The Rogers' Family Annual Camping Trip

Author's note. This is the sequel to V.R.. While this story can stand on its own without reading the other first, the reader will have better understanding if familiar with it.

*****

Day one, Saturday

Jerome Rogers threw another bag into the small trailer he was packing then looked over at the front porch where his and his wife's kids sat talking quietly. He could see the concern on his son's face as he asked his step sister something and the weak smile she gave from her pale face as she tried to reassure him. He gave the briefest grin as he thought about what he and Michelle had planned for this camping trip. He thought it was going to be a lot of fun as they teased the two of them without them even realizing it.

He paused to reflect on how his life had gone over the years. His first wife, Marie would always hold a special place in his heart, but he loved Michelle like there was no tomorrow. Marie had given him his son, Christian, giving her own life as she did so. The doctors tried everything to stop her bleeding, but in the end, it was useless.

Then when Christian was seven, Jerome got the chance of a lifetime. He was assigned to fly the space shuttle on a mission to the International Space Station. It took a year of training before the team was scheduled to make the trip and his assignment almost disappeared when his parents died. Only the actions of Lieutenant Colonel Michelle Bolt telling the Operations Manager that if he was replaced, they might as well replace her as well, and the rest of the team following her lead, saved him from being stuck on earth while the rest made their way to the station. The end of that trip, his first and last mission, was more memorable than any other part. After being released from the required quarantine, he and the commander, both now on their way to civilian life, began their own loving relationship.

Christian was eight by the time the mission took place, and Michelle had a daughter, Samantha, who was seven, from her ex-husband who had left her for their eighteen year old baby-sitter two years earlier. It was her that made everything work. She had found the V.R. program on which he had written and acted out his feelings of love for his commander, then moved it forward by making reservations at a restaurant and at a hotel for three nights in his name for after they were released. He only learned about it as they began their flight back to earth as she gave him a quick peck on the cheek, the first of many kisses that would follow and the most tame.

After that weekend, they had split up so that each could reconnect with their children. Hours later, the four of them were headed out for the first annual camping trip during the kids spring break from school. They had two tents that first year. The boys slept in one, while the girls slept in the other. The trip was used mostly to let the two kids get to know each other better, and hopefully be friends, and also for Christian to get to know Michelle and Samantha to know Jerome.

For the next three months, Michelle and Samantha spent their evenings at the Rogers home, Michelle and Jay, as he was now known, taking turns with the cooking. They helped with home work, then had time to sit and watch T.V. or play a game before the females headed home.

Friday nights were "date nights." Samantha, of course, was spending every other weekend with her father, but on the weekends that she didn't, both kids went with the couple. Those times when she was gone, Jerome's sister, Janet Cross, and her husband, Robert, watched Christian while the couple had a more adult date.

After three months, the four were becoming more like a family unit. The Friday night dates changed, though. Janet and Robert joined them on those nights when Samantha wasn't with her father. The big event happened about two months after the Aunt and Uncle started joining them on their dates.

The six sat at the table of one of their regular places on a Friday night. Jay could see that the kids were nervous about something and that they were exchanging looks each trying to get the other to do something. "Alright," he said at last near the end of the meal. "Out with it. What's going on with you two?"

The two just sat there and looked at each other, clearly not sure how to proceed.

"Come on. Someone better talk or I'll Make you. You know what they say. 'Ve haf ways of makink you talk.'"

Still the kids looked at each other. Finally Christian spoke. "We were wondering if it was alright if I start calling Ms. Bolt 'Mom' now."

The adults looked at each other in shock. Although this was what they were headed toward, they hadn't thought it would be the kids that began the conversation. By the end of the talk, Christian was calling Michelle Mom, and Samantha had agreed to call her biological father "Dad" while calling Jay "Poppa," as had been suggested by her dad. It was her that asked the question of when they were going to get married. Less than a year after their return flight to earth from their mission to the ISS, the two were married, honeymooned in Hawaii while Janet and Robert watched the kids, and a little over a year after that, she gave birth to their son, Michael.

Jay was brought back to reality by the sound of the screen door between the garage and the house opening and Michelle moving grocery bags from inside to the garage floor. He looked again at the kids and noticed that Christian, now nineteen, no longer had the worried face, although it was noticeable that both were extremely nervous. He turned back to the garage and walked over to help with the groceries. "Did she get sick this morning?" he asked quietly. "She seems to be a bit pale."

"Yep," Michelle replied just as quietly about her eighteen year old daughter. "But she doesn't know I know. Don't worry, though. She took some motion sickness medication and ate some crackers. She should be alright for the ride up north."

"Chris knows she did, too, I think. He had a very worried expression on his face a little while ago, but she's got him calmed down again. They both are really nervous, though."

"Aww. Poor things," she said without any real sympathy. "I guess I shouldn't say it that way. It wouldn't be easy to have to tell my parents something like that, either."

The two each grabbed two of the four bags and moved to the trailer as they talked. "Still think we should do this?" Jay asked.

"Of course. It will be a lot of fun teasing them without them even knowing."

"I suppose so."

"Remember when we left the ISS and I teased you about the V.R. program you made? Think of how much fun that was and multiply it by twenty and that's how much fun we'll have teasing them the next couple of days."

"It was fun for you, but I was on the receiving end. All I could think about was that my career was going to end with a court marshal, and instead of taking care of Chris, I would be looking at the four walls of a prison cell. I was expecting charges of sexual harassment, conduct unbecoming an officer, Sexual mis-conduct, and just about anything else you might try to come up with."

"Sweetie," she said as they picked up the last two remaining bags. "Since you were trying to keep it to yourself, none of those fit. Besides, I already wanted you, too. Why do you think I told the operations manager I wouldn't go up without you at the controls? You're a wonderful pilot, love. But Swenson could have done the job without any problems. Anyway that's all in the past." They stopped at the freezer in the garage and she began loading his arms with bags of ice for the coolers that would hold the more perishable items. "Let's just concentrate on having fun with teasing them now."

"It does sound like fun," he answered.

An hour and a half later, everything was packed and Samantha's color had returned to her face. Since Mike was with his Aunt Jan and Uncle Rob, Jay put one of the coolers in the back seat of the car right behind the driver so that the kids would be forced to sit right next to each other. With Michelle in the front passenger seat, Jay driving, Samantha sitting between the cooler and Christian, the family started off on the nearly six hour drive to their favorite camping park in the lower part of Georgia.

Samantha hadn't slept well the night before, and with the added effects of the medication she took, was nodding off before they were through the first half hour of highway. She leaned against her step-brothers shoulder and he wrapped his arm around her as she let her eyes close. After a sneak peek to the front to be sure he wasn't caught, he gave her a quick kiss on her forehead and she smiled as she began to doze off. The teenagers didn't see the eyes of their father/step-father looking at them in the mirror as he held her and gave her that kiss. Nor did they see their step-mother/ mother lower her vanity mirror just in time to see the action before the girl settled in for some much needed rest and her step-brother turned to watch the scenery going by his window. Neither of them saw the knowing smiles that the two older ones had on their faces, instead of the scowls they would have expected.

Two and a half hours later, Samantha woke. Chris felt her stir and looked down at her, giving her a smile before once again kissing her forehead. With a glimpse toward the front, she snuck a kiss onto his neck then sat up straight. "Pop, can we stop and break out the MRE's? I'm getting hungry."

(Author's note. MRE stands for Meal Ready to Eat)

"No MRE's this trip, Sam," he replied.

"What? But we always have MRE's on the way up and the way back."

"Not always, honey," Michelle started. "Remember that year when I was pregnant with Michael? We didn't do MRE's that year."

Sam was shocked. She couldn't know, could she? "What are you trying to say, mom?"

"Are you pregnant again?" Chris jumped in.

"No, I'm not pregnant."

"Although by the end of the trip, who knows? Eh? Eh?" Jay interjected teasingly.

"Eww! Poppa!"

"What? You don't want another little Rogers crawling around the home?" Neither of the teens answered, the truth weighing on their minds. "Two miles to the next exit. We'll stop there to eat."

"So what about you, Sam?" Michelle asked after they were inside the diner they had stopped at and the food was ordered. "You said 'eww' when talking about children. Does that mean that you don't want to get married and have kids someday?"

"No. Of course I want those things, Mom. It's just that I didn't need to be reminded of the two of you having sex."

"As if you haven't," Michelle said.

"Mom!"

Your old mother ain't no dummy, girl. I know you lost your virginity to Tommy Weller."

"I guess that means that you are a bit of a dummy, because Tommy and I never had sex. Now, can we drop this line of conversation?

"So what would you want?" Jay piped in.

"What?"

"What would you want? A boy or a girl?"

Sam unconsciously put a hand on her belly. It was a question she had contemplated, but she couldn't let them know. "I don't know. I never thought about it," she lied. "One of each would be good, I suppose. But not all at once."

"Which first?" Michelle asked.

"Do we have to do this?"

"You're getting to the age where you'll be thinking of marriage and children. Don't you think you should know a bit about what you want?"

"As long she's healthy, I don't care which is first."

"Ah," replied Jay. "You said 'she.' I guess you would want the first to be a girl."

"Whatever. Can we drop it now? This whole thing is making me a bit uncomfortable."

"Let's switch gears," Michelle said. "What about the father of these as yet unknown children? What's he like?"

"Really? We have to do this?" She looked at Chris and tried to plead for his help with just her eyes.

"Don't look at me," he said. "You're the one on the hot seat."

"We'll get to you," Jay smiled. "Come on, Sam. Your ideal of the man you want to be married to."

She looked again at Chris, this time with a look of longing that she tried to keep hidden, then lowered her eyes. "He's as handsome as can be. Strong. Strong enough to protect me and the kids, but not so vain that he wouldn't let me help do so, too. And gentle when he needs to be. Sometimes, although he's very smart, he's as dumb as a box of rocks, and I'll have to step in to calm him down and let him know that everything's alright. He'll never step out on me with the baby sitter, and he'll love me as much as I love him for the rest of our lives." Under the table, Chris squeezed her hand in support.

"Wow," said Jay. "That seems like a lot to live up to."

"It's what we all want," Michelle interjected. "I'm very fortunate to have found just that." She smiled at her husband and gave his hand a squeeze before leaning in to kiss him a quick peck.

"So, Chris. If that's what all the women want, do you think that you could live up to that standard?"

"I don't know, Dad. I probably fit in with most of that, but I don't know about the handsome part. When it comes to that protection part and sharing the fight with her, I definitely don't have a problem with that. I've already done that with Sam."

"Yeah. That creep at the mall."

"What creep?" Michelle asked her motherly concern coming to the fore front.

"When we went to get you guys a gift for your anniversary year before last, a creep tried to hit on me in the mall parking lot. He was telling me all the dirty things he was going to do to me and then ended it by calling me a bitch. Chris told him that what he did was messed up and that he should apologize before he got his butt beat. The guy asked him if he really thought he could take him and Chris just looked at me and laughed. Then he turned back to the guy and said' I probably could do so easily enough, but I wasn't talking about me. I was talking about her.' The man had a couple of friends with him egging him on and he finally tried to punch Chris who ended up holding him against a car with his arm pinned behind his back. He then asked me if he should just finish the job or hand the idiot over to me to take care of. I chose the latter. Thanks to an observant couple, that guy and his friends were led away by mall security after taking a beating from the two of us. It's amazing what studying martial arts can do."

The food arrived and the conversation as they ate switched to more normal subjects.

As they piled into the car again, things began to seem strange to the two teens once more. Jay had taken a few minutes extra to get out to the car, and when he did, he uploaded a new destination in the GPS system. A few minutes later, and they were stopped outside a furniture store that was part of a chain, one of those stores also being in their home town of Cape Canaveral.

"Why are we stopping here?" asked Sam.

"Well, You know how we like to make these trips have some educational emphasis to them as well as fun? This is the educational part," Michelle answered.

"What are we going to do?" Chris voiced.

"We were talking about marriage and children a little bit ago. Part of being married is making decisions together about such things as what furniture to buy and staying within budget. So for the duration of this exercise, you two are going to be playing the part of a couple who are engaged and have to buy some furniture for your house. Most notably, bedroom furniture. For this exercise, you have two thousand five hundred dollars to spend, but be careful. You may need some for other things."

Sam and Chris gave each other a meaningful look as the older two exited the car. "They can't Know, can-."

"Shh!" Sam interrupted him. But she wondered about it, too. No, she thought to herself. There was no way that they had found out about it yet. This had to be just an exercise that they came up with.

As they entered the store, a man in a suit approached to see if he could help. He directed them to the area where the bedroom furniture was, and then stood back. Jay stood beside him and conversed quietly while the two teens looked around at the myriad of bed frames and headboards.

"Good grief," exclaimed Chris. "Look at this thing."

"Ugh!" Sam replied as she looked at a metal bed frame. "That is beyond ugly."

"I know. It looks like something out of those old movies where they show the barracks in the military."

"Hey, mom. How much space are we looking at as far as where this is would be placed?"

"Good for you, Sam," Michelle said. "I'm glad you're taking this exercise seriously. Let's say, um, the old play room. That should provide plenty of room for a newly married couple."

Chris and Sam looked at each other nervously. "I guess that means we don't have to worry about selecting too big a bed," Chris said. They continued to look at the pieces.

"Wow," Sam said. "Look at this one." What she was looking at was a frame that had a tall post at each corner.

"A four poster bed?" Chris said. "Really? Why would you want something like that?"

"Well, then I could tie you up on it to have my way with you."

"Samantha!" Michelle interjected and the girl gave a startled jump.

"Well, if we're going to roll play this out, why not add a little spice?" she asked quickly recovering and covering.

"Do you really think that you would enjoy that kind of thing?"

"Having never tried it, I wouldn't know, but probably not, to tell you the truth. Still, it makes for a little added flavor to the exercise."

"There's one thing you're forgetting, Sam," Chris interrupted. "Those posts are pretty tall and the ceilings in there are not exactly high."

"Yeah, I guess you're right. It is a bit impractical." She picked up the tag and looked at it. "And the price is a bit prohibitive, too. It's just that I've always wanted one of those beds with the canopy on it. But even if this is just an exercise, we should keep it real, I guess."

"That is the idea," Michelle said. "I'm sorry sweetie. I never knew that you wanted one like that."

"It's okay. I'll live."

After searching through the available bed frames for another ten minutes, they finally agreed on a frame that had only a headboard made of maple and elegant in its simplicity. They also selected a matching dresser, but decided not to select the matching nightstands, choosing instead to use the ones that they currently owned.

"Not bad," Sam stated. "Only six hundred for the whole thing. We're well within budget."

"Yes, but there is more to do," Michelle said. "The bed with frame is no good if you don't have box springs and mattress."

Sam again jumped at the sound of her mother's voice. For a few minutes, she had forgotten that she was with them and was just about to move to Chris' side and wrap her arms around him in a hug. "I hadn't thought of that. How much can they be, though? We should still be well within the budget."

"Let's find out," Michelle suggested.

The kid's were amazed at how much the mattress and box springs would have cost them. They selected a set that was a good match for the bed and added the cost to the total.

"That's fourteen hundred," Sam said. "Still in good shape. We could add one of those recliners that you always wanted, Chris. Your always trying to steal Poppa's until he makes you get out of it. And maybe one of those rocking glider things for me."

"Your forgetting something, Sam," Michelle butted in. "You still have to get furniture for the baby's room."

"Wh- wha-what?!" Chris stammered as his nerves ratcheted up another notch and Sam stared open mouthed and wide eyed like a deer caught in a pair of headlights.

"Oh. Didn't I tell you?" Michelle smiled. "For this exercise, Sam is pregnant. So now, you need to choose some stuff for the baby's room."

"Mom," began Sam. "What kind of game are you playing here?"

It's the kind of game that's designed to make you two realize the importance of staying in a budget and doing so while getting what you really need. So let's get moving and look at the baby furniture."