Disclaimer: One Piece © Eiichiro Oda

Bleeding Out © Imagine Dragons

A/N: 2020-lockdown me ghost-wrote this for the 2015-hopeless-romantic me. This story was abandoned for all practical purposes but the ending kept coming back to haunt me. So here goes nothing.

Epilogue

I'm bleeding out

So if the last thing that I do

Is bring you down

I'll bleed out for you

-x-x-x-

The ground beneath her was stained red. And her lungs were drowning in flames. In her final moments, with his arms around her, his chest rumbling with his howling grief, she told him she chose this.

"Ace. Please don't resent me. Promise me. Promise that you will never come to regret me."

She lay there dying. The magma hole punched through her torso. In a thousand other scenarios, she'd still always, always take his place. Just as he had taken Luffy's.

Of course, she had come back. In the penultimate moment when his head hung low with sorrow and he resigned to every insult called to his blood, his brother fell through the sky to save him. Xena was there. In a Marine uniform she had stolen, not daring her courage enough to join up with the crew she had abandoned. She was there, standing on ground zero, daring death from the jaws of their fate.

And he had still seen her. In the midst of the whole ocean of white and blue marine uniforms, his eyes had still zeroed on her when the cap tucking away her flame-red hair blew off her cover. He'd looked at her and every single person from his family as he thanked them for accepting him and loving him and it broke her heart to see him so broken and so resigned to the humiliations wrought on his birth by the marines who paraded him to the scaffold like a blockbuster unravelling to the world.

And she had fought. Tooth and nail she had fought anyone who crossed her path—alongside the okama, at some point, and alongside the beautiful serpent-princess shichibukai when a brief nod brought them to a plain understanding that her marine uniform was about as much a front as the shichibukai's title. She had fought alongside the Whitebeards too, by the turn of fate after the scaffold was destroyed and Ace was almost—but only just almost—within reach.

Ace's brother had whirlwinded through Marineford and reoriented the battle around himself. If only she had had enough time to marvel at Ace's singular pride in the man who claimed to become the next pirate king. Luffy was the hope—the arrow that drove them all to the last of their shreds to save Ace. Xena's eyes riveted around him—the beacon to reach Ace.

And yet. By the split second that she did reach him, he was throwing himself in death's way to protect his little brother. And that was the split second she had truly realized that she never had a choice. Her body had moved before she had had the comprehension of what she was doing. In her final moments, she knew even if she had had the choice, in a thousand different scenarios, she'd never choose a better place to die in than his arms, and there'd be no better reason to die for than him.

And as her heart began to grow cold—why was it so cold even though she was with Ace?—she couldn't help but smile. A smile content with a life well lived, however short.

"I'll… trust this to you," she said, as her hands began to slip out of his. She pressed something into his hand. It was the frowning insignia off of the rim of his hat.

"You'll find the other one soon," she heaved, barely a whisper. Her fingers were insistent, the last of her strength ensuring he had the insignia held good and tight even if he didn't understand what she was saying. "You'll find the one with the smile soon."

The ground beneath her was now painted red. And her hand was growing cold in his. She lay there dying but there was still only bliss on her face. And the world was suddenly very, very cold.

And when the redhead captain had appeared, and the clangour of the war rung out its last echo, he had lowered his head, betraying no expressions and lifted her remains with all the dignity her battered form could afford. And under the staunchest protection of this last-arrived pirate-guard, Portgas D. Ace walked out of Marineford a free man. Much having been lost, but not the battle to save him.

-x-x-x-

So I bare my skin

And I count my sins

And I close my eyes

And I take it in

-x-x-x-

Here they were. Standing in the same place that she had once prayed that he'd never have to come to again. Could she have been smiling at the irony? Her grave besides Thatch's was cheerful with the flowers every last pirate she had known had brought. And Oyaji's stood sheltering the two just as he had stood tall for his children. Even in death, they were exactly where they used to be. Even in death, Oyaji stood proud and protective. And she, a crown of sunflowers gently reminding them of spring and summer on the horizon. If only she'd known, how much the world was going cold.

"Will you keep her promise?" Shanks was almost too good a company in grief. Again, could she have been smiling at the irony?

How can I not resent her? Ace wanted to yell. But his voice had gone out. After he had howled and howled for her to not be so cruel, he had no more words left, no more sounds to make. And he had no more of her to resent. She was gone. Extracting a promise to not regret what he had let her do to save him.

"Ace." Shanks shook him by the shoulders. "I'm asking you to keep the promise you made to my daughter." His voice was fierce. He had never—never—said it out loud. She had never wanted to acknowledge it anyway. But mourning and silence never made great companions, to be sure.

"I…" he croaked, what could he tell him that would satisfy the heart of a mourning parent? "She's gone, Shanks. All of her. Who do I keep the promise to?"

"She left you a part of her." Shanks softened, signaling Lucky Roo who was making his way through the other crew members, a baby in his arms.

Ace stood dumbfounded as Lucky Roo came up to him. The baby cooing in his arms had the other insignia from his hat-rim loosely tied around the neck.

You'll find the one with the smile soon, she had said.

He looked at the frowning insignia in his hand. And then at the baby again. Xena would positively be laughing right now with Oyaji and Thatch somewhere.

"Meet Anne," Shanks said.

And in that moment, the sun came out a little brighter, and the island of graves started to flutter with fireflies.

fin.