(Oh yeah I need to disclaim this, don't I? Okay, here goes):

If I owned Transformers, do you think I'd be writing for FANFICTION ??? No, I'd be in my mansion, typing up a script for TRANSFORMERS ON ICE on my two gazillion dollar computer. So no, I do not own the TF franchise. Only in dreams do wishes come true... so, F*** you, dreams.

ASiP 2

There were so many things that Norah wanted to do before she died. Kids, oh, had she thought about kids. She wanted two boys and a little girl, and a husband to father them who loved her dearly; she wanted to dance in Carnegie Hall, if she was ever good enough; Norah had dreamed of growing old in rocking chairs, scolding her grandkids for slinging mud at mean neighbors (but she'd really fist-bump with them and break out the ice cream, like all good grannies should); and in order to escape the pain of losing the love of her life when at the end of the road, she wanted to die before her husband.

But that was in the future, far, far away. She wasn't going to die now.

No, she was going to kick and thrash and scream and even bite, if she had to. Through her down coat, Norah felt its hard fingers dig into her middle; She couldn't tell at her angle exactly how big it was, but the thing's hands were just slightly larger than a pillow each, though were in now way soft or comforting. One metal digit that had her at the hip had slipped under her coat and shirt. Cold, hard and sharp grated against her hip bone, and she snapped. Completely disregarding the fact that this robotic creature was flipping huge, she tried her best to convey her want to survive. Doing the only thing Norah knew how to do in such a situation, the woman cried out, shrilly, for anyone who might be around. Her voice had only been working for a mere half-second before the robot shook her a little. It was fitting, in a horribly ironic way; she was the size of a Raggedy Ann to this monster. Wide-eyed, Norah's volume quit, and she just gaped at it like a waterless fish.

"Stop that," it said, though its words were flat, and almost sounded confused. Norah noticed the male infliction of its --his?-- voice, along with the tinniness of it -- sounded like a robot, all right, but there was life to that voice. Norah grew up with robots that were monotoned and only said destroy, destroy, destroy. She had yet to hear this particular robot mutter one word pointing toward any kind of destruction, though that small reassurance didn't assuage any of the fears kicking around in her stomach. The first and foremost thought running through Norah's head was fight.

There were a few problems with that. How could she fight something that was taller than a house and probably outweighed her by a few tons? Not to mention the fact that all the muscle she had maintained throughout her eighteen years of ballet was for beauty, not hulksmashnow strength. A body builder could rip her in half... heck, a child could rip her in half. So she tried to fight the only other way she knew how.

With words.

"What the hell is your problem!" The robot flinched; he wasn't expecting a retaliation, it seemed. It was working. She tried to look absolutely pissed; her eyes were narrow, brows down in anger, and her body went tense. Adrenalin pumping, Norah hissed, "I don't know what the fuck you are, but you need to let go of me...you need to get out of my pool...and you need to explain yourself, or I'm running in that house and calling NASA and Area 51, and so help me God, I'll do it with a smile on my face." Norah scared herself a little; never in her twenty-three years had she talked so scathingly to another person, whether human or not. She was usually very considerate toward others, and to lash out felt almost... good. It was a rush.

But it also got Norah into some trouble.

The robot did not set her back on the ground above. Instead, he placed her at the bottom of the pool, between his extremely intricate (and large) feet. "I cannot let you do that."

Norah looked up. Yes, she could see the glorious sky through the open flap, but it was quite a way up, and the ladder was behind the robot's back. Unless she wanted to play jungle gym all over the robot, she was trapped. So instead she sat, defeated, as he sat back, contemplating her. She could barely see any more than a few parts of him, but Norah could tell that he was white, at least, and that he was not a conventional run-away-from-government robot. Now, if KITT had been chilling in her pool, maybe she'd rethink the latter, but not for this one; he was the exact opposite of some TV robot.

Norah was in no way a paranoid person, but just feeling those blue lights on the skin of her face sent shivers up her spine, and Norah was beginning to feel claustrophobic. Averting her gaze elsewhere, the woman swallowed, took a breather, swallowed again, and said, very calmly, as if her outburst earlier had never existed, "What are you, and why are you in my pool?" She knew she wasn't going to get out without someone's help, and if that someone was another human, this pool-dwelling robot would be no more. Maybe it wasn't too late to get on its good side.

The robot looked away, and sat back. She could cut the hesitance in the air with a knife, and prodded him with, "Come on."

Big, blue eyes shifted down to her, then shuddered. "I am fr--" With a physical jump, the robot stopped and became very, very still. After a second of dangerous silence, he not-breathed, "Outside, there is someone else."

"You mean above? From the house?"

"Yes..."

"Well, don't just sit there looking so stupidly conspicuous, let me up!"

"N--"

"Let. Me. Up. I'll keep your big ass hidden, don't worry."

The robot gently lifted Norah up to the rim of the pool and pushed her up onto the brick surrounding it. For a split second she believed it had been a successful little adventure, but when she saw a pair of boots leading to a pair of legs, and so on, that were walking her way, Norah's heart began to thump in her chest. How do I explain this?

"Rizzy, what the hell are you doing?" Oh, it's Mike. Only one person in the whole wide world called her Rizzy, and that was her brother. Relieved, but only slightly, Norah stood and limped over to him. She tried her hardest not to look at the pool, and instead focused her attention on her younger brother as they turned back to the house.

"Came out here for some air..."

"Yeah, ten minutes ago," he scoffed, "I'm surprised you're not a popsicle yet -- it's friggin' cold, Norah! And I heard what happened to you yesterday; that lady who brought you there called us around five PM. Damn, girl, you got balls for screaming at the dude who plowed you down in the middle of the str--"

"Please don't say 'plowed you down.' It wasn't rough and dirty sex, butthead. He hit me, he didn't 'plow me down.'"

"Well 'he hit me' sounds like domestic abuse, so which one's it gonna be?"

They stopped at the door. She looked at Michael -- wanted to tell him everything that had happened in those ten minutes... the robot in the pool was a spectacle, and now that she had some time to think about it, something that big trying to fit in a pool only ten feet deep and twenty by eighteen perimeter-wise, she had to let out a little giggle. Her brother noticed this, however, and cocked an eyebrow north.

"What?" She cast him a sideways glare as they passed the kitchen into the living room.

With a boyish smirk, he walked out of the room. She heard him open the refrigerator, and while he was rummaging through, she heard him say, "Nothing; I just didn't know you were still high."

"I'm not high! Did you see your friends -- the ones with the motorbikes who came over like a month ago? Yeah -- those guys were high. Made outright spectacles of themselves on the news yesterday morning." Actually, they had been right. There was a robot on the loose.

"I saw that, yeah. Laughed the whole time... when I called Brady up, his mom said that he was busy skyping with the 'Alien Brigade.'" Michael laughed. "I love those guys."

Norah wasn't sure what to do now. There was a full house of people and a full pool of robot on the other end of the yard. She understood that his reticence meant that he didn't want to be found out, and if it wasn't for Norah's going out in the first place, she might've never met him... hmmm. They never exchanged names. If he even had a name; Norah hoped the robot wasn't using just a long, complicated string of numbers as a name.

She'd never remember it past the first digit.

[][][][][]

She wanted so badly to go back to the pool and say hello to the robot, but for the next hour she had been roped into a call with Jane, the receptionist from the day before. "Uh-huh," she was saying, sounding somewhat preoccupied as she spoke with Norah, "so you're OK, right?"

"Y-yeah," Norah said, holding the phone between her cheek and shoulder. In her hands was a block of sticky notes and a pen; poorly-drawn box-and-line robots filled up one note, and she moved onto the next. "When I was filing the report in the ER yesterday, the police hadn't seen or heard of any other assaults with that car, so I'm not sure what the guys problem was...oh. Jane, I gotta go. I'll call you later--" She hung up the phone and blinked. Jane had been extremely friendly and helpful, and in the older woman Norah had made a friend, but she had just made a very outrageous realization, and had to think for a moment, uninterrupted.

White with the signature BMW grill. Oh, no. This is just peachy.

She ended up limping back to the pool after Mike went to school and her mother left for work. Lo and behold, the robot was still there, looking bored as ever. "Where were you, around..." she counted back to when ballet practice had ended, "three-thirty, eastern standard Earth time yesterday?"

He eyed her, unsure about something. "When was 'three-thirty, eastern standard earth time'?"

Obviously this brand of robot couldn't tell time. Instead, Norah decided to get right down to business. "Yesterday, you were driving really fast and you hit someone--"

"I hit you."

"Well, yes, I kno--" She cut off her own sentence, words fizzling out like a balloon let loose. Norah needed to take a moment, just to register what he had just said. Then, "You knew! What, did you just follow the taxi home? And why were you going so fast!"

"I was being chased, and I had been in the hospital garage earlier...when I witnessed you take the yellow vehicle, I wanted to make sure you weren't severely damaged. The local police began to circle around this neighborhood, probably thinking you were being targeted, I had to get off the street. No garage doors were open, so I improvised. I found something else to hide in." Her pool, obviously.

"That...that makes sense." She straddled the ladder down halfway, and the robot helped her to the bottom with a cold hand. The temperature had only gone up to thirty degrees, and Norah felt a pang of guilt for just leaving him there, even if she had just learned of his existence not two hours before. "So, what now?"

"Well," sighed the robot, shifting a foot, "I hope to find Prime. I have coordinates, but no global map. I have wireless telecommunication, but I can't send or receive any data. And," he continued, "it is very uncomfortable down here."

"...How tall are you?"

He had to think about that. "I doo not know how to convert it into whatever you use to measure things."

Just then, a lightbulb popped into existence over Norah's head. She looked up into his optics and said, "You want legroom? I'll give you legroom; and you only look sixteen feet tall, as a max."

"Thank you?"

"Hmmmm. We just need to get you out of the pool."

[][][][][]

Norah hopped up the stairs, limped to the end of the hall and knocked on her parents' bedroom door. Since it was Thursday, the studio would not teach, but her father may still how up. She had to somehow persuade him not to do that. With a squeak of the hinges, her dad pulled the door open and smiled. "How're you feeling, Norah?" Being a ballet instructor, Markus Rizeakos was not a tall man. It was embarrassing for Norah to have to look down to see her father (there was a four inch difference), but she still "looked up to him," in that daughter-father way.

She shrugged. "I'm not the best, and walking still hurts a little, but eh, I can get around okay. Stairs are a challenge, though. Wish I could fly." Norah wanted this to go well, and in order to do that, she needed to keep him out of the picture, whic was saddening at the same time. Norah couldn't even count the number of times she had thought, It'll be okay, it's Dad, not some stranger. However in her heart she knew it was a very bad idea to involve him. She couldn't involve anybody else. Hell, she shouldn't have been involved. It was settled. "Hey, uh, Dad?" She asked, trying her best to look pitiful.

"Uh-huh," he said from across the room, where he was peeking out onto the street. Mark turned with a lttle smile, saying, "What's goin' on?"

Blurt it all out. Just go for it. She inhaled.

"I was wondering if you could stay here and man the fort and I'll go down to the studio and, you know, clean up a bit... because I still think there's some water damage, and it's not like I'll be able to be part of practice with my leg all screwed up and I'm really, really bored, and I called up a friend who'd be willing to give me a ride over, or I'll take a taxi, since Mike still hasn't found the time to switch the brakes on my car... pleeeease?" With aching ribs, Norah huffed out another little "please" and tried her very best to gauge her father's reaction. She hoped he wouldn't think she was hiding something (which she was, but she learned how to lie from Shakespeare class her junior year), and to her surprise, her dad just crossed his arms and laughed.

"If you promise me that you won't aggravate that leg anymore, and that you'll watch for cars a little better, sure, go ahead. It'd give me some time to get the dry cleaning and mail some boxes off at the post office -- you know, dad things. And then maybe I'll just hang around here after... just bring your cell in case anything happens, alright?"

"Yeah, alright." Another smile and she hopped down the stairs, feeling oh-so smug.

Mission halfway accomplished!

[][][][][]

Luckily, there wasn't any more water damage in the back room, which meant Norah didn't have to do much. The robot had driven right through the small garage door in the parking lot behind the building; she watched, mesmerized, as the sides of the BMW seemed to shrink in; hundreds of little panels slid back, shifted and gave the car the advantage of being about twenty inches thinner, which helped him get through easily enough.

It was still early -- eight AM. Most everyone was either at work, school, or was shopping around. Norah didn't worry much about someone getting in, since the front door (and only access for clients) was locked with the security code in place. The walls were lined with planks of pine, and photos of past dancers lined the edges of the mirrors on one side of the room. Norah looked up; this part of the studio was lofty for a reason; it had cathedral-inspired stained glass panels all along the front side, which blasted colors onto the dancefloor on a sunny afternoon, and the ceiling had to be higher than the surrounding buildings in order to catch the sunlight, so her robotfriend would be fine if her hasty measurments were somewhat decent.

"Try it out."

Because she was busy cajoling her father into letting her take over for a day, Norah hadn't seen the robot transform when he finally climbed out of the pool. Now, though, her full attention was on him. Things hissed and whirred and then all of a sudden his body exploded into a flurry of movng parts. Wheels went here, panels swiveled and stuck in place, a head popped out of the top near the end, and those blue orbs stared down at Norah again.

"Ummm." She had stayed back a little, unsure of exactly how much room he'd need to transform, and was quite hesitant to come closer, after seeing him in full height. She had to smile, though. Nothing had ever been so beautiful -- this even trumped her brother's birth, and that was hard to admit. "This better than some teeny weeny little pool, um... hey, what do I call you?"

She seemed to have caught the robot off-guard; he had been looking around, too. He thought about it for a while, eyes dimming like a modem, hard at work. She wondered how he knew English if he wasn't able to connect to anything in the air. Norah would have to ask him. "I am...Burlesque, and yes, this place will do for now. You never admitted your own designation--"

Norah was laughing at him. Hard. She wiped at her eye, giggled an apology, and tried to calm down some. When "Burlesque" started to stare at her, Norah closed her eyes and grinned, trying her hardest not to crack up again.

"...that's a nice name, though where I'm from, it means a strip tease." He still stared, obviously uncomprehending. "Women and men taking off their clothes in front of an audience." Another chuckle.

She had never been stared down by a car this long (well, never at all, actually), and she felt slightly uncomfortable. When he spoke, the words were measured and sounded completely thought-out. "According to the language package I received upon decyption of Prime's message, burlesque meant mockery, or parody long before you began to use it to describe ... women and men taking off their clothing, though I don't qute understand the problem with that anyway."

When he put it that way, Norah had to give him props. Not only was Burlesque culturally oblivious, but she began to see just how he acted when confronted; not hostile, but he explained things very thoroughly, almost offendingly, if someone took his tone wrong. She knew he wasn't trying to be overly rude, considering what she had done to give him some wiggle room.

"Well, it's very nice to meet you, Burlesque. I'm Norah Rizeakos."

Norah taught him how to shake hands, and very gently, he grasped hers in his and they formally greeted each other.

"So," Ventured Norah a few minutes later; she had retired to a chair in the corner while Burlesque stretched and walked around in a few circles. "What are you going to do now?"

"What I'd like to do is get in touch with Prime, though I am not sure how."

AN: Personally, I like his name. And you'll see why it's so fitting in the near future (probably next chapter, or at latest, the fourth).

And now I'm off to bed. Any comments or critiques are very, very appreciated -- please, feed my tiny little ego some scraps. =)

-Pants out.