Our continuing story chapter 7

The rest of the weekend had gone well for both of them. Sideways and Peaches had cleaned the house and spent time with the kids and today was the day that Tyler was supposed to arriving. He would only be staying with them until after New Year's but neither the Pretender nor the ex-Decepticon seemed to mind that. They were determined to show him that they cared and that one's past did not have to affect their future.

Tyler was well "iffy" about having siblings, even if it was temporary, as he had never had them before. On the other hand, he admitted that he was thankful to the 2 Cybertronians who would be his guardians albeit reluctantly.

"No need to thank us." Sideways replied, not sure he would have the patience for dealing with the older boy. "Aaron, please show him to his room and then bring him back here so that he can eat something."

Aaron immediately did as he was told and Peaches sighed. "Well, this did go better than I thought it would." She said.

"Remember we need to be patient with him, even though it's going to be hard for me" Sideways replied.

"I thought you had learned a thing or 2 about patience a long time ago!" Peaches pretended to scold him.

"Keep this in mind my femme; you can take me out of the Decepticon ranks and convince me to be a neutral, but you can't take the not as active Decepticon programming out of me, which does include the occasional lack of patience." He whispered in her audio receptor.

The Pretender got up and went to cook dinner for the humans under hers and her sparkmate's care; the latter went to get an energon cube for her and Crystal as well as himself. When the meal was over, Tyler was the one who cleared the table and put the dishes in the dishwasher. He then simply went to the room he would be staying in, leaving the rest of the family disappointed that they had not gotten to actually thank him for his guesture.

Peaches sighed sadly and said out loud "This is going to be harder than I thought it would be."

(Sometime later, Sideways' POV)

When the other kids were asleep, I reminded Peaches. "Remember, we've got only about 6 weeks until we bring our family's newest arrival home."

"I know; I'm just worried about you changing your alt mode again." she told me a bit worried.

I had in fact changed my alternate mode from an Audi R8 to a sedan that sat 4-5 people when we had first adopted Abby but it would be a pain in the rear to explain why Aaron was in the front seat when he was not supposed to be sitting up there until he was 12 during the times that my holoform would be turned off. Thus I began searching the Internet for something more suitable to transporting 2 humans, 2 sparklings, one or two other passengers and my sparkmate when she was in her alternate mode wherever we needed to be and not have to worry about the holoform taking up room. I did not find anything that I liked though; I would have to search again tomorrow.

For now, Peaches and I went into our own quarters and recharged, still determined to get Tyler to be more open to us.

2 days later, we thought it was a miracle. Tyler was playing nicely with Abby and Crystal and both girls had thrown their arms around the boy to hug him. Aaron couldn't help but smile as much as my femme and I were when the older boy didn't seem to mind this. Perhaps he understood that they were younger and had no idea of the horrors that he had been through or maybe he just didn't know how to react. When he saw the rest of us looking at him, Tyler quickly ran out to the backyard and sat in the sandpile by himself.

"Why'd he do that?" Crystal asked, really confused.

"I don't know, but I wish I did." Peaches replied, not sure of what she was going to do about him. To tell the truth, I wasn't sure what I would do about that boy either; I had not known the horrors he had been through but I did know what it was like to not know how to handle something different than what one was used to whether it was good or bad. Perhaps Tyler needed more time to get used to this change and the fact that he wasn't being hurt for no reason...