Chapter 9
Almost a week had passed. Sam's parents woke him up before work, as they always did, to say goodbye (and to remind him of his chores), but once they left he retreated back to his bedroom and did not wake until nearly eleven o'clock, where he stayed until almost twelve-thirty, despite Mojo's constant whining from outside, wanting to be let back in the house.
Eventually, the Chihuahua severed Sam's last nerve and the teen hopped out of bed and thumped down the stairs to let the little canine in. The little critter scampered off, disappearing to some far corner of the Witwicky household, and Sam, being the teenager he was, went to the kitchen to look for late breakfast. He opened the refrigerator, searching its contents for something edible.
Nothing.
Well, to the point, there was quite a bit of edible food in the fridge, but nothing appealing. Eating the same stuff day after day got old and repetitive, so, with the lack of leftovers, there was officially nothing suitable to eat. In defeat, Sam closed the fridge and sighed. What would eventually happen was once his stomach started growling he'd eventually come down and make an enormous sandwich big enough to last him till dinner time. Until then, he would snack on a diet composed of Doritos and Mountain Dew.
Content with his decision, he lazily made his way back to the stairs, when Mojo came bounding down the stairs, barking shrilly. Sam rolled his eyes and began to follow the dog to the front door, "Mojo, be quite."
As he reached the threshold, the door opened and in stepped Miles, "Hey dude!" He greeted, but knelt down to the whining Chihuahua, "How've ya been, buddy?" he asked the excited dog, scratching him behind the ears as the tiny canine rolled onto his back, licking Miles' busy hands.
Sam stood slightly surprised his friend had walked through that door. A wave of guilt went through Sam at realizing he hadn't been surprised that Miles had walked in without knocking—he'd been doing that since first grade—but that Miles had shown up; Sam had almost forgotten about his long time best friend.
"Hey Miles," greeted Sam as Miles stood up.
"It's about time you're here, dude. I came by yesterday and caught your parents in a heated make-out session...I think I'm damaged for life."
"I went camping with Mikaela for the night." Sam shrugged and began to lead the way to the kitchen where he could grab a Dew for his visitor.
Miles froze, his eyebrows raised, "Together? Alone? Did you...?"
"Miles." Sam snapped, stopping at his bedroom door to give his friend a warning glare.
The blonde wasn't nearly as clueless as most thought he was and caught on at once, raising his hands in defense. "Hey, hey, don't worry man, it's great if you did, really—but it's okay if you didn't. I was just wonderin'."
Sam relaxed a little but said nothing on the subject and pushed the door to his room open and plopped onto his bed, leaning against his wall. Miles took the chair in front of the computer. There was a stretch of awkward silence as the two sat. A lot had changed in Sam's life...so much change made simple, normal feats seem like a moment from somebody else's life.
But in Miles' life nothing had changed. Nothing but the fact Sam and he seemed to be drifting apart. He had seen the TV interview with Judy and Ron Witwicky—he'd missed most of it but for the most part it appeared as though they were being questioned about the rumors of aliens on Earth and some kind of government cover-up; they'd denied any accusations made. None of it really mattered to Miles...nothing but his bro' mattered. And his dog. And his mom. And TV. And Halo.
"We should do something." Miles insisted after a few minutes of mindlessly flipping through channels on the TV.
Sam cocked an eyebrow, "Like what?"
Miles thought. The suggestion to "do something" had been completely spur of the moment and a welcome break of silence, "I don't know...we could grab our skateboards and just ride around or we could drive to the beach and rent some surf boards—we haven't done that in a while."
Sam smiled at the thought. Ice-cream, surf and sand sounded like the best idea in the world at the moment. "Sure, I've got no plans for the day."
"Sweet! C'mon, get ready!"
Opposed to what Sam thought was going to happen, Miles stayed put watching as Sam got up to look for his long-lost swimming trunks. "Aren't you going to get ready?"
Miles grinned, "Nah man, I practically live in my water shorts these days." He stood up, motioning to tan cargo shorts—sunscreen bulging from his left leg pocket and folded up towel bulging from the right leg pocket. "Fully equipped with the watery essentials. See?" From his back pockets he produced goggles and a snorkel.
Sam shook his head, chuckling as he dug through his dresser, searching for the illusive, hibernating swimming shorts. Once found, Miles jogged down stairs while his friend changed. When Sam reached both his interstellar and earthbound friends outside he was ready for the normal teenager way of spending a late-summer day: fun in the sun—as opposed to the ambassador recreation he had such a knack for.
"So," Miles brought up as they were well over half-way to the beach, "you never did tell me how you managed to upgrade your old Camaro for this new one."
Sam cast a glance at Miles before turning his eyes back to the road, "I won him...it—" he mentally cursed himself over the slipup; it sucked that that most cars (and ships for that matter) were personified as being female and it really sucked referring to one of his best friends as 'it' "—at a charity drive."
Miles snorted, "A charity drive? You? Wait. Lemme guess, free cocktail weenies?"
Sam grinned, "And catered Italian sandwiches."
With Miles' curiosity at bay for the moment Sam got in the seemingly normal (albeit very cool) car, Miles followed his example and, together—the three of them, they began their journey to the beach. Though Sam hadn't caught on, Miles had been itching to ask his buddy a question. A question that was driving him slowly towards the brink of self-destruction if he did not know—
"Did it have to be yellow again?"
Having been caught by total surprise, Sam, for a second, took his eyes off the road to look at his friend, "What?"
"Your car. It's still yellow."
"Oh, not this again, Miles."
When Miles had first heard Ronald Witwicky was helping pay for Sam's first car, his imagination had gone wild. Maybe a bright red Mustang with polished chrome and refurbished leather interior! The rare rational side of his brain suggested it probably wouldn't be such a nice car that he was imagining, and would probably be some old beater—but he was confident that Sam would have enough sense to go with red, or black, or even cobalt.
When Sam called Miles up and said "get ready, we're going to a party" he'd wonder first of all, who had invited them to a party, but quickly remembered: Sam had a car. He'd raced around the house looking for something a little more suitable than his boxers and, once dressed, sat outside for nearly half an hour on his pathway steps, waiting.
Then, after watching countless cars go by, all of which could have been Sam, an old yellow Camaro pulled to a stop and Sam got out and beamed from the other side of the car, awaiting his friend's reaction.
"...It's yellow."
"But it has racing stripes," said Sam, taking the defense.
"But it's yellow," insisted Miles as he got up to get in the car.
Sam grumbled, "Four thousand dollars and all he can say is 'it's yellow'," he mocked, his voice going up an octave or two.
So, when Sam had thought Miles' curiosity had been at bay, he relaxed and chose to enjoy the drive and relish in the knowledge he'd soon be playing in the water. He had missed it after all, about as much as he'd missed his friend.
And then Miles just had to bring it up.
"Well, hey, look, I know it's a cool car—cooler than anything I'd expected for you, but...dude it's the same model—different year—but still the same and it's the same colors. Didn't they give you a choice of color?"
Sam wasn't quite sure what to say—he was lucky Miles was so concerned about the color...if he'd been thinking more about how much of a coincidence it was that it was the same model and color there was a chance—well, he'd never guess that the car he sat in was an alien robot—but no doubt questions could be asked.
Miles saved Sam the trouble of saying something, "Well...at least it's not faded and rusty like the last one."
Sam chose to take the peaceful way out of this and smile and nod in agreement...even though he wished to give his more silent friend a comforting pat on the dashboard.
When they finally got to the beach, Miles ran off ahead to pay for the surf boards and Sam pretended to get the car ready to be locked up, but really took the opportunity to apologize on behalf of Miles.
"Sorry 'bout Miles, you know, if he offended you."
In robot form, Bumblebee would have smiled, "No, it's alright, Sam. Go have fun now."
Sam nodded, "If you get too bored you can sneak off for a few minutes. See ya, buddy."
'Bee chirped a car-alarm-like noise in response, and watched as Sam jogged off to join his human friend. Bumblebee had been actually happy to take Miles and Sam to the beach—it'd been a while since Sam had done something a "normal" teenage human would do. Just because his life included alien robots in disguise didn't mean he had to ditch his old life and old friends to take on the responsibility of keeping a national secret. Granted, alien robots were probably taking on a "normal" status for the boy, but it was still probably a nice break for him to do normal human activities.
In addition to wanting to allow Sam some "normal human time", Bumblebee was also eager to watch the two of them surfing. Through the years he'd been on Earth, when he wasn't thinking about locating the Allspark or a Witwicky family member, he'd come to find himself watching the way humans interacted with each other. They were a very complex species, but interesting—their emotional cores very similar to that of Cybertronians. It was probably the reason why he was able to bond so well with Sam and Mikaela. Now that the Allspark was destroyed and the Decepticons in hiding for the time being, he had found himself not so much "guarding" Sam, as he was "hanging out", as Sam put it.
So, he watched. He watched the two boys play in the water, let the sun beat warmly on him, the breeze balancing the atmosphere off nicely, listened to the sound of the ocean waves, the gulls crooning in the sky above him…. He decided he would allow himself a quick recharge for an hour or so in the soothing environment.
While Bumblebee rested Sam and Miles splashed into the water—it was almost shockingly cold compared to the hot summer sun, but a nice change. It didn't take long for their fingers and toes to become wrinkled and before long, only about an hour after catching their first good wave, they began to get hungry. They waited until their stomachs were growling angrily in their bodies before they finally hauled their boards back to shore. Time had flown by for the both of them…and things between the two of them were going back to normal.
"Let's go get some dogs, man, I'm starved." Miles suggested.
Down the beach a little way was a concession stand that sold mini-pizzas, ice-cream, hotdogs, burgers, sodas—the usual. There was a line about 10 people long; the two waited in impatient silence, waiting for the line to slowly shrink until it was their turn. Time seemed to have stopped flying by and instead had been reduced to a crawl now that they wanted food.
But, at long last (having suffered through one of those horrible people who couldn't decide between a burger and a personal pizza), Sam was at the front of the line, ordering two hotdogs with "the works". Within minutes he turned to hand one dog to Miles, but was met with somebody he didn't know—some random beachgoer. Sam frowned and side stepped the guy, looking for his friend.
"Miles?" he called out. He scanned the surfboard rental booth, thinking maybe he'd gone to return the boards, but the blonde was nowhere to be found.
"Sam."
Sam cocked an eyebrow. Miles' voice came from the side, in the shade of a tree growing right next to the booth. Shrugging, he went forward, and rounded the corner to see what it was Miles was doing.
Sam froze.
A woman had Miles' back pressed up against her, a gun to his head. Sam tried to see her face, but she wore a motorcycle helmet with a tinted face shield, and even so, Miles was tall enough most of her lower face was hidden by his shoulder. "Sam Witwicky?" It wasn't really a question.
Sam nodded, his eyes darting to the parking lot, where his guardian sat. He couldn't see him from the position they were on the beach.
"He's recharging." The woman said, her voice like silk, but dangerous and muffled by the helmet.
Sam's insides felt like they had all melted then frozen up so rapidly he almost couldn't breathe. She knew.
Lovins go out to: October 13th, and Razorgaze.
OoOoh look! A cliffhanger (my bad) and, plot progression, and a new character! All in the same chapter! Everybody gasp and wonder: is this new girl friend or foe? OoOoOh the mystery! XD And just to keep you guys informed: this is happening about a week after Lilith escaped. As always: thank you to everybody who reads.
October 13th – Sadly, no Ratchet in this chapter (or the next) u.u sorry! But right now I'm thinking of a scene that will totally make up for it and may even make you giggle...but that won't happen for a while. Oh, I would love to get more reviews, but -shrugs- what can I do?
