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Jim’s got this van.
A relic of an era long gone past, with ripped leather seats and a radio that only gets a third of the channels it ought to on a good day. His most prized possession , he’d told Bones when they’d first met in a voice that was too damn proud, his fingers brushing over her dashboard leaving trails in the dirt that’s gathered there.
Someone years back had gotten the idea that they ought to name it, a half drunk plan that ended with the word ENTERPRISE spray painted along the passenger side.
It would take another two years before someone else would do the same on the driver’s side.
**
Technically the van only had three seats.
Two comfortably.
But Chekov could wiggle into the middle seat just fine. Tucking his bony elbows in against his sides as not to jab anyone.
Uhura could sometimes manage it as well. Though she moved a lot more, constantly fiddling with the radio insisting that there was no way they should have twenty stations of awful static, before finally pulling an aux cord out of her fanny pack and forcing them to listen to music in languages that only she understand. Jim keeps insisting he was getting proficient in portuguese thanks to her music choices, but nobody believes him.
Jim liked to insist a lot of things that are barely true. For example, he often insists that he was always in the driver’s seat. The truth was he just liked it most, and that as the technical owner of their van he insisted it was his by rights.
But there’d get those nights where he was too tired to drive, or when he’d finally listened to those hints about needing a break, and the keys would be pressed into Sulu’s hands.
They were both terrible drivers. A small miracle that the van hadn’t ever been pulled over for speeding, or reckless driving years ago. That or Scotty’s radar detector.
General consensus was it was best to let Spock drive, even if that meant going at the pace of a little old lady. At least there was no chance of a rogue speedbump maiming anyone. One too many concussions had happened thanks to those, the roof of the van always a bit too close for comfort.
Shotgun rotated between Bones and Spock depending on who was driving and who had the energy to put up with Jim at any specific moment in time. They’d worked out a manner of silent agreements at this point. Spock raising a single eyebrow in question before Bones relents cursing under his breath as he’s pulled up into the front of the van again.
Scotty was always in the back, sprawled out against the mattress that they’d found back behind a dumpster (with the aforementioned Scotsman lying on it) during their third year together. Anyone not lucky enough to have won the very serious game of nose goes to get an actual seats, joins him in the back.
It’s cramped.
But they manage.
As they always have.
**
The first thing people always ask is why ?
When a group of blurry eyed millennials show up at the diner just past two am.
Followed by the seemingly obvious, don’t you have anything better to do with you life?
Maybe they do.
In a few weeks they’ll go back to their lives. Pretend none of this even happened. Nothing to show for it but a choice selection of pictures uploaded onto various social media outlets. An edited version of their one escape the one thing that has held their family together over the years.
The real world awaits them with open arms, as it comes to a close once more.
Welcoming them back.
To the hospital in Georgia. To the high school French class. To the auto shop on 53rd. To the ambassador’s suite. To the master’s program. To the loving husband and daughter.. To the -
“Well, where they hell do you go, Captain?”
**
“It’s tradition,” Jim says over the phone.
Just as he’s said every year. He’s got three more calls to make, two of which he knows he’ll get dismissive anyways that will turn into yes ’s in the end, and one that he’s anxious about.
That’s why he puts this one in the middle, a gentle reassurance a guarantee.
“You know, kid, I keep imagining that one day we’ll all out grow this,” the voice on the other end grumbles.
In reply Jim laughs open and true, propping his heels up on the dashboard. “So you’ll do it?”
**
It started with a Craigslist advertisement and one too many drinks. Or maybe it was two too many drinks, he’d lost count at some point and this had seemed like the best idea he’d ever had.
Four simple lines:
SEEKING A CREW FOR AN ADVENTURE
OUR FIVE WEEK MISSION:TO EXPLORE NEW ROADS,
SEEK OUT NEW LIFE AND SKETCHY REST STOPS
TO BOLDLY GO WHERE NO MAN HAS GONE BEFORE
He hadn’t honestly expected anyone to reply.
Bones had hold him as much, after insisting that they only person they were likely to get at all would be the next Craigslist killer, and that he wasn’t going to be the one to patch Jim up if he got stabbed to death in the back of that van.
To say he had been pleasantly surprised was putting it lightly.
**
“You know your ad’s sexist,” the voice on the phone tells him. A sharp feminine voice that instantly has him sitting up. “Where no man has gone before. Really? It should be no one .”
“In my defense, I was drunk when I made it.”
She’s snorts, an ungraceful noise. He likes her already. “No excuses, farm boy.”
**
They like to pretend that they don’t talk in between the trips.
It wouldn’t be keeping with the tradition. With the rules established and written in Spock’s meticulous hand that first year they’d all ended up in the van together.
Most of the rules had been broken over the years.
The No sleeping with members of the crew rule had been violated so many times with various combinations that eventually Scotty had amended the rule to No sleeping with members of the crew inside the van .
But then again, rules were always meant to be broken.
**
It’s usually Jim he finds breaking into his house.
The spare key he always keeps under the mat, having been used so frequently over the years that he no longer suspects burglars when he comes home from an overnight ER shift to find his living room light on.
“You know kid you’re not supposed to-”
He starts, then stops when he sees that the figure on his couch, pressing a hand against their bloodstained side is not in fact Jim Kirk, but rather -
“Spock?”
“Doctor. I know we’re not supposed to…” He trails off looking far too pale, “But I was in the area and in need of discreet medical assistance.”
He’s grabbing the medkit out of the bathroom before Spock can even finish the sentence.
He doesn’t ask when he gets back in there, just tugs the bloody shirt up so that he can see the wound, a stabbing not a gun shot, messy enough that he wants to ask but cannot bring himself to. Last time he had checked ambassadors didn’t get into this much danger.
Instead he asks, in a casual tone, “I’ve just got one question for you. What’s your favorite color?”
**
The first time it’s just the two of them and Uhura.
Then comes Spock - the grad student she was only sort of sleeping with for extra research time. That had mistakenly called the trip fascinating in Jim’s presence and had been invited along months later long after Uhura’s classes had changed along with her interest in teaching assistants.
Chekov and Sulu are a packaged deal. The arboriculturist with an affinity for driving too fast, and the high school graduate who had smiled far too widely at the prospect of adventure .
(“Oh good, he’s seventeen.”)
Scotty is last.
Following a happy accident where Spock may have left Jim behind at a rest stop, on purpose. The debate still reigned lowly to the to this day. But when they’d doubled back for him an hour later they’d found a new friend and a mattress, so perhaps leaving Jim behind wasn’t the worst thing that could happen.
Despite his perpetual whining.
**
They confess things late at night that they’re all too afraid to say.
A campsite fire illuminating their features.
Things like:
“I don’t know what I’m doing with my life.”
Or.
“I haven’t seen my daughter in eight years.”
Or.
“I was raised in a desert commune that didn’t believe in emotions.”
Or.
“I’m thinking of proposing, but worried he’ll say no.”
Or.
“I might have blown up a dog in a lab accident.”
Or.
“I hate celebrating my birthday, because it's the day my dad died.”
Or.
“I think I’m in love with you.”
There’s other things they don’t confess secrets they hold tight, until it hurts breathe.
But they know if there was ever a time to speak if, if they were every read, all they would have to do is look into the flames of their campfire and speak the words.
**
“What happens after this?”
It’s Uhura’s voice, asking the one question the three of them had been ignoring for the whole messed up trip. It had been easier to ask What’s next or to pull out the map and insist that they’re going in the wrong direction.
It’s too late to turn back now, San Francisco is only another two hours away, the sun rising over the Pacific Ocean.
Jim doesn’t have an answer for her, can’t find the words. Instead, his hands tighten on the steering wheel.
“Well,” Bones drawls. “What are you doing next June?”
**
It’s a little half way through the second week of their fifth trip when the van gets wrecked.
Not for the first time.
Nor the second.
But for the final time.
Even Scotty, who claimed he could fixed anything grimaced at the pile of twisted metal at the bottom of the ravine. Insisting that there was no way any of that could be salvaged. It wasn’t like the hit and run of their second year. All their previous brushes with fate.
Other people would’ve moved on, called an insurance company for flights back to their homes, and cut their losses.
But they had never been other people.
**
“His name’s Franklin,” the girl says, hitting her hands sharply down on the hood of the SUV. Her strange golden eyes, scrutinizing the group of them.
Seven strangers on the side of the road.
She’d been the only one to stop, after hours of waving down cars in the dead of night.
At this point beggars couldn’t be choosers. Plus there was something in her eyes, something they knew reflected in each of theirs year after year, a longing for adventure, for the empty road stretching out before them.
“And he’s my home.”