Thank you so much for the fantastic response! I want to address two things very quickly- to the two people who informed me Disneyland came before Disney World: my bad haha. I really should've done some research before I claimed the opposite. Thank you for correcting me and I'm super sorry for the confusion. And to the the anon who told me I should warn readers ahead of time if this story's going to end up with certain pairings, consider this your warning. ;)

What did you expect? Have you seen the other stories I've written? Hahaha thanks for reading and I hope you enjoy this chapter!

Early Modern Fantasy

Chapter Two: And Through the Woods

The longest leg of their trip was the beginning and they'd already completed that. Day two, the group planned to drive from St. Louis, Missouri to Atlanta, Georgia and set up camp for the night and this trip took only a mere eight hours, as opposed to the previous day's fourteen. Because it didn't take as long, they agreed the night before to sleep as late as they wanted and meet in the hotel lobby for breakfast and check-out procedures the next morning. Shirley, who is driving first, told everyone to be in the van no later than ten a.m. But, at nine thirty, they are filling up the gas tank and on the road, with everyone fully rested and well fed.

Shirley is a natural behind the wheel and everyone feels incredibly safe and comfortable as they cross the Missouri border and pass the "Welcome to Illinois!" state sign. Everyone's pretty quiet this morning as they watch the bright greens and rich browns of the Illinois foliage fly by before their eyes. They're subdued this morning and don't really feel like playing the car games they played the day before. There aren't any sing alongs, this time, or rounds of Mad Libs, and even the license plate game gets tiresome, after a bit. Shirley tries to get everyone involved in a rousing game of I Spy, but only Abed plays along.

When they enter Kentucky, Annie pipes up from the backseat, where she's seated with Abed and Troy. "Can I make a request?"

"Sure," Shirley answers, desperate for conversation. "Anything."

"Can we maybe stay at a nicer hotel tonight?" She pleads, like a child begging for dessert before dinner, and everyone agrees to her request. "I think the cheap soap gave me hives."

"I asked if you wanted to borrow mine," Britta scolds. "I bring my own shampoo and body wash for that reason. You learn these things when you travel often."

"Pierce and I had bed bugs," Jeff states and scratches his arm out of habit. "So needless to say, I slept on the couch."

"I wish we could've used our couch," Troy says. "You should have seen the stain. It looked radioactive or something. Like a biohazard."

"And how about that cold shower, Jeffrey?" Pierce, who is sitting in the passenger's seat, says to his previous night's roommate. "Awful. Not only was it as cold as ice, but it smelled like someone's science experiment."

"Yeah, it was pretty bad," Jeff nods. "We can definitely look for a better place tonight. A Marriot would be nice. It's pricier, but you get what you pay for."

"We should probably switch up the roommates too," Britta suggests, receiving a grateful look from Jeff, who had spent the entire morning bitching to her about how awful Pierce had been that evening. "Just… I don't know. So we don't get too clique-y, you know?"

"Britta, I really don't think we're going to become 'clique-y' within our own clique," Annie rolls her eyes. "And are you suggesting we intermix genders? That's not a good idea, is it?"

"Well, you live with Troy and Abed at home," Britta points out and Annie bites her lip.

"That's true," Shirley states. "So you three can room together, I'll room with Jeff, and Britta can room with Pierce."

"Why do I have to room with Pierce?" Britta blurts out and the latter scoffs.

"Hey!" Pierce is offended. "Did you ever think maybe I didn't want to room with you either?"

"I'm sorry, Pierce! That's not- I didn't mean it like that," She backpedals quickly. "It's not you're a bad person to room with, it's just that… You and I don't have anything in common. Don't you think you'd be more comfortable rooming with someone like Troy? Since you've already lived together and such."

"Well, that does make sense," Pierce considers and Troy shrugs.

"Yeah, I'm fine with that."

"Okay then!" Shirley arranges, eyes never leaving the road. "So I'll room with Jeff, Troy will room with Pierce-"

"I'm going to stick with Annie," Abed says and the brunette looks gleeful at this prospect.

Annie's eyes are bright as she squeals, "Okay!"

"Great," Britta frowns. "And then I'm the outlier that no one wants."

"You can room with us," Jeff offers and Britta thanks him, but Shirley immediately protests.

"Uh uh, no way," Shirley shakes her head, switching lanes of traffic. "I'm not rooming with you two horny toads. I'm not getting in the middle of that. Not happening."

"You can room with us," Annie suggests, Abed nodding along.

Shirley looks as though she's considering which 'couple' is the lesser of two evils. Finally she grins at Annie and Abed. "Okay, it's settled then. You, me, and Abed, Jeff and Britta, and Troy and Pierce. And preferably in a much nicer hotel this time. It shouldn't be too hard to find, right?"

They nod their agreement and continue down the thruway. When Kentucky begins to fade away, so does the cool weather. Suddenly, the temperature rises from a mild seventy-two degrees to a sweltering ninety. Shirley immediately switches on the air conditioning and has it circulating throughout the van for a good fifteen minutes, just until it's cool enough to be bearable, until there's a loud clicking sound and the entire coolant system shuts down. Soon, the entire car is bathing in sweltering heat, the broken air conditioning the first thing on everyone's mind.

"Well this is just great," Britta groans as they pass the "Welcome to Tennessee!" state sign. "It's only going to get hotter from here on out and we don't have a way of cooling down."

"Of course we do," Pierce disagrees, rolling down the passenger side window. "You guys are so used to having everything handed to you, you don't know how to make or do anything for yourself anymore!"

Britta shouts back an indignant response, but her reply is drowned out by the rushing wind of the thruway when everyone else follows Pierce's advice and rolls down their windows. But the incoming air is just as hot and humid as the air inside the van and soon everyone is not only hot, sticky, and irritable, but wind-blown and just a bit hearing impaired from the high sound. If they thought Pierce was awful when he was bored, forget about Pierce when he's bored, hot, and slightly deaf. He complains for fifteen straight minutes, in a high decibel, about being cranky, and Shirley pulls off the thruway the second she spots a rest stop with a McDonalds.

"It's not high quality eating, but it'll be air conditioned in there," She says. "Plus we can fill up the tank, switch drivers, and I'm sure there's some kind of gift shop that has to have portable fans."

They agree with her logic and the first thing they do when they park the oppressively hot van is go inside, to the restrooms, to freshen up. When they're looking presentable, they order meals from McDonalds (Troy and Abed get Happy Meals and Annie and Britta question their sanity). Shirley's right; it's not quality eating. But it is delicious and hey, this is America, land of the greasy and fatty. Might as well play along. But the two that gripe the most about this are, of course, Jeff and Britta, who both order a salad- Britta, because she's a vegetarian, and Jeff, because he's super insecure about his image. Shirley, Annie, and Pierce eat their hamburgers and world-famous French fries and stare at the two as if they were from another planet.

Following their unhealthy but satisfying lunch, they wander over to the gift shop as Pierce goes out to fill the car with gas, seeing as he's the one driving the next portion of the trip. The gift shop is possibly the largest one at a rest stop they had seen thus far and offers everything from apparel to food and from gag gifts to meaningful trinkets. Shirley picks up a bright green t-shirt that reads, "I Took the Last Train to Clarksville!" and says, "I didn't know that the Clarksville in that song meant Clarksville, Tennessee! This is too cute!"

"Shirley, that song is awful," Troy tells her, placing a foam hat with a bird's beak on top on his head. "Now this. This is useful in our everyday lives."

"Forget fans," Britta states, picking up a squirt gun from the rack before her. "Can we just get a bunch of these?"

"Oh it is on," Jeff agrees, choosing a red one to complement Britta's green. "For your information, I'm kind of awesome at water gun fights."

"That's too bad," Britta shakes her head. "Because I dominate at them."

"Oh yeah?" He asks, skeptic. "You'll never find me. I have the greatest hiding spots. That's how I win them all."

"And where are you going to hide," Britta implores daringly. "Trapped in an eight-seat van?"

"I will find a way," He says confidently. "And then I will beat you."

"Not if I beat you first!"

"Guys," Annie rolls her eyes. "Stop. Buying squirt guns is useless anyway. We don't have a way to refill them."

"Oh, yeah, that's true."

"I found fans," Abed calls from the other side of the store and the group heads in his general direction. "They're not exactly what I was expecting."

They are tiny, battery-operated handheld fans, but they're all they've got, so the group buys seven. And at last, with Pierce in the driver's seat, Jeff in the passenger side, Britta and Abed in the middle and Troy, Annie, and Shirley in the back, they're on the road again, this time towards Nashville. It's a little after two o'clock and they're making great time today, despite the minor setbacks of starting later than yesterday and having to stop to buy a new way of keeping themselves cool. They get fifty feet down the turnpike before they realize that they may have bought fans, but they forgot to buy batteries.

Another stop later, everyone is still a sweaty, ill-tempered mess, but they've got cool air blowing on their faces and that's all they can really do right now. They're twenty minutes outside of Nashville, the birthplace of all things country, when they all come to an agreement that Pierce's driving is putting them behind schedule. He goes too slow and when they tell him to pick up the pace, he speeds down the thruway. They get pulled over when they finally do reach Nashville, but Pierce somehow manages to talk his way out of the ticket. He drives like a blind grandpa after that and Jeff, annoyed beyond belief, forces him to pull over so they can switch.

"You're not talking your way out of this," Jeff grunts and slides into the driver's seat, clicking his seatbelt and propping his fan in between the steering wheel and the dashboard. "Now sit down and shut up."

"My driving may not be up to your standards, Jeffrey, but I think I've had my license a little longer than you have," Pierce tells him.

"Yeah, you might want to think about giving that up." Jeff tells him and then they're back on the turnpike once more.

They're hot; these fans are in no way keeping them cool, they're just taking the edge off of the heat. No one talks to each other because even that would be too much effort, too much hot air expelled into the already stuffy van. Troy is leaning against the glass window of the backseat, eyes glazed over and watching the lines of the pavement run beneath him. Next to him is Annie, who is most likely the most uncomfortable, seated in the middle of two sticky people. She's resting her head against the back of the seat and when she blinks her vision comes back blurry. The fan that's focused so close to her face is drying her eyes out… But she doesn't care.

Shirley's cheek is resting against the semi-cool wall of the car beside her, the fan blowing into her neck and up through her hair. It's the hottest part of her and where she needs it most, but she's hoping hers is the shower that only runs cold, tonight. In the middle row of seating, Abed is stone-faced as he watches other cars pass them by, with other occupants that are happier and cooler than he is right now. Britta, sitting beside him, appears completely taken over by the heat. Her hair is lying in thick, sweaty tendrils on her forehead and her fan is doing nothing to keep her cool.

Pierce is half-awake, chin in his hands, in the passenger seat and the only one who seems to be even remotely alive is Jeff, but that's because he's the one driving. He's determined to make it to Atlanta and, from Nashville, it's only a matter of mere hours, four, maybe five at most. Jeff's relieved to have a break from the constant chatter they've had since they left yesterday, but he also can't drive in silence, a habit he picked up from Britta, just as she'd picked up his love of the smirk. So he reaches over and turns on the radio, unfamiliar with the channels in Tennessee, and fumbling with the dial clumsily as he keeps one hand, always, on the steering wheel. The radio takes quite a lot of force to work and Jeff has to push the different preset buttons quite hard to get any results.

"News, news, news in Spanish, ugh, kids channel," Jeff says mindlessly and then smacks the radio forcefully. "Come on, you piece of shit!"

There's an awful, garbled sound and then the radio switches to a station that, from the sounds of it, only plays Old Italian operas. Jeff groans and pushes the button again. "Not what I wanted."

Except, when he pushes the button again, nothing happens. He tries every number on the dashboard and the radio won't change stations. Great. The damn thing is stuck on this awful opera channel. Everyone whines their protests to his awful choice in music, so he turns the dial towards the off position. Again, nothing happens. They all watch, horror struck, as Jeff turns the dial again and again and the Old Italian opera continues to drone throughout the van's speakers. Fan-freaking-tastic. Now they have to listen to this for the rest of the trip.

"You couldn't just let us have a little peace and quiet," Shirley deadpans as an alto shrieks in her ear.

"Well it's Britta's fault," Jeff groans as they begin to pass through Chattanooga.

Britta's immediately outraged, though not quite as mad as she could be, because she's so hot. "Of course it is. I'm not the one driving, I didn't turn on the radio, I didn't make it get stuck, but sure! Let's blame it on Britta! Blame everything on me!"

"Well my inability to drive without the radio on stemmed from your inability to drive without the radio on, so yeah," He glares at her through the rearview mirror. "It's your fault!"

Britta, too sweaty and irritated to argue back, sticks her tongue out at him and settles against the window once more. Annie groans, "Ugh! I'm already annoyed at this freaking car for the air conditioning problem and now this too! You're lucky I'm too excited about Disney World and too hot to move right now, because you don't want to see a Crazy Annie tantrum!"

Jeff sighs, knowing this is his entire fault (no matter how much he blames it on Britta), and says nothing. They pass the "Welcome to Georgia!" sign just after four o'clock in the afternoon and after two solid hours of opera singing. It's then that Troy awakens from the trance he's in. He listens deeply to the Italian gibberish coming out of the radio, and says, "Wait… If you listen closely… It sounds like the woman is really, really angry at the guy. She's all, 'How could you do that to me? You've betrayed me greatly. I can never love you again. You've lost me forever'."

Annie and Shirley just stare at him blankly. The rest of the group has no reaction. But Abed, picking up on his best friend's logic, nods and says, "And the guy is saying, 'Oh please, woman. You've betrayed yourself by loving me. You knew what kind of man I was when you married me. I'm sleeping with your sister'."

Shirley gasps but Annie giggles and Troy, as the woman, continues. "'My sister! My sister! How could you, with my sister? I wanted marriage, I wanted a family. I never knew you never wanted me!'"

"'You're just a pretty face, you know. Your sister is much prettier'," Abed-as-the-tenor says. "'We're leaving for Verona tomorrow… On my spaceship!'"

And then things proceeded to get weird. Not only were there spaceships and aliens, but full-fledged galaxy wars complete with air missiles, lasers, robots, and all kinds of ridiculous nonsense that only Troy and Abed could come up with. It's ridiculous, but it's entertaining, and it keeps everyone in good spirits as they drive through Georgia, the peach state. An hour later, when Troy and Abed tell a tale of an orphaned robot who finally found love in his adoptive, chimpanzee parents (as if an opera would ever be about this), they profess their hunger and Jeff pulls off the thruway about twenty minutes outside of Atlanta.

They find this cute little Mexican restaurant called South of the Border and decide to eat there. Britta and Troy haven't eaten Mexican food since the awful service and food they got at that place back home and Abed's never liked it, so the three of them head across the street to a sandwich shop and eat there. Annie and Shirley tell their waiter it's Jeff's birthday and he gets not only a gigantic margarita, which he doesn't drink because he's the driver, but he also gets a giant bowl of fried ice cream and must wear a sombrero, restaurant policy. He looks ridiculous, but he grins and bears it through endless rounds of tacos and enchiladas.

When everyone's eaten, they pile back into the sweaty car and finish off their journey to Atlanta. They find a Springhill Suites, a Marriot to Jeff's liking, and check in, but just as they're bringing their bags into the lobby, the four Mexican-eaters are seized with awful stomach cramping and chronic diarrhea. Eyes as wide as saucers, Britta, Troy, and Abed have never been happier to not have had Mexican food in their lives. Troy makes Pierce as comfortable as he can on their shared couch and brings him water bottles from the vending machine practically all night. Abed, with both Annie and Shirley in his room, takes in all of the symptoms and makes sure this is food poisoning and not dehydration from their day of roasting in the van. And Britta spends most of the night arguing with Jeff about caring for him, forcing him to drink water and bringing him ice from the machine down the hall.

But their hotel is only a few feet away from a mechanic, so Troy drops the van off and tells them to fix the air conditioning and, if they can, the radio. They'll be able to pick it up the next morning and, satisfied with that answer, he heads back to the hotel to care for his food-poisoned friends. He meets Britta at the ice machine, who rolls her eyes when he asks how Jeff's doing, which tells him they're bantering more than helping each other. On the way back to his room, he stops at the vending machine to get Pierce another water bottle and runs into Abed. They share their handshake and he asks how Annie and Shirley are doing.

"It's not pretty in there," Abed shakes his head. "We've got a real Bridesmaids situation going on."