Remember how I said I've wanted to write this story for a long time? Well I've had the birth written out for 3 months now. It's gonna be epic. *evil smile*

This part's mostly dialogue. I tried not to do that, but it turned out that way. *shrugs*

Elita One sat almost impatiently on the medical berth while she and her mate waited for Ratchet to finish processing the scan results. They exchanged a few nervous glances every now and again, but other than that, they avoided looking at each other.

Finally, Ratchet returned. "Scan came back positive, Elita," he informed her.

Elita didn't say anything at first. "So… Does this mean I'm going to be getting fatter?"

"Well, you are going to get a little bigger, but everything should more or less snap back into place afterwards," he nodded.

"Oh…okay." She slowly looked over at her mate.

"Is this the part where I run and you chase after me screaming, "You did this to me"?" Optimus inquired.

"Do you want a head start?" she asked.

"Yep." He took off running the other way. After giving him enough of a head start, Elita bolted off after him.

Wheeljack poked his head into the room. "Are they okay?"

"Yep. That's just their way of telling each other how much they love each other," Ratchet replied.

"I don't understand… How did this happen?" Elita asked no one in particular.

"Well Elita, when two people love each other, there's this connection…" Jazz started.

"No, Jazz. She's aware how it works. That's not what she meant," Chromia interrupted.

"Oh…"

"Don't you want the sparkling?" Ironhide asked with concern.

Elita sat down next to him and leaned against him. "Of course I want the sparkling. It's my baby, how could I not want it? I'm just not sure if this is the best time for us to be having a sparkling."

"Why not? The war's over for the most part. It seems like a safe enough time to me," Chromia pointed out. "I mean, Ironhide and I have a sparkling, and that's working out just fine."

"It's not just that. We're inhabiting a strange alien planet. I wanted to wait until we settled in more to start a family with Optimus."

"Elita, I'd kill to be able to start a family now. You're lucky to have that chance. Not many people do," Jazz pointed out.

"Yeah… I guess you're right," she nodded.

"Besides, if it's a mech, you can name it Jazz."

"Heh, heh…No."

Optimus knocked on the door and peaked inside. "Is it safe to come in?" he asked. Elita looked up from their berth and smiled at him. He took that as a "yes" and went inside. "So, um… You're not going to kill me for this, are you?"

"No," she replied sweetly. She moved over to make room for him. "Why would I?"

"You seemed pretty intent on killing me earlier," Optimus pointed out.

She wrapped her arms around him and snuggled closer. "Optimus, I wasn't going to kill you. Beat the crap out of you, yes, but not kill you. Besides, I feel better about this now."

"So I guess it's safe to tell everyone, then?" he asked.

"Well, I already told Ironhide and Chromia, and Jazz kind of walked in and figured it out…so everyone probably already knows by now," she replied. Telling some of the biggest mouths on base…not one of Elita's better ideas. But hey, she didn't like keeping things from her best friend, no matter how bad at keeping secrets Chromia was.

"Eh…I was just gonna announce it over the loud speaker to save me the trouble of telling everyone individually… Saves me the trouble of walking all the way to my office," Optimus shrugged.

"Yeah. Wouldn't want you to have to walk all the way across the hall now, would we?" Elita replied sarcastically.

"Hey now, crossing that hallway is dangerous… Sometimes Prowl's chasing the twins… Sometimes Jazz gets too lazy to walk to his room and just falls asleep there… Or maybe Ironhide and Chromia got into another fight and turned the hallway into their own personal battlefield…"

"It's just horrible what we put you through, isn't it?"

"Oh yes…"

Before Optimus could fall asleep, Elita added, "By the way, why do you have an English-French dictionary and a map of Quebec in your office?"

Elita felt someone tugging on her leg and looked downwards to see Ironhide and Chromia's son, Diesel staring up at her. She helped him up onto the couch and inquired him on what he wanted. "Wow, there's a sparkling in there?" he asked, leaning over her and reaching out to touch her stomach.

"Uh huh," she nodded. "There is a sparkling in there."

Diesel looked back at her. "How did it get there?"

Elita paused. She could hear Optimus choking on his energon next to her. "Um… Well…"

"Magic," Optimus interrupted.

Diesel looked at him skeptically. "Magic?"

"Yep. It just magically appeared there one day." Elita wanted to kick him for his answer, but considering she couldn't think of a better response, she said nothing.

"Oh. Okay." He slid down off the couch. "But Jazz told me "sex", so someone's gotta be lying…"

"So, how's Elita doing? Still having mood swings?" Chromia asked as she joined Optimus and the others at the table.

"Yesterday, Sam asked me if she was bipolar," Optimus groaned. He had his head on the table and looked like he hadn't gotten any sleep lately.

"I wasn't even aware that giant robots were capable of getting pregnant," Lennox said. He was over on one of his usual visits to check how things were going with them.

"Well you are now… Thank Primus our pregnancies don't last as long as human pregnancies. I'd be dead by the end of nine months," Optimus sighed.

"They don't?"

"Metal plating doesn't expand very well. The sparkling stays for as long as it has room to grow, and then it's out of there before it crushes itself," Optimus explained. "Which usually takes about three and a half months. That's why they're so incredibly tiny and underdeveloped looking when they're born."

"Well I've never seen a newborn Transformer, so I wouldn't know," Lennox shrugged.

Optimus heard a beeping in his comlink. "Eh… Elita needs me. I'll be back." He got up and walked out of the room.

It was silent a moment. Jazz leaned back in his seat and stared at the ceiling. "So… What do you guys usually do around here?" Lennox asked.

"This is it," Bumblebee replied.

It was silent again. "Interesting…"

"Well what do you expect us to do? Most of our belongings are things we got from Earth. We couldn't really take much with us when we left Cybertron," Jazz pointed out.

There was more silence. "So, she gets cranky?" Lennox asked, trying to break the uncomfortable silence.

"Who, Elita, or Chromia? Because they both get kind of cranky," Ironhide replied, ducking when Chromia tried to whack him. "Geez, you're abusive lately!"

"Yeah… She gets pretty cranky. She usually takes most of it out on Optimus, but lately, no one's been safe from her wrath," Sunstreaker answered.

"Hmm… Well she can't be all that bad, can she?"

Optimus ran through the room, screaming, "She's having a craving! RUN!"

Everyone in the room quickly jumped up and ran screaming. "Where do we go?!" Bumblebee asked in a panic. Sunstreaker ran back and grabbed his arm, dragging him along.

"Or perhaps she can," Lennox shrugged.