To those who read my author notes, I have some exciting news: my step mom's bio daughter just had a baby. His name is Liam and he is adorable. I felt slightly bad for her since she had him during this scary time and the dad was a dick so the daughter kicked him out of her life.
The sun was still rising in the bright blue sky when we arrived at Zips. It was about eleven o'clock in the morning as I pulled my truck next to Ironhide's alt. mode. Sarah and Anna jump out while Hide stayed and I followed the two into Zips. Hopefully the dogs don't try anything stupid while we are gone.
Sarah and Anna are holding hands like a mother and daughter would do with me a step behind them. It has been a little bit chaotic this week for me after Will was attempting to get me to have the case from earlier this week; others was from dealing with people not being the brightest bulb in the pack.
All three of us walked up to the counter and ordered our food. Of course, I paid for our food which caused Sarah to argue about her wanting to pay, I didn't let that happen. Anna led us over to a booth for us to sit at.
Once we sat down, Sarah faced me with a knowing smile. "So, I have seen how you've been getting close with the Terror Twins," she teased and stuck a fry in her mouth. I hide my shock and embarrassment from her expertly and gave her a confused looked.
"Well, they are my guardians so I kind of have to be around them," I played the innocent card well. Sarah glared at me, not totally believing my story but I could see in her eyes she was contemplating it. "Though I wished I picked someone else, Sides can be annoying at times and Sunstreaker is always rude." The icing on the cake.
In the pit of my heart felt like it twisted from my words and guilt rose inside of me. "Oh, I thought that, you know, had some further relationship with them then guardians." I had to force the rude comment down my brain thought up from spilling.
"You know I don't believe in love and you know the reason why." I gave her a pointed look and took a sip from my drink. My past, especially my mother, had ruined the happy ended for me. Love is a fairy tale that will never be a thing for me.
"But love is good. It make you happy and fuzzy inside!" Anna interrupted us. I smiled sadly at the child before turning my gaze to my shiny, white truck parked outside. Hide was taller due to his heightened doors but from the front, mine looked to be the bigger one.
Powerstroke had all the right features to even out the truck; from the wheel flares to the brush guard, it wasn't over done. With thirty-five inch tires and black and silver rims while with a four inch lift kit. This was the perfect truck for me, like it was specially made just for me.
"Brey!" I snapped out of drooling over my truck and gazed at Sarah. "Even though they're different, they could be for you," Sarah offered kindly. I scowled at her in defense.
"Love is a fairy tale for me, I'm bad luck so it's not going to happen for me," I grounded out and immediately felt bad for my tone of voice. "I'm so-," Sarah cut me off.
"It's alright, that's what you think of love from your… past experiences but all I ask is to give it a try. If they dare hurt you, mentally or physically, then Hide over there will personally rip them apart." My eyes stared at the black GMC next to my truck with confusion in my eyes. Why would he even give a rat's ass about me?
"Why though, we barely know each other." Sarah smiled with a hidden emotion below it.
"Him and Will have only knew each for a few months but would defend each other with their lives. The Autobots care deeply about a being who is loyal to them, and you are the definition of loyalty. Even the other Bots would chew the Twins out if they hurt you." I knew too much about being loyal to the point it was toxic to myself but my mind wouldn't let me stop.
"I'm just some human that stuck my nose where it shouldn't have been. That also got Zeke and Dom in this mess too," I commented and ate the last bite to my burger.
"Things happen for a reason, Brey. Sometimes for the better and others for the worse. What do you think about meeting them?" Did she mean the Twins or the Autobots? Better to go with the Autobots to show that I'm not interested in the Twins at all.
"I wish I wasn't held against my will with bruised ribs by a Con and had a nice, calmer meeting with them. But I wouldn't trade it for the world, they're nice to me and beings who are good at heart or whatever they have," I answered truthfully.
"I knew you liked the Twins! They're good for and to you." Wait, what?! She thought I was talking about the Terror Twins.
"No-no-no-no-no, I was talking about the Autobots, not the Terror Twins," I hastily corrected her mistake. Sarah wasn't taking it though; she continued to believe that I was talking about the Twins.
While she was teasing me, her phone buzzed and alerted her she had a text message. Sarah glanced at it then to the trucks outside and waved solemnly. Hide flashed his lights twice before pulling out of the parking lot of Zips and drove away. "Cons are popping up and he's needed at the base. We'll be on our own for the rest of the day."
At least I drove my own truck here and won't have to ask Zeke or Dom to pick us up. "After we're done here let's go to the dog park, the puppers need to run," I offered and sucked up the last of my drink.
"Doggies!" Anna cheered happily and bounced in her seat. "Can we go now? See, I done with food." She pointed down at her paper bag meant as a plate.
"Sure let's go. We need to be careful though, Hide warned us about the Cons." We stood up from the booth, grabbed all of our garbage, and headed out the door.
Gladly in the back of my truck is a booster seat that I forgot in there when I took Annabelle somewhere. Sarah buckled her up for me and the two of us hopped in the front. If she ever needed to, Sarah had the right to drive my truck in case of an emergency if her car didn't want to work.
I pulled up to the fence of the dog park as the dogs in the bed of the truck yipped excitedly; they knew where we were. Once I lowered the tailgate so the two can jump down, they were, within a couple of seconds, by the gate, waiting to be let in. Sarah let the two in past the double door and led the three of us to a bench higher up the small hill.
"To continue our conversation from before, what do you like about the Twins?" Sarah continued to tease me. I rolled my eyes and kept my mouth shut, saying something would make the situation worse than it already is.
"What about their paint jobs? Sunstreaker likes to keep his clean and pristine and I bet the inside of his alt. mode smells amazing-."
"Could you please stop? I don't like them the way you think I do, they're only my guardians for however long they can put up with me," I interrupted her and observed the dogs playing with the others.
"Are you embarrassed? And what do you mean by that? You're not a troublemaker or neither do you annoy them."
"I follow the rules since I'm an officer of the law, they don't. We're complete opposites and before you say opposites attract, not us. I'm going to keep it professional between the three of us."
"You don't know that. Maybe they'll start following some of the rules just for you!" I rolled my eyes with a scoff and leaned back against the metal bench.
"Auntie, if you not do it for Mommy, could you try for me?" Anna had gotten off the bench and stood in between my legs with a pleading look: the puppy eyes. I tried my best to resist her adorableness but sorrowfully, I succumbed to her.
"Alright, alright, I'll give the two a chance." Anna jumped happily around the bench while chanting 'Auntie and Sunny and Sides sitting in a tree'. This caught the attention of some of the people around us. I wrapped my arms around her and stood up, taking her with me. "Quite, not everyone needs to hear that."
Anna giggled like a school girl and squirmed in my grasp, failing to get free. "Mommy! Auntie is being mean!" she cried after giving up and was laying limp in my arms.
"You'll be fine," Sarah cooed and didn't do anything to stop me.
After another fifteen to twenty minutes of us sitting at the bench, the dog's energy was almost gone. "Kodiak, Vivian!" I called and waited for them to coming panting over to me. I led the two to the tailgate and lifted Vivian up since she's too tired to get up there.
I close the back end and hop back into my truck before driving off with the five of us. On the drive home, my mind slow grew with fright at the thought of one of the Twins getting hurt if the Cons do decide to attack. It was only friendly worrying, that's all. Yet a part of me didn't believe that.
After dropping Sarah and Anna off, I parked my truck in front of my house and released the dogs to the yard. They followed me into the house and literally collapsed on the couches."You know you still need to have some dinner." This didn't even faze them at the word of dinner and they were already passed out.
My stomach gave a small, painful twist and I groaned in reaction, please don't be my period. It wasn't supposed to start until in a couple of days. My reaction to pain woke the dogs up from their dead of sleep of they came rushing over to me. Vivian was trying jump up on me while Kodiak was licking my hands and sniffing me.
"It's okay, bubbas'," I reassured them and made my way towards one of the couches in the living room. It was a quarter towards three and way too early for me to sleep or it would throw off my sleep schedule.
The dogs hop up on couch with me and Vivian laid on my stomach while Kodiak laid on my feet. The two of them occasionally licked at any skin they could reach with worry in their eyes.
Instead of laying there in the silence of my house, I turned on the TV to watch a rerun of Live PD. The show was entertaining to watch in my past time and even helped me in some cases on what to do. Except there is an officer on here that I don't care for, he always makes the situation bigger than it needs to be.
"Aubrey? Wake up!" a familiar voice ordered. I groaned from being woken up and sloppily pushed away the person. "I will have Hide drop you in the tub full of cold water." This caught my attention and forced me to sit up.
I immediately regretted that and nearly lost whatever was left in my stomach. "Jeez, Brey, you don't look so good," Will spoke up with worry in his voice.
"Well, I don't feel so good. Wait, where are the dogs?" I hastily got to my feet, ignoring the three people in my living room, and scanned the area around me. Gladly, my two family members were in their kennels and attempting to escape.
"We put them in there because they wouldn't let us near you. Kodiak bit Hide," Sarah explained why they weren't out and about. They're both extremely protective of me, specially Kodiak. What in the hell is going on? I felt sicker than a dog and my stomach was doing flips. "You two watch her and keep her on the couch, I'll be back."
Sarah left me to deal with these two. Will came up to me and gently pushed me down on the couch. I wanted to protest against him but my body didn't have the energy to fight him. "You're burning up! Hide, watch her, I'm going to get a cool, wet towel." Then Will left to the kitchen quickly and was searching around in the drawers.
Hide kneeled down in front of me and placed his large, calloused hand on my forehead. It was a bit cooler then the heat radiating from my forehead. "Will, should I com Ratchet? She's a bit warmer than a human should be," Hide called out to his partner in the kitchen.
"I would wait for Sarah to come back, she'll know what to do." Will came from the kitchen with a wet towel in his hand and pushed me back on the couch. The cold towel on my forehead felt good, sadly the towel quickly absorbed the heat.
My work phone in the kitchen started to ring. I attempted to get off the couch to answer it but Hide kept me down with a simple grip on my shoulder. "I'll get it, you stay here," Will ordered and rushed to the kitchen for my phone. "It's Zeke."
"Give," I ordered, my voice sounding worse than before. Will handed me my phone and I answered it. "'Yellow."
"Where are you?! Tipps says you aren't patrolling," Zeke questioned and sounded anxious. It was unlike me to not call in and miss work without telling at least Tipps.
"Home. I'm not feeling well but once Sarah gets back with some meds, I'll be out," I answered surely of myself.
"Oh no, you won't be," Sarah interrupted by coming through the front door. "You need to sleep this off and you're going to take the day off." I shook my head and tried once more to get off the couch against my better judgment. Tipps wouldn't want me to take even more time off then I already have.
"I can't, Tipps-" Sarah interrupted me again.
"Will understand. Now, I have some soup on the stove so I can't stay long. I came back over to make sure they were keeping you from getting up. Since everything is fine, I'll head back."
"Wait, do you think we should have Ratchet come check her out?" Hide spoke up while still kneeling in front of me.
"Yes, I would just to be safe." With that, Sarah said her goodbyes and left me once more to lie on the warming couch.
"You just got told," Zeke teased and drew me back to the fact he was still on the phone. "So, I'll tell Tipps you won't be coming in today." I rolled my eyes and hung up on him. Zeke did call back but I ignored him and groaned painfully when my stomach twisted again.
It was later in the day when my front door opened to reveal the holoform of the Autobot's medic. "Why did you have to show up?" I groaned and threw my arm over my eyes. From what Will and Epps have told me about him, he is exceedingly about health, especially for us humans.
"You're just as bad as Jazz about your health. If you humans didn't get sick so easily then you wouldn't have to worry about that." I glared at the grayed hair medic and sat up with my back resting against the back of the couch. My head felt like it was spinning inside of a washing machine.
Ratchet came over with a tool box of sorts and sat down on the coffee table in front of the couch. A weird buzz feeling went through my body and caused me to shiver. Bile rose in the back of my throat and I instinctly placed my hand over my mouth. "Don't you dare."
Instead of puking, I burped and cringed at the horrible taste that it brought up. "I'm trying my best not to." Ratchet glared at me and pushed me down to lay on the couch. I didn't fight him due to the fact that my body felt like jello.
"It seems like you have the stomach flu. I'll get you some antibiotics to help fight it. But you aren't going to work for the next couple of days." I opened my mouth to argue with him and he raised his hand to silence me. "Nuh-uh, if I have to have the Twins here to keep you resting, I will. At least once they get back."
This caught my attention. "What do you mean by 'at least once they get back'?" I knew they weren't here at my house but thought they were at the base with Hide. But Hide was here earlier in the day… where are they?
"Optimus sent them out to a sighting of some Decepticons. They're coming in tomorrow if everything goes alright," he answered while standing up and taking his toolbox with him. This sparked worry inside of my head at the thought of Cons hurting them. My eyes widened at thought of me being concerned for them.
Stop it, Aubrey, they're your guardians, nothing more. As if they would like a human like myself. Sunstreaker despises my kind with a passion and they're aliens, it would never work out. But their holoforms are good loo-. "Aubrey? Everything alright?" Ratchet broke me out of my thinking.
"Uh, yeah, just not feeling the greatest, you know," I lied straight through my teeth. The medic easily took my lie as truth and left me to my own devices. Until he comes back to give some huge as antibiotics for me to take. My one thing about medicine, I hate taking pills.
I stood up with my vision swimming and stumbled over to the dogs kennel's. They rushed out of their kennels the moment they were released and jumped and sniffed me, concerned about my wellbeing. "It's going to be okay, bubba's. I'm a bit sick at the moment," I spoke to them as if they were humans.
That wasn't from being sick, I did that on a daily basis's since there were no other humans in my house; just the way I like it.
It was time to feed them and in my state it was going to be hard. I dragged my feet into the kitchen and filled both their food and water bowls before sitting down in the kitchen floor. "Aubrey? Where are you?" Zeke suddenly called from the front of my house. "Where is she?"
"How am I supposed to know?" Dominick argued. "The dogs are out so she is here. You check up stairs and I'll check the rest of the house. It's not that big of a house." Zeke's footsteps going up the stairs could heard from my position on the floor.
Dominick's large frame appeared in the doorframe of the kitchen and he rushed over to me. "Brey? Brey? Can you hear me? Please don't be dead." I lazily gazed up at him and gave him a lovely weak middle finger to the face. "Thank the Lord. Why in the hell are you on the floor?"
"I'm hot and the floor is cool plus I'm tired," I groaned and rested my head against his thick bicep. "You a good pillow." I wrapped my weak arms around his abandon and snuggled up to the warm giant.
"You are really out of it. Up you go." Dom picked me up bridle style and carried me up the stair to my room. Zeke was in there and had his hands running through his hair. "Found her." The dirty blonde whipped around to face us and rushed up to me.
"Where was she?" Zeke took my head into his hands and turned me to fully look at him.
"On the kitchen floor. She's really out of it though." Dom set me down on my queen bed and tucked me underneath the comforters. Within a second it was already too hot and I kicked off the blanket.
"Did she look like she fell?"
"No, her back was resting against the cabinets like she sat down purposely." Zeke nodded his head and turned his sight back on me. "Let me go talk to Cross and see if he can Ratchet to check her out." Ratchet had already checked me out and said he was going to get some antibiotics.
Before I could tell Dom that, he left the room. Zeke sat down on the side of the bed next to me and placed his hand on my forehead. "Holy crap, you're burning up! I'll be back." With that, he got up and rushed out of the room like his butt was on fire.
It was a few minutes later when Dom, Zeke, Crosshairs, and Jazz entered my room again. My body was too hot to fall asleep and felt like my skin was on fire. "Ya ain't lookin' so good there, Bre'," Jazz teased and kept his distance.
"Be quiet," I grumbled and rolled over so my back was facing them. Someone sat down on the bed and placed a cold rag on the side of my face, it must have been Zeke.
The rag quickly soaked up the heat my face was producing and no longer felt good. "I guess I'll have to stay here and take care of her," Zeke spoke up. I made a noise of protest and didn't want anyone taking time to take care of me.
"No you aren't Zee, you have a family to go back to. I'm in the same boat as her, I'll take care of her," Dom argued. Zeke shook his head and took a step towards him.
"Not going to happen. Taila will understand."
"How about this? You both go home and I have no one take care of me. If I need help, I call Sarah. Not trouble." I sounded like I was half drunk and having trouble with my speech. We exchanged some more words, mostly them trying to get around my stubbornness and have one of them take care of me. It didn't work well for them and in the end, no one was staying.
I groaned when both of my dogs hopped up on my bed and decided to lay on me. "This isn't helping my stomach at all. Ratchet isn't going to like you being around me, you know." The two didn't give any fucks and fell asleep next to me.
"You're right, I'm not happy that they are." My reaction was slow but when he spoke up out of nowhere scared me. I jerked up to a sitting position, ready to fight anything that comes my way. "Calm down, I came back to give you your antibiotics."
Ratchet handed me two pills and a glass of water. I glared with disgust down at the two pills in my hand and stuck my tongue out. "Couldn't you have at least made it a liquid?"
"Just take it," he grounded out and didn't sound happy on any level. I submissively nodded my head and took the two pills with water. A shiver went down my spine as I swallowed it. "The Twins are suppose to come earlier in the morning so they'll be here before you wake up."
With that, Ratchet left me to my own devices and I not-so-later fell asleep between my two protectors.