"I can control my destiny, but not my fate. Destiny means there are opportunities to turn right or left, but fate is a one way street. I believe we all have the choice as to whether we fulfill our destiny, but our fate is sealed."
-Paulo Coelho
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It wasn't until the early hours of the morning that Sideswipe saw that the Witwicky boy, Sam, finally fell asleep.

The girl, Carina, had fallen asleep many hours beforehand after returning home from going out with her friend. Sideswipe had noted that humans her age, much like her male counterpart Sam, were full of energy which caused them to stay up late in the evening as opposed to their older caretakers.

Ever since he had first seen her, Sideswipe could tell that there was something different with the human girl. She carried herself with a wisdom that he didn't think was possible for beings as young as human were. Without very many words, he could tell that she also carried a great sorrow.

Sideswipe had learned that it didn't matter the size or shape of the sentient being, sorrow and pain was something that was universally felt.

And he could see that pain in Carina.

And he recognized it.

Maybe it was from losing his homeworld, or maybe it was because she displayed her emotions so openly without realizing it, but Sideswipe knew the pain she was feeling. She had lost something. Something that was a part of her very being. Something that had changed who she was as a human.

From the bits and pieces of conversation he had picked up, the family she was staying with was not her immediate family. The older humans were the parents of Sam, but not of Carina. Sideswipe thought it strange because Carina resembled them slightly. It wasn't until he looked up human family titles that he realized that Ron, the man she called uncle at the car lot, was the brother of her father.

But it still made him wonder where her own parental figures were.

Several times after Carina had fallen asleep, an accident had been mentioned by the other members of the house. It was an accident that, apparently, Carina was still recovering from. Sideswipe wondered if the accident had to do with the pain he saw in her.

From his place, parked near the shed in the backyard next to Bumblebee, Sideswipe managed to run a scan over Carina as she slept. While she had no injuries that he could see, something peaked his interest. While there was no fresh wounds, she had a residual wound on her right shoulder. He couldn't tell how severe the wound was, but it was clear to him that something had happened. He settled for sending the scan to Ratchet to see what he could make of it.

He did a quick scan online to see if he could find anything out about the accident that had been mentioned. He concluded that he didn't know enough about the family or Carina to find the results that he was hoping for. He settled on listening to the family and seeing if he could hear anything else that might clue him into what happened to the girl.

After awhile, Sideswipe had found himself becoming increasingly invested in the family the more he listened in on their conversations. He had never seen family interaction before, especially human family interaction.

They seemed to all go through the same cycle of self care before returning to their respective areas and resting. Ron and his life companion, Judy, as Sideswipe found out, fell asleep fairly quickly. Sam, although, didn't fall asleep until many, many hours after Carina, Ron and Judy had fallen asleep.

Sideswipe watched as Sam moved around his area of the house doing various things. He appeared to be reading and on his computer for an extended period of time. Sideswipe grew board of watching Sam and decided to spend some time in his own recharge cycle like Bumblebee had decided to do hours prior.

Sideswipe wasn't sure how long he had been in recharge before he was jolted awake by one of his scanners' alarm sounding.

There was movement inside of the house, but when Sideswipe went to ask Bumblebee what was going on, he found that the young mech had started his engine, no doubt alerting someone inside the house.


Carina!"

Sam's voice jolted Carina from her nightmare. "I'm awake." She muttered. "I'm awake."

She sat up from where she was laying on her stomach. It was then that she realized that she was still fully dressed in the clothes she had been wearing when she got home from dinner with Diego.

"Carina!" Sam yelled again as her bedroom door slammed opened. "Someone's stealing my car!"

"What?" Carina mumbled in a groggy voice as Sam quickly searched her desk and pulled her keys out from under several notebooks.

"I need to borrow your car!"

Carina rubbed the haze of sleep from her eyes as she sat up. It took her a minute to fully realize what Sam has told her and when she did, she scrambled out of the bed, getting caught in the tangle of sheets and almost falling on her face. "Sam, wait!"

She managed to untangle herself and run after Sam, catching up to him as he hit the top of the staircase.

"Dad, call the the cops!" Sam yelled as he ran down the stairs, jumping two steps at a time.

Carina followed after him, scooping up her shoes by the front door as she went. Sam made it to Carina's car, unlocking the door and throwing himself inside. Carina barely had enough time to get in the passenger seat before Sam pulled out of the back driveway.

"What are we doing?" Carina asked as pulled her shoes on and tied them. "You realize that this is literally insane, right?"

Sam ignore her as he pulled his cellphone out of his pocket, almost dropping it on the floorboard. He flipped it open and Carina watched as he dialed 911.

"Hello? 911 emergency? My car's been stolen! I'm in pursuit!"

Carina watched as the person driving Sam's car took a sharp left turn. Sam took the same sharp turn, making Carina's heart drop. She placed her hand on the dash board as she slipped her seatbelt on. She felt like she was going to be sick.

"I need all units, the whole squadron! Bring everyone!

"Sam, slow down." Carina warned.

"No no no no. Don't ask me question, alright? My father's the head of the neighborhood watch!"

Carina reached over and grabbed Sam's phone. She closed the flip phone, ending the call. "Focus on what you're doing before you get us both killed!"

"Carina-"

"Drive, Sam!"

Sam kept taking sharp turns as they followed after the car, making Carina regret getting in the car with Sam when she should have been at home sleeping.

Soon the driver turned into a construction yard and was blocked by a chain link fence, Carina was sure that they had whoever it was, but the driver of Sam's drive slammed on the brakes, but quickly hit the gas peddle again. They slammed into the locked chain-link fence gate and sped over the train tracks right before a train passed by, effectively cutting Sam and Carina off.

Sam swore as he slammed down on the wheel.

"Hey!" Carina looked at him. "Be nice."

"Carina, stay here." Sam ordered before he climbed out of the car.

"What?" Carina unbuckled her seatbelt and opened the door of the car, but stay half in the vehicle. "What exactly is your plan here, Sam?" She shouted at him as she leaned against the door.

"To get my car back!" He shouted back as he approached the train.

"That's not a plan, that's a hope!"

Sam ignored her and jumped between two train cars.

Carina let out an audible sigh of discontent. She couldn't let Sam just run off and try to face a car thief by himself. Carina at least had several self-defense classes under her belt, but that wouldn't do Sam any good if she wasn't there. But Sam told her to stay put, and if anything happened to Sam, she would need to be the one to call for help.

Carina's choice was suddenly made for her when a bright white light erupted from the construction site behind the train track. The light pierced through the clouds and lit up the whole area, displaying a strange symbol in the sky.

"Sam!'

Carina pulled herself out of the car and slammed the door shut as she ran toward where she had last seen her cousin.

What was going on? What was that strange symbol?

There was a nagging feeling in the back of her mind telling her to stay with the car. Some part of her knew that she would be safe if she had just listened to Sam, but she wasn't going to lose anymore family members

if she could help it.

"Sam-"

Before Carina could finish calling out for her cousin, something grabbed her and forced her to the ground. Carina quickly recovered and shoved the person off of her. "Get the hell off-"

"Shh! Carina it's me!"

"Sam?" Carina sat up. "What's going on?"

"Look!" Sam half shouted, half whispered as he pointed directly in front of them.

Carina's eyes followed Sam's finger and she felt her heart skip a beat.

Projecting the light into the sky was a tall, robot-like being. Even from a distance, Carina could tell that being was extremely tall, probably being a few stories tall. "Wh-What is that?"

"That's my car!"

A bright light scanned over the area, making Carina and Sam duck down behind the stack of materials and garbage they were hiding behind.

Carina peaked over the top once the light was gone. "So your car is...alive?"

Sam didn't answer her as he grabbed the hem of Carina's jacket, pulling his phone out from where she had put it after hanging up on 911.

"My name is Sam Witwicky." Sam said as he began recording himself from his phone ."This is my cousin Carina. Whoever finds this, my car is alive."

Sam pointed his phone's camera over Carina's shoulder, filming the giant machine.

"This is my last words." Sam continued as he pointed the phone back at himself. "I just wanna say mom, dad, I love you and if you find Busty Beauties under my bed, it wasn't mine. I'm holding it for Miles."

He sighed. "No, no. Wait. That's not true. It's mine and uncle Charles gave it to me. I'm sorry...Mojo, I love you."

When Sam closed his phone and turned back to the construction site, he was met with Carina's judgmental gaze.

"What?"

"You think we're going to die and the last words to your parents are about your porn magazines?"

"Shut up." Sam grabbed her hand. "Let's go."

"Go where?"

"To see if we can get a better look."

"You want to get closer to the giant, living car?"

Before Sam could respond, a low growl interrupted him.

Both teenagers froze where they were standing.

"What was that?"

Carina turned just as two dogs began barking and charging at them. "Dogs! Run!"

Sam let go of Carina's hand as the two began scrambling away.

Sam veered left, but Carina stayed to the right. She managed to hoisted herself up and over a structure, but she accidentally slammed her shoulder against a 4x4 that she hadn't been able to see in the dark.

She let out a yelp of pain as she fell into the dirt. Pain shot up her arm but she didn't have time to to be concerned with her arm as she heard one of the dogs scaling the structure with one jump.

With her good hand holding her throbbing shoulder, Carina weaved in-between metal support beams that had been set in cement. She could hear the dogs was still close behind her. She needed to get somewhere higher off the ground where she the doge couldn't reach her.

Just ahead of her, Carina could see there was a temporary scaffolding structure with a small platform a few feet up, seemingly out of reach for the dogs. Using the last of her remaining stamina, Carina pushed forward, vaulting herself up onto a small wooden platform.

She caught her breathe as she turned to looked down. The dog was snarling at her, it's sharp teeth flashing in the dim light.

Carina tried to catch her breath as she held her now throbbing shoulder.

What was she suppose to do now?

The best she could do was hope that the guard dog would lose interest in her and wander away far enough that he wouldn't be able to hear her as she made her way back to her car. But something was telling her that she would be waiting a long time for that.

Carina sat back, trying to think of what she could do.

She didn't have her phone on her and Sam had his with him. She hoped that Sam managed to get away from the dog that was chasing him, but she was too far way to know for sure what happened to him.

After what seemed like only a few minutes of sitting just out of reach of the guard dog, the roar of an engine made the dog snap it's head in the opposite direction. It sniffed that air briefly before letting out a low growl and dashing in the direction the car engine had come from.

Carina watched as the dog disappeared into the shadows. She waited a few long, tense minutes before she climbed off the platform. Looking around the area, she knew that she was lost.

She slowly backtracked the way she thought she came from, but in the panic of her running away from the dogs, she hadn't thought to look at where she was fleeing to. She moved around the construction equipment.

"Sam?" She called out in a low voice.

She could no longer hear barking and growling from the dogs or the sound of the car engine she had heard moments before. She stumbled through the yard until she came to a part she recognized.

She kept walking and soon, she came across her car, still parked in the same place that she left it. She crossed over the train tracks as another wave of pain washed over her from her shoulder. Carina stopped in front of her car, holding her shoulder.

She had just watched Sam's car stand up on its own.

She got her car from the same dealership at the same time Sam did. Was it possible that her car was like Sam's?

Was her car alive too?

Carina slowly walked around her car. She wasn't sure what she was looking for, she was hoping that there would be an obvious sign that there was something different about her car, but nothing jumped out at her. It looked like any normal Thunderbird would look.

She moved to the driver's door and sat in the driver's seat, leaving her legs swung over the side of the seat so she could jump out if she needed to. She looked around the inside of her car, but didn't seen anything that jumped out at her.

Maybe her car was just a normal car and she was just overreacting.

Her priority was finding Sam. They needed to get out there.

Carina stood from the driver's seat, but before she could close the door, red and blue lights bathed the area around her in a strobing effect.

Carina let out a long frustrated sigh as a police car pulled in behind her, blocking her car in. It was the icing on the cake. Could her night get any worse?

Two officers opened their doors of the police cruisers. "Hands behind your head!" The driver shouted at her.

Carina followed their instruction and clasped her hands together, wincing as she moved her shoulder.

"Turn around with your back towards us and walk backwards toward us!"

Carina felt her heart hammering in her chest as she followed the officer's orders. Before she could blink, she had her arms pinned behind her as handcuffs were locked around her wrists.

Carina was beginning to wish that she had just stayed in bed.


N/A: Sorry for the late chapter, just got back from trip to Washington DC to see some family. I try to keep updates frequent, but sometimes things happen, you know?