Finally, Mikaela gets back to where she belongs. It's been too long. No more going back and forth between scenes where she is dead and where she is alive. Although, if people are thinking this will be the last of the twists int his story, clearly you have not been paying attention to my writing style. =P
Thanks so much to all the readers who reviewed for the last chapter and reminded me that I just have to keep on swimming. Thanks to Dazja, CNightJoy, Bluebird Soaring, Nnaliseaai, luinrina, Flameshield, Gamemice, femme4jack, Faecat, Nikkie2010, Starscream II, Haag, Ciel Celeste, Mya, Phoenix51, Lecidre, and Frenzy5150. I am so grateful to all of you! Thank you for being such wonderful people!
May We Never Let Go
To Make an Entrance
The floors felt like ice beneath the soles of her feet.
It was after midnight, and the house was silent. A silence that sat so heavily upon the night that it was crushing, like the depths of a dark ocean weighted upon the supports of the house. The pressure of the quiet went unnoticed by the sleeping bodies in the house. They sprawled on the floors, on the couches, and on the carpet in the dinning room. The bodies slept even heavier than the silence that weighed upon them.
Chase breathed in and she could almost taste the quietness on her tongue. It pressed in on her lungs, wrapped around and around her like a heavy blanket. For days after Mikaela's death, the silence trapped inside the walls had driven her insane. It had been a living thing that haunted her with a vengeance, growing louder while she drank until it was quiet again when she passed out. Chase had wanted to scream at it, rage at it – and, maybe, in an alcohol inspired fury, she had done just that.
But now, she found that even the weight of the silence was better than the sound of Hound's crying. Anything was better than the sound of his crying.
She wasn't sure if it had been the right thing to bring him home with her. For all she knew, it was the absolute worst thing she ever could have done. What she did know what that it had been killing him to be near his real frame. His pain had been so real to the point that it hurt others to be near him as he stared at the green paint and heavy metal and could only see what had been done to him deep beneath the desert sands. Physically, Hound was in better shape than he had ever been in a very long time - thanks to the power of the Allspark. Inside, he was still battered and ruined and wrecked so badly that he would probably never be okay. Nemesis had hurt him in ways that were painful and permanent.
To spare him anymore agony, Ratchet had given them the tentative okay to move Hound off base. It was with the promise that the scout would see Doctor Spring as soon as possible to set up counselling. Hound left base as a human hologram, made portable by Wheeljack's clever device. He did not meet the optics of any of his fellow Cybertronians. He did not look into Chase's oil black eyes.
Mirage drove them home, making no comment about the arrangement.
Chase had guided Hound into the house and watched wordless and helpless as the hologram looked around as if he were a stranger. Glinting eyes that appeared brown like damp earth when you looked directly at them, but flickered electric blue from the corner of your eye, wandered over the mess and jumble with an air of awe. Of fear. Of longing and mistrust. He had leaned on Chase like all the strength in his matrix drained out and she was his only support. His steps were unsteady. Chase was weak and exhausted by the time she had guided him up the stairs and into her bedroom. It was an unspoken agreement between them that he would not go downstairs into his apartments. Those rooms were for Autobot Hound, and in that moment he was not Autobot Hound. He was anyone else except for the mech who had lain in the dirt while burning cold hands had dug inside him and pulled out more than just his innards.
Chase had placed Hound upon her bed, guided him to the centre of the mattress, where he had fallen over like a dead tree. His brown skin was shockingly vibrant against the rumpled white sheets. Rough whiskers on his cheeks scratched at the pillow he hugged tightly to his face.
And then he began to cry.
Terrible, loud, wrenching sobs from deep, deep down inside of him. Sometimes they were human sounds, and sometimes they were not. He cried as Chase stood over him, leaning away from the bed as if frightened to touch him. He still cried when Chase climbed onto the sagging mattress to join him, cursing softly as she brought her arms around his shaking body and held him tight. She cried too, but not as loudly. Her ears hurt from the pitch of his sobs. It was human and inhuman at the same time. Her ribs hurt from how tightly he had held her. Maybe it was hours that Hound had held on to her, but eventually his arms loosened. Those terrible, gut-wrenching, soul-deep sobs quieted. In the end, Hound stopped moving all together, and Chase figured he had cried himself to sleep – or whatever the equivalent was in holograms.
Now it was after midnight, and the floors were like ice beneath the soles of Chase's feet.
She wore only a pair of underwear and a long, loose t-shirt that covered the bottom of her arse and not much else. The upstairs hall was dark as pitch and silent as the grave. She had not invited anyone into her house, but they were there regardless of her wishes. Not that she could see them, or hear them, or even taste them in the dark, but they were there nonetheless. They had come while she had held Hound, letting him cry himself out. They had cleaned up. The air hinted at lemony fresh scents and laundered clothing, fresh air that had not been allowed in the Banes household for days. All of them were sleeping now, waiting for the next day to come, so that they could all get the business of Mikaela's funeral out of the way.
Light shone from beneath the closed door to Mikaela's room.
Blue light, like the shine of a television, except the light did not flicker. It was steady and bright. An odd buzzing noise rang in Chase's ears the nearer she came to the light. A strange, high-pitched buzz like an electric current. Her feet passed into the puddle of the blue, surprised to find it warm instead of cool. Not overly hot, yet not overly cool; it was the warmth of lingering body heat left behind after someone walked away. It was also electric, all tingling and snappy against her brown skin. A shiver passed down her spine as she pushed her palm against the door. The latch hadn't caught properly, letting the wooden door swing open on silent hinges.
More light spilled out through the doorway.
Sam was standing in the room, in front of the large window that stretched like an unsmiling mouth across the wall that faced the doorway. Between himself and Chase stood the bed, whose blankets were left in the exact disarray Mikaela had left them. The mess on the floor was untouched. Not even Chase had dared come into the room while neck-deep in her self-determined downward spiral to the bottom of a bottle. If she had come into this room, the emptiness of it would have swallowed her whole. She wouldn't have been able to come out. There should have been a musky oldness in the air, but the open window dispelled the staleness in the air and replaced it with cold air that smelled like the desert and something strangely sweet.
Sam looked taller than he was supposed to be as he stood in silhouette. For some reason, he looked both larger and smaller than what his physical body would have allowed. A part of him was expanding outward, pressing upon the air with a presence that was so intensely heavy that it outweighed the silence on a planetary scale. Another part of him appeared withered and shrunken, eaten away from the inside and faded from the outside. If Chase had been closer to the boy, she would have been able to see that his feet were not touching the floor.
Swirling and curling across his skin were lightning blue patterns that glowed with heat. They pulsed like the beat of a heart. The light he radiated was warm and steady, the light that had warmed Chase's feet and now warmed her whole front as she stood in the glow. Hair along her arms and on the back of her neck prickled. The raised welt across her chest where Sam had pinned her only hours earlier throbbed hotly, as if it knew its inflicter was near.
Chase held no grudge against the kid. There was such a quality to the scene that she was half-convinced she was dreaming. No point in holding grudges in dreams, right? Well, no point in holding grudges in real life either. That never stopped her, though. But this was a dream. She wasn't shocked to see him in the room. It made sense, in an odd sort of way. Maybe she should have been afraid. A sane person would have been afraid. But this was a dream, maybe, and the silence was too heavy in the house to break it with a scream.
It occurred to her that this was not a scene that she was welcomed in. She should not be seeing this. Even though her feet would freeze again on the ice of the floor if she left the warmth of the light, she averted her eyes and backed away. The hallway seemed darker now than it did before, darker than pitch. Darker than dark. Maybe it stretched on forever and she just couldn't see it.
Warmth breathed against the back of her neck, a peculiar scent wafting with it. A scent that came with ancient beings who lived long enough to see the stars shine and die. An endless scent that was one part time and two parts power. Ozone and starlight and the taste of bitter pennies on her tongue.
Chase turned into the warmth. Her heart suddenly sputtered in her chest like the turning over of an old, stubborn engine. Sam was less than a breath away. So close now that Chase could see that he did not look at all like himself. Same skin, same shape, but the person underneath who wore the costume was wearing it in a slightly different way from the way Sam wore his skin naturally. The lines of his face had shifted, making him look both young and old. Blue stars had come to replace his eyes, glowing deeply and powerfully within the dark pits of his eye sockets. Now it was clear that his feet were not touching the floor. He was suspended somehow, legs and feet dangling like dead weight. He did not cast a shadow.
"There is no such thing as death."
Chase blinked, not sure if she had heard the words or if she had imagined the echo inside her skull.
Sam's lips had not moved.
"There are endings. There are beginnings. But there is no such thing as death," said Sam in a voice that was not Sam's voice. It might not have been English at all. The voice stretched from one side of the universe to the other, deeper and heavier than the silence. More real than reality itself. It was the sound of power. Of time. Of things that had no name.
Chase understood what was said anyways.
"Okay," she said.
And suddenly it felt as if Mikaela was not quite as dead as she was supposed to be.
"Okay," she said again, stepping around Sam's shoulder and making her way back down the hall toward her bedroom. She could not remember why she had been walking down the hallway in the first place. Each step she took, the floor got colder and the glow got dimmer. There were still people downstairs, sleeping bodies whose dreams were undisturbed by the glowing creature in Mikaela's room. The silence was still so heavy it was suffocating.
On a whim, before she crossed over threshold to her own room, she looked back. The door to Mikaela's room was closed again. The light was steady and blue.
It occurred to Chase that whoever she had been talking to, it had not been Sam at all.
Hound was awake in her room, sitting on the floor in front of the open closet. He had pulled out the old wooden chest filled with years worth of lovely gifts he had collected for Chase. The light through the balcony window made him ghostlike, silvered brown skin where the starlight touched and blackened earthen brown where the shadows clung. If you looked too hard, he almost appeared pixelated. Scarves, clothes, statuettes, bangles and bobbles tangled and glittered across the floor like hidden treasure. He was not looking at the treasure, but instead staring off into the darkness of the closet. The fingers of his right hand traced absently over the plain golden band that circled the third finger of his left hand.
Chase crouched next to the hunched body, drawing the tips of her fingers down his back. He felt warm, like real human flesh. Her other hand reached around, brushing his fingers out of the way so that she could trace that telling golden band that circled his finger.
"I was going to tell you," he mumbled, watching her callused fingers stroke over the fake gold. There was almost an accent to the words, but not quite. He couldn't bring himself to be the bot he used to be. "Mikaela made me promise to tell you... when the time was right. This isn't the right time."
"No, it's not the right time."
He leaned back into her, and Chase brought her arms around his large body. She petted his flank like she would pet a large, mournful dog. Her other hand did not leave the golden band.
"I thought I was being clever, putting you in my directory like that," he murmured, turning his face into her ragged black hair. He rubbed his cheek into the tresses, able to take comfort in her scent. She smelled much better now that she was showered. His lips brushed the hollow of her throat. "I bought you all these gifts like you were mine. I changed my matrix, put the ring on. You never noticed. I thought I was being clever, hiding in plain sight."
Chase laughed through her nose, though it was so quiet that it might have been a puff of air.
"I did notice," she said, rubbing her cheek into the kitten soft mop of hair that grew wild from the top of Hound's head. Hound had shot Mikaela, but Chase held him in her embrace. She couldn't bring herself to walk away now. The sounds of his sobbing still haunted her. "I noticed a long time ago, but I didn't say anything. I was scared. I didn't want things to change."
"Things changed anyways," Hound sighed.
"Yeah, they did." She cupped his rough cheek, pulling backwards until they were laid out on the cold floor. The scarves and the soft clothes felt nice against the backs of her thighs. Hound's weight was heavy and real on top of her. He was a hologram, but he was also real. His weight was real, the feeling of him was real, and his pain was real.
"We can't go back to the way things were," Hound murmured, pressing his face into her chest. The softness of her beasts cushioned him and comforted him. The stubble along his jaw scratched through the thin cotton, though Chase did not mind. She did not mind the feeling of warmth seep through her shirt, or the way her nipples hardened as he pressed his face as close as he could. He brought his arms around her and held her body tight, almost crushing.
There was still a dreamlike quality to the whole thing.
Chase stared at the ceiling, running her hands up and down Hound's body. The patterns of light and dark across the ceiling were hypnotizing. Soothing. She sighed and kissed the top of the dark head that was pressed into her chest. She remembered what the thing in Sam's body had said.
"Things end, but it doesn't have to be forever," Chase murmured. "Things also begin, you know? Different things."
Hound started crying again.
Maybe it was a dream, but Chase fell asleep anyways.
"Okay, so, how far away is your house from here?" Sari wondered, peering in all directions from the parking lot of the airport that sat on the outskirts of Tranquillity. She looked around as if she would see a clue that would lead her in the right direction.
"The base is that way," Frenzy said, pointing in the direction of town but meaning much farther along than that. The Earth Defence Command base was a two hour drive outside the town.
"My house is also that way," Mikaela admitted. "I'm maybe an hour away from the outside of town, probably less."
"You live in the desert?" Miko asked skeptically.
"Yeah, I guess," Mikaela shrugged, hugging her winter coat to her chest. It wasn't cold under the winter Nevadan sun, but it also wasn't very warm. It was possibly average, lukewarm, in the place between being too warm for a jacket and too cold not to have something covering your arms. Mikaela's legs felt chilled through her stockings.
"You some kind of hermit?" Miko wondered.
"No," Mikaela replied automatically, and then paused, bit her lip, and shrugged again. "Maybe, I don't know. I like the quiet out in the desert. No one bothers us out there."
From up above, something cold but unseen cackled delightedly. Close to them, the car alarm on someone's car went off, startling the Cybertronians in their company. They were on edge anyways, ever since it came to their attention that Mikaela was currently playing pawn to The Fallen. Rumble looked ready to shoot the car, though Ravage blinked at it and the car alarm quieted.
Sari laughed nervously. "That was random."
"Yeah," Miko agreed warily, frowning suspiciously.
They started to move through the parking lot for no reason, without direction, mostly to get away from the car that had spooked them. The sound of rolling luggage followed them. Ravage tugged one along behind him, gripped by the tip of his tail. Frenzy dragged the other. Mikaela didn't actually have any luggage, so her hands were empty.
"What time is it?" Mikaela suddenly wondered.
"A little before noon," Ravage reported. His head rested at the height of Mikaela's shoulder, and his single red optic still held sympathy in its frightening depths. "We will be in time, do not worry."
"You'd know what time it was if you hadn't slept the whole time," Miko teased.
"I was tired," Mikaela countered. "It's been a long week. I'm ready to go home now and get this over with." She pushed her fingers through her hair, forgetting that she had been forced to put her wig back on. "I also want to get out of this stupid costume. I am not showing up at home looking like this. My aunt would probably pitch a fit."
Not that there wasn't going to be a fit anyways, seeing as she was coming back from the dead and all.
Sari tilted her head, lips pursing. "Your aunt doesn't like well-dressed young women in snappy grey silk suits?"
"No, she just doesn't like white people all that much," Mikaela laughed. It felt good to laugh – even if the joke wasn't all that appropriate. "I'd call her racist, but she hates everyone equally."
Miko grinned, giving Sari a good nudge in the side. "I guess we're okay, huh?"
Sari snorted playfully.
"You saved my life," Mikaela said. "I got a feeling Chase is going to love you for it."
"But first we have to get to your house," Sari reminded. "Is there a car rental around here? Maybe a taxi that would take us out far enough?"
"Now, see, that's just plain insulting when you say something like that right in front of us," Rumble huffed, crossing his thick arms over his chest. "There ain't no better ride on this planet than one of us."
Miko squinted at the Neutral-Decepticon, whom she had gotten to know quite well over furious DDR battles. She had lost every single match. "You only got two wheels."
Rumble stuck his olfactory sensor in the air. "It's not the number of tyres that count, it's what you do with them."
He promptly transformed into a powerful looking dirt bike, revving like a beast, and daring anyone brave enough to sit on him. The casing looked like plastic, but it was actually metal armour – Mikaela knew how good some Cybertronians could be at making themselves look like things that they weren't. He had a licence plate that hosted the symbol for the Neutral-Decepticons and a number that, should he be identified by the police, would bring his profile up in the DMV database.
Miko dug into her pocket, pulled out her cell phone, and took a picture. It was just a picture of a dirt bike, but it was the thought that counted. "Yeah, okay, two wheels work just fine."
Frenzy took the hint and transformed as well, dropping the suitcase he had been tugging behind him.
A family was crossing through the airport parking lot with two small children in tow. The sound that heralded Cybertronian transformation caught their attention and drew their eyes to the miraculous sight of a seven-foot-tall alien robot collapsing down into something small and mundane like a dirt bike. The children shouted hellos across the lot, waving frenetically. The parents were more suspicious, quickly ushering their children away with nervous smiles and whispered words. Decepticons, even the most friendly of the lot, had a hard time gaining the trust of humans – they just didn't look friendly enough, not like the typical colourful, open-faced Autobots.
Ravage shook his head with a disgusted sigh. He missed Carnéval already. The humans weren't as jumpy there.
Miko had already mounted Rumble and was revving the engine like a wild thing. She looked like she knew what she was doing. A makeshift helmet formed out of extra parts, popping up like a tumour behind the seat. The bodyguard took the helmet and strapped it on eagerly.
Sari circled around Frenzy cautiously. "I'm not going to be too heavy, am I?"
"No," Frenzy assured. "I've carried heavier things."
She hiked up her skirt so she could mount the dirt bike. All the extra cloth, she tucked between her legs so she didn't end up accidentally flashing oncoming traffic.
Ravage gave a shudder before folding into a mean looking 4-wheeler that might have eaten kittens for breakfast. He nudged against Mikaela's side, inviting her to climb onto the deep seat waiting for her. She did just that, heaving herself up and tucking her jacket around her waist and between her legs to prevent any untoward flashing of residents of the town. A helmet appeared, which she strapped on.
Laserbeak and Buzzsaw snatched the luggage from the ground and flew off with them.
No one stopped them through town, which was nice. They passed only one police cruiser, who briefly flashed his lights at them, only to peer at the plates on the dirt bikes and 4-wheeler and figured it wasn't worth the trouble to go after a couple of Cybertronians. The police officer dismissed the girls on the machines as holograms – even as one of the girls with bright red hair waved at him as if she were on parade.
They did not head out to the desert right away. Instead, they detoured to the suburban sprawl called West Point on the far side of town that stretched out like a growing cancer from the side of Tranquillity. It had grown a lot since the town had become a hub for alien activity; all of the suburbs surrounding Tranquillity had felt the need to expand. Tranquillity was no longer so tranquil, though it was still a decent place to live. In West Point, large homes ranging from middle-class to upper middle-class homes sprung up on either side of the street, with their perfectly manicured lawns and disturbingly smiling garden gnomes. The newer houses were cookie-cutter houses, all of them made from the same basic design, just different colours, and none of them had any personality. The older houses in West Point, the ones who had been there before Tranquillity became a hot spot on the intergalactic map, were more unique and possessed a personality to them that was a bit snotty and a bit superior, as if they sat on their plots of land with their noses turned up, saying to the world, "We were here first."
There was one house in particular that made Mikaela's heart seize.
"Witwicky," Frenzy suddenly intoned, pulling into the driveway of the specified house. His engine revved low. "I remember this place."
"You were evil back then," Mikaela replied, dismounting from Ravage's back and allowing the feline robot to resume his regular form.
"I don't think 'evil' is the right word for it," Frenzy replied absently.
Mikaela wrinkled her nose, almost agreeing – and then she remembered that Frenzy had torn Sam's pants off in the junkyard while Bumblebee and Barricade had fought. She had been forced to hack Frenzy's head off with a saw. The memory did not sit well with her, and she wondered if it sat well with Frenzy. Maybe 'evil' wasn't the right word for the ex-Decepticon, but he certainly hadn't been good.
She cleared her throat, adjusting her wind-rumpled clothes. "Ron and Judy aren't home. They're probably already on their way to the... um, yeah, my funeral." It was strange to say it out loud, as if that act made it more than real. "I just wanted to take a shower and get all this crap off my face first. They won't mind. We can get something to eat, too."
"Breaking and entering. I like it," Miko laughed. "And I thought bringing you home would be boring."
The breaking in part turned out to be unnecessary. Even though Mikaela knew where the extra key was hidden, No One had the door unlocked before she even touched the knob. He was laughing in the house, but it was a faded sound like ghosts from an era long past. Sari and Miko dismissed the noise as the pipes in the walls, or something mundane like that. The Cybertronians were wary of even setting foot in the house, but did so after some polite coaxing.
There was eagerness in the air from the dark spectre, prickling along Mikaela's skin. He was more energetic than he had been in days. The light grey shadows throughout the rooms danced in time to his excitement. Soon, he would get what he wanted and Mikaela would blessedly be free of him.
While Mikaela headed upstairs, the rest of her ragtag team stayed downstairs to explore the Witwicky household. Sari thought it was interesting, sneaking around the house of the parent of the first ambassador between Earth and the Cybertronians. There was not a lot of evidence of aliens in the house. Beyond a few photographs that hosted smiling metal faces, the house easily could have belong to the parents of a dentist. Miko was less impressed, and definitely less inclined to touch anything. She went snooping through the kitchen to find something to eat and was aided by Laserbeak, who inisted she was a master in the art of making tea.
Frenzy sat in the living room with the other symbiotes, regaling his brethren with his misadventures in this house. They had already heard all the stories, but there was nothing else to do so they listened one more time to the stories of Frenzy rummaging desperately through underwear drawers and piles of dirty magazines to fine one little pair of glasses. The story only stayed funny because of how rediculous it was that the fate of their world had rested on the shoulders of a scrawny human boy and a pair of tiny, antique glasses.
Mikaela took her much needed shower. The makeup washed off, her muscles relaxed under the beat of hot water. Her heart still beat a nervous tattoo against the inside of her chest. Over the rush of the hot water, her blood rushed in her ears like tides against the shore. Fear and adrenaline made her twitchy and lightheaded. No matter how hot the water was, it did nothing to make her feel better about showing up in the middle of her own funeral. She got out of the shower and wrinkled her nose when the steam smelled like musty attics, colder against her skin than it should have been.
"No One," she said.
The steam wafted in a peculiar motion, darkening to an unhealthy grey. A glowing amber stare formed out of water droplets.
"There's power in this house," he said in that reedy, oily voice of his.
"Sam lived here for a while after he was possessed by the Allspark," Mikaela replied, wrapping a towel firmly around her body. "Some of the Allspark power must have leaked into the walls."
"Yes," agreed the Fallen, swirling and churning in the grey steam. "We leave behind pieces of ourselves wherever we go. The Allspark was in this place. I can feel it."
"What happens when I take you to the real Allspark?" Mikaela asked, taking out the hairdryer and flicking it on. It took a couple seconds for the air to heat up, blowing a steady, musky breeze across her face and hair. "Urgh, why do you have to stink so much?"
The Fallen drew away, gathering into a corner with an air of pouting. "I smell like I do because I am rotten inside," was his answer.
"Oh," Mikaela breathed, her hair shifting in time to the hairdryer.
"I used to be good. Once. A long time ago," No One intoned absently, even a little wistfully. "My power used to come from Primus. I was made from entropy, from change and chaos in the universe, and I was unique from my brethren at the same time that I was just like them. We were all good, in our own way."
Mikaela found herself asking, "What happened?"
"Many things happened. Life happened. Time happened. Chaos happened." he trailed off, those bright amber optics blinking slowly. "All the good things inside died when I turned to Unicron for power. There's a big gaping hole inside where all the goodness used to be, and a whole bunch of rotten stuff now sits there. That is why I smell like I do."
Mikaela had not been expecting such a candid answer. She had no proper reply. The sound of the hairdryer was too loud in the small, steamy room.
"I am weak right now," No One admitted. "I have been haemorrhaging power every moment I am with you."
"Good. You deserve it."
"Maybe I do," the Fallen sighed. "But right now, if I fade away, who will be here to tell the Autobots about Nemesis? I know where he is, what he is, and how to kill him." He twisted and churned in their air. "The Allspark has power I can boost myself with. I won't hurt him. I promise. I am trying to help you kill Nemesis, but I need power before I fade away. The Allspark is the best power source around."
"Right..." Mikaela finished drying her hair in silence, and then wandered to Sam's old room to see if there was anything left of his to wear. The room had been converted years ago into a hobby room for Ron and Judy. The closet still held boxes with Sam's things in them. She found a pair of jeans to put on, slightly too big for herself, and then donned the bra and blouse she had been wearing before.
The Fallen had followed her into the room, reflecting darkly in the mirror on the wall like a second shadow.
"No," he said, clucking a tongue he didn't have. "That's not how you make an entrance."
"What?"
"That. That right there. You look exactly as you did before. You can't look like that."
"You're not making any sense," Mikaela snapped. "Go away, will you? Go flush a toilet or blow up the toaster. Whatever you've been doing to entertain yourself."
"No. No. No toilets. I'm thinking here, and that's hard work. You have to be just right."
"Are you insane?"
"Well, yes, of course. Who do you think you're talking to?" He huffed and puffed like a haughty bag of air. "Here, I think I have enough power..."
He rushed at her like he had rushed at her the day he saved her life. There was mad laughter in the air as he swirled around and around like a miniature tornado. His touch was cool and slimy against her skin. Mikaela clamped her mouth shut, resisting the need to call for help. There was nothing anyone could do to help her. For a moment, the small tornado sucked the air from the room and she couldn't breathe. Her clothes felt too tight, squeezing in on her from all directions.
"Don't worry, my pet. Don't worry. It's all going to be fine," Psi cackled.
His words were not reassuring.
Moments later, the wind settled and then blew out all together. No One stopped laughing. Mikaela looked down at herself and was stunned to find her blouse and jeans were nowhere in sight. In their place, a black leather catsuit clung to her like a second skin. She touched the material with the tip of her finger, poking it experimentally. It felt like leather. It smelled, vaguely, like leather – and it also smelled like it had been left in a damp basement for too long. The colour of it was deeper than any shade of black she had ever seen on a leather jacket.
"There, much better. Much, much better," said the Fallen. His voice came from everywhere, undeniably proud of his handiwork. The leather of the outfit vibrated with his words.
"Oh, gross! This is you?" Mikaela exclaimed.
"Who else would it be?" No One retorted snottily.
"Are you okay up there?" Miko called through the floor. "Are you talking to yourself again?"
Mikaela pulled at her hair and crossed her eyes. "Yes, I'm talking to myself!"
"Okay, just making sure."
The Fallen snickered, vibrating around Mikaela's body.
"Ew. Ew. Stop that," Mikaela ordered in a hissed whisper. "Am I supposed to be Catwoman or something?" She picked at the material, prying it away from her skin. There were no seams in it. No zippers. It looked as if it had been poured around her body. A strange sort of cool heat erupted up the sides, following the paths of red accents that suddenly burned into the material. They glowed with a light of their own, a distant red glow like banked fire. Across her back, two amber eyes blinked to life on the leather.
"Catwoman? That whore," Psi scoffed. He was not thinking of Catwoman from the Batman comics – mostly because he had never read the Batman comics. Psi was, in fact, thinking of the only cat women he knew, who were Egyptian and hissed at him whenever he got too close.
Mikaela rolled her eyes. "Okay, whatever, get off of me. I don't like you touching me. I feel like I should take another shower now."
"You can't come back from the dead looking the same as you did dying. You have to look different. That's the rules, you know," he whined, clinging to her tighter. "Everyone always comes back from the dead looking better than they did when they died. Except zombies. But you're not a zombie."
"You're supposed to be evil," Mikaela hissed. "You're not supposed to follow the rules!"
"I am evil," Psi replied mulishly. "I am the most evil sort of evil you will ever meet! But you can't just go waltzing back to the Autobots looking like some rumpled sort of hobo. Especially not if you're introducing me! No. No. I won't hear of it. You are mine and I will do with you as I want."
Mikaela narrowed her eyes and thinned her lips, wishing she could punch herself hard enough to hurt the demon clinging to her. What a petulant little brat. Like a child with a toy and a stubborn streak a mile wide.
Light footsteps pattered up the stairs at the end of the hall. "Lunch is ready," Sari called, hovering at the landing. "Come on before it gets cold."
"Coming," Mikaela called back, taking once last look at herself in a mirror and grimacing at the reflection that winked back with amber eyes and sharp teeth. Okay, she was strong. She could deal with this. It was only temporary. Soon, No One would be with the Autobots and Mikaela wouldn't have to deal with the insanity anymore.
Sari took one look at Mikaela's outfit, one cherry brow winging up in question. She was too polite to say anything about it, instead leading the way down the stairs.
"Whoa," Miko commented as Mikaela shuffled into the kitchen. "You take that from Sam's mom? She some kind of biker babe? Or into S&M?"
Mikaela's cheeks flared hot and red. "No, it's not that. I found it in the closet in Sam's room – it's mine from high school. I wanted to see if it still fits. Ta-da. It fits."
"I guess it's not the worst thing you could ever possibly wear," said the bodyguard, tilting a shoulder up with some reluctance. "It kind of makes you look like Catwoman, though."
"That whore," No One hissed, though it almost seems to come from Mikaela's own mouth.
"What was that?"
"Nothing," Mikaela intoned with a forced smile.
It was going to be a long drive home.
Miles leaned on the counter in the kitchen and peered out the window into the backyard. Chairs were being set up for the people who intended to come to the service. They were uncomfortable looking grey metal chairs borrowed from the base. Not the sort of chairs meant to be sat in while commiserating about a lost friend.
The air to the whole thing was that it was hurried and last minute. Most people had mourned Mikaela for a week now. This was just a formality.
Miles had been to a few funerals in his lifetime, and none of them had been held in a backyard. He had been to funeral parlours, graveyards, and had even attended church services. This was his first backyard service. He wasn't sure what he was supposed to feel about it.
A slow moving body slouched into the kitchen and shuffled across the floor, making his way to the food piled on plates along the counter. It was after lunch, but this was the first time Sam had bothered to emerge from Mikaela's room. From his periphery, Miles could see how wane his best friend looked. A grey tint lingered in Sam's skin, and the blueness underneath was more pronounced. He looked exhausted.
From a plate of cold cuts, Sam picked up slices of pepperoni, salami, and bits of cheese. He chewed slowly, swallowing automatically. It was a perfunctory act. He probably didn't even taste the food.
"You're wearing my pants," he suddenly said without looking at Miles.
Miles looked down at himself, at the black pants he intended to wear to the service in an hour or so. "I was thinking they were a little short for me."
"These are your pants," Sam said, nodding to the pants he wore - too long in the leg for him and too narrow in the waist.
"Must have gotten mixed up in the dark when we drove over last night," Miles shrugged, popping the button and whisking down the zipper. Sam did the same, stripping off his trousers and exchanging them for the right pair.
Chase wandered into the kitchen at that moment, fully dressed in what she intended to wear to the service. It was the most dressed up either young man had ever seen her. She wore black slacks and a black blouse, her ragged hair swept back into something that might have resembled style. There was makeup on her face, but just enough to make her look human. Her tired black eyes landed on the pair of them, hesitating on Sam. She looked him up and down, pursing her lips, and then passing him over as if dismissing him like a bad dream.
Hound followed her in only a step behind, his eyes downcast. He was guided to the small table in the corner and pushed into a seat where he would be out of everyone's way. A moment later, he laid his head down on his folded arms and closed his eyes.
"Would you two get dressed?" Chase snapped. "Show some damned respect."
Quickly, the boys jumped into their proper pants.
Miles grabbed the glass of juice he had been sipping from, taking it with him when he was shooed away from the counter by the older woman. She grabbed a plate and piled it high with food in the same desperate manner a hungry man might horde food. Hoping to stay out of her way, Miles drifted out the back door to stand on the porch. It took him a second to realize Sam had followed him.
Will stopped unfolding chairs, raising a hand in greeting. "Hey, good to see you're up, Sam!"
"Yeah, thanks," Sam replied, waving back. He looked around for one of the dusty patio chairs, swept it off with his hand, and sat down. A glass of water was clutched in his hands. The water vibrated in time to his shaking hands.
Miles leaned against the porch railing, peering down at his friend. "I had a dream about you last night. Did you dream of anything?"
"No," Sam replied, offering a relieved smile. "I didn't dream of anything last night."
"Huh," Miles shrugged. "Well, my dream was about you, but it wasn't you. It was someone else who looked like you." He paused, tapping his fingers against the railing behind him. "I think it was the thing inside you."
"The Allspark."
"Right, that's what it's called." Miles sipped at his juice, set the glass aside, and then ran his fingers through his hair to push it away from his face. "It was a strange dream. You – the thing inside you – told me that there was no such thing as death. Scared me shitless, and then it was kind of comforting."
Sam cut him a sharp look. "Mikaela's dead."
Miles flinched. "I know, but..."
Without a word, Sam got up from the patio chair and walked away. Not that anyone could blame him for being a little moody. Poor guy had a lot to deal with.
"I guess it wasn't as comforting as I thought it would be," Miles sighed to himself. A shadow moved in the kitchen window, Chase standing on the other side of the mesh with an intense look in her dark eyes.
"You dream last night?" Miles wondered.
"No." She walked away with a soured look on her face.
Miles stayed on the porch until the sound of approaching cars broke the tension in the air. Some were normal Earth cars, but most of them were Cybertronian. It wasn't an overly large crowd. Optimus Prime, flanked by Ironhide on one side and a tiny pink shape on the other that could only be Elita One. Sunstreaker and Sideswipe drove in Elita One's shadow, invited personally by the Prime's sparkmate because she 'had a feeling' they should be there. Sideswipe had begged Roulette to come with him, so she hung back in the crowd in her bright white alt mode, made dusty by the desert. Arcee zipped along on two wheels, and Bluestreak hung close to the ground as he trundled along. Jazz and Prowl came out of a sense of duty, while Ratchet, Wheeljack, and tiny little Tungsten came because Mikaela had been a friend to them.
The group looked empty without Bumblebee with them.
As one, they transformed. Metal titans coming to their feet, appearing so tall that their heads seemed to brush the sky. No matter how many times Miles saw them, he still reserved a part of himself to be amazed that he lived in a world where creatures like these could exist.
Chase came out of the house with Hound once more on her heels. His hand was tucked into her hand. Chase's eyes glinted like shards of black glass in the midday light. The way her mouth twisted, it was like she was fighting the words that wanted to spill out. Maybe she didn't blame Hound entirely for Mikaela's death, but she sure as hell blamed the Cybertronians as a whole. If they had never come to Earth, none of this would have happened.
Optimus knelt by the porch, his expression solemn. "I am so sorry for your loss."
"Of course you are," Chase replied, turning her back on him and walking to her seat. Hound did not look back at his kind. He sat down next to Chase and leaned into her body when her arms came around him and held him tightly.
Miles stared at Optimus's faceplate. A shadow passed over the Prime's faceplate. He shuttered his optics and sagged heavily.
"Come on, Optimus," Elita murmured, laying a gentle hand to his shoulder. "Come sit with us."
Slowly, the uncomfortable metal seats were filled. Every single one of them. People who came late were left to stand. The Cybertronians sat at the back of the crowd, gigantic, solemn, metal titans. Their colours faded until the reds, blues, yellows, and greens of their paint became like midnight. For this service, they wore the colours of mourning.
Miles pulled out a carefully folded sheaf of papers from his shirt pocket. It was written – scribble, actually – in blue ink. It was the only pen he could find. There were splotches of black ink, and red ink, and spaces that were crossed out and written over in pencil. He had started writing it a few days after Mikaela died. No one had said anything, but he knew it was going to fall to him to lead the service. Sam wasn't going to be able to, and Chase would... she would probably make things worse. The Cybertronians did not seem appropriate, and after that... there was no one else who was close enough to Mikaela to say the things that needed to be said.
There was a space in front of all the chairs. No microphone or stage. Just an empty space where he could stand and everyone could see him.
He tripped, and the papers went flying.
"I swear I didn't do that on purpose," Miles announced, scampering after his papers.
Sam lurched out of his seat and started herding loose papers together. There was almost a smile on his face when he handed over the bunch he had gathered. "Sorry for walking away from you earlier."
"Water under the bridge," Miles replied, wrapping an arm around Sam's shoulders and hugging him tight.
Someone revved deeply from the back of the crowd.
"Wait," Elita One called. "We're not all here yet."
Startled, Miles froze at the front of the crowd and, inexplicably, started counting people as if he could figure out who was missing. When he realized what he was doing, he stopped with a flustered blush.
"Late?" Chase snapped. "Start without them. Everyone knew what was happening today."
"No, I don't think you'd want to do that," said the Prime's mate, rising to her feet and peering off toward the highway, in the direction of Tranquillity. She wasn't very tall compared to the others in her company. Optimus Prime sitting down was nearly as tall as Elita One was standing up.
"Ah, there they are," she announced just as the breeze brought the sound of distant engines. Two black dots circled overhead, soaring high and fast.
Miles walked around the house for a better look at the approaching smudges, watching as they jumped off the highway and barrelled through the hardened tracks in the dirt. Clouds of beige and brown kicked up behind them. To his ears, the high-pitched whine of the engines sounded like dirt bikes and something deeper and meaner sounding. The sun glinted off dark figures, clearing up a moment later to reveal two actual dirt bikes and a 4-wheeler, all with riders astride them. The dots in the sky turned out to be glinting metal birds, their massive metal wings spread so wide they could have been miniature airplanes.
"The symbiotes?" Bluestreak wondered, whose optics were the sharpest of all the Cybertronians present. "Shouldn't they be heading to base instead? Soundwave's there."
"They've got humans with them," Jazz said, still sitting down. There was no point in standing if he wasn't going to see anything. His sensors worked just fine either way. But then his head jerked back and surprise took his features. He was scrambling to his feet, Prowl scrambling after him to help.
The humans were stirring in their seats. Murmurs and whispers. Chase glared at the oncoming traffic, looking for all the world like she wanted them to be struck down by lightning. If there was any way to liven up a funeral, this was it. Of course things were not allowed to go quietly and normally for someone mixed up with the Cybertronians. In one way or another, they were going to find a way to ruin it.
Two dirt bikes skidded to impressive halts at the front of the gathering, kicking dirt onto Miles' pants. Up close, the riders were female. Rumble and Frenzy unfolded into their natural forms, grinning brightly and inappropriate in light of what they had just thoroughly interrupted. Laserbeak and Buzzsaw dropped from the sky, laying their luggage loads on the ground.
Ironhide's arms whirred and growled, reforming into his infamous cannons.
"Don't shoot!" cried one of the humans, tugging off her helmet to a cascade of bright red hair. "Please don't shoot!"
"Yeah," called the last human, sitting astride a mean looking 4-wheeler. "Don't shoot. I've had enough of bots with big guns shooting at me." She wore black leather from head to foot, clinging to her in a manner that made it very clear what sex she belonged to. Her voice was muffled through the helmet, her face hidden by tinted glass. That body, though...
Sam shot to his feet, stumbling several steps. It felt as if someone just punched him in the stomach.
"Give me a second," said the black-clad woman. "Let me get this stupid helmet off."
Mikaela's fingers were trembling so badly that she could hardly undo the strap beneath her chin. Hidden behind the tinted visor, her eyes stung with tears. Her funeral was unexpectedly crowded. There were people there she had expected, and some she had never dreamed to see. On a very satisfying level, it was good to know that so many people thought enough about her to show up for her funeral.
The Fallen squeezed around her, excited and insane, eager to see what would happen.
Finally, she managed the buckle and loosened the helmet, tugging it away with a final relish.
"I'm home!"
"Holy shit," someone exclaimed – it might have been Chase.
Miles sucked in a strangled breath, stumbling backwards until his shoe caught on the leg of his pants, sending him sprawling backwards into the dirt. Or maybe he fainted.
Sam choked, rocking forward a step, then back. His mouth floundered like that of a fish out of water. If he still had blood running through his veins, it suddenly drained elsewhere, making his whole body feel cold and numb, so stunned that not even his lungs were working. His heart, though. God, his heart suddenly burned. His real heart. Not the damned Allspark inside him. The hot, bloody beat of his heart told him it was Mikaela. His Mikaela. Back from the dead.
It was Mikaela's face. Her voice. Her body.
If he came close enough, he knew he would be able to smell her skin.
"Mikaela?" he breathed dryly, discovering all the moisture had dried up in his mouth, his lips papery, his tongue trapped to the roof of his mouth. He reached his hand out to her, then scared himself. His arm dropped back down to his side.
"Yeah, Sam, it's me. It's really me," Mikaela promised, her grin wavering amidst the gobsmacked stares that zeroed in on her like lasers. A couple of tears leaked down her cheeks.
"It's... not possible," Ratchet murmured.
"It's a long story," Mikaela laughed haplessly, a little desperately. "I'll fill you all in later."
"This could be trick," Prowl reasoned with his usual stickler's frown.
"It's not a trick!" Sari exclaimed. She was curling a finger through her hair in a nervous gesture. The Asian women next to her was nonchalantly using her iPhone to take pictures of all the Cybertronians. None of what was happening appeared to bother her.
"Prove it," Prowl insisted.
Mikaela arched her brows high, placed her hands on her hips, and gave the tactician her best imperious look. "I can prove it's not a trick. I know things that only I would know and no one else." Another grin lit her features, the kind that was wondrous and amazed. "Wow, just like in the movies. Never thought I would have to do something like this... Do you remember that time, about three years ago, when Chase and I had to file a report with the police about the vandals that broke into our garage and totally ransacked the place?"
"Uh oh," Jazz breathed, chuckling as he shook his head. "Ya couldn't keep your mouthplates shut."
"I know who actually ransacked the garage. It wasn't even a real ransacking. It was you and Jazz having some 'special alone time' together-" and she used air quotes like she meant to slap the bot in the faceplate with them, "-and I totally lied for you so you didn't get in trouble. You remember that don't you? Because I do."
"You bastards," Chase swore. There hadn't been a lot of damage from the incident, but it was the principal of using her much beloved garage as a love motel that was offensive.
Jazz laughed.
Prowl, understandably, looked mortified.
"Anyone else want to not believe it's me?" Mikaela challenged with an evil glint in her eyes. Psi was having more of an affect on her than she cared to admit. She spotted Sideswipe's red armour and nailed him with a sharp pointed finger. "I once had to pull out three pink G-strings from one of his air vents. I didn't ask any questions."
"I was holding them for a friend!" Sideswipe exclaimed.
Sunstreaker face-palmed.
Mikaela was on a roll.
"Simmons, when you first arrested the Witwicky family, I took your clothes away. You were wearing Sector Seven underwear," she chimed off. Her eyes landed on Sam, precious Sam, and she wanted to reach her arms out and wrap him in a hug that would never end. But No One had a hold of her, she could feel his influence sinking in like black roots burrowing down. Her mouth was moving on its own.
"Sam," she cooed. "Oh Sam." Her fingers traced down his hollowed cheek. "The first time we had sex, you cried. It was so sweet. I took your virginity."
Fear and confusion evaporated from the young man's expression. He was not embarrassed by the admission, though he probably would have preferred to have kept it between himself and his girlfriend. That one touch on his cheek told him all he needed to know. The coolness of her fingers, the waft of stale rot; this was and was not Mikaela Banes.
He caught her retreating fingers in his hand, kissing them gently. He met her eyes, able to see the spark of amber light hiding behind the wet, dark stare of the woman. "It's time to let her go now, Fallen. I want my girlfriend back."
For extra incentive, he sent a shock up her fingers that made her cry out. It didn't hurt her, but it certainly hurt the thing clinging to her. Seemingly solid leather burst into sudden frenetic activity, billowing up and outwards like a black cloud filled with laughter and lightning. Humans cried out, scrambling away. Cybertronians swore vile, angry words as they leapt into action.
"Now that," Psi exclaimed, even as guns and blasters and lasers were all aimed his way. "That's how you make an entrance!"