I love the support guys! Thank you so much!
And just so you know, between the previous chapter and this one, Will has been 'revived' aka just splashed with cold water. :D
He was silent, something I hadn't expected of him at all. He was there, in my room, sitting on my bed, his back bent as his forearms rested on his knees and his fingers interlocked.
"When did this happen?" he looked at me, voice monotone.
I looked to the ground, feeling like I was being scolded. "...Six years ago."
"Six years?!"
I winced. I didn't think his reaction would be like this. "Yeah…" I sheepishly said. I almost felt bad for being in a relationship with Ironhide.
"Don't yell at her, Will." Ironhide said, who was standing beside me. "She's been through enough for today."
"You have no right to take part in this conversation, Ironhide." Will snapped at him.
"I am a part of this, just as much as she is." He said as I felt his hand rest on my back, assuring me silently that it would all be alright. "Besides Will, with all due respect, she isn't your daughter and you cannot ban her from living her life."
"I would never ban her from doing something, Ironhide, she has the right to experience things… maybe not these kind of things, but…" his voice slowly died out, as he was trying to form his next words. "How did you keep this," he meant on our relationship, "a secret for so long?"
"It wasn't a complete secret." I said.
"Who else knew?"
"Sideswipe, Sunstreaker, Ratchet..."
"Just the three of them?"
"Jazz, Bumblebee, Nicole…"
"And the list goes on." Ironhide finished for me.
"So everyone except me."
"You, Sarah, Optimus…" I kept on.
"Okay, that's enough." Will said, getting up. He assessed me and Hide, as a small smile slowly brightened up his facial features. "If you're happy with him Mel, then… then I have nothing to say, good luck to you both." He said, his smile spreading as he left the room, but stopped at the door. He turned around. "I'm gonna get some new clothes, since these are soaked. I think Optimus will revive Sentinel," he looked at his watch. "Any minute now, so go to room 13-B, we'll watch everything from there." His actions were a little confusing, he was yelling at me at one moment, then smiling at the other.
"I have no idea where that is." I said.
"Ironhide will show you." He said as he got out and I lost all sight of him.
Silence struck the room as Will vanished from the room. "That went well." Ironhide said as I hugged him around the neck. His hands trailed around my waist as we stood this way for who knows how long. He and I enjoyed this so much.
"I'm glad he didn't go crazy. You're not really from this world, you know." I whispered as my head rested on his chest.
"I think he took it quite well." He shrugged, resting his chin on my head. "We should go to 13-B and see Optimus revive Sentinel. Primus knows nobody knew Sentinel was alive until now."
"He's not really alive if he needs to be revived."
"I meant, nobody knew where he was. At all. Nor where the Ark was."
"Yeah, but now you know where both the Ark and Sentinel are, so all is good, right?" I smiled at him, looking up to meet his beautiful blue eyes. He kissed my forehead.
"Right."
"Let's go then." I said as we both got out of the room and he led the way to the room 13-B.
We were walking through a couple of corridors when the speakers on the base, quite literally shrieked. "BEE! Is Bee in there?!"
As all the walls of the corridors, that were looking onto the Main Room, were made of glass, they were actually transparent windows and not cement, I could see Bee wheelspinning out of the Main Room, his engine roaring like never before.
"What's going on?" I asked Ironhide as we all got into the room, 13-B.
"I'm not sure, I'll com Bumblebee." He said as we stood, looking through the window, both of our arms crossed. I saw Will going out of the room.
"I'll go see what's going on outside." Will said, passing us quickly.
And just as he got out, Nicole got in. "Do you have any idea what's going on?" She asked.
"No." I answered and turned to Ironhide.
"I heard Sam's voice, I'm really worried." She said.
Ironhide spoke up. "According to Bumblebee, Sam has to inform us of Decepticon activity and-"
"They 'Cons found Sam?!" Nicole raised her voice, earning a couple of looks from the bystanding soldiers.
"It would appear so, yes, and the guards at the Main Gate didn't let Sam go into the base, so Bee went there to retrieve him." he patiently explained.
"I hope the guards didn't hurt him. Sam can get physical sometimes." She continued.
"All N.E.S.T. officials, clear the floor. We have 10 minutes until attempted contact."
Soon, a dozen men entered the room along with Charlotte Mearing. I supposed she knew who all us were and what was our role here, so she didn't give us much thought, much less a greeting.
"We have taken possession of the five devices that were hidden in the ship with Sentinel Prime." She said, looking inside a file as all of the men were intently listening to her. "They're some kind of prototype Autobot technology. They say that Sentinel was the Einstein of his civilization, so we're gonna keep these locked up, until we know what we're dealing with. For now, no one gets access. No one."
"Look, there's Sam." Nicole said, pointing at him. He looked tiny from up here. But so did Carly and Will. "SAM!" she yelled.
He waved at her from above, as we saw the three of them walking with Bumblebee leading them to the corridor which led to upstairs. They passed through the parking bays the 'Bots were parked in.
"This Wayne guy recognized me, he told me to warn you, he was talking about the dark side of the Moon and then they killed him." 'They' being the 'Cons, I presumed.
"Wait a minute, he mentioned the Moon?"
"Yeah, dark side of the Moon." He patted Ironhide's hood and Ratchet's lights flashed at him, with all signs of greeting. We could clearly hear the conversation, up to a point, from upstairs. The glass walls weren't really good sound isolation.
Sam, Carly and Will slowly progressed upstairs. Carly spoke up. "But why would the Decepticons want to kill humans? I thought their war was with the Autobots?"
Suddenly, we couldn't hear their voices anymore, but we didn't care, because we would see them again in a matter of seconds. "God, I haven't seen Sam in a while. I missed the bugger."
"Nicole, come on, those are childish remarks." I chuckled.
"Things here are too serious, sometimes you just need small amounts of fun remarks sometimes." She smiled. "Besides, I never heard of this dead alien 'Sentinel'. Bee never told me about him."
"Yeah, Hide didn't tell me anything about him either." I glanced at him, my arms still crossed across my chest.
"There was not much to tell, considering he was offline for thousands of years." Hide spoke up, but was monitoring what was happening on the ground.
Sam, Carly and Will approached us, as we were on the same level, and Nicole and I gave him a hug. "What took you so long?" Nicole asked, implying that the two of them should have seen each other sooner. But she didn't bother to greet Carly.
"I'll tell you about it later." He patted her on the shoulder with his one arm, and took out a bunch of scrunched up papers with his other arm, out of his jean pocket. He turned to Lennox, starting to talk about the 'Wayne' guy again. "He was compiling-"
"Excuse me! Colonel Lennox,"
"Director Mearing." Will greeted her. "This is Sam Witwicky, the civilian who-"
"I know his name, Colonel, I want to know who gave him clearance."
Sam looked at her, very confused and yet in a mood for picking up fights. To be honest, if I had saved the world and twice at that, I would at least like to know that important people know my name. But Sam didn't get such a privilege. "Who gave me clearance? How about Optimus Prime when he touched down in my suburbia looking for my house." He gave her a smartass look.
"This is the National Intelligence Director, in case you want to…" 'know' was what was left out, but Will needn't finish his sentence, because Mearing cut him to it.
"Hi." Sam dumbly said, as both Nicole and I rolled my eyes. I was sure Ironhide would have rolled his eyes too, had he not been observing everything that was going on here and on the first floor. He could keep track of multiple things at once, which sometimes had its perks.
"Disrespecting a federal officer, hmph, that ought to get you somewhere, who's she?" Mearing took a stance and glared at Carly.
Carly smiled at her, knowing that she should keep silent. "She's my girlfriend." Sam answered for her.
"What is this, like a date?"
Will stepped on Sam's and Carly's side, "She knows all about the Autobots, okay, she knows Bumblebee and she comes from a military family, I can vouch for it."
"Hey, I have an idea, how about we get to the important topics, like that I almost had my face cut off, by a Decepticon!" Sam intervened once more.
"Listen, one of the software engineers at Sam's office was murdered today, he was involved in NASA's Lunar mapping program." Will gave the scrunched up papers to Mearing, who spread them off to her assistant.
"Here's the thing, Colonel Lennox. We cannot entrust national security to teenagers, unless I missed a policy paper, are we doing that now? No. Good." she gave my uncle and the couple a stern look. "I don't care who you are, if you breathe a word of what you see in here, you'll do time for treason. Do you understand me?" She wisely said, glaring at him unfriendly.
"I'll take my orders from the Autobots, I know them, I don't know you." Sam returned the look.
"You will."
"Alright, let's get into the secured area." My uncle said as Ironhide's holoform disappeared and Nicole and I followed Will, Mearing, Sam and Carly into a contained space, most probably to keep us safe.
The berth on which Sentinel was lying on moved, activated by four soldiers on the ground who were masked in black clothes, kits and kevlars and were carrying deadly weapons. "That's Sentinel Prime." My uncle continued. "These things run on energon and he's out of it. He's in a, sort of a sleep mode."
Optimus transformed in front of the berth and walked slowly towards Sentinel, opening up his chest plates as the Matrix of Leadership hovered right out of him and over his hand. "Let us begin." He said in his mighty, baritone voice.
"That's the great Matrix of Leadership. It's the only thing in the universe that can repower a Tranformer's spark." Will kept on explaining as all of our attention has been on Optimus, the Matrix and Sentinel.
"This is incredible." Carly gasped as she looked at the scene unfolding in front of her.
Optimus stood right in front of Sentinel, ready to push the Matrix into his chest. It was obvious he was going to do that. "Sentinel Prime, we bid you return."
As he gently pushed the Matrix into Sentinel's chest, blue light shone from his whole body as it started to shake violently out of its place and from his vocal processor emerged demonic sounds.
And just as he had stopped shaking, Sentinel muttered something in what must have been Cybertronian and lunged at Optimus from his berth, drawing a weapon from his back.
My heart raced as I took a step backwards. Optimus was down on the ground with Sentinel's sharp sword grazing his temple.
The Autobots transformed, engaging their weapons and keeping Sentinel within their aim, but not shooting.
"Hold your fire!" Will roared as he ran out of the room, to stop the soldiers downstairs.
"No, Sentinel!"
I saw a blue light emitting from my right side. I knew it was Nicole, emitting her energy spheres. I wasn't wrong, so I turned towards her. "Nicole, don't-"
"If things get messy, I didn't go through Egypt and had Sam die in my arms to save Optimus, only to lose Optimus again." She kept the energy sphere hovering in her palm, but it was hidden from other people's eyes.
"Hold your fire!" Will's voice ordered from a distance.
"It is I, Optimus Prime!" Optimus struggled to keep Sentinel's hands away from places where they needn't be. "It is alright. You are safe."
From behind the berth, from left to right with their weapons on, stood Dino, Ironhide, Ratchet, Bumblebee and Sideswipe. Ironhide motioned the Autobots to lower their weapons, as they did. On the other side, Sunstreaker, Skids and Mudflap and Elita, Chromia and Arcee lowered their weapons as well. Que was most probably in another part of the base, hence the reason why he wasn't present in the Main Room.
"There's nothing to fear." Ratchet said.
"We are here. You are home, Sentinel."
Sentinel stood up from Optimus, as he looked around him, trying to comprehend where he was and what were those little organic insects, called humans. He stared at all of us, but was particularly looking at Nicole's energy sphere.
Sentinel's gaze, returned to Optimus. "The War… The War!"
"The War was lost… Cybertron is now but a barren wasteland. He have taken refuge here on planet Earth. Its human race is our ally." Optimus said as he got up, locking the Matrix inside him.
"My ship… We came under fire-the pillars," Sentinel's mind was erratic. Going so fast, he couldn't process all of his thoughts. "Where are the pillars?"
"You saved five of them, including the control pillar."
"Only five? We once had hundreds!"
"Excuse me gentlemen, may I ask, what is this technology you're looking for?" Mearing said, wondering off to another part of 13-B, called 14-B, where there was no glass protection, like in this small room where we had moved to. Nicole extinguished the energy sphere as she and I followed Mearing. We also found my uncle, along with some other soldiers up in 14-B.
I was surprised that Sentinel was the talkative type and immediately answered to Mearing's question. I remember Ironhide didn't bother to say hello unless he absolutely had to, years back when he and I were only starting to know each other. "It is the ability to reshape the Universe. Together the pillars form a spacebridge. I designed and I alone can control it. It defies your laws of physics, to transport matter through time and space."
I had no idea how had he known about our laws of physics, since he had only been revived a mere minute ago and didn't even know what planet he was on, let alone the laws of physics.
"You're talking about a teleportation device, aren't you?"
"Yes, for resources, for refugees."
Her attitude could change in a second. "Refugees or troops or soldiers, weapons, maybe bombs! A means of an instant strike, that's its military function, isn't it?" Funny how she could immediately transfer everything to military and destructive means.
"It is our technology and it must be returned."
"Yes, if humans say so. You can't just bring weapons of mass destruction into our atmosphere, kinda have to clear customs first! A little formality called paperwork, kinda, separates us from the animals."
Sentinel narrowed his eyes at her . "I will overlook your condescending tone, if you heave the gravity of mine. The Decepticons must never realize the spacebridge is here, for in their hands," his eyes trailed towards me. I felt oddly uncomfortable. He narrowed his eyes at me as well. "It would mean the end of your world."
"Sentinel," Ratchet approached him and Optimus. "Your energon levels are critical. You need immediate refueling."
"We'll continue this later." Mearing said as she went out of 14-B. "Sam, with me." she said, and as she walked away, Carly took Sam's hand as both of the wandered off somewhere, following Mearing into the dull gray corridors of the base.
Some of the Autobots transformed into their alt modes, save for Ratchet, Optimus and Sentinel who were going to the Refueling Room, a room specially designed for the Autobots.
Nicole and I got down to the Main Room, going towards the Autobots. "So now what?" I walked up to Ironhide, who hasn't transformed, fighting my fear of being squished again.
"Nothing you need to bother yourself with." Ironhide answered, crouching down to be on my level, his one hand on the ground to support him so he wouldn't lose his balance. "I think it's time you go rest."
"I'll rest when I feel like it." I said. "Besides, what time is it?"
"10.30."
"That late already?"
"Time certainly isn't on your side today, now is it?"
"I thought it was about 6, not half past ten. I guess I'm supposed to feel tired now." He smirked. "Don't get any nasty thoughts, Ironhide." I said seriously, but I couldn't repress the smile on my face that spread when I saw that glint in his optics.
I heard a transformation sound take place and as I turned my head to see who was transforming, it was Bee. "Where's he going?" I asked Ironhide, looking at him.
Ironhide stood silent for a moment, he was definitively asking Bee where was he going, through the comlinks. "He's going to be Sam's guardian again now."
"What about Nicole?" I asked.
"She'll be here, just like you."
"Not that, I meant, who is going to be her guardian?"
"Why do you bother yourself with such questions? You should be taking it easy, now more than ever."
I didn't know which part of the statement sounded weirder. "She's my best friend, Ironhide. I think it's normal that I want to know about her safety, especially now when 'Cons are starting to kill humans." At least, that's what I gathered from when Carly said the Decepticons wanted to kill humans, even though their war was with the Autobots.
"She'll be here, in the base, but you should ask Optimus who is going to be her guardian, after he's done talking to Sentinel and debriefing him."
"No way in hell am I going to ask Optimus." I shook my head.
"Are you scared of him?" he smirked, teasing me lightly.
"I'm not scared, but I don't want to bother him."
"You're just afraid he'll reject you."
"True." I said, because that was the complete truth right there.
"Optimus doesn't reject people, Mel. You should feel absolutely free to communicate with him and perhaps, even ask for advice. Primus knows he has vorns of it."
Has what of it? "What's a vorn?"
"A very long time. Let's get you to sleep." He said, transforming into his alt form. His holoform appeared in front of me. "Do you want to sleep in my alt or go upstairs?"
"Room." I said as he nodded and we walked beside each other all the way upstairs and into my room. He got in the room as Ironhide closed the door and casually walked up to the bed and laid down with me.
I laid on top of him and rested my head on his chest, yawning. "Mel, is it normal for your stomach to be swollen?"
What?
I got up from him. "What are you talking about?"
"Your stomach is a little swollen."
My hands drifted to my stomach. It was a little bigger than usual. "Must be from the food I ate today." I said, shrugging it off and returning to lie on top of him. I could see a grin on his face.
"Sure, that must be it."
"Do you have any other ideas?"
"Hmm…" he said, making a funny face.
"Shut up." I smiled, getting comfortable on top of him. "As long as my stomach doesn't hurt, we're good." For a second, I thought he was going to call Ratchet and have him examine me, but no such thing happened. His body relaxed as we melded into each other.
Just as I was about to rest my head on his chest again and go to sleep, his hand drifted to my face, nuzzling my cheeks, making me look at him. His voice was calm, honest, his face serious, but with a small smile. "Primus, you are so beautiful."
As I heard the words, my face brightened with a huge smile, butterflies dancing around in my stomach. I let my hands slip around his neck as I gave him a deep kiss. "How do I respond?" I grinned as he chuckled. I certainly loved times like these, times in which he and I were alone and were enjoying it endlessly.
"You don't need to, dear." He said, kissing the tip of my nose.
I rested my head on his chest, my head tucked underneath his chin. "Say Hide," I started, a silly idea coming to my mind. "Can you tell me some story about Cybertron?"
He chuckled, kissing my head. "Of course. But there aren't many stories about Cybertron without involving the War."
"Find one." I snorted. "Or make one up."
"You just want to act like a child."
"I think I can get away with it." I said, inhaling his fake perfume scent. How I loved that scent. He sighed.
"I feel like a fragging nanny." He said, causing me to laugh lightly.
"C'mon nanny, tell me a goodnight story."
He laughed with me, before calming down and clearing voice, changing it to a deeper level. "Before time began…"
"You're imitating Optimus, that's not a story." I laughed.
He snorted, "You don't know where I'm going with this."
"Sorry, continue." I yawned, covering my mouth with my hand.
"There was the Cube. And the Cube gave life to a child. The child grew and made a lot of good friends, but also made some enemies. And then the child grew up and found a mate."
"You should be more creative with your stories."
He snorted again, "Hush. So one day, the child's mate was kidnapped by the child's enemies. But there was more to that than just kidnapping, the mate was carrying."
"Carrying what?"
"Carrying, in our language, means pregnant."
"Oh, okay, go on." I yawned, closing my eyes, tiredness taking over.
"But the mate didn't know that. His enemies wanted to use his mate as bait, so that the child would find her. And when he would find her, they'd kill him. So the child moved heaven on Earth to find her and save her."
"That's true love right there." I said absentmindedly.
"Will you ever keep quiet while I'm talking?"
"Right right, sorry." I yawned again, on the verge of falling asleep.
His voice softened and carried out a lesser, more quiet tone. "But the child was not ignorant, nor stupid. He came along with a lot of his friends, defeated his enemies and saved his mate." The softness of his voice and lulling tone drew me to sleep. "His mate gave birth to a lovely femme and..."
I didn't get to listen to the end of his story, for I had fallen asleep. I just wished everything in life had a happy ending, such as creating new life and living happily ever after.
Well this chapter is done! (like finally XD) :D I'm just a little bummed to have to say that the name of this chapter 'The Last Night' actually represents Mel's and Hide's last night together. And hopefully you understood that some of Ironhide's 'story', at first begins with pure imagination, as we get to the middle of his story, he reminisces on a couple of years earlier where Mel and Nicole were kidnapped. And at the end of the story, he is telling that in his story he would like to have a little femme.
So yeah, I think Mel and Hide, without knowing it, enjoyed their last night in the best way they could: with laughter, love and affection. God, I just hate having to put Mel through DOTM. A lot of emotions were spilled during that movie which is what makes me write it now.
Well, I hope you liked this chapter and let's hope chapter 79 won't be too bad! I don't know if I'm good at making people 'leak from their eyes' as the Transformers would say, but I think I'll give it a try.
So, until chapter 79 folks! Leave lots of reviews for faster updates!