Chapter: Chapter Six: Meet the Family
Chapter Summary: Every family has its quirks…
Word Count: 6, 272
Disclaimer: I do not own Transformers: The Movie (Either of them) or Transformers: The Animated Series (Any of them). They belong to Hasbro and what have you. I also don't own any franchises or songs or movie references you may notice. I just own an over-active imagination.
Rating: (T) - (PG-13)
Warnings: Bad Humor, Gender-bending. SPOILERS!
Author's Note: There are many definitions for 'Family', remember that.
Chapter Six: Meet the Family
Why was she always stuck in the worst positions? Sam lamented her loss of the comfortable passenger seat as the yellow Camaro drove peacefully to an unknown destination, trying to sit in a way that would make her as heavy as possible.
Mikaela Banes was more trouble than she was worth, even if Sam felt she had to giver her some respect; the girl was determined.
Their little seating issue had quickly gotten out of control to the point where they were shouting and Sam had exited the car so that she could stand her ground properly against the taller girl. It was silly, but neither girl was willing to allow a compromise.
It was ironic that in the end they'd had their minds made up for them by the car which the seat belonged to.
Their shouts had been nearing deafening levels when the Camaro had given an ear shattering roar of its engine before rolling forward, slowly picking up speed. The message was clear: Hurry up or you get left behind.
That had been enough to shock the girls out of their argument and had sent them both running after the car as if the hounds of hell were biting at their ankles. They'd made a lunge for the much coveted seat at the same time and after much complaining and fumbling Sam had found herself sitting in Mikaela's lap, looking out of the driver's window.
The glare that seemed to inhabit her face all too regularly increased in strength as she stared moodily out of the driver's window; her position was not at all good for her. A dull ache had started to spread through her back and she had to constantly flex her calf muscles and toes to keep them from going stiff; dehydration had set in long ago and it was not helping the headache that had been, inevitably, caused by the throbbing half of her face, not to mention that she was hungry. It wouldn't be long before she started trembling from her lack of energy.
Huffing, she braced a hand against the dashboard and another against the backrest of her 'seat' and turned slowly to the side, performing one of the moves her physiotherapist had taught her. Her vertebrae clicked slightly and she released a contented sigh at the relief that swept through her back.
"Don't do that!" Mikaela whined, an expression of mild disgust on her face.
"Sorry, I'll just accept my future as a hunchback so that you don't have to be too grossed out," Sam muttered hotly, leaning back against the passenger door roughly, jarring the taller girl's leg as she did so.
"Would you stop being so annoying? I know you think I'm shallow and that I'm some jock's cheerleader but can you just give me a break? I'm stuck in the same situation as you, you know!" Sam merely rolled her eyes.
"Oh, I don't think you're shallow, I know you're shallow," Sam retorted without remorse, "Let me up."
She'd had enough of the girl for one day; pride be damned, she was going to the backseat- at least she could lay down back there.
"Stop it! Somebody will see!" Mikaela cried frantically, trying to pull the petite girl back onto her lap while twisting her head this way and that to look at the drivers around them.
"Let go!" Sam knew she was being difficult, in fact she was doing it intentionally; she wasn't made for tolerating girls like Mikaela, it just wasn't in her standards, and today she'd had to endure more than enough stress without arguing repeatedly with the girl.
She wasn't going to allow it anymore, she couldn't; she had reached the end of her patience with the girl and if she didn't put some space between them she would not take responsibility for anything that she did.
Stumbling into the backseat, as the popular girl finally gave up on trying to keep Sam with her in the front, she toed off her running shoes, resisting the urge to whimper pitifully and mourn their battered state. Drawing her legs up onto the large seat she slowly eased herself down so that she could lie comfortably without disrupting any of her bruises.
A smile spread across Sam's face as the seat warmed slightly beneath her and the noises from the outside seemed to die away. The Camaro was good at cheering her up, even if she wasn't the one behind the wheel.
She shouldn't have gotten into the car.
It was stupid, and she didn't know what she had thought she could get out of it. Mikaela heaved a depressed sighed and glanced into the rearview mirror. Sam was sleeping peacefully in the back, as if she wasn't really laying in the backseat of a car that turned into an alien robot but her own bed. She didn't understand Samantha Witwicky.
She had been trying figure out just what went on in that girl's head for hours now but she'd had no luck; she'd never met another so much like her. She knew, from passing rumors and gossiped, half-false stories, that Sam was notorious for getting into verbal spats with her friends and that she openly expressed her dislike for the football team and Mikaela knew that if outright brawling would not create a big, black stain on Sam's perfect record then her friends would have something to worry about and, judging from her experience today, the Football team wouldn't be able to catch her if she ever did something stupid to the buffoons.
She had a temper, that was certain, she could think on her feet and was even faster moving on them and apparently she had no problem with confronting alien robots. And that was all Mikaela knew about Samantha Witwicky.
She didn't like it. She didn't like how the girl could make assumptions about her and be so near the truth, so close to her own fears. Frowning, she ducked her head. She didn't like people like Sam; people who acted like they knew everything about everyone, never stopping to think that maybe, just maybe, others didn't lead perfect, happy lives like themselves.
Shaking her head, she yawned shortly while wrapping her arms around herself defensively (she would admit that she was still wary of the alien car), it was pointless to carry on thinking the way she was at that moment; it would get her nowhere in her current situation. She just wished they could get on, just for a little while, so that they could get through whatever they were going to face soon. Settling oddly in her seat Mikaela turned her head towards the night sky and prepared for a long night, perfectly appeased to stare at the endless darkness.
She didn't know how long it had been since Sam had fallen asleep but Mikaela had long since started feeling sleep's slow descent upon her. She hadn't felt very tired back at the power plant but it seemed that the rush of danger had faded and with it her energy. She couldn't imagine what the girl in the backseat must have gone through to fall asleep so quickly after running for her life. But as tired as she was, Mikaela would not relent and close her eyes; her brain wouldn't allow her to do such a thing, conjuring a million and one possible things that could happen if she fell asleep, each less desirable than the last.
Her resolve seemed to be a good one, however, as she would never have noticed something glaring in the distance had she been asleep.
Straightening and stretching as best she could Mikaela leaned forward on the dashboard and narrowed her eyes at the light in the sky. At first she thought it was a plane, or maybe a very bright city light but these ideas were soon discarded as she continued to stare at the object in the sky. Soon she realized that it couldn't have been a plane or a light, it was moving too fast and it wasn't white, the light it exuded was bright orange, as if it was burning and the closer it got she realized that it wasn't a single entity at all but four separate ones and suddenly she drew back as her eyes widened.
"Sam, wake up," she whispered, her breath caught almost painfully in her throat. She needed to make sure she wasn't imagining things, that she really was seeing those... meteors...?
"Wake up, Sam." She said firmly, much louder than before, a slight note of panic sinking into her voice, a tremble that was easily noticeable in the silence of the car.
"Sam, wake up! Sam!" She couldn't discern what the burning objects were, their flames dancing around them as they sped towards earth, but she knew that they weren't meteors.
"Sa-"
"What?" The sleepy, and very grouchy, girl growled, opening an eye to see Mikaela panicking in the front, "What's wrong? Is the Demon Cop back?"
She was sitting upright in an instant and Mikaela winced when the girl flinched dramatically at the fast movement, she'd most likely pulled at a bruised muscle, before shaking her head and stumbling into the driver's seat, grabbing her running shoes as she went.
"Look, up in the sky," Mikaela explained softly, feeling sorry for her previous thoughts of the girl; she was obviously in pain and if she had been in the same position she had no doubt that she too would be more than a little irritated at everything.
"Fire?" The girl said distractedly, giving the burning objects a passing glance as she rubbed at her eyes tiredly, "You woke me up to look at fire in the… sky?"
Blinking, the girl realized what she had said and, gripping the steering wheel, pushed herself forward to look at the burning lights making a rapid fall into the atmosphere with wide eyes.
"Should we get out of the car?" Mikaela ventured, looking around the wide alley between two old warehouses they had finally stopped in.
The girls had spent a good ten minutes overreacting and speculating before Sam finally declared that they would just have to sit and wait patiently as she didn't believe that her car would put them in danger, not when it had saved them back at the power plant. There was also the fact that she'd promised herself that she'd see this journey to the end, wherever that may be, and so would stay with her car no matter what. The robot's presence was comforting now that she knew he wasn't going to squash her under one of his big feet, or something along those lines, as she had thought he would do when she'd first seen him in the junkyard.
"Probably," She murmured, hesitantly opening her door and stepping out into the cold air of the night.
Stepping back Sam looked over the top of her car to Mikaela, "How long was I asleep?"
"An hour, maybe two… I wasn't paying attention," The girl answered, wrapping her denim jacket around herself tightly, trying not to shiver.
"So you didn't pay any attention to where we were going?" The girl shook her head and Sam frowned, "You do realize we may not even be in California anymore, right?"
"Does it matter anymore?" The other girl whispered back, looking at the ground.
Sam sighed, of course it didn't, it hadn't mattered from the moment they'd both decided to get in the car. Looking up she studied the sky; she could only see a deep blue hue behind the thin clouds, the meteors (though she doubted that was what they truly were) had probably crashed by now. Suppressing a shiver at the thought she turned back to Mikaela.
"No, it doesn't matter anymore."
A few more minutes passed with the girls standing, hugging themselves to keep from the cold, in tense silence, periodically throwing glances at the Camaro between them and then at either end of the alley, waiting for something. After a particularly violent tremble Sam's knee jerked worryingly causing to her to sigh with annoyance; she needed to conserve her energy but standing in the frigid air was not helping her sore body at all.
"Are you alright?" Mikaela called from the other side of the Camaro.
"Peachy," she answered shortly, not meaning to sound so ungrateful at the girl's concern, and at her words the Camaro rolled forward, away from the girls and transformed.
After a few seconds of studying the two girls the robot walked to a wall, settling down against it, before making a beckoning gesture towards the teenagers. Tilting her head, and acting much braver than she felt, Sam approached, her brows lifting as she felt the warmth radiating from the robot.
Stopping a few meters in front of the yellow robot she looked at his face inquiringly and the robot gestured for her to get closer still, a warm, reassuring smile on his metallic face. Faltering but quickly steeling her nerves she took a few more steps and stood, a little warily, next to one of his large, bent legs. She jumped slightly as he reached down and she stiffly let the robot push her gently towards his closest leg, relaxing when he stopped pushing and let her lean against a warm metal calf, his large hand still around her; shielding her from the coldness that hung in the alley. She watched as the robot turned towards Mikaela and gestured for her to go to him as well.
"Come on, Mikaela; he's warm," She called reassuringly, though she probably didn't need to as the girl hurried to them when she heard Sam's last words; quickly huddling against the robots leg with Sam.
Finally comfortable, leaning limply against the Camaro's leg, the girls waited in complacent silence for whatever the robot had brought them to the alley for.
Less than half an hour later, when Sam's senses were thoroughly dulled and heavy with warmth and lack of energy, the robot stirred, turning his head to the mouth of the alley. The sudden movement did not go unnoticed by the two girls.
"Are they here?" Mikaela questioned, standing on her tiptoes to peek over the robot's hand and in the direction in which he was staring, "I see something…"
"What? What is it? How big is it big?" Sam immediately threw at the girl, perking up and also standing on her tiptoes to peer over the robot's hand, though she failed in that particular endeavor.
"Looks like a truck," Mikaela answered dumbly, staring at the approaching semi, "It is a truck, it's blue and… looks like it has red flames…"
"Move, I wanna see!" As Sam uttered this, the sounds of several engines rang out behind them, "More of them? How many meteors were there?"
"Four…" Mikaela recalled, turning to squint in the light smog for the other vehicles.
Soon the vehicles were assembled around them, each looking as impressive as the next with their large statures and shiny paint, and Sam impatiently tapped her car's fingers, latching onto Mikaela's arm as she did so, and squeezed between the first gap the robot made between his hand and leg to run to the center of the circle the cars made, facing the large semi.
And suddenly she didn't feel very confident. The truck was huge; almost twice her height, and if she guessed correctly then the size of the vehicle corresponded with the size of the robot, and if this was true then the truck was… much, much bigger than her car… With this thought in mind she fleetingly considered running back to her Camaro.
Clearing her throat and failing slightly due to the dryness in her mouth Sam took a small step forward, looking from the nose of the truck to the windshield, "Hello?"
The truck responded by shifting its grill, continuing on backwards to transform completely. This, it seemed, was the signal for the other vehicles because as soon as the semi started unraveling to reveal a robot they too began their own transformations.
"Oh my God," Mikaela breathed as she rested a hand on Sam's shoulder, drawing closer to both Sam and the new robot.
After what seemed like an eternity the robot stood at its full height and looked down at the two girls and Sam wondered if this was how misbehaving children felt when they had been caught by their strict and unrelenting father.
The robot stared down at them before kneeling down. The action caused her breath to hitch in her throat several times before she could breathe easily; it was much more disconcerting to watch this robot kneel down in front of them, he was much bigger, almost twice the size of her Camaro, and he held an infinitely more severe face. Once again, she marveled at how human their faces looked; the semi's face seemed to be modeled to look exactly like a human's, just like her Camaro's, various curved and slanted plates fitted together, moving smoothly as the robot blinked, the tip of the robot's almost Roman nose twitching ever so slightly as it opened its too human lips to speak.
"Are you Samantha Jenna Witwicky, descendant of Archibald Witwicky?" A deep voice rumbled from the robot, calm and authoritative, his question making Sam tense and lean back as the robot brought its face closer to her.
Beside her Mikaela squeaked at the robot's recognition and shuffled closer to her, Sam could understand her sentiments exactly.
"Ye-" The word caught in her throat, she tried again, "Yeah."
"My name is Optimus Prime. We are autonomous robotic organisms from the planet Cybertron," Sam's eyes widened in understanding and she spared a darting glance back at the yellow robot standing to her right.
"Or, more conveniently, Autobots," The interjection came from the white Ford ambulance, who was studying them a little too keenly for Sam's comfort, on their left.
"Autobots?" Mikaela repeated, not looking away from the tall Optimus Prime.
"What's up, homies?" The grey sports car called to the two girls, flipping impressively in a way that vaguely reminded Sam of a dance move.
"My first lieutenant, designation: Jazz," Optimus Prime explained.
"This looks like a cool place to kick it," the sports car, Jazz, commented, executing another move which was reminiscent of a dance sequence, before jumping back slightly to lounge on an already battered car; all the while smiling charmingly as he used a metallic finger to lift one end of the glass visor that shielded his eyes to wink at the girls.
Sam and Mikaela stared, mouths hanging wide open.
"H-How-Where did he-Why is he speaking like that?" Sam asked awkwardly, trying to muster up her remaining confidence.
"We have learned Earth's languages through the World Wide Web," Optimus Prime provided once again as the girls wrenched their gazes away from the reclining robot and turned their attentions back towards him.
"Huh," was the girls' simultaneous reply.
Sam opened her mouth to speak but promptly forgot what she was going to say as she heard a sound behind her that gave her goose-bumps; Optimus Prime's ever present explanation did nothing for her nerves as she turned to look at the large, transformed black GMC truck.
"My weapons specialist, Ironhide," Sam resisted the urge to hide behind her Camaro's legs as the robot spun two large cylindrical objects on his arms in the same manner as old western cowboys did with their guns in the black and white movies. Her nerves just about shattered when the ends of the two cylinders started glowing, one blue and the other orange, with a foreboding whine as the GMC truck just about quoted Clint Eastwood.
"Are ya feeling lucky, punks?"
"Easy, Ironhide!" Optimus Prime reprimanded sharply, his voice rising slightly, "Put them away, they're unarmored femmes, leave them be!"
"Prime's right, Ironhide, their hormone levels are spiking sporadically with large amounts of adrenaline; they're afraid," the ambulance commented and Ironhide, the GMC truck, backed away sulkily.
'Lovely, a robot who can smell fear,' Sam despaired internally, trying her best to calm her breathing.
"This is our chief medical officer; Ratchet," The red and blue robot gestured to the ambulance who nodded down at the teenagers slowly, "And you already know your guardian, Bumblebee."
Smiling widely Sam turned to the robot to see him doing a little jig to some backing music.
"Bumblebee? So that's your name?" she laughed as the robot nodded enthusiastically, "Why didn't you tell me?"
Ratchet answered for him, "His vocal processors were damaged in battle, I haven't been able to repair him yet."
Both girls turned to the yellow robot, their expressions soft; they could both feel sympathy for the yellow robot, they couldn't imagine a day without their voices.
"But… you'll fix him, right?" Sam questioned a little forcefully, looking at the ambulance.
The medical officer nodded, "It is only a matter of time."
Nodding, they stood in silence, each group waiting for the other to act first. Sam couldn't help but feel a little unnerved; all five robots were staring at them intently, as if they were expecting something. Grinding an already battered shoe against the concrete ground Sam cleared her throat.
"So… Why are you here, exactly?" She was answered immediately, as if the large robot was waiting for her cue.
"We are here looking for the All Spark. And we must find it before Megatron and the Decepticons."
"What-a-tron?" Sam questioned while at the same time Mikaela whispered beside her.
"Decepti-who?"
The large robot raised a hand to the side of his head and for a second Sam wondered if he was annoyed but the thought was quickly disposed of when a small whir issued from the red and blue robot as the scenery around them changed, turning into an unfamiliar, metallic world. The ground took on a dark sheen as parts of it cracked and fell away, revealing something that looked suspiciously like lava and all around them large towers and spiked spires rose out of the ground. Sam stumbled back into Mikaela as a spire sprouted close to them.
"Our planet was once a powerful empire, peaceful and just," Optimus Prime began, his voice worn and heavy, "Until we were betrayed by Megatron, leader of the Decepticons. All who defied them were destroyed and finally our war consumed the planet and the All Spark was lost to the stars. Megatron followed it to Earth, where Captain Witwicky found him."
Sam jerked back from the spire she had been tapping absentmindedly, trying to assure herself that it really was a hologram, when she heard the robot's words, not noticing as the hologram disappeared.
"M-my- Captain Witwicky? Are you sure?" That couldn't be right; her family wasn't that adventurous… But hadn't she read in her late ancestor's belongings that he thought he had discovered an 'Iceman'?
Optimus Prime nodded solemnly before continuing, "We know that your ancestor discovered him in what you call the Arctic Circle and from what we are to understand; he accidentally activated Megatron's navigation system; imprinting the co-ordinates of the location of the All Spark on Earth onto Captain Witwicky's glasses."
"His glasses?" Sam sputtered, "How'd you know about his glasses?"
"Bumblebee has been tracking your family for some years now, he is an able scout," Optimus Prime answered, gesturing towards the yellow robot.
Raising a brow Sam held her tongue; the robot had not answered her question and had implied that her car had been… stalking her family for a long time. She couldn't bring herself to object the robot's actions however, not when he'd most assuredly saved her life from the Demon Cop, and especially not after she heard what Ratchet said after Optimus Prime's explanation.
"If the Decepticons find the All Spark, they will use its power to transform Earth's machines; to build a new army."
Sam paled, "They can do that?"
"And the human race will be extinguished," Optimus Prime finished.
Mikaela whimpered next to her as Sam tried hard not to sway on her feet.
"Okay, I'll go get the glasses. You just stay here and keep them here. Alright?" Sam stated apprehensively as she exited the Camaro and tried to peer around her mother's numerous flower bushes to look at her house.
"Alright, just hurry back," Mikaela urged, pushing her along. It was obvious that the girl had been shook by their meeting with the Autobots.
Nodding understandingly Sam dashed away, trying hard not to think of the various outcomes of the night. It was surreal and exhausting; never before in her life had she ever thought she'd have such a distressing day. From getting chased by sentient cars (one of which turned out to be her friendly guardian and the other not so much) and then engaging in a pseudo-chase with a jittery silver alien to meeting an alien faction from the far reaches of the universe to finding out that she, possibly, most likely, definitely, held the deciding factor of a millions of years old war in her possession: Sam had no doubt that her life could not get any weirder.
Of course, she had never planned on being back late after curfew and meeting her father at the back door.
"Sam, where have you been?" Her father's worried voice called as he rushed towards her.
'Think fast, think fast, think fast!' Sam's inner voice crowed, panic engulfing her mind; she could not waste her time explaining what she had gone through today, it would take too long.
"Been training. All day. Need to go to my room now!" Sam said as she rushed past her father.
"Training? You're late for curfew! Sam, come back we're discussing this now!" Ron Witwicky chastised.
"Dad! Can't! Gotta go!" Sam whined before exclaiming desperately, "Time of the month!"
After that she received no objections as she sprinted through the house, vaguely hearing the door close behind her father, as she made it to her room, slamming and locking the door shut behind her.
"Box, box, box. Gotta find the box!" Sam cast a sweeping glance around her room and wondered when it had gotten so messy.
Grimacing, Sam decided to go for her bed first and she quickly stumbled past the clothes strewn around her floor, barely noticing the giant robots standing outside her window.
'Wait, what?' Sam frowned; that didn't sound right.
Turning back slowly, as if taking her time would somehow make the vision of the robots go away, Sam approached one of her windows and watched, mouth agape, as the Autobots shuffled about her back yard; peering in through windows, poking rose bushes and- she winced as a solid crunch sounded out almost silently from the center of the yard- stepped on her father's decorations.
She tried her hardest not to moan in barely concealed dread.
Optimus Prime had just stepped on her father's precious fountain.
"What are you doing?" She hissed, trying her best to glare at the large metallic beings, "Why aren't you waiting in the street like normal cars?"
"We're sorry, but we must have the glasses," Optimus Prime answered, not even lifting his foot off of the destroyed fountain.
From the ground Mikaela gawped; that robot had some audacity, it must have come with the territory of being a robot larger than most American houses.
"I said I'd just be a few minutes! I would have come straight back! This is-This is dangerous! What if someone sees you?" Abandoning her criticism of the robots she turned to the girl on the ground, "I told you to stay! I told you to keep them with you!"
"They seem to be in a little bit of a rush," Mikaela looked up at her helplessly and she decided to forgive the girl for this instance. It wouldn't be fair to blame her; what could a teenage girl do against five alien robots?
Whining again Sam decided that ignoring them would be best and turned back towards her bed, intent on resuming her search, when she heard a small dog's bark.
"Mojo! What is he doing out there?" Scrambling back to the window she resisted the temptation to bang her head on a wall, "Mikaela! Get my dog! Get Mojo!"
Not waiting to see if the girl complied with her request (she hoped that she did) Sam went back to her search once again.
It was a few seconds later when she was twisting around under her bed, feeling blindly for the prized box, when she heard a sound (the steady hiss of hydraulics) that she was quickly getting sick of hearing. Wiggling out from under her bed Sam looked to her window to see Mikaela trying to pull herself in, gripping the window sill tightly with one hand as the other rested on a giant metal hand, having nothing to hold on to. Scowling at the robot's persistence she jumped over the piles of belongings she had created in her search and helped the girl into her room.
"They really want those glasses," Mikaela explained once her feet were planted firmly on the floor, shrugging sympathetically at the Sam's shocked and disgruntled face.
"This- This is like an invasion of privacy!" She called out the window with a glare before turning back to the tall girl, "I can't find it."
The girl, with a worried expression, looked around her room, "How can you find anything in here?"
"You could help you know!" Sam threw Mikaela's previous words back at her, her hands feeling around her shelves for the much coveted glasses.
"Okay, so what do you want me to do?"
"Uh- Just-just give this whole section here a sweep; you can mess it up, just look for a medium sized cardboard box," Sam explained, motioning to the left side of her room as she headed back toward the right.
Sighing in exasperation Sam pushed the objects surrounding her goldfishes' (Bubbles and Tumbles) tank onto the floor, ducking under her desk when the action yielded no results. How could she lose the box? She hadn't taken it out of her room after her project!
"You keep transmission fluid in your room?" Mikaela asked, bewildered.
"Keep searchi-what's that noise?" Sam honestly didn't want to know.
The two girls gravitated towards the window and stood disbelievingly, staring at the cars assembled on the grass outside her window.
"What are you doing? I don't see a truck stop anywhere, if you're going to be robots stay here, if you're going to be cars; get back on the road!" Sam complained rubbing at her eyes as the robots transformed again. She turned away but Mikaela pulled her back.
"Sam, he wants-" she finished her sentence by simply nodding towards the window.
"What? I can't look for the glasses if you're constantly-" she paused, looking down at the robot's blue feet, "Are you standing on my mother's tulips? Do you know how mad she will be if she saw you doing that? Because, it wouldn't matter if you were an alien robot or not; she'd totally key your paint."
Sam rubbed at her temples; who knew trying to find a little pair of glasses could be so- distracting? It wasn't supposed to be so distracting; regardless of whether one had giant alien robots breathing down their neck!
It had taken a little talking and pleading but she had finally persuaded the Autobots to go back to the street. She had been breathing a sigh of relief when they had, at last, stopped their nosy vigil outside her room window when the house shook around her, knocking anything that remained on her shelves off and onto the messy collage that was her bedroom floor. Alarmed at first she and Mikaela had hurried to the window only to find out that Ratchet had somehow bumped into the power lines; effectively sending the whole block into darkness. Now, the robot's seemed intent on shining lights into her room to help the girls look for the damned glasses.
The situation couldn't have gotten worse two seconds ago, but it had. Because her dad was knocking fervently on her bedroom door, calling her name like there was no tomorrow.
Opening her eyes she gave Optimus Prime an absolutely ferocious glare and he, thankfully, seemed to understand her unspoken words and called for the Autobots to retreat. Inhaling deeply she looked at Mikaela and wondered how she was going to explain the girl to her parents, but she was just glad that it would be easier than explaining how robots had destroyed the yard.
Grabbing hold of Mikaela she pulled her to her bed and sat her down, roughly wrapping a blanket around her, before whispering urgently.
"Start crying!" Unheeding of the incredulous look the girl threw at her she hopped over her possessions and wrenched the door open.
"Hi, Daddy, what's up?" She smiled cheerily, knowing that she'd win this argument as her father's face immediately softened at her affectionate nickname.
"Are you alright? There was an earthquake, the lights went out. You're not hurt are you?"
'Earthquake…? I can make this work…' Sam thought slyly.
"Yeah, the earthquake, it was a bad one, wasn't it? Knocked all my stuff clean off their shelves!" She laughed awkwardly, trying to block off as much of her room as possible.
"We saw a light, what was the light?" Ron Witwicky asked as he tried to look behind her, being intercepted each time as she stood on her toes so that she was the same height as her father.
"Light? There was no light," she answered hastily trying to keep her father's eyes level with her own.
"Why are you so filthy?" Judy Witwicky interjected, raising an eyebrow at her daughter.
"Oh, me? I've just- you know, been out training all day: can't let someone else take all my medals! Ahem, yeah, just training and other stuff…" Sam smiled weakly at her parents as they stared at her in silence.
"I want to see where that light came from," Ron said flatly, pushing past his daughter and entering the room, his wife right behind him.
Sam scrunched up her face at the hallway and hoped that Mikaela was as adept at conjuring fake tears as she was.
"Sam, who's this?" Her mother cried with consternation.
Spinning around, and following after her parents, she tried not to release a relieved breath upon seeing the tears that stained Mikaela's cheeks. Smiling at the girl, and giving her a brief thumbs up, she carefully constructed her face until she looked righteously indignant.
"Sam? Who is this and what is she doing in your room?" Her mother repeated, seemingly having calmed down in just a few seconds.
"Mom, Dad, this is Mikaela. She's just… having a really bad day…" she trailed off unsure, milling through her memories until she found something she could use to help her, "She just broke up with her boyfriend; he was a real jerk. And me, being the concerned friend I am went to get her when she called me and I've been… taking care of her all day! You know? Trying to cheer her up?"
"How come we didn't notice?" Her mother asked dubiously.
"Oh, I snuck her in hours ago!" Mikaela nodded empathically.
Her parents looked at the girls warily and, feeling the need to help, Mikaela gave a big sniff. In an instant Judy was next to her; patting her on the back comfortingly as the lights came back on.
"Geeze, Sam, do you keep all your things on the edges of the shelves? It wasn't that big of an earthquake!" Ron said as he averted his eyes from the crying girl and turned to study his daughter's untidy room.
"Oh, that's just because-" Sam paused in her commentary as she spotted a cardboard box near her door, its contents partially spilled atop the rest of her belongings. She'd probably knocked it down in her rush to get her door open.
"Because of what Sam?" Her father looked at her suspiciously.
"Oh, just… higher ground and all that…" she babbled before turning to her mother, "Hey, why don't I take Mikaela down to the kitchen, I'm sure she'd like some water or something…"
She gave her mother a meaningful look and in less than a minute both her parents had been ushered out of her room with minimal fuss. As soon as the door closed behind them she lunged for the glasses' case, she clutched it tightly as she gave it a tentative shake to make sure it still held the spectacles before pushing the case into her empty pocket.
"Come on, let's get something to eat," Sam waved for Mikaela to follow her as she exited her room.
"But, shouldn't we get the glasses to the Autobots first?" Mikaela questioned, glancing out of all the windows they passed.
"Not really," Sam chirped as she skipped blithely down the stairs, "I mean, they gave us enough stress when we were trying to find them… I say they can wait a while. And I don't know about you but I am thirsty and I am starving."
"But-"
"Oh relax; it's not as if we're going to eat a five-course meal," Sam said matter-of-factly as they entered the kitchen, "Just whatever we have in the fridge."
Mikaela looked worriedly out of the window for a few seconds but quickly conceded when Sam waved a box of Krispy Kreme's in front of her along with a chilled bottle of water.
End of Chapter Six: Meet the Family
Next Chapter: Chapter Seven: The Men In Black
Author's Notes:
Needless Rant:
You may think I don't like Mikaela and that I'm… bashing her. But I'm not. In my opinion Movie!Mikaela was just the token pretty girl with no real back-story or personality/character development (None of the characters did, actually), what I'm trying to do with my story is develop a genuine character; I'm going to try to make Sam and Mikaela's friendship at least seem believable. Because let's face it: it's pretty clear that my Sam and Mikaela are two very different girls, but they do have things in common; and that's what'll bring them together and glue them there. They're not suddenly going to turn around and be buddy-buddy; Sam pretty much hates Mikaela's friends and the way she acts and with Mikaela's position on the social food chain it's just not acceptable to be seen around Sam unless she's teasing her or something. And no, I will not use my artistic license to make everything fart sunshine and bunnies because it's easier because that is not how real life works; they're going to have to make certain decisions that will alienate them from the people they're used to being around and that's going to help them grow up and turn from teenagers (which they are right now) into adults who are willing to accept responsibility (sometimes).
Okay, rant done.
And Bumblebee was just using scare tactics; he wouldn't have left either of them.
And yay for Sam inheriting her mother's temper! Movie!Sam was such a pushover he invoked 'Must-Bully-Now' feelings within me.
And yes, yes, I adjusted Jazz's speech pattern slightly. Hey, he's supposed to be the coolest of the Autobots. I had to do it. –Hides from complaints-
I got some lovely feedback for the last chapter: Thank you, thank you, thank you! I will be addressing anything that came up in the next chapter's A/N. This one is long enough. Anyway, as always, thank you to:
SomeReallyRandomPerson, Fk306 Animelover, blood shifter, Sinead Rivka, Elita One, KitsuneyJenfner, flamingmarsh, LoveHopes, Razorgaze, jitkety, morning sun, Narnian Sprite, Blackwing.Rose, jazztransformesme, Niteskye, White Evergreen and RavageStar.
- bot
P.S. I hope you all noticed what happened there when the Autobots met the girls. It made me cackle delightedly as I was writing it, though somewhere inside I did cringe and die, just a little bit.
Okay, I'm going to go to a corner and giggle uncontrollably now. (Yes, I still have Teenage Girl Syndrome, what of it?)