Each day is scholar of yesterday.

-Publilius Syrus

-;-

"Robert, come sit down." Monica said softly, realizing that her husband was again in front of the window, looking over the snow covered backyard with an unreadable expression. The man turned, shoulders slumping, and crawled back into bed without putting up any fuss whatsoever.

Monica sighed softly, regretting that she couldn't do anything to help him get through the loss of his brother. He'd taken it much harder than she'd thought he would when she'd gotten the call from one of the soldiers that Robert worked with. And then when he'd actually arrived…it had damn near broken her heart to see him looking like that.

Alexis and Chase didn't know what to think about their father right now. But they tried their hardest to try to cheer him up. Just the other day, Monica had walked into the living room to find the twins snuggled up against their daddy, all three of them sleeping.

"Are you sure you don't want to talk about it?" she asked, running a hand over Rob's head in a soothing gesture that she usually only reserved for the twins when they had a nightmare. "You know I'll listen, honey."

"I know." He replied quietly. "I'm just trying to wrap my head around it."

"Alright."

It was obvious that there wouldn't be anything else she would get out of her husband now; she would try again later, perhaps.

-;-

Christmas dawned bright and early for the Epps' home in Italy; it was snowing heavily outside the windows as Ellie roused herself with as much cheer as she could muster and all but waddled down the hall to bang on Leon's door.

"Leon! It's Christmas!" she called, a wide grin on her features.

"HOLY HELL! IT'S CHRISTMAS!" Leon squealed from behind the door. A moment later, the sound of feet hitting the ground commenced, and Ellie moved down the hall to knock politely on her Nonna's door, shaking her head as she did so.

Twenty minutes later, the trio of women were clutching mugs of tea in their hands and were just sitting down when Ellie suddenly put her mug down and paused.

"Ellie? What's wrong?" Rosalina asked, worried for a moment that it had something to do with the baby. But the mocha skinned woman only shook her head and started for the door.

"I've got to do something. I'll be back in a couple minutes." She promised, grabbing her coat and slipping on her boots.

"Are you sure?" Leon asked, moving to stand. "Do you want me to come?"

"No. I'll be back soon. Don't worry." Ellie assured with a faint smile before she opened the door and slipped through, pulling it closed behind her with a small click.

-;-

Ellie carefully walked down the snow covered roads, her large jacket keeping her toasty warm, and enjoyed the silence as the snowflakes continued to fall around her. There wouldn't be anyone out and around today; not while there was family to spend the time with indoors.

It was quick work to get to the main street area, and then it only took another couple of minutes to hunt down the phone booth that occupied one of the street corners. She slipped into the dark blue booth, making sure that the door was securely closed behind her, before slipping the appropriate change into the slot and dialling the number that she had in mind.

"Hey! You've reached Monica, Robert and the terror twins! Sorry we can't answer you now; we're probably out enjoying the Christmas season, but if you leave us a message we'll get back to you as soon as we can!"

Ellie immediately felt her throat choke up as the voice of her aunt came on the answering machine, but she didn't care. It was one thing that she didn't have her dad to answer the phone anymore, but to have to listen to her aunt's voice announcing that they were still moving forward, it hurt. She missed her family. And not just her blood family, either; there was everyone at NEST that she'd become so close to in the months that she'd been there, and there were all the Autobots to consider, too.

And Fig.

One of her hands came up to rest on her stomach, gently rubbing through the fabric where their baby was growing.

It wasn't fair that he didn't know anything. That she wasn't as far away as he might think, and that she was pregnant with his child. That she was safe. Hanging up the phone, the mocha skinned woman leaned against the wall of the booth and tilted her head back, feeling the hot tears streaking down her face. It just wasn't fair that she was hormonal and away from the support that she wanted and needed more than she cared to admit, but at the same time, she was so very grateful for the support that she had right now.

Sniffing, she wiped her cheeks before exiting the booth and heading back up the road towards home.

-;-

The pod cracked easily under the pressure from his blades as he carefully extracted himself from the difficult position he currently found himself in. After landing on this slagging planet, he'd onlined to find himself not as close to stasis as he'd thought. Apparently his solar panelling had picked up on the waves given off by the sun in this solar system and had recharged his systems to a satisfactory state that would allow him to function for a longer period of time.

Already, he'd onlined his systems, and had connected to something called the internet to find some kind of language packet that he could download and integrate into his systems. If what the Prime had said was true, then he would need some way to communicate with the organic species that already lived on this planet. And while he was on that particular trail of thought, he supposed that he would also need a new alternate-mode in order to blend in. It had to be something low to the ground and fast; both necessary when Decepticons were involved in the equation.

Finally breaking through, he hauled himself to his pedes, unsure of what to think as they sunk slightly into the ground. A moment later, however, he decided that it didn't matter. There were more pressing concerns that he needed to deal with at the moment, such as repairing himself to the best of his ability with the remnants of the pod so that he didn't offline himself while trying to find the Prime. Unfortunately, he couldn't repair his communications systems, which had been thrown out of the loop by entering this atmosphere, and would need to seek out a medic to help him recalibrate them to the standards that he would be operational.

Growling something highly unpleasant in the language that he had downloaded, the mech got to work in disassembling the pod, sub-spacing the parts that he could use later.

-;-

"WHERE ARE THOSE SLAGGING TWINS!? I'LL MELT THEM DOWN AND USE THEM FOR SPARE PARTS!" Ratchet roared, storming out of his Med Bay with a wrench in each servo. "I'LL DISASSEMBLE THEM FROM THE PEDE UP!"

Of course, that being the first thing that the soldiers heard on Christmas morning, it was needless to say that it was going to be an entertaining day if nothing else. Of course, what the irate CMO didn't know was that it wasn't Sunstreaker or Sideswipe who had painted his Med Bay a lovely shade of holly green; it had been Jazz. But he didn't need to know that just yet. There was also the small matter of Jazz having an alibi; he'd been out and about on the island with Prowl and the femmes, playing a game of tag. So it couldn't have possibly been him.

Mind, the newly arrived First Aid was concerned about this kind of behavior, considering that he didn't quite know what to make of it. Sure, he knew that the frontliner twins played pranks, but he had no idea that they would go so far as to actually brave the lair of the spark eater and paint it while they were in recharge.

Ratchet was on the warpath, and it seemed that nobot would be able to prevent him with actually carrying out with his threat this time. Poor Wheeljack, who had arrived in the same small pod as First Aid, was unlucky enough to be walking down one of the halls towards the recreation room as Ratchet went by, and had immediately disappeared. No doubt back down towards his own quarters, but that wouldn't be confirmed until the weekly explosion occurred.

Sunstreaker and Sideswipe were in the recreation room enjoying a cube of energon when they first heard the mech roar, and were now on the run, transforming in mid-leap in a prayer that they would make it outdoors before they were found. They had no idea what they'd done this time, but at this point, it was safer to make a run for it and then try and figure out what they'd done when their sparks weren't in danger of being extinguished by the CMO.

Will and Fig were in the cafeteria enjoying cups of steaming coffee as the dual streaks of silver and gold raced by, closely followed by a flash of neon green, and they couldn't help but laugh at the panicked sounding pleading that they heard coming from them as the sirens on Ratchet's alt-mode wailed. It was just one of those sights that they would never tire of seeing, really. Sure, there would be those times when the humans were the targets of their antics, but they were easily put back into place by Ironhide or Optimus. Will had been seriously amused when one of their pranks that they'd pulled involved him, because Ironhide, being the mother hen that he secretly was, flipped and sent them to the Med Bay with several new dents and bubbled paint from his cannons.

Eliza, Marcus and Lex were on their way down to the cafeteria themselves when they dodged the trio of chaos, Lex sniggering at Sunstreaker and Sideswipe's plight.

"Jesus. You'd think those two would've learned by now not to piss off the medic." Eliza commented, turning to stare in the direction that they'd taken off into.

"Weeelllll…maybe it wasn't actually them who did it this time." Lex smirked, whistling a cheery tune to herself and skipping off down the hall. "I'm not claiming anything~!"

"She totally helped Jazz do it." Marcus deadpanned.

"What? How do you know?" Eliza blinked, looking to her SIC in slight puzzlement. The male shrugged in reply.

"Well, if it's not those two pushing their luck, it's Jazz. And considering that Jazz was out last night, logic says that he had help pulling it off. Plus, Lex loves pissing off as many people in as little time as possible. Therefore, there's going to be three 'bots ticked off, plus Optimus and Will when they find out." He said, almost like he was conversing about the weather.

"Huh."

"Mhm. C'mon, I want to get coffee before everyone those three woke up come to get it." Marcus yawned, grabbing Eliza's shoulder and half dragging her along.

"Yeah. Some Christmas so far, huh?" she snickered.

-;-

"Thanks again, Nonna." Ellie hummed, flipping through the journal that she'd been given by her grandmother in order to mark down whatever she wanted for her pregnancy. Leon had been given a matching set, and the mocha skinned woman was already jotting down the first entry as the three women basked in the afterglow of shredding wrapping paper. Leon was currently wearing the new sweater that Ellie had given her, and looked quite content that it fit comfortably over her large stomach.

Rosalina was flipping through the photo album that Leon and Ellie had both worked on while they'd been in Italy, getting photos from their cameras and several others to make a sort of timeline for the elder woman. Mind, even with all of their hard work, over half of the album was still left unfilled; but then again, there was still plenty of time to fill the remainder of the album.

"You're most welcome, amore mio. Leon, I see you're enjoying your sweater." Rosalina replied, sipping from her mug of tea and smiling affectionately.

"Mmmm…it's really comfy." The brunette agreed, huddling down further in her chair and petting her shoulders with her hands. "Thanks Ellie."

"You're welcome." The mocha skinned woman replied, fixing her hair so that it wasn't hanging in her face and standing. "Anyone want anything while I'm up?"

"Something to fix the cankles I'm getting." Leon supplied promptly.

"Sorry, can't do that. Anything else?" Ellie rolled her eyes, grabbing her empty mug and setting her journal aside. "I think we've got some cookies in the fridge."

"Please." Leon moaned longingly.

"If you don't mind, amore mio." Rosalina added with a fond shake of her head. "Also, could you please get the meat out of the fridge? It needs to thaw for a couple more hours."

"Sure thing, Nonna." Ellie replied, mock saluting as she left the room and headed for the kitchen.

It had been smooth sailing since her mild breakdown a couple of hours before, and neither her grandmother nor Leon knew what had transpired. And to be perfectly honest, Ellie wasn't really in the mood to tell them. She had a right to her privacy, and both of the other women knew enough by now to tell that it had been something to do with her father and/or her uncle that had caused her to leave in the first place.

Sighing comfortably, Ellie put her empty mug next to the sink before moving to the fridge and grabbing the meat that her grandmother wanted her to put on the counter before grabbing the plate of cookies out. She had no real want to do much else for the rest of the day, and damnit, it was Christmas. She and her grandmother and Leon could and would do whatever the hell they wanted. It wasn't like they had any responsibilities to take care of until dinner, anyway.

"Merry Christmas, Daddy." She whispered before grabbing the cookies and heading back into the living room to join her family.