With her hands on her hips, Kathryn stares at the two unmoving forms in front of her. She's half-convinced at least one of them is dead. If it weren't for, you know. The god-awful snoring.

"How much did they drink last night?" she asks Pope again.

Pope shrugs. "Well after you went to sleep and asked that we'd stopped playing the music so loudly–"

"You were doing my head in. I was about to start biting myself to ease the feeling from under my skin."

"No, I know, bass gives you autistic meltdowns. After that, I stopped drinking. Kie stopped an hour after that. JJ and John B... undecided."

Kathryn nods once, shutting her eyes tightly. They have a geometry exam this morning, which she reminded everybody of, she'll have you know, and three out of the five of them were impossible to wake. The only thing she had going for her was that it was still early, and she had time to make a quick drive to the palace, change, and then go to school. She wasn't going there wearing John B's shorts and JJ's shirt, thank you very much.

"I'll get home real quick," she says, sighing. "Try to wake them up while I'm gone, please?"

"Sure..." Pope looks the tiniest bit displeased. "Thanks for the Sisyphean task."

She snorts, already halfway out the door. "Think about how much time I'll spend choosing my clothes. That's a Sisyphean task. Every time I pick an outfit, I have to try again..."

Kathryn isn't gone that long, all things considered. Her Sisyphean task was shortened because she greatly overestimated the time it'd take her, but she still managed to put together a cute outfit – who is she, without one? – and when she comes back to the Château, Pope is waiting outside with JJ and John B.

If the latter looks slightly green but stands upright, the former is seconds from splaying on the ground groaning.

Kathryn narrows her eyes at the trio. "Where's Kie?"

"She feels sick," Pope tells her.

"I feel sick," John B adds.

"You look it, bee."

JJ finally realises that Kathryn is standing in front of him and his eyes widen slightly before he whistles. "Not you, you look good."

She looks like he just told her she was dressed like Elmo. "Are you still drunk?"

He ignores her question entirely, taking her hand and making her twirl for a very short instant, her red and black long plaid skirt billowing in the wind and revealing her brown legs, golden in the morning sun. For a moment, Kathryn's cheeks tinge pink.

Then, JJ doubles over. "I'm gonna be sick."

"That's usually my line." She gets blank stares, if not distressed looks. "It's a joke. I'm wearing a teal bracelet, see?"

She wholly ignores the bewildered look she gets and sits in the back seat of the Twinkie, gesturing for them to follow.

Pope drives safely, if not a bit boringly, to the school. If they had let Kathryn drive, they'd have been there way earlier, but she understands not wanting to break several laws.

He stops the Twinkie, softly. JJ still manages to slump completely over and land on Kathryn's lap, half asleep.

"G'night," he exhales as Pope and John B get out of the van.

She stares at him. His messy blonde hair is all mussed to the side, and she can't help from brushing it out of his eyes. "Get up, we're going to be late."

He hums in contentment. "Can't, I broke my legs."

She tugs at his hair until he whines. "I'm going to break them again if you don't get up."

He nestles even closer to her, and holds a side of her open jacket to put over his head. "You can't hurt me, I'm under the covers. Them's the rules."

She laughs so much that he shakes on her lap, before pushing him and walking out. He follows begrudgingly, after a few more seconds spent face down on the dirty floor of the Twinkie, pondering whether he should puke from the sudden movement or kick his feet from endearment.

Pope slams his hands down Kathryn's shoulders not two seconds after she's outside, shaking her slightly. "Up and at 'em boys."

She looks back at him as he lets go. "How much do you want to bet they forgot about the test?"

JJ and John B are walking behind them, swaying as they go, dangerously close to falling down and maybe getting sick on themselves.

Pope shakes his head. "You only ever wanna bet when you know you're going to win."

"Yeah, that's how it works."

For the first half of maths class, John B, sitting two seats behind Kathryn, is doodling away. She catches a glimpse of a very big 'Vlad + Val' in the middle of his sheet of paper, and can't help but smile for herself. Idiot.

Josh, sitting next to her, noisily flips a page of their book, bringing her attention back to the class. He smiles at her, and she nods once with a small grimace of politeness. He doesn't seem offended by it, but she would be, if JJ looked at her like that.

"Glad you could join us, mister Routledge," the teacher tells her best friend, handing him the test paper.

He quickly hides his drawings. "It's good to be back."

"Just in time for your first quiz."

She hears a small gasp of surprise, a sucked in breath, and Kathryn's eyes widen in amusement as she looks back at JJ, already staring flatly at her, lips pressed in a firm line.

John B points at Pope and her, shocked. "A test?" he whispers, outraged.

"I told you we had a test," Pope immediately retorts in the same tone.

"No you didn't," he goes on, JJ shaking his head.

"Yes, I did. Kat must've told you idiots four times."

She nods, wiggling her pen. "I did."

The teacher clears her throat loudly, glaring at the four of them. Kathryn sends JJ one last grin, delighted to see him be the one so fussed, for once.

"Traitor," he mouths at her. She answers by flipping her hair over her shoulder, and the smell of rain hits him.

She would have spent more time messing with him, but Josh taps her elbow slightly, so she turns back to him, frowning.

"I heard there was a bonfire party tonight," he whispers at her.

He has to get close for her to hear, so she leans back. She stares at the teacher, who's back is turned to them. Suddenly, Kathryn remembers why she hates whispering in class, when it's not exclusively to mess with the blonde boy behind her, who is definitely not glaring daggers at Josh.

"It's an annual sort of thing," she whispers back, waiting for him to get where he wants to. "They do it every year, don't know why, but yeah."

He nods. "Will I see you there?"

There isn't a world where the Pogues – especially the guys – are not going to that bonfire party. In fact, she's half-sure their brains will shut off the second she'll mention it and they'll just start jumping up and down excitedly.

She nods politely at her Maths partner, and starts a test she had the answers for two years ago.

🐝

"Bonfire?" JJ repeats when Kathryn tells them about her talk with Josh. "Well, I think Jackson meant to invite me, so we're all good there. We're going."

She was right. He seems the tiniest bit annoyed, but the chance of having a fun night out is too good to pass. Kathryn rolls her eyes at him, debating shoving his annoying face away from her. "He really didn't invite you."

"No, we have a kind of friendship, he just doesn't know it."

"That's not a friendship, that's you keeping tabs on him."

"Jackson?" John B repeats, entranced by the little jealous spat his friends are having. "Who's that?"

"It's Josh," Kathryn corrects, giving JJ a look that he ignores, putting his sunglasses on his nose and sitting on the bench in the schoolyard. John B sits next to him. "And he's a friend."

JJ snorts, though he doesn't seem amused in the slightest. "Friend."

If she rolls her eyes anymore, she'll be introduced to her neurons. "I'm not going to go out with him, if that's what got you so worried."

She's seconds away from hitting his head until a coherent thought comes out and he realises she's never stopped liking him, but someone said violence isn't the answer and Max just never ceases to repeat it to her. Besides, it's not like he cares. She figures the prospect of her going out with a Kook is what got his knickers in a twist.

Of course, it's the fact that said Kook could offer her so much more than what he could that gets him so worried and stupidly jealous, but it's not like he'll admit it to the girl who can't be loved without turning into a wildfire.

"I'm so not worried," he claims, leaning back. Just as quickly, he jolts forward, reaching for her face.

She swats his hand away. "What are you doing?"

"Fixing your glasses so you can see."

"Oh, fuck off!"

"Open your eyes, KD. Josie doesn't want to be your friend."

"How can you be so sure?" Because neither do I, and I know how it looks. He doesn't answer. She rolls her eyes. "Pope, help me out?"

Pope looks back and forth between them. "He transferred here for Kat."

She gapes. "Which side are you on?"

"The side of my peace of mind," he answers, sitting on the other side of JJ.

"Wait wait wait wait." John B holds up a hand. "Why am I only hearing about it now? Someone wants to go out with you and you never told me?"

"Because it doesn't matter," Kathryn tells him. "And he doesn't want to go out with me."

"Matters to Jasper," JJ ironises.

John B jerks his thumb towards the blonde. "And why can't JJ say his name?"

"He was dropped as a baby, I don't know." He pouts in answer. "Aw, my baby boy..."

She grabs his cheeks, squishing the skin between her fingers, making kissing noises at him until the tip of ears feel warm and she's reduced to a fit of giggles that sound dangerously close to an agonising seal.

"Man..." The pitchy noise of a teen boy's voice rings out behind her. "How much did he pay for that?"

Kathryn doesn't know the name of the pre-teen mutation of a shrimp talking to her, but she's not sure she wants to. He has ginger hair and looks like the fucked up cousin of the cunt from Nemo that needs therapy more than dentist appointments.

She frowns, not wondering why he's talking to her, more so annoyed that he thinks he can. "Like you could afford me, Eliza Thornberry."

The boys behind her are staring at the scene, debating if they should step in and do something or let Kat handle it and end up in jail. They settle on the latter – it's been proven that they're not above breaking someone out of jail.

Ginger Timmy Turner whistles, like JJ did this morning, but instead of making her roll her eyes fondly, it makes her want to doom his future descendance. "Damn Kat... have some self-respect."

She can't help but snort. "Me? Have some self-introspection and focus on those balding spots. You look like a forty year old deadbeat dad who shouldn't be allowed within ten feet of a school. I wouldn't be surprised if your mom kissed you thinking you were her husband, Sinok looking ass..."

The guy grows as red as his hair, two shades that should never be seen together again, and she's half-sure smoke comes out of his nostrils like a Twingo you're trying to start. "You're a slut, you know that right?"

JJ stands up, and Kathryn holds out an arm.

"Woah, there's one I haven't heard before. You deepthroat your mother with that tongue?"

Dexter goes back to his laboratory and leaves the quartet behind, not without elegantly throwing his middle finger up at her.

There's a short silence. John B looks up at his best friend. "Is that um... every day?"

"On and off," JJ says through gritted teeth. Kathryn wonders if they're about to break from the pressure.

"Usually when I'm with guys they don't bother," she says, shrugging and crossing her arms. "I mean, it's been almost everyday since Rafe said... what he said, but it would still happen without it. You should ask Sarah how it goes when we walk down the street together, or Kie. I guess the Rafe thing just made it worse." They stare at her, oblivious. Must be hard for their pea-sized brain. "Oh to be a teenage boy..."

John B makes a grimace. "Man, I'm sorry..."

"Thanks, I guess, but what can you do?" Silence. "I was genuinely asking. I personally think we should eradicate men."

Pope blinks, looking scared. He's convinced Kathryn would at least try it. "All of us?"

JJ sits back down. "I'm in."

"She trained you well," John B lets out.

"No, bro, it's just that sometimes I open my eyes and use the squishy thing in my skull, you know?"

Kathryn snorts. She finds that, weirdly enough, if people are going to call her a slut for messing around with JJ, she doesn't mind. Well, she minds, but not as much as if it was any other guy.

Her body hasn't belonged to her in a long time. They can say all they want about it, it's an object she picks up from a shelf everyday, it doesn't matter to her – because as corny as it sounds, she thinks her soul might be hers again. Like JJ hands it to her every time she's with him. Not that he owns it, no, more like he looks after it for her, because she knows she wouldn't be able to look after it herself. She would give it up for a scrap of kindness. JJ would choose it over all the gold in the world.

"Look, it's very cute that you're having the misandrist breakthrough I had when I was twelve, and I support it, but–"

"Miss Darcy, Mister Heyward, Mister Routledge, Mister Maybank!" Kathryn wonders for half a second why Mister Sunn didn't just say 'Hey, you' to save himself some time naming all four of them. "Just who I wanted to see."

JJ takes his sunglasses off. "Wish I could say the same..." Mister Sunn only laughs heartily, but Kathryn knows it wasn't a joke.

He pushes them inside, Kathryn offering him a polite smile before turning to John B with a grimace. He's not going to assign them more work, is he? All things considered, it might keep her busy...

"I have a question of an historical nature for you kids," he says, walking around his classroom and into the backroom. "I digitize documents for the Maritime Museum–"

Kathryn's eyes blow slightly wide. "That's so cool."

John B frowns at her. "Ass-kisser," he mutters under his breath.

"Sarah Cameron-fumbler."

Mister Sunn makes a tutting sound to stop their argument. "It is very cold, thank you Miss Darcy. In return, I've been given access to the archives." Kathryn clamps her mouth shut, but the knuckles of her hands grow white at how hard she's straining herself from flailing them around in excitement. "And I found... this."

He takes a small box from a shelf. Pope frowns at it. "A box."

"More than a box."

"That's a good start..."

Mister Sunn puts it down on his desk, and opens it. "Go ahead mister Heyward."

The box contains a small leather journal. The pages are yellow from what Kathryn can see, and she's not sure this technique to bind the leather has been used in a long time. Pope takes the plastic bag that holds it, and goes to take the journal with his bare hands.

Kathryn hisses, throwing her arm in front of him. "With your dirty arse hands? I think not."

He huffs. "I washed them!"

"When? Yesterday, when you had a shower?"

"You did just go to the bathroom," John B adds thoughtfully.

Kathryn shudders. "Mister Sunn, please tell me you have plastic gloves."

"You're such a nerd," JJ says.

"No one is going in raw under my watch."

They all collectively grunt as Mister Sunn laughs softly, handing Pope a pair of plastic gloves that were already in the box, begging to be used. Pope puts them on with a roll of his eyes, and finally takes the journal out of the bag.

He carefully puts it on the desk. "It's a diary," mister Sunn tells them. "The author's unknown."

Well, he was for the next three seconds, because as soon as Pope flips to the first page, the wheat symbol drawn on it immediately rings several bells. It's from a Tanny. Maybe Denmark.

Mister Sunn comes up behind them, holding out a paper of a digitised letter. "And this is a sample of a Denmark Tanny letter. Look at the handwriting."

Put them side by side, and they're eerily similar. Kathryn frowns, almost shaking from excitement. "How did no one in the museum make the connection?"

The teacher's eyes blow wide as he nods. "I've been asking myself that!"

Kathryn's eyes immediately settle back onto the diary. "It's Denmark's," she can't help but state, a little dumbly.

Seeing it between Pope's hands makes it all the more symbolic, she thinks, as he turns it around between his fingers. A smile fights its way on her face. One that quickly fades as he points at a drawing of a white man looking over at enslaved people.

"Guys, it's Captain Limbrey." He sits down on the desk behind him. "August sixth, 1829."

Kathryn looks over his shoulder, the year suddenly obvious to her. "It's the year the Merchant went down."

"I thought you might find it interesting," the teacher says, proud of himself.

Way more interesting than he thinks, Kathryn can't help but notify in her head, biting down on her thumb's nail.

"Thank you so much for this," Pope says, not lifting his eyes from the pages.

"It's important to know your own history."

Four pairs of eyes snap up to him. He leaves, without saying more, Kathryn blinking through the daze of the revelation he just dumped on them. Either he worked with Limbrey too, or he knew her dad, and in both cases, she has questions. But he's already gone, and they're on to the next matter at hand.

"Oh my god." They turn back to Pope, handing out the book to them. "It's the Cross of Santo Domingo."

"Holy shit..." JJ whispers under his breath.

The frankly bad drawing of three white men carrying it leaves little place for doubt. "It was on the Merchant?" Kathryn asks.

"Apparently."

And luckily for them, they now had the diary of the only person who made it out of the shipwreck with all its riches in tow.

Kathryn smirks, holding out her hands, wiggling her fingers. "Woogity-woogity?"

"Woogity-woogity!"

Author's Note: Happy Valentine's day from my favourite 'they make me violently sick' couple!!!!!! I have this not at all depression inducing fanedit to offer you too <33

[There should be a GIF or video here. Update the app now to see it.]

And as a last gift, as some Cupid's Chokehold readers know, look out for Chapter 35 'The Second Act' eheehfij and that's all!!