I know I need to finish this up so I'm gonna do just that with this three parter.
Jolt was far beyond where he could get a good view of the humans inside their homes. He hoped that parking down the block he would have escaped the attention of the man who now exited the house. Unfortunately the narrowing of the man's eyes as he came up the street gave it away. He walked up to the car with a crowbar and swung it full force against the side window. The window didn't budge. HE took another swing but the window still stayed as good as it ever was shining in the dull light of the lamp outside.
The Autobot's sensors which were mostly concentrated on the human who was attacking his alt form suddenly got a spike in a infrared sensor he had trained on the house. The temperature in the house was spiking sharply all throughout. Not caring if anyone saw him or if the man was there anymore or not he changed into his bipedal form swiping a hand gently toward them man into some near by bushes across the street to cushion his landing. Jolt would have taken the man out had he not been ordered to protect human life. He ran taking up yards in his strides shaking the street. Mikaela was still in the house but his infrared sensors were useless with all the heat.
"Mikaela" he called as he jogged toward the house. He heard a scream in return and then coughing. He could see smoke coming from every window in the down stairs. He called her name again trying to zero in on her life signs her specific biorhythms that had been given to each transformer. But this time he didn't hear her scream. There was more coughing and choking faintly but he was closing in on her. The blue Autobot's sensors lead him to the back bedroom. There was no door to look into only a small window on two sides of the room. With out even thinking about it the bot reached into the window breaking apart the wall slowly to not bring the structure down on top of Mikaela but to get to her as quickly as he could.
Jolt had already called for help alerting Ratchet and everyone in the vicinity. The whole around the window grew quickly as he took chunks out of the walls. Once he could see her, the flames were licking at the bed she was bound to and he could not longer be careful. HE had to be swift before she burned alive. Her form was limp as the smoke had choked her airway and she looked as if she was breathing shallowly. Her heart beat irregular also. Putting both hands under the roof where it attached to the wall he lifted with a sharp tug and it came half off then some of the beams fell in. The second floor was then pulled up and surpassing the room Mikaela was in throwing it over the other half of the roof pieces and snatching the bed from the floor. The flames followed it into the night air. Running to a near by fire hydrant he forced the top off breaking the bolts and water came spewing out in a small arch. Putting the bed under the water he wet the entire thing making sure she didn't breathe any in, in the process.
After the flames were out he looked around hearing the sirens coming toward him. This would be a public relations disaster if it got out. As it was there were probably neighbors and such up the street that had seen him. Jolt knew that the Lennox and his team were on there way for damage control but he had to get somewhere with Mikaela so that the approaching authorities wouldn't see him. He softly but quickly walked up a dark alley and two streets up in the shadows of the dim lights. Many of the street's lights were out in this area, something he'd noted in poorer areas when he'd been searching for her. He knew the earth didn't do justice to their poor and needy but right now his concern was the girl still tied to the bed in his hand. She was shivering now and he had to get her off the wet bed.
The blue volt stopped in a back alley behind an industrial building feeling Ratchet getting nearer. He put the bed down carefully and then used a small knife like scalpel tool too cut the cloths from her wrists and ankles where she'd struggled till they were bloody and then burned. With the cloths came layers of skin that he winced at but continued on his task. Her face was untouched by the flames and she looked liked she was just sleeping but her breathing was ominously shallow and he could tell from her blood oxygen saturation she wasn't getting enough. So he wrapped her body in the top blanket still wet but not wanting to hold her in his metal hands and risk pulling off more skin from burns he couldn't treat yet he pulled her close to his spark and with a small jet in his arm he pulled in surrounding air and blew it into her face. It was pure oxygen and it helped bring her oxygen in her body and blood up to low normal levels for the few more minutes that he had to wait for Ratchet.
Ten minutes passed and finally he heard the familiar sirens of his friend shut off blocks away and almost coast in to the small alley way behind the building. He jumped into his root-mode grabbing for Mikaela almost before he had a hand to grab with. He settled the small girl in his palm scanning her and grimacing. He looked up at jolt, "You did a good job," he told him quickly. "Your account of things is shocking. I can't believe…" he just let the statement hang not being able to finish it. He handed her back to him and transformed. "Put her in," he said curtly wanting to get home. His Holoform stabilized her with an IV and meds until they got back to base. The drive back was silent.
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Finally he had dressed all her burns on her extremities and a few on her torso. About 10% of her body was burned. The ones on her extremities were 3rd degree that had burned all the way through the skin layers and a few second degree on her stomach from her clothing catching on fire just before jolt got her into the water. The smoke inhalation and the swelling of her inner tissue had been their most worrisome concern when they started work on her they had to put her on a ventilator to make sure her airway didn't close all the way.
She had been in the base a full day and they hadn't yet told Sam. But Sam wasn't stupid and he was an observant teen and he had seen how conversations were stopping when he came close or that Bumblebee had been conspicuously absent for hours on end since yesterday. He finally walked right in to Prime's office and confronted the head of the problem.
"OK Optimus, what's going on?" Sam demanded. Optimus had always treated him like an equal especially since he had save his life twice.
"What exactly are you speaking of Sam?" he asked in a baritone voice that didn't seem like he was being sneaky or sarcastic.
"You know what I mean," the boy said anyway as preamble. "Something weird's going on here in the base. Conversations just end when I walk in a room, Bumblebee's been gone for hours, and I feel like I keep getting those same looks that I got over my head after Mikaela left. What is being hidden from me?" Couldn't get much more pointed than that.
Prime took a large intake of air that sounded much like a sigh. "Sam, we were reluctant to make you aware of the presence of someone on base." The Autobot leader said vaguely.
"And what someone would you be reluctant…" and his vision swam suddenly as it hit him. "Mikaela…" he said before he hit his knees. His vitals were all over the place. He couldn't believe she was here and they didn't tell him. Optimus was suddenly concerned and he kneeled in front of Sam putting his giant blue hand around him.
"Sam…" he lead off as he said the boys name scanning him. He fell faint hearing the blood rushing in his ears. The girls name whispered through his mouth before he fell silent and passed out into the semi's hand.
"Slag," Optimus swore as he got to his peds and ran to the med bay with him radioing Ratchet.
"He's sharper than we thought," was all the CMO said as they walked in the door. Optimus nodded.
"HE is and he knows," Ratchet nodded back.
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An hour later Sam woke up in a hospital bed in the med bay up on a large metal table that Ratchet used for his human patients. Across the table on the last bed was a head of dark black hair that he knew better than his own soul. He couldn't believe he was seeing it again. Sam threw his sheet off as if in a trance and went to get off his bed when a hand was put in front of him, a familiar yellow and black hand. His blurry vision found bee's blue optics.
"Bee!" he said in relief but also in frustration. "How could you keep this from me."
"It's not as though she strolled in here the other day Sam, She's been…injured badly."
"Then all the more reason too," Bumblebee cut him off and gave him a serious look.
"Sam what if she wants to leave again once she's better?" he asked bluntly almost cruelly. Sam hung his head. HE didn't know what to say to that. He just knew she was here and that's all that mattered at the moment. But then he realized that was selfish.
"What happened to her…" he asked. Bumblebee was more apt to answer that one.
"Since she is not awake I will tell you she was in a house fire. She has burns on her wrists and ankles as well as her feet and hands. Some are also on her torso. She is being kept in an induced coma due to the trauma." Sam nodded.
"Can I see her?" Bumblebee looked at him a minute as almost said no but this was partly his problem too. The yellow Autobot removed his hand and let him walk shakily to his ex-girlfriend. Once he saw her hands bandaged over the blanket he knelt at her bed side putting his hands around her upper arm and put his face into the mattress and cried. "Oh Mikaela please, please come back to me," he sobbed. The Camero left him alone for a while to work it out of his system so that he could come and collect him. But later he refused to leave and afraid for his mental and physical health Ratchet refused to make him.
It was 10 long days that Mikaela was in the induced coma and as the meds were decreased but the pain meds were kept consistant her eyes finally fluttered open and a face came into view. A sandy brown head with hazel eyes looked at her softly almost sadly petting her arm. Her throat was dry and soar but not to bad considering. "Sam…" was her rough whisper and a soft smile. It was as if she'd never left. That voice and face were still the same.
For a minute through the haze of the painkillers and the familiar click and whirl of cybertronians behind Sam it seemed like everything had been a bad dream and her Sam was back giving her that goofy smile that spoke volumes. She looked at him and felt the love swell in her heart and then reached up to put her hand on his face. But it was gently caught by her upper arm and she realized she couldn't move her fingers. She looked down at her hand and then everything hit her. She looked back and forth to Sam and then to her burnt hands and started screaming.
Sam looked wide eyed at her as she suddenly began wail. HE didn't know what was wrong but he wanted to help. She began to thrash wildly trying to escape from Sam and the Base itself but she was encompassed by a pair of strong arms and pulled to his lap and laid down with firm but gentle hands. "Mikaela," he yelled to her through her fog of panic. She didn't respond. "MIKAELA" he tried again, nothing she still thrashed. "MIKA" he tried as Ratchet was coming back over to sedate her. And suddenly all the fight was gone as she looked up into his face and cried. She gave up into his strong embrace and started to cry in his shoulder.
"I'm so sorry," was all she kept whispering. He rocked her and Ratchet kept a sensor on both.
Sam whispered back to her, "I know. I love you. It's ok. We'll make it better." This was his mantra over and over again as she apologized. And they sat there for hours, maybe a whole day as Mikaela sat in his arms and wept on and off and sleeping. Ratchet finally had to threaten to lock Mikaela in a room Sam couldn't see her in if he didn't eat his tray of food. So around her sleeping form he did so getting crumbs in the bed and in her hair and neither caring.
They didn't talk for days as they laid their together in her bed. They had said so much by their actions neither one had wanted to break the tentative peace both had achieved. She didn't want to break the bond that had come back between them and he didn't want her to say she was going to leave again so they just laid there like the world outside didn't matter any more.
But the day was quickly coming when she would no longer need to be in a hospital and she'd need to go somewhere to live and try to live a normal life again. After two weeks her burns were slowly healing and looking better. The scaring wasn't as noticeable yet because Ratchet had been treating her with special medicines he had made himself. The medications weren't perfect but they did much better than anything she would have received in a regular hospital. So for another week they laid in silence neither with an inclination to speak. But the tension was growing and Sam was worried as she began to feel good enough to get in a wheel chair and the lazy haze of sleepy reunion was slowly slipping away.
Finally on the 23rd day she's been back at the base Sam wheeled her out into the sunshine for the first time in almost a month and she smiled. But the solitude left them feeling the discomfort of the unsaid feelings between them. "Sam," Mikaela finally said first.
"No let me," he said interrupting her. He'd never been the aggressive or assertive type of guy he wanted to let her go and let her be happy but he also wanted her back. He hadn't known what had happened to her he didn't care. He knelt in front of her and looked in her eyes. "Mikaela, I've missed you. When you left you took everything good in my life save Bumblebee but he can't take your place. No one can, not even giant alien robots," he smiled at her. "But I love you more than anything. I didn't come for you because I couldn't find you but I have a feeling you wouldn't have come back anyhow then. But now, Mikaela stay with me. I need you. And if I have to I'll fight Megatron again to keep you." His words were spoken like a prayer and a blood vow at the same time. She remembered all those nights and days feeling like she'd never see him again and couldn't fit back in to his life even though she'd wanted too.
"Oh Sam," she cried and threw her arms around him. "That bastard I lived with tried to kill me. He beat me when we fought and I slept with him to make the pain go away. But I just wanted to come back! But once I was gone and in that comfortable, painful cycle it seemed like I'd never get out. I knew I couldn't come back once I'd slept with him. You deserve so much better. Now that you know I'm sure that you," She was cut off as she babbled and cried.
"Mikaela," he took her upper arms in his hands gently because he couldn't hold on to her hands. "Mikaela," he said again softer. "I knew you'd probably had another. But it doesn't matter any more. I don't know why you ran away but I'm here now. I can't believe he hurt you and did this too you…" he turned his head away a second and swallowed so he wouldn't cry. In a rough voice he said to her, "Mika just stay, I love you, Bee loves you. Hell even Prime sent his goons after you. He loves you. Just stay. We'll get you some help if that's what you want, WHATEVER. Just stay." She started to cry again and then all the sudden she knew she'd been running from herself the whole time. Her own fear of being loved and letting all of herself be loved even the nasty parts she wanted to keep to herself and she cried.
"OK, Sam," she whispered in his ear. "And I do love you. I never stopped. I was just so scared."
"I know," he told her.
Bumblebee let out a chirp like he used to do before he got his voice fixed and both jumped a little at him. HE walked over to them and scooped them up in his hands gently. Sam was sitting behind Mikaela as she was out of her chair.
"Mikaela, you were missed and I do love you too, like a sister. Without you we were incomplete," Bumblebee said as he held both near his spark. They were both apart of him he'd felt the absence almost as deeply as Sam. She leaned into both.
"My boys," she said affectionately. "I don't know why I didn't think I could come back." She sighed wiping her face on her sleeves. "Old dog and new tricks as they say." Bumblebee just radiated pleasure and Sam contentment.
"I love you both, I'll stay…" she said with another sigh this time contented. She knew that if she was honest from now on and let them both love her as she needed to be loved they could make it through this and any other world saving adventures to come.
