A/N: So here's the latest installment of Soundwave's Secret. Sorry it's a short chapter, but it touched on some important things for the rest of the story.

-Chapter 9-

It had been exactly ten months, two weeks and four days since Faith Melody had come to the Autobots. Under their care, she flourished; she was an average weight and height for her age, spoke several languages fluently, including two distinct, "human friendly," dialects of Cybertronian, knew all of her letters, both English and Cybertronian as well as could count to ninety-nine.

Of course, the human government was not happy about a human child residing on an active, top secret, military base. Optimus had continued to refuse their requests she be removed, adamantly, until six months ago. She was his ward and he did not want to abandon her, until Ratbat pointed out she had an excellent memory and might accidentally reveal information she may have seen. After all, she did know her Cybertronian letters as well as her English ones, even if she didn't exactly know how to read yet.

The rest of the Autobots, without exception, soon adopted her as one of their own as well. It was amazing how her presence soon proved a maturing influence on the twins; Ratchet speculated it was because they were no longer the youngest among them and wanted to be thought of as "big brother" types. Dino continued to work with her on her Uhsh-nu as well as etiquette rules among Cybertronian nobility. Que helped to teach her Cybertronian letters while Sideswipe taught her about art. Even Optimus had begun to teach her the language of the Primes in his spare time. Ironically, he discovered far more free time available to him now that there was a human child to tend to. Unfortunately, it was one of those lessons that proved the point that Faith Melody could prove to be a liability; Bumblebee had brought her to Optimus for her weekly lesson while he had been reviewing a report on expected new arrivals. It was written in Cybertronian, which he was aware she was learning, but had not given much thought to. He merely set the data pad down on his desk and reached for her, allowing the screen to close on its own. It was on long enough for her to see it, but no one would think she could remember it. The following week, it was Sideswipe that made the discovery. She had been "drawing" what she saw on the data pad and proudly displayed her work all over her berth room. It was an exact depiction of the report. After taking the report down, the silver Corvette brought her and the drawings to Ratchet and Optimus in the med bay. Once the initial shock wore off, they tried to make the child aware she couldn't reproduce what she saw lying on the adults' desks without making her feel as if she did something wrong. Finally, it was Bumblebee that was able to convince her she hadn't been bad. He had been called when even Ratbat was unable to console her when she began to cry during the lecture. That was when it truly hit home, how close the hybrid and the scout really were.

It was this mutual affection between the two that inspired the apparent maturation of the Camaro. His new found maturity lead him to stop "hanging out" with Sam Witwicky as much and seemed to induce an interest in world affairs. Anything that could prove an eventual threat to Faith Melody or the world in which she lived caught his attention. If anything, it seemed like he had assumed an almost creator's role over her. He made certain he was aware and involved with every aspect of the child's development, and she seemed to reciprocate. She was just as devoted to him.

Once she had been moved to another location, one that allowed her caretakers to assume their bipedal forms without fear of discovery, it became a second home to every one of the Autobots. Jolt and the "gangsta" twins, as they preferred to be called, were assigned to stay with her while the rest would take turns between the base and Faith Melody's. They had developed a routine that they would all take turns staying with her when they were not on a mission or required for other reasons, usually briefings or training. Unlike that day, Optimus and Bumblebee would usually stagger their missions since they were both considered the girl's primary caretakers, other than Ratbat. It was this unusual development that would, eventually, have the most direct impact on the innocent girl.

VVVVVBREAKVVVVV

Optimus Prime was livid. The humans had lied to him, and he was hauling the proof of their lie. He vented his exhaust forcefully in his frustration. For the first time in a long time, he was thankful that Faith Melody was no longer at headquarters. His anger, he knew, would have caused her pain.

Ratchet had been giving the girl her normal, weekly physical, mostly because of her special diet requirements, when Bumblebee had come in, visibly upset. Due to the nature of the scan the medic was running, he was able to determine the child's pain receptors had suddenly begun to activate. At the sudden presence of the pain, she, understandably, began to scream. The obvious pain of the child was enough to rid the scout of his emotional distress until she calmed down. Once she was calm, he revealed that he and Sam had a fight, that started upsetting him, again, which caused the girl's pain receptors to activate, again. After that, it was mutually agreed upon by all Cybertronians, Autobot and Decepticon alike, that no one would go near her when they were in any heightened emotional state.

Optimus shook off the memory; he would not be going anywhere near the girl at the moment. He flagged a note in his processor to make a concerted effort to calm himself before he visited with her later this evening; he had promised to come back to tuck her in when he returned.

He drove directly to the back of the hangar, not acknowledging the greetings from anyone. He was not in a very tolerant mood. He swung around and sat in his alt mode, staring at the engine part and stewed. The more he processed this new turn of events, the more questions he had; how had this part made it to this far-off galaxy? How had the humans managed to retrieve it? What else of the ship may have survived? Where was it? Was it just this one part that made it or did more of the ship? Had the ship managed to make it somewhat intact? If so, than why was it even here? Had there been any survivors?

So deeply was he into his own thoughts that he barely even noticed when Lt. Col Lennox and Director Mearing approached him. In fact, he didn't even respond until Ironhide smacked him on his roof and told him to "Make something of himself." It took him a fraction of a second to gather his thoughts. He knew his team would have recognized the delay for what it was; he had been caught off guard and needed the few thousandths of a second to come back to the topic. Fortunately, humans wouldn't have noticed the lapse.

"You lied to us," he accused as soon as he was transformed. He didn't bother to hide his ire as he knelt down to look the director in her eye. "We were told everything humans knew about our technology had been shared with us, so why was this found in human possession?" he demanded, pointing erratically in emphasis.

"We were in the dark on this as well," Mearing tried to placate him.

He watched her in disdain as he rose to his full height. Idly, he wondered what excuse she was going to come up with to justify their so-called allies' treachery. She said something else about "Director only clearance," before scolding her overburdened assistant for not knowing which of the multitude of bags she needed.

"It seems that our entire space race of the sixties was in response to an event," she said as she handed an ancient looking box to one of the techs on the platform. He looked at it in confusion before one of the older techs discretely pointed to a device under the monitor.

As the pair were trying to figure out how to access the data stored on the box, Mearing was introducing members of NASA and the former astronaut, Dr. Buzz Aldrin.

Optimus' felt his anger fall away and respect for the human hero take its place. Silently, he sighed in relief; he would be able to tend to the child this evening without fear of his emotions triggering her ability.

VVVVVBREAKVVVVV

The blue and red flamed Peterbilt drove in silence through the warehouse district. He had checked on his ward and told her three stories before she fell into recharge, even then, she wouldn't let Bumblebee put her into her berth until she was soundly offline. He felt the swelling of affection in his spark, he had missed the child.

Noticing the approaching intersection, he slowed and turned on his blinker as he stopped at the stop sign. There was no audible sound as the data packets were exchanged. When no traffic was approaching, he made his turn and accelerated down the street. Once he was out of sight around the corner, headlights flared to life from the alley across the street and a silver Mercedes shot back across.

A/N2: I apologize if I misquoted any of the lines from "Dark of the Moon," I was going off memory. Next chapter will be another time skip past the rescuing of Sentinel Prime in the movie. He gets to meet Faith Melody!