This is a great chapter focusing on First Aid, who hasn't really made much of an appearance yet, and how Sam starts to get to know him. Oh, how amusing medics are! XD

Original comments: All right I give up! Here's a nice, long chapter for those of you who have been mentioning the shortness of the chapters, and those of you who didn't like it and didn't say anything. Also, I feel a little guilty about the two month time skip. But I couldn't do the ending events for this chapter until Sam was more developed mechanically. I couldn't think of anything else to put in the two month time span so I skipped it all. You know, I've got to spread his stay out to two years on Cybertron.

To all of you loyal fans, I have a request for you. Tell me how YOU want the Autobots on Earth to find out about Sam and how they would react. I might use some of your ideas. Remember that they think he's been dead for two years. Oh and don't worry about Sam's appearance description. PM me or just leave me a review. My reviewing is open to anonymous reviews. I really want to hear your ideas.

Sam sighed as he stood nervously outside First Aid's med-bay. He really didn't want to be there, but the advice of the Primes had led him there. Well, that and the slightly scared feeling that the rapidly spreading metal on his back had caused. He wouldn't have even noticed it had Hot Rod and Cliffjumper, who were becoming good friends now that Sam was pushing them there, not commented on it. He had just laughed it off, but when he had gone to sleep that night, the Primes had decided to show him that he needed a medic.

The boy was now standing in front of this particular door because, during his usual 'dream', Sentinel had told him to take off his shorts. He had complied, rather shyly, and he noticed, with much dismay, that the metal had spread to an area that made him blush. The Primes told him that he should go to see First Aid and start getting check-ups, "because it will get worse, and you will want him to know you by then."

For the past two months, Sam had been getting closer to the crew. All of them were warm and friendly toward him, except for two of them. Kup was still cold, distant, and commanding as ever, and First Aid was so shy that he rarely talked. The youngling had always hated going to the doctor on Earth, and it appeared Cybertronian doctors were no exception. Though Ratchet had sworn that he could change Sam's mind, the Earthbound Autobot medic had never got the chance. But would it really be easier to face Ratchet instead of this shy mech?

Sam nearly jumped out of his changing skin when, with no warning, the door he was standing in front of opened, and First Aid nearly stepped on him.

"Hey!" he barked, leaping out of the way. The Autobot looked down in surprise.

"Oh! Hello, Silverstreak. What are you doing here?" he queried.

"I, er, was wondering if you could, you know…take a look at me?" Sam asked hesitantly.

First Aid smiled, a professional air beginning to override his shyness. "I'd be delighted," he said simply as he picked the nervous boy up and carried him into the medbay.

Setting the organic down on the berth, First Aid turned and pressed a couple of buttons on the keypad that controlled the medbay doors, and the screen of the little computer turned from blue to yellow. The medic turned to him and smiled invitingly.

"If you could just remove your…um, what do you call that thing your wearing?" He gestured at Sam's clothing.

"Just call them shorts," Sam replied, snickering softly.

"All right then, please remove your shorts."

Sam hesitated at the request. He was a bit self-conscious about his body. He could easily compare it to his early teen years, only much worse, because he'd never had metal growing out of his skin as human teenager. First Aid, who had turned to a table to organize his tools—a nervous habit that reminded the boy a lot of Ratchet—looked back over his shoulder at Sam.

"Is something the matter?" he asked.

"No. Well, yes. I mean, i-it's just…" Sam trailed off, biting his lip, his face hot.

First Aid nodded understandingly. "You're a bit shy about your body."

The boy dipped his head as he stared at his feet. The white and red mech churred soothingly, kneeling down to look at him face to face.

"I've had several patients like that. I would tell you that I've seen everything about a body that can be seen, but I've never seen anything like you before. I'm just going to have to ask that you trust me. I know that it's hard. I don't know if you've noticed, but I'm rather shy myself, so I know what it's like." First Aid paused. "Are the people from your planet like ours?"

Sam glanced up, his discomfort lessening at the casual way they were talking. "What do you mean?"

The mech looked extremely curious. "I mean, is the majority of your species open with the way their bodies function, or are they shy and hide everything away? Our race accepts our bodies' functions and is not ashamed to take our armor off in front of others of our own species."

"Oh, mine is the exact opposite," Sam said with a snort; he'd been reminded that fact often by Optimus and Ratchet.

"Hm, that must make it even harder for you. Though could you tell me why?"

"The people of my world judge each other based on physical appearance. They can be…harsh," Sam said bitterly.

"You speak as if you've been on the receiving end."

"I have. I'm not exactly what you'd call attractive. I'm more on the other end of the spectrum." Sam averted his gaze from the bright optics in front of him.

"Oh. I'm sorry about that, Silverstreak. I promise that I won't judge you. It's not in my personality to be judgmental on that level."

Sam smiled. First Aid showed himself to be even more like Ratchet than he thought. The green medic had always told him almost exactly that, but he'd never believed him—he was too restricted by human society to even consider it—but he'd been away from Earth for nearly three months, and it was most definitely showing in his behavior as he quietly stripped off his pants and tossed them aside.

First Aid made a strange trilling noise in his throat as he eagerly looked over the alien body. Sam felt his cheeks warm a little, but he made no comment. He actually started to enjoy watching the mech's face as he discovered new things about him to look at. When the mech's focus narrowed between his legs, Sam moved to cover himself automatically, jeers filling his head as he remembered high school. First Aid gave a click, signifying his surprise, and looked up into Sam's eyes, which were currently brown.

"What's wrong?" he asked with a disappointed look. The boy mumbled something with his face blazing. First Aid churred again. "Oh, Silverstreak, I already told you that I won't judge you. Now please let me look! I've never seen something like you before!"

The eager tone in the mech's voice made Sam's hands drop back to his sides and First Aid gave another sharp trill as he gently pressed the boy to lie down on the berth. The youngling couldn't help but hum at the soft metal that cushioned him as he did as the medic prompted. Even after a month of being able to sleep on it, the soft metal used on the berths still felt amazing to him. In fact, any kind of soft metal still fascinated him. He'd actually developed the habit of rubbing his shorts with his palm just to feel the smooth, malleable metal beneath his hand.

First Aid snapped him out of his thoughts with a poke to the side. "Turn over."

Sam complied without question, turning over to lie on his stomach. He shivered when First Aid ran his finger from the top of his spine down over his bottom. The medic hummed in interest, tracing it again.

"It's spreading," First Aid said with awe. "I've never seen anything like this in all my life. Is all your species like this?"

The boy kept his head down as he replied, "No. None of my species is like this."

"Oh. Do you know why you're so different?" First Aid asked, softening his voice.

When he got no reply from Sam, First Aid made a series of soft beeps then went back to looking over him. He was absolutely mesmerized with the way the boy's body was designed. There were no spaces to show wires, or whatever the boy was made up of. Just a smooth surface. It was an absolutely ingenious design, leaving few noticeable weak spots, quite unlike a Cybertronian's armor, which was spread around to bare wires that were vulnerable to attack. Besides that, the similarities between their bodies were amazing. As he looked the boy over, First Aid started to talk, informing Sam that he was now much more comfortable with him than he was even ten minutes ago.

"You know, you're arrival has considerably changed things around here. I've never seen the crew closer. Even Blaster and Hot Rod mostly kept to themselves, and they were the most social mechs before they were transferred to this team. Kup wears all of us down eventually." First Aid sounded sad at the last.

"Why? Why does he do that?" Sam demanded.

"None of us are really sure. We just wish he'd be a little more lenient with us, and our feelings, sometimes. It hurts that he doesn't really acknowledge that we need to be upset sometimes. I know this sounds cruel, but it's like he's completely unfeeling."

"Nobody can be unfeeling. They have to feel something. Some people think that they feel too much and hide it away. Maybe that's what Kup does," the boy suggested.

First Aid paused in his observations. "You know, you are awfully wise for such a young mech."

Sam laughed. "I've lived through a lot more than most people my age."

"I can tell. Such wisdom usually comes from the elders," First Aid said thoughtfully. "Now, stay still. I'm going to get some tools over here so I can take a look at your internals."

At first, they talked about what inspired First Aid to become a medic as the mech worked. Sam learned that Ratchet was as much revered as Optimus Prime and Ironhide were. First Aid talked about him like he was the Allspark itself. After that they talked about the members of the crew, and, though some of the things the medic used scared him, Sam trusted that they wouldn't hurt him. Talking while he was working helped a lot. The entire process took around an hour and by the time First Aid was done, Sam had learned about how every member of the crew had been transferred to the team.

Every single one of them had been transferred because of some sort bad behavior. Truthfully, Sam felt sorry them. No mech in their right mind would willingly go to Kup's team. He was a harsh commander, and before Optimus left Cybertron, the poor mech would get swamps of transfer requests from the green mech's team. Being put under Kup's command became a punishment, and the mechs there on the base were still being punished for things that happened ages ago.

Blaster had been playing music during monitor duty and had missed some Decepticons sneaking in the base. Several casualties ensued. Cliffjumper had gotten a little trigger-happy on the shooting range and had hurt some of his comrades. First Aid had mistakenly performed the wrong operation on an injury and had nearly killed the mech; he'd felt so guilty that had transferred himself. Hot Rod had somehow screwed up an entire battle plan, and the Decepticons had taken a large section of the city because of the youngling's mistake. Perceptor had given some important information about his research to a Decepticon spy. Wheeljack had performed a slight miscalculation on an experiment and had blown the base he was working in to pieces.

First Aid sounded quite bitter when he told Sam that they were each terribly sorry for what they had done to get on the team. The only thing that had kept them working together was the stern leader himself. None of the team belonged together, except perhaps Perceptor and Wheeljack, because they all had such different upbringings and personalities. They were forced together for a punishment that was only supposed to have lasted just a few years, human time. Instead it had lasted for thousands. Kup might have kept them together, but he was tearing them down at the same time, making them feel so terribly guilty about it, telling them almost nonstop how it was their fault that things had happened the way they had. They were all, understandingly, very tired of it.

"Why don't you just leave?" Sam asked as First Aid finished both the story and the check-up.

"None of us, except probably Cliffjumper, could last long out there without this team. Even if you missed them all, there are still Decepticons out there."

"Oh. Well, why not talk to him?" Sam tried, but he knew it was crazy by the look First Aid gave him. "Fine then, not that. But you have to try something! You can't just let him oppress you like this!"

"Sam, the only thing that would humble that mech is a beating. That's supposedly the only way you can gain his respect, and none of us have the skill or the will to do that."

"No! There has to be some other way!" Sam said as he slipped his shorts on. He felt his eyes flare blue, an increasingly frequent occurrence whenever he got upset. "We just have to find it."

His eyes grew a shade of a slightly lighter blue, closer to the bright blue of an Autobot's optics, as feelings from the Primes rushed into him. Aqueous' cool, calm, collected personality mixed with Prima's determined nature flared into his body as the beings in question appeared beside him. The others were scattered around the medbay, their bodies translucent but still there. Sam knew that First Aid couldn't see them, but it was comforting to know that they were there anyway. He was getting better at seeing and talking to them outside his dreams.

"Well," First Aid said, dragging him out of his thoughts and back into the conversation. "If you find that way, please let me know."

"Will do," Sam said with a crooked smile.

"I've got nothing else to do, so do you want to come to the rec room with me?" First Aid asked after a pause.

"Sure. Why not?"

Sam leaped into the proffered hand and easily kept his balance as he was lifted up to First Aid's shoulder. It was now an everyday thing to be picked up and placed on somebody's shoulder, and Sam was so used to it that he didn't even think about it anymore. He curled his fingers around the red and white armor on the mech's shoulder, holding on lightly as the mech started to walk. The trip to the rec room took hardly any time at all, and Sam was happy to see that everybody in there was getting along rather well.

It really wasn't just Hot Rod and Cliffjumper that were becoming fast friends. Everybody was getting along better. Smooth notes of Cybertron's now familiar music floated through the room as Blaster's fingers danced across the strings of the metal instrument that he played. Sam felt a rush of joy from the Primes; they loved hearing the red mech's songs. There was a low chuckle from the table beside them, and Sam turned to see Hot Rod.

"You always smile like that when you hear Blaster playing. It actually looks like you're drunk with joy."

Sam smiled at the comment. Hot Rod would probably be surprised beyond measure if he knew how accurate that statement was. A flood of the same emotion from all the Primes was indeed like being drunk. It disoriented him and made him act as though the emotions were his own. The other mechs in the room greeted them and they were dragged into the conversation. Wheeljack and Perceptor were arguing about how to improve the efficiency of an energon convertor and Hot Rod, Cliffjumper, and, occasionally, Blaster had been adding to one side or another. Now that First Aid and Sam were there, they found that it was actually amusing to listen to the mechs argue.

"But it's just been fixed," Wheeljack debated. "I don't want to have to work on it again! It blew sparks fifteen times before I finally got it right!"

"But the advantages to the faster conversion rate and the increased output of the energon from fewer materials would be so much greater than the disadvantages of the work we put into increasing it!" Perceptor said, exasperated.

"Perceptor, you're not the one working on it!"

"But that's irrelevant! It would mean more energon for all of us!"

"I just don't see how it would work out. I mean the plans look exactly the same as the last ones!"

"Actually, they are different. You just have to follow the plans exactly how he wrote them. If you do it right, you'd have a thirty percent decrease in friction, which would allow more of the force put into it to do the work. You know, if you would take five percent of that thirty and reroute it through the filter in a vertical direction, the energon would be purer and taste better. The advantages to the increased purity would be more nutritious energon, and you'd have to consume less often in order to be properly sustained."

The room rang with silence as every single mech stared at Sam. The boy's face heated up, and he looked away from the bright blue optics staring at him. He hadn't actually meant to speak his mind. He'd just seen the advantages and listed them for Wheeljack. The latter part had just slipped out. There was a flurry of movement and Perceptor was suddenly checking math and doing quick calculations all over the datapad. He looked up and a bright smile was on his face.

"How did you figure that in your head?" he asked excitedly.

"I-I don't know. I-I didn't mean to say anything," Sam said meekly.

"Are you kidding? I wouldn't have thought of that for years, if ever! And your calculations are absolutely perfect!" Perceptor smiled wider and picked him up off the table. "I should have had you in the lab all this time!"

Sam felt his face warm again, though this time it wasn't from embarrassment. Perceptor rarely let any mech into his lab, and he knew it. The sound of a door opening made Perceptor lift his optics, and he gave a joyful cry.

"Kup! Silverstreak helped solve our energy problem!"

Kup looked at Sam and snorted. "Well, good for him."

Perceptor's smile fell a little, "Aren't you happy? We've been trying to find a way to solve it for a while."

Kup shrugged and stood there, his optics glaring at Sam the entire time. Sam didn't really mind; once you had Optimus Prime staring at you like he can see every bad thing you've ever done, Ironhide's angry glare, or Ratchet's upset medic gaze on you, nothing could really faze you anymore. First Aid shifted then stood up nervously.

"Can't you just be happy for once?" he asked with determination in his optics.

"What do you mean?" Kup snapped, his glare switching to the shy medic.

"You're never happy with what any of us do. You always just have to have more. Why can't you be more like Optimus Prime and praise good work?"

"I've known Prime longer than you've been functioning youngling! So don't you go comparing me to him when you know nothing about him. What makes you think that you can just start contradicting your commanding officer, anyway? That's the reason you nearly killed that mech. I don't see why you think—"

"That's enough!" Sam barked. Everyone turned to look at the now light blue-eyed boy.

"I beg your pardon?" Kup asked, stalking forward to snatch up the boy.

"Don't you fragging touch me!" Sam snarled kicking the hand away. "Ever since I got here you've been nothing but a cold-sparked glitch! Tell me what happened in your past that made you so slagging bitter? Did someone hurt you? Beat your aft? Call you names? What in the Pit could have made you hide yourself away like this?!"

"Why you little—" Kup started, his optics ablaze in anger.

"Yeah, I'm little, but I'm not an idiot! I know that mechs act a certain way for a certain reason. What's your reason? Tell me, was it that nobody cared about how you felt? Hm?"

"Shut up, youngling!" Kup snapped, something off about his optics.

"No! You shut up! I'm tired of you beating everyone here down just so that you can feel better about yourself. You're not a commander! You're nothing but a big bully who hides behind his title of Commander!"

Kup gave a cry of outrage and lashed out. Sam dodged and heard sparks crackling as he spun around to face the angry mech. Yelps arose out of all the other mechs, and Kup's optics reflected surprise, but Sam ignored them and acted out of instinct and outrage. He jerked his arm forward and blue electricity jolted out of his body, slamming into Kup's chest and creating a rope of pure electricity. The mech gave a yell of pain, and Sam moved his arm up.

The green mech was lifted off the ground and the boy gave an inhuman snarl as a burst of anger manifested itself as energy and ripped out of his body hard enough to jerk him off his feet. The ball of energy slammed itself into Kup and threw the mech across the room. He crashed into the wall before hitting the floor and going limp. The energy rope that had connected the two creatures snapped and whiplashed back into the boy. Sam hissed as the electricity wrap around his arm before disappearing.

Suddenly, he felt weak and tired, blinking as he stared at the unmoving commander. A realization made him gasp as he stared at his hands, a sob escaping his throat. He'd done that. He'd hurt him! Not one mech moved as they all took in what happened. Sam looked up directly into the optics of Telluric, who had appeared to calm him, and his bottom lip trembled. The boy crumpled and started to cry at the overwhelming flood of horror, guilt, shock, and other emotions that rushed through him.

As he was picked up and cradled against Hot Rod's chest, Sam wished that he hadn't found out his defensive mechanism, or at least that it had been less violent. The Primes informed him that it could have been worse.

"After all," Prima said helpfully, "Kup's still alive."

Sam cried harder.