Author's Blab: Hey guys. *waves to the TF fandom*

I've heard that composers sometimes get melodies stuck in their heads, and they can't get rid of them until they take the time to compose whatever piece is rolling around their brains. This sketch is something like that. There didn't seem to be any real reason not to upload it, so I have. It's far from perfect, but I know that if I spend a lot of time editing things, I never upload them.

I have seen the new Transformers movie three times now, likely to be four tonight. I suppose that, were I a hardcore fan, I would hate the movie; I still have this niggling irritation with all these humans in my movie about a war between giant alien robots, but I've mostly gotten over it. As it is, these movies are a big roller coaster ride to me: loud, dumb, and Dr. Seuss level, but a whole lot of fun and awesome. I have trouble getting through either movie without thinking, "Holy crap, they made a Transformers movie! :O :D" which I usually follow up with something along the lines of "And it is made of awesome and win and happiness!"

(Not really. Happiness is Wint-O-Green Lifesavers.)

At any rate, this takes place during the very end of the movie. There are spoilers, but not egregious ones; read at your own discretion. If a bunch of people are like "OMG CONTINUE" then I'll probably do so. Or if I feel like it, which is not out of the realm of possibility. I've been intending to novelize the first movie for ages anyway; I have this inexplicable urge to weave these movies into the existing continuity.

And so, without further ado, allow me to present:

Aftermath: Past and Present

A Transformers Fanfic by Randiro Ellenath

The aircraft carrier was steady under Sam's feet. The seas were not particularly rough, but it was in the middle of the Atlantic and Sam had been on the open ocean just enough to find the ship's lack of movement disconcerting. Maybe this is what a cruise ship is like, he mused. I don't think I'd like it.

It was probably a good thing, though. Sam was having enough trouble standing as it was; his bandaged hand rested a little too hard on the striped hood of Bumblebee. He was on just enough painkillers to feel whoozy, but not enough to be either delerious or numb to the burns that still covered his chest, arm, neck, face....

Bumblebee was a silent, immutable, immovable presence. He neither gave nor needed reason to be here when the other Autobots had gone; he guessed that the soldiers understood why he could not let Sam out of his sight right now. Right now, he was ready to catch Sam if he staggered, dive in after him if he fell overboard. He knew Sam knew it, and he knew Sam still felt nagging guilt, but if it meant that the two of them were together, then nothing else mattered.

Excepting Bumblebee, the injured Autobots--that is to say, all but one--had been airlifted back to the NEST island base, along with the larger debris from the battle. The dead were still being counted, and Bumblebee imagined that the humans were still combing the battlefield for every last scrap of Autobot and Decepticon.

The only uninjured Autobot sat across the carrier in his truck form. He was a brooding presence in Sam's mind, a little piece of seascape that he could not remove from his awareness.

A few days ago, it would have bothered him. Even yesterday, he could tell that Optimus Prime was giving him space, for when they spoke again, it would be outside the heat of battle, and they would have to let out their awkwardness and guilt and apologies and thanks.

But just now, standing in the bow of the aircraft carrier, Sam was content. He didn't know what the future held, and for once, that was all right. He was happy to just rest a hand on a yellow hood--as though the bond between them needed strengthening--and listen to the gentle hum of his bemused parents and baffled roommate; Mikaela was with them, but though Sam could feel her eyes on him, he did not turn. Academically, he knew he would have to go back inside soon, out of the brisk wind and sea-spray, but no one had yet dared approach the Autobot guardian or the boy who had saved the world twice now.

Well, this time it had been rather more indirect, but no less real.

Under Sam's bandaged fingers, Bumblebee moved. Sam half turned, hearing the sound of Optimus Prime transforming, then the heavy grind of his feet against the deck. Sam swallowed in a dry throat, wondering if he were ready for this.

"Bee," he began, but even before he continued, Bumblebee withdrew, and Sam put his other hand in his pocket.

Optimus Prime was just behind him, and Sam straightened his back subconsiously. Bumblebee had pulled in behind his parents and friends, and there was too much between them for anyone to hear the words about to be said.

But as the Autobot captain came to rest a few short feet from Sam, the boy could not help but continue smiling. He glanced to the side as steel feet settled on concrete, and his imagination supplied him with the memory of those same feet ripping up I-5 and the Los Angeles River's bed. The asphalt had buckled and torn under his feet in the night, and he and Mikaela had been sorely put just to hold on, and, accustomed as they were to images of slow giants, Optimus Prime moved just a little too fast as he braced himself under the bridge--Easy, you two--and Mikaela's grip had been just a little too--it only took a moment, just a moment to slip--

--and the helicopter blades like a weedwhacker as he scrabbled to find her hand and she gripped a handful of his sleeve, and the fear, and sweaty chrome under his fingers one second, and the next-- air--

--and Bumblebee far too far away one moment, the panic and terror and despair, and then--

The catch, the impact, the horrible sound of Bumblebee skidding over the dry riverbed, sparks... it was like something out of a movie, only it was real, it was real, it was oh so real--

The capture, Sector Seven, the All-Spark and Megatron, the desparate mission and blood and dirt and casualties and Sam perched on the edge of an aging church, trying to hold onto the seams of an old statue of an angel that was all that stood between him and Megatron, the All-Spark poised above the long drop to defeat, barely held in the damp grip of a boy, resisting words of temptation and evil with nothing but the delicate but oh-so-strong ties of fidelity and courage, and then--

--certain death--

--and saved this time by Optimus Prime.

Sam could not remember what he had said then, in that moment, to Megatron. In the last week and a half, he had often tried to remember, but he had been so full of fear and adrenaline and fierce loyalty, burning so bright in those vivid snapshot slow-motion moments of dirt and sweat and danger and death, that whatever he had said survived only in the memories of Megatron and the robot standing beside him on the deck of a ship that did not rock.

So Sam smiled at the ocean, and everything was right. None of the awkwardness or guilt mattered. No apologies were required, and they had already been given anyway. This was where he belonged--he was like Batman: his ordinary life was a mere front--what mattered was that, yes, he was an ambassador to aliens, a comrade of soldiers, a hand of fate.

This is and always has been your destiny... the words of the Primes trailed over his mind, slowly uncoiling in response to his thoughts.

"Thank you, Sam, for saving my life."

Still smiling his small smile, Sam looked at the deck, then up at Optimus Prime.

"You're welcome," he said.

There was no awkwardness. There was no strangeness, and that in itself ought to have been strange, but Sam liked this place too much to try to force himself to be awkward with the idea of trading life-debts with a giant alien robot. He would never again refuse Optimus when he needed him, and he had been a fool to do so the first time.

That refusal was where this most recent adventure, bloodbath, battle, quest, had begun.

No, he thought. It began the day I found the shard of the All-Spark in my Doomsday Shirt.

Or had it begun even before that?--the day he begged his history teacher for an A and, his half of the bargain fulfilled, met his father and driven to the lot of a man named Bobby Bolivia, where he first saw an aged yellow Camaro and fell in love with him for his racing stripes.

In many ways, that day in the car lot was the day that Sam Witwicky had been born.

So. Let's set the Way-Back Machine for....