Chapter 10

After a large breakfast of eggs, toast, sausage, fruit, and several other side dishes that had already faded from Ace's memory, Ace felt that he was ready to face Luffy. Despite his determination to go, he still felt twitchy, and couldn't sit still for more than a minute before he got up and began pacing.

What if he doesn't actually know me? What if I'm just some random stranger to him? What if I look like an idiot? What if he doesn't like me? What if he was an enemy? What if, what if, what if?

The new information Ace had found the previous night wasn't helping matters at all. He was a part of the Whitebeard Gang, one of the most infamous gangs - if not the most infamous gang - in the entire city. Whitebeard's name stretched even beyond the rather impressive borders of his territory, and legends of his strength and the strength of his people were common knowledge throughout the city. Civilians were advised to find a safe location if they spotted anyone with the mark, so even the police were incredibly wary of him.

What if he's in a different gang? What if he's a part of Whitebeard's and expects me to know everything? What if losing my memory screws everything up?

And then a particularly chilling thought crossed Ace's mind. What if the person I was isn't even close to the person I am now?

He shook his head to clear it. He couldn't think about how regaining his memory would change things - because he was going to get his memory back, and he'd figure everything out from there. Luffy would have the answers, one way or another. Ace was sure of that.

Taking a deep breath, Ace stopped pacing behind the couch and forced his worries to the side. Thinking about the what-ifs wouldn't help him; he just needed to go.

But I've already been missing for over three weeks, Ace thought, only to squash the idea. It shouldn't matter. Right?

"Oh for fuck's sake, I'm just gonna go," he muttered, fed up with his own indecision.

The Baratie still had plenty of patrons when Ace got there, despite the fact that the lunch rush had passed a little less than an hour ago. Fortunately, Ace could see several open tables, and he still had money he'd lifted from Sabo.

He was going to pay the blond back, of course. Just as soon as he found some cash of his own. Whenever that happened.

"Party of one?" The hostess asked, eyeing Ace. He nodded. She led him across the restaurant - just as fancy on the inside as the outside, Ace noted, but no less practical because of it - and sat him in a small, two-person booth. "Wait here. Your server will be right with you."

"Thank you," Ace said politely. She smiled at him and hurried away to help the next customer.

He bounced his leg under the table, unable to help his nervous energy. After glancing at the menu, Ace settled on the first three choices that caught his attention and turned his attention to the rest of the people in the restaurant.

There was no sign of Luffy.

Ace had ordered a drink, finished it, ordered another as well as his food, and received his food before the energetic young boy walked through the door. The freckled young man noticed Luffy instantly; the entire atmosphere of the room seemed to change, and what felt like an electric charged pricked at his skin.

Luffy was walking his way, talking to a man with shockingly green hair and laughing brightly. The moment he got close to Ace, allowing the older man to clearly see his face, Ace dropped his fork from shock.

The sudden clatter made both Luffy and the other man turn to look at Ace, who had immediately turned and reached down to pick his fork up from the floor. By the time he sat up again, Luffy had come and gone. Cursing himself, Ace stared at his fork. Should he get up to get a new one or wait for his waitress?

"Here."

The blond man from Ace's first Luffy encounter was there, holding out a fork. "Thank you," Ace said, taking it. He noticed that the man - clearly a waiter - was staring at him and tried not to obviously look at his rather odd eyebrows. "Something the matter?"

"No, not really."

A suspicious answer if Ace had ever heard one. "By the way, who's that kid?" He gestured to Luffy, who was waving excitedly to the green-haired man. "He seems...excitable."

Momentary shock filled the waiter's features, almost as though he couldn't believe that Ace didn't recognize the black-haired boy. Then he smoothed his features, offering a professional smile that looked more than a little strained around the edges. "His name is Luffy. He's a regular here."

"Ah. Thank you." Ace let the conversation drop and the waiter walked away, but for some reason Ace got the impression that the entire atmosphere of the restaurant had just shifted once again.

The rest of his meal passed in relative peace, though occasionally he heard loud, excited exclamations from Luffy's direction. Oddly, while finishing his last few bites, he realized that he was smiling into his food. After paying, he walked out, fully intent on loitering until Luffy came out, since he didn't want to possibly cause a scene inside the restaurant.

The green-haired man was waiting for him outside, his three gold earrings glimmering and momentarily distracting Ace from the piercing, dangerous look in his eyes.

"Can I help you?" Ace finally said, his guard going up.

"What are you doing here?" The man asked bluntly. "You damn near killed your brother, so why show your face like nothing happened?"

Ace blanched. "What? What are you talking about?"

The man scowled, shifting his weight slightly in displeasure. "What are you talking about?"

This was going nowhere. Sighing, Ace decided to be as blunt as the man standing in front of him. He looked the man in the eyes. "I lost my memory. Whatever you're talking about, I don't know about."

The man stared. Then he brought one hand to his forehead, blowing out a breath. "Figures." He removed his hand. "I'll make this simple. You're Luffy's br - hey!"

He barely caught Ace before the unconscious man hit the sidewalk.

Ace woke up to muted voices. He groaned softly, feeling that peculiar cottony sensation leave his brain as the last vestiges of the narcoleptic attack cleared up. Judging from the noise, he wasn't outside the Baratie anymore. Somewhat annoyed with himself for falling asleep in such a situation, Ace sat up and cracked open his eyes, blinking while they adjusted to the light -

Something dark flew at him and Ace couldn't react in time. It slammed into him, almost throwing him off the bed he'd been lying on. For all that the impact stunned Ace, it hadn't hurt; the thing had almost bounced off him at first.

"What the hell?" Ace growled, preparing to shove the thing off him. A peculiar noise stopped him and Ace hesitated, trying to puzzle out what it was. He soon realized that the sound was coming from the thing that had hit him, and that the thing was moving.

The thing was a person. A sobbing, crying, mess of a person.

Ace stared at the boy that had flying-tackled him and was still wrapped around Ace's chest as though the older man would disappear if he didn't. "Uh, hello?"

The boy looked up and Ace saw the scar and the black hair before his mind made the connection.

Luffy.

"You're alive!" Luffy blubbered, the words barely intelligible around the snot dribbling from his nose. Ace gaped, trying to find the words to cover his shock and failing miserably. "You're really alive!"

Those few words shot Ace's expectations of how their conversations would go right to hell. He couldn't tear his eyes away from the boy and for some reason his heart was clenching in his chest. Hesitantly, he put his arms around Luffy and pulled him closer, resting his chin on the top of Luffy's head. He fumbled for words that wouldn't make him sound like an idiot. Softly, Ace managed to say, "Yeah, of course I am."

Luffy hiccuped and Ace began rubbing his back, his mind going a hundred miles an hour as he tried to figure out just what the hell was going on. Looking over Luffy, Ace saw that he was in a refitted warehouse of some kind. Some areas had been sectioned off, and the entire place was impressively cleaned and organized. The roof even had skylights permitting sunlight to pool on the floor, and Ace saw two gardens growing under specially-made windows.

Did Luffy live here?

His eyes roved the warehouse as Luffy continued crying into him and soon made eye contact with the green-haired man, whose hard gaze was no less intimidating than it had been outside the Baratie. Ace acknowledged him with a simple look and moved on, taking in the four other people. He saw the waiter, an orange-haired women he kind of recognized, a teen with an impressively long nose and equally impressive hair, and a woman with dark hair standing in the back that Ace almost overlooked.

They were all staring at Ace, or, more likely, the boy still wrapped around Ace's body.

Ace lifted his chin off Luffy's head and carefully pulled away, putting some distance between him and Luffy, though he kept holding Luffy's hands because the boy wasn't willing to let go entirely. Luffy seemed to have calmed down enough to speak clearly, and Ace winced as the boy inhaled deeply through his runny nose.

"You're really okay," Luffy sniffled, wiping his nose again. His face was an odd mix of ecstatic joy and relief, which contrasted heavily with the tear tracts and snot. "Blackbeard kept saying…" he trailed off, then rallied. "He's stupid, though, and mean. He's a liar. A dirty, smelly liar."

Blackbeard. Ace fixated on that name, his grip on Luffy's wrist tightening out of reflex. "Blackbeard?" He repeated. Luffy nodded, his expression turning dark.

"Teach kept saying that he killed you, but he was lying."

That name brought up a nearly overwhelming tide of fury in Ace - so much more than "Blackbeard" - and he didn't realize he'd been squeezing Luffy's hands too tightly until the boy mentioned so. Ace hurriedly loosened his grip and apologized, though Luffy didn't seem to be in any pain.

"Hey, Ace," the green-haired man called dryly, "isn't there something you have to tell Luffy?"

Ace frowned at him, confused. What would he need to tell Luffy? It wasn't as though he knew anything -

Oh. Duh.

"Um, Luffy?" Ace said, getting the kid's attention. He tried to suppress the feeling of guilt that rose within him; he was going to crush Luffy's relief with his next words. "I kind of...lost my memory, so I don't really know who you are. Or this Blackbeard guy. Or anyone else."

Luffy stared. And stared. And stared. Right as Ace began to get creeped out, Luffy blinked. "Really?"

"Well, yeah. I don't think I'd lie about something like that." That hadn't been what Ace was expecting.

"So...you don't know who I am?"

"I know your name is Luffy," Ace said placatingly, seeing how much that information disturbed the young boy. "And that you and I were closely connected before. I just don't remember any details."

"You're my brother," Luffy stated.

"I'm your - wait, what?"

"My brother," Luffy repeated firmly.

"Oh," Ace said after a beat, his voice small. He hadn't been expecting that either. "Really?"

"Yup."

Ace quickly checked the expressions of the other people in the room. None of them seemed surprised; they all stared back at him, waiting for his reaction. Tension thickened the air and Ace realized that his response to Luffy's declaration would determine how these people treated him.

Well, being Luffy's brother didn't seem so bad. The kid was nice, excitable, and - if what Ace had already observed meant anything - strong enough to accumulate a group of disparate people around himself.

Ace smiled and ruffled Luffy's hair, earning a displeased squawk from the unsuspecting teen as he struggled to keep from falling and crushing the hat on his back. Laughing, Ace felt the tension ease and knew he'd made the right choice.

Ace's head was whirling. The orange-haired women - Nami - had been grilling him for information about nearly everything Ace didn't remember, and the older man had a headache from trying to recall things that weren't there anymore. He'd tried to explain that, but Nami was insistent. Eventually, Ace had settled on just being honest, not that that had really helped much.

"I give up!" Nami declared, throwing her hands up in frustration and walking away from Ace. "His memory's so lost I don't know if it even wants to be found!"

Luffy looked at Ace, who just shrugged.

In the end, Ace ended up talking with Zoro, who appeared to be the sanest of the lot. The swordsman didn't show any obvious reactions to Ace's memory loss besides his initial burst of dry irritation with the situation in general, and Ace appreciated the normal conversation. After Nami, he just needed some time to get his head back together.

"So you don't know what happened," Zoro said casually, watching as Nami tried to explain to Luffy exactly what was up with Ace's memory. Ace sighed.

"Yeah. It's...irritating. As hell."

Zoro smirked. "I would guess so. Do you want to know what happened?"

"Of course I do," Ace said immediately. "Whatever happened was important and if it made me forget him -" he nodded at Luffy, "then I deserve to know what."

"How much do you remember about Luffy?" Zoro asked with a raised eyebrow.

Ace's lips twisted as he thought. His eyes took on a faraway look. "It's...hard to explain. I know he was - is - my brother. I know his name, and whenever I'm around him I fall into this routine that feels...familiar. Right, I guess. But I don't know anything specific, just that I should know something."

Zoro made a noise of acknowledgement and the two stood in silence for a few minutes. Eventually, Ace broke the impasse.

"What happened?"

Zoro glanced at him sidelong and then down at the floor, working his jaw. "Do you want the simple version?"

"Whatever works for you. I just - I just need to know."

"Well then." Zoro thought for a moment and then said bluntly, "Teach, one of your former subordinates in the Whitebeard Gang who now goes by the name Blackbeard in certain circles, tried to assassinate you while you were spying on some rich kid, and then took some of your belongings back to Whitebeard as proof. Apparently you put up a fight; your stuff was scorched and burned along the edges."

"Not enough of one," Ace commented, staring down at his hands. "So Teach - Blackbeard - claims that he killed me. Why? What's the motive?"

Zoro took a while to respond, his hand moving to rest casually on the hilts of the three swords at his waist. To anyone else it may have been a simple move to a more comfortable position, but Ace could see that Zoro was upset in some way by what he was about to say.

"I have no doubt that he did it to get to Luffy."

Ace's eyes shot wide open, involuntarily looking to the boy talking animatedly to Nami several yards away. "What?"

Zoro sighed, briefly shutting his eyes. "It's difficult to explain. Blackbeard is currently still with Whitebeard; he's kept his hand in your supposed death a secret, instead claiming that the revolutionaries had something to do with it. He staged everything, of course, and is circulating the truth in less-than-savory circles. But the reality is that the Revolutionaries want nothing more to do with Whitebeard than Whitebeard wants to do with them."

"He's trying to play the two off each other?" Ace asked.

"Seems that way. I don't know if you remember, but Whitebeard is fiercely protective of his gang - he sees them as his family, his sons and daughters and the like. The revolutionaries attacking them would be an insult Whitebeard could not ignore, and he would strike back. The resulting conflict would create chaos throughout the city. Blackbeard could use that confusion to capture Luffy and turn him in."

"But why would he want to do that?"

"Because he's an asshole," Zoro stated flatly, "and because he wants to strengthen his gang by any means necessary. He could use the sway he gets from turning in Luffy to get close to Impel Down and subsequently break out some of the powerful prisoners held there while the police are still preoccupied with the Whitebeard conflict. Basically, your supposed death gave him the groundwork he needed to cause the chaos he wanted."

"Blackbeard has a gang? I thought he was with Whitebeard's. And why would turning in Luffy bring in such a high reward?"

"Blackbeard's gang is secret, kept in hiding until Teach is ready to break away from Whitebeard," Zoro explained. "Robin has been keeping tabs on him and his gang for some time now, especially after she began working with the revolutionaries. Still, they're hard to find. No doubt Blackbeard is saving them for the big reveal."

"And Luffy?"

"Our shitty leader's gotten himself quite the reputation," Sanji said as he walked over, leaving Usopp, Nami, Luffy, and Robin to talk amongst themselves. "He's one of the Supernovas in this city; rising gang leaders or members that the police believe pose a significant threat to the general order of things. As such, they put a high bounty on Luffy's head and the heads of the others in the hopes that a rival gang will take them out."

"I see," Ace murmured. The very idea of Blackbeard targeting Luffy made Ace sick to his stomach, and the reasons behind it didn't help. A memory suddenly popped into his head. "Do either of you know about Kid?"

"Eustass Kid?" Sanji repeated with a raised eyebrow. "Yeah, he's another Supernova with a bounty nearly as high as Luffy's. Why?"

"I've met him a few times," Ace explained. "We played soccer."

Zoro sighed and muttered something under his breath that sounded suspiciously like an exasperated, "Brothers."

"So, do you have a plan?" Sanji asked Ace. "Blackbeard is still with Whitebeard, though no one knows how long he's going to stay."

"Why hasn't he been uncovered sooner?"

"He's a tricky bastard," Zoro growled. "We were about to go to Whitebeard with the information Robin had gathered when news of your death reached us. Needless to say, we've been a bit preoccupied since then."

"Understandable," Ace said quickly. "Thank you for telling me all of this."

"Not a problem," Sanji replied. "You're Luffy's brother, after all. Besides, you've helped us plenty in the past."

Ace nodded, mentally pocketing the latter piece of information. Apparently he and Luffy had a very positive relationship. That was a relief and a slight weight off the burden on his shoulders.

"I think I'm going to go back to Whitebeard," Ace said slowly, as he thought through his answer to Sanji's earlier question. "I'll have to be careful, though. And there are still some things I want to do beforehand." Thanking Sabo, for one. "Stopping whatever Blackbeard has planned with Whitebeard and the revolutionaries is priority number one. I don't want anyone else to get caught up in his schemes like I did."

"We'll have your back," Zoro said immediately. He grinned slightly, the expression predatory enough to send slight chills down Ace's spine. "No matter what, Luffy and all of us will support you."

"You speak for Luffy?" Ace asked with a raised eyebrow. Zoro's expression didn't change much, though it gained some gravity.

"I don't speak for him. We all think like our captain; our people come first. You're included in that group."

Those words created a strangely warm feeling in his chest, but Ace just nodded. "Thank you."

Zoro smirked. "Don't thank me yet."

"Whenever we find trouble, we do it in a big way," Sanji elaborated.

Ace wasn't sure what to make of those words, but Luffy distracted him before he could think about them too much. "Ace!"

"Luffy," Ace greeted, catching the younger boy and depositing him gently on the ground. "Careful when you do that, idiot. One of these days you'll hit me when I'm not ready."

Luffy grinned. "But you're always ready!"

Ace's lips twitched. Are we seriously related? "You're pretty confident. Did you have something to say?"

"Luffy is wondering why you're not with Whitebeard," the older woman (Ace recalled her name was Robin) said smoothly. "He seems to be unaware of the fact that your memory loss would have an effect on where you stayed."

"He's kind of oblivious like that," the long-nosed teen said with a chuckle. Ace searched his memory for a second and came up with the name Usopp, which sounded right.

Ace returned his gaze to Luffy. "Luffy, I didn't know I was a part of Whitebeard's gang until very recently."

"But you were gonna get a tattoo," Luffy said slowly, tilting his head slightly to one side in confusion. "A huge one. On your back."

Ace had seen his own back and knew for a fact that there was no such tattoo. "Apparently this happened before I could get it. Though that would've made this whole fiasco a hell of a lot easier."

"So you're not with the giant mustache?" Luffy asked. Ace blinked.

"The . . . what?"

"The giant mustache man!"

The repetition wasn't lessening Ace's confusion. "Luffy, are you talking about Whitebeard?" It was the only slightly logical conclusion he could come up with.

"Yup."

Ace stared at his younger brother for a few seconds before smirking. "You've got a thing for bad nicknames, don't you?"

"He does," Nami interjected before Luffy could respond. She then glanced at Luffy. "Honestly, I think 'Torao' just wants you to stop calling him that."

Luffy shrugged, which made Ace think that he wasn't going to stop anytime soon. Whoever this "Torao" was, Ace felt bad for him.

"Either way, Ace," Robin said smoothly, "you have been here for quite some time. Is there anything you still need to do tonight? I'm sure Luffy would be happy to have you stay overnight here if not."

Ace could practically see the sparkles forming in Luffy's eyes at the idea. He smiled softly at the sight, and then the full import of Robin's words hit him, making him stiffen. "What time is it?" Ace asked urgently. Sanji checked the flickering digital clock on the far wall, waiting a moment for it to show the time before the display went dark.

"A little after ten," he said. Ace's face went white.

"Shit, he's gonna kill me."

"Who?" asked Usopp with a frown.

Zoro raised one eyebrow. "Is there a problem?"

Ace hastened to clarify upon seeing their faces. "No, exaggeration - the guy who helped me out gave me a curfew just in case I got into trouble so he'd know to come after me."

"Smart," Nami muttered. Ace chose not to think about the implications of her sidelong glance at Luffy.

"I'll walk you back!" Luffy declared.

"I can do it on my own," Ace began, but then stopped. He . . . well, he really wouldn't mind walking with Luffy. And maybe talking more would jog his memory. Plus, none of Luffy's friends seemed put off by the idea. Apparently something like this was perfectly normal for them if the indulgent smiles on their faces were anything to go by. If that was the case . . . "Actually, Luffy, I'd appreciate directions." Ace grinned and tapped his temple. "Still don't have the city in my head yet."

Usopp coughed and, for whatever reason, Zoro shot him a dark look.

Luffy smiled. "Great! Let's go!"

He pulled Ace out before the older man could even say a proper goodbye to the others.

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