Price

Ace woke up with a jerk and a gasp and would have fallen out of bed had the arm around his waist not tightened and pulled him back onto the mattress.

"Sorry about that," Fox muttered apologetically.

"So this is why you were so uncomfortable earlier," Ace said, putting things together now he was awake. "You didn't like how everyone was making out you'd miraculously healed me because of the strings attached. Very serious strings; are we really stuck?"

"Nothing can break the bonds except death," Fox said flatly, "and the death of any party will inflict serious mental injury upon the survivors. Death of more than half the bonded parties sends the survivors insane: they either suicide to escape the pain, shatter and go completely around the bend raving and frothing at the mouth, or go on indiscriminate killing sprees. I did the latter, by the way."

Ace remembered Zoro's memory of a mask and a sword, both of which had been familiar. "You're not just the greatest assassin on the seas, you're the Phantom Fox," he muttered incredulously. "You rescued me at Marineford."

"Not exactly rescued," Fox demurred. "That was Luffy. I just helped."

Ace snorted, remembering the bodies that had piled up around the execution stand. "I'd have been dead without you several times over. You beat Aokiji and Akainu several times; hell you chopped Kizaru's leg in half! You're seriously incredible with a sword, you know."

"I'd rather it didn't get spread around," Fox muttered. "I do not want that bounty attached to my face."

Ace sobered up at once, remembering the sheer insanity of the money attached to the mask on the Phantom. "Was that the killing spree you mentioned doing?"

"Hm," Fox bowed her head. "I killed everyone. Not just my oppressors, but my fellow sufferers and every other living thing I came across, down to the fish in the aquaria. Not my finest moment."

"How did you get out of Mariejois?"

Fox shrugged. "I jumped."

"What?!" Ace couldn't believe it; she'd jumped off the frigging Red Line?! Reaching out he wrapped his arms around her and pulled her into his lap, resting his face against her hair. "Were you crazy?!"

"I think I'd already established that," Fox said dryly.

"How did you not die?"

"I can still breathe underwater, you know," Fox said, "and the impact didn't kill me. Spitfire found me, dumped me on the nearest island –Mystoria incidentally– and left me there."

"Where you met Sako," Ace concluded. "He's a nice guy. So totally obsessed with serving you it's hilarious, but still a nice guy. Good taste in women, too."

"He introduced you to his wives?" Fox asked.

"He also mentioned you picked the older one out for him," Ace said teasingly, tugging on a strand of hair. "I didn't know you did matchmaking, Limpet."

"He asked me to, Hothead," Fox muttered, pink staining her cheeks. "After what he did for me I couldn't exactly say no."

"What did he do for you? Other than introduce you to the joys of sex," Ace specified. "I know there's more to the story than that: I got a look at the mural in your temple. Something about Sako getting turned into a shark and you turning him back?"

Fox looked horrified. "They put that on the wall?" she moaned. "Oh, just what I didn't need." She face-planted into his shoulder. "Just kill me now," she mumbled miserably.

Interest bubbled in the back of Ace' mind; interest that wasn't just his. "Fox? Is that Zoro listening in?" he asked cautiously.

"Yeah," Fox mumbled. "He's bored and lonely so he's been eavesdropping almost constantly since we got separated."

"Where is he?"

"Kuraigana Island."

Ace sniggered. "Your father's primary hideout? That's going to be fun to watch."

"Weeks away though," Fox agreed. "I know he'll have stopped by to talk to my mother by now so hopefully he won't do anything I'd have to kill him for." She frowned blackly. "Nobody kills the father of my baby and gets to live afterwards."

Ace whistled lowly. "You're serious about that, aren't you?"

Fox glared up at him, golden eyes almost glowing in the dimness. "What kind of partner or parent would I be if I wasn't?"

Ace heart hurt a little at that declaration. Fox was so loyal and protective it was scary. Reassuring, but still scary. "A normal one?" he ventured.

Fox scoffed. "Normal is overrated."

The inquisitive feeling came back, more insistently.

"I think Zoro wants to know about the thing with the shark," Ace said quietly.

Fox sighed. "I may as well tell you both; it isn't like you won't find out eventually." She sighed unhappily. "You'll both laugh, I just know it."

"Is it that funny?" Ace asked, ducking back instinctively when she glared at him.

"I don't think it was remotely funny; well, I didn't at the time," Fox admitted. "At the time it was frightening and traumatic and humiliating. However it did snap me out of my depression and got me moving again and nobody actually died or got irreversibly harmed. It was also the final nail in the coffin that persuaded the locals that I had to be some kind of deity, which I did not enjoy at all. So: I hated it, I hate being reminded of it but to an outside observer it is apparently very funny. I know my father thought so."

"Mihawk thought it was funny?"

"He laughed at me," Fox confirmed in miserable tones. "I think it's a good part of why he never went back to take Sako's head off properly."

"Okay, now I have to know," Ace said, unable to think of anything that would make the stoic, stern and unflappable Dracule Mihawk smile, let alone laugh.

Fox sighed, settling herself across Ace' lap and resting her head on his shoulder while in her mind Zoro settled on the edge of her senses, just close enough to hear her words through her ears but not so close he became influenced by her thoughts.

"I was fifteen when I arrived on Mystoria," Fox started, "and I had no personal experience of sex: lots of anecdotal stuff from being raised by pirates and merfolk, lots of second-hand knowledge from my nakama before they were murdered, but nothing of my own. I was barely thirteen when I was forced to eat Devil Fruit and learning to control it was a nightmare, both for me and the people around me. More accidental deaths than I like to think about." She cringed at the memories. "So by the time I was old enough to start being interested nobody dared come anywhere near me. Nobody touched me unless they had to and even then it was as quick and as fleeting as possible. Nobody was willing to even pat me on the shoulder or comfort me when I cried. I was a monster, a creature to be feared. Not even my shishou touched me more than was necessary to teach me, but I think that was just him being a difficult and angry old man." She paused. "The only people I touched were my patients, so they became my world. They were gladiators and all much older than me, so I was like a baby sister to them and they never saw me as anything else. I never saw them any other way either, but then they all died and I was alone, more alone than ever." She sighed.

"Anyway, I arrived on Mystoria on the brink of giving up and slitting my own throat and Sako took me in and cared for me. He was kind and sweet and I liked him, but I didn't love him. He didn't love me either, but he did care and he certainly thought I was pretty. So after my attempt to pay him back for his kindness –which escalated into my saving the entire island from famine and death– he offered to introduce me to what his people call 'the shared mysteries', which boil down to the various things people get up to in the bedroom. On Mystoria it is traditional for teens to be initiated in sex by someone slightly older but not yet married, so when I asked other women for advice they all told me to go for it." She smiled. "Sako was well-liked; very well liked actually."

"You have a soft spot for players," Ace muttered.

"I do not."

"Marco," Ace countered.

Fox paused. "I like him because he was kind to me as a child. His being a player has nothing to do with it." Marco hadn't been like some other men she'd met who acted nice so her aunties would think they were worthwhile people; he'd been genuinely kind and interested in her.

"Fine; you have a soft spot for people who sweet-talk you," Ace corrected himself.

"So says Mr. Suspicious," Fox muttered. "You think anyone trying to be kind to you has an agenda."

"Most people aren't nice to me unless they want something," Ace grumbled. "Even Pops wanted something. What happened next?"

Fox sighed. This next part was where it got cripplingly humiliating. "Well, Sako made good on his offer and we had sex," she said lowly, "but I'd never experienced anything remotely like it before and it affected my control of my Devil Fruit Ability. So when I opened my eyes after the first time I found myself sharing the bedroom with a ten-foot Sand Tiger Shark."

Ace gaped. "You, you turned your first lover into a frigging shark?" he demanded wildly. "During sex? Seriously?!"

Fox bowed her head. "I destroyed one of the walls of his house and rushed him down to the bay before he suffocated but it was a near thing," she added miserably. "It took me a week to work out what I'd done and how to reverse it. Well, how to give him control over it; I couldn't reverse it fully but at least now he only turns into a shark when he wants to."

Ace stared at her incredulously for a full minute before starting to snicker.

"Yeah, laugh it up Hothead," Fox grumbled dully as in her head Zoro made his own amusement clear.

"It's just," Ace gasped unsteadily, "I think I got off easy. I may not be alone in my own mind but at least I'm still the right shape!"

Fox punched him in the arm. "Not. Funny," she hissed through gritted teeth as Zoro noticed her genuine hurt and tried –unsuccessfully– to smother his own mirth.

Ace stopped chuckling and looked thoughtful. "When you had your blow-up with your father you mentioned one night stands. Was what happened with Sako the reason you had them?"

Fox' mouth twitched in appreciation. "You know, my father never even considered that I might have had a reason for them," she said dryly, "he just killed them. But yes, that is why. I wanted to be able to control myself and control that ability, but wasn't inclined to practice on people I actually cared about. So one night stands it was. Once I'd worked out what I was doing and had a bit more experience learning control didn't take me very long."

"Did you turn any of them into things?" Ace just had to ask her that didn't he?

Fox glared. "Just the first one: I turned him into a tree. He didn't remember it afterwards."

Ace bent over and laughed until he cried while Fox just sat in his lap and sulked. It wasn't her fault! Stupid Devil Fruit and stupid unexpected side-effects! Secretly however she did have to admit that the story sounded much, much funnier than it had been to live through.

The other half of the story involving Sako. Funny to listen to, not so much to experience. Poor Fox-chan.