Author's Note: Thank you for all of the reviews and reads. For the non-horsey people, a flake of hay is a portion of the hay bale. It is the same height as the hay bale but is about five-six inches thick.
Chapter 2
Meg balanced herself precariously on the fence, hunched over the book that was laid open on her lap. Her eyes bore into the words while the scene she read played out in her mind. Zoe sat on a post nearby, cleaning herself daintily with a white paw. The cat was absorbed in her work and was greatly perturbed when Valor came up to investigate her. She hissed, baring her tiny teeth, causing Valor to jerk his head up in surprise. He snorted and watched with soft brown eyes as Zoe nimbly leapt to the ground to find another sunny and peaceful place to clean her fur.
Cougar had long dispelled the pestering young horse by showing his annoyance with squeals, bared teeth, and mock kicks. With Zoe gone, Valor moved on to Meg for entertainment. He shoved his charcoal grey muzzle into the pages of the book, curious as to what had her so absorbed in something other than him. Meg, caught up in the unfolding drama of her novel, gently pushed Valor's nose away just to have it return as if it was tied by a bungee cord to the pages.
Meg sighed at the dirt, grime, and snot from Valor's nose that covered the pages in nasty streaks. The girl was the orderly type that had each of her books, both read and unread, in pristine shape on her bookshelf without even the dog-eared folds to keep places. To have Valor leaving his mark on one of her books, let alone a book that she was sure was going to be placed in her favorite section of the bookcase to be reread later on, was something compared to sacrilege for Meg.
"Valor", she drawled out as she tried to outmaneuver the pestering and relentless horse. Even though she was twisted into an awkward position, one that put her in an even more precarious position, she was unable to get away from the persistent Valor.
"What are you doing?" The deep voice came from directly behind her and made her jump with surprise. Normally that wouldn't have been a problem but since she was already barely maintaining her balance while twisting awkwardly to get away from Valor, the small jump destroyed her equilibrium. With a very unflattering cry Meg went over backwards right off of the fence. She landed heavily on her side, one of her arms pinned uncomfortably beneath her while her legs were still tangled up in the wooden boards.
Jazz stared down at her, bright blue optics shining in his silver face framed by the grey clouds above. His head was cocked slightly to the side as he wondered what had just happened and what she was doing on the ground. It reminded Meg of whenever she fell off Valor and the horse gave her the 'What are you doing down there?' look. The very look, in fact, that the horse was giving her at that moment as he peered over the fence at her sprawled out form. He nuzzled one of her boots right before she pulled herself together.
"Can you please not sneak up on me like that again…please?" Meg asked Jazz as she crawled to her feet. Jazz didn't say anything as he reached down and carefully grabbed her book between two claws. He raised it to optic level as he examined it. He saw the words printed but couldn't understand why they were on the thin pieces of fiber.
"What is this?" he asked as he looked at the picture on the cover. Meg stared at him with disbelief.
"It's a book."
"What is it for?"
"To tell stories, give information. A bunch of things."
"I thought you had the Internet for this purpose."
"Yeah, there's the Internet and all but before that there were books. And not everyone even has access to computers let alone the Internet. Or even books."
"Why?" Jazz crouched down so that he could look at Meg more easily as she resumed her place on the fence. Jazz rested his forearms on his knees, his claws dangling. Meg stared at him with wide eyes. She knew very well why not everyone had the resources they needed but she did not want to be the one that told the ugly truth about humanity to Jazz who had not been on earth for even a full year. But after having lied to her mom and getting away with it, Meg knew that her conscience wouldn't let her tell Jazz anything but the truth.
"Well, it's about priorities. People have the means to give lesser developed countries resources like computers, books, electricity, running water, but they choose to spend it on…other things." The expression on Jazz's face was harder to read even more than usual. He had raised his whole body higher even as he was still kneeling while he also crossed his arms over his chassis.
"What other things?" The smooth voice was calm but something was hidden in it that made Meg recoil. She reached back for Valor's familiar touch.
"Um, do you really want to know?"
"Yes," was the immediate response. Taking a deep breath to steady her hammering heart the girl explained.
"Usually things like nuclear missiles…and Lamborghinis."
"Are you serious?"
"I wish I wasn't. People tend to think the whole purpose of leading a country is to gain personal power rather than to take care of the people." Meg visibly recoiled at the engine like rumble inside of Jazz's chest.
"So this is what I died for. This is why the Allspark was destroyed."
Meg was dumbstruck at the muttered comment. She was completely frozen where she sat and was unable to move even though more than anything she wanted to get away. It was far too easy to understand Jazz's vehemence but he also didn't seem to know the whole reason why his sacrifices had been so important. Nor did he seem to care.
After the tedious silence Meg couldn't take it anymore. She slid off the fence and walked over to the gate, Valor following her on the other side of the fence. The girl didn't even bother putting Valor's halter on. She just wrapped the lead rope high up on his neck, right behind his ears.
"Where are you going?" Jazz asked. Meg didn't even look back at him as she spoke.
"I have to do my homework."
Inside the stable Meg stayed inside Valor's stall. She wrapped her arms around his thick dappled neck and buried her face into his rough ebony mane. Doubts began running through her mind about whether or not her judgments were right. It wasn't like she could blame Jazz for his anger at the greed of the human race but if those sacrifices hadn't been made in Mission City than she would have died. Her mother and brother would have died and her father would have had no chance considering his military status. Yes, the dictators were spared their lives as well when they didn't even deserve to be alive but the most innocent of children were spared as well as the teenagers who aspired to be like the people who went out and did good in the world. And now their saviors regretted it.
More than anything Meg just wished she could cry and let out the overwhelming emotions that were begging to be let out. But she couldn't cry. She hadn't cried for years and even though she could bring on the tears, they were forced and it became more that she was trying to make herself cry rather than releasing her emotions through her tears.
Once Meg slid the stall door closed behind her, Trouble emerged from sleeping beneath the counter in the feed room as happy as ever. He stared up at Meg with his puppy dog eyes and docked tail wagging from side to side. For a brief moment Meg knelt down and hugged the large dog around his neck. She could see why her father loved him so much and was so adamant on keeping him. Even though the puppy had managed to flood the kitchen within the first week he had come to live with the family.
As soon as Meg closed the stable doors, she spotted Jazz standing at a distance from the house. He didn't approach her which was fine with Meg. Instead, she went right up into the house and to her room with Trouble following her.
After both her father and brother left the ranch it was decided that Meg would be home schooled so that her mother could still work as an interior designer in the city half an hour away without risking the ranch falling into complete disrepair.
It was somewhat backwards with who should be staying home to take care of the house but Meg didn't mind. School had barely been tolerable and most of her friends had been a grade higher than her and had already graduated. Since she had gotten almost all of her requirements out of the way while attending her local high school, she was able to get everything done through the home schooling system. Every Tuesday Meg would drive into the city and pick up her packet of work that she needed to complete and turn in the work she had previously completed. Holding true to the typical teenaged fashion of procrastination, Meg always left the work until Monday. If she was feeling ambitious she would start it on Sunday. But that was rare.
Zoe was sprawled out on top of the open books on Meg's desk. It was a mystery as to why cats always found books and papers so comfortable to lie on when they had plenty of beds, couches, and other soft surfaces to sleep on. Meg gently picked up to cradle the cat who more resembled a rag doll rather than a feline; she also swiped up some books, pens, and a binder. Unceremoniously she dumped her armload onto her bed, careful to keep Zoe from being hit by the falling school supplies. The cat haughtily waited as Meg settled on her stomach with her books spread around her. Once everything was still Zoe gingerly walked across the rich shades of purple and blue large silk squares that were stitched together to form the duvet cover. She stepped up onto the curve of Meg's lower back and curled up into a tight little ball. Once the cat was comfortable, Trouble catapulted himself onto the bed, knocking a needed book onto the floor, before collapsing across Meg's calves.
"I'm just a giant pillow, aren't I?" the girl grumbled.
Several hours and many cramped muscles later, Meg slammed the binder containing her homework closed. The whole while there had been no sign from Jazz and it was almost like he wasn't even there. Completely drained from the emotional and intellectual strains from the day Meg rolled to her side, dumping a very perturbed cat onto the duvet. Trouble merely groaned when Meg pulled her feet from under him. Zoe trotted out to find a spot where she could nap in peace and without any annoying disturbances. Getting up to toss her books onto her desk, Meg collapsed back onto her bed and fell fast asleep.
By the time that Meg woke up it was a lot later in the day than she had expected. She stretched before tumbling out of bed and barely managed to catch herself before hitting the ground. Still sore from her fall off of Valor, and the fall from the fence not helping her battered body, the last thing she needed was to hit the ground again. Stumbling over to the window she was surprised that the clouds had grown dark and angry. Heavy rain raindrops were splattering against the window and made the vision of the rain coming down in silver veils blurry. Meg could hear the pitter-patter of the rain hitting the dirt and wood outside.
Once Meg's father had told her that the reason he loved the rain was not necessarily the fresh, clean feeling it left. He told her that the rain allowed people to stop and breathe for once. There was no doubt that beautiful warm days were incredible but they also came with the obligation of going out and doing something. But with rainy days, people could usually just go inside and relax while listening to the soft music coming from outside as the rain fell.
Meg stared out her bedroom window out toward the stable. A steady sheet of rain was coming down in the humid air. The girl looked at some of the raindrops clinging to the chilled glass and the way the world outside was reflected upside down in the miniscule misshapen drops of water. In the tiny orb Meg saw the bulging form of the stable and then to the side of it she saw a certain dark silver sports car hunkered down between the two larger shapes of the Tribute and the old truck.
Meg felt a wave of pity as she looked past the raindrops and directly at Jazz. Normal cars had no problem being in a random storm but Jazz wasn't exactly a normal car. It was still debatable if he even was a car. The teenager needed to go out and take care of her chores outside in the stable so maybe she would take care of Jazz at the same time.
With a sigh she began pulling on some socks and her rain jacket before going out on to the back porch to put on her rubber muck boots. By the time that Meg was prepared for the rain and mud, Trouble was already bounding around the yard and through the muddy puddles. Meg rolled her eyes but let her dog live up to his name. Hesitantly she made her way over to Jazz and the rain seemed to come down harder as Meg jogged over to him, clutching her hood to her head. As she neared Jazz she dropped down to a walk. The raindrops created soft pluck-pluck sounds against her slicker.
She stood in front of the Pontiac insignia, trying to think of what to say. Since Jazz could only speak through his interior speakers when in his alt mode, he gave an inquiring flicker of his lights. He wasn't about to roll down a window to have a gust of wind blow the cold rain into his interior.
"Um, I was just wondering if this rain was bothering you." She waited for some kind of response and when there was none, Meg continued. "If it is bugging you, you're welcome to stay in the stable. You should easily fit in the barn aisle." Meg backed up a bit to wait for some sort of response. She found it in the form of Jazz rolling forward a bit. Meg gave a wavering smile before stepping aside and walking over to the stable. Jazz crawled along behind her, almost absolutely quiet except for the sound of squishing mud beneath his tires and soft thrum of his engine. Trouble bounded up to Jazz's side, landing in a puddle and sending up a plume of beige water all up on to the glistening metal. Gears rotated inside Jazz, creating a mechanical groan. Trouble let out a whine that ended in a pathetic bark and was about to go off to run around when Meg took a firm hold of his leather collar.
"I wonder if I renamed you something like 'Goodie' you'd live up to that name instead of 'Trouble'," Meg grumbled. A deep rumbling came from Jazz's engine which caused Meg to quickly glance back over her shoulder, unsure of what the rumble signified.
With one hand still keeping a firm hold on Trouble's collar, Meg used her whole body to push the rolling barn door back. While she did so, Jazz positioned himself so that he could back in. Once the door was open enough, Jazz fluidly reversed into the barn. Valor and Cougar shoved their heads over the stall doors to see what was going on. Valor stretched his neck out and his thick upper lip brushed against Jazz's roof as the Pontiac rolled past his stall.
After seeing the Solstice backing in Cougar retreated into the security of the back his stall, feeling an uncomfortable vibe coming from the strange car. The buckskin was a good horse and this mostly had to do with him being wary to anything that may pose to be a threat. Once Meg went into his stall, talking in a low and calm tone, he settled down but he never did venture to put his head and neck over the stall door. After Meg left his stall, Cougar stood in the back, head raised and ears flicking in all different directions as he listened for anything that would prove to be a warning.
Jazz was silent as Meg went into the tack room to grab an armload of towels. Trouble trotted around in the slightly crowded barn and was quick in spotting Zoe up in the rafters. The Doberman stared up at the precariously balanced cat and he danced a bit as he stood up on his hind legs while whining. Trouble fell back to all four paws and then backed up a bit. Just as he was about to leap on to Jazz to get closer to Zoe, Meg stepped out of the room with the towels.
"No!" she practically barked, causing the dog's front end to come to a halt so fast that his rear kept going and he fell face first on to the rubber mat flooring.
Freeing one hand from holding her load, she snapped her fingers before pointing Trouble to an old horse blanket with dog toys amongst the hay bales. Dejected, Trouble dragged himself over and collapsed on top of the blanket. It didn't take long for his abandoned heart to heal once he discovered his favorite rawhide amongst the folds of the blanket. Zoe, unmoving from her perch in the rafters, watched the whole thing with a very satisfied look to her golden eyes.
Meg just shook her head, reminded of Andrew for a moment before addressing Jazz.
"I need to feed the horses and goats. The hay tends to get everywhere and it'll be a pain to get off of you if it gets on you while you're wet. Is it okay if I dry you off with the towels?" Jazz rolled his windows down, the glass squeaking and squealing which caused Meg to barely repress a wince.
"I'd appreciate it," he told her, his tone reserved and slightly somber. Meg nodded her head once as she set the stack of towels down next to the wet and muddy tread marks made by Jazz's tires when he backed in from outside.
Taking a towel from the stack, Meg diligently went to work. Jazz felt Meg's nerves in the hesitant way she moved the soft towel in hard circles over his armor. It was a strange sensation for Jazz, the soft synthetic fiber pushing against him in a circular motion especially when Meg's soft skin would accidentally touch him.
At fist it was unnerving to him but then he slowly grew to get used to the rhythmic motion until he thoroughly enjoyed it. Meg would have had to been blind, deaf, and dumb to not have noticed the soft hiss of hydraulics as Jazz allowed himself to lower more heavily on to his wheels and even pushed slightly against her.
Meg worked diligently for three quarters of an hour to make sure that every drop of water and each speck of mud was off Jazz and on the towels scattered about the barn aisle. The only thing Meg couldn't manage to get clean was the water streaks on his windows. But that would mean having to go out into the down pour to get the cleaning solvent from the house which was something that Meg was extremely reluctant to do. Besides, the animals had been waiting patiently for their dinner, with Chupacabra occasionally head butting the stall door in his typical fashion, but that patience was beginning to wear off.
"That should do it," Meg said as she stepped back. "I can't do much about the streaks on your glass but are there any other spots I missed?"
"No…You did a good job." Meg gave a nod before walking over to the bales of hay. She woke up Trouble so he could get out of the way and she wouldn't accidentally drop anything on him. The dog sleepily got up, ambled into the tack room and hunkered down beneath the saddle rack holding Meg's father's roping saddle.
With Trouble out of the way Meg took a knife she kept stabbed into the hay bales and cut the three rough strands of twine holding the bale together. The twine snapped away after the enormous tension that had been needed to keep the wispy hay together and the front half of the hay bale began braking off into thick flakes. Meg thrust the knife back into another bale of hay while doing her best to keep the front of the undone hay bale from falling onto Trouble's blanket. After she pulled the twine away and tossed it into a bag, she separated five flakes of hay; two for the growing Valor, one for the relatively small Cougar, and another two for the goats to share. The bits of hay poked against her clothes and bits of it floated to the ground as she moved. She tried her best to keep the miniscule bits from getting on her and Jazz but that was pretty much impossible. Valor and Cougar gave throaty knickers as Meg tossed their flakes over the stall door, the goats appreciably silent as they dug in into their flake of hay.
Although his windows were rolled down, Jazz remained quiet. It would have unnerved Meg if she didn't have the chore of measuring out the horses' grains and the goats' special feed in addition to cleaning and then refilling the water buckets.
"I'm sorry," Jazz said as Meg came out of the goats' stall, barely unscathed. The only time Chupacabra was willing to tolerate the girl was when she was feeding him. Meg walked past Jazz with an empty bucket when she briefly placed her hand on his roof saying, "Its okay."
"No, Meg, it isn't." The girl stepped into the feed room to put the bucket back. She came back out with her arms crossed and leaning against the frame of the feed room's door.
"I've always hated it when people snap at me but I understand. Humans can be pretty horrible beings, trust me, I know. But there are good people out there. You just don't hear about them as much."
"I know. I've realized that now. If I hadn't done what I did or if the Allspark wasn't sacrificed, then people like you…" Jazz trailed off, unwilling to think of what Meg's fate would have been.
Meg was quiet for different reasons. Personally she didn't think she would be considered a 'good' person; she had never been in a position to prove she was a good person or been involved with things like charities. But it wasn't exactly appropriate to argue that with Jazz.
Meg walked over to the Solstice and placed her fingertips on the warm hood. She didn't know where to look so she settled for looking at his windshield.
"Don't dwell on it Jazz. You and the others made the biggest sacrifice and everything is relatively okay now. You can't dwell on the past because no matter what, it's permanent." Jazz didn't know how to respond because for him, it wasn't okay. If it was, he'd still be at the base.
Giving a small smile Meg pulled her hand away and went about finishing her chores. Suddenly something solid hit metal, causing a hollow sound. Jazz's engine roared as he shot back. Meg darted over to Jazz and in the same motion she scooped Zoe from his hood as she pressed her palm against the passenger door.
"Its okay Jazz," she said in the same tone as she would use when calming down the horses. It didn't matter that Jazz was from another planet, he instantly recognized the reassurance; his brakes squealed as he came to a stop a yard from where he had originally been. Once she knew that everything was okay, Meg took a step back while holding Zoe close to her.
"It's just Zoe. I don't think she realizes you aren't like all the other cars. Actually, all the animals seem to be able to tell you aren't normal but I think she just doesn't care." As Meg spoke to Jazz she scratched Zoe beneath the cat's chin, eliciting a low pur-r-r-r.
"Why is she making that noise?" Jazz asked, wondering why the organic was making a noise he had only heard from robotic organisms. Frankly, he was embarrassed that he had been startled by a simple feline and then was calmed down by the teenaged girl. He wanted to get as far away from that lovely moment as possible. Meg quickly figured this out, after all masculine characteristics were even apparent in robot aliens, and went along with the distraction.
"She purrs when she's happy or content. Right now she's happy because I'm scratching her favorite spot." Meg smiled down at the cat and continued smiling as she looked back up at Jazz. "Haven't you ever heard a purr before?" To answer Meg's question, a smooth and low purr came Jazz's engine that gave Meg goosebumps. The girl didn't understand why she felt so embarrassed or why she was blushing but Jazz wasn't surprised at all and in fact was very proud of himself. When a mech and femme were being intimate, the mech would make that purring sound. Jazz knew that he was the ultimate female's mech by Meg's response, especially the chemical signs she wasn't aware of; it didn't matter what planet or what species, he could still entice the females.
"My kind makes that noise when we are trying to comfort others," Jazz informed her, opting to leave out the other, more intimate, use of the noise.
"Oh," was all that Meg said as she walked over to the barn door, still holding and scratching the calico. She looked outside briefly, feeling the refreshing chill of the rain as it came down in a heavy onslaught. She was not looking forward to going out into it so she walked back to Jazz and sat against Valor's stall door. She slouched against the door, her knees upraised which caused a nice comfy space for Zoe to curl up. Meg scratched the cat, her fingertips submerged in the soft splotches of orange, black, and white fur.
"I was wondering something," Meg said as she looked down at the quietly purring Zoe.
"And what is that?"
"Well, why exactly are you here? I mean, you come out of no where and decide to hang out here for seemingly no reason at all."
"Why does it matter?"
"Because it doesn't make sense!" Meg cried, letting herself get exasperated. "This place is in the middle of no where."
"So why does it matter that I'm hanging around in the middle of no where when I came from no where?" Meg grabbed a towel that was beside her and hurled it at Jazz and she swore she heard him give a rumbling chuckle as the white cloth flopped on to the floor. She was starting to become frustrated so he finally answered.
"Because for my whole drawn out life I've been fighting this war. It was something I never questioned because it was what I was for and all I knew. But after I died, everything was different. In a good way. For once there was peace.
"And then I was brought back and this really fried me. I wanted to keep that sense of pace but at the same time I knew I was needed…that I was missed. I'm glad I was brought back but at the same time I wish I wasn't. And that's just really screwing with me." Meg felt her heart swell with pity and she instinctively pulled Zoe closer to her chest. She could only imagine how Jazz felt and in all honesty she didn't want to even imagine herself enduring the internal conflict he was going through.
"But did you have to come back if you didn't want to?"
"No." The word was painfully quiet.
"So why did you come back?" Meg ventured.
"Because I knew that if I didn't, my comrades would never be able to experience that sense of peace I felt when I was gone."
"Isn't that enough reason for you to be content with coming back?" Meg had a sudden vision of her becoming a psychiatrist or psychologist for mechs but she quickly pushed the extremely random thought out of her mind before she began visualizing Jazz lying out on a couch.
"It used to be…but that's why I'm there. I got leave to figure it all out. Just followed the road and ended up here."
"Oh." Meg was silent for a long while. It did make sense when he finally explained it. To put it simply, Jazz didn't know how to handle it anymore. Meg could relate. It was like when she first really realized what it meant that her father was a soldier and that entailed him having to take lives. It had been a hard concept for a kid who refused to step on ants to comprehend. His job meant that he would have to kill others but at the same time it was keeping the people of her nation safe.
Meg looked at Jazz with a new understanding and wished desperately that she could help him.
"I've got another question," Meg asked as she sat on a large flat rock that was surrounded by swaying golden grass as if she was on an island. Jazz lounged beside her, looking up at the sky and leaning back on his claws. His visor was over his eyes just as if he was wearing sunglasses. When Meg asked him about it he explained that his optics were extremely acute which meant they were equally sensitive. It was why he wore a visor in battle, to protect his optics from damage as well as to make sure the blaring lights of energy explosions didn't blind him. For the moment though, his visor served as pretty good sunglasses.
"What's your question this time?" Jazz asked with mock annoyance. Meg was gradually learning his personality and habits, just as he was learning more about her. She somewhat picked up on the teasing tone but she wasn't confident. So she took a different route.
"If you don't want to hear it, I won't ask," she said as she pretended to turn her full attention over to her books.
"Naw, girlie, I want to hear it." At this, Meg twisted around so she could look straight up at him.
"Good, because it actually woke me up last night when I first thought about it."
"Aw, so you stay up at night thinking of me?" Jazz playfully asked. He laughed as Meg began to blush. It was amazing to him the way that humans' facial tissues changed colors along with their emotions.
"No! I just hate it when I don't understand things…like you."
"So you hate me?" Meg was dumbfounded into silence, taking a moment to understand where he got that notion from. When she finally got it she scowled.
"Jazz! Can I just ask the damn question?" The Autobot gave a rumbling laugh at Meg's flustered behavior.
"Go ahead." With a glare, Meg took a moment to remember what her question had been in the first place. When she did remember she immediately perked up, green eyes wide.
"When you transform into the Solstice, that isn't real leather interior, is it?" Jazz smiled at her question and shook her head.
"No. Just like you aren't made up of just skin, I'm not made up of just metal. I have components in me that I made resemble the texture of leather."
"How do you do all that?" Meg shook her head, asking herself more than him. Jazz immediately rambled off into an explanation using words that were far too big for Meg to even want to comprehend. She shook her head and cut him off. "What?" he asked. "I thought you hated things you didn't understand."
"What I hate even more is when I'm trying to understand something and my head hurts so bad that it feels like its about to implode." Jazz gave a perfectly symmetrical smile with his head cocked to the side before leaning down, soaking up the sunshine.
It was a beautiful and fresh day after the rain storm. For the first time in a long time Jazz was able to enjoy beauty. Looking up at the sky that was the same color as his optics, only a bit less vibrant, the mech felt the most peace he had since he was brought back from the Matrix.
He wasn't startled when Meg's voice came from so close because his audios picked up how she put her books and papers away, jumped off the rock, and walked up closer to him. What she said, however, did startle him.
"You're gonna kill me but I have another question." Jazz bolted upward and propping himself up on one elbow put his face close to Meg's with his visor pulled up to reveal his optics.
"I will never kill you," he said with such seriousness that Meg took a step back.
"It's just a saying," Meg whispered. Jazz slowly shook his head, optics somewhat dim.
"Please. Never use it again." Meg nodded weakly and turned away, her question no longer appropriate for the mood. Feeling somewhat guilty to see the girl look so dejected, Jazz reached out and gently wrapped his claws around her torso to lift her into the air and closer to him. Unknowingly, Meg held her breath since she had no idea what he was doing. Once her feet were back on the ground, with her back to him, Jazz carefully placed one of his claws on her shoulder to pull her around to face him. When she was looking at him, her green eyes were wide with surprise. Jazz noted this with a small smile and a question of his own formed except it would wait until he had answered Meg's.
"You never asked one of those endless questions of yours." Meg blinked quickly a few times, trying to gather her bearings. When she did, she reached forward hesitantly and gestured to the markings on his facial plates and bars below his optics. The markings on his facial plates had been hidden beneath his visor but the ones on the bars were clear unless he activated his full battle mask that covered the bottom portion of his face.
"What do those mean?" Meg asked, her eyes looking from the markings up to Jazz's curious optics. The markings looked too much like hieroglyphics to just be scratches.
"They show my rank and the achievements I've made. I suppose they are a combination of tattoos and the bars that you're military officers wear." As he spoke he took a claw and ever so gently moved Meg's hand so that she touched the markings she had been inquiring about. Surprisingly they weren't very deep etchings but they looked like they were deeper because they were a darker shade of silver.
"What's your rank?" she asked as her fingertips ran over the symbols.
"My title translates to First Lieutenant but its actually a lot higher ranking than that. More like a Major General. I don't think Optimus would want to take the second lowest ranking officer he had on a mission like this."
"I had no idea you were so high up." Jazz laughed at this and asked her why. "Whenever I've met an officer of that kind of rank, it's made known right away."
"I'm proud of my rank but I usually let my reputation say it for me. Of course that's kind of hard to do here on Earth since no one knows me. Or is supposed to know me." Meg reached passed the bars and touched the smooth metal plating that they protected beneath.
"Are they permanent like tattoos?" she asked, going back to her original question.
"Yes and no," Jazz answered as he held perfectly still except the movement of his oral cavity. "We can remove them if the situation calls for it, like for our undercover operatives, but for the most part everyone is proud of their achievements. It is an honor that is not taken lightly."
"My dad is like that but there's two of his awards that he has hidden."
"Why is that?" Jazz inquired as Meg took a step back, accidentally bumping into Jazz's claw.
"He says that achievements are based on success and the missions he received those medals for weren't successful. He had lost one of his soldiers on one and then civilians on another. He never talks about it."
"There have been instances like that in my ranks. Would have been the same for me but I've refused to get the markings if I felt the achievements were not up to my standards."
"Are your standards high?"
"Extremely."
"Huh," Meg stated since there really wasn't anything else to say.
"Now I have a question."
"That's more than fair considering how much I've been asking you." Jazz sat up and rested the joints that served as his elbows on his knee joints, his claws dangling.
"What is the significance of your optic color?"
"Huh?" It's amazing how such a guttural sound was appropriate in so many instances.
"Your…" Jazz trailed off, his expression somewhat blank as he researched optics on the Internet but was unable to find a human equivalent. So he was stuck doing it the old fashioned way. "Your…visual components."
"My eyes?"
"Yes, that's it! What is the significance of their color?"
"Um…there…is…none." Meg wasn't exactly sure why Jazz was curious about her eye color. They were green. Not as common as brown or blue, but it wasn't like one was blue and the other brown like her cousin.
Jazz leaned forward and asked if he could pick her up. Meg nodded her head but still tensed up when Jazz gently wrapped his claws around her torso for the second time. He placed his other claw beneath the one holding her as he raised her off the ground to be sure that if she slipped, she wouldn't hit the ground. He lightly placed her so that she was standing on his knee. Keeping one claw beside her so that she had something to hold to keep her balance while she was in the precarious position, Jazz knelt in closer than he had ever been before. His left optic focused on Meg's left eye and the blue orb dilated as it focused in on her. His visual processors whirred as they analyzed her, his HUD components pointing out different details.
Meg was only somewhat surprised at how much his optic resembled a human's eye. From a distance it looked like just a bright blue light but closer up it was clear that it was made out of many components that had different geometric shapes. All of them formed a stunning orb that shone with vibrancy.
Jazz was studying Meg's eyes just as much as she was studying his optics. He hadn't had the chance to really examine her eyes except just enough to note their unusual color. He had referenced the Internet one night when she had been asleep but he was slowly starting to realize that he couldn't find everything about humans by their World Wide Web. Which was ironic considering that he had found plenty of things he had never wanted to learn about them through the Internet.
Meg's eyes weren't just the color green as he had originally thought. Along the edges they were a color green that resembled the thin leaves of the numerous pepper trees on the ranch land but going further in, the color lightened to a softer green until it became a gold around the black pupil. There were lines and depths to the irises of her eyes and it reminded Jazz of the gorgeous patterns found in light echoes out in space.
"Why are you wondering what my eye color means?" Meg asked without breaking Jazz from his studious gazing. The teenager was somewhat unnerved and found that her eyes were suddenly dry and she was blinking a bit more than she needed to. It was hard trying not to blink and it didn't help having a giant robot alien looking at her so intently.
"With my kind, our optic color reveals our allegiance. There are ways to cover it up or change it with the use of lenses but for the most part that is rare. Autobots have blue optics and Decepticons have red. When I first met Sam Witwicky and Mikaela Banes, Sam had brown optics, I mean eyes, and Mikaela had blue which led me to believe that humans' eye colors are relevant to their sex. I didn't have an opportunity to examine the other humans I encountered since I had to take care of the Allspark and my brothers. So I was confused when I saw that you had green eyes and yet you are most definitely a female." Meg nodded her understanding before explaining.
"We inherit our eye color from our parents. Which ever parent has the more dominant gene, is the parent we get our eye color from. And our hair color and skin tone. Pretty much everything that makes us us."
"What of your personalities?" At this question Meg shrugged her shoulders.
"That's kind of up in the air because scientists don't know for sure. We inherit certain characteristics from our parents, like our tempers, but we develop our own personalities as a whole by ourselves with influences from our lifestyles…" Meg trailed off before adding in horror, "Oh my God I sound just like my psychology teacher." The last part scared Meg enough that she momentarily forgot where she was and would have most likely fallen if it hadn't been for her hand on Jazz's claw.
When Meg had signed up for psychology in her junior year she had been hoping to actually learn something but instead she ended up with a teacher who read everything from a book and thought he was God's gift to undeserving students. Thoughts of being anything like him was enough to give her nightmares.
Jazz had cocked his head and smiled one of his perfectly symmetrical smiles at her comment about her teacher.
"I know that feeling. Imagine my surprise when I became a bit too enthusiastic about my firepower like my old instructor. That was enough to make my energon lines heat up."
"You're energon lines to heat up?" The term hadn't made much sense to Meg.
"It's an analogy my kind uses. When something frightens us, our mainframe begins to overwork, causing the energon lines to heat up from the exertion," Jazz casually explained.
"For us, it's the opposite. We saw, 'Our blood ran cold' or something like that when we're saying how scared we are." Jazz nodded his head and leaned slightly back, still supporting Meg.
"Our mainframes overwork in times of fear as an adaptation for battle. Our energon lines start supplying more energy to our structures and we have an overload of energy that needs to be released or at least keeps us going. If I'm correct, that experience is associated with adrenaline with your species."
"Well, when I get scared I freeze up."
"That's not very efficient," Jazz said as he gave her an odd look. Meg just raised her shoulders and bit the corner of her lip.
"What can I say? Humans can be pretty strange at times." Jazz's lack of response showed his agreement. "This is when you say something that makes humans sound not so pathetic."
"Time to go," Jazz said as he placed Meg on the ground before rising to his feet and walking away. Meg stood still for a moment before running after him.
"Jazz? Jazz! Get your giant metal ass back here! I have short legs, remember?"
"Not my fault you humans are inefficient!" he called back without even stopping or looking at Meg. The girl gave an angry cry before running as fast as she could to catch up with the Autobot.
Why didn't I bring Valor? she thought as she ran.