*Gasp* What's this? An update? Surprise!

"Relax your grip, Jaime." The young girl frowned at her mother's amused tone. It wasn't like she was holding her brush that hard. With great care, she dipped the bristles into the red acrylic paint before hovering over her masterpiece in progress. Slowly it passed over the half-finished blue oval.

Splat!

Jaime froze in horror. A glob of red paint had splattered right in the center of her swirling blue oval. With a growl, Jaime slammed down the paint brush, causing more red paint to splatter on the rest of her canvas. Her mother looked up from her own work upon hearing the girl's frustration.

"Jaime," she reached out to console her.

"I can't do it!" Jaime's blue stained hand clumsily knocked her mother's away. "It's too hard!" Undeterred, her mother leaned forward to inspect Jaime's blue and red splattered canvas.

"Hmm, not turning out the way you wanted?"

"No," a sulking Jaime crossed her arms. "And it doesn't look anything like yours."

"Good, because I've been doing this longer than you've been alive," the woman tapped Jaime's nose, making the girl go cross-eyed. Jaime frowned at the orange spot that had been left on her nose before straightening in her seat; she would not be so easily distracted.

"But—"

"Besides, it's your painting, not mine," her mother added. Jaime frowned in confusion. Well, duh…she knew that. Why did mom feel the need to point the obvious out? "Remember when we visited that art gallery last week? And the paintings in the Impressionists Hall looked completely different from those in the Pop Art Wing?" She paused long enough in her explanation for Jaime to nod. "That's because each artist has their own style."

"But I wanted it to look like yours," Jaime pouted. The mother laughed, taking a moment to smooth a flyaway strand of her daughter's hair.

"It's good to have a model to draw inspiration from," she admitted. "But you also need to add your own twist. The purpose is to create something using your own vision and skill. Not an exact copy of something that already exists." Jaime chewed her lip, comparing her rather childish red and blue painting to her mother's beautiful farmhouse sunset. She frowned at the sorry state of her work. It was a mess.

"But it's not supposed to look like that," she complained.

"Things don't always happen like we'd want them to, sweetheart," her mother agreed. She reached across the table to pick up the previously discarded brush and cleaned it properly to rid the bristles of the red paint. "When that happens, you need to decide how to work with what you have…and use it to strengthen your vision."

Jaime took the offered brush and inspected her canvas. Now that she was really looking, she noticed a few areas where the blue and red had mixed to form purple. She tilted her head in consideration. Struck with inspiration, she instead took a larger brush—dunked it into the container holding the blue paint—and spread it generously on her canvas. Her mother watched on with a raised brow. Jaime then took her other bush—dipped it into the red this time—and switched her grip so that it was just above the bristles.

Flip! Flip! Flip!

"Jaime!" mom admonished with a laugh, raising her hands in defense. The girl inspected her painting with a sense of pride. Red and blue splatters now mixed together in some areas against a purple backdrop, reminding her of the Starry Night painting she'd seen with her mom.

"Your femme creator produced these pieces?" Sunstreaker is inspecting the assorted artwork inside the chest. He's surprisingly gentle with them.

"Mmmhmm," Jaime responded softly, holding up a charcoal sketch of the woods. She'd grown up with a forest in her backyard. She fingered the thick paper remembering the many adventures she'd had within the trees.

"You forgot about them," the golden warrior observed.

"Yea, I guess did," Jaime sighed. "Jeong Jeong held on to them for me while I was…while I was at the orphanage. After…" The girl glanced at Sunstreaker who was now staring at the farmhouse sunset painting. He looked over at her when she didn't continue. "…after the accident." She managed to finish. He studied her silently and Jaime had the unsettling feeling he could see right through her. That wasn't exactly new though. She should be used to it by now, really. Still kind of terrifying though.

"I've seen worse," he finally said, glancing back at the painting he was holding.

"She was mostly self-taught," Jaime remembered, grasping at faint memories. "I think she wanted to be a painter when she was younger."

"Why didn't she pursue it?" Sunstreaker asked. He doesn't really care, she thinks, just making conversation. But it's an improvement over the seething glares so she doesn't comment about it.

"I don't know," Jaime shrugged. It wasn't fair just how little she knew her parents. They had only been mom and dad at the time, but she'd since realized that the adults that towered above her – not just physically – were people too with their own feelings and struggles. Had her mom chosen not to pursue painting professional? Or had that been chosen for her? Or maybe her priorities had changed later? Hard to know really. The conversation stalls after that and they fall silent. It's…not uncomfortable. "Thank you."

"For what?" The response is sharp, like the rest of Sunstreaker. She doesn't take it personally.

"For reminding me," she stood up and looked at Orion who was calming grazing in the pasture. "I can't just give up when things don't go the way I want them to." The frontliner followed her gaze. She went back into the house, grabbed two more green apples, and returned outside. She blinked at the sight of Sunstreaker standing as well, the artwork carefully returned to the now closed chest. The girl marched back towards the pasture. Neither said anything when he followed a half step behind her. Orion looked up when they entered. He snorted and flicked his tail nervously when they approached him. When the horse appeared to be seconds away from bolting, Jaime turned her back and sat down.

Sunstreaker's POV

Sunstreaker eyed the troublesome creature before sitting opposite the girl. She took one green apple lifting it high in the air. Sunstreaker noted the horse sniff the food with some interest from its rooted position. Jaime slowly lowered her arm and set the apple a foot behind her.

"You really think that'll work?" he doesn't bother to hide his skepticism.

"If it doesn't then I'll try something else," she gave a casual shrug. He could feel the conflicting roll of emotions she hid underneath but didn't say anything. If she wanted to lie to herself that was her problem. "Let's try this again." She continued, holding her hand out in front. "Jaime Lennox, nice to meet you." Sunstreaker narrowed his eyes at the offered hand.

"I know who you are," he said, unimpressed. Did humans have terrible memories too? She wasn't glitched in the head was she? That would be just his luck if she suffered yet another injury on his watch. Jazz was going to cheerfully murder him and no one would ever find his body.

"Yes, that seems to be the problem," she kept her hand out, not looking at all surprised that he hadn't shaken it right away.

"…What?"

"You know who I am, but you don't know me," she explained. "Not really. And the same could be said for me. I know who you are Sunstreaker, I have for a while. But I don't really know you." It was a subtle difference, the twin thought. And as loathe as he was to admit, the girl had a point.

"What if I don't want to," he crossed his arms instead. Curiously, she seemed amused by his attempt to blow her off. What a strange mix of contradictions she was.

"Well, we're kind of stuck with each other for the foreseeable future," she persevered. "Wouldn't you rather make it more bearable at least?" Sunstreaker frowned at the still offered hand. "Besides, just think of how surprised the others will be when they see us getting along…We might even get Prowl to glitch at the sight." He immediately squashed his amusement at her conspiring tone before it could show on his face. Judging from her spike of bemusement, he hadn't been completely successful in preventing it from leaking over their bond. He kept forgetting about that fragging thing, only used to being connected to his twin, Sideswipe. He scowled at her, but for whatever reason she didn't point it out. Actually, when he stopped to think about it, she never did. She never said anything about any emotional feedback she received from him. In fact, he didn't think she'd ever talked about any of the bonds she had with every Autobot. Not even Skids and Mudflap, no matter how annoying they must get.

"…Sunstreaker," he finally decided to humor her, grasping the still offered hand. "And he better glitch on the spot. He's been a pain in the aft lately." A noisy crunch sealed their handshake. The golden warrior watched Jaime's eyes widen in realization that Orion was now standing behind her munching on the green apple she'd left him. Their proximity did little to mute the absolute joy radiating off her. Jaime dropped the handshake and turned her head just enough to sneak a peek behind her. Properly distracted, Sunstreaker allowed himself a moment to soak up some of the happiness – so strong and pure it was almost a heady feeling. It reminded him of a time when he still saw the world in dazzling colors instead of battle tactics. Long before gladiator fights, broken bonds, and –

Jaime is facing him again, lips stretched wide into a satisfied smile. The remaining apple is picked up off the ground and held between them.

"Wanna have a go?" the girl asks a little too innocently.

"Absolutely not." A laugh escapes her and she turns to offer the treat to the waiting horse. It wasn't even a cruel or mocking laugh, the kind he was most familiar with. It was almost playful, like she was delighted by his prickly behavior. Most Autobots reacted quite the opposite (not that he usually made the effort to convince them otherwise, they weren't worth his time).

This was a level of vulnerability he'd become foreign to after vorns of fighting, missing from those touched by war. Except…except she wasn't completely untouched by loss – conflicting with what her behavior would lead him to believe. Sunstreaker's gaze drops to the Cybertronian arm Ratchet had built her. Sideswipe had told him all about the girl and what she had been through in his many attempts to endear her to him.

Sufficiently satisfied by the bribes, the quadruped settles down on the ground next to Jaime. He glances back at her face and the smile is softer now. Green eyes meet his gaze as if she can sense his indecisiveness. He crushes the instinctive reaction to snap at her.

"You don't talk about your bonds with the others," he phrases it like a statement instead of a question. Questions give too much power to the one being asked and this is unfamiliar territory. Statements offer much more flexibility. He's playing nice, okay? Like Prime ordered him to. Actually it had been more of a threat which was weird because the Autobot Leader didn't really do threats. But Prime was attached to this human and had made it unnervingly clear how displeased he would be if the girl was injured again due to his actions.

"No," she confirms, absently scratching the creature's forehead. Orion, he remembers vaguely, seems to be leaning into her touch. Isn't that a constellation? "I do not." Sunstreaker tilts his head but doesn't verbalize his question. If she really did share a bond with every Autobot – including the Prime – that was a considerable amount of influence she wielded. She could have used it against him, he'd given her enough reason to, but she hadn't. Why? "It's nobody else's business but theirs," she offers as if she can read his mind. Or – more likely – feel his curiosity. "We have a saying here on Earth," she continues after a beat. "Snitches get stiches." He blinks at that…What? "And I ain't no snitch." And then she laughs again. But this one is more conspiratorial like they're sharing a secret. He's not sure what to think about that.

…Sunstreaker doesn't hate it as much as he thought he would.

Sarah's POV

In her defense, it was like stepping in the twilight zone. Gone was the closed off and moping expression on her daughter's face. She was laughing now with the Autobot's holoform in the pasture who – if she didn't know any better – seemed faintly amused by something. Jaime had an arm stretched out scratching Orion's forehead who was lying down next to her. She didn't know what she had been expecting when she stepped out from the barn, but it certainly hadn't been that. After a moment of taking in the heartwarming scene, she makes her way back to the house. She spotted the chest Jaime had received after Jeong Jeong's funeral sitting out on the porch step. Odd, she hadn't seen that thing in ages. She went to retrieve it and realized that it had been opened. She glanced back at the small gathering in the pasture, pieces falling into place.

"Much better," she said to the sunshine yellow Lamborghini parked nearby before returning inside the house. The car doesn't respond, but she hadn't really expected it to anyway.

On the last full day Sarah and Jaime have the house to themselves, the two of them spend it baking pies from scratch. Well, Jaime assists the women make the pies. She didn't have a lot of experience since she'd been too little to really help before. The girl found herself enjoying the activity more than she expected to and Sarah was an excellent teacher. They ended up making three, plenty for dinner tomorrow night and so "Grandma and Grandpa can take one back home with them too." They realized halfway through while filling the pie tins that they didn't have enough filling. When Jaime had asked if they could make the last pie a half blueberry and half cherry, a surprised laugh had escaped Sarah and the woman agreed it was an excellent idea.

"The best of both worlds!"

It was a really good day.

Which was probably why Jaime had been caught so flatfooted by the bombshell dropped that same night.

"Oh," slipped out as her mind tried to wrap itself around the news. "…Ok." Will and Sarah are watching her closely from their seats at the kitchen table. "I mean – Congratulations. When –uh – "

"I'm three months along," Sarah gives her a reassuring smile and gives her hand a gentle squeeze. "I was pretty surprised too." So they hadn't been actively trying to have another baby. It doesn't dispel the unease in her stomach much as it should.

"Ok…" she says again, because she's not quite sure what else to say. "Does Annabelle know?"

"We'll be telling her and my parents when they drop her off tomorrow," Sarah confirms. The girl nods so she doesn't repeat herself.

"Jaime," she turns to Will who's leaning forward earnestly now. "We wanted to tell you first to make it very clear how much we love you," she can't help but flush a little at that, "and this doesn't change that." He pauses here like he's expecting some kind of reaction.

"Ok," she nods.

"And," his eyes dart to Sarah but quickly return to Jaime, "we understand a baby can demand a lot of attention especially during those first few months, so if it ever feels like…like…" Will makes a face as words seem to fail him. It's so unusual and weird that she can't help but huff a small laugh. His expression clears at the sound.

"What he's trying to say," Sarah rolls her eyes with good humor but no less enthusiasm, "is that if anything starts to bother you – anything at all – we really want you to tell us." Another reassuring hand squeeze. "During or after the pregnancy, ok?" Green eyes dart back and forth between the two adults.

"Ok."

"Good…no takebacks," Will adds. Jaime's mouth curls into a small smile as the butterflies in her stomach ease.

"No takebacks."

Author's Note: Guess who's not dead~

Wow I cannot believe it's been *checks notes* over 7 years? So much has happened: moved several times, bought a house, went through a frickn worldwide pandemic (not necessarily in that order). Going back through and reviewing the previous chapters, it feels like a completely different person wrote them 0.0

Anyway, enough about me. How have y'all been? You guys are great - seriously awesome! I can't believe the amount of comments this story still got during the break. Like, some people were commenting in 2023? Wild. So, thank you everyone for all the support! I hope you enjoyed this chapter :)

I'm not gonna make any promises on when the next update will be as I've since learned apparently I'm a lying liar who lies when that's concerned (sorry!), but I do still have different drafts and written snippets pre and post DotM around that I've been going through and working on piecing together (fun fact: the laptop I started this story on gave up the ghost a couple years ago but it looks like I still have everything so - yay!)

So yea, let me know what you guys thought of this chapter and/or what you're looking forward to! :)

~Hubero