how could a heart like yours, ever love a heart like mine?

hold fast hope, all your love is all i've ever known

Kie was lucky enough to get both boys back to The Wreck instead of the Chateau that night. She had decided it would draw less attention to their plans if they didn't return to the house. Going on vacation and throwing a party could all be written off as trying to move on, but going to their "dead" friend's house? That would have been overly suspicious.

Now they had approached the night before their trip to the Bahamas. They planned to sneak away to the airport on the mainland, in the early morning so as not to alert Ward, but rather than resting up for the journey, Kiara was sitting on the back deck of her parents restaurant, looking out at the ocean.

"Kiara Amelia Carrera!", a voice whispered scoldingly.

"Jonathan James Maybank!", Kie whispered back.

"What in the world could you been contemplating at a time like this?", he asked with a twinkle of mischief in his eye.

"The never ending expanse of the universe."

"Oh so the usual."

"No, actually, no contemplation tonight." Kiara laughed.

"Really?" JJ nodded with a mockingly impressed expression, "Then why are we out here?"

"I have no idea why you're out here. I couldn't sleep."

"You woke me up."

"Did I actually?"

"No, I just know that would've bugged you." JJ said matter of factly.

"Oh you're so nice," Kie nodded sarcastically.

"Did you have a bad dream?"

"Nope. I think I'm just excited. My body is having trouble dealing with that now foreign emotion. I mean just think of it, our friends are out there," she gestured to the water, "and we're going to go see them, and they are alive and healthy, and okay. That's insane to me."

"It's sad that the fact that they're alive is insane to us," JJ chuckled.

"Yeah, jeez."

They both paused for a bit.

"I can feel it." JJ broke in.

"What?"

"The water," he paused as if he was trying to find the right words, "It connects you to them. It did when they were gone. Now, I can feel it. The pull. It's why you sat out here even when it hurt, isn't it?"

Kiara stared at him for a moment, in disbelief.

"Yeah.", was all she got out.

They both looked out at the water.

Kie was dumbfounded. She had never directly said anything about how the ocean made her feel connected to their friends. She didn't have to, he just knew. She couldn't think of a specific moment when JJ had become so much a part of her that he would just know her deepest thoughts. She knew she would never meet someone like him again in her life.

The two of them stayed on the deck the rest of night, JJ falling asleep about 20 minutes after he got out there. When 5:00 hit, Kie shook him awake and went to do the same to Pope. She made coffees and breakfast and set up the vehicle, and just as she was about to climb in to the driver's seat, she felt a hand on her hip.

"Let me drive." JJ said into the back of her head.

Kie's breath hitched.

"What?", she choked out.

"You didn't get enough sleep last night and you hate driving in the city. It's only like four hours and it'll keep me focused on something yeah?", he said, turning her around to face him.