I'm sorry it's been so long since my last update. My health has been horrible since around Christmas and I haven't been doing much of anything, but here is chapter 6. I hope I won't take so long with the next one.

Chapter 6

"I can't believe you idiots ate everything," Thatch complained, glaring at them.

"It was a competition, son," Pops reasoned from his position on the floor.

"No, you we're trying to see if you could get Marco too full to keep eating. Now we're out of food and she's the only one who isn't sick," Thatch practically growled, crossing his arms in a way that would have been more intimidating if he had gone through one or two growth spurts. Now it was just cute.

There were some groans of protest across the deck. Someone retched.

Marco chuckled.

"Oh, leave them. We're only two days away from the next island, it's no big deal," she said.

Thatch whirled around to glare at her.

"And you! You're supposed to be the responsible one! Why did you agree?"

Marco smirked.

"I just like how hopeful they get when they think they've found a way to get past my powers. It's fun to watch them realize they were wrong."

Thatch threw his hands up in the air.

"And then you call me a kid!"

"Well, you've got the right height," Marco pointed out reasonably.

Thatch glared at her.

"Shut up and concentrate on fishing. I'm not going hungry just because you lot are idiots."

Marco frowned and looked down at the newspaper. There was an article about the civil war on Alabasta —Marco had honestly forgotten about that— with even more grim news. Now that she thought about it, there had been something about soldiers deserting to the rebel army on the paper only a few days ago. It looked like things were about to turn truly violent.

"Ace," Marco called.

"Yeah?"

"I'm not sure how relevant this will be, but Alabasta is in the middle of a civil war. There might be some trouble even if Teach isn't there."

"Really?" Ace asked, crouching down behind her. "Do you think he'll be there?"

Marco shrugged.

"I don't know. I guess that depends on how long the log pose takes to lock. But there are a lot of reporters at Alabasta right now, so if he does something like at Drum we should know."

Ace hummed, leaning forward to rest his chin on Marco's shoulder.

"Do you know much about this war? Like who are the bad guys?"

"Not really," Marco replied, then glanced sideways at Ace. "And we're not using our break to interfere. The last thing we need is to appear on the newspaper and let Teach know we're on his trail."

Ace wrapped his arms around her.

"That means no fighting?" he practically whined.

Marco scoffed.

"That means no starting fights. I know you too well to hope you'll avoid fights for ten days. Just try not to draw attention to them."

Ace turned his head to kiss Marco's cheek.

"I can do that."

Marco wasn't so sure. She just hoped whatever mess Ace got himself into wasn't relevant enough to make it to the papers. And if they did appear on them… well, Marco had a plan B if Teach managed to avoid them all the way to Sabaody.

Marco sat on the bottom of the Striker, her hands placed so the fire was as far as possible from the fishing rod, and waited. Back at Drum they had realized that there was no way they could carry supplies for a nine-day long trip (the time was according to the locals) on the Striker, so they had decided to buy a fishing rod. Storing enough water was more important than bringing enough food, after all. They tied it to the mast when they weren't using it; not an ideal place, but they didn't have space for it anywhere else.

Something tugged on the other end of the rod.

"Ace, get ready, this thing is huge," Marco said. She pulled, trying to angle the movement so that the fish would go up in the air instead of falling on them.

Marco shoved the rod into Ace's waiting hands, transformed as she jumped up, and used her talons to cut the fish into three pieces. She kicked the head and tail back to the water and transformed a hand to grab the now more manageable body.

Ace had turned to tie the fishing rod back to the mast when Marco landed with their meal. Ace made the fire on the bottom of the Striker grow and Marco knelt to hold the fish over it.

"We should've gotten something to hold the fish for this," she muttered. This wasn't the first time one of them had to keep their food above the fire while it cooked.

"Why? You look great like that," Ace said, moving to sit on what passed for a seat on the Striker.

"Because I'm holding food or because I'm kneeling?" Marco asked, rolling her eyes.

Ace grinned.

"Both."

This leg of the journey had completely screwed up Ace's sleep pattern. Because he was the only one who could direct the Striker, whenever something that required them to move happened Marco had to wake him up. Given the chaotic nature of the Grand Line, this meant that the most Ace had managed to sleep in a go since they left Drum was four hours. Only two hours more often than not.

Right now Marco was sitting on the Striker, with Ace curled at the bottom and his head resting on her thighs.

If Teach wasn't at Alabasta, they would find a good hotel room for Ace to sleep a whole day. They had agreed to wait there for ten days, after all. Marco would probably sleep, too, because their current arrangement meant she wouldn't sleep at all for the entire trip.

The sky started to turn grey with storm clouds all of a sudden and Marco sighed. She moved the hand she had been using to caress Ace's hair down to his shoulder to shake him awake.

"Oh, come on! That's as fast as you can go?!" Marco yelled.

Ace looked up to glare at Marco. They both knew that she could fly faster than the Striker could move, but that didn't mean Ace was going to give up so easily.

"We're still not at the finish line!" he yelled back.

"Of course," Marco said in that voice that Ace knew meant she would have smirked in her human form. "Let's fix it, shall we?"

Marco accelerated, moving to the rock way faster than Ace could push the Striker. She landed, and Ace saw a blue flash that marked her transformation. The rock was still too far for Ace to see her properly.

When Ace finally reached the rock —which was larger than he had expected— he found Marco lying on her side, a smirk on her face.

"I was beginning to think you wouldn't make it," she said teasingly.

Ace glared at her.

"Why do you challenge me if you know you're going to win?"

"Why do you accept if you know I'm going to win?" she asked.

Why indeed, Ace thought, grinning. He bent down to press the button that released the anchor.

"I like to give you your prize," he said.

Ace jumped to the rock and took the two steps separating him from Marco. Damn, but it had been too long. He dropped to his knees next to her.

"Anything in particular you'd like?" Ace asked.

Marco turned to lie on her back.

"Surprise me."

Finally, after the expected nine days of travel, the weather stabilized into that of a summer island.

"About time," Ace said, stretching his arms above his head. "I need to walk."

Marco chuckled.

"Me too."

"Not like me. You at least could fly," Ace reminded her. He loved the Striker, he really did, but he was sick of it right now. That break in their trip couldn't come at a better time. "And I want a bed."

"I wouldn't say no to that," Marco said, nodding.

"Hope so, because you're sleeping too."

"I know. Let's take a turn around the island and then we'll go up the river." She glanced down at the map. "We'll still have to fly above a few towns to check them."

Teach wasn't at Alabasta. Marco had mixed feelings about that fact. On one hand, a look around proved that Teach hadn't attacked this already ravaged country, on the other… Teach wasn't here.

"Bed now. We'll ask the locals tomorrow," Ace said, pulling Marco out of her thoughts.

Marco raised her eyebrows.

"You don't want to eat first?"

"Yeah, but we can do that at the hotel, right?"

"Of course."

Ace woke up early in the morning wrapped around Marco, who was already awake.

"Am I a good pillow?" she asked instead of a standard greeting.

"More like a plush toy, but yes," Ace replied, burrowing his head into Marco's shoulder.

"I hope you're not calling me fat," Marco said, and Ace was sure that she had raised her eyebrows.

Ace moved his arms to hold Marco around the waist.

"Not at all."

"Mmmhh. Okay. Let's get up."

"Do we have to?" Ace asked, lowering his arms further around Marco's body.

"Yeah, we do. We have to ask around," Marco said, taking hold of Ace's wrist to move out of his grasp.

Marco stood up and leaned down as if to kiss him, but she didn't.

"If you hurry up, you can shower with me."

Marco started to laugh when Ace jumped out of the bed. Ace glared at her and pointed in the direction of the bathroom.

Nanohana was the port closest to the direction ships arrived from the start of the Grand Line, and as such it was the most likely town for Teach to have reached, as well as for the Strawhat Pirates to disembark at if they had taken any of the two routes that met at Alabasta.

However, it seemed that Teach hadn't been here. Nobody remembered seeing a giant raft, and no one recognized the sketch of Teach's face when Marco and Ace showed them. Marco had even tried to ask about the sickly man and the horse, because those were the two best descriptions he had for Teach's crew, but nobody had seen them either. Ace had also asked around for Luffy, showing one of the wanted posters, but no one remembered him. Ace had assured Marco that Luffy, despite being short and physically unremarkable, was hard to forget for those who met him.

Marco had finally gotten around to selling those jewels she had been carrying around, and now they were at a restaurant. Marco had just pulled out the sketch and was asking the bartender while most of the customers stared at Ace in horror as Ace stuffed his face.

"Has this man been here?" Marco asked, holding the sketch up. "He would have eaten as much as this guy," she added, pointing with her right thumb at Ace.

The bartender shook his head.

"No. I think I'd remember someone like that," he said, glancing at Ace in clear apprehension.

Then Ace's head dropped into his plate and mayhem broke in the restaurant.

Marco sighed.

"Don't worry," she said, raising a hand to get at least the bartender's attention, "he's okay."

"He's not okay!" the man yelled. "He just dropped dead!"

Dead?

"He's just asleep," Marco said, much to the bartender's incredulity. However, there was far too much chatter around for other people to have heard her.

"Ehm, miss…" the bartender started in that hesitant voice of someone who didn't know how to approach an issue, "I'm sorry, but your friend just dropped while eating, that's not—"

"He always does that," Marco interrupted. She heard something about a desert strawberry amongst the talk behind her and turned around on her stool to clear the misunderstanding before the whole town could gather here to see what had happened. There were a lot of people at the door already.

Then Ace sat up.

Marco sighed, ignoring the screams that ensued.

"You had to go and fall asleep, didn't you?" she muttered.

Ace looked around, clearly confused by the amount of people that had gathered in a moment. Then a woman approached him hesitantly.

"Uhm… are you okay?" she asked.

Ace grabbed her skirt to wipe his face. The woman shrieked.

Marco kicked him.

"Ace, manners," she hissed.

"Oh, sorry," Ace mumbled, turning to her and rubbing the back of his head. They both ignored the people yelling at him. "I fell asleep."

Marco sighed and pushed one of the plates closer to Ace. He started to eat again.

"Please, excuse him," Marco apologized to the room at large, "he can't avoid doing that."

As if on cue, Ace's head dropped again.

Marco ran a hand down her face. She had known those nine days of irregular sleep would affect Ace, even after the long hours sleeping at the hotel.

People started to wander off, muttering in disappointment about the lack of entertainment.

Giving Ace another dubious look, the bartender started to remove the piles of plates that had accumulated on the counter before him. Marco asked for dessert, both for herself and for Ace. She scoffed when Ace woke up the moment the plate was placed before him and started to eat as if he hadn't fallen asleep at all.

Ace emptied his plate in the time it took Marco to take a single bite from hers. Marco rolled her eyes.

"Oh, by the way," Ace said, bending down to rummage in his back. He straightened up with one of Luffy's wanted posters, a huge grin on his face. "Have you seen this guy?" he asked, showing the bounty to the bartender. "He wears a straw hat and—"

"You really have guts to eat out in public," a voice interrupted.

Marco glanced over her shoulder. She hadn't been paying much attention to her surroundings, and now there was a marine standing at the entrance of the restaurant. Marco raised her eyebrows. The marine had a decent enough aura to him, certainly strong enough to handle most of the pirates on this area, but he couldn't seriously expect to stand a chance against Marco and Ace. And yet he was here.

Interesting, Marco thought, smirking.

"What are the first and second division commanders of the Whitebeard Pirates doing in this country?" the marine asked.

Everybody in the restaurant pretty much panicked at the revelation, and Marco sighed. There went their anonymity. At least it hadn't been Ace's fault. Marco turned around on her stool, and so did Ace.

"We're looking for my little brother," Ace said with a wide grin.

The restaurant had gone nearly silent except for a few whispers.

"So, what now?" Marco asked, leaning back against the bar. "No offense, but it's not like you can win against us."

"I'm not really interested in you," the marine said, surprising Marco. She raised her eyebrows. "I'm looking for another pirate."

"Then you could just let us go," Ace suggested in a very reasonable voice. Marco bit back a chuckle. As if a marine with the guts to approach them on his own would agree to that.

"I can't do that," the marine said predictably, "as long as I'm a marine and you're pirates…" He readied his right arm as if to deliver a punch, and the appendage started to turn into smoke.

A logia.

Marco grinned, then glanced sidelong at Ace to indicate the fight was his. If they had already been found out by marines anyway, they could at least take advantage of the situation. A fight against another logia would be good for Ace.

She startled suddenly, focusing behind the marine. There was something coming.

"Ace—" she started to say, but it was too late.

A yell, and then something hit the marine on the back. The man was propelled forward, and he took Ace, the counter, and the wall with him. Along with many other walls.

Marco covered her eyes and shook her head. Where the hell had Ace's reflexes gone?

"A RESTAURANT! I'M STARVING!" the same voice that had yelled before exclaimed in pure happiness, and Marco turned around to find none other than Monkey D. Luffy standing in the middle of the room amongst the incredulous stares of everyone present.

Marco blinked.

I see the family resemblance, she thought in amusement.

Luffy jumped on the stool on Marco's left, the closest free one to the bartender, and grabbed a set of cutlery.

Everybody except Marco was staring at him in horror.

"Hey, food! Foooood!" Luffy yelled again, grinning widely and banging the fork and knife on the counter.

The bartender blinked.

"H-Hey, kid…"

Marco slid her almost full dessert plate before Luffy.

"Here, while you wait," she said.

The food was gone in a moment and Luffy said something through his full mouth that Marco managed to decipher as a 'thanks'.

The bartender blinked again, this time in confusion, glanced at Marco, and turned around to start bringing Luffy food. Marco realized belatedly that everybody present was probably expecting her to attack Luffy for sending Ace flying.

"Are you Monkey D. Luffy?" Marco asked, resting her right elbow on the counter and leaning her face on that hand.

"Yeah," Luffy said. The bartender placed two dishes before him and Luffy started to wolf their contents down. Marco chuckled.

"Do you even have money for that food?" she asked, remembering those childhood stories Ace had told her about leaving restaurants without paying.

Luffy froze and an extremely guilty expression appeared on his face. Marco chuckled again.

"I'll pay."

Luffy spoke another, louder, 'thanks' through his full mouth, and continued to pile food into it as the bemused bartender brought him more plates. Luffy's cheeks were growing as he ate, and Marco thought how ridiculously appropriate it was that such a display was her first proper demonstration of Luffy's powers.

Luffy tried to say something else, but this sentence was too long for Marco to decipher. She was fairly certain it was a question.

"Eat first, ask later," she said, pointing at the pile of plates.

Ace was finally coming back. Marco saw the exact moment in which Ace recognized Luffy. She also saw the marine behind him. Ace opened his mouth, started to call Luffy's name, and the marine slammed Ace's head down.

"STRAWHAT!" the marine yelled with the kind of intensity that meant Luffy was the pirate he was after. As impressive as it was that Luffy already had a marine focused on capturing him, there was something that worried Marco much more right now. Namely, what the hell was Ace thinking to be so oblivious about his surroundings when he knew there was an enemy present. Marco was going to kick his ass for this.

Luffy was still eating, staring at the marine, who grew exasperated by the second.

Marco rolled out of her stool and away from the scene just in time to avoid being sprayed with the food Luffy spat out when he recognized the marine.

Then Luffy started yelling through his full mouth, stuffed all the remaining food into it, and ran away. The marine went right after him.

Marco shook her head. If she hadn't already known better, she really would believe that Ace and Luffy were blood relatives.

Ace finally got himself together, jumped to his feet, and ran after them. At least he remembered to take his bag.

Chuckling, Marco approached the stool she had been sitting on, picked up her bag from the floor, and brought out her wallet.

"How much do I owe you? I'm paying for the kid, too."

The bartender blinked uncomprehendingly at her.

Even without haki, it would have been easy to follow Luffy's path, because the ruckus seemed to shake the whole town. Ace was obviously using it to follow him, his presence close to the chase at all times. Deciding to avoid the citizens, Marco jumped onto a rooftop to reach them that way.

She arrived on the scene just in time to hear who no doubt were Luffy's crew calling him a lot of uncomplimentary things for bringing the marines straight to them. Marco stayed back and let Ace block the smoke marine's attack before it hit Luffy. Watching Luffy's surprised reaction upon seeing Ace, it was obvious that Luffy hadn't noticed him in his rush to find food.

Marco dropped to the ground behind Ace.

"You finally remembered you're a logia?" she asked teasingly.

Ace grinned.

"Sorry. Caught me off guard."

"Oh, hey! You gave me food!" Luffy exclaimed, recognizing Marco.

Ace snorted in amusement.

"Okay, you go with them, Marco. I'll catch up later."

To be continued

And here is Luffy! :D

We know it took nine days for the Strawhats to go from Drum to Alabasta because on the fifth day of the trip, Luffy ate all their bait for fishing (after he, Usopp, Chopper, and Carue had eaten all their provisions), and later, when they reached Alabasta and a sea cat appeared before them, Zoro yelled that it was their first meal in four days. Assuming they had managed to fish while they had bait, but that once Luffy ate it they didn't fish anything, that makes it nine days.