Rewinding the Clock

Chapter Fourteen

Fullbody was dead.

Yet it didn't stop the nightmares that haunted my dreams as each death of my loved ones was pulled forward burning the back of my eyelids as I tried for once to not think on it, to be able for once to focus on the fact they were all back and alive, but it didn't help me.

Katakuri and Marco closed ranks around me refusing to let me face even my nightmares alone as they curled up on either side of me in the enlarged bed easily fitting us all.

While it didn't fully curb the nightmares, it softened them.

"You should be sleeping," said Marco seriously as he joined me in the shower where I was just standing listlessly as the hot water fell over me. "Especially since I know you haven't been."

"Easier said than done," I said softly head tilting as I looked over my shoulder as he ambled into the large shower stall and padding over to me. "It's like I can't get the memories out of my head for one day. And it's tearing me apart."

Marco remained silent as my head bowed and the tears began to fall even as he wrapped his arms around me from behind and gently pulled me against his front as my head leaned back resting on his collarbone.

My hand raised as I tried to bite back the tears while Marco held my waist to keep me from collapsing onto the ground even while he gently lowered us to the shower floor as the water beat down on us.

It made me glad that even in this moment, he was here with me.

"It isn't ever going to go away," whispered Marco while using his hands to turn me as he leaned against the wall of the shower and easily got me settled sideways on his lap. "But that's alright because forgetting is making their deaths meaningless and means you didn't care."

His words rang within me even as I went limp in his arms while it all began to hit me.

"But moving forward isn't leaving them behind either. You need to be able to mourn for them as you weren't able to before because of us being hunted down, and I mean it Mieko, because we have told you this once before."

"I'm trying," I said voice nothing but a raspy tremble as my throat felt like it was closing up. "And I know sometimes are better than others but today I just can't. Not when all I can see when I close my eyes are their dead bodies and last moments seared into the back of my eyelids."

It left me choked up and a shaken mess.

The very thought of leaving this room and seeing them, alive and unhurt, all but threw me into a panic attack. Mainly as it caused my mind to fight what I remembered and what I was seeing.

"And that's alright," soothed Marco as he began to run his hand through my wet hair. "You don't always have to be okay or fine Mieko. If you need today for yourself and to just mourn and regroup then that is what we will do."

"He's right," agreed Katakuri as the shower door was opened again. "I already got Kiba to inform Luffy and the others that we won't be joining them today in the Baratie."

I didn't know what I did to deserve these two men.

Because Katakuri, Marco, and Smoker had been there no matter how many times I had stumbled or fallen. It made me so happy that I met them even though I hated what we had to pay for it.

With us losing the ones we loved because of the Celestial Dragons and the corrupted marines.

"Thank you," I said body feeling heavy as exhaustion tugged at me. "I mean that with every fiber of my being."

It felt almost surreal as Marco easily lifted me into his arms as he got to his feet before holding me upright while Katakuri and he worked to wash my hair and my body before he picked me up and began drying me off before dressing me and laying me into the bed between them.

I felt almost like a child as they took care of me, but my body felt to heavy, and I was just so exhausted that I stayed silent as they did so.

"Sleep," whispered Marco voice ever so gentle as he settled in front of me with Katakuri at my back. "Just sleep Mieko."

****

Flashback ~

My hands trembled as disbelief filled me from where I had collapsed on the floor in front of the desk in the captains quarters. Buggy the Clown was dead, Luffy was dead, so many of our own were dead with Zoro still not having returned to return Luffy's body to me as he had said before leaving that fateful night.

"I'm sorry," I whispered in the empty room. "I am so sorry that I didn't go with you and even give you that slim chance to come back alive. I am so fucking sorry."

"He wouldn't want you apologizing," stated Dragon, making me hold back a scoff. "My son was a fighter and an amazing man who would be happy to know the sister he adored lived."

"At what cost?" I asked brokenly, still slumped against the desk as I looked helplessly around myself. "They're all dead Dragon. Each and every one of my nakama are gone and I am the last one standing here without them with their tattered promises and oaths laying at my feet and you're telling me to just keep moving forward?"

"I'm saying do not waste their sacrifice," refuted Dragon with a shake of his head. "But I also came to tell you that I'll be leaving for another mission."

I didn't respond, only bowed my head as he turned and walked away.

It would be two weeks later that once more I held a newspaper as a grim smile pulled at my lips as my eyes darkened while my shoulders slumped.

"What a hypocrite you are Dragon," I whispered with a shake of my head not feeling it as tears trailed down my face. "Telling me to live while you went out to bomb their headquarters in a suicide mission."

Dragon was dead.

But he took a large chunk of the enemy out with him leaving them to scatter and with so few numbers matching our own, even if they still had a bit more on their side than we currently did, we had a bit of breathing room thanks to him.

"He left his remaining people under your command," said Marco as he walked into the office face solemn as he watched me. "What would you like to do?"