Day after day, week after week, and month after month; for two years it was the same. Always the same. Luffy couldn't forget no matter how hard he tried, as if the memory had left a permanent imprint on his rubber brain that refused to go away.
And it just wasn't when he slept that he had nightmares. Sometimes while he was waiting for his meat to cook Luffy would mistake the sizzle of frying fat for that of burning flesh. He would smell the blood and the smoke, and hear Ace's last, agonizing breaths. Luffy would never have much of an appetite after these flashbacks, and if Old Man Rayleigh thought it was strange when his protégé went off to the woods alone, he didn't say anything.
But it was worse at night, always worse at night, because his imagination would add things that had never happened at the Summit War. In his dreams Ace never found his peace, died without ever finding his reason to smile. The bastards Akainu and Blackbeard would mock Ace's existence and declare Luffy a worthless captain who not only had failed to protect his crew, but didn't even manage to save his brother.
Sometimes there were the bastards who killed Sabo, too, seeking to take away his freedom.
For two years the nightmares persisted. For two years Luffy worked night and day to conquer them. With time they faded, but they never went away entirely. Luffy got the feeling they never would.
When the Straw Hat Pirates reunited, they marveled at how their captain seemed to be exactly the same. Slowly they realized that he had changed, you just had to know him well enough to see it.
Luffy had always been driven. Not a day passed when he didn't express in some way his dream of becoming the King of the Pirates. But after the death of his brother he became more fiercely jealous of that promise, because in his eyes, the Pirate King was the man with the most freedom in the world, and a man wasn't free unless he could protect what he loved.
Ace had found his freedom in the end, and Luffy was determined to do the same. Maybe the nightmares would never go away entirely, but with the help of his crew he would never have to live through them again.
AN: And that's a wrap. Thanks for those who stuck with me through this project. It was a fun little character study, and I hope you enjoyed reading as much as I did writing. As this is the last chapter, I'd appreciate feedback on your favorite/least favorite, things that were good, things that could have been better, etc (that includes all you fave and runners. I know who you are).
As for what I'm working on next, I'm concentrating mostly on Outcast for now, but I've got a few chapters for Sea Shanties in the works, as well as a new fic set with the pre-time skip crew that I want to have more finished before posting.
As always, thanks for reading, and I hope to see you next time.