole only the money they found and a handful of particularly valuable jewels that Marco could stuff easily in her shorts' pockets and then transfer them to a pocket in her bag.
They sat at a restaurant for dinner that night and Marco spread their map on the table after she was done eating. Ace was still inhaling food.
"If we leave early tomorrow, we should make it to Reverse Mountain by lunchtime. We'll need a map of Paradise if Teach is already there, but I'd rather buy it in the Grand Line. I don't want to think how expensive one of those will be out here," she muttered the last part, and Ace coughed, almost choking on his food. Marco glared at him half-heartedly and went back to look at the map.
"You gonna sleep tonight?" Ace asked after he had ordered third servings to a shocked waitress.
"I'm not tired," Marco replied.
"Marco," Ace said, his voice serious enough for Marco to look up at him. He looked about as serious as he had sounded.
"Yes?" she asked mildly.
"I get it, okay? I do. You don't want to sleep and risk having dreams or something, but you have to. I don't know how long you can go without sleep before it starts affecting you, and I don't want to know. We're going into the Grand Line now, and if we have to hunt Teach there you'll have to stay awake at night if we don't make it to an island in a day, to wake me up if the weather looks like it's gonna kill us. You know the weather there. Much better than me. So, for fuck's sake, try to sleep."
Marco wanted to argue, she wanted to say that she could go on for weeks without needing to sleep, but her own words from days ago came back to her: they didn't know how long it would take them to catch up to Teach. If it was long enough that lack of sleep started to affect her, it could be a problem.
She sighed.
"All right."
Crossing Reverse Mountain with the Striker was an interesting experience, way different than doing so with a traditional ship. It involved a lot of yelling, of Marco telling Ace to just move to the middle of damn current before it turned too strong to let them maneuver, and it was the first time they unfurled their sail since they had left the New World.
It had been years since Marco last crossed Reverse Mountain, and the sight of the rushing canal, the feeling of crossing through the clouds as they headed for the top of the Red Line, and being thrown up in the air before falling down again were things that she hadn't realized she had forgotten so many details about. The sight of the Grand Line opening up before them, though, was as astounding as she remembered, even if the sense of wonder from the first time was gone now. It was replaced by the precarious feeling of sitting between Ace's legs on the seat of the Striker, with no rails on any side, and only one of his arms around her instead of having a sturdy ship to hold on. She didn't mind that change.
She half-expected to find Laboon blocking their path —it had happened, once— but he wasn't there. Oh, he was on sight, but not blocking the way out of the descending canal.
Marco didn't have to say anything for Ace to head towards the lighthouse. There was a lawn chair outside, and she saw Crocus put his newspaper down and stare for a moment before he moved to his feet.
Marco nudged the arm Ace still had around her waist, and as soon as he removed it she jumped out of the Striker. She had to turn her arms into wings to cover the full distance, but she landed on her feet before Crocus.
"I'll be damned," she heard Crocus mutter, and for the first time in days Marco felt like smiling without any bitterness.
"Hey, Crocus. You look old."
Crocus scoffed.
"Oh, shut up. Not all of us have found the key to eternal youth."
"Don't you mean eternal middle age?" Ace asked from the Striker, now close enough that he could anchor it and jump over to the coast.
"Oh, charming," Marco retorted, but kept her voice light enough for Ace to know she wasn't offended. Jokes about her age were far too common amongst their crew. Thatch had certainly made sure—
She shook herself mentally. She couldn't think about that now.
"You're that crazy kid that joined Whitebeard a couple years ago, aren't you?" Crocus asked Ace, drawing Marco's attention to the present again. "I remember you."
"You'd better. We had to spend a week here, after all."
"Did you crash the ship?" Marco asked, making her best effort to tease.
"No," Ace said.
"Something like that," Crocus said at the same time.
Marco expected an offended response from Ace, but he seemed distracted staring at Laboon.
"That's new," Ace said, pointing at Laboon's head.
Marco looked up, and immediately noticed what Ace meant. There was what seemed to be paint on Laboon's head, covering part of his many scars, and while Marco couldn't see the shape, she would swear what she did see resembled part of a flag.
"Yeah, it's very recent," Crocus replied with a wide grin. Happy, really, and Marco had to ask.
"Care to elaborate?"
Crocus chuckled.
"A few days ago, a pirate crew arrived here. Some stuff happened and I ended up telling them about Laboon's story. The captain grabbed their ship's mast and got into a fight with Laboon, then announced it was a draw and said they would fight again once his crew had crossed the Grand Line. He drew his flag on Laboon's head and told him not to ruin it by hitting Reverse Mountain. Laboon hasn't hit it since."
Marco found herself smiling.
"That sounds like a good pirate. May I see the flag?"
"Oh, sure. But it's not a very good drawing." Crocus laughed. "Doesn't look much like the real thing. Oi, Laboon! Can you come here?"
Laboon complied, as Marco had seen him do many times in the past, and lowered his head closer to them, revealing… well, it was obviously meant to be a pirate flag, but it looked like the representation of a flag that a little kid would have drawn. The skull was grinning, but aside from a hat it was a very generic flag.
Ace cursed next to Marco, drawing both her and Crocus' attention.
"What?" asked Marco.
Ace turned to Crocus.
"Was this guy's name Luffy?"
"How do you know?" Crocus said.
Ace started to laugh.
Marco couldn't help it, between Ace's genuine mirth —she hadn't realized how much she had missed it— and Crocus' puzzled expression, she joined in on the laughter.
"What?" Crocus insisted.
It took Marco a moment to get herself back under control. Ace was still laughing.
"Monkey D. Luffy," she started, grinning, "is Ace's little brother."
"Really? Talk about coincidences." Marco nodded. "But you two aren't here because of that. What brings two commanders of the Whitebeard Pirates to the entrance to the Grand Line?"
Marco and Ace sobered up. Marco reached into her bag for her copy of Teach's sketch.
"Have you seen this man?" she asked, showing it to Crocus.
Crocus looked at it for a moment before nodding.
"He crossed two days after Luffy, actually. I thought he looked familiar. He was accompanied by a couple of guys, and they were on a huge raft of all things." Crocus scoffed.
"A raft?" Marco asked.
"Made of logs and everything. I thought they were crazy. I can't have been too far off if you two are after them. What did he do?"
"He killed Thatch." It was Ace who spoke, and Marco was surprised by how grateful she felt that she hadn't been the one who had to say those words.
Crocus didn't say anything for a long moment, then he nodded somberly.
"I can point you to the route they took. They argued over it while they patched up the raft." He turned to Marco. "How are you holding up?"
Marco shrugged.
"I'll be better once Teach is dead."
Crocus nodded, understanding exactly what Marco hadn't said.
"Are you leaving, or do you two have time for a meal with an old man?"
Marco smiled softly.
"Ace can't refuse food."
They left the Twin Cape with a route to follow and a map Crocus had given them, one that Marco trusted far more than anything she could have found in a shop.
"All right, the sea close to the Cape is pretty chaotic, so we'll try to cover as much distance as possible before we have to stop," Marco said, sitting on the floor of the Striker, her fire mixing with Ace's to protect her from the strong flames needed to push the vessel to its full speed.
It was a good thing that Ace had taken an involuntary nap after lunch, because this meant they could probably travel until tomorrow morning with only a few nap stops.
"I estimate it'll take us two days or so to reach the next island, so do try not to wolf all of our food down too quickly," she added with a smirk over her shoulder.
Ace stuck his tongue out at her.
"I know how to ration my supplies," he muttered. "How come you're such good friends with Crocus, anyway? You can't have spent that long at the Cape."
…Oh.
Well, Ace had to start accepting the idea that he had grown up hearing bullshit rumors and stories at some point. Marco and Pops had told him some real stories over the years and tried to talk about the issue, but…
"Crocus was a pirate doctor for three years. On Roger's ship."
Three, two, one…
"He sailed with ROGER?! But he's a decent guy!"
Marco sighed.
"And so was Roger. I know you've got your reasons to hold a grudge against him, but that was the world's reaction, not Roger's doing." Ace didn't reply. Marco was certain he was sulking and doing his best to ignore her. But they were in a tiny space and he couldn't storm off like was his norm whenever Marco tried to approach the issue of Roger in any depth, so she pressed on. "Think about it. What do you think the world in general would say if... say, you and I were to have a kid?"
Again, Ace didn't reply. He didn't need to, Marco knew very well what was going on through his head. She had heard enough stories about his childhood that she could repeat some of the words herself.
"Does that make us monsters?" she asked in a low voice. "Would it make that hypothetical kid less deserving of life than any other just because we were the parents?"
"Why do you insist so much on this?" Ace asked finally, and he didn't sound angry. He sounded almost defeated, as if he had spent a long time trying to figure out Marco's reasoning and couldn't do it. Maybe he had.
"Because, as long as you hate the idea of being his son, you'll hate a part of yourself. There's this part of yourself that you see as undeserving of… anything… simply because you're Roger's son. And that's not true. It's not right that you value yourself so little," she finished in a whisper, and leaned back against Ace's legs.
Ace tangled a hand in her hair and rubbed her scalp.
"You're a fucking nuisance," he muttered.
"I'm also right," she said, closing her eyes.
"I am going to kill you," Marco said, her voice slow and cold. It was enough to make her asshole siblings try to control their giggles. Even Pops raised a hand to cover his mouth.
Thatch just grinned wider.
"Hey, I had to do something. You didn't want to tell me your age."
"Because I didn't want you to make a fucking cake. I don't know why you insisted."
"Because," Thatch started slowly, and he raised a hand to theatrically cover his chest over his heart, "I couldn't believe it when Pops told me you don't celebrate your birthday. He didn't even know the date!"
"I don't see the point of birthdays," Marco argued, crossing her arms.
"That's sad," Thatch said.
"Whatever. It still doesn't explain this," Marco growled, jabbing a thumb in the cake's direction.
"Weeell, I figured you don't celebrate your birthday because you're tired of doing it," Thatch explained with a wide grin. Which was a load of bullshit because Marco knew that Pops had told Thatch the story of how they had met. Knowing Pops, he had probably omitted her age back then intentionally to see what Thatch would come up with.
Marco glared up at Pops.
"I'm not a fucking thousand years old," she snapped, and that set the crew off all over again.
Marco glared at the innocent-looking candle shaped like a number one, followed by three equally innocent-looking zeroes.
Thatch took advantage of the moment Marco stopped to glare around the gathered crew to hide behind Pops' leg. She should never have acquiesced and told the brat the date of her birthday. Honestly, she wasn't even sure how she remembered that date in the first place.
To be continued
Okay, so I don't know where the hell Blackbeard got that raft of his, but we know he wanted a real ship (he tried to exchange Bonney for a ship with the marines, after all), so that thing was clearly provisional. For timeline's sake, I'm going to go with the idea that Lafitte and Burgess had the raft by the time they met Teach, because that thing is huge and must have taken some time to build. They simply modified the sails to add the Blackbeard Pirates' flag.