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Despite living on an island, Bell-mère wasn’t much fond of the sea.
It reminded her far too much of her life before she had decided to settle down on Cocoyashi. Those few short years in the marine uniform felt like an eternity in her memories, and seeing the endless horizon of the water surrounding the island just made her feel like someone was going to order her to swab the deck at any moment.
…Tripping over a dead body was also something she didn’t miss.
With a sigh—and a short moment to brace herself—Bell-mère crouched down, carefully turning the body over. It was a young boy, blonde, with a large fresh burn spreading over half his face and further down, his noble-like outfit all tattered.
It wasn't anyone she could recognize, and she knew everyone on Cocoyashi. Must have been an unfortunate traveler. That's precisely why children shouldn't be setting sail alone, she supposed.
She grabbed the body round the waist, hardly caring about the comfort of the corpse. She just needed to get it somewhere it could be laid to rest-
And then the corpse started coughing; a behavior which made it much more urgent to get them somewhere safe.
***
There wasn’t much a doctor could do, apparently. The local guy—whom Bell-mère had only narrowly avoided calling a “quack” to his face—merely dealt with the burns by giving Bell-mère advice she already knew, warned her of the possibility of fever and second drowning, and went on his merry way.
Well. At least his services only cost a basketful of tangerines. She got the service she paid for.
Due to the potential dangers of that first night, Bell-mère elected to stay in the guest room, keeping watch over the would-be drownee.
Nami was very vocally dissatisfied with that.
“What does it matter if he dies?” She argued, arms crossed petulantly. “We don’t even know him!”
“That doesn’t mean he doesn’t deserve to live,” Bell-mère chided gently. “Every life is precious. We should always do all we can to help people in need.”
Nami harrumphed at that.
“Nami?” Nojiko appeared in the doorway, her blanket slung over her shoulders like a cape and trailing on the floor behind her. “Are you coming to bed? I wanna turn off the lights.”
“No!” She announced, spurred into action.
Bell-mère flinched when Nami started climbing into the bed, for a second fully believing that her daughter was about to toss the unconscious boy to the ground.
But no, she wasn’t that callous just yet.
She just settled beside him, her arms crossed again. “If this guy is getting a sleepover with mom then so am I!”
Bell-mère sighed, fighting a smile. Her jealous heathen of a child, honestly. She wouldn’t trade her for anyone else, though.
“Okay,” Nojiko nodded and followed Nami’s suit.
It didn’t happen all that often, but she knew better than to fight the girls when they actually joined forces on something.
“Story time?” She asked instead.
You have to make the most out of every small moment, after all.
***
The first time the boy woke up, it was Nami’s turn to watch him. Bell-mère knew the instant his eyes opened, thanks to Nami’s very loud instructions for him to be grateful for the rescue.
Bell-mère, who was just coming up with some soup for the two of them, pushed the doors open with a flat expression on her face.
“Is this how we talk to guests?”
Nami just pouted, looking away sulkingly.
Resting the tray on the low cupboard by the foot of the bed, Bell-mère turned her attention towards the boy.
“Hello,” she said, smiling gently. “You must be very confused. I don’t know what’s the last thing you remember, but I found you washed up on the beach yesterday.”
“Wash-” the boy’s voice cracked. Bell-mère offered him a glass of water from the other tray she had left on the nightstand earlier in the morning.
The boy drank it greedily.
“Where am I?” He asked once he finished the glass, declining a second serving despite Bell-mère knowing he had to be still parched.
“Cocoyashi,” Bell-mère offered. “Conomi Islands?”
Neither of the words seemed to spark any recognition for the boy. This was… not good.
“Why don’t we start at the basics,” she offered. “I’m Bell-mère. The little miss pouty by your side is my daughter, Nami. I have Nojiko, too; You’ll meet her soon, I’m sure. What’s your name?”
“...” The boy hesitated. Whether he was coming up with a fake name, or just debating whether he wanted to trust Bell-mère, she couldn’t say. “I don’t think I’d usually trust an adult like that but, uh. I. Don’t remember?”
“Pardon?”
“My name. I don’t know it.”
…This was worse.
***
The useless quack of a doctor couldn’t figure out what was wrong with the boy. At least he didn’t feel like he had earned a second basket of tangerines for his confused head-scratch and a half-shrug.
They’ve made more progress while doing laundry; The boy had “Sabo” embroidered onto the hem of his coat, with the signs of something more having been once written beside it before someone ripped the threads out.
When questioned, Sabo admitted that “Sabo” felt right enough to be his name, so that’s what they settled on to call him.
Well, Bell-mère and Nojiko did, at least. Nami stubbornly kept calling him “fancy pants”.
Sabo didn’t seem to find her prickly attitude off-putting, though, small mercies. If anything, it seemed to make him fonder of the girl, his eyes always softening with nostalgia whenever she insulted him or punched him.
“You’re not putting enough force behind your punches,” Sabo informed her after one such punch, and Bell-mère decided that if he had enough energy to coach Nami on fighting techniques, he might as well go help Nojiko in the orchard.
She was going to join them shortly, just grabbing a couple things they’d need for their tasks. By the time Bell-mère had made it out of the shed with the tools in hand, it was to find a baffled Nojiko and Nami staring up at a tree.
“Please don’t tell me he’s up this tree,” she exhaled, pinching the bridge of her nose.
“You told us not to lie to you though,” Nojiko reminded her.
“I did say that, didn’t I?” Bell-mère sighed and looked up.
Sabo had somehow managed to climb the one tree they always needed a ladder to reach. It had no feasible holds on its trunk, and trying to hold on to it while gathering tangerines was pretty much impossible, if not incredibly dangerous.
And yet the boy was chill as a cucumber, legs wrapped around the trunk as he gathered the ripe tangerines with one hand and dropped them in the basket he held in the other.
Not even a bag! A wholeass basket.
“Oi, that one’s not ripe yet!” Nami yelled, hands wrapped around her mouth. As if she needed help being any louder.
As if that was the thing to comment on here.
***
There was a logic exercise they made her do once while she was still a cadet. A farmer had to transport a head of cabbage, a goat and a wolf across the river, in a boat which could only hold two items beside the farmer themself.
The task was to successfully transport all three items without having the goat eat the head of cabbage, or having the wolf attack the goat. One had to carefully consider the possible combinations of passengers.
Bell-mère felt similarly while trying to decide who she should take along when going into town.
She couldn’t leave all three of the kids at the farm; She’d come back to a burned out ruin. Leaving Nami alone with Sabo was also out of the question, or one of them would end up dead; Leaving Nojiko with Nami would have Nami cry out at the “favouritism”. Nojiko was the only one responsible enough to stay, but Bell-mère could use Sabo’s strength…
In the end, far from an ideal option, she left Nojiko with the responsibility of watching over the farm and took both Sabo and Nami along.
…At least Nojiko would get a small break from the chaos of her siblings.
Meanwhile, Bell-mère was doing her best to block their bickering out.
She knew she would regret it later, but…
“I need to do some shopping,” she announced. “You two keep each other safe and responsible, okay?”
Sabo and Nami offered her twin nods. She didn’t believe them for a second.
Having Genzo run up to her not even half an hour later proved that assumption to be correct. At least she had already finished haggling for all the essentials. If they had to make a hasty retreat, by the time she had to come down here again, it would all be water under the bridge…
“I have been lenient so far, since Nami’s tendencies seemed to be typical childhood mischief,” Genzo gasped out, wiping at his forehead with a tissue. “But teaching her to improve her pickpocketing is a step too far!”
Bell-mère blinked. “Pardon?”
“She’s clearly improved!” The mayor stressed. “The shopkeeper barely managed to catch sight of her! This cannot go on!”
“I’ll… talk to her,” Bell-mère promised, thoroughly confused.
She returned to the edge of the village, where the path towards her farm began. The kids were already waiting for her there, Sabo twirling a length of pipe with far more ease than she liked, and Nami with her nose buried in an old atlas.
An atlas the girl had certainly not paid for.
Placing the bag of essentials by her feet, Bell-mère rested her hands on her hips.
“Where’d ya get that, huh?”
Nami glanced up at her before exchanging a glance with the smirking Sabo.
“Found it in the trash,” they chorused.
Bell-mère couldn’t keep a serious expression for longer than a second before snorting. Kneeling down, she pulled them both into a hug.
“I’m so proud of you rascals,” she said, before clarifying. “For getting along, not for stealing. You were still seen, even if you weren’t exactly caught this time, Nami.”
“Next time, we won’t be,” Sabo promised.
That wasn’t what Bell-mère meant, but she’d take what she could get.
***
Bell-mère heard of Arlong’s soon-to-be-implemented new policy before she had ever met the fishman.
It had her rushing back home, quickly checking the kids were all there and all occupied—seemed to be reorganizing the shed—before dipping into her savings.
She knew there was definitely not enough for all of them—not with the prices Arlong had set, 100,000 berries per adult and 50,000 berries per child—but maybe just the children-
Her total sum of savings had come out to 113,854 berries.
There was no time to sell 40,000 berries worth of tangerines or liquify any of her belongings, nor would anyone actually part with their money with the threat of death hanging so low above their necks.
And yet Bell-mère had to do something. How could she call herself a mother otherwise?
Packing away the savings, she left them in a different cupboard; Easier to reach in a hurry. Here's to hoping the tyrannical maniac about to subjugate their island was in a good enough mood to barter…
With nothing else left to do, she went outside, planning to spend her last moments with her children. She even managed to coerce them away from their task, leaving the shed looking like it vomited everything out on the grass before it, while the four of them played with the ball.
Sabo and Nojiko were old enough to tell that something was wrong. Twelve years old, they were clever and knew how important it was to finish their jobs. And yet they went along with her request anyway, pretending like nothing was wrong for the benefit of Nami, who might not have picked up on Bell-mère’s distress, but would have noticed if her siblings showed theirs.
She heard Arlong’s gang approaching before she could see him.
It had briefly crossed her mind to hide the children, to pretend it was just her but… Everyone knew she had kids, even if some might not know exactly how many. While no one at the village would have been malicious enough to deliberately tip Arlong off, all it’d take would be a single off-handed comment to get them all dead.
Bell-mère couldn't possibly bear that.
So. Bargaining with her own life it was.
“Children,” she called softly as she straightened, forcing a smile on her face. “Let’s play hide and seek! I’m going to go count at the front of the house, alright?”
After all, just because she was planning to die, didn’t mean the children had to watch it.
She waited for Arlong inside the house, deciding to try and get a lucky shot in, first. Literally speaking- Bell-mère waited until Arlong opened the front doors, looking over the seemingly empty house before making her move.
In moments, she had the fishman on his back, the barrel of her gun forced between his teeth-
The bullet never managed to leave the gun, metal shattering under Arlong’s teeth.
And, in that moment, Bell-mère knew it was over.
“You pathetic, weak human!” Arlong was ranting, but Bell-mère didn’t really care to listen to him, her mind consumed by more important things.
Even as he entertained himself by breaking her arm, all she said was: “I won’t pay you.”
Which had the benefit of making Arlong decide to shoot her.
At least she wouldn’t hurt anymore. At least her children would survive.
If she had to go, she’d at least make sure that- “Nojiko, Nami, Sabo- I love you!”
But instead of the expected gunshot and nothingness—or gunshot, pain, another gunshot and then nothingness, depending on how shit Arlong’s aim was—there was just a metallic THWANG! And… Silence.
Bell-mère opened her eyes—she hadn't even realized she had closed them!—and…
Well. Maybe she was dead already. Or hallucinating, because in what universe would seeing Sabo stand over a passed out fishman with only a pipe in his hand make sense?
Her son twirled the pipe in his hand as if he’d been doing that for years, thumping it on the ground. Or, well, no, that was Arlong’s hand. Ouch.
Her girls emerged from hiding as well, holding whatever weapon-adjacent item caught their eye. With a hit to Arlong each, they stood by Bell-mère, glaring at the rest of the pirates.
Nami, she noticed, swung a shovel right between his legs, greatly diminishing any chances of future mini-Arlongs running around. Not like he didn’t deserve that, though.
This was when the villagers arrived, bringing in reinforcements. If Arlong was still standing, Bell-mère had no doubt this would have been an exercise in futility, nothing more than an opportunity for them all to get hurt.
With their leader taken out, though… The Fishmen flailed about without instruction.
And Cocoyashi could breathe freely.
***
The pirates were taken down to the town—some walking willingly, some having to be carried—and left tied up in the harbor.
It would be difficult to bring them to justice, since the pirates had elected to sink all of Cocoyashi’s boats sometime right after arriving. The only ship left intact was Arlong’s own, and not many of the townsfolk knew how to operate something of that size.
They were spared trying to attempt that with the arrival of five marine ships.
More than enough to fit all of Arlong’s crew in the brig, Bell-mère figured.
The time she had spent in the navy made it easy to tell which ship carried the person in charge there, and Bell-mère hadn’t hesitated to board it the moment it anchored.
It was as familiar as breathing. Her shoulders felt too light, muscle memory insisting she was supposed to be wearing a coat. Had she lost it somewhere? Her commanding officer wasn’t going to be happy-
A small hand slid into her palm, startling her for a brief moment. That’s right, Bell-mère thought as she looked down, seeing her children crowding around her, following step after step. I’m not a marine anymore. I’m a mother.
With renewed determination, she pushed through the marines trying to stop her—none of which were old enough to remember her—forcing her way into the captain’s quarter.
She had a good reason to be there, after all. The East Blue officers were unlikely to operate with the caution the fishman pirates deserved. In a sea where Devil Fruits were almost entirely unknown, the idea that someone could bite through the barrel of a rifle was ludicrous.
The captain didn’t seem inclined to believe her. He wasn’t someone Bell-mère could remember from her serving days but even then, she knew exactly what to say to convince them.
“You’re awfully confident,” she leaned her hip against the captain’s desk, trying to sell this properly. “I take it that must mean you’ve got Garp the Fist on boa-”
“I don’t want a fist of love!”
Bell-mère trailed off, turning towards her children. It was Sabo who spoke, and who was now covering the top of his head with his arms.
He looked just as surprised about it as everyone else in the room.
Priorities changing, Bell-mère whirled back towards the captain, slamming her hands on top of his reports.
“I know every marine worth their salt keeps track of where Garp is at any given time,” she said, enjoying the way her sudden intensity made the captain jump. “Cough up.”
***
Bell-mère had absolutely no compulsions against commandeering the singular ships which wasn’t carrying pirate prisoners, setting it on a course for Dawn.
If anyone had any objections, a few seconds of channeling her best Garp impression dispelled those without any issues.
That might have started a rumor that she was related to Garp in some way, but sacrifices had to be made.
If Nojiko and Nami were confused about the sudden trip, they hadn’t shown it.
Nami happily followed Bell-mère’s own footsteps, bullying everyone who looked important until they coughed up some paper and pens. She had settled with those on the bow of the ship, drawing a small version of her Cocoyashi map in preparation for mapping their route.
The girl would likely be disappointed by the direct route they took. Bell-mère would be sure to let her know about the maps in the office before they left.
Nojiko spent her time sitting by the railings, watching the waves crash against the railing. Sabo stayed by her side for the most part, though his eyes never left the horizon, seemingly watching something that isn’t really there.
Bell-mère… wondered. How would this trip affect them?
***
Sabo was off the ship the moment it dropped anchor in port, jumping the gap to the docks before the plank could even be dropped.
“SABO-!” Bell-mère called after him, but he didn't heed her call, disappearing in the crowd populating the harbor.
And, shortly after, so did Nojiko and Nami, following their brother without a single ounce of hesitation.
Bell-mère just sighed, resting her forehead against her palm. She allowed herself just a moment of exasperation before she brushed through her hair, whirling upon the ship’s captain.
“I don’t-” The man raised his hands, but seemed to give up instantly, shoulders slumping. “Vice-Admiral Garp often complains about something called gray terminal-?”
Seems like a good enough start, Bell-mère decided, and left the ship.
After ensuring they would wait for them, of course.
***
The gray terminal, as she soon learned, was a massive garbage yard.
It was difficult to make her way through the barely-stable piles of trash, but she managed well enough, taking the time to exchange a word or two with the locals.
That was where Bell-mère struck gold, so to speak. Whenever she mentioned Sabo—not even by name, just by appearance—it brought out interesting reactions. Curses, mainly, with some spitting over their shoulders and other such superstitions, as if the people genuinely believed that would keep them safe from the “Devils” that supposedly ravaged the place.
Devils who went from three to two, sometime right around the time she found Sabo.
It was not long after learning this tidbit that she finally found her children. Remaining out of sight for now, Bell-mère decided to scope out the situation before engaging.
Sabo was right in the middle, kneeling with head in his hands, Nojiko and Nami behind him, and two boys in front of him.
Bell-mère would assume that Sabo was attacked, if not for the fact that neither of the children look aggressive; In fact, they all seem to be reaching towards Sabo, as if wanting to help him, though none of them touched him.
“I- I’m sorry,” Sabo’s words were barely audible from where Bell-mère stands. “I didn’t mean to- I lost all my memories-”
“Likely story,” the older boy scoffed, crossing his arms.
…Bell-mère suddenly got a lot more insight as to why Sabo seemed to find Nami’s angry personality so endearing.
Nojiko darted forward, helping Sabo to his feet.
The smaller boy took a step forward as well, but the taller one put an arm across his chest, stopping him.
That seems to spur Sabo into action.
“Those are my sisters,” he gestured towards the girls. “Nojiko and Nami. And those," he then turned the other way, pointing towards the boys. His voice did grow a bit hesitant as he continued, “Are my brothers. Ace and Luffy."
Ace scoffed at that. “Well, you sure didn't wait to replace us."
“I didn’t-” Sabo lurched in Nojiko’s grip. Bell-mère could only barely see his face, but the expression on it was utter heartbreak. “I promise, if I knew… I washed up on another island, Bell-mère found me. If not for her, I would have probably died. I didn’t even remember my own name-”
His words grew wetter by the second, and the combined emotional impact seemed to have tilted the scales for Luffy. Ducking underneath Ace’s arm, he threw himself at Sabo, wrapping his arms around his body more times than should be physically possible.
“Kids," Bell-mère called, finally deciding to make her presence known. “Causing trouble?"
The taller one—Ace—glared up at her.
“You're the one who took Sabo?"
Bell-mère snorted. “If by took you mean found him half-dead on a beach and nursed back to health then yes. I sure took him."
The boy was clearly surprised by that, but the glower lost nothing of its intensity. Bell-mère did lose sight of it, though, when the boy bowed low.
“Thank you for saving my brother's life!" He seethed through clenched teeth.
Bell-mère blinked at the unexpected action. Judging by the way Sabo and the younger boy called out Ace's name, so softly, staring at him as if he had grown a second head, well. Surprise seemed to be the right reaction.
“Well, I wasn't gonna just let him die," she shrugged. “Anycase, we got what we came here for. It's time to get going."
Her kids nodded at that, coming over to her side. Or, at least, her girls did. Sabo didn’t even manage half a step before he paused, staring at Luffy who unwrapped himself carefully, now simply rubbing at his eyes.
“I'm glad Sabo is alive!" He said with a smile that was as real as it was forced. He meant his words, but his heart was clearly breaking.
So was Sabo's.
The jury was out on Ace's, but if he was anything like Nami. ..
“You better visit us, you jerk!" He growled, and that answered that.
“Don't be ridiculous," Bell-mère rolled her eyes at the angry-terrified glares sent her way. “If you think I'm just going to leave you two sprouts all alone in here, you've got another thing coming."
It was worth it, if only for the joy that bloomed on Sabo’s—and Luffy’s—faces. Nojiko didn’t seem to have an opinion either way, while Nami and Ace seemed equally dissatisfied.
They’d get over it, Bell-mère was sure.
If you thought about it… Five children weren't that many more than three.