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The repair shop had been unusually quiet in the past two days with only a handful of costumers coming to have their cars repaired, the larger number of clients had been those who come to pick up their already finished vehicles. This was actually fine with Mikaela, but only partially because so she had only little which could take her mind of the latest and messy happenings in her life.
Sam had broken up with her…
She could get hardly over it, but if she had learned one thing it was that she was a strong girl who should not let herself be put down by this. Breaking up was a normal occurrence, many couples were no strangers to this…well excluding the whole thing with warring alien races, your boyfriend literally dying and then returning to life and saving the world twice… After everything in Egypt and the fact that he finally admitted his love for her was it hard to digest that it was all over, though she will need to pull herself together eventually. The break up had already been almost three months ago and since then she had not visited NEST or taken up contact with them. It was not as if they would give her the feeling that now with her and Sam not being together anymore she was not welcome, on the contrary. Arcee and her sisters had spent almost two hours comforting her as did Jazz, Ratchet offered her the chance to teach her Cybertronian physiology and generally be his assistant while Sideswipe’s offer was to beat some sense into Sam under the not dangerous parameters, he would only need to knock Bee out –she had laughed about that one -, even Major Lennox and Master Sergeant Epps were still treating her like a part of the mold, Lennox even invited her to sometime visit his family for dinner so it was not as if she could not visit while the others also expressed the fact that she was important to them and it had never to do with the fact that she was dating Sam.
The problem was getting herself to do it.
“Warrior Goddess?” he heard the high voice of Wheelie calling out to her from the ground, she had decided to keep the little con with her and as surprising it sounds she actually felt comforted by his company.
“What is it Wheelie?” she asked while picking up the small toy car, placing him into her lap, due to the emptiness of the garage she allowed him to roam around freely and only hide in his alt-mode when others were around. Till now no one wondered about a random toy car in a repair shop.
“You got a visitor.” he informed her with a hint of distaste in his voice. Mikaela allowed herself a hidden smile, it was funny, but also still cute that the small Transformer named himself her personal guardian even if he was constantly used as a chewing toy by Boney, much to the cons annoyance, but she appreciated the gesture. Then she remembered what he had told her and looked down in confusion, she knew that it was not Sam who must have come, the lack of colourful nicknames from Wheelie was a good indication for that.
“Who?” she asked while standing up, Wheelie held securely in her arms as they made their way to the door.
“The blue one.” was her only reply which was not fully helping her, but she knew that Wheelie tended to mix up the Autobots designations after having been faced with a mass introduction so it would be of no use to ask and after the ship with Optimus’s second arrived were there even more names and she did not know what alt-modes that group took. Finally she got her answer when outside her gaze fell on a deep blue Chevy Volt…well it is blue…under all that dust and mud… “He is certainly in for a bath.” Wheelie added in and Mikaela found herself nodding while she tried to wrap her mind around just how Jolt had managed to get THIS dirty! Was he doing some type of Cybertronian mud wrestling or something!?
“Hay Kaela.” come the familiar voice from the car and she was now really happy that beside her and the two Transformers and Boney no one was here.
“What did you do?” she asked in surprise while still eyeing the beyond dirty car.
“He went mud diving in a swamp.” Wheelie supplied and even if Mikaela could not see it she was sure that he was rolling his blue optics.
“Did not…only kind of took the wrong turn during a bet…” he admitted carefully, he will get Sideswipe for this, but it was not as if he was forced to take the bet to go for a secret ride during a storm.
“I don’t want to know, stay here till I close up.” Mikaela instructed him before going to close the shop that no one gets in by accident and sees a talking car, things were still not back to normal after the stunt the Fallen had pulled. Finishing up she returned and motioned for Jolt to follow her into the much cleaner looking part of the backyard where there was actual grass and a large tree. Her dad was out with friends and would only get back tomorrow so she did not worry of him getting in on the secret, she did not wish to endanger him now that his life seemed to finally be on a good track since his release from jail. Wheelie was back in the house, portably to watch TV, he loved Monster Trucks and there was a marathon starting in five minutes.
“Thanks for helping out Kaela.” Jolt said after she returned with a bucket, washcloth, soap and a sponge.
“No problem, though why did you make a detour to the garage and not go back to base? It is not that I mind the company, but I doubt that you just happened to be in the neighbourhood.” she added in hurriedly, Jolt was a nice mech and they had interacted often when she was by Ratchet seeing how the medic had taken the other as his assistant.
“ Uh…you guessed right, I kind of was scared to go back in such a state.” he finally admitted in embarrassment.
“Scared of the Hatchet?” she inquired while getting the water hose and adjusting the temperature.
“ Partially, you remember the group which arrived not long ago?” he inquired, Prowl and his group had arrived only two days prior of Sam and Kaela’s brake up, he had been not happy to see the girl sad, but Lennox and Epps told them to try having the two teens to short things out themselves.
“Yes.” she replied, not understanding what this had to do with Jolt not wanting to return all muddy.
“Well…one of them is Sideswipe’s twin Sunstreaker and…he has a huge vanity complex and I would hear a huge triade about how I can allow myself to look like this.” he explained, the car frame vibrating slightly as he shuddered. Sunstreaker could be frightening and he knew that a few of the others were sure that he had some type of glitch, but no one dared mentioning that to either him or in audial range of his twin.
“So you would first get a scolding for being all dirty and then a repeat of it, only with a number of low flying wrenches.” Mikaela summed up as she let the water spray get some the upper layers of the mud down. It was rather much and in a thick layer, mostly on the front at least the dust was coming down from the windshield, she guessed that Jolt had been using his sensors to see.
♈ ♉ ♊ ♋ ♌ ♍ ♎ ♏ ♐ ♑ ♒ ♓
It had been way too long ago since he… no, going there would be making things only harder.
“Uh…Kaela…” he started carefully, forcing his vocalizer to sound steady as well as his frame, which was not easy.
“Yes?” she asked, hoping that she did not do something wrong, she needed to remind herself that no matter if the alt-modes looked like normal earth vehicles, they were the changed form of a sentient being.
“Uh…well…I think I can do the rest done alone…”
“Did I do something wrong?” she asked in a worried tone, no matter her changed relationship with Sam, the Autobots were her friends and she would never sink that low like some who hurt their shared friends due to their ex.
“Wha…no! Of course not!” Jolt immediately reassured her, he did not want her to feel bad for something which wasn’t actually a bad thing. “It is just that well… you know that our frames have a lot of sensors in them and well, some of them are actually easily activated and…” Mikaela listened intently, she vaguely remembered Ratchet telling her something about this then looking back and what she had done not long ago and how people usually was their cars…she suddenly felt her face heat up.
“I managed to turn you on.” she said carefully, sponge still in hand while Jolt quickly googled the term.
“Kind of yes…I did not want to end up startling you and make you angry, you are our friend and we all really like you and the others would make scrap metal out of me if I would end up being the ground that you don’t come back to NEST, at least to say ‘hay’.” he explained hurriedly, feeling with each click passing in silence more and more embarrassed.
“You think I would freak out because I would get you off by accident?” Mikaela finally said while Jolt looked up the new term. “Jolt, I would not get upset because of something you can’t control, there are some bodily reactions which no matter the race one can’t control and I would not abandon my friends because of something like that. I’m also sorry that I had given you all the feeling as if I would not care, I had been stuck with my thoughts long enough and maybe the fact that I neglected my friends is the ground.” she told the Chevy with a smile on her lips before giving him a hug, well as much as one can hug a car, getting soapy water on her shirt, soaking it.
“Ka…Kaela?” Jolt asked in alarm, his sensitized sensors easily picking up on the extra frame and its softness pressing against his plating, making his systems be even more frizzled.
“I doubt that you want to drive back to Diego Garcia all frustrated.” she told him while still resting her upper body on his hood which was starting to get warmer, but till now had not reached a bothersome temperature.
“I…t…true, but still, I…I can do this on my own…” Jolt told her, his embarrassment growing with every click he felt Mikaela’s body on his frame.
“You told me that I’m your friend, right?” she asked while Jolt gave a sound of confused agreement, she knew that what she was leading herself into would go over by most people as disturbing or even out of the norm, but who could ever say that she was normal after the day she met Sam Witwicky and his car? When Mission City happened and she was definitely not normal after Egypt so why should she care? “So there is nothing bad in a situation like this to be friends with benefit.” she waited for Jolt to look up the information, she knew that he had found it when there was a soft raving of his engines.
“So…this would really not be a problem for you?” Jolt asked unsurely while Mikaela laughed, something she had not done since her break up, it seemed to her that what she had been really lacking were the others.
“Well, I still need to finish cleaning you up.” she told him with a smirk and was rewarded with purring engines which sent a pleasant vibration through her body from her hands which were still on Jolt’s hood.
Seems as if she was slowly getting over Sam as long as she still had the others.