Title: Falling Down
Rating: M
Pairings: It's a surprise. But they're all slash.
Chapter Note: I am not religious, please don't take offense to any mentions in the text.
Summary: What if the Matrix of Leadership reformed and Optimus revived, but Sam didn't? In the Afterlife, he's given a choice: remain dead, or be resurrected with strings attached. Earth's future now lies in the servos of an orange Festiva.


Pain erupted through his body as a scream died on his lips. He couldn't feel anything—not the hot sun beating down on his skin, not the sweat running down his back, not the sand beneath his body—except for waves and waves of pain. He wanted to scream about the burning that was overtaking him, about the blackness that edged at his consciousness, but Sam found his lips unable to commune the sounds he wanted to emit. Instead, he was silent, though he swore the rapid beating of his heart could be heard by everyone within a five mile radius.

A moment later, and it was gone. All the pain had just simply disappeared. Sam struggled to sit up, finding his joints stiff as his eyes cracked open. He had blacked out. That had to be it, and maybe all the pain was a dream. Grinning to himself, because he had survived whatever it was that attacked him, the teenager stood up, before his grin faded away almost immediately. The sock with the Matrix's dust was gone! It was not in his hand. Looking around wildly, he saw people running towards him. Will, Mikaela, his mom and dad. Hadn't he told them to go hide? Turning his attention back to his lost possession, he needed to find it.

"Guys! The Matrix! Help me find it!" he yelled, eyes rapidly flickering around for the sock. What if it had gotten buried in the sand? There was so much sand—he'd never find it. He looked to the flock of people suddenly as they ran past him like they hadn't heard his shouts. The Matrix was all they had to revive Optimus, and he had lost it. Sam was almost welcoming the reprimand from Mikaela, but she too ran right by him. He was expecting Will to try to usher him from the middle of the field, where he had not moved from. He was expecting his mom and dad to hug and kiss him because he had survived some sort of blast. But nothing—they all ran past him.

"Guys!" he shouted, turning around. What he saw made him freeze on the spot. There, lying limp in the sand, was him. Sam was looking at himself, as if he had a twin or something. Confusion passed over him, his mind trying to decipher some sort of reason why he was standing there, but also laying there in the sand. Mikaela screamed, dropping to her knees beside the fallen body, grabbing it and shaking it, demanding Sam to wake up. But that wasn't him—he was standing fine a few feet away. His mother screamed too, held back by his father as the medics rushed forward. Will grabbed Mikaela, pulling her away to give them room. Sam watched, unsure really of what was going on. That wasn't him.

"Hey! I'm right here!" he shouted at them, moving to his parents first. "Mom! Dad! I'm all right!" He waved his hand in front of his violently sobbing mother, before trying to grab her arm. To his horror, his hand phased right through her, as if he was a ghost. Eyes widening, he tried to touch her again, only for similar results. He tried to touch his father, but he only went right through the man. To test that it was really happening, Sam took a few steps, his entire body passing through the sobbing couple. He blinked. He didn't feel a thing.

A static-y wail caught his attention, his eyes flickering up to see Bumblebee, the yellow mech's faceplates contorting as a whine escaped his vocal processor.

"Bee!" Sam called, waving his arms. It was no use—Bumblebee's optics stayed on the body that lay in the sand a few feet away. Confused and distraught, Sam moved back over to it, watching as the medics ripped the rest of its shirt, putting the defibrillator paddles to its chest in attempt to restart the no longer beating heart.

Was he dead? Was this what they called an out of body experience? He moved over to himself, crouching down beside the medic.

"No, no, no, no," he chorused, smacking the body's face. "C'mon, let me back in! I'm not ready to die! I can't, I have to get the Matrix to Optimus, he has to stop The Fallen!" He was getting frantic, finding his hands went through the body, but the body wasn't coming back, and he wasn't waking up inside it. Closing his eyes tight, he counted to three before opening them again, finding himself still staring at the body, rather than looking out from it. Cursing, he tried again, this time praying that he would go back. He opened his eyes, finding the situation hadn't changed.

"Dammit!" he cried out, eyes watering. This was it. He had died on the battlefield before he could complete the one thing he had to do. He had one goal, just one—get the Matrix to Optimus and revive him. It was simple and he failed.

Slumping to his knees in the sand beside his own body, he shuddered, unable to really grasp the idea that he was dead, and Optimus was not coming back. He remembered talking about the afterlife with the commander, discussing where their species went. Optimus' spark would return to the Matrix.

Thought of the foreign relic made Sam draw his eyes to it, blinking in curiosity as the dust seemed to glow from the body's outstretched hand, before a light breeze passed by, picking the dust from the sand, separating it, and carrying it towards Optimus' exposed frame. Sam stood up quickly, running over to the mech and leaving the body, his parents, Mikaela and Will behind. He watched as the dust seeped into the spark chamber, before suddenly life was restored to the mech. Optimus coughed, blowing sand from his lip plates as his optics came online.

"Optimus!" Sam shouted, grinning despite his current problem. The leader of the Autobots was alive. "The Fallen! You have to stop him!" As the giant sat up, his optics flickered over the sand, before finding them locked with the body so small in comparison, the dead status striking him hard.

"Sam…" Optimus spoke, hearing the medics call time of death.

The next few hours seemed to happen too quickly for the seemingly dead human. Right before his eyes The Fallen stole the Matrix, using it to activate the machine which would destroy the sun. Jetfire sacrificed himself to give Optimus the power to stop their enemy. After destroying the machine, he and The Fallen fought to the death, ending with the ancient Prime going down in a haze of fire and sparks, before Megatron escaped, barely alive himself.

Sam watched as the body was covered with a tarp and loaded onto the helicopter, his parents and Mikaela going with it. Sam tried to get on the helicopter with them, several times in fact, but his now ghostly body just wouldn't stay on board, instead falling through the steel floor as if it weren't even there. Sitting on his knees, he watched numbly as the rest of the area cleared out—the Autobots leaving, the soldiers being picked up. By nightfall, he was completely alone, the cold air of the desert settling around him.

Unable to bear the emotional distress of being dead, Sam slumped over in the sand, letting his eyes close as darkness took over his mind.

The moment he chose to blink open his eyes he was blinded, a bright white assaulting his vision and making him screw his eyelids closed again. A second later, he tried again, using a little more caution this time. The whiteness went on forever, and it seemed to make up everything—the wall, the floor, the ceiling. If there were any of those things; it seemed like an endless white space of nothingness. Standing up, he looked in a complete circle, before looking down at himself. He was wearing a white pair of shorts and a white t-shirt, his skin cleaned and healed, the room temperature coaxing his tanned body.

"Samuel, right on time." Turning around on his heels, green eyes met dark blue ones.

"…Dumbledore?"

The man sighed and rubbed his forehead with his thumb and index finger. "Why does everyone insist that? My name is Mortimer."

"I think it's the beard… and robes. And the hat, definitely the hat."

"Regardless of such similarities, my name is Mortimer."

"Can I call you Dumbledore?" The man sighed, before giving a genuine smile.

"Whatever will help you cope." It seemed to all come crashing back to Sam—so fast it made his knees weak and he shuddered visibly. He remembered the screams from his mother, from Mikaela, the absolutely devastated look from his father, and the wails from Bumblebee. The pain he actually felt was nothing in comparison to the pain he saw in his friends and family. The way his body was strewn across the sand, limp and bleeding, would remain with him forever.

"I'm… dead," he spoke. The man nodded.

"Indeed you are, Samuel. Your life was sacrificed to the Matrix, so that it would reform and Optimus Prime would live."

"So… I died so Optimus would live?"

"Yes, it equals out to that." Sam thought about this, going silent. In a way, his death meant he had indirectly helped save the world. If he hadn't died, the Matrix dust would have been nothing but that—dust. And The Fallen would have destroyed the sun and everyone on Earth. His life, in comparison for six billion people. While being dead was not something he was particularly fond of, he understood.

"You are taking this surprising well. Most people scream and pull on my robes and tell me to send them back."

"Does that ever help?"

"No. I am merely the messenger."

"Have you come to tell me if I get into heaven or hell?" Sam was never a really religious person, but he found himself oddly nervous in the idea of where he'd be going next.

"No, I have come to tell you that you have a meeting to attend."

"A meeting? With Jesus?"

"Come." Dumbledore moved forward, his pristine robe dragging on the white nothingness, before passing Sam to a wooden door that had not been there before. Sam followed obediently, eyes widening as they came into a meeting room of sorts. The walls were a pale green, the floor a solid oak finish and a few windows that peered out into the white nothing. There was a long table in the middle, with only three chairs. Dumbledore gestured to one.

"Have a seat, Samuel. Primus and God will arrive momentarily."

"Primus…?" Sam repeated, suddenly confused. Wasn't that the Cybertronian God, so to speak? Doing as he was told, he sat down in the chair and watched as Dumbledore went back to the door, standing beside it silently. A minute passed before the door opened again, and a man in a business suit walked inside, nodding to Dumbledore before proceeding to the meeting table.

"Samuel J. Witwicky. It is nice to meet you."

"Um… you too, although, different conditions would have been nicer…" he commented, watching the man sit in one of the open chairs. The door once again opened, and in walked another man, this one in a similar business suit, although different in physical appearance.

"Sam." The man greeted, nodding as he sat down. Sam nodded in return.

"We have… or rather, Primus has" the one on the right gestured to the one on the left "a proposal for you." Sam looked to the one on the left.

"You're Primus?" he asked bluntly. He was expecting Primus to be a robot, not a human in a suit.

"It's a holoform, but yes, I am Primus." Before Sam could ask more questions, he continued. "Sam, despite The Fallen having been deactivated by Optimus, there are still dark times ahead—"

"Dark doesn't even cover it," the man on the right snapped, glaring daggers at Primus. Primus sighed.

"I am aware. Forgive the interruption, Sam. I have an offer to make, to amend the atrocities that could possibly befall the third planet from the sun. It is entirely your choice." Sam's eyes flickered to the man on the right, watching as he stood with an angry expression, before leaving the meeting room.

"I can revive you—with certain conditions. Or you can remain dead, and enter the gates of your afterlife."

"What are the conditions if you revive me?" Sam demanded. He was liking the idea of being alive.

"Among others, you must protect Earth and prevent the destruction of the planet and all of its species."

"That's a pretty heavy job…" Sam muttered. "What's going to destroy it? How am I supposed to stop it?"

"I cannot tell you that."

"That makes it really difficult, then, doesn't it?" The teenager attempted to control himself. He wasn't sure how the Cybertronian God was going to take to his sudden frantic snippy attitude. Much to his luck, Primus paid no mind to it and continued speaking calmly.

"Optimus and the rest of the Autobots will assist you, but the outcome must be the planet's safe wellbeing." He paused a moment. "But it is your choice, Samuel. Be revived and save your planet, or reside in your afterlife and take comfort in knowing soon your friends and family will join you."

"You really know how to give a guy options," Sam muttered, rubbing the back of his neck anxiously. He thought it over for all of three seconds.

"I'll do it. Revive me, and I'll be Earth's protector or whatever."

"There are some limitations, Samuel. You cannot tell your friends or family who you are."

"Why not?"

"Because you simply cannot. If they are capable of figuring it out, then I will lift the limitation. However, until or if that happens, you cannot tell them your previous identity was Samuel James Witwicky, nor can you tell them you were revived from the dead." Sam sat in silence, digesting that information.

"You will be reborn as a Cybertronian Mech, allied to the Autobot cause," Primus continued, voice steady.

"So, I'll be able to transform into a car?"

"Yes, when on Earth's surface." His mind immediately began pegging all the sleek cars he'd love to turn into. Bugatti. Lamborghini. Porsche. Mercedes-Benz. So many beautiful and fast options. He felt giddy with all the choices.

"So, if I can't tell anyone I'm Sam, do I get to pick a new name?"

"If you'd like." He thought about it, thinking of all the names the Autobots had, and of all the names they had mentioned.

"I got it. Superawesome Shot."

"…No." Primus snorted. "Your new name will be Rogue."

"You just said I could pick it out!"

"I changed my mind. I am also glad your parents did not let you name yourself." Sam frowned. "Remember now, Rogue, you cannot tell anyone of your previous identity unless they happen to figure it out for themselves, nor can you tell them you were brought back from the afterlife."

"I remember, I remember." Was it bad he was excited to get to Earth to get his new alt form? Even still sitting there as a human, he was quite excited. He would be able to see his Autobot friends again, and not have to worry about being accidentally squashed. He'd be on their level. Absently, he made the decision to go with a Bugatti alt form—he'd be fast and sleek, able to outrun any Decepticon.

"And one more thing, Samuel," Primus spoke. He wasn't next to Sam anymore—nothing was. In the moment he took to blink, his entire surroundings disappeared, and there was nothing but darkness; he couldn't even see his hand in front of his face. The Cybertronian's voice came from nowhere, but at the same time, it came from everywhere. "If you fail to save Earth, I will have no choice but to return you to your afterlife."

Sam was suddenly rendered unconscious, his mind slipping into stasis as his new form was given life. In nothing but his protoform he floated gently through space, a silent pull from Earth's gravitational field dragging him towards the planet.


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