I woke up at six exactly. Not an easy feat for me. As I watched, the 59 flipped to 00, and I knew that the 5 had flipped to a 6, and when I glanced over, it was true, and I glanced back to the 00, and it had become 01, 02, 03 and so on as I watched. I slowly sat up and rubbed at my face. There was a rasp of short hair being scraped by rough palms, and I kicked the sheets out from around my legs. I didn't sleep still, not like Airachnid. She slept so still, so quiet in her little ball, almost like a baby before it learned to move. I envied her for that. She didn't wake up feeling like she ran a marathon in her sleep.

I brushed my teeth, something Airachnid had to get me to do. She always complained about breath. How does my breath stink after all I did was sleep? It didn't make any sense to me, but after I started brushing my teeth, her complaints sort of lessened. I pushed a comb through my hair, ran my fingers through the brown waves, and tugged a little. I still had hair. I smiled and turned to the bed, almost expecting Airachnid to be swimming out of the folds and folds of sheets, surfacing like a porpoise and grinning like one at me like I was the most important person she cared about.

Hello, she would purr as she detangled her limbs. My mate.

But she was downstairs, fussing and humming over breakfast: pancakes. I stood in the doorway, and I felt dread coiled up in my stomach like a massive snake coming out to bask in fear. But in this light, she looked merciful.

She turned her gaze towards me, her short black hair frazzled naturally and sweeped out like a mane. She patted it down, then her hands swept down her body. She had a shirt that brushed just over her belly button and low-riding jeans. The tattoo of a spider splayed across her side, curving around to skitter up her back if it where live, but it was frozen in the act as a tattoo. She leaned on the island, cupping her face in a hand and she smiled.

"Hello, handsome."

I swallowed and stepped into her realm, her area. I was immediately attacked with the idea that I did not belong there, and my brain was right. This was Airachnid's area.

"Hello...lovely." I accepted my plate of pancakes, and I stared down at the stack of three. She gave herself a half of one, eating it slowly. I finished before her, and I watched her suck the syrup off her fingers.

"Going to the bar?"

The New Oil House was our baby, mine, Airachnid's, and my brother Nemesis'. It was a joke between us Cybertronians in the community we dominated slowly and carefully. Maccadam's Old Oil House still stood, on Cybertron, and he was there in the New Oil House, playing the piano and dancing with the femmes that came in.

I had to open today, and so I nodded. "Nemesis will be there, but he doesn't do a good job. Will you swing my later?"

She shook her head. "I've got things I want to do..."

I expected to see her later that day, and I knew I would face her judgemental stare and a shaking finger in my face.

You never do a thing right. Why are you always at the Oil House? Don't you know? We're married, six years ago we got married. Why are you never here? Why don't we go out? Why don't we do something fun?

I knew she wanted to get out sometimes, and most of the time she would rather work around the house or sunbathe outside. So I waited for her to say that she wanted to do something rather than tow her to her favorite band's concert on the day she would rather clean the bathroom.

I opened the Oil House and waved in the line of twenty couples. Nemesis was among them, grinning from ear to ear and he jumped into my arms for a hug. He was bigger, stronger, and tougher, but he needed physical contact. Our sire didn't care for Nemesis, and our carrier had rapidly declining mental health, and so she forgot she had sons while our sire preferred not to remember he had sired sons. And so we went unnoticed.

Nemesis purred as he stood back on his feet and he nuzzled me gently. "Ready to start the day?"

We worked side by side until closing at four, because it was a Sunday. Sundays were when Nemesis pounded his mate through the berth and when Airachnid got home from shopping or from a nice, relaxing day at the spa.

But when I got home, there was no one there. Airachnid was still gone, or so I thought. I walked into the living room and the heavy chair I had brought from Cybertron was tipped over, and the glass table Airachnid bought was shattered, the wood frame broken as if someone fell onto it. I stared at the mess, knowing Airachnid didn't cause this.

I ran to the phone, called good friends Prowl and Jazz.

"Calm down," Prowl said over the phone. There was the sound of papers rustling and Jazz's question did you feed the fish? "Jazz! Wrangle up Onyx and head over to Prime's place. Apparently there was a break-in." He turned his attention back to me. "I'll see if Airachnid is still wandering around in the community. Stay at your home, will you?"

He didn't give me a chance to speak, and so I sat outside, waiting.

I couldn't spend more time in the house, and I didn't want to touch anything and leave my fingerprints where they didn't belong.

Jazz met me at the door and kept me company while Onyx sniffed around.

Onyx was a German Shepard, but she was mostly black and she had bright blue eyes. She was, in fact, a Cybertronian beast, one no one would cross, not even a human. She came back, growling at me. She had never done that before.

Jazz's eyes widened and he pulled Onyx back. "Optimus, I'm afraid we need to launch a full-scale investigation. Onyx wouldn't have growled at you if she didn't think you had caused something in there. How is your relationship with Airachnid?"

That was a loaded question...Airachnid loved me, yes, and she loved to point out everything wrong with him. She loved to remind me that she had loving parents, no siblings, and lots of credits she could simply spread around like petals in the wind.

"We are fine..." I sighed. "We are rough, but getting the hang of things."

Jazz made a nervous chuckle. Onyx was straining at her leash to snap her jaws around my neck. He jerked on her leash. "I would think so...after being together six years..."

Prowl arrived on the scene with no news, and he froze at Onyx's behavior. Just the other day, when I was over, she was sleeping soundly in my lap, but now she was trying to kill me. "Optimus...what have you done?"

I stared at him hopelessly. I shrugged.