Disclaimer: I do not own Transformers. All recognizable characters are the property of HasTak. All unrecognizable ones are the intellectual property of yours truly; their theft is punishable by severe voodoo-induced pain in any and all sensitive organs of the body, followed by eternal damnation.
Because, you know, stealing is wrong.
Title: Juxtaposition
Summary: Transformers AU. She saved his life... and did not even know it. A series of unrelated events results in an earth-shattering meeting between species, cultures, and minds that is merely the beginning of so very much more.
Rating: T
Warnings: mild cursing
Author Notes: On today's episode of Strangely Ironic: I've been accused of plagiarizing myself. XD For those interested, please take time to visit my profile and read the note at the top.
Transformers: Juxtaposition
Chapter Thirty-Six
Marcus Aurelius: When was the last time you were home?
Maximus: Two years, two hundred and sixty-four days and this morning.
- Gladiator
She took her time getting dressed that morning. If asked, she would not have been able to explain why other than that age-old desire to look one's best on important occassions.
… even if that meant spending an entire hour wrestling her hair into some vague semblance of a braid while a certain white and red mech grumbled and growled and otherwise made a very obvious, impatient nuisance of himself.
"I would have thought," said Ratchet, enunciating with the careful precision of the terminally annoyed, "that you would have been in a much bigger hurry to return to your home."
She 'hmm'ed a reply and scrubbed her face briskly with a dampened scrap of towel.
"You've certainly seemed eager to get back up until this point."
She dried her face and checked her clothing: an oversized (but clean) t-shirt over the orange-ish, brown-ish skirt. A fashionista would faint at the sight of her, but she figured that cleanliness ranked above style at this point, especially considering her limited wardrobe options.
"You do want to go home, do you not?"
She glared over her shoulder at the mech. Ratchet matched the expression, blue optics squinted and bright.
"No offense," she said at last, "but the next time you get captured and spend a year or two separated from your family, come and find me and we'll talk about all the little details of re-entering society, 'kay?"
He snorted.
"If you want to make it by the end of this day-cycle, I suggest you get in gear. Sideswipe has been dithering in the hallway for half a joor now. Something about 'seeing you off,' whatever the frag that means."
She pursed her lips and sighed through her nose.
"Sideswipe…" she murmured.
She came into the 'bay late during one of her night-cycles to find Ratchet standing at one of the worktables, quietly contemplating an array of various parts. He glanced at her briefly but said nothing. Unable to sleep, she decided to ask him the question that had been weighing on her thoughts over the past several days.
"Ratchet… When humans lose their memory, sometimes you can… remind them. Show them places they should know, tell them stories, that kind of thing. It helps them remember."
"It won't work."
Evelyn's gaze dropped to the gleaming floor, some half-formed hope within her melting away.
The mech regarded her with light-blue optics, and for a moment, she could almost grasp how ancient he was, how much he had seen… how much he had lost, because he was a medic, and part of being a medic was knowing that you could not save everyone.
"Our memories work differently than yours. When you lose memories, they're still retained within your neurological tissues; you just can't access them because the pathways are damaged. While he was in your body, Sideswipe's spark must have used your brain in place of memory chips. In his own body, he does not have access to that data. If he remembers anything, it will be spark-memory, and you were together for a very short time in terms of Cybertronians. If there are spark-memories, they will likely be too indistinct for him to access with any reliability."
And with those words, the hope of reviving the Sideswipe she knew was gone.
The words were out before she could stop them: "It feels like he died."
"He did." There was no emotion in Ratchet's voice. It was a simple statement of fact. I am an Autobot, the sun rises in the East, and Sideswipe died. "We all do, eventually. But you remember him as he was, and you have a chance now to know him as he is."
For the briefest second, it was as though she could see into the years to come, and she wondered if she would be one of the ones Ratchet remembered.
When Ratchet emerged from the medbay, Evelyn cradled upon his palm, Sideswipe straightened from his place beside the door, and his gaze went immediately to the human's clothing. He smirked.
"Interesting color," said Sideswipe.
Evelyn tugged at the folds of the voluminous skirt, firmly telling herself that she was not blushing, no matter how hot her face felt.
"I didn't exactly get to go shopping with Jazz, wiseaft."
"I didn't say it was bad, did I?" The mech grinned and fell into step beside the medic.
"I had you in my head for a long, long time, Sideswipe. Believe me, I know exactly what you mean by
'interesting.'"
The mech pouted (prompting a disgusted growl from Ratchet) and bent down until he was nearly on eye-level with her, all the while keeping easy pace with the medic's strides.
"You wound me, Evelyn Meredith Hughes. Deeply." Ignoring the increased snarling of the medic's systems, Sideswipe reached out and poked her in the chest. "Straight to the spark."
He then yelped as a red hand pressed over his face and shoved. Off-balance, the red and black mech careened into the wall with a raucous clatter-clang-bang of metal on metal and slid to a sitting position on the floor, optics round with surprise. Ratchet continued walking.
"Nice," commented Evelyn.
"It's like having a sparkling onboard," grumbled the medic.
"Labradoodle, Ratchet. Look up 'labradoodle.'"
Hands flat upon the table, chin propped atop them, Sideswipe stared at her. Evelyn leaned back against an empty energon cube and stared back.
"You're fuzzy," said the mech at last.
"Thank you."
"I mean, all over. Like… fuzz. Everywhere. What's with that?"
"It's a mammal thing."
He opened his mouth, but before he could ask, she said, "Look it up. Ratchet assures me he has the 'human files' nice and organized for everyone's convenience."
There was a brief moment then as his eyes narrowed and flickered, and Evelyn sent a long-suffering glance over at the all-too-amused form of Jazz.
It was like having to house-train a puppy just after you got your last dog to stop weeing on the carpet. They had already covered the basics (No snatching, no grabbing, no squeezing, no shaking, no shouting, no energy weapons, no unapproved chemical compounds, no anything that has the vaguest, slimmest, most infinitesimal chance of making Ratchet's systems fritz…), but there was so much that the warrior just Did Not Get.
"What the frag is lactation?"
Ignoring the sound of Jazz spluttering energon out of his air intakes, Evelyn sighed.
No asking questions about human biology. Ever.
She had never been in the hangar bay before. It was a memorable experience.
I could get lost in here, she thought.
There were five shuttles – as large to Cybertronians as (or even larger than) a city bus was to humans – all lined up in an orderly row, snub-nosed and sleek and branded with Cybertronian lettering. They loomed around her like a series of metallic, multi-story mini-malls. The realization hit her with renewed force of just how big Metellus Cursor truly was. Being in the bay was almost like being outside, the ceiling so far overhead that, had it been painted blue, she might have convinced herself that she was looking at the sky.
The only thing she could compare it to was the first, last, and only time she had attended a professional football game – Atlanta Falcons versus Green Bay Packers at the Georgia Dome (the Falcons had lost). The hangar bay brought back to mind the impossibly immense feeling of being within the Georgia Dome, a structure that seemed, at least to her, far too large and empty to stand on its own.
Clustered at the side of one of the shuttles, a group of mechs watched her approach with bright blue optics. Jazz grinned the grin of the perpetually amused. Mirage stood with no discernable expression upon his face. Hound and Trailbreaker stood shoulder to shoulder, the green mech smiling broadly enough for both himself and his companion. Bumblebee waved cheerily. Bluestreak fidgeted beside the stoically immovable figure of Prowl. Sunstreaker glowered from the back of the group.
"Geeze," muttered Evelyn. "Who's left to steer the ship?"
Beside her, Sideswipe snickered, and for a brief moment, it felt like old times.
Sunstreaker was…
Well, easygoing was not and never would be the correct term. The warrior was wound tighter than a bowstring at any given moment, but there was at least a hint of sanity about him now that Sideswipe was himself again.
Evelyn noticed this mainly in the color of his optics, a rich sapphire instead of blue-bordering-on-psychotic-white, but it was also readily apparent one day as she witnessed him entering the rec room, following Sideswipe, and bumping shoulders with Trailbreaker.
The black mech visibly stiffened, pulling away. Sunstreaker growled, "Get off me!" and shoved his way past the other mech.
Evelyn stared. Behind her, Bluestreak gave a startled rev. Significant glances were exchanged throughout the room, but they all shared the same thought:
That's it?
Damn.
He has mellowed.
Sideswipe took no notice, beelining for the energon dispensers, and Evelyn reflected that, had it been her Sideswipe, he would have thought the whole thing to be hilarious.
"It's just not going to be the same!" said Bluestreak. "I mean, who's going to sit with me when I'm on break and tell me all those strange things about Earth? And who's going to recite weird poetry until Hound snorts energon out his air intakes? And who's going to go swimming with us in the washracks? And–"
"Who's going to tie you up with energon filament and give Ratchet the surges trying to get it all loose?" asked Hound teasingly.
Bluestreak's vocalizer cut off mid-sentence with a strangled, staticky squeak. Rumbles came from all around, even (Evelyn noticed) from Prowl.
That's one story he'll never live down, she thought, caught between chagrin and fondness.
"It's not like you'll never see her again," growled Ratchet. "For Primus' sake, you're part of the away team! It won't even be an orn until you're planetside and gallivanting around with all the other aliens."
Bluestreak perked up immediately, his wing-panels twitching higher.
"Hey, that's right! Evelyn, do you think we can–"
"Blue," said Jazz, gently. "We really got t' get goin'."
"Oh."
Evelyn chuckled, bracing herself against the medic's upraised thumb, and stood.
"C'mere, Blue."
The young mech frowned but approached readily enough. She beckoned him nearer and nearer, grinning, until they were literally face-to-face.
"I'm gonna miss you, too ," she said, and she leaned forward, planting a gentle kiss at the tip of his nose.
The wide-optics and bemused little twist of his mouth made it worth it.
"What was that?"
"It's called a kiss. It's a sign of affection." She noted the little smear her lips had left on the polished metal and decided to leave it be. It would come off in the washracks later anyway.
"Oh." The bemused twist was gone, replaced with a beaming smile. "That's neat! Um…" He frowned for a moment, then the grin was back. He brought his finger to his mouth, pressed his lips to it, and then reached out to tap her ever… so… gently… upon the nose.
Evelyn burst out laughing, delighted. Bluestreak looked pleased with himself, stepping away.
Still grinning, Evelyn faced the rest of the assembly, spreading her arms.
"Okay? Who's next?"
Sideswipe took her up on that offer, as did Hound and Bumblebee. Trailbreaker declined, as did Prowl and Sunstreaker (no surprise).
Aware of the steadily-increasing snarling of the medic holding her, Evelyn pivoted neatly and looked up at Ratchet, crooking her finger. The snarling disappeared, and the medic stared down at her blankly.
"You didn't think you were getting away without one, huh, Ratchet?" Oddly euphoric from the strange sending-off, she bounced on her toes. "C'mon!"
Hesitantly, and with many dubious looks between her and the avidly watching crowd, the medic raised her to his level. He accepted the light peck upon his nose with good grace, but his entire frame jolted when, as he began to lower her, she dove forward and wrapped her arms around his neck, clinging.
"Evelyn?"
"I'm going to miss you," she said. So much.
She pulled away, wiping discreetly at her eyes. She now sat cradled in both his hands – precaution against another suicidal dive into space. He was good that way, saving her from her own stupidity time and time again (and saving her from Sideswipe's stupidity even more than that).
She wanted to say something meaningful. Something deep. You saved me or I couldn't have made it without you or…
She settled for, "Thanks."
The scanning was getting out of hand.
"Ratchet, I swear, if you do your X-ray vision thing on me one more time, I'm going to start to glow in the dark!"
The medic snorted, glared, and promptly scanned her. She flopped to a seated position atop the table.
"I don't get what you're so worked up about. I'm going back to my proper environment. I'm not going to set foot on terra firma and die from abrupt fresh air overload, you know."
"On the contrary, during your time onboard, you have not been exposed to a myriad of dangers that exist everywhere on your planet. Bacteria and viruses, allergens, pollutants–"
"Excuse me, I've been on a spaceship filled with machines for how long?"
"Cybertronian systems are very efficient," retorted the medic snippily. "Certainly moreso than anything your race has achieved so far."
"Nice to know where we sit on the technological totem-pole, Ratchet. Try dissing our religion and hygiene next. Those are always winners."
The medic eyed her suspiciously. "Are you menstruating again?"
"You tell me, Sir Scans-A-Lot."
Ratchet was silent for a long moment, his optics flickering faintly.
Abruptly, she started to chuckle.
"What?" he demanded.
"You are going to be so bored when I go home!" She grinned up at him. "I'm going to have to send you a bonsai tree, just to give you something to pick at!"
She suffered a brief panic attack when Jazz made as though to leave her in one of the small, featureless rooms. She remembered her body moving without her consent and being unable to breathe, remembered thinking dear god, I'm going to die when Sideswipe held her prisoner and first abducted her from her home.
Jazz soothed her, not fighting her as she clung to his hands with the stubbornness of a barnacle.
"Hey, hey, s'fine. I'll stay in here with ya. Ratchet just didn't want you up front with me an' Raj in case the shuttle ain't calibrated right. Shuttle can't keep an eye on ya like Met can, and this room's made to transport fragile stuff. S'okay. Raj can handle the pilotin'."
She still refused to release him, even when he dropped to a seated position against the wall. The room was tiny, in mech terms – Jazz's feet nearly reached the opposite wall when he laid his legs out straight.
And he started to talk.
Mechs joked about Jazz and his 'magic vocalizer.' For Evelyn, at that moment, it was no joke. She listened as he described missions he had been on and places he had seen. He told her about cities he had visited during his brief time on Earth and listed eighteen different car-washes he wanted to try and nine different race tracks he longed to get under his tires. He speculated about the age-old question of driving on a parkway and parking on a driveway and extolled at length about Earth music, listing bands and singers and styles in such detail that Evelyn suddenly felt as though she were the alien and Jazz the native.
And then:
"We're here."
"Do you hate me?"
"What?"
"For getting you involved."
"No."
"I would."
"We've had this conversation before: you're not me."
"Yeah."
"Besides, I'm going home. I'm going to see my family again, have an actual wardrobe and a bathroom with a real toilet, get to eat anything I want, move back into my apartment – I'm going to have my life back."
"It's gonna be weird, huh?"
"… It's going to be very weird."
The trees were bare, and the air was chilled, and it was raining.
November, she thought, or maybe December now.
She would have to ask one of the mechs.
Jazz and Mirage stood outside, gazing around silently, rain drumming quietly upon their armor. Jazz glanced back at Evelyn, standing just inside the shuttle door.
"Ready to go?" he asked.
She eased forward. The sky was so gray that it was almost white, the air cool but not bitingly so. The scent of wet earth filled her lungs, easing the memory of metal and ozone that she have lived with for so long. The rain fell in a curtain from the open doorway. She reached out to let it run over her hands, cold and clear.
She stepped from metal to earth. Rain pattered upon her head and shoulders, steadily dampening her hair and running over her skin like hundreds of tiny fingers.
It was like being purified.
She drew in a deep breath, realized that she had not replied, and looked up to find both mechs watching her intently.
"Can I just… Can I just stay here? Just for a second?"
The two mechs exchanged glances. Jazz tilted his head toward the shuttle, and Mirage ghosted back inside, moving with that eerie near-silence that no other mech could match. The black and white mech moved away a few paces and peered out through the trees, systems idling softly.
Evelyn sat inside the open door and watched the rain fall.
End Chapter Thirty-Six