Author's Note: HI JIARA FANDOM! I HAVE ARRIVED AND AM LOOKING INTO RENTING AN APARTMENT IN THIS FANDOM AS WE SPEAK!

For real tho- I've always been perfectly fine with the idea of Jiara, and I didn't blame people for shipping them in S1, but they were just kinda meh in my eyes (save for the hot tub scene).

BUT SEASON 2. MY GOSH. IDK if it's just because all the other couples were kind of dramatic and angsty and JJ and Kie were so healthy and good for each other, or if I just fully realized that they are literally meant for each other in so many gosh-darn ways, but guys I wa them during Season 2. And I honestly couldn't be more excited about it.

I've seen remarkably few Jiara fics (or any fics) dealing with the fact that Kiara thought JJ was going to die. Perhaps that's just because it hasn't even been a week since OBX2 came out tho XD

"Please, JJ, wake up!" There's salt on her cheeks from sea spray and tears and the ocean water still leaking from her saturated hair. "Come on, wake up, please!"

She presses against his chest, propping up his neck with her other hand. But it's not the water that JJ sucked down that's the problem. It's the half a foot long wound cut deep into his temple, put there by a viciously-wielded machete blade. It's oozing dark thick blood down JJ's temple and it's then that Kiara knows, by the chill of his skin and the motionless of his chest, that she's lost him.

Kiara jerked away, clapping her hand over her mouth to smother a scream. She stared frantically around her, heart hammering with fear and panic. Pope and Cleo were a couple of yards away, sound asleep on their backs after chatting in low voices about the history of constellations long into the night. Sarah and John B were on her other side, curled around each other and looking peaceful and contented.

And JJ…

Kiara felt an irrepressible surge of terror. The gouge in JJ's temple from her dream jumped to her mind.

But then she heard a soft splash, and looked down the beach to see a moonlit form standing at the edge of the water. JJ was skipping rocks into the remarkably still ocean, one after another. Kiara forced her breathing to slow as she continued watching him, the sedate rhythm of the rocks skimming the surface loosening the tension in her shoulders.

All of the sudden, JJ snatched up a rock and chucked it as far and as hard as he could. Then he planted his hands on his hips and tipped his head back, staring at the sky as his chest heaved.

Kiara got up from her spot on the firm sand, moving as quietly as possible around John B and Sarah. John B, at least, used to sleep like a rock, but she couldn't imagine how jumpy the two of them were now after everything they'd gone through.

Apparently she wasn't quiet enough, because when she was still a couple feet away JJ lowered his chin. "Oh, hey, Kie," he said, twisting his head away from her and trying to inconspicuously swipe at his face. "You joining me in the 'can't sleep' club?"

"Guess I am," Kiara murmured, stepping up beside him.

They stared out at the ocean, watching the waves sparkle with the reflection of the moon.

"Times like these that a man wishes for a beer," JJ huffed, stuffing his hands in his shorts pockets.

"Easier to sleep when you can get blackout drunk," Kiara agreed. She tried to laugh, to keep things light, but it sounded so ridiculously forced.

JJ side-eyed her. "You, uh… you need to talk about anything? I know I'm not Pope or JB, but…"

"No," Kiara agreed. "You're not." She wanted to blow him off, she wanted to tell him everything going on in her head, she wanted to pretend like nothing was wrong, she wanted to confide in him, she wanted-

She didn't know what she wanted.

"I'm sorry," Kiara mumbled, digging her right big toe into the sand. "I know this kinda stuff makes you uncomfortable."

"Hey, hey, no." JJ turned to look at her. "C'mon, Kie, I've unloaded on you more than enough times in the past few years. I owe you one. Lay it on ol' JJ, 'kay? Lay it on me."

Kiara knew that he was trying to make her laugh, and normally that would have worked but it was just… tonight, of all nights, she was being reminded of how much she needed him, and how close she'd come to losing him forever.

"Okay, okay, fine," JJ barreled on, taking her collecting her thoughts as a refusal to talk. "Instead of talking, you could join me in my personally preferred form of therapy: throwing rocks into the ocean and pretending they're all the people you hate."

He tossed her a rock that he'd been holding in his hand and bent to retrieve another for himself. When JJ straightened, however, his face drained of color and he staggered.

"Whoa, hey!" Kiara cried, reaching out and grabbing hold of his arm. "JJ?"

"Sorry, sorry," JJ mumbled, waving her off. He planted his feet more firmly, and tentatively straightened his spine. "Just a little head rush. No biggie."

"No biggie- JJ!" Kiara shrieked, giving his shoulder a shove that was probably a bit too rough.

"Kiara-"

"What the actually frick. What if it isn't a head rush? You could have a- a concussion, or brain damage, or-"

"Kiara-"

"And we can't get you to a doctor, we have no help, I doubt we even have enough gas to get anywhere but this stupid freaking island! What if you-"

"Kiara!" JJ yelled, grabbing her face between his hands. Kiara stumbled at the impact, forcible reminded of when he backed her against the car when he'd convinced her to help him get his dad off the island. "Kiara. Calm down."

Kiara dropped her forehead to his shoulder, suddenly overwhelmed by exhaustion. "It wasn't the blunt end," she whimpered, reaching her arms around JJ's neck and gripping at his stained, threadbare tank top. "I had a dream and- and it wasn't the blunt end. You died, JJ. I lost you. And I can't- I can't lose you. I can't. I can't."

"Hey, hey…" JJ gripped her tightly, cupping the back of her head with one hand and letting the other splay across her back. "I'm all right, Kie. I'm all right."

"But you almost weren't," Kiara whispered, turning her face so her cheek rested against him instead. He smelled like sweat and salt and smoke and so familiar. So like home.

At the thought of home, tears welled in Kiara's eyes. "It's all my fault," she sobbed. "You almost died because I ducked. I let him hit you, JJ, I let him."

"Kiara, and you gotta believe me when I say this, I would so much rather it be me than you," JJ breathed, hands tightening. "You don't- I can't- you don't have any idea how much I'd rather it be me than you."

For some reason, Kiara felt almost… offended. Not for herself, but for JJ, which made absolutely no sense. "Why?" she demanded, pulling away from him. She regretted it almost immediately, not realizing just how comforted she'd been in his arms until they were falling away from her waist. "Why, because you life is somehow less valuable than mine is?"

"Yeah, kinda." JJ shrugged manically, scrubbing his hair. "Yeah. I mean, I'm a washed up piece crap that's gonna end up in jail by the time I'm eighteen anyway. I'm basically the- the-" He shook his head. "I'm basically the human equivalent for a piece of plastic floating in the ocean."

People who use plastic should be shot.

"JJ," Kiara breathed out, looking at him in horror. Tears dripped off her chin. "You really believe that?"

His jaw flexed and he turned and took a heavy seat on the sand. Kiara knelt next to him and found that her legs were shaking.

"No," JJ said finally. "Yes. I mean… I dunno."

"Is this because of your dad?" Kiara asked tentatively.

"Of course it's because of my dad!" JJ cried. He drove his fist into the sand. "I'm a- a genetic ticking time bomb, Kie. Heck- the bomb's already blown up."

"You're not," Kiara insisted desperately. She reached out and gripped his arm. "That's not how it works, JJ. We make our own choices, every day, ever minute. Your dad never would have helped the man who literally abused him escape from the police. Your dad never would have risked getting shot and hit with a freaking machete just to protect his friends. Your dad isn't half the man you are- he isn't even a quarter. An eighth. A-"

"Kie, I'm not too good with fractions," JJ cut in, a weak smile coming to his face.

Kiara stared at him hard, right into his watery, shadowed eyes. "You remember when we talked about that surf trip? I don't wanna come because of the surfing. I mean, surfing's great, but there are a million new things I could try. I want to come because it'd be with you. You understand that?"

The smile faded to something softer. JJ's eyebrows furrowed and he listed forward for a moment. Kiara's heart jumped violently and she stopped breathing, thinking that he was about to kiss her.

But then JJ's eyes slid past her, landing on the figures stretched out across the sand, and he leaned away again. "We should probably try to get some sleep," he muttered.

"Seriously?" Kiara asked, incredulous… and disappointed. How awful did it make her? She'd just learned her lesson with Pope, had just rejected him, and now she wanted JJ to kiss her? "After all of that, you're just gonna…"

"Gonna what?" JJ demanded, glaring at her. "Go back to business as usual? Yeah, Kie, I am. Need I remind you that you literally have a boyfriend, who just happens to be my best friend? Need I remind you that you have made it perfectly clear that you feel absolutely nothing for me beyond the 'lovely bond of friendship'? Need I-"

Kiara grabbed his face and kissed him.

She had kissed him once before, a long time ago. It had been when they were in third grade and she'd scrapped her knee tripping on the sidewalk and some kids had laughed at her. JJ, at the time only four feet five inches tall, had gotten in the boys' faces and threatened them until they ran off. When he'd returned to Kiara, she had thought it was the most romantic thing in the entire world and had decided to kiss him.

She'd thought, at the time, that the kiss had felt disgusting because she thought JJ was disgusting. But, as Kiara now realized, she'd simply been too young.

Because this kiss… it was far, far from disgusting. She knew JJ had copious amounts of practice kissing girls, but that couldn't be all this was. Kiara felt like she was falling apart and being put together all at the same time, like the world had gone silent and there was a hurricane swirling though her head, like she was filled with helium and deflating into JJ like a popped balloon.

She fisted his tank top and threaded her fingers into his thick blond hair, knees grating against the sand. JJ groaned, twisting his head away. "Kie-"

"We broke up," Kiara panted. "Pope and I broke up, I didn't feel anything for him and he knows it and he's okay with it, JJ, he's-"

"Being okay with you breaking up with him and being okay with me macking on you are two very different things," JJ ground out. His gaze flicked to her lips against and he swallowed thickly, clearly using every ounce of his self control not to start kissing her again. "Besides, you're clearly just doing this because you thought I would die and you're upset and you need the rush. You don't like me, Kiara. That's not how this works."

Kiara's fingers loosened. "But maybe… maybe I do," she whispered, brushing the hair gently away from his uninjured temple. "Maybe I'm not trying to feel something. Maybe watching you almost drown today just… I don't know, just helped to fully clear away some things that have been starting to be revealed to me for awhile now."

JJ shut his eyes, taking a deep breath. "You have no idea how much I want to believe that. But even if it is true, Kie, I- I can't. You know what that would do to Pope? Bros before-"

He stopped as Kiara raised a threatening eyebrow.

"You know what I mean," JJ groaned. He removed his hands from around Kiara's waist, where they'd fallen when she'd kissed him, and scooted away from her on the sand. "I might be a lawless scoundrel, but even we have limits."

Kiara was unable to resist a soft snort of amusement, even as she felt disappointment settle over her. "So," she said, clearing her throat. "We're, um… we're friends, then?"

She had said something along the same lines to Pope such a short time ago, but things felt completely different now. She had felt overwhelming relief friendzoning Pope, feeling things settle back into a comfortable normal. But with JJ… it was as far as possible from what she wanted.

JJ's mouth twisted slightly and he offered her a crooked smile. "But hey… we'll always have that kiss."

That kiss. The kiss that would haunt Kiara's dreams every night, keeping her locked in daydreams every day, until Pope finally noticed the tension and the sideways longing glances and had a very awkward sit down with JJ. It would maybe be a cliché to say that Pope gave his best friend his blessing, but… he did.

So that kiss turned into a whole lot more than either JJ or Kiara could have ever imagined.

Author's Note: I wrote like a solid fourth of this on my phone while watching Spider-Man so I'm very sorry if it got OOC for a sec there XD

Anyway THANKS FOR READING! I'm so so sooo excited to yeet wholeheartedly into this fandom and ship and I'm hoping I won't lose my inspiration before I can write a few more fics for them! I already have another episode divergent idea and a chapter of Mishaps with Mistletoe but I'm hoping to do some more stuff too. So if you've got any fun prompts lmk!