The Girl with A Half-Soul
Chapter 7:
Gone, But Not Forgotten
They were supposed to sleep, but the truth was none of them were tired enough to sleep. Luffy and Usopp laid in their hammocks in silence, not knowing the other was wide awake. They were just waiting for the sky to turn into a different color.
Robin spent the night sorting through all of Nami's shopping and organizing it for later use. She expected clothes only, but there were other things like bottles, bibs, toys, diapers, and a wool blanket.
Sanji was busy putting away all of the groceries into his pantry and fridge. Once he was done, he just sat at the table with his head resting on the surface.
Chopper hid underneath a blanket in the boys' quarters so he could concentrate while reading his new medical books. There was so much information about the reproduction system and bearing offspring he did not know about before.
Nami was tucked away in her map room tracing the shape of this island and trying to guess where Lollybroch would be. When she was done with that, she welcomed herself up to the crow's nest. Zoro sat in it by himself, having volunteered to keep watch for the night.
He looked up at the navigator for a moment but went back to staring at nothing. The idea was for everyone to sleep before their early morning rise, but he heard too much noise beneath him to think anyone listened to him. Nami sat across from him, tucking her legs into her chest. "I know what you're thinking about," she said, gazing up at the starless atmosphere.
Zoro did not entertain her with a reply.
"There's no reason for you to feel guilty about any of this," she continued. "She could've slipped away under anyone's watch."
"I don't feel guilty," Zoro dryly corrected. "I feel responsible. There's a difference."
"Is there?"
"Luffy stuck her with me and I didn't care enough to see how badly she wanted to get away. I could've easily kept her in check."
"So…you do feel guilty."
He looked away and mumbled: "Only if she got hurt."
Nami smiled and decided to get comfortable for the night. The moment she knew the sun was rising, she wanted to pull the anchor, unfurl the sails, and head around the island. If that meant she would spend a few hours with the swordsman, then so be it. Those who did not know him thought of him as an emotionless brute who cared for nobody but himself; although he definitely was a brute, he just kept his emotions in check, and in reality, he cared about this crew more than anyone else.
"You know, Zoro, if you wanna make up for this, you should probably be Aurilee's guard from now on," Nami proposed.
"What?" he responded, annoyed.
"You heard me," she laughed. "Stick by her more often. Get her things she needs. Just be someone she can rely on. We'll be doing the same, of course. But if you really feel bad, you'll wait on her hand and foot."
His eyebrow twitched as he was practically patronized. This usually happened when he owed her money and she would rack up the debt with interest. What irritated him the most was that he did not need to be told to fix his mistake because he was already planning on it.
After a few hours, the shade of gray in the overcast sky lightened ever so slightly. Nami got Zoro's help getting the ship moving, but Luffy, Usopp, Robin, and Chopper helped as well. Sanji had breakfast ready to go. When Zoro pulled out the oars, all the males grabbed hold and started rowing as the wind guided the Merry through her sails. There was no time to waste.
We're gonna get you back, Aurilee, Luffy promised. We'll be there soon.
Sleep did not come to Aurilee for the few hours of darkness she had left. Instead, she was left laying still while the pain in her private area worsened. Whatever that Marine did to her, it was far more vicious than what Calisto used to do. Calisto's objective seemed to be getting a rewarding sense of power in the times she was attacked; this guy hinted at wanting to finish her off, but her lack of resistance left him disinterested. So, as an alternative, he left a lasting impression to add to her trauma. The only blessing she had from the encounter was shielding her sight.
Aurilee was exhausted and ready to not move for a few hours, but her mind would not allow her to rest. Her short-term memory was reeling back all of the wounds inflicted on it. From Calisto to this Marine, everything was replaying for her. Her brain was not processing it all correctly. All the details were intact for her when they should have abated over time. Despite being safe and isolated, her heartrate quickened as a reaction to her growing stress. The more games her mind played, the more her anxiety and insecurity acted up.
Tears leaked down her face sideways with every blink. This was what it felt like to be imprisoned by your own conscious.
When morning arrived, she only realized it when she started hearing noise outside. People were starting their days and going to work. Aurilee did not want to be caught in the barn she took refuge in, so she slipped out before anyone showed up. The only evidence left of her stay was an accumulation of blood that had been oozing out since her arrival.
The hay she had been laying on left her skin feeling itchy and her hair a bit of a mess. When she was taking her wagon ride to Lollybroch the day before, she abandoned the braid that tied her hair back – regreting it now. But none of that compared to the soreness she was experiencing with every limp. She had to take breaks in her trip toward the docks, finding the perseverance to get there to find Gerald. It had been four or five years since she last saw him and Millie. She wanted to know how things have been since they parted ways.
Not noticing the droplets of blood leaving a discreet trail in her wake, Aurilee arrived at the docks. But they were nothing like the ones in Edinburgh. No pirates or sailors or ordinary people were to be seen. There were countless white uniforms and guns being carried around everywhere she looked. And when she gazed out in the vast bay, all she made out were dozens, maybe hundreds, of Naval ships anchored off. Suddenly, the hairs on her nape prickled. What if her attacker was here? She did not want to find out. So, she took cover and carefully searched the buildings for shipwrights. If all of them were affiliated with the Navy, then she came all the way here for nothing and she had no way to get back to Edinburgh besides hiking.
Peeking into windows and open doorways, she found many buildings to be hovering over the water with hollowed out floors so that ships could dock inside and work could be done to them. Some were still touching the sea while others were raised up to expose their barnacle-laden underbellies. The massive scar on her back bristled with the memory of being keelhauled forever ingrained in her subconscious. She had to look away fast for her own sake.
The overcast sky was also beginning to let loose its substantial amount of water vapor. Raindrops were changing the colors of the rocky ground. She had nothing to cover her head and shoulders with.
After sticking her head into one particular building, she had to pause to ensure she heard something correctly. There was a thick accent emulating from inside. To mistake it for an ordinary Marine was pure idiocy. She stuck her head back in and scanned the room. There was no ship inside to be worked on, but the floor was still open and the gloomy water below still rolled in with the tide. And she must have been standing that way for too long because suddenly the person speaking with the accent called her out. "Oi. If ya need sum'in, then spit it out," he impatiently said.
The guy sitting next to him on the adjacent crate slapped his shoulder with the back of his hand. "Cut it out," he scorned. "You'll scare the lass off."
"If she ain't got proper business wit' us, I don't want 'er 'ere."
"Pay him no mind, Lass! Come inside."
It felt awkward standing there idly, but it also felt awkward coming inside where she was not completely welcomed. And she was not very trusting right now, either. She opted to stay where she was at as she spoke, letting the rain continue to soak through her dress and hair. "I-I was just wondering if you were shipwrights," she stammered, wanting to run away and give up on trying.
The two men looked at each other before laughing. "Probably the only ones without a ship to work on, but yes!" the friendlier one responded.
Aurilee took a breath that had some relief in it. "I'm looking for a specific one," she continued. "He took care of me when I was a kid."
Seeing that she was not entering even after given permission, they both got up to go see her. They were both tall, heavyset men, and they both had longish brown hair and healthy beard to go with it. Their only difference was the meaner one wearing an eyepatch over his right eye. They nearly towered over the doorway from their height, making Aurilee question how they fit through it coming inside earlier. And they were the first natives she had seen not wearing traditional garments as the other men. They were wearing very dirty and very worn out pants, and their button-up shirts were on the verge of rags. It had been years since they had better clothes to work in.
Seeing how pregnant Aurilee was shocked them both. The rain was just beginning (it would probably get heavier in the next hour), yet she had been in it enough for it to seep through her clothes and stick to her goosebump-ridden flesh. And it was starting to chill her deeply, too, since her pigmentation was looking more pallid than olive toned. "Ya need to get out the rain, Sassenach," the meaner one of the men said. He stepped aside to give her enough room to pass.
When she remained exactly where she was, the other tried coaxing her in. "What's the matter?"
"U-Uh…" she trailed, trying to think of a good enough excuse to not be too near for her own safety.
He waited a moment as he read her. Either she was untrusting because they were strangers or because someone had gotten a hold of her before. There was even a mark slowly growing darker across her jaw and down her neck. He had his suspicions, but there was no reason to bring it up. Instead, he offered her a hand. "My name is Angus," he greeted. "And this is Rupert. We're the last shipwrights of our kind on this side of the Highlands."
She stared at his hand, seeing how the palm was callused and had thick skin that had developed over many years of hard work. A part of her believed that the second she touched it, he would grab her and yank her inside. But another part of her grew a sentimental sense toward the gesture. This man – Angus – his hand's hardened condition reminded her greatly of Gerald's. But despite having worked for years as a shipwright, he still knew how to be gentle. She reluctantly took it and allowed him to lightly shake hers as a proper greeting.
"And your name?" he inquired.
"Aurilee."
"Really? Lovely name. How about you come out of that rain and come warm up a bit?" He let her hand go and motioned for her to enter their workshop. It was better than what her unstable side expected, so she found the courage to step inside. The smell was very grimy and salty because of the seawater beneath them, but it was obvious work was done here often with all the ship parts and tools strewn everywhere on every surface and all over the floor.
Rupert offered her the cleanest towel he could find to try drying herself, and then Angus took her to the small circle of crates that he and Rupert were sitting on when she arrived. While they talked, Rupert busied himself with something.
"You said you were looking for a shipwright," he reiterated. "Is he a Marine by any chance?"
She avoided his gaze but tried to match his mellow tone. "N-No…His name is Gerald."
"Gerald?" Angus repeated, his expression not showing any hint of recollection. "Are you sure he came from Lollybroch?"
"W-Well I was just told this was where the shipwrights were on the island."
"Hmm."
"He joined a pirate crew a long time ago. He lost his wife and had to raise his daughter Millie all by himself–"
Rupert suddenly winched his torso around to look back at them both. The look of shock in his one eye showed that he was not always in a bad mood. "Are ya talking about Harry Fitzgerald?!" he questioned intensely.
At first, Aurilee did not know what to say. In truth, she did not know what Gerald's full name was. She just knew him by what the Gunslinger Pirates referred to him as during his tenure with them. But as soon as she mentioned the finer details about her beloved father figure, he was recognized.
Not patient enough for a reply, Rupert stood up and started opening up drawers. A little bit of shuffling around inside them would happen before he quickly shut it and moved on to the next one. "It was like fifteen years ago when he left ta' join the Bucktooth Pirates. Those bastards convinced em' to join 'hem after Leary died, and we never saw 'im or Millie again," Rupert described with his thick accent, pulling out a hefty stack of tattered, yellowing papers.
"Aye," Angus assented as Aurilee took it all with curiosity. "Few years later the Navy took over our company and we slowly lost our shipwrights to the ones coming in from the military. Now it's just me and Rupert left."
Aurilee looked over the top page, seeing it was once folded but had been unfolded for a long time. And there was a lot of sloppy handwriting to be figured out. If she was honest, reading was not something she was good at, but she understood the basics. And she noticed Gerald's signature at the bottom right corner.
Showing Angus, she pointed out his name. "What's this?"
"It's a letter," he revealed. "Fitzgerald wrote back and forth to us over the years. He's been all over the Grand Line with Millie."
Aurilee felt a pang of desolation. If he was writing letters to his shipwright friends in Lollybroch, and they almost did not know who she was talking about at first, then that could only confirm her worst fears. "So…he's not here?" she hesitantly asked.
"No…He's in a place called Water Seven, I'm afraid," Angus replied, pointing to the correct words in the middle of all the paragraphs. "But he's doing great things and living every shipwright's dream. Water Seven's where the best shipwrights in the world are located. They repair ships and even build ships from scratch. Millie has grown a knack for the craft, too."
His words were cheerful as they shared good news, but all she felt was disappointment and sadness. There would be no reunion today. And since she was on a journey back home to the island of wolves, there would never be a reunion. All she had left of her adopted family were the memories and a bunch of old letters she could barely read.
"I'm sorry, Lass," Angus said, rubbing a hand across her back. "But he's in good health. That's all that matters, right?"
She wiped her eye as she nodded. "I just don't know how I'm getting home now," she admitted, trying to keep her voice steady.
Angus looked to Rupert wanting some help. Their visitor was going through a lot. Although they did not have the solution, they could still find some good in the letters left behind by their old friend.
"Aurilee's yer name, it'innit?" Rupert confirmed, taking back the papers.
She nodded, looking down at what she could see of her lap to keep her composure better.
After some flipping and pulling out pages, Rupert found some he was looking for and passed them back to her. "I thought that sounded a bit familiar. He talked about ya some a few years ago."
She examined the letters but did not stick with a single one long. There were a few that contained some old sketches on the margins. She recognized the jolly roger of the Gunslinger Pirates that used to fly high on the sails of the Pearl and on flags on the mast. But there were also some of people. One little girl had a neatly tied braid resting over her shoulder, and her closed eyes were meant to conceal sparkling blue irises. It was Millie that he had drawn out with as much detail he could muster. Below her was another girl. Her expression was not as delighted, but she obviously had one dark eye, one light eye, and a big white strand of hair that dangled over her face. Gerald managed to get something white to color it in with. She could not read it all, but it was like the old shipwright was introducing both of his daughters to whoever was handling the letter.
Her fingers traced over the uneven surface of the paper that had been pressed into repeatedly with a writing utensil. She wanted to know everything he had said about her and his life that he was willing to share. If it was the last bit of information she would ever get about the people she loved, she would cherish it for the rest of her life.
"Can I keep them?" she requested, a single tear escaping her eyelid and her lip curling.
In a low voice, Rupert answered with "Of course." And he placed them all back in her possession so she could hold them to her chest and grieve for the family she missed dearly.