Sequel to 'Haven't Seen You in a While'
Title: Sequel to 'Haven't Seen You in a While'
Author: Kage Kashu
Website: None
Rating: PG
Genre(s): Angst
Pairing: mention Smo/Ace
Summary: Jenks' take a few years later on Smoker's presumed disappearance, and a talk with Tashigi about the past.
Warnings: past reference to death?
Disclaimer: Hey now, I own Jenks' ass. I don't own the rest of them, nor the Mera Mera, but I totally own Jenks.
Author's Note: Ehrm. I was just thinking on my Other Thing where Smoker ehrm... kinda found out about Ace's death... So, yeah. This is a sequel thing from that. Also, don't kill me, but this is... just as sad as the Other Thing...
Word Count: 1101
Haven't Seen You
The blond man had ignored the stares that had haunted him ever since his arrival in Roguetown. Lieutenant Hoffman had known little of the Vice Admiral's actual history, and had had a great respect for the man. He had been absolutely ecstatic at the idea of working under such a powerful and intriguing person.
Of course, Vice Admiral Smoker hadn't been what Jenks had expected his new commander to be. That was a good thing, he had thought at the time. His intense stare, hawk-like and unblinking, had unnerved him completely, in spite of the bloodshot quality of the dark grey eyes. He had felt like the admiral was picking him apart mentally, and weighing his every quality against something he would never be able to stand up to.
The next day, he had been ready, eager even, to meet the man again, however... Apparently the admiral had disappeared during the night. And Jenks had just happened to be the very last person to see him.
It was around this point that Jenks started seeing a division among the Marines at the Roguetown base. Those who seemed more deeply touched by Vice Admiral Smoker's disappearance stared at him with sad, knowing eyes, and the less affected gazed at him with suspicious eyes. And he was quite sure that he would never know why.
Three years into his tenure at Roguetown, late at night, on a self-appointed watch, he just happened to pass by the office in which he had met the man who had, for better or worse, changed his life by leaving it. He paused at the doors, as there was a light coming from within, and rapped his knuckles gently on the frame.
The admiral's office had been left in almost the exact same state the man had left it in, on Captain Tashigi's orders, when she had taken over as the base's commander. Only official paperwork was removed, and the room was turned into a shrine.
The admiral's longest standing crew, the ones who gave Jenks sad looks whenever they thought he wasn't looking, seemed to know for a fact that the man was dead, and somehow, that made the looks even worse. They obviously didn't blame him, so why..?
There was a shuffle from inside, and the sound of a throat clearing. "Come in," called a soft voice, one that Jenks recognized immediately. It was Captain Tashigi, and from what little he could tell, she'd been crying. Careful not to look at her face, he stepped into the room and stood before the desk, as he had once before. "Lieutenant Jenks Hoffman?" she asked, and he raised his eyes to meet hers.
"Yes sir," he replied, trying to suppress a chill at the sense of déjà vu. Her eyes looked so much like his had. So much so that he had to wonder... Had the admiral been crying too?
Her face crumpled and the feeling disappeared. "Why you?" she asked, shaking her head. "Why did it have to be you here, now?"
"I'm sorry sir?" He wasn't sure what else to say. He had the feeling that he wasn't supposed to be seeing this. "Is there anything I can do, Captain?"
She gave him a searching look. "What I am about to say will remain off of the record," she began. "If a Marine finds a Devil Fruit, it is not to be kept by them." Her gaze steadied, firmed. "If... they had known the previous user of that fruit..."
She found the Moku Moku fruit, Jenks surmised. And she was asking him for advice. "They can only take it away if they know you have it, sir," he replied cautiously. "Even then, if it's already been eaten, the worst they could do is..." And he wasn't going to finish that.
"I just can stand the thought of meeting someone," she eventually sighed, "knowing that it's not him, yet... It had to have been terrible, for him." She shook her head. "Meeting you."
Jenks blinked. He thought he knew who she was talking about, but why would meeting him have been so awful for the admiral? "I don't think I understand, sir," he murmured, hoping she would either explain or tell him to leave.
She gave him a sad half-smile. "What do you know of your predecessor, Lieutenant?"
"The last Mera Mera fruit user?" asked Jenks. She nodded. "Firefist Ace," he began, reciting knowledge that was, for him, textbook, "was the Second Division Commander of the Whitebeard pirates. I can't remember what his bounty was but..." Captain Tashigi raised a hand to forestall his continuation.
"Do you know anything more personal about Ace?" she asked. When he shook his head she sighed. "You are like... a soft, untried version of Ace. You don't look the same, but... a lot of your mannerisms, even are just like him. It may surprise you, but he and Smoker had been friends. I suspected sometimes..." She sighed again. "They could have been more, if they hadn't both been stubborn pricks."
Jenks tried not to squirm under her stare.
"I don't want to meet another Moku Moku user and not have it be Smoker," she finally continued. "For him to meet you, to see Ace, yet not... It must have been terrible. We hadn't even known if Ace was dead or not. Smoker..." Her teeth grit almost silently, and her eyes closed. "I think he knew. When I saw your papers in here, when I came to talk to him that night... I wasn't surprised. He had never said anything, but I knew." Her voice choked off and a hand reached up to cover her mouth. "I can't stand the thought... of seeing what he saw."
He gnawed on his lip and tried to hold off the tears that were trying to build up in his own eyes. Jenks never had been good at dealing with this kind of situation. Give him a dead body, and he knew what to do, but... someone else crying? He gently cleared his own throat. "Do what you have to do, sir. I don't think I could ever understand, but... the surest way to never meet another Moku Moku user... is to be the one to eat that fruit."
Captain Tashigi's eyes rose to meet his again. "Thank you, Lieutenant. You are... dismissed. I'll be seeing you tomorrow."
As Lieutenant Jenks Hoffman stepped out into the hall, he choked back a sigh of relief. About ten feet down the hall he stopped, cradled his head in his hands, and wondered if he did the right thing.