Anneliese froze as the door slammed open. She had seen photos of the war, most of them framed through the lens of Marine propaganda. The news articles had spoken of the death and destruction Whitebeard and Luffy had caused in their attempts to rescue Ace, while the pictures showed the smoking remnants of Marineford and marines carrying people off in stretchers. They had also announced the deaths of Whitebeard and Ace, and the photos they used to sensationalize it had been like a knife to the heart of everyone on Dawn Island. Dadan had lost it on Garp when he showed up, voicing all of the anger and pain all of them had felt upon seeing the news.

Dadan’s words still echoed in her ears and, though Garp had taken it without a word of self-defense, it had still felt like too light a sentence for someone who had stood aside in the name of ‘justice’. No one in the village had been able to look him in the eye after that. The last Anneliese had heard from him had been his instructions on how to locate Luffy. How he knew that was a question that had stuck in her throat; she still had no desire to see to him even months later, let alone speak to him.

There had been only rumors about Luffy’s injuries in the whole ordeal, whispers that contradicted the announcements in the papers that he had suffered injuries so catastrophic the Marines were certain he was dead. Until Garp showed up to confirm the rumors were the truth, they had been forced to assume the worst. Hearing about it was nowhere near the same as seeing it— the moment she did, Anneliese came to understand how close she had come to losing him as well.

The seconds that followed Luffy laying eyes on her hung suspended between them— would he recognize her, or had it been too long? Had he cared enough to remember her in the first place?

His head cocked in that familiar way, like he was putting together the pieces of the puzzle. Luffy had always had an odd duality about him; one moment he could be bright and bubbly and a little air headed, and the next he was piercing someone straight through with a glance.

That was how Anneliese felt at the moment, as Luffy studied her. How did she looked to him, with her pallor and dullness, the tears starting to bead on her lashes? A loud ring started in her ears before she realized she had started holding her breath. The door slowly fell closed behind him, with no sign of anyone else.

The final resounding click broke the silence that had fallen, followed by Luffy’s simple, “Liese?”

Relief took all the strength out of her legs; if not for him, she would have hit the floor. As it was, his arms wound around her with a boisterous laugh, at odds with her own quiet sob. She found herself lifted off of her feet as he crowed, “It is you! What are you doing here? When did you get here?” He paused for just a moment, his head cocking again. The ringing and tears remained, though she had to smile when he continued, “How did you get here? How did you know I would be here?”

“Garp,” was her simple reply to most of it, raspy though it was. The last question was also a simple answer of, “Today. I don’t even know how long I’ve been traveling. It took so long I was afraid I would have missed you before you left again.”

“Nope,” he said with a pop. In spite of his chipper attitude, he was still studying her in a way that made her feel vulnerable. “You’re just in time. I only got here earlier too. I’ve been looking for my crew but they must not be here yet. I hope they didn’t forget. Anyway, what are you doing here?”

She rolled her eyes, knocking a few tears loose. “I’m here to see you, obviously. I— We saw the news, and I— wanted to come see you at least once before you left for the New World.”

The cheerfulness snuffed out of his eyes; at his side, his hand curled into a fist. The other arm was still wrapped around her; it tightened enough to make her ribs ache before he said, “I am glad you came, Liese. I kept thinking about you, after it happened. I didn’t think you’d come all the way here for me, though.”

“I think you’re the only person I would,” she said, reaching for his hand. He glanced down; his head cocked again as their fingers laced. “I was a little afraid you would’ve forgotten me.”

“Of course not. It hasn’t been that long.”

“Well you’ve gotten up to so much since you left. We’ve all been keeping up with it. The poor gulls were always mobbed, before you disappeared. Where even—?”

Anneliese was cut off by Shakky, who said, “There’s a room upstairs, if you’d rather talk somewhere private. Ray and I were going to step out anyway, to give you some.”

Luffy and Anneliese were shuffled to the side, and then left standing alone in the middle of the bar. An unsubtle tug at her hand led the way upstairs, as though Luffy already knew where Shakky meant.

“We have to lay low until the rest of the crew gets here,” he explained after the door had closed.

Anneliese raised a brow. ‘Luffy’ and ‘lay low’ had never been in the same sentence together without some form of the word ‘cannot’ between them. The number of times it had gotten not just him, but Anneliese herself and Ace into trouble were untold.

Still, she recognized that there was something different about Luffy, a byproduct of the war, to be sure. There was more there, even beyond that, though. Luffy had always been reckless and impulsive, without restraint or any real thought to how it impacted anyone around him. While others had considered it stupidity, Anneliese could see the truth behind it: he knew what he wanted, and there was nothing that would stop him from getting it. Even to his own detriment, he pursued it and somehow, by some miracle, always came out better for it. Oftentimes, those who seemed to suffer most for it came out better on the other side.

It had been years since Anneliese last saw Luffy, but even she knew this new, odd— something that was about him was borne from Ace’s death and the impact of his own near death. Maybe he had just realized he was, in fact, not infallible. Impervious to plenty, sure, but how much of it had been survived through sheer stubbornness and luck?

Based on the dark, jagged scar on his chest—

“What were you doing these last two years?” she asked after they had settled on the bed. In addition to the scar and the odd— glimmer in his eye, he had toned up. Even his shoulders looked broader; he had always been confident, but he practically glowed with it now.

Luffy was leaned against the headboard, stretched out with his arms behind his head. He flashed a familiar, vibrant grin, answering, “Training with Rayleigh. He taught me how to use haki.”

Anneliese mouthed the unfamiliar word even as Luffy explained all about it with so much zeal she struggled to keep up. It reminded her of the way she used to just sit and nod along with him, taking in what she could when she could because he spoke too fast and there was nothing anyone could do to slow him down.

It startled her when, without warning, he asked, “Did the old man tell you what actually happened to Ace?”

When she looked up, she found Luffy with an unusual frown. Though she had expected the topic to come around, she had hoped for a little more time to work up to it. Her eyes dropped, and she considered the burn in her eyes, whether she was ready to confront any of it yet.

With such a pointed question, though, Anneliese shook her head. “I think he was shouldering the blame, giving everyone something tangible to be angry at. Dadan really let him have it, when he showed up. I don’t think I’ve ever seen her like that.”

Whatever Luffy thought of that, he kept it to himself. For whatever it mattered, Garp was his grandfather.

“It was Akainu,” he said with his usual tact. He never had seen the point in tiptoeing around anything. He touched the massive scar on his chest, the dark, jagged x-shape. “We got him out of the cuffs and off the platform, but Akainu caught up.” He continued to rub over the scar, his eyes distant. “He was going to kill me first, but Ace came between us. Akainu punched right through him, but it saved my life. That’s part of the reason I went to train.” His hand clenched into a fist, his knuckles white. “I wasn’t strong enough to save Ace, so how could I have saved anyone else? The New World is full of people much stronger than I was. I couldn’t have led my crew into that before we were ready. Now I am— we are.”

Anneliese studied him, the newfound resolve in the set of his jaw and the utter lack of pride in his statement. Quietly, she said, “I can see you are. Do you know how the Marines even got him?”

Luffy’s frown deepened. “A pirate named Blackbeard. He had killed another member of Whitebeard’s crew before he ran off. Ace was hunting him down. Rayleigh told me it was Blackbeard’s Devil Fruit that let him capture Ace.”

There was a brief pause, where Anneliese stared down not at the bed, but at Luffy’s hands. They— Ace and Luffy— had always been rough, always covered in cuts and scrapes and bruises. Some were stupid: up until the day they left, she teased them about the number of times they would trip over the same jutting root and go rolling down the mountain path. When the frustrated, flustered response had turned into a joke, Anneliese was unsure. One day, it just was.

Others had a true story behind it, like the one beneath Luffy’s eye. Garp might never have accepted that his grandson was intended to be a pirate from the moment he was born, but Anneliese had always known. Shanks may have been a bad influence on Luffy, but at least he was around to create any influence at all. If nothing else, Luffy had a far straighter sense of right and wrong than whatever warped conception had led Garp to join the Marines.

It struck Anneliese all at once that she would never receive a letter from Ace again. He had been the one to send them his first bounty poster (she and Luffy had sworn to him that they would wait for his, and refused to look at the one that came with the news). There had never been hope that Luffy would write— it was a miracle he could even read, she and Ace would often joke— but Ace had always been reliable. He had kept his promise never to forget where he came from, but it had never occurred to Anneliese or any of the others that one day, his light might be snuffed like a blown out candle.

A sob wrenched from her without warning, the tears welling up and spilling over as it all crashed over her. Ace was gone, and she had almost lost Luffy along with it. She had put it in the back of her mind just to make it through the long trip to get to him, but without anything else to anchor her, it came to the forefront again.

As Anneliese doubled over in some bid to ease the agony, she was drawn into Luffy’s arms. He had always been better with action than words; even he had been forced to acknowledge that at some point. His heartbeat was too fast in her ear where he tucked her beneath his chin, his breaths raspier than was normal. Her tears made her skin tacky; it peeled from his chest when she lifted her head to look up at him.

His eyes, usually so wide and bright and carefree, had darkened. The deep frown looked all wrong on a face that always wore a smile. His head turned just enough to be meaningful when she touched his jaw, but he continued to stare at her as she studied.

With a broken, raspy laugh that let loose too many more tears, she said, “You’ve changed so much, Luffy. I knew you had— of course you did, after what you went through, but I didn’t know how much. You’ve gotten so strong too. I guess you must have, if you took on Marineford.”

One hand came up to touch her cheek with a brief hesitation before it cupped properly. “We were warned that the Grand Line was different than the East Blue. They were right, and I didn’t take it seriously until last year. If I had, maybe I could’ve saved Ace.”

“Maybe,” Anneliese agreed. Luffy never had appreciated being coddled. “Then again maybe not. There’s no way to know now, but— I am glad you made it out. I can’t— tell you how scared I was when the news came—“

Each blink felt like sandpaper, knocking loose new tears. Luffy’s hand seemed so much rougher against her skin. Had it always been so much like sandpaper, or had it just been so long she forgot? An edge, just a flicker of curiosity lit up his eyes when she nosed against his palm.

She was surprised when the fingers of his other hand slid further back, until they had tangled in her hair. His head cocked, eyes dipping lower to her lips. Having grown up together, it had never crossed Anneliese’s mind that Luffy could be anything aside from friend. She had never stopped to consider whether he might want more. His single personality trait for their entire childhood had been ‘pirate’: playing pirate, begging Shanks to let him join their pirate crew. Pirate, pirate, pirate.

Point being, Anneliese froze when Luffy leaned in abruptly and kissed her parted lips. It was clumsy and chaste; obviously the first time he had ever tried. Upon pulling back, he wore a puzzled frown and asked, “Is that how it’s supposed to work?”

She was so shocked by the kiss, followed by such an innocent question, that she erupted into laughter. How the hell would she know? Not like she had a whole plethora of experience to draw from. Still, she replied, “No, I don’t think so. I was just— I didn’t think you—“

Blunt as a bull and half as delicate, he asked, “Why not? It’s supposed to be with someone you’re close with, right? Comfortable with? For me, that’s you.”

“I— Well—“

Bemused by the whole turn of events, she let Luffy push her back to lay on the bed. Even with her wrists pinned and his weight over her, she felt little need to fight against him. It was all very— nonthreatening; had she wanted to, he had left her the room to escape.

Luffy took it for the silent consent it was and leaned in again. This time, Anneliese met him in the tentative, testing kiss. Whatever else she expected, it was not the softness of his lips or the tentative flick of his tongue against the seam of her own. Nor did she expect him to release her wrists just to take hold of her hips instead, yet with each inch she gave, he took yet another in slow increments until her shirt threatened to push above her breasts.

“I’m supposed to ask if this is okay, I think,” he said with a little laugh. “So, is it?”

Though Anneliese scoffed, she pulled him down again in answer. His grin was broad against hers, until she asked, “What brought all this on? You never seemed interested in this— or me before.”

“I didn’t think much of it,” he agreed even as his hands dragged up her bare sides. “Until now— until Ace. I got to wondering what all I was missing out on and this seems like a pretty good place to start.”

He said it with a shrug, a boyish grin lighting up his eyes. Still, there was a difference in that familiar smile; one light had been replaced with another. The boy that had left Dawn Island with a massive dream and the will to do it was still there, but Ace’s death had changed caused a fundamental shift in Luffy’s perception of the world around him.

Then he pounced on her with a boisterous laugh, and Anneliese rolled her eyes, and suddenly they were back on the mountain. Luffy had just tackled her into the dirt in that too rough way, and Ace was calling him an idiot while he tried to pull Luffy off. When at last he let go, he and Ace would go tumbling into a ditch or a tree, and both would walk away with a fresh set of bumps, bruises, and scrapes.

They met in another kiss, more enthusiastic than the first. His hair was soft between her fingers, his shoulders broader than she remembered when they slipped down beneath the collar of his shirt and pushed.

Even as he shrugged out of it, he asked, “Have you ever—?”

Anneliese shook her head, her face warm as she took him in. Scars littered his arms, some old, some new— some were still healing into scars. Luffy stilled when she touched the largest of them, a shudder running through him as her fingers traced it, then trailed lower.

“I won’t lose anyone else,” he said, his expression dark. “Not you, not my crew, not anyone. I’m glad you came, Liese. You were what I thought of, when I was healing. It helped when I was training, thinking about what would’ve happened if you had been there, if it had been you instead.”

His nostrils flared before he kissed her again, still clumsy. Their teeth clicked, but her attention was instead on his hands as they traced the hem of her jeans. The button came undone, far more deft than the kiss, like he was afraid to hurt her.

His went next; she could feel him shuffling before a hard length pressed against her. A shock of pleasure zipped up her spine when he cupped one breast; her toes curled at the tentative squeeze, the light brush of his thumb over her peaked nipple. A quiet groan was her reward for the way she arched up into him, his hands sandpaper rough but gentle against her. It was instinct that drove her to lock her legs around his hips, likely the same one that led him to rock against her. The drag of his cock across the sensitive spot at the top of her mound made her gasp; she had worked herself to completion more than once in the night that way. Her hips canted in search of more at the same time Luffy tried to adjust, and suddenly he was threatening to sink into her.

“Luffy, please,” she breathed, clinging tighter to him. Her heels dug into his back, her fingers through his hair and down the back of his neck.

A quiet groan against her lips was all the warning she received before his hips jerked up. The sudden fullness made Anneliese cry out. Her nails bit into his shoulders in some effort to ground herself as he pressed deeper, her teeth sinking into her lip to stifle herself.

“Tight,” Luffy grunted when their hips met at last. Anneliese might have laughed at the blunt statement if not for the way he drew back and snapped forward again. Through gritted teeth, he said, “I didn’t realize it would feel so good—“

Before Anneliese was anywhere near her own, Luffy stilled, buried to the hilt inside of her. She could feel the way he throbbed, a thick warmth filling her before his head dropped with a long, slow breath out.

“Dammit,” he muttered, ruffling his hair with one hand. “He could’ve warned me.”

Whatever he meant by that, she never found the opportunity to ask as he continued, “I’ll make it up to you, Liese.”

“Oh, you don’t—“

He chose to silence her with a kiss that stole her breath and any further argument. She leaned on an elbow when he knelt between her legs, before she was inevitably forced to lay back down. Rough fingers dragged through the mess leaking from her; she gave herself away when he found that bundle of nerves again.

Her hips stuttered up, face already warm when he asked, “There?”

She had to look away to nod, her mouth covered with a hand to stifle the cry it earned when he abandoned that to sink two fingers into her instead. There was little to complain about when he found them again with his thumb. The other hand cupped her breast again, plucking her nipple, rolling it between two rough fingers.

It was Anneliese who forced him to move to the other one, aching from neglect. She squeezed his hand as though it would help ground her from the bursts of pleasure zipping up her spine. It had to be an accident when he crooked his fingers up, but Anneliese’s cry broke through the muzzle of her hand in response.

“Ah, there,” Luffy said as her back arched. Was it her imagination, that he sounded smug? Was Luffy even capable of being smug?

That was the least of her problems when, on the cusp of true pleasure, he pulled away. He ignored her inarticulate complaint in favor of shifting back. A push at her hip was accompanied by a rough, “I want to try something. Roll over.”

It was decidedly not a request, but she was also grateful that she was able now to hide her burning face in the pillows. They served a better way to stifle her whimper when he braced over her, nudging at her with his cock again, only to slip out.

“Dammit,” Luffy muttered when it happened a third time.

Patience at an end for his teasing, accidental or not, Anneliese canted her hips up when he tried again. He hissed when it allowed him to sink deep, until his hips met hers.

“A little warning next time,” he snapped, which made her snicker into the pillow. Quieter, he said, “Maybe this wasn’t a good idea. You’re even tighter.”

His exhale was a little on the shaky side, the warmth blooming across her shoulder where his head rested. One hand planted beside her to balance while the other kept her hips where he wanted. Another curse ghosted across her skin when he drew back and snapped forward again.

“This time,” he muttered; Anneliese was likely not supposed to hear it, but it caused her to smile in the pillows. It was cute, how much he cared, but the thought swept away when he pulled her head to the side just so he could kiss her again.

Each meeting of their hips drove her closer to that edge from earlier, until suddenly she needed more. Luffy’s pause when she tried to spread her knees wider told Anneliese she had been caught, only to be rewarded with a loud groan when he eased that little bit deeper.

Her breath, already uneven, hitched when fingers brushed along her inner thigh, through the mess they had made between them. She gasped when they found their target at the same time Luffy started up a renewed, harder pace. The circles he drew were a sloppy, wholehearted attempt to bring her over the edge before himself.

“Liese,” he rasped, close to her ear. His hair tickled her neck, his chest damp against her back. He had braced on an elbow beside her head, the new angle forcing her into a steeper arch.

Whatever he might have wanted to say was lost in her loud cry. He had brushed against something so deep inside of her that the taut coil snapped, the building heat in sweeping over her in a sudden wave.

“Don’t stop,” she begged when he began to slow.

Luffy never hesitated before following her command. That same harsh pace made her eyes roll back, the pleasure stretching on until she shuddered. Only when she gently pushed his hand away did she realized she had dragged him down with her, the thick mess dripping from her to the sheets.

As he slipped free, she slumped to the bed and rolled over only to find him sat up on his heels, head tipped back towards the ceiling. His shoulders heaved as he ran his fingers through his hair; when he looked at her again, he wore a thoughtful frown.

“What now?” she asked, aware of the fragility in the question.

Before, when Luffy first left, she had been too scared to leave the island with him. Only when she had been on the cusp of truly losing him had she gathered the nerve to venture out. Since then, he had gathered a crew, a proper ship, and far more power than she could ever hope to wield. The logical answer, therefore, was that she returned home and waited for the small crumbs of news that reached them from the New World.

Luffy’s head cocked; she tensed in preparation when his frown deepened, her heart already up in her throat. Then he grinned— broad, toothy, and boyish.