Remember

Characters: Penguin, Shachi. Rating: K+. Warnings: Referenced minor character death.

Penguin was torn between being irritated at the constant chaperoning and pleasantly surprised at how easy it was to get information out of these pirates. They told him that he was being accompanied everywhere for his own safety, as the Polar Tang – the name of the ship, apparently, and Penguin was trying hard not to dwell too much on the fact that it was a submarine currently hundreds of feet underwater – was full of hazards. The interesting thing was that most of them seemed to genuinely believe that was the case, horrified when he suggested maybe it was because they didn't trust him.

The captain and the talking bear – what was this, a circus? – were the only two to demonstrate any indication of guilt (even if the captain was subtle about it) if the topic was brought up in their earshot. And then there was the ginger who, after finally reappearing from wherever he'd fled to, firmly attached himself to his side with a blinding grin Penguin knew for a fact had to be fake considering his earlier display, and didn't even bother pretending otherwise.

"I'm just hoping you get your memories back before you start trying to kill us," he said far too cheerfully when asked, and honestly Penguin had no response to that. If he knew he was gathering information in order to successfully destroy the crew then why wasn't he doing something about it, rather than answering every question Penguin threw his way?

Night time came, or so he was told – with darkness constantly outside the windows, there was no way to tell what time it was except to rely on the clocks – and his ginger shadow informed him bluntly that he'd be sleeping with him and forcibly led the way to a bunkroom.

"Bottom bunk's yours," he was told, and he sat on it, wondering who normally slept there. It was warm, as if only recently vacated, so maybe it was the one on night watch?

"Who's bed is this?" he asked, because the ginger had never refused to answer a question. The shorter man's shoulders sagged ever so slightly.

"Yours," he said. That would have made some sense, if there was any way that Penguin could ever have been a pirate. He looked around the room, because if nothing else he could at least find out more information about the ginger.

The desk – if that was what that poor thing was supposed to be – was full of clutter, random pieces of paper and paraphernalia covering it until almost none of the wood was visible. Only a single corner, closest to the bed, was visible. There was just enough room for something to settle there, and considering the contrast to the rest of the desk Penguin was certain something did often sit there. A collection of boots – not all the same size, so this really was a shared room – were arranged in some semblance of order by the door, and some of the weird uniforms he'd seen many of the crew wearing hung from hooks above them. The far wall housed a pair of chests with clothes hanging out of them – the left was far more organised than the right, another indication of two people living in the room – and above them, tacked to the wall, were pictures.

The bounty posters drew his attention first, "Surgeon of Death" Trafalgar Law worth a not inconsiderate amount of beris, while the bear boasted a far more pitiful bounty. Penguin couldn't even buy a decent pair of boots with that little money. The poster for the giant of a man, Jean Bart, looked old and crumpled, as if it had been pulled out a bin. No poster for the ginger now shrugging off his clothes without a care in the world to pull on something to sleep in – Penguin noted the copious bandaging around his abdomen; that was an obvious weakness he could definitely take advantage of.

"You can turn the lights out whenever you're ready," the ginger said, shimmying up the ladder into the top bunk with the ease born of years of practice. Penguin turned away from the wall and headed to the lower bunk, flicking the light switch as he slid into the bed. He didn't bother getting changed, not wanting to wear any clothes belonging to a pirate. It was bad enough that he was spending the night in a pirate's bed.

Sleep came for him faster than he expected, dragging him under almost as soon as his head hit the pillow. It felt… right, but he didn't stay awake long enough to register what that implied.

He didn't know what he dreamed about, but when he started awake, heart pounding and feeling decidedly guilty, he knew there must have been a dream. It was probably his memories pushing at his subconsciousness, and Penguin rolled out of the bed and padded towards the door silently, needing to get out. Knowing that his memories were so close, yet out of reach, was frustrating. He was trying not to think of the obvious gaps in his memory, the things that didn't quite fit, or were just plain missing, and in the daytime, gathering information and formulating plans made for an effective distraction. At night, his mind refused to be so easily distracted.

"You want to talk?" the ginger asked suddenly, startling Penguin. He'd figured the man would be fast asleep as it was clearly the dead of night.

"No," he said shortly, yanking the door open and striding out of the room, mentally the seconds until he was caught up, and jumping when it was less than two before the ginger was walking by his side. "Go back to sleep!" he growled, not in the mood for puzzles while he was dwelling on his missing memories. The ginger said nothing, remaining a silent shadow as Penguin stalked his way around the entire ship for the rest of the night.

It was when the rest of the crew stirred, hours later, that Penguin recalled something. Not one of his missing memories, annoyingly, but one of the things tacked to the bunkroom wall. With the call for lights out, he hadn't looked at anything other than the bounty posters in any detail, but there had been a sketch that now stood out in Penguin's mind, registering as important.

His parents. Even without colour, it had been unmistakably them, but they hadn't been alone, and Penguin didn't recognise the man and woman also in the picture, but the boy in front of them strongly resembled the ginger still shadowing him. Did that mean that he'd been telling the truth about them growing up together? If so, why had he forgotten his family but not the others on the island? Why couldn't he have forgotten his parents' deaths?

The memory washed over him, uninvited and unwelcome as he screamed from underneath his mother's corpse until he was pulled out, Noona bundling him in shaking arms as a quiet, scared voice called for his mother.

Wait, that wasn't right. He hadn't screamed, hadn't called for his parents. He'd been struck dumb by the shock, going through the motions but unable to react. It had been the little ginger boy who was crying, begging his mother to wake up even as he'd been drawn into Noona's hold, too. He'd been bleeding – they'd both been bleeding. Penguin saw the gouge by the ginger's left eye, bleeding profusely but ignored in grief. That would scar.

"-uin?" a voice called, jerking him out of his recollections. "Penguin?" He forced his eyes open to see the ginger in front of him, a concerned look on his face.

Ginger. Like the boy.

Penguin lurched forwards, snatching the shades off the man's face to a startled cry. There, by his left eye – twitching and weeping in the light and that guilt washed over him again – was a neat scar, perfectly matching the memory. Penguin touched it, feeling the change in skin underneath his fingertips.

"Hey!" voices shouted, and there were hands on his shoulders, pulling him back from the ginger, who hadn't moved, not even to flinch back. He could have killed him then, it would have been so easy when the man didn't even have the instinct to retreat from him, but the bloodlust had drained away all at once. Staring into snowblind eyes as he was bundled back, his mind supplied a colour for them despite the fact there was no colour visible due to the damage.

Penguin knew this man. It was only one memory, but it had revealed something important, and potentially changed everything. He'd lost his parents to pirates, too. The same pirates, the same attack. Yet, he was a pirate. Penguin still couldn't think what would make him choose that path, but if the ginger had, then maybe… maybe it wasn't so impossible that he had too.

"What's going on?" a voice demanded, but Penguin ignored it, surging forwards and catching the pirates out, many of them losing their grip.

"Shachi," he said, reaching him again and tracing that scar once more. "You got this the day your parents died." The hands that had been restraining him slackened, but Penguin continued to ignore them, waiting for a response. He expected a nod, or maybe a spoken 'yes'.

He didn't expect to be body tackled, the ginger's arms wrapping tightly around him and his face burying itself in Penguin's shoulder as he staggered backwards.

"Hey!" he complained, instinctively catching Shachi. "What are you doing?"

"You remembered me!" the ginger sniffled – was he crying?

"Just one memory," Penguin corrected. "I still don't believe this pirate nonsense."

"Let's take things one step at a time," the captain said. Penguin realised he had been the one demanding what was happening. "You're not going to remember everything straight away. See if you can focus on Shachi for now."

Penguin was dubious – it was only one memory, it didn't prove anything beyond knowing of Shachi's existence as a child – but looking at the ginger sobbing into his shoulder the same guilt he'd woken up with surfaced again. His arms wound themselves around the shorter male of their own volition, and it felt right.

Well he's not going to get it all back at once. One little memory with lots of implications is plenty to be getting on with for now.

Thanks for reading!
Tsari