Disclaimer: I own nothing

AN: I would have had this up sooner but it took a two whole week just for the revisions.

Chapter 4

"How is he?"

Shad looked up from his spot at the kitchen table to see Mrs. Bailey standing at the door. He hadn't heard her car pull up. He'd been too lost in his own thoughts and memories.

"He's holding up Mrs. B. I'm not sure how well, but he is holding up."

Hannah Bailey was pushing fifty, but usually bore her age well. Today though, the fine lines around her eyes were clearly visible. Her cheeks were sunken, giving her a slightly gaunt look. There was a weariness in her eyes that reminded Shad that she hadn't slept the past few nights while Rad was missing, though he doubted a full nights sleep would ease it completely.

"Well, that's better than I expected. Where is he now?" Mrs. Bailey asked, taking a seat at the table.

"He and Carlos went up to his room about an hour ago."

Mrs. Bailey nodded. "Carlos is here, good. Rad's going to need a friend to lean on while we take care of this mess with your father."

"Sure, and Carlos is more than happy to let Rad 'lean' on him," Shad snorted ruefully.

"Don't be so cynical Shadrach. While I don't deny that Carlos does seem to have a little crush on your brother, I doubt he'll try to take advantage of the situation. He values their friendship too much for that."

"I had a few friends like that back in New York. Didn't stay friends with them to long either."

"Those are called fair-weather friends Shad. There's always at least one of your friends that's going to be like that. But Carlos isn't like that, at least not with your brother."

"Everyone, given the right circumstance, has the potential to be an asshole. And I'll be damned if I trust some stranger with Rad's well being."

"Hmm. And yet I notice that they are upstairs alone while you're down here talking to me," Mrs. Bailey pointed out. In response Shad held up a small, colorful plastic device.

"You're spying on Rad with a baby monitor?" Mrs. Bailey asked in disbelief.

"No. I'm just using a baby monitor to check up on Rad in case he has another panic attack. If I just so happen to overhear Carlos attempting to put the moves on him, well that's just an added bonus," Shad grinned.

"There's just one problem with that scenario, deary," Mrs. Bailey said with a glint of mischief in her eyes.

"What?"

"That particular baby monitor goes two ways."

"…Oh," Shad blinked. "…Shit"

The monitor crackled to life as its mate flew out of Rad's second story window and shattered on the Bailey's back patio.

"I do think he's a little angry," Mrs. Bailey chuckled.


"Sorry about that Carlos," Rad said after slamming his bedroom window shut.

"Don't worry about it man. You forget, I have older brothers too. This is how they let you know that they care," Carlos said while fighting down a blush. He hadn't thought he was being that obvious about his feelings towards Rad, but if Shad had already figured it out then maybe Rad knew too. No, if Rad knew he wouldn't have invited him up to his room.

"Shad cares a little too much if you ask me," Rad grumbled more to him self than to anyone else.

"Tell me about it," A voice piped up from inside Rad's pocket.

"Is everyone spying on me today?" Rad asked, pulling Lazerbeak out of his pocket.

"It's only because we care," Sideswipe quipped over the comm-link

"Care less," Rad advised.

"But we love you," Sideswipe whined. "Don't we Blurr?"

"Yeah, yeah. The kid's fine, can we go now?" Blurr's voice joined Sideswipe's over the link.

"You two sneaking out again?" Rad asked.

"Have too. My older brothers don't approve of me dating. You think your brother's bad, try having two highly skilled warriors defending your 'virtue', then we'll talk," Sideswipe huffed.

"Speaking of highly trained warriors, they'll be looking for us soon, and Sunstreaker's already threatened to disembowel me if he caught me with in twenty yards of you again," Blurr spoke up to hurry Sideswipe along.

"You're honestly afraid of my twin? He's as short as I am."

"Hey, I was up there. I saw what he did to Spindle's crew. No way am I getting him pissed off at me"

"He can't get pissed off by what he doesn't know."

"So let's go now before he manages to track us down, because to be quite honest I like having my internal systems on the inside."

"But I have to ask Rad if he's ok."

"Then do it."

"Ok. Rad, are you ok?"

"I'm fine Sideswipe," Rad assured his friend, glad the Autobot couldn't see his face. A moment later he realized it didn't matter that Sideswipe couldn't see his face, the mech knew anyway.

"Rad… are you lying?"

"Of course not," Rad tried to sound confident.

"Really? Carlos, is Rad's left eyebrow twitching?" Sideswipe asked.

"Uhh… yeah… it is," Carlos answered slowly, wondering how Sideswipe had known.

On the other end of the line Blurr saw Sideswipe's face harden. "What happened?" Sideswipe demanded.

"Nothing!" Rad snapped. Silence followed.

"We'll be over in a few minutes. Meet us in the woods behind your house," Sideswipe ended the conversation with a click.


"What's with the eyebrow thing?" Blurr asked.

Sideswipe's face finally softened. "It's Rad's tic," he said.

"Tic?"

"It's like a muscle spasm that occurs when a human is nervous. Rad's nervous tic is his eyebrow twitch. It happens everytime he lies," Sideswipe answered tightly. He wasn't use to Rad lying to him. It hurt.

"How do you know that?" Blurr asked.

"Simple, I caught him in a lie."


It was supposed to be a safe mission. Safe enough that Optimus agreed to let the kids come along. Missions like that were few and far between since the war on Earth had begun to escalate in the previous months.

The Minicon alarm had gone off, leading the Autobots and their human friends to some place the humans called Egypt. They followed the signal to an underground labyrinth under some statue that the kids had called a Sphinx. The labyrinth had been too large for them to search together so Optimus had ordered them split up into groups of twos. Hot Shot and Sideswipe had been paired together, as always. But this time, since they had the kids with them, three of the groups took one of the kids with them. Jetfire and Red Alert took Carlos. Smokescreen and Blurr took Alexis. He and Hot Shot took Rad and Highwire. They'd both agreed with no complaint. After all Hot Shot had known and been friends with Rad from the beginning, and Sideswipe, still being new to Earth, found the humans interesting.

They'd explored their assigned section of the maze for about an hour with no sign of the Minicon or the Decepticons. Half way through the first twenty minutes Hot Shot had started grumbling about how they weren't to see any action on this mission. Despite his bro's complaints Sideswipe had been able to see Hot Shot wasn't really all that upset about their lack of action. Who in their right mind would want to go up against the Decepticons with only an untrained rookie, a Minicon, and a human child for back up? The four of them would have been content to pass the whole mission with out running into a single Decepticon. Unfortunately their luck hadn't held out.

They'd come upon a fork in the maze where it split off into four directions. Since their orders were to stick together they could only take one path and none of them had been able to agree on which path should take. Well he guessed that they'd all disagreed. At the time he was still relying on Hot Shot to translate what Highwire was saying. Because they were arguing they didn't hear the approaching footsteps until Cyclonus had opened fire on them. Before he and Hot Shot had been able to draw their own weapons a stray shot from Cyclonus' gun had hit the ceiling above their heads, bringing an avalanche of rubble down on them. Hot Shot and Highwire were forced to take shelter in the pathway closest to them. Sideswipe, being too far away from that path, had pulled Rad into another one that was closer. When the cave-in stopped he and Rad had been trapped; their pathway lead to one of the labyrinth's many dead ends.

Not only were they trapped, separated from their friends, and had what Sideswipe guessed was a limited supply of oxygen; but when the roof was caving in Rad had been hit in the back by a sharp shard of rock, leaving him with a fairly large gash running from his left shoulder to his right hip.

The cut hadn't been very deep but it still worried Sideswipe. His knowledge of human physiology wasn't that extensive but he understood about infections.

"I'm fine. Now leave me alone!" Rad had yelled, his eyebrow twitching.

"You're bleeding," Sideswipe had pointed out.

"So?"

"When a human bleeds it's a sign that they're not 'fine'."

"Well there's nothing we can do about it right now."

"You have a canteen right? We can use the water wash out the cut."

"Yeah, but we don't know how long we'll be down here. I'll live longer with an infection than I will without water."

They'd argued like that for another half hour before Rad finally agreed to let Sideswipe try to clean out the wound.

"Just make sure you don't crush the canteen or spill it all. I still need to drink," Rad had warned, grudgingly handing over his canteen.

"Don't worry."

They'd sat for a minute.

"Well?" Rad had asked.

"Shouldn't you take your shirt off? It'll be easier to clean the cut without the cloth getting in the way?"

Rad had looked like he was going to refuse for a minute but gave in and removed his Autobot sweater, blue over-shirt, and finally his white t-shirt. The scars that littered Rad's torso had surprised Sideswipe, but he didn't comment on them until after he was finished cleaning Rad's injury.

He probably could have phrased his question a little better. "Who beat you?" had just made Rad freeze with his blue over-shirt only half way on.

"What?"

"Who beat you?"

"What makes you think anyone ever beat me?"

"Your scars."

"It's nothing," That was the second time Sideswipe notice Rad's eyebrow twitch.

"Then why do you have so many scars?"

"I'm clumsy." Another twitch.

"Clumsy, huh? That the same excuse I use to use," That had gotten Rad's undivided attention.

"You… you… were…"

"Abused? Yeah, back on Cybertron. This crazy jerk I hung out with would smack me around."

"Why?"

"He was a possessive jerk"

"And…nobody noticed?"

"Well unlike you, I actually am pretty clumsy to begin with so most people tend to believed me if I tell them I ran into something, or fell down the stairs. Everyone except Sunny anyway. He's the one who figured it out and got me off Cybertron," Sideswipe had tried to smile reassuringly but Rad tensed up even more. Then something had occurred to him.

"Rad, is someone still abusing you?"

"No!" There was no twitch with this declaration. "It stopped years ago. My… my dad's in jail now. Thanks to my brother…"


That had been the start of their friendship, built on their understanding of each other's circumstances. It helped to have someone to talk to who knew exactly what you were going through. When the nightmares got bad, or something set off old fears they had always been able let it all out to each other.

But now Rad was lying to him and trying to shut him out. Why? The last few days had been rough on them all. Maybe that had triggered some flashbacks or night terrors. But Rad had those frequently and never acted like this. Primus, he hoped it didn't have anything to do with Rad's father.


Neither of them had moved since Sideswipe had shut off the link.

Carlos asked the necessary question "So, are we going?"

Rad sighed. "If we don't Sideswipe's likely to show up at my front door and give my brother and Mrs. Bailey a heart attack."

"Will Shad and Mrs. Bailey let us go?"

"Most likely not."

"So, we're going down the trellis?"

"Yup, just like old times," Rad had to smile. The trellis had been his way of escaping. If he wanted to see Carlos after the sun went down and the Baileys had already put him to bed, he would sneak out into the hall and climb out the window at the top of the stairs. There was a trellis that stood right next to the window. Back in the good old days it had been covered in thorny roses, which might have been to discourage the Bailey's foster kids from sneaking out. Rad didn't know if it worked on the kids before him but it hadn't worked on him. He'd hid Mrs. Bailey's extra gardening gloves in his room so he could use them to protect his hands.

Lucky for them, two years ago the roses had been killed by some sort of parasite and Mrs. Bailey had replaced them with Morning Glories.


Minutes later Shad was standing at the kitchen sink, washing the breakfast dishes. He might be a grown man but somehow Mrs. Bailey managed to make him feel child who was being punished. He was sure that the only reason she was making him do the dishes was because he'd been spying on his little brother rather than simply trusting Rad's good judgment. Like doubting Rad's judgment was such a crime.

Especially when the doubt was well earned. From the kitchen window he could see Rad and Carlos were sneaking off behind the Bailey's fence and heading for the woods.

"Damnit," he cursed throwing down the dishtowel before hurrying for the back door to follow them.

AN: R&R

Arsenic: How could Sideswipe clean out a wound on a teenage human's back? The size difference should make that impossible.

Xandra: He pretty much just poured water over it until it looked clean.

Brigg: Why did the Baileys have a baby monitor?

Xandra: They're Foster parents. They had to have fostered a baby at one time or another.