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Ace is over losing Sabo. It's been years since he left, since he died, since he sank to the bottom of the ocean and Ace stayed up all night aching for him. It's been a decade, or nearly, and Ace is a pirate now, and on good days he is present in the moment and doesn't think about either of his brothers at all.
Bad days are blessedly few, but far enough between that each one catches him off guard. Sometimes he dreams of that laugh, that smile, that face he's forgetting no matter how hard he tries to hold on. Sometimes he hears that voice in the back of his head, teasing or chastising, and he can't quite tell what it sounds like but it's achingly familiar.
On the worst days, he closes his eyes and Sabo's there in the darkness behind their lids. On the worst days, he'll be caught up in someone else's embrace, and in some unseen corner of the room he'll feel the ghost of a ten-year-old boy with blond hair and a gap-toothed grin and a hat half as tall as himself, watching and judging. Go away, he tries to tell it, but it doesn't always listen. Get out of here. Leave me alone.
I'm not leaving you again, the ghost says. You want me with you.
You're ten, Ace tells it. This is adult stuff. You're too young for this, and you always will be.
If I was old enough, you'd embrace me just like that, the ghost says, and Ace hates that it knows, because it's just more proof that he knows, and there's nothing he can do about it. He can feel the truth boring into his back like a haunting gaze, and for the first time since he took Whitebeard's mark, he wishes suddenly for a shirt.
Please leave me alone, Ace begs.
I wish you'd let me, the ghost replies.
Did you want me? he asks, desperate for an answer he'll never receive. If you had grown up with me like you should have, would you have embraced me when I came to you? Did you love me the way I loved you?
Of course I loved you, Ace, is all the ghost will say to that. You were my brother.
Ace doesn't answer. The next time he looks over, the ghost is gone.