I'd like to apologize for the very long wait. Real life broadsided me in April and pretty much killed any time or desire to write. I've been working on this whenever I can grab a few minutes and the energy to do so. I want to think everyone for the kind, thoughtful and awesome reviews; they've kept me writing. I do have what may be bad news... there will be another chapter. There are several more party antics to come in the sixth chapter, and a talk between Ironhide and Sarah that I think is ultimately necessary to bring this story to a finish. Thank you for reading, I hope you enjoy.

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Chapter 5

***

Sarah stayed true to her word and left the cooking to Will and his men. She did take pity on Will though, and distracted Fig by putting Annabelle in his arms and telling him he could baby-sit. This got him some ribbing from a couple of the guys, but a pretty lady named Maggie took a seat beside him to coo at Annabelle, and Fig looked pretty pleased with the situation.

Annabelle, however, was bewildered by all the new faces and began to fuss. Sarah moved to take her back, but a soft trilling sound caught the baby's attention. Sarah turned to look at the source.

Jazz, who was seated on the ground with Prowl, just grinned and made the sound again, then followed that with a few more sounds of different types. They were soft and gentle sounds, almost birdlike. Annabelle was absolutely enthralled by them, and twisted her body so she could stare at Jazz. Prowl indulgently shook his head, then added a trill or two of his own.

Seeing that Annabelle was distracted and in safe hands, Sarah wandered over to the grill where Will and Bobby were just about finished with the first batch of steaks and hamburgers.

"Hey, my lady," Will grinned. "What would you like?"

She shook her head. "I've got to put Annabelle down for a nap in a few minutes. Save a steak for me, okay?"

"Gotcha," Will said, and put a few more steaks on the grill.

Sarah watched him work, something quietly nagging in the back of her mind. Her eyes wandered from the grill to the ice-chests, to the tables loaded with food. Then her eyes wandered to Prowl and Jazz.

"Do the Autobots eat?" she asked, finally realizing what was bothering her.

For a second, Will blinked blankly at the question, but Epps laughed.

"Not like we do," Bobby answered as he flipped a burger. "They have a fuel called energon that they drink. Sideswipe said he'd make sure they were all taken care of."

Sarah sighed in relief. "That's good to know. I would have felt horrible if we had accidentally left them out."

The guys looked at her, amused and trying not to laugh. Sarah rolled her eyes.

"Speaking of Autobots," Will wisely changed the subject, "would you find Optimus and ask him to let whoever's playing paintball know that the food will be ready soon?"

"Sure," Sarah said, and headed towards the front of the house where she had last seen the big Autobot. She found him down on one knee beside Bumblebee, who was standing and leaning against his leader's shoulder, using him as a support. Both of the mechs were watching Sam and Mikaela. The teenagers were busy with several buckets, a water hose and a large bag of balloons.

"This is fun?" Bumblebee asked as he picked up one of the buckets, peering closer at the water balloons inside.

"You'll see," Sam said, carefully tying off a balloon. "You can't have an outdoor party without a water balloon fight."

"Just keep it out of the house, please," Sarah said as she approached, remembering the mess from last time.

"We will," Mikaela promised while filling up another balloon. "Sam, how many of these are we making?"

"All of them."

Mikaela hefted the large gallon size bag of balloons. "No way."

As the two teens bickered over how many water balloons they were going to make, Sarah found herself watching Bumblebee. The large bucket was more like a small cup in his hands. He carefully picked a water balloon out and examined it. Sarah was amazed that his touch was gentle enough that he could handle the fragile balloon without breaking it. He examined it for a few seconds, glanced at Optimus, then a look that Sarah could only call mischievous crossed his face.

Mikaela's eyes widened as Bumblebee held the balloon over Sam's head. "I'm beginning to see what you mean about fun," he said. He dropped the balloon.

"Bee!" Sam screeched while Mikaela laughed. He lunged for the nearest bucket of water balloons.

Bumblebee turned to run away, but he didn't get far. Optimus quickly stood and grabbed the smaller mech, lifting him clean off the ground. Bumblebee squirmed and made a protesting sound.

"Careful," Optimus said calmly. "You're going to undo Ratchet's work, and he'll be after your servos."

Bumblebee went limp and uttered a few despairing, clicking sounds. Whatever they meant, they caused Optimus to laugh as he gently set Bumblebee on his feet.

"Sorry Bee," Sam ducked his head sheepishly. "Didn't mean to get you in trouble with Ratchet."

The yellow Autobot waved it off, clearly not bothered in the slightest. He played an audio clip of someone ringing a chuck wagon bell and yelling 'come and get it.'

"Come on, Sam," Mikaela said, grabbing his hand and pulling him towards the picnic tables. "Bee's right. Let's get in line before the paintball players get back and we have to wait. We can finish later."

The young couple headed for the tables, Bee easily matching his pace with theirs.

Optimus knelt again to talk to her. Sarah had the fleeting thought that it must be incredibly awkward to talk to people so much smaller than you were.

"Is there something I can help you with?" Optimus asked gently.

Remembering her errand, Sarah relayed Will's request. Optimus nodded. "Of course," he said, looking towards the distance where she had last seen the players.

He suddenly looked amused. "Ironhide says they're on their way back already. Apparently the human team won."

Sarah's eyebrows rose. "Really? I was under the impression that you guys would have the advantage in a game like that."

"Perhaps, but I have found many humans to be delightfully adaptive to any challenge placed before them."

Optimus looked like he was about to say more, but at that moment, Sunstreaker stormed out of the woods. He was covered in a variety of paintball splotches of different colors. He had a group of bright blue ones on the center of his forehead, and a second group centered on his chest. Sarah had done enough shooting to know that groups like that on a moving target was the sign of an excellent marksman.

Sunstreaker stomped towards them and Sarah began to wonder if she needed to leave. Optimus, however, remained kneeling and showed little concern over his unhappy soldier. Sarah moved closer to Optimus, figuring she could hide behind the Autobot leader if she need to.

Sunstreaker stopped in front of them, glaring down at Optimus. Sarah would have almost called his expression threatening, except for the fact that he had stopped a respectful distance from the Prime, careful not to loom over his leader.

"You ticked off Ratchet," Sunstreaker accused bluntly.

"So it would seem," Optimus said mildly, looking like he was trying not to laugh.

Sunstreaker's eyes narrowed. "Let me rephrase that. You ticked off Ratchet, the Hatchet, then turned him loose to use us for target practice!"

Laughing out loud, Optimus stood up. "He sided with the humans?"

"What do you think?" Sunstreaker grumped, finally abandoning his indignation as he scratched at the blue paint on his chest. "The slagger should have been a sniper. And this paint itches."

Deciding that it was safe to move away from Optimus, Sarah picked up the water hose and turned it to a harsh spray.

"Here," she said, offering the hose to Sunstreaker. "Wash that off before it dries on you."

He quickly reached for the hose and Sarah flinched, fighting the urge to duck at the large hand headed towards her. Something that big shouldn't move that fast.

Sunstreaker paused, realizing that he had frightened her. "Sorry," he said gruffly, then reached for the hose again, this time making sure to keep his movements slow.

Sarah carefully handed it over; the hose looked absurdly tiny in his grasp. That didn't seem to bother Sunstreaker in the slightest, who happily started scrubbing away at the paint.

"Hey! Sunny! Share the water!" Sideswipe stepped free of the woods and headed towards them, his body bearing the same blue paint groupings. Ratchet and Ironhide followed behind him. Ironhide was in truck form, his bed filled with happy, mud and paint splattered soldiers. Sarah imagined the lot of them trampling through her house to clean up and quickly hurried off to get some soap and old towels. They could wash up outside with the mechs.

***

After seeing to the paintball players, Sarah put Annabelle down for a nap in the playpen she had put under a popup awning that morning. Thankfully, she had already dozed off and Sarah didn't have a fussy baby on her hands.

She loaded her plate at the food tables, and then took a seat at the picnic table closest to Annabelle. The table was empty as most of the people were still making their way around the food tables, but Sarah didn't mind that. She wanted a few minutes to think, and to just sit back and watch the Autobots interact with each other and the people around them.

They were remarkably human in their gestures: a shake or nod of the head, Ironhide shrugging his shoulders to a question, or Ratchet pointing a finger in warning. At one point, Optimus even bowed his head and pinched the bridge of his nose as if fighting a headache.

But then there were differences, movements that a human just couldn't do. Differences like the way Bumblebee's doors drooped when Ratchet scolded him for being on his feet too long, or the way Prowl's armor lifted and flared in warning like a dog's hackles when Sideswipe bumped Jazz too hard.

Sarah still couldn't get over the sheer size of them. They towered above the humans, each weighing thousands of pounds, yet none of the humans seemed to be too worried about getting stepped on. The mechs were so graceful; none of them moved like-well, robots. And all the humans present seemed to genuinely like them.

She tried to imagine having them around for weeks, months or even years. Annabelle could grow up personally knowing the aliens whose existence was going to be announced to the world on Monday. God, what were they getting their daughter into? She could become the target of some fanatic, or just as bad, become a celebrity. Sarah was under no illusions that all of humanity would react to the existence of the Autobots with tolerance and understanding. Humanity would erupt with pro-alien and pro-human groups faster than she could blink. It could become very ugly.

Preoccupied with her darkening thoughts, Sarah didn't notice Mikaela until the teenager sat down in front of her.

"Sam's getting seconds," Mikaela said. She took a closer look at Sarah's expression and frowned. "What's wrong?" she asked as she put her half finished plate and soda down.

Sarah was about to tell her 'nothing,' but suddenly realized she'd be passing up an opportunity to get an honest response to some of her questions. Mikaela seemed to be the kind of person to tell her like she saw it.

"Just thinking," Sarah said slowly, "about how my daughter is going to grow up in a world where aliens are a fact of life and not just sci-fi characters."

"Huh," Mikaela said thoughtfully and picked up her hamburger. "Kind of like how men walking on the moon is just a fact of life for me, but my grandmother remembers when the idea was, as she says, hogwash."

"Exactly!"

Mikaela looked at her, tilting her head in consideration as she took a bite out of her hamburger. "What's really bothering you?"

Sarah hesitated and looked down at her plate, strangely feeling just a bit of shame. "It's one thing for my daughter to know that aliens exist," she said quietly and carefully, aware that the mechs might be able to hear her, "it's a whole other issue for her to know them personally. The way people would treat her...she wouldn't be...normal."

Frowning, Mikaela polished off the last of her hamburger without saying anything. Sarah began to think she'd made a mistake in talking to the teenager and that she should have kept her mouth shut and talked to Will instead.

"Normality is overrated," Mikaela said suddenly, looking her directly in the eye. "A few weeks ago, I was very good at being 'normal'. I was the pretty girl dating the quarterback, and popular enough to hang out with the rich kids. I went to the same school -the same classes- as Sam for years and didn't even know his name. I spent everyday hiding the fact that my aunt lives on welfare, my dad is in jail, and my mom is God knows where. I know enough about cars to intimidate nearly every man I know and I hid it. That's normal."

"And now," Mikaela smiled, her whole face lighting up, "I'm dating Sam, who makes me laugh and feel good about myself. Bumblebee and Prowl are helping me start my own automotive business – do you know how many time I've been told that I can't do that because I'm a girl?- and Ratchet is giving me a crash course in Cybertronian medicine. Optimus, who is the leader of their entire race, lets me poke around his insides to study their basic functions while we chat. I get up everyday eager to see what's next and am nothing but myself."

Mikaela shrugged. "So, is it normal? Maybe not. Am I going to have to deal with people being stupid about the Autobots? Probably. But fifty years from now, I will never look back and regret that I got in Bumblebee with Sam."

Sarah found herself smiling at the teenager's fierce defense of the Autobots. She definitely had some good points and Sarah knew she'd have to do some more thinking and talk with Will. It appeared Annabelle could gain more than she'd lose by knowing the Autobots personally.

"They sound like they're good people," Sarah said.

"Some of the best," Mikaela said firmly.

"Who's good people?" Sam asked, sitting down beside Mikaela with a plate loaded with food. He also had a small bucket with several water balloons, which he sat on the table.

"Autobots," Mikaela grinned, stealing some of his chips.

"Hey! Get your own," Sam protested, but nudged his plate closer to Mikaela so she could pick what she wanted. He then held out a water balloon to Sarah. "Here. You're going to need this."

"What for?" Sarah stared at the balloons in her hands in confusion, then shrieked as a water balloon caught her in the back of her head. She spun around in her seat. Will grinned and darted for cover behind Ironhide's leg.

"William!" She yelled as she stood up, and several people and mechs laughed.

"Oh, no you don't Lennox," Ironhide said, twisting to look down at her husband. "I'll save your aft from Decepticons, but you're on your own with your own sparkmate." He stepped aside; leaving Will out in the open.

"Some friend you are!" Will yelled and ran, grinning wildly.

Sarah grinned, grabbed a few more balloons from Sam's bucket, and ran after her husband. Chaos descended on the party as humans pelted each other with water balloons and Autobots alternated between serving as human cover for some and suddenly leaving others out in the open.

tbc