A/N: Lil bit o' fluff, lil bit o' angst, lil more fluff. It's a reverse smore or something. Marshmallows on the outside with some bitter chocolate in the middle. Bon apetit!

Ch. 18 – The Cost of Integrity

Zoro watched Helena doggedly trying to remember what had happened during her drunken rampage and coming up short. It seemed like a real pity. He was sure they were missing out on a hilarious story.

"Wait, you said you lost your sword in that chess match, right?" Nami interrupted before Helena could continue her tale. "But you still have it."

"Oh, right. I blacked out or something. When I woke up, Mihawk had given it back to me. He said I'd earned it back somehow."

That sounded really promising. Zoro really wished he knew more about her drunken battle now. It took a lot to impress Mihawk.

"Did he give you the wine too?" he asked.

The question seemed to take Helena by surprise.

"The wine," Zoro repeated. "To pour a funeral libation."

A warm look spread across her face. "You knew that's what I wanted it for," she observed affectionately.

Zoro nodded. The funeral and funeral games he'd attended in Ilium had kind of stuck in his mind. Maybe it was an after effect of having been struck by one of Apollo's healing, mind-sharpening arrows so close to it. Or maybe he couldn't help but remember a funeral rite that included wasting good liquor.

"Yes," she answered simply, "Yes, he gave me the wine too…"

Helena went looking for her master, completely perplexed to have found herself abed, the day now spent. Putting her observation haki to good use, she soon located him in the kitchen. She peaked around the door, surprised to see Mihawk in a white ruffled apron, preparing the evening meal and whistling to himself?

"I didn't know you could cook," she observed. – or that you could whistle, she added in her head.

"I gave Gentry the day off, as you recall," he pointed out, and Helena furrowed her brow in confusion. When had he given Gentry the day off? "I can handle myself around a kitchen."

"I see," Helena observed. "Would you like some help?"

"Royalty that knows how to cook?" he asked, raising a brow at her incredulously. "Your mother could burn water."

Helena chuckled. "Hector taught me a few things," she confessed. "I was a soldier for a year. I learned basic survival skills, including how to prepare food. Believe it or not, I can even sew a button." She added this last bit with humor, realizing that her domestic skills were severely lacking all the same.

Mihawk smirked and nodded toward some vegetables that needed chopping. Helena quickly washed her hands and found another apron to throw over her second-best gown. –She had awoken to find her best tattered and dirty, and so, after cleaning herself off, had changed into something cleaner.

She had also found her mother's sheathed blade conspicuously placed at her bedside. This she lay on the countertop before she took up a kitchen knife to start chopping. She glanced at Mihawk, then set to work:

"I believe you left this in my room," she said softly, not looking at him.

He didn't pause over the meat he was preparing. "Yes. You have earned it back."

Helena's knife slowed and she turned to stare at him. "I have?" she asked incredulously.

"After what you've shown me, how could I not return it, Helena du Helena?" He said this last part with a wry edge to his voice, perplexing her further.

"What on earth are you talking about?"

He turned to look at her at last, brows furrowed. "You don't remember?"

"I remember you beating me at chess," she said. "After that…did we do some more training?" She certainly felt sore enough for it, and it explained the tattered dress. Why would she train in a dress? Her head hurt. "Did you knock me out? I don't remember a thing."

"You turned your blades black," Mihawk informed her point blank. "And you all but defeated the Zoro-mandrill."

"I did?" That must have been some pretty intense training.

He laughed, clearly in a good mood. She had never seen him this chipper before. "Perhaps I should take the blade back then," he said, eyeing it. "I had meant to use it as an incentive for your training. But no. Keep it. I see now you don't need that kind of motivator."

She had thought he'd wanted a memento of her mother. It turned out he'd been thinking of using it to help her all along. Helena flushed and busied herself with her vegetables.

"But if I can't remember turning my blades black, how will I do it again?" she asked her cutting board.

Mihawk was silent for a moment. When at last he spoke, it wasn't a direct answer to her question. "You asked me this morning why I thought Roronoa would be the one to win your hand."

While a bit off put by the subject change, she had been curious to know about this too. "Yes?"

"When I fought him, I ended up nearly stabbing him in the heart," he explained in his calm way, stating this gruesome fact without showing pride or remorse. "I had my knife between his ribs, and if I moved even a millimeter, he'd have been dead. But he didn't back down. When I asked him why, do you know what he said?"

"That if he did, his promises were meaningless, and that he could never stand before you again," Helena murmured, remembering Zoro's own recounting of the story.

"Yes," Mihawk said, "He impressed me with the strength of his resolve. I saw in his reckless nature one who would not hesitate to obtain his heart's desire, even at the cost of his life."

Helena smiled at this perfect assessment of Zoro's character.

"And do you recall when I fought you?" he went on. Helena nodded. How could she forget? "I saw your mother's pride in you. I wanted to see your mother's strength in you also, and in my eagerness, I wounded you almost fatally. Your General Hector wanted to scoop you off of the battlefield, but you stopped him. Even though you were in real danger of bleeding out, you bowed to me and gave your oath.

"You impressed me with your integrity," he went on. "An integrity that your mother had never truly possessed. You, so like your mother in pride, and yet surpassing her in virtue. He, so like myself in ambition, and yet surpassing me in resolve. I knew that he would succeed where I had not; he would win the heart of the woman he loved."

"And you knew that would be me?" Helena prodded, an incredulous tilt to her brow.

"He had but to meet you to love you," he stated matter-of-factly. "That much was obvious."

Helena flushed. "Obvious?" She tipped her now chopped vegetables into a waiting steam rack. She placed it over a pot of boiling water as Mihawk went to wash his hands.

"Are you fishing for compliments?" he asked, and she smiled.

"You're right. You've already mentioned my mother and me in the same sentence without insulting me," she pointed out. "I shouldn't press it. It's weird when you're nice to me, Uncle Mick."

Mihawk snorted as he started grilling the three steaks he'd been working on. Their savory smell quickly filled the air, making Helena's mouth water. "I see. So between trainings, I should lock you in the dungeon and keep you on stale bread and water? -Well, medium, or rare?"

"If it would help me improve, I'd be all for it," Helena joked, though she looked longingly at the steaks. "Medium."

"What you need to improve is not my goading or insults," he said, and Helena blinked at him in surprise. Was he apologizing? "You want to turn your blades black again? It won't be through comparisons to your mother, or a desire to win back her sword."

"No?"

"I believe it is time you value your own virtues, Helena du Helena," he said, removing one of the steaks from the pan. It was pretty raw – probably for Gentry. "You have spent your life shouldering everyone else's burdens and visions and dreams. But what is it that the uninhibited you wants?"

Helena blinked at him.

"To rescue my daughter, of course."

"And then?"

Helena went quiet. She didn't want to talk about what would happen then.

She tipped some of the cooked vegetables onto some waiting plates – three plates, one for herself, Mihawk, and Gentry. Some day-old rolls currently warming by the stove would round out the meal.

"Your husband is powerful because he knows what he truly wants," Mihawk pointed out, removing the last two steaks. "I believe there is a part of you that knows what you want, but you are afraid to say what it is."

"I used to want a Free Ilium," she said softly, "But you have seen where that dream led…"

Guilt and anguish washed through her. This conversation was starting to make her uncomfortable, so she decided to change the subject.

"Uncle Mick, you said I'd earned my mother's sword back. May I have the wine also?"

He stared at her with those piercing eyes of his, and she willed herself not to shrink. "You may," he said after a protracted moment. "I'll retrieve it for you after dinner."

Helena had found, through Mihawk's guidance, in which direction Ilium lay. It had been close enough to the beach that she decided to performed the ritual there, and Mihawk left her alone to it (after confirming she didn't intend to drink anything for some reason).

She waded out into the shallows, heedless of the salt water soaking the hem of her dress. She should have worn an undyed chiton, or sackcloth, but she didn't have anything like that available. Her nicest clothes, her crown and chains, seemed like the next most appropriate thing.

Lifting the wine above her head, she spoke with a steady, stately voice as though addressing a crowd:

"I pour this, not for you, O, merciless gods. I pour it solely for those lost," she pronounced, quiet rage barely contained beneath her tone. "I ask you no forgiveness for the tears I have and will shed. All I ask is that you guide the souls of Ilium to peace."

Helena tipped the wine into the ocean, blood red that faded quickly into the dark water. The pressure of tears built up behind her eyes, a long-withheld cry of anguish starting to form in her throat. Before she could let it all free, a thunderous boom pushed her off of her feet. Light filled the gloomy shore, gathered around the imposing figure of a woman in Iliad armor floating just above the foam.

Athena.

"Your libation has been received," Helena's patron goddess pronounced calmly. Her owl, Socrates hooted softly from his perch atop her helmet.

Helena stared at them from where she sat half soaked in the shallows. The shock of seeing Athena there stole her breath away as effectively as the ocean's chill. When at last she spoke, it was to give voice to the rage building in her breast; the same futile rage she'd felt as her kingdom fell:

"How dare you?" she snarled.

The goddess regarded her impassively, face hidden beneath her golden helmet as always. She said nothing, and Helena rose to her feet, a rapier in hand, posture tense though not martial.

"How dare you show yourself to me after everything that's happened?" she demanded.

"I'm afraid I do not understand," Athena replied calmly. "You blame me for not appearing to you in your moment of need? I could not. You drove me away by your lack of obeisance. This libation is the first act of faith you have performed to any of us since you destroyed Hera's temple. More to the point, it is the first since you openly defied my command…"

"Openly defied you?" Helena demanded with venom. "I've been nothing if not obedient to your every whim, O Goddess of Wisdom. When have I ever…?"

"The Lotus Flower," Athena cut her off.

Helena's mouth clamped shut, teeth still bared in an aggressive snarl. "You wanted me to trap the man I love!" she growled.

"Won't you ask me why?"

"I don't care," Helena snapped. "It was wrong! Wrong to deny his freedom! – to take from him the people he loves most! How could you ask me to…?"

"He would have spotted Cipher Pol before they could have put their plan into motion," Athena clarified. "He would have prevented all of this from happening."

"Be quiet!" Helena shouted, swinging her sword threateningly toward the goddess though she wasn't quite close enough to hit her. The blade whistled as it moved, but the goddess didn't flinch, nor did the owl perched atop her helmet.

"If you had never let Zoro go in the first place, Calypso Blue would not have gained a foothold in your country to begin with."

"I said, shut up!" Helena swung her sword again, this time leaping forward to strike. Socrates fluttered into the air while Athena disappeared. Helena struck nothing but ocean.

The owl swooped overhead, and as she followed his flight, he clipped her in the back of the head with one of his enormous talons.

"I did try to warn you," Athena insisted, now standing on the sands of the beach behind her while Socrates came to rest once more on her helmet.

"Warn me?" Helena seethed, rubbing the sore spot on the back of her head. "For years you have been grooming me, not to defeat my enemies, but to marry a man who could."

"Yes," Athena affirmed.

"You never believed in me, did you? – With my lineage and resolve, you should have made ME the one strong enough to protect what I love. Alone."

"No one mortal is ever strong enough alone," Athena replied sagely. "Your mother learned that the hard way."

Helena's defensive posture softened, her arms fell to her sides, letting her sword and the tip of her dagger trail in the water.

"What will it cost?" she murmured.

"Hmm?"

"What is the price to use a mask and restore Ilium?" Helena demanded, looking to her desperately. The gentle push of the ocean's waves on her knees made both to shove her toward the shore and steal her out to sea, but she held steady where she stood. "I will give anything!"

"Are you so sure?"

They would ask for her daughter. Perhaps for her husband. Helena couldn't think of anything more precious left to her than her family now. Her heart and countenance fell.

"Tell me," she pleaded anyway, her heart pounding against her ribcage hard enough to bruise.

"The gods are in agreement," Athena expounded. "There is but one offering we wish of you, and in exchange you may use any one of our powers."

Any one of the powers at the same cost? Such an offer had never been made before, in all the history that Helena had studied. Surely the cost would be steep. She looked up at the faceless goddess before her, waiting with baited breath.

"You must show deference to Hera," Athena said in an even tone. "You must say that she is the most beautiful of all the gods."

If the idea of losing her daughter or husband had made her heart falter, this certainly did nothing to restore it. "What?" Helena rasped in disbelief.

"The gods ask little," Athena dared to say, but there was an ironic smile in her voice.

"That gods ask much!" Helena insisted, her lip twitching in disgust.

"The gods are at war over your actions, Helena de Zoro," Athena boomed with sudden ferocity, and only by sheer strength of will did Helena resist the urge to step back. "What we ask is that you end the war we fight amongst ourselves. The war that prevented any of us from saving our homeland. The war that silenced the heavens."

The gods were at war? Now that had never happened before. Infighting, yes, but outright war? – Helena remembered the way Mount Olympus had looked during Ilium's final battle. It had been embroiled in its own personal storm. Vaguely she wondered which of the gods had been fighting on her side. On Ilium's side.

Athena's allegiance seemed suspect, particularly when she finished her angry speech with a powerful command:

"Show deference to the Queen of the Gods!"

The power pulsating off of her succeeded in pushing Helena off of her feet. Now drenched completely in an unwilling baptism, she struggled to stand. The ocean buffeted her forward, so that she landed on her hands and knees at Athena's feet. Except, when Helena looked up, it was no longer Athena standing there on the shore.

Arrayed in divine blue, an enormous fan of peacock feathers flaring up behind her, Hera smirked down at Helena around her beaked mask. The goddess proffered her gold sandaled foot as though fully expecting the deposed Queen to kiss it.

"Go on," Hera simpered.

In her mind's eye, Helena saw the child with the little blue curl, small and paper white, born clutching a golden flower. Her little Telemachus. – Trembling in cold and rage, she glared up at the goddess who had orchestrated her son's death out of petty vanity.

"Never," she rasped.

Hera let out a short laugh. "Ha! You really value your pride more than your country, mortal?"

"You may take my life, but not my deference, witch," Helena growled. "I will not incline my head to you, nor to any god who would condone the sacrifice of a babe, what's more a country, to appease the vanity of the most hideous among them."

Hera's countenance turned beneath the mask, her blue glow darkening ominously. "Heretic! You will live to regret your decision," she snarled. "I declare Olympus well and truly closed to you and your family now, du Prometheus! Without a sibyl, you will not be able to reach us. No amount of pleading or tears, no amount of prayers or libations will grant you access to us. And you will suffer! You will give me all you have left to give! Hades will dog you every step and you will find no respite, not in life nor in death!"

"So be it," Helena seethed.

Hera let out an indignant shriek, and Helena had to shield her eyes against the goddess' sudden, intense luminosity. A moment later the goddess had vanished with a loud crack, the power in her departure buffeting Helena back into the ocean shallows again.

She sat upright and stared at the beach where the goddess had been; Hera had left a crater surrounded by small ripples in the sand. Helena's eyes widened as the weight of her decision settled over her.

"Great Zeus, what have I done?"

Helena sat in the sand and stared at the ocean for hours after that, heedless of her sopping dress. She had removed her crowns and chains of office for what she knew would be the last time, clutching them in cold-hardened fingers. Her encounter with the goddesses had convinced her that she was no longer a queen.

After a while she noticed a strong presence beside her. She turned a tear-stained face to see the Zoro-mandrill looming over her. He'd probably been attracted there by the goddess' power. She'd noticed him observing her for a while now, but for whatever reason he'd finally decided to approach her.

"I'm not in the mood to fight right now," Helena informed him, not bothering to wipe the tears from her face as she turned back to rest her folded arms against her knees.

"Hmph," he snorted. Pulling all three of his swords, sheaths and all, from his haramaki, he clutched them against a shoulder so he could seat himself cross-legged beside her, just like the real Zoro might have done.

"Just here to keep me company?" Helena asked, her surprise drawing a small chuckled out of her as she glanced over at him.

He snorted again. A non-committal sound.

"To tell you the truth, I was missing the real Zoro just now," Helena murmured, gazing back out at the ocean. She hugged herself tighter. Fresh tears stained her face as she started to shake. "Do you think he would be ashamed of me now?"

The mandrill made a disconcerted grunt. He probably didn't like seeing his opponent weak like this. At the moment, Helena didn't care:

"I just sold my country for my pride," she rambled desperately, "I could have restored Ilium just now if I would have only bowed my head! I could have given my people back their homeland! It's like I just destroyed Ilium all over-!"

She stopped short when the Zoro-mandrill suddenly made his intentions for stalking her known. Without looking at her, he shoved his huge, monkey fist in front of her face to reveal a wad of…

"Dandelions?"

Helena's tears came to a surprised halt as, wide-eyed, she took the proffered gift. Gazing at the bruised bunch of weeds, she actually felt a smile spread across her face.

"How did you know my favorite flower?" Helena chortled, glancing at him. Was he blushing? Oh Zeus, he was blushing! The monkey had a crush on her!

She resisted the urge to laugh, which would undoubtedly embarrass him further, and stood to plant a kiss on his cheek.

"That is very sweet of you. Thank you," she said. "I feel much better now."

The monkey's blush deepened. He looked askance and scratched at the back of his head, muttering something nonchalant.

It was just the reminder she had needed. Zoro had always encouraged her to stand strong in the face of hard decisions. It didn't wash the guilt away – she had a feeling nothing ever would or should – but it made her feel less alone.

Her marriage to Zoro had been tied up in Ilium's fall, as Athena had just reminded her. And there had been a time, back during the two years she'd thought he was dead, that she had dared to doubt him. She had learned her lesson, though. And here at the end of it all, seeing where all the chips had finally fallen, her love for Zoro was the one thing she couldn't bring herself to regret.