Chapter One: August

A/N: this is set in TF Prime but I'm on s2 e20 so I'm not caught up yet and there are some differences between there and here. Main difference is what bots are alive. Cliffjumper was never killed by Screamer but rather held as prisoner. When they used his body for the whole Dark Energon thing it was instead a fallen 'Con. Uh the only other really important thing I can think of is that Screamer is still with Megsy for the beginning of this story. Anything else will be just flawlessly written in so don't think your going crazy if lets say Tailgate turns out to be alive or something.

Bulkhead awoke in a place that was becoming all too familiar for his liking. Reaching up to the side of his head he pressed a small button to activate his communications, "Ratchet, you're not going to like where I am. Again," but only static met his attempt to get in contact with the medical officer. Grumbling he pressed the button again, "Ratchet?" still only static came back. "Guess I'm getting off of this rig on my own. Again." Bulkhead began the long trek of finding or making an exit without being found out.

Further down the halls was a room with two occupants. One made out of metal, the other not so much. "Femme," the metal one said trying to wake the human girl up with his words as he was bound to the wall. Screamer had tossed her in here after having taken her for an interrogation session. She had been brought in three days ago and he had tried to protect her. Keep her from being too scared. Unfortunately he had been unable to save her from Starscreams sticky claws when he had grabbed her and taken her away, "Femme! Wake up!"

A groan escaped her lips along with a glob of congealing blood. She spat disgustingly to the side and when she sat up wrapped an arm around her midsection. It wasn't nearly as bad as it could have been given the size difference between humans and bots. though it was that size difference too that had kept it from being too bad. There's only so much you can do to something a quarter your own size without killing it before you want it dead. "I'm alright, Bull."

Femme looked at Bull with hate in her eyes. Not hate at him but hate in general, though most of it's for the Decepticon's. While her name was not really 'Femme' and his not 'Bull' she had told his she wanted to know nothing about him so as to keep herself from feeling the loss of him if the Cons were to go too far one day and offline her reasoning he had begun to only refer to her as Femme and she to him as 'Bull' due to the single bull horn left upon his head.

"Frag it all!" Bull cried out while struggling against his restraints. If only he hadn't been so bullheaded all those months ago when Arcee had offered to come help him with those 'few' Con's that had showed up. His communications link had been taken down and he was sure that they were scrambling any tracking he could have had. Like his spark signature for one. After all this time he sure the Autobots thought him dead. Enraged he let out a yell, "Argh!"

The sound of his anger was not contained in the room he was in alone but managed to travel down a few corridors before dying out.

"The Frag was that?" Bulkhead said to himself. he was not the brightest of Bots so it was no wonder he turned around to try and find what made that sound. Had he been only a few clicks stupider he would have called out. But after all this time in war he had learned a few things. Only a few things. Passing a door on his right he froze. his audio receptors must be wrong. THere was no way that he had just heard Cliffjumper talking to someone.

He just had to check. If there was anyway Cliff was online he had to save him- or offline the traitor. though the likeliness of Cliff being a traitor was about as likely as Bulk telling Miko to frag off and go the pit away. Hah! That'll happen the day he becomes a Prime. The door opened and Bulkhead was as surprised as the bot stuck to the wall. "Cliff, is that really you?" He heavily stepped inside letting the door close behind him.

"Bulkhead? Man am i glad to see you. How did ya find me?" Cliffjumper said and for the first time since being here allowed himself to relax just a bit.

"I heard you yelling. What was that about?"

"Sucky service. You'd think they would at least give their guests a wash down every now and again." Cliffjumper offlined an optic to show he was truly fine and joking with Bulkhead before becoming serious, "wanna help with my bracelets? They are a bit too tight."

Wasting no more time Bulkhead reached up and tore them off catching his weakened friend. "Let's get you home, friend." They were almost to the door when Cliffjumper moved away from his friend to kneel down.

"Want a lift?" He asked what bulkhead thought was nobody until he moved and saw a young girl about Miko's age standing in front of Cliffjumper. The girl, who even had pink hair like Miko, didn't hesitate to let Cliffjumper lift her up to his shoulder where she sat, "how we getting home, Bulk?"

"Uh..." He was saved from answering due to them having to hide as a foot soldier of the con's walked passed. From there he figured might as well do it the same way as last time. "This way." he actually remembered where their power core was. The Cons would be in for a big moment of Deja Vu once he was through with pulverizing this core. Again. "Hold on tightly," he said before running and jumping to smash what kept the ship airborne. Once the explosion went off they found his old hole that had been roughly patched and he smashed his way though in time to see the ground heading towards them.

The impact nearly threw Femme from his shoulder where she was holding on for her life. Running out with bulkhead he jumped and had a little trouble shifting but managed and took off following his friend to safety. "Bulkhead!" Ratchet yelled through the comm link but Cliffjumper could not hear due to his oen comm link having been destroyed. "Where in Primus' name have you been! Forget that! Somehow Cliffjumper's spark signature is online again-"

"Hey, Doc, just open the bridge. I can explain it soon as I get back." Oh man would they be in for a surprise or what. The ground bridge opened up several feet to their right so with a sharp turn they made a hard right and drive right through it. The minute they were in the base Femme threw open the door and fell out of Cliffjumper onto her hands and knees where she proceeded to dry heave. If her stomach hadn't been empty for the passed three days she would have thrown it all up.

While speed and all was fine by her she liked it when she knew about it before hand. And that entire green vortex of - of- of votexieness was not helping her stomach. "by the all spark," Ratchet said seeing Cliffjumper transforming, "how is this possible?" Then his optics turned to look at the gil who was standing back up, "Cliffjumper! Another human!"

"Oh man, how did I know that I would get blamed for that one?" He grumbled rubbing his head just as the rest of Team Prime came back in. Smokescreen was not back yet from going to meet Wheeljack yet though. Arcee was in the greatest amount of shock. He was alive. Starscream had lied when he had laid claim to killing Cliffjumper.

"Arcee, babe, miss me?" She ran at him and hit his chassis over and over while trying to hid her tears. "I missed you too," he whispered when she finally stopped hitting him and held onto him instead. "Starscream kept me alive as a pet project. If he could get me to talk then he would gain informations that even Megaton didn't have." His eyes met with Optimus and he saw the relieved look he and the others sported at his being alive.

"Who is your new friend, Cliffjumper?" Optimus asked looking down at the girl who was starring off into space with her hand near her ear. It was almost like she was comming someone.

"Don't really know. Starscream brought her in thinking she knew something about you guys." Cliffjumper said before turning to look at her too. "She does that a lot too. Spaces out. Said something about thinking of her sparkmate or something, what ever the humans call them."

"You mean her boyfriend?" A young girl no older than Femme said from the observation deck Fowler used. Behind her was another young boy their age too and an even younger sparkling by her side. Looking from the kids to the other Autobots and back he was clearly confused.

"Uh yeah, that." Turning to fully face the rest of the Autobots he missed Miko sticking her tongue out at him but heard clearly Bulkhead's indignant 'Miko!'. Lifting one of his hands from Arcee's back and pointing over his shoulder he asked, "who are they?"

"They are our allies, Cliffjumper, and close friends."

"Yeah!" Miko yelled from behind him. Femme was out of her small day dream now and silently taking steps back to try to make an escape. "So who's tha girl?" All of the bots turned towards her and her light green went wide eyed. Nervously she began running a hand through her hair before absentmindedly beginning to braid it. Realizing what she was dong she quickly shook the strands out and grimaced. Wishing for a shower and for her hair to have it's silky feel again.

'Soon, I'll get you back soon,' a voice said in her head. Her eyes drifted to look at nothing behind the bots again and they got cloudy as her hand moved to her ringing ear.

'How soon is soon? I don't know how much longer I can take this,' she thought back. Being so far away from her- boyfriend- was taking it's toll on her along with being in Starscream's company. If she didn'lt get away or atleast he get here soon she was sure her mind would go crazy before her body began to deteriorate.

'Days, mere days.'

"Femme, we are safe. No one will hurt us here. Tell us your name." Cliffjumper said kneeling in front of her and blocking the view of any other bot from her view. Focusing only on her imprisonment mate she calmed some. She trusted him nearly as much as she trusted ihim/i.

"August. My name is August. Where are we, Bull?" August knew his name but would rather stick with her little nickname for him.

"We are at the Autobot's base. No Con will ever get here. None even know what state we are in." From behind him the red and white bot moved forward. making her and Cliff look at him. "What is it Ratchet?" Asked Cliffjumper.

"I must scan the two of you and check over you." At the word scan August raised both hands and quickly backed away.

"Sorry Ratch, but I doubt she'll be very willing to be scanned for a while. K.O. did some very detailed scans of her when she arrived. The kind that would make even Optimus wary of coming in for a check up." Ratchet gasped in shock. Why would they need to do viral scans of a human? No human could have ever carried a virus that would infect any type of bot. Not only were viral scans intrusive at best but they caused much pain to the bot that was being scanned.

"You are positive of this, Cliffjumper?" Optimus asked. He knew exactly how painful it was with the most careful and delicate of bots doing the scans. It had been but a few short months since he had had a deadly virus himself.

"As positive as I could be seeing it with my own two Optics. The pain was... excruciating. Knockout wasn't holding back when he scanned us." It was war and he wasn't surprised that Knockout had scanned him and the human as such but the rest of the bots had many different faces for the shock, surprise, and disgust they displayed. "Perhaps while you check me over, Doc, she could meet the other little humans?"

Bulkhead agreed to watch over the group of humans while everyone else went with Ratchet to talk with and look over. "Hey," the boy said to her when she climbed up the stairs to meet with them, "I'm Jack and this is Rafe." They awkwardly shook hands while the girl of their group stood back grumpily. She was the girl of this group, her! Not some other chick.

August was totally crushing her style! Miko was the one that was supposed to have pink hair yet this new chick does too. then there's this new girls punk clothes, albiet torn, that was such a rip off of her own. Who the hell liked Metallica, as her black and green shirt read, anymore anyway? Skinny jeans were for losers too. And what was with the military issued boots and dog tags anyway? "Miko?" Bulkhead said to the obviously pouting girl. He would never, inever/i, in his life admit it but he liked the angsty girl more than he let on. Like liked her.

"She's cramping my style, Bulk. Beside's I don't trust her." Bulkhead looked the new girl over and was confused as to why Miko didn't like her. She seemed to be Miko's twin save for the American heritage and the images printed upon her skin. She had a red rose tattoed onto the left side of her neck and it disappeared below her shirt collar. Then there were the two sets of tattoos on her upper arms in the style called sleeves. He knew that because Miko often talked about getting that type of tattoo when she was old enough. what really had him grimacing about her look was the huge holes through the bottoms of both ears and the metal ring that hung from the middle of her nose.

"I don't see how-" he started to say but stopped at the look Miko shot him. Okay so now was not the time to question her about this. Perhaps once she got to know this girl she would think differently. Until them he would have to keep quiet and not say anything about this least he aggravate Miko.