Possession is 9/10s of the Law
I do not own Transformers, but Cali is mine
Prologue
Four Years Ago
Callista stared curiously at the brightly colored jets that came closer to the ground, she called her little brother over so he could see too and that was when her world fell apart.
She shrieked in terror as an explosion rocked the house, trying to reach her parents, her little brother. Anyone. Dust clouded the air, mingling with the hot smoke of a fire that had started in another part of the house.
Dustin wailed, crying for his parents and the ceiling cracked and crumbled, there was a shriek and she couldn't hear him anymore. An ominous feeling came over the eleven year old as she crawled, deliberately trying not look at the corpses of her mother lying in a pool of blood on the carpet, , her brother's legs beneath the slab of roof tears streaking her face. She finally got to the door and gulped in deep breaths of the chilly November air. She barely registered the strange metallic noises as she collapsed on the ground.
Ratchet hurried over to the young human femme, spark clenching as he ordered Bumblebee to check for other survivors in the house. There were none.
He had taken her back to base when the fight was over and the Decepticons had retreated, tended to the wounds. She was a pretty thing, long black hair and deep tanned skin from playing in the sun, she suffered from smoke inhalation, a large gash on her forehead and a sprained wrist. She was lucky.
When she came too, she was frightened, of course she'd known about the alien robots, like any other kid and it had taken a while for them to calm down and make her realize that they would not harm her.
Optimus noticed that Ratchet took special care to sooth her at night when her nightmares woke her up, he noticed that Jazz would come in and playing calming music to help her get back to sleep, Bumblebee and Bluestreak went out of their way to try to cheer her up when she cried for her family. The child had grown attached to her rescuers and Ratchet in particular and the government officials and social workers had wanted her to go to an orphanage.
It took a lot of jumping through legal hoops, gaining official citizenship status, calling in a few favors from well established connections and an irate social worker who'd been kicked in a very sensitive place by Cali while under the protection of the fierce CMO but they finally managed to legally adopt her.
There were conditions of course, the child had to be seen once a month by social workers, Ratchet had had to prove that he was keeping her healthy and sound, they had to find out ways to get her to and from school without causing a panic and she'd had to be evaluated for emotional and psychological trauma, which gave Ratchet's young charge a deep loathing for therapists. But the Autobots felt like it was worth it in the end.