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The two weeks passed quietly.
The nurses came and went. The servants left food in trays outside the door.
Rosinante could hear the palace moving around them, indifferent, as if nothing had happened.
Doflamingo didn't come.
Not once in the whole two weeks.
Rosinante made sure to stay awake, jolting up throughout the night, hoping to see Doflamingo standing by the cot.
But he never came.
Rosinante barely slept. He held the baby through the night, tracing her features and learning her face by heart.
On the first morning after the two weeks, Rosinante woke before her.
He lay still for a moment in the grey early light, listening to her breathe in the cot beside him.
Then he got up and lifted her carefully, settling her against his chest the way she liked. He carried her to the desk and sat down.
She stirred slightly at the movement, her face pressed into the warmth of him.
He pulled open the drawer and took out the book.
A thick romance novel, the kind with an embossed cover and a forgettable cliché title.
The kind Doflamingo would never in his life pick up.
Rosinante had found it in the palace library in his first week and had recognised it immediately for what it could be. He had carved the pages out himself, slowly, over several evenings, and had been storing things in it ever since.
Letters he couldn't send. Notes he couldn't keep anywhere else. The small paper records of years of a life lived in two directions at once.
He took out a piece of paper and found a pen.
He looked at his daughter's face and began writing.
He finished the letter and folded it with shaky fingers before slipping it back into the book and closing the drawer.
He sat for a moment.
Then he got up and carried his daughter to the balcony.
The morning sky was still dull, the sun not fully up yet.
He stood at the rail with her against his chest and looked out at the water.
He thought about leaving.
The thought arrived the way it always had.
Another life, somewhere far from here. A smaller place. Simpler living.
Somewhere no one knew their names.
His daughter growing up somewhere warm, somewhere safe. Somewhere without the weight of the Underworld pressing down on everything.
In every version of that future, Doflamingo was there.
For twenty-four years, Rosinante's mind had never once imagined a life that didn't have his brother in it.
He looked down at his daughter.
"I'm sorry," he said softly.
The guards knocked on the door.
Trebol led them. He didn't say anything, just appeared in the doorway with a wet gleeful noise that meant he was enjoying himself.
He grinned wide at Rosinante. Too many teeth showing.
Rosinante looked at them before looking at his daughter in the cot.
He bent over her and traced her cheeks with a finger. Pressed a soft kiss to her forehead.
Then he straightened and followed them out.
The room was at the end of a corridor he had memorised in his first month in the palace.
He had noted it then. He had even written about it in a report.
He knew exactly what kind of room it was and its very purpose.
The revolting smell hit him before he even entered.
He sat where they told him to and looked at the blood-stained walls surrounding him.
Rosinante had to breathe through his mouth.
He waited.
Doflamingo didn't come.
The guards took their places at the door. Trebol had soon left.
The room was so quiet, leaving Rosinante alone with his mind.
Rosinante sat still and thought about his daughter. About her face in the early morning light, the way she looked up at him with those pale red eyes.
He thought about whether she would ever know he existed. Whether Doflamingo would tell her, or whether he would simply be a name that was never spoken in this palace.
He thought about Doflamingo. About twenty-four years. About their childhood, before everything fell apart. About him reading the book on newborn care the morning Sengoku arrived.
He thought about all of it.
He didn't regret anything. He had loved his brother and he had brought a beautiful healthy daughter into the world.
He waited for Doflamingo to arrive.
Doflamingo didn't go to the execution room.
He felt the weight of the gun in his coat pocket.
The same gun he had used on his father. The man who had upended his entire childhood, dragged his family into the dirt and called it righteousness, whose choices had made Doflamingo's early life a nightmare.
He had used this gun once before on family.
He had not thought he would have to use it again.
He pushed the door to the bedroom open.
Despite the rage sitting inside him, the fury from the betrayal and what he was about to do, something in him settled when he saw her.
His little princess, in the cot he had commissioned while Rosinante was still in the hospital. He had gotten the gold right, the carvings right. After she was born, he had the stones set in pink and purple.
He hadn’t seen her for two weeks because he hadn't trusted himself around Rosinante.
Rosinante needed to be alive for the two weeks of mandatory skin-to-skin contact.
Now, that time was up.
He walked towards the cot.
She was awake, making small gurgling sounds. A small bubble of spit at the corner of her mouth.
He reached in and wiped it away with his thumb.
She looked up at him, her brows pulling together. The exact expression he saw in mirrors, miniaturised.
She looked exactly like himself.
He reached in and picked her up.
She had gotten heavier in the two weeks since he'd last held her.
He held her out slightly and looked at her. She was going to be big, he could already tell.
"That's my daughter," he murmured.
She made a sound in reply.
Doflamingo adjusted her, holding her securely with one arm.
He put his other hand in his pocket, fingers brushing the cold metal of the gun, and walked to the execution room.
Doflamingo came through the door carrying the baby.
He crossed to Rosinante and held her out.
Rosinante's arms came up automatically, and his daughter immediately turned her face into his chest.
"That's her last skin to skin," Doflamingo said, his voice hoarse.
Rosinante looked at him and saw the tiniest bit of red at the edges of his eyes.
"I'm sorry," Rosinante said. "I need you to know that what we had was real. All of it. Every single part was real."
He held the baby closer to his chest and pressed a soft kiss to her head. "She's real."
Doflamingo said nothing and just stared at him.
"Please." Tears started to fill Rosinante's eyes. "Before you do anything to me. I want to know her name."
"You knew better," Doflamingo whispered. "Of all the people in the world, Rosinante. You knew exactly what I was.”
Rosinante's mouth opened to speak but Doflamingo cut him off.
“You knew what I was capable of. And you chose to betray me anyway."
Doflamingo's hands closed into fists at his sides.
"I trusted you, Rosinante." His voice started to crack. "I let you into my palace. Into my bed. Into my—"
He stopped. Breathing hard, trying to compose himself.
"I'm sorry," Rosinante choked out. “I’m so sorry.”
The tears were falling down his face steadily now.
"Please, Doffy. I'm begging you. Do whatever you decide with me. But I need to know her name."
Doflamingo stepped forward, hands out to take the baby back.
Rosinante pulled her closer to his chest. He looked at his daughter’s face. Her father's eyes, her father's frown. All of it.
"I'm begging you. I need to know our daughter's name. Before you get rid of me. Please, Doffy."
Our daughter.
Something in Doflamingo snapped.
The sight of Rosinante holding their daughter in the suffocating execution room, begging for her name suddenly felt unbearable.
"Rosalia," he said, after a long moment of silence.
Rosinante froze.
"Donquixote Rosalia." He said it to the space between them, eyes not meeting Rosinante's. "I'll call her Rosi."
"Hand her over," Doflamingo said, extending his hands.
The moment was over. The mercy of skin-to-skin was finished.
Rosinante didn't fight. He leaned forward, pressing one last kiss to her forehead, and surrendered her to Doflamingo’s arms.
As soon as she left the warmth of Rosinante’s chest, Rosalia let out a loud cry. She twisted in Doflamingo’s grip, her small hands reaching back toward Rosinante.
Rosinante’s hands hovered in the air for a second, grasping at nothing.
He knew what was happening. Doflamingo was taking her back to the room to put her down, and then he was coming back to finish him.
His heart shattered in his chest.
Every instinct screamed at him to grab her, to run, to fight.
He couldn't. He was trapped.
He looked down at her face, red and scrunched up with crying.
He couldn't let her remember him like this.
He couldn't let his daughter's last memory of him, however fleeting a two-week-old's memory might be, be of terror and grief.
He ignored the gun he knew existed in Doflamingo’s pocket and the fear of what was going to happen to him.
He forced his trembling lips to curve upward.
He reached over and held her face gently so she looked at him.
He smiled. A wide, genuine smile, filled with all the love he had ever felt.
"I love you," he whispered, quickly wiping at his tears. "Be happy, Rosalia."
Doflamingo turned away immediately.
He walked out of the execution room, the baby screaming in his arms, and didn't look back.
He carried her down the corridor back to the room.
He went to the cot and tried to lower her in, trying to detach her tiny fingers from his coat feathers.
She fought him. She screamed louder, a high, piercing wail that echoed off the walls.
She didn't want the cot. She didn't want Doflamingo. She wanted the person who wasn't there.
"Rosalia, enough." Doflamingo exhaled, his composure fraying.
He needed to go back. He needed to finish this before he lost his nerve completely, but he couldn't leave her like this.
He pulled her back up against his chest and started to pace.
He remembered what the book had said. Movement.
He started pacing the room. Window to cot, cot to desk.
She quieted immediately, her attention caught by something. He looked down. The pink feathers of his coat were moving wildly with the movement, bright and close to her face.
He passed the desk before stopping.
His book, Care of Newborns, had been moved to the side. The desk had been used recently. Someone had been sitting there.
He sat down with his daughter still playing with the feathers on his chest.
He pulled open the drawer. The thick romance novel was on the top. He’d seen it before, on the shelf and sometimes in this drawer. He had never thought to touch it. Romance was never his choice of genre.
He picked it up. The book was strangely heavy.
He opened it and saw the letters.
He started with the oldest ones, wanting to know exactly when the betrayal had begun. He checked the dates. They had been written almost immediately after Rosinante arrived, almost two years ago. The ink was slightly faded at the edges of some.
To Sengoku.
The Barbarossa deal is confirmed for the 14th of next month.
The shipment will come through the eastern dock. I will attach the names of all the men involved—
It stopped there. Folded. Stored.
To Sengoku.
I have received information regarding the Kyuka Island operation.
The Donquixote Family will move the shipment by Tuesday. I have been invited to attend but I will not be—
Nothing. Folded. Stored.
To Sengoku.
The Donquixote Family will meet Capone Bege at the harbour next Thursday.
Their shipments involve—
Nothing. Folded. Stored.
Again and again. Thirty letters, maybe more. All the same. Started. Stopped. Folded. Stored.
Then one that was different.
To Sengoku.
I'm sorry. I am not as good a person as you raised me to be.
I should be better than this. I am a Marine and you raised me well and this has nothing to do with you.
I know I should be sending you more reports but it does not feel right to betray my brother—
Nothing. Folded. Stored.
Doflamingo took out the whole pile and set it on the table.
Underground business. Names, dates, shipment details. All documented here but never sent.
Rosinante was a Marine Commander, undercover, with information that would have been significant to Sengoku.
Why had he stopped?
Doflamingo thought about the deals that had collapsed. The ones that had been intercepted. He looked for the pattern, the common thread.
He looked down at Rosalia resting on his chest, her fingers curled tightly around a pink feather, staring up at him.
He found it.
Every deal that had been reported.
Children. Every single one.
Doflamingo went still.
He reached into the book and took out the next pile. These letters were longer, the paragraphs visible through the thin, translucent paper.
He read the first one.
It's my first night at the palace.
I walked in and he saw me and he didn't even look surprised.
I thought he would say something. Ask where I'd been, why I came back. Anything.
He just continued reading his documents like I hadn't disappeared for over a decade and simply reappeared.
But at night he came into my room and walked to the balcony. He didn't say anything. I followed and I didn't know what to say either.
I took out a cigarette and he grabbed my arm and just held me against him. He didn't say anything after that. I don't know what that hug meant.
It took everything I had not to cry. I had so many questions.
Why he left me in that alley. Why he told me he'd be back soon and then didn't come at all.
I waited an entire week.
Why he never tried to find me in all the years after, when he had the money and the resources to look.
I didn't ask. I didn't want to know.
I'm afraid of his answer.
Doflamingo set the letter down.
He read through more of them. One after another, Rosinante writing about small things. A meal they’d eaten. A conversation they’d shared that stuck with him.
He ate a snack that I brought back for him. Usually he'd refuse but today he just sat there and ate it together with me. He even broke a piece off and held it out to me. I wish he could do this always.
We argued about the furniture. He has terrible taste. I don't know who told him gold looks good on everything. I told him gold was gaudy and he said I couldn't understand his vision. I let him win the argument. He looks handsome when he smirks.
He held my face last night. The meeting ended and everyone left. I was going to leave too, but he held me back and placed his palm on my cheek. He just stared at me like he was about to say something. Then he let go and left. My heart was beating so fast. I’m sure he could feel it through my skin. I wonder what he wanted to say.
He stopped at one.
I went to a party last night. Du Feld's. I didn't want to go but I went anyway because he was going and I told myself it's just work.
I saw him from across the room. He was on one of the sofas in the back and there was a beautiful woman on his lap. She was feeding him wine and laughing at something he said and he was smiling with his hand around her waist.
I left before he saw me.
I'm not beautiful. I've never been beautiful. I have ugly scars all over my body. I've always known that I am not the kind of person people look at, unless it's to stare.
I stood in the corridor outside that room and I felt like such a fool. He is never going to look at me like that.
I am such a fool for thinking that one day he might.
Doflamingo’s eyes moved over the paper again.
He had never touched another person the way he touched Rosinante.
Never.
What Rosinante had seen that night at Du Feld's was a performance. He had seen Rosinante across the room that night. He hadn't known Rosinante was watching from the corridor in a way that meant something entirely different.
He thought about the countless parties they had attended together over the years. The women who had thrown themselves at him, constantly, at every single one.
He thought about Rosinante always leaving early.
He had assumed Rosinante just didn't enjoy parties.
He picked up the next letter.
Last night he touched me. I wasn't expecting it. I've never expected anything from him. But he was drunk and he came in and he kept mumbling my name and I couldn't stop him.
Or maybe I just didn't want to.
Maybe I'm selfish and I just wanted to take what he was offering and I didn't care about the reason because he was saying my name. My name. Not anyone else's.
It was my name on his lips and my body underneath his and I don't regret it. I woke up and he was gone and it hurt but I still don't regret it.
Doflamingo stopped. He remembered this.
He had commissioned Rosinante an outfit for that party. Tight, with a low cut in the front, simply because he had wanted to see Rosinante in it.
He had been distracted the entire evening.
He remembered deciding somewhere around the third drink that he was going to act on his desires.
He remembered drinking more to make the decision easier, and by the time he was ready, Rosinante had already left.
He had gone to Rosinante's room anyway.
He set the letter down. He couldn't continue with the squeezing sensation in his chest that made it hard to breathe.
He pushed the pile aside and reached for the last ones.
All addressed to the baby.
My love,
I felt you move today. You have been in me for twenty-four weeks and you are already so strong. You should be. Dr. Tegata has been making me eat things I really, really hate, but I do it because he says it's good for you, and your father is always supervising me during eating hours so I can't not eat it anyway.
The past few weeks have been different. Your father comes in now to touch me, not in that way, but to hold you through my belly. To feel your movements. He looks at me differently as well, or maybe I'm just imagining things. It doesn't matter.
I caught your father today in his reading room. He has been going there more frequently. He was holding up documents, but there was something hidden behind them. I saw the diagrams in the reflection of the window. He was hiding a pregnancy book. He didn't know I saw.
I'm glad he already loves you. Or at least, he's trying to.
My love,
Your father had a meeting today. At least, that's what he said it was. When he came back, I saw blood on his coat sleeve. I didn't ask.
I worry for you all the time. I got myself pregnant by one of the most dangerous men in the world, and now you will be his child. And at the same time, the child of the man who has been betraying him.
He still doesn't know.
I'm thirty weeks and I don't know how to tell him. I don't know if I can.
I hope your heart is full of love and light despite the world you're being born into. I hope none of the darkness touches you. I'm sorry for falling in love with your father.
I'm so sorry.
My love,
Thirty-two weeks now. You'll be here soon. I can't wait to meet you. Your father won't admit it, but he might be more excited than I am. He has started doing things to the room. Moving furniture. Checking corners. He even got the servants to start padding up sharp surfaces.
I told him you won't be walking anytime soon, and he told me that's for regular babies. You're a Donquixote baby. You'll figure it out in a week.
He said it completely seriously. That's the thing about your father. He's not trying to be funny. He just thinks the rules don't apply to his own child. I didn't want to argue with him, so I didn't.
You'll understand when you meet him. I hope you love him as much as I do.
My love,
Thirty-seven weeks today. Too long and not long enough at the same time.
Dr. Tegata says you're healthy and strong, and I can feel it. Your kicks have been bruising me from the inside, and I think that's your father's fault, honestly. You have his strength already.
I've been thinking about what you'll look like. Whether you'll have my eyes or his. I hope you have his. They're one of my favourite things about him, even though he hides them behind those glasses. I hope you don't get my clumsiness. One of us walking into things is already more than enough.
You don't have a name yet. I wonder if you'll be a boy or a girl. Either way, we'll love you. I can't wait to name you together with your father. See you in two weeks.
And then the most recent one.
My love,
I still don't know your name yet. I'm sorry for that too. There are so many things I'm sorry for, and that is one of them. You came into this world two weeks ago and you still don't have a name yet because the person I want to name you with isn't here, and I can't do it without him.
I want to tell you who I am, in case no one does.
My name is Donquixote Rosinante. I am your father. I am prouder of that than I have ever been of anything in my life.
I'm sorry for giving you a difficult and cruel father who has done things I cannot excuse. It doesn't matter, because I know he will protect you. Whatever happens, whatever he decides to do with me, I know he will protect you no matter what. You are his, and he knows it, and that means you will be safe.
I want you to be kind despite the world you're being born into. I know this palace and these people and what they will ask of you just by existing inside these walls. Be kind anyway. Don't let this place take that from you.
I'm sorry you didn't get to know me. You are a result of me being in love with your father. I love him so much, and I'm so sorry for that. I know that might not make sense to you now. It might never make sense.
I need you to know that you were very much loved and wanted, and I hope by the time you're old enough to read this letter, if your father doesn't burn it, that you are still loved and wanted.
Your father,
Donquixote Rosinante
He sat for a long time.
When he read the letters addressed to the baby, he had held Rosalia tighter without deciding to. She had fallen asleep against his chest at some point, her fist still loosely wrapped around one of his feathers.
He set the last letter down.
He reached up and pressed his fingers hard against the bridge of his nose, squeezing his eyes shut.
Forcing everything back down. The way he always had.
He sat until he was certain there was no lingering emotion on his face.
Then he stood up and placed Rosalia back in the cot.
He took out the gun and stared at it.
His fingertips trailed along the metal, tracing its outline.