"Ace, I love you, but enough is enough. It's time to get up, alright?"

Ace groaned loudly against my chest, nuzzling in closer with absolutely no sign of letting me go any time soon.
"Nooooo...Twenty four more hours..." He complained, nose tickling my skin. My lips stretched to form an adoring smile, brushing his hair out of his face so I could see him properly.

I couldn't believe that we were married. Honestly, I had expected to feel conflicted once the deed was done, but all that I felt was pure joy. No second guessing, no regret. I loved him, and marrying him had been no mistake.

"One, two, three..." Quietly, I began to count, my fingers tracing his bare shoulder.
"What'cha doin', wifey..?" Ace hummed in question, sitting himself up a little to investigate.
"Counting your freckles. It might take me a while, Pepper." I chuckled in return, beaming when he pushed me back down into the pillow.

"We've got the rest of our lives for that. How about we kick off the start of our honeymoon with a little romp instead?~" The ravonet purred, beginning to gift my face with an abundance of kisses. Not fighting him away, I let him spoil me with his affection, my uncovered body warm and reactive against his.

"We've got the rest of our lives for that, too, you horn-dog." I snickered, stretching and reaching to loop my arms around his neck. He was giving me that look again. The one that made me feel like the most important person in the world. His world. I hoped that my look was giving him that same impression.

"You're beautiful, you know that? Absolutely, one-hundred and fifty bazillion percent, unarguably, flawlessly beautiful. How did I ever get so lucky?" He sighed wistfully, and I tapped the tip of his nose with my own, smirking.
"I felt bad for you, so I threw you a bone." I teased, realising all too late that it would only push him into one of his more devilish moods.

"Oh, really now?" With no warning, Ace began to assault my ribs with his fingers, tickling me relentlessly and giving me no room to flee. "You telling me the truth, Pancake?"

Cackling like a madwoman, I rolled and squirmed, a thigh either side of his hips as he attacked me without falter.
"M..Mercy! Uncle! Parley! Quit it, Ace..!" I squawked, knowing full well and good that this was one of his cheeky tricks to get me grinding up against him. I didn't at all mind it, though. "Ace, I swear to-"

We both nearly leapt out of our skins when the door slammed open, and, before we even bothered to look at who had intruded, Ace laid himself down over the top of me to shield my naked form.

Standing in the doorway, face pale and distraught, was Marco. He was quite obviously in shock, but after I took a moment to study him, my stomach dropped when I realised it wasn't due to the position he had found us in.

His eyes were wide and bloodshot, and there were fresh, glistening tracks down his cheeks. Breathless, a state I had never seen him in before, and panicked.

"M..Marco..? Hey, are you okay?" Sitting up, I snatched the sheet from the bottom of the bed and pulled it around myself before standing up and approaching him. Ace remained kneeling on the bed, stark naked and concerned.

The moment I got close enough, Marco took me by the shoulders, his grip tense and involuntarily strong. He looked as though he was trying to form a string of intelligible words, but it was coming as a great difficulty.

Something bad has happened...

"Marco, hey, honey, you're okay. Try to breathe." I tried to soothe him as best I could, and Ace quickly joined my side.
"What happened? You're freaking us out, man..." Marco's eyes flitted from mine to Ace's repeatedly before he seemed to blink out of his catatonic state, swallowing dry before his mouth managed to spit the words he needed to say like arrows.

"Th..Thatch...S..Someone killed Thatch..."

The air was sucked out of the room, and it suddenly felt like I couldn't breathe. Had I heard him correctly? No, what was I thinking? Of course I had. There would be no other reason Marco would be in such a state.

Thatch..? But...No...

Ace was hurriedly moving around the room in an instant, boots being pulled on, hat thrown atop his head. Grabbing a bundle of clothes from the dresser, he pushed them into my chest, at the same time knocking me back from Marco's grip.
"Get dressed." He ordered, and I snapped myself out of it to obey. Normally, I would have berated him for commanding me like one of his men, but this was different. If he hadn't told me to do something, I wouldn't have even been able to blink.

Uncaring that Marco was present, I allowed the sheet to drop from my body and threw on whatever clothes Ace had handed to me. As I did so, Ace tried to get Marco to explain more.
"W..We found him about ten minutes ago..." The blond explained, having finally found his voice again. "He..he bled out...Somebody stabbed him..."

When could this have happened?! He was fine last night..!

Once I was dressed and ready, the three of us madly dashed to where Marco lead us, which ended up being the galley. The warning had done nothing to prepare me for what I saw, there on the wooden floor.

Thatch's skin was almost blue, cold and lifeless, face down in a coagulated puddle of his own blood. The shredded fibres of his shirt curved in towards the bloody, gaping hole in his back, looking more like teeth than cotton threads, and I couldn't hold my tears at bay any longer.

Ace was standing ahead of me, taking in the scene in complete silence, but Marco stood by my side, his hand finding mine to offer wordless comfort. He needed it as much as I did.
"Does Pops know..?" Ace asked flatly, contradicting the way the muscles in his back flexed and rolled with his building fury.

"Yeah...He's on the deck, trying to figure this out with the others." One of Thatch's kitchen hands murmured, kneeling down by the chef's body with his hat held to his chest. Spinning on his heel, stiff in every way, Ace started towards the stairs, arm moving out to usher both Marco and myself along with him.

Without question, we complied. Of course we did. Even if he hadn't instructed us, we would have gone with him anyway. It wasn't just our duty to Whitebeard, but our duty to our lost brother.

Before we even got close, I could see the pain in Whitebeard's elderly features. I couldn't imagine losing a son, of blood or otherwise, but I knew that comforting the man in this moment wouldn't do anyone any good. I did, however, start thinking I may have a way to help once I took a second to look around.

"Where's Teach..?" I asked, loud enough for the chorus of panicked voices to stop. I couldn't see him, and that alone causes my guts to twist.
"I...haven't seen him since last night..." Jozu murmured sceptically, looking around just as I was.
"Is he still asleep? Somebody go wake him up, dammit!" Izou barked, but wad quickly tapped by Haruta, who stood by his side.
"No, I went to get him, but he wasn't there so I assumed he already got up."

Fuck.

Covering my mouth with my hand, I felt everyone's eyes stick to me like glue as I began to pace, the only thing stopping me being Ace as he held his arm out to block my way.
"(Y/N), do you have any information? What does Teach have to do with this?"

For a moment, I thought that I could hear suspicion in Whitebeard's tone when he spoke to me. I wouldn't have blamed him, considering I was the newest member, essentially a stranger, but the moment I lifted my gaze to meet his eyes, all I saw was desperation. An urgency for answers.

"L..last night...I was going to go down to the kitchen to get Thatch to come back to the party..." I started, feeling more and more sick as my theory began to seem more like fact. "...but Teach was coming back up from there...a..and he said that Thatch was busy, and he'd be up later. Then...he left..."

He wouldn't...He couldn't have...

Clenching his fists upon the arms of his grand chair, Whitebeard took a deep breath to compose himself before looking out towards his men. His sons.
"Did anybody see Thatch after he returned to the galley last night?!" He asked, but everybody shook their heads, confident that they in fact hadn't.

"We'll scour the ship for any sign of him! We'll be back!" Several men rushed off to hunt for the missing crew member, and I began to pace again. Why hadn't I gone down to check on him like I had intended? If I was correct, and Teach had indeed murdered Thatch, then we could have caught him. Why had I been so easily distracted?

I was pulled into a slender pair of arms, and a hand stroked down my loose, messy hair.
"Calm yourself." Izou murmured, though his tone was taut. "We're all grieving, but we need to keep our heads, okay?"

My nodding was jarred, and I huddled against the division commander, my eyes moving to watch my husband. I wanted to be next to him, but something was telling me that he needed his space. He looked as though he would burst into flames at any moment, and I didn't want to push him closer to that.

It was a tense wait, but finally the men who had rushed off to hunt for the potential traitor returned, looking rattled.
"Pops...his stuff is gone. Thatch's devil fruit, too. We think-"

"Teach took Thatch's life to get his hands on it..." Whitebeard finished the sentence grimly, raking a hand down his face and over his moustache. "I don't want to believe it, but there's no way an enemy from outside our ranks could have infiltrated the ship..."

So, my initial feelings about Teach were right...Thatch, I'm so sorry...

".........pay..." I didn't quite catch what Ace muttered under his breath, and everyone on deck turned to face him, obviously not having heard it properly either. "I said I'll track him down and make him pay..!"

Marco tried to place a grounding hand on his friend's shoulder, but it was shaken off the moment he made contact. Ace was seething with rage, and I couldn't blame him. I was sure that once my initial shock of the situation passed I'd be in the same boat.

"Ace, son, keep your temper in check. We will avenge Thatch, but rushing in without thinking isn't the right course of actio-"
"No! Pops, as the Second Division Commander, Teach was my responsibility! This falls on my shoulders, and I'll be damned if I don't do something about it!"

Ace...

It shouldn't have come as any surprise when Ace spun around and started sprinting towards the tail end of the Moby Dick, where The Striker was being towed along behind, and before my mind could catch up with my body, I was rushing after him.

Ace disappeared over the edge of the ship, but just before I could follow, I felt a hand wrap around my wrist, stopping me in my tracks.
"(Y/N)!" Marco's tone buzzed with desperation, and I turned to meet his distress. "I know we can't stop Ace, but don't be an idiot! This falls on all of us! Don't go running after him trying to be a hero! If Teach has managed to do this, we don't know what else he's capable of!"

Marco was right. Of course he was. It wasn't often that he was wrong, anyway. Still, I turned to look back at the edge of the ship, every cell in my body screaming yes and no.

But...

"(Y/N)..!" Marco pleaded with me again, and I turned to give him a sad smile, watching his face fall in defeat. He knew.
"I'm going with him. Till death do us part, right?" I set off into a run again, and my hand fell through Marco's. One, two, three steps, and without even bothering to check if he was still there, I jumped. "Ace..!"

Closing my eyes, I waited to either hit the water or something harder, but my body relaxed the moment I felt those warm, familiar arms catch me without hesitation. Blinking, I looked up to find Ace staring at me with a torn expression.

"Are you sure you want to help me..?" He asked, searching my eyes for any hint of uncertainty. Already feeling the heat of his flames beneath me on The Striker, I wriggled and climbed around his body to cling to his back, like I had done several times before.

"I'm your wife, you idiot. Where you go, I go...and besides...Thatch was...is...my family too..." I replied, confirming that I wasn't about to change my mind. Nodding once, Ace turned his direction to the vast, open sea ahead, and set off.

We're coming for you, Teach...and when we find you, you're going to rue the day you betrayed the Whitebeard Pirates...

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***Oh no. Our Thatch. He's broken.

Sorry for not updating for ages, my dudes. I was stuck on this chapter, plus work, and child, and getting distracted by my other One Piece story for Kid, and for the Vinsmoke brothers.

Hopefully this'll get me back into the swing with this one, though!

Next Time: A Little Birdy Told Me***