AN: Sometimes a ship is born out of the simple thought of 'God, I just love the idea of these' and this is exactly that. It's not crack or humour, but rather a reluctant camaraderie-turned-affection between two of my dearest favourites (who, if we're all completely honest, would make a sinfully gorgeous pair). Spoilers up to 3D2Y, and it follows the time from Hancock's acceptance into the Shichibukai to the reunion of the Straw-Hats and after. I hope you enjoy!

Disclaimer: I do not own One Piece or its characters, they belong to Eichiro Oda. The title and the poem-snippets are from T. S. Eliot's The Waste Land. Cover image by the lovely noldien on tumblr.

Lilacs out of the Dead Land

by Miss Mungoe

Here is Belladonna, the Lady of the Rocks,

The lady of situations.

She struck him as such a frivolous creature, the first time he laid eyes on her, striding into the room with her head held high; a slave's defiance clad a queen's fur stole. Her eyes cut sharp, obsidian like the blade at his back, and the disdain was a snake's poison in a slow festering wound.

He had yet to open his mouth and they were already enemies.

But he didn't mind; he kept his distance. He had no qualms with the Pirate Empress, and he'd dealt with people more stubborn than this child in a woman's form. Her inauguration into their ranks was short but effective, with words meant to strike fear and instil respect, but leering eyes followed her like shadows, slithering snakes along the curve of slim shoulders whose profound allure even he was loath to deny.

But he was not beast like the creatures he surrounds himself with, and so he gave her space where she was hounded – a cold-but-honest respect awarded only to a select few in his acquaintance.

She bore the attention like she did her heavy mantle – with a pride that was just a little too cool to be sincere, but he'd never been one to pry and so he didn't. She was a child in a world of fiends, playing a game with no rules, and her naiveté both repulsed him and drew him near, lured like the weak-minded fools she spun so deftly around the curve of her little finger. Arming herself with the affections of mindless sheep, she dug her heels in and with every leer raised her chin just a little higher.

She stuck around longer than he'd thought she would.

A year passed, and as the World Government's pets the occasional meeting was de rigueur, but still no words were spoken between them. Her presence was a shifting tide in his life; a constant like the gatherings they've been forced to attend. She hovered at the corner of his vision with a silent contempt that contradicted her position, a rebellious fire in eyes steel-cold and black as the waters of the place he called home. She was not there by choice, the thought struck him one day.

His curiosity piqued quite despite himself, but he didn't go out of his way to satisfy it, and they passed the days of required interaction with controlled civility. Nothing changed, the cycle persisted; the tide between their meetings turning with the moon.

And then opportunity presented itself, quietly and without warning as the shifting moods of the infamous sea they've both dared to sail.

He caught the tail-end of a conversation one night, passing down a darkened corridor of their prison-away-from home the Government has long tried to pass of as 'accommodation'. It was a warm night – too warm for his climate of preference, but he bore the heat with little difficulty. He was a creature of the dark, and the night was a familiar mistress.

"Just one more day, Hime-sama, and we can go home! We'll be away from here and you won't have to be back until the next gathering. Please, be patient for just a little while longer? Remember why you accepted this position." The voice stressed the words, and he recognized it as belonging to one half of her constant entourage.

The Empress' sigh was not the child's whine he'd expected, but the wearied sound of the defeated. "I need some time to myself."

"But–"

"Please, Sonia."

The dismissal was too sharp to be pleading, but the figure retreated without another word, and she was left alone as she desired, perched in the open window at the far end of the corridor. He lingered in the shadows for a moment longer, waiting until the receding footsteps had faded before stepping into the flickering lamplight. Her back was turned, but the tilt of her head told him she was aware of his presence.

"What do you want?"

There was an edge to her words – not for the interruption, but something else entirely. A distrust so vivid it thrummed between them, charging the air like the tense lull before a break of thunder. He'd caught her off guard.

"You have nothing to fear from me," he said then. Not for any discernible reason he could name – he'd never cared for assurances before. Curious.

She sniffed, but only because a woman like her would never snort, and the act carried more contempt than the hard line of her brow. "Such is the word of men," she threw over her shoulder, eyes black in the lantern-light. "And you'll be hard-pressed finding a bigger lie." She flicked her hair. "If you've come looking for easy prey you've misjudged me," she announced.

Unlike her, he had no qualms about snorting. "You flatter yourself."

That caught her attention, and he found her glare oddly becoming. More so than the frigidity she flounced like a shield. "It would be a first," she retorted, but the weariness lingered on her brow although he hadn't moved an inch.

That almost brought on a smirk, but unlike most he could control himself, even around someone as striking as she. "It would do you some good, I'm sure."

The lamp-light spilled warm across her flushed cheeks, and he noticed that she'd discarded her mantle. Her hair spilled long and sinuous down her back, sleek like the shifting waves of the sea at night. Anger glinted in her eyes, and he was reminded of the rumours about her powers, rooting men in their place with a single look. "Have you come to bandy words, or just to stare, Mr. Mihawk?" she asked then. "I have visiting hours for both."

He raised a brow at that, surprised at the hint of humour from such a cold woman. "Your reputation does your wit little credit," he said, as he moved to stand beside her where she was sitting in the window, her knees pulled up like a girl.

"I have little need for wit in this place," she retorted sharply, that cutting edge creeping into her voice again, keen and singing like a blade.

"Your position brings you more trouble than it does good, and yet you are still here." He met her gaze squarely with his own, the challenge clear in his words. "Why?"

She looked at him a long time, seeming to assess his character, and the disdain mingled with an intrigue he doubted she was even aware of. "I have my reasons," she answered then, after a heavy pause. "As do you."

He quirked a smile at that. "Something tells me our motivations are quite different."

She sniffed again. "I have no intention speaking of my motives with the likes of you."

He raised a brow. "You have little love for your colleagues," he said then, stating the rather obvious. "Although I cannot fault you for that," he added honestly, with the wry brand of humour he rarely succumbed to these days but that always lingered under the surface.

It did not seem to win him any points, but the rigid clench of her shoulders had loosened somewhat, he noticed. "You speak as though you're not all the same."

"That would be because it's the truth."

She scoffed. "All men are the same."

"A narrow-minded opinion on an ocean such as this," he retorted. "But then, your past taken into consideration, it is perhaps not so odd."

Her gaze snapped back to his, the shift of her head sharp as a whip, and it was fear he saw in her eyes now, harsh and unforgiving and speaking volumes where her voice did not. He had ears all over the Grand Line – he knew the secret she kept hidden, the brand concealed somewhere on her form, masked beneath a heavy mantle and a regal posture that seemed to fool everyone else. Everyone but those who knew the truth, herself included.

He saw the girl – the one that still clung to her bones beneath her sharp demeanour and the armour she'd shaped for herself. The frightened slave that shied away from the touch of men, who she kept locked up so tight what was left for the world to see was a cold Pirate Empress years beyond the child lurking beneath her skin.

It lasted only a moment, and then she composed herself, pulled her role around her like a cloak. "I don't know what you're talking about," she declared, but the waver in her voice slipped through despite her obvious effort.

Mihawk raised a brow in turn, but didn't push matters. By the look on her face – the fear so evident now, he wondered how he'd never seen it before – she knew. So instead he turned on his heel, ready to head back to his quarters for the night.

"Wait!"

The command fell in the space between them with the weight she usually threw around, but he caught the underlying plea. He tilted his head, met her gaze over his shoulder – the dark depths whirlpools in the shifting shadows of the corridor. "You–" she stopped herself, fingers clenching to fists. "You won't say anything?"

He wondered how much pride it took to phrase that as a question and not a demand. From the expression on her face, more than she was used to giving. Part of him felt unduly pleased.

"I have no desire to flaunt the secrets of others," he said simply with a shrug, before resuming his walk. "You need not fear that from me."

She was silent so long he thought she wasn't going to say anything else, but he caught the murmur just as he rounded the corner.

"Thank you."

He glanced over his shoulder, at the girl in a woman's body, the slave in a queen's regalia – such a vivid contradiction in a world filled to the brim with the predictable. He didn't reply, but nodded his head in a show of having heard her. And then he cloaked himself in shadows, vanishing from her presence like the wraith the rumours so often pained him as.

Their paths would cross again soon enough.

And still she cried, and still the world pursues

They issued the call to arms, and she ignored it.

In fact, it took the arrival of one Monkey D. Luffy for her to respond at all, and then only for the sake of getting him to his brother. It was the irony of all ironies, the self-proclaimed hater of men aiding in the rescue-attempt of the century, to help one man save another.

But Luffy was different. There was a vivacity about the boy that she would have been as cold as the rumours said not to have been touched by. And so she let herself fall – let herself plummet helplessly to the charms of a man a decade her junior, because for the first time in years she'd experienced what it felt like to be alive. To not go from day to day, living up to the expectations put before her, conforming to the way the world expected her to be.

And so she'd thrown caution to the wind, and bet her heart on a man who wouldn't look at her twice.

She was a fool and she knew it. Knew it to the marrow of her bones and the core of her being, that she was betting her money on the wrong man. A boy, whose affections were so easily earned and who granted them to everyone. There was no monopolizing a man like that, she knew, but damn her for dreaming. Damn her for thinking there was a possibility to be the sole focus of those grinning eyes. The only thing in the world – the treasure to rival all treasures.

She was a fool, but a willing fool, finally making choices for herself and herself alone. Choosing to help Monkey D. Luffy because she could, not because she was expected to. Choosing to participate in the Government's foolish war to help the man who'd helped her, and not because her position required it. It was such a liberating feeling – free of the restraints she'd carried with her long after her escape from servitude, as visible to her own eyes as the brand on her back. But this – this was a choice she'd made for herself.

She should have known he'd pick up on it.

"You are hiding something."

She didn't meet those eyes – the hawk-like irises that cut to the naked marrow of her soul, seeing everything and missing nothing. She should have known she couldn't hide it, but was surprised he'd chosen to bring it up.

"I don't know what you're talking about," she responded coldly, flicking her gaze briefly in his direction.

The subtle raise of a trademark brow was barely perceptible, but it conveyed his thoughts well enough. "I was not expecting you to show," he said then, voice a low rumble so as not to draw attention. They'd been gathered for the execution, teetering on the threshold of war. Any moment now they would be called out to the front, to fight a useless battle for a man barely out of boyhood.

"I always intended to," she said. "I was simply hoping we would not have to resort to slaughter."

"You have a purpose this time," he pushed, ignoring her excuses. "What would make you want to be here? You have no personal investment in this war."

The way he spoke told her he thought just the opposite, but she wasn't going to grant him the truth, no matter how fragile his loyalties to his superiors were. When it all came down to it, they were all in it for themselves; it was the Government's folly for believing otherwise.

"Neither do you," she countered, partly to change the subject, and partly because she was genuinely curious. From what she'd learned about his character, he had none of the same motivations as their fellow colleagues. He had enough weight to throw around without a title, but was oddly tight-lipped about his reasons for having accepted the position in the first place.

She caught the smirk – the minuscule tug at the corner of his severe mouth – before he spoke, "I have my part to play in this tale."

She resisted the urge to scoff. "So do we all. What is it to you to question mine?"

He turned his head then, looking straight at her, and she felt an unnerving shiver run through her, the way it had that day they'd first spoken, that humid night by the window-sill. It was the sense that he knew everything, that there wasn't a secret to hide from those hawk-like eyes. And perhaps she was right.

"You should be mindful of your allegiances," he said then, after a laden pause, and she tried to mask her surprise. There was no way he could know.

"I was summoned, and here I am. I cannot be faulted for following orders," she said, giving him a sharp look. "And if they do, they'll forgive me," she flicked her hair over her shoulder, her trademark gesture a familiar comfort, drawn about her shoulders like a protective garment. "Because I am beautiful."

He didn't exactly snort, but it was a sound quite close, and there was none of the mindless subservience that remark usually earned her. But then, she'd learned from their first meeting that he was unusually resilient to her charms.

It...irked her more than she was willing to admit.

"I will go rest before we are called to the front," she declared, irritation shivering across her skin and raising the hairs on her arms. The sensation was unfamiliar, and she felt strangely out of her element. It was an unnerving effect he had on her, making her feel so out of place. Like she was a girl again, carrying a mantle too big and fooling no one.

He said nothing until she made to move past him, and then he spoke, voice low and meant for her ears alone. "One wrong move, Boa, and they'll turn on you," he said, eyes flickering to their 'comrades', gathered in conversation at the other end of the room. "So it better be worth it."

She bristled at the implication, and tried to suppress the shiver that raced down her spine at the sudden proximity. "I can take care of myself," she bit off the words, and the remark came out sounding more childish than she'd intended.

He looked at her then – golden eyes keeping secrets she could not lure out – and when he spoke next it was with an unexpected gentleness that struck like a physical blow. "Regardless, this war will not end well for either side. At the very least make sure you know which you are on." He moved to walk past her, not close enough to brush against her, but enough so that she could feel him – the mass of power that sung like a blade through the air.

"Be careful."

And he was gone.

It took her longer than it should have to gather her wits enough to realize she was supposed to be on her way back to her quarters, and when she finally did come to, they were calling them to the front.

There is shadow under this red rock

"It was the boy."

She didn't look up from where she sat, perched by the window-sill again, eyes lost in the distance – the ravaged battlefield spanning the ground below like a grotesque artwork of the casualties of war.

He stepped closer, joining her by the window, letting his eyes rest on the sight below. She said nothing for a long time, but a wearied sigh escaped her, and she cut her gaze towards him, eyes strangely unreadable. "I had my reasons."

A smirk tugged at his mouth, because he knew better than most. "I have met him. The appeal is...familiar." For not even being related to the man, Mugiwara held more of the former Pirate King's spirit than was natural. Roger had had the same effect on people, garnering allies by the dozens with a quirk of his lips.

Her brows furrowed in a glare. "You talk like you know him."

He raised a brow in return. "And you do?"

She lifted her chin defiantly. "Yes." And there was a world of answers in that one word, ringing loud as a bell in the space between them.

He scoffed. "He is a child. At least ten years your junior. He has the world at his feet; what makes you think he has time for dalliances?"

She bristled visibly at that. "My business, Mr. Mihawk, is my own," she ground out, and he could tell he had struck a nerve. But for the life of him, he didn't know why he was pushing so hard. Or why her obsession with the brat unnerved him.

"You almost threw away your rank for that kid. And your life." And although she had not been the only one to do so on that battlefield, her actions peeved him more than anyone else's.

She surprised him by meeting his gaze squarely with her own, dark irises a tumult of emotion. "For what he's done for me, it would have been a small sacrifice."

"And yet that does not explain your feelings for the boy. Affection surely better spent elsewhere."

She glared, her rising ire evident from the colour in her pale cheeks. "And who are you to dictate where my affections should lie?" She turned back to the battlefield below, and in the pale light of the afternoon sun he noted that her eyes were in fact a lot lighter than they appeared.

"There is no one with a heart like his," she said then, after a tense silence broken only by the steady cries of the gulls flocking on the shore. "And no one more worthy of my affections."

"He is a child."

Her head snapped towards his, and her eyes blazed like ignited. "And you are not, is that what you are implying?" she challenged. "Or have I misjudged your intentions?"

He didn't answer immediately, and she scoffed. "You pretend to be otherwise, but you are just like all the others. Luffy is not."

"Have you decided that because it is a truth that makes you comfortable, or because you truly believe your own words?"

She looked up at him, startled, and he met her gaze with an intensity he usually reserved for battle. But he'd be hard-pressed to come by a more stubborn adversary, even in a duel.

She was the first to break their gaze, pulling away like she'd been burned. "You don't know what you're talking about."

He snorted. "You surround yourself with comfort. The mantle you carry, your familiar, your sisters. What scares you most is shedding those covers, and he doesn't make you. I make you uncomfortable because no matter how many layers you put on, you cannot hide."

She glared. "You're full of yourself."

He smirked. "It's a trait we both share."

She turned away. "Believe what you will."

Mihawk shook his head, his already limited patience having been tested enough, and so he turned to leave.

He'd taken three steps down the corridor when he stopped, turning his head. She was still looking out the window, arms curled around her raised knees. For such a tall woman, she looked oddly small, huddled in the window as she was, the shadow of the girl she couldn't quite shake off. The breeze tousled her hair from where it fell down her back, but she made no move to smooth it back into place. It was a rare moment of exposure for a woman so used to keeping up a façade.

"Your narrow view of the world limits you more than it shields you," he said then, and though she didn't turn to look at him, he saw her shoulders stiffen. "Anything out of your control you discard, and you brand all men the same because that way your expectations will always be met."

She said nothing, only tightened her grip around her knees, but he caught the flicker of a glance thrown his way. He met the look with his own, and had to admit that for all her stubborn reluctance, she was amongst the few blatantly unafraid to meet his gaze. A moment of silence rested heavy between them, two creatures cut from the same cloth and yet so markedly different. Of the same make, but wrought of different fires. He didn't drop his eyes, and this time, neither did she.

"He is not the only one worthy of your affections," he said then, holding her eyes for a moment longer, before turning back to walk down the corridor, the heavy falls of his footsteps loud on the tiled floors.

"You are just not willing to take the chance."

I was neither Living nor dead, and I knew nothing

His words remained with her for the months that passed without their paths crossing, lingering at the back of her mind as she went about her business, like an itch she couldn't quite reach. A brand in its own right, but not one she could cover up so easily.

It wasn't that she was unused to the affections of men. On the contrary, from her first experience with the world that lay outside her little island, when the beauty she had never paid much mind to had turned into a curse, she had been aware of little else but the coveting gazes that followed her wherever she went. If there was anything she was familiar with, it was the sweet affections of men, and the cloying poison it concealed. Only one man had ever looked at her with unconditional affection – the kind that demanded no sacrifice on her part.

At the same time, only one man had ever challenged her to make that sacrifice.

His ease at getting under her skin with words alone both irked and intrigued her. Coward was not a description she was used to hearing, and it rankled her that he did so with such ease, when he had to know it would win him no favours. He'd clearly stated his intentions, but unlike the flattery she was used to as a means to win her over, he was more than content to voice his honest opinion.

And it scared her – the fact that he had a point.

She was scared. It was an emotion she was uncomfortable showing, and not one a woman in her position should rightly flaunt, but that didn't change the fact that she felt it, always slithering beneath the husk of her cool exterior. Trust was a word whose meaning she'd known once, but that had long felt beyond her reach. She trusted Luffy, not because it was safe but because it was easy. Hawk-Eyes had been right – he was a boy, and it was the boyish charm and the promise of unconditional support that had drawn her to him, like so many others.

The golden eyes that had cut her down to the core, stripping her bare of every layer she'd so meticulously wrapped around herself, had not made the same promises. But he'd made a challenge.

And part of her – the part that still remembered a time where she'd jumped at any challenge thrown her way – had a hard time admitting defeat, especially to a man such as he. Her title not-withstanding, she was a Kuja Warrior first.

And so when he issued his own personal call to arms, she responded.

She sought him out on her own this time – their first gathering together since the aftermath of the war. His eyes had slid past her without a second glance when he'd entered the room, and he hadn't looked at her once throughout the duration of the meeting. As usual he'd said little, and retreated from the following festivities without preamble.

When she'd made sure her presence would not be missed, she'd slipped away, tracking him down without much difficulty, and it became evident he'd expected her to follow when she found him standing before the window where they'd first spoken.

He didn't so much as shift his weight at her approach, and nothing about his relaxed stance indicated that he even heeded her presence. But rather than feeling insulted, Hancock held her chin high and walked until she was standing beside him. The window was open to let the air in, and the evening was as humid as it had been that day well over two years ago. He'd discarded his hat, and his shirt was unbuttoned to accommodate for the heat. She didn't know what to make of the gesture, but tried not to let her eyes linger, focusing instead on what she'd come to say.

"I was twelve when I was taken."

He didn't so much as twitch as she spoke, but she was not one so easily deterred, so she continued, "I'd just been accepted into the crew, and I was eager to see the world with my sisters." Her brows furrowed as she delved into memories she'd spent years avoiding. "I was naïve and trusting, and it made the fall back to reality all the harder." She kept her eyes firmly on the sight of Mariejois, silent in the cover of night. Not a trace of the battlefield from a year ago, but then the Government knew to wash their hands thoroughly off their sins.

She swallowed. "I was sold shorty after, as a slave for the entertainment of the world nobles. I was given a devil-fruit for that purpose – because they would find it amusing. A good laugh on a dull day." Her hands clenched against her skirt, but she didn't drop her gaze. "And they gave me a brand that will never go away; that will mark me as theirs for as long as I live."

She drew a shuddering breath, but pushed forward stubbornly. "I was someone's once, in the worst way imaginable. For four years, I was someone's, and it became the definition of my entire being. I was property – a plaything, to be used or discarded at the whim of another. I–" she stopped, and took a moment to gather herself before continuing. "When I escaped, I promised myself I would never again be the property of another."

She looked up at him then, only to find him looking back, but he didn't speak, and the silence stretched on so long she felt his gaze like a weight rather than affirmation. But she didn't drop her eyes; she had come too far to back away like a coward.

"Have you condemned me to suffer your silence?" she asked then, voice sharper than she'd intended, but her ire was rising and he was not making it easy.

He raised a brow, and if not for the storm lurking beneath the cold mask that mirrored her own, she would have thought him completely unaffected by her account. But still he said nothing, and she bristled as her patience ran out. "Was this not what you wanted? For me to trust?"

His face was a slate of stone. "What you've told me is something I already know, albeit not in such detail." The last remark held something dark, and her breath hitched despite herself.

But he continued, unmoved by her reaction. "You resort to comfort yet again; you shy away from outcomes you cannot predict." He looked at her – gaze sharp like a hawk's. "This is what you wanted, not I."

Her hands clenched against her sides, and she huffed, before spinning on her heel, unable to take another moment under the scrutiny of eyes that seemed to peel her clean of all her defences.

"Are you still in love with the boy?"

The question rooted her in place before she'd taken a single step, and she spun back around to find him looking at her with an unreadable expression on his face. Without the hat he was not as intimidating, but no longer concealed by the wide brim, his eyes were all the more prominent, and the way he regarded her made her feel like she was on the battlefield, naked and unarmed and awaiting a duel with the world's greatest swordsman.

She drew herself upright, pulled all her hard-learned grace around herself like a shield. "And I ask you again, what business do you have concerning yourself with what I feel?"

He smirked, but it held no humour. "I'll take that as a 'yes'."

Hancock seethed. "You put words in my mouth, pirate."

"Am I wrong in my assumption?"

She glared. "It is none of your business," she snapped, and was about to turn to walk out again when he spoke, voice devoid of its earlier mockery.

"He is in a world of his own, Boa. When he finds his crew, you will be obsolete." Something like annoyance seemed to creep into his tone. "Your persistence with this infatuation borders on ridiculous."

Hancock raised her chin. "I stand by what I said – you are just like every other man."

His face remained the same, devoid of expression. "If you truly believed that, you would make me believe it." He took a step closer, and she matched his pace, only to find unyielding stone at her back. But he didn't step any closer, keeping enough distance for her to slip away if she so pleased. He would not raise a hand against her if she did.

The realization hit her harder than it should have.

"It's a safe choice," he began, voice a low drum in the silence of the corridor. "Putting your trust in a man who'll never require more."

"Unlike you?" she countered. Despite his advance, she'd yet to drop her gaze from his, but her voice wavered more than she was comfortable with.

He only looked at her – not the searching gaze he used to seize up his opponents, but with another expression entirely, and the eyes that bore into hers looked for something she could not name. After a laden pause he finally spoke, "I have no patience for someone whose heart is not in it," the words falling hard like a conviction. But he didn't move an inch, and it took her a moment to realize the implication his words held.

A choice placed in her hands. Control, if she so desired it.

And for all her deep-rooted distrust in men, there was something to be said about being the single point of focus of a gaze like his; to be seen for something other than the beauty that had so long defined her existence. These were not eyes that coveted; these were eyes that saw, noticed every shift of her brow, every flicker of her gaze, and the secrets she kept concealed from the world were laid bare before him. She was the girl and the slave and the Empress before those eyes, at once vulnerable in chains wrought by her own conviction, and fierce in the knowledge of her own strength.

A soft inhale gave her confidence, and the following exhale brought her closer, the shift imperceptible but unmissable to the hawk-like eyes regarding her so closely. She was a woman of considerable maturity, but the thrill of anticipation made her feel a girl standing on uncertain legs in a world she was just starting to see clearly.

He tilted his head, and her breath hitched despite herself, expectation thrumming along her skin and her veins, and she let her eyes drift shut – a sign of trust so vivid even he couldn't deny it. And then she let herself go–

"Thank you."

Her eyes snapped open to find him smirking, and she blinked – for once caught so off guard she had no verbal comeback to defend herself with. Mihawk nodded his head. "For the show of trust."

And with that, turned to walk away, leaving her standing against the wall like a fool, gaping in his wake.

Anger surged within her like a vicious thing, and she pushed away from the wall. "Dracule Mihawk!" she snapped, voice flinging out like a whip. He paused in his stride to look over his shoulder calmly, and the ghost of a smirk lingering on his face made her seethe. "You will explain yourself!"

He turned fully towards her. "I told you I don't have the patience for someone whose heart is not in their actions."

Hancock blinked, and then glared. "And what would you call that, then?" she snapped, gesturing to the space spanning the distance between them, meaning the near-kiss she was certain she had not conjured from her own imaginings. Surely not.

He raised a brow. "I am not a fledgling, Boa Hancock. I can tell when a woman wishes to be kissed."

She tried to force the colour from rising in her cheeks, but anger warred with embarrassment and she felt so out of her element she trembled with the sheer force of the sensation. "And I don't, is that what you are saying?"

He met her anger with a widening smirk, but there was no mockery there now, but a wry sort of humour he very rarely displayed. "You wish to be kissed by a boy, and I can assure you I am many things but not that." His eyes flickered with a secret satisfaction. "When you overcome your infatuation with Mugiwara, you know where to find me. If you dare to take the chance, that is."

And he turned to walk down the corridor, the night shadows curling around his form, drawing him into the dark and once again leaving her reeling in his wake.

She would only much later realize the reason behind the confidence that had allowed him to walk away – that had assured him she would come looking. It was the fact that she had quite thoroughly discarded all her defences, by putting herself so wholly at the mercy of a man she'd once shown such avid distrust. It wasn't simply that he'd seen her for who she was – she had let him.

But as it was, the Pirate Empress was in too much of a daze to realize it.

Pressing lidless eyes and waiting for a knock upon the door

It was not long after the moss-haired brat had left when a ship dropped anchor in the dark waters of Kuraigana.

Knowing she was accustomed to being greeted wherever she set foot, Mihawk made no conscious effort to do so. So he remained inside, seated comfortably in his favourite chair, a glass of wine at his elbow. It would provoke her, he knew, and the thought brought a rare smile to his lips.

It had been strangely quiet after his self-proclaimed disciple had departed for greener pastures, and the sound of her heels against the stone floor echoed with an authority he had never known anyone else to achieve simply by walking. It echoed in the desolate corridors, the distance between them shrinking with each steady step. As she did not possess Roronoa Zoro's laughable sense of direction, she found him with little effort, breezing into the looming chamber as though she belonged. Already the queen of the castle, at the same time at home and out of place; an exotic flower burrowing its roots in foreign soil.

She was alone and devoid of both mantle and her familiar. Like a snake having shed its skin, she approached him with her defences lowered, her naked shoulders exposed to the brittle cold air so different from the climate she was used to. But she spared her surroundings less than a glance, her eyes having latched onto his from the moment she stepped through the doorway.

She stopped a few paces from where he sat regarding her quietly, taking in the quality of her hair in the flickering torchlight, and the dark of her eyes holding his like a vice. He smirked, sweeping his hand in a gesture only a twinge mocking. "Welcome."

She lifted her nose. "I'm here."

"So you are."

"You've gotten what you've wanted."

"I usually do."

"I can still leave," she warned, because part of her needed to.

He nodded, and leaned forward, elbows resting on his knees. "But you won't."

She did not respond immediately, but shifted her weight, and her shoulders relaxed visibly as her gaze swept once around the room. Her nose crinkled with distaste, and a smirk tugged at the corner of his mouth. But she kept her opinions to herself, perhaps because she knew by now that whatever she thought, he could read on her face as clear as if she'd spelled it out in ink.

He regarded her a moment longer from his perch before rising from his seat, movements deliberately unhurried and, by the spark of impatience in her eyes, he was pushing his luck. And yet he took his time closing the distance between them, the hawk circling the rearing snake, poised to attack.

He quirked a brow. "Have I mistaken your intentions?" he asked as he stepped ever closer. "Are you perhaps here to duel?"

Heat flushed her cheeks, but she lowered the guard she'd put up seemingly without being aware. "Something tells me you would not mind overly much, if I was."

He smirked. "It has been a while since Roronoa left. I assume they've set sail for the New World, as you are now here." There was an offer there – a way out if she so wished.

But she didn't take it. "It will be in the papers soon enough."

"And Mugiwara?"

She smiled wryly. "Luffy has his own adventure," she admitted. "It does not change what he's done for me, but he has his adventure and I...I have mine."

He took another step, and she held her ground. "And have you decided what it is you want?"

She met his gaze with her own, fearless under the weight of his undivided attention. "Yes."

This time there was no hovering uncertainty – no careful testing of the water's depth. It was a breath, expelled in a long stride closing the carefully controlled distance that had loomed between them for so long. It was his fingers curling around the curve of her chin, a soft tilt and a firm tug as he drew her to him, covering her mouth in a sweeping motion that conveyed months of waiting – an unusual surge of boyish eagerness he'd not felt in a good two decades at the very least.

Fingers dipping into her sable hair, he allowed a hand to splay across her shoulder-blades, both a firm reassurance and a test of boundaries. But she did not flinch away, instead matching him move for move, deft fingers tracing the line of his jaw, relinquishing control even as she claimed it.

"Scruffy," she complained against his mouth, giving the hair on his chin a sharp tug. "Boorish man."

"Something tells me you do not mind overly much," he bandied her earlier remark back at her, and she scoffed, a firm hand pressed against his chest, holding him at bay even as she pushed forward. "Stubborn woman."

"Savage," she retorted, even as her mouth drew into a sultry smile, and then it was her advancing, slim fingers closing around the cross around his neck, tugging him down the few inches that separated them in height.

It was a testament of his iron-clad control that he did not lose himself completely, unravelling at her feet like one of her mindless subjects, undone by her touch the way most were by a simple look. But he kept a stubborn grip on his sanity as he lost the rest of himself to the feel of her, the sinfully sleek skin and soot-black hair, and eyes that could lure a man to his death.

It was not until his hand brushed the ragged edges of the scar branding her back that she flinched– the action like a strung wire snapping, but she didn't draw away, only paused to suck in a controlled breath.

And though faced with the opportunity to draw back, Mihawk did the opposite, pressing his palm flat across the expanse of the brand he could not see but feel, a distinct protrusion of scarred flesh spanning the length and breadth of her back. She stiffened against him, shoulders rigid in the wake of phantom memories; the remembrance of the corrupted touch of the depraved a brand in its own right. But his will was relentless, and so he pressed down harder, chasing ghosts back to dark corners from where they would not soon retreat. When he spoke his utterance was both a reprimand and an order, the words harsh against the curving shell of her ear.

"You are not property."

Her breath escaped her in a rush, and she drew back enough to meet his eyes, and for a moment she seemed to teeter between choices, balancing a knife's edge, and he wondered idly if he had misjudged the range of the push-and-pull that had so long governed their confrontations.

She surprised him then by pulling away – not abruptly but with a deliberateness that held his attention as tightly as the unrelenting pull of her eyes. Kicking off her shoes slowly, she made for the doorway, and he watched with raised brows as she pushed the already loosened fabric of her dress off her shoulders, letting it pool by her bare feet. With a smooth motion she drew her hair over one bare shoulder, revealing the full expanse of her uncovered back. The mark glowed red in the torch-light, vicious against her skin.

"The floor is made of stone. Do you take me for a brute?" she asked over her shoulder, eyes twinkling dangerously, before she resumed her walk. Stopping in the doorway, she raised a demure brow in silent query, before disappearing out of sight.

Shaking his head, Mihawk watched her go before moving to follow, gaze sweeping once over the pool of fabric as he walked past. Unpredictable woman. But a rare smile touched his mouth as he pursued her trek further into the interior of the castle, the soft pads of her bare feet a siren's song drawing him down pathways he knew by heart.

And as he rounded the corner towards where his bedchamber lay, he found himself immensely grateful the Roronoa boy was no longer wandering lost in his corridors.

Lilacs out of the dead land

In the months following their paths crossed more often than not – not wholly by chance or through their mutual alliance as Government employed warlords, but rather by their own volition. She'd quickly declared her dislike of his chosen residence, but they came together where the turn of the tides allowed, until her presence in his life had become a constant, and the thought of her hovered forever just on the edge of his consciousness.

She was different, and she was not. There was still the slave's defiance in a queen's fur stole, but she carried herself differently, and there was a smoother edge to her sharp brow. If her sisters suspected anything, it was the influence of the Straw-Hat boy, and they commended their Hime-sama's change in disposition, the calmer quality of her presence. Her secret smiles prompted questions she returned with rehearsed answers, even as her eyes searched for his across crowded antechambers and meeting-rooms. They would come together later; in the span between duties and obligations where she could shed her armour and he could find a reason to smile.

Then she dropped off the face of the ocean, and there was no trace of her for the better part of a year.

He knew better than to incite the wrath of the Amazons by seeking her out, and so he retired back to his life of solitude, awaiting a change in her wilful mood as he kept an eye out for the Roronoa brat in the papers. He attended more meetings than what was expected from him, prompting questions from his superiors and colleagues, and still there was no word of her whereabouts.

Another month passed before a ship found its way to the outer reaches of Kuraigana, and when she finally strode back into his life it was with her head held high and a small bundle snug in the crook of her arm.

"I hope I didn't keep you waiting long," she announced, humour twinkling in her eyes despite the rare show of formality. "I've been otherwise engaged."

The bundle made a cooing noise and she spared it a fond look, and Dracule Mihawk found himself struck truly speechless for perhaps the first time in his life as she proceeded to proffer a child, barely a few months of age but with a full head of dark hair and keen golden eyes that tracked every shifting movement above her narrow field of vision.

"Hancock."

"Yes?"

His general aloofness did him no favours in coming up with a suitable response. From his now extensive knowledge of her people's customs he knew she'd broken a considerable amount of rules just by showing up, but when questioned she simply raised a brow, and reminded him pointedly that she was the Empress. Then she smiled, eyes twinkling. "They'll forgive me," she declared with a flick of her hair, and the creature in her arms made to grab the errant locks, catching a handful between chubby fingers with surprising deftness for a thing so small.

She looked back at him then, and he noticed not without surprise that the girl was gone, vanished like a wraith having released its hold, and the woman now lurking beneath the surface of the feared Pirate Empress was a creature comfortable in its own skin. And though he knew the next words out of her mouth, the declaration held none of its former arrogance, leaving only a statement of fact rooted in a self-worth that was no longer just a front for others.

"Because I am beautiful."

And when she promptly handed him the child, entrusting such a fragile little thing to someone her people had an inherent distrust towards, he was forced to marvel that this was the woman who had once been reluctant to entrust him with her affections. "Steady, she fusses," came the order, and then she was pulling her hands away, visibly pleased with herself. "Don't drop her," she warned, although he had not moved an inch, and he raised his eyes in a glare.

A smile curled along her mouth as she regarded him; the tables had turned, and her awareness of the fact glittered in the dark of her eyes. "For a man who wields the legendary Yoru with one hand," she declared then, eyes tracing the little figure in the crook of his elbow – an anomaly if he'd ever seen one, "you have never looked more awkward." She flicked her hair again, grinning eyes above a cat-like smile.

He frowned as he stiffly shifted the weight of the child, meeting sharp golden eyes that so mirrored his own. "There is such a thing called giving a warning, woman."

She waved a hand dismissively. "And miss this rare display of you completely out of your element?" She sniffed. "Not likely."

He shot her a look. "A word of your condition would also have been appreciated."

She shrugged as she went to have a seat in his chair, throwing one leg smoothly over the other as she made herself comfortable. "My people have strict rules concerning such matters. No woman once pregnant is to leave the island for the duration of her pregnancy."

He snorted, attention momentarily drawn by the eager noises from the bundle. "I was led to believe your people had a strict policy regarding the raising of children as well," he said then, not taking his eyes off the little creature; this strange sparrow-hawk of their own making. "And yet here you are."

Hancock was silent a moment before answering. "I do not wish for her to grow up carrying the burdens I did," she said then. "I want her to know...that there are good men in the world, before she meets the bad."

He raised his eyes, meeting hers where she sat in his chair – the queen of the castle once more. "And you brought her here." It was both a question and a statement; a rare show of uncertainty from a man who wielded conviction like he did the blade at his back.

She shrugged. "Rayleigh-san was busy," she deadpanned, before a smile tugged at the corner of her mouth, revealing a grin that could bring great men to their knees. But behind the humour lurked a sincerity that surprised him; she made light of having made the choice, but the choice had not been made lightly.

He quirked a brow, but once again found nothing to say as he attempted keeping his attention divided between the woman before him and the child whose existence he was still coming to terms with. The latter gazed up at him, eyes large and round in a pale, chubby face. Across the space between them, Boa Hancock watched the interaction silently, chin resting in the palm of her upturned hand.

"Our elder advised me to keep her hidden," she spoke then, eyes on the child. "Until she is old enough to learn the trade of the Tribe. The world would have her punished for her heritage," she continued, dark eyes hard with a silent vow. "I would spare her that fate."

He thought about Roger's brat on the execution platform, barely into his adolescence and judged guilty by the sins of his father. The fate that awaited all children of wanted men.

"Your elder makes a valid point," he said, as he watched the gurgling creature fussing in his grip. He struggled drawing the connection still, though there was no denying the eyes so keenly focused on his.

He looked at her then – the woman who'd lured him out of his solitary existence, spinning charms with her sable hair and eyes grinning dark as smoke in the torch-light, now the mother of his child. A fledgeling now, but in a few years...

"And if she wishes to live by the blade?" he asked then, gaze once again on the girl, so small the smooth curve of her head would fit into the palm of his hand.

Hancock shrugged. "Rumour has it you are good teacher," she countered. "I'm sure there''ll be no problem."

He smirked. "Someone will have to challenge Roronoa for the title when the day comes," he said, and the child cooed in response. "You'll know your left from your right, at the very least," he told the child with a snort.

"You are not...unhappy, then?"

He looked up, and for the first time since her abrupt re-entrance into his life noted the underlying worry, evident in lines between her eyes that had not been so prominent the last he had seen her. And it struck him, the realization of the difficulty she must have had in seeking him out, when the easiest choice would have been not to. She could have cut her ties, and he would have let her. She could have hid the child as she'd said, and like the world he would have been none the wiser.

"Unhappy, no," he said, shifting the weight of the babe, "Though I assume that is the real reason for your lack of communication," he added wryly.

She looked distinctly uncomfortable. "There is no protocol for this amongst my people. The father is...usually unaccounted for."

"And this is you breaking tradition?"

She blinked as she looked up, tilting her head with a wry smile. "Not quite," she admitted with a casual shrug, flicking her hair over her shoulder. "I rewrote the law."

He shook his head. "I should not be surprised."

She laughed, and the child responded to the noise, wiggling eagerly in his hold. Drawn by a call he could not hear, she rose smoothly from her seat, accepting the small form with an ease that surprised him. She caught his look and shrugged. "I have had practice."

"It becomes you," he said honestly, surprising himself, and she smiled.

"If you wish, I will bring her more often," she offered.

"And your plan to keep her existence concealed?" he asked, as the child tangled sticky fingers in her long dark hair.

When she looked at him next, it was with the authority of the Pirate Empress. "I smuggled Monkey D. Luffy into Impel Down undetected. You doubt I could hide my own child from prying eyes?" She scoffed. "Ye of little faith."

"You underestimate your own employers," he countered, an odd sensation crawling along the bottom of his stomach at the thought of the other warlords discovering the girl's identity. Or worse, one of the Admirals. He'd seen with his own eyes the ruthlessness they'd shown Roger's boy.

The thought did not sit well with him.

"She will survive," Boa declared then. "She is of the Kuja. And I am a mother now," she said, shoulders squared and chin tilted. "I will protect her."

And he saw then, the transformation she'd undergone from the day he'd first laid eyes on her. The frivolous creature the centre of her own world, now a queen in a queen's regalia; her stubbornness both her shield and her blade, and with her purpose fit snugly into the curve of her arm.

Looking down at the girl now dozing in her mother's familiar hold, bright eyes sleepy and half-lidded, the world's greatest swordsman found himself at a sudden loss.

"She will need you," she spoke then, tone oddly serious in light of her former good humour. "If you will have her."

The remark was intentionally ambiguous, he could tell, and she regarded him with a naked vulnerability she did not show lightly – as stark in her eyes as the mark on her back. It was a rare privilege to have seen both.

With a calloused thumb he traced a careful path along the child's cheek, the living result of the culmination of two creatures not so different in the grand scheme of their existence, souls iron-wrought to bear the weight of the world on their backs. Like the ebb and flow of the tide under the moon they'd gravitated towards a slow understanding, a respect forged in a pit burning embers. An unlikely pair, and the sum of their wholes drawing life from the depths of a ravaged soil.

He looked up to meet her eyes, holding at once a thousand questions in their boundless depths and the solid promise of an alliance far surpassing that of their tender colleagues-turned-lovers. And it was in the proud line of her jaw, the dear arch of her regal nose and the naked resolve burning in the depth of her being that he found he'd known his answer all along.

"I assume you will want a crib somewhere."

Her answering smile was the Sun, chasing clinging shadows from the corners of his reclusive heart.

AN: NOT SORRY /throws self into the oblivion that IS under-appreciated crack!ships.