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His surroundings are cold and hard. There is none of Sunny’s warmth to cradle Luffy’s guilt-wracked body as he drifts in and out of consciousness. He feels disconnected from reality, barely aware of whether he’s lying down or sitting up. It’s impossible to tell what time it is wherever he is – he can’t think hard or fast enough to recall where he is. All he can feel is guilt and he doesn’t know why. He turns his head best he can, a wave of dizziness overtaking him as he does so, looking for Ace.
Ace.
Luffy remembers Ace. His breath was shallow against his ear as he whispered his thanks to Luffy, and his hands had come away from Ace’s back wet and stained deep red, realizing with mounting horror that his hands had been nearly inside the blooming rose of Ace’s opened-up back, how his fingers had grazed against his charred spine for a brief moment. Then he remembers red, and blue, and then nothing at all.
Luffy’s hand brushes against something rough and gauzy and distinctly not-Ace now and realizes with a start that it’s bandages. He looks around again for Ace, chest rising and falling with shallow breaths, praying above all things that his is the back that’s melted, that he’s survived what he’d thought Ace had gone through and his brother was waiting outside the door for him. But the interior of this ship is bleak. The lights are low and the infirmary is dark and unwelcoming.
Maybe they’ve taken Ace from him.
If Luffy hadn’t been thinking straight, he wasn’t thinking at all as he ripped the door away, causing alarms to blare. A few men try and stop him, their faces shadowed in the stark red alert lighting, donning uniforms Luffy only really recognizes at the back of his mind. They reach for him like they want to push him back into bed, and Luffy pushes back, throwing them against the sheet metal walls, seeking his escape like a trapped animal.
Jimbei’s heart plummets as he hears the wrench of metal being punched through and Luffy lands on the ground half-conscious, panting, eyes wild, seeking to destroy. He demands to see Ace with a ragged voice and Jimbei’s emotions twist around themselves in a painful squeeze of paternity and remorse. He can’t sugarcoat this. Luffy is blunt and simple – he is best met with the same timbre.
“Ace is dead,” Jimbei says firmly. He stands his ground despite the horror on some of the surrounding pirates’ faces.
Luffy streaks past him into the underbrush, half doubled over, air leaving his lungs in harsh wheezes as he strains his body. All he feels right now is rage, consumed with the same flame that swept Ace’s Vivre Card away – he only has so many edges left to burn, and Jimbei knows this.
He rampages through the forest like a boar with blood in its eyes, and even though Jimbei knows both of their bodies are on the line and crying for them to stop he puts himself between Luffy and his own destruction, holding him against a boulder until he stops struggling and his vision is clouded with tears instead of anger. The droplets are searing hot against Jimbei’s hand as he holds Luffy there and at that moment the two of them feel very small compared to everything else. Jimbei lets go of him as Luffy’s body sags with grief and the duress of his injuries.
He perks up after a meal – the first thing Luffy has eaten in a day, grief and trauma aside – but as nighttime approaches, Jimbei can see Luffy withdrawing again, sitting tight against his side. It’s quiet around the fire, and the air is chilled as the sky has darkened. Stars glimmer above. When the campfire pops, Luffy jumps, while everyone else stares blankly into it, all processing the events of the past three days. Law’s thin face falls into eerie shadows underneath his hat, looking grave in his own right as he sits hunched over, propped up on Kikoku and glowering into the flames. His crew sits quietly with him. Hancock and her women left before dark, though she had refused to set sail until she was sure Luffy was no longer a danger to himself. Rayleigh, however, had stayed, sitting away from the group with his feet dangling over the edge of the cliff with a drink in his hand. The wind ruffles his long hair and his expression is somber as he stares down at the ocean below. Waves crash twenty feet down while the fire crackles and crickets trill, but the group itself is dead silent.
In one silent movement, Law and his crew get up to turn in aboard the Polar Tang.
“I’ll be back tomorrow for a checkup,” he says, more at Luffy than to him.
Jimbei questions his bedside manner internally. He watches as the jumpsuit-clad crew files onto their ship. It sinks below the water with barely a sound, leaving only a few bubbles in evidence of its original position.
“Jimbei,” Luffy says suddenly. His voice is rough and he sounds stuffy from crying.
“Yes, Luffy-kun?” Jimbei responds.
“What if Ace is mad at me?”
Jimbei looks down at Luffy and finds him choked up again, swaddled in a blanket like a child. “Why would Ace be mad at you?” Jimbei asks.
“Because,” Luffy sniffs. “I couldn’t save him.”
He’s sinking back into the cycle from before. Jimbei’s jaw clenches and unclenches. “He’s not mad at you, Luffy,” he says seriously, then regrets his tone as he sees the boy’s lip wobble. “I promise.”
Luffy nods, then lies down with his back to Jimbei. His shoulders shake under the blanket as he cries quietly. Eventually, he tires himself out and falls asleep, face tacky and shiny in the failing light with tears and snot.
Neither Jimbei nor Rayleigh moves from their spots all night. They sit, silently watchful, holding vigil in place of Luffy for Ace and Whitebeard. Jimbei prays that Luffy will be sent a sign that Ace isn’t mad at him, and won’t ever be, but he fears that even if it is sent, Luffy will be too blinded by grief to see it. He stands at dawn and joins Rayleigh on the cliff’s edge, kneeling for him.
“Please help Luffy-kun get stronger,” he says, half prostrate.
“Sit up, Jimbei, you don’t need to beg me for my help,” Rayleigh replies warmly. “He will bounce back.”
“I hope so,” Jimbei says, straightening out. “It’s… admittedly very difficult to see him like this. I haven’t even known him for a week but I already think of him as a son. I suppose it’s a bit silly of me, getting so attached.”
Rayleigh smiles at this. “I’ll help Luffy.” His glasses catch the glow of the early morning sun, flashing bright white. “I think he’s going to be King of the Pirates.”
Jimbei stares at him, stunned and awed. He doesn’t disagree, but for Rayleigh, the first mate of the Pirate King, to say it so outright, he’s floored.
“Don’t look so surprised. You know it too. He’s just like him. Roger.”
Jimbei nods. “You are right. I should trust more in his recovery, too. He’s in good hands with you.”
“And you,” Rayleigh amends.
“I hope so,” is Jimbei’s choked response.