Chapter 4: Too Soon
I wasn’t ready! I wasn’t ready to die!
That was the thought that tore raggedly across Ace’s mind as he watched himself collapse, frail and fragile in death in his little brother’s arms.
There was so much left for him to do. So many adventures still to go on. So many people he had let down that he had to make up for. He’d never see his dreams though– he should have expected that– but worse he’d never even seen Luffy’s dream though.
Instead he’d died in his arms, feeling worthless and unlovable, and blessed just to be loved anyway.
And Luffy had called him out. Luffy had known. ‘I have no regrets’ was a lie. He had nothing but regrets. Of all the people he’d let down, it was himself, most of all.
He’d let himself be beaten, over and over again. Beaten by fate. Beaten by Whitebeard.
“I’m going to be greater than the pirate king.” “I’ll never die!”
It all rang hollow when he’d let himself be beaten low again and again until he believed it was where he belonged. What was meant to be. That he was blessed to be loved by the man who’d shown him how truly pathetic he really was.
Ace didn’t know whether he loved or hated Whitebeard in that final moment of his death. But he wished he had remembered earlier that there was someone who had loved him all along.
Luffy. His brother.
And me, too!
Still hovering over the battlefield, watching his own eyes close forever, Ace heard a voice he’d thought that he had lost forever. He turned away from the scene, toward the voice instead, and saw someone there reaching out for him.
Curly blond hair and fierce, sad eyes.
Sabo, it had to be Sabo. As old as he’d have been if he were still alive. He’d come back for him after all this time.
Ace threw himself into his arms.
Actually, I think I might still be alive?
What?
Koala woke up in the discrete little hotel room in Sabaody to find Sabo beside her, thrashing and sweating in bed again.
It had been almost two weeks now since the incident, and Sabo never seemed to have recovered fully. He sweated and mumbled and squirmed in his sleep, dreaming dreams he told her he didn’t quite remember. He stared off into the distance, and he looked at her like he’d never seen her before. He forgot things, and asked strange questions, and sometimes seemed to forget to answer to his own name.
But none of it had been enough to dissuade him from going on the mission with her. They’d been in Sabaody three days already.
She’d been against it at first. They’d fought, just a little, when she tried to convince him to rest up a little more and let her go alone, or let her send someone else. She was worried— she’d all but told him so to his face as they prepared to leave. Worried about his scattershot state of mind and the increasing number of strange moments. Worried he might forget something key at the worst moment and get them both into hot water with slavers and smugglers alike. Worried that there was still something he wasn’t telling her.
But they’d gone together, and broadly been better for it. Three days yielded strong leads and intel that would be crucial to following up on the gaping hole the Worst Generation left in the Celestial Dragons’ open secret vice. And to his credit, Sabo had never had one of his strange moments when they were in the middle of a tense situation— or if he had, he’d done a damned good job of hiding it.
She lay on her side, watching him thrash for a moment with a frown of concern. It was every night now, every night another intensive dream that he’d claim was a mystery. Every day more strange looks. Could he really blame her for worrying?
She placed her hand on his shoulder and gave him a shake. “…Sabo.”
His skin felt flushed and he made a low noise under his breath. His voice sounded odd– something off about the tone and register of it. She’d heard his voice dip strangely like that a couple of times now.
The first time she could recall was the night he’d woken up– when he’d called her “good looking” instead of beautiful
It was a moment that still hung as bizarre in her mind. The wrong word choice, the wrong voice and tone— it was almost like having a stranger in her bedroom.
A complimentary stranger, and only for a split second, but—
“You’re dreaming again, looks like a nightmare.” She gave him another gentle shake. “Geeze, you’re burning up.”
He murmured again in bed, and might have been waking up. His arms slipped around her, squeezing her tightly. His breath hissed an ‘Ss’ sound like he was beginning to say something, but that was when his eyes fluttered open, and he stopped.
His warm, dark eyes stared blankly at her.
Koala kept her hand on him, squeezing him tight even as he drew her against himself.
She met his eyes, that blank stare.
“Do you recognize me?” she asked quietly, something she’d asked a few times before when her eyes met a blank stare.
He took a breath and blinked again.
“Of course I do, Koala.” His voice was back to normal. His hands were shaking as they squeezed her. “Sorry– I was dreaming. A nightmare really.”
She snuck her arms around him until she could hold him tight. “I could tell. You were thrashing again. Even if he never told her, she still had to ask “…do you remember what it was about?”
He rested his chin on her shoulder– no it was more like he collapsed on her like a doll with his strings cut.
“I—” for a moment she was sure he was going to deflect. But then he swallowed thickly. “It was about Ace.”
Koala looked up at him through the frizzed and mussed bangs of her hair. “About Ace huh? I’m not surprised. What…about him?”
“I was dreaming about his last moments.”
Koala was briefly taken aback. She gripped him tighter, rubbing his back with the palms of her hands. “The stuff you read in the paper, Sabo?”
So his mind had conjured up a nightmare about his brother’s death, formed of details from survivors and the papers. A nightmare where you lost someone close to you in vivid detail She made a soft, keening sound. She knew what those were like all too well. Her nightmares about what Fisher Tiger’s final moments must have been like, dying slowly and painfully, came very strongly to mind as she held him in sympathy. “What a tragic, horrible dream.”
“I don’t know.” His chin dug into her shoulder as he took another deep, ragged breath. “In the dream, he saw me watching him. He thought I–”
His voice broke off and he made a smothered noise.
Koala held him tighter/ “…he thought you…?”
She moved her hands up his back to brush through his tangled blond hair, smoothing it between her fingers. She wanted to soothe him, remind him of where he was, instead of hundreds of miles away in a warzone’s aftermath.
Sabo took another shivering breath, nuzzling her. The warm flush of his body had started to turn clammy instead. “He thought I was dead, and that I’d come to… to get him.”
Koala hissed softly through her teeth.
“But you’re not dead, even if he thought you were.” She drew him close, pulling the blankets over him to try and warm him back up. “Oh Sabo…”
He’d dreamt that Ace thought he was the ferryman to the underworld. The spirit of someone lost there to shepard him to the hereafter, whatever form it may take.
Her heart sank in her chest in sympathetic response. “I’m sure he’s happy knowing you’re alive…in…in whatever way he’s learned that.”
For a long moment, he didn’t answer. She just felt him grip her more tightly and felt the sting of hot tears on her shoulder. He mastered himself a moment later, and straightened up. He even smiled at her after he’d wiped his eyes.
“Thanks, Koala.”
She looked up at him with a shaky smile of her own. “You’re welcome, Sabo. Thanks for talking with me about it. I know it’s been hard.”
He cuffed her gently on the chin. “Thanks for sticking it out with me. I’m a lot of trouble.”
She lightly cuffed him back, smiling widely at him. “You’re my trouble, idiot. I’ve basically picked you, you know.”
“You picked your own trouble, huh? Hope I’m not more than you bargained for.” His voice seemed to waver with that odd quality again.
“Well…” she smiled amusedly. “I think a “good looking” woman can choose whatever trouble she wants. And I’m a little hardier than I look! I think I can handle you.”
She used the words he’d used when talking in that odd register. It was so odd. She had expected him to act a little weird when his memory returned— all those many , many times she wished she could help him remember for his own sake, but this particular quirk always jumped out at her, stymying her for the briefest of moments.
He chuckled, looking a bit abashed as he shook his head. “I’d never say you weren’t hardy, Koala. Promise.”
Sabo squeezed her once more and disentangled, heaving himself with obvious effort off the bed and stretching.
“Well— even if we’re pretending to be debauched vacationers, we can’t lay in bed all day, nightmares or no.”
“Good!” She hopped from bed and stretched in her nightdress too, afterward making for the hotel bathroom to fix her hair. “A little sleeping in is good for our cover, but bad for the lead this morning. Remember that nasty fellow…what was it, Peterman?”
“Petterman,” Sabo corrected, starting to get dressed. He had been wearing far from his usual attire for this mission, dressed instead rather whimsical in beach wear which certainly fit their cover. But once he was dressed in the flora shirt and denim pants it did make it even stranger to look at him as he peeked in on her in the bathroom.
She stared at him for a moment, taking it all in as she brushed her hair out of the familiar tangle and into her customary bob cut.
It was such a different look, perfect for going incognito of course. But it certainly seemed to compliment the strangeness of his behavior. Sometimes he’d act like a different person— and right now he was dressed like one too.
It wasn’t as if she was wearing the same thing as always either. She’d opted for a pair of denim overalls over a floral print blouse and a wider brimmed hat than she was used to wearing. Something flashy, face concealing…and ultimately, trendy among young vacationers about town.
“Yes, Petterman. He was seen moving into one of the ‘lawless districts’, which isn’t unusual for a kidnapper like him but…well. He was acting a little cagey.”
She watched as Sabo stood in front of the mirror and carefully put makeup over his scar. He looked at her with his large, dark eyes. “Give me your thoughts on that.”
Koala adjusted her collar, making sure none of her tattoo was visible, before she flipped open a pair of sunglasses and slipped them over her eyes. “He was checking his perimeter, likely out of concern of being followed or watched. My guess is he can’t afford for his activities to be discovered, blown, or interfered with— which suggests some kind of deal going down real soon. Likely today.”
“Which makes today a great day to ambush him,” His smile had flared back to life, almost to a grin. He brushed his hair back and put the unfamiliar hat he was wearing— a bucket-like fishing hat— over his blond curls. No one would have guessed that he was the revolutionary chief of staff, even if they’d known what he looked like.
He looked like he was going to lay around the beach drinking rum all day.
It was a perfect compliment to her. She looked like she was going to bustle around dragging him to the Sabaody shops and gush about steamed buns and the local tourist spots.
She grinned widely under her sunglasses.
“Exactly. If we can catch him red handed with whoever he’s meeting—” She punched her hand. “We’ll press them for intelligence, throw a wrench in the works, and fight our way further up the chain.”
“Sounds like a fun day.” Sabo came near and thumped her shoulder with his. “Maybe we’ll even have time for some souvenir shopping, eh?”
Koala laughed, looping an arm around his waist as she looked up at him shoulder to shoulder. “Oooh, have anything in mind, Sabo? For a wretched hive of corruption and cruelty it does have pretty nice gift shops.”
He pushed the brim of his hat up, grinning at her and looking probably more excited than he should be. More excited than a man who had been shaking in her arms 15 minutes ago should be. “They might have pretty good snacks?”
Koala shook her head with a long-suffering smile.
“Of course that’s where your mind goes…yeah, alright.” She tugged him towards the door, nearly dragging him bodily towards it. “We’ll wrap things up with Petterman and grab some snacks. I’ll even buy ’em, Sabo.”
She looked up at him with a broadening of her smile. She’d do anything to preserve that excitement on his face right now. Anything at all in the great blue sea.
Even if he sometimes didn’t act quite himself, she’d protect that smile with everything she had.
He was fighting off the fuzzy and strange feeling that had been persistently overtaking him in the last two weeks. He didn’t have any trouble acting, but whenever it came time to think or reflect he found himself strangely confused and lost in his own head. Personal thoughts especially seemed to wander off or crash into one another. He was trying not to worry about it too much. That sort of thing was normal when you’d had a bad shock. Right?
Right now he was trying just to focus on the mission. Koala was counting on him.
They’d split up for the moment. Not far— just far enough down the market street from one another that they could cover different vantage points while still being able to watch each other’s backs, and he was sure as hell not going to let her down.
Even if being back in Sabaody was distracting as hell. The sights, the sounds and the smells of the marketplace were overwhelming, crowds thick among the rows of little carts, shops and bodegas. Even though it was a dangerous place, with a disgusting underbelly it still held a kind of bewitching, carnival atmosphere of food, games, and vacations.
A familiar scent tugged at his nostrils, carried on the warm breeze and he briefly turned his head from watching the street to follow it to the place where it originated.
The realization stood out bright in his mind as his gaze fell on the little food cart and the bright packages stacked up on its counter.
‘Hey, that’s where Deuce and I got those rice crackers!’
Ace spent a fond moment remembering the hectic, exciting day with his first mate following him around the archipelago while their ship got coated for the journey under sea before his thoughts finally crashed into one another and collided.
‘Wait what?’ one confused thought twisted. ‘Who’s Deuce? Why am I remembering this?’
‘Deuce is my first mate, of course I remember him!’ Another thought insisted on top of the other.
‘The dream. It’s from that dream I had about Ace.’
‘It wasn’t a dream, it was my life!’
The view of the market seemed to fade out of his vision, distant and unimportant in the face of the internal whirlpool sucking at his mind.
‘But I’m not Ace, I’m Sabo.’ This line of thought was increasingly confused— increasingly panicked.
‘No I’m Ace! You’re Sabo.’
‘What?’ // ‘What?’
The world spun, and Ace sank to his knees in the confusion. He stared at his black-gloved hands blankly. They weren’t his hands.
They were Sabo’s hands.
Of course they were Sabo’s hands. Ace was dead.
‘Then why am I here? Why am I staring at your hands, Sabo?’
‘I don’t know. I don’t know. Oh my goodness, Ace. Ace is it really you?’
‘I think so?’
He turned his– their?– hands over again, tugging at the fingers of the gloves.
He was overcome with a sudden rocking surge of emotion that hurt his chest and dragged a sick noise from out of his mouth.
‘Ace!’ // ‘Sabo!’
Ace realized dimly that he had been flickering in and out of consciousness alongside Sabo for days. That sometimes he’d answer instead of him, as natural as anything, his words coming out of Sabo’s mouth without either of them realizing it. He’d been seeing through Sabo’s eye, breathing with Sabo’s lungs— like he was now. He took a deep gasp of breath.
How was this happening? And why was he the one now that seemed to be in control while Sabo was a distant voice from somewhere behind their eyes?
‘I don’t know,’ Sabo whispered. ‘I don’t have the answers to any of this. Maybe you’re a ghost, or maybe I’ve gone completely insane.’
‘No way!’ Ace argued back.
‘It doesn’t matter right now,’ Sabo hissed. ‘I love you. I’m glad you’re here. I don’t know why you’re here but even if I’m insane I love you and I’m glad.’
Ace felt himself filled with a warm glow, as if Sabo were wrapping his arms around him somehow, from within. He felt another hiccup of a sob in his chest.
‘Sabo…’
‘I’m glad and I love you,’ Sabo repeated warmly. The impression of his voice suddenly got hard, determined. A little angry. ‘But whatever’s going on we can’t do this right now. We have to focus. There’s a mission and Koala is counting on us.’
Ace stood up like a shot as Sabo brought him back to reality, realizing that they were garnering strange looks crouched there at the corner of the marketplace and he had lost visual contact with Koala.
Panic shot through him as searched for her in the crowd through Sabo’s eyes, worrying for a moment that he wouldn’t even recognize her. Worried that she’d be gone and he’d fucked things up for Sabo (of course he’d fuck everything up for Sabo) (don’t you dare say that, Ace!)—
But Koala was right where she’d been, and Ace breathed a sigh of relief, shoulders sagging.
‘You’re going to have to get a grip, Ace,’ Sabo said in a nervous, but forceful sort of tone in his mind. ‘I can’t seem to… connect… with my hands right now. Or anything else. I keep trying to move and it’s not working.’
Ace froze still again. ‘What? What do you mean?’
‘I mean you’re the one in control of my body, Ace. So I hope you know what you’re doing with it.’
Ace swallowed thickly. ‘Can I give it back?’
‘I don’t know. Can you?’
Ace tried. He really tried. But he didn’t know how. He didn’t know how to disconnect with the murmur of the marketplace, and the warmth of Sabo’s gloves on his hands and the smell of rice crackers. He didn’t know how to go back to that warm, comfortable and indistinct place just behind Sabo that he realized he’d been dwelling in since he’d arrived— the place Sabo must be now.
‘It’s not working!’
‘It’s okay, Ace. We’ll just have to improvise. I know you won’t let me down.’
A warm feeling of longing and gratitude and grief welled up thickly in Ace’s (Sabo’s? Ace’s.) chest again and he choked back a sob again.
“You’re damned right I won’t let you down, brother,” he murmured under his breath.
‘That’s the spirit. I love you, Ace. We’ll figure this out later. For now we have a mission. Together.’
Together. After all the years apart, they were together.
All it had taken was dying.
Ace pushed the thought away and his gaze flicked back to Koala who nodded to him as they checked in with one another silently.
He went back to watching the street for their quarry, pushing away the thought of rice crackers, and the rumbling of his stomach.
Do we have to eat for two now, Sabo?
‘Ace, that’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard. Keep looking for Petterman.’
Despite the chiding tone, their thoughts and hearts were so close together Ace could hear all the fondness and warmth in Sabo’s admonition.
‘I love you too, Sabo.’
Koala had always struggled with Sabaody Archipelago. Every time she set foot on the twisted roots that served as roads, she felt the conflict welling up within her.
It was beautiful; fanciful and entrancing with its strange floating resin bubbles, and its theme park— it was a wonderland that almost seemed unreal, full of alluring smells and smiling vendors and vacationing families from every sea.
It was disgusting, it turned her stomach knowing what went on below its roots, and in the areas hidden just beyond the high-class glitz and glamor. Sabaody Park stood tall, sparkling high over the heads of the people it pushed down. The Fish Men and mermaids, persecuted and enslaved for simply existing, dreaming of seeing something like the ferris wheel with their own eyes. The slaves, suffering in the auction houses and the dens of the roving kidnapper gangs.
It made her scar burn on her back, just like the day her former master had pressed the brand tight against her skin. Sabaody always brought her mind back to the glittering city of Mary Geoise and her place within it.
So she turned her attention to their prey’s trail instead. One less kidnapper meant a dozen less slaves being sent to fates like her own.
Still, as they wandered through the crowd and mingled with the people, she couldn’t help but notice Sabo’s increasingly odd behavior. Again. In the middle of the stakeout. He seemed a little too invested in their surroundings, a little too excited.
And then he’d vanished. He had fallen behind, or dropped too low for her to see, only for her to notice him stand up from the ground with a strange look in his eye as he met her stare. Worry flooded her again, a fear that something had triggered a further problem with his memory, or worse.
But they were on a mission, her questions for him died in her throat as she gave him a thin smile and a glance before returning to her lookout. He’d insisted on them embarking on this mission, and by hell they were going to finish it.
After giving her just long enough to really wind herself up worrying over it, they’d finally spotted Petterman in the marketplace, and followed him discreetly to his meeting.
Koala and Sabo had made short work of the guard— they might as well not have been there— and the encounter ended with everyone aside from themselves and Petterman unconscious. It was a rush, it always was. Koala tended to disarm people, surprising them with her capacity for violence in contrast to her, admittedly, very innocent looking exterior.
It helped that she didn’t exactly feel a need to go easy on a bunch of kidnappers who sold people to the slave rings that supplied the Celestial Dragons with more lives to ruin.
So maybe she’d gone a little overboard. It made for short work of the guards, the buyer, and Petterman’s kidnapper goons. Her fish-man karate style broke noses and bones, and dropped full grown men down only to meet another sharp palm strike to send them to the abyss of unconsciousness.
When she and Sabo fought side-by-side, it was a violent and beautiful dance— even if her partner was fighting a little…strangely today.
Sabo had tied Petterman to a chair, smiling widely the whole time. He’d seemed off the whole time too, but an interrogation wasn’t the time to think too deeply about it.
Koala kept herself from glancing at him, shoving down her worries as she cracked her knuckles and grinned down at the man from under the wide brim of her hat.
“So…are you going to be nice and tell us what we want to know, or am I going to test how many palm strikes it takes to crack your skull?”
She only got as far as three before Petterman became much more co-operative. He furnished them with a list of names and contacts which Sabo took down dutifully on a small pad of paper stashed in his floral shirt. It had taken him a minute to find it– as if he’d forgotten where he put it. At the top of the names was one in particular that Petterman seemed to think would be able to bridge the gap between demand and supplier— Disco.
“Disco…” Koala’s expression darkened. “…I’ve heard that name. So he’s still operating is he?”
She glanced at Sabo “…but he’s probably not operating out of the same place he used to. Not with the eyes on it since the incident.”
“He’s opened up what he’s calling an ‘interim’– only taking buyers by appointment,” Petterman said, his voice thick with the blood from his nose that was running down his throat. “I heard his big contact isn’t talking to him since the fallout. If he’s gonna squeal on whoever it is, now’s the time.”
“Sounds like his bad luck might be our jackpot,” Sabo said, crossing his arms. His voice had that strange quality that had been warbling in and out of it for the past couple of weeks, only now it didn’t seem to be going away.
Koala pushed the confusion down— the questions would come later, they had to. They couldn’t afford to look vulnerable or unsure in front of men like Petterman.
She nodded with a thin smile.
“Good. One less slaver in the world makes a world of difference to me.”
She put her hand on her cheek. “…why don’t you tell us where this interim is, Petterman, and I’ll think about letting you leave here with the ability to breathe! Okay?”
When they cleaned themselves up a little bit later in the sink in Petterman’s hideout, Koala noticed as Sabo poked and prodded the little bit of scar on his face where the makeup had smudged it visible. She noticed too as he looked at his eyes, and tugged at the curls of his hair. It wasn’t the time to say anything.
But soon they were several quiet minutes away, dodging and weaving through the streets and checking periodically to make certain that they weren’t followed.
Koala adjusted her hat again, walking a little closer to him now that the threat of being followed was diminished. The two of them fell into step with the crowd like any other couple…at least any other couple who hadn’t just beaten a group of slavers into a fine paste together.
She glanced at him again, studying his expression, his eyes, thankful that her sunglasses hid the way she was staring him down. He’d spent time exploring his face as if it were brand new. Like a man who forgot what his face looked like, or was looking into the eyes of someone else.
It was unusual. Especially with that stranger’s cadence to his voice, and the general confusion that seemed to overwhelm him during their tracking mission.
The return of long-lost memories was one thing…this really felt like another. She opened her mouth to ask, when she saw him turn towards her.
Sabo grinned widely at her. “You were a beast in there.”
She felt a hot flush on her face as she adjusted her sunglasses with a broad smile.
“A beast, huh? It’s like you’ve never seen me use fish-man karate before, Sabo!” She made a subtle muscle with her arm, “they don’t call me one of the greatest human practitioners of it for nothing.”
Still, even the ‘greatest human practitioner’ fell short without the unique physiology the style called for.
“Even if I’ve seen it before, that doesn’t make it less impressive,” he insisted. He smiled at her in a rather teasing, impish way, “or is the lady unfond of compliments?”
She crossed her arms, puffing out her cheeks with a huff….the sort of expression he always teased her over with her name.
“I”m not unfond of compliments at all! As a matter of fact, I love compliments!” She giggled, brushing her hair over her ear, her tone growing more serious “You know how I get when we have to deal with slavers… I tend to go a little overboard.”
His expression darkened for a moment, grin fading, but it recovered quickly and he put his hands on his hips. “Well, overboard’s a good look for you. Anyway we definitely got what we needed, right?”
“We sure did!” She said, the smile flitting back on her face “Disco’s the man who used to run the H..” her arm wrapped around her midsection “Human Auction House. Largest slave trade hub on Sabaody. Hearing he’s still involved, but weakened and cut off means that we’ve got a direct line on not only shuttering his doors for good, but getting information about the men he works for.”
Koala felt another shiver up her spine. The memory of its cramped backroom cages flitted through her mind before she pushed the image down to smile instead.
“Just need to make our way there. Which means we’ve got a little time, right?”
He slipped his arm around her, walking closer, shoulder to shoulder. “Sounds like, right? Can’t go right there, after all.”
Koala leaned into him, resting her head against his shoulder as she watched him out of the corner of her eye. “It’ll be suspicious. We need to play on his timetable, yeah? Besides…it’s a bit of a walk.”
She hesitated, choking on the question. For a moment she only looped her arm around him and leaned closer, holding him tight as they walked. Here in the town of her nightmares, especially, she didn’t want to lose sight or contact with him.
But she had to ask. “…hey, Sabo. Are you feeling okay?”
“Uh….” He glanced at her and smiled a smile that was halfway to a grimace. He was quiet for too long. “Mostly?”
“Mostly,” she said as her arm tightened around him. “…you dropped in the crowd earlier.”
He rubbed the back of his neck with his free hand. “You saw that, huh? Sorry. I just got— overwhelmed by the crowd.”
Koala raised her eyebrow under her glasses. “I saw it, I wanted to run to you but the mark would have seen us, but Sabo, that’s not the only thing.”
He looked at her with his big, dark eyes, looking embarrassed and confused, and a little scared, even. “It’s not?”
He was scared? Of her, or of her noticing what was wrong? Her own confusion grew, and her brow furrowed a little under her glasses. Was he hoping that she just…wouldn’t notice he’d been acting off all day? Even though their fight against the kidnapper gang, he fought like a different man.
“No, it’s not.” Koala reached up and brushed his pale hair from his face, over his concealed scar. “You were looking at yourself in the mirror like you didn’t recognize yourself. And your voice is— you’re talking differently than you usually do. And all sorts of other things!”
She let her hand rest on his cheek as they walked. “I’m just worried about you because I love you, Sabo.” she said quietly.
He paused in their walk and she watched him look over his shoulder before glancing back at her.
“Alright. Alright, damn it I will,” he murmured before he took a breath, and looked her in the eyes. “If I tell you, it’s gonna be a hell of a distraction. You want it before we shake up Disco, or after the mission?”
Koala’s eyes met his, and she was hesitant for a moment as she came to a stop right next to him.
“I’d like to know now. We’ve got a little bit of time, right? I’m no stranger to having to get my head in the game when the time comes.” The truth was she was dying to know. She couldn’t imagine anything more distracting than the worry and concern that already filled her to the core.
He nodded, quite seriously. “I figured you were going to say that. Alright. Let’s dip back to the hotel, okay?”
Koala grabbed his hand tightly, before impulsively leaning up to plant her lips on his in a kiss.
“Alright, darling! That works for me. I should freshen up before our dinner date anyway!”
It was spoken loud enough for the crowd to hear– the cover story of the couple on vacation in the fairytale island of bubbles and ferris wheels.
He chuckled a little under his breath and looked away. “If you say that, you’re going to make me hungry.”
And then he tugged her back toward the hotel.
Koala hurried along with him with a laugh of her own “then I’ll really take you out to eat when you’re done, deal?”
Whatever was happening, whatever secret Sabo warranted enough of a distraction to stage a temporary retreat back to their hotel room, she was absolutely certain they could work through together.
“Deal.”