It's been a long time, huh? Sorry, school was killing me, I kept RPing with a friend (who is miraculously helping me with my Maximal stories), and I'm also lazy... So please enjoy this chapter, I know it's short!

Chapter VII

She was there, inside the ship, inside Shockwave's ship. She expected it to be broken, covered in vines, littered with twigs, the way she had seen it, but it was clean. Emilina knew right away that this was a dream just by the superior maintenance done. From the feel of the atmosphere she could even tell she wasn't in the right time period. Everything was alien.

The sound of an alarm blared into her eardrum to break her thoughts. The room flashed red and she heard someone shuffling behind the door next to her. She wanted to hide, but she was afraid. Afraid to move, afraid of getting caught, and afraid to die. The door moved anyway and she was only a little scared of who was coming out.

Shockwave ran to the controls, passing above Emilina. He shouted to the system several times with negative responses. He switched it to manual and grabbed controls to steer clear out of what seemed to be a forceful pull. The girl grabbed onto a bar like it was life and waited and watched to see what would happen.

"Blast it all!" the mech grunted. "This is what I get for having those Constructicons build a ship from scratch. While drunk!" He muttered a few more curses while something thudded against the ship, almost making it turn to the side and tip over. Emilina grasped the bar even tighter and started praying to God that it really was a dream; it felt all too real.

"Emmy! Time to get up!"

The voice broke through her dream and she snapped her eyes open. She was about to scream until she realized she was safe in her bed, away from the chaos of falling and possibly dying.

"Didn't you hear me, Emilina? Dinner's on!"

"I…I'm comin'." She stood up slowly from her bed and lazily walked over to the door. Her brother ran like a cheetah past her when he opened it and she was moving like a snail in comparison. When she got down there she was a little surprised seeing Shockwave there. She still couldn't believe a robot was living in the house…and he was fixing the security cameras.

"I gotta thank you, Shockie," Garrett said, chomping on a piece of turkey. "If those guys had took my X-box I would've hunt them down."

"And do what?" the mech asked, smiling to himself.

"Uh…" The boy looked away. "Dang, ah don't know…All I know is that I'll hurt them if--Wait, they might have guns…"

"See what Halo does to ya?" Sarah grumbled. Garrett stuck his tongue out at her when she wasn't looking, but his dad caught sight of it and slapped him lightly on the back of his head.

"Mom, how long was I asleep?" Emilina asked as she got herself a plate.

"Just about an hour," she answered. "You sleep like a fricking baby, you know that? I walked in and forgot that you were even in there! As for your brother here, he snores like a tractor."

"Thank you for your kind words, Mom," Garrett said sarcastically, taking a bit of food off his fork.

Shockwave finished his work and walked outside without saying anything to the family. He still wanted nothing to do with them and hoped he would be back in his size sooner than later. Even when he was there for a day they treated him like a friend. I bet if I was my true size they would think twice about me he always thought. He had known things that were smaller than him to be afraid, like some of the animals he had seen while he was walking in the forest. A deer shot its head up, but once he looked at it with a glowing optic it jumped away. That was the trouble with organics. They had the infamous fight-or-flight reaction. Normally they chose the flight, but it was always for the stupidest reasons they would choose to fight. Such as their precious ways of war. He had seen that for years humans have been fighting each other over land and territory. Actually, it was since the beginning of mankind that they had been fighting. Whatever they wanted they wanted to get it; greed was a source of war.

The mech made it back to his ship and tried everything to climb through the tree without thinking about how his weight effected the tree branches. He would have to find out later a better way to get up there without going through problems. As soon as he reached up to the floor of his ship he saw something waiting for him.

Jackdaw.

The raven's head tilted as he came up and he stared back at it.

"Have you been waiting on me?" he asked, knowing that it was stupid since the bird could not talk. Instead it flapped its wings and flew over to a control panel at the front of the ship and cawed. Shockwave took it that the bird wanted him to see something for it tapped its talons on the panel several times and looked at him. He climbed his way up to it and brushed the dirt and vines from the panel, receiving a bit of hope in that spark of his.

A faint red glow came from the gadget, letting him know there was still a hint of life in the machine. But the primary computer was still down due to a lot of damage from his crash. All he needed to do was reboot it. He wouldn't be able to start the ship's engines, no, but perhaps a help signal was all he needed to get off this planet and go home, back to Cybertron…back to the Decepticons.

"I shall return later," he said to the bird, but mostly to himself. He jumped off the controls, climbed down from the tree, and ran back to the house to see if that sad excuse of a computer in his room would be enough for at least a small surge to reach the ship's panel.

"Dude, where's the fire?" Garrett said as the mech ran through the house. He stood at his computer and typed wildly on it, seeing if the control panel's weak signal might be detected by the computer.

"C'mon you piece of scrap," he growled at it. "Work, slag it! Work!" He didn't notice, but Emilina was standing the doorway with her father and both were watching him curiously. Shockwave hooked himself up to the computer to see if it would help strengthen its capacity and it seemed to work. He locked onto the ship's signal and tried to send a beacon through. It was difficult seeing as though even the keyboard wasn't as advanced as what he was used to on Cybertron. He only hope that the Decepticons would find his signal and understand it before he became too acquainted with the humans.

The signal found its way through. Shockwave sighed and fell backwards on the floor, laughing softly at himself and in hope of returning home. "Thank Primus."

"What was that all about?" Theodore asked.

"A distress beacon," the mech answered. "I sent one to the Autobots so I may return home."

"You don't wanna stay?" Emilina whined.

"It's his own choice, sweetheart," Theodore said. "The guy wants to go home, let him."

Shockwave looked at Emilina's face. He'd seen something similar to that before. He remember this nurse bot named Red Alert who cared too much for life and always cried when she found out something was dead. Emilina's face reminded him of seeing her cry.

"Well," he started, "the beacon won't reach them for a while, depending on distance…I might be here for some time."

Emilina's face turned from a frown into a bright smile and tried to hold in the happiness. Shockwave couldn't help but smile back, his lower optic ridge curving.

"Thanks Shockwave!" she said. "You're my best friend!"

"C'mon, Em," Theodore said. "You guys have school tomorrow." He led her up to her room, leaving Shockwave on the floor.

The mech was still staring at the spot that Emilina had been. Did she really mean that?

"You're my best friend!"

"Mother fragging…!" he groaned, slapping a clawed hand to his helm. "I'm in deep slag…"

xXx

Author's Note: Poor ol' thing! *huggles Shockie*
Shock: Get the frag off me....