Disclaimer: do not own Transformers.

Author note: Just a little oneshot to finish off with this 'verse. Wow, about time I finished this thing, huh? : P Sorry! Hope you enjoyed this far too long tale of cracky bliss as much as I did! Thank-you to everyone who has read/reviewed/alerted/faved! See you next time!

Summary: Fifth of Crackverse, 07 movie, not 09 compliant. Sam embraces the insanity, and Maggie and Soundwave herald the end of the Cybertronian war.

Rating: T

Title: Happily, Crackily Ever After

Happily, Crackily Ever After

When Maggie and Soundwave first got together, and then Simmons and Blackout became a team not long after that, and then all the other couplings had happened right after that, Sam hadn't understood it. He had felt like the only sane man in an insane world.

But now, he understood.

It was the power of love.

"I had a good time tonight, Sam," Barricade said as he popped open his door. Sam carefully climbed out.

"Me too, Barricade," he said, grinning. "Same time next week?"

"I'd like that."

Sam waved as Barricade pulled out of the driveway. Then, once Barricade melted into the shadows, he turned towards Bumblebee.

"Still not talking to me?" Sam asked. He was answered with a sulky silence.

Sam just sighed.

Early in the following evening, Sam went to Phil's place, getting in before the nightly rush for high-grade took place.

"I don't know what to do, Phil," Sam said as the barkeeper poured a nice, soothing grin tea into a glass.

"Tell me, kid," Phil said, handing him a glass and then pouring himself some. "Phil's here to listen to ya."

"Well, remember the time me and Barricade were here?"

"Yup. I'm still wondering how you got drunk on root beer…"

Sam waved away Phil's concern. "Not the point," he said. "Well, after that, Barricade's been calling me. We went out a few times, got talking, figuring out that we have a whole lot in common…"

"Oh. I bet a certain yellow-and-black somebody doesn't appreciate that."

"He doesn't," Sam said miserably. "He looks like a kicked puppy every time I tell him that Barricade's coming over to pick me up. But the thing is, once you get past the fact that he's a giant alien robot bent on world domination and the annihilation of the human race, Barricade is actually a pretty good guy. I think that me and him…you know."

"So go for it," Phil advised.

"What?"

"I see that you have a good thing going here, Sam. I say go for it."

"But, Bumblebee—"

"Bumblebee will be Bumblebee. It'll be hard for a while. But you're best friends—nothing's going to change that. Just because you like Barricade doesn't mean you value Bumblebee any less. He'll know."

"Really?"

"Really. Just don't abandon him. Don't abandon either of them. Bumblebee's your best friend, Sam. You know he'd want you to be happy. Besides, there's always the third option."

"Third option?"

"Just wait and see how Bumblebee and Barricade feel—about each other, I mean. I think I see something between 'em, besides the hate, I mean. I know how they feel about you. In time, they might want to…you know…"

"No, actually. I don't know."

"Well, I hear that trines are a popular option for Cybertronians."

"Tri—oh. Oh. Okay, okay, I see where you're going."

"Things will turn out alright, Sam. You'll see."

"Thanks, Phil," Sam said after a pause. "For everything. You're a really great guy. I feel like I can really talk to you about these problems."

"No problem, Sam," Phil said, smiling gently. Then he said, "You know, you're the second person who has told me that."

"Really? Who was the first?"

"Starscream," Phil answered. "Right after he came back from his blind date. Yeah, he was feeling lonely and all, what with Barricade and Soundwave and the like, so after he was nice and relaxed and way too overcharged to squish me for suggesting such a thing, I said to him, I know a really nice girl who would get along great with you."

"Starscream--? Blind--?"

Phil just blinked at Sam's speechlessness.

"You know what? Nevermind," Sam said, and then he downed the rest of his glass.

X x X

"You are possibly the most corrupt, vile, vain, degenerate, selfish creature I have ever met on the face of this planet. You complete me, Alexis."

"But my name's not even—" she broke off of her sentence, just looking at the seeker. "Eh, whatever. You complete me, too, Starscream."

X x X

It had been a while since Maggie and Soundwave were bonded, and something miraculous had happened.

"What are they doing this time?" Ratbat asked as he and most of his siblings stood outside the med-bay door. They heard their maternal unit scream in fury, then the slow murmur of their creator's voice answering her, then the irritated clicks coming from Frenzy.

"You absolute idiot!" Maggie said, glaring at Soundwave."You did this to me! Once our child is safe and sound and once I'm back on my feet, I'm going to cut open your spark chamber, fry your processor, gouge out your optics, and stick a wrench in the sockets! Just you wait, I—"

Taking her hand gently, Soundwave said, "I love you too."

And with a final scream and push, their creation was fully into the world.

Frenzy, who had the unfortunate role of emergency midwife, handed off his newest sibling to his maternal unit before going quickly out the door, pushing past his chattering siblings to go to the nearest wash rack.

"Organics are gross," he yelled as he frantically washed his hands and spindly fingers. "The images burn into my memory chips! My optics…they cannot unsee!!"

"Come on," Ratbat said. "It couldn't have been that bad."

"Yes. It. Was."

Meanwhile, Soundwave was inspecting his newest arrival. "Does that always happen?" he asked, looking at the child curiously. "Is she not supposed to be bigger, and demanding, with grammatically correct sentences, for food and warmth?"

Maggie just looked up at him. "She's a baby," she said. "She still needs to grow."

I must renegotiate the terms of my parental leave, Soundwave mused, but for now, he stayed by his sparkmate's side as they looked lovingly on their beautiful Cybertronian-human hybrid creation, healthy and happy with her eight tentacles and three optics and eleven tiny perfect fingers and toes.

X x X

Ratchet looked down at Red Alert's twitching form. "Okay," he said, turning to Jazz. "What did you say to him this time?"

Jazz gave a rueful grin, rubbing the back of his helm sheepishly.

"Well, he was fritzing pretty bad over Maggie and Soundwave's little bundle of blanket and wires, and so I thought I'd cheer him up by saying that, if all the Autobots and Decepticons ended up sparkbonded to the humans, having kids, and going on parental leave and devoting all their time and energy into the care of their Cybertronian-human hybrid babies, maybe the war will end. You know, first with a truce, then with some sort of treaty, called somethin' silly like the Long Overdue Great Cybertronian Peace Treaty, and then we'd all live happily ever after…" Jazz trailed off. Ratchet just stared at him.

"You said that to cheer him up?"

He gave an apologetic shrug. "I just wanted to get him to laugh. It was just a joke."

Ratchet promptly thwacked the back of his head. "You know you can't say illogical and impossible things like that to Red Alert, let alone in such detail! His programming can't take it!"

"I didn't know that he'd actually take it seriously!"

Ratchet put his face in his palm. "We really must put a patch in that programming of his if his firewalls can't protect his logic processors in the face of such blatant nonsense."

X x X

Many years into the future…

"And that is how the Cybertronian war ended. With all the Autobots and Decepticons sparkbonding with human companions and all of them producing children, all the warriors went on parental leave to devoting all their time and energy into the care of their Cybertronian-human hybrid babies, it wasn't long before a truce was called, and, not long after that, the Long Overdue Great Cybertronian Peace Treaty was signed. With time, the Autobot and Decepticon factions disappeared as Cybertronians and humans all lived in peace. Any questions, class?"

The teacher turned towards the students, whose faces were filled with absolute bafflement.

"Wait, I don't get it. You mean to tell us that these two entirely different species who weren't even born on the same planet could…could do, you know, that?"

"But that doesn't even—"

"That's not physically—"

"But how—"

"But—"

"And that," the teacher said, voice rising over the increasingly confused din, "is the end of today's lesson."