Here it is. The final chapter. I wish it could have gone on longer, but it is what it is. I want to give a big shout out to ever single reviewer and reader who has stuck with me this long. I'm an unpredictable and sometimes annoying writer, and I'm greatful to you all.
I'd like to thank UlurNaga, for having the patience and love to share her story and allow me to add on to the sidelines just a little bit. Let no one ever say I'm not immensely appreciative for everything that you've done for me. You are an amazing writer and I will always love your work.
And to lawyer Dave, who thankfully found me a profile on Archive of Our Own under the screen name of Mizyuuki256. I hope to see you all there one day.
I'll miss you all.
Selena had to be very careful with how she went about this. She had to be quick, but she had to make sure that no one had any idea what she was doing. Not Serena. Not Ironhide. Not Optimus. No one. That was surprisingly harder to do than she thought. A year ago, she could have disappeared, and Serena would be the only one to notice that she'd ever been gone. Now she had people to talk to, people she trusted. People she trusted in return.
People she had to keep safe.
Ironhide was going to be furious when he found out. He'd probably either yell at her a good bit, or he'd give her the silent treatment in an attempt not to say something either of them would regret. Selena wasn't sure which one was worse yet, but it didn't matter. Ironhide mattered, Serena mattered. She had to do this. She had to keep them safe from her past. And then she had to bury it.
Getting Michael out of there wasn't too hard. They hadn't made guarding the guy who couldn't use his legs properly a major priority, so getting him out and to her getaway car, a Chevy Impala, wasn't exactly hard. Not killing him on the way there is another story.
"Oh," he exclaimed, looking out the window. "This is so exciting. Turning coat on your little band of robot freaks and abandoning your sister to save your first—" she cut him off with a punch to his throat.
"When I said, 'Shut up,'" she growled, her eyes trained on the road. "I wasn't leaving much room for interpretation."
SS
Ironhide was going to blow a fuse in his cybernetics at a young age if this kept up. If he told that fragging femme once, he'd told her a thousand times not to leave the base without telling someone. Sure, that someone was rarely him since he was spending all of his time trying to talk her out of going, but that wasn't the point!
"She does this all the time," Lennox said calmly, trying to keep everyone from panicking. "I'm sure it'll be fine. Besides, I'm sure none of you want to be the ones calling Tessa and Optimus away from their vacation over a false alarm."
Ironhide fought not to argue. It was a good point: Selena did leave often without telling them. But something in his Spark told him this wasn't the usual old job.
"She didn't tell me," Serena said, her voice shaking. Now that was odd. Selena may have her reservations over telling the Autobots or any of the soldiers, but she always told Serena where she was going.
"That's it," Ironhide said. "If that femme doesn't answer her slagging phone, I'm dragging her back here kicking and screaming.
SS
Selena wasn't surprised when her phone rang. She was even less surprised to see that it was Ironhide calling. Setting the app she'd created to hide her movements from even him, she answered. "Before you flip out," she said quickly, "I'm fine."
She was expecting a string of cybertronian curses. Maybe a swing or two at her. She was expecting him to be mad. All she got though, was four words.
"You worried your sister."
And, with that, should knew Ironhide's game, and he was not playing around this time.
"I know," she answered. "I know she's worried, and I know you're worried, but I'm fine. Serena's fine, and you're fine."
"Yes," Ironhide said passively. "That's all true, except you're using your anti-cybertronian detection device on your phone, so obviously, you're not going to stay that way."
Selena swallowed. She knew this part was coming. She knew it was going to hurt. She was just going to have to plow right through it. "Maybe. Maybe not." She sighed. "I don't know. Honestly, this time it could go either way. I'm not- I won't make promises to you that I can't keep, so don't ask me to promise to come home safe. . . or at all."
She could hear Ironhide's growl on the other end of the phone. "Don't you dare do this, Selena. Don't you do this to Serena, don't you do this to me."
Selena was crying at this point, not even trying to stop. "I can't, 'Hide." She said. "I swore I was going to protect her, and I'm not going to risk that safety ever."
"So you're going to abandon her?" Ironhide asked, raw hurt and emotion in his voice. "Abandon me? All of us? What the hell are you running away from Selena!"
"I have to go," Selena said, not answering, but she knew he could hear the tears in her voice. "I'll try to be home before tomorrow. I promise, I'll try as hard as I can."
"If you're not here by then," Ironhide warned, "I'm coming to find you."
"I know," Selena said. "I know."
SS
She wasn't surprised that Michael wouldn't keep his mouth shut, her previous violence against him aside. "Such a tearfull goodbye," he crooned mockingly as they pulled into the glorified ghost town. "You never promised me anything like that."
Selena punched him again, this time in the jugular. "Will you never shut up?" she asked, dragging him out of the car.
"I don't find it to be one of his better points, but no, no he doesn't."
Selena turned to the voice, curious. There stood a woman, blonde with her hair pulled back in a tight bun. She wore a perfectly kept suit, not matching the soldiers around her. Next to her, she saw another face, one she recognized, and that changed the whole game.
"I assume you're the one threatening me over this sack of meat?" Selena asked, not spending more than a second on the familiar face in an effort to save her own.
"Yes," she said, taking a step forward. "A crude method, not one I would have liked, but it worked, did it not?"
"I don't know," Selena said, "I am pretty upset."
With no warning, one of the soldiers next to the woman knocked the other out with the butt of his gun. The third one tried to take him out, but Selena was already there, tripping him up and slamming him down. She looked up to see her friend questioningly staring at his unbroken neck. "New Year's resolution?" he asked as he helped her up.
"Try new family," she answered, clothes pinning the woman as she tried to run away. "How've you been, Eliot?"
SS
"I owe you for this Ford," Selena said, greatfully taking the hard drive that contained her work from the mastermind in front of her. "This could have gotten really ugly."
"It would have, if we hadn't been on the job," Sophie pointed out, as she came around to hug her. "Phillips there was a friend of your step-mother's before the entire incident with you coming out in the open."
"Yeah, nice job with your dad there," Parker said, taking her own hug without permission, as always.
"Yeah, so nice that it caught Phillip's attention," Hardison pointed out. "Mikey over there was just a distraction. Her real intention was to turn you into her own private assassin."
"So she had no intention of giving me the info at all," Selena said, giving her own hug to the hacker. "Thanks you guys. I've got too many people counting on me now for stuff like this to come out."
"You went straight?" Parker asked, the theif's face twisting in confusion.
"No way."
SS
Two hours later, thirty minutes before the sun rose above the base, every Autobot and Serena got a text of three relieving words, "On my way."