Maelstrom Chapter 31
Conversations in the Kitchen Part F
Author's note: This story is part of a LONG series called Maelstrom. It is strictly Gen. 1 - sorry, but that was all that was out when I started writing back in the late 1980's. It began as a fan-publication so the first chapters are in the form of a comic book! If you have not read the nine original Maelstrom Comics and the preceding text stories, I strongly suggest you do. This is a complex universe. They can be found at http// illmatar. deviantart. com (I have put double spaces between the URL here or FF . Net eats the link.) The comics and art which accompanies this series are there...and believe me I am a better artist than writer.
Most chapters of this series contain strong language and violence. Rated M for adult themes! Really! Transformers characters belong to Hasbro. Critiques adored! This scene contains strong language, violence, and sex.
Transformers characters belong to Hasbro. Story and OC characters are mine. Critiques adored!
Conversations in The Kitchen Chapter 2
Getting to know everything about you
Part F
Conversations in The Kitchen Chapter 2
Part F
Continued from Part E!
Hot Rod and Foul Play stood wide-eyed in the doorway, frozen by the sight of them.
The four of them stared at each other.
Anyone else might have just assumed Hot Rod and Foul Play were just up early, but Lancer and Rodimus were trained to notice minutia. The kids were in the same clothes they wore yesterday, clothes that were rumpled and covered with debris. There was grass in their hair. They both looked dazed, and of course, they were holding hands.
The four of them stared at each other.
"Err...." said Hot Rod, "we were just...err...."
"You were just trying to sneak in without being caught. You need more practice, Hot Rod," Lancer chuckled.
"Err..." Hot Rod responded. "Umm..."
"Oh my, his brain is overloaded," said Rodi.
"Heh...so was yours my love," Lancer said. To the terrified kids she said, "Look, no one else is up. If you go quietly enough I doubt anyone else will notice. Go get some sleep!"
"Err..." Foul Play tried. "Thanks?"
"Go to sleep! Just don't sleep too late or people will wonder," Rodi advised.
"Thanks Asshole!" Hot Rod grinned.
"Junior, you'd better watch it or I'll out you to your uncle....or even worse to your MOM!"
Hot Rod paled enough to notice in the dim kitchen. "Off to bed now!" he agreed.
He and Foul Play beat a strategic, if somewhat stiff retreat.
See how cleverly I arranged a morning off for you? Lancer sent.
They left the coffee in the pot and went upstairs.
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Neither assassin's lessons, nor appointments at Metroplex for more tests stirred anyone in the household.
Danny's apocalyptic shrieking did. He howled with the indignation of a baby well used to having prompt service. Service was slow.
Finally, Spike slumped out of the master bedroom in his bathrobe, carrying the caterwauling child past all of the other bedrooms in the house. Mumbles of protest followed him down the hall, but he couldn't hear them. Getting formula ready took much too long for all concerned. Finally feeding his son with his eyes closed, Spike blessed the coffee gods for a mysterious full pot. He nearly fed the baby his coffee by accident a few times though.
"Dude, I have so been there," Lancer said with a chuckle. Eyes still glued shut, Spike neither saw nor heard her come in.
"You are lucky I am too tired to be startled and drop this baby," Spike muttered, eyes still closed.
"Rough night boss?" Rodi queried.
"No...a good night, but apparently I'm too old for that much fun," Spike grumbled.
"Well, don't feel bad. No one else is even up yet," Lancer said.
Spike cracked one bleary brown eye and looked at her. "Do you think I want to be here? As soon as this kid's tank is full I'm back to bed."
"Ah," said Rodi. "So Lancer and I will go to Metroplex on our own then?"
"Oh shit...you're supposed to go back for more tests today!" Spike groaned. "Just let me feed Danny and I'll go get dressed."
"I can drive you know," Rodimus suggested. "I am familiar with the concept."
"No!" Spike cried. "Carly needs the van later! She'll kill me!"
"Heh," Rodi snorted. "Um, Spike, no offense to your car and all, but I wasn't suggesting taking the van."
"Then wha...OH NO...Magnus would never forgive me either! Just what we need - a flaming Winnebego raising all kinds of questions."
Lancer snickered, and poured herself some coffee.
"What about me Spike?" Magnus asked suspiciously, coming slowly through the door. He was almost waddling and Lancer grinned. Shortly after him, Marissa entered the kitchen as well. She was definitely waddling.
Getting out the door took much longer than usual that day.
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Rodimus fairly well bounced into med-lab, which aggravated Marissa and Magnus to no end, although they couldn't blame him for an instant for being happy. They were tired, but that was their own fault. Mostly. Spike was fortunate to know Metroplex so well. Three cups of coffee sustained him on the short drive over, but now he walked with his eyes closed. Lancer felt guilty enough for his condition to steer him the few times he nearly walked into something.
No one took note of Rodi's silent feet as he frolicked his way towards Med-Lab in human form, but the instant the doors shut behind them he morphed to robot mode. Nothing in his gait changed a whit, including the level of sound.
It was enough for even Magnus' tired brain to note, although what usually would have merely fascinated him annoyed him today.
"The asshole doesn't even make a sound in Autobot form! It's unnatural!"
Ratchet, who had been more distracted by Rodi's uncanny morphing process, now took note of his silence. Elita and Optimus, who had been waiting as well, looked at each other a bit nervously. Lancer was teaching their son to do that too? Maybe that wasn't such a good idea.
"How do you do that?" Ratchet wanted to know.
"What? Walk quietly? If you had an assassin with demonic tendencies after you every time you made a sound, you'd learn too! Promise! I don't think about it, and as far as I know, my feet haven't been modified either."
"Can you demonstrate that?" Ratchet asked.
"Walking? I think I can work that out," Rodi laughed. He paced the floor a few times while Lancer giggled. It wasn't that he was walking, it was that everyone else in the room saw fit to follow him. They were large, mechanical ducklings.
"That's amazing!" Ratchet exclaimed. "Are you sure that's simply a matter of practice?"
"Pretty sure, especially since both Elita and Ultra Magnus are learning to do the same. That's partly how I ended up here. Elita walked in behind me so quietly I took her for an intruder. I was so hair-triggered I shot to kill. Fortunately, she's also learned some of Lancer's extreme ways to dodge too."
"Well, love. I'm glad you missed, but you shouldn't have. THAT'S what told me you needed a break," Lancer growled.
It took them a while to get over their fascination with his ability to move around without clanking and he amused them for a while with a few of his more flexible moves. None of this was really getting their research anywhere and finally Lancer saw fit to point that out.
"Gee, Rodi. If the Autobots back home ever give you the boot we can always get you a job at the circus!" she observed.
"You taught me this stuff!" snapped her mate as he walked on his hands across the lab.
"So you could waste bad-guys, not time you clown!"
"Heh. Fine! Be that way! Where do ya want me, Ratchet?"
"The table will be fine," Ratchet replied, craning his head in a vain attempt to look at Rodi right-side-up.
"OK," Rodimus said, pushing off and landing neatly on the table.
Lancer hid her face.
"Gotten a bit silly hasn't he?" Marissa mused to Lancer.
"He's on cloud nine ever since he found out his people can breed independently. The last time I saw him this happy was when I agree to try for a second kid. I warn you, it lasted about a week and took a really big hit on an auction house to settle him down."
Magnus snorted. "This is the first time I really see Hot Rod's attitude in him."
"Oh, it's always there, it's usually just buried under all the shit. Right now there is no shit, and so Hot Rod resurfaces."
"Scary," Magnus said.
Rodimus did behave through Ratchet's next round of tests. Mostly he fired questions at Optimus and Elita about raising a Transformer child.
"We'll give you all the information we can to take back with you Rodimus," Elita assured him.
"I know, but if something happens to it I want to know as much as I can. Plus, all the manuals in the world don't replace experience. Let's all try to forget your kid is my twin, please? I can't go around interviewing the rest of your people and you are the only Autobot parent's I'll get to talk to while I'm here. I need to go home and teach my whole species how to do this! Humans learn to be parents from their parents, but none of us know! Our parent is a lying, manipulative, egomaniacal disco ball with delusions of grandeur. I'm going to have to overcome our ignorance and our twisted past or the first generation is going to be really messed up. The first born are going to suffer from clumsy rearing no matter what! I'm...I'm trying to cut the casualties!"
Optimus Prime and Elita looked at each other, realizing that what he said was both true and terrifying. They suddenly felt as if it was their responsibility to bring an entire species up-to-date on parenting as well.
"I'm not sure we are the best ones to teach you this Rodi," Elita said. "I mean, we weren't always the best parents..."
Lancer snorted. "He's bright, he's happy, and he hasn't killed himself doing anything reckless and silly. I think that's about as good as any parent can hope for!"
"Hah!" Optimus said, "Not for lack of trying. I swear it's a miracle that boy didn't end up flattened his first few years...wanted to be into everything! If he couldn't see it or touch it he'd find a way to climb it or pull it down. The concept of gravity eluded him for what...the first 8, 9 years?"
"Longer," chuckled Elita, "He just got better at hiding it when he fell."
"I say he's still clueless," Magnus griped. "You haven't been stuck in a house with him the last six months."
Rodimus frowned. "Wait...how short was he at first?"
"Hmmm?" Elita asked. "What do you mean? Weren't you a climber when you were little?"
"If by little you mean about 25 feet as Hot Rod, yes, I climbed a few things," Rodimus said.
"25 feet?! Hot Rod isn't that big now when he's in robot mode!"
"Are you trying to tell me that your children err...grow? Like humans do?" Rodimus asked.
"No, not like humans do....do you mean in your dimension you don't grow?"
"Not unless serious injury causes a major body overhaul or a big ass rock tacks the word 'Prime" on the end of your name," Rodimus said.
They gawked at him. He returned the favor.
Optimus finally broke the silence. "You are born...?"
"Activated," Rodimus corrected.
"Activated...you are activated at adult strength?" Optimus said. There was an air of distaste in his tone.
"Full strength, full armor, fully armed," Rodimus whispered, "Ready to fight, ready to die, on day one. We exist to keep Vector Sigma encased in a shell of chaos."
"But...what about time to learn? Time to find out who you are and what you want to do?" Elita asked. Her optics were sad.
"Generally, most of us know what our purpose is at the moment we come online," Rodimus said. "Those that don't are considered...flawed."
Magnus shook his head. "I'm starting to almost bless the damned Quints for my upbringing."
Rodimus glared at him. "That's not funny. Don't ever say that. The fact that my people have a sick start in life does not excuse the fact the Quints deprived you of a healthy one."
"I didn't mean it like that, Rodi and you know it!" Magnus exclaimed indignantly. As if he needed anyone to remind him to hate the Quints. Magnus was taken back a bit by Rodi's venom.
"He knows that, Magnus," Lancer whispered. "He just jealous of this dimension and indignant anyone here should miss out."
Magnus sighed.
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Elita and Optimus took turns describing in general how a new Transformer's program was generally a combination of traits from the parents, combined and activated, and given a small, non-transforming body shell to inhabit its first few years of learning and growth. It would then be given progressively larger shells to inhabit as it matured. Alternate modes and Transformation abilities were considered one of the last steps towards adulthood, when the young one's education was nearly complete and they were considered mature enough to handle themselves.
"Ah," said Lancer sagely, "They have to be old enough to drive!"
"Precisely!" Elita exclaimed.
"Although when we finally gave Hot Rod his vehicle mode we wondered if we hadn't done it too soon," Optimus remarked.
They then launched into specifics about their child's formative years.
Rodimus listened intently. The only nod he gave to the fact they were talking about his twin was, "I don't know whether to be gleeful about all this humiliating ammunition or embarrassed myself!"
Lancer, ever helpful, answered, "Be embarrassed, and quit pretending you didn't do exactly the same sort of reckless, hair-brained shit from the minute you were activated. In fact, quit pretending you don't pull the exact same reckless, hair-brained shit NOW!"
"Ah, but now I get away with it!" Rodi claimed.
"I could name a few exceptions to that, so do not go entertaining any ideas of humiliating poor Hot Rod when we get back or I will be returning fire."
"You never let me have any fun."
"Right you are!" Lancer gloated.
With that, Rodimus settled down and cheerfully returned to grilling Optimus and Elita on the fine art of raising Transformers. Elita found it both interesting and depressing that he related everything in terms of his own human children and hoped she was doing an adequate job overcoming any preconceptions he might have. When the day's tests ended they promised him to gather all the information they could find on every angle of a Transformer's development - from the physical to the emotional. Ratchet promised a similar compilation for the person he felt most sorry for in Rodi's dimension, First Aid.
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The next day Rodimus wasn't due back at Metroplex until the afternoon.
This caused an unusual crisis.
Rodimus Prime got bored.
The morning training session ended as usual except that Lancer's students were no longer looking ungainly and, the race after class for the showers really looked like a race instead of a penguin migration. There was no teleporter for the dimensional travelers to work on, and Rodimus had nothing to do. As often as he wished for a moments peace in his own dimension he found himself hunting for something to occupy him.
The first thing that presented itself led instantly to the next thing.
First - Daniel.
The baby was in his playpen, rolling around, kicking, and starting to fuss. Rodi looked down at the baby sadly.
"No fun in there for you, huh kiddo? You need to pack the fun in when you can ya know." Glancing around for Carly and coming up empty, Rodimus picked Daniel up and stared into his face. With toddler intensity, Daniel stared back. Liking the attention, he smiled. Rodimus felt tears well up. "You shouldn't smile at me little man. You shouldn't."
He cuddled Daniel's head under his chin and wrapped his arms around the baby as he did sometimes with his own children. There was a moment, a stupid, deluded moment where he always hoped he could protect them from anything if only he could hold them tight enough. He laughed bitterly to himself. Hearing a noise from upstairs he glanced up and then around the room, frowning.
Hot Rod, fresh from the shower, appeared at the top of the stairs, poised for his usual head-long scramble down the steps. Rodimus stood in the livingroom staring up at him with such intensity it froze Hot Rod in his tracks. The younger twin barely noticed Rodi was holding the baby.
Rodimus met his young twin's eyes and tried to weigh what he saw there. Hot Rod felt like a moth confronting a mantis. The moment dragged on until Foul Play, fresh from the exact same shower as Hot Rod, pushed past him down the stairs.
"What's with the road-block?" she asked.
Neither of them answered her, but Rodi did call out.
"Carly?" he yelled.
"What is it?" she called back from the downstairs bathroom.
"Hot Rod and I are taking Danny for a walk," Rodimus replied.
"We are?" Hot Rod asked.
"You are?" Carly asked at the same time. She sounded grateful.
"We are," Rodimus confirmed. His eyes never broke contact with his twin's though.
Foul Play looked back and forth between the two of them. "You Autobots freak me out some times," she complained.
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Rodimus carried Danny with him as he led Hot Rod around the perimeter of Spike's house.
"If you were going to break in here how would you do it?" the older red-head asked.
"Um...is this part of the training?" Hot Rod wanted to know.
"You could say that," Rodimus Prime responded.
Accepting that as an explanation for his twin's strange behavior, Hot Rod relaxed and threw himself into the spirit of things. Foul Play trailed behind them and wasn't convinced, but she listened.
"Am I human or an Autobot?"
"Start with human."
"Well, the windows are an obvious place to start. They are all open."
"Agreed. And if they weren't?"
"I'd try to open one. No one ever locks them," Hot Rod stated.
"I do." Rodimus said.
"Really? OK...then I might break one or kick down a door."
"Alright, but what if you didn't want any noise?" Rodimus asked.
"Oh...I'll have to think about that one...If I could climb that tree to the roof I think I can get to the upstairs porch by Carly's room. The latch on that's so old it would probably break easily even if they locked it," Hot Rod mused. He cocked his head at Rodimus. "I think that might be pretty easy actually. Is that the point of this? This house isn't very secure at all!"
"Why don't you try to get in?" Rodi suggested. "Try the tree."
Hot Rod frowned at his twin and then smiled, assuming correctly that he was being tested. He ran over to the enormous live oak that reached over the yard and the house and scrambled up its twisted limbs like a monkey. Reaching the roof-line took him only a few seconds and up and over he went.
Rodimus (still carrying Daniel) followed his progress from the ground, as did Foul Play who was watching with interest.
Coming around the corner they found Hot Rod frozen on the balcony, with his hands up in surrender. Lancer had her fingers pointed at him like a gun, which might have looked silly except that she could use them that way.
"Too much noise," she told him.
"No fair!" he complained, "You knew I was coming."
"No she didn't," Rodimus called up. "I blocked her. It was your big feet on the roof. Next time try harder - we've taught you better than that."
"I thought this was just an exercise!" Hot Rod said.
Rodi's eyes flared green and Lancer's flared white. That was all the warning he got before she flattened him. "That is no excuse for doing less than your best," she growled in his ear. "Now...try again."
Carly didn't quite know what to make of this new phase in Hot Rod's training at first, especially when Rodi and Lancer started in on Foul Play too. They would encourage their trainees to break into the house, chastize them for failing if they didn't, and then challenge them to come up with solutions for the break-in if they succeeded. On the one hand, it was unnerving to see all the different ways Hot Rod could devise to get into the house. On the other hand, she could see him practically smoking about the ears trying to find new ways in, and even more ways to keep himself out.
Whatever his solution was, Rodimus would help him implement it in ways that would NOT destroy Carly's house, nor interfere with the safety of her family. Better, self-latching locks on the windows were certainly a good idea. A basic alarm system was another, but Carly could see Rodimus pushing Hot Rod further and further until he had by-passed both, broken in through the attic, the basement windows, and even the vents on the roof.
In the mornings there was group training for everyone, but Hot Rod and Foul Play quit running for the showers and kept at it. When Rodi was away for tests in the afternoon, Hot Rod was working on solving his own security breaches. Once back in the evening, Rodimus would check and criticize his twin's handiwork...and he was quite critical. However every criticism was backed up by a demonstration of the problem and a lot of help seeing the solution. Everything they thought of was masked seamlessly into the decor. Spike usually had to be briefed on the changes because he rarely spotted them - except the time the sprinklers kicked in when he cut across the yard when bringing Rodi and Lancer back from Metroplex.
"Motion detectors!" Hot Rod explained proudly. "It's a lot harder to sneak in when you are soaking wet! That first blast will make people yelp too, and if you are home you will hear the water kick in."
Spike, dripping sullenly in the door, growled "Am I going to be able to walk across my own lawn without getting drenched? Are the squirrels going to set this thing off too?"
"Err...Hadn't thought of that," Hot Rod said, crestfallen.
"Part of security is letting people you want in safely," Rodimus said with a chuckle. "It's a good idea, but we need to work on it."
"Yeah...you know it's probably good I didn't have the materials to go ahead with my first idea."
"What was that?" Magnus asked. He found all of this an ingenious training method, and amusing besides.
"Lasers!" Hot Rod cried.
Spike cursed, but Lancer, Rodi, and Magnus laughed.
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Aside from that and a few similar incidents, Carly had very little to complain of. In fact, she felt she was getting a bit spoiled, and a bit bored. Rodi and Lancer were shaming the others into doing more and more of the chores. They didn't say anything, but they always helped make and clean up the meals and whatever else they could as the day went on. As their training progressed and their coordination improved, everyone earned clearance to help with the dishes. It became a sort of rite-of-passage to clean up the plates. One day, when Rodi was off from being tested, he organized a "war on dirt", and efficiently coordinated an assault on the floors and furniture. Even Magnus took orders by lifting things Carly hadn't vacuumed under for years so Arcee could clean underneath them. In about three hours they had dusted, vacuumed, mopped, and organized everything from the kitchen floors to the garage.
The biggest help however was Rodi the baby-sitter. He took Daniel with him everywhere in the house. They inspected Hot Rod's handiwork together. Rodi fed the baby while he watched Foul Play breaking in, and changed him while critiquing her mistakes when Lancer caught her. Carly remarked it was like having a live-in nanny.
And yet...Rodimus had no shortage of funny, outrageous stories about everyone in his world from Optimus to Grimlock. These he would share around the dinner table until people forgot to eat. Daniel's name never came up. The one time Carly asked him about it he told her he didn't want to "spoil any of the surprises or influence her choices as a parent." He cited his concerns about Optimus and Hot Rod, and explained he was even more concerned that Danny was so young. He smiled that huge, infectious grin, handed her Daniel, and vanished like smoke.
Carly looked at her suddenly returned son, and the empty air where Rodimus had stood. She smoothed her baby's curls and went to find Spike upstairs.
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"And so, there he was, looking into the end of his blaster and pulling the trigger. Lancer said it would have served him right if she had put the charge back in it," Rodimus snickered.
The table laughed.
"Grimlock sounds a lot dumber than he does here," Springer observed.
"He's pretty dumb," Lancer agreed with a fond chuckle.
Carly wasn't laughing. She was watching her visitors and debating her next move. She chose, and went for broke.
"Rodimus?" she asked.
"Hmm?" he said, turning to face her.
"How did Daniel die? Was he Converted?" she asked.
She said it so softly, in such a conversational way, that most of the table took a second or two to register what she was asking. Silence didn't so much as fall, but stumbled its way around the table. Spike's eyes were wide with shock. They had discussed this, but not the possibility she might just come out and ask over ice-cream.
It was Rodi's face she was really watching though. Rodi - whose face slowly drained of all color. Even his green eyes went grey. Lancer got to her feet and went to stand behind him, grabbing his shoulders, holding him up.
"Yes," he whispered. His voice was flat.
Carly nodded and went on. "Did...did you have to kill him?"
"I got the chip out. I got the chip out in front of you. You screamed. You scream every time the meds wear off. I put my hand through his face and the screaming isn't going to stop. It was programmed to kill you. I should have let it rather than do what I did." Lancer fell to her knees behind him and wrapped her arms around him, but he didn't acknowledge her. He stared at Carly with pupils so contracted they were almost invisible.
"Rodimus! Are you saying my son is dead in your dimension?! Are you saying my wife is insane...because of you?!"
"Yes. Your family is destroyed, Spike. My fault. My failure. When my work is done you will kill me for it...and I will let you." He spoke to Spike, but he stared at Carly.
"No..." Lancer mouthed, but only Marissa saw her.
"How?" Spike roared, "How did it happen?! How did you LET it happen?!"
"It was a crew of slavers. They had a message. For you, Spike. Optimus and I...were pressuring Earth's governments to increase their security on ships to Cybertron through you as Ambassador. We pretended we were worried about drugs and contraband. The slavers... objected to your involvement. They couldn't get you directly. Our security was too good, but Daniel was in EDC. One of his first official missions with Wheelie. Out of our protection.
They took them. Filmed themselves beating them, torturing them. There were seven crew members - they took turns raping Daniel. Made Wheelie watch, and filmed the whole thing for you Spike. They told you it was your fault while they raped him...but it wasn't your fault. It was my fault. They made sure to bruise him, bite him. They Converted him while they raped him. It was the last thing he knew in this life. They didn't try to hide the wound or preserve his personality. Its only programming was to rape Carly and kill her - leaving the bodies and the video where they would be found by strangers. But I...I was there too. I knew, before I scanned it. It was bloody, bruised, dead. I scanned it anyway. It drew a blaster on Carly, but that's not why I moved. I got the chip...I got it out of him. I...it had to come out of him. I killed Wheelie too. I never showed Spike the video. It was for me."
"You watched it?" Marissa cried.
"Yes," Rodimus said, his voice still utterly flat as it had been when describing the torture chamber.
From behind his back Lancer met Marissa's eyes and mouthed "over and over and over." She clutched her mate tighter, but he took no notice of her.
"It told me who to hunt for. It told me who to kill."
"Did you get them?" Magnus asked sharply.
"Yes."
"Did you kill them?" Magnus asked.
"Eventually," Rodimus said.
"Good," Magnus said.
"I also killed their boss, and his boss, and their bosses, and their bosses, and every associate I could find."
"Good," said Arcee. Even Springer was a bit surprised at her blood-thirsty tone.
Spike pounded his fists on the table until Magnus glass vibrated off the edge and fell with a crash. No one moved to pick it up. Lancer let go of her mate and disappeared upstairs. No one but Marissa saw her slip away. Their eyes were on Spike and Rodi.
"You have been here for months," Spike accused. "In MY house, with THIS family."
"We tried to leave," Rodimus whispered.
"I can't believe this!" Spike raged. He was furious, sickened.
"We are going," Rodimus said. "We are gone."
Carly surged to her feet. There were tears on her face but she seemed much more in control than her husband. "Has anyone asked you to leave? Have they? You insult me! You insult my family! Do you think us unable to distinguish here from there? Do you think I don't know where the guilt lies? You take it all on yourself, but it was THEM, not you! You think I don't know you would die for me? For anyone here? You think I don't know you love my son like your own? Tell your mate to put those bags back upstairs, and so help me Rodimus Prime, you had damned well be here for your God-forsaken glass of orange juice in the morning."
"But..." Rodimus said. Emotion crossed his face for the first time, and it was pure bewilderment.
"But nothing!" Carly cried, her voice shrill. She reached out and poked Rodi in the chest to the time of her words. "You will stay here! You will get your stupid teleporter fixed, and you will go home and stop them. You will continue locking down my house, teaching Hot Rod, and carrying around my son while you're at it! Do you think I'm stupid?"
"No but..." he started, looking from her to Spike who was still flushed with rage.
"We already talked about this you ass! You think we didn't notice how you NEVER talk about Danny. You think we couldn't guess why?"
"But.." Rodi said, "but..." His eyes dilated. He shut them tight. "I'm sorry," he mouthed silently.
"You'll be really sorry if you disappear," Carly threatened. Rodimus had the sense to be intimidated.
"I can not believe you didn't tell us this," Spike grated.
Lancer glided into the doorway, and she was in fact holding their bags. She set them down on the floor. "Do you think you are better for knowing? Do you really want to look at your child and think that? You will now, I promise you, just like we do when we look at ours."
"It's not like it doesn't happen here too," Marissa said very quietly.
Arcee's head snapped around.
Continued in Part G