All eyes on him Ace's fumbling fingers reached into his bag, pulling out the familiar straw hat.

"That's the hat Teach sent Pops," Izo said reaching out to look at it but Ace pulled it back on instinct.

"No," He told them, his voice sounding hollow even to his own ears. "He sent it to me."

"Why?"

Ace looked at Marco, the man's arms crossed over his chest, watching them silently, waiting for him to continue. Even if he already knew this. Ace forced himself to keep going.

"It's Luffy's hat," for Jozu's benefit he pointed Luffy out.

"I know who Luffy is," Jozu told him. "That's literally all I know."

"And why does that hat look like the Red-Haired pirates?" Haruta said.

"Um," words seemed to fail Ace today. "I guess because it is his hat."

This was news to everyone.

"What now?"

"Then why does Luffy have it?"

"What does Redhead have to do with this?"

"It's not important," Ace told them. "He didn't have anything to do with this I promise. It happened a while ago." All eyes were on him again, the group looked like they wanted him to elaborate. Ace held back a sigh.

"Shanks and his crew spent a lot of time in the village Luffy was born in. While he was there, he befriended Luffy, and when he left he lent Lu his hat."

"So Shanks is fond of Luffy?" Marco said.

"Uh, yeah." Ace said. "He seems to like him."

"And what about you?"

"I've only met him once," Ace said.

"So, is that why Teach kidnapped him?" Izo asked.

"No," Ace said. "At least I don't think so. I don't think Teach knows about that or he would have tried to play that card."

"So then why did he go so far out of his way to kidnap the kid- ur Luffy," Jozu was trying his hardest to stay patient.

"To get to me." Ace said. "I don't know how." He met Marco's eyes. "I know I've lied a lot but I mean it when I say that I have no clue how he found out about him. I never would have told him."

"Who could have?" Marco asked. "Did someone else betray you?"

Ace shook his head. "Outside of us only two people knew, and they wouldn't have done that."

"You're sure?"

Ace nodded.

"Well, that's that then," He said.

"Teach hid a note in Luffy's hat for me to find. It said that I had to leave the crew and meet up with him in three days."

"Why the hell didn't you tell us," Haruta all but exploded. "Ace that's not the kind of thing you keep secret.

"Teach warned me not to." Ace said his eyes turning towards the stone floor. "Teach said it was between us. Plus, you guys had enough to worry about with Thatch."

Having heard this for the first time, Thatch interjected. "I don't think there's a maximum capacity on worrying. That's not really how it works."

Ace didn't have anything to say to that. Thatch was right. It was a stupid excuse. But it made perfect sense to him. Luffy was his responsibility, especially after Sabo… left. His job was to look after him like he promised. Not go running to his crew who were in mourning and get them to do it for him. Plus Teach held all the cards and Ace was worried about what he would do to Luffy if he was disobeyed. From the looks of it, Ace was right to worry.

"It was my mess," Ace told them. "I thought I knew what Teach wanted from me and I was worried you guys might try to stop me if it came down to it."

Marco groaned in frustration as he understood what Ace meant. "You better bet I would have!"

"Would have what?" Haruta asked.

"Ace wanted to trade himself for Luffy?" Izo translated for them.

Thatch was frowning now, his face serious. Ace turned his gaze back to the floor below him. Not only had he betrayed them but now they were also 'disappointed in him'. As if that could possibly hold any bearing on the stuff they already knew he had been willing to do. He hadn't even started and already Ace would rather be back to fighting Jozu.

"So you're Luffy's friend too?" Jozu's voice cut through the silence.

"Huh?" Ace forced his eyes back up. The man didn't look mad anymore, or maybe he did. It was hard to tell with him. There was an off expression on his face though. "Um… yeah, I am."

"And you guys are close," Jozu continued, slowly getting a handle on this at his own pace.

Ace nodded. "Yeah… I guess." He didn't think a close friend described them. He hadn't betrayed the people who had taken him in and sided with a monster for a good friend. But the rest of them already knew Luffy wasn't actually his brother. Although considering the Whitebeards had built their crew around a family that wasn't their blood he hoped they could understand.

Ace took a shaky breath, willing himself to calm down. It would be alright. Things were alright so far. If he could just make them understand then maybe they could keep the shaky partnership going a bit longer. Maybe forever.

What a stupid thought.

Ace deserved their hatred. He had been through this already. But at the first sign of pity, his resolve crumbled. He really was pathetic, wasn't he?

"Teach wasn't lying when he said Luffy wasn't my real brother." Ace said to no one's surprise but Jozu.

"Wait he's your brother!" Jozu said.

"He's not my brother," Ace repeated.

"Did we think he was?" Jozu asked.

"I did," Izo said.

"Yeah, I definitely did," Haruta added.

"Me too," Thatch said. "You guys are so alike it's scary."

They seemed a little less accepting of this than he was hoping for. Subconsciously Ace pulled his leg towards him, hugging it against his chest. That seemed to excite Thatch further as he sat up a little more, pointing at him.

"See Even That?"

"Even what?" Ace let go of his leg to lean back a little bit, clearly anxious.

"Nothing, sorry. I'm just surprised." Thatch told him. "You guys are so similar sometimes."

"If we are," -and honestly Ace didn't see it. "It's because we grew up together."

"And what about blondie?" Jozu asked.

"Sabo," Ace corrected automatically. "Yeah, him too. We've been together since we were five." He had been the first person Ace had ever let in. But Ace didn't tell them that. "Luffy's been with us since he was seven."

"All alone?" Thatch asked softly and Ace shrugged.

All alone?

"None of us had parents," If that was what he meant. "-At least not good ones." But they weren't really alone.

"We were living with mountain bandits off and on," Ace wondered what counted as part of the story and which parts he was allowed to keep personal. Plus, he was sure Dadan would thank him for leaving her out of it.

Speaking of her, there was no way she hadn't noticed Luffy was gone by now. Ace would try to find a way to tell her Lu was safe… if he could. Despite what she said he knew she would rest a lot easier knowing Luffy was back with him.

"Were they nice?" Thatch asked and Ace stared at him. That was such a Thatch question. It was also an incredibly stupid one considering the circumstances.

"I guess they were alright." Nice might be going a bit far. Then again, you'd be hard-pressed to find a 'nice' person among the bandits or in the Grey Terminal.

"So, Teach figured out you had a foster brother and went after him so he could blackmail you." Izo clarified for everyone. "He took Luffy and then he came back and attacked Thatch and stole the devil fruit."

"And when Ace started acting weird and took off I went after him," Marco spoke up for the first time in a long time. "He showed me the note and we met Teach's right hand, Burgess. You guys have met him." He told Izo and Haruta. "He was the one holding Luffy."

"He seems terrible," Haruta said plainly.

"Trust me he's worse than terrible," Thatch told them. "Everyone here is so inhuman… and that's coming from a pirate."

"So, you guys were working together then?" Jozu asked.

"Yeah, for a while. We had to do Teach's dirty work. Oyaji knew. It wasn't like we could refuse him with the leverage."

"What happened?"

Marco met Ace's eyes and Ace looked away, staring back to his floor. He ran his finger over the cold stone feeling the grime that covered it. The best intention always amounted to nothing when they were covered with so much dirt.

"Teach didn't like that we were working together," Ace told them softly. This was the part he really didn't want to share. When everything had gone so wrong. Right when he didn't think it could get any worse. He looked over his shoulder at Sabo, still sleeping away completely exhausted.

He knew that Sabo was in his corner. He had promised after all. Ace knew that no matter what, neither of them were ever going to hate him. And that had been enough his whole life.

Two people shy of the entire world still meant that at the end of the day two people would care if he disappeared.

"Teach told me that I had to kill Marco," Ace finally told them. "Or else he would torture Luffy to death and send him back to me in pieces."

Marco was one of the last people in the world Ace wanted to hurt. But he wasn't the absolute last person. So Ace's choice had been made for him. "So I told him I would do it."

Izo shook his head angrily turning away. "That's disgusting."

Ace already knew what he was.

"Why didn't you tell us Ace," Haruta's voice was soft, filled with, oh god, that better not be sympathy.

Ace met the look with his own angry one. "They said if I told anyone they were going to kill Luffy and Thatch. I didn't know if they were bluffing or not and I didn't want to find out.

"So what did you do?"

He looked over his shoulder once again at Sabo. "I didn't do anything. When Sabo found out what was happening to Luffy he came and found me. He was the one that came up with the plan to save you."

"Sabo's a revolutionary right?" Jozu said. So everyone kept saying.

"Yeah," Ace said. "This isn't some assignment to him though. I asked for his help and there is no way I could have done any of this without him."

"I know," Marco said. "I believe you now."

"And you didn't before?" Thatch asked him.

"Not really. He can lie really well when he wants to. When I met him, he pretended to be a scared kid who had broken his leg. When I lowered my guard, he got me with a poisoned knife."

"That was my fault!" Ace said quickly. He hadn't wanted to share this part.

"Ace it's fine," Marco told him. "I'm not mad- anymore. None of us are going to go seek revenge on either of your brothers, okay?"

Marco waited until all of them nodded and Ace sat back with a short huff, clearly not happy but willing to put up with it.

"So how did you trick them?" Haruta asked.

"Um," Ace looked around at them. "Do you really want to hear this?"

"Yes."

"I laced a blade with a jellyfish neurotoxin." Ace was grateful that Marco didn't correct him by saying that part was Sabo. "As soon as it nicked Marco's arm it started working by slowing down his movements. Teach had given me three rules. I wasn't allowed to tell anyone, I had to do it in front of Burgess and after I was done, he would take his head as proof."

"So Sabo distracted Marco by fighting him while I got Burgess. When the poison had finally started taking effect, I betrayed Marco and got him with sea stone cuffs so he couldn't use his powers. Then we fought and I stabbed him."

"Was that really necessary?"

"We- I needed him to pass out." Ace said. It wouldn't have worked if Marco was still fighting him when the flames cleared. "And I covered the entire place in fire so Burgess couldn't see what I was actually doing." It was Ace's fire he chose what it burnt and he chose how hot. He was in control of it and he had controlled it to cover his friend and leave him unscathed. "We- I mean I had stolen a body from the morgue. I switched them out and burned that one to a crisp so not even Teach would be able to recognize whose head it really was." Ace was staring at the ground again, running his fingers over the coarse stone. He didn't want to see the looks his ex-crew were giving him right now. He bet whatever sympathy they had for him was long gone…

Good.

"I told Burgess Sabo was just some mercenary for hire. Burgess took the bodies charred head back to Teach and I guess they bought it."

Now that he had started Ace wanted to keep going. Tell them absolutely everything. Let them see how truly disgusting he was. See if they dared to feel bad for him again.

"We were past the point of no return." Ace said. "If Teach realized I had tricked him he would have killed Luffy and I couldn't let that happen so we decided that we couldn't let Marco go now."

"Why!" Jozu said. "We were all so worried about him! Teach said he was dead."

"I know." Ace's fingers paused, instead digging into the stone beneath him until they turned white. "The first thing Marco would have done was call Whitebeard and let him know he was okay. Sabo was willing to bet that Teach had planted a mole somewhere in the crew and if they overheard anything it would have been over. Teach already was suspicious of me so we figured the only way they would buy that I had actually done what I promised was if the entire crew was really in mourning. Not pretending to be. Plus there was no way Marco would have let me do the next part."

"I don't know what I would have done," Marco said and Ace finally looked up at him. Doubt clear in his eyes. "Okay, no. I wouldn't have let you go through with that. It was incredibly stupid. But you should have talked to me. There might have been another way."

The tricky thing about the situation they all ended up in was everyone had their limits. Marco's was Oyaji and theirs was Luffy. "Maybe you were right," Ace told him. "Maybe there was another way. But I didn't want to take that risk." Not when it came to Luffy. As unfair as that fight had been Ace had won the power to make that decision.

"So Sabo stayed there and made sure Marco didn't wake up. Teach's last order was for me to kill Whitebeard… you guys know the rest."

"I don't," Thatch said looking a little pale. "Oyaji is alright! Right. Someone better have told me if he wasn't."

"He's fine," Marco promised. "Or he is now." He looked at Ace. "He listened to you."

Ace just shrugged. To get the upper hand on Teach it was the best option. At least that's what Sabo intended when he made the plan.

"You could have told us then," Izo told him.

Ace shook his head. "Teach never trusted me. He put a bug on me so he could overhear everything I did."

"So what really happened?" Jozu said. "Everyone knows you tried to kill Oyaji and he threw you into the ocean. We thought you were dead. Was that also part of your great plan?"

"…Yeah." Ace said. "It was."

"No way you would come up with that," Haruta said.

"It was Sabo's plan," Marco told them. "He's a revolutionary- he's used to being strategical. Ace is protective of him." Now he could see why.

"It wasn't his fault!" Ace shot back. "I was the one who did all the actual betrayal not him."

"See," Marco said as Ace proved his point for him.

Ace sat back turning his gaze to the floor.

"Ace, we already told you we weren't going to do anything," Izo told him. "To either of them." Not like they were planning on it before either. They weren't monsters. "Just tell us the rest of it- okay?"

"That is it." Ace said. "Teach took the credit for killing Marco but he told me if I messed up he would tell you the truth and let you kill me. I poisoned Whitebeard and when I confronted him I left the antidote at the door with instructions to take it in a few days."

"Why?"

"So people could see that he was weakened and rumors would begin to spread. Teach would get overconfident if he thought Whitebeard was dying…. And he did."

"I don't understand why Pops waited to take it?" Haruta cut in.

Ace shrugged again. "I don't know. He just did." Because Ace had asked, in his own way, for Oyaji to trust him at the beginning of his fight. His old captain must have seen the desperation on his face because he listened."

"And how did you survive? We all thought you drowned?"

"Sabo's friend saved me."

"What!"

"The blackbirds," Marco told them. "They weren't just a traveling flock. They're a lot less cute when he's in full form."

"Oh yikes, I kept feeding them bread scraps. They looked so hungry."

"He probably deserved them," Marco said. "He worked overtime."

"That's our whole plan." Ace told them. "Everything was to catch Teach off guard and try to keep everyone alive as long as possible."

"So when did you come in?" Haruta asked Marco.

"Right after Ace fought Whitebeard. When I woke up the best option seemed to be to go along with them. It was too late to try anything else, not without alerting Teach. I contacted Oyaji and he agreed."

"Thanks for sharing by the way!" Haruta told him. "We were So Worried About You!"

Marco smiled at his brother. "I know, I'm sorry. We wanted to tell you but-,"

"Everyone needed to buy it for Teach to," Izo cut in.

Marco nodded. "We couldn't risk tipping him off to our plan."

"I'm glad you won that one." Thatch said. "I can't imagine what he would have done if he didn't think he was winning. Teach was bad enough when he was in a good mood."

"I still don't understand something," Marco said after a moment.

"Just one thing," Haruta echoed.

"Why couldn't you just tell me Sabo was your brother? And he didn't even know how old you were."

Ace frowned, his eyes going back to the floor.

"Was that all part of your plan?"

"No," he said. "That wasn't part of anything." He hated this. But he had promised to tell Marco everything. Apparently, that extended to things that weren't his to tell.

"When we were little Sabo got into an accident." Ace said touching his own cheek absent-mindedly as if he were going to feel a scar below. "He got shot in the face and drowned… they told us he was dead. We thought- we thought he was dead and his body was somewhere in the ocean. So, we never went looking for him."

They were all staring at him again, Ace could tell without looking up.

"Luffy said he was dead." Thatch said after a moment, his voice was soft. "He told me Sabo died when you were kids so we couldn't let that happen to you."

"Yeah…" Ace stared ahead of him at his hands. He clenched them into fists. "Luffy took it really hard."

There was no doubt in anyone's mind that Ace had as well.

"So what happened?" Izo prompted when it became clear Ace wasn't going to continue on his own.

"He got rescued by the revolutionaries when they were passing by. He forgot all about us and joined them until he realized Luffy had been captured. I guess even without his memory that bothered him so he tracked me down figuring that Teach was working off my orders…. And yeah- that's why he couldn't answer your questions." He told Marco.

"So Sabo doesn't remember you?" Marco asked him.

"No- he does now," Ace said. "Remember the really bad headaches and nosebleeds he was getting. After he woke up in the hospital, he remembered."

"That must have been a relief," Haruta said- partially to ease the silent air around them."

Ace shrugged, his attitude preceding him. "I guess."

"One last question," Marco said and Ace looked up at him. He knew what the other was going to say.

"Roger was your father?"

"Huh?" Jozu looked over at Ace in shock.

Ace took his time to answer this one. He changed his position a little bit, leaning back on his palms as he exhaled slowly, as if exasperated.

"Yes."

"How," Marco said.

Ace frowned, his eyebrows raising in question. "How?"

"I mean the world government was on the warpath. I heard they killed all the babies who might be the right age in the right area."

Ace had heard that too. "They messed up I guess."

"Your too young," Izo told him. "You're actually nineteen then?"

"No, I'm eighteen."

"But- Roger died…"

"I know," Ace said impatiently. This was the last thing he wanted to be talking about, let alone here with his ex-crew who hardly needed another reason to despise him. It was best to get this over. Rip the band-aid off. And hopefully- no not hopefully- this would be the last time Ace would go through this again.

-This would be the last time he would be stupid enough to think he could live a normal life.

Well relatively normal for a criminal.

"It was a medical anomaly," He said. "I don't know much about it other than I was carried past term. By the time I was an hour old both my parents were dead. I never met them. They had no secret messages for me or hidden agendas. I can't tell you why he made me or what he wanted me to do- and I really don't care whatever the hell he was thinking."

"You aren't Roger's fan?"

"No," Ace said. "I'm glad he's dead."

That seemed to catch the pirates off guard. They, Ace remembered, had actually met Roger.

"You don't mean that?"

"Why?" Ace asked. "It doesn't matter what I think. He's going to be dead either way."

Marco flinched.

"But-" Jozu spoke up again in the beginnings of protest before he remembered himself. "You don't even know him."

For his part Ace hadn't expected this much push back. They had asked him in the first place. So why did it matter to them what he thought?

"I think he just means-" Izo cut in. "That he was your dad."

"No," Ace said thinking of Oyaji. "He wasn't." If Roger was still alive Ace imagined he would have just made things worse for him growing up. Dealing with the falling out of a dead man wasn't fun by any meaning of the word but he imagined that dealing with the push back from someone still alive, still causing problems, would have been so much worse. Plus, he might not have met Sabo and Luffy- and that hurt to think about. "Sharing the same blood as someone doesn't make them your family." He thought they already knew that.

"But-," Haruta jumped in but Marco gestured for them to let it drop for now. It was a pointless argument.

"Who was your mother?" He asked somewhat diplomatically. This, unknown to the group was safer grounds than they had been treading.

Ace's eye line fell to the floor once more as his face softened. He hated that just thinking about her had that effect on him.

"Portgas D. Rouge," he told them. "Did you know her?"

Marco shook his head. "No, Sorry," and he looked truly apologetic. "I'm sure she was an amazing woman."

"You never met her."

"Yes, but she must have been something to catch Roger's attention. That man was many things but romantic was not one of them."

Yeah, Ace decided. She probably was amazing.

"How do you know about your parents?"

That was another question Ace didn't want to answer. But he had figured they would ask it all the same. Despite having a while to prep he didn't know where to start with this one.

"I guess Roger felt bad about dying and leaving my mom behind on her own to deal with everything. When he was in the marine's custody awaiting his execution, he called in a favor."

"To who? the rats."

"No- to a marine you know of him. Vice-Admiral Garp." Ace had heard them complaining about him once.

"Wait! You can't be serious." Haruta said at the same time Izo said something indistinguishable. Even Thatch, who had made a point to listen politely through the whole thing looked floored.

"Garp! You mean the Navy's most persistently annoying pirate bloodhound?"

That had been one of the nicer things most pirates had to say about him.

"Why did Roger ask him for a favor and not- literally anyone else?"

Ace actually knew the answer to this. He had asked the same thing when he was little. "I don't know exactly what he was thinking but Roger told him that even though they were on opposite sides they respected each other and he trusted him like a crewmate- or something like that."

"Seriously? Why." Haruta made a face.

"Look I wasn't there. I don't know. This is just what I heard."

"And he actually did it?" Their earlier disbelief was trumped.

"Yeah," Ace told them. "He kept his word." – just like Roger had known he would.

"I can't believe that Garp- the militaries- pride- and -joy would do anything against their wishes."

Ace smirked at that. He supposed that was the air Garp gave off with his idiotic and increasingly annoying support. But the truth was he was a pretty shaky marine by government standards. He was a free spirit- a lot like Luffy.

"He already had his own mistakes," Ace said. "His son was a no-good criminal."

"Seriously? How did that happen."

Probably the same way Ace and Luffy had turned out so lawless. "I guess they both agreed that children were innocent of their parents' crimes. So Roger trusted him with the name of my mom and Garp went to go save her from the marines. But by the time he got there, it was too late, she was already dying and there was nothing he could do for her."

They were all staring at him, wide-eyed. Haruta's eyes looked like they were going to fall out of his head. Disbelief was clear in their expression but they didn't try to challenge Ace on anything he said.

"So what did he do?"

Ace shrugged yet again. He thought it was obvious. "He did what Roger asked."

The stares were starting to make Ace uncomfortable- well more than he already was which was a feat in itself.

"So he… saved you."

"Yeah," Ace said like it was obvious. He was a better man than they were giving him credit for. Marine or not.

"Why?"

They had been over this already. "He was keeping his promise and he didn't like what the marines were doing." Because slaughtering babies seemed like such a good idea. Ace felt like they were veering away from vital information and instead heading straight into deeply personal questions, but he had promised to tell them anything and honestly- it didn't matter anymore. They might as well know everything.

"So do you know Garp then?" Thatch asked curiously.

"Yeah, of course." Ace said. Like it or not he was family. "He was the one who told me everything I know about them and he dropped me off with the bandits- they were uh- acquaintances of his.

"I still don't understand why," Marco said. "What was he expecting."

"From me?" Ace asked. "Nothing. He's sort of crazy… but he's a decent person. I think. He just does whatever he thinks is right without thinking about the consequences. And he didn't want to let them kill me so he decided to save me instead."

"Then are you guys on good terms?"

Ace didn't know. "Probably not right now- or for a while. He wanted me to become a marine- he thought I would be forgiven that way."

Ace doubted it and by the looks the others were giving him they agreed. "But right now I think he's probably furious with me."

"Why?"

"Because of what happened to Luffy," Ace said feeling like it was obvious. "He knows that Luffy is in this mess because of me and he wants me to save him. He was the one who got the location of Teach's base," Ace told Marco.

"So he betrayed the marines?" Disbelief was evident in Jozu's voice.

Betrayed seemed like a strong word. "This goes against his philosophy." Ace told them. "Luffy's done nothing to deserve any of this." He had some stuff planned for later- but that didn't matter.

"So Garp just goes around trying to save children who are being unfairly punished?" Izo asked.

"Uh-" Ace had never thought about it that way. "No, Luffy's his grandson."

The look was back. Silence filled the room once more. It was getting on Ace's last nerve. He was tired and just wanted this to be over.

"Does Teach know?" Marco finally asked cutting off the other pressing questions that were bubbling up. "Is that why Luffy was kidnapped."

"No, it was to get to me." Ace said. "I don't know how he found out about me but Teach knows about Roger so he blackmailed me. I think they thought that I would either join them or he would kill me and get the fame either way."

"I can't believe he would stoop that low," Haruta agreed.

"Him!" Ace said feeling numbness. "I don't think Teach even understands what he's doing. Not all the way. We're just chess pieces to him and he's playing the game."

They were all staring at him now.

"He's psychopathic." Ace told them. "I know right and wrong. I know what it feels like to be betrayed and I know how much it would hurt to lose Marco. And I was okay with that! I was okay with Teach walking away from all of this! I was even going to stay out of his way while he took on Pops! That's more disgusting than anything."

"You didn't kill me. You didn't kill anyone!" Marco told him.

"I Was Going To!" Ace snapped. He was tired of that argument. He was tired of Marco's understanding and he was really freaking tired with the looks they kept giving him. "What do you think the plan was before I found Sabo?"

"I mean you might have tried," Marco said after a moment. "No offense but I don't think you would have won that one."

Ace threw up his hands in frustration. "Well, then I would have died trying to kill you! Is that any better? Spending my last moments stabbing the one person who was trying to help me, in the back."

"That wasn't what you were doing," Marco told him. "You were trying to save me. You were stuck in an impossible situation and you didn't want anyone to die. I already know what happened and I wasn't even there. When you found Sabo you begged him to help you find another option. He came up with a plan to make it seem like you killed me saving Luffy and satisfying Burgess enough to report back to Teach without anyone getting hurt."

"Where Were You When I Poisoned You and Stabbed You!" Ace told him. "I might be stupid, but I know enough to know that must of hurt."

"I've had worse," Marco told him. "And I prefer that to being dead."

"And if Sabo hadn't shown up," Ace asked him. "If I really had killed you. Would you still be fine with me? Would none of you have anything to say about that?"

Up until then the rest of them were letting Marco and Ace fight it out, their eyes following the argument like a ball across the tiny circle.

"But you didn't," Izo told him softly.

"But I Would Have!" Ace said again. "I was so desperate I would have done anything."

"Why?"

"Because I'm a bad person!"

"No," Izo said. "You said you would have stayed with us until the end. So why would you do all this if that was true."

"It is." Ace said softer this time.

"Then why?"

"I don't know."

"Oh my god, I see why Marco is so frustrated!" Izo said. "Yes, you do! You literally just told us."

"I don't need an excuse to hide behind." Ace told them. "And I don't need your pity! I am the last person you should be feeling sorry for. Not after everything I've done."

"So if you feel so bad about it why did you do it!"

"…"

"Okay, fine," Izo said. "I'll tell you. You just told us that you are an orphan. So you did what you did because you always took care of your little brother and because you can't live without him. At least that's what you said to Teach…. Did you think we expected you to just let him die because we've been nice to you?"

They were staring again. Ace looked away from their prying eyes, over to the cold desolate tunnels around them, and then to where his brothers were sleeping. Dead to the world and completely exhausted.

"Yes." Ace told them honestly. He stood up, still feeling a bit shaky on his feet. Their eyes followed him as he did so.

"That's everything I know." Well almost… "I've told you every secret I had -just like you wanted. Can you stop it with the questions now?" Ace could feel a narcolepsy attack coming, sooner than later and the only thing that could possibly make this situation more embarrassing was passing out in front of them.

Marco met his gaze, cool and collected as he always was. "Okay," he said, signifying to the others that everything else would have to wait for later.

Ace didn't say anything as he turned away, walking towards his brothers. He had only made it a few steps when Thatch called after him.

"Ace?"

Ace paused, waiting for him to continue. Finally, he turned back to look at them. They were staring after him.

"Do you really think that?"

"I don't think it matters." Ace said and when no one could come up with anything else to say he turned away from them.

XXX

So Ace has problems and probably needs a few really solid hugs. And years of therapy.

The reason I love Ace so much is he is so complex and he has a lot going on in his head, especially compared to Luffy who does and says whatever enters his brain.

I know this chapter was more than a few days late. In my defense, it really was 90% done. I planned to post it the day my last roommate moved out so I could distract myself with it instead of missing them. But instead, I got caught up with packing and moving myself back to the States to my home of 1234 Driveway Drive, Townsville (I'm onto you internet stalkers). And I'm moving again in a few weeks so I might be a little busy. But now I plan to continue with my promise of updating everything at least once, hopefully twice. So TWRR is next then Tail of the Sea and Dolls and hopefully, I'll do double or triple updates on this story in the next month, but they might be a bit slow as I will be repacking all the stuff I just unpacked like an idiot.

I am also sorry to say the replies are going to be a bit delayed. It got so late and I'm going on a road trip tomorrow. But I will try to have them up as soon as possible.

Anyways sorry for the delay. Please tell me what you thought. I'll try to update everything as soon as I can!

Cheers and Happy Summer!