Chapter 2: Reminiscence
Sabo had been asleep for three full days. He’d had periods of fever and sleep talking. He’d been muttering names. Ace. Luffy. She’d even heard him muttering his own name a few times. But mostly it was Ace, Ace, Ace.
It was obvious to her what was happening. He must be remembering his past. And it must have something to do with the man— the pirate who’d been executed at Marineford.
Ace, the son of Gold Roger— the King of the Pirates. And Luffy, she’d heard the name before. As an agent in information and intelligence, the utterly unique name was one she’d heard recently.
‘Straw Hat Luffy, who assaulted a Celestial Dragon in the streets of Sabaody’.
Koala treated him for all three days, keeping to her promise not to leave his side until he awoke. His past, that strange and mysterious void, was somehow connected to two of the Grand Line’s most infamous pirates. One of whom had just died, apparently triggering the traumatic return of his memory. It was the only thing that made sense. It was confusing, it was shocking. And it was terrifying.
There was a part of her that was wracked with genuine fear that the moment he woke up, she’d lose him forever. With his memories, the mystery of his past now revealed, he might have found he didn’t need the Revolutionary Army any longer.
She was scared that he would leave, never to come back. She tried not to fret about it, smiling warmly at the others as they came to visit, and tending to his sleeping body as she listened to the faint, fragmented snippets of whatever dreams were returning.
When he woke, it was sudden. Sitting up sharply and blinking again and again, looking and taking deep, ragged breaths. Like he’d woken from some terrible nightmare.
Koala gasped, nearly dropping the small dish she was using to wet the cloth she’d had draped over his head, setting it down quickly to throw herself against him with a shaky smile.
“You’re awake, you’re here. Sabo, you’re right here…n-not in whatever dream you were having.”
His arms went around her as she embraced him, and she could feel his heart thumping in his chest.
“Koala?” He blinked rapidly again, seeming to try to orient himself.
“Yeah, t-that’s me, I’m here. You remember me, right?” She held him tightly, her breath shaking as tears started to leak down her face.
“Of course I remember you,” he murmured. His gaze was distant for a moment, but his eyes seemed to be coming back into focus. “I didn’t forget anything. I just… remembered.”
“I’m— I’m so glad,” she whimpered against him. He didn’t forget anything, even with the influx of memories he didn’t forget anything. It was a relief, a relief that was washed out in the sheer relief and anxiety that was washing over her.
“You…you were talking in your sleep. Luffy? Ace? You were talking about that poor boy from the papers, and that Worst Generation pirate captain.”
“My brothers,” he said in a low voice, holding her tight. “Luffy and Ace are my brothers.”
It confirmed her worst fears. Maybe he was going to leave them.
Her tears pattered against his chest as she half crawled on top of him with a sniffle.
“Your brothers. Luffy and Ace are…your…oh my…” she felt faint. “Sabo…Sabo, please, can I ask you one favor? One favor please?”
She was babbling, nervously babbling. Three days, three days of working herself up with worry had finally taken their toll now that she didn’t have to fake smile and tell everyone things were probably going to be alright.
He looked up at her questioningly with big, dark eyes. “A favor?”
She looked up at him with eyes half-blinded by tears, grabbing fistfuls of the linen shirt she’d changed him into while he’d slept.
“Please…Please please don’t leave. Please don’t leave without t-taking me, okay?” She hiccuped “I know you must have remembered so much but I don’t— I don’t want to lose my partner.”
Sabo squeezed her close and started to pet her hair. “Hey, hey, I’m not leaving. I promise I’m not leaving, okay? And I wouldn’t leave without you. I won’t do that a– I’m not doing that. I promise.”
She looked up at him with a heavy sniff. He was going to say ‘again’…wasn’t he? Was that what happened with him and his brothers?
Brothers. He had family out there— had lost family just recently. Her stomach churned with sympathetic pain. He’d lost someone before he even had remembered his name. She couldn’t imagine how absolutely terrible that was.
At least when she’d lost someone, someone important, she had remembered him, even if she couldn’t save him.
“O-okay,” she wiped her eyes as she curled against him. “You were out for th-three days, Sabo. I haven’t left your side once the whole time.”
“Three days,” he hissed. She could feel his grip tighten on her, his nails digging in. He took another long, ragged breath, and he looked up at her, brushing her tears away with the back of his hand. “Thank you for taking care of me, Koala.”
“Yeah.” she sniffled again, grabbing his shoulders to ground him then and there.
She looked up at him with a genuine smile— not the holdover from her days as a slave that’d been plastered on her face for people checking in on him. “I promised I’d look after you, didn’t I? Always. Even with whatever new memories you gotta work through.”
His fingers lingered on her face and he smiled shakily at her in return. There was something strange about his smile, something odd. Probably the result of having just woken up from a three day coma.
“Thanks for keeping your promise. I— it’s a lot to work through,” he agreed. “I should talk to Dragon, is he around?”
Of course, of course Sabo immediately tried to get up, even though he’d just woken up from a three day coma and bouts of fever and the return of his memories— whatever they were.
She sniffed, rubbing her face against his hand before she grabbed him and pinned him back down before he could hop up and— she didn’t know, immediately faint into the wall and crack his skull open.
“You can talk to me about it, you know that. If you need someone to bounce the memories off of, I’m here. Dragon…he’s around. I can get him, but you shouldn’t go haring off on shaky legs, dumbass!”
He huffed a soft noise as she pinned him back down, and nodded. “You’re right. Of course you’re right. Sorry about that. I don’t— I don’t know that I’m thinking straight quite yet, admittedly.”
“Clearly not!” Koala huffed, her hands on her hips as she sat up on the edge of his bed. “…but I get it. You’re remembering a whole life that you lost, right? It…I can’t blame you for being a bit out of sorts. So…so just sit there and I’ll be right back. Don’t move, or I’ll clear your head the old fashioned way!”
By which she meant, and she knew he knew she meant, she’d shake him about it.
Literally shake him.
He chuckled ruefully. “Maybe you’ll shake something loose if you do. Oh– the mission.. What happened? Did someone else go, or did it get scrapped?”
“Oh ah, we sent someone to do recon. Some of Betty’s people. The mission’s been ah… p-postponed, I’d say, but she’s making sure we don’t miss any intel while you recover.”
“I’d better recover fast then,” he said, raking his fingers through his hair. “Or they’ll decide that they don’t need me after all.”
It was unclear whether or not it was supposed to be a joke– off brand for Sabo’s usual sense of humor.
Koala stared at him for a long moment, her confusion etched into her expression as she tilted her head to the side.
“Of course they won’t? I mean nobody knows the specifics like I do now, but everyone was just worried about you. Hoping for you to feel better…”
Was there a well of self depreciation hidden in those memories of his?
“I’m kidding,” he insisted, smiling at her again. It was a more confident smile. “I just think three days is a long time to lay in bed already, you know? I’d rather get up and do something.”
Koala stood, wiping at her eyes with her arm before she offered her hand. “Then we can go see Dragon together, alright? But I’m coming with you so you don’t fall on your ass! Because I love you, alright?”
He took her hand and squeezed it. The light in his dark eyes was familiar and comforting, but there was something new there, too. Still, he reassured her the same as always. “I love you too, Koala.”
There had been a long talk with Dragon that Koala hadn’t been privy to. And of course all the officers of the army who were around the last few days wanted to check on Sabo. He was a very popular man that afternoon, despite Koala’s best efforts to make sure he had the space to recover.
One woman against the whole Revolutionary Army wasn’t exactly good odds– people practically pushed right past her to check up on him and fret themselves. Questions were asked, drinks were promised, and Koala attempted to interpose, if for no other reason than Sabo needed his rest and was admittedly dreadful at getting it the best of times.
Still, even in the chaos she had the time to think. Sabo had changed, somehow…a little bit…during that three day coma and the flood of his memories.
It made sense, there was context and bonds where there was nothing but static before. It certainly explained it— even if she couldn’t help but think there was something more to the light in his eyes than ‘new context’.
She rested her head against the wall with a soft huff, cleaning her goggles with the end of her shirt. She was glad, so glad, that he was up and about again. And even gladder that he didn’t seem like he was going to vanish in the dead of night.
He was precious to her. When she’d been taken in by the Revolutionary Army, she was a wreck the news of Fisher Tiger’s death at the hands of her home village had broken her heart, pinning the blame in her own mind on herself for being stupid enough to go home. The realization that she had only been abused as a slave in the first place because her parents sold her for quick berries had broken her even further.
And then she found Dragon…and shortly after, Sabo. Sabo who had no past to speak of, who’d been taken in by Dragon just like she had been. They’d become fast friends— partnered up the moment they started training, and nigh inseparable since the day they’d met.
It was no wonder she’d fallen head over heels, banter and all. She smiled at him from across the room, mobbed by worried agents of revolution. The fact that he wouldn’t leave her behind meant everything. And she believed him. No matter what explanation there was behind his eyes and in the depths of his new memories.
Sabo was sure that Koala was annoyed with him that she hadn’t gotten a moment alone with him all day since he’d woken up, but a part of him was received. Relieved to be distracted by all the mundane goings on. Relieved not to have to dig too deeply into what he’d remembered— the thoughts that kept clawing at the back of his mind.
He was sure they’d be inescapable once it was quiet. Once it was just him, and Koala and all his new memories.
He tried to keep the conversation up even as they headed to their small, shared room. ‘You’re practically married anyway. It’ll save everyone space if you bunk up together’.
Sabo flushed to think about it, as if someone was teasing him about it even now.
He clicked the door closed behind him and lit the lamp. “What a day, huh?”
Koala tossed her hat onto the table, and rustled her fingers through her hair with a soft and sharp sigh.
“Probably one of the craziest we’ve had in a while, that’s for sure…and a hell of a lot better than my last three have been!”
She glanced over at him with her large, bright eyes; part of the reason she’d gained that namesake from his understanding.
He rubbed the back of his neck as he took his own hat off and put it on its peg. “I still can’t believe it’s been three days. I’m sorry for putting you through that.”
Three days– it hadn’t felt like three days. It had felt like 10 years. He still hadn’t told her anything about what he’d remembered, or about what he’d dreamed. He didn’t know what he’d tell her.
But she deserved to know something at least.
Koala started to unbutton her shirt.
“…it’s alright. You scared me half to death! But I’m not gonna hold you getting your memories back finally against you, Sabo. I mean…geeze…it had to be a lot, right?” She gave him a smile as she started shifting it off her shoulders. “…but you can make it up to me…”
Sabo made a choked sound as a few ideas of ‘making it up to her’ shot through his mind, and he went scarlet.
“I thought you wanted me to get some rest before I did anything strenuous!”
Koala went a bright red, and she practically jolted out of her own frilled shirt.
“I didn’t mean that, DUMMY! Not yet anyway! Obviously when you’re not gonna pass out into another three day coma, YEAH absolutely!” She jabbed her finger in the air at him “I meant that you could tell me what you remembered!”
He held up his hands, still flushed and feeling like he ought to be laughing at himself that it was where his mind immediately went.
“Ah. Ahah. Naturally. It was just your phrasing, Koala, dear,” he chuckled, playing off his embarrassment as he shrugged out of his coat and shirt. The traces of scars on his chest caught his eye for a moment, old, and wrinkled and familiar— and somehow unfamiliar at the same time.
Her eyes were drawn to his chest for a moment as she stripped to her own pale-laced bustier. Koala had always had a preference for more old-fashioned undergarments, instead of the more modern styles that had been entering the market from the more industrial parts of the Great Blue Sea. She half turned, the dark red ‘rays’ of the great sun that marked her back half-visible below the lace as she rustled in the drawer for a nightdress.
“My phrasing…w-well yes. I see where the confusion was…” She sniffed as she unbuttoned her pants, stripping rather brazenly as she always did when their private door was closed. “But I’d like to save that until you’re feeling better, Sabo. We get more acrobatic that way…and I admit I’m pretty curious!”
“Forgive me for thinking I could distract you from your curiosity.” His eyes lingered on her for a moment as she undressed. They’d been together for years, but somehow tonight it felt like he was seeing her for the first time again. Maybe it was because of all the added context of his memories, making everything seem new, the same way it made his scars feel unfamiliar.
She looked over her shoulder at him as she slid her pants down her shapely hips, huffing as she shook her head.
“Sorry buster, my curiosity’s ironclad. Not even your handsome face can distract me from it.”
She stuck out her tongue impishly, working at the laces of her bustier.
“Need a hand with that?” he asked, stepping over to her. Maybe he was still trying to distract her, just a little. Or maybe he was just happy— curious?— to put his hands on her.
“Well, a little help’s not gonna hurt.”
She stood there, lowering her arms to give him access to the laces that criss-crossed her tattooed back, mostly covering the wrinkled skin of her own burn scar buried deep within. She waited expectantly, humming softly as she fluffed out her hair again after it’s long day of being stuck under her hat.
“But I’m still going to ask afterwards.”
He carefully helped her with the laces, his gloved fingers still nimble with the task. He realized suddenly that he hadn’t taken them off yet. He hadn’t thought to. Well, no point while he was busy helping her, but he really was out of it, wasn’t he? Like he was surprised with himself.
“I know you are. And I’ll talk about it.”
“Good, Sabo.” Koala seemed satisfied, leaning happily into his gloved hands. Little by little, more of her pale and freckled skin was revealed by the loosening bustier, little starfields of pale tan flecks interrupted by crimson red ink stained deep into the skin.
She hummed softly, pleasantly as he worked, not seeming like she was about to comment on the gloves at the moment at least.
He stroked his gloved fingers down her bare skin as he helped her undress, appreciating each little nuance of it– the freckles– even the tattoo that hid her scar.
“You’re really good looking,” he murmured.
Beautiful. He always called her beautiful. Why ‘good looking’ tonight? Of course, it was true…
She shivered under his touch, happily sighing quietly before he saw her pale shoulders flush. She looked over her shoulder with a big grin.
“Good looking, huh?” Maybe she’d picked up on the different choice in words. Either way, she looked flattered. “Thanks Sabo….you’re making me blush though.”
“Should I avoid that?” he teased. He put her bustier aside with the rest of her clothes and peeled his gloves off as an afterthought. Another scar there— across one of his palms.
She turned, bare chested, towards him with a tilt of her head.
“What do you think?” Her hands were on her hips again and her eyes flicked to his gloves as he peeled them off.
“I’m thinking I shouldn’t,” he said with a little smile. He held his hands up awkwardly, noticing her curiosity and feeling self-conscious about his own. “I finally remembered how I got them, that’s all.”
Her body was bare save for her panties for only a moment before she shimmied into her nightdress, looking at him with renewed curiosity.
“You should, I happen to like your compliments, but…on a more pressing note…” She leaned forward and snatched a glove up, turning it over curiously. “How’d you get it? That’s got to be a story!”
He realized with a trace of amusement that she thought that he meant the gloves.
“I… I meant the scars, Koala,” he murmured with an embarrassed chuckle as he sat down on the bed and started undoing his pants. “I think you were with me when I bought this pair of gloves. Hell, I’m sure you know the story of how I got the scars. But I remembered it. I never remembered it before.”
The fire in Grey Terminal, and the destruction of his little boat in the escape. Both had marked him before Dragon had pulled him out of the water. Neither event he’d remembered until that day. And now when he thought of it, some parts seemed strangely doubled.
He saw her flush a steady shade of scarlet as she remembered that yes, she was there when he bought the gloves. Somewhere halfway through him talking she’d thrown the glove down in flustered disgust and crossed her arms with a huff— but by the time he got to the end that same curiosity lit up her eyes.
“Really…oh that does make sense…that must have been a frightening memory, Sabo!”
“No,” he shook his head. Fear was the last thing on his mind in either memory, even the strangely doubled one. “It’s sad. And… it makes me angry.”
He opened his arms for her, beckoning her to come sit on the bed with him so he could pull her into his arms. He suddenly found himself almost aching for any kind of physical touch.
She slid into bed without a second thought, sliding up to wrap her arms around him in that koalaish way of hers, nuzzling against his shoulder as she looked up at him.
“You’ve told me a little about what Dragon told you about that night…”
He held her close, wrapping his arms around her warm skin and pressing his chest to hers, just soaking in the closeness, the warmth of skin on skin. He rested his chin on her shoulder.
“Want me to tell you what I remembered while I was sleeping?”
She was all too happy to cuddle into him like always, nuzzling her cheek against his body and wrapping around him with her warmth. “I’d really like that, Sabo…if that’s alright.”
“It’s not a happy story,” he warned her as he held her tight.
It might have been a happy story, once. There were a thousand, thousand ways it could have been a happy story, weren’t there? Or was there only ever one way that it could end?
Koala brushed her fingers over his chest, trailing against the scars. “The stories of our pasts rarely are,” her voice was distant for a moment before she snapped it back to normal “…at least here in the R.A. I can take it…I can be an ear for you.”
He sat up a little, letting her hands linger, and he tucked a lock of hair gently behind her ear as he smiled sadly. “Let’s get it out, then.”
Sabo was right. It wasn’t a happy story.
They ended up laying curled in the bed, his lithe form around her from behind as he murmured it out, all in pieces and details. How he was a noble in the Goa Kingdom. How much he’d hated it. How he’d run away, and lived wild and feral as a thief— with the intention to be a pirate. About his brother Ace and their little brother Luffy. About being caught and dragged back ‘home’. About the fire, and the way they got separated. About the little boat, and the explosion that had derailed his life and annihilated his memory.
He’d lingered lovingly on the memories of the times with his brothers when he told her, especially on Ace. He told a couple of little stories of their wild times. The strangest thing though was a couple of times she caught him lapse into telling the story as if it had happened to someone else ‘and then Sabo said’— and he’d catch himself and shake his head and laugh.
Remembering it all at once, after he had lived for years, a whole adult life without his memories, probably made it feel like it had happened to someone else.
Like a story in secondhand until he somehow resolved it with himself. It made a sort of sense with how Koala understood the human mind to work. Through the whole story she held him, brushed her fingers over his skin, and asked all sorts of questions…especially about his life with Ace and Luffy.
Happy moments. Happy moments, even with the tragedies that came then and now. Those were what were going to help him settle those memories back into ‘himself’.
And she couldn’t deny her curiosity. In the brief moments of ‘normal childhood’ Koala hadn’t had any siblings, self-made or otherwise. The whole experience was alien to her, but the love that leaked into his voice was infectious. It drew her to want to know more, listening and following this trail of memory right alongside him.
In the end, he nuzzled her from behind, his hands gently on her stomach. “And that’s basically what I remembered. Other than that it was just… weird dreams.”
“That’s— wow. That’s a lot, Sabo.” She squirmed around to face him, and kissed the edge of his chin. “A whole childhood to remember, and people you cared for.”
She squeezed him “Maybe we’ll get the chance to see Luffy sometime, huh?”
His voice was equally hesitant when he replied. “Dragon says nobody knows if Luffy’s alive or not, yet.” He took a deep breath and she felt his chest expand against her.
She’d put her foot in her mouth…she winced against him before drawing him closer.
“If there isn’t a body, there’s always hope.” she murmured quietly against him.
“You said he’s a rubber man, right? I’m sure he…I’m sure he bounced somewhere an–” no, that wasn’t going to help either. She knew she was digging herself a hole here, burrowing ever deeper into worse and worse things to say to assuage the man she loved. “….there’s always hope.”
It was only after a moment’s hesitation that she changed the subject, asking, “weird dreams, huh?”
“There’s always hope,” he agreed hoarsely. “I’m waiting for news. But… yeah. Weird dreams.”
Koala looked up at him with a nervous tilt of her smile. “What kind of weird dreams, dear?”
He rolled a little so that he was staring up at the ceiling, arms still around her. “About Ace. I think it must have been made up of bits and pieces of things I heard. Read in the newspaper. That I never thought about.”
Koala tilted her, humming softly as she nuzzled his side, still latched to him like she was afraid he was going to vanish. She still sort of was afraid of that, really. “What sort of stuff? Just…the combined stories about him that you skimmed?”
“I think so,” he said, leaning into her. “It’s hard to say, you know?”
From the sound of his voice he was much more hesitant to discuss the dreams than he was the memories.
“They’re bothering you, huh?” she asked. There were all sorts of reasons for his hesitance, she was sure. Dreaming about a man who’d just died…who was important to him…and the storied life he must have led as a famous pirate.
“I think I need more time to process it,” he said, staring still at the ceiling. “Or just to let it fade back into the realm of dreams while I find out what his life was really like.”
“That makes sense, Sabo.” She leaned up to kiss his chin, her arms squeezing him tighter. “You’ve had a long day, anyway…you’ll sort it all out.”
“Yeah.” He smiled, wan and far away again, and then seemed to snap back to reality, tugging the tips of her hair. “Can’t do everything in one day, right?”
Certainly not sort yourself entirely out in the wake of figuring out your entire missing history, she supposed. She leaned into his hand, the familiar sensation of him tugging at her hair somewhat but not completely assuaging her worry.
Those far away looks, the way he sometimes seemed to be far outside himself, she told herself they were expected after something as traumatic as finding and losing someone in the same moment. She told herself that she got the same way when she remembered her past, smiling tightly and vacantly while a thousand miles away in her own head.
She told herself that there was nothing to worry about, and Sabo would sort this all out with time and her dedicated attempts to help.
It was going to be okay. “You sure can’t, but I’ll do what I can to help, ok?”
“What would I do without you?” He smiled, still far away, but full of adoration as they started their journey to sleep.
“Nothing good, dear.” She murmured affectionately. As sleep started to overtake her, she squeezed him close. Close enough that she would see him in her dreams.