Okay, well guys, I finally got my conceal carry class out of the way, now comes the worst part...applying for it and waiting for it. Because Illinois sucks at issuing them out, especially in 2020. Partially because EVERYONE was getting one due to all the chaos in the world, and partially because Illinois's government sucks ass.

Other than that, life has been pretty normal lately.

"Hmmm, I could always try to be a security guard." Jem said as he was going over job postings from back home.

"I'm more surprised you're able to find so many job postings in this economy."

"Oh there's always job openings, its just some people they won't all be good jobs. Lets face it some of these options are pretty shitty, but its a means to an end." He said as he was looking through the ads.

Winter was currently driving them back. Everyone had enjoyed their vacation, and now they were starting the long road back to the sad pathetic state that is Illinois. A land so vile and corrupt that a good portion of its governors had either been in prison or were under investigation. Jem often wondered why he was still in that state. Then he remembered the only reason he still lived there was because of family.

Seriously how could anyone think "Oh boy, Illinois would be a great place to live!'

They would have to be drunk or stupid.

"You know, you could afford to move out of the state now right?" Winter pointed out.

"I could, but I have to stick to my original timeline I set out, tough it out for a year, and then make the move. I need to adjust back to a normal life first." He said as he sent his resume to a dry walling company.

As much as he wanted to leave Illinois and never come back, he knew he couldn't just leave on a whim. He knew too many people who moved to a new state without a plan or even a job to go to, and they ended up broke, and it took them forever to get back to a normal life after that. Financial difficulties are normal in life, but there are also multiple ways to avoid it. And Jem would rather move with a semblance of a plan than go in guns a blazing.

Jem turned to the radio and started to go through his playlist.

"HEY! I thought driver got to pick the music?" Winter tried to slap his hand as he was turning it off of classical music.

"Usually yes, but this is also my truck, so I'm choosing the music." He said as he switched it to Buddy Brown.

And the sweet sound of 'Wolverines' started playing.

"Thats so unfair!" Winter grumbled as Jem was messing with her.

"Okay how about this, you've literally had the same stuff on repeat for the last few hours, we need a change." He said as he was getting bored of the same old same old.

"Fine, but in another hour, I get to change it." Winter said as suddenly she looked in the backseat.

"WOO HOO! THIS SONG IS AWESOME!" Nala said as she was really getting into it.

"Oh no..." Winter couldn't believe it.

Nala liked country music?! Great, now if she did change it, she would feel like an asshole for taking it away from her. Jem however was ecstatic, while he was a fan of multiple music genres including classical, he couldn't listen to it for hours on end. He figured Nala would like country, so he put it on hoping to get a rise out of her. Plus, he knew Winter wasn't the biggest fan of country music.

And to make matters worse, Jem and Nala were now singing along to it together.

"I still bury the money, because I don't like banks, I don't trust politicians, but I'd take orders from Hank!" Both sang the song as Winter rolled her eyes.

She wondered how the others were doing?

Aesops and Glynda

"Why am I the backseat AGAIN?!" Harriet was again stuck in the backseat while all the snacks and drinks were in the front and middle seats.

"We already told you, shorter ones get the back because tall people need the extra legroom!" Elm yelled as she couldn't believe Harriet was still bitching about that.

Harriet hated this. She was only an inch shorter than Jem, but that guy got to be in the front seat of his own vehicle while she got stuck in the backseat of a van!

"Can I at least ride with Jem and Winter? They only got Nala in the backseat!" Harriet whined as she was sick of being cramped.

"Can't. Jem says Nala needs all the space." Glynda pointed out.

"SHES AN 8 YEAR OLD KID?! WHAT DOES SHE NEED ALL THE SPACE FOR?!"

"Geez, don't get mad at a kid." Marrow said as he was sitting comfortably in the middle.

"Easy for you to say! Your legs aren't stuck against the seats! Anyways, can you do me a favor and pass me the beef sticks?" She said as Marrow cringed.

"Oh, sorry, but we finished those."

"OH COME ON! BACK SEAT SUCKS! I'M CRAMPED! I'M UNCOMFORTABLE! AND I NEVER GET THE SNACKS IN TIME!" Harriet knew she shouldn't be as mad as she was.

But they had been on the road for nearly a day now, and it was still hours away from Jem's home. A road trip to Arizona to Illinois was a long time to stay in the back when you were short of patience.

"Relax, we still got some snacks. Here." Marrow passed her back a bag.

Only for her eye to twitch as she saw they were nothing but baby carrots.

"Oh thats very funny!" She hated baby carrots.

"Look, just relax, we're going to be stopping at a hotel in a hour or so for the night, and we'll finish the drive home tomorrow." Marrow said as suddenly the van went quiet.

"What?" He asked as everyone looked confused.

"You just referred to Jem's house as home." Clover pointed out as Marrow was quiet.

"Well...honestly its just convenient to refer to it as that, if we keep referring it to 'Jem's house' it just gets annoying and repetitive.

Everyone thought it over, and they accepted that answer. Marrow however had a different train of thought going through his head. Truth was he did enjoy Earth. While he had done his research about this place and he realized it was not perfect. Especially with how easily scared everyone could be. It was still a relatively peaceful place to be. Even if he had ended up on the weird part of youtube and found out furries were a thing, he still didn't consider Earth a bad place.

Since he had been there, he had been fed, treated with respect, and he could let his guard down. As an Ace op he didn't get a lot of downtime and it was nice to deal with.

And of course, he couldn't remember the last time he laughed as much as he had when he was with Jem and his family.

But he knew eventually he would have to go back to Remnant, but he was going to enjoy this moment of peace for as long as he could.

Even if it wasn't meant to last.

"I need to pee!" Harriets voice broke the peaceful serenity of Marrows thoughts.

RWBY and JNPR

"Munch Munch." Ruby was enjoying all the chocolate chip cookies she had gotten from the gas station.

Glynda came on the CB radios that Jem had provided and said they all needed to stop because of bathroom breaks. As soon as they had pulled in, Jem saw Harriet use her super speed to get out of the van and into the bathroom of the gas station. At first he wanted to yell at her for possibly revealing she wasn't completely normal. But then he saw that there were people inside the gas station wearing chemical protection suits and masks and he remembered life hadn't been normal for a long time. Besides, not like anyone could see her moving that fast.

Jem went inside to get some snacks with Nala on his heels. He picked up a sweet tea and a turkey sandwich for himself, a bacon cheeseburger and Chocolate milk for Nala, and a green tea and fruit parfait for Winter.

Jem passed by the nutty chernobyl liquidator looking guy and made sure Clover was close by as he got his scratch off cards.

"Damn man, $500 on one scratch off, not bad." The cashier said as he wish he could be that lucky.

"Yeah, what can I say, life's been good lately." He turned to Clover and gave him a slight cut.

"Here, go buy yourself some snacks." Clover took the money reluctantly and went to go get some food for the ace ops.

Harriet soon walked out of the bathroom with a stupid pleasured look on her face. If one didn't know any better, one would think she just had the best sex of her life. But nope, instead she was just glad after three hours of driving and needing to pee that she finally found some relief. To make things even better, Clover had given her some cash to pick out her own snacks, and she could finally eat something else besides the shitty snacks that were left over in the van that nobody wanted to eat.

As she got her assortment of cookies and junk food, she made sure to keep it close to her in case any of her team mates wanted to steal any. She may have been overly paranoid at the moment, but she was still pissed off at having nothing to eat but baby carrots and water for the past few hours on the road. Jem walked outside and saw that Winter had finished filling up the truck.

"You know its a good thing you won all that money off of scratch off cards because the price of gas is only going up." Winter said as Jem just sighed and got in the drivers side.

"Yeah, sadly not much we can do about that." Jem missed that time back in 2020 when nobody was driving and gas was temporarily under a dollar down south.

It was a good time to be a cheap bastard.

"Anyways, hows everyone else doing?" Jem asked as Winter got in the passenger seat

"Well, ace ops are doing fine, except that Harriet won't let anyone get close to her snack stash. And Teams RWBY and JNPR are the same as always." Jem realized they were forgetting one person.

"And Glynda?" Jem took a sip of sweet tea as he got ready to drive.

"Shes starting to feel a lot like the parent on a road trip." Winter giggled as Glynda was still stuck driving the ace ops.

"You know its weird, they're all grown adults, yet they still act like kids." Jem was scratching the back of his head.

"But as Ruby is so fond of saying 'Anime logic'" Winter said as Jem groaned.

"I am so goddam sick of that saying coming back over and over again, its an overused joke at this point."

"But an overused joke that works."

"Doesn't make it any less annoying."

Jem got ready to drive away while doing his final check. He made sure everyone was accounted for. Made sure everyone had plenty of drinks and snacks for the ride back, and the most important was he made sure everyone had used the bathroom. After he had ensured everyone was good to go, he turned the truck on and made sure Nala was entertained in the backseat. Jem had given her a tablet that she was currently using to watch a documentary about lions in Africa.

It was adorable, she seemed so happy watching a lioness completely tear a gazelle apart. Most would consider that an issue and think Nala was a potential psychopath, but Jem just chalked it up to her faunus heritage.

It wasn't racist to assume that.

Considering Blake liked Tuna.

Sun liked bananas.

Adam was a raging dickbag.

Seemed like all faunus had at least one trait associated with what animal they represented.

"Ah dang it...it got away." Nala pouted as she saw a gazelle get away from the lionness.

"Do you find it concerning that she seems obsessed with the lions hunting?" Winter asked as she had never seen a little girl that fascinated with hunting.

"Hell no, just means I have a new hunting buddy." Jem hadn't gone bow hunting in awhile, and it would be fun to take his new daughter out.

Already he was thinking about what it would be like.

Nala would get her first kill, they would take a photo with her prize kill, they would make a blanket out of its hide and butcher it for its meat.

And the best part...

Venison steak, venison stew, venison burgers, anything you could make out of deer meat, it would be on the table.

"Hey Nala, want to go hunting with me when deer season opens up?"

"CAN I?!" Nala got all excited as her tail started wagging.

Winter sighed.

She was hoping to teach Nala to act like a lady.

Jem however was a much more powerful influence on her than she was.

Winter couldn't help but smile at the bond those two had already. And she was hoping that she could have something like that. Not just with Jem, but with Nala as well.

Well...it was now or never.

"Jem."

"Yeah?"

"When we get back, would you like to go on a date?"