jarah oneshots❤️‍🩹

made it

Coming back to the Outer Banks felt... off. Everything was the same, yet nothing really was. The marsh still smelled like salt and pine, the waves still crashed against the shore like they always had. But something was missing. Someone was missing.

It had been only a few weeks since they had returned from Lisbon—victorious, but not whole. The Blue Crown was gone, traded for a ridiculous amount of money, more money than any of them had ever seen in their lives. Groff was dead. Justice had been served. But JJ was still gone.

He should've been here, standing at the dock with that stupid grin, throwing an arm around John B and making some reckless plan about how they'd spend the rest of their lives now that they were stupid rich. But he wasn't. He never would be again.

And no amount of treasure, revenge, or victory could bring him back.

At first, it felt impossible to come home. The Outer Banks was where they had built everything, where they had become who they were. Now, they had to relearn how to exist without JJ. And life kept moving, whether they were ready or not.

Sarah was nearly six months pregnant now, and despite everything they had been through, she and John B had nothing ready for their baby. No crib. No clothes. No toys. Not even a bottle. The little Poguelet—as Cleo had affectionately named it—was on their way, and if they didn't start preparing, the kid was gonna be sleeping in an old hammock in the Chateau.

Which, speaking of—the Chateau was a whole other situation.

John B and Pope were already knee-deep in rebuilding it. They had more than enough money now, so materials weren't an issue. They were fixing it up for real this time, not just barely making it livable like before. It would be home for their baby.

And while the boys worked, the girls had a mission of their own: baby shopping.

Which would have been a lot easier if any of them knew anything about babies.

"Okay, so what exactly does a tiny human need?" Kiara said, staring at the wall of baby bottles in front of them.

"There are different sizes of bottles?" Cleo raised an eyebrow, picking up one that said for newborns in big, bold letters. "Why? They all drink the same thing."

Sarah sighed, already exhausted and they hadn't even bought anything yet. "I think it's about how much milk they drink at once," she said, rubbing her stomach. The baby was kicking again, a little reminder that they were, in fact, very real.

Cleo turned the bottle over in her hands. "This one says 'anti-colic.' Isn't it only grown women who get colic?"

Kiara blinked. "Apparently not? I don't even know..."

Sarah groaned. "Oh my God, this is going to be much harder than I thought."

The three of them stood in the middle of the baby store, surrounded by rows of tiny clothes, cribs, and things they didn't even know existed. None of them had ever done this before. Not even close.

But, weirdly enough, it was exciting.

Sarah hadn't let herself think too much about the baby while they were on the hunt for the Blue Crown. There had been too much happening—too much running, too much danger, too much loss. But now, she was finally allowing herself to feel it. She was going to be a mom. And her best friends were going to be aunts.

"This is so weird," Kiara muttered, shaking her head as she picked up a onesie with little waves on it. "Like, you're actually having a baby. A tiny human. One that's gonna live in the Chateau. And cry. And throw up. And—"