You know you love me. You know you missed me in the small amount of time since I gave you that sixth chapter. I want you all to know that I started this chapter just after I posted that one.

This one is the start of everything being in third person, as I want to get into how others feel about the girls' presence on the base and not just how they think the others feel about it, as Selena, though I do love her so, is a bit of a pessimist.

Ah, Lawyer Dave. I see you've returned. Have my demands been met? No. So I don't own Transformers? You won't give it to UlurNaga either? I see. No, I don't believe you can leave, as I was planning on giving those rights to Ulur as thanks for giving the world Tessa, who is awesome, and PrimMech, which should be cannon. Until I get them, I'm afraid you can't leave Lawyer Dave.

Ironhide was shocked. He hadn't thought things would go so far so quickly. When he'd heard the fleshy little glitch from before would be fighting her sister in a spar. He hadn't thought that his small ribe would lead to such a disaster.

I didn't like the eldest girl, Selena, as she called herself. Her accent was distinctly American, with no hints at all of being from the Middle East. He had checked, but when the other Bots and Lennox had searched for the two girls, even using the Autobot's insanely vast and quick prossesors, they hadn't found even a blip of either of them going missing from the country. They hadn't found any proof they'd ever existed at all. No last name, no birth certificate, no passport, no nothing.

This had unnerved their leader. When they asked Lennox why something like that would happen, his only answer had been, "Sometimes, parents don't do the job that they're meant to do."

He still hadn't liked the idea of a couple of unknown glitches anywhere near his Prime, or the new mechanic, Tessa, who he had grown unnaturally fond of after so much time near her. Had either one of them hurt her, he wouldn't be proud of what he would do.

Not only that, but the glitch seemed to have some unknown grudge against him. He didn't understand why she was so angry with him. When she'd first seen him, before she had known about the Autobots, she loved him, and was always asking Tessa when they would ever let her drive him, not that he was going to let some water bag ever drive him, but it was the thought that mattered there. After she had learned who they really were, though, she had treated him even worse than she had treated him in his holoform when they'd first met.

That was another thing he simply had hated about her: the way she had talked to both him and Prime when they'd first met. She'd been so disrespectful, when Prime had been so kind. He should have left the two of them to rot in the tiny room until there was nothing left, but, no, that would be wrong. Never mind that it was also wrong to use totally innocent 'bots as metal shield in the middle of a fight with someone!

He couldn't understand how the other bots stood her. They even got Ratchet to, although grudgingly, admit that he didn't hate them as much after a while. How had it happened? He could understand Tessa worming her way into everyone's Sparks, that was different. She was actually a good person, despite the way they would argue so often. These girls were. . . alright, the younger sister was almost as adorably naieve as Annabeth, but the sister was worse than a year in the Pit.

That was why he hadn't hesitated to goad her when he'd heard there was going to be a small fight between the two sisters, the word had simply slipped out of his vocal processors. He'd have been so much more careful with what he said had he known what his words would lead to.

The fight had started simply enough, though everyone was a little disturbed by the ferocity the two sister's had gone at each other, resembling a couple of wild animals fighting for meat, though neither of them ever really got hurt. Nothing worse than a hit or two to the face and a rather tight looking choke-hold that made everyone in the room flinch when they noticed the victim beginning to turn several different shades of four different colors as they fought off the other sister.

That all stopped the moment Selena had landed on top of him. She had slammed into him with an aggressiveness the seldom came from anything shot of a large explosion. Her skin had hit his metal with a resounding "BANG". Her head had slammed into the small part between his hood and his windshield. He was worried as she laid there for a moment, thinking that she had hurt herself, he'd created a holoform as Tessa had been, quickly lead away from the entire thing by Prime, having flown into a frenzy as she had tried to get to the girl lying on his hood.

Before he could touch her, she had rolled off of him easily, causing him to shiver as her skin brushed his metal. He had avoided human contact, with the exception of Tessa, for a reason: his metal was sensitive to the feel of human skin.

He had been so wrapped up in rationalizing why he had shivered from her touch, he had almost missed seeing the wrench she had kicked at her sister or the . . . where the Pit had the other sister gotten a Pipe from?

Several other random objects had flown between the two and blows exchanged before Ironhide had managed to get a good grip on the little femme, hoping that one of the others would be able to get a hold on Serena.

That was when he saw it: the look in her eyes. He'd seen that look before, he was sure he'd had it on his own face the first few times he'd ever been in war. It was the look one got when they were in a completely different frame of mind. The femme in his arms didn't think she was in the garage, she didn't think she had been fighting her sister, she was somewhere else completely. As far as he knew, she could have been right where she'd met the first Con she'd ever seen. He couldn't know.

"Selena," he called, not acknowledging that it was the first time he'd ever called her by her name. "Selena, calm down. You're at the base! Snap out of it!" No matter what he said, she still thrashed wildly in his arms, screeching for him to let her go before she did one of many violent things to him. He was actually surprised by the number of things she could think up and wondered if she spent time thinking of them often.

Off to his side, Sideswipe was having the same issue with the other femme, though she was much more docile than her violent sister, only screaming for him to let her go.

The other 'Bots had left, feeling that, by staying, they risked seeing or hearing something they didn't know if they wanted to see. Besides, someone had to help calm down Tessa, who was about to bash a large hole in the door in an attempt to get to her new friends.

The screaming had lasted for a long time, though Selena had held the phase longer than her sister, seeming to be desperate to get out of his arms, despite the harm she could do to herself or her sister. After that had come the crying and begging. That, both bots had decided, was worse than the screaming. The threats, they could handle. Some of them were so impossible that they couldn't have any reason to be worried, while some had been so funny, they had been forced to try and stop themselves from laughing hysterically. The crying, however, had been torture. Now, they understood why some of the other soldiers had joked that they couldn't stand the sight of a crying woman. It was hardly a pretty one to look at.

It wasn't like on all the strange film the two Bots had seen in their time on the planet. There was no silence or even bouts of sobbing. There was only huffs and puff as the two sisters fought to breathe past the uneven sobs, ranging from loud to whimpering, there were tears flowing from their eyes, turning their skin leathery, and then there was the begging. They begged for things that the two bots didn't even understand, the words broken and unfinished as they were torn apart by the random sobs that popped up in the middle of their speech. By the time both of the bots had decided that they didn't even want to know what the girls were asking, they had fallen asleep, the expenditure of energy being too much for either of them.

"I didn't know human femmes could even do that," Sideswipe said carefully, moving the girl from hanging limply in his arms as they were on her waist to what they'd heard called "bridal style". Ironhide followed suit and tried to get the little femme to let go so he could set her on a chair in the corner of the garage.

She wouldn't let go.

He had tried everything. When he'd tried to move his head through the hole her arms had created while holding onto his neck she's grabbed his holoform's hair. When he'd tried to just drop her and leave her there, she'd wrapped her legs around his waist, making his work even more difficult, and, when he'd tried to just make the holorform disappear, she'd done the most pathetic thing.

She'd let out a small, derisible whimper.

He had no choice after that. He had to let the little femme sleep wrapped around him. He told himself that he hated the idea of her cuddling next to him, of molding herself perfectly to his body, but a small part of his mind purred when she nuzzled the small part of his neck and collar. He looked to see if Sideswipe would be willing to help, but he just shrugged, stuck in almost the exact position he was in, only Serena, had her face buried into the holoform's chest, and her arms were around his waist.

"They're more stubborn than Tessa," he whispered, sliding into his back seat, making sure she was comfortable on top of him, obviously more at ease with the situation than Ironhide.

Ironhide merely grumbled, sliding into his own seat, following Sideswipe's example of being careful as he made sure she slept comfortably on top of him. Eventually, when her subconscious was sure he wasn't going to leave her alone, her arms had relaxed, and one had even slid to fall next to him, her fingers gently brushing the parking break.

He shouldn't stop the sudden hitching in breath he felt at that.

This little femme had no idea what she had just done to him, and he wasn't about to tell her when she woke up. There was no need for her to know that she had, inadvertently, found the most sensitive part of his anatomy. None whatsoever.

He settled himself into his space (after making sure to move her hand back to his neck) and allowed himself to calm down, making sure not to fall into stasis. He had to keep this holoform up, no matter how much he wanted to sleep. He hated the whimper she'd produced before, how helpless and defenseless she'd sounded. If there was anything he begrudgingly respected about the little femme sleeping in his arms, it was the strength and power she'd always shown, no matter what. He loved the fire she showed in her eyes, even in the face of creatures she couldn't even begin to fight against.

That had all disappeared. What had happened to them? What tortures had they gone through for ones so young to have the looks in their eyes that he hadn't gotten until he'd been fighting in a war for many of their lifetimes?

Did he even want to know? Did he want to look into her life? Did he care?

No, he couldn't care. She was a human. Getting attached as a friend, that was one thing. That was fine, but to look into her life, to admit that he wanted to know more about her than he had learned in the short conversations and arguments that they had had between one another, that was oh, so not fine. That was stepping, slowly, down a road he was not prepared to go. Just because Prime was willing to put his spark on the line for Tessa, not that either of them were going to admit it, didn't mean that he had to. It was suicide. They would die. It was not something that they could fight against. It wasn't something they could stop. She would die, and he'd had too many comrades die, he still remembered Chromia's hand reaching for his as she was thrown from the ledge by Soundwave. His lover, his friend. She had wanted to be his Sparkmate, and he had almost accepted. Something had held him back, though. He waited for that same feeling to overcome him as he thought of Selena, of being her friend, her lover.

It never came.