Hey guys! Sorry for the wait. College. It sucks. But here I am, typing this as you read. But it is now time for you guys to learn a bit more about Kathy! Yay! There won't be any rules this chapter, for it is for our favorite Director only. THE POLL IS CLOSED. I WILL BE TAKING NO MORE VOTES. THANK YOU TO ALL WHO VOTED!
But first, I would like to get something straight with the guest reviewer who left a rather... interesting review last chapter.
As some as you might remember, I quoted Full Metal Jacket last chapter for one of the rules. A few months before, someone sent in a rule asking me to make one about the women on base's 'time of the month.' I do not find jokes like that very amusing, as someone who believes their gender to be female. I find them rather tasteless actually. I sent them (what I thought was) a very polite PM thanking them for their support and for their review. I informed them that I do not like rules like that and apologized several times. I had decided to not use that rule. I never recieved a reply, but assumed it had been recieved and moved on.
Jump to a few weeks later to the last chapter. I get a guest review saying this: AgentX chapter 25 . Aug 13
I'm sorry but I was reading through your reviews and saw blurredforatleastlittlebitofmysteryuntilthiscanbesortedout's rule. I thought it was really funny but I saw you didn't put it there. I am a friend of blurred's and she told me you thought it was inappropriate. I would like to say that as a female that is in no way insulting and how is that inappropriate when you put mentions of Full Metal Jacket into your story? I personally think Full Metal Jacket is a lot more inappropriate than a period joke. I also know a few older and pinger woman who thought blurred's joke was hilarious. Just saying, hope you actually read this.
THIS IS THE EXACT, COPY&PASTED PM I HAD SENT: hank you for giving me a rule! Unfortunately, I do not agree with using periods for humor. They're a natural bodily function and really shouldn't be used in such a way. Personally, I just find it a little tasteless... But I still thank you a lot for giving me a rule and trying! I really hope that my decision hasn't upset you or made you no longer want to read my story... I'm very sorry.
I never said it was inappropriate, just that I didn't like it. I know, it's just one review and I shouldn't get this angry, but this is the only place I can respond, so if you don't care about this, just go ahead and skip this author's note please. I don't know, maybe I was ruder in my PM then I thought, and if that's the case, I apologize. Proper manners beyond the basics and social skills were not the center of my childhood lessons. I'm an honest, blunt person. *shrugs*
BUT LET ME GET ONE THING CLEAR TO ANYONE WHO READS THIS STORY AND SENDS IN A RULE: I, AS AUTHOR, HAVE THE RIGHT TO PICK AND CHOOSE. I CHOOSE WHAT GETS WRITTEN. IT'S MY STORY. I APPRECIATE EVERY SINGLE REVIEW. I READ ALL OF THEM. YOU HAVE NO IDEA HOW ECSTATIC I GET EVERYTIME I SEE I'VE RECIEVED A REVIEW.
Now that that drama's over, on with the backstory. And it's a long one. Also, mildly poetic maybe.
*insert standard disclaimer here*
Kathy was all at once completely normal and strange, from the very day she was born. It depended on who you asked. If you began your questioning with the doctors present at her birth, they would claim she had been a perfectly healthy baby, for all that she came just a little too soon for their liking. But she had popped out pink as the sunset and crying as if it was going out of style. Well, more like they had to pull her out, as her mother had opted for a c-section despite the scarring, and she had tried to wiggle away, clinging to her mother's ribs.
If you had asked her mother, a woman with brown hair, brown eyes, and still carrying weight from her last two pregnancies, she would have said her new daughter had spirit. And was definitely a Woodward, as if there had been any doubt. But only a Woodward could have lungs like that so soon after birth. A good sign, said Kathy's mother, Kay.
If you asked her father, who was a tall, dark haired man with the same blue-gray eyes of his daughter, he would stand tall and straight before saying "Smart kid, don't blame her really. There've been times I've wanted to go back too." Eugene, for that was her father's name, would then laugh deep and loud, carrying his joy across the hospital. Kathy's favorite thing about her father was his laugh, even as an adult.
You wouldn't even have to ask the opinions of her older brother and sister. They would find you. Collin and Mary, who were four and six years old respectively. Collin would tell you his new sister looked like a log of bologna, while Mary would say she was too loud and messy and that "Mama and Daddy should just take her back." Collin would then roll his brown eyes at his older sibling. "They can't take her back stupid. They don't gotta receipt!" "Well, maybe they should ask anyway! And I'm not stupid!"
Kathy lived a fairly average life for a baby until she was about three years old, the age her parents decided to get a dog. That was also the age the fights began. They had decided that the minimum size was something that would be over thirty pounds, a decent size. Eugene wanted a Great Dane if the pound had one. Kay brought home a chihuahua, named Titan. Her father did not like that, especially when Kathy's mother informed him that she had never planned on getting anything larger than Titan in the first place.
Collin and Mary hid in their rooms, the seven and nine year olds having never liked it when their parents fought and this argument was especially loud. Kathy, however, stayed in the living room while Eugene and Kay argued in the kitchen. She didn't particularly care, as long as they didn't disturb her lessons. Her father had decided he was done having to constantly tell her stories, so he passed on the same words his mother had used on him. He had pointed to the bookcase and said "See those things over there? They can tell you as many stories as you want, whenever you want. All you've got to do is learn how." And so, she did. By the time she was five and entering school, she knew how to read the most basic two syllable words, count to twenty-five, and tie her own shoes. Most of the other children barely knew the alphabet.
When she was eight, the animosity between her parents came to a head. Their marriage did not last the night. Two weeks later, her mother moved out of their small double-wide and took her sister Mary, who by then was fourteen, with her. Kathy finally had her own room, but she was not happy. While she had never really gotten along with her sister, they were much too different in personality, the redhead still loved her and would miss her company. But, she was guilty to admit, Kathy knew she would not miss her mother very much, nor for very long. Kay had not been around often, much prefering to go to parties or go drinking with her friends. When she was home, she spent much of her time with Mary, who was the mother's favorite of her three children. Kathy realized, even at eight years old, this was why Mary had gone with their mother. They were very much the same sort of person.
When Kathy was nine, her father got them a new dog. They hadn't had one for several years, since Titan had run off while Eugene had been leaving for work, in the middle of winter. Her father had no time to look for him. Titan didn't last the day, even hiding under the house. Eugene had felt guilty for several years afterwards and decided to get a new dog. He went to the pound looking for a chihuahua and came back with a half Great Dane/Great Pyranees who was as deaf as a doornail. Kathy adored Chucky on sight, while Collin was too involved with going through puberty to care.
When Kathy was eleven, someone kicked a door into her face and chipped a tooth. The red head didn't see who did it. No one came clean and so every single girl who had been in that bathroom was charged with assault. Over the next several months, Kathy realized something important. She didn't have any friends, the other children avoided her. They disliked her. In elementary school, she hadn't had friends either, but hadn't minded as much. Books were her friends and they still were. But she didn't have anyone to talk too. Her father was much too busy trying to support them while her mother didn't pay child support. There were times she had to think to remember her brother's name, they were so distant. They almost never spoke.
But Kathy shook her head, long red hair moving with it, and picked up her book again. Friends would come in time, she just had to be patient. She pretended to be deaf as a group of girls giggled to each other, purposefully speaking the words 'freak,' 'heathen,' and other assorted insults. Kathy told herself she didn't care. She was used to it and they were stupid. She went back to planning dinner for her family of three.
When Kathy was a sophmore in highschool, she joined it's JROTC program and bid her the brother she barely knew get on the bus headed for Bootcamp. He was joining the Marines at nineteen. In those two years as cadet, she was promoted to Sergeant and became a squad leader. It was there she decided her career. She would be a teacher and make a difference in at least one child's life. If she could prevent at least one from having a life like hers, she would be happy. She never once changed her mind.
She also never realized just how big of a difference in the world she'd be making.
When Kathy was nineteen and in her second year of University, Chucky died of old age. He was thirteen years old and had lived a long, happy life. She cried and didn't go to class for several days. A week afterwards, Kathy cut her hair, which hadn't been even trimmed in ten years, and got a tattoo of Chucky's pawprint between her shoulders.
She graduated with a bachelor's degree in Early Childhood Education at the age of twenty-two and immediately entered a graduate program. After that, she began to teach the newest kindergarten class at one of the local elementary schools. At twenty-five, a drunk driver decided to go speeding by her school just as it was letting out and almost hit a child crossing the street to reach his parents. Almost, because Kathy pulled him out of the way of said speeding vehicle, getting clipped on her right side, thus getting her shoulder and collar bone shattered. It took years of therapy to be able to move her arm at even half the flexibility she used to have. She'd never be able to do any serious lifting again and it would always ache before bad weather.
She kept the pain pills, even though she didn't need them anymore.
At twenty-nine, Kathy entered a Child and Family Studies Degree program. She finished in under three years at thirty-one.
At thirty-three, she quit her job, sold her car to the same boy who's life she had saved years ago, and stopped going into town. Kathy had decided to kill herself. But she never got the chance because a meteor crashlanded in her yard. It was an Autobot name Ultra Magnus and he had the most gorgeous colored optics she had ever seen. They were the color of the sky on a cloudless day and yet the same shade of clear green sea. And they were bright, oh so bright and wonderful, she couldn't stop looking at them. Then more autobots came, along with some teenagers, who made her laugh and smile just like her students used to do. They asked her to come with them to their base in Nevada and she agreed. Kathy refused to leave Magnus' presence. He made the shadows fade.
When they got to Nevada, Kathy got into an argument with a prick named Galloway. She bet him she could do better in charge of NEST for a whole two months then he had in the last two years. He excepted the bet and told her she could keep the job if she won. And she did. Three months after that, two lamborghini's and a pair of chevy's started calling her 'Ma.' And she didn't mind in the least. She threw away her pain pills a few days later. Kathy didn't need them anymore.
Kathy decided to adopt a dog a month or two after that. He was a blue-nose pitbull named Boss and she loved him the second she had looked into his golden eyes. He was a talker, always huffing out a low bark, especially when he was excited. He followed her wherever she went and his constant noise made the silence of her office a little more bareable. The rare times it was silent, at any rate. People were constantly coming and going through her door, afterall.
At thirty-four, Ratchet informed her that a woman had decided to give her unborn son up for adoption because the father had died in combat and the son would be born with a clubfoot. Kathy thought it over for a few days before adopting the boy. She had always wanted sons, and while she did have them in Sunstreaker, Sideswipe, Skids, and Mudflap, they were already grown. She hadn't raised them. But all four had needed a mother. And so would this little boy who wasn't wanted by someone who should love him. Who had never even wanted him. Kathy would love him. She would love him until he couldn't stand it.
Time sped up and he came. He came screaming his lungs out, as pink as a rose. He was so beautiful, Kathy had taught. His hair, what little he had, was like the sun shining a halo down upon him and he glowed. His eyes were like the greenest of oceans, staring up at her. When she held him for the first time, Kathy cried. She held him to her chest, taking in his beautiful, wonderful baby scent, and cried. Kathy couldn't stop herself, wouldn't stop herself. Even if she hadn't carried this child, her child, he was hers and she was his. Would always be his. She felt almost as if her heart would explode from the love flooding it. She would never love anything, no one more than she would love Brandon Elijah Woodward. She would lay there, watching him just be for hours at a time, soaking him in. And Ultra Magnus? He did it too. He lay there on the carpet right beside her in his holoform and watched Bran too. They watched eachother and watched together. And when they no longer could, when their leave was up, someone took their place. The twins, either set, whenever they could. Their not so little family had grown by one and none of them would allow any sort of pain to come to Bran. Ever.
When Bran was two and half months old, Ultra Magnus asked Kathy to bond with him and to also marry him. It wasn't so hard for records to be faked. They would make it official on both planets. Kathy just smiled, kissed him straight on the mouth, and said "What the hell took ya so long?"
Well guys, it's finally here. It only took me four days to write, believe or not. The section about Bran, I tried to describe what new parents often feel when they see their child for the first time, that over-whelming sense of love. I'm a rather empathetic person, so it's not hard for me to imagine emotions or even make myself FEEL them. I felt my chest tighening with love for this imaginary baby as I was typing. I wanted to get inside Kathy's mind for that part, simply because I think she seems rather blase about it in the actual story. It's hard to really show emotions in a format like that.
I HOPE YOU GUYS ENJOYED AND SORRY FOR THE WAIT. PLEASE REMEMBER TO SEND IN RULES AND REQUESTS.