Kathryn Elizabeth Darcy (first of her name, she figures? Who would name their child like that, twice) is drunk. Like, giggling over nothing and world swaying and head feeling like it's stuck in cotton, drunk. It might be the first time she actually is since coming back, considering the last time she had a beer, they were on the porch and talking about their dreams, and she wasn't all that buzzed.
Aside from them, not much has changed, all things considered.
They're all in the hot tub, drinking and smoking and everything that they should not be doing, but who really cares right now? Not her. For once, she doesn't care about the consequences.
JJ has her Ray-Bans on, wrestling with Pope, the others cheering them on like idiots.
"Do not break my sunglasses!"
"Get it Pope!"
"Get on the leg!" John B cries out.
JJ is tackled on the ground. Kathryn giggles. "Embarrassing."
On the ground, JJ accusedly points at her. "You got floored by Topper!"
"You got floored by Pope." She holds a hand up, the other holding her beer. "No offence, sweetie."
Pope offers her a two-fingered salute. "None taken."
"When did you start wrestling?" John B laughs.
He shrugs, swaying a little. "I dunno." He walks away, arms raised in the air. "I'm done. I'm out of here."
He almost trips on his own feet on his way out, and she thinks she heard him burping.
"Did you have too many beers, my dude?" Kathryn cries out after him in an American accent.
JJ shrieks. Like, screams, voice super high, rolling in the dirt and hiding his face. "Don't do that in public!"
The others blink and snigger. "What just happened?" John B lets out, looking at Kathryn.
"I think JJ has a boner."
"Gross!" Sarah giggles.
Kie, who had been silent for an ominous amount of time, stands up and follows after Pope. She's too drunk to actually worry about what that means for Kie, but puts it in the back of her mind. Maybe they're going to talk. From the smirk on her friend's face, she doubts it.
But Sarah came back married to John B, and Kathryn loves Pope, she does, but she can't find it in herself to blame Kie.
It's easier to pretend you're fine with someone who doesn't know you're not.
"Hum?"
"Really?"
"Oh yeah. Way to be discreet!" JJ screams after her.
Kathryn sticks her foot in his cheek from the chair she's sitting on, opposite to him. "Shut up, leave them beeee." Her last vowel is elongated and she giggles.
"Present and accounted for." John B holds up a hand, and shakes his head at them with an endeared smile. "I leave, and this is what happens."
His best friend gapes. "Are you blaming us?" The nerve he has.
"Just a little bit." He stands up. "Your boy's out. Beer time."
JJ scoffs. "You guys are the one that died, okay?"
"That was a lot to handle."
Sarah smiles. "Literally one job, guys."
"Okay."
"No Pogue-on-Pogue macking!"
Kathryn snorts. "A rule ignored since like, 2011."
"There's been a lot of almost Pogue-on-Pogue macking."
She goes bright red, staring at his shit-eating grin. "Shut up!" She turns back to Sarah, who's holding back laughter. "Well, who got you the Phantom, yeah? It was us. You left thanks to us, see? Be more grateful."
The second the words escape her mouth, Kathryn stares in the void. They did, didn't they? Left thanks to them. To her. It was her fault.
Still, Sarah shakes her head. "One job. Only one, ya know..."
"You weren't there. I looked up..."
"No. No excuses, you're a Pogue, you should know this."
Kathryn zoned out of their little argument for a second, looking back at John B. He's standing by the cooler, right under the tree on which they carved his name. The canva she stapled to it is dirty, the colours already washed away by the sun.
She stands up, staggers a little, and joins John B. She sets down her beer next to his, and stays there silently for a second. Then, she looks at him, and realises he has tears in his eyes.
He sniffles. "It's a cute art project."
She lets out a breathy laugh, which is difficult around the lump in her throat. For someone who isn't used to expressing emotions aside from violent murderous tendencies, she got there quickly. But she's drunk and she's had a long day.
"Well the bee is me, but JJ's carved the tree," she says, crossing her arms and pretending like she doesn't want to cry. "I thought it was dumb, at first... but maybe it's cute."
He smiles softly. "Killed the tree though."
She chuckles. "Yeah, definitely. Don't tell Kiara."
They hear the sound of a boat and turn to look to the right. Pope and Kie are on the HMS Pogue, leaving god knows where, but they know exactly what for.
"Oh, okay!" JJ lets out.
"Have a good time," Sarah adds under her breath, smirking.
"I think Pope stole your boat," Kathryn tells John B.
"Pope's poking on the Pogue."
Kathryn snorts. "That sounded good."
"I know I had it for a while there."
"Yeah I betcha did."
John B slowly looks back at her, eyes glistening, and the hint of a sad smile on his face. Kathryn's chin starts to wobble, and she pushes her glasses on the top of her head.
"I missed you," she confesses. "Like a lot."
Before she finishes her sentence, John B crashes her into a hug, holding her tight against him, not sure he'll let go any time soon, but Kathryn doesn't mind. "I missed you too."
She hums against his shoulder. "It was my fault," she says, voice breaking.
"Bug, no."
"I told you to go."
"I would've left either way."
She isn't listening. "I could've talked you out of it, but Ward talked about my dad, and I wanted to get back at him and it almost killed you–"
"Kat." He forces her to look back at him, to face his eyes devoid of resentment but filled with affection. "I know this is a foreign concept to you, but this wasn't on you," he says, with so much sincerity that she has to believe it. "Nothing you could've said would've made me stay, okay? It wasn't your fault, bug."
It's all it really takes for her to start crying, tears rolling down her cheeks. It's the third time he's seen her cry, in all their time together. Her dad's death, when she told him about what happened with Rafe, and now.
He does what he always did; he holds her, rubs her back until she's done, without saying anything, without judging her. But maybe with a few tears of his own.
Once her sobs have receded and he's just swaying them, he kisses her forehead. "Okay, now that that's out of the way. What's going on with JJ?"
She immediately parts from him, drying her cheeks. "Seriously? This is what you want to talk about?"
He snorts at her reaction. "This is the main event in your life, 'course I do."
"My mum's in jail."
"The second main event."
"Henry hates me."
"Third?"
"You're wanted for murder."
"Top five?"
"My dad was working for Limbrey. And she wants some key we've never heard of to exonerate you."
"...It's a main event in your life!"
She laughs softly, and shakes her head, sitting on the ground. John B does the same. Maybe the alcohol is helping her open up, because she feels like she hasn't in a long while.
Kathryn scratches her knee, as if to distract herself. "Look, when you were... dead, it got ugly."
He expected it. Everytime he thought about her, he'd hoped she wouldn't ruin all her other relationships in grief. There was never much hope that she wouldn't, because he knows her.
"Ugly how?"
She blows out a breath. "We all kind of got stuck in a 'I fuck up, they clean my mess, I get angry, I fuck up, they clean my mess...' kind of circle. My fault, really."
"Bug."
"Nah, this one's on me," she assures him, because it is. It was all her and the forest fire under her skin. "JJ stuck by me. Waited until it'd stop, but it never did. And I don't think it ever will. You're back, and I still don't..." She looks back up at John B, fresh tears brimming in her eyes. "I told him I wouldn't change. And that he couldn't just wait for me forever."
John B drinks her words in. As JJ's friend, he's glad she had the guts to tell him, because leading him on would have been too easy. She may have already been doing it, inadvertently. As Kat's brother, his heart aches for her. She had wanted to have something with him, so, so much. She may not have said it outwardly, but he knew it.
"Is that what you wanted?"
She hesitates. "Yeah. But it wasn't exactly what I pictured." She rubs her hands against her thighs. "I don't mean that I liked to have him following me like a lost puppy. I liked having him around, of course I do. But not like that. It felt... bad. Tainted."
"I didn't say you did." He didn't think so either. "Never in a million years."
She would never do that to JJ. The fact that her voice wavers when she speaks again proves it.
"It's just that I thought..." She wipes a tear with the sleeve of her shirt. "If it had to be anyone, it was going to be JJ. It was always going to be him."
John B nods, rubbing her knee with his hand. If Kathryn was going to be intimate with anyone ever again, they all figured it'd be JJ. That this would mark the moment she was healed.
On top of losing the boy she liked, Kathryn was convinced she lost her only shot at fixing herself.
And knowing this, there is no way JJ would have even considered backing down. Not with how much he feels for her. There'd be no getting him away from her. It's already hard as it is, even now that they're just friends. John B can see the way he keeps glancing at them, and he hopes he's not the one he's looking at.
"Does he know?"
She frowns. "Know what?"
"That you love him."
Kathryn turns bright red, blinking her tears away. "I don't." Even to her ears, the words ring false.
He snorts. "Yeah, okay."
"No, no. I like him, but I don't think..."
"Denial called, he said he was getting tired of working for you."
"Me? You're the one who's convinced he's married, you whore!" she cries out, but still laughs with him. She exhales sharply. "Whatever it is, I haven't told him, but I'm sure he knows."
John B stares at her, laughter dying down. "Tell him. Right now."
"He should have the common sense to know it anyway."
"It's JJ we're talking aback."
"...Well he knows me better than most, so he must have figured. You did, and you're not the hardest working bee in the hive."
"Yeah, but I've known you since kindergarten."
She arches an eyebrow. "I think you'll find that someone else was with us at that time. Blonde bloke, tugged at my hair, played football with you? Don't be shocked, but that was JJ."
"I think you mean soccer." He holds up a nagging finger. "Also, JJ is oblivious when it comes to things he wants. Or good things he deserves. He's probably convinced himself you hate him by now. Which is fun, because you are aware that he's a good thing and you want it, but you just won't because you don't think you deserve it." He blows out a breath. "Am I getting paid for this?"
Kathryn shakes her head. "You're overreacting."
"Nuh-uh. You're underreacting."
"Weren't you the one who thought it wouldn't be a good idea for us to get together?" she reminds him, narrowing her eyes at him.
He holds out his hands. "Hey, I never said that."
"You said that when he was involved, I lost all common sense. That doesn't sound like you're approving."
"Okay, well, he had just raided a drug dealer's house," he reminds her. "I was a bit... taken aback."
Kathryn only arches nods thoughtfully, before sitting cross-legged in front of him. "And now?" If she needs anyone's validation it's him. He managed to get Sarah Cameron, maybe she should actually start getting relationship advice from him.
He proposed with a bandana. Nevermind.
He looks back at JJ, who makes a point of doing the idiot with Sarah to make sure they don't suspect that he was staring at them the entire time. Even Sarah isn't fooled. John B looks back at Kathryn, who gives him a knowing look and a smirk.
"I just want you to be happy, bug," he finally tells her. "And he makes you the happiest. And I know you accept the love you think you deserve and all that, and you don't think you do, but you deserve to be happy."
She barely acknowledges that. Just because she heard what he's saying does not mean that she has to agree – and she doesn't. Well, of course, JJ makes her happy. The happiest.
She doesn't deserve one bit of it. For everything she's done to him, toying with him – she can't find another word for it – for how she acted when grief was wrecking her. For what she put Henry through.
For who her dad, who she swore to become one day, was.
John B notices how far away she seems, and nudges her a little. "You have glasses, by the way?"
She puts them back on her nose, having forgotten that they were there for a second. They're dirty from sitting on her hair. "Yeah. All that frowning came from that."
"And not your winning personality, I'm sure." He looks down, sighing. "I'd love to see your paintings now that you can actually see, Picasso."
She stops herself from telling him that she doesn't deal in cubism, and instead, nods. She thinks back to the painting in her studio, the one hidden under a sheet. No one's seen it, but if anyone would, it's him.
"I'd like that."
Their little heart to heart is interrupted when the chickens in the coop start clucking. They stand up, and JJ sees it as his sign to join them.
"Yeah, you should probably..."
"Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait," John B tuts. He's staring in the distance, as if he saw something.
"What?" Kathryn frowns, looking into the dark, despite her dirty glasses. Well. "I can't see shit."
"What was that?" He looks concerned. She thought he was joking for a second, but evidently not.
JJ turns to him, clueless. "Your... chicken?"
"I thought I heard a car running."
Under the clucking, there's the slight roar of an engine.
Someone's here.
JJ starts clucking. Kathryn puts her hand on his mouth, hurriedly. "Shut up."
They hear it. Rustling of leaves and whispers in the dark. "Shit."
Anxiety is quick to get to her bones and muscles, quicker than she remembered it to be in those few hours of bliss. But she doesn't have the time to freeze or think about what's going to happen next. It could be the cops, and if it's the cops, they're toast. She has to move. Why can't she fucking move?
John B starts to husher everyone back. "Get in the tree. Right now, in the tree!"
Kathryn lets out a dry laugh. "In the tree? Do I look like freaking Tarzan?"
In a tree. When she's afraid of heights. The only place she could be hiding just had to be in a tree, didn't it? She can feel her legs turn to mush at the thought of climbing up, the low branches, usually looking not so tall above her, look like skyscrapers.
"I can hide in the hot tub. Under water until they go."
"You'd drown!" Sarah immediately interjects.
Kathryn swallows thickly. "Yeah, feels like it right now."
In a flash, John B remembers about her vertigo. "I'm so sorry, bug, but you're gonna have to climb. JJ!"
Sarah and John B are up in no time, once the latter is sure that his friend will help her. JJ takes the lead, making sure that Kathryn is following, which she is, muttering every so often 'fear of heights, fear of heights.' The ground beneath her seems to twist and turn, ready to swallow her. This can't be good.
JJ grabs her by the armpits, lifting her up and settling her down onto the huge branch he's sitting on. She has her back facing the trunk and her front smushed against JJ's, who's now the one with a hand on her mouth. "It's okay, it's okay, don't panic."
It's hard to even focus on her anxiety when she feels him against her, and how easily he lifted her up. She tries to speak against his hand, to lick it away, but a glare from him silences her. Cold realisation hits her. He doesn't want her to see who's there.
It's not the cops.
"Look at me," he mouths, lips so close that they brush against his hand on her mouth. "Don't look down." She was never one for listening.
She frees herself from his hand, and wiggles to look, his grip on her tightening around her waist as she does so. To hold her back or to stop her from moving, who knows? There are more pressing matters at hand.
Rafe Cameron is combing the area, looking for them relentlessly. Kathryn closes her eyes, resigned, as an all too familiar feeling of bile rising in her throat overcomes her. Of course it's him. When is it not him? She's got ninety-nine problems and that guy is every one of them.
God has it in for her.
She must have tensed in JJ's arms, because it feels more like he's hugging her rather than keeping her safe now. Even John B is looking back and forth between Sarah and her. His sister and his victim. Kathryn wishes she could scream.
Glass breaks inside the Chateau, and Barry comes out in a hurry. Well, that's just wonderful. Are they like, joined at the hip? JJ's grip on her doesn't loosen for a second. Considering the last time they ran into Barry, he's probably not at ease right now either.
"Yo!" Rafe cries out when he walks out. "Anything?"
He shakes his head. "No, ain't shit in there bro."
Kathryn hopes that they won't stick around for long. If they do, well she might puke on them. Not optimal when trying to be stealthy.
"No?" he scoffs. "Nothing?"
"No, nothing, Rafe."
"They were obviously just here based on the smoke!"
There's nothing worse than an intelligent, vile man.
"Yeah, yeah, great observation boy scout."
"They're not far, you know?"
Yeah, right above him, closing their eyes tight and Kathryn resting her forehead against JJ's collarbone, his heartbeat doing its best to calm her down.
"Smokey the Bear! Look at you bro."
"They gotta be around her somewhere."
Shufflings of feet again, and Barry is now standing right under them, staring at the trunk of the tree. If he just looked up...
"P4L," he reads.
Rafe laughs. A drunken, horrible sound from the back of his throat. "Well, shit."
"So your sister's a Pogue for life, huh, Rafe? Now who would've thought?"
Rafe stopped laughing, surprisingly enough. The vein on his forehead looks about to pop out, suddenly getting angry in a split second. Kathryn is chilled to the bones.
"Shit!" he yells out, making her shiver.
JJ hides her face away, putting a hand on her heart like she does to him whenever he has a panic attack.
"All right, chill."
He fires at the trunk. From God knows where, he got a weapon, and actually fired at them. They can't yelp, or shriek, even if it makes the whole tree shake, and Kathryn has to bite down her lip not to scream. She thinks she drew blood.
He fires in the air. A bullet lands on the trunk behind her. It reverberates through her entire body, and a soft whimper escapes her lips, covered by the sound of other bullets being fired around them.
Thankfully, in a moment of lucidity, Barry wrestles Rafe to make him stop. "Hey, chill bro! Rafe! Chill your shit, chill out!" There's some noises of people pushed around, then nothing. "You're gonna get our asses busted, dawg! Let's bounce. Let's bounce. Let's go!"
They start to run away from the Château. Kathryn doesn't move for a handful of minutes, and neither does JJ. Not until they're far enough that Kathryn realises she could've cried.
She feels a pressure against her lip, and lifts her head to meet JJ's bright blue eyes. His thumb is tracing where her teeth broke the skin. She feels like crying again.
"You're hurt," he says.
She looks back at him, and decides to smile; if only to calm him down. She still feels the erratic beating of his heart under her ear. "I've seen worse."
And, well, she hopes that Kie and Pope are having a good time.
Authors Note: I can't believe I updated again in such a short time? Who am I. What has Kathryn done to me. I'm a changed not-woman
Editor's Note: We are officially done with the rewrite, everyone rejoice!!!!!! Not for long though, because that means I have to actually start writing the chapters, which will take longer... but I'll finish this book if it kills me, I owe it to my best girl who I keep putting in shit situations!!!!!