How it Is
Interlude Five: Ron Witwicky
By: Nightelfcrawler
Disclaimer: Obviously Transformers is not my own, and is property of Hasbro. Be gentle.

She was at it again.

Ron Witwicky sighed as he sunk back onto the couch, his eyes lifted up at the ceiling with frustration at his wife. Why she felt the need to constantly rummage through their son's things was beyond him, of course he should have expected it. She'd done the same with him when they first were married, straightening up his things, poking her nose into places she didn't belong. He'd learned quickly that if he wanted something kept private, keep it at work in a locked desk. Anything at home was fair game, even if it DID have a key. He SWORE that her family came from a line of cops who taught all their offspring to pick locks.

But he still loved her. She was a wonderful person, if quirky at times. He supposed it came from a long line of psychotic crazies in the family, and this was how he was able to be calm and just soak everything in. Nope, Ron Witwicky was pretty laid back, though he still raised his head now and then to keep the boy in line. He needed guidance after all, most kids did.

But Ron was worried.

At first, he'd almost panicked thinking that his son had inherited the dormant family loonie gene. It had skipped over Ron but affected his brother, unfortunately. Ron had been worried that Sam would get it, after all his father had been skipped too. When he'd gotten that call to go down to the police station and pick up his son who apparently had broken into a junkyard of all places, Ron didn't believe it. Not Sam. Sam might be a little on the strange side, but he wasn't a criminal, he didn't do drugs, and he did his best to obey the rules they lay out for him. Sam was a good boy.

Ron had gone down to bail him out, sitting there calmly listening as some crazy cop questioned Sam like a scene right out of CSI. The man was nuts, Ron concluded. But then, Sam hadn't really instilled confidence.

"No, It just stood up. My car stood up!"

Stood up, huh? For a moment, Ron had agreed with the cop, and wondered what drugs his son was on. But then again, he knew Sam pretty well, as father/son relationships went. Sam was a good kid. He had the tendency to get flustered, exaggerate and blow things out of proportion, so him saying his car 'just stood up' probably was the result of some kind of adrenaline rush.

But why would he chase it into the junkyard in the first place, or drive it in, or whatever he did. Sam had wanted that car for ages, he probably was just making up stuff so he wouldn't get it taken from him. But still, Ron thought there was something fishy about this whole thing. When they were walking out of the police department, Sam actually voiced the concern he had out loud. "Hey...dad... you don't think that maybe... I got like, grandpa's crazy gene do you?"

Ron glanced down at his son, who was looking somber, and concerned. "I don't think so son." he said clapping the boy on the shoulder with one of his large arms. "Trust me, weirder things have happened than your eyes playing tricks on you. I wouldn't worry about it too much, maybe you're just stressed from school."

"Yeah...maybe."

However, the next day Ron Witwicky began to get inklings that something ELSE was going on. First off, the cops hadn't found the kid's car. Now, if Sam had followed it into the junkyard like he'd claimed, and if thieves had really stolen the car, it was long gone. Ron shook his head, a bit disappointed in Sam for being so careless. However when he came back from running some errands that next morning, he frowned staring at the brand new tire tracks across his green grass. "Well that just beats it all." he muttered. "Sam? Did you run over my lawn last night?" No answer. "Sam?"

"He's gone out, dear." Judy's voice filtered from the house. "Left about an hour ago."

"Great." He muttered, scuffing the grass. "I'm gonna yell at that kid when he gets back."

Of course, that night Sam had behaved even MORE odd. He kept babbling, and Ron knew that when Sam babbled, he was nervous. Plus, he'd come home dirty and sweaty. Something was up, and Sam definitely didn't want him coming out into the yard that night. Ron hadn't pushed him. Whatever he was hiding, it couldn't be that serious. They soon found out it had been that nice young girl, pretty thing she was too. Ron was proud, despite the fact that he knew he'd have to ground Sam for breaking the rules later. Still... it was nice to see him FINALLY into girls. He hung out with Miles far too much.

Of course it was only after that that all hell broke loose. Ron was a pretty calm guy... unless crazy stuff went down, and earthquakes constituted crazy. He'd also had some wine, which didn't help, as he SWORE that when he glanced out a window he'd seen an EYE looking back at him.

Too much wine.

Of course after that things just got worse. Being taken in by some special security ops guys in suits, interrogated and finally just being dumped back at home without so much as a 'sorry for the inconvenience.'.

Ron Witwicky had seen the footprints.

They'd tried to hide it, offering to clean up the mess, but he'd seen them clearly the next morning while the government guys swarmed all over, replacing the damaged foliage. A huge gigantic footprint in his path, on his grass, and (God knows how it got there), on his patio. They weren't footprints like you'd normally see, no these were gigantic things easily as tall as he was, twice as thick and had left spiderweb cracks all over his patio, and intents on his grass. Ron had been at a complete loss to explain it, and the evidence had vanished by the end of the day as the government gardeners had finished repairing the damage.

The next day at work it had been even weirder.

The moment he pulled up to the dealership, he saw a couple cop cars sitting in front. He groaned. Oh no, not again... The dealership had suffered a few kids breaking in and stealing some of the concept cars lately, joyriding then leaving them trashed. PLEASE don't be another expensive insurance claim!

He got out and stared immediately all thoughts of insurance driven out of his mind at what he saw. Another footprint... as if something heavy had jumped down from the roof, stood in place, then walked over closer to the dealership. One of the neon letters was broken and sparking all over the place on the roof, but no windows broken, and no cars stolen or damaged.

What the...?

"It just stood up!"

Ron Witwicky blinked as his son's words echoed in his mind again. Maybe he wasn't so crazy after all...

The police didn't have much to offer. They said that they'd dealt with a few claims all across the city, some damage to a pool, a whole business demolished by some meteor landing...

Ron Witwicky's mental wheels began to turn. The feds had questioned them about aliens...UFOs...

Was it possible that it was true?

He sat at his desk, sipping a double mocha, staring at his computer as he checked a few Internet sites out while the insurance agent surveyed the exterior damage to his building.

Holy! He leaned forward seeing an odd headline. Baseball stadium damaged by falling meteor. Well golly gee, that stadium was just a block away. Ron Witwicky frowned, tapping a pen against his desk idly. Falling meteors, cars standing up, UFOs and now... His eyes scanned a list of comments on a story about a gas explosion in Mission City. People were pretty angry with the story, insisting that it hadn't been a gas explosion, that they had seen giant figures smashing buildings up, missiles launched, people dead in the streets... A vending machine launching projectile sodas? What the...?

Yes, Ron was worried.

Sam had acted strange ever since that weekend. Granted, Ron expected the kid to be quiet after being arrested twice in 24 hours, but he'd been jumpy, jittery, exhausted, and slept all day. Ron also had noticed a few unexplained bruises on the kid's arms. He hadn't asked where they were from, but the whole story Sam had given them was fishy. First of all, it was full of holes. He'd found his car, suddenly, been released separately from them and allowed to drive home on his own, being caught in this mysterious gas explosion, losing his car in the process, and getting beat up a bit before finally being dropped off by a military guy in a sweet black truck.

Yeah... like that made sense.

Ron tapped his fingers on the edge of the sofa, staring up at the ceiling listening to his wife rummage around in Sam's room searching for evidence of some kind of wrongdoing. She wasn't going to find anything, Ron knew. No, Sam wasn't into the normal crap kids his age was. Sure, he had some things up there that Ron had to silently grin at, both parents were aware of that little black case of his. But Sam was a good kid... And Ron knew that whatever he'd been through had changed him, and it had something to do with those MIB's, Mission City, and his car.

The crazy thing was, Ron wasn't concerned about it. He felt, when Sam was ready, he would tell them.

Until then, he was definitely going to keep his eyes peeled for anything unusual.