Chapter Three: Back To School

Samantha Jane Witwicky had decided that she was in heaven. Here she was, sitting out at the lake with a guy that would put any GQ model to shame and snacking on the candies he'd bought them for this romantic get together.

Ryan looked down onto her with heavenly green eyes and smiled a dimple-inducing Cheshire cat grin. Her heat fluttered with the pleasantness of the moment. She still had some difficulty being around men, especially the devilishly handsome ones like Ryan, but this man was different. She just knew he wouldn't hurt her. She knew that he would be the one to put her completely at ease.

"Sam?" His deep, husky voice caressed her as gently, as hotly as his hands would. Her cheeks flushed as she just barely stopped herself from running her fingers through his shaggy brown hair.

"Yes, Ryan?" She inquired back, her words barely more than a whisper.

"I'm going to kiss you now."

She could feel her ears grow hot with a mixture of embarrassment, eagerness, and simple desire. She sucked her bottom lip into her mouth and nodded jerkily.

As if in slow motion Ryan angled his head slightly. His right hand rose to cup the base of her head and pull her steadily towards him. Her heart raced like a runaway dragster. She could all but smell the scent of pure male and pine on him, maybe even a hint of motor oil. She closed her eyes and prepared her body for the sure ecstasy she knew that she was about to receive from his kiss.

Just as only a few measly millimeters separated their lips, just enough room to feel the tingle of the heat of his bowed mouth breathing onto hers, loud music rocked her straight out of her lust-induced fog.

ABC

Easy as 123

Or simple as do re mi

ABC, 123, baby, you and me girl!

Sam's eyes snapped open quickly and she found herself staring not into a pair of forest green eyes but to the white ceiling of her room. Her teeth clenched as her phone continued to ring off the Jackson Five song 'ABC 123'. She knew for damned certain that that particular song resided nowhere within the memory banks of her cell phone.

Which meant only one thing.

"Bumblebee!" She screeched like the very enraged teenage girl that she was.

Almost instantly she felt the humor and a slight trace of apprehension flow through her bond with the Camaro sitting out in the garage awaiting her for her first day back to school and her very first day as a Senior at Tranquility High. When the music died suddenly as Bumblebee disconnected his call Sam flopped back down onto her bed and covered her face with her pillow to block out her screams of frustration.

Ryan was her perfect guy. He was her dream man.

Literally.

With a deep sight she pushed herself onto her side to glare at her alarm clock. For a long minute she just stared at the glowing blue numbers declaring the time to be seven o'clock in the morning. She was outright confused for a time, knowing in the back of her mind that there was a reason why her 'sleep-in-Wednesdays' were being disrupted.

Then the rude awakening that she had received this morning registered.

"Oh man!" Sam whined as she rolled back over onto her bed and flopped her pillow over the back of her head.

Humor rushed through her bond with Bumblebee as he made the correct assumption that her sluggish and entirely too human mind had finally processed that summer vacation was officially over. The day had finally come that she would attend her last year of high school. Senior year.

And Bumblebee seemed more geared to go than she was.

"I don't want to get up." She mumbled into her mattress where she had buried herself, almost determined to waste away there until the rest of her senior year passed her by. If it weren't for the irritatingly chipper music Bumblebee decided to funnel through the speakers of her ill-abused cell phone she might have done just that.

Glen Miller's 'In the Mood' was only about half way through when she lunged out of bed and ejected the battery pack from her phone to shut it up. She'd found out from experience that simply shutting her phone off did no good against an battalion alien robots that were able to hack into even the most deeply coded networks the government had to offer. The phone had a back-up power source that the 'bots build into the phone for her, one of the reasons the thing wasn't permitted to be hijacked by her human government, but the 'bots were able to pick up the clue that when she ejected the main power source and thereby rerouting to the alternative that she didn't want to talk to them.

At least not this early on her choice sleeping days.

Sam set her phone back down onto her bedside table before hurrying off to the shower. A chuckle escaped her when she thought of the Autobots' escapades around her. While they rarely had any qualms about 'bothering' her themselves, but she'd heard about the sudden barricade humans found themselves facing if they attempted to disturb her while she was either sleeping or training. She'd been chastised more than once by Ratchet that she wasn't getting as much sleep as he thought she should. That meant that when she tended to doze off in their presences, with a little help from the soothing waved they constantly thrust upon her, they kept a close optic on her and let no one interrupt her when she 'so justly deserved a reprieve'. Ratchet's words, not hers.

Summer vacation had been a blur of work at the studio and uncountable hours in the Autobots' presence. Daniela had been doubtful when she'd come back to Tranquility with a brand new Camaro in comparison to her 'piece of crap' beforehand, but she'd been able to brush it off as collateral damage to the 'terrorist attack' on Mission City. Since that was their cover-story for how she'd ended up injured in the first place.

Once she was done showering she looked her body over quickly. Her hands were scarred from the burning they'd taken by the Allspark's shell and a few scars along her back, arms, and legs from being so close to so many explosions, but otherwise most of the damage done to her had been either invisible or relatively minor. The 'bots were of a different persuasion on that matter, but she tried not to listen to them when it came to her health.

They were paranoid.

For school Sam dressed in tight blue jeans and a pink knotted halter-top. She'd throw one of her white crop short-sleeved jackets on over her top once she got to school. Her new bag was already packed with what she required for this year and sitting downstairs by the back door. After her previous bag kicked the bucket in her first encounter with Bumblebee she'd decided to purchase a canvas bag that strapped over her chest with one band and hugged close to her back. She wasn't about to lose this bag to unfortunate circumstances.

She trotted down the stairs and rounded into the kitchen to find her mother, Judy Witwicky, just finishing plating an omelet. The elder woman smiled at her with such exuberance that Sam had to smile back. Truthfully she wasn't a morning person, but her mother's pleasant moods at the breakfast table kept her from grumbling half the time.

"Good morning, Samantha." Judy hummed as she slid the omelet from its place beside the stove over the granite countertops to Sam. "You have impeccable timing, Dear. Until I heard your shower running I didn't think that you were going to get up."

"I wasn't." Sam chuckled as she forked a slice of omelet into her mouth. She pulled her cell phone and battery pack out of her back pocket and waved it in her mother's visual range. The elder woman laughed softly. "Bee decided to wake me up this morning playing a rendition of 'ABC 123'. Then he laughed at me when I grumbled."

"You aren't exactly a morning person, Sam." Judy intoned with a taunting smirk.

"Oh, leave me alone." The daughter laughed outright before finishing off her eggs. When she was done she set her plate into the sink, the dishes already beginning to be washed by her mother, and kissed her slightly blushed cheek. "Bye, Momma. I don't know what time I'll be home. We're going out to the base after school."

Judy rolled her eyes not-so-discreetly. Sam supposed that her mother had gotten used to barely seeing her anymore. If she was not working at the studio or in training she was with one or more of the Autobots. Just yesterday she and Ironhide had gone off-roading on a track teens from generations back had made a few minutes outside of Tranquility. She and Ironhide always had fun when it was just them, whether they were spitting up dirt under his tires or simply enjoying each other's company while looking up at the stars didn't matter. The grumpy old mech had a real soft spot for her…something she had promised on her life never to brag about to the others, though they were all well aware of his gentility towards her.

"I'll put dinner away for you, then." Judy smiled a little as she gave her daughter a sidelong glance. "You always were a popular girl, Sam, but I never expected something as odd as this. No matter how strange it is, how completely unbelievable, those boys truly care about you." Sam smirked at the affectionate term 'boys' for the 'bots. Even Bumblebee was old enough to consider her mother a nonexistent blip on the evolutionary radar.

"Have fun at school today, baby." Judy kissed Sam on her cheek before shooing her off.

Sam laughed a little before nabbing up her bag at the door and hurrying out. Once inside the garage she leaned up against the door she'd closed behind her and mock-glared at the innocent looking Camaro before her.

"You, my friend, are in deep trouble."

"I did nothing wrong." Bee intoned seriously before she could feel the laugh building up through their bond. "You are only displeased that I disturbed your rem-cycle with 'Ryan'."

Sam could almost bet that her alien friend could hear her clenching her jaw. "How can you be so sure that I was dreaming about a boy?"

"You talk in your sleep." Was his matter-of-fact response.

Of course. The grumble came naturally to her mind. They never leave me alone anyway, why is it such a surprise that Bee turns up his audios to pick up my breathing patterns in the night? God forbid I sneeze without him knowing about it!

She had to admit, though, that it was embarrassing to find out this way that she tended to dream out loud.

"All right, Tin Man." Sam grumbled, refusing to go into her sleeping habits any farther. She knew that if she did she'd be turned into a blushing fool within moments, not minutes. "Let's go pick up Mike and get to school. And please, I beg of you, make sure the others understand that they can't text me all throughout the day…this warning includes you as well, Bumblebee. I've already gotten busted by Madame Lune while working at the front desk when Ratchet called to ask me to thoroughly explain my first-hand experiences of my menstrual cycle."

Oh, there's that blush I was thinking about earlier. Sam though as warmth speared through her cheeks from her neck and topped off in her ears.

That had been an unpleasant conversation. Talking to Ratchet about her period, despite the comforting waves he sent her through their bond, had been reminiscent of getting her first bikini wax. It had been awkward, uncomfortable, and even a little bit painful. She'd made the medbot swear on his spark that he would never ask her about her period again…nor any of the other female soldiers. If he wanted to know about a woman's monthly flow he could danged well download the information he was curious about. She wasn't going to subject anyone else to that particular brand of torture.

Bee released the door locks to allow her within his interior. As she settled down into the leather seats she felt them warm and adjust to the contours of her body as they always did. She hummed with contentment as she relaxed into the comfort of his 'embrace'. Sometimes she had to wonder if he and the others were purposely trying to put her to sleep or at the very least spoil her rotten. Her belt slid across her after she'd failed to latch it herself and snapped firmly into the buckle. Sam was well aware of the fact that should she try to undo it at any time during the drive that the innocent looking safety belt would become an unbreakable restraint that could be construed as malevolent by anyone else.

Sam chuckled when she recalled back to the first time she'd sat in Jazz's interior. The Pontiac Solstice alt-form had apparently been scanned while it had had a bunch of accessories not sold on the 'standard' model. One of these accessories were harness seatbelts designed for high-speed dragsters. They strapped down over the riders' shoulders, between their legs, and snapped together into a center port near the stomach. With the Nitrous-induced speeds, actually Energon-induced, the harnesses were welcoming.

Mike, however, hadn't taken kindly to the 'restraints'. It was her turn to laugh at him when he'd nearly hyperventilated when Jazz had refused to release the straps when they'd arrived outside of a gas station for her to go to the bathroom. Jazz had been distracted while 'monitoring' her that he'd all but forgotten to allow the seatbelt pinning Mike down to release manually.

Mike had steered clear of Jazz for about a week after that incident.

Bumblebee allowed her to act as his pseudo driver to Mike's house. Occasionally she would 'drive', but most of the time it was simply her miming the motions of driving while the Autobot did all the work. Sam didn't really mind. It was his body after all.

Mike came out the front door of his home once they arrived and jogged up to the passenger door. He hopped in once Bee pushed it open for him and then settled into his own seat. He was in the right frame of mind despite the 'early' hour to know to put his seat belt on.

"Mornin'." He smiled cheerily. Sam felt like slapping that dopey look right off of his face. Nobody should have been a happy person when they woke up as far as she was concerned. "What? No kiss?" Mike chuckled a little as he settled back into his seat, strapping his own seatbelt on.

"Bite me." She mumbled under her breath earning a 'hug' from her seatbelt and a chuckle through she and Bee's bond. In response she massaged the wheel, grazing her thumbs over the Autobot insignia in the center of it.

"So, Bee," Mike began, the evidence of an oncoming taunt clear in the soft lilt to his voice. Sam groaned knowing what was coming. "Your baby's growing up. Soon she'll be moving out of the house and you'll all be left with only each other to agonize. Are you having separation anxiety yet."

Sam had to grip the steering wheel with all of her strength and concentration so that she didn't slap her hands over her mouth to muffle the burst of laughter that burst from her. As soon as Mike had finished his last sentence Bumblebee had jerked Mike's seat back so fast that the jock almost rolled into the back seats, something that she had little doubt would have incurred had he not been buckled in. Bee took Mike on a wild ride of the seat jerking back and forth in rapid succession causing her to tear up with laughter.

"I get it! I get it!" Mike yelled, his hands held out before him as if to ward off the dash every time his body was reset into the vertical position. Bee stopped after another minute of his twisted version of those 'Punch-Me-Clowns', Mike serving as the clown. "Jeeze." The jock grumbled, shaking his head to clear away the dizziness she had little doubt that he was feeling. "No sense of humor."

"You know better than to bait them with that, Mike." She chided with little reproach. It was hard to be mad at him when he was speaking the truth, no matter how much she wanted to deny it. "Can you be a big boy today or am I going to have to put you in time-out for that smart mouth of yours?"

"I'm sorry, Mama." He mumbled in his best kiddish voice.

"You're forgiven." She chuckled a little even as she made herself turn her full attention back to the road even though Bee had long since taken over driving. Once again Sam found herself miming the actions of driving as she always seemed to be doing since purchasing Bumblebee from Bobby Bolivia.

It didn't take long to reach the school. Bee parked himself under one of the larger trees at the back of the lot where he'd be least likely to get hit, but also fairly close to the main road. When Sam attempted to open her door to get out Bee kept her lock down while unsnapping Mike's belt, tilting his seat, and cracking open his door. It was the Camaro's very obvious, yet silent way of telling the jock that he wished for a private moment with her.

"Just don't let anyone catch you talking to yourself, Sam." Mike winked before popping out of the car.

Samantha settled back into her seat as Bee 'hugged' her with the belt.

"Samantha." The voice that came through the radio did not belong to any talk-show hosts or Bumblebee himself. This voice was unmistakable in its sheer power and muted volume. So much affection was held in that one word that it was hard for her to not look away as if embarrassed.

"Good morning, Optimus."

"Good morning, Sam." She did grin at the chuckle she heard come through the speakers. "Bumblebee tells me that you were not gracious upon waking from your recharge this morning." Sam snorted and felt the returned humor from the Camaro.

"Hardly." She grunted. "You know as well as I do that Wednesdays are my sleep-in days. It's a crime to start school back up half-way through the week anyway. So, what prolific words do you have to shower upon me this morning, Yoda?"

There was silence for a long moment where Sam could only hear her own breathing and feel Bumblebee hugging her via the seatbelt. She ran her fingers gently over the wheel, fingering his insignia. When Optimus's voice once again broke through the interior of the car she startled, jumping a bit in Bee's tight hold.

"Be well, Samantha. Enjoy your time and know that we will be here if you have need of us."

She smiled very softly then, tears fighting to make their way onto her face. With a deep, inward breath she closed her eyes and reached within her to the bonds she shared with each and every one of them. She allowed contentment, bliss, and love to blow through those bonds as she never had before. Bee shuddered under her at the sheer intensity of those emotions. She felt the same reaction at even this distance from the other bots.

She was only slightly surprised when she felt two other threads, bonds that she hadn't yet formed, send back a tickle of some emotion she wasn't sure how to name. She could almost swear that it was a mix of excitement and anxiety, but also a trickle of awe. She tried not to follow those threads as she had never seen them as clearly before, but it was danged hard. Like some of the others, these threads, these bonds, were becoming stronger the closer they got.

She knew what that meant.

Others were coming.

More Autobots were finally responding to the call to come to Earth and she was acting as a second beacon in the dark. They were like moths to a flame.

She promised herself that tonight, when they were all together; she'd tell them about the incoming duo. For now…for now she just wanted to start of her senior year as normally as she was able to.

"Thank you, Optimus." She patted Bee's wheel in a signal for him to unlatch the seatbelt. "And thank you, Bumblebee. I couldn't have asked for better friends." 'Friends' seemed like such a dirty word to compare the connection she had with them all, but it was the only word she could think to use.

Bee released her after another moment, the reluctance clear in how slowly he moved as well as through their bond. Sam leaned forward quickly after the door had opened to place a quick peck to his insignia and then skipped out of the car.

Mike was leaning against the tree smiling very faintly.

"You ready?" He asked, a twinge of regret in his voice. She knew what he was feeling though she shared no emotional ties with him as she did with the 'bots. The jock was finally beginning to clue in to how far from normal they had both slipped, how much farther gone she was, and how much farther they were going to go.

"Yeah." Her shaky smile was probably very unconvincing of her attempt at a jovial-demeanor, but at that moment she couldn't bring herself to care overly much.

Damn it all to hell. The longer she was exposed to this life with the 'bots, the longer she embraced the bonds, and the more 'bots she came into contact with, the harder it would become for her to break away.

Oh God. She shuddered inwardly at the thought of what the 'bots would do when she aged and passed away as was the natural way of things. The world will come to an end.

Samantha didn't even want to think of how very 'real' that commonly stated exaggeration would become once she was finally gone from the living world.

Notes: Sorry, y'all. I just moved and it's taken me a while to get settled in. I hope to keep a somewhat regular schedule with posting chapters after this at one chapter every week. I hope that this one was to your liking, though it was a bit more subdued than my other chapters. The next chapter will actually be the introduction of Skids and Mudflap to planet Earth.

Please feel free to review. I'd like ten (ten) new reviews before I post the next chapter. Thank you all for reading and I hope that I haven't disappointed you. Enjoy.

Disclaimer: I do NOT own Transformers.