Last (and longest) chapter! Stuff will be at the bottom. And this story broke 200 reviews! (Side note: Timelines are irritating and screw explanations)

Chapter 25

Ace liked to think that trouble followed him around. It wasn't his fault that some rather unfortunate situations and circumstances all coalesced to form one great, big, miserable situation. It wasn't plausible. Certainly his luck wasn't that bad, right? He'd met Luffy, after all. Who could have better luck than that?

But sometimes, trouble found Ace in the strangest of places, or at the most inconvenient of times, and Ace was forced to wonder whether it was trouble following him around or it simply lying in wait.

Or Ace thought that he was the trouble. Because this could not be coincidence. Just who the hell decided to have a revolution in the middle of the damned day, anyway?

He'd been quietly eating lunch, trying to fill the emptiness in his stomach as quickly as possible, as per usual. Luckily, he had the money to pay for the meal (though he wouldn't unless he absolutely had to; dining and dashing brought back fond memories), and the other customers at the small restaurant didn't seem to care that Ace was eating enough food for four men at once.

Absently, he wondered if Devil Fruit eaters ate more than normal people. Then he decided he didn't care.

It had been over two years since Ace battled Akainu, and now that he was healed, he was taking advantage of his freedom and simply sailing around. He'd already met some very interesting people on other very interesting islands—this one not included.

The first few months had been full of recovery and therapy for his wrist. He'd never felt safer on the Moby Dick than those first weeks when he'd been unable to even eat unassisted. Marco and Thatch had hovered over him when their duties as commanders didn't force them away, and they'd informed Ace that even Whitebeard himself had been inquiring about his health almost every day.

And if there had been hell rising in the upper echelons of the marines for a few days before the newspapers got the story straight, then Ace said nothing on the subject.

And if there had been a frantic call from an out-of-the-way mountain bandit tribe that had (somehow) gotten ahold of a Den Den Mushi capable of contacting Ace's, then Ace also said nothing on the subject.

But he'd been noticeably less subdued after those two completely unrelated events.

The next few months after that were full of missions and other commander-related duties, though now Ace was slightly more careful about his returning routes, making sure to steer clear of marine bases and strongholds.

Halfway through the second year, he'd finally gotten permission from Marco to just travel. Seeing Luffy's adventures in the newspapers had awakened Ace's old wanderlust, so the older pirate had given into it all over again and now sailed the seas with the promise that he would be back on the Moby Dick "soon".

Of course, earlier in the first year, Ace had seen the articles about Luffy getting captured and sent to Impel Down (apparently while he was searching for his crew). His family had barely been able to stop him from rushing headlong after his little brother—consequences and ironies be damned—only to offer their support the second Ace calmed down enough to think rationally.

Ace knew Impel Down and Marineford thanks to the time he'd spent at each one. Instead of an all-out war, he and a few other commanders had infiltrated Impel Down, successfully freeing Luffy and accidentally causing a mass jailbreak in the process.

Then the marines had crashed the party, destroying Ace's escape ship, forcing the pirates to hide on a warship docked at the prison. That ship had taken them to Marineford, and there they'd had to raise hell again just to find a way home, which they found—strangely enough—in the form of Trafalgar Law, who claimed that he had just been curious about what the brothers were doing in Marineford and had come to investigate.

Yeah, right. The guy had some kind of plan for Luffy, Ace had known that from the moment they locked eyes, but he was their only ticket out so Ace went with it.

Those had been some of the best days in Ace's recent memory, discounting Law, who still creeped him out a little.

When all was said and done, Luffy went back to Amazon Lily, mentioning that he needed to train and grow stronger. Ace hadn't been sure about what was going through his little brother's head, but he'd trusted the rubbery boy and let him go.

And now, many months after that fiasco, Ace's adventuring had brought him here, to an island he really didn't want to be at right now.

Outside the restaurant, people were yelling and screaming and wailing, a scene so confusing that Ace decided he'd much rather stare at his plate than brave the storm of revolution outside. It had been like that for hours now, and the restaurant was the only isle of peace in the entire affair.

It hadn't been at first, of course. Then Ace had walked in and people had given both him and the restaurant a wide birth, probably because of the tattoo emblazoned on his back. The owner of the restaurant seemed thankful, though, and Ace doubted that he'd have to pay for his meal at all.

So for now, Ace stayed inside, content to let the whole thing calm down before he left. The only reason he was at the isolated island in some strangely named kingdom in the first place was because some stupid bird had stolen his supplies and he'd needed to make a stop lest he risk starving to death on the open ocean. He couldn't exactly go diving for fish, after all, and he didn't have the materials for a fishing pole.

Though he had managed to roast any other bird that tried its luck, and that had tided him over until the island came into sight. Now he regretted not waiting until the next island, but there was nothing he could do now besides wait.

Luckily, after spending so much time with Thatch, he'd learned to stretch his patience past its limits. He probably had a few more hours yet before he started to crack. But he didn't exactly find the bloodcurdling screams coming from outside appealing and he wished that the Revolutionaries would get the entire situation over and done with already. He'd seen them come in on their seemingly normal ships. He probably wouldn't have suspected a thing normally, but Whitebeard knew of the Revolutionaries, as did Marco and Thatch, and they had taught Ace about them.

They taught him to be wary but respectful of the Revolutionaries. Pirates and Revolutionaries didn't necessarily get along, but Whitebeard didn't seem to think that unnecessary conflict would benefit either side. Therefore, they ran like two separate rivers, coming from the same source but leading to different destinations.

Ace wasn't surprised that the kingdom was experiencing a revolution. The entire power structure was crap; the people clearly weren't happy and Ace had seen the beginnings of a complete military dictatorship in the making. At least that had been nipped in the bud; he hated seeing oppression like that. After the Goa Kingdom, he couldn't help the desire to punch any high-and-mighty person he saw, though that impulse was under much better control now.

He sighed, finishing the last of the meal on his plate. For the first time in a while, he felt full. Seeing the watchful eye of the owner, Ace began to reach into his backpack, knowing that a dine-and-dash was impossible with the riots going on outside. Much to the pirate's satisfaction, however, the owner waved him off, smiling insincerely. Despite the owner's expression, Ace accepted the free meal.

He was sleeping before he realized that his head had hit the table.

Things Thought Lost

When Ace woke up, the first thing he noticed was that it was quiet. There were no screams puncturing the air, no ring of weapons clashing against weapons, and no report of gunfire in the distance. It was . . . nice.

He noted that the restaurant seemed empty. The patrons and owner were nowhere in sight; presumably they were wherever everyone else was, which meant that they were either being executed by the old government or celebrating the new one. Ace found the latter possibility to be the most likely one.

The second division commander yawned and stretched, lazily setting his hat back on his head and adjusting it accordingly. He felt refreshed after the food and nap, and the owner had already set supplies aside for Ace earlier. All in all, things were looking up. All he had to do was load the supplies onto Striker, and he would be good to go.

If Striker was damaged, though . . .

Ace burned at the thought and vowed that if that were the case, he'd track down the culprit and burn the damage into his memory as painfully as possible. No one touched his boat. No one.

Once the anger rolled away, Ace stood up, stretched, and yawned again, displaying all the casual grace of a cat. Noting that no one seemed to be in the restaurant, Ace decided to take his leave. He reached for the first of the supply boxes, figuring that he could easily stack the rest on top and carry them all in one trip, only to freeze when he sensed a single presence approaching the restaurant.

Whoever it belonged to was powerful. Not as powerful as Ace, but very, very close. So close that Ace felt his fire rising to the surface automatically. The person didn't seem to be a threat, but the commander couldn't be sure. So he casually stepped away from his supplies and leaned against the wall to the right of the door, trusting the shadows to keep him out of immediate sight. He wanted to get a good look at whoever this guy was before he did the same to Ace.

The sound of footsteps reached Ace's ears but he didn't tense. He regulated his breathing, smoothed out his expression, and watched as the door to the restaurant slowly creaked open. Muted light flooded in from outside; Ace watched the silhouetted figure carefully, taking in details as he saw them.

The person was tall. Taller than him, and by a large margin. No, never mind, his silhouette wasn't completely accurate; there was something altering his height, but now that Ace was looking he could distinguish the shape and he determined that the person was still taller than him.

He wore some kind of hat on his head—a top hat, if Ace had to guess—with something balanced on the rim. He wore a long type of coat, loose pants that tucked into a pair of boots, and something frilly on his collar.

Something about the hat tickled Ace's memory but he brushed it aside, his curiosity piqued by the stranger who was wandering into a seemingly empty shop alone.

The man—Ace saw he was a man as soon as he took another step into the room, allowing Ace to see him more clearly—looked around, his eyes partially shaded by the brim of his hat. Ace, for some reason, wasn't surprised in the slightest when the man's eyes found him leaning against the wall and stayed on him.

"And just who might you be?" Ace drawled, pushing off the wall, standing straight, and taking on a slightly more respectful posture and tone. Old habits never really faded. "I haven't seen you around here before." Who the hell are you, and what the hell are you doing in here?

The man offered a genteel smile. There was really no other way to describe it; his lips curved and his white teeth shone, but there was nothing patronizing about the look. It was honest, if a bit unusual. Ace hadn't seen a smile even remotely like that except on nobles' faces, and then it was usually insincere and dripping with mockery and disdain so intense you could scoop it out of the air with a spoon.

"Ah, I don't mean to be rude," the man said, taking another step into the room and gently closing the door. "Sorry. It's been a while; I wasn't sure how this meeting would go. I've been searching for such a long time—you never stayed in one place very long, you see, and that made it difficult to find you, so I apologize."

Ace got a distinct feeling of wrongness in his gut. He listened to it and his respectful posture became dangerous. Not too much so, but enough to be noticed. The man immediately put up his hands, affecting a sheepish attitude.

"Sorry, sorry. It's just—it's been . . . I haven't seen you in so long."

"You must have me mistaken for someone else," Ace said, his lips pulling down into a frown. "I've never met you before."

The man stiffened slightly, and then slumped. "No, I don't suppose you would have," he said quietly. "It's been so long, and even I forgot . . ." Reaching up, the man slowly removed his top hat. Ace's attention was automatically drawn to the hat, and he felt his blood turn to ice when he saw that the thing wrapped around the brim was a pair of goggles. A very familiar pair of goggles. And the top hat looked familiar, too.

His stomach twisted. No.

The man pressed the hat to his chest, his expression one of the utmost sincerity. Ace saw the blond hair, the scar running down the left side of his face, the pipe slung across his back, the noble-yet-not-noble clothing and the confident posture. He saw it all.

But most of all, Ace saw the man's eyes. They were meeting his intently, and they were full of sorrow and regret and a hundred other emotions Ace couldn't identify.

The commander's mind was whirling, confusion and anger mixing until a slow, boiling fury rose of in Ace's core. Whoever this man was, he was stepping into dangerous territory. Very, very dangerous territory. Ace didn't give a damn how strong he was; no one messed with his brothers, whether they were alive or dead.

"Ace, I'm sorry I never contacted you," the man said, and Ace wanted to snarl and hiss and spit at his words, but he held it in, burning the words inside himself as fuel for his rage. "I was hurt badly, and when I recovered I was buried in work and—it sounds dumb, I know—I lost my memory." His expression took on a shadowed cast, and there was definite regret in his voice. "I have no real excuse. I should have remembered, but I didn't. I was stupid. For that, I apologize."

Ace's hands were clenched into fists at his sides. Heat rolled off him in waves, but the man standing a few yards away hadn't yet felt it. He was far too occupied with toying with his hat. Sabo's hat.

The man looked up and smiled. "It's me, Ace. Sabo."

Ace's mind screeched to a halt, and then accelerated with all the force the anger controlling it could provide.

Ace had a hand around the man's throat so quickly that the man had no time to react. Ace slammed him against the nearest convenient wall, not even feeling the strain of keeping the man in the air. His orange hat shadowed his eyes, but he was breathing hard—though it wasn't because of exertion. His grip trembled and it was clear that he desperately wanted to crush the man's windpipe but couldn't quite do it.

"Tell me one thing before I burn you to ashes," Ace snarled. His mouth was twisted into a thunderous, rage-filled scowl, so dark it was enough to make even the strange man hesitate. "Why the hell are you claiming my dead brother's name?" The man tried to respond, but Ace's eyes flashed and he tightened his grip, cutting off the man's air. "Don't lie to me!" Ace hissed, and his voice was like ice, like a dagger held to the man's throat, like a promise of the hell that awaited the man if he gave the wrong answer.

The man gasped when Ace loosened his grip enough to let him speak. "Not . . . dead," he wheezed, his eyes desperately trying to meet Ace's, to make him understand. But Ace would not meet his gaze, and the pirate's expression became even darker, his posture even more dangerous. Realizing he was running out of time, the man spoke again, his words painful and barely squeezing through his constricted windpipe. "We . . . swore . . . brotherhood," he managed. "I . . . would never . . . lie . . . to you, Ace." He swallowed, and it looked painful. "Not . . . over this. Never . . . over this."

Then, even more quietly, "I'm sorry."

The words had been said before, but now they were different. They echoed, bouncing around the empty room like a fading shout, except they were barely loud enough to hear. They brushed against Ace's sharp words and softened them, pushing them away and melting the tension in the room.

Ace's arm was trembling. Slowly, the Whitebeard Pirate set the man—Sabo—down, every motion almost painfully deliberate. When Ace spoke, his voice contained even more raw fury than it had before. Sabo nearly took a step back from it, completely unsure of how he was supposed to deal with the situation.

"You bastard."

Ace punched Sabo. It wasn't a soft punch. It wasn't a nice punch. It was a punch full of years of grief, years of mourning, years of sorrow and regret and painful questions with painful answers or no answers at all. It was a punch full of rage, of anger, of frustration, of helplessness.

It sent Sabo sprawling. He lay on the floor, holding his jaw and staring at Ace with undisguised shock. The taller man was still shaking, his hands still curled into fists.

"You bastard," he repeated. "You thrice-damned bastard." There was an odd tone to his voice, one that Sabo had never heard before. "You complete, utter jackass. You piece of shit. You—" and Ace broke off, turning away from Sabo and bringing one hand up to his face, and Sabo finally realized that Ace was crying. He got up slowly, gently prodding at the sensitive part of his face and concluding that there would be some serious swelling and bruising later.

"Ace . . .?" He tried.

"I thought you were dead," Ace said, and his voice was a terrible thing. It was broken, hitching on every word and catching on each syllable. "I thought you weren't coming back. I thought—I thought, 'what if I saved you'? 'What if I didn't let you go'? 'What I didn't let those assholes do what they pleased with my brother'?"

"Ace," Sabo said again, reaching out to his brother only to drop his hand. This was a pain that he had caused. He hadn't realized just how deeply his "death" had affected the other boy. He thought that Ace would handle it as he did everything else.

He was stupid.

"It was my fault!" Ace growled, bringing both hands up to rub at his face. He knocked his hat off his head in the process and it hung across his back, revealing his messy black hair and bringing light to the tears that streaked down his face. "I could've saved you, but I was too reckless and—"

"It wasn't your fault."

"It was!" Ace turned to face Sabo, and there was a fierce expression on his face, so full of self-loathing that Sabo actually took a half step back before he quite realized what he was doing. Ace didn't seem to notice. "Sabo, I could've done a thousand things to change what happened that day, and I spend almost every day thinking about ways I could've saved you!"

"I'm here now," Sabo said gently, but firmly.

Ace shook his head, angrily shoving his hair out of his face. "That's not the point!"

"Yes, it is!" Sabo growled back. "Luffy said you guys promised to live a life of no regrets, right? So stop regretting!"

"It's not that—"

"Yes, it is!" Sabo repeated, throwing his hands up in exasperation. "Good lord, you're as stubborn as you've always been! How anything gets through that thick skull of yours is beyond me!"

"Shut up! Like you're any better!"

"Oh yeah? Luffy always liked me better!"

"Did not!"

"Did too!"

"Did not!

"Did too!"

They scowled at each other and then Ace suddenly dragged his brother into a hug so tight it crushed the air out of Sabo's lungs. The pirate's shoulders were shaking, but when Sabo looked Ace was smiling, his eyes closed while tears leaked out.

"I'm happy you're alive," Ace said, clutching Sabo like a lost child. "I—I'm so damned happy. Fucking idiot; don't ever disappear again."

Sabo awkwardly returned the hug, trying to ignore the way his lungs were aching. After a moment, it became far more natural, and he held his brother as sobs filled the room.

"I'm sorry, Ace. I'll never do that again, I promise."

"You'd better not, you idiot."

They broke apart and abruptly looked away from each other, suddenly uncomfortable. Ace quickly wiped the tears off his face and began pulling himself together. Sabo looked uncertain, whereas Ace looked conflicted.

"I still want to punch you," Ace admitted, not looking at Sabo. Instead, he fiddled with the red and white bracelet on his wrist. "A hundred more times. A thousand."

"I can understand why, but please don't. I like my face."

Ace let out a laugh. It was hollow, it was bitter, it was a shadow of what it usually was, but it was a laugh. "I guess you would. So Luffy . . . he knows about all this?"

Sabo nodded, and then realized that Ace couldn't see that. "Yes, he does. I met him in Dressrosa."

"Dressrosa?" Ace repeated, frowning. "That's—"

"The Doflamingo incident, yes."

"Luffy got hurt."

"I made sure he survived."

Ace turned to look at Sabo, and most of the anger had left his expression. It now flickered in his eyes, a warm bed of coals as opposed to the roaring flame it had been minutes before. "I would've done a better job."

Sabo snorted rather inelegantly, given his attire. "Oh, really? I think I did a pretty good job. Not all of us have the Mera Mera no Mi, you know."

"Jealous?" Ace asked, holding up a hand and turning his fingers to flame. Sabo rolled his eyes.

"Whatever. If you don't mind my asking, why were you here? This island is pretty far out of the way of any routes I can think of."

Ace rubbed the back of his head, almost sheepish. "I got my supplies stolen and had to stop for a refill. This was the first island I cam across."

"Hm." Sabo fidgeted. "Ace . . . there's something I need to tell you."

"Eh? What is it?"

"I . . . when my ship got attacked by that Celestial Dragon, I was rescued by the Revolutionaries."

Ace blinked. Sabo fidgeted even more at his lack of reaction.

"They . . . helped me, even though I'd lost my memory. That's why . . . that's why I haven't tried to contact you guys for so long. I only remembered when I saw that article about you being presumed dead, and I—"

Ace smacked Sabo upside the head, frowning. "Idiot. You think I would die that easily?"

"Well, no, but—"

Ace smacked him again. "Idiot."

"Stop hitting me! It hurts!"

"Stop being stupid!" Ace glared at Sabo—without any real bite to it—for another minute before he sighed. "First of all, losing your memory wasn't your fault, though next time you run off like that without warning me, I'm going to drag you back whether you like it or not. Second, I'm not going to hold a grudge over something that stupid. And third, why do you still have a napkin around your neck?"

"It's a cravat!"

Ace smirked. "Whatever you say, Sabo." He then waved a hand, as though dismissing the serious mood. "I'm getting bored here."

Sabo made a considering noise, then glanced at the clock on the wall. It was an older clock, not entirely accurate, but Sabo didn't seem to care. He had a slight smile on his face, and though he never said it aloud, he was clearly grateful that Ace wasn't making a big deal out of Sabo's amnesia. "I've got time to kill."

Ace raised an eyebrow, glancing at the clock as well even though he wasn't on any sort of time schedule. "What're the odds? So do I."

"There are some rather rowdy palace guards out there that don't realize there's been a revolution," Sabo said, his tone casual enough for his words to pass as regular conversation.

"That seems rather stupid of them," Ace commented. He sounded as though he was commenting on the weather.

"Indeed," Sabo agreed pleasantly. They exchanged a look that would have sent lesser men scrambling away in fear. "I suggest we take a nice walk."

"It should be scenic," Ace mused. "I'm thinking lots of detours. I've never been here before; I hear it's . . . exciting." His teeth glinted like fangs in the light. Sabo mirrored the expression.

"I've heard the same thing. It shall be an adventure."

And an adventure it was.

End

A/N: Okay, done! For those of you wondering how this fits into the timeline, in the canon universe it would be slightly after Dressrosa.

First things first, reviews:

9momentos: Ye of little faith. I couldn't kill Ace even if I wanted to; he's too precious.

Pachimew: Unfortunately, you won't get to see all of them reunited in this story, but rest assured that they would be at some point in the future.

frappyrouge123: Sabo was the one screaming in the end of last chapter; that was him finding out about Ace's "death".

Guest: Unfortunately, no Whitebeard. Sabo makes a poor substitute.

Kitsune Foxfire: Well, yeah. That's the treatment you get for writing awesome stories.

N Harmonic: Yes, that was Sabo at the end of the last chapter, and I believe the rest of your questions were answered in this chapter.

darkfalkon: I didn't talk about it much in this chapter (or at all, now that I look at it), but Ace was protecting his family when he fought Akainu. He couldn't bear the thought of anyone in his division getting hurt when Ace had said that he would distract Akainu, and so when the "blood rushed to his head", he did it for them.

CMBrockett: A bad ending? Man, I hope not. That would suck.

Trich: You're welcome.

terratree: They believed him alive, if only because they're family and because they have an inherent distrust in newspapers, so without a body they weren't going to believe anything. They're his family; if they lose faith, who's left?

Moving on, thank you to all of my reviewers, especially those of you that reviewed multiple times. You're awesome. This story wouldn't be as good as it is without you guys. I also appreciate all of you who favorited/followed, and I hope you found this story worth it to the end!

I don't know if I have further plans to write One Piece stories. I might, emphasis on might, do a more in-depth story on the events in Marineford and Impel Down described briefly in this chapter, but that won't be for a while if I do it at all. There will probably be oneshots, though.

Until we meet again,

-RoR

Please review.