Chapter Text
Approaching Raftel, the wind was dead in their sails yet the ship approached quickly. After the sea and its horde fighting them every step of the way, it now seemed eager for them to make their destination. The island itself was a beauty; multicolored trees sprouting all over, with different shapes and textures that meant no one was like another. It was unnatural yet it was nature itself, thrumming with a power men weren’t meant to understand. This island was precious. It held the world's mysteries, everything it had to offer. Of this Roger was certain, as surely as if it was the one truth of the world.
His men scramble, snapped out of their revelry while they try to cast anchor. The ocean doesn't let them. The anchor unable to find purchase while the currents pull them towards the island. Roger stands on the Oro Jacksons’ figurehead, laughing heartily. Rayleigh calls him to ‘come help, dammit!’ but there was nothing to be done. The ocean wants them here and there was nothing they could do to fight her.
The ship smashes into the shore, burrowing into the land, but there is no impact. Instead it seems as if the hull cuts through, bullying the beach out of the way, a rare possibility with waterlogged sand. Roger peers down at the shore. He can pick out shapes but unsure of what he's seeing from on high.
“Roger, don’t you dare-”
Whatever the rest of the threat was going to be, Roger doesn’t care to hear. He steps off the figurehead, letting himself fall to the beach… No, not a beach, because he doesn’t fall with a thud onto sand but rather with a crunch. His legs sink in deep and jagged edges poke at him through his pants. He looks down. A skull gazes up from a bed of broken bones. Roger glances along the liar’s beach. There isn’t a speck of sand, or shingle, or stone. Instead, wrapping around the island, are piles upon piles of bones.
All of them are mismatched and sun bleached. The most recognizable bones being the skulls and when he tries to focus on them, he can see they're not all human. Different structures from different types of humans, fishmen and minks. Farther down, what can be mistaken as a boulder is a giant’s skull, buried half way by more bones. They move with the flow of the waves lapping at the shore, small finger bones getting caught up and tumbled around by the gentle movement.
“Is this where the sea sends all those that die on her waves?” Rayleigh breathes, jumping to join him and sinking up to his knees. Roger grabs him. There is nothing solid beneath them, just layers upon layers of packed bone.
“It could be!” Roger laughs. He would bet that the seafloor around them stretched for miles looking much like this. That Raftel’s soil is bone white. “Ready to explore, men?!”
A cheer goes up as they lower ropes and disembarked the Oro Jackson. Roger pats his mighty ship's hull, thanking her for the journey here. He steps through the bones, making his way boldly onto the island proper. Each of the trees is more magnificent up close. Some extend straight up as great trunks before curling at the peak into whimsical spirals. Others have sprawling branches weaving and wiggling through their neighbors. One sprouts up like a fountain, branches curling back over into the ground in different tiers.
There are shapes engraved into what Roger wouldn’t dare to call wood. It is too bright, too fantastical. Each with unique patterns, some swirling, some jagged, all like a master woodworker had spent centuries chiseling them in excruciating detail. Some were embossed, others engraved, all crowding along every trunk and branch. On any other plant, it would be a horrifying sign of disease, but each of these sprouts tall and strong.
One could have spent a lifetime exploring the forest, categorizing all the differences but unfortunately Roger doesn’t have that luxury. He bulldozes on through the underbrush. The crew is on guard, weapons clutched close while they look this way and that for some sort of danger. Given their journey here, Roger had expected some sort of grand beast, one last big battle, a big hurrah. But the island is strangely peaceful. Silent, even. Not a bird flies over head, no lizards run through the foliage.
And then, as they approach the center of the island; there is laughter.
Some startle at the sound in the silent forest but Roger grins and changes course towards it. Caution falls by the wayside. There weren’t meant to be people here, and as Roger pushes aside the leaves of a long willow-like tree (that stretches up towards the sky higher than a mountain top but almost as narrow as a barrel), he can’t say he’s sure there are.
People that is, because this is certainly someone . They could look almost human if not for part of his brain insisting something is wrong. They don’t look old, nor young, not even somewhere in the middle. It was as if the concept of age, of time, doesn’t touch them. Any features Roger can make out slip away from his awareness as soon as he notices them, as if they are forever shifting; or were they even there to begin with? Was it just his mind playing tricks, trying to make sense of something that was incomprehensible? The only thing he can see for certain is a bright beaming smile.
“Are you ready then?” The voice is warm. It tingles along his skin like that moment before a fight, like a ship on the precipice of a mighty wave. “It’s been awhile.”
The boy? The creature? The spirit? The thing? Reaches out to a branch that comes down in a long spiral. It lowers itself right into their waiting hands. There is a fruit on the end that can't be mistaken for anything else.
“A Devil Fruit.” Roger breathes.
The purple swirling patterns on the fruit match the tree branches that point each and every way in spring-like coils. Its rounded leaves follow the same spiral, looking like confetti as they dance and flutter around in the breeze.
It was a Devil Fruit tree. They were in a grove of Devil Fruit trees.
The one holding the fruit turns to Roger with a smile. The pirate can do nothing but laugh.
“I always wondered where they came from,” The Captain continues, chuckling.
“A human, huh?” Undaunted by the Devil Fruit holder's widening smile, Roger steps forward. “It’s also been awhile, since one has been to Laugh Tale!”
So that's the island's true name, huh? Appropriate, considering that was the first thing to greet them here.
“Gol D. Roger,” Introducing himself with his crew behind him, he greets the entity warmly. “And who would you be?”
The smile doesn’t dim. It’s too bright, too all encompassing for a word so dull. But the stretch lessens and for a split second, Roger might have been able to identify (hallucinate?) eyes looking down at the fruit. The entity passes it between their hands, turning the purple leathery thing this way and that.
“You called this a Devil Fruit?” The voice asks consideringly. Roger nods.
The smile returns full force, innocent, almost sweet. Pure - perhaps not in the way humans would consider it, but as a complete embodiment of something. What that thing is, unfortunately and counter productively is too complex for Roger to name. With a complete lack of malice they say;
“I guess that makes me the Devil then!”
Roger doesn't hesitate to laugh.
“Well then Devil, it’s nice to meet you!”
“Shishishishishi!” It’s a strange sound - it echoes through the grove as if coming from the trees themselves and Roger has no doubt it’s the Devil returning his laugh. “I like you.”
Some would be horrified to receive the Devil’s endorsement. But Roger was a sort of devil himself so his laughter just redoubles, the joy of two gleeful Devils brightening the area.
“So this is your orchard then?” Roger asks with keen curiosity, “You grow the Devil Fruits?”
“I am the Devil Fruits.” The entity- the God- proclaims proudly, spinning around and gesturing to the trees. “All I am grows here! I send it out there, so now I’m small. Shishishishi!”
Roger doesn’t think they are small. Their presence is too big, like the condensed form of conqueror’s haki with a will no mortal man could hope to achieve. Yet… when you consider each Devil Fruit, every power out there; how one in the hands of a certain person could turn the world off its axis; how the power was so great, if someone dared to eat two their body would perish. All of that, held within one being? He can see how this would feel small to a God.
“What fruit is that?” Roger peers at the harvest held protectively. Not as if cautious someone will take it, but like it is something precious, “Or rather, what part of you?”
“A very special part,” The grin melts into something caring, tender, before going blinding and the Devil turns on a dime, marching off through the grove.
Roger looks back at his crew. Most look more than shell shocked. He tilts his head at Rayleigh, asking his first mate a silent question. Rayleigh simply pinches his brow as if fighting off a headache and waves Roger on. Roger salutes sloppily, hurrying after the Devil.
He runs only for a few minutes before realizing he can’t catch up. He changes to walking but doesn't fall any further behind. So he stays at a casual pace. If the God wants him to catch up, he will.
Now that he’s looking for it, while passing through the grove he spies the occasional fruit within the tree's branches. One tree has grown around the fruit like a cage; another has it half grown in the center of its trunk as it beats like a heart. Some fruits are the size of a berry. Roger never considered that Devil Fruits would have to grow before. No one had ever found a plant - they just seemingly popped out of the ocean from nowhere.
But now, as he follows the Devil to the beach of bones and watches them gently lower it into the water, he knows how they got there. The fruit fights valiantly against the current. The waves try to push it back but it bobs on, moved by a power all its own.
Roger comes to stand next to the Devil as they look wistfully after the fruit. They stand atop the bones, not sinking at all unlike Roger. The pirate is a man who has many smiles. Those of happiness and pure joy. The rageful snarl that's cold and chilling as the smile turns bloody. The watery smile he gave his cabin boys, his sons , as he left them behind for this journey’s last leg. That is the closest the mortal man can get to relating to a God.
“Why do you tear yourself apart?” Roger asks, it’s not reverent but rather the concerned ask of an old friend. The Devil's smile turns small, watching as the fruit slips completely away from sight, bullying its way to the horizon.
“It’s the only way part of me gets to be free,” They say, and the loneliness of the tone, even humming with the powers of a being that has existed far longer than man, is heartbreakingly human. It has Roger’s hackles rising.
“Are you a prisoner here?” He demands with the same danger in his tone that has preceded nations falling.
The laugh that greets him is loud and bright, echoing along the bones. The Devil turns to him, the sun haloing his head making the smile look impossibly more radiant.
“Nah, my brother is just a worry wart.”
“Your brother?” Roger questions. The Devil grins wider. Then, with a splash, they jump into the ocean.
Roger peers down into the clear water. He was right, there are more bones down there. But the Devil stops moving, freezing up completely as that smile remains on their face. The next moment, a big wave swells and they’re washing up on shore. They don’t cough or splutter- what would a God care of air- but rather giggle, lying amongst the bones.
Oh , Roger thinks, looking upon the many many skeletons, knowing for certain what each one used to be. Why Devil Fruit users can’t swim. How many millennia did it take for the tides to bring their bodies, with powers soaked into their very bones, back here? The ocean is trying to return their brother home . It was said that if you ate a Devil Fruit, the ocean would hate you. Of course a God's scorn and love would look similar.
“The ocean must love you very much,” Roger comes to sit by the Devil, not sinking as far into the bones in this position. The Devil still seemingly floats atop them, turning their head to smile at the pirate.
“Yeah, it’s annoying.” The God beams, reducing the Achille’s heel that's drowned thousands, if not millions over time, to ‘annoying’.
Roger cannot hope to understand or contextualize what these massive events, the sources of the world’s myth and legend, mean in a God's mind. But his new friend doesn't seem mad at his brother, even if he clearly yearns for a life outside of Laugh Tale. So Roger will take his lead and not hold a grudge against the ocean’s watery depths.
“You know, that’s something I got wrong,” Roger cackles, “I’ve been referring to the seas as a mother for years.”
“Can’t they be?” The Devil sits up and tilts his head to the side, like a curious child.
“You called it your brother,” Roger reminds, getting the God to tilt his head more.
“Isn’t that how you refer to those other humans? Brother-in-arms? Always there, fighting together, against each other too, but always in the fun way? Well, usually .” They pick up a bone and chuck it into the water, the smile taking on a more teasing lilt. “And a mother is warm and caring right? Protective? The ocean is too - also scary and strict.”
“Usually someone can’t be your brother and your mother,” Roger tries to explain, and in all the things he expected to happen on Raf- Laugh Tale, he did not expect giving the Devil the birds and the bees talk to be one. He hadn’t even given his own sons that talk, outsourcing the problem to Rayleigh and jumping ship.
“Relationships are not about feeling?” The God asks and it’s so simple the pirate pauses.
“... I guess you’re right!” Roger guffaws- of course they are- and why would something as petty as gender matter to an all powerful being anyway? Feelings, that was humanity's greatest strength anyway.
“Shishishishi,” The Devil giggles, the sound coming like a quiet choir at their backs, like wind flowing through the trees. “I like your laugh, it feels like freedom.”
“I’m the freest man in the world.” Roger proclaims, and that seems to impress the God more than any show of power could manage. “Do you want to be free?”
“Mmhmm.” The Devil nods enthusiastically. Their smile finally slips off for a pout of all things - a primordial being, pouting. “But I can’t get off the island since they stuck me here. I’ve thought of everything, it’s been forever! ”
Knowing they’re a God, that’s probably not an exaggeration. Roger chuckles and reaches for the body's shoulder. It jolts his arm, power thrumming up his bones, blood pushed back the wrong way. If the Devil was at full power and not scattered in pieces across the world, Roger has no doubt the sheer rush would kill him. As is, he pushes through the instinct to let go to hold his friend as he promises:
“Then I will help you get off Laugh Tale.”
The Devil tilts his head, not mocking or doubting as he curiously asks, “How though? Every piece of me that can be spared is already a fruit, I’m all that’s left.” The Devil crosses his arms, the pout coming full force. “Don’t think the ocean will let your ship leave if I’m on it.”
Roger hums, letting go to rub at his chin. The arm’s sort of numb, like he’s been sleeping on it for awhile. He looks out at the trees. At the remnant of the Devil.
“Can you turn the last part of yourself into a fruit?” He gets a nod and Roger’s grin grows. “Great! Do it then and I’ll eat you!”
The God’s mouth opens. Closes. Turns into a tiny smirk, that grows into a soft smile, and becomes a bright grin that bursts with laughter.
“Yeah, that’ll work! But I don’t have much power left in me, you won't be able to do anything cool.”
“Hm, that's okay, I’ve got one thing in mind if you think it’s doable?”
The grin that meets him is a challenge. Roger will have to ask if it’s alright they pick the Devil Fruits that are ready. It’s the last the world is going to get for a while, now that the gardener is going on vacation.
---
Rouge spends much of her time looking out over the ocean. From the house with its sunny windows to brief moments while hanging out the washing while her son plays on the beach.
People suspected a lover on the sea and they weren’t wrong. Roger had left for his last great adventure and for that Rouge didn’t begrudge him. She had practically kicked his ass out of the house and threatened to burn the dock and cut him off from shore if he tried to return before fulfilling his dream. Yet, it wasn’t her love for him that had her gazing out over the water, but a love for the ocean itself. She can admit privately that she misses the waves, the rush of adventure they brought her once. However, she had run out of people to share it with. The ocean that she loved so much had taken her crew as well. Sometimes, that love was a soul-tearing hate. She hated the waters for so long that she didn’t doubt herself at all when she committed to living on land, raising her son.
Yet, it was telling that she never destroyed her dear old skiff. That she keeps it well tended, tucked in a little cave in the cove where she takes Ace to play.
Her son loves the sea. With his parents, how could he not? Taking the three year old out on the skiff to sail laps around the island is one of her greatest joys. His laughter as he squints against the sea foam make her glad for her decision not to destroy it.
“Mama! Mama!” Ace calls from the rocky outcropping he is climbing. His chubby little arm pointing towards the sea. “Dad’s coming!”
“Mmhmm.” Rouge hums, trying to disguise her laugh.
Ace thought every boat, piece of driftwood, and shadow was his father returning home. It had only gotten worse since the newspapers came out proclaiming Roger as the Pirate King. It meant he had made it to Raftel, had made it back. He was coming back here, she knew he was. But Rouge knew his prognosis when he left. If it was still true… they had so little time.
“Mama!” Ace huffs, stomping his foot. The little puddles gathered on the rocks splashing. “Come look!”
“I’m coming,” Rouge reassures and this time she does laugh, climbing up the rocks to her little Spitfire.
Ace’s bucket of little treasures has been discarded. She ducks down to pick it up, scooping the bits of seaweed and shells back in place.
“Mama! Not looking!” Ace scowls, tugging on her dress. She pinches his cheek, right over his freckles, making the scowl deepen.
“I’m sorry Spitfire, now where-” She cuts off, spotting in the distance what her son had.
A small dinghy. Red coat. Wide smile.
“Roger.” She breathes, scooping her son up and they both wave. The man is visible even if he is still far off, waving both hands with his whole body. The movement almost has the dinghy capsizing and he scrambles not to fall off. Rouge laughs, tittering and soft at her big lovable oaf.
She carries Ace down to the beach. The boy wiggles around to get to the sand. She lets him go and he sprints off across it, sand spraying with each footstep. Rouge is not sure he remembers his father properly, he was all but one when the man left for his final voyage. She’s also not sure how much of what he knows is from stories, heard from her and others and made legend in his young mind. How much from the scarce den-den calls they managed? It had been almost a year since they lost contact as the crew entered the New World, only knowing how they were doing from newspapers and wanted posters.
But for a selfish moment as Roger’s dinghy reaches the shallows, Rouge doesn't worry about her son's reaction. She walks out into the waves. They lap at her like a greeting, pulling her out to her heart. Roger scrambles off the dingy as he sees her approach. Boots and full coat still on. Although she isn’t any better, her beach dress gets soaked through as she runs through the waves.
“Rouge!”
“Roger!”
The two collide. She feels her love lift and spin her, her feet dancing along the top of the water, sending sea spray in a circle around them. Their laughter rings across the water, echoes back and forth on the walls of the cove. Roger holds her up and there's a quick peck to her lips but neither can look away from the other's face for too long. She leans her forehead against his, soaking in his bright eyes.
“Welcome home, Pirate King.” She runs her hands through his hair. It’s coarse and straw like, damaged from the salt of years–a lifetime really–at sea.
“Does that make you my Pirate Queen?” He teases back. Rouge huffs, pecking at his lips herself before pulling back.
“I’d sooner earn that title myself, thank you.” The response, predictably, earns her laughter.
The sound seeps into her bones like a limb she’s been missing. It peters off all too quickly as Roger looks towards the shore. For a man who has seen all the world has to offer, he has never looked more awed.
“Ace…” Roger takes a step forward and Rouge doesn't mind his distraction in the least.
Ace is looking at them, fidgeting where the tides just start to lap at his feet. Roger shuffles forward, through the waves as Rouge follows behind. Ace looks up and up at his father until the man is right in front of him. Then the King of the Pirates drops to his knees, water splashing up and wet sand coats his pants.
“Ace.” He repeats like a prayer and her son, contrary to his excitement earlier, scowls and crosses his arms.
“You left.” The boy accuses in his choppy toddler speak; he’d probably say a lot more if he had the vocabulary and ability to. Could probably understand a lot better what about that makes him upset. What stops him from hugging the father he’s waited every day for.
“I know.” Roger hangs his head.
He doesn't apologise. They know he’s not sorry for the adventure he had.
He doesn't promise not to leave. He will, even Ace knows they only have so much time.
“But I love you,” The man says, and that's really all that matters. “I loved you every day I was gone and I’ll love you every day I’m still here, and then everyday after that for whatever comes next.”
Ace frowns and his lip wobbles. Expression all scrunched up and pained, trying to understand all the big feelings. He looks at Rouge over Roger’s shoulder. She gives her son a sad smile. It’s not fair. He was born to two incredibly selfish people who knew their lives, their dreams, were not suited for children. But they wanted this little boy so bad they had him anyway.
“Okay,” Ace nods slowly, “Promise no stopping?”
“I promise.” Roger grins. Whether it’s the words or the smile that's charmed everyone he’s met– one Ace has never properly seen before and is now being faced with the widest yet–their son beams back and there’s so much of Roger in that smile.
He launches himself at his Dad, little arms not even making it around his big body. But that doesn't matter because Roger’s hug is all encompassing. He rubs his little boy’s back the same way he did when his body was wracked with sobs as a baby, like how it is now. Rouge folds herself down next to them, hugging her boys, holding onto them as the tide tries to drag them back out. Roger’s hers now - the ocean had its time blessed by him. Ace will have his time with it one day as well. But for now, they’re both here and they’re both hers.
“My love,” Rouge reaches for his face. Her thumb wiping away the tears that trail into his smile. It only grows wider as he leans into her palm. “Your boat is floating away.”
“Huh-” Roger looks behind him to the little dingy getting taken out by the tide. “Dammit!”
He pulls away with a splash of seawater, running out to go retrieve it. Ace giggles at his flailing as does Rouge. That teasing little chuckle is all hers. He reaches the point where she knows the sandy bank drops, that she’s taught Ace to judge and avoid it. Roger suddenly drops down and Rouge only chuckles for a moment before realizing he’s flailing - not swimming, not treading water, flailing .
“Roger?!” She calls out in concern, the man splutters and goes under with a small wave. “Ace, stay here!”
She makes sure the toddler stays put before running, then swimming out to Roger. He’s sinking down, tides pulling at his clothes, trying to drag him out. She dives down and hefts him up. The two break from the water with much coughing on the Pirate King's part. She looks at him incredulously, treading water for the both of them while the man who could once swim between islands does nothing to help. Roger grimaces in that sheepish way he gets on occasion, when shame and self awareness make it through his thick, bullheaded skull.
“So, funny story…”
---
“You made a deal with the Devil.” Rouge says, arms crossed, glaring at Roger on the other side of the dining table. “For me to have its child.”
“Technically, the child will be the Devil.” Roger corrects, bathed in the golden light of evening, He looks sheepish but not enough .
“So you want me to give birth. To the Devil .”
“He’d still be our son,” Roger reassures, gesturing to their other son who had grown bored of this debate some time ago and was now occupying himself on the floor with some toys. “Just with a bit of Devil thrown in there!”
“So he would know he’s the Devil?” Her glare pierces the man as he gives a shrugging gesture, “ Roger .”
“I don’t know? We didn’t really work out any of the details,” Roger rubs the back of his head, but then he smiles and his eyes light up. “But they were a good person, I could tell - you’d love them, Rougie!”
“Don’t Rougie me right now.” She hisses, despite the fact that if Roger deems somebody a good person, they probably are.
Besides, from his story it doesn't sound like the God knew what being the Devil truly meant to humans. Did names matter to a being like that? Did they choose their own names or did they just take on whatever humanity assigned them?
“What happens if we don’t follow through on this deal?” Rouge asks, sitting back in her chair.
“I’m sure we can avoid it.” Roger shrugs, uncaring of potentially invoking a God's wrath, because really, how could it stand up to Rouge’s anger? “It just means you won’t get any of this sweet lovin-”
Rouge reaches over and smacks him upside the head.
With Haki .
Roger groans and rubs the back of his head where the spot is smarting. Rouge tunes out his whining and pouting. She drums her fingers on the table and looks out the window. The sun is returning to the horizon, bathing all of Baterilla in golden light. It’s gorgeous as it reflects on the ocean. Travelers of all sorts have hailed the seas as the ultimate freedom. It had been hers too, her joy, her life. It had been her friends’ graves. One of them was a Devil Fruit user. They sank quicker and deeper than anyone else. Were their bones being washed towards that island now?
All this time, the ocean was hailed as a champion of freedom while keeping a prisoner.
It was just the sort of dichotomy the seas were known for. Calm and cruel. Life giving and taking. Loving and spiteful. Free and chained.
“Ace baby?” She calls while Roger is still nursing his ‘wound’. Her Spitfire looks up and Rouge asks. “Do you want a little brother?”
Ace’s face scrunches up at the question, the way it does when she asks if he wants to play outside more or come in and read a bedtime story - real tales from her and Roger’s adventures, most of the time.
“Will it be cool?” The question gets a full belly laugh out of Roger and a small chuckle from Rouge.
“Yes, they’ll probably be very cool,” She can’t imagine a world where a Devil child doesn't take them by storm. A God walking among mortals.
“Okay then,” Ace shrugs, going back to his play.
“Well, if we’ve got his permission,” Roger cracks his knuckles, looking pointedly towards the bedroom. “We should probably get started.”
Rouge's returning smile is saccharine sweet as her hand coats itself in black.
---
Their time together–as it always is with his family–is too short. Roger is aware that it is entirely his fault. He’s the one that keeps leaving them. Rouge always, the love of his life, left behind over and over again either on different ships or different islands. Ace, only twice now, but ultimately the time Roger has spent in his life will be little over a year - too short, much too short. Then his cabin boys, his sons , Buggy and Shanks, abandoned. Should he have taken them with him to Rouge? Was it time to start their own stories? Or was it too early?
Then there was his youngest- an eldritch horror he had stolen from the ocean itself. They had decided to name him Luffy. He was still just a bump. The only things he knew, would ever know were thus; Luffy would be a God; the ocean would always be trying to get him back; Rouge had the biggest cravings for smoked ham because of him.
Yes, Roger knew he was selfish because his own desires always trumped his want to stay with them.
He wanted the ocean more than he wanted Rouge.
He wanted a last adventure more than he wanted to raise Ace.
He wanted to avoid his older sons bringing attention to Rouge and his youngest so he left them.
He wanted a flashy exit more than he wanted to see if he could last until Luffy’s birth.
That one was probably for the best. If Luffy came out looking like that ever shifting uncanny being from Laugh Tale Rouge would have killed Roger anyway.
He’s a selfish father, and a selfish friend.
He disbanded his crew because he wanted this last year with Rouge and his son. None of them knew what he was planning, though Rayleigh might have had his suspicions. That was good - he didn’t want any of them seeing his death after they fought so hard to keep each other alive. But he could feel his older sons in the crowd and makes sure to smile wider as he made his march up.
He hadn’t told any of his old allies and friends what he was planning. The only one who knew was Garp, and only because the man was marching him to death row. Roger had turned himself over to the man, selfishly ignoring the way the marine’s face crumpled as he had no choice but to put on those cuffs. He had selfishly used that guilt to make Garp promise to protect his sons. Had turned himself over in the first place because he knew the man wouldn’t gloat over his victory of taking down the Pirate King.
He was selfishly about to make his old friend execute him because he wanted the man that did it to know Roger, to not hate him.
Roger knelt on that platform. He was selfish, more so because he didn’t regret a single action. He’d do it all again and if it weren't for the disease he’d still be out there following his dreams.
Because that's what the Pirate King does.
That's what a free man does.
“Pirate king! Tell us where you’ve hidden your treasure!”
His last words should probably be a declaration of love to his family. To the sons in the crowd about to watch him die. To Rouge looking after their toddler, about to give birth to another one of their children.
Roger grins.
No, his last words are going to be for himself.
For the era he is about to inspire.
And maybe he selfishly hopes it will inspire his family too.