It doesn't need saying. They all know it. The gold hunt comes to an end. It's been over for a while now, but it doesn't have the same idea of finality as it does when they sit inside a SBI tent, waiting for something to happen, for someone to tell them that they got John B or to interrogate them.

Shoupe did try that earlier, now that she thinks of it. At least she thinks he did? He was trying to make friendly conversation, but they all knew what it was actually about. So they didn't say anything. They never would.

Besides, it's not like they actually have any idea which way he went. They put him on the boat, told him where to go, but he could've gone somewhere else to escape the cops.

The rain is anxiety inducing. The wind brings howlings and screams that drown against each other. But it's with every ounce of truthfulness that Kathryn says they had no idea what was going to happen when a SBI agent walks in.

He looks annoyed. Way past annoyed – pissed. So much so that the Pogues all instinctively get on their feet.

"John B Routledge and Sarah Cameron, your friends, I assume, are going right inside a storm," he tells them. "It's not about catching them now, it's about keeping them safe, okay?"

She thinks she heard Anna Carrera talk about a storm. Maybe she even saw some news about it, but she doesn't remember one bit of it. She just blinks, breath catching in her throat.

The man's small eyes settle on her. She gulps. "Are you Kathryn Elizabeth?"

She frowns, licking her lips and trying to hide her panic as best as she can. "Yeah. Yeah, I am."

"I need you to come with me."

"What?" JJ immediately cries out, tugging at her arm to put her behind him. "Why would she help you?"

The agent scoffs. "What part of taking an open boat into a raging sea don't you understand? It's a storm that they can't survive. We can all agree that your friends aren't dying tonight, and Shoupe told us she was his friend. If anyone has a shot at convincing them to come back, it might just be your girlfriend, so step back, and let her make her own choices."

JJ gets in his face, but Kathryn holds him back. The man is right. John B may be on the run, but the Phantom can't survive a storm. Neither can he and Sarah.

"It's okay," she tells JJ. "I got it."

He reluctantly lets her go. "Kat."

"I'll be fine," she promises, a smile playing on her lips.

She won't be. She's not even sure this is the right decision. She just knows that even if she can't let the police catch him, she can't let John B die either.

She lets the agent lead her to another tent, holding JJ's hoodie over her head to protect herself from the rain. She steps in, keeping the drenched piece of clothing against her to try and ground herself. She needs it.

Because the first thing she sees is Ward Cameron.

"You."

Anger bubbles against her skin, and she tries to keep it at bay, she tries to shove it down, but it comes back every time she looks at his face. He's the one driving her best friend away.

It already takes everything in her not to claw his eyes out.

He tries to save himself and his son as best as he can. "Listen, kid."

"Don't call me kid."

"Listen, this isn't about your little war anymore," he tells her. "This is about getting my girl home safe. John B too."

She scowls. "Get out of my face."

"Kathryn–"

"Ward, come on," Shoupe asks him, gesturing for him to take a seat back.

Ward gives her the spot next to the radio. She takes the microphone and cradles it like she was holding John B's hand. Keep him safe, she tells herself.

But Ward breathing down her neck doesn't work in her favour.

"John B?" she asks in the microphone, but it sounds more like a plea. "Bee, can you hear me?"

The answer takes so much time to come, that Kathryn can't help but imagine the worst. Did they lose them? She didn't even have the time to talk to him – is he already gone?

His voice comes through, cracking over the radio. "Should've known they'd use you against me."

She huffs in relief, sniffling softly. "They're not using anything, I just don't want you to die."

There's silence again. "Don't make me go back, bug."

Her stomach sinks. She knew he wouldn't come back so easily, she's not a complete idiot. But this is getting too real, too much like one of those catastrophe movies where you cry because the protagonist always dies.

"You promised to come back," she reminds him. "I'll make you the absolute freaking best pancakes you've ever tasted, if you do."

There's a weird sound. She guesses it's a laugh. Or a sob. "Tempting. But please, don't do this to me. Not after everything."

She closes her eyes, leaning her forehead against her palm, pretending like it's him. "I know," she concedes. "I know."

He'd come back, if she asked. He'd take them right back to OBX if Kathryn so much as said the word. But would she? She's not sure she could do that to him. If it didn't mean keeping him safe...

Behind her, Ward shuffles. "See, Shoupe? I told you. Darcys and Routledges–they always have each other's back, you can't trust them."

Kathryn turns to stare at him. "What did you just say?"

He seems angry, worried. She looks vengeful. "There's only ever you two that count, isn't there?" he accuses. "You betray everyone else."

"Ward–"

"No, Shoupe! It's what Darcys do." He looks at her. "It's what your dad did."

Somewhere in the background, she hears John B's voice calling out to her. She feels the wind against her drenched clothes. Her eyes narrow at Ward. Something hot and violent overcomes her mind. She doesn't want to let it, she doesn't, but it wins anyway. So, she gets angry. It's what she does best anyway.

Ward wants her to act like a Darcy? Fine. She'll act like a freaking Darcy.

"You take that boat, and you take it as far as you can!" she cries out. "You hear me John B? You take it straight into the storm–"

"Take her away!"

"You turn away and you don't come back!"

An officer yanks the radio away from her as Shoupe takes her arm, forcing her up and far from the device.

The officer picks it up, frowning. "Sir, we lost the signal."

Something fizzles and the anger in her veins short-circuits. They lost the signal. The radio is gone, does that mean that they are too? Did she actively just drive her best friend away to die?

The crash after anger won was always the worst, but it was all she'd ever known. The fire and the ashes that fell after it took everything with it.

Because he was going to go back. For her, he would've let it all go to waste, because she would've asked him to turn around and come back here. But she didn't, instead, she let the fire win, and gave into Ward's taunts. Instead of keeping him safe, she chose her grudge against the Cameron.

She lets Shoupe take her back to the first tent, where her friends are. When she sits next to JJ and Kie, they start assailing her with questions on what happened, but she can't answer them. She feels sick.

"They lost the radio signal," she says, voice hollow. "I think... I think I fucked up. I told him to go, and now they lost the radio."

Pope frowns, worried. "Okay. Okay, I see."

"Doesn't have to be a bad thing," Kie tries to reassure them.

"Yeah," JJ agrees, but he's scared, Kathryn can see it. "Besides, you can't–"

"You can't kill John B," she finishes, with less enthusiasm. "Yeah, I know."

But what if she did?

She sits there, waiting for them to find her best friend and come to tell them he's fine. Kie looks at her from time to time, chin wobbling, tears pearling at her eyes, and she keeps shaking her head, trying to hide her distress. Pope is just staring straight ahead, probably seeing from his peripheral vision the way JJ's knee bounces up and down anxiously.

It feels like they wait for hours, but it's only minutes. Times move slowly, rain pattering above them. The incessant shouts of the wind. Kathryn tries her best not to give into her emotions. When she did earlier, she drove John B away. She almost committed a murder. Two, in fact. She knows to try and stay calm.

But when Shoupe gets in, and they all rise to their feet, it gets harder to breathe. He scans over the teenagers, face stuck in a frown, eyes filled with pity.

There's always pity in their eyes.

"Did you find them?" Pope asks.

Shoupe slowly shakes his head. "No."

"They got away?" Kathryn lets out through heavy breaths.

Thunder cracks outside. The hope in her voice makes his heart ache. He closes his eyes for a moment.

"We, uh... we lost them." No reaction. "I'm sorry."

It comes like the waves, crashing against the shore. Slow, and then all at once. Forcefully, robbing her of her breath. She lets the others fight and scream and shout, she lets them rage against it, Kathryn has no more anger. The fire is snuffed out.

It's done enough. It took John B with it.

Her face falls, but she keeps the grief at bay, builds a dam against its raging waves. "They're dead? Is that what you're saying?"

He doesn't answer, but Kathryn knows the face of a man announcing death. She knows it. She knows the way they try to comfort her, the way they rub her back. She knows it all.

She knows the words said like useless poems, like songs you can't get out of her head at night. 'He's gone. We're sorry.'

JJ screams that they drove them straight to a storm, he screams bloody murder. But Kathryn knows. She's been here before – she can help them.

She helps JJ calm down, she takes his hand. She rubs Pope's back when his shoulders shake, she holds Kie against her when she starts to cry. She holds them, because they need someone to. She lets them cry, sob, scream while she clenches her jaw and keeps the tears at bay. She'll cry later. She has to stay strong now.

Hands pry them away from her – their parents. The Heywards and the Carreras walk in, take their children, soothe them. JJ holds onto Kathryn like a lifeline.

Henry walks in, and he knows. He's seen it all before. The lost look on Kathryn's face as JJ cries against her, eyes wandering around the room, looking for someone that will never come. His face contorts in a wince, tears escape him. John B was a good kid. He didn't deserve that.

He was there once. Henry lost a brother too.

Kathryn sees him. The sobs that fight their ways to the surface feel like a thousand words left to say, a thousand memories left to make. They would just rot inside her now, just like so many had before.

JJ lets her hug her uncle, but she doesn't cry.

"I'm in shock," she mumbles against his shoulder. "I think I'm in shock."

"I know," Henry tells her, but she doesn't react. "Just breathe through it."

"He's dead," she goes on, matter-of-factly. "They both are. Sarah was with him."

He doesn't answer, but he holds her, he rubs her back, he cares for her and waits for the wave to crash against the shore.

"It hurts," she finally says, a little dumbly.

He parts from her, inspecting her, but apart from the small cuts on her face, there's nothing. He realises that her hands ghost against her heart, face aghast. He brushes the hair out of her face, kindly.

"Oh, baby," he mutters, tears falling on his face. "It's okay. It's love."

That's stupid, she thinks. Love doesn't hurt. But it does. It does when it's over.

"It's pretty bad. God, it hurts like a bitch." Henry watches, helpless, as her face contorts, chin wobbling, tears spilling on her cheeks like a long-time coming flood. "He's really gone, isn't he?"

He nods. "I'm sorry."

"Oh, man." She nods back. "My best friend's dead."

The waves crash against the dam. It breaks. She drowns under the weight of the sea.

Something tears at her chest. It's rabid, it feeds on her memories. On the little girl running after the boy with a bug in her hand. On the two kids painting more on each other's face than the canvas. The two young ones fishing for the first time. The two teenagers making pancakes at three AM. When it's full, it settles in her ribcage and moves everything around. It hurts, but it's home.

Kathryn lets herself breakdown. Henry holds his girl as she cries and she sobs and she screams, there's nothing else he can, no reassuring words she hasn't heard.

Henry keeps her close, and wishes that his presence could fix everything. Even if he's lived it before, he doesn't know what to say. There was never anything to say.

The entire island could have warned them that they were getting headfirst into heartbreak, and Kathryn thinks John B would have held her hand through it. God knows some tried. Lana did. Henry too. They were right. Maybe it was always meant to be. Maybe it just was never meant to last.

Blonde hair appears on his right. No one showed up for JJ, left staring at the ground and tears rolling down his face, arms against his body as if to bring himself some warmth. He extends an arm. JJ latches onto his other side like he had been waiting for it all his life.

Henry cradles the two teenagers in his arms, hugs them as they cry. The ghost of Edward's voice is carried by the wind, thanking him for being there for Kathryn when no one else was for him.

"I told him to keep going," Kathryn repeats, over and over, but Henry doesn't understand, and all she can do is hold her.

He shushes her, rocking her back and forth. "It's going to be okay."

"You don't understand, I told him to keep going," she cries. "Because I was angry, and now he's dead."

He doesn't tell her that it's okay again. Nobody does. They let her cry and get everything out. Because it's not okay, it never was. Not now, not when Edward died. Kathryn Darcy wasn't always a monster. But that night, there was no going around it. She was the worst one she had ever seen.

Kathryn Elizabeth Darcy wasn't always a monster, but anger made her so. Stripped to her core, that's all there ever was. Anger. Pain. Grief.

The rest is lost at sea.

Author's Note: It's nine am where I am and I'm crying like a baby minutes after I woke up because thEY TORE MY HEART APART

Editor's Note: Yeah well, at least, you didn't have Waiting Room at that time!!!! Sobbed through it all listening to this

Accidentally made a JJ and KD trailer too but I digress

https://youtu.be/RCZdhioSu4E