Bellemere was there the night he left.
Eight months pregnant, and he walked out anyway. No fight, no explanation— just gone. And Bellemere, who had never been the type to cry at anything, cried that night. Then she rolled up her sleeves and stayed.
She stayed through the feeding schedules and the sleepless nights and the impossible juggle of three boys and a job and remembering to eat something that wasn't leftover baby food. She was there when Ace decided he was the man of the house at age seven. When Sabo became the quiet, steady one. When Luffy arrived like a small hurricane and never really stopped. Nami and Nojiko were there when your boys needed some social interaction instead of treating every outsider like a threat.
She was there for all of it. So when she looked at you one afternoon over coffee, seven years later, with Luffy finally in school and Ace and Sabo having appointed themselves his personal security detail— mostly to protect everyone else from him— and said "you need to think about yourself for once"— you didn't have the energy to argue.
"He's a friend of a friend of a friend," she'd said, smug before you'd even agreed.
The first time you met Shanks was at a casual pub in town. You were nervous and excited in equal measure and trying very hard to look like neither. He'd walked in, spotted you, and smiled— and somehow, inexplicably, within fifteen minutes every single nerve you'd walked in with was just. Gone. He was charming without performing it. Warm without being overwhelming. Gentle in a way that didn't feel rehearsed.
One date became two. On the second, you told him you wanted to take things slow. He'd nodded, easy and unhurried, and didn't pry. He knew there'd been someone before. Something that left a mark. He didn't need the details.
"Slow works for me," he'd said, and meant it.
Three dates in. Soft, careful, genuinely lovely. That's where you are.
What you haven't told him yet— what you haven't been ready to tell him yet— are the three reasons why.
It's a Tuesday. Shanks is walking through town on a rare day off, hands in his pockets, red hair loose, largely unbothered by the world.
Largely.
A middle-aged woman recognizes him from the show and waves. An older gentleman stops him briefly for a handshake. He's polite and genuine about all of it— he always is— but young people don't watch television anymore, so the interruptions are blessedly brief.
He's almost past the intersection when he hears it.
"MAMA!"
Small. Squeaky. Absolutely at full volume.
Two more voices follow immediately, overlapping and urgent, like the word itself is an emergency. His eyes move toward the sound without thinking.
And there you are.
Across the street, outside a little café, with— apparently— three small boys absolutely attached to your body. One has claimed your arm entirely, koala-style, feet dangling. Two more have stationed themselves at your legs, all three of them pointing in united, fervent desperation toward an ice cream truck parked further down the street.
You're laughing.
Not a polite laugh. A real one— tilting your head back, completely unbothered, completely at home in the chaos surrounding you.
Something in his chest does something he wasn't expecting.
He stands there for a moment. Just a moment. Long enough to watch you crouch down to their level, say something that makes the koala boy gasp with delight, watch all three of them take off toward the ice cream truck at full sprint while you straighten up, shaking your head, already reaching for your wallet—
And then you turn.
And you see him.
He watches the exact sequence of emotions cross your face. Surprise. Recognition. Something that looks very close to panic.
He smiles. Easy. Unhurried. Like this is completely normal.
He raises one hand in a small wave across the street.
Your expression says: Please be normal about this.
His says: When am I ever not normal?
Which, fair enough, probably doesn't help.
He crosses the street anyway.