Kathryn Elizabeth Darcy figures the worst thing that could happen to her is being stranded. Yes, she has her friends and her boyfriend around her, and sure, the island is filled with goods and they should have been dead weeks ago but they still aren't because JJ knows how to fish and all is somewhat well. Well enough that they're alive, if she was honest, because she didn't see herself leaving here all her life, thank you very much.

But she wasn't ready to learn who she was outside of the OBX.

She was always used to being what people saw in her. She changed shape anytime she wanted to, or at least that's what she wanted to believe. It felt more like murder each time, but Kathryn had rarely been the same person twice. She was only ever what other people made of her, and if sometimes, she was a Pogue, she was JJ's girlfriend, she was a best friend and she tried to be this softer version of herself they wanted to see in her, there were times when she was still a Kook Queen, with the hatred that came from it.

But in the middle of nowhere, there was no point in burning herself to the ground and shaping the ashes. Her friends stopped seeing the ghost of the girl they knew – Kathryn herself has made sure she was put to rest, left the room. No, there was only her, and the gaping chasm between who she was now and who she wanted to be. How she got to the other side was a mystery to her.

A mystery this damn deserted island kept rising to the surface. A place where she could actually think about who that would be. She thinks Pope called it processing her trauma or something like that, but it has been said that Kathryn doesn't deal with that sort of thing. Why cope healthily when you can just ignore the problem?

Problems are like dogs you leave behind, their leash tied to a tree in a forest. You can go as far as you can, you'll still hear the bark, you'll still feel the guilt.

The silence of the deserted island made it worse.

Kathryn had decided long ago — she would stop being the forest fire. She would stop lashing out at everyone when her emotions were bubbling. But it wasn't enough. She needed to be who her friends wanted her to. She needed to be someone JJ deserves. She was no longer a forest fire. She decided to be the calm sea people had fun with, swimming around. Picture perfect.

She forgot entirely about how hard waves break on the shore.

And that was, to no one's surprise, because she had JJ behind her. Most of her problems disappeared when he walked in the room. Well, by room, she means the cave they're currently living in, but the idea is there. The sun had been cruel to everyone. John B and Sarah are littered in sunburns, and that's without mentioning everyone's hair, dry with salt – if Kathryn tugged a bit at her locks, she's sure to have the other half rest in her hand. They've taken a lighter colour, too. JJ is almost radiating light. It's like he drinks in the sun, his skin turning tanned, his eyes an even brighter blue than they were. If it wasn't for the horrid mullet he can't get rid off, Kathryn would spend her time crawling on the beach. The mullet really is a deal breaker here.

She wished she could paint him like that. But there's rarely gouache on a deserted island. Only thing she had was a piece of burnt wood and Pope's white t-shirt, and she decidedly wasn't painting JJ.

"Add the crocs."

"I'm barely done with the bra – will you stop breathing down my neck?"

"Can't forget the J."

"The J I want to forget right now is you."

Kathryn shoves JJ away from above her shoulder, and goes back to scribbling with her branch. He's been hovering as she draws for about ten minutes now, and she's debating whether or not she should use her stick for something else.

She's not sure why they're making Poguelandia's – not her choice – flag now, after two months spent here. Well, she does, but to be fair, she thought everyone knew you could use coal to draw. And she didn't think JJ would actually convince Pope to give him his shirt.

For a moment, this is nice. She's drawing a blunt inside a chicken's mouth as their flag for their island that they called Poguelandia, and if it sounds stupid, it feels twice as good. She's not sure about JJ, but Kathryn knows that she does it to forget the very real fact that they are stranded on a deserted island, death at every turn. Kathryn knows that at the end of the day, this is all fantasy.

Not all of them do.

"Rescue?" JJ says, a few hours after they – he, because she's decently not climbing on a tree – attached the flag to a palm tree. "From what? From... from paradise? I'm not going back. Ever."

Kie shares the sentiment. But JJ isn't talking to her, he's talking to his girlfriend, who's other half of life is back on the Outer Banks, waiting at the docks every night for her to come back. Every time she thinks about her uncle, Kathryn's throat closes up. She wants to lash out, for how careless his words are, how carefree he seems, and she does not.

She forces herself not to be snappy. "I'd figure paradise has significantly more beds and showers?"

He makes a face. "Well, yeah, but look around. We got everything we need. Right here."

She looks down, playing with the strands of her now jean shorts. She managed to tear the fabric on the seventeenth night there. She used a pointy rock, and the sheer force of why is this bitch always wet–induced frustration.

"Everything you need, yeah," she breathes out.

JJ doesn't seem too happy that she'd badmouth Eden. "What's that supposed to mean? It's exactly like we talked about."

She frowns. "I distinctly remember you being able to surf everyday and me having supplies to paint your board. We have neither paint nor board."

He opens, then closes his mouth, trying to think of arguments in his favour. He always had this sick need for her understanding. "We don't need all this fancy shit."

"Fancy sh– showers? Beds? A roof? That's not fancy shit, JJ, that's just quality of life."

"Well, I don't need that," he shrugs.

"Yeah, smells like you don't." She looks up at him, eyes squinted against the sun. "But I do. Don't make me feel bad because I want more."

JJ stands silent for a handful of seconds. They've been having this weird fight for a few weeks now, which means more now that they're stranded here than it used to. It's a loop they're both trying to get out of. Kathryn or JJ says something that sends the other spiralling. Kathryn finds JJ's romanticised version of the island hypocritical and feels the need to point out it doesn't work. This is a very real, life-threatening situation. In turn, JJ tells her that they don't need more. She's mortified, every time. And every time, JJ is frantic. He wants her to see this the way he does.

He wants his dad to be wrong. When he told him, on that boat before he left, that Kathryn would always want more, more than what he could give her, JJ had desperately wanted him to be wrong. And maybe, back on the OBX, it would have worked, who knows.

But not here. Not when they're both reminded of the opposite.

"I didn't mean to," he says, because he didn't. He just needs them to be on the same page so bad... JJ rarely thinks of consequences, even on a good day. "I'm sorry."

Luckily for him, Kathryn smiles again, the soft smile that's always just for him, and shrugs. "It's okay. Pope just said that I needed to communicate more on how I felt and, like, since when was he a shrink? Isn't he supposed to be a coroner?"

JJ finally cracks a smile, and a soothing warmth blooms in her chest. "He's scared mom and dad are going to divorce."

She tuts. "No, Sarah and JB are mom and dad. You're the weird uncle with the hot wife."

"I'm not going to disagree on that."

His lips linger on hers with the taste of salt from the sea. He just came back from fishing with Kie, and she most definitely pushed him in the water at some point. Kathryn doesn't mind, as her hand finds his cheek and she deepens the kiss. There are worse reasons for it to be salty.

Later that day, they're sitting around the campfire in the cave they claimed, a few days after their arrival. Sarah has braided leaves from a palm tree into a crown, that they pass each other as they play truth or dare.

"John B, your turn," she says, giving him the crown. "Truth or dare?"

"All right, all right. Truth," he says as she crowns him.

"This is exciting," Cleo ironises.

"If you could do it all again... what would you do different?"

He inhales sharply, but the answers come from everywhere at one.

"Uh, get the gold out before Ward did," JJ first says.

"Maybe hide the Cross a little better," Pope adds.

"Not yell 'murderer' at Ward, maybe."

"I'm not sure I'd let Rafe kidnap me, but that's up for debate."

"No debate," JJ frantically retorts. "None. Zero."

"Uh, steal a couple bottles of rum before we jumped off the boat?" John B finally proposes.

"Yeah, why didn't you do that, actually?"

"Maybe 'cause I was in a fight to the death?"

Kathryn shakes her head. "Excuses, excuses..."

"I would look both ways before crossing the street," Cleo tells them.

John B suddenly remembers he almost ran her over. "Yeah, my bad. My bad."

"Your turn, chief."

He crowns Kathryn, who does an exaggerated little bow. "Alright, bug, truth or dare?"

She hums. "Truth."

"All right, um... If you could go home, to the Palace, this instant... would you do it?"

Yes. She doesn't just want to say it, she wants to scream it. But all eyes are on her, and she knows what answer they want. Kathryn had vowed to be a good friend.

"Of course not," she lies through her teeth.

Everyone cheers. Everyone agrees. JJ's smile is the brightest, it rivals the sun at any rate. Kathryn's feels like a pale reflection of it, a moon smirk with a hidden truth.

Of course, because they are Pogues and they can't do anything lightly, their game ends after JJ takes a big jump into the sea from a cliff that's as high as it is dangerous, which is quite a lot. Kathryn nearly passes out from seeing him, and hugs him tightly against her when he does come out of the water.

The days are the same, on the island. It's an odd sense of normalcy, a routine that doesn't quite lull her into submission.

When it's dark and the stars are out and JJ is passed out, laying across her, holding her in his arms, the pang of hurt that tugs at her heartstrings is harder to ignore. She shoves it away, everytime she remembers Henry and Max, and Billy. No one on this island needed to see her depressed, crying, hollow. They needed to stay alive, have some hope. And Kathryn needed to be easy. She needed to be a good friend.

Pope wanted her to communicate her emotions, but the only reason she did it with JJ, is because she knew it'd help their relationship. Because it was what a good girlfriend was. Because it was the only way she could make up for the poor excuse of a daughter she had been to Henry.

Besides, he never said anything about showing them. Kathryn always had a problem with that part. She'd never cry in front of any of them if she could help it. They'd sooner skin her alive – she'd be less exposed.

And that included JJ.

It doesn't matter. The days are the same on this island. Tomorrow, one of them will say something bad, and apologise. The only thing of any importance here is that the other will forgive. Words don't have to be knives anymore. They can be accidental papercuts. They can be a small fix-it kiss.

JJ can soothe her aches, he can try to make her see the good side of things. Drive himself mad trying to make her understand him. It's not that she doesn't, she does. The Outer Banks has given him nothing but pain, lately, he wants nothing more from it. It's that she can't reciprocate.

But JJ waits for the next day, a new opportunity for him to convince her, not to make her want less, but for her to think that having him and the open sea was enough.

But Kathryn Elizabeth Darcy would always want more. She had learned that from her mother.

Tomorrow won't be different. 

Author's Note: Kat is really just me watching OBX3 and six teenagers lying to my face saying they wouldn't go home if they could like girl don't you lie to me. You haven't showered in three weeks wdym 'no chance' ...