Ace thinks having cancer has its pros and cons.

On the one hand, cancer sucks ass. No one should ever have to elaborate why. Not to mention it's such a cliché that most people tend not to believe him when he says he has it, especially on the internet, which is how he's been having most of his social interaction since his latest relapse.

On the other, cancer being so well known, there is much more funding toward treatments and cures than for more obscure afflictions. If Ace had, say, a mix of Segawa's Dystonia, Listeria, and maybe some Alice-in-Wonderland Syndrome he doubts the doctors would be able to do as much for him as they have. It's also nice not to have to explain what's wrong with him to the occasional bystander. "I have cancer" works like a charm, when they believe him.

Ace is trying to explain to someone-who-doesn't-believe-him on an online forum that he's about to undergo surgery again for the tumour that just won't leave his stomach alone when the boy walks in.

The boy is at least three years younger than Ace, who is twenty, and wearing very vibrant colours for all that he's frequenting a hospital ward so drab. His eyes land on Ace, and look at the scene as if it's something unnatural. Ace doesn't like it.

"…Hi," the boy says finally, approaching. He takes a seat on Ace's left. "I'm Luffy."

"Ace," he says as he closes the laptop and holds out a hand. Luffy doesn't take it, just watches it with wide eyes — though the boy's eyes were wide from the second he walked in, and Ace suspects that that's their natural state — before nodding slightly.

"I know." Luffy's head tilts. "You have an operation tomorrow, right?"

"Yeah; my third." Ace feels himself grow suspicious as Luffy nods again, knowingly, and looks up at the row of scenic photographs the doctors have placed on the wall. Luffy seems intrigued by the one that is Ace's least favourite: an ancient, walled city that was tall in the way a tiered cake was. "Why are you here, anyway?"

Luffy drags his eyes from the city of Goa, as Ace learned it was called back in his high school history class. He says to Ace, "You… You'll be fine."

"Uh, okay," Ace says awkwardly, shifting in his seat. His eyes trail back to the laptop, where the someone-who-doesn't-believe-him is probably thinking something similar for different reasons. "Thanks, I guess."

"I mean it," says Luffy. "You'll be okay this time."

Ace snorts. "Right. And you know that because?"

"I know," he says, in a tone that is probably meant to be reassuring. Ace finds it a bit unsettling, especially as Luffy reaches over to lay a hand on Ace's shoulder. "I know."

"Hey—" Ace tries to pull away, but Luffy's fingers tighten and dig into his skin. "Don't—"

"Mr Portgas, what is going on over here?" a doctor asks, coming around the corner. "I could hear you five beds away!"

"I'm fine, Doctor Crocus," Ace says bashfully, feeling Luffy's hand slide away. "Really. I just had a visitor, is all."

"I did not know your family to be so rowdy," Crocus huffs, annoyed.

"No, not my family," Ace says, turning his head to look at the boy he'd just met — but Luffy is already gone. "Um…"

Doctor Crocus is glancing around the ward in concern and what looks like suspicion. "I wonder…"

"What?" Ace does not find the expression on Crocus' face assuring in any way. "What is it?"

"I say, boy, don't you know how to keep your nose to yourself?" Ace opens his mouth to apologise but Crocus cuts him off. "I was wondering who was visiting you, and how they got in here, considering the staff are on orders to only admit family members at present. That reminded me of the date I have tonight with the secretary downstairs, and now I'm wondering what she'll order at the restaurant — I seem to recall she likes steak, but I'm more of a salad man myself—"

"That's okay, doctor," Ace says gently. He has been fearing that Crocus may be senile as of late, which is especially concerning since the man will be the one performing the surgery on his stubborn tumour tomorrow. "I'm sure she doesn't expect you to order the same thing as her."

"Quite right, quite right," Crocus responds, nodding. "Thank you, my boy. I believe that was all."

Crocus wanders away, leaving Ace alone and wondering who that Luffy really was.

When Ace opens his eyes after the surgery it is to a flurry of motion. There are doctors at every one of his limbs, and one nurse standing to the side looking sadly at her watch.

"Time—" she starts, jolting when Ace coughs from the friction in his throat and gasps for breath, "—of death?"

"He's awake!" a male nurse calls, sounding joyously shocked. Ace can hear a stable beeping coming from what he assumes is a heart monitor. "Doctor Crocus, it's okay — he's awake! It's a miracle!"

Ace's head lolls to the side. Behind the nurse, wrist still raised with her watch even as she stares at him in disbelief, he sees the boy he met yesterday, Luffy.

He stares, unsure he was really seeing anything, as Luffy's hand climbs to his head searchingly, and drops again when it finds nothing but messy black hair. Ace isn't certain what he's seeing when he meets Luffy's eyes but it looks like satisfaction.

Ace is cleared later that day by a rather emotional Doctor Crocus and is picked up by his best friend Marco. All the available nurses and doctors fall upon them as they are about to leave, making sure to tell Marco just how miraculous the operation was.

"He was dead!" the male nurse who was in the room that day, Penguin, tells Marco, entirely too cheerfully for either of their likings.

"I was just about to call time of death when he pops up alive and kicking," the female nurse, Selma, continues, grinning relievedly at Ace. He smiles back; Selma has been treating him since his first diagnosis, and he can't imagine how she must have felt about to announce that he had finally kicked it.

"Right," Marco says uncomfortably, giving Ace what he and Thatch deem the Look. "How, exactly, did Ace… die?" He is such a mother hen.

The assembled doctors and nurses shift uncomfortably. Ace watches them glance at each other hesitantly, and knows they do not want to admit to their head doctor's mix up — after all, it was a rookie mistake that nearly cost a life.

Ace no longer doubts at all that Crocus is going senile.

"There was a bit of a complication in the surgery," says Doctor Trafalgar, the only person who doesn't seem to be too ashamed to speak. "It has been cleared up already, fortunately."

"That's right!" Trafalgar's personal assistant, Bepo, chimes in. "He's made a full recovery from the cancer."

"Somehow," Trafalgar mutters, though Ace is sure Marco didn't hear it.

Ace has been briefed already on what went wrong with the operation. Crocus had bypassed his stomach entirely and mistakenly tried to operate on his heart; his assistants had been unaware, used to their head doctor needing no guidance, until the last minute when Ace finally flat lined.

When Ace had woken up, his vital signs weren't the only thing confounding the doctors; his cancer had disappeared as well.

Ace isn't complaining. As he has said before, cancer sucks ass. Being dead for several minutes is not, comparatively, a big enough deal for him to be worried about it. It probably happens to a lot of people.

Ace still sees fit to cling to Marco as soon as they are out of view. It's just the relief of being alive. Honestly. He isn't at all scared because he died. Why would he fear that?

Ace finds normalcy strange. Everything is a bit surreal without impending routine hospital visits, though his friends have quite yet to stop treating him like glass. At least that is as it used to be.

At the moment Ace is in town alone for the first time since he started vomiting blood, and he can't help feeling it is an alien and novel place without Thatch or Izou at his side. Ace is standing at a crosswalk.

He can totally do it. He has seen Marco do crosswalks so many times. He did crosswalks when he was a kid, for chrissakes! Well… with his guardian. But what does Marco do? He looks both ways. Ace can do that.

Ace looks left and sees cars heading his way. He looks right, and more cars. Suddenly, Ace realises there are four streets he has to deal with rather than two. Does he have to look down those as well?

Ace looks down the two other streets and sees more cars. How does anyone ever get anywhere on foot?

He jumps as a car honks loudly at his left. It is idling, and the driver is glaring at him. Ace takes this to mean he is meant to cross the road now.

Ace steps hesitantly onto the pavement. He looks around alertly, amazed to see the cars all slowing down around him. He takes a few more careful steps.

The car next to him honks again. Ace bolts back to the sidewalk and it drives past. The other cars follow its lead and take off as well, leaving Ace to stand on the corner, ashamed. The cars zooming around him, Ace has no idea how to make them stop again. Making cars stop so they can cross is Marco's job.

All of a sudden Ace realises that most people who have cancer do not have this problem. This problem is entirely Marco-inflicted.

Having cancer may suck ass, but having Marco sucks royal ass.

…Sometimes.

Ace gathers his breath and prepares for another go. He looks all four ways, and none of the cars slow. Ace scratches his head, looking for inspiration.

It hits him. He just needs to get their attention!

If only he knew how to do that.

Ace stands near the side of the road and tries waving his arms around. Nothing happens for a while, but then one single car comes to a halt. Ace smiles proudly as the driver of the bright yellow-orange vehicle opens the passenger side door, looking at him expectantly for whatever reason.

"Are you getting in?" the driver asks gruffly, making Ace pause.

"Uh… Why?"

The driver seems to think Ace is stupid, or at least is trying very hard to convey so. "So I can take you where you want to go."

"Oh, I see." Ace does not see. At all. "Can you take me to the other side of the road?"

The driver looks really exasperated now. "Kids," he huffs, closing the door. "They'll be the death of me, I swear…"

He drives away, and Ace is still standing on the sidewalk. The odd passerby stares at him strangely. Ace feels like stopping them to ask for instructions but cannot bring himself to do so.

Wait. Instructions. That was it!

Marco picks up his cell phone on the third ring. "What's wrong, yoi?"

"Marco, I need your help."

"With…?"

"Uh." Ace feels himself deflate with what he's about to ask. "This is going to be a weird question."

Ace can feel the dread from the other end of the phone. "…Go ahead."

"How do I cross a road?"

He hears Marco sigh. "Look both ways," he says obligingly.

"There are four ways—"

"Look all the ways."

Ace looks all the ways, but the cars keep on racing by. "I, uh, I looked all the ways. What now?"

"Have you made eye contact with the driver?"

Ace watches the windshield of the next car in line as it goes by. The driver doesn't look away from the road.

"No."

"Do that."

Ace tries, he really does. He cranes his neck and everything, until finally he thinks he sees one of the drivers glance at him. "Okay, I did it."

"Now you cross."

"Really?" Ace asks as the cars continue whizzing in all directions. "Just like that?"

"Yes, Ace, just like that."

"Uh… alright."

"Goodbye, Ace." The line goes dead.

Ace looks at the racing cars. Is it really okay to cross that? It doesn't look okay, but if Marco says it is it must be.

With a gulp, Ace takes a step onto the road. He wonders if the cars will ease up on the gas like last time, but only a few of them seem to. Ace sprints through any gap he sees, to a myriad of honking that he tries not to let make him retreat again.

He is nearly to the other side when a somewhat familiar voice shouts, "Look out!" and he is blown away by a heavy impact to his side. His vision goes black.

When colour comes back to his world he is on his back and the boy from the hospital is hovering above him. "Are you with me now?" Luffy asks, and Ace realises it was his voice that shouted 'look out' a second ago.

"'M fine, 'm okay," Ace slurs. He tries to sit up, but Luffy pushes him back down and sweeps a hand over Ace's forehead.

"That's right, you are okay," Luffy says, rolling off of him. He helps Ace into an upright position.

Ace hisses through his teeth as his hand searches out his ribs. "Damnit… did I break something?"

"No," says Luffy. Ace wonders how he is so knowledgeable, because as far as Ace knows Luffy never checked him over. "Only bruises."

"But damn." Ace looks back at the road, where all the cars are carrying on as if he hasn't just been sort of run over. "What is wrong with the drivers in this city?"

He receives no answer. When he looks over to the spot where Luffy was, no one is there, and he is sitting alone on the sidewalk with more than just the odd passerby looking at him strangely.

Ace takes out his phone and dials Marco. It only takes the second ring, this time.

"What now?"

"Marco, do not ever let me cross a street on my own ever again."

"What? But why—"

"I mean it. Seriously, just don't."

People on the internet never believe that he has cancer. They believe him even less now that he has recovered miraculously from cancer.

Ace still uses the internet for a great deal of social interaction. He may no longer be confined to a hospital bed, but his friends' excessive care for him is a bit grating, he has to admit, especially now that he doesn't actually need the concern. It's weird for more than just him, apparently, now that Ace is suddenly cancer-free. Most of them haven't seemed to process it just yet.

He had retreated to the internet this morning after Izou had graciously let Ace have first turn of the bathroom — something Izou would not have done for anyone who doesn't have stomach cancer. The man spent far too much time on his appearance for such a thing.

Ace is now trying to tell the story of his recovery to those who actually believe he has cancer; however, it seems that in the process, he has somehow destroyed their belief in him having cancer in the first place. Ace furrows his brow and decides that Truth On the Internet is hard.

After a while Ace gives up on his believers-who-are-now-nonbelievers and grabs his swim trunks instead. There is a pool out back of the large house he shares with sixteen other people — fifteen his friends and one Thatch's grandfather. Ace hasn't been swimming in a very long time but it is one of his favourite ways to relax.

Ace breaks the water and his limbs feel heavy. It seems odd; yes, he hasn't swum in a while, but he is in no way unfit and he was a very good swimmer back in the day. Ace decides he will have to train up again and starts lapping the pool.

After a few laps his lungs start to burn for oxygen. He wants to come up for air but it's almost as if his body isn't listening, because it keeps going. By the time his limbs start to come to they are so heavy and he is so breathless that he doesn't fight the narcolepsy for a second, because he can't.

He can't imagine how Luffy could be here. He may have snuck into the hospital, and the street may have been a coincidence, but Luffy is in Ace's backyard. As in, private property. And he just saved Ace from drowning in his own pool.

Luffy is looking at the water in an odd way. "Weird," he says, and Ace turns his head to the pool and searches for irregularities. "I've never swam before."

He looks like he still hasn't. Luffy is bone dry. Ace, still groggy and dripping wet, is leaning on him, but when Ace turns his head to look down on the younger he sees that the droplets falling from him are not being absorbed by Luffy's clothes at all. Despite the soft, cottony feel of the shirt the water is simply sliding off.

Luffy begins to lay Ace down on the towel, but pauses, and gives him a quick hug. Ace feels the need to push this possible stalker off him but his limbs are still too heavy and he is still too focused on the oxygen problem.

Ace is laid down fully and Luffy sits next to him for a while, absently brushing wet hair out of a freckled face as Ace lies there and gasps for breath. The second Ace regains conscious control of his body Luffy's hands retract.

"Who the fuck—" Ace starts, but there is chlorine in his throat, and suddenly he is coughing instead. Luffy reaches over to rub his back but Ace knocks his hand away. "What do you want with me?"

Luffy looks away as a light in the window comes on. It distracts Ace from Luffy for only a second but it is enough that by the time he looks back, Luffy is gone.

Ace cannot write it off as a coincidence no matter how hard he tries.

His friend Namur is a swimming instructor, and Ace is accompanying the man to the rec centre when he wanders off. The rec centre has an accessible roof, which he remembers fondly from days when he was just a child settling into his new life with Marco and everyone, and Thatch would bring him up here to play.

Ace is sitting on the metal railing meant to prevent people from falling off the building. It would do a better job of keeping people in if it were taller, to be honest. Ace remembers himself and his only similarly aged friends when he was little, Sabo and Koala, daring each other to walk on the slim ledge that stuck out on the other side of it. The only trouble they ever had was the adult who was with them.

Ace doesn't turn around when the door to the roof opens to admit a group of young men and women, who are announced by familiar laughter. He is admiring the skyline, even as the group's laughter tapers off and he can tell they are looking at him, without even seeing them.

"Well, look who it is!" one says. It's Doflamingo.

Another, Bellamy, laughs. "It's Cancer-ass himself!"

"That is the worst nickname, Bellster," Ace says, still without turning around. He smirks, expecting Bellamy's customary response.

"It's no worse than Bellster!"

"At least Bellster isn't a terrible pun." On something that doesn't even apply anymore, no less. No more cancerous tumours for him.

"At least Cancer-ass is accurate," Bellamy says, coming forward and putting an amiable hand on Ace's shoulder. Usually, Ace would correct him and say that he has stomach cancer, which is technically not in his ass. Then Bellamy would say that he can't call him Cancer-belly, it doesn't have the same ring to it, and anyway it would be confusing with a Cancer-belly and a Bellamy.

But today, Ace just turns around fully and says, "No, it isn't."

Bellamy's grin falters for a moment, tripped up from the routine, but he presses on, "Oh yeah? And why not?"

"I don't have cancer," Ace replies, and the present company falls speechless. Doflamingo is tilting his head, looking amused as always with an added note of intrigue, and Dellinger is pursing his lips almost angrily, and Violet has lifted a hand to her mouth and is trading glances with Baby-Five.

Sugar plops another one of her grapes into her mouth. "Liar. Go die."

Usually, Ace would accuse her of having a Napoleon Complex after a comment like that. But the routine he has with this group is already gone. "I'm not lying. Full recovery."

"So you don't need to go to the hospitals anymore? You don't need to be extra careful?" Baby-Five asks, lip quivering. "You don't need me to… h-help you…?" That is all she gets out before she is in the corner, mourning the loss of his need for her, apparently.

"Um, no, I don't." He ignores Baby-Five as she descends into hysterics and Violet rushes to comfort her. "I had surgery some time ago, and—" it was a success, he almost says, but that would be inaccurate. "—no more cancer."

"Well, don't expect that groupie to stop calling you Cancer-ass either way," Dellinger says, rubbing his nose. Bellamy glares at him and he smiles in response, eyes narrowed.

"Now, now," Doflamingo interrupts them. He grins as Bellamy's glare and Dellinger's smugness fade away, and they look at him with respect they both share. "Don't fight, children. We'll have to pay for whatever you break." He laughs.

How Doflamingo can call people like them children and get away with it, Ace will always wonder. He sometimes wishes he had that kind of power over people.

Bellamy rolls his eyes and looks at Ace, trying to convey the contempt he has for Dellinger. Ace rolls his eyes back, because it is customary, and leans back so that he is only precariously still on the railing. He feels hungry, and it is distracting him.

In a show of manly solidarity, Bellamy goes to pat Ace on the shoulder, but it winds up more like a shove, and then Ace is falling.

It takes one story of the rec centre for Ace to realise that, holy shit, he actually fell off a building. Ace glances at said building; he has seven… six more stories to fall. Glad their local rec centre is huge, Ace hopes he can nine-lives it up and land on his feet.

Just as he is trying to maneuver to land feet-first, something warm presses into his back and his descent slows at three stories up. Ace's eyes screw shut as the wind hits his face with even more intensity than before, and he can only feel the warm, soft thing lowering him to the ground.

It is the pavement of a disused street that he and the thing hit. Ace doesn't open his eyes or move, and just lays there, trying to determine whether he has died. He thinks he might have found the afterlife, considering he feels to be cocooned in a downy, ticklish sort of material, and the warm-thing that saved him is apparently a person. There are lean and firm arms around his waist, and a chin resting on his shoulder.

"I'm sorry," Luffy's voice says into his ear. "You're going to have a fractured leg and a small concussion this time. It was the best I could do."

Ace's eyes open, and all they see is white. White feathers, hundreds and maybe thousands of them, surround him. He can see each and every one from this close, overlapping each other and trembling just the tiniest bit with the beat of a heart. One comes away from the others, drifting down, and lands delicately on his chest. Ace cannot breathe.

Luffy snatches up the feather in a moment. Suddenly he can breathe again, but then Luffy tucks the feather behind Ace's ear, and all his thoughts turn hazy. He blinks up at the possible-stalker-now-possible-angel, as if he can blink the daze from his eyes. He cannot possibly describe what's in Luffy's expression as they look at each other, because he doesn't know what it is.

Luffy and the feathers disappear from sight. Soon, Ace's head and leg begin to throb.

Ace blames all of this, later, on the concussion. It makes a neat explanation so that he can share the story without being seen as insane. He blames his later decision to test if this vision was real on the head injury as well, but he's still getting to that part.

After "Luffy" disappeared, the ambulance his friends had called from the nearby hospital showed up. Ace was taken away, and can only assume that someone told Namur what happened because he is there right now, sitting next to Ace's hospital cot with Bellamy.

"You are the most reckless, suicidal idiot I have ever known," Namur says. "You overcome cancer just to fall off a, what, nine story building? Idiot!"

"I lived," Ace says slowly. The doctors have him on probably more pain medication than he needs; he did just fall off a nine story building, after all, and only got some minor injuries to show for it. "I'm in good shape, too."

"Somehow," Doctor Trafalgar says, appearing. God, that man is sneaky. "A fractured fibula, and a bit of a concussion…" Trafalgar taps his pen on the clipboard he is reading from, and raises an eyebrow at Ace. "You really are miraculous, aren't you?"

Bellamy looks like he's about to speak, and Ace hopes he is not about to upgrade him from Cancer-ass to Miracul-ass. "Miraculous all right," Bellamy says. "What are you, Boy Wonder?"

Ace can tell from Bellamy's expression that he has, indeed, earned a new nickname. Luckily, it seems he has graduated from atrocious puns, and his diploma is a comic book reference.

He waits until Doctor Trafalgar leaves to confer with the other doctors to tell his friends the story of the angel he saw. Namur becomes stuck on the prelude to the story, that of Luffy-the-probable-stalker himself, while Bellamy thinks it's hilarious that Ace sees a stalker as an angel. Ace's eyebrow twitches when Namur starts making plans to take out a restraining order and Bellamy nearly dies laughing right there.

Namur exits, and Ace doesn't doubt at all that he's going to actually take out that restraining order. Bellamy sticks around long enough for Ace to extract a promise from him that he'll help with the veracity test that has already been mentioned, but then he gets a call from Doflamingo, who needs him to do another "job," and he leaves too.

It is a busy day for the hospital; by the end of the night the doctors have made enough time to get his leg into a proper cast. Ace chooses to sleep there instead of calling someone to pick him up so late.

In the morning, Thatch has been called in for pick up, and Ace is wandering, limping slightly, around the ward to get used to movement with an injured leg. He has rejected the use of crutches.

He finds the bed he was laid in before his Miracle within a few minutes. There is someone new there now, a sleeping blond man covered in burns who looks somewhat familiar, but he cannot place why. Ace isn't focused on him anyway.

He looks at the scenic photographs, still the same ones, hanging on the wall. Goa, the tiered, walled city, still looms in one of them, ancient and decayed. It's the one that held Luffy's attention, Ace reminds himself. He tries to see what is appealing about it, but he never liked the photo himself. He can't really place why when he tries. It is simply… off-putting.

"Hi," says the man on the bed.

Ace jumps, turning to the blond. He has his right eye open now, awake, and looking curiously at Ace. The man's blue eye makes him even more familiar, and Ace wonders if he really does know this person, who is lying there in a way that makes it obvious to Ace he is in pain.

"Er… Did I disturb you? Sorry." Ace looks around for a chair, then realises he hasn't yet practised standing up without help, which he assumes would be a pain. "I'm Ace."

"Ace," the man whispers. His eyes rove over Ace, growing wide. "I'll be damned. It's you, isn't it?"

"I guess? Do you know me? I mean, you kind of look familiar…" Ace tilts his head, and returns the favour of surveying eyes. The man's hair is tight against his head, some of it singed off, and the scarring seems most prominent over his still-closed left eye. There are more machines around the bed than there were when Ace was resting in the same spot; they sort of look like a life support set-up.

"I'm Sabo," the man says as his mouth stretches into a careful grin. "Remember me?"

"Sabo," Ace repeats, heart stopping in his chest for a second. "Fuck yes, I remember you. I couldn't not remember you."

"God, I missed you, you crazy asshole," Sabo says.

"I'd give you a hug, but you know," Ace gestures at the machines, "you look like you'll crumble if I touch you."

Sabo laughs, and wheezes. The sound is nostalgic, and a bit painful too, because Sabo is clearly in pain and Ace can only wish that he'd be better. He looks… fragile, almost, like he would die at any moment — Ace hopes that Sabo's condition isn't as bad as it looks, because Sabo is like a brother to him, and he'll do anything for him not to die.

Sabo's eyelids droop, and he says quietly, "Pretty soon… I'm going to die pretty soon, Ace," which only confirms everything Ace had just thought, and now Ace is ready to die with him. "There was a fire, and… my lungs…"

Sabo is lying on a hospital bed in front of him, on the verge of death, and it is the first time they have seen each other in what feels like centuries. Sabo burned up and smaller than he should be against the stark white sheets, Ace feels the scene is something unnatural.

There is something in the corner of his eye. He turns his head to take a better look, and he sees Luffy loitering over by the wall. He is smiling gently at the two of them, but while Ace can't say for sure, the look in his eyes is somewhere between dread and melancholy.

A redheaded girl appears, abruptly, at Luffy's side. Ace cannot tell where she came from. She places a hand on the boy's shoulder, and when he turns to look at her, she shakes her head. Luffy shoots one more look at Ace and Sabo as the girl leads him away.

"Sorry," Ace says to Sabo shortly, eyes glued on Luffy and the girl. "I- I have to go."

"What?" Sabo asks. Ace doesn't answer, and begins limping away. "But…"

Ace follows them out of the ward and down the hall. He picks up speed when they turn a corner and, when he tails them around it, he walks straight into Thatch's chest with enough force to knock them both down.

Selma, who was accompanying Thatch up to fetch him, helps them up to their feet. Thatch groans a bit but Ace only has the mind to crane his neck and search the hallway. It is empty, and Luffy and the girl are gone.

Bellamy is able to find a suitable abandoned building for the test in not much time at all. Ace suspects Doflamingo's interference, to be honest, but he isn't complaining. This time it benefits him.

The building is one story, and used to be someone's home. It is a little like an old log cabin, and is about to be torn down anyway for the construction of another skyscraper. There is nothing else but cement around for miles.

It is absolutely perfect to burn to the ground.

Ace and Bellamy start by casing the place; any leftover possessions from the last owner are either shoved in their pockets or collected for kindling. Bellamy has already warned Ace to be on the lookout for anything potentially explosive, because according to his "sources" — cough, Doflamingo, cough — the building was previously owned by an experimental chemist named Caesar.

Once they are sure they have found everything, Ace lies down on the couch. Bellamy starts to stack kindling around him, and when he's done, he steps back and looks around the room.

"I don't see him," Bellamy says, smirking. "Do you see how crazy this is yet?"

"Of course you don't see him," Ace says. He knows he sounds stubborn but it is only the truth he is telling. "He only appears when I'm in danger… I think…"

"You think?" Bellamy asks, brow raised. "Fucking hell, what do you mean, you think?"

"I'm not sure why he was at the hospital last week… It wasn't really dangerous there." Ace adjusts himself into a more comfortable position. "But yeah, we're more likely to see him if I'm genuinely in danger."

"You are in genuine danger," Bellamy responds. He rolls his eyes and shakes the lighter in his hand. "You're fucking suicidal. That, that is dangerous."

"Just light me on fire already, would you?"

Bellamy blinks. "Wait, you mean you actually want to…" He sees the expectant look Ace gives him, and nearly drops the lighter. "You're not just suicidal, you're insane. And concussed. You are suicidal, insane, and concussed."

"Hey, this is perfectly logical," Ace says. A shawl falls from the back of the couch onto his legs, and he kicks it off, because if that caught fire still on him it would be too late to escape. Speaking of fabric… "Do you think I should be naked?"

"Of course. It's only logical," Bellamy says gravely. "HELL NO!"

"Bellster, think about it. What if my clothes caught on fire while I was wearing them?"

"You're clothes aren't gonna catch on fire, because there isn't gonna be any goddamn fire in this house." Bellamy caps the lighter and tosses it across the room, far, far away from Ace. "Fucking hell, I thought you'd be the last person in the world to chase after some crazy dream. Have you gone nuts? Oh, I forgot, you're just concussed."

Ace sighs. He sits up more fully, leaning against the back of the couch. "I thought you'd chicken out…"

"Ace," Bellamy says slowly, "do you really need me to explain this to you? Dreams. Aren't. Real. You think you saw an angel? That's just a dream!"

"So do you think the guy who wrote the bible was dreaming too, then?" Ace muses, digging around in a pocket. "Or all the people who believed his words?"

"Maybe they were," says Bellamy. "They might have all been dreamers for all I know. But that was then. The age of dreamers is over now. Everyone knows it just isn't real."

"I saw it, Bellster."

"While concussed. Are you really gonna trust your eyes while you're concussed? I don't know if hallucinations are a symptom of concussions, but it seems likely." Bellamy looks suspiciously at the item Ace has just pulled out of his cargo shorts after an extensive search. "Oh yeah, have I mentioned, you're concussed?"

"Well, Sabo's dead," Ace says, flicking open his own lighter. "And I wasn't there for him, and it was fire that did him in, and I wasn't there 'cause I was chasing this damn angel dream. So are you gonna help me see if that was for nothing after all or not?"

"You're drugged up on pain meds, too," Bellamy mutters, but he takes the second lighter from Ace anyway. "Jesus. You better make it out of this one, Boy Wonder."

Ace lies down again. He watches as Bellamy crouches to reach the kindling, trying the lighter again and again. "Did you check under the couch?" he asks, as an afterthought.

"Nah," Bellamy answers. "Nothing's ever under couches but dust. Maybe a marble." A small flame sparks up in his hand.

There is cement under Ace's back, and an angel watching over him. Luffy is hovering in front of his face — not hovering as he could be on the wings he is hiding, but simply propped up on his elbows — and his face. His face is so pained.

"Why would you do that," Luffy says shakily, not really a question. "Why— Why—"

"To see you," Ace answers, which is true, and Luffy half-sobs. "It worked…"

"Y-your friend is dead," says Luffy. "I'm sorry, I couldn't—" he breaks off, inhaling at a quick rate.

Ace looks up at the sky. It is filled with smoke. He turns to the house, which is entirely blocked from view by the bright light of flames, but Ace feels no heat. "Fuck," he whispers. "B-Bell… Bellamy…"

"It's already started," a woman's voice interrupts. Ace looks up and sees it is the redhead he saw at the hospital. Luffy glances at her, but he is still hovering, and giving Ace the undivided attention of his so-fucking-pained face. Luffy's eyes mist over slightly, and the most-almost-definitely angel looks so, so young.

Ace has to look away from that. He turns his eyes on the redhead. "Do you have wings too?"

She stiffens, and gives Luffy a dirty look. "You showed him?" she hisses.

"Nami," Luffy says. It sounds like a name, so Ace assumes it's hers. "I…"

"No. It's bad enough that you—" Luffy is in front of her suddenly, covering her mouth. Ace blinks a few times, and is disoriented enough that the idea of Luffy being a ninja starts to make a whole lot of sense to him. Nami pushes his hand down, and they have what looks like a stand-off.

"Nami," says Luffy, pleadingly.

"Luffy," says Nami, warningly.

"Why are you doing this?" he asks, and his tone hits a sad note that Ace didn't know existed.

"Why are you doing this?" she asks in return, looking down her nose at Ace.

"You know why," Luffy says quietly.

"I do." Nami glances away, back at the burning building. It occurs to Ace that there are probably firetrucks on the way, and maybe some panda cars, but he hasn't heard sirens yet. "But you can't keep this up, Luffy. Not forever."

"Why can't I?" Luffy asks her. He sounds petulant, stubborn, and just a little bit childish. "I could. I can. But you — all of you — you don't want me to."

"Luffy, he has to die," she says sombrely. Luffy grits his teeth, and Ace feels something cold running up his spine.

"No. No, you say he does, but he can live, can't he?" Luffy says. "H-he can be an old man someday. He can grow old and die when he has wrinkles and grandchildren. He doesn't have to die young!"

Nami purses her lips, looking down at Ace again. There is more compassion there, this time, but somehow Ace thinks it's directed not at him but at Luffy. "This time," she starts, already sounding as if she regrets the words. "This time, I'll let him go. But you can't step in anymore. This time is the last time, promise me."

"I…" Luffy's head drops. "I promise. I won't drag him back to this world anymore."

"Good. Now make him forget about us, and we'll leave."

Luffy is hovering over Ace again, very suddenly. Ace has just enough time to process the words "make him forget about us" when Luffy's fingers dust over his forehead, and the angel leans down towards his ear.

"Please," Ace whispers quickly, and Luffy wavers. "D-don't make me forget you. I want to remember." If he forgot, he knew he would wind up trying to test the angel vision again, and he didn't think he could afford to anymore.

"…Okay," Luffy breathes into his ear. "Then remember."

He pulls back and, shooting a glance at Nami, presses his thumb in between Ace's eyes. "Sleep."

At Bellamy's funeral, there are several people who glare at Ace every time they see him. Others avert their eyes from him. Violet and Baby-Five don't seem to regard him in anything but pity, and when he ran into Sugar, her face was disapproving, even as she stuffed her cheeks with the grapes at the table laid out with food.

Dellinger and Doflamingo, when he sees them, look unmoved.

Ace is sitting in a fold-up chair by the wall, away from the larger portions of the congregation, when Nami says, "He didn't make you forget, did he?"

He's able to resist jumping, this time. Instead he just turns, and sees that she is sitting on the previously empty chair next to his. He considers his answer, but she doesn't wait for one past a beat of silence.

"Figures," she scoffs, trying to arrange herself more comfortably on the stiff chair. In the end she settles for crossing her legs and perching her hands on her knee. "He's always been selfish."

"I asked him not to," Ace says defensively. He doesn't like it when people insult his… Ace stops. Usually that sentence would end with 'family,' but Luffy isn't that. What then? His… guardian angel? "Don't blame him."

"I'm blaming him alright," Nami says under her breath, half-growling. "That moron should have just ignored you."

"Oi. What the hell have you got against me?"

"You shouldn't be alive!" she yells. The majority of the funeral goers turn and stare at the both of them at this. A few whisper to each other, and Nami's cheeks shade slightly red. "Sorry," she says curtly to the others.

Some people nod at her, and about half of those people look like they're nodding to agree; Ace shouldn't be alive. Ace wonders what he did to those people, but then he remembers. He killed Bellamy.

"Why not?" he whispers, once he is sure everyone else is otherwise occupied. "Why shouldn't I… be alive? Luffy seemed to think I should…"

Nami scowls, a reproving curve of the mouth that stretches across her face. "That's his opinion. The rest of the universe disagrees."

"Ouch."

"I'm being literal," Nami says.

"Double ouch."

"You were scheduled to die," she explains, "right there on the operating table. That's when you first met him, isn't it?" Ace nods, and she goes on, "Luffy reached in and interfered, so you lived. And now the rest of us have to work overtime to rewrite the rest of existence."

"The rest of… What? I don't do that much."

Nami heaves a breath, turns to him, and suddenly he feels like a child who drew on the walls. "Have you never heard of the butterfly effect? You affect everyone you interact with, who affect everyone they interact with, and so on. And we — we're a bit like the universe's accountants. We have to keep track of all that."

"Eternally?" Ace asks, but she looks out over the mourning crowd and doesn't deign to answer. "That has to be a pain in the ass."

"…No, not eternally," Nami says, hushed, her eyes flickering downcast. "We didn't always. The world — well, there didn't use to be destinies."

"Why would you add them?" Ace cannot understand. He has always liked the freedom that came with knowing the future was built on his actions. The appeal of destiny, which the media adored so much, is not something he has ever understood. "Why put everyone's life in a tube?"

"There used to be more corruption than you could imagine," Nami says, hollowly. "The kind of wars you can only read about in fantasy epics these days. There were great people, and terrible people, people with the power of gods whether they deserved it or not, and we were all destroying the world together. It was chaos." She is facing him again, suddenly back to alert and focused. "Ace, please tell me you understand now."

He stares at her, unsure what she wants him to say. "Understand what, exactly?"

"Why you have to die," Nami presses, and leans in. "This is serious, Ace. We can't let things get out of hand again."

"I'm not so sure me living a bit longer than I should will inspire the end of the world," Ace says, edging away from her. She is almost touching him as it is, and he remembers, faintly, Luffy putting him to sleep with a fingertip. He doesn't want to imagine what she could do if she started leaning on his shoulder.

"But the longer you stay alive, the harder it is for us to keep things in check," she says, and pulls back, seemingly having noticed his discomfort. "Bellamy wasn't meant to die, you know. If you had passed on as planned, he would be sitting down to dinner right about now. He'd have a Kraft Dinner that wasn't very satisfying. Then he'd get a call from Doflamingo, and have a job for the night, doing—"

"I get it," Ace interrupts. He looks around the room, hoping that no one has looked over; not everyone in the wake is privy to Doflamingo's business, and the ones that are would recognise Nami as one that shouldn't be. "What do you want me to do about it?"

"The universe wants you dead," she tells him, "and it wants it now."

Nami disappears, comparable to flicking off a lamp, before Ace's very eyes.

Ace doesn't sleep that night. When the sun rises, he deems it a reasonable hour to "wake up," and wanders down to the kitchen for supplies.

Thatch is there, making breakfast. Izou and Vista sit at the table, one nursing a cup of tea, and the other munching on toast over the newspaper as he pours over it. Ace thinks about how many times Marco has told Vista not to do that. The answer is many.

"You're up early for once," Izou notes as he stirs his tea. Vista glances over the top of the paper when he hears that, and then, automatically, takes off the comic section and starts to hand it to Ace.

Ace shakes his head, and instead asks Thatch, "Do we have any rope down in the shed?"

"Probably," Thatch answers, and flips a pancake in the air. "I'm not the expert there, though. Rakuyo would know better, or maybe Marco. Marco's obsessive enough to do inventory."

Ace does not want to ask Marco. Marco would see through him in an instant, and then he would never get anywhere with that mother hen breathing down his neck. "I'll go check for myself," he says, and starts off.

The shed is empty except for Thatch's grandfather, whom everyone just calls Oyaji. The tall old man is napping, his dog, Stefan, asleep in his lap, so Ace is sure to be extra quiet as he snoops through all the drawers. He finds a a few pieces of rope, but none of them are the right length for his purposes.

He is examining one that looked the right length, but is actually far too short, when he straightens and knocks his head on a shelf. Oyaji startles, Ace sees as he wheels around to check, but doesn't wake. Stefan shifts, and Ace sees a length of rope gripped in the huge dog's jaws. Could it be?

With his luck, it probably is. The universe hates him, after all — and that is an official, proven fact these days. Of course it wants him to work for his goal. Stefan, a trained guard dog, will probably wake up and maul him, and then Luffy will show up, and then the universe will be even more pissed off.

But no — Luffy promised he wouldn't save Ace's life anymore. So if — if the universe wants him to die by doggy jaws — then that's probably for the best. Ace goes for the rope.

Stefan lifts his droopy doggy eyelids when he feels Ace's first tug. Ace tries to look as threatening to the dog as he can, which would be easier if he knew what guard dogs were trained to look for before they attack, but Stefan just gives him a surprisingly human look that says, "could you be any stupider?" and relinquishes the rope at Ace's second tug.

Ace looks down at the slobbery rope that he now must use, and thinks, he really would have preffered death by doggy jaws. Doggy jaws would have been marginally more agreeable than what he is about to do with this slobbery rope.

Ace gives Stefan a pat on the head before he leaves, anyway. He considers waking up Oyaji, because he's always been fond of the man, and he wants one last conversation. But Oyaji can see through him even better than Marco, and would know that Ace is about to have a slobbery noose around his neck before he even says 'good morning.'

Ace must pass through the kitchen again on his way back up to his room. Izou looks up from the plate of pancakes and sausage that is now in front of him, as does Thatch, although Vista does not look up from his paper. Namur, still half-asleep, is arriving just as he gets there, and the others are likely taking a page from Oyaji's book and sleeping in for Sunday.

"Ace, why do you have wet rope?" Namur asks, a little dazed, punctuating his question with a yawn.

The others are looking at him more intensely now, and even Vista is glancing his way. Ace flinches, and tucks the rope further up under his arm. "Well…"

"Because that's what he's into, obviously," Haruta answers for him, as she descends the staircase. She wears her mischevious little smirk, as always, and Ace is irritated by it more than usual. "Jeez, Namur, be a bit more tactful next time."

"Our little boy," Izou coos in a falsetto, "all grown up and kinky!"

"Stefan was chewing on it! It was the only one long enough!"

"For what? Whipping?" Vista says, his eyes already back on the paper. Ace wants to steal the rest of his toast just for that, but he has no use for it. He isn't keen on a last meal.

"We don't judge, hun, there's no need to worry," Izou says, but Ace is already rushing up the stairs.

"That's right!" Haruta calls after him. "You'll always be our good little boy!"

"Or a bad boy, if that's what you like!" Thatch is grinning, Ace can tell. It's audible in his voice.

"What did I say?" Ace hears Namur mutter, just before he is out of earshot.

Ace turns into his bedroom before anyone else can see him, and sits down on his bed. The rope is mostly dry now, so he starts to tie it into a hangman's noose.

Their little boy, they said, their good little boy. He remembers that — being their little boy. They probably remember it better than he does. He was still so young, back then, when Oyaji and Marco themselves brought Ace, a cancer-riddled street rat, into their home. They were more like parents, back then, than the brother and sister titles they took up. It is shameful for a parent to outlive their child, someone had told him once, a long time ago, while they were dying. He can only assume it was his mother or father.

Everyone he knows is about to outlive him — except Bellamy, something reminds him, and Sabo. By that phrase's logic he's about to bring shame on them all. But then, they are all outliving Bellamy and Sabo, too.

Ace went through a really depressive, suicidal stage during his adolescence. He tied this same knot so many times, he can't fail to do it from memory anymore. He never even hung up the nooses. He just tied them, and stared at them for a while, and scrapped them. He never knew how he managed to keep from going through with it over the years. Now he wonders if it was only because he was predestined to die on an operation table.

Ace even has an exposed rafter on his ceiling, which he spent many nights staring at when he was a teen and even a child. As a child, though, it was because of the glow-in-the-dark star stickers, which his siblings had decorated it with for him, that he was so entranced.

He hangs the noose, and takes the old wicker chair from the corner to place underneath it. His hands are sticky, that discomforting feeling of dried saliva all over his palms, and Ace decides he doesn't want to die with sticky hands if he can help it.

No one is in the bathroom when he checks. The door to his room has been shut firmly, because he cannot stand to think what would happen if someone peaked in to see the drooled-upon noose hanging there in all its glory.

His hands, once they are drool free, freeze on the handle of his own bedroom door. Sense comes back to him before even the shock fades and he closes it behind him, but keeps his eyes glued on the guardian angel, who sits in the wicker chair.

"Ace," is all Luffy says, and suddenly he loses the will to go through with it.

"I thought you promised not to save my life…"

"I promised not to drag you back from death," Luffy corrects. He is in front of Ace now. His wings spread and envelop Ace like they did on the cement street, and now, Ace feels so safe, and happy, and a little bit dizzy, but either way he cannot imagine wanting to kill himself anymore. He thinks, faintly, that this might be a magic trick, that Luffy is inducing these feelings on him, but it feels nice enough that he does not care. "You're not dead yet."

"He should be," says Nami. He wonders when she entered the room, but like Luffy's weird, emotion manipulating magic, he does not care. He's not sure he cares about anything. The wings, yes, the wings are definitely magic. "Put those things away."

Luffy does. Ace's skin feels the air again, and his mind unscrambles, and he is not sure whether to be offended because Luffy just controlled him on a fundemental level, or to ask for the feeling back, because it really did feel very, very good.

"Please, Luffy," Nami says. "Please, you have to let it go. Let him go. This isn't healthy, for anyone, and it never was."

"I'll let him go when he's lived a full life," Luffy answers. "He deserves more than—"

"Luffy." Ace is the one who interrupts this time. "I have to die. I understand now. I don't want more people to die because I'm still alive. I don't want… I want to know if there's an afterlife. I want to move on, Lu."

Luffy has been staring at him throughout all of this, but when he hits the last word, the angel's face turns inwards like he's been kicked. "A-Ace… No. Live. Please live… you have to live…" Luffy steps forward, even closer, and he is short enough that Ace can now see his back when he looks down. He sees two mounds of white fluff there; the wings, he guesses, but only half-revealed. They are quivering, like they want to stretch out, and surround him again. Ace almost opens his mouth to say it would be fine with him.

Nami looks like even she wants to let him go again. But of course, she can't. He will force her not to if she suggests it. Ace has to die, and he knows it.

"I'm sorry, Lu," Ace says. Luffy sniffles, and Ace pulls him into a hug on instinct. What instinct that comes from, he doesn't know. "But, I'm gonna die for real now, okay?"

"NO!"

They are not in Ace's room anymore. Ace and Luffy, and Nami when she appears a few beats later, are in a space of pure nothing. It is absence, entirely absence, and it disorients Ace when he looks at it directly. Luffy and Nami don't seem to have the same problem — not that Luffy is noticing their surroundings either way.

"No, no, no, no, no, no, no!" Luffy shouts, and again, and again, he shouts it again. He's pulling away from Ace's embrace, and covering his own ears, and shouting again and again, "No!" before it changes to "You can't! You can't die! You promised, you said, you promised that you…"

Ace and Nami both reach out to him at the same time, but Luffy's legs give out underneath him, and he hits the floor on his knees.

"J-just don't die, okay? Don't die," Luffy says, looking up at Ace. Ace wants to promise he won't, and then he remembers Luffy saying he promised something already, and wonders what that was. "I don't want you to die. Why can't I save you? Why can I never save you?"

"Luffy, please don't make me do this," Nami says, and edges around Luffy to stand closer to Ace.

"Don't die…" Luffy pleads again, ignoring her.

She gives Ace a regretful glance. "I am so, so sorry for this." Then she presses the palm of her hand into Ace's back, between the shoulder blades, and suddenly he is burning.

He lurches forward with a shudder as something, something hotter than any fire he has ever been near crawls through his chest from back to front. His lungs are scorching and his spine — his spine — is his spine still there? He looks down. Something is — dripping — out the front of his chest. It might be flesh. It's probably flesh.

Ace falls onto his knees, and Luffy — poor, poor Luffy — is right there, gaping at him, gaping like the hole in Ace's chest and then Luffy is crying.

"N-not this," he says weakly, though that may just be Ace's ears failing him now, because burning hole in chest — "Anything but this again!"

"You had so many chances for it to be something else, Luffy," Nami says. Her voice is warped, it's twisting, and arriving in Ace's head all in the wrong order. "You rejected them all. I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry!"

"Ace, can you hear me?!" Luffy says, and he can, much clearer than he can hear Nami, anyway. "Y-you're… gonna be okay… You just need a doctor! Nami, get him a doctor! Nami!"

"No," Ace tries to say, and — and it doesn't feel like any sound is coming out, but it feels like Luffy hears him, so it's fine. He can do it this way. "N-no, Lu, it's too late…"

Luffy whimpers, and Ace falls forward, and Luffy catches him. What happened to Nami? Ace can't see her, but the nothingness, the absence, it isn't nothing anymore, isn't absent. There are people all around them now, and no one is looking at them. Luffy whimpers, again.

"T-tell Nami, I'm sorry, for being such—" He coughs. It is mostly blood. "—trash, I guess. Sorry I messed up th… the universe." He feels one of Luffy's hands pull away from his back, and can tell a lot of blood went with it. He sees Luffy looking at it, the hand, over Ace's shoulder. The people around them are fighting each other. It looks like war. "B-but…"

Ace sees Marco, fighting in the war, and he's a bird. Ace doesn't know how he recognises Marco when Marco's a bird, but of course Marco's a bird, that mother hen. Mother phoenix. Whatever. "…Thank you."

Ace's shoulder is wet. It isn't blood, and it isn't rain, and it's coming from Luffy's face. It's tears. But, Luffy shouldn't cry. This is for the best. He's going to see Thatch now — but no, Thatch is alive, he just made breakfast. Ace saw him. But no, Thatch is dead, Ace found the body bloody and mangled on the deck of the ship—

Ace is going to see Bellamy and Sabo. Maybe Thatch, too, and whoever it was who told him it would be shameful for his parents to outlive him — was that his mom? But his mom died in childbirth; he could never have been able to remember that — and who's Bellamy anyway? Ace never met a Bellamy.

"Thank you, little brother," Ace says to Luffy, but why would he say that, Luffy is just — an angel — such an angel, his precious little brother. Luffy fought Garp just to save him. Who's Garp? "Thanks for… caring, so much, and…"

Where did Ace's shirt go? Why was Ace wearing a shirt in the first place when it would cover his tattoos? What tattoos? He sees Vista, with his fancy sword and his flower petals, fighting too. Why? And Namur trundles past, looking fifty percent more fish than human. "…and thank you… for loving me."

Everything stops. Ace slides from Luffy's grip and lands on the nothingness. He feels dead, but he feels awake, and he watches as Luffy turns his head up to the absent sky and half-cries, half-screams. Nami is there now, wrapping her arms around him, and she cries too. Ace smiles for them, and sleeps.