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"I can't keep doing this," Marco said. His voice was carefully blank, though Shanks knew the man well enough to read between the lines. "I can't. Can't keep them alive." Eyes the shade of blue that only a sky on a Summer Island could sport stared out at the horizon. The Red Force was moored in the harbor, flanked by a couple of smaller ships, one being Shanks' escort to Sphinx, the other being one of the few ships left of the Whitebeard Pirates.
"Come with us," Shanks offered quietly. "Spend some time back on the seas and off the land." Land, in Shanks experience, was where things either went to drink or went to die, and sometimes it was both. Marco didn't smell like alcohol but he didn't feel totally alive.
Shanks understood the feeling.
At least Marco had something of a goodbye when Whitebeard died.
"I don't know if I can," Marco replied. There was a slight hitch to his voice, just enough to reveal how fucked up he was feeling.
"The sea will be better for you," Shanks bribed. "You'd be a guest - on the Force as a friend, not an enemy." It wasn't truly a bribe, more of Shanks needling until Marco agreed to go with him. He understood the feeling of needing to hunker down, to break something, to fight with his last breath until he didn't want to continue but had no choice but to.
To keep going until it hurt to stop.
Shanks continued staring at Marco, warm amber eyes unusually solemn.
"Come with us," he pried once more.
A flicker of blue crossed Marco's shoulders before they slumped.
"Alright," he said. Shanks perked a tiny bit. That sounded less dead than before. "Alright, I'll go with you." Marco didn't say that he'd need to come back, that he had to come back, but Shanks understood that too.
It was only temporary, after all. Just long enough for Marco to feel himself again.
Then he could come back to stand sentry over Whitebeard and Ace. Shanks would have someone he trusted stay while Marco was with them.
It was only right, after all.