Pain

Ace was woken the next morning by his stomach, which rumbled piteously and threatened to hold any and all surrounding organs hostage if it wasn't fed in the next five minutes. The Flame Logia groaned, carefully levering himself up into a sitting position and getting a better look at the bandages swathing his torso. There wasn't an inch of skin to be seen between his armpits and his hips and everything he couldn't see felt tender and fragile. Even his stomach twinged, but it wasn't making him feel any less ravenous. Ace looked around for his clothes; he could go to breakfast as he was, but he'd be happier in trousers at least. He'd likely lost his boots forever, like he had his knife, but that couldn't be helped. At least he wasn't dead.

The cabin door opened and Fox walked in, wearing dark purple deck trousers, a mint green strappy top and had her hair pinned up in two buns on either side of her head. She was carrying a shirt and a pair of shorts he recognised at once.

"Yep, your shorts survived!" she told him with a grin. "The shirt I borrowed from Shanks; I'd rather you kept the bandages clean if at all possible."

"Shanks lent me a shirt?" Ace had trouble believing it.

Fox grinned wickedly. "Well he's already lent you his bed and his cabin; what's a shirt after that?"

Ace' eyes bulged. "What? This is Shanks' cabin?" Come to think of it, it was very nice other than the faint blood smell. But he barely even knew the man: he was a frigging Yonko! On his own flagship! "But!"

Fox swept over and placed a finger over his lips. "But nothing; I've been living in this cabin for the past week anyway and when you got brought on board you were dumped in here. I fixed you up on the floor and Shanks really didn't fancy sticking around while I was treating you like a jigsaw puzzle, so he bunked with Beckman." She paused thoughtfully. "He may kick you out now you're well enough to walk around, but that's up to him. He was certainly teasing me about my priorities last night."

"Priorities?" Ace repeated faintly as he pulled his shorts on and accepted the pair of deck shoes Fox had scavenged from somewhere.

"He was claiming to be jealous because you were getting all the attention," Fox said calmly, helping him into the shirt and buttoning up the front, "but that's his idea of a joke, since until you arrived I was cuddling up with him." It was definitely Shanks' shirt: the left sleeve was far less worn than the right one. Ace' brain then caught up with his ears and he remembered Fox mentioning once that he and Marco were not the only people she treated like her personal cuddle toys.

"You were sleeping in here? With Red-Hair Shanks?!" He squeaked. It was one thing to hear it in passing; it might have been her idea of a joke. But to know she really did it… Fox worried him sometimes.

Fox smirked at him, clearly enjoying his freak-out. "He's a much cuddlier drunk than you or Marco," she informed him brightly, "despite having only half the number of hands."

"Stop, please," Ace begged, leaning his forehead against her chest and closing his eyes. "Mercy." There were things he didn't need to know and what his best friend got up to with Shanks when they were both drunk was one of them. Bad enough that her understanding of what constituted intimacy was horrifically skewed; he didn't want the details.

Fox giggled. "Okay, I'll stop Hothead. Now, I got the impression you were hungry?"

Now that his brain was no longer being traumatised his stomach reminded him that his last meal had been days away and it had just been prison slop. He hadn't had real food in over a month.

"Food?" he begged, pouting hopefully. Fox wasn't quite a sucker for the puppy look, but it amused her enough that she usually folded where food was concerned. As expected, she smiled fondly at him.

"Yes, you can eat. However you are not to drink any alcohol as you barely have any liver at the moment and it is working overtime just keeping you alive," she warned him. "Your stomach is also much smaller than you remember it being, so eat slowly and stop when you feel full. Having you feel sick from overeating would slow your recovery."

Ace was about to complain when the spectre of Akainu loomed in his mind and he remembered exactly where his injury had been. He was abruptly relieved he even had a stomach after that, never mind a liver. He patted his stomach, inordinately relieved by the feel of muscle and skin under the bandages. A hand touched his shoulder and he looked up into Fox' sympathetic face:

"On your feet, Hothead." She offered him a hand. Ace accepted and let her help him to his feet; his gut twinged and there was a distinct feeling of things getting uncomfortably stretched, but no sharp pain suggesting he'd ripped something.

"Ow," he said flatly, then noticed he was no longer looking slightly up to meet his best friend's eyes. In fact, he was looking slightly down.

"I'm taller than you," he said stupidly, his brain going blank. "How the hell am I three inches taller than I was last week?!"

Fox coughed. "I poured masses of energy into both healing you and keeping you alive while I replaced all those important internal bits you lost," she said mildly. "It's not too surprising that your body decided to take advantage and had a growth spurt. With how much of my power is still bouncing around inside you and how much more I'm going to be using to make sure you recover properly, I doubt you're going to stop growing any time soon. As soon as your stomach recovers you're going to eat like a Sea King for months."

Ace blinked, then grinned. "I'm gonna be tall, huh? Neat." A thought struck him. "Taller than Marco?"

Fox snorted. "You're already almost an inch taller than me, Ace. Marco's barely any taller than that."

Ace smirked. He was going to be taller than Marco!

Fox scrounged a meal from the kitchen for him since it wasn't strictly breakfast time yet and Ace leant against one of the palm trees growing on the deck of the Red Force, carefully making headway through the food and watching his crew mingle with the Red-Hair Pirates. Everyone looked injured in one way or another: bandages peeking through clothes, plasters on faces, people favouring one arm or the other or limping while others still walked with the care that suggested damaged ribs. He couldn't see Pops though, which really bothered him. He tried to remember more of what had happened at Marineford.

Pops had said he was a remnant of his era, Ace remembered, and something about not being carried into the next one. Did that mean-

"Ace!"

He was spun around and fiercely hugged, making his eyes water as his tender stomach protested.

"Marco? Air!" he gasped. His brother released him, tears in his eyes and a bandage around his head.

"Ace! You're alive, yoi!" Marco breathed in sheer amazement before hugging him again, more carefully this time. The phoenix Zoan then released him and turned to face Fox.

"You did it, yoi" the First Division Commander said, voice choked.

Fox nodded. "I did," she said softly. Marco dropped to his knees and touched his forehead to the deck.

"Dracule Lisska, thank-you for saving my brother's life. I am forever in your debt."

"None of that Marco, please," Fox said, her face twisting in something that might have been hurt. "No debts. I did it for myself as much as for anyone else."

Marco sat up, but stayed on his knees. "Sweetheart, you still brought him back;" he said gently, "nobody else could have done it, yoi. You spent three days and nights working on him without stopping to eat or sleep when everyone else thought it was a lost cause and today Ace isn't just alive, but up and walking about. That's pretty much a miracle, yoi." He smiled, getting up. "Everyone's going to be wanting to thank you, so you'd better get used to the awed respect."

Fox pouted. "I'd rather have a hug."

Marco chuckled, then did something that made Ace choke on his mouthful of meat: he wrapped his arms around Fox and kissed her soundly. "Thank-you, yoi," he said again after letting go of her.

"The hell, Marco?!" Ace spluttered. The phoenix Zoan smirked, inclining his head towards where Fox was leaning heavily on one of the palm trees with glassy eyes.

"She didn't mind, yoi," the blond pointed out. "You know she likes kisses."

Yes, Ace knew. But Marco had never kissed her like that before; he generally treated Fox like a daughter or little sister. That had not been sibling behaviour.

"What happened to her being like your baby sister?" the flame Logia muttered, staring mournfully at the food he didn't have the appetite to finish. Being ill sucked.

"She still is, yoi," Marco said mildly. "But special exceptions can be made when miracles happen. You had a hole right through your middle and she still managed to fix you; I'd say that qualified as miraculous, yoi."

Ace shivered. He'd known he'd been mortally injured but hearing about it brought back memories of things he hadn't really noticed at the time, like how he'd lost all feeling below the waist.

"Marco, no traumatising my patient," Fox said, walking over and taking Ace' plate away.

"Fox?" Ace asked, catching her wrist. "Where's Pops?"

Suddenly he didn't have to ask: a sensory memory shot across his mind, the feel of someone precious but not close being snuffed out completely, torn away forever. Pain danced across his senses and a sense of terrible loss gripped his heart as the world went grey and there was a distant clatter of falling crockery.

"Ace? Ace!" It wasn't his memory; he'd never been able to feel the deaths of his family like that. But he knew now that Whitebeard was dead, that Pops had never left Marineford.

"Ace!" He blinked uncomprehendingly at the two worried faces in front of him. Why was he kneeling on the deck?

"Marco?" He said softly, "Pops is dead, isn't he?"

Marco's face fell instantly and he bowed his head. "Yeah. Blackbeard and his crew killed him, yoi."

Ace screamed, clutching his head in his hands. If only he'd never chased after Teach! If only he hadn't lost on Banaro! If only he hadn't been so stupid-

Sharp pain in his ear brought him back to reality.

"Ow! Ow ow ouch!" He swatted at Fox, who had his ear in an iron grip.

"Remember that discussion we had about free will?" she said, steel in her tone. "This is not your fault."

"But-!"

"But nothing," Fox said firmly. "Your Pops chose his death. He went out with a bang like he always wanted to and kicked off the new era by announcing to the world that One Piece really is out there. Don't disrespect him by trying to make out it was all about you!"

Ace gaped like a fish. He'd never meant it like that! "I know it's not about me!" he blurted out, wiping tears off his face.

"Then why are you trying to take responsibility for your captain's decisions?" his friend asked him sweetly.

Ace opened his mouth, paused and closed it. It was a trap, dammit! "I'm an idiot," he muttered, feeling defeated. Why did Fox always have to be right?

"We knew that already," Marco said, "but you're our idiot, yoi."

Ace wakes up properly and finds out about Whitebeard. And Marco! I've missed writing Marco.