A/N: warning - long, slightly ranting author's note in progress!

I was asked if I would be using the holoforms in this story. The answer is - no. I started out with this having only seen the films, and when I stumbled upon the extensive use of holoforms in the fanfictions I had gotten too far into this story to change it credibly. So I've improvised.

Tbh, at first I thought the holoforms were a cheap way to let the OCs get hot and physical with the Cybertronians ;) And they've gotten to the point where the Autobots actually morph into some form of superhuman. But I've grown to like them! And I have another (possible) one-shot out with a holoform, and another story in the making that plays with the way they use their holoform (or at least how Prowl uses his ;) ), but I'm not sure that one's good enough to post yet. Will probably make a decision on that in the next couple of weeks.

Anyway, rant done! Thank you, Optimus-Is-Bae (love you nickname), Autobot AfterShock, and the unnamed guest, for reviewing! I love waking up to find new reviews :) And poor Cade was duly bucketwhupped! As well deserved. So let's see what happens now, shall we? This time, from Viviane's point of view!

Disclaimer: I own Mattie's holoform.

Viviane rose and stretched. It was early evening. Cade was out who knows where, and he had taken most of the 'bots with him – including Hot Rod, who had come to visit alongside her. She had been sitting outside with Izabella, but now she and Sqweeks had left too, to go and visit Mattie. She seemed to have the compound to herself.

The roar of an engine broke the illusion. Viviane had been going inside to start up some form of dinner – Lord knows Cade desperately needed a woman's touch, there was nothing that even resembled fresh food in the kitchen – but now she paused.

A bright yellow car with black details came skidding around the far corner of the building and headed towards her. She waved. "Hey, Bumblebee!"

He transformed in front of her. "Hey, Viviane, good to see you!"

"You too, Bee! Where have you been these last couple of days?"

He sat down in and leaned up against the building. "I've been keeping busy, checking out some rumored Decepticon hideouts and helping with the Cybertron dismantling over near the city."

"Been keeping busy," Viviane repeated. "Not being kept busy, then?"

"No, this was purely volunteer work," he replied. "I've had a lot on my mind." He looked at her. "In fact, I could do with your advice."

Ah. "I think I know what this is about," Viviane said. "This is about Mattie, isn't it?"

He stared at her, his face showing as much surprise as it was capable of. "You know, too? Did she tell you?"

"No, Cade did," Viviane replied.

Bumblebee shook his head. "She's not going to be happy about that. She's already furious with him for telling me."

"Cade thought I might be able to help," Viviane said. "I have access to the full Witwiccan database, and I'm a trained researcher. He thought I might be able to find something that we didn't already know about."

"And did you find something?"

"I did, actually. Come into the hangar, and I'll show you."

She turned and entered the huge building, and Bumblebee followed with heavy footsteps. She crossed to the table where her computer was standing and touched a few keys.

"Here," she said. "This is the earliest mention I've been able to find. The Book of Martyn, from about 1354. It chronicles closely the events of the Order from 1315 and onwards, closely enough that we suspect the author actually saw and lived what he was writing about. Very exciting. Anyway, here – " she pointed "- it recounts the death of a lady Elenore, in year 1334. Apparently, lady Elenore was involved with a Transformer, probably romantically. It says that she 'lived with him as with family and took no other husband', which we can take to mean that she saw him as a husband. Unfortunately, his name is not given – the author merely names him as 'Elenore's guardian', or simply 'Guardian'."

She opened another window on the computer. "And then we have this one. A bit of a curiosity. This is the White Book of Carmarthen, and we think the original is from sometime in the fifteenth century based on the information in it. It includes some rather interesting tales ascribed to a woman – a rarity in those times – and they all record stories of romance between human women and majestic, humanoid creatures that were made of strange metal and were taller than houses. Many of these were said to be shape changers."

She looked up at Bumblebee. "I've found similar stories all the way up to modern times, the most recent being from the sixties. At some point they crossed into the realm of science fiction and became more fanciful, but if you know what you're looking for it all fits."

"So what you're saying is that Mattie is not the first human woman to fall in love with an Autobot."

"No, probably not," Viviane agreed. "In fact, she seems to be following a tradition as old as the presence of Transformers on Earth."

"Well, that's at least something. Maybe I can convince her that she's not such a freak as she believes." He sighed. "I just wish I knew what to do."

Viviane eyed him quizzically. "I think that depends on what you feel, Bumblebee."

"What I feel?"

"You sound surprised." Viviane grinned. "Yes, what you feel. That's what should determine your actions here, not what is normal, what has happened before or what anyone else thinks. How do you actually feel about Mattie and what's she's feeling?"

He looked down. "That's…. a difficult question."

"It's not, really. I know you Autobots form just as strong bonds as humans do, so I know you know what I'm talking about." She folded her arms under her breasts. "It boils down to whether you feel the same as she does or not."

"But she's human."

"Yes. Let's ignore the species question for now. What would you do, were she not?"

He was quiet for a long time. "I don't…. know."

Vivane shook her head and grinned. "You're such a novice, Bee. I know you're older than me by at least a millenium, but you are such a rookie at this." She looked up at him. "Oh, don't be offended. Here, I'm going to help you figure it out. It may take some thinking on your part, though. Are you ready for that?"

He nodded. "Bring it on."

"Okay. First question. The very first time you met Mattie, what was the first thing you noticed about her?"

He chuckled. "That's easy. That was when we were scouting out the crash site in the suburbs near Troy. I was teamed up with Hound, and we had dug through three skyscrapers and one caravan park – lots of human corpses, no survivors. It was getting very dark, we had to activate our lights. And then I heard her. She was singing." Bumblebee paused, and then came the sound of a recording. A high, clear voice was singing in a language Viviane didn't recognize. "Rusalka's song to the moon," Bumblebee said. "I asked her what it was later. She can't remember that day at all, though." The recording cut off. "She was barely conscious when we found her, but she was singing. If she hadn't been, we might never have found her. She was trapped under a wall."

He leaned his head back against the wall. "It took weeks before she was fit to leave the hospital. She was one of only four survivors found that day. When she did leave, she didn't have a place to go, so Cade invited her to stay here."

Viviane smiled. "He seems to have a heart for strays."

Bee chuckled.

"How did Cade come to learn of her? Was he helping in the search and rescue too?"

"Yes, but not there," Bumblebee replied. "He was with Drift at another crash site. We were spread thin, there was so much to do. But I told him about her, and he went to visit her at the hospital with Izabella. When we found out that she was alone here, we fixed up the train car that she now calls a house, and she lives here. Even when we found out her family was alive, she wanted to stay here."

"I see. So it was her voice, then," Viviane said. "I guess I understand that, she has a very fine singing voice."

"Yes," Bumblebee confirmed. "She has the most beautiful singing voice I've ever heard – not that I'm the best judge of human voices, but still. I drove everyone crazy while she was in the hospital, constantly playing that recording. I've made more of them now – " there was a smile in his voice – "but that first one's still my favorite."

Viviane smiled. "You know, I know what you need to do now. But I have one more question for you. Maybe after answering that, you'll know too."

"Go ahead."

"Cade told me that she didn't come here at all for almost a week after their talk. Then she came once, and now she's been gone again."

Bumblebee nodded. "She says she needs time to herself. She asked me to leave her alone for a few days."

"How do you feel when she's not here?"

Bumblebee was silent for a moment. "It's emptier here. I mean, all the other ones are still here, but something is missing. When I'm out on patrol I just want to come back, but when I come back I just want to leave again. It's almost as if there's no point to me being here either, because the reason I'm here is gone." He paused. "Oh. Wow. I see." Then he looked down at her. "I've got to go."

Viviane laughed. "Yes, you do. Get out of here, you silly Autobot. You have somewhere else to be."

She was still laughing as he transformed and sped out of the building.

Viviane was getting undressed and ready to take a shower as Cade's arms snuck around her from behind. "So I hear someone talked some sense into a certain Autobot," he murmured, kissing her throat and bare shoulder.

She smiled. "Did Bee tell you we spoke?"

He shook his head, still nuzzling her bare skin. "Prime did. Bee had apparently sped past him on his way somewhere, and Prime got just enough of an explanation to tell me what was going on. I guess you got through to him, huh?"

"To be honest, he did most the talking. I just got him to voice his feelings out loud. When he heard what he was saying, he understood." She turned around. "Most males I know do see sense in the end."

He grinned and kissed her. "Most."

"You know," she murmured between kisses, "I actually think he's loved her since he first saw her. Heard her, I should say."

Cade pulled back and looked at her. "Of course he has. You should've heard him that first week after they found her. He was like a lovesick puppy. He still gets like that whenever she's not here. It just never struck me that there was something romantic in it; I thought he was just fiercely protective. They can get like that." He grinned. "I didn't add it up until after I talked with Mattie last week. That's why I asked you to look into it." He sat down and pulled her down into her lap. "Did you find anything, by the way?"

"Yes," she said, leaning against him and unbuttoning his shirt. "She's not the first. She's not even the tenth. But it's going to be an uphill battle for them, figuring this out, and there are somethings they may have to do without."

"Such as this, for example." He kissed her from the neck down towards her left breast.

"Yes," Viviane gasped. Then she grinned. "As far as I've been able to determine, Transformers have no sexual drive. They don't reproduce biologically, so they don't have genitals. Not to mention, he's more than twice her height and at least three times as wide."

Cade rose, still holding her, and carried her to the showers. "Poor Mattie. She'll be missing out."

"Yeah. Then again, there are people who are turned on by hot cars. You never know."

He laughed out loud at that. "You never know." Then he closed the bathroom door behind them.

A/N: I guess it took an Oxford professor to make Bee see sense! Now, what do you think he'll do with this new-found information? Please review, I love reading your thoughts :)

Oh, and all those titles and facts Viviane's sprouting? I made them up. Yeah.