Chapter Text
The first thing Law was aware of after the fight at Winner Island was pain.
This was nothing new for him, of course. He had lived all his life in various amounts and flavors of pain. There was the sharp stab of having his heart squeezed by Vergo, the burning agony of having his arm ripped off, the terrible pervasive ache of amber lead syndrome. Law and pain were constant companions. This one was a dull throbbing in his entire body, the feeling of having been put through a wringer, the details of which he couldn’t completely recall.
He managed to pry his eyes open, and looked up at a dull wooden ceiling. Not a hospital. Not his room on the Polar Tang. His surroundings were wholly unfamiliar.
His body felt weak. He tried to sit up and couldn’t, and then a voice said, “Ah, Captain! You’re awake!”
Bepo’s voice, of course. Law struggled to move, and memories began to filter back in. He remembered the jolt of shock and dismay at seeing Blackbeard’s Jolly Roger. The way he had gone straight for his strongest attacks because he knew nothing else would have an impact. The realization that Blackbeard’s crew had gathered a collection of monstrously powerful abilities. The sensation for one brief second that maybe it was a fight he could win - and then the void opening in Blackbeard’s hand.
Law had been close to death all his life. He hadn’t feared it in a long time. But there was something uniquely horrifying about Blackbeard’s power. It was a feeling not of dying, but of being unmade.
Thinking about that for more than three seconds would send him spiraling somewhere close to madness, so Law grasped for something else. “The crew - ” he managed hoarsely.
“I’m sure they’re fine, Captain. You need to rest - ”
“How long - ” Law managed, trying to sort his thoughts out, or more accurately, turn his raw emotions into something like thoughts.
“You’ve been unconscious for three days,” Bepo said, and his paw landed on Law’s forehead. “Your fever is still very high! Don’t try to move yet. And don’t worry! I’ve been following all the instructions in your book.”
Law squeezed his eyes shut, afraid that Bepo would read too much in them. He was breathing too fast, he realized. His chest was heaving up and down, and it hurt. He couldn’t stop the panic that was welling up from his gut. “Have to - go find them - ”
“You have to do no such thing!” Bepo scolded him as if he were still a child. “Our crew is strong, Captain! They all have a piece of your vivre card. They’ll come find us.”
Law swallowed hard, forcing the fear back as far as he could. Focus, he told himself. Focus on the situation at hand. Then he wouldn’t have to think about how he had failed his crew, the people who depended on him to keep them safe. “How bad are my injuries?”
“They’re pretty bad,” Bepo said. “A lot of broken bones. Your internal organs were mostly okay, though. The doctors here have been helping me treat you.”
“Where are we?”
“We’re on Zou,” Bepo said.
“Zou?” Law echoed stupidly.
“It wasn’t that far from where we were - we saw Zuneisha when we were at Wano, remember? That was just a few weeks ago. I guessed that it would probably still be close by. I needed to bring you somewhere that I knew you’d be safe while you recovered.”
Zou was a good choice, Law thought, relieved despite himself. Zou was as safe as anywhere could be right now. Some of the tension left his body, and a wave of exhaustion followed in its wake. He suddenly had difficulty keeping his eyes open. “The crew,” he mumbled. He had failed them. He had to go find them.
“They’ll find us, Captain.”
Law passed out. He woke again sometime later, with no idea how much time had gone by. Bepo gave him tea, and Miyagi came and checked on him and said he should stay still. They brought him some rice porridge, but he didn’t have much appetite. “My injuries weren’t bad enough to cause this much weakness,” he said. “What are you giving me?”
Miyagi adjusted his glasses and said, “Bepo told us you were very particular about your medication, and that you have an unusual constitution due to your history . . . so we’ve followed your instructions very precisely, Captain Law.”
Law frowned. A few broken bones shouldn’t leave him so weak and feverish. Even at the time, he had thought he shouldn’t have been so weak. He should have been able to get up and keep fighting, but he couldn’t. He swallowed down another wave of fear. “Blackbeard’s power.”
“We think that’s why, yes,” Miyagi said. “It’s as if he just pulled a lot of your strength right out of your body. But you should recover with time, Law. Just don’t try to move around.”
“Okay,” Law said, because what else could he say to that? He certainly wasn’t about to tell Miyagi that the mere thought of Blackbeard having done this to him was bringing him to the edge of hysterics.
Jean Bart was the first to make it to Zou, which was no real surprise. He was the strongest, and had been a captain in his own right before the Celestial Dragons had enslaved him. Law greeted him with relief, which Jean Bart returned with concern over Law’s terrible condition.
“We think Blackbeard did - something to him,” Bepo said. “That - power of his swallowed him - ”
Law felt panic welling up again. He ruthlessly forced it back down. “Miyagi says I’ll make a full recovery. It’s just going to take time.”
“You’re trusting another doctor?” Jean Bart asked, and it was clearly meant to be a joke, a gentle tease, but Law couldn’t help but feel more despair that yes, he was trusting another doctor, because he was too weak to even think about using his abilities right now. He had to trust Miyagi because he had no other choice. Ever since he had become even mildly proficient with the Op-Op fruit, he had used it to routinely scan his body for problems. It was second nature to him by now; he could always feel every organ, every bone, and monitor their condition in real time. That was gone now, and he felt like he had been blinded.
But it would return. Miyagi wasn’t a brilliant doctor but he was an adequate one. Law simply needed to rest. No matter how much he ached to be able to get out of bed and search for his crew, his body simply wouldn’t support that demand right now. All he could do was wait.
His crew arrived on Zou in twos and threes. Every day, a few more arrived, and Law could breathe a little more easily. Shachi and Penguin were the last, apologizing profusely because they’d nearly gotten caught stealing a boat and had had to take a long route to ditch the Marines on their trail.
“We’re all together again!” Bepo cheered, and Law felt a terrible tightness in his throat and stinging in his eyes. Everyone was happy, clapping and laughing, and he wanted to be happy with them, but the horror of having nearly lost them all was overwhelming him.
He was their captain. He had to be strong. He had failed them, but he couldn’t fail them again by being too paralyzed with fear to celebrate their safe reunion. But it seemed like the more he tried to force the panic down, the more it bubbled back up.
Fortunately for him, Penguin chose just that moment to wail, “Captaiiiiiinnnnn,” and he and Shachi both threw themselves at Law. “We’re so glad you’re okay,” Penguin blubbered, and Shachi echoed him. Bepo started howling, nearly crushing the three of them to his chest. Even the stoic Jean Bart shed a few tears. Law, despite all his efforts to the contrary, found himself clinging to Bepo and muffling his sobs in Bepo’s thick fur.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered hoarsely. “I couldn’t protect you.”
He hoped that nobody would hear him, but Bepo had annoyingly good hearing, and bopped Law’s head with his paw. “You did protect them, Captain. They’re here, aren’t they? We all survived.”
Law simply shook his head, because yes, they had all survived, but that seemed to have very little to do with him. Bepo had saved him, and the Polar Tang was on the bottom of the ocean, and every time he thought about what had happened, he felt more tears welling up in his eyes. He hated himself for his weakness.
He had never been so afraid in his life. He had come close to death, certainly, many times. But over the years, he had gotten stronger. They had been able to win most fights, and avoid or retreat from those they couldn’t. When he had lost to Doflamingo, the fear had been outweighed by the grief, by the bitter despair that he hadn’t been able to carry out Cora-san’s final wishes. Before Luffy had intervened to stop Doflamingo from crushing Law’s head with his foot, Law hadn’t been able to feel fear at all. And fighting Big Mom - well, that had been stupid, he could see that now, but at least then he hadn’t been so alone. He had never gotten to the point where he had thought that he wouldn’t be able to retreat while his enemy still stood.
Lying on the grass at Winner Island, struggling to move but unable to force his body to obey while Blackbeard advanced on him, that had been fear in its truest form. And Law didn’t know how he would move on now that he had felt that.
Any second now, one of his crew would ask, “What now?” and Law had no idea how to answer that question. For so long, defeating Doflamingo had been his only goal. To do so, he had formed an alliance with Luffy under the pretense of taking down Kaido, so he had moved onto that. But what now? Now that he had done that, what should he do? How could he tell his crew that what he really wanted right now was to bury his head in the sand and pretend none of this was happening?
Instead, Shachi finally said, “We missed a lot while we were scattered. Some crazy things happened! Did you hear Vegapunk’s broadcast?”
Bepo had; there were only a few den-den mushis on Zou but Carrot had called everyone together when it started. Law hadn’t, as he’d still been flat on his back at the time. The others gave him the highlights. Law was completely unsurprised to hear that Luffy had left Wano and immediately embroiled himself in trouble of the highest order. He also wasn’t particularly surprised to hear that the world government had annihilated an entire kingdom. He was surprised by what had happened at Reverie. One of the crew had brought the newspaper, and Law studied the picture of Sabo standing over Cobra’s body, frowning. He didn’t know much about Cobra, but it seemed unlike the Revolutionary Army to assassinate someone at Reverie, and even more unlike Sabo.
Law stared at the paper. He didn’t want to be involved in any of this. He wanted to go home and hide underneath his bed. But he didn’t have a home. The Polar Tang had been his home, and it was gone forever.
“Captain, you look tired,” Jean Bart said. “Let’s save the party for once you’re back on your feet.”
“He’s right,” Bepo said immediately. “You should get some rest.”
All Law had been doing lately was resting. But he couldn’t bring himself to argue, because he was exhausted, and the idea of facing the future was daunting. “All right,” he said, lying back against the pillows. He closed his eyes and waited for the fear to subside.
~ ~ ~ ~
“You have to tell - Luffy-kun - ”
Sabo woke up with a jolt, his heart racing. His entire body prickled with cold sweat. He clenched his fists down in the sheets, fighting for control of his breathing, which was coming light and rapid.
Every night since Reverie, he had woken with the same dreams. Dreams of darkness incarnate, of evil that filled a room, of a monster chasing him down. Sometimes he dreamed of Lulusia, too, of the roiling skies and crimson light, the wails and screams of the Lulusian citizens whose ship he had been on.
Sabo had spent his whole life fighting monsters. But never one like this. The power that had rolled into the room with Imu seemed like a force of nature, an onslaught of darkness akin to a tsunami. How could they fight that?
He loved the Revolutionary Army. He loved what they stood for and what they did. They’d had their struggles over the years, usually financial ones. He trusted Dragon to lead them out on the other side. He hated the doubt that now crept into his system, the way he couldn’t close his eyes without thinking of Cobra’s rattling last breath.
It wasn’t the first time he had seen someone die, and he was sure it wouldn’t be the last. But it was the first time he had encountered an enemy that simply seemed - inevitable.
He had learned over the past few weeks that staying in bed wasn’t going to help. It would take hours to fall back to sleep if he didn’t get up and find some way to make himself useful. There was always something to do.
Tell Luffy, Cobra had said. But when Sabo thought of that darkness being anywhere near his sunny little brother, his entire stomach clenched and he wanted to vomit.
“And what are you doing up at vis hour, Sabo-kun?” Ivankov asked, looming over him in a way that only Ivankov could.
“Ah - trouble sleeping,” Sabo said, with an automatic smile. “I thought I would find something to do for a while.”
“Mm hm,” Ivankov said. “And how is staring at vat page for several minutes working out vor you?”
Sabo sighed. He should have known better than to think his sudden habit of doing busywork in the wee hours of the night would go unnoticed. Maybe it would do him some good to talk about things. “Not well,” he admitted. “It’s hard to focus when all I can think about is Imu. Both when I’m awake and when I’m asleep.”
Ivankov nodded and sat down next to him. “Despair is one of our enemy’s most powerful weapons,” he said. “It’s always easy for us to look at their numbers, their strength, and think that our cause is hopeless. But you are still young, and full of fire. Is this the first time you’ve felt this?”
“Yeah,” Sabo said, pushing a hand through his hair. “That - thing - in the throne room - I’ve never been so frightened of anything in my whole life.”
Ivankov kicked his legs back and forth. Rather than addressing Sabo’s statement, he said, “Ve are in a stronger position than ever before. The attack on Mariejois was successful. We are blocking the ability of the world nobles to restock their food supplies. Revolutions all over the world are succeeding even when we aren’t able to directly aid them.”
“I know,” Sabo said.
“Vis is a time of danger,” Ivankov said. “One must always be cautious of taking a victory lap too early. When we start winning, the world government will come down on us even harder. Vat has always been the way of it.”
Sabo folded his arms over his stomach and said nothing, trying not to let his shuddering be too obvious.
“But,” Ivankov said, “vyou are overlooking the real victory in your experience in Mariejois.”
“Am I?” Sabo blinked at him. “And what is that?”
“The information you gathered. Imu’s existence. Cobra’s dying message. The Will of D.”
Sabo sighed. “It doesn’t seem like much. We don’t know what to do with any of that.”
“Vis is true - for now. And perhaps the most important piece of information of all . . . why is it that Imu killed Cobra?”
“Because of what he knew,” Sabo said. “We might not have all the pieces, but the Poneglyphs, Nefertari Lili, the Will of D . . . somehow this all comes together into a picture that Imu doesn’t want people to know.”
“Ah ha!” Ivankov leapt out of his chair, nearly making Sabo jump out of his skin. “And VHY does Imu wish that we do not know vis?”
“Because - ” Sabo blinked as he saw what Ivankov was getting at. “Because they’re afraid. They’re afraid of what we can do with that knowledge.”
“Exactly! Sabo-kun, my boy, you discovered the most important secret of all! That our enemy can feel fear! They are feeling it right now! Imu is afraid of us! Yeehaw!”
Sabo laughed despite himself, his nerves settling both from Ivankov’s behavior and from the realization that what he said was true. Was it possible that as he lay awake after his nightmares of Imu, that Imu was lying awake with nightmares of their own?
“Now,” Ivankov said, “get some sleep, Sabo-kun. All of vis can wait until morning.”
Sabo nodded and said, “Thanks, Iva-san.”
He went back to his bunk, and although he tossed and turned for a while, full of thoughts, he eventually drifted back off and slept soundly until morning. Then he was woken by Koala, calling out his name excitedly. “Sabo-kun! Come quick, there’s news!”
“News?” Sabo threw the blankets back and hastily pulled his boots on. He ran after Koala, calling out, “What’s going on?”
“We’re getting an encrypted call! Lindbergh said he’s never seen anything like it, he’s trying to get our den-den mushi to recognize and accept it - ”
Sabo had no idea what that might mean, but he followed Koala to the communications room, where Dragon and Ivankov were both leaning over the den-den mushi that Lindbergh was fiddling with. “Ah!” Lindbergh said, as its eyes opened. “There we go. What a signal!”
“Come in, come in, is this Dragon-san?” a voice said, feminine and perky and completely unfamiliar.
“Identify yourself,” Dragon said.
“Ah, it’s Vegapunk!” the voice continued, and Dragon’s scowl intensified as everyone else blinked in confusion, including Sabo. “Sorry about the fuss! I didn’t have an encrypted den-den mushi so I had to make one of my own. I wasn’t sure if you’d be able to get the signal.”
“Vegapunk is dead,” Dragon said, glaring at the suspicious den-den mushi.
“One of me is, sure! Come on, Dragon-san, you didn’t really think we didn’t have a backup plan, right? It’s all safe in Punk Records. This is Lillith! I’m one of Vegapunk’s satellites. Didn’t he ever tell you about us?”
Sabo had never heard anything about this, but Dragon’s shoulders relaxed slightly, releasing some of the tension, so apparently he had. “You’re right; I should have known better than to think you didn’t have some way of escaping death,” he said, in a tone which Sabo thought might have been slightly joking. It was hard to tell with Dragon. “Where are you, doctor? Do you need assistance?”
“I’m on my way to Elbaf! I’m going to rebuild my lab there. I don’t need anything, but I wanted to let you know that there’s someone very important with me! Oh, drat it all - this silly snail can send video, I know it can - ”
The screen suddenly leapt to life as the den-den mushi receiving the signal began to broadcast video. Sabo’s breath caught in his throat as he saw the ship that Dr. Vegapunk was on - and more importantly, the man on that ship. An enormous man, looking incredibly worse for the wear but still intact, with a pink-haired girl in his lap. “Kuma-san!” he gasped, along with several others in the room.
“Kuma-chan!” Ivankov echoed him. “Vegapunk, how is he?”
The picture shorted out, and Lillith cursed but didn’t make an attempt to bring it back. “Well, he’s vertical, which is a miracle all things considered! I’m not sure what happened. Saturn tried to trigger his self-destruct mechanism and it seemed to have wiped out everything except his most basic instinct - to protect Bonney-chan.”
Sabo felt tears sting at his eyes. Of course that was what would have remained. That explained why Kuma had gone back to Mariejois - he had been looking for her.
“So he’s nonverbal right now, but seems pretty content to sit there with Bonney,” Lillith continued. “Once I get my lab up and running, I’ll see what I can do about reversing some of what was done to him. I thought you would want to know!”
“Yes,” Dragon said, his voice strained. “Thank you, Dr. Vegapunk. I appreciate the update.”
“This dratted snail is trying to wander off again. Don’t worry about us, Dragon-san, I’ll - ”
The signal cut out, but Sabo didn’t care. There was a brief moment of silence before an enormous cheer swept through the room. Sabo jumped up and down with Koala, both of them near tears with relief and joy.
“YEEHAW!” Ivankov screamed, and Sabo laughed so hard that he doubled over. “Let’s go show the world government what ve can do!”
~ ~ ~ ~
Law’s strength slowly returned to him, and a few days after his crew was reunited, he was finally able to get out of bed. Miyagi and Bepo both fretted after him, but he knew his strength would need to be built back up with slow, repeated exercise. Staying in bed would only prolong his recovery process. He could finally feel his abilities returning as well, although he could only produce a room about the size of his own body. That, too, would need to be built back up gradually.
The crew seemed content to stay on Zou for the time being, and Law had to admit that he had no real interest in going anywhere. Zou felt safe. The idea of leaving was terrifying. There was nowhere they could go, and they didn’t even have a ship. He disliked sailing on the surface; after years in the Polar Tang, it felt exposed and vulnerable.
Zou felt safe. But was it safe? Jack had all but razed it to the ground. Lulusia had been wiped out with an ancient weapon that came down from the sky. If that could be done to an island, it could be done to Zou.
“Here’s the paper!” Bepo said, plopping it in Law’s lap. Law had insisted on keeping up on the world events around them, since so much was going on. He looked at the headline, that Luffy had murdered Vegapunk, and scoffed.
“Morgans is at it again,” he said, leafing through for more information. He frowned and said, “There’s a missing page here.”
“Oh?” Bepo feigned surprise. “I guess it must have fallen out on the way.”
“Bepo,” Law said, annoyed.
“Captain,” Bepo replied.
“What’s on the missing page?”
Bepo squirmed. “Well . . .”
Law held out a hand. Bepo huffed and then handed it over. Law glanced down and saw exactly the headline he had expected to see: ‘Heart Pirates Defeated by Blackbeard’. “Why are you hiding this from me like I didn’t know what had happened?”
“I thought it might hurt your feelings,” Bepo said.
Law didn’t dignify that with a reply, skimming through the article. It was brief, and only said what he had expected - that Blackbeard had defeated the Heart Pirates and destroyed their ship, and that their great captain Trafalgar Law was missing but presumed alive. Law supposed that was because Blackbeard wasn’t trying to sell the Op-Op fruit on the black market. “Why would this hurt my feelings? It’s only the truth.”
Tactfully, Bepo said, “You’ve seemed a little upset about it.”
“Well, I’m sure most people are throwing a party after getting their ass handed to them the way I did,” Law snapped back. “That doesn’t mean I’m going to faint if I read a news article about it.”
“So everything’s fine and we don’t need to worry!” Bepo said, with suspicious cheer.
Ignoring the dangerous level of sarcasm, Law said, “Yes. Everything’s fine.”
“Great! Penguin and Shachi and I have been talking about what comes next. Carrot offered to loan us a ship so we can go back to Winner and salvage the Polar Tang.”
Law felt his entire chest and stomach lock up at the words ‘go back to Winner’. “What? No. Absolutely not.”
“It’ll be fine!” Bepo said. “Blackbeard is long gone. Didn’t you see in the paper? Garp went bonkers on Hachinosu. He and his proteges basically turned the place upside down and inside out. Blackbeard will have gone back there to sort it all out.”
That made perfect sense, and Law had seen the article about Hachinosu, and none of that mattered because how could they go back to Winner? He searched for a logical objection, since he wasn’t about to voice his emotional ones. “There’s no point. The Polar Tang was destroyed.”
“Well, thus the word ‘salvage’,” Bepo said. “It’s shallow there, and you know what great divers we are. Wolf gave us the original blueprints. As long as we can bring up at least eighty percent of it, we can repair it and put it back together. Don’t underestimate us, Captain!”
Law struggled with this for a few moments. It wasn’t like he had seen the wreckage himself. The Polar Tang could have been in two pieces or it could have been in a million. He wanted the ship back. It had been a gift. It had been his home for almost a decade. It felt wrong to leave it on the bottom of the ocean if there was any chance of salvaging it.
But even so, the idea of going back to Winner was terrifying. He was positive that if he laid his eyes on that island, he would pass out. And he sure as hell wasn’t about to admit that to Bepo. “We can get a new ship.”
Bepo sat down on the edge of Law’s bed. “To be honest, Shachi and Penguin are already hatching this whole scheme where half the crew will go back for the Polar Tang while the rest of us stay here with you. They’re hoping you won’t notice. But what’s actually going to happen is that you will notice, and then you’ll freak out even worse that they went back to Winner without you.”
“I am not freaking out!” Law protested.
“How would you describe it?”
“I’m giving orders as their captain,” Law said, scowling. “Nobody is going back to Winner Island.”
“Okay,” Bepo said, “but if you won’t let us do that, then we have to talk about what we are going to do next, and I don’t think you want to do that either.”
Law fought the urge to cringe. He should have known better than to think he had Bepo fooled. The rest of the crew might not realize, or they might also not want to bring it up. But Bepo, Shachi, and Penguin - they had known him since he was thirteen. They had known him before he was their captain, and it was just the four of them living with Wolf on Swallow Island.
No, he didn’t want to have that discussion. What was he going to say? He had brought his crew to the top of the world. Now it felt like they were going to fall all the way back down, because he wasn’t strong enough to protect them.
“We became pirates because we wanted to fight back against an unfair world,” Bepo said. “The crew who joined us along the way had the same reasons, and they joined us because they knew that. We’ve come a long way since then. But none of us ever joined the Heart Pirates because we wanted to be an Emperor, or find the One Piece. We wanted to see how high we could go. Maybe it’s not a bad thing to admit that this is it.”
Law felt his throat ache. He didn’t know why those words made his chest ache so badly that he wanted to cry. Desperate to stop the conversation, he said, “Fine, we can go try to salvage the Polar Tang. We’ll figure out where to go from there.”
“That’s the spirit, Captain!” Bepo said.
In response, Law growled, “Don’t push your luck.”
~ ~ ~ ~