Dani sat on HMS Pogue, silent as she listened to the chirping of crickets, cicadas, frogs, and other types of wildlife which lived on the water's edge. John B lay across the boat's cushioned benches. JJ, Pope, and Kie stood along the dock, on the ramp to John B's fishing perch. JJ leaned against the railing at the top, a fishing line dangling gently in the water. The three friends talked quietly as JJ fished.

"He deserved it, right?"

"Are you joking? Of course, he deserved it." Kiara answered with an even tone matched by an uncertain face.

"I've never seen anyone blow themselves up like that," Pope replied, partially unaware of the gnarly truth he displayed.

JJ smirked half-heartedly, "Cross that one of the bucket list."

"JJ."

At Kiara's scolding, JJ dropped his head like a beat puppy, "Sucks for Sarah."

Kie came to sit down beside John B's resting place on the boat, "Are you okay?" she placed a gentle hand on his back.

"It's not me I'm worried about."

Dani knew John B was referring to Sarah, however, she couldn't help but wonder if John B had actually communicated his worry with the girl. The last Dani had seen of the two of them together was John B simply ignoring his girlfriend as she broke down upon her father's sudden death and clear admission of guilt. Dani didn't really know how healthy relationships worked, but she was sure that their lack of communication would not be a helpful factor.

Dani stood up quickly, "Hey um, I'm gonna go home and shower. See if Mr and Mrs C need help for a little while and then I'll be back tonight. I'll see you later."

The crew said their goodbyes and Dani was on her way. It was true, everything she told the pogues, but she also knew that she needed to talk to Sarah. The Camerons were like her second family, she needed to be there for them, well maybe not Rafe, but Rose, Wheezie, and Sarah were her family. Besides, Dani had been friends with Sarah long enough to read the expressions on her friend's face, she knew John B's reaction on the dock was bound to have consequences, but maybe Dani could say something, whether it be in John B's favor or even just encouragement.

Dani returned to the Chateau later that night, a bit exhausted from her day. She had tried to reach Sarah multiple times and yet never succeeded, so in her blunder she really did go home to shower and then picked up some hours at the Wreck. Dani had stayed relatively quiet throughout the day, working hard and ignoring the truths staring her in the face.

By the time Dani arrived, the evening sky made itself known, with a pleasant chill in the air and a dark blanket hugging the island tight. Dani made her way to where Pope and John B were laying on the dock.

The boys didn't even look up, greeting Dani with blind faith, "Hey Dani."

"Hey boys," Dani plopped down between them, "You both look incredibly sad, girl troubles? I can probably help."

John B closed his eyes briefly, "Sarah broke up with me."

Dani placed her hand on John B's shoulder, swallowing the guilt she felt about things she had literally zero control over.

"I really am sorry John B. I know you love her and she loves you, but... sometimes life just gets in the way."

"I don't get it. I don't."

Pope stared straight at the sky, "Love is five minutes of pleasure for a lifetime of pain."

John B scrunched his eyebrows, "Wow."

Dani nudged Pope with her foot, "Pope. What happened to you? You are always optimistic."

"Happy Pope is dead. He died when, as you said, life got in the way."

Dani sighed, she dropped her eyes to her knees, shaking her head lightly, "You two are impossible."

John B sat up, ignoring Dani, "So okay, you and Kie. What's going on? Talk to me, just pretend Dani's not here."

"Oh. Okay. Sure."

John B continued to ignore Dani, "Pope, talk to me."

Dani pushed John B back down on the dock, "Seriously Pope, I've heard Kie's side of the story and I think I deserve to hear yours. I promise I always try to remain neutral and acknowledge there are multiple sides to every story. Besides, I know Kie, and while I just said I'm neutral, I've seen her lead people on, usually unintentionally, but regardless, the damage is done. So, my point is don't let my presence hold you back from whatever it is you want to say."

"Um. Well... she just wants to be friends."

John B sighed, "Ahh. Death blow. Oh no, I am sorry man."

"I... I didn't even see it coming."

"I'm sor..." Dani's words were cut off as Kie and JJ came down the dock holding beers and tossing them wildly.

JJ sang, "Hot potato, hot potato, hot potato two!" throwing cans at Pope and John B. The first can landed on the wooden deck, bursting open and hissing loudly.

"Impressive catch."

"Oh!!"

"Oh! He shoots!"

John B stood, his shirt slightly soaked from where the beer had sprayed on him, "I need another one."

"One, two. One, two." JJ threw a can to John B, who was prepared this time.

"I'll take that."

"Alright," JJ locked eyes on Dani, "Oh, hey Burton. What are you guys doing down here? Having a good cry?"

"Cry?"

"Cry? What are you talking... we don't cry."

Dani rolled her eyes at Pope and John B's ridiculous cover, "They were just consoling me. I tend to have a mirroring effect when I cry."

Kie smiled at Dani's retort, "You know it's not your fault right?" directing the question at John B.

Dani leaned behind John B, whispering to Pope, "I tried. They're just too smart for us."

John B dropped his eyes to his feet, "You think she'll come around?"

Kie nodded, making eye contact with Dani this time, "Yeah, dude. She's one of us."

"Hmm. Sarah's a pogue. She'll come around. Yep. You know, she'll come back to me. Right. You know, I was just thinking about it. I'm gonna do a backflip."

Kiara pointed at her friend, "You're lying."

Dani stepped forward, grabbing John B's shoulder but watching Kie and JJ with great concern, "I'm afraid he either needs absolutely no more beer or so much more."

The teens ignored Dani's concerns, John B shrugging her hand off with ease as he continued to argue with Kiara's challenges, "I won't do it?"

"You won't."

"You got any money?"

Dani shuffled back against one of the poles supporting the dock's roof, she sat down gently, shaking her head at the ridiculous mischief before her.

"Hooold my beer that you already dropped."

"I wanna see you do it!"

John B did a fairly pretty backflip off the dock, prompting a bunch of screams of joy from the teens.

"Yeah! That's my boy!"

"Yeah! John B!"

"Woogity-woogity, baby!"

"You guys are ridiculous!" Dani acted coy, a deep smile still conning its way to her face.

The rest of the night was spent with lots of merry laughter. The five teens drank and sang badly and had a joyous time just being together, the thoughts of Sarah and heartbreak leaving their minds with every passing minute.

Before the pogues even realized, the night sky was fading into a deep blue, the sun shyly rising in the sky. Kiara had disappeared into one of the Chateau bedrooms, sleeping peacefully and away from chaos, though no one would be surprised if she were to start the day with a wicked hangover. Pope had settled down in the other bedroom, rambling something about geometry when he had disappeared for the night.

Sometime in the night, after Pope and Kie had respectfully retired, John B, JJ, and Dani found themselves resting gently against the couches. John B sat on the floor, against a cushioned chair opposite of the couch both Dani and JJ occupied, quite closely. John B and JJ were undoubtedly drunk, leaving Dani to feel as if she needed to make sure the two idiot boys didn't get themselves into trouble. Regardless of their friendship, Dani felt like she owed it to them. John B and JJ had continuously shown her kindness, almost to the point she felt like a real member of the pogues.

The three teens talked well into the night, mainly about bad surfing spills or stories of times before Sarah and Dani had gotten to really know the pogues, even times before Kiara had made her choice. It was a pleasant evening, an evening filled with shallow stories and no thoughts of the man they had all seen blow himself up, and before Dani knew it she had dozed off on the couch, her head gently resting against JJ's shoulder.

It was becoming an increasingly common occurrence, Dani waking to the sun shining brightly through the living room windows. The Chateau's squeaky screen door bouncingly gently against the wood paneling as the wind carried it. It took her only a few seconds to adjust, but Dani could clearly tell that she was not alone on the couch, a warm body under her and arms wrapped around her waist.

It was instinct, the way Dani instantly tensed at the realization that JJ was the one cuddling her. She tried to worm her way out of the blonde's arms, gentle enough to not wake him, but strong enough to complete her mission.

Her efforts unfortunately proved futile.

With a sigh, Dani dropped her head slightly, hesitant to come any closer to JJ, she cleared her throat and spoke in a whisper, "Hey J. I uh... Can you let go of me please?"

JJ's eyes snapped open, yet to focus on the world, his sudden wake causing him to tense and tighten his grip around Dani. It took a few moments of slow blinking to rid himself of his morning glaze, but JJ quickly gathered his attention, realizing, as Dani had, that he was holding the small girl to his chest.

"Oh," JJ let go of the girl, still comprehending what was going on.

Dani got up quickly, trying to eradicate the image of her and JJ curled up and sleeping soundly on John B's couch. She found the bathroom in record time and locked herself in, splashing cold water on her face.

Dani spent a solid two minutes in the bathroom processing the strange waking circumstance, interrupted only by Pope almost knocking her on the ground as he rushed in to pee.

"Sorry, Pope."

The boy only mumbled a response, clearly more focused on relieving himself.

Dani moved to the kitchen, deciding to pack sandwiches. She knew Pope was determined to return to school and even if the others didn't go with they were going to have to eat at some point. The Chateau was limited in options but by the time Kie fluttered into the kitchen Dani was done.

"Good morning, did you sleep okay? I was sure at some point last night you'd probably come hop in bed with me," Kie let out a soft chuckle.

Dani only smiled in return, still pushing away any feeling of JJ's arms around her, "I slept fine! Passed out babysitting those two losers," Dani referenced where John B and JJ were sleeping in the living room. A small frown creased Dani's lips as she realized JJ had fallen back asleep, unlikely to even know what had happened.

Fortunately, Kie didn't have a chance to ask about Dani's change of demeanor, interrupted instead by Pope walking into the living room with a wondrous contraption of taped beer cans.

Pope poked John B's face, "Hey, we gotta go to school man. We have a geometry test in 30 minutes."

Dani perked up, moving away from Kie as if physical distance would help the girl forget about Dani's mood shift, "I packed lunches!"

Pope moved to JJ, pleasantly smacking him in the face, "Get up! JJ! Is he alive?"

"I don't know," John B mumbled as he rubbed his face.

Dani watched Pope run around the living room, asking no one in particular, "Are they always like this?"

"JJ. Get your shoes. Get your shoes and let's get out of here."

John B walked into the kitchen, grabbing the sandwich Dani held out to him, "Hey, Kie. What are you doing today?"

"Hey, Kie..." Pope's eyes shifted away from where Kiara, Dani, and John B stood in the kitchen, moving JJ slowly toward the door, "No. We're going this way."

"Um... I will meet up with you guys later." It was Kiara's turn to distract Dani, slipping away from the pogues before Dani had a chance to ask what was going on.

"I'm starving. I need some pizza."

Pope guided John B and JJ out the door, "No, you missed breakfast."

"Okay. I got it. I got it. I got it!"

Dani stood alone in the kitchen, taking a moment of peace before bolting out the door with Pope and JJ's lunches, "Pope! Lunch!" Fortunately, she was able to through the boys their sandwiches before they were officially off to Kildare County High School.

When the boys were officially out of the driveway, Dani grabbed her phone from her pocket checking her texts. She had sent Sarah about a hundred different messages, none of which got a response. It was becoming a bit worrisome, the way Sarah was seemingly ghosting Dani. What also seemed strange was the way Kiara just disappeared without a word.

Dani took a breath, she needed to forget about all this nonsense, go to school, graduate, and do what she could for the pogues. It was over, Ward had confessed. Dani didn't want to even begin thinking about this business with Pope and his family and that weird key. She grabbed the extra sandwich she had packed and drove straight to the lions' den, the kook academy.

It was an excruciatingly boring day at school. There was no Sarah to lean on and disappear with, but there was no Topper to make life hell. Without someone to follow Kelce was a lost little puppy, attending his classes and acting like a normal person for once. Despite the slowness and the small bit of teacher reprimand for missing a week of school, it was actually a good day. Of course, no day was to stay simple and boring. As soon as the last bell rang, Dani was headed to the Chateau at the pogues' request.

Dani, Kiara, John B, and JJ sat on the Chateau porch, a slight breeze fluttering through every so often. Pope stood in front of them all a diary in hand.

"Guys, the stuff in here... I can't even begin to believe it." Pope had yet to look up from the diary once the pogues had situated themselves on the porch.

Dani sighed, "Okay wait. Pope, before you actually find the words to tell us what's in the diary, I just want to make sure I have all my facts straight," she angled her body so that she was not just facing Pope but all the pogues, "So Pope one day just randomly gets a letter from who we've come to know as Carla Limbrey asking him to come to Charleston because she knows about what happened on the tarmac and wants some key owned by Denmark Tanny. We all go to Charleston and find out that John B and Sarah are alive. Pope almost gets murdered by some angry little man courtesy of Carla Limbrey, who, side note, practically owns Charleston and is related to the Captain Limbrey of the Royal Merchant, the same ship which housed the gold we spent an incredible amount of time trying to find. This makes sense seeing as the letter Limbrey sent Pope had the wheat symbol on it. After we get back to the Outer Banks, Pope has a conversation with his dad in which he finds out this mysterious key the Limbrey's want is something Pope's great-grandmother used to wear, oh also it leads to the Cross of Santo Domingo? Pope then breaks into his meemaw's apartment and finds the key everyone's looking for. We then find out that if you do some fancy tricks with light, the key reveals a secret message that says 'path to the tomb begins in the island room' and that it has to do with finding Denmark Tanny's angel based on what Limbrey told Pope in Charleston. Heyward then gets jumped by Limbrey's watchdog because of the key and we are off to see Pope's great-grandmother. Pope finds out that he is a descendant of Denmark Tanny and his wife, and therefore the key is a family heirloom. It also STILL leads to the Cross of Santo Domingo?"

Dani was breezing through her explanation so fast she didn't even realize that John B and Kiara were mouthing 'what the fuck?' to each other.

Without missing a beat, Dani continued, "Carla Limbrey and the creepy man show back up at Heyward's and demand the key once again. John B and JJ concoct a plan to give Limbrey a fake key in exchange for the evidence she has proving Ward's a murderer, so it's a win-win for the pogues since we still have the key and the evidence against Ward. But then Ward goes and blows up and we still don't have the Royal Merchant gold or any idea how to find the cross. However, while at school today you had a teacher pull you aside and give you a diary that belonged to Denmark Tanny, which shows proof that the cross was on the Royal Merchant. Am I following along?"

JJ stared at Dani, mouth open slightly in shock, "Sounds about right to me, Burton."

Pope nodded along, "Yep. Now check this out, it's from Denmark's diary: August 15th, set sail from Port-au-Prince on calm seas. Came upon the Spanish ship San Jose on fire. The entire deck was aflame. And we could hear the screams of men trapped below. The Spanish captain cared about only one thing, his valuable cargo, the Cross of Santo Domingo, and countless bars of gold..."

Dani murmured under her breath, "So the gold and the cross were not originally on the Royal Merchant but were saved when the San Jose went down."

"Once the cargo was on board, we went to help the crew, but Captain Limbrey ordered us to pull bayonets and not to let any of the Spanish crew on board. He robbed them and left them to die."

JJ flicked a lighter in his hand, "So it didn't go down off Bermuda."

"And it was a Limbrey stealing shit again," Kie said solemnly.

"It's like Dani said, this diary proves that both the gold and the Cross of Santo Domingo were on the Royal Merchant."

"There's no way the cross went down with the ship though? Right? I mean we found the gold in a boarded-up well under a creepy old lady's house. And there's all that stuff about a key and an angel and a tomb and an island room," Dani leaned back against the wall, "I'm making myself dizzy."

JJ sat up, "But why didn't we find the cross in the well then? I mean, if Denmark was able to get this, like, bedazzled cross off of the Merchant to shore, why didn't he just hide it with the gold?"

"Because it was too big."

"You're right. He had to hide it someplace else."

"But where?"

Pope looked between Kie and John B, the only two who seemed to be actively contributing to the conversation, "Right before he was hung, Denmark said he'd buried the treasure at the foot of the angel."

Dani sat up again, "Aha! Angel!"

JJ looked at the girl curiously, "Burton, are you high or something?"

"Just had an extremely boring day, trying to bring some excitement back into my life."

"Uh, okay. Anyway, I thought this was about the key?"

Kie glanced down at the beer in her hand, "Right. So what's the connection?"

Pope shrugged, "The path to the tomb begins in the island room."

"There's the damn island room again."

"Burton, you gotta chill."

"I am chill!"

"But what is the island room?" Kie ignored JJ and Dani, once again.

"You know what helps me figure shit out?" JJ stood up from his spot lounging on the porch couch.

"Oh boy, here we go."

"Taking a page from Burton, smoking beers and drinking weed."

Dani interrupted her friend, "I am neither drunk nor high, JJ."

"The ideas just pour out of me. If we just sit here and try to figure this out, we're gonna get nowhere. But if we get creative, bring some excitement to poor Burton here, and go to this bonfire tonight, maybe we get somewhere."

"Now that does sound exciting," Dani smiled mischievously up at