Life changing events chapter 11

August 10th, 1984

With the shocking incident of last month behind them after therapy, Mackenzie and Colin were doing much better. Aunt Sara had recovered from her injuries and now could take care of Jessica and Kevin just fine; thus, Annie could now do her regular work as needed and a normal routine of her going to work during the week days and Colin and Mackenzie spending their days playing with friends and weekends together doing family things had been the norm for a while.

Today though they were headed to Rumble and Frenzy's birthday party; the twins would now be 12 years old and then next year, they would be teenagers. It was hard to believe but unlike TV, in real life kids had to get older and grow up. Colin was worried they would forget about him but hoped that his presents for them might remind them of how much their friendship meant.

"I'm sure they'll like our gifts." Mackenzie said to Colin as they arrived at their friends' home.

Annie was with her children and had been given the day off to attend the party; in fact, most of the attendees of the birthday party would be Rumble and Frenzy's co-stars and maybe a small number of relatives as their family was pretty small in general.

Filming of the next season of The Transformers would start in September now that the auditions for the next season had been made. Unfortunately, the 3 'bots who played Reflector would not be returning for long since they wanted to go back to living normal lives and did not like the attention from appearing on the show. Everybody respected their decision, Annie included, and had wished them well in their future endeavors.

At the party, Colin and Mackenzie stuck by Rumble and Frenzy and their two other friends, Eject and Rewind.

"Our dad is Blaster; he's appearing in the second season of the Transformers." Rewind explained upon introducing himself and his brother to Colin and Mackenzie.

"Cool!" Colin said. "Is anyone else who is going to be on the second season here, besides Elita that is?"

"Yup; you can go and talk to them if you want to or you can hang out with us until it's time to eat." Eject reassured the two human Toons.

"I think I want to go meet everyone else I haven't met yet that's here." Mackenzie admitted. "I'll see you guys later."

With that, the Toon girl went to see who else she could talk to, eventually meeting Tracks. Unlike Sunstreaker, Tracks was much kinder in real life and less likely to look down on people than his onscreen self was and although he was not allowed to answer all of Mackenzie's questions, he did find her adorable and was polite about it.

In the meanwhile, Soundwave had gone to check on his sons and their friends. Seeing them play video games together made him smile. Like Optimus, Elita, and Thundercracker, he sat down to watch them play as did Annie, who was sitting on his lap. Recently, Annie and Phil had had an amicable breakup; they had realized their crushes on each other weren't going beyond that and had decided to go their separate ways. Perhaps this was for the best as Soundwave couldn't stop thinking about the Toon woman whose life was in some ways similar to his own before getting to work on The Transformers. They were both single parents yet different types of Toons regarding what they resembled and the obvious size difference. Of course, some Toons could change their size but one had to have inherited the ability to do so and that was not the case for Soundwave.

He tried to push these thoughts out of his head; it wouldn't be right to act on what seemed to be a crush on someone who wasn't quite a coworker but was close enough to being one that it would make things awkward the few times they would see each other at work.

"Soundwave, are you all right?" Thundercracker asked.

"I'm fine." The dark blue robot Toon replied.

Soon it was time for everyone to eat and once that was done, Mackenzie joined her brother, the birthday boys, and their friends outside in the backyard to play for a while longer before the presents were opened. When the party was over and everyone else had left, Soundwave offered to walk Annie and her children home. The only reason for the White family walking there and back had been because Annie's Oldsmobile Cutlass had been in the shop to repair the breaks, have the oil changed, and other such bits of maintenance since she did not have time to do it herself.

"Thank you Soundwave; that's very kind of you. Who knew you were such a gentleman?" Annie smiled and blushed a little. Why was she doing that?

When they got home, Mackenzie whispered to Colin "I think Sundwave has a crush on Mom and she feels the same way. Did you see how they were embarrassed when they briefly stared at each other while he was walking us home?"

"Don't be silly 'Kenzie; it would never work out." Colin was dismissive of the idea; after all, he was still at the age where kissing was disgusting, let alone any other lovey dovey thing.

Annie heard this "Mackenzie Elizabeth White, I do not have a crush on any of the stars of The Transformers. Besides that, they're contractually forbidden form acting on anything like that with a coworker until said contract ends" She told her , it was a lie, but the whole idea embarrassed her.

"See? I told you." Colin said smugly, easily believing his mom's words.

Mackenzie did not believe it though but didn't say anything in response. Rumble and Frenzy had told her that after the next season was over in addition to a possible movie, they, Soundwave, and their pets would not be returning in a third season if one was made except for a few small appearances. Frenzy did not want to be on the show again after his time was done and simply wanted to be a normal preteen, then a normal teenager. Rumble had started feeling the same way. Maybe then Mom and Soundwave might become an item, she thought. They were similar not only in life styles of being single parents but also seemed to like the same old TV shows such as Bewitched and The Waltons among other things. Of course, one never knew what could happen next...

December 21st, 1984

It was time for Christmas break and Colin and Mackenzie were both in a festive mood as they sang along to Christmas songs on the radio while wrapping presents for their friends. They had gotten out of school early today of course;; their mother would be home from work soon enough.

"It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas, everywhere you go. Take a look at the Five and Ten, glistening once again…" The two siblings were singing when the doorbell rang.

"I'll get it!" Mackenzie ran to the front door and opened it. To her surprise, it was the mailman with a package from Hasbro. It was Annie though this time.

"We'll make sure she gets it." Colin said, taking the package and putting it under the Christmas tree in the living room.

After the mailman left, the two siblings went ahead and did separate things; Colin went to read while Mackenzie flipped through the TV channels for a while before turning off the TV in frustration; there wouldn't be any Christmas specials on for at least a few hours so she went to the kitchen to see where her mtoher had hidden the candy canes she bought the previous night.

She took out some toys to play with, so absorbed in her playing htat she almost didn't realize that her mother Annie had come home about half an hour later.

"Mom? What are you doing home so early?" Mackenzie asked when she heard her walking in.

"Well, Phil left to work at another studio so they're training the guy whose going to replace him this afternoon. I was allowed to come home now since I wasn't needed today." Annie smiled at her daughter as she said this. "Also, i will have Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, New Year's Eve, and New Year's Day off just so you know."

Colin had come to the top of the stairs then down the steps fast when he heard this, feeling excited. "Yes! Does that mean we can go around and see what kinds of Christmas decorations are up around Toontown?"

"Yeah, I want to do that!" his little sister agreed.

"Calm down you two; I need to get changed first then we can do that and buy ingredients to make Christmas cookies." Annie smiled at her children then went to put on regular clothing. "Also, tonight we will watch How the Grinch Stole Christmas since I know we all love that special; we did record it last year." She commented to herself as she changed out of her greasy clothes and went to take a shower.

After her shower was done, the Toon mom put on her normal clothes and came downstairs. Colin and Mackenzie were ready too so all 3 got into the family car and drove around various neighborhoods, commenting on the Christmas decorations until they came to the grocery store to get cookie ingredients and stuff to make Christmas dinner in a few days. Then, upon returning home, they had dinner and watched some Christmas specials. They knew that Christmas Day was in 4 days and everyone was excited for it...

December 25th, 1984

It started out like any other Christmas morning with Mackenzie and Colin waking up early to get to their presents and open them. This year, their relatives had not come due to not having had the time to do so but the two would certainly call them later today. Then the doorbell rang.

"I'll get it." Annie went to answer the door.

To her surprise, it was Soundwave with gifts for her and her children. He had a Santa Claus hat on and Rumble and Frenzy were with him, wearing headbands that looked like reindeer antlers.

"Merry Christmas to all of you." The dark blue robot Toon said to the family.

"Thank you." Annie took the presents and set them down. Mackenzie and Colin immediately opened theirs and then went to play with Rumble and Frenzy in the backyard. It wasn't too hot and it wasn't too cold outside today so Annie took her present from Soundwave to the backyard, the latter following her and sitting down on the ground. There was still plenty of room for the kids to play despite him doing this thankfully.

The Toon mom then opened the gift slowly; it was a necklace that had a snowflake on it and two snowflake shaped earrings to match it. There was also a card with it, which Annie opened and read it.

To an amazing friend who knows how hard being a single parent is but still inspires me to be just as good as she is. We may not be perfect parents, even if our kids think otherwise, but we do our best and that's what's important. Merry Christmas Annie and may the new year give you many opportunities to be happy.-Soundwave.

Annie smiled as she put on the necklace and put the clip on earrings on her ears. She had never gotten her ears pierced since she didn't understand why someone would want more holes in their head than they already had but was glad that clip on earrings existed. "Sounwave, this is." She wasn't sure what to say since she was so overwhelmed by positive feelings. She hugged his leg. "It's beautiful; thank you."

Behind his mouthplate, Soundwave smiled. She had loved the gift; it had been hard to believe. Now, came the hard part. He hadn't been sure about asking her on a date but Optimus and Megatron had both told him to go for it. Maybe it would not lead to anything more but he should still not let the opportunity pass him by, Elita had said to him a few days ago.

It seemed so complicated to ask such a simple question though; as it turned out, by the studio contract's terms, Annie was not considered Soundwave's coworker seeing as she mostly worked in the garage rather than directly on the set of The Transformers. Thus dating was allowed to happen so long as they focused on work while on the job and saved the "lovey dovey stuff" as Mackenzie would call it, for outside of work.

So, he asked the question. "Annie, would you spend New Year's Eve with me?"

Annie was shocked. "Are you trying to ask me out on a date?" She blushed form her embarrassment.

"Yes." Soundwave was nervous about what her final answer would be, something one wouldn't normally associate with him, on or off screen.

"I would love to go on a date with you. It might hnot lead to anything else happening but it would certainly be a nice welcome break from normal life. Moonracer can watch Colin and Mackenzie after all. Frenzy and Rumble would probably be fine by themselvers, right?" Annie asked.

"They know not to throw parties when I am not home." Soundwave laughed, something he hadn't done in a long time.

They decided they would meet up with each other at 6:00 p.m. on New Year's Eve and then go out to eat as well as watch the Toontwon New Year's Fireworks display.

The 4 kids had been listening and Mackenzie had only one thing to say. "I told you they liked each other! I knew it! I knew it! I knew it!" She said out loud to Colin. "And now they're going to go on a date!"

Rumble and Frenzy had also noticed it. They weren't sure what to think.

"Okay, okay, you were right for once." Colin sighed, resigned to the fact that he had been wrong.

"Mackenzie!" Annie blushed again, her cheeks turning bright red. While she didn't have a term for what Mackenzie was being at the moment, we in the modern day would call it a "shipper on deck".

Soundwave did a better job of hiding his embarassment. "I will see you on Monday." He said to Annie. Then he, Rumble, and Frenzy went home.

Once Mackenzie and Colin finished opening their presents and cleaning up the wrapping paper, they went to play with their new toys and Annie started making Christmas dinner. She also opened the package from Hasbro: a picture someone on staff had drawn of Optimusdressed as Santa Claus. She put the picture away and focused again on the food. This Christmas perhaps was better than last year in some ways. She hoped that the date would go well; what happened beyond that was another thing but she knew that taking the opportunity to try to date someone who she had more in common with may have been the best choice she had made so far...