Chapter 8:

By LadyClassical

There was a knocking on the door. "Skywarp."

"Whuh?" mumbled the black-and-purple Seeker, rousing from a fitful sleep. Since he hadn't gotten much sleep last night, he had been making up for it by sleeping all day. When he checked his internal clock, he saw that it was almost three in the afternoon.

"It's me." Starscream entered the room and shut the door behind him. In his hand, he was holding his datapad.

Skywarp suddenly felt a little sullen. "What are you doing here?"

"I just…well, Soundwave and TC sent me to help you," Starscream explained. "You see, neither of them have had a sparkling before. But I have, and all three of us think you have some…misconceptions about it that I want to clear up."

"Misconceptions?"

"For example…" Starscream sighed. "Well, you know where the sparkling IS, right?"

"Sure," said Skywarp. "The mommy's tummy. Right?"

Starscream resisted the urge to slap himself in the forehead. "Where WERE you in health class?!"

"I…I spent most of the time sleeping," Skywarp admitted.

"Well, whatever. The sparkling is actually here." Starscream pointed to the place underneath his canopy glass, around the location of his hips. "It's called a gestation chamber. Everybody has one. It's a special place made just for a sparkling."

Skywarp looked fascinated. "Really?"

"Really," said Starscream, and pulled out a human fruit he'd found at the grocery store, something called a watermelon. "This is how big your sparkling is right now, approximately, about 20 pounds—even though she might be born smaller or bigger. The average birth weight for a sparkling is maybe 300 to 500 pounds. Not to be graphic or anything, but half of your sparkling's weight right now is basically just fluids and raw energon."

Skywarp reached out for the watermelon and held it up to the place where his sparkling was growing, and Starscream could tell that he was trying to imagine the watermelon inside of him. "So…um…is that what she looks like?"

"No," said Starscream. "Do you think she's going to come out looking like a green ball?"

"Um, maybe?" Skywarp had the feeling that there was no right answer to Starscream's question.

"I'll show you what she looks like," said Starscream. "This is part of what's on the data pads."

Starscream opened some windows and pulled up some of the pregnancy-themed documents Soundwave had forwarded to him. One of them was called "Your Pregnancy Week By Week." Since Skywarp was by now about six weeks along, that was what Starscream opened first.

"What is that thing, a blob?" said Skywarp.

"It's called an embryo," Starscream told him, glaring. "It's what your DAUGHTER looks like. See? There are some tiny bumps where the limbs will soon start growing…"

"What about the wing nubs?" Skywarp demanded. "I got it done on Vosnia! She's a Seekerling!"

"Well, this is a week-by-week guide to a STANDARD pregnancy, so it's supposed to cover groundlings and Seekerlings alike," Starscream told him. "Also, at this stage, the wing-nubs haven't developed anyway. They don't come until maybe 10 or 11 weeks."

"When do they start to practice transforming?" Skywarp asked.

"Hmm…15 weeks, I think," said Starscream. "But you know what she'll be, of course."

"20 pounds. That's so small." Skywarp examined his watermelon again. It was about the size of his fingertip. "Sparklings are small when they're born! It's so hard to imagine that they're even smaller before they're born!"

"Let me show you something else," Starscream said, grabbing the data pad and opening another window. "Look. This is what your daughter will look like right before she's born."

"Now that looks like a sparkling," Skywarp said confidently, although his confidence soon depleted to nervousness. "But…but how will it come out?"

"What do you mean, how will it come out?" Starscream snapped. "You were at the birth of my triplets. It happened three times in a row! What, do you not remember?"

"I was closing my eyes and covering my ears the whole time, actually," Skywarp admitted.

"Remember that area between your legs, Skywarp?" Starscream was feeling annoyed, but he pointed at the picture. "See? That's where they put the sparkling in when you were at the clinic, and that's where she's going to come out when she's ready."

Skywarp was now staring intently at the picture. "But that's a really small opening."

"I know it is," said Starscream. "That's why it gets a little bit wider before you start pushing. But make no mistake, it really hurts…although I will say that pushing was better than just laboring—and twenty-four hours straight was slagging hell."

"But that includes the pushing, right?"

"Yes," said Starscream. "The pushing ate up about an hour and a half. It takes a little longer to get Seekerlings out, because of the wings."

Skywarp was pretty sure that it wasn't his sparkling making him feel sick right now. "Starscream, I'm super scared."

"Don't worry," Starscream told him quietly, feeling his spark soften just a little. "I can't tell you it doesn't hurt or that you won't wish you were dead. But I can tell you that you won't regret it."

"You'll be there, right?" Skywarp asked, his voice squeaky.

"Why wouldn't I?" said Starscream. "Although of course I will be covering my ears and closing my eyes the entire time."

"Really?"

"No, not really." Starscream laughed. "I was just making a joke. I didn't mean to make you nervous about having a sparkling. If you know more about what's going on, you'll be less scared. Remember that college class we took together? 'Decoding the Cybertronian Genome'?"

"I failed it," said Skywarp.

"Yes, I know." Starscream sighed and rolled his eyes. "But I aced it, and I know all about how sparklings happen. How do you think it happens?"

"Well, I asked my Mommy when I was little," said Skywarp. "She told me that the storkoid brought sparklings."

"Please tell me that's not still what you think."

"We went over it in health class in Seeker School, didn't we?" Skywarp looked like he was trying to remember. "They showed us all these pictures of our private parts, and there was some video, right? I was focused more on the naked femmes. I remember TC and I spent a lot of time looking up porn while you were studying."

"I don't care what you two were doing," said Starscream. "Do I have to go into Scientist Mode here?"

"If you want to." Skywarp shrugged.

"When you were in Seeker School, you had a lot of 'facing, right?" Starscream asked.

"Yeah, I know all about that!" said Skywarp enthusiastically.

"Okay, so you know how when you start to enjoy it a lot, you have your overload, right?"

"Yes."

"And I told you about the gestation chamber? The special place where the sparkling grows?"

"Yes."

"Well, another thing the gestation chamber does is, it makes cells," Starscream continued. "Those cells are all numbered 1, okay? And the ones you expel—during your overload—those are all numbered 0. Usually, the 0-numbered ones will die out. But if the two different cells bond with each other, they'll end up multiplying into lots and lots of cells—zeros and ones. That's called binary code, and it's essentially the programming that will turn your reproductive cells into a sparkling. Put simply; reproduction is not much more than coding. For example, that's why most Seekerlings can fly only a few weeks after birth—they're programmed to be able to do that."

Skywarp was staring with his mouth hanging open, but Starscream was in full scientist mode and babbling on.

"Programming is what each and every one of us is made out of," Starscream was saying. "The cells contain information, which is called CNA, or cyber-nucleic acid. It contains every single thing that makes you who you are. That's why your traits are passed along to your sparklings, as well as the Sire's traits—or, in your case, the donor. The sparkling is attached to you by her energon cord, so you essentially support her life. So basically, the 0-numbered cells enter the gestation chamber via the valve opening, and if they're lucky they bond with a 1-numbered cell, which is already inside the gestation chamber, and they combine to make a sparkling using binary code."

"It's always so surreal when you go into Scientist Mode," Skywarp said, looking fascinated. "I had no idea about all of that. I always just thought the sparkling was in my stomach."

"Well, now you know the real deal," said Starscream. "I hope this is clearer to you now."

"Hmm, a little." Skywarp smiled.

"Now, get some rest," Starscream advised before he left the room. "Pregnancy might be a great thing and all, but it sure wears a carrier out."

SEVERAL DAYS LATER…

It was a nice day, and Skywarp was eating junk food in his room. Why? This was sort of confusing to him because he remembered how sick Starscream had been throughout almost all of his pregnancy, and yet at six weeks he never felt sick anymore, just hungry.

Skywarp didn't notice Thundercracker opening the door at first, so focused was he on shoveling fuel into his mouth, but finally, Thundercracker said, "Skywarp, are you ready for your ultrasound?"

"Oh. I guess so." Skywarp reluctantly put his food down. "I know…no food in the Med-Bay."

Earlier, Soundwave had informed Skywarp that he was pretty sure the sparkling was normal, but he wanted to do an early ultrasound, just to make sure. Skywarp didn't know at the time what an "ultrasound" was, but then Starscream told him he could see what his sparkling looked like now, and he agreed to schedule one.

When they reached the Med-Bay, Soundwave was already in cassette deck mode, but Starscream was waiting there.

"Just lay down on the operating table," said Starscream. "Soundwave knows what to do."

"But what is he going to do?" Skywarp asked.

Soundwave transformed a moment, so he could speak and informed Skywarp that, since his sparkling was still so small, it would be better if they inserted the probe directly into him rather than on top of him like they would with a late-term ultrasound.

"Lay down, and I will perform all tasks," Soundwave told him shortly.

Skywarp climbed onto the repair table and lay down. Starscream removed his lower armor, and Skywarp asked, "Is that where he's gonna…?"

"Yes," said Thundercracker. "Calm the slag down; it's not gonna hurt you."

It was uncomfortable (it kind of felt like being penetrated by a mech, actually, only a lot colder), so Skywarp didn't like being probed. That is until the sparkling showed up on the screen.

"See?" said Starscream. "There she is."

"Where?" Skywarp yelled, but then he saw Soundwave's screen. Just like in the picture, his daughter looked sort of like a little blob, but he could see the little bumps where her limbs would soon form…Even her little spark was beating, loud and clear! Tears sprang to Skywarp's eyes when he watched her.

"So…a real sparkling," said Thundercracker. "Someday she'll be born…and you can hold her in your arms…"

"Think of how wonderful that will be," Starscream added.

"How long until she's born now?" Skywarp asked.

"For a standard pregnancy, that would be approximately eight months," Soundwave responded, and then, a little while later, "Sonogram complete."

Skywarp had a souvenir tape from the appointment, and Thundercracker was glad that the sparkling was normal, and everybody could chill off now. But little did he or anyone else know…things wouldn't stay simple for long.