Disclaimer: I don't own Transformers, all rights to belong to their respective owners. Anything you recognise belongs to them, anything you don't belongs to me.
Story Summary:
Placing the kid onto a clear desk. Emily pondered just how to approach the situation. Did she need a hazmat suit? A gasmask? In all honesty, she had never smelt anything as vile as the stench the cute little blonde kid was currently emitting. Lennox owed her big for this.
So, this is not to be taken seriously it's just something that wouldn't go away. So, please read, review. Many thanks.
Holding the baby.
Just ten baby fingers and ten baby toes-
Troubles? Scandal?
Gosh- Nobody knows.
-The Bachelor Mother.
She had just finished her twelve-hour shift.
She was tired and grumpy. Her eyes were hurting from staring at a computer screen all day, her back ached from being hunched over her desk and she could feel the beginnings of an encroaching migraine.
Emily was already planning her evening of getting home, having a nice long soak maybe a glass of wine and not worrying about encryptions, viruses, coding or computers full stop. What she really wanted to do was switch off. She chuckled to herself. The chance would be a fine thing. In her two years of working at NEST she had yet to encounter a time when she could just switch off and not have to worry about implementing safe guards or any other odds and ends that always needed to be fixed or upgraded.
The sun was just setting over Diego Garcia, the sky filled with a soft pinkie- orange hue. It was the perfect time of night; the heat was just about bearable and the traffic on the way home would be considerable less than it would have been during rush hour. Packing up her small bag she grabbed her jacket, phone and keys from her locker and made her way out towards her bike, bidding bye to the MP's stationed in the guard room outside. She lifted the holdall under her seat to produce her helmet, when she heard it...
"Yo Quinn! Quinn wait up." Emily Quinn turned towards the sound of her name, seeing the familiar figure of Weapons Technician Caitlyn Henry rushing over to catch up with her.
"Jeez, for a small person you sure walk fast." Caitlyn panted somewhat out of breath. Emily stared at the red head bemused. When Emily had learnt that that Caitlyn was part of NEST she had been openly surprised and amused at the fact. After all it was damn near drilled into everyone that NEST was the best of the best. They prided themselves on the physical prowess of their soldiers ... and well looking at Caitlyn - the image didn't really fit. Caitlyn wasn't the fittest person she had ever encountered. The young technician smoked too much, drank too much and probably ate too much too (not that you could tell and even if you could, she was educated enough not to say it out loud). Hell, Emily was more fit and active then Cat and Emily proclaimed herself to be a self-certified couch potato.
"What's up?" It was a simple enough question she had thought. After all, when one usually goes out of one's way and pretty much ran across half of the car park, to catch her it's generally because they wanted you for something. It was only after such a small innocuous question was asked did Caitlyn seem to look decidedly shifty.
A look that wasn't missed by the programmer. She may have been good at reading computers, but she was an excellent people reader, especially when they were acting as suspiciously as this 25-year-old Weapons Tech was. Yes, she was a computer geek always had been she just wasn't one of those computer geeks who had no people skills whatsoever. It was the common assumption that most people had of her upon their first meeting. She had even been called O'Brien once as a joke and whilst Emily had been amused, the joke wasn't repeated (and if it was it was well out of earshot).
"Cat? What have you done?" Arms folded, eyebrows raised. Caitlyn knew the look well. It was the look Emily got whenever she meant business.
"Erm, well you've just finished your shift, right?" Emily nodded the affirmative, at this moment there was no point in lying. "And you have no plans, right? Of course, you don't you never do…" Caitlyn backtracked quickly at the raised eyebrows of her friend.
"Well, it's just, we have a situation on base - and it requires someone with a trustworthy and patient personality and - it's really important. Imperative even. You'll get paid for the overtime of course…" Caitlyn babbled away words spewing from her mouth so fast that Emily had trouble keeping up.
"What is it?" Another simple question. Caitlyn looked as though Emily had asked her to work out the square root of Pi. She was even more twitchy than she had done before. So, Emily reasoned whatever Cat had signed her up to do, she wasn't going to like it, not at all.
"Just follow me…please?" It must have been the puppy dog eyes that Caitlyn had used. For whatever reason, one that Emily couldn't fathom she found herself following the 5"6 female back into the NEST hangar, albeit somewhat reluctantly.
The first thing Emily noticed was the presence of the AUTOBOTS. Not that she could fucking miss them, they were for lack of a better description huge. Of course, she had seen them from a distance, driving, shooting that kind of thing. Her job meant that there was never any need for her to be up close and personal with them. The suddenly large hangar seemed dainty with towering Autonomous Robotic Organisms seemingly stood about - all powered up and raring to go. So, to say she was trying not to stare was somewhat of an understatement.
The next thing she noticed was the increased hustle and bustle of the hangar. Squads of NEST teams, suiting and booting up. Commands been shouted over to one another. Weapons being checked. Choppers and Humvees been fuelled.
Following her friend, Emily finally noticed the small group of soldiers currently huddled around Optimus left foot. Glancing across each of their faces, she managed to recognize a few Epps, Marsden, Lennox. She backtracked at that. Lennox? She scrubbed her eyes, in case her mind was playing tricks.
No, he was still there, still with fussing daughter attached to his hip.
Emily was somewhat flabbergasted at the sight.
Not at Lennox holding his daughter, no.
What surprised the young programmer was the fact that Lennox was on base. Suited and booted and in operational gear; whilst attempting to calm his fussing daughter. After all Lennox was on leave, (rumour had it that he was currently going through a messy divorce). Therefore, ideally shouldn't he be at home trying to calm his fussing daughter?
So, what in God's green earth of was he doing there with the squirt in tow? It seemed a bit late for an impromptu 'bring your kid to work day.' And Emily highly doubted those would be happening any time soon what with the AUTOBOTS rolling around and a small thing called national security.
It didn't take a genius to work out just what the hell Caitlyn had volunteered her to do and Emily was all for walking the fuck out right now. That was until a deep set of brown eyes had set themselves onto her.
"This her?" Lennox asked warily, weighing up the approaching female in a scrutinizing manor. Short, petite around 5"4. Slender build, brown hair, green eyes set behind thick wired glasses. She was biting her top lip nervously and Emily seemed to pause in her tracks when she met his gaze.
He really was beautiful in a manly way. So, caught up in how beautiful he was she appeared to miss half of the conversation buzzing over the top of her head, until the deep vibrations of Ironhide's voice cut through her current musings.
"…She seems competent enough. She is female after all. Isn't it programmed into their systems …?" Ironhide replied looking at the small human female inquisitively. She appeared somewhat daunted about the current situation that her soon to be ex best friend had gotten her into.
"Competent enough for what?" She questioned as the group shared a few uneasy glances.
"It won't be for long." Major Lennox explained hurriedly. "It's just that I was called in unexpectedly." Lennox sends a pointed look towards Prime and the AUTOBOT leader almost looks sheepish at the comment. Almost.
Emily nodded staring at them all. Bright green eyes flicking back and forth from Lennox to the kid and then back to Lennox and the expectant look that had suddenly appeared on his face.
"Oh no. Oh no. No definitely not." She was shaking her head hands held out defensively, as though she was trying to ward the kid away just by gesturing at it.
"Please, Em. They're desperate here…and its extra pay. It'll only be for a couple of hours…" Emily didn't have the time to even protest. For the kid was hurriedly deposited into her arms. The changing bag was dropped onto the floor next to her as Lennox rolled off a list of do's and don'ts. Epps was laughing heartedly seemingly finding the whole situation beyond hilarious. She would have narrowed a glare in his direction, if she wasn't so utterly dumbfounded at her current situation.
"What?" Was the only word she managed to utter as she looked at the chubby cheeked blonde hair blue eyed two-year-old, currently staring up at her smiling. Said two-year-old who thought it would be a brilliant idea to suddenly latch on to her necklace and try to strangle her with it, such was the strength of the kids grip.
"It'll only be for a couple of hours." Lennox hastened to add at the unwilling babysitter. "You be a good girl for Daddy Annabelle." A brief kiss and he's waving goodbye jogging towards the awaiting vehicles. Annabelle begins waving enthusiastically back, her small chubby hand still gripping tightly onto her necklace. What did the kid have a Vulcan death grip? The small procession quickly made their escape; and so, she was left holding the baby so to speak.
"You're a natural Em!" Caitlyn shouted out as she followed Lennox and Epps towards the waiting Humvees. "You'll be fine!" Was the last thing Em heard and a final thumbs up as the red head disappeared from her view. The screech of tires and transforming metal filled the hangar as Emily watched them deploying NEST teams disappear into a blanket of sand and descending darkness.
The hangar seemed somewhat quiet after half of the base had just rolled out. Sighing loudly, she glanced around, noticing that they were effectively for the lack of a better term left on their own.
She felt an awful lot like Ginger Rogers at that moment.
"Looks like it's just you and me kid." The kid stared up at the unfamiliar face looking somewhat perplexed. Well as much as a 2-year-old could look at someone. And then it hit her, literally. She was surprised not to see a green haze surrounding her at that particular moment.
"You have gotta be kidding me." She groaned out in disgust. Unless she was mistaken, that god awful smell that had suddenly reached her nostrils appeared to be coming from the kids now seemingly full nappy.
Lennox, Caitlyn … even Optimus owed her big time for this.
Placing the kid onto a clear desk. Emily pondered just how to approach the situation. Did she need a hazmat suit? A gasmask? In all honesty, she had never smelt anything as vile as the stench the cute little blonde kid was currently emitting.
Jesus, just what did this kid eat? Trash?
Picking a clean nappy out of the changing bag, Emily braced herself.
So much for having a relaxing night.
This wasn't gonna be pretty. This wasn't going to be pretty at all.
"Okay. On the count of three kid." The kid just smiled, kicking her legs happily at the current turn of events.
One, two…
"Oh, sweet Jesus!"