Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

They’d been married ten years when it came for them, and unexpectedly—parenthood.

“What?”

Doc looked at her, brows lifting with a smile that softened his rough-hewn features more than Makino had seen anything else manage in all the years of their friendship, and, “Pregnant,” he repeated, kind voice rumbling over the word.

She didn’t realise she was crying until she had to blink her eyes against the tears, and reaching up to wipe them away showed her hands shaking. But it was a detached sort of realisation, as though the hands she was looking at weren’t her own, but someone else’s.

She looked at Doc again, watching her silently where she was seated on the bunk in the infirmary, the familiar, clean and sterile smell mingling with the sea-breeze drifting in through the open port-hole.

That lone word turned in her head, over and over. It seemed to have lost all meaning. Pregnant. “Are you—”

“You came to me pretty late,” Doc told her, eyes twinkling now, and his tone a tinge dry. “So even if you’re not showing much, I’m certain in my diagnosis. That pain pressing against your kidneys has a very good explanation.”

Her breath rushed out of her in a sob, nearly taking her whole body with it. And she couldn’t tell her relief from all the other feelings that were scrambling for the surface, all of them seeming to push against her chest, until she couldn’t breathe past them.

A large hand on her shoulder, the grip gentle but firm, and, “Easy. Breathe through your nose.”

She did. One large, gulping breath, and another, even as it felt as if the effort might break her ribcage. And even as she got her breathing under control, her mind was still reeling, seeming unable to come to terms with what had been put before her; to make the connection that would allow her to accept it.

But she remembered then, weeks ago now, the bouts of nausea that she’d brushed off, even though it had been years since it had been a problem, and she was only ever bothered by seasickness now if the sea was particularly volatile.

Shanks had teased, asking if the new ship required some readjusting, but even as a joke, she hadn’t discounted it as a possibility. The thought that it might have been something else—that it might have been this—hadn’t even crossed her mind. Even that day, after their audience with Whitebeard, she’d chalked it up to nerves, and taking an unexpected dive through the sky.

The thought found her then, that she’d gone months without realising, and that she hadn’t known, or even considered it a possibility, that she might be carrying a child. And then she was frantically searching her memory for any events where she might have endangered herself, or eaten something she shouldn’t have, or—

Large hands covered her own, dragging her back to the infirmary, and it took her a moment of staring at them before she’d regained control of herself again, at least enough to keep forcing her breath through her lungs.

But Doc didn’t let go, and Makino fixed her eyes on the tattoos on his forearms as she tried to dredge up the voice to ask the question pressing at her mind now, presented as she was with something she’d wanted for so long, and with it, the chilling realisation that she might have—

“Doc,” she croaked, lifting her eyes. She realised she was still crying. “What if it’s—”

“As far as I can tell, everything seems to be in order,” he told her, and she swallowed the sob before it could leave her this time, but the relief was beyond what Makino felt she could bear.

And she didn’t know if he’d suspected—if he’d known that it was something they’d thought hadn’t been meant for them, and that it was something they’d long since stopped hoping for.

But she thought he might have known, from the way he was gripping her hands now, shaking fingers dwarfed by his own. The calm and careful manner that he’d given her the news, and offering his answer without forcing her to ask if there might be something wrong with her child—and that it might be her fault.

“Want me to go fetch Captain, or do you need a moment?”

She shook her head, then realised it didn’t specify just what she was declining. But she couldn’t seem to summon her voice to answer, although Makino felt from the way he squeezed her hands that he’d gathered what she was saying.

Pulling his hands back as he rose to his feet, she heard him exit the infirmary, the door swinging open letting in some of the morning noises from outside—familiar sounds to ears that sought them, and she knew them all and the people they belonged to, each individual laugh and voice—before it swung shut again, leaving her in the infirmary with a suddenly deafening quiet for company.

Her hands were shaking almost uncontrollably, and it took Makino a moment to realise she’d pressed them over her stomach. But even looking at it now, and knowing what Doc had told her, it was hard wrapping her mind around it: a baby. There was no apparent physical indication, at least not beyond a slight weight gain that she hadn't even given a second thought, but Doc had told her it was the way of it, sometimes; that she was small, and that sometimes, both with ailments and kinder truths, the body didn’t yield all it secrets at once.

The door was thrown back open, and then Shanks was in the doorway. And she caught the sounds slipping in from behind him, not laughter now but murmurs of unease, and with good reason, given his sudden entrance. She spied Lucky on the deck behind him, and Doc, but didn’t drop her gaze from the one regarding her intently, from an expression wrought with so many different things, she couldn’t name them all.

She still had her hands pressed to her stomach, and Makino watched as the sight drew his eyes, his brows furrowing, before they lifted back to hers, as though for confirmation. And she saw when realisation dawned, and heard the breath it dragged from his chest, seeming to take something from him with it.

Her mouth was working, but she couldn’t seem to find the words. “I’m—”

He’d pulled her to him before she could choke them out, and when she sank against him, tipping off the bunk where he’d dropped to his knees, there was a moment she wondered who was supporting who, before the shaking press of his hand to her spine tightened, and when her next sob dragged loose of her he bore it, and every single one that followed. They rang out; loud, racking things bouncing off the quiet even where she muffled them against his chest, but Makino couldn’t find a single thought to care, gripping his shoulders until her fingers hurt.

Shanks didn’t say a word, but the shaking fingers cradling the back of her head said enough, although they didn’t speak nearly as loud as the tears she felt, hot against her throat.

And there were no words for that—the mindless, boundless happiness that found you when you’d given up hope, only to be proven wrong. But there were no words needed for it, either—not in explanation, or in apology, or even just to bask in it. At least not yet. That would come later, when they dared to allowed themselves to feel anything beyond the relief.

—

The sobs were cut off by the door sliding shut, but even muffled, the sound was too loud to be silenced completely, and the staggering hush that descended on the deck only saw to emphasise it.

Ben watched the closed door, something cold having crawled up under his skin, akin to the ocean’s grip before dragging a drowning man under. His heels felt rooted to the planks; the cigarette tucked between his fingers forgotten.

Yasopp looked at him, sharp features wrought, and his voice rough when he asked, “You don’t think—”

Ben turned to Doc, a demand on its way off his tongue, before it let slip something different, “You’re smiling.”

Doc said nothing to that, but his smile widened; a sight that would have looked out of place on his hard face, for anyone who didn’t know him.

But Ben did know him, and so realisation wasn’t far behind, rushing out in a shuddering breath of genuine surprise.

“What?” Yasopp asked, a question that was echoed by more than one voice, from the crew who’d crowded outside the infirmary door their captain had just shoved through with enough naked fear the imprint of it still lingered on the air. “Ben?”

The door opened again, and then Shanks was there, looking at once like he’d aged a few years and then lost them all again in the span of ten minutes, and if Ben hadn’t caught onto the reason he would have been hard pressed to read anything conclusive from the look on his face.

“Makino okay?” Lucky was asking then, and it was what dragged him out of the daze—that half-believing, harrowed expression breaking, revealing a grin that was felt.

“Yeah,” Shanks said, voice hoarse, before a laugh pushed past it, an almost delirious sound that was accompanied by tears that did nothing to touch the ridiculous smile that was splitting his face as he declared, to the rousing cheer of a crew who’d now all caught on—

“We’re going to have a kid.”

—

The crew took adjusting to her pregnancy in stride.

Meaning they were becoming a bit overbearing.

“Should you be doing that?”

“Should you be carrying that?”

“Should you be carrying anything?”

“I can pick that up for you, Makino.”

“I can pick you up if you don’t want to walk, Makino.”

“Lucky, don’t you dare—”

The last had seen a startled shriek chasing off the gulls on the rigging, before she’d been transported across the deck and cheerfully deposited by a table in the galley.

Ben hadn’t even batted an eye, just calmly turned a page in his newspaper and pushed a cup of coffee towards her—decaf now, a sour truth underlined by a raised brow that dared her to put up another fight about it.

It was safe to say she was one sweet and well-meant gesture away from bending over the railing and screaming into the seabed.

The door to their quarters closing behind her, she leaned her back against it, taking a moment just to gather herself, before pushing off and making for the bunk. She had half a mind to take a nap, the mattress suddenly beckoning. Just because the morning sickness was behind her didn’t mean there weren’t other perks to contend with—like odd bouts of sudden lethargy, which more often than not saw her falling asleep in the galley, or out on deck. The latter prompted far too much amusement, but at least most of them were kind enough not to demonstrate it too openly.

Most, meaning almost all of them barring Shanks, who had no such reservations.

Fingers seeking her stomach, Makino found a smile through the exhaustion and lingering irritation, an entirely silly thing as she chased the small flutters that asserted themselves on occasion, and that tiny, brand new presence that felt at once apart of her, and something all its own, quick and fleeting and hard to pin down yet.

She wondered what it would feel like when she could—if it would be like hers, calm and unassuming, or like Shanks’, that bright, laughing warmth. Or maybe it would be something else, something new; a little bit of both, or nothing at all like either of them.

She was showing now, far enough along for her condition to be more than evident. On her most recent check-up Doc had estimated that she was about six or seven months, and although that was still a feat to wrap her head around, having gone most of them without so much as an inkling, Makino had suffered his own amusement when she’d stutteringly confirmed that yes, that sounded like a correct estimate.

She remembered one night that might well be the one in question—or at least hoped it might be, if only because she’d been laughing so hard she couldn’t breathe, and if anything, she liked the thought that it should have been a joy and a loving like that that saw their child conceived.

It had been a warm night, Luffy’s most recent wanted poster in their keeping and too much of that old whiskey they’d been saving, and she’d teasingly quipped that Shanks should pace himself, now that he was closer to forty than thirty. Which he’d taken as a challenge—twice, and the result of which had seen her blushing to the roots of her hair in Doc’s infirmary seven months later, her stomach rounding beneath her palms with a quickening life that she still couldn’t believe was a fact.

And looking at it now, Makino conceded that the added reminder of her growing belly might be the reason for the crew’s exaggerated attentions lately.

Of course, she knew their fretting had other reasons, the most prominent of which being that her reaction to the news, not to mention Shanks’, had both been glaring testaments to the fact that, although unexpected, their child had been very much wanted, and for a long time.

But she thought about that enough without the added burden of their worries to top it off—the fear that something might go wrong, even as far along as she was. That this might well be their only chance, if the past ten years had been any indication.

The door to the cabin opened then, revealing Shanks, smile lifting at the sight of her, before his eyes dropped to her stomach and it changed—shifted into that entirely new thing that she had no name for yet, but that always left her a little breathless.

“Nap?” he asked, eyes twinkling with something far too knowing, and Makino narrowed her eyes.

“You tease, but I’d like to see you handle this with more grace.”

His grin was adoring, and making no point of hiding it. “I think you’re handling it with staggering grace,” he told her, as he came to take a seat on the bunk beside her. “And I’m only teasing because it’s so much fun.” He raised his brows meaningfully. “You have a temper now.”

“Why do you sound so pleased?”

“I can’t help it that I’m fascinated by what this is doing to you.” Then, expression darkening with something that had Makino forgetting every single thought she’d ever harboured about napping, he dropped his voice a notch, “And when I say fascinated, I mean that exactly as the inflection suggests.”

Bumping her brow against his shoulder, she felt his chuckle as it rumbled through him, and it did little to subdue the persistent lap of heat at her core, which was making it hard to focus on anything but the shape of him on the bunk beside her.

Oh, yes—and there was that, too. An embarrassing sexual appetite, although between the two of them, Makino suspected she was the only one mortified by that particular change, if for no other reason than the fact that she couldn’t seem to control herself. Shanks, as always, took everything with staggering ease.

“I take it those wandering hands are a sign that you’ve forfeited that nap?”

The laughing purr fell into her collar, and she gave a tug at his hair, but her rebuttal lacked conviction, and when she felt his hand fisting in her hair in turn, the sound she yielded against his mouth carried no reproach, a soft whimper of sudden impatience that found its all-too-eager match in the tongue pushing back against hers.

She felt the laughing hum that sat, low in his throat, and the fingers that had released her hair to sketch the dip of her waist, then back up. Seeking, half-reverent touches mapping new, rounder curves, and it was a wordless appreciation he offered now, a fascination that was anything but teasing, and she felt the effect, like she’d grown too big for her skin, too much warmth within her to contain it all.

The buttons on his shirt offered little resistance, and she felt his laughter again, a sound never far from where he was, delighting in her impatience as she pushed her hands up his chest, greedy where he was reverent and not seeking but claiming, warm skin and every hard line of corded muscle beneath it, and all the scars between them.

The hand on her hip slipping under the waistband of her trousers had her breath hitching, searing warm against her skin, and she shifted in her seat, pushing closer, the position awkward but her need to have him touching her leaving no room left to desire elegance. And for all his teasing about her impatience, he didn’t seem inclined to let her suffer, the graze of his fingers across her hipbone carrying a promise, and she felt her body’s response as his thumb brushed against the apex of her thighs, and the need that pushed a moan up her throat—

A rap on the door, a sound sharp with intent, and Shanks stilled. But it took Makino longer to follow, and to blink past the dizzying anticipation that had nudged her close to breaking, the near-intolerable need for release leaving her without thoughts for anything else, and if he just moved his hand, she could—

Then Shanks drew his hand away, and the whimper that pulled from her at the interruption sounded obscene, it was so wanton. Which probably didn’t help matters, if the twitch of his fingers was any indication. And if she’d had her mind with her, Makino might have remembered to feel embarrassed at the display.

She heard him drag in a breath, fingers pinching the bridge of his nose, as though to gather himself, although neither action dispelled the telling roughness in his voice when he asked, a bite to the word, “What?”

The door opened, and then Ben was there, the morning paper in his hands and a grave look on his face. And Makino doubted it had escaped him what he’d interrupted, and so the distinct lack of amusement of any kind told her enough about what manner of news he was bringing, and with a breath, the lightheaded daze that had kept her enthralled dissipated, something cold taking over in its place when Ben proffered the paper and said, evenly,

“You’ll want to see this.”

—

The announcement of Ace’s impending execution ripped a hole through the haze of happiness that had seemed to envelop everything ever since she’d had the news of her pregnancy confirmed.

She couldn’t see the words in the newspaper, crumbling in the shaking grip of her fingers, her palms stained black—couldn’t seem to grasp the conversation that was going on around her, the muted babel offering no comfort, only the beginnings of a headache as she stared at the black and white photograph, and I remember you singing.

Not even the soft push of movement against her hip could steal her focus back from where it had slipped from her grasp, leaving her feeling adrift on waters that had once been familiar, but that she could no longer recognise.

“Whitebeard will act,” Ben was saying, voice seeming curiously far away. It was like someone had dunked her head underwater.

Shanks’ voice rose in answer, the word weighed heavy, dragging her down further. “Aye.”

“The others won’t stay out of this. Not if Whitebeard intervenes.”

“Big Mom won’t bother.”

“Kaidou will.”

Shanks didn’t answer, or if he did, Makino missed it, and she had no mind to spare them as they discussed what they should do; had only a mind for the boy in the paper, a coiled knot wrapped tight around her insides, and her hand shook where she pressed it over her belly.

Excusing herself, she pushed away from the table, and avoided Shanks’ worried look as she made for the galley door, a murmured request for privacy left in her wake that she wondered if he’d even caught. But he didn’t move to follow, although even with the offered solitude of their empty cabin, Makino didn’t know if she felt relieved that he hadn’t.

Sinking onto the mattress, she stared at her fingers, stained from the ink. She curled them into her palms, feeling how they shook—somehow needing to feel it.

She couldn’t stop thinking about the baby—not her own, heavy and safe in her belly, but the first of two that Garp had brought to her mother's doorstep, and had suffered an earful for it. But having no siblings of her own, Makino had delighted in the soft little shape, who’d slept so soundly in her arms. Nothing like Luffy, who’d wiggled and laughed, and smiled around her fingers.

She remembered sitting by the table in Party’s common room, and the calm that had crept in after its proprietor had stormed out, Garp’s ear in an unyielding grip the wordless promise of a fight that didn’t want an audience. It had just been the two of them, and the seagulls beyond the window, and the whole hour she’d sat there, Ace hadn’t stirred. There’d been no freckles on his cheeks yet, and he’d been so brand new, the world hadn’t known what to do with him.

Now the world had decided it would take him, for no other reason than being a pirate, and all she could think about were the two babies she’d rocked to sleep, neither of which had been hers, and wonder if the same fate waited the one growing beneath her heart.

Or maybe Makino was the one that fate awaited, and that in the future there would be someone else rocking her child to sleep, nothing left of her but a vague memory, growing fainter with every passing year.

I remember you singing.

She must have fallen asleep, because when she stirred the cabin was dark, and there were fingers brushing her hair away from her brow.

Blinking through the dark, Makino looked up to find Shanks seated on the bunk where she’d curled herself up on the mattress, right in the middle, a wordless claim to the whole of it. She found a smile, closing her eyes as he carded his fingers through her hair, no demand in the gesture, just a lazy sort of distraction that suggested it could go on forever.

And under those touches, it took a moment to come back to herself, and to remember the thoughts that had sent her off to sleep—to recognise the deceptively unhurried touches as those he sought when there was a difficult subject that needed broaching, and when he grasped for small, solid truths to anchor his thoughts.

Makino knew he felt her come into full awareness, by the way his hand stilled against her temple.

“What are you going to do?” she asked, inclining her head on the pillow to look up at him. The pressing dark made his features stand out, hard lines sharpened to cutting, and the shadow of his beard looked more severe than usual. He hadn’t bothered to shave today, the thought slipped in, amidst all the others.

She felt his hand moving, before it came to settle over the curve of her belly, rough fingers slipping under her shirt, seeking bare skin. The baby shifted, and she watched Shanks’ hand follow suit, chasing the movement, his expression looking for a single moment utterly enraptured.

Then, the slant of his brow deepening, “We’ll keep our interference to what’s absolutely necessary.”

“What does that mean?”

He looked at her. “Kaidou,” he said simply, and Makino heard her breath rush out. And he hadn’t specified what he meant, but then he didn’t have to. There’d be no audience this time — no negotiation, at least not the verbal sort. And she knew enough about Kaidou to know it wasn’t a decision made lightly. Which meant the reason had been deemed worthy of taking the risk.

“And Whitebeard?”

His large hand was a warm weight across her stomach where he wrapped it around the bump. She wondered if their child felt it—if it could feel his presence, and the safety it had always offered her. She hoped it could. “He’ll go to Marineford to stop the execution."

The knowledge sank in her chest, like a stone dropped in still waters. “The Government will retaliate,” she said. She looked at Shanks, who’d raised his eyes from her stomach to meet hers. “There’ll be a war.”

He nodded. “Aye.”

She was almost afraid to ask, fearing that she’d already found the answer, in the entirely calm press of his hand over her belly. “And what will your role be in that?”

Shanks looked at her, and for a long moment, that was all he did. Then, “Whatever it needs to be,” he told her evenly. And it wasn’t an attempt to lighten the gravity of the answer, or even meant to be intentionally vague, because he’d never made a point of keeping her in the dark; had always shared everything, from the day she’d first stepped aboard his ship as a member of his crew.

Which meant that he didn’t know yet, exactly what role he would play, although Makino found the uncertainty offered less comfort than if he’d told her he’d join in the fighting from the outset.

It brought her back ten years, to a time when they’d been younger people and he’d looked at her and told her that the sea had more planned for him than it had revealed to him yet. And she’d said okay, and had accepted that burden, and him, even when she hadn’t known—even when she’d been so woefully ignorant as she had been at twenty—of what that choice might one day mean for them.

But looking at him now, with all her years of experience behind her, and all she knew of the sea and this crooked world that was theirs, Makino found she would have made the same choice again in a heartbeat.

She didn’t know if it was the sense of impending doom or the pregnancy hormones, or some potent combination of both, but then she was reaching for him, surrendering her claim to the mattress as she pulled him down, not spurred by impatience now but a need still, to feel him, and all of him, around and inside her.

And she thought she wasn’t the only one who felt it, in the way Shanks responded, seeking bare skin to kiss without pause for breath, as though he would have all of her and nothing less. Ten years had done little to dampen his particular brand of ardour—that wild, unabashed enjoyment when it came to sex, and having her, his touches like his kisses, over-eager and desiring her, and always willing to demonstrate it.

But there was something different about him. Still eager, and still so earnestly desiring, but no laughter rising up under his chest now, to hitch with his breath at her touches. But then she had no laughter to offer in turn, and the sounds she yielded to the quiet were sharper things; her pleasure a fact but lacking the tinge of half-delirious, breathless mirth that his own always prompted, and with such ease.

It wasn’t a night for laughing, but she wanted it for herself, anyway—wanted his big hand on her hip holding her steady, his thick, calloused fingers leaving an imprint on her skin, and the scrape of his beard against her breasts as he kissed them, her pulse throbbing beneath her skin where his mouth met it, hot and claiming as he took her roughly. All of them little reminders, that war had no patience for tenderness.

But even with all those things, the growl of his breath and the grip of his large hand as he pushed inside her, the weight of him above her was poised with excruciating care, a constant awareness in his movements, and his hand releasing her hip to reverently trace the heavy swell of her stomach, and their unborn child caged between them.

There were no interruptions. Makino thought she might have screamed if there were, or even worse, not given a damn, which seemed curiously enough the least embarrassing prospect, having him above her, warm and always-willing, the flex of his hard muscles and his thick bicep where she clawed at it with white-knuckled fingers, begging him closer, and the cage of his large, heavy frame a desperate comfort.

She couldn’t completely shove away the awareness of what loomed ahead, feeling it in the harsh quality of his breath as it dragged from his chest, and the near-bruising kisses that invoked a last-time desperation, tempted by a rare cynicism that had no place in a heart like his. And Makino might have told him just what she thought about that, but when he thrust inside her again she had no thoughts left for anything else, not war or worse yet, and no room for shame at the fact, his thickness within her filling her, a warmth pushing up, under her breastbone, under her skin.

And so instead of shame, she took the reprieve as he offered it, and greedily, each thrust allowing her to forget one more worry, until they’d all bled out of her and all that was left was Shanks, his broad back arching under her small hands, her sword-callouses catching on a map of scars, and an invocation laid at the soft altar of her throat that had her tipping her head back with a moan, accepting it. One of her many names, girl and heart, and both of them his, terror and wife, she couldn’t tell which it was now, but she answered to all of them, and when he came undone within her, his hand wrapped around the bump and their baby within, half-protective, half-claiming, she vowed to hew a truly terrifying creature from the whole of all her truths and rumours, if it would allow her to keep him, beyond what the sea had planned for them both.

—

“I don’t think it’s a good idea.”

His voice found her on her way to sleep, the familiar cadence having dropped an octave, the way it only did on the rare occasions he had no mind for humour, and it had Makino blinking past her exhaustion and into the greying light of their cabin.

It was too early for even dawn yet, and the fact that he was awake at all was telling enough. They still had a few hours before they reached their destination, and she’d managed to convince him to rest in the meantime, even though she was the one who’d felt the greatest need. She hadn’t had a good night’s sleep since they’d announced Ace’s execution.

“Marineford,” Shanks said then, the word an echo of her thoughts as he sought her eyes, squinting through the soft shadows. The pull of his features was serious, and it took her a moment to gather herself enough to realise what it was he was saying.

She braced herself on his chest, lifting her head to look at him, brows dipping as understanding dawned—and denial. “I’m not staying behind.”

“Makino—”

“No,” she said, and was surprised at how hard her voice sounded where it fell into the quiet. When Shanks looked ready to protest, she forged on, “I’ve been at your side ten years,” she reminded him. “And we’ve always faced things together. How could you think I’d let you do this alone?”

“I’m not going alone,” he told her, with an enduring patience that had something in her bristling. “The guys will be—”

“And where would I be?” she asked. “On the ship? That won’t be much safer.”

She was aware that she’d raised her voice, and just how loud it sounded in their quiet cabin. And she wasn’t usually one to snap, or to interrupt someone speaking, but there was something like panic pushing up her chest now, imagining the scenario he was putting before her. She’d stood by him when he’d expressed his decision to intervene in the war, and when he hadn’t voiced his concerns, had assumed it was because her presence at his side was expected—that it went without saying.

“I don’t know what we’ll find on that battlefield,” Shanks told her. “It would be better—”

“We’ve been a unified front for the past ten years,” she told him. “And you know I don’t care about glory, or—or notoriety, but what kind of message will it send if I’m not there?”

He didn’t answer, and she pressed her hand to his chest, seeking his heartbeat, but also to emphasise her words. “They’ll know, Shanks,” she said. “They’ll know that something is either wrong, or that there’s a reason you asked me to stay behind. And if I’m on the ship—”

She didn’t finish, but the implication rang, loud and clear like a death-knell. War was a thriving hotbed of opportunists seeking to further their own goals, and there’d be no shortage of that in Marineford. And all it would take was a single, cunning mind catching on. Unless she gave them no reason to think there was anything amiss.

Shanks’ reluctance was palpable where he watched her, the red of his hair a stark truth against the sheets, invoking the moniker that rang with enough authority on this sea, to tempt even the tide of battle into submitting. Or at least that’s what they were hoping for.

And with his brows pulled down, the scars on his face stood out, a truth starker still, but she didn’t reach to touch them now. Instead she kept her palm pressed above his heart.

“You said it yourself,” Makino reminded him. “You’re counting on your presence tipping the scales. That you’ll stop the fighting without needing any further bloodshed.”

She saw the protest as it shifted across his features. “I can’t guarantee it. Even Sengoku—”

“What does your gut tell you?”

The pause that followed was answer enough, but she saw that he wasn’t happy with what it meant.

“I didn’t marry you to stand on the sidelines, Shanks,” Makino said. “And you didn’t ask me hoping that I would.”

The sigh that left him didn’t carry regret. But it wasn’t a laughing sigh either, although however much she might have preferred that, she hadn’t expected it to be.

“No,” he agreed at length. The truth, and one he stood by, she knew, but he derived no pleasure from it now.

He touched his fingers to her stomach, curving under the fall of her shirt; one of his old ones, and the warmth of his hand was a comforting pressure where it came to rest above her hipbone. And she saw from the way his features drew together, what he was thinking. “The first sign of danger—”

“I’ll be out of the way,” she said, voice gentle but her resolve firm. “I promise, Shanks.”

Sinking back against his side, she sought his hand with one of hers, their fingers bumping where it came to rest beside it on her stomach, the taut skin catching under her palm. Her callouses were harder things than they had been once, when they’d been softened by wash-water and gentler routines. She didn’t draw her sword often, but the hilt rested with ease in her grip, after a decade of training to wield without thinking.

And ten years as a pirate had changed a lot of things, but not that—the heart that would see peaceful resolutions attempted before her fingers reached for her blade. The same heart that had found its kindred, in the one she felt beneath her ear now, where she’d pressed it to his chest.

And even if she was a pirate and not a barmaid, they were her hands, still—were her slender, bird-bone fingers and small, pale scars. And as the small movements beneath her palm rose up to meet her touch, pushing against her stomach where their hands were resting, as though reaching for them, she thought that, however small her hands and gentle her methods, she’d use them to bend the sea itself to her will, if that was what it took to keep their child safe—the little life that had no scars yet, and no callouses to speak of. The heart that was still just a flutter, and that had yet to make its choice, of what kind of life it wanted.

But she’d make sure the choice was there. Whatever the sea demanded of her as a pirate, or as a pirate’s wife, as a mother Makino answered only to one thing.

She was well on her way back to sleep when there was a sudden commotion on deck—a thunder of running footsteps and voices raised, and she felt Shanks moving even before the door to their quarters ripped open, revealing Ben.

He hadn’t bothered to knock, and Makino’s heart plummeted, all thoughts of sleep forgotten at the implication suggested by the uncharacteristic breach of privacy, even as Ben’s face revealed nothing but a hard press.

“What’s the situation?” Shanks was asking, having pushed off the mattress to hunt down his pants, but Makino didn’t move to follow. Because for all her earlier conviction, the look on Ben’s face told her to stay put even before he met her eyes, and the significance of that look had Shanks’ biting off an oath.

And Makino knew he’d sensed it, the same thing she did—that massive, near-oppressive presence, like an unyielding wall had slammed down in her mind—even before Ben confirmed it, and with a name that cinched around her heart with enough fear to make her breath lodge in her chest—

“We’ve caught up with Kaidou.”

—

Ben was making for the deck a moment later, no further explanation needed or offered as he let the door swing shut behind him, and then Shanks was turning to Makino.

She’d pushed herself up on the mattress of their bunk, his shirt large and loose on her tiny frame where it hung off her small shoulders, the unbuttoned front baring her stomach where she cradled it with her hand, and he derived some measure of relief from the fact that she didn’t look she was gearing up to join him.

“You won’t fight me on this,” he told her, and it might have been a full order if it hadn’t been for the plea that clung to the back of the words. “Kaidou doesn’t do peaceful negotiations. There’s only one way this is going if we want to stop him. Promise me you’ll stay put. No matter what happens.”

And even if his order didn’t succeed in sounding like one, Shanks hoped the touch of his hand to her belly would emphasise the urgency behind his words, as he wrapped it around the bump. Beneath his palm, he felt their child kicking.

Her brows drew together. “What if—”

“No matter what happens,” he repeated, voice hard and brooking no argument now, and he saw how she drew back a bit at the sound of it. “Ben has his orders, if I don’t make it out of this. He’ll come for you before anything else.”

“Shanks.”

He expected a protest, but it wasn’t what he found on her face now. And he had the sudden thought that he should tell her—that sitting there in nothing but his shirt, with her heavily pregnant stomach and her long hair tumbling around her small shoulders, squared as though she was going into battle, she didn’t just look like a pirate, she looked like an empress among them.

“You better not lose,” Makino said, and if his order hadn’t quite managed to sound like one, hers fell with enough iron-clad conviction to drive a startled laugh from his chest.

And he thought he’d never loved her more than in that moment, but didn’t think he could have managed the voice to speak the words, so he kissed her instead, sinking his hand into the fall of her hair as he claimed her roughly, or as much of her as he could, with the promise that loomed beyond the cabin door. He took her breath, and didn’t care that it wasn’t tender, because if this was the last time he ever kissed her he’d make it worthy of the woman she was, gentle heart clad in steel; his beautiful terror of the sea.

Releasing her, he pressed his hand to her stomach, not an order but a last, desperate request, and when the baby shifted, he drew back, not bothering to button his shirt as he grabbed his sword and made for the deck, the door closing behind him. A pathetic shield, given who they were up against, but just having her away from the deck helped settle his unease somewhat.

For about the span of a breath, at least, and the sight that greeted him was about as sobering as he’d expected it to be.

“Shite,” Yasopp said, sharp eyes trained on the horizon. “Kaidou doesn’t half-ass things, does he?”

“No,” Shanks agreed, taking in the approaching fleet. Not even near what he knew to be the whole of it, but given the Beast’s resources, it was far from a half-hearted attempt.

Hand tightening around the hilt of his sword, he allowed his breath to settle, a calm weight in his chest, not even a stutter to stir the quiet waters within him. Out of the corner of his eyes he caught Lucky rooting around in his pockets, likely for something to eat, and beside him, Ben lit a cigarette, movements staggeringly unhurried.

The corner of his mouth lifted. The waters sat, untouched.

“But neither do we.”

—

The battle had dragged on for too long.

There was an awareness at the back of his mind, that any hopes they’d had of reaching Marineford in time were trickling out as the stand-off with Kaidou persisted.

“He’s biding his time,” Ben said, watching the fleet across the water. The hulls of several upended ships lay, bobbing beside their still-standing comrades, like the bellies of dead fish reaching for the sun, but Kaidou had yet to join the fray. “Why?”

Shanks didn’t take his eyes off the main ship idling straight head. They’d intercepted in time, but the way things were progressing, he was beginning to wonder if it might have been Kaidou’s plan all along to keep them occupied, not Whitebeard.

Ben bit off an oath. “Here he comes.”

The near ridiculous speed Kaidou possessed shouldn’t be possible with his stature, but Shanks had seen stranger paradoxes on this sea, and so didn’t let it distract him as he braced for it. Ben spat out his cigarette, grip tightening around the pistol in his hand.

The impact as Kaidou’s feet hit the deck was felt through the whole ship, and Shanks spared a thought to Makino, but wasn’t given long before the groaning planks settled once more, along with the sea where it tossed and pushed against the hull.

An eerie hush fell across the deck, in time with his shadow as Kaidou righted himself, rolling his shoulders once, as though warming up for a stretch. Shanks hadn’t moved, and he caught Ben lighting a new cigarette, ostensibly calm, although Shanks found a different truth in the sharp edge that cut off the gesture.

“You know what to do, Ben,” he said, voice low, and the reminder as calm as the heart in his chest.

A match flared to life, and Ben took a long drag of the cigarette, before exhaling. He didn’t so much as glance towards the cabin, nor question what Shanks meant, or why he was repeating it now. The reason stood before them, a single enemy on deck, but the implication was anything but a comfort. “Yeah.”

If it’s one-on-one, Kaidou will win. He knew the saying, as did any pirate who’d ever sailed the same waters as the man who stood before him now, towering almost taller than the main mast.

“There are more cordial ways of coming aboard an enemy ship,” Shanks said then. He kept his hand on the pommel of his sword, but made no move to draw it. “I hear an offer of sake does wonders.”

Kaidou hadn’t moved to attack either, and Shanks counted the seconds—sharpened his focus to a blade’s tip, until everything else faded away, nothing disturbing the waters.

Then—“Where’s your wife, Red-Hair?”

A single ripple shivered across the surface, but Shanks caught himself in time to react. Beside him, Ben had his hands shoved in his pockets, but the furrow of his brow had tugged the scar taut across his temple. There was a murmur of unease from the crew, slipping under the tense quiet.

Then, allowing a smile to stretch across his face, “Taking a nap,” Shanks said. “I’d like to join her, if you wouldn’t mind wrapping this up.”

“I want to meet her.”

Something went very still within him. He thought a whirlpool might have been preferable. “What?”

Kaidou snorted, but made no move to step closer, or do anything other than incline his head. “You heard what I said. A meeting, and I’ll decide if I want to wrap this up, or keep you occupied a little longer.”

It was taking an increasing amount of effort keeping his expression from revealing what he was thinking—or rather, that he didn’t know what to make of the request. And knowing Kaidou, he wouldn’t be given long to consider it, or whatever motives might lie behind it.

Shanks looked to Ben—for an answer or just the wisdom to find it, he didn’t know, but felt like he would take either, as he found himself suddenly at a complete loss.

And when Ben nodded once, it was testament to Shanks’ trust in his judgement, that he accepted after only a single beat of hesitation. And Ben didn’t need telling, just what it meant for Shanks to place the lives of the two he held dearest in Ben's hands.

Not a single word had been exchanged between them, but Ben turned smoothly on his heel, making for the cabin, and Shanks kept his gaze trained on Kaidou, who watched him back with something akin to boredom, touched only with the barest hint of intrigue.

The seconds ticked by, the longest in his life, but it didn’t take long before he heard the door to his cabin opening again. He felt her presence, that familiar calm as it reached toward him, as though in question, but Shanks didn’t turn to look at her, waiting instead until she’d come to stand beside him.

She’d dressed, a simple shirt and trousers, her feet bare and her hair loose; the way she was on deck most days, a small and comfortable authority in the demonstration, and one that wasn’t likely to be missed. This was her ship, the gesture said. She wouldn’t put on airs, even for an Emperor.

A fleeting glance saw that she carried Siren in her hand, not on her hip. Not a threat, and Kaidou wasn’t likely to take it as one, but Kaidou wouldn’t have expected anything less, as Ben had no doubt informed her.

She met his gaze then, and for the briefest of seconds he caught the flicker of fear in them, but hoped she understood—and knew that she did, when that fear settled into trust, that he wouldn’t have put her or their child into this position on a whim.

And it was testament to her trust, Shanks realised—in him, in Ben—that she’d gone along with it without question, even after what he’d told her in the cabin earlier.

Drawing a breath, he allowed her proximity to ease his mind, the calm quality of her presence allowing him to breathe, and to try to keep one step ahead.

Makino lifted her eyes to Kaidou then, the shade of his enormous bulk thrown large across the deck, and Shanks knew she wasn’t bothering to hide her reaction—knew that she couldn’t, but looking at her now he found a stubborn determination pushing past the naked fear on her face, warping it into something else; that dark, terrible thing that was a mother’s conviction.

There was a full beat of silence, and Shanks saw where Kaidou’s eyes had gone, to the round curve of her stomach, straining against the shirt—not one of his, which might have hidden it better. But if Ben had thought she should hide it he would have told her to, and although it offered little comfort, Shanks rooted his fleeting certainty in that fact.

And then Kaidou laughed.

The full, belly-deep roar of it carried across the deck, and Shanks felt Makino tense beside him. And before he’d had time to think, he’d stepped in front of her, hand on the hilt of his sword, but before he could draw it—

“Mah, I’m done here.”

Laughter cut off with a snort, Kaidou shook his head, but before Shanks was even given the chance to ask, he was saying, “This world is running out of people I’d give a damn to fight. It’s all old men and blustering rookies. No skill. No drive. I’m tired.”

Then with a look at Makino, his expression sparking suddenly with interest, Shanks had his sword drawn with his next breath, but what Kaidou said was, “Let’s see if your wee beast has some merit when it grows up, Little Empress.” Another snort, and then, “Maybe it’d be an opponent worth fighting. Hell if I know—this world’s going to shit anyway.”

And without another word, he’d turned and leaped off the deck, the propulsion making the ship heave in retaliation, and Shanks caught Makino when her knees gave out, and wondered if she felt the breath that ripped loose of him, the wild surge of unchecked relief enough to make him sink to his knees along with her.

She was shaking, and he wrapped his arm around her back, cradling her head where she’d pressed her brow to his chest. He felt her stomach where it pushed against him, and regretted his one arm when he couldn’t reach to touch it, but shifted instead until he could feel them both.

His voice was rough when he spoke, the word dragged out with a breath that didn't quite manage to be a laugh, “Sorry.”

The one that fell against his shirt didn't fare any better, carrying a half-hysteric note, and he felt how her hands gripped the fabric at his back. “Whose idea was that?”

“Kaidou is unpredictable,” Ben said, and Shanks looked up. He’d put out his cigarette now; he didn’t smoke around Makino. Some of the tension had eased off his brow, but his eyes were still narrowed, his gaze trained on the fleet. “Unpredictable people are susceptible to unpredictable forms of retaliation.” The corner of his mouth quirked, just a bit. “Predictably.”

Shanks felt her breath as it shuddered out of her, but couldn’t tell if it was another laugh or something else. “I don’t know what I feel about being a form of retaliation,” Makino said.

Fingers buried in her hair, he pressed her closer. “You were great,” he told her, but felt his attempt at lightening the mood was spoiled by the way his voice shook. Still, he tried for a smile; pressed it against her crown with the words, “You should have seen it. All tiny, terrifying motherhood.”

She only shook her head at that, and Shanks didn’t know if she was disagreeing with his appraisal, or if she was shaking her head at his poorly attempted levity, but it didn’t matter which it was. And he didn’t think it was possible to pull her closer, but he tried anyway.

“Kaidou is pulling back. We should get moving,” Ben was saying then. “If we want to get to Marineford in time.”

“Yeah,” Shanks said, his earlier relief having sobered into something manageable at the reminder, and when he rose to his feet, he pulled Makino with him.

Her hands were still shaking, and she had one of them pressed to her stomach, but whatever she’d sought she found, for a moment later she expelled a breath, and when she looked at him there was that same determination on her face as when she’d faced down Kaidou—that mother’s resolve that had no equal, on any sea he’d known.

Lips pressed together, Shanks rooted his own conviction in the sight. “We have a war to stop.”

—

In the end, they were too late.

Keeping Kaidou off had taken longer than they’d anticipated, and by the time Red Force drew into Marineford’s icy waters, the worst scenario Makino could have imagined had already come to pass.

She felt the surge of power as it washed across the battleground, the effect of two great forces colliding—not unlike that day on Whitebeard’s ship, but her knees didn’t buckle beneath her this time, and she kept her back straight as they stepped through the crowd of pirates and marines to follow Shanks.

She heard the ripples of surprise that rose as they passed, a wave of realisation cresting in the wake of the shockwave, tearing across the ruined plaza as its occupants became aware of just whose ship had slipped into their midst.

Siren idled, quiet at her hip, her hand on the pommel as she came to take a stand beside Shanks, Ben on her other, and more still flanking them. Their strongest as the vanguard—and Makino, who was so laughably far from that, but whose appearance among them had an entirely different significance.

She heard Shanks raise his voice then—felt the shiver that shot up her spine at the sound of it; that stark, commanding lilt that held no trace of humour. “If anyone still wants to fight, then come! We will be your opponents.”

She was keenly aware of the eyes on her, and knew how she must look, with the group at her back, but for once Makino rooted her conviction in the rumours that flourished around her, and without shame. Let them think her some fell creature from the deep, come to drag them all to the seabed. Let them think she could call the waters to her if she wanted to, to drown them where they stood.

Because with her unborn child giving small pushes against her hipbone, Makino needed them to think the worst.

She had a thought to wonder if Garp was somewhere in the crowd. He must be, but she couldn’t look for him without giving the impression that she was looking, and so she kept her gaze level and tried not to think about what he thought, if he could see her now.

“Oho,” a pleased curl of intrigue slithered into the quiet they’d brought, and Makino stiffened. She felt the men around her stepping closer—nothing exaggerated about their reaction, but it spoke for itself. A threat, received and answered.

Shanks’ reaction was nothing more than to shift his weight, but from where Makino was standing, it spoke even louder than the rest. Angled just a little, but enough to shield her—or, as was more likely, her stomach. Her cloak hid it well, but with the eyes that had latched onto her from across the chasm in the ground, she felt suddenly exposed.

And the grin that split Blackbeard’s face was one she’d remember, Makino thought—that wild, wicked mirth that seemed to delight in the destruction around them, but in their arrival more than anything, and the latter fact a bone-chilling thought that had her breath lodging, hard in her chest.

The baby kicked, and it took all the willpower she possessed not to touch her hand to her stomach.

“Teach,” Shanks said then, and there was a whole new quality to his voice when he spoke now, one Makino hadn’t heard before, and for a moment she was so surprised all she did was blink at the cloaked back in front of her. The inflection was entirely level and the enunciation deliberate, but there was something dark sitting in it, as though the name was barbed, and he was holding back from spitting it.

But if he heard all the things that sat in the speaking, Blackbeard didn’t seem to take offence. On the contrary, those wild eyes only brightened further, and the laugh that loosened from him, a low, harrowing sound of mounting excitement, made a cold sweat break out across Makino’s back.

Those eyes found her again, and she fought to keep from physically stepping back at the sudden intent behind that look. Then—“You have good taste, Shanks,” Blackbeard said, rolling the words around on his tongue, as though finding their taste to his liking. His grin stretched wider. “I was wondering if she’d be as pretty in person.”

Not even a single breath before Yasopp had drawn his weapon, but Makino couldn’t tell if he’d been the first to draw, reading a threat from Blackbeard’s words, or if he’d done it in response to the gun cocking across the chasm and beat it to the punch.

But it didn’t matter which it was, because then the rest of Blackbeard’s crew were following suit, and Siren was in her hand before Makino could think, the song of the unsheathing keening across the chasm, the tip of the blade seeming to hold the final note a moment longer, letting it linger on the air. For a single, breathless moment, it seemed the only sound in the plaza.

Shanks hadn’t moved, straight-backed posture yielding nothing but ease, but she caught the clench of his fingers around the hilt of his sword. And seeking his presence found it entirely still—all that boundless warmth contained, not a warm, leaping fire reaching towards her, but a white-hot ember that didn’t invite her touch.

There was a trickle of fear within her then—a whole, terrible second where Makino wondered if Shanks had been wrong, and all their arrival would achieve would be more casualties on either side; that Blackbeard wouldn’t yield, but see an opportunity presented and claim it for all it was worth. She felt it, icy waters pooling in her stomach, more than she could contain within her; the fear that she’d been wrong, and that she wasn’t getting off this battlefield alive. That their child wouldn’t—

Then Blackbeard was laughing, and it was like facing Kaidou all over again, except this laughter held a different kind of promise, even as he announced, “We’re done here. I got what I came for.” He grinned, seeming pleased with the turn of events, even as he said, “It’s still too early for me to fight you guys.”

His gaze shifted to Makino. “I hope to see you again, nee-chan,” he declared, laughter rolling over the words.

Then, that dark humour winking in his eyes, like a twisted kin to what she so often found in her husband’s, he purred, “And congratulations.”

Her heart stuttered in her chest, and her fingers tightened around Siren’s hilt, but Blackbeard only laughed, seeming delighted by the sight.

And she couldn’t see Shanks’ face, but she knew her own must have confirmed Blackbeard’s suspicions, and dispelled his last doubts if he’d had any, because he was still laughing as he turned to leave, motioning for his crew to follow.

She felt Ben’s hand on her shoulder and started, but the rare offer spoke louder than anything else he could have said or done, and when he gripped it, Makino dug her heels into the ground and forced herself to be calm, and to not think about what anyone else might have gathered from Blackbeard’s parting words.

The silence that reigned in the wake of his departure was a tremendous thing, but Makino kept her gaze fixed on Shanks’ back, the familiar shape of it offering some comfort, even if she couldn’t see his face.

Something loosened then. She felt it in the air, stirring, as though something dormant had come awake, blinking into the terrible light of the war, to see it for what it was. She sensed it in the people around her, pirates and marines, weapons drawn and poised to attack lowering, as though they'd sensed it, too. A single, small ripple.

Then Shanks was raising his voice, and although the firm edge of command remained, that dark note from earlier was gone, and Makino loosed the breath she’d been holding. “Everyone…”

“For now, please respect what I have to say.”

—

“Why are you always showing up where you’re not wanted, Shanks you bastard?!”

Shanks smiled. After today, it felt like a relief just to manage it. “You haven’t changed, Buggy.”

The shrill, inarticulate sound he got in response to that only had his smile stretching wider, but before Buggy could shriek something else, “Hey, I got married! Did you hear?”

“Everyone heard, you asshole!”

“Ah, right, right. You probably would have; it’s been ten years. Time sure flies, huh?”

Buggy glared. Then with a snort, “You haven’t changed, either. You’re still too casual. And who the hell would marry you, anyway?”

Seeking her presence, Shanks looked toward where Makino was standing, and found her with Ben and Lucky. She had Siren sheathed now, and seemed to be at ease—or at least, as much as anyone would be, in her position. Observation users always had it the hardest in places like this, where the loss of so many lives lingered, long after the fact, and the wary press of her brow said enough about what she was feeling.

The encounter with Teach had shaken her—had shaken Shanks, and he knew he wasn’t the only one who’d been caught off guard by Blackbeard’s reaction. And he didn’t want to think too much about the implication behind his parting words—congratulations—but knew it was something he would have to deal with sooner or later. Whatever leverage Teach thought he could garner from that information…

Buggy followed his gaze across the plaza, and his voice had lost that shrill note of irritation when he asked, “Her, huh?”

Shanks smiled, watching the animated pull of her expression as she talked to Lucky, something almost regal in the slight lift of her chin, and the heavy fall of her long braid down her back. The short cloak tucked around her shoulders shifted when she moved, water-like; a lovely thing of sea-green velvet woven with delicate silver at the collar. An old gift he'd given her, like the sword at her hip; a pirate's ensemble, carried with ease now by the woman who'd been his wife for a decade. The woman who'd walked into a war with him.

And even if the cloak hid her stomach, the rounder lines of her small frame and the healthy flush to her cheeks told another story, and for a moment it was hard tearing his eyes away. “Yeah.”

A snort from above. “You’re ridiculous.”

His grin only widened, and his laugh was a softer thing this time, “Yeah.”

Buggy said nothing to that, and in between breaths Shanks was suddenly brought back twenty years, to the deck of a ship that had long since sailed its last voyage, and the quiet lull between petty disagreements that had always ended in a truce, grievances forgotten; a ceasefire acknowledged with the cheerful clink of glasses, and laughter to chase down the drink. And even with the terrible truth of the war spread out around them, and all it had dredged to the surface, the memory of an old friendship was a happy discovery, even after so many years.

“Hey, Buggy,” Shanks said then, voice lowered so as not to be overheard, but he couldn’t have tempered his grin if he’d wanted to as he said, gently, “I’m gonna be a dad.”

There was a pause—a full beat of complete silence where surprise chased over Buggy’s expression, wiping his features clean of derision and annoyance, before something that looked like the beginnings of a genuine smile alighted across his face.

Then his smile dropped, and his voice rang out, a keening shriek of familiar disbelief that had Shanks wincing—

“You brought your pregnant wife to a war!?”

—

She found him in the rubble, a hunched shape, grey and battered like the jagged rocks scattered around him.

Indecision gripped her before she could take a single step, and under that unforgiving hold she couldn’t uproot her feet from the ground. Ten years without word, without a single call, because her cowardice had held her back; the fear that he would look at her and not see the woman she’d become, but the shadow of the girl she’d let die, the day she’d decided to become a pirate.

And of all the stories the sea carried with her name, some of them inching closer to the truth than their creators realised, this was a truth Makino doubted any of them had gotten right—that more than anything else, she was a coward.

A hand touched her back then, the familiar warmth of his presence wrapping around her. Gone was that white-hot ember, and she drew some strength from the gentle lap of it, where it reached for her now. A kiss to her hair, and, “Go,” Shanks said.

He’d gone with her when she’d expressed her wish to find Garp. With the ceasefire brokered, Makino didn’t think anyone would attack her if she went alone, but Shanks hadn’t seemed inclined to take any chances.

“I’ll be here,” he told her, when she looked at him. Then, wry smile quirking, “At a safe distance. If I remember right, Garp has a mean right hook.”

Her own smile wavered, and she felt the brush of his fingers along her cheek. No hair to tuck behind her ear now, having braided all of it back, but she leaned into the touch, and with a breath, said, “I’ll just be a moment.”

“Take your time.”

Makino squared her shoulders, and felt something like a laugh threatening, thinking suddenly that she’d stared down Edward Newgate and Kaidou both, but faced with the man who’d been the closest thing she’d ever known to a father, she quailed like a child.

Time to own up to your choices, Makino.

One more second for courage, and then she was pushing through the rubble, mindful of where she stepped, but steady in her course as she approached Garp where he sat, shoulders heavy and his eyes staring into nothing.

She came to a stop in front of him, and her hands shook where they hung at her sides, but she curled her fingers into her palms and pushed a breath past her lips.

“Garp,” Makino said, voice soft.

He blinked, as though coming back to himself, and then he was raising his eyes to look at her. And it took all the strength she had to keep her back straight as that tired gaze focused on her, although it wasn’t the hard, accusing scrutiny she’d expected.

Something flickered across his face, some emotion that even the blood and the grime couldn’t mask, pulling the hard angles into an expression she’d never seen before.

His hair was grey, she saw then, the thought leaping out at her. There’d still been some dark left it in, when she’d seen him last.

Ten years, she thought then, the full weight of that realisation settling, and the two words lodged in her throat, each holding a sob that she couldn’t get out.

Garp was still looking at her, as though he couldn’t decide what he was seeing, but the terrible weight of emotion that passed over his features made something clench around her heart with enough force that it drove her breath from her lungs. “Makino.”

She watched as he took her in, everything that was different from what he’d known once. And maybe he was trying to reconcile the image of her now with the girl he remembered — the barmaid with her flowery kerchiefs.

Now his gaze lingered on the long braid, hanging heavy down her back, no kerchief and no flowers in sight. The dark velvet cloak and the leather boots, and the sword at her hip, carried with an ease she couldn’t have imagined when she’d first taken it into her hands, ten years ago.

“You look well,” he told her then, his voice rough, but the words were genuine. He didn’t even sound surprised; it was just a statement of fact.

And whatever she’d expected to get from this meeting, it hadn’t been that.

She realised then that she was crying, fat tears blurring her vision, rolling down her cheeks, to gather at her jaw and the collar of her cloak. And she watched his mouth quirk, just a fraction, as though he saw her now, the woman she’d become, but found some of the girl still left in her.

Her sob broke off, but then she was moving, covering the remaining distance at an almost-run, hindered only by the weight of her stomach. But he didn’t stop her, and didn’t push her away when she sank to her knees, hands tucked under his arms as another sob tore loose, muffled against his jacket.

He smelled like blood and gunpowder, nothing at all like she remembered, but Makino didn’t care, only fisted her hands in the jacket at his back, and when her next sob came, it held the words she’d kept with her for ten years, hoarded like an ugly secret, and when she spoke them it felt like something broke and mended within her all at once, “I’m sorry.”

Strong arms wrapped around her, gripping with enough force that she felt her breath rush out of her, and for a moment she was so startled she forgot that she was crying, but Garp didn’t release her, and when he pressed his brow to her shoulder she felt the back under her palms heave, once, even as no sound escaped him.

She thought she might have said something more, if she could—if she’d had the voice to speak the words, she might have told him, all the things she would have when she’d been a girl and he’d come back from Headquarters and told her he was sick of the world, but he’d like her to tell him about the books she’d read since he’d seen her last. Had there been any daring battles, or princesses in disguise? Any handsome kings, and dragons that needed slaying?

She might have told him about her king now, and their fourth of a kingdom. Her many disguises, every fanciful rumour to her name, and some of the truths that had slipped in over the years. She could have told him of a hundred daring battles, and facing down beasts in different shapes. Her sword that sang.

But she couldn’t find her voice, not for the words that needed saying, or those that could be said. Although it didn’t seem to matter to Garp that she didn’t speak, and for a while all he did was hold her.

The sigh that pulled loose of her had her sinking against him, but before it had even had a chance to leave her fully, Garp was suddenly pulling back, hands curved around her shoulders as his eyes dropped to her stomach. And even with the cloak hiding it, Makino realised he must have felt it.

The words dragged from him, a rasp, “Are you—”

He didn’t finish, but she saw now as realisation took shape, although the expression that came to settle on his face didn’t give her any hints as to what he thought about it.

But in this, Makino found that it didn’t matter what he thought, because no matter how much her choices had hurt him, she would never, ever feel sorry about her unborn child.

And so she lifted her chin, and with a smile that dared him to say anything at all, said simply, “Yes.”

There was a moment where he looked at her that Garp seemed to be looking beyond her, as though he was seeing something else entirely, before his gaze cleared, and he seemed to take her in, all of her, and where they were sitting.

Then, familiar anger sharpening the words, “You realise you just walked into a war?”

And somehow, out of all the things he could have said—out of all the things he could have offered, condemnation and disappointment, disbelief and sorrow—concern for her wellbeing, and the wellbeing of her child, and in such a Garp-like fashion, was almost more than Makino could take.

She was crying so badly she couldn’t see, but her smile had come to stay, it seemed. “I hear when you get married, it’s common to support your spouse in their endeavours,” she said, voice too thick for glibness, but she didn’t care. “And I know you were hoping that all that would amount to for me was to stand at some boring farmer’s side at the melon harvest.” She wiped at her eyes, smile trembling, and nodded, as though to herself. “I don’t think my husband would make a very good melon farmer, though. Better he puts his skills to use where they’re needed.”

From the look Garp was giving her, Makino couldn’t decide if her attempted humour was making things better or worse, but, “If it helps,” she told him, “He put up a fight about it.”

At that, his brows furrowed, and she could read his expression without problem when he grumbled, “Not a big enough fight, if you’re here.”

Makino raised a brow. “You’d rather he made my decisions for me?” She met his eyes. “I always had a choice with him. And I stand by all those choices. Him included.”

She wondered, as she had so often during that first year after leaving Fuschia, if Garp had ever fully accepted that she’d left on her own. The villagers would have told him as much, if he’d asked; after all, Makino hadn’t exactly made a secret of her intentions to join the Red-Hair Pirates. And several of them had been on the docks to bid her farewell.

Then again, maybe it would have been an easier truth to bear, to believe that she’d been spirited away, even if she knew that if Garp really had thought that she’d been taken against her will, they wouldn’t have gotten far. But to himself, privately, maybe it had helped to believe that.

“Have you been happy, Makino?”

She blinked, and looked up at him. He still had his hands on her shoulders, and the comforting weight was easier to bear that the one behind the eyes looking at her now, searching her face, something desperate suddenly in his gaze, as though he couldn’t decide what he wanted her answer to be.

She sought out Shanks’ presence then, and found it without thinking, still where she’d left him. And she found the others there, too—Ben’s steady calm, and Yasopp’s; that sharp point of focus. And all the others she could single out with her eyes closed, even with so many people around them, marines and pirates both living and dead. Her family, and another choice that she’d never once regretted.

It’s not a crime to choose happiness. Shanks’ words, and she remembered them as she remembered the cold winter evening that had seen them spoken, and the boy who’d showed up, and who’d been the embodiment of choice. To choose a father, and a little brother’s life.

And she knew her smile answered for itself, but she said it anyway, because if anything deserved saying, it was this. “Yes.”

The tear-tracks through the grime were silent testaments, but then Garp’s shoulders heaved, and the hands gripping hers tightened. And he wasn’t looking at the crew behind her, or the battlefield, or anything else. For a moment, all he seemed to see was her, but even with the tears, the grin that pushed through the grief, which had always been a little terrifying, was as genuine as the words that followed.

“Glad to hear it.”

—

The graves rose from a bright cradle of colour, the smaller of the two sheltered in the shade of the other. Above, the sky swept an endless blue, and the smell of flowers permeated the air, the sheer intensity of it almost overpowering, but it had claimed the lingering smell of blood and gunpowder that had clung to her nose since Marineford, and so Makino welcomed the change, and with a deep breath that she let fill her whole body to the brim.

The funeral over, the pirates were dispersing, some dragging their feet, others striding with purpose in their step. And that was what death did, Makino supposed—it forged different hearts from the grief left in its wake, and only time would dull the very sharpest edges; the ones that might have accepted, but whose acceptance came with a price.

The promise she found in those sharp edges now, backs ramrod straight and knuckles white-capped, not gripping their weapons but never far from them, left a wary unease in its wake, like the sea pulling back before a great wave, except it just kept pulling, further and further away from the shore. She wondered when it would finally break.

“It’s not going to be any better, is it?” she asked, lifting her eyes to Shanks at her side. “What’s coming.”

His expression hardened. He was looking at the graves when he spoke, “No.”

A truth without embellishment, and one they’d both known, long before Marineford—before Whitebeard and Ace, and Blackbeard. And Makino offered no further comment, knowing it wasn’t needed, although she knew it was a subject that would have to be broached, and soon.

She thought back to Blackbeard’s words in the plaza, and glancing at Shanks found her thoughts reflected on his face, the sharp pull of his features highlighting the scars.

Palms pressed to her stomach, she felt the baby moving, and Makino turned her eyes to the smaller of the graves—to the hat, and the name carved into the stone. Another breath sought the salt drifting in from the sea. The sun warmed her cheeks.

“Ace,” she said then, with a smile that had no care for death. “If we have a boy.”

Shanks looked at her, surprised, and it was as though the words had broken some kind of spell—had shattered the hard expression that had been on his face, leaving something that looked for a moment so genuinely startled, Makino felt her smile widening.

Then, surprise easing into something softer, Shanks smiled. “Ace, huh?”

She didn’t ask if he liked it—could see it in the smile that mirrored her own now, and felt it when he reached for her, wrapping his arm around her back to pull her close, until the curve of her stomach was pressed flush against him, as though he needed a moment just to feel them both at once.

And they hadn’t talked yet, of what had happened at the plaza—that one, terrible moment of doubt before Blackbeard had pulled back. They’d barely had a moment’s rest between the ceasefire and the funeral, and neither of them had been sleeping well, nights spent seeking the assurance of skin and pulse and breaths, and the release that left no room for doubt about either.

But now there was rest—was peace, where they came together. And for a brief, bright moment Makino thought of that sunny day on the Loguetown docks, the quiet lull between teasing quips about sleeping habits and an uncertain future, and an answer that had accepted both.

“You think it will be a boy?” she heard then, the words a low murmur against her hair. She thought he sounded pleased, although she had a feeling he would have, regardless.

She pressed a wavering smile to the warm skin at his collar. “I found the ledgers. Ben has his money on it being a boy, so I’m fairly certain.”

A soft laugh; she felt it under her hands, and when she pushed herself closer she felt his arm tightening around her. “Can’t argue with sound logic,” Shanks said.

Nose tucked into the hollow of her throat, she felt the breath when he drew it, the unyielding spine curved under her palms that only ever gave in at her small touches, now righting itself again as Shanks drew back to look at her.

Warm fingers wrapped around her own, and, “Come on, my girl,” he said, the words simple, but holding a whole world of truths, heralding a return she’d almost been afraid to hope for, when he’d first declared his intention of intervening in the war. And a promise, that whatever was in store for them next, they’d be facing it together.

“Oi, missus.”

The unexpected address drew her attention, only to find Marco having approached from across the grass. But before she could respond, Shanks gave her hand a squeeze, something like understanding in his eyes before he drew away, toward where they’d anchored the ship.

Makino watched him go, before turning to the pirate who’d addressed her. “Marco-san.”

He was looking at her stomach. Without the cloak, it was painfully evident, but they hadn’t bothered with pretence. Not around this crew. And he wasn’t smiling, but something in his expression changed, the grief lifting, if only a little.

“Congratulations,” he told her, raising his eyes to hers. “To you and Red-Hair both. Meant to say it earlier.”

Her smile was small, and she laced her fingers together over her stomach. The baby was quiet. “Thank you.”

“It’s good to see there’s more than death to deal with,” Marco said then. “Hard to remember sometimes, with this sea.” He didn’t glance at the graves behind her, but then Makino doubted he had to look at them to be reminded.

He looked at her stomach again. “Your husband’s a good man. Rare, that.”

She smiled, remembering the greeting he’d given them when they’d stepped aboard Whitebeard’s ship. “He is.”

Marco lifted his gaze then, and she saw that a deep furrow had wedged between his brows. “With the old man gone, there’ll be a vacuum. Someone’s going to try to fill it,” he said then. Makino didn’t need him to tell her who he thought would be the first to try; the hard slant to his mouth said enough. “The New World won’t be the same after this.”

Makino felt her hands clenching, knuckles bleeding white where her fingers interlaced. “What will you do?”

He didn’t answer, but she found it, in those sharp edges. Acceptance, but at a price. He wouldn’t be dragging his feet.

But, “If you ever need anything,” he said then, and for the briefest of moments, those sharp edges smoothed out. “Don’t hesitate. I owe Red-Hair a debt. That extends to you and the little one.”

“He won’t ask you to pay it,” Makino said.

She thought he might have smiled at that, had it been any other day than this. “Somehow, I’m not surprised,” Marco said. “Mah, the offer still stands.”

She nodded. Under her hands, the baby shifted. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

Then, the barest of smiles tugged at his mouth, but it was enough to make her brows lift. “And I promise I’ll give you a warning next time, if I take you flying,” he added.

She laughed at that, a wet, trembling sound, but it wasn’t a broken one, and when he lifted his hand in a parting wave, Makino bid him farewell.

She watched his retreating back for a moment, before turning to the graves one last time, seeking the name, and the movements under her palms.

I’ll sing to him, she thought to the grave. Or to her, if it’s a girl. It doesn’t matter.

Her hands tightened, once, before she let them drop from her stomach, touching her fingertips to Siren's hilt. And if necessary, I won’t be the only one.

She felt her sword where it rested, heavy on her hip. Like her resolve, a comfortable weight now.

She wouldn’t hesitate.

Then, a deep breath claimed, lungs filled with the sea air and the flowers, she turned to follow where Shanks had gone, finding him by the ship where it sat anchored to the shore. Behind it, the horizon sprawled forever, and when she approached someone hollered for the anchor to be raised.

The baby kicked, and Makino patted her stomach. Calm down, you. You’ll be back on board soon.

Shanks smiled as she came close, eyes curving against the glare of the sun. “Ready?”

Hand falling from her stomach, the kicking persisted, and Makino tucked it into Shanks' when he reached for her, finding it warm to the touch. Sword-callouses seeking their kin, and smaller, gentler knuckles fitting themselves into familiar grooves; the rough heart of his palm, and the lace of his fingers. Her resolve sat, unwavering.

“I’m ready.”