June 1, 2016

Rust Bucket; 7:06 am

Gwen woke up feeling exhausted after a night of restless sleep. When they got back to camp, Ben had gone straight to bed leaving her and her grandfather eating their dinner in silence. Neither could find the will to speak up and even Max couldn't find his plate of smoked salamander appetizing. In the end, they opted to call it a night and hoped tomorrow would be better.

She spent most of the night staring at the bunk above her where Ben was sleeping soundly. When he was younger you could hear his snoring from a mile away, but all you could hear at that moment was the crickets and the AC struggling to keep a breeze. "Had he really changed that much?" She thought to herself. They were so close after the first Summer, almost inseparable even. Their insults carried no real malice and if one was in trouble you knew the other wasn't far behind. But things change. People have to grow up and face reality.

Gwen managed to get a couple of hours of sleep by the time the sun began to creep over the horizon. When she woke up and realized she wasn't going to be able to fall back asleep she got up and checked on her grandfather. Outside, Max had already started packing up for the road ahead.

"So what's on the agenda? Stopping through D.C. and fighting off giant animals?" Max smirked recalling their first trip.

"Not this time." He said handing her a couple folding chairs that had been left out overnight. "With the election coming up it's best we stay out of the capital."

"That's surprising, I figured you'd be encouraging us to look into the politics."

"Well when you spend decades cleaning up the mess from intergalactic politics, you realize just how insignificant a single country's election can really be."

"Don't you think it's a little early for an existential crisis, Grandpa?" Ben had asked coming out from the back room. He was still in his pajamas and his bed head was all over the place making Gwen more conscious of how her own appearance must have looked.

"Morning Ben. If you two want to get changed I'll start on breakfast." At the mention of Max's cooking, Gwen could feel her stomach drop.

"Thanks, but no thanks." He said as he reached into the fridge pulling out what he hoped were chicken eggs and bacon. "You've taught me a lot over the years, but I will NEVER understand how you can eat that slop." With Ben cooking and Grandpa Max cleaning, Gwen decided she'd go shower and get ready for the day ahead of her.

Of all the things that she missed from their trips, the shower was not one of them. The Rust Bucket's shower managed to stay just above freezing long enough for her to wake up a little and washed up. Ben had just finished cooking when she walked out of the bathroom. She sat across from her Grandfather and noticed he was eating something soupy and leathery. She could have sworn she saw an eye on his spoon before he happily ate it. She had no idea how she was going to survive this trip between Ben's hostility and Max's "gourmet" cooking. At that moment, a plate of sunny side up eggs and two strips of bacon were placed in front of her. She looked up to see ben sit down next to Max with his own plate of scrambled eggs and bacon.

"You liked your eggs sunny side up right?" Realizing he was asking her a legitimate question she quickly nodded before forking down her breakfast realizing that she hadn't eaten since leaving her house yesterday morning. Taking her frantic eating as a sign of approval he began eating his own breakfast. "So what's the plan? I figured we weren't going to redo our first trip."

"There's a summer festival in Chicago starting Friday. If you two don't mind we can stop in Pittsburg and then get there tomorrow so we have an extra day to look around." With neither teen refusing the suggestion they all finished their breakfast and got on the road. Ben started to gather up the dirty dishes before Gwen had stopped him.

"Let me do them." She said a little more forcefully then she meant. "I mean you made breakfast so I may as well clean up." Without saying a word he handed the plates and went to the back to get changed.

"You alright, pumpkin?" Max asked from the driver's seat.

"Yeah, I'm alright." She said not too convinced herself. "I just don't know what's going on with Ben. Yesterday he looked like he wanted to go Ripjaws and bite my head off."

"Try not to worry too much. He was probably just surprised is all." Max said trying to comfort her. It didn't work. "It's gonna be about a six-hour drive so try to get along. I'm sure he missed you too he just doesn't know how to show it." He said not entirely convince himself.

In the back room, Ben was on the phone with Julie. He had forgotten to call her like she had wanted, but thankfully she didn't sound like she was too upset about it.

"Don't worry about it, Ben." She said. "I know how you get when you're on these trips." Feeling a bit guilty he promised he'd call her more frequently, but like all the other's it was a mostly empty promise and they both knew it. "How's the trip so far anyway? With just the two of you, it's hard to imagine there's ever a dull moment." Ben hadn't told her that Gwen was also on the trip and he wasn't sure how to bring it up. He could tell that she'd become jealous at the mention of other girl's but she wouldn't stop him. She trusted that he wouldn't cheat on her and over the years he's shown that she was right to trust him. "Ben? You okay?"

"What? Oh yeah, I'm fine sorry." He hadn't realized he hadn't said anything after a few minutes of silence. "Sorry, I didn't sleep well last night. I'm gonna take a nap. I'll call you when we get to Pittsburg. I love you."

"Yeah," She sighed. "Love you too. Get some rest." Silence. Saying he was tired hadn't been a complete lie. In all honesty, he hadn't gotten a wink of sleep. All night he could hear Gwen rustling around below him. By the time she had finally fallen asleep her breathing only made him more conscious of her presence. He yawned feeling the exhaustion setting in.

"A quick nap wouldn't hurt."


AN: So the first two chapters could have been a single one but I had uploaded the first one to test the waters and see if I really wanted to go through with this story. So far I've been super motivated to continue writing this and have had a couple of late nights writing and reworking this into what I hope will be a decent story. Thank you to everyone that has followed and left reviews I appreciate any feedback that can help improve my writing or even just knowing that you're enjoying the story so far. Don't expect a constant upload schedule but I'll try and not make them too far apart.

Hassan Elgarni1: Thank you for the compliment. This is the first time I've seriously written in years so I'm still finding a format I feel comfortable with.