A/N: This theoretically takes place some years after the events of DOTM (Sam is now married to Carly) though most of this piece takes place on NEST's bases on Diego Garcia instead of at NEST's Washington DC base. One last fair warning , there is repeated use of the "F" bomb, so to speak. Though we did try to keep it to a minimum, it is used a total of five times.

As always, please R & R! ~~~Epsilon Pax & Bumbee

Disclaimer: I own nothing Transformers, nor do I have any rights or make any profit from the use of anything Transformers and any/ all associated characters.(Yes, that makes us sad knowing that, too)

"I don't want to be a freak anymore!"

Frustration tightened her already tense muscles, strained her voice and fueled the flames of her temper. Balling her hands into fists, turning her delicate knuckles white, Annabelle glared at the pristine yellow Camero that had so determinedly followed her even after she had fled her school as soon as the concluding bell had rung. Halfway between school and her home, halfway to nowhere, subconsciously Annabelle had to admit the futility of her endeavor to evade a being whose very programming had been one designated to tracking and finding that which no one else could. Still, she had done her damnedest to lose the Camero in the tall, tawny grass of the open field that eventually gave way to a speckling of trees that couldn't quite whisper 'forest'.

Earlier that afternoon, all she had wanted to do was get away, far, far away. Walking down the hallways, away from her locker, away from the whispers, away from the gossip, away from the searing and mocking glances; Annabelle had never wanted to escape from her life more. She should have been more than content, more than happy; not only did she have two loving, wonderful, supportive parents, but she had a wonderful close knit group of friends, friends who were always willing to listen to her and always were there to give her rides. Too bad, those friends weren't human. She should have felt safe and secure in the knowledge that she had a guardian, a friend who not only mimicked a sleek and devilishly beautiful Camero, but who could, would and did protect her from anything and everything that could possibly threaten or hurt her. Everything, that is except those glances, those whispers that followed her everyday at school…

When she had first entered high school and pulled into the parking lot in one of the hottest cars a teenager could ever hope to even be within proximity of, Annabelle had lived on cloud nine for a whole year. The popular girls, in their awestruck jealousy, had been smothered into silence, and the boys began to take notice of her. She had automatically achieved what few high school freshmen ever could: she had been cool. And through it all Bumblebee had played his part flawlessly—after all he had had more than enough practice with Sam—no one had ever believed anything other than he was her car. But in the end, it had been Annabelle who had slipped, who had put the first of many growing cracks in their laboriously maintained façade. How many times, in her exuberance to see Bee had she actually waved to the obviously driver-less—even passenger-less for that matter—Camero? How many times had she neglected to conceal the fact that she often talked directly to her car, clearly comfortable and confident of receiving some sort of answer? And then there was the Camero's uncanny ability to seem to always find itself between Annabelle and any possible careless driver. Painfully, Annabelle recalled the incident in which she had to mumble up a story about the Camero's brakes failing in order to explain away how the car had prevented her from getting clipped by a careless and speeding student driver. She knew no one had really bought her hastily concocted tale, after all how often did a car's brakes fail backward and uphill when it was parked facing down said hill? She shouldn't have been so surprised when the rumors and whispers had started the next week at school. Almost overnight Annabelle had fallen from her zenith of cool to being labeled 'weird' and odd.

And now…now with one searing look one of the cheerleaders had named her for what she had truly become, for what she was: a freak. Staring at the perpetually pristine paint, paint that could never chip or fade, and hearing the tires—tires that could never be punctured, blown or even become flat—as they crunched on the gravel as the Camero inched hesitantly forward, bile and bitterness once more began to rise in Annabelle's throat. It wasn't fair. Sure, her father, even her mother had made their own choices, and Annabelle could never begrudge them the life that they had built together and for her. But it was him—Annabelle narrowed her eyes at the yellow muscle car—he, in his persistence, in his insistence to remain a felt presence in their lives, had turned her into a freak by association. The novelty of a life long alien friendship she had forged with Bumblebee had tarnished, at last wearing off, allowing her to see what was beneath. She wasn't normal, no matter how much she tried to be, or pretended to be. Because no matter what she did, what she said or how she acted, nothing would ever change the fact that the beings she spent most of her time with weren't natural, didn't even belong to Earth. Sure she had friends, plenty of them, but the problem was that most of them simply weren't human.

Her voice trembled in the hastening evening air; not out of weakness, but of anger, bitter, raw and hot. "I don't want to be a freak anymore!"

Frantically her eyes searched for anything useful on the dry and dusty earth that she could throw. She needed to prove she didn't need, didn't want him in her life anymore; he had turned her sour, he had made her into a freak! So long as he stayed she couldn't ever hope for a normal life.

Misreading her rapid dive for the ground, Bumblebee threw his terrestrial guise to the wind, unfolding rapid fire into his natural bipedal form. One bright and massive hand reached out to Lennox's daughter, fearing she could be hurt. Instead, within the span of several human heartbeats, Annabelle straightened up and rocks and gravel pinged off his armor.

"It's your fault! You made me freak! You had to stay! You had to follow me around! Now because of you I'm a freak with a freak of a car!" She knew she wasn't hurting him; she couldn't, in fact nothing that she could ever lay her hands on could ever hope to inflict any lasting physical damage on that impenetrable yellow armor. Yet, the hulking metal monstrosity seemed to hunch his shoulders, cowering away from her harmless and human assault.

"Look what you've done to me! What you've forced me to become!" She hadn't realized she had been crying, she had somehow neglected to feel the hot tears that leaked out of her eyes, "I don't have any normal human friends! No one wants to do normal things with me because they think I'm so sort of freak!"

Bumblebee emitted a low, mournful whistle.

"It's because of you…why can't you just leave me alone? Leave me so I can be normal?"

"Annabelle, I can't leave you…its not safe." His lighter tenor voice only further emphasized his otherness. Not only was he a robot who could emulate anything he wanted, but he was a talking robot that could do so, " Please Annabelle, it's getting dark, let me take you home…please?"

"I don't need you to get home, I can find it all by myself."

"Annabelle…I—"

But she wouldn't hear it, she was done listening; his persistence only pushed Annabelle onto greater lengths of frustration. He wasn't going to leave her alone. He wouldn't listen to any of her human reasons…her human reasons? Latching onto what her unconsciousness pleaded with her not to do—somewhere she knew it was beyond cruel, but her anger and disgust with herself wouldn't allow her to see beyond such baser emotions—Annabelle snapped out what she hoped would make him leave her alone.

Kicking more gravel in his direction—Bee winced again in a very human like manner—"What does your leader always say Bee? What is his mantra?" She couldn't bring herself to say his name, another sign of her unnaturalness.

"You know Optimus' name, Annabelle. You don't need to—"

"What does he say Bee?"

Rather than merely repeat the maxim, Bee tapped into his audio banks and the dulcet and powerful voice of Optimus Prime rolled forth, disembodied, from Bee's speakers: "Freedom is the right of all sentient beings."

Annabelle's gut churned at the sound of that voice, "See, freedom is my right Bee. It's my right and allows me to choose the kind of life that I want, and what I want is a normal life!"

"Annabelle…"

Annabelle wanted to scream, why couldn't he just leave her alone? She just wanted to be alone with her wounded pride and feelings of rejection that hurt. Bee had always been there for her, just as he had always been there for Sam. But Bee could never protect her or shield her from the sneering glances, the cutting remarks and whispers that followed her wherever she went on campus. She just needed time to be hurt, time to come to terms with a nuance of humanity that Bee would never completely understand. Instead of explaining as much, she kicked more gravel and rocks at him and snarled, "Fuck off Bee!"

Absolute, impenetrable silence descended between them in that moment, as her words hung in the air, hurtful and mean. It was suddenly hard to breathe, her chest felt tight, instead of feeling better, she felt infinitely worse; she had never said that to anyone before, let alone Bee.

Wordlessly, he gazed at her for a long moment, his optics normally so bright and cheerful, were dim now. Slowly, as if it hurt, Bee took a step back and folded into his terrestrial guise. Still he hesitated, even now unwilling to leave her alone. But when she held stubbornly onto her wall of silence, he slowly began to reverse away from her.

"I'm sorry, Annabelle."

Then, he was gone; pulling away onto the dirt road and disappearing in the same long, dusty grasses she had been so desperately trying to lose him in before.