Affirmative
Disclaimer: Transformers and any characters related to the franchise to do not belong to me. I just like to use them for my amusement.
A/N: I'm just gonna pretend that I haven't watched the third movie.
Term: oorah - A motivational cry used by the United States Marine Corps.
...
Before she married Will, Sara was in the Marines.
She was deployed three times before she finally settled down. She would have deployed a fourth time if not for one routine check-up with a surprising twist when her doctor gave her a hearty congratulations on her first pregnancy.
Sara blinked.
Her body numb and her mind shutting down at the very notion that she could be carrying a life within her body.
How?
Why?
Oh wait, she's totally capable of carrying a life.
The monthly bleeding isn't there for show.
She stiffly thanked her doctor, scheduled an appointment for her next visit and walked out the hospital with a handful of pamphlets regarding the excitement of childbirth and children.
Stepping into her- no, their apartment – small and just enough room for two people to live comfortably, they were always away on their own individual assignments – Sara pressed her back against the cool vertical length of her mahogany door. She closed her eyes and carefully wrapped her arms around her still flat stomach.
"Hello," she whispered, mostly into the empty apartment. The gold band on her fourth finger dully glinting as she tightened her grip across her abdomen, "I'll be your mom." She sighed, "And I kill people for a living."
The Marines prepared her for many things.
They broke her down and built her back up.
Deployment at a moment's notice.
Fifteen miles of non-stop running while carrying her weight in equipment.
The capability of shooting a man with her sniper rifle from 1000 meters away and the ability to reappear back into her assigned post without anyone the wiser.
The foresight of packing extra bandaging within her lower leg pocket in the case she ever had to use it to save her squad mate or watch them die before her very eyes.
Sara thought she was prepared for the world at large.
However.
The Marines did not prepare her for motherhood.
No pamphlets or books or cheesy educational videos prepared her for morning sickness, the cravings, the swelling of various body parts.
The first week of moaning into her bed and cursing Will for being Will and his damn sperm, Sara decided to fall back into the familiar.
Despite Will's worrying, Sara did PT (physical training), she ran (walked the last trimester) for miles until the doctors mandated bed rest.
She would often have conversations with her extended belly, with her baby girl, and they ranged from the mundane "You better not have Aunt Franny's feet, they're hideous" to the ones not necessarily directed to her daughter but important nonetheless, "Promise me you won't let me –especially your dad- screw you up."
When she first held her baby, her Annabelle –wet, pink, and screaming like a little banshee- Sara knew that her newest and most long-lasting assignment would be the hardest and most fulfilling.
"Oorah," she murmured as she pressed her cheek against her daughter's forehead.
The Marines may not have trained her for childrearing but it does help. Five hours of sleep is considered a luxury and Annabelle enjoys waking up in the middle of the night at a moment's notice. She can carry her weight of baby diapers from the store to her car with the utmost ease.
Annabelle's stroller is specially modified for long distance running too, so hey, she's back to pre-baby weight.
Oorah.
There are noticeable pleasures of civilian life.
She doesn't have to wait for that phone ringing - her commander on the other line with another yearlong stint in a foreign country where gun regulations were a little too lax. She doesn't have to wait for the noise around her to thrum to a tolerable hum while she waits in her bunk, waiting for orders, waiting with a rifle by her bed to keep her country safe.
Sara was always waiting.
Now there isn't a day where she's called to duty. She doesn't have to hold the tremble of her hands, the fallout from the constant rush of adrenaline her body still in her bloodstream from earlier that day due to another assignment, while being debriefed.
If she closes her eyes and really concentrates, she can still smell the dry air of the desert, the sand beneath her boots, and the sun beating against her face like an aching, constant reminder that this-this seemingly barren wasteland was her temporary home.
Sara almost misses it.
Although, she has come to learn to appreciate the simple pleasures of motherhood.
It's significantly quieter.
The battlefield with gunfire thundering in her eardrums for days, the shouting of her comrades and civilians from all sides, the flames shooting from cars hotter than the blistering air around her that penetrates her uniform feeling like a never-ending story until-until- she looks down at slumbering form of Annabelle. Her precious baby swathed in cotton and smelling like baby powder and lilacs from her bath with the picture of Will by her bassinet, and Sara's shoulders slump and the corners of her lip quirk upward and she accepts she wouldn't take back anything from her life as a soldier and wife.
She's even more grateful for her time in the Marines because they prepared her for loss.
Sara is the wife of an active duty soldier, she still has contacts and friends who are on the battlefield; loss is to be expected.
She's personally lost more people than she cares to count. People in her platoon, the civilians that helped her with their native language, her contacts spanning from the urban cities to the rural villages in the unforgiving mountains, and there was that one child of that mother who day strapped herself with-
Sara carefully keeps their pictures, their letters, the news clippings –carefully preserved despite the long trip from their respective countries- tucked in a box in a locked cabinet underneath the floorboards of her closet. The shoeboxes stacked meticulously over her secret storage are a deterrent for any wayward soul. The firearm and backup clips tucked in her stilettos shoebox.
She was-is a soldier.
Once a Marine, always a marine.
There's no such thing as a former soldier when you've placed your life on the line and felt the jolt of a rifle in your hands as it fires and hits its mark with a numbing bang.
Sara sweeps wayward blonde hair away from her face, her attempt to look presentable before her husband despite the grainy resolution of a satellite conversation and picks up Annabelle with the other to see her father for the first time.
Sara grins wryly to herself. Despite the fact that she's no longer out on the field, she's still waiting.
Will is currently a soldier deployed in no-man's land and contact, no matter how brief, are a luxury.
Their conversation is cut short and despite his hurried reassurances, she can hear the screams and gunfire in the distance.
Her heart feels like it's stuck in her throat as she stares at a blank screen where husband's smiling face was just milliseconds ago.
The Marines definitely did not prepare her for this-this robot or machine, alien or whatever.
Sara meets Ironhide at the same time as Annabelle. After the reunion with Will, the soldier scratches the back of his neck bashfully as he motions toward the large, black TopKick parked on their driveway.
"So I have-well, um, let me introduce you to the newest member of the family," he finally says. "Our newly appointed Autobot guardian: Ironhide."
Will barely finishes his sentence before the black TopKick's headlines glow faintly blue –Sara's hand shoots behind her back, her fingers grasping the warm, familiar metal of her gun- as the truck starts to transform.
Sara wonders if she should start packing her semi-automatic rifle in one of the many compartments of Annabelle's diaper bag.
The groan of machinery rearranging and reassembling itself –the reassembling of this machine was eerily beautiful- and suddenly she's faced with a 25-foot tall robot staring down at her significantly smaller form.
Annabelle is in Will's arms. She blinks her large blue eyes up at the hulking figure several times before a large grin spreads across her pink lips and she raises her hands toward the robot. She's cooing nonsense at him, and Sara's heart freezes when blue optics are suddenly focused on her defenseless daughter.
(She completely ignores the fact that Will is holding her protectively in his arms.)
Their new guardian –Ironhide- cocks his head to the side before settling himself (surprisingly, very gracefully for one so bulky) on one knee. He scans her daughter with surprisingly gentle blue eyes –optics, Will would tell her later- and if he had an eyebrow, it would be quirked as he stares at the pink swathed bundle that is Annabelle Lennox.
Will grins, "This is my daughter, Annabelle." He motions toward Sara, "And this star-struck human next to my side is Major Sara Lennox of the United States Marines – my pistol ready wife." He tilts his head toward her, "No sudden movements, buddy. She's packing."
The warmth of the barrel of her weapon against her lower back is a comforting reminder.
Ironhide looks at her, his blue optics scanning her but even more so, Sara is suddenly very naked under his scrutinizing gaze. She hasn't felt this way since Will first opened his eyes after lying unconscious in Med Bay for three days. He looked straight at her with those brilliantly sharp blue eyes and a question regarding his squad members on his lips – daring her to avoid answering the question or even lie.
"She does have a surprisingly large arsenal of hidden weapons under her clothing despite her slight build," Ironhide states. Sara could hear the lingering undertones of appreciation in his mechanical voice.
Will blinks, "I thought she only had those two-"
"Four," Sara clarifies and Will turns around to look at her with wide, startled blue eyes.
Old habits die hard.
"Major Sara Lennox," Ironhide states, her baritone voice warm despite the formality of his words, "It is my honor to make your acquaintance."
Sara automatically straightens her back and she feels like she's back in boot camp all over again in the presence of this strange being who is now her guardian. She will have a long talk with Will later. She plants a smile on her face and raises her hand in his direction, "It's a pleasure."
Her breath catches as he raises his own hand, the sound of metal grinding against metal and the setting sun beating down her back as he raises his hand toward her and extends his black finger toward.
Sara halts breathing for barely a moment, anticipation, the same anticipation she felt when she took her first step into the seemingly endless expanse of the desert.
Her fingers gently touch his finger, the sun-kissed metal surprisingly warm to the touch. Despite whatever practical notions that her mind warns her about the giant robot in her home, around her newborn child, her instincts tell her that she can trust him.
After all, her instincts told her to grab that child before their mother detonated the bomb hidden underneath her clothes.
It was the same nudge from her instincts that willed her to give Will, a soldier in Med Bay with a concussion and a tendency to smart mouth to the doctors and leave his bed only to be caught checking up on his soldiers, a second look and her phone number.
Ironhide grunts –something along the lines of a chuckle- and they continue staring at one another until a whimper snaps their attention back to Annabelle. She's still staring at Ironhide, feeling very left out. Will attempts to reassure her, planting a tender kiss on her soft, blonde hair, but Annabelle will have none of it until she introduces herself to the newest member of their family.
Ironhide stares at her quizzically but he stretches out his finger toward her.
Will takes several steps closer to Ironhide, holding Annabelle in his arms as she attempts to squirm away from him and toward the gigantic being. When both of her tiny hands meet the warm, unforgiving metal of his finger, she looks at him with large eyes filled with awe. She gives a shrill, delighted squeal before cuddling back into Will's chest, suddenly shy but still peaking at Ironhide through the fan of her long blonde eyelashes.
Ironhide quirks his head at the small pink bundle and Sara laughs, long and loud as she leans against Will's side and looks down at Annabelle as she returns her attention back to her mother.
"Be easy on Ironhide, Annabelle," Sara tells her daughter fondly while Will smiles gratefully at her.
Annabelle burbles happily, her bright blue eyes alight with laughter as she darts her attention from her parents and the gigantic robot towering over her family.
Sara was a soldier who handled two deployments in war-torn countries; the third deployment was with a list of targets sanctioned by her government to kill. It was during that deployment that she met soldier turned incapacitated patient who had a tendency to disappear from his assigned bed.
He carried his IV bag in his pocket like a bag of peanuts.
That same year, she became the wife of a husband who constantly left for classified missions for long periods of time.
She is the mother of a child with a smile too reminiscent of her father's and eyes –keen and attentive- like her mother's.
Surely, the appearance of a guardian robot suddenly thrown onto her lap will be a piece of cake.
Sara doesn't have to worry about babysitters now.
SS: What do you think? I didn't want Sara to be confined in that one-dimensional character as a 'mother' or a 'wife'. She may have been an ordinary woman, but c'mooon, if you're married to Will, you better have one hell of a backstory. I sort of wrote this on the fly (at 1am) so hey, if you want critique for my lack of grammatical skillz, then feel free.