Midnight Strolls and Moonlight Dances

Stockholm, Kansas

At first, no one noticed anything was wrong.

They'd decided to drive straight through the long row of middle states that stood between them and Texas and were dozing in their seats until their turn to drive came. When the car slowed to a stop with Paige at the wheel, they all sleepily assumed they were stopping for gas or that perhaps it was time to switch.

"Oh, no, no, no," Paige whimpered. "Damn it."

The curse brought Emma, who had been trying and failing to relax for hours, to attention. "What is it?" she asked, dragging her hands through her hair and arranging the locks into a loose ponytail. "What's wrong?"

Paige groaned and thumped her forehead against the steering wheel. "We're out of gas."

Emma's jaw dropped. Then she turned around and latched onto the first body she could reach, which happened to be Craig's. "Wake up," she said urgently, shaking his knee. "Wake up. We've got a serious problem."

"Unless someone's bleeding, it is not a serious problem," he groused, reluctant to rouse himself from sleep without good cause.

"Unless you want me to make you bleed, you can just go back to sleep," Paige threatened, glowering at him. At Emma's astonished look, she shrugged. "What? He's not going to be any help. He might as well not waste my – our time."

Paige's acidic tone was like a bucket of cold water being splashed over his face. It forced Craig to fully wake up in order to brace himself for whatever attack she launched next. "You know," he remarked, "You've been nothing but snappy to me since rafting. Are you mad at me or something?"

"Me? Mad at you? Please," she scoffed. "Get over yourself, rock star."

Craig shut up, but was inwardly simmering. He wasn't just imagining it and he wasn't just catering to some kind of ego trip. Paige had gone out of her way to ignore him or make snide comments about him ever since they'd left the Colorado River. It was different than her running banter with Jay – it was deliberate, hurtful, and not all done in a joking manner.

"Come on, Emma," Paige ordered, unbuckling and swinging open her door. "I saw a gas station about a mile back."

Emma fumbled for her door handle, having not been prepared for Paige's command. "Paige, I don't think that's the best idea."

Irritated at her authority being questioned, Paige put her hands on her hips and cocked her head to the side. "Why not?"

"Well, for one thing, you're barefoot," Craig pointed out, following her lead and stepping out of the car. "And for another, it's dark, we're in the middle of nowhere, and you're girls."

"Gee, is that your professional opinion?" Paige returned scathingly.

Craig rolled his eyes and tried not to rise to the bait of getting in a fight. "Come on, Paige, don't be ridiculous. You've seen the horror movies. You two going for help is like putting a sign around your neck advertising yourselves to every creep in a five mile radius."

She didn't want to admit that he was right, but her fear of death and dismemberment at the hands of a psycho outweighed her stubbornness. Paige jammed her feet into the flip flops she'd discarded and sighed. "Fine. You can come. But you walk ten feet behind us and you don't talk."

Tossing an apologetic glance over her shoulder, Emma fell into step with Paige. "Oh, sure," Craig called out, "But you're not mad at me. Not at all."

He shook his head at the absurdity of the opposite sex. But it was better to subject himself to awkward humiliation than to have it on his conscience that they'd been slaughtered due to his pride. Waiting until the requisite paces were between them, he followed.

XXX

Jay awoke with far more room than he'd gone to sleep with and realized with a start that Craig was missing. And damned if he didn't start to panic immediately, thinking that something had happened to the boy who, before this trip, he hadn't even known.

Realizing that Emma and Paige were gone only added to his fear and had him scrambling to wake Sean and Manny. "Guys. Guys, get up. Something happened. We're stopped. They're gone."

Manny stirred to life with a delicate stretch. "Who's gone?"

"Emma." Sean, who apparently had some kind of Spider sense where the object of his affection was concerned, was already scrambling his way to the driver's seat. "The gas gauge is on empty."

Following his train of thought, Jay hopped out of the car and went around to the back, rummaging in the trunk before calling out, "Yeah, the tank's gone. They must have gone to refill somewhere."

"Thank God they brought Craig," Manny said, shivering as she stared into the dark, deserted road their friends must have set out on. "Think of what could have happened otherwise."

"Yeah, and think of what could happen now." With the knowledge that everyone was okay, Jay relaxed back into his usual antics, wiggling his brows suggestively. "Ménage a trois, anyone?"

"Disgusting." Crinkling her nose, she swatted at him. "Get your mind out of the gutter."

"And get your ass over here and help me," Sean piped up. He tossed Jay a flashlight he'd found in the glove compartment and indicated the radio panel. "Aim that, okay? I wanna see if I can fix this stupid radio once and for all."

Jay scoffed. "Yeah, okay, MacGyver, with what? A paper clip and one of Manny's barrettes?"

"Hey, if I could hotwire a car when I was twelve, I can definitely fix a radio now," Sean said confidently. "Just hold the light steady."

"Just hold the light steady," Jay mocked under his breath, but did as he was told. Any improvement that could be made to their current listening status – silence, static, or their own bickering – would be a welcome one.

XXX

It took Emma the entire mile to the gas station and half the walk back to drag out of Paige the reason for her foul mood. And when she finally did, she was sure she'd heard wrong.

"You're what?" she said loudly, coming to an abrupt stop.

Paige glanced behind them to check that Craig hadn't gotten any closer, then propelled Emma back into motion, hissing, "I'm jealous. Okay? You happy now, you gonna get off my back for a few minutes?"

"Not in this century," Emma declared, doing her best to keep herself from grinning. It was just too cute, Paige uncharacteristically freaking out over a boy not liking her enough. "I really don't think you have anything to worry about, you know, I'm pretty sure he's completely over Manny."

"Yeah, well, it didn't seem like it with him nearly throwing himself overboard to distract Aaron away from Manny the other day," Paige said irritably.

Emma pursed her lips. "Did you ever think that maybe he was trying to distract him away from you? I mean, you were the one who was all over Aaron about how cute and 'experienced' he was. Maybe Craig was jealous of that."

"Whatever." Paige rolled her eyes in typical fashion, but Emma could tell she was mulling over the idea. "Hey. What the hell?"

The scene before their eyes was one that, just weeks ago, they would never have imagined possible. In fact, upon even imagining it, they probably would've been snatched up and stuffed in a psychiatric ward for further evaluation.

Music was pouring out of the car they'd abandoned, a popular Top 40 station turned up to full volume and every door and window opened to better amplify the sound. In the glare of the headlights, Sean and Jay smiled and slapped five while Manny giggled delightedly and danced around them.

"It's like the Twilight Zone," Craig remarked, having reached the van and setting down the gas can he'd volunteered to heft back.

"We fixed it!" Jay hollered, catching sight of their return. "The radio!"

"We?" Sean pulled him a few steps back by his collar. "I fixed it, people. Jay held the flashlight."

"There's no 'I' in team, Cameron," Jay laughed, shrugging out of his grip. "Care to dance, Em? Paige? Hell, Manning, I'll even take you. We've got a working radio. Life is good, grasshoppers, life is good."

Paige chewed her lips while considering Emma's words, then made a decision. "Sorry, Jay, you'll have to settle for Em. Craig's dance card is full." That said, she tugged the shocked boy's hand and began to move to the rhythm.

And with only the moon to act as witness, the six of them stayed awake until sunrise, laughing and dancing. To the few cars that passed by in the early morning hours, they looked like the best of friends, celebrating a milestone in all their years of knowing each other. And that was exactly what they felt like.