Hey! Bet you weren't expecting to see an update from me, of all people, huh? -wink- I've been working on a few chapters little by little and, finally, I've gotten the chance to update a piece of one! I've noticed that Fanfiction has gone through and taken out my little "-" to separate portions of the story.. so if it all runs together on this one, I'm sorry about that too..

FORD_B: Yeah, I figured it was about time to stop showing Optimus as the middle-man and start giving him better scenes lol Thanks!

girlrock250297: LOL

Enjoy!

The small child had curled herself into a tight ball to warm herself. The dark prison cell she had been locked into even smelled musty and cold, and even though it had never happened, she clung to the hope that someone would come and at least offer her a ratty old blanket that she could wrap around her chilled body. It had been several hours since she had seen a single human to even offer her a scrap of food or a sip of something cold to drink. It soured her thoughts as she realized everything Five had told her was right. Her older sister had explained to her, the day before, that the humans celebrated a holiday called "Christmas" and that most of them would probably be gone for a day or two, leaving a skeleton crew to take care of them. It was also known, among their small group of experimentation children, that the skeleton crew took even more terrible care for them than the regular shifters..

Her sky blue eyes shifted towards the security camera pointed directly into her darkened cell. She growled, knowing that she was being watched by the very people who cared nothing for her diminishing existence.. She sat up on the thin foam material "mattress" that was provided for her and put her back to the corner of the concrete wall, wrapping her metal arm around her knees and pulling them close to her, hoping that it would warm her small body. She wished, so much, that they would have, at least, left her in a cell with one of her siblings so she wouldn't have been so alone. Being alone, Seven knew, meant that her thoughts would stray where they shouldn't have.. They would stray as far as planning her escape the next moment that she had the chance to, however she knew that it was merely day dreaming.. She always dreamed, though, when she slept about what Five had described to her. She'd dream about seeing the sun, and feeling it's warmth envelope her body. She'd dream about what the outside world could have looked like. The long, vast, stretches of land and the tall red mountains that Five had told her about left Seven to believe that someday... she could see it too...

The sound of a door handle disengaging and releasing back into place suddenly scared the small girl. Her eyes darted towards the corner of the cell that the entrance to the room was closest. She sat, still as stone, wondering if they had come to spray her with a hose again to "clean" her, or if maybe one of them had taken pity on her pathetic form and decided to offer her a meal. The sounds of meek footsteps slowly approached. No, this wasn't the average footsteps of one of the technicians, it was... someone else...

"Daddy?" the small voice of a child rang out through the room in a scared tone.

Seven slowly crawled up from her spot on the foam mattress and stood up straight, stopping only to listen for the voice once more.. Was this one of her siblings? It didn't sound familiar, but then again she had never met the first two projects. Had one of them escaped from their enclosure?

"Hello?" a boy called out, as though he had possibly heard her movements.

Seven approached the entrance and placed her mechanical hand on the steel bars, "Who's there?"

The child walked to the front of the cell, Seven immediately seeing his facial features and realizing that he could not have been one of the other projects. She let go of the bars and shot back to the cold depths of her prison. The boy nearly had his face through the bars as she saw his light brown eyes scan the inside of the cage.

"Are you lost too?" he asked.

Seven snorted. Was this boy serious?

"Lost? I wish… If I were lost I'd at least make sure it wasn't in this place…"

The little boy grasped at the bars himself and said, "Where's your mommy and daddy?"

Seven's voice soured. If this kid didn't know what she was, then he was seriously lost...

"… I don't have parents…" she replied coldly.

The boy stared at her with an odd expression.

"You don't have parents? What kind of kid doesn't have a mommy and a daddy?" he asked.

Seven realized that this boy was no threat to her at all. He must have been one of the children of a technician and gotten separated. She, then, noticed that his stare had gone from her face down to her right arm. 'Here it comes...' she thought.

"Wow! What's that?" the little boy asked, startling Seven, "Is that one of those 'power glove' things from TV?"

Seven looked to her right hand and then glowered up back at the other child, "Who are you?…"

"My name's Evan… What's your name?" the boy asked.

"….Seven…" she replied.

He giggled and said, "No, I asked what your name was, not how old you were!"

"And I told you my name… It's Seven…" she snarled. She had always known that it was unusual for a human child to have such a name, but then again, according to her older sister they weren't really human.

"How old are you?" Evan asked.

"Six…" Seven replied.

"Me too! That's cool!… So… What are you doing in here by yourself?" Evan asked, looking around the innards of the laboratory.

"I was born here… And I'll die here too…" Seven sighed as she walked up closer to Evan.

"Die? Why would you die?" the small boy asked her, looking curious as to why she would ever say such a thing. Obviously he was never told what had gone on in this area of the Dam.

"Five says that eventually they're going to kill us… That we'll never get to even see the sun for our entire lifetime… We're experiments… Lab rats, you could even say…" Seven replied.

"Five? Who's that?"

Seven shook her head at the boys' ignorance and stepped into the light which barely covered the entrance to the cell. She approached Evan until her face was mere inches away from his. They stared at each other for a moment as if memorizing each others facial elements. Seven was at all sure what to make of this boy. Was he for real? Or was this just a scheme from the technicians to try and find someone that could befriend her and gain her trust? His wide eyes and confused expression told her that he was truly unaware of what he was into. He had a pure and innocent glow about him. Seven trusted her instincts that perhaps she could explain her plight to this boy and perhaps... perhaps he could even help her. She took a breath and as she began to speak, the sound of the metal doors bursting open startled both herself and Evan. The boy backed away from her to see who it was, however Seven lowered her head and let out a large sigh, knowing that her chances of being helped had just gone up in smoke.

"Evan! There you are! Do you know what kind of trouble I could get into for having you in here at all? Not to mention having you back in the restricted areas -" the man pressed forward until he stopped in his tracks, staring down at Seven.

"Oh… Hello Seven…" the man said with a frown.

Seven backed up into the shadows once again. There were no chances of this turning around now.. Evan went back to the cell, his hand outstretched through the bars towards the girl, begging her to return.

"No, wait! This is my daddy! He can help you!" Evan looked to his father, "Daddy you have to help her! She said that someone's going to kill her and-"

"Don't bother…" Seven growled. She had seen this man before, and although she had never known him to treat her as badly as most of them had, she wasn't about to take the chance that he would start now..

The boys' father knelt down to his level and gave him a softened look. Seven had known that to be the look of shame and sorrow.

"What's she talking about daddy?" Evan looked as though he could start crying. Seven actually felt sorry for the boy.

"Son…" the man looked to Evan, "Remember when I told you that there were a lot of secrets here?"

The small boy nodded in reply.

"You can't tell anyone about this little girl. Can you do that for me?" the man put a hand to his son's shoulder and looked dead into his eyes. Seven knew this method as a way to gain trust and confidence. Without a doubt this man was going to be able to talk Evan into not helping her.

"Not even mommy?" Evan asked, the girl noticing the salty tears building up in the boys' eyes.

"Well… Your mother knows about her too… But you can't tell anyone other than mommy or me… Okay? We could be in a lot of trouble if anyone outside of this room knew about her," the man encouraged.

Evan looked towards Seven as she turned away from him, trying to hold back her own tears of misery.

"I… I guess so…" Evan replied. Seven tightly shut her eyes, a single tear running down her face as she felt the acceptance that she would gain nothing from this encounter hit the pit of her stomach.

"That's my boy. Come on. Let's go," the man led the boy out of the room. Seven sighed, knowing that the cruelty of her fate to one day die in this hell was going to catch up to her; and that this was just another way to prove it.

A set of footsteps returned at a quickened pace, bringing Sevens' head back up in a flash, looking to see that Evan had returned.

"You're not going to die here! I don't know why, but I know that you're not going to die here! You're going to see the sun one day… I promise!" And with that, the boy had left as quickly as he had entered.

-End Flashback-

Cat had looked away from Optimus during her story. Her eyes were down to the floor as she spoke, "And the thing was... I believed him..."

"Did you ever see him again?" Optimus asked.

Cat shook her head, "Of course not... I was surprised that his father had gotten him in the lab. Family and friends were not at all permitted. I'm not sure how he managed it the first time, but it was also during a time when all of the upper management were at home with family, and not monitoring the lab. But his father... Well he was one of the few technicians that actually took decent care of me and the others. His mom would even sneak candy to me every now and then."

"So this is why he could not explain anything to us.. He was sworn not to, and knew the consequences that had been placed on anyone who did," Optimus surmised.

Cat nodded, "That's right. Revealing the big secret of us could have brought our lives to an end. I'm sure his father explained that more thoroughly to him later on."

"That must mean that their deaths can be accounted from -" Optimus began.

"Our little scheme to get the Allspark," Cat interrupted, "They were two of the few unlucky who didn't survive that little disaster.."

Optimus vented a sigh and looked at what he had done to Cat's living quarters, "I'll have this fixed for you."

"I appreciate that," Cat smirked, "You know, you guys keep breaking stuff in here and the government's going to have you cleaning the Dam to make up the difference."

Optimus gave a short laugh before turning to leave.

Cat sighed and stood up, walking back into her bedroom and finding a large bulge slightly moving around under the covers. She smiled and lifted the sheets, looking down to Rotten and saying, "You know I think you were less frightened of things as a puppy..."

The dog looked up at Cat with his small brown eyes, whining slightly.

Cat's smile diminished slightly as she sat down on the bed next to her furry friend. She stroked his back to calm him as he panted happily. Her thoughts suddenly went from comforting Rotten, to the problem at hand..

"It's always going to find me isn't it?" Cat asked rhetorically, Rotten turning to his owner as if questioning her.

"No matter how far I run, how much I try to push it all out of my mind... One way or another.. Someone or something from my past will always find me.. Find me and remind me of everything..." Cat sighed as she looked into the large, brown eyes of her dog. In a lot of ways she was hoping he could answer her, but she only continued scratching behind his ears to ease his own anxieties.

Optimus entered the medical lab, seeing only his CMO doing the every day tasks that he had become accustomed to in the daily life at the Dam.

"Where are the two boys?" Optimus asked, not seeing either of them in the lab.

"I've cleared Evan to leave the lab, and some of our assistants are taking them on a little tour of the perimeter," Ratchet replied before looking up to the leader, "Did you speak to Cat?"

"Of course I have.." Optimus replied with a small nod.

"What did you find out?" Ratchet asked. After all of the dead ends that the young humans had thrown at them, he was more than interested in knowing what it was that they were hiding.

"Apparently the boys' parents were technicians that took care of her as a child," Optimus replied.

Ratchet stopped his task, "... They worked here?"

Optimus nodded.

Ratchet suddenly realized why Cat held so much contempt for Evan, "I see...It makes quite a bit of sense now. This is not going to make anything easy."

"There's nothing we can do about it. In time, this too shall pass.. I hope.." Optimus commented.

"In the mean time, what are we to do with Evan and Josh?" Ratchet asked, afraid of what the answer was going to be.. for good reason..

Optimus vented a sigh. He knew, well enough, what the medical officer meant.. "We have no other choice.. They can't stay in the medical lab for the entire time they're here. That apartment is the only place in the Dam suitable for their needs since they're most likely going to be here for a while."

Ratchet grimaced, "You know.. Maybe they can stay in the lab.. I can have the nurses and technicians take care of their nourishment and entertainment if necessary-"

"No, Ratchet.. I'm not going to like this either. Now that I understand the past of Evan, I can't exactly ignore it.. But I can't have them living in the lab in case the beds are needed for a serious emergency, you know that just as well as I do," Optimus stood firm.

"Just.. Give her some time to adjust.. She will be needing it now that all of this has stirred back up," Ratchet almost pleaded.

Optimus almost gave a scoff, "I'm a little surprised. Usually you're the first one to say something along the lines of 'she'll get used to it' or something to that effect."

"Oh I know she'll get used to it, she has no other choice... It's only that I've just finished repairing those two humans, and I don't feel like putting in the effort to repair them again once she finds out about this... It's really more for me than anyone else.." Ratchet vented his own sigh, thinking about all the repairs the Dam will have to have once Cat DID find out about their little plans..

Optimus' face plates contorted into a smile, "For you, my friend, done."

"Thank you.." Ratchet nodded as he continued with his work.

-Chapter Teaser!-

Evan and Josh begin to settle in, but not before getting an earful from a certain little fighter. Everyone is trying their best to calm our friend, but the adjustment everyone was hoping for is more like pulling teeth, as it usually is. But one person will persist. One person wants to get closer and find out more, for his own past, his own stories. Will the added stress bring more hell unto our crew?