AN: SO, I've had a lot of time to work on writing lately, and this story just won't leave me alone. So I've got the next chapter out already! Hope you guy's like it. Thanks to all the faves, follows, and reviews. Enjoy and please R&R!

Chapter 1: Interrogation

...
Ellie gave him a slightly more genuine smile this time as she relaxed slightly into her chair and waited for Simmons to start questioning her.
…

"Are you okay Miss..?" Simmons asked, trailing off as he waited for Ellie to fill in her name.

Ellie was honestly shocked by the sincerity she heard in the question. It was obvious to her that Simmons truly cared for his coworkers. It showed in how clearly he cared for her, despite the fact that they had only seen each other in passing once a month at most.

"Doctor, actually. Not that you're wrong on the Miss part." She gave a weak chuckle before continuing. "Doctor Eleanor Scott. Though most call me Ellie, and I'm fine. At least, I think I'm fine. Might need some vacation time but I'm fairly certain I'm fine." She rambled, partially to play up her 'scared scientist' role and partially because she couldn't help it. It was a bad habit of hers to ramble when she was nervous. It was why she just kept her mouth shut most of the time. Better people think her unsociable then a crazy woman. Simmons gave a small nod of understanding, letting Ellie know that he was not offended or annoyed by her rambling.

"Well Doctor Scott, seems like you've had an eventful night." He joked, obviously trying to ease the tension in the room. Ellie laughed quietly at the statement. He had no idea just how eventful her night had truly been. Not that she planned to tell him that. No, she might like the guy, but she didn't trust him. Not yet. He had to earn that right.

"Yeah I suppose you could say that. I'm sure you guys caught it all on tape." She replied, waiting to see if he would take the bait she'd set out. She remembered that the cameras weren't working before she left the night watch office, but they could have turned back on at any point during the little light show she had witnessed. Oh she was confident that they didn't, but she was not about to risk the life of her little mechling because she was overconfident. Simmons did not catch on to her plan and answered her hidden question.

"Not really. Seems like whatever the 'artifact' did caused the cameras to break completely. So I'd appreciate it if you can tell me all you remember." Simmons supplied. Ellie let out an internal sigh of relief while making sure she seemed genuinely surprised and slightly traumatized on the outside.

"I guess. Might not be much of a tale. I was kinda scared stiff fer most of it." Ellie rambled, letting her accent shine through once again. She had forced herself to learn to hide her accent during her early days of college. She was tired of everyone looking at her like she was a dumb hick because of it. Few things made her revert to her old accent. Nerves, fear, and exhaustion for example and she was taking the chance to play up that little tell to make her lie just a bit more believable. Lucky for her, it seemed to be working.

"Don't worry about that Doctor Scott, just tell me what you remember and we can send you on your way." Simmons reassured her with a patient smile on his face. Something Ellie truly appreciated. Despite the fact that she was fairly calm at the moment, she knew she was still slightly rattled by the 'attack'. Something deep within her was saying that the cube was simply doing what it had to. That she had nothing to fear from the cube, and it did help settle her down for the most part. It also helped that as a scientist, she was used to shutting her ramped emotions down so she could calmly asses a situation and figure the best course of action. It was something she did a lot in her line of work, and was relying heavily on now. Nevertheless, the more primal part of her. The fight or flight part of her brain was screaming at her, telling her she should not be calm, she should be freaking out. A giant alien cube just attacked her, leaving her with a little baby alien robot to take care of and she was acting as if it was a common occurrence. Needless to say, his reassuring tone helped calm her still somewhat frayed nerves.

"Okay. I, uh, well I was workin' night watch tonight. And night watch is normally fairly borin'. Nothin' much happens at night, it's just a time us scientist use to catch up on work. Ya know what I mean? Well, the monitor we've got set up ta watch the Cube started beepin'. And I glanced at the security cameras, and they were down. I'm surprised I fergot that. It was fairly important at the time. But I just… I uh, went to check on the Cube, like protocol dictates." She paused and slightly shifted her grip on the computer in her arms, a sheepish smile making its way on her face when she realized something. "I mean, mostly followin' protocol. I kinda ignored the part about informin' someone of your current position. Didn't think it was important at the time. The Cube gives out false alarms all the time, and this aint the first time that it's shorted out the cameras."

Ellie glanced up at Simmons and was relieved to see that he was not about to go into a long drawn out speech of what protocol was and why it was in place. She understood the importance of it, and she was not quite sure if she could stand sitting through a lecture now. Especially one of Simmons famous lectures. She's heard horror stories about some of the lectures he's given.

"Back onto the story though. I walked to the 'Cube Room' and found that the cube was releasin' bolts of this unknown energy. Kinda like lightenin' and at first I was too shocked to do anythin'. But then this bolt of lightenin' energy stuff hits the floor not three feet away from me so I just ran fer a place to hide. I was lucky enough to find a desk to jump under 'fore I got zapped. And that's kinda where I stayed until yer men found me. I'm not quite sure when the cube stopped sparkin', but I'm happy it did." She finished her tale with a sigh, slouching in her chair and hugging her laptop closer to her for a brief moment.

Ellie glanced up at Simmons, who seemed to be deep in thought as he went over her tale, and briefly wondered if he would question her laptop. She had not quite worked out how to work the laptop into the story, and hoped that the man would just chalk it up to nerves and leave it be. Luck seemed to be working in her favor as the man simply hummed to himself before nodding and standing up from his seat.

"Thank you for your cooperation Doctor Scott. You can go now. Be sure to rest up and come in early tomorrow so we can do some tests on you to make sure that you're okay. Once the tests are done, we'll see about those 'vacation days' you mentioned earlier." Simmons dismissed her with a smile .Making Ellie smile in return. She liked Simmons. She had no idea why so many people seemed to hate the man, but he had been nothing but civil towards her. Something she could not say about most of her co-workers. Most seemed to focus on the fact that she was a woman in her twenties working with stuff many of them have spent most of their lives hoping to even glance at. It did not help that she was being paid a bit more than most of them.

"Thank ya kindly." She mumbled, standing from her chair and following behind the man as he walked towards the door. She gave him a small nod of thanks as he held the door open for her and began the long trek through Hoover Dam towards her truck, laptop still held tightly to her chest. The settle thrum of energy assuring her that the events of the past few hours really did happen, and she really did have a little robot clutched tightly in her arms.

Ellie made it to the truck without issue and set the laptop in the passenger seat while she buckled up. The laptop transformed into the little mechling that had won her heart. She smiled at the little robot that gave a questioning chirp. His antenna shining a curious purple. Ellie's chest grew warm with mixed emotions. The most obvious being relief, excitement, and curiosity. She wasn't quite sure how but she was sure that the little mechling was feeling the same as she was. She reached over and patted the mechling on the helm. Making sure to pay special attention to his antenna, causing the mechling to shutter his optics and give a content purr. Ellie chuckled and continued her ministrations before turning on her truck and starting the long drive back home.

The drive home was surprisingly peaceful. The little mechling spent most of the drive attempting to sing along with the radio like Ellie, making her laugh at his cute little chirps and whistles he made to the tune of whatever song the station decided to play. Ellie was, for once, extremely happy that she lived not even 20 minutes from the Hoover Dam. Because she wasn't quite sure she could last a longer drive. She pulled into her garage and was immensely thankful that she lived in a rather empty neighborhood with recluse neighbors.

It was only after the garage door closed completely that Ellie risked leaving the safety of her truck. The little bot climbing across the center console to follow her. Ellie smiled and picked the foot tall bot up into her arms. The bot was surprisingly light; though Ellie knew she should have expected it since his laptop, form weighed the same. Ellie leaned forward to grab her bag from the truck when she suddenly remembered that she'd left her bag at work. With a small shrug, she straightened up as the mechling wrapped his arms around Ellie and nuzzled his face into her neck. She settled him on her hip, and pushed the truck door closed with her butt. Ellie smiled and had to fight to keep herself from cooing at the adorable little bot as she carried him into her house.

Her house was a bit big for a single woman to live in on her own, but in Ellie's defense, she bought it with the future in mind. Ellie had always dreamed of falling in love and starting a family, so when she was looking for a house next to her new job at Hoover Dam, she had decided to buy a two-story five-bed 4-bath condo. It did help when she had family visiting. However, that was an extremely rare occurrence as of late.

After a few years of waiting for her soul mate to walk into her life unexpectedly, Ellie accepted that that probably wasn't going to happen. So instead, she renovated her house, turning two of the bedrooms into one big lab for research purposes. It was a nice little sanctuary she used on a daily bases. She really did enjoy her unbelievable large government check.

Deciding that she did not feel comfortable leaving the little robot on his own in one of her guest bedrooms Ellie started the long trek through her house and up the stairs to the master bedroom. Her bedroom, like her house, was much too large for one person to live in on their own. The bedroom had its own bathroom, a walk in closet, and a sitting room. Ellie tended to find herself sleeping in her lab more often than not, so the room was fairly clean. The only exception being the sitting room, which she used for planning experiments when she wasn't in her lab.

Once she was sure that the mechling was settled on her bed, Ellie sat down beside him and started taking of her 'uniform' as she liked to call it. In truth, the only 'uniform' she was forced to wear was a long lab coat with a name-tag clipped onto the front left pocket. The color and design of the lab coat was left up to the scientist to decide. Ellie had decided early on that she'd wear the generic white lab coat to work, and keep her more 'unique' coats at home for personal use. She did not trust her coworkers to leave her more unique coats alone, and she did not want to test how others would react if she walked in one day in the tie-dye lab coat her old science teacher got her for graduation. Underneath her lab coat was a green V-neck with a large green question mark on the front and on the back was the ever famous phrase, 'Riddle me this'. A gift from her old college friend who knew she was slightly obsessed with the batman villains. She also wore an old worn out pair of jeans that were covered with holes, stains, random doodles, and equations she'd written on them when she was bored or out of paper.

She sighed as she leaned forward and untied her boots before kicking them off. Pulling off her socks and throwing them to the floor without care. Her old brown steel toe boots were as worn as her jeans and covered in stains from unknown chemicals and little burn marks from random wires. She'd made it a point to wear the steel toe boots after an accident with a large slab of iron almost left her toeless. She shrugged off her lab coat and tossed it onto a nearby chair. She pulled the bobby pins she used to keep her bangs out of her face out of her hair. She took off her safety goggles from around her neck where she let them hang when she wasn't using them before turning to the mechling sitting next to her. She crossed her legs and leaned back, using her arms to keep her upright as she regarded the bot in front of her.

Ellie had the little robot's full attention and she couldn't help but wonder where he came from. Oh, she had no doubt that the little bot and the laptop she had clutched when she was attacked by the cube were one and the same. She was also positive that the cube had somehow brought the laptop to life when it struck her, making the little mechling in front of her. However, that still left hundreds of questions unanswered. Questions like 'why did the cube act up when it did' or 'how was it able to turn such basic technology into something so advanced' and let's not forget 'why was the cube so intent on hitting her with a bolt of energy'? That was possibly the biggest question she had. All evidence pointed to the fact that the cube was aiming for Ellie. Moreover, it left Ellie contemplating why. She wasn't important. She was smart, but there were thousands if not millions of people smarter than she was. Heck, five or six or her coworkers were not only smarter, but they were far more experienced then her. So why did this cube choose her? Or did it? Could it all have been one big coincidence? Ellie was not sure what to think at this point.

Ellie was pulled from her thoughts by the little mechling that had been sitting in front of her crawling into her lap and poking her nose. Ellie blinked before pulling a silly face, making the mechling giggle as he poke her nose a second time. Ellie made another silly face before wrapping her arms around the adorable little robot and falling back onto her king sized bed. She giggled along with the little bot as she rolled around on the bed with him a bit before settling down so the bot was laying on top of her. His head resting on her chest just over her heart as he nuzzled closer to her, purring in content. His little antenna, that were flashing a bright orange while they were rolling around, settled into a calm and content blue. Ellie smiled softly as she pet the mechling's antenna, listening as his purring grew in volume.

"Well then little Mech. It looks like yer gonna be livin' with me from now on." She smiled at the loud chirp of agreement the mech in her arms gave. "Were gonna have ta name ya then. We can't just go on callin' ya 'Little Mech'. We're also gonna have ta figure a source of fuel fer ya." Ellie sighed. Her accent becoming tick as the events of the day caught up with her. She was exhausted. "Suppose we can talk 'bout that borin' stuff in the mornin' though." She paused a moment in thought. "Just what am I gonna do with ya little mech." Ellie mumbled, slowly drifting off into sleep. The mechling following her example and fell asleep as it cuddled closer to her chest and the comforting warmth it seemed to radiate.