Chapter Text
Ace flinched.
Edward froze, his hand out-stretched, still a few feet from the boy's back.
"Whatcha doing?" Ace asked, tilting his head back, gazing up at Edward with big brown eyes. The innocence was a joke, though Ace wasn't faking as much as he likely thought he was.
Edward let his hand drop back to his side, thinking better of it. "What are you doing?" he asked, neatly distracting the child.
Ace ducked his head, but the brim of his orange hat only hid his eyes, not his smile. "I was wondering--well, Marco said I should ask you about why Fish Island is called Fish Island."
Edward chuckled, reaching out to Ace again, more slowly, his hand fully in Ace's line of sight, and this time his youngest son did not flinch away from him. "It has a great many fish in the waters surrounding it."
The narrow back under his hand was stiff, Ace barely even breathing for one long second before he laughed, uncertainly. "Marco made it sound like it was more?"
"And it has excellent fishing," Edward added, pulling away, watching Ace's sigh of relief--of disappointment?--with a bit of worry. "Perhaps you'd like to go fishing with me once we land? The giant cod that spawns there is delicious."
A second's hesitation--worrying--and Ace nodded. "Sounds cool. When the ship docks?" The ship, not when we, Edward noticed.
"Yes. I'll come and get you," Edward promised, beaming down at Ace, his cheer perhaps too forced, but it was unlikely that the boy would notice. He restrained himself from patting Ace on the back, not particularly interested in finding out if his newest son would flinch again.
Ace hesitated again before he walked away, his eyes still hidden, and his smile still not.
Edward watched him go, feeling faintly ill. He had many children, and of those many, some had come to him wounded in heart and soul, abused, beaten, tortured--Edward had offered safety and family and given them shelter on his ship. Most had healed.
Ace was as shivery and twitchy as the worst of them, and Edward was beginning to suspect--Marco slapped Ace on the shoulder when he joined him, and Ace laughed and shoved him back--Edward was beginning to suspect that the flinching shivers in his youngest son weren't caused by anyone but himself.