what would Garp the Hero be doing on a dinky ship like that?
Garp looked around his grandson's ship, noting with approval that it was kept clean and reasonably well maintained. As his eyes tracked over the figurehead, where his foolish grandson was sitting, he stopped, and openly stared.
'It can't be...' he thought.
"Is there a problem with him sitting there?"
He turned to look at the girl with the haki and debated whether to answer.
"What is the name of this ship?"
"The Bast's Pride, briefly known as the Bezan Black before we liberated it from the pirates who'd been using it and gave her back her real name. Why do you ask?"
"Yeah, Grampa, why do you want to know about my ship?" Luffy asked, having ambled over at some point.
He thought about not telling them, for a moment. But it wouldn't matter, either way. And this ship...
"I sailed on the Bast once, a long time ago. When I was still rising through the ranks." He enjoyed the look of shock on Luffy's face.
"Whaaaat?! When? Why didn't you tell me? Are you gonna take it from me now?!"
"Shut up, damn brat! It was a long time ago, like I just said, and I've been on a lot of different ships over the years. Besides, I'd heard this one had been taken over by pirates, so I kinda forgot about her. And no, I'm not taking your ship."
The girl gave him a shrewd look.
"The Bast's Pride is special to you, though. Or was."
He sighed.
"I had...have, I guess, some good memories here. I was a young Marine and my team and I had a mission to escort a group of VIPs. One of them was the most beautiful woman I've ever seen"
"Huh...that was
not what I was expecting."
"So what happened to her, Grandpa?"
"Idiot! We fell in love on that mission and got married immediately. That was your grandmother!"
Luffy looked confused, as he always did, but the girl was staring at him rather intently.
"Immediately married, huh? Just how...
good were these memories?"
Drat, she'd picked up on it that quickly?
"Perceptive little shit, aren't you? Yeah, pretty much what you're thinking. Luffy's dad was conceived here on this ship."
************
And that's my headcanon for why Garp decides to stick around for a while. Really good memories on this ship. I don't think there's any canon on how old the ship is, so I took the liberty.