Might be doing this as a drabble folder for prompt responses in TF-verse. :) Check the bottom for more info.

Disclaimer: Not mine. None of it. Otherwise, trust me, Carly would be nonexistant, and Bee and Sam would have had a lot more adorable bonding time on-screen in the movies. :D

Characters: Sam. Journal style.

Prompt: "Messenger"

Don't shoot the messenger.

That's a great idea; makes a lot of sense really, if you think about it. Why blame the messenger for the bad news he (or she; mom's pretty big about women's rights and equality and all that) happens to be unfortunate enough to bring? It's not the messenger's fault, really. Too bad the Decepticons hadn't heard about it. 'What's that? The Autobots don't want to give up the Allspark and let you win the war? Well, slag, that's not what I wanted to hear!' 'You say the Dynasty of Primes has decided to bring you and my archenemy Optimus Prime back to life to defeat me? Shucks! Now I'm going to have to find a new way to enslave humanity and destroy the Autobots!'

Yeah, that wasn't going to happen-even if, for whatever reason, the Decepticons did hear the old human adage, they'd probably laugh it to Cybertron and back before even thinking about following the advice. He figured it wasn't that strange, actually; it fit with overall Decepticon morality and thought processes, anyways. Why send the messenger back with a threatening message and a story about how pissed they were about the message when, instead, they could instead send the mutilated corpse of their enemy messenger to send a real message about what they thought of the original message? Mutilated corpses made much bigger impacts than 'Go-tell-Optimus-I'm-really-really-pissed-at-him-for-not-dying's did.

Not that Megatron ever got the opportunity to send my body back to the 'bots to send a message. He came close a hell of a lot more times than I'm comfortable thinking about. I want to feel disgusted with myself, for being so scared of him, for still having those dreams about Alice and the decepticon doctor and being in Megatron's hands. I want to hate myself for the way I still wake up choking on a scream, my sheets tangled around my legs and damp with sweat. How is it fair that I get to have nightmares, that I get to be afraid like that when I was never really hurt at all? A few scrapes, some burns and some really big bruises. So I was molested by alien tentacle-tongue and had a horrible alien slug in my brain reading my mind. So what? People died. They died, and I'm here having nightmares about making out with an alien.

People died, and people lost their families. Whole families died. A city burned, people died-hell, I don't even know how many people. How many people lived there? How many people don't, anymore? What about in Egypt, and in-and what about Lennox and Epps' unit, how many people were there? Why do all these people who had nothing, absolutely nothing to do with any of this fucked up alien shit die, while me-I'm in the middle of everything. I start it, sometimes! Why do they die, but I don't-except when I do, but you know, even when I do, I don't.

Fuck, that doesn't even make any sense, except it does and now I'm rambling inside my head and fuck, I've lost track of whis whole...

Shit, let me start over.

Okay, nightmares. So. Yeah, nightmares. I'm having them, becau-well fuck, because doesn't matter. I'm having them and apparently it's freaking people out, the screaming and yelling and speaking in ancient alien languages in my sleep and-yeah, well, I can sorta understand that last one. But still. It's bothering people, and since I don't want to talk to a doctor (like there's any shrink out there that could possibly understand what it feels like to have an alien robot bug rape your mind) Epps suggested a diary.

Okay, he called it a journal, but we all know 'journal' is just the manly way to say super secret diary of secrets. Whatever. So I got a diar-journal, I got a journal. Very manly, I assure you. It's brown, and leather. It reminds me of something that Grandpa Witwicky would have written in, so I'm also using a pen that sort of looks like an old-fashioned fountain pen. Maybe I should get some glasses, too. Then maybe next time I screw around with megalomaniacal robotic beings from another world or their artifacts, maybe the only thing it'll do is mess up my glasses, not leave me a gibbering maniac like Grandpa.

Oh, wait, too late.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. Diary. Right.

Messenger boy. That's what she called me. I'm not a soldier, I'm just a messenger. Not a hero.

Never a hero.

Because heroes don't watch while their leaders (is he my leader? Can I really say that? I want to. Go-Primu-...I really want to. I want him to be.) die for them. Heroes don't destroy the only thing that can save their new friends-their best friends'-species from extinction. Heroes don't bring fucking Judas back to their home base so he can shoot Ironhide in the back and take the Pillars and just fucking ruin everything. Heroes don't spy on their friends.

Messengers do that. Messengers run with cubes, they tell everyone Optimus is dead. They follow clues and revive old Decepticons and run across Egypt while their parents are kidnapped and they get the girl and lose her and get another one and almost destroy the world. Twice. No, wait. Fucking three times.

But messengers don't kill people, messengers don't fight. Because they're not soldiers. They don't fight.

But I did.

Megatron. Laserbeak. Starscream. I killed them. I shoved the cube in his spark chamber. I held his head in front of a gun to get it blown off. I shoved a bomb in his eye.

Optimus Prime. Jetfire. Ironhide. I killed them, too. I watched him die trying to protect me. I brought him into the war again, even when he shouldn't have been there. I brought his murderer to him, I stood there while his murderer shot him in the back. I might as well have pulled the trigger.

God. Bumblebee. He...he came so close...

In that car, that trashed out car while the decepticons beat them, killed them...watching helplessly while they degraded Bee, pushed him down to kill him-to fucking execute him like he was-was just some-criminal...I wanted to die. I wanted to trade places. I would have, if I could. I would have died, if he could have lived. He was...it was wrong. He was so...

Fuck, I'm crying again. I'm so pathetic. He was just-he was waiting for it. Just fucking waiting for it, and I was just going to watch. To watch! My best friend in the whole world was about to die and I was cowering under a car!

I know I couldn't have done anything that would really help. That's...that's not the point. The point is I should have tried, even though I knew I'd fail. Even though I knew I'd die. Looking back, I was terrified, but not for me. I was scared for Bee and for Carly. I didn't want to give her away. Because I knew I couldn't save Bee, but maybe her...

Bringing her into all this was wrong. Wrong with all capitals. She's-she's nothing like me. Not like Mickaela. Not even like mom. She's...she's just different, and different in a way that I don't understand. There's steel in her, but not the...right kind. Not the right kind. And steel isn't enough. She doesn't want me to be with them, the autobots. She doesn't understand; I don't blame her, because it's something I only came to understand myself recently.

I'm nothing without them. Nothing. None of it matters. Medals, honor, presidents, jobs; none of it makes any sense, none of it matters to me. Not one tiny. Fucking. Bit.

I thought it was respect I didn't have enough of; I thought I needed a big, important job and recognition and respect, but that's not it. It was only when I watched them on that ship, flying away-and then dying, being destroyed in a horrible, cowardly crap-shot by the decepticon bastards that I realized what it was. I needed them. I need them. Present tense, past tense, future tense. They're part of my life, they have been even before they landed and came for me. I don't know how much I believe in destiny, but the Dynasty of Primes were pretty adamant about it. I was destined to meet them. And my job isn't done.

I'm not a messenger. I'm not. Because I can't stand back and let others fight for me anymore. I can't let that happen, because too many people-yeah, they're people too, sometimes more real and alive to me than the people who look like me-have died and suffered while I hid behind debris to watch. I won't be the one hiding anymore. I won't be the one needing protection. It's time for me to be a part of a team. And I know who I want to take my orders from.

I don't think I'm as scared as I probably should be. I should be terrified to take up arms against decepticons; I know damn well what they can do. I've seen it. I've felt it. Maybe that's why I'm not; or maybe it's all teenage excitement and testosterone talking, but it feels right. I want to fight with them, because what else can I do? It's what I was born for. I was born for this. Who am I to fight destiny?

Now I just have to tell my mom...

AN: Right...watched the new movie last night. Carly-um. _ Right. Well.

Ahem, anyways. I'll probably want to go back and re-do this, since it was pretty much done stream of consciousness with no real forethought other than 'fucking MESSENGER boy? that bitch!' ahaha. And my inner Sam is apparently very angst-ridden with a dash of survivor's guilt. I should probably not write things in an hour and a half at 1am and post them without even reading them. (Also, I don't even have a decent word processing thing on my computer. I wrote this in Notepad, so please alert me to any typos-no spell check.) Also, somehow the pre-author noted version of this was apparently exactly 1600 words. I thought that was kind of funny.

I'm thinking about adding more chapters to this as a sort of...drabble folder for prompt responses. Most won't be journal style, and most won't be this...depressing. :) Feel free to submit any prompts you want, and I might write a response chapter to it. Thanks for reading!