A/N: So, I know that in the movie, it was still the school week, but as I am skipping the Geneology Report bit... We'll just say that took place on Friday, and the rest of the events of the first movie takes place on the weekend instead. :D

CHAPTER 3
Explanations

"Trevor Nathaniel Ridley, where have you been?"

Trevor cringed as he entered the kitchen to find his mother standing there. Marie Ridley, even with all the chemo, stood out a beauty, once one looked past the pained expression, and other side-effects. But when she was mad, well, hell hath no fury. "Mom, you shouldn't be out of bed," Trevor told her quietly. "You're supposed to be on bed rest, remember? The last treatment-."

Her response was a hard glare that told him that wasn't going to fly with his mom. Of course not, he figured, she read him like an open book most of the time. He shook his head, and shrugged his shoulders. "I was at the garage, with the Camaro I told you about," Trevor stated as quietly as he could. "Please don't tell dad. I just wanted to see if I could fix it."

Marie shook her head, but smiled a little bit. Even if she was, by all accounts, the one with the temper, she was also the mischievous of his two parents. She took the glass of orange juice from the counter and sipped on it. "I figured when I heard you sneaking out your window last night," She told him with a chuckle, making Trevor freeze. "Don't worry, your father could sleep through a stampede." She shrugged. "So, how does she drive?"

Trevor scratched his head, seeing as he'd never gotten an actual chance to drive Bumblebee. "Uh, well," Trevor finally found a good way to dodge the question. "Well, the car is definitely something else." He tried to hide his laughter at that, remembering what the robot had said. "Mom, you really need to go back to bed. I'm fine, minus a few scrapes and bruises from where I worked on the car."

Lucky for him, Marie seemed to buy that was where the damage Trent did had come from. She sighed, and stood from her seat, moving a little weakly. She made her way to Trevor, and gave him a gentle kiss on the cheek. "Don't worry about me, sweetie," She told him, coughing as she spoke. "You can't live your life worrying about me. When my time comes, it'll come." She then added in the softest of whispers. "I want you to live your life and find what you were meant to do."

As she walked past him then, Trevor frowned. How could he do any of that while his mom was dying before his very eyes? While his family struggled with debt? Life was tough, especially when you were in there family. And he had a feeling the stress of it all was hardly going to go away when any of this passed. He didn't get much time to think about it before Joseph was coming through into the kitchen as well. "Jeez, you look like hell," Joseph frowned, examining his son. "Did you sneak out again?"

"If I say "yes", will I get less punished?" Trevor questioned with an exhausted sigh.

The man put his hands on his hips, and glared, showing he was not having any of his son's attitude. "You're on thin ice with me, buddy," Joseph warned him carefully. "If I find out you were out there, trying to race that Camaro," Trevor chewed his lip, he was busted. "That's it, it's gone. I'm sorry, Trev, I was willing to think about it, but-."

"No, you can't do that to him!"

"Him?"

Trevor grimaced, realizing what he had just done, and looking at his father wearily. What did he say now? Did he lie to his dad for an alien he barely even knew, or knew anything about the true intentions of? Or did he blab it all to his dad, and hope that he didn't sell the poor mech to the government? "It," He breathed, lying like a natural. "You can't do that to it, because I wasn't out trying to race it," He replied. "While you were asleep, you slept through a silent alarm, Trent was at the shop, he-."

"Is that how this happened?" Joseph growled, looking over his son's bruises and cuts. "Screw this, I'm going down and giving Demarco a piece of my mind. I'm tired of watching that punk kid of his pick on you," He shook his head a bit. "And what the heck are you doing, going out to a silent alarm? Who knew what was down there! They could have shot you dead, Trev!"

Trevor rolled his eyes and leaned back, he was definitely giving that Cybertronian a piece of his mind. Of course, his dad would be the person to freak out on him. He guessed it came with his personality, having a kid born without a left leg, and a wife with Leukemia didn't help. "Dad, slow down before you have a heart attack," Trevor held his arm carefully. "If you want to go talk to Dom, go right ahead. I can go open up the shop and clean up what Trent trashed-."

"He trashed the place!?"

"Just take it easy, dad," Trevor ran a hand along his father's arm now. "We-I handled it."

Joseph looked at his son skeptically, but finally heaved a breath. Perhaps it was now that he finally realized that he was worrying for nothing. But at the same time, he knew that his dad was far from done worrying. "Fine, go upstairs and get dressed," He muttered, his eyes locking with him. "Is there something you're not telling me?" He asked, as if seeing right through him.

"Of course not," Trevor shook his head. "You know me, dad. I'm an open book, you can totally read me like one too." The man sighed, but waved him off a little. "Dad?" The man looked back at him quietly. "I love you, you know that right? But you don't have to worry about me all the time."

And with that, Trevor was rushing off up the stairs before he could be grilled further. Joseph watched him silently and ran his hands along the sides of his hair, he knew Trevor was hiding something. After all, he was a teenager who tried to keep secrets once too, he knew how this worked. And he could only hope it wasn't anything TOO bad.

...

Bumblebee did his best to clean up the mess the boy's left behind the night before. And while he mostly succeeded, several new messes were created due to the fact that he was too large to be holding most of the human objects. So, it was with great relief that he turned his head a few minutes after he had "finished" to find Trevor entering it. "What happened?" Trevor asked, staring around. "This place looks even more messed up."

"You try cleaning up with my hands," Bumblebee replied with a frown. "But you try picking all this stuff up when you're the size of the roof!" He added, causing the boy to chuckle in response. "What? At least I was trying, that's more than I can say for you right now," He quirked an optic ridge. "Do you mind giving ole Bee a hand here?"

"One condition," Trevor joked. "You tell me why you're here," He commented, his eyes traveling up to the mech. "Because at this point, I think I deserve an answer. Seriously, especially if I'm probably going to need to fight off Area 51 and the feds." He then added. "Because I'm kinda guessing by the disguise that our government doesn't exactly know you're here."

Bumblebee blinked a bit, but finally nodded his head in response. "Yeah, I guess I owe you that much. Back where I come from, Cybertron," Bumblebee began as Trevor picked up some objects, and setting them on a table. "Well, we were kinda torn apart by a war over control, control of the planet, control of our destiny... And ultimately, control over this little number," He projected an image of a large, engraved cube. "The Allspark."

"You mentioned it last night," Trevor muttered. "So what does this Allspark do?"

"It was a gift from our God, Primus to our species. A device capable of giving life to anything it touches, so long as it is mechanical." Bumblebee frowned a bit. "It helped us to procreate and create the young of our species, sparklings. A power my enemies, a group known as the Decepticons,would give anything to harness," Trevor nodded his head, gulping a bit. "A long time ago, we shot it off-planet, where it eventually came across your Earth, years before humans would inhabit it. With the Decepticon leader, Megatron not far behind."

"So why do you need the cube now?" Trevor asked, his eyes full of confusion. "If this thing nearly tore your planet apart, why look for them at all? Why not just leave it be-."

"Because my planet is dying, Trevor. Our war decimated it long after the cube was launched off-world," Bumblebee explained, watching as Trevor's eyes suddenly grew soft, and sad. "And it's the only thing that can even have a tenth of the power to bring back life to our planet. So, a small party of us left in search of it. And our leader, Optimus Prime, sent me ahead to check out our last known lead to the Allspark."

"And that's?" Trevor asked.

"Something you don't need to know, not yet anyway," Bumblebee commented, much to Trevor's frustration. "I'm sorry, kid. But if things go to pit and a half, and something happens to you... Like you get captured by my enemies. Plausible deniability will be your best friend." Trevor sighed, but saw exactly what the mech was saying. "And for that matter, just know if you see one of us without this on them," He pointed toward the Autobot shield on his helm. "Then you need to stay away. This means a friendly, an Autobot like me. Anything else? Means bad news."

Trevor took this all in with a sharp intake of breath, after all it was a lot to take in. But if there was one thing he was sure of, it was that he had just landed himself in more trouble than he had expected. "So, I'd offer to help, but that seems out of the question," Bumblebee nodded as if in confirmation. "So what are your friends going to do to me? Grill me? Probe me?"

"Maybe dissect you," Bumblebee joked, but going off the boys stunned look, frowned. "I was kidding, if anything Prime can bring you more up to speed with things. I'm still young, just a scout," He explained. "The others have more clearance than I do when it comes to divulging information to natives."

Trevor slowly nodded, understanding for the most part. He guessed the young mech was like a private in the army, still earning his stripes. "So you must be pretty young then?" Trevor asked, tilting his head. "So what, early twenties, late teens?"

"Human measurement of time puts me at the equivalent of thirty-four," Bumblebee explained, much to the boy's obvious shock. "I know, but the fact I'm also the Prime's adopted creation kept me out of the war for some time. Until it was absolutely necessary," He explained, shaking his head. "I'm a prime candidate to take over in my sire's passing after all."

"Sounds rough," Trevor replied, fixing up the last of the mess as he looked over at him. "The most responsibility I've ever had is helping around here. So I can't even imagine being the next-in-line to run an intergalactic army," Bumblebee chuckled a little bit. "Well, you're welcome to stay here, I guess. It's not much, but if you need a place to lay low until your friends show up, or whenever," He explained. "Just be careful, if my dad sees you by accident or something, he's going to flip out."

Bumblebee nodded affirmatively, looking down at him. "Your sire seems strict, I guess we have that in common."

"He is, but it's just because of all the crap we're going through," Trevor explained, his voice lowering. "He's been a little overprotective ever since the Leukemia hit mom last year." He shook his head, sitting down on a crate. "The doctors only gave her a few months, but she's holding in there, barely. And watching something like that does stuff to a guy... To both of us really."

Looking up the disease, Bumblebee frowned, his optic ridge furrowing slightly. It was a look that Trevor had gotten used to, that of utter sympathy. The young mech sighed, and looked down at him. "I'm sorry," He offered gently. "I cannot even imagine what it would be like to go through that. I was lucky that I lost my creators before I ever really knew them. It sucks, but it also helps to know I can't remember either one of them suffering." He explained.

For a minute, they sat there in silence before Trevor yet again stood up. He brushed some of the newly forming tears out of his eyes, and sniffled a bit. "Yeah, well, I don't think I'll get that luxury with my mom," He stated quietly, but after a moment shook himself off. "Crap, what am I doing moping, I need to get to work. I haven't even flipped the sign over to open. And we were open an hour ago."

"And I have some scouting to do," Bumblebee replied, his optics turning to Trevor. "How long until he gets here?"

"He's with Trent's dad. So at least a few hours."

"Good, I should be back in two. He won't ever know I'm gone." Bumblebee nodded, then added. "Try not to get into any more trouble while I'm gone."

And with that, he had transformed back into the Camaro, driving out the open garage doors. He sighed quietly, he still couldn't believe all this was happening to him. The kid that led the least exciting life ever, the "one-legged freak" (as Trent often called him), little Trevor Ridley who was probably the least exciting person in the world. And he had now just made friends with a giant, transforming robot from outer space. Something that was easily the opposite of "unexciting" had happened to him.

And he could only inwardly wonder what this would ultimately mean for him, and his future as he returned to work. He couldn't think much of it, not right now anyway. He had to go on in his life as if nothing had happened and life was normal. Because, if nothing else, he shuddered at the thought of what these Decepticons might be like, and what they would do to him. A thought that only sent a shiver up his spine as he noticed, for the first time, the sight of a police cruiser slowly, and quietly driving by the garage.

It never stopped, never gave any indication it might have been anything out of the ordinary. But somehow, Trevor knew it would not be the last time he saw it as it finally, very slowly drove out of sight.

...

A/N: Figured I'd throw in a little Barricade bit in there at the end. Don't worry, we'll be seeing more of him very soon too. ;)