So. Yep. Only 7 chapters to go (until the perimeter)! I think I'll be counting down all the way to 100, but I can get away with it! I really hope I'll be able to get some seven-ish chapters done before I end this story because I reaaaaally want to pass those 100 chapters! It's been my goal since forever.
I kept constantly asking myself 'what if' questions. And I couldn't sleep because of them.
What if Ironhide had really known I was pregnant? It would explain all the extra measures he took and how he never wanted anybody lying on top of me or my stomach.
But if he did know, why didn't he tell me so? Why didn't Ratchet tell me? It's not like Ironhide was the one who was pregnant and had to keep it a secret from everybody. It was me, not him who had to carry the baby for nine months.
Or what if it was all in my head? What if he just said 'goodbye my lover' just like that, without it having anything to do with the song?
I didn't know, and my head started to hurt because of the questions.
I stared at the ceiling, my back growing stiff. I missed lying on my stomach.
I turned my head to the side to glance at the alarm clock on the end table. It was four in the morning. Almost five.
I groaned as I made myself get up from the bed. I couldn't sleep tonight. I might as well go eat something.
I even surprised myself when, one day, I wanted to eat syrup covered peanuts. Sometimes they seemed just so tasty. Of course, nobody in their right mind would let me eat that.
So I walked down the stairs, as quietly as possible. The wooden floor creaked every once in a while at the pressure of my weight as I walked towards the kitchen.
I flipped the light switch and the lights turned on. I yawned as I walked my way over to the fridge and opened it.
There were so many things to eat and I didn't know what to choose. I didn't know what my stomach wanted.
"What do you want to eat, baby?" I tiredly asked. I spotted a wrapped chocolate bar. "Just what I was thinking." I said as I snatched it and started to make myself some coffee.
About 10 minutes later, I unwrapped my chocolate and took my warm coffee and sat in the living room. I placed the coffee mug on the coffee table and tried searching for the remote. I had no luck in finding it.
And I sure as hell wasn't gonna go up and try to find it.
I groaned with irritation as I ate the chocolate in silence and drank my coffee. As I enjoyed the silence, I noticed that the sun was coming up.
A new day has dawned.
Another day without Ironhide.
I sighed again, not even hungry or thirsty anymore. I placed the leftover chocolate and my half empty coffee mug and stood up. I'd clean up everything later.
I walked over to the window as I heard the floor creak under my feet once again. I put my hands on my growing stomach and watched the city.
It was a complete mess. Broken and crumbled concrete was blocking the little traffic that was down there. The city was starting to rebuild itself, piece by piece, building by building. But luckily, the workers had more sense that to repair the city 24/7. Even the surviving citizens needed their rest. We've all been put under a lot of stress.
I heard footsteps behind me. I turned around.
"Hey." Nicole croaked out, heading for the fridge.
"Hi." I said, looking back through the window.
"Since when have you been up?" she inquired as I heard the fridge door being open.
"Didn't sleep last night."
"Nightmares?"
"Just thinking." I shrugged as I crossed my arms.
"You want to eat something?" she said as I heard rustling in the kitchen. She closed the fridge door.
"No, I still have to clean up."
"Can I take the chocolate?"
"Take the coffee, if you'd like. It's still warm."
"Thanks, hon." She said as I heard the pouring of milk and cereal into a ceramic bowl. "Where's the remote?"
I shrugged, feeling tired. "What's the time?"
"About 6." I can't believe an hour has passed already.
"Why are you up so early then?"
"Nightmares." She sighed, finding the remote and getting up to get it. Well, at least she could get up with ease, she didn't carry a heavy baby in her stomach.
"Does Bee know about them?" I turned around, releasing my hands from their position. She shook her head and started to eat.
"I don't want to bother him with that. I think I'm still stressed about what happened four months ago."
"Aren't we all?" I said, asking a rhetorical question.
She stopped eating for a moment. "Mel, do you know what happened to Amanda?"
I sighed. "I don't know, Nic. I lost contact with her after we left college."
"Alright." She said after a pause and continued eating. I yawned.
"I'm gonna go…" I pointed towards the stairs.
"See you around." She said with a smile.
I walked back up to my room and shut the door. I sat down on the bed, deep in thought.
How things would have been different if he were here. I wouldn't be sleeping alone for four months and I wouldn't be having restless nights.
I patted the other side of my king size bed. It was made up on his side. Not that he ever got a chance to sleep on it, either.
I laid down on the bed and covered myself with the blanket and sighed.
Time wasn't on my side.
6 hours later…
I woke up, feeling stiff. Way to wake up nicely.
My back had started to pain me. I think it was because of the weight of my stomach. Or the baby, at least.
I managed to get up, feeling a little pained because of my back. I walked downstairs to the kitchen, feeling really hungry now. Eating chocolate and some coffee didn't prove to be much of a healthy breakfast.
I realized that nobody was in this house. "Anybody home?" I said in a louder voice.
Nada. I heard nothing.
"I'm here." I heard a voice and turned around.
"What are you doing here?" I asked.
"Somebody has to keep you safe. Primus knows what may occur when you are sparked."
"I appreciate your concern, but I can take of myself. I did it before, I can do it now." I didn't want to be considered a weak woman, just because I was pregnant. Things mightn't have been going my way, but I wasn't going to back down. I had to be strong, for my sake.
"No need to get mad at me, Mel." I sighed.
I grabbed some bread, butter, jam and milk from the various places in the kitchen and myself a sweet sandwich.
I went to the living room, where Sunstreaker's holoform sat with me on the couch. I turned on the TV and started to eat, Nicole having left the remote on the couch.
"I'm not mad, Sunny. I'm just…" I was at a loss for words. Ironhide's death has been very difficult for me and sometimes I couldn't control my words.
"I understand." He said, leaning back on the couch with his hands behind his head.
"How has Sideswipe been doing?" I ate and diverted my attention to the TV.
"The usual." He shrugged. "He's mostly spending his time around Jolt and Bumblebee."
I nodded. "And why not with you? I mean, you're twin brothers."
"Sometimes we need some time alone." He said, not wanting to give the matter any more thought.
I didn't force the question nor extend the conversation, so diverted my attention towards the TV once more. There was a movie on.
'You are so smug, you know that? You think the world revolves around you, don't ya? That we couldn't possibly survive without the mighty and powerful Leonardo to guide us through our problems, huh?! Well, I got a newsflash for ya! We got along just fine without you!'
'Oh and this qualifies as just fine?! Dressing up like it's Halloween every night, risking the safety of our family? I mean, come on, what were you thinking?!'
'Don't push it, Leo. You can't leave home and come back expecting us to fall in line again, like your little soldiers.'
There was something really tense going on in this movie. I was swayed.
'Hey, I was training! Training to be a better leader, for you! Why do you hate me for that?!'
'And who ever said I wanted to be led?! I'm better off calling my own shots, now get used to it!'
'You aren't ready! You're impatient and hot-tempered! And more importantly, I am better than you.'
They reminded me of an old TV series that I used to love watching as a kid.
"What's this movie called?" I asked, turning towards Sunstreaker. Perhaps he would remember the title. But he wasn't there.
Even he didn't like my company.
I slumped, no longer interested in the movie. I felt a little hurt, to be honest. The only person who was here with me had disappeared. Perhaps I wasn't of any interest to him. It only made me feel more lonely.
I suddenly heard something crash and fall. I traced the sound that emerged towards one huge door that I had absolutely no idea what it was for.
And I was about to find out, because I saw Sunstreaker's alt mode trying to enter the apartment and it accidentally bumped into a glass vase that had a couple of dying flowers in it, right through that very door.
What the hell was his alt doing inside the apartment?
I sighed and stood up. Somebody had to clean up the mess he made.
I slowly walked over to his alt and folded my arms across my chest.
I could hear the purr of his engine as his alt stood in front of me, it's menacing LED headlights turned on.
I pointed to the broken vase on the floor, the water from it creating a puddle on the ground. "Do you see what you did there?"
His engine purred a little louder, as if confirming what I had just asked him.
"And do you know who has to clean this up?"
His holoform emerged right beside the alt. "I will."
"No, it's bad enough that you fit your alt in the damn apartment! What are you doing here anyway?" I asked, gingerly picking up the big glass pieces and putting them into my hand, careful not to cut myself.
"Put that down. Don't strain yourself." He said, crouching down to my level.
"I asked you a question." I repeated.
"I told you to not strain yourself." He said, grabbing my wrist gently to stop me from picking up more glass. The action, as thoughtful as it was, wasn't a careful one, and resulted in me cutting my index finger on the outer side.
"Shit." I said. I didn't feel pain as I watched the blood immediately drip down.
"Frag." He repeated.
I managed to get up, I did have slight difficulties, but I did it. I walked over to the bin and dropped the glass pieces carefully.
I walked over to the sink and let the water run. I inhaled as I put my finger under the warm water as it started to burn.
I cringed, moving my finger around to rinse out all the blood and possible glass particles that stuck to the wound.
"Hand me some gauze, will you?" I asked as he looked at me blankly. "What?"
"What is gauze?" I sighed. Then again he was from another planet. Cybertronians probably didn't have gauze.
"It's something that looks like toilet paper, but isn't-just find it in a cabinet, you can't miss it." I quickly told him, not bothering to find the words to explain it to him what it was. He had internet for crying out loud.
He nodded and searched through the cabinet that I appointed him to. He easily found it. "Is it this?" he held it in between his thumb and index finger.
"Yes, thank you." I said, turning off the water and asking him to spread the gauze a little. I put my finger on the beginning of the gauze. "Now wrap it around the finger, gently… gently." I guided, as he with such gentility I haven't ever seen in him, wrapped the gauze painlessly around my finger. "Okay, that would be enough. Now try to find scissors." I said.
"To cut it?" he asked. He did catch on pretty quickly, considering he hasn't ever done this before.
"Yes."
"May I rip it?"
"Just try not to touch my finger." I warned. He nodded as he managed to rip the gauze where I told him to, without touching my finger and hurting me.
"Now what?"
"Find that cello-tape Nicole used yesterday." I said. Nicole did use a type of yellowish-transparent colored cello-tape to tape a few things together. It was light and felt like it was made of paper with a little glue on it. It would hold the gauze until the wound crusted.
He took the opportunity of taping the gauze's end to the finger. I hadn't really expected him to be this gentle and concentrated. "I'm sorry." He suddenly said. "For doing this to you."
I nodded. "It's okay now. You made things right." I smiled and gave him a hug. I desperately needed one.
"I'll clean the mess I made. Not you. Not anybody else." He said it in such a determined tone as if he had done something very, very wrong. But it was just a vase. Perhaps I got a little hurt, but it seemed like he would punish himself for hurting a girl.
"Sunny…" I said. I honestly felt bad or him.
"Don't. This is my doing and I have to pay for it." I sighed and shook my head. "I got you hurt."
"It was just a cut-"
"No, Mel. It is my duty to now guard you. And I'm failing at it before I had even begun. I can't and I won't let such a degrading thing happen again." He determinedly said, crouching down and swooping all the glass pieces with his hands and dropping them in the bin.
"When did you become my guardian? Why wasn't I informed of this?"
He sighed as he grabbed a mop from behind the kitchen door and started to mop. It was an interesting sight, seeing Sunstreaker clean the floor. But he had his own ways he went by. One of them was after doing something wrong, making it right. And it was a truly noble rule he went by.
He mopped up all the water from the ceramic tiles on the floor and put the mop back to its place behind the door.
"Remember when you and Ironhide had that argument just before he went to Egypt to battle the Fallen?"
How could I forget? I can still clearly remember having said the dreadful words. I wanted Sunstreaker as my guardian instead of him. I can never forget the stupid things I said in my youth.
"Yes, what does that have to do with you being my guardian now?" I asked.
"Well, you saying that actually meant that I was to be second in line if something were to happen to Ironhide that he couldn't guard you anymore." He said solemnly. He bent down to pick up the dying daisies from the floor, holding them in his hands.
"I see…" I said, looking at my stomach.
"What should I do with these… things?" he said, pointing to the flowers in his hands. I managed to smile a sad smile, having the name of Ironhide being brought up was never a good thing for me, it always made me sad.
"I'll take care of them." He handed them delicately into my own hands, despite the fact that they were dying and looked a little dry. I put them in a glass filled with water and set it on the kitchen counter. "Just don't try fitting your alt in here again. What is it doing here anyway?"
"In case you haven't noticed, it's raining outside and I don't want to be filthy afterwards."
"Oh you poor snobbish thing." I said.
"Besides, there's room for me and some of the other Autobots to fit, so I see nothing wrong with using the accommodation given."
"It was given to us, not to Cybetronians who are afraid of rain."
"I'm not afraid of rain."
"Then why are you hiding in here?"
"I'm not hiding, I am shielding myself."
"I thought you liked to get dirty so that you could clean yourself later. Or have someone clean your alt for you."
"You thought wrong." He smirked, his alt moving from its frozen spot, slowly purring its way to a secluded corner, close to one of the big windows that stood in between the living room and the kitchen. He parked himself there and turned off the engine and the LED lights as well.
I walked back to where he and his alt were now standing. I crossed my arms and looked out the window. The rain poured outside.
"What time is it?" I softly spoke, rubbing my belly.
"It's one in the afternoon." he said, following my body language by crossing his arms.
I smiled, not looking at him, but down to the ground. "Thanks for keeping me company."
He nodded. "You'd do the same for me."
I couldn't stop myself from using a certain Leo vs Raph scene from the 2007 TMNT movie. I loved it and thought it was very emotional (that, and I had nothing else to write about) so I used it.
How did you like the dialogues between Sunstreaker and Mel? It was kind of an 'aww' moment at the end of the chapter (and during the chapter, but oh well) and I really like how this chapter came out.
As some of you dear readers asked me via PM, I'll repeat it here: After we get TWOF finished with, I'll continue writing ABOAC (Bee/OC) and then TOILITOIN (Bee/OC) and also get started on the story that wins the poll that is still open on my profile. Just so I don't have to repeat it to everyone. So I'll be rewriting 2 stories, starting another Transformer/OC story and hopefully start a TMNT story. I have big plans and big ideas, so I'd really appreciate the support you guys are awesome in giving.
I'd really appreciate the reviews, my fellow lovely readers! Until the next chapter then!