Chapter 19

Title: Transformers: Giant Surprise, Chapter 19
Rating: PG
Word Count: 4,443

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I was dirty. I hadn't had a bath in a while because – according to Rad – I had been stuck unconscious in bed for nearly three days, causing all the Autobots to worry about me.

He was the one who said 'all the Autobots'… I didn't ask him about Ironhide because I was pretty sure how the truck robot felt already. I wish I tried harder to be friends with him…

I asked about my mom. Rad just looked up from his clipboard and gave me a weird smile before telling me I needed to sleep more. I didn't argue much because I actually was tired. Sleep would have done me good. He promised me some food after I woke and I told him I would hold him to that.

I didn't dream. I wasn't even completely sure I had gone to sleep before I heard something outside the door of my room.

I groaned quietly, reaching with my good arm to pull the covers over my face. I certainly didn't appreciate being woken up already.

The noise just outside of my room sounded like voices. As I woke up a little bit more I could hear that one of the voices was sharp and snarky while the other was trying to be calm. Both were men's voices and I couldn't exactly recognize either of them.

Well… until the snarky man said "Captain Bradley White, you are interfering with my duties concerning National Security. If you don't want yourself court-marshaled, you'll step aside and let me do my job as the Advisor of National Security to the President of these United States."

"Sir, she's been injured," Rad told the man. "Have a bit of a heart and let her rest up, will you? She's got a long while ahead of her…"

"All the better to get this over with now. Step aside, Corporal."

It was quiet for a little bit and I pulled the blanket down from over my head. I actually started to worry… did Rad just get fired? Were they walking away so he could get fired? What did he mean by 'Corporal'? He just said that Rad was a Captain.

I jumped a little when the door opened suddenly. I saw Rad had his hand on the door knob, but he was suddenly pushed aside by some tall, lanky, white guy in a dark blue wool suit with a white collared shirt. He had weird blue and black striped tie and a tiny little pin of an American flag on the left lapel of his jacket. He had brown and grayish hair that was combed back and glasses even thicker than Marcie's.

The man strut right up to the side of my bed as I sat up to… I don't know, greet him? Shake his hand? I had no idea what he wanted to do first.

Without saying anything he grabbed a chair and quickly sat down beside the bed. I could see Rad coming in, a frown on his face as he stared at the back of this other man's head like he wanted to smack it. I guess that should have been a hint about how I should feel about this guy.

"Ellie Witwicky," the man said. There was a tone in his voice that demanded my attention and I didn't hesitate to give it to him.

"Um… hi…"

His face scrunched up a little, almost like he was annoyed. "Hi," he returned flatly. "I am Director Theodore Galloway, National Security Advisor to President Barrack Obama and I'm here to gather a picture of what the Autobots had done to you and Mrs. Witwicky three days ago on November the 12th."

I stared at him. "The President?" I asked. I sighed. "Well… of course he would know about the Autobots too… I mean, he's the freakin' President…"

"Miss Witwicky," Mr. Galloway almost growled. "I don't have time to sit here all day. Please, can we just get to the Autobots?" He had a clipboard in his hand with a yellow pack of lined paper and a black clicking pen in the other. "Let's just start at the beginning then, shall we?"

I nodded. "Sure. Um… well, the first Autobot I met was Arcee."

"Which one is that?" Galloway asked immediately.

"Uh… the pink motorcycle." Was this guy not able to tell them apart or something? I got all their names pretty quickly…

The man snorted. He wrote something on the paper in front of him. "Right. Go on then…"

I blinked and looked at Rad. He made a quiet sigh, but nodded at me. I swallowed and continued with the story.

"… and the next day Ironhide came to my house and he honked his horn to call me outside."

"Why?" Galloway asked.

"Well, Arcee had gone missing and I guess he figured I'd be worried and would want to help…"

"He took you from your home then? Without your mother's permission?"

I gulped and squirmed slightly. "Well… Mom didn't know about them so I didn't tell her. And I did get her permission when I told her I was going to hang out with some friends…"

"You consider the Autobots your friends?"

"Yeah, of course," I said a little quickly. I was getting annoyed about being constantly interrupted. "I mean, Arcee helped me out with that mugger and all the others were – are – so nice, and so I thought I could trust them."

Galloway huffed, like he didn't believe it. "And so the black truck took you away to go on some wild goose chase…"

I glared at him. "Not so wild because after meeting up with Prowl we followed another police cruiser and it led us right to Arcee." I wanted to end that with a proud "Ha!" but I didn't. "She was actually in an old abandoned junkyard in that part of Tranquility that I mentioned before. Ironhide called Prowl and told him to go get Optimus and the others while we scoped out the place and made sure there weren't any bad guys around."

"Let me guess… there were?" Galloway gave me a patronizing/bored look and I wanted to stick my tongue out at him.

"Yes," I hissed lowly. "Starscream showed up not too long after we arrived. He talked to some Decepticon named Barricade and then he showed up. They woke Arcee up from, uh… stasis, and they started to interrogate her again."

"Again? Meaning they've done it before?"

"Before we got there, yeah," I said.

"Did they get anything?"

"Uh… I don't think so?"

"You mean you're not sure?"

"No, I'm pretty sure," I told him. "She didn't tell them anything."

"How can you be sure?" Galloway asked suddenly. "You weren't there."

"Because she told Starscream to slag off!" I retorted. "And Arcee's not weak – she can totally handle herself when faced with an ugly Decepticon mug."

"I ask that you calm down, Miss Witwicky," Galloway told me, his eyes narrowed at me.

"And I ask that you just shut up and let me tell my story," I huffed. I didn't even think about it… I just said that to him and I honestly started to regret it a bit. Who knew what this guy could do to me – legally and politically speaking, anyway? He didn't seem to care that I was just a kid after all.

Galloway pursed his lips together and didn't look away for a few moments. I tried my best not to look away either.

"Carry on, Miss Witwicky," he said, and I inwardly breathed a sigh of relief.

I tried to hurry through the rest of the story. I could totally see why Rad didn't seem to like this guy… he just had a thing against the Autobots. Was he bitten by one as a baby? Who freaking knew… I decided that I didn't have to tell him everything that went on with my mom and the Autobots. I didn't even tell him that Ironhide was my mom's and my Guardian. Galloway might decide that my injury was all his fault and I couldn't let the big guy get in trouble for something when it was all up to me whether I could have avoided it or not.

When Galloway asked questions I gave him really short answers and didn't tell him much more than he strictly asked for.

But the questions just kept coming and I eventually folded my good arm over my lap, looking away from him.

"I'm hungry," I said.

"But I'm not finished here," Galloway told me.

"I don't care. I haven't eaten in three days. I'm hungry."

The man groaned. "I guess this will have to do then," he grumbled.

I heard the chair scrape as he stood up and I watched him head for the door. Just as he got there he turned and looked at me through his thick glasses.

"I'm expecting a speedy recovery from you, Miss Witwicky. Then we can probably get you back into a normal life like any kid deserves."

It didn't sound like he meant what he said, but I turned away again and ignored him anyway. I didn't want a normal life… The Autobots were my friends and I didn't want to have to give them up.

Galloway finally went through the door, but not before saying, "Get her something to eat, Captain. That's an order!"

Rad sighed and went after him to close the door. He turned to me and I immediately met his eyes.

"I don't like him," I told Rad.

Rad snorted. "No one does, really. I don't know why a Democratic president would have someone like that as an advisor." He shrugged. "I guess everybody needs a pessimistic view on things."

I stuck my tongue out and blew a short raspberry. "Lame."

"Very lame," Rad agreed. He smiled at me. "So… what would you like for lunch?"

One sandwich and a bit of soup later I was lying in bed again. Not sleeping… I didn't feel like sleeping. I was too busy wondering about everything that had happened.

The last bits of my memory from when I got shot were still a little fuzzy. I remembered Sideswipe finding me, after having bashed through a cement wall, and then I remembered when his holoform grabbed me and put me in his passenger seat. I could remember feeling woozy and sick (which wasn't a surprise, as even now when I wasn't loaded up on painkillers I still felt like I would throw up) and practically threatening to puke on Starscream.

Besides that, and maybe a few other small details, I didn't recall a single thing. It was annoying, really. The more I thought about it, pieces did come to mind, but they were usually just dumb little things like I somehow threw a shoe at Frenzy or the particular way that Starscream's optics made it impossible to see anything else when he was looking straight at me.

It bothered me. I was sure that there was something that I had forgotten… something about my mom? Where was she, anyway? Did she get hurt too? Is she dealing with that Galloway butthead? Why hadn't I seen her yet? Three days had to be too long for a kid to see her parent, right?

Not for the first time in my stay, I was interrupted from myself by noises outside of my room. I blinked and immediately looked toward the door, trying to hear what I could without getting out of bed; I wanted to know if I should prepare for ignoring a certain Advisor of National Security.

I didn't hear Galloway, though. Instead I could hear Rad, a rough and vaguely familiar voice, and two new voices that definitely belonged to men. The rough voice was grumbling and snapping, like the man it belonged to sounded permanently pissed at life. Rad and one of the other two voices sounded like they were trying to calm the grumpy man while the third seemed to almost chatter excitedly in a fruity, but slightly gravelly tone like he would have been someone trying to sell some nifty must-have house product on a TV. He did calm down himself though to respond to the grump's questions and retorts.

Like before, I didn't hear what they were saying until they were right outside of my room.

"Come on, big guy, reign yourself in a bit," the fruity voice said. "Just chill for a klick, alright?"

"Shuddup, ya nut," the grumpy voice growled. "I ain't gonna explode on 'er."

"He means that she's probably still sleeping and confused," the calm voice that was not Rad said. This man sounded like a no-nonsense kind of man, his voice kind of deep and mellow compared to everyone else's.

"The last thing we want to do is scare her," Rad added.

The grump muttered something that I thought sounded like "Ah ain't gonna scare her," but I couldn't be sure. "Do Ah have to wear this d*mn box?"

"You can put it on a chair inside," Rad told him.

"Gently, though," the fruity voice said. "These are just prototypes and I don't want to spend the time rebuilding them all over again."

"Ah ain't gonna break your slag, 'Jack," the grump huffed. "Can we get inside now?"

"One at a time," Rad said. "Stand by the wall, guys. Lennox? You can come in first."

The grumpy one grumbled and I didn't hear anything from the one named Jack. There was a bit of shuffling and two small thuds on the wall, as if someone was leaning against it with a heavy backpack.

The door opened and I decided to sit up to meet these people Rad had brought.

The man following Rad was decked out in full camouflage with the name LENNOX on a patch over the right side of his chest. On the other side was a patch that had the initials N.E.S.T., which I remembered had something to do with the base I was in. On a patch in the center of his chest was a gold seven-pointed leaf and on his right shoulder was another patch with the American flag. The man himself had sort of a tall face topped with a sort of a limp, spikey, sandy brown army cut with a definite widow's peak. His lower face was peppered in a shadow of a beard, which could easily have either been his default look or he just didn't shave this morning.

"Ellie?" Rad said as he came in. "You've got some visitors."

The man – Lennox – smiled at me and gave me a salute. I blinked, surprised at this. "Miss Ellie Witwicky," he said. "A pleasure to meet you, ma'am."

"Uh…" What?

He dropped his hand and stepped forward to offer it for a shake. "I'm Major Bill Lennox. I knew your dad before… when he was my commanding officer."

My eyes widened. "Oh – oh! Yeah! Um… pleasure to meet you too!" I quickly grabbed the Major's hand with my good one and shook it. Holy crap… this was a guy my dad knew! I felt dumb for thinking this, but it was pretty amazing to actually meet someone my dad saw when he was away from home!

So that what the salute was about… cool!

Bill smiled and stepped back, placing his hands behind his back. He suddenly looked a bit sad, though he was still smiling. "Your dad was… he was a great man. I'm sorry it's taken until now for me to offer you my condolences."

I swallowed a bit and nodded. "Uh… d-don't worry about it… I guess it was kinda hard for you guys to lose him too…"

Bill nodded. He smiled a little wider. "I'll never forget when he decided to give everyone a field day once and he and Optimus just let all the grunts run around and race like some ratty street racers. Superiors and advisors didn't like it, but it was loads of fun."

I grinned. "That sounds pretty awesome, actually," I told him. "My dad was the best… and so is Optimus." Even though he kept things from me, I decided that to avoid getting myself into more trouble I ought to respect the Autobot Leader a little more than I did. Like Sideswipe said, he really did look out for everyone's best interest and well-being.

Bill nodded again.

"Hey, Ellie," Rad said, and I looked at him. "There's a couple other guys that wanted to see you. Well, one of them just wanted to meet you and make sure the other didn't break his new toys." Bill smirked slightly at that and despite not knowing who these two guys were yet I grinned too.

"Alright," I said. "They're just outside, right?"

"Yeah," Rad said. "I'm just going to bring them in one at a time, okay?"

I was eager to meet the two other guys that Rad had led over and I didn't understand why they couldn't come in together.

But I just nodded at the nurse and smiled at him. "Alright," I said.

Rad grinned back. "One moment," he said and turned to poke his head out the door. "'Jack?" I heard him say. "You're up."

I heard a small scraping sound on the wall as someone stood up and Rad immediately made way for the man that seemed to practically prance into the room with the biggest freaking grin on his face that I had ever seen.

This man, Caucasian, was only a bit taller than Rad – definitely shorter than Bill. He wore greenish-blue jeans that were rolled up at the bottom around his white and red sneakers and a dull green button-up shirt. On either shoulder I could see a black patch of the Autobot symbol and his sleeves were also rolled up to reveal a slightly tacky-looking tattoo. I couldn't tell exactly what it was yet though as he was too far away. He had straps on his shoulders that indicated he was wearing a backpack or something, though I couldn't see it either.

"Ellie Witwicky!" the man said with the fruity/gravelly voice that I heard outside of my door. He reached the side of my bed and immediately reached out with both hands to grasp my right hand, shaking it enthusiastically. I could finally see that tattoo of his – a wrench wrapped in barbed wire set on fire. How… weird. "Greetings! My name's Wheeljack – I'm an inventor and mechanic for the Autobots. Great to meet you, kid."

This was Wheeljack? I had somehow expected him to be an Autobot, actually. I was surprised that he was actually a human. How on Earth did he get 'Wheeljack' for a nickname then?

Wheeljack had a squarish jaw, clean shaven and dusted lightly in a few light-colored freckles that spread up his cheeks and over his nose. He had brilliant blue eyes, sort of like the ones that the Autobots' holoforms had and they were wide like he was still seven when in actuality he looked closer to forty or forty-five. His hair looked like it was originally red, but it now seemed to rapidly going gray with bangs parted directly in the middle and framing his forehead. The hair in the back seemed to somewhat defy gravity as it was stuck up in a sort of Wolverine-style.

"Um, hi," I said, trying to reciprocate the handshake. "I heard Ironhide and Jetfire mention you. They said you're the one who made the holoforms, right?" It blew my mind a little bit that a human could make tech like this, but I guess with Autobot influence there were some guys who could pull it off.

Wheeljack stopped shaking my hand and he seemed to grin even wider. "Yeah! Probably my best invention yet! Great for Arcee and other open-air bots that would stick out if they were caught driving down the road without one." He twirled around and gestured to the thing on his back. "I've been working on making them more transportable. I'm flying through prototypes like crazy, but these are the best yet! I'm hoping to get them down to being as small as a cellular phone next."

The device was a turtle shell-shape, save for a couple ridged, red columns about as big around as a softball on either side that glowed with a low sort of pulsing light. Other than that, it was a dull chrome color and didn't look otherwise spectacular.

Something suddenly clicked in my brain – if Wheeljack was human, why did he have one of these portable holoform generator things?

"Hang on, you're a Transformer?"

Wheeljack turned around again, his smile never having wavered. "Yeah, of course! Humans might be smart, but no one knows Cybertronian circuitry like I do – except for Ratchet, of course."

I blinked at him. "I could have sworn that you were human a second ago," I confessed.

"They're that good, huh? Great!" His eyes seemed to flash in excitement, and I realized that I should have taken them as a hint before. "It's always nice to see that my inventions are working better than I thought."

"Pshh, I'll say it works," I said. "It's definitely amazing."

He seemed to grin even wider. "Are ya interested in how it works?" he asked.

I nodded. "Sure!"

"Well! I got the idea from Hound, who is a 'bot who is excellent at illusionary technology. I started to study his applications and …"

Bill chuckled suddenly. "Cool down, 'Jack," he said, interrupting the 'bot in his rambling. "The big guy's still waiting outside."

Wheeljack turned and blinked at him. "Huh? Oh yeah – can't keep him out there. Let's get him inside, then."

Rad smiled at me. "He's been worried sick for you," he said. "I'll go get him…"

I nodded and watched him go back to the door. I tried to think of whom it could be that was waiting outside. Sideswipe? Optimus? Jetfire? None of them had a grumpy-sounding voice like that though. Maybe Ratchet? Sunstreaker? They didn't quite have the right tone to match the voice I heard…

"Come on in, Ironhide," Rad said, and my brain screeched to a halt.

What? What? What? Ironhide?

Now I recognized the voice from earlier. I couldn't believe I had forgotten so easily…

And he was going to see that I had hurt myself. Crap! He'd told me to be careful and I wasn't! He was going to see it and he was going to yell at me for being stupid. I didn't want to have to sit through that! I'd rather deal with Galloway again.

Ironhide's holoform appeared in the door, hands in the pockets of his leather jacket and him frowning slightly. Rad stepped aside for him and I swallowed quietly as he started to approach. He went to the chair and took the hologram device he had himself and carefully set it down in an upright position. His form flickered slightly when it was detached, but he seemed to have enough concentration not to drop it.

Lennox and Wheeljack moved to form a space between the two of them so that he could come to the side of my bed. As he came closer I bit my lip and quickly looked down into my lap. There was no point in avoiding it; I was going to just have to suck it up and let him lecture me. I just had to try not to cry…

The holoform stopped right beside my bed. I swallowed quietly and kept looking down the creases of the blanket in my lap.

"Ellie," Ironhide greeted. "It's, uh… it's good to see ya in one piece, kid."

My insides fluttered uncomfortably and I nodded, still not looking at him. "Yeah…" I didn't know what to say to him.

I heard Ironhide make the holoform sigh. "Ah'm… sorry ya got hurt."

I shook my head slightly. "S'not your fault," I mumbled.

He huffed and my shoulders stiffened slightly (and a little painfully). "Course it is," he said. "Ah was yer Guardian. Ah Dinn't do mah job right."

"Don't blame yourself," I said, barely glancing toward him. I only looked at his stomach – I didn't want to look the holoform in the eye yet. "It was Frenzy and Ravage's fault… and mine for being stupid."

The holoform suddenly began to kneel down and I jumped a little, now finding myself eye-to-eye with the hard-faced, gray-haired man/bot.

"Ya ain't stupid, Ellie," he told me sternly. "Ya just wanted yer mom back is all. It ain't like ya wanted to get hurt, right?"

I swallowed. "Right," I replied quietly. I felt my nose tingle and my eyes shudder a little with tears building up behind them. I didn't want to cry. Not then. Not in front of Ironhide.

"An' yer safe now, right?" he asked.

I nodded. "Uh-huh," I squeaked softly. I sniffed a little bit, trying to do it quietly.

"Then ya ain't got nothin' ta worry about. Ain't no Decepticon comin' ta get ya here. An' it ain't gonna do ya any good if ya keep blamin' yerself fer somethin' ya couldn't stop." Ironhide frowned and he looked down, like I did before. "I shoulda stayed with ya and kept ya safe. I hope ya can forgive me."

I sniffed again, a little louder than before. "I-I do, Ironhide," I stuttered. "You went to go help save my mom, so… so I'm not mad at you at all. In fact…" I swallowed and reached to wipe my nose with my good wrist. "I-I'm happy you did, I-Ironhi-ide. Th-thank you…"

"If yer happy," Ironhide said, "then why are ya cryin'?"

I looked down and picked up the edge of my blanket. "I-I d-don't kn-know…"

Ironhide's hand came and gently pried the blanket out of my grasp. "Stop that. Here…"

I felt a careful hand on my opposite shoulder and I was pulled in against Ironhide's chest. I whimpered and quickly wrapped my arm around the back of Ironhide's leather coat, clinging tightly to the collar. I nuzzled my face into the red fabric of Ironhide's shirt. It was warm, like I was being held by an actual person. It was also very soft and I worried for a moment that I was ruining his nice, clean shirt with my snot and tears.

I sniffed and tilted up to look at him. "Ironhide…"

"S'alright," he said. "It's jus' a holoform."

I nodded. I snuggled back in and rested my cheek against him. "Best holoform ever, though…"

Ironhide started chuckling. "Now watch what ya say aroun' Wheeljack – don't wan' him ta get an inflated head o'er this."

I giggled. "Still the best," I said, smiling.