Unplanned Events (A Jilly Oneshot)

Exit With a Bang

Summary: Gilly and Jax kind of fight but it gets resolved

***

A sigh. "What are they fighting about this time?"

"Carnival games."

"What?"

"You heard me."

Kayla does not look up from her task; unpacking the festival flags that were to be hung up around the field. Boxes and boxes of booth pieces, prizes, and other supplies lay at their feet. Ollie is navigating nearby boxes, lugging behind a chest filled with pirate costumes. Jocelyn sits on a box with a bored look on her face.

"Why would they fight over games? Also aren't we uh, making an amusement park?"

"Jax wants everything to run smoothly."

"And Gilly says—?"

"It will all be alright so stop being so boring and lighten up. I have it fully memorized, unfortunately."

"I mean, that's what we also think," Ollie says from a short distance, still bringing things back and forth. No one questions how he easily heard their conversation.

"It's not a bad thing," Kayla supposes. Jocelyn raises her eyebrow. "Okay fine! He's been really, really absorbed and obsessed with keeping things right on track."

"Not to mention incredibly vexing!" Ollie adds, several meters away. Matters relating gossip allowed Ollie to achieve supersonic hearing; eavesdropping.

"Is that why Gilly's been tailing after him the entire day?"

The witch snorts. "It's just another Cobbler freak-out session."

***

She needs to convince him. No way the festival was going to be boring without any Reform School pizzaz going on. Jax needs to calm down, no—has to.

Even if Gilly was feeling mad, her determination did not waver. It was now or never.

Gilly sidesteps a bunch of students prepping up and opening boxes. She spots some of her friends along the way; Maxine and AG with the RLWs (she had politely asked for a different task that didn't require her smelling flowers everywhere she went), Jack swinging around cables as he and Erp help build the ferris wheel, Anna with Gretel and Hansel, carrying wooden boards, and Hayley filling up water for the water slide. She tries to seek out a familiar blond head over students working around. One look at a box of stuffed toys and booths being set up tells her she was in the games area, and Gilly finally sees him standing in front of a ring-toss booth, judging by the hoop around the neck of a bottle sign on the top.

"Jax, Jax, Jax," she calls, catching her breath for a fraction of a second from all the searching she had done.

"Thief, I'm kind of busy right now," Jax does not look up from inspecting the bottles for hidden wires.

"Exactly. Now listen to me. I really think—"

"—We talked about this, and yes, you should finish stringing up the banners."

Grrr. "But Jax, no one cares if things won't work out, those happen all the time. Trust me, I've stolen enough horseshoes for ring toss and the other guy had no idea why he was running out of prizes to give out. "

"Students from Royal Academy will be here."

"Devin and several others are not going to mind!"

"Headmistress Flora wants everything to run smoothly."