Riptide - An Outer Banks Fanfiction

Chapter 5

'There are friends,

there is family,

and then there are

friends that

become family.'

- Unknown

. . .

     Riptide tossed the branch on top of the growing pile that was accumulating in the middle of the yard. Wiping her forehead with the back of her hand, she let out a breath looking out across the grass at the damage she still had to clean up.

Agatha had done some damage, the Chateau hadn't been affected thankfully, but an entire tree had been rooted out of the ground and the power was out. Rip had woken that morning and deflated when she reached for her phone to find that she didn't have any service. In an effort to stop herself from worrying about Gloria and the boys she got to cleaning up. Of course there was nothing she could do about the overturned tree but Rip needed to be doing something or she'd start going insane.

"That's no good." John B moaned, interlacing his fingers behind his head, as he saw the tree.

Rip glanced over at him as he left the Chateau without a shirt and threw another branch onto the pile. "It could've been worse. It could've fallen the other way and crushed us all."

"Is that your way of telling me to be grateful about the fallen tree in my yard?"

She shrugged with a small smile, "I suppose it is."

John B looked over at the pile she'd been creating. Granted, Rip had done a lot of the work, but there was still a lot to be done.

"You didn't have to do this, y'know."

"I know but Pogues look out for one another no?" Rip shrugged again. "Plus I was up and bored, so I thought I'd get started."

John B tilted his head as he analysed her. "Did you get any sleep last night?"

Rip smiled. She had, not much, but she'd slept. It was first night in a long time that she'd had a dreamless sleep free of nightmares and though she didn't get much of it she felt better well rested then she had in a while. "Only a bit but I did, actually."

John B thought she seemed as surprised as he was. Given her reaction to seeing the storm clouds the day before, John B imagined that she'd be up pretty often throughout the night. He was glad to know that she'd had a little sleep at least.

Rip wrapped her hands around a particularly large branch and began to heave it across the yard.

"That's good." John B walked over to the HMS Pogue and winced when he found it covered in bits of tree. One of the areas that Rip hadn't reached yet. "Oh, man."