It's all a very happy and bonding moment because for once, everyone around Kathryn knows and trusts her. She never knew what it felt like. She had Henry and Max, but that was it. Not her mom – definitely not her mom. Maybe she gets a second chance. Maybe there's a way out of this.

Of course, that's all very nice if you ignore the fact that the Douchebag Trio is currently blocking their way out and they're going to have to confront them at some point.

But for now, all is nice. No one is touching her, except for that cool hand she feels on her back, rubbing up and down soothingly, and she knows it's JJ's. And she hates to admit it, but it works. The panic attack has receded, and so have her tears. She didn't cry though. John B would probably tell her to let it go, that crying would make her feel better, but she's not sure about that theory. She's said it before; her mascara is expensive.

With that being said, she thought she'd hate feeling exposed. Why wouldn't she, when she's obviously worked so hard for no one to know? But turns out, it's not... half bad. She doesn't have to hide anything, and that sure takes a weight off her shoulders. But mostly, they're here for her. And that starves the fire out. A little bit, at least.

She breathes in, and JJ's scent overwhelms her. He smells like the sun. Or, well, at least the idea she has of the sun. Sea salt, sunscreen, mixed with the lemon of his laundry. It's calming.

Pope fidgets next to her, and she opens an eye. It's dark outside. She doesn't know when night fell.

"Okay, uh..." he begins. "Gotta take a piss."

JJ, from where he's holding Kathryn, frowns at Pope. "Hold it."

"I can't hold it. I drank too much soda."

"Okay, well, it's too exposed so how do you want to do this? I can bring the gun."

"JJ," Kathryn warns. "There's three of them, and you're two."

"Yeah, that's why I said 'bring the gun'."

"There are children here!" Kie cries out.

"Sorry to interrupt," Pope says, "but I gotta go." He turns around, and spots the bathrooms, next to the exit. Topper, Rafe and Kelce are in front of them. "They're blocking the bathrooms."

"Of course they are," Kathryn hums.

There is no way that tonight ends well. It started badly, and it's going to end bloody, there's no way around this. Not when Rafe had the guts to go and talk to her, not when JJ has a gun in his back.

JJ looks around, before sighing. He lets go of Kathryn reluctantly and she groans when she loses JJ's body heat. She shakes herself. Get a grip.

"Come here. I know where."

They stand up, and Kie turns towards them with a frown. "Hey, where y'all going?"

"We gotta wring it out."

"You gonna hold it for each other?"

Kathryn snorts as the boys go away. She's left with Kie, surveilling the Douchebag Trio with one eye, making sure that they don't follow JJ and Pope. Everytime she catches a glimpse of Rafe, he's sending her guilt-ridden looks. She hopes he chokes on his guilt.

Kie looks at her with a concerned frown. "Are you okay?"

Kathryn turns back to her, and nods truthfully. "On edge, but surprisingly enough, yes." She licks lips, searching for her words. She's not used to it. "Weirded out too. Besides Henry and Max, no one ever knew."

Her friend nods, knowing that Caroline Darcy also did. Mentioning her right now would be counter-productive. "I'm sorry you had to go through this alone," Kie says.

Kathryn forces herself to speak. "It's okay. Besides, that's on me. I'm the one closed in on myself." She looks at her. "You're here now."

Kie's face scrunches up in emotion. "Can I hug you?"

She shakes her head. "Maybe not right now." She's scared of the fire. It's a wonder JJ's hands even calmed her. "But that's a raincheck."

Her friend's eyes look past her, and her reassuring smile drops. "Kat."

When she looks back, she sees Topper, Kelce and Rafe going after the boys. Well, it's now or never. Make or break. More like breakdown in Kathryn's case, but she can't just hang back.

"Should we go?" Kie asks. "'Cause I'm not leaving you here alone."

Kathryn's eyes land on the bag. Why is it that every time he needs the gun, JJ doesn't have it. She doesn't want to go. She wants to help, and she feels selfish for it, but she doesn't want any part in this. But it's Pope.

It's JJ.

"I've already hit rock bottom," she says. "Can't get any lower."

Kathryn might be overestimating this, she knows it. It can always get lower, especially when Rafe is involved. But she can't just let the boys deal with it themselves, it's two against three. She trusts the sheer force of JJ's anger to even it out, but even then.

So Kie helps her up, gives her time to bow down if she needs it, but she doesn't. She grabs the bag.

Behind the white sheet, the noise from the movie covering grunts and screams, it looks like an ambush.

Kathryn tries hard to stop her anxiety from overflowing, but it's too complicated. She can feel the cold feeling filling up her stomach, her palms becoming sweaty, and her muscles slowly tensing up.

Despite trying so hard, she freezes when she sees Rafe. Kie immediately jumps into battle, helping Pope with a shout, but Kathryn is frozen. Ice shards are piercing her skin. She's not moving, she's useless, why did she even come here? This was a bad idea, she's sitting ducks if she doesn't move and oh god, she's going to puke–

Kelce takes JJ's arms and puts them behind his back. Rafe starts to hit him in the stomach. JJ's yelps are the only thing filling her ears when she jerks out of her trance, and jumps forward.

In a blink, she's between Rafe and JJ, and if the former is shocked, the latter looks appalled and ready to bite.

It's going too fast for her to even register what she's doing, but suddenly she's pushing Rafe away abruptly, almost making him fall, screaming out of her mind. "Leave him alone! Don't touch him!"

Rafe doesn't push back, but it looks like his restrain is breaking the more she hits him. "I don't want to hurt you, Katy," he tells her, and it feels like bitter irony.

JJ jerks forward. "Don't call her that!"

The fire rules over her, and she's thankful for it. Better that than the ice cold death that keeps kissing her everytime she sees Rafe. "You wanted to talk?" she asks, voice loud enough for everyone to hear. "Talk. Tell them! Tell them what you did to me!"

His jaw clenches, and a shadow passes on his face. Kathryn is terrified, but there's no time for that, not when they're beating JJ to a pulp. "Come on, Katy..."

"You're a fucking coward."

Kathryn turns around, and lunges for Kelce, to get him away from JJ. Arms snake around her waist and lift her off the ground. "Let go of me!"

She's thrown to the ground before she can even register what happened. Something cuts her cheek, she thinks. Her vision is blurred, her ears are ringing, and her head hurts.

"KD! Let me go!"

She grunts on the floor, and when she can see again, her eyes fall on Rafe towering over her. Her heart hammers in her chest, her stomach churns. She crawls on her back, trying to back away from him. She feels something against her fingers.

She takes the bag in her hand, and when Rafe starts to lean towards her, she swings it at his face. She puts so much force in it that he yelps, and falls down next to her.

She tries to stumble on her feet, but her arms aren't strong enough to support her weight, not with the pain pulsating in her head.

She feels a hand grip her shoulder, and slam her back down. Her eyes flit to Rafe, on top of her. Fire turns to ice – this is too familiar. The ice shards are stabbing her, and she feels like bleeding out in the grass. She tries to move – he grabs her by the throat, crushing her windpipe for a moment, before only holding her down.

"Stay out of this," Rafe tells her. "You know how this ends."

Kathryn cries. She sobs, like she never had before – or exactly like she did, once upon a time. Tears are spilling on her cheeks and falling on her hair, there's bile in the back of her throat. She's twelve; he's fourteen. She dies again.

Voices fade out in the back, distant. Her vision blotches, and she craves the embrace of the darkness.

"I'm gonna kill you, I swear to god I'll kill you!" She thinks it's JJ, but she can't be sure.

Her brain is stuck in an ever ending loop of hurt, blood and death. It never stops, it never will, she'll always be the same kid stuck under Rafe and closing her eyes, hoping for it to be quick, to be over. She wants everything to be over.

Somewhere in the haze, she smells smoke.

Rafe suddenly stands up, letting Kathryn go. She gasps for air, sitting up in a hurry. Kie set fire to the sheet.

"Guys! Fire!"

Kelce and Topper respectively let go of JJ and Pope. The second JJ's on his feet, gasping and gagging from being choked, he goes after Rafe. Pope holds him back.

"You think we're scared of you? I'll kill you, man!"

Kathryn gasps and turns around, crouched down. She needs to get it out, get his touch away from her brain, get him out from under her skin. She hurls up everything she had in her stomach.

"Kat?"

"Oh fuck–"

"Hold her hair!"

She barely registers cool hands holding the hair away from her face, or rubbing up and down her back. She heaves until nothing comes out, until she feels dizzy and tears keep streaming down her face.

When she sits up, her back collides with JJ's chest and he holds her. She clings to him, silently pleading for him to get Rafe out of her system, but no words come out of her mouth – only broken sobs.

"Guys what do we do?"

"I don't know!"

"I can get the Twinkie closer, and then we can drive her home," Pope says. He looks back at Kat, curled in JJ's lap. "Is that okay? Getting you home?"

She nods, rocking back and forth. Pope disappears from view.

"I'm sorry," she manages to let out, and it turns into a sick chant of misplaced guilt. "I'm so sorry."

"You did nothing!" Kie cries out, brushing the hair out of her face. "Kat, you did nothing wrong, it's going to be okay."

Except none of them know how to act. They've never seen anyone having such a violent panic attack – her whole body is shaking. They need Max and Henry, anyone who knows how to handle this, because they don't know what they're doing, and they could be making it worse.

JJ tries to pry her away, figuring that she might not need touching right now, but then she latches onto him again, burying her face in his chest. "Don't go, don't go, please."

He holds her, and she doesn't push him away. She needs him. She needs him to hold her through it all. "I'm not going anywhere. But we have to stand up now."

She's limp against him. Kie helps him to make Kathryn stand, but her legs give out from under her. JJ, promising to kill Rafe in the most gruesome way in his head, puts an arm under her knees and the other behind her back as he carries her for support.

"I'm sorry."

"'S okay," JJ says, holding her closer to him. "It's okay, KD, we gonna get you home."

In a stroke of lucidity, Kathryn looks up at him. He has a busted lip and a bruised cheekbone. "You're hurt," she whispers.

He can't believe she even has room in herself to care for someone else right now. "I've seen worse."

🫧

Kathryn is out by the time they arrive at the Palace. Kie, driving, keeps checking on her in the rearview mirror, and even if there's blood on her cheek, it's the most at peace she's seen her since it happened.

She's in JJ's arms, on his lap. Pope, in front of them, figures that it might not be the most comfortable position ever.

"I can hold her, if you want a rest," he proposes.

JJ immediately shakes his head. "Nah, I'm good." His arms are sore, and he can't feel his left foot, but he won't let her go, he promised.

They park the Twinkie in front of Henry's house, and he walks out, alerted by the sound of the old sputtering engine.

Henry's stomach turns to stone when he sees his niece, limp in JJ's arms.

He races down the stairs, almost trips down. "What happened to her?"

JJ has no other choice than handing her to him. They start to head inside the house.

"We got into a fight with Topper, Kelce and Rafe, and she tried to help us," Pope explains.

"You're a bunch of idiots!" Henry cries out, before losing every colour in his face. "Wait, did you say Rafe?"

"Yeah it got," Kie starts, hesitating. "It got ugly."

It takes everything in Henry not to drive up to the Camerons' house. He hurt Kathryn, his niece, his kid, again... "I'm gonna kill him."

"I second that motion."

"No one is killing anyone," Max says as he arrives, panicking slightly at his boyfriend and JJ's very serious tone. "Not until you tell us exactly what happened."

"What does that matter!" Kie cries out as they get inside the house, climbing up the stairs to Kathryn's room.

"It matters because you kids always manage to do something illegal! What started the fight?" Silence answers him. "Exactly my point. You can't go to the police without putting yourselves at risk."

"I don't care about that," JJ says. "Everyone says I'm going to end up in prison anyway."

"She's our friend!"

"Pope has a scholarship," Henry butts in, voice strained. Pope looks away. "You have a future." He stares at JJ. "Both of you. She'd rather die than let Rafe take something from you."

There's nothing to be done, they know he's right. And anyway, it would be Kathryn's choice, and she wants to get this behind her, far, far away.

They get inside the room, and Henry lays her on the bed. Kie takes her shoes off. Kathryn barely stirs too out of it to even realise she's home now.

"We should let her rest," Max says.

Kathryn moves before JJ gets away, gripping his wrist. "Stay. You promised."

JJ blushes, hyper-aware of her uncle's presence in the room. "I don't think..."

"Yeah you better not think," Henry threatens. JJ's life flashes before his eyes.

"Henry," Max tells his boyfriend softly. "Henry, she just needs someone right now, it's not the time to blow this out of proportion." He looks back at JJ. "We trust you on this, JJ. We're leaving now."

"We're not?"

"We are."

Henry is too distraught at the thought of leaving his vulnerable niece alone – but he trusts JJ. He wouldn't do anything to hurt her.

"We'll stay," Kie says, already settling down on Kathryn's armchair.

Pope is curled up on her couch. "Watch over her."

After one last meaningful look, Max forces Henry out of the room.

Kathryn lets out a breathy laugh, and scoots towards the side of the bed, making room for JJ. Truthfully, JJ doesn't know how to act. After what happened tonight, and what he learned, he just doesn't know. But she smiles at him, sensing how confused he must be, and the sincerity behind it makes him take off his shoes, and lie next to her.

"I'm sorry you guys got hurt," Kathryn immediately says to suppress the awkwardness.

JJ sighs, before chuckling softly. "You should've seen the other guy."

"The other guy makes me want to ram his head in a wall," Kie lets out, arms crossed.

"I second that," Pope chimes in.

Kathryn is sleeping before she even hears his answer. There's silence, the three others too aware of everything to sleep.

"Hey," JJ calls out, whispering.

"Yeah?" Kie hums in answer.

"Who's telling John B?"

Pope sighs. "This is gonna be good."

But it doesn't come from a place of hate for Rafe, like Kathryn would worry – even though, there is still plenty of that right now. It's concern for her. Not pity again, compassion. And even in her sleep, she knows that tonight was still a step forward.

Author's Note: Writing this and respecting JJ's character was HARD

Editor's Note: I mean I don't know screaming and running around and threatening to use the gun feels pretty on brand yk