The Day We Hailed The Heavens

Chapter 6

Chapter Six

California Nights

Mikaela glanced at Sam anxiously from where she was huddled up in his arms, her head on his chest as they sat together in Ironhide. The weapons specialist was going at over a hundred miles an hour according to the dial, and, from Sam’s expression, he was not really enjoying the bumpy ride. “You okay, Sam?” she whispered, and he nodded stiffly.

”Yeah,” he managed, sounding as if he might be sick if he spoke again.

Sam may have hung hard in Bumblebee when they had raced against Barricade, and he may have experienced high speed several times since, but Ironhide was driving like an escapee madman. It hardly helped that the ground was so rocky, and the two of them were rocked in their seats so violently that Mikaela had cracked her head on the window at one point. Their seatbelts may have protected them from flying through the windscreen in the need arose, but it was still a painful ride.

She nodded, nestling back down into his embrace and wincing when Ironhide hit yet another rock, causing the vehicle to jerk agonisingly. “What’s the hurry, Ironhide?” she asked as Sam’s arm came around her slim waist tightly. “They’re not going to go anywhere.”

“Alexis needs help,” he explained abruptly, speeding up.

Mikaela felt a brief sparkle of pity for the old warrior in her heart at the three words. He loved Alexis dearly – not romantically, she knew, but very strongly in a fatherly way. Given the fact that the girl did not have a father of her own, it was a relationship that they both enjoyed and benefited from, but she could guess that Ironhide often felt neglected by her because of her infatuation with Starscream. The jet did take up most of her free time, so she could think of how he must feel.

Sam shifted slightly beneath her, running a hand through her dark hair and swallowing thickly before he spoke. “So… her stepsister knows about you guys,” he said softly, as if testing his voice for any sign of vomit coming up with it. “So not counting parents and the military and government guys, that’s… me, Mikaela, Miles, Rad, Carlos, Jade, Alexis and her that know now.” He paused, doing the mental arithmetic. “Eight.”

“A good six too many, if you ask me,” Ironhide commented darkly, swerving into the road that led to the thicket that Alexis was in with Starscream and her stepsister. “Having you two involved was bad enough without a whole lot of other kids getting involved.”

Mikaela’s sharp eyes spied the Peterbilt that was Optimus in Ironhide’s rearview mirror, his headlights burning brightly through the coming gloom. “Huh,” she put forward as her answer, glancing out of the window and spotting Alexis’s house in the near distance. “Well, even I wasn’t meant to be involved. I was just prying, really… Sam was worrying me.”

“Whilst that is true, Mikaela Banes,” the voice of their carrier came back to her, “We would most likely be one spy down without your involvement in the battle at Mission City, and probably a medic as well after the siege of the base. You have brought many valuable qualities to the team, and I am glad that you were being meddlesome.”

“So am I,” Sam whispered quietly in her ear and she squeezed the hand on her waist tightly.

“Thanks, Ironhide,” she said thankfully after shooting her boyfriend a grateful glance, reaching the other hand forward and placing the palm flat against the dashboard, conveying her appreciation of the hardened soldier’s words through her touch. “That really means a lot to me.”

He grunted in response.

Sam leant back against the seat. “I guess we’ve all brought something,” he mused aloud, scratching his head thoughtfully. “I mean, I’ve brought good looks, wit and charm to the team, obviously…” Ironhide snorted disbelievingly. “Well, fine then. Be that way… but everyone has, seriously. Jade’s great with her art, and she’s pluckier than she looks. Rad brought the ridiculous intelligence and Carlos introduced us to the joys of Spanish cussing. Then there’s Miles, who is basically our nerd.”