"Where's the second division commanders daughter?" Marco asked me as we aimlessly meandered down a street.

All of the stalls and vendors from the festival had disappeared over night though there were still signs of the festivities littering the streets, show windows and people's houses. Wrappers and trash had been swept to the side of the streets and was slowly being cleaned up, lanterns and streamers were still hanging. The stage had been taken down and the remainders of the body of the guy that I didn't even know had been found this morning and a big deal was being made of it.

Some people were now on a manhunt for me because they knew that Pops was here and the body had been burned, so it had to have been done by Fire Fist Ace- aka me. The crime had to have been committed by me of course because who else would use fire to kill a guy?

"I'm the second division commander and I don't have a daughter." I grumbled at him. Why did he have to mention Willow? I intended to forget about her and continue on as if nothing had happened, as if I hadn't met her. But it was going to be hard if people- namely Marco- kept asking about her.

He laughed. "My apologies Ace. So where is your girlfriend, your shadow, the lost little puppy that you kept dragging around?"

I shook my head. "Marco, she's not my girlfriend or anything else you or the rest of the crew could possibly come up with. But she's probably at home. I bet she's sketching or hiding form the world or something."

Her reaction to realizing what I had helped her do flashed in my mind. Yeah she was probably holed up somewhere either in her house or in that forest.

I was going to miss that forest. I doubted that I had even seen everything there was in it.

"We leave sometime tomorrow." I was informed as though I hadn't been counting down the last two weeks, trying to manage my time carefully, to make the most of each day, or the time I had to show Willow how to really live, how to love her life not just like it.

"I know." I grumbled pushing the thought of Willow from my mind, or trying to at least.

"What, are you not going to show her anymore rather inventive ways to live?" He asked not making the task of forgetting her any easier.

"No." And with that he finally got the hint and the subject of her was thankfully dropped.

I was still confused as to what exactly had happened last night though. She had said good bye meaning that I wasn't allowed to crash at her house and leave tomorrow morning as I had planned. This was why I don't plan things, they almost never go the way they should, the way they were planned to go.

The rest of the say was kind of long but at nightfall I decided to see the forest on last time, still bummed out about all of the things that I couldn't do to the crew with the glowing plants and animals.

The night unfortunately passed quickly and when I returned to the hotel we had more or less taken over it was deserted, everyone had cleared out. So I headed back to the ship.

There wasn't much to do, to prepare for. There were no last minute preparations, no last minute supply getting so we pushed off, away from the islands docks around three since it took that long to round up the entire crew and keep them on the ship.

The day was nice, quiet and despite the usual chaos of docking and setting sail was peaceful, just like the slowly shrinking island behind the Moby Dick. Luckily Marines were almost never a problem because they tended to leave Pops alone. It wasn't as if they ever stood a chance as it was so it was rather smart that they didn't try, didn't waste men's lives on futile things like trying to take Pops down.

I couldn't think of anything to do that the moment so I sat down against the railing of the ship and decided that I'd take a nap or just watch the crew do whatever they were doing. I probably had some kind of division commander work to do but I really didn't want to do it and if someone asked why I wasn't doing that work I could blame it on a narcoleptic attack.

With a sigh I leaned by head back, closed my eyes and adjusted my hat over my eyes accordingly and began drifting off.

I was just about asleep when I heard my name. It was shouted but faint. I jolted up and looked around pushing my hat out of my eyes. Looking around I searched for the owner of the voice. But when I didn't find it I began questioning myself and wondering if I was just hearing things, if I had just imagined it.

Dismissing it as that I leaned back and closed my eyes again.

But just as I was drifting off again, having just gotten comfortable for a second time I was kicked in the shin with the words, "Hey, you might want to see this."

"What?" I questioned with a frown. Did I have to go to my room to get a good nap?

"Your shadow is following you." The voice I recognized as Marco's said.

At that I pushed my hat back for another time and looked around to see if my shadow was even moving. But instead I saw Marco pointing to the ocean below and behind the ship.

Frowning I got up and looked to not only appease Marco but to also satisfy my curiosity.

-Marco-

Ace's reaction was quite humorous when he saw the blue haired girl somewhere between the docks and the Moby Dick.

She appeared to be swimming for her life from the mob that was gathering at the docks she had obviously jumped off of. People had thrown countless things they had at her and fortunately their aim was horrible, every single item missed her.

My attention however was pulled back to Ace as he looked between Myra's daughter, Pops and I before asking, "What am I supposed to do about this?" He sounded more shocked then anything as his gaze finally lingered on Pops long enough to get an answer.

Pops laughed though it wasn't a good hearted one. Maybe it was a laugh of disbelief or something else but he solemnly said, "Finish what you started son."

Ace began stammering about something or rather and I let out a quiet chuckle. From the sound of it Pops knew what Ace had been up to for the duration of our short stay on the island.

Suddenly though Ace looked at me and asked, "Would you please save Willow before a sea king eats her or something?"

Ace could have hopped on his little yellow boat and have done it himself but by the look on his face he hadn't even considered that idea. To be honest it was rather amusing that he looked so worried about the girl and was trying to cover it. He wasn't hiding the fact that he was concerned very well though. But I wouldn't tell him.

"I can." I said with a slight nod but moved no more just to see how much of a rise I'd get out of him.

"Then do it!" Ace exclaimed pushing me towards the side of the ship. "Get going before she drowns or something."

"Worried?" I couldn't help but tease.

At that Ace crossed his arms across his bare chest and turned his head to the side with a childish pout on his lips as he made a show of refusing to answer my question.

Chuckling I transformed my arms into the wings of a phoenix and decided to listen to Ace's request and went to 'save' the girl.

To be honest if she weren't Myra's daughter, if Ace didn't seem so concerned and if Pops hadn't more or less told us to get the child out of the water then I wouldn't have bothered doing it. I would have told Ace that this was his problem and for him to fix it.

When I plopped her down on the deck she thanked me before pushing her long wet hair out of her eyes and in an out of breath voice said, "Good. I made it."

Once her breath was regained she seemed to gain bearing of her surroundings, of the pirates that had paused whatever they had been doing to stare openly at her. Her wondering gaze passed Pops and landed on Ace. When she saw him a look of relief passed over her face and she even smiled a bit. That was before her head whipped back towards Pops. Upon seeing him and realizing who he was she moved so that she was on her hands and knees with her forehead pressed to the deck.

"Stand up child." His voice rang out, loud and ringing with his authority, unfortunately it also startled the poor girl. Instantly she obeyed and scrambled to her feet.

I heard Ace laugh as I watched him walk over to her with large and lazy steps. He slung his arm over her wet shoulders and asked, "Remember when I told you that if we ever got the chance to I'd introduce you to someone . . . special?" She meekly nodded and though she was looking up at Ace I knew that she was eying Pops out of the corner of her eye. Ace made a sweeping gesture towards Pops and said, "Well this is the old man himself, in the flesh, Whitebeard but we all call him Pops. You can too."

Upon Ace Whitebeard the girl paled and looked even more frightened then before. "C-call Whitebeard . . . . P-pops? She seemed to have difficulty wrapping her mind around the familiar name in which we addressed him.

Ace nodded and looked at Pops before directing a question towards him. "Can we keep her pleeeeeaaase?"

And Ace argued that he was a man. He was acting like a boy, a three year old child to be exact. Not only that but the girl wasn't a stray something or other that Ace had randomly decided to parent, pick up, adopt or claim as his only to have to put it back or return it to wherever he had found it. We were now dealing with a girl, a living breathing girl. And by the looks of it we couldn't just 'put her back'.

"Why did you decide to come after us?" Pops asked in a neutral voice, and to my relief not giving Ace even an ounce of false hope.

"I-I apologize. I-i-it's just th-that I was- the villagers . . . well you see they chased me out of-out of town a-and I . . . well I didn't know where else t-to go. And y-you weren't that far and I . . . I didn't have many other options.

I noticed that Willow forgot to add the part where she told Pops what he already knew and said that it was all Ace's fault that she had been chased out of town and literally off her home island.

There was a pause before Pops burst out in booming laughter, again visibly startling Willow. "I haven't seen such colored hair in twenty-five years. It's unfortunate what happened to your mother." His words that seemed to have nothing to do with the question at hand seemed to confuse her as the crewmembers who remembered who her mother was bowed their heads for a short moment of silence.

That moment that was broken by none other than Ace. "But Pops that doesn't answer my question." He whined like a child. "Can we keep her?"

Being close enough to reach him I reached up and smacked him in the back of his head, earning myself a glare and a frown but no other retaliation.

"S-sir?" Willow quietly addressed Pops, speaking directly to the deck in a voice that I was surprised that he had heard.

"Speak up girl!" Whitebeard said with a smile. He seemed to be amused with her so far. "My hearing may not me that impaired yet but if you're going to be on this ship you've gotta have a voice and a set of lungs." While the first comment offered no false hope to ace, this statement did. An excited whoop escaped from Ace's mouth. It only took a single short glance from Pops to not only silence him but to make him reign in most of his excitement.

"D-do-my-my- mom was a Whitebeard pirate?"

So it seemed that deal ol' Willow hadn't pieced it together after I had told her that he mother had been the second division commander. But then again I don't recall having named the ship or the crew that her mother had been a part of.

She was now making an attempt to look up at Pops through her eyelashes even though she was half cowering behind Ace and half trying to use her long straight hair as a shield.

"Yes girl. She was a mighty fine woman, quite a skilled pirate as well. Very talented."

I didn't know if it was my place to speak up about Myra at the moment so I kept my mouth shut, kept my thoughts to myself.

A smile flashed across Willow's face before she tucked her tealish hair behind one ear and bit her bottom lip. "Did she have that," she pointed to our flag, Pops jolly roger. "On her left hand?"

-Willow-

I really didn't need Whitebeard, who Ace wanted me to call Pops for some bizarre reason, to nod his head and confirm that my mother had a tattoo like that on the back of her hand.

I couldn't help but smile, some of my mother's weird habits and quirks suddenly made sense to me.

The way she'd always wear a single glove an only remove it when we were at home and sometimes then she'd keep it on. I now understood why she followed the pirates in the papers so closely and the reason she wasn't too fond of the Marines. She was also at times bossy and quite the rule bender- but never breaker. I now knew why I had been raised up secluded and for the most part self-dependent.

"D-did they call her the Blue Blur?" I asked unable to stop the laugh that traveled out of my mouth with my words.

We used to have a strange bedtime routine where she'd be the Blue Blur, a big, bad and dangerous pirate that was going to get me. When I had asked her about why she got such a lame name she'd tell me that daddy had named her that and that was the way it was to stay. And in the game daddy was the vice-admiral that was going to take me to the safety of my bed or something.

Unfortunately it was incredibly rude when I didn't wait for an answer continued on asking questions. "A-and my-my dad, do you know about him too? Was he a vice admiral?"

Whitebeard laughed again. Apparently the found me funny or I was amusing to him or something because he was laughing so much. "Yes." He shook his head before lifting a cup to his lips and taking a short swig much to a woman's displeasure. "Damn kids, young, crazy and somehow in love."

Now not only did my mother make sense but so did my dad. His kind strictness, the way he enforced and followed the rules. He tended to be a more serious man. My mom and dad were quite contrary people but when it came down to it both of them wanted something done and when it was done they wanted it done correctly, the first time, no excuses.

"Pops." Ace whined again bouncing a bit, just like an impatient child.

Though with the warning word, "Son." He almost froze before making a show of zipping his lips. Satisfied that Ace was done with his childish interruption he looked back at me and asked, "Anything else you would like to know about your parents while we're here?"

I shook my head without a word.

I found that I wasn't surprised with this new information at all. It all clicked together so perfectly. Their personalities, the reason we had always lived in the forest, everything.

But I couldn't believe that Ace had left out the part where he told me that he was a Whitebeard Pirate. Marco too, he had forgotten to run this little detail by me when we had first met as well. Jeez if I had known I might not have picked Ace up, I might not have gone along with all of his craziness.

Fortunately I wouldn't dwell on that anymore. I couldn't not really I mean not only would it do no good but I was already here so it didn't really matter, the information was irreverent to the situation now.

Ace leaned in to me and whispered, "Are you done with your questions?" which earned him another pop in the back of his head courtesy of Marco.

Again I nodded.

"Pops Pleeeeeeeaaaase can we keep her? Pleasepleaseplease." Ace begged as though I were a lost puppy, or a toy that he really wanted. It looked as though he really thought that the words pleeeeeeeaaaase and pleasepleaseplease would sway Whitebeards decision in any way shape and or form.

But Ace looked so hopeful, so childish. Just like Luffy.

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