Yikes, sorry for the wait, guys. End of the year is getting nuts. Enjoy! Please review and tell me what you think!


Run- Daughter

2/2/10

Sideswipe and Alise had made it back to the parking garage in a matter of minutes, pure adrenaline and fear keeping the girl, who was never much of a runner, on her feet. When they reached the entrance to the garage, they were met with the Corvette already there, Alise speedily jumping into the driver's seat as the holoform took a quick glance around, checking for spectators, before disappearing into a flurry of sparks. The Corvette quickly pulled into the exit path and stopped before the gate that prevented vehicles from leaving without paying, and in this moment, their escape. To not cause a scene by having to break through the gate, Sides rolled down the driver's window, allowing Lise to quickly swipe their parking ticket before peeling out into the road as the gate opened for them.

"The rest of the Autobots have been alerted," Sides announced tightly through his speakers then, startling the already on-edge interpreter. "Bumblebee and Ironhide are going to meet us in a few moments, just back up in case of an attack."

Listening to him as they pulled away, Alise looked over her shoulder, trying to tell if they were being followed. But she knew it was useless, at least for her, to try. She couldn't see anything, and didn't know what she was looking for exactly, what kind of vehicle the con was. It didn't help that the bot she was with didn't know either.

"Sides, are we being followed?" she questioned him urgently, still trying to look out the back by turning around and using the rear view mirror. As she spoke, they had made it onto a four lane highway, continuing to travel hastily towards NEST while ignoring the angry beeps and yells they were generating from drivers around them.

"I'm not getting a reading that they're in the area," she was answered, calming her nerves a bit. "I can't see any cons. We're in the clear for now."

The girl bit her lip, sitting back in her seat.

"Are you sure one was at the center?" Alise asked him hopefully, still clinging to the idea that this was all just a big mistake, a false alarm.

She wasn't given the answer she was looking for.

"Yes."

There was no uncertainty in his tone. Alise didn't question him again.

Suddenly, as they traveled along at dangerous speeds Alise didn't care about this time around, flashes of yellow and black caught her vision, and she looked to see Bee and 'Hide pull up along either side of the Corvette, both blocking the lanes they were in. Bee was on her side, and he beeped his horn at her as he saw her looking at him out the window.

"He's wondering how you are," Sides told her through the speakers, passing along a message she undoubtedly knew what from the comm link.

"Can you tell him I'll be fine?" she asked the bot, turning to look at the radio. A reaffirming sound came through the speakers, signaling he copied, and that the message would be delivered. She really was fine, at least for the moment. A little jittered, but she'd been in worse situations before, though she didn't like to admit it.

Turning back towards the window, she waved to Bee slightly with a sad look on her face, and she heard the beep of his horn in response. After a moment, him and Hide took formation around Sides, the Topkick in front of the Corvette and the Camaro behind it. They traveled in this position for the rest of the way back to NEST, and were soon pulling into the base, a flurry of soldiers quickly working to bring down the gates for them to pass.

When they passed through the threshold onto the base grounds and into the building, Sideswipe's speakers suddenly came to life as Alise watched with confusion Bee follow Ironhide, and into a different area of the base, away, away from her.

"He asked me to tell you he'll meet with you later, Lise," Side's quickly told her. "We have a lot to work at the moment and we have to start now. Someone will take you to Ratchet."

What? she questioned herself? I'm being sent away now? Away from a meeting directly concerning me?

"But Sides, I need to be there-"

"Please, Lise." She stopped her protests, hearing the tense and anxious tone in his voice. From the corner of her eye she saw Will and Epps came into view, and watched as they began to quickly walk over to the Corvette, their purpose, Alise could guess, to be her escort to Ratchet's office. "Just go with them. I know you want to be there, but we need you to go get checked out as soon as possible, and we'll read you in as soon as the meeting's over, okay? I promise. And Bee'll want to you to know what's going on too."

Alise was silent for a moment, beginning to seethe at the thought of her being locked out like this. Screw getting the meeting minutes after the fact; this was her life, and she sure as hell was going to make sure her two cents were heard.

Her expression set in steely stone she knew the bot could see, she made no sound, and instead opened the Corvette's door for herself, almost slamming it closed as she exited. She was pissed, and she hoped that her hard push on the door rattled his frames a bit.

As soon as she was a few steps away from the form, Sideswipe sped away from the area, leaving the interpreter with the two soldiers, who were now only a few feet away from her. Before she was able to say anything, she was quickly embraced in a suffocating embrace, Epps giving her a speedy look over to make sure she didn't have any injuries, big or small.

"You okay?" he asked her with a look of concern, Lennox mirroring his expression next to him. The genuine concern melted the girl's steely outside for a moment, but not her inner intentions.

"I'm fine," she answered him quickly, uninterested with her own well being for the moment. "Where're they going? Sides said something about a meeting," she questioned them intently.

"Yes, an emergency meeting," Epps answered her, satisfied that she was physically alright. "We'll be joining them in a minutes, but we're gonna take you to Ratchet first. We want to see if we can get a read off the scent Sides says is on you, see if we can find out which con was the one that got near you."

"I want to be there," Alise answered him tersely, not giving mind to anything he mentioned about her scheduled check up with Ratch. "At the meeting. You guys are talking about what happened, and what will happen, to me. I need to be there. I need input."

"You need to go to Ratchet," Lennox answered just as shortly, not taking to her tone. "We'll handle this. There might be some… regulations we need to put in place, but-"

"Regulations?" She didn't like that word. It was like she was a machine, not a person. "You're going to regulate me?"

Lennox flinched a bit at that, and bit his lip. He didn't like that word either, now that he thought about it. It seemed to take some of the human away from the situation, especially away from Alise.

"Safety protocols," he reworded. "But Lise, to keep you safe. You most likely wouldn't be able to leave the base without anyone, have a curfew, need check in, maybe not be allowed to leave at certain points-"

She stopped him there, holding up her hand to him.

She wouldn't be allowed to leave?

The hair on the back of her neck stood up. Nothing about this sounded good. Feelings of being trapped made her on edge, and they had for many years now. She never enjoyed the thought of being stuck in a small town, which, along with the job prospects, had driven her to Phoenix. Then, after Mission City, she had had nightmares of her being trapped in the convention center when the con came down on it, buried in debris with no one knowing where she was. Followed by that were dreams that Sam, Mikaela, and her had never been rescued from Simmons when he was still an agent, and that she was inside an interrogation room with no door, no one coming to get her. Similar, and maybe the most horrible of all, was when she dreamed she was in a Decepticon cell in a location she had never seen before, Starscream looking down at her, laughing... She had woken up in cold sweats, sometimes screaming if it was a really bad night, and the feelings of fear that being ensnared created for her were beginning to boil in the pit of her stomach.

She didn't want to be a prisoner in her home, even if it was to keep her safe.

Safe, but not sane.

"I don't like feeling trapped, Will," she hissed at him, almost desperately, a pained edge to her voice the soldiers caught. "And if I feel trapped, I swear to god I will take that goddamned car of mine and lead the cons down to South Carolina. At least then you'll have two problems out of the way."

She was speaking out of anger and fear now, the soldiers knew, and that she wouldn't ever really leave them in such a way. Not that she'd ever get very far it she did. Even if Bee wouldn't have chased her down, Ironhide, the two of them, and even Ratchet would have quickly joined in the pursuit. She wouldn't make it out of the district. However, the thought concerned them, and so did the last phrase she had spoken.

"Woah woah woah," Epps interjected then, his tone disbelieving to what he just heard. "What did you just say? Two problems? What kind of bullshit are you talking about, Lise?"

"Nothing," she mumbled at them, beginning to march away from the duo. "Have fun at your super secret meeting. Don't forget to include the shackles you'll chain me to the wall with."

"Alise..." Epps sighed, trying to defuse the situation, but she was already leaving.

"Where are you going?" Lennox boomed, demanded at her retreating form, his tone one he had never used on her before, only his soldiers. This only ignited her fire.

"To Ratchet's," she spat out, not even turning around to answer them. "Where I'm supposed to go."

Alise continued onward then, feeling their eyes still watching her intently as she marched angrily to the med bay.


"It's all over you," Ratchet's holoform confirmed, nodding his head as he looked over a digital tablet in his hands.

Alise was sitting on a human sized gurney, hooked to a monitor that was reading her vitals as she was left to her own thoughts as the bot got to work. She was wearing a hospital gown the medic had in his office, as her clothes were being scanned for traces of con on them and she was treated as a pincushion, being tested for any signs of chemical weaponry being used to harm her.

Ratchet had also earlier taken, what looked to Alise, like a fancy metal detector, and scanned her body, looking for any bugs or tracking devices, just as a precaution. This scanner also further confirmed his results. "I say you collided right into them. Was there anyone you ran into at the convention?"

Alise nodded, knowing her answer wasn't going to be much help. "Yeah, a whole bunch of people. There was some kid with a Mets shirt, a little girl, this big bald guy, an Asian woman, this guy with dreads… and those are just the ones I can remember, Ratch, there was a whole slew of people."

He nodded understandingly.

She was quiet for a few moments, listening to the sound of the monitor at work and the holoform triple checking her blood for any signs of something that shouldn't be there. As she sat there, she wondered for a moment why Ratchet was the one who got stuck babysitting her and wasn't in the meeting with the others. When she voiced this thought, he didn't even turn towards her as he responded.

"You needed to be examined, and that was my first priority other than military strategy. I am the medic, after all," he answered her. He then tapped the temple of his artificial skull. "However, I am present at the meeting, in mind if not physically. I have a direct com link to everything that's taking place." He then turned back to the bloodwork in front of him.

"Oh..." was all she could flatly respond, once again having the reality set in that she was the only one not at this meeting concerning her, and that she was unsurprised she was. She didn't feel the need to ask any more questions, and was silent for a few more moments.

"I should be there," she whispered bitterly all of a sudden, mostly to herself. The holoform, however, had excellent hearing, unknown to her, and didn't even turn to face her when he spoke.

"No, you should be here," he answered her sternly, making her jump a little, not expecting the answer. "I know you're upset, and that this was not your first choice of places to be. However, the Decepticons, like myself, are capable of developing biochemical pathogens that could quite literally melt the skin off your bones. So, if the holoform who you encountered had, perhaps, slipped you an airborne toxin that was slowly causing the cells in your body to disintegrate, I believe you would like to know about it and have me develop an antidote."

She smirked slightly, not with a lot of humor, however. "They tell you I got pissed?"

He shrugged. "Sideswipe did want me you were a bit… "pissed" about not being able to attend the meeting. And William and Robert voiced this concern at the start of the meeting."

She huffed a little when he said that, but didn't speak.

Alise continued to wait quietly, however impatiently, stewing in her own thoughts as sat on the cold metal gurney. However, she was beginning to get jittery, not because of thoughts of what was happening at the meeting, but because the wheels in her mind were turning, and she began, now that she settled down a little, realizing how close she was to abduction.

She felt her body begin to get a little hotter, perspiration on the back of her neck starting to form. She was getting very… anxious.

"I don't get it," Alise frustratedly snapped then, at nothing in particular, making Ratchet give her a startled and curious look. "I was right there! Why didn't they just grab me or something? Do you think they knew it was me?"

The medic raised a brow at her, placing his tablet on the desk next to him. He turned back to her, crossing his arms; he knew she needed if full attention now. Something was wrong.

"Undoubtedly," he answered her calmly. "The moment they would have looked at you, they would have ran an automatic facial recognition scan, and confirmed it was you. But whoever it was probably thought it would be too much of a hassle to take you with too many people around. That, and the strong possibility of an Autobot close behind, which was a correct assumption."

Upon hearing this, she began to truly realize how easy a target she was, how much of a liability. Protected, but vulnerable.

This was the problem. She was the problem.

She was so exposed, so weak, such a burden always getting into trouble with the cons. She'd been blown up, sliced, bled out, broken up… she had died. Anywhere she went concerning the cons, something horrible had happened to her, making her a concern where, in a war like the one they were fighting, she shouldn't have been, the only reason she survived having been from people who could have been doing more important things than tending to her small life. She was the weakest link of the base, and she knew it, they all did, though they would never admit it. She had no military training, no way to protect herself. She was the open nerve the cons could hit, and that was dangerous.

She made them all vulnerable.

This realization coming to the girl, caused something in her to snap then.

Her heart began to race, and her head started to feel light, dizzy, even though she was still seated down on the gurney. It was hitting her now she knew, the shock. Her mind was finally beginning to catch up with her body, and the realization of what had happened to her was making her body pump with adrenaline, her breathing getting heavy. She placed a hand over her heavy chest, trying to calm herself down, however, she couldn't ignore the tight feeling she was getting in the pit of her stomach.

I could have been taken, she was comprehending. I could have been taken and no one would have ever known what happened. I would have just disappeared…

Now, along with her other ailments, she felt nauseous. She could have been gone in the blink of an eye, a mystery to everyone on base; Ironhide, Lennox, Epps, Ratch, Sides, Bee...

"Alise, calm yourself," Ratchet instructed her steadily, the motioniter she was hooked to beginning to flash and beep wildly. Her blood pressure was rising, her heart rate increasing... If she continued like this she would pass out or strain herself somehow.

Quickly going to the table next to him and through his human medic bag, he reached in and pulled out a mild sedative, then, with a trained hand, injecting it into the IV Alise hand in her arm.

Within moments, Alise felt an immediate change in her body. Her mind was no longer supercharged, the room had begun to stop spinning, and her breathing and heart rate slowly began to steady, the tightness in her chest beginning to loosen. She felt very tired all of a sudden.

She looked up at him, her eyes wide with gratitude and embarrassment.

"Thank you," she told him breathlessly, feeling tears beginning to well in her eyes, but she kept them back. She never felt so unsure, so tiny. "What am I gonna do, Ratch?" she asked disheartenedly, her head cast towards the ground. I should just leave… make this go away for all of them…

She suddenly felt a pair of fingers under her chin, making her face the medic in front of her directly. When she met the holoform's eyes, she felt as though he was looking right through her, seeing exactly what was running through her mind. He raised a brow at her, and his lips fell into a thin line as he regarded her.

"Whatever happens, we will face it exactly like we have been for the past three years. Together." She bit her lip a little trying to keep those damn tears at bay. "Do you understand?" She nodded. "Good. Come here."

Then, in a very un-Ratchet like act, the holoform embraced the girl as she sat on the gurney, Alise responding by wrapping her arms around his artificial torso as she quietly let the tears go into his lab coat.


Alise was sitting in one of the chairs of a common room on base, a book in her hand as she skimmed the pages, not really reading the lines beneath her fingertips. She had too much on her mind, this day having been one of the longest she'd had in a long time. She wanted silence and breathing room, but she didn't want to be alone either, which was why she choose the common room as her location to rest. Even if no one was talking to her, there was always someone around not too far away.

She had been sitting on the loveseat for about an hour, trying to read but not succeeding, going between reading the same three sentences over and over again and placing the book hiding her face on her lap, giving up for a few moments. She had engrained the words How else could I orient myself in this sea of gray? into her mind, and it was only page one. She had read the same paragraph and managed to stop in the same place before her mind would travel in another direction. She was almost disgusted with herself, so much so that she once again set the book down.

However, when she removed the book from the view of her eyes for what seemed like the hundredth time that afternoon, she realized that there was a person sitting in the seat across from her, watching her intently. Upon realizing she was under this scrutiny, she jumped in her seat, her heart skipping a beat.

It was Bee's holoform who was seated there, leaning forward with his elbows resting on his knees and his face partially buried in his hands, his eyes never leaving her. The two held their gazes for a few seconds, neither speaking and waiting for the other to begin as a heavy silence fell between the two. However, when it became clear to both of them neither had the intention of starting this conversation, Bee buried his face in his hands for a moment before sighing and looking up, sitting up straighter and setting his hands in his lap.

"Ratchet said your exam looked alright," Bee began, almost conversationally. However, Alise could tell he was making an effort to keep this tone light.

Alise waited to answer for a moment, expecting him to continue about her time in the med bay. However, when he didn't, she realized that Ratchet hadn't told him about her little episode in his office. For that she was thankful. She needed Bee to know she was in an okay state of mind, if not for his sake, then for hers.

Alise put her book in her lap, strumming her fingers on the cover for a moment before saying anything.

She nodded. She had some words for him; about how she didn't want to have others making decisions for her,;about how she didn't want to be excluded; about how angry she was… But she couldn't. At least not in this moment.

"Yeah, I guess so."

Again, the silence overtook them.

Bumblebee bit his lip then, very humanly running a hand through his hair.

"We have to talk about this, Lise," he stated heavily then, in a voice barely above whisper.

"I know," she answered him in the same tone, looking down so she didn't need to look in his eyes. "I just… don't know what to say."

She didn't see it happen, but his gaze became very intense then as he regarded her.

"You could have been-" He stopped, cutting himself off, not wanting to complete his sentence.

Alise nodded. There was no need for him to say it.

There was a lull between the pair, neither knowing how to continue this dark conversation.

They were both still in shock, Alise still reeling from her exam and Bee grappling with the news of the meeting. Cons were in the area, and they knew Alise was here, most likely realizing that the bots were in the city too.

During the meeting, he had mostly stood there silently, physically present but not mentally, as the rest of the soldiers and bots determined how to handle the situation. He had remembered hearing Ironhide angrily suggest hunting the cons down before they could cause any damage, while also demanding more training time with Alise. He was confident in her ability to handle a human, he stated, but with a holoform, he feared, she had little chance. He wanted to reverse those odds as much as possible.

There was agreement with the extension of her training, however, a dispute over a direct confrontation with the cons then ensued. Sideswipe had agreed with Ironhide to be the first to strike, but Optimus wouldn't even entertain the thought, Ratchet, though only present through the comm link, agreeing with the Prime. It was too risky for all of them, and they'd be going in blind, not knowing who or how many cons were in the area. Lennox and Epps were also wary about being the first to charge the cons, for all of the soldiers' sakes, both human and Autobot.

After they discussed tactics and precautions, the topic moved specifically to Alise, and what to do to keep her safe. Sides, Lennox, and Epps had informed the group of the interpreter's displeasure in being excluded for the meeting, but they agreed that they needed to all speak together before letting her in. They knew she'd be upset, but they wanted her safe and alive, even if she'd be angry with them, at least for now. Of course they'd need to talk with her, but in the mean time, they seemed to have created a shopping list of safety procedures, all things that they wanted her to do and not do. So many that not even Bee seemed to catch all of them. Mostly because, as all this occurred, Bumblebee couldn't stop dwelling that Alise could have been taken from him that day. And he would be anything, anything to keep her safe, even if he had to enforce all of these rules himself.

This coming to mind, a new wind seemed to take him, and Bee stood up straighter, taking the interpreter by surprise.

Not even giving her an explanation into what he was saying, Bee began to rattle off her new restrictions, his face grim and hard.

"You're not to leave the base without someone, Ironhide, Sideswipe, me…" he began, his voice hard and stern, almost like he was talking to a toddler. Alise's eyes narrowed as he spoke, not expecting this tone.

"What?" she responded.

"You can't take your necklace off. You must tell someone what you are doing."

"Bee-"

"You can't be out after dark, not even with someone-"

"STOP," Alise almost yelled then, stopping Bee short. This was exactly what she had been worried about, them believing they could control her. She wasn't going to allow this.

Bee's eyes widened, half in shock, half in confusion.

Alise stood up then, almost throwing the book onto the seat she had just been occupying in anger.

"Bumblebee-" She advanced over to him, taking his face in her hands as she looked down at his widened eyes. She couldn't contain herself. "I am not to be treated like a dog on a leash. I understand you are trying to keep me safe, and I will do what is needed to keep me and the rest of the base safe. But I will not be held here like some… captive to satisfy your and everyone else on this base's overprotective overreacting.

"Today was a freak accident, and could have gone very badly, don't think I don't realize that. And I'm very aware that I could very well be being skinned by a Decepticon right now." Bee flinched her words, at the bluntness of them. But she knew she was getting her point across to him, so she didn't stop. "But I am still a person who can think for myself, and I won't be having you and the rest of the damn humans and Autobots on this base making decisions that will be dictating my life without my involvement or input!"

She leaned down to him, their noses almost touching.

"I love you, Bee, and I don't want to hurt you. But everyone setting rules for me without my involvement is not going to fly anymore. No more, 'do this, do that', no more secret meeting about me without me. No more lists of rules that you think I will just go along with." She closed the space between their faces, touching the tips of their noses together. "Okay?"

Bee was unable to speak for a few moments, completely taken by surprise. He felt sick in the pit of his stomach at the realization that, in all of this frenzy, he had forgotten about taking care, really taking care, of the thing most important to him; her. And all this protection would be for nothing if she was so unhappy, she would defy them. The thought scared him.

"I'm sorry," he whispered, ashamed. "I don't know what to do. I'm trying to keep you safe."

"I know you are. But this isn't the way."


2/3/10

"Are you certain this is her location, Soundwave?"

The holoform in question nodded affirmatively, however, almost hesitantly also. Now that he had found the girl, he no longer wished to be associated with this mission, though he knew that was hardly an option. Even he realized that taking one of the humans dear to the Autobots would result in some very unpleasant results for them, especially a human that was involved with an Autobot.

"She is located somewhere in the city," he answered the holoform beside him, nevertheless. "That being the case, I presume the Autobots are here also. Their trails are guarded, however, so I am unable to pinpoint a location."

The holoform began to smile evilly.

"You've done a great deed, Soundwave," Starscream applauded him, almost giddily. "Call the others to join us. This is going to be quite a treat."