The female was scrolling along with her cell phone, mumbling to herself every now and then. He was interested to know what she was looking at but she was sitting in a position that hid the screen from his line of sight.

Emma swore silently and waved her phone around in a circle.

"God damn it, there's little to no field in here! Good place you chose to spend an eternity in."

He had to stifle his chuckles not to frighten the girl.

"Oooo-kay- Let's see about this", she mumbled and shifted her position. She was now resting her feet against his dashboard and leaning against the seat with a look of utter relaxation. He couldn't complain about that and he didn't even want to. It was all too nice to have her with him there; he wanted to do nothing to ruin that. "It says here that the first phase of repairing an old car is taking it apart. Then comes welding, motor work, the interior of the car and finally polishing and painting. Huh. Okay. Well' I don't know how to take you poor thing apart yet, neither do I have money to get a welder yet. I could always ask daddy, but I'm not feeling like it. And I want to be absolutely certain that I know what I'm doing before I start tearing at your cabling."

Yes. He would have liked that as well.

"We have a grinder at home, though. Oh, you don't want to know how we got that thing. Maybe… Do you think buffing you out at this point would be completely insane?"

Most likely not. His nanites were quickly putting him back together, he was already at 45% capability and the speed the little bots were working on was picking up. He didn't want to treat the little organic as a lesser life form anymore, but he really didn't believe she would be able to do any good to his engines. But his exterior was a part of him that the nanites wouldn't be able to work on. So yes, grinding his rusty metal clean would be a good idea.

"Damn", the little female murmured. "I just don't know how to do anything right, now do I?"

No, no, no. He hadn't meant it like that. Argh! What was he even thinking about, she didn't hear his thoughts. Stupid old processor was getting glitchy.

Putting away her phone Emma shifted again, now playing with his seatbelts.

"I guess I can start with a quick and rough polishing. It won't get you all shining or anything, but at least I would feel like I'm doing something. Yeah. That's exactly what I'm going to do."

He could not object to that.

-o-o-o-o-o-

Emma had left to go home for the night. The former Decepticon transformed and stood up. Slowly, careful with his still awry stability sensors, he got to the entrance of the factory. The sun had set hours ago and the sky was dark. The female's trail was still barely visible on the ground, she had walked west from where the factory was. The old Decepticon vented a sigh and crouched down on the floor.

It would not take long for him to get back into a near pristine condition – save for his looks – and he wasn't exactly sure what that meant. In a few short months he would be ready to do… whatever he wanted, really. He knew that he couldn't stay in his little hiding hole forever, sooner or later he would be forced to leave. And he would rather like to be able to choose the moment of his departure by himself, he did not want to be forced to do it.

There were a number of choices he could make once he was working properly. The safest choice would probably be just running – or maybe he should say driving – away as fast as he could. The Autobots were still out there that was for sure and he did not want to get on their way. They would offline him in nanoclicks. He should probably find a new place to hide. Or then he should find safety in numbers. That was his other option, to seek out what remained of his fellow Decepticons. He would no doubt be forced to fight, but maybe that would keep him from offlining so soon now that he wasn't feeling so suicidal anymore.

But he didn't really want to go back to those glitch heads anymore. Most of them had been like him, too scared to think for themselves. He wasn't really looking forward to that. Besides, they would most likely greet him as a deserter anyway. If he knew anything about the leaders of the Decepticons, they would rip out his spark if he ever showed his face plates again.

He didn't want to go back.

He didn't know what to do.