Kathryn is the middle man of their human chains. She grabs on John B's hand, and she thinks there's a bit of protectiveness there, if not plain fury against his father. To force him down the gold hunt road is one thing. A thing she hates, but it's completely different from showing to him, proving to him, that his life was worth so much less than El Dorado.

And Sarah, oh, don't get her started on what Sarah Cameron has been through. Sarah had to deal with her father putting himself first for months now, maybe years, without her knowing. And that sudden switch-up is just salt in the wound, giving her hope where there shouldn't be.

"Kat, your nails are actually starting to hurt me."

"Yeah, what's up with the vice grip, Bug?"

"I'm pissed," she grumbles out, relaxing her fingers around his hands. "Sorry."

"No, no problem, but we gotta keep moving. Singh and his men can't be far behind us."

Oh, right, that too. Singh clearly isn't going to take well with having one of his men dead. Kathryn can still see the way his eyes rolled in the back of his head. If she had been in survival mode up until now, the sight was catching up to her. It made no difference anyway. They had to keep going.

It wasn't the first dead body she saw because of Ward.

"Keep on that heading, east. That's the way the hand pointed," Big John calls out from behind them. "That's home."

Kathryn licks her dry lips. The only water she's had in the last five hours has been her sweat. Not exactly glamorous. "It would help if we knew what we were searching for, but no... Someone had to be a cunt," she adds under her breath. "Now hurry it up."

Big John sits down. "I need a minute."

"I don't give a fuck?"

John B just tugs her along. "Let's pick it up," he screams back at his father. "Let's go."

"Go on, I'll catch up. I just need a minute to catch my breath." Kathryn can see John B frown at his father's words, and why wouldn't he? The man had been distancing them the whole time, the only reason Kathryn isn't all that worried, is because she's so remarkably pissed at the guy.

John B fully lets her go, leaving her with Sarah. "One sec. We got a straggler."

Kathryn glares at her best friend. "Don't let yourself be buttered up, John B. I mean it."

"So do I," Sarah adds, with an equally as pointed look.

He barely salutes at them. "Yes, ma'ams."

He leaves them behind, joining back his father, too far away for them to even see. Last time that happened, it didn't go so well.

Kathryn heaves out a sigh. "My dad does something batshit crazy, then your dad does something bat shit crazy, and now Big John tried to outdo all of them."

"What's next, uh?" the blonde enthuses.

"Let's not think about that right now." She hums, turning back at her. "Are you okay?"

Sarah had been out of it ever since last night, and now that it was nearly the middle of the day, it was worrying her. She gives her a half-hearted shrug. "Sure. I'm glad I kept my dad away."

She tries a smile. "So am I."

"'Wisdom!'" John B cries out, jogging up to them, his father limping behind him.

They turn back to him, confused. "Yes, what you're lacking?"

"No, Kat – the last word. It was 'wisdom.'"

Kathryn's eyes blow wide, then narrow at Big John, panting. Now? He was revealing it now, of all times? They might as well have lost El Dorado already, what was even the point? Maybe guilt gnawed at him.

"I'm sorry, kid," is all he says.

She juts her chin out. "Tell that to your son." Speaking of, John B looks worried out of his goddamn mind, eyes frantically going from Kathryn, to Sarah, to his dad. His fingers are trembling at his sides. "Are you okay?"

"Hm?" He looks back at her, before nodding. "Yeah, no. What was the last message?"

She makes a grimace, dubious. "'Wisdom' means 'everything,' when it's an object complement. So the whole sentence, it's... 'I am nothing but hold everything. I have no tongue, but I'm always speaking.'" She blows out a breath. "Nice to know, but not sure it helps us."

Kathryn's tired of riddles. This, the Island Room, Angel Oak, she was going insane. Her brain was fried with it all. For once, she'd like one straightforward sentence telling her what to do. 'Go east.' That was a direction. 'No tongue but always speaking,' that was driving her mad.

But oh, she wasn't alone in this.

"Wait," Sarah breathes out. "Guys, listen."

She clamps her mouth shut. Only things she hears are some buzzing from insects, and the whistling of the wind. Sarah, though, is clearly onto something.

She saunters away, the others following after her. It becomes obvious after a few minutes that it's the wind that she's chasing, running through the rainforest while the others struggle to follow.

And when she stands in front of the gaping mouth of a cave, well, it all makes sense. The wind reverberates on the walls, creating a wordless melody. A song.

"'Always speaking' indeed," Kathryn breathes out, blinking at the entrance. "It's a cave! Sarah, I could kiss you."

She blushes. Her boyfriend seems less thrilled at the idea. "Please don't? Look, instead of stealing my girlfriend, can we focus on the fact that El Dorado is in a cave?"

Kathryn rolls her lips into her mouth. "A whole city of gold, somewhere deep inside a cave? I'm not sure how it'd fit. Or maybe translations went wrong somewhere? Maybe it's not a city, maybe–"

"Maybe we should get inside."

She simply sticks her tongue out at her best friend, who's father hushers them inside, excitedly. Kathryn's own heart is nearly spilling out of her lips.

Okay, sure, this was meant to be a last 'fuck you' to her father. But now that it was becoming more and more real, well, she couldn't help but feel herself leap out of her own skin. If they were about to discover El Dorado, this was a major discovery, worldwide. They would be known.

Kathryn would be known for something else than Edward, and that did sweeten the deal.

The cave itself holds a small pond, water rippling with their footsteps. If there's water in, there's a great chance that it dug tunnels through the stone, over time. That means there's the possibility of this cave going deeper than what they can see so far.

A greater possibility of El Dorado, too.

"This doesn't look like a city of gold," John B lets out.

Kathryn hums. "Just remember where we found the Cross before drawing conclusions, yeah? Not to mention the Merchant's gold."

"Point taken, Bug."

"It's a big cave," his father agrees with her. "Let's split up, look around. There's gotta be a passage or something. Keep your eyes peeled."

Sarah and John B take the right, Big John the left, and Kathryn goes straight ahead. There's mostly rocks as far as the eye can see, far from the entrance. The whole cave is plunged in darkness, even with the torches, it's hard to see. It feels like the place is swallowing them.

"It's just a hole in the ground," John B calls out from his end. "It doesn't go anywhere."

Kathryn sighs, not inclined to prove him right, but not exactly able to prove him wrong. She reaches the small pond, desperate for some water. She's not dumb enough to drink it, but if she could at least pour it over her head–

She nearly falls on her ass when a fish swims up to her fingers.

Now, Pope is the science expert. But she's pretty sure you're not supposed to find fish in a pond inside a cave. Unless, of course, the source was somewhere else. Somewhere deeper in. The cave didn't run forward, it ran downwards.

"Hey, come check this out."

"Hmm?"

She points her flashlight at the pond, showing Sarah and John B the little fishes, swimming around. Sarah frowns. "Well, they have to come from somewhere. This has to be deeper."

"That's what I was thinking," Kathryn nods.

John B takes his backpack off. "One way to find out."

The girls let him waddle away in the ice cold water, scaring the fishes off to see where they come from which, as John B tells them, is just a little further down. He volunteered, okay? They weren't just about to refuse.

"What is that?"

They try their best to shine their torches on whatever got his attention. "Well, we can't bloody well see it from here. So what is it?"

Of course, he doesn't answer, merely starts squatting down in the water. And then, he shouts.

"Dad! Hey, dad, come check this out. Kat found something."

"I found something?"

Big John comes panting, limping to them, standing next to the Darcy girl, who's nose wrinkles up, staring at him.

She could ignore it for a moment, but now, it was just glaring at her right in the face. Something was wrong with Big John. "Dude, are you okay?"

He doesn't answer. Which doesn't really matter, because John B turns back to them, grinning from ear to ear. "There's an opening."

"All right, that's something."

She turns her attention to John B, standing near the wall. She frowns for a moment, shining her light on it as best as she can from where she stands.

Kathryn's eyes narrow in the distance, raising her glasses on top of her head.

"What's that above? Right on the stonewall."

Big John's breathing turns shallow. "It's... it's a hand."

Home.

🍓

Clearing the large stones away from the opening takes forever. It's a time they don't have, considering Singh has got to be right behind them, but it's either this, or hoping for the best and just say 'yeah El Dorado's here. No, we didn't check, that's silly. Pay us?'

"If someone went through this much trouble, it's got to be the way," Big John remarks.

Kathryn wipes her forehead. "Speaking of trouble, mind helping us?"

"Kat," John B warns, voice low.

"What? I didn't even start anything!"

"Whatever." He takes the last stone away. "Looks like we're good, you guys ready?"

Sarah nods. Kathryn takes a deep breath. The cave is already pushing it enclosed space wise, but this was a bit much. Then again, if she turned away now, she'd never forgive herself.

This was their chance. She can't believe it, really. A week ago this was Singh's delusion, not their victory. A week ago her dad was dead too. And JJ and her were happy. So a lot can change in that time, she reckons.

"I'll never fit through that wormhole. You guys go."

Well, the 'guys' in question stare at him with wide, confused eyes to stare at Big John. He carefully avoids their gaze, clearing his throat.

"Didn't you nearly kill JB for this?" Kathryn eructs, confused to say the least. The last man who pretended not to be interested was Ward.

"Dad, we finally found what we think is El Dorado, and you're gonna sit this one out?" John B cries out at him.

He merely smiles. "Gotta take the training wheels off sometime, kid. It's time." Sarah looks between father and son, bewildered. "I'll hold down the fort out here, but before you go, listen. There were five sigils that you didn't see." Kathryn's eyes nearly bulge out of their sockets. "I know. I was counting them as you were yelling at me."

John B lets out a low laugh, Kathryn's word dying out in her throat before she can speak. "Always keeping secrets, huh, pop? Shocker."

"I'm sorry. I'm telling you now. The last ones – in order, were 'patience,' 'seeker,' 'wisdom,' 'darkness,' and that symbol that looked like a trident. I don't know this one."

But Kathryn does. "It's a negation. 'The true and patient seeker needs not light to see.'" She groans. "Another riddle, thanks, Big John. Hoping Sarah'll guess this one too."

She scratches her hair. "Well, I'm not all that inspired right now, but here's to hoping."

As she talks, Big John fishes around his backpack. "I've got these three flares." He hands one to each of them. "They're waterproof. I doubt those flashlights will survive the swim. They're twenty minutes each. And you don't wanna get stuck down there without them. You'll never find your way out. All right?"

Kathryn hums. "Yeah, that's if we don't die drowning first."

"Keep your spirits up. I'm passing the baton over to you kids," he chuckles at his son. "You got this, boy. I'll be okay. I'll see you when you get back."

The three look at each other, unsure for a moment. Kathryn is right, they might very well drown trying to find El Dorado. Then again, what a way to go. Dying for her dad's treasure.

Or, perhaps, doing it for her friends. That sounded a whole lot better than spite, in the face of it.

John B grins, and holds out both of his hands, so maybe they can even make it out.

"You sure you're good?" he asks his dad again.

He smiles half-heartedly. "I promise. Now go find that city of gold, boy."

"We're going!" He turns to the girls. "Ready?"

Sarah nods. "Yeah."

Kathryn grins. "No, but what's new?"

He counts down to three. Kathryn has no choice but to follow, as they dive straight inside the opening.

🍓

Contrary to popular beliefs – Kathryn – they didn't die down there. Their torches are somehow alive, and so are they. However, the moment they get out of the water, coughing their lungs out, they're not nearly as reassured as they should be.

"What is this place?" Sarah asks, still gasping for breath.

"Look. There's something over there."

They swim to a small opening, not big enough to stand, but big enough to crawl, so that's at least something.

Nearly ten minutes after busting their knees on the floor, Kathryn's breath caught in her chest and never inhaling as much as she should, as much as she wants to, they manage to stand, the corridor slowly growing larger.

It opens in a huge room, only leading to another opening.

An opening that flickers in out of life, with the dying light. Kathryn throws her torch, dejected. "Bloody thing."

John B's falls to the same fate. "And there goes mine."

"Well, at least we have mine," Sarah triumphs. Two seconds later, they're in complete darkness. "Never mind."

She fumbles for her flare, lighting the whole cave in a red glow.

Kathryn swallows thickly. "Okay. Twenty minutes per flare, that's an hour. As soon as we're halfway through the second one, we're turning around, okay?"

They nod, form their little human chain, and keep going. The clock ticks.

They keep walking through the opening they found earlier, the air growing thicker, breathing harder. This better be worth it, because if they just become skeletons meant to scare the future explorers, well, that'd just suck. Kathryn has stuff to do, like going to Yale.

No, instead she leads her friends as they walk out of the corridor and into another open room. An open room that ends abruptly, which is most commonly known as a dead-end.

And absolutely nothing else.

Her stomach sinks. "Right. Makes sense. This was all just a fucking joke."

"Does it just end here?" Sarah cries out. "Maybe we missed something."

"This was the only way to go," John B answers, voice growing in frustration. "There's nothing. That's it. That's it."

"Okay, um, maybe..."

"Sarah," Kathryn sighs.

"Just keep looking."

"Babe, it's a dead end," she says. "Maybe someone got here first, I don't know. It's happened to us before."

John B huffs, collapsing against the wall. "I brought you here and put you in danger for no reason."

Kathryn bites down her tongue, staying silent, but thinking loudly. Of course she wouldn't have been able to prove her dad wrong, that was just too good to be true. Of course she'd need him to find El Dorado, because look where it led her? Fucking nowhere, inside a cave.

"Stop!" Sarah cries out at them. "Even if this ends up being nothing, if all it leads us to is this godforsaken hole in the ground, I'm glad I did it even if neither one of you is."

John B looks up at her. "Sarah, I got you shot. I mean, you're basically homeless because of me. Kat holds the all-time record for getting kidnapped– because of me."

Kathryn holds up a finger. "Okay, now, most of those were actually on me, so–"

Sarah has tears in her eyes when she says, "Kat, look away for a second."

"Uh?"

She does turn her head in a hurry when Sarah dives for John B's mouth.

Kathryn closes her eyes, ignoring the sounds filling her ears and making her want to crawl out of her skin. Instead, she thinks of JJ, and how if El Dorado had never existed in the first place, at least, it could have had the decency of not shoving itself between them.

Look how much time they'd lost, all for a treasure that never existed in the first place. Now, their light is dying, and soon they'll be in complete darkness, no light, and she has no one to kiss like it's the end of the world.

Hold.

"John B – Bee, that thing about light dying." John B and Sarah part, the boy clearly less happy about it than her. "'The true and patient seeker needs not light to see.' Put your flare out."

He blinks at her. "Uh, what?"

Luckily for them, Sarah is quicker to catch on. "Put that out!"

"We only have so many–"

"It wasn't a bloody riddle, they were literally telling us what to do! Oh, thank you, whoever that was, you're my favourite person right now."

For a handful of seconds, nothing happens. Kathryn strains her eyes in the dark, ready to pull her out her own hair. Please be right, please be right...

A bluish glow comes from the wall behind them, painting the whole cave in its hues. Kathryn can't help but smile when she understands.

"That's how the gnomon works. Phosphorescents."

Her fingers so much as graze the cod stone, and the rocks crack around them. She tumbles back, not willing to be engraved in this cave.

John B catches her, Sarah holding her arm as they stare at the wall, turning with some built-in mechanic that Kathryn refuses to think on, instead staring as the wall in front of them opens.

"Oh my god, Bug, you were right."

She blows out a laugh. "When am I not?"

Sarah taps her boyfriend's arm. "Flare. Right now."

"Oh, yeah. Yeah."

In the red light, the whole thing becomes even more real, if that was even possible. Kathryn gulps. "If there's nothing on the other end of this, I'm going to be so pissed."

They crouch, avoiding stalactites and stalagmites and making their way over and inside the room. As far as they can go, before a whole chasm splits it in two.

A scream lodges itself in Kathryn's throat at the sheer depth of it.

"Fall in a cave, fall in a cave, this is my nightmare."

"Don't look down!"

"Yeah, let me look up at the sky– oh wait!"

"Just... look straight ahead."

Sarah bites her lip, looking all over the chamber for some other opening, or something. There's no other way around it. It's either through, or back.

"So what do we do now?"

And they're not going back now.

John B hesitates. "We can jump."

The girls stare at him. That boy has lost brain cells every day since they got on Poguelandia, Kathryn's sure of it now.

"I do hope you're going first."

"Well I hope we're not doing that," Sarah corrects.

"Look, it's not that bad," he assures. "The glyph led us here. There's gotta be something on the other side."

"Yeah, death," his best friend hums.

They keep this back and forth as John B throws his things across, and starts actually counting down.

Kathryn's stomach fills with dread. "I was joking about going first!"

John B leaps across before she can end her sentence, Sarah screaming as he goes.

He lands heavily but safely on the ground. At least safer than the flare, which falls right into the chasm, neatly lighting up the fall as it goes.

They stay in darkness for a few seconds.

"Nice, Bee," she heaves out, still paralysed with fear. He actually just went ahead and jumped over it, god.

"Shut up." He lights up the second one. "See? It wasn't that bad. We're good."

"Who's we?"

"John B, we can't make that," Sarah says.

He shrugs. "Okay, I'll go take a peak, I'll be right back."

This is manipulation. This is plain manipulation, and the worst part is, they knowingly fall right into it.

"Shut the bloody hell up!" He gapes at Kathryn. "Way to twist our hand."

She turns to Sarah, who looks even more scared than her. "No."

"We don't have a choice. Believe me, I wish we did."

She winces, before nodding. What else can she do anyway? Stay behind? Yeah, as if. They barely have time to question doing anything, not with the flares, not with Singh on their asses.

They throw their stuff across, Kathryn purposefully hitting John B at times, before she extends her hand to the blonde.

Sarah gulps. "My life in your hand, Kat Darcy?"

She nods. "I wouldn't do it if I thought I was going to die."

"Yeah you would."

"Don't tell JJ that."

Holding hands, they take a runner up, and leap across.

Kathryn makes the mistake of looking down as she goes, and for a moment, she has the awful feeling that she's going to join the flare and break every bone in her body and oh my god they're going to die.

They nearly send John B flying, knocking right into him.

They stand upright in an awkward group hug for a moment, muttering to each other that they made it, patting each other, until they part, just glad to be alive for a moment.

But so much more is still waiting.

"Ready?"

"Yeah."

"Let's go."

They walk from chamber to chamber, then crawl, then crouch, then walk again, the whole thing never ending, nerve wracking because if there's treasure, well, they should have found it by now.

They reach another dead end, leading right into a hole in the ground. Kathryn tilts her head, taking John B's flare, orientating it every which way.

"It's not that deep, but we can't see a thing."

Sarah shrugs. "Only one way to find out, right?"

She sighs. "After this one, it's our last flare. Whatever happens next, we have to go back. This is literally our last shot."

John B puts a hand on her shoulder. "Better make it count. I trust you. You got us here, really."

They've been here too long, they're exhausted. If there's nothing there, well, there's just nothing there and they're going home, and it'll be the worst thing ever, but they just jumped over a chasm, so there had been more dangerous.

Now, did Kathryn trust her gut enough to do it? Waste a shot? Only thing she did was translate glyphs. Sarah found the cave, John B the opening. If they trusted her, there had to have been a reason, right? She'd like to think so, before she does something incredibly stupid.

The flare lands on the ground, not too far from them, really. This is nowhere near as deep as they thought, everything is close enough to touch. And when she says everything, she means it.

Kathryn feels tears prickle at her eyes, laughter bubbling in her chest at the sight. "Oh. Oh my god."

The red light reflects on a yellowy, orange surface. Slowly, it warms the entire ground of the cave, and it looks like stars illuminating their faces. Gold. The entire chamber is filled with gold.

Her eyes nearly bulge out of their sockets, trying to take in everything. There's a Kalinago sculpture of the Jaguar god on the right, carved into the stone, and in the centre of the chamber, a huge pillar made entirely of gold, scales all around it. Small towers rise from the bottom, encrusted with it, as far as the eye can see.

They'd done it. These actual, frankly stupid idiots found El Dorado. El Dorado itself, by some trick of fate, was real. Edward doesn't even graze Kathryn's mind. This wasn't about getting back at him anymore, this was so much more.

Every single stalagmite is covered in gold, each one making Kathryn's heart swell impossibly more, until hot tears are rolling down her cheeks, and she's not sure why she's crying, but so are John B and Sarah, holding her, shaking her, laughing with each other. She can't tear her gaze away.

From where they stand, it looks like a little city. A city of gold.

Author's Note: I don't know where we stand on the gold discovery and the El Dorado discovery as a whole in the series, like I don't know if we like it or not BUT I did really like that the whole thing looked like a little city, that pleased the nerd in me.

But just know everytime Kat goes 'well I'm not questioning that 'cause we don't have time to unpack all that' it's actually me raising eyebrows at the show. Yes... moving walls in a cave... sure... phosphorescents that respond only to the moon but somehow also a flare, why not...

Also fought against myself not to make this a filler but El Dorado had been soooo secondary to Kat's plot I fear I have failed . Did cry at the fact that she realises this is for herself and not to spite her dad, but well, that's only the beginning!