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Chapter Twenty Seven – Calmness Through The Storm
Rain pounded down on the blacktop just outside the hangar, thick heavy droplets of rain splashing onto the dark cement and puddling together in any dips they could find. Atari jumped as the thunder rumbled angrily across the way suddenly, looking around anxiously, and J.J reached a hand out to pull her closer to her leg.
"C'mere, babe."
Atari looked up at her with wide eyes, then stood and jumped from the floor onto her human's lap, pulling herself into as tight of a ball as she could make. The pup never did like any kind of storm or rain.
It had been raining for a while now, and the storm was continuing to grow. It had started with just a little bit of non stop drizzle a few days prior, then regular rain, before finally the sky opened up and decided to drop all the water down on them, and the thunder started about five minutes ago – it didn't seem to be letting up at all.
Atari adjusted how she was sitting on Jess's lap, and the young girl chuckled. "Walkin' on thin ice there, Atty."
Atari huffed from where she was teetered on Jess's legs, putting more weight down on the chair she was in. With the garage blown to smithereens, and the new one's foundation only starting to be dug up now, J.J found herself sitting around with nothing to do until Will offered her a spot to watch their trainings whenever she wanted. She figured it was better than doing nothing except laying around all day in her room, so she grabbed both Greyhounds and headed down that way. There was an empty area off to the side, and there was one folding chair sitting there, stretched out and waiting for her. She hadn't noticed the smile Lennox grew on his face when he noticed her walking towards the chair he'd put out for her just in case she did decide to show up.
Olly was fine on the ground, he actually loved storms – if at any point she couldn't find him, she would probably discover he was actually outside, chasing and trying to catch raindrops with wide open jaws – but Atari was always nervous when thunder started ringing out which led to J.J grasping her tightly in hopes that it would relieve some of her anxiety.
Somebody she didn't know, who she assumed was a high ranking official, yelled out angrily at the men and women in front of him, something she didn't quite catch, but they quickly all dropped to the ground and began with another round of push ups.
The sound of tires spinning and squealing got drowned out by more thunder growling, and Atari made a whining sound as she shook in J.J's lap, and a silver Corvette came rushing towards her. He transformed up with a smooth movement, sliding to his wheeled feet, and stopped a few feet away from where she sitting. She flinched slightly, closing her one eye until he had stopped moving and she was sure he wouldn't hit her.
"What was that?" she asked.
He smirked, droplets of rain running down the length of his armor and falling to the ground. "What, ya didn't think that was impressive?"
She snorted. "You wish. What are you doing here?"
He shrugged. "Not much. Sunny's stuck with the Hatchet right now so I figured I'd come see how you're doing," he turned his head and looked at the training group, who was now all trying not to make it obvious that they were looking at him in shock as they continued with exercises, "How's it hangin', Boots!?" he yelled.
His voice boomed, making a handful of the newbies flinching, and he smirked. Lennox turned and gave him an exasperated look.
"Really, Sides?" he shouted from across the room.
"What?" Sides's tone, although he was trying to act innocent and confused, made it clear that he knew exactly what he did wrong.
Thunder rang out through the building and in her lap Atari shook with another anxious whine, catching Sideswipe's attention.
"Whats wrong with her?" he questioned.
She shook her head, "She hates storms, she gets super anxious and I don't have her thundershirt with me."
Sideswipe opened his mouth to respond but before he could actually speak or any words could come out of his mouth, the high pitched whine that could only come from twelve cylinders screamed out as a golden Lamborghini came speeding into the hangar.
Jess's eyebrows furrowed – she hadn't seen any Lamborghini here before. The import came speeding up, and just when she thought the driver would have to start braking so that they wouldn't hit her, instead the vehicle seemed to pull apart and click back together as the metal transformed around until it was standing on two feet.
Sunstreaker's face looked at Sideswipe, flicked down to her and the dogs, then back at his brother.
J.J's breath got caught in her throat as her eyes landed on his towering stature – in their first actual meeting, he'd attempted to quite literally squash her, and even though in their second attempt at a first impression he'd thanked her for helping him, she was still scared of him, of what he could do, of what he might be thinking of doing. In the almost two weeks since meeting him again, she hadn't really encountered him much, and having not seen Optimus much either in the last two weeks, to say her anxiety didn't spike a little being around him would be a lie.
"Hey, you done with Hatchet?" he asked.
Sunstreaker nodded. "Finally, it fragging took him long enough."
From where she sat in her lap, Atari growled angrily as she lifted her lips up over her incisors, her eyes zeroed in on Sunstreaker. She sat up, the growl turning into a snarl as she licked her lips, her gaze not wavering or moving from where Sunstreaker stood.
"Hey, that's enough." J.J scolded.
Atari dropped her lips as she turned and looked at J.J, the growl turning into a whine, then back into a growl as she looked back at Sunstreaker.
"Atari," J.J reprimanded her again, "I said stop."
Sideswipe laughed at his twin, pointing at him. "Atari doesn't like you."
"Good, I don't like it." He grumbled in what was most likely disgust.
Thunder rumbled again, making the brown brindle Greyhound whine and pull herself back into a tight ball.
"Actually, Sideswipe, have you seen Optimus around?" Jess asked him.
The silver bot looked down at her with a smirk, though his amusement was for a different reason than she originally assumed, but nodded. "Yeah, he's off doin' some Boss Bot scrap thirteen hours that way," he pointed off in the direction to his right, away from his brother, "Probably won't be back for a few days. But if you need help with something you could always try giving him a call, I'm sure he'd be more than happy to hear from you."
She locked her jaw, immediately thinking he was mocking her – he had been the one she accidentally spilled to about her attraction to the alien leader, after all.
"Its fine." Her short, snipped response and change of mood came as suddenly and unexpectedly as the single strike of lightning, off somewhere in the mass of ocean around them, came crashing down and left a loud crack in the air behind itself.
Atari shivered again, whining, and it was Sunstreaker huffed.
"What, does it not like loud noises?" he griped.
J.J opted to ignore the grumble, reverting her gaze back to the group of humans training, some of whom were still looking in their direction, towards the sixteen or seventeen foot tall Autobots beside her.
"Hello? What, do they go defective suddenly and can't hear or some slag?" he complained to his brother.
"No, but we can elect to ignore you." She snapped out.
"What? J.J, that's mean." Sideswipe pouted.
"Whatever. Never mind, forget I asked you anything."
Sideswipe furrowed his brow, genuinely confused as to what had happened to elicit such a sudden change in attitude from the little human female sitting in the chair below him.
"Well, if you still need him, I'll send you Optimus's number later so you can call him."
She elected not to respond once more, replacing any kind of retort with a deep sigh, and continued watching as the humans all lined up upon being yelled at by their drill sergeant.
"Whatever, c'mon Sides."
X0X0X0X0X0
Atari got worse and worse as the storm progressed on, and Jess decided it was better to slip her thundershirt on and leave her at home, surrounded by her toys, and blankets, her bed, and every other comfort she could need. Olly stuck by her side and didn't go anywhere once they'd made it to the room, so the next morning when the rain was only getting worse J.J left them there.
The rain didn't stop all day, it didn't lessen up, it only seemed to get thicker and harder and fall faster and faster and faster. Then, thunder rumbled so loudly that it was like someone was playing the drums over a dome they'd placed on top of them, and wind whipped around so hard it was bending over the few trees that she could see, all the trees that lined the blacktop. Had the buildings around them been able to move, the wind would probably have them bending too. Lightning smashed to the ground and water around the island violently, so close to the thunder that growled out that they sounded like the same thing.
This was the kind of tropical storm she'd been told to be prepared for – Will had told her a few days after being here that they had a lot of storms because of their geographical location, plus they were sitting in the middle of the ocean so they got hit with the brunt of a lot of ocean storms that started – but up until now she hadn't seen anything like this in her entire life. Sure, she'd seen bad storms before, hell one of the old trees out back by her Mom's house had been struck by a flash of lightning once and split in half, and it had even rained here on the island once or twice, but nothing more than just a bit of rain.
The storm was so bad that it almost made it hard for her to drive across the tarmac without the Jeep getting pushed and toppling over. Even from where she sat inside the Wrangler, with both doors and the roof attached and on, parked underneath the overhang of one of the buildings, she could feel the gusts of wind trying to push the vehicle around despite it being parked and way too heavy to move around. The overhang of the building kept it so that the rain couldn't reach her windshield and she didn't have to have the windshield wiper blades on in order to see what was happening on the tar mac – a plane full of cargo had landed right before the storm took a nasty turn, leaving a ton of cargo that had to be moved and not a lot of ways to do it without getting soaked. And unfortunately for the Boots, that meant they got stuck with the cargo transportation. J.J watched them with somewhat interested eyes as the young men and women, looking more like little ants right now, tracked from one of the hangars to the big C-17, and then back to the hangar with their arms full of stuff.
Suddenly, from where it sat on the dash of the Jeep, her phone began buzzing, the ringtone singing out throughout the vehicle. Her eyes flicked over to the screen of the phone, and from the odd angle she could see the unknown caller ID pop up as the caller waited. She reached forward and grabbed the phone, somewhat confused – she didn't really get unknown phone calls that often.
She dragged the answer button across the screen and placed it up to her ear.
"Hello?" she called out confused.
"Hello, J.J." a deep voice came through from the other end of the line.
"Um… hi, who is this? How do you have my number?" she asked, confused as to who was calling her; most people who had her phone number called her in the middle of the night because right now they'd probably be asleep.
The caller chuckled, his laugh rumbling into her ear warmly, and the feeling of butterflies flying around in her stomach had her furrowing her brows, "Sideswipe informed me that you were looking for me, and proceeded to give me your phone number so that once I was free I could contact you."
It clicked in her head finally. "Oh, Optimus?"
Though she didn't see it, he nodded. "Indeed."
"Oh, no, I didn't need anything, I was just wondering where you went 'cause I hadn't seen you around in a bit. I'm really sorry."
"You're apologizing for wondering where I am?" he was smirking form his end of the phone, but he tried his hardest not to make it sound so.
She let out a sigh, but smiled as she let herself drop her shoulders and nod. "Yeah, yeah I guess so."
"Well don't worry, you don't have to feel bad. Since Sunstreaker's arrival, I've been on the receiving end of quite a large amount of work, more than normal. I had a few meetings to attend to with your human leaders over the past few weeks, in regards to some private stuff happening right now that needs a solution, and currently I'm sitting in a C-17 waiting for the green light to take off. Right now it sounds as if I'll be heading to Diego Garcia and will be staying there until the storm passes or gives us enough clearance to land safely."
She furrowed her brows. "How do you know its storming?"
Again, he chuckled. "We've been receiving updates on the storm since it started as a precaution, it seems as if the worst is hitting the island now, so it should be passing soon."
She sighed. "Thank god. Its getting old, and I feel bad for the guys working on the cargo ship right now."
He laughed again, his laugh small but deep toned. "And I'm sure Sideswipe isn't making it any easier on them."
She laughed out loud finally, too. "Never. He seems to think they're his main source of entertainment."
Optimus's laugh kept on for a moment or two before he fell back into silence. "Is everything okay over there, though? Nobody's hurt, everybody's behaving?"
She nodded, controlling her laugh. "Yeah. I'm pretty sure I saw Ratchet with the two young twins not long ago and he didn't look happy, but they weren't hurt or anything. Mirage and, um, Sunstreaker, they're both pouting more or less because they were training earlier and it started turning into an actual fight so Lennox called it, and Sideswipe and Ironhide had to pull the two of them apart. Now they're both pissy because they couldn't prove who's better. But everybody else is okay."
Optimus chuckled again – of course the two mechs would do such a thing. "They didn't injure one another?"
She shook her head as she watched the line of Boot-ants head back out towards the cargo ship, "No, they're both fine. Only thing that got bruised was their egos."
It sounded like he chuckled again. "Good, I'm glad. Its not often I leave and nothing goes wrong."
She laughed. "So I've gathered. Mister Lennox seems pretty on edge lately, its like he's expecting something to go wrong."
They shared another small laugh together, "I'm sure he is."
She paused, part of her enjoying the comfortable silence they shared. To be frank, she'd expected Sideswipe to go running and blabbing about everything she'd spilled to him, relaying every word that came from her mouth to the Autobot leader. She'd expected to be confronted, she'd expected to be let go for a 'conflict of interest' or some other made up excuse they could think of that wouldn't require them to explain anything that actually happened. But, instead, it seemed like Sideswipe hadn't said anything, which left Jess to enjoy the comfortable silence that started up between them.
The silence that established itself between them sang in her ears, almost as if a perfect rendition of Beethoven's Symphony Number Five. The butterflies in her stomach weren't flying around anymore, but they were definitely still moving, shifting their wings in tiny little flaps that weren't strong enough to lift them, crawling along the bottom of her stomach with legs that tickled her.
He didn't say anything either, nor did he hang up. The two simply settled, listening to the rain pelting into her windshield, enjoying the sound of one another breathing through the phone line, both just hoping the storm would end soon and they'd be able to see one another again.
FIN
Date Started: November 3, 2020
Date Finished: November 5, 2020
Last Edited: April 7, 2021