It takes about twenty minutes for Kathryn's anxiety to finally recede and for her to start acting like a normal, functioning human being again. Same thing happened on her flight to Charleston, once she's up, she's up. Her brain tells her that it is, in fact, what it is. Taking off and landing, well, that's another story.

But at least now, she's more clear minded, and in turn, anxious about a whole other matter. Like, being kidnapped. Again. Voluntarily, too. She's having some massive déjà-vu here...

Luckily for her, Sarah, having grown up in a house she shared with psycho brother and psycho father – even if the latter wasn't psycho just yet – had also taken up second-guessing everything as a second nature. It was Kathryn's too. She always saw them as the two sides of the same coin. She used to be jealous of Sarah for it. Kook princess, still shiny and sunny and lovely. Everything she had been.

She wished that coin wasn't as fucked on both sides, now.

Maybe even luckier for her, Kathryn could always count on her deeply mistrusting, con artist, always-down-to-make-the-worst-choice-possible boyfriend, JJ. Everyone surviving this maybe attempt at kidnapping clearly overthrew whatever spat they were in. And, again, Kathryn refused to make it a big thing. Sure, she was hurt, but it was probably nothing compared to what JJ was feeling, if he thought nothing was waiting for him.

Kathryn subconsciously avoids John B's glances. Not that he's talking to her, because this isn't the place to unpack whatever happened with JJ, but she still hears his voice in her head. Something, something, 'you care too much about everything else, but you.' To be fair, she doesn't think it's a coping mechanism this time. She just wants to make it up to everyone around her after causing so much pain.

John B'd probably call it a massive overshoot.

"So what were you doing all the way out here?" JJ asks Portis.

"I got a little guide outfit in Saint Vincent," he tells him, and Kathryn vaguely places it in the Caribbeans. "I was spotting fish."

"What were you spotting?"

"You know, the usual. White marlins."

Apparently, it's not the right answer. Kathryn can guess why, as JJ and John B, the designated fishermen, look at each other with a slight shake of their heads. She turns to look at Sarah, who's frowning in confusion. She does the same thing they did – just shake her head a tiny bit, not too suspicious. Sarah nods once. Then glares at her boyfriend.

Portis, his headset tightly set on his head, can't hear a thing, Kathryn wagers. At least, she hopes so, as JJ takes this opportunity to lean towards the others.

"White marlins don't run in October," he tells them. "Ever. All right?"

Kathryn purses her lips. "Yeah, figured. We've been having Wahoo! for days now." John B side-eyes her. "I only know because that's the sound JJ makes when he catches one."

"Well, whoever this man is, he's not a fisherman," he goes on.

This was obvious by now. What with their luck being rotten. And the outrageously rich people after them.

"Maybe the run just starts earlier out here," Pope tries optimistic.

JJ raises a brow. "Are you sure about that? In the Caribbean?"

"Let's stop hoping for the best for a second," Kathryn presses, "and start being rational. We all know what this is."

Sarah nods. "He's working for my dad, and he's probably been looking for us the entire time." Kathryn gestures at her, lips tightly closed. Obviously.

"All right, we gotta find out. Start looking for some sort of... clues."

She follows JJ's stare to the man's satchel, and tenses up. It's right behind Portis, hanging on his seat. Not the best place to look through it. She rolls her lips into her mouth, watching as JJ gestures to John B to distract the man, forcing him to look the other way. She's not exactly fond of him looking away from the... air road they're on, but she'll take that over a third kidnapping.

Except, as all good JJ trademarked plans go, it's bound to end in total shit. John B talks Portis into whatever picture of a girl is on his windshield, JJ going through his satchel, finding some book about El Dorado, and in it, a nice picture.

A nice picture of the Coastal Venture, that is.

That's confirmation enough for all of them. The boat they were on, with Eberhimi, and the Cross, Sarah reminds them. Kathryn bites down her tongue to rein in the urge to call John B an idiot – did he have to confirm it was them from the get go?

"Hey, y'all better hold something," Portis calls out. "We got some unexpected turbulence up here."

Kathryn wants to vomit her breakfast (she didn't have one) at the words, tensions already running high from the sole fact that they're in the middle of being abducted.

"Guys, whatever it is, it's happening fast," Kie says, gesturing to the window. "Look."

Her friend swallows down bile. "I'd rather not, if it's all the same to you."

"That looks like Barbados," Cleo spells it out for her. "I've been there with Terrance." Right. Her old boss. At least he was better than Eberhimi, which was all he had going for him.

"Okay," JJ breathes out. "There's seven of us, one of him. You know my vote. We storm the cockpit."

"Immediately vetoed," his girlfriend hisses. "Or did you take some flying classes I don't know of?"

"I've seen Pope fly simulators."

Pope's eye twitches. "I crop-dusted for my uncle last summer. This is not the same thing."

"We don't have time to pretend that's a real option," Kie confirms.

"Do you have an idea?"

"One where we don't crash, preferably?" Kathryn adds. "Because sneaking out after landing gets my vote, I'd rather not die in a plane crash, thanks."

Pope nods. "If somebody comes to mess with us, we mad-dog them."

They nod, agreeing with them. Even JJ, who debates on it. "I like the mad-dogging part."

"You have the survival instinct of a toddler near electric outlets, put his stuff back."

The plane, at the same time, starts to shake. Kathryn grips the plastic seat with one hand, JJ's shoulder with the other, as he works his way around her vice grip to put the stolen items back in Portis' god awful bag, John B still sweet-talking him.

Her eyes are screwed shut, which is why she yelps when JJ suddenly bumps back into her, lids flying open to see Portis reach back at them. "Hey, man! What the hell are you doing?"

Kathryn thinks she can hold herself in a fight. If she puts the element of surprise on her side and throws enough of a mean punch, she could make it out victorious. She has the spite too.

Fighting on a plane, mid-air, with the pilot, is deathly different, as you can guess. The first thing she feels, as Portis lunges for JJ, is his elbow digging in her gut. The second is said gut dropping as the plane loses altitude.

"Give me back my book!"

"Who are you really?!"

Kathryn seems to fuse with her seat, throwing her foot blindly at Portis, all the while screaming. "Fly this shit! Fly it! Stop hitting my boyfriend and fly your fucking plane!"

It takes about three people shoving Portis back in the driving seat and the other three forcing JJ back down for the flyer to actually start doing his job, hastily raising the controls.

The whole thing shakes like someone is playing with it, the Pogues thrown every which way, until the plane lands nose first into the water, throwing all the crates at the back into them.

The sudden taste of saltwater in her mouth is enough to force Kathryn's nausea away, reaching around blindly at JJ or whoever she finds first. They all seem fine, at first glance. The blonde has his head thrown back, taking a moment to breathe, eyes bugging around from their abrupt landing.

"Are you okay?" she asks, the others already making their way out.

She blinks away the sight of him, face first in the water, and the feeling of something rupturing near her heart when she saw him that day. He nods, which helps wash it away.

"My bad. Storming the cockpit wasn't a good idea."

Kathryn keeps her acidic remark to herself and forcefully shoves him out of the plane, figuring that if he's well enough to make jokes, he's well enough to get the hell out of here.

Where they're met with John B and Pope, sitting right outside the door.

"Oh no, they don't look friendly."

Wiping the water out of her eyes as they sting, they settle on a group of army men rushing onto the shore, surrounding their landing place. Which is, apparently, the middle of a touristic beach. Kathryn would say she's glad to see people, however,

"We don't have the best track record with law enforcement," she says a little dumbly. "I vote for getting the hell out of here."

She wishes they wouldn't do anything in a hurry, but it seems it's all they're able to do, all the time, forever. So... might as well start swimming the other way.

Kathryn pushes JJ in the water, and he yelps, but she takes it as a personal revenge for joking when they were just in a plane crash. She moves to follow, Kie right behind her. At least, she should be.

Kie's eyes are pleading when she turns to her. "Portis' gonna drown."

Portis is face down against the wheel, water rising fast around him.

Kathryn is going to be honest here – she doesn't give a rat's ass about the dude. He just tried to kidnap them, and made them land in what seems to be very, very antagonistic territory, she isn't about to save his life. If he drowns, he drowns. She'll have remorse tomorrow, but at least they'll be free.

Kathryn does care about Kie. And she knows her friend, who's willing to sacrifice a lot to save whatever life there is. That includes Portis, at the moment, much to Kathryn's dismay. She wants nothing more than to push Kie out, but she knows it'd be no use, she knows that she'd hold it against her forever.

The thing that tops it all off is that, in the deep, twisted trenches of her mind, the vines that roped their way around her heart tugged at her just right to make her think, 'I owe it to her, for driving John B away.' Even if the one in question never held it against her. Kathryn still did.

"I'll take care of Portis, you get out of here."

Kie blinks at her, the others now very much screaming at them to get out. "Kat, I appreciate that, but I'm not letting you do any more stupid shit."

Kathryn knows full well that she's talking about the whole sewer debacle, and her following Kie in them when she didn't have to. But at least, now Kathryn knew that Kie wouldn't hold it against her for the rest of her life if she helped. Ergo,

"No, that's nothing like that at all. I'll be alone this time."

She pushes Kie out before she has time to protest, trusting the others, to force her and a certain blond she refuses to think of back to safety.

She hears them scream her name with varying tones of urgency, anger, and frustration, but Kathryn has learned to turn a deaf ear to it from years of living with her mom. She hopes she doesn't turn around to see one of them – you know which one – decided to stay back or evaded the others long enough to come back for her.

Kathryn is a woman of her word. She grabs Portis from under the armpits, and thanks the rising water in the plane for taking a bit of his weight. Forcing him out of the plane is easier said than done, heaving him out and tasting the saltwater all at the same time until they're free from his drowning plane.

Next part is trickier. Kathryn knows how to carry someone unconscious in the water from the classes Max forced her to take, but Portis isn't exactly the same weight as a mannequin, and there's a gathering of army men waiting for her on the beach, so not ideal either.

And she makes fun of JJ and his bad ideas. She's never going to hear the end of this one.

Luckily for Kathryn, as soon as she reaches the shore, people are there to help her drag Portis out of the water. She thanks them, which must sound more like a grunt than anything, considering how out of breath she is.

Portis finally comes to as she heaves the taste of salt away from her mouth, blinking blearily at her. "Thank you."

She holds up her middle finger at him. "Did it for my friend, not you, you lying sack of shit." The swearing must come with almost drowning for a man in a low ponytail.

She can't focus on it too long – quad bikes are coming her way, fast, and she has to hide if she doesn't want Portis' plan to succeed. Her eyes quickly scan the very, very, very exposed beach, and settle on two abandoned boats to the side.

She rushes to them, jumping into one of them, ignoring the splinters lodging themselves in her palms and feet, and lays as flat as she can against the floor, heart hammering in her chest, hand clasped against her mouth to keep her panting to a minimum.

This is not ideal. Even if they don't find her, they'll have to leave people behind to check in case she was still here, right? Maybe at least then, she'll have a shot at getting away. She thinks. She hopes. Oh, what did she get herself into again?

She sees the man closing in on her before she can hear him, her heart thrumming in her ears. Her first instinct is to claw at his face, tugging on his ear hard enough to draw blood and she tries not to think about how that happened as she shoves him away and jumps off the boat.

The sand does little to cushion her fall as the shock from it ripples up to her knees, she groans loudly, and before she can think of running away, runs right into another man, who grabs her by the shoulders.

Kathryn only went quietly once. She screams, thrashes around, bites on one of his fingers, and puts up enough of a fuss that people look around and back at her wondering why this girl is getting taken away and if all of this is legal.

But she is a girl. And they're military men.

She tries her very best not to have a panic attack on the spot, the hands on her reminiscent of battle scars she tried to hide everyday with store bought concealer. It's easier when they shove her on a truck bed, and let go.

Her eyes scan around to catch a glimpse of the Pogues, but they're nowhere to be seen, and leave her to focus on what's going to happen to her. She moves around a bit too much for the taste of the man suddenly sitting next to her, who taps his rifle once. He doesn't need to do it twice.

She'd gladly trade Rafe's half-thought out kidnapping for this. He was never going to kill her. They very well might. She takes a deep breath, the oxygen caught in her throat and never reaching her lungs. Forcing coherent thought in her brain is harder when it's not oxygenated enough, when she feels like a dam is going to rupture and anxiety will take her like a devastating wave. The Camerons probably don't want her dead and buried. At least, Rafe doesn't, and Ward is scared of his son, so she has a shot at getting out of this.

Portis, thankfully saved and well, walks by with guilt written all over his face. Kathryn hopes it poisons his blood.

"You–"

"I know," he stops before she can get the choked words out. "I know, I know, I'm sorry. I'm gonna try to help you, okay? I swear, I didn't know it was gonna be like this."

She huffs, cheeks puffed. "Like your word means anything to me!"

"Look, if you don't fight, if you just do what they say, these guys prob... probably won't hurt you."

Her face scrunches up into disgust. "Keep quiet, that's what he wants out of me? I can excuse receding hairline, but Ward really is unoriginal."

Portis' face blanks out for a moment. "Who?" She blinks. Fuck he means, 'who?' Ward's gotta be the one that orchestrated this. He's gotta be. "Look, just take my advice, do what they say. Good luck."

He walks away, and Kathryn finds herself alone with the rifle-man and her thoughts. Thoughts that are mainly composed of, if it isn't the Camerons, then who would know to go after them? Who would go that far, know that much, and choose them instead of said Camerons? Who, need she remind you, have the Cross? What do they have?

It's a good thing that the only person they caught is Kathryn, who knows how to lie to survive. A good thing, that she's the one over there, because if it had been Kie, if it had been JJ, she would be losing her mind and preparing herself to storm whatever place they're taking her. Oh, she'd be devastated, if JJ had been taken away. How could she function like they hadn't just taken a vital organ from her?

Kathryn doesn't doubt that JJ is already thinking about how to get her back, but it just makes her worry even more. She still doesn't know who wants her. Still doesn't know if they're willing to kill. Her only hope was that Pope, Cleo, and Kie would probably not let the others do anything stupid.

Her only solace as the truck drives off, is 'better her than any of her friends.'

Author's Note: "I don't think this is a bad coping mechanism!" proceeds to describe a bad coping mechanism

Oh by the way, bad-ish news,,, updates will most likely be a bit wonky as I enter the writing stage of my thesis starting monday, and I'm not sure my brain will be happy with sitting and writing non-stop all day,,, I'm not immune to burn out!

I promise to write as much as I can because the plot points for season 3 are delicious BUT... in the meantime, pretty please, could we keep the 'please update' to a minimum? It kinda makes me assimilate writing with a task and my autism doesn't like tasks, AT ALL, and tends to shove them away,, it's very nice and all, very kind, but each 'please update' comment drives the day I update a bit further away. I also feel like when I update in a hurry, the chapters aren't as good! And JJKAT doesn't deserve half-assed updates.

I will definitely 100% be back by May 24, when I hand in my thesis. It's not too far off, right? Just wait for me, I'm not losing interest, it's really just that I don't have time!!!!!!

Love you all xxx