LOVE AND STRENGTH

Hey, everybody, you miss me? I missed you, too. Finals were a killer, and I barely made it through alive. My grades are decent; they could be better, but they could be a lot worse, too. At least it's over, for now, and I'm able to take it easy. I'm taking the summer off; I need a break, to fully recharge my batteries, and it's a tad late to apply for the summer semester, anyway.

Anyway, now that I've got time to kill, I can at last get back to my stories. Here, I present to you another sweet, turn-your-insides-to-butter piece featuring Blurr and my OC, Melly.

Read and review, as always, and nix the flames.

Characters (excluding Melly) © Hasbro and Entertainment Rights

Melly and Story © unicorn-skydancer08

All rights reserved.

"No!" Melly wailed into the darkness. "No—Blurr! Blurr-r-r-r!" The girl's agonized cries brought Blurr to her side in a flash.

Blurr had been keeping watch that night for any suspicious activity in the vicinity, when he sensed that Melly needed him; and when his keen receptors caught her screaming his name, that was all it took to make him ditch his post and rush to her like a streak of blue lightning. He feared that Melly might be in serious trouble, but when he reached the girl, he saw, to his deep relief, that she was perfectly safe, unhurt and unscathed. However, she was thrashing about wildly on her makeshift bed, and she continued to scream in a way that sent chills through Blurr's hard drive. Her eyes were shut tightly; she didn't seem aware of anything else going on around her.

Blurr realized the girl must be trapped in the middle of a nightmare—and a nasty one, at that.

"BLURR!" Melly cried desperately again, then she let out a truly horrible shriek that Blurr was sure could be heard twenty miles away.

"Melly!" the blue bot called urgently, seizing a gentle yet firm hold of her, trying to summon her back to reality. "Melly, wake up! It's me!"

Eyes still closed, Melly struggled against him with all her might, but being much bigger and well over a hundred times stronger, he easily held her fast. "Melly!" he called again. "Melly, it's all right! It's me! Snap out of it!" It took another minute or so for Melly to come around, but when at last she returned fully to her senses, she gave a great gasp, like a swimmer who had been underwater for too long.

Breathing raggedly, her face damp with sweat and tears, she now lay limp and unmoving, though her whole body trembled noticeably.

Blurr lifted her up off the bed, where he cradled her in his large servos and rocked her gently, like a mother rocking her child. Though Melly was not wearing her glasses at that time, she didn't need them to know it was him holding her.

"Oh, Blurr!" she said with a sob, throwing her arms around him, as far as they could reach, and clinging fiercely to him.

"Shhh," Blurr soothed her as her tears began to drip consistently onto his chest plate. "It's all right, honey. It's all right. I'm here." Though the blue bot was known for doing everything fast, including talking, for Melly's sake he tried to speak slowly and intelligibly—something that he was actually starting to get pretty good at.

"Oh, Blurr," Melly sobbed again, "it was so terrible! It—it was awful! I-I dreamed that you were a cube all over again!"

"You saw me as a cube before," Blurr reminded her gently. "You helped to salvage me, and put me back together. Remember?"

"This was different," said Melly throatily, drawing back somewhat to peer up into her love's face, barely able to focus due to her poor eyesight and the shimmering flood of tears. "This time, I actually saw it happen. I saw Shockwave, and the look on your face as those enormous walls were closing in on you…and…a-and…" She faltered. "Well…you know what happens."

Of course, Blurr knew all too well, and he couldn't repress a shiver at the memory.

Though Autobots could survive being crushed up—so long as their All-Spark remained intact—it was still, to say the least, not the most pleasant experience in the world. What Blurr wouldn't give to get back at Shockwave for the way that traitorous Con nearly made scrap out of him. How he'd love to see that big brute reduced to a cube and see how he liked it. But Melly's sniffling and pitiful whimpering made Blurr temporarily forget his feelings of revenge, and shelve his pride for the time being. "It's all right, Melly," he told her again as he held her closer, and stroked her with the gentleness of a feather. "Shhh, I promise, it's all right. I'm right here; I'm not going anywhere. It's all right, sweetie, it's okay…"

"I'm sorry, Blurr," Melly managed to choke out, at one point. "But I'm so frightened that something might happen to you—something that I won't be able to fix. How can I go on without you?"

Blurr understood perfectly.

"If one of us should be scared about the other," he told the girl in a hushed voice, "I'm the one who ought to fear for you, Melly."

This caught Melly's interest at once. "Y-you?" she said thickly, lifting her face again. "Scared for me?"

Despite her foggy vision, she could easily make out the sadness in Blurr's bright blue optics.

"At least I have the capacity to survive these things," said Blurr solemnly. "At least I can be repaired. You, on the other hand…being a human, and all that, you're not repaired nearly so easily. There's no telling what the Decepticons could do to you. If you were ever ground into a cube…I imagine there's almost no way you would make it."

Melly blanched at the notion. Blurr had an excellent point there; if the Decepticons could reduce someone like him to pulp, they could make short work of her with virtually no effort.

"And I would gladly die," Blurr continued, "in order to protect you."

Melly knew that he really would, and she felt her heart dissolve into a puddle. "And so would I, for you," were the only words she could find to say as fresh tears started down her cheeks.

Blurr smiled ruefully, recalling the time, not so far back, when they were fighting the Decepticons together and Melly willingly took a blast intended for him.

She could have very well lost her life that day, and she undoubtedly would have, had she not had some protection.

It took her a good few days to get back on her feet; even now, she had yet to recover completely from the ordeal. She was still somewhat weak, and she still bore a number of ugly scars that were only just beginning to fade.

As Blurr continued to uphold Melly in his servos, as he went on fondling her and swaying her idly to and fro, she found herself pleading, "Don't leave me, Blurr. I can't be alone tonight."

"I won't leave you," he reassured her softly. "I never will—not ever."