𝘼𝙢𝙤𝙧𝙚 𝙢𝙞𝙤 - 𝙅𝙅 𝙈𝙖𝙮𝙗𝙖𝙣𝙠

The Dark Forest

"Look at you, big man! Look at you!" Big John laughs, grabbing Pope into a bone crushing hug.

They pull apart, both gigantic smiles on their faces before Big John is cut off by JJ leaping onto his back and rubbing the man's head with a closed fist. JJ lets out a fake battle cry as he continues to wrestle with him. "Oh, here's the nut job." Bog John laughs, grabbing JJ and throwing him to ground gently. "Well, I'll be damned. You still hang around these hooligans?" Big John chuckles, watching Jade hesitantly smile at him.

"Uh, yeah... Someone has to keep them in line." She chuckles, looking down. The truth is she didn't know if he would still love her like he had prior to her father attacking him. She felt so horrible and disgusted by her father that she didn't want to make Big John feel uncomfortable.

"Well come on, then." Big John chuckles, breaking her thoughts and grabbing Jade in his welcoming arms.

Jade chuckles and hugs the man as well, happy and relieved for his safety. "Good to see you, oldy" She whispers into his shoulder, smiling when he scoffs.

☸

"Yeah, so we, um... we went to the archives in Charleston, and uh... it was... it was a dead end." John B says, sitting on an old tree stump as the whole group huddle around him to listen to what Big John and him had done while they were gone. "A dry hole." John B mutters, looking down at the dying grass.

"So that's the gold, the cross and now El Dorado." Pope says, a sense of sarcastic humour in his voice. "Three for three guys." He says, throwing a stick into the marsh. "See you." Pope says, walking off with Cleo.

"See you John B." Kie says, smiling at him softly and walking off.

JJ stands up and grabs Jade's hand before nodding at John B. "We're gonna head out. Maybe find a job." JJ says, smiling at the boy softly.

"See you." Jade says, nodding her head at him. "Bye oldy."

☸

The girl smiles at JJ as they both walk through the run-down door. 

"Hey, we'll just go back to living on fish we catch." Jade says, trying to lighten the mood. "Look, Jay, I know it sucks fucking ass, but we need to move on. We need to find a way to get resources for ourselves. Keep a roof over our heads." She says, grabbing his shoulder.

"Yeah. Yeah. Jade... what if we just dipped. Like we left the Island." JJ proposes. 

"JJ, I don't know-" Jade starts.

"Think about it. We could go to Mexico and live there and get an old house with 2 kids running around. We could get married and name our kids JJ junior and Jade junior so really they'd just be JJJ and JJ." He smiles, grabbing shoulders softly.

"Jay... as amazing as that sounds, we can't just leave our friends here." She says softly. 

The boy looks down at the ground and nods his head. "I know." He says. "It was just fun to think about starting a family together." He smiles.