Details

"So," Ace asked when he'd wiped the tears from his eyes and calmed down enough not to snigger randomly at the mental images Fox' confession had dredged up, "How about you give me the rundown of some of the possible and likely side-effects of you bringing me back from the dead so I know what to expect?"

Fox huffed, still upset about having been laughed at, but grudgingly got out of bed and stomped across the room. "Fine," she grumbled, "but try not to freak out, okay? Remember it was this or being dead."

That really wasn't reassuring. When she returned to the bed and handed him a mirror, he wasn't quite sure what he was supposed to do with it.

"Look at yourself," Fox said with a sigh. "Nobody else has noticed yet, but they will soon."

Ace looked in the mirror. Yep, that was his face, same as it had always bee- wait. He turned his head this way and that, then brought the mirror closer.

"Is my hair blue?" he asked eventually, trying to catch how the light reflected off his head.

"Yes," Fox said simply. "Midnight blue, actually. I was expecting you to go blond but I must have missed some of the mermaid genetics; sorry about that. Your eyes are probably going to lighten as well."

Ace peered at his eyes, sliding out of bed so as to let his irises catch the light. As his pupils contracted he saw large flecks of amber amongst the black, flecks that hadn't been there last time he looked.

"Why would I suddenly have mermaid genes?" he asked carefully, putting the mirror down and leaning back against the cupboards.

"Did you ever meet your big sister's best friend?"

Ace frowned at the sudden change of subject. "Tempest? Just the once; why?"

"Tempest can't have children; she's also Whitebeard's eldest."

"Wait: Pops has kids? Actual blood family?" Ace demanded, shocked. "He never mentioned any!"

"He didn't know," Fox said calmly. "Didn't your sisters ever tell you about mermaid paternity taboos?"

"You mean the 'if he doesn't ask, he isn't interested' thing?" Ace asked, confused. "What does that –oh. He didn't know? But Pops has always wanted family more than anything!"

"He still didn't ask," Fox pointed out calmly. "Now, Tempest is just as family-orientated as her father, but she can't actually conceive, due to some unfortunate inheritance issues. So she likes to adopt. Not just informally like Whitebeard did with you all, but making her children her own flesh and blood."

"How?"

"Me," Fox admitted simply. "While there are a lot of very basic things I can't do, changing a person's entire genetic code is actually stupidly easy. Devil Fruit is weird that way. However as I refuse to do something so life-changing on a whim, Tempest generally adopts those of my patients who are so badly damaged I can't just put them back together without a little outside help."

"Huh?" Ace was confused. Fox sighed.

"I can mend damaged tissues Hothead, but I can't replace much missing tissue without overstraining my patient. You had a lot of missing tissue, including eight inches of backbone and spinal cord and your entire stomach. That last one was the critical factor, by the way: If you'd still had a stomach I could have woken you up and made you eat so as to replace the missing bits the normal way, but given there was nothing left of it at all I had to do things the hard way: I needed tissue grafts. Which is where Tempest comes in."

"Tissue grafts?" Ace repeated faintly.

"Like a blood transfusion, but of body parts," Fox said shortly. "I changed the genetic coding of the grafted tissue to make it closer to your own, then modified your own genetic coding to become closer to the changed grafts; six of one and half-a-dozen of the other, really. As Tempest is technically only half mermaid I tried to make sure you only got human genes but I must have missed some for you to have wound up with blue hair. Again, sorry about that."

"So who am I now?" Ace asked, feeling a bit lost.

"Well, as Tempest's human father was your Pops, I can say you are now more his son than ever before," Fox said dryly, "and your appearance will change to reflect that. You are probably going to get very, very large indeed."

Ace' eyes widened. "So I'm definitely not Roger's kid anymore?" he asked hopefully.

"Barely," Fox told him, amused by what he had latched on to; Ace had such serious daddy issues it wasn't funny. "More like a distant relation now."

Her best friend's smile could have lit up an entire island. "Yes!" He crowed happily, throwing up triumphant fists. "Take that, you bastards!"

"Of course, since the authorities think Portgas D. Ace is dead you really need a new name," Fox added, "and since apparently Spitfire broke taboo to get Whitebeard to acknowledge Tempest you could use his surname as her new half-brother. Don't ever think Spitfire's going to let you stop being her baby brother though."

"So I could be Edward Ace?" Ace looked ecstatic; Fox decided he really should smile like that more often as it made him utterly irresistible.

"Edward D. Ace; you can't ever lose that D," Fox corrected him fondly, "and you need a new first name. Oh, and the tattoo on your arm would have to go."

Ace looked down at the tattoo with the crossed-out S. "Lose the tattoo? I, I can't," he admitted softly, his other hand covering it protectively.

"Why not?" Fox asked gently, walking over to lean against him.

"Luffy and I had another brother once," Ace said softly. "He died." His hand caressed the crossed-out S.

"You could create a new memorial," Fox suggested, "or take his name as your own."

Ace frowned. "Edward D. Sabo doesn't really work."

"Get a new tattoo then; something similar but different," Fox repeated. "Does your brother have a grave?"

Ace bowed his head. "No," he whispered hoarsely.

"Then we can peel off the tattoo, use it as a token and give him a real gravestone," Fox said kindly. "Would that be memorial enough?"

"A real grave? Somewhere I can visit?" Ace repeated, rubbing the tattoo. "I'd like that. So would Luffy." He paused. "You said I'm going to grow a lot, right?"

"Yes."

"My hat won't fit." It was such a silly thing to comment on, but Ace' petulant tones made Fox dissolve into giggles. Ace was nuts about that hat; it was currently sat in plain sight on the table at the other end of the cabin with Fox' belongings.

"N-no, Ace, it won't," she managed, leaning into him and shaking helplessly. "We could buy you a new, bigger one?"

"I'd like a top hat this time," Ace decided, caressing the tattoo again. "With goggles, of course."

"Like Vista has?" Fox asked.

"No: a different shape. And black, not blue," Ace said firmly. "I'll know it when I see it."

"What about the old one?" Ace loved that ridiculous orange cowboy hat dearly.

Ace frowned. "Everyone thinks I'm dead, right?"

"Yes. The Marines decided that having a hole burnt through you was fatal and Luffy's reaction when you stopped breathing was, well, hard to miss," Fox admitted. "I'm going to have to go and reassure him you're still alive once he wakes up."

"Wait, Luffy thinks I'm dead? Can I come and see him too?" Ace pleaded.

"No: you're still injured and while I know how he is I don't know where he is or who he's with other than Jinbe," Fox said firmly. "If you go there as Luffy's brother your survival might get back to the authorities and then you'll be more persecuted than ever. Remember that if you die now you might drag Zoro and me after you, not to mention the baby."

Ace scowled. "He's my brother. My little brother."

"Write to him," Fox suggested. "I'll sort out a letter case for you and give it to Luffy when I check up on him."

Ace didn't stop scowling, but she could sense he was less upset than he had been. "Well, I thought that since I'm dead I should have a proper grave, right?" he muttered crossly. "So my old hat can go on it." He paused. "What happened to the tattoo on my back?"

"There's not much left of it," Fox admitted; "the ends of the crossed bones are all that survived. You can have it touched up once your skin is less tender and has healed fully, but until then you'll have to manage without."

Ace nodded quietly. He felt a bit odd to Fox, not exactly upset but definitely distant, like he was thinking too hard. Then his stomach rumbled.

"Is it dinnertime yet?" he asked hopefully, peering at her from under his eyelashes.

Fox grinned. "Even if it isn't I'm sure we can get something to eat. Besides, Tempest should be stopping by and we can ask her opinion on names. As your new big sister she should have a say."

Ace smiled. "I'd like that," he admitted quietly.

The Devil is in the details: Ace gets good news and bad news.