It had been a few weeks since the introduction of Wheeljack and Diesel to the family, both had assimilated well into the Autobot life. Diesel was taken for a walk each morning by who ever was free, this was usually Alana. Wheeljack had been given a room which was also connected to his lab.

It happened to be that this was the morning that Wheeljack had decided to start off with a bang. Smoke filtered from his room and the tremor had caused many things to fall from their place. Alana had been knocked out of her bed, while Sam and Diesel slept right through the bang. Ironhide was the first to reach the scene.

"Primus Jack" Ironhide pulled Wheeljack from the lab and began to open the front door letting all of the smoke out. "What did you blow up now?"

"I don't get it" Wheeljack said sadly as he began to fan the smoke away from him "It wasn't even turned on"

Ratchet came along a few moments later "Anyone hurt?" he asked.

"Nah, I'm fine" Wheeljack said brushing his shoulders of dust.

"What was that?" Alana asked she padded down the hallway towards them.

"Oh nothing Alana" Wheeljack said shrugging.

"He blew something up" Ironhide said.

"Again" Ratchet added.

Alana's tired eyes went wide as she thought of the prospect of something exploding, she had seen it on T.V but had never been near one. Sure she had been near gun fire but that didn't count. "Explosion" she breathed excitedly.

"Yeah…" Wheeljack said, walking into his lab knowing that Alana would follow.

"Was it big?" Alana asked as she walked into the lab. The smoke was clearing but it was still a bit hazy. The lab bench was charred and the wall it was against had turned a couple shades darker but that was the extent of the damage.

"Nah it wasn't too big" Wheeljack said as he sat down at his lab bench, he put a hand down for Alana to climb on and then set her on his shoulder.

"What were you trying to make?" Alana asked, she leaned against his cheek and watched as he worked.

"You know that remote thingy you guys have to watch T.V?" Wheeljack asked.

"Yeah?" Alana watched as Wheeljack placed a couple of tools on the table one she recognized as a welding tool.

"Well I kinda wanted to make one for the whole base" Wheeljack explained "But then it blew up"

Alana giggled at that "What would the remote do?" she asked.

"Well it would turn on lights and appliances, like in the kitchen of the washer and dryer that you and Sam use. It would also turn on the T.V and stuff like that"

"Cool" said Alana.

"I thought so too" Wheeljack said. He faintly heard Alana's stomach rumble and chuckled, gently he plucked her off his shoulder and set her on the ground. "Go get dressed and get some breakfast. You can help me out after that"

"Ok!" Alana excited, saluted him and then ran for her room to pick out some clothes.

After getting changed and having a rushed breakfast Alana rushed on back to Wheeljack's lab and ran into it.

"I'm back!" she shouted happily.

"Oh, good" Wheeljack put down his hand for her to climb on "I need your help, you came just in time" Alana giggled as she was set on the lab bench there she saw the makings of a casing for the remote. "Ok Alana I need you to hold onto this for me" Wheeljack handed her a small wire which she held on to. Wheeljack then placed the other end of the wire on the remote casing, "Ok lift the wire a bit" Alana did as she was told and lifted it. "Way above your head Alana, lift" Wheeljack told her as he bend down with the welding tool.

"Kay!" Alana waited holding the wore above her head, she was happy that she could help, Alana liked helping, she did it often in the med-lab and she liked to sit on Optimus' shoulder when he was sitting in the monitor room, there they would have conversations.

"Excellent Alana" Wheeljack said "you can let go of the wire now"

"Kay!" Alana let the wire drop and waited for the next task to be presented to her. Wheeljack gave her the next one and together they began to make something that resembled a remote.

It took a good part of the morning and part of the afternoon but in the end they managed to make something that looked pretty cool.

"Alright" Wheeljack said sitting back in a satisfied motion "Nice job Alana"

Alana gave him a thumb up "Can we try it?" she asked.

"Why not?" Wheeljack lifted Alana off the bench and set her on his shoulder. "Let's try turning off the lights."

"Kay" Wheeljack pressed a few buttons and the lights flickered.

"Hmmm" Wheeljack tried again and when nothing happened he let out a small sigh "Darn" he muttered, he tried once more but instead of turning off the lights the remote began to make a high pitched whirring sound. "Uh-oh" Wheeljack made a move to get out of the way but it was too late. There was a loud blast as the remote went up. The bang lasted only a few moments but the aftershock was far longer. The walls stopped rumbling and Alana's ears stopped ringing after another moment, she coughed away some smoke and smelled singed hair.

"Woah!" she shouted excitedly, "that was Awe-some! Can we do it again?" she asked.

Wheeljack couldn't help but to laugh "Why not" he shrugged "I seem to be good at blowing things up"

"Is everyone ok?!" Ratchet shouted into the room, he couldn't see through the smoke.

"We're fine!" Wheeljack shouted back. He came out of the room a few moments later with Alana in his hands.

"Ratchet!" Alana coughed "It was so awesome!" She waved her hands and grinned.

Ratchet looked down at Alana and shook his head "Alana, your hair…" he took Alana form Wheeljack and gestured for him to follow them to the med-lab.

In the med-lab Alana was bandaged for a few burns. Her hair was burned at the ends a bit but there was nothing Ratchet could do for that. Wheeljack had suffered minor scrapes but both were fine.

When they were released form the med-lab they came upon Ironhide and Bumblebee scolding Diesel for taking a leak in the base.

Alana ran up to them and pet Diesel on the head, Diesel made a sound of happiness and rubbed up against her, "good boy" she murmured.

"Alana you cant say good boy when he did something bad" Ironhide told her gathering both her and Diesel in his big hands.

"Oh…" Alana looked up at Ironhide with big eyes "He say's he's sorry"

"Alright" Ironhide said "Let's take him for a walk"

"Kay!" Alana nodded and Ironhide walked them outside.

Once he was standing in the grass he set Alana and Diesel down and watched them race each other around in circles. After a while Alana picked up a stick and threw it for Diesel. Diesel just stared at her his tongue hanging out of his small mouth,

"Fetch Diesel!" In order to demonstrate Alana went and got the stick ran back and threw it again for him, but it seemed like Diesel had no intention of fetching the stick, instead he laid down and rolled in the grass. "Diesel…" Alana stuck her hands on her hips and looked down at Diesel as sternly as she could but she could not hold the face for long, because Diesel was playing with her shoelace and it made her laugh. "You're silly" she told him. Then she sat down. Diesel took the opportunity and crawled onto her lap and began to lick her face happily.

Ironhide sat next to her and grinned "you know he reminds me of you when you were a baby" he said.

Alana frowned and began to rub the side of Diesel's neck "I do?"

"Especially the potty training bit, you were very difficult" he told her.

"Really?" Alana asked with a small smile.

"Mmm, we had to bribe you with cookies" Ironhide said.

"Do you think Diesel will be bribed with cookies?" Alana asked.

"Nah not cookies but maybe dog treats" Ironhide said.

"We should try that then"

"Maybe we should"

It took about a month for Diesel to finally get that he was supposed to go outside when a bathroom break was needed but in that time frame he still hadn't gotten what fetch was for. Also in that time frame there came letters from school. Alana was given a school list of what she was supposed to get and it made her depressed that she had to go back to school so soon. Along with the school supplies the Autobots realized that Alana was growing out of her clothes and that she needed new ones. So it was decided on a sunny Saturday morning that they would go to the mall to get Alana's needed school supplies.

The party that was going consisted of Alana herself, Ironhide, Ratchet, Optimus, Bumblebee and Sam. Wheeljack had an invention on which he was working and Fireflight was out taking Diesel for a walk.

Alana sat in Ironhide's passenger seat and led the group. Optimus drove at the rear, while he drove Optimus took the time to observe the humans who were walking down the street doing what ever it is that humans do on a Saturday morning. Optimus wasn't much interested in what the humans were doing but rather he was more interested in what they looked like. During his drive Optimus noticed a particular pattern in the looks of the females and the males. Males tended to stick to the clothes of a baggy nature, giving the appearance of a shabby person. The females seemed to be wearing clothes of a tight nature showing off their anatomy more so then the males. The males seemed to wear their hair short and messy whilst the girls had long flowing hair which was groomed neatly.

As Optimus noticed these things he also noticed that those who seemed to stick to the stereotypical of dressing seemed to be flanked by more friends and then those who dressed strangely had only a select few friends by their sides. Had Optimus been in his robot mode he would have been frowning, he knew that Alana did not like to wear feminine style clothes and it stood to reason that the reason she did not have very many friends was that she dressed and acted more like a boy than a girl. Optimus frowned mentally, was the human race really so simplistic?

Once they had reached the mall the Autobots turned on their holoforms. When they had all gathered Ironhide took one of Alana's hands while Ratchet took the other, he held the school list in his other hand and beneath it was a grocery list.

"Alright Alana, lets get you some school supplies" he said smiling down at her.

Alana nodded once "Kay!" she said. And together the Autobots, Alana and Sam began to walk towards the mall.

Once inside they were greeted by the usual mall noises, there were people chattering; the sounds of cash register's being filled and then there was soft music coming from the speakers overhead. The mall was fairly substantial in size, with two floors it presented a lot of choices for the Autobots to make. Naturally the most reasonable choice to make was Wal-Mart. It was there that the Autobots would be able to find all of the school supplies and get some good clothes for Alana. So with that in mind they headed towards the entrance.

Once they were in they were immediately drawn towards the right where a selection of school supplies was displayed. Ironhide grabbed a cart, and as he was wheeling it up to the first aisle Alana came up to him.

"Ironhide?"

"Hmm?"

"Can I sit in the shopping cart?"

"Sure" Ironhide bent down and hoisted Alana up and set her in the cart. Alana giggled as she sat at the very front of the cart. Ironhide began to push towards the first aisle, they entered and found that the rest of the Autobots were already there. Bumblebee and Sam were comparing sharpeners trying to find the best one while Optimus was examining the pencils and Ratchet was opening a binder. Ironhide paused to look at the markers while he was doing so Alana dug out the school supplies list and began to read the first item she needed.

"I need… p… Pen…cils… Pencils"

Optimus turned to look at her "Which kind?" he asked.

Alana looked back at the list and looked back up at Optimus "dunno" she said.

"There are different kinds of pencils?" Ratchet had put away the binder and walked over to Optimus.

"Yes… there is H1, H2, mechanical, point seven, point five and then there are pencils coloured differently."

"Well that's confusing" Ratchet scratched his head while the others gathered around to asses this difficult situation on pencil choice. After about a minute of contemplation Optimus grabbed a pack and showed them to Alana, they were normal yellow pencils. "Do these work?"

Alana nodded "I think so"

"Then we will get these" Optimus threw the pack into the cart and everyone looked towards Alana, waiting for her to read off the next item.

"I need a… scribbler" Alana looked up from the list and looked around. She spotted them a few moments later "There!" she pointed and everyone headed on over to the scribblers.

"Which one?" Bumblebee asked. There were fat scribblers, ones with small amounts of paper and ones that were divided into section by pieces of yellow cardboard. Then there were red ones, blue ones, ones that had Hannah Montana, Jonas Brothers, small animals and different abstract designs.

"This school supply list of too vague" Ironhide muttered. "How are we supposed to know which item is the right one?"

"I want that one!" Alana hung out of the cart and pointed to a thick scribbler with a car on the front. Optimus nodded and grabbed it for her, he then placed it in the cart and Alana began to read the next item. "Markers" she said. And so the Autobots went off to find markers. The rest of the school supplies hunt was much like its beginning, the Autobots would find an item that would have a lot of choices and after much deliberation an item would be chosen and they would move to the next item on the list. Once Alana had her school supplies Ironhide, Optimus and Alana split up with Bumblebee, Ratchet and Sam. Alana's group was going to shop for her new clothes while Sam's group went to the grocery section to get some more food for the fridge.

When Ironhide, Optimus and Alana had reached the clothes section Alana immediately rushed off to the boys section, Ironhide followed after her while Optimus remained where he was standing thinking. His voice stopped Alana and Ironhide.

"Alana, why don't you look at the girls clothes instead?" Optimus had reasoned that if Alana were to dress more like a girl maybe the bullying would stop and she would make some friends of the same gender as her.

Alana regarded him for a moment and then looked over to the girls section, it looked very… pink- she felt a shiver of horror go down her spine "No thank you" she said turning on her heel and proceeding towards the boys section. Ironhide looked towards Optimus and gave him a sympathetic shrug and then trotted after Alana. Optimus sighed and then he too followed after them.

Alana had decided that she first needed some t-shirts, so she walked on over to the section that sold shirts with funny saying's on them. She quickly picked out a few about homework and laziness, she thought they were fairly funny and laughed at each one of them. Slowly her t-shirt collection grew to a small pile in Ironhide's arms. Optimus regarded the small pile in Ironhide's arms and looked at Alana. She saw his expression and pouted slightly, she knew what he was going to say.

"Alana…" Optimus started "That's too many shirts, put some back"

"Aw… But-"

"No buts now, put some back" Optimus folded his arms to show that he was set on his decision. Alana gave him one last pitiful look before groaning in supposed agony and began to take some of the shirts away and put them back on the selves.

They moved onto pants next, Ironhide scanned Alana for her size and they chose out a few pants that would fit her. Alana had decided that she was big girl now and that she could wear pants that have a button and a zipper rather than the pull-ups. She held onto the pants herself and walked towards the sweater section where she was allowed to add three more hoodies to her extra large hoodie collection. They then proceeded to pick out some shorts for warm days. Alana had chosen two and was allowed to choose one more- she had spotted two that she really liked- one being a pair of bright red shorts and the other a silver pair with a pair of black stripes running down its side. She looked between the two, deliberating.

She looked.

She bit her lip in frustration.

She sighed.

She reached for one and then pulled her hand away.

She groaned.

Ironhide came up from behind her and watched as she tired her brain over the prospect of what pair of shorts to get. He chuckled softly and she looked over her shoulder with an angry look.

"You choose" she told him.

"Me?" Ironhide pointed to himself.

"Yeah!" Alana knew she wasn't going to be able to choose.

"Okay…" Ironhide looked between the two shirts.

His head tilted.

He thought hard.

He wondered which one she would like better. Then he closed his eyes and chose on at random. Pleased with his choice he handed it to her. She looked at the pair of shorts for a moment smiled at him and then said.

"Thanks, but I want the other ones"

Ironhide frowned at her and then switched the shorts "Picky" he muttered. Alana laughed and they moved on.

"Okay" Optimus clapped his hands together. "I think we have everything we need for you. Let's find the others and get out of here."

"There're coming over here" Ironhide pointed. Optimus turned and true enough Bumblebee, Ratchet and Sam were walking down the path, all of them looked confsed and somewhat frustrated.

"Hello" Ironhide said pleasantly, happy that his part of the shopping was over.

"Optimus" Ratchet called "We have a dilemma"

"Oh dear" Optimus sighed "What is it?"

"Well we were looking at the Kraft Dinner and wondering which one to get…" Ratchet began.

When suddenly Sam cut in "But then we found out that there is the original, pasta, egg noodles, extra cheesy, three cheese, and many more…"

"So which one do we get?" Bumblebee asked.

There was a long silence, Ironhide broke it by bending over and groaning "I hate shopping" he muttered.

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