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𝗖𝗛𝗔𝗣𝗧𝗘𝗥 𝗡𝗜𝗡𝗘𝗧𝗬 𝗙𝗢𝗨𝗥
morocco

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・・・・☆・・・・☆ ・・・・

"I think next time we take a trip, we should maybe plan ahead," John B joked as they all sat around the fire once the the sun had gone down, celebrating the fact that JJ and Sarah were alive and well.

"Oh, you think?" Kyla replied, giving him a look as she laid her head on JJ. How many times has she said to them to think before they acted? Too many count which is why she had stopped thinking before acting..

"Maybe we can stay in a hotel next time," Sarah suggested.

"And a shower," Kiara added.

"Yeah, I smell awful!" Sarah complained.

"I smelled myself today," John B admitted as he snapped some more logs in half, adding to the fire.

Sarah laughed, "You weren't the only one who smelled you." They joined in on the laughter at that one, giving each other happy looks.

Even though they had basically lost everything, they still had each other. And that's what mattered the most to each of them. It was Pogues for life.

"Hey, uh, you know what's a good name for a baby? JJ. Goes both ways, actually, if it's a girl, if it's a boy," JJ voiced and Kyla glanced up at him, sending him a mischievous look.

"Oh, of course you'd think that," she said to him and he ruffled her hair playfully, messing it up even more than it already was. "Hey!" She exclaimed with a smile, trying to fix it.

"What baby?" Pope asked in confusion, looking in between them all.

"Um..."

"Oh, that's right."

"...Yeah."

"You guys don't know." Sarah reached for John B's hand and he smiled down at her.

"No way. A Poguelet?" Cleo realized and Rhi pretended to act shocked, almost laughing when she made eye contact with Kiara who was sitting next to her.

Pope pointed at Sarah, his eyes wide. "You?"

"Yes!"

"You're gonna be a freaking dad!" Pope congratulated as he got up and hugged the Routledge boy excitedly.

"I'm gonna be a dad," John B confirmed as Pope tackled him to the ground and Cleo got up to give Sarah a hug. Kyla grinned warmly as she watched them all happily embrace one another.

"You're so ill-equipped for that!" Pope exclaimed.

"I know, I know, but that's okay."

"I mean, you know, we'll help you out a lot."

"A little baby," Cleo cooed in a high voice, causing Sarah to giggle.

Kyla watched as Rafe looked over at Sarah, meeting her eyes which had prompted Sarah to send him a smile. Rafe then glanced away, not sure what he should do in the situation since he didn't really feel welcomed.

Kyla frowned a bit, but she also didn't know why she had felt so bad for him. Maybe it was the conversation they had before, or maybe it was because she knew what it was like to feel left out. She wasn't too sure.

The next morning, the Pogues and Rafe left their little hut and began their journey into Morocco to find Groff and get the crown back. "All right, all is not lost, right? Like, we got a bead on Groff, and he can lead us to the crown," JJ spoke to Kyla as they walked on the sand, a slight breeze pushing their hair back.

"And you're sure you're okay?" Kyla asked the boy, glancing down at the dried blood on his shirt from the wound he received prior to their journey. And she also wasn't going to forget the fact he almost drowned.

"I feel good, I promise," he assured her, looking up at the sky and letting out a small laugh.

"Just, when we get there, can you be careful?" She asked.

"I told you, I'm better now," he said, giving her an earnest look.

She met his gaze and nodded. "Good. 'Cause I think if I worry even more, I might suffer a brain aneurysm."

"Aw, you were worried about me?" JJ teased her, placing a hand on his heart. And there he was, back to the same, old JJ that Kyla had fell in love with.

She gave him a nudge with her elbow. "Oh, come on, you know I was. I didn't think I was going to ever see you again," she admitted.

JJ pursed his lips to the side, feeling bad for making the girl worry so much. "Well, I'm here now. And I'm sorry. For jumping into the ocean. During a storm. Where I almost drowned," he said, pausing in between each sentence since he was just now realizing how crazy it was.

"I know you were only trying to save Sarah, but please never do that again. It was way too close, J," she begged him, not wanting to be in the same situation where she was left the question whether or not he was alive.

"I know, I know. Let's just hope it's all smooth sailing from here. Ha, get it? Smooth sailing?" He joked, pointing his fingers at her before he winked.

Kyla rolled her eyes playfully, letting out a snort. "You know it never is," she replied before she shook her head.

JJ nodded in agreement before he looked over his shoulder at Rafe walking by himself, a few feet away from the group. The blonde narrowed his eyes slightly before he turned back forward. "So are we just trusting him now?" JJ whispered to Kyla. "Him taking us here was one thing, but him coming with us..."

Kyla knew exactly who he was referring to and she looked over, meeting Rafe's gaze since he had already been looking her way. She quickly looked ahead, clearing her throat. "We have to. And besides, I don't think it would be smart for him to turn on eight other people," she said to him, not wanting to mention the conversation she had with Rafe before the storm occurred. She knew it would only make JJ upset and she really didn't want to start complicating things again.

JJ nodded at that since it did make perfect sense before he claps his hands, rubbing them together. "All right, come on, y'all! Civilization can't be that far, right?"

It felt like they had been walking for ages across the desert before they finally saw buildings and people up ahead. "There it is. My calculations were correct. That's Essaouira," Pope said once they finally reached civilization.

Kyla released a relieved breath, not wanting to see sand ever again after this trek. She and JJ shared a look. "You ready for this?" She asked the boy.

JJ nodded. "Gotta be," he replied, holding up his fist determinedly.

Kyla nodded with a smile before she gazed past him to see Sarah looking uncomfortable. "Hey, Sarah. You good?" Kyla asked her.

"I'm fine. Just kinda tired," Sarah assured the girl and Kyla nodded slowly, knowing that all this walking in the sun wouldn't be good for her. But there really wasn't anything they could do.

The Pogues and Rafe made their way up to the buildings, entering through a large entryway. "All right, so the plan is, locate the wharf and find Groff, okay? That's all we gotta do," JJ said before he looked forward, seeing all the people scrambling around. "That might be a little harder than I thought."

"You think?" Pope replied.

"Let's go," JJ urged, grabbing onto Kyla's hand to make sure they didn't get separated. "Let's go, come on! Jesus Christ."

"There's way too many people here," Kyla thought aloud, not sure how they were even going to find a trace of Groff in this mess.

As they walked through the large masses of people, people tried selling them things or bumping into all of them which made the walking even harder.

"Yo, we gotta get out of these alleys. I don't know where I'm going," JJ said before he noticed a statue of a man up ahead. "That might be something. Come on." As they neared the statue, JJ nodded, "Yeah, I knew it."

"What is it?" Rhi asked.

"That's Murad. The Barbary pirate. That's the guy Groff was telling us about," Pope recalled.

"Is it bad I kinda wasn't paying attention when he was talking all that history junk?" Rhi muttered to Kiara, who tried to stifle her laughter.

"Holy shit. That's him. The Berber. The one who made the map to find the crown," John B realized.

"Which might be closer than we think," JJ spoke.

Kyla grinned. "It's a sign."

JJ turned to her, his blue eyes contacting with her brown ones as he smiled back at her. "Yeah. Let's keep moving. Come on. You think it's here, maybe?"

"I don't know," John B shrugged.

・・・・☆・・・・☆ ・・・・

"Hey, Sarah. Hey, what's wrong? You okay?" John B asked in concern once he noticed Sarah holding onto her stomach and breathing heavily.

"Oh God. Ooh. No, I-I need to sit," Sarah said as John B helped her sit down in an entryway.

The Carrera sisters looked over their shoulder, both sharing a wary glance. "What's wrong?" Kyla asked as they both went over to her, crouching down in front of her.

"What's up? What are you feeling? What's happening?" Kiara quickly inquired.

"I'm really nauseous. I'm really nauseous," Sarah answered, shutting her eyes.

"Nauseous," Kiara repeated.

"Yeah."

"You probably just need food. It's been, like, what? Two days?" Kiara guessed.

"Yeah, we gotta get her something," John B agreed.

"Are you okay?" Pope asked the girl.

"No, she's not okay," Kiara responded for Sarah.

"No, I'm fine. I'm—"

"No, she needs to eat! We gotta get her something," Kiara pointed out, cutting Sarah off since she didn't want her to lie just so they could continue their journey.

"Good luck with that. We don't have any money," Pope reminded her.

"We can do it the old-fashioned way," Cleo suggested with her hands on her hips.

"A little five-finger discount?" JJ said as he made eye contact with Cleo, who hummed in response.

"Normally, I would say no but yeah, she really needs the food right now," Kyla voiced.

"I don't wanna hold up the group," Sarah tried to interject.

"No, we're good."

"No, it's okay. Hey, hey, let's do it. Let's just do it fast, all right?" John B spoke quickly.

"I'm coming with. You need an experienced thief," Cleo said as she pushed past the blonde. "Come on."

"Experienced thief?" JJ replied, taking offense. "I got my PhD in thiefology."

"All right, I'm gonna go, too, and just try to keep a lid on all the bullshit," Pope told them as he followed after them, making Sarah chuckle softly.

"Be careful, J!" Kyla called out after him and he turned around, walking backwards to give her a thumbs up but he ended up knocking into someone and almost falling over. "Oh, Jesus. Should I be worried?"

"Probably," Rhi answered and Kyla gave her a look. "I mean, noooo, of course not."

Kyla scoffed at her, "Thanks for the optimism."

"Hey, I'll be right back," John B whispered to Sarah gently.

"I'll be fine. Go," Sarah told him, touching his cheek lightly.

"We're gonna be right here. All three of us," Kiara told John B, completely forgetting about Rafe who was just standing there before he rolled his eyes. "I promise."

"Hey, hey, it's okay. Just breathe," Kyla said to the Cameron girl, trying to breathe deeply as well to get her to follow along. "See? Like this."

Rafe placed his hands on top of his head stressfully. "What are we doing? What the hell are we—"

"Just stop, Rafe," John B cut him off as he walked past him.

"All right, just hurry up with whatever dumb shit you guys are doing, all right?! We're wasting time!" Rafe called out after them angrily.

"Rafe!" Sarah scolded.

"Rafe, stop! We're trying to be lowkey. We don't want any eyes on us so just...blend," Kyla explained to him, widening her eyes at him.

Rafe just put his hands up in defeat, not wanting to argue with the girl. "Make busy," Kiara added.

"Yeah." Rafe pursed his lips together as he walked off, leaving the girls to tend to Sarah.

"I swear to God, he's gonna get us caught," Kiara muttered, shaking her head.

"No, he won't, Kie," Kyla assured the girl.

"Okay, what is up with you, lately? First, Sarah tells me you went down to talk to him when we had him tied up," Kiara began and Kyla raised her brows at the Cameron girl, who mouthed a 'sorry.' "Then, you go untie him, which could've been a huge mistake by the way. And now you're defending him?"

"Look, Kie, can we not talk about this now when Sarah needs our help?" Kyla responded, gesturing to Sarah.

"No, no, I kinda need to be distracted right now," Sarah told her and it was Kiara's turn to gesture to the girl with wide eyes.

Kyla sighed. "Look, I don't know, okay? I just feel like...maybe he won't betray us. Maybe he actually has changed."

"Didn't he cheat on you and try to kill you?" Rhi reminded the girl from what Kyla had explained to her back at college.

"Yeah, he did," Kiara confirmed before she gave her sister a pointed look. "Which is why I'm confused."

Kyla released another sigh, pursing her lips as she made eye contact with Sarah. The girl had also been going through the same dilemma, whether or not she could trust her brother. But that was obvious since they were related by blood. Rafe and Kyla...there should be no reason she should trust him according to the others. She also had no idea why she wanted to trust him.

"Look, it's been two years since I've spoken to him. Tara's out of his life, which was someone who enabled most of his psychotic behavior. He's quit coke and he has a new girlfriend who seems normal and good for him. I just think...I just think we should be more open to trusting him so then he doesn't have a reason for betraying us. If we keep icing him out, what's stopping him from going behind our backs?" Kyla explained, being careful not to reveal too much of the conversation she had with him back on the ship since she promised to keep it between them.

"And what if we come across Tara and he decides to join her? I mean, it was clear he chose her over you a number of times," Kiara pointed out.

Kyla shook her head. "He won't, okay? He won't. And if he does, then yeah, I was wrong about him. But I would like to think he's different now. Like he said he was."

"So you're just gonna blindly trust him?" Kiara assumed.

Kyla shut her eyes, touching her forehead. "Yeah. I am," she confirmed and she heard her sister sigh disappointingly. "Honestly, when I've trusted people I wouldn't have ever expected to trust, great things have come out of it. Maybe this is one of those times," she tried to reason before she opened her eyes, realizing Rafe had come back and was standing behind Kiara. "Rafe?"

All the girls whipped their heads over to him just standing there awkwardly before he cleared his throat. "Couldn't find anything useful," he said before he sat down on the other side of the wall.

"How long were you there for?" Rhi questioned, not knowing how he had snuck up on them so well. That honestly kind of scared her.

Rafe shrugged. "Not long," he answered briefly before he made eye contact with Kyla, who was wondering how much he had heard it. In all honesty, he had heard most of it and was shocked to find out that Kyla had even been defending him. He started to remember why he had even fell in love with her in the first place all those years ago. "Not long," he repeated after a moment before he looked down. Kyla nodded slowly as she shared a look with her sister before they put the focus back onto Sarah.

The five of them waited for the others to come back, leaning their backs up against the walls. "Hey," Kiara spoke up, noticing them all walking back so she got back up. "How'd it go? Everything smooth?"

"Yeah," JJ answered, scratching the back of his neck which made Kyla give him a suspicious look.

"Uh, you sure?" Kyla asked him as she stood up.

"Yeah, yeah," JJ confirmed again, nodding quickly. However, the Carrera girl still wasn't convinced.

"Hey. So, uh, an apple a day keeps the baby hap-pay," John B told Sarah as he bent down and gave Sarah the apple.

"Someone's already becoming a dad," Kyla commented mischievously.

John B looked over at her with an amused smile. "Says the one who was always the mom," he countered and Kyla just shrugged and nodded, having to agree with him on that one.

"Oh, that's all you got?" Rafe spoke up and Kyla gave him a warning look, to which he looked down at.

"Rafe, could you shut up?" Pope shut him down before he looked at Sarah. "You good?"

"Feeling any better?" JJ added.

Sarah nodded as she kept on eating the apple. "I'll be all right."

"Yeah, good," Kiara breathed out.

"If you're not gonna finish it, just let me know," JJ told her.

"Okay, well, the wharf's that way. Think you can make it?" Cleo asked her and Sarah nodded.

"All right, we should probably get a move on."

All of a sudden, a whistle sounded behind them and they some men in uniform running toward them. "Uhh, are those cops?" Sarah questioned.

"Oh, shit. We gotta go. We gotta go. Double-time, double-time, double-time!" JJ yelled as he grabbed Kyla hand's urging her to run along with the others.

"Oh, everything went smooth you said?!" Kyla yelled over the sound of the whistles.

"Okay, maybe we got caught!" JJ shouted back.

"Haven't you guys stolen shit a bunch of times? How did you fuck up the one time it was actually important?!" Rhi grilled as she ran ahead of them. Again, she was really wishing she had ran on the treadmill more often.

Kyla looked back over her shoulder to make sure the others were following before she realized the cops had stopped Rafe. "Wait!" Kyla said, pulling her hand away from JJ as she stopped running. Sarah had also stopped and looked at her brother, prompting John B and Kiara to run back over to her.

JJ looked over at her before he followed her gaze, seeing that Rafe had been stopped. "No, Ky, no. We gotta go. We have to go." Kyla sucked in a breath, recalling her conversation with Rafe prior. He said he wouldn't betray them and now if she ran, she would be betraying him. However, she really didn't have to make a decision in the matter because the cops had noticed John B and started running after them all again, making Kyla curse and start running.

Once they were able to ditch the cops, they slowed down, taking a break by a shop's corner. "Okay, I think we're good," JJ panted, leaning against a wall.

"Holy shit, I'm gonna throw up," Rhi commented as she placed her hands on her knees, looking at the ground.

"Are you actually?" Kiara asked in concern, placing a hand on the small of her back.

Rhi paused for a moment before she got up, "Nah, I think I'm good." Kiara just gave her a look before she smiled slightly, making Rhi smile back at her.

"I think we lost Rafe," Cleo pointed out.

"Who cares? Big whoop," Pope shrugged.

"Yeah, he's not getting out of that one," JJ pointed out as he placed his hands down on his knees, trying to catch his breath.

"He's on his own. We're not going back."

"Hey, you okay?" Kyla queried, placing a hand on JJ's shoulder.

"Yeah, yeah. Just hurts a bit," he said, pointing to where his wound was.

"Hey, hey. What do you wanna do?" John B asked Sarah, grabbing her hands.

"What do you think? I mean, should we try to go back and help him or...?" Sarah trailed off.

"No. Hell no. We don't have passports. If we go back, we're gonna get arrested," Pope argued.

"I agree. I'm with Pope on this one," JJ voiced and Kyla looked down, knowing there was no way she could vouch for Rafe. Technically it wasn't their fault they had to ditch him and they may have been safer without him there. Kyla began to think that maybe it was better off he was gone so she wouldn't after to constantly have this inner turmoil of wanting to trust him or not.

"I'll do whatever you wanna do. He's your brother," John B told Sarah and Pope looked away in disbelief.

Sarah thought about it for a moment before she shook her head. "No. Let's just go to the wharf."

"Let's keep moving. Gotta stay on mission and find Groff," JJ urged.

"Hey, where's Cleo?" Pope questioned since he noticed she wasn't with them.

"Where'd she go?" John B said.

"Cleo?!" They all began to call out, getting worried.

All of a sudden, Cleo popped back out with a pile of clothes in her hands. "Shit!" Pope said once he saw her, relieved she was okay.

"Hey, I permanently borrowed these from this clothesline. We need better disguises. The coppers is looking for us," Cleo told them as she started handing out the clothes.

"I feel like we're in a spy movie," Kyla breathed out as she grabbed some clothes from Cleo, examining them.

"Would that make me Kim Possible?" Rhi jested and some of them laughed.

"Okay, maybe you are the best thief," JJ admitted to Cleo.

"I know that," Cleo replied confidently before she placed a lollipop in her mouth. "Wharf's this way!"

authors note!
i feel like this chapter is boring
tbh but it may just be bc i hate writing
chase scenes/running scenes so idk.
also i forgot to say this in the last chapter
but tell me why there was no big jiara
reunion after sarah and jj came back at
the end of ep 9? like i was expecting them
to have this cute/sad reunion like sarah
and john b did but kiara wasn't even in the
scene like what??? and in the next ep she was
only like "you have to be careful, jj. that was
too close." like boy what. istg jiara was done
so dirty this season, they were so good in
s1-s2 and some of s3 and then after that
it was ruined ughhh it makes me so
mad likeeee. that's why i tried to give ky
and jj good couple scenes bc like there was
rarely any for jiara this season smh. anyway
we r getting close to the end and im very scared
but remember to vote and comment!