He Who Rivalled Him

Ace paced up and down in front of the gigantic door, occasionally stealing glances at the doorknob.

"Should I tell him…?" he muttered under his breath. "What if he kicks me out…? Maybe I should just reject the post – but everyone would want to know why… What if I just don't tell him? But then my conscience… Argh! Dammit!"

He pulled at his hair in frustration. Coming to a halt in front of the door, he stared up at it with the air of one facing his doom.

"Might as well get this over and done with… Well here goes nothing…" He finally took a deep breath and knocked on the door.

"Come in, Ace."

Urgh. Oyaji knew that it was him, which meant he probably had known the entire length of time that he had been there. Ace sheepishly entered the room.

"Gurarara, I've been expecting you, my son. Come to accept the Commander post?"

Each word sent a stab of guilt into him. Especially those two words, 'my son'. Would he still call him that after he knew the truth?

Ace swallowed nervously. "Oyaji… There's something important that I have to tell you."

Whitebeard was silent, letting him work out the confession at his own pace, not wanting to rush him.

The youth took a deep breath and decided to just cut all chase and go straight to the topic. Like pulling out a tooth, he thought, though no tooth would hurt as much as rejection would. "I…" He let it out all at once. "My birth father was Gol D Roger."

Ace didn't dare to look up and meet the captain's eyes. Couldn't bear to see rejection and hatred. His eyes snapped up however when Whitebeard burst out laughing.

"Gurarara… I see… That's a surprise. I see… Yes… You're not very like him in personality, mind." Whitebeard continued to chuckle, eying Ace's nervous posture with fond amusement.

Ace was stunned by the casual reply. "He was your enemy, wasn't he? Aren't you going to throw me out?"

His Oyaji snorted inelegantly. "When you said you had something important to tell me, I wondered what on earth it may be… But then you come out with a little thing like this?"

Tears filled the young man's eyes. Whitebeard, seeing it, smiled kindly.

"I wouldn't have blamed you for who your father was even if I had hated Roger. And I didn't. Found him to be an annoyance, perhaps," Whitebeard chuckled at some recollection. "He may have been an idiot that acted before he thought most of the time, but his heart was in the right place. A good deal better than some of the menaces we have on the seas nowadays."

Gramps had said the same thing. That Roger wasn't a man that he could hate.

With a fatherly air, Whitebeard gestured for Ace to sit closer to him. Obediently, Ace shifted nearer, finally deciding to settle himself on the floor next to the great man's knee. He felt like a child again, but strangely in a good way.

"Roger… He didn't call his crew his sons as I do, but everyone knew that he viewed them as family. In the old days, it was common knowledge that if you hurt any member of the Pirate King's crew, you were as good as dead. The world calls One Piece his treasure, but anyone who knew him back then would say with absolute conviction that his crew and all his loved ones were his treasure. You would have been one of those people, if he was alive. Your mother as well, no doubt."

Ace looked at the floor. "I don't need him. You're my father."

"Gurarara. Had Roger lived, I expect that the circumstances would be very different from what we have now. But there's no point in considering possibilities. Now where was I…?" Whitebeard considered for a moment before deciding how to continue. "Our first meeting… it was unusual, to say the least.

"After a storm, we found him floating on the water, unconscious and held up by nothing more than a chunk of wood that looked like it had been torn from a railing. He was in immediate danger of slipping off it, so we quickly fished him out. Imagine our surprise when we identified him as a captain whose infamy equaled my own. His bounty was considerably high, even back then. Equipped with this knowledge, we waited for him to wake up.

"Ah, Whitebeard, is it? I've wanted to meet you for a while now, Newgate. This must be Fate."

"Gurarara! So you call almost drowning Fate, Roger? What a strange man you are. You believe in such a thing as Fate?"

"Only that it is there for me to challenge." Roger tipped back his bottle of rum. "Ah, this is good rum. I commend your taste in alcohol, Newgate."

"Gurararara! I expect you to provide the drinks during our next meeting, mind!"

"But of course. You must try the booze I picked up in West Blue. Best stuff I've ever tasted."

Whitebeard laughed again. "I look forward to it." A short companionable silence fell, before he casually asked, "So tell me, what lead to the state we found you in?

"Since you were close enough to pick me up, you must also have encountered a storm a few hours ago? I daresay my ship was caught in the worst of it, and I accidentally went overboard in the chaos. Hahahaha!"

"Awfully unconcerned about the fact that he could have died, ain't he?" Whitebeard heard Vista whisper to Jozu.

"Gurarara! I see, I see… Hmm, do you want to call your crew? They must be worrying."

"Hahahaha, and so they probably are! Thing is…" Roger laughed sheepishly. "I forgot the number."

"A captain like that," Ace muttered in disbelief as Whitebeard laughed boisterously. But why did it sound so uncannily familiar? Somehow it sounded like something Luffy would do…

Whitebeard's voice cut off Ace's stunned (and somewhat horrified) realization.

"It was a few days before we encountered his crew. We might even have missed them, if not for Marco searching from the sky. He noticed their Jolly Roger and signaled for us to head over. When we came close enough, it was obvious that they had all been frantic. That old fox Rayleigh started yelling about Roger giving him white hairs, and so did several others. Roger, the rascal, just laughed as he leapt back onto his ship from ours."

The Roger Pirates had swarmed around their captain the moment he had stepped back onto the deck of his own ship. The first mate – Silvers Rayleigh, he remembered reading on the wanted poster – was obviously giving the black-haired man a scathing lecture. Two boys had latched themselves onto Roger and were bawling their eyes out, and the man fondly patted their heads as he listened with half an ear to Rayleigh's rants. Suddenly, the crowd parted a little to let another man through.

Whitebeard watched, amused, as the other captain raised his hands in a surrendering gesture as a bespectacled man with a unique flower-like hairdo stormed up and glared daggers at Roger. He snorted under his breath. The doctor, no doubt. Only a doctor would proceed to tow his captain away by the back of his shirt, with a blatant disregard for said captain's protests.

Apparently resigned to this manhandling, Roger looked back towards the Moby Dick and waved cheerfully with a fine disregard for his undignified condition before turning to his first mate, a big grin in his face. "Rayleigh, make preparations, we're partying tonight! And get out the best of that West Blue sake we have, I promised Newgate we'd have a few drinks together."

"You're not drinking until I say you can!" the doctor grumbled irately.

"Eh!? But Crocus~" Roger whined, tilting his head back to look pleadingly at the man towing him away.

Any response that the doctor gave was muffled as the pair passed through the door into the cabin and presumably the infirmary.

Ace was gaping by the end of the story. Could the Pirate King, hated by so many, actually have been so normal? Okay, so normal wasn't quite the right term, he obviously had a few screws loose somewhere, but the man in Oyaji's story had seem so carefree. A free soul, like Ace himself yearned to be.

Whitebeard chuckled in remembrance, then as if reading Ace's thoughts, continued gently, "He was no monster, far from it. Gol D. Roger was just another man, with his own cares and worries. It was just that he had bigger dreams than most."

Dreams…

"If some strangers in a pub told you that I'm a monster with no heart, would you believe them?"

"Of course not!" Ace said indignantly. Who would dare speak of his Oyaji in that way…!? Oh.

Whitebeard smiled behind his sake bottle as he took another swig from it. "There will always be people who badmouth us behind our backs, for as long as we are remembered. We can't change the way they think, but that doesn't mean that they are right. The things that you heard on the streets about Roger is probably no truer than any false rumors you would hear about me."

Ace bit his lip. He wanted to say that it was different, to stick to his own stubborn beliefs, but… even he had to admit that it wasn't all that different at all.

Whitebeard allowed him a few moments of silence before breaking it. "Anyway, why should I care who your father was? It doesn't matter who brought you into this world… all humans are sons and daughters of the sea! Gurarara!"

Ace's eyes turned moist at the older man's clear acceptance. He swallowed thickly, unable to say anything as he stared at the wooden grains of the floor. What had he done in his life to have a great man such as this call him son?

Whitebeard looked at him kindly. Silly boy, he had been really worried about this, hadn't he?

The captain's mouth curved into smirk, his eyes twinkling. "Should I assume that you'll be taking the Second Division Commander position, then?"

Judging by the way Ace's eyes went wide, he had clean forgotten about the situation that had led him here. Then determination lit his gaze, and he realized that his early misgivings didn't really bother him anymore. Oyaji had accepted him for who he was. He felt as if a great burden had been lifted off his shoulders, and in a way it had. "I… Yes. Yes, I will. And Oyaji… Thank you."

Whitebeard's smile was fond. "Go, silly boy, and greet your men. They'll be waiting for the good news."

Ace left the room, walking up the stairs with his heart hammering painfully in his chest. When he stepped on the wooden deck of the Moby Dick, it seemed as if everyone paused in their work to look at him. He stared solemnly at the men around him, though he wasn't even quite sure himself what he was searching for. All he saw, however, were expectant faces, all which were gloriously trusting and held not a single shred of ill will.

His face broke into a wide smile that was possibly truer than any that he had ever shown.

The ship, which had for a brief moment been silent, erupted in cheers.

"Commander!" "Commander Ace!"

Ace held up one hand, and the commotion quieted obligingly. The eager stares returned, fueled by the huge grin that remained on their new 2nd Division Commander's face.

"LET'S PARTY!"

A/N: I'd originally intended to finish with Rayleigh, but due to not particularly strong interest in this story and lagging inspiration, I've decided to end this story here and focus my attention elsewhere. I may eventually get around to posting the Rayleigh chapter, but for now this story will be marked as Complete.

Thank you for reading, and do leave a review if you liked it and even if you didn't so that I can know where I went wrong. Til next time!