*I don't own Transformers or anything affiliated with Transformers. I only own my original characters and plots. All rights go to Michael Bay and Steven Spielberg.*

I quickly dialed the familiar number, my fingers trembling over the glowing keypad. They trembled not because of fear or nervousness, but with excitement. It had been three days since I told Ironhide about the little bundle of circuits we were expecting and since then, I had been exceptionally happy. I was now fully accepting about my pregnancy and this meant that I could now tell the people closest to me and it all started with Sam and Carly.

With an excited squeal, I placed the phone up to my ear. Like normal, my mood swings were getting the best of me. It was only minutes ago that a television news anchor had angered me with an ignorant claim and I very stupidly threw my TV remote at the wall, thus breaking the small device. Adalyn had chastised me from the kitchen, but I was quick to rebuke her.

The phone rang a total number of six times before Sam finally answered and I smiled widely at the sound of his voice. "Hey, Lea."

"Hey, Sam. I need you and Carls to come over as soon as possible. I have some very important news to tell you," I told him.

"Really? What kind of news?"

I scoffed. "Get your asses over here and I'll tell you." I quickly ended the call and laid my phone down on the coffee table before propping my feet up.

Adalyn soon entered the living room with a sad sigh before plopping down onto the couch beside me. Currently, her and I were the only ones inside my apartment. Ironhide and my dad were at the base like they normally were and Adalyn had actually been staying here for the past couple of days to keep an eye on me.

I frowned at my friend as she took her head in her hands. Her phone beeped and she checked it quickly, her face contorting in anger and even fear. She sat the device down on the coffee table beside mine, ignoring the alert from the soul on the other line.

"What's wrong, Adalyn?" I asked her.

"My brothers. They're all of a sudden interested in my life and I don't know why. It bothers me," she told me. I had a feeling she wasn't being one-hundred percent truthful, but I thought better than to question it. If it was important, I'd figure it out.

"Are you okay?"

She removed her hands from her head and smiled at me. "I believe I will be. So long as they leave me alone."

I pursed my lips. "Care to tell me exactly what you're keeping from me?" I asked her. Sometimes she was incredibly transparent and this was one of those times.

She frowned, a small sigh escaping her form. "I don't exactly know how to explain it, Lea. I never did give you a precise description of what my brothers do. It's not something I like to talk about. The reason I don't speak to them anymore has nothing to do with them not wanting me involved in their families. It's something far more sinister than that. It's a part of my past that I just hate reminiscing on."

Well, this was completely unexpected. Honestly, I thought I knew everything about Adalyn. She tells me, Ironhide, and my dad absolutely everything and I find it quite odd that there's something hidden about her life. It was also something that worried me and I wanted nothing more than to know what it was. I wanted to help my best friend.

"You may hate me for this, but I want you to talk to me about this later since Carly and Sam are on their way over. But, I can tell that you're stressing over it and if you don't get it out, it will consume you. Plus, I'm your best friend. I'm going to be here to comfort you or help you in any way that I can," I told her.

She sighed but nodded, giving me no verbal response. Seconds later there was a knock on the door and I smiled before giving Adalyn's arm a reassuring squeeze. I got up and pulled the apartment door open, the faces of Sam and Carly meeting my eyes. I smiled once more before ushering them inside. Once I closed the door, I ran back over to the couch and sat down while Sam and Carly sat in the love seat.

"Thanks for coming," I chirped.

Sam chuckled. "What do you need to tell us?"

I smirked. "How would you two love to be Aunt Carly and Uncle Sam Witwicky?" I asked the duo.

Sam gave me a confused look, but Carly seemed to catch on fairly quickly. She squealed and jumped up out of her seat to run over to me. I laughed as she hugged me.

"This is so exciting! I have to go shopping right away," Carly exclaimed. I laughed again. I should have figured.

"Wait, what the hell is going on here?" Sam asked from the love seat. He looked more confused than ever and I was slightly amused. Boys were stupid.

"She's pregnant, dip stick," Adalyn laughed.

Sam's eyes nearly burst from his head and the next thing I knew he was falling off of the couch and into the floor. My mouth fell open at the sound of the thud his body made after falling and I looked at Carly. "Is he okay?"

She snickered. "It isn't the first time he's done that since the Battle of Chicago. I'd say this is number seven, but yes he'll be fine tomorrow. I just have to get him home first and since he won't wake up any time soon, I'm stuck."

I laughed and got up, grabbing one of Sam's legs when I approached him. I began dragging him to the door, but being pregnant and lacking proper bodily energy, I underestimated just how heavy he was. I looked to Carly and Adalyn for help and the two of them ran over quickly. Adalyn grabbed his wrists and Carly grabbed his other leg. I opened my apartment door and the three of us began to carefully pull Sam out of the room. I snickered. This was way too weird.

"This is ridiculous. What boy still faints? Well, aside from Leo," I huffed as the three of us carried him towards the end of the hall. Suddenly Adalyn stopped and dropped Sam's upper half to the floor while Carly and I gaped at her.

"Adalyn, what the hell? You probably hurt poor Sammy," I cooed. She pointed behind us and I turned around to see Ironhide's holoform staring at us with a weird expression on his face. I rolled my eyes and turned back around, holding on tightly to Sam's ankle as I looked at Adalyn. "Pick him back up. Hide's not important at the moment."

Adalyn rolled her eyes before grabbing Sam's wrists again.

"What are you three doing?" Ironhide asked.

I attempted to push passed him but he stopped us. "We're trying to get Sam downstairs. That reminds me. Should we take the stairs or the elevator?" I asked the girls.

"Elevator. He's quite the plump little boy. I don't know how much longer I'll be able to take this," Carly chuckled.

I smirked and began pulling him backwards only to be stopped again. "Put him down," Ironhide instructed us.

I shook my head. "No, we've got this."

He scoffed and walked over to Adalyn, gently pushing her out of the way but not before grabbing hold of Sam's wrists. He gave both Carly and I a serious look before speaking. "Apparently it takes three femmes to lift a grown male, but it only takes a single Autobot to lift one. Let him go," he told us again.

I sighed and dropped Sam's left leg while Carly dropped the other. Without any effort at all, Ironhide threw Sam over his shoulder and walked passed us. The three of us followed him into the elevator and he looked at us.

"What happened?" he asked us.

I laughed just remembering the incident. "Well, he kind of fainted."

"Why?" The elevator door opened and the four of us stepped out.

"Well, I told him that Lea was pregnant and he sort of just fell off the couch and died," Adalyn told him.

He grunted. "I have nothing to say to that."

I just giggled and followed him as he walked past his alternate form and past Adalyn's car until coming to Carly's new 2012 Audi R8. I frowned. So this is what she did with the hundred thousand dollars from Hotchkiss.

"Nice car, grunch," I said to Carly.

Carly just smirked at me and opened the door so Hide could sit Sam in the front. "Thank you. I truly do appreciate it. I know mine looks better than yours," she teased.

"You sure this one's not a Decepticon?" She gave me a look and I laughed. "Yeah. Sam told me all about that."

"It's not, obviously," Hide retorted as he stood back up to face us.

I shrugged. "I'm just saying. But, anyway we need jobs, Carls."

"Well, in a few months or so I'm going to be working at Mckinsey and Company. Sam has set up for you to work at Acurretta Systems with him. Bruce was more than happy to look back over your resume and he's more than aware of everything that has happened with Dylan so I would look for a phone call sooner or later," she told me.

I leaned up against Adalyn's car and crossed my arms. "Well, that's kind of unexpected, but I guess I'll take it. I need money."

"What'd you do with that hundred grand Hotchkiss sent you?" she asked me.

"She gave it to dad," Adalyn told her.

I shrugged. "It was the least I could do. Anyone deserves some sort of reward for putting up with me."

"I'll remember that," Ironhide chuckled. I smirked at him and Carly continued talking.

"Well, did you read the letter enclosed within the envelope?" she asked me.

I pursed my lips. Guess it was something important. "No. There were too many words and I was mentally unstable at the time. Why?"

"Well, we're supposed to receive one every three months. Dylan had no family left, so he had to have someone collect all of his money after he died or at least he needed someone to fill the space until further notice. He put us on the list for it because he thought that since he was going to get rid of us anyway that it didn't matter. That was stupid on his part," she explained to me.

I scoffed. "That's why I killed him. But, on the other hand I'm more than happy about this money coming in every three months."

"What do you plan on doing with it?" Hide asked me.

"I have to support my child, so I'm going to start by getting a bigger house." I grimaced when I realized what I was talking about. "Ew. Gross. I'm an adult. I don't like this at all," I whined.

Hide laughed and pulled me to his side and I happily wrapped my arms around his waist. Carly stared at us with a smile on her face and it was only now that I noticed Adalyn's absence. I frowned and turned back to Carly.

"But, listen. I'm going to get him home and then tomorrow I'm going to begin shopping," she squealed.

I raised a brow knowing exactly what she planned on shopping for. "I don't even know what it is yet. And plus, you really don't have to do that."

She smirked. "There are many things you can buy for a baby without knowing what the gender is. And you know me. I have to if I'm going to be a good aunt. But, what I know is that you're going to have a girl. I can practically sense it."

"If my advanced Autobot boyfriend can't even sense that I'm pregnant, then I doubt you can sense the gender of the baby," I teased. Ironhide grunted.

"Well, I'm not your Autobot boyfriend; I'm Carly Spencer. See you guys," Carly chirped as she ran over to the driver's side of her car. I just chuckled and grabbed Ironhide's hand before pulling him along with me.

"How are you feeling today?" Hide asked me as we stepped onto the elevator.

"I'm okay as of right now. Why do you ask?"

He gave me a weary look. Must've been a long day at the base. "I'm just making sure you and the sparkling are well."

I giggled. "We're fine. I'm worried about you actually. Long day?"

"You have no idea."

I smiled and pulled him off of the elevator with me. Soon enough we came to my apartment door and shoved it open, stopping at the sight in front of me. Adalyn sat on the couch with her knees to her chest and her head in her hands. She rocked back and forth as she cried and it took me a moment to notice her phone laying on the floor; it was completely shattered.

I pulled away from Ironhide and walked over to her, his footsteps sounding closely behind me. I placed a hand on her shoulder and sat down on one side of her while Ironhide sat on the other, our actions slightly startling her.

"Adalyn, what's wrong?" I asked her.

This only caused her to cry harder. "I'm scared. They're going to come for me. I don't know what to do."

"Who?" Ironhide asked her, his tone slightly unsettling.

"My brothers."

My eyes widened. "You need to tell me what's wrong and you need to do it now."

"I lied to you about everything. I lied to you about my parents and everything. They used to have those jobs, but after I turned seven they quit and moved to France to work for someone else which left me alone with my brothers who were eighteen at the time. My parents sent us money all the time, but that didn't help at all. My brothers never felt that it was enough so they used me to get it. They felt that this was the perfect opportunity for them.

"Almost every other night I was dragged into the basement of my home where sometimes two or three men that I didn't know were waiting on me. I didn't know what was going on at the time. All I knew was that they hurt me. As I got older I started understanding what was happening to me and would fight until I couldn't do it anymore or until one of the men beat me to the point of unconsciousness so they could have their fun with me. Most of the times it was my brothers who did the beatings. If I didn't cooperate with them, they would find a way to make me and that was usually the only way.

"I worked as hard as I possibly could in high school just so I could get away from them. Nobody understood my happiness when I received my acceptance letter to Princeton. I cried for days because I was so happy. I used my graduation money to help pay for a new phone and a new number and I wasted no time in running away from that house," she told us.

I honestly had no words to say. Sometimes I wondered why Adalyn was so dodgy when I mentioned her family, but now I knew why. No human, especially a seven year old girl should ever have to go through that. And I was more than disgusted that her brothers were the reason behind it.

"Your own brothers allowed other men to use you as a sex slave?" I asked her, disbelief in her tone.

She nodded slowly, looking down at the floor. "Now you understand why I see you, Ironhide, and your dad as my only real family."

"Why do you believe that your siblings are returning for you though?" Ironhide asked her.

"Because they never knew I left and when they found out that I did, they had no clue where I had run off to. I made sure to get rid of every possible clue that may have lead them to me. You can only hide for so long though. They found my phone number and they found out where I go to school too.

"Maybe about two minutes before you guys walked in the door, Mason sent me a text that said 'We're coming for you. You're going to wish you had never run in the first place, little girl'. That's when I shattered my phone. I figured that if it was broken that they couldn't find me, but I had to realize that they could've traced me before hand."

Her crying increased as she continued talking and I frowned. "They're going to find me and take me back. I can't go back there. I can't," she said frantically. I made a move to comfort her, but before I could, Ironhide was pulling her to his body. She wrapped her arms around him and cried harder.

"No they're not. I'm going to protect you. I won't let anything happen to you, Adalyn. I promise," he told her. I didn't even know how it was possible, but she cried harder and Hide squeezed her tighter.

The sight of my best friend just made me want to cry, and I was surprised that I already wasn't. I had never seen her so vulnerable before. She was always happy and laughing and joking. Now I knew why. If she wasn't, she'd spend her time doing nothing but sulking over her past and I didn't want that for her. She deserved way better.

"You don't need to do that for me. It'll only inconvenience you," she mumbled into Hide's shirt.

He grunted and shifted her so that she was now looking at him. "You may irritate the living slag out of me sometimes, but you are just as much my family as I am yours. Protecting you from the ones who mean to harm you would in no way inconvenience me, kid," he assured her.

This is what I loved about him. Despite his gruff and grumpy personality, he never fails to show kindness towards those he cares about. I've also been told by one Autobot or another-cough-cough Bumblebee-about how protective he was over the Lennox family, which now biologically consisted of my dad and I, but to Hide it consisted of me, my dad, and Adalyn. It's been that way since he first met her and that's why I'm not at all surprised he was so quick to protect her after she informed us of this particular situation.

"Thank you, Hide. Your need to protect me means a lot," Adalyn said with a chuckle.

He smirked and ruffled her hair, something of which she laughed at. "Just stay here for the time being. I can't protect you at Will's house," he told her.

I immediately jumped up from the couch as a thought came to mind. The two of them looked at me, each with unreadable expressions on their faces.

"This reminds me. I need a gun," I stated.

"And what does this have to do with that?" Adalyn asked me.

"It doesn't. I just need a gun. All of my babies are in a fucking storage unit in Washington state and I haven't shot a gun in years. I need to before I go crazy," I answered her.

Adalyn sighed and propped her legs up onto the coffee table. "You can do so until your third trimester. I wouldn't recommend anything higher than a twenty-two pistol or a rifle."

"There's regulations for shooting that I have to follow too? What the fuck is this? I need my seventeen year old life back," I groaned as I laid down on the love seat.

"If I remember correctly, you spent almost half of that year bed ridden, Azalea," Hide told me.

I raised a brow. "So? I had you by my side the whole time. I was only ever miserable like once or twice."

"Wait! Make my night better and tell me how you two met and shit like that. I want to know how this happened. I've never received the honors of knowing," Adalyn chuckled.

"Wow. That's one long ass story," I told her as I stared at the ceiling.

"One of you tell it. I want to know," she pressed.

"I'll give Azalea the honors. I would really love to hear what she has to say about it," Ironhide mused.

I smirked. "Well, it all started when I came home from my usual morning run. A black Topkick was sitting in my driveway and I had no clue whose it was. I thought it was a getaway vehicle of some sort so I had to go get a weapon to defend my family with. Blah, blah, my dad was home. Blah, blah, it was a military vehicle.

"Skip to the next day. I ran like fifteen miles instead of my normal six and then I went to sleep. When I woke up, I went downstairs, heard a grunt and this fucking rude ass guy was sitting in our recliner." Hide grunted and Adalyn laughed. I just smiled and continued on. "He introduced himself rather rudely and it surprised me, but I still tried to fucking be nice. That is until he got rude again and since I can be rather rude myself, I had no problem being rude back," I said.

"You're over exaggerating the situation," Ironhide stated.

"No I'm not. You were a major dick. I've told you this before," I retorted as I rolled over to look at the two of them. He rolled his eyes at me. "See? Dick move right there."

"Shut up, Lea."

Adalyn giggled. "Just continue. I'm feeling better already."

"Okay. Well, after being mean I was scolded by William. And then I was given some very inspirational words by Mister Ron however you say that last name. The next day he and my dad were at base and I was outside shooting. My dad came home and scared me which lead to me accidentally shooting the truck. After that I started freaking out, Ron showed up, blah, blah, I got in trouble for playing with the machine guns, blah, blah, we fought and I won," I continued only to have Adalyn cut me off.

"Who fought?"

"Me and Ron. You've seen us fight before. No big deal. Hush it." She scoffed. "Anyways, all we did that week of my spring break was fight and shoot and shit like that. Then the morning I had to go back, he charged in my room like some sort of pedophile and yanked me right out of bed. This day actually isn't even important because nothing happened aside from him giving me his jacket when we were outside.

"So, next day I get to school and this Trent jerk-the one from the funeral home-decides he wants to kill me, but then he saves me and stuff like that. Nothing happens for like a day or so. I remember falling asleep on him outside and the next day I overheard him and my dad talking about Decepticons and shit and then they completely ignored me for two weeks."

"You're so full of yourself," Ironhide scoffed.

"I'm just telling it as I remember. She wanted to hear it," I laughed.

He shook his head at me and propped his feet up on the coffee table.

"You two have quite an interesting backstory," Adalyn said.

"No. That's not all of it. Those two weeks are unimportant in this story. We made up, obviously. Then one weekend I was out with Braelynn and Starscream attacked and I got caught in the middle of it because of my knee injury. I almost died, but I was saved by Ironhide. I didn't remember it until like a few weeks later and then I figured out everything. .kinda.

"I requested to meet Ironhide and the rest of the Autobots and then I did and then I cried for like an entire night because I was in love with an alien robot, but that really wasn't the reason. Anyway, we made up and stuff and now we're here. .and I'm pregnant with a techno-organic baby. It's a wonderful life I live, isn't it?" I chuckled.

"I couldn't tell whether or not that last line was sarcastic," Adalyn mused.

I furrowed my eyebrows. "Why would it be? I love everything about my life. Honest to God."

"Aw, I love you too, Lea," she teased.

I smiled and got up. I sat down on the couch between the two and wrapped my arms around Ironhide's torso before placing my legs onto Adalyn's lap. "I love you, Ada. And I love you, Hide," I giggled.

He smiled and wrapped his arms around me in a loving notion. "I love you, kid."

"He loves you too. He won't ever admit it, but he does. Trust me," I told Adalyn.

Hide grunted and she laughed. "It's okay. Everything he said to me just minutes ago let me know that. But, I love him too in an odd brotherly manner, of course. Thank you both for being there for me. I appreciate it more than you know."

"Always, kid," Ironhide told her with a smile.

She smiled and I knew in that moment that she was just happy to be part of our little family.

*Please vote and comment. It'd mean so much to me. I wanna know what you guys think.*