Chapter 209 – The Long Tuesday: Late Night Revelations
(WPOV)
"How'd you already figure out how to make it look like a uniform?" Lt. Benson asked curiously. "It took forever for me to convince the suit to look like a decent set of bluejeans!"
Will smirked slightly, he couldn't help it. Sarah rolled her eyes beside him and he patiently reached out, lightly tucking his wife and child into his side. He had a genius baby, and whether that was just because Ironhide had cheerfully tutored her any chance he got or if it was their genes that had managed it it didn't matter.
He couldn't have been prouder of his daughter
"That's 'cause you were comin' at it from the wrong angle," Ironhide grumbled. "Suit's an extension of yourself. It ain't the same as clothes even if it looks like clothes."
"It's a cyberskin!" Anabelle announced cheerfully.
Off in the corner, Lena's engine burped slightly, Will glanced at the tech lieutenant curiously for a moment before turning to his ladies.
"Let's get you two settled into the guest's quarters," Will stated with a smile. Ironhide grinned and reached up, offering his hands to them again and as expected, Anabelle began to squirm somewhat.
"Please," Sarah murmured. Anabelle ceased squirming and looked curiously at her mother. "Let me carry you, just for a little while."
"While I'm still small enough for you to carry?" Anabelle asked her mother in an amused tone. Will winced slightly, and caught the sympathetic gaze of the titan silently watching them. "No offence momma but you're really hot."
"Hit the flight suit mode and ask it for air-conditioning," Lena suggested sweetly.
"It does that!?" Lt. Benson demanded, spinning to lay incredulous eyes on the femme.
"Certainly Lieutenant," Optimus informed the man gently. "It was one of the first strings of coding Ratchet implemented in the suit's construction: namely the proper temperature control of the wearer to prevent both heat-stroke and hypothermia."
"Tha's better," Anabelle announced contentedly. Will glanced down at his daughter and snorted in amusement as she promptly cuddled into her mother's arms, evidently perfectly content to go back to her beauty sleep with the fight suit keeping her cool. Will honestly couldn't blame his daughter either, the suit was damn comfortable.
Dead useful, too, with the strength augmentations and extreme camouflaging capabilities; hell, Will was still wearing his. Actually...
"Get a lift down Optimus?" Will grinned at the mech.
"Of course Colonel," Optimus nodded regally. The next moment Will felt himself floating beside his wife and child, the titan lightly depositing them in his own hands before he turned and gracefully took a knee; offering them the ground as gently as a lady would a duckling.
Will hopped off of the titan's hand and turned, catching Sarah behind the knees and sweeping her into his own arms.
"I got this one," he winked at Ironhide as Sarah squeaked and laughed in turn.
"Oh put me down," Sarah commanded him with a laugh. "You're not going to carry me for two miles."
"Can and will," Will informed his wife with a grin, cheerfully parading his way through the massive sliding doors that one of the 'bots had kindly signalled to open for him, which he knew for a fact, because trying to get that sensor to trigger without topping ten feet or better was a feat in itself.
"Bets!" Ironhide rumbled behind him. Anyone could hear that grin.
"A fiver says he'll make it to the med-bay!"
"Ten says he makes it all the way to the door of the guest's quarters!"
"And fifty says I'll make him put me down in twenty steps so we're not making a spectacle in the middle of a military base!" Sarah piped up amidst the clamour.
Silence.
"Five rell Sarah gets her way," Ironhide rumbled with a laugh, a light crash denoting the back of his hand meeting Optimus' hip.
"Was it not you, my trusted Weapons Master whom repeatedly advised me against making bets on the probable actions of femmes?"
Will grinned as Anabelle giggled quietly in their arms, his daughter already half-asleep as he marched his way toward the central.
"Good evening," Optimus rumbled calmly the next moment. Will angled toward the yellow line as the juddering footsteps approached behind them. Optimus nodded calmly down to them as he passed, turning into the central two hundred feet ahead of them.
Sarah caught his eyes firmly the next moment and Will caved, lightly setting his wife on her feet as she so desired. Without doubt the tech watching the surveillance footage was now reporting the winner of the bets.
Looking to the left Will smiled a little to see Optimus lightly pulling Kae to her feet, the femme's arms creeping around her mate's waist the next moment as Optimus wound her into a deep, supporting embrace. To the side somewhat, Bee sat in his usual spot, the young mech's optics locked on him.
Will nodded to the cheerful yellow mech then frowned slightly as the bot seemingly took no notice, the hazel optics glowing that little bit more golden once more as they flicked to the side then back to him.
Not to him, to Anabelle.
"Where will Anabelle and I be while your lot are talking military secrets?" Sarah asked him calmly.
"I'd imagine Kae will have you two sitting in the cockpit. Or you never know, they might adopt the same form as Airforce one with a bedroom," Will shrugged patiently, looking back at his wife.
"That would be nice," Sarah commented patiently. Will nodded and glanced through the eternally open med-bay doors.
"Night Ratchet," he called out patiently. Ratchet glanced up at them for a moment before the medic's holoform blinked into place a few steps in front of them.
"Both yours and Anabelle's suits need to be returned to lockup," Ratchet informed them calmly.
"Canna just wear it to bed?" Anabelle muttered drowsily in her mother's arms, the suit idly morphing from flight suit to fuzzy white pyjamas.
Another time little Bell∂ Ratchet murmured kindly, a gentle knuckle lightly running across her cheek. Will smiled somewhat, relatively certain of his mental translation. "But for now what energon you both have absorbed from interacting with us will be fully required whilst you are wearing your suits in space." The medic continued in english, "I'll not have you losing what protection I can give you whilst outside the safety of your atmosphere, simply because I didn't want to wake you to retrieve it."
"Mkay," Anabelle mumbled, her little arms reaching out toward Ratchet.
Will watched with a small smile as Ratchet gently collected Anabelle with a tender smile of his own, the holoform carrying the girl with the same fatherly care that Will himself did. At the same time, the mech's true form reached down, a thick, fuzzy blanket appearing in the palm of his hand from his subspace the next moment.
Will nodded to himself and lightly jogged into the change bay, disengaging his suit and watching in amusement as it left him starkers again. That was the only disconcerting thing about the suit: it didn't matter what you wore into it, whatever it was it was guaranteed to be gone by the time you got out. Will pulled his waiting robe on and cinched the waist tight, striding back toward Ratchet as the medic's holoform collected Anabelle from his hand again.
"Where'd those pj's come from?" he asked curiously as the holoform cradled the sleeping girl.
"I had a bit of spare carbon," Ratchet shrugged patiently, smiling as Anabelle nuzzled her face into the holoform's chest. "May I impose upon you both to escort you to your quarters?" he asked quietly.
"I'd swear you're wrapped as tightly around my daughter's fingers as Ironhide," Sarah informed the mech in amusement, turning and beginning to lead the way.
"We cannot help but count her hidden spark among ours," Ratchet commented gently, striding beside Will as they made their way to the housing wing. "As painful as it is to watch one of our own captured by the human's ageing process I could never deny her place among us."
"Why can't you just re-designate her?" Sarah asked with a small frown.
"In order to re-designate her not simply I, but every bot on base would first need to delete every single memory inherent to Anabelle's existence; which includes all of the medical data I have collected on her as well. As a medic I could never endanger my patients in such a manner, and Ironhide would march into the Well long before he deleted a single memory of his favourite femmeling," Ratchet explained quietly. "At this stage of Anabelle's development I believe that it would be a traumatic event in her memories if everybot, including her Uncle Ironhide ceased to recognize her entirely. Besides that, the hole it leaves in one's memory is rather uncomfortable for a few vorn."
"Painful?"
"At times, though generally the discomfort is caused more by a bot's processors then trying to figure out what's missing rather than any physical malady."
"What?"
"If I were to properly erase a memory, then that would include the reasons I deleted that memory in the first place; the result being one or more gaps in my cognition timeline not attributed to processor inactivity. I've done it once, actually now that I think of it it still irritates me that I cannot remember what that memory was, even what emotion was attached to it," the medic finished with a grimace.
Will stopped at the door to the guest quarters and looked the holoform square in the face.
"What did Optimus mean when he said you'd grieve her loss as you would one of your own?" Will asked the medic firmly.
Ratchet looked at him for a long moment before pressing a gentle kiss to Anabelle's forehead. Sarah smiled as she gently collected their daughter, the girl down for the count as her mother carried her to bed. Will watched the medic warily as the holoform resumed observing him.
"Ratchet," Will stated warily.
"As fond of you and your mate as we are, Colonel Lennox, the fact remains that your total lifespan is unlikely to exceed a vorn. In my optics, by my perspective, your life begins and ends in the space of a single year. As a result there is a certain detachment that one must maintain. Much as you yourself would not allow a personal attachment to a mayfly - destined to live it's entire life in the space of twenty-four hours - I cannot allow myself to form the deep attachment with you that I would with Optimus, or Ironhide," Ratchet stated quietly.
Will bristled somewhat, he couldn't help it.
"You sound like a Decepticon," he informed the mech stiffly.
"I cannot help that," Ratchet retorted bluntly.
"That still doesn't explain what Optimus meant," Will stated flatly.
"Our race is dying Will," Ratchet informed him flatly. "In the past forty-two vorn what sparkings that might have become hatchlings haven't had the energon necessary to inhabit their bodies. The All-spark was launched from Cybertron to ensure that Megatron didn't use it to create a new army utterly loyal to him, but as a result the only being keeping our planet alive was lost. The All-spark has been shattered, and even if by some miracle we win the war, and Kae takes the place of the All-spark the Cybertronian race still faces extinction; a fate that lays heavily on every spark and drives us to desperate acts.
"When I landed on earth it wasn't to protect the human race, Will, it was a desperate bid to find the all-spark and return her to Cybertron in the hope of saving the few thousand left alive. We all are hardwired to protect the young at any cost, and that instinct is exacerbated by the fact that there hasn't been any surviving hatchlings created since the All-spark was lost."
"Then Anabelle..." Will murmured.
"Within my processors, within my spark, Anabelle is the first Cybertronian hatchling to have survived the separation from her carrier," Ratchet replied heavily. "Logically, I know and understand that she is human, that she will in all likelihood die within this vorn or early into the next; but within my spark she is a Cybertronian, and when her spark returns to the Well ours will register her as a Cybertronian hatchling taken long before her time."
"Then what if..." Will began quietly, his chest tightened as an iron fist closed around his heart at the thought of depriving his child of her Uncle Ironhide.
"You simply took your child away and ensured that we never came into contact with her again? Will I am bound to Optimus, as is Ironhide," Ratchet informed him gravely. "When he became the emperor he was bound to every Cybertronian spark in the universe. At any point in time he can tell you exactly how many of our number remain. At spark level he registers every life, every death, and with every spark lost he is reminded of just how helpless we are to stop it."
"But that means-" Will choked, staring at the medic.
"When Anabelle dies it won't matter if we haven't seen her in eighty or ninety of your years, we'll still know," Ratchet stated simply. "Ironhide isn't simply Optimus' bodyguard, if all Optimus had needed was a bot to watch his back there were far more talented mechs on offer-."
"I heard that!" Ironhide called down the corridor.
"Sentinel chose Ironhide because he is one of the most stubborn, bull-headed and outwardly callous mechs in existence-" Ratchet continued, raising his voice slightly.
"Oi!" Ironhide growled, onlining his holoform beside Ratchet's.
"- who despite all odds: any challenge, any threat, every trial, tribulation, tragedy and hardship thrown at him is taken in stride; it's brushed off with a growl and the mech soldiers on," Ratchet finished, batting off Ironhide for the few moments that the heavyset holoform made to physically chastise the older for his lip. "Ironhide doesn't simply protect Optimus' physical form, from the moment Optimus became the Emperor his bull-headedness has been the buffer protecting our Prime's spark from slipping into a grief-stricken madness."
"Then why the hell do you keep calling him a pacifist!?" Will demanded, looking at Ironhide. "It's no wonder he doesn't want to kill people! If I felt every death-"
"Because we're at war Will," Ironhide growled. "Don't matter what species y'are, death happens; and about the only way you can get that younglin' rip to keep movin' forward is to get him to quit thinkin' about it; mind it's been a slag-ton easier since he bonded Kae," he added offhandedly.
"How?" Will demanded incredulously.
"Mikaela began as a human," Ironhide shrugged patiently. "She accepts death not only as an integral part of life, but a necessary one. No matter where their physical forms are in relation to each other, she's beside him every second of every day, not only accepting death as a fact of life, but reminding him that he's not as helpless as he feels; that even in the face of our own extinction there's still hope."
"Get some sleep, Colonel," Ratchet stated calmly. "The day grows ever longer with each hour you deprive yourself of recharge."
Will nodded and watched the two holoforms wink out, he strode into the guest's quarters and listened to his Sarah humming softly as she showered. He looked down at the robe he was still wearing and poked his head into the bathroom.
"I'm just going to get my pyjamas," he informed his wife calmly.
"Wake me up when you finally get back to bed," Sarah smiled at him. Will chuckled and turned, striding first to his own quarters and tugging on his sleepwear. He glanced at his uniform and decided against bringing it along; he'd only be wearing it for twenty minutes before he'd be in his suit again tomorrow.
Semi-properly clad, Will marched his way to the central and breathed an inward sigh of relief.
Bumblebee was sitting right where he'd left him, a pensive look on the young bot's faceplates and his optics dimmed somewhat. He seemed to be intently reviewing his logs.
"Bee," Will stated calmly, striding to stand within easy visual distance – both for him and for Bee.
"Colonel," Bumblebee chirped, giving a slight start before grinning at him.
It was a forced grin, discomfort was humming out of the bot's spark again.
"How long has Anabelle had a visible spark thread?" Will asked the scout firmly.
"What? How... you... she... uh..." Bumblebee began, the tone of discomfort increasing substantially with overtones of guilt making their way to the forefront.
"Bee," Will stated firmly, crossing his arms and holding the bot's optics.
"Since... um…" Bee waffled uncomfortably, but Will knew these bots. Bee wasn't worried about 'Belle having a spark-thread; with their race dying such a thing would be cause for a full out celebration.
No, Bumblebee was worried about how well Sarah and he were going to take the news.
"Give it to me straight, Bee," Will sighed.
"Ever since Harrison brought Sarah and Anabelle to Diego Garcia," Bumblebee mumbled, reaching up and rubbing at the back of his helm.
"That young!?" Will demanded.
"Back in the old vorn, a bot who manifested a thread with a hatchling was given that hatchling to rear beneath their guardianship. Particularly if it was a sparking of the All-spark or if the creators didn't claim their hatchling." Bumblebee shrugged. "Soundwave raised Nightsong beside her creators before they began their courtship."
"He raised his wife?" Will demanded with a frown.
"No-bot courts a hatchling Will, we don't reach courtship age until we gain our adult body."
Will took a deep breath and let it out slowly.
"And you didn't tell me before now because?" he asked with a modicum of patience.
"You and Sarah are already upset about how quickly 'Belle's advancing!" Bumblebee exploded. "How'm I supposed to make the fact that she's had a thread reaching for Sunstreaker and Sideswipe okay in your processors? And until Jacobs got Sunstreaker's wiring straightened out how was I supposed to tell a first class predator that he's been linked to a squishy since the day his brother laid optic on her!?"
"Wait, slow down, both of them!?" Will demanded.
"See!?" Bumblebee demanded agitatedly. "Humans are all monogamistic and scrap! But the twins could never bond another without an equal bonding between all three-"
"So they'd become a trine," Will stated calmly.
"-It'd... what?" Bee looked down at him curiously.
"Sunstreaker, Sideswipe and Anabelle: they'd be a trine," Will stated in as calm of a tone as he could manage. His daughter was going to have not one but two husbands; one irascible the other incorrigible.
"Or she'd become a sister to them," Bumblebee shrugged. "Sunny and Sides aren't a bonded pair, like Stormchaser and Slashfyre are, they're twins. Really none of us will know 'til she comes of age."
Will looked up at the young bot for another moment before he strode forward, climbing up Bumblebee's leg and sitting on his thigh struts, leaning back comfortably against the mech's abdomen. Gently, Bee threaded a protective hand around him, the same way he'd seen the mech do for Kae as a human.
"So my daughter is fated to marry the terror twins."
"Dunno that yet," Bumblebee shrugged above him. "They could turn out to be a sibling trine, like 'Cee, Chrome and Flare are. You're taking this way better than I was projecting."
"Because for some reason, I'm willing to bet that if you looked back in your logs you'll find you actually catalogued Kae as a Cybertronian and just didn't realize it," Will stated assuredly.
"Kae was human," Bumblebee stated with a frown.
"Did you check?"
"No..."
"Do it."
Silence for a long moment, Will grinned when the mech beneath him jumped.
"How the slag!?" Bumblebee demanded.
"I'm pretty sure that at this point Optimus'd say: the spark knows what the processors don't want to admit," Will stated with a broad grin, tilting his head up to look at Bee. "If even half of what Ratchet said is true you guys wouldn't have allowed yourselves to get as close to Kae as you did if she'd been catalogued human. Have you told them yet?"
"No."
"Shouldn't you do that before they start thinking they're going mad?"
"What?"
"Didn't you see Sunstreaker picking Sarah, Belle and I up and getting us out of the way of the Primes landing? Kae always fires that klaxon off before the skyris even begins opening, and everyone knows it. There's plenty of time for even the slowest to get out of the way. Which means if my projections are right Sunstreaker and Sideswipe are going to be snapping into a protective mode anytime 'Belle is even remotely threatened. They have no idea why, and they're going to be a danger to everyone else on base if they can't get it under control," Will stated firmly. "And they can't get it under control if they have no idea what's happening."
"How the slag did you figure that out?" Bumblebee demanded.
'Cause I'm a few bytes smarter than the average bear∂ Will stated in common, making Bee laugh. "Did I get it half-ways right?" he asked with a grin.
"Close enough," Bumblebee chirped.
"So if a human could be considered a Cybertronian in a hatchling's body, how were Jolt and Optimus courting Lena and Kae?" Will asked curiously.
"Jolt glitched over that a couple of times, and no-bot could consider Kae a hatchling," Bumblebee shrugged. "Especially after Optimus' mark etched itself over her spark, and her own mark was chosen."
"True," Will murmured, crossing his arms over Bee's finger. "Shall we go wake them up?"
"Nuh-uh," Bumblebee stated firmly.
"Bumblebee I have an entire base of humans who could potentially pose a threat to my daughter in the twins' optics. I need to make sure they can get their processors straight before someone gets hurt," Will stated flatly.
"I'm big enough for you to hide behind, Will," Bumblebee stated in an amused tone. "But big-sister is asleep at the moment, who'm I supposed to hide behind if Sunstreaker flips a switch?"
"Kae's gonna be recharging for two days?" Will asked with a frown.
"But so are the twins," Bee shrugged.
Will sat comfortably ensconced in Bumblebee's hand for another moment and heaved a sigh.
"Fine, when everybot's awake we're clearing the air," Will decided firmly.
"Deal," Bumblebee nodded before rising, lightly cradling him as he strode to the guest's quarters. Will couldn't help but lounge in Bumblebee's arms, the little mech had always carried humans like they were babies...
"You really can't help but consider me a baby, can you," Will laughed at the mech.
"You're only eight hundred and seventy-two orn old! Of course you're a baby!" Bumblebee chirped, teasingly rocking him before gently setting him down in front of the door to the guest's wing. "Sunstreaker and Sideswipe will never hurt Anabelle, Will," Bumblebee informed him seriously, kneeling down to look him optic to eyes. "Their programming won't allow it."
"I know Bee, but that's not going to stop me from giving my potential sons in law the gears for a little while," Will smirked at the bot, he glanced at his watch and heaved a sigh.
"What's wrong?" Bee asked cautiously.
"Nothing you need to worry about," Will sighed. "See you in a joor Bee."
"Colonel why did you sigh?" Bumblebee demanded worriedly.
"It's Wednesday."