Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

She’s important to all of them.

“Makino-san!”

The call of her name had her head lifting, seeking the voice across the room with a smile, but she didn’t pause in her step, manoeuvring between the tables with a tray balanced on one hand, a bottle in the other, not even looking where she was going, but trusting them to pull their chairs back and draw their legs out of the way as she passed. No less perilous than a pitching deck, but she didn’t even pause for breath, as though she knew the layout of the room in her sleep; the room with the lot of them in it.

A hand touched her elbow, and she paused, her smile brightening tellingly, and she spared a moment for their captain, along with a softly laughing reprimand when he made to reach for the bottle in her hand, although the intent behind the shameless pilfering hadn’t been the bottle, but the fleeting touch he stole instead, against the small fingers curled around it.

She didn’t notice. If she had, her face would have revealed it.

Grinning, Yasopp shook his head, and slid another coin across the table towards Ben, who closed his fingers around it without glancing up from his drink.

“One more lingering touch and she’ll realise,” Yasopp said.

Ben glanced up, smile quirking. “She won’t. Not unless he gets down on his knees and declares it. And even then I’m not convinced it would do the trick.”

“Cap’s utter lack of subtlety is completely lost on her. I didn’t think it was possible.”

“You’ll find curious things on this sea,” Ben mused, lifting his glass to his lips, and nodded to Makino as she breezed by them with a smile, a greeting offered as she stepped gracefully around a chair, the empty tray twirled between her hands.

“Yeah,” Yasopp agreed. “And she is that.”

It was an affection that took root early, through little things—an interest shown that wasn’t feigned, and not just in their captain, although that one was painfully obvious (they’d all have to be blind not to see it, or at least as blind as Makino seemed to the fact that the fool was completely lovestruck the moment he first laid eyes on her). But even with her clear favourite, she’d still made time to get to know them all, each and every soul in their crew. Wary at first, with her tavern full of wanted men, but she’d quickly warmed to their attentions (their captain’s doing, mostly, but they’re not about to tell him—he’d never let them forget it).

She wouldn’t ask them questions just for the sake of smalltalk. Instead she sought other, more personal things—their hometowns, their families, their reasons for seeking piracy above all other professions. And she remembered odd little details (Ben’s late sister’s smoking habit, and where and when Doc had gotten all his tattoos), and let it show in small, telling gestures (a plate of food put down at Lucky’s elbow without asking, and an extra minute spent by Yasopp’s table, listening to a story she’d heard three times already).

It had taken less than a week for her to learn all their names, and another to learn how they all preferred their drinks. Three nights into their first extended stay in Fuschia, she’d put lemon in Doc’s gin and tonic without asking, and had pulled down an old bottle of whiskey from her top shelf because someone had let it slip it was the Captain’s preference. And when asked about its origins, she’d only smiled a sad little smile and said “good alcohol should be enjoyed, not sit around collecting dust”, and had split it between them all, as best she could.

They found out later it had been her late mother’s favourite, saved for a special occasion before her passing had rendered the sentiment obsolete.

They tracked down the distillery, the brand long out of production, but managed to root out a bottle from a collector in a remote corner of North Blue. The look on her face when they’d presented it to her would have made a trip twice that length again worth it.

“Save this one,” Shanks said, before Makino could even protest the gift. “For a special occasion.”

She opened her mouth, then shut it, her hands stilling on the bottle, twice as old as she was and then some. The expression on their captain’s face wasn’t even trying to hide his excitement.

“A special occasion?” she asked then, her smile warming with that in-spite-of-herself fondness that seemed to resurface a lot where their particular crew was concerned, and their captain more than anything. “What did you have in mind, Captain?”

Shanks’ smile softened a bit from its preening enthusiasm, although the thoughts behind it were no less obvious. If she recognised what it meant remained to be seen, but from the small flicker of hope on her face, she had her suspicions of what it might be.

And they all knew what the answer was, to her question—their own hopes, sitting in that bottle; a whole crew’s worth. They’d been returning to Fuschia between voyages for almost half a year, but they would be setting sail for good one day, and for the Grand Line this time. It was a voyage most pirates never returned from; she knew that as well as any of them, even if she wasn’t a pirate. Not in name, anyway.

But she was part of them, and in more ways than just the anchor to their captain’s heart—theirs like they were hers, and always welcoming them home like they belonged; a crew of men who’d long since left the meaning of that word on the docks of their old villages and towns. It wasn’t a given that they’d ever make it back here once they left, but damn it if they wouldn’t try.

“I’ll think of something,” Shanks told her, nudging the bottle closer, their fingers bumping. The touch lingered, and long enough for even her to notice, this time. “Just hold on to it until then, yeah?”

The smile had slipped off her face, despite her attempts at keeping it. And she’d caught on now to the thoughts behind the gift, and everything it implied; the years they’d be gone, and the fact that they might not make it back. But she accepted the bottle and all the hope in it, and put it on the very highest shelf, her hands shaking a bit, but she didn’t give them the chance to fret for long, busy fetching glasses, and their favoured drinks already in mind.

She lingered a bit longer by their captain’s side that night, a little more brazen in her attentions, seeming prompted by the thought of their impending departure, if still a little ways off. Shyly possessive, it was an endearing demonstration of blatant partiality that had them all grinning into their glasses.

“Hand! Look, look—her hand on his back! For Makino-san, that’s practically feeling him up. Pay up, Ben.”

“Would you keep your voice down?” someone hissed.

“Yeah, curb your enthusiasm a little. You’d think she'd crawled into his lap. I’ve seen Cap get more amorous with Doc when he’s on meds.”

“A reminder I could have lived without,” Doc murmured.

“Some heavy petting wouldn’t kill them,” someone interjected. “Would put us all out of our misery, at least.”

A muted choir of glasses clinking together punctuated the remark, along with a murmur of approval.

Shanks lifted his hand then, to settle it on her hip, and someone suffocated their gasp with a napkin.

There was a long beat where all the conversation in the room seemed to have ground to a halt, although neither of the people in question seemed aware they were being observed.

Someone whispered, “Hey, do you think she—”

“Shh!”

A warm laugh fell from her then, before she leaned into the touch, and the hand on Shanks' shoulder trailed up to brush against the hair at his nape.

“Ben,” someone said simply, and Ben sighed, forking over a pouch of coins.

And it was obvious she’d made her choice, although for all their teasing about winning her over, there’d been no real competition. But the depth of her feelings for one man didn’t stop her from seeing each of them as they were, or from treating them with any less affection (well—a different kind of affection, because as generous as she was with her attentions, her touches she reserved for the idiot grinning so widely it was embarrassing to look at).

And their reason for coming back might be their captain’s heart, but that didn’t mean their own were any less invested. After all, the bottle on her shelf was the least subtle declaration of attachment they could have managed between them, seeming to say, loud and clear, here’s a part of us, just try to take her.

—

“Come on, Ben. Please?”

She had her elbows resting on the counter, her expression enraptured. It was hard to look away from a face like that, full of so much earnest interest, and even harder to turn down the request.

“He’d never forgive me if I told you,” Ben told her. “It’s a spectacularly undignified account. If you were harbouring any hopes that he’s as suave as he’s trying to convince you, this will kill them. Swiftly, but not necessarily painlessly.”

Her smile brightened, a wide, lovely thing. And while it was hard to look away, it wasn’t at all hard to see what had their captain so enamoured. “Perfect,” Makino chirped. “I’m all ears.”

Ben just looked at her, watching him. A quiet lull claimed between servings, she’d sought him out, the way she had of doing with all of them. She’d asked about their latest voyage (—the real account, not whatever heavily embellished, swashbuckling adventure Shanks had tried to sell her earlier, although Ben knew as well as any of them that she was particularly susceptible to their captain’s tales, however unbelievable), and had lingered a moment to talk. With her bar full of pirates vying for her attention, the show of consideration would have been remarkable but for the effortless way she seemed to have of distributing it between them.

She was still watching him with that look that begged a man’s secrets from his heart, and Ben spared a passing lament to a time in his life where he hadn’t been quite so inclined to drop everything at the whims of people with far too convincing smiles. A time before a certain idiot had tracked him down and suggested (and with a grin that had said plainly that it was less of a suggestion and more of a matter of fact) that he should come with him to be a pirate.

Looking at Makino now, Ben couldn’t decide if her particular brand of delicate coercion was any kinder than Shanks’ blunt, no-holds-barred one.

Probably not.

“As a disclaimer, I would like to point out that I’ve never been so drunk in my life,” he told her, and sighed when her eyes brightened visibly. “My decision-making skills were severely impaired.”

She was grinning now. “Duly noted.”

He told her the story—the whole, ridiculous tale, from the moment they’d first set foot on the island in question, to the one where they’d woken up off the coast of a completely different island, with their captain tied to the main mast, and without a stitch of clothing on him.

By the end of it Makino was laughing so hard she could barely hold herself up, the unrestrained demonstration of mirth nothing like she was known for; that soft bell-chime that would slip under the din but never above it. This laugh carried, and Ben had to hide his smile behind the rim of his glass, it was such a startled thing.

If she noticed the amount of delighted grins turned her way, or the fact that every conversation in the room seemed to have paused in favour of observing her, Makino didn’t let on, although Ben suspected she might have been a little flustered if she’d realised.

A glance across the room found Shanks raising his brows, expression full of bemused delight, but Ben only shook his head.

“I still don’t know who tied him to the mast,” he said, when she’d gathered herself enough to focus on what he was actually saying. “No one remembers. But it took half an hour untying all the knots to get him loose, and then he spent ten minutes throwing up over the side of the ship.”

She was wiping her eyes now, hiccuping laughter. “O-oh, my stomach hurts.”

Ben smiled, and cut another glance across the room. “I know you won’t be able to lie your way out of this, so when he asks what story I told you, you might as well make it worth the telling.” He looked at her, brows raised. “So make sure you tell him that I included the part with the violent, naked retching.”

Makino pushed a breath past her lips, as though to regain some of her control. “So much for being a wise and experienced sea captain.”

Ben snorted. “That’s what he calls himself?”

“I think the words he used were ‘seasoned buccaneer’.”

“Of course he did.”

Her eyes were grinning, tears of mirth clinging to her lashes. “Does he always rely on you to get him out of trouble?” she asked.

Ben looked at her, endless dark eyes and that easily spellbound smile.

No, it definitely wasn’t hard to see the appeal.

“There are times even I can’t help him,” he told her at length, and watched as her brows furrowed a bit, confusion wrinkling her nose at the implication sitting in that remark. And he saw when something like understanding followed, settling in the slight parting of her mouth.

He might have felt some measure of regret at letting slip such a blatant insinuation of just what kind of hold she had over their captain, but it wasn’t like Shanks was being any less obvious about it. Of course, leave it to Makino to assume differently.

“Hopefully, this won’t be what spells his downfall,” she said, with a strained laugh, and very noticeably kept her eyes from drifting to the back of the room. Ben wondered how much effort it took. Likely a considerable amount, from the abuse she was inflicting on the dish-rag.

“I’m not so sure,” he told her, and politely pretended not to notice the hope that brightened her eyes when they leaped up to meet his. And even for him, it took a staggering amount of self-control to keep from shaking his head at the whole situation.

Idiots, both of them. But they were his idiots, although just how he’d gotten himself roped into this mess, Ben didn’t know.

It was probably the smiles.

—

That she was kind didn’t take more than a second in her presence to determine, but her kindness would show in different things.

The plate was put before him, the familiar smell hitting his nose before anything else, and Lucky knew he had to be wearing his surprise, because her expression brightened at the sight of it.

He blinked down at the offering, before lifting his eyes again. “Ma-chan,” he said. “This is—”

He didn’t finish the sentence, but Makino smiled, and said, “I tried out a few recipes, but I hope I got it right.” When all he did was stare at her, she dropped her eyes, smile suddenly shy. “Yasopp, ah—he mentioned that you get homesick from time to time. That you miss the food.”

His mouth worked, but he didn’t know how to respond. He’d never been good with words—not like Shanks, who talked more than he drew breath. He couldn’t conjure quick comebacks like Yasopp, or deliver them with Ben’s dry ease, and so, “You did that just for me?” Lucky blurted, before he could stop himself.

She was a good cook, and they’d all sung her praises where that was concerned. And she knew their favourite meals like she knew their poison of preference, but this was different. No one had cooked for him since he’d first left home.

Her expression soft, she shrugged, tucking her arms around her empty tray. “I think no matter where you are in the world, it’s always good to remember your home,” Makino said. “Even if it’s just in the little things.”

He looked at the plate, then back at her where she stood, the smell of her cooking filling the air, seeming to fit itself in amidst all the other scents of her bar—the flowers on the shelves and the sea beyond the windows. If home had a smell, he reckoned it was something like this.

“Thank you,” Lucky said, the stark simplicity of the offering falling laughably short of what he wanted to say, but her smile showed in her eyes, and she didn’t seem to find anything wrong with it.

“You have a good heart, Lucky Roo,” Makino told him.

His grin was sheepish, and he was pretty sure he looked as stupid as their Boss tended to look around her. “Yeah, well you found the way to it,” he told her, and scratched the back of his head when she laughed, the sound a suddenly loud thing. A certain someone’s influence, most likely, but they weren’t the only ones leaving their marks, Lucky thought, as he reached for his fork, the smell drifting up from the plate making tears press against his eyes. But if she noticed, Makino only smiled, and kept it to herself.

—

“You want me to teach you how to shoot?”

He knew his shit-eating grin probably wasn’t the reaction she’d hoped for, but it was difficult tempering his delight when she was looking at him like that, Yasopp found.

“I know how a pistol works,” Makino told him, a twinge of something he was tempted to call nervousness making the words stumble a bit on her tongue. Then, her mouth twisting with a sheepish smile. “Ah, well—I know the basics. What I’d like is some practice. If—if you wouldn’t mind.”

Yasopp observed her, standing by the table; the pretty floral apron and the sunny yellow kerchief holding her hair back. Kindness personified and drawn with delicate lines, nothing about her suggested either a thirst or an affinity for weaponry.

“Any particular reason?” he asked, and his grin said enough about what he suspected said reason might be.

She was fiddling with her apron, but kept her expression surprisingly level. Of course, her eyes revealed just about everything else. “Do I need one?”

He cocked his head. “Want to impress Cap?”

The furious blush made it impossible to keep his grin from stretching, but the unimpressed purse of her mouth told him he was treading on dangerously thin ice with his teasing.

Still. It was hard to resist.

“You know, I don’t think you need it,” he told her. “Idiot’s so head over heels it’s a little embarrassing. For the rest of us, that is.”

The smile that chased across her face looked distinctly pleased, and the flustered tuck of her hair behind her ear betrayed her attempted nonchalance. She was about as subtle as their captain when it came to her feelings, although the difference was that Shanks wasn’t really trying to be.

“But okay,” Yasopp said, still grinning. “I’ll help you.”

He refrained from teasing her about her reasons for wanting to learn (well, he kept it to a minimum; he really couldn’t help himself), because there were few who could endure his chatter with the same grace, and who showed as much interest in what he said as she did. And she didn’t even have a reason to pretend, or any ulterior motive behind her interest. It was just who she was.

She asked about his son. She always did, even if he was sure she knew every story by now, and everything there was to know about the boy. And she listened when he talked — really listened, and to the things he didn’t say, every hidden grief and regret that slipped between the lines and the anecdotes that were so familiar he could recite them in his sleep.

He let her use one of his spare pistols; a small thing, old and cared-for, the wood polished smooth and the metal oiled to shining. He didn’t keep it around for using, but it was a good practice gun, and it fit neatly into her hands.

“Usually,” Yasopp told her, helping her adjust her grip, before slipping her a wink, “I’ll tell my students to always handle a pistol with the same care they would their own…firearm. If you catch my drift.”

Makino blinked at him, brows furrowed, before realisation struck with a spectacular blush, but before she could even choke out a response, “So for you, I’ll just tell you to handle it with the care that you would the Captain’s,” Yasopp chirped, and when she fumbled the pistol in her hands, threw his head back with a laugh that startled a bird out of a nearby tree.

“Yasopp!” Her voice had a shrill note to it, and she was looking over her shoulder, as though to see if anyone had overheard.

“What? I’m just offering helpful advice on how to handle a loaded weapon,” he said, grinning at the mortified look she shot him. “Wasn’t that what you came here for?”

She didn’t seem to appreciate his cheek, and looked like she was hoping someone would shoot her, if only to save her from having this conversation, and Yasopp’s laugh softened as he patted her shoulder.

“Come on,” he told her. “You can take your frustration out on the targets.” And with another wink, “Trust me. It’s more effective than a cold shower.”

Makino groaned. “Please don't.”

Grinning, Yasopp complied, but only long enough to get in some actual teaching between quips. He set up a row of bottles on the fence at the edge of town, and went through the basics. Her late mother had taught her to shoot once, Makino told him. She hadn’t kept to it, but she was a quick study, even with his entirely cheeky suggestions (“squeeze the trigger, don’t yank at it”), and after a few fumbling attempts she hit one of the bottles, her tongue tucked between her teeth in an endearing show of concentration.

She was still blushing, but endured the whole thing with an air of stubborn dignity, and the pleasure on her face when she succeeded wiped away any last remnants of embarrassment.

“Keep it,” he told her later, at the end of their session when she made to give the pistol back.

He watched her consider the gun, turning it over in her hands, before she looked at him with those eyes that had seen so little, but that still saw more than most. “Are you sure?”

Yasopp smiled, and shrugged. “Suits your hands better than mine.” Then when she dropped her eyes to the gun again, “Keep it behind the bar,” he told her, pausing only a moment before adding, “Just in case.”

She looked up at that, surprised. And he didn’t say anything else, but saw as understanding settled across her features. And none of them had ever brought it up around her, which was well-intentioned, but ultimately counterproductive. At least Yasopp thought so. This village might not see a lot of pirates, but he’d seen enough of the sea to know what it sometimes dragged to shore. It wouldn’t do her any favours to face it unprepared, if it ever happened.

They were all leaving parts of themselves behind, Yasopp knew, the Captain more than any of them. Let this be his.

Makino curled her fingers around the pistol, and nodded once, determined. And Yasopp thought of the woman who’d last held that gun, twirling it around her finger with that laugh that had always made him forget what he’d been about to say, one hand on her straining stomach and a clever gleam in her eye.

Impressed? I’ve been practicing.

He grinned, and looked towards the fence; the last bottle standing. “You know who can land a shot like this with her eyes closed?” he asked her then.

Makino blinked, and her smile quirked, curious. “Who?”

He lifted his pistol, eyes on the lone bottle, and the fields stretching beyond it, seeing suddenly a different island, and with his next breath he closed his eyes and took the shot.

It hit its mark, and the bottle explored, a shower of coloured glass to catch the sunlight, spilling green-and-gold gemstones on the grass, but Yasopp allowed his eyes to stay closed a moment longer, seeking that proud smile in his memory that had always delighted in besting him.

“My wife.”

—

“You gave her a pistol?”

Yasopp shrugged, and lifted his glass to his lips. The ship swayed a bit, the storm outside hammering against the deck, but the drink sat steady in his hand. “She’s got a knack for it,” he said, tipping the glass back. “Good aim.”

The look Shanks shot him held amusement, and something he couldn’t quite put his finger on. Ben glanced up from the paper in his lap, but whatever his thoughts, didn’t offer them.

“And it might come in handy,” Yasopp said, meeting his captain’s eyes. “Fuschia might not attract a lot of pirates, but if we found a reason to dock there, what’s stopping anyone else? She runs that place on her own, and you saw how the rest of ‘em reacted the day we arrived. Won’t be much help to find there, if it happens again.”

He paused, the words punctuated by a crack of lightning outside the galley. The ship heaved a bit, before settling back on the waves, a little uneasily, and, “You’ve thought about it,” Yasopp said, when Shanks had offered no comment. “Don’t even try to tell me it hasn’t crossed your mind.”

A slight hardening of his expression was all his face revealed, but, “No,” Shanks agreed. “I’ve thought about it.”

Yasopp nodded. “Someone that good…” he said, letting the words trail off. “The world hasn’t got a lot of kindness to offer in return. That’s usually the way of things. Better she’s prepared for it.”

“It might not be such a bad idea,” Ben agreed. “We won’t be around forever.”

Somehow, the last half of his remark fell with the weight of an accusation, but Shanks met it without flinching, and Yasopp thought it better than to point it out.

“Anything you want to say, Ben?” Shanks asked, cheerfully.

Ben’s eyes were back on the paper. “Nothing at all.”

The slight shift was barely noticeable, but Yasopp had always had a keen eye for subtle changes, in mood as well as in anything else. The shiver of tension didn’t linger long, but it left an aftertaste, like a shot of cheap liquor clinging to the roof of his mouth.

The sky outside rumbled, the portholes yielding nothing but darkness and water, sea and sky coming together to throw the waves against the hull. The guttering lantern on the table inched a bit towards the edge, before settling.

“You know,” Yasopp told Shanks then, grin lightening the mood with a flash of teeth. “She asked because she wanted to impress you.”

The startled smile on his face hurt to look at, Yasopp thought, but didn’t let his own slip, and downed the feeling with the rest of his drink. Because he knew what sat behind that smile — still felt it whenever he thought of the island he’d left, and the woman on it, who’d told him she’d marry him the day they’d met. The son she’d given him, who was growing up without him.

He looked at Shanks then, and thought that he might have felt regret at the fact, that he was following down the same path, towards a future that would never feel whole. Easier for all parties if well enough was left alone, but the heart very rarely chose the easier path, in Yasopp’s experience.

And anyway, whenever he thought about his family—the woman who could take a killing shot with her eyes closed and one hand behind her back, and the boy who had his curls—regret was the last thing on his mind.

—

“Okay, but just how obvious can you get?”

“Depends on what you’re referring to—the girlish giggling, or the fact that Boss is so smitten he’s not even drinking?”

“And then there’s Makino-san,” someone interjected, earning a snort of laughter from across the table.

“Give them a break,” someone else said. “Love makes idiots out of the best of us.”

The objects of discussion didn’t seem to be aware they were being observed, or discussed. Then again, they didn’t seem to be aware of much beyond each other.

“God, Boss is bad at flirting,” someone sighed, to a laughing murmur of agreement.

“I don’t know, it looks like it’s working.”

“Anything will seem charming if you’re already that infatuated. Oh man—he’s telling the story with the bears, isn’t he? I know that sweeping gesture.”

“Not the bears, Boss,” someone groaned. “That story does not do you any favours.”

“Look at her smiling, though. Even I’d tell that story if I could get a girl to look at me like that.”

There was a moment of silence around their table, disappearing under the din, and their captain’s laughter when he threw his head back, Makino’s following closely at its heels, a softer thing. Her cheeks were flushed, and the hands fretting on the counter were doing a terrible job of hiding what they wanted to do. The glass she’d put down in front of Shanks sat, untouched.

The pause had stretched on for a few seconds before someone asked, quietly, “Who do you think will take leaving the hardest?”

Someone else sighed, but the sound was drowned by the next roar of laughter from where their captain looked ready to slip off his barstool.

“You mean it’s not obvious?”

—

“Boss.”

Shanks looked up from the map laid out on the table to take in the group who’d gathered before it—his whole crew crammed into the galley, the sinking sun at their backs.

“This isn’t a mutiny, is it?” he asked, cutting his eyes to Ben, seated on the other side of the table from him.

He got a raised brow for that. “Don’t look at me,” Ben said. “I haven’t been plotting one in a while.”

Shanks stuck his tongue out, and Ben’s brief smile came to settle in the corner of his mouth.

“You should ask her,” someone said then, drawing Shanks’ attention back. They were all looking at him, expressions somewhere between expectant and curiously determined.

“Makino-san,” another voice spoke up, as though to elaborate, although he’d already caught on to what they were doing. He’d been expecting something like this. “You should ask her to come with us, when we leave for the Grand Line.”

Shanks looked at the map of East Blue, gaze finding the island that was never far from his mind. Well, not so much the island as the woman on it.

“She has a life,” he said at length, dragging his eyes away from the map, and his thoughts from the smile in his memory; the warm, laughing eyes. “I can’t just ask her to uproot it to be a pirate.”

“Why not?” someone asked. “She could have a life with us.”

“Yeah. We’d keep her safe.”

“And Yasopp’s been teaching her to shoot!”

“She’d make an interesting pirate,” Ben mused, rolling an unlit cigarette between his fingers, before lifting it to his lips to light it.

Shanks watched them, several more voices having risen in eager accompaniment, offering their thoughts—that many of them hadn’t had much more experience when they’d first joined, and that it wasn’t like she wouldn’t have anything to do.

“She’s organised,” someone pointed out. “More than you are, Cap.”

“And she’s diplomatic.”

“We could use a bit more common sense on this ship,” someone agreed, and Shanks caught Ben’s smile, a quick, fleeting thing.

There was a word on the tip of his tongue, ready to offer his agreement, but he held it back. He’d thought about it, of course—asking her, if only because the thought of setting sail and never seeing her again was hard for him to breathe past. Even with all the sea in the world ahead of him, and all the freedom on it, putting the East Blue behind him seemed like the hardest thing he’d ever been faced with.

Looking at the rest of his crew, he had a sense the feeling was of a mutual sort.

It was strange. He’d never been the type to put down roots. He’d always loved the freedom of moving from place to place, no home but his ship and no family but the crew on it, but lately he’d found himself thinking about it more and more—the possibility of another family, little feet toddling between the tables of a crowded bar, and her smile greeting him on the docks when he stepped off the gangway. Those dark eyes, in another little face.

But the Grand Line rarely allowed for safe returns. If they set sail for that sea, there’d be no turning back. Not at once, anyway. And he couldn’t ask her to wait indefinitely. It wouldn’t be fair.

But...maybe she’d say yes, if he asked her to come with them. Maybe, instead of waiting for him to come back, she’d be beside him instead, and the little feet in his mind would be taking their first steps across the deck of his ship, a hundred hands ready to catch them from falling.

Maybe it was a fool’s hope, even considering the possibility.

Shanks looked at them all, waiting for his decision. All the foolish hearts that had anchored themselves in a tiny little village in a forgotten corner of the sea, and a girl who was anything but forgettable.

He sighed, but the smile that followed ruined any hopes he’d had of advocating caution, but then that had never been his strong suit.

“I’ll ask her, but don’t get your hopes up,” he told them, and refrained from shaking his head at the grins that erupted across their faces, and the hoots of laughter that broke out, before the promise of a party followed suit, and loudly.

When he looked at Ben next, it was to find himself being observed, and with a look he’d seen more times than he could count—the one that had preceded more than one harebrained scheme and poorly-made decision. But there was no fond condemnation accompanying it now, just a stark, unforgiving weight of understanding.

“You sure they’re the ones in need of that advice?” Ben asked, the query too low to rise above the laughter and the singing. With the celebratory mood, it took effort to keep himself from imagining what it would have been like with her present, not serving them but at home among them; a part of his crew, and his life. The life of a pirate, with all that entailed.

“No,” Shanks said honestly, and thought the truth of that statement might have been easier to swallow with a strong drink. Although it would take more than that, he knew, to drown out the image of what she’d look like, standing at the bow, her hair loose and the sea at her feet.

—

“I hope you know they adore you,” he told her one morning, tracing nonsensical patterns on her skin, bared in the sunlight and wrapped in soft sheets — and him, but nothing about him was soft; nothing tender in old scars and hard, sharp-boned limbs. The span of his palm over her slender back looked at odds with the shape beneath, all of her unmarred, delicate bones shifting under her skin, moon-white against his.

“The guys,” Shanks clarified, trailing his fingers up her spine to seek her hair, the tangles left from his earlier attentions slipping through them. He rested the weight of his hand on her neck, tracing the dip of her hairline, and the shorter hair there.

He got a tired hum in response. She’d stretched herself out atop him, hip to hip, her tiny body seeming only more pronounced by his larger frame beneath it, their legs tangled and his arms wrapped around her, but she lifted her head from his chest now, pushing herself up to look at him. Her eyes shone brown in the sunlight, her pupils wide and dark, and the look on her face danced between fond and knowing. “The guys, hmm?”

Shanks grinned up at her; the sight had his heart beating a little faster in his chest, trapped under the featherlight weight of her dainty hand, splayed atop it. “Yeah. They’re painfully obvious about it.” He touched his fingers to her ear, sketching the curve of it, before drawing a path down the line of her jaw. When he spoke next his voice had dropped a notch, quietly musing, “Sometimes I wonder what they’ll do without you. They’ve gotten pretty attached.”

Her amusement softened, and he didn’t doubt that she’d heard what he was really saying. “I’m sure they’ll manage,” Makino said, fingers brushing absently over the hairs on his chest. “Fierce pirates that they are.”

“I don’t know if you overestimate just how fierce, or if you’re not giving yourself enough credit.”

“I’m just a girl in a port,” she told him, smiling. “What kind of damage can one girl do?”

Shanks just looked at her. “You’d be surprised,” he said. “You’ve left something of a mark, and that kind of thing lasts.” His grin crooked a bit. “I should know—I have a lot of them.”

He caught the shift of her gaze, and reaching up a hand, she traced a fingertip along the gouges over his eye. The excruciating tenderness of the gesture made something knot in his gut.

“I hope they know I’ll miss them terribly,” Makino said, looking at him. Her voice had a different quality to it, a slight quaver, but she didn’t seem bothered with pretending.

She’d turned down his offer to come with them. Well, she’d told him to ask her again in ten years, which wasn’t the answer he’d hoped for, but it was more than she could have offered, and so he’d grabbed hold with both hands. And ten years was a long time, and the sea they were setting sail for anything but kind, but he’d lived a long enough life to know a good thing when he had it within reach. He wasn’t about to let her go just because the odds were stacked against them.

He’d never been able to resist poor odds, anyway. Ben could attest to that, as could the rest of his crew, who’d often suffered the consequences of that particular predilection. Poor odds only meant a greater challenge, and for the rewards that this challenge promised, he’d bet more than just a few years of waiting.

“Terribly, huh?” He tucked her hair behind her ear. “If I tell them you said that, they might refuse to leave. I’ll be out of a crew. Or you’ll have one on your hands. Then what will you do?”

The smile she gave him didn’t succeed at hiding her sadness, although Shanks doubted she was trying. “The sea’s calling will be the louder one in the end, I think,” Makino said quietly.

Shanks said nothing to that. Not because he agreed with her reasoning, but because the truth wouldn’t change things—and it wouldn’t make it any easier to bear, telling her that if it had been that easy, they would have set sail for the Grand Line months ago.

From the look on her face, he thought she might have heard it, anyway. And she didn’t hold it against him, leaving; like he didn’t hold it against her, wanting to stay.

She kissed him then, the flat of her small palm poised on his chest as she leaned forward, her lips as soft as the rest of her. And he’d been kissed plenty of times in his life (he’d been told more than once that his mouth was good for three things—talking, kissing, and getting himself into trouble, the last usually following the first two), but never the way she kissed him, with a deliberate gentleness that took its time in learning to know him; a tentative question seeking an answer that he was always more than ready to give, kissing her back with the reckless fervour that was his, until she was laughing against his mouth, his fingers fisted in her hair.

He’d miss those kisses, he thought, releasing her mouth to kiss her jaw, her cheek, her pulse where it leaped in time with her laughter, and her nose where it scrunched up under his attentions.

“Speaking of the sea calling,” Shanks said, drawing back to look up at her, fingers drifting down to settle on her hip, prompting her brows to quirk upwards. “You never did say no. You just said to ask you again later. So technically, this still makes you a pirate. On hold.”

She pursed her mouth with a smile. “A land-bound one, maybe,” Makino conceded, but with a pleased gleam in her eyes.

“Still a pirate,” he countered.

She tilted her head, observing him, fingers running through his hair where it fell across the pillow. “That would make you my captain, then.”

The laugh that left him was loud and delighted, and Shanks saw her duck her head to hide her reaction at the sound. “You’re right, it would.”

“I’m afraid of what that smile means,” Makino sighed around her own laugh.

“Oh, I’m just thinking about all the dirty ways I could spin this. The possibilities are endless.”

“They always are with you.”

“Captain,” he told her, and when she blinked, reiterated, “‘They always are with you, Captain’.” When she rolled her eyes, smiling, he said, “You used to be so fond of that nickname. What happened?”

She flicked his nose, and her next words were spoken in a murmur, “A lot of things have happened.”

It was a truth that implied more than it said, and he found it in the whole of her, body and feelings bared, and the trust that sat in every gesture, from that first, tentatively reciprocated touch to the complete lack of hesitation that had preceded her first offer to stay the night.

And maybe they hadn’t sold her on the swashbuckling lifestyle, but he didn’t doubt that it was a different girl they’d be leaving; like it was a changed crew who’d be taking their leave of her.

“Tipped your life a little off kilter, did we?” Shanks asked.

Makino smiled, resting her cheek on his chest. “Something like that.”

He threaded his fingers through her hair, considering the dark strands, the colour sharp against the bare skin of her back. Her kerchief lay in the heap of clothes on the floor, along with the skirt he’d helped her out of, and with so much cheek she’d threatened to smother his grin with the fabric. So much softness in the small shape of her, in skin and smiles and kisses; in fabrics that hugged and draped, and slipped between his fingers. The sea had no sympathy for softness, and maybe she was better off with a life on land.

But he knew her with her sleeves rolled up, her hands on her hips, and that gentle authority that came without thinking, compelling a whole, rowdy crew to settle with the press of her mouth.

And maybe it was the sea that should count her blessing, that this particular pirate saw fit to keep her feet on land for a few more years.

“You know,” Shanks said then, the words kissed against the top of her head, then the shell of her ear, seeking the corner of her jaw, along with a grin. “Most of the guys call me 'Boss' if that’s more to your liking.”

He felt her laughter, and thought that he’d never liked the sound of it more, breathless and sated, but with that undercurrent of affection that said more about the kind of person she was than anything else about her; the girl who didn’t love him in spite of who he was, but because of it.

She kissed his cheek, and stuck her tongue out, her entirely goofy grin ruining her attempted rebuttal, but she didn’t seem to care.

“Not on your life, pirate.”

—

They’d meant for it to be memorable, but their last visit to Fuschia took an unexpected turn.

Well, the fact that it was memorable wasn’t being contested, although it wasn’t exactly this they’d had in mind, for a last hurrah.

Stepping through the door to the galley, “Is there alcohol in this?” Doc asked, reaching for the steaming pot of coffee on the stove.

“There could be,” Yasopp said, glancing up from where he was seated on one of the long benches, cleaning one of his pistols. A wholly unnecessary venture, with the care he usually treated his personal arsenal, but Doc knew it was to keep his hands busy. And he wasn’t going to point fingers; he’d cleaned his surgical equipment three times.

When Yasopp made to rise, Doc waved him off, and poured himself a cup. “I just need something to stay awake.”

“You sure?” Yasopp asked. “That wasn’t a long nap you took, and you’ve been at it all day. Something with a stronger kick might be just what the doctor prescribed.” He lifted his brows. “You could even get away with saying that.”

The look he got for that was dry, but the corner of Doc’s mouth jutted upwards. “I’m good,” he said, rubbing a hand over his eyes, before easing himself into one of the chairs. The surgery was a few hours behind him, but the nap he’d taken hadn’t given him much rest. Their captain had had a few moments of questionable lucidity before the painkillers had dragged him back under.

Taking a sip of the scalding coffee, “She been out long?” Doc asked, nodding to the small shape curled up on the bench next to Yasopp.

Yasopp followed his gaze to where Makino was sleeping, tired expression softening a bit. “Half an hour, give or take. Came in little after Cap went under again. Didn’t have the stomach for anything to eat, but I poured her something to help her relax. Looks like it did the trick.”

Doc nodded, eyes still on Makino. Someone had thrown one of Shanks’ cloaks over her, but it wasn’t a good rest she was getting, judging by the laboured quality of her breathing, and the way she’d curled herself together, small limbs wrapped tight, as though for protection.

“She’s been holding it together pretty well,” Yasopp said then. “Considering.”

“She’s got a level head on her shoulders,” Doc agreed. “Captain would have been worse off, had it been the other way around.”

Yasopp snorted around a smile. “They even each other out that way, I guess.” He sighed then, dropping his eyes back to Makino. “I still can’t believe we’re leaving her behind.”

“It’s not forever,” Doc pointed out.

“Ten years is still a damn long time,” Yasopp said. “And that’s assuming we even make it back.” He shook his head. “So much for enjoying their last time together. You’d think fate would give them a break.”

Doc said nothing to that, but looked at the girl sleeping on the bench, wrapped in the too-large cloak, her lashes dark on her cheeks. She hadn’t stirred at their talking, but he’d dealt with enough stubborn patients fighting off exhaustion to recognise when the body took matters into its own hands. There was no fighting that.

And the surgery had taken a lot out of him, but his exhaustion was different, because it hadn’t been doubt that had kept him company into the long hours. He was certain in his skill, and he’d treated traumatic amputations before (although the sea king was, admittedly, a first). The surgery had kept his hands busy, but he knew it was worse for those who could do nothing but sit on theirs and wait.

She’d thanked him, earlier. Terrified and tired and holding back her tears with sheer force of will alone, she’d stopped him on his way out of Shanks’ cabin, and had murmured her gratitude, even as she’d looked like she barely had strength left to stand. She’d still had time to see him, when someone else might not have had time to see beyond themselves, or the person on their mind.

“Come on,” Doc said then, tossing back the last dregs of his coffee, before rising to his feet.

“What are you doing?” Yasopp asked.

“Taking her back to Cap’s cabin,” Doc said, moving around the table. “Can’t be comfortable, sleeping like that.” He looked at Yasopp. “I could use some help with the door.”

Yasopp was already rising from his seat as Doc bent down to lift Makino up, cloak and all. She didn’t even twitch at the disturbance, and felt almost comically small in his arms, the tiny shape of her seeming at odds with that quiet strength that endured and endured without breaking.

The trek to the captain’s quarters was a short one, but Makino didn’t stir at the movement, and Yasopp held the door open as Doc ducked inside.

“He’s still out cold,” Yasopp remarked, looking towards the bunk where Shanks was laid out, an unnatural stillness in slack limbs which usually took up the whole mattress. They’d changed his shirt and cleaned away the blood, the cabin carrying a sharp, sterile smell that invoked the sickbay, but it was preferable to the lingering stench of cauterised flesh that still clung to Doc’s nose.

“He will be for a while, with what I gave him for the pain,” Doc said, easing Makino down on the mattress, on their captain’s right. She still didn’t wake, and he tucked the cloak closer around her to ward off the chill creeping through the open porthole. Compared to Shanks, she barely took up any space, curled on her side next to his bigger frame, but he’d put her close enough that between the cloak and the man it belonged to, she’d be plenty warm. It was a kinder alternative than the bench in the galley, even if it wasn’t strictly policy to disturb patients recovering from surgery. Although Doc doubted Shanks would have minded this particular disturbance.

As though having thought along the same lines, “You’re usually strict on the ‘undisturbed bed rest’ rule,” Yasopp observed from the doorway where he was leaning against the frame, arms in a slack cross.

Straightening his back, Doc turned away from the bunk, and the two sleeping on it. “Yeah,” he said, a small smile threatening despite the day they’d all had. When he made for the door, Yasopp stepped aside to let him pass.

“I guess she’s the kind of person you make exceptions for.”

—

Like they all loved her differently, they all said their goodbyes in different ways.

“I’ll miss your cooking, Ma-chan,” Lucky announced, with the weight of a much greater declaration, and hoisted her up in a hug that saw her feet leaving the planks, and her laughter tumbling off her tongue into the open air, right past the lump in her throat.

“Practice your aim,” Yasopp told her, when Lucky had put her back down, arms wrapped around her in an embrace that, although not as enthusiastic, was no less earnest.

Then with a wink, “You favour your right side, so work on that. I’d suggest getting moving targets. Maybe the kid will help you out—bullets bounce off him now, right?”

More of them joined in to offer their own goodbyes, until she was laughing so hard her chest hurt, her heart breaking but the crowd of them around her holding it together, hands touching her back, her shoulders, grounding her to the softly swaying docks. And she knew every name and every laugh that belonged to it, and thought, with a sudden ache of realisation, that she would miss this crew.

“Give Garp our regards,” someone told her, grin full of cheek.

“And if anyone tries their luck, give ‘em hell!”

“But don’t go giving your heart to a different crew while we’re gone!”

“Oh, I don’t think you need to worry,” Makino said, gaze seeking Shanks through the crowd, sans straw hat and with his expression bared for her to see. “I doubt there are a lot of pirates on this sea who’d find this place worth visiting.”

“Their loss, obviously,” Shanks murmured, and her smile trembled a bit, but she didn’t give herself room to break. Not just yet.

She turned to Ben, waiting a few steps away from the others. He wasn’t smoking, and Makino tried not to focus too much on the fact.

“Your common sense will be sorely missed,” he told her, predictably dry, but with an honest smile that she claimed for all it was worth. “Don’t lose it.”

The sob that left her did so with her permission. “I’ll miss you, Ben Beckman,” she said, but this time when her tears spilled over, she let them. “Keep him out of trouble? And away from bears.”

She got a wider smile for that. “I’ll do my best. But no promises on the bears.”

Despite everything, she found a laugh, even as it felt beyond her, before he drew back to give her some space, along with the others.

Then it was just her and Shanks. And Shanks…

Shanks stole her favourite kerchief and kissed her until her knees buckled. Then with a grin he kissed the tears on her cheeks, kissed her jaw and her nose, until she was laughing through her sobs. And they might all love her each in their own way, but she’d never in her life been loved like that.

“Say yes next time,” he told her, with a smile that would have seemed far too subdued for him, if she hadn’t known to read it for what it was.

“Come back and ask me, and we’ll see,” Makino said, and with a breath, added fiercely, “You better not forget.”

He laughed, delighted by the challenge offered. But the sea seemed to have more mercy for that than for promises, even if he kissed a promise against her knuckles anyway.

“Not on your life, pirate,” Shanks said, in what wanted to be a vow but that sounded more like a plea than anything else. It was the last thing he said to her before he turned for the gangway, and the crew waiting on deck.

They watched her from the ship as it pulled away, some of them leaning over the railing, waving. Luffy’s shoulders shook under her hands, but she dug her heels into the docks, to the solid truth of her island and the life she’d chosen, and watched as the ship and his sails disappeared towards the horizon.

“Yo, ho, haul together,” she murmured, voice breaking over the familiar tune, hoarse with tears that hadn’t fallen yet. In her grip, Luffy gave a sobbing hiccup, and she squeezed his shoulders, dragging in a shuddering breath, “Hoist the colours high.”

“Heave ho—” Her voice lodged in her throat, strangling the next line, before she stuttered it out, “thieves and beggars.” Luffy wiped at his eyes, shaded under the wide brim of Shanks’ straw hat, and Makino let her breath rush out. And her voice didn’t waver when she offered the last line to the breeze—

“Never shall we die.”

—

He’d sailed the length of the Grand Line once already, from Paradise to the New World, but somehow, the brief voyage across the East Blue from Fuschia to Loguetown was one of the hardest he’d ever made.

He still woke reaching for her, remnants of a persistent fever left over from his amputation blurring the line between dream and reality, and there were mornings he’d wake up and he’d feel her next to him; the familiar shape of her under his arm, and her laughter soft and drowsy in his ears.

It took time getting out of his bunk on those mornings, even longer than usual for him, the first few minutes of realisation spent chasing the dying echoes of the fever-dream; the memory of her still-shy touches and the smell of her skin.

Shanks knew there’d be a day soon where he’d stop—where he’d wake and go about his day as he had, all those mornings before he’d known what it felt like, waking up beside her—but couldn’t decide if it would be a relief or not to finally let that last part of her go.

The evening sun was on the last leg of its trek across the sky, dripping gold like slowly sinking tree-sap on the roof tiles and the surface of the water, bleeding red on the horizon. Loguetown’s port looked the same as he remembered, the last time he’d been here, the day he’d set out after Captain Roger’s execution, and Shanks spared a passing thought to the similarity—the grief that seemed to accompany every visit to this place, whether he was arriving or departing.

“This is it,” Ben said, from where he came to stand at his elbow, observing the rest of the crew disembarking. “No turning back.” Then, inclining his head to Shanks, “You okay?”

“I’m going to drink tonight,” Shanks said, eyes on the town up ahead, stretching out from the docks. The last time he’d see the East Blue in ten years. “Until I stop feeling like turning the ship around, or until I forget what she looks like. Whichever comes first.”

He dragged in a breath, and let it sink out of his shoulders. The stump of his left arm ached, but not as much as the knot in his chest. “All I know is that I’m going to get so shitfaced I can’t think.”

The stark candour wasn’t unexpected, but then Shanks doubted Ben would have flinched even if it had been. And he wasn’t surprised when all his best friend did was nod.

“I’ll get the glasses.”

—

It got easier with time. Missing her.

Of course, even several seas away, she still featured as a popular topic of discussion.

Shanks had a feeling Makino might have been a little mortified, if she knew.

“What’s she like? Boss’ girl.”

The newbies always asked questions once they found out, although that wasn’t much of a surprise, as they weren’t exactly in short supply of people willing to answer them, and to help paint a picture—a whole mosaic of impressions, from hearts that all remembered different things.

Of course, certain aspects of her character seemed universally accepted, and kind was usually the first thing mentioned, and to a rousing chorus of agreement. Then would follow a string of often-uttered words, kept from becoming platitudes by the fondness that had only deepened with years of speaking them. Sweet. Funny. Gentle.

“She cooks,” Lucky said when asked, and with enough wistfulness to suggest a sentiment that ran deeper than simple appreciation for her cooking, although those who knew him knew that wasn’t the case.

“She’s too patient for her own good,” Ben said, but with a smile that belied the deadpan utterance.

Yasopp only grinned, and, “She’s pretty,” he told them, and that never failed to get their attentions. “And not just your garden variety beauty, either. This is the kind of stuff they write songs about.” He threw a look at Shanks. “How many verses did you get to, for the one you started on?”

“Six,” Shanks said. Then with a frown, “No—seven. You know, I can’t remember. I was wasted when I got the idea.”

“And heartsick,” Yasopp quipped, which earned him a crude gesture, although the effect was ruined somewhat by the sombre smile that accompanied it.

“That was the night before we set out from Loguetown, right?” someone asked.

Shanks looked into his drink. “Yeah. I remember very little of that night, but I think the refrain was really catchy?”

“It was,” Yasopp said, grinning. “Didn’t it go something like ‘secure me to the mast or I’ll sink into her depths, but if this is how I go, let it be without regrets’? I still think you’re reaching with that rhyme, but the imagery makes up for it.”

Shanks’ grin was startled, but before he could offer a comment on that—“Wait,” someone said, “Wasn’t the mast supposed to be a euphemism? Like ‘secure my mast, or I’ll sink into her depths’?”

“That sounds more like Boss,” someone else said, to several murmurs of agreement.

“You’re right,” Shanks said, frown deepening. “That does sound more like something I’d come up with.”

Someone was stomping the rhythm now, rooting it out from where it had been tucked away for years, the melody following suit, sitting first with a hesitant hum on several breaths, before they found it in truth, and it stumbled, laughing off their tongues.

“I remember now!” someone called from across the galley, before raising their voice to sing, a deep, laughing baritone, “‘She’ll raise my anchor and hoist my sails, even apart, her spell prevails!’”

“Oh, oh! ‘Booze and water are naught but dregs, I’ll quench my thirst between her legs!’”

Someone else latched on, choking on their laughter, “‘I’ll steer my ship through her narrow strait, and pray god she thinks it’s worth the wait!’”

“‘Hard to starboard, grab the wheel’,” the whole galley came together, a loud, booming chorus, and laughing so hard now they could barely get the words out, “‘I’ll board her vessel with sword and steel!’”

Yasopp was wiping tears from his eyes. “She’s a ship now? I thought she was supposed to be the personification of the sea? The metaphors are all over the place.”

“That’s the only problem you can find with this?” Ben asked, with a look at Shanks, who was staring into his empty glass with an odd smile.

“Didn’t you also have a whole verse dedicated to her eyes?” Yasopp asked.

“Two,” Ben said dryly, before Shanks could answer. “Both excruciatingly descriptive.”

Shanks hadn’t looked up from the glass, and the last drops of his drink gathering at the bottom. He tried to remember what her eyes looked like, but came up short. And it wasn’t the first time he failed at doing so, like it wasn’t the first time the regret found him, that he did.

“Boss?” someone asked, drawing his attention away from the empty glass, and that hole in his memory that seemed to be expanding with every year. It wasn’t that he was forgetting about her, but there were things he felt he should remember that he couldn’t, like whether her eyes had been more brown or gold when the light hit them, and how she’d laugh. He remembered loving the sound of it, but not the sound itself.

It seemed, in hindsight, a particularly cruel fate.

Lifting his eyes, Shanks just looked at them, smile a little wistful. Their laughter had quieted, likely at the fact that he hadn’t joined them in it, but the remnants of their mirth still clung to their air, a warm echo.

Then, smile quirking, “I think I want to finish that song,” he mused.

Several grins greeted that remark. “Someone get the captain a pen and paper!”

“And another drink!”

“I’ll get the thesaurus!”

“She would be horrified if she knew,” Ben told him, but with the smile on his face, couldn’t seem to manage a convincing show of reproach.

Shanks just grinned. “Yeah,” he laughed, and even if he couldn’t quite conjure the image of what she’d looked like, he found he could picture her reaction without trouble — the fierce blush in her cheeks, and her laughter, loud and just a little mortified where it dragged from her throat without her volition. He could almost remember what it sounded like.

“She would be.”

—

‘Moored to Her Port’, in some places known as ‘The Thirsty Sailor’ and in others as ‘Naught But Dregs’, caught on quickly, and trailed in their wake across the Grand Line, ten verses in total barring the refrain, and full of lewd metaphors and nautical euphemisms.

But even with its raunchy trappings, there were parts of her hidden between the lines—that unbearable kindness (there ne’er a gentler heart was found, and no one’s voice a gentler sound), and the eyes that saw a man for who he was (dark her depths and dark her eyes, both endless as the ocean’s skies). There was the laugh that had been their favourite (the song of birds and sirens both, it’d keep a drowning man afloat), and beneath that again, something else, a thread of an old hope strung between the verses, running from the first line and through the last—

Worn and weary with hearts to mend, there’s peace beyond this journey’s end / a sailor might know many a-home, but nothing beats her port in a storm.

(the slightly cheekier addendum to which sang: she’ll greet him back with love and ardour, to drop his anchor in her harbour!)

If it ever found its way back to her, all the way over in East Blue, they didn’t know. But even if it hadn’t, it was a small part of her to keep with them, like the hope she'd inspired, that if it hadn’t reached her yet, it still might one day.

—

The years crawled by, one after the other. They reached the second half of the Grand Line, carving out a place for themselves on the world’s most dangerous ocean, but even on that turbulent sea, their thoughts drifted back on occasion, to kinder waters.

“Hey, did you hear? Some tool asked Makino-san to marry him.”

A rush of surprised mutters washed across the galley, and Yasopp glanced up from where he’d just stepped through the doorway, and before he could stop himself, blurted, “You’re keeping tabs on her?”

Every single head in the galley swivelled towards him, and there was a beat of silence so profound, Yasopp had the distinct impression they hadn’t realised he’d entered.

“Er—no,” was his answer, just as someone else said, “Yes.”

Amused, he arched a brow, and found several gazes averting themselves from his, while others met it head on, seeming cheerfully unperturbed by the fact that they’d been caught red-handed.

“Does Boss know about this?” Yasopp asked them, although from their reactions, he doubted that was the case.

His suspicions were proven correct a second later, when someone said, “Of course not.”

“So why are you keeping tabs on her, exactly?” Yasopp asked, arms crossed over his chest. “I take it it’s not just for kicks?”

They were looking between themselves now, like naughty children caught doing something they shouldn’t have trying to silently communicate the need for someone to take the brunt of the blame.

“Ten years is a long time,” someone blurted then. “If she changed her mind, we, ah, thought Boss might want to know?”

Yasopp just looked at them, and the whole variety of expressions ranging from unapologetic to sheepish, to those carrying a twinge of shame. “That’s all?”

There was a laden pause. No one seemed eager to speak.

Then: “We were thinking that if there was someone else in the picture, Boss might want to go back,” someone piped up. “Challenge him to a duel, maybe.”

“Or we could give him a call,” someone else suggested. “Whoever it might be. To offer some...healthy advice.”

“He means threats!” someone called from the back of the galley, to a hoot of approval.

“I got that,” Yasopp said dryly, gaze sweeping across the galley. Most of them had their eyes turned away, expressions failing at innocence so spectacularly, it seemed a fitting homage to the woman in question.

Then, striding forward to take a seat at one of the tables, “So what have you found out?” Yasopp asked.

The galley filled with grins, and, “She turned down a marriage proposal last week,” he was told. “Some aggressive farmer who owns like half the windmills in the village. Apparently it wasn’t his first attempt, but according to my source, he got so pushy she banned him from the bar.”

A sharp whistle of approval keened through the air, followed by more laughter, and Yasopp could only shake his head, but when they raised their glasses, reached for his own.

“That’s our girl!”

—

The war changed them, and each of them a little differently.

They say that war will do that, but you don’t really know until it’s over, just how much truth there is in those words. And even if they’d escaped the fighting, they were neither of them unscathed in the aftermath.

The funeral was over and they were waiting on the ship, their captain lingering by the newly erected graves with one of Whitebeard’s commanders. They’d be setting sail for the East Blue after this, but it wasn’t anticipation that greeted the thought. Instead, a restless note of apprehension seemed to have carved itself into the planks, into every pair of crossed arms and every set of furrowed brows, shivering in the slack sails, in the soft creak of the rigging.

“I wonder what would have happened if she’d come with us, back then,” someone spoke up, the query coming to settle on the breeze, ripe with salt and the smell of flowers. The ship felt quiet for their crew, but then maybe that was appropriate, given their surroundings.

Someone expelled a breath. “It’s times like this that makes me glad she didn’t.”

“Still. She probably watched the broadcast.”

“Would be surprised if she hadn’t,” someone muttered.

“Wonder what she thought about it,” came the murmur. “Roger’s—Ace. That time he visited, when he talked about her? It sounded like they were close. She’d—Luffy probably isn’t the only one taking it hard. If we’d just gotten to Marineford sooner, we could have—”

“There’s no point regretting that now,” Ben spoke up, his voice level, but it severed the words before they could be spoken. “The war is over. What happened, happened.”

There was a tense pause, wherein no one spoke. Then—“Do you think she’ll still want us back, after this?”

A murmur of unease followed the question. Yasopp glanced up from where he sat, cleaning his rifle.

Ben just looked at them all, expression blank but for the unforgiving slant of his brow. When he spoke, his voice had a sharp note to it, “You’re doing her a disservice, asking that question.”

Some of them flinched at that, and Ben sighed around his cigarette. “Listen,” he said. “The idiot is nervous enough about going back as it is. He doesn’t need you all piling your worries on top.”

Chagrined expressions preceded a low-muttered chorus of apology, and, “Mother has spoken, kids,” Yasopp quipped, with a wink at Ben, who met it with a long-suffering look.

“Besides,” Ben said then, mouth lifting the barest of fractions, “you’re the ones who’ve been keeping tabs on her. What do you think?”

Yasopp’s grin flashed, before it was echoed across the deck, along with a shiver of laughter that saw some of the apprehension easing out of the air, softened into something a little easier to bear—something a little closer to eagerness than unease.

Then, when the quiet had settled back down, broken only by the push of the water against the hull, and Yasopp’s muted tinkering, a voice spoke up—

“Is it too early to place our bets for the wedding?”

—

It took ten years and a war before they made it back. And it was a different ship that returned to familiar waters, with new crewmembers aboard who hadn’t been with them when they’d last set sail from the East Blue.

“Did you place your bets?”

“Oh yeah, ages ago.”

“What on?”

“That she’ll push him off the docks for being late.”

“Yeah? I’ve got my money on public indecency.”

“Really? This is Ma-chan we’re talking about.”

A grin, and a shrug. “Ten years can change a person. And you remember the incident with the nightdress.”

“I don’t think there’s a single person on this ship who was there for that who doesn’t remember. But if that’s the case, let’s pray Garp isn’t there to witness it this time. I don’t think any of us would survive that.”

“No shit. Garp scares the bejeezus out of me, and I’m not even the one wooing the woman who’s practically his daughter.”

“Speaking of wooing—it’s been ten years,” someone else mused. “Boss’ll have to renew his efforts. And probably make an effort, too. The last guy who propositioned her had like five windmills to his name. Stakes are higher now than they were.”

A rumble of agreement chased the remark, but then, “Not that I don’t appreciate you all being so invested in this,” Shanks spoke up, drawing their attentions across the deck, “but you’re kind of killing the mood here. Also, what’s this about windmills?”

“Er, nothing!”

“Sorry, Boss!”

“We’ve got our fingers crossed for you! Since, you know, you’ve only got one set of fingers to cross and all.”

That one set of fingers was used to flip them off, and the look he shot them told them plainly he wasn’t buying their show of selfless support, as Shanks turned his gaze back to the horizon, and Dawn Island where it sat in the water.

No one said anything else, and for a spell, there was quiet, no more bets or speculations exchanged behind their captain’s back.

Of course, they weren’t a crew who could stay quiet for long.

“Kissing with tongue?” someone murmured.

“After ten years? There better damn well be!”

—

In the end, she didn’t push him off the docks, although the question of public indecency was still up for debate, as Makino shucked her inhibitions on the shore and met him at a run, and a kiss with enough tongue that the cabin boys were told to cover their eyes.

“Boss!” Yasopp called, laughing. “Not in front of the kids!”

And then Makino was blushing, and they were all of them laughing, and for a moment, it hadn’t been ten years or several seas spanning the length of them, watching her smiling, as she told him, told all of them, fiercely and with unbearable warmth, “Welcome back.”

And as they crowded into Party’s to fill the chairs and tables, letting their laughter fill whatever space was left when they were done, it didn’t matter that they were all a little changed, or that it had been ten years since any of them had last set foot in her bar, as Makino pulled down the unopened bottle that had been on her shelf for a decade, and welcomed them home.

“Were you nervous?” she asked Shanks, pushing the glass across the counter towards his hand, only to have him reach for her fingers instead.

He was grinning—had been since stepping off the ship earlier. And it was hard to look away from her, at once exactly like he’d imagined she would be, and nothing at all like he’d remembered; her hair longer, and her eyes neither brown or gold, but somehow both.

But the kerchief was the same, as was the smile that came to sit, deep in her eyes.

“Who, me?” Shanks asked, gripping her fingers, and made no attempt to hide how much his own shook. “I am the epitome of confidence.”

“Meaning you were just about ready to violently empty your stomach into the ocean?” she asked.

“Just about? I threw up twice just on our way over from Syrup.”

She laughed, the sound of it falling between them, into the space where he’d caught her fingers in his, before he lifted them up, ignoring his untouched drink in favour of grinning a kiss against her knuckles.

“You have the uncanny ability of bringing me to my knees,” he told her, finding her smile startled and pleased, before he dropped his voice, and with a grin that stretched with enough wicked purpose to make her eyes widen, “Of course, I’d rather it was between your legs than over the railing of my ship.”

He couldn’t decide which was the most delightful reaction—the loud, embarrassed laugh, or the truly magnificent blush that followed, stretching all the way from her collar to the very top of her cheeks, but it didn’t really matter which it was when the realisation followed, that this, at least, hadn’t changed.

“I’ve missed you blushing,” he told her quietly, smile too tender to be shameless. “Reminds me that I have a purpose in life.”

Her next laugh was a sigh, and he watched as she touched her fingers to her cheek, as though seeking the warmth under her skin. “Something tells me I better get used to it again,” Makino said, meeting his eyes. “With all of you back in my life.”

Shanks looked at her, smiling. “We are that,” he murmured.

As though on cue—“Hey, Ma-chan!” someone shouted from across the room, and she raised her eyes from his to seek whoever had called her name. “Boss wrote a shanty about you!”

She blinked at the sight of the room, suddenly full of grins, the widest out of all of them being his own, and Shanks watched as her eyes sought his, her earlier curiosity kindling with the first flickers of wary realisation, as someone called out, laughing—

“Wanna hear it?”

Chapter Text

Their return to her necessitated a thorough inspection, but then after ten years there were more than a few changes between them, although in some respects, very little had changed, Shanks thought, observing as she walked the length of her bar from pirate to pirate, his whole crew having cheekily lined up for her to inspect, standing at attention like fresh navy cadets, some elbowing others out of the way to get to the head of the line.

“Hey, I was first!”

“I’m older!”

“I’m better looking!”

“What does that have to do with anything?”

“Yeah,” Shanks said, observing the spectacle from his seat at the bar, those who hadn’t lined up standing ready to do so, but the note of warning went unheeded, met instead with grins, and a prim look from Makino as each pirate bent down for her examination.

Changes were catalogued―beards and ill-conceived moustaches, deeper laugh-lines and grey hairs, tattoos and scars and missing fingers. Ben’s silver mane was noted, with that demure little smile that managed to say more than ten years of teasing from the rest of them combined, but, “It looks dignified,” Makino said, considering their first mate where he stood, his arms crossed and his long-suffering expression conveying that he should be above this kind of foolery, but he’d still lined up like the rest of them.

“Hear that, Ben?” Yasopp shot in, grinning as he leaned close. “Our efforts paid off!”

“I’m so pleased,” Ben deadpanned, although the grin jutting around his cigarette ruined it somewhat.

Undeterred by their teasing, “Many women love a silver fox,” Makino pointed out.

That got their attention, as every head down the line turned to look at their first mate, some of their younger members muttering under their breaths, raking their fingers through their own hair. For his part, Ben just grinned.

“Not everyone needs the silver hair to be a fox,” Shanks said. “Red foxes are a thing.” He swept his hand across himself, and saw how her eyes darted to his half-bared chest. “Exhibit A.”

“Don’t speak too soon, Boss!” a voice called from down the line. “We’ve all seen them!”

“Won’t be long now!”

Spluttering, Shanks flipped them off, although catching Makino's eyes, didn’t think she looked so opposed to the thought, and his look softened as he let their cheeky insubordination slide.

She’d stopped before Yasopp, whose grin said enough about his own assessment, as he turned this way and that to give her a better look.

“Don’t hold back,” he said, as he flexed for good measure.

“You probably should hold back,” Limejuice said.

“For all our sakes,” Snake agreed.

Her eyes smiled, and, “You look spry,” Makino chirped, and had moved on before Yasopp could choke out a reaction, his laughter chased by theirs.

Stopping before him, “Lucky Roo,” Makino said warmly, as he beamed down at her. “You haven’t changed.” Then to the hulking figure beside him, so tall even craning her neck couldn’t meet his eyes, but she didn’t cower, only said, prim, “Bonk Punch.”

That grin usually sent their enemies running, although the look in his eyes was softer, as, “Little monkey,” Bonk Punch returned, his teeth bared, but his fearsome expression faltered when Makino reached up, her palm pressed to his cheek, tilting it a bit to inspect the new scars mapping it. And she said nothing, only saw them, but Shanks knew how it felt to be in the direct trajectory of that look.

Reaching out to touch the top of her head, Bonk Punch just grinned, although Shanks saw how his fingers shook, brushing her kerchief.

Monstar chittered then, climbing down from Bonk Punch's shoulders to hers, his tail curling around her neck as she laughed.

From his seat at the bar, Shanks watched as she moved on, a gentle captain where she walked down the line, tiny compared to every single pirate in his crew, but fearless as she made a point of inspecting them all, like eager cabin boys on their first voyage. And those she didn’t know she took the time to introduce herself, to ask their names and rank and where they came from, her face open and attentive, and in that way that could turn even a sea-weary sailor flustered, and no pirate who’d been in his crew when they’d left her showed surprise at the gentle deference she compelled with only a smile and a few words.

"What do I call you?" she asked the pirate beaming down at her.

"Rockstar, mistress."

She laughed. "Please, just 'Makino'."

"Aye, mistress. I-I mean, Makino!"

"She'd give Garp a run for his money in intimidation," Yasopp mused, observing with amusement as they straightened their backs, some even going so far as to take off their hats.

"Who do you think she learned it from?" Shanks asked.

Her inspection of his crew complete, she came to a stop before him, reclining against the counter; his favourite seat that he’d returned to claim. She was so short that even sitting, she barely reached his chin, but he felt the sudden compulsion to sit straighter in his seat as Makino said gently, “Captain.”

Smiling, “And?” Shanks asked, the roughness in his voice betraying a feeling he hadn’t counted on, but then wondered why he was surprised. “What’s your verdict, barmaid?”

Soft eyes roamed his face, noting the changes, the deeper lines and the salt in his beard, and the occasional vein of silver glimpsed between his red hair, but then for all their teasing, the grey hairs were the least of his worries, observing her thorough inspection, before those doe-brown eyes met his.

He realised he was holding his breath, but before he could release it, a small hand reached for his chin, a touch so gentle it seized his whole body, as she tipped it.

Then Makino smiled, and quipped, “You’ll do.”

His laugh choked from him, and her demure cheek lasted only a second before her grin ruined it, even as the look in her eyes remained; the one that said all he needed to know, but then even if he’d acknowledged his own differences, the one change he’d feared was the way she looked at him.

Still, “This is what I get for my efforts,” Shanks sighed, as she brushed her thumb through his beard. “Didn’t wash or shave for a few days just so I’d look especially rugged for you.”

Makino hummed. “That explains the smell.”

“Hey, you’re going to have to deal with a lot worse when you come out to sea with us,” Shanks reminded her. “Consider this a trial run.”

Her smile brimmed, a feeling in it that couldn’t be contained, and turning his cheek to kiss her fingers, he felt how they shook, but then the reminder had been deliberate, because they hadn’t just come back to her; they’d come back for her.

Turning to her crowded bar, barely big enough to seat all of them now, “It’s quite the crew you’ve brought me this time, Emperor Red-Hair,” Makino said.

He tried not to latch onto the moniker, but then with her, he’d only ever been Captain, but like the salt in his beard and his scars, it was a change, to be acknowledged and catalogued like the rest.

Shanks looked at them all, wearing those stupid grins. “Rogues and vagabonds,” he said. “It’s a wonder I manage to keep them all in line.”

“You manage?” Ben asked.

Ignoring him, “It really says something about my leadership skills,” Shanks said.

Her grin was too sincere to be teasing, and he felt his instinctive response to it, as ridiculously gratified as it had ever been. “And you?” Makino asked him. “Who keeps you in line, my lord of vagabonds?”

He really shouldn’t be so pleased, but it was hard with that look on her face. “I thought it might be a nice challenge for you,” Shanks said. “Shake your quiet life up a bit.”

Her smile trembled, and this time there was no teasing in her voice as Makino said, “You’ve always been good at that.”

A tender beat passed, their eyes holding. And he didn’t fear what she found now, his changes acknowledged but with a fearless acceptance that made his fingers itch to pull her into a crushing kiss, which he might have done, had they been alone.

His gaze shifting sideways found his crew grinning at them, but his chagrin wasn’t even half-convincing as Shanks said, “This moment would be a lot more tender if we didn’t have an audience, but then your expectations of a sweeping romance must be well-subverted by now.”

“I don’t know if I agree,” Makino said, and the words were directed at all of them as she told them fiercely, “This is everything I want.”

Their grins wavered, their silence more telling than even the glassy sheen in their eyes, and few things could render his crew speechless, but then there were few like her.

“Speaking of inspections,” Yasopp said then, leaning forward to tap her nose. “You missed one.”

She blinked. “Who?” Makino asked, turning to the room, the genuine concern that she’d forgotten someone prompting Shanks to shake his head, his grin helplessly affectionate.

“Gents?” Yasopp asked. “What say you?”

Shanks saw the moment realisation hit her, as brown eyes darted to his, but his grin offered no assistance as she was ushered into the centre of the room. But she complied as they inspected her in turn, rough hands tugging teasingly at her kerchief and her longer hair, remarking on her beauty until her cheeks were flushed and her laughter flustered as they circled her thoughtfully, her chin tilted and her spine straightened.

“This won’t do,” they sighed, their arms crossed. “No pirate I know is this cute!”

“Sitting right here, guys,” Shanks called, and was promptly ignored.

“Not enough salt in her hair,” one said, before her hands were inspected. “And no rope burns!”

“Just the one scar,” Hongou said, touching the little one bisecting her eyebrow.

“And no weapon,” Gab said, with a look at Shanks. “Unless you count the serving tray.”

“I’ve seen her wield that serving tray,” Shanks said. “I wouldn’t be so confident if I were you.”

“I taught her to shoot, too,” Yasopp shot in with a grin. “Unless you’ve forgotten?”

Her blush deepened, as though at a joke they weren’t privy to, Shanks thought with a flicker of intrigue as Makino cleared her throat, her eyes making an admirable effort of not meeting his. “I remember the basics.”

“Glad to hear it,” Yasopp said, with a grin thrown Shanks’ way as he chirped, “I’m sure Boss is, too.”

“I think I’m glad to be out of the loop on this one,” Shanks said, as Makino covered her eyes with her hand.

“But being a good shot will come in handy,” Limejuice said. “And she’s nimble, as a pirate should be.”

“She’ll be climbing aloft like a monkey in no time,” Bonk Punch agreed, to Monstar’s chittering approval.

“All that’s missing is a wanted poster,” Snake said.

“And a moniker,” Lucky added.

“If she has any sense, she’d get out while she still can,” Ben said, although the grin around his toothpick held a different assessment.

Makino endured the attention, their adoration offered without mercy where they’d surrounded her, one of the most feared crews in the world, but with her they felt none of it.

Turning towards him, her eyes sought him through the crowded room, and Shanks heard the din growing quiet, their attention on him now, and their newest member, brought before the captain of the ship.

And his own inspection wasn’t as cheeky as theirs, taking her in where she stood in the midst of his crew, a dainty anomaly among his rough and rugged men, whose grins had already named her what she was, even as it was his confirmation she sought now.

And smiling, Shanks gave it. “I’ll be expecting the mutiny any day now.”

Her grin broke, and their laughter swept her up like their hands as she shrieked, but they didn’t drop her, hoisting her up, a pirate’s initiation, and her shanty lifting with their voices, until she was blushing to the roots of her hair.

And regardless of their changes, their scars and wrinkles and grey hairs, the one thing that hadn’t changed was the way they loved her―loudly and without reserve.

―

Like his crew, an inspection of his ship was called for, moored to her port again for the first time in ten years.

They brought her down after breakfast, the morning after their return, a procession drawing every head in the village out of windows and doorways to observe, their grins sprouting in their wake, but then she hadn’t been the only one waiting.

Shanks walked in the front with her, although spared a wry glance at the crew trailing behind them. “When I extended an invitation to give her a tour, I meant that I would be giving it.”

“Straight to the captain’s quarters, you mean?” Yasopp asked, as Makino ducked her gaze, although not before Shanks could catch her grin.

His own had no qualms. “Hey, give me some credit,” he said. “I’d at least have to take her through the galley to get there.”

“I want to see all of it,” Makino said, primly ignoring his filthy look, to agreement from the crew behind them.

“Hope you all tidied up your hammocks,” Shanks called back, and blinked when more than a few pirates picked up their pace, overtaking them as they sought to beat them to the gangplank.

Shaking his head, “For years I’ve tried to instil a sense of order on this ship,” he sighed, looking down at her. “Apparently what was missing was you.”

Her soft laugh was endearing, although the gentle pride in her shoulders was the far greater prize.

“This from the guy who can never find both his sandals?” Ben asked, as Makino sighed.

“Still, Shanks?”

“What?” he asked. “They keep disappearing!”

“And here I was worried you’d changed,” Makino said, the teasing quip prompting him to stick his tongue out, even as he couldn’t help the way the remark imprinted on his mind.

They’d reached the quay, and coming up to the gangway where his ship lay anchored, Shanks watched her take it in. And for all that her face usually revealed all her feelings, in that moment he wondered at the emotion he found on it.

Looking up at him, a fey smile softened her mouth, as she asked him, “Permission to come aboard, Captain?”

His look softened. “You’ve never had to ask for permission.”

The tilt of her mouth held something she didn’t share. Instead, “It’s been a long time,” Makino said. “Just making sure.”

Walking up the gangway, her eyes lifted first to the masts. And she’d had her hands full greeting all of them yesterday, but he knew she would have already noticed the differences as they’d come into port, and that it wasn’t the same ship that had returned as had left her.

And even if his reputation here had always been in question, there was no pretending now even if he’d wanted to, that it wasn’t a common pirate who’d moored his ship to their little port, the reason for which walked beneath the masts now, trailing her fingertips over the balustrade, before coming to a stop before the forecastle deck.

She was looking at the figurehead, the arching neck of the red dragon the same as she remembered, if with a touch of added flair, the carved dragonscales glittering in the sunlight.

Coming up beside her, “You kept it,” Makino said, smiling up at him. “I remember you saying it. That you wanted to keep the soul.”

Shanks just smiled, and didn’t say that as far as the soul of his crew was concerned, it wasn’t the figurehead.

“So what do you think?” he asked her instead. “I know they say size isn’t everything, but you’ve got to admit, it’s pretty impressive. It’s my pride and joy: my big, red d―”

“Are we still talking about the ship?” Makino asked, with a look that told him he wasn’t going to get a blush out of her so easily anymore.

“I mean, I was,” Shanks said, with a filthy grin that devoured that challenge. “But if that’s where your mind is at, I could drop my pants right now. Seems only fair, if you’re inspecting every other inch of me. Careful, though; it’s a handful, and I mean that literally. You can barely wrap your hand around it.”

His raised brows saw her smile brimming, before a flustered laugh shattered her stubborn composure, and he felt how his heart responded to the sound, but then while he hadn’t expected to return to the same girl he’d left, he was glad this hadn’t changed.

“So should I go ahead and―”

“Keep your pants on!” she laughed, the sound lifting under the masts as he wagged his hips, to grins from the pirates observing them from around the deck, although she was too busy fending him off to notice the tender slant to them.

“In all seriousness, though,” Shanks said, “What do you think?”

Her look understood what he was really asking, which wasn’t about indulging a captain’s pride in his ship, but a confirmation he hadn’t fully dared asked for yet: that she could imagine a life here, with them.

He watched as she looked around the main deck, and the pirates observing them from the decks above, and didn’t realise he was holding his breath until brown eyes met his, and Makino said, “It still feels like yours.”

It hit him harder than he’d expected, and he felt how his grin faltered. But then it wasn’t just his ship and crew that had changed, and while her inspection earlier had noted his outward differences, this one saw further still, but then unlike in her bar, where he’d only ever been Shanks, there was no denying what he was here.

And while he did wonder if she would take every change in stride, for now it was enough to see her so earnestly enchanted.

A tour was promptly announced, leading her through the passages, down curving steps and narrow, hidden ladders through his ship’s interior. They showed her the bigger crew’s quarters, the hundred hammocks criss-crossing the wide compartment, hastily tidied for her arrival, before taking her through the sickbay, the sunlight filtering through the portholes onto the pressed sheets of the neatly made bunks.

“It looks clean now, but you should have seen it the last time we came down with a stomach bug,” one said.

“Even Ben took a whole day to recover from all the vomiting!”

At her raised brows, Ben sighed, “Don’t ask.”

Her grin declared that chance unlikely, although it softened as she walked between the bunks, her eyes drifting a bit, and Shanks wondered then if she was thinking about their close calls, and if he’d ever lain here, recalling the night before, and the way her hands had paused on the scars she hadn’t recognised.

He wasn’t the only one who’d noticed, and she started when eager hands reached for hers, directing her attention away and drawing her laughter to the surface as they ushered her forward, through Yasopp’s workshop and the cargo hold, filled with massive wooden casks and barrels of sake, ceramic containers and bottles with labels from every sea, a barmaid’s wonder in her wine-dark eyes at the bounty of liquors.

Shanks drank in her reactions, hungrily taking it all in, an Emperor’s ship with all its trappings, and her gentler delight, discovering things she remembered.

They’d reached the palm tree grove, so big now it stretched over the whole stern of his ship, the wide-spanning leaves casting a cool shade over the lawn deck where she’d used to sit and read. The others had withdrawn a bit, allowing them some privacy; or the illusion of it, anyway.

Approaching her where she’d stopped beneath the palms, “A lot to take in?” Shanks asked.

The eyes lifting to his held a feeling he recognised keenly, as Makino said, a quaver in her voice, “It still doesn’t feel real. Like any moment, I’ll wake up and this will all have been a―”

His fingers gripping her chin halted the words, her breath catching at the touch, although he wondered for whose sake it was, but then it wouldn’t be the first time he woke to find her slipping from his fingers.

A crooked knuckle traced the curve of her cheek towards the shell of her ear, re-learning gestures he’d known without thinking once, like the steps of a sailor’s knot, winding a lock of her hair between his fingers before tucking it back into her kerchief.

“I know something that might help,” Shanks said, and caught her startled smile as he bent his head to kiss her, her eyes slipping shut as his hand slipped around her neck to cradle it.

“Boss!” a voice called up from the deck below, as Shanks sighed, and looking down over the balustrade found his whole crew watching them, their hands on their hips.

“We’re trying to give her a tour here!”

“Yeah, could you hit the pause button on the teenage snogging for two seconds?”

“Think of the kids!”

Leaning his brow against hers, “I will demote every single one of them,” Shanks whispered, but her thick laughter forgave them, like the tears he caught with his thumb, and his irritation was fleeting as he allowed them to steal her, their tour incomplete without one of the most important destinations, at least for a crew as fond of food and celebration as his.

“And this is the galley!”

“Probably doesn’t look that much different from what you remember, but it’s a lot bigger!”

“Big enough to fit the whole village for the wedding feast!”

They’d all gathered within, observing as she walked the length of the compartment between the long tables where she’d danced with him once, the quiet holding the memory of the fiddle and their voices, and hers, the loudest he’d ever heard it.

And seeing all the things that had changed, his bigger ship and crew, and him, Shanks didn’t have to wonder if she felt the years that had passed in her absence, without her.

“There’s one last place!”

Makino turned, and he wasn’t the only one who’d been thinking it, Shanks knew, seeing their grins as they took her hands, directing her towards one of the ladders belowdecks, her kerchief stolen and tied around her eyes.

“Where are we going?” Makino laughed, as multiple hands guided her down the hatch, Lucky lifting her off the ladder and down the last two steps. “It’s not the brig, is it?”

Their grins answered, even if she couldn’t see them with the blindfold. “You’ll see!”

Following behind them, Shanks shook his head. But it said something about her trust in them that she didn’t even balk at the prospect of being blindfolded and taken belowdecks with a whole crew of pirates.

They steered her into a compartment they’d passed earlier, but then they’d meant to save it for last, lighting the lamps before the blindfold was loosened.

Brown eyes blinked as they adjusted to the muted light, before her bemused smile fell.

“It was Boss’ idea,” Lucky said. “But the collecting was a team effort.”

They watched as she took a faltering step forward, her wide-sprung eyes raised to the shelves, lining the whole compartment from deck to ceiling, and crammed so full of books the spines were bulging.

“You collected these for me?” Makino asked.

“Been keeping the World Government on their toes,” Yasopp said, grinning where he leaned against one of the shelves. “Wonder how many meetings they’ve had at HQ trying to figure out why we’ve been raiding so many ships for books. Like you’ll find the secrets of the void century in Lust on the Low Tide.” Then, musing, "Although if anyone were to sneak government secrets into their writing it would be the author behind Putting the ‘Rear’ in Rear Admiral. I'm telling you, it's someone on the inside.”

It was what snapped her out of her daze, and rounding on Shanks where they'd parted to let him through, “Raiding?” Makino asked.

His look was innocent. “How else would we get hold of the valuable ones?” Shanks asked.

“Or the banned ones!” someone called from the back.

“And the ones that are out of print!”

“We’re still missing number two and six from A Rake for Every Day of the Week.”

“And volumes ten through twelve of The Weary Voyager!”

“But Ben’s got feelers out for them!”

More voices rose to chime in, and the tears in her eyes spilled over, helpless against the sheer force of their delight and her face an open page. And Shanks saw that she felt it then, perhaps properly for the first time, that even as they’d grown, in both size and notoriety, never in the ten years that had passed had they forgotten her, and that the changes they’d made had included making room for her.

And it wasn’t just the library, recalling the blueprints they had, for the addition in case she said yes . The bar they’d drawn up, because whatever title she held, on land or on the water, before anything else, they wanted her to be happy.

Looking up at the stacks, and the thousand volumes between them, “It will take the rest of my life to read all of these,” Makino rasped, a wet laugh blurting from her as Shanks caught her tears with his thumb.

“Good,” he said, smiling as he said, on behalf of all of them,

“That’s what we’re counting on.”

―

The captain's stateroom was the last stop on her tour, and he wasn’t surprised when the rest of his crew suddenly found themselves with other matters to attend, dispersing with cheeky grins and poor excuses and leaving them alone in the ship’s passage.

“Subtle,” Shanks chuckled, but catching her smile, “Care for a private tour?”

Opening the door to let her inside, his eyes hooded when she ducked demurely under his arm, their gazes holding, before Makino lifted hers to his quarters.

Not much had changed in how he preferred his staterooms, the great cabin where it spanned the stern of the ship, with a bank of tall windows wrapping around it, showing East Blue beyond. There were more shelves than there had been, stacked heavily with logbooks and maps, and several chest in different sizes; a large stove and his favourite armchair, pulled up next to the windows. Oil lamps hung suspended from the wide beams above, and a red velvet curtain, drawn back now to show his bunk behind it.

But even if there were things she recognised, like him, there was no denying what it was. Before, his cabin had been just his, a place to retreat, but this wasn’t just the captain’s sleeping quarters. This was an Emperor’s war room.

Shanks watched as she trailed her fingertips over his desk, given pride of place in the centre of the compartment, and this, too, was bigger than it had been, like its purpose: the war table of a conqueror, anticipation stirring in his chest as he observed her inspection now, and, he was startled to realise, nervousness.

“It feels different,” Makino said, as her gaze turned from his desk to the rest of his quarters, before coming back to settle on him. And Shanks wondered then if he felt different, not just older, but altered, and in ways that his outward appearance didn’t necessarily show.

But then she smiled, her look the same she’d worn while out on deck; not as though she was looking at a stranger, but like she had once, when he’d let glimpses of what kind of pirate he was slip through his simple disguise as a captain.

And they’d both changed from the people they’d been when she’d last looked at him like that, but her earnest enchantment was the same, and in it he found himself; not who he’d been or become but who he wanted to be. The kind of man who was worthy of that look.

“So, Emperor Red-Hair,” Makino said, as she circled the war table, and the map of East Blue where it lay atop the rest. “Is this where you hold counsel?”

His grin was ready to indulge whatever she imagined. “Sometimes,” Shanks said, coming around the desk to meet her. And he’d always towered above her, the top of her head barely reaching the middle of his chest, but she only lifted her chin, her eyes dark and bottomless and without fear. “Although you make it sound grander than it is, which is usually just a bottle and four glasses.”

“I’ll have to learn to hold my liquor if I’m going to be taking part,” Makino said, her eyes lowering to the topmost map, and Dawn Island where it had been drawn, in his old captain’s careful hand. “Although I don't know if I’ll have much insight to offer.”

Shanks just smiled, but then for him, it wasn’t hard to picture her there, among his inner circle. A gentle counterweight to Yasopp’s trigger-finger, and Ben’s ruthless pragmatism; to Lucky’s caution, and perhaps most of all, to his own bouts of occasional cynicism. The best of this world, but more than anything, the best of them.

“I don’t think you need to worry,” he said, watching as she traced one of the wooden tokens; a gift from one of his islands, carved with the figurehead of a selkie. “But if it’s practice you want, we could go right now. I’ve got the perfect scenario.”

“Oh?” Makino asked, although it was barely out of her mouth when his arm reached beneath her, lifting her onto the desk as her laughter flung out.

“There’s a ship I’m hunting,” he said, his grin brushing her lips, and heard how her breath hitched softly. “A tiny little sloop, headed from Dawn Island to…” He glanced down at the map, caught beneath her rear where he’d hiked her skirt up to her thighs. “...Loguetown. Perfectly innocent, but that’s part of the deception. I know what she's hiding.”

Hands pressed to his chest, her grin was too wide to be sultry, and her voice far too earnest as Makino asked him, “And what’s your strategy for claiming her, Captain?”

Grinning down at her where she sat, her knees parted on either side of his hips and her stockings bared, “First, I’ll start by hailing her,” Shanks said, bending down until their brows were touching. “The pretence of assistance; I have a very sick crew member on board.”

“Trickster,” Makino murmured.

“Pirate,” he rumbled against her lips, a chaste kiss stolen before he bent down between her knees, her skirt pushed out of the way as the broad width of his palm splayed over her thigh.

“Then when her guard is lowered," he continued, grinning, "I’ll move in alongside her hull.” A bearded kiss to the inside of her thigh saw her jumping in her seat, a breathless giggle leaving her that reached like a touch to a half-forgotten part of him.

His eyes flicked up to hers, dark where they watched him from her perch, her back to the windows and the sea behind her, gleaming silver like the bodice she'd chosen. Her blouse draped from her arms, the freckles on her shoulders like he remembered, although the look in her eyes was bolder.

"And then?" Makino asked.

His grin was a bared blade, as Shanks said, “Then I board her.”

Parting her knees, he heard her breath hitching as her hands seized in his hair, before she melted, a surrender that felt like it lifted the last decade right off his shoulders, and the deep laugh it dislodged from him took something else with it.

Carrying her to his bunk after, she was loose-limbed and pliant as he laid her down, her small frame wrapped around his and their clothes littering the planks.

“Complete capitulation,” he mused, running his fingers through the sleek mass of her hair. “Nice to know I’ve still got it.”

“Were you expecting resistance?” Makino asked, her cheek pressed to his shoulder to look up at him.

He had a retort ready, but it faltered on his tongue, usually so sure, but then she’d inadvertently hit a lot deeper than she’d intended with that question, the crux of which was that he hadn’t taken anything for granted since dropping anchor yesterday, least of all her feelings.

Her eyes softened, darker within the frame of his bunk, but the understanding in them was clear as Makino said, “She surrendered willingly, crew and all.”

Tucking her hair behind her ear, “And my new sloop,” Shanks asked. “Is she still afloat?”

She hummed, “Barely.” And with a goofy little grin that could have healed any scar he’d returned with, "It’s not her maiden voyage, but it’s been a while since someone commandeered her.”

The kiss he pressed to her crown trembled like his grin, and he felt how his hand shook, wrapped around the back of her neck. “I’ll have to treat her gently then. See that she remains seaworthy.”

Her sated laugh liked that, and they lay in silence for a spell, his fingers charting a lazy course over the slender length of her back.

Then, “And I was there for her maiden voyage,” Shanks said, a grinning kiss pressed beneath her ear. “She holds up well.”

A pinch in his side sent his laughter roaring, before he retaliated by rolling her over on her back, pinning her to the mattress as she laughed, although felt how she yielded, the delicate frame of her body welcoming his harder one.

Soft hands lifted to touch him, threading gently through the hair sweeping his chest, following the hard map of muscle to the scarred stump of his arm. And she’d reacquainted herself with his body the night before, an intimate inventory of his scars, catalogued with that meticulous care, but it was something else to face her here, bared before that gentle judgement and with nowhere to hide.

Her head lifted from the pillow then, before she pressed her lips to the gouges over his eye, and so gently his breath ripped from him.

Laying her head back down, Makino smiled up at him. Some of his hair had fallen into his brow, and in a gesture she’d stolen, she reached to tuck it behind his ear, a small hand cupping his cheek as she swept her thumb over his bottom lip.

Shanks watched her, unsure if the ache in his chest was longing or relief, when they were so tightly intertwined where she was concerned.

Brown eyes lifted to the frame above their heads then, and the curtain where it draped to the side, and, “Your bunk is bigger," Makino said.

His grin was startled, but he recovered quickly. “Couldn’t come back to steal you away only to make you sleep in one of the hammocks,” Shanks said. “You saw the crew’s quarters. Believe me when I say it’s never that clean.”

“I suppose it was too much to expect my own cabin,” she mused, before her eyes lowered, her nervousness betrayed by the slender fingers worrying the hair on his chest. “I did wonder,” Makino said, “if there’d still be a place for me in your crew.”

Smiling, Shanks leaned into the small hand cradling his cheek. “I kept a post open for you.”

Her little grin had his heart constricting. “Does it come with a proper rank?”

“What kind of ship do you think I’m running here? Of course it does. You’ll start at cabin boy with a trial period of six months, and then we’ll see about promoting you.”

When she stuck her tongue out, he grinned, and bending down until their noses touched, “I hope you didn’t think you’d get special treatment just for being my wife?” Shanks purred. “Cute as you are, you’ll have to rise in the ranks like everyone else.”

“Because I was really hinging on my cuteness to get me a decent posting,” Makino said.

“Hey, it worked for me. How do you think I got to captain?”

That little laugh was addictive, like the feel of her skin under his fingers, skimming the dip of her waist and seeking out familiar spots, until she was howling with laughter, so loud it overtook his, but then like she brought out a gentleness in him, there were ways he’d changed her, too.

And as far as her place in his crew went, there was only one post for her; the one that had been hers for ten years. But it wasn’t enough just to tell her, when after so long spent hinging her faith on a spoken promise, she deserved more―deserved actions, and gestures, to leave no doubt.

But if he knew his crew right, they would find a way to show her.

―

“I’m going to fall down!”

Her laughter was inching over on the right side of tipsy, and bending down beneath her, she shrieked as Lucky lifted her up, before Yasopp took her hands to pull her up on the yard.

“Then we’ll catch you,” he quipped, grinning as he helped her take a seat. Barefoot in her wedding dress and with several cups of ceremonial sake in her belly, anyone else might have discouraged letting her climb aloft, but there were plenty of hands ready to grab her, from the watchful pirates gathered on the deck below.

“You know,” Yasopp said, observing as she found her balance, delicately hiking up the skirt of her dress. “You’d make a good figurehead in this look. The white dress; the wild hair. A classic.”

“Not so loud or you’ll give him ideas,” Makino laughed, her eyes scanning the deck below, their wedding feast in full swing, but the groom had momentarily disappeared. A good thing, Yasopp suspected, given his new wife’s state of giggling inebriation and precarious perch.

His fingers twitched when she swayed a bit, but she didn’t topple, and, “How do you feel?” Yasopp asked.

Breathing in deeply, the salt air still where it lay over the dark water, “Happy,” Makino sighed, and with a goofy little grin, chirped, “And a little drunk.”

His chuckle was softer than he was known for. “As it should be, on your wedding day.”

“What was your wedding day like?” Makino asked.

The earnest curiosity in the question caught him off guard, but then leave it to her, that even on the one day she was allowed to claim the centre stage, she still asked.

Looking over the party on the decks below, and the strings of lights strung between the masts, “Nothing like this,” Yasopp said, his smile soft as he remembered, their hands bound, and his trigger-steady fingers shaking so badly he would have missed a target two feet away. “Was just the two of us and the village vicar, and then a round on the house at the tavern after.”

He’d made the rings himself; his own was still on his hand, the metal dulled and scratched. He’d looked for hers in her belongings, when they’d stopped in Syrup, but didn’t know if she’d been buried with it, or if Usopp had it.

He hated that he didn’t even know this, but then maybe that was his just payment, for the choices he’d made.

“I would have given her a proper wedding if I could have,” he said, lifting his eyes from the party to the ones watching him, as dark as the sea beyond the bow. “She deserved more.”

Makino said nothing, not to absolve him of his guilt, or to offer her own judgement, but then for all that he shared of himself, and freely, there were few who knew his shame as well as she did.

“Our boy, too,” he continued. “I wanted to make a name for myself so badly, someone who’d be worthy of them, but now I just wish I could have been there.”

“You still can,” Makino said. “It’s not too late.”

Yasopp looked at her. And from anyone else, it might have been an empty platitude; an encouragement offered from a good place, but without really understanding. But from her, who’d waited, and who’d still wanted them back, it was anything but empty, and while not a guarantee, what it did give him was hope.

“How long did you wait?” Makino asked then, plucking at the ivory silk of her dress, her voice lowered between them, although with the noise from the party below, he doubted anyone would have caught it. “After you were married, before you, ah, s-started thinking about children.”

Leaning back against the mast, he hummed. “Don’t think we were actively thinking about it; it just happened, but then it was kind of in the cards. Not much else to do in a village that small. You get married, you have a kid or two. Probably like that here, too.”

Makino didn’t answer, her fingers still worrying her dress, and grinning, Yasopp ducked his head to catch her eyes. “Thinking about kids?”

Predictably flustered, “N-no,” she said, but seeing his grin, conceded, “Maybe a little.” And at his pointed look, sighed, “Okay, maybe a lot.” But when his grin widened, hastened to add, “And if he was a farmer, it might be in the cards, but he’s not, he’s…”

She gestured at the air, as though struggling to grasp the right word, but then Yasopp didn’t blame her; many had tried and failed in the years he’d been a part of this crew.

But if there was anyone who did grasp it, it was probably her, and, “He’s also your husband,” Yasopp pointed out.

“For less than a day,” Makino countered. “And technically, we haven’t even been together that long, if you don’t count the last ten years.”

“Do you count them?” Yasopp asked.

Makino nodded, not even half a beat missed. “But I wouldn’t blame him if he didn’t.”

“We’ve been with him,” Yasopp said, with a meaningful look. “We all count them.”

Her smile gave her away. And he doubted she was under any misconceptions of how their captain weighed the past ten years, but they owed it to her to leave no doubt.

On the deck below, a familiar laugh drifted up towards them, drawing her eyes down.

“Still,” Makino said, her look soft as she listened, but the longing in it wasn’t missed. “It would probably be wise to wait.”

“Do you want to wait?” Yasopp asked her.

She opened her mouth, before she closed it, which was answer enough, but then if they were going to make a pirate of her, they were going to have to start teaching her to be upfront about what she wanted.

“If you want my two berri, I personally wouldn’t mind another addition to the crew nine months from now,” Yasopp said, and grinned when she spluttered.

“We’re not starting tonight!”

“Starting what tonight?”

She jumped as Shanks hoisted himself up on the yard beside her, a broad hand pressed between her shoulder blades before she could go tumbling off the side, their captain settling into his seat with an ease that never ceased to surprise Yasopp, who was thankful for both his arms when climbing aloft.

He caught the half-panicked look beseeching him not to answer, but Yasopp only smiled, and tapped his nose. Relentless teasing aside, he knew where his loyalties lay.

Of course, if she thought they hadn’t all placed their bets on their first kid, she was in for a surprise.

“The big casket of wine in the cargo hold,” he said instead. “The one that’s at least a century old.”

Shanks’ look said he didn’t buy it, but he didn’t ask. Instead, “This is where you’d gone,” he told her, plucking a rogue petal from her unravelling braid where it draped over her shoulder. “I turn my back for two minutes and you’ve got her climbing the shrouds?”

“She has to start learning at some point,” Yasopp said.

“Sure, but seven cups into a barrel of sake?”

“Sake!” Makino chirped, beaming up at him. “Did you bring some?”

“Look at you,” Shanks said. “I married a sensible barmaid. Have you seen her anywhere?”

“Mm,” she hummed, tilting her head back with a grin. One of the straps of her wedding dress had slipped off her shoulder, but her tipsy smile didn’t mind it. “I’m afraid it’s all rogues and vagabonds here.”

“Evidently,” Shanks chuckled, hooking his finger through the strap to slip it back on, before shrugging off his cloak to wrap around her. “Here I thought it was going to take time adapting you to the pirate’s life, but you’re already three steps ahead of me. We could steal you away tonight and you’d blend right in.”

“Not tonight,” Makino said, tucking her nose into the high collar. “I have to put in an order tomorrow for next month’s shipment.”

“There’s your barmaid,” Yasopp chuckled. “I guess the sea is safe a little while longer.”

Makino stuck her tongue out, and missed the look they shared, but then teasing aside, there was no doubt in any of them what kind of pirate she’d be.

From her seat on the yard, she observed the party below, her rowdy court of rogues, busy belting out a song, a soft hum rising from her chest as she joined in.

Heave ho, haul together; hoist the colours high.

And she should have looked out of place, in ivory silk and flowers in her hair, their captain’s cloak wrapped around her and her cheeks flushed from the sake, a bride, and a pirate, although in terms of rogues, she was a unique sort. And more still, with salt in her hair, crowned by the sea wind, but then it hadn’t just been a wedding they’d witnessed but a coronation, and in her humming was a different vow, not just to their captain but to all of them, made before the gentle sea that was hers.

Never shall we die.

―

Given how they all adored her, it didn’t come as a shock that she’d won over even the most resilient of their crew.

“What do you mean he’s dangerous? He’s such a sweet boy!”

The last remark was met by several dubious looks, from the crew gathered around her where she sat on her knees on the floor of her bar, all of them observing with wary unease, and hands ready to snatch her away the second those slitted pupils widened.

“We thought it was sweet when we got it for Boss,” someone said, watching their ship’s cat, presently having its chin scratched. “But don’t be fooled; that thing ain’t a housepet!”

“Of course not,” Makino said patiently, stroking its head, to loud, purring approval. “He’s a ship’s cat.”

“He’s a demon,” someone whispered.

“You’re exaggerating,” she said, reaching to scratch behind its ear as they all visibly clenched, but then the last rookie who’d tried that had ended up needing stitches, although Whiskey didn’t seem to mind, leaning into her hand, its eyes closed as it rumbled loudly. “Aren’t they?” Makino asked, her voice taking on a crooning pitch. “How could such a sweet, fluffy boy be dangerous? And such a good hunter, keeping mice out of my pantry.”

“I’m just glad there haven’t been any other casualties,” someone muttered, to rumbling agreement.

“Devil cat would go for the sea king if it could.”

“I say we let it try!”

“Let it try what?” Shanks asked, coming up to where they were gathered around Makino. “That’s where he was,” he said, bending down to scratch behind its ears. “I couldn’t find him on the ship. Almost had me worried the sea king had gotten him.”

“If it did, something tells me we’d find his lordship floating belly-up in the shallows tomorrow morning,” someone muttered.

Shanks appeared no more perturbed than Makino, laughing as the three-legged beast butted its head into their hands, purring so loudly now, if they didn’t all know what it was capable of, they might have mistaken it for a docile creature.

Slitted yellow eyes opened, observing them where they’d formed a protective circle around their captain and barmaid, but while they didn’t all see eye to eye, in this one thing, they shared a common ground, and when it came to protecting what was theirs, they’d always have a wary understanding.

“Wait,” a voice spoke up then, as they all looked up, even the cat.

“When was the last time we actually saw the sea king?”

―

He’d never been very good with words―not like his captain, who always knew what to say to make her smile, and as was often the case, blush; or like Yasopp, who could spin a tale from nothing; or even like Ben, who despite his sparsity of speech always chose the right things to say.

But he’d found that words weren’t all that important, and in expressing affection, he did have one method that had never failed him.

“This is delicious!”

Her voice held her delight, but then even if she hadn’t expressed it vocally, her face would have done it for her, Lucky thought.

“You like it?” he asked, aware that he was preening, and it wasn’t like he was unused to people liking his cooking, but few were so helplessly honest about it. “It’s my mother’s recipe.”

Makino nodded eagerly, already helping herself to another spoonful of the steaming broth. He’d been working on it all day, but then she’d offered him her kitchen, which had some advantages to their galley, one of which was a steady floor, and a big brick fireplace.

A deep hum of contentment left her, as she informed him, “You’ll make your wife very happy one day, Lucky Roo.”

His grin tilted. “I have to find her first, and I’ve never really had that much luck with girls. A bit ironic, with my name and all.”

“You should cook for her,” Makino said, her eyes dancing. “In my experience, it’s very effective.”

“I don’t think you needed cooking to win over Boss,” Lucky said. “He was a lost cause the minute he stepped through the door.”

Her laugh was soft, gratified in a way that few could be and still be as humble. “Maybe,” Makino conceded, stirring the pot with the ladle. “But attraction only goes so far. Luck, too. It’s not what makes a difference.”

He might have told her he’d heard this spiel many times, the well-meaning ‘you’ll find someone, just be yourself!’, but suddenly curious, “What makes a difference?” he asked.

She thought about it, stirring the broth. Then, “It’s about seeing someone,” she said. Her eyes were elsewhere, but her smile left little doubt of who she was thinking about. “And what they need, whether it’s a gentle approach or a sweeping seduction.” Her eyes lifted to his, smiling. “Or just to be cooked for.”

Like his hope, his grin couldn’t be helped. “So if I ever meet a girl who really needs a bowl of bone broth…?”

“Then I hope you give her a warning first,” Makino said, as she ladled another helping into her bowl.

“Here,” Lucky said, reaching for the slices of cooked meat he’d prepared. “You should try it with the pork.”

He’d just placed it in the bowl when her hand flew to cover her mouth, and he paused, frowning. “Makino?”

Her hand still covering her mouth, she waved him off. “It’s nothing; I just felt a little queasy. It’s passed now.” But a beat later, “Actually, I need some air,” she said, putting the bowl down before she bolted for the door.

He watched her go. And a different chef might have taken offence, or wondered if he’d cooked the meat wrong, but if there was one thing he did know, it was meat.

An inkling was stirring in his gut, but he remembered then, cooking for his older sister when she’d been pregnant, trying to figure out which smells and tastes didn’t make her sick.

Ben was sitting by one of the tables when he emerged from the kitchen, busy reading the newspaper, although looked up when he came up to the table. “Lucky?”

Lucky grinned. And he wasn’t always the quickest on the uptake, like Yasopp, or the one with all the answers, like Ben, but if there was one thing he did have it was good instincts, and in his whole life, his gut had never steered him wrong.

And for once, it had given him an edge on the rest of them.

“I want to place a bet.”

―

They hadn’t been married long when the New World demanded their return, necessitated by Blackbeard’s recent advancement through Whitebeard’s former territories, and still needing to get her affairs in order before she left her life and bar for the sea, it was agreed that she would sit this one out.

Given what greeted them, it was a decision they wouldn’t regret.

Towns and villages, sacked and burned after their refusal to bend to their new benefactor, but then Blackbeard didn’t need the people as much as the territories, and one village taken off the map served as a reminder to the others.

“Shite,” Yasopp breathed, although it seemed on behalf of all of them, their silence absolute where they’d come ashore, observing the charred remains of what had once been a thriving port town, now a shadow of blackened and burned-out houses.

Shanks said nothing, stepping through the gaping doorway of one of the larger structures, part of the charred frame crumbling as he did. There was little left beside the fireplace, and a blackened chimney, the foundation of the house crumbled to cinders. But he recognised the signs, the tell-tale remains of casks and barrels, and what had once been a long counter.

“Boss?”

Lucky was in the doorway, his eyes lifting briefly to the gaping hole of what had once been a common room. “We searched the village, but there’s no survivors.”

Shanks only nodded, but then he’d sensed it already before they’d come ashore. But it was owed to those who’d resided here, he’d thought, for someone to witness what had happened to them.

An unbroken bottle lay on its side on the floor, a lone survivor amidst the heaps of broken glass, as though someone had greedily helped themselves and shattered whatever was left. The charred and curling label was familiar; the same that had been on the bottle they’d gifted her, what felt like a lifetime ago.

Lifting his eyes from it, he froze, uncertain at first what he was even looking at, but walking closer confirmed it.

The remains of what had once been a crib sat, tucked behind the counter between the broken kegs.

He was unprepared for his own reaction, his breath leaving him in a sudden gust.

Behind him, no one spoke. And it hung between them, like it had once, after the war: the relief that she wouldn’t have to see this.

This wasn’t the sea they’d wanted to show her, but they knew better than most what kind of world they lived in, and that the horrors were as par for the course as the wonders, and when they did take her with them, it would have to be with the understanding that she would have to face it, too. That there was no having one without the other.

Although heavier than their regret was their unspoken understanding, the one that sat in every clenched and shaking hand, observing the similarities: the little village that had been safe, until it no longer was.

Ben was waiting by a waystone in the village green, the grass trampled and singed from the fire. “What do you want to do?” he asked, as Shanks came to a stop, his back turned to the ruined bar, although he saw his first mate’s gaze going towards it.

He didn’t answer right away, but then the question implied more than just where to set their course.

But if he went after Blackbeard now, he had no way of knowing what the consequences would be, with the World Government still reeling from the war. And with Luffy still training with Rayleigh…

Further down the shore, the water lapped gently against the docks, the sea air still and quiet; a peace that contrasted the wanton destruction behind them, but then the sea didn’t grieve, and looked back without judgement, awaiting his decision.

She’d be getting ready for the evening shift, closing the windows and lighting the lanterns, although she kept them burning low these days, lest a passing ship grew curious and stopped by to investigate. But then even sheltered, this age had reached even her safe shores, and it would be naive to think she was unaffected, when he knew better.

He thought of her working, humming under her breath, and didn’t care if his longing was evident, as Shanks said roughly, “I want to go home.”

Ben didn’t disagree, only pocketed his lighter. “I’ll inform the navigator.”

But walking past him towards the ship, he paused and said, “It wouldn’t break her, seeing this. She’s tougher than that.”

Shanks almost chuckled, but then few knew that fact better than him, but it wasn’t why Ben was saying it. “I just know how it changes you to see it,” he said. No one who sailed this sea remained the same; like the coins for the ferryman, it was their payment for the passage.

“You think it would change her?” Ben asked.

Shanks didn’t answer right away, but then the only one who could answer that was Makino.

“Not fundamentally,” he said at length. He couldn’t imagine that anything would do that. “But I think about it. I can try to prepare her for it, but she won’t understand until she’s facing it.”

“Are you talking about the New World, or about yourself?”

When he didn’t answer, “Idiot,” Ben sighed, although like the long-suffering affection, there was understanding there, but then few knew him as well as his inner circle, aside from the topic of their conversation.

But even if she saw him more clearly than anyone, there were aspects of his life she wouldn’t understand until she saw them with her own eyes.

Turning to the village ruins, he didn’t flinch from it, but then he couldn’t let himself forget what they were up against. Not when it might as easily have been a different village sacked and burned. And he’d seen his share of horrors in his life, but that…Shanks knew he wouldn’t survive it.

But at least if she was with them, they could protect her. And he couldn’t shield her from everything, but then to love this sea was to know it; like to love him was to know him, his storms included.

Of course, they didn’t need to throw her in at the deep end right off the bat, and in terms of welcoming her into his crew, there was one thing he wanted to do, before anything else.

Noting the tender crook of his mouth, Ben’s brows quirked. “What are you thinking?”

Shanks smiled, his gaze turned to the horizon. And while Dawn Island was never far from his mind, it wasn’t what he thought about now, picturing the far-reaching branches, and the lights beneath the canopy. One of the many places he wanted to show her.

“I’m thinking we should probably refill our resin supply before we head home.”

―

While they’d all changed in different ways, it said something about the habits of humans that when it came to their preference in clothes, some things remained the same.

Granted, he preferred his shirt rakishly untucked now and his trousers more boldly patterned (a topic of much debate, both among his crew, his wife, her village, the Grand Line tabloids, and if the rumours were to be believed, the navy brass), but controversial pants aside, ten years later, the black cloak was still a staple of his wardrobe the same way Makino’s kerchiefs were of hers. It was practically his trademark, at least now that his straw hat was no longer attributed to him, but there were worse things to be recognised for, and as far as cloaks went, his crew was known for having something of a predilection. And while by no means a dress code requirement, there was a sense of camaraderie in it, but then nothing bound a crew as tightly as questionable fashion choices.

Well; there was one other thing, at least where his crew was concerned.

“What’s this?”

Smiling, Shanks watched her consider the parcel sitting on the counter, which hadn’t been there when she’d left to grab another bottle of rum from the storeroom earlier.

Their grins were doing a truly terrible job of concealing their excitement. Shanks briefly considered reminding them that the gift was from him, not all of them.

From his seat at the bar, “Just something I got while I was away,” he said, his own grin helpless at her curiosity, worn openly across her face.

“It’s for me?”

He nudged it towards her, and saw her wide eyes darting from the parcel to his. “Open it.”

Putting down the bottle, she came up to where he was sitting, the gentle furrow of her brow betraying a twinge of wariness that was probably warranted, as she reached for the silk paper wrapping.

Feeling the soft contents, “Did you get me something to wear?” Makino asked, delighted, although her grin was sheepish as she shot him a cheeky, “I hope it fits,” with a pointed glance at the baby bump protruding from under her apron.

“In my defence, I didn’t know you were pregnant when I got it,” Shanks said. His eyes danced. “But I don’t think that should be a problem.”

New intrigue brightened her eyes. And a decade might have passed, but Shanks didn’t think he’d ever grow tired of how easy she was to delight, which made it entirely too tempting to keep giving her things. But then as far as gifts went, she could have asked him for the horizon and he would have looked for a way to bring it to her.

Her curiosity barely contained now, they all watched as she pulled away the wrapping, his whole crew leaning out of their seats, at least those who hadn’t abandoned all attempts at subtlety, and had gathered around the counter to watch.

Makino was too enraptured to notice their hovering, her full attention stolen by the gift, but lifting away the last of the silk paper, she stilled.

She’d told him once that she’d developed a fondness for adornments at a young age, courtesy of a painfully frugal mother whose only accessory had been a near-permanent frown, and who’d refused to indulge her daughter’s notions of frippery. That’s where the kerchiefs had come from, she’d explained; a little girl’s gentle rebellion against painful practicality. Something that was meant to be useful, holding back her hair, but she’d worked around their purpose by including bright colours and bold patterns, and embroidering the edges with lace and seed pearls.

You know what you sound like? he’d asked her, touching the kerchief she’d been wearing, the simple slip of fabric embroidered with her own hand. And while not a black flag flying in the face of a corrupt government, the gentle defiance in the face of convention was a core feature of their creed, to which his tender grin had declared her a member, even before he’d named her,

A pirate.

She’d laughed then, endearingly delighted, but the story had stayed with him, across the years and the Grand Line. And it wasn’t a pretty kerchief he’d brought her now, or any conventional trinket a captain might gift his new wife, but then their marriage was anything but conventional.

Withdrawing the cloak from the silk paper, he saw how her hands shook as she held it up, her doe-brown eyes as wide as he’d ever seen them and her expressive features baring all her feelings.

No one spoke, the complete quiet within her bar pronounced as his whole crew watched her. From his seat a barstool down from Shanks’, even Ben had abandoned all pretence, leaning closer to get a better look.

Lifting her eyes from the cloak, her smile trembled over her soft mouth as Makino asked him thickly, “Is this some kind of official initiation into your crew?”

His smile held no teasing. “You are one of us,” Shanks said, although his look named her more still, but then he’d chosen a mantle to suit her post. “Figured it was about time you dressed the part.”

Her wavering grin split her cheeks, before she held the cloak out to him, a silent request in the offering that he obliged, sliding from his barstool as she turned, drawing her braid over her shoulder, the sleeves of her blouse draping low on her arms.

And this would have been easier with two hands, but lifting the cloak, Shanks placed it over her shoulders, the supple velvet draping across the slender line perfectly, a tender kiss brushed to the back of her neck as Makino adjusted it. The cloak was a brilliant sea-green, coaxing out the sea glass in her hair. Unlike his own, it was a short cloak, the hem just brushing the tops of her hips.

Smoothing her hands over it, Shanks reached to close the delicate silver clasps, the cloak’s high collar snug around her slender throat, a crooked knuckle tilting her chin, grazing the soft skin beneath as he murmured, “Perfect fit.”

“You look like you’re properly part of our crew now, Makino!” Limejuice approved, to rousing agreement, all of them having abandoned their seats to get a better look.

Monstar’s chitters agreed, as Bonk Punch grinned. “Now all that’s missing is a wanted poster.”

“And a mid-life crisis,” Ben deadpanned, although the grin jutting around his toothpick agreed, as he told her, with a gentleness he reserved for no one else, “It becomes you.”

Lucky Roo concurred, “You look beautiful, Makino!”

“Regal,” Hongou said, to murmurs of agreement from both Gab and Snake.

Her goofy grin was adorable, but, “Alright,” Shanks said, shouldering them out of the way as he put himself in front of her. “As much as I agree with the general consensus, you’re kind of encroaching on my gift.”

“Your gift?” someone asked, with surprising affront, only for Shanks to find the sentiment reflected across all their faces. “What happened to our gift?”

“Yeah! For our girl!”

“My girl,” Shanks said, only to be met with disbelieving looks.

“Next you’ll be claiming it’s not ‘our’ baby!”

“Because it’s my baby!”

“Oh sure. All of a sudden it’s ‘your’ baby, and ‘your’ barmaid. What, is it ‘your’ ship, too?”

Shanks stared at them. Then blurted, “Yes!”

A beat passed, before he was unceremoniously sidestepped, as they all flocked around her. “But anyway, Makino! What do you think?”

“We thought the colour would look great on you!”

“And the velvet is so soft!”

“And it’s real silver thread, not the cheap kind!”

“We wanted to go for more expensive claps, something with diamonds―” 

“Or emeralds!”

“―but Boss insisted you’d prefer the silver ones, and so we let him have his way.”

“I’m sorry, ‘let me’?” Shanks asked, only to be ignored as more voices chimed in, laying claim to various aspects of her gift, which was now apparently a collective project.

The gentle touch to his arm dragged his eyes down, and her smile was soft as Makino murmured, “Thank you.”

Brushing his thumb over the clasps at her throat, “Do you like it?” Shanks asked.

Her grin was answer enough, but, “I love it,” Makino said fiercely, brushing reverent fingers over the hidden embroideries in the velvet. “In terms of flair, I think this might top every cloak in your crew.”

“Did you forget Ben’s with the swirly pattern?” Yasopp asked, pointing to the culprit.

Ben showed no remorse, only deadpanned, “It gives me an air of mystery.”

“The mystery being how an otherwise rational guy took a look at that fabric and thought ‘yes, I think I’ll go for the magician aesthetic’?”

Ben just grinned around his toothpick.

“You really shouldn’t be pointing fingers,” Shanks told Yasopp. “Doesn’t your favourite cloak have stars all over it?”

“And?” Yasopp asked, hands on his hips now. “Are you saying I’m not a star, Boss?”

“A star-spangled idiot, maybe,” Shanks muttered, as Makino nudged him gently. Lifting his brows, he asked her, “What about me?”

Smiling, she reached up to touch the high collar of his cloak, her knuckles grazing his beard. “You’ve got flair, but it’s not the cloak; it’s how you wear it,” Makino said, as a small hand smoothed over the sable fabric where it draped from his left shoulder, hiding his missing arm.

“There is an art to it,” Shanks agreed, his look soft, observing her gentle examination. “But if it’s panache you’re after, I could always impart some wisdom.” Ducking his head to catch her eyes where they’d paused somewhere at the level of his pecs, he grinned. “Did you get lost?”

The pink tinting her cheeks went well with her cloak, but then it wasn’t like he needed more incentive to make her blush. “No,” Makino said, prim. “I was just admiring your―”

“Panache?”

Pursing her lips didn’t succeed in killing her grin, but before she could counter with a comeback, “Boss!” a voice called, drawing their eyes to his crew. “Save the flirting for later!”

“Yeah, we’re trying to enjoy her reaction to our gift!”

Shanks fixed them with a warning look, but before he could protest the claim, “Let them have this,” Makino said, touching his arm gently, before lowering her voice to murmur, “and I’ll model it for you in private later.”

His grin held her to that. “Just the cloak and the stockings?”

The look through her lashes failed to be appropriately coy, and his chuckle adored her as she averted her eyes with a smile.

“Oh, by the way,” Shanks said, reaching for the cloak, his brows lifting conspiratorially. “It has slits.” Slipping his fingers through one, he took her hand, so small it was swallowed by his, before drawing her arm through the slit, and grinned when she made a noise of delight.

“In case you want to wear it while you work,” he said, although kept himself from adding that having her arms free would be practical at sea, too, glimpsing her pregnant belly through the cloak’s opening, but then they hadn’t had time to discuss if this changed her decision to come with them.

But at least in one respect, it changed nothing, and touching her cheek had her eyes lifting from the cloak as Shanks told her roughly, “It suits you.”

There was only one thing missing, but the sword would have to wait, although he had no trouble picturing it, the slender hilt in her hands, and the unsheathing song.

“I still can’t believe you got me this,” Makino said, turning as she examined how it moved, the velvet like water where it wrapped around her. A gently pointed glance at Shanks had him lifting his brows, as she asked him, “Do I want to know what it cost?”

If it hadn’t been a personal favour, he suspected the answer was something along the lines of his ship, and grinning, he chirped, “Probably not.”

She huffed, but it didn’t diminish her joy, as lifting her arms, she spun around, the short cloak flaring with the graceful movement. The late sunlight sent the pattern dancing, like a ripple over the green surface; the sea where they’d brought it to her, their land-bound pirate, although the word that came to his mind was another, but then in that moment, she looked like an Empress.

“Well?” Makino asked, with a beaming smile, lifting her eyes to the crew surrounding her. “Am I finally a proper pir―”

She stopped, and Shanks wondered if she’d expected roaring applause, because she blinked in surprise when what she got was something else entirely, noting instead their glassy eyes, all fixed on her where she stood in the centre of the crowd, their heart and anchor, and the sea drawn around her in silver and velvet.

But then the fact that they had nothing to say said more than anything else.

―

She’d lived in Fuschia for as long as she could remember, a fact some might consider a cause for pity, to choose to spend one’s life in such a small and uneventful place, with no adventure to be found for love nor money, only peace in abundance, and windmills.

And maybe they were alike that way, her island and her: easy to overlook at first glance, and to dismiss as nothing more than what their gentle appearance suggested.

But Makino knew, had grown up amidst the tall grass, and the rolling hills where the windmills reigned. She knew which ones were safe to explore, where the wood hadn’t yet rotted, and the ones rumoured to be haunted, and she knew how far to venture in the surf before she reached the Lord of the Coast’s domain. And she knew the forest, that deep green sea, and like a sailor knew to be wary of riptides, she knew which paths led you safely back out, and which ones got you lost, had charted this land with her own two feet and her skirts hiked up, because to love this island was to know this island.

And like most who called it home, there was one place she knew to avoid, more than the abandoned windmills and the open water beyond the reefs.

“Outta the way! I’ve got wares coming through!”

The merchant pulling his horse and cart through the crowd wasn’t waiting for them to get out of the way, and she felt the jostling movement as the people around her scrambled back, muttering under their breaths at the rude display.

She’d visited Goa Port only once before, many years ago on an errand with her mother. She couldn’t remember much, aside from how crowded it had been, although recalled marvelling over how beautifully some of the women had been dressed, and how pretty the townhouses had been. For an adventure-hungry girl raised in a fishing hamlet, it had been a fairy tale.

She knew better now, of course, and that for everything it lacked in excitement and glamour, Fuschia had never tried to pretend to be anything other than what it was.

“No littering! His Majesty the King has decreed that the city shall be spotless for his return!”

A group of guards were making their way through the crowd, inspecting the people as they went. “You there!” one called, seizing an old man by the back of his worn travelling cloak.

“B-but I wasn’t littering!”

“Filthy old man,” the guard sneered. “You are the litter. Take him away!”

The old man’s pleas went unheeded, the people in the street watching warily as the guards dragged him away, before they hurried to move on, in case they were apprehended next.

Her hand tucked protectively over her belly under her cloak, Makino briefly reassessed the wisdom in coming, or at least that she’d been so adamant about it, but then she wouldn’t have risked it if it hadn’t been for the fact that one of her shipments had been rerouted to a liquor import in Hightown due to an error.

Of course, announcing that she was planning on walking to Goa on her own had gone over about as well as she’d expected, meaning they’d all point blank refused.

“I’ll be fine,” she’d insisted, facing them down where they filled her bar, their loudly defensive reactions to her announcement compelled to sudden silence by the rare raise of her voice. “I’m just picking up a shipment.”

“Can’t they send someone here with it?” Limejuice had asked, his arms crossed.

“And have the first thing they see coming down being the Emperor’s ship docked beside the dinghies?” Makino had asked.

No one had had a rebuttal to that, and pleased with her reasoning, “It’s safer if I go,” she’d said. “No one will ask any questions.”

“But why do you need to go alone?” Lucky had asked. “We could go with you.”

“A hundred unknown men arriving at the city gates at the same time?” Makino had countered. “Even a smaller group might raise suspicion, but I won’t draw any attention if it’s just me.”

Again, they’d had no rebuttal ready, but their expressions had told her what they’d thought about it.

“I don’t like this,” someone had muttered, to rumbling agreement.

“Ain’t safe in her condition.”

“Doc?”

All heads had turned to their senior physician, who’d sighed and conceded, “Physically, she’s in good shape. The journey itself shouldn’t be an issue.”

Grateful for this show of support, and delicately ignoring how reluctant he looked giving it, she was about to announce the matter decided when they all turned to Shanks, standing beside her behind the bar.

“Boss?”

“You can’t be okay with this, Captain!”

The hands propped on her hips had told him what she thought about that, even as she knew, rationally, that their protectiveness wasn’t about her capabilities. Still, she’d been miffed.

For his part, Shanks had watched her, his face keeping his own thoughts, but she hadn’t backed down, and had been relieved when he’d relented, and with a sigh, had told them, “She has a point.”

But her triumph had been short-lived, as he’d added, “But I’m going with you.”

She’d laughed. “Are you mad? The whole point is to not attract attention. You’re in the newspaper every other week. If anyone were to recognise you, there’d be a panic. And could you imagine what the World Government would do if they knew you were in East Blue?”

He’d said nothing, the hard downturn of his mouth unusually severe, but then this wasn’t her being stubborn just for the sake of having her way, even as she couldn’t deny that there was a small part of her that wanted to prove that she could take care of herself.

“I’ve been on my own for ten years,” she’d said then, the words spoken to all of them now, their expressions flinching at the reminder, unkind but necessary, and the slight edge in her voice had broken just a little as she’d declared, “and while I appreciate your concern for me, I can manage.”

They hadn’t disagreed, their gazes avoiding hers, fixed on their tankards. Only Shanks hadn’t looked away, his handsome features as level as his gaze, but while his authority eclipsed hers aboard his ship, here between the four walls of her bar, she called the shots.

And she didn’t know what he’d found on her face, but his eyes had softened, as he’d told her gently, “If that’s what you want.”

Their objections had been expected, but she could be a good negotiator if the need arose, and they’d eventually surrendered, although not before she’d agreed to an escort to the city gates, but then while stubborn, she wasn’t unreasonable.

Shanks had been promptly ordered to stay in Fuschia, but then even just approaching the outskirts of the city was a risk they couldn’t afford.

He hadn’t been happy about it, but had conceded when she hadn’t backed down, her eyes weaponised for all they were worth, but then unlike him, she could walk unseen, and no one was bound to pay a barmaid any mind.

And even after ten years on her own, missing them, with a whole crew of overprotective pirates watching her like hawks, she had to admit that it was nice to have a moment to herself.

Looking over her shoulder, she frowned. She couldn’t help the feeling that she was being watched, although didn’t know why. It was just a strange prickling at the back of her mind, and she might have thought they’d followed her after all, but searching the crowd found only strangers.

Smoothing her hand over her belly, “I should give them more credit,” Makino sighed, and felt a pang of guilt, when they were only looking out for her, and resolved to let them hover a bit later.

But with her awareness raised, she saw that she wasn’t passing as unnoticed as she’d thought she would, noting the heads turning towards her where she’d stopped in the middle of the street.

Maybe she should have left the cloak. Worn over her long-sleeved wool dress, a dark green one she loved, the laces up the front loosened to accommodate for the baby bump, she hadn't thought about it when she'd left Fuschia; if anything, she'd worn it to blend in, the loveliest thing she owned, and by far the most expensive, but realised her mistake now, the sea-green velvet and silver clasps standing out even among Hightown’s residents, and she tried her best to ignore the gazes following her as she made her way through the crowd.

The prickling in her mind returned, drawing her gaze to a darkened figure in her periphery, standing in the mouth of one of the nearby alleys, but when she looked there was nothing there.

She felt suddenly foolish, that for all her bravado and stubborn insistence that she didn’t need protection, now that she was here, she was jumping at shadows.

Breathing out deeply, she tried to centre herself. The sooner she was out of the city, the sooner she could relax.

Ahead of her, a group of marines were gathered outside a nearby shop, their white uniforms standing out from the crowd, but she stamped down her nervousness, reminding herself that they had no reason to suspect her of anything, least of all the truth.

Although even knowing that, she caught herself trying to look as inconspicuous as possible, which for someone so notoriously bad at lying was probably having the opposite effect.

She was so caught up in trying not to look suspicious, she forgot to mind her surroundings, when someone suddenly bumped into her from behind, sending her staggering forward, her breath seizing in surprise, but before she could fall, a warm hand caught her left shoulder, splayed over her collar as it steadied her.

The corner of a black hood caught her eye as the hand released her shoulder, although she wondered if it was her imagination that it lingered a beat, but was distracted by her relief as she turned to thank them, the figure behind her so tall she had to crane her neck. “Thank y―”

She stared through the crowd, blinking.

There was no one there.

“Are you alright, miss?”

An older woman had approached her, noting her hand wrapped around her belly, and the hooded stranger fled her thoughts as more people stopped what they were doing to observe.

At least her nervous laugh was convincing, although it took reassuring them repeatedly that she was quite well before she managed to extract herself, and by then the hooded stranger had disappeared from her mind entirely.

She had to ask for directions to get to her destination, although it didn’t take her long to find it, but then among Goa Port’s many liquor imports, this was the most famous, occupying a plum position amidst Hightown’s sprawling tavern district.

The bell above the door chimed as she entered, into a large front room lined with casks and barrels, and rows of shelves with bottles of liquor in every hue of brown and gold, the sight stirring the untouched depths of her memory, of her fingers trailing along the rows of bottles, memorising the labels as her mother haggled over prices. She’d had an arrangement with the owner since before Makino had been born, and after her death, Makino had carried on the tradition, but then alliances were key, even in her profession.

“Can I help you, lass?”

An older man had emerged from the back room, a stout and barrel-chested figure with a curling grey moustache and a brown leather apron. Known around Hightown as Vintner, although her mother had never once referred to him as anything but that purse-bleeding bastard. And while it had never been entirely clear if she’d meant it affectionately or not, Makino had delicately discontinued that particular tradition.

He was wiping his hands on a towel, but getting a better look at her, he did a double-take. “Wait, is that Makino?” He laughed, visibly delighted, but then the last time he’d seen her she couldn’t have been more than ten. She always conducted her business over the phone. “Look at you, bright as dew on a sunny morning!”

Her grin came in spite of herself. “You used to say that to my mother, and I don’t think she’s looked like dew a single day in her life.”

He snorted, his whiskers lifting. “Aye, more like silt dragged up with the high tide,” he said, with such aching affection it made her heart constrict. “But for once, I’m being earnest.” His eyes took her in, a curious feeling in them as he told her, “I’d heard the rumours, but you’re even more beautiful than they said.”

From a different man, that might have been suggestive, but the affection in it hid nothing else, and spreading his hands on the counter, “I’m guessing you’re here about that shipment,” Vintner said. “I was just about to arrange for it to be delivered. You didn’t have to come all this way.”

Smiling as she approached the counter, “I didn’t mind,” Makino said. “I had some time, and it’s been a while since I visited.”

“Aye,” he chuckled, as he bent to pick up a crate to put it on the counter, the contents within chiming softly. “Your mother was still with us, rest her soul. Never met a more tenacious haggler. Like a dog with a bone, that woman. I’d say you didn’t learn that from her, gentle as you are, but somehow, you always end up getting a better bargain than I was prepared to make.”

Her smile was demure, as she reached to inspect the crate’s contents. “I offer a fair price.”

His grin didn’t disagree, his eyes crinkling as he observed her inspection, five bottles of brandy, imported all the way from South Blue, but then she had more gold than she knew what to do with, courtesy of a crew who still insisted on overpaying her, and a captain who continued to let them.

She saw his eyes lifting, and, “That’s a fine cloak,” he remarked, the note of awe making her once again wonder if she’d made a mistake in wearing it. “Business must be going well.”

Keeping her eyes on the bottles, “I have my regulars,” Makino said.

“Yeah? Then those must be some tabs they’re keeping, unless the village has doubled in size since the last time I stopped by.”

There was nothing but benign curiosity in his voice, but she still felt a hot flush under her cloak, and knowing she’d only look more suspicious if she tried to lie, “It was a gift,” she said, although regretted it a second later when his eyes lit up.

“A gift like that could only be from a suitor,” Vintner said, and when his grin widened, knew her face had given her away, but he only laughed, delighted. “Well, now!”

Flustered, she might have denied it, but couldn’t help her flicker of gratification at this simple joy on her behalf, but then this was her first time sharing her happiness with someone who didn’t already know the whole story.

“Still, that’s some courtship gift for a fisherman’s income,” he mused, bending over the counter to inspect it. “You nabbed yourself a merchant?”

Her smile was startled, imagining his reaction to that. A merchant of what, fun? Ohhhh, you know what, that actually sounds like a job I’d be great at! “Not exactly.”

“Farmer, then?” he asked. “Ain’t many other professions thereabouts, unless it’s someone from town. Looking at that cloak, one might think you caught yourself a lord, Makino-chan.”

She didn’t mind that her grin gave her away this time, even if the tender joke was a private one, and knew he had his answer when he laughed.

Withdrawing the last of the bottles from the crate, her cloak slipped open, and she saw his eyes widening, like the grin across his face. “And I see congratulations are in order!” His gaze shifted to her hand, and the wedding band she wasn’t quick enough to hide. “Not just a suitor then, although I would have thought I’d hear about you getting married, and to a lord no less!”

Her fingers curled together. And maybe it was the ring she should have taken off, not the cloak, realising suddenly that a barmaid with a child out of wedlock was easier to explain than one with a conspicuously absent and suspiciously vague husband.

“It’s been a bit of a whirlwind,” she said at length, but at least that was the truth. The past six months had been more eventful than the past ten years of her life combined.

She hoped he wouldn’t ask about the wedding, or the pirate lord in question, but he didn’t press her for details, only said warmly, “Well it suits you. Motherhood, too, although had I known you were expecting, I would have insisted on sending someone. Sure you’ll be alright carrying this all the way back?”

Makino smiled, placing the bottles in the satchel she’d brought. “I’ll manage. I’m stronger than I look.”

His snort was fond. “Your mother would rise from her grave if I suggested otherwise,” he said. Then with a curious look, asked her, “Your husband not with you?”

She was toeing a dangerous line with her half-truths, and one she wasn’t a skilled enough performer to maintain, but she was saved from coming up with a credible excuse when the door behind her opened, although turning around, her heart fell through the bottom of her stomach.

“Vice-Admiral,” Vintner said, and although polite, the pitch of his voice had lost its warmth. “What can I do for you this fine afternoon?”

The marine who’d appeared didn’t acknowledge the greeting, and didn’t look at her as he came up to the counter where she still had her satchel open. A tall, dark-haired man with a severe frown, he looked no older than Shanks. He wasn’t in uniform, but the pocket of his suit had a navy pin, and he carried a rapier at his waist.

“Have you seen this man?” he asked the owner, withdrawing a wanted poster from his suit jacket. “He usually operates in the New World, but we’ve received word that his crew has been spotted around these parts.”

Terror seized her throat, as she went cold all the way through her body, but glancing down at the wanted poster didn’t find her husband’s face looking back, but a pirate she didn’t recognise.

Her gust of relief didn’t go unnoticed, and she realised her mistake when the Vice-Admiral’s eyes lowered to her.

Vintner had noticed, too, his eyes shifting towards her briefly, before he told the officer, “Can’t say he looks familiar, but a wanted pirate would be hard pressed to walk unseen in this town, what with the kingsguard on alert.”

The bell on the door jingled; Makino didn’t dare look away from the Vice-Admiral, although saw Vintner look up, but whoever had entered didn’t announce themselves as they disappeared between the shelves. Makino didn’t blame them; if anything could convince someone to wait their turn, it would be a Vice-Admiral.

His eyes raked across her, noting her cloak, and the satchel where she’d stuffed the bottles of brandy, before pausing on her belly, cupped protectively under her hand. “A liquor shop is an odd place for a pregnant woman to be,” he said then.

Holding his eyes, Makino didn’t quail, and at least she wasn’t lying when she told him, “I own a bar. I’m here to pick up a shipment.”

He regarded her calmly; unlike her, his face didn’t betray his thoughts. “And which one is your bar?” he asked. “Maybe I’ll stop by later for a drink.”

She couldn’t help but feel like she was being interrogated, and while she didn’t want him knowing anything about her, she couldn’t lie without alerting him, and so, “Party’s,” Makino said carefully, and hoped the truth would be so uninteresting he wouldn’t inspect it any closer. “It’s in Fuschia Port.”

That cool gaze hadn’t released her, fixed on her face now. “That’s a long walk for a woman in your condition,” he said. “Your husband couldn’t get it for you?”

Had it been anyone else asking, she might have been miffed at the assumption that she couldn’t do it herself, but she was too nervous to feel anything else, and could barely think past the need to get away from him as quickly as possible, like every nerve in her body was screaming at her to go

And she had the uneasy feeling then, that she’d made a terrible mistake coming here alone.

“He’s actually waiting for me,” Makino said, and before he could respond, collected her satchel, leaving her payment on the counter, and keeping her eyes lowered as she said to the marine, “Officer.”

She kept her shoulders straight as she walked out, pressing the satchel to her belly and holding her breath until she was outside, the bell chiming cheerfully, and hoped it didn’t look as obvious as it felt that she wasn’t leaving but escaping.

―

The bell jingled as the door shut behind her, before the Vice-Admiral pushed the wanted poster across the counter. “If you see him, report him to the local authorities.”

He was already heading for the door, as Vintner recited dryly, “As is my civic duty as a denizen of the World Government."

Had that been construed as mockery, he could have slapped him in handcuffs, but the Vice-Admiral didn't even glance back, a purpose in his step now as the door swung shut behind him.

He waited a beat, before saying to the cloaked figure emerging from between the shelves, “There aren’t many in my acquaintance who can evade the notice of a Vice-Admiral.”

It paused before the door. It was tall and broad over the shoulders, a black hood obscuring any defining features, but Vintner had already made the connection, as he asked it mildly, “The illusive husband, I take it?”

The figure turned, his head lifting enough for Vintner to glimpse the scarred face within the hood, a smile crooking the corner of his mouth, and his eyes widened as a warm voice said, “The one and only. On that note, if you’ll excuse me, I should find my wife.”

The bell chimed, but before he could walk out, “Better keep that hood on,” Vintner said, as Red-Hair paused on the threshold. “Or she’ll have more trouble than a Vice-Admiral on her hands, if the king catches wind of an Emperor in his city.”

Turning his head to look at him, “I take it you’ll be discreet?” Red-Hair asked.

Vintner thought he might have told him a thing or two about discretion, but recalling the Vice-Admiral, said simply, “Make sure no harm comes to that girl and you’ll have no problem with me.”

The slightest incline of his head accepted the terms, a curiously polite gesture for a man hailed as one of the most dangerous in the world, and Red-Hair said nothing else as he walked out, the bell dancing as the door shut behind him.

A long beat passed, before he expelled a chuckle. “A pirate, huh?” he murmured, his voice dropping to a tender pitch, but then it had been years since he’d thought about her; a fiercer captain than any he’d ever met, for all that she’d had no ship or crew to call her own. "Suits her," he said, smiling.

"Eh, Em?"

―

She’d turned down two different streets before she was confident that her hunch was right, and that the Vice-Admiral was following her.

Keeping her gaze level, Makino tried to look like she was none the wiser, going so far as to pause to peruse the window display of a shop, even as she couldn’t take any of it in, her heart racing so fast she felt like she was about to throw up.

She had to shake him somehow. She couldn’t leave while he was still following her, but if she stayed too long, the pirates waiting beyond the gates might wonder if something had happened, and she couldn’t risk them coming into the city to look for her. If the Vice-Admiral saw them, he’d recognise them in a second.

She turned down another street, although didn’t dare risk a glance over her shoulder, and wondered how she was so certain he was still following her. It was that same prickling in her mind she'd felt before, as though his presence had left an imprint, and not a good one.

Makino didn’t question it, but then she’d always had good instincts, and embraced it now as she weaved between the people, searching for somewhere to hide, or a way to lose herself in the crowd. She’d been leading him in a circle, and knew there was no way he wasn’t aware of what she was doing, but he couldn’t do anything with the crowd watching, unless he planned to arrest a pregnant woman in front of an audience.

Although right on the heels of that thought was another: that he might not even hesitate, if he was confident in his authority, although worse was the fear that if he did, no one would interfere.

Her growing panic was making it hard to think, her hand cupped under her belly as she fought to keep calm. Maybe if she discarded the cloak, she could slip away, but the thought of leaving it made her heart ache, recalling the look in his eyes when he'd given it to her.

She was frantically trying to decide what to do when a big hand suddenly closed over her mouth, muffling her startled shout as she was pulled out of the crowd and into one of the narrow alleys, a strong arm wrapped around her, pressing her to a sturdy chest that she might have recognised if she hadn’t been so busy thrashing against the grip, before a familiar voice spoke in her ear, pitched so low it seized her whole body.

“Don’t move.”

Eyes wide, she didn’t breathe, but while her mind had caught up, it took her body a beat longer, pressed against the powerful frame behind her.

His hand released her mouth, but Shanks didn’t move, holding her as they waited, his body shielding her from view. Risking a glance towards the alley mouth, Makino saw the Vice-Admiral stalking past without stopping, but it took another tense beat before her breath rushed out as she sank back against his chest.

“Clever girl,” Shanks said, the deep timbre reaching through her back. His beard brushed her jaw where he’d bent his head towards her ear, his face hidden by a hood, but she didn’t need to see his smile to hear it. “You nearly gave me the slip.”

It was what shook her loose of the shock, and rounding on him, Makino saw his brows jumping as she hissed, “What are you doing here?!”

His look was boyishly innocent, as Shanks asked her, “Suavely swooping in to my wife’s rescue?”

Gaping up at him, she didn’t know which was greater, her horror or her relief, and instead of anything remotely articulate, all that escaped her was a broken sob.

His look eased, seriousness settling over his handsome features, and reaching for the back of her neck, he drew her close, the last of her terrified tension leaving her as she pressed her brow to his chest.

“Sorry,” he said, holding her. “I wasn’t planning on interfering, but I wasn’t going to let that guy touch you.”

“It’s okay,” Makino said. She was still shaking. “I didn’t know what to do. I was just leading him in circles.”

“I saw. You didn’t even look back.”

She wondered at the note of pride in his voice, when all she’d done was fumble blindly. “I was lucky,” Makino said. “The adrenaline probably helped.” She looked towards the alley mouth, but the Vice-Admiral was gone, and even the strange imprint in her mind had disappeared.

Shanks was watching her, his eyes deepened with a look he got sometimes, as though he saw something she didn’t.

“Thank you,” Makino said then, with a wry smile. “For the swooping rescue, although I’m a little miffed it was necessary.”

“If it helps, my following you has nothing to do with what I think you’re capable of, and everything to do with this place,” Shanks said. “Besides, if I hadn’t gone after you, I’m pretty sure the mayor would have had our marriage annulled. You hadn’t even reached the first windmill before he approached me. Of course, I was already preparing to leave.”

“Do the others know you’re here?” Makino asked, but he shook his head.

“But they’ve no doubt realised I’m missing by now.” His smile tilted, a twinge remorseful. “They all wanted to honour your wish of going on your own.”

She made a wry noise. “I feel a bit stupid now for being so adamant.”

“You’re independent,” Shanks said, a word she’d heard all her life, although never with that tender inflection, like an endearment. His smile crooked a bit, and brushing his knuckles along her jaw, “I just wanted to make sure you were safe,” he said, as his eyes lowered to her belly. “Both of you.”

She pressed her lips together, the words pushing against the roof of her mouth, to say that she was tired of being independent, and always being alone, but touching that truth meant dealing with what lay beneath it, the deeply buried fear she couldn't make herself let go of, that there’d come a day where she’d be alone again. That the sea couldn’t give her so much without expecting something in return.

But unwilling to deal with it now, “I really didn’t think I was going to be dodging the navy,” Makino said, a little wryly. “I’m not even a wanted pirate yet.”

Shanks didn’t smile, and realisation wasn’t kind when it hit her, turning her blood cold as she asked him, “He didn’t even suspect me of anything, did he?”

The look in his eyes said enough, his features darkened by the hood and the weight of his scars, as Shanks said, “No.” And his lack of explanation was worse, Makino thought, allowing her imagination to fill in the gaps of what he might have done if he’d had the chance to arrest her.

Shanks just watched her, saying nothing, but it allowed her to get a good look at him. He had Gryphon at his waist, which was evidence enough of what he’d been prepared to face, and she felt a pang of embarrassment for her insistence on going alone, when she was well-aware of Goa Port's reputation.

The black cloak was similar to his usual one, except this had a hood, but even hiding his red hair, it still felt like a risky disguise.

Seeing where her thoughts had gone, the grey eyes within the hood crinkled, as Shanks informed her, “I’ve gone undercover in more dangerous places.”

The laugh that blurted from her was hoarse. “You do realise that does not make me feel better?”

She saw his grin within the hood, although had to tilt her head to see his eyes, his handsome features shadowed.

Reaching up, Makino lifted it from his brow, baring his scars, and the gentle look that was never depicted in the newspapers. “At least you look appropriately roguish,” she said. “This is also remarkably similar to what happened in chapter 5 of The Rake Who Stole Me.”

“Chapter 6,” Shanks corrected, and when she blinked, shrugged. “We’ve had some read-alouds. What?” he asked, grinning when all she did was gape. “We can’t party all the time. By the way, participation is expected when you come with us. Even Ben isn’t exempt, despite what he claims. He usually needs a round of shots to get into it, but when he does he gets really into it.”

“This…is too much information for me to process right now,” Makino said, as Shanks grinned.

“But on the subject of rakes in disguise,” he said, and she started when he took the satchel from her, the bottles within chiming as he shouldered it. “Now that you’ve finished your errand, what do you say we check out what this town has to offer?”

Her laugh was startled, but when his expression didn’t change, she blinked up at him. “Wait, you’re not serious?"

Shanks didn't answer, just took her hand, drawing her from the alley and towards the crowded street, the grin within his hood thrown over his shoulder. “We’ve never been on a proper date.”

“Shanks,” Makino protested, laughing, but he didn’t stop. “It’s way too risky. What if someone―”

The hand wrapped around hers pulled, drawing her forward and into a kiss so deep it stilled her protest, and she was still reeling when he released her, before he drew her out of the alley and into the crowd.

Dazed from the kiss and clutching his hand, “You are mad,” Makino whispered.

Turning his head to look down at her, the grin within the hood was wolfish as Shanks said, “Only a healthy amount.”

People parted to let them pass, as though instinctively compelled to do so, and she realised with a start that while they were yielding to him, no one seemed to actually see him. But even if she didn't understand how, it allowed her shoulders to relax their tight clench, and gripping the rough fingers laced with hers, Makino allowed him to pull her along, a twinge of exhilaration replacing her fretting, catching the grin under the fall of his hood, a breathless laugh inching up her chest as he swept her through the crowd.

She didn’t know where he was taking her, but didn’t question it, feeling safer than she had walking alone, shielded by his bigger frame, until the last of her nervousness had left her, allowing her to be distracted by the sights around them, the smells and the sounds, the warm eyes within the hood observing her reactions and the big hand laced with hers never letting go.

They were perusing the fish market by the harbour, the boats bringing in the day’s catch and right to the market stalls, the mouth-watering smells having left her stomach rumbling so loudly, she’d barely caught the flash of a grin beneath his hood before Shanks had disappeared, before returning later with a serving for them both.

“I’m telling you, I’ve had better takoyaki,” he said. “Remind me to bring you there.”

“Where is it?” Makino asked, helping herself to another bite.

When he didn’t answer, her brows knitted. “Shanks?” she asked, warily. “Where is it?”

His smile was far too mild. “You’ll love it. It’s not in my territories, but I’m sure Luffy wouldn’t mind if we stopped by on our way down.”

“Down?” Makino asked. “What do you mean down?”

“Hey, are you going to finish that?” Reaching for one, he pouted when she held her paper container out of reach. “Stingy girl.”

“I’m eating for two,” Makino reminded him primly, popping one in her mouth. “And you already finished yours.” When he still tried to reach for one, she stabbed playfully at his fingers with the wooden skewer. “Thief!” she shrieked.

“You’re the one who married a pirate,” Shanks countered. “Some plunder is to be expected.”

“I don’t know what it says about our marriage that I was expecting you to make that sound a lot dirtier.”

His filthy grin was ready to make up for it. “It says that one, I’ve clearly corrupted you, and two, you’ve clearly corrupted me with your innocence.”

Grinning around her mouthful, “Are you saying I’ve changed you, Captain?” Makino asked.

She was expecting a glib remark, but all Shanks said was, “You make me a better person.”

It hit her so hard she stopped walking, and saw him pause, turning back to look at her. “What?” he asked, but Makino shook her head, unable to find the words to respond to that, but in lieu of anything more articulate, held out the skewer with the last piece of takoyaki.

He looked from the offering to her. “Not much of a plunder if it’s offered,” Shanks said, his chuckle betrayed by the telling roughness in his voice.

Makino smiled. “Are you going to let that stop you?”

His eyes darkened a bit, but stepping closer, he bent his head to take it, his eyes holding hers, which shouldn’t be as erotic was it was, her eyes fixed on his bottom lip as he wiped it with his tumb, but where she might have expected another suggestive comment at the sight of her blatant arousal, she wasn’t surprised when he ducked his head, his gratification as gentle as his chuckle.

“Come on,” Shanks said, taking her hand as he pitched his voice to murmur, “Before you tempt me into pulling you into another alley, although this time it will not be for a swooping rescue.”

Her laugh was breathless, stolen by his grin, the only part of his face visible within the hood, although right then it felt more incriminating than if he'd bared it whole.

And for the briefest of moments, right then, walking hand-in-hand, it didn’t feel like they were hiding, but that they might have been just any other husband and wife, enjoying an afternoon together, as perfectly anonymous as the people around them.

They were walking past a stall selling magazines when one of the covers seized her attention, stopping her in her tracks.

“Could have gone with a different picture,” Shanks said, and she started, her back colliding with his chest where he’d appeared behind her. “That one doesn’t do my pecs justice.”

Makino didn’t know if she agreed, when they were so clearly on display, the open front of his shirt drawing the eye to the hard expanse of his chest and the dark hair sweeping it, breathtakingly rugged, and in a way that had several of those passing them pausing to look.

He was featured on deck somewhere, the natural pose as though someone had snapped a photograph without his notice, although the eyes fixed on the camera told a different story. His face was hard to read, the even line of his mouth betraying nothing, but then that only added to the accompanying article, promising an answer to the mystery in bold, eye-catching font:

‘EMPEROR RED-HAIR LIKE YOU’VE NEVER BEFORE SEEN HIM!’

“Hey?” Shanks asked, dragging her eyes from the magazine, only to find his scars furrowed. “Don’t believe what that says; it’s just empty gossip, and they never get anything right. I’m a Pisces, not an Aries, and I don’t prefer boxers over briefs; I go commando, as you well know. Honestly, if you wanted to do an exposé on me, you could make a lot of money with what you know.”

She shook her head. “It’s not that,” Makino said, which was the truth; the gossip didn’t bother her, when she knew the real story, and the man. No, it was something else; something that was all too easy to forget, in the little bubble of her village, where everyone knew him. “I just forget sometimes,” she said, looking up at him, the breathtaking features within the hood the same as on the magazine cover, although now, he wasn’t hiding what he was thinking. “Who you are.”

His expression didn’t change, and he didn’t look at the magazine. Some of the people passing by stopped to pay for it, before walking past them, their eyes on the front page and oblivious to who they'd just passed.

A shrieking laugh drew her gaze to a family on the other side of the fish market, a mother and father each holding the hand of a toddler just learning to walk, giggling with delight when they lifted his feet off the ground, the infectious sound turning smiling faces towards them. And she felt a pang of longing, watching them, but then they had that privilege, when no one knew them from strangers.

Her fingers grazed her belly, as she thought of her mother bringing her here, just the two of them like it had always been, although Makino wondered then if looking into her past, what she was really seeing was her future.

She knew it hadn’t escaped him when Shanks told her, “In my territories, we won’t have to hide.”

“I don’t know if that makes me feel better,” Makino said, with a wry smile. “At least here I can hide.”

She regretted it when his face fell. “I wish I could give you that,” Shanks said. “Anonymity.”

Taking his hand, “Anonymity is no guarantee for safety,” she said. “I learned that today.” And meeting his eyes, “And I’d rather have you,” Makino said.

Shanks watched her, the eyes within his hood darkened with a look she’d never seen before, somehow both tender and fierce all at once. Around them, the crowd moved, like water parting around a rock in the riverbed, but if anyone looked their way, Makino didn’t see them.

Rising up on her toes, she saw his surprise where it flashed through his eyes, before her lips brushed his gently, his beard scuffing her fingers where she gripped his chin. And she felt when he responded, bending his head to deepen the kiss, a thrill shooting through her, aware of the danger, but even knowing the risk, she felt curiously emboldened to say to hell with it.

And maybe it wasn’t just her who’d changed him, her hands gripping his face as she gave herself into it and her tongue pushing shyly past his, an almost possessive feeling seizing her, and thought he felt it when Shanks grinned into the kiss.

And even a risk, even dangerous, she felt none of it, but then she’d never felt safer than she did with him.

Breaking the kiss to catch her breath, she heard his chuckle, the deep, winded sound as Shanks lowered her back on her heels, his spread fingers cradling the back of her head as he tilted it to kiss the parting of her hair.

“So in your territories,” Makino asked, out of breath as she pressed her hands to his chest. “Are there towns as big as this one?”

His eyes kindled, a hunger in them she wondered if was from the kiss or from her curiosity, but, “You’ll have to see for yourself,” Shanks said. “I look forward to showing you.”

She was about to ask him where he would bring her first when there was a commotion further down the harbour, their heads turning towards it just as a voice called out:

“Make way for His Majesty, King Stelly, and our future Queen, Princess Sarie Nantokanette!”

That’s when she saw the ship that had arrived, the sails bearing the emblem of the royal house; a heavily embellished vessel, with more cannons than looked strictly necessary for anything short of a warship, but then their purpose was no doubt intimidation rather than actual utility, an impression that was only strengthened by the arrival of the king himself.

The harbour was cleared as people were forced back, but she was kept from being jostled as a big hand steadied her, the moment suddenly familiar, and this time when she looked up, Shanks was there, his mouth downturned beneath his hood where he’d put himself behind her.

They watched the royal procession as it arrived, first the guards, and then the musicians with their trumpets, before the recently crowned king appeared, his new wife in tow. A spoiled young man, he oozed of privilege and excess, most vividly apparent in the theatrics arranged for his return, as even with this much pomp and ceremony, his pinched features looked distinctly displeased.

“I’ll give him this, King Bowl-Cut knows how to make an entrance,” a familiar voice tutted from beside her, and Makino started, her eyes flying up to the figure who’d appeared on her left, only to catch a familiar grin from under the wide brim of a hat, drawn over his dreadlocks. “Maybe we should start adding a little more ceremony to it, eh Boss? A red carpet, or a trumpet or two?”

“Yasopp!” she hissed.

“I’d rather be welcomed home with a feast,” said another voice, this time on her right, and looking up found Lucky’s familiar bulk, a hood drawn over his head.

“Lucky?!”

Grinning, “Looks like I’m not the only one disobeying our lady’s orders,” Yasopp said, with a pointed glance at the figure who’d appeared beside Shanks. “Although I think I speak for all of us when I say I expected more from you, Ben.”

Turning to look at him, Makino sighed. “Not you, too.”

Ben just looked at her, an expression that somehow managed to be both remorseless and regretful, as though he knew what he’d done but felt slightly ashamed for his lack of willpower, the latter conveyed most keenly by his sigh as he said, “Don’t look at me.”

And it wasn’t just the three of them, she saw then, as she realised with a start that it wasn’t strangers surrounding her, and looking around found her whole crew there, wearing a whole host of terrible disguises, fake noses and moustaches included.

“Is everyone here?” Makino asked thickly.

“Hey, in my defence, I came here on my own,” Yasopp said, before more voices chimed in.

“I was just going to make sure she was safe!”

“That was my thought, too!”

“Hey, I thought it first!”

“I thought it first!”

A glance up at Shanks found him grinning, and huffing, Makino thought she might have been more upset if she hadn’t also been so touched.

“By the way, guys, that was some kiss,” Limejuice said, to delighted agreement from the others.

“With that much tongue in public, it’s a wonder you weren’t arrested for indecency."

“And from you, Makino!”

“We’d expect this kind of behaviour from Boss!”

She bore her blush with all the dignity she could muster, her chin held high as Shanks chuckled, bending down to kiss the top of her head.

The royal procession passed them, the king and queen-to-be with their attendants and guards in tow, carrying pennants and trumpets. The princess was dressed in a voluminous satin gown, her beautiful golden hair arranged in elegant braids around a glittering diadem. Diamonds circled her throat and her wrists, and a silk sash crossed her chest, pinned with the emblem of her house.

It was her first time seeing a queen, but she certainly looked the part, Makino thought, a twinge envious of the way she glided through the crowd, unbothered by the stares and whispers, her eyes lazily scanning the crowd of her future subjects without seeing them, although Makino wondered if it was her imagination that she paused briefly on her, noting the cloak, before she turned away.

Around them, the crowd was dispersing, returning to their former business, which probably meant they should get going, before anyone decided to look a little closer at the large group that had formed in their midst.

“Ready to go home?” Shanks asked, and she nodded, longing suddenly for her quiet village, and the sun setting on the horizon as the seagulls sang their welcome.

Their hands laced as their crew fell in behind them, ostensibly just walking in the same direction, and only for those watching closely was it clear what it was: an Emperor’s court, no trumpets to announce them, but then they'd never needed that.

And it didn’t matter that her life wasn’t like everyone else’s, able to blend into the background. Like her husband, and their family, Makino wouldn’t have traded them for anything.

“Wait,” she said then, looking across them all, her court of vagabonds in their terrible disguises, and her king, the least innocent of them all as she asked them,

“If you’re all here, who’s watching my bar?”

Chapter Text

She occupied a special place in their crew.

For their youngest members, she was a presence some of them had been without growing up, meeting them with a kindness and empathy that allowed them to be boys, even if the sea had long since taken that from them. For their older veterans, she was a reminder of the good still in the world, but more importantly, the good still in themselves, which the sea had come for after it had taken the last of their boyhood.

For their captain, she was everything. And for all of them, she was an anchor, to people they’d once been and that they sometimes needed reminding they still were, and to the future they hoped was still there for them, in the new era, however hard the voyage would be getting there. And she loved them all, veterans and newbies alike, and didn’t have favourites, at least aside from the obvious, but other than their captain, there was one who stood out, and no matter how many things had changed over the years, his hair being only the most visually apparent, Ben was glad their friendship had remained the same.

Of course, some things were different. Back then, she hadn’t known half of it; not the truth of who they were, or the place they occupied in the world balance, but her role was different now, and not just in terms of who she was to their captain.

“And these are the ones he broke out of Impel Down?”

Ben nodded, observing as she perused the list, along with the accompanying wanted posters. “Bounties are recently updated.”

Down the street from the porch where they were sitting, their ship lay docked in the harbour, a sleeping dragon in a cove of gold as the evening sun sank like an anchor through the deepening sky, the sails of the windmills casting long shadows across the rolling fields. She had her ledger in her lap, perched atop the pregnant curve of her belly, a pen tucked between her fingers as she made notes, her eyes moving between Ben’s own ledgers where they lay around her, and the wanted posters bearing the faces of Blackbeard’s commanders.

The late sunlight brought out the freckles on the tops of her shoulders, bared by the delicately flaring sleeves of her ivory sundress. It hugged her belly, and her feet were bare, her apron discarded in a tender heap, all of her a study in gentleness, and if he hadn’t known better he might have thought she was poring over her usual work, only these weren’t her lists of inventory or shipments from her distilleries, but she’d approached them with the same meticulous care, categorising all the information he’d shared with her, names and bounties and affiliations.

She had her own system, different from his, but Ben didn’t question it, observing instead as she catalogued the information, classified things even the navy brass didn’t know, some of it he wagered the World Government would have paid a pretty penny for, and not something he would have given just anyone, but it said something about her importance that he shared it with her.

And it said something about her, and the sharp, meticulous mind behind those deceptively gentle features. But then even if she’d never been off the docks, she was more cunning than people realised, and he would have been a fool if he’d believed all she’d been doing for ten years had been the newspaper crossword puzzles. The stack of clippings and notes she’d shown him hadn’t been a surprise; at least not to Ben.

Tucking the pen into her kerchief, she leafed through the wanted posters, before she paused, a slender hand bearing her wedding band hovering over the one showing Blackbeard’s grinning face, before she slid it from between the others.

She considered it, her brow furrowed gently, unmarred but for the silver line bisecting one of her eyebrows, but Ben saw their captain’s scars in her eyes as they lifted from the wanted poster to his.

“Are you strong enough to defeat him?” Makino asked.

Those eyes took no prisoners. And he’d stared down death more times than he could count without breaking a sweat, and yet somehow, being at the centre of that gentle scrutiny made him feel stripped of all his guards.

He didn’t sugarcoat it, but then he’d never done that with her. “We’ll have to be.”

“And if you aren’t?” she pressed, even as the gentle lilt of her voice didn’t change. Her eyes hadn’t released his, and didn’t give him allowance to do the same.

He chose his next words with care, although didn’t mince them, but then she of all people deserved the truth, for all she’d given them.

“If we’re not strong enough to defeat him,” Ben said, “there won’t be a second chance.”

“So it’s defeat him or die trying,” Makino said.

Ben nodded.

The setting sun had come to rest on the horizon’s collar, the warm light filtered through the rigging of their ship. In the shade of the porch, her eyes looked bottomless, but Ben only met them calmly.

Then that soft mouth firmed, and shutting her ledger, “No,” Makino said.

His brows lifted, but then there were few on this sea who could catch him off guard. The only other person who’d ever succeeded was currently inside the bar behind them, tapping drinks for their crew. “No?”

Putting the ledger away, Makino didn’t yield, her chin lifted where she stared him down, tiny and pregnant and having none of it as she repeated, “No.”

When had she become so bold? There was no trace of the girl who’d once quailed at confrontations, and who’d been unwilling to demand even what she was owed. The woman sitting in her place now didn’t even flinch, as Makino told him, “I don’t accept that.”

His breath left him in a gust, his startled smile compelled entirely in spite of himself, lifting his toothpick as Ben said, “I don’t make the rules, Makino.”

“Maybe not,” Makino said. “But that doesn’t stop you from bending them when it pleases you.”

“This is a little different than the betting pools,” Ben reminded her, with a glance at the ledger that lay a little ways off from the rest.

“Fine,” Makino countered, prim. “Then I’ll make an official bet.”

His look softened, but then it was hard to withstand that gentle force. “On?”

Those eyes held nothing back, but then when it came to betting on them, she’d always gone all in. “On a safe return,” Makino said.

He heard what she didn’t say, and saw that she knew when her eyes lowered to her belly where his godchild slept, cupped beneath her hand.

Her eyes turned to the harbour, and their ship, and smoothing her fingers over the curve of her belly, Ben saw how they shook, as Makino told him, “I’m thinking of staying. The next time you leave.”

He said nothing, allowing the words instead to settle between them, with the weight of a heavy truth that had been carried for a while. And he didn’t have to wonder if she’d told Shanks yet, finding it in her eyes, but even if this was her first time speaking it, he knew his captain, a shrewder man than most even without his wife’s face failing to keep her secrets, and doubted he’d missed it.

“I know you’re always telling me,” Makino continued, as her eyes lifted from her belly to his, “that I’m a pirate, and that I’m one of you. But even if I am, I’m still just a barmaid.”

Ben didn’t disagree, even if he might have told her that she’d never been just that, but knew this wasn’t about technicalities or personal feelings. It was why she was telling him.

“I don’t want to be a burden,” Makino said, and before he could object, “If you remove all feelings from the equation, and if I ask you to make the most practical decision…”

She didn’t finish, but then she didn’t need to. Because while they’d all changed, so had the sea, and it wasn’t the same as when their captain had asked her to come with them ten years ago.

And he knew what the practical choice was, even if he wondered if she knew that as far as she was concerned, none of them could have given less of a shit about what was practical.

But she had asked him, and with a sigh, “Staying would be safer,” Ben conceded. Given where they were headed, and their enemies…

And yet, even if those were the hard facts, for once, he felt recklessly inclined to ignore them.

But they’d always given her the choice, and no matter what she chose, it didn’t change who she was, if she was with them or in Fuschia. And as theirs, she was theirs to protect, in any way they could.

She didn’t smile, her spine straight where she sat on the steps of her bar, and in that moment she had never looked more like what she was, regal in her gentle conviction, dressed in soft linen and the last of the sunlight and with the horizon behind her.

“Then it’s decided,” Makino said, cupping her belly. “When you go back to the New World, we’re staying.”

Ben only nodded, but then an order was an order, although he did wonder at her influence, that for all his loyalty, he wanted to object.

“And you’ll come back to me alive,” Makino said, this time with a pointed look. “All of you. That’s the only alternative I accept.”

His startled grin was as helpless as his hope, for all that he was rarely inclined towards the feeling, as he chuckled, “Aye, ma’am.”

Reaching for her ledger, the front of which bore a cheerful sticker of a sunflower, she opened it, this time on a different page, well-thumbed by the look of it, and the leather-bound spine cracking open naturally, as though it had been opened here many times.

The wanted poster that appeared looked worn but carefully kept, Shanks’ serious features printed above the obscene row of numbers and the bold black letters that declared him what he was: Wanted, dead or alive.

Behind it were more posters, bearing the faces of their crew, so many Ben wondered how she’d gotten her hands on all of them, and if Garp had had a hand in it.

“Anything new to share?” Makino asked, smiling. “I like to stay up to date.”

“Captain’s found a few more grey hairs,” Ben said. “He’s taking it as well as could be expected.”

“Meaning with unflappable grace?”

Grinning around his toothpick, Ben deadpanned, “A master of aplomb and self-control, that guy.”

Her adoring smile was too sincere to be teasing, but then she'd never made a secret of the depth of her feelings for their captain.

Looking at the wanted poster, her eyes softened, and this time she asked him, gentler, “But aside from the usual melodrama, he’s doing well?”

His look told her she knew that better than they did, but Ben knew she wasn’t asking about his physical health, and so, “Some days are harder than others,” he said. And then, because it was her, “He misses you.”

Her flustered smile looked like it couldn’t be helped, but, “Thank you,” Makino said, meeting his eyes. “For taking care of him.”

His mouth jutted, as Ben said wryly, “It’s a team effort.”

“Hmm, well he’s a bit of a handful.”

His grin hurt, but then it had been a while since he’d felt freed enough of his usual burdens to indulge.

He watched her fiddle with the wanted poster, before Makino asked him, “Any weaknesses to report? All I’ve noted here is kimchi fried rice and single malt whiskey. As his first mate, you would know.”

Ben just looked at her, and saw she’d caught on when she huffed. “I’m not writing myself down."

“You would if you’d seen him wax about you after a few drinks,” Ben said.

He doubted she could have concealed her gratified grin if she’d tried her hardest, but lowering her eyes to Shanks’ wanted poster, it faltered a bit as Makino told him, “I don’t want to be a weakness.”

A different man might have offered her reassurance, but he wasn’t about to start coddling her now. “You don’t choose what you are to someone,” Ben said. “But weakness doesn’t mean liability. It just means he has something to lose.”

Brown eyes lifted from the wanted poster to his, but then for all her importance, her humility cheerfully defied it.

A small smile pursed her mouth then, and, “What about you?” Makino asked. “What’s your weakness?”

His pointed look answered, but then it was the same answer for all of them who’d ever known her, and he saw her flustered smile breaking her composure, but then they were always trying their hardest to remind her.

Still, because she had asked, “I like intelligent conversation and a dry sense of humour,” Ben said. “A little cleavage doesn’t hurt.”

“So wits and tits?” Makino asked demurely, as a barking laugh ripped from him, as startled as any he’d ever made, and he heard the conversation stilling inside the bar behind them.

Looking at her where she sat, the picture of angelic innocence with that smile on her face, Ben shook his head. “They’d never believe me if I relayed this conversation verbatim,” he told her. Shanks would be the only one. “But you’re not wrong.”

“And you’re still breaking hearts in every port?”

His brows furrowed, but then she was terrible at hiding when she was fishing for something. “What did Yasopp tell you?”

She shrugged daintily. “Nothing. Just something about a recent incident.” A beat passed, and he knew what was coming even before her grin broke and she blurted, “A princess, Ben?”

“I didn’t know she was a princess until after the fact,” Ben said. “Don’t look at me like that.”

“How?” Makino asked. “With my eyes?”

“Yes.”

When she just continued to look at him, he sighed. “I made it very clear to her that it was just going to be a one-time thing.”

“Shanks said the king threatened to have you executed.”

“Believe it or not, it’s not my first time,” Ben said.

Her look told him she did believe it, before she asked, “Was it at least worth it?”

Ben looked at her, and the wide brown eyes that were so easy to enthral. And he didn’t kiss and tell, no matter how relentlessly his crew tried to get it out of him, but she was different, and so, “She made me laugh,” Ben said, and when her whole face brightened with delight, surprised himself by adding, “And she was very generously blessed.”

“And the conversation?”

“Let’s just say it was a good thing we didn’t need to do a lot of talking.”

“Oof,” she said. “But hey, two out of three?”

“I’m not complaining,” Ben said.

“Even though you’re now banned from ever setting foot in her country?”

“I’ll live.”

“As long as you never go there, at least,” Makino shot back, before her grin eased. “So no thoughts of settling down yet?”

“I thought that was a given,” Ben said, with a look. “Or did you ask me to be godfather and expect me to take off?”

Her grin had no shame, but it was too delighted to be anything but earnest. “I’m sure you’ll still be able to find someone to provide intellectual conversation,” Makino said, before quipping, demure, “and other things.”

Grinning, “The order isn’t important,” Ben deadpanned, although didn’t say that as far as his future was concerned, there were more important things than who warmed his bed at night.

Her hand flew to her belly, her features contorting a bit, before she breathed out through her mouth.

“Is it kicking?” Ben asked.

Makino nodded, her hand moving over the taut curve, seeking it. “Want to feel it?”

It was a permission she granted freely, but unlike the rest of their crew who had no qualms about infringing on her person, including cooing at her belly whenever the opportunity presented itself, Ben respected her privacy, although reaching out his hand, Makino didn’t hesitate, as gentle fingers guided it towards where the kicking was strongest, his hand big where it spanned her belly, and weathered in a way he hadn’t really noticed before now, all his years and deeds marked in the scars along the back of it.

Then he felt the movement under his palm, and every single thought in his mind proceeded to leave it.

And he’d been wrong, earlier. There was one more who could catch him off guard.

Her hands moved it lower, and catching his look, her own was wry, as Makino said, “Since you all came back, I no longer have a concept of personal space.”

She didn’t sound particularly upset about this, the smile in her eyes recalling the eager hands always touching her belly, or singing to it, as they’d taken to doing, their captain in particular.

Still, they were both private creatures, and, “Try being stuck on a ship with them,” Ben said, although immediately regretted it when her smile eased, her earlier decision recalled with brutal swiftness.

But, “One day,” Makino said, with a hope he might have called idealistic, had it been anyone else, as she smiled. “I did promise him.”

As though on cue, a loud laugh reached them through the bat-wing doors, and Ben saw how it drew her eyes. Under his palm, the baby gave another kick.

“Getting close now,” he said, the jut of his mouth lifting his toothpick, but his usual craving was nowhere to be found. “Is he ready?”

“Are any of you?” Makino countered smoothly.

His grin was his answer, as Ben told her honestly, “Not in the least.”

She hummed. “Then it’s a good thing you have me at the helm.”

Ben silently agreed, although kept himself from saying he’d trust her at the actual helm, if it came down to it.

From atop her belly, his hand looked back. And he knew the things it had done, and would do without hesitation, and anyone else might have paused before trusting him with something as fragile as their unborn child, but there was no hesitation in the eyes that had looked at him and seen, and more than even Ben had told her, for all his painful honesty. But while he carried no shame for the things he’d done, it was still humbling, faced with the life you’d lived and the choices you’d made, in the presence of one that hadn’t yet begun.

Footsteps on the gravel drew his eyes up from her belly to an unfamiliar man, having stopped before the porch, his eyes lifted to Party’s sign, before they lowered to the two of them where they sat on the steps.

Ben saw him glance towards the harbour, his gaze lingering a moment longer on Red Force, before he asked them, “Is this Fuschia village?”

Not an islander, or he wouldn’t have asked, but he must have come from Goa. Dadan usually kept abreast of anyone passing through the forest, but Ben’s Den Den Mushi hadn’t rung, which meant he must have slipped her notice.

“It is,” Makino said, with a benign smile. “Can I help you?”

It was offered with her usual hospitality, and a gentle authority that belonged to more than just the proprietor of the local bar, but then anyone who’d ever set foot in this village knew it wasn’t the mayor who held the highest seat.

The stranger looked her up and down, a glimmer brightening his eyes that had Ben’s brows furrowing. He wore a simple shirt and breeches under a leather coat, and wasn’t armed from what Ben could see, but he knew people, and a weapon was just a weapon. There were other, more telling details for those who knew where to look.

Pirate, he thought, and there was a straightness to his shoulders that said former navy, although whatever rank or title he held, there was only one designation that mattered, marked in his mind like the notes in his ledgers.

Dangerous.

Placing his hand on his flintlock, Ben saw how it drew her gaze, and the stranger’s from where he’d been watching her. But if he was threatened by the display, he didn’t let on.

“You the one who owns this place?” he asked Ben, but before he could answer,

“I am,” Makino said, a firmness in her voice now, dragging the stranger’s eyes back to her, and Ben watched as they lowered to her belly, cupped under her hand.

Rising from his seat, Ben saw her look up, but the stranger didn’t move, only looked at him where he’d put himself in front of her, his flintlock in his hand now.

“We’re full,” Ben said.

He got a snort for that, as the stranger looked him up and down. “What are you, her bouncer?”

“Yes,” Ben said, unfazed. “So bounce.”

Shifting his weight, “No,” he said. “I’d like a drink. This is a bar, right? Where’s the smalltown hospitality I keep hearing about?”

“You’re looking at it,” Ben said.

When he didn’t move, “I’ll count to three,” Ben said. “You choose what to do with those seconds. How’s that for hospitality?”

“And if I decide to use them to take you out?” the stranger asked.

“Ben,” Makino said, a gentle warning, although he wondered for whose sake. But from how warily she was watching the stranger, he didn’t need to wonder what she’d deduced, although the fact that she hadn’t offered him a drink said enough.

He considered his options. He didn’t want to bloody the threshold of her bar, but the way the guy was watching her said he wasn’t about to be talked into leaving.

He’d only need a few seconds, and usually, he wouldn’t have hesitated, although knew why he did, aware of the brown eyes on his back that had only ever looked at him with trust, never with fear.

He thought of the movements under his hand, wrapped around the cold metal of his flintlock.

The doors behind them sang then, and Makino started, her eyes flying up to where Shanks had appeared, his fingers reaching to brush her jaw tenderly. “Did I hear someone asking for a drink?”

His voice was amicable, even if Ben didn’t miss the edge in it, and wondered if Makino heard it as Shanks came to a stop, angled slightly in front of her. Smiling, he told the stranger, “We’re a bit short-staffed today, but I’m sure we could find room.”

He wasn’t wearing his cloak or his sword, in his shirtsleeves and with his missing arm apparent, an apron slung low on his hips and a towel draped over his shoulder, but while anyone else could have been mistaken for a barkeep, the way he held himself left little room for misinterpretation, like the telling shiver in the air, but then even in its mildest form, his conqueror’s haki was enough to make the planks beneath them creak forebodingly, the foundation of her bar trembling, sending the glasses and bottles on the shelves within chiming softly.

It was a rare show of aggression for a man who laughed off most threats, but then he’d seen the same thing Ben had, a fact that was only confirmed when the stranger’s eyes widened, his face blanching as he staggered back, his wide eyes fixed on Shanks.

“Y-you’re―!”

The doors swung open again, this time with a little more force, as the rest of their crew appeared, filling her porch as Makino’s eyes widened, her head lifting from where she was still sitting on the steps, until they’d surrounded her.

“A customer?” Limejuice asked. From his rolled-up shirtsleeves, he’d been in the middle of doing the dishes.

“Our lady doesn’t turn away patrons,” Lucky said, from where he’d come to loom behind her. “Right, Ma-chan?”

“A parting glass before he’s on his way,” Yasopp agreed, his arms crossed where he leaned against one of the supports. “Or what do you say, Boss?”

Shanks said nothing, his scars furrowed, but whatever he might have told him, the stranger didn’t seem inclined to listen, as he stumbled back, his former confidence shucked as he turned and bolted in the direction he’d come, down the road where it wound between the windmills towards the forest.

Watching him run, “Do you think he’ll be a problem?” Makino asked, looking up at Shanks. “He recognised you.”

“One guy flapping his gums?” Hongou asked. “I doubt it.”

“And who’s gonna believe him?” Bonk Punch asked, as Monstar shrieked in agreement. “That an Emperor’s docked in a little village in East Blue?”

Their laughter agreed, but Makino wasn’t smiling. She was looking in the direction of the windmills, her hand cupped over her belly.

Touching the bare curve of her shoulder, Shanks smiled. “Gab wants a drink but refuses to let me mix it. Claims I don’t have your touch. I know you’re supposed to be taking it easy…”

“The reason you don’t have my touch is because you measure the components with blind luck and your eyes closed,” Makino pointed out, placing her hand in his as she allowed him to lift her to her feet, his head bent to kiss the parting of her hair as his knuckles grazed the curve of her belly tenderly.

“No heavy lifting,” he warned. “And glasses from the bottom shelf only. Lucky?”

“On it, Boss!”

“I’m not a deckhand,” Makino said, her neck craned to look up at him, tiny but undaunted by the height he had on her. “You can’t captain me around my own bar.”

His pointed look was met with faltering resistance, and a grin she didn’t succeed in stifling, before she huffed her surrender, and his chuckle followed her as she turned to walk inside, a little awkwardly with the weight of her belly. She didn’t look in the direction the stranger had gone.

They all stepped aside to let her pass, lining the entrance to her bar and beaming as they held the bat-wing doors open for her, before following her inside, their bodies blocking the path to her but the protective display missed, like the looks they cast over their shoulders.

Shanks didn’t meet them, waiting instead until they were all inside, and it was just the two of them left on the porch.

“Affiliation?” he asked Ben, his voice pitched a little lower. From within the bar, their voices drifted out, chased by her laughter.

“Unknown,” Ben said, his gaze trained in the direction of the windmills. “He’s not in my ledgers.”

His eyes fleeted down to the one she’d left, the cheerful sticker on the front surrendering no clues of its contents, its unassuming nature a fitting reflection of its owner, and this whole place, which made it only more important that it remained that way.

Shanks nodded. “Take care of it,” he said simply, before turning to follow Makino, the doors left swinging in his wake.

“Aye, Captain.”

Lighting himself a cigarette now that she was out of rage, Ben shifted his grip on his flintlock, letting out a curl of smoke before he set off down the road in the direction of the turning windmills.

He’d always been painfully pragmatic; a peddler of difficult decisions, made with unflinching conviction. He didn’t always show mercy, not like her, but then he had his own role in this crew, and this family.

And to keep them safe, the choice would always be painfully simple.

―

He’d faced many challenges in his years as a captain, some that would have broken lesser resolves, or corrupted weaker hearts; had carried truths that weren’t meant to see the light of day since long before his shoulders had grown strong enough for the burden, but hadn't stumbled, as steadfast at the helm of his own fate as on his ship.

Funny, then, that this was where he felt out of his depth.

“I feel like a beached whale.”

The sighing lament rose from the bathtub, followed by a ripple of water as Makino placed a hand atop her belly, peeking above the milky surface. Any other time, Shanks would have offered to join her, but given how uncomfortable she was, had settled for keeping her company, his back to the tub where he’d folded his legs, like they’d sat together once, in a different life.

Tired brown eyes opened, seeking his as Makino said, “It’s taking everything you have not to crack a whaling-related joke, isn’t it?”

“I am being a saint,” Shanks whispered.

Sighing over her laugh, “Let’s hear it,” she said.

Pinching his lips, he only held out another second before he bellowed, “Thar she blows!”, and heard her spluttering laugh as she flicked water at him, although all it did was deepen his own, flinging out of him where it filled the cramped bathroom.

Turning, his hand covered her belly, the width of his fingers spanning the taut curve, dark against her fair skin, and he felt as she breathed out. “You’re beautiful,” Shanks said sincerely.

Her smile quirked. “The prettiest beached whale you’ve ever seen?”

“By far,” he said, and laughed when another spray of water hit him, but her own wasn’t far behind, and when she sank back against the tub, he felt some of the tension leaving her.

Under his hand, their unborn child slept, although he was reaching further still, his haki seeking the now-familiar presence and feeling how it responded instinctively to the touch. Beyond the window, the evening sun was sinking into the sea, the water under his hand rippling gently as he mapped the silver lines across her belly.

“Are you disappointed?” Makino asked then, and when he looked up in surprise, said, “That I decided to stay.”

His look softened. “I’m conflicted,” Shanks said. “Part of me thinks you’d be safest with us.”

He paused, before Makino prodded gently. “But?”

He sighed, and finished, “But I don’t know what’s coming.”

His eyes lowered to her belly under his hand. And he wasn’t sure if he was referring to the birth or the future, but thought it might be both as he said, “Feels like I’ve been thrown off course without a log pose.”

“Aren’t you the one who's always saying all a sailor needs to navigate is a fixed star?” Makino asked.

“I really should stop bragging to you about my skills,” Shanks said. “It ruins the rare glimpses of vulnerability into my otherwise stalwart and enigmatic character.”

“Says the man who fretted so much over his wife overworking that he threatened to put her in the brig.”

“I still might,” Shanks said, with a look that had her pinching her lips together. “If you keep disobeying.”

Her little grin said she wasn’t above pushing it, and in the moment of lightness, his worries lifted, allowing him to breathe a little easier.

A small hand gripped his atop her belly, as Makino told him, “You know how to find me, Shanks.”

His smile crooked. “Like an eternal pose,” he said, the tenderness ruined only a bit by his cheeky grin, as he quipped brightly, “You even have the same shape!”

This time, a handful of water smacked him in the face, sending his laughter spluttering as he shook his hair, dripping wet and soaking the shoulders of his shirt. But looking at her where she sat, half-submerged with her sea-glass hair around her shoulders, like a siren who'd dealt with one too many quippy sailors, his grin softened, but then jokes aside, he knew what she was, and tipping her chin, “My fixed star,” Shanks said, and heard her soft huff, before her tears spilled over.

“Guess I’ll be a land-bound pirate a little while longer,” Makino said, as he caught the tears with his thumb.

“Just say the word,” Shanks said. “And I’ll come back and steal you.”

She laughed. “Steal me?”

He grinned. “Thieves and beggars,” Shanks said. “It’s what we do best.”

Bending over the side of the tub, he pressed a kiss to her belly, his fingers spread over the taut curve as her hand raked his hair back gently, a tender beat passing, before he quipped, “And with a bounty this big, what thief could resist?”

Her laughter flung out of her, like the spray of water, until his own overtook it, as he forgot for a brief moment to think about the future, and what his role in it would be.

“You’d think you two were having a party in here,” a voice said then, and looking up found Yasopp in the doorway, leaning against the frame. He’d put on one of her aprons; the one with the embroidered daisies along the front pocket. And it was testament to how tired she was, Shanks thought, that she didn’t even move to cover herself, even as he did, shielding her as Yasopp said, “Our cooks want to know if the lady wishes to eat in her bath?”

“Um, hello?” Shanks asked, having put himself in front of her.

“Hey, Boss,” Yasopp acknowledged.

Before Shanks could tell him to get out, there were more of them there, appearing in the doorway behind Yasopp, although they kept their eyes covered. “Hey, Makino!”

“Do you have everything you need?”

“Do you need us to get you anything?”

“Some privacy?” Shanks suggested.

“In this crew?” Yasopp asked, and parried his unamused look with a grin.

In the bath behind him, Makino returned it, and didn’t appear particularly bothered by their cheerful infringement on her privacy. Instead, with a joy so fierce it trembled, she said, “I have everything I could ever want.”

Then a soft beat later, “But now that you mention it, I could eat,” she added.

Yasopp grinned, and sketching a bow, said, “I’ll relay the lady’s wishes. What about you, Boss?”

“Get out,” Shanks said cheerfully.

"Alright, alright,” Yasopp laughed, as he ushered the rest of them out, still covering their eyes, and calling back,

“Let us know if you need anything else!”

Watching them go, Makino beamed up at him. “A lady could get used to this.”

“What have we turned you into?” Shanks sighed, although where it might have made her uncomfortable once, being at the centre of attention, she didn't seem bothered now.  And that wasn’t just his own influence, he thought, but then they’d all left pieces of themselves with her; it was only now becoming apparent just how fiercely she’d treasured them.

And if she did one day ask them for the horizon, they’d be ready.

―

They’d always been a capable crew, rag-tag and rowdy but unassailable in terms of loyalty, courtesy of a captain who placed a lot of trust in the men under his command. Every man had his post, his rank and responsibilities, and if something needed doing it was done. It was no small part why they’d risen to their current infamy, their Emperor’s strength notwithstanding, but no Emperor could stand alone on this sea without a dependable crew behind him. And it wasn’t often they were rendered helpless, but never had it been felt so fiercely as when they were unable to do anything for her.

The sobbing scream pierced the uneasy conversation, dragging their eyes up to the ceiling, and the floor above the bar. They’d been trying to talk through it, but even muffled through layers of timber, it was loud enough to be felt, and the conversation refused to get comfortable, their hands shaking around their tankards.

“How long has it been?” Bonk Punch asked, although the midnight sea beyond the open windows was answer enough, a whole day having passed as they sat there, and while they rarely needed more than open taps and a place to party, there was no enjoyment here, and no peace, with its mistress gone.

Another scream ripped through the tense quiet, as some of their younger cabin boys covered their ears with their hands.

“Too long,” Rockstar sighed.

Footsteps on the stairs dragged their eyes up, as Hongou appeared, wiping his hands on a towel, although the blood had already drawn their gazes, but the sunken look in his eyes held only exhaustion, nothing worse.

Still, “Any news?” Snake asked, the question on behalf of them all, but Hongou shook his head.

“Not much I could do for her, but Doc said he’d call if he needed an extra set of hands.” As his former apprentice, he’d been the only one besides Ben allowed upstairs.

“How’s she holding up?” Dadan asked. Her family had taken up the other half of the bar; with all of them gathered, there weren’t enough seats, but that hadn’t stopped them.

Hongou said nothing, only downed the drink that was on the table.

“She’s gonna be okay, right?” asked a shivering voice. “She’s not gonna―”

Makino screamed again; this time it broke with a shattering sob, and had the bar full of sea-ravaged pirates covering their faces. And it didn’t stop, the agony in it leaving their trembling hands white-knuckled, but none of their skills were useful here, no lines to pull or sails to raise, and no swords to draw to protect her from this.

Then it suddenly stopped.

They all looked up, their eyes meeting as her whole bar held its breath, a long, tense beat, before a different scream stirred the quiet: a thin, frail and unmistakable wail.

The roaring cheer that followed shook the rafters, as they were all on their feet, their tankards spilling over as they were thrust into the air, the tense silence forced to retreat, shrinking back under the sheer force of their joy.

By the time their captain arrived, a party was in full swing, their laughter flowing as freely as the ale, rushing out with their voices. “Boss!”

Shanks looked up, as though the greeting had jolted him out of his trance. He’d come to a stop at the bottom of the steps, his arm wrapped around a moving bundle, although before it could steal their attentions, something else did, as all the gazes in the room fixed on his shirt, the front stained a bright, bloody red.

The silence that descended this time was unlike the one before, such an absolute quiet in the wake of their joy, as though it was already yielding room for their grief.

“Ma-chan?” a shivering voice asked, the disbelief in it echoing the looks on their faces.

Shanks said nothing, the steady captain who’d seen them through the worst the sea had to throw at them, unflinching even when their faith had faltered, and uncompromising in his own sense of responsibility; an unwavering compass on a sea that changed daily, and there weren’t many among them who’d ever seen him stumble, let alone break.

But before the first wave of grief could hit, Ben was there, taking the helm. “She’ll be fine,” he said, the words spoken to all of them, although it seemed mostly for their captain’s benefit. "There were some complications, but Doc has things under control."

Their relief wouldn't get comfortable, but the confirmation that she wasn't gone loosened their trapped voices from their throats.

“What do you mean complications?” Dadan demanded, as more of them followed.

“What kind of complications?”

“Is she okay?”

“Captain?”

Shanks didn’t react, but Ben didn’t hesitate, acting captain now as he answered their questions, a stony composure that might have convinced them he was without feeling, but those who knew him saw the truth, the usually-steady fingers shaking at his side, and the brusqueness of his answers, as though he couldn’t physically bring himself to say more.

It took some prodding, but Shanks was eventually convinced to go and get changed, the baby changing hands as Ben took him. His departure left a lull, a silence that wasn’t quiet or peaceful. From upstairs, there was no sound.

“I’ll go see if he needs help,” Hongou said, although paused to look at the baby in Ben’s arms, a startled smile fleeting over his lips, before he hurried up the stairs. But it did something, their grief yielding its white-knuckled grip as the room finally exhaled.

Standing before them, his haggard appearance might have betrayed enough, the hair he usually kept pulled back having fallen into his brow, although it was his face that revealed the most, as Ben looked down at the newborn in his arms, and they all watched as that unyielding composure shattered.

Pinching the bridge of his nose, the tears might have been the most startling sight, but he didn’t try to hide them, and, “In the absence of both of our captains, I guess it falls to me,” Ben said roughly, looking down at the baby in his arms, and with a grin they'd never seen before, chuckled,

“To introduce our newest crew member.”

―

She did make it, although after a close call that tore through their crew like a flash flood, and it was barely past sunrise when Doc finally emerged, having stolen a few hours of sleep in one of her guest rooms.

As for the rest of them, they hadn’t left their posts.

“She’s okay?”

Doc nodded, running a hand over his face. He looked like he could have used another eighteen hours. “Just checked on her,” he said, downing the cup of coffee that had been poured for him, although with three fingers of hard liquor, there wasn’t much coffee left in it. “Captain’s with her. She’s awake, if you want to see her.”

They were on their feet before he’d even finished speaking, as he shouted after them, “Not all of you at once!”

They didn’t heed him, the steps taken two at a time, and any other time they might have quarrelled over rank and first dibs, but there was no fighting, and even if they were too many to all fit inside, that didn’t stop them from trying, as they descended on her bedroom.

Makino looked up as they entered. She was sitting up on the bed, leaning against their captain’s chest, the baby at her breast and one of Shanks’ shirts engulfing her.

“Hey,” she croaked, her exhaustion lifting at the sight of them, but looking them over, her smile fell, taking in their blood-shot eyes and ungroomed states. “Have you been here all night?”

“Try two,” Shanks said, as she choked out her surprise.

“Two?”

Wide brown eyes took them in, noting their haggard and unshaven faces, but whatever objection she'd had ready faltered, her beautiful features wavering as she let out a soft, affectionate huff.

“To be fair, all we did was wait,” Yasopp said. Like the rest of them, he hadn’t slept, but his grin had no care for the bags under his eyes. “And drink.”

Makino looked like she couldn’t decide whether to be touched or upset. “Do I want to ask what’s left of my stores?”

Their grins trembled, still not fully comfortable on their lips, but then even seeing her, it was hard to look past the evidence, how small she looked, leaning against their captain’s chest, a fragility that was markedly at odds with how she’d been throughout her pregnancy. And even without any visible injuries, they all remembered the blood, even if there was no trace of it now, the sheets of her bed new and pristine. And they weren’t strangers to close calls, had guarded each other’s sickbeds through illnesses and injuries, and had all known loss, the many years they’d been a crew, but her…

None of them had been prepared to lose her.

Whiskey kept guard at the foot of the bed, but didn’t look up as they moved closer, a silent allowance as their hands reached to touch her shoulders, and the top of her head, the gentlest they could be, but then if anyone could have inspired it, it was her.

“How are you feeling?” Lucky asked. For once, he wasn’t eating.

Her smile was tired. “Well, all things considered,” Makino said. “Got some battle scars to show for it, too. You’re always telling me how I need to get some.”

It was an attempt to lift the mood, and while inappropriately timed levity had always been part of their creed, it missed the mark, and even looking to Shanks for assistance didn't help, and her wavering smile fell when he didn't return it. And while far from a quiet man, their captain’s silence had always been a fearsome thing, and they felt it now, the beginnings of a grief he hadn’t quite let go of hanging in the air between them, a heavy, aching silence.

"Nothing?" Makino asked, looking between them, and it was testament to her stubbornness that she didn't yield, even as her voice wavered. "And here I worked so hard for them."

No one spoke, the tense silence persisting, awkward where it clung between them, who weren't known for being quiet.

Then, "In terms of battles, I think that's a crew record for the longest," Shanks said then, and when her grin broke, surrendered his own.

"Does that mean I go in the official rankings?" she asked Ben, who grinned around his toothpick.

"Right up there with the stupidest reason for getting into a bar brawl," he said, with a look. "Although I doubt you're planning on going for that one."

Happy they were finally reacting with something other than maudlin silence, Makino beamed, and with a hoarse chuckle, said, this time to all of them, "Don't count me out of the running just yet."

This time, their startled grins couldn't have been helped, and it shook loose some of the tension, and her smile was pleased as they got comfortable, filling every available space in her bedroom as they recounted the events of the past two days to her.

“And then Dadan said ‘how hard can it be to serve drinks’, but she barely lasted an hour before she gave up!”

“Didn’t even put on an apron!”

"We even tried to tip her!"

Shanks hadn’t moved, seated behind her where she leaned back against his chest. Some of the weight had eased off his brow, the corner of his mouth crooked as he listened to them relaying their suggestions for names for their son, even as the gentle look shared between them said it had already been decided. But Makino indulged them all, her eyes warm as she listened, as though happy just to hear them talking.

The sun had dipped behind the horizon when a pointed look from Doc had Yasopp saying, “Getting late, guys. Let’s head back to the ship so she can get some rest.”

They got up to leave, when, “Wait!” Makino said, stopping them in their tracks. Her eyes darted to Shanks, who'd eased out from behind her. “Can I come?" Her voice shivered a bit over the words. "I just―”

She trailed off, as though she wasn’t sure what she was asking, but Shanks looked like he knew, although didn't look convinced, his scars furrowed as he took her in, noting the tired shadows under her eyes, darker than usual, and her moon-white complexion leached of the healthy flush that normally warmed it. “Are you sure you should be moving?”

They all looked at Doc, who sighed.

“I’d rather you didn’t leave the bed for a few days,” he told her, but his face had already agreed, even before he added, wry, “But I’m seeing the eyes.” Then, “Fine,” he conceded, before he told her firmly, “But you’re not walking.”

“No problem,” Bonk Punch said, coming forward as Yasopp picked Shanks' cloak off the chair, drawing it around her shoulders as Makino scooted towards the edge of the bed, her jaw set against the pain as she drew the sheets off. She’d given the baby to Shanks, but even if he looked ready to interfere, he didn’t stop her.

Bonk Punch lifted her carefully, a gentleness behind it at odds with his appearance, and that might have surprised anyone who hadn’t seen him with her. “You good?” he asked her, as Makino nodded.

They followed him out, down through the empty bar and across the porch into the quiet village, their little Empress with her retinue of unshaven rogues.

“How come none of you have ever carried me like this?” Shanks asked, walking behind Bonk Punch, their son asleep in his arm.

“You’re almost seven feet tall, Boss,” Bonk Punch said, flashing him a grin as he added, with a look at Makino, “And not nearly as cute.”

Leaning her head on his shoulder, Makino closed her eyes, smiling as Monstar curled his tail beneath her chin, their voices following their trek towards the harbour, and their ship where she lay waiting, the sky behind it deepening to a beautiful red, and even if they weren't setting sail, the good omen was a welcome one after the past two days.

She was asleep before they’d cleared the gangway, and their conversation softened, pitched below their usual volume as Bonk Punch carried her through the galley to the captain’s quarters, and she didn’t stir as he put her gently on the bunk.

A crate was produced, the faded brand of liquor scrubbed faint by ocean spray and the wood streaked with salt, and placing their son into it, Shanks took his seat on the bunk as the rest of them withdrew, their shoulders letting go of the last of the tension that had built over the past two days and their laughter flowing a little freer, eased by the familiar setting of their ship, and their heart, safe within her hold where she belonged.

―

Her recovery was a closely monitored affair, despite her repeated assurance that she wasn’t going to shatter at a touch, although she had by now heard the full story of how close she’d come, and so surrendered to their hovering without complaints.

Well. There were some complaints.

“Shanks?”

“Yeees?"

“Where are my ledgers?"

"Confiscated," Shanks chirped, putting down the tray with her lunch on the bed. "On account of your reckless disregard of the 'no work while you're recovering' rule."

"I haven't been working," Makino said.

"I can see you working right now," Shanks said, pointing between her brows. "What are you, polishing glasses in your head?"

"No," Makino said, primly mutinous. Then after a beat, "Are they being polished?"

"Of course not," Shanks said, seriously. "After we've washed them we take great effort to get them all nice and stained. Just full of fingerprints. It would actually go a lot faster with two hands, but I make do." At her unamused look, he kissed the top of her head. "Your bar is so clean you could eat off the floor. I swear, I've never seen Hongou this happy. We might just leave him."

"I'm just used to doing things a certain way," Makino said.

"I know," Shanks said, smiling. "I know you."

Her serious look faltered, and his grin warmed as he nudged the tray towards her. "Your orders are to eat and relax. If it helps, consider this your first lesson in the pirate's lifestyle."

"I don't know if I find that as tempting as you do," Makino said. "I like my work."

His look softened, and where she'd expected another quip, "You'd miss it, wouldn't you?" Shanks asked, taking a seat on the mattress.

It caught her off guard, but even if her face had already told him, "Probably," Makino said, with a small smile. "Not much work for a barmaid aboard a ship."

His smile held a thought he didn't share, and, "You'd figure something out," Shanks said, wrapping his fingers around her ankle. "My resourceful girl." Then, as he rose from the bed, "Now will you please stop being so resourceful and lounge about a bit?"

"I am lounging," Makino said, gesturing to herself, dressed in his shirt and nothing else. “I’m not even wearing pants, that's how seriously I'm taking my lounging."

“Mhm, so that wasn’t you Lucky caught in the pantry yesterday, pantless and double-checking your shipments that we have so painstakingly been keeping track of in your absence?”

Makino opened her mouth, before she closed it, her lips firming as she told him, “This is still my bar.”

His tender look sympathised, and bending down, his lips brushed hers, before Shanks whispered, “Then consider this a mutiny.”

He was gone before she could toss the pillow after him, sweeping out of their bedroom, the deep sound of his laughter reaching back towards her, even as she had no real misgivings.

And mutiny aside, they kept her business afloat, ordered shipments and kept inventory, served drinks and did the dishes, the seamless rhythm of a crew who’d sailed together for years, and while not a ship, it might have been, observing them―the spill of the washbucket over her floors, polished to shining every morning, and the heave-and-haul of crates and kegs into her storeroom, the windows thrown wide open as the sea-breeze bellied-out her curtains. And at the helm, the captain observing; the Emperor in his apron, a dish-towel slung over his shoulder as he pored over her books and taxes.

And he was right, Makino thought―if she had sold her story to the press, she would have made a fortune, but selfishly, there were some things she wanted to keep to herself.

But then, she was a pirate.

―

It was creeping in slowly, the fact that they were leaving soon. Their territories couldn’t be left unprotected, not with Blackbeard annexing more and more islands, although while leaving had never been easy, it was decidedly different this time, when they weren’t just leaving her.

“Should we just steal them?”

The suggestion was made one evening during their last week ashore, the galley of their ship filled, but then Dadan’s family had come down from the mountain to take part.

Bonk Punch was holding the baby, sleeping soundly despite the noise level, but then he’d never known anything else, the first two months of his life spent in someone’s arms, as though they were all hoping to be remembered, if only in the rhythm of their walk, or the timbre of their voice as they sang him to sleep.

“You want to take her with us against her will?” Yasopp asked, his arms crossed where he sat with his back to the bulkhead.

“N-No,” the speaker corrected, as all the eyes down their table turned to look at him. “I just meant, what if we just…left and they were both on the ship?”

“And that’s different how?” Snake asked.

He opened his mouth, but quickly closed it. “I guess it’s not.”

“But what if we just stole her a little, and then she could decide if she wanted to go back or not?” someone else suggested.

“Oh, so just abduct her for a few miles then?” Yasopp asked.

“Yes!” Then after a beat, they muttered, “When you put it like that it doesn’t sound right.”

“Boss! What do you think?”

“Who are we abducting?” Shanks asked, just returned from his quarters after carrying Makino to bed, having fallen asleep in the middle of their card game earlier, but then with a two-month old, she wasn’t sleeping a lot.

“Your wife,” Ben said, without looking up from his newspaper.

“Just for a little bit!” a voice called from across the galley.

“The distinction is important,” Ben said, flicking his eyes up with a look, his grin jutting around his toothpick.

“It just doesn’t feel right that we should leave her, like it’s the same as it was back then,” another said. “And I know we’re coming back, it just…”

“Feels wrong,” Yasopp said, with a look at Shanks. “Boss?”

Shanks didn’t answer, his eyes on the baby asleep in Bonk Punch's arms, before a sudden focus entered them; a look they were all familiar with, recognising that a decision had been made, even if he didn’t always reveal what lay behind it.

But Ben had an inkling, and lowering his newspaper, it was without his usual long-suffering that he asked, his eyes glinting,

"Orders, Captain?”

―

The sound of the floorboards creaking woke her, her eyes fluttering open to her darkened bedroom, and accustomed to this new routine, was expecting to hear the now-familiar sound of their son announcing himself awake, only to be met with silence.

Breathing out, her relief was fleeting, although these days she wasn’t greedy when it came to sleep, even if it was only an extra ten minutes.

Her fingers curled in the sheets, seeking, but the mattress beside her was empty, not even a trace of his warmth left, and blinking, Makino murmured into the dark, “Shanks?”

A hand over her mouth had her eyes flying open, only to be met with a familiar grin as Yasopp held a finger to his lips. And she saw then that there were more of them there―Limejuice and Rockstar and Bonk Punch, and Snake and Gab.

“What’s going on?” Makino asked, unsure if she should be confused or concerned, but their grins at least suggested it wasn’t the latter.

“Gentlemen?” Yasopp asked, which was the only warning she got before she was suddenly lifted up, a startled shriek catching in her throat as she scrambled for purchase, but Bonk Punch didn’t drop her.

Laughing, “What are you doing?” Makino asked, as she was promptly carried out, the others falling in behind them, but all she got in answer was their wider grins.

“Wait,” she said, as they reached the bat-wing doors of her bar, turning in Bonk Punch's arms. “Ace―”

“Already on the ship,” Rockstar said.

“The ship?” she asked, as she was carried off the porch, the cool morning air biting against her skin, but then she was still in her nightgown, her thin peignoir offering no protection, but then it wasn't made to be worn outside. “Why is he on the―”

She saw it then, sitting where it had been docked for the past six months, although there was something different about it this time, even if she couldn’t put her finger on it, and if she hadn’t been so confused about what was happening, she might have recognised the signs of an imminent departure.

The sun was rising, the horizon-line drawn in gold, and the lanterns on deck were lit as she was carried aboard, her wide eyes raised to the masts, the sky above scrubbed clean like the deck under their feet as Bonk Punch cleared the gangway.

“Got her, Captain!” Yasopp called, just as Bonk Punch put her gently on her feet, her eyes drawn to the figure by the railing, and the black cloak draping from his wide shoulders, its presence seizing her notice, but then he hadn’t been wearing it much, the months they’d been ashore with her.

Turning from where he’d been observing the horizon, Shanks took her in, barefoot in her wispy nightgown and surrounded by the rest of their crew. Ben was holding Ace, awake in his godfather's arms and apparently taking everything in stride.

His father wasn't more forthcoming about what was going on, his handsome features withholding his thoughts. Makino watched as his eyes raked across her, a look that made her shift her weight, her confusion and gentle exasperation at their antics yielding for just a second to a curious feeling, as if for the briefest of moments, it wasn’t her crew as she knew them but the one she read about in the newspaper―the one that was feared on every sea, and with good reason.

And while it wasn’t fear she felt―was never that, with them―she was suddenly aware of herself, brought before the captain in her nightgown. The peignoir preserved some of her modesty, although not a lot, the front untied and the long hem brushing the deck, the pale sea-shell colour stark against her skin, bitten pink by the sea wind trying its best to tug her hair free of her braid where it hung loosely down her back.

“Shanks?” she asked, which was both a question and a reminder, although wondered if it was more for his sake or her own, staring down the Emperor of the Sea.

Shanks didn't answer, only watched her calmly, but then to the others, “Raise anchor,” he ordered, and her eyes widened as they moved to answer, with hollers of ‘Aye, Capt’n!’

“What are you doing?” Makino asked them, her disbelieving laugh lost on the salt wind. Had they lost their minds? “I’m not dressed!”

“You think kidnapped maidens have a say in what they’re wearing?”

His voice dragged her eyes back, only to find his brows lifting, tugging at his scars, although the look beneath them was gentle.

Staring up at him, Makino knew her confusion showed, and her underlying fear now, because a softer smile shaped his mouth as Shanks stepped closer, a rough thumb reaching to brush her cheek.

“It’s not the New World,” he said, tucking a rogue lock of her hair behind her ear where the wind had pulled it free. “But I thought we could at least show you East Blue before we leave.”

Her breath shuddered, but she knew he saw the answer on her face when his smile deepened.

“Won’t it be a risk?” she asked. “The ship―if we’re recognised―”

A crooked knuckle tilting her chin stilled the words, as Shanks told her, “We know how to get around without being seen.”

“I’ve seen your disguises,” Makino countered thickly, her smile brimming. “I don’t know if I’m convinced.”

His grin told her he was up for the challenge, but his look was tender as he said, “Then I guess we’ll have to convince you.”

The sails unfurled, a hungry wind bellying out the canvas as she felt the ship stirring, like a great beast risen from a long slumber. The same wind rustled the high collar of his cloak, dragging his hair loose from where he'd drawn it back, and it was hard to mind how it cut when it wrapped around her in welcome, sending the long hem of her gown dancing on the wind.

From across the deck, a voice called out, a deep timbre carried on the wind, holding the first line of a song, before more rose to pick it up, carrying it over the deck.

“I don’t think I know this one,” Makino said, but looking up found him wearing a curious smile.

“It’s a work in progress,” Shanks said, as grey eyes lowered to hers. “It only has two verses. The rest hinges on a few things.”

“Oh?”

He smiled. “We have to see how she answers.”

The sun broke the horizon, piercing the shrouds. Her island was shrinking behind them, the lanterns of her bar still lit, awaiting her return. And she didn’t know how she would have responded, had they meant to take her with them now, not just across East Blue but further still. The world still felt too big, when she hadn’t even seen a fraction of it. But then they had always seen her, and what she needed. And that was love, Makino thought; to place someone else’s needs above your own wants.

“You’ll have to come back then,” she said, meeting his eyes. “And not take no for an answer this time.”

Shanks smiled, his thumb brushing her bottom lip, a rogue's kiss. “Then you best be ready, pirate. Next time we won’t be so discreet.”

“Less discreet than abducting me from my bed?” she laughed.

“I told them to be careful," Shanks said. "Keep the manhandling of my wife to a minimum.”

“It was actually refreshing,” Makino said, and at his raised brows, “Ever since I gave birth, you’ve all been treating me like I’m made of glass. A little manhandling isn’t going to break me.”

“Oh yeah?”

His grin was her only warning, as bending at the waist, Shanks hoisted her over his shoulder, her shriek lifting up under the shrouds as her hands seized the back of his cloak, but his grip was firm around the backs of her thighs, holding her in place as he carried her across the deck, her laughter stolen by the wind, like the train of her robe.

And around them, their voices lifted, sweeping over the deck like the tide, his own joining in now, the deep baritone reaching through her where she clung to his shoulder.

“In all our years upon this sea, we’ve stolen hearts and pleasure, but now all that remains is she, and she’s no common treasure!

A trove of kindness rarely seen, no malice and no rancour, for naught but love is found in her,

Our very heart and anchor.”

―

‘Stealing Her to Sea’ didn’t reach the same popularity as their first composition, sung on every deck and in every taphouse across the world, but then unlike their first shanty, they didn’t sing this in the public taverns, hummed instead under their breaths as they worked, hauling rope and stowing the sails, a gentler remembrance in its invocation, the heave and pull like the rhythm of a beating heart, pumping blood through the veins of their ship.

And it didn’t matter that the world didn’t know it, as long as she did, and it was a more fitting legacy, perhaps, for a song that hadn’t been written about her but for her, and that was, before anything else, a promise.

As for keeping it…

“So,” Ben said, putting down his newspaper. “One Piece?”

Shanks smiled, and reaching to refill his drink, lingered a beat on the bottle, the label that recalled their son’s first crib, even if he’d be too big for it now, nearly a year old.

Wano Country had disappeared behind the horizon, and with their hitchhiker having taken off, it was just their crew left.

His eyes turned to the ones still passed out on the planks, some of them new since they’d left her, but they’d line up for her inspection all the same, Shanks knew.

And the situation hadn’t changed in the months that had passed. The sea wasn’t any safer; on the contrary, it was arguably more dangerous, the new era wild and unpredictable, like the kids ushering it forth, but that was exactly why he felt confident in his decision now.

She’d asked him to find her an island, and to come home when everything was over. But this sea didn’t care about well-laid plans, and after Wano, no Emperor’s seat was safe, which meant he needed his whole crew with him if he was going to face the upstart turning the world on its head, wearing his old hat.

And as he’d told her many times, he was a pirate: pillage and plunder was par for the course, but the greatest treasure in the world wasn’t what he sought. At least not the Pirate King’s.

He saw the moment Ben connected the dots, a grin lifting the corner of his mouth, as Shanks said,

“There’s one thing I want to get first.”

―

“Barrel-aged whiskey from North Blue, six bottles in all.”

Withdrawing one of the bottles to inspect them, “Aged long?” Makino asked.

“Twelve years,” Vintner said. He had Ace on his arm, his little fingers pulling at his grey moustache. "A good age. Long enough to bring out the more complex flavours.”

“Sometimes time and patience is all it takes for something to reach its potential,” Makino said, examining the bottle in her hands, the golden brown colour deepened by the setting sun piercing the windows.

His grin lifted his grey whiskers, as Ace made another grab for them. “Well said,” he chuckled, bouncing the baby on his arm.

Her inspection complete, she placed the bottles in the satchel. Since her last visit, she’d taken to collecting her orders in person, even if there was no danger of him sending them now that Red Force was no longer docked. But she’d found she preferred the visit than to doing it over Den Den Mushi.

“As delighted as I am to see you, I can still have your orders sent by courier if you’d rather,” Vintner said. “I know you must be busy.”

Not busy enough, Makino thought, her bar too quiet these days, and too much space for her thoughts, but all she said was, “I’ve come to enjoy the walk." And smiling, she added wryly, although it was no lie, "I don’t get out much otherwise.”

“Well, as long as you’re safe,” Vintner said, with a look. “But I reckon you must be. You’re no stranger to this island.”

On his arm, Ace giggled, a toothless grin stretching around his fingers. Makino had pulled a hat over his head to hide his hair. “He’s gotten big,” Vintner approved. “But then the last time we met, he was still in your belly. Soon he’ll be the one running errands for you. Your mother started teaching you early, didn’t she?”

Closing the satchel, “I don’t know if barkeep is going to be his future,” Makino said, with a smile at her grinning baby. At nine months, he was chubby-cheeked and perpetually happy; his father’s striking features taking shape a little more each day. "I'd like him to have more opportunities than I had."

“Fair enough,” Vintner said, his eyes twinkling. “And I reckon he’s got other influences.”

Her brows knitted, but he wasn’t looking at her, busy making faces at her son.

Makino shrugged it off. She was always a little on edge when she was in town; it was probably just that.

“Sure you’ll be alright with this?” Vintner asked her then, as she shouldered the heavy satchel. “He’s not walking yet. Will be a lot for you to carry all the way back.” Then, this time with a curious pitch, “And he’s not home right now, is he? Your lord husband.”

Makino looked up. And right then, she was sure that he knew, even if she couldn’t begin to guess how he’d found out.

But in searching his face, she found no misgivings, or anything resembling ill will, and didn’t know how she was so sure of this, either. It was just instinct; as though she could sense it.

“No,” she said, carefully. “He’s not.”

But then she added, smiling, “But I’m not alone.”

Appeased by this, he handed her son back, giggling as Makino settled him on her hip. He really was getting big, but then it was a good thing she had help.

The bell jingled as she stepped out and into the busy street, although no one paid her any mind as she made her way through the crowd. In the sky above, the sun was sinking behind the rooftops. They would have to get going soon if they wanted to make it back before nightfall.

There was a chill in the air, but her cloak kept her warm. And it was nice, wearing it; a reminder when she needed it, even if no one else knew what it meant.

“Come on, little captain,” she said to Ace, grinning as she kissed his cheek. “Let’s find your godmother.”

Dadan was waiting where she’d left her, leaning against one of the shops and reading the latest edition of the paper, the front page displaying the latest bombshell to hit the world.

“Cross Guild,” she snorted, as Makino approached. “What is it with these middle aged men and their need to form clubs?”

“Everyone needs allies,” Makino said.

Dadan scoffed, although didn’t disagree. “Speaking of allies, isn't this the guy who showed up a few months back to check on you?”

Holding the paper up for her to see, Makino found Mihawk’s photograph looking back, the severe features the same as she remembered, surrendering none of his motives, although having met him, she knew it wasn't in his face you looked for answers.

“His allegiances are…complicated,” she said. She'd been as surprised as everyone else to learn of his alliance with Buggy of all people, especially after Shanks' stories. She would have to ask Shanks about it the next time she saw him.

The thought brought a pang of longing, but while they couldn’t risk calling each other, she was left making extensive lists of everything she wanted to tell him, although it hadn’t been many days after their last departure that she’d had to stop keeping track, because what she wanted to tell him was everything, not just the news, or about their son, but about her day, and her life; the little moments and thoughts he would have found funny, or where she just wanted his counsel.

“Nothing on Red-Hair today,” Dadan said, her eyes scanning the paper. “But then given the state of the world, that’s probably a good thing.”

Makino silently agreed, but then she barely dared open the paper in the morning, afraid it would bear the news she feared more than anything, although worse than the possibility of something happening to them was the knowledge that if it did, there was nothing she could do for them in Fuschia, except wonder if she’d made the wrong choice, staying.

“You ever regret not going with them?” Dadan asked her then, but then she'd likely found her thoughts on her face.

Adjusting her grip on Ace, “Some days,” Makino said. The days when it had been a while since she’d heard anything, when she was left with her own imagination, and the nights spent awake in her empty bed, restlessly turning his vivre card over in her hands and wondering if it really did what he'd said it would.

But with a glance at the paper, and Buggy’s grinning features, his new rank declared for the whole world to see, “But most days I wonder how I’d fare in that world,” she said wryly.

Dadan looked like she was about to say something when the sound of trumpets in the distance drew their eyes in the direction of the harbour. “What, is the circus in town?” she asked.

Close, Makino thought warily. “The king must have returned from the Reverie.” When Dadan looked at her in surprise, “What?” she asked.

Dadan shook her head. “I just doubt there’s a lot of village barmaids who stay as informed as you do. But then I guess most village barmaids don’t go around marrying Emperors.”

“Dadan!” Makino hissed, looking around them, but the people passing them hadn’t even glanced up, wrapped up in their own affairs.

“Relax,” Dadan drawled. “It’s not like he’s here.”

She was about to stress that point about discretion being the better part of valour, but was interrupted by the arrival of the guards, shoving people out of the way to clear a path for the king’s retinue.

Makino watched them, her mouth downturned as she held her son closer, but then while the sea was changing, some things stayed the same.

Ace was babbling, tugging at her cloak with elated noises. Dadan had put down the newspaper, her fingers fleeting to the haft of her axe where she’d angled herself in front of them. “The hell is the use for this council anyway?” she muttered, watching as one of the guards shoved a mother and her children aside despite her pleas. “Just a bunch of kings sitting on their asses talking. Dunno how many summits they’ve had while I’ve been alive, but I haven’t seen any changes. Shit stays the same, at least for the people living in it.”

Her look faltered a bit then, as she said gruffly, “Didn’t even use to care about it before, but now…”

She didn’t mention Sabo, but it hung between them. And of course, now that they’d had time to process the news, it was clear the newspaper only presented one side of the story, but until they heard it from his own mouth, they were left wondering.

Makino said nothing, her arms wrapped around her son. But Dadan was right; the Reverie wouldn’t change the world, or the kings and queens attending it, but with all the different factions fighting to tip the balance of powers, it was still too early to say who’d bring about the greatest changes.

As they often did, her thoughts went to Shanks. He’d told her he planned to approach the Five Elders, although hadn’t elaborated on how he meant to gain access to the Reverie, let alone the castle.

She’d been trying not to think about it too much, but if there’d been nothing in the newspaper, it meant he must have succeeded. They would have heard, had something happened to an Emperor.

“Let’s get out of here,” Dadan said, and Makino started as she took the satchel from her. “Want me to carry ‘im?”

Nodding, “Thank you,” Makino said, adjusting his hat as she placed him into his godmother's arms.

They were about to head towards the city gates when a murmuring went through the crowd, like a ripple in a pond, as heads began turning towards an unknown source.

“What’s going on?” Makino asked, as they all began moving in the same direction, some asking the same question, although she couldn’t discern the answer from the rising cacophony, other than the obvious fact that something had happened. But it couldn't be the king's return; she'd personally witnessed the last one, and it hadn't caused this kind of response.

“Looks like something’s happening at the harbour,” Dadan said, watching the crowd warily, like a river running down the gently sloping street from Hightown’s tavern district. “Whatever it is, it’s probably best if we―Makino!”

She was running, shoving through the crowd until they let her pass, and didn’t look at the guards who called after her to clear the way, but in that moment she wasn’t thinking, her heart thrown out like a tether seeking a mooring, a confused sob inching up her throat. Because just beyond the crowd, at the very edge of her awareness, she was sure she felt―

The harbour was packed when she arrived, slipping through the people who’d gathered to observe, and she was too short to look over anyone’s shoulders, but even from her vantage point, she saw it, the pirate ship that had appeared from under the sea, the long neck of the red dragon rising out of the water, spilling down her masts and over her banisters as she came to settle on the heaving surface, the waves created by her sudden emergence shoving against the banks and sending the merchant ships in the port rocking wildly.

She heard the reactions of the people around her, their voices raised in disbelief―and recognition.

“Red-Hair?!”

“What’s an Emperor doing here?!”

“Protect His Majesty!!”

The guards had surrounded the king and queen, having just stepped off their own ship. Makino saw them through the chaos, the king’s expression livid, although even his outrage couldn't mask the terror beneath.

There were marines running in then, their rifles at the ready, shouting at the bystanders to step back, but even they looked like they didn’t know what to do, their wide eyes fixed on Red Force where she’d appeared in the harbour.

The gangplank was dropped, and her heart lurched as the marines drew their rifles, only to freeze where they were standing in the very same second, the rush of something sweeping through the crowd seizing her breath in her throat. It took out the kingsguard and navy alike, flattened against the ground as though by an invisible force, and even the bystanders reacted, although they didn’t go down, as though they hadn’t been directly targeted, but the pressure was so immense it still forced them to their knees.

Makino felt as it wrapped around her, seeming almost to seek her, even as it didn’t touch her, the force of it sending her cloak whipping around her, the lone figure left standing amidst the fallen crowd.

The gangplank creaked, and her breath shuddered as she saw the figure walking calmly down the length of it, as though part of her hadn’t fully believed it was him, but seeing him now, there was no doubt, the sea wind catching the edge of his cloak as Shanks stepped off the gangway onto the docks and into the setting sun.

She was already running, the civilians who hadn’t been knocked down throwing startled looks after her, but Makino didn’t see them, her eyes fastened on the ones that had found her, warmed with a look that dragged a sob from her lips, as she threw her arms around him.

She felt his laughter as they collided, knocked out with his breath as Shanks caught her, spinning her around once, before setting her back on her feet, a deeper chuckle kissed with his breath beneath her ear as he held her.

“I thought that was my wife I saw,” he said, the warm timbre of his voice holding a sigh. She felt how his hand shook, pressed between her shoulder blades.

Lowering back on her heels, her hands gripped his cheeks, his grin so wide she felt it against her palms where his beard scuffed them. But even seeing him, and touching him, she couldn’t find the words, and could do nothing more than laugh, her tears spilling their banks.

“The mayor told us where you were,” Shanks said, his smile lifting her palms where she gripped his face. “And I couldn't turn down the chance to make a dramatic entrance.”

Her grin ached, as her voice scraped from her hoarsely, “What are you doing here?”

Shanks grinned, pressing his cheek into her palm, his skin sun-warmed and real. “I’m here to steal you.”

Shaking her head, “You are mad,” Makino breathed, laughing, crying, she wasn’t sure which, but his grin rendered the distinction unimportant.

“Only a healthy amount,” Shanks said, catching the tears that had spilled over her cheeks with his knuckle, although this time, Makino thought she might be the one beset by madness, as shoving up on the tips of her toes, she pulled him into a crushing kiss, her arms wrapping around his neck, and felt his startled laughter against her lips, before he answered, a strong arm cinching around her back as he bent his back to deepen it.

She didn’t think about the crowd, or the guards or the marines. In that moment, the whole world could have been watching and she wouldn’t have cared.

A piercing whistle from the ship preceded their voices, as they called out, laughing, "Jesus Christ, guys."

"If your haki didn't knock the newbies out this time, Boss, that ought to do it!"

Breaking the kiss, her sobbing laugh spilled out with fresh tears, but Shanks didn't let her go, although the touch of his forehead to hers was a chaster kiss, as his breath ghosted over her cheeks.

Dadan was there then, Ace on her hip, watching the spectacle with wide brown eyes, the guards and marines that had been knocked out cold, and the crowd sitting around her, frozen by their own shock and terror.

Coming to a stop before them, Dadan took them in, Shanks' arm still around her, and the crew on deck, watching from over the railing, her hardened features wavering a bit, but walking forward, “You better bring him back to visit,” she said gruffly, as she settled Ace into Makino’s arms.

Still not fully grasping what was happening, Makino could only take him, and gripping her by the shoulders, Dadan told her firmly, “Our boys are out there causing trouble. You remind ‘em who they’ve got to answer to if they get too high on themselves.”

She laughed thickly. “I'll make sure.”

Nodding, “And you,” Dadan told Shanks, who blinked. “You keep 'em out of harm's way, or harm will be coming your way.”

“A fair deal,” Shanks said.

Satisfied by this, Dadan turned back towards her, her expression softening as she took her in, unchanged from how she'd looked all day, the green cloak over her skirt and bodice a barmaid's gentle trappings, and yet.

“This island was never too small for you,” Dadan said, tears brimming in her eyes now as she told her gruffly, “But your heart was always gonna be too big fer it.”

Fresh tears spilled over her cheeks, as all Makino could do was look at her.

“Sure we can’t steal you away, Dadan?” Yasopp called from the ship, to which she snorted.

“You can try,” Dadan drawled, her fingers brushing the haft of her axe, to the roaring laughter of the crew on board.

“W-what is the meaning of this?! Get back on your feet!”

The voice drew their eyes to the king, sitting on his rear amidst his fallen kingsguard. The queen looked to have fainted. “R-Red-Hair!” he demanded, pointing. “This is my kingdom! You have no right coming here!”

The shadow falling across him had him scrambling back, as Dadan appeared. “You want to be king?” she asked, hoisting him up by the front of his sash as he shrieked and thrashed, but she didn't flinch. “Let’s talk about how you treat your own subjects. I’ve got a petition, and you look like you’ve got some time to hear it.”

The gentle touch to her back drew her eyes from Dadan and the king, to find her own watching her, his eyes hooded under his scars. They lingered a beat on her cloak, before shifting to their son in her arms, watching him back intently.

Holding out his hand to her, Shanks smiled. “What do you say, my girl?”

On the ship above, their whole crew had gathered by the railing, grinning down at them, but she didn't need to see them to know her answer, like he’d known what it would be already before coming. Like he’d known before he’d even left her, Makino thought, finding it in his eyes now, the long months that had passed; the ones she had needed, but then he’d always seen her more clearly than she saw herself.

But she saw him, too. The pirate who’d come back for her; the captain and the Emperor, and saw what he needed, announced now to the whole world.

Placing her hand in his, rough fingers wrapped around it tightly, before he led her towards the gangway, the shocked crowd watching, and no pomp or trumpets announcing them, only the seagulls wheeling above the masts, and the push of the water against the hull, gentle East Blue stirred into dancing.

Her heart perched at the top of her throat, like an anchor freed from the depths of her longing, so light Makino thought she might have felt unmoored if not for the big hand engulfing hers, a thrill filling her as Shanks led her up the gangplank, but she wasn’t afraid.

Coming aboard found them all waiting, their voices raised with a resounding welcome as they moved to lift the gangplank, Shanks taking Ace from her arms as Makino took turns greeting them.

“Hope you don’t mind the liberty,” Yasopp said, laughing as she threw her arms around him.

“Thieves and beggars,” Makino said, as he lowered her back on her heels. “I expected nothing less.”

Lucky was there then, lifting her up by the waist as she laughed, and by the time the rest reached her she was out of breath.

Ben was observing the mayhem with predictable patience, although the tender crook of his grin told a different story, as Makino looked up at him. “I’d say this is reckless for you, but you’ve proved me wrong before.”

He grinned. “I’m just following the captain’s orders,” he said, although the gleam in his eyes said he hadn’t had any objections, and wrapping her arms around him, his chuckle was soft as he touched the top of her head.

“Let’s have a look at her then!”

The announcement saw them surrounding her, in the middle of the main deck as they walked around her, some faces new but all of them grinning as Makino allowed their inspection, rough fingers tilting her chin and examining her cloak and her hands.

“She’s got salt in her hair!” one said, before another chimed in, “And calluses on her hands!”

“And we know she’s got the scars!”

“And she’s the cutest pirate we’ve ever seen!”

“Again, I’m standing right here,” Shanks said. "Can you believe them?" he asked Ace, who giggled, his hands fisted in his father’s cloak.

“He’s got a point,” one said, to murmuring agreement.

“Our baby is stupidly cute.”

“I meant me,” Shanks said. “And our baby?”

Laughing, Makino accepted it all, their inspection completed with glowing marks as rough hands touched her cheeks and her hair, until her kerchief sat askew.

Then they stepped out of the way, clearing a path and leaving her in front of the captain of the ship.

Makino watched as he took her in, his arm wrapped around their son, cooing and reaching for his beard with grabby fingers.

“Well?” she asked, and heard how her voice wavered. “Do I pass?”

His smile warmed his eyes, and in them she found the answer she had always known, that had never changed once, even as they had, and that would remain unchanged, she thought, no matter what the new era brought.

Ahead, East Blue lay open, and behind them, her island, seeing her off. Not her bar or her village, but then maybe that was fitting. After all; she was being stolen.

“So where to, Captain?” Makino asked, looking over the railing to Goa Port, the ships in the harbour and their crews watching like the crowd ashore, the Emperor’s ship that had appeared in their midst. And if she hadn’t been so caught up with everything else, she might have remembered how they’d arrived, and might have looked twice at the pirates moving over the deck now, with something that looked like brushes for pickling the planks.

Shanks just grinned, bending down to kiss the top of her head as he chirped, “One Piece.”

Then he left to answer a call from across the deck, bouncing their giggling son and leaving Makino staring after him.

“Wait,” she said.

“What?!”