It's hard to catch up the Routledges – she can call them that, right? After all, silly or not, Sarah and John B are technically married... – on everything as they run through whatever town of South America they were in. Kathryn only knew that they were in the Orinoco basin, and that was about it.

Their only plan right now, as far as she knows, is to run one way and specifically away from Singh, and Edward. Kathryn's plan, in the grand scheme of things, is to find JJ.

Which is not exactly the point, right at the moment. She's aware.

"Can't believe you just fell out of a window, dad," John B cries out, slowing down.

"If I never see Singh again, it'll be too soon." Kathryn snorts. "Let's collect our bearings. Just get the lay of the land."

"Can we get the lay quick, considering they're definitely on our arses?" she hums.

John B makes finger guns at her. "She has a point. Think we'll have enough time to make it to Solana for the solstice?"

"Make it where, when?" She frowns. "It's not even the solstice. Or maybe it was back then, and the calendars changed stuff up..."

"Yeah, uh, no idea but Solana is a dig site where we have to use the idol on this uh, thelma–"

"And Louise?"

"Temalacatl," Big John corrects.

"Oh right. An altar."

"How'd you even know that?" his son frowns at her.

"Why did you think I didn't?"

"Okay, don't get too cocky," his dad warns. "I still can't make out those glyphs."

Kathryn shrugs. "I can."

Big John stares at her. "Why didn't you say so earlier?"

"Technically, I did. I said the trick was knowing in which order to use them." She realises he's staring right at her. "But I memorised the glyphs."

Sarah shakes her shoulder. "That's our girl!"

"Yeah, speaking off, where's JJ?"

Her eyebrows scrunch up at Kathryn's obviously worried tone. "I don't know, he said he'd catch up with us. Pope–"

"Pope is here?" Big John asks, curt.

His son frowns. "Yes, Pope is here."

"Who the hell else is here?"

Kathryn is particularly tired of dads raising their tone at her, so she just shoves at Big John to get the idol out of his backpack, which he apparently swiped as she was building up courage to climb down the ladder.

"Look, that doesn't matter, does it? Obviously they got separated. Now..." Her brown nimble fingers trail over the inscriptions. "That's tongue, wisdom, darkness, patience..."

That gets a smirk out of the older man. "The gods are smiling on us."

She makes a face. "I'm not sure the gods have anything to do with my memory?"

"Look, let's just be glad the gods are smiling," John B ironises. "We gotta go. Okay?"

His dad nods. "We gotta move kids. We gotta get upriver. The moon waits for no man."

Listen, Big John had always been weird, but Kathryn can't believe it gets that dialled up the second any treasure is in his vicinity. But then again, that was the case of all three fathers of the three teenagers.

This must be some kind of curse. A fatherly curse, or whatever.

John B leads them to the small docks, running along a river that Kathryn can only suppose to be the Orinoco. She should have focused more on geography in school, instead of being entirely consumed by whatever history class they were having.

"Okay, we've got to find this river guide named Jose. Divide and conquer?"

She nods. "I'll come with you Bee."

"Uh, that's not exactly 'divide?'" he reminds her.

"Yeah, and you don't exactly know Spanish, so."

"Shots fired, I've been attacked."

She simply swats at him, walking away from the other two. If they do get some of their work done, which is just searching for a man named Jose who can get them across the river, not exactly that big of a task, and Kathryn is not focused on finding El Dorado.

The prospect of JJ catching up to them there, though, keeps her going.

At least, as they weave their way through the small crowd, Kathryn can catch up John B on everything that's happened, and he can do the same. They should both be a bit more worried about the time they're wasting, but when has that ever stopped them?

"You know," he starts when she's done, "I can excuse Edward messing your life up."

"Can you? Are we sure about that?"

"But I draw the line at the misogynistic comments."

She stares at him. "Look at you, mister oblivious privilege. That thing I said back in school really stuck with you uh?"

He bumps into her. "Yeah, I owe my self awareness to you, we knew this, Bug."

Kathryn merely rolls her eyes at him, fully aware that he was deflecting, and reducing the whole situation to help her, because this will cause more damage in the future, and if he can make light of it now, maybe she can later.

They ask some guy, who tells them he has no idea which Jose they're talking about, then move on to the next.

"So, El Dorado," she says. "Excited? If we pretend like we might actually find it. Still not entirely convinced in a city of gold hiding in the jungle."

"It's nice, I guess," he hums, noncommittally. "So, Kitty Hawk. Are you and JJ back together?"

Kathryn blinks at him, before snorting. "This cannot be your first question."

"Oh, but it can," he says, before shuddering. "I did not spend three days listening to JJ moan in my ear about you just for it to not happen."

"You both are so dramatic, I swear." She rolls her eyes at his insistent stare. "Yes, we kissed and made up. Happy now?"

He grins. "I think the right word is overjoyed?"

"I can't believe El Dorado gets 'nice I guess' and JJ and me get 'overjoyed.'"

They move on to another man, standing by a boat. When Kathryn asks him about Jose, this time, he points to his left, towards the end of the docks.

She smiles at John B, because she can't help it. "Well done, Bee."

"Always a pleasure, Bug," he says, saluting.

There's not much time to say anything, considering he whistles at the others to come over.

One step closer to the treasure, she figures. She only wishes she felt more excited about it, and not this gaping feeling that things would go wrong. First, things always went wrong for them. Second, no one ever came back, and she's fairly certain Singh mentioned the idol being haunted, at some point.

Kathryn leads the little group, walking over to a man hunched over in his boat. "Jose?"

"Sí?"

"¿Conoces Professor Sowell?" Apparently, he was part of a small group that planned an expedition to El Dorado, of which, one can guess, very few came back from. John B barely mentioned him. Singh ended up killing him, after all, so. Kathryn wished she'd met him. He knew how to speak Kalinago.

Jose smiles. "Sí. You are friends?"

Hearing English, John B immediately perks up. "Yes! Yes, yes."

"Okay, I waiting for you."

"Nice to meet you," he says, shaking his hand. "You were gonna take us upstream where you took them?"

"¡Por supuesto!" Just as John B fishes for some money to pay him, Jose shakes his head. "And they already paid, so we can go."

There it goes. That's how it starts to go downhill, is it not? New people involved, people they didn't know, this is just grand.

Kathryn stares at the money in his hand, frowning. "They? Who's they?"

"Your friends. They're waiting. Come on, follow me. Over here."

In another more rudimentary boat, a few feet down, two men are waiting. One has a cane, which Kathryn wants to shove up the other's rectum.

All in all, Edward and Ward aren't exactly welcome, as of right now. As of ever again.

Her stomach since, and she forces herself not to feel dizzy in the face of Ward Cameron, who she last saw after he let his son kidnap her, as insurance Rafe would behave.

But that was nearly two months ago, and Kathryn had changed. She was dead set on pretending like he wasn't even here in the first place. As opposed to her dad, who seems the tiniest bit nervous under her glare. He should be.

John B shuts his eyes tightly. Sarah inhales sharply, turning to Kathryn. "Well, at least your dad's here."

Kathryn can't help but smirk at the irony. "Yeah, I wouldn't say that. Crash notes, he sold me off to Singh to get to El Dorado."

"I'm sorry?"

"It's a whole thing," John B agrees, jaw particularly taunt.

The Darcy girl faces Sarah, irritation growing by the second everytime her father so much as waves towards her, that with the fact that he was with Ward, oh, this was definitely not going to end well for either of them.

"You take yours I'll take mine?"

Sarah smacks her lips. "With pleasure."

If Sarah starts screaming the second she takes two steps towards her father, Kathryn stands there, arms crossed, and waits for him to come to her. John B pushes his father a little further down, ignoring the way the man glared at the other two.

Kathryn has no reasons to trust him, now even less than earlier. He worked with Singh. Big John and her barely made it out alive, so why is he just standing there? If he was working for Singh against his will, there was no way he didn't escape by the skin of his teeth, and she didn't even see him walk out of the house they were trapped in.

At this point, she's more tired than she is mad.

"What are you doing here?" she starts, voice levelled but nonetheless lethal. "Taking notes for Singh?"

He seems outraged at the idea, so much so that's it's laughable. "I'm not here for Singh," he cries out." I needed to make sure you were okay, Kat," he says with utmost sincerity, which she doesn't take very seriously.

"I'm fine. Leave, now."

"Kat, please. I said you deserve a better father, and I know you have Hen, but I can try to be that person. Please, let me try." He puts a hand on her shoulder. She shrugs it away. "I've made mistakes, I know that."

She snorts. "Yeah, I'd hope so." She's quite sure John B himself stifles his laughter behind her.

"Let me try to make it up to you, please," he pleads.

Right. He pleads to her.

Kathryn clicks her tongue. "Nah, I don't know. Forgiveness is pretty weak, don't you think?"

He winces. "I didn't mean it like that. I'm sorry."

She bats her eyelashes. "Oh, you meant that I'm dependent on JJ in a good way? Sorry, you meant that I can't want softness for myself, but like, not because I'm a girl who has feelings, right?"

Her father reduced her to her feelings for JJ. And even if there was nothing minimal about them, she couldn't bear to be considered as this two-dimensional being who only existed for the men around her. Either she was with JJ and doing whatever he wanted, being soft and at peace, according to her dad, or she was with Edward, following him around and doing his dirty work.

Apparently, doing things for herself didn't make it in the equation. Apparently, wanting to go to Yale, helping her friends, discovering age old mysteries, oh, that was just so much less interesting than her relationship to the men around her, wasn't it? That just doesn't define her, does it?

Kathryn was not a love interest. She was not the Second Coming of Edward Darcy.

She drops the act, glaring now. "I'm not just some tool you can use to progress your own story. I'm your kid. I was your kid. Don't expect forgiveness from me now. You're the one who forgot you were my dad, first. I have every right to forget that I am your daughter now."

"Kat–"

"Not to mention that you show up with Ward? Are you quite well?"

Her father doesn't have time to answer. To be fair, she doesn't want him to answer, she doesn't care for what he has to say. However, when Big John comes barreling through, marching straight to Ward, grabbing him by his shirt, she does care a little.

Kathryn blinks, John B walking up to her. "Is your dad going to kill Ward?"

"That's a possibility."

"¿Has visto a los cuatro americanos?"

The two whirl around. Somewhere a few feet away, Singh's men are talking to the same people they just were. Time isn't just running out, it has ran out, and it's time to leave.

"Singh," Edward hisses out, fear suddenly washing over him. "Kids, we have to go."

Kathryn raises her hand at him. "You're not giving orders. We do have to go, though, Bee."

"Time to go," Sarah calls out from behind them. "Time to go!"

John B hushers the two girls along, not paying attention to Edward, who follows close. "Kat, please take care of the middle aged children, please."

She nods. "On it."

Taking care, to Kathryn, mostly means shoving herself right between the two, though distinctly on Big John's side.

"You threw me overboard!"

"Hey, both of you knock it off!" she cries out. "Singh's right here, and you two idiots are going to lure him to us. Big John, in the boat, now."

She nearly shoves him on, John B and Sarah right behind her. The embarcation is a little shaky, and doesn't seem all that trust-worthy.

She turns around, a sudden spike of realisation hitting her. "Wait, you told me Pope, Kie and Cleo were on the plane with you, what about them?"

"They'll figure it out," John B answers her. She just has to believe that, too.

Because she doesn't have time to argue with him any more, seeing as Ward is forcing himself onto the boat, followed by her own dad. This is a joke. This is some Laurel and Hardy bit.

Their favourite daughters start to shriek.

"Dad, what are you doing?"

"Get the hell off that boat!"

"Sarah, it's dangerous, you're in over your head!"

"Listen, Kat, you don't know Singh like I do."

John B shoves Kathryn down before she can strangle her father, and the boat is going down the river already, and she wants to hit something. She really, really wants to hit something.

There is no way that her dad isn't here on Singh's behalf. That makes no doubt in her head, she isn't an idiot. She's also not ready to throw him off the boat, and to what must be certain death, considering the infested waters.

But that doesn't mean that she'll let him anywhere near the temalacatl. That doesn't mean she'll let him catch a single glimpse of gold. It's less about finding it, now, and more about keeping her father out, as he looks back at her with a contrite smile.

"Guess it's just us," Sarah grumbles next to her.

Kathryn hums. "Isn't it just?"

They stare at each other, kinship in this situation burning brighter than the rest. Sarah puts a hand on her friend's. They both share the same feelings, the same fate.

Being a daughter is a curse that comes from your father's blood.

Author's Note: I'm afraid I have some pretty heavy thesis work to do until the 3rd of June and have litereally no idea if I'll be able to update until then... if I don't, please, please wait around for me </333 

(also giggling because you guys in my comments talking with slang and abbreviations and I need google translate opened at all times I am so very French it's an IMPEDIMENT)