Disclaimer: I don't own House of Anubis

"Psst… Joy…" A quiet voice hissed from outside the girl's tent. "Joy? Are you up?" It asked a bit louder from just outside the flap of the tent.

"Jerome?" Joy whispered, looking at the shadow on the tent where he stood. He hissed a yes and Joy carefully got up, stepping around the tangled masses that were the other girls, and carefully unzipping the tent flap. "What's wrong? Why are you up so early?" Joy asked, blinking in alarm at her boyfriend. He laughed and raised a hand to silence her.

"Nothing's wrong. I wanted to see if you wanted to go for a little hike before the others get up; I figured you already would be, since you're the strange kind of person that likes being up at seven in the morning." Jerome said quietly, straightening up and looking down at Joy. A smile flashed across her thin lips and she nodded quickly.

"Give me a few minutes to get changed and pull my hair up, and then we can go." She replied, and zipped the tent back up without waiting for a response. Jerome nodded at the closed flap and walked over to the fire-pit, kicking at the ashes that remained from their fire last night.

"What?" Jerome asked as he watched Joy slip out of the tent and zip it back up, giggling quietly.

"I stepped on Willowand Patricia." Joy laughed guiltily, glancing back at her tent. Jerome snorted, surveying her body in mock concern.

"You stepped on Patricia and made it out with all your limbs?" He joked, standing up from the rock he was on and walking towards her.

"She's a heavy sleeper, so she just kind of snorted it off. But I stepped on her hair and pulled it, kinda, and then I jumped back and stepped on Willow's feet. She like jerked up and muttered something weird and then went back to sleep." Joy shrugged; raising her hands to make sure her ponytail was in place before beaming at Jerome. "Ready?"

"Sure. I grabbed you a water bottles from the cooler, here." He offered, handing her one of the water bottles he had in his hand and then glanced at the sky. "Looks like it might rain. Maybe we should go back to sleep." Jerome remarked with a yawn.

"You're not getting out of it this easy, Jerome. This was your idea, remember? Now come on, this'll be fun." Joy beamed, patting his cheek and then walking eagerly into the woods.

They soon found an old and overgrown path, and kept to that, stopping once in a while to remark on a squirrel or rabbit or some other odd bit of nature. Jerome gradually slowed down, yawning and blinking more often.

"Come on, Jerome. This was your idea!" Joy reminded him again, falling back to walk beside him. He put an arm around her shoulders, yawning again.

"We've only had like six hours of sleep. Normal people don't function on six hours of sleep." Jerome remarked, pulling her ponytail lightly.

"Yes, they do! And this is fun; wouldn't you rather be seeing all these cute bunnies and squirrels then sleeping?" Joy pouted, lifting her head to look in her tall boyfriend's face. A small laugh blew out his lips as he looked down at her pleading brown eyes.

"I guess." Jerome emphasized, making Joy smile in victory. The couple continued walking, talking about school and Poppy and their families.

"So you and your dad are good now, yeah?" Joy asked, craning her neck up to look at Jerome again. He gave a lopsided shrug.

"Suppose so, yeah. He's not a bad guy." Jerome admitted, running a hand through his hair as he kicked at a rock sticking out of the path. "What about you? Never hear you talk about your parents, or family, for that matter." He pointed out, arching an eyebrow at her. Joy sighed and her eyes drifted towards the ground for a moment.

"I dunno. My Mum died when I was still pretty little, so it was just my Dad and I for the most part…" Joy began, making Jerome smirk.

"I'm sorry." Jerome said softly, and Joy raised a shoulder – he figured she was used to this kind of response. "But, ah, so you're a Daddy's girl, are you, Mercer?" He teased, looking down at her affectionately. Her head immediately jerked up to glare at him.

"I was." She said stiffly, removing her eyes from his and speeding up her pace some. Jerome looked after her, confused.

"What'd I say?" He asked, grabbing her shoulder as he easily matched her pace.

"Do you remember that year I left school? The year Nina came?" Joy questioned.

"How could I not? Trixie didn't shut up about you; she drove all of us insane with her 'Where's Joy?' whining." Jerome snorted, shaking his head.

"Well, he made me. They, made me, I guess you could say." Joy grumbled.

"They? Who's they?"

"Jerome, have you completely forgotten what happened this past year? Victor, and his crazy society. My dad told them when I was born and they assumed all this crazy stuff and then I was pulled out of school and kept locked up in my room. It was terrible." Joy snapped and then sighed, training her gaze on a large pine tree looming overhead, millions of thoughts running through her mind.

"Oh – oh, Joy. I didn't know, I'm sorry." Jerome tried to comfort.

"I mean, I guess it wasn't really all his fault. But it's so hard to trust him now. He's supposed to be my dad. He was supposed to keep me safe and all…" Joy said quietly, obviously missing what Jerome had said after being absorbed in her thoughts.

"Guess we both have some daddy-issues." Jerome smirked, hoping to break her out of her thoughts with some jokes. It obviously worked, as Joy turned to face him again with a smile on her face.

"Guess we -" She stopped talking as she fell, face-first onto the path, landing awkwardly on her foot and arm.

"Joy!" Jerome said quickly, running forwards and crouching down beside her.

"I'm – ow – fine." Joy insisted, sitting up and wincing as she pulled her legs to her chest. "Actually, I kind of hurt my ankle." She muttered, sucking in a breath and rubbing her left ankle.

"You don't think it's broken, do you? We can go back to camp and ask Eddie – I think his mom was a nurse or something; maybe he picked up on how to spot these things… Probably not, considering it's Eddie, but it's worth a shot if you think –" Jerome began to ramble, gingerly laying a hand on her ankle as she held up a hand to shut him up.

"No, I think I just twisted it. It was that stupid rock, I wasn't paying attention." Joy sighed, carefully getting to her feet with the help of Jerome. She placed her left foot on the ground and winced as she tried to put pressure on it. Jerome's frown was suddenly replaced with a smile as he walked in front of Joy and knelt down.

"Get on." He ordered, glancing behind him at her, standing with one foot in the air.

"What?"

"Get on. We'll piggy-back it to camp." Jerome grinned. Joy laughed and shook her head.

"You'll hurt yourself." She said, rolling her eyes. "I can walk, just give me a minute." Joy insisted, gingerly placing her foot on the ground and trying to keep the grimace from her face. Unfortunately Jerome saw it, and he shrugged, still on the ground.

"I'll carry you in my arms if you'd like. You're not going to hurt me Joy, you're like the size of a five-year-old." He smirked, waiting for her to climb onto his back.

"Jerome!" Joy sighed, hobbling forward and carefully wrapping her arms and legs around Jerome. He stood carefully, hoisting her up from under her knees as she relaxed into a comfortable position.

"Ready?" Jerome asked, turning his head to try to catch a glimpse of her.

"I guess so, even though this is completely unnecessary…" Joy tried to sigh, but a soft giggle came from her lips instead. Jerome nodded and tightened his grip under her knees and began walking at a brisk pace. He'd do a little hop every so often, making Joy gasp and then scold him for scaring her.

Soon enough they arrived back at the little campsite, a busy scene in front of them. KT and Alfie were trying to start a fire with a few little twigs and dry grass that Jerome guessed came from around the sides of the clearing. Willow and Nina were talking by the tent, Nina with a rather confused smile on her face as she nodded along to Willow's nonsense. Fabian was hovering uncertainly behind the two, looking like he wanted to talk to Nina but didn't want to butt in. Then, beside the tiny fire were Patricia, Eddie, and Amber, all fighting over a pan and some breakfast foods they had brought along.

"You can't eat raw sausage, you doofus! You'll get sick!" Patricia groaned, taking the package from Eddie's hands.

"Well how are we going to cook this? Hold the pan over the fire?" Amber asked, picking up the pan that was sitting on her lap and holding it in front of Patricia's face. She scowled and snatched it away, shoving it into Eddie's chest.

"No, Amber, we'd burn ourselves – think a little. And we should have brought one of those portable grill things." Patricia grumbled, looking down at the cold pack of sausages in her hand.

"Both of you shut up. I admit we forgot to bring some of the essentials, especially for cooking, but I can improvise…" Eddie mumbled, glancing around until his eyes landed on Jerome and Joy, who were still hovering by the edge of the clearing.

"What's up with you two, Jerry?" Eddie smirked, shoving the pan back at Patricia and striding over. "Free piggy-back rides? I want one." He said, grinning as Joy shot him a dirty look.

"Joy tripped and hurt her ankle, so I'm carrying her. And don't even think about it." Jerome explained to Eddie, casting him a challenging glare as he let Joy slide off his back. "How's the ankle?"

"It's fine, Jerome. Just sore. I'll be better in a bit." Joy assured as both Eddie and Jerome looked at her suspiciously.

"Is it swelled up?" Eddie asked, looking at her foot, which was still clad in her bright pink tennis shoes and socks.

"I don't know – probably not. Just go make breakfast, I'll be fine." Joy insisted again, daring to put her foot down and cautiously walking over to the log to sit down and exchange a few words with a rather frustrated looking KT.

"Come on, Doctor Eddie, we're waiting for your next genius idea!" Patricia's impatient voice came from behind him, and he spun around to see both Amber and Patricia glaring at him. He sighed and trudged back over, glancing around for something to use to cook the food.

After another half hour of prodding the fire and bickering, the teens finally settled down to eat their breakfast. All of the ideas to use the pan had failed, though most of them had tried at least once to figure out a way to use it. They had settled on piercing their sausages with the sticks they had used for marshmallows last night, not without some complaining, but they made it work. For now, anyway.

Sorry for not updating yesterday! So here's this… I'm not really sure how much I like it, especially the ending. I really need ideas for this, because I'm running out and don't know what to do. Just review or PM me with a quick 'So-and-so go on a hike' or 'So-and-so do something exciting', you know, just something I can write a chapter on.

I know some of you are waiting for some Fabina, and I'm trying, but ahhh. They've never really been my favorite couple and I don't have a good idea on how to write them. But yeah. Here's this.

Once again, thanks for the reviews guys, they mean so much to me!

xGaloshes