Title: Ten Years Difference

Author: Stormy1x2

Word Count: 5200

Notes: You guys are amazing. Believe it or not, that 'snippet' was pretty much all I had – until people started commenting on the 'snippet' and pushing my determination to live up to your expectations until voila – I had a whole chapter. Like, what the hell?

Soooo... this chapter includes lot of my vision – but also takes into account a lot of suggestions made along the way in the 200+reviews you guys threw at me. I thought about having Ace wake up in a typical fashion and have a conversation. Then I thought how THIS Ace would wake up after exploding like a supernova last chapter, and then someone suggested a chapter from one of the OC's POV which meant YAY- the return of Biggie! Sort of! In that he stays on Moby 3 but damn it, they have Den Den Mushi's right? Right. And Sabo. SO MANY REQUESTS FOR SABO. So yeah – I was totally inspired by the comments and kinda threw them in the fiction blender and pressed puree but I think it turned out well.

o0o

Chapter 7

o0o

Eventually, he had to introduce the kid to Sabo. Actually, it was unavoidable, since Ace had robbed one of the worst-tempered pirates in East Blue by accident, leaving Sabo in danger if he stayed where he was. Dadan had not been exactly thrilled to learn there was another brat under her roof, but after counting them a few dozen times, she eventually gave in to the fact that there were now two and a half brats living there (Luffy didn't count as a full one yet, he was too small) and wound up tossing both of them in the tub, while gently pushing Luffy in the plastic basket after them with orders for them to 'clean the kid too.'

"You gotta admit, he's kinda cute," Sabo said, nudging Ace with his shoulder as he studied the child in front of them with narrowed eyes. "I mean, his face is proportionate and he smiles real smiles, y'know?"

Ace did know what Sabo was saying, and he had to agree. Even the babies in High Town seemed to know they were part of a higher social standing, born with a sneer and facial features that just grew uglier with each and every year. He stifled a smirk – that must have been how Sabo had known he was different. He didn't have the squished brows, or the hooked nose, or oddly shaped chin that seemed to define a lot, if not most, of the upper echelons of High Town society. "He's loud."

"Of course he is. He needs some way of getting your attention." Sabo let the baby grip his hand, watching with fascination. The baby kept smiling up at them, kicking his little legs eagerly every time they spoke. "He's a lot different from babies I've seen before."

"He's not ugly?"

Sabo rolled his eyes. "I already said that." He poked the baby's belly lightly, watching with an amused grin as Luffy giggled with delight at the contact, gripping Sabo's fingers even tighter. "He's just so... so happy."

Ace couldn't argue with that. It had been a couple of months since he had given in and had started helping out with the baby – though mostly at night, so the bandits didn't clue in to what he was doing. It wouldn't do for him to show any weakness or softness in front of them. "If he'd sleep through the night, I would be too."

"Poor guy still needs feedings at night," Sabo said in a sweet voice, tickling the infants fingers with his own – using a tone Ace hadn't heard outside of swindling High Town residents into playing cards for cash with him. "He should be slowing down with those soon enough."

"Well, if the shitty Gramps and Dadan are right, he'll be turning one in just a few weeks," Ace said, yawning loudly after he did so. "I'm hoping one year old's don't need two nightly feedings."

"You'll probably be able to cut down to one, depending on how much you give him and when," Sabo said, nodding his chin in the direction of the instructions Ace had discovered that first night he'd prepped a bottle for the bottomless pit. "That book said to give him a bottle before bed, and then he should be good until four or five in the morning – later if you're lucky."

Ace gave Sabo a light shove to the shoulder. "If you'd get up and help me more often, I wouldn't particularly care," he groused. Ever since stealing cash from the local pirate Bluejam, Sabo had been spending his nights at Dadan's home in an attempt to keep the pirates from finding him. "What are we gonna do when we move into our tree-house?"

Sabo gave him a grim look. "Do you really wanna leave him here alone to deal with your Gramps?"

The 'training' Garp put Ace through every couple of months (and Sabo too, as he had so recently demonstrated) was something the elderly marine had begun when Ace had turned four. His earliest memory had been of Garp 'sparring' with him and resulted in Ace being planted a good two feet into the wall of Dadan's hut. He shuddered at the memory. His eyes opened and he focused on the infant who was gurgling happily up at Sabo, trying to grab the bright blue fabric that made up the blond's coat. "I dunno. What do you think we should do?"

Sabo shrugged. "Bring him with us," he said flatly, not taking his gaze off the cheerful child. "I mean, you already take care of him more than Dadan and her bandits do – it's like once dinner has been served, Luffy doesn't seem to exist, you know? What's the difference between their care and yours – other than adding an additional ten hours of watch time?"

Ace blinked. "Seriously?"

"You already watch him from dinner until after breakfast," Sabo pointed out. "We have that harness thing that was in the bottom of the bag to carry him around. Or we can just bring the coffin-" he whapped the wooden box lightly with his right hand, as Luffy was cheerfully chewing the fingers of his left. "- and do the same thing they do, up in the tree house."

"Well, yeah, but..." Ace's voice trailed off as he thought about it. The truth was he was worried about leaving Luffy behind when they moved out. The baby didn't seem to smile much at all when they weren't around – returning early one day thanks to a boar that caught Sabo's shoulder, they'd seen Luffy in his coffin (a name which Sabo completely endorsed when he'd first seen it), sniffling and looking miserable, gripping the top rail, trying to peer out and see if anyone was around. Ace had a near-irrational hatred of the coffin. Idly, he wondered if he'd been stuffed into it when he was Luffy's age, which would explain his hatred for it. It certainly looked old enough. "Can we take good enough care of him?"

Sabo snorted and gestured at the sleeping bandits, aided by ear plugs. "Could we possibly be worse?"

And so it was that when Ace and Sabo officially moved out of the bandits home a week later, they brought Luffy with them. But not the coffin. Ace was adamant about that. "We made a tree house, Sabo," he said with determination when Sabo went to go and pick up the coffin. "We can make something better than that."

"Real cribs have bars," Sabo recalled from his memories of High Town. "They let air and light through the sides and let the baby see and interact with people, even when they have to be inside it." He sketched out a box with side bars that resembled train tracks. His face darkened slightly. "And no lid."

"No lid," agreed Ace with a frown, remembering coming home after an afternoon's hunt with Sabo to a the sound of the baby's horrific and terrified yowling, muffled because the bandits had covered the box with a lid, turning it into an actual coffin in their attempts to shut him up. Sabo had rescued Luffy while Ace had beaten the two bandits who had put the lid on to a pulp from sheer rage, and told Magra if he ever saw those two again, he'd kill them. Magra and Dogra hadn't argued when they heard what happened, and had agreed to handle the two themselves.

Needless to say, the Dadan Bandits had lost two members that day. Ace hadn't been particularly sad, and Dadan – after he spoke to her – had laid down the rule that the coffin was never to be covered ever again. It was one of the few times he'd had actual respect for her.

Making a crib for the brat was easy enough. As he had pointed out, they'd already built a tree house that was more structurally sound than half the 'homes' in Grey Terminal and thanks to their theft of tarps from all over the junkyard, it was water proof too. Ace had hemmed-and-hawed about the need for a crib until he was up in the tree house with Luffy in his arms and he'd realized just how far off the ground they were. Then it had become a priority to get it done, even before their crow's nest.

The crib they built for Luffy was the length of the back wall so the kid could crawl around freely, and was about four feet high to prevent him from toppling out of it once he learned out to walk. Following Sabo's 'designs', they built a gate into it that they locked with a simple lever tumbler mechanism they'd found in the Terminal and decided to re-purpose. Sabo joked that the crib was better protected than their entire 'house', which technically didn't even have a door, and it was true.

Half of the crib floor was padded with blankets, covered in tarp, and then covered again with sheets which wound up being the sleeping area for all three of them, most of the time. Though Luffy was still in diapers, and they knew it was Dadan - who kept yelling about Garp leaving them diapers when they didn't need them anymore and thus dumping them in the 'trash' (along with anything else they might need, like more bottles and first aid supplies and new sheets and mushy food sealed in tight jars) – who kept providing them with necessities, eventually Luffy would have to be toilet trained (the book said at two years or so, so they still had time to figure out how they were going to proceed) and the book said they were going to have to deal with a lot of 'accidents'. It sounded like loads of fun.

In the meantime, Ace made sure the other side of the crib floor was heavily sanded to prevent little feet from picking up splinters (he had beaten Sabo in twenty-five straight matches that day and in record time after Sabo had mentioned how 'cute' it was for Ace to worry so much about their little brother), and kept it filled with pillows and soft toys he and Sabo managed to find and clean up as best they could.

The bars were spaced enough to keep the kid from squeezing through them, but Luffy was able to easily see them and most days, was content to sit inside the second, smaller 'crib' they'd assembled in the space where Ace and Sabo did their sparring and watch them with wide eyes and eager cheers for whoever won (Sabo said Luffy cheered equally hard for the loser so Ace shouldn't be calling favourites whenever he won). He'd chew on an ear-less rabbit or the teddy bear Sabo had found at Grey Terminal and had carefully stitched back together; laughing brightly whenever one of them happened to roll past his crib from a particularly strong hit. Being able to see through the walls of the crib had gone a long way to reassuring the baby and keeping him less stressed.

His birthday – according to Dadan and Garp – was in three days, and Ace and Sabo had decided they wanted to do something. They hadn't even shared their own birthdays with each other yet, but both knowing Luffy's made them want to celebrate, even if they didn't completely understand why. Sabo thought maybe they could take another crocodile pelt in the next day (they'd decided to have crocodile meat that day, which – judging by Luffy's clumsy attempts to steal handfuls of their food instead of eating the 'mush' supplied to them by Dadan – was apparently turning out to be the baby's favourite food) for money to get the kid something from a store for a change. Ace thought it was a good idea.

"What do you think, Luffy?" he asked the kid who was crawling around Sabo's lap, trying to reach the meat Sabo was deftly holding out of his reach. "Crocodile for money for a present?" It would mean taking Luffy to the bandits so they could babysit but it would only be for a couple of hours.

Luffy squirmed around until he could sit properly and see Ace. "Caw-dill," he said seriously. Well, as seriously as one could be with grease and meat chunks all over one's face, and his wild hair sticking up in black spikes. "Suh, caw-dill."

Ace blinked in shock. "Did he just say his first word? And it's an attempt to say 'crocodile'?"

Sabo frowned at Ace, even as he attempted to scrub Luffy's face with a torn up sheet. "Well, yeah, that was a first try on 'crocodile'," he said slowly, looking at Ace like he'd lost his mind. "But he's been saying his first word for a long time now."

Ace shot him a strange look. "I think I would have noticed the kid going around shouting 'caw-dill', Sabo."

Sabo smiled. "No, Ace. He's been saying your name."

Ace reared back in surprise. "No, he hasn't."

"Yes, he has." Sabo's smile turned soft. "You just haven't recognized it because it's not perfect yet." He gripped Luffy gently and settled him on his knee, facing Ace. Then he leaned in, one arm wrapped around Luffy to keep in steady, and pointed with his other hand at Ace. "Who's that, Luffy?"

"Suh! Suh!" Luffy cried out, clapping his hands like he was playing a very fun game. His hand shot out and snatched a piece of crocodile meat from Ace's plate that was just within his reach. "Suh caw-dill!"

"Suh?" Ace was confused.

Sabo grinned. "I can hear it because I'm so close to him. Luffy actually says 'Ace' but the 'A' is so quick and his focus is on the part he can say easily– 'suh'."

"You're kidding."

"Come here, then." Sabo waited until Ace was right next to him and Luffy. Luffy immediately tried to climb into Ace's lap, but Sabo held him back, grinning widely as he continuing to point at Ace. "Who's this, Luffy? Who is he?"

Luffy tried to turn his neck enough to give Sabo a look that plainly thought he was an idiot. "a-SUH! a-SUH!" he cheered again and then toppled over into Ace's lap as Sabo's arm let go.

Ace was frozen in place as Luffy made himself at home on Ace's legs before leaning forward to mash his hands into the remainder of Ace's dinner. His jaw worked up and down for a moment before he was actually able to make a sound. "I.. I can't believe..."

"Yup," Sabo said smugly, grinning at his frozen brother. "You were his first word, and he's been using it for almost a month or so now."

Ace's eyes grew wider, as he looked down at the small child on his lap. "He... he really..." He seemed unable to finish his thought.

That was what he had Sabo for. "-really loves you," Sabo finished for him.

There was a moment when Ace's arms tightened almost imperceptibly around Luffy's tiny body, and he lowered his head over soft, downy baby hair. Then Ace suddenly gripped Luffy about the body and gently lifted him back over to Sabo's lap, his hand lingering on Luffy's hand for a second before he was hurtling across the floor to the hatch where the rope ladder for their unfinished crow's nest hung and shooting up it. Sabo smiled gently, knowing where Ace was headed and knowing he needed time to let it sink in that someone actually loved him.

Ace could accept the idea that Sabo liked him, and there was Makino of course, but she liked everyone. He could even believe Dadan and Garp could to a point (though he felt that was more 'tolerate' than like), but love... Sabo shook his head and moved to get Luffy cleaned up. The baby was silent now, watching the ladder shake from where Ace's frantic movements had sent it swaying. "It's okay, Luffy," he said soothingly, standing up with Luffy propped on his hip. "He'll come back down for bedtime."

"a-SUH," the baby murmured. He held up a piece of mashed crocodile meat he'd taken from Ace's plate. "a-SUH, caw-dill?"

Sabo swallowed the laugh that threatened to escape. "No, he's not mad at you for taking his crocodile meat. He's actually very happy. Can you say that? Happy?" He aimed a big smile at the toddler.

"a-SUH, 'appy?"

Sabo nosed Luffy's hair and pretended to ignore the tears he could feel trying to well up in his own eyes. "He will be, Luffy. And I think you'll be the reason why."

Luffy frowned but kept staring at the rope, as though willing Ace to reappear. Sabo sighed, knowing the baby wouldn't settle now until Ace came back. He'd give Ace ten minutes before he went up there with Luffy, just to watch Ace scream about the dangers of Luffy being in an unfinished construction zone. If nothing else, it would be amusing.

o0o

Biggie finished the final touches in his 'office' – which technically was simply a large desk at the back of the huge, open infirmary and a long wall of folders containing the medical records of everyone on board the Moby 3. The rest of the infirmary had just been finished as well, having set it up to resemble his clinic back home as closely as possible, albeit with more examination beds and hanging privacy curtains. There was only one thing that remained-

"Hey Biggie."

And here it was. A young man – mid-twenties, give or take, height suggests human origin (on this crew filled with giants, one could never be entirely sure), definite smoker based on those teeth – stepped inside, holding a Den Den Mushi in his hand. The creature's handle was tilted to the side, and the constipated expression on its face suggested there was a call waiting, which the young man quickly confirmed. "Last toy for tonight."

"Thank you," Biggie said with a smile, taking the DDM carefully. He had requested one as part of his infirmary staples which had stupefied Whiskey when she'd gone through the list. He'd been even more shocked to hear they hadn't had one in their infirmary. 'How do you call down for emergency prep for hard cases without one? Shout and scream through the floorboards?' he'd demanded to know and the wide-eyed look on Whiskey's face had told him yeah, that was pretty much how they did it.

Well, not in his infirmary. He preferred having information as fast as possible in order to give the best possible care, which meant there were now Den Den Mushi's linked to the infirmary being set up at strategic places all over Moby 3 with instructions to use them only in times of actual emergency. He had no doubt Whiskey was ordering the same set up for the Moby Dick and Moby 2, all the while kicking herself for not realizing the need for such a simple set-up.

Naturally, he anticipated a few pranks being pulled using the new DDM's for a while, until they got used to them, and that was fine by him. He'd rather rush out expecting an emergency only to find everyone healthy, than have it be true and have the possibility of losing someone. In the meantime..."Call on hold?"

"Yeah, from the Moby Dick. It's Doc Whiskey."

Biggie's smile froze and he thanked the young man, letting him leave while he took the call. "Whiskey? What's up?"

"Well, everything's okay for now," she said, her voice sounding strained. "Ace woke up a little while ago."

Biggie breathed a sigh of relief. "What happened?" he asked, eager for details about his captain – former, he knew, but it wasn't so easy to change that title once you accepted it in your heart, and so the Whitebeards were just going to have to be patient with him and the rest of the Spades as they adjusted. "Is he okay?"

"Well, he woke up, set the infirmary on fire, laid out all the nurses and pirates on two floors of the Moby, set the main deck on fire, knocked a few people over board and then collapsed. You tell me."

Biggie recognized the sarcasm in her voice as the result of worry and dismissed it. "Status?"

"Sleeping, now. Actually, his flames seemed to help heal a lot of the minor cuts and bruises he had, kinda like Marco's flames do for him. I can't tell much about the deep tissue bruising, the bone breaks or the head injury until the scans come back in about half an hour, but he's already switched from unconscious to actual sleep, so I'm feeling positive about this."

"What about Luffy?"

Whiskey snorted. "See, that's what set this whole thing off. Ace woke up in a panic thinking Luffy had been kidnapped from him and he set out to find him despite his body being about ten seconds away from a complete shutdown. Luffy was on deck with Thatch when Ace burst out of the stairway and started barbequing everything in sight. Luffy got to him and convinced him to stop flambeing the people taking care of him. Marco managed to get his attention long enough to let all his injuries catch up to him and he passed out in Marco's arms, still holding on to the kid."

Biggie frowned. "But Luffy's alright?"

"He's fine. Fell asleep in the infirmary sobbing Ace's name and clutching his hand which broke the collective hearts of everyone watching, but otherwise fine."

Luffy was fine, so Biggie turned his attention to the other part of Whiskey's rundown that had caught his attention. "Laid out everyone on two different floors?" The other doctor made an affirmative noise. "I'm gonna guess it was due to his Haki, right?"

"You could have warned us about Ace having Conqueror's Haki," Whiskey said, sounding miffed. "We would have had different security in place."

Biggie snorted. "First of all, you know there's no blocking that unless you've got your own Haki up and kicking. Besides, Ace-taichou wasn't able to take out the equivalent of two floors worth of Whitebeard-trained pirates the rare times he's used it before." Biggie frowned at the Den Den Mushi. "He hated using it, so he never really trained with it. No one else on our ship was anywhere close to his skill level and he refused to hurt anyone of us for the sake of getting stronger. He never said anything, but Dusty and I talked a bit, and we figure'd he had some real bad memories associated with his untrained Haki – something he did, either by accident or by intent to really hurt – and so neither we nor he pushed the issue much. He was much more interested in increasing his own natural strength and abilities with his devil fruit."

"That explains a little," Whiskey murmured. "I'll let Marco know – he'll want to train Ace himself when the kid wakes up. However untrained he was before, his Haki is awake and kicking now, and having that much power going unleashed is just an accident waiting to happen."

"If Ace-taichou lets him," countered Biggie. "When he wakes up, get him on the DDM to me and I'll try and convince me from this end that it's a good way to go. He'll probably think he's a prisoner, considering his last real clear memories are going to be of him attacking Whitebeard and getting the crap kicked out of him."

"Technically, he is a prisoner."

"And that is a good way to get on his bad side from the get-go, Miss Whiskey," Biggie said, a warning growl slipping into his regularly relaxed tone. "You've seen what he can do when he's hurt and desperate. Imagine what he'll do awake and focused."

"... Not if it means hurting Luffy," Whiskey said musingly and the implied threat made him want to vomit.

"Oh my dear, that is just a bad idea all around." Biggie pinched the bridge of his nose, pushing the rage and nausea back down. "Using Luffy in any way that threatens him in the least will earn you nothing but pain. I do not care how many of your blessed Commanders are placed in front of him. Unless they are prepared to kill Ace-taichou, they will not win. And then you will have to deal with the rest of the Spades. You certainly cannot believe I will sit idly by while you threaten to kill my captain." His tone had risen with each word until he was standing at his desk, one heavy fist slamming into it as he finished his rant in a roar.

There was a pause and then Whiskey was exhaling tiredly, the Den Den Mushi reflecting a tired, worried look. "No, I would not expect that. I apologize, Doctor. I let my temper and a long day let me get me carried away. I have no intention of escalating anything here. I want to solve this without anyone else getting hurt, Ace and Luffy included, and I would value your input on how to do this."

Doctor Biggs took a deep breath and sat down at his new desk - his desk in the infirmary of Moby 3, the one he was in charge of as a Whitebeard pirate now. "I apologize too, Doctor Whiskey. Ace and Luffy mean as much to me and the other Spades as Captain Whitebeard and your siblings mean to you. Even if we change the title of Captain to Whitebeard, it will never take away our first loyalty to the man who rescued us when we needed him." He took another deep breath and felt his temper settling. "My first suggestion is to have Luffy with Ace when he next wakes up. If nothing else, Ace will not attack if he believes there is any chance Luffy may get caught in the crossfire..."

o0o

Marco looked up as Whiskey strode into her infirmary, clutching a piece of paper in one hand, and her namesake in the other. He watched, somewhat amused, as she downed a third of Pop's good stuff that he would see to personally that she replaced with her own funds on their next restocking day, and set it down with a sturdy-sounding thud on the table next to Ace's bed. The commanders who were not directly involved with the repairs outside were gathered in the infirmary at her request.

Marco was curious. Whiskey was a brilliant doctor, but she had never been involved in an operation that took place outside her infirmary – well, outside of an actual body. When she'd requested this special meeting, after her own meeting with Oyaji, Marco couldn't help but be intrigued to see how she'd make out planning something that didn't involve blood and guts.

"All right," she said, her voice as steady as a rock, despite the whiskey she'd just inhaled. "I have a tentative plan, Pops-approved, and I need help. Marco?"

"Yes?" he asked, smirking as she glared in his direction.

"You're on baby-sitting duty, please and thank you. Luffy needs to stay right here, and be within eyesight when Ace wakes up – which could be at any time in the next five to six hours, according to his scans."

Marco nodded, hiding his amusement. Whiskey was in charge of the infirmary at all times, but rarely did her authority supersede his. As he wanted to avoid the commotion and destruction that occurred the last time Ace had been awake, he was willing to play along. "Not a problem," he drawled.

Whiskey glared at him, but then turned back to her papers. "Ace, as we all discovered, possesses all three forms of Haki, though they are untrained. This means he may lash out even if he doesn't realize it. Therefore only Commanders will be stationed around here, save for me and Hannah. There will be a two floor radius around this room that will be kept clear until we can establish with Ace that we are not a threat and he is not in danger."

Marco nodded and sent a quick look to Curiel who gave a wry salute and ambled out of the room to set that up.

"The only Commanders in here visibly, will be Marco, Thatch, Haruta and Izou," Whiskey continued. "That means Jozu, Kingdew and Fossa are excused to help Curiel maintain the radius."

The three commanders shot Marco a quick look for confirmation. He nodded, allowing Whiskey's plan to continue. It was obvious from her choices, she wanted to keep the least threatening people visually inside, and the most threatening outside. It was actually a good idea.

"Thatch." The pompadour'd man raised his head. "When Luffy wakes up, he'll need his snacks. So will Ace."

"Recruit whoever you need," Marco said, stepping in briefly to maintain the chain of command. Whiskey sniffed but didn't argue. "Division Four can help bring stuff in but then they're gone." He turned to Izou. "Before you stay here on babysitting duty, make sure Division Sixteen is ready to help with the reconstruction if there's going to be anymore."

"My Division is always ready," Izou said, giving a delicate snort. He sent a small smile to the sleeping Luffy who had clutched his robes as a blanket. "But might I request Kingdew check in with them in my stead? Unless we want the little one waking up early..."

Marco grinned at the panicked look that suddenly appeared on Whiskey's normally-composed face. Apparently while she had been able to build herself up to plan and execute this kind of operation, she was not counting on any changes to it, no matter how small. "Kingdew?" The heavily muscled man smirked at Izou, gave a rare, soft, smile to the dozing child, and then silently left the room. Fossa and Jozu took that moment to let themselves out at the same time. Marco gave Whiskey a relaxed, two-fingered salute. "Aye-aye, Whiskey. Next?"

Whiskey blinked and looked back down at her plan, taking a moment to take another gulp from the bottle firmly in her grasp. "Okay... when he wakes up, his first view is gonna be of Luffy and me. Marco? You're gonna be right by us for the third – our goal is to get him to try and remember you promising Luffy was safe, with the proof of a healthy, happy brat right there."

Marco nodded. For a first-time operations planner, Whiskey was doing pretty good. He figured much of it had to do with the emergency phone call she'd made to Moby 3 – the one she'd kicked everyone out of the communications room for. "Then what?"

Whiskey swallowed hard, and looked at the sleeping pirate. "Then we hope he's in a good mood."

Marco nodded. He hoped everything would go smoothly. He was starting to build up some respect for the young man in that bed – for his passion and his loyalty, not only to his brother but for his crew. No crew defended their captain so steadily unless that devotion had been truly earned. And the love that little Luffy was practically radiating for his brother couldn't be faked – nor could the sheer grit and determination Ace had shown in trying to reach his brother when his own body was crumbling beneath him.

Pops was right. This kid was rare, someone too valuable to lose to death over something so petty as a mere brawl. Marco wanted to meet this young man who had won such respect from his brother, the Spade pirates, Jinbei, his pops... and himself.

He watched Whiskey flitter around the equipment helping keep the kid alive and crossed his fingers, hoping that her plan worked.

o0o

I hope you liked the direction I decided to go and I am SORRY it means you have to wait one more chapter for Ace to wake up and have that fatal first meeting with Marco. I just felt this was a good stopping point (and at 5000+ words, it's already the longest chapter to date!). I also hope you enjoyed a little more history behind the boys and their baby bro – which actually was the easiest part to write, seriously. Ace, Sabo and baby Luffy practically write themselves. It's everything else that's a struggle.

Your encouragement made this chapter possible, no lie. So keep it coming and maybe we'll see chapter 8 for a New Years present? :)

[update] Klutzy writing had it sounding like Dogra and Magra were the ones who shut the lid on Luffy and were kicked out, which was wrong - it was two others that got beaten by Ace. Ace told Dogra and Magra because they're Dadan's 2nd in commands. I rewrote bits of that paragraph to hopefully make it clearer. I love Dogra and Magra - I'd never make them baddies!