Chapter Text
Rosinante sat in his cell, across from a pirate with a hook for a hand, tapping his fingers on his leg.
“So,” he said slowly, dragging the word out as he looked at the man across from him. “Anything else you wanna talk about?” The pirate glared at him. Okay, so maybe asking question after question got irritating after a while, but it has been so long since he's spoken to anyone, so when that one kid, Ace, showed up and started talking to him and got the man across from him to finally talk? It was amazing. For the few days Ace was here, he had spoken so much that his voice gave out, and while it hurt, it was a glorious day.
“I don't think Crocodile is one for talking, Rosinante,” Jimbei, the Fishman who once shared a cell with Ace, spoke up. At least someone else was willing to talk.
“After a while, you'll be begging for someone to talk to.” He told the man before turning to Jimbei. Well, as best he could anyway. “So what's this warlord thing you mentioned before?” He was met with silence, Jimbei staring at the wall before him while the pirate with a hook, Crocodile, looked at him funny.
“Rosi-san… how long have you been down here?”
Rosinante scratched his chin, which had hair growing in patches around his face. As it turns out, he couldn't grow a beard, and since he wasn't due for a routine cleaning for another month, he was stuck with it for now until it grew out again. If we went by when the cleanings were, then he'd been here for…
“About 10 years? I think. Could be off by a few months, so it might be 11.” He recounted before adding, “No, yeah, it's been 11 years.”
“What the hell did someone like you do to get stuck here for 11 years?” Crocodile asked. Rosinante smiled as he thought back to that day on Minion Island. “I abandoned my mission and betrayed the World Government. They weren't too happy about that, especially when I wouldn't tell them why, so life in Impel Down Level 6 was my punishment.”
“Former Marine?”
“Yep. I was a commander, well on my way to higher places, they told me. I gave it all up.”
It was quiet, but it's fine. Thinking about Law always made him feel better. He may not have proof that Law was alive, but deep down, he just knew . That kid had been a great doctor at 10, and even if Doffy was a madman, he had been adamant that the kids continued studying, so Law got even better in the 2 plus years he'd been with the crew. That kid was alive, has grown up into a young man, and is probably the best damn doctor this world has ever seen.
“There's something you're not telling us,” Jimbei spoke up. “The most the Government would have done would be to give you a dishonorable discharge and let you go. Whatever it was you did had to be more than just betray them.”
“Well, they did that too before throwing me in here. Made a big deal about it and everything.”
“What the hell did you do to piss them off?” Crocodile growled. He didn't like Rosinante's evasive answers, it seemed. With a smile, he looked at the irritated man. “Oh, now you're a talker?” He laughed when the man's eye twitched.
They were interrupted by someone screaming Ace's name as they ran down the stairs.
***
Cora-san was alive.
Law stared at the projector as he watched the war, Strawhat having just fallen from the sky with revolutionaries and prisoners from Impel Down, one of whom was Cora-san. He'd been alive in Impel Down, and if it weren't for Strawhat, he'd have suffered for who knows how much longer. He watched as Strawhat challenged an Emperor, was declared the son of Dragon the Revolutionary and brother of Ace, and then the echoing nothingness of Cora-san's Silence. Quiet chaos was displayed on the screen as Law stood.
“We're going to Marine Ford. Now.”
***
Rosinante smiled at nothing in particular as he waited. Luffy was currently undergoing surgery, but he would make it. Law was a great doctor.
“Can you stop smiling?!” Ace yelled at him. He patted the young man's shoulder, and when he went to yell at him again, he was met with silence. Jimbei raised a brow at him, but his smile never fell. “Luffy is in good hands! Law will fix him up, and everything will be alright, Ace. You'll see.”
Jimbei stared at him for a while before asking, “He was the one you betrayed the Marines for, is he not?”
Rosinante just kept smiling.
***
Hours later, locked away in the captain's quarters, Rosinante held Law as he cried. He had never dared imagine their reunion, so he wasn't sure what he expected, but tears probably should have been expected. He rested his chin on top of Law's head, the smile he had been wearing since he saw Law step out of a yellow submarine still in place. “You're all grown up,” he said. “I told you that you'd make it.”
“Thanks to you,” Law said, voice broken and low. “I thought you died that day…”
He hummed as he held Law tighter. “For a while I thought I had, too.”
He had, actually. At least he thinks he did. You don't see people who have been dead for years for no reason other than being dead yourself. He hardly remembered his mother, having been so young when she died, but he knew who she was the moment he saw her. She had been beautiful and ageless, with a smile that seemed to melt the snow around him. She hadn't been there for long, but they did speak. When she left, the Marines showed up and took him away in handcuffs.
No, probably best to keep that part to himself.
“But I'm here now,” he said. “And, if you'll have me, I'd love to join your pirate crew.” His smile grew when he heard Law laugh. It was such a wonderful sound. “Stupid Cora-san,” he said. “We're called the Heart Pirates , you've always had a place among the crew.”
Rosinante thought he would never stop smiling.