TITLE: Outbreak
Imperfection Deviation
SERIES: Imperfection
AUTHOR: Macx
RATING: PG-13
DISCLAIMER: None of the characters belong to me, sadly. They are owned by people with a lot more money
Author’s Voice of Warning (aka Author’s Note):
English is not my first language; it’s German. This is the best I can do. Any mistakes you find in here, collect them and you might win a prize The spell-checker said everything's okay, but you know how trustworthy those thingies are....
FEEDBACK: Loved

All right! Something new, while staying in the Imperfection storyverse (and don't you worry, Barricade and Jazz will come up later, too). This is, as you can probably see, a multi-parter, and I was mostly done when something hit me and wanted to be added, so it'll be in chapters and I'm still busy writing some scenes :)

My thanks to Sapphire for pointing out a few details that needed to be changed. I changed them :P


°°° °°° °°°


He hadn’t really felt all too good for the past week, but with a physics test coming up and his work in fundamentals of mechanics, thermodynamics, fluid mechanics, combustion, and materials science, Sam had had no time to think about being sick, let alone be sick. College was demanding, especially since he was demanding all by himself, and his free time had shrunk down to the occasional weekend. When Mikaela had broken off with him, Sam had started to spend even more time at the Autobot base to immerse himself in another study course that wasn’t offered by the college: Cybertronian technology.

Blowing his nose, Sam muttered a curse at the pounding ache in his head. He had already taken two Tylenol and still the ache persisted. Flu season hadn’t even started yet and here he was, the first to come down with symptoms.

°°° °°° °°°

The physics test went fine, as did the homework assignment, though he was landed with two more assignments to complete by the end of the next week and his professor requested him to add a few lab hours.

Great.

But his grades were good, which was what counted.

The weekend went by with sniffles and headaches, his Mom’s chicken soup, her insistence he stay warm and drink lots of herbal tea, and Sam moaning and groaning about it to Bumblebee.

With no friends to come and visit – Miles had moved to Las Vegas and he had been his only true friend anyway – and with no girl friend, Sam stayed home, eating Skittles and Mars bars smuggled by his Mom, watching TV and reading up on his subjects.

It wasn’t too bad, he mused. Nothing much had really changed, aside from the months he had enjoyed having a hot girl by his side that didn’t think he was a trophy. Not that he had ever qualified as one. He was more of the geeky side of life, not the brawns. Not that his brain was all that remarkable either.

Mikaela had been an experience and he had chalked her up to heat of the moment, life-and-death situation. His Mom had mourned her more than he had, and his father had just given him a manly clap on the shoulder and told him there were more girls out there.

Of course there were. Sam was just not interested in one right now. He had too much else in his life.

°°° °°° °°°

Monday brought with it the usual college routine and Sam was glad Bumblebee drove him to Mission City, not expecting him to get together the necessary brain power to keep the Camaro on the road. He had his own little apartment place in Mission City and only came home every other weekend. For laundry, his father joked. And to cure the cold he had apparently caught. Maybe he should have returned Sunday night, gotten some more sleep in his apartment, but it had been really, really nice to get pampered, have Mojo cuddle up to him, and to be in his old room.

Actually, it was always nice to see the family after two weeks with nothing but college people. Other weekends were spent with the Autobots. Sometimes, when his parents were away for the weekend, too, Sam either stayed in his apartment or drove to the base with Bumblebee.

And he knew how to do his laundry all by himself.

“Shouldn’t you see a doctor?” Bumblebee inquired as they pulled onto the street that led to Sam’s place.

“I’m fine, Bee. Really.”

“I’ve scanned the internet, Sam, and there are all kinds of terrible disease that start with headaches and sniffles.”

Sam smiled a little, feeling tired from his day at college. “It’s a cold. Maybe the flu. Nothing that won’t be cured. We humans tend to be able to take care of small stuff ourselves. Our bodies have antibodies.”

Bumblebee was silent, mulling it over. “Okay,” he finally said.

“I’m really, really fine,” Sam repeated.

Silence.

“You know, there’s a name for that,” he teased. “Hypochondriac.”

He could almost see Bumblebee’s electronic mind whirring, accessing the internet.

“Hypochondria refers to an excessive preoccupation or worry about having a serious illness,” the mech finally said. “I don’t think I’m suffering from any illness, Sam.”

“You’re just obsessed about me coming down with something. What’s that then? Transferred hypochondria?”

A chuckle could be heard. “Maybe. I’m just worried about you. You’re my friend and there is so much about humans I don’t understand. You’re very complex beings.”

“Well, thank you, but you really don’t have to be a worry wart.” Sam yawned. “And I’m dead on my feet. Why is it that professors insist on piling work on us when there’s a perfectly nice day outside?”

“I think it’s called college, Sam.”

“Wise bot.”

Bumblebee pulled up in front of the apartment building. “Maybe you should get some sleep?”

“Take a nap in the afternoon? Bee, I’m nineteen, not ninety!” Sam exclaimed, slightly shocked.

He pulled his backpack from the passenger seat and heard Bumblebee laugh with amusement. He waved at his friend and went inside, heading for his room.

Against all protests, he did drop off into a doze almost right after he lay down on the bed. He really was tired.

°°° °°° °°°

The flu symptoms abated by Wednesday and Sam was glad that was over. Sitting underneath the large tree on campus, eating M&M’s by the handful, he read through the required chapters of thermodynamics the professor had asked them to, making notes. He sometimes compared what he learned about mechanics to what Ratchet had already told him about Cybertronian inner workings, and while it was different, Sam could see that there were similarities, too. He could work with that, whatever he planned to do with his degree later on.

It was fascinating, it was fun, and even the boring lectures were easier to suffer through when he reminded himself that this was for a specific purpose.

He would go through with this, whatever it took. He would be useful.

°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°

Sam was invited to attend the promotion ceremony of Captain William Lennox a few days later. He took two days off from college and Bumblebee drove them to the ceremony. Everyone was there, the whole team, the Autobots, Secretary of Defence John Keller, and Sam was slightly awestruck by it all. Lennox looked smart in his uniform and everyone beamed when his promotion was made official. Epps elbowed Sam, proud like a father himself that his captain had been promoted.

The Autobots were in their car forms, unobstrusively in the background, mainly because some of the people present didn’t know about their existence.

Afterwards, Keller took them for a more or less casual dinner in a private restaurant that allowed them to talk openly, and Sam was introduced to the alcohol-steadiness of the US Military. He didn’t touch anything, mainly because he still didn’t feel well enough after his cold, and snuck out around midnight. Bumblebee was parked outside, waiting patiently, and he opened the door for his charge.

“Man, they don’t even show signs of winding down,” Sam muttered as he slipped out of the black jacket. “I’m dead on my feet.”

“Do you want to go to your hotel?”

Keller had booked them all into one of the really pricey hotels. The ceremony had been held in Las Vegas, of all places, because it was closer than, say, Washington DC, the Autobots could drive there easily, and there were several dozen hotels to choose from. Sam had been to Vegas twice before. Once with his parents, once before Mikaela had broken up with him. Actually, she had broken up with him right in front of the Excalibur after the dragon show. Now his hotel was the Bellagio, and he had a truly nice and big room with a view of the fountains and a loudspeaker system that played the tunes the people at the lake could hear when the fountains were ‘dancing’.

“No, not really. How about a midnight drive?”

It was a nice ride. Sam let Bumblebee chauffeur him and he didn’t have to think about watching the road while gawking at all the light shows. They made it all the way down into the old downtown area, Sam watched the Freemont Street Experience, then they took a few side roads back to the Strip. He just enjoyed it. The muted sounds of the cars outside, the darkness, the lights, the sights.

It was nice.

It was actually peaceful.

Bumblebee parked around the back from the Bellagio and Sam stretched.

“Washington would have been nice, too,” he remarked. “Never been there.”

“Neither have I,” Bumblebee told him.

“Did you have a capital city on Cybertron?” Sam asked.

“Yes,” was the soft answer. “It was beautiful. With monuments and museums and the Academy. I went there for training. It was huge. The war destroyed most of it because when Megatron couldn’t take it, he sent his drones to tear it apart.”

Sam nodded, feeling sad for no other reason than the tone of voice from his friend.

“Do you miss home?” he asked.

“Every day,” was the honest answer.

Guilt welled up inside Sam again. Without the Allspark, the Autobots were stuck here and there was no telling if any survivors would find them. They might very well be the last.

“But I would miss this world, too,” Bumblebee interrupted his morose thoughts. “I’ve come to love it very much.”

The words touched something different in Sam and he smiled a little. “Really?”

“Yes. I will gladly stay here.”

Sam touched the Autobot symbol on the steering wheel, brushing his fingers over it. “I’m glad you are,” he murmured.

°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°

The headaches started again three days later – with a vengeance. Sam and Bumblebee were on their way to the lake when Sam cried out in pain as a sudden spike of agony lanced through his head. Bumblebee swerved off the uneven dirt road and came to a stop.

The engine pinged in the sun.

Dust settled around them.

Sam lay across the front seats, clutching his head, crying softly in pain.

“Sam?!” Bumblebee called. “Sam? Answer me! What happened?!”

“Head!” the young man gasped. “Oh gawd…”

Bumblebee felt panic rise inside him. He had never handled an injured human. Sam had come out almost unscathed at the end of the last battle and those injuries had been taken care of. Now his friend was almost screaming and tears were running down his face.

He did the only thing he could think of: he called for help.

* * *

Sam had never been to the hospital in all his life. Okay, so he had been there as a baby, but that didn’t count. He had never broken a bone, never had his appendix removed, and all his organs were still where they belonged: inside.

Sitting on the examination bed in the ER, he tried to relax as the nurse had told him, let the painkiller work. A violent stab behind his eyes made him wince and he massaged his forehead, willing the headache to go away.

His parents had been informed of what had happened, though no one was sure what exactly it was. He had been run through a battery of tests already, including MRIs of his skull and wherever else they had been looking.

Sam gazed at his cell phone, fiddling with it. He wasn’t allowed to turn it on inside the ER and he longed to talk to Bumblebee, but he didn’t want the wrath of the nurses on him. His eyes were on the dark display as if it held the answers to all his questions.


And then he was looking through the LCD display front, right into the very heart of the little device. He seemed to browse through processors and chips and hear broadband signals and was whisked away to peer through the camera lens from the inside, looking out, going back and down the video feed and headset plug-in components, marveling at the structure of every little node and tiny…


The curtain was pulled back and before Sam could utter a word he was swept up in the embrace of his mother, who hugged him tightly.

“How are you?” Judy Witwicky asked, looking anxious.

He blinked, still confused as to what had just happened. “Fine. A bit headachy, but fine.”

His father was hovering in the background and a man who looked like a doctor smiled reassuringly at him. He now stepped forward.

“Dr. Carl McGregor,” he introduced himself.

And then he went on flinging around medical terms that ended with ‘You’ll be fine, it was probably just stress’. Sam wasn’t sure he had spaced out for a second, but he had no clue, aside from the fact that there seemed to be nothing wrong with him, what McGregor had just said.

“Are you sure?” Judy asked. “There’s no tumor or aneurism or something?”

“Mom…” Sam groaned.

“Mrs. Witwicky, I can assure you we found nothing. Your son told my colleague Dr. Hamilton that he worked pretty hard for college and he had a cold last week. I think it’s just stress.”

Sam spaced out once more, his attention drawn to the dark monitor beside the bed. For a moment there seemed to be something like an image whispering over the screen, then it was gone and his mother was hugging him again, telling him how glad she was he was okay, and that he would not look at his books the whole weekend.

Sam just shrugged. “I don’t feel stressed out, Mom,” he muttered.

But he had no chance.

°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°

The headache never really went away. It was less sometimes, but it never disappeared. Sam kept that fact to himself since his mother was turning into a full-fledged mother-hen. His father only shared a sympathetic look with him.

“Judy, let the boy be,” he finally sighed. “He had a headache and you’re not helping.”

That got him a look that had Ron Witwicky fall silent for the rest of the evening and not commenting on anything at all again.

Sam managed to get some private time whenever he snuck out into the backyard and hung out with Bumblebee. He had developed a stronger craving for sweet stuff, but since he didn’t seem to be putting on any extra weight, he didn’t really think about it. Snacks were now part of his daily nourishment.

“This sucks,” Sam muttered, playing with the radio, looking for a good station.

His parents had insisted he stay with them in Tranquility until he felt better. He could catch up on classes, but if his condition worsened, he should be close to his family. Sam had only silently groaned at that. His ‘condition’. He was fine!

Bumblebee was silent, letting him be. Suddenly the radio gave a squeal and then went dead. Sam stared at it.

“Bee? You all right?”

“Uhm, yes,” the mechanoid answered, sounding mystified.

“What happened?”

“I’m not sure. One of my circuits just… expired.”

Sam sat up straight. “What?! Is it bad? What’s wrong? Do we need Ratchet?”

“No, it’s okay. Probably a lose wiring. I’ll talk to Ratchet and he can fix it the next time.”

Sam didn’t look reassured, but he sank back into the seat. “This sucks,” he repeated.

“It does. How is your head?”

“Still attached,” Sam joked. “I’m fine, Bumblebee. Maybe I really overdid it, with the lab hours and classes and papers to write. I mean, I so badly want to have this degree in as short a time as possible, and know about you guys. I’m not really useful anyway…”

“Sam, I’m your friend not because you’re useful,” Bumblebee interrupted him.

The young man blinked, a little shell shocked. “Huh? I mean…”

“You’re our friend, Sam,” Bumblebee repeated. “You’re my friend. I’m your guardian. Not because I was assigned to it, but because I want it.”

“That’s not… I mean… everyone around the base has a job…!” he argued, already hearing how weak it sounded.

“You don’t need a job or an assignment to come visit the others.”

“Yeah, well, but… aside from being the guy who destroyed the Allspark and killed Megatron… what am I?”

“You’re Samuel James Witwicky.”

“And?”

“Isn’t that enough?” Bumblebee asked.

Sam rubbed his forehead. “Sometimes I think all I am is the fading celebrity. What if the Decepticons return? I’d be of no use!”

“I don’t choose my friends by usefulness,” the mechanoid pointed out. “I like you, Sam. I like being with you. It’s why I wanted to stay. Not because you’re an important person to protect but because I like you. Take it easy on yourself. You don’t have to prove yourself to us or anyone else.”

Sam gazed at the dashboard, feeling a little better, but still like this was pep talk to do just that.


Microscopic solar energy receptors covering every surface of the skin, channeled via a network of gas-filled tubes for powering the solar power accelerator weapon. A cyclotron.

Sinking.

Sinking deeper.

Touching a bright light, soft and harsh in one, containing everything, containing a soul and a mind and a…


“Sam!!”

The blinked and focused where he was. To his surprise, Sam found himself several feet in the air, held in cupped hands, gazing into the bright blue optics of his guardian. Bumblebee’s comm receivers, the tiny antennae on his head, were twitching anxiously.

“Uh, Bee?” he stuttered.

“Sam, what happened?” the mechanoid demanded. “You didn’t respond to my calls. You were just staring at me.”

“I’m not sure… Uhm, you transformed?”

“You didn’t react. I was worried. I also felt strange, like something was going through my systems. I called Ratchet.”

Sam gazed at his friend, still confused as to how Bumblebee had transformed into his bipedal mode with him still in the car – and without Sam actually feeling any of it.

The headache was coming back and he rubbed his temples.

°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°

What Ratchet knew about humans, their anatomy, their biological functions, he knew from the internet. He had downloaded countless files on these subjects and stored them whenever he needed a reference. He had done the same with whatever else he found an interesting subject.

It didn’t make him a doctor. It only made him a transforming encyclopedia of knowledge.

When Bumblebee had called him, detailing what had occurred, Ratchet had been fascinated but stumped. He knew nothing about humans from a medical point of view. He couldn’t make a diagnosis. And Sam had already been examined by the human doctors, and nothing had been found.

Looking at the slightly worried mechanoid, Ratchet finally sighed.

“Bumblebee, I have no idea what it might be.”

“But he was staring at me like… like I wasn’t there. And then I felt his… presence going through my systems. Like it was a touch… I mean…” He stopped, shrugging. “I don’t think it was a touch. More like a log-on.”

“Sam is human. He couldn’t be logging on to your systems, Bumblebee.”

“I know that, Ratchet!”

The medic ran through his results again. “I can’t tell you more. I also can’t tell you why one of your systems glitched. It was fine when I examined you just now.”

Bumblebee paced the length of the room. “Something is going on with Sam, Ratchet. He isn’t well and no one can find anything!”

“It might be one of those odd human illnesses…”

“It’s not!”

Ratchet raised his hands in a calming gesture. “Bumblebee, I’m only saying that there is nothing either I or the humans at the hospital could find. He might be stressed, and so might you be. You are his closest friend among us. It’s known for some of our kind to become empathic to others…”

“Ratchet, he’s human! He’s a different species! I couldn’t connect to him, like Jazz to Barricade, even if I wanted!”

“I know that. I’m just saying that we know next to nothing about humans. They know little about themselves, too. They are so various in their evolution, in their culture, maybe it’s something natural to them without them knowing.”
Bumblebee gave off an almost frustrating sounding groan. “That’s not helping!”

“I know.”

Bumblebee just turned and walked out of the medical area, leaving Ratchet with his thoughts.

°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°

Sam’s headaches lessened and he returned to Mission City and his own place. He started to work on his assignments, putting in lab hours, and brought home several straight A’s. Lab work was the easiest, especially when it was about taking apart and understanding machinery. Sam had never so easily breezed through classes and his professors called it a natural understanding and talent. Sam called it dumb luck that he had met the Autobots and had learned more about machines than anyone could ever guess.

His sweet tooth never went away. Sam was always seen munching on something or other with lots of sugar.

Ratchet was keeping an eye on the young human, noting things, making notes, downloading corresponding files from the internet. He involved Sam a lot more in his own work, explained to him the mechanics of a Protoform, was surprised to see how much Sam actually took in and truly understood.

Bumblebee was never far from his charge and Ratchet heard of a few more electronic mishaps of the Camaro now and then. Sensors glitched, there were white-outs for a nano-second or two, Sam’s parents had to buy a new DVD player one weekend after the old one expired all of a sudden, and the blender in the kitchen shorted. Ratchet could never find a problem with Bumblebee, not even in his internal error reports, but something was not right. The problem was, he couldn’t put his finger on what exactly wasn’t what it should be. Sam was healthy, the headaches had apparently disappeared, and human household equipment malfunctioning wasn’t really alarming.

With summer break coming up, Sam’s work load eased, though he was getting more assignments, but he appeared less stressed-out.

Maybe it had all been some strange coincidence.

Ratchet was proven how wrong that was two days into summer break.

Sam had spent a great day at the Autobot base, talking history with Bumblebee, trying to understand how a world like Cybertron had been created by nothing but a cube-shaped object – and no one actually knew why or how. He was immensely fascinated by the very concept of this perfect energy source. He had held it in his hands, he had felt its power as it had obliterated Megatron’s spark, and looking at the immensely huge files, with thousands of images of the glyphs, he was fascinated all anew.

“No one ever actually opened it up?” he asked Optimus Prime, who had come in just a few minutes ago, surprised to find him at the computer station and studying the Allspark.

“No,” the Autobot leader told him. “For us, it’s a revered object. It is what gave us life.”

“But how come you never really looked inside? Or managed to translate the symbols?”

“Our best scientists tried to decipher the scripts on the cube, but they failed. Not even the greatest mind could come close to finding the meanings.”

Prime gazed at the image on the screen, thoughtful.

“There is nothing in anyone’s data base that serves as a translating device. In all our explorations we also never found a race, dead or alive, with writings like this.”

Sam chewed his lower lip. “Oh. It’s just.. you guys are so incredible, can store so much, know so much… it’s hard to believe.”

Optimus smiled. “Sam, we’re not all-powerful. Our capacity to store data is limited. And just because we store data and can understand other languages doesn’t mean we know everything.”

The young man shrugged. “Yeah. And this Allspark is awesome. When I held it… when it unloaded into Megatron, it was like an incredible heat, but it didn’t burn me. There was so much power, all in that tiny little cube… and it was so huge before… it’s all beyond me, really. Sector Seven had the Allspark for decades and they didn’t know what it could do either.”

Prime nodded. “No one does but its creators.”

“Sorry about... you know…” Sam looked away.

“You did what was necessary, Sam.”

“Yeah. It feels so wrong, though. After knowing what I do, what this was…”

Optimus knelt down, one huge finger touching Sam gently. “You did the right thing, Sam Witwicky. You saved your world. You saved us.”

Sam shrugged again. “Still feels wrong,” he murmured.

Optimus nodded. “No decision is ever easy and yours was a courageous one.”

But Sam didn’t feel courageous. He looked at the images again, taking in the alien beauty of the life-giving Allspark.

He had destroyed this. He had tried to save it and in the end, he had destroyed what had created an alien race of huge robots millions of years ago. An ancient artifact of mysterious origins. Sure, Optimus had been willing to do just the same, but in the end it hadn’t been Prime. It had been him.

He was guilty.


Glyphs and carvings, whorls and lines and squiggles and cubes and circles.

Like metal, but not metal.

Cool and heavy looking, but so warm and alive to his touch.

Warmth from within. Life from within.

Power beyond anyone’s understanding, copied a million times, given a million times to Cybertronian body shells, warming Protoforms and giving them identity.

A pulse of warmth from somewhere close.


Sam startled out of his zone-out when he heard steps and turned, looking into a pair of blue optics. He felt the pulse again, corresponding with something he had felt before, and his zone-out was like a head-dive into the middle of a bright, pulsing light, of warmth and life and love…


Racing along a connection formed millennia ago, linking two resonating creations of the Allspark, making them one, giving them something no one else shared but them.


“Sam!”

“Jazz!”

Sam stumbled and was caught by a hand, smaller than Prime’s and he looked up into Bumblebee’s optics, confused.

Another cry had him snap his attention away from his guardian to the mechanoid leaning against the wall not far away. Jazz looked seriously rattled, optics hidden by his visor, which was still glowing brightly. Optimus was at his side, talking to him, though Sam had no idea what it was he was saying, and he became aware of a third presence.

Barricade.

Sam took an involuntary step back as the former Decepticon looked at him from narrowed optics, claws clenching and unclenching.

“Sam? Are you okay? What happened?” Bumblebee asked.

“I… I don’t know. It was… I was looking at the Allspark file and asking Optimus some things and…”

And he had no idea what had happened next. But every time he looked at Jazz or Barricade he thought he saw something between them, something powerful and unbreakable, something as beautiful as the energy of the Allspark. The memory of that power in his hands had him shiver. Not because of the raw energy, but because of the ancient beauty.

“Man, that was weird,” Jazz managed.

Barricade was still standing where he was, though Sam could feel his anxiety to get to his partner. He was hyper-aware of the former Decepticon, could see his anger and his fear, all restrained but still visible.

The headache was starting again.

And he could see the pulse of Barricade’s spark, could see Jazz’s… So very much alike.

He groaned and closed his eyes, massaging his temples.

“Sam? What’s wrong?”

“Headache,” he whispered. “And I’m starting to really lose it, Bee. I can see it… I can really see it.”

“See what?”

“The spark bond,” he blurted, opening his eyes again.

Red optics flared and the sound coming from Barricade was terrifying. “You can what?” he asked, voice level and very dark.

Sam swallowed, looking at the mech looming over him. It was like looking at a black hole with fine, silver-white tendrils coming out from underneath his chest armor, winding and snaking toward someone else. Beautiful and ethereal and powerful and unbreakable and…

He blinked.

The darkness shifted into Barricade, but the glowing spot remained.

“I… I don’t really know.” His gaze was drawn to the Allspark images. The glyphs seemed to whirl in front of his eyes. “Freaky…”

And then everything around him blacked out.

°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°

Bumblebee was frantic. More than frantic. He was bordering on all-out panic. Ratchet had taken Sam to the medical ward and called the Major, who had in turn informed someone Bumblebee had never heard of that they had a medical emergency. Ratchet, Ironhide, Will and himself had then driven to a specific hospital, Ratchet with Sam as his ‘patient’, where they had already been expected.

Ever since his charge had been admitted into the building, there had been no word.

Everyone was sitting nervously in the parking lot and Lennox was alternating between the ER and the lot, keeping them as informed as possible.

Jazz had joined them not much later, Barricade in tow, and while Optimus would raise too many questions in his car form in a hospital parking lot, he had parked not far away.

Sam’s parents had not been informed, mainly because they had nothing to tell them and Optimus wanted to wait on the results first.

They came several hours later.

Standing between the transformed Autobots – and one Decepticon – was the man who had introduced himself as Dr. Mark Keyron. An electronic murmur went through the mechanoids when the man added that he had worked for Sector Seven prior to this.

“You can access my record,” Keyron said, looking at each of them. “Major Lennox has already approved of me, right after my application. I know my affiliation with Sector Seven doesn’t place me in high regard, but in cases like these you can’t use a normal doctor. I treated my share of employees throughout the years I was at the Hoover Dam facility, all injuries related to alien technology. I know my way around that particular matter.”

“Sam wasn’t injured,” Bumblebee spoke up.

“Not in a physical way, no,” Keyron agreed. “You can download my detailed report if you want to, so I give you the abbreviated version. Sam’s body has started to change. Part of his cellular structure shows mutation.”

“Mutation?” Bumblebee interrupted. “But… Sam is a normal human being.”

“I agree. At least he was until he ran into you guys. In biology, mutations are changes to the base pair sequence of genetic material, either DNA or RNA. Mutations can be caused by copying errors in the genetic material during cell division and by exposure to ultraviolet or ionizing radiation, chemical mutagens, or viruses, or can occur deliberately under cellular control during processes such as meiosis or hypermutation. In Sam’s case, it was most likely the Allspark.”

“What?” Ironhide exclaimed. “Impossible!”

Keyron remained calm in the face of the loud exclamation. “Sam was exposed to the radiation of the Allspark, more than any human being I ever encountered. It released two waves of energy: once when he accidentally created several earth-based transformers, and the next time when he killed Megatron. That was more energy than the Allspark ever released in all the time Sector Seven had it.”

The Cybertronians shifted uneasily.

“Sector Seven studied the Allspark for decades, but they never directed that power at a human. They created artificial life forms. I can’t detect any radiation of it on or inside Sam, but what you told me and what he recounted himself leads me to believe that something happened to him. That and the fact that the MRI kinda died on us throughout an exam,” Keyron smiled wryly, “then came back to life without anyone even laying a hand on it. Sam apologized profusely, though he has no clue as to what happened.”

“The Allspark can’t have an effect on organic life!” Ratchet whispered, sounding shocked. “There has never been a recorded incident…”

“How many organics have visited your world and came in direct contact with an energy burst of the Allspark?” Keyron asked matter-of-factly.

Silence.

“Point made?” the man asked.

“But…” Ratchet tried, then fell silent. “Impossible,” he repeated. “The Allspark affects machine life, not organic. There must be a mistake!”

“It’s a theory, Ratchet. It’s the only one, the only viable one, we have right now. Only one event in Sam’s life was that massive. That and the fact that he can apparently now influence machine life to a degree. I’m jumping to conclusions, but what I’ve heard and seen…”

“What will be the next step?” Optimus asked.

“Well, actually I have no clue.” Keyron shrugged. “This isn’t something anyone on this planet has probably ever encountered before. I still don’t have an answer why it took two years for these genetic changes to manifest. Normally radiation affects human tissue in a more or less immediate manner, changing it, changing the human body. Sam should have seen or felt changes before now, but he told me he was fine until a few weeks ago when the headaches started. What he now has is like technological telepathy, if I have to give it a name. Sam told me how he can understand machinery he has never seen before, disassemble and reassemble it without a handbook. He said he once zoned on Bumblebee’s spark and later on Jazz’s.”

Bumblebee and Jazz shifted on their shocks and Barricade rolled noiselessly closer to his partner.

“I want to keep him under observation, see how far this goes. He has to train what he can do. These zone-outs are spikes of his ability,” Keyron went on. “He needs to learn about himself. And he needs you to trust him.”

“We do trust him!” Bumblebee blurted. “I mean, I’m his friend. I know he wouldn’t hurt me intentionally.”

“Good. As long as he has at least one friend he might be willing to take this on, instead of running into the desert and hiding,” Keyron remarked dryly. “Because frankly, the boy’s scared shitless of what he can do. And it’s not getting less. He’s growing into this.”

“I’ll help,” Bumblebee said firmly. “Whatever he needs me to do.”

Keyron smiled briefly. “Thank you.”

“And he’ll be under our observation,” Optimus added.

Keyron inclined his head. “I understand.”

Trust was not easily come by. Those men in Major Lennox’s team that had formerly worked for Sector Seven had a) been closely screened by Prime himself and b) had proven themselves. Keyron was an unknown factor and Sam was vulnerable.

“Sam’s itching to leave,” the man told them. “I’ll get everything ready, then you can take him home. Just remember, he can easily zone in on any one of you. It’s not an attack. He can’t control it sometimes. Give him time, nudge him back now and then, and if something bad happens, have Major Lennox contact me.”

“Thank you,” Prime only rumbled.

°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°

Sam had insisted to keep his parents out of the loop. He was nineteen and no longer a child, as he put it. His parents wouldn’t know about the hospital visit or the diagnosis. Keyron had told him since he was no official doctor he wouldn’t write reports or file insurance claims. Optimus wasn’t happy about keeping the Witwicky seniors in the dark. The Autobots understood the child-parent responsibilities and Sam’s parents, in his opinion, had a right to know.

But Sam put his foot down.

“If I have to be a freak, I want to be a freak on my own,” Sam hat muttered and then started on a long walk across the deserted airstrip.

Bumblebee had remained behind, unhappy, longing to help, and totally out of his depth.

All of them were.

Because this was new to the mechanoids, and even their human friends and allies had no idea what to do.

Keyron had told him that his rising sweet tooth was actually his body’s way of saying there were changes that needed energy, and that energy was taken from sugar. Lots of sugar. The human brain needed a whole lot of energy and this energy requirement was off the scale in Sam.

Sam let the wind ruffle his short hair, watched the dead grass sway in the strong breeze, and he wondered why him. He had handled the Allspark and he had killed Megatron. He had survived an apocalyptic battle and he had come out unscathed – but not his cells. Something had been changed and he had to deal with it.

Only him.

No one could help him.

This was his brain, his body, his freaky mutant ability.

* * *

It proved to be a challenge to help Sam with training what Ratchet had soon dubbed ‘technopathy’. Everything mechanical and electronic was subject to Sam’s power to understand it, look into it, and if his powers spiked, systems glitched because he didn’t access them correctly. Ratchet timed the spikes and found that prolonged ‘exposure’ to one of them had Sam log onto a particular machine and his mind became somehow interested to delve deeper.

“Sam can’t change machines,” the medic reported to Optimus. “What he can do is interface with them. It’s like our natural ability to uplink to a system and download information, talk electronically to each other, and so on. Sam creates a mental interface with computer data.”

“With us,” Prime stated.

“Yes. But since his human brain is unaccustomed to the data input through his new senses, he starts harming the other side. He doesn’t want it, but it’s a natural defence against the unknown.”

“So all we can do is get him accustomed to us?”

“Yes.”

And that was proving more and more difficult.

Human machines were easier to ignore for the young man than the more complex Cybertronians. It was as if his power was like a curious child and wanted to look deeper into the complexities.

Staying home over night at the Witwicky house was less problematic than feared. Sam didn’t cause too much trouble electronically. A microwave sputtered and died, but his father claimed it was age, and there was a power flux a week later, but since it encompassed most of the neighborhood, no one wondered about it. Sam used the time he was at home to avoid falling into a trap laid out by an interesting mechanical device, like the TV, his clock, his computer or anything else, and soon learned to ignore the soft pulses.

The Autobots were more difficult.

Training that was hard and intense for both sides involved. Sam would get headaches and the mechanoid in question would have system failures. Never anything important, but it wasn’t good either. And whenever he used too much of his power, his food intake doubled or tripled, mostly high caloric nourishment, like chocolate.

Sam felt bad about each and every time he unconsciously hurt one of his friends, and soon he refused to use any of the Autobots as ‘practice’.

“Sam, we’re the most advanced machine life forms,” Ratchet told him, looking at the depressed young man. “Yes, your mind can hurt us, but you need to work on this. You need to control what you can do.”

“But you said it yourself, I can hurt you!” Sam cried.

“Not if you train.”

“I’m trying, Ratchet! I really am! But I hurt you and I don’t want that anymore!”

“You need control. To learn you have to make mistakes.”

“Not when they are harmful to you.”

“Sam…”

But Sam turned and left, walking out of the medical area.


If Ratchet had wanted to, he could have easily followed, but he didn’t. Instead he went back to the files he was already studying and in the end he dialed Mark Keyron’s number.

°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°

Mark Keyron was no fool. He knew the Autobots only trusted him as far as they knew his file – and that had a Sector Seven marker on it. Not all Sector Seven employees had been sadistic bastards or wanna-be dictators. Many had just done their job. He had been hired because of his extensive medical training and because accidents happened while working on the Allspark. Like many he had had no idea what had gone on behind the scenes. He had never truly understood the depth of the experiments, had only seen the results in form of injured people. Some had even been killed by the out of control machines. But the truth about it all had been as top secret as the whole organization.

Tom Banachek and Secretary of Defense John Keller had personally screened the people remaining on the staff that dealt with the alien presence. Some more personally than others, he mused. Major Lennox and his team were as close and personal as things got. Keyron had been cleared and he was back in government service, just in a different department. Banachek was still his boss, though.

Now he puzzled over the case of Sam Witwicky. Keyron had treated people working with the Allspark and none of them had ever exhibited such symptoms, let alone changed their genetic make-up.

And that was exactly what was happening to the boy. His genetic code was… altered.

Keyron leafed through the extensive print from the DNA sequence analyzer, something he had run three times, just to be sure, and then marked the differences to normal human DNA. This wasn’t about having a small defect, this was major. There were a lot more marks than was truly healthy – and Sam was still alive. He had the boy’s history and it was unremarkable until the day he had met the Autobots.

The doctor leaned back and rubbed his tired eyes. He had a million questions, but one stuck out and he had to talk to the one person who had been with Sam at that time.

Using a special cell phone, he dialed the unregistered number of the Autobot base, particularly the extension that would get him Optimus Prime.

°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°

For Sam, normalcy had gone out the window pretty fast the day he had ‘bought’ the old, beat-up Camaro. Within a few days he had been introduced to the fact that there was alien life on other planets, that this alien life came in form of giant robots, that these giant robots needed him, and that he had then saved his whole planet from destruction by the Decepticons. Yes, normalcy was something other than killing the leader of the bad guys with an alien artifact that had created a whole race.

Sitting on a low wall across from an ice cream shop, sharing a fabulous day with fantastic ice cream with his ex girlfriend was almost too boring to register on his expectation scale. Other guys would fall all over themselves to win Mikaela Banes back. They would beg and plead and whine and make fools out of themselves. Sam didn’t even try.

Mikaela was still as stunning and beautiful as he remembered her. She hadn’t changed much in the past weeks.

Unlike himself.

Freak.

Sam concentrated on his ice cream and tried not to think too much about the truth and reality of his life right now.

Mikaela was watching him, looking rather shocked and thunderstruck after he had stopped explaining to her what had happened to him.

“Sam…” she finally broke the silence.

He shook his head. “No, there’s nothing anyone can do,” he answered the unspoken question. “And it’s not some cheesy way to keep you here. I just… needed to talk to someone. Someone who’s cleared.” He gave her an apologetic smile.

Mikaela reached for his hand and squeezed it gently. “I’ll always be your friend, okay? I know what I said in Vegas was… dumb. I didn’t mean to hurt you. I didn’t mean it to come out the way it did.”

“I know.”

“You do?”

Sam smiled briefly. “Hey, I say a lot of stupid things. I know what it’s like.”

She laughed softly, then grew serious. “So, it’s all because of the Allspark?”

He nodded. “And it’s there to stay. I just have to train it, but it’s like… showing chocolate to a chocolate addict. Just being around them… I want to be closer. It’s difficult, Mikaela, and I hurt them.”

She gave him a sad look. “But if you run away, won’t that make it even more difficult? You can be around Earth technology, you learned how to. You can learn how to be around Bumblebee and the others.”

“I blew several machines before I learned how to not harm a DVD player,” Sam argued. “I can’t just go around tearing their systems apart!”

“If I understood you correctly, Ratchet and the others actually volunteered to help.”

Sam opened his mouth, then snapped it shut again. “I won’t do it!”

Mikaela squeezed his hand again, sympathetic. “It won’t solve anything,” she stated.

“I know.”

“Then do something that solves it,” Mikaela only said.

Sam’s eyes were on the traffic on the street. Everything looked so normal.

“Sam?”

“Hm?”

“Promise me to do something about this,” Mikaela said softly. “You can beat this. You can be around them without harming any one of them. They are your friends.”

“Which is why it’s so hard to know that my training is painful for them,” he answered truthfully.

Mikaela hugged him. A few months ago it would have sent thrills of delight through him, now it was just a platonic gesture.

“You can do it,” she told him with conviction. “Believe in yourself.”

* * *

Optimus Prime had been around long enough that he didn’t judge a person by his past alone. Dr. Mark Keyron had been working for the very organization that had tortured Bumblebee and would have killed the Autobots if they a) could have done so and b) should they post a threat. He understood humanity’s reactions, of course. Alien invasion was scary and dangerous. Giant alien robots were frightening for this organic race. And battling out their war on the humans’ planet hadn’t helped. All life protected itself first. If that meant killing someone or something else, it would be killed.

Survival. Reactions born out of fear.

Keyron had proven to be a valuable person and Banachek had vouched for him, which was good enough for Prime – after he had extensively studied the man’s background.

“Thank you for talking to me, Prime,” the man now said respectfully.

“You said you had questions about the battle against Megatron, as well as his death.”

Keyron nodded. “Sam was with you at the time, correct?”

“Yes.”

“That was after Bumblebee gave him the Allspark and after the Allspark gave brief life to Earth machines by accident.”

“Correct.”

“Sam gave me a brief version of what happened and he mentioned you told him to push the Allspark into your chest.”

Prime nodded.

“The Allspark would then react with yours and destroy both you and Megatron, correct?”

“Yes.”

“You, as a Cybertronian, can trigger the Allspark? I know that Bumblebee activated its own transformation sequence, having it shed weight and size. But could you get it to self-destruct?”

Prime was silent for a moment. “Not directly,” he then said. “But the energy contained in my spark would react with the Allspark, where it came from, and it would then be destroyed.”

“Your spark,” Keyron confirmed. “What about the Allspark?”

“It would most likely perish, too. The resulting energy cascade would be too much for it to remain stable and by becoming unstable, it would react with the energy released by my spark, destroying us both.”

“So how did Sam activate the Allspark to destroy Megatron?”

Optimus gazed at the human, confused. “He didn’t…”

“He did, Prime. I talked to Sam at length and he said he didn’t want you to sacrifice yourself, he wanted to help since he felt responsible for a lot of things that happened, and when Megatron tried to take him, he held up the cube and it released its energy.” Keyron met the blue optics levely. “How could the Allspark self-destruct without touching a life spark?”

“It must have…”

“Did you tear Megatron’s chest plate off? Did he have any injuries that concerned his spark?”

“No.”

“Then what happened?”

Optimus accessed his memories of that moment and he was stunned to discover that there had been indeed no direct contact between his brother’s spark and the Allspark. The Allspark had simply… dissolved into a ray of pure energy. It had been a tight, intense beam that had erupted right into the Decepticon leader’s chest. In his memories he saw the moment the symbols glowed, he saw Sam’s determination, he watched him push the Allspark up and then… annihilation. There had been no trigger for the cube. None at all.

“You have a theory?” he asked of Keyron.

“Currently I only have a lot of different ideas, but none based on scientific facts. What I can tell you is that Sam was changed through the Allspark energy. In the past two years his body underwent this change and the first manifestation is the technopathy.”

“So there could be more.” It wasn’t even a question any more.

“Possible. Likely. I don’t know.”

Optimus gave an electronic sigh. “This should not have happened.”

“But it did. And whatever you think, you had nothing to do with it.”

“How do you know?”

The human smiled. “Because no one can foresee the future. You did what you thought best for your people and your planet. You didn’t know the Allspark would eventually end up on our world. You didn’t know Megatron would find it. You didn’t know he broke through the ice and spent millennia underneath the surface, to be found by our ancestors. All of that you didn’t know and no one could have foreseen it. It’s impossible.” He smirked a little. “And we humans tend to be unpredictable in our behavior. What Sam did, he wouldn’t have done if he had thought about it. He reacted by instinct and blew logic into the wind.”

“I noticed,” Optimus said wryly.

Keyron smiled at him. “We protect what we see worth protecting. We will do whatever is necessary to survive. For Sam, the moment he had to make that decision to help you in your suicide became the turning point for everything. He didn’t want to kill you, so he did something no one can explain.”

“I have been surprised by your kind quite often in the last two years,” Optimus agreed. “You are quite fascinating.”

Keyron chuckled. “Thank you. As are you.”

“What do you want to do now?”

The human looked surprised, then caught himself. “There is nothing I can actively do but monitor Sam’s development. He isn’t physically ill. His DNA has changed and with it his body’s working order, but nothing is making him sick in a way that a pill or an injection would cure. No one can undo what the Allspark has done. We can only try to help Sam understand and handle it.”

Prime nodded, not happy. Very clearly not happy. It was one thing to know a friend had been injured, another to come to terms with the fact that there was nothing anyone could do.

“Thank you,” he finally said.

“You’re welcome. I’ll keep you up to date.”

“We appreciate your help.”

For a moment Keyron looked a bit wary, then he just inclined his head and left. Optimus understood the man’s hesitation since they had made no secret of their distrust because of where he had worked before. The past was the past, though.

He had to tell himself that little fact over and over to stop the guilt. Sam was just another victim of a war his people had had nothing to do with. Too many humans had died in Mission City and before that in Qatar. They were another number to add to the total death toll and Optimus Prime mourned every single one of them.

°° °° °° °° °°

The arrival of Jazz jarred him out of his thoughts.

“Hey,” his second in command greeted him. “Bad news?”

Jazz had always been good at reading him, especially in his moods, and Prime sighed softly.

“I can’t say. Dr. Keyron and I talked. He made me think about some things.”

“Like?”

“How could Sam activate the Allspark to kill Megatron?”

Jazz was silent. He hadn’t been there, hadn’t witnessed it. Actually, at that time, he had been quite dead.

“Megatron didn’t trigger it. I didn’t either. My memories of the moment are very clear,” Optimus continued. “He pushed the Allspark over his head and it exploded into a beam of energy. Just toward Megatron. It didn’t harm Sam either. He had no burns, nothing.”

“Bumblebee shrunk the Allspark inside the Sector Seven facility. He later gave it to Sam,” Jazz thought out loud.

“But Bumblebee wasn’t there when Megatron was killed. None of us were near.”

Jazz leaned against the wall, arms crossed over his chest, looking thoughtful. “Damn mystery,” he muttered. “Never really gave it a thought.”

“Me neither. Now Sam has been changed by what happened that day. None of the humans working with the Allspark ever exhibited any changes, only Sam.”

“Because they only bled off small amounts of Allspark energy, Prime. They never had it go up around them.”

He nodded. “And none of them ever had it react to them.”

Jazz frowned a little. “You think Sam… made the Allspark do it? He willed it to kill Megatron?”

“No. I think he was aware of the potential, knew my plan, and he somehow triggered the explosion without harming anyone else.”

“But why him?”

Prime was silent for a moment, then, “Chance or fate. A lot of factors played together to let him meet us. His grandfather found Megatron, he inherited the glasses, he needed the money and tried to sell them off, and the Decepticons had found Earth. If just one factor had not worked in our favor, we might either be too late, too early, or would never have found this boy. Sam was never special, but when the Allspark was given into his care, something happened to him.”

“Genetics?” Jazz hazarded a guess. “You think some organic beings react to the Allspark?”

“Possibly. We don’t know where it came from. We don’t know who created it. We used it, we came from it, but we never found out the truth about this powerful device. Maybe an organic race created it,” Optimus added. “Maybe it recognized a pattern and went with it.”

“We’ll never know,” Jazz agreed. “So… what about Sam?”

“Dr. Keyron said there is no treatment for DNA changes. All we can do is support him, help him as much as we can, and I know Bumblebee will do all that and more.”

Jazz grinned. “Yeah. You can bet on it.”

There was a beeping noise and Jazz activated his communicator. Suddenly his optics flared and he spat a Cybertronian curse.

“Jazz?” Prime asked, rising quickly.

“It’s Barricade. Something happened involving Sam and him,” the silver Autobot answered quickly. He was already out the door and Prime followed him.

Something cold settled in his fuel pump. Whenever Barricade was brought up he felt slight apprehension because a part of him expected the worst. The former Decepticon was part of his unit, but he knew tensions remained, especially with Ironhide. Barricade only came into the base when he had to, mostly to recharge after Jazz dragged him in, and once to have his mistreated systems cleaned out by Ratchet. His medical officer had told him in what shape the black mech had been.

Now it involved Sam, too. A Sam who was a technopath. Barricade and Sam had developed a strange relationship that baffled Prime. Whatever caused Barricade to protect the human, he didn’t know. He just appreciated it.

Following his first lieutenant, he tried not to think of worst case scenarios, but they came unbidden.

* * *

Things were not getting easier. Sam tried to be normal, go out and have fun, watch movies, be with friends, but whenever technology touched him, he was reminded of his difference. He didn’t blow up much – just set off a car alarm and later a sprinkler system in a Starbuck’s – but he really couldn’t relax.

His parents still didn’t know a thing, but his Mom wouldn’t be his Mom if she didn’t suspect something. Sam had some rather stupid explanations ready and he mostly fled to be somewhere else.

Libraries became a favorite haunt. Reading books on his study subjects and making notes took up a lot of time. He was mostly too tired in the evening to do much but fall into bed and sleep.

Bumblebee was always there, discretely in the background, though his presence was quite obvious for a technopath.

Mikaeala called sometimes. It became a habit to talk to her, but the fact that she and her father were moving away put a damper on things. Her father had been released from prison, his rap sheet was clean, and now they were about to make a new start. Like Sam’s parents he had been told about his daughter’s involvement in saving the world and the existence of giant robot aliens. Her father, being the grease monkey he was – as well as the car thief he was – had been fascinated, but he wanted a more mundane job.

So they were going to LA.

It wasn’t out of the world, sure, but it was like losing a friend.

And it really didn’t help with his training…

°°° °°° °°° °°°

Sam had chosen the far border of the former Airforce base site to sit down and brood. There was no other description for it. The sun was already setting and in a few hours it would be dark, but he hadn’t cared about that detail when he had set out for a long walk that had eventually led him here. It was a lonely spot, at the very end of the cracked tarmac, looking at… nothing much. There were the mountains in the distance, all hazy and shimmering in a bluish purple. Dry grass and withered bushes fought against the dry heat of the day. It wasn’t overly hot and Sam had taken a bottle of water, and the night would be cold.

Not that he planned to stay the night. Just for a little while, let his mind wander outside the confines of the base. Bumblebee had not followed him, much to Sam’s relief. He had just blown another system inside the Camaro and felt more than depressed about it. His friend was suffering because of what he had become; all the Autobots had.

Technopathy -- it sounded so cool, but it was such a terrible thing. As much as he had wanted to be closer to his friends, this was not how he had imagined it to go. All Sam had ever wanted was to understand Cybertronian technology – the conventional way. He had applied for college and had planned to become the best engineer there was, knowing both technologies inside out.

Now he was a freak. A genetically altered human. He wasn’t himself any more. He was… different. A mutant.

Sam snorted as the idea of the X-Men came up. Yeah, right. Add some spandex and a cape and a new superhero was born. With a cool, flashy name he might even start a fan club.

As if.

Daily interaction with Bumblebee was painful and his control was always slipping. He was drawn to his friend, wanted to be so close, wanted to interface on a level only known to mechanoids, and then his mind panicked. Overwhelmed by the alien signals, Sam would lash out and incidentally hurt Bumblebee or the others.

“This sucks,” he whispered.

It sucked big time.

‘Believe in yourself’ Mikaela had said. He had tried and he had failed. Several times. It was just impossible to get a handle of this! His abilities were going haywire and he had no clue how to stop them. He could be around everyday electronics and resist the temptation, but Bumblebee and the others were like candy for a little kid.

There was the sound of sand crunching under tires and Sam looked up, freezing slightly at the sight of the Saleen Mustang coming to an almost noiseless stop not far away. Barricade’s presence was no longer a reason for nightmares and fear, but things had changed. Sam had seen…

He swallowed.

He had seen what Barricade and Jazz shared; he had seen something private. It was also immensely beautiful. It was strong and powerful and echoed with their sparks’ energies. Sam had been riveted by the connection and for the first time he understood what it really meant. This wasn’t just affection. It was everything. It was finding something you needed, wanted and always knew was out there.

Barricade knew what Sam had seen and felt. He had been there.

“Why are you here?” he heard himself ask.

“Not by choice,” came the rumble. “Your guardian seems to be unable to do what is necessary, and the rest of the Autobots are too weak-minded and sympathetic.”

Sam frowned. “What?”

“You seem to exhibit traits of your kind,” Barricade growled. “Not like an Autobot. You are made for each other.” Sam could hear the sneer.

“Huh?”

“You run when things get difficult.”

Sam bristled and he opened his mouth to snap something, but he bit it back.

“It’s healthier for you guys.”

“I don’t agree.”

“’Cause I haven’t fried any of your systems yet!”

“Apparently. You are avoiding me.”

Sam snorted. Yeah, he was. Wonder why. Not only was Barricade a former Decepticon, he was the former Decepticon Sam had spied on. He had seen something more private than even Barricade’s core programming was. While Jazz might have reservations about terminating a danger to their connection, Barricade didn’t have those restraints. Above all else, he protected the bond.

“I represent your fears, human. You are perfectly willing to hurt your friends, but not the one you perceive as your enemy?”

Sam clenched his hands into fists. He would never hurt anyone with his abilities. Never!

“Do you fear me, Sam Witwicky?”

Freaked out maybe. But not really. Barricade had slowly turned into an ally in Sam’s head. He treated the former Decepticon with a whole lot respect and tried not to get on his bad side, but so far they hadn’t met outside the base more than a few times. And twice Barricade had actually saved him from something a lot worse.

“You fear me,” Barricade stated, darkness bleeding into his voice. “Still you won’t use your abilities on me. You rather torture your friends.”

“I’m not torturing them!” he exclaimed, jumping to his feet.

“Then what do you call system crashes at your hands?”

“I didn’t…”

“Your guardian had several programs glitch so badly, Ratchet needed him to power down.”

“I didn’t intend to hurt Bumblebee!” Sam cried.

“But you did.”

“No! I don’t want this! It’s just happening!”

“Then work on controlling it,” Barricade hissed, rolling closer.

Sam was breathing heavier now, fear racing through him. When Barricade transformed, something inside him whimpered.

“You sneak into our systems, you wreak havoc… you’re a weapon out of control,” Barricade stated.

“I am not a weapon!”

Barricade swayed a little.

Sam’s mind seemed to sizzle.

“Then show me you can control what you are.”

“I can’t!”

“You can.”

“No! I don’t even know how I’m doing it! I didn’t want this!” Sam cried.

Barricade went down on one knee, optics flaring. “But you have it, human. You can do it. You hurt them by just being there. You can destroy them.”

Sam was shaking. Something inside Barricade seemed to explode and the former Decepticon gave a little gasp.

“You’re a tool, Witwicky.”

“No!”

“Be used or learn to be of use!”

“NO!”

Barricade’s claws dug into the desert ground and his exclamation of pain had Sam whimper in denial. His mind was caught inside the former Decepticon’s systems, racing through them, tearing him apart, and he couldn’t stop it.

Couldn’t…

No…

Please, no!

His mind encountered the brightness of the other’s spark, recognized its life and power, saw the connection, wanted to go along it, find the other half…

And then was stopped dead in his tracks by something powerful and cold and dark curling around him.

Imprisoning him.

Taking him down.

Holding him in place.

Sam wanted to tear out of the strong hold, but like claws something clamped down around him.

“You can control this,” Barricade hissed. “You can and you will.”

“Can’t,” Sam pleaded. “Please…”

“If you follow where you want to go, you will hurt and maybe tear apart the one thing I protect with my life. You have to kill me first. Will you do it, human? Set your mind free and erase my existence.? Prove to them all that you are a useless tool?”

“No!”

“It’s either me or Jazz. Choose.”

“I won’t kill either of you! Please let me go!”

“How can I trust you to retreat?” Barricade asked maliciously. “You’re out of control.”

Sam was twisting in the grasp. He could feel Barricade weakening around him, but his mental hold was still unbreakable. Finally he stilled.

“I won’t kill either of you,” he repeated. “Barricade, please… You’re… I’m… hurting you.”

It got him a laugh. “Nothing you do can ever come close to what I’ve felt before, human.”

Sam closed his eyes. Images flickered through his mind. Memories of a war, of pain, of injuries and torture, of the dark, dark hole that had opened inside Barricade with the news of Jazz’s death.

“Sorry,” he whispered softly.

Apologizing for the pain, for the loss, for stealing a look.

Barricade was silent. Finally, “Accepted.”

“Let me go?”

Nothing happened.

“Barricade?”

The darkness around him shifted, then he was suddenly free.

Sam opened his eyes, still in the desert, still at the edge of the Airfield, and he was looking at fading red optics in a terrifying face.

“Barricade?” he exclaimed.

There was no answer.

“Ohgodohgodohgod…” Sam mumbled. “No, please! I didn’t… I didn’t want that… I…”

His panicky mind dove along the access points it had already created and tried to grab for anything he could feel of Barricade, holding him together. He felt systems give under his ‘helping’ hands and he pulled back with a cry of fear and denial.

Again he felt the beckoning of the other spark that Barricade was connected to, but he refused to fall for it.

Looking for vital systems, Sam isolated them from the failure everywhere, then stepped back.

He was breathing hard.

He had no idea what he had just done.

And he was shaking like a leaf.

Metal fingers touched him and he flinched.

Red optics glowed slightly in a dark face.

Sam was mesmerized, aware of so many things, of nothing in particular, of everything altogether, of… Barricade’s spark going into emergency stasis lock to keep from overloading.

And then there was the reassuring growl of other engines, followed by a babble of voices. He detected Jazz, frantic, and Bumblebee, equally frantic. Ratchet, shocked, and Ironhide, close to losing it. Optimus Prime, like a rock in a sea.

Sam smiled briefly, then he gave in to his weak knees and shaking body.

* * *

Ironhide didn’t know whether to be amused or to actually pity the black mechanoid on Ratchet’s table. He decided on a mixture of both.

Barricade had been found in stasis lock, his systems badly overtaxed, and he hadn’t responded to surface probes at all. Ratchet had brought him back and run a full diagnostic, his expression growing darker and darker by the moment. In the end he had delivered a rather chilling report.

The former Decepticon had apparently willingly taken on Sam’s out-of-control abilities and nearly lost.

That Sam had been equally overtaxed, unconscious and after waking barely coherent had only shown that both sides had been strong in that battle.

Jazz had been frantic the whole time, his anxiety only equaled by Bumblebee’s. Both Autobots hadn’t left the medical area, wanting to know about their respective friend/partner, and Ratchet had finally snapped at them to at least keep the pacing down or he would boot them outside.

That had helped.

Currently Barricade was getting a tongue lashing from Jazz who wasn’t about to wind down in the next hour or two, Ironhide mused.

“Of all the stupid stunts I’ve seen you pull!” Jazz’s loud voice drifted over to him. “I didn’t know you were suicidal, Barricade!”

Neither had Ironhide, and what Barricade had done had been nothing but suicidal. Sam could have killed him, according to Ratchet, because his abilities were immense when it came to machines.

“What were you thinking?!”

Ironhide turned and met the blue optics of his leader. Optimus Prime had joined him a few minutes ago, silent, watching, waiting.

“No, scratch that! You weren’t thinking at all!”

“Would you please stop shouting?” Barricade could be heard, the dark voice level, almost inflectionless.

“I’ll stop shouting when your audio receptors connect to your brain and you understand what you did!”

“I knew exactly what I was doing.”

“Oh?! Confronting Sam, making him angry, getting a rise out of him? That might have been a fun past time a few months ago, but he has changed!” Jazz yelled.

“I noticed.”

“And you made him lose it!”

“Yes.”

There was a moment of breathless silence, then, “What?!”

“I said I made him lose his control, or lack thereof,” Barricade stated. “All your coddling won’t help him handle what he is. He has to understand his powers, come to terms with how lethal they can be if not controlled. He gives you energon pump burns and system hiccups, but he runs before he can truly explore all he can really do.”

“And you… you played guinea pig?” Jazz’s voice rose a little. “What in the name of Cybertron is going on in that mind of yours?!”

“It was the logical way to end this.”

“By ending your own life?”

Optimus Prime stepped past Ironhide and walked into the medical area. Barricade stiffened a little, growing almost immediately wary. Prime met the red optics with a calm Ironhide didn’t possess himself. Barricade had nearly been terminated by Sam and the boy was beside himself with guilt, but to think that the former Con had done it voluntarily? It blew everything Ironhide had ever thought of Barricade apart. Decepticons weren’t the sacrificial kind and Barricade had too much to lose. He would never endanger Jazz like that.

“Thank you,” Prime now only said. “Though I have to agree with my First Lieutenant that it was stupid.”

“It got the results you needed,” was the level statement.

“You could have died.”

“I didn’t.”

Jazz’s optics flared and Ironhide really did feel with his friend.

“No, you didn’t, and I hope this won’t happen again.”

Barricade almost smirked, but he didn’t answer.

“How is Sam?” Jazz asked.

“Scared. He calmed him down somewhat and Bumblebee is with him, but he is terrified of what he has done.” Prime shot the black mechanoid a pointed look.

Barricade didn’t comment, just looked back, silent.

“I called Dr. Keyron. He might be able to help,” Prime added.

Barricade snorted. “The human can only help himself. He has to stop fearing what he is and accept what he can do.”

“And you’re the great expert?” Ironhide challenged.

“No.”

“But you provoked him enough to attack you,” Jazz added.

“He could have erased my systems had he wanted to, but he didn’t,” Barricade stated coolly. “He can limit his abilities if he has the mind to do so. You babied him with your training sessions. You stopped when he felt uncomfortable or when it was too close to home for any one of you.”

Jazz stared at his partner, dumbstruck. Prime frowned a little.

“So you taunted him to attack you to do what?” Ironhide demanded. “Kill you and have a learning experience?”

Barricade laughed. “Don’t sound so shocked, Autobot. You wouldn’t mourn my passing.”

Jazz smacked the black mechanoid’s shoulder, startling them all, most of all Barricade himself. Anger glowed in the blue optics.

“I’ll kill you myself if you ever do something as idiotic as this ever again! You’re not expendable, least of all to me! I don’t care what Ironhide thinks, but you matter to me, Cade!”

The expression in the dark features softened a little. It was clear for everyone to see that electronically both were by now saying a lot more than any of the others could hear.

“What you did is commendable, Barricade,” Prime said into the silence. “But to run this without a safety net was foolish. I agree that we might have handled Sam’s situation wrongly, but our experience with his kind of abilities is limited to non-existent.”

“No one knows about technopathy in humans,” the former Decepticon agreed. “But with every new ability, in us or another race, it comes down to the simple fact that it has to be used, that mistakes have to be made to learn from them.”

Prime inclined his head. “I am aware of that. We know little about humans and one of their kind has developed an ability that was caused by contact with the Allspark. None of our scientists ever foresaw an influence on organic life.”

“It happened. Deal with it.”

Ironhide crossed his arms, glowering at the other. “Easy for you to say,” he muttered.

Jazz glared at him.

“Ratchet, will he be all right?” Prime asked.

Ratchet, who had kept out of the whole bickering, nodded. “His systems were overtaxed and he needs to let self-repair do its job, but Barricade will be fine.”

The former Decepticon slid off the examination table and left the medical area. Jazz followed, determined not let his partner out of his sight. Ironhide turned his optics away from the two figures, meeting those of Optimus Prime.

“Stupid stunt,” the weapons specialist said, “but he has a point.”

“I know,” was the thoughtful answer. “It was an extreme way to tell us.”

“He’s a Con.” Ironhide shrugged, but there was no malice or anger in his voice. It was a simple statement.

°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°

Sam had holed up in the farthest corner of the medical area, feeling tremors running through his body. His eyes stung and he knew he had cried, and he wasn’t even ashamed of it. Stress and fear and emotional pain had all broken through when he had come to understand what he had almost done and he had wept for what seemed like ages. As much as he had tried to push away everyone, Bumblebee had persisted and remained.

Currently his friend sat beside him, almost mirroring his position – legs pulled up, arms around his knees – and was watching him. No words were spoken, but Sam was very much aware of his friend’s presence.

He had nearly killed Barricade.

And he had tried to follow the spark connection to Jazz’s spark and do the same.

He was a monster.

He was out of control!

Someone touched him and Sam winced away, but the large hand was everywhere and he just fell deeper into the touch.

“Sam,” Bumblebee said softly.

He was still shaking. He was still feeling the pain from Barricade, the memories of war and torture…

“Sam.”

“You shouldn’t be here,” Sam managed. “I’m dangerous.”

“You’re my friend. I won’t leave you.”

“I could kill you.”

“Yes. But you haven’t.”

“I… I nearly killed Barricade.” And Jazz.

One of Bee’s fingers gently rubbed over his back. “He’s alive.”

“B-but…”

“You stopped, Sam. And he provoked you.”

“He stopped me,” Sam murmured, remembering the iron grip. “He held me down and told me to stop. Why did he do it, Bee?” he whispered.

“Because you finally stopped being a victim to your abilities,” a rough voice startled both human and mechanoid.

Bumblebee’s optics flared, defensive mechanism briefly rising. Sam gave a cry of surprise and pushed back into the larger palm. Barricade just looked at him as if he was a really bothersome bug.

“Barricade,” Bumblebee warned.

“Don’t you think your charge can deal with the truth?” the Saleen challenged. “He has incredible abilities, but if he takes to training like handling raw energon, he won’t ever know what kind of a weapon he can be.”

“I’m not a weapon!” Sam argued, getting to his feet.

“You are,” Barricade snarled. “For whoever controls you. If you can’t take control of yourself, someone else will!”

Bumblebee wanted to say something, then stopped, brow ridges lowering a little as he went over Barricade’s words.

“You’ll be easily influenced, human. You will follow whoever promises you to take the decision away from you,” the black mechanoid continued ruthlessly. “And this person will control what you are. Do you want that?”

“N-no.”

“Then stop pitying yourself and do what needs to be done, even if it hurts.”

“But… I almost killed you.”

“You didn’t. Do you think I’m suicidal, human?”

“Uhm, no…”

“Your Autobot friends can defend themselves. Give them a chance to do so.”

With that Barricade transformed and drove off.

Sam stared after him, dumbstruck.

“He’s got a point. Kinda,” he murmured after a few seconds.

“Yes, he does,” Bumblebee agreed. “Because we can defend ourselves, Sam. It’s strange to feel you, but you’re not unwelcome. Your mind reaches out to us and it needs to get to know who we are, what we are, just like we need to get to know you.”

“I’d blow apart your systems,” Sam pointed out.

“Because you panic. Do you really think I would hurt you?”

“Of course not!”

“Then trust me not to do so when you touch me, Sam.”

Sam rubbed a hand through his hair. “This is so damn confusing, Bee. I want to handle this, but when I think about touching you… I also think I might do something bad.”

“You won’t,” Bumblebee said, sounding convinced. He knelt down to look at his human friend. “We can try this. Just us. Whenever you want to, you can work with me.”

Sam gave him a weak smile. “Thanks.”

“That’s what friends are for, and you’re my best friend on this planet.”

The young man leaned into the touch from the much larger mech, relaxing more. “Thanks. Thanks so much, Bee.”

* * *

Jazz was sticking to Barricade like gum to a shoe, to use a human expression. He didn’t let his partner out of his sight and while Barricade didn’t look amused, he didn’t try to dodge his attention or openly asked him to stop it.

Both mechs had left the base and driven around almost aimlessly until Barricade had stopped at an old overlook that had long since dropped off the tourist maps. It was quiet up here. He didn’t transform and Jazz parked beside him, rolling slowly closer until their car shells were touching.

Reaching out for the other spark, Jazz found he didn’t even have to convince his partner to let him in. Walls went down and Jazz flowed closer to the resonating spark, wrapping himself around Barricade in a tight hug.

::Idiot:: he murmured.

::It was necessary::

::He isn’t your responsibility::

::No, he is Bumblebee’s, but apparently you Autobots seem to be incapable of dealing with this::

Jazz smiled a little. ::Apparently::

Barricade rumbled softly, but he didn’t move away from the intimate contact.

::You scared me, Cade: the silver Autobot said after a while. ::I didn’t take you for the suicidal type::

::I’m not:: came the snarled reply. ::I was handling the situation quite well::

::Until you shut down::

::He wasn’t about to terminate me, Jazz. I imprisoned his mind and I could have obliterated him as much as he could have obliterated me::

Jazz shivered again. He almost absent-mindedly stroked over the other presence, feeling echoes of how bruised and battered Barricade’s systems had been.

::The human has powerful abilities:: Barricade continued. ::He needs to let go of his fears and confront himself. Otherwise someone else will use those fears to misguide him. For all his loyalty to your kind, he can still be manipulated::

Jazz was silent, letting those words sink in. They reminded him of so many young Cybertronians he had known, swayed to Megatron’s cause because they had believed his promises. Naivety and the fervent wish for a better future, for one they shaped, not the old ones of the councils. Sam was very young for his kind, though he had seen more than many, but he was still shaping up to a future that was unsure.

::Still was extreme:: he murmured after a while.

::Granted, it was::

Jazz sighed and felt his spark pulse in synchrony with Barricade’s, calming his still frazzled nerves. By the way Barricade was letting him stay this close, actually encouraging the closeness, he knew how badly it had rattled his partner, too.

That Barricade had done so much for Sam still surprised Jazz, but the last year among the Autobots had shown changes in the former Decepticon. He had accepted them, in a way, and also Sam. Why he had protected the young human so often, he had never told anyone. This last move had stunned them all, especially Ironhide, and Jazz was both proud and confused.

::He’s part of you:: Barricade rumbled, answering the question floating between you.

Part of the Autobot team. An ally. Like Barricade was. So Sam was granted an extended alliance with Barricade in turn.

Jazz was amazed, then sent warmth and appreciation. Barricade remained silent. Jazz didn’t need an answer. He already knew it. They merged, becoming one entity for a brief moment in human time, a very long moment for mechanoids, and Jazz held his partner close.

°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°

Optimus Prime didn’t know how to take what had happened. Sam’s change through the Allspark had been unexpected and shocking, and he felt guilty about it. He had entrusted the young human with the Allspark and he had told Sam to run with it, to be safe. Whether it had been the prolonged contact, the first flash of energy when Sam had tripped, or the final release of everything the Allspark possessed into Megatron’s spark, it really didn’t matter. All of it had played together to change something deep inside Sam, make him different.

The boy was afraid of himself, of his abilities, and his outbreak at Barricade’s hands had only shown how strong he truly was.

But he had control, Optimus reminded himself. He hadn’t killed Barricade. And Barricade had proven he was accomplished at warding off telepathic attacks of this kind, though it had nearly torn him apart as well.

Just another facet.

Walking into the base, Optimus let his optics roam around. There was no trace of Sam. He liked to hang out with the Autobots, but lately he had taken to keeping his distance. It wouldn’t stop Prime, though.

°°° °°° °°° °°° °°°

Sam had found a nice spot on top of the old hangar, lying back and looking into the sky. It was peaceful. A few weeks ago he would have laughed at the notion of seeking such simple pleasure, but too much had changed for him by now. Too much was different. There was too much he could do.

He still felt remnants of Barricade’s presence, of his powerful mind, of the spark with its strong bond, the memories of an ancient mind. Well, all Autobots were ancient compared to a human existence. Sam wasn’t so much shocked by the violence and death, than by what lurked underneath the gruff exterior. Barricade… cared. In his own way. About specific things and one specific person. He would kill whatever threatened him – and to an extent Jazz – but he would also lay his life on the line to protect what he saw worthy protecting.

Sam sensed a presence and he almost smiled. For all his haywire abilities, one good thing had already come out of it. He was able to tell apart the Autobots by simply ‘listening’ to the echoes coming from their sparks.

Ironhide was really old. And tough. It was like a thick hide around his spark. Rough and hard and not so easy to get past, but underneath was warmth. He protected his emotions and his spark from loss. He had seen too much to easily open up. When he was with Will Lennox it was like he relaxed more, Sam mused. It was as if those two were like-minded and could be who they were around the other, differences of age and origin be damned.

Ratchet was old, too, but not Ironhide’s age. He was just as scarred, but he had a deep core of caring and willingness to help. His spark reached out for others instead of shielding itself, and he would risk everything to help another.

Jazz was a reflection of Barricade, which was a bit disturbing, knowing that underneath the fun exterior lay a warrior who would just as easily kill his opponent than save your life. Sam had seen the shields drop only once before, and back then he hadn’t had the ability, and Jazz had almost scared him. Now, months later, he understood more. He saw more.

Bumblebee was just as scarred as the others, but his spark was like a compact version between Ironhide, Ratchet and Jazz. He could enjoy himself when there was no life-threatening danger, he was dangerous in battle, he was old, he cared, and he seemed to reach out for Sam almost without conscious thought. Sam took the offer for a helping ‘hand’ so to speak. Bumblebee’s mind was stability. He knew it, liked how it felt, and he could rely on him being there.

Optimus Prime stepped into his view and Sam gave him a smile. He had known that the presence he felt had been him. Prime was unique. Old, yes. Caring, very much so. But incredibly balanced and very much grounded. So much so, Sam suspected he was actually growing roots. He was almost literally a rock in a stormy sea, though behind all of that lurked guilt and self-doubt and the weight of responsibility. Still, touching his spark was like a power-shock, a rush. Only the Allspark had felt that energizing to Sam.

“May I?” Prime asked, the deep voice soft.

Sam sat up and shrugged. “Sure.”

“How are you, Sam?” the giant Autobot asked as he lowered himself to sit on the ground. His head was now level with Sam’s position.

“Okay, I guess,” he answered vaguely.

It got him a raised eye-ridge and Sam grimaced. “As well as I can be, considering I nearly killed one of you.”

“Barricade’s take on the situation differs from yours. He claims he only triggered your abilities to prove to you that you can control them if you want to.”

“And I almost pushed him into terminal stasis lock!” Sam hissed.

“You stopped, though.”

“Because he held me down.”

Blue optics studied him. “Do you really think so little of your own control of what you are?”
“Optimus… what I am now… I’ve never been before. I don’t know how to control all of this. I fail, I stumble, I make mistakes…”

“Like everyone does when learning, Sam.”

Sam sighed deeply. “Yeah. My mistakes hurt you.”

“Humans have this saying: nobody is perfect.”

Sam snorted. “Yeah.”

“Neither are Cybertronians,” Optimus added, smiling slightly.

The boy gave him a sharp look, wondering who was the technopath now. His thoughts had been along those lines. Optimus Prime and the others were robots, they had programs, they couldn’t make such mistakes. Abilities were programmed into them and they knew how to use them.

“We aren’t born perfect, Sam. We learn just like you do. Maybe we learn faster, but we make the same mistakes.”

“Well, you don’t have puberty,” he muttered. “Which is a big plus, I can tell you.”

A chuckle. “No, but we are young when we come online. We test the boundaries, as well as the patience of the elder ones. Even me.”

Sam stared at him, surprised. “Huh?”

It got him an amused look, blue optics brightening briefly. “Sam, if I thought this power of yours would endanger us, I wouldn’t let you be here,” the Autobot leader stated matter-of-factly. “I protect my men just as you protect your family. I think you can control this.”

He was silent, staring at the ground below. Everyone believed in him, but he kept making horrendous mistakes.

“Barricade said if I can’t control myself, someone will come and do it for me,” Sam finally said, voice soft.

“People will see the power you represent and they will want to use it.” Optimus nodded slowly. "I have seen my own people fall to another’s power over them because their will was weak. Their minds were open for manipulation.”

Sam looked up, brows drawing down. “Megatron?” he hazarded a guess.

The reply was a grim nod. “Yes. He preyed on those easily manipulated to follow his… vision. He used and abused their trust, their innocence. Those who tried to turn around were forced back under control.”

Sam didn’t really want to know how. He had an inkling what could be done to such a mech and he shuddered at the mere thought.

“You can take control of yourself,” Optimus went on. “You can become independent of what your abilities make you want to do. It’s hard to resist temptation, but you can do it.”

“Whenever I look at one of you guys, it’s like looking at something incredibly beautiful. I want to see it, touch it, explore it,” the young man confessed. “And then I get lost inside. Looking at Earth mechanics isn’t really too bad. A DVD player is complicated compared to a toaster, but I can stop any time. With any of you… it’s addictive.”

“Then your aim is to stop while you can, to take control and use it.”

Sam nodded. He could already feel Optimus’ systems whisper to him and it was alluring and wonderful. It was like having a spark bond to them all… and it was what Barricade felt with Jazz. It was sheer and simple beauty.

Forcefully, he clamped down on the urge to slip along the pathways and look deeper. From the look he got, Prime had been aware of the temptation. Sam smiled apologetically.

“You are more in control of yourself than you think,” Optimus remarked.

“It would be easier for me if you guys had some kind of firewall that would stop me.”

“Yes, it would, but we don’t. We have no defenses against what you can do. Use your power wisely, Sam.”

“I’m not spying,” he argued weakly.

“I know you’re not. Ratchet told me he offered you to train with us. Use the offer. The better you know us, the easier it will be.”

Sam nodded. “Yeah. Thanks.”

“You should also talk to your parents.”

He winced and ducked his head. “That’s not so easy either.”

Optimus chuckled a little. “I understand. But they are your parents. They are entitled to know, don’t you think?”

In Sam’s mind his mom and dad didn’t need to know about him being a freak. His mom would become a mother-hen extraordinaire and his father… he might not do anything, he might demand he stop being with the Autobots. He might ban Bumblebee from staying with Sam. Sam felt something inside of him clench in pain. He didn’t want to lose any of this. Not because of what he had become. He would rather hide somewhere forever, run and never turn back, and go with Bumblebee wherever he went.

“Sam? What are you afraid of?” the Autobot leader wanted to know.

“Everything. What if they tell me to stay away from you guys? What if they don’t want me to be with Bee? What if they…” He stopped, feeling his throat constrict. He cursed his emotional side.

“You don’t know how your parents will react unless you tell them,” Optimus pointed out.
“I know.”

And that was the problem of it all. If he told his parents, they might react badly. If he didn’t, he felt like keeping a dark secret they had the right to know about. Whatever he did, it would be difficult.

°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°

Sam was getting better. Slowly but surely. He was mainly training with Bumblebee now, refusing to get close to the others, and it was enough what he sometimes touched in his friend’s mind. He had only had an inkling of understanding when it came to the war on Cybertron, of what Autobots and Decepticons had done to one another, but his ‘lessons’ with Bumblebee gave him a whole new addition.

He saw the true war. He saw the pain and the death and the hopelessness. He witnessed Bumblebee’s friends and comrades die, torn to pieces. He saw different worlds and was on giant ships, and he suffered with Bumblebee when Megatron destroyed his voice box, or ripped his arm out.

It was terrible.

And he learned to block it.

So much corresponded with the brief flashes from Barricade’s mind.

Sitting on the Camaro’s hood, letting his mind touch Bumblebee’s, Sam wondered how any of the Autobots could ever feel peace again. This was so terrible. Everything he had read, heard or seen of wars on Earth paled beside those images.

But there was also happiness. The old Cybertron, of before, of days that would never come back. It was a world he wanted to see, but Sam knew that even should he ever have the privilege, he would never see Cybertron as it had been when Bumblebee had come online.

“You’re doing great,” Bumblebee said, breaking the comfortable silence between them.

“Yeah, well, I know you now.”

Because they were all so much alike. Barricade hadn’t felt all that much different and when they had swung by the base a few days ago, neither had Ratchet.

“Sometimes I get hit out of the blue, but it’s getting better.”

And it had to. He was due back to college next Monday. Sam wasn’t looking forward to it, but he knew it had to be. Human equipment didn’t really give him trouble, though more complicated machinery tended to let him zone briefly.

“This will take time.”

“I know.”

Sam leaned back and felt the warm windshield against his back. His muscles relaxed.

And one day he had to tell his parents. He had so far hidden it all perfectly well, though sometimes his mother gave him strange looks and his father seemed to suspect something, too. Sam knew he was a coward and he really wanted to talk to his parents, but every time he tried, he got scared and bailed out.

They had a right to know, yes, but he was afraid of their reaction. This was because of the Autobots and because he had been involved in this war. Sam didn’t want Bumblebee to be blamed, nor anyone of the others. Optimus would most likely take the blame, without thinking about it, but there was no guilt or blame to place. This had been an accident.

Closing his eyes, Sam felt himself dozing off. His mind was aware of Bumblebee’s close by, a known and warm presence. He didn’t try to invade it or log onto the familiar signals. He was simply there and it felt good.

Just like Barricade and Jazz felt each other, took comfort of the other presence.

Sam smiled. His own spark bond, without even possessing a spark or being a mechanoid. In a way he was experiencing the same, just not with a specific individual. Optimus Prime’s presence felt as comfortable as Ironhide’s or Ratchet’s. It was just that Bumblebee was always around him and a lot easier to read.

°°° °°° °°° °°° °°°

It was about an hour later that Sam slid off the hood and stretched. Bumblebee had been quiet the whole time, his mind very much at ease and in sync with Sam’s.

“Can you feel this, too?” Sam asked softly.

“Yes. It’s… unexpected.”

The young man shrugged. “Does it bother you?”

“No, Sam. Not at all.”

That got Bumblebee a smile. Sam climbed into the Camaro and let Bumblebee drive him home. He didn’t mind either. His friend was his guardian and he really did feel protected.

It was a good feeling.

A really, really good feeling.

°°° °°° °°° °°°