A/N: Fair warning, this will not be updated every day the way 'Stolen' was.

Chapter 1: What's Been Lost

No.

No.

This couldn't be happening. Not after all that had happened, the friend he'd lost, the people who had counted on him. Too much. He'd been through too much for such a thing, a thing that was ripping at his heart and soul as he tried desperately to bury it from view.

Lying on the stone, gaping bloody hole in his back, piercing the mark of his father, his pride and joy. Damage that cannot be undone.

Luffy's hands clapped to the side of his face and he let out a pained scream, eyes unseeing, the forest around him completely ignored.

Smiling softly, weight of his body leaning on Luffy's. "Sorry… Luffy."

Another scream tore through the air, horrifying and heart wrenching. He couldn't take this torment, this horror that insisted replaying before his eyes.

"You didn't get to save me..!"

His bandaged hand lifted in front of his face, fingers twitching in horrified pain.

His hand left hanging in the air as the body fell from his grasp to land on the stone, life blood of the most precious person staining his fingers.

The image burned in his mind and at his heart and he couldn't help the cries of anguish clawing their way from his throat. "GO AWAY!" He shrieked, clawing his way to his feet unable to stay motionless. "GO AWAY!" Fist smashing into a nearby boulder, he didn't even see what he was doing.

The admiral coming right for him, fist turning into the cruelest of molten punches. Desperation coating his features, big brother rushed forward. "LUFFY!"

Luffy's eyes squeezed shut tightly at the horrifying scene replaying itself before his eyes. "STOOOOOOOP!" No more, please no more! He couldn't take it!

Molten fist protruding from the chest of big brother. Most precious person's eyes are squeezed shut and his teeth are grit against the searing agony.

"WAHHHH!" Luffy cried, his first ramming into an even bigger rock, his hand becoming bloody as the stone cut his fingers. He didn't even notice, so in pain was his heart and mind. Ace couldn't be dead, he couldn't have died in Luffy's arms. "GO AWAY!" More Destruction, anything within reach. "GO AWAAY!"

All the while, his agonized screams did not halt. The cliff-face shattered beneath his furious blows, cracking and snapping and falling into the forest beyond. All it served was to make the broken boy tired; he stood in the clearing dust, panting and hunched over.

It did not help. The scene just kept replaying for him, the most morbid of movies that refused to be shut out or turned off.

"Boy."

The soft call was barely heard over his internal - and by this point incredibly external- torment. Confused and still mostly in his own mind, his eyes sought out the source of the voice. His gaze landed on a figure sitting in a nearby tree, looking at him with the most neutral expression he could imagine.

It was impossible to tell if this was a man or a woman, the frame easily suggesting both and neither at the same time. Soft brown hair draped around an ambiguous face, bright silver eyes peering out from beneath to look at the boy. The person was wearing clothes that wrapped and draped, neither a dress nor a robe and yet still managing to flow like one.

"What?" Luffy asked, the word coming out weak and almost helpless.

The man (woman?) shifted on his branch, one slender leg crossing over the other. "You're being tormented by the memory of a loved one."

The pirate's attention was quickly focusing on him more, dragging him out of his mind with a soothing voice. "…Ace…"

Nodding , the stranger shifted his eyes to the fishman standing in the trees behind the boy. But he didn't acknowledge the man other than that. "What if I told you there was a way to save your lost brother?"

Luffy's eyes widened in shock. "How? I want him back!"

Finally showing emotion, the stranger gave a soft smile. "I know. Your bond is something impressive." The person paused, looking the younger man up and down. "I am called the Timekeeper. I can turn back the clock to the day Portgas D. Ace met his end, and I make sure there will be a stop to it."

"Do it!" Luffy said, not skipping a beat.

The stranger shook a finger in the air, silently saying 'not so fast'. "Bad things happen when one messes with the time stream. Especially for such a large event as the death of Gol D. Roger's son. It would create quite a tear, and the universe will seek to get even."

"I don't care!" The pirate practically whined in the most stubborn way. All he wanted was his big brother back. He couldn't lose Ace.

There was silence in the clearing and the minutes ticked by slowly. It was almost a dozen minutes before the stranger spoke. "I only offer this because I have found a way to save his life. My way will work, but it will save no one extra. And as I said, it will create a tear the universe will try to compensate for."

Stumbling toward the tree the person sat in, Luffy's expression turned to desperate pleading. "Please, bring Ace back!"

A single nod was all he received, the stranger's expression went back to neutral. "I will do it. Be warned; you will remember this. And I will be back." He lithely rose to his feet, looking as if he weighed nothing on the branch, and hopped down. Confused, Luffy watched as the Timekeeper approached him and didn't stop until he was less than a foot away. The man lifted his hand and pressed three fingers to Luffy's forehead.

The boy just looked up at the Timekeeper with wide, frightened eyes. Innocent eyes that had been corrupted by the sight of hell, and were left terrified and alone. "What do I do?" He asked weakly, needing to know how to save his brother when the time came.

Brown hair swayed as the ambiguous head shook. "Nothing. There is nothing you can do, that is why it happened the first time. There is only one way to fix this and that is to bring in an outside force." Stepping away from Luffy, the man gave a small smile. "I scoured the threads of fate to find such a thing. You're lucky one exists."

Hearing that there was nothing he could do to save his big brother stabbed at Luffy's already cold heart, even though the information didn't tell him anything knew. He'd failed and he was well aware of it. "Save him."

"He will." The Timekeeper turned on his heel and began to make his way into the forest beyond. "Now I must go. I have another I must see before the clocks turns." His figure disappeared into the shadows of the tree almost as if he were a mirage, but Luffy didn't care.

Luffy sunk to his knees, his dark eyes watching the place where the savior had gone. An odd mixture of relief and worry had taken hold of him. This needed to work. He needed it to with all of his being, because without Ace he only felt broken and empty.

The office was dark.

But that didn't matter to its one occupant. It was well past midnight and all he wanted to do was sleep, but the thing eluded him like it had for the past two weeks. How could Ace have died and he not done anything about it? Sure, he hadn't heard about it with enough time to do anything. That had been his boss' plan. But it still tormented him. How could he have not known? Not done anything?

Keep the man in the dark, keep him busy. Don't let him see the papers and no one was to talk about anything even close to regarding the war to him. Like a small cat you shut in a room to keep them from hurting themselves, he was shut off from all but the mission he'd had and the people he'd worked with.

He resented it with all his being. The second he'd heard about the war -because how could he not when it was coming through every speaker and showing on every screen?- it had taken ten men just to hold him down. The will to get out there to that execution platform was so strong that he'd severely injured several colleagues in the process.

Never would he feel sorry about it, not with how things had turned out. They'd gotten in the way of him going to help Monkey D. Luffy, of the rescue and prevention of the young pirate's death. If they'd just let him know about it earlier, Portgas D. Ace would be alive.

And that knowledge was killing him.

A breeze ruffled his short hair and he very nearly didn't even bother to check. Sure, he'd left the window closed and that meant someone had very obviously just intruded in his private office. But the will to move or defend himself was little to none.

In the end, he merely tilted his head from where it had been buried in his arms on the desk, a single eye revealing itself to peer at the intruder. His look -from what could be seen- was bored and uncaring as he eyed the dark shape of the person who had made themselves comfortable on his windowsill.

When the man said nothing, the intruder decided to speak. "I have something to speak to you about," the Timekeeper said neutrally.

The man snorted, looking distinctly unimpressed. "A lot of people have things to say to me right now. I'm not in the mood for any of them." The visible eye rolled. "Kindly remove yourself from my office before I use force."

Timekeeper hummed lightly, watching the man with interest. This reaction was not quite what he expected, and yet it completely was. The two things clashed spectacularly to leave him wondering how this man would act next. "It has to do with Gol D. Ace."

Eyes narrowing dangerously, the man pushed himself to sit upright. "Don't call him that," he hissed, unable to stop himself even had he wanted to. "His name is Portgas, not Gol. I suggest you use the correct one if you want to stay in one piece."

The Timekeeper held his hands up in defense, showing he meant no harm. "I simply use the name the fates give me. My apologies, I seem to have offended you."

"Yes you did," the man said curtly, not pleased at all by the continued conversation. "Now get out." His patience was not the strongest thing these days and this intruder was sorely taxing what little he had.

"Now, now. Calm down," Timekeeper said in a placating manner. There wasn't much time to plead his case, he knew. The man at the desk was itching for something to take his frustration out on. "What if I told you there was a way to save the life of Portgas D. Ace?"

Gaze turning suspicious, the man stared at the intruder, his body tense. "What?"

"I happen to have a Devil Fruit ability that allows me to alter the past," Timekeeper explained as best he could. "There are requirements and repercussions, of course. Altering the universe does not come without its many prices."

The chair skidded out behind the man as he stood up quickly, nearly toppling over. "Do it."

Now that was a curious response. From the Timekeeper's estimation, this man was much more rational and careful than Monkey D. Luffy. And yet, the response and lack of hesitation were almost exactly the same. "The universe will try to compensate for an event this large. Terrible things could happen just to save one man's life."

"I don't care," the man breathed, his heart pounding in his chest. Ace would come back to life? There was no other choice in his mind other than 'yes, gods yes'. "Whatever you have to do. Just bring him back. Please."

"You will not even consider that this may be a terrible idea?" Timekeeper asked with interest showing freely on his face. Oh, how interesting this man was! He'd not expected this at all. "Anything could be taken to compensate for stealing one such as Ace from the universe's plan."

The man swallowed dryly, hearing the words, registering them, and promptly not caring. "You asked me and I answered. Bring him back."

A nod was the response he got. "I can only do so much. There must be a thread in fate's web that could align to save his life." At the suddenly worried look, the Timekeeper hopped down from the window. "I wouldn't be here if there wasn't something that could be done. You yourself already know of the thread. How many times in the past two weeks have you thought about it?"

There was little the man could do other than watch the intruder, realization sinking into him.

"If only you'd known. If only you'd have been able to go." The Timekeeper gave him a pointed look. "You. You are the thread that, if tugged in the right direction, could save his life." His arms spread wide. "I'm here to tug you in the right direction."