Disclaimer: I do not own Transformers, they belong to Hasbro.

Twelve Nights Before Christmas

By Nova Myth

Chapter 1: On The First Night of Christmas

It was twelve nights before Christmas and not all was quiet inside the Ark. Christmas was fast approaching and the residence spent their free time decorating areas for the season. In the hallway from the main entrance to the recreation room Sam, Mikaela, and Bumblebee hung ribbons and bows in a giant garland strung with lights that lined the hallway.

"It's too bad Jazz had to go pick up Glen and Maggie from the airport, he would have loved this." Sam said as he handed Mikaela another bow. He was perched on Bumblebee's shoulder with a bag of red bows and golden ribbons. They had slowly been decorating the garland Optimus had hung along the hallway under the direction of Sarah Lennox the previous night. This was the second Christmas for the Autobots, but what made it special was friends new and old would be attending. Prowl, Wheeljack, and the twins had arrived shortly after Jazz had been revived by Ratchet and Optimus with the help of the Allspark shard during the past summer. Sam and Mikaela were now out on Christmas break from their senior year of high school.

"Yeah, but with Barricade still laying low I can see why Optimus does not't want everyone to be complacent. At least he should be back before we finished decorating the tree." Mikaela replied as she tied the bow in place from her place in the middle of Bee's hand.

Bee chirped in reply as he brought her down to his shoulder for Sam to hand off another bow or ribbon before lifting her back up to the garland again. This had been going on during the last few hours with Bee playing Christmas music from his radio.

"Wheeljack certainly out did himself, huh be? All these giant decorations, the tree! It's amazing." Sam as well as the other humans were amazing at what the inventor was able to come up.

Bee laughed lightly. "It certainly is considering he hasn't blown anything up since he started this little project."

"Yeah! It's been what, a month since there has been an explosion in his lab?" Sam handed a gold ribbon to Mikaela.

"Oh, just wait, you're going to jinx it!" Sure enough as soon as the words left Mikaela's mouth a resounding boom followed by a shrill scream echoed through the Ark. Bumblebee swiftly brought Mikaela to his chest and brought Sam down from his shoulder and hurried down one of the side hallways toward Wheeljack's lab.

"Ah correction, I think you just jinxed it." Another sound echoed down the hall as Mikaela delivered a good smack to Sam's arm. "Man, I'm so abused."

Their diversion created the two resident pranksters moved into the direction of their next unsuspecting victim. Thankfully Wheeljack's lab was far enough away that the explosion should not have disturbed anyone sleeping in the officer quarters. They had been sure to make the explosion small enough that it wouldn't set off the defense alarms and awake their target. After a few moments at the end of the hallway and it was deemed safe they disabled the security system for a few minutes window, slipped in, slipped out, and hurried back to their 'posts' before they were missed.

Optimus stood overlooking the very mild destruction in Wheeljack's lab that had at one time been a project invention. What was unusual was Wheeljack had not touched the said unnamed invention for the past few weeks, having focused on creating Ornaments for the Christmas tree. But then again, this was Wheeljack, his lab, and more importantly his inventions they were talking about. Ironhide was in a good mood all things considered for the past few days because of Annabelle but was now short of blowing a fused from the screaming four year old. Ironhide can grumble and deny all he wanted but he was protective of the human sparkling and should anything frighten his said sparkling it was enough to make him want to blow something up.

"Damn it Wheeljack, of all the fragging times for you have something blow up! Annabelle is going to have nightmares for days now!" Ironhide had nearly corned his comrade in the corner of the room if Optimus had not laid a restraining hand on his shoulder.

"Ironhide, go to the shooting range if you have to, but calm down. Even though she is in the recreation room you're screaming will only frighten Annabelle even more." Ironhide only blew out hot air from his vents before exiting the room at Optimus Prime's wise words.

Bumblebee moved to the side of the doorway to let him pass and the trio watched him stomp down the hall toward the slowly abetting screams. "Well things were-" Mikaela nearly fell out of Bumblebee's hand to slap her own over Sam's mouth.

"Don't even think about finishing that sentence Samuel Witwicky." For some reason Sam couldn't really be frightened of his girlfriend at the moment and was actually turned on by her low and dominating voice. Mikaela could actually feel him grin under her hand and it made his brown eyes twinkle. Bumblebee in turn shivered and blew warm air from his vents soothingly over them.

"Interesting… they're, ah!" Optimus promptly snapped at Ratchet in a low frequency to shut up in their native language before he could embarrass Bumblebee and more specifically the two teenagers. The moment did not last as cat calls and audio howling clips came from the hallway behind be.

"Getting a little hot and bothered Bee?" Sideswipe couldn't help but tease and if a mech could blush Bumblebee would have bee.

"Enough, Sideswipe. You two take the next to crates. Wheeljack, Ratchet, and I will bring the rest."

Meanwhile Ironhide entered the recreation room to a distressed Annabelle. Will Lennox was holding his little girl and speaking soft words to her as her mother rubbed her back. Ironhide promptly transformed into his alt mode and opened the side passenger doors. Will climbed in and wrapped Annabelle in her safety blanket before laying her down the backseat. Sarah climb into the front passenger seat and leaned over so her daughter see her. Ironhide gently shut his doors to close off the outside world. No words were needed as Annabelle quickly calmed down and snuggled into the soft leather of Ironhide's seats. "It's alright little Bella, Wheeljack just made something go boom in his lab. Nothing is going to hurt you, I won't let that happen. Do you still want to decorate the Christmas tree? Optimus is going to be bringing more ornaments in a little bit."

Annabelle sniffled a little and nodded her head. Ironhide practically rumbled in pride. "That's my girl." Opening his doors Lennox and Sarah climbed out as Annabelle crawled to her father to be lifted out. Once they had backed up a few feet Ironhide transformed back into his bipedal mode.

At that moment the rest of the mechs, minus Prowl and Jazz, entered the room with crates full of ornaments and decorations. Wheeljack, ever the genius, took into account that there would be fragile humans around and while the ornaments looked heavy when they were actually light enough for Annabelle to pick up and would not break if they fell from the very top of the tree. Also in the crate was nearly a thousand yards of a huge of string of golden beads to be strung around the tree. Jazz and Bumblebee had decorated the tree with giant multicolored lights that were again made by Wheeljack before Jazz had to go pick up Glen and Maggie.

At that moment in the quarters he shared with his bonded Prowl began to come on-line after a short recharge. His bonded was approaching the Ark and he felt the familiar and pleasant tug on his spark. With a small hidden smile he got up from his berth and head toward the recreation room. Unaware of a little something dangling from the front guard of his alt mode that was pretty much right center of his chest.

Jazz entered the recreation room with Glen and Maggie, greetings were exchanged between the arrivals and the Autobots. The women promptly entered a hugging session while the men shook hands. Will was visibly puffing with fatherly pride as Maggie gushed on how much Annabelle had grown and adorable she was.

It was at that moment Prowl entered the room. "Greetings Glen and Maggie. It is good to see you are well."

Glen was the first to notice what was hanging from Prowl and while he attempted to stifle an insane giggle and quickly turned to Maggie. Unfortunately Maggie had noticed a split second after Glen and made a much quickly plan of action. Promptly turning heel and running in between Optimus, Wheeljack, and Ratchet's legs with Glen on her heels. "Hell no Glen! Get away you creep!"

"Come on Maggie its tradition!" Surprisingly Sunstreaker came to the rescue and scooping the girl up and away from Glen. "Awe damn it!"

The stunned Autobots quickly found that Sam had tentatively scooted closer to Mikeala and with begging eyes was granted a solid lip locking kiss. Lennox was not be out done and literally tipped his wife back wards for a kiss worthy of a Kodak moment like that of one of a famous photograph. Once all the Autobots, minus Bumblebee and the twins, had did an Internet search they were chuckling at Prowl. Before any of them had a chance to say anything Jazz tackled the unprepared tactician and sat on his hips. "Jazz, what are you doing?!"

Jazz practically purred as he ran his fingers down the chest of his bonded. "As if you didn't know…" And plucked the mistletoe from his bonded's's front guard and dangled in front of his mate's face. Prowl had barely a few seconds to process what was in front of him before Jazz locked lips with him. By the time they came back to awareness they realized three things. One, cat calls and whistles galore. Echoing laughter of their comrades, and the faint clicking of a camera. They both immediately jerked their heads toward Sideswipe and Sunstreaker who had just high fived.

"Sunstreaker!!! Sideswipe!!!"

Jazz rolled off his mate, laughing so hard he could barely move while his bonded bolted from the floor and charged toward the two guilty twins. Sunstreaker promptly tossed Maggie at Optimus, which brought an end to the commander's laughter as he quickly had to catch the helpless human. The twins might not have gotten into any real trouble with their latest prank if Sunstreaker hadn't done that.

End Chapter 1 XD

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