𝐍𝐎 𝐁𝐎𝐃𝐘, 𝐍𝐎 𝐂𝐑𝐈𝐌𝐄 - kiara carrera²

𝒊𝒙. 𝒔𝒕𝒊𝒍𝒍 𝒘𝒂𝒕𝒆𝒓

"ALL RIGHT, THIS IS THE GULF STREAM. IT'S GONNA TAKE US NORTH RIGHT HOME."

Being the respectable gentleman he was, John B stayed up all night driving the boat, allowing the two girls, and the baby, to have a long sleep after weeks of being kept awake with sickening anxiety. Cuddled together, as regular friends do, Sarah and Tatum groaned at the soft sound of his voice, waking up over the sudden sunlight around them.

"Home," mumbled Sarah, resting her head on Tatum's.

"Home," echoed Tatum, lifting her arms in the air to cradle her baby brother as he and John B joined the two of them on the floor of the boat.

The water around them swished peacefully for the first time ever. Tatum stared at with a little frown, wondering if the world knew about the kind of humans sitting on it. Maybe it got angry when they were bad. Maybe it was calm now because it knew the pouges were going to reunite. Tatum wondered if it seen her as a bad person. She seen herself as one. She was really - killers were bad, right? Every child grew up seeing felons as bad people, every child but the ones raised by a Quinn. Sometimes she wished she could feel bad for the things she did. She knew her crimes were wrong in anyone else's eyes. But no matter how deep she searched, there was not one part of her body able to feel remorse for all the lives she had taken. She knew it wasn't normal, she knew it scared and worried the people who cared about her, but she didn't know what to do about it. She couldn't change the way her mind worked, but she truly wished it did. Unfortunately, her brain wasn't as pretty as her face. And it was a shame, because she had a really beautiful face.

"Hi," Sarah greeted weakly when her boyfriend sat opposite them.

"How you doin'?" he asked softly, looking down at the wound on her stomach.

She smiled, her eyes drifting between the three people on the boat. Sweet, baby TJ. Reckless, caring Tatum. Kind, loving John B. If she had bled out that night from the bullet, Sarah couldn't have picked a better few people to die beside. But she didn't. She survived. And that was the greatest gift she had ever received. "Never better."

Tatum leaned back a little further, still feeling exhausted after all her hours of sleep, and not excited in the slightest. She should've been - she was finally going to see her family again. Kiara. JJ. Pope. Heyward. But she just wanted to sleep. With the baby laid on her chest, she shut her eyes and seen nothing but darkness. She always dreamed. She always had random thoughts and colours in her head. But now she wasn't feeling it. Or anything.

"You know what I was thinking?" Sarah quietly spoke up after a moment of calm silence.

"What's that?" asked John B when she didn't continue on with a statement.

"Let's get married."

Tatum looked up at them slowly, but didn't say anything. There was no kind of emotion written on her face. The other two were confused at her lack of reaction. If it were any other morning, she'd be jumping up and down on the boat, full giggles and squeals with a spliff in her hand.

"Well, don't...don't we need, like, a...a...like, a preacher or something?" the boy asked, resting his hand on his girlfriend's thigh.

Sarah shrugged with a smirk and lifted TJ off a sleepy Tatum's chest, holding him up like he was from The Lion King. "This handsome fella can do it for us," she told him with a giggle, though the baby was still too young to even know where his vocal cords were or how to properly use them.

John B chuckled, smiling down at the little man, and shook his head. "What about the rings?"

"What about rings?" Sarah returned with another careless shrug, tuning back to the girl beside her, waiting for her energetic rush to come sprinting back over the news. But the Quinn girl was already back asleep with not a single ounce of her usual morning energy. "I mean, for future preference, I like princess cut...I like emerald cut."