Disclaimer: Transformers belongs to Hasbro, Paramount, Mr Bay and so on, and it quite right that they make the money and the author of this makes…sigh…none. The author doesn't own any song lyrics either.
Warnings: Mild bad language (soldier variety), adult themes, the supernatural
Authors Notes: Wow! Twenty five reviews as last count, I was stunned. I'm so glad people like this fic! So here's the second instalment. There's not much Sam in this part, because I couldn't work him in in a big way, and I couldn't get Optimus in at all without making it too long – sorry Optimus fans! The big guy is all lined up for the next part, so not to worry. I wanted to introduce the other characters in the story and do something with Bumblebee – you were all so worried about Bee.
Please, read and review – your comments are welcome.
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Chapter One – The Light in the Night
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Captain Will Lennox, Air Force, reflected that life was disgustingly good. He was alive, breathing and had all vital body parts. He was on leave – with nothing to do all day except lie in, lounge around, drink beer, watch TV and slowly, slowly wind down the ever-ready adrenaline plateau that turned every whisper in the night a perimeter breach, every backfire a direct assault. Then there was his wife, Sarah, whose love, compassion and patience a Neanderthal grunt like him had done utterly nothing to deserve. And then there was his baby, his perfect little jewel, whom he would swear on a stack of bibles was the best, brightest, quietest, cutest, most well behaved little girl in this or any other world.
Yep, no other life had anything to recommend it. Sarah, who knew Will a lot better than he did, privately gave him another week before the boredom really started biting down. She was too glad to have him back to worry much, however.
Will had settled into bed after a long and mind boggling day of doing absolutely nothing; Sarah was peacefully asleep with her back to him. Will couldn't just fall into dreams so easily. Months after months of night duties and bouncing over time zones had totally screwed his internal clock. He lay in a light, alert doze, listening with half an ear to the baby monitor on the bedside table. The baby would sometimes make little noises as she went to sleep; it had taken him a few days to learn not to run down there at every little one. He was getting better.
He wasn't restless; there was just a lot he had to think about. Like it was official, aliens were among us. They were lacking in the green skin, big eyes, three finger department (but let's be fair, they did have antennas – they picked up satellite TV on them); they did however have the ability to go from zero to mach two in four point two seconds, weaponry that could blast chunks out of the moon and they had better cover than pods or seeds or whatever the hell aliens usually used. If someone had told the captain that heavy vehicles and sleek sports cars would be the harbingers of the invasion, he would have checked them into psych.
Go figure. But it was an idea that Lennox had to get used to.
"Captain Lennox."
Especially since one of them had, somehow or another, become a member of the family.
"Ironhide?" Lennox hissed.
Sarah sat up. She had taken to Ironhide quite nicely after some initial and understandable screaming. They way he had disarmed and reformed (very emphatically) a gang of carjackers one afternoon while Sarah and the baby were still in the car had done in two and a half minutes what years of careful diplomacy couldn't have managed. "How on earth did he…"
"Sorry for transmitting via your youngling security system, but you have deactivated your detachable comm."
"Cell phone," Lennox corrected automatically. The Autobots tried so hard to fit in. "It's called a cell phone, big guy, and there was a very good reason for turning it off."
Lennox realised that Ironhide couldn't possibly hear him at the same instant Ironhide replied. "Leisure duties, indeed. However, we have a situation."
"How the hell did you do that?" Will demanded, eyebrows shooting up. "Last time I check the secur-the baby monitor was strictly one way."
"My scouting microphones can detect human heartbeats for several miles, Captain." The rust bucket sounded amused.
"You can do that?" Sarah was wide eyed. "You do do that?"
"You watch the youngling your way, I'll watch her mine."
Will opened his mouth. There were probably many things he should have said to that statement, but he couldn't think of one. So instead he substituted. "Situation?"
"There are several non-locality vehicles approaching your base," Ironhide reported with the grim brevity of a professional soldier. "Identification numbers being transmitted via their navigation systems do not exist on public records. Possibly members of your government's intelligence agencies."
Shit. The feds were coming. "Any contact?" He couldn't believe he could say that to an alien with a straight face.
"Negative. However, Ratchet has sent me an emergency communication. Bumblebee is in need of assistance. Ratchet is on route, Optimus has been informed but is further away. I am closest. He suggested I ask you to accompany in case of…human complications."
Shit shit. Will didn't even realise he'd gotten a pair of khaki's on and already had one foot in a boot until he was reaching for the second one.
Sarah's hair was warm on his shoulders as she kissed the back of his neck. "Pick up some eggs and milk on the way back, will you?"
He didn't deserve her. He really didn't.
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Will actually hopped out to the black Topkick truck revving impatiently in his yard, stamping on his other boot as he took a flying leap into the open drivers door. Ironhide snapped it shut, neatly and narrowly avoiding clipping the letterbox with it.
"Whoa," Will managed to get upright in the seat as Ironhide swerved up the street.
"Please fasten your seatbelt."
"You're kidding, right? You actually have safety warnings in car mode?"
The big mech's engine rumbled, the approximation of a sigh. "Captain, I don't want to be held up by the more mentally unstable of your enforcement officers. I'm going to go around them."
The mentally unstable bit got a grin. A line of headlights lined both sides of the road leading to Will's home; looking like shriners next to Ironhide. "You don't want be caught up in the red tape parade, got it." The captain wisely reached for his seat belt.
The line of cars stopped. Suits got out.
Ironhide didn't.
The truck reared like a stallion, and, in some indefinable way that nevertheless made the Captain's teeth rattle, launched over them. They rumbled and bounced over two of the government sedans, the crunch of shattering glass and crumpling metal vibrated mildly through the cab.
"Ironhide! Human's aren't metal! They don't shrug off a crushing!"
"No human presence in vehicles," the Autobot sounded smug and slightly insulted. "I am a soldier, not a slaughterer."
Will glanced in the mirror, watched the silhouettes of people running like wet ants, the remaining cars were wheeling around. A thought occurred. "You call that going around?"
"Compared to other options."
"Don't sound so happy about it, big guy," Will muttered. "You've pissed off people you can't shoot. Whoops, company," he added as a burnout tyre symphony squealed behind them. Sedan's were appearing on either side, horns and lights blaring, white hands in windows angrily signalling to stop.
"Hang on," Ironhide advised. Will gripped the armrest and overhead respectively as the truck took a corner, still accelerating, expertly using the swerve to pull off a hairpin turn and double back over the chasing sedans, scattering them.
"I guess it's not the feds that worry you," Will asked, bracing one leg to the back of the pedals.
"No. The message from Ratchet concerns me more. Ratchet reported that Bumblebee had gotten a message to him, but that it was garbled. He fears some kind of attack."
"Decepticons?" Will winced as the Autobot performed a perfect spin, abruptly changing their direction and charging across a playground. The sedans followed clumsily.
"Impossible to confirm. Ratchet doesn't think so."
"Why not?" Will asked grimly. Those things really never died.
"The Decepticons are not subtle."
Which meant there'd be little pieces of Bumblebee all over the place if he'd been attacked. Ironhide sounded worried, insofar as a truck with a set of nuclear cannons could sound worried. The big guy whirred around a roundabout and shot down a long straight road, relying now on speed to outdistance the chasers. The lights dwindled into the distance until they were nothing but specks, and then nothing at all.
Force of habit made Will lay his hands on the wheel. "Two things, big guy. One, where are we going, and two, do you have some alien version of a car phone somewhere in here? I don't want those jackasses storming the house. We've just gotten the baby into a pattern." The radio and dials all looked human enough, if you discounted the fact that the tuner had over two thousand frequency options.
"Transmissions indicate they are not interested in your home base, just us," Ironhide assured calmly, turning neatly onto the main road. "They will probably end up at the same location we're heading to. Unfortunately. Human relations are-"
"My mission for tonight," the captain ran fingers through his mussed hair, sighing. "You're all heart, big guy."
"I'm all cannon, Captain," Ironhide corrected firmly. "And your intelligence officers are pains in the aft. I do not break my word to my leader, so I can't go with my instincts and treat them as any other enemy."
Will chuckled. "I'd pay to see that."
Ironhide rumbled. "No need. I would do it for free."
"Again, where are we going?" Will grinned.
The middle of nowhere, just outside the town where Sam lived, a lightly wooded and scrubby hiking wilderness that was murky and shadowy in the night dark.
There was a fed cordon around the area, but news like Ironhide travelled fast. They piled over themselves getting out of the way as the Topkick roared past in a dust cloud. Will felt a slightly guilty but highly satisfactory thrill at that. They drove on through the slightly foggy murk, not on a trail but clearly not lost.
"Here," Ironhide rolled to a halt. "I have been in contact with Ratchet. This is bad."
"What?" Will got out of the cab, sensing without asking that Ironhide needed his two feet for this.
The sound of the Topkick transforming into the alien weaponry expert was just about the coolest sound in the world. Ironhide's towering form stood out against the stars. "Stand next to me, captain, and watch."
Ironhide was the one who actually moved, gently and precisely moving one of his giant legs within two inches of the Air Force captain. Warily, Will peered into the darkness. Out of the gloom came the tortured scream of an engine under pressure. What started as a whisper of background noise skyrocketed into roar in the space of seconds, and Will's eyes turned instinctively toward the sound, sharp vision picking out the headlights pinpricked in the tree-covered distance, but swelling.
"What…" was all Will managed to get out before the streak of neon yellow shot in and out of his vision almost before he could register it, followed by an air rip that knocked the captain into Ironhide's neatly placed leg. "The Hell!"
"It's Bumblebee," Ironhide explained tensely.
"The little guy? How fast is he going?" Pretty damn fast, Will answered himself grimly. Fast enough for air friction to be a problem, judging from the trail of smoke that slowly vanished into the night.
"Too fast, Captain," Ratchet walked up from the opposite direction of Bumblebee's furrowed trail, and Will had to ask himself how the hell a twenty foot robot could sneak up on anyone. "We must restrain him."
"Surger?" Ironhide hissed, and Will knew him well enough now to hear the true rage.
"Something like." Ratchet nodded.
"Decepticon scum." The cannons lit up on the Autobot's arms.
"Perhaps…not. They know out protocols for this. How would he have escaped?"
"Maybe that was the point, Ratchet. Quick deaths are the trademarks of honest soldiers."
Will raised a hand. "Uh…can one of you kindly explain to the puny organic down here? If you want me to liaison, I'm gonna have to know this."
Ratchet leaned down, until he was nearly face-plate to nose with the human. "My apologies, captain. You are, of course, correct,"
"We ain't got time for lectures, Ratchet, not if what I heard from Bumblebee's engine was right."
The massive head in Will's vision tilted, whirring. "We have exactly seven point two eight minutes before he circles back to us. Enough time for an abridged version. Captain," Ratchet leaned back again. "There is much history involved our war with the Decepticons, as well you might guess. Insofar as it could be divided into stages, weaponry would be the defining characteristics of each era. Do you understand?"
"Yeah," Will sighed. "People are like that too."
"Indeed. There is no need for shame, Captain. You are, as you say, in good company," Ratchet looked into the middle distance. "There was an era…a terrible era, Captain…when the Decepticons began using most evil weapons against us. Surge weapons. You are aware of the effects of power surges, are you not? Weapons up until then had been designed to destroy by damage. Surge weapons were designed to leave almost no visible mark, but to overload systems from within by injecting massive amounts of power. It was a weapon for internal, not external, damage. The worst of it was," Ratchet's voice shifted to a low, flat plateau of hell. "The worst of it was, like your species internal bleeding, the victim did not die straight away. Do you understand? They would be awake and aware as their systems were inured with so much burning whiteness. It destroyed their minds before it ever broke them completely. We could not stop it at first. I saw so many comrades, firing blindly, unable to stop, unable to control themselves, unable to be saved. We were forced…to shoot them down, captain. Our own comrades, friends."
Will sucked in a breath.
"Those damn slagging Decepticons used to hang the empty shells on their strongholds," Ironhide hissed, hatred on every bolt. "They did not even allow the honour of the Memory Sleep."
The Memory Sleep. Optimus had gently explained about that while Ratchet…well, patched up Jazz's now empty machine shell. It was some sort of funeral rite, as near as Will understood it. Something about going into your personal memory bank of the deceased within some alien time span that was roughly six and a half weeks, and turning it into a permanent part of you...but it wasn't just remembering the dead, it was also communicating with them somehow through something called the Matrix. It had been a bit metaphysical, and Will hadn't caught all of it.
"What are you going to do?" Will felt a queasy knot forming inside him. "Save him…or stop him?"
"We used to have to," Ratchet seemed to shake himself out of black memories. "We don't have to now. We designed a protocol to counteract the surge. If hit by a surger, the Autobot would instantly switch to sleep mode to protect their mind – and alt mode to save their bodies. Vehicle mode, you would call it. They would automatically retreat and use the excess energy in controlled bursts – through repetitive physical actions, and not shooting. Bumblebee was clearly hit, but his protocols took over beautifully. First sleep mode for his conscious mind and then…" There was a faint whining roar in the distance.
"He's asleep?" Will's jaw dropped. "He's sleepwalking? Sleepdriving? Whatever?"
"In a way, captain."
"So, what, we stand here and wait for him to wind down?"
"We can't," Ironhide broke in. "The protocol only delays the overload. The idea was you'd get enough time to be saved. Bee'll wear out his engine or run out of recharge long before he comes out of it. We gotta stop him."
"How?" Will waved a hand at the approaching engine noise. "It's like trying to catch a missile!"
"Protocols allow for energy to be used to defend oneself. We will pretend to attack," Ratchet explained. "He will still be asleep, but he will resume his attack form and fight with his calculatory centre."
"Machine, not soldier," Will summarised.
"Yeah," Ironhide stepped onto the black, stark tracks where Bumblebee had circled before. "I'll get him on the ground so Ratchet can do his thing."
Will was startled as he was scooped up suddenly by Ratchet. "You may wish for a safer vantage point, captain." Will found himself carefully deposited in the fork of a tree.
Ironhide was already lit up by the insensible Bumblebee's headlights.
It all happened so fast. Ironhide fired one of his cannons, hitting a spot precisely in front of the raging yellow car. The shockwave flipped the Camaro, and Bumblebee somersaulted, transforming on the fly – one turn a car and the next a robotic warrior, hitting Ironhide with the full force of his body as he flipped right side up and slalomed into the larger mech. The two rolled in a tussle, but Ironhide's cannons were dark. He only grappled with the furiously fighting and firing Bumblebee. One wild shot made the leaves above the Captain's head sizzle and glow, embers showering down like an early autumn. Ratchet was there all of a sudden, between the tree and the wrestling 'Bots, taking a hit but still managing to crunch a socket joint down on Bumblebee's cannon.
"That's going to leave a weld scar, I just know it."
"For Primus's sake, will you get his hydraulics?"
Crash, bang, THUMP. One of Bumblebee's hands fastened around Ironhide's faceplate and was squeezing. Metal groaned. Both of Ironhide's cannons were weighing down Bumblebee's torso and their legs tangled, throwing sparks. There was a tortured howl from Bumblebee's damaged voice capacitator, and an ear splitting whine coming from his joints and chest. There was burning light spilling from cracks and chinks in his armour. Ironhide twisted his head free of the vice gripping hand, the metal screeching loud enough to set teeth on edge.
"Easy, little 'un, easy," Ironhide crooned. In his tree, Will blinked. "Ratchet!" the big mech yelled at the rescue vehicle. "What're you doing, coming off the High Grade?"
"Almost…there," Ratchets hands moved in a blur, reaching in and tinkering between Ironhide's cannons to get at Bumblebee's chest, still pinning Bee's cannon with his knee joint.
The whine was getting louder, reaching sonic levels that made Will clap hands across his jaw lest his teeth explode.
"Ratchet!"
"I must do this right! Okay," Ratchet freed one had, reached into a compartment on his back and pulled out a slender cylinder which, like most things connect to the 'Bots, transformed into what looked like a cross between a rocket launcher and a super corkscrew. Will winced as the corkscrew end was jammed into Bumblebee's open chest plate. "Here we go!" He reached into Bumblebee's chest and hit something. "Power drain in three…"
Ironhide launched off Bumblebee, and Ratchet rolled sharply to the side.
"…two…"
Ironhide bounded a stride and for a moment Will thought he was going to plough right through the tree. Instead he hunkered down over the captain's position like a secret service agent. "Eyes shut, soldier!"
Will screwed his eyes shut but the light still seeped red under his eyelids. It carried with it the smell of burning that nearly choked him and a roar like naked high voltage. When Will dared slit his eyes open, a pillar of pure light like the finger of God towered in the sky, swirling clouds spinning out of the way as it travelled well past the atmosphere and shone into space. The ground shook with recoil.
Far above, far, far above, something saw a flicker from the planet below. And scanned.
And then suddenly the light switched off, leaving purple and red after images in the eye. Ratchet rolled back and yanked the cylinder free of the yellow 'Bot's chest, leaving vivid scars on the metal. It was blackened and half blown apart. He bent over the stricken Bumblebee, hands working feverishly, pulling out tools from who knows where, closing over the wound with the frenzy of an ER doctor.
Ironhide straightened from his protective huddle. "Are you injured?"
Breathing hard, Will accepted the big mech's hand ride down. "No. Thanks big guy." Ironhide's back was heat scarred, his black paint job scaled and seared.
"You risked your life saving my leader in Mission City, captain. We are soldiers. No thanks required," Ironhide gruffly lowered Will to the ground.
"Is he…" Will didn't even know how to say it.
"He should be fine with a little work," Ironhide said firmly. "He will be."
Radio signals and songs blared into the night as Bumblebee's blue optics suddenly lit up.
"…electrified…my best…things that make you…word, word, word, word…price savings at…" It was drowned out by a whine of sound.
"He's online?" Ironhide demanded.
"In a way," Ratchet grimly crunched down on flailing limbs. "He is, as the humans say, tall."
"Tall?" Will echoed blankly.
Ratchet pinned Bumblebee with a forearm, and flipped open a panel in the small mech's gut. Plunging a hand into the wires, Bumblebee's legs stopped moving. Ratchet's processor whirred. "Perhaps I've misused the term. I refer to the feelings of euphoria humans experience after ingesting certain poisonous chemicals."
Will ran that through his Autobot to Human translator. "Bumblebee's high?"
"Yes, that's the word."
Bumblebee's frame shuddered, and his head rolled from side to side agitatedly. "Rising power, we'll raise the night, rising power, rising power, we'll raise the dead…it's a strange and mysterious power, captain…car 24, needs assistance, send backup!...I really need someone to help me, I'm going to…the worst plague in the twentieth…red,red,red…" Bumblebee's head jerked again, and he spotted Will. He accessed another wavelength. "Danger, Will Robinson! Danger Will Robin-! Danger Will! Danger Will!"
"Easy, young one," Ratchet soothingly tried to reactivate sleep mode.
"Wait," Will approached carefully. "He's trying to say something. I think he's trying to tell me…" He help up a stop hand at Ratchet. "Bee?"
"…Tonight on Supernatural… 'I need to find my brother, Sam'…the light, don't go into the light…tonight on CNN…Teacher, there are things I don't want to learn...I really need someone to help…help…help…he-help…brother Sam…help…Sam…help…Sam…"
Will frowned. "Sam…where is Sam? The Witwicky kid, is he here?" The captain scanned the area vainly.
"That's what we'd like to know."
Will rolled his eyes. Just what this situation required. "Agent Simmons," he turned around. "Offence intended, but weren't you fired?"
"I was…reassigned to the NSA where I can keep an eye on…" he eyes shifted to the Autobot's in a reptilian way. "National threats."
"Quit. That's one threat right there," Will advised sagely. "What do you want?"
"We here to take in the NBE for containment," Simmons nodded. "These…mech men have violated the security agreement set down by the Sec Def, and hence are to be treated as hostile until such time as…we decide not. If you get in my way or withhold information I am fully licensed to kill."
Will thought about that. "Was that your first joke?"
"Step aside, Captain," the agent sneered. "Let the containment boys do their jobs, and do me a favour, don't act like GI Hero and the Super Squad. I've had to subdue enough macho idiots in my career."
"Break a
lot of mirrors did you?" Will raised an eyebrow.
"Are you,"
Simmons picked lint of his jacket like he wasn't facing down giant
aliens. "going to comply?"
"I'm not going to have to start counting games with you again, am I?" Will replied calmly.
"What're you gonna do, soldier boy? You haven't even got a gun."
A sudden glow cast Will's shadow in from of him as he heard the hum of a plasma cannon warming up.
"Oh, don't make me laugh," Simmons chuckled as his boys lined up behind him. "You can't hurt humans."
"Wrong," Will replied cheerfully. "Dead wrong."
"We're not supposed to hurt humans, human," Ironhide growled.
"Want to test the theory?" Will challenged. He stepped out smartly before Simmon's drones could react and grabbed the man by his shirtfront. "Where's Sam?"
"The kid's been tagged to be confined for reasons of national security."
"Why?"
"That's classified," Simmons replied smugly. "I warn you, if you're hiding him that is automatic detention for you, and maybe anyone you know…your wife and daughter, perhaps?"
Will's eyebrow twitched. "Ironhide." He shoved the man into the waiting giant hand and the agent was jerked twenty feet into the air.
"Step over the line and you'll be a thin residue on the air molecules, treaty be damned," Ironhide snarled. "Is this understood?"
"Whoa, whoa," Simmons sung from the end of the shaky grip, one slip away from oblivion. "Everyone just hold it!"
"Ironhide, stop playing with the half wit and call Prime," Ratchet called urgently from Bumblebee's side.
"What is it?"
"Some of the readings I'm getting," Ratchet looked up, bewildered. "Can't possibly be real."
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The think tank was the size of warehouse, a tech wet dream of supercomputers, massive screens and multilevel terminals stretching up to the ceiling. It was the latest and best in scanning, searching and hacking. It was built and converted to find and track the newest additions to the human world, and put in the charge of the best minds in the world.
"Glen? Glen! Stop playing Warcraft on the defence network and get over here!" Maggie threw her plastic cup at the back of the genius' head.
"Come on, Mags, I nearly just defeated the Black Knight of…whoa, what kind freaky ass thing is that?" Glen pushed his glasses up his nose, scanning the wild energy readings being bounced across their satellite network.
"Weren't you watching? There was a massive stream of energy that just got blasted off into the sky. It actually zapped two satellites. The residuals are messing up radio waves and digital feeds all across the mid west. It's everywhere."
"It's not a Decepticon hack," Glen pulled up a diagnostic in a few keystrokes. "The signal here has no underlying code that integrates with present software."
"No, but look," Maggie pulled up the old signal that started their lives on such a weird turn. "It's close. It's got the same base elements. Whatever it was, it was alien. And …it's strength was incredible. I've never seen anything like it, not even with our data from the Autobots!"
"Uh…Mags?" Glen was running a track and trace through the satellite network, trying to map the blast's course. "I think we got a bigger problem. The S6759-DUS satellite picked up an answering scan not a part of the original energy wave." Glen turned big eyes on the blonde analyst. "Something up there picked up the blast."
"Something alien," Maggie breathed. "Good…or bad?"
"Put it this way…Houston? We have a problem."
Maggie picked up the phone.
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Miles threw his bag down on his bed, and waved his mother off and out. "I'm fine, okay? No one was hurt." Except maybe Sam.
He still couldn't believe what he'd seen. Sam, running from Trent and his cohorts. Sam…shooting lightning.
Miles had intended to run out to help his friend with Trent, but had ended up ducking around a wall as the windows were blown in. Then there was police, fire trucks, electricity trust people, councillors, parents – by the time the Let's Panic parade had gone past, Sam had thoroughly gotten away. Miles last saw him bent over his car, howling, as he, Miles, was being herded back out the emergency exits. No one had seen or heard from him since.
He ran. After what had happened, Miles couldn't blame him. Miles would have run too. The police had asked what happened, but what could he say? That he saw his best friend fry half the cars, all the lights, all the power poles and took out the front façade of the high school by shooting lightning? Even as he though it he knew they'd never buy it. He had to find Sam to find out just what the hell had happened.
Miles had tried calling the Witwicky house, but since the first words out of Mrs Witwicky's mouth were 'have you seen Sam?' he didn't think Sam had gone back there.
"He's your best bud," Miles said to himself. "Where would he go if he didn't go home and couldn't find you?" He thought for a moment.
He grabbed his bag again and the keys to his bike chain. "Mikaela."
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In the dim twilight Sam had stared at his mother cooking through the kitchen window, and decided he couldn't…he couldn't. He retreated.
He had kicked at Mojo when the little dog had come out to greet him. "Keep away. Keep away!" Sam ran, eyes and cheeks burning and raw. His cell phone was nothing but broken pieces in his pocket, still warm. He was too scared to use the payphones, with the tiny sparks jumping from his hands at every instant. He found a scrap of paper, a pen, and managed to scribble a very short note before the pen melted. He hid it in Mojo's little house.
Now, he fumbled in the shed of tools next to the bus depot, hands shaking and heart hurting. Biting his lip, he reached out for what he was looking for. He just needed to do one more thing – one more thing before the Autobots came for him. They could take him, for all Sam cared. He just needed to do one more thing.
Bumblebee. He survived destructions of worlds and centuries of war. And then he met you, Sam Witwicky.
Biting back the sob, Sam began slowly wrapping pieces of barb wire around him hands.
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